Then again, there are parents of severely disabled children speaking against it as well. http://www.pkblogs.com/dreammom/2007/01/pillow-talk-debate-over-ashley.html

And when it’s justified on the grounds that as a secondary benefit, reduced breasts won’t ’sexualize’ her towards her caregiver, or how it’s ‘grotesque’ to be full-grown and fertile with the mind of a baby, think it defeats their purpose. Think it might give the impression that they’re more concerned with other people’s attitudes and reactions than what’s best for Ashley.

Cory Silverberg writing on About.com makes such valid points:

http://sexuality.about.com/b/a/257889.htm

Ashley’s parents claim that they wanted to prevent her from developing breasts because breasts might increase the likelihood of her being sexualized and sexually assaulted.

Infants are sexually abused, and children of all ages are sexually abused, and sexualized in the making of child pornography. The idea that her having breasts make her a greater target is ludicrous. Ashley’s parents offer up their real motivation for this themselves when they wrote that the real grotesqueness in the situation is “the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby.” Reading that sentence out loud makes me physically ill..

.. In the BBC article, one of the doctors on the committee is quoted as saying that the committee agreed “because the parents convinced us it was in fact in this little girl’s best interests”. That ethics committee was not there to protect the parents; they were there to protect the patient. They failed completely in this task and should simply be ashamed of their complicity in this decision.

I do a lot of work around sexuality and disability, including working with people who have developmental disabilities (the kind of people who are often referred to as having the mind of a six year old). I can tell you that consent is never a black and white issue. I can also tell you that cognitive ability is never black and white. Saying that Ashley has the mind of a three month old is, at best, quoting someone’s educated guess. Ashley’s disease is rare, and no doctor or parent can with 100% certainty predict the course of the disease, or what her entire life living with a disability will be like. It also needs to be said that cognitive ability is not the same thing as lived experience. Someone may not be able to read, but it doesn’t mean they can’t feel, communicate, experience pleasure as well as pain, and live. These are all possibilities. But many of these possibilities have been ripped away from Ashley, and regardless of how well meaning her parents no doubt are, we should never pretend that their actions are acceptable.

“Because it’s easier to carry her around” is not a compelling reason to permanently stunt someone’s growth.

“Because I couldn’t stand the thought of her being pregnant” is not a reason to permanently make someone sterile.

And you wonder, was this really the only option they had? http://www.dredf.org/news/ashley.shtml

Modify the System, Not the Person

“Benevolence” and “good intentions” have often had disastrous consequences for the disability community. Throughout history, “for their own good” has motivated and justified discrimination against us. The recent story about nine-year old Ashley, a child with severe disabilities, exemplifies this problem. When she was six, Ashley’s parents requested that their daughter be treated with medications (large doses of estrogen) to halt her physical growth, and with surgeries to remove her breasts and uterus ..

.. Where, we wonder, was the network of programs and services that exist in every state when Ashley’s family decided the best option was to employ medical procedures that violated their daughter’s autonomy and personhood? Were other families whose children have disabilities like Ashley’s asked to talk about their experiences and how they solved problems as their children grew to adulthood? Where were the social workers and advocates who should be providing alternative perspectives? Why did the system fail this family and their daughter? That, it seems to us, is a fundamental question.

Here is what David had to say. David has cerebral palsy.

http://growingupwithadisability.blogspot.com/

I feel weariness and sadness that we live in a society where a parent feels that medically and surgically altering a 6 year-old’s body to deal with growth is their only choice; a society where medical and ethical professionals actively encourage this desperate measure, rather than actively and creatively encouraging modification of our social systems to provide practical, economic, health, emotional and respite support of their clients (both child and parent); a society where many are angry with those who bring such injustice to light. ..

.. For those of you with no personal experience living with or caring for a person with physical disability, there are ways of doing many of the things that are difficult. For example, I, weighing about 140 pounds, have a lift that my parents use to lift me off of the floor. I also have a wheelchair that reclines and lets me change position to minimize the wear and tear of staying in one position for an extended period of time. When I was younger, I had respite workers. These were people that were paid by our community support services, chosen by my parents, who took me out for fun, while giving my parents a break. I enjoyed spending time with them, we developed a good relationship.

This is what a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies had to say in defense of the Ashley Treatment, quoted by Ashley’s parents:

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/809/
“A colleague of mine noted that there are some potential abuse issues that need to be addressed. For example, is the resource-crunched medical establishment more inclined to have parents take the burden of care? Is this a way of passing the buck? Is the hysterectomy really necessary?

These are valid concerns, but I think they can all be addressed.

First, I believe the wishes of the parents are what is driving this decision and not the demands of the medical institution. In this case, it appears to me that the needs and desires of the parents are being met.

As for the hysterectomy, I have to question the value of keeping this girl fertile. If the concern has something to do with the girl’s dignity being violated, then I have to protest by arguing that the girl lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity. Nor do I believe this is somehow demeaning or undignified to humanity in general; the treatments will endow her with a body that more closely matches her cognitive state – both in terms of her physical size and bodily functioning. The estrogen treatment is not what is grotesque here. Rather, it is the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby.”

Doctors could not determine a diagnosis or a cause, so they gave her condition that big fancy sounding name that the medical profession uses, to make it seem like they know more about it than they actually do – “static encephalopathy of unknown etiology”, a condition they don’t expect to improve, but don’t expect to worsen either. Ashley is but 9 years old, 6 years old when the decision was made. Things do happen. People do grow, develop and change.

And who’s to say she only has the mind of a baby? Are they in her head and heart? Are they mind-readers too? To be more accurate, she perhaps looks like she only has the mind of a baby. But people are notoriously quick to assume and judge from what is really a position of ignorance. Even the neurologists.

Just ask the mega savant Kim Peek and his father. Or ask Temple Grandin, and I’m certain countless others, whose parents were told that their children should just be institutionalized and forgotten about. That they would never improve and had no potential.

Since when has medicine, even neurology, had the expertise to predict anyone’s potential. They’re not even experts in their own field – disease. Or do you know of any physician who’s come up with a cure for cancer yet? MS? The common cold? Should I go on?

This is the part that scares me, the ‘medicine/science is God’ attitude. The pronouncement of a doctor limiting anyone’s potential from a position of arrogance and otherness. Deciding that anyone – lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity. That attitude not only scares me, it brings me to tears.

Not all physicians and bioethicists share that attitude. A neurologist who examined Kim Peek had this to say -

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm

“Kim Peek – the inspiration for Rain Man- possesses one of the most extraordinary memories ever recorded. Until we can explain his abilities, we cannot pretend to understand human cognition.” – Darold A. Treffert and Daniel D. Christensen

I appreciate their humility so much. Wish more doctors, neurologists and bioethicists would learn to humbly say .. It appears … We don’t know … Seems like, but … and finally … We’re not God. Because they’re not and they have NO RIGHT to act as if they are!!

Found such interesting comments on the following blog about limiting potential and low expectations. You might be surprised to learn about the prognosis given to most children with cerebral palsy in the past.

http://thegimpparade.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-am-tired.html

MrSoul said…

Mental age, my ass. When I hear the words “mental age”–I reach for my revolver.

If my mother (R.I.P.) hadn’t had such a huge show-biz ego, and hadn’t simply dismissed the prognosis given to most children with CP 50 years ago, I’d be as ignorant as anyone else warehoused for a lifetime. As it was, no kid of hers was going to be “retarded”–and that was that. Not an option. As a result, I wasn’t.

I wonder how often it works the other way, with parents simply accepting the conventional wisdom dispensed by the MDs? (Medical Deities)

Blue / Kay Olson said…
Mr. Soul, I recall David Pfeiffer, who ran one of the academic disability studies organizations (SDS) until his death, saying something once about how IQs of the average “mentally retarded” people went up significantly when fewer were being institutionalized. Really not a coincidence, I think.

Blue / Kay Olson said…
Some other commenters haven’t been thrilled by what this may say about actually “retarded” folks.

Noted.

But part of the stigma of developmental disabilities is also the low expectations, isn’t it? Terminology aside, I wonder what the world would look like if those diagnosed as intellectually inferior were not limited by what people believe they can’t do. There are a lot of people out there who were told they didn’t have the brains to enter a spelling bee or whatever. I think this does more to show we are all of one group, than divided between those who can and can’t.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_re_us/toddler_booted

ATLANTA – A woman said she and her toddler son were kicked off a plane after she refused a flight attendant’s request to medicate her son to get him to quiet down and stop saying “Bye bye, plane.”

Kate Penland, of suburban Atlanta, said she and her 19-month-old son, Garren, were flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma last month on a Continental Express flight that made a stop in Houston.

As the plane was taxiing in Houston en route to Oklahoma, “he started saying ‘Bye, bye plane,’ Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta. The flight attendant objected, she said.

“At the end of her speech, she leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, ‘It’s not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up,’” Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, “You know, it’s called baby Benadryl.”

“And I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,’” Penland told the TV station.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/02/earlyshow/
On Aug. 15, Burcham was sentenced to eight years in prison for giving a 3½-month-old girl a lethal dose of Benadryl. And since Grace Olivia Fields’ death in December 2001, her parents have found they are not alone in their loss.

In the last three years, at least 10 other cases of day care workers allegedly sedating children with cold medicines and cough syrups have been investigated nationwide. Four babies died in those cases. At least four people were charged, with one acquittal, and some cases are still pending.

Grace’s mother, Tracy Fields, and other parents are now pushing for new laws that would make it a felony for day care workers to give a child medicine without written permission from a parent or a doctor’s order. One state has already passed such a law.

“I don’t want any other parents to go through this,” Fields said. “It didn’t take a whole lot for this beautiful little baby to die from an over-the-counter medicine.”

There is also a growing movement among medical examiners for greater awareness of the practice, as some pathologists fear babies who died after being drugged were written off as sudden infant death syndrome cases.

Burcham had poured about a tablespoon of children’s Benadryl into a four-ounce bottle of breast milk before feeding it to Grace. The dose was three times more than what would be needed to sedate an adult.

Burcham admitted giving the baby the drug, but denied it was to control behavior. Her critics aren’t swayed.

“She found a way to make those kids sleep half the day,” Fields said, adding her 2½-year-old daughter told her she was given “bubble gum” flavored medicine before nap time at Burcham’s.

Drug makers are adamant that their medicines aren’t intended for infants and put warnings on containers that doctors should be consulted for use in any child younger than age 6.

Dr. William Sears, a pediatrician and author of books on infant sleep, said it is an “old school” practice to use cold and allergy medications to sedate babies, but even using a small amount of drugs is dangerous.

“Categorically, sedative medications have no place in day care,” he said.

Young babies need to awake easily to protect themselves from dangers like choking when they spit up. The sedative interferes with that natural waking mechanism, Sears said.

Sharon Dabrow, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of South Florida, said some pediatricians do advise parents to use appropriate doses of Benadryl to sedate children who are at least 12 months old. Dabrow doesn’t recommend it.

“Our society is so wrapped up around medications being a fix for anything,” she said. “To be using it (Benadryl) on a 3-month-old is just horrible

BLUE KING BROWN – BIO

http://www.myspace.com/bluekingbrown

Underscored by the fiery vocals and political lyrics of Natalie Paapaa, you can hear the afro-beat, reggae, world and Latin influence, but the band has created a distinctly original sound. A refreshing take on roots music, uniquely Australian yet with an unquestionable international feel.

The band’s beginnings are with Carlo Santone and Natalie Paapaa – the two founding and songwriting members of the band. Their sound, attitude and approach has come from years of playing music on the streets, performing day in day out for years, developing a sound and vibe as percussionists that would inevitably form the foundation for Blue King Brown.

Front woman, Natalie Paapaa, delivers and empowers, stating – “It’s as much about the music as it is about the message.”

Learn about Edward Bernays, nephew of the very Sigmund Freud, and pioneer of a scientific technique for manipulating public opinion called - “engineering of consent“.  Sounds like something me and my family have already encountered from some doctors. And not exactly with our best intentions at heart either. More for their expediency and convenience, but that’s another blog entry.

He was a doctor too, of spin, promoting using propaganda to control and shape our opinions in politics, business, science, ?? art ??, and education. My oh my, education, what a surprise – NOT !! Called the ‘Father of public relations’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

Bernays helped the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and other special interest groups to convince the American public that water fluoridation was safe and beneficial to human health. This was achieved by using the American Dental Association in a highly successful media campaign.

Beyond his contributions to these famous and powerful clients, Bernays revolutionized public relations by combining traditional press agentry with the techniques of psychology and sociology to create what one writer has called “the science of ballyhoo.”

Don’t you just love these Machiavellian types. This quote from Wikipedia and Edward Bernays ‘Propaganda’ -

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. … We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. … In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons … who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Turns out Nazi Germany was also interested in his ideas on propaganda. Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed. Bernays was Jewish  -  

In his autobiography, titled Biography of an Idea, Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933 where

Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. … Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign.

http://www.answers.com/topic/diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders 

The DSM has seen criticisms through the years. A Columbia University team headed by Robert Spitzer, an editor of the DSM, acknowledges a concern about the DSM in their annual report of 2001, “Problems with the current DSM-IV categorical (present vs. absent) approach to the classification of personality disorders have long been recognized by clinicians and researchers.” Among the problems, they list “arbitrary distinction between normal personality, personality traits and personality disorder” and point out the fact that the most commonly diagnosed personality disorder is 301.9, Personality Disorder not Otherwise Specified. ^[5]

There have also been questions of potential bias of DSM authors who define psychiatric disorders. According to The Washington Post, an analysis published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics^[6] pointed out that “every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses.”^[7] However, an important limitation of this study was that the analysis did not reveal the extent of their relationships with industry or whether those ties preceded or followed their work on the manual.

In the United States, health insurance typically will not pay for psychological or psychiatric services unless a DSM-IV mental disease diagnosis accompanies the insurance claim. The website of the DSM-V Prelude Project^[8] covers shortcomings of the DSM-IV that may be subject for improvements for the DSM-V.

http://dsm5.org/ 

Welcome to the DSM-V Prelude Project. Although the DSM-V revision process will not formally begin until 2006 or 2007 (see timeline), the American Psychiatric Association has created this web site in order to keep the public and professionals informed about the plans for DSM-V as well as the ongoing effort to enrich the research base in advance of starting formal work on DSM-V. In addition, this web site provides an opportunity for you to alert us to problems in the DSM-IV that you may have encountered and to provide your suggestions for DSM-V.

Oh  boy, do I ever have suggestions?

Philosophy is a walk on the slippery rocks
Religion is a light in the fog
I’m not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I meanWhat I am is what I am
Are you what you are or what?- Edie Brickell and New Bohemians

Have you heard of the book, and now the DVD, of Mozart and the Whale.

Here are some video clips and trailer …


watch video clips

watch trailer

what i am is one of the indie songs on the video. Absolutely love it! Just bought it on iTunes, couldn’t resist.

I seem to have some things in common with Isabelle. Although the math thing I have is more like Donald’s … I love numbers too. But I don’t think you have to be aspie to love numbers. A lot of accountants do as well, and they can’t all be aspie. Nor can all the mathematicians, although with them you’re clearly dealing with people who are at the very least eccentric. And yes, guilty as charged. I am eccentric. But does that make me and other people who love mathematics aspie? I once met this statistics student packing groceries and probably bored to death with the monotony, was saying that he liked numbers more than people, and I agreed with him. Me too. People are scary shit. As Donald says in the movie ‘Numbers, you can count on.’

And the animal thing, OK, so I notice that I’m much more attuned to animals than people, always have been. I’m a lot like Isabelle in that respect too. So is my daughter. Is that an exclusively aspie thing? Plenty of people even boast that they love animals more than people. People who love animals and have a rapport with them might become veterinarians or work in a zoo, or in animal rights. Do they all have aspergers? 

And the endless monologues. Maybe not the best thing to do when you’re driving a cab, but when you’re giving a lecture – heck, it’s even expected. Am I the only one who doesn’t get it? Maybe he could just learn to write his monologues, get it down on paper, or blog, or word. That’s what the rest of us do, aspie or otherwise, if we have a lot to say and people don’t always have the patience to listen to us or it’s not always the best time, we write.

And taking things too literally. Well, I got a surprise for these people. Anyone who’s terrified takes things too literally and out of context. Wish those boneheads who call themselves experts would do some studies on trauma and PTSD. There were some periods in my life when I was taking things very literally. There was this one time after I’d been raped and was going through PTSD. For a while, I had such a hard time making any sense of news headlines.  

And blurt out and shock. HAH! I’m thinking I’ll make it work for me too. Some people just have big mouths. It’s their personality. I’ve known many people with big mouths. They were usually outspoken Europeans or Jews. Were they all aspie?

Lack of social skills – sounds like a lot of people in my family. In fact, sounds like most of the kids at my daughter’s school, and their parents. School staff as well. Neighbors too. You have to ask yourself why a book like ‘How to win friends and influence people’ by Dale Carnegie is a classic. Is it because the
NTs - http://isnt.autistics.org/ are all so good socially?

There was this autistic woman who was asking for help because the mother of a friend of hers had just died and she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t like it when I told her that it’s a very common problem, even among
NTs . So common in fact that I found several pamphlets on the subject at a hospital, including how to respond to someone in grief, and how to help your child deal with loss. Considering what bullies and jerks some NTs are, I think the emotional dysfunction is more a problem on their side, but that’s just, like everything else on this blog, an opinion.

I believe Mozart and the Whale is more about a bunch of people who’ve been convinced that they have some difference that deserves to be pathologized. Donald was rejected by his family at a very young age. That’s bound to have been traumatic.

But here is the thing that I believe most people miss. That how we see ourselves can be greatly influenced by how others see us, especially when we’re young, helpless and dependent. If most everyone reacts to us badly, if especially our parents rejected us, and psychiatry wants to give us some label to pathologize what they think is the reason for that social rejection, then that’s how we’ll see ourselves. It can become our identity and overpower us. The word for it is internalization, i.e. becoming the label.

If you have it in your head all the time that you’re aspie, then regardless of what happens, you’ll always see yourself or your aspergers as being to blame. The other person may have been a total jerk with you, an asshole, but you’ll blame yourself, you’re at fault because you’re the aspie with the emotional dysfunction and lack of social skills. At least that’s what psychiatry keeps telling you. Why are people so easily misled? 

Ken Ward is a Southern Baptist pastor and teacher in East Texas, who has admitted to molesting more than 40 boys. He said that being a teacher and minister is the perfect job for a child molester, because it puts the molester in direct contact with young people. “I [was] attracted to a certain child, and in my case, it was primarily prepubescent boys,” he said.

Ward is now under house arrest, after serving five years in state prison. He wears a GPS monitor so that he can be tracked by the sheriff’s department, and he cannot be around children anywhere, even in public.

Ward agreed to talk to “20/20″ to give insight to parents on how to spot a predator. He said that parents aren’t worrying about the right things. “The idea of a guy in the park with a trench coat on or driving by slowly trying to get a child … I’ve never even dreamed of doing that. … I’ve never touched a stranger,” he said.

Right. So here’s an opportunity to inform parents on how to protect their children from pedophiles, graciously provided by Ken Ward who should know, given that he’s molested so many children. But that’s the only bit from Ken Ward that they’re posting.  If you want to know more, you have to either purchase a transcript, or been fortunate enough to have taped it. And I missed that opportunity.

So let’s see if my memory serves me correctly. There was also something about predators looking for the vulnerable child, the one who looks lonely and needs someone. Come to think of it, this is the sort of child who gets targeted by bullies as well. The one who’s easy to pick on because he’s all alone and has no one to defend him.

I used to wonder why I was always picked on when I went to the park, alone. But what did I expect? I thought the reason was that there was something inherently wrong with me – something that they sensed – and like dogs attacking the weak and injured, they hounded me for that reason. I believed this was the reason the sadist in my family started sexually abusing me when I was 7. He saw that I wasn’t deserving of the sort of respect and consideration you give a normal person.  People who aren’t normal you can abuse and mistreat, you can also exploit and cull for sexual treats. You’re nothing but an object for their own amusement. One time when he was asked ’How many people were in the car with you?’ He responded ‘Three’, and then noticing he’d forgotten me, added ‘ and a half’.

People laugh when I tell them. I wonder if they know what it’s like to be pursued by a sadist when you’re 7 years old in a shed. To spend part of your childhood worrying about your life and safety with someone who’s in a position of authority over you. To almost be drowned by him at the age of 9. And then to have this person refer to you disparagingly as a half.

But this was the way he saw me, as something not worthy of regard. He made me low and dirty in his estimation, so he could do the horrid dirty things he used to do with me. And the therapists go – ‘but he was the one with a problem. Not you. You realize that, don’t you?’ And what are you supposed to say?

The idea of the man in the trench coat in parks, or driving along slowly – I’M SORRY – but it’s not just an idea. Just because Ken Ward didn’t do it doesn’t mean others haven’t tried. Although it’s good of him to warn parents to be more vigilant with the people they may overlook, like preachers and teachers.   

But strangers (not necessarily in trenchcoats, of course) did pursue me on more than one occasion when I was young and alone in the park. There was ‘Come into my car, it’s nice and dry inside.’  ‘ I’ll take you to where you want to go’ and ‘I have something really nice for you inside. A big surprise’. It made me feel weird and bad that I couldn’t go anywhere without being stalked and pursued, even at home. Didn’t know it was happening to others as well.

I’m beginning to think that perhaps the act of pursuing a minor in itself is a turn on. Much as it is for the many predators online these days. Even if nothing comes of it, there may be a thrill in the chase, especially when it’s illegal.

It’s funny how pedophiles do that, downplay what they did and its effects. Oh, it’s nothing, they say. You’re making too much of it. Just get over it. That’s what I used to hear too, not when I confronted family members who had abused me, because they’ve all since passed on, and I never did manage to confront them about it while they were alive.

When I bring it up with other people in my family now, it’s – But he was so nice to me. He always gave me money and gifts. I tell them he was so nice to me too, but I don’t tell them the word for it is grooming, and they should just be grateful that it didn’t go any furthur.

I never confronted the men who’d abused me, but I did confront someone in my family about what my best friend reported he’d done to her. Ah – it’s nothing, he said. She’s making it sound bigger than it actually was.

It’s a bit like someone kills your favourite pet, let’s say a puppy, cold-blooded, then tells you that it’s nothing. Your puppy would have died anyway You should just get over it. Don’t make it into such a big story. The policemen say, yes, he killed your puppy, but was there actually any blood. Did he use a gun or knife. If there wasn’t any blood, we don’t want to hear about it.

But the point is he took away the life of my puppy. Doesn’t that count for anything? Apparently not. So you go into derealization mode – for awhile. Or you get Kabbalah religious, not the true Kabbalah (a beautiful religion), but the new-age version, because the idea of parallel worlds starts to make sense, and you wonder if you just happened to wake up into some parallel darker version of the world you used to live in. A world where exploiting you sexually when you’re innocent, or killing your puppy without remorse or consequence, is ok.

A few people understand and care.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-82106617.html

Lay Catholics should demand more openness from the institutional Church. Dioceses should open their books to laymen as a matter of accountability and oversight. Doyle, who as counselor to many victims is privy to settlement details, says the people in the pews “would be absolutely shocked to discover how much of their money was being paid out on these settlements.”

Similarly, given how poorly the institutional Church has policed itself, there should be lay boards to review diocesan personnel files to make sure sex abusers aren’t being concealed. “I don’t want to hear about another new policy until someone says to me that someone other than the fox guarding the henhouse has examined the files,” says lawyer Steve Rubino, a leading victims’ attorney.

Restoring the Church’s credibility also depends on the bishops’ being less lawyerly and more Christian. Johnnie Cochrane didn’t come to save the world, Jesus Christ did. This means seeing those who have been raped or molested by priests as suffering souls in need of pastoral care, not moneygrubbing plaintiffs who deserve the brass-knuckles routine.

One parish priest says he will never forget the day he realized his former boss, an East Coast bishop (now retired), was a true man of God. “We had to meet with a family whose child had been abused by one of our priests. When we sat down face to face with them and the lawyers, we told them that the bishop had said his first priority was to do the right thing. We told them our investigation had found that the priest was guilty, but that he had never been in this kind of situation before. We had removed him from any further parish involvement. We told them that we didn’t believe we had been neglectful, but we wanted to help the family in any way we could, because we recognized lives had been damaged, and we were profoundly sorry. And that was the bishop’s position.

“I looked across the table, and the family was crying,” the priest recalled. “The father said, ‘Thank you. We never wanted to persecute anybody. That was all we wanted to hear.’”

10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased. 11 Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.”

1 Kings 19:1-5

1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”

3 Then he was afraid, and he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. 4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree; and he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.” 5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.”

Sandra Rogers near-death experience following an attempted suicide, found on http://www.near-death.com/. Sandra Rogers is the author of ‘Lessons from the Light’:  http://www.near-death.com/experiences/suicide03.html

On April 30, 1976, following an unsuccessful suicide attempt by drug overdose the previous night, Sandra Rogers placed a .38 caliber pistol to her chest, aimed it at her heart and pulled the trigger. At her darkest hour, Sandra committed suicide. She expected to die. Instead, she found herself in the presence of a brilliant light. Instead of the nothingness she sought by committing suicide, Sandra was given an amazing look at life beyond death, and the infinite wisdom of the Other Side. What she learned profoundly changed her. On April 28, 2000, Sandra made the transition back to the Light due to complications resulting from her suicide attempt in 1976. The following is an excerpt from her excellent book, Lessons from the Light, reprinted by permission. It describes an episode of her near-death experience and some of the insights she received while in the light.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070207/national/cda_child_porn

By Sue Bailey

OTTAWA (CP) – News of a Canadian link to a major international child-pornography ring is the latest in a growing number of horrific homegrown cases, says a top investigator.

“We’re up to our knees in evil,” said RCMP Supt. Earla-Kim McColl, officer in charge of the National Child Exploitation Co-ordination Centre.

“I think it’s important for Canadians to understand that we get a file like this about every two weeks now.”

I can’t for the life of me understand child sexual abuse. I can understand some other evils, not that I’d ever condone the behavior, but sexual abuse makes absolutely no sense to me. Think if it made some sense, it would have made it easier for me to understand the pedophiles who abused me as a child, and why they abused me. Although it’s very possible that those predators were themselves exploited and abused as children.

When you’re a child and you don’t understand, and especially if you’ve been raped or mistreated, you’re likely to take the abuse as  a comment on who you are and to blame yourself for it. And the abusers don’t generally help either. If they don’t tell you outright that you’re the dirty one, they treat you like you’re the dirty one. Like you’re the reason for their shameful act.

When you’re abused, you’re marked.  It’s not just a transgression of boundaries, it’s not just a violation of trust and abuse of authority, it’s not just underage sex when physically the body is too immature. It’s that these children, if they don’t get help, will believe that somehow they deserved to be abused and to have their bodies violated. That they just weren’t good enough as children to get the love, attention and nurturing they were seeking. Sexual abuse is what happens when adults tell you that they just can’t love you. I know, I’m still looking for that love, in all the wrong places.

That it’s becoming so prevalent is, I believe, a sign that we live in a very sick society. A society where women are prodded and shamed into getting mammographies, not for improved health, but because it’s a profit-driven technology. Where many children are forced to be on Ritalin, not for any health reasons, but for behavior control in classrooms. A society where capitalism and the pursuit of profit seems to be all that really matters, and where children are seen by some as nothing more than objects for sexual gratification. Considering the kind of selfish and narcissistic world we live in, is it any wonder?  

Found this by Dr. Sanity (Weblog awards finalist 2006) – Repression and the Mirror of Insight – about evil and the need to look in the mirror:

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/04/repression-and-mirror-of-insight.html

There is an inner courage required to look at one’s self in the mirror of insight and truly know the person looking back. All of us are capable of the most horrible behavior; just as we are capable of finding ways to rationalize it and cover it up or blame others for it. Psychological health requires that we look into that mirror frequently and understand our own motivations and behaviors and not flinch in recognizing the truth about ourselves.

That is the only way we can begin the process of change that leads to solving problems and personal growth. Recognizing the problem by looking at ourselves in the mirror is the first hurdle that must be overcome. Admittedly, it is not the only hurdle; but without it individuals and societies go off careening off in all the wrong directions–directions that will never lead to the recognition or acceptance of reality, and so can never lead to effective solutions. In psychiatry we refer to this abiiity to look in the mirror and see what and who is reflected back at us truly as “insight”. Ultimately, the development of self-awareness and psychological insight are the keys to solving most human dilemmas that lead to our own unhappiness and misery–both in individuals and societies.

It is likely that true evil never looks into that mirror; never questions their own motivations and always sinks to using the most immature and infantile coping mechanisms. That inability to acknowledge any degree of responsibility for their behavior; or to see clearly into their own souls–particularly on a societal level is responsible for much of the human misery, genocide, and brutal behavior we witness all around the world.

And that is the ultimate purpose of, and necessity for, Justice — to impose insight on the blind; force awareness of the consequences of behavior; and to reflect reality for those who refuse to look in the mirror.