We now join our previously scheduled rant already in progress...

Okay, back to the rants. I think this is the last one for awhile, don't hold me to that after all stupid things happen every day and I might just feel the need to talk about them.

So the Jerry Sandusky verdict came in over the weekend. He was found guilty in 45 out of 48 charges. Not a real surprise there when at the end of the trial when addressing the media the defense said they would be surprised if he was acquitted due to the overwhelming amount of evidence against him. The DEFENSE said this. Now maybe that was part of their plan for appeal, they say they didn't have time to adequately prepare, but who really knows. What I know is that he was found guilty. And due to the mandatory sentencing laws around some of the charges he will spend the rest of his life in jail.

I blogged about this when it was breaking news. And I was angry then. Really angry. I was angry at the people who were missing the point that this wasn't about the firing of a beloved coach but it was about a serial pedophile who had been left to run rampant for years. And I said it then, and I will say it again, if it had been your child would you still feel as though the school and the coach "did enough"? Because for me, it wasn't. What you had to do versus what they should have done has always been the issue for me. And when Sandusky's own legal team talked about the evidence against him....it boggles your mind.

During the trial there were snippets reported on the news. One of the things that struck me was in the court reporting cartoons that they draw he always seemed to have a little half smile on his face. Like he really felt he was going to walk out of there with a not guilty verdict. He released through his lawyer today that he just wanted people to know that he is not guilty no matter what the verdict was. Okay, Jerry, sure. There was also one night where they reported that the defense said he had a personality disorder. He suffers from Histrionic Personality Disorder. And that this explains why he was so overly affectionate in letters to the boys he molested. (I can stop using allegedly because he's guilty right?) Okay. I will give you that he has a personality disorder. He might very well have histrionic personality disorder as well though I would have gone with the more over all pedophilia diagnosis. But the thing that made me want to throw something at the TV when I heard that was how it was reported and talked about in such a way that we were supposed to feel sorry for Sandusky. Poor man suffers from a personality disorder...

I think I fall in to the camp of the Texas father on what should be done in stopping the abuse of a child. When his story broke last week our local news channel posted on Facebook to ask if people thought that he used "excessive force" in stopping the attack. My comment was is there an excessive use of force if you found someone raping your 5 year old? And when the 911 tapes were released and you could hear this man, and hear that he was genuinely worried that he had beaten the rapist to death you understand "crime of passion" a lot more and you understand that this father did what he had to do to protect his child. He wasn't out looking for a reason to hurt someone but in protecting his child, protecting her from the worst nightmare of a parent, his instinct took over and he did what I think many of us would have.  Brent and I agree that the only place we differ is in the fact that he seems remorseful that he killed the rapist. Neither of us thinks we would be.

So right now Sandusky is in jail. There is some sort of closure starting for his victims. Though it's going to take a lot more than a guilty verdict to heal their wounds. They might not ever be okay. Ever. He took kids that he was supposed to be helping, supposed to be bettering their lives and he hurt them in a way that we can't even let ourselves think about. And he did it over and over and over with new boys, new victims. He broke so many lives it's hard to wrap your brain around it. So he is in jail. On suicide watch. And I wouldn't be sad at all if someone handed him a rope and then turned their back for awhile.

A little stumped....

Trying to think about what to write today. I have a Jerry Sandusky blog in my head to get out but I've been sort of ranty all weekend so I feel like I want to take a little bit of break from that. We went to go see Brave today so I could write about that but I really want to give people more time to see it before I do that one. I don't have any fiction snippets floating around in the gray matter so that's out.

Hmmm....so what should we talk about?

I bought a new bird feeder yesterday. Or I should say, Brent bought a new bird feeder for me. I kept saying I didn't really need one but then I would tell him about the birds in the tree right outside the study and so he decided that I really did want a feeder. And so now I have a new feeder. It's right outside the window that I face when I am on my computer. And I can't wait for the birds to discover it and start flocking to my feeder. So I guess he was right after all and I did want a new feeder.

Let's see...what else? Movies left for the summer...well...Ted opens next week then Spiderman then The Dark Knight. There are some other maybes in there but those are the for sures. Two comic books and an foul mouth teddy bear. Yeah, I'm highbrow when it comes to my entertainment. Don't doubt.

I'm reading Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design right now. Reading Hawking always makes me feel simultaneously smart and stupid. I feel really smart when I understand a point that he is making and then really stupid when I realize that he and his writing partner have dumbed down simplified everything they are talking about just so I would be able to understand it all. But that's okay. I always walk away from his works with a lot to think about and ponder and try to figure out.

It seems like there is a lot of strife going on with my friends lately. I have friends going through divorce, cancer, bankruptcy, the loss of a child, unemployment, ill parents, unexpected house repairs, depression and all manner of ennui.  It seems like there is a lot of joy going on with my friends lately. I have friends who are getting married, expecting children, just got promotions, bought a smoking hot new car, about to be grandparents, lost a lot of weight, moved into a fabulous new house, celebrating anniversaries, celebrating birthdays and just plain happy to be alive.

So I guess that's enough for today. Seems like a pretty decent lazy Sunday blog to me. The sort of conversation you would have while lounging around with friends after a trip to the beach, or a hike in the woods, or catching the matinee at the local theater. Nothing deep, nothing complicated, just the buzz of a pleasant conversation going on all around you.

Oh, and I will be back to ranty tomorrow probably. Just so you know.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Don't look now, your bias is showing...

Earlier this week a friend of mine who leans decidedly more right politically than I do sent me a link to the latest news on George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin. In the video clip you can watch as Zimmerman leads police through his version of what happened that night. And when they sent me the clip they said, "Don't you feel foolish now?" Which of course led to quite the heated debate on what my issue had been all along in this case versus what they interpreted it and then to what they were saying.

Let me break it down for you.  Brent and I actually heard about the story before it broke as big as it did nationwide. When we heard the basic details about it I said to him, "That's just not right. There is no way he shouldn't have been arrested. Dead body on the ground, gun in your hand, that's pretty much all you need to justify the arrest." And that has been my stance all along. It's the prosecution's job from that point forward to see if there is enough evidence to take the crime to trial or to see if there was a crime in the first place. Because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" laws (which Oregon has as well, to be completely fair, in fact A LOT of states have them) Zimmerman might very well not be guilty of anything. But it's not the job of the police at that moment to make that call. Dead body on the ground, gun in his hand.

Do I believe the media added fuel to this fire? Absolutely. There was the 911 tape that NBC edited to cut out the dispatcher asking Zimmerman for a description of Martin so it sounded like he was just announcing Martin was black out of the blue. Which was so wrong it's crazy. You don't edited the evidence to fit your narrative, if you are the news you just report what happened. YOU have no narrative. There was Fox News insisting that Zimmerman did nothing wrong and that the "mainstream media" was just looking for a victim. Which I have issue with, because see, we had a victim. That would be the body on the ground. And then you had the emails that went out where they showed pictures of Zimmerman in a nice suit instead of his old mug shot (not recent because he wasn't arrested that night) that the media had been using and a picture of a gangbanger with his tattoos throwing his signs and holding a beer that was the most recent shot of Martin. Except it wasn't. The pictures were of some other kid, I guess who ever put that clip together didn't realize that you can't just drop in one black teenager for another and have no one notice. So yes, things got heated. But my stance was still, we have a dead kid and a guy walking around who hasn't been arrested for the shooting which he admits to doing. There is a problem here.

Then Zimmerman was arrested and I was glad. This same friend thought it was just awful and wrong that he had been. We argued about that at the time as well. If he is not guilty under Florida law then he will go free. That's the way it works. We have no doubts that he shot the kid, we just don't know if it was justified. That's the point of the investigation. Yes, I realize that most everyone has an opinion on this, I think he should have stayed in the damn car and all of this could have been avoided, but there is a legal answer to the question. And finally we were going to get to it.

Then the videos of Zimmerman walking the police through his version hit and I was asked, "Don't you feel foolish." Why would I feel foolish? Did we not expect Zimmerman to feel he was perfectly justified in what he did? Just because he says this is what happened doesn't mean this is what happened. Now will it be hard to say anything different? Yes, because the only other witness is, well you know, dead. So no, I don't feel foolish to hear Zimmerman walk the police through a series of events that portray him as acting in self defense. I question it, because it sounds, from his description, that a kid who was smaller than him was kicking his ass pretty seriously right up until the time he reached for Zimmerman's gun and at that exact moment Zimmerman got the upper hand in the fight and was able to over power him....it doesn't seem logical to me. But I wasn't there, and I won't have to decide if he acted in self defense or not, which I am glad of.

I also won't have to weigh in on the fact that even if everything happened the way Zimmerman described it couldn't it be said that Martin was acting on the "Stand Your Ground" laws as well? He was being followed in the darkness by a man with a gun. I would say that's a pretty good reason to be fearful for your life. And in his case it seems he was justified.

My friend said I was just biased. That I was too much of a bleeding heart liberal to be able to say that a young black male was out doing no good and this was the consequence. Which gave me pause. Is that true? Am I so determined not to be prejudiced that I am blocking out everything else? Now, I do have experience in this area as a peripheral player. When I was in college in San Diego the Trolley stop that serviced the school was at the junction of two different area gang territories. They didn't fight at the stop (much) and it was really pretty safe, but you did keep your head down when things were going on. No sense calling attention to yourself for troubles that weren't yours. And in San Diego in this area the two gangs were made up of predominantly young black men. As opposed to the gang problems I was used to in New Mexico where the members were mostly young Hispanic men. Does saying that make me racist? No, it makes me observant.

Anyway...one day leaving my business law class the police came screaming up to the side street and grabbed one of my fellow classmates. They put him against the car and started patting him down and he kept asking what was going on. Calmly, quietly, patiently. Much better than I would have done in the same situation but he was a young black male who had been taught to expect this sort of treatment and to know what to do about it. Right as this was happening my professor came out and I pointed out what was happening. He went over to speak with the police. Older white gentleman so he got treated differently from the start. When he also let them know he was a lawyer and a law professor they got even more careful. Seems there had been a robbery down the street and my classmate fit the description. Which was young black male. He wasn't wearing the clothes the robber had been described as wearing. He wasn't running from the area. He wasn't carrying anything but a book and a notebook when they started patting him down and they wouldn't even answer his questions as to what was going on. But they would for my law professor. So yeah, it happens. You hear about it. You see it. Being a young black (or Hispanic depending on the town or part of the town) male is a justifiable reason to worry about your behavior in a lot of people's eyes.

So does it make me biased to try and factor that out of the equation? Am I being a bleeding heart liberal to say that Zimmerman shouldn't have suspected Martin was up to no good because he was walking around while black? I can live with that if that's the case. Because if my bias is going to show I'd rather it show in that way. That people of all colors can commit crimes and it doesn't make you more or less guilty depending on the color of your skin. And that walking to your girlfriend's house in the rain while wearing a hoodie doesn't necessarily add up to being up to no good.

And just so you know, if Zimmerman is found not guilty (which I think there is strong possibility that he will be) I won't feel foolish. I don't think I will ever feel foolish for wanting the right thing to be done. And in my mind the right thing has always been to arrest and investigate Zimmerman. Body on the ground, gun in his hand.

Boys will be boys?

This week the news stations all blew up with video of four middle school boys bullying the 68 year old woman who was working as their bus monitor. They taunted her, called her names, made fun of her weight and suggested that her family should kill themselves all while recording it on their cell phones so they could later post the clip and show the world how cool they were. The problem (blessing?) they soon discovered was that very few people think it's all that hilarious to be total douche-bags to the grandmotherly lady who rides your bus to make sure the kids are safe.

There is now a fundraiser online that (last I checked) had reached right at $400,000 that started as a "let's send her on a nice vacation" and quickly turned into "let's give her enough to retire" fund. She has made the rounds of talk shows and news programs talking about it. And I have been struck by a few things, basically she handled it the way we tell our kids to handle bullying. She ignored them. That's the first thing we tell our kids right? Ignore them and they will go away. But they didn't. They got crueler and crueler. Because it was never about her, it was always about them. They were showing off to each other. Look how cool I am...I can top what you said. I would bet you any amount of money that any one of those kids on their own would never have said any of the nastiness they said with their buddies there. Boys in groups are operating on a different level than a boy on his own.

Okay, let's be fair here. Kids in groups. Right now Portland is experiencing it's own odd kids in groups phenomenon. The flash rob. A group of kids, up to 30 at times, rushes in to a store and takes everything they can then rushes back out. They've done it in convenience stores, department stores and grocery stores.  And there is security tape of them doing it and in some of the shots you can see the kids looking at the camera and smiling. They know it's going to be on TV and they are excited by the idea! It's insane. You're committing a crime and you're gleeful because your grainy black and white security footage image will be shown on TV? What the hell is wrong with you?

When I was a kid and working for my dad at the gas stations or helping him with cars or yard work he would tell the story about the old man who hired a boy to mow his lawn and pull his weeds. He had a really big yard and it took a lot of work to maintain and the boy suggested that he also hire his two friends and they could get the work done quickly. The old man said, "If I hire one boy I get one boy. If I hire two boys I get half a boy and if I hire three boys, I get no boy at all."  Which when I was younger translated to me that I wasn't going to get any more help so just get my chores done and don't whine...but as I got a little older I got it. Boys (kids) in groups stop worrying about what needs done and just worry about each other. Look at me! Look at me!

Back to the boys on the bus. I told you that a few things struck me with how the monitor handled things. Another was that she never reported the bullying. Until the little jerks posted the clip it wasn't public. And she also isn't pressing any sort of charges against them. She hopes their parents will handle it and they will learn a lesson. Well I can tell you that one of the lessons they are learning is that one of the other things in life that ends up with a force of its own is a group of boys (kids, adults) on the internet. You had the good response, "Hey! I've got a barn let's put on a show!" or wait..."I've got a page let's raise some money!" and you have the bad. These boys and their families have now had their names and addresses posted online. They are receiving death threats. You live by the bully you die by the bully? Is that the lesson here?

Now, please believe, and anyone who watched me parent for the past almost 20 years knows this to be true, if C had ever been involved in something like that he would have been punished and it wouldn't have been pleasant for him at all. I would like to be able to sit back and say there is no way he would have been. Because I do truly believe that. He was a good kid who has grown in to a good man. He has always been kind hearted and I do think he wouldn't have participated in a situation like that but I also saw the father of one of the boys on the news who looked shell shocked that his child participated in such an event. He said he just had the hardest time dealing with it because this wasn't anything he would ever expect from his child. And I believe him. He had the look of a truly ashamed parent. No defiance. No justifications. Just sorrow. And I would bet if you had asked him two weeks ago if his son would ever have been involved in something like that he would have said no way.

But I'm not sure that a lot of righteous indignation is really going to help these kids at all. By bullying them online aren't we just teaching them that what they did is okay but that they just chose the wrong target? And really if you are a grown ass adult and you are calling for the death of a 12 year old how does that make you any better than a 12 year old calling a 68 year old woman disgusting and fat? Doesn't it make you worse because as an adult you should know better by now? Or does being able to post online anonymously turn all of us into 12 year olds again?

I don't really have any larger lessons here. Just a few things to think about. First off, keep reminding your kids that thinking for themselves is important. And that it's really easy to get carried away in a group and go along with the crowd but personal moral codes aren't decided on by majority rules. If it's wrong to steal, call names, make someone cry when you are on your own it's still wrong when all of your buddies are doing it. Just much harder to carry through. And then remind yourself of the same things when you are tempted to post something online that you would never say to someone's face.

Eeek!

Okay, not a lot of sleep due to airport pickups that were supposed to happen then didn't and early morning doctor appointments and errands and just flighty head took over and I didn't write today!  Oh no!

Yes, I know I could just toss something brilliant out there right now, because my brain is just swimming with brilliance all of the time or I could play let's make a deal...

So...tomorrow not one but two, TWO pieces of blogging brilliance will be posted in this very spot!

Or...there will be another mea culpa...but what are the odds of that really?  I mean come on...we are talking about me here...brilliance is my middle name.

Okay it isn't.  It's Leann.  But still...

Until tomorrow!

And who are you really?

So I had two seemingly unconnected things come together in my brain to make a blog today. I kind of dig when that happens...

First off this morning I spent a lot of time on Goodreads rating books and I realized two things, first off I "really like" most things I read.  There were only a small handful of books that popped up on the list that I didn't like or even that I sort of liked. For the most part when I saw a book title I thought...Oh! I really liked that one! The second thing I realized is that I spent a lot of time exploring religion and spiritual thought. And for every title that I had read that popped up that came with a recommendation for another book I thought...oh I need to read this!

Okay...leave that thought for awhile and walk with me over here....

I used to have a very distinctive sneeze. Or sneezes I guess I should say. I never sneeze just once it's usually 3 or 4 times in a row. But the sound that used to come out when I sneezed was very distinctive. It was very high pitched and kind of had a lilt at the end. After years and years of being teased about it about 5 or 6 years ago I snapped and decided that that was it! I was changing the way I sneezed! And I did. When I would feel a sneeze coming on I would concentrate very hard on making the sound lower and not doing the lilt at the end. I just wanted to sneeze in peace. I could never change the multiple sneezes in a row but after awhile I finally got to the point where my sneeze was lower in tone and had no lilt and I could do it without thinking so very hard each time I sneezed.

Then this afternoon I was cleaning some things in the garage and thinking over a few things so my body was busy and my brain was busy and I sneezed. High pitched and lilt. Well shit. Isn't that funny? All this time I thought I had changed something pretty fundamental about myself and I hadn't. It was there all along just waiting for me to not pay attention so it could sneak back out. And it made me laugh. And I liked the way it sounded. It's very much my own sound. I've never heard anyone else sneeze like that and I guess I missed being me. Free to sneeze the way I want! Or something like that...

So then I started thinking about things that are just fundamentally me. The things that come out when I'm not paying attention. And I came back around to the Goodreads website. I really like most things I read. It took me YEARS to be able to admit that a book could be bad and that it was okay to put it down without finishing it. And when I do that I don't think about the book again, for the most part. A book really had to make me angry to stick in my head as something I didn't like (Jonathan Franzen I am looking at you here, oh and Justin Cronin, you can come stand next to him for the second half of The Passage) but for the most part the books I remember are the ones I really liked. I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on things I don't like. I just let them slide back out of my head.

And the spiritual searching? Yeah, that's hard wired in to me as well. If you read the background blogs that I referenced in yesterday's post you remember I was baptized in my parent's faith at 6 which is super young for my church. But I understood the rules of that faith and needed to follow them. But then I kept on following things and eventually my path led me right back out of their faith and in to my own. But I have never stopped looking at things. Wondering. Feeling. I love to hear what people believe and why. I can so understand people who feel closer to god when they are in nature. How it speaks to them. You all know how I feel about the ocean.  Well the mountains come a close second to that. Part of that is because I can just let my mind go and be, and feel, and question, and wonder, and marvel.

So what does it all mean? I have no idea. That's another part of me that just is me. I will always look for the thread that ties things together. I will always want to know what else there is going on under the surface. I will really like most things, I will keep looking for the big answers and well....I will sneeze the way I want to.  Deal with it.

Well that's not very Christian of you...

I had an interesting experience recently. Someone on my friend list on Facebook posted on their status a prayer request, which is not unusual, but then went on to specifically ask those that weren't religious to refraining from posting "thinking of you" posts. Which of course then led to people asking why and getting really insulted. Which is what generally happens when religious and non-religious people argue. (They all need to read this article) Her reasoning made perfect sense if you are of that particular faith. She felt that each time someone said I am thinking of you, instead of I am praying for you, she was participating in their belief in false gods and felt hypocritical. Someone else pointed out that maybe by them thinking of her, her god could then pick that thought out because if he really and truly was God then wouldn't he listen to everyone not just the people who had already sworn allegiance to him? She said it didn't matter, it made her feel wrong so she was just asking them not to do it on her status. Which prompted the reply, "Well that's not very Christian of you." Which struck me as funny.

Just to be upfront, I read all of the discussion but I did not participate in it. On one hand I think it's silly to ask people not to think kind thoughts about you but on the other if she really and truly believed that by doing so she was participating in something that was against her religion I have no issue with it at all. Religion is a very personal thing, even among people of the "same" faith you have a lot of variation. And I think that trying to argue your way into agreement about religion never ever works. That's not to say I won't challenge your beliefs if they conflict with mine, but usually I will only do that if you come to my post and say something. And I will usually challenge you from where you stand. I'm not as well versed (so to speak) as I used to be but being raised in the church I still have a pretty firm grip on what the bible does and does not say about issues. And I also know that it contradicts itself and espouses rules that no one follows anymore. Not even the most devout. So my most basic argument is "But why? Why do you believe that? Why do you do that?"

And if you've thought about it you have an answer. And sometimes that answer is just "It's what I believe and feel is right." And I'm okay with that as well. My entire moral system is based on what I believe and feel is right. Some of it I kept from the teachings of the church. Some of it I cherry picked out of other belief systems and some of it I just feel. I can't explain why I believe what I believe, I just do. I'm not atheist, though people assume I am. I believe there is something greater than just me out there. I just don't know what it is. I have an idea, but it's sort of wacky so I mostly keep it to myself. But I also don't believe there is only one path for the faithful to walk. I think there are a lot of roads that get you where you need to go. And for me the end results are all that matters. (I blogged about my beliefs along time ago here and also here.)

You can call yourself a Christian and if you are forgetting the whole "love your neighbors" aspect I won't believe you are on the right path. You can call yourself an atheist and if you are kind and loving towards the people around you I will imagine you are on the right path. See the labels don't matter much to me. And it doesn't matter to me what you say you believe. That's your business not mine. I have some wonderful caring friends who are Christian. Who walk their walk. And I know some people who call themselves Christian that I feel like handing a highlighted and annotated copy of their bible to, because they've missed some of the most important lessons. The same thing works for the atheists I know. I know some that are wonderful and caring and some that I want to point out their whole, "I don't need an imaginary friend in the sky to do what is right and wrong" argument doesn't hold water if they aren't doing right instead of wrong. And of course, I have friends of many other religions and beliefs that fall in there as well. I don't care what you call yourself. I imagine you are on (or not on) your path in life.

But see that's just what I believe. I believe in paths, and walks, and living life as a kind reflection. And if you want to pray for me I will graciously accept it. If you want to think kind thoughts for me I'm all for that as well. Hold me in your heart, offer my problems up to God, any and all of that I am okay with. And just so you know I will think kind thoughts and send healing wishes, and hold you and your family in my thoughts as well. but I won't tell you if it bothers you. Because it wouldn't be very Christian of me if I did.