Behold all things become new

I gave my old boots to a friend a while back (you can read about that here) and this is what she has done:

My boots are now happy.

Happy Mother's Day!!

"Mother and Child (Cherries)"
Replica of Lord Leighton's painting, by Ivan Frontani

I love you, Mother!!

Sad Cherub

Two weeks ago, over the weekend, it became obvious the Cherub had an abscessed tooth. We had known she wasn't feeling well because she wasn't eating as usual and she drooled a lot. But she also had a very runny nose (it's allergy season) and she doesn't swallow her spit, she likes to swish it for a long and very annoying amount of time. And it seemed reasonable to me that she was drooling because she would swish too much and too long and then suddenly realize, oh, gasp, she needed to breathe, and since her nose was stuffy, she'd open her mouth and there we were- rainbows everywhere.

We called our dentist, but it was Saturday and he left no emergency contact. We called our nurse's hotline. They suggested E.R. We took her there, without much hope (the nurse's hotline is through our insurance, and they don't know our emergency room like we do). The doctor there was very nearly useless, couldn't figure out why we'd come, kept explaining that he was not a dentist (yes, we know) and finally agreed to give us an antibiotic prescription, which is what we were there for.

Monday morning my husband took her to the dentist, who is a very nice dentist who has worked long and hard on the Cherub's teeth, sometimes to the point of being in a rank sweat when a session is over (she is not weeping and wailing when we are there, but she also not remotely cooperative). He said firmly that she absolutely had to be put under for the necessary process, and he couldn't do that.

We called around and the earliest appointment we could get was for next week- two weeks and two days after discovering the abscessed tooth. We took the appointment, but looked more for others, and finally we got in on Wednesday morning- The Cherub had to leave the house at 6 a.m. to get there on time.

So, a reminder about the Cherub.... She doesn't speak. She does not experience pain in a typical fashion- which is good and bad. Good because she's not been as miserable as we all would be with an abscessed tooth, bad because she does not say, "Mommy, my tooth hurts," in a timely fashion and so we find this out when her cheek looks like somebody injected a golf ball into it.

STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH OR ARE PREGNANT AND DO NOT SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!

And good, because she really wasn't at all unhappy on Wednesday or Thursday after the surgery. But bad because she wanted to eat what she can't have, she wants to suck her thumb and she isn't supposed to suck; she would not stop swishing her spit, and she's not supposed to swish so she just kept dribbling bits of blood all that time- not enough to worry, but enough so that the HG (who gets squeamish over loose teeth) said she was about to faint and even I felt queasy, because she wouldn't swallow it, she just swished and swished, and it would ooze out of her mouth down the sides like a drooly vampire and, oh, I'm sorry. I'll wait until you come back from the bathroom.

The bill was over 400 dollars.
Excuse me. Now I have to go be sick.

And again with the bleeding. She also had gauze that she would not leave in and she bit the Equuschick when she tried to adjust it and the Cherub thought that was really the funniest thing that had happened to her all day long, which, since she had two molars yanked out that day and stitches put in, it probably was.

Which brings us to Friday. She seemed to be doing okay, so we took her out with us to the music recital four of our Progeny were in. That was probably a mistake all by itself. It was made triply an error when she made it clear that 'not responding typically' to pain is not the same as 'feeling no pain at all' when Grandpa patted her enthusiastically on the side of her cheek and said, "How ya doin', Sweetie?" Sweetie was not well.

The Equuschick and I left early with the Cherub, going by a grocery store for more yogurt. The Cherub would not eat it when we got home, and clearly was not in a frame of mind for amusing activities such as biting our fingers. The HG slept with her- or rather, they spent the night in the same double bed, nobody much slept. She reports the Cherub had a fever, which did go down with tylenol.

Today she is pale, droopy, and clearly uncomfortable. She has eaten applesauce and yogurt. She refused to drink at all until I hit upon the notion of using the blue bulb syringe more popularly known as the Brain Sucker (it's often used to clear infants' nostrils). I had one never before used to clean an infant's nose, I cleaned it up a day or two ago, thinking I'd use it to suction the Cherub Vampire's bloody drool, but I used paper towels instead. So I used it today to give her water- and she seemed to like that very well, except for the one painful incident where she closed her lips tightly on it before I could get it away and suction was applied to her mouth. Neither of us enjoyed that.

She's now had some echinacea/lavender tea liberally sweetened with honey, through the brain sucker (which clearly needs another name), and she even opens her mouth and says 'Aaaah' with me when I squirt it in there.
Later she's having some chicken broth souped up with loads of garlic in the same fashion.

She's wrapped up in blankets and a bathtowel on the living room couch, listening to a hymn C.D. (she likes church songs) and looking sad and pathetic. She wants to suck her thumb and we won't let her. She is sure somebody should be punished for this.

Updated: Apologies, I did forget to add the usual labels to Cherub posts. The Cherub does not favor her chicken and garlic tea, and she is not Amused at my efforts to get it down her. She was, however, more than willing to have several large mouthfuls of tea to wash it down.
Funny that- she loves wasabi sauce- eats it with a spoon. Soup is not her favorite, but I don't think it's the taste she objects to, it's the lack of texture. She doesn't feel she's really been fed if she's only give soup. Soesn't like pickles. And the only other food we've known her to positively reject was a banana split- she adores bananas and loves ice-cream, but apparently the two together are an intolerable contamination of two of her favorite foods. She tried to throw them away the only time we've given it to her, and I have NEVER known her to throw out food.
But I think we might add strongly garlicky broth to her short list of despised foods.

Links to Court Papers

This is from the papers the state has submitted to the court in response to the mandamus thing-gummy that the attorneys for several mothers filed to protest the way this mess has been handled and get the kids back.

March 29th, 11:30, Angie Voss says they have this report of a 16 year old being physically and sexually abused (this would be the 33 year old Rozita Swinton from Colorado, who claimed to be pregnant, to have been beaten so badly she'd been in the hospital to be treated for broken ribs, and that currently she was in danger).

April 3rd (no time given): Ms Voss, twelve investigators and 'law enforcement (no numbers for these given, elsewhere I've read 700) went to investigate that emergency.

She says that two or three girls 'could have been' Sarah, that they gave different last names at different times, that they dishonestly said they had no middle names (perhaps so, but one wonders how she knew at this time that they were lying about middle names?). Some girls said they were going to 'plead the fifth' (how did these sheltered, sequestered 'children' know such things?) and they found a shredder with the light on and paper dangling from it. They also refused to answer questions about the identity of persons living in their homes, and the 'girls' continued to give different names without explaining why and said they were pleading the fifth.
Maybe. Maybe these weren't 'girls' but adult women who were pleading the fifth.

"One alleged mother identified four children as being hers, but later indicated they were not"

So all the mothers are penalized for the actions of a few? And the account of the actions of those few leaves some other questions wide open.

Angie 'observed' some 16 year old girls were married, and she was bothered by the appearance of pervasive beliefs with which she did not approve- they said they wanted to have as many babies as they could and that no age was too young to be married and they wanted to marry when the prophet said they should marry- so she removed the first 26 'girls.' How did she know they were 16 years old? She admittedly only interviewed a few girls, how could she know these alleged minors were equipped to explain the religious beliefs of several hundred people?

Girl “number three” reported that she knows a sixteen-year-old girl,
Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, who has a five-month-old baby, and that she is
married to “Dan B.”, whom girl number three believed to be twenty-three years
old. 4 RR 212.
Girl “number four” reported in her journal entry dated 10/03/07 that law
enforcement was looking for the husband and wives, quoting “Mother Milly
and Mother Lori, because they were underage when they got married.” 4 RR
213.
Girl “number six” advised that there is no age limit for girls to get
married and have children. 4 RR 213.
Girl “number eight” stated there is a girl named “Mother Beth,” and that
she is a teenager. 4 RR 214.
(So... only one child told her there is no age limit? But this shows a 'pervasive belief?')
Girl “number nine” advised that the prophet told her to lie to authorities,
because the prophet receives his messages from the “Heavenly Father.” 4 RR
214. She further reported that “Uncle Merrill”, after being advised by her that
she hadn’t seen her mom in two years, stated, “it’s none of her business.”
Uncle Merrill decides who she will marry and when she will marry, and that the
age depends upon what the “Heavenly Father” decides. 4 RR 214.
Suzanne Johnson is seventeen years old and had a one-year-old son
named Seth. 4 RR 215.

Five entries in the “Bishop Records” 6 RR, PETITIONER’S EXHIBIT 4; 4 RR 252-
53 reveal the following:
The “second child” is sixteen years old and is currently pregnant. 4 RR
253.
The “third child” was sixteen years old when she conceived a child. 4
RR 253.
The “fourth child” was fifteen years old when she conceived a child. 4
RR 253.
The “fifth child” was fifteen years old when she conceived a child. 4 RR
253.
The “second to last one” was thirteen years old when she conceived a
child. RR 4 254.

(by all accounts,this 13 year old was 13 in 1997)

Ms. Voss testified she believed the boys were being groomed to be perpetrators.
4 RR 261. Part of the danger to the boys is that it is their belief system requires them
to follow the prophet. 4 RR 281-82. Ms. Voss expressed the opinion that girls are
born and grown to be sexual abuse victims. 4 RR 257. She indicated that as of April
18, 2008, the investigation established that there were over twenty girls who had either
conceived or given birth younger than sixteen or seventeen years of age. 4 RR 30.
Ms. Voss testified that after contact with the children and adults at YFZ Ranch,
“they explained that they are one big family, one large community, and they have the
same belief system.” 4 RR 258. All of the woman are called mothers to all of the
children in the home, and the children call each other brothers and sisters. It appears
that a mother is married to one man, and that man is married to other women. 4 RR
230. Although the YFZ Ranch has several houses on it, its occupants consider
themselves to be part of one large community. 4 RR 271. Ms. Voss indicated that this investigation was analogous to other investigations where the Department finds one
victim in a home and then has concerns for all of the other children in that home. In
this case, since the occupants of the ranch consider themselves as living in one large
home or community, Ms. Voss had concerns for all of the children there. 4 RR 304.

(suddenly being one large community or family is the same as one large home! I have been a member of a church where we also considered ourselves one large family, a community of believers, but that certainly didn't mean the state would have had the right to remove my children for something another member did to hers, nor to treat me as a member of the same household of a family who lived under a separate roof from mine)

including Ms. Voss’ observation of how the mothers and children were responsive to
Merrill Jessop and how they were living under an umbrella of belief that girls of a
young age having children is a blessing, Ms. Voss concluded that the environment at
the YFZ Ranch would not be safe for any of the children. 4 RR 262. Further,
according to Ms. Voss, it would not be safe for any of the children to be returned to the
ranch, because the adults on the ranch whom she had interviewed had expressed that
they are not doing anything harmful to their children, and that the practice of children
being united and having children, is part of their culture and belief system. 4 RR 260.

Dr. Bruce Duncan Perry
Dr. Bruce Duncan Perry is a child psychiatrist (M.D.) who specializes in child
maltreatment and child development. 5 RR 57-58. In the past, he has worked
professionally with children removed from the Branch Davidian Compound, and has
worked with groups such as the Children of God, Moon Group, Posse Comitatus, and
the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS). 5 RR 61, 63.
Dr. Perry met with two young adults who grew up in the FLDS community. 5
RR 63. He talked with them about their beliefs and life in the community. 5 RR 64.

9
One girl described to Dr. Perry that although she didn’t have to get married, her father
had driven her to the YFZ Ranch where, unbeknownst to her, a marriage had already
been arranged. 5 RR 75-76. When she arrived, her father informed her that the
prophet said she was to be married to this man and she said yes, although she would
not have had to. 5 RR 76. However, Dr. Perry testified that when persons are raised
in an environment where it is a blessing to have children and to be compliant to your
father and the prophet, whether to marry is not really free choice. 5 RR 76.
Dr. Perry interviewed another FLDS member, Becky Musser, who had been
married to Rulon Jeffs. When Rulon Jeffs died, she was told to marry Warren Jeffs,
which she refused. She then left the FLDS. 5 RR 77.
Dr. Perry declared that the pregnancy of the YFZ children was the result of
sexual abuse. 5 RR 92. Dr. Perry testified that children of the age of fourteen, fifteen,
or sixteen are not emotionally mature enough to consensually enter into a healthy
relationship or marriage. 5 RR 72. He further testified that FLDS members believe
that continued disobedience of a father, elders, or the prophet would lead to eternal
damnation. 5 RR 73-74.
Regarding the boys, Dr. Perry expressed two concerns: 1) the pervasive belief,
and pervasive obedience to that belief, that it is okay to have sex with and marry
young women, is unhealthy; and 2) this pervasive practice and belief creates an
environment that develops people who have a high potential of replicating sexual
abuse of young children as a part of their belief system. 5 RR 77. Regarding both
male and female children, Dr. Perry stated that when children are socialized into a
Based upon the investigation of documented sexual abuse of the children,
belief system and behavior that is embedded in their religion, it is extremely deeply
ingrained. 5 RR 83. Further, when a child is raised in an environment where there are
unhealthy relationships, a child’s brain will not develop properly; this lack of
development adversely affects the part of the brain that is involved in independent
decision making. 5 RR 79. Children who have grown up in “very controlling or
authoritarian environments that determine what you eat, how you dress, who you
socialize with, and so forth,” have the “independent thinking capability of a much
younger child.” 5 RR 81-82. A child of fifteen or sixteen has “the capacity to make
independent decisions like a six-year-old.” 5 RR 82. This lack of independent
decision making would make a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old child who left the group
highly vulnerable to individuals willing to exploit them and take advantage of their
child-like qualities. 5 RR 82.

10
are living in a household where there has been sexual abuse. 5 RR 109. Even with
respect to boys from age five to eleven, Dr. Perry had concerns that they would
continue to be exposed to beliefs that include under-age marriage and, essentially,
sexual abuse of girls. 5 RR 133. Dr. Perry also stated that if any of the children were
returned to the ranch, there would be “cause for concern that the children could either
be hidden or removed from the jurisdiction of the Court.” 5 RR 162.
Dr. William John Walsh
Dr. William John Walsh was called as an expert witness by five alleged fathers,
James Dockstader, Don Jessop, Leland Jessop, Leland Keates, and Lamar Johnson. 4
RR 40; 5 RR 167. Dr. Walsh defined a household in the FLDS faith as being centered
around a patriarch or husband who will have one or more wives. The wives are not
necessarily his legal wives. Finally, there are children resulting from those unions. 5
RR 173. Dr. Walsh identified Warren Jeffs as the prophet who leads FLDS. 5 RR
180. He acknowledged that under Warren Jeffs, under-age marriage has taken place.
5 RR 180.
Dr. Walsh clearly indicated that among FLDS, the age of physical development
for a girl made them eligible for marriage. 5 RR 183. He did qualify his opinion,
however, by indicating that some in the church expressed that age eighteen was a good
age. Other church members have said that sixteen is a good age if the parents agree. 5
RR 183. Others expressed the opinion that when a female begins her menstrual cycle,
that is a sign that the girl is ready for marriage. 5 RR 183.

I would have liked to fiddle around with this more, copying and pasting but in the midst of reading the document, the copying and pasting function ceased to work.

There's also a response, which makes most excellent reading, and I highly recommend it. This is 'Steed's' amended appeal filed in direct response to the state's accusations above. Among other things, they say that not only did the state actually have accesses to the names of the mothers and their children, but just to be sure, the attorneys sent it 'electronically' to the very lawyers who later said the state didn't have to respond because the mothers were engaged in a conspiracy of secrecy and silence to keep their names from the state. They are not asking that the state close the investigation, or even that the state return the children over 15. They are asking that the mothers be permitted to live with their younger children- which the state's own expert, quoted above, stresses was very important.
There's also a good amount of backup to support the shocking idea that the state thinks the removal of children has no effect upon them, and proving otherwise.

I would love to spend more time chewing on these two legal documents, but... I can't.

Need a Day Bed?

According to a clipping I tore out of a magazine at some point in the last year and just now rediscovered, you can give a plain twin bed the look of a day-bed by putting a wicker headboard at each end. It needn't be wicker, of course.

Name This Book

They had that forgetfulness of history that goes everywhere with the extension of education. (page 105)

It is our nature always to follow vanishing things and value them if they really show a resolution to depart. (page 67)

He was of a sort sometimes called a strong man, who is strong in fulfilling his desires, but not in controlling them. (page 87)

---------

Unfortunately, I can't name this book, either. In, ahem, cleaning my room at some point I scooped all kinds of odds and ends and clutter up from all the surfaces in the room and dumped them into a laundry basket. I am now slowly putting away the things in that basket. But I dumped the things in it a couple months ago, and there is no telling how long they'd been in whatever piles I scooped up before that. I took those notes on an index card which also contains a note scrawled to myself to pick up our grass-fed beef by November 3rd or 4th, and a number for the hotel my husband stayed in on a business trip last fall. I carefully wrote the page numbers, but no title of the book I was reading.

I want you all to know that it's been years since I cleaned the kitchen by hiding dirty dishes in the oven or drier.
The fact that the Progeny have been doing the dishes for years probably has nothing something everything to do with this.

State Says Boys Are In Danger Because of Their Belief System

Nauseating

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services sent letters to 16 group homes and shelters this week asking them to line up shots for the children.
"It appears to be a totally unimmunized population," said Patrick Crimmins, department spokesman. "We're the legal parents of the children and we would like for them to be immunized."
Crimmins said the state requires all children in custody to be immunized for their "health and safety." He said no one would be forced to get inoculations; older children specifically would have the opportunity to decline the shots.
A Dallas attorney called the demand "outrageous."
"The truth is [FLDS parents] don't kow what to do," said Polly R. O'Toole, who represents one child. "They would prefer to make that decision. But they are afraid to exercise any options out of fear they will be perceived as uncooperative by CPS."

I wonder if they're going to make sure the children know they can refuse? I wonder if this vaccine will be among them.

The state says the women do not deserve to get their children back because of their belief system and because they won't identify their children and which child belongs to whom:

But in an answer to the state filed today, TRLA attached a list of each mother and her children to refute the state's claims they are unwilling to identify their offspring.

TLA is also objecting to the mass hearings as denying each family the right to defend themselves as individuals. The state's response is bizarre, at least to those who read the reporter's summary of the two day hearings. The judge repeatedly shut lawyers up, told them not to waste her time with objections and appeals, and that they would get a chance to voice their concerns 'later.' But the state says,

" The state argues that during a hearing held April 17-18, no attorneys objected to the format used - which it narrowly interprets to mean use of an overflow auditorium.
Numerous attorneys did object to the "en masse" hearings, which they said denied their clients the right to individually make the case their children were not at risk.
But holding individual hearings by a statutory 14-day deadline would have been "an extraordinary waste of judicial resources" and a "logistical nightmare," the state argues.
It also says attorneys for parents and children were given ample opportunity to question witnesses and present evidence before Walther concluded the children were at risk. "

As one commenter to that news story points out:

Due process is now an extraordinary waste of judicial resources. Unbelievable. It's becoming more and more clear that this whole thing is a railroad job. At what point does somebody resort to violence to try to overthrow this tyrannical government? The FLDS are better than me in that regard.

And the state is flat out lying that no attorney objected to the hearings. The judge summarily dismissed each and all objections, and she told the attorneys to be patient and stop making objections. At least one attorney called the hearing a farce.

And the state acknowledges loud and clear that this is about a belief system:

Girls told them there was no age too young to be married. Girls as young as 16 were already mothers and lived in households with other wives. The state identified around 20 "girls" who had conceived or given birth younger than 16 or 17 - though some of the mother's ages are now disputed and some births occurred years ago.
As for boys, the danger to them is a "belief system requires them to follow the prophet," the filing states. Removing the men from the ranch and allowing women to care for the children there was "untenable and impractical," the filing said.
The "entire male and female population at the ranch had been enculturated (sic) into the belief that underage marriage was sacrosanct," the state argues.

First of all, 'no age is too young to be married,' sounds like something a six year old might say, so I'd like to know which girls allegedly said this and in what context. It's also obviously NOT part of the FLDS belief system since the state doesn't have any examples from this decade of girls younger than 16 from.
And mainstream LDS are also supposed to follow their prophet, as are Muslims, and reasoning like this was part of the anti-Catholic sentiment in the country until not too long before Kennedy was elected. And I would bet money that it's not 'under-age marriage' that is sacrosanct, but marriage.

In TRLA's response, lawyers argued the state still has not justified the children's removal and instead shifts responsibility for the situation to the mothers.
State and federal law holds parents have a fundamental interest in actions involving removal of children, contrary to the department's assertion questioning the mothers' right to challenge its action in court, the response said.
The law firm also said the state used "mere innuendo, supposition and extrapolation rather than actual evidence for each child" to meet requirements for taking custody of the children.

In another paper's story of the same filing, the state tacitly acknowledges that they have taken children from parents who were not abusive, and basically says, "So what? We can:

"Previous court rulings have determined that it isn't necessary to prove that a parent personally abused their own child in order to show that a child is in danger, the court documents state.

Texas officials say several teens at the ranch were either pregnant or had children when they were underage. As for the boys and younger children, the agency argues says they are still in danger if allowed to continue living in that environment.

The new filing refers the appeals court to testimony from child psychiatrist Bruce Perry, who described an "unhealthy" belief that it's OK to have sex with and marry young women. "This pervasive practice and belief creates an environment that develops people who have a high potential of replicating sexual abuse of young children as a part of their belief system," the court document states.

"Part of the danger to the boys is that their belief system requires that they follow the prophet," it also stated.

Attorneys also complained that the state never even considered less invasive options, such as having the men leave the ranch, or letting the mothers move elsewhere and keep their children. The state basically argues two things- what would have kept mothers from fleeing with their children (which is true enough in any case where they've let the mother live separate from the husband while keeping the kids), and 'it was too much trouble for us:

'As "the largest child protection case documented in the history of the United States," DFPS or, CPS as it is commonly called, said the sheer numbers of FLDS children prevented them from pursuing other options it might have considered in a more typical case.

OJ Simpson didn't lose custody of his kids, and everybody knows he brutally murdered their mother and a friend. But all these parents lost their children because of a belief system and five under-aged marriages.

FLDS for May 9th

Updates below, keep scrolling...

Interesting tale of the 'Lost Boy.' Some of them testify that they were plied with money and alcohol, even the under-age children. Several refused and went to the media or their parents to share their side.

One thing I think I am learning is that even in a group as homogeneous as the FLDS, there are individual differences, and we should not try the entire group for the sins of some. Here we have another side of the Lost Boys- this woman who runs an organization to help them says many leave by choice, some leave in much more painful circumstances:

Michelle Benward's organization operates a home for Lost Boys, the FLDS teens who have left or been ''urged out'' of the community.

She said that currently there are 14 teens in the home. Benward said that since July she has had direct contact with another 100 teens ages 14 to 24 from the FLDS community.

The No. 1 reason the teens give for leaving the community, Benward said, is that they did not want to live the religion. But others are kicked out of their homes for trivial reasons.

Among them: A boy whose parents left him in St. George with $5 in his pocket in December because he had gone to an unapproved movie.

Benward said many of the teens she is working with have been severely traumatized by events in Texas. She also said that most of the teens come from loving families whom they miss terribly.

She asked the media to avoid asking the teens about issues that are likely to retraumatize them, such as sexual abuse.

Here's an article on the upcoming hearings and service plans:

In a typical service plan, there are recommendations and requirements that may need to be completed before a parent is reunited with their child.

"If, for example, we have a parent who has some substance abuse issues, the plan may be that the parent go into rehab," Walker said. "If you've got issues with neglect, making sure the child is properly cared for, we'd look at parenting classes, homemaking classes. The plan has to address whatever changes are necessary to reduce the level of risk." [so that means these plans will primarily address the speed at which CPS can get the kids out of foster care and send them home?]

Walker said she did not know what the service plans would address or recommend with the FLDS children and their parents. Texas CPS workers have claimed that the polygamist sect has a culture that lends itself to abuse, with girls being raised to become child brides.

The Texas child welfare system gives authorities up to a year to work with a family. If necessary, a judge can grant an extension. With 464 children in state protective custody, authorities concede that this case is not typical.

CPS said it is working with the Texas Education Agency to deal with the educational needs of the FLDS children.

Educational assessments will be conducted on each child and sent to the school district where the children have been placed. Texas' educational authority will recommend the assessment be used on all FLDS children.

"It is anticipated that the children will continue their education on the campus of their foster placement," CPS said in a statement. "There are no plans at this time for the children to attend classes on any public school campus."

New numbers:

According to the May 2 census, there are 102 infants up to 2 years old. An estimated 99 children are ages 3 to 5; 131 children are 6 to 9 years old; 62 children are 10 to 13; and 42 are 14 to 17.

Texas authorities said there are 26 young women who the FLDS claim are adults, but the state believes are children. Two young men turned 18 while in foster care but have elected to stay with family members at a shelter, CPS said.

Those numbers almost certainly include those of 24 year old Louisa, due this weekend to deliver her third child.

Christine Brown and others from polygamous communities held a conference to educate the public on polygamous groups:

She commented on the power of the press and how when interviewing those who practice plural marriage reporters should be fair in representing the people's beliefs and lives.
Reporter Ben Winslow, who covers polygamy for the Deseret Morning News and sat on the news media panel, said he strives for fairness, but is often frustrated in getting a balanced story by the reticence of most polygamists to speak.
"In my experience the biggest frustration is people not talking," said Winslow. "Its hard to demonize you if you're talking to us . . . No comment is a comment."
Mike Watkiss, a Phoenix television reporter who has aggressively been pursuing the polygamy story for more than a decade, described the residents of the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., as decent people.
"Its a society trademark that they are peaceful," said Watkiss, adding he is not interested in grilling children or "good" people. He said he wants to go after the perpetrators of arranged marriages, sex abuse and welfare fraud.
"As long as those guys are around, I'm going to be in your face," he said.

AP has looked at the Bishop's Records and made me wonder if we're using the same base number system:

The bishop's records offer a peek into an intricate culture in which men related to the sect's prophet, Warren Jeffs, enjoyed favored-husband status in the distribution of wives and all young women were married by 24.

An Associated Press analysis of the records, which authorities seized in a raid last month, show that by the time a girl reached 16, she was more likely to be married than to live as a child in her father's household. The same was not true for boys.
The bishop's records, released by court officials last week, include 37 families totaling 507 individuals. At the time the lists were written from March through August of 2007, most of the people were living at the YFZ Ranch, though others were in homes along the Utah-Arizona line.The husbands and wives were married in the FLDS, and none is believed to hold Texas marriage licenses.

Of the 19 youths listed as being 16 or 17, none of the boys are husbands, while nine of the girls are listed as wives. Only one 17-year-old girl remained unmarried.

Under Texas law, children under the age of 17 generally cannot consent to sex with an adult.

I don't know where they're coming up with nine under-aged girls. And while it may be true that only one 17 y.o. remained unmarried, they have to ignore some older unmarried girls to make that figure say what they want it to say. I am also not sure why it's earthshattering news that in a culture that reverts back to the 19th century, girls get married younger than boys. IN fact, that tends to be true in cultures that don't revert to the 19th century.
Utah has offered to help with those members who are Utah state residents (I can imagine that Utah leadership doesn't appreciate Texas turning up its nose at Utah I.D.):

Utah authorities will look into claims by members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church that their children were wrongfully taken in a Texas raid of the church's ranch there in April — as long as the members are from Utah.

...
Jessop said he's working on a complete list [of Utah residents] to provide to the state.

"I have been in communication with the governor's office, and we are preparing a list of Utah residents who are caught up in this thing," said Jessop. "So far, I know of at least three families who brought their children (to Texas) and were visiting grandparents and got their children taken away."

Utah AG Shurtleff reassures polygamous families that he is not going to duplicate the Texas raid in Utah.
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UPDATES:

About the upcoming hearings, which will not permit parents to present their side of the issue or in any way prove their innocence (and CPS notoriously and infamously uses a refusal to admit guilt as proof that the parent is unfit rather than considering the possibility that a parent might refuse to admit guilt because the parent is innocent):
Five judges will be presiding over 200 cases, hearing 10-12 a day, and legal eagles say these hearings will be 'anticlimactic:'

"There won't be any" significant decisions, said local family law attorney Tom Goff, who is serving as a lawyer for two of the 464 children in the case. "That doesn't happen."

Instead, caseworkers for the state's Child Protective Services agency will present service plans for parents of each of the removed children, spelling out what they must do to regain their children. CPS has begun working with attorneys and parents to develop those plans, said spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.

"We try to develop what we all believe are the best results to have in each particular situation," Meisner said. "This will assure that we have a contract with us and the parents."

Questions remain, however, about the feasibility of creating 464 service plans in preparation for 200 or more hearings - many of which involve unknown parents and children with uncertain names and ages.

Tom Goff, lawyer for two of the children, says CPS still doesn't have its act together:

"The problem now is, we have no contact person at CPS" if paperwork is incorrect or profiles the wrong child, Goff said. "When these orders are wrong, have varying information, we have no contact to go to. They're not putting the birthdates on the service plans. You're sent an order, and you're not sure if it's your child."

Some attorneys are still unhappy that families did not get individual hearings to address custody. Parents lost custody of their children without ever getting an opportunity to present the judge with evidence of their actual beliefs- some of them never even got to speak to the attorneys before the hearing, and some of them, both adults and children, weren't even represented on CPS' filings at all because CPS didn't have an accurate count of adults or children.

The hearings later this month, although split among sibling groups, will not be satisfactory, said Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, whose attorneys are representing many of the children.

"We've been pushing for individual hearings that address the issue of custody," and these hearings will not do that, Martinez said. "In no way are we happy about the situation."

The group has asked the 3rd Court of Appeals to review the process to date and order Walther to schedule individual custody hearings for the children. CPS' response was due by the end of the day Thursday, Martinez said.

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Judge Woodward, who will be one of the presiding judges, confirms his intentions to rubber stamp the CPS decisions. This is standard procedure:

The status hearings, required by law to be held before June 5 - the 60th day after 463 children were removed from the YFZ Ranch northeast of Eldorado - are usually perfunctory. Typically, they consist of little more than the state's Child Protective Services agency presenting a proposed plan the parents of removed children would be required to follow to win their children back and any objections from the parents' attorneys.

Although the presiding judge has discretion to do as he or she sees fit, Woodward said, status hearings do not generally result in the return of any children to their parents.

"Typically, that's not what these hearings are about," he said.

********

Wow. This is incredibly misleading:

"Of the 19 youths listed as being 16 or 17, none of the boys are husbands, while nine of the girls are listed as wives. Only one 17-year-old girl remained unmarried."

Notice how carefully the reporter has picked the perimeters in order to make his point- only looking at 16 and 17 year olds first (for both genders), but then only looking at 17 year olds for the girls and ignoring girls 16 or over 17.

In fact the number of unmarried girls listed as still living in their father's homes:
16 years old- 3
17 years old-1
18 years old- 2
23 years old-1

So technically, it's true that only one 17 year old girl is listed as unmarried, but there are three girls older than her who also are listed as unmarried, and three girls 16 years old (*please* check my counting). It's also true that there simply weren't very many teenagers of any age. The vast majority of the kids are 11 and under- these are mostly young families.

I think the reporter stopped counting when he got to the page of buildings and who lived there, but there are at least two more pages of names and ages after that.

I also count these 16 y.o. brides (I may have missed one, it's tedious reading):
Nephi Jeffs 38
Elizabeth Jessop 16

Lehi Alred 28
Rachel Alred 16

Abram Jeffs 35
Suzanne Jeffs 16

Leroy J. Steed 40
Elizabeth Jessop, 16

Possibly:
24 year old Joseph's 18 year old wife Naomi who had a 7 month old in March of '07. Assuming that child is hers (there's also a 10 month old, and an older wife), is full term, and she wasn't 18 years and 11 months at the time this form was filled out, she might have been under-aged at the time of conception.

Luke is 19 and married to 16 year old Sarah.
Keith is 22 and his wife is 16

I am not finding 9 under-aged marriages. I didn't count the 17 year olds because I understand that in Texas they can legally marry without parental permission.

The Gulag Archipelago

SOLZHENITSYN
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO

However, the root destruction of religion in the country, which throughout the twenties and thirties was one of the most important goals of the GPU-NKVD, could be realized only by mass arrests of Orthodox believers. Monks and nuns, whose black habits had been a distinctive feature of Old Russian life, were intensively rounded up on every hand, placed under arrest, and sent into exile. They arrested and sentenced active laymen. The circles kept getting bigger, as they raked in ordinary believers as well, old people, and particularly women, who were the most stubborn believers of all and who, for many long years to come, would be called "nuns" in transit prisons and in camps.

True, they were supposedly being arrested and tried not for their actual faith but for openly declaring their convictions and for bringing up their children in the same spirit. As Tanya Khodkevich wrote:

You can pray freely
But just so God alone can hear.

(She received a ten-year sentence for these verses.)

A person convinced that he possessed spiritual truth was required to conceal it from his own children! In the twenties the religious education of children was classified as a political crime under Article 58-10 of the Code—in other words, counterrevolutionary propaganda!

True, one was still permitted to renounce one's religion at one's trial: it didn't often happen but it nonetheless did happen that the father would renounce his religion and remain at home to raise the children while the mother went to the Solovetsky Islands. (Throughout all those years women manifested great firmness in their faith.) All persons convicted of religious activity received tenners, the longest term then given.

(In those years, particularly in 1927, in purging the big cities for the pure society that was coming into being, they sent prostitutes to the Solovetsky Islands along with the "nuns." Those lovers of a sinful earthly life were given three-year sentences under a more lenient article of the Code. The conditions in prisoner transports, in transit prisons, and on the Solovetsky Islands were not of a sort to hinder them from plying their merry trade among the administrators and the convoy guards. And three years later they would return with laden suitcases to the places they had come from. Religious prisoners, however, were prohibited from ever returning to their children and their home areas.)