Society – QBG_Tilted Tiara

Senseless Death

March 20, 2012 by valentinelogar

I find myself once again dumbfounded, furious and dismayed; a bundle of independent emotions yet completely related to each other. Once again we have a child dead in the street, shot for no apparent reason other than he was young, Black and didn’t appear to belong.

Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin, 17 was nothing more than young and black, that was his ‘crime’. According to the 911 tape, on which his assailant George Zimmerman says ‘These assholes always get away’. Trayvon’s crime? Walking while black in a neighborhood that George Zimmerman had decided he did not belong. Trayvon apparently carried the cultural weight of suspicion on his young and narrow shoulders.

We will never know what really happened the night of 26-Feb-2012, when George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin had their fatal encounter. We will never know because only one of them remains breathing and in this world to tell us, George Zimmerman and he isn’t telling anything that doesn’t serve his own interest. All we are left with is the context of a senseless killing of a young man and a ‘defense’ based on laws that create vigilante ‘justice’ by self-designated citizen police. What we know or can at least extract from pictures and listening to 911 calls is this:

George was following Trayvon in his car. George made a 911 call describing Trayvon as suspicious in part because he was young and black.
George got out of his car, though he was told not to follow or confront Trayvon.
Trayvon ran and George chased him, despite being told not to by the 911 operator.
There was a confrontation between the man and the boy. The man shot the boy, killing him. The man has claimed self-defense and is using the “Stand Your Ground” law as the basis of his defense.

What is the likelihood the last statement makes any real sense? That a 17 year-old would confront a man, ten years older and nearly 100 lbs. heavier? Even the bravest, the boldest of young men might be cowed by this skirmish. We hear on the last 911 recordings the calls for help, these calls don’t sound as if they come from a grown man, do they? So what are we left with, what do we have?

The Parents of Trayvon Martin

We have a family devastated by the death of their son and without answers to their basic question, “Why?” All we have is a local police that seem to have not done their job, are afraid even to have done the basic job we would expect in investigating the death of a young man, a 17 year old child doing nothing more than walking on the sidewalk in a neighborhood he in fact belonged in. All we have is a state Justice Department, refusing to do their job and turning over their responsibility to the Federal Department of Justice, is this fear or simple incompetence?

What we really have is another senseless death and another family shattered. Another mother laying her child in the cold ground, another father burying his son, another brother growing up without his big brother to guide and mentor him. What do we have? Trayvon Martin walked to the store to buy candy and a drink, upon his return he was met by suspicion and ultimately by lethal force for no reason other than he appeared to not belong. Why? Because he was young and black and George Zimmerman in his self-assigned role of neighborhood watch and apparently enforcement of standards believed he didn’t belong, for this and no other reason Trayvon Martin is dead.

Trayvon Martin is dead before he could vote. Trayvon Martin is dead before his high school graduation. Trayvon Martin is dead before he could make the choices in life most of us take for granted; what we will be when we achieve adulthood, according to his father he wanted to be an airplane engine mechanic. Trayvon Martin is dead before he could marry and have children. Trayvon Martin is dead at 17. What can we do?

Trayvon Martin
Is this what George Zimmerman saw?

We can demand justice for Trayvon and his family. We can demand the police; the Justice Department at all levels do their job to uncover the entire truth. We can demand those who failed to do their jobs pay the consequence of their inaction. We can refuse a platform to the family of George Zimmerman, the police or the Media that begins to shift the perception of who the victim of this encounter is. George Zimmerman is not the victim, whether he is a cold blooded murder is yet to be determined, nevertheless he is not the victim.

What can we do? We can remember Trayvon Martin, dead at 17, an incomprehensible tragedy.

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment, Society Tagged With: Crime, current-events, Justice, Series: Victim Impact, Victim, Violence

Social Defiance

March 13, 2012 by valentinelogar

It has been only 48 years since women were granted the right to determine for themselves when they would start families, freeing them to pursue their own interests including education and careers. Suddenly, the subject of our independence and choice has reached epic proportions; we are in the eye of the storm, fodder for every politician and evangelical minister with a pulpit from which to scream their wrath at our defiance.

Should we have seen this coming?

I wonder what brought us to this cultural impasse. How have we reached a place where social values, mores and even women’s standing in the community seem to be the battleground of the day and not just of the political season? The battle lines were drawn years ago; they have just not been the deeply divisive trenches they are today.

Our history as a nation saw women working toward suffrage for nearly a century before we gained any true recognition that we might own our humanity, our intellect and even our bodies. Since women won the right to vote and then our right to determine our reproductive health 45 years later it has been uphill, now it seems we are careening downhill on a cultural collision course.

Date	What Happened
11/5/1872	Susan B. Anthony, women’s suffragette, illegally casts a ballot at Rochester, New York in the presidential election to publicize the cause of a woman’s right to vote.
11/7/1893	Women in Colorado are granted the right to vote
8/2/1924	Women are given the right to vote when the 19th Amendment to the United States constitution grants universal women’s suffrage.
6/7/1965	Griswold-v-Conneticut decided the fate of married couples and their right to determine when they would add children, meaning their right to privacy and access to hormonal birth control
3/22/1972	Eisenstadt-v-Baird, extended the right to access of hormonal birth control to unmarried women. Broadening the right of privacy and obviously the right to bodily control.
1/22/1973	Roe-v-Wade, finally the critical decision extending the rights of women to determine their needs, responsibilities and establishes privacy across even abortion.
2/2/2009	Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed

We have fought each step of the way, not just to prove our worth and value but to retain those rights and privileges our mothers and grandmothers won for us. A fight to prove our value as independent voices in our communities, our workplaces and sometimes even our own families has demoralized many of us already. For every step forward it seems there are those who would rather throw us down in humiliation, Slut Walk the brightest of us and define us all as ‘less than’.

The demagogues of radio and television are feeding our young women to the populace in a frenzy of public shaming for no cause other than they dare to stand up and disagree. Elected officials stand before their peers and compare women to barnyard animals as they fight to reduce access to safe abortion in their states (Georgia Legislature Rep. Terry England). The archaic views of presidential nominees on sex and birth control are in the forefront of the national debate, these are now considered vital to our economic and national security, I can only wonder how or why. The religious values and in some cases hypocritical standards of paternalistic agitators fly in the face of our Constitution (1^st Amendment & Article VI), their statements against women and their right to be fully enfranchised members of society with equal opportunity for education and work, even to plan for our future diminish our human value and our past and future contributions.

I have struggled in writing this, fought for words and to keep my emotions in check. I have walked away more than once as I found my normal pragmatism lost, my ability to step back had vanished entirely. My normal ability to see issues from both sides and walk the middle line had flown the coop along with my calm certainty that we, that is women were 100% a part of the American cultural and social experiment, that we had gained our right to participate and could not be, would not be consigned to the backroom or required to don the veil. I was wrong, clearly I was wrong.

What does this mean for our daughters?

If we don’t fight back, it means our daughters will have less opportunity than we had. It means everything our foremothers fought for and we took for granted will be lost. What does it mean? It means we will revert to a society where women are simply a commodity, a convenience and nothing more. Our voices will be silenced as we struggle to avoid too many pregnancies, for lack of access to safe birth control. The redefinition from victim to accuser in the case of rape will lower our standing in the courts and in the eyes of society. Should we wonder what is next? Marital abuse cases will change, no longer will be able to seek intervention from the courts as no longer will we have standing.

Is the above simply the worst-case scenario? Perhaps it is, however I lived in the time when the police were called to stop my husband from beating me (1973). They took me to the hospital, they did not arrest him. I have lived through having to hide from a husband who said he was going to kill me if I left; the police did nothing because I was married to him. I have seen that version of the world. I have seen the world that says rape isn’t rape (1968), it is just young boys having fun; even my mother thought it was my fault. I lived with the aftermath of those actions taken against my eleven-year-old body and soul for most of my life, I paid the price.

I have seen the world that says women and young girls have no value, that we are nothing more than –

SLUTS – PROSTITUTES – BITCHES

Where is the outrage?

Filed Under: Politics, Society Tagged With: current-events, Feminism, Justice, Modern Age, Politics, Society, Women

Walking Dead

March 2, 2012 by valentinelogar

Dead this week, the headlines have been filled with tragedy.

Andrew Breitbart, the infamous conservative loudmouth who had been embroiled in more than one scandal in his pursuit to bring down those on the other side of the aisle.

Davy Jones, the front man for The Monkees a TV Pop band of the mid-sixties, many referred to this band as Beatles-lite. Davy Jones never did anything spectacular, never did anything mean spirited either. He was simply a part of many of our lives when we were young.

Two unnamed US Soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan; this brings the total to six since the burning of the Qur’an in the trash pits. Despite our Presidents apology for this unintentional act of blasphemy we have once again created put our soldiers at even greater risk.

Courtesy of Washingtonpost.com

Daniel Parmetor, 17 : Russell King Jr., 17 : Demetrius Hewlin, 17; three teenagers dead at the hand of their classmate for no reason other than they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Their deaths damned near ignored by all but their families, their friends and those whose lives they touched during the short time they had on this earth.

Why do I bring up these deaths? Because of the seven, the most reported in mainstream and social media was Andrew Breitbart, the mean spirited, loudmouthed, bombastic and all too frequent liar. Suddenly, in his death he reached sainthood; even his antagonists are mourning his demise. Perhaps it is that he will no longer be a foil for them, or that they will no longer have a ready target; nonetheless while his death at the age of 43 is certainly sad for his family and friends it should not, in my opinion overshadow others of far more social significance, should it?

Poor Davy Jones, his death became the focus of my ire early in the week when the number of Facebook posts of his passing at 66, far exceeded the number of posts about the five teenagers who were gunned down in Ohio at random, there had been hardly a bleep on the radar of mainstream or social media about that story. This is not to say I was angry at his death, certainly I was not, like many people my age I fondly remember the ridiculousness of The Monkees, their silly and sweet music and Davy Jones himself. My indignation was instead focused on how shallow we seem to be as humans that this death was more important; the death of a long out of the spotlight celebrity was more vital to our national conversation than the death of three teenagers or the soldiers being randomly targeted in Afghanistan.

Courtesy of TheCount.com

Worse still than the what seemed to be the complete disregard of the tragedy in Ohio, was the importance of other stories in the spotlight of mainstream and social media; what story took even more space, more breathless awe from those who would turn our heads and values? Are you afraid to ask? I will tell you because it made me want to run screaming from the room and turn off my connections to the world forever, Angelina Jolie and her new leg pose was far more important than the School Shooting in Chardon, Ohio on Monday 27-Feb-2012, just one day prior.

My problem of course had been building for days, I had been watching for anyone to start discussing the issue of children with guns, school shootings and escalating violence in our schools. Nothing! Nothing at all throughout the day or across the various social media sites I haunt. I was disheartened, to say the very least.

I had to ask the question – “What is wrong with this world, with this nation? Not a word anywhere when 5 children are shot, one already dead.”

These are the answers to my simple question:

Sadly Val, I think it’s because the story just wasn’t shocking/exciting enough. Only 1 dead ? with one handgun ?….Some people want to see multiple bloodied bodies taken on shaky camera-phones. They want to hear phrases like ‘semi-automatic’ and ‘uzi’ and if possible have their TVs vomit the stench of cordite…Sad but true.I don’t know, unless they are afraid that this type of story tends to get sensationalized and may actually serve to promote more of this kind of tragedy by providing attention to it

This actually was covered on ABC World News yesterday but It does seem that celeb silliness is more newsworthy than significant and meaningful news impacting whole communities. It’s an absolute travesty that our news outlets so often reduce themselves to the lowest common denominator.

Lack of God. The more people take God and Jesus out of everything in order that they may do as they please.. the worse our world gets. Simple.

Just as a update: 3 children are now dead… 2nd victim is brain dead, 3rd passed away about 3 hours ago.

I think the answers are both terrible and terrifying. They speak to what is in part wrong with us as a people that we have allowed our attention to be diverted by what is trivial rather than focus on what is most important, most vital to our continuation as a society. The observations by two of the commenters are very specific in they identify the social and media misdirection.

My third commenter provided an observation that is personal and pointed, an opinion as to why this is happening today, it led to a longer discussion that I intend to convert into another post shortly.

At the end of the day though, my problem is this; I have over 4,000 contacts on Facebook. Of those, four of commented on this story and during this week of tragedy I can count on one hand how many of them commented elsewhere. I would however require my calculator to track the number of posts about the deaths of Andrew Breitbart, Davy Jones or God Help Me how Angelina Jolie exposed her leg at the Oscars.

What is wrong with this world?

Filed Under: Society Tagged With: Compassion, current-events, Death in Chardon, human-rights, Justice, Media, Modern Age, Politics, Society, Violence

I am Apostate

February 28, 2012 by valentinelogar

Dipity.com Image

Off the rails, as a nation we have taken our hand off the brake and are watching with morbid fascination as society runs headlong into complete collapse. I do not say this lightly, in fact I have spent a great deal of time considering the ramifications of making this statement at all. Nevertheless, I think if someone doesn’t speak up than how are we to begin to have discussions that perhaps stop the runaway train before it hits the damaged trestle and falls straight down into the abyss.

My generation was supposed to change the world. We marched with Dr. King for Civil Rights, many stood up for change even against generations of tradition within their own families. We cheered when SCOTUS found in favor of the Lovings and put an end to the miscegenation laws. We stood up and protested the Vietnam War and the meaningless deaths of our friends and family for corporate greed, yes we knew even then why war this war was being fought.

We believed in giving back and reaching out, we followed a President who believed in the same things, from this, the Peace Corp was created and we filled its ranks. My generation was supposed to change the world. We decried violence, yet saw our heroes gunned down: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X. We recognized the threats to our ecology by our own actions and from this were born both the Sierra Club and Environmental Movement. We denounced greed and from this, the first voice for Consumer Protection rose up in Ralph Nader.

Warren Court 1962-65 Courtesy of Oyez.com

Finally our generation recognized the disparity in treatment of women in our society, from this Women’s Liberation was born in part helped by the introduction of the Birth Control pill and the agreement of the Supreme Court that women had the legal right to control their reproductive health.

Yet here we are today, forty-three years after the end of the sixties the decade of great upheaval and dramatic social change and we are off the rails, heading for the abyss and I don’t believe we are talking about the real problems facing us.

I was twelve years old in 1969. I am grateful to those who came before me

Me 1962

and fought for the rights and privileges we
enjoy today. Those who faced jail, violence
and social condemnation so I could marry
whom I chose, pursue the career I chose,
attend the school I chose and manage my
reproductive choices and health.

I am grateful for my voice! For the voice I raised in protest of wrongs since I was old enough to understand it could be raised, I have raised it. Now though it seems my voice, all of our voices are silenced by the clatter of a much louder and insidious blast of sound, the counting of coins. We are convinced now our value is only counted by the zero’s behind the dollar signs or diminished by their lack.

What has happened? It isn’t any one thing, instead it must be a concoction of many parts that have come together to form a toxic brew we are willingly imbibing.

1969 War Protest Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Why are we so willing to sit back in silence? So willing to hand over privileges and rights to those who have no dog in the fight beyond their own self-glorification and this they have certainly done nothing to earn. Why are we not standing on the steps of Congress and the White House, flooding the streets in protest and demanding our voices be heard above the braying of the obnoxious and hate filled rhetoric of the ideologues streaming through every media outlet today.

I ask this question, yet I am afraid of the answer. I am afraid because the answer might be we view political grandstanding as simply another form of entertainment. We enjoy the show and have forgotten in our lethargy it is not entertainment; it is in fact our future, it is in fact the hand on the brake. The posturing of all those who would be king, is more than entertainment it is the fuel that will break us as a nation, turning friends into enemies and dividing families. The bombastic language combined with ideologies that barely mask the intent to divide us is frightening more because of what it says about our acceptance of open hostility against those unable to defend themselves.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Our attention is misdirected and we allow it! We seem content to watch as our options are stripped from us, our opportunities vanish and our voices are silenced under the weight of our exhaustion and our debt. To speak up and speak out will soon mean to be Apostate, perhaps there will be a stake awaiting me in the village square. Nevertheless, I simply cannot sit silent and motionless on a runaway train, can you?

Filed Under: Politics, Society Tagged With: 1960's, corporate greed, Feminism, Ideology, Justice, Modern Age, Politics, Rhetoric

Gossip Ghouls

February 26, 2012 by valentinelogar

I have been sitting on this for days, noodling it in fact. Holding it up, shaking it like a snow globe, watching as the thoughts swirl about in my mind. Problem is I keep coming to the same awful conclusion, we have disintegrated

DangerousCreation.com Image

into spectators of the very worst kind, we are ghouls.

What happened to the notion that some things are private, reserved for the privacy of our homes, for behind our bedroom doors? What hiccup in our social norms has occurred making the propagation of the very worst in human foibles and weaknesses provender for our rubbernecking. How is that we have created an entire group of do nothing and know nothing celebrities simply based upon their complete and utter lack of discretion.

Shouldn’t our lives be segregated into what is appropriate or proper for public consumption and what is more appropriate behind the doors of our homes or locked gates of hospitals? I ask this question in all seriousness, without an iota of snark anywhere. I ask this after having been blinded, my eyes bleeding traumatized by the view of Khloe Kardashian and her husband Lamar Odom and their bedroom antics and ultimately epic failure attempting to spice up their marriage with a sex swing. Gad, really did I need to see this? In an innocent search for something completely different, I promise I wasn’t searching for –

Sex Swings, Swinging Sex, Swings, Sex, Khloe, Kardashian, Lamar, Odom or even EPIC FAIL

I don’t even remember what my search parameter was that brought the pictures to my screen.

Why I ask did I need to see this in graphic detail? Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to share the intimate details of their marriage bed. Nor was it enough to know of their purchase, or that they felt their sex life needed a lift? Did I need to be entertained informed of their actual attempts at the use of their new bedroom toy and their ultimate failure to use it properly?

I then am reminded the entire reason the Kardashian sisters are even in the public eye, is the ‘leaked’ sex tape of Kim Kardashian and some person named Ray J, the less talented younger sibling of Brandy. I am further reminded this is not the first ‘infamous’ celebutante who made her name with an accidental sex tape release (Paris Hilton).

Again, what happened to discretion?

We are a nation of voyeurs, so focused on the antics of the famously dysfunctional that we have created an entirely new genre of ‘entertainment’. We are fascinated by Reality Television—

Real Housewives of (pick)
Sister Wives
Jersey Shores
Teen Mom
Jon and Kate + 8
The Bachelor
Keeping up with the Kardashians
Simple Life

The list goes on and on, I counted over one hundred (100) ‘Reality’ shows on the list I found. Everything from dating to weight loss, nothing absolutely nothing was off-limits.

The famous for being famous, the once famous and now infamous and everything in-between are fodder for our insatiable need for prurient fulfillment. Have our lives become so lacking in color, or is there something else at

P.T. Barnum courtesy of Wikipedia

work? Are we so jaded the only thing that diverts us is the catastrophes of other lives. Have we become so cynical we will pay to watch in living color the lives of other people spin out of control, we will laugh as their disasters pile up one after another and their lives hit the skids for all of us to marvel at. We applaud their train wrecks, happy it is them not us.

Our entire entertainment industry has become one huge freak show the likes of which P.T. Barnum would have been envious of. I on the other hand am dismayed and continue to ask, what are we come to, what are we becoming?

Are we toxic?

Filed Under: Society Tagged With: bedroom doors, Gossip, human foibles, Infamous, Modern Age, Society, Voyeur

Free Bird

January 24, 2012 by valentinelogar

Twenty years, that was the entire sentence of Anthony, the youngest of my offenders. Twenty years it seems like yesterday, it isn’t though; it is approximately 7,200 days, 172,800 hours, 10,368,000 minutes.

During this same twenty years, most of us would have worked approximately 4,800 days and 40,000 hours.

Articles.businessinsider Image

I bring this up because it is important, Anthony will be released without supervision on March 13, 2012. Without supervision, means he has served his sentence, paid his debt to society, done his time, thus owes nothing to anyone else and can walk out of the Texas prison system a free man. I ponder this and can honestly say I disagree with the States assessment. He still owes me and mine!

I wish I could feel differently, well maybe I don’t really wish for this. Here is the truth of the matter, Anthony was fifteen when he followed his cousin and a friend into carjacking and attempted murder. By all accounts prior to this act, he wasn’t a bad kid, unfortunately, he was wrapped up into bad acts that nearly cost me my life and certainly cost him. He will be thirty-seven years old, a man grown but with no social skills and by all accounts no education, no work skills; fully institutionalized by the twenty years he has spent in the Texas prison system. He didn’t have to choose this, he was given options that would have seen him out in five years, this was his choice.

At no time during his sentence has he taken advantage of the education options open to him. At no time has he ever gone to the prison Chaplin or the Victim Impact counselor and asked to contact me to apologize for his acts. He will walk free, clearly not remorseful. He will walk free, without skills or support. He will walk free after twenty years inside the walls, fully institutionalized, undoubtedly angry and blaming society rather than himself for the conditions of his life.

Image Tradenewswire.net

How do I know these things? I ask, every single time he comes up for parole I ask the same questions in my letters to the Parole Board, I ask. My conditions for parole are the same; my questions are always the same. How can you consider parole for an unrepentant, unprepared offender? How can you consider parole for an offender who has spent his time doing nothing but blame the victim and society? What will his actions be once within society again?

Though I was prepared for this letter, knew it was coming still my heart beat faster and my eyes blurred with unshed tears. Only twenty years, that is all for my life? Every time I think, I am beyond my original fury, beyond asking that single question, why; I find myself directly back in the path of red hot rage. In fact there are times I am barely able to put

Amazon preparing for battle_Wikipedia Image

coherent thought to my feelings, they simply exist in that part of my brain that is not fully civilized.

Twenty years for my life, is this a fair trade? Anthony has spent his youth and grown to manhood in the Texas prison system. He has never touched a woman. He hasn’t married nor had children. He has never held a job, earned a living. He hasn’t owned a car or bought a home. Because of one stupid decision on his part all of the things most of us take for granted, he has forgone every choice he might have had about his life. Anthony is one year older than my eldest son, who has all of those things. Anthony is one year younger, nearly to the day, than my husband; who also has had all of these things.

Twenty years, for my life, I wonder if Anthony thinks this has been a fair trade.

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment, Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: Art of Living, carjacking, Crime, Justice, Lessons Learned, Parole, Series: Victim Impact, Society, texas prison system, Victim, Violence

When Lightening Strikes

December 14, 2011 by valentinelogar

If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you. T.S Eliot

Flickriver Image

I found that quote years ago while sitting in yet another doctor’s waiting room. It stuck with me. It had been eighteen months since the shooting and I was waiting to find out if I could stop wearing the hard brace. This was my third and hopefully last time with this piece of ugly that wrapped itself around my neck digging into my collarbone and leaving permanent bruises on my shoulders. There were days I felt like one of the Giraffe Women of Burma.

Still Mad at the World

Up to this point, I had seen more doctors than I could remember. I had already had eight surgeries including the removal of the bullet in my

Not Mine But Close_Google Image

forearm which was a very public event attended by two police officers who took the intact bullet as evidence, that was a treat. I had seen the useless psychologist who specialized in victims of violent crime, his contribution to my recovery was an hours’ worth of, repeat after me, “you have a right to feel that way.” Well hell, I knew that when I got here fool, which unfortunately slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, my bad. He suggested he might not be the best person to help me, really you think.

Now here I was, sitting in my Neurosurgeons office thumbing through a magazine and there it was my epiphany.

Wow, just Wow

What was I going to do with my new circumstances? I couldn’t change them; there wasn’t a single thing I could do that was going to undo what happened. The real questions I had to ask were these –

Are you going to be a Victim?

Are you going to be a Survivor?

Or are you going to be something more, are you going to be Victorious?

The answer was clear, getting there not so clear. The path wasn’t at all obvious or straight,

My Road Image My.Opera

not then and truthfully not ever. In fact, even now, nearly twenty years later, I find myself on roads filled with potholes, switchbacks and what feel like insurmountable steep climbs.There are days I want to pull over to the side of the road of my life, curl up and give up. It isn’t fair I think in the back of my mind, that small voice whispers to me, ‘just lay down, someone will come along shortly’. The truth is, though I have many wonderful people in my life, always have had, the only one that will come along is me. The only person that can force that next step is me, even when it hurts like hell it is still me.

From Victim to Survivor to Victorious

There is no life without bumps in the road, I accept that my life is no different from others. My bumps might be different they are still just bumps. I have been fortunate in my journey of discovery and recovery to meet some amazing people with similar bumps as mine, they taught me about getting up in the morning, breathing through pain, letting go of survivor guilt and most importantly getting too happy.

The Original Story

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment, Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: Art of Living, Crime, Justice, Living with Pain, Pain, Series: Victim Impact, Victim, Violence

Crime, Punishment and Victims

December 11, 2011 by valentinelogar

Charge	Birth Date	Sentence Date	Release Date	First Parole Eligibility
Att Cap Murder w/ Deadly	12/14/1975	8/12/1992	3/13/2012	3/13/1997
2 Counts Att Cap Murder w/ Deadly	06/18/1976	4/13/93	3/09/2027	07/12/2000
2 Counts Att Cap Murder w/ DeadlyAgg Robbery w/Deadly	03/05/1976	3/08/93	3/05/2027	3/12/2000

The above is not random information designed to entice. This morning my friend and fellow Blogger Red called to ask permission to use information she knows about me as part of her on-going discussion (Reds Crime & Punishment). Of course, I am always happy to contribute, but thought in the interest of disclosure I would provide some of the facts.

Nearly Deadly Night

A night like any other really, the story, in a nutshell, I stopped for cigarettes and gas on my way home from work, it was February 7, 1992, Benbrook, Texas a suburb of Ft. Worth. From there my nightmares begin, you can read the entire story at the link above, suffice to say my life was changed forever by three teenagers. Carjacked at gunpoint, held for over two hours I knew my life might end and I wasn’t ready. Ultimately, I was shot three times, twice through the neck and once a defensive wound in my forearm.

Funny the things you think about when you believe you might die. After the smoke had cleared and the tail-lights were down the road as I lay curled around myself first thinking how much bullets really hurt when they enter your body, I thought ……they took my brand new pack of cigarettes and just how unfair that was.

1992 UTWatch_ Texas Prison Overcrowding

Giving me Pause

The three young men involved were caught because they made stupid mistakes first in their choice of victims, we survived. Their stupidest mistake though was in committing their crimes in the first place, destroying their lives before they ever started. In all three cases, each of them had one parent serving time; in the case of one both parents were behind bars. This would make them the second generation to share the yard. One of their grandmothers said to the DA, please don’t send him away he is a good boy he thought they were only going to steal cars.

Huh?

In fact, he ended up turning evidence against the other two, he had a good school record, had never been in trouble before this; it is likely he didn’t know what was to come of that night. He tried to stop them but couldn’t and in the end had to back down, how is that for the ultimate peer pressure. This young man ended up with a twenty-year sentence because he thought he was going joy riding.

They Got Time but I Got Life

I will not go into the details here of either the short or long-term damage to my body

: Huntsville State Prison – Wikipedia

or soul from this incident. The three offenders will someday walk free, I will never be free and it is extremely likely my life will be shortened by up to twenty years because of their actions and choices. This sentence provides a very different perspective.

I am often asked if I forgive them, the short answer is NO.

Victim Impact

Since I have been back in Texas, I have been privileged to volunteer with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in a program called Victim Impact. I wish they would call it something different, but I understand the meaning behind it and my involvement has provided me both insight and opportunity to truly think about the criminal justice system we have today. I have met some amazing people, other Victims also Volunteers, staff members and even on occasion some of the program participants . Heard some heart wrenching stories that make me want to weep, even when hearing them for the tenth time.

The program takes us, the victims inside of State and Federal prisons, State jails, juvenile facilities and parole groups to talk to offenders about what crime does to us how it affects us. The offenders in the prison and jail programs are volunteers who must be approved, they want to be there and it isn’t an easy program. They don’t get a gold star on their jacket for finishing it.

Time – kutnews Image

How I see it

I am not easy and some who hear me speak are offended by my lack of forgiveness. My only response is there will never be forgiveness until there is remorse and reconciliation it isn’t a right and cannot be demanded. My offenders have been up for Parole more than once each, I have been there each time fighting to keep them exactly where they are, through letter writing campaigns and petitions. Their crimes against me and against my family as the extended victims were brutal. I want every day, every hour, every minute the state promised me in the sentence handed down.

Crime and punishment are abstract until they are real. I believe strongly we have a system that doesn’t serve us properly. We have spent far too long warehousing the non-violent

Garden of Angles dedicated to murder victims

and returning the violent to a society that is not ready for their enhanced skills. We have grown prison populations that include generations, it should be a national shame rather than a source of revenue and pride. Nevertheless, as a victim of a senseless violent crime I am thankful I can participate in the processes that ensure fair sentences meted out and completed when appropriate.

Some think me hard, others think I am vindictive demanding my pound of flesh. The truth of it is I don’t believe in forgiveness as a right and I don’t believe those that do me and mine harm should be able to demand their freedom. They caused immeasurable and have never said those simple words “I am sorry”. So why should I ever lift my demands they serve their sentences.

I will continue this some other time. There is far more to discuss on this subject.

Filed Under: Series: Crime and Punishment, Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: Crime, Justice, Parole, Series: Victim Impact, Victim, Violence

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