Where I've Been....and Where I Plan to Go

It was January 2, 1996.  As I stood on my front steps, holding my now 17 year old son, I was shaking with fear.  Yet again, I had been falsely accused of child abuse and was involved in a surreal stand-off with a sheriff's deputy.  This particular deputy's method of "determining if my children were in danger" involved screaming at me with such vehemence that he was showering me with his saliva.

Yesterday, this same child and I talked about that day 16 years ago.  Fortunately for us, my children were never detained into foster care, or as I have come to call it, kidnapped by the state of Georgia.  I have since made it my life's mission to help other falsely accused families.  I have always tried to do what is right.

Unfortunately, I have let myself get discouraged over the last  year or so- due to both some personal financial troubles and family health issues as well as having been involved in litigation. (Shell v. AFRA, et al)  I have to snap out of it.  If I am brave enough to stand up to a maniacal cop with anger management issues, then I can handle what life is throwing at me now. 

I'm getting my ass back in gear. Stay tuned.

Prince Charles and the Pestiferous Squirrel

Great Britain is campaigning to eradicate the American Eastern Gray Squirrel.  It seems that the American squirrels carry a disease called "squirrel-pox" that is killing off the red squirrels native to Britain.









Hmmm.  Native American creatures killing off European creatures with exotic diseases? Even 500 years later, the irony is unmistakable. Situational irony to be specific, but unmistakable.

Not quite ironic, but still weird as all hell - the British have really taken to eating squirrels - the American squirrel, that is.

You can order squirrel in British restaurants.  Hunters carry aluminum foil with them so they can cook up a little snack right there in the woods.

Amazingly, squirrels are popular on menus all over Britain.  This is reported matter-of-factly in various media outlets without even one note of banjo music and absolutely no mention of hillbillies.

Prince Charles has thrown his influence behind what I've decided to call "Operation Squirrel Slaughter" and made an impassioned speech on the subject at the launch of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust. I will assume that His Royal Highness is really fired up over the squirrels but it's impossible to tell.  Prince Charles is, after all, a man who, when his car was attacked in the street, did not bat an eyelash.

Prince Charles giving the "squirrel speech"

Prince Charles as his car is attacked

The car window was shattered, buckets of paint were thrown, people screamed "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" and the man sat like a statue.  Oh, and did I forget to mention?  During this

meleé his wife was POKED WITH A STICK!  And still Prince Charles sat there, looking all pressed and dressed in his immaculate dinner jacket.

I readily admit that I'm not a huge fan of rigid gender roles.  But if my husband, The Long Suffering Rick, were to sit primly by while a screaming poor person (or a screaming rich person) poked me with a stick....let's just say we would have words.  Those words would be loud, multisyllabic, and quite possibly audible to Prince Charles all the way across the Atlantic.

Crickey!  That barmy American bitch is screaming again!

 

Studies in Contrast

Well, things on the lawsuit front have been quiet lately, but that
isn't stopping "The Chicken Woman" (TCW) from continuing her tirade
while hiding behind an imaginary "friend" while swearing that this
"friend" is 1) real, not imaginary and 2) actually likes her.
She does this in a .pdf file on her - oops her "friend's - website.

Drawing on her superior social skills, TCW calls me a "bleached blond
bimbo."  Well, I am a bleached blond. I am also pretty hot for
a grandmother.  Well, okay, I'm pretty hot compared to
anybody.  Wikipedia defines a "bimbo" as "a woman who is
physically attractive but has a low intelligence or poor education" or
"a woman who acts in a sexually promiscuous manner."
Hmmmm.  How do you spell D-E-F-A-M-A-T-I-O-N?

TCW (or her imaginary "friend") runs on at the mouth for FOUR PAGES
about me. She has nothing really bad to say about me....just playground
insults and innuendo.   And playground insults are
always a sign jealousy, instead of true contempt.  TCW makes
much of the fact that I am fortunate enough to be able to help
others.  I don't announce it when I am able to make someone's
life a little easier, but TCW seems to have made a hobby out of doing
so.

I have an amazing life that TCW can't even begin to wrap her head
around.  Everything I am is everything she's not, and it is
obviously eating at her.  I have a loving, devoted husband who
absolutely adores me.  I have two children who love me and who
are very protective of me. I see my beautiful granddaughter every
day.  I am attractive.  I am well traveled.  I live in a beautiful
house.  I am respected and liked by people involved with
Family Rights.

In other words, it's not pretense if you really have it.  So without further ado.........

This is TCW's house.


Photo via El Paso County, Colorado Tax Assessor


And this is my house:


Photo courtesy William Wiseman

My Comment on the TSA Blog

There is currently a lively discussion going on the Travel Safety and Security forum at Flyer Talk about Mikey, the 8 year old Cub Scout who seems to be on a government terror watchlist. Blogger Bob, who writes for the TSA blog, seems to find Mikey's situation amusing.

In fact, here's a quote from Blogger Bob: "It’s inevitable that every several months or so, some cute kid gets their mug posted on a major news publication with a headline reading something like: “Does this look like a terrorist to you?” Anything involving kids or cats gets tons of mileage and everybody starts tweeting and retweeting that there’s an 8 year old on the no fly list."

There has been no shortage of comments on the TSA's blog. Here's a good one: "In the meantime, we still get to touch your children... all in the name of safety." - abelard

And we all know I can't help but have something to say. Here it is:




This is what I find most disturbing about the mistakes being made as to the "special" screenings of children.


As parents, we take pains to remind our children that they have the right to bodily integrity and control. "You don't have to let anyone touch you in 'places.'" (That's what we called it when my children were, well, children.)


Small children have a need to see their parents as "all powerful." They need this to feel safe in a world much bigger than they are. This is crucial to a child's psycho-social development. A young child needs to feel that her parents can outfight any "bad guy" who tries to bother or hurt her.


I cannot imagine standing for either of my boys being frisked by a stranger while crying with terror. Those who know me probably can't imagine it either. I tend to be aggressive when it comes to my children. Seriously aggressive.


I have to say I'm surprised that no child has fought back, or that no parents have stepped in to physically defend their children. It's only a matter of time.

Y'all need to shape up before somebody gets hurt.

Tags: Dorothy Kernaghan-Baez, AFRA, family rights, twitter, cyber-dissident, politics, TSA, terrorism, cyber-dissident, Family, Law Enforcement,

2010???

Well, we're into 2010 and I had decided last fall that this year was going to be "The Year of Dorothy." As in I plan to simplify my life, really take stock of what is important to me....yada yada yada. I've put others first for so long that I'm looking forward to indulging myself a little.

So, I found myself looking at various predictions for this year, and according to my source, Yemaya will be in charge this year, and guess what? I am a child of Yemaya!

So, it seems like everything is on track for the "Year of Dorothy." My granddaughter is due in April - I look forward to having a "Minnie Me" to play with. My children are healthy. Spiritually, I'm in a good place. I'm finally organized and the house runs smoothly. (Damn, can you imagine?) I'm planning a web based sort of half reality series half mockumentary series, along with some other projects that I'm keeping to myself for the time being.

I don't make New Year's resolutions - instead I set goals and plan projects. So, ahem: I want to improve my Spanish and learn a little Chinese. I want to ride a mechanical bull. I want to finally finish my second book. I want to do some renovations on my greenhouse. I want to build an aviary for my pigeon. I want to (maybe) get my nose pierced. I want to expend the same effort making myself happy that I spend making others happy.

Off to the races!

Are My Hands Clean?

Are My Hands Clean?

Some food for thought...... Are your hands and clothes really clean?

(Lyrics and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Songtalk Publishing Co. 1985)


I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world

35% cotton, 65% polyester, the journey begins in Central America

In the cotton fields of El Salvador

In a province soaked in blood,

Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun

Pulling cotton for two dollars a day.

Then we move on up to another rung—Cargill

A top-forty trading conglomerate, takes the cotton through the Panama Canal

Up the Eastern seaboard, coming to the US of A for the first time

In South Carolina

At the Burlington mills

Joins a shipment of polyester filament courtesy of the New Jersey petro-chemical mills of Dupont

Dupont strands of filament begin in the South American country of Venezuela

Where oil riggers bring up oil from the earth for six dollars a day

Then Exxon, largest oil company in the world,

Upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad and Tobago

Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic Seas

To the factories of Dupont

On the way to the Burlington mills

In South Carolina

To meet the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador

In South Carolina

Burlington factories hum with the business of weaving oil and cotton into miles of fabric for Sears

Who takes this bounty back into the Caribbean Sea

Headed for Haiti this time—May she be one day soon free—

Far from the Port-au-Prince palace

Third world women toil doing piece work to Sears specifications

For three dollars a day my sisters make my blouse

It leaves the third world for the last time

Coming back into the sea to be sealed in plastic for me

This third world sister

And I go to the Sears department store where I buy my blouse

On sale for 20% discount

Are my hands clean?





Tags: Dorothy Kernaghan-Baez, AFRA, family rights, twitter, cyber-dissident, tarot cards, psychic, DFACS, Georgia, politics