Mickelson Case: GA coverup cont.,

[_Res Ipsa]

I don't see it as an abrupt change of topic, Lemmie. He began his series of posts by talking a little about the Pace memo. It seems to have affected him pretty deeply at the time he read it -- long before the unraveling of his marriage. I think he sincerely believes that he and his daughter have been the victims of an ongoing conspiracy within the LDS church and that they are not the only victims. It sounds like the Pace memorandum, as well as this underground network of psychiatrists, help confirm for him his long held suspicions about Mickelsen and the LDS leadership. It makes sense to me that ends his story by saying -- here is my terrible story, and here is confirmation that it isn't just some crazy tale by one Dad.

The advocacy piece isn't new for him. There was a case sometime back where children were taken away from a family. I don't recall the details. That case spurred him to help lobby for some proposed legislation to revamp whatever the child welfare agency in Utah is called.

I've haven't seen anything in what he's said that leads me to think he's in this for the money.

[_Res Ipsa]

Oh well, your post has about as much going for it as 90% of the rest of the interpretations of the parties' motivations on this thread. At least you aren't simply shouting abuse like some others.

Have fun. It's only real people. And it seems to make the posters feel good, so what's not to like?

Chap, there's a good old American expression that describes this thread and its relatives: clusterf***. Nobody knows anything and everybody has an opinion. And now it's time for me to duck.

Quack!

[_Chap]

Oh well, your post has about as much going for it as 90% of the rest of the interpretations of the parties' motivations on this thread. At least you aren't simply shouting abuse like some others.

Have fun. It's only real people. And it seems to make the posters feel good, so what's not to like?

Chap, there's a good old American expression that describes this thread and its relatives: clusterf***. Nobody knows anything and everybody has an opinion. And now it's time for me to duck.

And now Lemmie is asking me to join in ... somehow I don't think I can have made myself clear. All this speculation seems to me a waste of time, and the relish with which several of the participants shower abuse (and in some cases psychiatric diagnoses) on the family involved is depressing to watch, and in my view somewhat degrading for those involved.

But evidently it's a good way to have fun and pass the time. So who am I to rain on their parade?

[_Mary]

I don't see it as an abrupt change of topic, Lemmie. He began his series of posts by talking a little about the Pace memo. It seems to have affected him pretty deeply at the time he read it -- long before the unraveling of his marriage. I think he sincerely believes that he and his daughter have been the victims of an ongoing conspiracy within the LDS church and that they are not the only victims. It sounds like the Pace memorandum, as well as this underground network of psychiatrists, help confirm for him his long held suspicions about Mickelsen and the LDS leadership. It makes sense to me that ends his story by saying -- here is my terrible story, and here is confirmation that it isn't just some crazy tale by one Dad.

The advocacy piece isn't new for him. There was a case sometime back where children were taken away from a family. I don't recall the details. That case spurred him to help lobby for some proposed legislation to revamp whatever the child welfare agency in Utah is called.

I've haven't seen anything in what he's said that leads me to think he's in this for the money.

Absolutely agree.

I am surprised you use Snopes rather than the article by Massimo Introvigne, which though skeptical was much more balanced.

As for Lemmie's criticism of Paper Dolls, I followed her link into the murky area of false memory syndrome and the work of Jennifer Freyd in response.

http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Trauma-L ... 0674068068

I think the reason child abuse thrives in certain communities is because no one wants to believe it could happen. But it does as the Pace Memo indicated.

Now I am off to watch *The Walking Dead* and take a welcome break from all this. I find it genuinely exhausting.

[_Res Ipsa]

And now Lemmie is asking me to join in ... somehow I don't think I can have made myself clear. All this speculation seems to me a waste of time, and the relish with which several of the participants shower abuse (and in some cases psychiatric diagnoses) on the family involved is depressing to watch, and in my view somewhat degrading for those involved.

But evidently it's a good way to have fun and pass the time. So who am I to rain on their parade?

And yet you keep raining and raining and raining... Perhaps you could follow some advice that a wise poster once gave me when I complained about what others posted in a thread that I thought was similarly degrading... Let people talk about what they want to talk about and don't bitch about it.

Something like that. Maybe a little more genteel in the phrasing.

I wonder who that was.

[_kairos]

I have already stated up thread that I am personally convinced by the same evidence you are looking at, that Micklesen abused K. Because I am convinced of that I interpret the documentation differently than you.[/quote]

Then that is our point of departure. I don't interpret the documents to get to a pre-determined conclusion. I'm trying to look at all the evidence we have and to figure out what happened. If you approach the documentation with a belief that the molestation occurred, of course you are going to interpret the documentation differently than I do.

I am using my own experience of lds royal families and of the handling of abuse cases in the church that I am personally aware of, to guage whether Ron's account is probable and if so to what extent.

That's another point of departure. I'm not interested in whether Ron's account is probable. I'm interested in figuring out what actually happened.

The * Hank *situation written about in Paper Dolls is interesting because it may establish a pattern for how sex abuse is dealt with when a high ranking apostle's family members are implicated.

I'm not really concerned with how what Ron describes may fit with some pattern or other when the evidence in the case contradicts significant portions of his story.

I wasn't aware of that case, were you and what do you think of the way the church handled it?

No. I'm not familiar with that case. Given what we know about the Catholic pedophilia scandals and numerous cases of sexual abuse by sexual predators embedded in churches, to find similar abusers in the LDS church is not surprising. It's also not surprising that there are documented examples of leadership handling those cases in terrible and stupid manners. None of that has any bearing on Ron's credibility when he tells us this story.

This case is full of good examples of terrible handling of the situation. The mother never should have reacted to her daughter's story the way she did. Mickelson should never have called Ron's brother on the carpet the way he did. Regardless of whether she felt the daughter's story amounted to a violation of Utah's sexual abuse law, the police detective should have conducted a proper interview of MIckelsen. The Q12 shouldn't have failed to answer Ron's letters. The Eldest son shouldn't have been told that he had to love and forgive his grandfather or he couldn't go on a mission. The list goes on. But none of that points to a coordinated conspiracy to coverup known pedophilia at the highest ranks of the LDS church.

And none of it is evidence of whether the grandfather actually molested his granddaughter. All we have for that is the daughter's recollection, the circumstances under which she first expressed her recollection, and Ron's description of a phone call he wasn't a party to.[/quote]


Very good insights!

k

[_Chap]

So who am I to rain on their parade?

yet you keep raining and raining and raining

I think that if you assembled all my posts on this thread they would still be outweighed by several of the single posts of the more long-winded and excitable contributors. If anybody is discommoded by the little drops I have sprinkled over the discussion, they must be soluble in the extreme.

[Guest]

I don't see it as an abrupt change of topic, Lemmie. He began his series of posts by talking a little about the Pace memo. It seems to have affected him pretty deeply at the time he read it -- long before the unraveling of his marriage. I think he sincerely believes that he and his daughter have been the victims of an ongoing conspiracy within the LDS church and that they are not the only victims. It sounds like the Pace memorandum, as well as this underground network of psychiatrists, help confirm for him his long held suspicions about Mickelsen and the LDS leadership. It makes sense to me that ends his story by saying -- here is my terrible story, and here is confirmation that it isn't just some crazy tale by one Dad.

The advocacy piece isn't new for him. There was a case sometime back where children were taken away from a family. I don't recall the details. That case spurred him to help lobby for some proposed legislation to revamp whatever the child welfare agency in Utah is called.

I've haven't seen anything in what he's said that leads me to think he's in this for the money.

Absolutely agree.

I am surprised you use Snopes rather than the article by Massimo Introvigne, which though skeptical was much more balanced.

As for Lemmie's criticism of Paper Dolls, I followed her link into the murky area of false memory syndrome and the work of Jennifer Freyd in response.

http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Trauma-L ... 0674068068

I think the reason child abuse thrives in certain communities is because no one wants to believe it could happen. But it does as the Pace Memo indicated.

Now I am off to watch *The Walking Dead* and take a welcome break from all this. I find it genuinely exhausting.

You mean Slate, not Snopes, right? You'd already posted the Introvigne article, so it didn't make sense to me to link to it. I had to read up on recovered memories in connection with a couple of cases a few years back. I just thought the Slate article was well written and provided a pretty good overview of the recovered memory movement. I'm really not interested in diving back into it again.

ETA: Last night's Walking Dead? ***zips lips**

[_Res Ipsa]

So who am I to rain on their parade?

yet you keep raining and raining and raining

I think that if you assembled all my posts on this thread they would still be outweighed by several of the single posts of the more long-winded and excitable contributors. If anybody is discommoded by the little drops I have sprinkled over the discussion, they must be soluble in the extreme.

I'm not discommoded, I just think it's funny.

I wish I could remember who that guy that gave me the advice was.

[_Jersey Girl]

So who am I to rain on their parade?

yet you keep raining and raining and raining

I think that if you assembled all my posts on this thread they would still be outweighed by several of the single posts of the more long-winded and excitable contributors. If anybody is discommoded by the little drops I have sprinkled over the discussion, they must be soluble in the extreme.

I think that if you don't stop with the sidelines commentary, you're going to get my cat cartoon in your face.
;-)