Saturday, July 5, 2014
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Barry Clifford: Real Life Courtroom Drama: A Genuine Christian
If you want real life courtroom drama where better to find
it but at the courts itself. This week in County Meath they are testing the
limits of any defense as a solicitor/lawyer, charged with stealing €2.8 million
of clients funds from his own fathers firm, is now being painted as a ‘Genuine
Christian’ in his attempt to get him his get out of jail card.
This ‘genuine Christian’ apparently worked all his life for
the Church, a Christian one, not withstanding of course the €1.5 million he
stole from them while he was working there. To help his defense along he has
also completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights and has ambitions of working
for a non governmental organization if he does avoid that 6ft by 4ft cell with a
man that just held up a bank for less than €200 using a water pistol. The pen
is definitely mightier than the sword.
His defense barrister described him as a “man of
contradictions” which is a nice way of calling him a thief and a liar, and also
said he is a true Christian and in the “exceptional category” of offenders. Well, not everyday do you get to steal
€2.8 million I suppose.
He also said his client, Ruari O Ceallaigh, donated his
time, energy and money, (the money he stole I expect) to protect the rights of
the disadvantaged, (which has to be his victims) and to advance the cause of
those who had little. Definitely the core values of a true Christian, and had
the back up of another 2000 of them in England who just happened to be
solicitors as well; and their motif is that they “exist to influence lawyers
and laws for Christ.” Can you be a Christian and a lawyer at the same time or
is it just a stretch too far? Well, at least they struck Ruairi off the
solicitors roll though now it seems he is up for sainthood.
The theft by good and Godly Ruari who is ‘driven by
Christian values’ was only discovered by a routine investigation by the Law
Society for confession was not on the cards for this penitent and only if
caught like a rat in a corner. For the rest of us looking for a level playing
field in the courtroom in all of this can only wonder what makes you a bad
Christian?
Barry Clifford
Letter: You crack dealing piece of trash
When, in
2007, Cleveland councilor Michael Polensek heard that local 18-year-old
constituent Arsenio Winston had been arrested for selling crack cocaine to
an undercover officer, he went straight for the jugular and wrote him the
following furious letter — a letter which soon made far more headlines than the
crime itself due to Polensek's complete lack of tact. As for Winston, a
subsequent guilty plea saw him serve five months. Polensek, when later
asked about the letter, replied, "Hell, I write those kind of notes twice
a week."
His
prediction was accurate. In March of 2009, Arsenio Winston was jailed again,
but this time for 11 years following a series of armed robberies.
Transcript
follows.
Transcript
City of
Cleveland
Legislative
Department
July 12, 2007
Mr. Arsenio
Winston
[Address
redacted]
Dear Mr.
Winston:
As Councilman
representing Cleveland's 11th Ward, I have been notified once again that you
have been arrested for dealing drugs in my ward, this time at the Convenient
Food Mart located at 18506 St Clair Avenue in the parking lot.
Mr. Winston,
you have to be "dumber than mud." Don't you know that one of your
so-called "friends" from the "8th-Avenue gang" ratted your
"ass" out that you were dealing drugs from the parking lot? They cut
a deal. So much for your wonderful pals, you idiot. I am so glad that you are
now 18 years of age, because now you are an adult and can no longer hide behind
the juvenile court system, Mr. Quarterback, loser. Remember when you told me to
"kiss your black ass" at R.J. Taylor Playground and that you were
going to be an NFL Quarterback? Well, the NFL, despite perceptions, is
"not for losers!"
In closing, I
told you just recently to stay out of my neighborhood, you crack dealing piece
of trash. Yet, you keep coming back because you think you are a big man. Well,
real men go to school or to work every day and take care of their family, and
not through illegal drug activity. You are a "thug" and you know what?
There are only two places you will end up at the rate you are going — that is,
prison or the nearest funeral home. Quite frankly, I don't care which one you
get to first as long as your dumb stupid ass is out of my neighborhood.
Have a
wonderful life, Arsenio. I'm sure you have made your mother real proud.
Remember when I spoke to her one of the other times that you were arrested for
assaulting a police officer on East 185th Street? Only a moron would do that.
Your fate is totally in your hands; which, is a scary thought.
Go to jail or
the cemetery soon,
(Signed)
Michael D.
Polensek
Councilman,
Ward 11
CC:
Mr. Martin
Flask, Director, Department of Public Safety
Chief Michael
McGrath, Chief of Police
Commander
Wayne Drummond, 6th District Police Headquarters
Mr. Phillip
Morris, Plain Dealer
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Barry Clifford: Just A Man Standing In Two Shoes
Padraig Mc Nally, a bachelor, living on his small farm in
Cross, Co Mayo, had never harmed or threatened another man or woman in his life
before he was 60 years old. He did not abuse another person verbally, and the
livestock that he had were never exposed to ill treatment. All he had was his
animals, a few acres of lush grass to feed them and a house full of memories
that went with it. His honesty and shyness was apparent only to others and
though living alone it did not make him lonely. He did not ask for much and was
easy to like. That calm world that held no surprises, and where they were not
invited, came crashing down around him when two men without invitation came to
pay him a visit on October the 14th 2004, which was a Thursday. One
of them would not see Friday.
Men like these two had come before. What they saw was a
vulnerable man, a simple man, an easy touch. Word got around. What they did not
see, that beneath Padraig Mc Nally’s well worn clothes was a body that was strong
from honest labour ruled by a mind that was pushed to the edge. He was not
going to take it anymore. These men before and these men now had not seen
either the shotgun that he had inside the house.
That day, 18 year old Tom Ward was standing in front of him,
while his father, John ‘Frog’
Ward, a former street fighter and permanent thug, and permanently
in between jobs, was already around the back of the house to see what he could
steal. When Padraig realized what
was going on, he advised young Tom that the other fellow would not be coming
back out. He then went to get his shotgun in the house and walked out the back
door. He levelled it at the father and fired. He then beat him with a stick
before going to reload the shotgun and finished, the belatedly wiser
‘Frog’ with another
volley or two. Then the deadweight left was lifted and thrown over a wall. The son, though very obese,
had found his legs quickly after the sound of the first shot, and had already
broken all his own previous records for running as his eggplant body now ran for
its very life.
The courts found Padraig Mc Nally guilty of
manslaughter, retried him on appeal and he eventually walked free. He is not
alone anymore with thousands of letters of good will since and a documentary maker recently got to meet him in his own home. Looking for something deeper in his
character to make good TV, he asked him who is the real Padraig Mc Nally? He
replied: “I’m just a man standing in two shoes.”
When I met him fleetingly in my
village last month and as I shook his hand warmly he asked me my name. I replied: “Does it matter Padraig,
sure I’m just a man standing in two shoes too” before the next well-wisher came along right behind me. With that simple wisdom, may we
all be happy.
Barry Clifford
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Thoughts for the day
“ All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you
find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him/her, it will not
change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are
looking for external reasons to explain your happiness or frustration. You may
succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you
won’t succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.
“
“ If you change the way you look at things, the things you
look at change.”
“ Simply put, you believe that things or people make you
unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.”
“ In interactions with others, instead of trying to be
right, why don’t we try to be kind?”
“Wisdom is
avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.”
“ It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time.
Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose
either.”
The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be
around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know
that the more laughter we have in our lives the better.”
By Wayne W Dyer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)