Thursday, November 16, 2006

Mark Olson...the domestic violence problem none of our candidates talk about.

State Rep Mark Olson was arrested over the weekend for dometic violence against his wife. He left jail earlier this week, clutching a bible and asking his wife, family, and God for forgiveness.

Being a spiritual man, I am sick of politicians and others for that matter, deflecting responsibility and using religion and other excuses to justify their actions.

Now, I know Rep Olson is not using religion to justify abusing his wife, but walking out a of a jail, knowing that he would be the target of all major news outlets in MN, clutching a bible, smells suspect to me.

Perhaps Rep Olson should have clutched a bible on Saturday night when he repeatedly (allegedly...thanks OJ), shoved his wife to the ground.

Domestiv violence was an issue out here in rural central MN that did not get discussed in any forums. The only time it was discussed was at the Health and Human Services Forum in Hutchinson, when I spoke about the gross nature of the problem here in our area.

The closest shelters are in St Cloud, Alexandria, and the Twin Cities! Absurd!

And then...

OJ writes a book, "If I did it", describing how he would have committed the heinous acts against his former wife and her friend. Wow...

I support the first amendment, but wow. All proceeds from that book need to go the Goldman and Brown families and I hope it creates even more awareness of the domestic violence problems in our communities.

My disdain for the OJ book reminded me of a speech given during the "American President" in regards to flag burning.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

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