Woman With Red Hair, Crying
“When you hide anything, the universe begins its attempts to reveal it! Did you hide in the darkness? The sun begins to rise! Did you hide behind the curtain, the wind starts to blow! You cover your face with paint, it starts to rain! You cannot hide things; other things reveal it!” ―
This post is not explicitly drawn from a religious-based source, but it offers up one possible reason why intelligent yet sinful men and women might seek to deny sex abuse in their midst. Some may not like what I conclude.
An example of the denial or coverup of sex abuse in the SBC.
I think many readers would agree that the SBC ignored and downplayed sexual abuse in their midst for years. Many “reasons” were given but never made much sense to me. How could anyone not speak out against such a horrific sin against the children of the SBC? NPR wrote Top Southern Baptists stonewalled and denigrated sex abuse victims, report says.
The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders.
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse … and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report said.
“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” the report added.
The report asserts that an Executive Committee staffer maintained a list of Baptist ministers accused of abuse, but there is no indication anyone “took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches.”
The most recent list includes the names of hundreds of abusers thought to be affiliated at some point with the SBC. Survivors and advocates have long called for a public database of abusers.
More recently, Joe Knott of SBC Executive Committee fame and a lead player in the rise and now apparent significant decline of Christ Baptist Church in Raleigh had this to say. (Dee will figure out what happened and report later.)
EC member Joe Knott expressed that he is “terrified” at the thought of the SBC implementing policies “to protect children or women,” policies he believes will open the SBC up to class action lawsuits that pose an existential threat to the denomination.
Knott is a lawyer who lives in Raleigh, NC, and has served as a lay leader in his church for more than 30 years. He is also on the steering council for the Conservative Baptist Network, an association of Southern Baptist leaders who believe that the SBC is drifting away from conservative Christian values and desire to “turn the SBC back to the Bible.”
Dee has wondered how anyone Christian could deny and cover up sexual abuse. Yet story after story seemed to indicate that Christians continue to deny, obfuscate, blame others, and hide sexual abuse. Can anyone ever forget the wretched history of Sovereign Grace Ministries?
Are some who cover up the abuse, in fact, abusers themselves?
Todd and I often discuss this question and agree it might be true. However, how does one go about proving such theories? The following post confirms that the answer is yes for one prominent individual in My editor trashed my inquiry into child sexual abuse. Now I know why by Dean Nelson in The Guardian. This post is subtitled:
Peter Wilby, who spent years denigrating victims in the media, has been convicted of possessing the most appalling images.
Wilby wasn’t unknown. He was respected by many. Here is a link to his Wikipedia page.
He was a pillar of of the media establishment, an editor of the Independent on Sunday and the New Statesman, and a Guardian columnist.
Peter Wilby used his position to create a hostile environment for abuse victims.
Dean Nelson documents Wilby’s apparent disinterest in writing about any child sexual abuse situation, no matter how large. Read this following line. Does it remind you of the SBC or Sovereign Grace?
he had used his position as an editor and columnist to create what the writer Beatrix Campbell has called a “hostile environment” for victims of abuse.
Wilby was disinterested in the following well-known story and did not encourage Dean Nelson to pursue it.
In April 1991, I learned of mental and physical abuse at Ty Mawr children’s home in Gwent, south Wales, where some residents had attempted suicide. The claims emerged in the wake of abuse claims at other children’s homes – the “Pindown” scandal in Staffordshire where staff used violent restraint on children, and sexual abuse by social worker Frank Beck at homes in Leicestershire.
However, Nelson found another group that would publish the story.
I took it to the daily Independent, which put it on the front page and made a campaign of it.
Eventually, this story led to a tribunal.
The deputy head of the home, Peter Howarth, was jailed for buggery and sexual assault of children in his care and died in jail. Police later said had he not died he would have been charged with a further 38 assaults.
Wilby helped those who would sue for libel against the victims. Some of those victims committed suicide.
led by Wilby, against whistleblowers, victims and journalists who paid too much heed to their claims.
As New Statesman editor, he published articles denigrating the north Wales victims as “damaged” and manipulated by journalists such as me, all part of a modern witch-hunt in which the real victims were those accused of abuse.
Nelson once again experienced Wilby’s hostility toward the reporting of abuse.
Seven months later, I reported on an abuse scandal in north Wales, centred on the Bryn Estyn children’s home in Wrexham, where former residents said they had been sexually assaulted by care home staff and a senior policeman. The story led the front page of the Independent on Sunday, where Wilby was then deputy editor and, I later learned, had advised the editor against publishing it.
Wilby appeared to believe that “wokery” was behind all of these reports of abuse.
He also used a column in the Times Educational Supplement to decry what he portrayed as the wokery of overzealous child protection. He called for a more relaxed approach to “intimate relations” between adults and children.
Wilby is arrested, convicted, and given a light sentence, in my opinion.
According to Wikipedia, Wilby was arrested for child porn and was given what I believe is a light sentence.
Wilby was arrested by the National Crime Agency (NCA) at his home in Essex in October 2022. In August 2023 he was convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court of making indecent images of children. For this he was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and was placed on the sex offenders register for five years.[1]
According to the BBC Ex-editor Peter Wilby, who was sentenced for child sex abuse images, it was terrible. This guy engaged in utilizing child porn, at the minimum, for decades. I sure hope the constabulary will keep an eye on him.
Wilby admitted to officers he had a sexual interest in children and had been viewing indecent images since the 90s, while employed by national titles.
He was given a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for two years.
Investigators found 167 indecent images of children, 22 of which were Category A images, the most serious.“The material accessed by Wilby and recovered from his computer showed real children being cruelly and sexually abused.
However, some seemed irritated that he betrayed trust while viewing porn on the government dime.
“He was viewing this content while working as the editor of prominent national news outlets, a role in which he was entrusted to form the news agenda for the British public. A trust which he has greatly betrayed.”
Final thoughts
- Did any leaders in the SBC, Sovereign Grace, and others (so many others…) hide sexual abuse of children because they struggled with a problem themselves?
- How many leaders and pastors view child porn? One ARC pastor said, “at least viewers didn’t actually do the sexual abuse.” I countered, “Have you ever seen a little child screaming and crying for their mommies while being raped by adults? And you’re telling me that a man in his computer chair, who gets his jollies from this, is not participating in the rape?” If he and everyone else who views the rape of the children stopped watching, fewer children would be raped when the profit incentive is removed.
- I believe that the judges and juries who give light sentences for child porn should be made to listen to descriptors of the rapes so they understand just how sick, vile, and dangerous this crime is.
- After reading the article by Dean Nelson, I realized that I rarely question why so many attempt to cover up the exposure of sexual abuse. I know it will cause me to wonder if the church leader might secretly have a child porn/sex abuse problem.
- I’m not saying they are “all pedophiles in hiding,” but “some are most likely pedophiles in hiding.”
I can’t wait to hear the reactions to this one. A Daughter of Stan has waded into the muck, and some will not be amused!
“Are some who cover up the abuse, in fact, abusers themselves?”
On the other side of that evil coin are pulpiteers who preach hard against a particular sin while living secretly in the same sin. (Ted Haggard being the most publicized example)
Reading round online about abuse in churches it’s very striking how whistle blowers and others in every denomination keep coming up against this solid wall of resistance to safeguarding. It’s extraordinary because you would think that by now people would have got the message that the best way to maintain your church’s reputation and minimise legal liability is to optimise your child safeguarding measures. But again and again you read about people, or even comments from people, who are churchgoers and don’t have the first understanding of how abuse happens or the damage it does.
With my characteristic lack of subtlety I have frequently wondered whether people are stupid or avoidant, and don’t want to have to deal with something they’re frightened of because they think it will get them into trouble.
I keep thinking of nurses I’ve known who would avoid doing risk assessment because they were frightened of it: in fact this left them more vulnerable to a fitness to practice than if they’d made a point of getting their head round it, because their avoidance left them incompetent and more likely to make a poor risk assessment if they were alone.
I honestly think a lot of people in churches are avoidant in the same way and so are incompetent: they see abuse as a major issue they can’t deal with so are more likely to miss the signs.
Of course the possibility that they’re abusers should be considered, as should the possibility that they’re conscienceless sociopaths who just don’t care or empathise in any way.
I can’t remember who first said this but I think it bears repeating: I would humbly request that we not refer to this material as “child porn” but rather “child sexual abuse materials”.
Not at all a criticism of the post, just thinking that the term “porn” has has become a euphemism and has lost its impact in today’s vernacular.
I don’t know Dee. I tend to think a lot of the resistance is due to embarrassment that it even happened and just downright cowardice. That being said, I think the frequency that such revelations are coming to light would indicate that the abusers had been protected for a while before being discovered. So yes, I think you are on to something and I have to wonder if some leaders are actually facilitating these “arrangements” and getting something out of it themselves. That was part of the accusation against SGM.
I think that is definitely a dynamic taking place in the American church, which would explain continuing reports of pedophiles who have been hiding in plain sight, even in the pulpit! I also believe that denial kicks in among many churchgoers … denial that such things could happen in ‘their’ congregation … after all, this is church, those things don’t happen here!
Rapid Roy,
Thank you for this reminder.
MAX! So glad to see you! I’ve been concerned! And now I can’t get the chorus to “Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual” out of my head.
On a serious note< i absolutely DO NOT understand why this guy is not in some British prison. He's not spending ANY time in prison. He's on what we'd call probation for a decade and he's on the sex abusers' registry for five years. I'm going to say THAT'S NOT ENOUGH. Seriously, what the what?!?! I don't understand British law, perhaps it is not as educated on how dangerous child sexual abuse material is, I don't get it.
Or maybe it was because he was a member of the British elite and given deference due to that. It wouldn't be the first time this had happened. *sigh*
Again, Max, hope all is well with you!
I also think a contributing factor to all of this the fact that many church people have bought into the lie that being a Christainity is the way to holliness here on earth and the “true” way.. so, anything that challenges that view challenges their fundamental world view is attached with full forces. A “christain leader” that participates in such vile things is not on the way to holliness, so it MUST NOT BE TRUE..
Max,
I agree with you, Max.
Even before I had gotten down the line to your statement, Pam Tillis’ song “Cleopatra, Queen of Denial” going around in my head!
Rapid Roy,
I think we should call it ‘child torture’ materials because that’s what it is.
Molly 245,
yup
Molly 245,
I second the motion. Or “child rape” materials.
Max,
Welcome back, Max!
Rapid Roy,
The phrase “child sexual abuse materials” could be used to refer to educational materials written to educate people on how to recognize the signs of potential abuse of children.
I prefer the phrase “materials depicting the sexual abuse of children”. It is more direct and even more descriptive.
I was about to bring that up too, but Max was right there at the gate. I think this is true about those in Congress too, passing harsh laws against child abuse. That is one topic that will remain bi-partisan. No politician can afford to be seen as weak against child abusers, even if he is one himself.
Afterburne,
Well said!
Molly 245,
Agreed. I will start trying to us some of these terms more frequently.
This article made me think. I am not saying ALL who DARVO child sex abuse are abusers but I think SOME might be. The Houston CHronicle sure showed that there are some.
Agree that a lot of it may be. But we know for sure that some are abusers. Look at what we havww carried here for the last 14 years. I wonder if some may be secret abusers.
“For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible; nothing is secret except to come to light.” (Mark 4:22)
“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” (Luke 8:17)
Payday someday.
The New Statesman published the following update on Willy a few days ago
“ Approximately 19,000 articles were published during Wilby’s seven years as editor, of which 126 have a significant reference to child sexual abuse or paedophilia. Of those 126 articles, 12 contain comments or arguments that could reasonably be interpreted as either minimising the seriousness of child sexual abuse, or as questioning the integrity of victims, whistle-blowers, police or journalists investigating allegations of sexual abuse of children. Four of the 12 remained available on newstatesman.com as of 18 August, and they have now been taken down.
Subsequent to his time as editor, Wilby contributed 659 columns or pieces to the New Statesman from 2006 to 2022, of which 37 contain a significant reference to child sexual abuse or paedophilia. Of those 37 articles, four contain arguments that the degree of public concern around child sexual abuse is out of proportion to the actual scope and scale of the horrendous crime. Those four articles have been taken down.”
He got a suspended sentence which I think highlights the lack of concern among the judiciary and the powers that be. (Look up the BBC reports on theRochdale child abuse enquiry. It’s only the tip of the iceberg
*Wilby
dee,
Yup
I prefer “CSA” rather than “child torture,” because the latter term is rather broader than sexual abuse. I’m reminded of the recent discovery of two children in southern Utah who were apparently rope-tied and duct-taped around their wrists and ankles and held in a $3 million home. The law in Utah being used to charge their mother and her business partner specifically mentions “torture.” There’s no evidence the children were sexually assaulted, only *merely* tied up and not fed. I’m disgusted.
Lowlandseer,
He was the editor of the New Statesman?! No wonder he got off so lightly. He’s British Establishment through and through. It’d be like attempting to prosecute the editor of the NYTimes or Washington Post, but even more so.
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
He also wrote for The Guardian
If homosexuality is the sin then I disagree. I don’t subscribe to homosexuality being a sin. Haggard was a mean spirited, hate filled cheating bag of pus.
And I thought that before he was outed.
In the netflix doc about the Boy Scouts of America, the child sex abuse cover-up was to preserve the BSA brand of trust and Scout’s Honor. The film claims the same for RCC and SBC – brand preservation.
Apparently the BSA, SBC, and RCC are basically shelters for predators of children and their activities.
“Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America,” directed by Brian Knappenberger and streaming on Netflix, is a walk-through of the monumental case of child sex abuse in the BSA.
What about the many prominent people who have been sexually abused in youth by authority and exhibit “stockholm syndrome”: these form a plausible backdrop to not sound sufficient alarm every time perpetrators strike again.
It’s downright confusion and it goes back and back, compounding. Undermine the young sexually = weapon of terror.
Up to my 14 th year I and my peers thought sex outside marriage was a matter for families and chosen friends, not a thing for authorities to promote as if they owned it (promote predation by proxy).
That was exactly when trendiness and intrusion (themselves not new) became the top, main value in religion, eclipsing supplication and belief. Up till then, we thought religion was helping each other know how to ask God for needs.
I remember when photo laboratories began announcing they were taking decisions about what not to process.
Bertrand Russell, an agnostic, opined a result may make its appearance before a cause did. (Kierkegaard was also into “appearing”, in the spiritual realm, as more of the issue than “existence”.)
The moment a big spiritual decision gets taken, some effects will show up straightaway somewhere. Other effects take a while to snowball / mushroom. This is all the more so since the Wagner-Bentley dominionism campaign.
Result: body theology, and gender theology, have poisoned altogether everything everywhere in the world while there isn’t enough prayer for wisdom about business practices, admin and the like.
In a movement I knew, a clergyperson used salacious language (picked up in a college abroad) to inure us to the idea of our own depravity (which we scarcely were) to make us prone to their manipulatings.
A combination of authorities that I’m indirectly connected to, and have a link to a high profile abuse case in which the guilty party committed suicide prior to trial, position themselves to reportedly try to counterinfluence that sort of thing but appear to have decided they can’t be open about their methods or degree of success.
One of our denomination heads had three distinct points of notoriety, two of which involved blatantly condoning sexual abuse of the young by authority. I recall him falling in with the weary and attempted faux mocking tone from others as he climbed the greasy pole. (What did they know about what he knew about those who went before him?) Associates were as bad or worse in activities and connections.
I knew there was something wrong with Ravi in 2011 because of non sequiturs about cricket and the way he had been browbeaten into becoming the next Billy Graham (he had the chin for it) on his hospital bed aged 17 – as punishment? (Also the credentials weren’t being written about in a serious tone.)
Listen to their theology – worm – ESS – vetoeing the gifts. Don’t put up with unbelief from church authority, but lead your peers to exceed the way their elders hold them back, and especially by supplicating.
p.s to above, a third point of notoriety in the leader mentioned, referred to doctrinal connotations. It’s the usual story: objections to replacing one set of suspect doctrines with another (likewise thinly cloaking sexual abuses) rather than establishing sound paradigms afresh.
Further:
The book Richie Who Cares by Richie Barlow makes difficult but needed reading. Here’s a toned-down piece about it:
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/sex-abuse-survivor-opens-up-7053805
(look beyond the headline in that story)
Meantime Richard Dawkins makes the opposite error to sin levelling (casuistry), when addressing the many molestations of boys at all three of his schools years back, which he had described in his autobiography. All three of those schools were run by C of E vicars not good enough for parish service.
For decades, the BSA has secretly kept files on all known pedophile predators operating in their org, for the sole purpose of cover-up and protecting the brand as an institution of trust, honesty, and safety for children and youth. These files are officially called the Perversion Files.
In discovery, turns out the SBC has had an identical practice with its own “Perversion Files”.
The RCC?
BSA, RCC, and SBC are the big three pedophile prevalent and protective orgs in the US: branded as family, patriarchy, patriotism, and apple pie.
In the doc film, they asked a pedophile predator WHY he used the BSA as his hunting ground for his supply of victims.
“Because the org makes it so easy.”
Eons ago, I was a boy scout. I never encountered any perverts or pervert-wannabes. I suppose the BSA motto is still the same “Be Prepared” … sounds like these days, scouts need to be prepared to use their shovels to knock the h&$l out of any leader who tries to mess with them! So sad to hear this about BSA. Some church groups (including SBC) offer a BSA alternative scouting organization called “Trail Life” … but can you really trust them to diligently vet volunteer leaders?
This is totally off topic so I apologize in advance, but many TWW readers either are at increased risk should they get covid, or have loved ones who are.
Be very careful with that CDC Covid Data Tracker website. When you go to maps and see your county in green, meaning low transmission, don’t trust it. Put the cursor on your county, find out what the “new admissions to hospital in the last week” number is. Disregard the number that will follow which is SUPPOSED to be the number per 100,000. Some counties have the right math done, some are grossly inaccurate, and some seem to be pulling numbers out of thin air. Know your county population and do the math yourself. There is also a key so you know with that number whether your area is low, moderate, or high transmission. Many are getting the math backwards. If I asked you how many dimes in one dollar you would say 10. If I asked you how about two dollars you would say twenty. Well, some counties would answer that second question as five. Doing the math backwards. Same on the CDC website.
This won’t matter to most people but if you or someone you love has cancer, diabetes, or other serious health concerns it can be very important.
The teachers that said this were brought in by an ex RE teacher who set up a supposed civics department. Months later he left after carrying on with a boy.
The key.
Shocking that according to investigations of the doc film, “Scout’s Honor”, when pedophile predators are discovered within the BSA org, a file is created for DAMAGE TO THE BRAND control NOT for PROTECTION OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH. It seems it has been reported that the SBA does the same. Damage-to-the-brand control NOT protection of children and teens.
Off topic (kinda-sorta)….and thank you, Muslin, fka Dee Holmes, for providing me with something to use as a lead in to my comment….
You mention a person getting off so lightly due to being a member of the British Establishment….which reminded me of a book I’ve been reading (and am almost finished).
The author of the book is a victim of Proxy Stalking (also know as Multiple-Perpetrator Stalking). She lives in Ireland, where (unless it’s changed VERY recently), there’s no legal definition (law) for stalking. They call it harassment. (I’m sure TWW readers and commenters — and likely other people — will be able to draw their own analogies between Proxy Stalking and other circumstances they’ve encountered or read about.)
The author writes very well, and her descriptions are — at times — poetic.
I believe her story — which is more than the police (and almost everyone else) did….I’ve wondered what it would’ve been like (or would be like) if those people who didn’t believe her were themselves to become victims of Proxy Stalking.
I’ve been a victim of many different kinds of abuse for almost all of my life (over six decades), including a very short amount of “stalking”….and I’ve wondered how she survived, wanted to smack some of the police, psychotherapists, etc., she writes about up-side the head (I won’t repeat the expletive deleted words I spoke out loud as I read her book. 🙂 ).
The author of the book is Suzanne Joubert. The title of her book is This Therapist Likes to Play.
(I’m intentionally some omitting details, especially about the title of the book. 🙂 Not that her book is funny….it’s not fun play — unless you’re the main perpetrator.)
linda,
Thanks Linda. A potential “tridemic” this Fall of Covid, flu, and RSV is concerning. It’s especially important for the aged and immunocompromised to be diligent.
researcher,
Thx for the recommend.
Ava Aaronson,
DAMAGE TO THE BRAND…
I think I learned of the following concept in Mark Knolls’ book, Scandle of the Evangelical Mind…
Anyway,the concept is that since the good old USA does not have a “state” religion, Christianity in the USA had to develop other means to get “butts in the seat”, hense the use of marketing/emotion/revivials/et al. to get people to come… and conversely, the “BRAND” need to be protected, including hiding perverts/pedos..
Jeffrey J Chalmers,
And they didn’t realise they had been persecuted by their own pastors all that time.
Meantime in Britain, those who wanted to go to church anyway got looked down on by those who insisted we should only attend because they made it “attractive”.
yep, that’s state-of-the-onion in much of the American church as I see it … the Christian Industrial Complex depends on charisma and gimmick to keep it afloat … Church as Entertainment has pushed the Holy Spirit out in favor of celebrity … and the beat goes on
Thanks Max. Where I live it is really hard for folks like my neighbor with cancer to get any numbers. Here, if you catch covid and die from it directly, the family has the legal option to decline to have it listed as a covid death. So we have no clue how many have really died of covid in our state. Now, if you die of flu it will be the coroner saying that, not the family. Same with any other infectious disease. But the family can refuse to allow the coroner to state it was covid or covid related. Crazy politics.
All of which puts me back on topic: when you systematically train people science is bad, math is bad, because they might refute young earth theology you have set people up to be controlled by any dictator that comes along. We usually think of that politically, but it APPLIES IN THE CHURCH. If a church gaslights its people long enough in matters of fact such as math or science, they WILL NOT QUESTION anything their “exalted leader” or pastor says.
Food for thought.
You reckon there’s a playbook being circulated in the Christian Industrial Complex to coach church leaders through damage control? Perhaps a chapter in the same book that discusses how to restore fallen pastors and generate a standing ovation to honor the bad-boys?
Max,
I think we have heard here on TWW about hiring damage control specialists? I know they exist…
And yet we still have UNRESTRICTED travel in and out of China, which is the point of origin for COVID. How can we be so stoopid?
What other viral delights out of China are in store for us in future?
linda,
So the official COVID data tracker now has the Propaganda Numbers?
As in “Two thousand Roentgens, not fifteen”?
The Church of the Living God should not be inflicting damage on folks … it should be a place of healing, of refreshing in the presence of the Lord. Damage control should not be in a church’s toolkit. Of course, when we talk about these things we are talking about the church, not the Church.
Brand protection,AKA tribalism, which seems to drive so much of the poor response to threatening stimuli in any organization.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Headless Unicorn Guy,
I have no clue what is happening. It could be they have some secret sauce formula they are using, but that page states clearly it is so people can learn the raw number and then supposedly the CDC converts it to your number per 100,000. Only it is grossly inaccurate. Some counties do the math spot on correctly. Others are clearly doing it backwards. And some seem to pull numbers out of thin air. Is it really the CDC doing that, or local or county people who don’t do math well? Who knows? I suspect local because if it was a software error at the CDC it would hit every county.
Ours is one of those thin air things. Roughly 40,000 population. 9 new admits. So they tell us that would be 5.9 in 100,000. Really? NOT. Should be roughly 2 1/2 times 9. Now, if we were a county of 150,000 population, yeah, you would divide. Not rocket science. Tiny Grant county in ND got it right.
I do know here some county and state officials get all het up unless they are in “low transmission level.” Not het up to lower the real level, but angry if it is reported to the public when it is high. That is why if you watch the Arkansas Missouri border, so often Arkansas reports much higher case loads than Missouri—-even in towns that literally sit on the border and you don’t know when you cross the state line. Gotta keep Branson low, you know.
The CDC claims to only report local data. Well, where I live, as I said before, family can decide if you died of covid pneumonia or only a lower respiratory infection. Our local previous school superintendent once told us that our local schools and area are “not big on math and science.
It shows.
“If we don’t do s much testing, we won’t have as many cases.”
And you can read the results of that over at the Herman Cain Awards subreddit.
Nile River Cruise right next to the GoFundMe.
Hugs–right! Now, I can readily see some “secret sauces” that could be valid. I know one county of roughly 14,000 reporting 3 admits for 1.5 per 100,000. I can see that maybe instead of properly reporting based on patient address, maybe only 1 of those admits was from their county and they reported all 3 instead of the 1. But even then that would make the per 100,000 number roughly 7, not the 1.5.
I freely admit to being a math idiot. But either there is terrible reporting, or there is terrible math, or the website is terribly written because it does not explain the secret sauce.
But for my friend with cancer who has to travel for treatment I am suggesting two things: look at the total admits and do your own math. You might get a false high reading and skip a perfectly good pit stop in some county, but that is ok. Better than a false low. And check the local school district websites. When a district closes down for deep cleaning due to too many out with respiratory illnesses, keep on trucking.
linda,
Secular politics is also church since the dominionists’ coup in 2008.
Jeffrey J Chalmers,
Be sure to address wrongs wrongly, because unlimited damage causing sets limits to damage limitation.
linda,
The Covid resistance movement in churches which rejected public health announcements to curtail church gatherings reached the ridiculous stage, IMO. Bottom-line for me during that period was why go to church in its current spiritual condition to risk your life!
the stuff that cults are made of
Maybe it was 2008 on your side of the Atlantic, but here it didn’t really hit critical mass until 2015-2016.
Only weirdness here in 2008 was all the John Galt Celebrity Impersonators coming out of the woodwork.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
https://churchwatchcentral.com/2017/03/02/wagner-reports-on-todd-bentleys-2008-alignment-ceremony/
https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/into-the-hands-of-america-pope-pius-xii-s-blessing
Max,
One could argue that the groomers and traffickers are those supposedly fighting against it. Tim Ballard and the producers of the “Sound of Freedom” are exhibit A.