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The poet Mary Oliver writes, “I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.” In another of her poems, she writes, “Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a tree.” She climbs up the tree in this poem and writes the number of leaves she counts in a book, and when she is done, or gives up trying to count them all, she is “half-crazy at the wonder of it – the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches.” This wonder at the meticulous detail in nature strikes me in Barbara Clements...

SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio police arrested a woman on a murder charge late Thursday after a detective said she deleted call records or text messages while being questioned about a fatal shooting earlier in the day. Sara Mary Clements, 24, eventually admitted to being with Alex Navarro, 22, on Thursday at about 1:30 a.m. and said “police were going to find out about her anyway because of the text messages she had sent” to Navarro, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

A Republican candidate for US Senate recently launched a website alleging that his primary election opponent cheated delegates and hacked into his campaign email account.David Clements (pictured above) says his allegations about Allen Weh stem from documents, pictures and purported eyewitness accounts of the Bernalillo County Republican Party pre-primary convention that occurred earlier this month. "In order for the party to be unified in defeating [sitting Democratic Sen.] Tom Udall, we are releasing all documents pertaining to the events of February 5th, with an understanding of how those events took place and how people have been pressured to change their...

Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 on charges related to having an underage slave whom he sexually molested. Al-Turki resided in Colorado and his now serving out his prison sentence in that state. Since his conviction, there has been a very strong effort from Saudi Arabia to have him released. ... A judge has now ruled that al-Turki isn’t going anywhere (that is if you don’t count his being moved from a State Correctional facility to a federal one). ... al-Turki has never really been completely cleared in the murder of Executive Director for Colorado’s Department of Corrections. Clements was...

The office of the Colorado Governor’s office, headed by Democrat John Hickenlooper, may be on the brink of a major scandal involving attempts to release a Saudi prisoner. Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 for keeping a sex slave locked up in his residence. He repeatedly molested her over a period of years. You might remember that earlier this year, the Executive Director for Colorado’s prisons, Tom Clements, denied a request to release al-Turki and have him sent back to Saudi Arabia. Eight days later, Clements was shot dead shortly after opening his front door on March 19, 2013. ......

DENVER — The ongoing legal battle over the extradition request of Homaidan al-Turki, a Saudi inmate imprisoned for keeping a maid as a sex slave, is, for now, in the hands of an Arapahoe County district court judge. But documents released in court last week and conversations with attorneys and law enforcement sources reveal the case to be a matter of national security, with al-Turki, who is asking to be transferred to serve the rest of his sentence in his native Saudi Arabia, believed by investigators to have connections to worldwide terrorist organizations. He is also still under investigation in...

A Saudi national, who is serving an eight-years-to-life sentence in Arapahoe County for repeatedly sexually assaulting his housekeeper, is seeking to spend the rest of his sentence in his native country. Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft and extortion. Thursday, he is expected back in court for the continuation of a hearing that began last week. Defense attorneys say their client should have access to a sex offender treatment program that takes into account his religious and cultural beliefs and one that would be closer to his family. They say the...

Homaidan al-Turki had been held at the Limon Correctional Facility and was moved to the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood, a minimum security prison. ... Al-Turki's request to serve out his sentence in Saudi Arabia was denied in March by then prisons' chief Tom Clements. Clements was shot and killed the following week when he answered his front door.

We’re beginning to learn some details about why there has been renewed interest in a Saudi national serving an 8 years-to-life prison sentence in Colorado for enslaving and sexually assaulting an Indonesian minor. Some of those details appear to involve Homaidan al-Turki’s large bank account, coupled with large purchases at the prison canteen that couldn’t have possibly been solely for himself. Al-Turki was briefly a person of interest after the murder of Colorado’s prison chief Tom Clements on March 19th. One week earlier, al-Turki’s request to be transferred to Saudi Arabia had been denied by Clements. That interest seemed to...

DENVER — Investigators looking into the shooting death of the director of the Colorado Department of Corrections will look at the possibility that Tom Clements’ murder may be tied to the recent decision not to grant a transfer of a Saudi man in a Colorado prison. Homaidan Al-Turki was convicted in 2006 of unlawful sexual contact by use of force and other charges. Prosecutors said he sexually assaulted a housekeeper and kept her as a virtual slave for four years. His conviction angered Saudi officials. The U.S. State Department sent Colorado Attorney General John Suthers to Saudi Arabia to meet...

The executive director of Colorado’s department of corrections was shot dead by an unknown gunman at his home Tuesday night, apparently when he answered a ring at his front door, authorities said. Why the director, Tom Clements, was shot and by whom was not clear. “The initial information was the doorbell had rung and when Mr. Clements answered the door he was shot,” El Paso County Sheriff's Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Kramer said. Investigators were working to confirm that information. No one else in the house was injured. A call was received by the sheriff’s office at 8:37 p.m. local...

The head of the Colorado Department of Corrections has been shot and killed at his home, and authorities say the gunman is on the loose. Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer says Tom Clements was shot to death around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night when he answered his front door in Monument, north of Colorado Springs. Police are searching for the shooter.

Former Texas Gov. William "Bill" Clements Jr., who broke the Democratic Party's century-long hold on the Governor's Mansion with his election 33 years ago, died Sunday. He was 94, had suffered a stroke and had been ill for some time. A brusque and colorful Dallas oilman, Clements shocked the political establishment by beating Democrat John Hill Jr. in the 1978 gubernatorial election. Hill, then the attorney general, had unseated Gov. Dolph Briscoe in the Democratic primary, and Capitol power players — as overwhelmingly Democratic then as they are Republican now — assumed the race was over. Clements, spending freely from...

Fr. Rob Clements was just 10 years old when he discovered the beauty of the Catholic faith. He had been riding his bike in Sacramento when he stumbled upon a large Catholic church. Leaving his bike parked outside, he entered to find a priest in the midst of the concluding rites for a funeral. “It was just spectacular,” Fr. Clements said. “I saw the casket with the black cover on it and the crosses. The priest incensed the body and I was just blown away with this.” When he headed back outside the church, he discovered his bike was gone....

A US human rights group says it is suing private security firm Blackwater for unspecified damages for war crimes and wrongfully killing Iraqi civilians. The Center for Constitutional Rights is acting on behalf of an injured survivor and three families of men killed by Blackwater guards on 16 September. The Iraqi government said the incident in which 17 people died was unprovoked. Blackwater denies firing without cause. The case has put a spotlight on private military contractors in Iraq. BLACKWATER USA FACTS Founded in 1997 by a former US Navy Seal Headquarters in North Carolina One of at least 28...

Justice Souter, of course, is one of the Supreme Court Justices who voted to empower all levels of government with a new power - the power to take by force private property and turn it over to another private owner. This is the essence of the Kelo vs. New London decision. This changed the Constitution from allowing the taking of private property for a public “use” (i.e. a road, a bridge, a school) to the taking of private property for a public “benefit” (i.e. a condominium or a shopping center). A young man named Logan Darrow Clements has taken it...

August 16, 2005 Posted: August 16, 4:11 p.m. Vassar Clements was an extraordinary fiddler, a self-taught virtuoso who appeared on more than 2,000 albums and also played viola, cello, bass, mandolin, guitar and tenor banjo. Clements died Tuesday at his home in Goodlettsville at age 77 after a battle with lung cancer. “He was one of the most famous fiddle players of all time, and his style and capability as a player enabled him to be as effective playing the blues, doing R&B, jazz, anything,” famed WSM-AM announcer Eddie Stubbs said. “But even if you didn’t like Vassar Clements’ music,...

Fiddler Virtuoso Vassar Clements Dies By JOHN GEROME Associated Press Writer August 16, 2005, 2:21 PM EDT NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Vassar Clements, a fiddle virtuoso and A-list studio musician who played with Paul McCartney and an array of others, died at his home Tuesday after a battle with lung cancer, his daughter said. Clements, 77, was hospitalized for 18 days earlier this year, receiving chemotherapy and other treatment. Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

With Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gone from the Supreme Court, choosing her successor is NOT the most important task before us. More critical is reducing the damage a clueless and arrogant Court can do. Thankfully, there are signs that America is moving toward a new declaration of independence. The Court unleashed its latest shocker on June 23. In a 5-4 decision called Kelo vs. New London, the Court declared that it's okay for the government to seize your house just for the purpose of giving it to someone else. [snip] Only Congress is authorized to make laws or spend money....

WEARE — Even as late as yesterday afternoon, residents here were scratching their heads over the commotion a one-page fax from thousands of miles away had caused Tuesday. "We're trying to collect taxes, not answering phones," said town clerk Evelyn Connor about what she said was a distraction from today's tax collection deadline. By yesterday afternoon, at least 50 different media outlets had called looking for comment. "We're too busy for this," she said, shaking her head. The commotion began yesterday when a fax came for Chip Meany, the town's building code enforcement officer. The letter, sent by Logan Darrow...