The Full Story of the Jena 6: A couple of weeks ago I watched as 20,000 protesters marched the streets of Jena to protest the arrest of Mychal Bell (a black student) who was charged with beating a white student. The outrage was that the theory is that the white student was part of a group of kids who had hung a noose at a popular tree that the whites had been sitting under until some of the blacks decided that they wanted to sit there too. Obviously a situation of race tensions being escalated.

• The white kids should never have been allowed to have had a place to congregate that was “whites only”.

• The black kids probably should not have provoked them by taking over the tree.

• The white kids should not have hung the nooses.

• The black kids, the Jena 6, shouldn't have beat up the white student they suspected of hanging the nooses.

But there were a couple of good adult decisions that were made in all of this. First, the school administrators cut down the tree. The symbol of white segregation was removed. Second, Mychal Bell was kept in jail despite the protests. At the time it appeared that the judicial system was singling out young Mychal Bell, and that did seem extreme. School fights happen all the time and although the white kids took a pretty bad beating, he was able to go to a party that night. But, after a goodly stint the rowdy Mychal Bell was released. Yesterday he was re-arrested. The charge was that the arrest had violated two previous arrests where probation was given so long as he didn't reoffend. He did and now will spend possibly 18 months in juvenile detention. Is this fair? Absolutely. The judge essentially said, “You have been found guilty of a crime and you deserve to go to detention for the next year and a half. But, if you keep yourself out of jail we will give you a second chance.” He didn't and will now pay for those crimes.

The problem is that the 20,000 people protesting didn't know about the former arrest record, nor should they. A juvenile arrest record is sealed by the court for the protection of the child. While a kid who has already been arrested 3 times is hardly a child, he still should be protected.

This just reminds me that sometimes there are two sides to a story and sometimes we are not privy to all of the facts, and we shouldn't be. The government doesn't tell us everything for the protection of those involved.

This wasn't started as a black and white issue, but in the end it was simply a matter of justice. A kid caught a break and blew it. He has 540 more days to think about that.

The Joys of Rewards & Free Stuff: This has been a great week for me to get a little extra when I didn't expect it. First I was looking at one of my frequent user sites and found that I had enough points to get a new food dehydrator. I had been wanting one of these for years (its a weird thing to want, but you would have to know me to understand that need). Then I had enough points with my gas station to get a gift card to take my wife out for dinner at Applebees, maybe twice. The other night I was getting cookies from a vending machine and some M&Ms popped out at the same time. Too cool! I am about 900 points away from getting Mary another Barnes & Noble card from MyPoints.com. Its often the little things that just make my day.

I don't get it, I know I don't get it, and I don't think that I want to get it!: I have had a Facebook page for months now, and have visited it twice (plus the time that I set it up. I just don't get it. I see people in the local Starbucks sitting there doing things with their Facebook and MySpace pages and I don't get the interest. I just checked in for the first time in two months and saw that my sister virtually poked me. I don't know what that is, so I poked her back. I am hoping that this is some sort of virtual play and not meant as an insult. I hope that by poking her I didn't sign her up for anything. I was asked to make people superlatives. I have no idea what that means. There isn't a blog so that I can go to their site and read what they are doing, thinking, concerned about. So I just don't get it. I will check in a month from now, and probably find that my daughter has poked me.

Another Hero Falls: I am just about done with sports. Recently one of the best quarterbacks pled guilty to a string of charges included electrocuting dogs. A referee in the NBA admitted to fixing games. Barry Bonds hasn't been found guilty yet, but everyone knows that he is. The pinhead that won the Tour de France was found guilty of doping. So I guess that leaves amateur sports. Nope, Marion Jones, a three time gold medal Olympian has admitted doping (with the same Barry Bonds "The Clear" drug). So sad.

Putting it in perspective: Whenever I get feeling like my life is not what it should be I just look at the daily headlines and see the train wreck that is Brittney Spears. Today's headline - she loses custody of her children. Last week, arrested for hit and run, week before that, failed drug screening, week before that the terrible lip sync performance on TV. Need I go on?

Fear of Transparency: I have been contemplating deeper things lately, and thinking about why some people do what they do. I was asked by my dad recently why some people act the way they do on a particular subject, and why others don't. Tough questions without a simple answer. But the more I think about it, some people just stay quiet so as not to cause any ripples.

I will confess that there are areas in my life where I don't want to be transparent. I don't want the world to know that I believe in some idea that 99% of the world would consider strange. Even when presented with all of the facts many people prefer to live with blinders on because they are helpless to do anything significant to change the course of their lives.

Tori and I were talking about this last night as it relates to the global warming concept. There are people out there who have made it their life's goal to tell everyone that we are going to die because of it. There are unquestionably meteorological phenomenon that can't be explained, and other data that contradicts it. I saw a documentary over the weekend that said that the Great Lakes are drying up due to the increasing temperatures, but then later it seemed to indicate that the real cause might be that the main river leaving the lakes may have been dredged too deeply and now all of the water is flowing out with nothing flowing it. Seems like an easy fix if that is the case. But while some lakes are drying up, others are telling us that the ocean is rising because of glacier melt. We are told Manhattan will be under water in 23 years, but there hasn't been a millimeter of rise in the ocean in New York, so it makes it hard to get all worked up about it.

The key to me is if you believe in something a little out of the mainstream, what are you doing about it? This weekend it was announced that Tom Cruise is building a $10m bunker under his Aspen home to protect his family against the inevitable attack from Xenu (he now denies this). Tom, you believe in a faith that teaches that we are going to be attacked by Xenu, why not build the bunker, its pretty obvious that you have the money. Let the world know that you are putting your faith to the test. Sure, it is a strange concept and 99.99% of the people think that this was one of Hubbard's best sci-fi works, but if you believe it then build it. This is no difference than the many who built bomb shelters in the 50's because of the Russians. If my dad had believed that we were going to be attacked by the Russians and didn't build a bomb shelter I think that I would have less respect for him.

So yes, I have my little “thing” that I have that makes me a little different than the rest, but I think for now I will keep it to myself. I quietly live a life style that back up my ideology, but I don't think that I am ready to announce to the world the $10m bunker at the Digital Ranch, or even a $100 bunker. In fact, no bunker is being built. If Tom is correct then he and Katie and the kids will have all of the world for themselves. What a sad world.