Shoot to Kill -- Vigilante Mentality at work

If you check out the Tuesday (07/21/09) morning edition of the Lincoln Daily News, you'll see that even in the considerably small town of Lincoln, wild things happen on occasion.

The top pick on that day is a photo of a police investigation going on at Scully Park in the downtown area.

Go on to read the story and you'll see that it begins early in the evening, while I personally was in the downtown area at city hall attending the council meeting, and in came to an end shortly after I left there and arrived home around 8.

It appears by all accounts that this fellow, known as TATTOO went off the deep end, attempted an armed robbery at a residence in the area of Scully Park, but when his attempt failed, he walked a few doors down, knocked on a door, and the resident inside offered to drive him back to his home.

As this was taking place, the police arrived, and when they stopped the vehicle, the driver escaped, TATTOO baled out of the vehicle brandishing a gun, and the police shot him.

For a while it was uncertain whether or not it was a fatal shooting, but in the end, TATTOO is alive and is currently being cared for at a hospital in Springfield.

He underwent surgery for his wounds, but is expected to recover.

This is all very disturbing to me.

The Courier, which is a Gatehouse Publication, the local hard copy newspaper, and one that I am respecting less and less each day, reported on this on paper and on their gatehouse web site.

Gatehouse owns many, many of the small town papers in Illinois and across the country. Their website is generic in that it carries the same format for all their publications, and that format includes an opportunity for readers to log on and "blog" comments about the story they have just read.

I read their story, then I read the comments, which were many.

In the comments, the majority of the writers expressed remorse that the police had not killed his man.

They hate him, they want him dead, the resent the fact that the county will now have to pay his medical bills, go to the expense of a trial, and that his person will take up space in a prison.

The readers who wrote on the subject claimed that the police were not doing their job, that they were poor shots, and that their objective should have been shoot to kill. One reader/blogger said that the police were supposed to be trained to shoot to kill, and that our police department was obviously lacking in skill because this villain survived.

Others blogged accusations toward him of crimes he has committed with no evidence whatsoever. Obviously no evidence or he would have already been arrested and none of this would ever have happened.

What bothers me most about this vigilante mentality is the statement that the cops are trained to shoot to kill.

In response to that, yes they are trained to shoot to kill, they do know how to do that, BUT they are TAUGHT to spare life whenever possible. They learn that it is far better to wound and therefore temporarily disable a suspect rather than to instantly become judge, jury and deliverer of the death penalty.

What the police did was exactly as it should have been.

Those who are blogging that this man should have been murdered at the hand of the cops should stop and think about this. This man, 31 years of age is someones son, and I know for a fact he is someones father.

You see, I know this fellow. I met him a few years ago when I worked at Wal-Mart. He has actually been to my home when I had a garage sale in 2007.

He's one of the weirdest looking people you'll ever meet. He is tattooed literally head to toe, has piercing on his face including a bone like object in his nose, and he has a gold grill. He walks with a cane, wears long trench coats whenever possible, and has a passion for snakes.

He is a tattoo artist, and earns a portion of his living that way, and let me tell you folks, I'm not big on tattoos, but the man has remarkable talent.

But what is probably the most shocking thing about him is his demeanor when he's clean and sober, which is the only way I personally have ever seen him.

He is well versed, polite, respectful, soft spoken, and well mannered.

At Wally world, I was truly the only one there who had the nerve to wait on him. I one time spent nearly two hours with the man, helping him go through the photos of his work, and he was nothing but kind and decent when I helped him.

The other photo lab people would very nearly run when they saw him coming, because he looked like such a creep.

When he and his girlfriend came to our garage sale, Rich was home of course, and when they came in, we spoke, I told introduced him to Rich and he shook his hand and they stood a visited while his girlfriend checked out the stuff at the sale.

There was nothing about this man that screamed "I deserve to be shot and killed".

Now, I'll admit, I don't know what happened to this man that caused him to do what he did Monday night.

Rumor has it that he was doped up or drunk or both, and I would suppose there is a fair chance that is correct.

But that doesn't mean he should have died. It means that he needs help. He is a lost soul, someone who for whatever reason took a wrong turn and ended up in a very bad place.

In the end, he has suffered injury, he will go to prison, and perhaps a long dry spell will help him to turn things around, or it may make him worse, I just don't know.

But here is what I do know, he is a human being, as I said earlier someones son and someones father. He's not perfect, he's made some mistakes, but then again so have I, and so have you reading this, and especially so have the blogger's who wish him dead.

I hope and pray that those who wrote such cruel hateful words never have to deal with their own son, daughter, mother or father being in a similar incident, but you can bet that if they do, they'll have a very different attitude.

Pic from family get together

Here are some pictures from our "Multi-family Get Together" last Saturday.

Things that make me crazy, I got home, and was going through the nearly 100 pics that I had taken and came to realize that in the whole bunch I had not one good picture of Mindy or Becky!!!!

That just makes me nuts because I try so hard to get everyone, then I mess it up!!!

Oh well, here are some of what I did get.


Left to right Nicholas, Chelsie, Rylee and MacKenzie (hope I spelled Nicholas and MacKenzie correctly). Nicholas and MacKenzie are extended family, children of Becky's sister Nycol.

Nephew Robert, and the hubs, Richard.

Chad's dad David and his friend Pat

Grandaughter Rachel, my mom Kay, Grandaughter Caitlyn. The blonde with her head down is Chasity, and with her back to us is MacKenzie. They are all looking at the albums I made for the two oldest grand girls, pictures and stories from their week with granpa and gramma.

Rachel in the pink jacket, Caitlyn facing me, and MacKenzie to the right.

Left to right, Chelsie, Chad, Chasity, Nycol, and Rick. That little dark blurp behind Ricks head is the closest thing to a picture of Becky that I have! I did get a shot of her, but it was blurry as she was moving, carrying and comforting Rylee from a fall she had taken.

Chasity, Nycol, and Rick

Nathan, Nycol's middle child, and oldest son.

Our grand girls Rachel and Rylee.

Our youngest grand girl Chelsie

MacKenzie

And, our grand girl Caitlyn

Lincoln Logan County Illinois Upcoming Events

We are going to be having some very special events in the Lincoln and Logan County area over the next month or so. Look for coverage in the Lincoln Daily News as we plan to do all that we can to post everything going on.

This coming Friday night there will be a walking tour of the city of Lincoln with President Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln leading the way.

It is my understanding that the tour will begin at the Christening site near the train depot and proceed from there to points of interest in the downtown area. These points of interest will revolve around the Lincoln's involvement in our communtiy prior to the presidential election which made Mr. Lincoln our 16th president.

On Satuday afternoon, there will be a large celebration at the MILL. For those of you who are interested in gangstas there will be a special presentation from a group out of Bloomington Illinois called "Spirits of...Tours". The program includes an appearance from Coonhound Johnny who was a known associate of the infamous Al Capone!

Also if your into ghosts and spirits, there will be a paranormal investigation taking place at the MILL at 8 p.m. that same night. The investigation will take place inside the MILL for the most part, but according to Geoff Ladd of the Abraham Lincoln Tourism and Save the Mill organizations, there could possibly be some sightings outside the building as well. The paranormal event does require a ticket purchase, but other events starting at noon that day are free of charge and will include live music and a car and motorcycle show.

August 4 will kick off the Logan County Fair, and LDN is planning complete coverage of the 4-H livestock shows.

August 27th will be a re-enactment of the Lincoln Christening scene at 1 p.m. and again at 2.

August 28th kicks off the Annual Art and Balloon Festival. At the moment I don't have many details on what will be going on those days, but you can be certain that there will be early morning fly-ins, evening glows, art in the park at Latham Park, a flea Market in Scully park, and the public library always has their annual book sale.

LDN will be covering all of these events, and in regard to the balloon festival, there will be a link to the balloon festival website in the LDN calendar of events.

Summertime is a great time for this area, lots to do, plenty to see, and none of it terribly expensive. These little events make for great one-day get-aways for anyone who would like to see the sites on a limited budget.

But if you can't make it to town, be sure to mark the Lincoln Daily News in your "favorites" and visit our publication to see just what all you missed!

To Market We Go!!

Rich would probably yell at me for using this picture, because his maters are dirty! But I think it is cool!

We had enough last night to make it worth the trip to go to Farmers Market.

With not quite 90 poounds of maters and a arm load of cucumbers, we arrived at 4 and sold out and were back home by 5:30!

Market rules have changed a little bit I guess.

By the time Rich got home at a quarter to 2 and we got everything wiped down (maters get buffed a bit so they are nice and shiney) loaded up the table, the maters, and ourselves, then had to run to the bank and get change for the cash box, it was about a quarter to four when we got there.

Most of the others were already there except the market boss.

We pulled in and started unloading, and it seemed almost instantly we had people standing there waiting for us to get ready.

The market boss pulled in beside us and started unloading.

We finished setting up, and people started grabbing bags and filling them. The boss sets the prices, so I asked him what we were allowed to charge, he told me, then added "but you can't sell yet, it isn't 4".

So, we had to stand there with our hands in our pockets for about five minutes.

Our customers kept looking up the way and saying really loud so the boss could hear them...look those people up there are selling!

But we waited and waited, and finally the boss yelled "Market's Open", and I swear we were the only ones not taking money before that. But anyway, we wiped out about 70 pounds of tomatoes and all the cukes in the first 20 minutes.

Rich added yellow tomatoes to his crop this year. We only had maybe 20 or so of those, and they sold out so quick it made our heads swim. No doubt they'll be on the growing list from now on!

We got down to about 12 maters left and I was thinking we were doomed, because usually that last little handful is like pulling teeth to get them sold. It's a matter of people like choice and when you get down to that few they don't have much of a choice. But then out of the blue this gal walked up and she said "I want everything you've got left here"!

So, we sold out, packed up, and came home Wooowhooooo!!

We love farmers market. It is a great opportunity to see people and visit and make some pretty good bucks all at the same time!!

Special effects with Picnik free online photo editor

I've found a website that offers a free photo editing package that is working out pretty well for me. It is called Picnik.com and it offers several editing tools free, but also has a more advanced system for about 25 bucks a year.



Right now, I don't think I'm ready to move into the advanced stuff, and even though it is a reasonable rate I think, I'm just not willing to put out the dough!



The free program offers some really fun stuff though.

For example, I can take the picture above and turn it into the piece of photo art below.

The next set was a little more complicated than the ones above. I did some editing with my HP software, then went to Picnik, then came back to HP and editied some more. The photo above I took through two processes in Picnik while the photo below went through two processes on HP, three on picnik, then back to one final adjustment on HP.

But this is how it all turned out. Now I want you to know, I wasn't looking for beautiful. I was looking for age and character not only in the subject but in the medium.

Some of you already know that I invested in a new camera. My little Kodak had served me well since about 2001, taking about 15,000 pictures in its lifetime, and to tell the truth, it is still plenty good enough for my two oldest grand-girls to use when they visit.

The new camera is a Fugi which I never thought I would buy anything but a Kodak, and I didn't expect to like it, but it was somewhat affordable compared to others with similar specs, and I cannot tell a lie, I really like it.

I'm still learning the settings, and rely a lot on the auto and the SP auto, but....check out hopefully Monday's edition of the Lincoln Daily News for the pictures of the Water Fights at the Park District.

I took all those pictures, working my own settings instead of letting "auto" do the job for me, and I was very pleased.

I love trying to capture water, and I think I got the job done pretty well (oops, excuse me while I rush to emergency, I just broke my arm patting myself on the back!!!).

Anyway, hope you enjoy, and if you like to play with photo editing, be sure to check out Picnik!!

BTW, how many pics have I taken on my new camera thus far?? WEll, I've had it since the middle of June and have taken 1100 pictures thus far!!!