At the time, I remember watching the news and feeling sickened and repulsed. I’d watch Gary Condit on television and felt like he knew more than he was telling. He was cleared of all involvement and that should make me feel better about the situation, but recently, the case was tied up in a neat little bow and something still feels too neat. In fact, when Condit was cleared of charges, you could almost predict that an illegal immigrant would be found to have been at fault and Condit wouldn’t have anything to do with it, right?

Strange how that worked out. Levy’s remains were found in 2002 and a cellmate stated that Ingmar Guandique, in prison for something else, admitted to Condit paying him to kill Levy. He was recently convicted…however, the charges against Condit were ruled out.

Because no man has ever paid to have his mistress offed…especially a man in high power who was up for re-election. Condit even refused to admit his affair with Levy though his sperm DNA were found on her undergarments in her apartment.

I don’t know if Condit had anything to do with Levy’s murder, but the bottom line is that he’s kept mum for almost 10 years and I suspect he’ll continue to do so. It’s very Clinton-esque to deny, deny, deny, right? Either he truly had nothing to do with her murder and he’s innocent or he’s paid off the right people. The one thing I know about this is that it’s a stereotypical ending and when things are this open and shut, it’s rarely that easy.

We may never know what happened to Chandra Levy or why. Was it really just a robbery gone wrong? Did she get involved with the wrong man? Both? The only thing I know is that I’m still not buying what Gary Condit is selling and I don’t know why I can’t get over it. The prosecutors in this case “overcame a lack of any scientific evidence.” Why doesn’t that reassure me? This man could face life in prison with no parole. If he’s guilty, he deserves far worse. If he’s innocent? And if he’s guilty and was hired? Does the man who hired him deserve nothing?

This holiday season may her family have some peace that someone is paying for her death. I hope that it is the right person.

Those in my life that know me best know that I’m generally quite apathetic on most issues and due to my profession, I support people as to their decisions. With that said, I am adamantly pro-life for many personal reasons and many well thought out ones. As a humanist, a scientist, a mother, a woman, a friend, a social science major and someone who cares deeply for others…I can be nothing else.

My husband wrote a post today, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I’m linking it here. My personal whys will remain unsaid… Sometimes it is better that way.

In Memoriam

This is the post that you should be reading regardless of all of those things because even if you don’t think it’s YOUR problem, it’s OUR problem and I’m seriously worn out by it. The only way to fix it is to pull together and collectively decide we’re done and that we are going to publicly shame and shun for this offense and quit letting people slide. The only way to help that is to create stronger messages. And, chances are, you know someone who has a problem with this and, chances are, you are shaking your head and getting ready to close the window on this post. Let me explain myself.

Before my 18th birthday, I’d lost several friends to drinking and driving. I’m not talking about people I’d heard of through the grapevine. I’m talking about living, breathing people. One was in the band with me. One could hug like you wouldn’t believe. One shyly told me in the 6th grade that he wouldn’t mind dating me at all (ah, 6th grad boys). One was the quiet guy in the corner that never said a word. Those are just a few. By my 21st birthday, the numbers went higher and higher.

Less than a month ago, I received word that a boy from my hometown was killed. He was adamantly against drinking and driving and involved in some of the same groups that opposed it that I was involved with in high school. This 19 year old was also the nephew of my junior high best friend, so I’d spent a lot of time with him in his younger years. He’d had many health issues and struggled so much just to have a normal life. What I remember most about him, at that age, were these gorgeous, huge eyes that stared at me, and a beautiful smile that wouldn’t quit.

By all accounts, this boy turned into a young man, was succeeding in life. The man who hit him survived. The family is devastated. Shouldn’t they be? Wouldn’t you be?

If it were AJ…I don’t know that I could be rational.

So, when does it stop being acceptable? When do we stop allowing our friends to drive when they insist they are ok to drive? When do we push the cabs on them or make sure there is a DD before we serve them? I’ve never had a problem being DD being that I’m not a big drinker. Surely, I’m not the only one out there? Many restaurants offer to pay for cabs. Many bars do as well. How many of you would turn down someone if they called asking for a ride? So why isn’t this happening?

Why is it, when we find out someone has committed this offense, that we write it off as just another mistake? Is it not, and I’m going to say something extreme here, so please brace yourself, techincally attempted assault, at the very least? Attempted harm to another person? Suicide is illegal. At the very least, attempted harm to oneself? Attempted murder? What makes this any different from someone who actively goes after another person? Or someone who is going after multiple people wielding a weapon weighing over a ton? I’m aware they are charged with DUI, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Especially when many people are allowed to slide after multiple DUI’s for reasons such as knowing the judge in a small town.

Yes, I KNOW they think they are fine to drive and who are you to tell them they aren’t? They are impaired. It’s what alcohol does and why people like it so much. If it didn’t make people feel uninhibited, they wouldn’t drink it. Some people are fine to drive. Some people aren’t.

When do we stop giving them a free pass?

Whoops.

Someone is in trouuuuuubleeeeeeee.

I can’t figure out if it’s because she should be scared that she has poor intellectual genes or that she is now the proud winner of a hard life at the age of 13 years for an ill-informed decision made by her hormones. Either way, she’s got her mom, smart or not, wrapped around her finger.

Sweetie, if swimming in a pool could get you pregnant, women everywhere would be using that excuse like WOAH.

I feel bad for the girl, who may honestly believe it’s true now. Yes, it’s a naive thought, but I try to see the best in people. WE KNOW something takes place to get someone pregnant. At 13, and in another, less-sexualized country, we don’t know how much SHE knows.

I DON’T feel bad for her mom, who is clearly an idiot.

I DON’T feel bad for the lawyer who is going to get smacked for a frivolous lawsuit.

Am I wrong that I’m just incredibly thankful that this story, for once, took place outside of the United States?

The video you just saw was taken before anything was confirmed about Jose Carrasquillo, the suspect in the case. Later, ABC news reported that they found surveillance camera of Jose with the 11-year old rape victim, dragging her down an alley and into a backyard where he raped her severely enough that she had to undergo surgery.

What are your thoughts on vigilante justice? In this case, investigators implied that they might not have found Carrasquillo without the help of the neighbors who chased him down. He may have gone on to hurt others. Did he deserve the beating?

I think that most parents would have done the same thing that the neighbors did. They would have chased down the guy and hurt him, then held him down until the police got there. We’ve become very reliant upon our penal system to deter crime. In this case, we took care of our own.

For the better or for the worse?

I’ll take this one from neatorama. She looks nice and scared. She can come home with me.

Here’s what would happen if I took Tubby home, though. She would first pee on my clothes while rubbing on both Leon and A.J. and destroying my dogs and their will to live. Then she’d eat all of my food and pee on my furniture, only in the places where I sit. Every time I bothered to look at my husband, who would be her new human, she’d glare at me with a look that said “I’m waiting until you die so I can eat your face.” Would you like to know how I know this? Check out this page and see the header “Francis.”

The only thing you really need to know from all of this is that I love animals of most sorts. Not all animals. PETA can come hate on me whenever they want. There are certain animals that scare the bejeebus out of me and that won’t change no matter how much paint or food coloring you splatter on me.

I have a particularly tender heart for animals, actually. I’m one of those people that love my pets like family and care about their well-being. So, for someone like me, the internet can be an unusually hazardous place to navigate. It also makes me angry beyond belief and right now my heart is breaking and my temper is lit like Times Square on New Years Eve.

After reading this article, I am troubled. There is no doubt in my mind that the media used the most flippant picture they could find of this young girl, but it’s hard for me to not want to reach through the computer and tell her some things. In the article, the girl, who is 17 years old and named Cheyenne, said that she roasted her ex-roommate’s kitten to death in the stove as a joke.

A joke.

She roasted a kitten alive as “a joke.” Normal people do not consider this “a joke.” This is after they broke into the person’s apartment and trashed it. That was the beginning of the joke. Then they threw the cat into the stove and left it there to burn. The article, written by Lisa Coleangelo, Erica Pearson and Bill Hutchinson states that she was charged with “aggravated cruelty to animals, burglary, arson, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.” They then released her into her mother’s custody, where she obviously has freedom to do whatever she wants in the first place.

Ok, let’s cast a little aspersion on character for just a small second here. Who, in their right mind, considers what this person did a sound idea? A just idea? When people start harming animals in adolescence, it often leads to stronger issues in adulthood. Of course, they don’t mention if she had any kind of mental check, but they won’t release that kind of information. We have to assume they didn’t or, if they did, she checked out just fine.

Where do we draw the line? If someone is 17, almost an adult, and they show this lack of judgment, what does that mean, if anything? We have graduated licenses for those drivers that aren’t quite ready for the responsibility, what about graduated adulthood? Granting those teenagers that show wise judgment the rights and responsibilities of adulthood and putting those that do not on a graduated course that they, ideally, should have already taken in economics, parenting, society and good common sense, in high school?

I know, I know. It’s a strong statement, but I’m feeling strongly about this today. Thoughts?

A fertility doctor, located in the Middle East, by the name of Panayiotis Zavros, took the blood from a dead child and claims that he created cloned embryos of her and implanted them in the wombs of four different women. The Daily Mail article notes that Zavros has made these claims before and has said that the first human clone could be conceived within the next year. You can read the article to get more information on his process and procedure. In essence, Cady, the girl’s mother, gave the doctor the blood in order to give Cady a “biological presence” in the world.

Ok, deep breath here.

As a mom, there are many things I know. The first being that if anything ever happened to my child, I would be crushed beyond belief and that I would do just about anything to get him back. Likely, I wouldn’t be thinking rationally and I might have the same irrational thought that by cloning my child and having his physical DNA in the world, my son would be “back.” However, here’s the other thing I know: we are products of both our genetics and our experiences. Whatever child came into this word would be genetically Cady, but experientially, she would not be the same child. She wouldn’t. And that child would not be born to Cady’s “real mom” and therefore, that biological presence wouldn’t be hers either. She would lose the very things that make motherhood what it is: That sense of possessiveness and joy as that individual goes out into the world with what you have helped give them to grow and learn.

Would I want him back? Of course I would. Would I want someone else to have my A.J.? Not a chance. Would he really be my A.J.? No. He really wouldn’t.

The ethical questions swirl: Should human cloning be allowed? Should human embryos be used? Should children be “resurrected” by use of their blood or adult skin cells at the whims of their grieving parents? Should doctors be allowed to perform these procedures? Is this particular doctor taking advantage of parents who are not yet done mourning the loss of their daughter? There are some that believe Zavros should be jailed for his tampering with human DNA.

What do you believe?

The focus of the show was on a program called “Puppies behind Bars.” The program gives puppies to inmates in prison and has them train dogs to be service dogs for disabled, handicapped and ex-servicemen from the military who have needs. The show focused on how the dogs change both the lives of the prisoners and the lives of the servicemen for the better.

Now, I have no problem showing emotion, but I was doing everything could to hold it together for this one because if I let it start, it wasn’t going to stop. Dogs are special to me because I know what they can do to heal someone’s spirit. I’ve long considered using my dogs in therapy and it may yet happen. To watch these incarcerated men, some for violent crime, break down and weep because of these dogs, was heart-wrenching. To see someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder slowly healing with the help of a dog was humbling. We all want unconditional love, don’t we?

Let me sum up the article for you. Dad gets sick with cancer. Grown daughter gives birth and decides HEY! Boob milk is full of immune boosting antioxidants that my dad should be drinking that will help him fight cancer. Dad agrees and drinks boob milk every day.

And, wait for it, he puts it on his cornflakes in the morning.

I want to believe I’m open-minded to unconventional treatments, but this feels overwhelming to me. This story ends on a hopeful note:

Hope at last
A month after starting the regimen, a scan of Tim’s cancer showed a slight, but distinct, improvement. Although doctors can’t say whether the breastmilk’s helped, Georgia says he’s brighter and has more energy.

She has promised to continue feeding Tim for as long as she can. ‘He has been having chemo as well as drinking the milk so there’s no way of really finding out if it is helping,’ Georgia explains. ‘I’m still feeding Monty so I feed him first, then I fill a bag for my dad. We’ll continue as long as I am breastfeeding.

‘It feels like I’m doing the most natural thing for the people I love. ‘I’ve been there when he has drunk it and it’s just not an issue. ‘Not many women can say their dad drinks their breastmilk. But I would do anything to give my dad more time with me, our family and Monty.’

And I am still processing it. If it were someone I loved, would I be ok with it? If it gave them a chance? What do you think?