  Short Stories
This week: Birthday Blessings Edited by: Shannon  
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Welcome to the Short Stories Newsletter. I am Shannon and I'm your editor this week.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
If we didn’t have
birthdays, you wouldn’t be
you. If you’d never been
born, well then what would
you do? If you’d never been
born, well then what would
you be? You might be a
fish! Or a toad in a tree! You
might be a doorknob! Or
three baked potatoes! You
might be a bag full of hard
green tomatoes.
Or worse than all
that … Why, you might be a
WASN’T! A Wasn’t has no
fun at all. No, he doesn’t. A
Wasn’t just isn’t. He just
isn’t present. But you … You
ARE YOU! And, now isn’t
that pleasant!
Today you are you! That is
truer than true! There is no
one alive...
...who is you-er than
you! Shout loud, “I am lucky to
be what I am! Thank
goodness I’m not just a clam
or a ham Or a dusty old jar
of sour gooseberry jam! I am
what I am! That’s a great thing
to be! If I say so
myself, HAPPY BIRTHDAY
TO ME!"
~ Dr. Seuss
Do you know who created the WorldWideWeb (W3)? (Hint: it wasn't Al Gore.)
In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist working for CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva), created the WorldWideWeb and on August 6, 1991, he published the first web page from a physics lab in the Swiss Alps. You may visit the internet's first web page here.
That was twenty-eight years ago. This week writing.com celebrates its nineteenth birthday. Nineteen years! That's practically unheard of for an online community and we, the members who keep coming back day after day, week after week, and year after year made it happen.
I've been a writing.com member since April 11, 2006. It's hard to believe it's been over thirteen years since I signed up for what would eventually feel like a second home ... a place for me to learn, read, write, share, and make a few friends along the way. Every month in the Short Stories Newsletter I write about topics intended to stimulate your creativity, spark an idea, or simply inform. This month I'm dedicating the editorial to the site itself, for without the site none of this would be possible.
As my regular readers know, I include an exclusive trinket in every Short Stories Newsletter. I usually require members to read and comment before sending them the trinket. This month, however, I'm including my "I  WDC" trinket to celebrate the site's monumental achievement of nineteen successful years. The only thing you have to do is click to collect ... but feedback is always welcome and very much appreciated.
Thank you for reading.
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This time I'm featuring static items specifically created for WDC's 19th birthday as well as official WDC contests.
Thank you, and have a great week!
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The following is in response to "Blackstone's Formulation" :
~  ~
Jeff  writes: I suppose it's also a question of what charges for which the people are guilty or innocent. If they're the same (e.g., one innocent person is in prison for drug-related offense they didn't commit versus ten people guilty of drug-related crimes being free), I tend to think one innocent person wrongfully convicted would be worse. Even more so if the one innocent person is accused of a worse crime (like murder); I think it would be a travesty for one person to be spending 25 years to life in prison instead of ten people guilty of drug-related crimes going free. But what about the other end of the spectrum? Is one person innocent of a drug-related crime spending six months in prison better than ten murderers going free? It becomes a little tougher to weigh the pros and cons in that case.
~ ~
Quick-Quill  writes: I'm a true crime junkie. I listen to true crime podcasts almost every day. I've been following the Curtis Flowers case and feel he's innocent and been railroaded by a bigot DA. Now that the supreme court has ruled his jury selection was biased, he has to decide to try the case a 7th time or let Curtis go free. The two women posting the podcast have a viable suspect that could possibly be the murderer. We'll see. I'd rather Curtis go free. They can choose to follow up on the other guy.
~ ~
Bikerider  writes: I read your latest newsletter with great interest. When I was a detective I taught several Citizens On Patrol groups. Each of the classes consisted of 15-to-20 citizens, both male and female, usually people over the age of fifty.
One exercise I always found telling was this: during a normal class, one of my co-workers (dressed in street clothes) would storm into the classroom and cower in a corner. Another of my co-workers (also in street clothes) would half a minute later storm into the classroom, a fake gun in hand. He would confront the cowering actor, they would shout at each other, and then the cowering actor would be shot (with blanks, of course). The actors would then immediately leave without saying a word to anyone.
The students were never told that this would happen; it was important that they be as stunned as any other witness who found themselves involved as a witness to a violent criminal act.
After the students calmed down and their heartbeats returned to normal, I would hand each of them a piece of paper and tell them to write down the description of the shooter and the victim. The students were not allowed to coordinate with each other.
The result of this exercise was, while educational for the students, always the same. When I collected the written descriptions, on average, only two or three were accurate. Some people thought the shooter was African-American when he was white, and sometimes they described a white shooter when he was African-American. The clothing descriptions were usually the things most got wrong. Few could remember what the actors had shouted, and most weren't accurate about how many shots were fired.
While this was not a scientific study, it bears out what you wrote in your newsletter; many people who are convicted on witness testimony alone are later exonerated.
~ ~
Goblin Slayer  writes: I do believe that it is better to let the guilty go free rather than one innocent be punished. I can only imagine the torture that one must endure when he is innocent and yet put in prison. That could also ruin a life forever, losing loved ones because they now think you're guilty or having a husband or wife remarry when they are incarcerated. Yes, let the guilty go free, they will screw up eventually and get caught, at least the dumb ones anyway.
~ ~
dragonwoman  writes: The ten guilty who escape jail would seem to be worse then one innocent in jail. That's ten people who are free to continue doing awful things to others. Innocence, as you say, no longer seems to be enough to keep someone out of jail. As sad as that is, the ten guilty people cause more havoc in society than the loss of one innocent person.
~ ~
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  writes: Try dealing with a Kangaroo Court situation where the defendant is declared "Guilty" even if they were innocent, or had actually did a different crime, from the one that they allegedly did. In one story, I have the protagonist accused of murder, and is set to be executed,(although, to be fair, he'd planned to kill the deceased only to find that someone else had done it,) when the real killer shows up, confesses, and the judge still plans to have the protagonist killed anyways!
~ ~
Jeannie   writes: Another great newsletter, Shannon! To be sent to prison by Eyewitness misidentification is unjust. What about evidence? Does it add up to what these eyewitnesses claims? I am saddened by the innocent paying for the guilty's crime. Maybe that's why crime is so high, they're arresting the wrong people.
~ ~
Detective writes: Honestly, I think that both options are equally bad. I 've never written a story involving someone who's been wrongfully covicted but it does make for an interesting story. The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies.
~ ~
Princess Megan Snow Rose  writes: People who did crimes should be locked up. Innocent people shouldn't be locked up. Good video and crime does go clear back to Bible times. Good research and well written newsletter. I would hate to go to jail for a crime I didn't commit. Sad world we live in. I enjoyed reading this.
~ ~
eyestar~* writes: Wow! This is fascinating. The idea that misidentification is a major cause of innocent being convicted is terrible and yet makes sense as we know that even in reporting a simple incident seen by several people details vary from witness to witness. I wonder how the people who identified the ones later set free think about it as they helped put them away. You ask a tough question...and I wonder how much karma has to do with it. Philosophically it is said there is a reason for everything even if we do not know what it is. Another engaging and informative newsletter. Thanks for your fine contribution.
~ ~
Pumpkin Harvest writes: I haven't used this in a story, but as a student teacher, I tried a ploy which I think failed with my students. I knew that two people had cheated on an assignment.I asked if anyone would like to confess anything to me. No one responded. I told them that sometimes in life we get away with dishonesty, cheating, cutting corners or lying. But we know if we are good people or not, and our consciences will eat away at us. I know who you are, but I'm not penalizing you. My opinion of you will never change if you don't come to me to confess. No one ever did. My supervising teacher didn't like that and made marks against me for it. She didn't ask who they were, she had wanted them punished by me. I had a teacher who did something similar, and it made a big impression on me. However, not all people have a conscience.
~ ~
sindbad  writes: Wow, this is thought-provoking, strengthens our grass-root grasp on the evolution of the legal system in the latest history.
~ ~
🌑 Darleen - QoD  writes: It's a tragedy no matter which way we look at it. But one person innocent of a crime is worse than any number of guilty not being behind bars. If you think about it though how many guilty people are free? How many have been released on technicalities, tainted evidence, or even simply having a better lawyer, more money, or a crooked judge? How many innocents may be behind bars because of the same? It's disgusting to think about. Makes me think of the movie "Minority Report". Hmm. There are lots of story possibilities here. 
~ ~
The following is in response to "The Hero's Journey" :
Jeff writes: I actually just finished re-reading the Hero's Journey a couple months ago. It's amazing how relevant Joseph Campbell's observations are to this day. He's influenced so many popular movies, books, and other stories. 
~ ~
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Short Stories: September 04, 2019 Issue [#9741]
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