RAPE, DRUGS, ROCK 'N ROLL - WARNING: THIS IS NOT JUSTICE!!!

On my commute home this past Friday, once again NPR (National Public Radio) provided a story with chilling effect! Having a lot of experience on college campuses, both as a student and an employee, I found this topic of rape and justice to be most disturbing. The story is here:

Campus Rape and the Law

Our legal system is flawed. When I say that, and maybe you didn't quite hear what I said, what I said was - "OUR LEGAL SYSTEM IS FLAWED!"

Lady Justice is holding a scale that's tilted... why?

The story on NPR was about a young college student, female, who had a bit too much to drink one night. She stumbled home to her dorm, went to her room... as the story goes, a male living nearby, followed her into her room. He admits to having sex with her, the problem is the female student says she said "no". He claims it was consensual. She claimed it was rape. The university  sees it as a "learning experience"; our criminal justice system sees it as a crime, a serious crime.

Essentially no criminal justice system policies cover campus rape. The man was not arrested. He did not go to court and face any charges, didn't have to hire an attorney, and basically, was "sentenced by the university" to take the summer off - as a suspension/punishment.

How can this be???

Rape is tolerated as a learning experience, according to the article on NPR.
"On a college campus, this isn't a formal legal process like a court of law. Instead it fell to two campus administrators to sort out the truth, simply by asking the accused and the accuser for their sides of the story" NPR Source: Rape On College Campus

In my own experience while employed once at a college, and another time a public school, I witnessed first hand the way the laws are enforced. In 1976 I caught two youths while they were stealing electronics and other college equipment around midnight... I called the police who arrived finding their car full of stolen goods. The college gave me a commendation, and didn't press charges on the youths.

In the second case, early 1990's, I witnessed two youths suspiciously eying the grade school I worked at. I pointed the peculiar  pair out to my co-worker. We called the police. We told them we were concerned the pair had plans for later that night - which they did... they broke in and destroyed thousands of dollars worth of public property. The youths were caught, but the district didn't press any charges. Neither the school officials or police talked to my co-worker or myself about it.  It was swept under the carpet. Forgotten.

On the other hand, students found possessing drugs like marijuana, are subject to permanent expulsion, and serious criminal charges.

This is JUSTICE???

Well, find me another world to live in, please.

Our country is in crisis, and the emperors have no idea what's going on. Well, I'll tell you what's going on... INJUSTICE. Our laws need reform, big time, and until such time as that happens we will continue to see injustice and infringement on our personal liberties. A person has the right to say no to sex, and yes maybe  to marijuana, or vice versa... both are natural... both should be a choice under our system of right and wrong. What hurts society is when laws enable people to be hurt. Our laws enable that. Wake up!

THE LONGEST ROAD - PART THREE - John Miller Fictional Autobiography

John Miller had told the story so many times, to so many people, each time, trying to express in the way it really happened, really felt. He didn't want sympathy, he did want understanding, but he didn't want to even have the story... if he could cut away a piece of his mind and rid himself of it - if he could retain the parts that meant so much to him... if he could live it over... if...

If things had worked out the way he was working them out - he was convinced he would be a happy, successful person now. But he had to admit - life has a way of throwing curve balls, life is difficult... and his mentor Douglas S. had warned him about the consequences of success, how there would be those to dislike him, envy him, challenge him. John understood all that, and he took most of the challenges in stride. But there was a challenge that hit him that he never saw coming, that he had no real defense against. And in the end it defeated him... in the end it was like the following story John had read in the 70's... a story that would haunt him the rest of his life. A story that paralleled his own life in a way he never could explain.

"FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON" by Daniel Keyes (Short Story; Novel: 1958; 1959;1966)

Excerpt from Wikipedia: Flowers_for_Algernon
"The ideas for Flowers for Algernon developed over a period of 14 years and were inspired by numerous different events in Keyes' life, starting in 1945 with Keyes' personal conflict with his parents who were pushing him through a pre-medical education in spite of his own desire to pursue a writing career. Keyes felt that his education was driving a wedge between him and his parents... "




When John was a young boy he enjoyed playing with his younger sister and her friends. He was and still is close with his sister. But early on his mother was afraid John would become gay if he continued to play with girls, and so forbid him around age 7 of being with his sister and his friends. She attempted to "match him up with male friends", an effort that was futile. John might be forbidden from hanging out with girls, but when it came to friends he had a mind of his own. He did make friends with other males, was the obvious underdog most of the time, but he survived.


At age 8 he was given a book called "R Is For Rocket" by Ray Bradbury... there was a story he read called "Frost and Fire", about a kid who grew up on the planet Mercury, the descendants of a marooned Earth colony that made their homes in caves. Over the decades, they had adapted to a few hours each day to venture outside... given the harsh hot sun during the day, and icey cold temperatures at night. They also evolved into a race of humans whose metabolism ran it's life over a period of 7 or 10 days. It depended upon the cave you were born in. The valley people lived 7 days, the hill people 10. In his 7 days of life the character named SIM was to grow into an adult in 3 days, have children, watch his parents die by age 5, and grow old within seven days. But Sim had heard two rumors... one was that the Hill people lived 10 days, rather than seven. And that there were "scientists" living deep within the caves looking for a "solution", with knowledge that salvation was a few miles away on a mountaintop... where the seeds that brought them to Mercury sat. With the short time Sim had in life to make decisions, he went against his parent's demands, and went deep into the caves to find the scientists. 


The story stayed with John many years, seemingly innocuous. Just like Sim, John pretty much lived his first 18 years in ignorance to the facts of life. He lived in lockstep with what he was told... he didn't question authority.


His sister - a year and a half younger, he looked out for her... it was only rational that he panic when he found out for the first time that his sister was using marijuana. In anger he stormed into her room and confronted her... he picked up the phone to call the police... he knew very well the dangers of marijuana use - the madness that came from using the drug!


John couldn't remember how old he was when that happened, he just remembers putting down the phone and walking away. He couldn't turn his sister in, and began to wonder how he could have considered it? But marijuana was a bad thing, he reasoned. Yet there was something to give him pause... something that day he stopped to question... only he wasn't yet there to the event that would change his life. It was a change he had no way to foresee, any more than the character in the story "Flower's for Algernon" could have seen it.


As John rolled over between 18 and 21 years old, he did three important things, events. He moved away from home to an apartment near a college campus. He lost his virginity not to his girlfriend he'd been with over two years, but rather to a woman he met only once at a state park. And three... he got high on marijuana... the latter event would change his life the most. 


It was, in the only way John can describe it, Divine Intervention. He couldn't use that term nonchalantly, yet he couldn't explain the awakening that followed the event either. He could rationalize that he'd had a form of autism that at the time couldn't have been identified. He could entertain thoughts that he was mad, insane, sick... at least that's what the moral majority would say. But John has his say... and what he says happened was a miracle... a once in a lifetime opportunity... 


To be continued... 

THE LONGEST ROAD - PART TWO

It was true... John had thought long and hard on graduation, about how well he knew his fellow students, and realized he felt nothing, and no interest in participating. It was becoming a familiar theme to him... not joining groups. He just didn't fit in. He knew that.

His parents expected him to go to graduation, he knew that. The fact he had to go to graduation made it repulsive. His yearbook was filled with "best wishes"... and he liked some of the women, had the normal fantasies, although what few attempts he'd made to date, ask them out only made him feel worse. So John said "no", to the biggest event in one's youth. He spent his time in his upstairs lab, where he had his chemical laboratory, which back in 1972 wasn't unusual... nerdy, but chemical supply houses dealt with lots of amateur chemists. John also had a complete electronics lab... what did he need people for?

Then there was the draft... it was the spring of1972, the Viet Nam War was going strong, although there was talk of "ending the war". But there'd been talk of ending it for years, and it was obviously hopeless - the politicians couldn't do the right thing, and find a way to end it. Back then there was a draft... a draft-lottery, and he'd had the unfortunate luck of drawing a very low number - in the teens, which meant, come the fall after he turned 18 he'd be be going to that war. Those friends he had, of course they all drew high numbers, so wouldn't go. Just his luck.

The summer of 1972 was a blur. He had a job, at a discount department store... he worked evenings, went full time to school. He dated a woman with dark hair, a very attractive slender figure, that was the cousin of a co-worker of his. John got together with her on the weekends usually. Yet years later there was little to remember about what they had done together. He remembers only the time they spent on her couch, kissing, laying on top of each other. But she wouldn't "french-kiss"... and John really wanted to experience it with her. "Due to a past relationship", she'd said, a guy who she'd been seeing and had dumped her, "no french-kissing". What's worse, laying there on the couch with this vital, attractive woman,  he could feel all her firmness and softness through her sweater, but no skin. He tried, for 3 years he'd tried...

He had a 1969 Ford Mustang then, with a V8-289ci engine - one of the best Ford engines ever made. He loved that car... his father had helped him pick it out, get him his first loan, and it had a 3-speed standard transmission. Chrome wheel's and lettered tires, hood-locks and fog lights. He loved that car... even was able to go off road with it the engine had so much power and torque. He thought he loved his girlfriend too... but at that age had no idea what he was suppose to do? The road-map he'd grown up with suggested he was suppose to ask her to marry him... and then they'd be french-kissing. As naive as he was, and he was plenty naive, that just didn't seem like a good idea.

On John's 18th birthday he had plenty to celebrate! The draft had actually ended August 31, 1972... it had come about completely unexpectedly. Ahhh, what a sign of relief that was! He'd had to consider things prior to that declaration like moving to Canada, cutting off a finger or toe - saying he was gay; well, that wouldn't fly - back then better to cut off a finger than say one was "gay". But now, he was free.... he didn't need to worry about the draft, or the war. Of course he was to begin college. He wasn't sure he wanted to do that. A break would have been nice... but it was expected, and his parents were paying for him to go.

But in 1972, John was also able to legally drink alcohol at age 18. Most states at that time were the same. He remembers spending his 18th birthday in a bar, alone. Yes he was still seeing that attractive brunette... and where she was that night will forever be a mystery. They still saw each other for at least another fun-filled year, but this night that John turned 18... he did it with the bar tender and other strangers there. The important thing was, he was now an adult.

He left the bar that night with one 8oz. beer for the next night, to drink at home after work. The 8 oz beer in a can back then were called "pony-beers", half the size of a regular can of beer.

John is looking back... in fact, this story is all about him "looking back". Growing up, it was no surprise that John would look forwards to finishing high school, turning 18, becoming an adult. But what he had at 18 wasn't much the way he figured it. He'd read a lot of books, managed a C average, enjoyed science classes, but had spent the majority of his time dreading school, fearing the constant bullying, and other than an "intense one week going steady with a girl in 8th grade", he knew nothing about male-female relationships. The next "step" after college was to get a good job, get married, buy a house and have children - for his mother who wanted grand-children. That was his road in life. That was the only road... and although he questioned it - there were no alternatives.

He opened that "pony-beer" after work that night while watching Star Trek... the original Star Trek. He sat in the family room on the couch with his beer and potato chips. All was going well, until his mother entered, saw him drinking a beer and told him in no uncertain terms she would tolerate No Drinking, despite being of legal age to drink. Not like they didn't drink their Manhattans! He tried to remind her that the family rule was "...if it was legal it was okay". That's the rule they lived by, or that's what he'd always been told. But she would have none of it. She made him dump the remaining 4 oz. of beer, and he vowed he'd move out as soon as possible after that.

Next time - Divine Intervention...

THE LONGEST ROAD...PART ONE - a John Miller Story - Fictional; based on True Experience

John Miller woke up to the Friday morning he'd thought would never happen. HS graduation! He was 17, and he not only couldn't endure another regimented day, but he had ideas. Ideas that really made no sense. Ideas that encouraged him to find his own way...  It was an idea he often discarded. But it didn't matter, not anymore.

None of it mattered... he realized... within a week he'd graduate. It'd all be behind him, and in the fall, he'd turn 18, he could drink, beer, he was an adult.

Today would be the rehearsals, a school assembly in the auditorium... followed by special guest appearances...

Graduation...

One of the last rides on the school-bus he had to tolerate, and the shuffle by many to run through the doors. Like they had that much desire to get to homeroom? Then the school arranged a couple actual classes to remind us children we were still in school.

The rehearsal assembly, there were two things that stood out in his mind. The first was how he felt so out of place. He was herded in with the rest of his classmates, but it all started to look not right. A thought he put aside, as he had for years... many thoughts. Now he had two new impressions - one's that would stay with him for life:

They had gotten the class president to do the honors... he gave a speech, told a couple jokes, and suddenly onto the stage the school custodian walks on. His name is Elmer, middle aged... what happens becomes a blur for John, as Elmer is booed off the stage... though he didn't do anything wrong. It was his job. No one became a janitor! No one.

And the second thing?

A "special guest speaker"... a man from NYC... a "junkie"... "started with marijuana and naturally needed harder drugs until he got hooked on heroin. The day that changed his life was atop an apartment house in the Bronx, injecting heroin, several needle in his hand, and the police raiding the scene. He told how to avoid arrest he'd had to swallow all those needles.

Based on everything else John knew about drugs, that pretty much settled, then in 1972. No way would he succumb to the madness of drugs.

John was raised to know... "marijuana was bad, very bad". He even had a cousin twice removed who'd done marijuana an leaped out a window.

John never made graduation... the assembly was required, graduation wasn't.