Yes, Drew Peterson is engaged. Remember him? He’s the former cop from Illinois whose wife vanished last year. He’s been in People and on Dr. Phil, two staples in my household, so I’m familiar with his case. 

There are no details about his fiancee other than she’s young (23) and lives about 15 minutes away from Mr. Peterson.

Since you’ve probably been out getting those last-minute holiday gifts under the tree, let me refresh your memory. The dude has been married not once, not twice, but four times. He cheated on wife #1. He started dating wife #3 while still married to wife #2.  Then wife #3 dies in the bathtub, her death recently being re-classified as a homicide. And now wife #4 has gone missing, and he’s a suspect.

If you think this gentleman would be a good catch, raise your hand. I didn’t see any up.

I have no idea whether or not Drew was involved in his wife’s disappearance, and no charges have been filed. But, he’s had been three other marriages that didn’t end well. Isn’t the best predictor of future behavior past behavior?

Perhaps I’m getting pickier as I’m getting older, but when I think about a potential mate, infidelity and disappearing spouses aren’t desirable traits.

Are women so afraid to be alone they will date and/or settle for people with questionable backgrounds? On the flip side, can people change? Could marriage #5 be the “happily ever after” for Drew Peterson and his wife-to-be?

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For those not familiar with the term, CASA is an acronym for Court Appointed Special Advocate. The short version is, when a child has entered the SRS system for anything ranging from neglect to abuse to behavioral issues, the Court will appoint a CASA to independently research the case and present their views on what will be in the best interest of the child (when a volunteer is available, which is sadly not always the case).

Yeah, I know it’s going to break my heart on a daily basis. But that already happens everytime I read the news, and I’m sick of just feeling sick about it.

Even before I found an established religion that resonated with me, I prayed. A lot. Even when I proclaimed myself to be a cynical hard-ass bitter atheist.

I rarely prayed for myself, aside from the occasional, “Oh, just . . . thank You.”, and those were a lot rarer back then than they are now; I’ve been sending that bleep out into the universe multiple times daily these past few years. But when I read of a child victimized, something in me just screamed so hard it ruptured something in my psyche and set it bleeding, like a small ulcer. Always. Every single time. And it wasn’t just a “help them”, it was more visceral than that, more to the effect of, “I’ll take their pain if you’ll spare them from it. I can handle it; they can’t.”

But I’ve begun to realize that prayer isn’t the email to the impersonal webmaster I once thought it was, that it isn’t ignored or responded to with a stock PR reply. I’ve begun to recognize that I’m getting answers to those prayers, and it isn’t in the form of a divine hand of mercy miraculously lifting said child out of its mire of desperation and into the sort of childhood every human being deserves. I’m not getting a sense of “peace, my child, all will be well.”

Instead, I’m getting a firm kick in the ass.

Maybe it’s the experience of parenting a child of my own that’s awakened this awareness. Maybe it’s something much less defineable.

Maybe I went and grew a social conscience when I wasn’t looking.

Now, when I get that feeling like I’m going to vomit and cry and punch something all at the same time when reading of yet one more horror in an endless stream of atrocities against innocents, it’s inextricably mixed up with a combination of guilt and passionate activism.

Someone is trying to tell me that I’m ready, now, to quit just feeling sorry for these kids, but instead do whatever is in my limited power to make any miniscule difference I can.

I don’t believe that G-d has every detail of every human life planned out, and that His plan will inevitably guide every person to fulfill their purpose in His creation. Reading the Old Testament as an adult has purged that delusion, if common sense hasn’t.

I do, however, believe that G-d put me here to make the word a better place than it was when I arrived. I believe that’s His wish for all souls, but for reasons beyond my fathoming, He lets us make the decision to do that, or not, as we will.

So I’ve begun to think that just writing rambling memoirs about my experience as one of the earth’s biggest scumbags, and consort to more of the same, isn’t enough to fulfill that intention.

I quite adamantly believe that my unique voice is the gift I was given this time around, and that how I use it will be my single most important contribution to mankind, small as it may be.

But I’m beginning to think that the written word, serving my own ego, isn’t the vehicle that’s going to accomplish that.

Instead, I think that I’m meant to use my experiences and insights in a much more direct manner.

I used to think that my own story was the only one I was meant to make heard.

I now realize that this was narcissistic bullshit.

People like me who were given the gift of extraordinarily moving expression aren’t necessarily given said gift just to tell their own stories. There are those much more important than us, whose voices have been stolen from them, and we have a duty as decent human beings to use this talent to aid them.

And I have experiences that I believe are uniquely suited to this sort of work.

It’s time I expanded my repertoire.

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Around the same time, the idiot parents of poor little 15-month-old Ava Worthington of Oregon were indicted in Ava’s death for their attempts to ”faith-heal” the baby of her bronchial pneumonia–which led to a blood infection that could have been treated with antibiotics. 

As the article about Ava notes, laws were passed in the 1990s that struck down legal shields for faith-healers after the deaths of several children whose parents were members of the fundamentalist church.  The Worthingtons were indicted on Friday on manslaughter and criminal mistreatment charges, but it is unclear whether the Neumanns will be charged.  According to a Chicago Tribune report, Wisconsin law says that a parent cannot be accused of abuse or neglect of a child if “in good faith” they selected prayer as a basis of treatment for a disease.  An investigation has begun into whether the Neumanns had a “a good faith belief” that their daughter could be cured through prayer.  

My thought is that if Madeline was FUCKING BEDRIDDEN, there’s no way in hell the parents could have had a good faith belief she would be fine if they lit some candles and said a few Hail Marys.  Fucking assholes.

I believe in God, and I pray.  I pray more when I need or want more, which sucks, but you can bet your sweet ass that I’d be praying to my God, everyone else’s God, the real doctors and the people that play them on TV if my babies were that ill.  If my babies were lethargic and wanted to stay in bed for a few days, and they appeared to be getting thinner, and they just wanted me to hold them, I would probably have a Civil Protection Order against me to stay AWAY from the doctor’s office because I’d been there too many times.  

My son had a five-day fever last year and the doctor’s office staff was probably referring to me as “Norm” from Cheers I had been there so many times.  I’m not saying I drugged him up with everything under the sun, but I wanted a professional medical person overseeing my child and informing me thoroughly so that I could make proper decisions about his care.

My son ended up losing five pounds with that fever and looked so thin that I burst into tears when I put him in the bath at the end of that week.  I called in my husband so I could run out and buy milkshakes. 

What about the Worthingtons and the Neumanns?  I wonder what they’re feeling now.  Milkshakes aren’t going to bring back their beautiful daughters, and I hope all their asses get locked up for so long they forget what ice cream tastes like.  

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Man jailed for microwaving baby

A jury in Texas has sentenced a man to 25 years in prison for severely burning his two-month-old daughter in a microwave oven last year.

The jury rejected Joshua Mauldin’s defence that he was insane when he placed his daughter Ana in the oven.

Prosecutors said Mauldin had a history of violence, lying about being mentally ill and was angry about his marriage.

Ana, now aged one, suffered second and third-degree burns to her face and left side and required two skin grafts.

Part of her left ear had to be amputated.

Her foster mother, Heather Croxton, told the court of the painful daily treatments Ana has had to undergo since being left in the microwave for up to 20 seconds.

“There is no excuse for your actions and I hate that one day you will be set free and allowed to move on with your life while Ana continues to pay for your actions,” she said.

Mauldin’s lawyer, Sam Cammack, said his client would not get the treatment he needs for mental illness in prison.

— BBC News

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So, I must ask, how can anyone oppose the death penalty in a cases such as these? How??

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Photos have emerged of the poor, nerdy boys who were probably crapping their pants in worry over a charge that could have ruined their lives. The boys were required to apologize and ante up $250 in damages to the four girls. Charges were dropped because, well, the whole thing was ridiculous.

They were originally charged with felony and misdemeanor sex abuse charges in February. Amid growing public opposition to sending the boys to prison and putting them on a sex offenders’ registry, prosecutors dropped the felony sex abuse charges and added misdemeanor harassment charges, then later dropped all sex abuse charges, leaving only the harassment counts.

The judge dismissed the final charges following negotiations between prosecutors and the defense, and discussions with the four girls about whether they wanted the case dismissed.

Picture of Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, the scary, “felons”

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This article names a few people who believe the restraining order violated McClellen’s first amendment rights and assert that until he actually molests a child (or is caught — it wouldn’t surprise me if he already has), that his taking pictures of toddler girls, posting them on his website, and explaining to other pedophiles where to find them and observe little girls (which they refer to as “LGs”) for sexual gratification is all perfectly legal.

As a result, his case has stirred debate, particularly since his arrest on Monday, over whether attempting to restrict unseemly behavior that isn’t criminal violates a person’s constitutional rights.

“There is no law against someone making you feel uncomfortable,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and a Loyola Law School professor. “There’s a line to cross and I don’t think he has yet. He’s tiptoeing around the law.”

My question is…what about the rights of a toddler or a child? Don’t they have any privacy rights? Don’t they deserve to be protected from sexual depravity and exploitation?

Why isn’t this behavior illegal??

Why do pedophiles have more rights than small children? What makes a pedophile more important than a baby or child? I just don’t get it.

I mean, why should a 3 year old, or a 4, 5, 6 year old, or any child be aware that there are creepy men that lust after them and if they want to take their picture, put it up on the internet and/or sit next to them and sexually fantasize about them, then they just have to deal. If a man wants to sit underneath a playground set and look up a small child’s skirt, is society obligated to protect that right???

That should be unacceptable to any human being with any decency.

We need law makers to act. Unfortunately, our laws are not adequate for this new internet threat. Our founding fathers could not have had the foresight to imagine a loophole would exist to make the exploitation of children legal.

This is not okay. It should never be okay.

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Three Canadian boys, ages 7 - 9 years old, stripped a 6-year-old boy naked and pushed him into a lake where he drowned.

In Canada, nothing can be done to prosecute the boys, since they’re all under 12 — in my opinion a gross injustice. I’m not saying to throw them in maximum security prison, but really, nothing? No punishment at all? They will get away with it and in my opinion, since most bullies have parents that are also bullies, this will be the first of a long string of abuse and violence they will exhibit throughout their lives without proper intervention.

The boy, Adam Keeper, drowned because he didn’t know how to swim. He was only 6 years old and now these bullies will feel no consequences for what they did.

What makes a child so evil? What turns children into cold blooded murderers?

We are well past the days of telling children to simply “suck it up” when teased and tormented by other kids. You cannot “suck it up” when you’re dealing with sociopathic children. Even in America, we need much stiffer laws regarding bullies and the management of bullies. In my opinion, bullies should be removed from their homes as any child of neglect would be as it directly reflects a parents ability to manage and nurture their child. Parents have an obligation to teach their child empathy and to make sure their anger is directed properly. Plus, bullying can manifest itself from other emotional problems the child is suffering, but it is never appropriate to displace those emotional deviancies on other children. I have to wonder if these bullies are not being abused themselves.

Or, are there children that are just born “bad”?

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It is bad enough that we have to deal with our own sociopaths, we’re importing them now?

From Fox news:

NEWARK, N.J. — A Peruvian national in the U.S. illegally and who was previously charged with raping a 5-year-old pleaded not guilty Friday in the execution-style slayings of three young college students a day after surrendering to Mayor Cory Booker.

Jose Carranza, 28, who also goes by the alias Jose La Chira, entered his plea before Essex County Superior Court Judge Michael Casale. A second suspect, a 15-year-old boy, has been held pending a detention hearing. Authorities were seeking to have him tried as an adult.

And, can someone tell me why, oh, why, is the rapist of a 5-year-old running around America FREE?!? We’re probably giving him free medical care, food stamps and welfare, too.

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Back in April of 2006, a Chicago suburban mother was charged with murder when she shook her 3 month old baby to death.

She pleaded out and was “punished” with a $500 ticket, 4 years of probation, 2 months of home confinement and free counseling. She had spent 127 days in jail after her arrest, but I have no doubt if this wasn’t an infant and it wasn’t her “possession”, people would be insulted by the lack of humanity in the message this sends. Cases like these send child advocacy back 500 years.

So, why don’t we just extend abortion rights until the end of the first year? What’s the difference? Why bother with the courts even pretending like this is a crime?

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Apparently, along with other classmates, they were acting out a game they saw on TV where “Jackass”-es swat girls on the behinds and then they have to swat another person on the behind. The teacher grabbed the child and the child was sent to jail for days without being able to speak to his parents, scared and confused.

From KOMO-TV Seattle:

A judge reunited the seventh-grader with his McMinnville family after six days in custody, where he spent time rooming with a 17-year-old the family’s attorney described in court as a juvenile delinquent.

“I was so scared, I was throwing up the first and second night,” the boy said.

His mom, Tracie Mashburn, said she would have disciplined her son herself had school officials told her about the problem.

“You shouldn’t be doing that, but they should have let us know,” she said. “Had we known … we would have gone to the parents and had him apologize to them. Nobody even gave us a chance to do that.”

Since then, some of the girls have said they felt pressured to tell authorities and school officials what they wanted to hear - that the boys were doing something much worse.

Okay, so we’re talking about Prosecutors going after innocent children, because they’re easier to catch, scare and violate, while in the same exact state, a man who is flashing children, exposing his penis to them, is protected.

If you are as outraged as I am, that we are now going after little boys, instead of properly educating them for a behavior issue that should not have to ruin this child’s life, write the principal of his school today:

Patton Middle School

Jim Torgerson, Principal

JTorgerson@msd.k12.or.us

Phone: 503-565-4502

Or the McMinneville Police Chief, Ron Noble:

ron.noble@ci.mcminnville.or.us

I hope this blows up in Yahmhill Countie’s and Patton Middle School’s face and I hope a civil suit is filed against them.

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He knows right from wrong.

For instance, if you spill ketchup on the rug, you don’t try to hide the evidence. You fess up right away there’s an “uh-oh” with the “tat-tat,” and you take responsibility by dabbing at the spot with a paper towel.

He’s open-minded.

“Hey, if you give him candy, he’ll go for whatever side you want,” said his mom, Deborah Arrandale.

“He’s pretty laid-back.”

He even knows how to build consensus by repeating a request until everyone understands coffee milk is more desirable than juice.

The only problem is he’s not likely to be a peer to any defendant in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, where he’s been summoned to serve as a trial juror on May 8.

A 2-year-old can’t be charged with the kind of crimes that land a person in Superior Court. Read the rest…

 

 

Picture from www.mestrowestdailynews.com

2 year old Devan R. Arrandale

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On September 7, Ms. Duckett agreed to a phone interview with CNN’s Nancy Grace, presumably under the pretext that she would be allowed to tell her story, and hopefully someone, somewhere, would be able to shed some light on the case. What Duckett was certainly not told was that she instead was going to have her feet held to the fire on Grace’s virtual witness stand. Grace has yet to wake up from her fog and realize she’s a TV commentator, and no longer a prosecutor. Grace grilled this mother on her whereabouts at the time of her son’s disappearance, becoming belligerent, pounding her hand on the desk, all but straight out accusing Duckett. Shortly after the interview, Duckett took a shotgun and blew her brains out. Duckett’s family is claiming that Melinda was already “pushed to the brink” and that the media gave her the final shove. The most disgusting part of the story? They still ran the interview hours after learning about Duckett’s death.

I’ll admit that I’m entertained by Nancy Grace from time to time, just as it’s entertaining to watch a deranged person yell and dance in the middle of the street. But she has crossed the line here. I hope the Ducketts sue her and CNN for every penny they are worth. There’s certainly a legal precedent. Am I overreacting? Watch the video and judge for yourself:

[youtube]B6X-Jb296is[/youtube]

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True, the media went overboard with the rerunning of the kiddie pageant photos and videos that made the story such a sensation from the start. But, no matter what readers and viewers claim about being repulsed, bored or ambivalent, the media make their money by responding to what the public is interested in, as well as what’s in the public interest.

Let’s not forget, it was also the media that reported complications such as Karr’s ex-wife saying the guy was nowhere near Boulder, Colo., on the night of the crime and how DNA tests would be needed to sew up the case. Read the rest… (registration required)

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MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) _ A former Paterson teacher who was soon to be tried on multiple charges of having sex with a 14-year-old student has admitted to fondling the youth in a plea deal that will send her to jail for 364 days.

Jodi M. Thorp, a 39-year-old mother of three, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of child endangerment for fondling the student in her Mendham Township home in 2001. In addition to jail time, Thorp will be placed on probation for up to five years, register as a convicted sex offender and pay almost $1,000 in fines.

The story goes on to note that this was actually a plea bargain — the original charge was for having full on sex with the student for over 16 months. What I find interesting is that this is yet another sidebar on the news. If the recent string of teacher/student boot knocking had involved a male teacher and female student, Nancy Grace would have her panties in a bunch and Fox News would run large graphics proclaiming the “MASS RAPE EPIDEMIC IN OUR SCHOOLS”.

I know, double standard in the media, really shocking….

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Several months after JonBenet Ramsey’s mother is laid to rest and her soul reunited with her daughter, Patsy Ramsey may finally be vindicated. Now, I am a skeptical and rather cynical person on a good day and usually highly suspect of people I believe to have committed a crime, but I have always believed Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey were innocent. It was something about their demeanor and most of all their sarcasm on that infamous Larry King interview with the Ramseys where they mocked the investigators who continued to consider them as suspects. To this day, there was always of veil of uncertainty in the media and the public. No motive existed. The silly ransom note of $113,000. The fact that the parents didn’t find the child until 6 hours later only to be lying dead in their own basement. All of this easily explained in a way that any parent in a devastating crisis would probably be able to contend with – there is no normal way to act when your child is missing.

I sincerely hope that the suspect that has been arrested today is indeed the killer and that the Ramseys will get the truth they so deserve. The public doesn’t even prosecute and try convicted pedophiles or serial child killers (like Andrea Yates) the way they have mistreated this family. Anyone who has ever convicted this family without proof should be ashamed of themselves.

The killer has not been convicted yet in a court of law, but whether or not this current individual, now in custody, is the murderer or not, it still presents a situation where the story has more to it that anybody knows right now.

From the www.nytimes.com:

Suspect Is Arrested in JonBenet Ramsey Case

By DAVID STOUT

Published: August 16, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — A suspect has been arrested in Thailand in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey, the 6-year-old beauty queen whose slaying in her parents’ Colorado home nearly a decade ago shocked the nation and for a time cast a cloud on the family, federal officials said today.

The suspect was arrested on Tuesday night in Bangkok by members of the Boulder County, Colorado, district attorney’s office, United States immigration officers and the Royal Thai Police, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the immigration and customs enforcement agency of the Department of Homeland Security.

An American security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the man arrested is a United States citizen, and that the arrest resulted from “several months of fairly complex investigation.”

Federal officials familiar with the case said the man was already being held in Bangkok on unrelated sex charges, The Associated Press reported. CBS News reported that the suspect is a 41-year-old elementary-school teacher.

The Boulder County district attorney’s office declined to give details, pending a news briefing. There were early reports that the briefing would be held today, then subsequent reports that it would be held on Thursday. CBS said the suspect would be brought to the United States this weekend.

There were several unanswered questions this afternoon as news of the arrest began to spread, including exactly what charges will be lodged against the suspect and what led investigators to him after all this time. JonBenet was found beaten and strangled in the basement of the family home in Boulder the day after Christmas in 1996.

Early speculation centered on the parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, and even on a brother of the victim. But John Douglas, a noted F.B.I. crime-profiler, said in an interview on CNN this afternoon that he had never suspected anyone in the family. Read the rest…

[TAGS]JonBenet, JonBenet Ramsey,Jon Bene, Patsy Ramsey, John Ramsey, Boulder, CO[/TAGS]

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WHIOTV.com SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — A 10-month-old boy was rushed to an area hospital after he was hit in the head by a pellet from a BB gun.

 

According to reports from the Springfield Police Department, David Walden, 22, of 739 N. Belmont Ave., fired the gun inside his home Wednesday afternoon. The report said Walden picked up the gun and noticed something was wrong with the trigger, and he fired the gun twice. A pellet ricocheted off the fireplace and hit the child in the head.

 

Paramedics took the boy to Community Hospital, but he was later transported to Children’s Hospital for treatment.

 

Barb Frye, the baby’s aunt, said the BB was lodged under the skin of the child’s head, but she said doctors do not think the boy will have any brain damage.

 

So far, no charges have been filed. Springfield police could not comment on the case, but officers said the incident is still under investigation.

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