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Cultural Differences vs. Social Deviancy

Imagine this: You’re walking along the lower East Village in New York City on a Friday night and you come upon a baby crying alone in a stroller outside the Dallas BBQ restaurant at 132 Second Avenue. What would you do? Call 911? Flag down a cop? Go into the restaurant and search for the parents?

Crybaby
Last Friday just such an incredible scenario happened in real life, in real time. Two friendly passerbys did all the above mentioned actions in an attempt to reunite the crying baby with her parents. Incredibly, the parents were inside the restaurant having dinner and aware of the plight of their baby. In fact, the parents had purposefully left their baby alone on the sidewalk while they ate.

When Parents Won’t Parent
The parents refused to leave their seats to bring their baby inside the restaurant to sit with them even though the wait staff tried to convince the couple to bring the baby inside in exchange for a bigger table and a place to put the stroller. The parents declined. One passersby called 911 and the NYPD arrested the couple for “endangering the welfare of a child.” The baby was immediately placed in foster care by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

Continue reading → Cultural Differences vs. Social Deviancy

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Too Late for Thanks: A Partial Recall (Part I)

by Marshall Jamison

As a small boy growing up in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts, my first hero was the old man who lived next door and told me stories. On clear days he would be out early in the morning to watch his son run up the flag on the tall flag pole that stood in his blossom filled garden. His own experiences, real life stories of the Civil War, describing the heroism and glory of his comrades, found me a fascinated listener.

Then when I realized my own grandfather had served in that war as a Marine, could also tell true stories that thrilled my heart and mind, I become a hopeless hero worshiper, stirred by such tales of Valor.

Continue reading → Too Late for Thanks: A Partial Recall (Part I)

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Casting Stones at UFOs

The recent group suicide of the Heaven’s Gate community is quite a fascinating and vivid example of the power of Faith in the Greater Glory of a Higher Calling. It doesn’t matter if you support how Heaven’s Gate chose to express their Faith – their action is a curious study of a group’s dynamic ability to move beyond the physical world and reach out to touch something greater than themselves.

Continue reading → Casting Stones at UFOs

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A Promise Kept

by Marshall Jamison

(Publisher’s Note: We are pleased to announce that this poem, after being seen in GO INSIDE Magazine, has been selected for publication in The National Library of Poetry’s book: “The Best Poetry of 1997”)

He held her again as he had when she first told him.
Then she told him again and then he promised
To marry her as soon as he was eighteen
And he did.

At twenty-two after two more babies
And before they could conceive again
He volunteered for the Navy, took basic training in California,
Was assigned to Pacific duty, finally to Hawaii
and the battleship USS Arizona forever.

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A Boy Named Laughter

by Marshall Jamison

Trumpets screamed a triumphant message
In her brain
But she lay quietly as her heart beat
With joy and thankful relief of pain.
Her new son slept beside her, in the peace
Of quiet exhaustion
She called him Isaac because she liked the name –
Her first born son. Her wise nurse then
Told her, according to the Bible, the name
Means laughter.
So there in the dark, she held laughter
To her breast, with Joy.

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Slaughterhouse Publishing

Allow me a moment to discuss the business of computer book publishing with you. It’s a fascinating business, an extremely profitable business, and a business that is in desperate need of a re-alignment of purpose and thought because some computer book publishers are short-shafting their readers. If you’re thinking of writing a computer book, read on. If you’re thinking of buying a computer book, you definitely need to read on…

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Race for Naturalization

There’s a strange aftershock going on around the country that may surprise you on a gut level. When President Clinton signed the Welfare Reform bill and made it the law of the land, many liberals shouted that it would be the children who would suffer most. In fact, the children of our society are quite protected from falling through the gaps. Programs are still in place that will provide for the continued welfare of any child in need.

Land of Opportunity
Many legal immigrants who come to this country purposefully give birth to their children here in the USA so their kids will be American Citizens. This guarantees that their children will be able to take advantage of WIC (Welfare for Infants and Children) and SSI (Supplemental Security Income), Food Stamps and Welfare at any time they are in need and many parents use the child’s benefits to satisfy their own needs.

The Line Forms Here
Childless legal immigrants welfare recipients are not quite so lucky thanks to the Clinton Welfare Reform Bill. On August 1, 1997, their Welfare checks, SSI, HR (Home Relief) and other benefits will stop unless and until they become naturalized citizens of The United States of America. You can imagine the scenario that is presently wending its way through many Federal buildings throughout our fair land. If you can’t envision it, let me paint some numbers for you of images dotting our amber waves of grain.

Continue reading → Race for Naturalization