Hello.

The Stan Tookie Williams case was an interesting one that I had involuntary followed due to my ritual of watching the news every morning.  The protests, the big-name celebrity actions in support for his clemency--the TV movie "Redemption: The Stan 'Tookie' Williams Story".  Political activists speaking out, toiling blood, sweat, and tears to find every detail that could possibly support clemency for Williams, co-founder of the infamously condemned Crips gang and while on death row, proved to have changed his ways as he made a redeemed anti-gang book.  Petitions, concerts, everything--and his clemency remained denied, him fighting until the bitter end.  Until the bitter execution.

It was attention-catching especially when put in contrast to the one I had previously followed--the debt in Africa.  An extreme in comparison to the Tookie Williams Case, but valid nonetheless.  A celebrity gathering--the mass Live 8--petitions, the ONE bands.  The difference: one of them one the war.  The other one didn't.  That's why it struck my attention: it was the perfect example of reality.  The bitter part of it that you know is there, but you never expect it.

Sometimes, even when you try really hard, you do lose.  You really do.  And you're left to deal with that.  You have to.

Because sometimes, you really can't win.  Sometimes, David won't beat Goliath.  It's bitter, I know.  But you don't need to win every battle to make a difference.

Stanley Tookie Williams displayed that in the people he changed, the people that stood up for his rights, for his clemency, for his life.

Nothing you do is in vain.

Today's lesson quote: "So many paths that wind and wind, when just the art of being kind is all this world needs." -Ella Wheeler-Wilcox, Poet

take my hand.. take my whole life too.

Bye for now.