Daughters of the Shadow Men

Population Explosion vs Pro Life Part 1-2

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:09:38 GMT

The first video is nearly 10 minutes and the second one 3 minutes. I wanted to go into my experience of living in an area that is 90% Mexican for 20 years and what I observed about their tolerance for people, kids, and being poor. I found them to be very pro life.

I thought Obama gave the best presidential candidate speech I ever heard...

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:52:57 GMT

I have heard a lot of candidates speeches in my time, but this one impressed me the most, without me even expecting it. He started off so low keyed that half way through I thought he was not going to rise to the occasion and move people. But by the time he spoke for 47 minutes I saw by the looks of the people in that convention hall that he had them.

This is the first time I have heard him evoke the spirit of his mother who died of cancer a few years back, and I felt her giving him the incentive to take the high ground, bidding him to look to the stars. I was of course disappointed that he echoed the party line on abortion but hoped to cut unwanted pregnancies but he would not have been the democratic candidate if he had not supported abortion rights. But he played to the strength of black supporters who have been loyal to the democratic party as the party that has done the most to advance civil rights for the black man. I know there is so much left to be done, that Obama has a job ahead of him every bit as big as fighting for life for the unborn. He has to further the progress of the black man in the fight for equality by becoming the first black American president. Along with the rights of the fetus, the rights of children to have a better life must always have top priority. And so many children of minorities need to know that America loves them and wants them to do well.

I am from Arizona and have read about McCain in the news for many years, and I have never known him to do much for pro life. So all that has to be weighed when it comes to the vote. I will be looking forward to seeing what McCain can offer the American people to bring as much excitement into their lives as I think Obama can. Obama is young and strong. This job may require more vitality than McCain has got.

I loved what Obama said about not getting into the denigration of personality, but recognizing we all love our country, democrats and republicans. He said he would debate McCain if he did not get into the the attacks on character he has been some guilty of in his campaign ads, etc.

A horrible violent rainstorm is going on here with lightning flashing. I am a little scared since lightning struck inside my sister's house a couple of days ago and blew apart her phone and a TV. Her computer was not damaged but the plug in the wall was burned clear out. Her little grandson had barely moved into a chair from the floor where he might have been struck. So I think I will stop now and turn off my computer. Good-night all. It is always a good day when a convention involving so many people and watched by so many millions inspires and even excites, which is what we all need with as much bad news as we have had to deal with this past year.

Doc (Rick) is walking on water now days...

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:52:39 GMT

Here is his drawing, one of my all time favorites of his work which about describes him these days. Or maybe he has always walked on water. We finished filming the series, Happy Hello, Goodbye in which he is so funnee in my opinion and he is doing research on the next play. He called me last night to bring down all the plays I wrote and never got to do and he would see about helping me put them on Youtube! My gosh. Well, I knew when I met him he was the smartest guy I had ever met and the most creative but a big drunk. I thought well, obviously my creator has sent me this man, so now I have got to see what I can do with him. So I am learning to work through, around and in spite of his addiction. Doc is so talented that when you catch him sober enough he can act circles around just about anybody. He liked to point out to me that some of the biggest talents in the world were some of the most addicted, to heroin, alcohol, whatever, referring mostly to his great favorite jazz musicians. An alcoholic will come up with that kind of excuse to justify himself.

Anyway, my sister Linda tells me that she upped the date of our San Francisco trip to around the 7th of September which is not far away! I will be gone about 9 days and will probably not be posting, but I am taking the video camera and hope to come back with some great video material.

So before I leave I will upload all of Happy Hello for you to peruse while I am gone. I might do a political video before I leave but that will be it for the videos, too, until I get back.

I have been watching the democratic convention and last night it was pretty exciting I thought with Bill Clinton giving a great speech and Senator Biden's accepting the vice president candidate nomination. I am looking forward to Barack Obama's speech tonight.

I have been planning both this journal entry and a video on the subject of abortion rights versus population explosion in which I will touch on both candidates' position on abortion. I am not sure the democratic platform stand on abortion will do anything to slow down abortion numbers which they say is their goal rather than eliminating abortion rights altogether. Those who advocate abortion have always maintained that few abortions is their goal, who would not want that, but I still say a life is a life and abortion still takes it. Can we afford the high spiritual cost? Above all, do we have the right to take the life of that child in order to solve whatever problem the pregnancy presents. I have always said we have to go to prevention, even if it means absolute abstenance, rather than consider taking life. I think for taking any life we will be held accountable here and in the great accounting we will give of our lives in judgment day.

As you can see in Happy Hello, I certainly believe that we all survive death including the child just begun in the womb. If the creator gives us the gift of eternal life he will surely give it to everyone ever conceived. How can we dare suggest he does not have that power, so we have only removed these children, in my opinion, in staggering numbers to the other world, where I am sure we will be expected to meet those we are responsible for sending there. I believe there will be a lot of tearful anguished meetings of mothers with aborted children, for this is really more of a woman's problem than a man's since she is ultimately the one who has to decide on whether she will undergo an abortion.

So times are bad, then we need to buckle down and get even more control of our animal urges. I remember actually making my womb off limits for years during my marriage, so I absolutely would not get pregnant, as we were too poor and my husband was too unstable I thought to act sane through an unexpected pregnancy.

We have not heard that kind of control preached ever, probably. But I quite enjoyed not ever having to worry about pregnancy. We would play around just as we did when we went together while I was trying to finish college and remain a virgin. People seem to suggest that the only sex that is acceptable is all out high risk penetration. Why is that, when another pregnancy absolutely would be a disaster?

No penetration, no baby, it is that simple. So what is all the great deprivation in that which abortion advocates huff and puff about. We are entitled to sex even if we have to commit the crime of abortion after? What kind of entitlement is that? We are told our young will never have the ability to control unwanted pregnancy as the abortion clinics cater to a teen client population that probably makes them the most apt of all ages to seek an abortion. I maintain we are not giving our teens ideas of how they can maintain control without committing an act that is very apt to haunt them the rest of their lives.

I am mad at all the democrats whose minds are closed to other alternatives. Bush's war in Iraq has nothing to do with this issue, except he derailed all his good intentions to tackle elimination of abortion rights with his war and the carnage that war always engenders. He certainly couldn't talk about saving the fetus when he was asking young men to die or be permanently disabled by wounds and post traumatic stress syndrome.

The idea behind abortion rights is that the fetus is sacrificed so a beleagured mother can survive her crisis with a pregnancy that will be nothing but hardship. Possibly even endangering her health. The fetus is the little forgotten soldier who pays the worst price that anyone can pay after being conceived, death after only a few weeks, perhaps, just long enough for evidence of life. But this child will join millions of others who have been like sacrificed.

We worry about a population explosion here that must be contained, and dismiss the thought that now the population explosion is taking place in heaven. A holocaust must always overburden the minions of angels who must help the victims deal with early death.

Are we saying now that the times dictate that we must lose our humanity in order to survive? Well, if we lose our humanity and respect for life, will life even be worth living after that? The ruthless policies in China I think would make life very hard to bear. What next here, one child policies strictly enforced in the name of population control?

I see that the population explosion here is being attributed to some minorities who do not practice birth control. I know that to be so here in Arizona where Mexican women generally have children in greater numbers. The idea of birth control has not yet made much of an impression on their minds. Doc and I fight all the time over a Mexican mother getting on the bus with four or five little children in tow. I say that is just what is happening, so deal with it and keep a civilized tongue in your head. But he can hardly shut up about what a strain on the system, the welfare costs, free medical costs on AHCCS, etc. etc. Granted, so what are we going to do? I say stop with the idea of enforced abortion! Women have to learn within themselves when they have had enough, and they generally find a way to slow down. I remember one little Mexican mother 19 years old who was my neighbor on the west side. She had had four children in a row and said she was going crazy. She was Catholic so would not consider abortion. Nobody would give her a tubal ligation until she was older. Well, better a tubal ligation than an abortion to my mind. That would just give her the control over her body that would definitely stop the children from coming. She was a good mother. It was not that.

People quail at giving young women who already have too many children a tubal ligation but wont hesitate to advocate abortion, taking the life of the unborn. I would say that giving a young woman a permanent solution in a tubal ligation is far less troubling and less a criminal act than an abortion. I donot advocate tubal ligation unless all forms of birth control have failed and the mother simply cannot take any more pregnancies, to the point she is ready to have that simple procedure. I don't like it because it removes such a sense of caution that often times sexual promiscuity will result. There are a lot of downsides to it. Besides a lot of women don't want to do that. Not early on, when they are young anyway. They will have four or five kids maybe before they start cracking.

In today's economy they are apt to feel this squeeze a lot sooner. Most women cannot wrap their minds around no penetration and maybe fear their husbands might kill them if they even suggest such a thing or feel justified in raping them at the very least. So for them, going under the knife as a sure birth control may be preferable. My ex husband threatened to kill me a few times over my no penetration birth control, but I was willing to die before I would have an abortion so that was no problem. I told him that if he raped me to have penetration,that would be the last he would ever see me. He finally realized that a maniac like him needed to have less responsibility so he better accept no penetration despite how his buddies might sneer. Even my dad said he did not blame him for beating me up with a birth control method like that.

But a society wrought with abortions is preferable? No way. I can't think of anything more depressing than the idea of everybody trotting down to the abortion clinics to keep from having more than one child, as we suffer with our huge population explosion.

Start now to become more flexible and consider all alternatives except the violent one. To me, China's population control through enforced abortion is an idea that is far more scarey. I was reading that China with its one child policy and much abortion has parents grieving terribly whose only child was killed in the earthquake.

Our burgeoning population is going to be a big problem, there is no getting around that, but it is important not to sell our spiritual strength short. We can find solutions without violence. McCain is too fond of war as a solution. Which is no more than the idea that we must be willing to kill to save. How much different is that than the idea of abortion? I am afraid that he will accomplish no more than Bush has since he started the war in Iraq, even if he claims to believe in Right to Life. I see that politicians can say that with no intention at all to do anything about abortion numbers. That concern falls to the bottom of the list as it has done with Bush. Look how many victims his war has claimed for what end? He removed Saddam. We would been better off to let them remove their own tyrant. He was getting old anyway. Bush did not reason that the US cannot do everything, be everywhere, so now billions of dollars spent later, we will have to leave Iraq anyway and a bloody war to control it might still go on there and all the dangers he feared still come to pass.

So that puts me between a rock and hard place. I love the idea that Obama is our first black candidate, but I have been long troubled by the black population being loyal to the democratic party no matter if it did become the party of abortion rights. I do not think that black people are comfortable with abortion, as it resembles their sacrifice of life, so many times in their history of slavery. The slave's life was certainly expendable, too. The owner had a right to do anything he wanted to a slave, starve him, beat him, impregnate her, sell her children ignoring the fact that they might be his own because a darker skin had reduced them to lesser human beings than their white father. And many a black was killed for trying to run away, fight abuse, and the owner was justified! He could kill his black slave just like he could kill his horse or his dog if he took a notion. I am sure that blacks still do not trust whites for thinking like that, and I don't blame them.

A black man running for president has got to be truly courageous to go up against all the dark ancient feelings of superiority and sense of entitlement that still lurk in many a white person's heart. This is now going to become a huge issue, a huge test of our humanity in this country, our willingness to accept a black candidate without resorting to the brutality of racism of a yesteryear. Blacks are ready to risk all. I believe the democrats are committed to still another great cause, the cause of furthering the right of a black candidate to become president of the United States. This is the democratic party I knew and loved when I joined the democratic party.

I have crossed over and voted republican because of their support of right to life. Now I don't know who I will vote for. We will see.

VIIII- Cleo warns Jimmy his life might be in danger...

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:54:58 GMT

She tells him that when Tilda found out he had moved into the house while they were gone, she rode a mule over to Lem Wilson's to get Grandpa's gun in the 9th episode of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye.

Falling in love with a married man...

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:33:09 GMT

I always check on a man who has left a wife and two or three kids to see if his current wife was involved in the breakup. If she was I am not going to trust that man or that woman. We can see evidence of this in the current scandal erupting with John Edwards. I am appalled at reports that he was telling the new woman they would be together as soon as his wife died of breast cancer! That's like jumping on her grave. Just can't wait.

A handsome man in the public eyes, a millionaire, any man who would be deemed to be a great catch is going to have to fight off the other women with a stick if he is married. It is obvious that John Edwards did not fight off this woman with a stick. And as a result, rightly so, they are both going to be viewed as willing to add even more pain to the pain of a wife dying of breast cancer.

I have fallen in love with such married men before, but I would always think that if he was married, I could do irreparable damage to his family by pursuing a connection to him. A not so great catch but single would be far better. I just don't think a ruthless pursuit of an attractive married man ever quite pays off. My friend that I am having such a struggle with has had a string of affairs with married men, both when she was married and when single. Why in the world she would want to pursue a married man when she was single is beyond me. But if you allow yourself to get involved with the married man you may get so hooked on this kind of relationship you can never stop.

I have wondered about Cindy McCain, but I always have to check out the facts to see if she broke up the marriage, or if the marriage was clearly broken before she came along. If she was involved in the breakup this could clearly mean that McCain has an Achilles' heel.

Polygamy works on the principle of a very powerful man attractive to women appealing to women who don't mind upsetting the first wife and who believe that sharing a great man is preferable to a regular marriage with a lesser man. Time and again in early Mormon history, the first wife would get a little long in the tooth and powerful polygamous Mormon patriarch would start looking around for a younger model. And then this old fart would have license from the church to begin hismarrying career. Pretty soon he might have three or four wives with the variety delightful to him, and nobody cared what the other wives really thought. Blame God. He had sent the revelation to the prophet that polygamy was in.

So it is with great men in our society not in polygamy. You may find them with mistresses tucked here and there and all over the place knowing without polygamy there is little chance for marriage. But these mistresses may be devoted for years unable to realize how little they are really settling for.

John is always going to be remembered as a heartless cruel bastard whose career his dying wife even tried to help save by going along with his denials probably for the sake of the children. She is even being taken to task by the democrats for her part in the cover-up so John could still try to have his dream of being president!

Granted the first wives make mistakes, too, and that seems like a mistake for her to have put up with his infidelity to stand by him. What kind of president was she going to help foist on the country? We have had presidents who have practically wrecked their careers taking mistresses, notably John Kennedy and Bill Clinton. To me, that is why Hillary is not the presidential candidate Clear back in Arkansas she stood by her serial womanizer husband to help take him to the white house, where guess what, he could violate marriage on a national scene. Hillary, you can pay too much for power and then it is not really power and you can never be considered tough enough to be president.

It is strange how the mistress type always wants to be understood even as she goes on her merry home wrecking way. She can try for years to break up the home and not succeed. Some homes are very hard to break up, but if you are her friend you are expected always to be on her side and to hate the wife as she does, think she is stupid, an idiot, unworthy of him, and too unattractive to boot. It is very hard to be the friend of the mistress type. Sooner or later you are going to feel like you somehow got betrayed, too.

You advise her to just quit, it is unhealthy, non productive, besides mean spirited, and might do the kids irreparable damage. Does she listen? No, because she has somehow convinced herself that the kids' feelings don't matter.

I was the daughter of such a woman. She became the mistress of quite a few men, and we young daughters even had to hear about how bad the wife was, how dull, how unexciting. I remember our mother got very upset once when one of the wives threatened to sue her for alienation of affecton. That was a big one. Fortunately this big fat wife cooled down and abandoned this difficult route of revenge. Mother was fat, too but not nearly as fat as the wife. She had been obese since childhood.

I would just get so mad at my mother for thinking up all these excuses for what she was doing. The very worst affair she ever had was with her supposedly best friend's husband, but she felt so guilty she forced my younger sister to go tend their children in the town where they lived in for the summer. The straying husband tried to feel her up, so she promptly quit and came home. She thought the wife was far too blind to her husband's capabilities, but she thought my mother was worse. I got so mad at my mother for going down in the Circle Cliffs all day with the best friend's husband while she was still married to my father.

But what the mistress does is develop such a terrible temper, it would might cause your death if you say anything to her. I remember my mother doing some fearful things to me for trying to talk to her about her serial affairs. I was determined to have a talk with her once while we were going somewhere in the car. I had my first baby in arms. My mother suddenly threatened to drive the car off into a ditch if I did not shut up. What would you have done?

So I know all about mistresses with such horrible tempers nobody can point out to them the error of their ways. I find a bad temper to be a general characteristic of this breed. My friend is no exception. You better be ready to take a tongue lashing if you object to her freewheeling ways. Which is why I decided some time ago I had had it with her. We got into a fight over one of her affairs and I terminated my personal relationship with her over it.

But I felt the family would not understand if I demanded she go off the family site then, explaining she was just too dishonest for me. But it turned out they were all on her side. Well, that is what the mistress type does. She charms people, including all the ones who might possibly disapprove. Pretty soon you would think you were the mistress not her, as all your sins of the past are recalled to the family, and it is implied that you are every bit as bad as her and worse because you are mean! Judgmental. Not a friend. Unforgiving.

So then you are left wondering how you became the villain and she is left smiling and sweet and still loved by the family. You have to leave your own family site because not only does she aspire to be the new and better wife but she aspires to be a new and better aunt. You have been replaced. The children have bonded to her. Sorry, sweetheart.

If you tell the family your suspicions they will just think you are mean. A liar aspires to be believed and some people are such good liars they are believed. Lying pays. Flattery is always good. She has flattered these younger ones to death, while I, the villain, have insisted on telling them a few unpleasant truths. No contest about who is going to be the most popular

Ho hum, so what else is new. I did finally get to tell my mother how she hurt me with her affairs and lies. When she was no longer strong enough to whip me. Find some savage way to shut out the truth she did not want to hear. My mother did not know the meaning of repentence. She was as cold blooded as anyone I have known when it came to going after what she wanted at the moment, sexual gratification, whatever.

I have one really bad memory. She told me she wanted me to come to the Camelback Inn, a big resort here in Phoenix, because she and her second husband living in Hawaii were going to be staying there. She told me to bring my little son Dan with me so she could get acquainted. I had always wondered whether my mother had carried on her life of affairs and lies in her second marriage. I got my answer when I arrived there, I guess unexpectedly. Vic her second husband was passed out on the bed cold. Clive, his best friend, was sitting there in the room talking to my mother. She could not have been more displeased to have me show up at this precious moment. She informed me she was just going off to 'talk' to Clive and I had definitely come at the wrong time. She forced herself to go walk with me out on the grounds for a few moments. She hardly even looked at my son Dan, still a babe in arms. She just couldn't wait for me to leave, so with a horrible pain in my heart I did. I had not seen my mother for months. Once again, she hurt me so badly by just never being a mother. I have no doubt she had a torrid session somewhere with Clive after I left, with Vic safely passed out on the bed. How could she have passed up that golden opportunity?

Like I say, the mistress types are in a class all their own.

Am still forced to think day and night because of family crisis...

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:25:20 GMT

I was just thinking of how when danger threatens family unity, the younger ones cannot even imagine going to war might be necessary. Because they don't know enough. They want to think the best of everybody. What they can't see that every criminal in the world will deny what they did and it is necessary to do a lot of thinking day and night to convict them of a crime based almost entirely on observation of their behavior and then building a case despite all their denials. Sometimes you have to treat friends like enemies when they act like it.

My suspicions bring me fresh pain. I can't really blame younger members of the family for opposing me. Based on their experience, it would seem they were right and I am wrong But based on my experience and many years observation I do not think I have even been suspicious enough. I have talked to the other sisters and I think they are with me on this, based on their years of observation. I think they concede we have a big problem within the family.

The younger ones overrode my opinion. They think I am too mean. I don't think I have been mean enough. So my decision still stands. My friend has to leave the family site as requested and they have to act better to me before I will ever come back on the family site.

It seems that money talks too much here. It is very hard in this world not to let money do the talking. The moneyed people are generally seen as the most powerful in the world. Which is how many moneyed people become corrupt. They are not held to account. Their transgressions are allowed to prevail. You have to not care very much about money in order to go to war with the millionaires of the world. They will say you are a loser. They will use their money to win every battle. After all, what is money for. It will be seen by them that the worst thing in the world is not to have money.

I have no money. I have not had any money for years. Is that the worst thing a person can be, dirt poor? But I know something else is stronger than money. It is honesty. Do you tell the truth? Do you face unpleasant truths about yourself? If you have money you tend to stop doing that. And people allow it which is how money corrupts. Honesty is no longer seen as necessary or even desirable. I just don't allow myself to desire what money can buy. My kids have had to grow up scrambling for opportunity, and they have even blamed me for being too much of an idealist. But you know what, now I stand strong. The rich cannot overcome me with temptation.

If they are doing bad things I just tell them. I have already hit bottom years ago. I have nothing left to lose. I will risk making millionaires mad which makes my kids angry. But I don't care I have lived this way too long to stop now. I still go on saying to them, money is not everything, honesty is more.

I do not want anybody on my family website who is not honest. I think that person will be bad for the family. I have reason to believe that this person is not honest and has not been honest for years. She might deny it to the end of her life, but after a lot of thought I just don't think I can expect the truth from her. Too many detectable lies have already been told. Enough.

But such a decision can cause sleepless nights and pain. But if a person shows signs of too much corruption you must make a tough decision. You have to do what you think is best for the family, even if the young ones especially don't understand. They don't have your years of observation and dealing with that person, so they really should not second guess your conclusions, their observations are so much more shallow. I feel I have been too naive, so their naivety is to be expected. We live and learn, but we do have to keep alert, keep thinking, and check and recheck our conclusions.

VIII- Jimmy breaks in and starts living in the house...

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:44:43 GMT

After Martha tells Joe about his funeral services, she breaks the news to him that the stranger has taken up residence in the family home while the girls have been gone. What is more they are on their way back to the mountain! Oh dear, what is going to happen now in the 8th episode of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye?

All people tend to become clannish...

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:19:05 GMT

They tend to operate in circles where they feel comfortable, with people like them. Mormons aren't the only ones. When people emigrated to this country they would go to communities already established of other emigrants from the same country, speaking the same language and sharing religion, beliefs, traditions, and such. Doc's people gravitated to a large Lutheran German community in St. Louis and he drives me crazy sometimes with his superior attitudes he says were a characteristic of these people. They thought very well of themselves and did not like Jews, Italians, Catholics, etc. He said his parents absolutely would not allow him to go to a public high school, so he did not even interact with a Jew until he went to George Washington University, which he says was known as the University for Jews. His people would have preferred he not go there, but he insisted. He said he simply was not going to a Luthern college no matter what.

I avoided BYU for the same reason, which is this huge University for Mormons in Provo, Utah. I was determined to have more diversity in my college experience. I had left a northern Utah high school to go to a public high school in Salt Lake where I would not have to take Mormon Seminary. At that time I knew no Catholics as Mormons at the time would even preach against Catholics in church and say all Catholics would go to hell. Since stories about Catholic saints fascinated me, I got acquainted with a Mexican girl in high school who was Catholic. She took me to my first Catholic church service, where I was shocked to see a large bleeding statue of Jesus on the cross. Minnie Gonzales became my best friend. I even took her down to my hometown in southern Utah a couple of times, and my friends just loved her and she loved them. I don't know how I would have gotten through high school without her. Most of her people lived in Bingham, Utah where the biggest open pit copper mine in the world was located. I went out there with her to see one of the most fascinating communities of foreigners I had seen to that date who had emigrated there to work in the mine.

After I left Garland the daughter of one of the richest men in that community asked to come down to southern Utah with me for a visit. I felt uneasy about taking her there asI had been to her home which was a virtual mansion. B was so smart, she was the virtual leader of all the girls. She had stayed with me several times at my aunt's home as I had stayed with her. I warned her that I lived in very rugged country in primitive conditions. We did not even have electricity or running water in my home town yet And my parents were a lot more dysfunctional than Aunt Neta. She assured me she could handle it. Well, she could not. She only stayed about two days of a projected 10 day vist and asked to be taken to town where she could catch the mail truck back home. What is more, she never wrote to me again! When she moved down to Salt Lake to take a job after a couple of years of college, I encountered her in downtown Salt Lake one day. She almost snubbed me. I couldn't believe it, but after getting the same treatment after I saw her two other times I just gave up on her. She never gave me any explanation, but I guess that my southern Utah home took her way out of her comfort zone. I figured she would give the other girls such a bad review of her experience, I just as well give up on them, too, so to this day I have not talked to anybody again from that high school. My aunt did not even talk to me after I left there. I think she felt she had to share their opinions in order to survive as a teacher in that community.

I met and talked to my first Jewish person at the U of U. I was fascinated with their writers, musicians, film makers, but Jews were as scarce as hen's teeth in Utah. Roseanne Barr was a Jewish person who says that growing up in Salt Lake sent her crazy. She was incarcerated in a mental ward there as well.

Well, I could go on and on, but I am beginning to get a headache, but I think the United States has had its problems in becoming the melting pot of the world. Now we are even contemplating electing a black man for president. We have come a long ways, but we could still do a lot better.

I have had an awful hard time embracing the Jewish theater community in Phoenix and getting them to embrace me. Jewish people would never have to go out of their comfort zones to see the merits of other writers not Jewish if they did not want to, they have so many wonderful writers among them.

A play like Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye with the setting of a mountain farm in a Southern Utah Mormon community was going to seem mighty strange to them. They would not relate, unless of course I had gotten it to Broadway first where it had received a Tony or a Pulitzer, and it would have helped if I was Irish who have a long tradition in theater. Otherwise they would be inclined to stick with Jewish playwrights, even though there is a very large Mormon population in Arizona. Our most prominent artistic directors downtown in the Herberger theater palace came from other states to their jobs in theater here. One even graduated from Yale.

Mormons would be expected to find Mormon theaters in which to produce their new plays. The Hale Theater Company here does just that. I first ran into them in Los Angeles, but they were very good Mormons and I had left the church. I submitted a play to them in Los Angeles, which come to think of it, was probably Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye but at the time the Hale family matriarch was writing all the plays they produced, what they thought was okay fare for a Mormon to see. I knew I did not pass muster.

So now you understand why in desperation I decided to put this play on Youtube in ten minute segments in a kind of mini-series. At 77 years old, I figured that knd of format might be my last hope. I am very sure all the Jewish theater directors would have to be tied down and forced to get them to watch such a non traditional thing. A lot of professionals hate blogs. Besides they are too busy absorbing thousands of professional writers' books, plays, etc. to take note.

That's why I say you can't let the opinions of the professionals stop you. This is how certain professionals get very famous and make lots of money. They corner the market. The blog encourgages thousands of amateur writers to think they have something to say, too. I have read that there are now so many screen writers in Hollywood that nobody is making big money. The heyday of the hugely successful screen writer is gone. Well, they are just going to have to settle for being a little less successful. Don't we teach people to read and write with the idea that it will help them advance? I just love the idea of thousands of circles of writers, reading each others' blogs, encouraging each other. I am sure the creator is beaming all over himself at the thought.

Developing everybody is the idea, getting rid of these old snobbish ideas that only certain people can write, and opening the field to all! I just love it. These are the changing times. Yes, we need to appreciate and read writers who have worked years at their craft, but we need to leave room in our hearts for all the would be writers to spread their writing wings, too. It is not nice to make it so darn hard for a new playwright even to get a play done in his or her home city. Snooty theater critics write how excrutiatingly painful it is to go to a play written by an amateur. Just kills them.

These are the old monoliths of a bygone age. Hey, we will show them! The Internet recognizes the power in the people. I am proud to say that I have now produced my own play on Youtube. Three of them as a matter of fact. Plays that were rejected by local theater companies with hardly even a glance. If you submit to them you have only rejection to expect. Their large Jewish audiences would not tolerate an amateur outsider either. Neither would large numbers of non Jewish audience members who have come to expect the best in Pulitzers and Tonys and would have even less patience with new playwrights than the professional directors.

I can die happy now, because some people are actually looking at my Youtube version of Happy Hello, Sad Goodbye.

VII- Grieving Tilda rips insensitive Jimmy...

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:31:48 GMT

Jimmy is always a little bit too high to keep from saying something he shouldn't to somebody during a critical time.

Leaving the family website...

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:54:04 GMT

I have not been able to read journals and comment for days due to the upset I have been experiencing on my family site. And I have not been very productive on it, which makes the upset not worth it. I have thought and thought and concluded that I need to move on. My niece had come to the point of considering creating another family site that would only be for Mormons and I suppose relatives she considers friendly to Mormons, since her sister is not one. So that means this site was being considered for one reason only, to exclude Aunt Gerry who has upset her very much by criticizing Mormon attitudes, etc. She has a son on a mission now in a foreign country and I know she feels she needs to be completely supportive of him. Some of the younger ones in the family her sons' age, returned missionaries themselves, have been dropping in on the family site, and are not going to feel at home there or think they can say anything if Aunt Gerry is saying disturbing things about Mormonism. Another niece who has not been active on there told my sister I believe that her daughter who has been writing on the family site a long time reported to her that Aunt Gerry was 'still on the rampage'.

Well, naturally these young Mormons are going to think that Aunt Gerry is not very nice. So giving this all a lot of thought, I believe that I will have to give up my particpation on there. I have been writing on there a long time, outside of a few times I went off due to arguments developing with other sisters, so I don't make this decision lightly. But family members who want to read what I have to say can still come to my journal where I can vent my opinions without disturbing quite so many people.

My sister Ann says that I am not able to contain myself on there because I am just too angry. I don't know whether she means this is a character flaw or not. Sounds a little bit like it, which is another reason to demonstrate that I can contain myself.

I did however attempt to open up a dialogue about possible weaknesses of the religion since I spent my early years in Utah and did not leave until I decided that I did not have the freedom of thought there that I would other places because of dominant Mormon thinking. Arizona has a big Mormon population too. Mesa, next to Phoenix, is a big Mormon city with a temple built there a long time ago which serves Mormon members in the whole state. Utah in contrast has at least 3 temples and perhaps more I am not aware of. Some communities in Arizona are largely Mormon because they were settled by them in the early days.

But I know from experience that Mormons tend to get resistent when they are expected to take in other points of view. They will go silent, why because they have been taught that Mormonism is the only right religion, so they do not believe they should be expected to be respectful of a wrong religion or perhaps a way of thinking they consider decadent.

I can never get over my older cousin H, when I call him, attacking me at once about whether I am being active in the church. He was a Mormon Bishop for many years in California, and he is not bashful about telling me to drop whatever I am doing and get right with the Lord before I die. I can see how he must have converted a lot of Californians with his vigorous approach. But he makes it almost impossible for me to talk to him long, and he is happy with that. He does not want to waste his time arguing with a wayward cousin. I have told him that he abandoned his bad cousins a long time ago. He doesn't even know whether they lived or died, but he has tended his Mormon flock faithfully. The ones who could not be brought into the fold he has cheerfully cast into outer darkness.

He is the oldest grandson of my free thinking skeptic Grandfather King and he probably heard some of those arguments about religion at the dinner table. But his mother heavily influenced by my Mormon Grandmother King must have decided to keep H away from this southern Utah bunch of outlaws. H says she saved him. I think he means from drinking and whatever other fate overtook the rebellious King brothers.

But as far as I am concerned, she went too far. I believe that we will be rebuked by our creator for abandoning family just bcause they dont think like we do. I think families exist to teach us something about diversity. Family members develop opposing views because they see the weaknesses of any belief over many years. If we don't listen to them, it is going ot take a long time for us to detect these weaknesses ourselves. I listened to my dad, even though I did not follow his bad example in drinking. I tried to take in the meaning of his and his dad's rebellion. Grandpa King had the most religious mother in the world who went to church every Sunday of her life. Still he rebelled and resisted something in the religion even though he had taken a vow never to drink or smoke. So why did he do it? I have been considering all possible reasons ever since I was old enough to hear that he always refused to be a Mormon. I knew my dad couldn't be active because he was too bad of drunk. He really had gone to the dogs. Alcoholism is the fate of a lot of rebels because they are so into rebellion they don't see the dangers of tampering with what the religous are preaching is the bad stuff. They may even do it to spite the religous and then end up as awful drunks. (Doc)

Anyway at the moment I think my attempt to get Mormons to listen to my opinions about Mormonism has gone as far as I think I can take it. I can't keep going on there once they have gotten too offended. I keep saying they should not get so offended with general criticism, this is not personal. But they do and they have. Well, they just aren't used to it. I think they will eventually see that they haven't been killed. And they will miss me, but I feel the need to get back to my friends in J-land who are more tolerant of diverse opinions. And who are not going to upset me either with such ferocious objections to what I say. I do feel that I broke through to my fiery niece who is now a staunch Mormon with her second son on a mission. She is the daughter of a rebel mother who at one time wanted to argue day and night about the flaws of Mormonism. She is dead, but I doubt very much if she is a Mormon in heaven. I would guess that she is studying all religions. To try to bring her back to life, I think my niece should try to visualize what she could be thinking. She won't come back to life with her real personality if my niece does not welcome her in the door. My niece has room for her father who has been a temple worker now for years. I would surmise that possibly one of his motivations to do that was to prove how wrong my sister was to divorce him. In his eyes, she probably went to the dogs alot like her sister Gerry. But neither one of us developed a smoking or drinking habit, so why did we resist Mormonism?

I say she has gone to enlightenment. Long may she live!