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Donate for Watchtower Blood Lawsuit

Donate for Watchtower Blood Lawsuit

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I’ve made a donation myself and I hope that you can send any amount via PayPal or postal service. It’s a reasonable fund-raising goal and I think it is very important to support this case. One man against the whole legal apparatus of the Watchtower Society is facing a hard road but there is a chance here for some amount of accountability. Here is the letter from Barbara Anderson:

Dear Friends,

For those unfamiliar with Lawrence Hughes, he’s a 55-year-old Canadian (Calgary, Alberta) architectural technician whose 16-year-old daughter Bethany was diagnosed in February 2002 with acute myeloid leukemia. The conventional treatment is chemotherapy with blood transfusions, treatment resisted by the Hughes family because they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was late afternoon, Feb. 13, 2002, when Lawrence Hughes and his wife were told by the local Hospital Liaison Committee (HLC) of Jehovah’s Witnesses that the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses Corporate head) had already dispatched lawyers who were on their way to Calgary to represent the family.

In the hospital, Witnesses were standing guard in shifts in Bethany’s hospital room, to make sure no one forced Bethany to take blood, choking the corridor and pressing religious tracts on everybody. Hughes says Watch Tower representatives promised Bethany her resistance would be celebrated in the church publication Awake! That magazine, in the mid-1990s, fed a thirst for martyrdom with a cover showing the smiling photos of 26 “Youths Who Put God first,” by dying after refusing treatment.

After obtaining medical opinions, the Director of Child Welfare appealed to the Provincial Court to gain control of Bethany’s medical treatment. Control was granted on February 18, 2002 and medical treatment commenced over the objections of Bethany. By this time Lawrence Hughes was supportive of the blood transfusion treatment, but his wife was opposed.

The order was appealed but dismissed because the Court concluded that the treatment was in Bethany’s best interests. The Court determined Bethany to be a mature minor and entitled to be consulted, but decided that she was not in a position to make independent decisions about her treatment.

Shane Brady and David Gnam are Watch Tower attorneys and also Jehovah’s Witnesses. They represented Bethany and her mother in the appeal. Hughes endeavored to have them removed as counsel for Bethany on allegations of conflict of interest but was defeated. Brady and Gnam appealed to the Court of Appeal to stop the transfusions, but their appeal was dismissed. Also, leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was refused.

By July 2, 2002, Bethany received some 80 transfusions, but the treatment was not effective and the doctors decided no more transfusions for Bethany. By her insistence, she was discharged from Alberta Children’s Hospital on July 13, 2002 and immediately sought an alternate form of treatment, namely, arsenic trioxide and Vitamin C, at Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton under the care of Drs. Turner and Belch. Bethany died September 5, 2002.

When Lawrence Hughes rejected Jehovah’s Witnesses teachings on blood transfusions and agreed to allow Bethany to undergo transfusions during her chemotherapy treatments, this, in effect, destroyed his marriage and he was shunned by Jehovah’s Witnesses. He and his wife divorced, October 2003.

After the court approved Hughes as an administrator of his daughter’s estate, he began litigation in 2004 on behalf of his daughter’s estate and in his own right against: Shane Brady, David Gnam, Merrill Morrell, Thomm Bokor, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, Dr. A. Robert Turner, Dr. Andrew Belch, Cross Cancer Institute, and Alberta Cancer Board in a $1-million wrongful death suit. He alleged, amongst other things, inappropriate treatment of his daughter by the doctors at Cross Cancer institute; a conspiracy to prevent her from getting the proper treatment, and undue influence of his daughter causing her to withhold her consent to appropriate medical treatment.

In February 2006, the Watch Tower Society and its lawyers brought an action to strike out the statement of claim. Subsequently, the court struck out all of Hughes claims. He appealed the decision. On September 1, 2007, the Appeal Court agreed with the lower court except on two major claims—that Hughes has the right to sue the Watch Tower and its attorneys for deceit and misrepresentation; (Hughes contends that it was the attorneys who convinced Bethany, a minor, to go with the arsenic treatment. They misrepresented the benefits of withholding blood transfusions by pointing out to her that chemotherapy/blood transfusion protocol for her leukemia was experimental, which the high court stated was not.) Previously, in the lower court, Hughes had been removed as administrator of Bethany’s estate, but the Appeal Court ruled that Hughes should be restored as administrator. The decisions meant that Hughes could proceed with his legal action on behalf of his daughter’s estate over allegations the church’s influence hastened her death. Part of his argument will be that his daughter’s death certificate states her death was due to arsenic poisoning.

A while back, producers at the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) Television Network planned to do a documentary on Lawrence Hughes’s case, but changed their minds when his lawsuit was thrown out. However, when he appealed the lower court decision, and the Court of Appeal overturned the previous decision in Hughes favor, re-instating him as the Administer Ad Litem of his daughter’s estate (being Administrator Ad Litem now gives him certain powers that places him in a good position legally), CBC producers once again contacted him to say they were interested in doing the one hour documentary.

As his daughter’s representative in behalf of her estate, Hughes asked Bethany’s lawyers to give him a list of the documents they possess in her file which relate to the “wrongful death” lawsuit that he has filed against them and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc. of Canada, who they also represent. However, the attorneys are claiming Client/Counsel Privilege and refuse to provide an Affidavit of Records or give him pertinent documents. The hearing was April 16th and now he’s waiting for the decision. However, the court did rule Defendants can’t introduce videos taken of Bethany into the next court hearing, May 29th, where their application for Summary Judgment is to be argued.

If Lawrence Hughes loses Summary Judgment, the lawsuit will be dead. This means that CBC may decide not to do a documentary. It is very important that Hughes receive donations to hire an attorney. Hughes, representing himself, was in court as many as five times in the past few months. The attorney who was assisting him is running for political office and no longer has time for Hughes lawsuit. There is a law firm that has expressed interest in representing him but requires a retainer of $5,000. Simply put, Lawrence Hughes is broke and worn out. He has spent nearly $50,000, some of that money being donated. Because the Watchtower lost the decision at the Appeal Court level, under Canadian law the loser has to pay all the other side’s cost of litigation. Within a few months, with an attorney’s assistance, Hughes will be able to collect his past expenses from Watchtower and should be able to carry on with future expenses of the lawsuit without further donations—that is—if he wins Summary Judgment.

Simply put, right now Hughes is not able to pay any attorney a $5,000 retainer, and without the money, an attorney will not take the case. Not having an attorney to represent him means he will most likely lose the court hearing at the end of May. This could end CBC’s interest in doing a one hour documentary for TV.

Lawrence Hughes has pointed out that Bethany’s attorneys are employed by the Toronto law firm, W. Glen How and Associates. In reality, though, this law firm is a front for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the corporate entity used by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and headquartered in Georgetown, Ontario. The facts are that Watchtower’s Legal Department is made up of these same attorneys who work with W. Glen How and Associates, and, Attorney, W. Glen How, is an important Jehovah’s Witness in Canada.

For decades, W. Glen How and Associates have been deceiving courts and the public by deliberately misrepresenting themselves as an independent law firm which, they say, occasionally represents Jehovah’s Witnesses. This “independent law firm” assertion is found in their Notice of Motion and, as such, the attorneys with W. Glen How and Associates contend they did not have a conflict of interest when representing Hughes’s daughter and her mother. Although the attorneys are Jehovah’s Witnesses and work with a law firm that was and continues to be a front for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, they claim they gave Lawrence Hughes’s 16-year old Witness daughter and her Witness mother, proper, unbiased legal advice. Hughes discounts this assertion and believes it is important that people write the media in Calgary, Alberta, the Law Society of Alberta and the Law Society of Upper Canada to expose this deception of W. Glen How and Associates.

The following is a list of lawyers that have been involved in this case on behalf of Bethany, her mother, and the Watchtower Society over the past six years. Lawrence expects he will be up against most or all of these lawyers at the May 29th and 30th court hearing:

David Gnam, Watchtower Society (a.k.a.:W. Glen How and Assoc.), Georgetown, Ont.
Shane Brady, Watchtower Society (a.k.a.:W. Glen How and Assoc.), Georgetown, Ont.
John Burns, Watchtower Society (a.k.a.:W. Glen How and Assoc.), Georgetown, Ont.
Daniel Pole, Watchtower Society (a.k.a.:W. Glen How and Assoc.), Georgetown, Ont.
David Day, Lewis Day, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Terry Davis, Parlee McLaws, Calgary, Alberta
Jeremy Hockin, Parlee McLaws, Edmonton, Alberta
Eugene Meehen, Lang Michener, Ottawa, Ontario
Philip Huband, Calgary, Alberta
Allan Ludkiewicz, Ludkiewicz, Bortoluzzi, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Also, two of the largest law firms will be representing the doctors and hospital:

David Steele, Bennet Jones, Calgary, Alberta
Brent Windwick, Field, Calgary, Alberta.

On May 29th and 30th, as usual, Lawrence Hughes expects he will be standing alone on one side of the court room representing himself. On the other side of the court room will be a crowd of lawyers, mostly senior partners in these large firms; the Jehovah’s Witness Lawyers; HLC members, and members of Jehovah Witnesses. As you can see, he is vastly out-numbered. He asks that you pray that he succeeds in this endeavor.

Few people in Hughes’s financial situation can expect to win a lawsuit in Canada against an extremely wealthy religious organization such as the Watchtower Society. However, Hughes has always believed that winning is possible with help from a group of persons. As long as this lawsuit continues, it will mean more ongoing worldwide news coverage exposing the Watchtower Society, which might put enough pressure on them to put an end to their ban on the use of blood transfusions for Jehovah’s
Witness patients in need of such. This would then stop many pointless and unnecessary deaths. And if Hughes wins this lawsuit, it could be instrumental in other people suing the Watchtower for causing loved ones to refuse a life-saving blood transfusion and then die. Thus, this could be another way this religious organization will be forced to change its “blood ban” or go bankrupt from litigation.

Money donated to this cause in the past has helped Lawrence Hughes accomplish so many positive things. He had a land-mark win; and the massive Canadian media coverage about the lawsuit and subsequent victory has been invaluable to show Canadians how harmful this organization’s policies are. Let’s keep up the momentum.

If just 500 people contribute $10.00, Hughes will have the $5,000 necessary for the attorney retainer. Please put $10.00 in an envelope and send it to him. And tell your friends. Just think what we can accomplish together to help this man win his lawsuit! If he does not win, none of us will have lost much money, but we will have the satisfaction that we tried to help.

For those who would like to contribute more, Hughes has set up and registered a
trust fund in the Province of Alberta named, WATCHTOWER LAWSUIT. He also has opened a bank account by that same name and arranged for a chartered registered accountant to do a financial statement each year. Anyone who donates and asks will receive a copy of that statement. As soon as a law firm comes on board, an attorney will take care of the fund. When this lawsuit is won, donations will be returned.

And for the convenience of contributors, a Paypal account has been opened and a donation can be made at the following email address: watchtowerlawsuit@yahoo.com.

Your check or $10 cash money can be mailed to:

WATCHTOWER LAWSUIT
Lawrence Hughes
Box 20161
Calgary Place RPO
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
T2P4J2

Thank you,

Barbara Anderson and other friends of Lawrence Hughes

(thanks to Brenda Lee)

Feedback on JW Jokes

Feedback on JW Jokes

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It’s good to hear from former Jehovah’s Witnesses, although it also makes me very sad to hear the familiar narratives of abuse and shunning. Thank you for writing, Aella Brenna, and I’m glad that you got some distance and healing through laughter. Thrive with light and love.

i’m an ex-JW who has since become a pagan because the beliefs make more sense to me. i found the humour about JW’s on your site refreshing and amusing as I left three years ago and have consequently not heard from my parents or little sister for three years.

So i just wanted to say thanks for the healing to my soul that your jokes provided.

Especially since I was abused when i was growing up both emotionally and physically and watched my mother and sister being abused to, and my abusive dad backed his actions up with the bible and was an elder in the local congregation whom everyone looked up to and thought well of. Of course they never saw what he was like behind closed doors and I was too terrified to tell anyone.

i also didn’t ever like the fact that the bible said one thing but the watchtower said another and that the organisation had taken the place of God to most people. If only they’d read their bibles properly they would see that things have become overly complicated. So i’ve gone back to the old religion.

Just wanted to say thanks for the jokes.

Aella Brenna (it means Whirlwind daughter of Raven)

VirusHead Blog Against Theocracy

VirusHead Blog Against Theocracy

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Once again, it’s time for the annual Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. Thanks to Jolly Roger for reminding me.

Blog Against Theocracy 2008

BAT logo by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors, who also points out:

The theme [of the blogswarm], like always, is the Separation of Church and State — we are for it. But the variations on the theme are many…This is not a bashing of religion – peeps can believe what they choose, however they choose — but it is a reminder that the Government should keep out of religion, and Religion should keep out of the government.

Last year, I highlighted my favorite bits of the blogswarm. I won’t be doing that this year, but I will make every effort to read every post.

So, what to say? Here is what I say:

The drive to “christian” theocracy is a profoundly destructive force. Participation in it leads to the corruption of one’s individual spiritual path by power-mad group-think.

I believe that such group-think strangles the intellect, encourages hysteria, and promotes cruelty. It creates dynamics that become the very opposite of kindness, humility, ethics, collaboration, and cooperation – the opposite of every virtue, and especially of the virtues we so desperately need in order to confront the actual problems facing the people of this country.

A will to power and domination can never lead to the fruits of the spirit, but can only undermine and finally destroy one of the most beautiful aspects of our country – the freedom of religion (with its corollary guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom from persecution).

There is also the matter of idolatry. Human individuals or groups that insist upon conformity to their own flavor of religious belief attempt to put themselves in the place of God and to claim God’s authority for their own agendas.

Beware of any claim that any group or person represents deity or is the voice of God on this earth. Beware of false prophets. Give unto Caesar only what it Caesar’s. Trust not in the traditions of men. And so on.

The rest of my post is simply to highlight some pertinent quotations:

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” – Daniel Webster

“Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin.” – Wendell Wilkie

“To put it in a few words, the true malice of man appears only in the state and in the church, as institutions of gathering together, of recapitulation, of totalization.” – Paul Ricoeur

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.” – Robert Anton Wilson

“Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.” – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“The people who have come into [our] institutions [today] are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have…. The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation.” – Pat Robertson

“Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason.” – Martin Luther

“Patriotism? Your patriotism waves a flag with one hand and picks pockets with the other” – Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Notorious

“Religion is against women’s rights and women’s freedom. In all societies women are oppressed by all religions.” – Taslima Nasrin

“The secular democratic state is the surest protector of religious and intellectual liberty ever crafted by human ingenuity. Nothing is more fallacious, or inimical to genuine religious liberty, than the seductive notion that the state should “favor” or “foster” religion. All history testifies that such practices inevitably result in favoring one religion over less powerful minorities and secular opinion. In the long run governmental favoritism vitiates the religious spirit itself. Where in the Western world is organized religion stronger than in the United States where the church is a take-your-choice affair? Where is it weaker than in Europe where sophisticated secularists joke that they have been “inoculated” for life against religion by compulsory religious indoctrination in state schools? Preserving the secular character of government and the public school is the surest guarantee that religion in America will remain free, vital, uncorrupted by political power, and independent of state manipulation.” – Edward L Ericson

“It would be good for religion if many books that seem useful were destroyed. When there were not so many books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has since.” – Girolamo Savonarola (of Bonfire of the Vanities fame)

“Faith” is a fine invention, when gentlemen can see / But microscopes are prudent, in an emergency.” – Emily Dickinson

“Minds fettered by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning a proposition whether it is attested by sufficient evidence, but whether it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts as such, but for facts that will bear out their doctrine. It is easy to see that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into fallacies treads close upon the precipice of falsehood…. So long as a belief in propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of truth as such is not possible.” – George Eliot

“Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.” – Oscar Wilde

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

“I do occasionally envy the person who is religious naturally, without being brainwashed into it or suckered into it by all the organized hustles.” – Woody Allen

“The person with B.S. (note: “Belief Systems”) knows the “right answer” at all times and knows it immediately. This makes them very happy – and very annoying – because most of their “right answers” don’t make sense to the rest of us. Common sense and/or science require investigation and revision, etc. B.S. only requires a Rule Book (sacred scripture, Das Kapital, or whatever) and a good memory. People with “faith” represent mental health problem #1, because memorizing rule books cuts you off from sensory involvement with the existential world. It also produces the kind of intolerance that produces witch-hunts, Inquisitions, purges, Bushware 1.0, Bushware 2.0, etc. Belief Systems, “faith,” certitudes of all sorts, result from deliberately forgetting the fallibility of human brains, especially the brains of those who wrote your favorite rule book, and this leaders to a paradoxical rejection of the best functions of the brain – namely, its ability to rethink, revise, and correct itself.” – Robert Anton Wilson

“The man who has never wrestled with his early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not truly his own — for no faith is our own that we have not arduously won — has missed not only a moral but an intellectual discipline. The absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and render all his work ineffective. He has missed a training in criticism, in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely impersonal treatment of personal problems, which no other training can compensate. He is, for the most part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too weak to find the light.” – Havelock Ellis

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” – Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.” – Jonathan Swift

Death, the Afterlife, and Human Being

Death, the Afterlife, and Human Being

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We all die. I don’t know whether or not there is an afterlife, and neither does anyone else.

People have a range of beliefs. Some people believe in a heaven of fluffy clouds. Some people believe in a hell of unending torture. Some people believe in a gray space of limbo.

Some believe that one’s place in the afterlife can be purchased with money or obedience or membership or works or sacrifice or mantras.

Some believe that your spirit rejoins the energy of the cosmos, or that you will sing with the stars. Some believe that souls return to the timeless space of eternal Dreaming. Some believe the afterlife will be a difficult journey of some kind, or an entrance into an eternal perspective where all times and places exist together.

Some believe that death is a transition into another realm or dimension, or a pause before starting up another life here through reincarnation.

Some believe that in death, everyone wanders around in an underground cavern.

Some believe that necromancers (the more accurate translation of the biblical “witch”) communicate with the dead, so there must be a place where individual consciousness continues. Some believe that sacrifices or homage ought to be paid to ancestors because they get more energy and can continue their existence that way.

But nobody knows.

We can comfort ourselves with the notions that someone who has died is now with God, or in a better place, singing with the angels, carrying messages, dancing a skeleton dance with us, guarding us and looking down from the stars.

But nobody knows.

It is understandable that the thought of our ultimate non-being causes anxiety.

It is understandable that we want to feel more important when we contemplate the sublime majesty of the universe – and all its possible parallel universes.

It is understandable that comforting mythologies exist that attempt to mitigate the pain of loss and grief and injustice and feelings of powerlessness and meaninglessness that confront us.

Thomas Aquinas proclaimed that one of the sublime joys of heaven had to be witnessing the agonies of those who have hurt us.

When I am sad and anxious about death, I imagine an ideal afterlife. I’ve imagined it in great detail – my fantasy living space, with a community of loving friends and family who are now everything they were meant to be, and surrounded by wonderful smells and tastes (note that I’m not willing to give up a sensual existence of some kind). There is a part of me that persists in the hope that whatever is sufficiently envisioned may exist.

I pray, yes I do. I entreat benevolent entities at all levels of whatever hierarchical or distributed spiritual systems could possibly exist. Male and female and beyond gender. Sure. But I don’t know.

We are the only beings that we know of who live with the knowledge that someday we all – without exception – will die. Heidegger called it Being-towards-death. We can repress and cover-up this knowledge, but that is an inauthentic kind of living.

I taste eternity, but eternity – well, it isn’t human. It’s an everything-ness that overwhelms me, and while it may bring a kind of ecstasy that is beyond language or explanation, it doesn’t seem – to me – to promise an afterlife.

I have a very difficult time believing in consciousness without mind. Perhaps mind can somehow extract itself from the brain’s electro-magnetic impulses, like bees leaving a hive, and find some other form of containment. I don’t know (pause… and neither does anyone else, got it?).

For various reasons (and no reason), it’s a good time to note of some of the thoughts that have been helpful to me, and which have given me some alternatives to the pathological visions that I was imbued with when young.

Living, learning, and navigating around through the admittedly limited form of our existence has been deeply improved and enriched for me with the following attitudinal choices:

Focused Attention. Curiosity and Questioning. Appreciation and Gratitude. Compassion and Caring and Kindness.

They are momentary choices, of course, but the more often you can really pay attention and observe, allow yourself to be curious and to ask questions, feel appreciation and gratitude, and open yourself up to receiving and giving kindness and feeling compassion for self and others… well, the better life seems to be: more real, more textured, more meaningful, more everything.

Tomorrow we may die, but no-one and no-thing can ever take away that we have existed.

The universe is unimaginably large, but our bit of life and history has its place in the timeline and we all help to create and uphold the rich fabric of the cosmos. In our human niche, bound by space and time, we are ourselves – and we affect others and we are all affected by one another and we are all together (Koo koo ka-choo).

The fact that I once saw the sun shining over ochre cliffs is not erased because it was a momentary event. Although it has passed, it is not gone. Although I may misremember or reinterpret it, the very value of that experience is that it happened – on that day, with someone dear. The light was just so, I was in a particular emotional state, I paid attention to it, I was curious about ochre because of its beauty, I was grateful to be there in that moment, and I carry that moment with me. I even have a photograph, but it doesn’t capture the spirit of that moment. It is only a reminder. The aromas, the feeling of the wind, the high-altitude mood, all of it – it happened then, and then the moment was gone (ok, yeah, a little reference to “Dust in the Wind” but stay with me here).

The bits of our lives that we most value are transitory by their very nature.

Everything changes, and if it didn’t, we really would be in hell – and never out of it.

Without passing through (and within and as part of) our human streams of time and space, outside of the ever-moving lines and processes of chaos meeting order, we would have nothing, nothing at all.

While you move in time and space, while you can perceive and question and appreciate, be just as authentic and kind as you can.

Value that spark of eternity in all of us, and dwell there from time to time – alone or in communion – but know this: We exist on the borders, moving, changing, living and dying.

Our lives are so special because we each have our own ways of experiencing, our own limited perspectives, our unique – and yes, transitory – associations and configurations of memory and projection and imagination and meaning-making.

We are human. We have a niche in this cosmos, and it can be very very complex and rich.

Even in pain and suffering and injustice, there are moments of bliss and celebration and laughter and love. With the knowledge of death, and the fundamental ignorance about life after death, be grateful for your span of days.

Our limitations are precisely what enable us to experience and construct our context, our meanings, our lives and our loves.

News that Caught My Eye

News that Caught My Eye

Comments 4 comments

But eventually let it go….

A child diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes? I have to wonder at what point and for what reasons doctors started giving so many vaccines at once anyway. How would they be able to determine which of the vaccines caused a negative reaction if there was a problem? And parents – are adults so cowed by physician authority that that would so easily allow so many shots at one visit? I refused that plan for psychological reasons. One, two – that’s fine. But three, four, five, six? That’s too much for a baby or little child. Ben never had more than two vaccines in a single visit. It’s just too much. I always suspected that so many vaccines at once might have created immune-system overload, too – just too much information at once. The question of preservatives (possibly with mercury?) raised the bar – all the more reason not to create a toxic load.

Here’s an interesting interview about one of my pet peeves. Doesn’t it just make sense that our diet ought not to rely so heavily upon foods that never rot? What about moderation in all things? I favor a varied diet. I tend to use olive oil or butter, not margarine or sprays. I prefer whole milk, and I use real unbleached sugar. I’m not an earthy-crunchy fanatic – I also eat some junk food and some fake food. But don’t offer me any of that non-dairy cream or no-calorie candy. I’ll drink a Coke – but not a diet Coke. I eat what I want – in moderation. I have deep suspicions about what some of the chemicals do to our bodies.

So, President Bush is going to veto the anti-torture bill that has passed both the Senate and the House? I don’t know how Republicans maintain this mythology about how they are the patriotic party…

Job Loss for February Much Higher than the 63,000: The actual employment report suggests “a comprehensive job loss of 113,000 and in terms of dollars earned, a whole lot more.” They’ve been misrepresenting these numbers for a while now. If you lose a professional job and take a part-time position at Walmart or Home Depot, you don’t affect the job numbers at all as far as I can see…

Defense contractor United Technologies has made a sudden buyout offer for the Diebold company, at 66% more than the current stock value. In the face of Diebold’s refusal, United is insisting that the deal will go through in 60 days. “Hmmm. Defense contractor attempts a takeover of the major manufacturer of hackable voting machines with the stated plan of closing the deal before the November national elections. What could their intention possibly be?”

On December 20, 2007, President Bush signed routine postal legislation. In a “Signing Statement”, the President claims Executive Power to search the mail of U.S. citizens inside the United States without a warrant, in direct contradiction of the bill he had just signed. As a people, we seem beyond twitching an eyelash over items like these. Sigh.

Some people are starting to do more than twitch, however. The military recruiting station in Times Square was bombed. The news reports say that the bomber was on a blue 10-speed bike, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark pants. I’ve read a lot of theories, but personally I’ve been wondering about whether it might have been an Iraq veteran – no-one else would have more reason, or more skill. The target was pretty specific, with only property damage; in other words, it was a statement, not an attack. There are some efforts to tie the event with Canada border crossing incident in which a backpack containing a picture of Times Square was left behind. I think that’s pushing it… I would be very surprised if it wasn’t an American, but we’ll see how the investigation goes. Meanwhile, start rolling your eyes now. On Fox News (where else?) the infamous Oliver North was given a forum for his opinion on the matter. It’s all Pelosi’s fault. Uh-huh…

Right-wing misogyny is raising its head evident in the latest attempt to control the sexuality of the American female. Amanda Marcotte’s post on The Great Texas Dildo Wars is a must-read. “So this is completely, 100 percent about babies. No misogyny, control issues or wariness of female sexuality has any part to play in this.”

Don’t miss Colbert video on the AT&Treason immunity deal. It’s deliciously fun.

Last, there is the latest Iraq cost sheet:

U.S. military killed in Iraq: 3,973
Number of U.S. troops wounded in combat since the war began: 29,203
Iraqi Security Force deaths: 7,924
Iraqi civilians killed: Estimates range from 81,632-1,120,000

Internally displaced refugees in Iraq: 3.4 million
Iraqi refugees living abroad: 2.2-2.4 million
Iraqi refugees admitted to the U.S.: 3,222

Number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq: 155,000
Number of “Coalition of the Willing” soldiers in Iraq:
February 2008: 9,895
September 2006: 18,000
November 2004: 25,595

Army soldiers in Iraq who have served two or more tours: 74%
Number of Private Military Contractors in Iraq: 180,000
Number of Private Military Contractors criminally prosecuted by the U.S. government for violence or abuse in Iraq: 1
Number of contract workers killed: 917

What the Iraq war has created, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Council: “A training and recruitment ground (for terrorists), and an opportunity for terrorists to enhance their technical skills.”

Effect on al Qaeda of the Iraq War, according to International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Accelerated recruitment”

The bill so far: $526 billion
Cost per day: $275 million
Cost per household: $4,100
The estimated long-term bill: $3 trillion

What $526 billion could have paid for in the U.S. in one year:
Children with health care: 223 million or
Scholarships for university students: 86 million or
Head Start places for children: 72 million

Cost of 22 days in Iraq could safeguard our nation’s ports from attack for ten years.
Cost of 18 hours in Iraq could secure U.S. chemical plants for five years.

Iraqi Unemployment level: 25-40%
*U.S. unemployment during the Great Depression: 25%
70% of the Iraqi population is without access to clean water.
80% is without sanitation.
90% of Iraq’s 180 hospitals lack basic medical and surgical supplies.

79% of Iraqis oppose the presence of Coalition Forces.
78% of Iraqis believe things are going badly in Iraq overall.
64% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq.