We March ... Do We Know Why?

• Blacks 
• Latino           
• Indian
• Whites             
• Asian

I intentionally don't use the term African American because I don't believe every Black person is an African American. That is the wrong impression to give off and I think it is more racist to use that term than it is to use simply Blacks.  I truly think we have gone too far left trying to be Politically Correct.  

Everyone is marching ... blacks ... and whites.  Oh, you can hear them every day of the week now; walking with signs held in the air like pitch forks and chanting as soldiers going into battle.  All because there are a few bad apples in the baskets.  They want cities to debunk the Police Departments because one officer appears to have used excessive force.  I am not down playing or lessening the pain that these men have dropped on these families at all.  I realize that what has happened is a chargeable crime and these very men would have had no problem if the roles were reversed, charging their victims with murder.  What I am saying is that we NEED our Police Departments.  We don't have the luxury of debunking the Police as a whole because of a few bad officers.

I am not a full time writer by trade.  I work as a front desk clerk at a motel.  The risk of robbery, assault and worse is prominent at all times during a day.  I have come across some really good officers that help me with situations; and I have come across some really bad officers that done nothing to assist with issues.  At no time, have I been ready to completely debunk the whole Police Department because of the bad few that I have dealt with.  We simply have to learn a way to deal with them.  Maybe that in and of itself is a special talent; but it beats the alternative of being mad at the few and the whole that won't do anything to the few.  Eventually, you are mad at the world over something that really isn't that big.

What makes the marches of their Grandparents and Great Grandparents different is their motives.  Their ancestors didn't want the whites to stop what they were doing.  They wanted them to find a way to add them in.  Slavery had already been abolished.  Once Slavery was abolished, that was the las time they marched and asked the whites to stop something.  They then started marching in order to ask for permission to be a part of their communities.  To be seen as a part of the community.

They didn't march the streets with guns and torches ready to burn down City Hall and destroy the businesses they worked at.  They had a purpose and a desire to be a part of society.  Don't stop anything; let them do the same things.  The white people crossed the bridge in Selma; let them do it, too.  The white people can walk the streets of Hall County; why can't the black people.  Simply let them be a part of the white society.  Don't debunk the Police Department; don't stop anything; simply let them into society to be a part of something much bigger.

One thing the Black race knows is church.  You haven't been to a real church service until you go to a black church service (and by the way, I don't know why I call them that, because I have never been turned away from the door of one of their churches for my race ... or any other reason for that matter).  They sing and they preach ... then they sing and preach some more ... and more often than not, they will sing a lot more and preach a lot more.  When you leave, your whole body is trembling in the Holy Ghost.  One thing I am sure they are taught in church is the Parable of the Tares and Wheat.  Tares are like weeds that grow along with the wheat.  But the difference with this weed is that you can't separate it from the wheat and it can't be pulled.  It must grow along with the wheat.  It can't be separated until the harvest.  In order for the wheat to survive, it needs the tares.  The parable is the likeness of people ... everyone is needed until the harvest ... Jesus's harvest.  The people who march, their ancestors were probably taught this lesson many many times in church.  Everyone is needed to make a Nation of people.  There are no challenges ... without challenges, there is no growth ... Everyone is needed to make a whole Nation.

We are going to have bad people in this world.  Sometimes, I think it is dealing with these bad people that make us a stronger person.  I was always told growing up, "be the bigger person and walk away".  I never understood that phrase until I was truly "the much bigger person".  One thing I see in all these now famous recordings is an opportunity for growth.  There was a time during every one of them that one or the other could have simply walked away.  Have you ever had an argument with someone and after you separate, you think of a million more things you could have said.  That is growth.  Every time that happens, you have grown a little more wiser.  Next time it happens, think it all the way through; what do you think the ending of the altercation would have been had you actually said them?  If yours are like mine, it would have gotten truly ugly if I had actually said them.  Be the bigger person and walk a way.  You will find that you will walk away sooner and sooner every time.

Your ancestors wanted to be a part of their communities ... a part of society ... a part of the Nation as a whole.  Please stop the riots and be a part of this great Nation.  Don't let your anger at the few, destroy all the work that your ancestors have worked and struggled so much for.

A Memory of Long Ago

A couple days ago, while I was driving down Stewarts Mill Road; I passed a house with a lot of trees in the yard.  At first, I wondered how cool it must be in that much shade.  When I looked through them, there sat an old lady in a chair with a pen and tablet in her hand.  I was quickly whisked off to a time long gone.  It was 1974 and I was five years old.  I am the small child standing at my Maw’s side watching her write in her tablet. 

Maw was my Great-Grandmother; she came to stay with us after my sister was born.  Oh, how I use

to love to watch her write.  I knew, one day, I was going to grow up and write as much as she did. 

Maw had an address book the size of the yellow pages (for those who remember those); she kept it with her tablet and pen at all times.  Today, we have Facebook to tell us how many friends we have and are able to write to; oh, but back then, if you knew a lot of people, you kept their info in an “address book”.  Every time she came, I had to run out and get a note pad, pen, and address book like hers.  I remember wanting to write so bad my heart ached.  “Maw, can I write to one of your friends, please, pretty please?”, I would cry and plead.  She would then flip through the pretty worn and tattered pages of her address book, looking for a person we both could write.  I had no clue what I was going to say, but someone was going to see it, even if they couldn’t read it. 

When it came time for her to leave, I would be so heart broken.  Only she would have that big, thick address book with addresses to our friends.  I would beg her to leave the address book so I would have someone to write to.  We would sit and copy addresses from her book to my book before she left every time.  I can remember thinking, I can’t wait to get old, because being as old as she was, you have met a lot of people to write and put in your “address book”.

The woman under them trees will never know how grateful I am for such a reminder of a memory of long ago.  Today, I drove down that road again to see if I could find that house or the old lady and could not find either.  I tried to find the front yard with the thick tree covering; nope, could not figure out which house it was.  Strange how memories pop up like that.  Whatever made that one pop up, I hope it keeps doing it. 

Warning to Single and Dating People

Just recently, while in the process of writing a book, I have learned what all is a matter of public knowledge and some of the things that is public knowledge can be very helpful in making dating a lot safer.  There is some very helpful information that is available for the asking.  Information that could help prevent you from making some of the mistakes that I have.  I want to discuss those mistakes, and then I want to discuss how easily they could have been avoided without ever doing a background check (which can cost a lot of money), but just by doing a little research that requires just a minimum fraction of your time. 

A few years ago, I dated and subsequently lived with a guy by the name of John Courson.  His mother was in my Sunday school class and she told the class about her son that was in prison for 2 years and that he needed pen pals.  When I asked what he was in prison for, she said that it was a big misunderstanding.  Well, I believed her whole line without ever questioning another soul or without ever just trying to do some research of my own.  Had I done just a little research on my computer, in the comfort of my own home, without ever leaving the comfort of my desk, I would have found out he had been arrested:

·         5 times for driving without a license

o    Which would have come in handy when I was letting him drive my car

·         2 times for DUI

o   Which would have made me extremely cautious, since he is known to drive without a license and now I know that he will drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

·         4 times for pawning stolen items

o   Which would have given me a heads up that he would eventually steal from me if given the chance … and he did?

·         4 times for giving false information

o   Which means he will tell you those bold lies if it meant he would get anywhere with you.

·         Once for Theft

·         2 times for Check Fraud

o   Which would have given me another heads up that he will encourage me to write bad checks and surely have a false excuse about how the money will be in there when the check gets ready to clear.

o   By the way, I was later arrested because I believed such lies for 2 counts of check fraud.

·         One count of Non-payment of child support

o   Let me just tell you, if the man isn’t going to pay his child support, you can already guess where you are on his little totem pole of priorities.

·         And finally, he has been arrested 14 times for probation violation.

o   This one really says a lot about a person

§  He has no regard for law enforcement or authority figure

·         Which your next question should be how far back does this go

§  He doesn’t play by the rules

§  He is exempt from society’s guidelines

These arrests tell you a lot about someone.  First of all, all these arrests happened at different times and I can assure you it is very clear that none of them were a misunderstanding.  The law knew full well what they were doing in those cases as well as all the others that they are faced with on a daily basis.   This is the type of person that is out there preying on single working women.  He wants someone that will support him because he sure isn’t going to work for anything he has.  Why should he work when all he has to do is steal it from someone else who worked for it. 

Another man out there preying on single working women is another guy I dated and very shortly thereafter started living with, James Sheffield.  When I met him, he told me that he had been previously married one time and that he had a child by that marriage.  Again, if I had just done a little typing on my trusty computer keyboard, I would have found out:

·         He had been married and divorced 3 times

o   What would be the harm in telling me that he was married and divorced 3 times?  He told me about the one time, did he only tell me about that one because he had a son by that one?

·         He had been arrested 3 times for family violence

o   Why would I want to be with someone that is known to be abusive in the past?

·         He had was under a permanent restraining order from these woman and from the one child.

o   So the abuse was so severe that a judge granted these women a permanent restraining order.  That isn’t an easy thing to get on someone.  He have to prove that they are abusive and possibly likely to return to do it again.

·         And again, arrested once for not paying child support. 

o   If he doesn’t respect his own child enough to send the child support, how much do you think he is going to allow you to spend on your child(ren)?

All this is information that had I took the time to look it up, could have saved me a lot of heartache, lot of money, and in the last case, my possessions.  The one that was abusive in the past, turned out to be abusive with me and took me for about $7,000 out of a savings account that I had.  The one with all the arrests, he was arrested several more times while we were together.  He introduced me to Cocaine and because of that, I started a spiral downward that wouldn’t end for 14 months.  In the end, where I had no criminal record before meeting him, I now have a felony record; where I was able to provide a 3 bedroom house for me and my boys to live, I lost all of that and the furniture in it; as for money, I could not begin to tell you what I lost in monetary value with him.  No, I do not blame him for my addiction that was my doing.  I didn’t have to partake of what he was offering.  That is my whole point, with just a little research, I could have avoided these men and you can too with just a few clicks of the computer.  All you need to is get some very basic answers from them:  their name; what city did they go to school in; where did they grow up; and just for kicks, ask them if there is anything in their background.  You may find that he/ she gives false information also.  If you want to know how to do this kind of research, send me a message, I will be more than happy to show you the sites that you can utilize to find this information.

Prayer ... Technology ... Mental Illness?

I saw this picture of Honey Boo Boo and Shirley Temple on Facebook the other day and it got me to thinking about the same thing that every year a new story will bring my thought to … what has happened to our young people.  Our young people is the next generation to rule this country and at the moment I have some serious concerns about whether or not they are up for the task. 

June 25, 1962  Prayer was removed from the public school systems.  I have heard some say that this is what has caused the fall of our youth today.  I have heard it said that if prayer wasn’t removed from the schools, we wouldn’t have mass murders or killings that we have today. 

I don’t think so.  On September 15, 1960, a guy by the name of Paul Harold Orgeron, 49 years old, went to  Poe Elementary School to enroll his son in the 2^nd grade.  When the school officials told him he could not do that due to not having the proper documentation to do so, he bombed the school killing himself, his son, and 6 others.  So, if the theory of having prayer in school diverts such tragedies as Columbine and the Bat Man Movie Theater, I’m here to say it doesn’t. 

In the 1970’s computers became affordable for the home, but most people like me didn’t get one until the 1990’s.  I have heard that computers is where we went wrong. 

           

I don’t think so.  Facebook wasn’t discovered until February 2004 and in my opinion, this has been a major contributor to some of the crimes that we are seeing today.  Yes, I have a Facebook and would probably have withdrawals if it was removed from my access … but in my opinion, Facebook brought a whole new game to the crimes that were already being perpetrated.  When you got bullied at school, it was only those one or two students doing it … today, when a child is bullied at school, the bullying is posted on Facebook and all the bullies friends pitch in and then even the ones that the victim thought were their friends pitches in to keep from being bullied themselves.  When the teens of today want to commit a crime, they can’t do it without posting their crime on Facebook for all to see.  Thank God, because that is how most of them are caught; but still, has technology really helped us or not?

President Obama has been termed the first "high tech" President due to his being able to keep his Blackberry and internet service for personal use.  This was a serious concern for the President.  This is the type of society that we have fallen to lately.  Even the President wasn’t able to go a 4 year term without being able to use his Blackberry and Internet.  Today, in law enforcement, they have a new charge that they can place on suspects, it is code:  16-13-32.3(A) Use of Communications to Facilitate a Crime and this charge is a felony.  Put in simple words, this is the use of a cell phone to tell your drug dealer you’re on your way and how much you want.  Technology has made crime so easy and thankfully, this is one area that the police officers have just as much advantage to catch the perpetrators.  So, when it comes to technology, I wouldn’t even say that it is the cause of the crime, I would just say that it makes the crimes worse in a lot of ways.

I think what it all comes down to is this.  No matter what age we live in, we are going to have to live among the mentally ill.  The guy that bombed the Poe Elementary School in 1960 was already a con, I’m not really sure what all his crimes were, but just the fact that he was a con tells you he wasn’t all there in the head to begin with.  The boys who shot up Columbine High School, even their mothers spoke of their depression signals leading up to the shooting.  Of course we have the Bat Man Movie Shooters parents speaking out now saying that he is sick … well, honestly that is no surprise.  I’m not even a doctor and I could have gave them that same assessment.  My question to those parents would be what did you do to find him help?  I know we don’t have a lot of help out there for the mentally ill, but I do believe, that if you keep knocking on the doors, eventually someone is going to open it and want to take a look just out of pure curiosity of the illness.  Prayer was not the answer and technology was not the problem; our problem is that for one reason or the other, we seem to have more mentally ill people today than we have in years past.  Or, in years past we were better capable of helping these people.  It is this area that we need to do more research and work in to find out what is going on and what needs to be done to stop it.

Racism

The nation is in a big turmoil over the issue of racism lately due to the case in Missouri where a white officer shot a black male that was a suspect in robbery (unknown to the officer at the time), but when approached by this officer in his cruiser, started tussling with the officer inside his car trying to get the officer's gun.  I don't know why we have to go back to a day and age that we have worked so hard to overcome.  I have to wonder who is sitting on the sidelines and waiting for the next big story to break that involves two different races.  Why does the race issue have to be brought up at all?  The other day here in Atlanta, Georgia we had a case where 2 officers were shot by 2 suspects that were attempting to flee a home invasion.  The officers were African-american as pictured below and the suspects were also African-american.  Why is that not brought up by the NAACP?

Is it really the fact that all were a African-american that is the reason that it isn't an issue?  Are you kidding?

What about the case in Cleveland where a 12 year old boy was shot by an officer after waving a what looked like a real gun around in a play park, but the gun turned out to be a toy gun with the orange tip gone.  Yes, it was an African-american boy and yes, it was a white officer; but you look at the guns below and tell me if you can tell the difference and how long are you going to take to decide the difference?


If you take more than a couple seconds to decide which one of these you are dealing with, you may be the one in the hospital hoping to live.  It will be your family that will be yelling foul and wondering why nothing more can be done to the culprits.

We need to protect our officers at all cost because without law and order, we will really be going back to a day and age that we don't want.  I assure you, racism is nothing compared to the day and age you are trying to take us back to.  You will only wish you can call racism if we go back the day when there was no law and order and when if someone thought you had done something wrong, you got hung or shot for it ...  no trial, no jury, no attorneys ... just vigilante justice.  Do we really want to go back to that time period?

Yes, it is very sad when we lose loved ones to officers that over react, but honestly, if they treated every case with caution, they will get killed.  There won't be anyone protesting that they were killed by a suspect that was out to hurt them and even if there was, there won't be any amount of protests that will bring these officers back to us.  We all make mistakes and it is sad when mistakes lead to the loss of lives, but if we go back to day and age when we just shot and killed the one we thought had wronged us, we will all suffer for it.  Please, while you sit on that side line ready to stand up and protest when the next big story hits the wire, at the same time, be ready to look at the situation from an objective point of view and give an honest assessment of the situation and think what you would have done in the same situation.

Supreme Court Ruling Taking Away First Amendment Right

A couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court was listening to a case that the ruling could affect how we post things on the social media sites out there. It started over a man in 2010 that posted comments on Facebook about wanting to kill his estrange wife, he was convicted of making threats to harm another and served 4 years in prison. The Supreme Court is to rule on what exactly constitutes a threat and what isn't. In my view point, it is slowly but for surely taking away, or at least diminishing our 1st amendment right to freedom of speech.


I personally have reported things that I have seen on Facebook; honestly, I don't think it is my job to sit here and read something on Facebook and determine if the threat or act is real or not. I think my only duty is to report to the officials and let them do the investigating. If there is nothing to it, then there is nothing to it and life moves on. But if there is something to the allegations, then I think I have done my civic duty. I have no regrets regardless of the laws findings.


However, with that being said, I have to seriously wonder about some people and the subjects they tend to use to write songs about and I am almost sure Facebook posts about. Just listen to the song and read the lyrics as she sings. I haven't listened to their other songs on YouTube, but trust me when I say there are plenty more. She isn't exactly making a threat at a certain person, but there are signs there that she needs some really good counseling ... or something.   Song About Serial Killers

One Very Dysfunctional Family

Around the second week in December 2009, I first heard the name Susan Powell on the news.  They were talking about how she was last seen on December 6^th at her home by her husband, Josh Powell, before he went on a camping trip with his boys … a camping trip in the dead of winter in Utah.  The camping trip was the first red flag for me.  No one takes a 2 and 4 year old camping in the dead of winter with snow on the ground.  As the weeks tarry and they kept looking for Susan, I became more and more engrossed in this story.  I couldn’t figure out why the police weren’t asking the same questions that I would be asking; week after week same thing no Susan. 

Then we find out that Susan’s Father-in-law, Stephen Powell was in love with Susan.  When his home was searched, they found several articles of evidence to this fact and many pornographic pictures and for that reason he is serving time in prison in Washington for voyeurism.  So, not only does this poor woman have a psychotic husband, but apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 

On February 15, 2012, when a social worker brought Josh Powell his sons for a supervised visit, he locks the supervisor out of the home and he chopped the boys in the neck and head and then blew the house up with him and the boys still in it.  I to this day wonder what made the authorities think he didn’t have anything to do with his wife’s disappearance and why on earth they would allow him to see his kids at all.  NO ONE takes their young kids camping in the dead of winter while there is snow on the ground. 

I don’t know why this story bothered me so much … and if truth be told, it still bothers me today.  Although all the bad that could be done has been done and just when you think there isn’t another chapter to add to the book, something else happens.  On Monday, October 13, 2014, Josh Powell’s younger brother committed suicide by jumping from a parking structure to his death because he was denied the insurance benefits on the death of Susan, Josh, and their two sons.  Seriously?  I mean after all the other stuff that has happened in this family, he not only wants to collect on the benefits from it, but he commits suicide when his wishes are denied.  What is wrong with this family?  IF it were my family, do I do believe I wouldn’t want any ties to the family.  I would be doing everything in my power to prove that I am not as bad as all the others before me.  There is still another Powell out there believe it or not.  Her name is Jennifer Powell and she is Josh’s sister.  As a matter of fact, the morning before Josh blew him and his kids up in that house, he had sent Jennifer a email suicide note and she tried to alarm the police, but there wasn’t enough time to do so.  I just hope and pray that I don’t hear something about her in the future.  It is time for all this madness to end.  This story just gets worse and worse every time you hear it.