Karma and idiocy

Does everyone see the flaw in Sharon Stone’s Karma statement?

I am far from an expert on this, but I belive that karma makes one responsible for one’s own life.  Thus, what you give out to others will come back to you. 

So, Sharon Stone is saying that all those children who died in collapsed schools deserved it because, WHY???

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FLDS = brainwashing, not religion

Thank you, Grandma in Illinois, for saying it: “Precludes a choice”

This has been my biggest objection to FLDS, right after whatever/if child abuse we suspect is going on. I am trying to be unbiased here and this is an issue that is difficult for me as some of my grandchildren are living in a similar environment. The only saving grace in my grandchildren’s situation is that their father is so boring and uncharismatic, that he can’t persuade a mouse to come out and eat. Hence, he cannot get a following to abuse.

If you take a child and raise that child outside the world it lives in (being the world of 2008), and you indoctrinate it to your beliefs only, never teach or allow that child to think for itself or see any other beliefs, you have brainwashing, not religion.

Other religions teach their beliefs, but FLDS, and my daughter’s family, do not allow their children to know any other way. The men in charge (I am not a “man hater” you cannot deny that it is men in charge of the FLDS.), these men are using religion to preclude choice for others. In this case, women and children.

This is selective breeding for humans. It is another form of trying to create a master race. For some time it has been the Jeffs, father and son, who decide who breeds and when. During World War II, it was Hitler.

They are using the term religion to destroy free will.

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Where in the world would you go?

Where would you go, if you won a trip to anywhere in the world.

 

My list is almost too long to mention. Alaska to see the Northern Lights, anywhere to watch the whales, Holland/Norway, the Basque Country, to see what really made my ancestors who they were, and Japan to find a long lost friend, Junko Kanazawa.  India to photograph the women in their vibrant sari’s and learn more about Buddhism.  Africa for the music, culture and animals and for fun: New Zealand.  Send me a ticket, and with two seconds to pack my sketch pad and camera, I’m there.

 

I grew up in Indiana, thirty miles outside of Chicago. My father’s reason for never going to Chicago was stated succinctly.  “I never lost anything in Chicago. So, I don’t have to go back to get it.” The Dunes National Park was a short drive east. Couldn’t go there, He heard from someone, who knew someone, who was mugged there once.  He also told me once that anything he wanted to see, he could see on his television.  Dad was not adventurous.

 

Dad worked at Combustion Engineering and the family went to town once every other week, on payday.  They got groceries in Griffith, Indiana, where I would go to the library and carry out a load of books that stretched my arms down like an orangutan. Clothing was delivered by the Sears man.  In the summer, we would eat beer batter Fish and Chips at a drive-in restaurant on payday. I think it was at Broad and Main, in Griffith.

 

I however, wanted to move, since I remember being able to think.  I would look out an office window of a skyscraper and envy every one of those cars zooming by on the expressway, then I would go back to my typing.  I’ve been to 49 of the 50 states, Canada and momentarily in Mexico.  So, the world is ahead of me yet..

 

Mom was there when we got home from school and cooked dinner, until the fateful day in history when TV Dinners blighted the earth.  She was having health problems, so it was quick fix, and, like Twinkies and White Castle, I thought they tasted better then, than they do now.

 

Dad’s big travel was his yearly two week vacation. The first I remember were the trips to cabins in Wisconsin. We spent two glorious weeks swimming, hiking and swatting mosquitoes. I loved it and the woods. Then, they bought a station wagon and camping equipment and my brother and I were in heaven.  I haven’t been camping in years and I really miss it.  I’m never so happy as when I am outdoors, anywhere.

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First Edit-Change of plans

My Young Adult Fantasy novel is at 61,754 words. It ranges from being the first draft, at the end, to being probably thirtieth draft, in the beginning.  I have three possible openings, none of which I am happy with.

I write nearly every day.  I get in anywhere from three hours to ten hours at my computer.  Some days, the hours are spent in research.  Anytime I do get blocked, I start searching for sites on writing Fantasy for Young Adults, writing in general, etc.  Doing this, I will find something that  strikes a chord and gets me back on track again.  About every three weeks, I will just take two to three days off to step away from the whole thing. 

I had been doing the first edit as a word edit.  It sharpens up the writing but can be tedious. I use MS Words “Find” for Lie and Lay (making sure they were used correctly), and then those little qualifiers that do not add anything:  a Little, almost, back, barely, be, could, down, had, instead,  etc.  I was to Chapter seven, when I realized, in one of those “DUH!” moments, I was going about this all wrong.

Writers are living in a wonderful age of information.  Editors and Writers are some of the most helpful people on earth to newcomers.  Talking Books is the website of Senior Editor, Cheryl Klein, at Arthur A. Levine. It has some great information on it.  My first edit, is now based on  Aristotle, Austen, Plot, and Pleasure by Cheryl Klein.

A few years ago, while I was painting full time, I listened to a book on tape about writing, by Stephen King.  It was in between my Mystery Novel, for adults, completed but not edited, and my Picture Book, just never sumitted.  He gave everyone permission to just write. Do what you have to do.  If you are not a “plot it out in detail first” kind of writter, don’t worry.  Get that story down.   I am a little of both.  Ms. Klein seems to be agreeing with King and it makes a lot of sense to me.  My story is written, now it is time to make sure things are working in it, to make it a book a kid wants to read and can’t put down once they have started.

Ms. Klein’s article (Aristotle, Austen) showed me why the opening I had chosen was the wrong opening.  My protagonist was being too self-centered in it, although he does have a good reason at the time.  But, it si something to fix and that is worth a lot to realize.  I’m not going to spend time here, covering her points.  If you are interested, the link is above.  It will really clear up Plotting for you. 

There is also a link to her web site in my web site links.

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FLDS+Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

This is a response to H. Millard. If anyone misses the point, as has been commented on, I understand. I do too. Sometimes comments lead to apples and oranges being compared and other times it’s just my brain leading to goodness knows where.

 

The Native Americans were persecuted because the Caucasians wanted their land, not because they abused their children.  In fact, the Native tradition is to cherish and nurture their children.  As still happens, the Caucasians are all about possessions. And, look what a fine mess we have made of this earth. 

 

BTW, I am a Mutt. Dutch and possibly Norwegian, English, perhaps smattering of Native American and Basque.

 

The Jewish people were not allowed to own land, so became diamond merchants.  The Germans then persecuted them because the powers that be were jealous of their wealth. It had nothing to do with circumcising boys or abusing children. After all, you would be hard put to find an American male who isn’t circumcised now. 

 

The Catholics?  Henry VIII wanted more wives and Cromwell wanted more power and see what good that did for Northern Ireland?

 

The Australian Aborigines were persecuted, I think, for the same land reason. They lost their homes, were hunted like animals, poisoned, shot, confined and had their children taken from them and abused; much as the Native Americans.

 

The Roma have contact with their host countries for a livelihood but do not want to integrate too closely, which may cause a loss of their basic beliefs.  Sort of like the FLDS BUT, they treat their children with respect. They were taken as slaves from their homeland and they are persecuted yet. But, they do not abuse children as a tenant of their religion.

 

Yup, it happens. I would hope, in my ever optimistic attitude, that the United Nations would step in, as the Texas Authorities have, and stop the injustices of the world. It’s downright wrong, as long as man has power, it will be like that. Remember, Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  And, that is why we need other powers to stop the corrupt power and Courts to stop the corruption of the other powers.

 

The FLDS has a corrupt power structure. In 1986, Rulon Jeffs abolished the seven-member Priesthood Council and became Absolute Ruler and Dictator. Absolute power corrupts Absolutely.

 

There has to be a line.  Brainwashing and old men marrying young girls is crossing the line, and you’re never going to convince me that a 50 year old man has any right to marry a 15 year old girl for religious or other reasons.  Heck, a 15 year old girl shouldn’t even marry a 15 year old boy.  That’s just stupid.  They are too young to have an idea of who they are.  Ask any 15 year old girl in the country, not in FLDS, if she would want to sleep with a 50 year old man and see what a disgusting face she would make.  Except maybe Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn.  Quite a few would jump at that chance. 

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Close your eyes and become a child again, in the FLDS

Please do me a favor.  Close your eyes a moment and pretend you are a child again.  You are a child growing up In the FLDS.

 

In many ways, it is a great childhood. Other kids are not snobby to you because everyone dresses the same.  You are in good health because you do not eat processed food and you play games outside.  You have plenty of people to give you a hug and there is always someone to play with.

 

But, you are approaching puberty.  You always wanted to play a musical instrument or be a geologist or a dinosaur hunter, or study philosophy, or write books.  What is your dream? Did someone give you the chance to follow it? Will you have a choice as an FLDS child?

 

Narrow it down now.

 

You are an FLDS boy of fifteen. You have a crush on a girl your age, but one of the older men has his eye on her.  One day, they take you from your home and dump you outside the gates. That’s it. Your friends, your mothers, the only life you know how to exist in, is inside that gate. You are outside.  You are officially now, one of the lost boys.  Start walking boy, it’s a long walk in a world you have no clue about.

 

Maybe it’s better to be a girl in FLDS?

 

You are an FLDS girl of fifteen.  You had a crush on that boy but he’s gone now.  I don’t know who makes the decision now, but if Warren Jeffs were still there, he decides. He decides who you marry and at what age. Opps! You wanted to be a (insert anything here?). Forget it. You will belong to a husband and be a wife and mother. (Gee, isn’t slavery dead?) You will please the prophet and pray your husband does, because ten years down the road, if the prophet isn’t pleased, you and your children will be reassigned to another man.

 

Also remember, those of you afraid of Big Brother, I agree, look at Texas.  FLDS IS Big Brother for all those people.  The prophet IS Big Brother.  He tells you where to live, who to marry, when to marry, and when you have displeased him, you lose your family. Big Brother is alive in Texas and he has nothing to do with the United States Government.

 

So just be honest with yourself here.  Is this the life you would choose?  What if you had the choice to start life over as an FLDS child? 

 

A quote from NPR: Warren Jeffs and the FLDS : NPR     “A significant means of prophet power is derived from his (the prophet’s) ability to punish followers by reassigning their wives, children and homes to another man. Obedience is highly valued, and it is rare for wives to resist reassignment.”

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FLDS-Just to straighten out some of Facts of my Blog

This is my second start at this. I am going to try to winnow it down.  I have two new blogs here, so I hope you will read each. I tried to cut these down to the bare facts.

 

1. I do not know, nor have I ever known, anyone in the FLDS.

2. IMHO: Anyone who does not buckle up is an idiot. Anyone who does not buckle up his or her child is playing with that child’s life. We have automobile roll over’s a lot in the winding hills of Brown County. When people are buckled, they live, when they are not, they are thrown from the window and die. So, yeah, I believe not buckling your child is abuse. I was two when I was thrown under the dash in an accident.  I sure wish I had been buckled in.  I live with the pain yet. It did not make me stronger, it made me have the weakest neck on earth, but at least I did not die, like so many do. 

3. I believe the FLDS women are brainwashed. I believe the children are innocent. But, you know what?  If the state gives back an abused child, everyone jumps on Child Services the minute they find out the abused child has been killed with abuse in the home they returned them to.  You can’t have it both ways, folks.  There are bad people. Our choice is, do we let them just do anything they want or do we give the government the power to monitor it? I vote for stopping the abuse.

4. Everyone is appalled at Austrian, Josef Fritzl, who locked his daughter in a cellar and fathered her seven children.  That was his religion. But, the whole world is up in arms about it.  From the accounts of people who have lived in the FLDS compound, they are similarly kept from leaving and older men are fathering their children. They just have a bigger, open air cellar.

5. I am NOT saying these children are physically abused. I do not know.

6. Freedom of Choice, is not just about freedom of what religion you are.  Amish are wonderful. They live outside this worlds influence to a great degree but when their children reach adulthood, they are sent out to experience the world so they can make the decision whether to return to their society. They are given Freedom of Choice.

7. Anyone know of an FLDS compound who is allowed that kind of choice? They even kick out a number of boys, at a young age, because they become a threat to the men who want the young girls.

8. What if this were you? What if you grew up this way? We’ll try to imagine that together in my next posting. Give me a few.

9.      Bitter Hinterlands: You made a lot of good points.  I’m sorry to tell you, but there are evil people out there and unless someone watches out for the children, and the aged, and the abused wives and husbands, it will just go on and on and on.  The Courts are there to correct any abuse of the system. 

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FLDS and My Opinion

First, let me state that I do not care what religion anyone has/is, anymore than I care who or how many partners anyone wants.  That is strictly, in my opinion, a persons own private choice.  I do not believe the government has the right to legalize or outlaw either.  I have never understood what right the government has to license marriage or agree to divorce; other than to settle property and keep people from strangling each other.

I was also called on the “red” thing, for the FLDS.  I have never had direct contact with anyone in the FLDS.  My daughter and son-in-laws religion is strictly their own.   I base my thoughts  on what I have read and heard through interviews.  When the children were first removed from the FLDS compound, I saw an interview with a woman who was helping care for the children.  She stated that they had to learn to deal with the FLDS children in a whole new way.  They were not aware of things that children in our world were used to, like crayons and they could not allow the outside children to wear the color red or give the FLDS children a red toy because they feared red; they had been taught that red was the color of the devil.  This is not my belief and perhaps she was wrong.  She was there and dealing with them, so I thought she should know. 

I also do not feel that anyone HAS to be brainwashed to have the same religious believes that the FLDS does.  I did not mean to imply that.  I am a big proponent of freedom of religion and I think that everyone has the right to believe as they wish.  I have friends who are WICCA, Catholic, Buddhist, Protestant and atheists; and probably other religions, because I don’t ask, so I don’t know.  I do not care what religion someone is.  That is their personal business.  Obviously, there are a lot of men who believe in the FLDS religion.  I do not believe they are brainwashed and I do believe that there are women in the compound who would not want their lives to be any other way, and who love having sister-wives.

However, that said, if there is one seventeen year old girl in that compound who does not want to be married to a fifty year old man, I believe she should not have to run away to the local gas station to make a clandestine phone call to a relative to come and help her leave, or wait months until her husband is gone, so she can sneak her children out.  On the other hand, if there is a boy who does not want to leave, he should not be kicked out in the desert either.  I have heard too may stories of this and seen too many interviews and I do not know of anything that proves these women or boys (who used to be in the compound) were lying.

Let us not forget Warren Jeffs is currently serving ten years to life for charges including rape as an accomplise, for facilitating marriages of young girls to older men.  I recommend you check out this web site.  Warren Jeffs – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  It has a list of Factual Account sources, books, documentaries, etc that might be very enlightening.

We will all see how the appeal goes, but the fact that the FLDS Church owns essentially all of the homes may have lead the police to treat their individual homes as one.  It is a shame that the authorities could not go into the compound in a manner so that they could have ensured they only took in those who were committing abuse, and protected the children who needed it.  The FLDS itself is responsible for some of that by changing names, switching families to different husbands, etc. 

I gotta say, folks, it’s just wrong to marry a 14 year old girl to anyone, as Jeffs did in 2002. That is a fact and can anyone tell me that it is not going on to this day, even with him in jail.  From what I am reading, it sounds as though his father wasn’t as bad.

I try very hard on my blog to be factual, but having taken in three abused grandsons, who were abused in the name of religion, it is hard for me to not be personally involved in this issue.  There are many forms of abuse, I believe the FLDS is guilty of quite a few and do not believe that the excuse of religion is a valid excuse to do so.   We all have our own opinion though, don’t we?

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A challenge to the FLDS: Slavery is illegal, unlock your gates

FIRST:  If you do not have anything to hide, why are you hiding behind locked gates? If everyone wants to be there and do as you say, why do you have to keep him or her behind locked gates?   Okay, got that off my chest!

For years now, we have read of young boys, the “lost boys”, being kicked out of the compound, which I believe is in the middle of the desert. That should be abuse. We have also heard stories of women escaping because they were not allowed to leave.  These women tell of being given to older men to marry. So, what do you think abuse is?  How would you feel at the age of fifteen to be given to a man three times your age, to marry?

How would you feel, as a young girl with dreams in your heart, to know that the only future for you is to reproduce?  You cannot become a lawyer, doctor, nurse, dentist, dress designer, have any future whatsoever, other than being one of six women, serving one man. From the day a woman, and for that matter, a man is born into the FLDS, your lot in life is set. You have no choice; no free will.

 I would like to point out that the Appellate Court decision applies only to 38 of the roughly 200 parents who challenged the seizure.  Other parents will undoubtedly join in the suit but it is too soon to think this issue is resolved for all of those involved. 

 I would also like to state that had the FLDS not tried to muddy the waters by changing people’s names, hiding records, not recording births and marriages, these 38 adult women might never have been removed or had their children removed.  When the police entered, whether their entry was legal or not, the women could have shown their birth certificates and ID’s, to prove they were adults.  They could have shown their children’s birth certificates and still be sitting in their home, with their children.

Before you yell that we, in America, should not have to show ID’s, stop and think about it. We already do.  You cannot open a bank account without ID.  The mere fact that the FLDS does all they do to hide identities is suspicious.

From AOL.com news: “It also failed to show evidence that more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused. 

This would indicate that five of the teenage girls had been sexually abused.  In a normal home environment, all children would have been removed.  They ran into trouble because they treated the FLDS as one big home. The court states this is not correct. The FLDS treats it as one. If the FLDS did not switch wives around, take wives from one husband, evict him, and give the wife to another husband, as we have repeatedly heard in the news,  then perhaps this would also have been isolated to five families.

AOL NEWS:  “FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said sect members feel validated, having argued from the beginning that they were being persecuted for their beliefs.”

And, let us remember that their beliefs ARE illegal. Polygamy is illegal. When this ends, hopefully, we will know whether or not they are, in fact, marrying young girls to older men, which would also be illegal.

<A person can begin a church with any belief they want.  Just because the Church of Pedophilia gets sanctioned as a church, does not mean that it has the right to abuse young children.  Just because the FLDS have convinced these women, under the guise of religion, that they cannot go to heaven without being submissive, being one of six wives, and condemning their children to the same life, without choice should be illegal.  Slavery is outlawed in this country. These poor women have no free choice.   

I challenge the FLDS to unlock their gates and give everyone a choice. 

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My Aunt Lulu

To a seven-year-old girl, growing up in the semi-rural Midwest, Aunt Lulu was just plain exotic.  First, she lived in the city. Here was her two-story house, right next to the neighbor’s two-story house.  There was barely room to spare for a walkway between her house and the next. The house I lived in sat on a half acre and had a cornfield behind it, with overgrown empty large lots on each side.

Aunt Lulu’s house had a round glass window in the front door and heavy curtains hanging at the windows and interior doorways.  It was dark and oppressive, Victorian in furnishings and unsmiling. Clinging to mother’s arms, I pictured Aunt Lulu telling fortunes in the darkened back room.

The stairs creaked under the stout woman as she descended to greet us.  Her shoes were what Mom always referred to as “old maid shoes”.  They were sturdy, black, with a one-inch heel as wide as the shoe, and thin lace ties.  They contrasted sharply with the high heeled, pointy-toed shoes mom twirled around in with ease.  Aunt Lulu, herself, was by no means old fashioned.

Aunt Lulu blended up carrot drinks in her industrial strength blender before “health food shakes” or “fruit smoothies” were a twinkle in some marketer’s eye.  She also took training to be a masseuse. We are talking the fifties here; June Cleever in her pearls and heels mopping the kitchen floor.  Aunt Lulu wasn’t even thinking about a glass ceiling yet and McDonald’s had not reached Indiana.  My aunt had her own business, though.

Aunt Lulu, seemed to be living an unsavory and all together intriguing life to a seven-year-old.  When I grew up, I found out that this gypsy was the most religious of ladies.  When visiting my grandmother’s house, Aunt Lulu had insisted on religion on the radio 24 hours a day till my grandpa asked her to turn it off, and told my grandmother the woman wasn’t to visit again.  Aunt Lulu went to join her Lord years ago, but I often pull out her masseuse diploma and remember the gypsy woman.

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