Death is Serious!

Nearly every morning I have a rather lengthy 1/2 hr- 1 hr beginning of day event (whatever time that happens to be) in which I introduce the world to myself.  This usually involves  Facebook, My blog, couple of dating sites, etc… You get the routine.  I seldom read news articles then.  I will read some throughout the day if it hits my fancy.  The Olympics is normally the exception as I try to keep up a bit through the clips and such.

Today, I got a very late start.  As my computer was coming up, it (Windows 8.1) gives me that header page summarizing things.  I seldom pay much attention, but this time a news title stuck in my head and got my attention.  I have lost/forgotten the exact title, but it dealt with a court in Texas halting the execution of a man who did not commit a murder.  The article is below.  Read as much or little as you wish:

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday halted an execution planned for next week of a man convicted as an accomplice to a murder he did not commit in a case that raised questions about how the state applies the death penalty.

Jeffery Wood, 43, was scheduled to be executed on Aug. 24 by lethal injection. He was convicted of taking part in a 1996 convenience store robbery during which clerk Kriss Keeran was fatally shot.

In its decision, the appeals court asked a lower court to review his sentence and claims from Wood’s lawyer that it was obtained in violation of due process because it was based on false testimony and false scientific evidence.

Wood’s lawyer questioned a witness for the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, who told a court in the 1990s Wood would commit future acts of violence and was a threat to society.

Grigson, nicknamed “Dr. Death” for his willingness to testify against people facing the death penalty, was expelled from the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association for ethical violations: making diagnoses of capital murder defendants without first examining them.

“The court did the right thing by staying Mr. Wood’s execution and authorizing his claims related to Dr. Grigson’s false testimony during the sentencing phase to be considered on the merits,” said Jared Tyler, Wood’s lawyer.

Wood was unarmed in a vehicle outside the store when it was robbed. Prosecutors have said Wood knew the clerk might be shot. Wood’s lawyers said he was unaware that a robbery was underway.

Wood’s roommate at the time, Daniel Reneau, was convicted of pulling the trigger and executed on June 13, 2002.

“I am not aware of a case where a person has been executed with so minimal culpability and with such little participation in the event,” Tyler said in an interview.

Under Texas’ “Law of Parties,” a person can be charged with capital murder even if the offense is committed by someone else.

After he heard a shot, Wood entered the store to help Reneau steal a cash box, safe and security video system.

Ten people have been executed as accessories to felony murder since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors capital punishment.

Five have been in Texas, which has executed more people than any state since the death penalty was reinstated. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Here’s the thing:  I do not see how you can execute someone who really did not have a part in the murder of someone.  I suppose I understand if someone gave the order or forced a person to kill someone else, but that didn’t happen here.

Now, I am, basically, against the death penalty.  I am fine with life imprisonment without possibility of parole.  People get mad at me by telling me how much money we spend imprisoning someone for life.  Or, they say, what if it was one of your children, your sister, or your Mom who was murdered?

I have thought this one through.  I don’t care about the money.  I mean, we have a government owing over 17 trillion dollars and could cut that by stopping a lot of programs or changing the ways they do business.  They don’t and, most likely, won’t.  So even if it’s 20 billion a year or even more, it’s a drop that shouldn’t consider being stopped until they change all the other crap they are doing.

Second, I consider life sacred.  No, I don’t worry much about bugs or even plants (perhaps, I should – some of them seem nicer than a lot of people I know), but people are different.  People scream to stop all the killing in Africa or in wars in other countries; they scream about “wrongful” killing of animals, wild/tame in the world; they scream about abortions being legal at all.  These are all screamed about, but the killing of someone who killed someone else kinda goes by the wayside.  It’s an opinion.  My hope is that, if my close family member was murdered and they caught the person red-handed, that I would be able to ask the court to not impose the death penalty, but go for life w/o parole.  Killing them wouldn’t bring back the person I love, and it wouldn’t make me feel “better”.  I don’t consider avenged as necessarily better.

I know, all just my opinion.  And why should you listen to my opinion?  Well, ask this:  if you drove your friend to a store to pick up bread and he/she robbed the store and killed someone and YOU were arrested (in Texas) and convicted and sentenced to execution, wouldn’t you be glad if that wasn’t a possibility?  I mean life in prison is murder (pun intended), but still you might get out someday if the law changes.  You can’t take back an execution.  Just a thought.

How do you feel about all of it?  Let me have it.  I have broad shoulders and a lot of my close friends and family would, most likely, shake their heads at me here and call me “nuts”.

Namaste,

Scott

Clarity and Truth Ignored – PG – Humorous – Friday Fictioneers

Brought to you by Rochelle, Friday Fictioneers rocks!  Read mine below and > HERE < for the rest.  Enjoy!!!

Source: PHOTO PROMPT -Copyright – Jan Wayne Fields Click on Pic for page.

Clarity and Truth Ignored

By Scott L Vannatter

Clarisse opened one of the drawers in the writing table she had gotten at the bazaar. She unfolded the parchment she found. She was pleased with both.

The parchment was written by the man pictured sitting. It seemed obvious the man was writing something important, perhaps, the beginnings of a book.

Her eyes went wide. She knew no one had ever seen this piece before. It was, simply, the man in the picture writing about how horrible he felt the other picture (of the hunt) had been done. He felt it mostly childlike in nature.

She tore the piece up.

A Few Questions to Ponder

I Don’t pay for good questions or suggestions, so don’t ask!

I have been in a thoughtful mood as of late.  One of the areas I have been concentrating on and reading about is personal growth.  Whether that be to find a mate, a date, or what to have for supper it is important to understand the why you do something and, perhaps, the should you do it.

The books I have been reading talk about growing in many areas, partly to be able to hold a solid conversation and to have an opinion on things.  Apathy is, indeed, a conversation killer and it also stagnates the mind.  In order to have an opinion that is worth something, you must be informed well on whatever it is you are holding an opinion of.  Take, for example, the highly-charged last presidential election.  You could vote simply by party.  My parents mostly do that.  So do an awfully lot of people I personally know.  I try hard not to do that.  I listen and read some from both sides and listen some more.  Then I actually research a few items, especially near election time.  It doesn’t make me better than anyone, but it does round out my personality and I can, usually, see both sides in an argument.  It allows me to talk and to talk intelligently.

But, getting back to the task at hand, I would like to simply pose a few questions for you to ponder.  I would love for you to answer them in the comments, but I will have done my job if I just get you to do the questions.  At least, try to tell me that you read them and are looking at them (if you are).

1)  What is the greatest thing in the world to you?  Why?

2)  What is the most charged topic you can think of for you?  How do you stand on it?  Why?

3)  Are you more read, in general, than most of your friends?  family?  Does that make it harder or easier to talk with them?

4)  Do you consider current books and/or movies important enough to research and to understand before you give an opinion?

5)  Thinking of number 4, how do you feel about music?

That will do.  Enjoy the questions.  Have fun with them.  Get a dialogue going here if you want to.  It’s supposed to be enjoyable to learn and to discuss.  If it isn’t, maybe we best start looking there first!

Namaste,

Scott

An Important Post: I Really Need to Hear from You!

Sometimes, life just gets to you!

My stats last night showed that I have done over 520 posts on “Kindredspirit23”.  Now, a few of those posts were years ago when I first thought I would blog and stopped after a few short posts.  I still believe I have done 500+ in a row since my new comeback.  I decided not to take the time to actually figure it out.  It doesn’t really matter.  I made a decision to be dedicated to this blog and have worked, valiantly at times, to do so.

Lately, I have become rather upset with myself.  I had not been able to grasp why until I decided to really sit down and figure it out for myself.  I feel like I am not getting anything done and that the world is rushing around me and through me.  It’s not a good feeling, and I remember it from before the stroke.  Don’t worry; it’s not to that point; I simply remember the feeling.  However, everything has a beginning, so ignoring these feelings might just be the start back to the old days and I am not going there.

So, I sat down and decided to figure it out.  I have always been good at that.  Sometimes, I have been a little too good.  My Dad used to tell me that I think too much.  I imagine, over the years, I have been guilty of just that.  In fact, I know I have.  The problem is that you cannot figure something out very well if you do not have all the facts.  I tried to figure out everything and everyone and, seldom, did I have enough facts to really do it.  Add the fact that I was OCD and ADD, depressed, anxious, and a very strong people-pleaser, and you have a formula to screw up any figuring out of relationships and people in general.

I have always taken everything to heart.  It has been my greatest asset in making and keeping friends, as well as my greatest personal enemy.  If I look back at my life in full, my “greatest asset” was, most likely, the very biggest contributor to my stroke.  It affected how I ate, how I talked, how I behaved, how I thought.  Everything, in fact, in my life, centered on my taking everything to heart.

I have been reading and thinking and changing since my stroke.  Up to that point, I think I was only preparing to change.  The stroke opened up floodgates of emotions and thoughts, allowing me to think more clearly and to begin the journey to learning more about me and why I am the way I am.

In case you are getting a little lost, this is me thinking.  I am, currently, sitting down and figuring it out.  This is one of the ways I work through things – I think and I write.  What used to happen was that I would get afraid of what others might think if they saw what I wrote, so I would put it away or delete it.  Now, I think it is good if others see this so I can get some feedback on what I am doing right or wrong.  Either one will help me if given in good spirits and with good intention.  So, when this is over – fire away.

I have always wanted to succeed, but I have not always chosen success.  I have always had it instilled within me to succeed, but have only learned, really, how to fail.  I see now a lot of it was because I concerned myself almost totally with pleasing others at the expense – well, at the expense of me, obviously.  I have stopped most of that.  I do things more for myself now, though there are exceptions.

Those exceptions can be important; I need to see them and to understand them.  One of the more recent ones has been trying to make my blog a big success.  By that I do not mean setting it up, sticking to the schedule, trying to choose posts that people will enjoy, or anything like that.  What I mean is my underlying worry that people might not like something I say in a post or that I would not have enough comments or views.

I have been told enough by my blog friends that my posts are a mixture and, usually, interesting.  I have enough followers and comments and views to let myself know it’s all doing okay.  Thank you for that.  You out there are responsible for all you read and say and do.  Where I have fallen short is doing so much that I, at times, do not like what I am doing – I am having a hard time liking my blog.  It began to be a job and I refuse to allow that to happen.

I believe it is all mental; it is simply a matter of changing my attitude and not, necessarily doing anything much different.  However, that attitude change is so very important and, instead of digging through myself without enough information to process it correctly, I have decided to turn some of that over to you.  So here is your “homework”.  Here is what I would love to hear back from you concerning:

1)       Do you love your blog?  Why?

2)      Do you every get overwhelmed with it all?  How do you cope with that?

3)      Any other words to help me cycle through this properly?

I look forward to hearing all you have to say.  You are all a very special brand of friends and family to me.

Namaste,

Scott

Severed Head or Bare Butt

I have read about this issue and thought about it and have gone through it myself.  I cannot for the life of me figure it out.

Television time, movie time, renting time, whatever…I dealt with kids, students, etc…all talking about it.  Why can they watch something like “Nightmare on Elm Street 1” but people flip out with something in which, at some point in the show a person’s bare butt appears?  What is this big problem with sex and not a problem with violence?

Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it.  The thought was reintroduced to me when I was reading a post by Lady or not —> post is here <— *note – this particular blog is a little more adult than mine (or most of yours).  Just letting you know before you pop over there and get surprised.  I enjoy the post immensely and she is a wonderful person, but…or butt…

Anyway, the whole thing raised its head again and I decided I would put the most talented and smart group of people I know (that’s you guys) on duty to help explain why it is that we as a society condone violence more than sex.

I do not want to go on record as saying kids should see either of them early in life.  It’s not that; it is that I have just noticed that all things point to sex as having been labeled as worse than violence in nearly all things to be viewed or talked about.

I am not being hippocritical; I did kinda the same thing when my children were little.  My son and I watched violent shows quite a bit.  Not the violence that is on today, but things considered violent back then.  I did it too.  Why?  It seems so dumb to me now.   It doesn’t make sense if it’s to keep them from having sex young.  If that is true, then we don’t care if they kill or beat someone to death?  If it’s that we can explain the violence easier, that’s just a pity.

I am thinking that we are more comfortable with violence than sex.  That’s a shame.  I think it would be better for our world, in general, if we introduced the idea to children a bit earlier and did it in a positive fashion.  Not to practice it, just to understand it better.  We should open the subject up for questions and educate ourselves so that we understand all of it better.  I have had some adults say some things to me about sex that made me do kind of a double take.  I remember thinking, “How can you possibly believe that?”

This is one of those posts that I could continue discussing all day and still not cover it, so, instead, I would like for you all to do that.  I will give you a couple of ways.

First, give me your opinions on the basic question concerning sex vs violence.

Second, if you would like, ask a question, posit something here in the comments to get us going on it.  If it really takes off I will do another post on that area so we can center in.  But, at least, let’s talk.  You all do that really well, as do I.

Let’s hear it!!!

Namaste,

Scott