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.  

John Grisham was BOLD to make that statement

OMG, when I listened to this interview with John Grisham the author, I have to say, I was hot.  Grisham states that he doesn’t believe that all the people that are his age, white, and in jail for being a pedophile is actually a pedophile and they don’t deserve the long prison sentences that they are given … why, “because they might have been drunk one night and accidentally went into the website, that happened to a lawyer friend of his.”  Well, I totally disagree.

I don’t think that pedophiles wake up one day and have a flamboyant desire for kids.  I think that they start out small … oh, I don’t know, maybe they are drunk one night and start clicking around on their computer and they like the first thing that pops up, so they go to the next … and the next …a.n.d the next – before you know it, the FBI is at their door because they have gotten reports of a pedophile using that computer. 

Grisham has really put himself in some bad light with this interview and I am sure I am not the only one who will view this interview as harshly.  I for one have been drunk on numerous occasions and I have had a computer up and running when I was drunk, but not one time has it ever occurred to me to look at child porn.  Grisham has to realize that being drunk is not an excuse to do wrong … if it was, then people would be able to use the Temporary Insanity Defense when they were intoxicated or under the influence of other drugs at the time they broke the law.

 Interview With John Grisham

Why Are Some Lessons So Hard To Learn

There is an old saying, “you can lead a mule to water, but you can’t make him drink”, more and more, I am seeing that in our society.  Everyday people tell us things and we should be able to listen and learn from what they are telling us … but then just hours after hearing it, we turn around and do the same thing in hopes of either the same results or same results.  For example, a cop in hot water for shooting an unarmed teen in Ferguson, Mississippi, but didn’t he have an example to go by when he seen how much trouble George Zimmerman got into for shooting Trevon Martin?  These are both very publicized stories and one should have learned from the other, but yet Officer Wilson in Ferguson must have been thinking he was going to get the same results as Zimmerman in Florida.  Zimmerman after a very long trial was acquitted of the charges … but that doesn’t mean that Wilson will be.  When we hear stories in the news, our thoughts should be how would I have handled the situation differently?  Isn’t our goal to better ourselves, well in order to better ourselves, we have to learn the lessons that are taught to us on a daily basis.

The last thing I want to do is have someone get arrested when I know that there is another way to resolve the issues at hand, but last night, even after telling these guys numerous times to take their “conversation” somewhere else, they insisted on continuing it on the hotel premises.  The law was called and only then did they decide to try to take somewhere else … but by then it was too late.  I left it in the officers hands and as a result one of them went to jail.  All these guys had to do was listen to my instructions, but they thought they had a better way of handling it. 

One of my friends on Facebook made a brilliant statement on here post last night and I don’t even think she realizes how brilliant it was.  She said, “I just finished reading through some of my journals from last year and I realized that I am having some of the same struggles that I had at that time, but I am handling them differently now”, that was brilliant.  That is exactly what we all should be striving for.  When we hear a story in the news, our thoughts should go to what we could do differently that those people didn’t do … we shouldn’t aim to do the same thing and hope for a different result.  Aim to do better and be better than those that traveled this road before you.  

ISIS Beheads Another Hostage

Ok, so ISIS has beheaded another hostage ... I have a lot of questions about these videos.

1.)  Is it just me, or do these victims not seem to be seated in the same exact position with the same exact expression their faces.  The videos are taken at a distance.  The only time you seem to get a close up is when the Grim Reaper is talking.  If this was me, I know I am going to die anyways, I would not just be sitting there and letting him get what he wants to say out.  I would be screaming, jumping up and down, or something ... but you can bet he would have a hard time doing the video with my shenanigans.

2.)  Just who are these hostages?  It seems like the only time you hear that there are even people that are missing or that are possible hostages is when another video has been posted.  Exactly how many hostages do they have or do we even know?

Honestly, I have a ton more, but these are enough to chew on for a moment.  The more I hear about ISIS, the more worried I get.  I agree that we need to go in and dismantle and destroy them, but are we even sure we know where all they are?  I would hate for us to rise up against them because we think they are in this particular place and only after attacking them in that place do we realize just how many countries they are actually in and they retaliate on those countries that went in to get them.  If they have a hostage for every country that has spoke out against them, are we really stupid enough to think they are not already in those countries?  Really?  I sure hope we think twice about this.

What's Wrong With Our Justice System?

Lately, we are seeing a lot of people that should be inspirational role models become nothing but criminals:  Ray Rice, Running Back for the Ravens, beat his wife to the point of unconsciousness; Oscar Pistorius, the first Olympic double Amputee to win a medal, killed his girlfriend by shooting her when she got up to go to the restroom that night; Michael Vick, probably one of the greatest Quarter Backs the Falcons ever had, was using his dogs to dog fight and killing the weaker ones … then I look at the ones we convicted and the ones that got off.  These were just 3 of the many.  Then I ask, what is wrong with our justice system?

Has our society really gotten to the point that we value our games more than moral values?  We have high schools that are breaking not only the school rules but also laws in order to build the best teams out there … but what are we teaching our kids?  Isn’t the more valuable lesson to teach going to be to our next generation?  If we teach them that this person or that person shouldn’t be convicted for his crimes because he is so good at what he does, what is he going to take into his adult career with him and in what way should we expect him to treat such crimes?  In what way will this help us to grow past our history and become a better nation?  The generations that we are bringing up are the ones that will one day lead this nation and vote on the political realm to make the laws and amendments, why would we want to affect them in this way?  We owe them more than that.  We owe ourselves more than that. 

The other day, my son and I was discussing Ray Rice and what should be done about his crime (and yes, it was a crime); my son said “they can’t do too much to him because he is too good of a running back to do much to him” … “WHAT”.  I couldn’t believe my ears.  Much less, I couldn’t believe someone I raised honestly believed that this guy shouldn’t be punished.  That is what we are teaching our next generation people.  I have always taught both my boys that I better never hear that they hit their girlfriends or wives because this woman would beat them when I did hear about it.  It is never alright to beat a woman.  My son went on to explain that at the end of the day, the NFL was a big money corporation and they had to keep the money coming in and they couldn’t do that by getting rid of someone as good as Rice.  I feel that we can always give another college student the chance to take his place that won’t beat women … we don’t need wife beaters and people that can’t control their temper as our football players. 

Now, in the Rice situation, I truly believed they done the right thing.  But let’s say for argument sake that they went with my son’s opinion, exactly where should we draw the line at what was “ok” and what was not?  This guy obviously has a temper problem, so when he got upset with his manager or other bosses, would it then be alright for him to beat them?  I mean, he was mad with his fiancé, so he was given permission to beat her … why should any of his other superiors be any different?  After all, they are the ones that write his checks and decided that it was ok to beat his fiancé.  We done exactly what we needed to, we drew the line at the beginning.  If we nip it in the bud, we won’t have any repercussions from it.  My son is still in the belief that he is going to be able to overcome this … I truly hope that the NFL teaches my son a lesson that I will never be able to.   

A Dish Best Served Cold

It has been said:  Revenge is a dish best served cold.  I don’t think I fully understood that phrase until just recently.  As my friends and family can tell you, I am a True Crime addict.  I watch it on TV, I read, and I am even writing my first True Crime book; something I have been seeing a lot of on the shows lately is cold cases that have gotten solved after 10, 15, and even 20 years.  Those are called “Cold Cases” because you just don’t have any “hot” leads any longer and it takes a really good detective with some really good eyes to see what was missed that long ago to solve these cases. 

I love it when they get down to figuring out who done it and this person has changed their lifestyle.  Let’s say they are being accused of killing someone in 1990 and that that murder was the last thing they ever done wrong or against the law … imagine their surprise when the detectives show up at their door to talk to them about a case from way back then.  Here they are in a home, with their wife and kids (all of which came after that bad time period of their life) … and the cops want to talk to you now.  Wow, that just has to be a shock.  You know you did it … you know the evidence is there if they looked hard enough … but you thought you got away with it when they didn’t come see you back then.   Now, they are going to rip your life apart just as you done that person’s back in 1990. 

If I was a friend or family member of that person that was murdered, I would want them to let the suspect run free as long as he can to start this new life.  I want him to be set up and have a cradle that can fall.  I would want to devastate his life the way he devastated my friends or family member.  Of course this would only work if the person tries to turn their life around.  If they don’t, then go ahead and arrest and charge him … but if he shows signs of turning his life around, yes, definitely wait as long as you can.  Let’s face it, people just don’t get life or even the death penalty for murder any more … most of the time, they may only get 10 or 20 years … wouldn’t you want those 10 or 20 years to come at the worst time possible in their life.  I know I would. 

That is just a thought I had today.