Month: November 2006

  • Justice for her baby

    Martin Lee Anderson’s parents should not have had to fight for almost a year to get the state to investigate and bring to trial the people who many believe killed her son. But they did and now the state has finally indicted the 7 instructors and 1 nurse that were there that day. They are all facing up to 30 years in prison for 1st degree manslaughter.

    I wasn’t there that day, but living in the city where it happened means that we get every little scrap of news about it. I saw the video. It wasn’t pretty. These big men surrounding this little boy under the assumption that he is faking being ill, never stopping to consider that he really might be. They kneed him in his back, they shoved ammonia up his nose. And all this time, a nurse just stood there and watched. Everyone said that they were just doing their jobs.

    I have known the parents of one of the guards for most of my life. I don’t know their son at all. He came to them during my 20 year hiatus from Church. But the parents were my youth leaders when I was a teenager, and then later one of my daughter’s youth leaders. I cannot imagine that they raised their children any differently than how they tried to ‘raise’ each of us. I will keep Pat and Roger Garrett in my prayers ever single night. I hope that others will do the same.

    And I will keep Martin’s parents in my prayers. How awful to not only lose your child, but to lose him to a system that you trusted enough to send him there to straighten him out a little. And he wasn’t even a really bad kid. He had taken his grandmother’s car without permission. That’s what got him there to begin with. His parents thought it would be good to get him straightened out early, before he did fall in with the really bad kids and do something awful. How ironic.

  • The homeless woman

    A woman was walking down the street when she was accosted by a
     particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked her
     for a couple of dollars for dinner.
     The woman took out her bill fold, extracted ten dollars and asked,
     ”If I give you this money, will you buy some wine with it instead of
     dinner?”
     ”No,” I had to stop drinking years ago, the homeless woman replied.
     ”Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?” the woman  asked
     ”No I don’t waste time shopping,” the homeless woman said. “I need to
     spend all my time trying to stay alive.”
     ”Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?” the woman
     asked.
     ”Are you NUTS!” replied the homeless woman. ” I haven’t had my hair
     done in years!”
     ”Well,” said the woman, ” I’m not going to give you the money.
     ”Instead, I’m going to take you out for dinner with my hubby and
     myself tonight.”
     
     The homeless woman was astounded. “Won’t your hubby be furious with
    you for doing that? I know I’m dirty, and I probably smell pretty
     disgusting.”
     The woman replied, “That’s okay. It’s important for him to see what a
     woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments,
     and wine.”

  •  !cid__2_1AA800004F98003AF3608525721B

  • I have a suggestion for an invention. I am so tired of all the nasty election ads, especially since I have already voted. I don’t know about everywhere else, but we have early voting here and I took advantage of that last week. It seems the closer it gets to election day, the nastier the ads get.

    So here’s my suggestion. Somebody please come up with a device that will work with our televisions, so that as soon as we vote, we get a code that we can input that will enable us to get alternate ads whenever a political ad comes on. I’d even be happy if the tv would just mute itself when those ads come on.

    Maybe we can vote on that next time!