March 21, 2006
Hello out there in Cyberspace land!
So I logged on today to find a comment from a stranger....or someone who may not be a stranger but not putting down their name on the comment (see previous blog entry and comment). So to my fan base....a big hello and sorry for not keeping the blog entries up to date. I shall attempt to keep posting away.

Lets get to the buisness at hand. I was at work today and read the lovely Hamilton Spectator. Not exactly a thrilling newspaper but it is free and I had free time. There seemed to be a theme to the paper today. It touched on a subject I am very much passionate about. That is domestic violence--and more particular violence committed against children. I think the paper was focused on this issue today because of the murder of a 9 year old Brantford boy and the fatal stabbings of his mother and sister by a man who is suppose to love them. There was an editorial in this newspaper that irked me a bit. It was a bit one sided about the issue. It claimed that the women in these relationships(and it generally is women and children--not to say it does not happen to men but the rates are lower in comparison) were not being protected by the system that they sought out for assistance. I'm not saying that this writer was not right in her accussation of the system, but lets take a look at the women in these relationships for a minute. By the time the women do ask for the assistance it is borderline too late. These women are so intrenched in the abuse that they don't see it is wrong on so many levels. Even with the education we have today and the push to bring it to the forefront a lot of these women are ill educated, young and naive. They just don't have the life experience or support to understand that it's okay to be by one self. Not only is it almost too late for these women to get out but getting out is most difficult. Escaping is often a life and death situation and for the lucky it's life.

Which brings me to my point. Domestic homicide, as it's now called, has been in the news in the past few years. This is a result of high profile cases in the news. Most recently the two in Brantford. It's tragic what has happened to these familes as a result of rage and anger. That is why the government needs to step up. They need to give police and frontline social workers and other social service agencies the power to step in for these women and children. They need to get tougher and swifter on these perpetrators of violence against women and children. They need to speed up the justice process so that these women and children can move forward and not live in fear. Some may say that it's the right of the would be perpetrators to have their due process but with the predictors we have in today's society for the occurence of these crimes due process can happen much faster. A whole unit within the justice system can be specifically designated for this purpose. I just don't understand why more women and children have to die because of the lack of understanding and compassion from the law makers.

Now to step off my soap box and on to another one. I was linked to a site recently http://www.invisiblechildren.com/ that I think everyone should at least check out. As some of you know I'm pretty passionate about children and youth issues be it locally as the above soap box demonstrates or internationally as this one will demonstrate. I have yet to see this movie but I have written the director to see if a screening is coming to Canada. From the little teaser and trailler it looks well worth the screening. If I can organize a screening or two in Canada I will keep you posted.

Alright off both soap boxes. Back to reality. Back to my daily mussings over flip flops--which by the way I saw a whole selection of colours in Old Navy that I must get--and my daughter! And the occasional mussing over a boy--Geek Boy!