FLDS May 31, Walthers in a Snit

We had a mess o' company this weekend, not to mention thunderstorms, a little flooding down the road, some gardening to tend, and some furniture rearranging to do, so I didn't keep up with the news. I turned on the computer Saturday night to find what you probably all know by now, Friday afternoon, Judge Walthers threw a snit in her Courtroom, a first class judicial temper tantrum, refusing to vacate her order, as directed by two higher courts, unless the FLDS families basically agreed to let the State put them on what amounts to house arrest, promising to remain in Texas indefinitely, as well as submit a batter of psychiatric and other tests as requested by the State- this, even thought CPS and State attorneys had already reached a more reasonable agreement with FLDS parents and their attorneys. Bill, at Free the FLDS Children wonders if she has dementia, which is honestly something I've wondered, too. Some of her questions and comments in the courtroom have made her sound incredibly confused about following a chain of logic- like this example, where a lawyer objects to the open-ended nature of the service plans:

She said her client could hypothetically be construed as bipolar because she's laughing one minute "and crying the next ... but the only reason she's crying is because all of a sudden she remembers it's Matt's birthday." Matthew Jeffs is one of the couple's children in state custody.

"I don't want my client to be forced to take psychotropic medications," she said.

It was at that point that Walther interjected and wanted it made clear on the record that no parents had been forced, at this point, to take any medications

Are judges typically this dimwitted, or does it seem to anybody else that Walthers had trouble following a reasonable argument?

The Lonestar Times says Walther should become a verb.

Suzette Martinez Standring calls it a modern day Inquisition.

A story on Rozita Swinton, the 'real' 'Sarah.'

Gagh- by Marrus' reasoning, the state should temporarily remove every child from every home in order to 'prove' the children have been abused. Just in case. It's all for the children- who will, after all, grow up to be adults whose Constitutional Rights were signed away by misnamed agencies like 'the Center for Children... when they were children:

As officials haggled Friday over how to return more than 400 children to their parents, it was becoming increasingly clear that Texas' audacious attempt to rein in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had backfired -- and become a lesson in the difficulty of cracking down on the 10,000-member polygamist sect.

"If you want to make any change . . . it has to go case by case, one child at a time," said Ellen Marrus, co-director of the Center for Children, Law and Policy at the University of Houston. "It's going to be very slow."
[...]
Legal analysts said that reuniting the FLDS families would make it harder to prove any children were abused. "It's very hard to talk to a child about what's going on in a household," Marrus said, "when they're in that household."

Many interesting little tidbits here:

"For 50 years, [the sect] used the Short Creek raid as reason to keep their people secretive and isolated," Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff said in an interview. "We said that was not going to happen again. Well, it has happened again."

FLDS leaders, Shurtleff said, will probably cite the Texas raid "as a reason why they should not trust the government, and instead go to their [religious] leaders first" with complaints of sexual abuse.

Well, there's a man who an see a church by daylight. I'm not a member of FLDS, and I will cite this horrific abuse of power by the State of Texas as a reason why I do not and will not trust the government.

The sect -- which broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church long ago -- built its Yearning for Zion Ranch four years ago just outside Eldorado, a dusty western Texas hamlet. Its members attracted attention from locals, who were unnerved by the sight of FLDS women in full-length prairie dresses coming and going at the walled compound.

Many here cheered the raids, but on Friday residents were fuming. "I absolutely don't agree with what they do," Curtis Phillips, 33, said of the FLDS as he worked the register at the town's feed and mercantile store. "But blowing in that ranch like cowboys and taking all those kids -- that was just stupid. That's why people like me don't trust the government."

Curtis Griffin, 45, owner of the local fuel depot, counts many FLDS members as customers. He blamed Sheriff David Doran, who is up for reelection, for mischaracterizing the entire sect as pedophiles.

FLDS women were coming and going? Is that what we've been told before?
Many FLDS are his customers? But we've been told only two assigned FLDS men are permitted to go into town.

"I said from the word go, if there's sex with underage girls, nail their butt," said Griffin. "But nail the right people. We're going to wind up with a $30-million bill here in this little county because these people didn't have their ducks in a row."

Judge Walthers and Sheriff Doran hold elected positions.

The town also was abuzz over an anticipated mass voter registration by the FLDS. Hours after the court first ruled against the state, two members of the sect walked into the county clerk's office and requested 300 voter registration forms, a potentially tide-turning number in a county with 1,800 voters.

Doran says he's not worried.

Parents have shown up at shelters to pick up their kids and been turned away. An attorney ad litem for one of the children says he's sure CPS will be trying to figure out the way to do this with the least impact on the kids. I know a way. meanwhile...

While those details are decided, the state must answer to why they took all the children off the ranch.

Many of those key decision makers are at the Family and Protective Services headquarters, at 701 51st St., in Austin.

Carey Cockerell, the commissioner of the department, refused to answer any questions about his role in the raid, including his accountability to the taxpayers of Texas.

Cockerell, referred all other questions to his press department.

Yet there are big costs he must also answer, including money spent by state public schools to teach the children.

"They had to spend quite a bit of time to determine what grade they were in," TEA spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliff.

Those are now sunken costs. "I think it will be a moot point," Ratcliff said.

I get a special kick out of every story that mentions that CPS isn't talking just now. They sure had a lot to say before, didn't they?

Since the state Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services overreached when it swept the children into foster care, agency officials have been unwilling to discuss the case, their strategy or what went wrong.

However, some close to the debacle say the operation was doomed from the start by a series of missteps.

"Missteps?" That seems too mild.
Somebody needs to bring this reporter up to date- Doran's informant was not 'inside.' He had never even been to the ranch:

Sheriff David Doran cultivated a confidential informant to monitor the group's activities, and former FLDS members recounted abuse and forced marriages to anyone who would listen.

Investigators "listened to a lot of misinformation and allowed themselves to be kind of captivated by these anti-FLDS people," said FLDS spokesman Rod Parker.

This reporter is understanding just how unreliable CPS claims have been, and it shows:

CPS workers were confused about names, ages, and relationships of the children and adults in the complicated group marriages of the FLDS. The agency said at the time it believed sect members were deliberately misleading investigators about the names, ages and parentage of the children.

Although caseworkers said when they took custody of all the children that the sect was forcing underage girls into marriage and sex and training boys to be adult perpetrators, only a few dozen of the children swept into custody turned out to be teenage girls, and only a handful had children or were pregnant. Of 31 mothers CPS said were minors, at least half turned out to be adults.

The only reason it's not more than half is because the remaining adults haven't had their hearings yet. Judge Walthers' conniption fit results in the State continuing to hold adult women in custody against their will.

CPS also was criticized for its handling of the Branch Davidians cult at its ranch compound outside Waco. Allegations of abuse at the Waco ranch had swirled for years, but interviews with children at the compound produced no outcry of abuse and CPS closed its investigation in 1992.

A year later, federal agents raided the fortified compound in a weapons investigation. Fire broke out and the 21 children died.

Spears said agencies worry about making wrong calls and seeing harm come to children. Decision-making often swings in reaction to criticism of previous cases or child deaths.

"It swings back and forth," she said. "There's no exact science being practiced here."

No kidding.

I'm just sharing an excerpt here, but please do read the whole thing:

When children are needlessly put into foster care, they lose not only mom and dad but often brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, friends and classmates. For a young enough child, it's an experience akin to a kidnapping. One recent study of foster care "alumni" found they had twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder of Gulf War veterans and only 20 percent could be said to be "doing well."

Another study comparing outcomes for 15,000 children found that even maltreated children left in their own homes with little or no help fared better, on average, than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.

And in the case of the Eldorado 400+, even the State of Texas doesn't claim most children actually were abused; officials say they took the children because they might be abused at some point in the future.

None of this means no child ever should be taken from her or his parents. It means that foster care is an extremely toxic intervention that must be used sparingly and in small doses. In the case of the Yearning for Zion ranch, Texas prescribed megadoses of foster care.

There is one group of foster-care children for whom the trauma of separation is even worse: those taken from battered mothers who allegedly "failed to protect" them from abuse. Taking children under these circumstances is, in the words of one expert, "tantamount to pouring salt into an open wound." "Failure to protect" is the only allegation against the mothers of Eldorado. The way Texas has handled the Eldorado case can be boiled down to a single sentence: Pass the salt.

Texas Radio Listeners

105.3 FM in the Dallas area, Live 105.3- a buddy of mine in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area just called and asked me to call in to this radio station and set them straight on the FLDS situation, because he said right now the talk show host and their callers don't know diddly.
I write far, far better than I talk, and I'm shutting down the computer because of a thunderstorm. But if anybody reading lives around there and wants to check in, now you know.=)

FLDS, May 30th

Courtesy Bill, Free the FLDS Children

David emails to let me know:
Headline at Free the FLDS children blog: "Beginning Monday, the children will be released."

I'm simultaneously cheering this but contemplating the fact that the authorities who are too busy to release them this weekend weren't too busy to kidnap them on the weekend of April 3 - 8.

Scroll down to other updates.

Do you know that in the days following the raid, Texas CPS was swamped with families wanting to adopt these children? People, that wasn't generous, it was selfish. These children were kidnapped. I'm in favor of adoption- two of ours are adopted. But let's be careful not to cross the line from adoption into complicity in child-stealing.

The Hendricks Children Home was withholding the information about the Supreme Court ruling from the children in their custody. That seems reasonable- you don't want to get their hopes up and have them dashed, right? But that's not the reason HEndricks spokespersons gave. No. They didn't want the children to become 'unmanageable.'
gargh.

Fairly comprehensive account of the SCoT's ruling, what it means, and some more evidence that does not look good for Warren Jeffs or the parents of at least a couple of the girls at the ranch.
What a shame that the way CPS and Judge Walthers handled this case means that there is a better likelihood that any real crminal actions may not be prosecuted to their fullest extent.

Grits has some great commentary and links, and he points out the irony of the Court's decision, which means the FLDS can't move, stymies the clearly stated aims of the minions of the state to run the FLDS outa Dodge and take over their property.



Meanwhile, the Beldarblog has a depressingly level headed look at just how little CPS has to 'give' at this time.


Rejoice with those who rejoice:

''My attorney called and said 'It looks like we won.' She was pretty excited. So was I.''
Joseph Jessop, who was allowed to temporarily join his wife and three children in San Antonio pending the Supreme Court decision.

''I heard him talking on the phone and I could see something exciting was happening. I was pestering him, 'Who is it, what is happening?' And then my phone rang and it was my attorney. She said it looks like we might be going home. I was ready to go right now.
I was jumping up and down. Some of the mothers who were there said they wanted to go to the shelters where their children are and stand out by the gate with their arms held out and wait. . . . I told our 4-year-old. She just smiled big. All she knows is she is back with her mother. What the Supreme Court rules doesn't mean anything to her as long as she has her mother.''
Lori Jessop, Joseph's wife and mother of three children.

Weep with those who weep (in this case, these girls, not Warren Jeffs)- although he's been in custody for a couple of years, and this case has been going on for six weeks and several of his children have already had their hearings, Jeffs is just now getting his DNA samples drawn:

The samples were taken as part of an investigation into whether Jeffs sexually assaulted four girls at the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado in January 2004 and July 2006. Placed on the FBI's most-wanted list in May 2006, he was arrested outside Las Vegas that August.

Investigators have wedding photos and church records indicating he had spiritual unions - marriages recognized by the sect but not legal marriages - with four girls ranging in age from 12 to 14, according to an affidavit filed by Denis Gilbert, an Arizona officer aiding Texas law enforcement. At least one girl conceived a child at 15, the affidavit says.

Under current Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot consent to sex or marriage. However, before 2005, Texas law allowed girls as young as 14 to marry with the permission of their parents.

In CPS speak, we've noticed that 'at least one' means, "We think we have one," but I don't want to make light of this- it's tragic if these four girls have been assaulted by Jeffs.
------------------------
The Trib:

Attorneys are reviewing a Texas Child Protective Services proposal that could return FLDS children to their parents starting Monday and continuing through June 6.
There are conditions: While all the children can return to the polygamous sect's YFZ Ranch in Eldorado they cannot leave Texas and parents must take parenting classes. CPS workers also must have access to residences on the ranch, and residents must provide an ID and have a photo taken.

As Melanie notes, they've already tried to provide ID before. =)

KXAN:

A draft agreement released in court by Texas Child Protective Services attorney Gary Banks on Friday said the parents can get their children back after showing identifications and pledging to take parenting classes and remain in Texas.

The agreement was reached with the 38 mothers of the 124 children who filed the complaint that prompted the Texas Supreme Court to rule Thursday that the state overstepped its authority in taking more than 400 children.

But the deal would affect nearly all the children since they were removed under identical circumstances.

On the basis of being overwhelmed by their unconstitutional snatching of nearly 500 children who were not in danger, CPS requested more funds and positions from the government. Notes Grits:

Here's a pdf of the document the agency presented to the Senate Finance Committee. See p. 12 for the list of staff positions. It's actually 96, looking at the document again. They wanted 70 field staff, ten attorneys, and 16 various other positions.

Wonder how that's going to work out for them? Do they get to keep them?

Go SanAngelo says:

Walther's proposed order stated that all the 330 children affected are to be returned to their parents starting at 8 a.m. Monday, with all children returned no later than June 6. That's provided that the parents meet conditions Walther imposed under the proviso of the Supreme Court opinion that the district court "may make and modify temporary order for the safety and welfare of the child."

Parents will be required to submit an affidavit identifying the children of whom they take possession, and both children and parents will be photographed at the time.

Parents will be required to take parenting classes as arranged by the Department of Family and Protective Services. The order also requires cooperation of parents in any investigation of child abuse or neglect, and gives CPS right of unannounced home visits any time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The parents are not allowed to remove the children from the state effective through Aug. 31.

It's not clear why the number of children included in the proposal is 330. The Supreme Court's ruling immediately affects about 125 sect children of about 40 mothers.

What's unclear to me is why the number isn't 450. I assume she's keeping the teen girls. I don't know how many of those she has, but I don't think it's 120.

This will be a long weekend for those parents. I am sure reunion can't come soon enough.

May, 2008 Booklist!

I know, the month's not quite over yet. I'm currently deep in two biographies though (one of Jefferson and one on Martin Luther) and between working at the library and having quite a bit of company, I really don't see a way I can finish either of those by tomorrow evening. So this list will have to suffice.

1) My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas - After taking a Constitutional History class this semester and studying about dozens of Supreme Court cases, it was interesting to read the autobiography of a justice. The fact that it was Thomas made it even more enjoyable since many of my classmates took frequent potshots at him throughout the semester.
This is an interesting book. Thomas doesn't delve much into his judicial philosophy - he really focuses on simply telling his life story. It's a fascinating one, and shows both the darkness of America's racism and the promise of American liberty. He is not someone you have picked out as a child and said, "There is a future Supreme Court justice."
Clarence has made some huge mistakes in his life and he's very open and honest about them, which was good to read. Sometimes public figures have an annoying habit of rationalizing their bad choices (actually, it's not just public figures, is it? Their rationalizations are just more visible than mine ;-).

2) Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Goodby Wendy Shalit
- Excellent book. I wish I could hand out copies to all the girls on my university campus. The brashness and promiscuity promoted so strongly by women's movements is *not* true liberation for women, and the girls who think it is deserve to know better. So many organizations guide women by telling them that the only way to be liberated is to be open about...well, everything. This really hurts a woman's esteem, though, and causes men to objectify her instead of seeing her as a whole person. The woman with true confidence is the one who doesn't feel the need to compete for physical attention.
Also, as Shalit points out, being modest does not make one a prude. I loved the bit where she points out the fallacy involved when people accuse her of being just like the Taliban when she objects to some of today's very loose modesty standards. When they do this, they bring up a false dichotomy: Our only two options of dress are a) to dress like Britney Spears or b) to dress like the Taliban suggests. This is ludicrous and ignores the fact that there is middle ground.
I'm not doing the book as much justice as it deserves. I read a library copy, but I'll be purchasing my own so that I can highlight bits and make a more serious study of it.
N.B. Because Shalit details many scenarios that I've come into contact with only through my time at school, I wouldn't really recommend it for younger readers.
(Side note - it was interesting to read this when the FLDS case came up. So many of the charges flung about in that case dealt with the sexualization of adolescent girls. That is disgusting, but it's something our mainstream culture has been doing for years. Bratz dolls are marked to pre-adolescent girls and are hyper-sexualized. The GossipGirl novels, extremely popular with young teenaged girls at my library, are just gross. I just finished reading the first chapter of one on the website and I think I'm in need of a shower. Apart from the blatant promotion of brand products, reading about girls who are considered deficient in the physical-parts department and boys in speedos who have "semi-pornographic dreams" have no business being in books for young readers.)

3) Heidi's Alp: One Family's Search for Storybook Europe by Christine Hardyment - Not as good as How the Heather Looks, but still a sweet book about a family traveling in literary places. In this case, it's a British family in Andersen's Denmark, the Grimm's Germany, Heidi's Switzerland, Pinnocchio's Italy, and so many other places. Sometimes Hardyment sinks to 1980s vague, odd psychological babble, but mostly this is just an entertaining book about a small family adventure.
A particularly interesting bit for me was when the Hardyment family ventured into Eastern Germany. The children were surprised at how very little there was and asked "if the people don't like it here, why don't they leave?" Ah, good questions, little ones...

4) Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell - Sweet, quiet novel (like all of Gaskell's!) about the joys, tragedies, and burlesques of a small Victorian village. Gaskell writes with a deep love for characters and place and this love shines through in a completely contagious fashion. *Love* her books.

5) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallowsby J. K. Rowling - a re-read, because I definitely just gulped it when it came out last summer. This is the best of the series, I think... it was so exciting to see the way she connected her story with her entire world's history and legend. Things like that make me very happy.

6) Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis - A re-read. Read in preparation for this year's new film (and besides, a year is rather wasted if you don't read *at least* one Narnia book in it). The film, although Grand In Scope, missed the sweetness and chivalry of the book. I will admit that PC has never been my favorite of the books (that honor goes to its sequel, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) but it is several times better than anything Andrew Adamson can conjure. So there. (am still slightly peeved by what they did to Peter, can you tell?)

7) Loving God with All Your Mind by Elizabeth George - Wonderful Bible study book for women. Using several key verses, George in this book is helping me center my my thoughts around what is real in life, thus I cannot trip up over the "What ifs," - the not real things; on why I can't bog down in the past or strive too worriedly over the future; and on how God's love reaches down to every detail of my life.
She includes a study guide and questions in the back. Normally I skip these because so many of them involve simple fill in the blank questions (which annoy me). Hers is different though. I've been doing them this last week as a review of the book and they are proving to be quite challenging. My toes are very bruised. ;-)

So, Now What?

(From Free the FLDS Children)
It's still going to be a while before the FLDS get their children back. If you think CPS is going to just hand over their children after losing at the State Supreme Court level, you still don't understand just what we've created with this organization. What happened to the FLDS got our attention because it was so large, mainly. Had it been twenty children from a local church, nobody would have noticed. If we had noticed, nobody would have believed them. Being accused of child abuse is almost impossible to fight.

Many of the things CPS did in this case that outraged common citizens are actually commonly accepted protocol for CPS. This is one reason I believe CPS was somewhat blindsided by the negative reactions- they didn't realize how little we know about what they've been doing and how 'for the sake of the children' has turned into, "Whatever CPS says."

Visit this website for information on how to protect yourself from a false accusation- you need to know this before you let CPS in your houes 'because you have nothing to hide.' That's the worse thing you could possibly do.


Bill at Free the FLDS Children suggests "a letter be e mailed to the people who control CPS and advise them to clean house and put the agency back under lawful control.

communityengagement@dfps.state.tx.us

Their next victim will thank you, and it just might be you since CPS is an equal opportunity oppressor."


Start educating your friends and relations, your representatives, your local newspaper, about the folly of the idea that removing children from their home is a 'safe,' no-loss, risk-free response- that 'erring on the side of the child' nonsense is deliberately choosing a known trauma. It's a choice that sometimes must indeed be made, just as amputation must sometimes be a medical response. But it's often worse than leaving a child at home, and people need to stop thinking otherwise.

From a late April story on the FLDS situation, which suggested the children, even if abused, might be out of the frying pan and into the fire:

A damning 2004 state report found that the system was overwhelmed with caseloads and staff turnover, that children with violent criminal records were being mixed in the general foster-care population, and that medically fragile children were often under served.

A study in 2006 by the Texas Department of Health Services said that more than half of all foster children ages 13 to 17 were being given psychotropic drugs to control behavior. And a dire shortage of foster home beds means that at least 500 foster children were forced to sleep one night or more in a state office building in 2007, according to a report last fall by a nonprofit legal group, Texas Appleseed, which advocates what it calls social and economic justice.

'Erring on the side of the child...' Isn't.

Many child-welfare experts across the nation, who have as a group watched the high-profile Texas case closely, say the raid on the polygamist ranch diverged sharply from the recommended practices both in Texas and elsewhere in the country.

They say a growing body of research supports the contention of the mothers that forceful removal can have both significant short-term and long-lasting harm, particularly for younger children. Some studies have found that the wide-ranging effects include anxiety, extreme distrust of strangers and, in the future, higher rates of teenage pregnancy and juvenile incarceration.

[...]

Steven D. Cohen, a senior associate at the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national child-advocacy organization, said that while he could not say whether Texas officials acted improperly in taking the children from their mothers, he did think that they had violated numerous standards of best practice widely used elsewhere.

“Breaking all of the ties to several parental figures and siblings, and taking them to a remote and unfamiliar place raises many red flags about trauma and its effect on children,” Mr. Cohen said

Experts say younger children, who often do not have a sense of the passage of time, can be particularly hard hit by such separations. About 100 of the children removed from the sect were 2 years old or younger.

Shelly Greco, a court-appointed lawyer for a 14-month-old girl removed from the ranch, says the child had been up crying uncontrollably many nights because she was so abruptly weaned.

Numerous studies in recent years show that the effects of removal can be long lasting, often not showing up fully for a decade of more. In one study, Joseph J. Doyle, an economist with the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., found that children removed from their parents and taken into foster care, even for a relatively short period, were three times as likely to grow up to be juvenile offenders or have a teenage pregnancy than were children from similarly troubled homes who had been left with their parents.

''If anything good can come out of all the suffering endured by these 400+ children, it is that maybe the rest of the country got a wake-up call. Texas CPS kept saying it themselves: All this was standard operating procedure, it's how we treat all families. And in that respect, almost every state is Texas. Aside from the sheer size of the endeavor, and those first days at CPS' kiddie-Guantanamo, nothing happened to these families that doesn't happen to hundreds of thousands of families every year.
(And, in fact, even the interning of children in ''shelters'' in the first days after placement is not unusual). But the families to whom this normally happens are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately minority. They rarely have good legal representation. And everything happens in secret. So nobody knows about it, and we can pretend it doesn't happen. Maybe this case has stripped away the pretense and shown the nation how most CPS agencies work most of the time. Maybe people will start to question what's going on in the other 49 states, and demand real change.''
Richard Wexler, executive director, National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, Virginia.

Examine our own credulity when it comes to stories told of those 'other,' weird and not-like-us people. As Venya K comments at this blog:

I would say that in government bureaucracies are particularly ill-suited to oversee child welfare because of a nearly universal human tendency to accept the demonization of those not contained in our individual in-groups. To state it differently, most people are spectacularly credulous about even the most horrific allegations when they leveled against groups with whom they lack cultural affiliation.

Irrational prejudices towards out-groups can spawn everything from quirky to murderous behavior.

David notes in the comments here:

Meanwhile, something important needs to be said, and has been said, by the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog:

Don't let anyone tell you "the system worked." Hundreds of children endured trauma from which some never will recover, and none of it was necessary. The only way the phrase "the system worked" would have been justified is if the original request to seize the children had been turned down.

Amen. I know we're going to start hearing this phrase a lot in the next few days. Don't let anyone tell you this system worked without giving them this reply.

He shares his own experience at having a rubber stamping judge steal his brother from his home over the summer and notes:

These children will never get back what they lost, nor will their parents. And most importantly, they will never be the same.

The judge and other criminals involved here need to be removed from power, and probably punished. But even that would not fix the wrong that has been done here. This system does not work.

Next time the system needs to take so long to work, it needs to err on the side of caution by letting the kids STAY WITH THEIR PARENTS, WHERE THEY ARE SAFE, until the legal proceedings are over. Believe it or not, legally this is supposed to be the default way for things to work. Removing children is only supposed to happen in an emergency. But when you are a tyrant, everything is an emergency.

Emphasis mine.

Here's a look at how financial incentives for adoption create a market in social services for terminating parental rights of infants- this article is about the situation in England, but they aren't all that different from us.

It's been going a while, and we've had our heads in the sand:
The McMartin case
the Kern County case
the Wenatchee Witch Hunts
Wee Care hysteria,
the Dale Akiki case; etc etc etcetera.
More on each of these here
Australia's stolen generation

See also DAvid Friedman on the general practice of taking children from their parents, most of the above links come from the comments there.

Differences between boys & girls

- Give a girl a volleyball and she'll hold it against her belly and pretend to be expecting a baby.

- Give a boy a volleyball and he'll stick against his belly, pretend he's had too much to eat, and utter a huge, fake belch.

FLDS May 29th

UPDATE!!!
SCOT RULING FAVORABLE TO FLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Six to Three in favor of letting the 3rd Court's ruling stand! Walthers can take some remedies to protect the children- don't know what that means, would guess it would entail keeping teen girls and/or calling for those men who married them to leave the Ranch:

The high court said Walther must vacate her temporary custody order, but she can grant other steps to protect the children.
"While there are other important fundamental issues in the case regarding parent rights, it is premature of us to discuss those issues," the justices wrote.
Immediately after the ruling, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid send an e-mail with this headline: "Supreme Court to CPS: send these children home."

Deseret News:

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that the removal of FLDS children from the YFZ Ranch was unwarranted — and the decision to take them was an abuse of judicial discretion.

The decision today comes after Texas RioGrande Legal Aid filed a writ of mandamus in the Third Court of Appeals on behalf of 38 mothers.

In its ruling, the high court said that state law gave the lower court broad authority to protect children "short of separating them from their parents and placing them in foster care," including removing alleged perpetrators from a child's home and preventing the removal of a child from the jurisdiction of the investigating agency.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services told the Desert News their attorneys were reviewing the case, "line by line," and looking at their options.

The agency was expected to issue a statement later today.

Lawyers for the mothers said the Supreme Court's ruling still allows child welfare authorities to conduct an investigation but "they have to go about it the correct way," said Cynthia Martinez, with the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Society. The decision gets the children out of foster care facilities as soon as it can be coordinated with the courts.

Justice Harriet O'Neill concurred in part, and dissented in part with the decision. While she agreed there was no evidence of imminent danger to the safety of the boys and pre-pubescent girls to justify removal, she said the state agency needed more time to work to protect the ranch's "endangered" population.

CNN- If you click on the link they also have something on ACLU's last minute decisin to stand up for liberty:

"We are not inclined to disturb the court of appeals' decision," the ruling said. "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."

The court's 6-3 ruling came in the case of 38 mothers who had appealed the removal of their children, but attorneys in the case have said the reasoning behind the court rulings can be applied to the removals of all the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch raid which began on April 3.

About 460 children were removed, although 20 were later found in court to be adults.

The Statesman:

The almost unanimous decision — three judges filed a separate opinion disagreeing with part of the ruling — is a blow to CPS efforts to keep the children in foster care.
[...]

“Removal of the children was not warranted,” the court opinion states.

Supreme Court justices brushed aside CPS objections that reunited families would flee [...]

The trial court can make orders “for the safety and welfare of the child” — including restricting sect families from leaving Texas, the court said.
[...]

CPS lawyers responded by asking the Supreme Court to void the ruling and issue an emergency stay delaying the family reunions.

The Supreme Court justices never acted on the emergency stay. [...]

The state’s highest civil court made its ruling without hearing oral arguments

.


Go SanAngelo:

“The order stops short, however, of ordering an outright, unconditional return of the children in question.”

“The court did indicate that 51st District Court Judge Barbara Walther has latitude to order sect parents to refrain from removing their children "beyond a geographical area identified by the court" while a thorough investigation continues.”
[...]
Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said CPS employees are "devastated. Very, very sad."

"We are disappointed, but we understand and respect the court's decision and will take immediate steps to comply," Meisner said in a statement released this evening. "We will continue to prepare for the prompt and orderly reunification of these children with their families. We also will work with the district court to ensure the safety of the children, and that all of our actions conform with the decision of the Texas Supreme Court."

I'm glad y'all can't see the little moment of schedenfreude I'm indulging in right now.

In dissenting, three Supreme Court justices said they do not agree fully with the Third Court's finding that Walther abused her discretion in ruling April 18 the state could maintain custody of the children, but agreed that the state has failed to present evidence of "danger to the physical health or safety" to the children.

The Ruling
-------------------
Quite often in a CPS case, in fact, I think it's the norm, the parents are required to confess guilt as part of their 'service plan.' This was certainly the case in the FLDS service plans. While it's not about this practice in CPS, there's a great post up at Grits for Breakfast about the way innocent parties are locked in a catch 22 by this requirement for confession. Good read.

Don Cruse writes a blog about the Supreme Court of Texas, and he offers an experience voice on their recent request that attorneys for the mothers file a response to the state by this morning.

And here's the PDF of that response:

The Salt Lake Tribune has a story on the response as well, and they note:

Also this morning, national and state American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting TRLA's position.
"State officials have an important obligation to protect children against abuse," said Lisa Graybill, legal direction for the ACLU of Texas.
"However, such actions should not indiscriminately target a group as a whole -- particularly if the group is perceived as being different or unusual," she wrote.
It is not known when the Texas Supreme Court will issue a ruling.

That ACLU briefing should be here.


The SLTrib has a story on what the FLDS children are doing education-wise. The children, according to one shelter worker, say that there was just one more week of school at the ranch before they were picked up. Some mothers have brought schoolwork to the shelters and gone over them with their children. Some kids are playing on a slip 'n slide and having water balloon fights:

"...children at Boys and Girls Country in Houston were tested and in class soon after arriving.
"Wouldn't you love a whole district to be able to assess your child and determine what they need and develop a plan for them?" said Shirley Wright, Boys and Girls Country executive director. "It's a great opportunity."

Words fail me.
The blind arrogance and presuppositions that everybody thinks just like I do is just... astonishing. NO, I would NOT love that! It would make me ill.

One FLDS mother who submitted written comments on CPS' reunification plan for her family said the private school at the ranch had provided children with a "well-balanced comprehensive program" that includes math, reading, writing, English, history and science. Optional courses include phonics, world geography, music and art classes, she said.
Districts have told the state that many of the children are on grade level in core subjects, though some shelters report some children need catching up. At The Ark Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for Youth in Corpus Christi, four older children are working on their high school equivalency diploma.
The state will fund up to 60 days of summer school at about $1,000 per student and is expected to request a special appropriation from the Legislature.

Here's a story on yet another one of the disputed minors- this one is 26 years old:

Rosanna Barlow is 17 going on 26.

Just when she stops being 17 and starts being 26 in the eyes of Texas, however, remains uncertain.

"It's one of those things," said Adam Caldwell, a Utah attorney who presented last week in court a birth certificate showing the mother of three is actually an adult. "Once Texas finally admits their error, her reward is to be separated from her children."

Status hearings in the cases have been postponed since the Third Court of Appeals' ruling May 22 that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther was wrong to have given the state custody of the children in April. Also put off is the steady stream of non-suits filed by state attorneys recognizing that some Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints children held in custody are actually adults.

More than four days of status hearings have been canceled since the ruling. The state's family statutes require them to be finished by the 60th day, and that day - June 5 - is fast approaching.

Her reclassification also would add another twist to the case, as the service plans developed by CPS to lay out a groundwork for reuniting the families cite two juveniles with three children each as a reason for alleging sexual abuse at the ranch.

Now Playing At a Theater Next Door

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
— Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166, As You Like It)

Dad's been home alone most of the week, because that's how he wanted it. When he came home after his surgery, faced with the reality that his driving days were over, he said he didn't want anybody over there, he could manage by himself. And I presume he did. Until yesterday afternoon, when he called my mother at work (Pip was over there mowing his yard). He said he was bleeding profusely from a certain part of the anatomy not normally mentioned on this family blog and needed to go to the ER. Mother called me and said it'd be quicker if I picked him up and took him and she'd meet us at the hospital.

As I pulled out of the driveway, he'd already walked from his house to our driveway, and his clothes all looked fine. He climbed into our large 12 passenger van without a step or a stool to boost him, with no more trouble than one would expect from a 70 year old man who had surgery last week, so I knew it couldn't be quite so profuse as he said. Have I mentioned he's something of a hypochondriac? Still, he had the recent surgery because we didn't take it seriously enough when he said he didn't feel good, and so we're nervy about those things at the moment.

So we went to the hospital and waited a bit. Granny Tea mentioned the sort of things that you cure with Preparation H and remedies that used to be tactfully advertised as having something to do with regularlity, and Grandpa demonstrated some irritability with her armchair diagnosis. I asked if he'd been drinking his prune juice like he was supposed to, and he said yes, he had. I asked, "When did you drink it today?" He said, "At 4:00." I looked at my watch. It was then 3:45. He saw me looking, and said, "No, I guess it was at 3:00." That was just a few minutes before he called Mom to tell her about the profuse bleeding, so that's when I suggested that he probably should have had a few cups of prune juice in the morning, before he was uncomfortable. And that's when he expressed a preference for a bonafide medical diagnosis.

The bonafide medical diagnosis and hospital treatment entailed some specialized equipment and over the counter medications of the sort that you should never, ever, buy in chocolate flavors and leave around in unmarked packages where unsuspecting house guests might nibble them.

The HG was at work during all the drama, and since it wasn't really very exciting and he was okay, I decided to wait until she got home to tell her about it. I forgot what a small town we live in. Granny Tea had been expected at a meeting to plan her upcoming 50th class reunion or something, and she'd called the lady in charge to tell her she'd not be coming and why, and she mentioned the bleeding and the profusely adjective of that story.

Well, that lady went into the library a few hours later and knew the HG for Granny Tea's grand-daughter, so she asked, "How's your grandpa?" The HG, nonplussed, said, "Well, he got out of the hospital last week and he's fine."
"Oooh," said the lady, "Then you haven't heard?" And she passed on what she knew, which included, of course the phrase 'bleeding profusely.'

The HG called me at home, asking what that was all about and why hadn't she been told. We cleared that up, and she passed on bits of the story to a co-worker who encouragingly told her about the way her grandfather with dementia started two housefires. Since then, we've heard from another friend with a grandparent with dementia who also started two housefires, and so they took away the stove. Two seems to be the magic number.

Granny Tea had a senior citizen's driving class this morning, for which she gets a discount on her insurance. Her teacher is 80 years old, she says. He also called her last night to tell her he'd heard that her husband was in the hospital and if she preferred, he'd work with her to complete the course independently at times convenient for her. There are lovely things about living in a small town.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, my dad (correctly) corrected the grammar of the technician who drew his blood, bragged about his grandchildren, and completely baffled her by asking her why she was drawing his blood again so soon. "Again?" he asked. "You just did it." He was fairly insistent about it and she seemed concerned, so while Granny Tea distracted him, I whispered to her that Dad had dementia. It's supposed to be on his chart, but I don't know that technicians read those things. One more reason why a patient with dementia should not be left unattended at the hospital- it's not fair to his nurses and other hospital workers.

On another front, Pip finished mowing their lawn and put away the lawnmower. She saw water in the basement. The HM came over and found that the upstairs bathroom sink had been let to run for a Very Long Time, although Dad/Grandpa had turned it off at some point. The mudroom and laundry room were sopping wet. The HM had to drill holes in the basement ceiling to let water out, and he says it gushed. Granny Tea asked Grandpa about it, and he said that yes, there'd been some water spilled, but he'd mopped it up. A mop would be like putting a band-aid on the titanic.

When they came home, he had a new regimen of medications to take, and she was going over it with him and told him she'd write it all down for him.

"Yes," he agreed. "I think you should write it all down and leave me lots of notes. I don't mind. It's time."

Demoting the Captain

Invictus
William Ernest Henley.
1849–1903
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

One of the many dilemmas in caring for the elderly and increasingly mentally incapacitated (I'm sorry, I don't know how else to put it), is the tension between caring for somebody who acts and thinks like a child but who used to act and think like an adult and knows it, so he's used to be treated as an adult and isn't ready to give that up.

I sometimes think it's particularly self-centered of me to think that this is especially difficult in our case. Doesn't everybody think that? Or is it truly a bit more difficult than ordinary with a man whose motto through life seems to have been "Don't tell me what to do"? Stubborn? You can't imagine. Willful? Absolutely. Contrary.... He used to tell me (proudly, I thought) that when he was a boy people would say that he'd argue the paint off a fence-post. Doing the opposite of what we want is a life-long habit that I don't think dementia will break.

Wresting the car keys from him has taken over a year, and I understand how difficult losing that control is for him, especially being a man, and a man born in the 1930s at that. But he seems, for now, to have accepted that. I think he came to grips with it in the hospital or thereabouts.

But that means he needs to control some other area of his life more tightly, or so I guess, because he said he absolutely did not want us over there this week, he didn't feel up to company and he could manage just fine. So Granny Tea has gone to work and we have minded our own business while he puttered about next door. This was a tactical error, but that's another blog post.

Yesterday or the day before he was feeling well enough to take his bike out for a spin when Mother offered to taken him for a golf-car ride on their new trail. He agreed to the golf cart ride, but when she opened the garage door to get it out, he took his bike outside instead and said he'd be back later.

He may be unbowed, but he came home, his arm and hand were bloody. He'd fallen over twice. Instead of going to the bathroom to clean himself up, he sat in his chair, holding the bleeding hand up until Mother told him to go take care of it. I don't know if he did or if she ended up bandaging him up.

When she told me this story, I told her, "You know, my readers think he shouldn't be on that bike, and so do I."

I'm so helpful that way.

She didn't agree just yet. He doesn't like just sitting at home, and he can't follow television programs anymore and he doesn't read much anymore. He still wants some independence. It's true that we do live in a very rural area, and he's safe enough (except for falls) tootling around our country road. However, we're just over a mile from a state road- the one where he says a trucker was honking at him once for no reason, and nobody even knew he was out on his bike that day. I don't think the state would like it if we put up barricades between the state road and the roads leading to our house.

But I come by my own stubbornness honestly enough (see above), and this, too, is a point I shall win, and the Captain will lose his steed and become the buck-sergeant of his soul.

He always did say I could argue with a fencepost and win.
I was a married mother of children before I realized that it's not much of an accomplishment to win an argument with a fencepost.

Friendship

“The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question ‘Do you see the same truth?’ would be ‘I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,’ no Friendship can arise… There would be nothing for Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something… Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers.” C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

For some reason, I was reminded of this, when I read this post at Ave Maria, where she quotes from a 1935 homemaking text (oh, yummy! I love those old homemaking books!):

All of us can claim we are misunderstood if we want to be so selfish. For fundamentally that's what the matter is with the sensitive person. She has never learned to think of anything except in relation to herself. She needs a new interest, a new piece of work so big that it will take her out of herself.

Read the rest, it's not long.=)

Bluebirds and Happiness

If you've never seen an Indigo Bunting, you've never really seen the color blue. The woods are full of them just now, incredible splashes of the richest blue imaginable flash through the trees, in and out of the dappled sunshine.

Swallows are nesting in all but one of the bluebird boxes around us. Their eggs are blue, as well, but a lighter blue.

There are bluebirds in the bluebird box nearest Granny Tea's house, where her blue bachelor's buttons are blooming. The bluebirds had eggs, but they disappeared in the night. We don't know whether to blame the raccoons or the house wrens. The man who builds and places the bluebird boxes all over our county (it's a hobby of his, or perhaps an obsession), says it's house wrens. He says the carry away the bluebird eggs and smash them, in their ongoing attempts to commit birdie genocide. Nature is red of tooth and claw even when the resources to support both species abound.

Gill over the Ground- is abundant. Stepping on it produces a spicy, faintly minty scent that I love. This picture makes them look much prettier than they are. I like them, invasive weed though they are, but they are tinier than appears here.

The Wild Geranium is in bloom, and ours is much purpler than this picture. There are shady patches of woods near the road where the blossoms shine like so many stars against a green night. They keep well in vases of water, too, making them a nice plant for youngsters to bring home in their sweaty fists. This plant is also called 'crane flower,' because the seed pods look something like a crane's bill.


Some of you actually grow vinca and phlox on purpose, planting it and tending it with care. To you I say, HA! You may be able to wear shortsleeves in winter and enjoy spring blossoms and even sweet corn while I am still wearing snowboots but there are Compensations.

Violets in all shades, purple, white, and yellow, are in bloom in all their favorite haunts.

Evening Campion or bladder campion, I can't decide which, but plenty of it is blooming all about the waysides.

The mayapples and trillium are nearly done- trillium are just scarcer, and the mayapple blooms are looking tired and slightly disreputable.

Hawthorne is blooming in the woods and meadows.

Columbine is in bloom along the back wall of the old farm-house. Our columbine is not the big showy hybrid blossoms in modern colors. Ours is the original stuff, quaint, old-fashioned, orangish with yellow centers, modest and lovely. I like the big showy hybrids, too, but I wouldn't trade my own for all the large purple, blue and scarlet blooms in the land. We live one mile down the road from the original family homestead, deeded to my direct ancestor for participation in the war of 1812. These same columbine bloom around the old homestead there, which my mother and aunt still own, and I remember my uncle telling me that they were planted by the old folks.

We transplanted some here a year or two ago, and a few are blooming. The ones by the homestead house are protected from the wind. There are still patches of lily of the valley here and there, in the coolest, shadier parts of the homestead. I've transplanted several here, and some of them came back this spring.

The blackberry brambles are in bloom, the apples have just finished.

Another favorite bloom for May- Jacob's Ladder, or Polemonium something or other.

These are in the Phlox family. They are purple, though some books call them 'blue purple,' or even blue. The have pinnateley compound leaves, meaning the leaves along the stem look something like a feather, pairs of leaves opposite each other. That's also why they are called 'Jacob's Ladder,' the opposite leaves look something like an old fashioned ladder with the pole (stem) in the center and the rungs perpendicular to that on each side. The blooms have five petals. The largest and showiest of my stem of blossoms is perhaps 1/2 an inch from petal tip to petal tip.

One sort has the charming common name of 'Sky-pilot,' because it blooms in the mountains at great heights. We have no mountains, so that's not what we have. Sky-pilot's leaves are also more lanceshaped than feather shaped.

It could also be Greek Valerian, Polemonium reptans.

One of the most important differences between the two is that Jacob's Ladders tend to have strong, erect stems, and the stems of Greek Valerian are limp and trailing.

Here is the alleged geneology of the pretty little Greek Valerian:
Kingdom Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass Asteridae –
Order Solanales –
Family Polemoniaceae – Phlox family
Genus Polemonium L. – Jacob's-ladder
Species Polemonium reptans L. – Greek valerian
Variety Polemonium reptans L. var. villosum E.L. Braun – Greek valerian- this last variety is apparently threatened in Michigan and endangered in New Jersey.

I read that in the east the Greek Valerian is cultivated in many gardens. God tends my garden here, because I am far too lazy and incompetent.

The white spirea, Barbie wedding bouquets, I call them, are still in bloom, cascading arches of blooming bushes in front of the little house, now empty and waiting for a tenant.

I've seen a few buttercups.

Salsify, a tall yellow flower that looks something like a dandelion on steroids, is brightening the sunnier roadside verges. I used to dig these up and cook the roots, which are delicious, but I haven't done that for years.

Chokecherries, which I think smell like cat urine, but they look pretty from a distance.
Fauna:
Ducks and geese are laying, and we startled a swallow out of its nest while driving Granny Tea's golf cart through a newly mown meadow the other day. There's a small hawthorne tree right in the middle of the meadow, in the merry middle of the meadow, and as we drove past a swallow shot out of the shrub. The astonishment was mutual, I believe. The FYG peeked in the nest and lifted out a lovely, still warm, blue egg to show us, and then carefully replaced it.

There are two very young foxes down by the culvert- we've seen them out many an evening.

A new friend who has a bush-hog came and made a wider path down to the creek so Granny Tea and Grandpa can drive the golf cart that way when they are too tired to walk. He then scraped a path from the creek down to our horse meadow, as he did so, he says he startled two young fawns, smaller than our Sadie lady dog.

I've mentioned enature.com before, and here is another website useful to us amateur armchair naturalists.

FLDS, May 28th

(Thanks to pinkycatcher for the correction on the date. I don't know what I was thinking)

We're all waiting for the Supreme Court of Texas to act. Meanwhile,

Here's an older story written when Jeffs was fleeing the FBI. It does seem to indicate that some 'spiritual marriages' are just that:

He estimates that Jeffs has around 180 wives, most believed to be wives only in a spiritual sense. Many were formerly sealed to his father, Rulon, with whom, Jeffs has promised, they will be reunited in Heaven.
A day later, eight or nine women arrived. They ranged in age from 28 to 30, Musser said. Just one had a child, from whom she had been separated.

CBS' 48 Hours did a show on Polygamy. You can read transcripts of the different segments. Oddly, they are still quoting outdated CPS figures for the 'disputed minors' who have all turned out to be adults whenever they've had a chance to have their day in court.

Here's an excerpt from one on the Lost Boys:

Frankie, who grew up in Colorado City, left four years ago when he was 18 years old. At the time, he says he was the oldest of 18.

Like Frankie, 18-year-old Caleb started to resent the endless regulations of the religion, like losing everyday freedoms as basic as being able to date girls. The belief was that the outside world was evil, and that joining it brought punishment.

"Yeah, it was a fear," Caleb tells correspondent Seth Doene. "I wondered if I was really going to go to hell."

In the whole segment there's not an example of a boy who was abandoned by his family- they are stories of run-aways who chafed at the restrictions of life in the FLDS. One boy's father tried to talk him out of going- holding up his youngest brother and warning the older lad that he'd never see his little brother again and would be better off dead than leaving. A little over the top? Emotionally manipulative? Possibly. What it isn't, is an example of a calloused father dropping his son off in the middle of the road in the dead of night.
Is it an odd lifestyle? Yes, certainly foreign to the rest of us. And by most accounts, 'Prophet' Warren Jeffs has not been good for the FLDS:

Frankie and the others say Jeffs began to systematically separate followers from anything and everything they valued. He will never forget the day his mother told him something almost unimaginable.

"And that’s when she wrapped her arms around me and told me that father had been sent out of the community. And it tore me up inside," he remembers. "He was reassigned out of the community. And two of my mothers were reassigned to another man."

'two of my mothers...' He sounds kind of fond of them.

..."We’re not really lost. We kinda found our own way," Caleb says.


"Do you still love your parents?" Doane asks.

"Yeah. I love my parents to death. I don’t care what they’ve done. I don’t even care if I see them again. All I want to know is that they are okay. All I want to know is that all those beautiful people I grew up with are okay," Frankie says.

'Beautiful people?' That's not what the Flora Voss' of this world would have us believe.
There are so many stories of abandoned boys that it's hard to discount them all. And, just because the only 'Lost Boys' CBS apparently could find were boys who left on their own when they were 18, that doesn't mean there aren't any 15 year olds dumped outside city limits by their parents.

Grits points out the implications of one of the state's arguments to the State Supreme Court:

" 'Failure to grant a stay will mean that approximately one hundred twenty-four children will be returned to alleged mothers without any male sexual perpetrators being identified," state attorneys wrote.'

I take that as an admission that, for the children whose mothers were covered by the Third Court's ruling, the state has not yet identified a single "male sexual perpetrator" despite six weeks of investigation. How then, is this anything more than an expensive and ham-handed fishing expedition?"

Go San Angeles has a story about both sides jockeying briefings back and forth, and some news I didn't know:

Activities continued in the supreme court Tuesday. Attorneys for the mothers filed a second reply to the state's appeal against the Third Court of Appeals memorandum opinion of May 22. That reply was filed "in order to correct certain inaccuracies in the Department's reply" about how 12 YFZ Ranch children were reunited with their parents. The document asserts that rather than being released by the court, as the department's reply states, the children were in fact released by the department pending another hearing date.

"The Department's agreement to reunite some of the children with their parents undermines the Department's insistence that every single child is in imminent danger of abuse because of the parents' beliefs," the reply said.

In other activity, the Attorney General's Office notified the Texas Supreme Court it would file a brief in the case, a court spokesman said, but later in the morning changed its mind.

Wonder what that last bit is about.

The Deseret News:

The Department's agreement to reunite some children with their parents undermines the reasons it has articulated for the stay," Amy Warr wrote. "First, it undermines the Department's insistence that every single child is in imminent danger of abuse because of the parents' beliefs."

Warr also said it contradicts CPS' claim that without DNA testing, it can't match children with their parents and that the agency has been allowing visitation and requiring family service plans to be signed, undermining its own positions.

If the 3rd Court of Appeals ruling stands, CPS said, the FLDS children "will be at risk of continuing sexual and emotional abuse, which certainly is not in the children's best interest."

A spokesman for the Texas Supreme Court said that attorneys worked over the holiday weekend on the case, but it is too early to say if the court will act today.

Stories like this one must send an icy spike of fear through the hearts of many parents:

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) -- A man trusted to help children during a difficult time has been accused of sexually violating one.

Billy Dan Carroll, 53, was arrested for sexual assault Sunday after an 8-year-old girl said she had been victimized.

Carroll has been a Travis County court-appointed children's advocate for four years.

"This individual has been through an FBI fingerprint check, national criminal databases, state of Texas criminal databases, the CPS central registry, those are all of the sources that we can check on every potential volunteer," said Laura Wolf, executive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates of Travis County. "This particular criminal background check came back clean with nothing to give us any cause for concern. We also talk to personal references. This individual had glowing references."

Police said they believe the girl is not Carroll's only victim, and he may have assaulted more children and even some adults.

They said they believe he worked to put himself in positions of trust, serving in his church's youth group and as a worker for CASA.

I read another story this week about a CPS employee who has abused the already wounded children in his care. officials are saying he has had contact with over 600 children, and they are trying to find out how many of them he abused.
A single CPS worker has the opportunity to wound more children in a year than the average member of the FLDS has in a lifetime. That last sentence of the story above points out a serious flaw with the police powers we've given CPS without the same checks and oversight almost any other state agency would have- Carroll worked to put himself in positions of trust. That's what predators do. Any position putting adults in positions of trust with children has a high potential of attracting predatory adults. As we read in the story of the Velasquez', whose child with brittle bone disease was removed from her family and placed in an abusive foster home, there is no incentive to find and stop abusive associates of CPS. Documenting the abuse with their camera and showing it to the judge only resulted in an order that they could no longer undress the baby during family visits or take any pictures of her that might show abuse.
Who is watching these watchers?


What the FLDS Children at Hendrick Home for Children are doing with their time:

The children, who arrived in April at Hendrick, aren't allowed in swimming pools for religious reasons. Their reading is restricted to such books as "Little House on the Prairie," the only TV channel they can watch is "Animal Planet," and they are guarded 24 hours a day by armed Taylor County Sheriff's Office personnel.

Despite the constant surveillance and strict guidelines, the children's days are filled with activities, including bike riding, chores, gardening, praying, singing and a new hobby - origami. On Tuesday, Terry Minami, 54, returned to Hendrick to teach the children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch the art of folding paper into shapes.

They also ride bikes donated by a local Baptist church. According to the story, they'd never ridden bikes before, but mastered them in just two days.

A typical day for the children begins at 7 a.m. with breakfast. They all participate in cleaning the dining hall, then return to their cottage for prayer and singing.

The prayer time is spontaneous, and only the sect children participate. The children range in age from 4 to teenagers, and the older children organize the worship time, which occurs twice daily.

Playground time follows prayers, then lunch. After lunch, children read and rest in their cottage.

In the afternoon, they play games in the gym and are only allowed to watch Animal Planet on TV. They have two weekly visits with their mothers, lasting one hour. Accustomed to gardening, the children tend tomato and squash plants in containers outside their cottage.

-----------

Still no news. Doesn't the SCOT know we're all waiting?

Here's a good editorial.

As is this one.
---------

While I was taking my father to the emergency room (everything's okay), Melanie kept up:
SCoTx asks TRLA to file a reply brief by 9 A.M. tomorrow:


"The Texas Supreme Court this afternoon asked lawyers for 38 polygamist mothers to file a reply brief by 9 a.m. Thursday — a very fast turnaround in the high-profile child custody case.
-------------------

Richard Wexler has an essay on remedies for the overweening child protective services at The Nation.

Grits has wrastled up a round of blogposts from law blawgers on the situation.
----------
CPS tells the SCoT that they can't figure out which children belong to which parents:

The children, the state argues in a court filing before the Texas Supreme Court, have a ''constitutional best interest right to know with absolute certainty who their parents are. Due to the orchestrated conspiracy of silence, neither the Department nor the trial court was able to match alleged parents with the children.''

Well, some of their attorneys sure tried but 51st District Judge Barbara Walther refused their help. Remember her comment about birth certificates and driver licenses being suspect in this age of identity theft?

-----------------
More about the picture- AGain, I do NOT think the picture is photoshopped. I really doubt CPS would be that foolish, for one thing. But a couple of comments on another blog brought up a good point- Judge Walthers refused to accept driver's licenses or birth certificates as legitimate forms of I.D. because we live in an age of identity theft. Yet any competent 12 year old could have doctored up that infamous photo. Again, I am not saying it's faked- I don't think it is. But there was better reason to be suspicious of that photograph than there was to deny FLDS driver's licenses. Walther's double standard does not make her look like an impartial judge. Perhaps because.....?
CPS is popping its suspenders at the media over the pictures and the secret witnesses they didn't get to use:

"It is highly unusual to have victims testify, and we only choose to do it in cases that are crucial to proving that abuse occurred," said CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins.

Crimmins said the agreement achieved the state's most narrow objective — keeping a newborn in state care — though the agency may not get a similar future chance to admit the testimony.

"I don't know if there's another (civil) proceeding at which it would come to light," Crimmins said.

Why would that be? Because the ranch is not a single household, and the witnesses were specific to the people living in Merrill Jessop's house, and not to the rest of the ranch?
The state transferred 8 girls to San Angelo facilities yesterday- which is funny, since, remember? They didn't have any room in San Angelo so all the FLDS children had to be shipped to different shelters around the state.

Lawyers for the state had indicated they would testify about being "spiritually" married as minors to older men at the Yearning for Zion Ranch outside Eldorado. They sought the testimony in a case involving an infant born two weeks ago to Dan and Louisa Jessop, a couple in a monogamous marriage who lived on the ranch until authorities raided it on April 3.

CPS officials contend that at least one of the girls summoned to testify was "spiritually" married when she was 11 to the sect's "prophet," Warren Jeffs, was related to Dan Jessop and lived for a time in the same building as the Jessop couple. The girl is now 13.

Why wouldn't criminal charges be filed? Why wouldn't those girls be testifying in any other abuse cases?

Evening in the woods

Gorgeous Spring.

What Did You Say?

We had company over the past weekend, one of our favorite people in the world (Hi, Favorite People in the World!), and since the visit was so short, we had to squeeze in a lot of bonding in a short time. That also means many of the Progeny skimped on sleep, even the youngest two.

Today it really showed. They were crabby all morning, out of sorts, rubbing each other the wrong way, often deliberately. They were finally forbidden from speaking to one another for an entire hour.

It wasn't really so much what they had done, as their over-reaction to that last little tiff.
They'd been bickering, bickering, bickering. Then there were a few minutes of blissful silence while they settled in to read their schoolbooks more attentively. The Boy finished his reading and got up to get another book, and then his ears popped or did something that felt funny, he says, and he asked the FYG to say something to him so he could make sure his ears were working right (I don't know, that's just what he said).

And so with a perfectly straight face, she looked at him and started lip syncing.

The Earthquake in China and the One Child POlicy

Look. You really don't want to read this. I don't want to read this. Sometimes the pain in the world is just entirely too much to bear.

China officials say that parents who lost their one child permitted by the government in the earthquake can apply for permission for an exemption. If they have an illegal child (some parents have a second child in violation of the law, then they pay fines and suffer other penalties) the state will forgive any backpayments of fines, but it won't reimburse other payments already made.

The changes, however, may come as little solace to parents who have only a photo, a backpack or the ashes of their dead son or daughter. Zhongxin Sun, a sociology professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said some mothers may be too old to conceive; others may have undergone sterilization. “To lose a child is to lose everything for Chinese parents,” said Professor Sun, who is a visiting scholar at Yale University Law School. “A child is their only hope.”

Some of those women underwent forcible sterilization, which 'feminists' have been ignoring, overlooking, pretending didn't happen, or supporting for decades.

Allegory of Grammar

Allegory of Grammar, by La Hyre

Lovely picture.

FLDS May 27th- some good news

How Joseph and Lori Jessop (the EMT couple) got temporary custody of their kids:

Seven weeks after being forced apart, Lori Jessop has her family together again - husband, Joseph S. Jessop Sr., and children Ziana, 4, Joeson, 2, and J.R., 1

They are one of the three families that received 'monitored' custody of their collective 12 children last week.

That's the great stuff. I'm going to just paste Melanie's comment on how that happened:

Good article in the Trib this morning about the Jessops who got their kids back in temporary custody over the weekend, but this quote makes my blood boil:

"They returned to court Friday on a petition to have their children returned. Instead of holding the hearing, the judge told Haas, CPS and the state to work out a resolution.

The negotiations went on for more than five hours, Haas said, and involved representatives of the Texas Attorney General's Office. In the end, a written agreement was hammered out and approved by the judge - but a caseworker still refused to turn the couple's children over to them. The reasons shifted: a media gag order was needed; the temporary home had to pass inspection first; confusion over who agreed to the deal.

It took almost an hour and three trips back to see the judge before CPS released the children, Haas said, and the parents took them in their arms. "It was awfully nice," she said."


I keep thinking I can't possibly see anything else that will make me exclaim, "Can you imagine the GALL of these people?!" and keep getting proven wrong.

And then there's this:

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services argued Friday that the Jessops are part of a household at the ranch that condones underage marriages and a communal lifestyle.

Condoning intentional community living is a reason for CPS to remove your kids?
Something else in that story that we hadn't heard before- while in CPS custody at the coliseum, Lori's children contracted giardia, a parasite you get from bad water.
Their two year old is no longer toilet trained, and he needs a pacifier again. The children don't sleep well at night, but their parents are hopeful they can, if not totally heal the wounds CPS has inflicted, at least help their children move on.

Here's more on their story:

When the news first broke last week it was unclear why a dozen of the 440 children had been singled out to be returned to their families. Now it appears these children were the ones specified in the motion that was filed in state district court in San Antonio, the same motion that the Third Court of Appeals used to rule that the seizure of the children was unjustified.

Last week's appeal court ruling in the compound's favor -- and the widespread media campaign that the YFZ members have been willing to participate in -- has appeared to turn some media attention in the compound's favor. In an article in Tuesday's Christian Science Monitor, for instance, the newspaper speculates whether religious beliefs were sufficient grounds for the raid.

No wonder CPS wanted a gag order on the Jessops. The same reason they took away the mothers' cell phones at the coliseum, the same reason they required the 11 mental health workers to sign nondisclosure agreements, the same reason one of them tried to yank Dan Jessop's arm off of his wife's shoulder last Friday and prodded her away from reporters and to the car. They do not like the light of day shone upon their works.

Corpus Christi Attorney Rene Haas, a former state district judge, is the Jessops' attorney.

"I see every indication that CPS wants to keep these children," Hass said. "And I see every indication that they want to destroy the religion."

"They are very concerned about sending some of these children back into a situation where allegations have been made that they've been sexually assaulted before. So, their first and foremost concern is with protecting the health and safety and welfare of these children," said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Abbott must not have read the memo. The only allegations that any of the children have been sexually assaulted are in regard to the five under-aged mothers (three or four of whom will be 18 this year). When Texas changed the legalities around under-age wedding and bedding less than 36 months ago, they changed the 'statutory rape' designation to 'sexual assault.' And only allegation that this has happened comes from CPS, and the 3rd Court read their 'evidence' and said there was none- CPS hadn't even performed the basic exercise of trying to find out of they were legally married or not, which would then make it NOT a sexual assault issue.

Wendy McElroy says:

The savage travesty of power that removed over 450 children from a polygamous compound in Texas is starting to unravel and be revealed as an utter, brutal sham.

She uses some strong language in that post, and concludes by pointing out:

I don't like the FLDS religious sect. I think the ideology that they inculcate into children is worse than drek -- it is dangerous to their intellectual and emotional well-being. But how is this different from families in which the parents are fundamentalist Christian or raving Marxists or radically Muslim? Are we going to have a State-imposed purity test for ideology before allowing parents to raise their children? Unless and until there is clear evidence of physical abuse, no third party has any business using force to step between a parent and a child. PERIOD.

The FLDS is one of those litmus tests by which you can separate true libertarians (who believe that rights apply to ALL individuals) from those who believe rights apply only to the nice people of the world. You know, OUR sort. Well...the FLDS is not my sort. It is not in the next county from being my sort. But each individual member of the FLDS has the same right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. etc. as I do. Frankly, sometimes I don't like the fact that human rights are universal. But I always find solace in the fact that universal rights are tremendously better than the alternative.

This certainly puts a new light on the story that one mother refused to sign the service plan because of some unknown criminal investigation. The criminal investigation in question was this one- the one CPS started in the first place. It's not new.

David Friedman has been blogging about this:
Here he tries to dissect what CPS thought it was doing, and he notes that he, like others of us, did believe the stories he'd heard about FLDS- initially. I've mentioned before my own deep embarrassment and shame that when I first heard that CPS couldn't find the 16 year old pregnant girl they went to the ranch to find, I believed she existed and that the FLDS members had done something terrible to her. CPS really only has itself to blame for the fact that a growing number of people completely distrust anything they have to say.



The Christian Science Monitor asks if religious beliefs are enough to remove children, acknowledging the original phone call was a hoax, they continue:

It also now appears that evidence about the sect's belief system that the state collected during the raid – and presented to a district court to justify its temporary removal of the children – is probably flawed

They quote a law expert in church and state issues, who points out that somebody should have been advising CPS not to even mention FLDS religious beliefs. Their focus should have been entirely on 'conduct and intent to act.'
They quote another expert who seems to be confused about the FLDS living quarters:

It's a typical practice in child-protection agencies to remove all children from a home where abuse is likely to have occurred, says Ellen Marrus, a family law expert at the University of Houston. (Her own view is that it makes more sense to remove the abuser and get help for the others.) "If this were a house in which several immigrant families were living and one of the children were being abused, would all of the children be removed? Absolutely."

I agree with her that it makes more sense to remove the abuser, but this isn't a house where several FLDS families were living. It's a ranch, with many separate living quarters, apartments, multiplexes, separate kitchens, bathrooms, and sleeping quarters for each household.

Watchdog organization criticizes CPS' handling of FLDS family 'service' plans- and the rubber-stamping by judges:
"In every single hearing I heard it was rubber-stamping and not caring what the Texas code says about family service plans," said Johana Scot, executive director of the Parent Guidance Center in Austin.
Scot is a former court-appointed special advocate volunteer who has spent the past four years helping parents navigate the state's child-welfare system. She spent two days sitting through hearings in San Angelo last week.
Her conclusion: The process has been altered and parents shut out.
Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Family and Protective Services, said Monday she could not comment on Scot's criticism of the process.
-------------
11:27- More on Texas DFPS' appeal to the state Supreme Court to overturn the 3rd Court of Appeals:

"Failure to grant a stay will mean that approximately one hundred twenty-four children will be returned to alleged mothers without any male sexual perpetrators being identified," state attorneys wrote.

And there's a statement loaded with assumptions far from proven. Um, just maybe there are no male perps inolved in that particular batch of mothers and children?

Ben Winslow at the Deseret News says criminal cases are building, or at least, that's what the headline says. I'm not so sure the story confirms this:

...a criminal probe is quietly moving forward.

"The investigation is continuing," Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said in an e-mail to the Deseret News. "When we have completed our investigation, we will present our case report to the prosecutors for their action."
... Utah and Arizona authorities remain hopeful that they may be able to see some of that evidence to assist in their ongoing criminal probes into the FLDS Church and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

"We know there's going to be all kinds of stuff," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff told the Deseret News on Monday. "The photographs, I think, are just the beginning."
...
Warren Jeffs....
Jeffs....
Jeffs....

During a court hearing for Jeffs in Kingman, Ariz., earlier this month, the Arizona Attorney General's Office raised the possibility that evidence seized from the raid on the YFZ Ranch might be used to pursue evidence against him.

"We have not yet provided anything to out-of-state investigators but expect that we will," Mange wrote.

A few paragraphs cautiously mentioning that most view the initial phone call as a hoax and FLDS attorneys are objecting to the use of evidence so obtained being used in any criminal cases, and then:

On the final day of the police search of the YFZ Ranch, the FBI executed a federal search warrant. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas will only say it is part of a "pending investigation."

A task force examining polygamy-related crimes is gearing up.

That's a task force involving the Feds, AZ and Utah.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman told the Deseret News earlier this month that his office has tried to pursue mafia-style racketeering, corruption and child-bride trafficking cases but has been stymied by a lack of witnesses and other evidence to establish probable cause.

In San Angelo, Tom Green County prosecutors have said they are still interested in pursuing their own charges, which could include bigamy.

There's some legal bickering between Jeff's attorneys, state officials and 'United Effort Plan Trust's court-appointed special fiduciary,' which I don't really care about and 'amn't' following. What I care about is that the State not persecute or prosecute on the basis of religious beliefs and CPS not steal people's children on the basis of lies and religious or cultural issues.

CPS' Reply to TRLA's response to CPS's request to the Supreme Court (state level) to overturn the 3rd Court.
My paraphrase: We cannot comply with the 3rd Court's ruling that since we have no evidence justifying the removal of the children we cannot continue to keep them, because to do would hamper our ongoing fishing expedition for some evidence to justify what we've done.

There's a fiery and excellent read on the situation here. Well worth reading in its entirety- also a very sweet picture of Dan Jessop and his 22 year old wife Louisa with their newborn son.

Here's an update on their 14 day hearing over custody of Louisa's newborn:

A deal was struck today involving a 14-day-old baby caught up in the raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's raid on the YFZ Ranch.

The deal was announced in court this morning after a 2 1/2 hour delay. The hearing would have called numerous child witnesses, attorneys said, including a 13-year-old girl who Child Protective Services authorities suggested last week was a child bride of church leader Warren Jeffs.

The deal gives Texas CPS sole conservatorship over the baby and appoints the parents, Dan Jessop and Louisa Bradshaw (Jessop), as temporary possessors. The deal also delays the hearing until the Texas Supreme Court decides what to do about hundreds of other children still in state custody.

Bradshaw will stay in a San Antonio shelter with her baby. Her two other children who are in an Austin foster care facility will also be placed with her.

In other words, CPS agreed to do what another judge told them to do two weeks ago, and another judge told them to do about a week ago. I'm not holding my breath while I wait for them to obey the third judge.

And here:

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had argued the Jessops are part of a household at the YFZ Ranch that condones underage marriages and a communal lifestyle.
Its most damning piece of evidence: a photograph of polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs giving a husbandly kiss to a 12-year-old girl in July 2006.
The girl, who is Dan Jessop's sister, came to the courthouse on Tuesday, but was not called to testify because the hearing did not resume. Instead, attorneys reached their agreement outside the courtroom, and Walther only briefly held court to accept the deal.[...]
Rumors had swirled over the weekend about the busloads of witnesses DFPS might have been planning to bring to Tuesday's hearing.
"I heard from an ad litem there were as many as eight girls," Matassarin said. "Someone else heard there were more than that."
She had filed a motion earlier Tuesday to postpone the hearing so she could discover more about new witnesses - but the issue became moot when attorneys instead went forward with out-of-court negotiations.
State attorneys did bring a stack of documents about 4 inches thick, which Matassarin said she has not been able to review.

Hearings are set to resume tomorrow, unless the Texas Supreme Court hands down a ruling unfavorable to CPS.

Here's something called a SUR-Reply to opposition to stay motion- basically the latest of a series of replies to replies to replies submitted to the St. Supreme Court as the state seeks to have that court vacate the 3rd Court's ruling to vacate Walther's court.
Particularly interesting are pages 2 and 3, and then pages 7 and 8.

The twelve children recently returned to their parents included all six children of Lorene Keate and her husband (sorry, can't think of his name right now- Leland?)- even though only three of them were covered by the writs of habeus corpus their parents were seeking. Also looks like CPS is misrepresenting the facts to the Court, which seems like a really dumb thing to do, so I wonder what that's about.

FLDS May 25-26

This batch of links was borrowed from elsewhere, but I neglected to note the source, thinking I'd remember. HAH.

Texas Ranger Long, who filled out the affadavits for searching the temple and the Ranch, is himself a long-time acquaintance of Flora Jessop. (link should be fixed now)

Jessop said she had to maintain the pretense that her caller was real so that Texas police could continue investigating. (link should be fixed now)

2004-When it all began. [link should be fixed now]


Jessop has a history of leading the media and others on a wild goose chase?
----------------------

The Trib examines the case so far and the implications of the Jeffs photo:

Just eight mothers were left in a pool of 26 females the state believed to be 17 or younger. More were expected to be declared adults in coming status hearings. Not a single instance of physical abuse was introduced in the hearings, either. Still, five judges mechanically approved boilerplate service plans while rejecting any suggested modifications from parents' or children's attorneys.

Then came the 3rd Court's ruling that Judge Walther abused her discretion in removing all the children with no evidence of abuse presented by CPS.
The state responded in San Antonio by temporarily permitting three sets of parents to keep their 12 children with them, indicating, once more, that the state truly does recognize this is not a single household. In the case of Dan and Louisa Jessop, they brought out the nasty images of Warren Jeffs kissing a 12 year old:

The photos were entered as evidence in a 14-day custody hearing for an infant born May 12 to Louisa and Dan Jessop. The girl in the photo is Dan Jessop's sister. Attorneys for the state contend the photo is evidence that the couple lived in a household that supported underage marriage.
The photographs have left at least some attorneys for FLDS parents and children reeling. Lawyers interviewed by The Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday said they found the photos "disturbing."
But attorneys were unsettled, too, by the state's use of them now rather than at the original hearing in mid-April.
Where the photographs came from has not been explained. [...]
But the photos caused legal experts such as Carl Tobias to raise the same question that has arisen with other prosecutorial moves in the case.
"Should one photo . . . serve as the basis for the state removing the 400-plus children?" said Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, and an expert in constitutional and court proceedings.
Which is the message from the Third Court of Appeals, said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Virginia.
The photos are as "relevant as using a compromising photo of the parish priest to take the children of all the parishioners," he said in an e-mail to The Tribune, and are a "sleazy" attempt to shape public opinion.
"If it was aimed at any real court at all, it would be the Texas Supreme Court which is preparing to hear [state's Child Protective Services] appeal of a decision ordering many of the children returned to their homes," Wexler said.
Willie Jessop, an FLDS member and spokesman, traveled to San Antonio on Friday and, until Saturday, had never seen the photographs.
He said he doesn't know the girl or anything about her situation.
He accused the state of making a calculated, unethical move by using and publicly releasing the photos.
"If that was your daughter, would you want the court to leak it to the media?" he asked. "The state put those photographs out to insinuate there were marital relations that involved sexual intercourse, and that is not true."
The girl, now 13, is in state custody and, like other children, has received a physical exam.
Whatever her situation, it does not "give the state the right to take children away when it does not have anything to do with them," Willie Jessop said.
That argument has been made repeatedly by attorneys representing FLDS parents and children.
"There may be abuse going on. I don't think anyone has argued that's not the case," said Julie Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, one of the firms that won the appeals court decision. "The question is, can you remove these children this way under Texas law?"
For now, the photographs of Jeffs are being used in just one case - that of Louisa and Dan Jessop's son. The state's challenge is unchanged: It must show their infant is in urgent danger and there is no option but to keep him in state custody, separated from his father and siblings, ages 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 .
Wexler said even if CPS' allegations are true, there are alternatives - requiring parents to live off the ranch, for instance - that protect the children "without amputating their mothers."

I will also note that although the girl is supposed to be Dan's sister (and I have no reason to doubt that) he has some 45 siblings, at least. Also in his testimony about his own marriage, he says only his father, his father-in-law, and Warren Jeffs (who performed the ceremony) were present (besides he and his bride of course). Weddings in the FLDS don't seem to be the big shindigs we expect and are familiar with, and we may be guilty here of assuming things not in evidence, interpreting FLDS events through the lens of our own cultural practices. It's not unreasonable that Dan would not know his younger sister was 'sealed' to the Prophet- especially at that time, when said Prophet was on the lam and might be disappearing from the community for a long stretch of time. It's also not, apparently, unheard of for FLDS marriages to be unconsummated- especially since they believe the marriages will continue in Heaven, as will procreation. Nor is it unusual for marriages to occur for reasons of sealing alliances between families rather than for reasons more, um, physical.

The FLDS have many practices foreign to mainstream culture, some of which I share, some of which are abhorrent to me, and some of which are just different in a neutral fashion. But individuals within that group vary and have a right to defend themselves on an individual rather than group basis. That's not what has happened. This has been a trial of a religious group, and merely being a member of the group and living at the ranch will get your kids removed.

That's barbaric. As another commenter somewhere notes: "Civilized jurisprudence focuses on individuals and not groups".
------------------------

Another commenter notes:

And again, how does this picture justify taking away the rights hundreds of children not in this picture have to be with their parents who are not in this picture, either. Most of these children may well be adults by the time Mr. Jeffs gets out, and even if they’re not, he is certainly in no position to pose an imminent threat to any of them right now. Mr. Jeffs holds an entirely unique position within the FLDS. And this picture was taken at an entirely unique point in time for him and the church, as he was about to be taken away for a very long time. As such, even if the picture should be found to indicate some form of wrongdoing, you cannot generalize to assume it depicts common practice amongst regular FLDS parishioners under less unusual circumstances.

Furthermore, due to the fact that Mr. Jeffs, solely due to having been an accessory to a rapist less rape, was amongst the nation’s most wanted criminals at the time, dealings with him likely had to be of an unusually clandestine nature. Combined with the high numbers of half brothers and sisters some FLDS members have, it is entirely possible Dan Jessop was unaware of his sister’s participation in this supposed marriage ceremony.

-----------------------
Whatever the implications of that photograph, there's still no reason to keep Dan and Louisa's baby on the basis of it (and he wasn't removed on that basis, either). This is guilt by association, which is a smear tactic that has tainted the entire judicial process for the FLDS in Texas. As I said before, I think it would be a great photograph to use at Warren's trial, or even Merrill's. I personally have deep suspicions about Merrill Jessop- but we don't get to justify the removal of all of his children and grandchildren, let alone those of his neighbors, on the basis of my negative opinions- or those of CPS. Even these two (Warren and Merrill) are entitled to due process and all care and respect for their Constitutional rights. Kpb commenting at Grits again, notes:

It helps nobody if rights are violated. When it becomes acceptable to violate the rights of those that are guilty, suspects are next in line with the innocent close behind.

---------------------------
We've permitted Child Protective agencies to run amok and without respect for said due process, so they can inflict the greatest punishment a parent can imagine on a family with lower standards of proof than a far less severe prison sentence. It is now acceptable to violate the rights of anybody so long as the charge is child abuse. It's surreal the risks and dangers we permit the state to take with our children in the name of protecting the children.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON CHILD WELFARE AND FOSTER CARE, SELECT TEXAS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INTERIM REPORT 2004 (pdf)

TCFR cited a report by Richard Wexler, an authority in the field of child welfare, which stated that national data on child abuse fatalities show that a child is more than twice as likely to die of abuse in foster care as in the general population. In the same report, Wexler also states that in reviewing other states' child protection agencies, the studies that detail abuse in foster care deal only with reported maltreatment. The actual amount of abuse in foster care, according to Wexler, is likely to be far higher, due to the fact that agencies have a special incentive not to investigate such reports, since they are in effect investigating themselves.

Another Grits Commenter excerpted some of it (sorry, I forget now which one), and I'm unabashedly passing it on here for wider dissemination:

Texas Center for Family Rights

TCFR's main concern with CPS in regards to substitute care is that they feel that while current law and policy allow parents to designate a substitute caregiver, in practice, CPS fails to aggressively apply this principle. As a result, TCFR feels that the State has failed to truly act in the best interests of children. TCFR testimony revolved around the following points:

Reasons for failure to promote care with a family member or friend:
• Assumption of guilt of parents causes distrust of family members to provide for
safety of children
• Feeling of power and control over child when in CPS custody
• Feeling of power and control over family when child in CPS custody
• Financial incentives to have child in foster care

Reasons for need to promote care with a family member or friend:
• Children need strong stable ties to familiar surroundings, especially in a crisis
• Removal of children from families always causes trauma to the child
• Children are NOT safer in foster care
• Foster care is stranger care
• CPS has failed to act in the best interest of children in its oversight of foster care
both in the State of Texas and nationally
• Perverse financial incentives with regard to federal guidelines color decisions
regarding the best interests of the child
• Judicial independence has been compromised especially with unethical cluster court
set-up
• Avoid class action law suit on behalf of children in Texas

Recommendations for Reform:

• Upon determination by CPS that removal is necessary, a parent or parents may
designate another person to care for the child as an alternative to being cast into the strange world of foster care.
• The right to direct placement is retained by parent until the court terminates the
parental rights.
• CPS provides a written safety plan to that designated person to properly care for
and protect the child.
• Law enforcement agency assisting in an investigation may conduct a criminal background check on designated person and any other person in the designated person’s household. Evidence of past sexual abuse, physical abuse or a serious felony would disqualify that person from caring for the child.


TCFR quoted the Texas Comptroller's Report of April 2004 which reviewed the many
aspects of the DFPS and the Texas foster care system as a whole. The report notes that “Federal and state oversight agencies have reported on DFPS’ troubles repeatedly, yet theproblems remain. And simple patches will not fix them....The Comptrollers’ review team found that the foster care system is failing too many children, from their placement, care and monitoring to the business processes that support them. The system reflects a legacy of weak leadership; an atmosphere of helpless acquiescence to the status quo; a reluctance to look too closely into dark corners; and a culture of self-protection and buckpassing.”

It is TCFR's contention that DFPS' many problems outlined in this report have
caused further harm to children in the foster care system.
TCFR referenced the Supreme Court decision Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925 which
states that "the child is not the mere creature of the state" in order to set the foundation for their recommendations on providing parents with a true decision on directing CPS where to place their children upon removal. According to the Texas Family Code § 153.001, the public policy of this State is to: assure that children will have frequent and continuing contact with parents who have shown the ability to act in the best interest of the child; and to provide a safe, stable, and nonviolent environment for the child. TCFR listed several other legal precedents to provide the Committee with a background on the consistency with their stance on parental directives and public policy, including:
• Texas Family Code § 153.003 states that a state agency may not adopt rules or
policies or take any other action that violates the fundamental right and duty of a
parent to direct the upbringing of the parent’s child.
• U.S. Supreme Court, Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972, states that the history and culture
of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.
• U.S. Supreme Court, Troxel v. Granville states that the Due Process Clause does
not permit a State to infringe on the fundamental right of parents to make
childrearing decisions simply because a state judge believes a ‘better’ decision
could be made.
• Except as provided in subparagraph (D), reasonable efforts shall be made to
preserve and reunify families (42 U.S.C.A. 671(a)(15)(B)).
• Texas Family Code § 153.002 states that the best interest of the child shall always
be the primary consideration of the court in determining the issues of
conservatorship and possession of and access to the child.
TCFR's basis for portraying the laws and public policy relating to substitute care with relatives is to note that CPS has not always followed the letter of the law. Their testimony progressed with the dangers of placing children in the homes of unrelated foster caregivers.
TCFR cited a report by Richard Wexler, an authority in the field of child welfare, which stated that national data on child abuse fatalities show that a child is more than twice as likely to die of abuse in foster care as in the general population.

In the same report,
Wexler also states that in reviewing other states' child protection agencies, the studies that
detail abuse in foster care deal only with reported maltreatment. The actual amount of
abuse in foster care, according to Wexler, is likely to be far higher, due to the fact that
agencies have a special incentive not to investigate such reports, since they are in effect
investigating themselves.

TCFR portrayed their concerns about removing children from their families, and provided
the Committee with an abundant amount of research and legal decisions that documented
the strain and stress that removal puts on children. They noted that children’s own families
are the single most powerful agent for ensuring their healthy development. Removing
children from their families for any but the most compelling reasons breaks the critical bond
that children need to develop their basic personal and societal identities TCFR further
noted that children need close relationships with caring adults, however foster children
rarely have the opportunity to form and sustain these close ties.

Citing information from
the National Commission on Children, TCFR noted that placement with relatives is often a
desirable arrangement for children who have been removed from their parents. Placement
with relatives enables children to retain links to their families and may be less stressful than
placement with unfamiliar adults and children.

Based on the aforementioned testimony and research, TCFR listed the following
recommendations for reform in directing CPS to follow parental directive and uphold
parental rights upon allegations of abuse and removal of children:
• Upon determination by CPS that removal is necessary, a parent or parents may
designate another person to care for the child as an alternative to being cast into
foster care.
• The right to direct placement is retained by the parent(s) until the court terminates
the parental rights.
TCFR also listed safeguards to the State:
• CPS provides a written safety plan to that designated person to properly care for
and protect the child.
• Law enforcement agency assisting in an investigation may conduct a criminal
background check on designated person and any other person in the designated
person’s household.
o Evidence of past sexual abuse, physical abuse or a serious felony would
disqualify that person from caring for the child
TCFR believes that if the State follows their recommendations, the following outcomes will
be accomplished:
• For the child: there will be less trauma, the recommendations will prevent foster
care abuse, ensure greater safety, and provide stability with familiar surroundings.
• For the parents and their parental rights: there will be confidence about their
children's placements, confidence in the foster care system, less resulting job stress,
and less long-term devastation.
• For CPS: TCFR recommendations will keep CPS abiding by the spirit of the law,
help them overcome perverse financial incentives and have a reduced case load,
and provide them with the ability to concentrate on true abuse cases

-------------------------------
CPS generally gets away with all sorts of nonsense, but in this case they may have over-stepped just because the sheer size of the operation made it so newsworthy. And there may be lawsuits (I hope so):

"They have created chaos. They don't know what to do. This case has holes in it the size of the Grand Canyon," said Laura Shockley, a Dallas family law specialist with six clients in the case. "There is no way to fix this."

She and other lawyers say some of the seized people, especially those who it turns out are 18 or older, have potent federal civil rights lawsuits against the state.

Allegations of errors
In papers filed in court and in interviews for this story, lawyers for the children and parents have complained that the state (primarily through CPS, but also through law enforcement and the courts) has made a number of legal errors including:

•Insufficient investigation of the initial tip and tipster.
•Insufficient investigation at the ranch about who was in immediate danger.
•Treating the entire compound as one household, though there were 19 separate residences.
•Taking all children instead of just the post-pubescent girls who could have been subjected to the feared sexual abuse by older men.
•Insufficient evidence presented at the first hearing for the children.
•The hearing should have been for each individual child, not all in one hearing.
•Shifting burden of proof to parents to prove innocence, rather than having CPS prove guilt.
Amy Warr, an Austin appellate specialist who is working on a response to the state's request to the Supreme Court, said she got involved in the case because of how badly the state has handled it.

"The result is a lot of people did not get due process. As a lawyer and a mother I know the reason the Legislature set high standards before the state can take kids," Warr said. She said those standards were not met.

The lawyers complain that CPS was supposed to consider removing only children in immediate danger, not children who might grow up to abuse others. The lawyers said CPS was supposed to explore alternatives before removing any children. The appeals court made those same points.

---------------------

More good ideas on reforming Child Welfare, from Richard Wexler:
"In all places where it appears, the phrase “best interests of the child” should be replaced with the phrase “least detrimental alternative.”
Currently, almost all state laws involving custody of children are liberally sprinkled with the phrase “best interests of the child.”
But that is a phrase filled with hubris. It says we are wise enough always to know what is best and capable always of acting on what we know. In fact, those are dangerous assumptions that can lead us to try to fix what isn’t broken or make worse what is.
More than thirty years ago, Albert Solnit, Joseph Goldstein, and Anna Freud, proposed an alternative phrase. They said “best interests of the child” should be re-placed with “least detrimental alternative.”
“Least detrimental alternative” is a humble phrase. It recognizes that whenever we intervene in family life we do harm. Sometimes we must intervene anyway, because intervening is less harmful than not intervening. But whenever we step in, harm is done.
The phrase “least detrimental alternative” is a constant reminder that we must always balance the harm that we may think a family is doing against the harm of intervening. It is exactly the shot of humility that every child welfare system needs.

Richard Wexler
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org
-------------------------------
From TRLA's response to the State's appeal to the Texas Supreme Court:

By denying the stay and
allowing the court of appeals’ order to take effect, this Court would halt the only harm that everyone is certain is occurring. As the court of appeals correctly determined, there is no evidence of any equivalent harm—including abuse—that could justify the stay.
The Department removed these children from their homes, but now contends that
it cannot return the children to their mothers, as the court of appeals’ decision requires,
because it does not know with certainty which child belongs with which mother. This
argument is belied by both the evidence in the record and the Department’s own actions.
The Department first complains that Appendix 1 to the mothers’ reply brief in the
court of appeals was not before the trial court and therefore could not be considered by
the court of appeals. This is beside the point. Appendix 1 is not evidence, and was never
intended as evidence. It is part of the mothers’ briefing and was prepared from the record
in response to the Department’s argument that the mothers had never identified their
children. It points the Court to specific places in the reporter’s record and the clerk’s
record in which mothers identified themselves and their children. See App. 1 to mothers’
reply brief (submitted to Supreme Court’s Clerk by separate e-mail—motion to seal to be
filed). The mothers do not rely on a “bare assertion set forth in a spreadsheet,” Motion
for Emergency Relief at 3, but on the record itself, which the Department ignores.
The Department’s profession of ignorance regarding the children’s parentage is
refuted by its own conduct after the hearing. It is undisputed that the Department has
allowed these mothers to visit their children. It has participated in status hearings with
the parents in which the Department presents the parents with a “service plan,” i.e., the
requirements the parents must fulfill over the next year in order to be reunited with their
children. In those service plans, prepared by the Department, both children and parents
are named. See App. 1, 2, attached. In other words, the matching of children with
parents did not become a problem for the Department until a court decided that it had to
give the children back. The Department’s claim of ignorance strains credulity.
Moreover, even if the Department’s professed confusion has any credence at all, it
certainly cannot justify failure to return all the children. If there are particular concerns
about any particular child (of which there is no indication in the record), that would be a
matter for the trial court to address as part of its continuing jurisdiction over the cases and
parties.
--------------


CPS workers complain that the agency is too slow to reimburse them for expenses. They don't want their names used because of fear of backlash from their work. What a sweetheart of a place to work.

Officials from the Texas Department of Family Protective Services say the agency is struggling to reduce a growing backlog in reimbursement requests for out-of-pocket expenses from caseworkers in the field who say the skyrocketing price of gasoline is hampering their ability to do their jobs.

Awww. Poor CPS workers. Here's a thought: why don't they keep all the children in a family together and assign CPS workers by family:
Brooke Adams notes that while caseworkers are complaining about delays in reimbursement, they will at least see some payment. Parents and pro bono attorneys will not, and this mess is not of their making.

Speaking of costs, they continue to mount and are probably being underestimated at the moment. But here is what the Department of Family and Protective Services reported last week about its costs related to the YFZ Ranch effort:

Interestingly, it listed March 29 as the starting date, indicating the agency's effort was underway at that point. That is the day the NewBridge Family Center received the first hoax call about a girl in distress at the ranch.

Wonder why?
----------
6:32 update: Here's a story mainly about Dan Barlow, 76 year old survivor of the Short Creek Raid, excommunicated a few years ago by Warren Jeffs, and father to a handful of YfZ children in custody. What I found most interesting are the comments from a couple lawyers:

Flower Mound family attorney Natalie Malonis... would not be surprised by a second reversal in the case...

"Just looking at the ruling from the Court of Appeals, there are a lot of gaps," she said. "The Court of Appeals had some very strong language. I could see a (higher) court taking issue with it."

For example, she said, the three justices who issued the opinion - W. Kenneth Law, Bob Pemberton and Alan Waldrop - said the state presented "no evidence" of physical harm. In fact, a CPS witness testified at length during the April 17-18 hearing that children were at risk of hampered brain development under the authoritarian sect lifestyle.

Walther herself seemed to object to the ruling's arguments that the state should have presented evidence only focusing on immediate physical harm to the children, saying during a related hearing Friday that, "I believe it's in the statute" that emotional abuse should be considered.

I can't speak to this legal argument, but I can say that it just blows my mind that the children were at risk of hampered brain development because the FLDS are 'authoritarian,' and so the remedy is to put them in foster homes where they have no say in any aspect of their lives and have been, as Wexler put it, amputated from their mothers, against their strongly expressed will. It's like CPS' remedy is to impose nearly the same ill, but it's okay so long as they and not the parents are the actors.
Incidentally, I have been told, but have no confirmed, that children in foster care, girls, to be specific, are required to have the birth control depo prevera inserted beneath the skin of the upper arms. Is this true?


But what really gets my attention is the insouciant disregard one attorney, Tom Goff, seems to have for the horrific pain being inflicted on the children involved:

He said he had seen the cases moving toward mediation once the status hearings ended in early June, with obvious non-offending parents granted monitored return of their children....

Can somebody tell me by what right the state requires 'non-offending' parents to accept monitoring of the return of their children? By what right does the state even pretend to hold the children of these 'obvious non-offending parents.' Who is the state to 'grant' non-offending parents their OWN CHILDREN?

"She wanted the parties to get together," Goff said of Walther. "She wanted mediation. If they had gotten through the 60-day hearings, it was headed for mediation. The kids were coming back. It would have worked itself out."

Like a bookkeeping error- it would have worked itself out? These are children, not numbers on a page. Months away from all they knew and loved, shuttled about from place to place in the first four weeks, spied on, questioned, forced to submit to medical exams they don't want, living in places with far greater known risks than their own homes, no longer tucked in at night by the mothers who love them, and it was going to work itself out.
No, it wasn't. If the state returned the children right this second, it's too late to undo the harm that has been done. IT can only stop creating more harm.

If I am beating you about the head and shoulders with a rubber hose, we do not refer to it as working itself out because you get a court order requiring that I stop.

Poppies:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae

The School Journal, 1906

The School Journal: " An Entertainment for Memorial Day Reported by ANNA LINEHAN

The assembly hall of Public School No 39 in the Borough of the Bronx was tastefully decorated with the national colors in honor of Memorial Day. A beautiful silk flag was presented to the school by the Women's Relief Corps of the Alexander Hamilton Post of the GAR.

The Patriotic Drill was especially enjoyable. Sixteen of the younger girls and boys took part. Each child carried a wreath of red white and blue, which added to the appearance of the motions and tableaux. The white dresses of the children made the colors in their wreaths more pronounced .

The Old Flag and Spirit of 1776 was participated in by twenty four of the larger boys and consisted of a whistling chorus with drum accompaniment, also vocal duet and chorus by the boys, and tableaux at the end, all of which was loudly applauded by the audience.

The older girls, carrying garlands of smilax, entered first and formed lines on either side with the smilax arched above their heads, producing a bower effect. Following them came tiny girls dancing thru this bower, each child carrying a handful of daisies.

The physical culture exercise coming at the end of the first part of the program gave an opportunity to have the windows opened, and the pupils were given a few moments for conversation which furnished the necessary relaxation. The recitation of Adelaide Procter's poem 'The Storm' was very effective, for the Miserere Domine at the end of each verse was chanted in a minor key by the pupils, the Gloria tibí Domine coming out full and clear in the major at the end of the last verse.

It was inspiring to hear that assembly of children repeat in unison "I pledge my allegiance to the flag and to the Republic for which it stands One Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," and at the same time waving the flag of the Union.

Entertainments of this kind give to Memorial Day in the pupils minds a dignity which befits the occasion and can never be eradicated. The program given by this school, of which Miss Emile J Litchenstein is principal, may be of help to other teachers.
Here it is PART ONE

1 Reading of the Scriptures................ Rev Dr Arthur Brooks
2 Hymn О Paradise................ School
3 Recitation Welcome................ Lillian Herbes
4 Chorus Welcome Sweet Spring Time................ School
5 Recitation and Song Flowers for the Soldiers................ Alice Beyer and Selected Pupils
6 Recitation: The School House Flag................ Charles Connor
7 Patriotic Drill ................ Selected Boys and Girls
8 Piano Duet................ Ruth Berkman and Gertrude Joseph
9 Quotations................ Selected Pupils
10 Chorus Sweet Memories................ School
11 Recitation A Great Man................ Seymour Sefl
12 Drill Our Soldier Boys ................ Selected Boys
13 Reading The Flag ................ Harry Doyle
14 Motion Song Swanee River ................ Selected Girls
15 Physical Culture ................ School

PART TWO
Trio Sweet and Low ................ School
Recitation Union and Liberty ................ Kate Lippner
Smilax and Daisy Drill ................ Selected Girls
Duet and Chorus Tenting To night ................ Tessie Katz Morton Davis and School
Sheridan's Ride................ Annabel Goldstein
Chorus Right Make Might................ School
Recitation The Storm................ Kathryn Kenny
Chorus Hail Columbia................ School
Recitation Which General................ Frank Mallet
The Old Flag, Spirit of 1776................ Selected Pupils
Columbia Frolic................ Selected Boys and Girls
Chorus Nobly Our Flag ................ School
Presentation of the Flag by Women's Relief Corps of the Alexander Hamilton Post
Acceptance of Flag................ Morton Davis
Salute to the Flag ................ School
Chorus Star Spangled Banner ................ School
Addresses
Chorus America................ School

Memorial Day

Once called Decoration Day, now Memorial Day, here's an old program for an old fashioned celebration of it:

The World Book Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture By Ellsworth D. Foster: ""

Blood Libel

The Italian Plague of 1629–1631 was a series of outbreaks of bubonic plague which occurred from 1629 through 1631 in northern Italy. This epidemic, often referred to as Great Plague of Milan, claimed the lives of approximately 280,000 people, with the cities of Lombardy and Venice experiencing particularly high death rates. This episode is considered one of the last outbreaks of the centuries-long pandemic of bubonic plague which began with the Black Death.

Above excerpt From Wikipedia

An epidemic of fear raced ahead of the plague, as people panicked and terror caused reason to retreat. Rumours and conspiracy theories abounded, and there was no measure thought too harsh to prevent the contagion of this disease. Many believed it was being deliberately spread by a secret fraternity of 'plague annointers:'

During the plague of 1630 in Milan, it was widely thought that untori ("anointers") went about the city deliberately spreading the infection with various ointments that they wiped on houses, city walls and church pews. This popular myth illustrates the fear and paranoia that accompanied the plague in early modern times. Accounts of untori making pacts with demons in exchange for plague unguents suggest a plague-stricken city in which disorder and panic were almost as threatening as the epidemic itself.

An Italian Cardinal at the time (sorry, his name escapes me) kept extensive notes of the plague an the rumours surrounding it. They were unpublished, but in Alessandro Manzoni made extensive use of those notes in his wonderful book The Betrothed, or I Promessi Sposi.
Following are a few excerpts of his accounts of the suspicions and rumours and quick cries of guilty! guilty! surrounding the plague in Milan and the fears of the 'untori.' Some of it sounds all too familiar (emphasis added):

For the suppressed suspicions of poisonous ointments had meanwhile re-awakened, more general and more raging than before.
People ... fancied they had seen anointed walls, entrances to public buildings, doors of private houses, knockers. The news of these discoveries flew from mouth to mouth; and, as it happens even more than usually in great prepossession, the hearing produced the effect of beholding. The minds, more and more embittered by the presence of suffering, irritated by the insistence of the danger, embraced this belief the more willingly: for anger longs to punish...

The more salacious and horrific the accusations, the better:

It was said to be composed, this venom, of toads, of serpents, of saliva and matter from infected persons, of worse, of all that wild and perverted fantasies could find of foul and atrocious. To these was added witchcraft, by which any effect became possible, every objection lost its force, every difficulty was resolved. If the effects had not immediately been seen upon that first anointing, the reason was now clear; it had been the imperfect attempt of novices in the art of sorcery: now the art had been perfected, and the wills more bent upon their infernal purpose.

Trying to inject measured, thoughtful caution into the public discourse was the fastest way to be accused of being in collusion with the vile untori:

Now, had any one maintained that it had been a mere trick, had any one denied the existence of a scheme, he would have passed for a blind, an obstinate person; if indeed he would not have fallen under the suspicion of being interested in diverting public scrutiny, of being an accomplice...

All 'evidence' was interpreted now through this filter that predisposed one to see what one expected to see:

With such a persuasion that Untores were at work, some must be discovered, almost infallibly: all eyes were on the alert; every act might excite jealousy. And jealousy easily became certainty, certainty fury.[...]

Dressing funny, being foreign, 'other' in some way was as good as an admission of guilt:

Three young French companions, a scholar, a painter, a mechanic, who had come to see Italy.... approached.... One passer-by, beholds them and stops; he points them to another, to others coming up: a group formed to behold and keep their eye on them, whom their costume, their headdress, their sacks, proclaimed to be strangers, and, what was worse, Frenchmen. As if to assure themselves that it [the Duomo] was marble, these held out their hands to touch it. It was enough. They were surrounded, seized, beat, urged, by blows, to prison.
[...]
The traveller who was met by peasants out of the highway, or on this were seen loitering and gazing here and there, or stretched upon the ground to rest; the stranger in whom they fancied they beheld something singular and suspicious in countenance or dress, these were Untores...

You may remember the post about the story Autobiography of a Slander, and how much pain and suffering can result from a seemingly small falsehood. And, you may remember similar wild rumours circulating at various times- the blood libel stories against the Jews, said to require the blood of Christian babies in their Matzo, the exaggerated stories of illegitmate children buried in the walls of nunneries, Belgian babies bayonetted on the ends of German guns (I thought that one was true), Janet Reno justifying Waco by talking about babies being beaten...

In response to FLDS moving in to the area, State Legislator Hilderbran, representative to Schleicher County, where YfZ ranch is located, proposed many legislative changes aimed directly at the FLDS. According the writ of Habeus Corpus filed on behalf of the three fathers:

He expressed fear that the FLDS would take over the electorate and he and the Attorney General of Utah presented testimony alleging that the members of FLDS killed small animals to give their children the feel of blood on their hands and other atrocities vilifying all members of FLDS.

Blink. There are so many angles from which to approach this. I am reminded of all the tales mentioned above.
The HG wants to know, "So, what?"
Don't many hunters have a tradition of wiping the blood of the first kill on their faces or something weird and icky like that?
The YfZ community is an agrarian community. In an agrarian life, you have to understand the connection between the meat you eat and the death of an animal. If that's abuse, then I hope Hilderbran is a vegetarian.

Brooke Adams has been reading ''Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict.''
She says:

Let me share the recommendations made by Christopher G. Ellison and John P. Bartkowski in their chapter titled, ''Babies Were Being Beaten: Exploring child abuse allegations at Ranch Apocalypse.''

The title is borrowed from a statement by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in explaining why the government had to act as it did at Waco.

The chapter centers on the allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse leveled at the Davidians, primarily leader David Koresh, and how those claims shaped public opinion about the group. The authors discredit most of the physical abuse claims based on a ''dearth of contemporaneous evidence'' while finding substance in the sexual abuse allegations.

Even so, ''the apparent theological underpinnings of these relationships and the consent given freely by the parents underscore the complexity of these situations, dictating some degree of interpretive caution.''

They note that the government put off criticism of its actions by ''emphasizing child-saving themes'' and that apostates who made most of the claims ''were able to use largely unsubstantiated allegations in their unrelenting campaign to demonize David Koresh.''

Child abuse allegations resonant with the public, the authors said, and ''have the potential to cement an odd anticult alliance from forces of the sociopolitical left and right: law enforcement agents, therapists, social workers and other children's advocates, as well as diverse segments of the religious establishment . . . ''

Here is the ''stocktaking'' the authors said was necessary to avoid similar catastrophes, which I am closely quoting below:

1. Authorities and media should investigate carefully the complex process of claims-making surrounding mariginal religious groups and their child-rearing practices. . . . It is important to link conflicting accounts about the group to the divergent ideological, psychological, and material interests and agendas of the adversarial parties.

2. ''Child abuse'' should be defined very carefully, so as to avoid loose and ideologically laden uses of this stigamtizing label. Children who are physically punished, taught a distinctive (e.g., apocalyptic) theology, or raised in an unusual set of circumstances (e.g., communally) are not necessarily being abused by their caregivers.

3. Authorities who must adjudicate the various claims and counterclaims about marginal religious groups should solicit and take seriously the input of social scientists who are familiar with the theology, history, and collective dynamics of such groups.

4. When child abuse claims are at issue, these investigators should be attentive to the growing body of scholarly research that treats such accusations critically. . . . studies in this tradition suggest that child abuse allegations often turn out to be inaccurrate for various reasons, and that a substantial proportion of such allegations emerge from child custody battles, or from other intrafamily or intragroup conflicts.

5. At each step in the investigative process, it must be the responsibility of authorities to weigh carefully the tradeoffs between the preservation of religious liberty for minority religious groups and the welfare of the children. They must avoid taking steps which might jeopardize the physical or emotional well-being of the youngsters.

Almost any Civil liberty can be violated today 'for the sake of the children.' I personally think it's because so many people are childless by choice these days, yet there's something deep within each human that years for that natural process somehow. So society, increasingly barren, decides all the children are 'our' children. They are society's children. They belong to all of us.

Well, no. They don't. I haven't seen society at my dinner table. I haven't seen 'all of us' standing around cleaning up after The Cherub's messy pull-up. Nor do I see these 'co-owners' of the children that 'belong to all of us' sitting up late with an asthmatic Pip or scraping up funds for new shoes or driving lessons. And you see, there's no authority without responsibility. My husband and I have all the responsibility, so you, society, have no more authority over us than over childless couples. Now should we fail in our responsibilities in some real and tangible and legal way, then we'll talk. Meanwhile, back off.
But society, gnashing its teeth over its increasingly barren state, will not back off. Certain elements are amassing more and more power unto themselves, and it's all 'for the sake of the children,' of course. "The children' are the nuclear weapon in contested divorce cases, and they are increasing used to control other elements of society we find uncomfortably nonconformist.

Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, says:

Imagine for a moment that, when he was Attorney General, John Ashcroft had proposed anti-terrorism legislation with the following provisions:

Special anti-terrorism police can enter any home and search it without a warrant; in fact, they can do it based on no more than an anonymous tip. (Or they can simply threaten to detain anyone in the household if they are not given permission to enter.) Not only can they search the home, they can stripsearch the occupants or arrange for a doctor to do so.

They can detain any member of the household for anywhere from 24 hours to a week or more before they even see the inside of a courtroom. In fact, detention will probably last for the duration of the proceeding because no judge wants to look "soft on terrorism."

Those arrested under this statute get a lawyer only moments before the first hearing begins – or perhaps only after that hearing already is over, and that lawyer often is too overwhelmed to mount a real defense. Or maybe they get no lawyer at all. To prolong detention the standard of proof is merely “preponderance of the evidence.” And all of the trials and hearings and most of the records are secret. (In Texas the hearings are open, but that's unusual).



what I have just described *is* the current law on child welfare in most states. And it’s largely the left that wants to keep it that way.

Richard Wexler
Executive Director
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform
www.nccpr.org

I don't think most of the right is very interested in changing it, either. Oh, some of us may say we are, and we may talk about being strict constructionists, and Constitutionalists. But we've let the Child Abuse Industry control the terms of the discussion, (the source of the fallacious 'erring on the side of the child' doctrine) and so we're afraid to speak up. People will think we're guilty of something we want to hide, or accuse us of supporting, aiding, or abetting child abusers. Or worse. We don't want to be the next accused 'Untori.'

Sunday Hymn Post

There is a place of quiet rest,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest,
Near to the heart of God.

Refrain

O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
Sent from the heart of God,
Hold us who wait before Thee
Near to the heart of God.

There is a place of comfort sweet,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where we our Savior meet,
Near to the heart of God.

Refrain

There is a place of full release,
Near to the heart of God.
A place where all is joy and peace,
Near to the heart of God.

Refrain

More here

FLDS, Mary 24th

I am indebted to Kbp, frequent commenter at Grits for Breakfast, for several of these links and quotes.


Texas State Supreme Court Petition for Writ of Mandamus


Texas State Supreme Court Motion for Emergency Relief


Response to Motion for Emergency Relief

Opinion of 3rd in TEXT!

Timothy Lynch at NRO explains that 'they didn't do it for the children.'

William Grigg, writing about CPS trying to come back on the ranch, the 3rd court ruling, and CPS, explains they were in it for the kids, they just didn't do it on behalf of the children:

But as I've pointed out, the CPS isn't interested in the law, only in the physical possession of the children. As long as the children remain in that agency's hands -- as long as the CPS in any state has the power to seize children in the first place -- the law simply doesn't matter.

John Walsh, who testified about FLDS beliefs and practices at the 14 day hearing, says the state is distorting and falsifying his testimony in their appeal to the state Supreme Court. I wonder if they did it deliberately, or if the creatures of the state genuinely heard what he said differently than he said it- because they were filtering through their preconceived glasses.

Today's 14 day hearing, for the state to retain custody Louisa Bradshaw Jessop's newborn, Louisa being the 22 YO that just gave birth before being declared an adult:

"Louisa Jessop was shown photos of Jeffs kissing young girls, at least one of whom is one of Merrill Jessop's daughters, and said she did not know if they were married. She said she thought the behavior was inappropriate.
In FLDS culture, a man can only have physical contact with a female if they are married. There was no discussion on whether sexual intimacy occurred.
Griffith asked if she knew why Jeffs was in prison and she responded, "For unjust causes as far as I'm concerned" and added that Jeffs "is perfect to me."
Randal Stout, who represents her infant, got her to agree living in a home where underage mothers also reside might be seen as failing to protect her own children.
[...]Louisa Jessop broke down... said the state had changed her status from disputed minor to adult "about the second" her baby was born.

Louisa married at 17, and says she will abide by Texas state law regarding the age her children marry.
Her young husband Dan, shown the same photo and asked what he thought of it, said, "

"I think there's everything wrong with that," he said. "It's against my religion and against my beliefs."
Asked if thought the scene amounted to sexual abuse, Jessop said "I do not consider a girl kissing a man sexual abuse."
Tai asked Jessop if his sister was married to Jeffs, who was convicted in Utah this year of being an accomplice to rape for performing a marriage between a 14- year-old FLDS girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
Jessop said he did not know.
"Seeing an image like that, what do you think?" Tai asked.
"It seems a little wild to me," Jessop answered, "but you see a lot more wild things than that driving down the streets of the city." "

I agree that the photograph certainly struck me with a visceral 'ew, yuck,' reaction, and I can't see that changing, although it's possible there's some extenuating circumstance or some explanation that would put it in a different light. But as sick-making as the image might make somebody feel, my question is, what does this have to do with this couple? Is it their photograph? Are they known to have been present when it was taken? The answer to those questions seems to be no.

Rod Parker, an FLDS spokesman, called the state's use of the photographs of Jeffs a "gratuitous publicity stunt by CPS which doesn't go to the issue at court, which is whether a baby is in immediate danger by what someone else did."

I agree- it does seem to be an appeal by the state to the emotions of the public and the judge. It would be suitable at the trial of Warren Jeffs or the parents of the girl in the photograph, or even somebody known to have it in their photo album perhaps, but I'm not sure why it's here, other than the state's further attempts to inflame emotions against each member of FLDS.
And the Judge goes on notice that she's pretty irritated at the appeals court, and she's going to get even with those FLDS who made her look bad. At least, that's my interpretation of this:

...The hearing will resume Tuesday before 51st District Court Judge Barbara Walthers, who approved the raid in April.
Walthers acknowledged that the appellate court's decision was looming in the background of the case and said she had been criticized for not allowing enough evidence to be let in during a custody hearing in April.
"We're going to have a full-blown adversarial hearing," she said, "and if it takes two to three days, we're going to do it.""

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Dan Jessop says,

"Yes, it's shocking," Dan Jessop told reporters outside of court. "You see far worse, immoral, disgusting, gross things than a girl kissing a man in the streets of your own community. And you and I don't know if the state of Texas fabricated that."

CPS refuses to divulge where they got that photograph, nor would they speak to reporters.
Dan Jessop is Merrill Jessop's son, and the family has been living in one of the bedrooms in Merrill's house.

Jessop said he met his wife on the day of their wedding on Dec. 14, 2003. His father asked him if he'd like to be married and said that his bride had been chosen for him.

"I don't think I could have made a better choice," Jessop said, smiling at his wife from the witness stand.

Bradshaw testified that she was married to Jessop in a ceremony presided over by Warren Jeffs. Only their fathers attended.

Jessop had no more than an eighth-grade education, but he makes a decent living working for the FLDS Church as a heavy-machinery mechanic. Bradshaw, who completed tenth grade, has experience in accounting.

Asked how she was treated by Texas child welfare workers, Bradshaw said she has had few meetings with them, they have never spoken to her about services and never identified any physical dangers to her son or told her where she failed to protect her children from abuse.

Asked if she would allow her 3-year-old daughter to marry at age 14, Jessop replied, "No. Not right now."

Asked what is age appropriate to be married, she replied: "Seventeen or 18."

"Is it your purpose to raise your child to be a sexual predator to have sex with an underage girl?" Jessop's attorney, Patricia Matassarin, asked Dan Jessop.

"Morals are our highest standard. That's the farthest thing from what we teach," he replied.

Jessop and his wife said that if the state wanted them to move off the ranch in order to have custody of their children, they would. Asked why they would leave the ranch, Bradshaw said: "To get out of the way of CPS."

Some of their answers were vague, which is going to hurt them. Louisa would only name her father in law and his wife Barbara as also living in the house with them. On the other hand, with the state refusing to tell where the pictures came from, and the answer below, there's plenty of evasion to go around:

Bradshaw's attorneys objected to the use of the photos in evidence, but CPS said they were presented to show the woman's state of mind and how she would protect her own children.

"It just happens to be Warren Jeffs in the pictures," Griffith said.

Um... right.

As shocking as the photographs were, attorneys for the couple tried to figure out what they had to do with Dan Jessop and Louisa Bradshaw.

Matassarin objected to the line of questioning by attorneys, making reference to the 3rd Court of Appeals decision vacating Judge Barbara Walther's order placing the children in state custody. She wondered what was the immediate or dire emergency that led the state to take custody of the Jessop's child.

Walther shot her down, saying she has been criticized for not providing enough evidence.

Whatever point the state is making with the photograph, I'm still not sure how it provides evidence that the newborn infant is in immediate danger. Nor do I see how the state can claim that the only remedy is to remove the child. The state and its minions are clearly at least as authoritarian as any structure within FLDS (emphasis added below)

As they walked down the courthouse steps toward a crush of cameras and reporters, Louisa Bradshaw lifted the baby blanket to reveal the newborn son she was cradling in her arms to a few reporters. He was asleep, sucking on a pacifier.

Jessop said it was only the second time he has seen his son since the baby was born. As he spoke to reporters, a CPS worker interrupted him.

"We need to take her," the woman said, trying to remove his arm which was wrapped around his wife.

"I'll walk with her," he said.

"We have to go," the worker said, prodding them toward the street. "Come on, let's go."

The couple walked toward an SUV, where Bradshaw was loaded in the back seat and her baby was placed in a carseat next to her. Jessop reached in and hugged his wife.

"It's rough to be separated from your family over and over again," he said.

------------------------

Here's more info on the state's appeal:

The DFPS request contends the ruling issued Thursday by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin was overbroad and would "irreparably" affect the outcome of cases involving hundreds of children taken from the polygamous sect's ranch in Eldorado last month.
The department asks that the Texas Supreme Court bar the appellate court from enforcing its order, arguing that the agency would have to return about 124 children to about 34 ''alleged mothers." However, the appeals court decision actually applies to 41 mothers and about 130 children, an attorney for the mothers said today.
The problem is, DFPS attorneys argue, that the agency has never been able to establish familial relationships among the children taken into custody and their mothers and fathers "due to an orchestrated conspiracy of silence."
The Supreme Court has requested the trial record from the appeals court, indicating it plans to work on the case over the weekend, a spokesman said.

So the state still doesn't know how to count the children in its care. And this is the Mothers' problem because....?

In an 11-page response to the state's motion to the Supreme Court, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid said that returning the children to their parents does not inhibit the state from continuing its investigation.
There are no privileged documents, trade secrets or First Amendment concerns at stake - traditional reasons for granting a stay, it said.
The firm also said the state falsely claimed identities of the children's mothers are unknown; status hearings under way in San Angelo have matched parents and children.
Every day that the children remain separated from their parents and siblings compounds the "harm, pain and distress" they've experienced, the response said.
Any concerns that the parents might flee with the children could be overcome by imposing travel limitations on them.
"If the trial court releases the children and if the department presents evidence that a child [or children] is in danger, it can do a new proceeding," the filing states.

Gerl is concerned about a possible conflict of interest, or at least an indication of bias on the part of the Texas Supreme Court that may hurt the FLDS case.

Bill asks if the recent CPS agreement (made outside of court, not ordered by the judge) to temproarily return custody of 12 children to three families doesn't kind of contradict the CPS claim that all 460 children were and are in immediate danger.

In their appeal to the TX Supreme Court, the state makes this odd (and new) claim:

In justifying their removal of the children from the ranch, Child Protective Services cited as "documented" sexual abuse a statement from a girl who said she knew a 16-year-old who is married with a 5-month-old baby; and the statement from another girl that "Uncle Merrill" decides who and when she will marry. The state also cited five underage pregnant girls.

Isn't that hearsay? And since when is something a child 'heard' about 'documented' as actually having occurred?
Reporters are beginning to notice the discrepancies in the state's case:

The agency accused parents of being uncooperative and not providing proper identification — though in dozens of individual custody hearings this week, parents provided state-issued birth certificates. Other sect members mistakenly believed to be minors also provided drivers' licenses as proof of their age.

I don't believe for a minute that it was a 'mistake' on CPS' part.

I can only find two names for the three families who have custody of their children in San Antonio, for now, are Lori Jessop and her husband (Lori won the right previously to keep her nursing 1 year old with her); Leland and Linda Keate (I think they just have three of their children, I'm not sure it's all of them).

I think Bill's right- returning the children of three families indicates just how bankrupt the state's argument is:

The Department of Family and Protective Services earlier issued a statement defending the raid, saying it removed the children "after finding a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse that puts every child at the ranch at risk."

Obviously, they don't even believe that, or they would not have put the 12 children back with their three sets of parents.

The SLTrib has an editorial on why the 3rd Appellate Court was right.

The state's appeal is a pdf file here. It's 27 pages long, but it really only begins the interesting stuff on about page 9 or 10, and the interesting stuff ends about page 23.
The following are the cases of documented sexual abuse that prove the state had to take all 460 children (besides records indicating five pregnant (or married) teens had been on the ranch last year):
One girl, 'girl #6" said that, and CPS represents that statement as 'documented sexual abuse.'
One girl, #3, says she knows a girl who is 16 and is married, and that's 'documented sexual abuse.'
One girl, #9, says Uncle Merrill decides who and when she'll get married, and "the age depends on what the 'Heavenly Father' decides." This is also 'documented sexual abuse.'
One girl, Suzanne Johnson, is 17 and has a one year old son. This is also 'documented sexual abuse.'

One of these things is not like the other ones, three of these things are kind of the same.

Because the people at the ranch, so says Ms Voss, say they are one large family, on big community, and share the same belief system,' that justifies the state treating that extended family and community of believers as a single household. Does Ms. Vos have a dictionary? Might she consult it and see what the definition of community entails? This statement is quoted repeatedly in the filing.

It mentions polygamy ('it appears a woman is married to one man and that man is married to other women.' Except for when they're not, of course, in this single community), and the fact that all the children call all the women in the home mother. So, they don't call the women in other homes mother? Only the women in their, um, household?

The little children needed to be removed, too, because Ms. Voss found that they all live 'under an umbrella of belief....' I don't think it matters what follows that statement. She just said they had to be removed because of their belief system or that of their parents.

Dr. Perry, the state expert, has a list of credentials that have nothing to do with FLDS, but he has met and talked with two adults who grew up in the community (and I think are no longer part of it). HE says that free choice is impossible when you are brought up to believe children are a blessing and to be compliant to your father and a prophet. Seriously. That's on page 13. He also testified that under the FLDS belief system, continued disobedience would lead to eternal damnation. Frankly, that sounds like most Christian groups, but not much like a Mormon belief.
I do not know what the FLDS beliefs are about the afterlife, but I would have thought that what they really believe is that continued disobedience means you can't go to the Celestial Heaven and procreate happily ever after, making your own worlds and peopling it with your own spirit children.
Oddly, the state does not mention his testimony that the youngest children really needed to be with their mothers.

John Walsh's testimony is represented, but he has issued a public statement pointing out the ways the state has distorted what he actually said (it's linked somewhere above)

There follows legal discussion about why the writ of Mandamus didn't follow legal precedents properly or something. They say the 3rd Court of Appeals abused its discretion. I don't know legal stuff, but it seems odd to me that they want to make it a point to say that the 3rd Court's ruling cannot be based on the credibility of the parties involved. They say the 3rd Court relied on a poor analysis of misstated facts (amusing given the misstated facts regarding Walsh). They say the 3rd Court turns Mandamus on its head and threatens to undermine the entire judicial system and even change our football rules. Or something. Where's the beezlenut oil when you need it?

They also say that the investigation revealed a 'pattern' of girls saying no age was too young to get married. Is there something I am missing? One swallow does not a summer make, so why does one child's statement make a pattern? And I really want to know the age of this child.

There's more, but that will have to do for now.=)
-----------------
9:46 AM: Grits has another post up, pointing out that 5 teen moms out of 27 teen girls is not quite as shocking or salacious as the screaming headlines were announcing.

He updated a previous post, asking a few more important questions. Maybe somebody should pass these on to a Real Reporter somewhere:

Relatedly, will this ruling convince the MSM to stop blindly repeating statistics from CPS's PR people that don't jibe with evidence presented in court? Simple due diligence by reporters would have prevented a lot of the worst obfuscation.

When will we hear more about/from Rozita Swinton, the hoax phone caller who began this fiasco? Why hasn't some reporter gotten her story yet? Who did she speak to besides the women's shelter, and when? Where did she get information about FLDS she gave during her "Sarah" impersonation?

Which MSM outfit will take on the investigative task of filing open records requests and investigating in full exactly what happened during the five day span between the initial hoax phone call and the raid. The most important parts of this story happened during that period, which is the part we still know the least about.

----------------
The FLDS have their own news website, and it's worth checking back at from time to time. Here's an excerpt from an article on under-aged marriage:

The FLDS Church has never taught that underage marriage is a part of our religious belief. What has been taught is that we base our belief on the standard works of the church: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. On numerous occasions members have been urged to “apply the square” to what they hear from the pulpit, and if anything taught is not supported by the scriptures, then they do not have to receive it.

Force in marriage or in any other area of life is contrary to FLDS teachings. Section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants specifically states: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned...”

------------------

7:24: Mrs. Gunning, at Dancing Among Infinite Love, Yahweh's, a has thoughtful post up about the FLDS situation. She noticed something about the recent court decision that I missed:

Texas law allows minors to marry--as young as age sixteen with parental consent and younger than sixteen if pursuant to court order. Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 2.101 (West 2006), §§ 2.102-.103 (West Supp. 2007).

So when Texas changed the marriage laws in 2005, they still left an opening for children under 16 to marry- with court order. I am not saying the FLDS have a court order (I am reasonably sure they do not). But I do find it interesting that apparently, marriage for the under 16 crowd was not quite so repugnant to Texas Lawmakers that they found it unthinkable, unimaginable, impossible to contemplate without throwing up on their boots and shouting, "Child abuse!"
This 'standard' grows ever more murky.
And I also find it interesting whenever the Courts reserve unto themselves rights they deny to parents, in this case, the right to grant certain liberties to minor children while withholding that same right from the parents who know the child best.

Here's a something else I thought of today. Let's imagine that everything CPS has said is true (I know, I know, it does stretch credibility beyond the breaking point, but let's try), and it all applies to each and every child. CPS has still, at best, claimed that the worst that will happen to the 200 children below 5 is that they will believe something CPS disdains, and they will act on those beliefs from 10 to 40 years from now.
And CPS' best remedy for that is to remove those small children now, causing them unbearable trauma.
So it as though CPS met a parent who said, "In 10-40 years, I think I will probably cut off my child's right hand." And CPS, horrified, set out to rescue the child by saying, "Alack a day, we cannot have that!" and cut off the childrens' left hands to sever the bond with their potential abusers and eliminate that terrible danger.

Was there truly no middle ground, no other remedy, no other way to address CPS' concerns?

The Telectroscope Connection

I must admit, I'm a bit bummed that this wasn't up when I visited London in March.

FLDS May 23

Melanie has been very kind, sharing links to related stories, and so saving me oodles of time. I have a related story to a link she passed on that I think she's really going to enjoy- well, enjoy isn't the right word. Raise her eyebrows over? Scroll down to see it.
Updates will be added as I come across them, and they'll be added to the bottom of the post.

More on the court ruling that Judge Walthers abused her discretion: The ruling orders state District Judge Barbara Walther, who approved the mass removal from parental custody, to rescind her original order. Should the state appeal the decision to the 3rd Court or the Texas Supreme Court, the children could remain in state custody until it is resolved, legal experts said.

Officials showed little eagerness Thursday to discuss their plans in the biggest child custody case in Texas. CPS issued a statement saying it would work with the Texas Attorney General's Office to figure out the state's next step.

But Texas Attorney General spokesman Jerry Strickland said his agency was so far "not involved" in the case.

Abandon ship! Abandon ship!


This suit was filed representing 48 mothers, but the ruling can easily affect the rest, since the circumstances are exactly the same- which is kind of the issue that the court overturned- you can't treat all the families as a single household, no evidence was presented that specifically applied to more than five families, and even in those five families, CPS didn't make any effort to examine the circumstances.

Rod Parker, a spokesman for the sect, said he expected attorneys for other parents to file paperwork this week to ensure they "get the benefits of this ruling."

Observers said it is possible that Walther could amend the original order, possibly to ensure that post-pubescent girls remain in state care.

Patterico has a post about the recent ruling from the 3rd court. There's another news story on it here.

Grits wonders what's going to happen now:

Overruling a judge on an "abuse of discretion" standard, by any measure a legal rarity, lays the blame for this entire fiasco at the feet of San Angelo District Judge Barbara Walther. How will she react? Will Judge Walther use the ten days given her by the 3rd Court of Appeals to hold a new round of "14 day hearings," or defer to the appellate court and just let the kids go home?

Any new hearings must respect the appellate judges' insistence that a) the entire ranch is not one household and b) that specific, immediate abuse must be shown to justify a seizure. From what I know, I'm not sure many, if any of the seized YFZ Ranch kids could be kept in custody under that standard. But in any event, the ball is definitely in her court. (Note to Judge Walther: Sometimes the only way to win is to not play the game.)

I'm not sure- there sure seems a lot of hubris going around here, and I don't know that Walthers will have the humility necessary to not play the game. Maybe her fellow judges will convince her. Surely some sense of the mockery to justice that's been going on has seeped through their consciences in court.

Grits has another interesting point:

On the legislative front, Texas CPS just got approval from the Senate Finance Commitee to hire 70 new unit staff (including 42 caseworkers), ten new attorneys, and seventeen other additional staff to handle the extra caseload from the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup (see the list of new positions on page 12 of this pdf). Will they continue to move forward with those new hires?

The money trail could be quite a fascinating thing here, create a crisis of your own making, and then whine to the government that you don't have the time or resources to handle that crisis so you need more- works nearly every time.

Grits has a nice collection of the blogs discussing the recent ruling- and MSM sources as well.


Helen Pflugar is speaking to the press again, only this time it's about how unhappy she is that her neighbors might be getting their children back. Thanks to Melanie for the link. You don't remember Helen Pflugar? She's one of the sources, if not the source, for the pernicious lie that the children and their mothers don't know how to use crayons and they think the color red is of the devil. She also complained to the news that when the children came to the shelter (which is the first place they were taken after being removed) the children wouldn't look her in the eye. Children sense things, and Pfluger seems not to grasp just how traumatizing being yuyanked from your home by men with weapons might be. Now she's complaining:

Helen Pfluger, who helped the sect women and children get situated in temporary shelters shortly after the early April raid by the state, said it would be a travesty if the children were able to return to the ranch now.

"Nothing will have changed," she said.

An FLDS man recently told the media that sect members now want to obtain voter registration cards in Schleicher County. Pfluger said that has been one of the city's concerns for as long as the sect has been there.

"They have never been active in the local government, so we never had any problems," said Pfluger, who lives three miles west of Eldorado.

"With this," Pfluger said, "church and state are so intertwined that you can't separate it."

Note that the first shelter the children were taken to is the Baptist church where Pfluger is a member, in Baptist church buses.

And here's a study in the growth of a slander. The link was broken to the story where Pfluger tells reporters that the children did not know what to do with crayons, and neither did their mothers, so I googled. I found an earlier version of Pfluger telling the same story, but with some differences:

HELEN PFLUGER, CHURCH VOLUNTEER: The mother was maybe 16, maybe 16, didn't know what to do with Crayola. She said what are we supposed to do with these?

Heh. As I said before about this same story, I flatly do not believe that people familiar with fingerpaints, pencils, pens, and the making of posters- all of which are visibly evident on their website- could not even figure out what to do with a crayon. But I can imagine seriously traumatized women and children, removed at gunpoint from their homes and taken to church buildings of a group antithetical to their faith might look in stunned disbelief at some volunteer handing them crayons to 'help.' And how embarrassing for her that there there is internet evidence of the way Pfluger's story grew over time. Her pastor might wish to do a series of lessons on the 8th commandment.

------------
Volokh has a post about the legal risk some FLDS members may still be in. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about Texas laws on Bigamy, but it's all worth reading:

3. Bigamy (and Aiding and Abetting Bigamy): I suspect that the Texas bigamy statute -- which applies when a person "(A) purports to marry or does marry a person other than his spouse ... under circumstances that would, but for the actor's prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or (B) lives with a person other than his spouse in this state under the appearance of being married" -- wouldn't be interpreted as covering ceremonies that the parties understand not to be legal marriages. Clause A wouldn't apply, I think, if no marriage license were applied for, since without such a license the circumstances wouldn't constitute a legal marriage (Texas common-law marriage rules don't apply when one party is already married). Clause B is harder to figure out, but my guess is that this requires representation to others that one is legally married.

The Utah Supreme Court recently interpreted Utah bigamy law more broadly, to cover second marriages even when they aren't claimed to be legally valid marriages; but Utah law said simply that, "A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person," without the "under circumstances" language.

I thought the ruling only pertained to about 40 women, with the chance that more could join the suit- looks like that's already happening, according to the NyTimes (which still seems not to know that there is no 'Sarah.')

The ruling — an unusual mandamus opinion granting relief in a case not yet decided — came on the application of 38 women who challenged state custody and another 54 who filed a second action. But lawyers said the burden was on the state to show why it should not apply to the rest of the children as well.

CORRECTION HERE:Pamela Jessop may sue. She's the 18 year old who gave birth on the 29th of April. She does have two older children
Apologies- An anonymous commenter tells me she has a one year old and her newborn, no others.
and it looks like she did conceive at 16 (I'm sure that all this talk about when each girl conceived seems unseemly to them, and certainly a breach of privacy, and I agree that it is a regrettable result of CPS actions)- so the state may well be considering charging her or the father of her baby with a crime. Holding a lawsuit over the state's head my be a way to protect her family from that possibility, especially since:

The state apparently agreed that Jessop was not a minor. A caseworker signed a statement saying Jessop gave her age as 18. Her birth certificate says so, along with a "bishop's list" collected as evidence from the sect's records.

There was also no denying she was weeks away from giving birth to her second child. And that, she believes, is why she wound up in foster care.

"They kept me all this time to get my little baby," she said.

Despite the evidence, the state placed her on a list that said she was a minor.

Here's one of the many ugly fruits of CPS 'erring on the side of the child' and its unchecked power:

When she went into labor, Jessop said what should have been one of the happiest days of her life turned into one of the worst.

"One of the most stressful, feeling like hawks were all around me, trying to snatch my baby the minute I shut my eyes or laid him down," Jessop recalled.

She said foster care workers were in the delivery room with her. Shortly after his birth, the baby joined her in foster care.

You may remember the name of the attorney who forced the reluctant court to acknowledge that the significance of the fact that CPS' youngest 'pregnant minor' is not, in fact, pregnant. The Judge tried to say it was irrelevant, and the attorney said it was relevant because CPS was using false information to deceive the public, and it was relevant because obviously it was pertinent to her mother's efforts to gain custody of her daughter. I like this gal. And here she is again:

Jessop's attorney said she sees a pattern among FLDS clients, one in which the state ignores hard evidence and classifies adults as minors.

"They put them on that list so that they could continue to have them in custody so that they could either question them in connection with their investigation without attorneys present or, in the cases of women who are going to deliver their babies while in state custody, so they can get the babies," said attorney Andrea Sloan.

CPS insists that they never saw a birth certificate and Pamela never complained, never mentioned that she was an adult.

Jessop stands by her story, and her attorneys say they are considering a federal lawsuit against Texas officials for violating her civil rights.

"They're dealing with our lives and they've treated us like animals," Jessop said. "I can't trust a single person now."

-------------------

Carolyn Jessop wrote the book Escape about her life in the FLDS and her escape from it. I've read many of her interviews and excerpts from her books, and I am sure she was very, very unhappy with her life in the FLDS- otherwise, why leave? I do not discount what she says. I just think that we need to not let our emotions push us into punishing an entire group for the actions of individual members of that group. And here she goes more than a little over the top:

Her poise gone, Carolyn Jessop stood shaking slightly before the group of 50 or so foster care and social workers that she had come to advise.

"I just can't believe they are just sending them back," she said, her tears now noticeable. "That everyone can pretend that the abuse didn't happen."

See, we in the 'outsider's world' have this little thing called evidence, or we are supposed to, that we rely on before we take away everybody's children. We have to prove that people themselves are individually guilty of these 'crimes.'
25 year old Lori Steed Jessop does not deserve to lose her children because five years ago Carolynn ended an unhappy 25 year old relationship with the father of Carolyn's 8 children, even if that father, Merril Jessop, was truly a most unpleasant man.

Thursday, just as the mother of eight was winding up a half-day seminar on how to care for the most indoctrinated of the children, attendees began getting word that an appeals court was ordering the kids' return.

Mark Tennant, head of Arrow Child and Family Ministries, a foster care agency hoping to take in 75 of the Eldorado kids on a long-term basis, made the announcement during the training session in Spring. A local pastor offered a prayer. And the training ended early.

This is not the way to convince the members of the FLDS that we're not out to get them, people.

Jessop recommended foster care agencies hire social workers capable of shrugging off criticism from the children they are trying to help. Some girls have gotten physically violent with their caretakers, Jessop told the group.

Scott Lundy, a licensed child care administrator with Arrow, said his staff members, who volunteered in the first days after the raid, struggled to take everything from contempt to racism from the sect's children.

But wait- they are stepford girls, they are not in touch with their own feelings and they are too docile, too compliant, too cowed by authoritarian structures to resist authority figures, and they've been physically violent with their caretakers? Frankly, I think fighting off your kidnappers is a noble and bold response. But I would really like to know those circumstances. Were the 'caretakers' trying to take away their religious texts? Holding them down for a haircut or medical exam?
FLDS parents report via their website that some of them have been told that if they use the phrase 'keep sweet' to their children in supervised visits, social workers will put it down as a sort of demerit against them. Maybe social workers should rethink that policy.

As Jessop took her seat following the lunch session, several others in the room began to cry with her. Scott Dixon, CPS regional director in this area, told the group that foster care facilities were getting calls from Eldorado parents asking to pick up their kids. He told them to hold off for now and await legal guidance.

By late Thursday CPS officials said they needed to hear from the state's attorney general before going forward with a possible appeal. Jessop said she can only hope the public will protest the court decision.

"We have just lost another generation," she said.

"We?" They were not yours to keep.
----------
There is no 10 day waiting period- Judge Walther is supposed to vacate her order, the one demonstrating the abuse of her discretion, without delay. There will be a delay, however.

Sigh. No surprise, but still, one always hopes people in power will do the right thing. CPS is appealing:

Texas Child Protective Services will ask the state's highest court to keep a polygamist sect's children in state custody, following a Thursday appeals court ruling that ordered the youngsters be returned to their homes.

Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said attorneys for the state called Friday morning and said they'd be "filing an action in this court" later in the day.

They claim to respect the court's authority, but they simply reposted most of their allegations to their website- although not some of the most salacious ones they've been spreading by mouth to the press. I guess they didn't want to leave evidence of their libel around for court cases.

I don't know how to reconcile this next paragraph with the first two from this article.

Experts on civil procedure said Attorney General Greg Abbott would have to seek immediate review by the state Supreme Court if Texas has any hope of keeping custody of the children.

Lonny Hoffman, a University of Houston law professor, said if the Supreme Court decides to hear any appeal brought by Mr. Abbott, it probably would leave the children in CPS custody — for fear of doing "irreparable harm" — while justices consider the case.

"If the 3rd Court of Appeals is wrong, and those kids are in danger, [returning them to their families] is something they can't repair," Mr. Hoffman said.

Taking them away from their families is also something you can't really repair, and every day you delay, it's worse.


Mr. Deulle (R) is the Texas state senator who wants the FLDS to pay for the cost of the raid and for putting the kids in foster care. You may want to write to him to tell him what you think of that idea.
-------------------------------
CPS planned a public statement about their planned appeal, but:

A department spokesman had planned a statement this morning, but postponed it until after a 1:30 p.m. Central time hearing regarding Louisa Bradshaw, who gave birth while in state custody. Bradshaw is one of three women named in mandamus appeal that was approved by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin on Thursday.
The court also granted a second appeals petition that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther's April order be vacated.
The Bradshaw hearing is a mandatory 14-day procedure to ask whether her infant remain in state custody. She is with her baby, but her other two children are in a separate shelter.
Earlier this week, another judge told Child Protective Services to let those children rejoin their mother.

So Louisa Bradshaw (we've been calling her Louisa Jessop) is one of the three women who has already filed with the mandamus and the orders requiring her abduction and that of her children by CPS should be vacated.
Query: Just a few days after her baby was born *another* judge ordered CPS to place her with the children. Earlier this week another judge repeats that order and makes it his own. So WHY is CPS still dragging their feet?
What are those children doing STILL in another shelter instead of with their mother? Their attorneys ad litem testified in court that they were listless, not eating, and not doing well without their mother. This is a very serious state of things for small children, and if a parent deliberately let a child languish in this condition without remedy, CPS would call it abuse.
----------------
This story is from a couple weeks ago, but I just found it-
And I call this abuse, and it just bruises my heart- and I can't even imagine the anguish it's causing the father:

Joseph Jessop is 27, and Lori Jessop is 25, according to court documents. They're not in a plural marriage and lived in a single-family unit at the Yearning For Zion Ranch before the children were removed in the search, which began April 3. Joseph Jessop said he didn't see his children again until May 9.

“My baby didn't even recognize me,” he said.

CPS broke this, and they can't fix it, they can't repair it, they cannot give back what they have stamped under their feet and smashed to smithereens and destroyed. They cannot make any sort of reparation to this father for what they stole from him.
They can just stop stealing it and go away. Now.

But they won't.

In San Antonio, lawyers for an FLDS couple, Joseph and Lori Jessop, who won temporary daily visits with their children last week and a full custody hearing today in a Bexar County civil district court, will use the appellate decision to bolster their argument that the state must return the three children.

"The 3rd Court has said that we were right all along," said Rene Haas, the Corpus Christi lawyer representing the Jessops.

Lori Jessop had been allowed to spend days with her nursing infant but had been told by CPS workers, she said, that when he turned 1 year old he would be put in foster care like her two other children, ages 2 and 4 years.

On Thursday, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services asked the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio to stop Jessop's custody hearing, filing written arguments that state District Judge Michael Peden exceeded his authority and that "it would not be in the children's best interest to be torn between two courts rendering opposite decisions which would have to be addressed in further appeals." A three-judge panel denied the state's request.

"We went to CPS today and said, 'Give us back our children,' and they said no," Haas said.

YOu know what is not in the best interests of these sweet children? CPS. What would be in their best interests is for CPS to walk away and repent of what they have done to these sweet children and their loving parents.

-----------------------

I think this bit of news is so important that people need to spread out and pass it along to blogs and news sites everywhere:

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had all the power in the world to structure status hearings held this week in any order it wanted. It kept telling us, the media and the public, that there were 31 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who were pregnant, mothers or both.

Now we know the truth: There are only five girls in that group. All but one are or will be 18 this year. One gave birth when she was 17, three when they were 16. One is pregnant.

I kept asking the state for a breakdown by age of the 31 girls, the 60 percent, it claimed were pregnant or mothers. They refused weeks ago and still haven't done it.

Now we know why.

-----------------
Another attorney who had his doubts about his clients, but is concerned about the Constitutional Rights of all of us.

"They didn't have enough evidence to remove the children," said attorney Gonzalo Rios. A criminal defense attorney for 16 years, Rios was approached by residents of the YFZ Ranch to represent some of the mothers. He said he didn't necessarily agree with the FLDS lifestyle, but got on board because of some of the constitutional issues that concerned him.

"Today it is this group. Tomorrow, it could be anybody. We're doing this to preserve our rights as an American people," he said.

----------------------

CPS Appeals to the Texas Supreme Court- I haven't even looked at these yet, but want to get them out to those who haven't seen 'em.
Here
here
Here
-----------------

More good news:

Three couples whose children were seized during a raid at a West Texas polygamist sect's compound were granted temporary custody of their children today pending an appeal of a state court's ruling that Texas officials failed to prove the children were in danger, a San Antonio Web site reports.
The couples learned of the ruling about 3:30 p.m. in a Bexar County court, according to KSAT.com. The children will remain in the custody of their parents until a ruling is handed down by the Texas Supreme Court or until June 9, when a hearing is scheduled on a temporary restraining order previously filed in a Bexar County court.
[...]
The appeals court also granted a second appeal petition that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther's April order be vacated.
[...]
Another hearing today in San Antonio will take up the case of Joseph Steed and Lori Jessop, who have petitioned to have their children returned. Yesterday, the 4th Appeals Court denied an emergency request by the state that the hearing be denied.

And, the Steed get temporary custody of their children!

"An agreement has been reached in San Antonio between attorneys and DFPS to release 12 children to their parents under minimal supervision until the Texas Supreme Court rules on the 3rd court of appeals decision," Teresa Kelly wrote. "The families will be housed in and around San Antonio at undisclosed locations. This includes the three children of Joseph Steed Jessop, Sr., and his wife, Lori. The agreements were reached prior to a scheduled hearing today in San Antonio District Court over the Jessop’s children."

Dementia Goes to the Hospital

Or, In Which We Talk About Certain Bodily Fluids Not Normally Discussed in Polite Company:

Yesterday while Dad slept off surgery Mom and I went shopping. When I walked back into his hospital room, he was cheerful and more 'with it' than usual, but he was trying to eat his dinner from a nearly prone position. Since Mom had been in there helping him, I assumed he just didn't feel like sitting up, so I didn't say anything. But then he started squirming, wriggling, and writhing uncomfortably. I asked if he needed help with something. He said, "I can't move, and they put at least five blankets on me and that makes it worse."
"You asked for them when you got here," I said. "You were freezing." I did not tell him that actually, he complained about having only five blankets, and so he had seven.
"Hmph," he grumbled. "Somebody should have told me no."
We all know how well that works.
"If I had a rope or something tied to the ceiling then I could grab it and pull myself up to sitting," he said brightly. Dad is around 6'2" at least, even with the stoop of age, and I sure couldn't pull him up myself. But I pointed out that it was a hospital bed and did have controls. I offered to shift the bed for him if he liked.
He looked around and found the buttons himself and operated them properly- he really was much more alert than he's been in weeks.
He sat up and settled himself in to eat his dinner in comfort.
"Good!" I said brightly. "Now you can eat your dinner without laying down."

"Lying down," he said, without so much as a second's thought. "Chickens lay, people lie." And then he laughed at my startled face, and cackled with glee, "I gotcha, I gotcha!"

He says he slept okay last night, except it is a hospital.

Today Dad had a fairly good morning, but a rough afternoon- he feels nausiated. But we thought he was going to come home tonight. Three of the family went to see him this morning, and unfortunately we only realized after it was too late how we could have managed to get more of us there so somebody could be with him all afternoon. That would have been a good thing.

When Granny Tea got there after work this evening, (the HG went with her) she found out he couldn't come home until the doctor had a seen a good post-surgery urine sample, and Dad was not remembering to give him one. Throughout the day, he kept forgetting and flushing all the potential samples. The nurse finally walked him through the steps very, very carefully, explaining very seriously that he absolutely had to pee in a certain container she would give him, and there could be no deviation, and it had to go right in that cup the next time.

And he followed her directions very carefully, doing exactly what she said.

Then he flushed again, cup and all.

Yertle's New Home.

Finally Yertle has gotten a new, cleaner, roomier, home with a much warmer and more comfortable (from a turtle's standards, anyway) basking spot. The lighting in that area is terrible for picture taking, and taking through glass is a pain anyway, but this gives the general idea. Some day I hope to get a REALLY big tank for him, but that will have to wait til I have money. (Yertle-the-Turtle was first posted about here and here, for those of you who were not aware of his existence among the Common Room's menagerie of animals.)

WHOOT!

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) -- The Third Court of Appeals has ruled that Child Protective Services did not have the right to remove children from the Yearning for Zion ranch last month.

The ruling comes as a result of a document filed by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid last month. The TRLA is the largest provider of legal aid in Texas, on behalf of 48 FLDS mothers that TRLA is representing in their child custody cases.

More coming up

And here's some more:

the Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger and acted hastily in removing them from their families. According to the Court, "The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger."

TRLA will be holding a press conference in front of the courthouse in San Angelo Thursday at 1:30 p.m.

Source

A tad more here.

I assume CPS will appeal, and I assume this is a long way from over- but this is a HUGE step in the direction, and I would hope that if CPS does appeal, the media at least will have to stop ignoring the fact that half the 'minor' girls in custody are actually adults, and the youngest of them, who actually IS a minor, is also NOT pregnant.
------------

More on that last paragraph above:

Authorities for CPS:

had admitted by midday Thursday that 15 of the 31 mothers listed as underage are adults; one is actually 27. A few are as young as 18, but many are at least 20.
Another girl listed as an underage mother is 14, but her attorney said in court she is not pregnant and does not have a child.

And I love this last line:

More mothers listed as underage are likely to be reclassified as adults in coming days.
CPS spokesmen did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment.

WEll, that's a change, and a welcome one.
-------------
And more here- mothers are pleased, excited, but reserved. They've been lied to and led down the bureaucratic primrose path too many times. And the bureaucratic primroses have sharp thorns.
--------------

It's still not clear if this means the children of at least those 38 mothers can go home:

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin has ruled the state did not have sufficient evidence that more than 400 children on the ranch were in immediate danger.
However, the district judge who granted custody of the children to Texas child welfare officials has 10 days to comply, said Julia Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. The agency represents 48 mothers from the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
State officials also could seek a stay from the appeals court. They have already indicated they intend to appeal, TRLA has said.

Do you suppose they could see which way the wind was blowing yesterday, and that's another reason they headed back out to the ranch to try to get in?

The department also did not prove pubescent girls were in physical danger, the judges said. CPS officials testified that five girls who became pregnant at ages 15 and 16 - coupled with an FLDS belief system condoning underage marriage and pregnancy - warranted immediate removal. But that simply wasn't enough, the judges said. "The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the appeals court wrote. "It is the imposition of certain alleged tenets of that system on specific individuals that may put them in physical danger."
While the appeal was filed on behalf of TRLA's clients, the reasoning would apply to all of the children, Balovich said.

Just an FYI, a comment at Grits says that four of the xis justices on the Austin Court of Appeals and all three of the ones on the panel are Republicans. Grits himself says Chief Justice Law is in a tight re-election fight with a Democrat, and the three judges on the opinion were Law, Pemberton and Waldrop, making this a decision from a conservative wing of the court.
--------

From the appeals court ruling:"•While there was evidence that twenty females had become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, [over the last 20 years- DHM] there was no evidence regarding the marital status of these girls when they became pregnant or the circumstances under which they became pregnant other than the general allegation that the girls were living in an FLDS community with a belief system that condoned underage marriage and sex;

•There was no evidence that any of the female children other than the five identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen were victims or potential victims of sexual or other physical abuse;

•With the exception of the five female children identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, there was no evidence of any physical abuse or harm to any other child;...
•The Department conceded at the hearing that teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents, but took the position that immediate removal was necessary in this case because 'there is a mindset that even the young girls report that they will marry at whatever age, and that it’s the highest blessing they can have to have children.'"
[it was, indeed, ALL about a belief system that gave feminist CPS agents and Judge Walthers the vapors]
The appeals court decision repeatedly uses the following phrases about CPS' case:
"The Department failed to offer any evidence....
The record is silent....
The Department also failed to establish....
This record does not reflect any reasonable effort on the part of the Department...
[evidence at Walther's hearings] legally and factually insufficient...
[Walther's court] abused its discretion..."

It's almost as though they've been reading all our posts and comments, isn't it?=)
(by 'our' I mean Grits, Kpb, Doran Williams, Melanie, Mrs. Gunning, etc, etc, etc, etc)
More at the excellent Lone Star.

In the comments David passes on the link to the decision and shares a quote:

The Department [CPS] failed to carry its burden with respect to the requirements of section 262.201(b). ... The Department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty. Nor did the Department offer any evidence that any of Relators' pubescent female children were in physical danger other than that those children live at the ranch among a group of people who have a 'pervasive system of belief' that condones polygamous marriage and underage females having children. The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger. It is the imposition of certain alleged tenets of that system on specific individuals that may put them in physical danger. The Department failed to offer any evidence that any of the pubescent female children of the Relators were in such physical danger. The record is silent as to whether the Relators or anyyone in their households are likely to subject their pubescent female children to underage marriage or sex. The record is also silent as to how many of Relators' children are pubescent females and whether there is any risk to them other than that they live in a community where there is a 'pervasive belief system' that condones marriage and child-rearing as soon as females reach puberty.

The Department also failed to establish that the need for protection of the Relators' children was urgent and required immediate removal of the children.

FLDS May 22nd

From a report by Michelle Roberts:

"The custody case, one of the largest in U.S. history, has been marked by chaos from the beginning. So far, at least eight mothers initially put into foster care as underage girls have been reclassified as adults, eroding the state's initial count of 31 underage mothers. Others were expected to be reclassified as adults in coming days.
In one sign that sect members may be thinking of flexing their political muscle, members on Wednesday requested up to 600 voter registration cards from Schleicher County.
That is something they have not done in the five years since the 1,700-acre ranch was transformed from a small game ranch to a $20.5 million self-contained community.
Schleicher County has an estimated 2,800 residents, and the sect property is the third-biggest taxpayer in the rural ranching county, accounting for roughly 18 percent of its tax base. County officials had no role in the raid, aside from sheriff's deputies assisting state law enforcement.
'As residents of the state, we have to take responsibility for part of this,' said Jessop. 'We were naive enough to believe there was good people in government to protect our rights.'"

I don't know how that will work, since CPS is determined that these women and children cannot go home, but must be spread out all over the state.

A reporter at Dallas news is catching on:

... law enforcement has uncovered more evidence—including confidential clergy records....While the records do show a pervasive practice of polygamy among sect members, they do not reveal a pattern of large-scale systematic abuse of minors that the state has alleged occurred at the YFZ Ranch before the raid.

Almost all plural wives listed, for example, are older than 18. The youngest wife listed on the records is 16. There were also several monogamous couples living on the ranch.

Case-worker admits she has no concerns about a parent's parenting skills, but classes on parenting skills are still required:

"This is a cookie-cutter plan, a generic plan," said Dallas attorney Mark Ticer, who is representing three of Sarah Steed's children. "We would rather see something specific and realistic."

Ticer asked Alison Albrecht, a CPS caseworker assigned to the Steed case, if she had seen Steed interact with her children. Albrecht said she had and that neither she nor any of the other caseworkers assigned to the family had any concerns about Steed's parenting skills.

"Then why do you have parenting skills in this plan when there's no concern about parenting skills?" Ticer asked.

Albrecht said that one plan had been drafted for every family living on the YFZ Ranch and that neither Steed nor her children had been consulted prior to formulating the plan.

"Tell the court what evidence there is for this family that abuse or neglect occurred," Ticer asked Albrecht.

Albrecht said she had none and agreed that typical CPS protocol calls for gathering evidence first and then tailoring service plans to specific allegations of abuse and neglect.

"These children don't show any signs of neglect or abuse," Ticer said. "What it amounts to, judge, is they live at the wrong address."

More on the status of that 14 year old girl who is not pregnant, contrary to the lies CPS has been telling about her:

Texas child welfare officials originally claimed 31 girls from the YFZ Ranch between the ages 14 to 17 were either pregnant, have children or both.
So far, however, they have acknowledged that 11 girls are actually adults. At least six more are likely to get that designation today, when status hearings resume at the Tom Green County Courthouse.
Sloan said her client is the youngest girl included on the list. While a judge told her the girl's status was not relevant to Wednesday's hearing, Sloan said the record should be corrected because Texas Child Protective Services has used the girl to mislead the public. Doing so would improve the mother's chances of regaining custody of the girl, Sloan added.
District Judge John Specia told Sloan to work with CPS to get the girl's status clarified.
In afternoon hearings, state attorneys acknowledged another three mothers are adults: Barbara Joy Jessop, Lenora Jeffs and Janet Jeffs Jessop.
Judge Jay Weatherby ordered CPS to quickly move Barbara Joy Jessop and her 8-month-old daughter quickly to a family shelter where she will be allowed more freedom than the facility where they are currently housed.

I'd like to know what this change in shelter activities is all about:

Sarah Draper, 37, has moved to Abilene, Texas, and taken a job as a registered nurse to be near her four children, who are in Henderson Home.
"I feel very blessed," she said, praising the facility and its activities, which have included trips to the zoo and a local fire department.
Inexplicably, caregivers there told Draper on Monday her children would no longer be allowed to participate in off-campus excursions. No one could explain why or who ordered the change.
"And frankly, I would rather have my children going to the fire department than sitting in front of television all day," she said.

Grits for Breakfast notes the incredible shrinking coverage of this story as the news looks worse and worse for CPS.
At the 14 day hearins, the Gosangeles website had a reporter's blow by blow summary of the two day long preceedings.
At the first day of this group of hearings, they did the same thing- this time assigning several reporters to the beat.
On the second day, that summary was about three paragraphs long.
Yesterday it was two.
And today, they aren't even bothering. They have a story about one family.

16 year old Teresa Jeffs is one of the children in that family. She's a minor child without children, btw, and she wants to list to her CDs and mp3 of her father's sermons. Her father is Warren Jeffs. The foster shelter she's in had taken them away and she wants them back. Her caseworker agrees:

As Warren Jeffs' daughter, she has been exempted from requirements that children not have pictures of the sect's self-styled prophet. She also has grown upset, CPS case worker Adriana Pineira told the court, because she has been unable to obtain CDs or an iPod with recordings of her father's sermons.

"We are aware of the problem with regard to the specific children of Mr. Jeffs," said CPS attorney Ellen Griffith, adding that the agency is awaiting the results of DNA testing to determine definitively who those children are. "As to his children, yes, there would be different rights."

Pineira, Teresa's case worker, agreed.

"I'm not going to force those things," she said, referring to a photo album containing pictures of Jeffs, "or pry those things away from her."

Yesterday, much was made of one of Jeff's wives who made a written promise not to permit any of her children to marry before 18, even though every other parent in the state of Texas has that right, and even though I'm not sure she can stop a 17 year old. She's moving away from the ranch to get back her children- and the children of her late sister Barbara, whom she also cares for. And in spite of all that, her lawyer points out to the court that she is not abandoning her religion.

How can CPS command families not to live in their homes?

"With the investigation continuing, everyone is leery to say whether they can return to the ranch," said Irene Schwaninger, a CPS case worker who testified this week.

When asked whether adult sect sisters can live together with each other and their families, Schwaninger said CPS would have to look into it on a case-by-case basis.

Willie Jessop said FLDS families are being forced to either be homeless, depend on society to support them or rely on friends for help. The economic responsibilities being put on them are impossible, he said, considering the traveling they are doing to visit all their children spread around the state in shelters.

A sect woman who identified herself only as Esther on Wednesday morning at the courthouse said the last time she was at the ranch was when she left with her five children during the CPS raid.

When asked whether she would like to return to the ranch, she said, "It's the best place in the whole world to be."

Even the hostile reporters note that keeping the children together was the exception, not the norm:

In contrast to most cases, the four children of Sarah Draper and Daniel Barlow are staying in the same place, Hendrick Home for Children in Abilene. Draper, who lives and works in Abilene, visits them once a week for one to two hours. Barlow said he would have his first visit with the children later in the day.

Barlow said he is from Utah and has never been to the sect's YFZ Ranch, nor has he been affiliated with the sect for 4.5 years. He and Draper also have an 11-year-old son in Utah.

More on CPS repeated attempts to get back on the ranch yesterday:

Willie Jessop said he met with CPS workers and Schleicher County sheriff's deputies in Eldorado, who told him they were looking for as many as five children, ages 15 and younger. An eyewitness, CPS workers claimed, put them on the ranch.

"I asked them if they got their information from the same source as the last one," Jessop said, referring to the call that sparked the April 3 raid, now under investigation by Texas authorities as a possible hoax. "They assured me that was not their source. Our skepticism is, it probably was."

CPS officials claim Jessop invited them to the ranch later in the afternoon, but when they arrived about 6 p.m., they were denied entry again. Two CPS workers and a law enforcement officer stood at the gate and spoke with Jessop. The police officer was seen wagging her finger emphatically at Jessop, who appeared visibly upset.

Marleigh Meisner specifically told news reporters that Willie Jessop had told her CPS could come back and they'd be let in. That doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. It doesn't even make sense.
What does make sense is that yesterday CPS wants to distract the media's attention from the embarrassing admission that when they'd told the world they had a large number of mothers between the ages of 14 and 17, they actually had only one 14 year old on that list, and it turns out she isn't even pregnant- nor is she 'married.' Her mother is seeking to regain custody of her and her 10 year old sister.
Faced with this new turn in court, as well as the other 11 girls who turned out to be adults after all (including one who is 27 years old), they gave the media something shiny to look at, and the media averted its collective eyes from the revelation that CPS has NO 14 year olds in that list of teen mothers 14-17. Whose going to recalibrate the math when comparing stats on teen pregnancy in the FLDS to that in the outside world.

Texas child welfare authorities were huddling late Wednesday to decide what avenues to pursue. Because they are a civil agency, officials noted they may not need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation. Asked if they plan to return and force their way onto the property, CPS couldn't say.

They do indeed believe they are above the law. I am pretty certain they do need a court order. They do not have the right to come and go at will through private homes.
Heh:

Meisner would not comment on the new information the agency has received. She said CPS, which does not conduct criminal investigations, never uses search warrants.
"These attempts are part of our ongoing investigation," she said.
A search warrant was used when Texas Rangers and CPS workers raided the ranch in April.

Note to all families: NEVER let CPS enter your home without a court order or a search warrant. They are not there to help you. They are there to seek and find reason to add you to their caseload.
---------------------
Other news: Of course we all know the third court of appeals has overturned Judge Walther's decision to remove the children. Whether that means the children will be going home, I do not know. Let's not turn the searchlights off of CPS' malfeasance just yet.

Meanwhile, the case for the three fathers is still pending. Here is an eye opening and heart-rending letter from the Attorney Ad Litem for the three youngest children of the Rulon Keate family, pleading with the court to send them home. It is well worth reading.
---------

Oh, and hearings for the other parents have all been canceled for today while everybody figures out what to do next. CPS will probably appeal. I would love to be a fly on the wall in any conference among the five judges who have been 'helping' Judge Walthers out. Surely at least one of them has noticed what's being said in their courtrooms does not match what she and CPS have been saying, and surely at least one of them resents the way she's dragged them into this unholy and unconstitutional mess.
-----------------

Meanwhile:

As of noon Thursday, just eight mothers remained in the disputed category.....The women declared adults on Thursday range in age from 20 to 24; a coming hearing would have shown one remaining disputed minor is 27.
Attorney Kim Bridges, who represents Priscilla Zitting's daughters, told Judge Barbara Walther Thursday she has never been able to get information on why the state deemed the mother a minor or why it had now changed its position about her status.
The state listed Priscilla Zitting as "approximately 16" on one court filing for the status hearing, though it showed her correct 1988 birth year on a chart offered as evidence during a hearing before Walther in April.

Four were declared adults today, three or four more were supposed to be declared adults today or tomorrow, but the hearings were canceled while Judges tried to figure out how to respond to the fact that they were holding cookie cutter, rubber stamp, kangamaroo hearings on CPS plans for children in their custody that the Third Appeals Court ruled CPS wrongfully seized, and Judge Walthers wrongfully approved that seizure.

One of them asked the judge why CPS didn't believe her in the first place. The report does not tell us whether or not the judge had an answer, or even had the grace to blush, since she's the one who told CPS they did not need to worry about pesky little details like driver's licenses, certified birth certificates, or any other identification accept CPS' own 'look-see' test.

The hearings were hobbled by mix ups like this one:
David Barlow Steed came to Texas to help support his sister, Lori,whose child is now in state custody. When he arrived at the courthouse, a baliff wrote his name on charging papers identifying him as the father of his sister's child.
Just like that, Steed, who has never lived in Texas or been to the YFZ Ranch, found himself embroiled in the case. Weatherby planned to sign a document releasing Steed from the case Thursday afternoon.

On that note, you've just go to read Brooke Adams four step hearing outline- it's, well, not funny because it's so real. But it's mind boggling that it's not a parody. IT's like a Monty Python sketch.

And then you should read this one:

Caseworkers, prompted by state attorneys, also increasingly describe the plans as a ''starting point,'' language that helps counter any arguments that parents have had no say in the plans.

They started the week saying professionals back at the state office crafted the service plans, admitting they played no role whatsoever in the matter.

Parents attorneys are now pushing for more explanation about who helped craft the service plans. That got caseworkers to elaborate about ''culturally sensitive'' professionals familiar with the sect helping to put it together. Pushed some more they admitted that includes ex-members of the sect; one caseworker said psychologists and psychiatrists contributed.

This is a seriously failed, broken, bankrupt system:

The judges all listen, nod and stamp ''approved'' on the plans with no revisions -- even, for example, when a plan calls for an educational assessment of a 9-month-old infant. The system is working as it is supposed to, they say, just give it time.

As Weatherby explained today: ''The court has the authority to amend the plan but is choosing not to.''

And this, from the same judge: ''This judge and every other judge sitting for the 51st District Court expects the department to meet as quickly as possible [with the family] and make the plan specific,''

Lowly caseworkers have no authority, apparently, even if they wanted to exercise some. One caseworker admitted Wednesday she did not even have the discretion to change a mother's name on a service plan so it would be correct.

-----------

The parents are required to provide 'safe' living quarters for the children, but CPS...?

In the hearing before 119th District Judge Ben Woodward, attorneys suggested some state-selected shelters where the nine children of Marie and Joseph Steed are living may not constitute safe environments.

The couple's 8-year-old son, Rulon, suffered a spider bite while in one shelter, a lawyer said, and their 10-year-old daughter, Martha, broke her foot while on the shelter's playground.

Other shelter-related concerns mentioned in the hearing ranged from problems with replacing one child's shoes and eyeglasses to questions about whether the children can participate in organized religious services while in the shelters.

Woodward urged attorneys and the state's Child Protective Service workers in the courtroom to meet and work out solutions to the problems.

Do Judges not know or not care that telling CPS to 'work things out' is giving CPS cart blanche to run roughshod over the parents?

The Mathematics of War Applied to Child Saving

CPS has been issuing inflammatory rhetoric about how 60 percent of the teen girls are pregnant or have had children. The number of 'teens' keeps shrinking (they're down to 17 so far, but more are expected today).
They also talk about the evidence of 'pervasive' teen pregnancy, even while their own evidence indicates it's not.
As David keeps pointing out, they don't do math. For one thing, they are using too small a sample to prove it's pervasive. And then, of course, their count keeps turning out wrong.

Looking over the 'Bishop's List,' which appears to be a census of some kind that the FLDS Bishop took around March of 2007, there are approximately 39 families listed (this as a cursory count). Of those, only approximately 10 even have fathers 40 or older, and a large number are in their 20s. So not only is CPS trying to make sweeping extrapolations based on a statistically invalid sample number, they aren't explaining that nearly 3/4 of the people on that list aren't old enough to have children in their teens.
Of those who do, here is my count of unmarried 14-17 year old girls:

17-1
16-4 or 5- I messed up typing it and now don't remember which it is.
15-3
14-5
There are also two 18 year olds and one 23 year old unmarried, and I didn't count the 13 year olds, and there were plenty of those.
There were no marriages below 16.

The Bishop's list is incomplete- there are more than 35 households on the ranch today. CPS counts 68 or so men that they want at the hearings. So the numbers will vary accordingly, and we don't know what they look like.

About those marriages of 16 year olds- I have a theory, and it is just a theory based on my own idle speculation. Texas changed the laws regarding the marriage of teens in 2005, specifically to target FLDS. I have been told (I do not know of my own knowledge) that some FLDS expressed surprise about this on television- they didn't know the law had been changed.
Given the fact that there don't seem to be any marriages on the list under 16, it looks to me like the FLDS were following the law as they understood it. And while I do understand that 'ignorance of the law' is no defense (even though when that was written, we had a code of laws that an average human being could actually understand), the 'remedy' for this legal infraction is a scorched earth policy.

Far simpler to just explain to the members of the YfZ ranch that the law had changed. Taking in all the teen girls (who actually are teen girls, ignoring driver's licenses, birth certficates, tax returns, and social security numbers is not reasonable) to counsel them about the laws of the land and make sure there was no abuse involved- that was reasonable. Taking in over 400 children is not.

People like to argue about how this has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with abuse of children by saying, "Well, what if child sacrifice was part of their religion? That's what they're doing, essentially, sacrificing children."
Two problems with that- at least.
Three years it wasn't legal to sacrifice children, so we're talking about inflicting the harshest punishment imaginable on a parent for a practice that was perfectly legal less than 36 months ago (September of '05).
They aren't sacrificing children, they are marrying girls 16 and 17 years old. Have a bit of perspective. Child sacrifice takes children out of the world, and murder cannot be compared to marriage and motherhood, much as our child-hating society would like it to.

Rather than 'pervasive' under-aged marriage, the Bishop's records indicate to me that they had a 'pervasive' desire to follow the law as they understood it (the youngest married are 16 year olds, not younger), and in so far as it does not conflict with their religion, which was historically part of their religion for over a century (polygamy).

Given those circumstances, there are other approaches the state could have taken that would have been more humane, less traumatic and scarring to all the children involved, and less destructive.
There are those who argue 'if even one child is saved it was worth it,' which is the equivilant of 'we had to destroy the village to save it' argument as others have pointed out. People who say this aren't really thinking of the children- they are thinking of themselves. They aren't thinking at all, actually, because the logical conclusion to that statement is, "If even one child is saved, it was worth it to destroy the lives of 415 others, brutally traumatizing them, possibly for life." These people are applying the mathematics of war to the lives of innocent children, children the state repeatedly admits, in court testimony, were neither abused nor neglected, but well cared for, loved, and parented by good parents.

Quotable Quote

"We mortals are generally like that: we rebel furiously and violently against mediocre evils, and bow down in silence under extreme ones; we endure, not from resignation but from stupidity, the very extremes of what we had at first called quite unendurable."

Manzoni, The Betrothed

A ramble bordering on a rant

I started reading this story on FoxNews out of mostly idle curiosity - I have a penchant for glitches at the governmental level. This isn't out of some weird conspiracy obsession, but mostly out of amusement at how the government, something we assume is a well-oiled machine, has just as many glitches as other institutions.

Soon my amusement faded. I'd forgotten how much I really do not like farm bills. This particular bill includes election-year subsidies for farmers. Why don't we just go back to the "good old days" when you could ply potential voters with beer at voting locations? Surely that would be cheaper and would achieve the same ends.

According to the article, 2/3 of this bill (over two hundred billion dollars) would pay for "nutrition programs such as food stamps." To support this, the lawmakers cite rising food prices. Well, yes, but what about TANSTAAFL? There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch. Who will pay for these hundreds of millions of dollars? My guess is that it will be other people who are dealing with rising food costs without the help of food stamps. My guess is that it's also not going to be pretty.

Finally - and I know I'm not an economist so there may be many holes in this - but thirty billion dollars is going to farmers to idle their lands "and other environmental projects." Idle their lands? Food costs are rising dramatically, we're going to give people the means (food stamps) to get more food, and yet we're going to pay people not to grow food?
I really dislike the government paying for idle lands. They do it with a glow of scientific confidence - they can figure out how much is needed, how much will glut the market, how much is best to let lie idle... and hey! Why don't we just pay people to be unproductive? And yet, they don't know what things will be like. They don't know what disasters will hit, hurting food supplies.
Then we have farmers dependent on the government and not able to fend for themselves. Of course it's a bad idea to grow the same crop in the same field year after year. Mankind has ingenuity enough to figure out other ways of living and yet we force farmers into a rut - the only way they can make it, we reason, is by farming... so we'll pay them to NOT farm because they're obviously incapable of anything else. And so the farmers don't need to figure out other ways to farm or other ways of making money with their land. The potential is lost in a wave of thirty billion dollars.... paid for by taxpayers who are struggling with food prices, gas at over $4 a gallon, and not privy to election year subsidies.

ugh.

Important UPdates on FLDS

Having been blown out of the water by the discovery that in the first two days of hearings their numbers of 'pregnant' or 'with child' under-aged minors have dropped down to 16 or 17- and those girls haven't even had their hearings yet....

Having been embarrassed by learning that the youngest girl on that list is a 14 year old who is not a mother and has never been pregnant...

Having egg on their face when a 27 year old mother who showed them verification on the first day, turns out to still be an adult- using no additional i.d.

CPS is responding by.....

GOING OUT TO THE RANCH AGAIN!

About 5 p.m. Mountain time, two Child Protective Services workers and two Schleicher County sheriff's deputies returned to the gates outside the ranch and spoke with Jessop. One law enforcment officer was seen wagging her finger emphatically at Jessop, who looked visibly upset.

The workers and officers left about 20 minutes later. What was discussed is unknown.

Earlier today, Jessop said he met with CPS workers and sheriff's deputies in Eldorado earlier this afternoon. He said CPS workers claimed to have received another phone call about children and abuse on the ranch.

CPS claimed to be looking for five children, ages 14, 15 and younger.

Jessop said he believes law enforcement and CPS will return to the ranch. He said CPS scrubbed immediate plans to raid the ranch because news media were outside.

I wonder which CPS worker stepped outside to make that 'anonymous' phone call?

Every child was already taken from the ranch last month, Jessop maintained. To prove his point, he opened up the ranch to the Deseret News and a group of other reporters gathered outside the gates and led a brief tour of the property.

Only a handful of people were seen inside the 1,700-acre ranch. A schoolhouse was empty, a dairy was sparsely tended to. The once-pristine green lawn of the FLDS Church's first-ever temple is turning brown.

Two CPS workers and a sheriff's deputy first arrived at the gates of the Yearning For Zion Ranch late this morning and indicated they'd heard there were more children on the ranch, confirmed Salt Lake attorney Rod Parker, who is acting as a spokesman for the church.

The workers were asked if they had a warrant. When they said they did not, Parker said they were denied access to the property and they then left.

Parker and several FLDS men, including Willie Jessop, had to leave the hearings to go back to the ranch.

The Sheriff referred any further questions to CPS, CPS says they are conferring with law enforcement.

According to Free the FLDS:

At this hour there are at least 6 media trucks parked just outside the gates of the ranch.

Around 2 this afternoon, the Texas Rangers were set to strike, and aborted the strike once they saw the trucks.

They then ordered sheriff Doran to get the media trucks away from the ranch.

Everyone inside the Ranch expects the raid to commence once the media leaves, or for the rangers to corral the media “For their own safety” away from the compound so they can do their “Search”.

What they don’t want is camera’s rolling while they bulldoze their way through the compound and have any witnesses to their destruction of more property and the man handling of parents while they search for children with guns drawn.

If what they're looking for is really hidden children, they should want that publicity.

Note: other updates for today will be added to the 5/21 post a couple posts down.

Parents Age, Children Don't

My dad had prostate surgery today, along with a couple other minor procedures. Have I mentioned that my dad has spent pretty much his entire life, or at least the portion of it that I have known him, as something of a hypochondriac? Everything hurts him more than anybody else; he goes to the doctor for minor matters that most people wouldn't even take an aspirin for, and the number of 'natural' remedies he's purchased over the years could fill three natural food stores and a vitamin shoppe.

So, um, when he says he doesn't feel well, we typically say, "Oh. Sorry." and then we go on with our lives, because we're warm and fuzzy like that.

And, 498 times out of 500 we have been right. Today's surgery was for #500, the second time we've been wrong. Both events have been doozies, actually. The first time we thought he was malingering over a heart catheterization, only it turns out he suffered permanent and painful nerve damage from a botched catheterization that punctured the femoral artery or something like that. That was around 8 years ago, and he is still in constant pain, although, oddly enough, this real, genuine, serious pain? He doesn't complain about it. He just rubs his leg, and looks strained from time to time.

This, the second time we were wrong out of 500 times when we've been right, poor man had a realio, trulio, urinary tract infection or something along those lines. He has scar tissue on his bladder walls now, and if he remembers that, we will never, ever live it down.

But the surgery went amazingly well, today he has been chipper, alert, and far more engaged and aware of what's going on around him- he definitely does have dementia, but I suspect it's been made worse over the last month because he just felt so rotten- one of the symptoms is also head-aches, which he had complained of, and which would make it difficult to concentrate and focus. They did a spinal instead of putting him under because of the dementia- they said general anesthesia could make the dementia so bad that he wouldn't recognize us for three months. He suggested that might not be such a bad thing, but the doctor prevailed.=)

I accompanied my mom (Granny Tea to the internet world), and we left at 5:30 a.m. I hate it when there are two 5:30s in my day. Because my family knows this, the 25 year old HG offered to go in my place. I said it was really the daughter's job, not the grand-daughter's, and she disagreed, and then I explained that for something like this, which had the potential of being quite distressing (and yet, was not), Grand-mama didn't like to impose on grand-children.
"Because after all," I pointed out, "To Granny Tea, you're still about 12 years old."

So I went- yawning all the way. Granny Tea asked me what time I went to bed, and I said 12:30. She said, "Is that what time the rest of your family went to bed?"
And I replied that Jenny (our early bird) and all the younger children were in bed long before then, but I had no idea what time the older girls went to bed.

"What? What kind of a mother is that?" she asked in some dismay.

And I reminded her that the HG is 25, and I simply do not consider it any part of my duties as a mother to monitor the bedtimes of anybody much older than 15.

She laughed. She laughed even harder when I told her that last night we'd agreed she still sees the HG as 12.

As we were talking, she handing me a protein bar, since I missed breakfast. As I took off the wrapper and wadded it up, she automatically reached out her hand for the wrapper. Amused, I handed it to her, and she put it in her purse, without ever noticing what had just happened.

Later, when I told her about it as I was writing it down in my notebook, she said, "Tell the truth- you just came along to get more blog material, didn't you!"

And why not? I'm just an irresponsible 12 year old, still putting my trash in my mother's purse.=P

More 5/21 news

- from commenter Melanie, via Grits for Breakfast:
Via comments at Grits:

News article here.

"SAN ANGELO, Texas — A lawyer for a 14-year-old girl that is on a list of so-called "disputed minors" said this morning she is not pregnant as Texas child welfare authorities have alleged.

"My client does not have children. (She) is not pregnant. She's the youngest on the list of disputed minors," said Andrea Sloan."

The lawyer says she's the youngest on the list, but it doesn't say if there are any other 14 year olds who happen to be older than this girl. Whatcha wanna bet that she's the only 14 year old? And there goes that "14 - 17" year old bracket.

[and as the DHM is in another town for her dad's surgery - which appears to have gone well, thanks for the thoughts & prayers - the HG is on posting duty for this today, so please forgive any errors made :-)]

FLDS May 21- 27 year old treated as minor

From the Trib:

Here's an example of a case that I would support CPS examining- on an individual basis:

One case that supports the state's claim was postponed Tuesday: that of 17-year-old Suzanne Johnson, who is eight months pregnant and has a 16-month-old child.

But four other women were declared to be adults yesterday, a fifth was acknowledged to be an adult, but her hearing is still to come. The state originally claimed 31 girls from 14-17 were pregnant, [edit: I typed too fast too early- the state claim is that 31 girls 14-17 are or *have been* pregnant] but now is left with 17 just two days into the hearing. [and those 17 girls just hadn't had their hearings yet]

One of those women is nearly 28 years old- and the state has known this from day one:

Andrea Sloan, who represents Leona Allred, said the state was given official documents showing the woman to be 27 the day it raided the YFZ Ranch.
[...]
More than six weeks later, Allred's case was dismissed without the state receiving any additional information, Sloan told a Texas judge.
Sloan was informed of the impending decision Monday evening - but the state continued to tell Allred she could not participate in hearings on Tuesday for her two children because she was a minor. Allred turns 28 on June 2.
Allred had been warned, Sloan said, that as an adult she would not be allowed to remain at the Fort Worth shelter with her two children, including a 15-month-old - which a state attorney confirmed during the hearing.
But that apparently did not sit well with the judge hearing her case.
"For a month, six weeks, this mother has been with these children in this facility," he said, resetting the hearing for May 27 to give CPS time to work out an alternative.

More good news for innocent parents:

Judge Jay Weatherby told CPS to allow Rebecca Allred, 20, and husband Wendell Jeffs, 23, to have a four-hour, unsupervised visit once a week. The couple have a 9-month-old son.
Judge Tom Gossett told CPS to find a way to reunite Louisa Barlow Jessop with two children who were with her until she gave birth on May 12. A day later, the state acknowledged she was 22; it left the newborn in her care but moved the younger children, ages 2 and 3.
A guardian ad litem "implored" Gossett to return the children, saying they have done poorly since being separated from their mother.
"The 3-year-old has become very withdrawn," Marie Clark said, while the couple's son "is not eating well or sleeping well."
The judge said it was "not acceptable" when told by a CPS worker there was no place that could take the mother and her children and gave the agency a week to resolve the issue.
It may not take that long. Louisa Jessop, who participated in the hearing by telephone, said the shelter she is in will let them join her.
Asked by her husband, Dan, why the state had taken his children, Gossett said a "wide loop" had been thrown around the FLDS community that might not fit all parents. The state, he said, had concerns about the FLDS' beliefs, plural and underage marriages and "communal attitude."
If those allegations prove unfounded, "I'll be the first to apologize to you if it turns out you're not a person who has abused your child," the judge told Dan Jessop, who was in the courtroom. "There is no proof of abuse in your case. That gives you a leg up."

Only one has to wonder what sort of a judge says, "There's no proof of abuse in your case," and then leaves the family in the clutches of CPS.

CPS Crimmins says "The numbers aren't important to us." Hello? The numbers were what you used to prove your case of 'pervasive' abuse and teen pregnancy! According to that link, six girls were deemed to be adults yesterday:

On Tuesday, six more "girls" were deemed adults, including 27-year-old Leona Allred, whose lawyer insisted CPS knew from the beginning that her client was an adult.

"My client showed them the same documents they showed them from the beginning: a valid Arizona driver's license and a birth certificate," said Andrea Sloan.

Two others, Merilyn Jeffs Keate and Sarah Cathleen Jessop Nielsen, were reclassified as adults Monday as five judges began sifting through the cases of all the children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas.

There are two cases that involve girls who are or who were under-aged at the time (so far)- most of us have acknowledged there were probably five or six, and if the state had even taken all the (teen girls into custody while they examined their cases one by one, telling the truth about the documents and ID they had, I don't think most of those of us blogging about this as a travesty of justice would have peeped. I am sure we wouldn't- because most of us would never have heard of it:

But also Tuesday, two cases came up that revealed girls as young as 15 and 16 had been united in spiritual marriages with older men.

One of those girls, now 19, was ruled an adult by the courts but not before she said in a conference call to the court that she could have been no older than 16 when her daughter was born on Aug. 19, 2005.

And in another courtroom, information gleaned from the records of a 17-year-old indicated she had to have been 15 when her first child was born.

But instead of balancing the work of finding and remedying abuse against causing horrible trauma to children who were not abused before the state stepped in, the state went for drama- and some underhanded tactics:

On April 28, CPS officials said the agency believed that 31 of the 53 girls were between ages 14 and 17 and were pregnant, had children or both. But that 31 figure has been tied precariously to the fact that 26 "disputed minors" were among them.

Sloan and other lawyers for the disputed girls said Tuesday they believe CPS deliberately classified them as children so that their own investigators, together with Texas Department of Public Safety officers, could interview them without their attorney present. Sloan said two of her disputed clients have been interviewed by either Texas Rangers or DPS troopers and CPS investigators, even though her clients told the authorities they wanted their attorneys present.

Attorney Laura Shockley, who also represents disputed minors, said the authorization for the interviews came from Tom Green County Assistant District Attorney Allison Palmer, the lead prosecutor.

A call to Palmer's office was not immediately returned Tuesday. DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said Tuesday she had no comment about the lawyers' allegations.

"CPS did not classify women as minors so that criminal investigators could interview them," said CPS' Crimmins. But he neither confirmed nor denied that older young women were being targeted by investigators for interviews.

----------------------------
The HG passed on this bombshell to the state's case. Wonder why it doesn't make the same screaming headlines as the false "60 % Pregnant!" nonsense CPS puts out?

Earlier this morning at the San Angelo courthouse, a lawyer for a 14-year-old girl that is on a list of so-called "disputed minors" said she is not pregnant as Texas child welfare authorities have alleged.

"My client does not have children. (She) is not pregnant. She's the youngest on the list of disputed minors," said Andrea Sloan.

The judge hearing the case objected, saying that was not what the hearing was about. But Sloan pressed forward.

"The department is communicating to the public that there are 14-year olds who are pregnant," she said.

I'd like to know who this judge is who thinks that whether or not she's pregnant is irrelevant to the hearing about this 14 year old.
Texas CPS will only say that the investigation is still ongoing, which I begin to believe is CPS-Speak for, "We're still fishing, 'cos we ain't found nothin' yet."

The girl's mother has moved to San Antonia to be near her daughters, and has a job. Her husband has gone back to Hildale and says he's not interested in participating in the CPS plan right now.
----------------------
Louanna Jessop had her hearing today (her husband did not come). Her lawyer asks CPS agent asked CPS worker

Martinez what dangers the CPS is trying to protect children from. Martinez said abuse and neglect.

The attorney asked whether there were signs of abuse or neglect, and Martinez said there was no indication of abuse from CPS workers observing the mother and children together.

Gossett then put a stop to the line of questioning.

"Were you at the temporary hearing?" he said to the attorney. "Judge Walther already made her finding."

Again and again, CPS admits these mothers have not abused their children, and again and again, the judges say, "Whatever."

[...]

Local attorney Tim Edwards said Annette Jeffs has submitted in writing a pledge to 51st District Judge Barbara Walther that she will not allow any of her young girls to marry before they turn 18.

She also has found a place to live in San Antonio and will not return to the ranch, Edwards said.

I don't approve, in general, of 16 year olds marrying, but the state of Texas allows it with proper parental notice. And this court just required this mother to sign away a right that every other parent in Texas has.
[...]

San Antonio State District Judge John Specia, who was filling in for 119th District Judge Ben Woodward, reminded attorneys for the children to move their questions along because he has other cases to hear. He ultimately approved the service plan.

Justice, it seems, is in a blind hurry, and is more interested in speed than anything else.

-----------------------

There's a post about this further up on this blog, but I thought this was worth covering twice:

Guards for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints turned away CPS workers and a deputy Wednesday morning at the Yearning for Zion Ranch gates.

CPS said it had received a tip from eyewitnesses and over the phone that there were five children, both boys and girls, still at the ranch.

A KXAN Austin News crew was allowed inside the West Texas ranch Wednesday afternoon. FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop told KXAN Austin News' Jenny Hoff he could not guarantee she would see any children inside the ranch.

'Guards?'

Tell us again that this has nothing to do with religion:

Officials have told parents that they will be happy to supply new editions of the Book of Mormon to replace those taken away. But FLDS only use pre-1978 triple combinations. I am not sure if a stockpile of those is easy to come by.

Here is the problem with books printed after 1978. That is the year then-LDS Church prophet Spencer Kimball received a revelation that blacks who were members of the faith could hold the priesthood, a change now reflected in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Fundamentalist Mormons viewed the policy as a serious break with principles laid down by Smith. Still do.

One caseworker said that supervisors would have to review the religious texts, including collections of sermons used by the FLDS, to see if they are appropriate. Those books include sermons by mainstream LDS Church prophets.

Someone has some heavy reading to do.

The book debate is not the only wrinkle that has surfaced in the hearings here in San Angelo.
[...]Also a problem: Seth Jeffs' children are being allowed to listen to music, watch television and wear modern clothes, all at odds with the sect's beliefs and contrary to their parents' wishes.

Does the American Public seriously not understand what it means when we have reached the place where social workers are perusing religious texts in use for over a hundred years in order to see if they are 'appropriate' or not?
-----------------
CLick on the newslink here, the breaking news on CPS trying to get back into the ranch- a reporter says that Willie Jessop told her they would be willing remove all the pictures of all their prophets from the walls and have all the men leave the ranch if CPS would let the women and children live there.- and, it's pretty ironic that CPS agent Angie Voss' reason for not allowing it is that the ranch was impossible to secure- and yet, it seems that CPS is finding otherwise.
------------------
When Hildebran was shouting off his loud mouth about the dangers of the FLDS moving in to Texas, one of the issues that concerned him is that they might, gasp, vote! He tried to work out a way to prevent that exercise of Constitutional liberty, but gave up.
His fears never came to pass- apparently, the FLDS tried really hard to mind their own business and never even voted.
Today:

"During a break in court proceedings, FLDS member Willie Jessop said the YFZ Ranch has ordered between 500 and 600 voter registration cards to "put people in office with integrity."

"Jessop didn't expand on what, if any, offices the group would seek. He simply said the state is trying to destroy the YFZ Ranch."

----------
YOu can look at the service plan for the families here.
They are required to hold jobs and visit the children CPS has placed in shelters hours (and in some cases, a day's drive) apart- at the same time.

----------------
Article by a reporter who actually tries to be a reporter and not a shill for CPS. He says it's true that the FLDS women seem to have a sort of timed, rhythmic speech pattern, but it goes away after they relax and feel comfortable with the person they're speaking to.
I would like to take any dozen of those critics who call these ladies 'robots'- take away their children at gunpoint and stick them in front of a camera and see how they avoid that stunned, deer in the headlights, 'I can't believe this is happening to me' look.
Other tidbits:

# It really irks ranch residents that we in the media keep saying they’re shut off and unfamiliar with the "outside world." I’ve spoken with ranch members who take their children to airports to watch the planes land, who snowboard, shop in stores, drive cars, etc. The FLDS sect has somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 members across the country. They definitely keep to themselves, but most of them don’t live on closed-off "compounds" (I know, they hate that) like the YFZ ranch. Ranch residents said they move freely between YFZ and other communities throughout the country.
[...]

# I haven’t met anyone on the ranch who owns a TV. They said it’s not forbidden, but they don’t want to expose their children to the sex and violence.

# Most families on the ranch have computers with Internet access. One of the fathers I spoke with said he doesn’t let his kids on the Internet for the same reasons he doesn’t have a TV

.
----------------
More on Louanna Jessop:

# Louanna has done DNA testing. None done on the father, as far as anyone in court is aware.
# Mother has signed the plan and added some comments and a home schooling curriculum as well as a complaint that it lacked specificity.
# When the caseworker was asked by the mother’s attorney, Charles Grimm, “Did you have anything to do with creating this plan?” Martinez answered, “I did not have anything to do with this plan. It was already created.” Martinez went on to say, “It was tailor-made for the FLDS parents.” He clarified by saying it was a fairly standard CPS plan “is very close to what we use all the time… This is a starting point… We will individualize it.”

Right. But you have to agree to do whatever we say before you're allowed to see how individualize it.

# There was talk of consolidating the children. Angela and Shem are in Corpus and there is a request to move them move to San Antonio where Virginia is located. 4 of the other children are in Waco. The caseworker said there had been no effort to consolidate them all together before requests were made today.
# ”The children are all fine, medically,” Martinez testified.
# Asked by the mother’s attorney if he had found any evidence of abuse or neglect of the 7 children, he responded, “During visitation, there has been no evidence of that.” Pressed further whether he has seen any medical records indicating abuse or neglect, Martinez responded, “not that I am aware of.” The attorney asked the caseworker, “Does CPS normally take children from families where there is no evidence of abuse or neglect?” Before Martinez could answer, Judge Gossett tersely asking the atty, “Were you at the 14-day hearing?” And then followed up by asking “Are you confused about the findings in the 14-day hearing?” That line of questioning ended there.

I do not know how these CPS and judges sleep at night. Do they not hear what they are saying?

Cross-examination from the adlitem for Harmony (via phone) focused on the service plan and how it was drafted. The caseworker told Menduni that the service plan “Was formulated by Supervisors and staff with prior knowledge or information from people all over the country with information about the FLDS population.” He reminded the attorney that it was a starting point. The adlitem asked, “Is it possible that none of this plan may be applicable to this family?” Martinez answered, “Yes, that is a possibility.”

This sounds ominous:

NOTE: THE JUDGE MENTIONED TO THE COURT THAT THE COURT STAFF HAS “BLOCKED OFF 5 WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER FOR PERMANANCY HEARINGS,” but gave no further details.

Doesn't that sound like they've already set the date by which the parents will fail, since CPS is making plans that set parents up for failure?

What to do with an Apple...

Pare off a bit so you have a nice smooth work surface and then...




Treat yourself to a solitary game of Tick-Tack-Toe! :)

Where Are the Men?

I hear this a lot, but then when men do take the public eye, they are vilified just the same or even more viciously. Nevertheless, here are some of the fathers by my count- anybody else?

Warren Jeffs- prophet and leader of the group- so far he's accounted for four of the mothers, and he's in jail. I don't know how many of his children are in custody.

Arthur Barlow- ex-communicated FLDS member and father of 17 children- he's there at the hearings saying that the children's mother is a wonderful mother and she does not deserve to lose her kids.

Seth Steed Jeffs , younger brother of Warren- he's there with his wife Kathryn today. Court documents assign seven children to them.

Josephine Johnson and Joseph Johnson, parents of a 3 y.o. and a 1 y.o. are at their hearing today.


A blogger at yesterday's hearings wrote:

Cynthia Joy Jessop, with an infant she was allowed to keep at home, and Richard Samuel Jessop have six children together, and they are trying to get their three older boys together into one foster home in San Antonio. Unlike the others I saw, these parents made eye contact with each other and with the court. They felt they could do the plan."

So she mentions other fathers, meaning more than one other father- at least.


In addition to the above men, we have 22 year old Louisa Jessop's young husband Rulan, who has been very involved in fighting CPS on behalf of his wife and children, as well as James Dockstader, Rulon Keate, and Leland Keate who have filed a write of habeus corpus for the release of their children. Lori Jessop's husband was also with her, and was the first father to win visiting rights to his children (she's the 25 year old EMT who won the right to keep nursing her 1 y.o.)).

While certainly some men are noticably absent, it doesn't look to me like it's accurate to say 'no men' are, and since we did not read about all forty hearings yesterday, there's not just enough evidence to say that the majority of the men are refusing to stand up for their kids.
---------

More: Carlene Jessop attended the hearings for her four children yesterday as did her husband,

William Sunderland Jessop, sat near her in court. His attorney accused CPS of preparing a plan involving him and his children without ever talking to him.

Jerri Lynn Ward, representing James and Sarah Jessop — a couple who have a number of children in state custody — said their children are scattered in foster care facilities in Texas from Amarillo to Liverpool and simply arranging visitation has proven nightmarish.

And more:

"It's an outrageous day," FLDS member Willie Jessop said as he left the courthouse Monday. "There has been many cases made today, and what do they have in common? That no parent knows what they've done wrong, all of them have been accused of being bad and there's no cure."

Frank Johnson, another excommunicated FLDS man, is in court seeking custody of his children.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Software

In the comments to this post about sharing bits of the 75 page Habeus Corpus petition, Laura kindly shares the following:

If you're transcribing the Habeus Corpus petition by retyping it, you may want to look at Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software which would make your job much smaller (just reviewing to make sure the software didn't make any glaring errors).

Wikipedia has a list of tools you can use; most are commercial, but some are free.

This reminded me of something I've been to ask. Can anybody with some experience offer us more advice on good OCR software and/or scanners? Advice geared to this technophobe, techno illiterate mother? Pip will be helping me, but she's been frustrated of late with trying to fix our scanner. We used to have a scanner that would scan documents and book pages as text or images, but first the text recognition software simply disappeared from our computer, and now the scanner isn't working at all.

I do have many, many items I would like to scan and put on the internet- vintage books, magazines, ephemera. We have worked on three such projects as a family, putting public domain texts online at Gutenberg by transcribing them manually. But we did it that way to practice some typing skills and put in a home-based service project- I don't want to go that route for everything.

Among other things, I have the only known American copy of the second volume of Charlotte Mason's Parents' Review magazines, and I would really like to put those online with more speed and less hand cramping than my transcription offers. I'd rather not scan that in by laying it spread eagle and face down on the scanner surface- For this I'd like something I can gently put over the page without damaging the spine of my book.

I have several fun vintage cookbooks that I know others would enjoy the opportunity to see- but recipes are just too demanding to type in any volume, especially since, in my misspent youth, I carefully avoided learning the correct keyboarding skills for the number keys by ratcheting up my speed on the letter keys to such a pace that my lack of skill on the numbers averaged out to a high B. It is embarrassing to me sometimes to contemplate how hard I worked in order not to work.

So, advise us on OCR software and scanners that work well and have a low learning curve, please. Price does matter, but I have been given some of the cost towards this equipment as a Mother's Day gift, so it might not matter quite so much as it would otherwise. If something excellent is out of our price-range, I supposed I could always solicit donations from my fellow Charlotte Mason aficionados. =)

FLDS May 20th

If you missed the latest updates to the FLDS case from yesterday, you might want to scroll down to the bottom of the 'FLDS for May 19th' post. Two more minors were declared to be adults, and Brooke Adams demonstrates that the ages of these two young ladies was, like the other two thus far, already known to the court and CPS- they had the correct ages on paperwork submitted to the court at the 14 day hearings.

This page will be updated throughout the day, just scroll to the bottom for new updates. I usually put a time notation with each update, or separate updates by a dashed line.

I'm also working on transcribing a few sections of the petition for Habeus Corpus submitted on behalf of the three fathers (a 75 page long pdf file) and will post some of those later. (it's up now, just scroll down to the post below this one)

Another report on the hearings from Monday, the 19th:

But attorneys for parents and children insist that CPS' “family service plans” are unworkable, as they are not tailored for specific families, had little input from parents and, in some cases, drafted hours before Monday's hearings.

“I believe this plan was made by someone in Austin who doesn't know these children and has never met these children,” said Thomas H. Morris, attorney for Richard Jessop, father of six children in CPS custody.

Several parents refused to sign the plan.

Other requirements, like forcing Barlow to undergo an educational evaluation to find out how much schooling she had — not her child — was viewed by Guion as extraordinary and not necessary.

Eventually, both sides agreed to meet to hammer out a better, more specific plan.

In state District Judge Ben Woodward's courtroom, the questions came fast and furious at CPS supervisor Karrie Emerson from several attorneys representing the six children belonging to parents Sarah and James Jessop.

The Jessops' case highlighted how sibling groups are so spread out they make compliance to service plans that will require interacting with their children nearly impossible.

Emerson seemed unfazed when confronted with the fact that the Jessops' six children were spread out among foster homes in four different parts of Texas: Waco, Houston, Liverpool and Amarillo.

“Most of the children we deal with are oftentimes split up because of the problems with foster care placements,” Emerson said.

Crimmins said the agency tries its best to put all siblings together when possible, but emphasized that from early on, the information from both parents and children about whom they belong to has made the job difficult. State workers have reported that both have given incorrect names and relationships from one another. Sect members say that simply is not true, that they only tried to correct CPS when the agency had incorrect names.

Attorneys asked Emerson why home-schooling, something perfectly legal in the state, would be listed as a reason for CPS involvement. Emerson did not have an answer.

The caseworkers who took the stand were not the investigators, who could provide real insight as to why each child was taken into custody. CPS has said all of the children were either abused or “at risk” but has provided little in the way of real information about individual children and what makes their case the state's problem.

Instead, the agency called upon supervising caseworkers or those “conservatorship” workers who managed the child's paperwork.

While supervisors' lack of informative details frustrated attorneys and could leave the average spectator with an image of a bungling bureaucracy, it gave the agency an extra shield of deniability and may have been a shrewd legal move to keep details about the individual cases from surfacing before the abuse investigation is finished.

Grits for Breakfast has a post about the cost of this boondoggle thus far, and a hearing today where the county will ask for state assistance. He says that since Sheriff Doran 'broke it,' he should have to fix it and the county pay for its own mess.
-----------
11:37- Today's Live from the Courthouse Coverage is here.
So far all they have up is the case of Josephine Johnson and Joseph Johnson, and their two children, a 3 year old and a 1 year old, both at the same shelter.

In approving the service plans for the children, Gossett said the documents are "works in progress" that will be fine-tuned over time as parents and CPS workers get to know one another better.

"It's not set in stone," Gossett said of the service plan. "We will work to individualize the plans."

In answer to a lawyer's question, Gossett said the court will respect the parents' wishes on home-schooling.

I don't understand the judge approving plans where the details will be 'fine-tuned' later. These parents have no idea what it is they are agreeing to since the Judge has said CPS doesn't really have to tell anybody yet.
-----------------

Here is an excellent summing up of the problems with the hearings yesterday. This is another excellent writer who manages to be far more succinct than I. You'll want to read it all. Here's a taste- the writer points out what others have noticed- in Court while under oath, CPS says different things than it says to reporters outside of court where they don't face attorney cross examination. Yesterday the Court learned that one child's Book of Mormon had been removed but never returned. The Judge wished to know why. Nobody was able to tell the judge, although afterwards a CPS representative presented reporters with the story that the books had pictures of convicted sex offender (convicted for performing a wedding between a minor girl and her 19 year old cousin) Warren Jeffs in them and those had to be removed:

Interesting that no one answered that question in court, under oath. But, outside court, they said it was because the books had quotes and pictures from Warren Jeffs. It’s been 46 days since these children were captured. How long does it take to remove quotes and pictures from a book?

And when was the last time CPS required a son to remove a picture of his convicted, criminal father from a book?

There is so much more out there. Read it. Thoroughly.

Think it can’t happen to you? Think again.

--------------

12:37 update: CPS has justified the removal of both quotes from Warren Jeffs and pictures of him from the childrens' belongings on the basis that he's a convicted felon, and the crime he was convicted of is accessory to rape (because he performed the wedding ceremony). So I presume that all children in foster care would also be denied any materials by or about Roman Polanski or R. Kelly? (warning, that link does not make for pleasant reading).

CPS can cite no law about this, and several of the children are related to Warren- some of his own children, in fact, are in state care. His brother, Seth Steed Jeffs, has seven children in state custody. He and his wife Kathryn say they will work with CPS to get their children back.

...Attorneys for the family blasted the service plan as too vague and said it does not specify what the family needs to do to get the children back.
[...]
The service plans were approved, but not without arguments from the parents' attorneys.

Both argued there is no indication any of the children have been physically, mentally or sexually abused. Kolb said the only connection between the Jeffses and other families where abuse is suspected is their religious beliefs, drawing a connection to religious persecution.

"They took my clients' kids away," Kolb said. "What's the common denominator?"

Kolb also said CPS keeps his clients from mentioning Warren Jeffs when they see their children, even though he is a family member and religious leader.

"What's the state's argument, that to mention him by name, who's locked away in prison, is equivalent of child abuse?" he said after the hearing. "That's a pretty big stretch."

After the hearing, Seth Jeffs spoke briefly to several reporters.
[...]

"It's not very pleasing," he said about not being able to speak about his brother. "But we are ready to work with CPS. We're ready to do what it takes to get our children back."

The case-workers are so very involved and the plans are 'personalized' and the children are getting the very best care possible...:

Daniel Medrano, a caseworker for the 15-year-old son of Janet Jeffs Nielson and Wendell Loy Nielson, said he hadn't known the child suffers from Hirschsprung's Disease, a digestive disorder requiring a special diet.

In Courtroom E this morning, Janet Nielson and her attorney, Tamara Duncan, brought the condition of the child to the attention of Medrano, who serves as the caseworker for two of Janet Nielson's five children removed from the YFZ Ranch in the April raid there.

Both children are at Cal Farley's Boys Ranch near Amarillo, where Medrano said there is adequate medical staff to serve Joshua's needs.
[...]
Nielson also announced her desire to have all of her five children moved to Cal Farley's so they may be together.

Medrano said there is no room at the ranch, and Aboussie agreed, saying, " Placements are scarce everywhere, not just there."

Placements are scarce everywhere because CPS has filled them to the brim with this case. And since they split up families and parceled them out all over the state, they could try fixing this by doing some basic math and taking children out of one shelter to swap them with those from another. But, as David as pointed out, CPS doesn't do math.

Incidentally, according to this website "No special diet is required in patients with Hirschsprung's disease (unless they have acute obstruction or enterocolitis) and correction of the defect usually results in a normal functioning gastrointestinal tract." So he may have a severe case, in which its doubly incompetent that the caseworker didn't even know it, or he had a late onset (one site I read said that sometimes it didn't show up until the teens)- or it may be simply that his family has found he is more comfortable and healthy with a special diet.

Just following orders....

Duncan asked Medrano whether Joshua could have access to religious materials.

"The department would like to provide books as long as it doesn't have Warren Jeffs' picture or signature on it," Medrano said.

"Why?" said Duncan.

"Just following the rules of the department at this time," Medrano said.

Aboussie said that Jeffs - the spiritual leader of the FLDS - is a felon convicted on sex-related charges.

---------
1:16 ANOTHER 'MINOR' DECLARED AN ADULT!!

In another case before Weatherby, a child was reclassified as an adult. Natalia Jessop attended the hearing by telephone, verified she is an adult and was granted a motion of non-suit. Jessop then requested to have an attorney appointed to represent her as a mother rather than as one of the children in the case.

The SLTrib has more on both these stories, pointing out that so far the number of disputed minors has dropped from 26 to 20:

Judge Jay Weatherby heard two cases Tuesday that involve mothers who are disputed minors. He declared Natalia Jessop, 18, an adult. The judge postponed a decision on Mildred Jessop, whom the state also now says is an adult, until Thursday when hearings are scheduled for her
children.

An excommunicated member of the FLDS living in Utah apart from his family said he would move to Texas if that's what it would take to get his children back.

Arthur L. Barlow testified today in 340th District Judge Jay Weatherby's courtroom on behalf of himself and his children's mother, Esther Jessop Barlow.
[...]

Barlow said he prefers to stay in southern Utah but is willing to move to Texas to get the children back.

"I can honestly say there's not a better mother for these children than Esther," Barlow said. "She's a perfectly balanced mother."

CPS attorney Charla Edwards suggested that parental absence could be a form of abuse or neglect, and Barlow answered for his actions.

He said he has seen custody cases "where children are pawns," and, "There's kidnapping back and forth" between parents. His decision to leave was to avoid that, he said.

The SLTrib says:

Arthur Barlow came to Texas a week ago, rented a house in Abilene, got a job and paid visits to the children, whom he has not seen in years.
"All they could say is, 'I want to go to mother,'" Arthur Barlow said.
Both parents told the court they have given the state DNA samples.
Tip Hargrove, Esther's attorney, said she has already completed a psychological evaluation, rented a home and has employable skills.
"Do you think it gets Esther well on the way to reunification?" Hargrove asked CPS caseworker Ashley Kennedy.
"Yes," Kennedy said, though she declined to say whether that would happen faster than the one-year goal set by the state.
Kennedy also said there is no evidence Esther has abused her children and that a "monitored return" was possible.

Barlow and Esther have five children together, but the state of Texas hasn't kept them together. He also has 12 children by another wife, also in state custody, and they are not together- nor are they slated together by the court. Barlow requests that the court consolidate their cases and also asks why, since he's never been accused of anything, wasn't even at the ranch, does he have to sign off on a service plan that does not involve allegations against him.
-------------------------------
2:00-

Child Protective Services attorney Gary Banks said this morning that CPS is working with authorities in Arizona to obtain a DNA sample from Warren Jeffs, the imprisoned prophet/leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

So they can't even get the DNA of somebody whose location is both known, and he's not going anywhere.

The mother of one of his wives left the sect in the 1980s, and she's moved to the area and wants custody of her grandchildren, and their mother agrees, as do the children's attorneys. CPS will 'look into it.' Incidentally, they are required by law to pursue relationship care in the first place, but they didn't.
-----------
Technically, this story is from yesterday, but I am sure it could be repeated. Part of the 'plan' requires visitation from the parents. But CPS has split up their children all over the place, some parents having children in four facilities each a day's drive away. CPS offers no sympathy or solutions for the impossibility of following this part of the plan while requiring that mothers also take vocational training and hold down jobs.

On the stand, a CPS worker acknowledged the difficulty in keeping siblings together despite earlier claims by the agency that it would try not to split up brothers and sisters.

The unidentified worker said the agency had inadvertently separated a set of twins "that we didn't realize."

The worker went on to say, "It is difficult keeping track of all the sibling groups."

Ward also questioned the worker on how the agency can help facilitate communication among siblings, especially given their young ages. The worker didn't have any answers.

Ward also raised objections over the wording in one section of the plan dealing with home schooling. She referred to a 2005 memo signed by Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Carey Cockerell that stressed home schooling alone is not an element of concern that would prompt a CPS investigation.

But in the template for each child's service plan, CPS noted that an assessment should be done to determine the children's educational needs because of their home schooling.

Timothy Mark Lambert, president of the Texas Home School Association, testified CPS has had a pattern of investigating families who home school their children. It was his concern three years ago that resulted in Cockerell's assurance that home schooling alone should not be an issue. Lambert said it's impossible to take a cookie cutter approach to measuring the academic performance of home-schooled children because they don't use the same curriculum that public schools do.

------------
3:38: This is from a 'pool reporter': Case #2
15 year old boy, and yet another 'minor' declared to be an adult:
The boy is believed to be the son of the man in charge at the ranch, who was not there. I am guessing this is Merrill Jessop (once 'married' to Carolyn, author of Escape), because Willie shows up further below.

...Also at issue, the child’s access to religious material. The CPS case worker confirmed that FLDS ministers are not being allowed to visit the Cal Farley Home, while children of other religions at the home can have ministerial visits. Another issue involves access to the Book of Mormon. The CPS case worker stated the department would have no problem allowing the Book, “as long as it doesn’t have Warren Jeffs picture.” The mother’s attorney asked whether the “safe living environment” outline in the CPS plan meant “away from the ranch.” He replied, “Yes, away from the ranch.”

Janet Jeffs, the mother,** was not in the courtroom, but she and her attorney spoke via speakerphone from Austin, TX. Janet and her child are living together at a shelter in Austin. There were questions about whether Janet was a minor, but at this morning’s hearing the state agreed to accept the fact the she was over 18. The mother’s court-appointed attorney had to withdraw from the case because she was assigned to represent Janet as a minor. The judge has given Janet a week to find an attorney who will represent her as an adult. Janet says she last saw the father, Raymond Jessop, about a year ago at the ranch. No one knows where he is now.

We don't know how much over 18 she is- six months or three years?

And more minors acknowledged to be adults- this is making the state look very, very silly:

The count of children continues to fall - at least five non-suits were filed this afternoon in two courtrooms as CPS acknowledged that cases they thought involved minors actually involved adult women.

--------------

4:05 I really don't get the impression that Judge Walther follows the links in an argument very well, and this surprises me for a judge:

The attorneys for Seth and Kathryn Jeffs repeatedly stressed Tuesday that the vague family service plan recommendations could run counter to FLDS beliefs. As an example, Nancy Delong — who is representing Kathryn Jeffs — said the service plans call for the parents to follow "any and all" recommendations made by counselors as a result of required parenting classes and/or psychological examinations.

"My client could be asked to denounce Jesus Christ and worship Thor," Delong said.

Delong applied a similar hypothetical scenario to possible medical outcomes as a result of the required examinations. Because her client's children are "yon and hither" across Texas, she said it's very possible her client could be depressed. She added her client wasn't depressed, but if that should hypothetically happen, perhaps the state would order her to take anti-depressants.

She said her client could hypothetically be construed as bipolar because she's laughing one minute "and crying the next ... but the only reason she's crying is because all of a sudden she remember's it's Matt's birthday." Matthew Jeffs is one of the couple's children in state custody.

"I don't want my client to be forced to take psychotropic medications," she said.

It was at that point that Walther interjected and wanted it made clear on the record that no parents had been forced, at this point, to take any medications

'At this point' really wasn't the point, was it?

Both Delong and Kolb objected to the "carte blanche" parameters of expectations in the service plans, with Kolb specifically asking that language be added guaranteeing his client's constitutional right to worship freely. He asked that the language be added in particular to a section dealing with the requirements that the parents receive counseling as it relates to physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children. This came even after a CPS worker testified that she had no direct evidence that either of the parents had ever physically or sexually abused their children.

CPS countered that the plans remain deliberately vague because the assessment of the parents continues, so they can't realistically outline more specific expectations. But because those expectations haven't been outlined, attorneys for the parents don't want them to agree to such non-specific service plans.

Walther solved at least part of the problem. "I'm not sure there is a conflict if everyone agrees here that physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children are inappropriate regardless of your religious tenets," she said.

Gah! What every one will not agree on is what constitutes 'abuse.' The state's expert and Angie Voss thought male leadership and something they called 'authoritarian' were abusive (never mind that CPS is FAR more authoritarian).

What a beautifully competent agency. Doesn't it just warm your heart to know that all these children are subject to the tender mercies and bureaucratic excellence that characterizes everything Texas CPS has done so far?

When the hearing finally got under way before the judge, it was delayed once again because apparently attorneys, parents and the state had multiple versions of what was supposed to be the same service plan.

Ah, here's another father present:

"It's an outrageous day," FLDS member Willie Jessop said as he left the courthouse Monday. "There has been many cases made today, and what do they have in common? That no parent knows what they've done wrong, all of them have been accused of being bad and there's no cure."

CPS tacitly admits social engineering as their goal:

"We are very hopeful reunification can happen," said Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services.

Part of the thrust, she added, is to educate the women about Texas law and the definitions of abuse and neglect.

"This knowledge will be power for them," she told the Deseret News.

Some lawyer are protesting the lack of due process, but not getting very far with that.

"I believe there's a fundamental problem with due process rights," said Nancy DeLong, a lawyer for Carlene Jessop, a mother of four children in state custody. "My understanding of the law in the U.S. and Texas is we have a right to due process."

Jessop was only served with papers telling her to show up to court as she sat down for her own hearing.

"She's here today," Judge Jay Weatherby said.

"She's here because she wants her children back," DeLong replied.

On the dockets, each child had legal representation as well as the mothers noted by name. Noticeably absent were the fathers. The dockets either did not list the father or, if it did, some had no attorneys.

It's like a bad Russian play:

"The plan that has been filed is not specific to Ms. Jessop," DeLong said while questioning a CPS worker on the witness stand.

"It is specific to Ms. Jessop," Joni Manske replied.

"It's specific to Ms. Jessop just like it is for 400 other children?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Attorney Thomas H. Morris III, representing one of the fathers (Richard Jessop), is an example of how the bad publicity surrounding everything FLDS has poisoned the way we think about them:

Morris said his representation of an FLDS father was at first personally conflicting.

"If there's any wrong done, it needs to be punished. There may be abusers out there. I have a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter and I don't stand for the abuse of women and children. If there are perpetrators, there is justice for them — and I mean Texas justice," he said.

But, Morris gestured toward his client and said he didn't believe the father of six was one of them.

"This man here, I'd have him for a neighbor," he said.

**
Here's a bit more on one of the 'disputed' minors who turns out to be an adult:

An attorney for CPS said the agency now considers Janet Jeffs to be "18 or older." But in a conference call to the court, Janet Jeffs, now 19, revealed that she was a month shy of her 17th birthday when her daughter, Ziona Beth, was born on Aug. 19, 2005. Jeffs said she was born on Sept. 16, 1988.

She also told the judge that she had not seen her husband in about a year and did not know his whereabouts.

So CPS eyeballed a 19 year old and got a minor child. She conceived when she was 16- so we still don't have any cases under 15. And while the state might have a case of sexual assault, the criminal has been gone for over a year.
I would really like somebody to force CPS to explain when and how they have reached these 'epiphanies' that these minors are actually adults.

Also in that link- Marleigh Meisner of CPS announces to reporters that it's just not ture that books of Mormon were removed from any children. Howver, a different casework already explained to reporters that it is true, it's just that the books had Warren Jeffs picture in them and they had to be removed. And while actually in court, when the Judge asked for somebody under oath to explain what happened, nobody could say.
----------------------

In stunning display of adding insult to heartache,

a legislative panel on Tuesday suggested that the state explore the possibility of garnishing the religious organization's assets to recoup the costs.

"That compound didn't grow out of fairy dust," state Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said after a Senate Finance Committee hearing where he urged state health officials to determine whether members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), or even the sect as a whole, be held responsible for the cost of care. "Why should we be footing the bill when they've got assets?"

Because you're the idiots who chose to handle the search for a single 16 year old girl who did grow out of fairy dust by sending in 700 pairs of jackboots, armoured cars, CPS, and removing all the children on the basis of Angie Voss twitterpated nerves and the 'look-see' test for age- which is turning out to be a stunning fiasco for you.
and while that compound did not grow out of fairy dust, it did grow out of sweat equity, and it's not yours to take.
Ah, the slanderous lie about how they are abusing Welfare finally put to rest:

Albert Hawkins, the state's executive commissioner for health and human services, said it was unclear whether members of the sect have private insurance. He also said that officials have found no evidence that anyone from the sect is receiving any sort of public assistance.

Well, I wish it would be put to rest. But sadly, the facts aren't stopping any of those who think this was a grand idea.

Notes from the 75 page Habeus Corpus Petition

Excerpts from the 75 page pdf file of the writ of habeus corpus filed on behalf of three fathers.:

Many of the parents and children were sequestered in the San Angelo Coliseum, unable to view or hear the proceedings. These physical constraints severely compromised counsel's ability to hear or be heard, to object, to examine exhibits or witnesses or to give any individualized consideration to their clients....

(footnote: Parents were advised that if they left the Colosseum to be present at the hearing, they ran the risk that they would not be allowed to return to their children... cellular telephones had been seized, preventing them from meaningfully consulting with their counsel)

None of these Relators, their wives, or their children are even mentioned in the twenty-six CPS Investigative Summaries nor their testimony at that hearing.

I'm highlighting that bit because it seems to me that the removal of all 416+/- children was on the basis of Angie Voss' interview of just a handful of interviews. Angie Voss was basically allowed to present them as she wished in court without any worrisome cross examination.
So when she said that children told her 'no age was too young to get married,' it appears that actually one child said this. We don't know how old this child was, what question Voss asked to elicit such an answer, and not a single person got to answer the question as to whether or not this is what they believe.
Honestly, that sounds like the sort of thing a ten year old might say, and it's outrageous that it was used as evidence to removed over 400 children from families who were given no chance to demonstrate that this was a childish misrepresentation.

Well. That's from page one. On page four we have the names of the young children the three fathers are seeking to have returned. At least one father also has older children, but they are placed in another county. Dockstader said on MSNBC that they hadn't been allowed to see the older boys because the boys had not been given a case-worker yet.

On pages seven and eight we have the list of grounds for relief, referring to the 5th and 14th amendments and various rights under the Texas Constitution and the Texas Family Code.

Then we have a few pages of summary of events leading up to the removal, beginning, of course with the phone calls from the phony Sarah:

This complaint call is key because it was apparent that it did not come from within the State of Texas.
Moreover, CPS and law enforcement did not remove all of the children on the first day. Even though the Agency cliamed that a child was in immediate danger of harm in its petition an order to investigate [Exhibit 6] adn the Agnecy removed bus loads of children, it waited two days before removing additional children.

In reports recorded by CPS workers two mothers say the men with the guns scared the children, who had never seen a gun in their lives, and that nobody ever came and talked to all the children before they were herded on the bus.

A footnote to the Sarah connection points out:

It is odd that while the petition for order and aid of investigations asks for investigation of Sarah Jessop Barlow and her child the petition asks the Court to order schools, shelters, and daycares to cooperate with the investigation and to order the release of the children's medical physiological and psychological records. The department used this order to examine every child on the ranch instead of the two children it specifically referred to.

A footnote on the cell-phones:

Cell phones were taken away from the seized persons so that they lacked the ability to communicate with counsel, family or friends. Thereafter, the phones were returned briefly and then pursuant to a court order were removed once again.

There follow several pages making it clear that Sherrif Doran and law enforcement either knew, or had good cause to know, that the informant was not a real person. Grits has addressed this. He's included pertinent quotes from this same document, so I won't repost them here. If you're interested in reading more about Rozita Swinton, the source of that horrible phone call that set off this destruction of families, her arrest warrant is here. It's another PDF file. The interesting bits begin about page four, where Colorado law enforcment officer tells how many phone calls they've received from Rozita and her typical damsel in distress story line. The Texas Rangers are mentioned on page 8. On April 13th the person writing this report learned that at some point, Texas Rangers had contacted another Colorado police officer to ask about a phone number that turned out to be one used by Rozita to make other false reports. There is not a date given for that initial phone call, and I would like to know.

Anyway, back to the 75 page Habeus Corpus dohickey, which is now up to events at the coliseum.

"The detained mothers are not being permitted to meet with their attorneys and do not have an opportunity to know what is going on in Court and some women have serious medical needs that are not being met. 5R113. The women's cell phones were taken so that they were deprived of the ability to consult with counsel or to communicate with family or friends. They were thus held incommunicado. 5R116. In addition, one five year old child is going through rehabilitation and is without his mother. He is in a psecial needs group. And testimony confirms that this little boy needs his mother. 5R127. Although counsel filed an emergency motion for access to their clients the Court refused to stop the proceeding to allow access, stating that it would be imporoper for the Court make an inspection concerning what was occurring. 5R117.

Lawyers for the mothers and children also complained that they were not given access to their clients and that their clients were being treated unlawfully.

Mr. O'Toole: ...My child hasn't seen- the eyght year old girl hasn't seen her mother in two weeks. And they're separated by a parking lot. And they have not been permitted any access to one another...
I would like the right for the child to reside with the parent, if the parent is known at the coliseum or at the pavilion. She should have the right to be residing in custody with her mother. She should have the right to visitation with her- with her father. She should have the right to telephone access. She should have the right to send and receive mail, the right to choose their activities, improved conditions in the dormitories, including increased privacy.
No one- we would- as ad litems, as attorneys for the children, we would like some rules put into place for the, for the attorneys. We don't want our clients questions by anyone while- without notice to us. We would like copies of things we haven't been getting copies of. There's a whole list, Your Honor, and I will only go into it if given permission at this time. But I wanted it on the record that we still object to the format of this hearing as not providing a 14 day hearing for our individual clients. It never happened." 5R334.

I find it just one more double standard in a long line of them that the state's expert witness, Perry, thought that FLDS parenting was too 'authoritarian' of an environment.

Listenings Around the House.

Various music that members of The Common Room have been listening to in the last couple weeks:

--"The High Kings." Grandmother recorded their St. Patricks concert on PBS, and we quite fell in love with them. Jenny got this CD for her birthday in April, and it makes excellent kitchen cleaning music... except for those times when you get too caught up in trying to dance the swing to a reel. :)

--"Celtic Thunder." Grandmother also recorded their PBS concert, and the FYG loved it so much she bought the CD. They are basically Celtic Women, but guys. Phil Coulter conducts the orchestra and writes a great deal of their music If you are looking for *real* authentic Celtic folk music, don't look here. You'd be more advised to listen to High Kings if that is what you want. Celtic Thunder has a varied collection of voices, ranging from classically trained to folksy, and they sing a wide array of songs- Celtic folk, popular hits from different places in the world, and songs Phil Coulter has written for them.

--The soundtrack to "Cold Mountain." We've never seen the movie, but the soundtrack has some beautiful haunting folk music, along with a couple lovely orchestra pieces, and two a capella hymns done Sacred Heart style.

--Masters of Classical Music's volume 4, Johann Strauss. I like to listen to classical music while I'm doing school, because I get distracted by words sometimes. My favorite tracks on this CD are the excerpts from "Die Fledermaus," especially "Mein Here Marquis."

--"Mozart's Greatest Hits." Another excellent listening to while doing school CD. We've had this CD for a very long time, and it is I think the first Mozart CD I remembering listening to and knowing it was Mozart. Sadly, I could not find a link to this album on Amazon.

--And a mix CD that I burned of songs bought from iTunes. The track listing is as follows:
Sailing.......Christopher Cross
One Tin Soldier.......The Original Caste
Aingeal an Oilean (Island Angel)......Altan
Do You Realize?.......The Flaming Lips
Measure a Man......Clay Aiken
Over the Rainbow.......Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
Andy de Jarlis/Ingohish/Mrs. McGhee (Jigs).......Altan
I Will Carry You.......Clay Aiken
Never Alone.......Barlowgirl
Media Vita.......Anuna
Your Gaurdian Angel.......The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Puirt a Beul/Snug In a Blanket.......Capercaillie
Stand.......Rascal Flatts
Indian Reservation.......Paul Revere & The Raiders
Tommy Peoples/THe Windmill/Fintan McManus's (reels).......Altan
Stand in the Rain.......Superchick
Hello Goodbye.....Jump5

In which it's not that small of a world, after all...

A while ago, I posted an excerpt from a magazine column where the author stated that she couldn't homeschool because she liked having her kids "exposed to a bigger world and other ideas." In an article on the NEA website, one teacher writes that without the social mingling in public schools, children will not be permitted to "trade ideas and thoughts with others" and thus will become "social misfits." One blogger wrote last year that "the insular bubble of homeschooling creates people who can't deal with differences." You get the idea, and for the veteran homeschooling readers, it's not a new one. Opponents of homeschooling insist that it will create narrow-minded graduates with dysfunctional attitudes about diversity .

Please take a moment and consider this list with me...
* J. is completing a two year stint working in Germany
* H. is heading to Europe for a trip this summer. She's already been to Kenya and India.
* B. will be spending time in Europe with his company, an overseas assignment he asked for specifically.
* E. has been on several trips to Africa (both for humanitarian and other purposes). She's also been to India.
* M. has taken a group of students to England for a school trip.
* B. has been to El Salvador (for humanitarian purposes) and intends to go again.
* J. has studied abroad in Europe.
* A. has been to Vietnam.

These are all friends or acquaintances of mine and all are homeschool graduates. It's anecdotal evidence, I know, and not documented in a strictly scientific fashion. It just seems like rather a strong indicator that homeschooling made these people less insular rather than more so. They seem to have no problem trading ideas with people from other cultures. There is nothing insular about leaving your country to travel, work, or live in another one.

Books I've listened to over the last year or two

(I've listened to most of these while sewing.)

Gods and Generals, by Jeff Shaara, read by Stephen Lang (abridged)

Sky of Stone: A Memoir, by Homer Hickam, read by Dick Hill (abridged)

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen, read by Sarah Badel

Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, read by Geoffrey Howard

Galileo's Daughter, by Dava Sobel, read by George Guidall

Le Morte d' Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, read by Derek Jacobi

John Adams, by David McCullough, read by Edward Herrmann

The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien, read by Rob Inglis
The Two Towers
The Return of the King

The Trial and Death of Socrates, by Plato, read by Bruce Alexander and Jamie Glover

The Cat-Nappers, by P.G. Wodehouse, read by Frederick Davidson
Jeeves and the Tie that Binds

The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, read by Stephen Hoye

The Chronicles of Narniaa, by C.S. Lewis, read by Michael York, Lynn Redgrave, Jeremy Northam, Derek Jacobi, and Kenneth Branagh

Founding Brothers:The Revolutionary Generation, by Joseph Ellis, read by Nelson Runger

Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian, read by Robert Hardy (abridged)

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, read by the author


I am going to be listening to:
The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, read by Joss Ackland
and
Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust, an audio documentary by David Notowitz, read by Elliott Gould

I Despair, I really Do, cont.

From one of the "CPS can do no wrong" commenters on another message board:

Concerning homeschooling - homeschooling is more often than not used by parents as a way to isolate children from the rest of the world. This is one of the reasons why homeschooling has gotten such a bad rap over time, as so many of the people that homeschool are members of extremely whacko groups, isolationist cults, and groups who are less interested in quality education, than they are interested in brainwashing their children. It almost seems that the more bizarre the group, the more likely they are to be homeschooling children. As a result, nowadays when you mention the word homeschool, people respond negatively, as if the sayer of the word were wearing a tin foil hat. The truth is that, done right, and providing a LOT of socialization with outside groups (something not easily done), homeschooling can be an excellent alternative to schools, primarily for children of special needs because it provides more one-to-one instruction. That said, I've met homeschooling mothers that have caused me to break out in hives and I think belong more behind a mental institution than shaping the minds of little children.

It's like reading the rantings of people from another planet, and there's nothing you can really say to people who begin with assumptions like, 'as everybody knows, the sky is pink, and the moon is made of green cheese....'

Prince Caspian, Review 2

From our 12 year old:

I think it was a really good movie if you think of it as a movie that didn’t have a book.
There were quit a lot of things that I disagree with. But as for Reepicheep, I thought he was great.

1. Peter is a jerk. They changed him a lot in the movie. He doesn’t like Caspian at all. They argue with each other. In the book one of the first things Peter says to Caspian is "I’m not here to take your throne, I am here to put you on it."
2. The romance wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. And she (Susan) does point out to Caspian that she is 1300 years older than him. I am very glad she said that. But they still kiss.
3. I don’t like that they had the White Witch in the movie. But I am very happy that Susan isn’t the one who kills the White Witch, Edmond goes up behind her and stabs her.
4. I do not like the Night Raid. It was so sad. Lots of the Narnians die.
There are a couple things more that I don’t like but I won’t say too much.

Now for the things that I did like.
1. Edmond was perfect. Him and Lucy are like the only characters that are right with the book.
2. The water man was really neat. I think they did him well.
3. The music was really cool
4. Everyone acted great. But lots of them weren’t true to the book.

But besides all that I really like the movie.

My comment: The Night Raid is reminiscent of the Battle at Helm's Deep as depicted in the Peter Jackson movie, in that both feature a doomed battle with participants that were never in the book. But it's a weak imitation. I sobbed unashamedly at Haldir's death, even while resenting the fact that in reality, Haldir was never there and so he didn't die just then and in that way. My husband un