There’s a right way, then the other way of earning a paycheck

The Internet is outraged by the jury’s verdict of not guilty in the Casey Anthony trial. It is a horrific thought that a mother could murder her child, then get away with it. The lying, conniving little tramp got away with murder, the innumerable comments say in outrage. She gets away with murder and Caylee’s death goes unpunished. Justice isn’t served, and it’s a sad, mad day.

Everyone is outraged, but for the wrong reasons. The investigation into the disappearance and death of the little girl came up empty of hard evidence. What evidence they did have did not point to her mother as the one that caused her death. There was no motive, and there was no story of what transpired that ended with the death of Caylee Anthony. That the state was allowed to go to trial with the scant forensic evidence and circumstantial witness testimony was pure folly.

And, it was sloppy, crappy work. In fact, the entire case was handled so badly by the state’s prosecution that they should all be fired. The case presented could only result in not guilty because reasonable doubt was there every step of the way. But, will they be fired?

Casey Anthony an insult to us all

The Casey Anthony trial speaks volumes about how far away we’ve become a subjective culture. The trial is a media circus resulting in a sequestered jury, 12 peers spending the last month in hotel rooms, away from their families and lives, and hopefully safely away from the endless commentary about the case. Closing arguments begin today with deliberations set to begin tonight.

The facts in the case are few and far between. At some point in June or July of 2008, 2 year old Caylee went missing. However, this wasn’t discovered for a month while Casey Anthony partied her heart out. Then one day, grandma Cindy gets a call to come pick up her daughter’s abandoned car that reeked of death. Six months later, the toddler's body was found not far from her grandparent’s home where she and her mom lived as of the last time the little girl was seen alive. That, in a nutshell is all that is known. The trial itself has produced no other hard evidence, and the jury must decide, beyond a reasonable doubt, whether Casey Anthony planned and murdered her child.

When budget cuts hit close to home–and kill

I am so exhausted. I am exhausted from the frustration. This frustration comes from the constant, flagrant, blatant hypocrisy that exists under the name of the Conservative Christian right. Less government, less public services, less taxes, less deficit….less life. I want to scream, it is so frustrating.

I have to ask: If you are “Christian,” does that not mean that you model your life, your behavior, your actions, your goals to that of Jesus? Jesus’ teachings, it is my understanding, centered on love, on compassion, on peace and spent his time on Earth helping his fellow man.

Jesus was not a greedy, rich bastard hell bent on having it all! He chose to shun worldly niceties to live free of the mundane traps of possession. So I ask, isn’t it an oxymoron to be a Conservative Christian?

Arkansas: The Natural (Gas) State

Arkansas is beautiful. Mostly agricultural, it isn’t a state high in the pecking order of gross income, but it is beautiful. The norm is miles and miles of open land, peppered here and there with ranches and small towns. An east/west highway cuts through the center of the state with Little Rock in the exact middle, with a new, incomplete north/south highway in the works. The rest of the state is a web of 2-lane roads connecting the small towns together and making for some gorgeous Sunday drive excursions.

Or, I should say, that’s the way it was. Since 2008, hundreds of natural gas wells and pipelines have ripped across the landscape along the Fayetteville Shale Play so painfully that it’s like a bad case of moles through a manicured lawn. Using a technique called hydrolic fracturing, or “fracking,” heavy water is forced into the ground to break apart shale so that it releases natural gas which requires an army of tanker trucks that haul the water in and the spent water out to drain ponds. Each well comes with it’s own “gathering” pipeline that connects to the main pipeline, with each natural gas company putting in their own main pipeline to move the gas to market out of the state.

If you can’t say something good…

I think there should be a padded room with locked doors somewhere for critics. It seems the only thing left to do when one has no talent is criticize.

A good case in point is the recent viral video of Rebecca Black singing “Friday.” YouTube stats say that, as of this writing, the video has been viewed 35,027,848 times.

Whether the music is your cup of tea or not, that the video is far more than a back yard recording of little kids splashing each other in the swimming pool goes without saying, and I’d dare say it’s above and beyond the production of a typical 8th grader.

Nothing works when there are no consequences

A few years ago, a nearby school enacted a drunk driving accident, complete with first responders, police, coroner and med flight. The production was as graphic as anything seen on TV and followed the course of events in real time, from the rescue pictured above to the police notifying parents of their child killed and ending with a rally held in the school auditorium a few days later. The point of the display was to illustrate the true-to-life impact of the choice to drink then drive. It was powerfully emotional from beginning to end. I left hoping that it hit home and hit hard, saving lives in the process.

Yesterday, I heard about a woman that works in a country school district that said she would do anything to get out of the job. It seems, to her, that kids nowadays have no fear and thus no respect for the consequences of their actions. It didn’t matter if kids are sent to the principal’s office for fighting or throwing someone’s books out of the bus window, there is no fear. That nothing is a deterrent to bad behavior has killed this woman’s passion to work in the school.

I hate that you hate so much

“Why do blogs dedicated to hating a person get hundreds of comments supporting that hatred and blogs that entertain, uplift and share life get so few?”

Someone asked the question, out loud and with palpable pain. It is a good question, and one that has been festering at the back of my mind for a few years now. Is it really only hatred, ugliness, negativity and rancor that draws readers in? I wonder.

Abortion is not the issue

A thousand times, it seems, I’ve sat down to write my thoughts about abortion and have deleted every one. Why?

The first reason is the most obvious: It is a personal choice.

The second reason is more covert, and one that I will ask with a question:


Would a woman who chose to have artificial insemination then choose to have an abortion?

No, I don’t think so.

The whole political quagmire that surrounds the issue of abortion comes from the problem of unwanted pregnancies that result from a man and a woman having sex.

Writing well is not negotiable

I used to love the first day of school, way back in the Stone Age when I was in grade school. The first day of school meant getting a stack of new books that would be mine for the school year. Oh, how I loved my books! It was especially great when the teacher handed out brand new, never-before-used books to us. The pages were pearly white and never separated, the cover all shiny and undented, and the aroma of ink and pulp would tickle the nose. Ah, it was heaven!

Always, the teacher would launch into a litany about how sacred books were. We must care for them with our lives. We must never write on them or let our dogs chew on them. Or else! They all had to be taken home and covered that first night, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

What does government do?

What may be the stupidest question I’ve ever asked, I asked yesterday while enjoying a pleasant meal with friends: “Just what, exactly, does the government do?” It must not have been that stupid a question because the only reply I got was, “Well, they fix the roads, maintain our, you know, infrastructure.” Ironically, no one thought of anything more, so the conversation quickly moved on to something else entirely.
So, on to the trusted source of all information, Wikipedia. It’s definition of government is this:

…government is composed of a specialized and privileged body of individuals, who monopolize political decision-making, and are separated by status and organization from the population as a whole. Their function is to enforce existing laws, legislate new ones, and arbitrate conflicts via their monopoly on violence.

That’s what I thought. It’s a spoiled bunch of privileged brats who are too good for the rest of us to play in our sandbox that is our day-to-day life. And, by the way, they have the monopoly on violence. With a definition of “government” like that, it’s no wonder that some throw their hat in with anarchists.

Shut up about it!

The ranting and raving is enough to curl perfectly straight hair. On and on and on it goes, the endless, self-righteous prattle about this or that or the other thing. What is painfully obvious is that all this noise is nothing more than the whines of the weak minded and power hungry. To all of the lip flappers, I say, “Shut up!”

Just shut up about it. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

You can’t possibly know what it’s like right now to be unemployed after the factory who worked at most of his adult life closes down to move production to Mexico. So it happened a year and a half ago, so what? That doesn’t mean that the unemployed can turn right around and find someplace else to work. Do you know what those unemployed workers are facing? Do you know what it feels like to suddenly find perfected skills obsolete and unneeded? Do you know what it feels like to fear the future?

That’s right, you don’t. So just shut up about the unemployed. You seem to think it’s more important to rant about giving the rich those extended tax breaks instead of thinking about whether your neighbor can keep his house and feed his children. 

Unemployment extensions end, but not announced

"…[I]f your regular benefits exhaust during the week of Nov. 27, you will not be eligible for an unemployment extension at this time."

In February, April and May of this year, Congress chose to take leave instead of voting on legislation that would extend unemployment benefits beyond regular amounts. The first time made a huge ruckus in the media. The second one, not so much. By the time the May lapse occurred, a peep here and there came through the wires, even though it wasn’t until July 22 that the Unemployment Compensation Act of 2010 was signed into law. That law, as written, expires on November 30.

This major lapse in news coverage of a topic that effects roughly 10% of all of us incites rage in me. This is important for hundreds of thousands of people trying to find a job when there are none to be found, trying to feed their families and trying to keep a roof over their heads. Why hasn’t it been all over the news?

We are all the same

OK, people. It’s time to dust those cobwebs out of your heads and think with me a bit here. I challenge you. I dare you. If you’re not up to it, just click on by and we’ll catch you later. OK?

Democrat, Republican, tea partier. Black, white, yellow, red, all of the above, none of the above. Young, old, young acting, old acting. Rich, poor, wish-you-were-rich, somewhere in the middle. Christian, Buddhist, Hindi, whatever.

Every single one of us, right here and right now, satisfies the biological definition of life: We eat, drink, breathe, reproduce and make waste, sometimes from both ends. We all have red blood, we all require oxygen and water, we all sleep, we all fart, and we all have needs and wants. There is not a single human being on this planet - that is alive - that does not fall into the same category.

The art of diplomacy in the face of indignant disregard

Diplomacy.

It took me years to understand the concept, and even longer to build it into my …presentation. Truth is truth, right?

Sometimes, practicing the diplomatic delivery of truth ends with a very bloody tongue. I had thought my tongue would heal from Monday’s practice session, but it ended with yet another round today:

“I am well educated and worked at the corporate level. I demand what I have coming to me.”

Oh, bite my tongue, and bite it hard. What I wanted to say in reply was “So, you’re better than everyone else?”

What I did say was, “This is based on law. The applicable laws were stated in your determination. The law is the law. Where there is any room for interpretation to apply those laws to your situation is outlined in the Reasoning and Conclusion section.”

A slap upside the head

The other day, our sunset held more than just the sun dipping out of sight behind the mountains and trees. To the south was this spectacularly illuminated cloud that made that particular sunset far more than just a sunset. It caught the eye of many, with many of them taking a photo and sharing it on Facebook and blogs. It’s almost like nature in all its glory becomes more awesome and breathtaking when we all need to be reminded that it is nature, it is everything, that depends on us. So, it gives us a gift, a huge, remarkable sight to slap us upside the head as a reminder of our responsibility to all of life. Nowadays, it can’t just be delegated to “those with the ears to hear and the eyes to see.” It’s too late for that.

Yes, it’s too late for that. We’re in a big mess. Every moment of every day, I see more evidence of just how big this mess has become.

I watch the news like a hawk. I yearn for an indication that the politicians in Washington are even aware of the impact their games have on people, real people. Instead, it’s politics as usual, and real people,watch their lives crumble under their feet. Do politicians ever look up and see?

Sure, we have information overload. We have access to so much information that buzzes around our heads like a swarm of angry wasps that we do whatever we can to swat that noise away from our ears, in self defense. But, that information is not the danger. Far from it.

There has been a shift, a dramatic change in all the information that is available. All those talking heads, those pundits that have always shaped public opinion by offering up their drivel after a politician’s speech no longer have the power in their hands to push America into their version of a neat little pile. That power is gone. What has taken its place is social networking like Facebook and Twitter where everyday people, you and I, post our own reactions and opinions way before the pundits have a chance to open their mouths.

Now, finally, the voice of America comes from us! We have our voice and we are using it. What we haven’t realized yet is that our voice, our very voluminous and powerful voice, has the responsibility to shape our own future – and fix the big mess that we’re in.

You see, our responsibility goes beyond ourselves, our families, towns, cities, states and country. Our responsibility includes all of life, all of nature, every living thing in our environment. Nature is slapping us upside the head almost every day now, trying to get us, humanity, to wake up and take the responsibility that comes with being the highest life form on the planet. Sweltering heat, bitter cold, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, droughts, deafening thunder and murderous lightning are all slaps upside the head. So are the incredibly beautiful moments that nature gives us. She is reminding us of the way life could be all the time.

And, it’s all up to us how it’ll be, disaster or beauty. It’s our choice.

It’s time to wake up. Take responsibility and use that voice of yours.

BP working to contain oil and profits only

I’m not a scientist, not by any means. As much as I’ve been following the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I am not satisfied that I’ve learned enough to know what’s really going on. Those reporting the news of the disaster are no more learned than I am, so the result is a dumbed-down version of the important points.

What we know is that, under the ownership and direction of British Petroleum, the Deepwater Horizon drill rig didn’t follow the rules which resulted in the April explosion and sinking of the rig, taking 11 lives in the process. Now, oil and natural gas are streaming into the Gulf from the hole in the ocean’s floor, and several attempts to stem that flow did not work. First, a huge containment dome, then a ‘top kill’ attempt to push the oil back into the ground with heavy drill water and junk, and now a top hat is in place. The top hat has one pipe up to the Discover Enterprise and several vents, which allows it to capture 6,000 gallons of escaping oil a day so far; a mere third of the oil spewing from the hole.

What is News to You?

An interesting man came in to see me at the end of the day Friday. He sees a lot of the world traveling with various movie production companies and seemed more worldly because of it. We drifted into a conversation about “how it all works” and both of us agreed we really had no idea.

Today, a conversation took on the topic of news and how it’s possible that, since very little of what hits the news is about good things, we’ve all come to believe that everything is bad. Yeah, that’s possible.

Putting them both together, I ask, has the news industry changed? Sure it has. And over the years, so has my own interpretation of the news changed.

Real Life vs Politics

If you were asked to describe your ideal boss, what would you say? Have you ever worked for your ideal boss?

I did. I had a boss once who pushed me on, who supported my efforts to push past my self-imposed limits, who respected me as a person and as his employee, who trusted me to always act in the best interests of the program; who knew my values and respected them even if his were different, and respected me even more for respecting him. If I ran into an ethical conflict, he supported my decisions, again, even if they weren’t the same ones he’d make. He was the one I’d always turn to for moral guidance, and I always felt he valued me and held me in high regard. That regard was returned in kind. I wasn’t the only one that felt so highly of him. The feeling was shared by thousands of people he had touched over the years.

That is about as close as I can come to defining a good leader. It is what I expect to see in leadership at any level, whether it be a manager of a small corner store, a worldwide corporation – or an elected official. But, as soon as the word “politics” enters into the equation, that all flies right out the window.

Crawling Out of the Woodwork

Hello. My name is Theresa, and I’m terrified of bees.

There. I said it. It’s out in the open now. I’ve admitted it. Step 1 is done.

Why am I thinking about bees now – in January? Because I was chased by a bee yesterday, that’s why. That danged thing had me running in circles trying to get away from it.

Put me and a bee in the same location and it means that my fight/flight response is all flight. There’s no thinking, no time for my brain to register that it’s just a little insect. No, I am out of there. No ifs, ands or buts about it. The whoosh of a breeze left in my wake overflows with expletives and four-letter words that would curl your hair. It’s like Tourette’s Syndrome with its own flair.

Change is in the Air

I know it’s supposed to happen, this marking the beginning of a new year, but I’ve had the growing suspicion that change is in the air, and a lot of it. Change is a constant, flowing right along with time, and it’s a given. But, I wish I could say what’s in the wind are only small things like changing a baby’s diaper or changing out blown light bulbs or getting change back from a dollar or changing your underwear.

Change is good. The less money people have in their discretionary spending fund, the more time they will spend on things that are actually worthwhile, like time spent together instead of at the mall and doing things that don’t have a price tag, like taking a walk or reading a book from the library. How the continuing recession affects us in the long term remains to be seen, but there can be no doubt that many more changes will happen before it ends.