Sundrip Journals
Boy have commercials stooped low. There’s one commercial that says if we buy a wireless phone we’ll be helping war torn
The issue of vulnerability, of disadvantage and sitting out while another group moves forward is a powerful media tool! Through out history women and minorities have sat out while others moved forward.
M (age 14) wasn’t yet across the street so he had no clue he was being blamed for everything.
Concerned Neighbor wanted to say: Jail! You in jail? You’re the same kid who got his ass kicked by a skinny little something. You fell on the ground and cried like a girl because he kicked you. What on earth do you think you’d do when some big boys get a hold of you?
Concerned Neighbor said- Probation? You’re 13. You shouldn’t even know the word probation.
Little Pimp wanna be (age 9) stood white as snow nearly in tears next to Cry Baby and his little brother. M was still across the street hiding in the bushes. They kept calling to him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to run or join the blame party. Finally he came over and stood with us.
Cry Baby’s brother (age 9)- If you call the police my Dad is going to whoop my ass.
I was in line to buy radically discounted chocolates. The line seemed to be dragging because the young cashier struck up a conversation with every customer. She wanted to know if they had any foreign coins she could have to add to her collection. She bragged about her Canadian coins and her coins from Mexico then about her coin from Zimbabwe. It became clear that she had mild retardation because of how she worded things but none the less her enthusiasm for coins gave way to complete strangers celebrating the 21st anniversary of one customer’s sobriety. The young cashier noticed a large coin in her wallet and said, “Oh you belong to the same club as a guy who just left.” The customer pulled out her AA coin and explained that on the 19th of this month she would celebrate 21 years of sobriety. The cashier said with a huge smile, “oh your family must be so proud of you.” The customer said they didn’t support her at all because of the mistakes she made when she was drinking. The cashier didn’t understand why but she never asked for further explanation as the line was getting longer. Once the customer said she had been sober nearly 21 years the lady behind me clapped and congratulated her. So there the whole line (6 people) clapped for her and congratulated her on her anniversary. A few stories were exchanged about personal sobriety, she gathered her purchases, thanked us for our support and left.
It never made sense to me why someone would turn to drinking or drugs until I started dealing with chronic pain and horrible anxiety attacks. Yesterday had someone offered me a joint to ease the anxiety there is no doubt in my mind I would have taken it. I thought about going across the street to see if a neighbor of mine had anything because the clonapin wasn’t working fast enough. I thought about this woman, I thought about Blossom and her sobriety, about Kathy, about others I know who have overcome addiction. I know they have set a good example of how to overcome this addiction, they’ve shared stories of how life was while using and it let me know that I just don’t want to travel down that road. It also has become clear to me that a person with an addiction doesn’t have some inherent flaw and that the most precious people, the most kind and loving high spirited people can fall to addiction. There is no evil within that causes a person to drink and become addicted. I never ever thought that, but I also never understood until recently just what drives a person to use and I never really grasped how easily a person can fall prey to addiction until recently either. Sometimes it’s as “simple” as numbing physical pain like with Blossom or numbing emotional pain like with Kathy. One thing is for certain, no one sets out to become an addict. I have a feeling that one day a person needs to numb and the next thing you know life is upside down and the losses rack up higher than you ever thought they could. I’ve heard of people losing everything, absolutely everything to drugs and other addictions. Blossom lost her family, her daughters and this customer lost her family over it too. It tells me two things, anyone can fall prey to this because everyone needs some sort of out let for pain whether it’s emotional or physical.
When it comes to abuse there are years that I can not get back, things stolen from me that I’ll never see again. As an informed adult I have to watch my step so as not to fall prey to numbing with substances that could take away what I’ve worked to preserve. People like this customer who celebrates her sobriety today show extra courage and strength when they pull out their coin and tell everyone that they have lasted 21 years without a drink or a drug and you can do it too. I was inspired by her and the reaction of the customers in line. They actually cheered for her. It was rather Hollywood but I thought it was nice and I think she appreciated it as well. All of this celebrating, all of the after thought occurred because one very social cashier asked everyone she waited on if they had any foreign coins. Its simple really, one conversation leads to another, leads to connection, leads to thought, leads to change and or prevention. I like simplicity, especially when it travels down complicated roads and lays understanding which leads to compassion.
CONGRATULATIONS DEAR STRANGER ON 21 YEARS OF SOBRIETY
and THANK YOU for your example of courage and the strength to overcome odds.
Austin
A Stranger Celebrates Sobriety
A Gratitude Monday entry- written Sunday, November 19, 2006-7:51AM EST
I’ve watched the show. I think it’s great that they would put their mugs on TV and catch them in the act. There was seemingly no way for them to get away with what they’d done and no way for them to talk their way out of it. The key word is “seemingly.”
There was a guy that they caught twice, once at the child’s house and then at McDonald’s. His behavior was typical of a child molester. He bitched up really quickly when confronted by an adult about what he was doing. At first I wondered why they let the men go but maybe they didn’t realize they could detain them. After the first show they started arresting them right on the spot. It’s true that men from all walks of life, all colours and sizes showed up to the house. A man even brought his little son to the home of the child he intended to molest. What kind of crap is that? This show does a lot of good in that it catches predators but even their efforts are sometimes thwarted by unjust laws that protect offenders.
There is a lot of focus on male offenders. Usually people are disgusted at male offenders. They’re ready to throw the book at them but they turn around and joke about female offenders. The other night on Jay Leno he made 2 jokes about pedophiles. The first joke was about a female teacher found in bed with not one but 2 of her students. He said it was the result of over crowding in the schools. He said, “Whatever happened to one on one tutoring.” The crowd groaned but they also laughed. In the same show he talked about one of the men who plead guilty on Dateline. He said that the man didn’t get the sentence he should have gotten because he was too short to go to prison. See, our justice system says this man is too short to go to prison because he’ll be “victimized.” Jay said they should give him some shoe lifts and send him up state. Why did he feel differently about the male offender than he did the female offender? TV personalities also do a lot to damage public opinion concerning sexual offenses. I wonder if he realized that in the same show he thought lightly of the boys that were molested but was angered by the girls that were molested. I wonder if he even thought twice about the message he was sending.
I thought more than twice about it. These women are let go to offend again. They’re let go to ruin some little boy’s life. They’re looked at as less dangerous because they are female but truthfully, they’re adding to the number of potential criminals by molesting these boys. There is little help out there for male survivors. The support network for them is less than that for women by a gross percentage but the percentage rate for male survivors to become violent criminals or sex offenders themselves is high also. Does the law understand that they are letting female offenders go so that they can help increase the number of criminals on the street? When you don’t view women as equal predators you give them a free pass to ravage the lives of innocent people. There is nothing funny about that.
More Calls For Death Penalty in Child Rape Cases
(John) Couey, You’re A Dead Man
Is Death Too Harsh For Sex Offenders?
Art by: F. Magdalene
See also: Declaration of the Rights of the Child
To Catch A Predator: Dateline NBC -Wednesday, May 31, 2006-1:36 AM
The model on Leno tonight is hilarious. She’s married to Seal and they just had a baby boy. Sitting next to her is the star of Brokeback Mountain. He seems rather frightened of the woman. She’s popular but I can’t remember her name. He looks like he wants to yell, “please don’t hit me!”
Today has been a decent day. I can’t complain. Therapy was kind of rough but I’m not sure if it was rough because I hadn’t seen her in a month or because it was snowing, dark and rainy and I was coming off a caffeine high.I decided to do some fun PC art instead of the more serious stuff. The picture reminds me of high school. I was somewhat on the odd side in high school. There I was in a preppy school with the hair of Tracy Chapman only with pink highlights. Oh we thought we were so cool in the 80’s with our shocking pink hair and combat boots. The neon colours were so loud but everyone wore them. Rainbow Bright was no longer a doll on the shelf, we looked like her proudly. Some days I thought I was the black Punky Bruster.
The boy threw his life away, and for what? He doesn’t even get the girl, what he’ll get is the death penalty.
A woman decides to marry a 15 year old boy and throws her life away, for what? To be branded as a pedophile for the rest of her life. Sexual abuse kills the soul but like most sex offenders, she’ll never see the death penalty.
When you look up the word pedophile in the dictionary it does not say “A man that has sex with a child.” Why do we make excuses for women who have sex with children? We make excuses by giving them names like “mentally ill.” Isn’t it all mental illness? I mean come on. When we hear that a man has abused his daughter we just think of him as yet another pervert, a man! We don’t think twice about weather or not he should be given treatment or if he should or should not go to jail. We do not have mass media covering the abuse or have MSN cover the story before they cover the resignation of top Jordan officials. It doesn’t happen because we are use to them hurting children in this way. We are accustomed to it, almost apathetic in a way. But when we hear about a woman abusing a child, especially a female child, we move from apathy straight to “let’s get her some help.” Let’s throw a diagnosis on her so that we can explain away why she has chosen to victimize children. Why? Why is abuse by a female any different than abuse from a male? And why is there just now focus on the subject? Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is a hot topic at the moment, but 20 years ago they just sent you to the loony bin and forgot about you. They’d rather explain it away now because the thought of a mother hurting her own child for her own gain is too much for our society to take. We have to give them a label so we can stomach the thought that woman are predators too.
When a child dies in a home the first parent they look at is the mother but still both parents are immediate suspects. When a child is sexually abused in the home the first parent they look at is the father. I know that time and again the male in the home of an abused child is the main abuser, but to lose sight of the role of the mother is failing the child of true protection. Not all mothers really know what’s going on but most of them do. My goodness! There is too much information out there describing behavioral changes to not see what is happening to your child in your own home.
A woman that chooses anyone at all over her children is an abuser. If she is willing to neglect the needs of her kids to put the needs of her mate (male or female) first it’s abuse. We’re use to hearing this aspect of abuse and we sigh with grief when we hear it. We don’t make excuses for her. We don’t file her away under the term, “mentally ill.” We also don’t have the attention of the country because of that “phenomena.” We almost expect it, the same as we expect to hear that a man has abused a child. How many times have you gasped at the number of registered female sex offenders online? Compared to the men, the woman offenders are few. I would wager that the numbers are not so off balance because many times victims are too ashamed to come forward and say they’ve been abused by their mother. But you know what? At one time we were ashamed to come forward and say we were abused by our fathers, our grandfathers, uncles or the neighborhood boy. We don’t make excuses for them. We just call them “men”. Why do we make excuses for the opposite sex? A predator is a predator, male or female.
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