Protestor fries himself.

[outlaw3179]

Protester immolation virtually unnoticed By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 26, 5:24 PM ET



CHICAGO - Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose.



He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 — four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics — Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

Soon, tributes — and questions — poured in to the paper's blogs.

Was this a man consumed by mental illness? Or was Ritscher a martyr driven by rage over what he saw as an unjust war? Was he a convenient symbol for an anti-war movement or was there more to his message?

"This man killed himself in such a painful way, specifically to get our attention on these things," said Jennifer Diaz, a 28-year-old graduate student who never met him but has been researching his life. Now, she is organizing protests and vigils in his name. "I'm not going to sit by and I can't sit by and let this go unheard."

Mental health experts say virtually no suicides occur without some kind of a diagnosable mental illness. But Ritscher's family disagrees about whether he had severe mental problems.

In a statement, Ritscher's parents and siblings called him an intellectually gifted man who suffered from bouts of depression. They stopped short of saying he'd ever received a clinical diagnosis of mental illness.

"He believed in his actions, however extreme they were," his younger brother, Paul Ritscher, wrote online. "He believed they could help to open eyes, ears and hearts and to show everyone that a single man's actions, by taking such extreme personal responsibility, can perhaps affect change in the world."

His son, who shares the same name as his father, said his father was trying to cope with mental illness. Suicide seemed to be the next step, and the war was a way to give his death meaning.

"He was different people at different instances and so, so erratic. I loved him no doubt, but he was a very lonely and tragic man," said Ritscher, 35, who is estranged from the rest of the family. "The idea of being a martyr I'm sure was attractive. He could literally go out in a blaze of glory."

Born in Dickinson, N.D., with the name Mark David, Ritscher dropped out of high school, married at 17 and divorced 10 years later. Eventually, he would change his name to match his son's and, coincidentally, a world-famous prophet. At the end, he worked in building maintenance and was a fixture in Chicago's experimental music scene.

He described himself as a renaissance man who'd amassed a collection of more than 2,000 musical recordings from clubs in Chicago. He was a writer, philosopher and photographer. He was an alcoholic who collected fossils, glass eyes, light bulbs and snare drums. He paid $25 to become an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth and operated a handful of Web sites protesting the Iraq war.

A member of Mensa who claimed to be able to recite the infinite number Pi to more than 1,000 decimal places, he titled his obituary "Out of Time." Friends, who seemed surprised about his death, found themselves searching for answers. Ritscher's death became even more enigmatic than his life.

Perhaps the most famous self-immolation occurred in 1963, when Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself at a Saigon intersection in protest against the south Vietnamese regime. Another activist, Kathy Change, lit fire to herself in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania to protest the government and the country's economic system.

Ritscher's death brought back memories for Anita King, a 48-year-old artist from West Philadelphia who was Change's best friend.

"I think both of them, they just felt like their death could be the last drop of blood shed," King said. "It was too hard for them. They had too much of a conscious connection to the struggle to go on in their lives."

In the end, only Ritscher knew the motivations for his suicide. There is little doubt, though, that he was satisfied with his choice.

"Without fear I go now to God," Ritscher wrote in the last sentence of his suicide note. "Your future is what you will choose today."

___


Ummmmm...I dont feel bad. What a dumbass.

[Sgt Leprechaun]

So, what he really was, using the polite terms of long ago, was the following:

A "Gadfly".

A "ne'er do well"

Interesting article tho. Just, exactly, what the hell is an "experimental musician"??? Is that something one aspires to be when one grows up? "Gee, Mom and Dad, I know I'm smarter than most people breathing today, so I'm going to embark on my career in Experimental Music!"

Mom & Dad: "Oh, boy!!! It's what we always hoped for you, young Mortimer!"

Poor SOB. Burning alive is a hard way to go. Still, what a fruitbat.

[10thzodiac]

I gotta tell you this, I almost got into a hell of a lot of trouble with my battalion commander in Okinawa with these flaming suicides.

After our 9^th MEB just came back to Okinawa from Vietnam in ’64, I was working in Battalion Communications and found an article in a National magazine, “How to end the war in South Vietnam”! The article satirically said, to start giving American support to North Vietnam and they too will become a corrupt regime like South Vietnam and in no time their Buddhist Monks will be dousing themselves with gasoline in firey suicides, there will weekly coup détats and then we could easily win the War.

Well, if Al Gore invented the Internet, I must have Invented “Cut & Paste” !

Yes, I cut the article out and pasted it on the Battalion Bulletin board right out side the Battalion Commanders office. Yikes, I didn’t know the old man couldn’t take a joke. My Captain who I worked with, who didn’t know I was the one that did it, came into the office barely containing himself with laughter, telling me how the Major lost it when he read it on his bulletin board and wanted to know who put it there !

The Captain and me were tight and I told him it was I, and he laughed even harder and said, “Don’t tell anyone else”.

SF
10th

[Sgt Leprechaun]

Freakin hilarious! I used to sneak articles onto the "Current Events" board I was responsible for, from the "Weekly World News", just to see if anyone was paying attention..."Elvis Marries Alien", etc....

Got my *ss chewed by the OpsO for that...then the CO stops me one day and asks me where the "good" articles were....they came back a few days later... LOL

[drumcorpssnare]

With the price of gas these days, you'd think this nutcase would have been smart enough to save the cost of the fuel, and just jump off a building! Being THAT stupid should be cause to remove his name from the MENSA list!!!

drumcorpssnare

[DWG]

He really had no reason to be cost conscious at that point-not like he was saving up for retirement.

[10thzodiac]

Sh*t, a Marine would of taken some sorry bastards with him !
I know I would of !

Be prepared when opportunity presents itself !

SF
10th

[SgtHMH]

Well he should have done it during working hours and in front of a recruiting office with people in side. Taped his note to the front door and knocked on the door hard and lite him self up. Then the recruiters would have had time to get the hot dogs and marshmellows. OOOORRRAAAHHHH Choww down light or dark meat ?

Semper Fi

Sgt. Hoss

[drumcorpssnare]

Wish I could have been there to see it live. I probably would have said something clever, like.....


(wait for it...)


"Isn't this guy bright!?"

drumcorpssnare

[10thzodiac]

What a waste, he could of been a hand grenade jumper on-er !

At least he wasn't a coward that talked the talk

a man of action

[outlaw3179]

no he wasnt a coward...he was just a dumb b*tch who wasted gasoline.

[10thzodiac]

Yeah, the big dummy, at least they give you a medal for a hand grenade !

[horselady]

An experimental musician? What the hell is an experimental musician???

"He described himself as a renaissance man who'd amassed a collection of more than 2,000 musical recordings from clubs in Chicago. He was an alcoholic who collected fossils, glass eyes, light bulbs and snare drums. He paid $25 to become an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth and operated a handful of Web sites protesting the Iraq war. A member of Mensa who claimed to be able to recite the infinite number Pi to more than 1,000 decimal places."

Oh me, oh my, such a tragic loss for humanity. NOT.


But I think it says a lot about the American public. Go ahead and
blow yourself to smithereens, just don't tie up traffic. We have
to get home to watch American Idol!

[10thzodiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by horselady An experimental musician? What the hell is an experimental musician??? "He described himself as a renaissance man who'd amassed a collection of more than 2,000 musical recordings from clubs in Chicago. He was an alcoholic who collected fossils, glass eyes, light bulbs and snare drums. He paid $25 to become an ordained minister with the Missionaries of the New Truth and operated a handful of Web sites protesting the Iraq war. A member of Mensa who claimed to be able to recite the infinite number Pi to more than 1,000 decimal places." Oh me, oh my, such a tragic loss for humanity. NOT. But I think it says a lot about the American public. Go ahead and blow yourself to smithereens, just don't tie up traffic. We have to get home to watch American Idol!

You are right about the American public, but he fried himself, not blew himself to smithereens.

Maybe that was his point, he rather fry himself for humanity instead of others for humanity.

I think I heard a story like this before, except he just wanted to die, not fry for our sins.

SF
10th

[greensideout]

Depression is a sad thing to happen to anyone. It seems that it has a tie to intelligence. Maybe with that gift they see the world around them as a decaying rot as opposed to what it could be. Sad.