March 2008

Ok, so I just checked the official website of the National Organization for Women. Not a word about the Elliott Spitzer sex scandal and resignation. The lead story of their “Hot Topics” news section is a week old fluff piece about Hillary Clinton’s primary wins in Ohio and Texas.

And I guess we won’t be hearing from, Marcia Pappas, the President of the New York Chapter of NOW either. She’s the one I recently wrote about who immediately and fiercely jumped on Senator Ted Kennedy for endorsing Barack Obama for President. By denying Hillary the nod, Marcia declared, Teddy K. had committed the “ultimate betrayal” of all women. Funny, Marcia didn’t seem to remember the Massachusetts senator walking away from a sinking car in a place called Chappaquiddick as a more important “betrayal” of a woman – but I digress.

It’s as if these feminists don’t think the Spitzer issue affects women! [click to continue...]

Why isn’t there a hue and cry across the land about the crime rate in this country?

If true leadership starts at the top why aren’t any of the presidential candidates talking about crime in America? Why aren’t any of them proposing an anti-crime plan along with their Iraq package, their health care ideas and their Social Security solutions? It is something that affects all of us every single day…and it’s getting worse.

We recently learned that 1 in every 100 Americans is already in prison. More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States costing states and the federal government (read that us - you and me) billions – yes, BILLIONS - of dollars every year. How bad does it have to get before the public starts demanding something be done? How much higher must those numbers go before our leaders start talking about, and doing something about, this thing that plagues and drains us all? [click to continue...]

I have a friend named Danielle – Dani for short. She’s a tiny, beautiful blonde thing and she is celebrating an anniversary.

March 6th marks the 15th anniversary of her mother’s murder. To this day the case remains unsolved.

51 year old Gail Parker, a vivacious, altruistic, well dressed resident of Tucson, Arizona stopped by a Circle K Store on Saturday night, March 6, 1993. A surveillance camera caught her quick transaction and maybe even a glimpse of the killer but because the crime happened on a weekend no one thought to preserve the tape. Mrs. Parker’s body was found later that night in a stretch of desert, her head bashed in, her pocketbook and jewelry gone. Her husband Barry Parker happened to be watching the news, waiting for his wife to come home, when he heard the chillingly familiar description of a Jane Doe’s clothing. In a state of shock he called police.

On that night so many years ago Dani and her father’s lives changed forever. So did the life of Gail’s elderly mother who began a sad decline of Percocet overuse to try to dull the agony. Her emotional distress drove her to attempt suicide on more than one occasion. She died in 2005 never knowing who took her daughter from this earth. Gail Parker’s murder left a hole in the heart of this family – a hole that can not begin to heal until the person responsible for creating it is found, put on trial and found guilty of the crime.

First denied of their loved one, the Parker family has also had to endure the denial of seeing justice done. [click to continue...]