The Journey chimes in, again from Dallas

Another update from Beth here. I wanted to post a picture of Rick Halperin, who was phographed while holding Beth and Abe's newborn, but Blogger is being a bit uncooperative with picture hosting today. Maybe down the road!

Hi All,

We had the definite pleasure of seeing Rick Halperin at his University,
SMU. He opened the session with an overview of the death penalty situation in
Texas. As we approach the unfortunate 1000th execution in the modern era (Rick
predicts that we will hit this milestone in November of this year), he notes
that about one-third of those executions occurred in Texas.
Surely, this
gives one pause to wonder. As it obviously isn't the truth that Texas simply has
the most "worst of the worst" and their free use of the death penalty hasn't
reduced their crime rate to well below that of other states in the Union, it
obviously points to the fact that the death penalty is geographically unfair.
Where you live can affect whether you live or die! This is certainly not equal
justice.

In addition to Rick, Bud Welch spoke. You may or may not know that Bud
Welch has a daughter, Julie Welch, who was killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.
He begins his speech by telling the audience about Julie. She brought a stuffed
animal to college but when Bud tried to put it in her cart, she threw it back in
the car and said, "Don't put the damn bear in the cart."

Later she slipped the bear onto the cart covered with a towel. She later
discovered that other freshman brought their stuffed animals but Bud took to
calling it damn bear after that incident. Damn bear was buried with Julie. Julie
loved languages and traveling abroad, so she got a job in the Federal building.
The morning of the bombing, she was escorting a client to her office when the
bomb went off. If she had been in her office, she might not have died, but as
she was out and about, she was killed. Bud says that prior to all of this, he
was against the death penalty. But after he lost his beautiful girl, he just
wanted the men responsible to die. It was only after he met with Tim McVeigh's
father and sister that he came to know that Tim's father was a victim of his
son's crime as much as Bud was a victim of the crime through the loss of his
daughter. He knew then that killing another would bring pain not healing. Like
so many stories, I wept for the sorrow and pain this man carries every
day.

More Later. . .
Beth Wood