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Flash: Tablecloth

June 19, 2013 by

Under the flickering candlelight, she drew pure silver thread through her fingers, creating intricate knots. Each knot leading to the next, a web of silver and when it was done, she attached silver fringe along the edge. She spread the silver masterpiece gently across the table she had been working at; a tablecloth fit for a king, her smile was incandescent as she considered her work.

The full moon was radiant tonight, lighting the room. The wolf song surrounded her cabin as she waited by the open door with her net of silver, fit for king or an alpha wolf.

FlashinthePan

Flash in the Pan is brought to you by the amazing Red of M3 fame

This week’s word is Tablecloth. The word limit is 100 words. This one comes in at 100.

Hashtags: #flashfiction #getpublished with @RedmundPro

Filed Under: Flash Fiction Tagged With: , , , ,

Guest Post: The Machine

June 18, 2013 by

tom1One of my bud’s Tom Nardone of I Am Tom Nardone sent me something he wrote and said he thought of me when he was writing it. I read it a couple of times; I understand why he thought of me so asked if he would like me to publish on my site.

Tom is a funny guy with ambitions to be Awesome, I think he already is. He writes mostly very funny stuff. He also writes about growing up with undiagnosed ADD and how this affected him and his family. He is a great advocate for the ADD community, thought I think he hides his light all too often.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to Tom Nardone and his thoughts on society, crime and punishment.

______________________________________________________________________________

Welcome to the Machine

Some people think it is our value of Human life that defines us as a nation. I don’t hear about the Capital punishment debate so much anymore because I do not watch the news, or discuss the issues with those that do. What if we took some lessons from the American manufacturing community concerning the merits of this issue? What would that be like?

A part is born. It is a wonderful day. It makes its first trip down the assembly line. It is treated with care, just the same as all the other parts, of its kind. It goes through the various cycles, processes, and changes, and then onto the next phase in its development. This part will find other parts on its journey that are different than it is. Shortly after this union, they will now head down the assembly line being cared for again at yet another stage of their growth. All of these parts will make up the end product. All of these parts will have a function. It is this end product that the part was built for. This end product is the purpose for which all the parts exist.

Now! The end product is here. It has been a long journey for them all, they have changed so much, and been exposed to different parts and on this glorious day, they are sent out into the world to do what they were born to do.

But now there is an end product, there are expectations. All of the parts will have to work together and get along. There is no room for a part that doesn’t work. They are all expected to function, and while there is some degree of tolerance for errors, in the end it is about the whole machine. This is something that every part knows.

I suspect some of you made the comparison to a child growing up and entering the world as I told this story of parts. While I am pleased with myself for having written this beautiful analogy, I won’t say it is perfect, but for our purposes, it will do.

So this machine (earth) is going along fine and then one of its parts (you) decide to rob a liquor store. Well that is certainly not the function of that part. This cannot be tolerated by the machine because it effects too many other parts and hurts the machines ability to function.

Earth has been having a short period of error free operation, and then one of its parts decide to damage or rob the resources of another random part so that its job will be less strenuous. This is also not within the tolerance level of the machine. The machine needs all its parts to function properly.

Earth is rotating as usual without incident for a few days and then one of its parts decide to sabotage itself while still in the process of doing its job, and endangers the performance of any or all of the parts in the whole machine. This is not within the machines operating tolerance either. This is unacceptable behavior from a working part.

Let’s explore what the American manufacturing community does with the defective parts in their machine

Well there is really no need to explore this. It’s simple. All of their defective units get “SHIT-CANNED!” Let me tell you what they don’t do with their defective units. They do not put them back in the system to rework them for admittance to the assembly line where they can try again. They don’t lock them in a warehouse for a specific period of time with other bad parts. They “SHITCAN” them. They disregard their presence and never consider them again.

Is that what we should do?

In my examples we had represented by “The Machine”, three people who committed three separate crimes; armed robbery, breaking and entering and a DUI were introduced. In this country, we currently do not execute people for these crimes, but we are only aware of what they did from our narrow point of view.

If we look at the armed robbery guy, that person caused a man to be afraid for the rest of his life. Nightmares could possibly render him unable to sleep for who knows how long.

If we look at the people who had their home broken into, they have lost the comfort of peace of mind. They will worry for the rest of their life if someone is in their home while they are away.
In these two examples something was taken that can never be restored not ever.

The worst of the bunch, the DUI guy; Drinking and driving. Well what form of justice would you give to man who took a revolver and put four bullets into it, and then spun the wheel and fired into a daycare center where children were playing? Are their crimes not the same?

I hold human life as dear and as precious as the next guy. It is truly a tragedy when people die at a young age, or when people have to have a life of fear placed upon them. It is hard on the families, and friends.

In our current system, the good guys have more to fear than the bad guys.

Filed Under: Guest Posts Tagged With: , , ,

Flash: Scurvy

June 15, 2013 by

Friday nights were always the same, he dragged in stinking of beer, she expected it even left the porch light on too prevent falls. He was an easy drunk, never making it down the hall instead passing out on the floor where she would throw a blanket over him after the requisite 20-minute wait time.

Tonight was different; she smelled the sour tang of blood and vomit as soon as the door opened. She heard him howling in pain. He stumbled into the bedroom, head lolling to the side, teeth blackened as if by scurvy, weeping.

Who was he?

FlashinthePan

Flash in the Pan is brought to you by the amazing Red of M3 fame

This week’s word is Scurvy. The word limit is 100 words. This one comes in at 99.

Hashtags: #flashfiction #getpublished with @RedmundPro

Filed Under: Flash Fiction Tagged With: , , , , ,

FISA and all that Jazz

June 14, 2013 by

soapboxpileThere has been a great deal of bitching, whining and otherwise raising the roof regarding the loss of our civil liberties lately. I am all over this issue, I don’t like it and neither should you. In fact, we should be storming the halls of Congress, raising our voices on the lawn of the White House in protest; demanding a reinstatement of our Constitution. Power once given is difficult to take back, authority once ceded is nearly impossible to demand returned to the powerless.

Let us all admit it, when the planes flew into the towers on September 11, 2001 we were all shocked and dismayed. We had been attacked, successfully by what we considered unsophisticated enemies. American lives were lost and we mourned, it was a terrible day. In the midst of our mourning, we were bombarded by fear mongering, more attacks were coming and none of us were safe not in our homes, not in our places of work, nowhere. The ‘Terrorists’, they were coming to kill us all!

Enter The Patriot Act of 2001, signed by President George W. Bush on October 26. Approved by a nearly unanimous House (357 to 66) on October 23, with Democrats the largest portion of the dissenters.  The700.hq Bill moved onto the Senate where it passed on October 25, with a vote of 98-1. This Act opened the floodgates, giving law enforcement the right to search, seize, listen and otherwise trample your civil liberties granted under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The Patriot Act has been reauthorized twice, once in 2005 by George W. Bush, once by Barack H. Obama. Those who are screeching about FISA, undue seizures, wiretapping and the loss of privacy must go all the way back to 2001 and remember their willingness to give up their civil liberties for the bullshit idea of safety from those terrible terrorist hiding behind every corner and down every dark alley.

The reality is this; you are more likely to die in one of the following ways:

Falling in Bathtub, Drowning or other injury since 20021 – 3,000

Talking, Texting and otherwise acting in ignorance on your phone while driving2 – 54,000

2nd Amendment Homicides (1 decade of carnage 2001 – 2011)3 – 130,347

2nd Amendment Justifiable Homicides – 5,924

2nd Amendment Unintentional Homicides – 4,764

2nd Amendment Suicides (1 decade of why not leave this mess) – 195,096

Death by Lightening (2003 – 2012)4 – 418

Here you go a picture just to put it in perspective –

killrates

If you remove the horrible September 11, 2001 event from the average on Terrorism, this number is reduced to two (2) per year. Even lightning has a better chance to kill you if you are stupid enough to stand out in a storm.

I loved the idea of death by weather; well I had to give you this one –

Weatherkill

Weather Kills, certainly more on average than Terrorist but still not more than Azzhats with Guns

Amazing isn’t it? On the 6-month anniversary of Sandy Hook today, we haven’t done a damned thing at a federal level on Gun Sanity. Those morons in Congress, couldn’t even pass a Federal Background Check, not even that in 6 months, yet look at the numbers.

Some state governors’ struggle, weighing their party line with the will of the people of their state. Only yesterday Governor Brian Sandavol of Nevada vetoed a bill sent to his desk to strengthen background checks, call in support indicated the people of Nevada supported this bill overwhelmingly 86% to 13%, didn’t matter he chose party politics and vetoed.

Since Newtown, there have been 5,047 gun deaths in the US. These are what we know about, sometimes these numbers are hard to get. I love this chart:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

Despite the Boston Marathon bombing, which was tragic you are more likely to be murdered by a toddler than killed by a terrorist in the US (list provided by Opposing Views).

  • Jan. 10: 6-year-old playmate shoots and kills 4-year-old Trinity Ross, Kansas City, Kan.
  • Feb. 11: 4-year-old Joshua Johnson shoots and kills himself, Memphis, Tenn.
  • Feb. 24: 4-year-old Jaiden Pratt dies after shooting himself in the stomach while his father sleeps, Houston.
  • March 30: 4-year-old Rahquel Carr shot and killed either by 6-year-old brother or another young playmate, Miami.
  • April 6: Josephine Fanning, 48, shot and killed by 4-year-old boy at a barbecue, Wilson County, Tenn.
  • kidswithgunsApril 8: 4-year-old shoots and kills 6-year-old friend Brandon Holt, Toms River, N.J.
  • April 9: 3-year-old is killed after he finds a pink gun that he thinks is a toy, Greenville, S.C.
  • April 30: 2-year-old Caroline Sparks killed by her 5-year-old brother with his Cricket “My First Rifle” marketed to kids, Cumberland County, Ky.
  • May 1: 3-year-old Darrien Nez shoots himself in the face and dies after finding his grandmother’s gun, Yuma, Ariz.
  • May 7: 3-year-old Jadarrius Speights fatally shoots himself with his uncle’s gun, Tampa, Fla.
  • June 7: 4-year-old fatally shoots his father, Green Beret Justin Thomas, Prescott Valley, Ariz.

Should we be worried? We absolutely should be worried, we should be damned worried for our own future and future generations and more Civil Liberties are eroded, more economic opportunities are lost and Civil Rights are contracted rather than expanded. We should be shaking in our boots. Then, when we are done with our whining about what we have given away, we should put on our big girl and boy panties and get to work.

We created the Tyrants currently filling up Washington and spewing the bile. We continue to elect them. We allow them to abuse this nation with their arrogance and ignorance. We do this with our failure to take action and thus we have no one to blame but ourselves for the outcome. Our legacy to future generations?

  • Economic Failure of a once brilliant nation
  • Rampant poverty, including homelessness, starvation, rise in disease
  • Joblessness
  • 3rd world nation status.Bridge Collapse
  • Unbreathable Air
  • Undrinkable Water
  • Failed Infrastructure
  • Widespread Illiteracy, failed education systems
  • Theocracy and Feudalism replacing Democratic Republic

We are well on our way to all of these. In some cases, we are already there. Is this the legacy we want for our children? So FISA courts through the continued reauthorization of The Patriot Act, allow your e-mail, phone records and all sorts of other personal information to be combed. The Second Amendment seems to be the only piece of the Constitution anyone gives a good damn about, I mean really who doesn’t want to shoot’um up in the streets just cause you look different, strange, odd, or by damned you might by an f’ng terrorist or a kid with skittles.

Worried? I know I am and so should all the rest of us be. I have a far better chance of being shot in the street by an azzhat with an attitude than being killed by a terrorist attack, but this nation spends $750 billion on The War on Terrorism while bridges are falling down.

Think about it, when will we be marching again to regain what is being stolen from us?

1 Bathtub accidents statistics gathered from a variety of sites, used 300 per year as the average.

2 Statistic gathered from a variety of sites, texting has been available since 2004. Included standard phone use in calculation, which has been available far longer. It is estimated accident rate is increasing by 4% per year. Used 6,000 per year as the fatality rate.

3 http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states

4 http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/stats/03-12_deaths_by_state.pdf

Filed Under: Social Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Loving Day 2013

June 12, 2013 by

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Judge Leon M. Bazile, Indictment for Felony

Image 1

Those infamous words were uttered from the bench on 6 January 1959 by that despicable and without redeeming qualities macaroon, Leon Bazile. The two people he was addressing were Mildred and Richard Loving a married couple, who had been charged with a felony under Virginia’s miscegenation laws, or, as they liked to call it The Racial Integrity Act of 1924.

What made Mildred and Richard special?

Mildred was of African-American and Native-American descent.

Mildred & Richard Loving

Mildred & Richard Loving

Richard was just a plain old American white boy, special cause he was pure don’t you know.

No one there ‘bouts in Central Point, Virginia where they had grown up, dated and fallen in love thought too much about their carousing. Apparently, this happened quite often, white boys sowing their oats and all. The problem was, when 18 year old Mildred became pregnant Richard wanted to do the right thing, not just do the right thing because there was a baby on the way, but because they honestly loved one another. Knowing there was no way to marry in Virginia, the two of them headed over to Washington, D.C. and married, in June of 1958. They returned to their home in Central Point and someone, not liking they were now co-habitating and oh no, they actually made it legal and all, so like all good white folks will do when purity is involved, well they complained to the sheriff.

From this point on, their life becomes hell. After they were found guilty by that asshat of a Judge, they received a one-year jail sentence that was suspended on the condition they leave Virginia for 25 years. Terrible for the young couple, not able to travel home together to see family, transplanted to the big city and unable to find work, plagued by money problems and lonely finally they wrote to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy. AG Kennedy passes their letter to ACLU and Attorney Bernard Cohen. From here history is made.

Richard greets his wife Mildred

Richard greets his wife Mildred

The Loving’s were simple people, simple in their desires and wants. They wanted to be married, raise their children in safety and in the embrace of their family. They wanted nothing more than to return to the small town in Virginia they had been raised, where they had met and fell in love. The Loving’s didn’t attend oral arguments, despite living in Washington. Their attorney asked Mr. Loving if there was anything he should say to the judges, any message he should deliver; in reply Mr. Loving said this,

“Mr. Cohen, tell the Court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.”

His attorney delivered that message to the court.  This ultimately was the courts response.

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for the Unanimous Supreme Court of the United States

Happy Loving Day June 12, 1967

Forty-six years ago today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled anti-miscegenation laws violated both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling not only affected Virginia but all states that continued to carry these laws on their books.

usmap_anti_miscegenation

It took nine long years, ultimately the Loving’s returned to their beloved Central Point. They didn’t intend to become activist, they only intended to be married and spend a lifetime loving each other, raising their children.

Mildred & Richard Loving

Mildred & Richard Loving

Their sacrifice changed history and created legal precedent. Their choice to fight for what was right swept away one piece of ignorance, it didn’t change hearts, it didn’t change minds but it prevented ignorant hearts and minds from legislating their petty ignorance.

Perhaps we can take a page from their book, remember their sacrifice and start sweeping some more petty ignorance off the table and out of the law books.

What say you?

Happy Loving Day June 12, 2013

Food for thought, without Loving -v- Virginia I could not have done this on 10-July-1999 and I certainly could not live in Texas while continuing to to do it.

scan0003

Filed Under: Social Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Flash: Cantina

June 11, 2013 by

The verdant hillside rippled with the last of the day’s heat, the scent of fresh turned earth and olive trees carried on the breeze. Lizza sat alone in the cantina, sipping wine and watching as both tourists and workers arrived, taking seats throughout the patio.

As the sun set a delicate fragrance caught her attention, Jasmine, one of her favorites; she hadn’t noticed before True Jasmine planted throughout the courtyard. She considered the rest of the courtyard, Oleander out front, Belladonna and Foxglove in planters on all the windows.

What had she stepped into? Just then, her dinner was served.

FlashinthePan

Flash in the Pan is brought to you by the amazing Red of M3 fame

This week’s word is Cantina. The word limit is 100 words. This one comes in at 100.

Hashtags: #flashfiction #getpublished with @RedmundPro

Filed Under: Flash Fiction Tagged With: , , , , ,

High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Part I

June 9, 2013 by

The current POTUS (President of the United States) is chased by scandal, whether ridiculous conspiracies ginned up by those too simple-minded too accept the nation has moved beyond their narrow views or alternatively they might indeed have some meat. The truth of the matter since the election of Barack H. Obama, our government seems incapable of doing the work of the people, the work we pay them to do, the work we send them to Washington to do. Instead, we are fed a constant barrage of trash talk, conspiracy theories and Committee Investigations, most leading nowhere; most frankly an insult to the intelligence of any person of normal intellect.

With this in mind, let’s investigate the Administrations since Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in my opinion (humble or otherwise) was the last great Republican President. So lets us together pull the curtain back, we seem to have very short memories.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, POTUS January 20, 1953 – January 20, 1961Dwight_5

The years of President Eisenhower’s administration were comparatively scandal free, sure his Vice President embarrassed him a time or two, most specifically when VP candidate Richard Nixon had to explain away his acceptance of personal gifts, the Checkers Speech is classic in response to this charge.

Also during his Administration his Chief of Staff, Sherman Adams was forced to resign under a cloud, including Contempt of Congress, they were investing whether his wife received personal gifts. There were a few scattered personal scandals within the legislative branch, nothing that could be tied back to the President. Interestingly, there was never an investigation whether the President was receiving nookie on the side during his service as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, though his relationship to Kay Summersby was well known and questionable. I suppose people, including press and his political adversaries simply thought this was none of their business, funny how that worked in the far more conventional 1950’s.

What happened during the Eisenhower presidency of note?

  • He signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which gave us the Interstate Highways and national investment in our infrastructure.
  • He signed the very first Civil Rights Act of 1957, creating the very first office within the Department of Justice to investigate Voters Rights; Congress amended and weakened its effectiveness significantly.
    • Despite President Eisenhower’s commitment to Civil Rights on paper, his failure to immediately, actively and publicly support the Brown decision slowed down integration of schools. Had he acted sooner and more publicly there would have been far greater support for the later Civil Rights Act he also signed and it is likely integration would have been achieved with less violence.
  • He balanced the budget, not one time but three times, through moderate, even progressive fiscal policies including his refusal to raise defense spending and cut taxes. This despite pressure from his own party.

The presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the last of the moderate and reasonable Republicans wasn’t without its detractors. In fact, because President Eisenhower was a moderate, even progressive Republican many of the Old Guard were tactically against his policies. President Eisenhower continued many of the policies of the New Deal, even strengthening Social Security and creating a new cabinet level agency, The Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He finished what the previous administration of Truman had started, the integration of the Armed Forces, over the objection of those in command. He declared segregation of the military a National Security Risk.Dwight_4

What did President Eisenhower consider his personal failures? Good question, one I suspect he would be hard pressed to answer today in retrospect of fifty-two years, however based upon easily found quotes of the time, here are my suppositions or assumptions:

  • President Eisenhower saw his party moving more and more to the Right, growing more conservative and less mainstream. One of his personal goals was to re-energize his party, make it more mainstream and acceptable to the average citizen. Many of his speeches indicate his desire to reach out to all citizens, engage all members of society. He was deeply disappointed by the nomination of Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate in 1964.
    • Hmmm, sounds like even then he recognized the big tent was getting smaller and less welcoming. Wonder what he would think now, don’t you?
  • McCarthyism was officially ended in 1954. However, the Red Scare Purge continued for several years after the Senate ended Senator Joe McCarthy’s career. President Eisenhower failed to put a stop to it and thus many innocent lives were destroyed.
  • Expansion of the Industrial Defense Complex, he warned of this more than once and in many speeches. He derided those who built upon fear of the populace to gain power for powers sake. His most powerful warning came in his farewell address on January 17, 1961.
    • Despite, or perhaps because of his successful career as a General in the US Army he despised war, he ended the Korean War and for the most part kept us out of others.
    • His one great failure? He put the first troops in Vietnam!
  • I don’t think President Eisenhower would consider this a failure, I however do. During his Administration, Congress and he gave into a high-pressure campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic Fraternal Order, to change the currency and the Pledge of Allegiance of the nation. The change to our currency removed our motto, “E Pluribus Unum” or in English, “One from Many”. While the history of the change of the motto on coinage in fact goes as far back as 1886, it was struck down during the Roosevelt Administration and not reinstated until Eisenhower’s Congress and Administration gave into the campaign of the Knights of Columbus.
    • Now our Pledge is both a patriotic pledge and a public prayer.
    • Now our currency is a statement to the rest of the world we are a theocracy rather than a Democratic Republic.
    • Talk about short memories, how many people do you know (including elected officials) who are quick to say, “We are a Christian Nation” and believe it.

Dwight_2

It is unfortunate, despite some of his personal failures the Republican party of today do not look back on this humble man, this war hero and truly great American and hold him in better regard. As we will see, his tenancy in the White House was the last of the scandal free Administrations, of either party. Though certainly many of the scandals of the Left tend to be more manufactured and those on the Right tend toward high-crimes. But don’t let me sway you stick around for the next in the series, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson years.

First Inauguration Address: http://bartleby.com/124/pres54.html

Second Inauguration Address: http://bartleby.com/124/pres55.html

Farewell Address: http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/farewell_address/1961_01_17_Press_Release.pdf

Filed Under: Political Scandals Tagged With: , , , ,

Flash: Crystal

June 7, 2013 by

Her laughter, the tinkling of the crystal chandelier as the breeze played through it each time the door opened; she drew all eyes in the room without conscious thought. Waiters stumbled over themselves bringing her another flute of champagne, another tray of hors d’oeuvre to select from with her perfectly manicured fingers.

She was once one of them; they remembered her. She gently smiled and thanked them, then searched the room. Whom would she allow a dance tonight, to hold her close to beg her favor? The room held its collective breath, anticipation palpable.

True crooked her finger and danced.

FlashinthePan

Flash in the Pan is brought to you by the amazing Red of M3 fame

This week’s word is Crystal. The word limit is 100 words. This one comes in at 100.

Hashtags: #flashfiction #getpublished with @RedmundPro

Filed Under: Flash Fiction Tagged With: , , , , ,

What I Learned

June 6, 2013 by

Well it is time to finish up with the Minnesota trip, it was fabulous; great fun, great people and really two truly wonderful causes to support and talk about. I don’t want to end this on a sad or terrible note; however, I think it is important to remind everyone why we went to Minnesota, why we walked in the cold and the rain.

Kay Marie Sisto

Kay Marie Sisto

We walked in memory of Kay, one victim of domestic violence who lost her life. Please visit her sister Kim at My Inner Chick to learn more.

Some terrible facts about domestic violence, why this is important to support solutions and an end:

  • One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.
  • An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.
  • 85% of domestic violence victims are women.
  • Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew.
  • Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.
  • Nearly one-third of female homicide victims that are reported in police records are killed by an intimate partner.
  • Nearly 7.8 million women have been raped by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
  • Sexual assault or forced sex occurs in approximately 40-45% of all battering relationships.
  • 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men have been stalked in their lifetime.
  • Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police. 1

These are just some of the cold facts of domestic violence, for more read the domestic violence fact sheet. If you are a victim of domestic violence, please seek help there are resources available. If you know someone who is at risk, please reach out to them, assistance is available.

We learned the power of life through organ donation over this weekend also. We met Ed Dean, who received Kay’s lungs, saving his life. He drove twelve hours with his family to meet Kay’s family, walk in memorial, pray at her grave in thanks. It was a powerful testimony. If you aren’t an organ donor, please consider it there is so much need.

Mr. Ed Dean praying at Kay's Grave

Mr. Ed Dean praying at Kay’s Grave

What else did we learn and see?

Here are the last of the pictures from our four-day extravaganza in the great state of Minnesota.

We learned people still live in little red and white trailers. Even in the cold, the young man we suspect lived in this one was under the shelter with his computer, guess he didn’t get good reception inside. Isn’t this adorable?

Not a little red corvette

Not a little red corvette

We learned shopkeepers in Duluth are funny, just go ahead and shoplift in this store why don’t you? Prosecute and advertise!

Bad Criminals!

Bad Criminals!

We learned Red likes Moose chairs, isn’t she adorable? Please pay a visit the esteemed Red and her blog about the trip here.

A Throne for Red

A Throne for Red

We learned even wet and cold we can still smile!

To the end, dammit

To the end, dammit

We learned dinner with friends, both old and new makes things nearly perfect.

Friends, new and old

Friends, new and old

Thank you Kim, for the opportunity to participate and contribute; you welcomed us with open arms and made us feel part of a wonderful group of family and friends. Your warmth and hospitality made the trip so much grander than it already was just because we were supporting a cause close to both our hearts.

What I learned? Sometimes it is better to get outside of myself, outside of my comfort zone, let my walls down and reach out beyond the security of my electronic home (blog, internet) to the real people who make up my world. They are worth it, they are fabulous.

1 http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf

http://www.nnedv.org/resources/stats.html

http://donatelife.net/understanding-donation/statistics/

http://www.ncadv.org/

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , ,

You Want to Go Where?

June 4, 2013 by

Minneapolis is the home to one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Jax Café. Having done several projects in Minneapolis I was determined to spend one night in town before heading to Duluth, catch up with a couple of old friends and have dinner at Jax.

My favorite place to eat, anywhere

My favorite place to eat, anywhere

I arranged my flights to insure I would have plenty of time, even with a slight delay of getting to the hotel, showering and getting over to the restaurant in time.

Dinner was fabulous! I knew everyone of course, but not everyone knew each other, they met that night. Conversation flowed with ease and we sat for hours over our meal and then over coffee. One of the reasons I love this marvelous restaurant, they do not rush you through the meal instead encourage you to stay. What a wonderful night.

Next up, we had the entire day on Friday to do anything we wanted, dinner was planned in Duluth with Kim and family for 7pm and it was approximately a two-hour drive from Minneapolis. Hmmmm, what could we do to fill the hours? Well, if you are Red and Val you drive South to the Spam Museum! That is right boys and girls, after a night of refined dinning and great conversation, what you really want to do is jump in your rental car and go to the one and only Spam Museum, why not.

There and Back Again

There and Back Again

With a bit of side trip, looking for lakes, rivers and other photo worthy items we saw this!

Red considering the consequences

Red considering the consequences

We also saw these, Red was surprised by the lack of flat terrain but finally remembered Minnesota was the home of Little House on the Prairie.

Catching the wind

Catching the wind

Finally, we arrived at our destination and it was well worth the trip.

It really is the Spam Museum

It really is the Spam Museum

Spam Curds?

Spam Curds?

Where it starts, hogs

Where it starts, hogs

Really a Spam Wall

Really a Spam Wall

Oh my what will people think

Oh my what will people think

Can you guess?

Can you guess?

Conveyor ran throughout the museum

Conveyor ran throughout the museum

Pig Door to Spam Theater

Pig Door to Spam Theater

Of course, we now had to turn around and drive nearly five hours back through Minneapolis (in rush hour traffic on a Friday) to make dinner in Duluth!

More pics and adventures tomorrow.

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