laleo

If he seems subservient, it is consistent with Way culture. There was a hierarchy that was mostly respected, especially toward those who were "ministers" or "healers." If he recognizes you as someone who might display some of those qualities, it would come naturally to him to defer to you, as part of his former training. It is my guess that he would have a difficult time forming a relationship with you as an equal, given his background. Sounds like he's reaching out to you a little.

Your account rings true to me, Freud. Others may disagree, but "psychopathic loon" might be a bit of an overstatement. Just arrogant. Very arrogant. Unapologetically and consistently arrogant. Overcompensating for his overwhelming incompetence, most likely. Being a cult leader was the wrong line of work for him. He scared away the converts, which is just as well, considering what they were converting to. Hope he's happy in whatever occupation he has found. And if he's in an entry level position ("underemployed"), that's probably just as well, since he spent far too many years overemployed. A little humility as a form of divine justice, maybe. I respect the fact that you're unwilling to offer too many details. I think you've made the right choice, considering the hostility that might be unleashed toward him, and maybe you, too. (Some like to shoot the messenger.) You'll likely get a little taste of it on this thread as it continues on. Are you testing the waters here, Freud, wondering where to go in your interactions with Craig? Like I said, your description of him rings true, so I don't think your personal safety is in any danger, if that's what you're asking. I have very few beliefs about God, the universe, or whatever power it is that puts these things into motion, but I think that the people who come into our lives at the time that they do are there for a reason. I'm interested in hearing where this all leads, if you're inclined to offer updates.

I would think that when a religious leader meets a head of state, they would both be standing, assuming they were capable. That said, I think the thing about "protocol" in The Way that bugs me is that "etiquette" was imposed. It's rude to tell someone else that he is being rude, so the appropriate response, say, for a clergyman who is polite, is to accept it graciously if someone does not stand when he enters a room. The constant reprimands and reminders about when, where, and for whom to stand, clap, serve, what have you, were more a sign of an imposed hierarchy, rather than impeccable manners, in my opinion. Polite people do not lecture others on "protocol," because that would be rude and demeaning. Don't you think so, sudossuda?

Happy Birthday, Hopefull. I know you'll find a hundred ways to celebrate.

Allan, I'd still like to know, if you care to elaborate, whether a Judas would have your compassion or your contempt.

Meaning what, Allan? Does Judas evoke your compassion, your contempt, both or neither? And if Judas is a symbol of "a majority of the human race," what does that say to you or about you, or about Jesus' ability to reach the unreachable, redeem the unredeemable, forgive the unforgivable? Anything?

I don't know if this is on topic or not, but speaking of Judas, his story puzzles me. He is a disciple who followed Jesus, but didn't follow Jesus; a treasurer who was trusted with the money for the poor, yet lined his own pockets. With a kiss, he stabbed Jesus in the back, loving him, but serving the devil's purposes. He repented, but was so filled with regret, he killed himself anyway. He was forgiven, yet found no forgiveness. What is the lesson in that?

Well, his publisher dropped him. And the movie plans are on hold. So, I wonder, what does this say about Oprah? Is she a force for good? Curiously, this whole thing hasn't affected his book sales, except maybe for the better. Both of his novels are still in the top ten, which means he's set for life, even if his reputation isn't. Hey, Stranger, if you watch Grizzly Man, let me know what you think of it.

I'm out of step again. The church bus didn't bother me, but this does. I don't think the teacher needs to be shaving his legs in front of anyone. It just doesn't strike me as funny, or silly, or even mildly entertaining. I agree that teachers do all sorts of silly things to entertain the kids as a reward or just for fun or whatever. I remember one time at a school concert, for the finale, the 3rd through 5th grade teachers (men and women, all older than 35) dressed up as the Rockettes and sang New York, New York. That was funny. But performing any sort of personal hygiene in front of the kids? I don't know. If it were me, I'd call the school. Doesn't seem appropriate.

dmiller, I stand corrected.

You mean he can't even tap dance? Good grief. You'd think if he was going to associate himself with Jed, at the very least he'd have his talent, and not just his twang. I've never actually witnessed the pole dance, having never attended a wienie roast, but his performance is lengendary. Again, welcome.

sudossuda, your husband has been bragging about you for so many years, I'm glad I finally have a chance to "meet" you at our little cyber-cafe. There's plenty of room for you here in the diner. Set a spell. Take your shoes off. (Was that Jed Clampett who said that? I hear he bears a striking resemblance to Sudo. Or is that just a rumor? I hope so, otherwise, how do you live with the guy?)

Long Gone, That is depressing. I'm sorry. I take it you're someone who has found renewed purpose, if not redemption, in illness. Sometime, if you're willing, I'd love to hear your story. Hopefull, Honestly, I don't know what I would do in your shoes. It would be a hard, hard blow if I were to lose my husband, and I'm sure that every loss after that would be magnified. I wish I knew what to say.

That was a great post, ex10.

Chas, I didn't mean to say or imply that you were offended. I didn't think you were upset. As far as a program presenting itself to children first -- that was my point in bringing up other community groups, although I probably didn't make my point well. Most of the kids who get involved in church and community groups get involved because someone (other than a parent) invited them to do so. I understand what you're saying about the YMCA, but they offer many types of programs -- those geared toward working parents (which it sounds like is the type you were involved in), and also those geared toward underprivileged children, which don't garner as much parental involvement. I was thinking more of the latter when I wrote my post. I think it's a sad legacy from The Way that we now look so cynically at service organizations, and have so little expectation that the services they are providing are exactly as they say. But the exposure I've had to charitable organizations since The Way has been mostly positive. I've found very sincere, caring people who really are working toward bringing something better to their communities. My point (whether I've made it well or not) is that if we pull these groups out of the communities, or layer them with too many precautionary measures, the only ones who will be left in the community are the ones who couldn't care less about the well-being of your children, in fact, only want to exploit them. Honest volunteers will be run off by layers of regulations and the distrust they feel from the community. The type of parent Morgan is -- one who looks into a group before letting her children participate -- are, for the most part, exactly the kind of people who make up these organizations. They not only want something better for themselves and their own children, but for the rest of the community as well. So they look into what is being offered, and, once assured that things are as they seem, volunteer their own time and money to make the mission successful, if it's one that is in keeping with their own values. So when a church bus stops and asks your child if he wants to go to church, look into it, for sure. But after the phone calls have been made, and it turns out that the group is exactly who they say they are, at that point, there is no more cause for alarm. They're trying to do a good thing in the community. Give them kudos for that.

You may have been misinformed, or maybe Kansas has a higher standard. For six or seven years, I worked with children (babies and preschoolers) at the YMCA as a volunteer and was never fingerprinted. It wasn't even suggested to me at any time. There was no background check, either. As far as "monitoring," well, we monitored each other. I just asked my husband, who occasionally does volunteer work with the Y, and he was never fingerprinted, either. But he doesn't work directly with children. The intro page at the Boys and Girls Club seems to be targeting children who don't have adult supervision, so I'm not clear on how or why they would contact the parents BEFOREHAND, meaning before inviting the children to participate, if the children they are offering services to are those who don't have adult supervision. But, okay, if they say so. It seems more likely that they operate similarly to how the churches operate. Kids are invited, but to actually participate, they need permission.

Good points, Chas. But I'm wondering if you find it equally offensive that the YMCA provides transportation to before- and after-school activities; that the Boys and Girls Clubs do the same. How about the Fresh Air Fund? They not only send buses, they drive the kids into neighboring states to stay with host families (complete strangers) for a couple of weeks in the summer, so the kids can be exposed to suburban or rural living. Is that a problem, too? Do you think community groups should stop offering services to children, unless the child has a competent parent who seeks out these services first?

But doesn't it make any difference to anyone here that that isn't what happened? Morgan's children weren't approached by a pedophile. They weren't promised donuts for getting onto a bus. No one threw a paper bag over their heads, and stuffed them into the trunk. The kids weren't badgered, harassed, threatened, or enticed. They were invited to church. They declined. The bus driver drove away. Had they accepted, the bus driver would have gotten permission from the parent. And Morgan likely would have climbed into the van with them, and she would have been welcome to. Is there any reason to think this man was trying to separate the children from their parents? Most likely, they were ALL invited to church. I thought Morgan talked to the driver to know what church he was from, but since she didn't, evidently it was clearly marked somewhere, because she was able to phone the church and find out what was happening. No one hid anything. There were no false pretenses, no lofty promises, no intimidation. I just don't get what the fuss is about. I'd like to repeat something Krysilis said, because I think it's an excellent point:

Okay, so let's take the churches off the street. Then what? Who is left to interact with the kids besides the drug dealers, pedophiles, and street gangs? At least some of these churches are trying to do something good. Cut them some slack. ex10, I'm with you. If there is abuse, if the driver hasn't passed his background check, if safeguards aren't in place, then, yes, something should be done. But I don't see any abuse here. The bus driver explained his purpose to the parents, who then called the church, and had the information verified. As far as I can tell, this is legit. I don't understand the alarm. Where is the misrepresentation? If a robber poses as a meter reader and gains entrance into a home, should all meter readers then be forbidden from entering into homes? Or should the home owner take precautions?

No, it isn't insane. For many urban kids, the only structure they get is from the (mostly) fundamentalist churches who have volunteers who drive vans and buses through the city to pick up kids who would otherwise be roaming the streets, and take them to church, where they read Bible stories, pray, do crafts, eat, and participate in organized outdoor activities, at no cost to the families. In the summertime, they offer full-day activities organized and funded by volunteers mostly from suburban areas. Like the church official said when you phoned, they need a signed, parental consent form to get on the bus. So what crime is being committed? What's the alternative for some of these kids if you call the police? If you don't want your children participating, do what you did, and tell them them they can't. But don't take it away from other children who might benefit.

By the way, Mark, I realized after I posted that you already acknowledged it was only a small group at the school. Sorry. The public high school my girls attend doesn't have a daycare center. Like the high school you attended, the pregnant girls take a leave of absence or quit school altogether. In all the years of having my girls in that school, I can only think of two who were pregnant. They both quit. I don't know that they get a reputation, like the girls did when I grew up, but they have babies to care for, which doesn't leave much time to indulge other passions. In the high school, there are drugs -- of course there are drugs -- and there is sex. (One thing that surprsied my oldest daughter when she went to college is that drugs are in the mainstream among the kids who went to boarding schools, and elite public schools on her college campus; at our public high school, it's still the "losers" who are into drugs.) Here, there is a heavy-handed administration that only tolerates its expression within bounds. In the hallway, outside of the cafeteria, if you walk by you'll find a few kids making out. You'll also see a hall monitor, with a whistle around his neck, calling time out if things get too . . . expressive. The kids are into sports. I'm sure they think about sex, but the practice schedules for the sports teams are grueling, and keep them too exhausted to do much more than think. The school doesn't offer as much as I would like as far as the arts, but the community does. Many kids take ballet, and gymnastics, and karate, and ceramics, and a lot of other things that don't come to mind right now. The community does not offer support services for single or teenaged moms. There is a limited food bank that is community supported, but no soup kitchen, no subsidized or free daycares, no job training programs, no life-skills seminars. Young girls who are pregnant have their families and boyfriends, and not much more, to help them out. When my oldest daughter graduated from high school, within a year about a half dozen of her friends were pregnant or had babies. They struggle now, but they're making it. The school participates in a program called "Think it Over Baby." My youngest daughter recently brought home one of those mechanical babies that has a computer chip in the back which records how it's being treated. If the neck goes back, if it is exposed to cold temperatures, if it is left to cry for extended periods of time, the computer print-out records all that. Before the student gets the baby, they have to sign a commitment form that they will do twenty community-service hours if they mistreat the "baby" in any way. If the baby is damaged, it costs $300 to replace it. There are three categories of babies: high need, medium need, and low need. You don't know which one you have until you bring it home. My daughter's doll woke up at 12, 2:30, and 4 on the first night. On the second day, it cried for three hours while she was trying to get ready for school. The computer chip in the back records how much the baby is rocked, and unless the baby is "asleep" (which is never often enough) it needs to be rocked. When the baby cries, there is a checklist (a "care session"), and the student goes down the list, performing each activity, until it stops crying. Sometimes they get to the bottom of the list and the baby is still crying. You get the idea. Just like real life. Except, just like "real life," my daughter fell in love with her baby, and was sad to have to turn it back in. If the "cuddle puddle" at Stuyvescent High becomes a trend, it is because of the trashy publicity like the article above, which seems to get some sort of voyeuristic satisfaction in publishing pieces like that, and pushes the limits on making it the norm. I don't think it is. If the school admin comes down hard, it won't spread. I agree that pop culture now includes too much sex, and too much perversion. But I don't know the solution to that. Do you?

Ron, When you post articles like the one you posted above, it's not because you agree with it, right? It's to illustrate how strident, elitist, arrogant, condescending, and under-informed people from the other side of an issue can also be, right? If so, point taken.

Take heart, George. I hear there is an immediate opening at Stuyvesant High for a hall monitor . . .

Mark, When I read your excerpt, it just didn't have a New Yorker feel to it. Seemed a little too . . . trendy isn't the word I'm looking for. More like trashy. Or somewhere between trendy and trashy. Anyway, your link isn't to the New Yorker, it's to New York Magazine, which has a different agenda than the New Yorker. For what it's worth, if you read the article, it's talking about a group of two dozen kids in a school of thousands, and then extrapolates from that sexual trends in the entire population, as if it could. Isn't that a logical fallacy of some type, like ergo something or other? Or maybe it's not a fallacy. Just a fantasy. My guess is that the "cuddle puddle" (such as it was) was shut down by the administration as soon as the magazine hit the store shelves, with the kids now back in class, and it's all a moot point who was making out with whom, because it's now a distant memory. As far as your thread title, "the future of sexuality," it's just a guess on my part, but I predict sexuality will last into the future, even beyond the thirty years you ask about. I further predict that thirty years from now, in any given group of three thousand teenagers, chances are you will be able to find two dozen who are sexually experimental, just like thirty years ago. I think that if another magazine with a different agenda, like, say, The Journal of Chastity, sent in a reporter, they'd find teenagers to write about, too, and have an eight page spread dedicated to abstinence, complete with testimonials from two dozen kids.

Can we have a recap? What's the argument? Why is it odd? And, mostly, how is it significant? If you care to elaborate. Reads like a major dose of bravado to me.