A Subject Far More Important Than Poker

Before I get to poker-oriented stuff, I really need to sound off about a subject much more important than pocket Aces getting cracked by 7-4 offsuit. Maybe you've heard about the West Memphis Three, the subjects of the award-winning documentary "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills" and the book "The Devil's Knot", but if you haven't, then I hope I can help to increase your awareness. There's a website, www.wm3.org, that can do a much better job of explaining the full details of the case, but I want to tell you how I feel about this situation. First, a short summary for those too lazy to click on that link above. In 1993, three eight-year old boys were abducted and murdered in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas (a truck stop town right over the border from the Tennessee home of Graceland, bar-b-q and rivers that claim the lives of drunken folk-rock singers); the murders were particularly cruel and brutal, exhibiting the signatures of a sexually-sadistic offender(s). Almost any rational police department would have been on the lookout for a suspect with multiple offenses of sexual brutality (one of the boys was raped and castrated), as the murders were obviously the work of someone quite efficient in their vocation. Unfortunately, the early 90s was an era when "Satanic Panics" were quite in vogue, especially in small towns in the South, where a dead cat brought home by a coyote was likely to be attributed to Satanic Cult sacrifice instead of the more rational possibilities. Anyway, this Salem-like atmosphere led many to conclude that these were Satanic murders, and through a very F$&*&D up set of circumstances, fingers pointed out to three teenagers in the community. One of the teenagers, Damien Echols, was long suspected of Satanic activity by some of the medieval-minded members of the community, and his friend Jessie Miskelley, with a mid-70s IQ and no legal counsel, "confessed" to the crimes (read the site for details on this joke of a confession). Charlie Manson would have received a more-balanced trial, so you can surmise what happened. Damien, whose sole crime was wearing black, reading books by Stephen King and Alistair Crowley and listening to Metallic, was cast as the "Dark Overlord" by the prosecution and was sentenced to the gallows, or chair, or guilliotine or whatever middle-ages killing method they use in Arkansas. The other two, Jason Baldwin and Jessie, got off with a lighter sentence, since they only have to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Sweet, huh.

Oh, in case you're thinking that I'm another bleeding-heart liberal who can't ever believe that they got the right guys, you're quite wrong. In fact, after seeing the documentary, I researched the case thoroughly to avoid this trap. After several years of studying everything available, I've never been more convinced that the right guy(s) are sitting at home phoning in their votes to American Idol while three innocent, now almost 30-year olds, are spending their prime years in the Arkansas penal system, while their appeals drag on and on. Okay, enough background...back to my original point, which was why I (and you) should even care about this case.

I call this case the "Anti-OJ" story. In the OJ trial, you had smoking guns up the wazoo, motive, means, circumstancial evidence and behavior that exhibited guilt in every fashion. Yet, OJ proved that money, good lawyers and fame could snowblind a jury, and proving once and for all that a black man COULD get a fair trial in this country (as long as he was the right sort of black man). Contrarily, the West Memphis Three consisted of dirt poor, anonymous, uneducated white boys who couldn't afford any defense and therefore received some of the worst representation that no money could buy. With absolutely ZERO physical evidence tying them to the crime, no eyewitnesses to the murders and no compelling motive other than a far-fetched Satanic Cult theory, the prosecution managed to get three convictions, including a death sentence, because these people were everything OJ wasn't. Justice didn't matter nearly as much as offering up sacrificial lambs so the rattled nerves of the West Memphis citizenry could be settled. This case sickens me more than I can express here, because I just can't believe that the legal system in this modern age could allow such an egregious travesty of justice; Reverend Paris and his cronies in Salem couldn't have been prouder of their modern-day compadres in West Memphis.

However, as tragic as this case is, it's not too late for the West Memphis Three. Time is ticking away, as these men have been imprisoned for more than a decade. Appeals are underway, and DNA testing is finally being done on the evidence. But there are people whose careers were made by these convictions, and they will stop at nothing to ensure that the WM3 never see the light of day. Why does this matter to you? Well, if you were ever an iconoclast in your society, choosing a path that your peers couldn't quite understand, if you had a spiked mohawk during the disco era, if you voted for someone other than the major candidates, if you ever drank RC Cola or drove a Gremlin, then you can relate to Damien, Jason and Jessie. These were guys who walked along the train tracks in trenchcoats, dyed their hair black, read books that scared their neighbors and hated sports in a society that deemed any or all of those activites dangerous. And, when the opportunity arose, their society found an excuse to blame them for acts they couldn't understand; someone had to pay, and if not the true perpetrators then why not some of the other usual suspects. If you thought the Salem Witch Trials were some event in our nation's ancient past or just a nice symbol for political oppression, then think again. It has, and can, happen again; next time, maybe they'll be looking at you, or your kid who dyes his hair pink, or some friend of yours who reads the wrong book in the wrong part of town. Follow the link, read everything you can, watch the documentaries and read the book, and if you have any rationality in your body, then you too will pledge to Free the West Memphis Three!

Oh yeah...another poker-oriented Blog

Voiceover (in best Trailer Dude voice): "In a world of poker blogs, one man has to fight to survive."

Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, "There's so many poker blogs out there that I just don't have time for another." I can live with the rejection, since my raison d'etre for this blog is purely selfish. People always ask me what I want to do with my life, and I respond that I want to be a writer of some sort (or I did, before I began telling them that I want to be a professional poker player - I'm not sure which long-shot pipe dream they scoff at more). But, when I analyze my writing habits, I realize that I never frigging write any more. I had 70+ pages of a book written last year, but I never backed it up and then my piece of crap IBM hard drive pulled a "Buddhist Monk in Vietnam circa 1962" act of self-immolation; suffice to say, I completely lost my writing jones and vowed not to do it again until it returned from its self-imposed exile. Well, it's finally back again, but I am not sure where to focus it this time. While I figure things out, I might as well talk about the activity that replaced writing and golf as my primary focus over the last year: poker. So, even though I intend to discuss poker more than any other subject, I will also be writing about anything else that catches my fancy. This could be film (my one true love - sorry poker), baseball, politics, music or some random idea that flits across the ice rink in my mind. I think I am a pretty interesting person, have opinions on a lot of subjects, and can keep a conversation going, so who knows, maybe you'll like this little blog and come on back once in a while. Anyway, enough about me...let's talk about me some more.

Testing

Well, I feel like have finally joined the real world by creating my own blog. I'm supposed to be some great writer, but I never seem to do anything with it; maybe this will be the start of something great (or maybe this will be the subject of some "Abandoned Blogs" story on Slate in five years - who knows?).