He hid his name....and they tried him in court????

I'm not so sure about this one; he applied for a job as a security guard at Andrews Air Force Base in Clinton, MD and in filling out the application, when he got to the part where it says "Have you ever been known by any other names?" he said no. He claimed that he thought it applied to a woman's maiden name. (Yeah right!) He is a Muslim, and does have a Muslim name, but the prosecution claimed that he just didn't want to be connected to an imam from SE Washington who has made inflammatory remarks about the US Government. Whatever his reason, I cannot believe they actually used taxpayer funds to try him in court! I can understand that what he did is wrong; he was charged with falsifying or omitting information from his application, but how many of us have done that and at most, when our 'crime' was discovered, we were terminated; we were not taken to jail and then tried in court. A 2005 background check; 3 years ago. 2 trials, because the first one ended in a hung jury. What was it they couldn't decide? Whether or not he omitted the name, whether he did it purposely or not, or why he omitted it? And how did they find out he had another name and what it was, how did that come up? Just seems like kind of a weird thing, unless they were doing some further background checking, in which case he shouldn't have been already hired. They put this man through training and everything and then come back and tell him "Well, we missed this the first time, we're going to have to fire you now." Of course, that's not their fault, he DID lie, plain and simple; but then, if this country wasn't so bigoted about Muslims and Arabs maybe he wouldn't have felt like he had to in order to get the job. So confusing.....

A New Blog I Found

Actually I didn't 'find' it, a girlfriend emailed me a post from it. I love this guy, his name is Tim Wise, and his blog is called The Red Room. The post she sent me is called "Your whiteness is showing" from June 14. Tim Wise is an excellent author, and if you are against racism, you really need to read his blog.

22-Year-Old Arms Dealer Arrested in Miami

You have got to be kidding me. How does this man get a $300 million dollar contract from the Pentagon and then sell them rotting ammo? Aren't enough of our boys dying over there without them being sabotaged by their own government?

This whole war thing is ridiculous anyway, why are we in other peoples' countries fighting their wars with all that's going on in our own country? Why are we spending trillions of dollars to fight a war that we shouldn't have become involved in? It's already been shown that Bush lied about the reasons for getting us over there in the first place, why does Congress keep allowing all that money to be spent and all those lives lost?

Those trillions of dollars could be put to much better use here in America; think of the problems it would solve! I believe that kind of money put into our own economy would solve homelessness, unemployment, the whole mortgage issue that's going on now, and who-knows-what else. Here they are paying a 22 year old con man $300 million for bullets that aren't any good to fight a war we shouldn't have been in, instead of putting foods in the mouthes of hungry children right here in the United States. Where are the priorities in this government? No wonder some people are fighting to find something in this country they can be proud of.....

Court rules against gay mom on ending joint custody

I love it!! The court ruled against her!! In an earlier post, I talked about Denise Fairchild and Therese Leach's custody battle over a child that Fairchild had while they were living together. The court granted them joint custody, but after they broke up, Fairchild decided that being a lesbian was a terrible thing and wanted to not only take custody away from Leach, she wanted to deny her visitation rights!! This child is 11 years old, and has always had these two parents in his life, and she suddenly wants to rip it all away from him; I think that's sad, and I'm glad the court ruled against her. I do not agree that a child needs a mother and a 'father'; look at how many children are growing up in single parent homes (either mother or father) and are turning out great. Also look at how many children are growing up in two parent homes and turn into total delinquents, criminals, psychopaths, drug addicts, etc. I don't think how many parents you have is what makes the difference; it's the parental influence you get that matters. I got 'sent away' from one parent because they thought I was 'incorrigible'; the other parent had no idea how to raise a child, especially one who thought she was grown at age 12. Both of them are ministers; they both did the best they could, as I was never abused (not by either of them anyway) and never neglected, but I still turned out to be the so-called black sheep of the family. My family was totally straight, yet I'm a lesbian. It's not who you grow up with that determines anything, it's how those you grow up with teach you, support you, encourage you...it's what kind of treatment you get (or don't get ) that determines who and what you grow up to be.

Denise Fairchild, imo, has totally screwed up that child. How do you live with two people during your formative years, learning one thing about sexuality, and then when you're about 8 or 9 you're suddenly taken out of the home, told you can't see one parent, and told that the way you've always lived is now wrong? An adult might be able to cope with that, but not a young child, and it's ridiculous for her to do that to her own son. What kind of mother would want to confuse her child like that? I suppose to her it's in the name of "what's best for him"....

Oh well, she'll probably take it to the Supreme Court now, and I just hope they have as much good sense as the lower court did.

A Different Tone Today....

Usually my posts are militant, or rebellious, or political, or has to do with discrimination in it one of it's many forms; today it's a short one, something different which, while just as serious as my other topics, strikes a deeper chord in me.

I have one of my grandchildren with me for the summer. It's wonderful for me, (despite the extra work it will mean) and something that I thank God for. I don't only thank Him because I am in a position to do it, I thank Him for the simple fact that I have a grandchild to visit me, and that I have a daughter who believes in family ties and wants her children to know their family.

There have been times that I have felt so good about having my grandchild with me that I've considered having another of my own; actually going through whatever changes I would have go through to have another one. Then on the heels of that thought comes the thought of how unfair life is; I would give so much to have another child, even adopted or foster, and yet there are so many people out here who don't want the ones they have...

Which brings me to the point of today's post. What on earth would possess someone to brutally beat and stomp a toddler to death? What goes through the mind of someone while they're doing that? How do you look at a small helpless child and kick and beat them until they're no longer breathing? What could make any human being that angry? I don't understand it. As much as I disagree with capital punishment, I found myself almost cheering when I read that in order to stop him from beating the child the police had to shoot and kill him. What punishment could possibly be equal to the punishment he gave to that child? He beat the boy so badly that they have to use DNA to identify it. I was almost in tears when I read the article's description of how he was stomping the toddler and when several people tried to intervene he just brushed them off and went back to what he was doing.

I wish I knew what it was that could make someone do something like that; then again, maybe I don't. It might be so horrible that it would drive me insane....

HIV/AIDS, A Gay Disease???

In the year 2008, someone actually said this? Yep, and not just any old John or Jan Q Public either! Matt Foreman, head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force!! This man who supposedly works to change the way society looks at us and treats us, actually opened his mouth on Friday and made that statement. You're telling me that it is our fault that since this epidemic began, an estimated 21.8 million people have died of AIDS (17.5 million adults and 4.3 million children under 15)? You have got to be out of your mind!!! That is ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that the majority of people living with it now is no longer gay, white, and male, but African Americans and other groups. It's bad enough that there are still whole segments of the straight population who are not educated about the AIDS virus, and who are passing it around like the offering plate at church, (you know, passing it on as quickly as possible) but when you start having members of the gay community, members who are supposed to be activists fighting for our rights who are blaming us for it, well, I just don't know what to think of the kind of world we've come to. It's like having another black person tell me that slavery was the fault of the slaves on the Amistad........

People, wake up! HIV/AIDS is a HUMAN disease; it's not gay or straight, it's not black or white, old or young, druggie or alcoholic; HIV/AIDS is something that ANYONE can get if they are not careful. The whole country seems to have gotten over the first scare, and has relaxed into an attitude of "oh, well, let someone else worry about it". Everyone thinks it's not going to happen to them, it's only the drug addicts, or the gays, or the guys in jail; not true. You want to see whose disease HIV/AIDS is today? It belongs to the children in Africa who got it from their mothers; it belongs to the woman who got it from her boyfriend; and if you're not careful about what you do and who you do it with, it could belong to YOU.

Who Came Up With This Bright Idea??

Who came up with the idea for D.C. Police to check drivers in Trinidad? To have checkpoints on our city streets like we're in Iraq looking for terrorists? To question people about where they're going, and to judge whether or not they have a valid reason to be in the neighborhood? What is a valid reason? And how are the police going to determine who's telling the truth and who's not?

I think some of these government big-wigs have lost it; maybe it's the heat wave that did it, fried whatever passes for brains in their tiny heads...."Military-style checkpoint"?? "Baghdad-style"?? " Seal off D.C. neighborhoods"??

Admittedly, there is crime in Trinidad; more crime than in some neighborhoods, and less than in others. I see other neighborhoods getting foot and bicycle patrols, getting a police presence in the area to discourage those who would commit the crimes from getting a foot hold int he neighborhood. What does Trinidad get? Someone stopping you in your car when you're on the way home, asking for your id and wanting to know your private business, not because you've done anything, but to make sure you have the 'right' to be there.

I can't get over the idea of someone else deciding whether or not I have the right to be in a certain neighborhood, or driving down a certain street. That means that if I say I'm going to visit someone but the officer doesn't think I'm telling the truth, they can stop me from going through; perhaps even make me get out and be searched! I think that's ridiculous.

What kind of picture does this give to the children growing up in Trinidad? It's bad enough that they have to live in a highly stigmatized part of town, but now they get to watch their neighborhood be turned into something straight out of World War II, something akin to the Jewish Quarters. What's next, walls around it to keep the outsiders out and the ghetto people in?

In my opinion, this is being done for one reason and one reason only: money. There are quite a few houses that are up for sale in the area, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone had the bright idea that the houses would sell better if people saw evidence of the crime rate in the neighborhood being fought, and what better way to show people than to have them SEE the police stopping people and turning them away? It's like a huge gated community, but one that they don't have to pay for the security for, because it's paid for by the city.

I live in Trinidad, and I just don't see what it is that makes it any worse than some of the other 'drug areas' or 'trouble spots' or 'high-crime districts' in this city. I park my car in front my house every night and have yet to have it tampered with. (and I do NOT drive a hoopty) I've come in late at night; even left with my luggage at 4 in the morning to go on vacation, and no one tried to break into my apartment or my car. Sure, I see guys hanging around on the street, but I see that in downtown DC. There are homeless people in my neighborhood, but I don't see them sleeping in bus shelters like they are down by the Main Post Office and other places. Everything wrong with Trinidad is also wrong with the rest of D.C., so why have they shone the spotlight only on this small section of the city? The police department really needs to turn that spotlight around on the rest of Washington, and show how bad the crime rate really is all over the city, not just in the places where they want to look like they're doing something.

Well, I'm back from Jamaica; there've been some changes!

So Barack Obama is now the 'presumptive Presidential nominee'; talk about making history! I feel good that this country has gotten to the point where this could happen, but I'm worried about how much emphasis has been placed on race and gender from day one of this contest. No attention has really been paid to the race for the Presidential office as a whole, it's all been about 'the white woman and the black man'. If we're really about disregarding those issues, (especially race) why has there been so much talk about it? Why have so many people based their decision on who to vote for on the gender or race of the candidates? Is the fact that Hilary Clinton is a white woman going to make her any better equipped to run the White House? Is the fact that Barack Obama is a black man going to make him any better at deciding how to get out of Iraq? Neither a white woman or a black man is automatically better for the position based on their gender or their race, why is so difficult for people to understand that? The only thing this division is going to do is hand the Oval Office to the Republicans, all neatly gift-wrapped and tied with a huge bow. People still have not realized that deciding not to vote for Obama because he's not Clinton is only going to hurt us; it's going to give us another 4 years minimum of a Bush White House. With the death toll we've already suffered in Iraq, can we really stand to not end this war? With the way houses are being foreclosed on, can we really stand to go through the McCain plan for helping those who've lost or are in danger of losing their homes? We need to stop looking at the gender and the race of the candidates and start looking at just what they're planning to do to/for this country.

I'm glad we've finally gotten a Democratic nominee; I just hope that we haven't chosen him because of our pride in his color rather than for an honest belief in his plans and policies.