Not only did Steve Jobs transform computers and create the cult of Apple (that I am a proud card carrying member of), he was one of the most amazing public speakers out there.

The board members of Apple said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” the company said in a brief statement. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

I love all my Apples

There is a bunch of hooting and hollering about Apple allowing Exodus International’s app promoting “conversion therapy” (which they idiotically say cures gayness) to be added to the iTunes library.  I’m not even going to link to them since I think they are crazy, go google them yourself.

1. People are Dumb (bless their hearts and livers)

No, really it’s true, people are dumb, but that’s not Apple’s fault!  Ranting at Apple about this ridiculous app is a fundamental misunderstanding of business.  In a vast store, you will find books, CDs and DVDs you don’t like.  That’s not the store’s fault. That’s like a born-again Christian getting mad at the store for having books on astrology. Go shop somewhere else!  Don’t attack the messengers.  Go to the sources.

Why attack Apple?  That’s like burning every Bible because some idiots interpret it to fit their own dumb ideas.  Those are the same people who would kill their beloved messiah because they wouldn’t recognize him.  People are dumb, don’t burn books or shoot the messengers, educate the people!  Really dumb people are like zombies. Lock your doors and don’t let crazy zombies in!  Zombies are not smart, and usually you cannot talk rationally to them because they are extremely irrational.

Why not go after the actual looney toons who created the app instead of taking up space on the web hating Apple? Why blog about Apple being horrible?  It’s an app!  There are apps for just about everything. I bet there’s ones out there about how to kill someone.  If there’s an app out for where to find the best meat in town, do you think Vegans should attack Apple for it?  No!Go teach people about your beliefs.

Just because there are crazy Bible thumping freaks who would just as soon kill Jesus then actually listen to his teachings. doesn’t mean the platforms or the books are bad.  Just like I wrote in the piece about Amazon, don’t blame the messenger – listen to the message.

Here’s a question:  How and Why in the World do these groups continue to exist?  Why are there still ”God Hates Fags” people out there?  Because people are dumb.  Really.  They are.  And dumb people love to have something to raise their fists at that is different than they are and that - they can’t explain.

God bless their hearts and livers.  And PS: Usually those who are soooo anti gay ah, hello, are gay and can’t face it.  I say embrace it!   Be gay!  You’d be a hell of a lot nicer.  And cleaner too.  Plus, you’d make much smarter apps.

2. Laugh at People, Instead of Freaking Out

Why not send the makers of the app boxes of Gay Away if you’re so upset about their app.   Blaming Apple is like blaming amazon for that freako perp and his book being self-published – read my rant about that here: http://angelashelton.com/amazon

Get Gay Away!

3. Make Your Own Apps and Fight the Right Battles

Seriously. There are enough smart people out there that can build smart things instead of wasting time and energy making something filled with hate, violence and abuse.  The smart people may not out number the dumb ones but they are certainly smarter than huge groups of zombies.   Save us!!!    Make smart apps.  Educate Educate Educate!!

Now, are you sending out petitions to angrily raise your fist to Apple?  Are you Facebooking about how horrible corporations are for permitting these things to come into existence.  Are you killing the messengers?  How can you go to the source of what upsets you so much?

I think this Exodus group is hiding deep rooted abuse and violence against something they don’t understand (or secretly are) behind an app People are scared of what they don’t understand and many times attack instead of learning or having any bit of an open mind and heart.

I used to hear loads of people say how horrible it was for gay couples to adopt kids.  Oh my!  Oh my God, they’ll become gay!  They’ll cook them and eat them!  Oh no…   Good lord in heaven help us.   I hadn’t been around too many gay couples with kids until I went on the R Family Vacations Cruise that Rosie and her wife Kelli started.  It is a vacation cruise for gay couples and their kids. I was invited by Rosie to go and I went three times and had the time of my life.  One, because people thought I was gay and that just made me giggle.  I wish I was gay sometimes!  Second, because I have never in my life seen such happy well-behaved children!  There were no tantrums, no freaked out stressed parents, there were no spankings, no kids on time-outs or running rambunctious by the pool.  I asked quite a few of the parents, “Wow, what is up with these kids? How are they so happy and well-behaved?”  The answer I received was:  ”They’re loved and they were wanted.”   Ah, ha!  When I asked the kids what they thought about others hating their lifestyle, they said:  ”People just don’t understand, so they hate.”   Ah ha again!   Smart kids! (please go up and make smart things, like smart apps!)

May there be many more Zachs in the world:

How can you be smart about what you may not understand?

By Wendy J. Murphy
For The Patriot Ledger
March 26, 2011

Giving lie to the idea that “no person is indispensible”, reports surfaced this week that CBS is trying to woo Charlie Sheen back.  CBS issued a bland “no comment” when asked about the rumor, but Sheen’s team was leaking the story amid other claims that Fox wants to hire the guy for a new gig on their network.

Excellent. Two networks competing with each other to ramp up the value of exploiting a man in the midst of an implosion.

Not that there isn’t something intriguing about a guy who lets stuff come out of his mouth without a filter.  Maybe it’s as simple as the difference between honest arrogance and false humility.  I’ll take arrogance any day over the way too many people slobber over themselves with expressions of fake modesty.

Sheen’s claim that he feels liberated now that he doesn’t have to couch his statements in socially-correct terminology makes sense.  It doesn’t mean he’s playing with a full deck, but one needn’t be mentally ill to appreciate the freedom inherent in the ability to say out loud that which is disdainful in polite company.

Some of the reasons we watch and listen to Charlie Sheen are related to why we stare riveted at the television during a high-speed chase.  We don’t want to miss the moment of devastating impact.  Sheen’s declaration that his brain has only one speed, “go!”, is the cranio-equivalent of a high-speed chase.   We tune in because we want to see it live when his “brain-on-go” crashes.

But there’s something else going on, too.  We’re all stuck in conventional muzzles when it comes to acceptable conversation.  We don’t have the guts to be offensive so we live vicariously through those who dare.  When Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, told the NAACP to “kiss his butt” after they criticized him for not attending a Martin Luther King breakfast, his popularity skyrocketed – not because of the underlying issue but because LePage said he would not be “held hostage” by special-interest groups.  As the father of an adopted black child who has done a lot of work to advance racial equality, he was confident that these things are more important than showing one’s face at a breakfast.  He must live in a town like mine where some people do nothing all year-long about the problem of racism EXCEPT attend the MLK breakfast.

I suspect Charlie Sheen would find such people insufferable.  So do I. This is why I land just over the middle toward the “like” side of the “how do you feel about Charlie Sheen” spectrum.  It’s not that I’m glad he uses drugs and hires porn stars to help raise his kids – it’s that I sort of admire those who say “I don’t give a damn” when people around them say “that’s not normal”.

“Normal” has a wide range – and no doubt lots of Sheen’s behavior doesn’t even fall on the low end of the bell curve, but his willingness to declare that he’s fine with the way his life is going can be compared to the way some convicted criminals accept responsibility for their crimes without making excuses.  They might never stop stealing, and there’s nothing we can do about it, so the best we can hope for is that they openly and honestly take the heat. Indeed, the criminal who lies about how “sorry” he feels – solely as a way to shave time off his punishment – is a less noble man than Charlie Sheen.  An apology given in exchange for a personal benefit is worse than no apology at all because it cheapens the value of forgiveness.

Sheen doesn’t want forgiveness, and despite Alec Baldwin’s advice (seriously, Alec, let someone else give Sheen moral advice – you didn’t exactly have an “I’m sorry” reaction to the public’s criticism when you called your daughter a “pig”) that Sheen apologize and beg for his job back, he’s now on a sold-out lecture circuit so he can continue to tell people how his “sex, drugs and rock and roll” lifestyle is all about “winning”.

It’s hard to understand how losing a VERY high paying job, having your kids taken away by social services and being prosecuted for violence against your wife are moments of success – but if his perception is that these things are good, so be it.  Some people think it’s delightful to be homeless.

While Sheen continues his victory tour, and we keep watching him for all sorts of reasons, it’s worth noting the novelty of how one man continues to feel good about making virtually everyone else feel bad.

Related posts:

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3. Charlie Sheen’s Cooking Show

The backlog of untested rape kits causes continuous outcry among women’s advocates. Wendy Murphy says this focuses on the wrong issue because most rape cases are about consent, not who did it.

(WOMENSENEWS)–Throughout the country we hear constant outcry about DNA rape kits that never get tested.

Women’s eNews has run commentaries about this supposed outrage and just two weeks ago The New York Times reported on a presumably shocking stockpile of untested kits in Texas. A couple of years ago, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof compared the problem to something more likely to occur in Afghanistan than the United States, which turned up the clamor about untested kits.

Hold on.

The U.S. legal system may be embarrassingly bad at providing meaningful redress for rape victims, but untested DNA kits are not the problem. To the contrary. Public attention to the untested kits makes the problem of systemic injustice worse because it saps precious resources and distracts us from the real issues.

DNA testing is not only a red herring wrapped up in a Trojan horse, it’s a gigantic neon whale, stuffed inside a Trojan elephant-in-the-room.

Rape kits may be stacked up in criminal evidence closets all over the country, but not because there isn’t enough money or political will to demand testing. It’s because as many as 90 percent of the kits contain evidence that is, at most, irrelevant.

Eighty-five percent of victims know their attackers and the defense is focused on consent, not whether the act occurred. In such cases, DNA tells us nothing about the issue in dispute. A rape kit could contain the DNA of three men, five sheep and the Loch Ness monster, and it would have nothing to do with whether the victim consented to sex on the night in question.

Ugly Legal History

The United States has an ugly, historic and pervasive habit of prosecuting a far greater percentage of theft crimes than sex crimes, and punishing thieves more harshly than rapists, which partly explains why rape is the least reported of all crimes. Why would any woman bother to call police when studies show that victims are often blamed for the man’s crime and only 2 percent of rapists spend even one day behind bars?

But that problem isn’t caused by the failure to conduct expensive tests on tens of thousands of untested rape kits. It’s that we live in a culture where women’s bodies and rights are disrespected by violent men and have a legal system that refuses to hold them accountable.

This well-known concern notwithstanding, it’s hard to find a newspaper or advocacy organization that hasn’t written, instead, about the need to test “all” old rape kits.

Human Rights Watch at one point found that over 12,000 kits in California went untested for years.

Kristof and others seized on this for outpourings of outrage.

But 90 percent of those 12,000 cases involve victims and perpetrators who know each other. That means only about 1200 kits should even be considered for testing. Of those, there’s a good chance a majority will be rejected for testing because studies have long shown that many rapists do not ejaculate.

If we tested only the small minority of cases where DNA might actually help elucidate the truth–or where the offender is unknown–we’d have a much smaller backlog of kits stacked up. This targeted use of resources would, in turn, free up funds for expedited processing in the stranger rape cases where DNA is critically important.

|More

Violations of Privacy

If wasting money were the only problem, I might not be so cranky.

But conducting needless tests on already traumatized victims causes gratuitous violations of privacy and due process rights; not only for victims but also for their consensual sex partners, who can get dragged into these cases.

The government has no authority to conduct invasive tests on a victim’s constitutionally-protected bodily fluids unless such tests are ordered by a judge after a hearing where the tests are deemed necessary to resolve an issue legitimately in dispute at trial. Since almost all rape cases involve a consent defense, few of these hearings will take place, and even fewer will be successful. As it should be.

The way it works now is not only backward, it’s nutty. Medical professionals working as agents of the government inject medical implements into the victim’s body cavities and take samples of deeply personal biological material.

The victim typically signs a document indicating she consents to the intrusion, but she has no knowledge at that time that the examiner may uncover information about her–such as HIV status and DNA from consensual sex partners–and that this material will unfairly be shared with the defense, used against her at trial and revealed in public documents and in open court.

There is no “knowing, intelligent and voluntary” consent to the testing because she has not been provided with a full understanding of the consequences of her consent. There is no due process or court hearing to ensure that only truly relevant and material evidence is obtained. No warrants are issued. Nothing. It’s like the police entering your home without a warrant and conducting a search of your medicine cabinet after you agree to let them in because they told you they’re looking for an escaped murderer.

Bottom line: If there’s a rape kit sitting on a shelf, chances are it’s not proof of some grave injustice, but rather, evidence that a victim’s privacy rights are intact.

Wendy Murphy is an adjunct professor at New England Law/Boston where she teaches a seminar on sexual violence. She’s a former sex crimes prosecutor and author of “And Justice For Some.” An impact litigator who specializes in violence against women, Murphy consults and lectures widely on sex crimes, violence against women and children and criminal justice policy.

Related posts:

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2. Male Rape Victims charged with Homosexuality??
3. Propping Up Rape Victims in Insincere Distraction in TSA Debate

This holiday, give a child you know the most important gift you can – the opportunity to feel smart, safe and strong about their own personal safety. The Safe Side is offering the two-video set, Stranger Safety and Internet Safety, for just $19.99 with free shipping and handling if purchased by December 25th!

I’m Safe Side Superchick and I think this is a great idea!!

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By contributor Wendy Murphy for The Patriot Ledger

December 4, 2010

Of all the brouhaha about new TSA “naked X-ray” scanning machines and pat-down searches at the airport, the claim that has me scratching my head is that these types of screening procedures can cause devastating, retraumatization for people with a history of sexual assault.

“Any type of violation of physical boundaries can set back a rape survivor in their treatment, in their recovery”, according to Amy Menna – a counselor and professor at the University of South Florida who has experience treating rape survivors.

This sentiment has been repeated in umpteen news stories and columns, by writers who otherwise haven’t given a damn about rape victims for ANY reason.

Where were these reporters when Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) policies were being adopted a few years ago, requiring victims to submit to genital swabbing for DNA by government agents during criminal rape investigations?

It’s common sense that when a perpetrator admits the act occurred and claims a defense of “consent” (which is true 85% of the time), the need for DNA swabbing is virtually nonexistent.  Yet, protocol requires all victims to submit to the process – often under threat of nonprosecution if they decline.  Hardly helpful to the prosecution, the exam rarely reveals DNA from the attacker (most rapists do not complete the act) but often produces patently irrelevant DNA from OTHER men; usually a victim’s consensual sex partners from the recent past.  Talk about intrusive!

Where was Professor Manna or the ACLU when these policies were developed?  And why are civil liberties types not outraged that the federal government now wants to spend the public’s money to go back in time and test ALL the DNA in so-called “backlogged” rape kits in every state in the nation – even in the 8 out of 10 cases where the victim KNEW her rapist!  This means that 80% of the public’s money will not only be wasted but will also reveal the identities of men who may have been having affairs or using prostitutes.  Tens of thousands of men should be very nervous that the government is planning to gather their DNA – not because they committed a crime but because they had sex with a woman who SUBSEQUENTLY became a victim of a sexual assault.

And what’s with the silence from civil libertarians regarding the girl in West Virginia who was ordered by a judge to submit to a probing genital exam to determine whether she suffered injuries as a result of sexual abuse.  Nevermind that the perpetrator admitted to violating the child and that all relevant research proves that sexually abused children almost never show injuries because their growing bodies heal so quickly, the court compelled the child to submit and suggested it was no big deal because women have such exams all the time.  The prosecutor fought to stop the exam and argued to an appellate court that the child would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a forced exam, to which one justice replied, “well then, that’s just what you’ll have to do”.

Maybe all the silence about these REAL abuses of victims’ privacy rights is because nobody writing about the new TSA policies actually gives a rats patootie about women and children.  Maybe the true critics of the new X-ray machines are drug dealers worried that their mules are now exposed to a greater risk of capture because the machines can uncover bags of dope stuffed inside body cavities.  Drug dealers can’t exactly whine openly about x-ray machines at airports, so they prop up sympathetic rape victims as their proxy.

This is not to say victims don’t feel an extra degree of anxiety from intrusive procedures, but the silly claim that their suffering is a big national problem is as far-fetched as the suggestion that a bunch of TSA pervs are saving up our naked x-ray images for distribution on a creepy network of stick-figure porn.  Far more salacious full body porn is available, for free, on almost every electronic device – from phones to laptops – at the push of a button. The idea that a naked stick figure is worth anything at all is laughable.

Too bad victims and anti-rape advocates can’t see that they’re being used in this story.  Too bad they can’t find a way to point out the hypocrisy in those who claim to care so deeply about victims.  Too bad they can’t use this contrived national debate to demand more respect for victims in circumstances that actually matter.

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Wow, there is a lot of public outrage over being scanned and patted down. Is the new TSA policy really going to help with target recognition or will it trigger trauma?

Michael Tarm from The Associated Press writes:  The full-body scanners show a traveler’s physical contours on a computer in a private room removed from security checkpoints. But critics say they amount to virtual strip searches.

According to a USA Today/Gallup poll, most people are okay with the new screening process.

“To use these scanners, I would feel rather violated,” said poll respondent Malena Jackson, 35, of Denver. She worries that the images would be saved.

I’d like to know if they’re safe.  What’s the radiation level?  What if you’re pregnant?

Passengers can opt to be patted down by a screener instead of going through a scanner. Only 22% of poll respondents said they prefer a pat-down to a scan. “In a pat-down, I do feel like you’re invading my physical space,” said Dennis Skiles, 62, of Livonia, Mich.

Comedian John Fugelsang tweeted:  Being felt up by a TSA employee is the closest most Americans will ever come to joining the Mile High Club.

Perhaps the full body scans will inspire diets. Maybe some lonely hearts will travel more, just for the attention.

Humor aside, from what I know about trauma, there are hordes of people who are going to be highly triggered by having to go through a scanner or a pat down.

We’re now in a whole new era of crime so protection screenings need to come up a notch, but at what price and how can they be most affective?   Seems to me if you have over 39 million survivors of sexual abuse in America, most of them remaining silent and not seeking healing, there are bound to be a lot of trauma triggers while “patted down or screened?”  The chaos created by flashbacks or panic attacks is a great distraction for actual criminals to slip by undetected.   I may seem a little too slanted on the survivors, there she goes talking about trauma again, but if you knew just how many people were affected by sexual and domestic abuse, you may think twice about scanning them and certainly patting them down. Murray Sabrin even compares the new policies to Nazism in his commentary.

Cynics may suggest if you’re triggered, stay home.  But this is America, we all have the right to travel.

I travel a lot and have been through many airports domestically and internationally so I’ve been through all sorts of security lines.  Some pat downs do not make sense to me honestly, it seems like the same goal could be accomplished without physical contact.  What happened to that wand thingy they moved around you, beeping if it discovered a pistol?

A MSNBC article states:  Some travelers have criticized the pat-downs and full-body scanners at some airports as overly intrusive and humiliating. In one case, a woman who survived breast cancer said she was forced to show her prosthetic breast during a pat-down at an airport in North Carolina.

Some would ask if you’d rather be a victim of another terrorist attack or go through an intrusive screening process?  I believe there must be a happy medium in there somewhere.  I personally do not understand some security measures.  For example, does it really help our safety for there to be a deal with Zip-lock baggies?  Some of the security measures seem more like something Gomer Pyle would come up with.  Now that safety seems to be more sophisticated moving from Zip-locks to body scanners, I wonder how affect if will actually be.

I personally think people should travel more to expand their minds, hearts and spirits, but if these scanners and pat downs continue, TSA may need to add therapists to their staff.

Here are the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) mission, vision and core values:

Mission

The Transportation Security Administration protects the Nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.

Vision

The Transportation Security Administration will continuously set the standard for excellence in transportation security through its people, processes, and technology.

Core Values

To enhance mission performance and achieve our shared goals, we are committed to promoting a culture founded on these values:

* Integrity:

o We are a people of integrity who respect and care for others and protect the information we handle.
o We are a people who conduct ourselves in an honest, trustworthy and ethical manner at all times.
o We are a people who gain strength from the diversity in our cultures.

* Innovation:

o We are a people who embrace and stand ready for change.
o We are a people who are courageous and willing to take on new challenges.
o We are a people with an enterprising spirit, striving for innovations who accept the risk-taking that comes with it.

* Team Spirit:

o We are a people who are open, respectful and dedicated to making others better.
o We are a people who have a passion for challenge, success and being on a winning team.
o We are a people who will build teams around our strengths.

Wow, I think TSA may be slipping away from their original vision.  I was disturbed to read this in an article by David Edwards:

“Do the imagers, for example, detect sanitary napkins?” women wanted to know.

“Yes.”

“Does that then necessitate a pat-down?

The T.S.A. couldn’t say. Screeners, the T.S.A. has said, “are expected to exercise some discretion.”

“And what about tampons?” asked the blog Feminist Peace Network. “They look kind of like sticks of dynamite. Are they going to ask us to pull them out and show them just to be sure?”

Ewww..

I see more comedy skits on the way along with more outrage.

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Recently Amazon got a lot of heat for having the creepy The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct written by weirdo freak Phillip R. Greaves, II (his name even sounds creepy). ps: Don’t Rape Kids Go F Yourself.

I love how quickly people made their voices heard, especially how quickly Amazon removed the book from the site.  But I wonder, why blame Amazon?  I noticed a lot of people urging everyone to join groups and no longer purchase from the mega resource of Amazon and I simply ask why.  Before you start spray painting your signs, putting on your war paint to go stand in front of the Amazon warehouses or post anti-Amazon photos on your Facebook walls, think about this for a second – Blaming Amazon is like blaming church in general for all the rapists who hide behind the “holy” cloth.  Amazon also carries the Bible.  It also has The Secret, the Power of Now, and hordes of self-published works some authors may never have been able to get on the market if it weren’t for Amazon.  My book, documentary and first movie are available on Amazon too, so are the Safe Side videos that protect kids.

In my not so humble opinion, I think having books like that weirdo Phillip Greaves’s one out there is a great opportunity to stake him out.  It’s like he put up a smoke signal for authorities, or um Bikers Against Child Abuse.  Why not go after him instead of Amazon?  There are loads of other books that are insulting and offensive out there.  By putting this book out, he just gave those of you who are responsible parents more clues on what to watch out for to protect your kids by the way.

In answer to this particular e-book Dr. Phil said “This is a despicable crime, and for someone to say ‘I want to write a book to tell you how to do this in a way that if and when you get caught you won’t get such harsh sentencing’ – that’s offensive to the most casual observer. It doesn’t even make common sense.”  I totally agree, it is offensive and gross and sick and and and…

http://www.marktoon.co.uk/

But who are you blaming?  If you’re shaking your fists at Amazon, why not go after the Internet itself?  Why not after those who provide IP addresses for child porn sites?  The beast of child sexual abuse is much larger than this particular freak.  These peprs are not going away, it’s not like removing one book is going to take the beast down. It only gives them more press, allowing them to find each other and join forces.  Blech.

I was in the trauma and recovery movement for a decade, unfortunately learning more than I’d like to know about perpetrators and their networks. If you want to really cause a ruckus with your wallet by boycotting, I suggest you stop shopping at places run by perps where the money actually goes into their pockets. But if you did that, you probably wouldn’t leave your house due to how prevalent organized offenders are in industries from the televisions you watch to the newspapers you read.  The Catholic Church does not hold the record for the majority of sex offenders.  Child rapists are also truck drivers, dentists, airline pilots, shrinks, politicians, judges, accountants and the list goes on and on.

I love seeing the public uproar over that lame Amazon e-book, it means people are paying attention to the subject of child sexual abuse finally.  At least you’re talking about it!  Now, my hope is that more people stop raping kids and go F themselves.

As far as going after Amazon, I simply suggest you step back for a moment to be selective on how you utilize your rage.   If you want to really make a difference in taking down child rapists, their networks and the organized crime that helps them prosper I have a suggestion.   Take the roofs off of every Family Court in America and do a system analysis, researching how and how many “alleged” child rapists are getting full custody of their “alleged” victims.   I guarantee you’ll have much more to be angry at than an e-book.  I’m not saying that all Family Courts are dirty, just like not all priest are freaks.  I’m simply suggesting using your anger wisely if you really want to make a difference.   This subject matter can be infuriating, many times causing those who mean well to spin in counterproductive ways.  I’m not saying don’t comment, report and demand things that this be taken down, it’s the power of the people that got it taken off the site.  Believe me, sometimes I’d love to bring back the wild west when I hear the thousands of stories I’ve heard.

After years of research in child sexual abuse and domestic violence, I believe the best place to begin to really make a difference is exposing the system that allows child sexual abuse to continue “legally” – the Family Courts.

In the meantime, I think more stupid perps like that Phillip idiot should come forward with more of their ridiculous books so we can know who they are, exactly what they’re up to, where they live and who their friends are.

PS:  Get trained on how to recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse by taking the Stewards of Children Program from Darkness to Light.

Go write a book.  Thank you for not raping kids.

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3. Ro-Ro-Ro Your Boat Down Zombie Lane, Merrily Merrily Merrily Who Do We Blame?

I wanted to address the issue of speaking to the press.  I’ve done my share of local and national news.  When I’ve done press about my documentary or my first memoir, I’ve heard many producers and journalists say they have a hard time believing my story since I’m so vivacious and happy now. They think it’s unbelievable that I would have lived through abuse.  I was asked to cry on national television to show that I was still wounded.  When I said that I wasn’t wounded anymore and didn’t feel like crying, I was told they had to see tears.  Tears get ratings.  Or is it that the media wants to show women as wounded, not as powerful Phoenixes rising from the flames?  It got me thinking about media in general and how what you see is not reality.  By the way, Reality TV is written and set up.

We’ve reached an age of women and as women begin to step into their power more I think we can stop this nonsense of how we are portrayed in the media.  Why do we have to cry and why does our life have to revolve around a guy?  I told the producers and journalists that I wanted to talk about where I was at now in my life and how healing had helped me move forward.  Apparently that was not good TV for these people.  This one producer wanted me to tell how I had tried to commit suicide, even though I hadn’t.  She stood behind the camera and told me when she motioned around her heart area, that was my cue to bring on the tears and when she cut at her wrist, that was the cue for me to talk about killing myself.  I told her I hadn’t tried to kill myself, but did have some dark depressing thoughts though.  She shooed her hand at me and said I should just tell a suicide story anyway.  You mean lie about my story?  I thought they said they didn’t believe I could have come from such an abusive past because I am so joyful?  And then they wanted me to lie about the story to make it worse than it was.  She assured me that she didn’t want me to make the story worse, she wanted me to make the affects it had on my life worse.  Two of my really good friends were in the audience and could not believe their eyes as they watched me be used like a puppet.  At that point, I was new to the game of media and cried when she wanted me to cry.  I’m an actress too, I can make my marks and cry on cue.  Since then, I’ve been in this game longer and see how it is all orchestrated. Now, despite what I’m told, I am authentic.  Although, when you are authentic and real you stand the chance of being edited out.  But like I said, the age of women is upon us and I think the times are changing enough to reveal who you really are. Rise Phoenix, rise!

Thank Goddess for the Internet.  Hopefully it will remain free and available to us.

Notice that I left the International Women’s Day post up for the week. Women could use a week. What about a whole month? Or a whole year? It’s like April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  What’s the message?  Don’t rape people – in April?  Pay attention to women internationally on one day?  Who am I to talk.  I have a day too. I think you should dance on my day.  (Angela Shelton Day)  The day of the Oscars was a time to dance too I think.  It was a pleasure to watch Kathryn Bigalow double-fisting awards for best director and best picture.  It was even more fun to watch Barbra Streisand present her with the first one. Then Mo‘Nique winning for Precious was precious. Sandra Bullock winning was a Blind Side for many and her acceptance speech showed she’d earned it.  She’s delightful, talented and very smart.  Great combo as we go into the age of women.  Yep, we’re headed into the age of women, people. Vagina vagina vagina.

I did a little Academy Awards topic on my show last Sunday.  I thought it’d be a good time to talk about breaking out of old patterns.  I talked about going to the Academy Awards with my first film, Tumbleweeds.  The lead actress, Janet McTeer, was nominated for playing the mom – my mom actually.  I got to go to most of the awards shows, the Oscars, the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards etc.  The Oscars were a great metaphor for how much I have given away in my life and not taken care of myself as well since I bought a $5000 Armani tux for my ex and a $500 knock-off dress for myself – and it was my movie!  Crazy.  How many times have women put themselves down in order to lift a man up, many times an undeserving man at that?  I find that fascinating and it’s time to quit that nonsensical behavior.  Seriously.  I feel sorry for the good guys who stand back and watch all this behavior while scratching their heads in wonder.  Ladies, it’s time for you to do what you are called to do, make your movies, art, music, write that book.  Do it.  Especially if someone tried to hold you back and told you that you couldn’t, weren’t good enough, didn’t know how – whatever reason you halted, it’s time to stand up.  I say that to myself as well.

I spoke a lot of this on a radio show I did that is airing tomorrow 8-9 AM EST on MAIN 103.5 if you live in Asheville, NC. It is streamed live at mainfm.org. After it airs, you can go listen to the archive at http://main-fm.org/nav/archives/. Scroll down to “Systemic Effect” then click podcast and hit play.  It’s possible there will be a few minutes of unrelated music at the beginning, but then the interview should play. They tell me that those kinks are still being worked out, and will soon be much easier when the show gets its own website.

Systemic effect is a talk show about the consciousness shift happening right now in our time, microcosm to macrocosm, featuring interviews with people living on the front edge of the wave, doing the work of the transformation. Virginia Paris talks to activists, astrologers, spiritual leaders, artists, writers and anyone who has a vision for how their work fits into the paradigm transformation of our time.

I’d say women are transforming.  It’s time we all stopped the whole women-against-women pattern and help each other be as wonderful as we are.  I’m just saying.

drawing by Hiking Artist

Watch that video to your right please. What is up with all of the unneeded mail you get in your mailbox? I saw a tweet about newspapers ad inserts becoming obsolete. The comment was about how sad it was that the people who create those inserts will lose their jobs. It got me thinking. First of all, newspapers would be better off if they were all printed on hemp and then not only would there still be jobs, we’d be working smarter, not harder.  And printing on hemp has nothing to do with stoners or drugs or licking the paper inserts.  Hemp is what we should be printing on. The only reason we aren’t using hemp is because it’s illegal. And it’s illegal because the big-wig tree cutter (Hearst) saw that papers were going to be printed on hemp (because that makes way more sense) and he promptly set up a campaign in his tree-paper newspapers about how the drug was so bad. The campaign successfully scared the bejesus out of people about the horrible mary-jane-wanna and got the whole plant to become illegal (with the help of his other rich friends in Washington). So our rich friend kept his papers printed on trees.  Now you get insert ads and lots of them. Don’t even get me started on the ink and the shipping.  Printing on hemp and soy ink makes the most sense but that’s an entirely different article.

I’m talking about the insert ads. Good thing or bad thing? Why not get an E-coupon?  Why not just have everything on sale? Why do you get all this paper that you throw away anyway?

And by the way, when you watch that video to your right – I saw the Earthlings and now when I see pictures of meat, it makes me want to vomit, literally.  I’m still Southern. I still dive into denial and eat organic meat (yeah right, it’s still death).  I know, I know. Vomit.  Have a glass of hemp milk.

Sunitha Krishnan has dedicated her life to rescuing women and children from sex slavery, a multimilion-dollar global market. In this courageous talk, she tells three powerful stories, as well as her own, and calls for a more humane approach to helping these young victims rebuild their lives.

Is raping children really a 10 Billion Dollar Industry? Oh yes.  It is modern day slavery and it’s crazy to hear about but it’s true.  It’s oh so true.  Sunitha talks about the anger that comes attached to it.  It’s one thing for the victims to be angry about what happened to them but what about the general population being angry about what’s going on around them?  And for those racists out there, it’s not just the poor kids in Africa and India either, it’s kids in your backyard who are being exploited.  It’s kids on the milk cartons.  I’m just saying.  For anything to be done about it though, people will first of all need to open their minds to the possibility that the rapists are among us, are our friends, doctors, dentists, judges and men and women “protecting” us.  Second of all in my opinion we need to be more open sexually, have healthier sex lives and not have sex be such a taboo.  As soon as sex is a hush hush topic, it is forced into the basement where it will remain.  If sexuality is shunned, frowned upon and talked about as being so dirty and bad, it doesn’t just go away, it becomes perverted, dark and festering and those “perfect” well groomed buttoned-up conservative humans are dirty rotten beasts in the darkness.  They are transporting minors for sex (read article) and there are perps on the Internet, in your churches, businesses and schools too.  Not to mention the sex slavery happening in homes across America (middle America) where they trade kids, steal kids, rape them, impregnate them and rape their offspring.  What?  What in the hell are you talking about Angela Shelton?  Oh don’t even get me started. 

Merry Christmas!

Remember stop raping kids, go F yourselves!

Here’s some good resources for victims, supporters and those who care:

Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) is the nation’s largest organization empowering girls and young women, ages 12-21, who have experienced sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and revolutionizing the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth.  GEMS’ vision is to end the commercial exploitation and trafficking of children.  We believe that all young women have great beauty and worth, and the potential for future success. The voices and experiences of youth survivors are integral to the development and implementation of all GEMS’ programming.