by Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon--I loved the sound of my children's voices so much that I saved the messages that they left for me on my answering machine. About a year and a half after my kids left these messages, they disappeared into Utah.
This is the first part in a series of movies I am producing to document the lives of my children before their abduction.
I'm limited to the photos, videos and audio recordings that I had before they disappeared. The last year that I saw a school photo of any of my children was 1995.
The people who abducted my children and concealed them in Utah did everything they could to destroy every emotional link between my children and I.
That is typically what happens in parental and family abductions. The emotional abuse led to long years of isolation and suffering and ultimately to the death of my son Aaron Cruz.
My children's abductors claimed that my children didn't love me and that there was no emotional bond between us. You can hear the love in their voices and as a parent you can gauge for yourself how damaging this experience was--and is--for them.
My children were taken in a Mormon shunning that continues to this very day. My former wife joined the Mormon church about six years into our marriage and became a 100% zealot nearly overnight. Nothing else mattered to her.
The shunning began after I left her church, was taken to the point where my children vanished in a kidnapping organized by Mormons in three states: Oregon, Washington and Utah.
My children were isolated in remote Mormon enclaves and forced to renounce me, my family and the lives you hear on the tape.
Aaron died a needless, preventable death. All he needed was decent medical care, some love without strings attached, and permission to not be forced into Mormonism like my other children were. Aaron resisted the pressure and suffered the most damage.
I should say that Aaron was the most visibly damaged, because I have little information to gauge the damage that my other children suffered.
The innocent children whose voices you hear suffered the loss of their father, were not permitted to mourn the loss, and were forced to adopt whatever stories were invented to suit the needs of the Mormons who helped their mother get away with a kidnapping.
This group of Mormon criminals included Chris and Kory Wright, David Holliday, Evelyn Taylor, Cindy Anderson, Tony and Connie Micheletti, and Steve Nielson, who as my children's second step dad slapped them around throughout his marriage to my ex-wife, who now goes by the name Gina Foulk.
Under the accords of the Geneva Convention, that behavior would be classified as torture.
I've written extensively about the abduction of my children, of the Cruz family. I've testified before Senate and House Committees and before the 2004 Interim Task Force on Parental and Family Abductions. I led Senator Avel Gordly's workgroup on parental and family abductions and saw Senate Bill 1041 "Aaron's Law", named for my beautiful boy who died in Utah in 2005, passed into law.
I hope to see Aaron's Law enacted nationwide.
Here's the link to Stolen Voices, pt 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxiqIti0BmI
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Chris Dudley reveals his 26-Point Plan, a true measure of cluelessness
by Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon--Oregon GOP candidate for Governor Chris Dudley revealed more than his 26-Point "Plan to Control Spending and Reform Government" yesterday.
He put in writing a true measure of how poorly prepared both he and his campaign staff are to deal with the state's problems and issues.
More a list of dreams and statements of ideology in numbered paragraphs than an actual plan, the document does not describe either how Dudley will accomplish his goals or how he will pay for what he proposes.
Where actual cost information would be provided in an actual plan, Dudley only provides additional rhetoric.
For example, he continues to claim that he will privatize the OLCC "without sacrificing existing revenue streams" but fails to explain how he "plans" to get that done. A real plan would identify those revenue streams and describe why they are important and how they would be maintained under Dudley.
Dudley's website states that he plans to put a fee on liquor sales and distribution, but that fact is completely omitted from his 26-pointer. A real plan would include projections on how big that fee is going to be, where it will be collected and from whom.
One of Dudley's key "new ideas" in his plan is that "Oregon's two-year biennial budgets should be built based upon forecasted revenues."
Two points to make here: (1) Oregon's budgets are already built based on the revenue forecasts. That's why the forecast reports are so crucial, especially the May forecast. That's why everyone with an interest in how the state budgets its resources pays close attention to the reports; and (2) "Biennial" means "two-year." Look it up!
Dudley's 26-Point Plan runs aground right at the beginning, with Point #1.
Dudley wants to create a host of new positions, commissions and committees, beginning with his desire to create a new Office of Budget and Management in the Governor's Office, easily a multi-million dollar budget item itself, and staff these offices with his political appointees.
The work of the Dudley Budget Team, other than to duplicate non-partisan work already performed by the legislative revenue and fiscal offices, will be to explain the budget to Dudley.
At the same time that Dudley claims he will attract top talent to work in his much-enlarged Governor's Office, it is worth noting that Dudley Plan Points 7, 8 and 9 are going to be hard news for their pay and benefits. State workers are already taking unpaid furlough days.
In Point # 5, Dudley plans to ask Oregon voters to change the Constitution to give him and any future Governors more power. Hahahahah hahaha hahahahah....
Point # 6 is simply ludicrous: "Legislators lack an independent evaluation of a law's ability to create costs or regulatory burdens on the private sector." Actually, the private sector, through its lobbyists, provides the information most important to them to the legislators directly, and those arguments are heard in televised committee hearings.
In Dudley's plan, legislators are going to get "an independent evaluation" from his political appointees, at public expense, with PERS benefits.
In a nutshell, there are fewer than 26 actual points in the Dudley plan, and the plan's success depends on these three:
(1) Dudley drastically enlarging the Governor's Office staff with new positions, commissions and committees with no discussion at all of how much they will cost or how he will pay for them; and
(2) Events that are already occurring; or
(3) Like amending the Constitution to grant this rookie more power than the governor's office already has, are impossible.
Dudley's 26-Pointer makes the point most clearly that both he and his team lack the most basic understanding of Oregon's system of government, and that they believe that replacing it with an imaginary system is a real solution, and it makes that point again and again.
Portland, Oregon--Oregon GOP candidate for Governor Chris Dudley revealed more than his 26-Point "Plan to Control Spending and Reform Government" yesterday.
He put in writing a true measure of how poorly prepared both he and his campaign staff are to deal with the state's problems and issues.
More a list of dreams and statements of ideology in numbered paragraphs than an actual plan, the document does not describe either how Dudley will accomplish his goals or how he will pay for what he proposes.
Where actual cost information would be provided in an actual plan, Dudley only provides additional rhetoric.
For example, he continues to claim that he will privatize the OLCC "without sacrificing existing revenue streams" but fails to explain how he "plans" to get that done. A real plan would identify those revenue streams and describe why they are important and how they would be maintained under Dudley.
Dudley's website states that he plans to put a fee on liquor sales and distribution, but that fact is completely omitted from his 26-pointer. A real plan would include projections on how big that fee is going to be, where it will be collected and from whom.
One of Dudley's key "new ideas" in his plan is that "Oregon's two-year biennial budgets should be built based upon forecasted revenues."
Two points to make here: (1) Oregon's budgets are already built based on the revenue forecasts. That's why the forecast reports are so crucial, especially the May forecast. That's why everyone with an interest in how the state budgets its resources pays close attention to the reports; and (2) "Biennial" means "two-year." Look it up!
Dudley's 26-Point Plan runs aground right at the beginning, with Point #1.
Dudley wants to create a host of new positions, commissions and committees, beginning with his desire to create a new Office of Budget and Management in the Governor's Office, easily a multi-million dollar budget item itself, and staff these offices with his political appointees.
The work of the Dudley Budget Team, other than to duplicate non-partisan work already performed by the legislative revenue and fiscal offices, will be to explain the budget to Dudley.
At the same time that Dudley claims he will attract top talent to work in his much-enlarged Governor's Office, it is worth noting that Dudley Plan Points 7, 8 and 9 are going to be hard news for their pay and benefits. State workers are already taking unpaid furlough days.
In Point # 5, Dudley plans to ask Oregon voters to change the Constitution to give him and any future Governors more power. Hahahahah hahaha hahahahah....
Point # 6 is simply ludicrous: "Legislators lack an independent evaluation of a law's ability to create costs or regulatory burdens on the private sector." Actually, the private sector, through its lobbyists, provides the information most important to them to the legislators directly, and those arguments are heard in televised committee hearings.
In Dudley's plan, legislators are going to get "an independent evaluation" from his political appointees, at public expense, with PERS benefits.
In a nutshell, there are fewer than 26 actual points in the Dudley plan, and the plan's success depends on these three:
(1) Dudley drastically enlarging the Governor's Office staff with new positions, commissions and committees with no discussion at all of how much they will cost or how he will pay for them; and
(2) Events that are already occurring; or
(3) Like amending the Constitution to grant this rookie more power than the governor's office already has, are impossible.
Dudley's 26-Pointer makes the point most clearly that both he and his team lack the most basic understanding of Oregon's system of government, and that they believe that replacing it with an imaginary system is a real solution, and it makes that point again and again.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Parental Abduction Wisdom, pt 10: A Deliberate, Particular Cruelty
by Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon--
Abducting a child is an act of deliberate cruelty, and it is an act of particular cruelty in cases where the child is abducted by a parent, by any of the child’s family members, or by persons known to the child or the child’s family.
Stranger abductions are in a category all their own, as there is no expectation that the stranger will feel any sense of empathy for the suffering child, and that the act will be merciless is a foregone conclusion. A stranger abduction nearly always leads directly to the torture and murder of the child. The cruelty is both deliberate and expected.
Parental and family abductions, and those that involve other persons known to the victims, however, are crimes that are both deliberate and particularly cruel, because the perpetrators possess certain knowledge that they going to cause the child to suffer the loss of a parent, and they very deliberately cause that harm to take place.
Abducted children will be told--and often convinced, because the kidnappers control all access to the child--that a beloved parent is dead, or no longer loves them, and they willingly put the child through that suffering.
Their cruelty is both deliberate and particular. They know that the child is suffering a great tragedy and they know that they are its cause. Yet they will profess that they love the abducted child.
In the case of the abduction of the four Cruz children, for example, their abductors deliberately and knowingly caused the children to suffer the loss of their father.
While every abduction has its own causes and effects, some common motivators are rage, jealousy, and religious fervor. All of these factors were present in the abduction of my four children, none more important than religious fervor.
After our divorce, an Order for Joint Custody protected my children and made their lives orderly and secure for five years.
Then, abruptly, more than 14 years ago, while being divorced by her third husband, my former wife disappeared with our four children, taking them on a hellish journey to a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah, beginning with the home of Mormon zealots Chris and Kory Wright, and on through a gauntlet of three Mormon stepdads in three states. A deliberate, particular cruelty.
Gina Micheletti...Gina Cruz...Gina Micheletti...Gina Frischknecht...Gina Micheletti...Gina Nielson...Gina Micheletti...Gina Foulk (now living in El Dorado Hills, California)....
Despite the Order for Joint Custody, once they disappeared into theocratic Utah, I never saw so much as a school picture of any of my children ever again.
If they do exist, those photographs would show children putting on brave faces to please those who now controlled their lives, but in their eyes and half smiles you would see terrible, completely needless suffering....
Parents and family members who abduct children generally don’t want to murder the child, but they do want to murder the child’s relationship with and memory of the parent they are intending to kill.
They will focus their energies on severing every physical link and destroying every emotional connection that the abducted child has with the other parent.
It is a deliberate, particular cruelty....
Portland, Oregon--
Abducting a child is an act of deliberate cruelty, and it is an act of particular cruelty in cases where the child is abducted by a parent, by any of the child’s family members, or by persons known to the child or the child’s family.
Stranger abductions are in a category all their own, as there is no expectation that the stranger will feel any sense of empathy for the suffering child, and that the act will be merciless is a foregone conclusion. A stranger abduction nearly always leads directly to the torture and murder of the child. The cruelty is both deliberate and expected.
Parental and family abductions, and those that involve other persons known to the victims, however, are crimes that are both deliberate and particularly cruel, because the perpetrators possess certain knowledge that they going to cause the child to suffer the loss of a parent, and they very deliberately cause that harm to take place.
Abducted children will be told--and often convinced, because the kidnappers control all access to the child--that a beloved parent is dead, or no longer loves them, and they willingly put the child through that suffering.
Their cruelty is both deliberate and particular. They know that the child is suffering a great tragedy and they know that they are its cause. Yet they will profess that they love the abducted child.
In the case of the abduction of the four Cruz children, for example, their abductors deliberately and knowingly caused the children to suffer the loss of their father.
While every abduction has its own causes and effects, some common motivators are rage, jealousy, and religious fervor. All of these factors were present in the abduction of my four children, none more important than religious fervor.
After our divorce, an Order for Joint Custody protected my children and made their lives orderly and secure for five years.
Then, abruptly, more than 14 years ago, while being divorced by her third husband, my former wife disappeared with our four children, taking them on a hellish journey to a series of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah, beginning with the home of Mormon zealots Chris and Kory Wright, and on through a gauntlet of three Mormon stepdads in three states. A deliberate, particular cruelty.
Gina Micheletti...Gina Cruz...Gina Micheletti...Gina Frischknecht...Gina Micheletti...Gina Nielson...Gina Micheletti...Gina Foulk (now living in El Dorado Hills, California)....
Despite the Order for Joint Custody, once they disappeared into theocratic Utah, I never saw so much as a school picture of any of my children ever again.
If they do exist, those photographs would show children putting on brave faces to please those who now controlled their lives, but in their eyes and half smiles you would see terrible, completely needless suffering....
Parents and family members who abduct children generally don’t want to murder the child, but they do want to murder the child’s relationship with and memory of the parent they are intending to kill.
They will focus their energies on severing every physical link and destroying every emotional connection that the abducted child has with the other parent.
It is a deliberate, particular cruelty....
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Fourteen years after four children vanish from Oregon--someone notices!
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon—
Fourteen years after my four children vanished from Oregon, and five years after the death of my son, Aaron Cruz, and the passage of Oregon’s landmark anti-kidnapping Senate Bill 1041, Aaron’s Law, named in his honor, the abduction of 7-year-old Kyron Horman has stirred up some media interest in the issue of children abducted by family members and persons known to the victims.
Radio host Diane Dennis made the Aarons Law media breakthrough on the topic when she interviewed me yesterday, July 31, 2010 on her Family Focus 101 program on KUIK 1360 AM. The link to the interview is below.
Diane, you are the first to take an interest! Thank you!
Later on the same day, one of the Portland TV stations broke the news (!) that, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 2,000 US children are reported missing every day! That may be news to a lot of people, but not to those of us who have suffered the disappearance of a child, or to the child victims themselves, who grow in number every day.
The National Center and the US Department of Justice has put the figure of children abducted by their own parents, family members or persons known to the victims at more than 200,000 a year, every year, for more than a decade now.
Either way, it adds up to a lot of traumatized and seriously abused children, like my own, whose kidnapping was first reported after they vanished without a trace on February 12, 1996.
The fact is that, in sheer numbers, the most dangerous kidnappers are a child’s own parents, and this is news only if you haven’t been paying attention to the issue.
Parental and family abductions can be divided into two categories: those involving a single perpetrator, and those that involve two or more perpetrators, acting together to carry out a criminal act and any subsequent criminal acts.
Aarons Law makes Oregon the only state in the nation where abducting a child creates a civil cause of action. This means, in layman’s terms, that only in Oregon can you hold a person financially accountable for abducting your child.
Practically speaking, if the whereabouts of your child and the child’s kidnapper(s) is unknown, there’s little that you can do but pray that local law enforcement doesn’t give up (they usually don’t even get started).
If you become aware, however, that the kidnapper(s) had help, had associates, had others providing logistical, financial or planning support, and you can identify them and locate them, then Aaron’s Law is your answer.
The criminal custodial interference and kidnapping statutes require evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” and unanimous agreement by a jury for a conviction. That is far too often a bar too high for the prosecution to get over, and thus many investigations end right there, even though the children remain kidnapped.
Aaron’s Law, however, creates a civil cause of action, and a judgement can be reached in court with a lower standard, by showing “by a preponderance of the evidence” that a person did in fact participate in the criminal taking, enticing and keeping of a child from the child’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid order for joint custody.
I know that if Aaron’s Law had been on the books in 1995, the people who planned and executed the abduction of my children, who committed those crimes and the crimes that followed, would have never gotten involved in the first place.
They would have known that I would never give up on my children, and that I would have sued them for everything they could ever hope to own, for the damage and trauma they inflicted on my children, on my family and on me.
That fact would have kept my children safe in their homes, among their family and friends, growing up and living normal lives, instead of lives lived in concealment in a succession of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah, lives that led to the death of my son Aaron.
Here are some easy examples:
After my children disappeared, mail addressed to them at their mother’s last address was not forwarded to Utah, where they were being concealed. The kidnappers had thought about how forwarded mail might lead to discovery, and my children’s mail was actually being forwarded to an address in Hillsboro, Oregon, to a person named Evelyn Taylor, Mormon Relief Society President at the time of the abduction.
I later learned that it is not illegal to receive mail intended for abducted children, but Evelyn Taylor was filthy beyond her eyebrows in enticing my children out of their homes and on the road to Utah. She would have faced a lawsuit filed under Aaron’s Law had the statute been on the books, and a lot of subsequent embarrassment, probably loss of standing in her church. That eventuality would have had a strong deterrent effect.
I learned that my children’s first stop on their circuitous, hidden journey to Utah was at the home of Tony and Connie Micheletti near Salem, my former wife’s impotent brother and sister-in-law. It was here, on February 12, 1996, that my children first learned that they were being moved to Utah.
Tony and Connie Micheletti would have been looking at a lawsuit under Aaron’s Law, had the right to file a civil suit for the abduction of a child been on the books back then, and with that the leverage to force information as to the whereabouts of my children out of them. I would have seized their rancid, reeking, cat-filth-infused house and burned it to the ground.
The next example of how Aaron’s Law would have deterred the abduction of my children is that of Kory and Chris Wright, Mormon zealots and friends of my ex-wife’s and the principal planners of the kidnapping. The Wrights live in Vancouver now, but at the time of the abduction they lived in a remote area in the mountains east of Ogden, Utah.
The first place that my children were concealed in Utah was at the home of Chris and Kory Wright. These stupid, self-absorbed individuals actually wrote out sworn statements describing how they welcomed my children into their home and local Mormon church congregation, where they held leadership positions.
It is a felony to take, entice or keep a child from the child’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid joint custody order. Utah and Washington statutes add the word “conceal” to the statute.
Nothing could have been simpler than to assemble “a preponderance of evidence” to show that each of these people were involved in a criminal enterprise.
For that matter, had law enforcement taken an interest in the case, it would not have been difficult to show that each of these persons were guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
You can hear what I had to say in the interview, here:
http://hillsboro.kuik.com/production/famsecrets/Family_Focus_0731.mp3
Aaron’s Law exists to act as a deterrent to non-stranger child abductions. It is not likely to be effective against stranger abductions, which take place about 100 times a year in the US.
More than 200,000 children are victims of non-stranger abductions every year, however, and Aaron’s Law can be an effective deterrent to many of those.
I hope to see the principles of Aaron’s Law applied nationwide, and that we might see that 200,000 number knocked down to zero.
Thanks again to Diane Dennis.
Portland, Oregon—
Radio host Diane Dennis made the Aarons Law media breakthrough on the topic when she interviewed me yesterday, July 31, 2010 on her Family Focus 101 program on KUIK 1360 AM. The link to the interview is below.
Diane, you are the first to take an interest! Thank you!
Later on the same day, one of the Portland TV stations broke the news (!) that, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, more than 2,000 US children are reported missing every day! That may be news to a lot of people, but not to those of us who have suffered the disappearance of a child, or to the child victims themselves, who grow in number every day.
The National Center and the US Department of Justice has put the figure of children abducted by their own parents, family members or persons known to the victims at more than 200,000 a year, every year, for more than a decade now.
Either way, it adds up to a lot of traumatized and seriously abused children, like my own, whose kidnapping was first reported after they vanished without a trace on February 12, 1996.
The fact is that, in sheer numbers, the most dangerous kidnappers are a child’s own parents, and this is news only if you haven’t been paying attention to the issue.
Parental and family abductions can be divided into two categories: those involving a single perpetrator, and those that involve two or more perpetrators, acting together to carry out a criminal act and any subsequent criminal acts.
Aarons Law makes Oregon the only state in the nation where abducting a child creates a civil cause of action. This means, in layman’s terms, that only in Oregon can you hold a person financially accountable for abducting your child.
Practically speaking, if the whereabouts of your child and the child’s kidnapper(s) is unknown, there’s little that you can do but pray that local law enforcement doesn’t give up (they usually don’t even get started).
If you become aware, however, that the kidnapper(s) had help, had associates, had others providing logistical, financial or planning support, and you can identify them and locate them, then Aaron’s Law is your answer.
The criminal custodial interference and kidnapping statutes require evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” and unanimous agreement by a jury for a conviction. That is far too often a bar too high for the prosecution to get over, and thus many investigations end right there, even though the children remain kidnapped.
Aaron’s Law, however, creates a civil cause of action, and a judgement can be reached in court with a lower standard, by showing “by a preponderance of the evidence” that a person did in fact participate in the criminal taking, enticing and keeping of a child from the child’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid order for joint custody.
I know that if Aaron’s Law had been on the books in 1995, the people who planned and executed the abduction of my children, who committed those crimes and the crimes that followed, would have never gotten involved in the first place.
They would have known that I would never give up on my children, and that I would have sued them for everything they could ever hope to own, for the damage and trauma they inflicted on my children, on my family and on me.
That fact would have kept my children safe in their homes, among their family and friends, growing up and living normal lives, instead of lives lived in concealment in a succession of remote Mormon enclaves in Utah, lives that led to the death of my son Aaron.
Here are some easy examples:
After my children disappeared, mail addressed to them at their mother’s last address was not forwarded to Utah, where they were being concealed. The kidnappers had thought about how forwarded mail might lead to discovery, and my children’s mail was actually being forwarded to an address in Hillsboro, Oregon, to a person named Evelyn Taylor, Mormon Relief Society President at the time of the abduction.
I later learned that it is not illegal to receive mail intended for abducted children, but Evelyn Taylor was filthy beyond her eyebrows in enticing my children out of their homes and on the road to Utah. She would have faced a lawsuit filed under Aaron’s Law had the statute been on the books, and a lot of subsequent embarrassment, probably loss of standing in her church. That eventuality would have had a strong deterrent effect.
I learned that my children’s first stop on their circuitous, hidden journey to Utah was at the home of Tony and Connie Micheletti near Salem, my former wife’s impotent brother and sister-in-law. It was here, on February 12, 1996, that my children first learned that they were being moved to Utah.
Tony and Connie Micheletti would have been looking at a lawsuit under Aaron’s Law, had the right to file a civil suit for the abduction of a child been on the books back then, and with that the leverage to force information as to the whereabouts of my children out of them. I would have seized their rancid, reeking, cat-filth-infused house and burned it to the ground.
The next example of how Aaron’s Law would have deterred the abduction of my children is that of Kory and Chris Wright, Mormon zealots and friends of my ex-wife’s and the principal planners of the kidnapping. The Wrights live in Vancouver now, but at the time of the abduction they lived in a remote area in the mountains east of Ogden, Utah.
The first place that my children were concealed in Utah was at the home of Chris and Kory Wright. These stupid, self-absorbed individuals actually wrote out sworn statements describing how they welcomed my children into their home and local Mormon church congregation, where they held leadership positions.
It is a felony to take, entice or keep a child from the child’s lawful custodian or in violation of a valid joint custody order. Utah and Washington statutes add the word “conceal” to the statute.
Nothing could have been simpler than to assemble “a preponderance of evidence” to show that each of these people were involved in a criminal enterprise.
For that matter, had law enforcement taken an interest in the case, it would not have been difficult to show that each of these persons were guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
You can hear what I had to say in the interview, here:
http://hillsboro.kuik.com/production/famsecrets/Family_Focus_0731.mp3
Aaron’s Law exists to act as a deterrent to non-stranger child abductions. It is not likely to be effective against stranger abductions, which take place about 100 times a year in the US.
More than 200,000 children are victims of non-stranger abductions every year, however, and Aaron’s Law can be an effective deterrent to many of those.
I hope to see the principles of Aaron’s Law applied nationwide, and that we might see that 200,000 number knocked down to zero.
Thanks again to Diane Dennis.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Kyron Horman abduction at the 8-week mark
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon—
I am feeling a great deal of empathy for the family of Kyron Horman, who spoke at a press conference today, eight weeks after their 7-year-old son was abducted.
Eight weeks after my four children disappeared from Oregon 14 years ago, my lawyer was able to obtain a PO Box number in Eden, Utah. It was our first clue to the general location of my children, somewhere in the mountains east of Ogden.
I later learned that mail was being received there, but not actually picked up by anyone, and that the letters I had been writing to my children's mother's last address were actually being forwarded to a woman in Hillsboro, a person named Evelyn Taylor.
By then, I had already learned that several people were involved in the kidnapping, that it had been in the works for months.
I learned even later that it is not illegal to receive mail intended for abducted children.
Later still, I learned that more than 200,000 US children are abducted by family members or persons known to the victims every year, and that the majority involve multiple perpetrators.
You learn these things one at a time when your children disappear.
A lot of numbness sets into your bones at the eight-week mark. The world feels completely empty.
And it stays that way.
Portland, Oregon—
I am feeling a great deal of empathy for the family of Kyron Horman, who spoke at a press conference today, eight weeks after their 7-year-old son was abducted.
Eight weeks after my four children disappeared from Oregon 14 years ago, my lawyer was able to obtain a PO Box number in Eden, Utah. It was our first clue to the general location of my children, somewhere in the mountains east of Ogden.
I later learned that mail was being received there, but not actually picked up by anyone, and that the letters I had been writing to my children's mother's last address were actually being forwarded to a woman in Hillsboro, a person named Evelyn Taylor.
By then, I had already learned that several people were involved in the kidnapping, that it had been in the works for months.
I learned even later that it is not illegal to receive mail intended for abducted children.
Later still, I learned that more than 200,000 US children are abducted by family members or persons known to the victims every year, and that the majority involve multiple perpetrators.
You learn these things one at a time when your children disappear.
A lot of numbness sets into your bones at the eight-week mark. The world feels completely empty.
And it stays that way.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Parental abduction wisdom, pt 9: When the police figure it out
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon--
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office announced yesterday, more than 50 days after Kyron Horman disappeared, that they were now convinced that a crime had taken place in the disappearance of Kyron Horman.
While it took law enforcement more than a month to decide that the disappearance of a 7-year-old child was a criminal matter, Kyron's family knew it right away.
When your child disappears, like mine did 14 years ago, you know right away that a crime has been and is being committed. Sometimes the police never figure it out….
Most of us who are parents knew by the end of the first day Kyron went missing that a crime had been committed, somewhere, somehow, by someone.
This child was not lost, had not wandered off on his own, this child had been taken, whether by a stranger or by a person known to the child, we did not know, but what we knew for certain was that a crime was being committed against this child and against this child’s family.
ALL of us who are parents of kidnapped children, parents of children who have vanished with or without a trace, we knew right away.
The police needed more than a month to come to that conclusion, in a case as obvious as Kyron Horman's.
They are MUCH slower when the issues aren't so clear-cut, like when the children have vanished along with a parent or family member.
The police will take reports of missing children and there’s a filing system for those reports, where they usually wind up.
But if a family member, if a parent is gone with the child(ren), then local law enforcement rarely forwards the report on to the Oregon State Police, which explains why so few abducted children are ever listed on the OSP website, which also explains why the Sheriff’s Office is unaware of any other children missing in Oregon “that meet the criteria.”
Many of those children are gone forever.
And that’s a crime, the same crime that began on the day each child disappeared, a continuing crime, crimes with beginnings but no end.
Try to tell them that when your child disappears, you'll see....
Portland, Oregon--
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office announced yesterday, more than 50 days after Kyron Horman disappeared, that they were now convinced that a crime had taken place in the disappearance of Kyron Horman.
While it took law enforcement more than a month to decide that the disappearance of a 7-year-old child was a criminal matter, Kyron's family knew it right away.
When your child disappears, like mine did 14 years ago, you know right away that a crime has been and is being committed. Sometimes the police never figure it out….
Most of us who are parents knew by the end of the first day Kyron went missing that a crime had been committed, somewhere, somehow, by someone.
This child was not lost, had not wandered off on his own, this child had been taken, whether by a stranger or by a person known to the child, we did not know, but what we knew for certain was that a crime was being committed against this child and against this child’s family.
ALL of us who are parents of kidnapped children, parents of children who have vanished with or without a trace, we knew right away.
The police needed more than a month to come to that conclusion, in a case as obvious as Kyron Horman's.
They are MUCH slower when the issues aren't so clear-cut, like when the children have vanished along with a parent or family member.
The police will take reports of missing children and there’s a filing system for those reports, where they usually wind up.
But if a family member, if a parent is gone with the child(ren), then local law enforcement rarely forwards the report on to the Oregon State Police, which explains why so few abducted children are ever listed on the OSP website, which also explains why the Sheriff’s Office is unaware of any other children missing in Oregon “that meet the criteria.”
Many of those children are gone forever.
And that’s a crime, the same crime that began on the day each child disappeared, a continuing crime, crimes with beginnings but no end.
Try to tell them that when your child disappears, you'll see....
Monday, July 26, 2010
Jim Pepper Hour of Power on KBOO 90.7FM
Portland, Oregon—Nick Gefroh will host the Jim Pepper Hour of Power from noon until 2:00 on Wednesday July 28.
Here’s the link for live streaming audio:
http://kboo.fm/
I will bring my collection of rare Jim Pepper recordings and Nick will bring his, and you’re right, the show IS two hours long! It won't be long enough! You'll see….
Here’s the link for live streaming audio:
http://kboo.fm/
I will bring my collection of rare Jim Pepper recordings and Nick will bring his, and you’re right, the show IS two hours long! It won't be long enough! You'll see….
Friday, July 09, 2010
Parental abduction wisdom, pt 8: To murder the soul
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon—
Former Portland police detective C.W. Jensen recently gave his opinion regarding the presumptive motive for the abduction of Kyron Horman:
“If you are really, really angry at someone, you can kill them, or you can kill their soul by taking their child away, and that’s what I’m afraid happened here.”
Every year, more than 200,000 US children are abducted by family members or persons known to the victims. The crime is horrific, but only a tiny percentage receive any attention by the media, the public or law enforcement.
In all of these cases, the abductors intend to murder the soul of the victim parent by causing their child to disappear, and are willing to murder the soul of the child victim as collateral damage.
High-conflict custody battles are common; parents use their children as weapons in far too many cases, but the abduction of a child is indeed tantamount to murder.
When my four children disappeared on February 12, 1996, 14 years ago, kidnapped by my former wife and a group of Mormon officials in three states, no one was interested. Four children vanished. Zero interest. Ho hum.
My former wife wanted to murder my soul, and was willing to put our children through hell to do so; the Mormons that Kory and Chris Wright organized to carry out the abduction wanted to re-engineer my children’s personalities, at a cost to my family that was irrelevant to them, and through a process that led to the death of my son Aaron Cruz.
Those Mormons included Evelyn Taylor and Mormon Bishop David Holliday in Washington County, Mormon Bishop Donald Taylor in Clark County and Utah resident Steve Nielson, who would become my former wife’s fourth husband, who I would later learn slapped my children around throughout their marriage.
Retired Portland police commander Cliff Madison, interviewed today about the Kyron Horman case, made a comment that resonated with my experience, referring to the revelation that Terri Horman, Kyron’s stepmom, might be involved in the 7-year-old’s disappearance:
“They’ve just been hit with a big right hook, because all of a sudden the possibility of someone within the family being involved. It is a shock, because we all refuse to believe that until it is thrown in our faces.”
It is that refusal to believe, on the part of law enforcement, the media and the public, on the part of the courts, that refusal to believe that a family member would kidnap a beautiful child, that stands in the way of recovery and of achieving justice in many, many cases.
That refusal to believe that a family member would do such a thing causes the wheels to turn slowly, if at all.
In most cases, the family is entirely on its own. No cops, no detectives, no media, no public outcry…ho hum….
In the months and years that followed the disappearance of my children, I nearly died from shock, from grief, from bereavement, from depression and from suicide, when I had run out of hope and was overwhelmed by the pain.
My mother died four years after the abduction began, without seeing or hearing from her grandchildren again. That fact alone speaks to the character of the people involved in the abduction.
Remember that kidnappings are continuing crimes, crimes with a beginning but no end….
The abduction of Kyron Horman has thrown the fact in our faces, that a person in a trust relationship with a child, a family member, could inflict harm on this scale, and law enforcement, the public and even the media are getting involved.
There was a time when they could have expended just a little bit of energy and saved my family, could have saved Aaron’s life….
Now there is Aaron’s Law on the Oregon books, soon to be modeled in other states, and with it a drive to end parental and family abductions in this country.
I hope that they find some time to take an interest in that, too.
Portland, Oregon—
Former Portland police detective C.W. Jensen recently gave his opinion regarding the presumptive motive for the abduction of Kyron Horman:
“If you are really, really angry at someone, you can kill them, or you can kill their soul by taking their child away, and that’s what I’m afraid happened here.”
Every year, more than 200,000 US children are abducted by family members or persons known to the victims. The crime is horrific, but only a tiny percentage receive any attention by the media, the public or law enforcement.
In all of these cases, the abductors intend to murder the soul of the victim parent by causing their child to disappear, and are willing to murder the soul of the child victim as collateral damage.
High-conflict custody battles are common; parents use their children as weapons in far too many cases, but the abduction of a child is indeed tantamount to murder.
When my four children disappeared on February 12, 1996, 14 years ago, kidnapped by my former wife and a group of Mormon officials in three states, no one was interested. Four children vanished. Zero interest. Ho hum.
My former wife wanted to murder my soul, and was willing to put our children through hell to do so; the Mormons that Kory and Chris Wright organized to carry out the abduction wanted to re-engineer my children’s personalities, at a cost to my family that was irrelevant to them, and through a process that led to the death of my son Aaron Cruz.
Those Mormons included Evelyn Taylor and Mormon Bishop David Holliday in Washington County, Mormon Bishop Donald Taylor in Clark County and Utah resident Steve Nielson, who would become my former wife’s fourth husband, who I would later learn slapped my children around throughout their marriage.
Retired Portland police commander Cliff Madison, interviewed today about the Kyron Horman case, made a comment that resonated with my experience, referring to the revelation that Terri Horman, Kyron’s stepmom, might be involved in the 7-year-old’s disappearance:
“They’ve just been hit with a big right hook, because all of a sudden the possibility of someone within the family being involved. It is a shock, because we all refuse to believe that until it is thrown in our faces.”
It is that refusal to believe, on the part of law enforcement, the media and the public, on the part of the courts, that refusal to believe that a family member would kidnap a beautiful child, that stands in the way of recovery and of achieving justice in many, many cases.
That refusal to believe that a family member would do such a thing causes the wheels to turn slowly, if at all.
In most cases, the family is entirely on its own. No cops, no detectives, no media, no public outcry…ho hum….
In the months and years that followed the disappearance of my children, I nearly died from shock, from grief, from bereavement, from depression and from suicide, when I had run out of hope and was overwhelmed by the pain.
My mother died four years after the abduction began, without seeing or hearing from her grandchildren again. That fact alone speaks to the character of the people involved in the abduction.
Remember that kidnappings are continuing crimes, crimes with a beginning but no end….
The abduction of Kyron Horman has thrown the fact in our faces, that a person in a trust relationship with a child, a family member, could inflict harm on this scale, and law enforcement, the public and even the media are getting involved.
There was a time when they could have expended just a little bit of energy and saved my family, could have saved Aaron’s life….
Now there is Aaron’s Law on the Oregon books, soon to be modeled in other states, and with it a drive to end parental and family abductions in this country.
I hope that they find some time to take an interest in that, too.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Parental abduction wisdom, pt 7: Complicated Grief and a Continuing Crime
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon—
I began the Parental Abduction Wisdom series in 2009, but the subject was so painful that I had to step back after posting the sixth installment, “The Little Girl in the Blue Dress”, nearly a year ago.
Kidnappings are continuing crimes, however, and the damage to the Cruz family continues to mount with the passage of every minute of every day.
The present case involving the disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman illustrates the concept of a continuing crime very clearly: the public generally understands that this child is just as kidnapped today as he was when he disappeared several weeks ago. The crime continues….
My experience, as the victim of a parental, family and Mormon kidnapping, has been entirely different. Few have understood the continuing nature of the crime, many have wondered at why I haven’t let the crime (and my children) go, and some have expressed frustration that I haven’t “moved on.”
I want to note here that each of my critics can pick up the phone and speak with their living children any time that they want to…and that none have experienced the disappearance of their child….
Before I saw the Oregonian article linked below, I had never heard of "complicated grief syndrome", but I realize that it attaches to cases of child abduction, like mine, which began with the abduction of my four children in a Mormon kidnapping.
Unlike deaths, time and aging bring no closure to kidnapping victims. There is no "coming to peace with it." Only the mending of the relationships can bring closure.
Kidnappings are "continuing crimes", meaning that the crime has a beginning but no end, not before the victims are reunited and the kidnappers see justice served.
I want Mormon kidnappers Kory and Chris Wright in particular to take notice of that last statement. The crime has no end. Justice…will…be…served!
So long as people believe that they will get away with abducting a child, they will do so. In the case of Mormon zealots like the Wrights, they will relish pulling off a child abduction, if the purpose is to absorb the child into their belief system.
More on this later.
I am reviving the Parental Abduction Wisdom series with this post. There is no end in sight.
Here is an excerpt from the Oregonian article on Complicated Grief Syndrome:
“We are built to love, biologically programmed to attach. To lose that relationship, as everyone does, is to meet sorrow.
“Early in grief, humans yearn for the one who died, until we recognize that search is futile. Psychiatrist M. Katherine Shear says this transformation occurs in the brain circuitry and we eventually come to peace. ‘Death is a part of life and we have the mechanisms to come to terms with it,’ says the Columbia University professor.
“But in the 1990s, Shear and other researchers realized that about 15 percent of the bereaved suffer ‘complicated grief,’ stuck in a loop of despair. Their longing for the loved one overcomes all other desires. They either avoid any mention of the dead or become totally preoccupied. They daydream about being together and have suicidal thoughts. Brain imaging shows their reactions differ from people who progress through the grieving process. Researchers want complicated-grief disorder and its treatment included in the 2012 American Psychiatric Association diagnostic manual.
“No one tracks how losing a young, healthy child in war can push parents and other survivors to suicide. Yet, complicated grief almost exclusively occurs after the loss of a person's closest, most rewarding relationships. Losing a beloved child is one of the most obvious risks, and losing an only child, greater still.
"’Debra wanted to be with Michael,’ George says, ‘Wherever he was.’"
The complete article is titled: " Measures of Sacrifice: Answering the call to military binds a patriotic Oregon family", here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2010/07/measures_of_sacrifice_answerin.html
My heart goes out to this family.
Portland, Oregon—
I began the Parental Abduction Wisdom series in 2009, but the subject was so painful that I had to step back after posting the sixth installment, “The Little Girl in the Blue Dress”, nearly a year ago.
Kidnappings are continuing crimes, however, and the damage to the Cruz family continues to mount with the passage of every minute of every day.
The present case involving the disappearance of 7-year-old Kyron Horman illustrates the concept of a continuing crime very clearly: the public generally understands that this child is just as kidnapped today as he was when he disappeared several weeks ago. The crime continues….
My experience, as the victim of a parental, family and Mormon kidnapping, has been entirely different. Few have understood the continuing nature of the crime, many have wondered at why I haven’t let the crime (and my children) go, and some have expressed frustration that I haven’t “moved on.”
I want to note here that each of my critics can pick up the phone and speak with their living children any time that they want to…and that none have experienced the disappearance of their child….
Before I saw the Oregonian article linked below, I had never heard of "complicated grief syndrome", but I realize that it attaches to cases of child abduction, like mine, which began with the abduction of my four children in a Mormon kidnapping.
Unlike deaths, time and aging bring no closure to kidnapping victims. There is no "coming to peace with it." Only the mending of the relationships can bring closure.
Kidnappings are "continuing crimes", meaning that the crime has a beginning but no end, not before the victims are reunited and the kidnappers see justice served.
I want Mormon kidnappers Kory and Chris Wright in particular to take notice of that last statement. The crime has no end. Justice…will…be…served!
So long as people believe that they will get away with abducting a child, they will do so. In the case of Mormon zealots like the Wrights, they will relish pulling off a child abduction, if the purpose is to absorb the child into their belief system.
I am reviving the Parental Abduction Wisdom series with this post. There is no end in sight.
Here is an excerpt from the Oregonian article on Complicated Grief Syndrome:
“We are built to love, biologically programmed to attach. To lose that relationship, as everyone does, is to meet sorrow.
“Early in grief, humans yearn for the one who died, until we recognize that search is futile. Psychiatrist M. Katherine Shear says this transformation occurs in the brain circuitry and we eventually come to peace. ‘Death is a part of life and we have the mechanisms to come to terms with it,’ says the Columbia University professor.
“But in the 1990s, Shear and other researchers realized that about 15 percent of the bereaved suffer ‘complicated grief,’ stuck in a loop of despair. Their longing for the loved one overcomes all other desires. They either avoid any mention of the dead or become totally preoccupied. They daydream about being together and have suicidal thoughts. Brain imaging shows their reactions differ from people who progress through the grieving process. Researchers want complicated-grief disorder and its treatment included in the 2012 American Psychiatric Association diagnostic manual.
“No one tracks how losing a young, healthy child in war can push parents and other survivors to suicide. Yet, complicated grief almost exclusively occurs after the loss of a person's closest, most rewarding relationships. Losing a beloved child is one of the most obvious risks, and losing an only child, greater still.
"’Debra wanted to be with Michael,’ George says, ‘Wherever he was.’"
The complete article is titled: " Measures of Sacrifice: Answering the call to military binds a patriotic Oregon family", here:
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2010/07/measures_of_sacrifice_answerin.html
My heart goes out to this family.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
2010 Jim Pepper Arts Festival announcements coming soon!
By Sean Cruz
(Portland, Oregon) We’ll be going live midsummer! Meanwhile, see the following brief (!) Gunther Schuller bio. The complete one will run a couple of volumes! Please note the last paragraph, referencing Gunther's 85th birthday this year, being celebrated at more than a dozen tribute concerts around the world.
Gunther's leaving us after the conclusion of the Jim Pepper Arts Festival to fly directly to Greece, to one of those tribute concerts, where he'll receive another honorary doctorate to add to the dozen or so others….
On September 28 at Portland State University, he will be honored as the Founding Occupant of the Jim Pepper Hunga-Che-Ada Flying Eagle Chair in the Department of Native American Studies, fulfilling Oregon Senate Joint Resolution 31 (2005), “to further the study of Native American music and its relationship to jazz.”
As the Jim Pepper Chair, Gunther will be with us for two weeks as an artist-in-residence, working with the University, students and faculty, and with the Portland community, to leverage the genius of Jim Pepper, the brilliant Native American saxophonist, singer, dancer, bandleader, innovator and composer, into an instrument that makes real differences in real lives, building a path to higher education for Native American students, financed with Jim Pepper Remembrance Scholarships.
The 2010 Jim Pepper Arts Festival will culminate at Trinity Cathedral on Oct 7, 8 and 9 with the American premiere performance of “Gunther Schuller’s Witchi-Tai-To: The Music of Jim Pepper”.
This series will feature the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Gunther Schuller conducting, with the Jim Pepper Remembrance Band and the Intertribal Veterans Powwow Drum from Ft. Defiance, Arizona. Native American poet and storyteller Ed Edmo will also be on the bill.
All Jim Pepper events are benefits for the Native American Studies Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at Portland State University.
Let's not forget to wish Gunther a happy birthday while he's in town.
Sean
Gunther Schuller (b. 1925, Jackson Heights, NY)
Gunther Schuller has earned prominence as a composer, conductor, jazz and classical performer, author, educator, administrator, music publisher, record producer, and all-around advocate of other innovative musicians. He is the winner of several major honors including the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur Genius Award, DownBeat Lifetime Achievement Award and inaugural membership in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Born to an artist mother and a New York Philharmonic violinist father on St. Cecilia’s Day, which celebrates the Patron Saint of Music, Schuller’s destiny was clear early on. Within his first 15 years, he would discover talent for both art and music. That combination would lead to some of his most exciting compositions, including his well known Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959). Another famous combination of interests, classical music and jazz, would go on to define his career and secure his place in the musical history of the 20th century as a leader in the “Third Stream” movement.
He began as a composer, studied flute, and then switched to French horn. Schuller had already performed professionally under the baton of Arturo Toscanini and Antal Dorati before becoming the principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 17 in 1943. In his two important years in Cincinnati, Schuller first met Duke Ellington and developed an insatiable appetite for live jazz. By the time he joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1945, Schuller was spending much of his time at the dozen or so clubs on Broadway and New York’s legendary 52nd Street with his wife, Marjorie Black Schuller (1925-92).
His early involvement with the New York jazz scene eventually led to a life-long relationship with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis, then a young bebop pianist with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1950, Lewis suggested Schuller replace an absent French horn player on the third and final Birth of the Cool session led by Miles Davis. Schuller would go on to record two more albums with Davis, including 1958’s Porgy and Bess with Gil Evans, and several more with Lewis as a major collaborator. Together they created the Jazz and Classical Music Society in 1955, founded the Lenox School of Jazz in 1957, performed on each other’s recordings (1955-65), and co-led the Third Stream ensemble Orchestra USA from 1962-65.
Despite collaborations with musical titans like Milton Babbitt, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Dimitri Mitropolous on the classical side and Charles Mingus, J.J. Johnson, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Scott LaFaro, and the Modern Jazz Quartet on the jazz side, Third Stream music was mostly maligned by critics and poorly supported by the public. But Schuller, who had gained classical recognition for his composing of works like Symphony for Brass and Percussion (1950) and his first book, Horn Technique (1962), never missed a beat. With references like Leonard Bernstein, conductor of Schuller’s Triplum (1967) with the New York Philharmonic and a close friend, Schuller’s star was on the rise in the classical world.
He left the Met in 1959, and continued to freelance on French horn with artists like Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Johnny Mathis, and Frank Sinatra until retiring to focus on composing in 1963. That year also began his twenty-two year association with the Berkshire Music Center where he presented Tanglewood’s first-ever jazz concert (1963), and served as Head of Contemporary Music Activities (1963-84) and Artistic Director (1969-1984).
In 1967, Schuller left his position as Associate Professor of Composition at Yale University to become the President of the New England Conservatory in Boston. At the helm of the NEC, he created the first conservatory-level degree program in jazz, founded three important jazz repertory orchestras including the Grammy-winning NEC Ragtime Ensemble, formed the Third Stream Department, and assembled an amazing array of talented faculty including George Russell, Joe Maneri, Ran Blake, Russell Sherman, Jaki Byard, Victor Rosenbaum, John Heiss and Benjamin Zander.
Before Schuller’s performances with the NEC’s Ragtime Ensemble helped spur the worldwide revival of interest in Scott Joplin in 1972-73, he would write the first of his seminal jazz books (Early Jazz: It’s Roots and Musical Development, 1968), tour Eastern Europe extensively for the U.S. State Department (1963-78), receive the first three of his eleven honorary doctorates in music, and premiere two of his operas (1966’s The Visitation and 1970’s The Fisherman and his Wife). In 1975, Schuller orchestrated Joplin’s opera Treemonisha and premiered and recorded it with the Houston Opera, also performing it on Broadway.
Also in 1975, Schuller founded the first of his three companies, Margun Music, to publish the works of composers like Alec Wilder and many younger, less-known composers who deserved public recognition. Before being sold in 1999, Margun, and its sister company GunMar, published over 1000 works. GM Recordings, Schuller’s independent record label, released its first recording in 1981—the piano music of twelve-tone composer Robert DiDomenica—and celebrates its 20th anniversary and the issuance of over 115 jazz and classical recordings in 2001. Schuller has received the Alice M. Ditson Award (1970) and many other honors for his selfless championing of other musicians.
After retiring from the presidency of NEC and his directorial position at Tanglewood, Schuller spent most of the 1980’s as one of the primary on-call composers for orchestras performing contemporary classical works. He also premiered his jazz ballet, The Great Gatsby (1987), in Pittsburgh, wrote his second award-winning jazz book, The Swing Era (1989), and edited Charles Mingus’ Epitaph for its posthumous premiere at Lincoln Center in New York (1989).
The 1990’s were arguably Schuller’s most productive decade. He collected a throng of awards including the MacArthur Genius Award (1991), the DownBeat Lifetime Achievement Award (1993), the Pulitzer Prize for Composition (1994), the BMI Lifetime Achievement Award (1994), Musical America’s Composer of the Year (1995), the DownBeat Critics Poll Jazz Album of the Year with Joe Lovano (1995), and Columbia University’s William Schumann Award for lifetime achievement (1989).
He co-directed and transcribed early jazz music for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (1991-97) and in 1997 released his controversial treatise on conducting, The Compleat Conductor (Oxford University Press). He also won the Gold Medal in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997), and was commissioned to compose a piece for the 30th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, The Black Warrior, which premiered in Birmingham, Alabama (1998).
In 2000, he arranged several of Native American saxophonist Jim Pepper’s compositions for orchestra, jazz band, powwow drum and singers.
“Gunther Schuller’s Witchi-Tai-To: The Music of Jim Pepper,” was recorded in Cologne, Germany on Tutu Records, Gunther Schuller conducting the WDR Radio Orchestra, members of the Jim Pepper Remembrance Band, and Yellowhammer, a Ponca Southern-style powwow drum and singers from Oklahoma.
Approaching his sixtieth year in professional music in 2002, Gunther Schuller has composed nearly 180 works and is still active as a world-traveling conductor, public speaker, and label president/producer with GM Recordings. He is currently documenting his unique life experiences in a long-awaited autobiography and celebrating his 85th birthday at more than a dozen tribute concerts around the world.
(Portland, Oregon) We’ll be going live midsummer! Meanwhile, see the following brief (!) Gunther Schuller bio. The complete one will run a couple of volumes! Please note the last paragraph, referencing Gunther's 85th birthday this year, being celebrated at more than a dozen tribute concerts around the world.
Gunther's leaving us after the conclusion of the Jim Pepper Arts Festival to fly directly to Greece, to one of those tribute concerts, where he'll receive another honorary doctorate to add to the dozen or so others….
On September 28 at Portland State University, he will be honored as the Founding Occupant of the Jim Pepper Hunga-Che-Ada Flying Eagle Chair in the Department of Native American Studies, fulfilling Oregon Senate Joint Resolution 31 (2005), “to further the study of Native American music and its relationship to jazz.”
As the Jim Pepper Chair, Gunther will be with us for two weeks as an artist-in-residence, working with the University, students and faculty, and with the Portland community, to leverage the genius of Jim Pepper, the brilliant Native American saxophonist, singer, dancer, bandleader, innovator and composer, into an instrument that makes real differences in real lives, building a path to higher education for Native American students, financed with Jim Pepper Remembrance Scholarships.
The 2010 Jim Pepper Arts Festival will culminate at Trinity Cathedral on Oct 7, 8 and 9 with the American premiere performance of “Gunther Schuller’s Witchi-Tai-To: The Music of Jim Pepper”.
This series will feature the Portland Chamber Orchestra, Gunther Schuller conducting, with the Jim Pepper Remembrance Band and the Intertribal Veterans Powwow Drum from Ft. Defiance, Arizona. Native American poet and storyteller Ed Edmo will also be on the bill.
All Jim Pepper events are benefits for the Native American Studies Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, at Portland State University.
Let's not forget to wish Gunther a happy birthday while he's in town.
Sean
Gunther Schuller (b. 1925, Jackson Heights, NY)
Gunther Schuller has earned prominence as a composer, conductor, jazz and classical performer, author, educator, administrator, music publisher, record producer, and all-around advocate of other innovative musicians. He is the winner of several major honors including the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur Genius Award, DownBeat Lifetime Achievement Award and inaugural membership in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Born to an artist mother and a New York Philharmonic violinist father on St. Cecilia’s Day, which celebrates the Patron Saint of Music, Schuller’s destiny was clear early on. Within his first 15 years, he would discover talent for both art and music. That combination would lead to some of his most exciting compositions, including his well known Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959). Another famous combination of interests, classical music and jazz, would go on to define his career and secure his place in the musical history of the 20th century as a leader in the “Third Stream” movement.
He began as a composer, studied flute, and then switched to French horn. Schuller had already performed professionally under the baton of Arturo Toscanini and Antal Dorati before becoming the principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 17 in 1943. In his two important years in Cincinnati, Schuller first met Duke Ellington and developed an insatiable appetite for live jazz. By the time he joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1945, Schuller was spending much of his time at the dozen or so clubs on Broadway and New York’s legendary 52nd Street with his wife, Marjorie Black Schuller (1925-92).
His early involvement with the New York jazz scene eventually led to a life-long relationship with the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis, then a young bebop pianist with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1950, Lewis suggested Schuller replace an absent French horn player on the third and final Birth of the Cool session led by Miles Davis. Schuller would go on to record two more albums with Davis, including 1958’s Porgy and Bess with Gil Evans, and several more with Lewis as a major collaborator. Together they created the Jazz and Classical Music Society in 1955, founded the Lenox School of Jazz in 1957, performed on each other’s recordings (1955-65), and co-led the Third Stream ensemble Orchestra USA from 1962-65.
Despite collaborations with musical titans like Milton Babbitt, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Dimitri Mitropolous on the classical side and Charles Mingus, J.J. Johnson, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Evans, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Scott LaFaro, and the Modern Jazz Quartet on the jazz side, Third Stream music was mostly maligned by critics and poorly supported by the public. But Schuller, who had gained classical recognition for his composing of works like Symphony for Brass and Percussion (1950) and his first book, Horn Technique (1962), never missed a beat. With references like Leonard Bernstein, conductor of Schuller’s Triplum (1967) with the New York Philharmonic and a close friend, Schuller’s star was on the rise in the classical world.
He left the Met in 1959, and continued to freelance on French horn with artists like Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Johnny Mathis, and Frank Sinatra until retiring to focus on composing in 1963. That year also began his twenty-two year association with the Berkshire Music Center where he presented Tanglewood’s first-ever jazz concert (1963), and served as Head of Contemporary Music Activities (1963-84) and Artistic Director (1969-1984).
In 1967, Schuller left his position as Associate Professor of Composition at Yale University to become the President of the New England Conservatory in Boston. At the helm of the NEC, he created the first conservatory-level degree program in jazz, founded three important jazz repertory orchestras including the Grammy-winning NEC Ragtime Ensemble, formed the Third Stream Department, and assembled an amazing array of talented faculty including George Russell, Joe Maneri, Ran Blake, Russell Sherman, Jaki Byard, Victor Rosenbaum, John Heiss and Benjamin Zander.
Before Schuller’s performances with the NEC’s Ragtime Ensemble helped spur the worldwide revival of interest in Scott Joplin in 1972-73, he would write the first of his seminal jazz books (Early Jazz: It’s Roots and Musical Development, 1968), tour Eastern Europe extensively for the U.S. State Department (1963-78), receive the first three of his eleven honorary doctorates in music, and premiere two of his operas (1966’s The Visitation and 1970’s The Fisherman and his Wife). In 1975, Schuller orchestrated Joplin’s opera Treemonisha and premiered and recorded it with the Houston Opera, also performing it on Broadway.
Also in 1975, Schuller founded the first of his three companies, Margun Music, to publish the works of composers like Alec Wilder and many younger, less-known composers who deserved public recognition. Before being sold in 1999, Margun, and its sister company GunMar, published over 1000 works. GM Recordings, Schuller’s independent record label, released its first recording in 1981—the piano music of twelve-tone composer Robert DiDomenica—and celebrates its 20th anniversary and the issuance of over 115 jazz and classical recordings in 2001. Schuller has received the Alice M. Ditson Award (1970) and many other honors for his selfless championing of other musicians.
After retiring from the presidency of NEC and his directorial position at Tanglewood, Schuller spent most of the 1980’s as one of the primary on-call composers for orchestras performing contemporary classical works. He also premiered his jazz ballet, The Great Gatsby (1987), in Pittsburgh, wrote his second award-winning jazz book, The Swing Era (1989), and edited Charles Mingus’ Epitaph for its posthumous premiere at Lincoln Center in New York (1989).
The 1990’s were arguably Schuller’s most productive decade. He collected a throng of awards including the MacArthur Genius Award (1991), the DownBeat Lifetime Achievement Award (1993), the Pulitzer Prize for Composition (1994), the BMI Lifetime Achievement Award (1994), Musical America’s Composer of the Year (1995), the DownBeat Critics Poll Jazz Album of the Year with Joe Lovano (1995), and Columbia University’s William Schumann Award for lifetime achievement (1989).
He co-directed and transcribed early jazz music for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (1991-97) and in 1997 released his controversial treatise on conducting, The Compleat Conductor (Oxford University Press). He also won the Gold Medal in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997), and was commissioned to compose a piece for the 30th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, The Black Warrior, which premiered in Birmingham, Alabama (1998).
In 2000, he arranged several of Native American saxophonist Jim Pepper’s compositions for orchestra, jazz band, powwow drum and singers.
“Gunther Schuller’s Witchi-Tai-To: The Music of Jim Pepper,” was recorded in Cologne, Germany on Tutu Records, Gunther Schuller conducting the WDR Radio Orchestra, members of the Jim Pepper Remembrance Band, and Yellowhammer, a Ponca Southern-style powwow drum and singers from Oklahoma.
Approaching his sixtieth year in professional music in 2002, Gunther Schuller has composed nearly 180 works and is still active as a world-traveling conductor, public speaker, and label president/producer with GM Recordings. He is currently documenting his unique life experiences in a long-awaited autobiography and celebrating his 85th birthday at more than a dozen tribute concerts around the world.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
“Bureaucratize It” Oregon GOP Governor candidate Chris Dudley to create new political bureaucracy!
By Sean Cruz
(Portland, Oregon)—Chris Dudley plans to create a new bureaucracy of political appointees in the Governor’s Office, with new titles of “State Budget Director” and “a Budget Review Team”, and order the new bureaucracy to duplicate the budget review and regular auditing work that is already being done by non-political state agencies.
Reaching deep into his playbook, “Just Wing It!”, Dudley posted his strategy to:
“Strengthen Executive Leadership and Budget Accountability:
“As Governor, Chris Dudley will appoint a State Budget Director inside his office – not a state agency; will establish a Budget Review Team of experts in public and private finance to review budget assumptions and conduct regular audits; and will aggressively use his veto-pen to control legislative spending that is non-essential, wasteful, or fails to adequately save for a rainy day.”
Dudley’s proposed State Budget Director will not have any actual budgetary authority, but will report to the GOP Governor and help him understand what the fiscal reports and audits mean in language he can understand, and will lead the proposed Budget Review Team, acting as the Governor’s Point Guard on the Budget, doing the work that the Governor normally would be doing himself.
Dudley has not disclosed the salaries and PERS benefits his “experts in public and private finance” are looking forward to claiming, nor a short list of who these essential Team Dudley members might be, saving that information for after the election.
Since the Oregon GOP platform calls for the “abolition of the Department of Education”, it is possible that Dudley plans to pay for his Budget Review bureaucracy with savings gained from shutting down the Oregon DOE and moving into their offices, but that is only conjecture (except for the call to abolish the Department of Education).
There is speculation that Dudley’s new Governor’s Budget Review Team will also be proponents of Creationism and thus serve a dual role, advising Dudley’s new State Education Director on the many budget-saving faith-based curriculum ideas as called for in the Oregon GOP platform, which would replace the abolished Department of Education.
(Portland, Oregon)—Chris Dudley plans to create a new bureaucracy of political appointees in the Governor’s Office, with new titles of “State Budget Director” and “a Budget Review Team”, and order the new bureaucracy to duplicate the budget review and regular auditing work that is already being done by non-political state agencies.
Reaching deep into his playbook, “Just Wing It!”, Dudley posted his strategy to:
“Strengthen Executive Leadership and Budget Accountability:
“As Governor, Chris Dudley will appoint a State Budget Director inside his office – not a state agency; will establish a Budget Review Team of experts in public and private finance to review budget assumptions and conduct regular audits; and will aggressively use his veto-pen to control legislative spending that is non-essential, wasteful, or fails to adequately save for a rainy day.”
Dudley’s proposed State Budget Director will not have any actual budgetary authority, but will report to the GOP Governor and help him understand what the fiscal reports and audits mean in language he can understand, and will lead the proposed Budget Review Team, acting as the Governor’s Point Guard on the Budget, doing the work that the Governor normally would be doing himself.
Dudley has not disclosed the salaries and PERS benefits his “experts in public and private finance” are looking forward to claiming, nor a short list of who these essential Team Dudley members might be, saving that information for after the election.
Since the Oregon GOP platform calls for the “abolition of the Department of Education”, it is possible that Dudley plans to pay for his Budget Review bureaucracy with savings gained from shutting down the Oregon DOE and moving into their offices, but that is only conjecture (except for the call to abolish the Department of Education).
There is speculation that Dudley’s new Governor’s Budget Review Team will also be proponents of Creationism and thus serve a dual role, advising Dudley’s new State Education Director on the many budget-saving faith-based curriculum ideas as called for in the Oregon GOP platform, which would replace the abolished Department of Education.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Father's Day 2010, child abduction and Aaron's Law
By Sean Cruz
Portland, Oregon--I last had a reason to celebrate Father’s Day 14 years ago, other than honoring my own father and grandfather, not since my four children disappeared into concealment in Mormon Utah in February, 1996.
Abducted children are never permitted to celebrate any memory honoring a left-behind parent, much less a holiday, and the day becomes radioactive for all its victims. No cards, letters, gifts or phone calls will get through in either direction.
Abducted children suffer the devastating loss of a parent, but are never permitted to mourn. My children were compelled to celebrate Father’s Day with a succession of three stepdads in three states, no trace memories of me or my family allowed.
The abducting parent, family members and other criminal associates involved in an abduction will work hard to destroy every emotional connection the child(ren) have to the left-behind parent, and with it any possibility of a normal childhood, of a normal life.
A kidnapping is a continuing crime, with lifelong consequences, and for many victims, like my son Aaron, life-ending consequences.
I have learned that I have a grandchild, name unknown, being raised in concealment in a Mormon enclave.
My son Aaron would have made someone a fine father, with his big heart and irrepressible good humor, had he been given the chance to live a normal life, to become a father himself.
I am working my way out of a five-year period of mourning the death of my son, and have begun preliminary work on the introduction of Aaron’s Law into the California State Assembly, gathering allies, planning, looking at legislative concepts that would increase the effectiveness of the law.
I have connected with the Polly Klaas Foundation and spoken with Marc Klaas,
Polly’s father and Founder of the KlaasKids Foundation. Both organizations are national leaders on the issue of child abduction. See for yourself here, and become aware of the issues at stake:
http://www.klaaskids.org/
http://www.pollyklaas.org/
Portland, Oregon--I last had a reason to celebrate Father’s Day 14 years ago, other than honoring my own father and grandfather, not since my four children disappeared into concealment in Mormon Utah in February, 1996.
Abducted children are never permitted to celebrate any memory honoring a left-behind parent, much less a holiday, and the day becomes radioactive for all its victims. No cards, letters, gifts or phone calls will get through in either direction.
Abducted children suffer the devastating loss of a parent, but are never permitted to mourn. My children were compelled to celebrate Father’s Day with a succession of three stepdads in three states, no trace memories of me or my family allowed.
The abducting parent, family members and other criminal associates involved in an abduction will work hard to destroy every emotional connection the child(ren) have to the left-behind parent, and with it any possibility of a normal childhood, of a normal life.
A kidnapping is a continuing crime, with lifelong consequences, and for many victims, like my son Aaron, life-ending consequences.
I have learned that I have a grandchild, name unknown, being raised in concealment in a Mormon enclave.
My son Aaron would have made someone a fine father, with his big heart and irrepressible good humor, had he been given the chance to live a normal life, to become a father himself.
I am working my way out of a five-year period of mourning the death of my son, and have begun preliminary work on the introduction of Aaron’s Law into the California State Assembly, gathering allies, planning, looking at legislative concepts that would increase the effectiveness of the law.
I have connected with the Polly Klaas Foundation and spoken with Marc Klaas,
Polly’s father and Founder of the KlaasKids Foundation. Both organizations are national leaders on the issue of child abduction. See for yourself here, and become aware of the issues at stake:
http://www.klaaskids.org/
http://www.pollyklaas.org/
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Put a fee on it! Oregon GOP Governor candidate Chris Dudley posts his solution to privatizing OLCC!
By Sean Cruz
(Portland, Oregon)--"’Kent Craford, acting campaign manager for Dudley, concedes liquor is a moneymaker. ‘It's true that the OLCC and state monopoly of liquor distribution and retailing does make money for state coffers. But that doesn't mean it can't, if it were privatized. The way you do that under a private system is to put a fee on it.’"
Taking another page out of his playbook, “Just Wing It!”, the Dudley campaign has announced that it will make up for the shortage of thought that it put into the OLCC conversation by proposing a new fee to cover the loss of revenue that privatization will bring.
The reason that privatization hasn’t already taken place in Oregon is because every model put forth over the past couple of decades results in (a) loss of revenue to fund critical services, and (b) increased prices to consumers.
There has been no lack of desire from either Democratic or Republican officeholders to find a way to privatize the liquor industry. The legislature and the liquor industry have discussed privatization models for years, session after session, and have run into two insurmountable obstacles:
1. The only way to recover the lost revenue is to impose a fee or a tax.
2. With privatization, net prices to consumers go up. You learn this once you do the math….
In government, in legislative work, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences that bites most ideas in the ass. Those consequences are not always obvious, and the more complex the problem, the more likely you will run into the Law.
The argument for a new fee or tax or higher prices for consumers has been dead on arrival for years—and still is…but not knowing this, the Dudley campaign takes up the cudgel…Just Winging It!....
In every industry, in every line of work, experience counts, job readiness counts…except for in politics.
Only in politics can complete novices make the jump to the top job with no experience whatsoever, with only the skimpiest understanding of the requirements of the job itself, and with little chance of success in the job if they manage to win election.
Campaigns like Dudley’s depend upon an angry, impatient, uninformed and divided electorate, and name recognition from work in a completely unrelated field that draws a great deal of media and public attention.
That’s the formula.
That’s the playbook.
That’s the game.
(Portland, Oregon)--"’Kent Craford, acting campaign manager for Dudley, concedes liquor is a moneymaker. ‘It's true that the OLCC and state monopoly of liquor distribution and retailing does make money for state coffers. But that doesn't mean it can't, if it were privatized. The way you do that under a private system is to put a fee on it.’"
Taking another page out of his playbook, “Just Wing It!”, the Dudley campaign has announced that it will make up for the shortage of thought that it put into the OLCC conversation by proposing a new fee to cover the loss of revenue that privatization will bring.
The reason that privatization hasn’t already taken place in Oregon is because every model put forth over the past couple of decades results in (a) loss of revenue to fund critical services, and (b) increased prices to consumers.
There has been no lack of desire from either Democratic or Republican officeholders to find a way to privatize the liquor industry. The legislature and the liquor industry have discussed privatization models for years, session after session, and have run into two insurmountable obstacles:
1. The only way to recover the lost revenue is to impose a fee or a tax.
2. With privatization, net prices to consumers go up. You learn this once you do the math….
In government, in legislative work, it is the Law of Unintended Consequences that bites most ideas in the ass. Those consequences are not always obvious, and the more complex the problem, the more likely you will run into the Law.
The argument for a new fee or tax or higher prices for consumers has been dead on arrival for years—and still is…but not knowing this, the Dudley campaign takes up the cudgel…Just Winging It!....
In every industry, in every line of work, experience counts, job readiness counts…except for in politics.
Only in politics can complete novices make the jump to the top job with no experience whatsoever, with only the skimpiest understanding of the requirements of the job itself, and with little chance of success in the job if they manage to win election.
Campaigns like Dudley’s depend upon an angry, impatient, uninformed and divided electorate, and name recognition from work in a completely unrelated field that draws a great deal of media and public attention.
That’s the formula.
That’s the playbook.
That’s the game.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
"Just Wing It!" Oregon GOP Governor candidate Chris Dudley announces new campaign slogan!
By Sean Cruz
(Portland, Oregon)--You read it here first! Chris Dudley has decided to bank his campaign run on a reference to the ubiquitous Nike slogan, recalling for voters the only fields he has any inkling of—sports and Big and Tall clothing—as the new title of his playbook, which was formerly titled “Dribbling towards the Finish Line.”
The fledgling Oregon politician (and first-time voter) feels that his new slogan will both reflect his spur-of-the-moment approach to problem-solving and suggest to voters that his qualifications for the job extend beyond the basketball court—even if they don’t—while at the same time emphasizing that he is reading a lot of books these days and calling attention to the fact that he has become aware that Oregon’s official slogan is “She flies with her own wings.” That is a great deal of ground to cover in just one sentence.
It is a truly crafty move…signaling that Dudley will rely less on sports metaphors and more on those that have a basis in actual governance and politics and real-world problems.
Reaching deep into his playbook, Dudley posted on his campaign website his strategy to:
“Strengthen Executive Leadership and Budget Accountability:
“As Governor, Chris Dudley will appoint a State Budget Director inside his office – not a state agency; will establish a Budget Review Team of experts in public and private finance to review budget assumptions and conduct regular audits; and will aggressively use his veto-pen to control legislative spending that is non-essential, wasteful, or fails to adequately save for a rainy day.”
With this statement, Dudley (1) demonstrates his skill at crafting long sentences; (2) announces that he will (a) create a new bureaucracy, (b) populate the new bureaucracy with his political appointees, (c) order the new bureaucracy to duplicate the budget review and regular auditing work that is already being done by non-political state agencies; and, (3) hopes that the reader will not notice the conflict with his other promises to shrink the size of government.
Dudley's new Governor's Budget Director and staff, plus the new Budget Review Team and their staff are going to need some officing space...salaries and PERS benefits....
"(from campaign internal memo): what are we going to do with the reports and audits coming in from the State Revenue and Fiscal offices?...gonna need some more filing cabinets...geez, this seemed like such a good idea at the time it went up on the website...ok...we better Just Wing It! from here...people like the sound of that...we're still going to need a bunch of filing cabinets...."
(Portland, Oregon)--You read it here first! Chris Dudley has decided to bank his campaign run on a reference to the ubiquitous Nike slogan, recalling for voters the only fields he has any inkling of—sports and Big and Tall clothing—as the new title of his playbook, which was formerly titled “Dribbling towards the Finish Line.”
The fledgling Oregon politician (and first-time voter) feels that his new slogan will both reflect his spur-of-the-moment approach to problem-solving and suggest to voters that his qualifications for the job extend beyond the basketball court—even if they don’t—while at the same time emphasizing that he is reading a lot of books these days and calling attention to the fact that he has become aware that Oregon’s official slogan is “She flies with her own wings.” That is a great deal of ground to cover in just one sentence.
It is a truly crafty move…signaling that Dudley will rely less on sports metaphors and more on those that have a basis in actual governance and politics and real-world problems.
Reaching deep into his playbook, Dudley posted on his campaign website his strategy to:
“Strengthen Executive Leadership and Budget Accountability:
“As Governor, Chris Dudley will appoint a State Budget Director inside his office – not a state agency; will establish a Budget Review Team of experts in public and private finance to review budget assumptions and conduct regular audits; and will aggressively use his veto-pen to control legislative spending that is non-essential, wasteful, or fails to adequately save for a rainy day.”
With this statement, Dudley (1) demonstrates his skill at crafting long sentences; (2) announces that he will (a) create a new bureaucracy, (b) populate the new bureaucracy with his political appointees, (c) order the new bureaucracy to duplicate the budget review and regular auditing work that is already being done by non-political state agencies; and, (3) hopes that the reader will not notice the conflict with his other promises to shrink the size of government.
Dudley's new Governor's Budget Director and staff, plus the new Budget Review Team and their staff are going to need some officing space...salaries and PERS benefits....
"(from campaign internal memo): what are we going to do with the reports and audits coming in from the State Revenue and Fiscal offices?...gonna need some more filing cabinets...geez, this seemed like such a good idea at the time it went up on the website...ok...we better Just Wing It! from here...people like the sound of that...we're still going to need a bunch of filing cabinets...."
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Parentally abducted children speak about their experience, pt 1
Take Root members are adults who were kidnapped as children by family members.
More than 200,000 U.S. children are abducted by family members or persons known to the child each year, every year.
Oregon's Aaron's Law is unique in the nation. Oregon is the only state where the abduction of a child creates a civil cause of action that reaches to every criminal participant in the abduction of a child, whether relative to the child or not.
If Aaron's Law had been on the books in 1995, then criminal participants Kory and Chris Wright would have been deterred sufficiently, no abduction of the four Cruz children would have taken place, and Aaron would still be alive today.
For the record, Kory and Chris Wright are not related in any way to either the Cruz family or to my former wife's family. Their motive was entirely to carry out a Mormon shunning, which continues to this day.
Aaron's Law was written for the Wrights, and for people like the Wrights....
I hope to see Aaron's Law enacted in all fifty states. While the law currently protects children kidnapped from Oregon, it does not apply to any other kidnapping situation.
Abducted children speak about their experience, pt 1
More than 200,000 U.S. children are abducted by family members or persons known to the child each year, every year.
Oregon's Aaron's Law is unique in the nation. Oregon is the only state where the abduction of a child creates a civil cause of action that reaches to every criminal participant in the abduction of a child, whether relative to the child or not.
If Aaron's Law had been on the books in 1995, then criminal participants Kory and Chris Wright would have been deterred sufficiently, no abduction of the four Cruz children would have taken place, and Aaron would still be alive today.
For the record, Kory and Chris Wright are not related in any way to either the Cruz family or to my former wife's family. Their motive was entirely to carry out a Mormon shunning, which continues to this day.
Aaron's Law was written for the Wrights, and for people like the Wrights....
I hope to see Aaron's Law enacted in all fifty states. While the law currently protects children kidnapped from Oregon, it does not apply to any other kidnapping situation.
Abducted children speak about their experience, pt 1
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