Money buys justice in Texas

State District judge, Jean Boyd ruled yesterday that a sixteen-year old DUI driver who killed four would get no jail time. Instead, his parent could pay for treatment and he would have a ten-year probation. The Dallas Morning News reports that the treatment may well come in Newport Beach, California at the parents’ expense, reported to be $450,000 a year.

You might remember this case when a psychologist for the defense said that Ethan Couch was suffering from a malady called “affluenza” when his car struck and killed four people on the side of a dark highway. That illness is described as a dysfunctional relationship with family, due to being coddled by wealthy parents to the point of not knowing right from wrong.

The real culprit in this injustice is the judge.  Jean Boyd just a few weeks before sentenced a fourteen-year old black youth to juvenile detention for hitting (one punch according to court records). The punch killed his friend.

The difference in these cases is that Couch had prior DUI run-ins with the law.  He was traveling at 75 MPH in a 40 MPH zone and he took four innocent lives.  And he is from a rich family.  The black youth, on the other hand,  had no priors and his family did not have money.

So it seems, at least on the surface that Judge Boyd was swayed with the glitter of the wealthy.  It is so bad that a recall petition has been started and is winding its way toward Governor Rick Perry.  That would probably do no good, since Boyd represents the very people who placed Perry into power.

I don’t know if there is such a thing as “affulenza” of not.  It sounds specious to me.  But even if there is such, to kill four people and to basically walk away from the crime with little more than a monetary slap on the wrist is a crime in itself. A crime against justice in Texas.

Coke got it right.

My family came from Italy and England.

My wife's ancestors came from England and Germany.

My neighbors came from Peru and Guam.

The people who live behind us came from Finland and Scotland. There is also a Puerto Rican and Colombian couple as well. And we all live in the center of lily-white, conservative, Dallas, Texas. Not one of us is Navajo or Cherokee or Creek or Sioux. Not a Native American among us; yet we are all proud, patriotic Americans who love this country and what it stands for.

And that is what the Coke commercial said so loudly and so eloquently. 

The United States is a melting pot: a country that was founded on diversity. A land that was built by immigrants from all corners of the globe. And to hear the small-minded brains rail about the commercial which ran in the Super Bowl, reminds me of how far we have slid back into the throws of the darkness of evil, mistrust and bigotry. If you listen to them, you would think that America was a white, Christian nation founded on the principles of Fox News. It was not and is not.

America is a land of opportunity for all. Regardless of color, creed, religion and sexual orientation. It is a land that was taken from the Indians by our forefathers. It is a land that we have settled and claimed now as out own.  But we — the people who live here now are not white only. Not Christian only. Not all Republican, right-wing only.  Some of us are even gay and lesbian. We are a nation of a mixed lot.

But we are a nation. And regardless of our differences, we are one people.  We are Americans.

Coke got it right.  Drink up. And shut up.

Heroin wins. Again.

Another celebrity is down.  Drugs.  Out of rehab and down.

Heroin.

Talent wasted.

It must be so very hard to break the cycle.  It must be next to impossible.  And that doesn't take away any of the tragedy in this, but the reality is, Hoffman made a decision and died because of it.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman decided he could handle heroin. He could not. And it killed him. His decision. His actions. His miscalculations killed him and took a wonderful talent away from us.

Regardless of how and where you stand on this matter, this actor died because of a very dangerous drug that is now in epidemic proportions in some areas of our country. It is not something to be played with, tried and toyed with. Heroin is a killer. It grips you and tightens its grip around your life until there is no life.

OD. Too much sauce. Popped a vein. Be as smug as you wish.  Hoffman died because he lost the fight with heroin. And his loss is all of ours, too. And that is what is so damn sad in this. We will never get a chance to see that talent work its magic on the screen again.

All because heroin won.

But never forget...Hoffman decided to play the game. It was his call.  His fault.

If it quacks, it's a duck...

I just heard a psychologist on CNN say that the word “THUG” is now a politically incorrect word.  It is not PC…it is unacceptable to describe the person exhibiting rude and boorish behavior as a thug.   

Sorry, Doctor…The Seattle football player who ranted on TV acted like a thug.  Not a racial comment, a social comment.

You can be white, black, brown or purple and still act like a thug.  And when you do, society has a right to label you as such. We don’t need someone from some institute telling us that THUG is a racial slur.  It is not.  The behavior was a slur on our good taste and good senses.

A thug is a thug, regardless what color the person who acts as such is. Thug has no color lines.

When the right to life becomes the right to dictate...we've crossed the line.

There is a hearing set for today in a Fort Worth, Texas  court to determine if the local hospital district can unplug a brain-dead woman from artificial life support.  She is carrying a 22- week old deformed child which is not growing properly according to doctors who have examined the fetus through ultrasound.

It is for cases like this that the right to choose makes so much sense.  The woman had left implicit instructions with family not to prolong her life in case of  an accident and the husband and father to the unborn fetus wants to carry out his late wife’s request. I say late wife because if it were not for machines, this woman would be dead.

The typical forces are at odds here. Right to Choose versus the Right to Dictate. This is the type of case that implores me to side with the Right to chose.  I am not a huge advocate for abortions.  I wish, as a society we would do more to promote safe, affordable contraception and not have to rely on the doctors to clean up our messes. But until the state gets out of the contraception business, we are going to have abortions— legal or otherwise.

But this case is not about an abortion, as we would recognize it. It is about a fetus that is now suffering from trying to develop inside of a dead woman. But a larger issue exists here.  It is the issue of government interference in our lives. 

The very conservatives who cry out to end Roe v Wade and to hold up this Texas Law protecting an unborn fetus of a dead woman, are the same people who rant and rave about too much government interfering in our daily life.  I couldn’t agree more.  Government needs to step aside from issues like this and allow medical doctors and family to decide.

The thing I wonder the most about is who will take care of a deformed child if it even lives through birth?  Certainly the /state of Texas will not. It barley takes care of healthy children who need its support.  And will the right to lifers step forward and give the family the millions of dollars will take to maintain a life for a child that could be suffering from untold deformities and life-threatening disorders?  I think not.

Most doctors associated with this case have said the child will not develop enough for birth. But there are those who say as long as the sonogram shows a fetus, you can’t pull the plug.

This is wrong.  It is inhumane and it is way out of bounds for a society as ours to inflict a family with such continued grief.

Show me the money.

I have just returned from Illinois, notorious for corrupt government and wasteful spending and yet, their roads, especially their city streets Naperville and Chicago as well as other burbs, were in terrific shape.  As compared to the streets here in Dallas and else ware in Texas.  So, I want to know where the tax dollars for the upkeep of our infrastructure is going?

Show me the money. Show me the cash.  Where is it being spent?

I just rode my bike along neighborhood streets in Dallas that are in such bad shape I was afraid that my fillings were going to be rattled out of my teeth.  In Naperville and the surrounding area, the streets, even in icy cold conditions with salt and sand on them, are smooth and unblemished for the most part.  What gives?

The same is true in Austin, Houston and other cities in the Lone Star State.  And our state highways (those not being turned into toll roads) are faring about the same.

What gives? It is time for an audit.  Where has the money gone?

We have become a little stupid in our paranoia of the boogie man.

There is no reason, other than stupidity and pure ignorance that this had to happen.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/02/customs-officials-explain-why-they-destroyed-musicians-prized-flutes/

Nothing more to add than, come on America, grow up. This kind of behavior is down right embarrassing.