Hattie and Jake's Birthday

Birthday girl Hattie, age 2, thinks little Cousin Dutch is kind of a cute baby. Dutch, age 7 months, think Hattie's kind of all right, too, especially if she hands over that soda.

Little Cousin Anson, age 7 weeks or so, chilling out in his underwear.

Hattie got to ride all the way to the party with the pinata in her lap. She really became attached to it, and had no idea what a pinata is all about.

She took a couple of half-hearted hits at it, for the cameras.

Birthday Boy Jacob, age 4, was next, and he took some pretty good whacks at it.

Older kids like Izac had to wear a blindfold.

When the pinata broke and spilled it's contents, all the kids dived for the candy.

All the kids, that is, except for Hattie, who wasn't expecting her pinata to be destroyed. She wailed inconsolably. Her pinata, and her heart, were irretrievably broken.

It would take much more than a few miserable peices of candy to mend her broken heart. It would take time. Lots of time.

And Birthday Cupcakes and Birthday Candles.

And singing "Happy Birthday".

And watching Jacob blow out his Birthday Candles.

She hadn't quite grasped the concept of blowing out Birthday Candles, so Mama Susan had to temporarily confiscate the sucker.

Here you go Hattie, blow 'em out!

Yay, I did it!

Pinata? What pinata?

Didn't I see some Birthday Presents around here somewhere?

Hey, look what I got!

Thanks, Papa, for, um, whatever this is!

Here are some airplanes that I don't have to put together!

Hattie: Look Daddy, Papa and Grandma gave me my very own cell phone.

Mommy: I'm going to have to take the batteries out of that annoying noisy toy phone and hide 'em!

Oh, look. Bubboos!

Thank you Aunt Carla!

Tank

This is Jared and Mindy's youngest. His name is Dutch and he's seven months old. He's a tank. Jared told me he weighs about 24 lbs.

He's pretty good natured, not fussy at all.

It appears that he likes to eat.

The only time I saw him get cranky was when Mama Mindy was a little slow delivering the vittles.

"Don't mess with me, big guy!"

Here's Aunt Carla holding and feeding him while he contemplates taking a nap.

Okay, his tummy's full...

Snore.

Here's Grandpa and Dutch. Look, we're practically twins. Well, 60 years apart, is all.

All buckled up and ready to hit the road.

I wish that big guy would quit flashing that thing.

Independence Day, July 4th 2008

We're flying the flag here at 648 in honor of our nation's independence, which was declared 232 years ago today by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. God Bless America.

There are flags flying all over Utah Valley.

And jets, too.

Later tonight there will be fireworks. Here are some pictures from last year.




Here's wishing you and yours a happy and safe Independence Day.

"SCOTUS should have kept quiet on DC gun ban," whines SL Tribune

In an unsigned editorial, the Salt Lake Tribune claims the Supreme Court couldn't have found their conclusion based on a fair reading "of the plain language of the amendment" in the Heller v. DC gun ban case.

"The U.S. Supreme Court's holding Thursday that the Second Amendment enshrines in the Constitution an individual right to keep firearms in the home outside the context of a state militia was wrongly decided and turned decades of settled judicial precedent on its head. No fair reading of the plain language of the amendment or its history could have reached the conclusion the court announced."
...

"Justice Scalia, perhaps as the price of winning over the deciding vote, wrote that the newly minted individual right is not unlimited. "It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose," he wrote. (Utah Legislature, please note.) Concealed carry can be prohibited, guns can be banned from schools and government buildings, and firearms sales can be regulated, Scalia opined. Unfortunately, Thursday's decision declares open season on all kinds of other gun laws, and the courts now will become the range officers on a firing line of lawsuits. It would have been better to leave Second Amendment precedent alone and let legislatures and city councils determine the best gun policies for their communities."

You can go here and read the whole editorial if you're interested. The comments are running about 57% in opposition to the editorial.

THINK FAMILIES ARE FOREVER? WELL, THINK AGAIN.

Texas has a bounty on kids' heads, and they're probably not the only ones.

Kurt Schulzke at I Perceive blog, describes how it's set up in a shocking post. He shows how the Texas courts have taken all the power unto themselves, legislative, executive, and judicial, in stacking the deck against Texas families that might fall into their net. It's a system that turns Child Protective Services into a state sanctioned mercenary racket designed to take kids away from their families and put them on the market for adoption.

Texas courts and CPS collaborating to take children from parents? Sounds like conspiracy theory. Evidence? Try this November 2007 Texas Supreme Court Order creating out of thin air — utterly without legislative authority — the Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families.

This Order and recent conduct by various Texas judges, especially Supreme Court Justice Harriet O’Neill, cast doubt on whether the people of Texas can realistically trust the Texas courts to impartially decide child protection cases. The deck is heavily stacked against families and in favor of “child protection” mercenaries who make money grabbing and selling kids while traveling the country teaching others how to do it with a minimum of fuss.

The process that created the Commission and its charter reveal the Texas Supreme Court wielding all three fundamental constitutional powers: legislative, executive and judicial. Through the Commission chaired by a Supreme Court Justice, the Court legislates by creating regulations and then implements these regulations throughout the “collaborative” Texas “child protection” system. Later, it rules on child protective cases. In essence, the Court helps mix the CPS pudding, delivers it and announces how good it is.

Please go here and read the whole thing.

Brainwashed!

A few days ago the Salt Lake Tribune published a comment by Rebecca Walsh that pointed out that the ACLU hasn't been particularly valiant in defense of the women's issues that have clearly come to the forefront of the Texas/FLDS child custody case in recent weeks. If I remember correctly, she characterized the ACLU response as "waffling".

Ms. Antoinnette Billings of Cottonwood Heights has taken umbrage, and responded with a Public Forum Letter, which I have linked and quoted in its entirety, along with my own comments.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_9431788

FLDS women brainwashed
Public Forum Letter
Salt Lake Tribune
5/30/2008

Rebecca Walsh confuses feminists with the American Civil Liberties Union in "Feminists waffle in FLDS case" (Tribune, May 25). Polygamy is inherently sexist. It fosters the control of women. Feminists have no role in the defense of women in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Feminism rightfully selects issues that address a woman's right against subordination. It would be appropriate to assist the FLDS women in a variety of ways, but not in their "choice" to allow abuse to perpetually rain upon their children. There is no "choice" to defend when brainwashing begins at birth.

The notion that a woman gains power in polygamy is an acquiescent lie. It is something she achieves through the manipulation of her husband in the performing of her childbearing and household duties. Manipulating one's spouse instead of communicating as adults has no place in any equal partnership. Manipulation belongs in the repertoire of wily, whining children. In the adult, it is found in the dishonest and immature.

An issue of "waffling" or "conflict" does not exist.

Antoinette Billings
Cottonwood Heights

There were many comments, and I added my own.

This charge of being brainwashed is a clever but vacuous argument, designed to discredit anyone who chooses to oppose a particular point of view, in this case, a feminist one. It's manipulative, dishonest, and deceitful. It's a clever way of saying "the choice you've made is stupid, so you must be stupid."

Today's feminists are a generation who have grown up having been thoroughly indoctinated in the feminist dogma. In other words, they've been brainwashed, too.

The problem with this kind of argument is that it dehumanizes the people who are being targeted. If you've been brainwashed, the argument would logically flow, then you shouldn't be allowed to make choices, you shouldn't be allowed to vote, you shouldn't be allowed to make personal decisions, such as who to marry, or when, and you shouldn't be allowed to have children. If you've been brainwashed, then it's alright for the state to take away your children and put them up for adoption, hopefully by people who've been indoctinated in a more acceptable dogma.

If you're interested, you can go to the link and read all the comments. Be warned, some of them are pretty tedious.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_9431788

Incidentally, here are some dictionary definitions of brainwashing and propaganda:

brainwashing
1 : a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas
2 : persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship

propaganda
: the spreading of ideas or information to further or damage a cause; also
: ideas or allegations spread for such a purpose

To be honest, I believe there's been an inordinate amount of brainwashing and propaganda going on for several decades, in the news media, in public schools and on college campuses, and it's a liberal, leftist, socialist idealogy that has been promoted. The purpose, I suppose, is to establish this idealogy as the approved, acceptable social dogma, to which all civil society must ascribe.

To counter this trend, many conservative parents have started sending their children to private schools, or began homeschooling. And to counter that trend, there's a movement afoot to make homeschooling in California illegal. If Illiberal liberals don't like something that's going on, they just criminalize it.

Hattie Mae Charming

Hattie Mae, who's 22 months old, came to the hospital to visit her newborn cousin Anson. It took her a few minutes to wake up from her nap and perk up her usual charming smile, but she managed.

Here she poses with one of her favorite people, her mom.

And here is little cousin Anson, one day old.

Anson was more interested in sleeping than meeting his relatives.

Anson may have been the center of attention, but with this great smile, Hattie Mae held her own very well, thank you.

Blogger wonders why LDS Church seems to be AWOL in Texas/YFZ custody case.

"It is a matter of some curiousity to me personally that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, normally so quick to offer aid and comfort to victims of oppression and natural disaster, have apparently offered nothing to these people, not even kind words. To date, I have heard only assertions that those FLDS are not connected with 'us' in any way. Where is the Good Samaritan?" --Kurt Shulzke, I Perceive blog

It took me a while to formulate a response from my own personal perspective. Here it is:

Being a member I can give a little insight, from my own perspective, as to why the LDS Church has had so little to say in this matter. The LDS Church has renounced polygamy as a practice, but not as a doctrine. The Church excommunicates members who practice polygamy, and refers to the polygamous offshoots as apostates. Most of the polygamists refer to the LDS Church as apostate since they no longer practice polygamy. The LDS Church actively proselytizes among all other people, but they make no effort to proselytize among apostate groups. Early Church history documents that much of the persecution the Church endured was stirred up by apostates, so the Church is reluctant to take a bullet, so to speak, for apostates.

The Church is damned if they do, and damned if they don't, in this case. If they step up and say this is a case of religious persecution, critics of the Church are poised to say the Church is defending polygamy and is against the rule of law, and that they have a secret desire to re-establish the practice of polygamy. If they step up and say Texas is doing the right thing by prosecuting these people, other critics will say that the Church is delighting in the persecution of its enemies. The Church, I'm sure, wants to avoid that perception at all costs. So the Church has been content to keep silent, except for the steadfast disavowal of any relationship with the FLDS.

But even Judge Walther has dragged the LDS Church into the middle of this mess. While in the shelter in San Angelo, CPS didn't allowed private prayer time for fear that the FLDS mothers would use the time to coach the children to avoid answering CPS questions. Judge Walther suggested that LDS representatives could supervise the prayer sessions. But she didn't understand the tension that exists between the two faiths. FLDS members would resent it and view it as an intrusion, and LDS members would wonder why they should be asked to spy on the FLDS for CPS. Let them do their own spying. They seem pretty adept at that anyway. Understand that this is my personal perception of the rock and a hard place that the LDS Church finds itself in with this difficult situation.

It's safe to say that the way the FLDS practice this tenet of their religion makes most Latter-Day Saints very uneasy. Forced or arranged marriages of 13 or 14 year old girls to 50 + year old men or cousins or uncles is as repugnant to present day Mormons as it is to Baptists or any other group. Plural marriage as practiced by 19th century Mormons was voluntary, and even the first wife had a say, as I understand it.

My own view of this whole thing is that this seizing of all the children was wrong, and motivated by prejudice and bias, and CPS has run a ruthless hate campaign against the FLDS group, knowing that if they can get the rest of us to despise these people enough, they just might get away with this horrible abuse of power. If there have been crimes committed, prosecute the guilty, prove the crimes in court and punish them apropriately if convicted. But this business of taking all the children before any crimes have been proven punishes the innocent before the guilty.

Newborn Grandbaby

Meet Anson Riley Petersen, born at 1:46 p.m. Mountain Time yesterday, 27 May 2008. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 9 oz.

Mother Jodi and baby (and daddy Brad) are all doing great.

So far he hasn't been very fussy at all. We were there for well over an hour and he hardly even whimpered. Quite content to just lie there and sleep. Brad laid him down and uncovered him to see if he'd object. Nope. ZZZZZZZ.

So he tickled his feet. He didn't like that very much, and objected. "Daddy, quit picking on me!"

Soon he was right back in Slumberville.