The Jena Six

In a small Louisiana town, people from all over the country are gathering to protest the criminal charges placed against six young black males charged with the serious beating of one young white male. The Reverend Al Sharpton, as well as Martin Luther King III are in attendance at the rally, citing the injustice of the American Justice System. They claim that the Jena Six were charged with criminal charges after the beating of the white student because he is white and they are black. The beating is said to have come about because the Six believed he was one of three white students who hung three nooses in a tree on the high school campus. While the hanging of the nooses was disrespectful to say the least, the Six were not harmed by the nooses. They were not physically touched by them in any way. The Jena Six chose to commit the beating in retaliation. That beating was a crime. The nooses may have been a crime, as well, but certainly there was no harm done to the Jena Six by the hanging of the nooses. I have never heard of anyone dying simply because they looked upon a noose. But a six to one beating has been the cause of many deaths throughout the history of the world. All races share a group of individuals who wrongly believe that their race is the best race and above all others. Every last one of those individuals is wrong, no matter their race or color. The so-called Civil Rights Leaders of the Twety-First Century need to back up a bit and look at this situation realistically and legally and leave their emotions and their misplaced pride at home. Yes, a hate crime was committed. Six black males beat the living hell out of one white male. School property was defaced under Louisiana law by the hanging of the nooses. It was stupid. It was hateful, and it should never have happened; It did not warrant the beating. Martin Luther King III and the Reverend Al Sharpton have managed to take the stupidity of nine young males and blow it up into a media circus. Misguided protesters have now come to a town of about 3500, and caused the need for extra manpower from the Louisiana State Police, the Press, and even the bloggers, because they believe the Jena Six were mistreated in being charged with the beating, and that their being brought up on charges proves that there is a double-standard between blacks and whites in the Justice System of the United States. Louisiana is one of, if not the poorest state in the United States of America. The State cannot financially afford such bad publicity, much less the extra man hours they now must pay the State Police. Is the Reverend Al Sharpton betting that this will further his cause? Does he believe that this will get the Jena Six a free ticket out of jail? I certainly hope not. The Jena Six were arrested and charged because they committed a crime. The serious crime of the beating of one student by six others. If that student had been black, would he and his partner, Martin Luther King III be organising a rally in Jena, LA? Maybe we should ask him. A hate crime is a hate crime, no matter the race or creed of the perpetrator(s) of the crime. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III seem to have forgotten this. They seem to believe that they can just make a lot of noise, and the Jena Six will get out of jail, and they will walk away as free young men. I certainly hope this is not the case. The three who originally hung the nooses from the tree deserve to have their parents whip them soundly. The Jena Six deserve to spend time in jail. It is severe overreactions like this to ridiculous, petty sentiment and action that help to further racial discord in this country. While some folks should be worried about the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are worried about how they should feel about this or that person because of what color his skin is, and they are busy reminding their parents and grandparents of the bad old days, and spreading discontent and hate wherever they go. While they should be busy helping their neighbor who cannot do for himself, and caring for elderly or infirm family members in whatever way is appropriate for them, they are busy leaving elderly and infirm family members to the coyotes and hating their neighbor because he does not look like them. All nine of those students are wrong. All day long, wrong. Six of them committed a felony which was a hate crime. Three of them instigated the whole thing by defacing school property with three nooses. The Jena Six were angered by the white student's show of disrespect. If the Jena Six were proud young men, as they claimed to be, they would each of them been man enough to walk away from the idiocy of the nooses and ignore the obvious stupidity of their neighbors. Instead, they grabbed themselves a white boy and proved something to the entire world. They proved their own hate, stupidity, pettiness and childidshness by overreacting to something which was meant for them to become angry and react to. Now they sit in jail, looking at the world through iron bars, while the State of Louisiana spends money it can little afford , to reasonably try to contain the circus Al Sharpton and Martin LUther KIng III have begun. Perhaps Louisiana should allow them to foot the bill. It is their party, after all.

The World's Biggest Confidence Game

I know that our great nation was founded on the principles of religious freedom, and that our forefathers were devoutly religious. I live in the Bible Belt, where it seems EVERYBODY is devoutly religious. All around the world, it seems, wars are fought, nations founded, TV stations bombed, or fined or some other punishment, because they either believe in a God, or they don't, or they believe in the wrong god, or call it by the wrong name, or celebrate this god's birthday on the wrong day. I can't watch TV on Sunday anywhere without some rich , slicked-up dude or snotty lady telling me I'm going to go to hell because I don't live their way.

Oh, shut up! I am so sick of these con artists extorting money and time and work ( usually for free) and pitching fear to the masses of people who believe in their words and mannerisms. I mean, really- There's a little man up in the clouds. He sees you when you are asleep and awake and he knows about everything you've ever done, or ever will do. You better be good, because He's watching you. If you're not good, you'll go to Hell, and he'll refuse to acknowledge he knows you. What? There's BILLIONS of people on the earth, war, famine, disease, poverty, abuse, starvation and hate everywhere we turn, and the little man in the clouds is mad at ME?! I didn't cause any of this shit. I'm just trying to hold my head above water. Oh, yeah, and you can't think about doing anything that isn't good and holy, or you'll go to hell. What? I'm screwed, then. I might as well drink, smoke, wear short skirts, cuss, watch legal porn, and enjoy having sex with my husband, then. I don't need to go waste half my Sunday listening to this crap. I'm already going to hell.

Everybody wants to save me. Save me from what? A cheeseburger? I'm already going to hell for the stuff I thought about doing to my brother when he pissed me off when we were kids. ( He should be really glad I only thought about that stuff.) It's too late, Bertha- I refuse to get near the Amen Pew- it makes my butt hurt. Yall know what the Amen Pew is. It's where the snottiest, most Holier than thou people sit and gossip about everybody else, knowing they did stuff that would make a sailor blush with shame. Every time the preacher says something, they holler, "AMEN!" and fan themselves, because they are so overwrought with the spirit. Spirit of what? That hollering backup for the preacher is their only talent? I get calls from people who want me to go to church. I get people knocking on my door, trying to convert me. I get people pecking on my car window in traffic to give me literature, so they can try to convert me. All that makes me want to do is shut the door, roll up the window, and screen ALL my calls. Leave me alone. I don't come to your house to try to convince you that you've been brainwashed since you were born, and that God is a boogeyman used to frighten folks into behaving. So why do you come to my house or car, or wherever and bother me, trying to make me believe in things that aren't real? Man, if you believe that stuff, fine. If it makes you happy and you aren't BOTHERING anybody else, I don't care. But trying to convert me BOTHERS me, and there is the exact spot where your freedoms and your rights end. Leave me alone.

And then there's this concept of hell. They say you'll be burned forever. You'll be dead. Have you ever burned anything? It only lasts for so long. If you're dead, you won't care if you get burned, and if you're burned, you'll eventually be ashes, anyway, so you'll still be dead. Dead. Dead is dead. You only get one shot. Why the hell are you letting other people tell you you have to waste it, sitting on your ass on a hard bench once or twice a week, so some slick dude can tell you you can't do the same thing he JUST did ten minutes ago? To top it off, you have to beg the little man in the clouds and kiss his feet for every little thing. And turn the other cheek when you are hard done by. Sounds an awful lot like slavery to me. You aren't supposed to question, you are supposed to be thankful for everything. Yeah. I'm sure I'll try to be real thankful for that GIANT kidney stone. Please people.

Human beings sometimes remind me of two-legged sheep. If one jumps a fence, everybody jumps a fence. Somehow, mankind has managed to remain superstitious through all these centuries and millenia, and even though Science, Medicine and Education have become so far advanced, there are still enough Sheeple in the world to make a HUGE business out of the biggest confidence game the world has ever known. In a way it's kind of awesome. That so few people can hold such a sway over masses and masses of people, convincing them of the existence of a higher power.

I have another question for you readers out there to ponder: Why is God OK, but aliens are crazy? Aliens come from the sky, and they are far more advanced than humans. No one believes in Aliens, though, or if they do they get laughed at or locked up. But saying there's no such thing as God will get you shot. It makes no sense. I don't know about you, but I've noticed that when things people say don't make sense, they aren't true. Think about it. And keep your eyes open to con games.

Question EVERYTHING

I keep hoping to get my foot in the door of the publishing world. To be quite frank, I want to be a published writer so bad I can taste it. ( In reality, I'm positive it tastes like chocolate!)

A couple of weeks ago, I responded to an ad I found- Publisher seeks new writers- all genres, reply to------. It turned out to be a company called Publish America. They sent me an e- letter from the " Acquisitions Department", offerring to look at my first three chapters and an outline, and showed me all their authors' names, and that some of their writers had won Pulitzer Prizes, and all kinds of things. They even offered a "small advance" if my work were accepted. A "small advance" is ONE DOLLAR. I find that insulting, and not a comfortable image of the company I almost worked with. One measly dollar does not show much faith in their abilities to sell my work, does it? Nor does it say very much for my work to accept a one dollar advance.

. Companies like these- subsidy publishers- sometimes get contracts to keep a published writer's book in print after the orginal contract has ended. They also offered me the privilege of keeping the copyright. What the hell is the point of keeping the copyright? I always believed that writers made money by SELLING the copyrights to a book, for so much money, and a percentage of royalties and residual rights, as well as keeping the byline on the book. Pay me. You can HAVE the copyrights.

Now, Publish America claims not to "charge authors for anything, ever", but I did see that they expect an awful lot of work, read, " money" to begin advertising in your local area. They have been sued by many authors, and lost almost every time. They published a book with the same sentence- just one- written a few thousand times. Wikipedia didn't even have anything nice to say. Hell, their own writers' forum had so many posts from disgruntled, disappointed and disillusioned authors, it was a shame. They really should be embarrassed to dream of the scamming they pull on authors. Publishing houses are in the business of buying manuscripts to PUBLISH, for us, the public, to BUY, for the COMPANY, and the AUTHOR to make money. They have so many manuscripts submitted each day, and so many authors in print, that they don't need to solicit new talent. As a matter of fact, most reputable houses do not accept email submissions, nor do they even consider a work not submitted by a literary agent.

Well. As I had told several freinds that I had been solicited by an " actual publishing house" for my novel, I now had to go back and tell them it was a false alarm. Embarrassed? Oh, yes. BUT- if the worst I got was a little embarrassment, then I'm doing pretty well. Now I know where to start. I have to find an agent. I have to start at square one. I'm o.k. with that. At least I didn't sign a contract that locked me into a vanity press for seven years, and knocked myself out of real money, and the opportunity to EVER be a member of the Author's Guild, or to be even glanced at by a real live publishing house.

What I did gain from this experience was to learn to Question EVERYTHING, and to save ( hopefully) someone from feeling like a moron when they trip over their own two feet. Everybody may have seen me fall on my butt, but everybody saw me get back up and try again, too. Its not too shabby...

GO, FRED THOMPSON! AND JERI, TOO!

Former Senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is a candidate for President of the United States. He is a member of the Republican Party. The biggest scandal of his campaign so far is that he is sixty-four years old, and his lovely wife is forty years old. Many women are up in arms over the fact that they have had two babies since they married in 2002. Why is this suddenly such a big deal? Younger women have been marrying older men for centuries. It has only been since the turn of the twentieth century that the notion of a couple being the same age or in the same demographic has been accepted in mainstream society.

Now it seems to have been made almost taboo by society for a woman to marry a much older man. Women are being raked over the coals for this by women in the same demographic as the older man. Why? Are these women now going to be raked over the coals, chastised, outcast and ostracised like the inter-racial couples of yesterday? It seems to me that some people are being petty and mean because they are jealous. Some men may be jealous that Fred Thompson "landed" a very nice second wife. Some women may be jealous that now they have competion for the eye of a man their age, and feel they cannot compete with a fresh-faced younger woman. Get a life, people.

Accept the fact that love really is where you find it. Fred and Jeri Thompson love each other and want to spend their lives together. They don't need each other- they want each other- just like any other couple in the world. They have had two babies since they married. Bully for them! Just because he happens to be twenty-some years older than his wife, does not make either of them perverts, nor does it say anything about his abilities or qualifications to be President. What happens in the Thompsons' bedroom is for the Thompsons'.

The Thompsons' are in the glare of the spotlight right now because he is a candidate for president. That is the only reason their marriage is in question by anyone right now. I have been married to a wonderful man for almost four years. He happens to be nineteen years my senior. We have a four-year-old daughter together, and he is the adoptive father of my oldest child. I am two years older than his oldest child. His children from his first marriage are grown, but they call me Mom. I had to earn that respect, and I would never want to lose that respect. I can well imagine that Jeri Thompson's start with her husband's grown children was not so easy. Whether she is freinds with them, I cannot say. I do not know them personally. But there is something to be said for living your life your own way, whether the nay-sayers like it or not, conventional or not, as long as it makes you happy, and it harms none, then who cares? Its no one's business but yours.

The biggest "scandal" of Mr. Thompson's campaign thus far is that Mrs. Thompson is much younger than he. Is that all you biddies can come up with? You don't like his wife because she's pretty, and because she is the mother of his two youngest children? Those children and that wife are happy, well-cared for, and they know who their father is, and where her husband is every night. Neither of them is flashing their body parts getting out of cars, or getting arrested for DUI, or busted for drugs at the airport, nor have they had to dodge statutory rape or molestation charges, like some other famous folks. In fact, they really seem to be pretty low-key, and family-oriented. So what's the problem? If Mr. Thompson's grown children take issue with the way he chooses to live his life, then that is their problem. They are grown, and he has no obligation to them. He and his wife have the right and the responsiblity to live their life together as they see fit, as long as they harm no one, nor infringe on any other person's rights. Just like anyone else. If anyone has a problem with the way Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thompson live, perhaps they need to look at themselves and see what the problem is inside of them, not with the Thompsons'.

Love is where you find it, but you have to be open to it to see where that love is to be found. I personally wish them many happy years together, and as many babies as they can stand. Oh, yes, and I know of at least one person who will be voting for Mr. Thompson. Sometimes us younger wives just have to stick together.

Why I won't Give Up Guns

I am proud to be an American citizen of the United States. I love Mom, apple pie, little kids, fireworks- the whole thing. One of the things that makes it so unique and so wonderful to be an American is our Constitution. The Second Amendment gives me, as a free citizen of the United States of America, the right to keep and bear arms. Keep, meaning," to hold and/or store in readiness for future use as needed or desired", and bear, meaning, "to carry on one's person, or in one's personal effects". The Second Amendment is the single item that allows us to keep all other rights, responsibilities and freedoms for ourselves as people, and allows those with enough guts to do so to be allowed and able to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

That said, I will say that I enjoy hunting as well. I no longer go hunting- it is physically unsafe for me and for others out there who are hunters- but I love fresh meat. Fortunately for me, my husband does hunt, so I get all the good spoils. I get fresh meat, leather for shoes, belts, and anything else I can manage to put together. I get food for my table, and plenty of recreation for myself as well. That's a lot to recieve for a few hours work on his part, a few hours wait on mine, and one bullet. It is good to know that I can manage not to waste the animals he brings home to me. That knowledge makes me happy. Now comes the rest of the story. I discovered that simply hunting and not wasting the kill could be a crime deterrent.

About a month before Hurricane Isabel hit the coast of Virginia in 2004, my husband went deer hunting with a freind. They brought back a lovely doe- she stepped right in front of the bullet meant for a nice buck, who susequently ran off. She was field-dressed, and brought home, still warm (!). My husband and I hoisted her into the tree in our front yard ( which was actually a lot in a rather rough trailer park), where we skinned her out, and we butchered her and wrapped her up for the freezer. I saved the head- brain-tanned leather is the best- and decided to tan the hide. Unfortunately, I discovered that my frames and other equipment had been lost in a big move. I stretched the hide over the back of the front steps of my home. I tacked it right up, and went to work, scraping and cleaning. This process takes a few days. We had several young thugs in the neighborhood, and they all brought their freinds to watch me scrape this bloody hide. I had to take several breaks- a mother's work is never done. While taking one of these breaks, I noticed folks driving by and stomping the brakes when they came up to our house. No one ever said a word to me, though I knew I was being watched. I continued my work, and turned out two small pairs of moccasins- one for my son, who was four, and one for my daughter, who was almost a year old.

Fast-forward about a month. After Isabel hit, we were without electricity or clean water for several days. We had camp dishes,but no kitchen stove, and no grill. The hurricane had taken it all away. So I built a stove from a coffee can and some screen, and we ate fairly well, while our neighbors were fighting over the propane for their grills, and running out of gas, and eating cold ravioli out of a can.

One night, while the children were asleep, my husband and I stepped outside to sit on the steps and talk before we went to bed. There were no streetlights- it was pitch-dark. There were members of the local thuggery out looking for places where they could go in and steal and rob. Eventually, they stopped on the street in front of our house. There were a group of them- about 6 or seven. They stopped for a few minutes, and we were very quiet, waiting to see what came next. Then we heard one young male speak up.

" Oh, hell, no. I ain't going in there. Them people are crazy! He'll blow your ass up, and then she'll start making stuff out of you, like Silence of the Lambs! " They all walked away, never realising we were sitting right there. Every home on our street was broken into, except ours. Who knew my recreation would turn out to be a better crime- deterrent than a burglar alarm and a big dog? And that, folks, is why I refuse to give up my guns. I love fresh meat.

Sickness vs. Disability

I am the mother of two young children. I am the wife of a good man. I am a Daughter, Sister, Freind, and Human Being. I am also disabled.

My appearance does not fit the stereotype of disability- I do not use a wheelchair, or crutches, nor do I need a guide dog, or other service animal. I speak well. Many people enjoy conversating with me. Yet when any person finds out ( as they always will) that I have various diagnoses, and varying abilities, I inevitably hear one of two things- " Well, you look healthy to me, you don't look SICK !", or, " Oh, I'm so sorry, and at your age, too. Tch". Please.

Sick people have the flu, or cancer, or meningitis or something. A germ or other contagion has entered the person's body, where it will be hosted until the immune system ( and possibly medication) drive it out of their body. That is a sick person.

I am disabled- which is a silly term. Let's explore this term, " disabled". The word disabled is a synonym of the word, "incapacitated". It means that the subject is worthless, not usable, broken, used up, ruined. I am not worthless. I am usable, just in slightly different ways than others. I am certainly not broken, and I do not need to be fixed or repaired, thank you.

Many people confuse the terms, "sick" and "disabled" . I don't refer to myself as being sick or being disabled. I am me- a human being with a different than normal set of obstacles that occassionally must be overcome. Actually, most folks never really overcome their specific set of obstacles. We all learn how to adapt and work around or through them. My natural state is for me, different than most people's natural state of being.

Many times, I have had to request to my family members to " Please stop calling me sick.", or " Stop calling me disabled." I am a person- a whole person- just like anyone else. I cannot and I will not be defined by my diagnoses. Medical diagnoses does not make a person, nor define their identity.

We all will meet different peoples of every type on our journey through life. They are all of the same species as us. Good, bad or indifferent,we cannot make snap judgements about the people we meet. If we do not know someone we can not assume anything about that person. Use the Golden Rule and treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect. Treat them as you would like to know your loved ones are being treated by the people they meet. Look past the tools we use to make our lives easier. A wheelchair and a wrench are both tools-but no one looks at you funny when you are using the wrench. It makes no sense to me to look askew at the wheelchair. Please remember that we are all different in our own way, but we are very much more similar. We are all Human Beings.