EIGHT ISN'T ENOUGH?

     Selecting “Scumbag of the Day” is a tremendous challenge.  There are so many despicable maggots to choose from it becomes difficult to separate the run of the mill lowlife from the piece of garbage that sinks to the depths of society.  Today’s choice demonstrates that the true Scumbag is not limited to any socioeconomic demographic.  What happened here is a terrible tragedy but questions need to be asked because if this were Roxbury, Dorchester or any inner city neighborhood where parents decided to leave their kids alone in a house being heated with propane while they went to the store, the barn, the crack house or napped in their truck, they would not only be labeled scum, they would be locked up for neglect.

Fire at Farmhouse Kills 7 Pennsylvania Children

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

Published: March 9, 2011

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Seven children died in a swift-moving fire at a farmhouse in Pennsylvania’s dairy country that broke out while their mother was milking cows and their father was napping in a milk truck during a break from his job collecting milk at nearby farms, the authorities said Wednesday. A 3-year-old girl survived.

The other children, who ranged in age from 7 months to 11 years old, were discovered in the house after the fire was extinguished. They died of smoke inhalation, said Michael J. Shalonis, the coroner of Perry County, about 25 miles northwest of Harrisburg.

The fire started about 10 p.m. Tuesday inside Theodore and Janell Clouse’s two-story farmhouse in Southwest Madison Township, neighbors and the authorities said.

The children — girls ages 11, 9, 6, 4, 3, 2 and 7 months, and a 7-year-old boy — were either asleep or watching television at the time.

The eight Clouse children with their cousins.  Their pregnant mother Janell was out milking a cow and father Theodore was napping in his truck while all but a three year old girl burt inside.