Aquainted with Evil - Innocence Lost

As a people, have we changed at all? Have we evolved at all? To loosely quote from one of Castaneda's books; "If you think you've changed a little, you haven't changed at all."
When I think back . . . back centuries . . . back millennia . . . I have little hope left. Little hope for all of us, for mankind as a whole, and for me who is a part of this whole.


For as far back as we can collectively remember through historical writings, art, stories . . . from the beginning of our existence we have continued to make the same ill-fated errors in judgment over and over again. To our detriment, we have continued to be the same 'people' we have always been, regardless of the difficult life-lessons we have experienced, the pain, the sorrow and the obvious karmic outcomes of our doings.

Since our beginning, we have engaged ourselves in wars, religious and political conflicts, prejudices, social hierarchies, poverty, rape, pillaging, addictions, greed, sexual exploitations, immoral and unethical behaviors, ignorance, denial and indifference causing us to be uninvolved.

Sure, we can argue that there also exists 'good' people: generous, caring, concerned, involved . . . just as there has always been.

WE HAVE NOT CHANGED. And that is fact.

A few days ago, the body of a young girl, Emily Sander - just eighteen years young - was found. She was a college student. She had her whole life ahead of her. She needed extra money. She found a popular-by-demand side job in the dark world of pornography; a world that would not exist if we were truly an evolving species. But, unfortunately, pornography does exist (as it always has) and it is raping us, especially our children, of the gift of innocence. It is an ever-growing business and our appetite has become insatiable. Pornography, for one, is destroying the fabric of mankind. I know from my own personal experience and the experiences of friends around me.

And then there is the recent news story of the eight-day old infant girl - sexually abused and murdered by her twenty-eight year old father. We can say, "He is a sick @*%&, " but the questions of "How could he . . . ?" or "Why did he?" should really be a question of "What happened to him that he, one of our own, became so filled with darkness and evil that he would ever have thoughts like that in his mind - thoughts that would lead him to do something so cruel, horrible and ungodly?"

The news continues to report the horrific stories perpetrated by mankind - stories we do not want to hear about, but must know about if we are to fully understand the crisis we are facing in this world.

All I can say, with much sadness and despair in my heart, is GOD HELP US ALL.

December 23, 2012 is quickly approaching. While I'm not a 'doomsdayer' by nature - I am actually an incurable romantic and optimist - I don't know where else we can go, what else we can do . . . except PRAY and clean our own minds and hearts of the trash and toxins that have accumulated within us by means of our mere existence and co-inhabitance among our fellow man in the outskirts of the garden.












Thomas Cole. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (detail). c.1827-1828. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA.

Follow The Rabbit-Proof Fence - And Another Landmark To Follow

For nine weeks and 1,500 miles, three young Aboriginal Australian girls followed a rabbit-proof fence (originally constructed to prevent rabbit infestation) to route their return home to Jigalong. In 1931, the girls were removed from their parents and taken to the Moore River Native Settlement, as part of the Stolen Generation. (From 1915 to 1969 the Australian Government made Aboriginal children wards of the State, denying all parental rights and sending the children to Internment Camps and orphanages where many were adopted out to white families.)

In 1996, Doris Pilkington Garimara, the daughter one of the three girls, Molly Craig, wrote a book about her mother's ordeal; "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence." The 2002 film directed by Phillip Noyce, "Rabbit-Proof Fence," is based on that book. The film, visually stunning, presents a story of courage, perseverance and love in a quietly powerful way - without unnecessary dialog, overwhelming despair or tearful manipulations. It is one of my favorite movies.

So, what brought all of this on - talking about a movie that is five years old - the good news that came over the BBC yesterday: Bruce Trevorrow, a fifty-year-old Aboriginal man who was taken from his family as a baby was awarded A$525,000 compensation, a judgment delivered by Justice Thomas Gray in the landmark case. The Supreme Court of South Australia found that Mr. Trevorrow was treated unlawfully when taken from his family in 1958 and put into foster care with a white family. Justice Gray established that the taking of a child from his or her family in these such circumstances was wrongful imprisonment. This is the first time that a child from the "Stolen Generation" has been recognized as having been unlawfully imprisoned due to the Australian Government assimilation policies from 1915-1969.

"I thought that we would never get there," Bruce Trevorrow said. "But the day's come when I've got the peace of mind to start my life." The judgment alone took eighteen months to be delivered.

Although, outside of the court, he also said it was not possible to put a dollar value on the pain he had endured.

For more information on the movie: Rabbit-Proof Fence
For more on Australia's Aboriginal People and The Stolen Generation

Chasing the Dragon

A few nights ago, the phone rang and woke me up at 3:00 in the morning . . . the sound of the phone in the middle of the night almost always means trouble or disaster. My twenty-one-year-old son, Adam, was on the other end of the phone.
"Are you alright?"
"No, not really."
My heart sank. "What's the matter? What happened?"
"I just found out a friend of mine died."
"Oh, Adam, I'm so sorry. Who?"
"I don't think you knew him. He died while I was in Chicago and I just found out."
Adam had been in Chicago for New Year's Eve.
"How did he die?"
"He overdosed on heroin. I didn't even know he did heroin. I haven't seen him in a while."
We spoke a while longer. I tried to console him the best I could.
"I'm so sorry that I called you this late. I just needed to talk."
"You can call me anytime of the day or night."
"It makes me sick that herion is making such a big comeback, and especially here . . . it's gotten even worse than Detroit. Hey, if you wanna do some heroin, just come here to Royal Oak!"

I remembered reading about the three eighteen-year-olds from Royal Oak who were taken to Beaumont Hospital over the Thanksgiving weekend and treated for heroin overdoses. They had mixed heroin with another drug, Klonopin (an anti-seizure drug).

Mixing or following heroin with another drug like cocaine, or a prescription drug like methadone; Klonopin; OxyContin ( a narcotic drug used in the treatment of moderate to severe pain); Xanax (for treatment of anxiety); Adderall (a stimulant used to treat hyperactive children) to amlify the high is known as "chasing the dragon," and has become dangerously popular among teens. Unfortunately, Narcan's effects (heroin's antidote) are limited when heroin is mixed with another drug.

Sheriff Michael Bouchard stated that Oakland County has seen a 50% increase in heroin cases in 2006 compared to 2005. He also noted that these cases were not just traffic stops where narcotics were found.

During 2005-2006, about 133 people died, in Metro Detroit, as the result of heroin and cocaine overdose - the street drugs were laced with fentanyl (a dangerously strong narcotic analgesic used in the treatment of severe pain such as cancer pain). In May of 2006 alone, the problem reached a crisis level in Wayne County when 33 people died in one week.

Heroin is gaining popularity among teens in the inner ring suburbs, like Royal Oak, to the rural areas, like Almont, because it is inexpensive and readily available. The teens are snorting it now, and so the old stigma that was once attached with heroin use in earlier generations is gone.

I asked my seventeen-year-old son, Luke, who attends Royal Oak High School, about heroin use in school. He told me that he can't count on his hands how many kids he knows who are doing heroin. He also knows of kids who have died from over-dosing on the drug.

With everything we now know about the real dangers of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sexually transmitted diseases, why is it that our children are putting themselves more and more at risk. Are we as parents, teachers, adults, society and the media putting too much pressure on our youth of today? Are we all living in denial of what is really going on? Are these kids crying out for our help? And are we all too busy to stop, listen and act? Or are these teens playing this Russian roulette because death looks lovlier than the lives they are living?

Well, the dragon has been named. What can or will we do to slay it?