VirusHead

An oncology nurse from Emory University Hospital here in DeKalb Country Georgia got a $100 Ticket for a bumpersticker that was described as “lewd.” The officer gave her a talk about patriotism, too.

All is said was

“NO MORE BUSHIT”

That’s just ridiculous. I have seen much worse than that!

Clearly she was pulled over and issued a ticket because of her politics. Not allowed.

She was even wearing her nurse’s uniform when she was pulled over.

Elaborating to The Progressive, Grier says people are wrong to view this in a partisan way.

“It’s not just a Democrat/Republican issue,” she says. “Y’all need to get beyond that. It’s my right to speak, and yours.”

Gerry Weber, the legal director of the ACLU of Georgia, is representing Grier. “The indicators are that the officer didn’t like her views of President Bush and that was the motivating factor,” he says.

Weber says the ticketing was clearly illegal.

He says the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the “lewd bumpersticker” statute way back in 1991, in a case involving a defendant who had a “Shit Happens” bumpersticker.

In Memory of Little One: Little One 1989 – March 29, 2006. She lived to be 17.

My cat Little One was “named” during the time that I was working on my MA in Philosophical Theology and Ethics. It was important to me to affirm “just a little one,” especially as a counterweight to all the reading and talk about a big, universal, all-knowing one.

I took her to the vet because she appeared to have a hole in her lower jaw, in which cat food was stuck. I couldn’t clean it out well enough. I remembered having my wisdom teeth out, and so I was thinking that she had probably lost a couple of teeth or something like that, and needed it to be irrigated and sewn up, and to be given a round of antibiotics.

In the 24 hours or so before I got her there, she really went downhill. Although she ate and drank, she was listless and seemed very frail. The vet said that the problem was actually a cancer in her jawbone that had burst out. She was also severely dehydrated and had hyperthyroid and was probably in the process of kidney failure. She couldn’t get enough water or food. Even heroic measures wouldn’t have helped for very long, and she was most likely in pain.

I decided that it was time to let her go. I could have taken her home – she probably wouldn’t have lasted another 48 hours – but after the experience of having done that with Pookha, I decided it would be better for it to be a quick and painless death. She cuddled in my lap, wrapped up in a little blanket and purring, for about 20 minutes. I talked to her and soothed her and said goodbye… Her heart stopped before the injection was even finished.

Tip – After you’ve participated in ending your beloved pet’s life, it is advisable to sit in the car for a bit (and cry or whatever else you need to do) before you try to drive, no matter how much you want to get out of there and go home. I almost got into an accident trying to leave the parking lot.

I’ll miss Little One. She was a rescue cat, and she only trusted a couple of other people besides me. She and Pookha (d. 2003) were there for me when I was away from family, in a new place with no friends. They were my family all through graduate school, and were still with me when I married and had a child. They were my kitty soul sisters.

We do have one more cat, Zoom, who adopted us last summer. He is a total sweetheart, but both my girls are gone.

Now I’m the only female in the household.

Our son Ben got to say goodbye to Pookha, but not to Little One. John was unhappy that he didn’t get to say goodbye – but he understood. It will be more difficult to explain to Ben.

P.S. Yes, it was very hard to explain to Ben why he couldn’t say goodbye. We talked about how you make decisions when there are a lot of things you want to do and you can’t do them all. He says he’s going to miss Little One, and he hopes that she finds Pookha (and Grandpa!) in “that space where Heaven might be.”

So Supreme Court Justice Scalia made a “Sicilian” gesture toward anyone who might question his impartiality on issues involving the separation of church and state -this as he was leaving a mass in Boston.

But this was not just any mass.

He was attending a special mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers’ Guild luncheon.

A special mass for lawyers and politicians?

Isn’t that a sign of the apocalypse or something?

He’s also been spewing his opinions about the Guantanamo detention rights case being brought before the court. If he’s already made up his mind, these public statements are an argument for his recusal. The statute governing inappropriate judicial speech states that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

I place the odds that he will recuse himself on this case at something like 98-against (with a +2/-0 variation – hee hee) unless there is a strong public outcry.

How likely is that – at least while anyone is still watching the Sopranos… We seem to care more about entertainment than we care about our reality.

Scalia, what a guy.

Board denies parole for swindler
From the Associated Press / Billings Gazette, March 25 2006

The state Board of Pardons has denied parole to a former Jehovah’s Witness church elder who helped bilk an elderly woman out of a $7 million estate, including a family ranch. Dale A. Erickson, 56, of Missoula, was sentenced in 2003 to 25 years in prison with 10 suspended after pleading no contest to conspiracy, theft and securities fraud.

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Attorney Chris Miller and Sheriff Scott Howard attended the hearing at the Cascade County regional jail, where Erickson is an inmate. After listening to the objections of Miller, Howard and members of the late Una Anderson’s family, the board rejected Erickson’s request, said Jeff Walter, senior administrative officer for the state Board of Pardons in Deer Lodge.

“Both Sheriff Howard and I were very pleased with the board’s decision to put Erickson over for three more years,” Miller said.

Miller said the parole board took into account Erickson’s refusal to accept responsibility for his actions or acknowledge that harm was done to Anderson, of Deer Lodge.

“The defendant and his family talked at length about what they had been through, but apparently were unconcerned about the impact of the crime on the victim,” Miller said. “I believe that his lack of empathy was a deciding factor.”

Erickson and co-defendant Darryl K. Willis, 66, of Helena, were ordered to pay $7.15 million in restitution, said Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Anez. Willis has paid $402.94, but Erickson has paid nothing, Anez said.

Prosecutors said Anderson, who died last year at 103, lost her life savings and a 6,400-acre family ranch near Jens in an elaborate befriend-and-betray scheme perpetrated by Erickson and Willis over a period of seven years. The men sold her ranch in 1999 for $4 million, less than its 1995 appraised value of $5.3 million. They didn’t tell her of the sale, paid themselves a commission and spent the money.

They used more than $2 million of her money to finance an effort to set up Montana’s first foreign capital depository, which would offer a place for the super-rich to stash their money similar to Swiss-style and offshore-type banks.

Disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witness Scotty writes:

Sister or Brother???? I am actually in tears right now… Why, you may ask. Ill tell you. I am currently disfellowshipped right now and i now that i was disfellowshipped for my own willingful wrong doings. While i was commiting my sins, i didn’t care and i went along with everything that THE BIBLE says not to do,,,,,not just the WITNESSES. I hope Jehovah will be able to forgive you for blaspheming like your doing. I will pray for you tonight even though i don’t pray for my self because of feelings of unworthyness.

I read some of your advice to ex-witnesses. and i beg you to stop this. I knw that you know in the back of your mind, that this is the true religion, but you constantly battle try not to afirm it.

The US and Russia are about to go back to a cold war and just like daniel prophecy says, things will come to pass. Jehovah won’t lie and just like he says that you reap what you sown……..what your sowning right now is very rotten and wrong. I didn’t beleve a lot of things that the witneesss say but ive come to see what is truth. And this organization is absoulutely the truth. Children need to be disciplined sometimes in order to mold them into something dignifyable. Whether you parent does it (Jehovah) or you parent tells your older brother to whip you (the elders) its all for our benefit. If something is handled wrongly, then LET JEHOVAH DEAL
WITH IT IN HIS OWN TIME. I beg of you sisiter of brother, shut this website down, and truly repent!!!!!!!!!!! Please, please, please, stop playing GOD

This is a nearly perfect example of the kind of thing that appears in my mailbox on a regular basis.

First off, my heart really goes out to Scottie, although he would never believe it. I recognize this mind-space that he is in, with all its agonized and agonizing contradictions. He is currently being shunned by everyone he knows and loves, and his reaction is both to judge others very harshly and also to be plagued by an even deeper insecurity. Scottie, you’re right where you are intended to be, feeling horrible, judging others, trying to make yourself feel better, and ready to come back for more indoctrination. He doesn’t believe a lot of what they say, yet he believes it is the truth. He can’t see the contradiction. What Scottie needs right now is a friend, and I hope he has one. I’m the last person he would listen to if he considers my advice to recovering JWs to be blasphemous, so I’ll (reluctantly) have to leave that to others. I hope the prayers will help him – you never know when grace might happen.

For the record… No, in fact I do not in any way believe that this is really the true religion, neither in my mind, nor in my heart (nor even in my deepest paranoid fears). Amazingly enough, I’m not wrestling with the meme of the Watchtower as the “Truth” anymore – it is a very pernicious virus, to be respected, but it is survivable. I don’t believe in the idea of a “true religion.” I’m not sure how many of us religious non-absolutists there are. I think that different religions have their strengths and their faults and blind spots too, just like human beings do. I think that words about God are flawed – by definition, they have to be. Humans are not God, nor do we have the heart-mind of God (or gods). What we have are strengths (gifts) in different areas – as prophets and judges and thinkers and mystics and healers and scientists and teachers and lots more. Our religious traditions, at their best, are attempts to codify and disseminate religious insights. But none of us is God, and none of us is perfect, and our texts and traditions are based on human realities, not the life of God.

One of the common themes in the JW letters is the idea that I’m “playing God.” It is so drummed in that you must never think for yourself – not even to become closer to God, not even to let your spiritual gifts (whatever they may be) grow and thrive, not even to discern better ways of handling situations. JWs are not allowed to think or grow – they are only allowed to be submissive sheep, ready for Jehovah (the abusive father) to tell the older brother (the elders) to whip them again and again. But no matter how often they are whipped, they can never be good enough – hence the pervading sense of unworthiness, which is not to be confused with genuine humility or meekness.

Here is someone who really truly is unable to digest or process any of the information. Maybe I should add questions at the end of each paragraph, for repetition and emphasis, like they do with the publications. He knows (however dimly or incompletely) that he needs help (either that or he was being naughty when he sought and found the recovering JW advice page). Yet he is not able to confront the idea that there may another perspective. He immediately feels guilty. He sees blasphemy. That’s how tightly controlled the psychology is. This dynamic will loop back on itself until the very experience of reading another perspective will lead him back to more comfortable terrain. For now. Perhaps some small point will be retained somehow and may help him at another time.

While he asks me to wait on Jehovah to deal with any injustice – or is it to order someone else to be whipped? – he intervenes to ask me to close the website. Well, perhaps God will sort it out in time. But I think the gift of freedom is a valuable gift, and one’s use of one’s free choice is the foundation for the development of character as well as one’s religious path.

No person, no organization has the authority to take God’s place in anyone’s heart-mind-spirit-soul – and especially not as some sort of dictator of the soul. God is no dictator.

Dictators are interested in total control, power, their own gain.
Dictators are not interested in freedom, love, or compassion.

Scottie will most likely go back again and again until they “whip” the soul and spirit right out of him. In a worst case scenario, he might even have brought himself to this point willingly in order to undergo a religious trial, and thus create a deeper sense of conviction.

My feelings for the great majority of JWs are swirled in a big mixing pot, the main ingredients of which are empathy and sorrow – admittedly also with an occasional a dash of impatience, such as what you might feel while witnessing a successful con game and being unable to rescue the mark. Most of the JWs are trying to do good, to follow biblical principles – but they get entangled with the controlling psychology and its reinforcements and they lose their sense of priorities as well as their sense of self.

I criticize the behavior of the leadership because of its destructiveness to their people. I offer support for those who wish for it. You see above the standard product that is reaped from the sowing of the Watchtower Society. Is this what God intends for humanity? Dwell on that question. Everyone has their own path, if they wish to feel for it.

The biblical text is not a threat. It’s a simple statement: What you sow, that also you shall reap.

If you plant corn, you get corn. Cause – effect.

What you nourish in yourself or in the world is what grows.

Stand against destructiveness and hate. Nourish kindness and love.

Plant a seed.