My Thoughts on Casey Anthony.....

The recent events in the court room cause me to ponder our justice system. It is still the best system in the world……I think.

Anyone who has had any experience in our justice machine is pretty much aware that where the courtroom begins, common sense ends. This Casey Anthony case is yet another in a long string of very high profile cases that proves that assertion. Let’s look at this a moment…..no DNA, no determinant cause of death, no murder weapon and no apparent witnesses. Those are the facts. If you looked at those facts only as apparently the jury did then she is not guilty. Now the common sense facts that can also not be disputed…she waited 30 days to report the little girl missing….during those 30 days she had relations with 6 different men, went out on the town frequently and never seemed to have a care in the world. Once the story broke and the authorities were brought in she continually lied and misled them about the entire course of events. Even now after the verdict I see little concern on the mother’s part or any of that dysfunctional family to find out what really happened to that little girl.

Almost everyone I hear on the talking head shows believes this woman was complicit but many can only look at this case through the very narrow prism of what they claim are the rules of law.

Now all of you intellectual types that purport reasonable doubt as being the standard for determining guilt win yet again. How about unreasonable doubt? How about lawyers turning what common sense logic should be into reasonable doubt? Perhaps the real problem is the majority of people sitting on a jury aren’t intelligent enough to get out of jury duty. I hope that’s not the real problem here because jury duty really is a civic duty. It is just troubling that people being people can’t look at a case entirely and not just intellectually in an almost machine-like process devoid of any emotion or common sense.

So that’s my rail on our justice system. In my heart of hearts I think we have a good system and we are still a people that must live under a rule of law. Just keep in mind that we are people…not robots and as such we should be able to examine all circumstances behind a death to determine through reasoned logic what we think really happened. When we loose that, we loose our humanity.

My Pride And Joy

There is simply no more intense gift than the gift of seeing your offspring succeed. You spend many sometimes difficult years trying to impart your wisdom of experience and yet seeing when they finally “get it”……it’s one of those moments in time when pride can overcome you. This happened to me recently. It is a moment that only a parent can fully appreciate. It’s even more intense because when they do finally understand the things you’ve tried to teach then you suddenly understand your own parent’s previous heartaches as well as proud moments. It is almost a double moment of self revelation.

I am blessed. Those words can’t be overused in my opinion. It’s one thing to grow up and try to do things right for yourself and try to succeed for yourself but it is quite another to have a son or daughter display signs of success and winning in life. My daughter recently wrote a blog addressing some of life’s lessons that she has come to understand and not through always the easiest of paths. I think some of her revelations are lessons I am still learning. That is awe inspiring to me.

So a lesson for me is how someone you try to guide through life…thinking you may have the answers….ends up teaching you something special. How good is that? So I suppose we did something right. Am I proud? You bet I am. Am I bragging? Right on count two as well.

Basically it is quite easy to look around and find all of the negatives in this life. I choose to, at least for this moment, to enjoy the recent successes of my little girl. Life is hard enough to not ignore the victories. So way to go Ms. Bourey……my favorite teacher of all time!