He’s back in the news.

My feelings about this have been made quite clear previously:

1. Jon Matthews needs to go to jail.
2. While he’s there, I genuinely hope he finds God, and repents, and is rid of the sickness that afflicts his soul.
3. But he needs to have all that happen while behind bars.

Today’s update contains some particularly stomach-turning details:

According to a July 5 report prepared by the Community Supervision and Corrections Department of Fort Bend County, Matthews tested positive for alcohol in June of last year and again on July 3.

“He admitted to abusing alcohol for approximately three weeks before testing positive,” the report said.

Matthews also was terminated from a sex offenders counseling program because he had been engaging in inappropriate online sexual conduct, according to court documents.

The report said the Texas Attorney General’s Office found that Matthews had been viewing obscene material over the Internet and participated in an Internet fantasy message exchange in which he described sex acts performed on a 3-year-old boy.

“Mr. Matthews presented himself to be a female stripper who took her three-year-old son to work with her. The defendant described sexual acts between the strippers and the three-year-old boy,” the report said. Matthews does not have a 3-year-old son.

[Hat-tip: Houston Chronicle]

I once asked an acquaintance in the mental health field “What in the world are these people thinking? What causes someone to act like this or behave this way?”.

The simple answer was this–an overwhelming number of people who sexually or physically abuse a child (or who fantasize about these sorts of things) were sexually or physically abused themselves as children. They are repeating abuse they themselves suffered, in some sort of freaky God-only-knows-what-is-going-on-inside-their-head process.

None of which, of course, detracts one iota from the Evil they are committing, or their individual responsibility, or the need for them to be punished and society to protect itself.

If not an excuse, it is at least an explanation. Which provides me some degree of understanding, and perhaps an abstract pity.

But Jon Matthews still needs to go to jail.

No, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke…

During this morning’s radio appearance of Rep. John Culberson with Edd, Pat and Sean, Culberson mentioned a coin he gives fellow members of Congress. It is a Roman Emperor Valens coin.

The story goes like this:

Emperor Valens became the Eastern leader of the Roman Empire around 364 A.D. In 376 A.D., Goths (Eastern Germanic Tribes) were being displaced by invasions of the Huns. With no place to go, they crossed the Danube River, the natural barrier protecting Roman lands from the invasion by barbarians. Valens, for whatever reasons, decided to allow them to stay. They were not required to take oaths of loyalty to Rome or learn Latin.

Long story short, without any real troops in front of them to stop them, the Goths revolted. Valens fought them at the Battle of Adrianople. The result was a catastrophe. Valens and his army were completely destroyed. His body was never found. The Battle of Adrianople is considered a tipping point that spelled the beginning of the end to the Roman Empire.

Rep. Culberson mentioned that once he explains the history behind the coin, the person it is given to understands the implied modern meaning and equivalency: history repeats itself especially those that fail to study it.

I don’t know where Rep. Culberson has acquired his coins. However, I have found a few on Ebay and this other website.

If you want to know more about Emperor Valens, may I suggest this site and this one.

If you want to know more about the decline of the Roman Empire, may I suggest this one.

Final Note: In most of the material I read this morning about Valens, it was mentioned that Valens had many other excellent achievements, but the decision to allow the Goths to settle across the Danube and the Battle of Adrianople were so disastrous, they are basically forgotten.

By the way, Valens was also a Christian…

President Bush, please take note.

See also this morning’s post on the Mexico Totalization Agreement.

Who the Man?

Wesley Autrey the Man:

A hero construction worker left his two young daughters on a Harlem subway platform and leaped into the path of an oncoming train yesterday to rescue a stranger who had fallen on the tracks.

“Tell my little girls that Daddy is OK!” Wesley Autrey shouted from under the No. 1 train after it screeched to a halt. It was just inches above him and the film student he pushed into the trough between the tracks.

Amazingly, neither Autrey nor the man he saved, 20-year-old Cameron Hollopeter, was seriously injured, even though the train grazed the construction worker’s wool cap.

As Autrey was going through the turnstile, he saw Hollopeter having a seizure…Autrey and two women ran to his aid… Hollopeter stumbled and fell onto the tracks as the southbound train rumbled in.

“He landed between the tracks,” Autrey said. “Do I let the train run over this guy? I saw the ladies had my two daughters, so I hopped over on the tracks.

“I saw these two lights coming toward us and I tried to get him up, but he was fighting me.

Hollopeter “was kicking his arms and legs,” Autrey said. “I didn’t want his arms and legs cut off. I knew the train was going to go over us, so I took him, I grabbed him and we fell down.

“I wrapped my arms and legs around him and tightened up. I had to lock my whole body.”

He maneuvered himself and Hollopeter into the trough between the tracks, where “we maybe had one or two inches.”

Autrey said that all he remembered is the sound of the screeching brakes replaced with the screams of his two daughters.

“I’m OK,” Autrey shouted from underneath the train.

No Mr. Autrey–you’re more than just “OK.”

You’re a REAL American Hero.

If you heard Edd, Pat and Sean talking about the Mexican Totalization Agreement with Representative John Culberson, your hair was probably catching on fire.

If you are interested in seeing the actual documents, click here.

What is going on is this: the United States and Mexico have agreed to put together a Totalization Agreement. What this does is allow a person that qualifies under the criteria set out by the Agreement, to combine earnings from both countries to qualify for benefits and avoid dual taxation.

According to the TREA Senior Citizens League:

The U.S. currently has 21 similar agreements in effect with other nations, which are intended to eliminate dual taxation for persons who work outside their country of origin. All of the agreements are with developed nations with economies similar to that of the U.S.

Individuals that would qualify do not have to be here legally, and would include their entire extended family.

For more information, see this summary and the Senior Citizens Legue website.

 

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