Thursday, April 30, 2020

Post-Dateline Blog #5


Post-Dateline Question #5: Bruises – Could the Super Ninja Chokehold Create Them?
Do Jesse’s bruises match the state’s theory of the crime? Let me first state that this post is graphic. If talking about and hearing about the crime itself is unsettling for you, then you might find this a tough read. But understanding the nature of the crime gives a much clearer picture of how it was most likely committed. Dateline had a diagram of injuries on Jesse’s body, but it’s important to know what those injuries actually were. Read the rest at: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBarriLBumgarner/

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Post Dateline Question: How do you argue with DNA and trace evidence?

A continued major talking point from “Before Daylight” which aired Friday, April 24th on @DatelineNBC, has been The Evidence – especially what was in Jesse’s apartment and on Jesse’s body (DNA and trace evidence).
The burning question: what about those hairs on Jesse’s chest and the DNA under his fingernails?
This question is arguably the most controversial element of the case. Jesse Valencia had DNA from two contributors, aside from his own, under one pinky fingernail. One minuscule dot of DNA from two other people. Ed McDevitt and Steven Rios. And let me say that again: microscopic DNA under one fingernail.
Special Prosecutor Morley Swingle made a valid point that the chances were 1 in a trillion that this DNA belonged to someone else (aside from what matched McDevitt). He belabored the point, making it clear that this dot of DNA belonged to Steven Rios. All Swingle proved was... Read the rest at: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBarriLBumgarner/

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Life’s Choices – All About Perspective

Being on the “fun side” of the wall, as they put it here in Mexico, gives perspective to many issues going on in America. 

Aside from being one of the most violent countries, Americans are also so politicized we can’t see the depth of an issue before us. Not to make this a red vs. blue or an us vs. them, I think women need to step back and look at many things happening and put it all in perspective. No matter where you stand with pro-choice or pro-life, it isn’t as simple as that. When Roe v. Wade was enacted, it wasn’t just about abortion. It was about the right to privacy. A woman’s right to have control over her own body. Before the law, a husband could forcibly have sex with his wife, and it still took time for some states to enforce it. Men could hit their wives and not be held accountable. Fathers could molest daughters, and mothers could do nothing about it. Or if they took matters into their own hands, they were held accountable to laws put in place by our male-dominated society. 

With the current trend to overturn Roe v. Wade, without American voter input, we have to step back and grasp possible scenarios to really understand the scope of the decisions being made. Imagine a 14-year old gets molested by a stranger, a family member, or a foster brother or father. Under the new laws, she would have no rights to terminate, not even a morning after pill in many states. AND for the next near 10 months, her body is basically held hostage while she carries the reminder of what happened to her. She must nurture and care for a growing life and if she does anything to hurt it, she is subject to severe punishment by law. These are third-world country mindsets, and sadly, it will only impact the poor. 

This isn’t about babies; this is about our bodies. A law will not stop abortions. It will only make them more difficult and more dangerous. Abortion will still be an option for the wealthy. There is always be a way if you have the means. For three states, the next step they are striving for is to stop contraception. What then?   

But here’s the true crux of the issue. Pro-life ideology cannot stop when the child is born. TRUE pro-life is birth to natural death. Advocates demanding rights for this unborn child need to continue for that child past birth. Pro-life must include welfare, food stamps, healthcare, and beyond. That foster girl having a baby cannot provide for that child without it. So to be pro-life is at least an 18-year commitment. Thousands of babies will be born into extreme poverty and need these supports. Their life doesn’t just need to be fought for in the womb; he or she will need a safe home, an education, rights to all that it means to be an American citizen. To demand birth and call that pro-life can’t end at birth. I agree, life should not be a choice. But neither is quality preschool, a healthy meal, a safe home, and a life of opportunity. The opportunities that come easily to the middle and upper class. 

Poverty is cyclical, and if we don’t make efforts to break it, there is not a life of opportunity nor many choices. Women have fought this battle since time eternal. Women in other countries have fewer rights than we do in the U.S., but we are sitting back and allowing predominantly rich, white, men to make decisions that govern our lives, our bodies, our futures. We are founded on the principle “of the people, by the people, for the people.” For anything to be of, by, or for, we must have the right to vote for it. 

Let us speak…all of us. The unborn, the newly born, the rich, the poor, the marginalized and the minimized. This country shouldn’t just be about those with means or opportunity. Many people demanding all babies be born cannot fathom a world in which a substantial meal might only available at a shelter or at school. It’s easy for the middle and upper class to demand all children have the right to life, but what will they do to ensure a quality life? Provide foster care? Respite care? Donate to their education, their welfare, their housing? 

It’s easy to sit in a comfortable air-conditioned house preaching about beliefs when you’ve never known true poverty – hunger, hopelessness, no sense of self-worth. Fight for the life of a child at all stages and be supportive of opportunities for all. 

When Rachel on “Friends” said, “No uterus, no opinion,” it might now be adapted to “no follow-through, no opinion.” 

Of the people, by the people, for the people – all people.  

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Prisons Are Relative

Prisons Are Relative

Prisons are relative. I toured Alcatraz in June, sat in a cell, and tried to imagine what it would be like to be forced to live there, confined, controlled, limited on what I could do when. 

But then again, I have spent most of my life in a metaphorical prison, a different kind of confinement, controlled by society on what I should do when and what I shouldn't based on standards designed to silence and shame me. Could I have resisted that prison, broken free, moved somewhere with fewer restrictions? Absolutely, but as a professional, it was easier, safer, and smarter not to. Anyone who isn't part of the majority knows what it means to be forced to assimilate, to fit into the white/male/heterosexual/Protestant/Anglo mold. And that doesn't mean WHASPs have never known what it feels like to be oppressed or different. One need only move to Rwanda or Moscow to experience being a minority.

But here, in America prisons are relative. There is a reason suicide is so prevalent now. Adolescents are suffering with what it means to be an individual. Teens struggle to assimilate to a world that doesn't fit them or worse, they're bullied or condemned for their differences or inability or resistance to conform. Adults, too, deal daily with their frustrations, their struggles, their self-perceived shortcomings. Knowing people like Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain or Kate Spade or Alexander McQueen see suicide as their only option makes non-celebrities feel even more at a loss. If they can't cope, then how can I?

But prisons are relative. "Likes", fame, money, or fans don't matter. Lonely is lonely. Depression is depression. Trapped is trapped, no matter the mechanism. It is suffocating. A permanent solution to a temporary problem may not make sense to most but it does to many. The answer? Open your mind to differences, to individuality, to caring, to kindness, to acceptance, to inclusivity. Resist the urge to name call, to discriminate, to judge, to view the world through that WHASP lens. Why try to make us all the same, to fit into a cookie cutter mentality when it is our differences that make us special, unique, and stand out?  

To someone, it may be the first chink in his or her prison wall. And perhaps to one, it may be the key to opening the door. 






Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Losing Our Ellis Island Ideals

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This is the message our ancestors read as they entered the United States.

Ninety-eight percent of us are descendants of an immigrant. What if your heritage determined whether you were allowed in? What if your culture, your color, your beliefs, your sexuality got you arrested as you landed on Ellis Island or turned away at our borders? The only ones denied entrance were the criminals and the sick, to avoid spreading illness to our young country.

To some, that sounds preposterous. To others, it sounds like history repeating itself. To anyone who is not a white, Anglo-Saxon heterosexual male, America has not always been accepting of you. Women, for centuries, were second-class citizens. No voting rights, owned by their husbands, unable to buy anything of true value (land, for example), and expected to fill a role outlined by her station in life. Today, while women seem to have attained equality, we clearly are not. You need only look at the pay of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, or the number of them who are male vs. female. Or our highest positions in government. For true equality, remember the definition – Equality is treating everyone the same and can only work if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same help. Equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. 

Our nation was once founded on that principle. Let’s have equitable opportunities for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Except that it wasn’t.

As soon as the boats landed, we began killing Native Americans. When we realized how horrible that was, instead, we shoved them onto reservations and said, “Here, we’ll give you a small piece of the land you once roamed freely.”

Our founding fathers owned slaves, sold them for profit, and denied them an education. And when slaves wanted their freedom and tried to escape, they were beaten and often lynched.

Years later when we were appalled at the Nazis’ concentration camps, while we built our own internment camps for the Japanese.

After 9/11, we rounded up thousands of Muslims and shipped many to Guantanamo Bay, guilty until proven innocent. And innocence didn’t always warrant freedom. Then we shocked and awed Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. We couldn’t. The bin Ladens had decades-long ties to the sitting President’s family. Thanks to the internet, these connections could no longer be hidden. http://listverse.com/2018/01/06/10-bush-bin-laden-connections-that-raised-a-few-eyebrows/

We’re fickle, we’re reactive, and we possess selective memories. For many years, we rejected the sick to prevent the spread of disease. But now? Now, that sickness is brown-skinned hope. Hope for people who once possessed the land we took from them. We are deporting a people who once possessed the very city I’m visiting in California. Mexico once inhabited most of what is now California, New Mexico, and much of Texas. So when people insist we “send them home,” perhaps we should consider what that means. We welcome the wealthy immigrant flying in from Europe, but we push away those walking in chasing the American dream.

Despite our nation’s administration insisting, “Family Separation is necessary because smugglers and gang members are using kids to get into U.S,” those people account for less than 1% of who enter. Empirical evidence supports it – immigrants are less likely to commit crime. Most are who work our shrimp boats, our fields, our factories. One southern Texas family said on Fox News last week, “Without migrant workers, I will struggle to get shrimp boat workers. They work hard, they never miss a day of work, and they fill a necessary need in south Texas.”

When Secretary Nielsen said, “In the last five months, we have a 314% increase in adults and children arriving at the border fraudulently claiming to be a family unit.” While true, contextualize that. That is less than 1% of those who come through our borders. AND let’s put all of this in perspective. There are families who have been here for years, have full-time jobs and yes, they pay taxes. They are raising families, have children going to our schools, and trying to make a better life for themselves. When we spout off to become a citizen the right way, many are doing just that. But it takes years.

So now, we are tearing children away from their mothers and fathers, shipping parents back to Mexico. Border patrol workers are horrified by what they’re being asked to do. One at Falfurrias, Texas said the “zero tolerance” immigration policy makes him feel like a Gestapo officer.

Viral photo June 2018     


                                     Children sleeping who’ve been taken from their parents.

And the similarity is easy to see. Nearly 12,000 migrant minors are in our care, and images of them being yanked from arms of parents, put into cages, sleeping on the ground…how can we look back at our history and be appalled, when we’re re-creating it?

These Holocaust photos look eerily familiar…


Zero tolerance is not the stance this country was founded on or built believing, even if we didn’t always employ it. Our first presidents were immigrants. And every single American reading this is a descendent of an immigrant, unless you are 100% Native American. It is our American right to be informed, but it is our human responsibility to be educated.

We can still strive for equity, if not equality. When someone is looking for opportunity, what does it mean for us to say no? By taking people who have lived here for years and sending them back to Mexico yet keeping their American-born children, who are we becoming? A nation that builds walls, deports split-apart families, and slams a door on children wanting a better life?

I guess it all depends on which country you’re coming from.





Friday, May 25, 2018

Mother's Day Motherless

My first Mother’s Day without my mom, 
only a few days after the 14th anniversary of Daddy’s death
     emotions fill me, 
          consume me, 
                drive me to the keyboard 
     reminding me why I write.  

I write to share the depth of loss swelling inside me. 
I write to release this sorrow that could consume me. 
I write to relate what many before me have known… 
That just because Mom is gone doesn’t mean she’s gone.  

I write to convey a love only mother and child can share 
I write to connect with others who’ve known the loss of family 
I write to soothe the ache that builds, 
     that fills 
          that spills all around me 
When all I can think about is the loss of a childhood. 

What I can’t remember about growing up is gone 
My firsts are no longer a phone call away 
                I don’t know what memories are lost but I know I’m lost.  
Without parents, 
am I still a daughter? 

My mom quoted often, 
"A son is a son until he takes a wife but a daughter is a daughter for all of your life."  

But what about after? 

The ache will ease but the loss is permanent. 
I lost more than my mom.  
      I lost my connection to my past, 
          to my childhood
               to 20 Lake Drive.  

With so many friends who are part of my circle, 
I’m not without family.  

But I am now an orphan 

And nothing I write will change that. 
But it’s a salve I need now more than ever.