12 Days of AWESOME

Health Care, Schmealth Care...

So... I'm firing another doctor.

I hate doing it, but I 100% believe that you have to advocate for yourself and get the medical treatment that you need and that you deserve, and not just be your doctor's paycheck. So after a horrible doctor visit a week ago and a trip to the emergency room last night, I am meeting a new MD tomorrow. He was the gynecologist on-call last night, who the ER doc consulted with over the phone. I told the ER doctor that I really wanted to leave with a referral, because I wanted to get to the bottom of what was causing my pain and was unhappy with the doctor I had been seeing. So he shared that with the on-call gyno, who said he would be happy to take me as a patient.

This morning, I called his office. First impressions are everything, people. The woman I spoke to on the phone was marvelous. I told her why I was calling, and where I had been seen for the last 7 years, and that I was no longer happy there. She told me she was sorry I'd had that experience. She said that since I was in the ER last night, she was sure that Dr. New Guy would want to see me this week, so she got me a next-day appointment. She made sure that their office is a participating provider for my insurance. She told me to bring my discharge paperwork from the ER, and that we would worry about transferring records tomorrow when I arrived. She asked if there was anything else she could help me with, and told me they look forward to meeting me tomorrow. People, if I could give hugs through the phone, this woman would have gotten one. And the thing is... NONE OF WHAT SHE DID WAS ANYTHING MAMMOTH. She was polite, friendly, helpful, and gives people a damn good first impression of their practice. Hopefully everyone else there will measure up.

But all of this got me thinking a lot. I really wanted to do some research, possibly find a female doctor, find someone with a clinical interest in some of the medical issues I'm dealing with... but that's not easy to do. Once again, I randomly ended up with a doctor. I feel like, as a healthcare consumer, I'm hiring someone to perform a VERY important service. I don't choose a mechanic at random out of the Yellow Pages when I have car problems - I get estimates, I go to people I know and trust, or I get recommendations from people I know and trust. I wouldn't just randomly hire a carpenter to build me a house. But in the healthcare system, so much of the care we receive is determined by the insurance we have (or the insurance we don't have... I've been there too). The medications we take, the doctors we see, the treatments we receive. And so much of it is luck of the draw. In this case, I went to a hospital that my insurance will pay, and I have a follow-up appointment with the doctor who just happened to be on call that night. It certainly speeds up the process, but the last doctor I was randomly assigned to barely gave me the time of day at my last appointment, necessitating this emergency room visit in the first place.

I feel that we should demand more. Health care in the United States is not a right. Quality, affordable, competent, thorough health care needs to be a right, and it needs to be readily available. I want to have choices. I want my doctor to be able to determine what treatment is appropriate for me - not my insurance company. I want to be able to easily find a doctor who respects my decisions, my feelings, and my choices.

Hopefully I've randomly stumbled across one.

Take 20 Seconds...

PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is qualified. Apparently the right wing knew about this in advance and are flooding the voting with YES votes.
The poll will be reported on PBS and picked up by mainstream media. It can influence undecided voters in swing states.

Please do two things -- takes 20 seconds.

1) Click on link and vote yourself.
Here's the link:
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

2) Then send this to every single Obama-Biden voter you know, and urge them to vote and pass it on.

The last thing we need is PBS saying their viewers think Sarah Palin is qualified.

Dear John McCain -

I don't have kids, so your increased tax benefit for children doesn't do anything for me. Therefore, your plan is garbage. Stop harping on it - it isn't as exciting for everyone as you seem to think. In fact, it angers me a bit.

Love,
Flux

Got $5 burning a hole in your pocket?

Let's all make a donation to Planned Parenthood.

In Sarah Palin's name.

And here's the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they'll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here's the link to the Planned Parenthood website:

https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor

There is a short form to fill out that requires your name, address, email address, the name & the address of the person in whose honour you are donating, and you will need a credit card (if you don't have one, or prefer to have the cost come from another source, don't forget that PayPal now can generate a one-use credit card number for you). You must fill out the complete form & be sure to check the "in honour of" box, rather than just using the "donate online" link. If you include her name & address, PP will send an "in Sarah Palin's honor" card to her to let her know of the donation. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street, 1st Floor
Arlington , VA 22202

The minimum online donation is $5, but there is also a printable form that you can mail in with a check (for more or even less). C'mon, women (& men)! It's got to be worth a few minutes & a few bucks to make your opinion heard WHERE IT COUNTS.

(Please cross post! Email! Spread the word!)

I LOL'd

In case you still haven't seen it... here's a link to the opening sketch of Saturday Night Live from this past Saturday. Tina Fey played Palin, Amy Poehler played Clinton, and together, they presented a "nonpartisan message." I have replayed this at least 10 times, and I can't stop laughing. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Click here to view the sketch on NBC's site.

If anyone knows what she's saying here...

...clue me in - because to me, it sounds like a bunch of empty words.

this makes me so angry...

This was "borrowed" from feministing.com - the original can be viewed at http://www.feministing.com/archives/010930.html

While Mayor, Sarah Palin Charged Rape Victims for their Own Justice

Multiple readers clued us into the latest incredibly disappointing fact about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin: under her mayoral leadership in Wasilla, Alaska, rape victims were charged for their own rape kits. Op-Edna explains:

A rape kit is a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, used to collect DNA that can be used in criminal proceedings to assist in the conviction of those who commit sex crimes. The kit is performed as soon as possible after a sexual assault or attack has been committed. It is usually humiliating and uncomfortable for the victim-imagine enduring that and then paying $1200 just so that the criminal who assaulted you might be caught.

Let's put this into perspective. One of the services that almost every American (with the exception of a few hardcore Libertarians, I suppose) agree that our government should provide is policing and investigation into crime, especially of a violent nature. Rape, one of the most difficult to prosecute, disproportionately affects women--young women, in fact. If Palin wants to play fierce mother hen in her stump speeches, I suggest she explain how it is that she wouldn't do everything in her mayoral power to make sure that rapists be caught and prosected.

What adds insult to injury here is her stance on abortion for rape victims. So, not only did she neglect to support women who were raped in getting the evidence they needed to get justice, but she doesn't believe they should have the right to choose what happens with their bodies after they've endured such violation.

What a frickin' feminist.

Note: the Democratic governor changed this heinous policy in 2000.

Do I even need to explain why this angers me? Imagine that someone breaks into your house. The police arrive on the scene, and tell you that they'll dust for prints, but you're going to have to pay for it. THAT'S WHAT TAXES ARE FOR. Individuals should never bear the burden for the collection of evidence. It just goes to show that despite all the progress we've made when it comes to victims' rights, there are still people out there looking to undo it all. We can not have this woman in office.

What Gloria Steinem has to say...

Gloria Steinem: DO NOT VOTE FOR PALIN.

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.


By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."



This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.


Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.



So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,1290251.story



Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

he chose WHO?!

So... McCain has finally announced his running mate. I have to admit, I did NOT see this coming. I was seriously terrified that Mitt Romney would be his pick... but it appears that McCain has gone above and beyond with his selection of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as his running mate.

Interesting strategy. Trying to be female-friendly, I presume.

According to CNN, Palin supports drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. She's a member of the NRA. She was runner-up for Miss Alaska in 1984. (A gun-totin' beauty queen. How quaint.) She's staunchly pro-life, supports capital punishment, and belongs to feminists for life.

Great...

Somehow, "Feminists for Life" doesn't equate a woman-friendly vice presidential candidate to me.

Let's see... she also opposes same-sex marriage. No surprise there. However, what was a little... interesting... to me, is that she claims to have several gay friends and wants to be responsive to concerns about discrimination (according to a 2007 article in the Anchorage Daily News). Seriously? How can you be responsive to discrimination when you are, in fact, perpetuating discrimination? The mind... it boggles...

So... if McCain wasn't scary enough for you, I do believe the Republican ticket has just evolved into a full-fledged nightmare.

OH the HYPOCRISY!!!

Many people have been talking about how much more media attention Barack Obama is getting than John McCain. Okay... maybe because Obama is doing some new things, and making changes to the process, and therefore is newsworthy. McCain is simply more of the same old... so it seems natural to me that he would have less media coverage. But I digress.

What REALLY kills me about this, is that last night on Fox News, they were claiming that this was evidence of media bias. Really, Fox News? You really think you have ANY room to claim media bias? If I'm not mistaken, you have a VERY conservative bias, and have for quite some time. FFS, you air The O'Reilly Factor. Really, need I say more?

Guess who offered to take me out to dinner?

Is this asshole SERIOUS?!?! Viagra is for a medical condition and birth control is a choice? Last time I checked, pregnancy is a medical condition, in fact, it's one that many women seek to avoid. Advair prevents people with asthma from having to use their rescue inhaler as often, so I guess we could consider Advair a choice too, right? Should insurance stop covering that? I know it's apples and oranges, but a stupid statement denying women any right to take charge of their fertility doesn't really deserve my energy in formulating a comparison any better than that.

And really... erectile dysfunction is inconvenient for someone who wishes to continue to have sex. But you know what? Erectile dysfunction itself, if untreated, isn't going to cause additional health issues. It's far more likely that there is an underlying health issue causing the ED.

Let's get to the heart of the issue here. Being sexually active is a choice. By no means am I trying to diminish the role sexuality plays in our lives. I'm also not saying that Viagra should NOT be funded... everyone deserves lifelong healthy sexuality. However, sexuality doesn't just mean intercourse. Intercourse is a choice. Bill O'Reilly's argument simply doesn't hold water here. I'm tired. It's been a long day. I'm rambling, and I don't know if any of this was even remotely intelligently constructed, but if Bill bought me dinner, I'd be happy to tell him precisely where he could put it. Or perhaps I could forward my invite on to McCain. I'm sure the two of them would have plenty to discuss over a bottle of wine.

P.S. - Birth control doesn't enable women to become perpetrators of sex crimes. 'Nuff said.

There's something sinister on the horizon...

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services.

Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there's no test to determine if a woman's egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS' new "science."

DO SOMETHING. Do something right now. Removing a woman's ability to even take BIRTH CONTROL is straight up making us less than human. It's removing our ability to have the life we choose. Get on the phone, and get to work. This is the money shot the religious right has been working toward all along. We must shut them down.

Long time, no update...

So it occurs to me that it's been quite some time since I've bothered to update here. Whole lot of changes, huge lack of free time. I got married several weeks ago, so there has certainly been all of that adjustment and chaos. At the end of June, I interviewed for a job and was offered the position later that day. It's a paycut, but it's less than 1/10 the miles I've been driving for my current position. It was a tough decision to make, but it is time to move on from where I currently am. I've spent the last two years working in the field of child abuse and neglect, and believe me, it's a field with a great deal of opportunity for burnout. I'm not quite burned out yet, but I can see it on the horizon and I didn't want to sit around waiting for it to happen. On Monday, I started training to be a pharmacy technician, and while it will mean several hours a day on my feet, it's a welcome change of pace. The new employer seems good to work for - decent benefits, good people, and so far, I like the work. It's difficult to leave the place I work now. I'm going to miss the people I work with like crazy, but I'm ready to have a job where "when is my grant going to run out?" is not constantly looping through the back of my mind. I still get to help people, which I've always enjoyed, just in a very different (and more stable) way.

As of just recently, I'm also another year older. The birthday was no big deal this year, I guess I've had bigger things going on. :) The husband and I had a wonderful dinner with some family, other than that we spent the entire weekend lounging around in the sun (or in my case, outdoors in the shade), playing cards, playing board games, reading, and just generally not being on any type of schedule whatsoever. That was the best birthday gift of all. I'm tired of constantly having somewhere to be and something to do.

I had an interesting experience on my way in this morning. I drive through a neighborhood every day on my way to work which is known in my community for being predominantly black, low-income, and a high-crime area. I generally don't give it a second thought when I'm headed out of town, because to drive through, one may notice that the houses in the neighborhood are a little older and not as well-kept, but beyond that, I've never seen anything on my morning commute to cause me any concern. This morning, however, as I was driving through, I noticed some thick black smoke coming from the street. As I got closer, I realized it would be necessary to change lanes, as there was a flatbed truck on the right side of the road with a fire underneath it on the street. There were two white males by the truck. One was leaning up against the tree, and I can't be certain, but he appeared to possibly have his pants around his ankles. There was another fire in the street in front of the truck, in a paper bag or some similar sort of container. This struck me as odd. I could not invent a rational explanation for what I had seen, so I grabbed my cell phone and called it in. The dispatcher I talked to apparently felt this was a bit suspicious as well, and said he would send someone to look into it. I'll be watching the news this evening to see if it was anything newsworthy or worthwhile, and I'll update if I find anything out... though I somehow doubt I'll ever know what exactly I witnessed this morning on the way to work. When you're already dealing with the police prior to 9 a.m., the best you can really do is hope that it's not some sort of omen.

I've been in a bit of a writing dry spell lately, so if anyone actually reads this and would like to see me weigh in on any particular topic, feel free to make a suggestion.

I know I'm probably a little behind here...

...but I'm just getting around to wondering about Darth Cheney's taxes. according to whitehouse.gov:

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney filed their federal income tax return for 2007 today.

The income tax return shows that the Cheneys owe federal taxes for 2007 of $602,651 on taxable income of $2,528,068. During the course of 2007 the Cheneys paid $466,165 in taxes through withholding and estimated tax payments, and will pay the remaining $136,486 upon filing their tax return.

The wage and salary income reported on the tax return includes the Vice President's $212,208 government salary. In addition, the tax return reports a pension benefit of $32,500, which the Vice President received as a former director of Union Pacific Corporation. The Vice President became eligible for this benefit in 2006 when he turned 65. The tax return also reports Mrs. Cheney's book royalty income, a salary from her continuing work at the American Enterprise Institute, and a pension benefit of $32,000, which she received as a former director of Reader's Digest. The amounts of the pension benefits received by the Vice President and by Mrs. Cheney are fixed and will not increase or decrease regardless of changes in the earnings or revenues of either company.

The Cheneys donated $166,547 to charity in 2007. This brings the Cheneys' total charitable contributions during his Vice Presidency to $ 7,966,566.

Okay. First of all, I don't care about what kinds of charitable contributions they're making. It's all a writeoff, and it doesn't make up for all his other shady dealings. (Is he no longer in cahoots with Halliburton? Where's all that on his paperwork?)

Second, I can't find anything to back this up, but I heard on the radio this morning part of the income that was claimed stems from Darth Cheney drawing Social Security. If the Social Security thing is true, doesn't it seem a little backwards? I mean, really... do these people sound like they NEED Social Security? No wonder my generation won't have it. ;) If anyone knows where this could either be confirmed or debunked, I'd love to read it.

Third... hey Dick... I still haven't forgotten about you shooting a guy in the face.

Entitlement

I am currently in the process of planning a wedding (thank goodness it will be over soon!) As such, I participate on several forums having to do with wedding planning. It occurs to me as a result of my involvement and reading some of the posts that have been made there, that a great number of people carry around a sense of entitlement... that they are OWED certain things merely because they grace us with the pleasure of their existence. One post was made by someone who stated that she and her fiance can't afford groceries and barely can afford rent. Neither of them is currently employed. One of her parents, who is apparently experiencing financial struggles of their own, is footing the bill for a "very minimal, scaled-down" $7000 wedding. Now she wants advice on how to ask him to foot the bill for a honeymoon too, since she "desperately needs" one.

This makes my head spin. What happened to working hard to have nice things? Maybe it's because FH and I both worked in the family business when we were young, worked through college, and while we have both had help from our families at times, we don't expect it. We're adults. That means we have responsibilities. We both have families that WANT to contribute to our wedding financially. However, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that we are doing things as reasonably as possible. We have a florist who is charging us only for materials, nothing for labor, and is loaning us a lot of things. We found the least expensive caterer we could. My mom, sister, maid of honor, and I are making the favors ourselves. I am not entitled to having any of these things. I have family who wants to contribute, FH and I both work so that we can contribute. Wedding is being held at someone's home (the yard is gorgeous). We don't DESERVE even that much. Quite frankly, if we were not lucky enough to both be employed (especially given that Michigan's economy is complete GARBAGE right now), sure, we could still get married. But you know what? We could save several thousand dollars by simply going to the courthouse and having a JOP ceremony. We're not entitled to an event. Then, someone else stated that she didn't understand how ANYONE could have a wedding for less than $20,000. You know what? FH and I are doing it, and we don't feel the least bit deprived. In fact, we feel BLESSED (not in a religious sense) to have what we do.

I see a lot of this in the bridal shop I work at. "I want my dress steamed, and I need it back in 5 days because I'm jamming it in my suitcase/carryon/the overhead compartment for my destination wedding." Umm... you're better off having it pressed when you arrive. "But I'm entitled to a free steaming because I purchased it here." Okay, I'll press your dress, but that doesn't make you any less of a moron.

What is it that makes people feel like they are OWED certain things? Or that when things are available, are out there, people NEED to get them? I know this whole silly rant revolved around the wedding industry, and I'd love to expand further (I have lots more thoughts), but I have a meeting in about 10 minutes. Otherwise I'd probably discuss the NEED to have this season's clothing in one's closet before the start of the school year, rather than needing to have clothing that fits and is appropriate to the climate.

Weighing in on YFZ

While I like to stay informed about what's happening in the world, I tend to avoid watching the news. FH and I have CNN Headline News on in the morning while we're getting ready for work, and I catch bits and pieces of things, other than that, I generally stick to the internet for my news. There just seems to be so much negativity, it can get overwhelming at times. But when all the YFZ news started to break, I couldn't tear myself away from it.

I work every day with child and adolescent victims of sexual abuse. Having that insider perspective doesn't allow me to say, "oh, how horrible," and move on. I don't have the luxury of detachment that I suspect allows a lot of America to cope with something like this. Knowing what kinds of twisted things abusers do to children, and having worked in a previous position with more than one child who had been abused by a cult, it makes my stomach turn to think what kinds of horiffic things must have gone on at YFZ. Especially with the talk about finding beds on site at the temple... it makes me shudder. And the part that sickens me the most is that it took so long for anything to be done about it.

Warren Jeffs was arrested in August 2006, if I've done my research accurately. It is now April of 2008, and we're JUST stepping in to remove women and children from an environment where abuse was an accepted, even mandated, part of daily life?

If Jeffs was building a "Business Retreat," did anyone bat an eyelash when a quarry and an incinerator were built? Did anyone find that even remotely ODD?

Look, I like the First Amendment as much as anyone, but that simply is NOT the issue here. It's about human rights. It's about the ritualized abuse of women and children. It's about the abuse/neglect of teenage boys who were sent away. Have we learned nothing from the other cults that have made headlines over the years?

And what do our national leaders have to say about all this. I'd love to hear them weigh in on it. I haven't been able to find anything at this point - if anyone knows of something I've missed, please point me in the right direction. What we have allowed under the cloak of religion is DISGUSTING, and we need to take steps to ensure this does not continue to happen. We need to get the remaining women and children to safety. Those behind these crimes need to be swiftly prosecuted. We can no longer allow religion to mask human rights violations in this country, or in any other.

Okay, I'll join in...

I have other blogs, but I've only updated them sporadically, and it's mainly been a way to keep in touch with people. But recent events have made me want to start blogging a little more seriously, and at times anonymously, and I figured a fresh start was in order.

One of the things that has been on my mind lately is religion/spirituality/whatever you want to call it. Maybe this is due in part to my upcoming wedding. FH and I are from differing backgrounds, and neither of us is remotely involved in any type of religious... well... anything really. FH's family is of Scottish ancestry, and this is a big influence in the wedding. The ceremony (being performed by a friend!) has Celtic and Druidic influence.

My grandfather was a Baptist minister. He and my grandmother have both passed away, and if they were alive, I don't know that we could do this ceremony. As much as I like to think that I'm free of any influence, I know that he had a big impact. And as conservative as they were, I know that there is NO WAY that they would attend the ceremony, much less have anything to do with me afterward.

I guess this is where I get conflicted. Or maybe not so much conflicted, because I think I know where I stand, but it can be so hard to shake off the things that have been ingrained in you since childhood. But I find myself wondering from time to time, if he could see me now, what would he think of me? The decisions I've made? The life I'm leading? The beliefs I now hold? Then I remember that, umm, he can't. Moot point. It doesn't matter, because he's passed on, and I certainly doubt that when you die, you sit around somewhere up in the clouds doing nothing but watching your loved ones and judging their every move. At times I've considered reincarnation a possibility, other times I figure when you're dead, you're just... dead. That's it. The only way we live on is in people's hearts and minds.

I guess I have a lot of guilt about feeling this way, because of what an influence my grandfather was in the short time I knew him. But feeling this way is not a recent development.

When I was in 8th grade, my parents forced me into going through confirmation class. (We're not remotely Catholic, but for some reason, our church used to do confirmation. They haven't done a class since mine, so none of my siblings have had to go through it, but that's another story for another time.) Maybe because of the minister we had at the time who was leading the class, maybe for no reason at all, or maybe the reasoning is somewhere in between... but that was when I began to question things. I remember asking my mom some rather abstract questions about faith, and I remember her getting upset with me and responding with something of an 'I don't see what's so difficult about this' statement, something to the effect of we believe because that's just what we do. Even then, I found that answer very unsatisfying. So I conformed. I went through all the motions and got through confirmation. And for a time, I wanted to believe. I hung out with the Christian student group in High School. Some of them were friends to me, but I quickly learned that a lot of them were vicious beyond belief. Conform or be shunned. But honestly? I've just never been able to believe the things my family does.

I have no idea where this was headed when I started typing, but it's after midnight now, and I have to work in the morning. I guess it's something to look at later... some food for further thought.