Whitney

Whitney Houston in "The Bodyguard." Photo: Noel Phillips

What happens when you reach the end of hope?  

Not a comforting thought to wake up to on Valentine's Day but there it was...then just names - lost hearts. Whitney Houston. Amy Winehouse. Michael Jackson...

What about faith?  Doesn't that sustain even when hope fails?  

Whitney grew up in the church.  She knew faith. divine love. even sang "Jesus Loves Me"  to party guests the other night. 

Why didn't that carry her through the storm? 

Most journalists will tell you no matter what the coroner eventually says, Whitney's another statistic.  Most of us have seen prescription drugs trafficked from Hollywood to the Hamptons as openly as fake Prada purses.

Not long ago I got a lead into some places filling questionable prescriptions. Went to my publisher with the story idea - an investigative piece exposing suppliers might put some out of business and save lives.  He killed the idea. 

"No one will buy an ad around that kind of story," he said.  Wary advertisers meant lost sales.

News directors had quashed some of my controversial stories before but this time I was furious.  Where was our courage? We had a platform to confront our nation's drug epidemic and instead we walked off the stage because a pharmaceutical giant might yank an ad?

where do broken hearts go. when melodies are gone. can they find their way home...Whitney, I pray you did.  We will always love you.

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Faith Wins.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I faced the oncoming storm. The skies turned red with rage, then black with vengeance - mirroring the feeling in my soul.  

I was exhausted. Honestly, 2011 has been a hard year, but not for the usual reasons.  While the economy faltered, my wallet grew fat. While the country suffered, I was secure.  

Yet, silencing the artist inside for a corporate paycheck comes at a cost. The future seems bleak...already lost to an invisible foe who's only goal is to destroy dreams.

"Why did you give up music?"  I  recently asked a new friend who'd quit chasing a career in the industry.  Her answer's repeated a million times in Hollywood:  doors closed. no opportunities. no money. 

"You walked away from music but it didn't walk away from you," I told her.  

Have you ever looked at someone and felt you could read their heart in their face?  I could see she had paid a price for the music inside that someone else needs to hear. 

"There's still a song inside of you waiting to be sung," I said, "music still waiting to be written..." 

"I don't think it will look the same but I will try again," she promised before leaving.

Dreams seldom look the same after they've been broken.

Facing the storm, I challenged the song stealer. 

You might kill my dreams but not my faith.  

Like my friend, my dream is broken but I'm confident that He who began a good work is faithful to complete it to the end. Just as the sun always shines after a storm, faith always wins.

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Half-Naked Neighbors and Miracles

Obstacles conspired against me as I tried to get home for Thanksgiving.  We were even forced to evacuate my building as I was packing - the piercing emergency sirens sent one resident fleeing half-naked and barefoot.

Another resident emerged seeminly ready for the apocalypse: wearing a backpack of supplies, layers of clothes and heavy boots.

"Hey, how'd you pack all that so fast?" asked a neighbor who'd managed to save only his shaggy, white puppy.  "Um, I was getting ready for a trip." 

I confess. I'm the  panty-packing, toothbrush-toting survivalist.  But let me explain, lest my neighbors think they live next to Unabomber's disciple.

One of my first big TV news assignments was covering a freight train derailment miles from civilization.  The engineer hadn't realized that a driver had somehow crashed into the side of the train and had dragged the truck for miles.  

Rescuers had found the body of the driver, a young mom, but not her baby who'd been strapped in a car seat when she left home. There was a chance the baby was still alive, maybe ejected in the crash.

I'd been on my way home when I got the breaking news call so wasn't prepared to spend the freezing night outside in the middle of nowhere; there wasn't even a 7-11 nearby to get extra gloves and snacks.  

Still, my photographer and I walked the dark tracks with the rescuers.  Maybe our camera's light might illuminate the tiny body...

Then at dawn, a miracle of sorts.  Word came that the mom had inexplicably left the baby with a sitter just before the crash--the child had been safe all night.

That long, cold night taught me to always keep a bag packed...and that sometimes miracles happen long before we can see them.

(And the half-naked neighbor? Well, we all escaped the stove fire just fine.)

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Twisted Truths: What Parents Need to Know About the Joe Paterno Child Sex Scandal

As journalists, we make a living reporting about the wreckage caused by peoples' actions, like Penn State's Joe Paterno.  

There will always be questions about why he didn't call police when he learned his assistant coach might be molesting boys.  If the allegations are true, Paterno and others did nothing while the rapes went on for years.  One of the most alarming accusations says university employees knew "Victim 8" was being assaulted in the shower but didn't call 911 because they were afraid "they might lose their jobs."

Every parent should read the grand jury report (if they can stomach the graphic content) to see how a predator got away with it for so long.  As crime reporters, we get so used to people lying to us that we always look for twisted truths.  But most parents aren't so distrusting - as seen in the grand jury report.  It reveals how parents swept suspicions aside and never seriously tried to answer disturbing questions - questions that could protect your child: 

Why does this adult give my child gifts for no reason? 

Is my child acting out when seeing this adult?

Is an adult spending odd hours with my child, like taking them out of school? 

Is something "off" about my child's appearance, like disheveled clothes or wet hair, after being with this adult?

If this scandal has a redeeming side, it's that maybe we'll be better equipped to identify predators...and also compelled to protect children - even if they're not ours.

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Ridiculous, Crazy Faith

Artists Wanted.  © 2011 Maria Peterson Photography

create.

A reporter being given a new assignment says in Overheard in the Newsroom: “I’m kind of glad to get away from pot for a while and move on to perverts.” 

Sometimes you feel so stuck that even covering stories about sadists and rapists brings a needed change.  

I'm about ready to go back to covering perverts.

I thought freelancing would give me more time to pursue creative dreams.  Writing children's books. Studying photography. Acting. Baking. 

I was wrong. 

"Being a freelancer means being a hustler," my friend Patrice says.*  "If anyone tells you that being a freelancer is easy, they are on some serious 1985 cocaine."

I'm not good at hustling so on top of freelancing, I took a coporate job writing marketing materials and the work has exploded. But there's a cost to doing work you're not passionate about. In time, the artist inside revolts.  A sense of futility sets in.  A crisis of faith hits.
 
"Being a freelancer takes a person of ridiculous, crazy and often stupid-looking faith," says Patrice.  

So we cling to this ridiculous, crazy faith that God is working out His plan...and because the true artist will continue to create - must create - even when there is no paycheck.

*Read Patrice Patrick's post on freelancing here

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Most Wanted: Whitey Bulger

James "Whitey" Bulger as a young mobster

I've been mourning my losses.  Well, not exactly my losses but what could have been my gain if I'd been more observant of my neighbors.

The press is reporting that a former beauty queen named Anna will get the $2 million reward for the tip that led to the capture of mobster James "Whitey" Bulger.  Bulger, who ran the Boston Winter Hill Gang, had been on the FBI's "Most Wanted" for the murders of 19 people in the 1970's and '80's.

I walk by Bulger's apartment nearly every day on my way to the beach. The area is unremarkable except for it's proximity to the ocean; mostly 70's apartment buildings along a wide, palm tree-lined street.  

Posing as a retiree, the mob boss had been living "in plain sight," as cops put it, for more than a decade. 

Seems simple "girl talk" brought down the most wanted fugitive who'd been right up there with terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.  

"Anna had befriended Bulger's girlfriend after the two women took an interest in a stray cat," says writer Randy Economy. 

Anna turned in the 81-year-old Bulger and his girlfriend after seeing them on a TV report. She's now $2 million richer and certainly the heroine of a future movie.  The TV crews are gone for now but I'm sure they'll be back when a deal is struck. 

During the raid on Bulger's place, the FBI found a tidy nest egg stashed in the walls of his apartment, along with an arsenal of weapons.  Forget Bingo - wonder what else those retirees across the street are up to? 

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After the Vows...

Wedding day.  Photo: K. Lewis 

If marriage is God's design, why does it seem so hard to make it work? And virtually impossible in Hollywood?  

I got to thinking about this as a friend announced her engagement; the same day another friend announced her break up. 

Sadly, I've seen as many endings to marriages as beginnings.  Covering the crime beat, cops will tell you some of their riskiest responses are when one partner is trying to leave the other.

To make ends meet at my first small market TV news gig, I took a part-time job at a women's shelter.  Police brought in most victims with only their kids and the clothes on their backs.

I never got used to seeing the swollen faces, black eyes, bruises...I didn't understand how mothers stayed with men who shattered their kids' bones, or worse. 

"They feel like they have no choice," the director tried to explain, "Most go back."

Later, I was the one dialing 911 for a friend fleeing an explosive husband.  She was terrified he'd come home and find her packing. 

I'd been there when they met.  Celebrated their engagement.  Helped pick the wedding decorations.  We saw no warnings; the beatings started after the vows.  

"I'm calling the police," I said, "That'll give you time to get out."  I'd covered enough crime stories to know this one could turn fatal.

My friend's experience is common; one in four women are in abusive relationships.* The reasons a marriage goes from flowers to fists are as intricate as the lace of a wedding dress.  And love's promises - to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish...until death do us part - just as fragile. 

*Domestic Violence Resource Center www.dvrc-or.org

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