socks

I also have to say I don't think it's unnatural for men to have interest in the 'caregiver' role, at all. When my son was born I really found it hard to return to work after a couple days. I so enjoyed the time with him. I have a friend who's recently become a father and had some time for a couple months to be with him. He said it was the hardest thing for him to 'go back to work', knowing all the moments he was going to miss not being with him. The idea of men having a strong interest in being with and working with children of all ages is very common. Scouting, sports, mentoring, traing and teaching situations for crafts, trades, etc. "Big Brothers". Many many men have a strong desire to participate and contribute in the growth of young people of all ages and that involves more than just showing up and reading to them. Do a lot of men view involvement, 'caregiving' with children about as enjoyable as a stick in they eye? Sure. But not all, by any means. Either way, the preferences and interests are valid. Those that do, will. Those that don't, won't. It seems very simple.

I've been reading up on this some more, trying to get a handle on some of the information. What the Hay, I think the numbers point to different reasoning than what you're following. This is from the site: " target="_blank">http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_5_1/contents.html] ]http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_5_1/contents.html://http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjb...ntents.html The information is gathered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.The following is from one of the pages on 'Caretaker' Offenders. Types of Caretaker Offenders Within the parent and other caretaker offender category defined in this Bulletin, parents are responsible for 60 percent of all crimes. Stepparents and parents’ boyfriends and girlfriends account for another 19 percent. Males are considerably more likely than females (73 percent versus 27 percent) to be perpetrators. This gender difference holds true even among babysitter offenders, although males are much less likely than females to be babysitters. Biological fathers account for two-fifths (41 percent) of all offenders, and stepfathers and parents’ boyfriends account for nearly one-fifth (18 percent) (figure 4). Men account for 92 percent of caretaker sex assault, 67 percent of aggravated assault, 68 percent of simple assault, and 58 percent of kidnaping offenders. --- Unfortunately it looks like the high numbers - 92% of 'caretaker' sex assault and 67% of aggravated assaults - speak to why the media coverage and interest would be greater for male cases than female cases as you stated (and I'm still not convinced they are)... simply because there are more cases to be covered for male perpatrators. The number of spouses, ex-spouses, relatives, etc. that are male is more than female. They also note that, as you state, even though men are less likely to be in a 'babysitter' caretaker role, their %'s of incidents seem to remain the same. And men account for 3/5ths of the total number of offenders. I don't know, I can't read your mind. I know other people voice the same perception as you are, it's seemed like that to me at times too. But I'm starting to think that it's more perception than fact. We might want to THINK that there's a public fascination with male offenders and seeing them get what's coming to them, but it looks more like that's a natural response to the number and types of incidents that occur. Overall though, as a parent myself who's raised children and had them in many different family, school and private care situations my own interest is to the overall RISK at any time and how to handle it as much as the whether males or females are involved. There's evil in the world and evil wears many faces.

There once was a boy from the range. His name it was said, was Strange. Not sounding, no way. Nor looking (they say) But faintly yet cheerily Deranged. Happy Birthday!!!! :)-->

Likewise, Paw. I've also tied this together with my Rhapsody.com subscription and am finally getting a hold on the high cost of music, legally. (they're 9.95 a month, .79 a download and they have nearly a million tunes catalogued). Mark, I'm happy with the sound quality. It's stereo, 44,100 khz, 128 kbs. Pretty much like a cd to the ear, and through headphones or a car system, downright pleasing.

Cool, I didn't know about that, have to check it out. There's so much available, and this little device finally makes it less than a pulled groin in effort to use!

Mind if I ask how much it ran you Jim? I've been thinking about it for awhile, for the same reasons. My budgets on a diet for awhile, never thought of ebay, good idea.

Hey oldies, got one the family gave me for Christmas, the ipod mini, little blue job with a belt clip. They're really a beautiful thing. Took me 5 minutes and I was sold. I really like the itunes software. I've been comparing wav to wma to the aac formats and for this kind of listening the aac sounds fine and turns up a tad smaller in size per song. The software makes it a breeze to manage songlists. Linda you'd love them. I've got about 3 hours of music on it so far, 50 tunes. This one will hold a 1,000. They're easy to operate. I've got a plug in adapter in the car I drive that goes in to the tape deck. I'd been considering getting a cd stacker and was very reluctant to cart around a 100 cd's in load, in the car, and have all that moving around to do. This solves it, plus you have a completely portable little thingie that has all your music in it. Sweeeeeeet. Like Paw says, it's fun. Wheee!

1. What time do you get up? 6:45 am. 2. If you could eat lunch with one person, who would it be? Clint Eastwood. 3. Gold or silver? Gold. 4. What is the last film you saw at the cinema? The Incredibles. 5. What is/are your favorite TV show(s) Julia and Jacques (cooking show), American Idol, Jeopardy. 6. What did you have for breakfast? Egg, spinach, mushroom and orange, cooked thingie. 7. Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Madonna. 8. What is your middle name? n/a 9. Beach, City or Country? Beach. 10. Favorite ice cream? Any good Vanilla ice cream. 11. Butter, plain or salted popcorn? Butter & salt with extra butter. I don't eat it anymore but if I did that's how I would. 13. What kind of car do you drive? Ford Explorer. 14. Favorite sandwich? Tomato, lettuce, avocado and Jack cheese. Maybe some smoked chicken. 15. Favorite flower? Rose. 16. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland 17. What color is your bathroom? light tan, light green and purple 18. Favorite kind of clothing? Brands? Cotton sweats, t-shirts and shorts, sneakers. Anything cheap that doesn't shrink. 19. Where would you retire to? The north coast, California. 20. Favorite day of the week? Why? Saturday. Early morning specifically. First day of the weekend. 21. What did you do for your last birthday? Took the day off and went out to dinner with the fam. (later in month went to concert fam, a gift). 22. Where were you born? Oakland, California. 23. Favorite sport to watch? Baseball, live, with my glove, tiny binoculars, a soda and a greasy hot dog with lots of mustard. 24. Who do you least expect to respond? I thought it would be me, but I caved in, couldn't handle the personal pressure. 25. Person you expect to respond first? Not sure. 26. What fabric detergent do you use? The stuff my wife buys. 27. Coke or Pepsi? 7-Up, the only soft drink for humans but if I had to choose between the two, COKE, ice cold! 28. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Night owl, although I like getting up early enough to do stuff before I go to work. 29. What is your shoe size? 8 1/2. 30. Do you have any pets? Fish - 2 tetras, 4 neons, one little cat. My daughter has 2 cat animals that I support with food and lodging, Donald and Topo. Donald's 9 and we've grown close. Topo's 5 and loves to cuddle. Donald maintains his personal space well so we get along pretty good. 31. Are you happy with your job? Yes. 32. What is one thing you want to do in life that you have not done yet? Retire. 33. If you had the chance to get married again- would you? To the same person, yes. 34. If you won the lotto what would you do? If it was enough, invest it and set up a financial fund to assist home owners with grants to pay down their mortgages or do home improvements, using an application system and yearly lottery selection method. I believe the middle class is falling through the cracks of government tax planning. It would be nice to do something for those who are in the middle of trying to make a go of it. 35. If you had three wishes - what would they be? Health Happiness Peace, for everyone. 36. What are your hobbies? Music, reading, beach combing, my family. 37. What are some things you always hope you get for christmas? Music, CD's, books (biographies) guitar stuff.

"There once was a boy named Chuck. Not Charlie or Chad or Buck. He popped out one day And the doctor did say "That took awhile! Thank God he ain't stuck!" Sorry, short notice and all. ;)--> Happy Birthday! :D-->

Get a big stick. No, a BIG stick. :D--> Things that have worked for me: Focus, Mold and Move Focus on my anger. Recognize it, look at in the face, get real, 'embrace the horror'. Settle down and 'distill it' into some kind of order. What's going on, why, how'd it get that way, where do I fit in to the picture? Is this something I can do something about? If so, what? Mold my anger. Take what I came up with and form some kind of plan, steps, action I want to take about the situation. Get that energy and emotion channeled in to action. If it's going to take time I can be more patient now because I have some idea of what's going on in my head. Move on and get with it. At this point I've taken my hostility and made it something constructive. To that I have to accept that whatever was bugging me may not change, but I'm not feeling powerless or under it's control. I can have some degree of confidence that I'm living true to myself. If the opportunity is there to do something I'm ready. Or, I've dumped the whole thing. Maybe I've realized it's something I can't do anything about. Maybe I was wrong, took something the wrong way. I cool off much easier that way. I'm a firm believer in holding my tongue when I get p.o.'d about something, meaning I don't automatically turn red and let it fly. I may still act but I try to do so in a measured way, take a breath, give it a sec. One phrase I use all the time for years now that verbally sets up an even playing field in a situation where there's an argument - "Okay, let me run this back by you, here's the way this looks to me. Tell me if I'm wrong but to me it appears that..." I use words to that effect but I always include "you tell me if I'm wrong". I force myself to leave that door wide open in a confrontation so that the other person, hopefully, will give what I say a listen and not automatically shut me out and wait for the next opening to fire back at me AND I'm forcing myself to recognize that my anger may be misplaced. Indeed I MAY be wrong, and if so we're going to find out. It helps me because so often I see what I see and that's that, ain't no way I'm wrong. If I had a nickel for everytime that didn't work out I'd be rolling in the dough. ;)--> Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it don't. :)-->

Those screw-on lids for jars you guys came up with are crazy man!

Conspiracy theories - remember the former senator, PFAL grad, whose campaign manager had the bright idea to superimpose the word 'sex' over his picture during his re election campaign? Real subliminal and secret-like so it wouldn't be 'noticed' but would get the message across that short, pudgy politicians are the sexiest thing since butter? Oops. It's fun to riff, Jonny. I don't want to hurt people's feelings though. You don't either I'm sure. There are many things I've not posted here in jest about TWI that only a few would 'get' because somewhere in the back of my brain there's a place that says 'no'. They're absolutely 100% true and some include me in the joke, but there's a slight chance that they could drop a bomb on someone in the process and I just don't want to do that. Why do that? It's not necessary. The downfall of any conspiracy theory involving the Way though is that the Way has failed so miserably. It's like watching a movie - "The 3 Stooges Take Over the World!" You know going in it's going to be messy and there's going to be some bonks and splats, but you also know that the Stooges aren't going to take over anything, they're too dumb. They'll end up making fools of themselves and be no better than when they started and the ending will just be a deflated payoff of them poking each other in the eyes or something, "the end". The Way's story is more serious than that but the end result looks pretty much the same to me.

And I wonder what our favorite political dynasty was doing at the time, you know... Bush? There's a connection there. I just know it.

'reasonable' is grk. 'logikos' = 'of the word. It's used in 1 Pet. 2:2 also in 'sincere milk of the word'. It's really pretty straight ahead in meaning in Romans I think - ... dadadah, 'which is your service of the word'. Romans 12 then goes on with saying 'having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us'...whatever those are, go for it. Do it. Have fun. Diversity is inherent, integral in the body of Christ according to Paul. It's not a product of human organization but rather a quality of the 'members'. By controlling the contributions and activities of the members from a single one-person point of 'leadership' it strangles the unique contributions that all of the other parts can make. If I follow the drift of God in Christ in us, etc. the primary purpose of 'leadership' in the group is to help each member grow up to their own highest potential. That seems to be what Paul is saying and 'exhorting' in Rom. 12:1. I agree, Way World was rife with FlatButtitis, a seldom discussed physical deformity that occurs as a direct result of sitting in a brown folding chair for more than 1 hour at a time listening to someone drone on about something you've already heard 100 times before. After you've heard it 10 times, that's enough for crimneezsake. Let's do something.

Merry Christmas! We've got some sets from different years that we made with the kids and we've kept a few of each. Some flour and water paste ones. Couple of photo ornaments from about 12-13 years ago. More recent photo one (who's that old guy in the back??? ;)--> ) Little Winnie the Pooh on a sled. Tigger. Mickie. Invader Zim. A bunch of the traditional rounds ones that are kind of cool designs. I can see 'em from here. The ones that always bring a lump to me t'roat are the ones that we made in a couple years when we didn't have a lot of dough and we managed to scrap enough together to get a tree and we made our own ornaments. :)--> Still don't have much dough- --> :D--> Watzupwiddat? We've still got a couple of big tykes tucked away in bed sawing logs. Full of holiday snacks (erp!) from yesterday. It's a quiet morning. Cats are in, cheerily cleaning themselves. Merrrrrry Christmas!

Well, we could also consider the warning of Jesus in regards to harming the "little ones", those more vulnerable, weaker, who are like little children: 6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 ¶ Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Hmmm. Jesus recognizes that there will be offences - snares or "traps", the temptations and weakness that will cause a person to act in offense but His verdict in regards to hurting the weak and vulnerable who believe is: a long walk off a short pier. I'd like to see rehabilitation. I'd want to sort through the causes and effects and treatments and counselling. Jesus doesn't take that stance. In fact He sounds a little pi$$ed at the idea. In fact you could say He points out the consequences would be so severe it would be better if your a$$ would be fried. Numbers, statistics, media coverage are all secondary to the fact that the actions themselves are unacceptable. To paraphrase Jesus - "$hit like this happens and sometimes life sucks but WOE to you if you're the one giving the $hit". .........this guy needs to continue his ministerial duties? I think he may need to buy a waterproof vest. Jesus's words are a warning if nothing else. I believe in a God who is merciful and forgiving. But I am of the mind that the bible teaches this is something a person can't do and expect it to be ignored - hurt His people - specifically those who are weak, younger, less able to defend themselves, "little ones". This thread is in regards to sexual abuse. All a person has to do is break it down into what that's really talking about to realize it's wrong, bad, and individually worthy of serious consequence. It has nothing to do with spin, everything to do with reality.

Hmmm, I dunno What the Hay. I may have missed something in the thread then - is there something that says this guy didn't know the children and that this was a spontaneous crime of "opportunity" rather than consistent access? I think the media reports the stories and they're sensational because - fortunately - these events still elicit an extreme reaction. Any parent, adult, human being, who hears about children being abused by an adult is going to be revolted by that. Granted a child always needs protection and supervision but if the public wasn't informed about a risk and it remained unknown they wouldn't be able to prepare for it as well. The TWI connection puts that part of it in perspective, I think. Ministers, pastors, priests, etc. have a unique connection to people, one that carries a certain amount of trust. Many people would expect that a person in that station would be there because they have something to offer, not take. One of the sad side effects is that it's becoming harder and harder for a person who wants to do good to do good in certain situations because trust as a whole is so decimated. Look at someone wrong and they're liable to shoot you or Taz you or call 911. Sure, a church may not know what one of their people is doing. We can assume that it isn't the intent of a church to hire and give opportunity to people that are going to hurt the congregation. But it seems to have become like alcoholics getting jobs in liquor stores. Frankly I can't think of anyone I know, me included, that places the majority of responsibility for treating or counselling abusers on "the church". In fact we seem to be finally waking up to the fact that a church isn't above the law of the land and that simply because a person tries to aspire to a higher calling and fails that doesn't give him or her some kind of special dispensation to do as they please and hope for the best. Criminal behavior is so because it threatens the good of individuals in society. Society should have a part in determining how to remedy that. One of the worst crimes I can think of is one that takes advantage of children because children always have less capability to protect themselves. They rely on adults to care for them.

Some more stats on this topic are here compiled from the U.S. Dep't. of Health and Human Services. They've got this interesting information: --- Men and women serving time in the nation's prisons and jails report a higher incidence of abuse as children than the general population.7 More than a third of women in the nation's prisons and jails reported abuse as children, compared with 12% to 17% for women in the general population. About 14% of male inmates reported abuse as children , compared with 5% to 8% of men in the general population. For the data compiled from 2001, overall stats for the U.S. population included- Types of maltreatment included: Neglect (including medical neglect) 59% Physical Abuse 19% Sexual Abuse 10% Psychological Maltreatment 7% Other* 19.5% --- And this: Based on approximately 3 million reports per year. An estimated 903,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in 2001 (cases substantiated by child protective service agencies.) Nine in 10 Americans polled regard child abuse as a serious problem, yet only 1 in 3 reported abuse when confronted with an actual situation. --- I don't have any kind of grasp on what's going on with this topic, but it looks like a much more complex and widespread problem than it appears on the surface. The site quotes that out of approx. 3 million reported incidents per year, nearly a million cases were substantiated by "child protective service agencies". If 10 per cent of those were sexual abuses that's about 100,000 per year. There's a lot of stats that apply to that number - "Among rape victims less than 12 years of age, 90% of the children knew the offender, according to police-recorded incident data. Frequently, the person who sexually molests a child is also a child." I guess that could mean it's a family member or friend. I've only done a little reading but it doesn't sound like situations like the one posted in this thread are "rare". In fact, if I just counted off the top of my head the number of 6:00 News stories on child care, priest, church related, etc. abuses cases that make the news, the number is pretty high and those are just the "big" stories that make the news. It's really sad. The one thing a parent has to do when they have a child is make every effort to protect them and raise them as best they can. There's a lot of pressures and risks in even the best of lives. Parents need all the help they can get, whether it's family, community, school, church. It's really hard when the risk comes from the support systems they try to trust but it seems to happen more than I'd ever expect.

I'm sorry, I just recovered :D--> :D--> :D--> There's something just very Steven Wrightish about the way that reads, Shaz. " Merry Christmas! Santa's on his way!" (reponse) "Uh, Santa's like...... dead, dude". I think our kids heard about Santa Claus from TV and friends, the whole Santa thing. They liked the idea of presents. My son didn't give Santa Claus much thought but I remember my daughter got quiet when they started talking about it one year, looked concerned. They were little, about 4 and 5 years old or so. She asked "is he really going to come in our house at night when we're asleep?" I realized the idea was kind of scaring her, some guy sneaking in at night. So we explained gently that Santa wasn't a real guy, he was like an idea, a symbol, of giving and sharing and happy stuff. Like buying a present for someone and surprising them with it, yae! But no, Santa Claus wasn't a real person. It seemed to be a relief, actually. --- I wanted to add, fast forward to when she's 16. She got a Christmas season job at the local Mall helping at the Santa display, where they have the Santa dude all dressed up and she worked for the photo company that took pictures, as one of Santa's "elves". Had the costume, all of that, really cute but it was very demanding with all the children, frustrated parents in long lines, all of that. So at one point I asked her how it was going and she got this look...and sighed and shook her head. "One of the kids peed on Santa tonight and another one threw up when their Mom was yelling at Santa about something she was mad about. Merry Christmas". She survived. ;)-->

sweet!

I'm with you on that, Vickles. I think your concern is legitimate. If I knew anyone who said they followed this group with any degree of seriousness I'd be concerned. For a lot of these bands and musicians it's a business and a way to make money. ICP has never been signed to a major label which says something because major labels are into making money. They've been with independents and now have their own company. I've read reviews of their live concerts that say they stink, it's just a big farce. For their fans it's an event, when the 'real hardcore' death metal fans come out of the woodwork. To be there is a statement in itself. "I was at the ICP concert!" It's like a badge of honor. All these guys come and go but the levels are so cranked up now it's horrendous. I see that they're just taking advantage of youth, it's frustrations and struggles. Anyone who can listen to a song about a guy who chops people's heads off and keeps them around to play with and thinks it's okay though is troubled. I don't like slasher flicks, I don't like slasher music either and that's what it's like. Demented, gory weirdness. Meanwhile they're rakin' in the dough.

Insane Clown Posse, yeah, there lyrics take violence to new pornagraphic levels. As if that's what we needed. There's quite a story behind them vickles, although it's hard to tell what's schtick and what's real. They've been at it since the early 90's believe it or not. Like a lot of bands (there's only 2 guys in their 'posse') they're both hated by most of the music industry and loved by some metal/rap fans - the juggolo and juggette fan club "family". The idea behind the band is that the leader says he had a dream years ago in which he entered in to the "Dark Carnival" and was shown 6 playing cards which all had a different symbol on the face. Those symbols appear around each album they've released and are the impetus for the songs. According to him that's what he was supposed to do in his dream and once the 6th card was finished in an album it would signal "the end", the Apocalypse. Which sounds like a heck of a marketing plan, there's a lot you can wrap around that concept and these guys are like any other hustling band, they've got merchandise up the ying yang to sell. It hasn't taken over the world by storm but they do have several gold albums and one platinum. They're grass-roots guerilla marketers, tour all the time, work work work. So if someones likes them there's lots of stuff to get in to, buy, do, etc. etc. So the kicker is, they finally released #6. "The Wraith" closes with a song titled "The Unveiling" in which they take several minutes to say okay, here's the deal, no more coded lyrics here's what we're really saying and all about.........and they say their real message is "believe in God" and that they "believe in God" and yada yada yada. The chorus closes with bits from all their albums and them singing "We ain't sorry that we tricked you!" What that means is anybody's guess, but I guess it might all be some sort of bad joke. I only hopd that their fans get the joke and that there aren't a lot of disappointed jugglettes out there about to do a "Dimebag Darrell-you ruined my life!" on them. I suspect that most of their fans use their music as a way to express their own frustrations. Whatever the case, they've taken gross to a new level. I don't know much about the whole fan thing though, maybe because I'm an old guy or just can't get past the lyrics and ideas. I don't get where it's coming from. My kids have known about the band for years but didn't like them. Guess that's a good thing. :D-->

Mark, I agree, the laws of the land should apply evenly across the board regardless of religious beliefs. Garth, I've pondered that. I think what we know of the early Christian church and it's first couple generations could qualify, in principle. God and Jesus Christ were at the center of the people's faith. If - the faith was led primarily by the rules to love God first and your community/fellow man/neighbor second, you'd have the basis for a system where the good of each person would be mutually sought by each one. I think that would naturally lead to discussion, consideration, debate and ultimately the "vote". In other words if you and I were truly concerned about not only what was good for us/me but what was also good for us/you we'd have to allow for if not compromise, equity in how we lived. We'd have to 'enforce' tolerance and balance at least to some degree. (although the 'enforcement' would have a premise - to love God first and others as we would ourselves). In that kind of religious community led by the teachings of Jesus there'd be an attempt to maintain our own ideals while recognizing the benefit of allowing other to maintain theirs. Maybe? -->

jsamuel, you sound like you know much more about Geer's activities than I do. What's he been up to? I don't know anything about the items you're referring to but it would be interesting to hear a little more about it. Moderately so - I'm not interested enough to go to the trouble myself to find out personally but I'd be happy to read more about it here. I'm sorry about his wife, as I have heard about her illness second hand. Barbara always seemed like a nice person when I was around her. I first met Chis 35 years ago, last saw him in 1986. He always seemed like a troubled person with personal problems that led to his dour demeanor and inability to interact naturally with other people. (I'm not making fun of him). I do feel his immersion in the Way lifestyle and responsibilities were a means to ignore dealing with his own problems. He always seemed angry with himself. He could be a good guy sometimes but most of the time he had a shield up, being the "tough" guy, that kind of thing. I never saw a pre-post change in him myself, he was a very self conscious and self absorbed person all the years I knew him and not someone I would put a great deal of trust in. But like I say, he was a hard guy to get to know and with his attitude an easy one to ignore.

Hey Sudo, yes, it's pretty good, a little rough around the edges though but not bad. Crucifixion scenes look pretty unnatural anyway so that comes with the territory. If you break it out and blow it up a little and tweak it you can see what I mean: :D-->. For the internet and a joke, yeah, it's pretty good.