14 years since false allegation

 Today marks 14 years (5112 days) since Myrtha Mikel originated the weaponized false allegation that eventually led to my incarceration.

Although she confessed at trial to her lies, and the jury acquitted me of the charges connected to her lies, her perjury set off a series of events that led to the manipulated testimony of my son by Assistant District Attorneys Jake Cain, Sarah McAmis, and Amanda Self. While I have forgiven her enough so that I have daily peace, I still declare God's word over her and crave justice this side of Heaven. Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. Myrtha is guilty of all but one of these in her weaponized false allegations! A personal apology from her would be nice. I have given up long ago that the Tulsa County District Attorney's Office would charge her with filing a false police report or charge her with the Federal Tax Evasion that she admitted to at trial. To do so would have they would have to admit the incompetence and witness manipulation by Sara McAmis, Jake Cain, and the disgraced and retired former detective Dianna Baughman. I just finished reading Killers of the Flower Moon. The arrogance and utter gall of William Hale and Earnest Burkhart is reflective, in my mind, of Myrtha Mikel. She thought very highly of herself, did not like that her self-assumed authority was questioned, and especially did not like that her continuing employment and cushy paycheck was in jeopardy. She was willing to cross any line necessary to stay in charge, retain her power, and not loose money. I just have to trust that God the Father will call this sister-in-Christ (and she IS a Christ follower, an errant sister-in-Christ covered by the same blood that I am) into account when she and I stand before Him at his Great White Throne of Judgement. For more information about Myrtha Mikel's duplicity read https://ManassehEphraim.blogspot.com/myrtha-mikel-day-3338.HTML

Happy Birthday to my sister-in-Christ

 Happy Birthday to my sister-in-Christ:

Mo Ergaste Förn, Mo Ergalone Förn ~ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 I cannot escape and leave behind my reality, just like I cannot leave behind my shadow. Reality brands each of us with its indelible mark. Every era puts invisible shackles on those who have lived through it, and I can only dance in my chains. ~ The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu These scars we have make us who we are. We're not meant to go back and fix them. And there's nothing broken with you that needs to be fixed. Don't live your life in the past. Live your life. ~ Michael Keaton as Batman in The Flash Happy Birthday. I pray you dance in your chains!

Happy Birthday

 Saturday, October 7, 2023 Jail Day #4053

Happy Birthday. It sure was a nice weekend. I started a new book series this week, The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu. I was able to set outside on a bench, bask in a warm sun, watch the turkey buzzards ride the thermals, and be mesmerized by the grasshoppers dancing in what remains of the watermelon patch while singing their final autumnal songs. If it wasn't always on the forefront of my mind that I was a falsely accused and incarcerated bug, invisibly shackled behind chain link, it would have been idyllic. On this weekends episode of The Oklahoma News Report on OETA/PBS, State Representative Justin Humphrey, a Republican from Lane County, OK and Justin Farley, the Executive Director of Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, had a discussion about wrongful convictions in Oklahoma. Rep. Humphrey, a republican mind you, declared that, "The Pardon and Parole Board and the Okla. Court of Criminal Appeals is a cabal." They turn a blind eye to wrongful convictions, because to do otherwise they would have to admit that too many county prosecutors are corrupt. They both were in agreement that there are too many DA's and ADA's that knowingly, willfully, and intentionally destroy evidence, change witness testimony, withhold exculpatory evidence, and in the case of my son, create falsified witness testimony, and commit other grossly criminal behavior. These corrupt ADA's engage in this illegal behavior in an effort to self promote, score political points, and for their own self aggrandizement. He went on to say that, "these prosecutors need prosecuted to deter this kind of behavior in the future." I agree! They also need to be held civilly liable as well to compensate families that their machinations have torn apart. He said that, "these county prosecutors have violated their oath to uphold justice and that as a result the people of Oklahoma have lost faith in the court system." What powerful statements! Finally, a state legislator brave enough to speak truth to power. He declares a truth that I've spent the last eleven years discovering for myself from behind concertina wire topped chain link. When I do permit myself a moment to reflect about Tulsa County ADAs Jake Cain, Sarah McAmis, and Amanda Self's manipulation of my 18 year old son in light of Representative Humphrey's declarations, along with the United States Supreme Court's recent rulings about the reliability of witnesses whose 18 year old brains are too malleable to be reliable(1), I become discouraged, then angry, then brokenhearted. I miss my son. I miss my daughter. I miss my former wife. I miss my friends, my family, and my former life. If not for the marionetting of my son's testimony to the jury, I would not be incarcerated. And then I end that brief reflective moment. I found an odd comfort in my modification of Cixin Liu's author's PostScript in his book. He wrote, "I cannot escape and leave behind the reality [of prison], just like I cannot leave behind my shadow. Reality brands each of us with its indelible mark. Every [false witness] puts invisible shackles on those who have lived through it, and I can only dance in my chains." As I blogged on Day #4300, I choose to continue to be OK. I guess that I am learning to dance in my chains. (1)read 131 Yale L.J. 1936 Yale Law Journal April, 2022 YOUTH ALWAYS MATTERS: REPLACING EIGHTH AMENDMENT PSEUDOSCIENCE WITH AN AGE-BASED BAN ON JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE Hannah Duncana Copyright © 2022

Cerulean

 Cerulean

It's Eleven Days of Awesome in Tulsa. Now that I am living back in Green Country I am able to watch Tulsa news and Tulsa information for the first time in eleven years. Right now every other commercial is for the State Fair. It has been my twelfth fair to be locked up for and I still miss taking a half day off and just walking around with Kimberly on "old folks" Thursday afternoon and looking at all of the artsy/crafty displays. She always really enjoyed the cake decorations and blue ribbon entries. She also always won tickets to Disney on Ice, so our kids went every year, and even at 55, I miss that. I really thought that at this point in our lives she and I would be taking our grandchildren to watch the show. I miss fair food: I miss sharing our annual corn dog together. I miss taking a bite of her funnel cake, a bite of her corn on the cob, and a bite of her turkey leg. I miss the fun we all had taking large nibbles of the first of Monica's two basketball sized pretzels (there was always a second pretzel because we all four ate at the first). I cannot for the life of me remember what, if any, special fair item Brandon liked to eat. I think he always just ate a boring old slice of Mazzio's pizza. I truly miss enjoying a pineapple whip (man I miss a pineapple whip). It was one of those food items you could only buy at the fair and I have enjoyed them since I was a kid. One of these years, very soon, I will enjoy going to the State Fair again.

I was recently in the library, and the cover art of a new book, The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, grabbed my attention. I sat on my bunk and started reading it based strictly on the attractive and inviting cover art. It was an easy and fun read. Four hours later, my hips achy and calves and feet half asleep from setting cross legged I was just thoroughly entertained and inspired. I am sure it is a banned book in DeSanctimonious's Florida schools. What really stuck me was the story line about the orphanage and the parallels with the incarcerate I am writing about over at Short Stories (shortstoriesryerton.blogspot.com) The author writes, "The world likes to see things in black and white, in moral and immoral. But there is gray in between. And just because a person is capable of wickedness doesn't mean they will act upon it. And then there is a notion of perceived morality. People .... decide based upon appearance that someone in monstrous. Only because he is still wrestling with what he was told he was supposed to be versus who he actually is." When I think about whom I am writing about, Klune's word smithing strikes a chord: "He dreams of death and fire and destruction, and it tears at him. But do you know what I found? I found a [13-year-old boy in a 39-year-old mans body. Below the hurting struggling addict with a dragon tattooed on his face I found a boy/man] who dances, who sings, who lives for music, and it moves through him like blood in his veins. We are who we are not because of our birthright, but because of what we chose to do in this life. It cannot be boiled down to black and white. Not when there is so much in between. You cannot say something, [someone], is moral or immoral without understanding the nuances behind it [him]." There is so much truth there. I have met so many well intentioned Christ followers, close relatives even, whose notion of perceived morality is so ingrained that they embody the cliché of being "so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good." This applies whole heartedly to the church of Christ that I grew up in. I am ashamed of how many years I walked around the fair and silently judged those whom I now realize were struggling with life's hurts, habits, and hangups (especially drug addiction) and just wanted to enjoy the fair: being with "their people". They looked disheveled, unwashed, greasy, and zombie like. I would pull my children in closer as they passed by. I would move my phone to my front pocket and push my cash a little deeper down. My -isms were on quiet display. After encountering these same men over the past decade plus, I now know that they were probably strung out on meth or worse. Embarrassingly, I remember being amused by tweakers whose bodily jerking and popping could have qualified them as sideshow freaks. It is horrible to admit, but one of the favorite things I did was just set on a bench off of the midway and watch the drunks and disjointed twitchers try to keep their tics and bobbing undercover. They were hilarious. However, they did not need my sanctimonious snickering. They needed my prayers. God forgive me. Undoubtedly, part of the training that God has me going through currently is to be able to use my professional education, my lay ministry experiences, and my incarceration journey to help someone, somewhere, make better decisions, facilitate restoration, or to help reconcile families. Maybe I am to run my own house in the Cerulean Sea that offers love, acceptance, and a chance to just be whom God created you to be to men seeking recovery from substance abuse or reintegration into their communities upon their release.

As Klune writes of his protagonist, "I've seen things. Here. Learned things I didn't know before. It changed me." Being incarcerated has changed parts of me, not my core principles, but has reinforced Jesus' message to, as Klune writes, "Never judge what a person is capable of based upon appearance alone." I am slightly more liberal than the environment that I was raised in. I am more expressive about my own personal desires and beliefs, and much more likely to call out a "Christian Conservative" on their prejudice, bigotry, or hypocrisy. My workout buddy here, who read the same book, shared with me that I remind him of Klune's DICOMY case worker in that, "You've made quite an impression on the people of this island in the time you were here. Funny how that works out, isn't it? That we find the most unexpected things when we aren't even looking for them." I trust that God is not going to allow these experiences I have lived through to go to waste. I can't wait to be out of prison. I can't wait to reunite with my daughter and my son and share a pretzel with their children while watching Disney on Ice. I can't wait to go to the State Fair with someone I love and relish a pink pineapple whip: or go to Mayfest, or attend church, or have a good run at LaFortune, or play a par three, or enjoy the simple pleasure of shopping at Target. I can't wait to be involved in Celebrate Recovery® and other local ministry and missions work. God help me ditch my perceived morality. After eleven years of meeting many men whom are locked up for nonsensical amounts of time for pettiness, or whom, like me, are the victim of weaponized false allegations, may I never, ever, forget that there is always more to the story than the news or a random anonymous blogger reports. Satan, his demonic minions, his evil entities, his unholy spirit, lies and meth have left destruction and pain in their wake. As Klune writes, "People .... decide based upon [rumor and] appearance that someone in monstrous. Only because he is still wrestling with what he was told he was supposed to be versus who he actually is." May God bring shame upon me if I fall back into the old sinful habit of my past notions of perceived morality and occasionally set on the sidelines and snicker at those whom life has left hurting, thinking that they are nothing more than a sideshow freak. I'd love to hear from you. You can contact me at Securus Technologies - Friends and Family Video Visitation System