Dec. 12, 2011

“(In 1989) when the Breezy Point Day School in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, was subjected to an elaborate skein of charges of satanic and ritualistic sex abuse (District Attorney Alan) Rubenstein mounted an immediate, aggressive investigation of the evidence supporting each allegation.

“He took up the rug at the school where rabbits were alleged to have been ritually sacrificed and sent it to (an independent toxicology) lab for analysis; no rabbit blood was found.

“He sifted the school sandbox for evidence of allegedly sacrificed and mutilated animals; no traces were found.

“He had the children alleged to have been raped and beaten interviewed apart from their frenzied parents and without the assistance of the ubiquitous (Roland) Summit-trained ‘sex therapists;’ none were found to have been abused.

“One of the child ‘victims,’ whose videotaped ‘disclosure’ was key to the original allegations, actually objected to being transferred to another school, claiming she ‘liked Breezy Point.’

“Rubenstein firmly resisted hysterical parents and the public clamor for arrests. As a result of his courage and integrity, and his thorough, timely and scientific investigations, all charges of abuse at Breezy Point quickly evaporated.”

– From “Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom” by Raymond J. Lawrence (2007)

Striking, isn’t it, to see the prosecutor in a day-care abuse case say “Wait just a minute, let’s check this out” rather than falling all over himself to round up a coffle of suspects.

Later this week I’ll be checking in with Doug Wiik, owner of Breezy Point and a key member of the Committee for Support of the Edenton Seven, and with former District Attorney Rubenstein.

Nov. 5, 2012

“When five-year-old Allison’s parents begin to see a change in her behavior at home, they seek professional help for her. They find that Allison and other children have been ritually abused at a day care center. Thus begins Allison’s recovery….”

– From “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy: A Child’s Book about Satanic Ritual Abuse” by Doris Sanford  (1990)

Who knows how many lucky youngsters found this colorfully illustrated hardback under the Christmas tree? (More than 7,000 copies made it into print.)

Although Sanford credits herself with “months of intensive research into the nature and practice of satanic ritual abuse,” her dedication to “Patti Hills, Survivor…. We honor you, Patti! ” suggests she relied heavily on a Portland, Oregon, therapist “who claims to be… a witness to human sacrifice” (Willamette Week, Oct. 22, 1997). Also consulting: Lauren Stratford, author of the discredited baby-breeder memoir “Satan’s Underground.”

In 1993, “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy” helped advance a notorious ritual-abuse case against a Spring Valley, Calif., child-care volunteer. The mother of one of Dale Akiki’s supposed victims admitted under cross-examination that she had read the book to her daughter, and it likely made the rounds of other parents. (After more than two years behind bars and a seven-month trial, Akiki was found not guilty of all charges.)

Eventually, however, “Don’t Make Me Go Back, Mommy” would become a target of appropriate (and sometimes hilarious) ridicule.

– Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks/AP via Danbury News-Times

Dec. 18, 2012

The hands-off-my-guns community is hunkering down, as it did after Columbine, after Tucson, after Aurora, confidently waiting for the storm of outrage to pass.

Just curious: If 20 dead children aren’t enough to start the change process, how many would it take? 100? 500?

But those questions assume that SOME number, however outrageous, would at last open a tiny crack in the massive resistance of the gun lobby.

In reality, no such number exists.

– Lew Powell

July 27, 2012

“It has always intrigued me that, in a culture that is relentlessly self-critical… the pre-school hysteria and witch-hunts of the 1980s and ’90s (have) attracted little, if any, notice among historians and social analysts.

“Which is odd: We moderns like to think that we are exempt from some of the baser instincts of human nature, but hysteria, mob rule, and spectral fears are still very much with us.

“Moreover, in this instance, the American judicial system failed systematically, blighting hundreds of lives: Many more genuinely innocent people went to prison, and for longer terms, than any Communist during the McCarthy era.”

– From “Remember McMartin” by Philip Terzian in the Weekly Standard (Nov. 11, 2011)