Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Our Supremely Stupid Court

It is supposed to be impartial to anything but the law.

It is supposed to be the final haven for properly applied jurisprudence.

It is supposed to be beyond the grasp of money, influence, politics, religion.

Supposed to be.

The harsh reality is that the bench is completely subject to politics - justices being handpicked by the powers-that-be that occupy the Oval Office when spaces open up.  Sure the nominated justice must undergo the scrutiny of comittees, have every flake of dandruff on their head put under the spotlight, and in the end become a prime ingredient in the Crap Souffle' baked by the process - but all that aside - a conservative White House gets a conservative justice on the bench, and a liberal White House gets a liberal justice on the bench.

And since the appointments are lifetime - a justice must die or retire in order to make way for a replacement.  And during their tenure, they are free to ream out Lady Justice, our Constitution, and our country disburse rulings as they see fit.  All it takes is a simple majority.

And as we have repeatedly seen with the current cast of characters on the court, the conservative justices have zero compunction about playing politics, religion, and the lobbying game instead of meting out actual, you know, JUSTICE.

We saw it with Citizens United in which the majority made it clear that money owns politics - the more the better.  CU made corporations into people and made it possible to dump unlimited $$ into politics.  And don't think for two seconds that a Sheldon Adelson opens his coffers because he loves this country.  He opens it to buy power, power in the form of elections, and handpicked puppet Senators and Congressmen/women.

Where does that leave you and me who manage to donate $20, $30, maybe $50 to a candidate?  Out in the cold.  Your $50 barely gets you a form email Thank You, let alone the ear and voting power of the elected.

I use Adelson as the example because GOP candidates now make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas like Muslims trek to Mecca - only they go to worship at the altar of a casino mogul not even from this country.  (And yes, I completely acknowledge that Democratic candidates have deep pockets from which to woo as well.)

The founding fathers, so often inaccurately invoked by the GOP and Teabag contingents had strong feelings about corporations and government.  Thomas Jefferson:

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Defiance to the laws of our country.

That is exactly what is happening, all aided and abetted by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Justice is not meted out.  Ju$tice is meted out.

It is bought by dirty money.  It is heavily influenced by religion - another thing the founders were all too familiar with, and all too wary of as they worked to establish the governance of this country.

Well, so much for that.

In their ruling today, which drips religion like a hoax crucifix drips "blood", the majority ruled that companies can now make decisions about your insurance coverage based on the religious beliefs of the owners.

Let's clarify that to what it really means:  Hobby Lobby and closely held companies with likeminded religious zealots at their helms are legally allowed to insist their insurance providers will no longer cover certain birth control methods FOR WOMEN.

That was the driving boner behind the whole ruling.  Control Women's Reproductive Rights.

Insurance carriers used by these companies will continue to cover vasectomies and boner drugs, because, you know, MEN.  (Let's ignore the hypocrisy here in which God controls EVERYTHING, but surely he doesn't mean a limp noodle dick is a sign that a man should no longer be out humping.  Surely not, again, MEN.  And help me out here - if an IUD is an abortion device (it's NOT) - then how is a vasectomy not an abortion procedure?  After all, it cuts off the ability to procreate - JUST LIKE AN IUD.)

But this darkly robed, homegrown Taliban that sits on our Supreme Court has decided that fairy tale beliefs trump actual sanity.  That whim trumps science.  That opinion trumps fact.

I hate the term "slippery slope" because it is so overused, but since these five just tipped the Exxon Valdez down the hill, we'll go with slippery slope.

What's next?  Blood transfusions?  Antibiotics?  Prenatal screening?  Mental health help?  Depending on the religion, all those things are morally objectionable, verboten.

The ruling went down 5-4.  The five?  Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy - all men - no ovaries, no uteruses, no fallopian tubes - yet the ability to strike out at those of us who have them.

They were all quick to hide behind their ruling only being the narrow sliver of contraception - certainly not things like blood transfusions - but again, if one thing is unacceptable on religious grounds, you certainly have to allow all the other tenets, beliefs, and bullshit that proliferate religions - ALL RELIGIONS - something made very clear by Justice Ginsberg in her written dissent.

So how will this work when a Muslim business owner begins to argue the same way?  Oh, wait - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Picking up on my anger yet?  GOOD.

YOUR religion is just that - YOURS.  YOURS to attend to, to seek community in, to wallow around in like a pig in slop.  Believe whatever you want.  Make more shit up to believe in.

BUT IT HAS NO BEARING ON ME, MY CHOICES, MY LIFE.

Nor should it.

I have three daughters.  Their access to safe abortions, contraception, etc, should not be beholding to YOUR Sunday school mental pap.

What happened today was not justice.  Not by a long shot.

What happened today was our country's highest court allowing religion to enter and hold sway.

And our founding fathers knew enough about THAT to escape it and come here to form a more perfect union, NOT a carbon copy of what they fled.

Walking Into The Future

It's here.  The day I have had circled on the calendar for months; the day I have excitedly anticipated; the day my heart has quietly shed a tear over.

Carson will graduate.

Like her sisters before her she will walk onto the stage a senior and walk off the stage a college freshman.  Her life will be changing in an instant, a cheer, the bright light of a camera flash.

And I am overwhelmed.

Carson entered my life as the happiest accident I have ever had.  Not planned even remotely, she is, as I have always told her, everything I didn't know I still needed.

She has been, as are the majority of third children, easy.  Perhaps it is because I knew what I was doing by the time she came along.  But I suspect it has more to do with what she came into this world with, than my level of preparedness.

Carson epitomizes joy.  From the very beginning, her days have always started with a smile.  A consummate goofball from the start, if it is true that laughter adds years to your life, this family will be around for a very long time thanks to her antics, sense of humor, and willingness to "go big, or go home" to get a reaction.

I have often said that Culley is my training wheels in this parenting life.  She breaks new ground, often suffers for my falling off the bike.  When she graduated and left for college, my heart was so full of pride, it couldn't help but crack a little - the way a mom's heart does.  In her bravery and strength to face her new world, she taught me how to face mine.

And so I went about the business of continuing to raise her two sisters. 

A short year later, Kendall crossed that same stage, exiting my 24/7 care and protection, and entering her new world.  And my heart again puffed with pride, while cracking a little.

But I was able to turn around, go home, and set to the task of continuing to raise Carson.  I had three more years of boots-on-the-ground parenting to occupy my every minute.

Three years.  That sounds like an awful lot of time.  Yet today, I look back and marvel at the cruelty of a clock that, in retrospect, ticks too fast.  Sure, I know where the years have gone.  Tens of thousands of soccer miles driven, games played, endless nights of training and workouts, rehearsals for school plays, studying, testing, recruiting.  I can account for what we have done with the time, I just don't know how we did it all in what now feels like the blink of a tear filled eye.

Those who have followed DGMS from the beginning know all about our family, our daughters.  I don't think it is a stretch to say that many of you sit there marveling that I am writing about Carson - that 8 year old you met on here so very long ago - ready to don her cap and gown and move on.

For all these years you have shared her ups, downs, games, plays, the excitement of recruiting, and have cheered her on from the virtual sidelines.  You have indulged this mother's need to put words together and brag, oftentimes shedding a tear with me.

I ask that you indulge me again today...

Carson, I have been humbled by you from your earliest days.  One may even say a little jealous.  Your talent that comes so easily pen to paper.  Your athleticism - you are so strong, so fearless, so skilled.  Your ability to make friends anywhere, everywhere.  And mostly, your sense of self.  You have always known who you are, so comfortable in your own skin - something most people go cradle to grave without ever really enjoying.

There is a reason so many are drawn into your orbit.  There is something not just attractive about confidence and integrity, there is something secure in it, too.  You make those around you feel safer, more sure of themselves.  That is a gift.  Not just one that you have been given, but a gift to every person who knows you.

Your drive quietly pushes other people to dig deeper, try harder, give more.  And while I promise I do know the pressures you feel by virtue of this trait - I see you carry that weight daily -  you have worn the mantle of leadership in the way it is meant to be worn - with humility, not hubris.  Which only makes people want to follow you more.

This journey we have taken together, these past three years when it really has been just you and me - under this roof, on the road - has been incredible.  More than anyone, I know exactly what you have sacrificed to get to where you are going.  And more than anyone, I know - a mother's immense pride and prejudice aside - that you deserve all of it.  None of it has been handed to you.  You have gutted yourself to make it all happen.

And just as your friends and your team mates find themselves grateful to be in your orbit, pushing themselves harder as they watch you - you have made me a better person, too.

I keep replaying the words your new college coach asked you when we sat in his office back in March, "Why am I lucky enough to get you?"  He had already done his research, knew you had options, already had an inkling that there was far more than just a good soccer player in his office.

Well, I will never know what I did right, or why, out of all the women on this planet, I got to be your mother, but I did.  And it has been a gift, a joy, a revelation.  (All things Coach Drugan will quickly come to know.)  Pride is not a big enough word for what I am feeling, and love doesn't begin to describe how I cherish you.

I know you are ready for your next step.  I know you will crush it at UT Dallas - not just as a player on the women's soccer team, but as a student and artist and leader.

But there is so much I will miss.  I will miss you hating me every morning when I have to wake you up.  I will miss spontaneous dance parties for two in the kitchen.  I will miss filling your water bottle for practice, washing your uniforms.  I will miss roadtrips, sharing hotel rooms.  I will miss you teaching me Stat at night.  I will miss your bi-polar musical playlist on the way to training.  I will miss seeing you in the living room drawing on your tablet and I ask what you are doing - always met with the one word answer, "Doodling."  I will miss watching Food Network in bed, and making your hot chocolate every morning and every night after training.  I will miss watching you flip your hair.  I will miss you tormenting Leo by shoving him under your shirt.  I will miss your easy laugh, your wicked sense of humor, your heart, your will, your presence.

That I will miss most of all.  You being here with me.

Culley and Kendall may have taught me about letting go, but they were not in the position to teach me how to do this, to come home to an empty house in August.

That is your job. 

But like everything else you do, I know - even as unwilling and unhappy a student as I am - you will handle this task with your unique combination of love, honesty, humility, and strength.

As you walk across the stage tonight, know my heart is walking with you.  You will be graduating from high school, and I will be graduating from my job as a full time mom - both of us walking into uncharted territory.  Just let me walk a step behind - you are so much braver than me.

I love you.  Now, go be amazing.

Bad Seeds or Bad Fertilizer?

Violence.  It is inherent in any society.  Whether it is in a struggle for power, a struggle for survival, or simply an unapologetic criminal impulse, violence is one of the unhappy calling cards of the human race and it has been at play since the beginning.

That is why we are largely, sadly, inured to the violence we see reported each day in the news.  Bombings overseas, hell, bombings here at home.  Gun violence, arson, stabbings, drunk driving, vengeful fired employees, unhinged outliers of society - we never know when violence will strike, we simply know it will.

These days it takes a particularly unique act of violence to turn our collective heads.  20 dead children in a school.  A cinema full of innocent movie goers.  Two 12 year olds stabbing another 12 year old 19 times...

If you have not yet seen the headline, yes, that last one is real. 

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, both 12, had a sleepover Friday night with another 12 year old friend from middle school.  The next morning they went to the woods under the pretense of playing.  Once secreted in the trees, Morgan and Anissa attacked their "friend", stabbing her 19 times all over, including hitting her heart, liver, pancreas, and stomach, and barely missing an artery that would have certainly ended the girl's life.

They left her in the woods to die.

The girl was able to crawl to a sidewalk where she was found by someone on a bicycle.  Rushed into surgery, she is now in stable condition.  At least physically.  As for emotionally?  Mentally?  I daresay most adults would be having a very hard time processing being attacked by two friends and left for dead.

The two girls who did this were found and arrested.  They were also very loquacious with authorities, answering their questions and supplying quite a bit of information.

They freely spoke of planning to kill her for months.  Gave details of how they originally planned to do it - duct tape to the mouth, a knife to the throat.

And they went on and on about a website they frequent, Creepypasta.com, a story sharing site devoted to the scary, the outlandish.  These are the first words that greet you at the black backgrounded site:

“You know the devil never dies, keeps coming back. But you gotta keep killing him.”
—Margaret White, Carrie (2013)

Proudly hosting 11,880 of your worst nightmares since 2010.

By its own definition, "a creepypasta is a short story posted on the Internet that is designed to unnerve and shock the reader."

Harmless enough.  A Chicken Soup For The Soul - ghoulish edition, if you will.

Stories that titillate, alarm, frighten have been around forever.  They are staples around the campfire, retold for generations at slumber parties, and Stephen King has made a pretty good living out of them.  So I am loathe to point all the blame at a collection of stories on a pretty lamely built website.

The girls spoke about Slenderman, a presence at the website.  A "god" of sorts to some.  For the uneducated, Slenderman is a paranormal creation that walks around in a dark suit, and what could be construed as women's white panty hose over his face.  His arms are long and he appears out of nowhere, presumably killing those he encounters yet no bodies are left behind.

Boo.

I know about Slenderman because Carson shared a couple Youtube videos with me roughly a year ago of a bunch of drunken guys playing the Slenderman game.  It was hilarious.  As they navigated the woods and abandoned structures they would shriek, shit their pants, and hold one another when *poof* they turned a corner and there he was.

No harm, no foul.  As Carson describes it, Slenderman is all about the jump scare.

Yet, these girls worshipped this fictional character to the point they felt they must kill someone in order to win his approval.  One girl told the police she believes Slenderman watches her, and he can read your mind. She said she sees him in her dreams.   

OK, cut.  I call bull and shit.  These 12 year olds were fully functioning students, not escaped psychopaths.  Regardless of what they believed they were gaining, one thing is most glaringly missing:  parental oversight.

Yes, I completely believe the reports that their parents are "devastated" - what average parent wouldn't be - but I must ask where were they in supervising their daughters online and real life presences?  How much time did their girls spend on that website?  Did they even know it existed?

My guess, and I stress this is just a guess, is no.

Most parents still have no idea the paths their children take online, the nooks, crannies, and dark alleys into which they wander in cyberspace.  They may give a cursory glance at the apps installed on their kid's phone, or peek at their laptop Desktop, but most parents are clueless.  And most parents would be shocked to find where their kids hang out, how many strangers they chat with, and the questionable apps they use, all the while leaving some very traceable breadcrumbs right to your house.

And this is something I don't understand.  Technology is wonderful, I am a huge proponent of it.  But technology is also very dangerous in the hands of young people who think they are invincible and that everybody is exactly how they present themselves online.

It may have frustrated my daughters through the years, but they have always known that their need for privacy stops where my need to properly parent begins. 

When Carson sparked an interest in animes like Black Butler, Attack on Titan, Dangan Ronpa - things with which I was completely unfamiliar - I invested the time in learning, then watching with her, then actually liking the three series myself.  I also understood where she was in her devotion to them.  Yes, there is blood shed aplenty in all three, but she loves the storytelling, the illustrations, the artistry of the animations.

Hell, my own sister once questioned the "darkness" of some of Carson's own work, asking was I worried?  I could confidently say, "NO."  I know her, I invest in her, I monitor her, and I know the places from which she creates.

You cannot just give your child gadgets and unlimited time alone to do with them as they please.  You have to be willing in actually invest your time in your child.

But I digress.

Technology and questionable parenting aside, my bigger question in all of this tragedy is how much of this type of violence owes to just being a bad seed - someone born with a bent for destruction; and how much owes to the world in which we are raising our kids.

Surely if we are fairly numb to the realities of violence around us, we cannot expect our children to be any different.  They grow up in a world where blood is shed daily - not just in wars they cannot see, but in their schools, their malls, their neighborhoods.  Violence just is.

The programming put forth caters to the crass, classless, and worthless who behave so badly yet are rewarded at every turn with cash and celebrity- Real Housewives, Jersey Shore sewage, Kardashians, Bad Girls.  Entitlement is the air those people breathe and it is highly intoxicating to the young viewers who keep them in business.

Is it any wonder then when the two toxic components - entitlement and violence - collide?

This is 16 year old Vincent Parker.  Cute kid appearing in a selfie like so many other cute kids daily.

On December 19th, he pepper sprayed then stabbed his mother in the eye and then beat her to death with a baseball bat and a crowbar before moving on to his father who he also killed.

Their offense?  Did they beat him?  Rape him?  Neglect and abuse him?

No.

They took his iPod away.

To quote one of my daughters, "What the what?"

Yes, he told police, "I just remember getting mad. It’s all from my dad. All this stuff like my dad taking away my iPod and stuff."

Sorry, Vincent, but no go.  Getting your panties in a wad is one thing, bludgeoning your parents to death is another.

This was a honor student, never in trouble before, and yet this was what he considered appropriate in the face of not getting what he wanted when he wanted it?

Back in January, a 14 year old stabbed her 11 year old sister to death.  Reason?  She felt her little sister wasn't appreciating her.

Elliot Rodger stabs three and guns down three more because he wasn't getting the female love he felt her deserved.

What is happening that young people seem to think violence is the answer to their problems?  Is this really how we are raising them? 

Are we unintentionally taking good seeds and by watering and fertilizing them for years in a society in which violence is commonplace, bullshit is rewarded, and gratification must be instant, transforming them into kudzu that coils back through society choking off the good?

I don't think knives are the problem.  I don't think guns are the problem.  Knives and guns in the wrong hands, in the hands of people who view them as an acceptable answer are the problem.

They say you reap what you sow.

I say that when two twelve year olds try to murder a friend over a fictional character, and a 16 year old slays his parents over an iPod, it is time to rethink our gardening.

Something Old, Something Brand New...

Yet again, I type the words, "It takes all kinds."

And yet again, I quickly follow that line with these words:  I don't know why it takes all kinds. 

A wedding photo is making the rounds of what has to be the most idiotic unique walk down the aisle in wedding history.

While most of society long ago left behind the prudish notion that only virginal brides may wear white, and we have seen more than our share of babies pulled down the aisle in decorated wagons or strollers, this woman takes the wedding cake.

Yes, you see what you think you are seeing.  When it came to choosing something old, something new, Shona Carter-Brooks of Tennessee went very new.  Tied to the train of her ruffled gown is her 1 month old baby.

Of course, as the picture spreads as fast as food poisoning after bad wedding buffet potato salad, Shona has stepped up to defend herself.

"People questioning what we do, commenting all negative ... Our 1 month old was awake and well secured on my train."

And if rational, cognitive thought was in the provence of a 1 month old, she would have been thinking, "WTF?  Someone save me from this ignorant bridezilla."

As I said, babies are not exactly unique in wedding ceremonies.  I think it is perfectly normal as a bride and groom who have procreated to want to include your child(ren) in your ceremony.  Carry the baby instead of a bouquet.  Deck out a stroller in style.  Hell, have a tailor make you a beautiful wedding baby sling to match your dress.  But this?

Were people supposed to follow your theme and throw cans of rice baby formula at you as you left the church?  Tie jars of Gerber to the back of your car? 

Classless.  Clueless.  Tacky.  Missed the mark.  Safe and secure is not the issue here, Shona.  No matter how you try to play it, you dragged your 1 month old baby down the aisle behind you.

I now pronounce you lame for life.