Churchhoney

Hey, Hey, Hey! That's the godly way to respond!

I think "Junior High School" would probably have been more accurate.

No problem! And it could have been me. Wouldn't be the first time that I seemed to say the opposite of what I meant!

Yes. Don't tell JIm Bob. He might want to sue somebody.

Yeah, I completely agree. I don't think he's working for them either. Did I seem to say that he was? Wouldn't be surprising with my rambling, backtracking, and 300-comma sentences -- but what I meant was that I think he's not working for them because why would they trust the Duggars and Josh to have no lurking problems at this point? And if a lurking problem emerged, and Josh were working there, the news of his continued employment would also get out .... because his work would have to be glad-handing work of some kind, so somebody would know about it. He couldn't be somebody working at the kind of job you could hide because the person could work at home from their computer -- like ghostwriting speeches or developing a get-out-the-vote strategy or something.

Yep. I'm right there with you.

Thanks. To me, too. Hence my obsession with anatomizing it!!

I do get this, and I'm sure you're right that that's what they intend. But I'm struggling to figure out why it's so extremely dystopian and creepy to me, when some seemingly similar images wouldn't be. I think they've accomplished in the image something that's different from what they intend, very dystopian, and maybe even suggestive of some hidden truths. And I think it's the man in a suit who's part of the power structure while leading by the hand a childish woman and a passel of girls all dressed in an old-fashioned, childish, servant-like uniform of a garish and emotionally charged color that makes it a seriously dystopian image for me. It's the same kind of feeling I get from a picture of a man in a suit and a naked woman or women. There's something off and disturbing and a bit obscene about it and it highlights -- blindingly, for me --both the state of the woman or women and the fact that it's the man's power that has put them into these states in which their individual identities are stripped at the same time as their state forces everyone to look at them. And I'm pretty sure I'd be less disturbed if the color of the female costume suggested more seriousness. The red, like the nakedness, looks like mere decoration, like a toy. To me, it's very notable here that, even though the religious idea is to be set apart from the world, Jim Bob, who is also part of this belief system, is not set apart from the world in the image. In fact, he's dressed 100 percent in the current costume of the world's power structure. He's unmistakably a part of this culture. He looks, in fact, like a senator, and very much of this world. Meanwhile, the many women/girls who are clearly in his charge are placed in a completely different position -- in a costume that utterly precludes their having any power at all and whose color rivets everybody's eyes on them. Just like a naked woman in a painting with men clothed in business suits. For me, those are both images that suggest blank unshakeable worldly male power calmly creating a world in which the other gender is set apart to be always watched and to be incapable of escaping its state or exercising any agency of its own. Dystopian. Okay, I'll stop my endless anatomizing of the image now. I think I know why it disturbs me. Thank goodness.

I agree. I also have the strong feeling that FRC knew all about the Josh rumors before they hired him. Those rumors were everywhere among the conservative Christian community in northwest Arkansas, apparently, so I can't imagine them not knowing. If that is the case, they would have known from day one that they were taking a risk, as that information could come out at any point, considering that Josh was a "celebrity." I think they knew, and before he put his fat rear into one of their office chairs for the first time they'd already written a version of his "resignation letter." And had made plans to give him a very solid severance if anything came out and they needed him quickly and quietly off the premises. They had to give him a good severance because they couldn't risk his coming back at them with the accurate charge that they knew about him all along, as a son of Jim Bob might very well be expected to do. The Josh/FRC separation all happened with such quiet and dispatch when the news came out, that I can't see it happening any other way.

What a great article. (Completely backs up the strong regurgitation response I've had to Jim Bob from the first moment I read about him and every time I've ever seen or heard his voice. I love it. Thank you, Julia.) 'But Duggar dismissed her in front of the group by saying, "Well, you're a Hutchinson supporter."' Arrogant, infantile, stupid, mean, utterly self-absorbed and clueless SOB. How dare he think he's competent to raise 19 kids? To be a member of the Senate? To prance around the world telling other people what to do? ... .He's ruined those kids. I wonder whether any will ever emerge from the haze of crap that surrounds frigging Daddy.

I would lean toward thinking he's not working for them at this point, because they've been burned before in their existence and could still be worried that something else Duggardly might come out -- and that their secret-employment arrangement could come out as well. (Mainly because I think that his job would pretty much have to be a meet-and-chat-up people job of some sort -- so somebody will know for sure if he's doing it, and if anything tainted should turn up, they're likely to talk, loyal conservatives or no. I just don't see them hiring Josh for a desk job writing or researching or strategizing or the like. He doesn't have the skills.) However, I completely agree with you about the long long severance package -- including good health insurance. I'm certain he got that. It's not uncommon, and, as you say, they wanted him to sign their statement and get off the premises posthaste. And he had a quite pregnant wife at the time who would need good healthcare over the next year -- they didn't want to risk a news story about her having a health crisis while being crappily insured after their coverage ended.

Well, I wasn't born an atheist. My current self came out of a pretty church-soaked background plus a lot of religious thought on my part. I studied a lot of religion in college and have a big collection of theology books! Basically, as a result of all this, a friend gave me the nickname long ago when I was working my way through all the thinking and we both were quite taken with the Merchant-Ivory movie A Room With a View.

Who knows? The Duggars may have conceded in practical terms that they need external cash infusions, but who knows what they actually conclude from that-- such as whether they actually consciously acknowledge that that means their view is unsustainable. Nevertheless, I would assume what they're doing is trying to get people to convert to the a Protestantism in their vein -- no Pope, faith not works, personal walk with Jesus, no infant baptism and so on. The key stuff they'd talk about probably wouldn't be birth control or Quiverfull, I don't think. For one thing, in Catholic country birth control already has the "unacceptable" tag. For myself, I don't fully grasp the idea of conversion. I'm a long-committed atheist. But I never try to convince other people to believe what I do. Beliefs of that magnitude are something you have to come to on your own, in my opinion, and I'm content to respect other people's beliefs and their right to hold them without a bunch of arguments from me. I respect a lot of ideas that various religions have come up with, and I don't mind acknowledging that many people get a great deal out of their faiths, just as I get a lot out of my beliefs. (I have to say it's usually agnostics who try to convert me.Over the years I've heard "You should call yourself an agnostic the way I do because you just can't be sure and 'atheist' is too arrogant!!" from tons of people anxious for ... something ... my ultimate state if I turn out to be wrong, I guess?) I do think that if, like the Duggars, you truly believe that a person's ultimate infinite fate -- and the perhaps imminent fate of the whole world, including you -- depends on as many people as possible believing exactly what you do, then you have a pretty overpowering reason to try to convert as many as you can to whatever aspects of your faith are crucial. Don't know which Jill and Derick would consider crucial, although I kind of imagine that the Quiverfull part may be for a special few who can handle it and are worthy of it, and not for everybody?

And the color just takes it to a whole other place, to me. If these dresses had been a black or a deep blue or even a deeper red or maroon, you'd get a nun vibe or an Amish vibe, but something within the realms of ordinary human experience. It's the bright bright red, to me, that takes it straight to crazy town and dystopia. It's the color of some wild medieval religious fest, but instead of having the powerful men in the blood red it's the oppressed women in their oppressive costumes that are nevertheless wearing the startling color -- is that the feeling? Something like that anyway. (either that or just seriously bad taste, I guess)

I wonder. That person's going to have to be very very brave, or very callous, so I'm not even sure how clear it is that there will be someone in there who'll do it (even though it seems logical that someone will). My friends often say to me -- You ought to write a book about your family. But I could never ever do it unless every single person involved was dead. So I think I know what it would feel like to the author -- and it would be emotionally very tough. Obviously if you were desperate for cash and your family was so famous that your book cash was guaranteed, that would obviously change the equation. And of course they might also have the added motivation of feeling they're doing a service by exposing an entire lifestyle and belief system, not just blasting a couple of rotten, nutso individuals. But even then you're burning a lot of bridges and potentially hurting a lot of people who've already been hurt. In any case, I think it'll be a while. Because the stakes are so high, whoever does it will have had to have moved on quite decisively already before they sign up with the publisher, and at this point there doesn't seem to be much sign that anybody's moved on at all. Someone could do it because they're just so callous that they don't care about the personal consequences. Don't know who that would be -- Josh comes to mind, but I may be misjudging him. Plus, he may end up wanting to depend on JB and others for his livelihood, so he couldn't do it unless he thought a book would set him up for life. I also think it would have to be somebody who had concluded that the whole philosophy and lifestyle had to be brought down -- and among the older ones, nobody gives any sign of rejecting that ... and as far as I can tell, no big-picture skeptical intelligent person has yet emerged who'd even make that logical leap. I think you're right about the in-laws. If a marriage goes south, that person will have way less at stake emotionally and in terms of relationships. .... Maybe that means they should fear Marjorie as a mate for Josiah. She's written a book already.

Phoenix62 wrote (and the quote box failed): '"How much does a trip cost? In addition to airfare, in country expenses (food, housing, transportation) are $650 for the first week and $300 for each additional week (Central America only)." 'That's a nice chunk of change for the area they are visiting. I say just give them the money, and be done with it...or, better yet, give it to Doctors Without Borders. It will be put to MUCH better use. Just my opinion. These people don't need to be preached at, for chrissake...' Yeah, I agree. The money spent getting and keeping people in the places where they "mission" could be put to a lot more productive use than airfare. And even when people "work" in the places they go to, unless they're actually providing some kind of technical expertise that simply isn't available in the "missioned" area -- and preferably also training locals in it -- I'd much rather see infrastructure and resources provided so that locals could make a living by doing the work themselves. Nobody actually needs somebody else swooping in to build you a rudimentary house. People can do that for themselves if they can afford it. It's all just "voluntourism," with a white-man's-burdeny religious slant, in my opinion, and I think most if not all voluntourism is a waste of resources. That said, I would way rather see people determined to go on missions, like the Duggars, work and tangibly help out when they get there rather than just jawbone people. But that's for their sake, not for the sake of those jawboned at or "helped." Better for Jill that she share in the work of the world and in that way get closer to locals and have a better chance of really getting to know them rather than only being on hand to convert, I think.

Horrible. And there's no way they've produced 19 kids and not one introvert. Some of them are probably on edge all the time.

I'm sure you're right about JB and M hearing closer to nothing than everything from their kids. I had an extremely intrusive family who actually did try to find out everything, and the result was that I told them nothing that was true. Nevertheless, even though they knew nothing -- or at least nothing that they would have learned by my telling them -- just the fact that they believed they should know everything was extremely inhibiting and anxiety-producing to me. And so it is, I expect, to at least some of the Duggar kids. Regardless of what they know, the atmosphere is one of intrusiveness and disrespect, I'd bet. It's certainly an atmosphere of distrust. Some of the Duggar kids keep sweet and accept this as theologically justified, it seems, but I'd be surprised if they all do, and I'd be surprised if the ostensibly sweet ones don't have some anxieties from it boiling underneath.

Thanks. Didn't intend to age her before her time.

Thanks for the sleuthing. I wonder if they got the ill-made dresses that Jana did before she figured out the pattern. heh As I recall, nothing in 2002 looked like that.

This is my favorite: Failure to Act "The Day You Hear It" Hoping that problems will go away and therefore not investigating and dealing with a matter on the day that is comes to light. I wish he were capable of understanding irony and learning from it. But, alas ....

New rule: Never babysit for a couple who makes you wear the same uniform their umpteen daughters are wearing. ETA: And their mother. Aaagh.

Approximately. Jim Bob's political ambitions had to play a huge role in the way it was all handled, I think. Depressing scenario. Kids getting ground up between the wheels of an adult's (I use the term loosely) ambition. Even more sickening because it's the ambition of an adult who was proclaiming he'd bring morals back to politics and dedicate himself to the welfare of children and families. Right. Same way he dedicated himself to the welfare of the elderly. .... Old familiar story, of course, and JB isn't the only one. But disgusting all the same, in my opinion.

He was planning a visit to Sweden. Olla.

Wow. A "Worst Person in the World" picture, times four.