After a revealing photo of 15-year-old Amanda Todd was passed around online, the teen couldn't escape widespread bullying -- even after switching schools.
On October 10, like 14-year-old Jamey Rodemayer last month, she posted this chilling note card video to YouTube.
Then she committed suicide.
"Grown-ups killed my kitty, my best friend," begins 8-year-old Rayden Sazama's letter to his local newspaper:
My kitty's name is Toothless. ... Last week he didn't come in at night. ...
On Wednesday after work my dad went to the animal shelter as it was closing. ... They let my dad in to look at the cages, and there was Toothless! ... The lady at the shelter said it would be OK and told him to come back the next day and we could get Toothless. ...
My dad went back the next day to get our kitty and they told him they didn't have any long-haired black cats. ... The same lady that told my dad to come back the next day said she was sorry. She had forgotten to leave a note to tell the people my dad would be there for Toothless and they had just killed my cat that morning. She had just forgotten to write a note to save a member of my family. They killed him and I don't know why. ...
Now I don't know what to do. My cat Toothless is dead; the people that killed him didn't even give him to my dad so we could bury him. What do I do now?
Rayden Sazama
Poor lil' Rayden. Read the letter in its devastating entirety here.
For 10 years, Randy Scott's family had taken comfort in the belief that he had been killed instantly when United Airlines Flight 175 flew into Two World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
But Randy had scrawled a message on a piece of scrap paper and tossed it from the tower:
84th floor
West Office
12 people trapped
"The Note," as his family now calls it, floated to the ground amidst the wreckage of Ground Zero, eventually making its way to the medical examiner's office, where DNA and handwriting linked it to Randy.
Randy's wife and three daughters learned of its existence in August 2011.
"I spent 10 years hoping that Randy wasn't trapped in that building," Denise, 57, said Friday from a front room in her Stamford home with two of her three daughters, Rebecca, 29, and Alexandra, 22, at her side.
"I thought he was killed instantly," Rebecca interjected.
"It was so close to impact," Alexandra concluded. [...]
In a steady tone, their mother explained the power of the note. "You don't want them to suffer. They're trapped in a burning building. It's just an unspeakable horror. And then you get this 10 years later. It just changes everything."
Popular YouTuber Eric McLean has posted 108 videos since he revealed to the world in 2009 that he was fighting leukemia.
Now, after 10 years of living with cancer, the 28-year-old's options have run out -- McLean has begun hospice and is preparing to die.
This is his final video:
My doctor says I won. He says I won. I got to believe him. There's nothing else I could have done. I fought to the end. I never said no. Every time we wanted to try a new experimental drug, I stood up to the plate. I swung my bat as hard as I could. Ballgame's over, guys. With that, I'm going to say "bye" for the very last time. I love you all.
[dailydot]
Chinese diver Wu Minxia took gold in the 3m synchronized springboard in London this week, becoming the first woman in history to win three consecutive Olympic golds.
But shortly after she finished competing, Minxia's father reinforced China's win-at-any-cost mentality when he dropped a couple of bombshells on his daughter via the Shanghai Morning Post: Both her grandparents had died over a year ago, and her mother had battled breast cancer for eight years.
Wu called us after her grandmother died, I gritted my teeth and told her: "Everything's fine, there aren't any problems."
Minxia's parents found such lies were "essential" to ensure their daughter could keep focused on her training. She'd left home at 16 to live at a government-sponsored diving facility.
We never talk about family matters with our daughter. We accepted a long time ago that she doesn't belong entirely to us. I don't even dare to think about things like enjoying family happiness.
[deadspin]
Sad news out of the animal kingdom this morning -- earlier this month, fisherman in China witnessed a dolphin mom "battling to keep her dead calf afloat" for what appears to have been several days.
Fisherman Luo Lieqiangre, who witnessed the dolphin mourning, said he and tourists watched as the calf fell off its mother's back several times. (Here's the requisite video. Heads up -- it's slightly graphic.)
"The sea was rough when we saw the dolphins," he said.
The dead animal had a gash on its belly about a foot long, likely from a boat propeller.
"Its mother still stayed with it and carried it day and night, which has touched all of us and the tourists," Lieqiangre said.
[arbroath]
Shane Bitney Crone posted his devastating video of love and loss, "It Could Happen To You," online in May on the anniversary of his partner Tom Bridegroom's death.
Since then, it has been viewed more than 2.7 million times, and inspired some 50,000 comments on YouTube and Facebook.
Now it's just nine days away from receiving the funding needed to turn the couple's touching story into a feature-length documentary -- Bridegroom: An American Love Story.
Director Linda Bloodworth Thomason first met the couple at a gay wedding ceremony in Palm Springs:
That night, a couple of unforgettable young men named Shane and Tom joined my table. I learned they were Designing Women fans, madly in love and literally brimming with all their big plans for an exciting life together. Sadly, that possibility ended when Tom was killed in an accident last year. When I heard the news, I was haunted by the sheer weight of Shane's loss. Even though I barely knew them, their good-hearted demeanors and earnest love had made an indelible impression on me.
She saw Crone's video a few weeks ago and "was deeply touched. And angered. I called Shane [and] told him I wanted to make a documentary that would tell his and Tom's love story from beginning to end."
[dailydot]
Tony Nicklinson suffered a massive stroke in 2005 that left him with locked-in syndrome -- he is completely paralyzed and unable to speak, but his mind was unharmed.
Now, the 57-year-old has become the first person to tweet using only the movement of his eyes:
Hello world, I am tony nicklinson, I have locked-in syndrome and this is my first ever tweet.
Nicklinson, who lives in the U.K., will ask the high court Monday to argue that a doctor should be allowed lawfully to end his life. He says his current state is "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable."
Follow him @TonyNicklinson. (Loving husband and father. Rugby fan. Twitter novice with locked-in syndrome.)
[gizmodo]
