Good morning.
It's Terrible Tuesday and that's exactly how I feel...terrible. I'm not quite sure what, if anything, is going to follow your morning Sift.
A- Miami Bike Scene has another great video of the March Critical Mass ride.
Approximately 60 cyclists showed up & joined in on the ride. We traversed north on Biscayne Blvd briefly passing through the gridlock caused by Ultrafest & continued up to Miami Shores. We then headed back south via NE 2nd Avenue to 14th Street, which according to Miami's bicycle coordinator Collin Worth, is supposed to get a bike lane sometime in the near future.B- A Mom, A Blog, and the Life In-Between has a few obsessions she wants to share with us.
1. Frosted Flakes. While I am a lifelong Fruit Loops lover, lately I can't enough of the Frosted Flakes. It's pure sugar and awful for me, but I've been sneaking handfuls in here and there. It began with a plastic bag full of the yumness that my son brought from his father's house. I asked for some, he said no, and my obsession began. He finally relented and offered me ONE flake, but of course, that just wasn't enough.C- All Purpose Dark says the lobster ravioli is top shelf at Wish.
D- For those of you who like your vege's, Food For Thought has information on a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in South Miami.
E- You can watch the Downtown Bay Forum's "Miami: A No-Newspaper Town?" at uVu Blog.
F- Smashed Frog details her family's search for housing that is complicated by a family member's status as a sex offender.
I am happy report that the home (well, more a shack at this point) was well over 1000 feet as the crow flies from any day care, school or park. God knows how my family member could fly over or walk through houses to gain access to areas off limit to those convicted of what Florida calls a sex offense these days, but we are definitely using the morality compass as we plan our Sex Offender Tour of Homes.
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7 comments:
F- Never read S Frog before. Not enough information from the couple of posts I read to know if I if I should feel sorry for him/her.
One of those... if they're registered sex offender than they must've done something bad, right? moments.
But then... what if what was one of those stupid "he was 18, she was only 14, but she lied to him" and now he's 38 and still can't find a place to live.
I have serious problems with the way we deal with sex offenders in this country, and a big part of it has to do with the ridiculous way we treat them all the same.
But to a bigger issue, it strikes me that these sorts of restrictions are unfair because they continue to punish offenders after they've done their time. Look, if we want to make child rape a life-without-parole offense, then let's do that--you won't get much objection from me, to be quite frank. But if we're not willing to do that, then human fairness requires that once offenders have done their time, then they've done their time. None of this "they can live under the Causeway because there's literally nowhere else in their parole area for them to go" garbage.
I'm not asking for pity. I'm asking people to become educated about this issue and question, question, question as both who posted comments have done.
I also ask thinkers to consider how family members suffer the collateral damage of these laws, having committed no crime but to stand in support of a loved one. Yet, their privacy rights are compromised every day.
And as noted by Incertus, "...these sorts of restrictions are unfair because they continue to punish offenders after they've done their time." That's called ex post facto punishment...and that's supposedly unconstitutional in this country.
I would highly recommend the Voice of Reason for those interested in learning more about the research, news, court findings as well as the legality of this issue.
I leave you with a thought expressed by Senator Jim Webb as he introduced S. 714 on 3/26, a bill to establish the National Criminal Justice Commission:
"I start with a premise I do think not a lot of Americans are aware of. We have 5 percent of the world's population. We have 25 percent of the world's known prison population. We have an incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest democracy, that is five times as high as the incarceration rate in the rest of the world.
There are only two possibilities. Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."
Thank you for reading Smashed Frog.
It's an easy political crutch for politicians who want to appear tough on crime without actually doing a thing to affect crime. It is also proof of how little they think of the intelligence of their constituents and how easily they can be manipulated.
(BTW, totally off-topic but Dennis Miller is on O'Reilly right now, bot are braying about Sean Penn, and Miller just confused Hugo Chavez and Cesar Chavez. Just fantastic.)
I loved Webb's comment, and I'm really glad he's taking on such a huge task, and one that's so politically touchy.
Just because someone is a registered sex offender, doesn't mean they did something bad. It's because the sex offender hysteria and laws are getting way out of proportion. There is 4 year old children labeled sex offenders simply for hugging their teacher and accidentally touching their breasts.
http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2007/12/child-sex-offenders.html
What you needs to be known about sex offenses is that they vary. Just like the sex offenders themselves. To treat every one the same way is just ignorant and the lawmakers know that sex offender laws are just about making themselves look good.
The politician's are not concerned about your child's safety! If they did, there would be more research done before they make these ridiculous laws.
What they care about is your vote... and if you keep giving it to them, they will continue to make more insane laws.
The website uncomfortabletruth.org has sex offender statistics and truthful information about sex offender. Please educate yourselves on the matter so the lawmakers don't pull the wool over your eyes.
We are running out of money in this state! We need a workable solution for sex offenders...not what the lawmakers say you should know, but the actual truth!!!
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