What to do with a Girl like Maria Magdalene*

Mother Jones magazine has delved into the lucrative American Christian-run 'corrective' organizations turning life into Hell on Earth for American youths, with emphasis on rendering girls into Stepford zombies, but not ignoring the rending psychological and physical damage done to boys as well.

Incompletely obedient youth touted as criminality to their parents becomes an excuse parlayed into unregulated imprisonment, punishment and torturous indoctrination into a certain interpretation of authority made sancrosanct by a veneer of religion.

I've often wondered how many broken inner children, grown and with children of their own to break, are the invisible mainstays of organizations wanting to move regional theocratic control into imperial state authority over everyone. For every survivor who continues to dissent, how many are silent and obedient, needing to identify with the abuser or fall apart more completely than they are if consciously having to face the idea this wasn't done to save their spirits, but to callously exploit them as resources?

Fewer than historically indoctrinated by state-run theocracies. That's the sad thing. Compared to pre-separation of state and church, this is improvement. The despots running these hellholes have to hide it now, however thinly in some locales. They have to demand anti-regulation. They have to close down and move. They have to make excuses and dismiss survivors and the damage done. They long for the return of theocratic glory days where all of that *work* lying about it won't be needed. Because they know what's really at stake here. Their comfort and bank accounts, the rest be damned. Literally.

I expect this is where someone makes the "No True Christian" jazz hands argument to make it all go away.

*Where the Hills aren't Alive, so much as they Have Eyes.

Slapping Kids Around, Alaska-Style

As the late philosopher George Carlin said: 'If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're pre-school, you're fucked.'

Another stark example of TheoCon hypocrisy and cruelty today from Alaska.

The guy who took over from $arah vetoed an expansion of state health care coverage for poor children and pregnant women because it covers abortion.

His veto of Denali KidCare money drew by far the strongest reaction, with Democrats saying it was outrageous. Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bettye Davis, who sponsored the Denali Kid Care money, said it would have allowed 1,300 children and 225 pregnant women to receive care.

Ethan Berkowitz, one of Parnell's Democratic opponents for governor, called the decision cold-hearted. "If you want to be tough, you don't be tough by slapping kids around," he said.

Hollis French, a Democratic state senator who is also running against Parnell, said the decision was depriving hundreds of children of coverage "because you're afraid a few women might make a choice you don't agree with." The courts made it clear the state has to pay for "medically necessary" abortions for poor women and the program doesn't fund elective abortions, he said.

Officials with AARP Alaska and the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Head Start program said the governor's veto will hurt people struggling to raise children.

Parnell said he wanted to offer the health care to more women and children. But he said he couldn't bring himself to do it after recently discovering Denali Kid Care also funded abortions. Parnell said he couldn't believe it when he found out.

SHRIEEEEEEK! HE COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!! HE COULDN'T BRING HIMSELF TO DO IT!!!!

Such delicate sensibilities, yet he can quite blithely deny healthcare to a bunch of poor kids and women.

If I were within slapping distance of this prick, he'd get a faceful.