Evidence Again

Two new City Councilpersons are sworn in!

A new Councilperson (right) hard at work next to a continuing member of the Council.

An extremely pleased and happy Mayor laughs with one of the new
Councilpersons as they prepare to begin a new session of the Council.

Evidence again that all politics is local!

by Charlie Leck

Politics works at the grass roots. A republic, such as the one established in the United States of America, will only work properly if its people are alert, informed and involved. What happens at the bottom in our nation -- in its communities -- has a mighty impact on what happens at the top.

This principle was evidenced again last night, in our little town, in the swearing in of two elected officials who were chosen by the people to serve them honestly, openly and courteously. That is all that we who worked for them asked of the candidates in return. There were no bargains struck and no political, social or community agendas.

"Serve us honestly, openly and courteously," we asked.

We shall now watch to make certain their promises are kept.

Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (review)
by Charlie Leck

Nothing like being very up-to-the-moment with my movie reviews, ey? Well, so I’m a little late with THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, but I just watched it for the first time today. What an unbelievable movie! Not unbelievable, mind you, in the sense that it is incredible and wonderful and sensational, though it is all those things, too. The story line is just plain unbelievable – as in incredible!

So, in watching it, you just have to go with the flow and accept it as fantasy and then just enjoy the ride. I did just that today and what a pleasant two and half hours of movie viewing I had. It was sparkling cinematography work (Best Cinematography Award by 2008 Phoenix Film Critics Association) and danged good acting, too (even though Brad Pitt is pretty much Brad Pitt even when he’s playing a very old man… or was it, let me see, an extremely young old man).

This movie may confuse you at times if you don’t pay attention. And, I don’t think you’re going to like this movie if you don’t occasionally like a good love story. I am, once in a while, a sucker for a good one.

I was particularly taken by the performances of Cate Blanchett as Daisy and Julia Ormond as Caroline, though Taraji Henson in the role of Queenie was also quite brilliant. Across the board, the acting was really very outstanding. The New York Times Review of the film had these words of praise for Ms. Blanchett:

“But the movie’s emotional center of gravity — the character who struggles and changes and feels — is Daisy, played by Ms. Blanchett from impetuous ingénue to near ghost with an almost otherworldly mixture of hauteur and heat.” [The review was written by A.O. Scott]

This production is remarkably directed by David Fincher. He received an award as the Best Director from the 2008 National Board of Review.

The movie, which most of you who have seen the film understand, involves a man (or baby) who ages backwards. He is born very old and grows younger and dies as a little baby in the arms of his one-time lover and now nursemaid. I told you it was unbelievable!

Yet it is remarkably intriguing to move toward that moment where the lovers are going to meet at the center point of both the story and the universe (or their lives). Of course, as they – the lovers – go beyond that point, the man grows younger and younger and the woman older and older.

How much more complicated it would be if the couple just happened to have a child and the father might then need to look forward to passing his own off-spring as he child grows older and his kid grows younger and younger. Well, I’ll be darned if just that doesn’t happen.

For those of you who haven’t seen the film, I’m probably telling you too much. I’ll stop.

Let me, however, just mumble on a bit more about a couple of the meaningful feelings I took from the movie. First of all, I loved it from the opening scene through the closing credits and I remained captivated by it that entire time.

For me the film had a touch of Forest Gump. Like Forest, Benjamin has more adventures than any real life time could squeeze in. It’s part of the fantasy and it shouldn’t be questioned, but only enjoyed.

Somewhere in the film, I thought we would arrive at that perfect moment as she ages and he grows younger and they meet at that precise point when they pass one another. But, it doesn’t happen! The collision course is avoided.

The film, or the story, is a lot about letting go. How often we ruin things we try to possess by holding too tightly. It also asks significant questions about love and makes some remarkable statements about love and its hazards.

“We’re meant to lose the people we love,” says Daisy. “How else would we know how important they were to us?”

“You can be mad as a mad dog. You can curse the fate, but when it comes to the end… you have got to let go!”

This film, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, is not listed on the 50 best movies of the last decade that I pointed out to you a few weeks ago, but it sure is an extremely fine and good film. If you haven’t seen it, do.

John Birch! Really!

My god, the John Birch Society is still around and that just knocks me out!
by Charlie Leck

The Tea Party is active in Minnesota – very active! And, what’s really interesting is that the Republican Party is trying to rope them in as a wing of what used to be a very distinguished political organization. I wonder how the old boys of Ripon would feel about this.

The GOP is so fond of claiming Abe Lincoln as one of their own; yet, Lincoln had no time for rabble rousers, shouters and haters in his time. He was totally incensed by them and often made it clear in many of his public speeches.

"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners and catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance.”

It appears that our Governor, who really wants to be our President, has recognized the sizeable presence of the Tea Party in current American politics and he is going to position himself in a manner that these goons will not find unattractive. Congratulations Governor!

Now it appears that the John Birch Society is back on the scene. Seems crazy to me! I thought they had been driven off the front pages and the political scene back in the 60s. I guess not. It appears that the Tea Party activities have breathed new life into the old Birchers, and “here we go again!”

Those of you too young to remember the activities of the crazy John Birch Society of five and six decades ago, may want to do some reading about them again – just to remind yourselves (or learn) about how crazy and dangerous the organization really is. The NY Times published an intriguing story about the John Birch Society this past summer, indicating the organization is headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. The article by Dan Barry is well done and worth reading. [Click here to read the Dan Barry article.]

Seems our Governor is going to be speaking at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. The conference will be co-sponsored by the John Birch Society. That’s it, Gov, be sure to secure all those far right – radical right – votes, my boy, and leave the wide, moderate, rational center to the Democrats. To be fair, I’ll admit here that the above conference also has several dozen other sponsors. It still rattles me to see the John Birch name hanging around, however. Like the Tea Party, the Birchers were always associated with rabble rousing, fear mongering and anger. In the early 60s we put them in a group of crazies we called “the radical right.”

Abe would not have liked the John Birch Society. As a matter of fact he would have thought they stunk. The Republican Party of the late 1850s and all of the 1860s would have hated the politics of the John Birch Society as well.

For those of you who don’t have time to read the entire NY Times story about what the John Birch Society is all about, I’ll leave you with this short clip from it.

“Yet for others, the John Birch Society is urgently relevant to the matters of today, in its support of secure borders and limited government, its distrust of the Federal Reserve and the United Nations, and its belief in a conspiracy to merge Mexico, Canada and the United States.

“This so-called North American Union, it asserts, is part of a larger plot by an amorphous, amoral group of powerful elite — including but not limited to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Rockefellers — to take over planet Earth. Call it the New World Order.

“Some of these theories may sound like cable television chatter, or the synopsis of a Dan Brown bestseller. But Birch leaders say this plot is real, with roots going back more than 200 years to a secret, insidious brotherhood called the Illuminati, and with most American presidents among its many dupes and abettors.

“'We’ve always referred to it as a Satanic conspiracy,' said Arthur Thompson, the society’s chief executive, sitting beside an American flag.”

And, as the Chad Mitchell Trio used to sing back then, when I was a young man:

You cannot trust your neighbor
or even your next of kin

If mommy is a commie
then you gotta turn her in.

O, we’re the John birch society,
the John Birch Society
Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the Right

Join the John Birch Society as we’re marching on
And we’ll all be glad to see you
when we’re meeting in the John.

Good night! And, good luck!

Tiger Redux

Britt Hume has been taking it on the chops for his comments about Tiger Woods, Christianity and Buddhism! Maybe we need more perspective!

by Charlie Leck

Can you imagine Tiger Woods, only months ago the leading glamour boy of all American sports, skulking around his house, afraid to come out and too embarrassed to face the world again? For all we know, that may be a true picture. I wonder if he is surrounding himself with PR experts who are laying out a strategy that might allow him to climb out of the fox hole in which he has secluded himself.

I'm betting that part of the strategy for recovery will include something in the area of a religious conversion. How often have we witnessed it?

Man does bad things! He is caught doing the bad things! His reputation is in ruins! Man finds God and experiences a religious conversion. Man starts life anew!

Some of these conversions may have an element of truth. My guess (and that's all it is) is that most of them do not!

Fox's number one newscaster, Britt Hume, suggested such a conversion to Christianity from Buddhism for Tiger, opining that more forgiveness might be available by making the switch. I suggested I had trouble with that, but that's mainly because I am not a religious literalist.

People like John Stewart and Keith Obermann have been making fun of poor Britt. I had my own shot at him in a blog a few days ago; however, I was merely trying to point out that Britt Hume may have been wrong about the concept of forgiveness within Buddhism. [Read my earlier blog if you are interested.]

This morning, Ross Douthat, a blogger and columnist I respect and read regularly, suggests that Britt Hume's comments were not that absurd and perhaps have some merit. So, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I thought I'd point you to that column. [Click here if you'd like to read the Douthat column about Hume and Woods.]

Among many other points, Douthat made this one:

"This doesn’t mean that we need to welcome real bigotry into our public discourse. But what Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible. Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins. Buddhists, as a rule, do not. And it’s at least plausible that Tiger Woods might welcome the possibility that there’s Someone out there capable of forgiving him, even if Elin Nordegren and his corporate sponsors never do."

Again, I would argue, as I did in that earlier post, that this is to misunderstand Buddhism. There is someone, according to the Buddhist concept who can forgive Tiger -- and that is Tiger! I'm not going to repeat what I said about the great and slow turning from his past, releasing himself from that past, and moving on to a new and unburdened future; however, this happens within the teachings of Buddha!

As a one-time strong and enthusiastic supporter and fan of Tiger Woods, I hope he is in this turning process. I also hopes he does not rush it, but remains very contemplative as he turns away from the past and toward a future that is not controlled by his former life style.

Repentance is an important word to me; and an important concept. For Tiger's sake, if he does play the religious card, I hope he is sincerely repentant for what he's done -- that is, what he's done to his wife and to his children and to all the people around him who sincerely love him.

Douthat makes some important points about not being afraid of the power of religion and faith; and that we were never intended to hide our religion and convictions and be hush-hush about them. He declares that Hume was not foolish at all in making his startling recommendation to Tiger.

But now, as long as all kinds of people are throwing religious cliches around, let me throw one of my own: "Let him who is without sin, throw the first stone!" Jesus, you were right-on when you said that!

Now, after saying all those pompous things, let me also point out that Jon Stewart's video, The Temple of Hume, is absolutely hilarious and I suggest you watch it for a few laughs. [click here to view it!]

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

When I was a little kid, Saturday night was the most difficult thing about Sunday morning.
by Charlie Leck

On Saturday evenings, the old, round, tin tub was laid out in the kitchen (as I remember it) and it was filled with hot water that had been boiled in pots on the stove. With a toe or two, I would test the temperature of the water that came about half-way up to the top of the tub. It was always found to be too hot and was cooled down with the addition of some cold water from the old hand-pump on the sink. Finally, I was induced to enter. My towel was stripped from me and I sat down, bringing the water up nearly to the brim of the wash tub.

My mother knelt down next to me and the tub, and the scrubbing began. A bar of soap was rubbed into a wet, course wash cloth and then rubbed into me – into my face, neck, back, chest, backside, legs and feet – and into my nether parts. Then began the element of the ritual I hated the most – the washing of my hair. No matter how sincere and well meant the promises that it wouldn’t happen, shampoo always got in my eyes and it always burned. My mother’s hands would rub the shampoo deeply into my scalp and massage the top, sides and back of my head with her finger tips. There was no mercy. Every bit of dirtiness and any threat of creature habitation had to be removed by force!

My wailing and screaming did no good. The attack on my scalp was never lessened. It was thorough and all out. I felt relief only when I was removed from the tub and transferred to the little shelf next to the sink, where my hair would be rinsed by the cold water ejected into it from the big pump under which I would hang my head. That process called for more wailing and shedding of tears.

Finally, in great humiliation, I would stand in the sink and my entire body would be rinsed with luke warm water, poured over it from several pots and pans that had been heating on the stove while I bathed. It was a relief when the big towel was wrapped around me and I was pronounced clean and bright – even behind my ears and under my fingernails. I was ready for the Sunday morning tradition.

Sunday School began at 9:30 in the morning up at the big Congregational Church on the hill about two blocks from our store and home. I was never allowed to skip Sunday School. My mom and dad could miss church and most often did because it was one of the busiest of times in our general store, what with the sale of hundreds of Sunday morning newspapers by people who often ordered a “real Sunday morning breakfast” to go with the reading of them.

Somehow, in spite of all the orders for eggs, bacon and butter-toast, which were shouted back to the kitchen, my mother managed to get me dressed up in heavy tweed suit with a stiff collared white shirt and carefully knotted necktie. She stood me up and looked me over. Usually there was a touch up here or there; perhaps a wiping of my shoes or a gentle polishing of the “perfect-attendance” pins that hung just off the lapel of my suit jacket.

My hair had been gunked down with something mighty gooey and my cheeks had been buffed to bring out some pinkness in them. I was given a quarter for the offering plate and my very own Bible was placed in my hand and tucked under my arm. With a kiss on the forehead and a pat on my backside, I was sent on my way up the hill, to the church. One of my big brothers would escort me across Main Street and up to a sidewalk where I would have a safe walk all the way to the church.

My brothers often hung back, too, and didn’t attend their Sunday School classes. They had stopped receiving their pins because of their imperfect attendance record. I was to represent the entire family on each Sunday morning and I was expected "to grow in the faith and in the knowledge of God and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour." It was a burdensome responsibility, but I climbed the hill with my head held high and marched to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers playing loudly in my thoughts.

In the store, both of my brothers got to sell newspapers, candy bars, packs of cigarettes, quart bottles of milk and half-pounds of freshly sliced spiced-ham. My father took orders from the various diners. A cup of hot, fresh coffee could be purchased for a nickel. A big plate of two eggs (sunnyside up), a thick slice of ham and two pieces of hot toast painted thickly with melted butter would cost 35 cents.

How I envied my family their busy, exciting time in the store, but I bore proudly the responsibility of climbing the hill to that sacred place to uphold the mighty reputation of our entire family. Over the years, as I grew, so did the length of the pins that were added to my chest. Even through my teenage years, I would not rebel at this burden placed on my shoulders. The one great change in the tradition was the running water that was finally added to our store. With it came a real bathroom, making the outhouse out-dated and unnecessary, and an honest to goodness bathtub with both hot and cold water. Then, I could bathe myself and wash my own hair and be more careful about the shampoo getting, or not getting, in my eyes. However, all through high school this Sunday morning tradition was carried on and I always, without fail, walked along Hillside Avenue to the lovely, white church on the hill.

The hymns were always the same and, in my teenage years, I knew them all by heart. No other child had a string of pins nearly the length of mine. I wore them proudly for approximately 15 years – right up to the time that mother died, and I went off to college, and I was too far away to go back there to climb the hill on Sunday mornings.

Yet, even now I remember those Sunday mornings so clearly. Off to my right, as I type out these words, a big and lovely photograph of the white church hangs above my desk. It was given to me only a dozen years ago or so by one of the wonderful teachers who taught the Sunday School classes I attended. On mornings like this one, I look over at the photograph and remember so clearly the walks up the hill to learn about Jesus.

The big, white church on the hill -- the First Congregational
Church of Chester, New Jersey.

Tiger Woods, Buddhism and Forgiveness!

Britt Hume has urged Tiger Woods to move toward the Christian Church in order to find forgiveness for himself and to move on!
by Charlie Leck

Your know, there was a time when I mildly admired Britt Hume. It was back when he was with one of the major television networks. Was it ABC? I don’t remember any more. That aside, it was clear back then that Hume had some talent. It started with that perfect voice for newscasters. He’s still got the voice but he’s gone very much to the weird side of the news, taking on a very opinionated stance and casting fairness and balance to the wind.

His recent comments, that Tiger Woods ought to turn away from Buddhism to Christianity in order to secure forgiveness, offended me just a little.

“The extent to which he can recover, seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith, so my message to Tiger would be: Tiger turn your faith, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

[If you do not see a video image link above, please click here!]

Oh boy! Let me started with a disclaimer. I’m a Christian and I understand that forgiveness lies at the very heart of our faith. A Christian who cannot forgive doesn’t quite get the meaning of our faith and of the man who died on the cross for us. That being said, I also have some great sympathies toward Buddhism and find it a very reassuring manner of living joyously and also of coming to terms with crisis when necessary.

I think Hume is dead wrong about the concept of forgiveness and the Buddhist faith. To Hume’s credit, he did use the qualifier, “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” So, Hume is correct as far as he goes, but his statement clearly implies Tiger cannot receive the quality level of forgiveness, or the depth of forgiveness, that he could find within the Christian Church. Not so!

Stay where you are Tiger, but take advantage of the marvelous counsel of your faith and you will be able to triumph over the weaknesses you showed in being so disloyal and dishonest to your wife. Forgiveness is possible in both the Christian and Buddhist faiths. It will take some courage on your part, however, to face up to your life and humbly ask for that forgiveness.

Forgiveness for the Buddhist is an act of letting go! One lets go of the past and makes a turn toward goodness and wholeness. That past is not erased – never erased – but forgiveness can eliminate the pain of one’s past. The important thing is that our past, when we are forgiven, no longer drives or determines our future.

Too many Christians think that forgiveness is an automatic thing – that one just confesses and then is awarded forgiveness and redemption. That’s not true, of course. A true sense of sorrow for one’s acts must be felt in the heart and mind (contrition). It is that sense of sorrowfulness that allows Christians to turn toward the path of righteousness and to abandon the path of sinfulness.

To the Buddhist, the turn is a wide and graceful one, like the turning of a massive, modern tanker ship upon the ocean. The arc is large and the movement is slow, providing plenty of opportunity for contemplation about both where we’ve been and where we are going. To me, that concept seems ideal for Tiger Woods.

The Buddhist also believes that there needs to be real human forgiveness as part of the process of spiritual forgiveness. Tiger must feel a sense of repentance and a desire to make amends to those he has so injured.

To the Buddhist, Tiger, in turning away from his past and letting go, becomes a new person. He will no longer be the man he was yesterday. It is similar to the Christian concept of being born again, but to the Buddhist it is much more worldly and real. It is like the flowing of a great river. One cannot ever put one’s foot into the river in the same place.

One thing Hume is correct about is that Tiger needs to find some sense of the spiritual right now. That is not to say that a pure atheist could not solve this problem of feeling forgiven and making amends. Such a thought is foolish. However, for this man Tiger, this huge man of power and transcendence, I think he needs to feel the inner belief that something is much more powerful and important in the universe than he. I would call that power “God.” Others might call it something else.

Tiger can recover from this and, indeed, become a whole and good person. I just happen to think he must become more humble and submissive to a higher power. He needs to turn toward the very center and core of being and admit that he is but small and insignificant in the whole picture of the universe. Then, the wide, slow turn toward healing begins.

Frankly, I think this is more possible and realizable within the Buddhist faith than it is within Christianity, though, for heaven’s sake, I admit is it possible within both. What none of us really knows, in fact, is whether Tiger is a person of faith. Has he even any faith to fall back on now? I hope his current discomfort and search includes the possibility of turning to his faith for forgiveness. It is there just as certainly as it is within the Christian faith.

If you are curious (and I will understand if you are not), I urge you to read this tale of the Buddha:

The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.

Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”

Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?

“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”

The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”

Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep again the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over and perspiring. He had never come across such a man; he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

The next morning he was back there. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language.

When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”
The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”

Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”

“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

THE WHITE HOUSE BOYS

You probably don’t want to know about this book or about this true account of man’s unbelievable and insane cruelty to man!
by Charlie Leck

About the time I was graduating from high school, Roger Kiser was just arriving at the Florida Industrial School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. A friend recently told me that Roger had written a book, The White House Boys, and that I ought to read it.

“Read the Prologue,” he said, “and you won’t put it down.”

So, yesterday I read the Prologue of the book. Three hours later, shaken and overwhelmed by a sense of the unbelievable, I put the book down, finished with it and madder than hell.

Unless you are up to facing the reality of man’s incredible “inhumanity to man,” you are not going to want to read this book.

There are a couple of ways to learn quickly what the book is about. One is to visit this web site: The White House Boys Survivor’s Organization Corp. Watch the video there, but be careful; for you may not be able to keep your last meal down.

The other way to learn quickly what was going on here is to read Roger Kiser’s speech at a ceremony in 2008 that acknowledged what had happened there. Four men, who as boys had lived at the reformed school, were invited to speak, without being censored, about what happened there. Roger was one of those speakers. Here’s what he said:

As I stand here before you today, the White House Torture Chamber less than four feet behind me, it is strange that the only word that comes to my mind is the word “masturbate.” Between Matron Mother Winters at the orphanage and Dr. Robert Curry, the psychologist you hired to straighten we boys out, that was the only word I ever heard come from these two individuals’ mouths. During the first twelve years of my life that seemed to be the most important thing the State of Florida wanted to know about me. It was bad enough never having had a real mother, but to have to sit through that type of degrading language was scary and disgusting. Governor, I have always wanted to say those words to you.

The term ‘reform school’ is supposed to be a positive place not a negative. You, the State of Florida, became my parents by an order of the court and placed me in a Jacksonville, Florida, orphanage. You, not I, chose to make that decision. I, being only four or five years old, had not choice in the matter. You had a responsibility to teach and prepare me for a life outside the orphanage. For seven years, you are the one who allowed me to sit on the end of my bed with only a single broken roller skate wheel to play with. For seven years, I sat there rocking back and forth on the end of my bed, my mind wasting away while I spun that single roller skate wheel around and around more then [sic] one-hundred million times. When I was not spinning that wheel I was over at Mother Winter’s room laying naked, my little head on her bare chest while she had me masturbate her.

But because I took one of the girl’s bicycles from the dormitory, climbed a tree now and then, and went to the bathroom or got a drink of water without asking permission, you sent me to this ungodly place. Whatever goodness might have been left of me at the age of twelve, you finally destroyed by beating the pure living hell out of me. You almost killed me. When I exited this damn building I was so bloody than no one could recognize me. I walked into the bathroom in Mr. Hatton’s office and I screamed in horror when I saw nothing more than a bloody monster in the mirror. Shaking and screaming, I begged Matron Mother Winters to please come and save me from you bastards. ‘I’ll help you masturbate Mother Winters, really I will and I won’t complain ever again.’ YOU CAUSED ME TO BEG FOR MY MOLESTER TO COME AND SAVE ME! THAT’S WHAT YOU DID TO ME!

Gentlemen, today, almost fifty years later, I now stand before you and I am still not sure if this building will allow me to smile. But that’s not the worse [sic] of it all. A secret inner hatred of society and a fear of my fellowman will forever be instilled and kept secretly hidden deep inside me because of this White House building, the Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna, Dr. Robert Curry, Mr. Hatton, and Mr. Troy Tidwell.

Was my secretly riding one of the girl’s bikes without the orphanage matron’s permission, or climbing up a thin tall pine tree, or stealing candy bar from the Patio restaurant because I was hungry worth the price the State of Florida made me pay?

I was not a murderer, a rapist, or a burglar. I was a danger to no one, other than maybe myself. As a child, I had never hurt anyone, not even under the slightest of terrible circumstances. I was just an innocent, confused, incorrigible, hungry, unwanted and unloved young boy who needed someone to let him know that he had a value to someone, somewhere in the world.

My entire adult life, those two horrendous beatings at the White House have been very difficult battles to deal with – one moment loving children, animals and most of humanity; the next moment a temper exploding into a fit of rage trying to protect myself from those who probably do not wish to harm me, but I cannot afford to take such a chance ever again.

I stand here today in remembrance of all the boys who were beaten, raped, and abused by this facility. But one that I will remember the most will be the boy who had his skin whipped off his back in one chunk from his shoulders to his knees.

I don’t know how many boys were killed here, and I don’t know if that we ever be known. But I do know this: Many a good little boy walked into this damn torture building but a lot more little Charlie Mansons walked back out than did good little boys. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I can only pray that things have changed for the children of today.

Mr. Kiser’s book catalogs and details the events of his life while living in the Florida Industrial School for Boys. You probably don’t want to know about them.

You can visit Roger Dean Kiser’s own personal web site and learn more about him.