How a Cult Programs You to Stay in the Trap: Escape Chapter 1 (Part Two)

In our last installment of Escape by Carolyn Jessop, we got a taste of the depression, despair, and abuse Carolyn lived with in her FLDS community. Today, we’ll see how her childhood conditioned her to fear the outside world, and accept her lot as an abused wife pumping out endless babies in a loveless plural marriage.

Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT are communities where children literally run screaming away from strangers. It isn’t because of stranger-danger or regular, if exaggerated, fears. Carolyn tells us she and the other kids Continue reading “How a Cult Programs You to Stay in the Trap: Escape Chapter 1 (Part Two)”

How a Cult Programs You to Stay in the Trap: Escape Chapter 1 (Part Two)
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The Little Lost Umbrella

Once upon a time, there was a natty black umbrella. It was born in a factory with thousands of others much like it, assembled by sweatshop workers who were desperate to feed their families. Practical hands packaged it, stuffed it in a box with dozens of its siblings, and then it went on a long ride in trucks and ships and possibly on railways until it reached a department store. It lived in the shelves for a while, where children used it as a sword. It felt this gave it character. It loved its swash-buckling days.

It watched a few of its siblings be sold. Their places were taken by close cousins. They all speculated after store closing, wondering what sort of hands they would end up in, and what the rain and wet were they were made to protect people from. Continue reading “The Little Lost Umbrella”

The Little Lost Umbrella

I Shall Now MALL NINJA!! Your Sunday

This is one of the most epic trolls I’ve ever read. It says something about our unhinged gun culture that I wasn’t sure it was a troll at first, rather than a man with a very rich fantasy life. Content note for the usual kind of sexism, fat-shaming, toxic masculinity and so forth you’d expect to find in forums full of gun-obsessed people.

Before we get to the excerpt proper, let our host ‘splain what a Mall Ninja is: Continue reading “I Shall Now MALL NINJA!! Your Sunday”

I Shall Now MALL NINJA!! Your Sunday

Happy National Science Day, Everybody!

Guess what day it is in India. That’s right, it’s National Science Day! You can check out their Facebook page to see some of the events going on, and Wikipedia has a brief explanation here. Did you know it not only showcases current science, but honors Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman’s discovery of the Raman effect? To which I, as an ordained minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, can only say, “R’amen!” Of course. Happy National Science Day, India!

Continue reading “Happy National Science Day, Everybody!”

Happy National Science Day, Everybody!

Terrifying Thoughts About the Power of Bad Christian Books to Change Culture

My leisure reading lately has been reviews of Christianist crap, much along the lines of Das Mervin and Jenny Trout’s sporkings of Fifty Shades of Grey Abusive Bullshit. What I do for Christianist textbooks, sites like Heathen Critique do for Christianist films and books. It’s a nice way to unwind, if you’re an odd sort like myself. But sometimes, it gets bloody terrifying, and reminds me there’s a serious reason to push back against really awful religious propaganda.

Take, for instance, the Left Behind series, which Fred Clark reads so we mercifully don’t have to. You may be tempted to dismiss them as nothing more than hack writing, lazy dime store thrillers that are nothing more than empty entertainment. But there are people who really truly believe the shit LaHaye and Jenkins are writing is prophesied to come true, and will happen any time now. Fred, being an evangelical Christian himself, is able to get deep into their worldview and show not just how fucked up it is, but how it informs their attitude towards things like taking care of the environment (why bother when you’re gonna be raptured?), world peace (anyone advocating for it is aiding and abetting the Antichrist), and war (bring on those end times!!!). These books both showcase and reinforce the fucked-up worldviews of people who believe they are living in the End Times, are Real True Christians who will be raptured, and love to smirk at those of us who will be left behind to suffer plagues, famine, war and death by their asshole of a god.

Sometimes, it gives me chills, especially when I realize how these folks are trying to make their prophecies self-fulfilling. Continue reading “Terrifying Thoughts About the Power of Bad Christian Books to Change Culture”

Terrifying Thoughts About the Power of Bad Christian Books to Change Culture

Mystery Flora: Starry Lavender-Blue Delights

Sometimes, rest areas are fruitful avenues of exploration. Take this little rest stop along the I5 near Douglas, Oregon. Lockwood and I stopped there during our May 2013 trip, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t expect to spend so much time out in the weeds. But what wonderful weeds they were! There was a little forest meadowy area filled with delights. These were among the most spectacular: Continue reading “Mystery Flora: Starry Lavender-Blue Delights”

Mystery Flora: Starry Lavender-Blue Delights

Dear Fellow White People: Could We Maybe Stop Letting Cops Get Away With Murder?

I haven’t said anything about Mike Brown and Eric Garner because I’ve been too angry to talk about it. And a lot of other FtBers have said or linked to the needful things. I hope you’ve read them, and shared them.

There’s nothing for me to say that hasn’t been said by someone else, probably better, but staying silent isn’t an option. Especially not when so many of my fellow white people are just fine with two grand juries deciding not to indict cops who murder black men. You can get them to indict a ham sandwich, but not a pig who’s killed a person of color. And you can get white people to scream about injustice if they get treated impolitely by a traffic cop, but apparently summary execution for the crime of existing while black is fine by them. They’re happy to dig up any petty excuse to justify murder, then. Dude was big and scary. He broke a minor law once. He shouldn’t have resisted the officer who was intent on killing him. Continue reading “Dear Fellow White People: Could We Maybe Stop Letting Cops Get Away With Murder?”

Dear Fellow White People: Could We Maybe Stop Letting Cops Get Away With Murder?

Free* to a Good Home: One Obnoxious Uterus, Lightly Used

Hello, there! Are you unhappily joined to a defective uterus, or missing yours altogether? Are you in the market for a working model, but can’t afford a brand-new one (mostly because medical science hasn’t advanced to the point where they can be mass-produced in the lab quite yet, and so you’d have to be a trillionaire to afford the R&D)? Have most of the used uteri you’ve seen for sale been too expensive, too extensively used, or otherwise incompatible?

You’re in luck! I’ve got just the uterus for you. It’s (reasonably) young, has never been used for childbirth, and is only slightly evil. I’m giving it away free* to a good home. It could be yours today! Continue reading “Free* to a Good Home: One Obnoxious Uterus, Lightly Used”

Free* to a Good Home: One Obnoxious Uterus, Lightly Used

Images Within Images

About time we had some happy fun times round here. Let us play with some of the first photographs of fall, then, shall we? All of the following photos have bits hidden in them, which anyone with a properly-attuned sense of pareidolia might see. I’ll help you along by giving you Subtle Clues.

Ready? Let’s see what’s not really there!

Continue reading “Images Within Images”

Images Within Images

Okay, Okay, Jeez, I’ll Get You a Feeder!

For the second time this summer, a little gray hummingbird has hovered meaningfully in the corner of my porch where a feeder could be hung quite handily, looked at me for a minute, and then zipped away. I am apparently being told in no uncertain terms that a hummingbird feeder is desired. I live to serve not only cats, but hummingbirds! Just think of the photos I could get for you, my darlings!

But I refuse to hang a feeder in ignorance. Advice and recommendations from those of you who know about this stuff would be awesome. The birds, the cat and I all thank you!

Image shows a gray and green hummingbird in flight against a pale gray background.
This isn’t my hummingbird. That little bugger never hovers when I have a camera ready. This is a female Anna’s hummingbird which vaguely resembles it. Photo by Matthew Field. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Okay, Okay, Jeez, I’ll Get You a Feeder!