Listen to the Silence

I was married from 2002 to 2009 to a woman who had me convinced that I was abusive, for all seven years.   Even with a thick file of hospital visits and scars from cuts, I "should have known better".  She was just a "passionate woman" and I should man up.  With a lump of scar tissue on the back of my skull from a cast iron skillet....still the hospital social worker pulled her aside to ask if she was "okay".   Blood and stitches to the contrary, I was 6'4" and 250lbs, she was 5'4" and a hundred pounds lighter.  I was the bigger one, I was the man, so I was the abuser.  End of story. The police only ever spoke to tell me to spend the night elsewhere because she asked them to.  I was having my scalp stitched the first time that happened.  I learned to just keep quiet and go along with it after the second time.  My one and only call to them for help (after I left the ER with broken fingers) never received an officer response. I slept at

Whatever happened to Innocent until Proven Guilty? (Some of my rants are a bit like going to war – you won’t all be here at the end.  This is one of those.) In our lifestyle, I see a frightening trend.   I see it coming out of a good place, and (mostly) good hearts – but all I can think of is the adage about the road paved with good intentions. I’m sure Joe McCarthy had good intentions too. We live in a society (in the US) where we’re presumed innocent, until proven guilty. Yes, that does mean that sometimes the guilty go free, or unpunished.   The system isn’t perfect.  And what of the victims?   And future victims?  Why do we let these criminals go free when we could keep them all locked up?   Because it’s better a dozen bad men go free than one innocent man languishing in prison.   That’s the whole point of the Innocence Project and Amnesty International.   Aren’t those wrongly accused also victims?   If you’ve ever been in a prison, or seen the damage from