Friends

Today I'm thankful for friends. We had a fun trip to Nashville over the weekend with some of our newest friends. Friends bring joy to our lives that we could never find on our own. It is great when someone can see the true you and still love you anyway. I am not usually the mushy type! It's interesting how friends can be so similar to you, and you love them for it, and friends can be so different from you, and you love them for that too. Friends understand when you have to drive everywhere so you don't get car sick. Friends don't make fun of you when you only want to eat "American" food. Friends forgive you when you make a comment that was probably out of line. Friendships take work. Friends are a work of art. Friends are gifts from God. We should keep in touch with friends.

In the news...

As an academic and a consumer of our world, I feel compelled to read the news fervently and keep up with what's going on in our little corner of planet Earth. Today I read a news story that I found very disturbing. A 17-year-old boy in Georgia will be serving 10 years in prison because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. The term consensual is used loosely here because, technically, a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy cannot "consent" to anything. But, the point is, she was a willing participant...the act was not coerced or forced in any way. It seems this boy, who is now 21 and has served 2+ years in prison for this "heinous crime" already, was charged with aggravated child molestation and found guilty. Georgia's law says that these two individuals would NOT have been charged with a crime if they had engaged in vaginal intercourse due to the "Romeo and Juliet" clause---two young lovers, etc. but, until 2006, oral sex did not qualify as "sexual intercourse." (Thank you, Bill Clinton.)

Thoughts on this:

1) Why on God's green earth was SHE NOT charged??? Let's get this straight. She "touched" him, and he is guilty of aggravated child molestation. Please, this is ludicrous.

2) 10 years in prison, eh? Wow. I heard once that the average sentence for convicted rapists is 8 years. Seems a bit out of whack, no?

3) How many kids are out there doing this? Lest you think I am advocating early sexual experimentation outside of marriage or in non-committed relationships, let me set you straight and tell you I'm not. But! Should this boy be used as an example, put in prison and robbed of 10 years of his life? Come on. He went from an honors student who was studying for the SAT because he was college bound to someone in a jail cell.

Meanwhile, Madeleine McCann's parents are meeting the pope despite the fact that they left their children alone in a hotel room in a foreign country while they dined. Again, am I saying it's not a tragedy that Madeleine was kidnapped? Of course not...it is terrible, and I hope she is found alive and well. But, what are we doing to keep our children safe? Throwing one of them in the slammer for engaging in oral sex with another minor? I think we should re-examine.

Comments welcome.

Welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my blog! I have been inspired to start a blog by two things. First, the pastor of my church, Eastview Christian Church, has a blog. Monday I read through every entry of his and thought it was totally fabulous...a good way to figure out what makes people tick. After all, I am a psychologist and would like to hear about things like that. Second, I just finished a two day workshop about teaching and technology. There I learned the ins and outs of blogging, so here I am on google blogs. Smoak Speak is born. It is my hope that you will check in from time to time to see what is going on in the Smoak house and my life at Illinois Wesleyan University. Please feel free to comment on my blog from time to time if you feel led.

Best to all reading this,

Natalie