Churchhoney

Am I hallucinating or does the dress have a mesh midriff? Because, if so, uh, tacky much? (or maybe that's just me) (And if it doesn't have a mesh midriff, what is that midriff, anyway?)

Yeah, I definitely agree. I guess that's why I'm heavily in favor of Jill and the others seeing something else, almost anything else, in hopes they'll develop some sense of how much is in the world beyond what's been force fed them all these years. They'll never conceive of any alternatives if they just continue in the echo chamber, I don't think.

I'm of two minds about this, mainly because I don't know how much time and energy they actually spend on learning and practicing Gothard principles by name and participating in Gothard activities designed to warp their brains and how much they're mostly confined within the family system instead. I wonder whether Jim Bob and Michelle confine the kids so much that most of them are more in a family cult than in the Gothard cult, because it's Jim Bob's and Michelle's mental sicknesses that are the most powerful influence in the household rather than the ATI ideology. I say that because I was in what I consider a family cult, and I escaped without any deprogramming, and some friends of mine have done the same. So I do wonder whether that would really be needed in their case, if the Jim Bob influence is as strong as I think it may be, compared to the ATI influence. Now, I was warped for life, and certainly in need of psychological help, but the influences are different when it's mostly an individual doing the warping rather than a formal system and ideology. I am sure the Duggars have experienced both kinds of cultishness, but I don't know what the balance would be. I expect it may differ from kid to kid, depending on how involved they've been with actual ATI programs.

Good point. Run around from church to church to church to church to church to church to church to church begging?

On the other hand, cracking the skulls of people wearing a different uniform might be right up Jessa's alley ....

Yep, that's certainly what they should be doing, in my opinion, too. And very well said. That said, I wouldn't expect anyone coming out of a Duggar background to move to that kind of behavior in a single step. So from them, I'd accept even tiny intermediate steps toward that end as representing progress. Hell, I even accept what Jill and Derrick are doing now as progress (infinitesimal progress, but still...). Since they believe that they're among the world's sole possessors of ultimate truth, and Jill, especially, has had very little contact with other people that could tell her otherwise, I think her only hope for any movement at all is at least to meet other people, talk with them, see how they live and think and thus broaden her perspective to whatever degree possible. So at least they've put her in a position to maybe, possibly, kinda sorta do that. If she wants to, which she probably doesn't. Still, it's at least a move to a situation that provides learning opportunities. And they'll certainly stay stuck in their ways without those. ETA: That's why, despite Jessa's apparently more rebellious nature and perhaps some backbone, I have even less hope for her and Ben at this point. They seem to be deliberately remaining in a very tightly locked echo chamber. Jessa, in particular, since Ben does occasionally at least try to engage with people on social media and so on. And no matter how rebellious somebody is, if you never see anything, read anything or hear anything that goes beyond what you think and "know" already, how likely is it that you will change your ways of thinking and behaving?

Gaaaaaaaa. And gnashing of teeth. Crap. Have we seen or heard of anything from their actual "family ministry" besides Derick's abominably insulting and horribly executed mime act? Since when do photo ops, U.S.-style eating and shopping trips, language courses on somebody else's dime, side trips to the beach and every adjacent country and time spent hanging with family and other U.S. tourists in your demographic constitute a ministry? Do the congregation there know what kind of ministering these two do and, thus, what their love offerings pay for? I don't see how the Dullards can sleep at night, knowing what they know about how their time is spent. The Duggar grift ethic is strong. That said, I'm still glad they're mostly away from JB's compound. Distance may be the only hope aside from the cash dwindle for waking up Duggarlings to the wrongness of the family ways and philosophy.....A slim hope indeed, of course.

That must be Amy's counterpart to Jill's mile-high-eyebrows look. I'm sure that they both believe their smiles connote warmth and enthusiasm. Instead of an urgent need for a muscle relaxant.

Cause it seems as if Jim Bob spawn would be published by Murdoch! And, yeah, the audiobook narration definitely would be scary.

True. But we aren't talking about Murdoch here, are we? I understood that they're published by a Christian-oriented imprint of Simon and Schuster -- and they're part of CBS. So that's a lot more tenuous political connection, if there even would be one desired in that quarter. But if you're right, then I would think that the question about what's in it for the girls would be moot anyway, since if somebody wanted to get a political ally from the publication, I'd think they'd want JB and M, not the girls, wouldn't they? So if it's a payoff, then it must have gone directly into Jim Bob's pocket, I would think. And $250,000 is one thing if you have to split the after-tax portion among four people, but a pretty different thing if it all goes to one person. I'm not really buying the payoff idea, though, since Howard Books out of S&S seems kind of unlikely to be motivated in that way toward Jim Bob, to me, anyway. (also, I was basing my ceiling estimate of $250,000 on the idea that it actually sold and was expected to sell and therefore was paid for at the ordinary rates -- so if we're just talking a payoff for books that were never intended to be sold, then the amount that was paid could be anything, a million bucks or 25 cents .... )

Ha! And the books could be well hidden beneath all of Jim Bob's other grifted crap.

Honestly, it just couldn't have been all that much because only true blockbuster books make much money now. Given what I've heard from writers I know, I would put the ceiling on their take from the book at around $250,000. (and I doubt that it's been even that much). Then they had two ghost writers -- David Waller and Charlie Richards. They may not have had to pay Waller all that much since he was certainly there to make sure that the correct Gothard perspective was sneaked in throughout, and he could have been required to view the reward of getting that perspective in there accurately as an element of his "payment." Richards, however, is an actual professional writer with strong multimedia writing credits both in the Christian and mainstream worlds. Among many other things, he's the creator of that multimedia "Life at the Pond" material for kids that the Duggars endorse. So let's say they negotiated as ruthlessly as possible with these guys. And maybe they only paid Waller $3,000 or so for his contribution. Richards, however, clearly wrote the whole damn book, so they would have to give him something vaguely approaching professional pay -- so let's say that super-skinflint Jim Bob manages to squeeze that down to $10,000. Now the girls are down to $237,000, tops, as the take for the four of them, or about $59,000 each. I don't really see a way they could have avoided paying self-employment taxes on that money. Other writers all do, and self-employment taxes are very high -- the entire employer/employee portion of Social Security/Medicare taxes in addition to personal income tax. But let's say that Jim Bob has a super speshul talented and shady tax accountant who figured out to trim that tax burden to something minimal and bring them down only a bit, to $50,000 each. Now, that may sound like a lot of money. But it's one-time money that they really couldn't expect to earn again until//unless at least a couple of them were married and had children, seems to me. How soon was America going to buy another Duggar girl manifesto on love? So it either had to be parceled out over a few or several years or saved for the future. And I'd be really surprised if each of them did realize as much as $50,000 from it. I'm pretty convinced that the scenario that gives them that much overestimates their total take from the book and significantly underestimates what went out to the ghost writers and, especially, in taxes. .... And that scenario doesn't even take into account the possibility that Jim Bob skimmed some of their money (or all of it ... but I'm trying to think positive here). A check for between $30,000 and $50,000 is nice. But if you have no possibility of earning money in the same way again for several years at least, it isn't going to do that much for you. Would love to know the facts also. But I don't think it made them rich, even if they got all the money they were due.

Brilliant.

This is why they must have a tv show! it's the only way the rest of us will be exposed to their wonderful example. lol Not to mention kind of undercutting the idea that God's Army are an especially upright and trustworthy bunch and the only humans suitable for preparing the world for Jesus.

I don't know. I suspect that Ben may be eligible for mixed reviews on this score, while Jessa's behavior may be more all of a piece. We know that both of them can be quite harsh toward people in general -- i.e., the people they've never met who disagree with their religious ideas. But I'll bet in these comments they're talking about Jessa's and Ben's relationships to real people in their families that they meet everyday. I think we've actually seen Ben's greater compassion and warmth in some interchanges he's had with Jinger and with some of the younger kids, and we've heard from his family about a warm, kind of nurturing relationship he seems to have had with his own siblings. He's apparently picked up stray people fairly often, too, like the ones he invited to his wedding and who seemed to speak pretty highly of his being a nice person. I take these comments as some evidence that Jessa truly is a cold-ass bitch even to her inner circle, on a daily basis. We've seen some of that, too, including her cold side-eyeing of poor dumb Binjermin's attempts to be romantic and loving toward her and some of her interactions with her siblings as overseer and so on. The thing is, they don't know the people at whom they throw the religious damnation talk that they've been taught all their lives. And as with most of us much of the time (well, maybe more so), they don't really think of those people -- us people -- as real. Those you're-damned rants aren't human relationships, they're just the sermonizing their families constantly practice as a core activity of their self-righteous ideologies. Neither of them has the imagination or intellect to really view people-at-a-distance-and-not-like-me as real, and, in the Duggar household, at least, they've actually been taught to view all non-Duggars/non-Gothards as alien, wrong and dangerous. (And if the rest of us think that we routinely do view people-at-a-distance as real, we should probably spend a little more time observing our own responses to immigration, "collateral damage" in Middle Eastern wars, the bombing of Hiroshima and, heaven help us, Nagasaki. Etc.) Anyway, I'd say that -- following an unfortunate general human trend but with special Duggar/Seewald-imbued zeal -- they both easily embrace the idea of raining Fire and Binstone on people they don't know. But when it comes to their own tribe, Ben may have a warmer heart and be a bit of softy, while Jessa's more of the cold, relentless type even there.

I suspect she did do it with the oldest half of the kids, but that she did it sporadically and randomly. Which is probably the worst way of all. The kids get their impulses squashed and get the sense that the universe is completely chaotic and unpredictable. Chaotic and unpredictable and also scary and painful, and that you never know when some wrathful creature will bat you down for a reason that you can't fathom. Then you get kids full of fear, buried resentments, insecurity -- it's the Duggar recipe.

Maybe that can be the name of their new show on Fox Business.

In my opinion, though, at least Boob and perhaps more of these guys really don't give a crap about anything lasting 200 years. I simply don't believe that Boob is actually motivated by religious faith or theological principles in any way, shape or form. All those things are for him is rationalization of stuff he wants to do because of his own neurotic, needy, controlling, angry, fearful, mean, selfish, hyper-competitive personality. That's at the root of most human motivation, and it's certainly about the only thing that motivates somebody as dumb, nutty and selfish as Boob, I expect. He latched onto his "faith" because it authorizes him to do all the crap that his messed-up nature is longing to do. So he doesn't need it to last 200 years. He just needs it to last well enough for another 30 or 40 years. And with 19 kids, maybe he can hold on to eight or 10 for that long, or nearly that long. He's got an amazing track record of brainwashing up to this point. Of course, the TLC money played a big role in that, I'm sure. He won't be really happy with only eight or 10 perpetual acolytes, of course. But it will be enough to staff the TTH. I strongly suspect that this is also mainly the case with the rest of the current 200-year-and-similar theology guys, like Philips and Botkin, given the way they tend to cling to, use and manipulate their wives, their children and other young people in their orbit. Some perpetrators of and believers in these ideas may care about this stuff in a more abstract and objective way -- maybe Rushdoony did, for example -- but for most of them it's just handy rationalization for stuff they want to do. And it sounds much cooler than just, "Because I said so."

Mark Morford makes an interesting argument for why pinning the "addiction" label on Josh's porniness and horniness may be just another Christian Right ploy to blame all of men's problems on women http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/09/04/sex-addiction-does-not-exist/?cmpid=NLmorford "Look at it this way: If you truly believe sex, or porn, or masturbation – all just shorthand, by the way, for “women’s sexuality,” given how it’s almost always men who claim addiction – are truly dangerous, if you really believe that enjoying such things can result in a genuine medical condition bordering on psychosis, it’s no leap at all to demand that those forces – i.e.; women – be curtailed, shut down, defunded, the “drug” of their sexuality restricted and made forbidden, lest dumb, powerless, God-fearing men go “insane” with uncontrollable lust and… well, you know the rest. "Right? It’s the same revolting message across the planet and since times biblical: Women’s sexuality is pure sin, a poison of devilish origin, the Serpent in disguise. If an innocent Christian – like poor little Josh Duggar – is “addicted” to sex, guess who’s to really to blame for enflaming and engorging his desires?"

We could all be hired as photo interpreters. Just by different people.

I remain curious about who awarded Jessa the diploma. I think I know why they got her some kind of diploma. They were probably worried that having a non-parent teacher might get flagged as a problem unless the non-parent teacher had some education credential. But in Arkansas, home schoolers aren't eligible for diplomas from any public entity. I'd be interested to know whether they just nabbed the diploma from one of several homeschooling groups who club together to offer them, essentially no questions asked; whether she and they actually got involved with some home-education group or online school that offers diplomas to people who take courses or pass tests or fulfill certain other conditions; or whether they're just touting their personal Duggar-brand diploma that they invented and conferred themselves. Arkansas Dept of Ed regs http://www.arkansased.gov/public/userfiles/Learning_Services/Charter%20and%20Home%20School/Home%20School-Division%20of%20Learning%20Services/Home%20School-Rules%20Governing%20Home%20School.pdf : "Home Schools are not accredited by the Arkansas Department of Education. There are no grades, credits, transcripts or diploma provided by the Arkansas Department of Education, education service cooperative or by the local school district for students enrolled in home school."

It's a bummer to climb aboard the gravy train and then find out that you have to pay for a ticket -- and there's no gravy.

Well, we have to remember that this is a man with two drunk driving arrests. Don't think judgment is his long suit. (although he does seem to have some aspirations when it comes to being judgy....)

Oh, absolutely. I, on the other hand, felt as soon as I knew about them that I knew them inside out because so many of their little ways instantly reminded me of family members -- so I've loathed JB and M for over a decade, found all the kids pitiable, and haven't really considered them particularly freaky -- and definitely not entertaining -- because, while the family size and so on are outlandish, JB"s and M's neurotic behavior and manipulations seemed intimately familiar to me. I suppose we represent two major categories of the hatewatchers (or, at least, the hate-discussers and obsessive readers-about, in my case).

Yeah, that'd be really interesting to know. There are certainly plenty of people from both camps discussing them online!