Monthly Archives: August 2011

08.31.11
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Southern California Father Throws Son Off Tour Boat!

The Newport Center Skyline in Newport Beach, C...

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Just when we thought bad parenting couldn’t get any worse, we had a father yesterday, tell his son to stop crying and after hitting him several times, according to witness, threw his 7 year-old-son off from the boat in busy Newport Harbor in Orange County, California.

This is a tour boat that takes people around the harbor so they can see mansions occupied and once occupied by celebrities like John”Duke” Wayne.

If the Duke had been alive yesterday, he would have jumped off his deck and whacked this dad, Sloane Briles, 35, of Irvine, California.  There would not have been any need for authorities, the Duke would have hit him once, and that would have been all she wrote.  What a shame when you need the Duke, he is watching from above.

This story was featured on one of the local TV news programs last night, and they actually caught up to the father, and he claimed that he and his son were “horsing around” .  He claimed he held his son off from the boat and his son jumped into the water.

According to witnesses and the 911 calls, that is not what happened, and they were very clear that the father was abusing his son on the boat by hitting him.  He then took him to the bow of the boat and threw him off.  In the busy harbor anyone could have hit the small child not to mention the tour boat could have hit him with the prop.

The authorities said three boats came to the rescue of the child and pulled him out after his father jumped in to save him.

The Orange County sheriff was called and their boat arrived and had to physically wrestle the father to the ground to subdue him to take him into custody.  Witnesses said he had been drinking and appeared intoxicated.

The child was released  to his mother along with his 6-year-old brother who was also on the boat.  The father and the mother are divorced.  The father had been in an argument with his girl friend on the boat when the 7-year-old started crying about the argument.

The father has been charged with felony child endangerment and resisting arrest, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. He was released Monday in lieu of a $100,000 bond.

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08.30.11
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I Believe She’s An Amazing Woman

The other day on Facebook, a highschool friend posted this video to honor one of our friends who had passed away, Margene Griffin, who had graduated from Del City High School, and went on to Central State University with me.  She joined Tri Sigma Sorority and convinced me to pledge and to join her on this path.

I should also add that Margene and I were in Senior Girl Scouts together and we did many special community service projects together.  Tri Sigma Sorority at our college had many Girl Scouts in it and we even sponsored a Brownie troop.

Margene graduated from Central State University after serving as President of Tri Sigma, with a degree in nursing.  She was married very soon after graduation and she and her husband began their journey around the world as missionary’s for a program that took them to many different countries.

I did not know that through this journey, Margene was battling an illness within her lower GI tract and she had been on liquids for many years.  I saw her at my 25th high school reunion and  she shared that she was waiting on a lower intestine transplant.  She did receive the transplant and did very well for several years.

Both of us were battling physical issues, mine was a physical disability and her’s was an internal issue.  She was smiling and strong just as she had always been.  Margene and stayed in touch through our Sorority for several years after and then she moved to Colorado and I moved to California.  I lost track of her.

I was on Classmates.com to try and find her but I couldn’t, so I contacted her brother, and discovered that she had passed on.  I felt terrible that we had lost track of each other.  Sometimes life gets in the way, and we lose one another.  I just urge you to stay in touch with those special people who touch your life in high school or college and let them know how much they mean to you before you lose that opportunity.

Margene and I did have that time, but I still feel that we could have had a little more.  Here is the Video that I dedicate to Margene who was an Amazing Woman.

08.26.11
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Mom Throws Baby Off Parking Garage, Arrested for Murder, Was it Postpartum Depression? Similar Case in OKC Many Years Ago!

At Children’s Hospital in Orange County, California, a distraught mother, threw her 7-month old baby boy off the 4th story parking garage.  He lived for two days and he passed from his injuries.  The mother was found immediately after a witness gave a description of the vehicle and security cameras were looked at for the license tag on the car.

The family says, she had been in and out of the hospital for postpartum depression.  She  evidently was out of the hospital during this brief time, took the little boy and the family car and went to the hospital.  After throwing her son off the garage, she walked into the hospital and asked for her parking ticket to be validated.

Does this sound like a murder??  It does on appearances, but it brings back for me a similar crime that occurred  in Oklahoma City with my friend, Candy.  Candy had her first baby and had been very active in her professional career prior to the baby’s birth.  I had gone to college with her husband and we both had majored in Journalism.

A few weeks before Candy took her life and that of her baby’s by tossing her son off from the 7th floor parking garage, and then jumping herself, I had spoken to her and she wanted to come back to work.  I was getting ready to change jobs and I told her I would put in a good word for her so she could apply for my job.  That seemed to brighten her spirits.

I said, Candy, are you ready to come back to work?  The baby is so little?  She replied,” I don’t think this mother thing is for me, and the baby will be fine.

Not knowing that she had been under a doctor’s care, I did not relay that conversation to her husband, although, I wish now I had.  I don’t think it would have changed her mind, but it might have helped her husband to know her mind was still not back to normal.

The morning Candy went to downtown OKC, her husband Jim, had someone with her everyday for months.  This one morning, he had a client appointment 90 miles away.  He left that morning, and said later that Candy was happy and urged him to do what he needed to do.   He thought she might be coming back to her old self, since she appeared upbeat.

I had just started my new job with a large adverting agency in OKC, and my boss and I were discussing our plans for the day.  All of a sudden she asked me if I knew Candy?  Yes, I said, Why?

My boss, Joyce, then said the words that still haunt me, “Candy threw her son off the parking garage in downtown, OKC and then jumped right behind him!”, my boss had just heard it on her office radio and they had just identified her from the contents of her purse.

She did leave a note for Jim, it said that she felt she wasn’t a good mother, and that there was something seriously wrong with her, and that the baby had it too.  She didn’t want to go on with her life.

Candy had postpartum depression the doctors announced after her death.  I will never forget her warm infectious smile and her cheerful demeanor.  She was the last person I would expect to take the life of her son and then her own.

I do not know if this mother who threw her baby off the parking garage at Children’s Hospital had postpartum depression, only the doctors know that, but I do know we need to treat postpartum depression and not prosecute these women.  They are not in their right minds when they do these terrible deeds.

As much as I love children and babies, if a mother has postpartum depression, we need to give her all the help that she requires to insure her safety and that of her child or children.  We have to look at Andrea Yates in Texas who took the lives of all five of her children, and she too had postpartum depression.

Hospitals and laws need to be changed to allow these women the time they need to heal.  Too often hospitals have to dump patients because insurance has run out or they can only hold them on a 72-hour hold, but if we change the laws to show that if a woman suffering from postpartum depression needs more time, she should be allowed the time needed to get well.

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08.24.11
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Hot Sauce & Cold Shower Mom Found Guilty of Child Abuse!

Back in February of this year, I blogged about a parent, Jessica Beagley, 36,  in Alaska who had been on the Dr. Phil Show for questionable parenting techniques using Hot Sauce and Cold Showers to punish her adopted 7-year-old son.  Yesterday she was found guilty of child abuse in Alaska courts. The video above is just a short amount of time of what was shown on the show.  It is difficult to watch and to hear the little boy’s cries.

During the course of the trial, it was revealed that she had submitted two tapes to the Dr. Phil show.  One was not deemed appropriate for the show.  The second showing the Hot Sauceing of her son in his mouth and the cold shower was what they were looking for and she made the show for questionable parenting techniques.  This is makes me even madder to know that she put her son through this so she could make a television show for her quick 15 minutes of fame.

This “fame” has now brought her a guilty verdict which could carry with it a year in jail, and the loss of her children, just so she could be on the Dr. Phil show?  What about the abuse of her adopted 7-year-old son from Russia?  His agony and his pain is unjustifiable.

I would hope that Dr. Phil show producers did not suggest to this woman that she go back and produce a better tape so she could be on the show.    The Television show fame game is taking over our country and it is not pretty, when it involves children and the price they are paying for an adult to have “fame”.

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08.23.11
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Casey Anthony Must Serve Probation in Florida!

HLN is reporting this afternoon, that a three judge panel has upheld Judge Strickland’s early order and Judge Melvin Perry’s interpretation that Casey Anthony must serve a year of supervised probation in Orlando, Florida. She must report by Friday.

This is not what the Casey Anthony Defense team had argued and the Florida Attorney General had argued that she should serve the probation in the case going in front of the  5th District Court of Appeal.

It is not what the Defense team had expected, but it is what many  legal experts had expected.  Although many had speculated that the Defense might win on this point, it is not what the panel ordered.

Time will one tell what happens, but it is now clear, Casey Anthony will be coming back to Florida soon.

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08.22.11
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Casey Anthony’s Car Smashed in Junk Yard!

Casey Anthony’s white Pontiac Sunbird has been flattened according to a news report in CNN.com.  The car was destroyed nearly 7 weeks after her acquittal.   The Sunbird belonged to George & Cindy Anthony and was the focus of the murder trial of Casey Anthony in which the prosecution claimed she put her daughter’s body in to the trunk and left it for several days.

The stench of human decomposition was noted by Tow Truck Driver and by George Anthony when the car had been picked up after Casey abandoned it outside of a store in Florida.

The car is now flat and is gone from the Anthony’s lives and the site of anyone related to the case.  With the trial and the smell, I doubt that the Anthony’s wanted anything else to do with the car.  Just like their daughter who they have said is not to come back to their home according to their attorney.

The Defense claimed that the State of Florida used “junk science” when they were trying to prove that Caylee had been in the trunk.  I know that DNA was once considered “junk science” as well, now it is freeing people from prison, because of its reliability.  My thoughts are that some of the evidence had never been tested in a court of law, and even though there were good experts, the Jury didn’t believe it.

This happened when the first DNA evidence was introduced as well, it was difficult for a Jury to grasp the concept and now it is accepted and not argue able.  This case will go down in history, but I do hope that some of the “junk science” is proven in other courts, because the smell and the hair found of little Caylee in the trunk had me convinced.

The evidence in the Casey Anthony Car is now gone, and it is flat in a junk yard, just like the prosecution’s case fell with the jury, flat.  Many of us still want justice for Caylee, but we may never see that in this life.  It is now in the hands of someone greater than any of us.

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08.21.11
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Remember When? Facebook Posts Are Wonderful Ways to Bring a Community Together!

Oklahoma City

Image via Wikipedia

Many of us are on Facebook and have personal pages.  My high school has an Alum page and recently we started a thread discussion Remember When? about the community we grew up in.  Before we knew , many of us were connecting with people we had not spoken to in 30 to 40 years.

The memories of our elementary schools and the teachers and crossing guards, came rushing back to all of us.  Our Kindergarten teacher and the photos pulled from Mom’s who had so carefully stored them for us, were suddenly posted.

Our community, Del City, was a Baby Boomer Community where the Veterans came back and bought homes and we grew up.Our city  we could ride our bikes and visit the grocery store for our Mom’s and wave to everyone on the way home.  We watched every new business that came into the community and we remembered those that were no longer there.

One of the television stations in Oklahoma did a story on the Remember When threads going across Facebook about the many communities in Oklahoma City.  Although, I am in Los Angeles now, it made me homesick for a time when all was simple and pure.  Our lives were filled with going to the Drive-in Sonic and Burger Train and seeing our friends after school.  Life was not filled with the stress  of debts and recession, although, we did have the Vietnam War that took lives.

What we all realized as we came to the end of our high school days, was that we had lost many of our friends over the years, and then the Remember When turned into a Memorial Wall postings of who had passed and left our lives too soon.

If you have not participated in a Remember When? thread on Facebook, I urge you to see if there is one going for your community.  If not start one, and relive the history of your community.  I emailed the current city manager for our community, and advised him that much of the history of the developers and the business owners was now part of the thread for our community.

Knowing the history of how things started and who started them, can help you understand growth and why you and your children need to continue to carry that growth forward for your community and our country.

08.19.11
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Did Beverly Hills Housewife Show Go To Far & Cause Suicide of Husband?

Beverly Hills Sign in Universal Studios Florida

Image via Wikipedia

By now you have all read about the Beverly Hills Housewife whose husband, Russell Armstrong, committed suicide over the upcoming new season of the show, according to his mother’s statements, what will happen with this show is the real question?

I’m not sure if these shows haven’t overstepped the boundary of human decency.  When you start picking on someone and making him or her the scorn of the show is this not public bullying?  Are we not part of this by watching the show?

As I had stated before  in an earlier blog, I do not watch these housewives shows because I find them too hedonistic, and they do nothing to help the human race , I do believe these reality shows are picking at the weak and showing the sides of marriages that we used to keep behind closed doors and only therapists knew about.

When the public is allowed to see the problems in a marriage, it almost takes the power away from the couple to solve the issues themselves.  Putting the couple under the camera night and day and forcing them to throw lavish parties to always one-up one another is too much stress.    Forcing the parents to pit one another against each other with the children is not a normal situation ever and putting the cameras there takes the normalcy out of it for everyone.

I do hope that Bravo cuts out the husband from the upcoming shows and allows his children to mourn their father in peace.  They need to draw the line here and stop doing everything for ratings.  His two children from another marriage and his little girl from this marriage need to be thought about and their feelings and how they will cope with what Bravo does now with this happening to their father, will show what Bravo is about.

MTV has shown us what they are about with the “Jersey Shore”, I would hope that Bravo would show us a higher form of character and show concern for these children and dedicate the show to his memory and cut him out of the show.  It can be done and restore human decency to the network.  Bravo has announced a Delay in the Season Premier, but I truly hope they consider more than just a Delay!  The man had issues, but I don’t think we need to trash his memory for the sake of his children.

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08.15.11
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Using Social Media In A Crisis For Communications, Get Information Out There Now!!

The Tragedy at the Indiana State Fair this weekend shows us the power of smart phones when every news channel was showing the collapse of the Indiana State Fair stage from concert goers’ phones who sent them to local news channels.  But a very astute observer from Indiana, Erick Deckers, has written in his blog the failure of the state authorities to use social media in this crisis.  http://problogservice.com/2011/08/15/social-media-crisis-communication-lessons-learned-from-indiana-state-fair-stage-collapse/.

Having worked at a hospital in Houston, before we had Social Media, I can relate to many of the elements he brings up in his blog.  When you need up to the-minute information, you depend on state authorities to give it to you, and having cell phone towers clogged with everyone trying to reach their loved ones, it would have been nice to have the state authorities updating their messages via Twitter or Facebook.

In an earthquake, emergency responders will shut  down cell phones allowing the networks  for emergency responders use.  Getting word to family members can become difficult.

I have gone to many state accounts here in Los Angeles only to find they haven’t up dated them in months.  Why have them?  If you are not going to update your Twitter account with relevant information, then you need to assign a staff person to check it and update it.

People depend on Social Media in a Crisis and on Facebook for updates.  When Michael Jackson died, did I go to CNN? Yes, did they have anything, no.  NBC, Yes, but nothing, I then went to Twitter, and found many sources that I follow there with up to the second updates from trusted news sources not CNN or NBC, but others at the time, who had just announced his death.

With Smart Phones, we can use our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts in an instant to see any updates from local authorities.  In my case, I check the Los Angeles Fire Department to see if there are any fires or accidents that might delay me in traffic around the Los Angeles area.

Updates can be sent from the scene with a Smart Phone to a Twitter feed, and many people need to use them when an emergency happens.  Updates can also be sent directly to news outlets from phones as we saw this weekend with the Tragedy at the Indiana State Fair.

Social Media can be used to find relatives in a disaster to let family know you are okay, by posting an update to a Facebook or Twitter feed.  This was used by survivors in Japan to let families know they were okay, when phone lines weren’t working, but somehow, the  internet  was working.

Social Media has transformed our world, and if you do not know how to use it, learn!  Many classes are out there and now is the time to learn, because it isn’t going away.

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08.14.11
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Children Being Abducted And Killed Throughout This Country!! Where Is the Protection??

Caylee Anthony was a precious little girl that has captured the hearts of America, but just this week, a three-year old little girl was abducted from in front of her home in Missouri and murdered.

Another child in Southern California was taken from her home by her father, and driven to Northern California. Police found both dead in the father’s car within a day and half. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/kidnapped-2-year-old-girl-father-found-dead-inside-suv.html

Little Caylee Anthony was a victim, but there are others everyday in our country and we must put our foot down and say enough. We all must take steps to protect our children.

My heart is saddened when I read that these innocents are the tools between a father and mother in a child custody issue and that a  child (or children) loses his/her life.  Let’s not allow another sexual predator an opportunity to grab a child and end another precious life.  In California,  a family was murdered  by a father who didn’t want to complete a divorce action, so he killed the children and the mother.

Sexual predators do not change their behavior.  The Jaycee Dugard case is teaching us more each day as the video tapes are released how this couple, who abducted her, would lure little girls into their van and video tape these children.  These people need to be locked away and  the key thrown away.

We must become united at protecting our children and take care of one another like we used to when I was a child.  Everyone on my block knew one another, and we helped one another when we needed help.

We must know who is out-of-place in our neighborhood and who belongs so we can spot those cars that might take a child.  When we see a father or a mother becoming emotionally unbalanced, we must reach out for help to protect the children.

Our children are our tomorrows.  They are the most precious commodity of our lives.  We should take every step to protect them and unite to make their lives secure.

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