James Arthur Ray – Sweat lodge leader sentenced to two years in prison

According to stories that have been released on major media outlets – James Arthur Ray has been sentenced to two years in prison for his involvement in several deaths in a sweat lodge incident.  Excerpts from a CNN report are shared below:

(CNN) — A judge sentenced a self-help expert to a total of two years in prison Friday for his role in the deaths of three people in a 2009 sweat lodge ceremony in the Arizona desert.

The judge instead imposed three two-year terms, to be served concurrently.

Ray and his attorneys asked for probation, but Judge Warren R. Darrow said the evidence shows “extreme negligence on the part of Mr. Ray.”

“A prison sentence is just mandated in this case,” he said.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Ray’s recklessness caused the deaths of Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, New York; James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee; and Lizbeth Marie Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minnesota. At least 15 others who took part in the sweat lodge ceremony became ill.

The lodge, made of willow trees and branches and covered with tarpaulins and blankets, was heated to a perilously high temperature, causing the participants to suffer dehydration and heatstroke, prosecutors alleged.

Ray tearfully told the court that he has “no excuse” for what happened that October day or since.”At the end of the day, I lost three friends, and I lost them on my watch,” he said. “And whatever errors in judgment or mistakes I made, I’m going to have to live with those for the rest of my life.”

Ray asked Darrow to sentence him to probation, saying he is no threat to society and promising never to conduct another sweat lodge ceremony again.

“It pains me beyond belief to be here today, with the best of intentions gone wrong,” he said.

Before Darrow announced his judgment, prosecutor Sheila Polk characterized Ray as a dangerous “pretender” who had cast himself as a victim of an overzealous prosecution.

And relatives of the victims told Darrow that Ray has done little to redeem himself and that he deserved the maximum possible sentence of nine years in prison.

“My heart’s been ripped out. My life has been blown apart, and the pieces are yet to land,” said Virginia Brown, Kirby Brown’s mother.

As I share in my seminars – “Every Choice Has A Consequence” – based on the published facts and circumstances – what do you think about the James Ray sentence?  YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

Don’t Play the Game Penn State… A reprinted blog by Randy Gage!

Randy Gage is a dynamic speaker and excellent thought leader.  He posted a blog that deserves repeating.  To give him credit here’s the link:  http://www.randygage.com/blog/shut-it-down-now-penn-state/   or otherwise you can read it in it’s entirety below.  The thoughts are his and for that he is given credit, but I agree with his conclusion and thought it worth sharing!  Your comments are welcome

Okay we don’t talk sports or even news much in this space.  We’re usually looking at principles of success and prosperity.  But this Penn State scandal is so teeming with lack consciousness, I feel compelled to say something about it.

True prosperity is always a value-for-value proposition.  And what that comes down to is doing the right thing. 

And for Penn State to blithely go about playing their big football game against Nebraska this weekend is so far beyond adding insult to injury it’s a travesty.

Let’s look at the facts from the grand jury we know so far…

In March of 2002, assistant coach Mike McQueary then 28, entered the locker room to pick up some recruiting tapes.  He heard “rhythmic, slapping sounds.”  He went to the shower and saw a naked 10-year-old boy, “With his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky.”

He doesn’t intervene.  Doesn’t call police.  He’s so shocked and confused, he simply leaves.  He went home and called his father.  The next day he tells coach Joe Paterno.  Coach Paterno waits a day, and then tells the Athletic Director.

What happens next?

The witnessed rape of a defenseless boy recruited from a program for disadvantaged youth somehow gets classified as “horseplay.”  The university tells Sandusky not to bring boys on campus.  No one attempts to find or treat the boy.  That’s it!

We now learn that there was another incident with Sandusky in 1998.  A campus detective was ordered to close the case by his boss.  Then in 2000, a janitor witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in the shower.  It wasn’t reported…

Penn State University has exhibited the most grievous, flagrant and criminal behavior of a university in modern history.  They let (at least) eight boys continue to be subjected to predatory abuse from a pedophile for 15 years.

And Sandusky is behind bars now, not because of any help from Penn State.  It was a wrestling coach and assistant principal at a High School who finally caught Sandusky with a boy in the weight room and immediately called police.

And it could be getting much, much worse…

Zac Wassink, who’s a Penn State alum I believe, is reporting on his Yahoo blog that Pittsburgh radio host Mark Madden dropped an ever bigger bombshell on a program today…

Madden said that two columnists are investigating a rumor that Sandusky’s Foundation was “pimping out young boys to rich (Penn State) donors.”  He also said Sandusky was told by Penn State he had to retire after allegations made in 1998 that he was guilty of “improper conduct with an underage male.”  It’s important to note that these are rumors at this point.   But Madden has been correct with other information on this scandal up to now.  And it just shows how much smoke there was before this fire, that Penn State completely ignored.

Now the facts get out, beloved “Coach JoPa” is fired and Penn State students start a riot in protest.  Are these kids the most naïve, clueless, and ignorant students in the world?  This is the higher education Penn State is supplying them?

Now those same kids are fired up and want revenge by crushing Nebraska in their big rivalry football game this weekend…

Think of the worst sports scandal you can ever think of:  Recruiting bribery, fixed football matches, crooked jai alai players, the Chicago “Black Sox.”  They wouldn’t even rate a footnote on this.

What we are seeing unveiled here is the worst sports scandal in history.  Because we’re not talking about throwing games, making bets, or enriching bank accounts.  We’re talking about evil, horrific abuse of defenseless children.  And one of the most powerful institutions of higher learning in the land, turning a blind eye to their anguished cries for help – so as not to risk their cash-generating, powerhouse football program, with lucrative television rights deals.  It is absolutely sickening, the disgusting demonstration of lack-centered, anti-humanity and thus anti-prosperity consciousness I can conceive of.

Except this…

Now the student body wants to rush into the stadium this weekend, trot out the mascot, scream with the cheerleaders, and sing the fight song with the marching band, as the coaches scheme the passing routes to try and beat Nebraska.

Do the right thing Penn State:  Forfeit the game. 

Cancel the rest of the season perhaps.  Help locate those kids and get them some help.  Raise awareness for the issues of sexual predators.  Maybe schedule some extra classes and start teaching your students about principles like doing the right thing, and looking out for those that can’t take care of themselves, instead rioting to protest your coach losing his contract.

A scoutmaster once molested me when I was young.  And I have to tell you that the man who was my unofficial step-father at the time, kind of brushed it off.  I didn’t go on any more camping trips and was never left alone with him, and quit soon after.

In this case it was a sick man fondling a prepubescent boy one time.  I moved on, and it didn’t scar me for life.  But that man should have been stopped and I shudder to think how many other boys he continued to prey on.

I come from a pretty simple family and we didn’t know how to deal with issues like that, just as it’s likely the families of these eight boys didn’t know how to deal with this.

But we need to hold Penn State to a high standard here.  This was wanton, systemic neglect of kids from an institution charged with safeguarding them.  Those kids were sacrificed on the altar of multi-million-dollar television contracts.

Pomp and circumstance, cheerleaders and marching bands – a football game this weekend?  Is that the message you really want to send?  The kids – all of them – deserve better.

Do the right thing Penn Sate.  Shut it down.  Now.

-RG

Stevie at the truckstop – What Seeds are You Planting?

From time to time when you read about the challenges and issues of the day…a story rises up from nowhere that touches the heart.  So…here’s the question.  What choice can you make today out of love that might impact positively the life of someone else.

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy.
But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn’t worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don’t generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded ‘truck stop germ’ the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with.. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.

Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Marvin Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table

Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Marvin a withering look.

He grinned. ‘OK, Frannie, what was that all about?’ he asked.

‘We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.’

‘I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?’

Frannie quickly told Marvin and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery, then sighed: ‘ Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be OK,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.’ Marvin nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t get that table where Marvin and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,’ she said. ‘This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup’

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it.. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed ‘Something For Stevie.’

‘Pete asked me what that was all about,’ she said, ‘so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.’ She handed me another paper napkin that had ‘Something For Stevie’ scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: ‘truckers.’

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.

His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting..

‘Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,’ I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. ‘Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate your coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!’ I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. ‘First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,’ I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had ‘Something for Stevie’ printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. ‘There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. ‘Happy Thanksgiving.’

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table.

Best worker I ever hired.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.