What happened?

What happened?

It has been hard to piece this all together but through research and interviews with those who were there I have been able to get a pretty good picture of the events leading up to my demise. This is not an excuse for what happened but an explanation. It is also an attempt to bring out the truth when it is clear that the general opinions of these events are based on rumors and gossip, not facts.
I was doing good, proud of overcoming personal failings and creating two successful companies. Things looked great and the future even better but that was soon to change.
My former secretary, Eileen Sterling, told me of when I fell fifteen feet from the pallet racking in my warehouse, knocking me out for about five minutes. The impact was so loud that it brought members of River East, who’s offices were directly underneath, running upstairs to see what happened. This occurred about the same time I wrecked my Lincoln Mark VIII. According to her I became an “asshole” immediately after. It is an established fact that this is a sign of traumatic brain injury. MRI’s at St Charles verify I sustained this type of injury. These show both old and fresh areas of damage in my brain. I remember being in intense pain but as a general rule I did not go to doctors so just bore the pain. I was to later learn that I had broken two ribs.
I had just hired an employee at the recommendation of Joe Pena, the maintenance man in our building. This employee was an old friend of Joe’s and they had gone to school and grown up together. That employee, Melvin Losek, said he had some pain pills that would help. They were expensive but they helped me continue working through the pain. I began taking more and more of these pills called “Oxycontin”. I didn’t have a clue they were highly addictive until it was too late. Research shows that drug use is common after brain injuries and amplifies the effects of such injury over time.
After the fall I began to have many other problems. I know you don’t want to hear this but it is germane to this story. Among other things I became increasingly sexually dysfunctional (another symptom of brain injury) This on top of my personality change was a big factor in my wife’s infidelity, at least I think so but she had fooled around before so who’s to say for sure.
I began to make poor business decisions with the resulting increase of money problems. Things were going downhill and I let my marketing company lapse as I concentrated on Corporate Liquidation. Melvin said he could no longer get the Oxy’s for me and when, to my surprise, I started experiencing withdrawals he said he could get me heroin which would stop the withdrawals. I was going through hell so agreed. It did stop the pain but I had to keep taking it or the withdrawals would resume. I had a company to run and it was in trouble so I had to keep going.
Then I caught my wife performing a sex act after hours in the parking lot of the mall she worked at. Our marriage was already rocky to say the least. I spent as much time as I could at work to avoid going home so it wasn’t a surprise but it still hit hard. All these things happened in quick succession. Bam, Bam, Bam…I felt like a boxer who had just received a well timed series of hits. My head was spinning and I moved out of my house into a room I set up in my business. There I isolated myself and it was the start of a depression that would eat me up inside.
I had already started the process of getting a second mortgage on my home to get the cash I so badly needed for my liquidation company. This was when Montgomery Wards was going out of business and I purchased a large amount of their assets. It was push to get what I purchased out of the stores before the deadline set by the auction company so I left the warehouse in hands of Melvin.
One day I began to notice that some of the merchandize I was hauling in seemed to be disappearing so began to keep an eye on it. Sure enough a large number of the security cameras from the Wards purchase were gone. I called the police about it and they sent two detectives from the Scott Park office. Because I didn’t have any proof Melvin stole these items they couldn’t do more than take a report.
With that I began to set up hidden surveillance cameras to record Melvin’s theft. There was nobody else who could be doing this. When Melvin’s good friend, Joe Pena, learned of this he told Melvin who immediately quit. Now I am pissed. I started putting out posters every where I could offering a reward for any information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of “Whoever” stole these security cameras. Come to find out Joe was tearing these down as fast as I put them up.
Unfortunately, during all of this I was locked into what had become a bitter, year long divorce with my unfaithful wife, who was going after as much as she could. My depression had become a progressive disease, as it often does, and the drug and alcohol use I turned too in an attempt to hide my pain made it much worse. I was rapidly unraveling.
I believe the pressure I was causing with my “Reward” posters and the continuing theft from not only me but other companies in my building motivated Melvin to have his wife and father come forward with a computer they claimed to have purchased from me. According to court documents, Joe Pena “just happened” to drop by Melvin’s house and instantly recognized this computer as being the one that had been stolen from a company in my building. Now it looked like all computers, a white box with no labels or distinguishing marks on it. Joe, by the way, was still studying to learn how to read in an attempt to get a GED but he could tell this was the computer. (He still can’t read)
Now I was arrested and being charged with the felony of “receiving stolen goods”. More and more things would come up missing. Even the security cameras I had put up were being stolen though I did get a tape of a figure that sure looked like Joe stealing the one I had looking down into the garage area of the building. This camera was hidden in a remote area that no one would know about unless they were intimate with the building. Of course all those video tapes are gone now.
My mental state was getting progressively worse from the extreme drug use and sever depression. From what I am told I had given up on living and seemed to be purposely destroying everything I had built and been so proud of. One person and hospital records from St Charles psych ward, where I was admitted after being found in a parking lot crying and unable to tell my name, said I told them I was trying to die. I think that is true. Life meant nothing to me anymore.
While I was in this mental state my court appointed lawyer convinced me that if I pleaded no contest the judge might find me not guilty. I just wanted everything to be done. Of course that’s not how it goes. I was found guilty and given a sentence of work release and probation. By this time I am a mess. My secretary told me that one time I came to her door, wearing a wig and hat in an attempt to disguise myself. She said I was disappointed when she recognized me. What was left in my warehouse was being quickly stolen. The door to the back area, where my woodshop and most of my tools and remaining valuables were, had been literally unbolted and was laying on the ground. I had chained my bicycle in the alley at the warehouse to find the chain cut and it stolen the next day. I found out it had been pawned by Joe Pena at Liberal Loan, a pawn shop run by an old business associate, Jascha Chieveroni. Jasch had also been purchasing a large number of my security cameras from Joe and Melvin, which were displayed for sale, but back pedaled hard when I talked to him about it due to the legal ramifications.
I signed my divorce papers November 14, 2001. I packed as much as I could in the car I had purchased with money borrowed from my father in Texas. It was stuffed to the roof and there was barely room for me to get in the drivers seat. I tried to fix the brakes, which had not worked for weeks, with little success and headed out for my old home, Texas, where I was going too curl up like a dog that’s been beat too much and lick my wounds. I made it as far as Oklahoma when I fell asleep at the wheel. After rolling the car at eighty miles an hour and being flung out of the car, I died. I was brought back by the emergency medical team that responded but remained in a coma for a month.
It took me over a year to make it back to Toledo but I was still in bad shape. I suffered partial memory loss from the accident but have been able to recover most of it. When I first walked back into River East it caused a stir as they thought I was dead. Joe’s reaction was particularly strong as he told me to step out into the alley so he could kick my ass. Mary Ellen Potaralsky was also upset and would later claim to have put out a restraining order against me. Court records indicate none was ever issued. It’s hard to believe that she was my first employee when I started Westbrook Marketing twelve years previously. I had asked for financial records so I could complete my income taxes and she said they would only be released to an attorney.
When I went upstairs to survey what was left I began to understand the reaction. Later interviews with local business men would confirm that they had purchased thousands of dollars worth of equipment from Joe Pena, evidently with Mary Ellen’s knowledge. From what I have been able to ascertain the proceeds from those sales were never applied to my back rent and went into their pockets.
One of those business men, Les Ramler of Monroe Michigan said that Joe bragged to him while he was purchasing equipment that he had found $4,000 I had hidden in my area. This would sound right considering I had lots of cash from the $60,000 second mortgage but had become highly paranoid because of the drugs. That also is how much I had told others was in my wallet that had been stolen from my office.
I have been told that the thefts Joe was anxious to point his finger at me for continued even after I left the state. Joe is no angel and was on probation for repeated DUI’s and possession of cocaine. He was leaving the probation building as I was going in one day and laughed at me as he got in his car. “Thanks for buying me this car” he smugly told me. Melvin’s whole family has an extensive criminal history and his house was in the news a few months ago when two people entered it and fired bullets into the ceiling in an evident attempt to intimidate them over a drug matter.
A man I did business with became concerned when he learned I had hired Melvin. He told me that he had paid Melvin and Joe to clean up at his warehouse and shortly after that some airplane parts worth thousands of dollars came up missing and were probably sold for scrap metal.
For a period Joe, Melvin, and I got along and would go to places like the German American Festival together. They bragged to me about being paid to torch a house. Joe said he had put too much gasoline out and the house blew, burning Melvin’s brother Tim. Joe laughed because he said he was in the paper for saving Tim’s life when they claimed to be walking by the house when it blew up. Tim was hospitalized from the burns.
These are the people who trumped up charges against me and spread as many stories as they could to denigrate my reputation. Now I admit I gave them lots of ammunition but I never had a reason to steal, especially with thousands of dollars worth of product, equipment, and the cash from my second mortgage. I was liquidating everything and had become a depressed mess, just wanting to go away.
Now I am mad. I have been trying to make amends for the past but find it frustrating when the lies told by those who were stealing from me cloud the minds of the ones I wish to do right to. Because of my injuries I will never be able to run a company like I had when I was the second largest tenant at River East so I have nothing to gain other than a portion of my self respect from doing what is, in my mind, the right thing.
Among those things I wanted to do was to recover furniture I was refinishing for the attorney Jim Adray along with the parts of the desk I was building for him. This would be to complete the job he had paid for despite the fact he wrote it off and expects nothing.
There was a little desk I had refinished half of that would have absolutely no value to anyone but would help demonstrate my refinishing capabilities. This might allow me to generate enough work to augment my Veterans Disability pension.
It is frustrating when I want to display a semblance of honor and integrity to be blocked from doing so. To be not allowed to correct past mistakes, in at least a partial way, is surprising when it could save River East time and money. Over the last three years I have made repeated attempts to open a dialog with River East with no success. I have offered to clean up the mess left after everything was picked through. I offered to pay for its self storage. I wrote letters for presentation to the board and executive committee. I have received no response of any kind.
I have documented much of what is in this statement. My attorney, Chuck Boyk, suggested I try publicity such as the local television stations advocacy programs as a means of motivating River East prior to filing a lawsuit. Despite the fact that the value of any recoverable items is minute I will pursue this on principle.

I can be reached at 419-351-7332. My E-mail is bobcarver1@yahoo.com If you are interested in who I am now and my activities you can find a complete journal on my blog at http://walkedwithangels.blogspot.com
My mailing address is;
Bob Westbrook
Toledo, Ohio 43614

Creation Versus Evolution??

I don’t KNOW that God exists. I hope he does and if so that he is allot nicer than many religions make him out to be. Living forever is a nice thought and we all tend to believe what is comforting to us. I really don’t get the creationists though. As a former fundamentalist pastor with a theology degree, I have an insight to how they think. I have watched them on their television programs try to “Scientifically” prove the world and universe is 5,000 years old by parading a variety of “experts” in front of the camera. Common guys. The light from the stars we see took millions of years to get here. Lets see what else I heard. Oh!! Try this one. God just made everything old to start with…and the stratified layers of soil and rock are from the great flood…and, and, and I give up. The list is too long. I began to wonder if being stupid is a requirement to be a Christian.
So I offer up my own theory. Gods not in a hurry. Time means nothing when you always have been and always will be. Why not think of him as a gardener who threw out the worlds and tossed out some seeds like amino acids and DNA or whatever. Then he would come around every billion years or so and see what happened. Hell, he could have made the universe zillions and zillions of times. I know he’d have to do something to keep from being bored. I get bored with a long day much less with forever on my hands.

Injustice

I am again watching the show “Injustice” and it stirs my heart as it always will. There are too many kids I have seen sent up by the system, including myself, who should not have been. There was one in the Texas prison who I watched as he was “turned out” and traded like a cheap trinket. Sometimes I can remember his name. Not right now. He was a small kid who had been used by others to break into businesses by them lifting him up through windows they couldn’t fit through. He would then unlock the door to let them in. When it all fell apart the kid took the fall for them all, pushed into confessing by the police interrogators. He was a weak scared kid who wasn’t all there. I have known many like him who’s lives have been destroyed by unscrupulous justice officials ranging from police officers, prosecutors, and judges who were more interested in getting their numbers up than true justice. Sometimes it’s ambition, sometimes it’s laziness, sometimes it’s keeping the budget down, but always it is at the cost of innocence and truth. Good night. It is 11:30 at night. I just remembered the kids name. It is Wysong

Abbreviated timeline of the life of Bob

This just scratches the surface,
Born on Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Texas. My father was a fighter pilot and my mother the local beauty. Their marriage was rocky to put it mildly with a divorce, remarriage and another divorce.

My fathers mother purchased my brother and I from mom. My dad went to Korea where he became an ace in the war.

Grandma couldn’t handle us and was sick so dad had to take us. I called my grandmother Mama. She was Mom to us, the first person I remember, the first one who showed us love. This stranger shows up and I am told this is my dad and my new mom and he took me away from Mama.

Dad was strict and beatings (spankings?) were regular. I was angry and couldn’t get along. We moved to Dayton where I was kicked out of kindergarten. Then we moved to Spain. Then we moved to England. Then we moved to Florida. Then we moved to San Antonio, Texas. There were never any real friends. I was the kid everyone picked on. I was always the one nobody wanted on their team.

At fourteen I took my first swing back at dad while being beaten again. That night I ran away from home, breaking into the high school where I lived while still attending class.

I was sent to live with my other grandmother back in the town I was born. There nobody knew me and I wasn’t chased and beaten like I had been in every other school I had attended.

I found a group who accepted me and had friends for the first time in my life. Unfortunately they were the “wrong” crowd but I worked to fit in. I smoked pot for the first time, I got drunk for the first time. Not wanting to be a virgin anymore (I never had a girl friend till I met my first wife) I went to the building downtown everyone in Big Spring knew was the whore house and had a not to memorable experience.

I still had no social skills but kept up an image of the wild James Dean type. I did more and more things to impress everyone that I was cool. Drugs and drinking were a central part of that. Stealing a car because I was drunk and didn’t want to walk home I was arrested. The judge gave me a choice. Go to prison or join the military.

On my seventeenth birthday I was taken from the jail and put on a bus for basic training in the Air Force. There my rebellion continued and I was set back to another class until I finally completed basic training.

Upon graduation I was sent to be trained as a crew chief on B-52 aircraft. I continued my drug use and was exhibiting extreme rebellion against all authority. After a year of this and with the end of the Vietnam war I was given an honorable discharge and told to go away.

I returned to Big Spring, jumping back into the drug crowd. I sold drugs and committed petty crimes until I was caught selling ground up aspirin as cocaine. This resulted in a sentence of ten years probation.

I quickly violated this probation by getting caught with a joint and entered the Texas prison system at nineteen. This was a violent wake up call. I became involved with a program called Operation Kick It” where I was taken under armed guard to high schools and civic organizations such as the Rotary Club. There I would tell my story to show kids the consequences of poor decision making.

This gave life meaning so, wishing to continue doing positive things I enrolled in Bible college upon my release from prison. There I fell in love for the first time and married the love of my life.

Graduating and receiving my ordination we moved to Toledo, my wife’s home town. There things were tough as we both tried to learn how to be married and survive.

In 1981 I fell out of a tree, breaking my neck and back and sustaining a concussion. This resulted in a drastic personality change, which no one, including the doctors, could explain. This resulted in our divorce which tore our hearts out.

The wife of a friend made advances while the divorce was in process. Alone and heartbroken I foolishly became involved. She divorced her husband and moved in with her two children. I resigned my positions in the church and married her to make things right. This was a big mistake. I should have taken a clue from her infidelity with her first husband but had to learn the hard way.

The next seventeen years were a yo yo of me leaving and coming back with her finding male companionship every time. I did desperate things to feed the kids but finally started two companies which were successful.

My drinking and drug use escalated. One night I broke into a fireworks stand and passed out on the fireworks I had piled up in the parking lot. I was sent back to prison with a two to ten year sentence. I stopped drinking and using drugs at this point.

Upon my release from prison I rebuilt both companies from scratch and renewed my relationship with Barb, the second wife. This was again rocky but I tried for the kids I loved. As the business grew it took more and more of my time till I was working eighty plus hours a week. This didn’t help things at home. I caught Barb having sex in the parking lot of the mall she worked at so I moved out of the house into my warehouse.

There I began a slide into madness fueled by extreme depression, drugs and alcohol, and a year long bitter divorce. Set up by an employee I had caught stealing I was convicted of receiving stolen goods, a felony. By this time I was delusional, hallucinating, and suicidal.

I left town, running from my conviction and wanting to return to my home town in Texas. I didn’t make it. Falling asleep in Oklahoma while driving I was flung from the car as it rolled at eighty miles an hour. I was pronounced dead at the scene but revived by the medics.

I was in a coma for a month and woke up with a traumatic brain injury and amnesia. My brother showed up and took me to St Louis where I eventually found my way to a brain injury rehab center. Just when I started getting the badly needed medical help I was extradited back to Toledo because I had violated my probation by being in a coma and not reporting.

The courts recognized I was in bad shape so simply continued my probation put me out on the street. At this time I did not recognize the streets I had driven for 25 years. I wandered around homeless looking for anything familiar and researching who I was at the library. As I worked to recover my memory the local ABC television station heard about me and ran a story, calling me Toledo’s John Doe.

Friends I knew I had but couldn’t remember came forward to help. This got me off the streets and greatly reduced my stress. Stress is debilitating for those with brain injury and in my case rendered me nonfunctional. Now I was able to work on getting my life together.

One of those who saw the TV show was my first wife. She called in to help. Meeting for the first time in twenty years we realized we had never stopped loving each other and remarried June 20 2004. She helps me with my disability.

This is a quick timeline which barely covers the life I have lived. I wrote this to help give a dim understanding to the growing number of those interested. There are many blanks which will be filled in when or if I ever get my books written.

Renewed inspiration

2/11/06
I have had some of my inspirations renewed. I used to go “Blogging” where I would click the “Next Blog” button and it would randomly drop me on another blog. Many of them were in languages I couldn’t understand, several were porn that would drop all kinds of nasty spyware on my system, and some were just wacked out people who are truly frightening.
Then, I found this place that has something called “map stats” http://mapstats.blogflux.com/ that tracks who visits your blog, where they are from, and other cool stuff. In addition to that they have a registry where you can register your blog. The part I like is they physically read your blog and you must meet their standards to be registered. Standards are basic, no porn, no spam, and I think No Nuts though I can’t say for sure. I just read it two days ago so it is gone. Anyway I registered my walked with angels blog and then started looking through their directory of registered blogs.
It was refreshing to not have to wade through a ton of crap to find something decent. One of the spots I found belonged to the author John Scalzi at http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/. (I know there is a way to make it so you could just click on his name to go there but I don’t know how) Actually I found a poem he wrote on the public defenders site and it linked to his site. I went there to ask permission to put his poem, entitled Poor, on this and my other blog. In his blog he answered questions about agents and publishing books and that is what renewed my dream of making a difference by talking to thousands (or millions) through writing.
One of the things my dim mind has noticed is that most blogs have short entries instead of the lengthy discourses I have so I figure I will put in a few short ones like this.
Here's the poem, with the permission of John Scalzi
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you're being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

Feed a Monster and it will eat you

Here’s the latest thing to get me going. They just arrested a man for trying to abduct a fourteen year old girl. Now you would expect this guy to be some kind of low life living in squalor and drinking or using drugs all the time but nooo. This guy was a former mayor, a county commissioner, a volunteer at the 4H club, a good Christian, well respected, and on and on. Not at all what you would think a pervert would be. I was fascinated to see the reactions of those who knew him in the small towns of Hamler and Napoleon. Now let me put this in perspective.
Two girls are walking home from school and they notice a guy in a red Mustang following them. He drove around the block four times to come past them again and again. This freaked them out so she ran home. There she changed clothes and left to go to a friend’s house a half hour later. Gee, here’s this guy again. He follows her and at a nearby food market gets out of his car and calls to her “Come here little girl”. She ran and he chased her on foot for a short distance.
This girl is smart and appears to have learned how to act in such circumstances. She called 911 and was able to give a description of the guy, his car, and the license plate number. With that the police were able to obtain his picture and the girl was able to immediately pick it out from a line up of ten or so pictures. That sounds pretty concrete to me.
So here’s the deal. I was amazed at the number of people who knew him and refused to believe he did this. One nice old lady said “I think it’s a scam. He’s a nice Christian man. He can’t do something like this”. Another said in disbelief “Why would someone go to Toledo and chase a girl he didn’t know? That doesn’t make sense. No one would do that” insinuating this was a ridiculous story someone made up. Of course there were many who understood this guy probably was guilty but it still was hard for them to accept.
The fact is you never know what is under the surface. I have written before about the false face most present to the world. Every one of us has secrets. Deception is a part of all cultures. We all espouse the virtues of honesty but few practice what they preach. I am amazed by how few of us can see the reality that’s right in front of our eyes. We choose to see the world the way we want it to be or the way we were told it is. Despite all the evidence many are refusing to believe this man did this.
I would bet a thousand dollars that if they checked this guy, Steven Baden’s computer it would be full of porn. Now I’m a guy and like most guys it is hard for me not to look at stuff, especially when it’s everywhere on the internet. I do but fight it as much as I can. This is because I understand that if you feed a monster it grows stronger. One of the problems is you know that no one is looking so you can do this and nobody knows. There is the first deceit. Once you start doing something in hiding you are lying, you are putting up that false front. It starts out small. You know, it’s not a big deal, I’m not hurting anyone. When I said you are lying I mean you are lying to yourself. Then it moves easily to “I’m going to do this because I want to. No one will know and I don’t care. I like it”. The process can take years, even decades, but you are programming your brain. Soon you can’t look at a girl without your imagination going to work.
Steve Baden is a married man with two young boys. Who knows how long he fed his monster but it grew till it began to control him. Now he acts on this desire he has been nurturing. I would hope his being exposed, uncovered, will open his eyes to what he has allowed himself to become but I know this demon will not go away. If he doesn’t beat it down and starve it by self control it will grow strong and consume him again. Openness and honesty are the most powerful weapons we have. Think about it. If you knew there was a camera on you and the whole world was watching you would you act differently. We all put our best face forward when in a crowd. Nah, not really. We act to fit in with whatever crowd we are around and then change when with a different group. In my past I would go to church and be all religious and then go to the bar and be a very different person.
Since I died, was in a coma, and woke up I have revised my thinking and changed my priorities. I see things differently and I think allot more clearly. At least I think I do but who knows. What do you think?

Insanity is a contagious disease

Insanity is a contagious disease.
What is the definition of insanity? The Encarta dictionary says it is 1.- The lack of reason or good sense. 2. – Legal incompetence or irresponsibility because of a psychiatric disorder.
Of course it is much more complex than this. For many of us the acts of Muslim extremists such as suicide bombings are insane but in their minds they are normal and they view the rest of us as insane. Sanity is therefore relative to the culture. Is there a standard for sanity that can apply to the whole human race? I doubt it.
So sanity boils down to what you believe. Belief is the most powerful thing we have. If we believe we can accomplish something the odds are greatly improved we will. If we believe it is impossible, it is. The problem with belief is that we all try to sway others to our way of thinking. Thus, like a contagious disease such as the flu, ideas and beliefs are spread through contact. Some are more contagious than others. Look at religion for an example. One man with an idea (or a “revelation”) can start an epidemic that spreads throughout the entire world. Just like viruses do, these beliefs evolve over time, sometimes until they only resemble what they began as. All religions develop sects or denominations which often wage war with each other.
With belief often comes blindness. As someone’s belief grows it begins to take over just like any disease will. A person’s paranoia can grow till it overwhelms all commons sense. At some point this will cross an invisible line to insanity.
I was fascinated to read in the news today the statement of an Imam regarding Islam and the riots connected with cartoons depicting Mohammed. He said that Islam is a religion of peace and then talked about how the insult to Mohammed should be avenged. He is so blind he evidently is unable to see the contradiction of his words in one statement.
I began to study the history of Islam and found that when Mohammed conquered Mecca, the place where he and his followers were cruelly tortured and killed he forgave and did not take vengeance. The quote of his words said “This day there is no reproof against you and you are all free. This day I trample under my feet all distinctions between man and man, all hatred between man and man.” He even pardoned those who had killed Hamazah, his uncle whom he loved, and ripped his body open even eating his liver. How different this is from what I see from his followers today.
The infections of thought that seem to be the most entrenched and lead to insanity are the ones based on hate. Whether it is the racism of Hitler and the Neo Nazis or the KKK it never dies like a virus that becomes immune to antibiotics. There will always be these infections brought by those who are adept at swaying others to their way of thinking. Just look at the small cults like the Jim Jones followers who committed mass suicide or Charles Manson crew who killed on his command. It’s not just religion. Look at the mafia and gangs who also kill and die for what they believe. Are they insane? I think so but who am I.