Today's Chuck Norris Fact:
Chuck Norris and Mr. T walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.
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Let me start by saying this up front: the most galling point of our justice system is that it's not at all good at dealing out justice.
Most of you know this already, but nearly two weeks ago, Heidi was assaulted while driving to work. A large black lady, with her front covered in blood, jumped into Heidi's back seat and demanded to be driven to a hospital. Heidi was going to help the lady anyway, but when Heidi didn't immediately begin driving to the hospital, the lady began to hit Heidi in the head and tried to climb into the front seat and take the keys. The cops showed up (this lady had been causing other trouble, and someone else had called 911), and Heidi was rescued from this crazy woman. But that's not the end of the story. Both of us lost a day of work (I stayed home with Heidi to help her out, take her to the doctor, and make sure she was OK). Heidi has trouble sleeping, more so than usual, and she's having flashbacks from time to time.
But that's still not the end of the story. Though she appeared to be strung out on drugs, the lady (I'm withholding her name, which we just found out the end of last week) was booked as mentally incompetent, dodged her psych eval at the station, and was released. YES, YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT...SHE'S OUT WALKING THE STREETS. Heidi has been in regular contact with the Aurora police, and particularly the detective handling the case. This lady (I'm withholding her name) has a long criminal record and many aliases. They told her that they suspected she was drugged out when she committed the attack, and that because of her mental state, she could not be held and charged for the attack. (As Heidi is telling me this, I'm thinking to myself, "Wait....we can hold drunks responsible for deaths and injuries they cause if driving, but we can't hold this lady responsible for assaulting Heidi, breaking her finger, and damaging her property, because she was high???) The only good news at the time was that the finger injury and property damage took the assault from a misdemeanor to a felony, but if the DA doesn't want to prosecute her because of her mental state, all of that is moot.
As of this writing, the Aurora detectives are still on the case, working to get an arrest warrant and bring the woman back in, assuming they can find her.
Couple this travesty with this past week's verdict in the Andrea Yates trial, and you begin to see how unjust our "justice" system truly is. You can be sympathetic to Heidi's attacker, and you can be sympathetic to Andrea Yates; both are essentially making use of the same loophole, "I didn't know what I was doing when I did that." The fact of the matter is, you did it, and whatever your mental state was at the time, you must pay the penalty, ESPECIALLY if, before you altered mental state and after you emerge from your altered mental state, you know that what you did was wrong. Otherwise, you end up with this sort of nonsense, essentially the female version of the infamous Twinkie defense..."something in my body made me think and act differently at the time I committed that act". For Yates, it was hormones; for Heidi's attacker, it was drugs. Choices were made before, though, that led to the acts, and choices have been made after the acts, by both parties, to demonstrate they realize their guilt. I would argue that any mother, having discovered she had committed the acts that Yates committed, would probably have committed suicide; the fact that she has not done so, and the fact that she has worked so hard to try to get out of any sort of punishment for her actions, demonstrates that RIGHT NOW, she knows full-well what she did and thinks she can get out of it. With Heidi's situation, the outcome remains to be seen, but I'm not terribly hopeful. Remember, cops are great at writing tickets, but not so good when it comes to anything more serious.
The justice system is about justice, and justice requires balance. Why else does the well-known female Justice hold a set of scales? However, our justice system provides no such balance. It is too inconsistent in enforcement, too whimsical in punishment, and too riddled with ways that the guilty may walk free.
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Ironically, the police officers who helped Heidi out after the incident told her, "Next time this happens, let US help them." Forget that Heidi is trained and certified in first aid and CPR...forget that officers are never less than 5-10 minutes away, and in any situation of this type, criminal or life-threatening or both, that amount of time is an eternity. The sad fact is, the helpers who tell you to "leave it to them" are never close enough when someone really needs them, and telling others not to help, not to be Good Samaritans, or not to resist crime if you have the ability and opportunity, will only increase the likelihood of these things happening successfully and increase the associated injuries, property damage, and loss of life. Here in Colorado 150 years ago, there were no ambulances, no police officers anywhere close to you in most cases, and if something happened to you, you had to take care of it yourself or depend on others to help you. Are we somehow less intelligent, less competent, less capable than those pioneers were? And less generous and hospitable to our fellow man, for that matter?
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I like interesting music. My greatest hope is that, one day, the era of a single man/woman standing at a microphone, strumming three chords out on a guitar and wailing at the top of their lungs, will come to an end. Many folks love this extremely trite sound, and their interest is never in the music. Those performers (I hesitate to call them musicians) are employed merely because they write "good" lyrics. Here's an idea; if all you can do is write lyrics, go be a poet and get published, and stay out of music. If you're going to perform music, make the music interesting!!! Sting is a favorite artist of mine because he not only writes good lyrics, but he writes good music. He uses interesting time signatures and rhythms. He uses lots of chords, and sometimes very unusual combinations. If you've ever listened to Ten Summoner's Tales, arguably his best album, he really varies the sounds in his songs.
But it goes beyond that...even Chris Isaak or Johnny Cash can make their music interesting, even if they're only playing guitar. They actually PLAY the instrument, rather than just using it to play three chords and back up their lyrics. Harry Connick Jr. does great music, even when he's just singing and playing piano, and even when he's doing classic tunes, because he really plays his instruments (including his voice). They make their music interesting, even if it's not original to them.
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Speaking of Chris Isaak, Heidi and I went to his show here in Denver last night, and it was INCREDIBLE!! He's one of my all-time favorite musicians, and it was a real treat to see him live. The show was great and even included an impromptu jam session with the whole band in the middle of the second set. They just sat on stools at the front of the stage and played whatever songs they could think of to play. It was very cool.
I'm not a big concert person; I prefer the cleaner, more refined sound you get from studio-produced music. I know this makes me something of an oddity among music listeners, as most will tell you that live is the only way to go. I will say that hearing Chris's brand of music lends itself well to both studio and live sound, so hearing him play live was awesome. And his costumes were great, too. The first was a blue suit with silver sequin trim, something like Elvis might have worn. His second outfit was also a suit, but it was covered with small mirrors over its entire surface. Outrageous, but very, very cool.
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Chris's opening act was a group called Devotchka. I had never heard of them before. They had an interesting sound, not really my type of music, though they did do some songs that I enjoyed. They have a hybrid sound, mixing some Middle Eastern with some Latin, and it is a bit strange. There's a violin/accordion player, a guitarist/lead vocalist, a drummer/trumpet player, and a girl who plays bass (full-size stand-up bass, not bass guitar) and tuba. Yes, you heard that right...TUBA. As I said, an interesting sound.
I thought it odd that such a group would open for Chris Isaak, as their musical genres did not appear to have much crossover, but Heidi said this is quite normal for concerts, and since she's the expert, I believe her. (In fact, her example was a concert she went to had Blues Traveler opening for Pearl Jam. In my mind, why not have the Pet Shop Boys open for Green Day, while you're at it?) The rest of the crowd appeared to be the KBCO crowd, who gets off on that kind of stuff, though, and they seemed all right with it, so I went along...grudgingly, I admit. After all, I was there to hear Chris Isaak, not some weird Middle-Eastern/Latin group with a violin, accordion, tuba, and stand-up bass.
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It's difficult to keep expectations out of any human interaction or relationship. Work, marriage, family, whatever, everyone has expectations about the way others should act or speak in certain situations, and those expectations can get in the way of keeping things running smoothly and create unnecessary (and draining) challenges. I'm having trouble keeping my own expectations out of my current relationships throughout my life right now, and I need to work harder at it so I don't unduly damage those relationships. I hope I get better at it, and quickly.
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OU starts fall practices this week!!! I'm so excited for the new season...I really can't wait to see how the season shakes out. Adrian Peterson says he wants to run for 2,200 yards this year. To put that in perspective, let's say that OU doesn't make the Big 12 Championship, or even a bowl game, and only plays 12 games this year. That would equal 183.3333 yards a game. Now, you can figure that OU will play at least 13 games (their regular season 12 plus a bowl...bowl game records now count toward your season totals), and so AD only has to run for 169.23 yards a game. If OU goes to the Big 12 Championship and a bowl, he only has to run for
157.1 yards per game. While 183 yards per game is a pretty tall order, none of those, and especially the lower per-game totals, are out of his reach. If he can run for 157.1 yards per game, behind the talented-but-admittedly-young-and-inexperienced offensive line he'll have in front of him this year, not only will OU play for a national championship, but Peterson will deservedly win the Heisman. And remember, AD comes up with his best per-game totals in the biggest games...220 last year against Tulsa (OU needed a great game after getting whacked by TCU), 237 against Oklahoma State. In 2004, 183 vs. Oregon, 255 vs. Texas, and 249 vs. OSU.
The best part? Bob Stoops says they're working on getting him the ball MORE, by passing to him this year. Can you imagine the kind of all-purpose yards he could work up this year? It boggles the mind.
I say, BRING IT ON!!! I'm ready.
Thanks for reading along.
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