Comments on the news, Texas takes the kids

"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support." John Buchan

The American Sociological Association http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Apr08ASRFeature.pdf published a study that showed older Americans are happier than younger Americans. The study did not include those older Americans in nursing homes. Therefore, assuming relative health, older people are happier than younger people.

They should be. Older people do not have to get up and drive in traffic and put up with the stress of making a living. Older people have the younger workers provide for them. Free or reduced lunches, senior centers, Medicare, social security, free transportation-all go a long way to make one happy. And, with the AARP as a lobbying tool, American senior citizens will continue to be one of the most privileged and slothful group of people the earth has known.

Another news story is about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). A Texas judge said Friday night that 416 children are better off in state custody than with their parents, who belong to a controversial polygamous sect. The Texas Child Prison, er- Protective Services, used just four witnesses to persuade the judge that a polygamous community where underage girls sometimes marry is a threat to all children. How many children held by the Texas CPS end up pregnant, dead, abused, or in prison? If one looks at the statistical data, one could say the future of the 416 children who are now in the Texas Child Prison Services does not augur well.

It is also the Texas Child Prison Service that takes children from their fathers on a routine basis in divorce, even allowing the mother to move the children a thousand miles away from the father. How many of those children raised by single mothers end up pregnant before 18, or end up as criminals?

The Texas Cult used to allow girls to marry as young as 14. Come to think of it, nature has allowed girls to mate and produce children when they become capable, for the past million years. Now the Texas Child Prison Services Cult has a better way.

Some will say the FLDS is a cult. I agree, but, the people who run the Texas Child Prison Services, CPS, are also members of a cult. Their cults are the protestant and catholic churches. One can see how some cults have more power than other cults. Some cults have the power to stamp out the competition from other cults.

I just saw on TV some of the Papal Mass by Pope Benedict XVI as he preached Saturday in St. Patrick's cathedral in New York City. An old man dressed in a costume with a pointed crown, as the flocks of human sheep genuflect. Now that is some cult!

Charles Tolleson, The Happy Skeptic