News One:
Opponents of new Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Wednesday they would resume protests in the New Year, a day after forcing the premier to move the venue of his first policy speech.Thousands of red-shirted supporters of fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra dispersed overnight after blockading parliament for two days to press their demands for fresh elections. The protesters had prevented Abhisit from giving his maiden policy address in parliament Tuesday and the prime minister had to deliver the speech at the foreign ministry instead. "We will come back after the New Year break," Shinawat Haboonpak, a core pro-Thaksin protest leader, told AFP. "The fight is not over yet, we will not give up." The pledge raises the threat of 2009 starting with the kind of problems that marred 2008, during which a royalist, anti-Thaksin group called the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) held months of protests against the government.
Opinions:Thay should stop it as it might cause alot of problem for the country and the minister. Resulting in a lost of reputation and money as the toursist may not want to enter Tailand.
News two:
World powers struggled on Tuesday to find ways to press Israel and Hamas to end their conflict despite widespread anger over the mounting toll. Divisions within the western powers and Israel's warning to expect "prolonged conflict" blunted diplomatic initiatives to halt Israel's air strikes on Gaza and Palestinian rocket attacks into Israeli territory. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice renewed calls for a halt to the fighting during telephone talks, Moscow said. They were to join a conference call with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, France's Bernard Kouchner, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and senior Middle East envoy Tony Blair, the European Commission said.Kouchner was also to host a meeting of European Union foreign ministers aiming to agree a ceasefire call. The international community has largely agreed on the need for both sides to halt the bombardments, though Germany and the United States have blamed the fighting squarely on the Palestinian Islamist movement. The United States has backed Israel's right to defend itself and Israel's warning to expect a long campaign has also undermined hopes of a quick end to the bloodshed that has already left more than 360 Palestinians and four Israelis dead since Saturday.
Opinions:Ceasing fire should be the best idea as it might cause more people's lives. The germany and the united states sholud also not blamed the fighting squarely on the Palestinian islamist as they themselves was partially in fault.
News three:
SINGAPORE: Additional independent back-up mechanisms are going to be installed at the Singapore Flyer, over and above the current standby generator, to ensure the wheel keeps moving. The Flyer stoppage last Tuesday was a harrowing experience for patrons and the attraction's management said they have contacted the victims who were trapped in the wheel's capsules for over seven hours by phone or through home visits to express their apologies personally. The other affected group are the tenants, and the Flyer management have decided to waive their rentals from the day of the stoppage until the end of the year. A meeting will be held with the tenants on Wednesday. A team of eight international experts, including engineers from the Flyer's Japanese contractor and consultants for the London Eye, have been flown into Singapore. Their key task, besides assessing the situation, is to see how the mechanism can be made safer. They have short-listed two back-up mechanisms to keep the wheel moving in the event of a similar stoppage. But no further details have been revealed. The experts have said they will stay here as long as they are needed.In a statement, Singapore Flyer's chairman, Florian Bollen, said the safety of the flight experience is and will always be the management's highest priority. He added that management and international experts are working to ensure the stoppage "will never happen again". Some have questioned the Flyer management's decision to conduct an evacuation with ropes when the stoppage occurred.
Opinions:I think Singapore's offerings as a tourism destination go beyond the Flyer. We have a wide range of attractions that people come to see. Anyway Singapore's tourism attractions are safe because in general, they are subjected to international audits before public entertainment licences are granted. The Flyer management have to get things rectified and assure the authorities of the safety standards because this is going to be critical if they are going to resume their business.
News four:
Raffles City's management said it is working closely with the police in their investigations into the near S$8 million theft at Cortina Watch on December 26. It also told Channel NewsAsia that it is satisfied with the level of security at the shopping mall. On Tuesday, it was business as usual at the Cortina Watch retail outlet at Raffles City. There are no less than ten cameras mounted on the shop's ceiling and whatever pictures these devices have captured will likely aid the police in their investigations. While a spokesperson for Cortina Watch declined to disclose any details about the ongoing investigations, Raffles City's management staff - who are also assisting the police - said they have handed over the videos as requested. Joanna Low, general manager, Raffles City, said: "We have adequate security and we are very confident of that. Besides us keeping vigilance, the tenants would also have to be more vigilant in their in-house security measures." Security providers Certis Cisco said a hallmark of a good security system is one which does not have a single point of failure. Charles Loh, managing director, Security Consulting, Certis Cisco, said: "A good security system must have three components – access control, surveillance system and intrusion detection system. What could have gone wrong is that there is a single point of failure and you are unable to detect the intrusion. "This may also be a case where the system is not working the way it is supposed to be, there is no proper check-and-balance system."
Opinions:They should always be vigilant and prepared. It's good as this can increase the security and safeness of the place.
News five:
SINGAPORE: Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has said there is insufficient information to identify the affected biscuits that have been recently destroyed by Chinese authorities. AVA was responding to queries from Channel NewsAsia after a Reuters report on Tuesday said more than 1,500 boxes of Chinese biscuits exported to Hong Kong and Singapore have tested positive for melamine. But AVA added all China-made biscuits sold in Singapore are safe for consumption. It said all milk and milk products from China that were previously found to be contaminated with melamine have been destroyed. It added that the biscuits from China currently available in Singapore were the ones recalled earlier, but the products have undergone batch by batch testing to ensure they are not contaminated with melamine. AVA said it will only allow the import of milk and milk products from China which are produced on or after December 18. To date, there have been no new imports of such products since AVA lifted the import suspension on December 18. Such products must also meet certain conditions.
For example, the products must be from establishments approved for export by Chinese authorities, which must inspect and test each batch of the products and issue health certificates with results of melamine tests to accompany consignments exported to Singapore. Manufacturers are also required to test each batch of raw material and the end product.The imported products will still be subjected to testing when they arrive in Singapore to ensure that they are not contaminated with melamine.
Opinions: It's good and i hope that in addition, AVA will continue to monitor the products imported into Singapore.
News six:
SINGAPORE: The Education Ministry (MOE) is stepping up its recruitment drive. More than 7,000 teaching and teaching-support jobs will be available next year. In addition, the ministry is also looking at enhancing infrastructure and offering financial assistance schemes to students to cope with the economic downturn. MOE and its schools plan to fill 3,500 jobs, while a further 4,000 will come from institutes of higher learning and the kindergarten sector. This was announced at the appointment ceremony for 50 principals on Tuesday. The education sector in Singapore currently employs some 29,400 teachers. Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said: "We also recognise that the available source of people to recruit gives us an opportunity to push up recruitment now." In April this year, teachers and principals received a pay increase of as much as 18 per cent. With relevant work experience, teacher recruits can earn up to S$4,300 a month while they train to become a teacher. Trained teachers can earn up to S$5,000 immediately after training. Dr Ng said salary cuts across the board next year are unlikely. "For the education sector on a whole, I don't think it's government policy to say there's a paycut for everybody. It doesn't make sense economically because then you are basically controlling it centrally. Market forces will dictate." There will also be an accelerated training programme to help mid-career professionals become kindergarten teachers. Other mid-career options are positions like polytechnic lecturers and education policy analysts.
Opinions: Doing this is good as it can help some group of students who may not meet eligibility criteria under normal circumstances.
News seven:
MONTREAL: Police in western Canada said on Tuesday they found the body of an eighth snowmobiler killed by an avalanche in the Rocky Mountains. The lifeless body of Danny Bjarnason was found about an hour after rescue operations resumed late Tuesday morning, said Corporal Chris Faulkner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). His body was buried about one to 1.5 metres below the surface. The eight men went missing on Sunday when they were caught in avalanches in the mountains some 300 kilometres southwest of Calgary, British Columbia. After uncovering seven bodies on Monday, authorities called call off the search due to heavy snowfall and the increased avalanche hazard. The RCMP identified the victims on Tuesday - all snowmobilers from the Elk Valley mining town of Sparwood, population 3,600. The youngest, 20, and the eldest, 45, belonged to the same family. A first group of seven snowmobilers was buried by an avalanche on Sunday. After hearing cries for help, four snowmobilers hurried to the rescue, but a second avalanche buried the entire group. Two of the buried riders managed to get out from under the snow and rescued a third, but fled when the risk of another avalanche became apparent. Police said the three survivors sustained minor injuries. One of the survivors helped rescuers locate Bjarnason's body in their helicopter search of the area. All of the men were experienced snowmobilers and had appropriate gear, including shovels and probes, said Randy Roberts, the father of Bjarnason's girlfriend. But avalanches are "unpredictable," he said. "Nobody's at fault. Don't blame yourself. It's an act that happens," added a tearful Roberts. Some of those trapped under the snow carried devices to help rescue teams pinpoint their location in the event of an accident, but weather conditions on Monday made the search more difficult. The bodies of the snowmobilers found on Monday were buried under up to three and a half metres of snow. The victims "were all born here, they went to school here, most of them went to school with each other. Some of them are related," said Sparwood Mayor Wilks. "It's going to be a difficult time, but this community will meld together and be strong for those families and we will ensure that everything that can be done will be done." Locals held a candlelight vigil in memory of the dead snowmobilers late Monday, and two memorial services were planned for Tuesday. Avalanches cause deadly incidents almost every year in Canada, especially in the Rocky Mountains. In 2003, seven high school students from Calgary died in an avalanche during a school ski trip. The youngest son of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Michel Trudeau, was killed by an avalanche in 1999. That same year, nine people - including five children - died in the Inuit village of Kangiqsualujjuaq in northern Quebec during New Year celebrations after an avalanche smashed through a gymnasium wall.
Opinions:it is good to increased avalanche hazard but if the avalanche is unpredictable, they might want to not let people in.
News eight:
SINGAPORE: The Housing and Development Board (HDB) launched two new housing projects in Choa Chu Kang and Punggol on Tuesday in its last sales exercise of the year.
It will offer a total of 1,181 flats, from studio apartments to 5-room units, under the Build-To-Order (BTO) system - where flats will be built only after most of the units in a specific site have been booked. This brings the total number of flats launched for 2008 to 7,793.
The first project is called Sunshine Court, where 164 studio apartments, 117 3-room flats and 171 4-room flats will be built and sold at between S$58,000 and S$236,000.
Located along Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, the estate will be situated opposite a neighbourhood centre, which has amenities such as a supermarket and food court.
This is the first time that studio apartments are being offered in Choa Chu Kang and they will be fitted with elderly friendly features like grab bars and non-slip flooring.
The second project, Punggol Regalia, which will be located near the future Punggol Town Centre, offers premium flats with better finishes. There will be 546 4-room and 183 5-room flats, costing between S$252,000 and S$428,000.
In light of the recent debate on new HDB flat prices, the Board said the units are priced affordably, with average households forking out about 20 per cent of their monthly income to service their mortgage, which can be fully paid using CPF funds.
For example, a family with a household income of S$2,200 will end up paying a monthly mortgage of about S$460, after factoring in the Additional CPF Housing Grant (AHG) of S$20,000, for a typical 3-room unit at Sunshine Court that is priced at S$135,000.
Opinions:It is a good idea as it can help families with low income.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Milk Scandal
I slumped onto the sofa and switched on the television. It blared on as a television programme started. The voice of the host of “News Five Tonight” drifted around the room. The headline shows “Milk Scandal”. I sighed and withdrew my gaze from the television. Leaning back against the sofa, the scene of the accident I had unfolded before me as I recalled my unfortunate experience two years ago.`
The garlicky stench of perspiration filled the air. Businessmen clad in smart suits were hustling and bustling along hurriedly, glancing at their watches to see if they were late. “What a hot day!” I told myself. At the side of the busy road, there stood a minimart. My heart was full of joy when I saw it. “A minimart! I can finally buy a drink!” I exclaimed. I went and took a bottle of Coke. When I was giving it to the cashier, I found that he was very friendly so I asked “Hi, my name is Jonathan, what is your name?” He said that his name is Mr Lim.
After Mr Lim received the money he rushed to the back of the store. I found that something seems to be amiss, so I followed him to the back of the store. Instead I saw Mr Lim lighting a matchstick and throwing it onto a large pile of boxes. The gentle dancing flame immediately exploded into what seemed like a fiery monster when it touched the boxes. Mr Lim scanned the area and started shouting for help. I went to help, but flames licked at me, sending me shrieking in horror. I tried to get help but there seemed to be not a single soul in sight, all I heard was screams. I crouch low, whimpering. The thick smoke was suffocating me, choking me upon every breath I inhaled. Drugged by sheer fatigue, I felt my last thin thread of consciousness slipping away and I was swept into oblivion.
I awoke finally, finding my in a bright room. It was the hospital!
I asked my parents what had happened, and they told me that Mr Lim set up the fire himself to claim insurance after he could sell away the dairy products made by China. He was caught and sentence to 4 years in jail. I also learnt that that curiosity could kill.
The garlicky stench of perspiration filled the air. Businessmen clad in smart suits were hustling and bustling along hurriedly, glancing at their watches to see if they were late. “What a hot day!” I told myself. At the side of the busy road, there stood a minimart. My heart was full of joy when I saw it. “A minimart! I can finally buy a drink!” I exclaimed. I went and took a bottle of Coke. When I was giving it to the cashier, I found that he was very friendly so I asked “Hi, my name is Jonathan, what is your name?” He said that his name is Mr Lim.
After Mr Lim received the money he rushed to the back of the store. I found that something seems to be amiss, so I followed him to the back of the store. Instead I saw Mr Lim lighting a matchstick and throwing it onto a large pile of boxes. The gentle dancing flame immediately exploded into what seemed like a fiery monster when it touched the boxes. Mr Lim scanned the area and started shouting for help. I went to help, but flames licked at me, sending me shrieking in horror. I tried to get help but there seemed to be not a single soul in sight, all I heard was screams. I crouch low, whimpering. The thick smoke was suffocating me, choking me upon every breath I inhaled. Drugged by sheer fatigue, I felt my last thin thread of consciousness slipping away and I was swept into oblivion.
I awoke finally, finding my in a bright room. It was the hospital!
I asked my parents what had happened, and they told me that Mr Lim set up the fire himself to claim insurance after he could sell away the dairy products made by China. He was caught and sentence to 4 years in jail. I also learnt that that curiosity could kill.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Married To a Murderer
Danielle Deveron thought of herself as an outmate.It was accurately descriptive, she thought, of those carrying on a relationship with a prisoner.
Not that Danielle thought she had much in common with other outmates. Most of them she considered pathetic, women with no self-esteem. As she saw it, their relationships with prison inmates offered them little more than a perverse nunnery. Danielle was sure her situation was different. Her wealth, reputed to be in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars, was only a part of what Danielle believed distinguished her from the other outmates. Perhaps she'd read too much Fitzgerald, who insisted that the very rich "are different from you and me." Or perhaps she was just being realistic.
Her money had brought Danielle to the prisoner. Helen Bernard had been the inadvertent matchmaker, guilty Helen who'd always been somewhat ashamed about her own vast wealth. Helen believed it was her duty to sit on philanthropic boards and work for the betterment of society, and was always dogging Danielle to become involved with one do-gooder organization or another. Usually Danielle escaped such duties by writing a check. In the end that's what they always wanted anyway. But on this occasion Horse-face Helen had piqued her interest. She had wanted Danielle to accompany her on an afternoon outing to San Carlos Prison.
Prison. Not some luncheon, or fashion show, or gathering of serious looking people talking about addressing some pervasive wrong. Danielle had never been to a prison before. And what truly intrigued her was that Helen was scheduled to meet with a murderer. In her thirty years on the planet, Danielle had never met a murderer. She had dated the gamut of males, including poets, stockbrokers, race care drivers, royalty, near royalty, surgeons, CEO's, and even a junior senator from the state of Colorado, but she had never spent any time with a murderer.
What did they see in their first look? There was an immediate attraction for both of them that went beyond the physical. Clay Potter had been on death row for a dozen years. He was thin and pale, had sunken cheeks and a consumptive cough that caused a lock of his long dark hair to fall up and down on the bridge of his nose. There was a scar running along his right cheek. His arms, exposed to his elbows, were a canvas of tattoos, displays mostly of naked women, but his painted ladies, even in their exaggerated forms, disappeared in the presence of Danielle. Preternaturally pale, her milk complexion set off her dark lashes and blue eyes. Her pressed, shoulder length golden hair, glittered.
Gold, he thought. The hair, the woman. She personified his dreams, and his fantasies of wealth. He had always had visions of what it must be like to be wealthy, and had pursued lucre, Jason after the fleece, Jason willing to fleece, or worse. Clay's problem was that he had never been able to distinguish fool's gold from the real thing.
The attraction wasn't one-sided. Clay didn't have the looks of the pretty boys Danielle usually associated with, but there was something about him that beguiled. She remembered attending a party replete with movers and shakers. There were familiar faces everywhere, household names from the entertainment industry, superstars from the sporting world, but the person that drew the most murmurs and looks was a mobster. "He's arranged murders," were the whispers.
Clay had done more than arrange murders. He had committed them, Danielle thought, though as might be expected, he still proclaimed his innocence. His pronouncement was made to the two women without any enthusiasm, words from a tired old scripts, words that had been uttered too many times to audiences that never listened or believed. Anyone who works in the criminal justice system knows that most inmates proclaim their innocence as a matter of course. Though lock-up wasn't anything new to Clay, he tried to explain to Danielle and Helen that murder was.
"I've always been a B & E man," he said, explaining that meant "breaking and entering." It was just his bad luck to have broken into the wrong house. Everything had been quiet, he said, too still. It was one of those Hillsborough mansions, the kind where there should have been noises. He had been cruising the neighborhood, looking for some easy pickings, when he stopped at this one house. "Just a feeling," he said. He said his suspicions should have been aroused by the off-line burglar alarm, but he had encountered lots of homes where people had deactivated their systems just because they didn't want to be bothered with them.
"I'm an opportunist," Clay said. Was he warning Danielle? "I take advantage of circumstances."
He told them how he quietly went through the house, relieving it of rare coins, stamps, jewelry, and silverware. He took his pickings from the den, dining room, and family room. Clay said he was not a confrontational thief, wasn't the kind to hold a gun on the occupants. He liked his houses unoccupied, and he began to wonder whether anyone was home. He decided to sneak a peek into the master bedroom, and that's where he saw the blood and what looked like bodies.
I panicked," he said. "I ran out of the house. I was so scared I even forgot my booty. I drove away fast. Unfortunately, my car didn't fit the neighborhood profile. That's why I got stopped by the police. If I'd had another car, I wouldn't be here."
Unsaid, but directed to Danielle with a telling look, he proclaimed the injustice. And somewhere in the look was also the hint that he should have been driving a new European sedan with the kind of privacy glass that hides its occupants from admiring eyes.
"The police didn't hold me," Clay said, "but after the murders were discovered they picked up one of my prints on the gold coins I left behind. Taking off my gloves was felony stupid, but I never expected it would get me convicted of felony murder."
His initial statement was what hung him, Clay told them. He had tried to deny ever being in the house, and later, when he recanted, the prosecution made much of his changing stories and admitting to "fabricating." The jury, faced with four bodies (two of them children, aged eight and twelve), and having a hardened criminal at the scene of the murder, sentenced him to death. The Golden State had decided not to let Clay see his golden years. His death was scheduled in six months.
"My lawyer says you've helped others," Clay said, addressing Helen with his eyes and words. "I don't have many cards left to play, but the one survivor in the family was an older son that was away at college. He and his parents weren't getting along. Apparently he had a drug problem. That's what they call it when you have money. You're a junkie otherwise. The day before the murders there was a big family fight. The parents said enough was enough, and that they wouldn't be supplying the kid with any more money."
Clay theorized that the night after the fight the son had left his university apartment, driven home, turned off the burglar alarm, and then bludgeoned his family to death. Their son was the one who would have benefitted from their deaths, Clay said. And who would benefit from his as well.
"That little preppie did whatever he could to help build the state's case against me. He hired some private dicks, and they dug up the dirt on me.""Was there a lot of dirt?" asked Danielle.
Clay shrugged. "I was never any angel, but they made it sound like I was up to my ears in it. Their tactics didn't only work on the jury. They worked on me. I felt dirty, especially when preppy showed up every day in his thousand dollar suits. He was always quick with his silk hankie too. Pulled it right out of his fancy suit like a magician, and started with the waterworks.
"Maybe if I'd had one of them suits, and a fifty dollar haircut, and a Swiss timepiece, I wouldn't be in here."
Helen was too polite to disagree, but in her own mind she thought sheep's clothing would not have helped Clay Potter. He looked like a criminal. No. He looked like a murderer. When driving home later, Helen made a point of apologizing to Danielle.
"This wasn't what I expected at all," she said. "I often assist with prisoner's aid. But this is not the sort of case I would involve myself in. There are not the extenuating circumstances here which would warrant my involvement."
Danielle only half listened. She knew Helen liked to throw herself into frays that made her feel good about herself. Helen needed her noble causes, relished helping the disadvantaged, and the downtrodden, especially if they were victims of persecution or prejudice. But assisting an unlucky criminal - or more to the point - an inventive murderer, was not something that would benefit society, and more importantly, Helen.
"I might help him," said Danielle."What?"exclimed"Yes. I might."
Danielle didn't promise him anything at first, and he didn't ask.
Visiting a prison, talking through a reinforced window, isn't the usual way men and women get to know one another. But there was an intensity to their talks that neither could have imagined. They only had minutes with each other, but those were the kind of minutes many couples never experience. There wasn't music, or food, or a movie between them. There wasn't physical contact, or shared passions. There was only death around the corner, death and the discoveries between them.
A week after they met, Danielle offered Clay her financial support. Her money, she said, would buy him the best lawyers, the best tacticians. If her wealth could buy him another day's life, it was there for him.
There for the taking. Clay was usually good at that, but he wasn't sure how to respond in this case. Now that everything was being offered, he felt off-balance. He had heard about things like this happening, but only in fairy tales. He felt like the frog being kissed by the princess. Clay had always enjoyed stealing from the rich because he thought it brought him closer to them, almost made him one of them. And now everything was being offered on a golden platter. She was his last wish come true.
"I couldn't just take," he said."It's not taking," she said. "It's sharing."he said."Like we were married?"Danielle said. "Till death do us part."
"What would your friends say?""About what?""You know," he said, then struggled for the words, "if we were to get married.""They'd say," she said, "'Married to a murderer.'"
Neither of them spoke. The words hung between them. Each felt a thrill. He, that this one in a million (no, make that one in fifty million, he thought) woman could be at his side, and she, at the audaciousness of his notion.
Married to a murderer. Each of them thought about that. Marriage suited their desires, though each wanted different things. He wanted respectability, and she wanted notoriety. Both perceived the other as being powerful, as belonging to worlds they had only imagined.
"Will you marry me?" he asked."Yes," she said.
They didn't wait. Time was not on their side. Their nuptials set off a media frenzy. Why would one of the richest and most desirable women in the world marry a murderer? Danielle didn't offer answers, so the media tried to find their own. The life and times of Clay Potter were examined. If Danielle Deveron saw something good, and noble, and attractive in the man, then the reasoning was that there must be something there. Witnesses surfaced that remembered a different Clay Potter than was evidenced on his rap sheet. Even before his new team of lawyers went to work, the press began to call for a reexamination of his murder conviction.
"There is a God," said Clay Potter. And he knew there was an angel - his wife.While desperate motions were filed, man and wife continued in their jailhouse courtship.
"People whisper behind my back," Danielle confessed. "Everyone is talking. And mostly what they say is, 'Married to a murderer.'""They're wrong," said Clay, his voice rising, red suddenly appearing in his ashen face. "They're wrong."
He coughed long and hard, the coldness of his years of imprisonment, and the harshness of the lies directed at his wife, making him burn with anger. Danielle consoled him. He didn't understand that she hadn't been complaining. Quite the opposite. Being married to Clay set her apart, made her something novel. Others might have five carat diamond rings, and Learjets, but she had something they didn't: she was married to a murderer.
They were quite the odd couple, but to all appearances Danielle and Clay savored their moments together. Despite all the tumult going on around them, despite the clamor for a new trial, neither of them expected that Clay would be alive for very long. In some ways they found a freedom in his execution date. "Carpe diem," Danielle often said. Clay didn't know the Latin meaning, but he did like the excited look on her face.
The reprieve call never came from the governor. But Clay's lawyers found enough extenuating circumstances to allow for a retrial. Clay was ecstatic. He had been proclaiming his innocence from the day of his arrest, and now, at long last, people were beginning to believe him. Clay's retrial was blessedly short. On further review of the so-called evidence, Clay was found innocent. In the arms of his beautiful wife, Clay left the courtroom. He told the media that he had never been happier, but he coughed all the while he made the pronouncement. It was clear to all that Clay was very sick, his body wasted from his long confinement. Many wondered whether his freedom had come too late.
His death was announced a week later, and the press treated it like a Greek tragedy. Center stage was the widow in black, poor little rich girl Danielle Deveron, but the public was not quick to rid itself of their early take on the story. Behind the widow's back, Danielle still heard the whispers: "Married to a murderer."
The words were all too familiar to Danielle. They had been Clay's last words to her. He had made his pronouncement minutes after his last dose of medication. Clay had been obedient and adoring almost to the end. It was only when he took that final swallow of medication that he finally awakened. His face had undergone a remarkable transformation, beginning with a cherishing gaze, to a questioning glance, to a piercing stare, and then, at the end, a horrified look. He was staring at death, and something else, something that must have appeared even uglier to him.
From the first, they had both seen what they wanted to see, both seen what wasn't there. For a time, each had thought the other perfect for their needs. Danielle had been married to a murderer, and her beloved was to die for his deeds. When it turned out Clay was innocent (just her luck, she thought), everything changed. This wasn't a man Danielle had wanted to spend a life with, but a death with. She had married a guilty man. She had married a murderer. She wanted that distinction, wanted the whispers. But even more, she had wanted his death.
"Married," Clay had gasped, trying to shout out his last words, trying to raise an alarm, "to a murderer!"Then he died. Poisoned, but that was something only his widow would know.Of their relationship the public would always judge, "Married to a murderer."They would never know, thought Danielle, how right they were.
Not that Danielle thought she had much in common with other outmates. Most of them she considered pathetic, women with no self-esteem. As she saw it, their relationships with prison inmates offered them little more than a perverse nunnery. Danielle was sure her situation was different. Her wealth, reputed to be in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars, was only a part of what Danielle believed distinguished her from the other outmates. Perhaps she'd read too much Fitzgerald, who insisted that the very rich "are different from you and me." Or perhaps she was just being realistic.
Her money had brought Danielle to the prisoner. Helen Bernard had been the inadvertent matchmaker, guilty Helen who'd always been somewhat ashamed about her own vast wealth. Helen believed it was her duty to sit on philanthropic boards and work for the betterment of society, and was always dogging Danielle to become involved with one do-gooder organization or another. Usually Danielle escaped such duties by writing a check. In the end that's what they always wanted anyway. But on this occasion Horse-face Helen had piqued her interest. She had wanted Danielle to accompany her on an afternoon outing to San Carlos Prison.
Prison. Not some luncheon, or fashion show, or gathering of serious looking people talking about addressing some pervasive wrong. Danielle had never been to a prison before. And what truly intrigued her was that Helen was scheduled to meet with a murderer. In her thirty years on the planet, Danielle had never met a murderer. She had dated the gamut of males, including poets, stockbrokers, race care drivers, royalty, near royalty, surgeons, CEO's, and even a junior senator from the state of Colorado, but she had never spent any time with a murderer.
What did they see in their first look? There was an immediate attraction for both of them that went beyond the physical. Clay Potter had been on death row for a dozen years. He was thin and pale, had sunken cheeks and a consumptive cough that caused a lock of his long dark hair to fall up and down on the bridge of his nose. There was a scar running along his right cheek. His arms, exposed to his elbows, were a canvas of tattoos, displays mostly of naked women, but his painted ladies, even in their exaggerated forms, disappeared in the presence of Danielle. Preternaturally pale, her milk complexion set off her dark lashes and blue eyes. Her pressed, shoulder length golden hair, glittered.
Gold, he thought. The hair, the woman. She personified his dreams, and his fantasies of wealth. He had always had visions of what it must be like to be wealthy, and had pursued lucre, Jason after the fleece, Jason willing to fleece, or worse. Clay's problem was that he had never been able to distinguish fool's gold from the real thing.
The attraction wasn't one-sided. Clay didn't have the looks of the pretty boys Danielle usually associated with, but there was something about him that beguiled. She remembered attending a party replete with movers and shakers. There were familiar faces everywhere, household names from the entertainment industry, superstars from the sporting world, but the person that drew the most murmurs and looks was a mobster. "He's arranged murders," were the whispers.
Clay had done more than arrange murders. He had committed them, Danielle thought, though as might be expected, he still proclaimed his innocence. His pronouncement was made to the two women without any enthusiasm, words from a tired old scripts, words that had been uttered too many times to audiences that never listened or believed. Anyone who works in the criminal justice system knows that most inmates proclaim their innocence as a matter of course. Though lock-up wasn't anything new to Clay, he tried to explain to Danielle and Helen that murder was.
"I've always been a B & E man," he said, explaining that meant "breaking and entering." It was just his bad luck to have broken into the wrong house. Everything had been quiet, he said, too still. It was one of those Hillsborough mansions, the kind where there should have been noises. He had been cruising the neighborhood, looking for some easy pickings, when he stopped at this one house. "Just a feeling," he said. He said his suspicions should have been aroused by the off-line burglar alarm, but he had encountered lots of homes where people had deactivated their systems just because they didn't want to be bothered with them.
"I'm an opportunist," Clay said. Was he warning Danielle? "I take advantage of circumstances."
He told them how he quietly went through the house, relieving it of rare coins, stamps, jewelry, and silverware. He took his pickings from the den, dining room, and family room. Clay said he was not a confrontational thief, wasn't the kind to hold a gun on the occupants. He liked his houses unoccupied, and he began to wonder whether anyone was home. He decided to sneak a peek into the master bedroom, and that's where he saw the blood and what looked like bodies.
I panicked," he said. "I ran out of the house. I was so scared I even forgot my booty. I drove away fast. Unfortunately, my car didn't fit the neighborhood profile. That's why I got stopped by the police. If I'd had another car, I wouldn't be here."
Unsaid, but directed to Danielle with a telling look, he proclaimed the injustice. And somewhere in the look was also the hint that he should have been driving a new European sedan with the kind of privacy glass that hides its occupants from admiring eyes.
"The police didn't hold me," Clay said, "but after the murders were discovered they picked up one of my prints on the gold coins I left behind. Taking off my gloves was felony stupid, but I never expected it would get me convicted of felony murder."
His initial statement was what hung him, Clay told them. He had tried to deny ever being in the house, and later, when he recanted, the prosecution made much of his changing stories and admitting to "fabricating." The jury, faced with four bodies (two of them children, aged eight and twelve), and having a hardened criminal at the scene of the murder, sentenced him to death. The Golden State had decided not to let Clay see his golden years. His death was scheduled in six months.
"My lawyer says you've helped others," Clay said, addressing Helen with his eyes and words. "I don't have many cards left to play, but the one survivor in the family was an older son that was away at college. He and his parents weren't getting along. Apparently he had a drug problem. That's what they call it when you have money. You're a junkie otherwise. The day before the murders there was a big family fight. The parents said enough was enough, and that they wouldn't be supplying the kid with any more money."
Clay theorized that the night after the fight the son had left his university apartment, driven home, turned off the burglar alarm, and then bludgeoned his family to death. Their son was the one who would have benefitted from their deaths, Clay said. And who would benefit from his as well.
"That little preppie did whatever he could to help build the state's case against me. He hired some private dicks, and they dug up the dirt on me.""Was there a lot of dirt?" asked Danielle.
Clay shrugged. "I was never any angel, but they made it sound like I was up to my ears in it. Their tactics didn't only work on the jury. They worked on me. I felt dirty, especially when preppy showed up every day in his thousand dollar suits. He was always quick with his silk hankie too. Pulled it right out of his fancy suit like a magician, and started with the waterworks.
"Maybe if I'd had one of them suits, and a fifty dollar haircut, and a Swiss timepiece, I wouldn't be in here."
Helen was too polite to disagree, but in her own mind she thought sheep's clothing would not have helped Clay Potter. He looked like a criminal. No. He looked like a murderer. When driving home later, Helen made a point of apologizing to Danielle.
"This wasn't what I expected at all," she said. "I often assist with prisoner's aid. But this is not the sort of case I would involve myself in. There are not the extenuating circumstances here which would warrant my involvement."
Danielle only half listened. She knew Helen liked to throw herself into frays that made her feel good about herself. Helen needed her noble causes, relished helping the disadvantaged, and the downtrodden, especially if they were victims of persecution or prejudice. But assisting an unlucky criminal - or more to the point - an inventive murderer, was not something that would benefit society, and more importantly, Helen.
"I might help him," said Danielle."What?"exclimed"Yes. I might."
Danielle didn't promise him anything at first, and he didn't ask.
Visiting a prison, talking through a reinforced window, isn't the usual way men and women get to know one another. But there was an intensity to their talks that neither could have imagined. They only had minutes with each other, but those were the kind of minutes many couples never experience. There wasn't music, or food, or a movie between them. There wasn't physical contact, or shared passions. There was only death around the corner, death and the discoveries between them.
A week after they met, Danielle offered Clay her financial support. Her money, she said, would buy him the best lawyers, the best tacticians. If her wealth could buy him another day's life, it was there for him.
There for the taking. Clay was usually good at that, but he wasn't sure how to respond in this case. Now that everything was being offered, he felt off-balance. He had heard about things like this happening, but only in fairy tales. He felt like the frog being kissed by the princess. Clay had always enjoyed stealing from the rich because he thought it brought him closer to them, almost made him one of them. And now everything was being offered on a golden platter. She was his last wish come true.
"I couldn't just take," he said."It's not taking," she said. "It's sharing."he said."Like we were married?"Danielle said. "Till death do us part."
"What would your friends say?""About what?""You know," he said, then struggled for the words, "if we were to get married.""They'd say," she said, "'Married to a murderer.'"
Neither of them spoke. The words hung between them. Each felt a thrill. He, that this one in a million (no, make that one in fifty million, he thought) woman could be at his side, and she, at the audaciousness of his notion.
Married to a murderer. Each of them thought about that. Marriage suited their desires, though each wanted different things. He wanted respectability, and she wanted notoriety. Both perceived the other as being powerful, as belonging to worlds they had only imagined.
"Will you marry me?" he asked."Yes," she said.
They didn't wait. Time was not on their side. Their nuptials set off a media frenzy. Why would one of the richest and most desirable women in the world marry a murderer? Danielle didn't offer answers, so the media tried to find their own. The life and times of Clay Potter were examined. If Danielle Deveron saw something good, and noble, and attractive in the man, then the reasoning was that there must be something there. Witnesses surfaced that remembered a different Clay Potter than was evidenced on his rap sheet. Even before his new team of lawyers went to work, the press began to call for a reexamination of his murder conviction.
"There is a God," said Clay Potter. And he knew there was an angel - his wife.While desperate motions were filed, man and wife continued in their jailhouse courtship.
"People whisper behind my back," Danielle confessed. "Everyone is talking. And mostly what they say is, 'Married to a murderer.'""They're wrong," said Clay, his voice rising, red suddenly appearing in his ashen face. "They're wrong."
He coughed long and hard, the coldness of his years of imprisonment, and the harshness of the lies directed at his wife, making him burn with anger. Danielle consoled him. He didn't understand that she hadn't been complaining. Quite the opposite. Being married to Clay set her apart, made her something novel. Others might have five carat diamond rings, and Learjets, but she had something they didn't: she was married to a murderer.
They were quite the odd couple, but to all appearances Danielle and Clay savored their moments together. Despite all the tumult going on around them, despite the clamor for a new trial, neither of them expected that Clay would be alive for very long. In some ways they found a freedom in his execution date. "Carpe diem," Danielle often said. Clay didn't know the Latin meaning, but he did like the excited look on her face.
The reprieve call never came from the governor. But Clay's lawyers found enough extenuating circumstances to allow for a retrial. Clay was ecstatic. He had been proclaiming his innocence from the day of his arrest, and now, at long last, people were beginning to believe him. Clay's retrial was blessedly short. On further review of the so-called evidence, Clay was found innocent. In the arms of his beautiful wife, Clay left the courtroom. He told the media that he had never been happier, but he coughed all the while he made the pronouncement. It was clear to all that Clay was very sick, his body wasted from his long confinement. Many wondered whether his freedom had come too late.
His death was announced a week later, and the press treated it like a Greek tragedy. Center stage was the widow in black, poor little rich girl Danielle Deveron, but the public was not quick to rid itself of their early take on the story. Behind the widow's back, Danielle still heard the whispers: "Married to a murderer."
The words were all too familiar to Danielle. They had been Clay's last words to her. He had made his pronouncement minutes after his last dose of medication. Clay had been obedient and adoring almost to the end. It was only when he took that final swallow of medication that he finally awakened. His face had undergone a remarkable transformation, beginning with a cherishing gaze, to a questioning glance, to a piercing stare, and then, at the end, a horrified look. He was staring at death, and something else, something that must have appeared even uglier to him.
From the first, they had both seen what they wanted to see, both seen what wasn't there. For a time, each had thought the other perfect for their needs. Danielle had been married to a murderer, and her beloved was to die for his deeds. When it turned out Clay was innocent (just her luck, she thought), everything changed. This wasn't a man Danielle had wanted to spend a life with, but a death with. She had married a guilty man. She had married a murderer. She wanted that distinction, wanted the whispers. But even more, she had wanted his death.
"Married," Clay had gasped, trying to shout out his last words, trying to raise an alarm, "to a murderer!"Then he died. Poisoned, but that was something only his widow would know.Of their relationship the public would always judge, "Married to a murderer."They would never know, thought Danielle, how right they were.
dark alley'kidnapped"
The alley was dark, frightfully so. I tried humming to myself to keep my fear away. My sister Amy and I were walking through this shortcut. We had just finished our tuitions and we were walking through the shortcut as we were late for supper. A solitary lamp stood in the middle of the dirty, impure alley, its light flickering every second. Amy gripped my hand.
“Amy, what tuition homework do we have?” I asked my sister trying to think of something else and put the fear at the back of my mind. Before she could answer, I heard her cry out, “Ouch!” Amy collapsed on the ground. I turned around and to my horror I saw a masked man with a baseball bat in his hand. He swung the bat. I felt a sharp pain in my head. My vision blurred, and then everything turned dark. I blacked out.
Opening my heavy eyelids, I tried to rub my eyes. However, I could not. Only after a little while did I realize my hands were tied to a wooden chair. I scanned the surroundings. Where was I? I thought I was in the dark alley. How did I get here? As I look to my left, Amy was there also tied up. There was only a cupboard behind us and nothing more. The room was quiet and empty.
“Ha…!”, a low but sinister laughter was heard , “Let’s see if the big boss dares to fire us again!” Creak…The door opened. The big build men with tattoos all over their arms stomped into the room. “Want to live? We will only release when we get the ten thousand dollars.” One of the men exclaimed. Storm blew throughout the night. However, Amy and I were not asleep. We were rubbing the roped which tied our hands against the edges of the rusted metal cupboard behinds us. Snore… The men were soundly asleep. Dawn was breaking and we had to move fast. A wide smile spread across my face as the rope broke. Immediately, I untied my legs then went over help Amy.
“Hey you!” both of the men shouted. They were actually pretending to sleep. They chase us out of the hut and to the field. “Ouch!” Amy cries out. She kicked onto the stone and fell. She got up to her feet again and started running. Suddenly police sirens were heard. The police had been alerted by an elderly man bird-watching in the field. “Do not move!” the police caught the kidnappers and escorted them into the police car.
That afternoon, both of us returned home, weary and with aches all over. We could see our mother pale with red eyes. We hugged her. Soon, we knew that the kidnappers once worked for our father, but because they were too lazy, our father fired them. They then decided to kidnap us for revenge. We knew this experience was terrible and it would be etched in our minds forever.
“Amy, what tuition homework do we have?” I asked my sister trying to think of something else and put the fear at the back of my mind. Before she could answer, I heard her cry out, “Ouch!” Amy collapsed on the ground. I turned around and to my horror I saw a masked man with a baseball bat in his hand. He swung the bat. I felt a sharp pain in my head. My vision blurred, and then everything turned dark. I blacked out.
Opening my heavy eyelids, I tried to rub my eyes. However, I could not. Only after a little while did I realize my hands were tied to a wooden chair. I scanned the surroundings. Where was I? I thought I was in the dark alley. How did I get here? As I look to my left, Amy was there also tied up. There was only a cupboard behind us and nothing more. The room was quiet and empty.
“Ha…!”, a low but sinister laughter was heard , “Let’s see if the big boss dares to fire us again!” Creak…The door opened. The big build men with tattoos all over their arms stomped into the room. “Want to live? We will only release when we get the ten thousand dollars.” One of the men exclaimed. Storm blew throughout the night. However, Amy and I were not asleep. We were rubbing the roped which tied our hands against the edges of the rusted metal cupboard behinds us. Snore… The men were soundly asleep. Dawn was breaking and we had to move fast. A wide smile spread across my face as the rope broke. Immediately, I untied my legs then went over help Amy.
“Hey you!” both of the men shouted. They were actually pretending to sleep. They chase us out of the hut and to the field. “Ouch!” Amy cries out. She kicked onto the stone and fell. She got up to her feet again and started running. Suddenly police sirens were heard. The police had been alerted by an elderly man bird-watching in the field. “Do not move!” the police caught the kidnappers and escorted them into the police car.
That afternoon, both of us returned home, weary and with aches all over. We could see our mother pale with red eyes. We hugged her. Soon, we knew that the kidnappers once worked for our father, but because they were too lazy, our father fired them. They then decided to kidnap us for revenge. We knew this experience was terrible and it would be etched in our minds forever.
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