Only the good die young

Marla Ruzicka, 1977-2005

Marla Ruzicka was the founder, along with Raed Jarrar, of CIVIC, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, a group which tried to account for and help civilian victims of war. She was only 24 years old when she founded CIVIC to help victims of the Afghan war. She herself became a civilian victim of war when, at age 28, her car was blown up by an IED that was aimed at an American convoy in Baghdad.

Evil persists because we are cowards. Those of us who, in our comfortable lives of apathy and greed, fail to act when evil walks the land are Good Germans as Sophie Scholl described, refusing to act, refusing to live, because we are scared of life, scared of reality. Oh sure, we may pontificate on these keyboards, but what good does that do, really? So we grow old, and fat, and grey, and clutter this world with our useless lives of masticating and defecating and fornicating and accumulating useless baubles, and when we die we will be buried and forgotten and for what purpose? For what reason? And can you really call what we do "living", when we refuse to live because we are snivelling cowards who lack the guts to act to make this world a better place for all?

But perhaps I grow too cynical as I grow older, perhaps what I view as a clear-eyed analysis of the basic character of the human race -- i.e., as a race of cowards who refuse to end evil because it would require taking risks -- is just the mysogonist viewpoint of a man who has seen too much evil and seen too many making excuses for evil. I know what Marla would have said. She would have said the same thing she said three years ago, when asked if she would rather do something safer: "To have a job where you can make things better for people? That's a blessing," she said. "Why would I do anything else?"

Sadly, the answer for most of us is, "because we are cowards."

And so another heretik dies. But then, we all die, some day. Is it better to live before dying? Marla believed so. Sadly, the majority of us do not. We eat, we sleep, we defecate, we fornicate, we accumulate useless baubles, then delude ourselves that we are living and that this is life. Goodbye, Marla Ruzicka. Some day, perhaps the rest of us will be worthy of those like you who dare to live rather than being good Germans, people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe.

- Badtux the Saddened Penguin

The funeral is scheduled for Saturday, April 23, at 11pm at St. Mary's Church in Lakeport CA. In lieu of flowers, the family is requestion donations be sent to Ruzicka's group, CIVIC, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, 1630 Conneticut Ave. NW, Suite 500, Washington DC 20009.