In America's Future, Athena and Minerva Have No Place

In the ongoing case of the 10 American missionaries being held in Haiti, there’s little more news this morning. Our writing on this case encompasses several angles.

Last evening we added Paperwork | Procedure Never Part of Published Haitian Orphan Rescue Plan, after reading Laura Silsby’s ‘business plan’ for the rescue plan, which remains posted online.

Group Desired More Children

Shortly after, the Guardian UK published an in-depth article recapping the various proceedings. The Guardian added a new element to the discussion, of Silsby phoning a couple in the US, waiting for their child, offering three times to bring the child out of Haiti. The adoptive parents said ‘absolutely not’, but this rejection not dissuade Silsby, who went to the Haitian orphanage anyway. The child had been moved. The Guardian article is posted in Paperwork | Procedure Never Part of Published Haitian Orphan Rescue Plan

Other reports are surfacing, based on interviews in Haiti, that the group tried to round up many more children.

In Laura Silsby’s own business plan for the Haitian orphanage, the mission statement uses the words ‘gather the children’. There was no stated intention to obtain any paperwork or abide by any procedures mentioned. The time table allowed only to gather up the children and leave the country. This is the group’s own plan and is posted in our article.

Idaho 10 | Working for Jesus | American Baptists | Women’s Rights | International Law | New America

From our editorial perspective, the case offers us an opportunity to look at multiple agendas in America, and we are doing everything possible to understand this event from the perspective of the Southern Baptists and their goals for America.

Admittedly, this has been an educational refresher course for me. Anyone reading our posts should understand that the above list of issues is connected in our minds since I became involved in the Lubna Hussein case in Sudan.

The above list was also the focus of my university work many years ago, and the themes have now returned to my life.

I’m halfway through this weekend’ NY Times article How Christian Were the Founders, which presents the arguments of the Southern Baptists and other Conservatives in their view of America.

The groups reject a separation of church and state in America, and I believe this helps us understand the good intentions of at least 8 of the missionaries.

Executing Jesus’s Plan

via Flickr’s ~AphroditeIn reading the position papers and public comments of Southern Baptists leadership on the case, I’ve linked their goals for America, and taking to the streets for Jesus, into this case. See yesterday’s Paperwork | Procedure Never Part of Published Haitian Orphan Rescue Plan.

Personally, I believe it helps explain the presumably well-intentioned, but also lacking in paperwork and procedure approach, taken by Laura Silsby in Haiti.

In additon, Silsby has a long history of hating paperwork and disobeying laws, based on her business records, speeding and car registration tickets, and numerous other procedural failures noted in our original article.

She’s not the first entrepreneur to have this mentality.  Her littered-with-unfiled-paperwork past doesn’t mean that Silsby was up to no good in Haiti.

As to a connection between Laura Silsby and Jorge Puello, the current ‘attorney’ and advisor to the Idaho 10 — as they’re being called by the Southern Baptists leadership positioning them as detained, potentially persecuted missionaries just doing God’s work — no connection comes up in initial Google searhing.

Jorge Puello

Any intelligent investigator/journalist wants to know if Jorge Puello was working with Laura Silsby on organizing the proposed orphanage in the Dominican Republic. If a connection is established pre-earthquake, this case will take a very bad turn for all 10 missionaries.

This assumes, of course, that Jorge Puello’s fingerprints match the records in other countries. Authorities in El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are working together. I believe that America’s Department of Homeland Security has entered the case, which is possible with an international money transfer by the families to Jorge Puello.

Puello denies receiving money from the families, but that fact is easily proven. If Jorge Puello is the man sought for trafficking women and children in Central America by El Salvador, this case will take a very bad turn. If Puello and Silsby knew each other previously, the case becomes even more serious.

There will be charges of religious persecution against the Idaho 10, and I am bending over backwards to tell the story from their point of view, using their own words whenever possible.

So far, I am being judged as reasonably fair in writing personally about the case.  I understand that to many readers, I am an evil, sinful, disgrace to America woman. Nevertheless, I am being judged as fair in my writing here and on other websites.

With all our concerns about the international trafficking of women and children, our own position at Anne of Carversville is that international laws must be followed.

We do not believe that being a religous person puts anyone above civil laws.

I acknowledge that activism for social change has a long history in the world, and am well aware that Fundamentalists believe that activism — meaning breaking the laws — is justified for a higher cause.

When it comes to taking children and women out of their countries, with the proper paperwork, we will have to disagree on this one, if you the reader belive that ‘saving children’ creates ‘higher rights’ because they are sanctioned by Jesus.

The El Salvador Authorities

In an early look at cases about trafficking of women in El Salvador, my sense — and that’s all it is — is that the authorities and male police officers genuinely are trying to help the women. This is not the case in many countries of the world.

So it is believable that El Salvador has been preparing a case against Jorge Puello. Documents from his own religious organization in the Dominican Republic were found in the rooms of women trafficked into El Salvador.

‘Purple Magazine’ Cover and Morality in America

Coincidentally (but these trends always overlap) the avant garde French magazine ‘Purple’ has published a photo of Lindsay Lohan on their current cover. Of course such a cover creates controversy, and it was top story Yahoo news yesterday. All the expected quotes from America’s moral leadership are included.

Having spent years of my life in France, and also writing constantly about the French commitment to women’s rights, I’ve tried to explain that the French believe the American morality police are total hypocrites. The cover isn’t intended to mock Jesus, but to mock the American and Vatican men who are hypocrites on the subject of women’s rights.

Paul the apostle was very tough on women, saying that we should be silent and do as we are told by men. While saying that women are equal, Southern Baptists do believe that women should follow their husband’s orders. Of course, he should be the benevolent dictator, but nevertheless, he is in charge of all family matters.

The above is not an argumentative opinion. It’s the stated position, in writing, of the Southern Baptists. The sexes are equal, but women must obey.

Conservatives and Pornography

Men like former president Jimmy Carter are now aggressively fighting the Southern Baptists for their views on the immorality of women.

Last night, I did close an open loop here at Anne of Carvesville, posting the established statistics about pornography consumption in the United States.

One of the wonders of the Internet is that IP addresses can be traced, and we have aggregate IP information by state and region of the country. In the case of Harvard professor Benjamin Edelman , one of his clients is a top 10 in America pornography website.

In research done last year, Professor Edelman reviewed the paid transactions in America from this adult website. Eight of the top 10 states voted for John McCain, not President Obama.

Utah, home to many Mormans, was the top subscriber state of pornography from this company. I have personally reviewed IP addresses from another adult site, not related to Edelman’s research — this one very upscale and international — and Mesa, Arizona, also home to upper class Mormons, was the top city. driving traffic to the website.

In the Edelman research, after Utah being the top subscriber state of porn, Mississippi was the third biggest user. Mississippi represents the largest American Baptist congregation.

Morality Police and Me

The morality police, as I call men all over the world who are devoted to shaming women with our alleged responsibility in the downfall of humanity, must understand that these contradictions between words and deeds create a lack of respect with someone like myself.

I’m the woman judged as being immoral and the temptress of men by the same men who privately consume a voracious amount of pornography. Moving all my websites to Anne of Carversville allows us to analyze events through the complete prism of American life.

This is why you will find sexy photos from fashion and design magazines, now helping us understand trends in global life, including America. Previously, I worried about upsetting people with the sexy side of American life, but given that Conservatives and the morality police view more porn than anyone, and then threaten women for being immoral — sorry, it’s all too schizoid for me and for most women.

Judge us if you will, but I want to look you squarely in the eye, when you do it. Facts are facts. All men love porn, and religious ones more than most. Incidentally, I do not condemn men for this fact, which is why men come to Anne of Carversville.

I would like to get porn out of the gutter, however. It’s so degrading as is.

The End of Innocence

My life is full of judgements about my character, which may explain my passion for this subject.

In my own case, when I was attacked by my parent’s best friend as a young woman, taken before a Catholic priest as the authority figure — and not the real police — I was told that I caused this man to attack me, with his six-year-old daughter sleeping next to me. (Disgusting, I know. How perverted was that! I did not scream because I feared for the six-year-old daughter waking up and seeking this horrific event. His 10-year-old son was also sleeping in the sun porch close by. I chose to protect the children, rather than scream or fight back.)

Asleep with curlers in my hair, I was somehow responsible for this man losing his control, coming into a dark bedroom and attacking me at 15.

After the trauma of the attack, I next dealt with the guilt of being judged responsible and immoral by a Catholic priest and also my parents, who said I must have caused the situation or perhaps I made it up, being a creative child.

The next day after my meeting with my attacker and the priest in the church rectory, I found myself at a communion rail, where the priest denied me communion. 

Having decided I was either the cause of the sexual attack or a most imaginative young woman, he did this for my own benefit, because already in a state of mortal sin for lying on the Bible, I would commit another mortal sin by having communion.

This event shattered my sense of self for years, because even though I knew I had done nothing wrong, I assumed the guilt, believing that God had judged me as a sinner.

Without intending dishonor to religion, I do not respect men who judge the morality of women, because I know too much about real life in America.

When I post the actual statistics of porn consumption in America, it’s not to mock Jesus or religion. I was a devout Catholic when attacked.  My purpose is to communicate with women and men who are devoted to doing the right action in life.

Feeling perpetually guilty for being sinful, we must understand that the men who judge us are most likely living in greater sin than we are. History and human psychology confirm that this is typically the case with the morality police.

My Appreciation

I do want to thank readers who might disagree with me or who might judge me as being immoral for leaving positive comments or none at all on these articles. I’ve read some other websites — some very Conservative — and I know that there are compliments for my fairness in discussion the missionaries in Haiti.

My only purpose at Anne of Carversville is to create open and honest dialogue on controversial subjects in a country that now lacks any substantive, interactive public dialogue on complex subjects.

Decades ago, I spoke of women’s rights on a TV interview program and was stalked for a year and placed under police protection. The man swore he would kill me for supporting women’s rights. A single statement on TV caused me to be viciously hunted by another man who judged me.

It’s taken many years for me to write publicly on these topics, and I very much appreciate the restraint exercised by people who do not agree with me or believe that I am undermining my country.

This is my goddess, who I worry about every day. Between terrorists and Americans who want to ban books, I don’t know that she will survive the 21st century. I was reflecting just now how Athena and Minerva were goddesses of wisdom years ago, but in today’s America, the two strongest cultural forces of Catholicism and Southern Baptists say women must obey.

As someone who cares deeply about America and our future, the total degeneration of public, civic discourse in the country frightens me beyond words and cannot take us to a good place in the future as a nation.

The case of the Haitian missionaries has looped in most of the issues that matter to me as a citizen, and I cannot discuss one event without connecting it to the larger issues of religion and feminism in the United States.

God Bless America and all the people trying to save her in our increasingly complex world. Anne

Note: subsequently my youthful attacker was ‘run out of town’ after he showed up in the bedroom of a 45-year-old woman who gave him 24 hrs. to ‘get out of Dodge’ before calling the authorities.

I am pulling together in a central spot at A of C all writings on this subject and will post them soon. Presently, they are strewn throughout the website.