Monday, December 31, 2012

2012: Remembering Susan Murphy Milano

A golden treasure was lost to us in 2012, transplanted to the eternal garden, where she will bloom without hinderance. 

Susan Murphy Milano was more than just a woman; at times she seemed like she was one and one-half a person in one body. 

She shared her life story with me, and I will share just a bit of it with you.  

She made sense of her suffering; something I struggle to do. 

As a child, she suffered horrific child abuse; the worst that any human being can suffer, at the hands of the man designed and created to protect her.  As she grew to fight the abuse, her young life was dedicated to protecting her siblings from the abuse; even taking the abuse upon herself to save another. 

Because of the abuse, she was led to seek shelter with a family, who bowed before Christ, and who's steadfast love for each other created a longing within her.  She longed to be loved, but she also longed to make sense of her suffering.  

She continued, as a young adult, to suffer from the horrific assaults of her childhood.  It was a poison in her soul that she had to fight, and fight she did.  The poison finally took her life this year, but as I think back, if cancer ever feared anyone, it had to fear Susan. 

Susan found some solace in her success in the business world, but it did not fill the empty void within her.  This void was heightened by the abuse she suffered.  She found comfort nowhere but in God, through the Person of Christ.  This is her testimony, offered freely and without reservation.  She was unashamed of her faith, even while being thoroughly ashamed of all of those who use faith as an excuse for wrong doing.  She prayed for guidance in what she should do with her life.  Whatever it is that she was to do, she would put her hand to it, with all of her strength.  

She then tirelessly took up the cause of abused women.  

She shocked me with her attitude.  It was bold enough, yes, and energetic enough for two people, but it was honest enough to make me stop and listen to her. 

I had, up to Susan, less than good experiences with Domestic Violence Advocates, in my work. I admire what they want to accomplish, but honesty must be the driving factor. 

 I found that an underling hatred of men often clouded their judgement.  Many of them found a friend in a venomous prosecutor in Maine, who never saw an innocent man anywhere.  This is not justice, and this is not protection of women.  This was something Susan wanted nothing to do with. 

Thinking that they are helping victims, some advocates will stretch the truth on sworn affidavits, in order to get  a judge to sign an order of protection for a woman.  Later, when the same woman allowed the man back into her home, her children were removed, based upon the sworn affidavit.  Statement Analysis helped me sift through truth and deception.   I was able to show some that the strongest affidavits do not need to employ persuasive language; the truth of the threat of violence, for example, is powerful when it is presented without qualifiers.  The pronoun, "I" reaches deep into the mind of the reader of such an affidavit, and judges want honesty.  

Susan loved the truth.  Susan despised deception and the only deception she found necessary was what she did to the abusive male who wanted to find out where his victim was hiding.  It was there that Susan's careful planning shined brightest.  

Susan invited me to help shoot a pilot for A&E.  She thought she could put together a series of shows that would be both educational and entertaining; and she said she would publish my book. 

She left a voicemail for me, but due to the busy life of family and two jobs, I did not call her back in a timely manner.  She called again and laced into me for it.  Her urgency frightened me, but she then confirmed it for me:  she had stage four cancer.  

How I wish, today, I could hear just a moment of her angry voice, and her driving passion, and her laughter at my reaction. 

I'm jealous of those who knew her longer than I did.  She had wonderful, caring friends who worked with her professionally and privately.  

Susan wasn't afraid to be wrong; she was afraid to stay in a wrong position.  How I admire this trait!  She was both humble, and confident, strong, yet vulnerable, and it was time. 

Why was she taken from us?

Why did she suffer?

How does a loving God let someone so special, suffer so badly?

Susan herself can answer the latter question; I can answer the former. 

Susan told me that without her suffering, her drive and strong intellect would have never allowed her to see a need.  She called for the Physician because she knew she was ill.  Those who do not know they are sick, do not make the call.  Her suffering, she said, was what drove her to Christ. 

As to why she was taken from us, I think I know the answer. 

I think that, perhaps, her Savior said that He would no longer be without her, and at that moment, she became absent from the body of suffering, and in the presence of eternal glory. 

It is our loss, but Heaven's gain.  

2012 was a year where a sister in the faith made it across that final river, safely home, and awaiting us.  

Would you consider, in 2013, reading "Holding My Hand Through Hell"?


The Use of The Pronoun, "I"

                                                  The pronoun, "I" is always strong. 

Question:   Yesterday, from the time you woke up until the time you went to bed, how many times did you use your name?

2nd Question:  Yesterday, from the time you woke up until the time you went to bed, how many times did you use the pronoun, "I" while speaking?

It is likely that you rarely used your own name, but used the pronoun, "I" more times than you can count.  It is used millions of times, and we are incredibly adept at using it properly.  This is why Statement Analysis calls pronouns, "instinctive" and exempt from the internal, subjective internal dictionary that we all have. 

The pronoun "I" is always strong.  It is easy to use and having used it millions of times, it is fair to say:

                               We mean what we say.  

This is why listening is an acquired skill, one that can be learned, practiced, and improved upon. 

Text Messaging

It is something that emotions grab onto, and emotions may eject as well.  We saw it in the suicide note, and we saw it in the text message from Elizabeth Johnson who used it to tell Baby Gabriel's father that she had killed Gabriel.  When she texted that she was on a plane, leaving the country, she dropped the pronoun, "I" which, given the number of text messages, allowed us to establish a base line, or reference point. 

Some examples:

1.  Missing "I" in text messages

If text messaging is in a series of messages, we can learn if it is the norm or pattern to not use the pronoun "I"; if so, if the subject does not use pronouns normally, and suddenly uses the pronoun, "I", it should signal the reader that this sentence is very important to the subject.  This is how we knew that Baby Gabriel was dead at his mother's hands, and how we knew that Johnson did not get on a plane to leave the country.  

If someone regularly uses the pronoun, "I", take careful note where it disappears. 
If someone regularly does not use the pronoun, "I", take careful note at its sudden appearance. 

2.  Strong, personal, up close issues. 

Let's say your grandchild was kidnapped.  Can you imagine anything more horrific than believing your precious little granddaughter is in the hands of a stranger and there is nothing you can do about it?  Can you imagine the feeling of helplessness?

To add to this, imagine said kidnapper actually broke into your home to grab her.  

Anyone who has ever been robbed knows just how personal and invasive this is.  It is not very common.  In common situations, sometimes the pronoun, "you" is used.

While it is your grandchild kidnapped, and your home invaded, there is nothing more personal.  

The pronoun, "I" is the expected. 

When the pronoun "I" is ejected from the language, there is a reason. 




Here is the case of Baby Ayla, whom was reported kidnapped last year, from her grandmother's home. When Phoebe DiPietro spoke to media, did she believe her grandchild was kidnapped, or did she know what actually happened to her? 

Her words reveal much: 

"You're waiting for a call from the police saying they found your granddaughter" and

"Someone has been casing your house..."

The pronoun "I"  is ejected from her language because lying is stressful.  She did not lie.  She did not say that she was waiting for the police to call her about her grandchild.  She did not say that her home was being cased.  These would have been lies, and people like to avoid direct lying.  Her pronouns tell us that she knew her house was not cased and she knew the police would never call her about her grandchild. 

She knew these things.  

This is why we say it is almost impossible for someone to lie.  It is very rare.  Instead, they edit their words to deceive while not lie directly. 

Remember the example of Hillary Clinton:




1992 Gennifer Flowers:

"It is difficult to watch the man I love be attacked...the man I respect be hurt..." but by 1998, the pronoun "I" was ejected from her language:

Monica Lewinsky:

"It is difficult when the man you love... the man you respect is attacked..."

It may have taken 8 years, but the most commonly used word in the English language has been ejected from her language.  Even in prepared statements, where one is watching her words carefully, the truth seeps out.  8 years of humiliation was more than she could bear. 

Take careful note of the pronoun "I" in all conversations.  When an issue is not common to mankind, the pronoun "I" is the norm.  When an issue is common to all of us, the pronoun, "you" is often used. 

"When you lock your keys in the car, you get frustrated."

Since many of us have had this unpleasant experience, it is common.  If the same person used the pronoun, "I", it is a signal that the frustration level was quite high.  

Iranian Pastor Ordered Back to Prison


Iran re-arrests Pastor Nadarkhani on Christmas Day

The Iranian Christian pastor who had been imprisoned in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity was taken into custody again on Christmas Day, according to several Iranian media sources and individuals close to the pastor and his family. 
Youcef Nadarkhani, 35,  had been summoned to return back to Lakan Prison in Rasht, the facility where he served time and was then released, based on the charge that he must complete the remainder of his sentence, according to several reports and confirmed by those close to Nadarkhani in Iran. 
In September, the pastor was acquitted of apostasy, but the court maintained his three-year sentence for evangelizing Muslims. As he had already served close to three years, the pastor was freed after posting bail. 
The court had then stated that the remainder which equaled roughly 45 days, would be served in the form of probation.
Nadarkhani, married and father of two young children, came under the regime’s radar in 2006 when he applied for his church to be registered with the state. According to sources, he was arrested at that time and then soon released.
In 2009, Nadarkhani went to local officials to complain about Islamic indoctrination in his school district, arguing that his children should not be forced to learn about Islam.
He was subsequently arrested.
Since Nadarkhani's release in September, his attorney, Mohammed Ali Dadkhah has been imprisoned and remains in Iran's notoriously brutal Evin Prison where his health is rapidly deteriorating and is being denied proper dental care, according to his family. He has been incarcerated for advocating Nadarkhani's case and other human rights cases. 
After his release, Nadarkhani wrote a public letter thanking all those who helped release him. In November, he traveled to London to speak at a national human rights conference thanking those who advocated on his behalf.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

New Year's Eve Predictions for 2013: Introduction

                               


                                 I love predictions, as I think they are fascinating to read. 

I enjoy reading about stock market predictions, and how many analysts are willing to predict an uptick or downturn, and what they base their predictions on.

I also love what retired Fidelity Magellan Fund manager said about the end of the world and investing:

That on the day after the world ends, "everyone will get up out of bed, put their pants on one leg at a time, and go to work. "  He believed in investing in good stocks, and when the market turned down, as it inevitably does, buy more of the good stocks.  "If you liked the fundamentals of GE at $20 a share, and the market dumped it to $20 as share, you should love it even more" knowing that, over time, companies that earn money would be rewarded, while those who did not, would be punished.  This, in spite of the short term swings and emotional responses.  Lynch found that Black Friday of 1987 provided a glorious buying opportunity.

I have also quoted Peter Lynch when he said, "No one, on their death bed, has ever said, "I wish I spent more time in the office."

Credenda Agenda is Latin that speaks to what is believed, and what is done.

We act upon what we believe, in other words.


I like to predict things, as I see the world working in patterns, and by principles.  I am always surprised at what I did not see coming, as Bob Dylan said, "It is a perfect time for anything to happen."

Predictions are based upon patterns, or they are guesses; none of the psychic nonsense we sometimes see this time of year.

Before I set forth my predictions for 2012, may I share a personal religious belief with you?  For those of you offended at such, this is a good place to bail out.  For others, it is a chance to see a base line for opinions inevitably found within articles that are not straight Statement Analysis.

I am a dyed in the wool Protestant who believes that God is exhaustively sovereign, well aware of the problem created by a loving God permitting horrific human suffering.  It does not jive, and I know this. This is where trust comes in, for me.



The problem of a loving God allowing children, for example, to suffer, is beyond my comprehension.  I can do one of two things with it:

I.  I can own what I do not understand, and walk by "faith" and not by my limitations, or;
II.  I can alter "God" to fit my intellectual propensity.

I.  Faith; that is, trust in what is not understood.

This is what David had to do, while anointed new king, yet found himself running for his life like an animal hunted, though he had done no harm to Saul.  Later, when David lost his son, and cried, "Absalom, Absalom, how I would died for you!", I cried with him, thinking how much I loved my own son, who I feared was about to die as he was in need of emergency surgery.  I knew what it was to love someone more than life itself.

I named him, "Joseph", in hopes that he would be "a Joseph"; that is, one who, if mistreated, would only give good to those who misused him.

Worse than what David suffered was what Joseph had to go through in life.

Young, beloved of his father, his father indulged him, something that never turns out well, which provoked the burning envy of his brothers.  This increased, over time, until they saw him walking in a fancy and expensive coat, and could take no more of it.

They wanted their own little brother dead.  For years, Joseph would suffer incredible physical and psychological trauma.

It would also form him into the man he became.

 As the account goes, one brother rescued him from death and they had thrown him into a pit.  They dipped his fancy coat in blood and showed it to his father.

They broke their father's heart, and who among us knows, how many years this takes off a man's life?  Perhaps only parents who have lost children can enter into this suffering.

Certainly Joseph, judicially innocent, cried out to an all loving and all merciful God, Who, we cannot skip over, is all just as well, which is why I use the phrase "judicially" innocent.

Joseph, when he found himself first buried in a pit, left for dead, for the crime of being loved of his own father, prayed to the God of his fathers for deliverance.  When he heard the footsteps of men coming, perhaps he rejoiced in his deliverance, only to find that those who came were to sell him into chattel slavery; not just owning his labors, but his life.  Ancient slavery was brutal, and the life expectancy was very, very short.  I think that from my own studies in history, the movie, "Gladiator" did a good job of portraying slavery in the ancient world.

If you read his story, you will find that wherever he landed, he worked hard.

Advanced through diligence, he found himself doing good for those he served, only to, again, be thrust into injustice's cold embrace:  thrown in prison for a crime he did not commit.

He returned to suffering.

Yet, even in prison, unjustly, he worked hard and found favor with the jailer, but when it came time for his reputation to be made known, he was, again, forgotten, so his suffering continued.

As you all know by now, the years aged this boy into a man, hardened by suffering, yet, something else worked within him.

All humans die.

Some die before they are even born.

Some reach 80 years of age when they die, but all human beings die.

Some die peacefully, some die violently, some die by the hands of those entrusted with their care.

Joseph was vaunted, by God, to the place where the known world was ruled, by him, as Joseph answered only to the super-power Egypt's single ruler:  Pharaoh.

Wisely, Joseph built up food supplies and sustained the ancient world during one of the most critical famines known to mankind.

He was now the second most wealthy man, and the single most powerful (under Pharaoh) who, by just a wag of his finger, held life and death over others.

Years had gone by, when his still suffering and grieving father sent his brothers to Egypt, as they had heard, there was grain to be bought there.

The time for Joseph's justification had come.  Joseph could now, lawfully and justly, punish his brothers for all the hardship he had suffered, and all the pain they inflicted upon his beloved father.

Instead, this once (likely) selfish and indulged child, had learned, through suffering, to be compassionate.

He revealed himself to his brothers, who had come begging food, slowly through a series of tests, and saved their lives from the famine which had years to go before having run its course. Through suffering, Joseph had the selfish, indulged spirit scrubbed off of him, and he was magnanimous in his own love towards those who had done such harm to him, and to his father.

We need a Joseph among us today.

I share this because there are two views in life.  One is "under the sun" and one is "above the sun."

I had a friend who I have spoken about in previous articles, who was kind, fun loving, helpful, educated, hearty, and so much more.  On Memorial Day, he came over for a barbecue and could not shake a cough.  He was a chiropractor, the kind who thought he could heal everything with just a twist of the neck.  His sense of humor was as great as his appetite.  At 250 lbs, and more than 6' tall, he was strong, athletic and could eat this writer under the table in a pancake eating contest.  He loved his wife, his children and he loved life.  He loved his God, and bowed his immense intellect before the all-knowing God, embracing that he, himself, could understand human suffering no more than an ant on an ant hill, can receive a lecture about trigonometry.

He chose Choice #1:  Trust what he could not understand.

By Thanksgiving, he was dead.

Just before he died, with help, his frail, 130lb body climbed to the pulpit with a tapestry made by his wife.  It was a beautiful image of what, I do not recall, but it was when he turned the other side to us, that it made sense.

The other side was strings hanging out, and colors not blending, and without a visible and discernible image for the audience to see.

"This", he said, "is life under the sun.  It is colorful, but in some places, ugly, and it has threads sticking out, and it doesn't make a lot of sense.  It is God working in our lives, forming us to who we shall, through suffering, one day be.  This is life "under the sun" as Ecclesiastes says.

Then, he turned it around to reveal the beautiful finished product.

"This is what God sees.  It is the finished product of our lives, made for His glory, and His purposes, in ways we do not understand.  We shall live forever, so that the suffering of this present day is not to be compared to the glory which He has stored up for us in eternity; in Heaven, the world of love, where sin, and its ugliest of outputs, death, will be finally destroyed."

We all wept to see this weak, bald, shell of a man, with barely the strength to speak, impart these final words of wisdom to us all.

II.  So what is choice #2?

I won't belabor this.  It is the changing of "God" into a weak, impotent failure, who, begs people to love him, but mostly just fails as the world continues to rot away, like hell in a hen basket, whatever that may actually be.

Some portray God as the helpless watcher, claiming to love, but claiming to be incapable of violating man's "free will", making the creature the all powerful one and he the useless bystander as evil triumphs.

 It is, in fact, when followed through logically, atheism.

I find that many people will fashion "god" into something that resembles themselves
more than that described in the Bible.

Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest minds to have walked this earth, once said that if any creature, anywhere, of even the slightest size and stature, in all creation, can do one single thing, outside the will of God, there is no God.

Many will say that this is an excuse and that I am not explaining suffering.

Although suffering exists, I do not pretend to know why, explicitly, why the Sovereign God permits it, and I know that we all are faced with either trusting Him, and clinging to Him in our suffering, or, we can change him and make him more like us.

Hundreds of years before Judas Iscariot was born, it was written and predicted precisely what he would do:  betray Christ for money.   Each year after this prediction, Judas was another year closer to being born, and doing exactly what was said he would do.  Did Judas have a free and independent will to decide, "hmm, I have been reading about this moment since I first went to Temple.  I am thinking that I am going to not tell those killers where the Christ is, so that the prophecy about me being eternally damned does not come true..."?

No, his will was enacted, as he was a thief, and he was also the treasurer (isn't that interesting?) and he wanted the money more than anything else.  His will was precisely as it was written, hundreds of years prior.

Under the sun, that is, in the messy tapestry, we feel like we have our own free will, yet, many of us realize, that there are things going on beyond our control.  When we are in trouble, we don't pray, "God, I know you don't violate free will, and I know you can't change the will of this person who wants to hurt me, but could you, just this once, override my free will, and override my boss' free will and help me?"

                                                                Of course not.

We beg the Almighty God for help.

The Apostle Paul was stoned.

I don't know, outside of some of the things done by Stalin and Hitler, a crueler death that someone could experience.

I have often thought about what nightmares he must have suffered, the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as he lived and relieved each and every angry face (children too?) throwing rocks at him, all for preaching repentance in the Name of Christ, must have been unbearable and ongoing suffering.

Then it happened again.

How did he go back to work?

He was raised in highest societal ego and pride.  His arrogance would have led him to class demarcation where most people would be considered beneath him.  He was a Pharisee; something, at the time, to be.  (Christ so pummeled the word "pharisee" that in 2,000 years, it still has not be rehabilitated.  No one likes being called a "pharisee" just like not too many Germans name their sons, "Adolf" yet).

What injuries, permanent, did he suffer from?  I cannot imagine the psychological scars he carried with him.  There were those that made fun of his appearance saying he was "so strong" by letter, but despised his appearance.  Did he receive disfiguring on his face, as well?

He was stoned a third time, with this one, seemingly successful.  They left him for dead, believing that they had finished him off.  Remember, there were men who so hated him that they each took a vow:

We will not eat food until Paul is dead.

I can barely make it to dinner without sneaking a few Oreo cookies. Can you imagine how deeply they hated this man, the former Pharisee who now turned down donations (sorry, TV evangelists), made tents to support himself, and while chained in a freezing Roman prison, wrote letters of love to encourage others?  They hated him without a cause.

Paul's suffering countered the arrogance he was raised in, and enabled him to, almost single-handedly, begin the overthrow of the world's superpower, Rome, brick by brick.

Paul saw the value of suffering, and even the example of Christ, "under the sun", speaks of "learning" through "the things He suffered" in the humiliation of the Incarnation.  Paul said that he felt suicidal, ("despairing of life") yet found comfort in trusting Christ, knowing that He has hidden the reason of the suffering from Paul.  "Even if I make my bed in hell, thou art with me" David was able to say, write, and allow Paul, so many centuries later, to quote to himself.

This same truth speaks of the end of the world, the old system, where the Temple was destroyed for a new way, and the blessings would be "unto a thousand generations" where we, as humans, would, slowly but steadily, learn to love, and even learn to take military technology advances and employ them in seemingly miraculous agricultural advances.  The future, the Scripture teaches, is bright and exciting. Edwards spoke of a time to come where a loved one in one part of the country would be able to just 'whisper' to a loved one in another part of the country, and be heard!  What was he thinking of?  We now have this very thing through cell phones!

What is a "generation" in the Bible?  20 years?  40 years?  The blessings to a "thousand generations" if only literal, means that we have only just gotten started.

Objection:  "that is only symbolic language."

Answer:  Okay.

The nature of symbolic language. 

Symbolic language works this way:  The symbol is far smaller than the reality represented.

A tiny American flag might be only 2" inches by 2"inches.  Yet, it represents almost 300 million people.

My wedding ring is a tiny piece of white gold, yet it represents a life of memories, future lives, loves, lost, and so much more.

The symbol is far smaller than the reality it represents.

If the blessings are to come to a "thousand generations", the blessings of medical advances, educational advances, agricultural advances are far more than we can, even now, imagine.

We see setbacks, small in the bigger realm of history, and do not see the greater picture above us.

Since the horror of the atomic bomb, the number of deaths by war has dropped incredibly, and if the drop continues, will we learn to find a way to use a tiny atom to fuel, for example, a single car, for life? Will we learn how to produce food in such a way as to see that our fellow humans in the Sudan, for example, receive food in abundance?

For me and my personal religious belief (history Protestantism shared by many others) is that the future is wonderfully glorious, even if I am living in a small time of set back.

Therefore, my predictions, to come in the next article, will have this underlining influence.  What we believe, we act upon, and speak of.

Philosophers are most sad when they try to make sense of life outside of the truth.  What shall become of me?

Shall I just be buried here, and that is all?  What is the purpose of my life?  What have I suffered for?  Is there no hope?  Why am I alone?  Why am I sick?  Why I am so sad?  Why I am depressed?
Why do I despair of life, itself?

Why do you, my reader, care about being lied to?

Why do you care if a child was murdered, and the killer allowed to walk the streets, tell his or her lies, while the child, you never met, goes unburied?

Why do you care?

Yet, you do care.

Some of you care more about Baby Ayla, for example, than her own family did. Rather than have her suffer a single bruise to the face, you would have gladly taken her in, without a single dollar paid to you.

There are those of you who know what I am talking about.

You are those who, while hungry, hear your child say, "Mom, can I have another piece of meat?" and instead of saying, "Can't you let me finish my dinner first?", you get up, smile, glad to see your little one eating, and fill his plate, even while yours might be a little colder, or even, perhaps, a little lighter.

Those of you who have gone without sleep, just to make sure your loved one got his sleep, know what I am talking about.

You scorned the "me first" mentality, and let another take that best parking spot.

You stopped to help a neighbor push her car out of the snow.

You left that waitress just a little more of a tip than normal; you saw something in her eyes, perhaps it was tiredness, and you knew.

You knew, whether taught so, or not, that it was more blessed to give than receive.

You wanted to just give your little fellow two dollars, but knew, for his future wife, that it was more important for him to earn the money through his chores.  Somehow, you just knew.

Your children know it too.  They brought home the 'stray cat' kids; those who were neglected at home. You always said, "there's plenty for all" and, like the loaves and fishes, thanked God that the spaghetti went further than anticipated.

You hurt over Baby Lisa, though you never met her.

You were angry about Hailey Dunn, and wondered if she would have gone to prom, to college, and had gone on to a good life, even while her own mother and grandmother were putting themselves first, buying drugs for themselves, not caring what impact it had upon Hailey.

You work hard to provide for your children.

Costume Reproduction of Shirley Temple in "The Littlest Rebel" 


Some of you employ others.  They "eat at your table"; that is, provide for their own families, through your labors, intelligence, and hard work.  Without you, they might not have jobs.  Some of you provide not only for your children, but your children's children as well.

I think of the ancient Scripture:  "The righteous lay up for his children's children" compared to the modern, selfish bumper sticker, "I'm spending my children's inheritance" as if this form of selfishness is something to celebrate.

The religious beliefs I hold are ancient, vital, and sacred to me. I believe that when Paul wrote, "if a man will not work, neither shall he eat" he understood far more about what makes us tick, then our government does.  He knew that a man does not feel like a man when he does not work, and that when a man does not feel like a man, he will do things that are unseemly, in order to overcome this deficit.  This usually does not turn out well...especially for women.

Of course, there are those who cannot work:  they cannot work, and it is caring individuals who know that a fishing pole in this case will not work.  This is not an act of the will, but a restriction of mind and/or body.

When I read creationism, I wonder how many understand just how psychologically accurate the descriptions are, about how men and women think and understand, and relate to each other in life.  I know the "men are from mars, women are from venus" humorous viewpoint came from it, but it is the things, deep within us, that make such sense.  I know that men are superior, for example in strength, while women are superior in emotions, just as the Genesis record indicates.  There will always be exceptions, but principle is not founded upon exception.

Take one of my favorite holiday classics for example:

"She said I'm cute!  I'mmmmm cuuuuuutttttteeeee!" said Rudolph, as he took off in front of the other reindeer, soaring through the air, in their first tryouts for Santa's sleigh.




                                             Did you know that this was Biblically accurate?

The little boy on your lap was created to thrive off the respect you show him.  Tel the little boy he can do it, and he will not disappoint.  Tell the little boy he is a loser who will amount to nothing in life and he will not disappoint.  This is what breaks the hearts of teachers more than anything else.

Did you know the man you call "husband" is no different than the little boy wondering if he can really hit that base ball, yet believing he can because a woman, his mother, said he can do it?  Women thrive on love, as men thrive on respect.  They do best when they show kindly, respectful affections one towards another.  Just as Rudolph sailed on the compliment, so it is that little boys of 5, and little boys of 50, but respond in kind to the female's respect.

More about this when I finally complete the article on the thinking of men and women, and how relevant this is to profiling.

Many of you read about missing children's cases, but may not realize that the principle we follow about mothers of missing children generally not speaking of the child in the past tense is from Scripture.  The Solomonic example, taught in law schools for hundreds and hundreds of years, portrays this instinct for us.  We are merely beneficiaries from those who have gone before us in truth.

"Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks" is the foundation for all Analysis.  This is why SCAN will not deal with sarcasm, for instance, but will focus upon the words the sarcastic person has chosen.  (More on this later, especially since sarcasm is a vital tool of humor and communication).
Dylan Redwine not forgotten 

Therefore, if you are interested, my Predictions for 2013 are coming, but at least now, you know the reference point for my long term optimism, in spite of short term setbacks.

I don't believe in the end of the world coming any time soon.
I didn't fret on December 31, 1999, about a computer chip ending life as we know it.

I did not panic over a calendar that no one has even read before, and I certainly have no interest in the religious date setters who look the Scripture, "no man knows the day nor the hour" and play linguistic gymnastics to dance around its central viewpoint that no one knows, therefore...stop your stupid predictions!

This is called "eschatology"; that is, the study of things to come.  My historic faith is abundantly optimistic; more so than I sometimes show, especially at times where we take a wrong turn, or a step backwards in life.

The doom of doomsday is not consistent with blessings of prosperity promised to us.

Instead, I see advancements in technology, medicine and agriculture coming in an amazing and breathtaking manner, even as the internet has changed all of our lives.

The advances in history sometimes seem like the tide at the ocean, in and out, in and out, with inscrutable repetition.

You care enough about truth and justice be here, in the first place.

Truth is unaffected by the passage of time and by changes in culture.  It is an entity all to itself.  Where I do not embrace it, it is not impacted, nor is it changed.  It is a rock to fall upon me, and change me, but I cannot change it.  I might be wrong about it, quite often, but it is never wrong.

When we view today, or even the past 40 years, in light of eternity, it seems so small.

The ground I am standing on, at this moment, was a place of great controversy.

Think of this small portion of fiction, placing it in context of the year 970 AD:  

There were two Indian tribes who were competing in an athletic contest, similar to lacrosse.  There was a controversial call over a goal, granting the victory to the A tribe.  The B tribe was furious and fights broke out.  There were several injuries.  Afterwards, trade hindered, as some from the A side of the river refused to sell goods to the B side tribe.  Even those on the A side bickered with one another, some saying that the referee made the right call.  This divided some families.  On the B side, reports of marriages ending in divorce were rumored about, as some wives said that the ref was being fair.  The bitterness was everywhere.

Gone are the teams.

Gone is the game.

Gone is the memory of the call.

Gone is the bitterness of it all.  By 990 AD, some of the grandkids had still heard about it, but most laughed.  By 1010 AD, the game was forgotten.

By 1012, however, there was another controversial call in a track race that was the talk of the competing tribes for quite a while.

By 1013, the records were lost in a fire.

No one remembers the name of the star who scored the goal, nor the name of the ref who disallowed the goal.

No one talks about it anymore.

There is a department store built over the field now and no one cares to even know what the score of the game was.

______________________________________________________________________________

At the time of such things, we think ourselves so important, and so very selfish is our thinking that we do not realize how, over time, things are forgotten by us.  All the rage today is often not remembered by our children tomorrow.

Bob Dylan was almost arrested in recent years.

He went for a walk in New Jersey and was almost taken in by a police officer who mistook him for a homeless man.

"Bob who?" She thought she might have heard of him.

Girls once swooned over Ricky Nelson.  Do your kids know who he is?  If it wasn't for Christmas, could your kids sing any Bing Crosby songs?

Things pass on and some things are forgotten.  Only in truth does it matter that a sparrow fell to the ground, and it mattered, eternally, to an Eternal being Who understands and orchestrates all.

Even the names of murdered children fade from memory.  How often, in our comments section here, do people write, "Peter, thank you for not letting Ayla be forgotten!"



You're welcome.

Thank you, dear reader, for not forgetting them as well, and for indulging me this article to share my optimism, based upon my religious belief, for the future.



Next up:  My predictions for 2013. 

Will there be arrests in the cases that bother us most?


100 Million Dollar Law Suit Attorney Speaks


Salt for the wound of a school district already in acute pain... Yet, we continue to elect lawyers to office.  If the law suit is allowed to proceed, it will be the tax paying grieving parents who will, inevitably, pay this lawyer and the parents he represents.  Justice?


Lawyer for Newtown shooting survivor says $100M claim is about security

A lawyer who's asking to sue Connecticut for $100 million on behalf of a 6-year-old Newtown school shooting survivor who heard violence over the school's intercom system says the potential claim is about improving school security, not money.

"It's about living in a world that's safe," New Haven attorney Irving Pinsky told The Associated Press on Saturday. "The answer is about protecting the kids."

Pinsky asked this week to sue the state, which has immunity against most lawsuits unless it gives a party permission to go forward with a claim. Connecticut's claims commissioner couldn't be reached for comment Saturday.

Pinksy's client, whom he calls "Jill Doe" in the claim, sustained "emotional and psychological trauma and injury" on Dec. 14 after gunman Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 20 children and six adults inside in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

It would take 100 million dollars to ease the 6 year old's emotional and psychological trauma and injury", minus the 33 million given to the attorney.  

The child heard "conversations, gunfire and screaming" over Sandy Hook's intercom after someone in the office apparently switched on the system, according to the claim. Pinsky said Saturday he didn't know whether his client saw anyone die.
The state Board of Education, Department of Education and state education commissioner failed to protect the child "from foreseeable harm," including by failing to provide a safe school setting, the filing said.

It also said the parties failed to review and carefully scrutinize annual strategic school profile reports from the local school district and Sandy Hook Elementary as well as "other submissions with respect to student safety and emergency response planning and protocol."

It says the parties also failed to require the school and local Board of Education to formulate and implement an effective student safety emergency response plan.
Pinsky said Saturday he didn't want to reveal more about the 6-year-old or details about her experience during the shooting because of privacy concerns.
The attorney said he hasn't gotten a reply from the state yet. The Hartford Courant first reported the filing.

Israel Reyes: Serial Killer

When Samantha Koenig first went missing, we analyzed the words of her father and found veracity.  This was in contrast to other parents of missing children where deception was indicated.  

The hunt for the perfect serial killer

From NY Post


By last August, residents of Essex, Vermont — a small community of just 19,000 — had come to accept that their beloved neighbors, Bill and Lorraine Currier, would not be coming back.
Nearly 15 months had elapsed since the Curriers were last seen leaving work at 5 p.m. on June 8, 2011. Bill, 49, and Lorraine, 55, both worked in health care: Bill in animal care at the University of Vermont, and Lorraine in patient financial services at a practice in Burlington.
They had been married since 1985. They had no children but loved animals and often let their birds fly through their modest home, a single-story structure with white siding and a dark green door. The Curriers were typical Vermonters: Lorraine with her long red hair, parted down the middle and no makeup; Bill with his love of Simon and Garfunkel and playing guitar.

AFP/Getty Images
Israel Reyes
Bill and Lorraine were also notoriously punctual and rarely took vacation. So when neither showed up to their respective jobs that next day, a Thursday, their co-workers were concerned. Lorraine’s colleagues called over to Bill’s office, and by the middle of the day, word got to Bill’s sister, Diana, who called Essex police.
By 10 that night, cops were all over the Curriers’ house.
At the scene, cops admitted confusion. “It’s a real puzzler,” said Lt. George Murtie.
The Curriers’ car, a Saturn sedan — dark green, like the accents on the home’s facade — was missing from the garage. Bill was a big guy — at 6 feet, he weighed 220 pounds — and had chronic health issues that required daily medication, as did Lorraine. Their medicine was untouched.
The cops made no attempt to downplay the urgency of the search or the likelihood that something awful had happened to Bill and Lorraine.
“We’re treating the home,” Lt. Murtie said, “like a crime scene.”
It wasn’t until a year later, in June 2012, that Murtie got an unexpected call from law enforcement in Anchorage, Alaska. They finally knew what happened to Bill and Lorraine, and they had never heard of anything like it.
A DARK NIGHT IN ALASKA
On the evening of Feb. 1, 2012, a 34-year-old construction worker named Israel Keyes waited outside the Common Grounds Espresso Stand on East Tudor Road in Anchorage — a tiny shack of a store, with teal-blue siding, that sat in the parking lot of a local gym. It was already very dark — the sun had set at 5:06 p.m. — and snowing heavily. Keyes was waiting for the shop to close at 8 p.m., for the truck he knew was on its way.
Then he changed his mind.
Keyes was a patient, deliberate, methodical man. Born in Utah, he had grown up Mormon, and at some point during his childhood his family moved to Washington state, where they lived comfortably. In 1998, Keyes enlisted in the Army and served for two years, stationed at Fort Hood and in Egypt. In 2007, he relocated to Alaska, where he started his own construction business, living with his girlfriend and young daughter in a white, two-story house on a cul-de-sac in Turnagain, where they liked to entertain friends and family.
On this night in February, Keyes walked up to the drive-thru and asked the lone barista on duty for an Americano, then shimmied his way inside the window. He was wearing a mask and a hoodie and he had a gun, and there’s little chance 18-year-old Samantha Koenig was able to absorb what was happening. Keyes worked in seconds, and before she knew it Koenig was subdued and zip-tied and down on the floor of the shack with Keyes.
They stayed there, like that, for a bit. Koenig’s boyfriend, Duane Tortolani, was due to pick Samantha up at closing time. Keyes had been bored with going after lone targets and had recently begun challenging himself with couples, but something this night made him reconsider. He grabbed Koenig and pulled her up, and though the shack sat adjacent to a six-lane highway and there was little in the way of vegetation or construction or anything, really, that could obscure this armed kidnapping from view, only the shop’s security cameras caught the masked man taking Koenig away.
AFP/Getty Images
Israel Reyes
Keyes was that good, and he knew it.
Two weeks later, the Koenig family had hope: Duane received a text message with directions to a specific site at a local dog park, where he could expect to find a ransom note. He did. On one side was a photo the abductor had taken of Samantha, tied up, with a copy of the Anchorage Daily News dated Feb. 13, 2012 — proof of life. On the other side was a typed-out note, a demand for $30,000, to be deposited directly into Samantha’s account.
The Koenings complied.
By now, all of Anchorage’s 380 cops were on the case, as was the FBI. The ransom note was good news: A demand for money delivered electronically meant the abductor would soon be leaving digital footprints, and just before midnight on March 8, 2012, Samantha’s ATM card pinged for the first time from the Lower 48, from a bank in Willcox, Ariz.
And somewhere in Willcox, an FBI agent got the call, jumped out of bed and raced to that location — where he would find nothing, because just after midnight on March 9, 2012, Samantha’s ATM card pinged again, this time from a bank in Lordsberg, NM, a one-hour drive away.
Survelliance video from both banks showed little. The figure seemed to be a man, but he was wearing layers upon layers of clothing — likely to make himself look heavier — as well as a full-face mask and glasses. Only one vehicle, however, was caught on tape at both locations within this time frame, and so the FBI knew they were looking for a man of average height driving a white 2012 Ford Focus, likely headed east on the I-10 corridor.
On March 13, up in Anchorage, Alaska, Officer Jeff Bell got a call. Electronic alerts had gone out to cops in the south and southwest, and a police officer had spotted a white 2012 Ford Focus in the parking lot of a Quality Inn in Lufkin, Texas. An undercover had since been sitting on that vehicle round-the-clock. The driver was a white male, 30s, average height, average build.
Police were ordered to tail the car and pull it over at the first possible opportunity, and when they did, for speeding, they found Israel Keyes, who had been asked to produce his driver’s license: Alaska. The cops also found Samantha Koening’s ATM card and cellphone, along with the mask, a gun and a dye pack. Keyes had robbed a bank in Texas a few weeks back.
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Israel Reyes
‘HE HAD DONE THIS BEFORE’
Bell and his partner, Detective Monique Doll, were immediately booked on the red-eye. By the time they reached the courthouse where Keyes was to be arraigned, they had been up for almost 50 hours straight. Bell and Doll walked into the interview room where Keyes was handcuffed and waiting.
“He definitely gave you a chilling feeling,” says Bell, a 17-year-veteran who is also a member of the FBI’s Safe Streets task force and the Anchorage SWAT team. “Detective Doll and I both had that sense — the hair on the back of your neck stands up. We knew Samantha likely did not have a good outcome.”
Doll, who was the lead detective on the case, spoke first. She presented Keyes with information that made it clear they knew Keyes had kidnapped Samantha. Doll was confident he’d realize there was no way out. She asked him question after question.
“There’s nothing I can do to help you,” he said.
Israel Keyes didn’t confess to the abduction of Samantha Koening until sometime around March 30, when he was back in Alaska, in custody. State prosecutors presented Keyes with overwhelming evidence: They searched his house and seized his computer, which contained news footage of Koening’s disappearance and the ongoing search.
“I just needed to sit down in a room with him and say, ‘We know you did this, we’re going to convict you of this,’ ” says prosecutor Kevin Feldis. “To explain to him why he’s going to go away for federal kidnapping.”
Within a matter of hours, Keyes confessed. He’d taken Samantha that night and threw her in his truck, stashed her in the shed near his driveway, then sexually assaulted and strangled her.
Keyes left her body there for two weeks, while he went on a cruise out of New Orleans. When he returned, he took that photo of Samantha holding the newspaper dated Feb. 13, having preserved her remains so expertly that he fooled even the FBI. Then he dumped her body in a lake.
“You could see the adrenaline coursing through his body” as he recounted the murder, Feldis says. “This didn’t seem to be the case of someone who had never done this before.”
A KILLER’S TWO LIVES
Investigators had also found news coverage of the Currier case in Vermont on the same computer, but it took weeks for Keyes to confess to that killing.
He expressed great concern for the privacy and well-being of his friends and family, and though it sounds odd, it did not surprise investigators: Most serial killers have not only friends and family but a kind of love, however deformed and utilitarian, for them.
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Israel Reyes
“In some respects, serial killers really aren’t that different from the rest of us,” says Jack Levin, professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston. “Most of us compartmentalize and draw lines between people we love and respect and people we don’t. Why do serial killers select strangers? Easy: to dehumanize. An organized serial killer” — as in the case of the fictional Dexter — “can live with a wife and children, but he reserves his thrill for those he doesn’t know.”
Levin says that in 99% of these cases, family and friends are shocked to learn the truth — serial killers, in daily life, present as utterly normal.
Keyes, as are most serial killers, was highly interested in control, and once he made plain his Achilles’ heel — keeping his girlfriend and daughter away from the media — prosecutors used that as leverage. He especially expressed concern about his daughter, in the near future, Googling his name, what she might discover. “We let him know that if he told us these things, we would be in a better position to keep the publicity under control,” Feldis says. “We tried to encourage that control.”
And that’s why the world has only just heard of Israel Keyes.
Once Keyes was convinced his family would be protected, he revealed himself to be a whole new kind of monster; for all he had in common with the typical profile of a serial killer, Keyes was an aberration, the kind of nightmare that we like to think lives only in horror movies or Stephen King novels.
Frank Russo, the assistant US attorney who worked on the case, has said that a national expert in serial killers told him that Keyes was among the top three organizational minds he’d ever come across.
“I don’t want to instill fear in people,” Feldis says. That said, “When you see Israel Keyes and talk to him about something unrelated to his criminal activity — you wouldn’t know he was a killer.”
Keyes was not only a killer: He was exceptionally ambitious, creating needless obstacles for himself along the way. Most serial killers stay close to home; their familiarity with their terrain means less chance of getting caught. Keyes, however, had small bags filled with guns, silencers, zip ties and other weaponry buried all over the country. Whenever he felt the urge to kill, he first delayed it as long as possible — staving off the gratification was a substantial part of the pleasure. Then, he would fly or drive to one of the areas he’d pre-selected, dig up his kit and choose his victims.
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Israel Reyes
His rules: No children, because he was a father. Only use cash. Remove the battery from the cell whenever on the hunt.
In the case of Samantha Koening, Keyes broke almost all of the strictures that kept him off-the-radar: He kidnapped Koening even though he felt it was risky — he couldn’t control the urge. He demanded a ransom be deposited into her account, then began using her ATM card. And he killed, quite literally, in his own back yard.
“There is no one who knows me, or who has ever known me, that knows anything about me, really,” Keyes later told investigators. “I’m two different people, basically.”
Keyes was asked how long he had been that way. He chuckled softly to himself. “A long time,” he said. “Fourteen years.”
METHODICAL MURDER
In June 2011, Israel Keyes bought a plane ticket and flew to Chicago, then rented a car and drove 1,000 miles to Vermont, where he did a little fishing while looking for the right kind of house: “off the beaten path,” in his words, one with an attached garage for undetected egress and no evidence of children or dogs.
It didn’t take long for Keyes to find the Curriers’ house, and that’s why they were targeted: not for who they were, but where they lived. This house had a layout conducive to a break-in and kidnapping, and early on the morning of June 9, 2011, Keyes executed what he called a “blitz attack”: Having cut the phone line earlier, he got in through the garage, then smashed through a window and headed straight for the bedroom, guided only by the small bulb on his headlamp. He had Bill and Lorraine zip-tied within six seconds and left no DNA behind.
Keyes put the Curriers in their car and drove them to an abandoned barn. He removed Bill first, who was fighting as hard as he could. Once in the barn, Keyes smashed Bill’s head in with his shovel, then shot him to death. He went back for Lorraine, who by now had broken free from her zip ties and was frantically running toward Route 15.
Keyes tackled her and dragged her back to the barn, where he sexually assaulted Lorraine, then strangled her. He preferred that method of killing to guns: He liked seeing his victims suffer. Keyes then put the bodies in individual garbage bags and left them in the abandoned building, which has since been demolished. Their remains have never been found, but Keyes told investigators that he’d dumped that gun in a lake in upstate Parishville, NY, which was where cops found it. In fact, everything he told investigators bore out.
HIS FINAL MYSTERY
Samantha and the Curriers — those were the only three victims Keyes would name, no more.
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Israel Reyes
“We were trying to narrow down when he first killed someone, and we think it was 2001, after he got out of the military,” says Feldis.
Keyes eventually confessed to the murder of four people in Washington state and one in New York state, but he would not name those victims or say when he had killed them or where they were buried.
The one thing that investigators are certain of, however, is that Israel Keyes was not crazy. He was far too methodical and organized. Feldis says that Keyes struck him as “smart, capable, with a sense of humor” — a kind of ironic self-awareness that would not be present in a deranged individual.
“Israel Keyes didn’t kidnap or kill people because he was crazy,” Detective Doll said at a press conference. “He didn’t kidnap and kill people because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood. Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it, much like an addict gets an immense amount of enjoyment out of drugs.”
Investigators throughout the nation are revisiting cold cases. Russo has said that in many cases, cops and family members alike have been “resorting to Googling.”
For them, there is a grim, fascinating new Facebook page, founded by Samantha’s father: “Have You Ever Met Israel Keyes?”
The last time Feldis spoke with Keyes was on Thursday, Nov. 29. On Sunday, Dec. 2, Keyes was found in his jail cell. He’d slashed his wrist with a razor — where a prisoner in solitary got hold of a razor, the Alaska Department of Corrections won’t say — then strangled himself with his bedsheet.
Before killing himself, Keyes tortured one more person — prosecutor Kevin Feldis — and kept one last secret: He had never planned to be taken alive, and he was going to control the end of his story, leaving an untold number of bodies in his wake.
“The most we could get out of him was [that he killed] less than 12 people,” Feldis says. “Eleven is what I’ve come up with.
“But the exact number? We’ll never know.”