My two daughters are grown now; Amanda just turned twenty-one, and Megan, my psychologist in the making, is nineteen. It wasn’t so long ago, however, that they were a pair of rugrats who could destroy an entire living room in the time it took an adult to eat a ham sandwich.

My ex-wife and I were particularly protective parents. Toni and I have had our differences over the years, but I never worried about the girls when they were with her. God help anyone who ever got between that mama bear and her cubs.

The phrase ‘perfect storm’ was first coined by William Makepeace Thacheray in his novel “Vanity Fair” in 1847. This phrase commonly refers to an event or series of events where rare and powerful forces collide to dramatically aggravate an existing situation with disastrous results.

When John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho of Brownsville, Texas met in 2001 it began a chain of events that ended with an event that would rock not only the city of Brownsville, but the entire state of Texas. And given all the wackiness that goes on in Texas, that’s saying a lot.

Angela Camacho was born in Mexico and illegally immigrated to the United States. She settled in Brownsville and had a child with one man and then became pregnant again by another. When she was about one month along in her second pregnancy, she met John Allen Rubio.

FINAL 2 DEFENDANTS GIVEN LONG TERMS IN DANIEAL KELLY CASE
excerpts of an article by Michelle Skowronek – The Philadelphia Daily News

The final two defendants convicted in a fraud scheme in the death of Danieal Kelly were sentenced to substantial prison terms yesterday.

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell sentenced Julius Murray, of Upper Darby, to 11 years in prison and ordered him to pay restitution of $316,000. Dalzell sentenced Mariam Coulibaly, of Brookhaven, to 11 1/4 years in prison with restitution set at $1,044.

Five other former MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Services Inc. employees also got jail time in the case stemming from the death of Kelly, 14.

Kelly, who had cerebral palsy, died in August 2006. She suffered bedsores and malnutrition because of inadequate care that MultiEthnic was supposed to prevent.

When my husband and I first were married, we made the decision to delay starting our family for several years. We were both working professionals who traveled frequently with our jobs and when we did have some spare time when we were both home together, we liked to go out and have a little fun.

We enjoyed nothing more than going to our favorite bar ‘n grill for some really fine tasting grub, great music, good booze and dancing. I’ve always been a shot of tequila and a beer babe myself, while hubby enjoys his whiskey. Give him enough whiskey and he will put the shrimp heads on his fingers and make them start dancing.

Gather round friends, it’s story time. Just relax and close your eyes. Free your mind. Now imagine, if you will, living in a nice rural area. Good neighbors, your kids play together, life is grand. But something is starting to threaten that warm fuzzy security. You’re starting to notice that something has been climbing around on your cars. You’re perplexed, and a tad bit annoyed.

Then you see and unidentified animal lurking about. Hmm. You are in a rural area, it could be just about any 4 legged bugger encroaching on your beloved land. Then on one dark country evening, shrouded in the blackest of nights without pollution from any city lights, a creature lunges at you. It’s time to think about your safety. The safety of your children even. You set up a steel trap and bait it with some delicious ham and anticipate what monster of the dark awaits you. You go check the trap, and you’re faced with this deadly ferocious creature:

RETRIAL LIKELY FOR KELLY AND PITTMAN IN MINEOLA CHILD SEX RING CASE
by Layron Livingston – KLTV Television News, Texas

Patrick “Booger Red” Kelly was convicted and sentenced once, but now, the accused child molester will get a retrial. Thursday morning, the 14th court of appeals reversed Kelly’s case.

The court says the evidence was there in Kelly’s trial, but they add that too many rules were broken by both the trial court and prosecutors.

In its opinion, the court writes the “record is rife with error,” mistakes the appeals court says may have led to Kelly’s conviction.

“I expected acquittal…because he’s not guilty,” said Linda Kelly, Patrick Kelly’s mother.

For weeks, she sat in the back of the 241st district courtroom while her son was put on trial.

Sometimes I wonder where we are heading as a species. Guess that’s why I loved George Carlin’s humor – watch the news and then quickly seek a DVD with Georgie to unwind. I miss his misanthropic humor as it was a reflection of my own: dark, psychopathic, and, at times, hilariously inappropriate!

As bitter as some found his views on life to be, he wasn’t too far off the mark when he said that humans were screwed up. Take this for instance: it typically takes up to a full year to plan a wedding. Did you know that? And the cost of the average wedding can rival what some people owe for their mortgages. Makes eloping look like a strategic financial decision, doesn’t it?

I think most of us had a parent or parental figure that we loved dearly but at the same time were terrified of. In most people’s cases it’s the mother, but in my case, it was my grandmother.

To say that she was tiny would be an understatement. She was a gigantic 4’8″ and, fully dressed, soaking wet, and carrying her fully-load purse, weighed in at a colossal 85 pounds. But her personality was a force of nature.

She was fierce.

She was born outside of Dublin and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was a child. She raised her 15 children (hey, we’re Irish – we don’t have kids, we have litters) to be productive members of the community. When my mother developed her “issues,” my brothers and I went to live with her and my grandfather. We loved her dearly.