Stick Horse Cowgirls

We have a graceful bridge over the Arkansas River, uniting the North and South of our metropolitan area from its western side.  I don’t travel this bridge very often—maybe three or four times a year—finding that my travels take me more east-west and, if I go north, I usually travel on the Eastern side of the loop. But this week I had court in another county, and the logical route home brought me by way of this bridge.  It was on that day (last Thursday), that something occurred to me.  Never —not one time, I’d venture to say—do I traverse this bridge without thinking of an incident that occurred there in 1999.  Yes, 13 years ago, and the incident is still in my mind every time I cross the bridge.  I told V about this, and she c onfirmed that she, too, often thinks of it. This young lady’s name is Carson Prince.  In 1999 she was  the nineteen-year-old daughter of two attorneys, one of them the former mayor of our city.  In April 1999 drivers...

Good, job, Louis Freeh!  He was hired by Penn State to do an investigation, and he has not spared his employers.  Freeh has released the results of his Penn State investigation.  It seems that all the “higher ups” who knew that Jerry Sandusky was sexually molesting young children knew about it fourteen years .   Fourteen Years! Yes, Fourteen Years. During those fourteen years, these fellas saw Sandusky most every day (Freeh said that Sandusky’s offices was “steps away” from Paterno’s office).  These tough guys stood by and watched as Sandusky was honored by politicians and service organizations for his wonderful work with youth (some awards recently rescinded), they attended sports banquets and functions with this man. I ask you: Could you so much as shaken his hand knowing that he was raping young boys?  Ewwwww —wouldn’t you have wanted to scrub up if you did?  Could you have slept at night knowing that he had done such a thing and was daily...

I have seen two news stories within the past twenty-four hou rs which have inspired me to write this post.  One was the interview of Melinda Gates (wife of Microsoft's Bill Gates).  The other was a news clip about the execution of a  woman in Afghanistan yesterday. If I have a political-issue passion it is women’s issues.  I care about American women issues, but my real passion is global issues.  If you really look at things in depth, I think you will find that women are the class of people who are most deeply oppressed and against whom the most historically-sustained, egregious treatment is inflicted.  I believe it has been this way for a long, long, long, long, long time.  We American women have our challenges, but most of us never consider how our sisters across the world fare—much, much worse than do we. If you are interested in this topic as every thinking/caring person should be (spoken like a true fanatic), then you might want to read Half ...

If you’ve followed this blog for long, you will know that my husband of (then) thirty-six years left me and our entire family for a twenty-nine-year old.  You know, too, that it was a shock that this seemingly-perfect husband, elder of church, fine-upstanding-citizen would do such a thing. It was not only a shock to our family but to all who knew us….seemingly for a while…but now it appears not so much. Please indulge me with generalities here…I know there are exceptions to any generalizing. I have heard of the “bro [brother[ code.”  What I have read in my attempts to understand the adultery dynamic is this: Men do not generally squeal on one another in the area of marital infidelity.  Men who are close to their wives—who confide everything else—generally will not tell wives if a male friend is cheating because we women do tell as a rule.  Telling her would violate the Bro-Code. The literature (yes, real literature from social scientists) tells us that your...