These Are Our Kids

Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast has posted War May Be The Least of Our Problems, about the suicide problem among the military (averaging 17 a day) that you would do well to read. This is a problem that is not going away and we are not prepared for it. The families of the soldiers are not prepared. The military is not prepared. The VA is not prepared. Our communities are not prepared. The nation as a whole is not prepared. Not prepared to deal with it, to help the soldiers, to provide the kinds of care that would make a difference, to deal with the aftermath among families. Hell, mostly this administration is ignoring it and sweeping it under the rug.

These are our kids. They volunteered for the military because they wanted to protect America. They go to Iraq, the vast majority of them at least initially believing the reasons they were given for going. My local paper had a letter to the editor this weekend by a soldier who is a soldier for these reasons, who is willing to give his life to protect our lives and freedom. And we damn well owe it to these brave young people to make sure that their trust is not betrayed; that they are not sent into wars that are unnecessary or that may be making things worse for us in the future; that when we do send them, we send enough of them; that we equip them with the best body armor and vehicles; that we provide enough of the best care for them when they are wounded; that we don't send them again and again into battle with no end in sight; that we don't keep them in battle beyond their terms of service by stop-loss measures. We ask that they kill and die for us. We need to never do that unless there is a reason worthy of that sacrifice.

And when they are so wounded in spirit that 17 of them commit suicide every day, we need to figure out what to do about that and do it. And that doing needs to include what do we do about their survivors. About the parents and children and spouses and siblings and friends that go bereaved of their loved ones forever more.

1984 is upon us

Go visit Time Goes By and read this post on HR 1955, which some are calling the Thought Crimes Bill. This frightening bill was passed by the House with only six dissenting votes* while the media was covering the California wildfires and has been noticed nowhere that Ronnie and her commenters can find. There is all likelihood that it will pass the Senate and no likelihood that it will be vetoed.

* "The six brave representatives who stood up against the majority in voting against H.R.1955 are: Jeff Flake [Rep-AR], Dana Rohrabacher [Rep-CA], Neil Abercrombie [Dem-HI], Jerry Costello {Dem-IL], Dennis Kucinich [Dem-OH] and John Duncan {Rep-TN]." Notice that they are split between Republicans and Democrats. Also notice that Kucinich is in this list.

I Told You Teens Are Wonderful

Ok, so I found this link on Echidne of the Snakes and it was so delightful that I had to share it with you.
Sea of Pink

Having spent a good deal of time working with high school students, this confirms my favorable opinion of young people. Good for them. Good for us, that they are growing up to take their place as adults in this world that surely needs them.

Sleep In One Day

So, I slept late and when I got up, what had happened?

Karl Rove has resigned. Halla-flippin'-luja! Perhaps if I do this more often, more of them will leave? Cheney? Cheney's sociopathic sock puppet? Alberto G.?

Of course, it does make one wonder. Was this the deal before Libby didn't testify? One get out of jail free card and Rove has to leave?

Is it in the hopes of preventing prosecution?

Is it a ploy, and Rove will be directing things from his living room? Able to do things it's too dangerous to do from the White House?

Is he really leaving to go to work for the next bully boy they intend to stick us with?

Is there something wrong with me that I don't simply take this at face value? How stupid would I have to be to actually believe that this is the whole story?

And, what a crock, "Obviously it's a big loss to us, said deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino. "He is a great colleague, good friend and a brilliant mind."

Well, it isn't obvious to me that this toad has a brilliant mind. Can a mind be brilliant when the light never shines in it? Sly, yes. Sneaky, yes. Crafty, devious, foxy, Machiavellian, manipulative, scheming, calculating, dastardly, mendacious, nefarious, unscrupulous, and villainous. All the dark arts are obviously well understood. But there seems to be no notion of simple humanity. And it would be an insult to any animal one tried to compare him to.

Well, let's celebrate folks, and keep an eye peeled for his fey hand in the 2008 elections.

Update: from Julie's comment
"I also submit that you might remove the word 'foxy' from the toad, as an insult to foxes. Oh, wait, that's an insult to toads. Still funny."

We Just Don't Know

General Wesley Clark says we don't know yet what happened to Pat Tillman, without dismissing the idea of murder rather than friendly fire. We don't know, if it was murder, how high it goes. The day was when I would have believed such an idea had come from someone with tin foil lining his hat. But, sad to say, no longer. I look at the other things that have happened in the last seven years, and I put nothing beyond
possibility.

What happened? Why did it happen? Who initiated it? Who blessed the cover-up?

And how does executive privilege factor into this?

I want to weep for my country. That we have come to a place where we can even consider such a tragedy.

How Low Can They Get?

Today on Angry Black Bitch SharkFu wrote about a 14 year old girl who was raped, and when she went to the hospital was not even told about emergency contraception. Go and read it. Think about it. What kind of hospital staff doesn't tell a 14 year old rape victim about emergency contraception? How can the possibility that two cells will unite and create life be more important than the future life of a 14 year old girl who is already here and suffering? How can anyone consider that she should have to pay for the sexual experience she surely didn't want or enjoy? The experience that was more power than sex, and that she will never recover from completely already.

I can understand if she were already pregnant, how a person who believed abortion was murder could advise against an abortion. I wouldn't like it, but I can understand how it would happen. But, when she wasn't pregnant, when it was early enough to use a true contraceptive and prevent a pregnancy, prevent a later need to decide whether to have an abortion or not, how could anyone not allow her the choice? In any circumstance, but especially in this.

Know Them By Their Fruits

Sarah Warren Osborne (c. 1643–May 10, 1692) was my ancestor. She was also one of the first three women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials of 1692. She was certainly not the last. Sarah was a sick woman without power who came to grief over a disagreement with powerful in-laws of her first husband about land. She hadn't been to church in two or three years, because of an illness which kept her bedridden. Additionally, she had married her indentured servant, Alexander Osborne, an action which was not approved of. Some sources say that there were questions about the propriety of their relationship before their marriage.

Accused in early 1692, Sarah died in jail on May 10, waiting for her verdict. She was one of at least five people who died in prison; 20 were executed (14 women, 6 men) and around 200 were imprisoned. When we add to these victims, the thousands of mostly old women who were tried, tortured, and killed in Europe, we get a taste of what happens when there is no wall between church and state. Although the theocracy which ruled in Salem was Puritan and the theocracy which ruled in Europe was often Catholic, the results of giving the power of the state to the church was the same for helpless old women on both sides of the Atlantic. And then there were the victims of the Spanish Inquisition. And today we can look to countries practicing Sharia law for continuing persecution and murder of people, again mostly women, who do not conform to the theocrats in charge.

The Founders were not ignorant of this history. They were well aware of what can happen when the church gets entangled in the state. They passed the First Amendment in order to protect this country from the hubris that develops when the head of state believes that God is on his side, that he has a divine right to rule as he will.

These days we are skirting very close to the danger that the Founders worked so hard to avoid. We already have an administration which regards faith as more important than fact and a president who has said that he has been appointed by God. As scandal piles on top of scandal, we see only the beginnings of what can happen when government officials are chosen because they meet the test of religion rather than either experience or competence.

Confidentiality

On Wednesday, I attended a day long training in confidentiality, a thing that people who work in social service settings need to do annually in Alaska. And it reminded me of some of the things that happened when I was working as a parenting coach. Over half of my clients were referred by Office of Children's Services (OCS )-- sometimes to help the parents develop the skills to get their children out of foster care and sometimes to prevent the child from going.

It was important to lay out the confidentiality policy the first time I met with a client, because she had to know what information she could trust me with. I'm a mandated reporter, which means that I have to report child or elder abuse, and although OCS and I both tried to keep me out of the courtroom, since my work was harder if my clients had to be afraid that I could be called on to testify against them, sometimes I was subpoenaed and then I had to testify.

Often, because I was a mandated reporter, clients would tell me things that they wanted OCS to know about and also wanted to be able to say, "No, I didn't report you!" Things like, "you know my cousin does child care? Well, the man who just moved in with her is a registered sex offender." I could report this as a "I've got a tell-for-me situation here" and it would be listened to.

The most difficult situation was one where I had provided supervision for visits between a father and his four year old son for over a year -- he had been given one hour a month visitation, and then I could not go out of sight and hearing. He was not allowed to see his daughter at all, not even allowed to know if she were still in the state. He had sexually assaulted her, and then when he was having a supervised visit at the OCS offices, he had fondled her when the case worker had responded to someone else's emergency. In the course of the 18 or so times I saw this man, he always came at least 15 minutes early and then would spend that time telling me why he had found it necessary to do what he did to that little girl. I recorded 37 times he had told me this. Of course, I was called on to testify against him; so I was in the courtroom when the judge stated that criminal charges should be filed. And yet, they weren't. Which meant, he was not on the predator registry.

One day I was coming out of an apartment, where I had been working with a client who had three daughters, one just the age of the child this man had abused. And who was coming out of the apartment directly across the hall? You guessed it. And from the banter between him and the little girls, it was obvious to me that he was courting these children. I got to the nearest phone and immediately called OCS, telling them what had happened and that the mother had to be told. Yes, they agreed, she did and her case worker would go that very day and talk to her.

The next week when I got there the mother told me about the strange visit she had with the OCS worker not long after I left the week before. Obviously, the case worker had tried to tell this woman without telling this woman. The poor mother thought she was being accused of being negligent of the girls' safety without any clue about her neighbor.

Remember -- this man had not been accused of a crime. He was not on the register. To reveal what he had done could result in being sued for slander. I could understand the case worker's hesitation to come right out, but we are talking about the safety of children here. So, I threw my future into the mother's hands and told her, letting her know that if he found out I had said anything he could sue me and my agency.

That was Friday. On Sunday that little family moved. If she could have found an apartment on Saturday, they would have moved then. She also told a few neighboring mothers that she was moving because of "the man in 27D was getting too friendly with my five year old and it felt really creepy" without any further information. Lots of people moved.

Sadly, without his being charged, there is no way to keep this man away from children completely, but there are now a number of women in this community who keep their eyes on him. I've called and reported to OCS on a number of occasions when I've seen him hanging around a child care center, and they have faxed a copy of his picture to the center and called with a warning.

It's not an ideal answer. It's the best we could do. So far, I haven't been sued.