Month: May 2015

How I Wish I’d Known It Was Erupting At the Time…

Dana Hunter5 Comments

Of course, if I’d know Mount St. Helens was actually erupting at the time, I’d probably have never gone. Volcano phobia, doncha know. I did haz one. But I thought all the eruptions were over, so I went up the mountain with my old friend Victoria, and didn’t realize until long afterward that we’d been there during an eruption. Sometimes, they’re that quiet!

I bring it up now because I just fetched my Mount St. Helens photos off the external hard drive in preparation for sorting out what I’ll need for the book I’m working on. I couldn’t resist flipping through the photos from that May 13, 2007 trip, and ran across the one Victoria took of me with my favorite volcano in the background. Alas, we only had my horrible old digital camera, so the pictures aren’t spectacular, but this one turned out well enough for me to crop to a nicety. Continue reading “How I Wish I’d Known It Was Erupting At the Time…” →

How I Wish I’d Known It Was Erupting At the Time…
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To The Victims of Josh Duggar and Predators Like Him

Dana Hunter6 Comments

The girls who were abused by Josh Duggar, and other kids in the Duggar family who need to escape, will probably never see this post. But if by some miracle they do, I want them to know: there are avenues of escape, should you want them. I’m pretty sure many of your fans would leap to provide you financial assistance through a GoFundMe campaign. Even those of us who aren’t fans would chip in – we care about your safety and well-being. You can hear other survivors’ stories and reach out for advice through No Longer Quivering and the Spiritual Abuse Survivors Network. I’m pretty sure the Free Jinger folks would lend a hand. If you need resources to help you deal with what Josh did to you, reach out to the good folks at RAINN [Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network] for information on where you can get proper counseling. You don’t have to wear a mask forever. You can overcome this, and you can live a life you were never allowed to dream of. And those resources will be available whether you need them today or decades from now. Someone on the outside will always be here for you.

That goes for all victims of sexual assault, and everyone trapped within the Christian Patriarchy movement. You don’t have to face this alone. The abuse you suffered does not define you. Continue reading “To The Victims of Josh Duggar and Predators Like Him” →

To The Victims of Josh Duggar and Predators Like Him

#TLC – Cancel the Duggars Immediately: Links to Horrifying News and Incisive Opinion

Dana Hunter2 Comments

So, it seems (as I write this on Saturday evening) that TLC is having a hard time deciding whether to take the Duggars’ wretched show off the air, or continue right on, just quietly shuffling Josh off to the side. When they found out one of their stars was a serial child molester who’d not only victimized young girls, but his own sisters, that show should’ve come down so fast it left a sucking void in the programming. Instead, they let a whole marathon run before reluctantly pulling episodes off the air, without even cancelling the damned show.

Judging from TLC’s recent shows – things like Sister Wives, and that submissive wife shit, and the asinine and exploitative My Husband’s Not Gay, they’ve either got people up top who love to parade religious fanatics around for the S & Gs, or they’ve got people at the top who are rabid Christians hoping their programming will program viewers into proper little godbots. I don’t care what the reason is. It just needs to stop. And the first thing they need to end is the program that features a serial child molester, the victims who were forced to forgive him, and the parents who did everything they could to bury it.

Since TLC is having a difficult time deciding to do the right thing, I’d like to invite advertisers to follow General Mills’s lead and pull their advertising completely. Money is the kind of talk they’ll listen to, probably, since common decency isn’t getting through.

But maybe a few people there still have a shred of decency tucked away. Maybe a few people there can push to do the right thing.

Image is a promotional shot of 19 Kids and Counting with the word CANCEL stamped across it.

Whether they’re moneygrubbers or possibly decent people, all of the execs at TLC should read these links, preferrably after cancelling 19 Kids forever, but at the very least immediately afterward. Continue reading “#TLC – Cancel the Duggars Immediately: Links to Horrifying News and Incisive Opinion” →

#TLC – Cancel the Duggars Immediately: Links to Horrifying News and Incisive Opinion

Silver Lake’s Adorable Baby Duckies

Dana Hunter7 Comments

Y’know, if it wasn’t for the occasional devastating eruption and house-eating lahar, I think I’d actually love living down by Silver Lake. B and I took a walk there near sunset on our last trip, and in the slanting reddish-gold rays of the lowering sun, it was about the most peaceful and beautiful place on Earth. I could spend hours just sitting on a boardwalk and watching the wildlife, from the insects to the birds and beyond.

I think the lake hosts the fastest ducklings on the planet, too. A mother and her group of babies passed us by at one point, swimming under the bridge, and they moved quicker than I’ve ever seen ducks go. One of them rocketed past its siblings so fast that B dubbed it Zipper. Here’s all I could catch of it on camera. Continue reading “Silver Lake’s Adorable Baby Duckies” →

Silver Lake’s Adorable Baby Duckies

Josh Duggar Molested Children, Then Made a Career Claiming Gays Dangerous to Children

Dana Hunter33 Comments

It’s not shocking that the Duggar family’s bright, smiling Good Christian™ Image hid some terrible things. It was obvious to anyone who knows anything about the Christian patriarchy movement that all those shiny happy faces concealed some pretty harsh truths. I figured the wheels would come off eventually, but I didn’t anticipate Josh Duggar being outed as a child molester. Needless to say: content note for child sexual abuse. Continue reading “Josh Duggar Molested Children, Then Made a Career Claiming Gays Dangerous to Children” →

Josh Duggar Molested Children, Then Made a Career Claiming Gays Dangerous to Children

Mystery Flora/Cryptopod Doubleheader: Beetles’ Favorite Fuzzy Flower

Dana Hunter6 Comments

I love Silver Lake. It is full of marshy wetland goodness. I wish I knew it in all seasons, but even though I don’t, I can already tell you that one of my favorite months is May. That’s when the yellow iris burst out all over the place, and the yellow water lilies are also blooming, and then there are other, tiny, fuzzy white flowers that look like stars.

Image shows a sprig of white flowers growing up from the water, together with sedges and broadleaf marsh plants.
Mystery Flora I

They’re really good at reflecting sunlight, too, which makes them difficult for my camera to deal with. But we did our best. Continue reading “Mystery Flora/Cryptopod Doubleheader: Beetles’ Favorite Fuzzy Flower” →

Mystery Flora/Cryptopod Doubleheader: Beetles’ Favorite Fuzzy Flower

Dispatches from Women’s World

Dana Hunter11 Comments

B and I are sitting side-by-side. We are in different worlds.

Image shows a red planet, a blue moon, and a binary star system.
Binary Star, Nebula, and Planet with Moons courtesy Matt Hendrick via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

B’s wishing he’d known women actually like sex back in his raging hormone days. Society had told him that girls just aren’t in to doing the wild thing, and he’d believed that, so he missed a lot of opportunities. He’s not the sort of man who’d ask a woman to do something she didn’t like. It’s why we’re together.

We’re watching UFC fights. B wishes the cage girls were curvier – these are famine years for men attracted to women who jiggle more in the bum than boobs. He’s hoping for an audience shot of Benson Henderson’s wife, because she’s a hottie. I’m busy watching various nearly-naked men in exquisite physical condition grapple and writhe. Some of the wrestling moves look like they could easily be modified for incredible bedroom encounters. And if Benson Henderson and I were unattached and he was interested, I’d love to test that theory with him. But as much as I’m assessing the fighters for potential happy fun sexytimes, I’m also aware that every one of them could turn horrifically violent in a heartbeat, and their strength, speed, and skill mean I wouldn’t stand a chance. So as much as I enjoy admiring the bodies and consider their performance potential, I’m also trying to read their character, aware that misjudging it could get me raped, killed, or both.

How many men consider calmly the chance that a potential sexual encounter will turn violent? Continue reading “Dispatches from Women’s World” →

Dispatches from Women’s World

Maddow’s Mount St. Helens Metaphor for the Iraq War

Dana Hunter12 Comments

A lot of you pointed me toward Rachel Maddow’s segment wherein she compares the aftermath of the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens with the aftermath of the Iraq War. Even if you hate politics and are sick to death of all mention of the war, watch the beginning. She did a marvelous job narrating the eruption. I tend to avoid talking heads on teevee, but Maddow is an artist as well as a kick-ass-take-names-and-pwn-them-all pundit, so she’s more than a bit of all right.

I love the way she begins the piece:

It started as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, and a large earthquake is almost never a good thing. But when it happens one mile beneath a huge, active volcano, it can be the start of something that feels a little bit like the end of the world.

And really, it did. All of us who watched that ash cloud consume the sky and swallow the day, whether in person or on our television screens, felt that. There are few things more ominous than an eruption cloud.

Now, some of you speculated that she was getting her facts from my posts, but I can assure you she didn’t. Continue reading “Maddow’s Mount St. Helens Metaphor for the Iraq War” →

Maddow’s Mount St. Helens Metaphor for the Iraq War

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

Dana Hunter6 Comments

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)