Amber Alert Cancelled For Hailey Owens

The Amber Alert from Missouri that was initiated last night for Hailey Owens has been cancelled. It took me awhile to figure out how to write about this, since it she never needed to disappear in the first place, but it seems that the driver of the gold Ford Ranger, Craig Wood, was an athletic coach and a para at Hailey's school. Now; where, in the entire vicinity of the televised airings of the amber alert, have we heard about something like this happening? Just one hop across the state and a couple of hours travel, and Frankfort High School can be observed supplying the same type of school employee with a paycheck for similar dereliction of duty. Granted, the child who was abandoned and left to her own devices on a dirt road in an isolated area four miles away from the nearest town was extremely lucky, and lived to tell about it. Hailey was not so lucky. The Ford Ranger belonged to a school employee, and as soon as it was located at the address to which it was registered, a search warrant was obtained for that residence. Then, Hailey was found; unfortunately, deceased. Why?

There have been rumors that Craig Wood had used different names in the past, but I have seen no real evidence of this. Even so, a school can still conduct a decent background check. Women often change their names when they marry, and many marry more than once. Reasonably accurate background checks are carried out in those circumstances every day. I have even done background checks on potential employees whose backgrounds were mostly not national, and I even had to speak to providers of references in other languages on a few occasions concerning applicants who have not always used surnames. There was no problem, in any instance, performing the background checks. And none of the three companies for whom I did this had any reason as important as teaching or childcare for checking applicants' references. 

Checking references of school employees and weeding out the ones whose past histories contraindicate contact with children is a no-brainer and a requirement on paper in most states and counties. Why aren't we doing it? Why does a teacher with politically well connected parents have free reign to endanger children with impunity? Why does a teacher who graduated from the same school where he abuses and neglects remain employed at that school? Why do "friends" feel like they are doing him a favor by protecting him? Only the shadow knows! And how did a para and athletic coach with drug problems that were unearthed in a matter of minutes by journalists fly under the radar of whoever checked references and ran background checks at the Missouri school? 

Several people have commented about this, stating that the school should not be held responsible in any way. I disagree. Hailey was, most likely, encouraged to trust and respect authority. Children are rarely taught to question authority anymore. Parents who teach their children that valuable lesson are stigmatized and marginalized by "good, upstanding" koolaide drinking school administrators. Life is often hell for the parent who loves his children enough to tell them that teachers, principals, coaches, guidance counselors, and para professionals do not always have their best interests at heart. But; while life is often hell, it would be more hellish to have to say goodbye to a beloved son or daughter because the lesson of questioning authority had not been taught.

In Case You Slept Through Church This Sunday

You can wake up and realize it was just a crazy dream, or you can drink some more koolaide and go back to sleep.

Have You Guys Had Enough Koolaide Yet?

This is the latest from Anonymous on Edward Snowden. China would not cooperate with the United States in sending Snowden back home to face prosecutorial misconduct and judicial harassment for the act, not the crime, of informing the American population about the abuses by the American government of their fourth amendment rights. Russia would not send Snowden back to the United States, either. While Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden's former employer, probably has a civil complaint with Snowden, the government most certainly does not. If the United States government has a complaint with anyone, it is Booz Allen Hamilton, in the form of a civil case. There is no call to charge Snowden with espionage and ruin his life. When is the Koolaide going to stop running from everyone's kitchen faucet?

 

 

 

Very Silly Backlash

This last couple of weeks on this blog has certainly been interesting. Usually, when people just disagree with me, all they do is disagree. It's no big deal........I like Chevrolet, someone else, usually not someone I consider terribly smart, likes Ford. Or I like cinnamon basil tea, someone else I know and love enjoys diet Mountain Dew. Or.......I think the Drake Equation does not take time into account in a way that could make it valid, some eccentric out there probably does. We may debate and discuss, but still walk away as friends. Perhaps I demand more proof of a religion's authenticity before I consider buying into it's ideals and philosphies; the most intelligent and educated followers of any religion will always respect me for that, and never have a problem with my introspection and demand for proof. And then, if I can see that the ideals are valid, I still have the respect of the wise and brilliant when I back away and say, "this won't work out for me". Not so much the average and brainwashed; they have a tendency to love having everyone agree and run right over a cliff with them, like lemmings. I guess if evolution is using peer pressure to eventually weed out stupid people, since so many of them seem to have been born in the midwest, I will not argue with it. But gee.........can we drink a little less koolaide when it comes to child safety?

When I first started this blog, I had gotton involved in some volunteer efforts on behalf of a couple of missing children. Then someone told me about a missing child named Kyron Horman, who went missing from his school. No one thought anything like that would ever happen in their community or in their school, but it did. You see, this is the stuff that people who write arguementative comments disagree with me about......child safety! Many of the people who want to fight with me or prevent child safety measures from taking place in their neighborhoods either have children or are children, yet they are foolish enough to tell me that I am crazy, evil, devil worhipping, wrong, ect. ad infinitum......someone even called me a socialist and a terrorist because I think the school has too many employees who keep their heads in the sand about child safety issues. Wake up, folks! You have no control over who uses the highways around here! Why are you letting teachers drop your kids off by themselves? Or perhaps it's just my kid. Maybe your kids are "specialer" than my kid. Guess what.....some stranger driving by, who may actually BE crazy, evil, or a terrorist isn't gonna care whose kid it is. That person's just gonna see an opportunity. Call me all the names you want, dumbasses; I'm still praying that there will never be a tragedy because of your stupidity.

Some of you, and you know who you are, seem a little upset that I have time for a blog. Waaaaaaa! Suck it up. I've earned every minute. And I also taught two undersocialized six year olds how to talk, something no one else in this goofy little town could do. Was I slacking when I did that? I don't think so. As for the suggestion that I home school my children, whether I do that or not is none of your business. I have every right to send my children to the public school closest to their home, and expect them to get a quality education. When my standards are not met, I have every responsibility to speak up. Even after my children are grown, I am not going to go away. Even if I do move away, I will still not go away. I know enough about your town and the risks you take with your children and mine, and also about other odds and ends many of you do that aren't exactly the acitivities of law abiding folk to fill a book, and I may do that one day. I will not shut up about child safety. You can whine about me behind my back, write nasty, insulting, ANONYMOUS comments until the cows come home if you wish, but I am not going to go away. Any employment or volunteer position I DO take on in the future will be to counteract some of the stupid and destructive things you do here. And........anyone who harasses my children, any of them, will hear from my attorney. If you dislike me, dislike me quietly. Don't take it out on them in school. Or attempt to undermine our family. This "Jesus" you keep preching about out of the other sides of your twisted little mouths doesn't like people who undermine families. He also doesn't like people who thumb their noses at the laws of the land.

Back to agreement and disagreement. This is the only place I have ever lived where it isn't okay to disagree or not conform. Gosh........it isn't even alright to LOOK different around here. None of you act like individuals in any way. My Dad saw this coming, I guess. When I was little, he refused to let me have coloring books, giving me crayons and paper to draw my own pictures, instead. He thought that if I colored within the lines, I would learn conformity. He wouldn't let me play with Barbies, because he thought I would grow up thinking I had to be 5'9", have a disproportionately huge rack, and blond hair. I think he was smarter than anyone else I have met so far. You all should really stop forcing your kids to color within the lines. That's just ridiculus. If I happen to disagree with you, I simply happen to disagree with you. That's all. You don't have to be nasty about it. Now; if you really feel as defensive as so many of you seem to feel, maybe there's a reason for that. Other than the writer of this blog being somehow in the wrong. Maybe I have touched a sensitive nerve, and you guys (you all know who you are, too) should really consider growing up.

Pictures Of Terri Horman All Over Roseburg

While I was reading the article in the news about Terri Horman and the continued restraining order, I glanced at the comments offered by the gentle readers of the publication and noticed a suggestion made by one of them that pictures of Kiara be plastered all over Roseburg, instead of Kyron, because Terri obviously hated Kyron and was unmoved by pictures of Kyron. I have a better idea; lets plaster Roseburg with pictures of Terri. After all, Kiara wasn't even two years old when HER BROTHER disappeared, and in my own experience as a child whose "mother" couldn't be bothered with custody or custodial time, and my experience as guardian of children whose "mother" completely lost custody, yet could never be bothered with even contacting me or court officials, let me just say that Terri probably does not care about Kiara, either.

These monsters who can go month after month, year after year, rejecting their children , no birthday cards, no holiday celebrations, no presence in school events, no concerns about their childrens' health, no worries about how their children are living from day to day or what their children are learning from day to day are a completely different breed than the rest of us. And the woman who bore three of the children who call me "Mom" made personal statements to me about some of the things she did that cost her parental rights which sounded frighteningly like the comments made to Oregonlive that were traced back to Terri Horman and her account. "You weren't there", "You don't understand", and other messages to that effect. No I don't understand. I never will. Kyron was seven years old, and was just a kid who needed love. I will never understand the motivations of an adult who would harm a child or the child's family. And no, I "wasn't there"; I would never be "there" for a criminal act committed against a child. Monsters who can harm children are a lot more concerned about themselves than they are about any child, their own or someone else's. The things that motivate the rest of us don't motivate people who don't love their children.

Here are a couple of good pictures of Terri Horman that can go up in Roseburg, to remind Terri of.........drum roll............HERSELF!

We have overweight-lookin' Fat Face Terri, here,

and nasty, holier-than-thou, Righteous Anger Face Terri, here;

and; of course, Tub of Lard Terri here;

and here, we have Adorable Family Terri, who managed to fool the koolaide drinking crowd into thinking she had something to offer as a mom, stepmom, and teacher. Holy Cow.......she even described herself on Facebook as a "christian"! How many mainstream adults dismissed complaints about her from children, her stepchild, and her students, on days that she taught, which could have clued in the community to the fact that all was not well with Terri?

I'm not trying to pick on anyone. I just think that our collective stereotypes about who is "safe" and who is "not safe", who is "smart" and who is "not smart", who is "balenced" and who is "not balenced", and who is "good" and who is "not good" needs a bit of revising, that's all. And lots of mainstream, middle class grownups need to sober up from all the koolaide they've been drinking. Otherwise, Terri Horman and her accomplices, accessories, and counterparts will continue to get away with their criminal activities.