Image via WikipediaThe recent outrage at the execution of Troy Davis and this post from Religion at the Margin by David Hansen made me think more about the death penalty issue in America. I left a lengthy reply on his well written&insightful post and wanted to share it here. He did a great job linking the execution of two men Wednesday,Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer,however there was not a large outcry against the death penalty in the case of Lawrence Brewer in Texas. Why?

The truth of the matter is the liberals want to turn the execution of Troy Davis into a racial issue. His lawyer, Thomas Ruffin, called it a legal lynching, implying race had something to do with the verdict. The truth is the liberals don't care about all human life unless it is to further their agenda,they will fight to the death to keep abortion legal, yet defend the rights of a convicted killer,in this case a black man, despite a justice system with an appeals process&jury who found Troy Davis guilty. It is obvious Brewer did the heinous crime he committed,however ballistic evidence did lead investigators to Troy Davis's gun. No new evidence was given in appeals nor to the [Supereme Court of the US] SCOTUS so they had to keep the verdict given by the jury 22yrs ago.  Many were upset with the Casey Anthony verdict, yet she walks free while her daughter's 'killer' is unknown. Our judicial system allowed her to go free&we must accept the verdict just as we must accept the verdict in the case of Troy Davis and Lawrence Brewer.

Would I be willing to do away with the death penalty?Yes, life without parole could be the option,but is that really better for someone who may/may not be guilty? Where do we draw the line on doubt? Also is it worth spending more money on prisons&keeping someone alive in prison while we have people starving in the world and our economy is in peril? I do believe the obvious cases such as Brewer could&should be given the death penalty,but in those less obvious cases perhaps a choice could be given to the convict or victims family to choose the death penalty or life in prison. Personally, I think spending life in prison might be worse because you have no freedom&rights and you must live with the guilt of knowing you committed a heinous crime or prolong suffering if innocent. Yet the victims, like the unborn, don't get a choice&their families live each day without their father, brother, son, friend,etc.

In the end,I believe until we become a culture of life and all life is respected from womb to tomb abortion, murder, suicide,euthanasia and the death penalty will continue to exist.

Wow, I didn't mean to carry on so long,but feel strongly about this case&this issue. Please share your thoughts in the comments. Below is some of the article I responded to at Religion at the Margins:

Two men were executed last night by the state.
And no one said a word about one of them.
Because it wasn’t about Troy Davis. Because witnesses didn’t recant. Because the evidence was clear. Because hundreds of thousands worldwide didn’t sign a petition for him.
Because it was about a white supremacist.
There is tragic irony to last night’s events. Even as the throngs of activists wept, celebrated, sang and prayed when word came that the execution of Troy Davis in a Georgia prison was delayed, though only for only a few hours, by no less than the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of Texas was busy plunging a poisoned needle into the body of Lawrence Russell Brewer.

There were no last minute heroics, desperate filings or social media frenzy.
There were no hashtags, blocked or otherwise.No one wearing “I Am Lawrence Brewer” T-shirts.
While Davis was surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, Brewer died alone, his parents and his victim’s relatives watching from a nearby room.
He had no final words in death, only a single tear.Outside his prison, there were no massive vigils, no sea of placards and no throngs chanting slogans about the injustice of the death penalty in the case of a racist who so brutally killed a man because of skin color.
And let’s be honest: a great many of the people who want Troy Davis’ life spared might very well believe the state was right to kill Lawrence Brewer. Many of those people who were appalled that the audience cheered at the number of executions committed by the state of Texas might deep down harbor suspicions that of the 234 executions, Texas might have gotten this one as right. As right as Georgia got the Davis case wrong.
After all, Davis’ case, unlike Brewer’s, seems riddled with ambiguities, despite what the prosecutor might say. After all, Davis might very well have been innocent. And it is easy to defend a potentially innocent man against the death penalty. It is far more difficult to defend a clearly guilty man who dragged a man’s body from the bumper of a truck.

©2008-2011 Patricia Garza

 

©2008 Patricia Garza

Posted by Patty Littlebytesnews at 11:03 AM 0 comments blog comments powered by Disqus Links to this post    

Labels: abortion, Capital punishment, death penalty, human rights, pro-life, prochoice, prolife, Troy Davis, United States

I wondered how much the increase in child abuse is to blame on the current economy,especially since more men are unemployed and more women may be left working two jobs or longer hours to get by? After doing a little research, it seems to me that Obama's economic recovery is not helping anyone especially the least of the victims, the innocent &helpless children. The Governments job is to protect from harm and death;yet the increase in spending,regulations and mandates like the health care reform law are making the unemployment rate grow;which is leading to more child abuse, but it also seems an increase in murder-suicides and abortions.

Guttmacher Institute, which periodically surveys U.S. abortion providers, reports that there were 1.21 million abortions in 2008 and a rate of 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44.

In result, the number of abortions are on the rise as a result of the economic downturn as well, since people want to take the easy way out by ending their lives or someone else like an unplanned child or even a much wanted child is becoming the victim of child abuse,abortion or murder-suicide. In sum,the failed policies of the Obama administration are leading to not only an economic depression but a social depression. Obama has become the President of death,despair and the downgrade of America.

(Reuters Health) - As the U.S. economy began to tank, the number of abused kids landing in the hospital with severe brain injuries spiked, a new study shows.
Anecdotes linking child abuse to the recession have surfaced before, but there had been no hard data to back the connection until now.

Image via Wikipedia

"It's definitely disturbing," said Elizabeth Gershoff, a psychologist who studies parenting, but was not involved in the study.
Although there is no proof that financial hardship itself is causing the uptick in abuse, earlier research has tied parental stress to child maltreatment.
"Living in poverty for parents can be very stressful," Gershoff, of the University of Texas at Austin, told Reuters Health. "And that in turn leads to harsher parenting."
The new findings, released on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are based on hospital data on kids under five from Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.
From 2004 to 2009, there were 422 children diagnosed with what doctors call "abusive head trauma." The majority ended up in the intensive care unit, and 16 percent died of their injuries.
The children's average age was nine months.
In the three years leading up to the crash in December 2007, the rate of abusive head injuries was 8.9 per year per 100,000 kids. After the crash, the number jumped to 14.7 per 100,000.
"If what we are seeing is even close to generalizable, that is a lot of excess children," said Dr. Rachel P. Berger, a child abuse expert at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh who co-authored the study.
She said she noticed a sharp uptick in the number of children who came to her hospital with banged-up heads in 2008. From 17 cases per year, it suddenly jumped to 37 in 2008, and 11 of those kids died -- more than had been killed after accidental head traumas.
"At any given time there was virtually always a baby in our ICU," Berger told Reuters Health.
In the U.S., some 1,800 toddlers come to the hospital with abusive head trauma every year, corresponding to about one in 3,300. But that statistic is certain to leave out many cases.
"Most people really think it is a tremendous underestimate," Berger said.
Contrary to the new results, federal data show a decline in child abuse in 2008. But Berger said those numbers have many limitations, such as a very restrictive definition of abuse.

Image via Wikipedia

While the actual reason for the increase in abuse is not certain;the cause appears to be linked to young parents,often males who are left frustrated with a crying infant. According to the study: Gershoff said the young age of the victims suggests crying might have caused the abuse. If a caretaker shakes a baby violently to make him or her stop crying, that may lead to "shaken baby syndrome," in which the brain bumps up against the skull it causes brain damage and bleeding.
She said babies only cry for five reasons: Because they are hungry, tired, bored, in pain or need a fresh diaper. If none of that helps, Gershoff added, it's alright to leave the crib as long as the baby is safe.
"Just taking a break from that sound, walk out and then come back when you have calmed down," she advised.

However, according to The Marietta Daily Journal,additional research and census data, it looks like the recession is the reason for the increase in child abuse:

Children studied were younger than 5, and most were infants. Most suffered brain damage and 69 died, though the death rate didn’t rise during the recession.
Unemployment rates in the 74 counties rose during the five-year study. The proportion of children on Medicaid in those counties also increased, from 77 percent before the recession to 83 percent. However, insurance and family employment information were not reported for the abused children in the study.
Combine the stress of raising a young child with wage cuts or lost jobs and you get “a sort of toxic brew in terms of thinking about possible physical violence,” said Mark Rank, a social welfare professor at Washington University in St. Louis. He said the study echoes sociological research linking violence with declines in economic well-being.
Along with U.S. Census data released last week indicating that a record 46 million Americans are poor, the study shows that “as poverty goes up and economic stagnation continues ... there are really human costs involved,” Rank said.

Read more:   The Marietta Daily Journal

SOURCE: Pediatrics , September 19, 2011.

 

©2008 Patricia Garza

Posted by Patty Littlebytesnews at 12:40 AM 0 comments blog comments powered by Disqus Links to this post    

Labels: abortion, abuse, child abuse, child abuse prevention, economy, family, government, Guttmacher Institute, Health care reform, Murder, parenting, politics, pro-life, prochoice, prolife, Recession, Shaken baby syndrome

Sadly, since that time America  has been at war in the Middle East for the past ten years against the violent Islamist terrorists who despise our way of life,religion and freedoms. Many children  have no idea about what happened, like mine who were born several years after September 2001, and parents are left to the schools or the media exposure to explain what happened. So far my kids are young and carefree enough to not let it concern them or create fear in them, but one day they will probably want to know more and want to understand why it happened and whether we are safe. At that time,I will do my best to be honest with them and tell them that because there are bad people in the world bad things happen and that the brave men and women in our military are working to keep them safe and protect us from harm by attacking the enemies where they live and that is why we are in a war in the Middle East. Of course the depth I will get into this discussion with them will depend on their questions,level of interest and understanding and as this child psychologist says:  As kids see and hear accounts of the 9/11 attacks on the 10th anniversary, parents should encourage them to ask questions. The answers should be direct and simple, says child psychologist Richard Rende.

Parents should offer reassurance and protect children from details, both by keeping answers simple and by monitoring the media they are exposed to, adds Rende, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University.

That means answering questions directly, without unnecessary detail, and monitoring their children’s media consumption in the days leading up to the anniversary [can help parents talk to their kids about 9/11].

 In addition....

• Don’t wait for your kids to approach you; let them know the lines of conversation are open.
• Set aside a time to do this when you won’t be quickly interrupted.
• Answer simply and directly. Less is more. Be honest without being graphic.
• Listen to children  and let their questions guide you. Don’t broach new subjects they haven’t asked about.
• Be reassuring. Give them the confidence that they’re okay.
• Monitor their exposure to media as best you can.
• Be prepared for the conversation to continue after the anniversary.

How to talk to kids about 9-11 from Brown PAUR on Vimeo.

“The most important rule is to take any question very seriously and just deal with that question,” says Rende, who regularly blogs about research for Parents.com. “‘Less is more’ is a very good principle with kids. Let them direct you and don’t make assumptions about what they want to know. You can answer a question without going into detail,” he says. “You can try to be honest without being graphic.”

Read More

As with any difficult or controversial topic,from abortion to terrorism,parents need to adjust their conversation on these topics to the emotional age and maturity of the child. Of course sheltering them and trying to hide the facts are not the way to deal with difficult topics;as parents we should always be honest and reassuring without being overly graphic or creating fear.  How do you deal with this topic with your children and at what age did you start discussing it?


©2008-2011 Patricia Garza

 

©2008 Patricia Garza

Posted by Patty Littlebytesnews at 10:00 AM 0 comments blog comments powered by Disqus Links to this post    

Labels: child development, children, Children and Youth, controversial, education, holidays, Holidays and Special Days, islam, jihad, Kids and Teens, National security, patriotism, September 11 2001, Terrorism

parents encouraging it as 'cute'?

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

 

©2008 Patricia Garza

Posted by Patty Littlebytesnews at 8:35 PM 0 comments blog comments powered by Disqus Links to this post