Being liberal or conservative is more hard wired than previously thought

I just read an interesting article in Mother Jones exploring current research into the physiological foundation for our liberal or conservative view of the world. The work of political scientist John Hibbing and others is pointing toward the notion that our political outlook is more hardwired, more closely woven into the fabric of our being, than previously realized.

Hibbing’s research finds that conservatives tend to focus more on negative stimuli in the world around them than liberals, and in response, build up ideological defenses against these perceived threats. The bottom line, according to Hibbing’s work is that liberals and conservatives see the world through different lenses or filters and that this divide is the result of more than simply environmental factors or familial preferences. It explains how two people (liberal and conservative) can watch the same debate and come away with completely different interpretations of the event. They are literally seeing different debates. People cannot fully control their political beliefs, says Hibbing, any more than they can control their sexual orientation or left/right handedness.

If you go to the comments section, you will find a lot of angry conservative responses to these findings as there has been for other research articles in this arena. This is highly emotional and controversial stuff and I feel like we’re still left with the question, “What do we do with this knowledge?” Despite the fact that at our particular point in history the conservative/liberal divide seems to be as wide s the Grand Canyon and intractable, it’s also as old as man and is perhaps a necessary friction for our growth as humans.

To the 99 percent: When will enough be enough?

I hear the call for mass action growing louder and louder every day. Frustration is building to a critical level over the complete disconnect of the 99 percent from what is supposed to be their government, the arrogant and criminal conduct of the elites who control the economy and the unconstitutional activities of the ever expanding surveillance state. We the people are clearly no longer in control of this country, and our inability to exercise any needed changes in the way things are done in Washington, D.C. is creating a deepening layer of angry, desperate Americans.

The Supreme Court is reducing elections to bidding wars between billionaires for the most obedient lackey. Congress is an ineffective joke. The economy is stagnant, and over half the American public is living at or near poverty. Republicans at the state and national level are successfully enacting policies to undermine women’s rights and cut the remaining threads of America’s safety net. The surveillance state is out of control and there is no one courageous enough or strong enough to rein it in. Our drones routinely kill innocent citizens in foreign countries. The majority of Americans do not support any of this, but no one is listening.

The need to make our voices heard is reaching a critical point. We must stop imagining that what’s going on in our country right now is abstract and only affects the other guy. It’s very real and personal for me. I have three boys and I know that the self-serving, cynical decisions made in Washington today are going to result in a very bleak future for them. If nothing changes, at the end of my life I am going to leave this country in much, much worse shape than it was when I was born, and that saddens me deeply. I can’t blame my children for looking at me some day and asking, “How did you let this happen?”

Non-violent protests in the past have been effective. In the 1960s they forced the government to establish laws making centuries-old racial discrimination illegal. Massive protests eventually ended our disastrous war in Vietnam. We need to rekindle that righteous anger today. In fact, I would argue that the crossroads we are at today could be the most crucial juncture in our country’s history since the civil war. Somehow, some way, we must make our voices heard.

Let’s consider term limits for Supreme Court justices

As the Supreme Court (I should say, the conservative majority in the Supreme Court) hands down decision after decision in favor of corporate and moneyed interests, the idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices is getting some traction. I think this is a good idea. The old argument that lifetime appointments to the court would free justices from the bipartisan ping pong match played by the other two branches of government just doesn’t ring true anymore.

            I don’t think anything could be worse than having a court majority of arch-conservative corporate stooges who could be passing out damaging decisions for the next two or three decades.

I suggest limits of ten years on the bench. This would give a particular court enough time to establish its agenda, but still allow for the court to change its perspective and add new blood in a reasonable amount of time.

Privacy is a thing of the past

Snowden’s documents have made us aware of the most glaring intelligence abuses of the NSA, but as someone who follows numerous alternative news sites, even I was amazed and deeply disturbed by how many devious avenues our government has in place right now to spy on its citizen. The Bloomberg Business Week article here presents a detailed graphic of the myriad ways in which your private data can be intercepted and stored by the government.

The U.S. surveillance monster has tentacles reaching into every aspect of our daily lives, seeing, hearing and monitoring everything we do. As prescient as Orwell was about the future, even he could not have imagined a scenario like the one in which we find ourselves today. Unless you go completely off the grid to a cave in the Yukon, privacy is a thing of the past.

We have completely lost control of our government.

Americans: Dumb and proud of it

It seems the Christian right has its panties in a knot because Neil deGrasse Tyson, the host of the rebooted Cosmos series, won’t include creationism in his show. His SCIENCE show. Yes, I’m shaking my head too, but it’s true. In 21^st century America, we have a substantial portion of the population that cannot distinguish between science and superstition.

Treating creationism seriously in Cosmos would be like including unicorns in a documentary about animals. As a clever writer in Salon pointed out, why not cover other more interesting creation myths like the ancient Greek or Egyptian versions? We all know the bible story backwards and forewords.

You know your country is in trouble when your House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is packed with climate change deniers, Luddites and creationists. The confounding thing is that Christian fundamentalists seem to relish their ignorance. Just watch five minutes of Pat Robertson’s 700 Club if you don’t believe me. We don’t need to be smart or even make sense. We’ve got Jesus.

We (American voters) have to take some of the blame for this as we continue sending imbeciles like Michele Bachmann, Darrell Issa and Steve King back to Washington. Maybe we should have a national intelligence requirement (IQ over 70?) for voting. Seems like we need to do something before we dumb ourselves down to the point of extinction.

Supreme Court ruling is death knell for democracy

The Supreme Court’s McCutcheon decision allowing a donor to contribute millions of hard dollars -- in limited contributions -- to political parties, candidates and political action committees is essentially the final nail in the coffin of fair, democratic elections in this country.

This is a huge win for Republicans who rely on cranky white billionaires and large corporations for a lot of their campaign contributions. Now the wealthy can skew the political system even further toward their interests and farther from the vision of democracy championed by our founders.

Making the absurd observation that influence and access are not a corruption concern, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas handed this country’s future over to the elites whose only allegiance is to the bottom line. I don’t believe there has ever been a time in our country’s history where the will of the people has been so callously disregarded by those in power.

We’re no longer on the road to an oligarchy, we’ve arrived.

            

New story at "They're Only Shadows"

I've posted a new short story titled The Eyes of John Abbott at They're Only Shadows. Here's a brief excerpt:

Jennifer ran through the litany of the odd events of the past few months with Clio nodding knowingly and shaking her head in disbelief in equal measures. When Jennifer finished, Clio took off her glasses and pinched the space between her eyes as if physically trying to contain what she just heard. Leaning to one side on an elbow, she met Jennifer’s expectant glance. “I believe you are under attack from a demonic presence.”

The earth paused in its orbit for a moment, rivers reversed course, and Jennifer tried to maintain decorum, but could not. A messy, blustery laugh escaped despite her best efforts. She covered her mouth to try and contain the damage, but it was too late. Clio’s lips pursed and her body language became defensive.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, but demons?”

“You asked.”

“About the symbols. What they mean.”

“Bloody handprints, the all-seeing eye, the sacrificial animal, a dark man hanging around…they clearly point to the presence of an evil entity.”

“But Aunt Clio, I don’t believe in that stuff. There’s nothing that I’ve told you about that couldn’t be done by a human being. I mean, this hooded person has been seen on the property twice now. I don’t know why, but he’s trying to scare me.”

“Are you absolutely sure that’s all it is?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound dismissive.”

Clio looked down at her lap with a knowing smile. “The wine is nice. Could I get a little more?”

And then she said, "That's going too far!"

I've been writing this blog for ten years now, and I've never done this before. No, not lick the monitor. Self promotion.

If you end up here for some reason (you mistyped the URL for a porn site), and perhaps you enjoyed something you read, tell a friend who you think might also appreciate political observations and satire from a progressive perspective. Best of all, it won't cost you a penny.

As a 10-year anniversary limited time special offer, if you refer a friend and that friend posts a comment, I'll send you an autographed photo of me wearing a mankini dancing to the Butthole Surfers from a boom box in Times Square.

Time's up.

Many questions still surround Malaysia Flight 370

Something seems a bit off to me about the Malaysian government’s recent announcement that missing Flight 370 definitely went into the Indian Ocean killing all passengers. The evidence for this can hardly be considered airtight. An article about the crash in the Huffington Post explains it this way:

The conclusions were based on a thorough analysis of the brief signals the plane sent every hour to a satellite belonging to Inmarsat, a British company, even after other communication systems on the jetliner shut down for unknown reasons.

Relatives of the passengers are understandably upset, and some suspect, as I do, that the announcement that the flight crashed into the sea had as much to do with trying to appease the families with closure as it did with finding conclusive new evidence. It is a logical assumption that the plane probably did go down, but I’m skeptical of the definitive explanation given by Malaysian officials.

Even beyond this, there are dozens of other questions that remain unanswered. Why did the plane go off course so dramatically? Why was the transponder and other tracking devices turned off? Was it hijacked? Were there explosives on board?

It’s a big planet with deep oceans, and unfortunately, we may never get these questions answered.

Spy agencies turning to Snowden as convenient scapegoat

In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the failure of our intelligence agencies to foresee Russia’s plan to invade Crimea, there’s this: It’s Edward Snowden’s fault.

According to an article in today’s BuzzFeed, hints and whispers coming out of the surveillance community are about trying to pin our Crimea intelligence failure on leaked Snowden documents. They somehow gave Russia a leg up on our spooks. Sorry, I just snorted coffee out of my nose. I’ve also heard that climate change and the Washington landslide are being pinned on Mr. Snowden.

There seems to be a large group within the intelligence community who really, really hate Edward Snowden, and it’s clear they will stoop to anything to try and discredit him. As is apparent, they’re not above shifting blame for their own failures to the fugitive hacker. The charges are ludicrous, but even if they weren’t, our spy agencies know that Snowden is not in a position where he can defend himself, so they can make up pretty much anything about him and toss it to the media. Glenn Greenwald does a pretty good job of batting back the insane claims of the agencies, but it’s a large task to take on.

We need to take anything and everything Washington, D.C. says about Edward Snowden with a huge grain of salt.

Our navel-gazing spy agencies miss the big picture

Seems the CIA, NSA and every other acronym in the government’s alphabet soup of spy agencies missed the Russian invasion of Crimea. The Ruskies somehow cloaked their communications, and ooops, slipped into another country before our spooks had their second cup of coffee. They could probably write a five-page report on what I had for lunch yesterday, but couldn’t see one of the world’s largest militaries mass at their border and invade a neighboring country.

Could it be that their attention was focused inward, instead of on the real threats that exist in the world? The expenditure of billions of dollars and many thousands of man hours spying on innocent Americans is, beyond the legal and constitutional ramifications, a huge waste of time and energy and one that undoubtedly distracts our spies from focusing on actual threats.

A few members of congress are asking for an investigation into our surveillance agencies and their activities. I wish I could be optimistic about this, but I know what’s going to happen. If an actual investigation becomes a reality, the agencies and the president will only allow it if everything is kept secret. National security, you know. We will continue to be kept in the dark, maybe thrown a few bones of “reform,” and then the spooks will return to business as usual. And our country will once again not see the forest for the trees.

My new short story blog - They're Only Shadows

I have created a new blog featuring my short stories called "They're Only Shadows." If you're into horror, suspense or supernatural stories, please check it out here. Thanks.

The secret to becoming a billionaire: A psych evaluation

Yet another billionaire has issued another apology for comparing critics of income inequality to Nazis. This time it’s Home Depot founder and long-time GOP supporter Ken Langone. The only conclusion I can come to after the recent string of tone-deaf billionaire bloopers is that our wealthiest citizens are truly clueless about the world that lies beneath their penthouses. Is it simply willful ignorance or something more innate?

There have been articles published in recent years about how many clinical sociopaths there are in the C-suits of large companies. These are charismatic people who are incapable of experiencing guilt or shame for their actions and rarely apologize for their behavior (unless forced to). They are also very manipulative and constantly try to influence and dominate others. Sound familiar? If you want to become a billionaire in America (and probably other countries as well) you need to possess the characteristics of a sociopath.

This is a sad commentary on what it takes to achieve wealth in the twenty-first century.

They come after you. Pelosi admits reps are cowed by intelligence community

Back in October I wrote a post speculating that the reason why Congress has been so lax in its oversight of the CIA and NSA is that the House and Senate members know that if they push too hard, these surveillance agencies could come after them with embarrassing information. No one has any firm evidence that this is the case, but it did seem to make sense to me as a distinct possibility. Now, however, there is some indication that this may in fact be something more than speculation. According to a March 13 article in Roll Call, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Sen. Diane Feinstein’s courage for alleging the CIA spied on members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in this statement.

“I salute Sen. Feinstein. I’ll tell you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth. You don’t fight it without a price because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth.”

They come after you. Here is the most powerful person in the House of Representatives telling the American people that even if you’re a Senator or Congressperson, the intelligence community will seek retribution if you cross them. Isn’t this admitting that blackmail is being used to keep representatives in line? Again, I’m sure that it is not overt. No one has spell this out. You just know that if you get on the bad side of the NSA or CIA, embarrassing events from your past can suddenly become very public. And, as Pelosi states, they’re not above making up shit about you.

How do you rein in a monster like this? Who has the guts to even try?

There are Secrets… A short story

Rain droplets spattered on the mahogany coffin lid. The day was gray and grim, with a chilly late September storm enveloping the graveside ceremony. A cluster of men, women and children holding black umbrellas stood in a horseshoe around the hole in the earth and the coffin poised above it. An elderly priest with a wisp of fluttering grey hair stood under a canvas tent top, holding the bible in his left hand like a tray of appetizers, imploring the Lord to accept the ever-faithful William Paul Keppler into his heavenly mansion. Sarah Keppler-Hardt, William’s eldest daughter, stood solemnly under her husband Brandon’s umbrella.

The coffin was finally lowered into the muddy abyss and mourners shuffled by Sarah and her younger sister Amy, hugging them mechanically and whispering words of condolence. As the last guests made their way through the small cemetery to their cars, Sarah took Amy’s hand.

            “How’re you doing?”

            “I’ll be better once I get out of this place. I can’t believe Mom didn’t want to come,” responded Amy.

            “There are days when she doesn’t even remember being married.”

            “Does it mean Alzheimer’s is in our future?”

            “Why don’t you stop by the house before you leave town to warm up? I’ll make some coffee.”

            Fifteen minutes later, Amy was peeling off her raincoat in the entryway while Sarah bustled around the kitchen. Brandon disappeared upstairs and Amy joined her sister at the kitchen table.

            “Can’t I talk you into spending the night?” asked Sarah.

            “Thanks, but I’ve got to work tomorrow and it’s a seven hour drive back to Chicago. The coffee will help. When are you moving?”

            “We have a bid on this place, so it might be soon. There are sill things of Mom and Dad’s to go through. I have mixed feelings about moving into the house we grew up in. Freaks me out a bit.”

            “Yeah, I can appreciate that,” said Amy, her gaze fixed on some distant event. “But you’ll have a lot more room, and once you’ve painted and got your furniture in there, it’ll be fine.”

            “You couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

            “That had to do with the occupants of the house, not the structure itself.”

            Sarah put a hand over her sister’s. “I know. Sorry.”

            “It’s okay. I just got so tired of the ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ act.”

            “I can relate.”

            “I always felt like they were putting on an act in front of us. Like, they were hiding their true selves and wearing the parent mask only when they were around us.”

            “I’m no expert, but I think that’s what all parents do.”

            “I suppose, but I didn’t feel that way around my friend’s parents. Anyway that’s old news. Thanks for the coffee, but I should get on the road.”

            Sarah stood on the porch and waved as her sister pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the misty street. She regretted alluding to the past, but it was pretty hard not to do after you’d spent 17 years living with a person. Although she always tried to be the adult big sister, she empathized with Amy’s feelings about their parents. They never seemed to be genuinely engaged.

            The house sold and Sarah and Brandon spent time at their new home painting, tearing out old carpet and cleaning. Two weeks later they were officially moved in, although stacks of boxes were piled up in almost every room. Throughout the move, Sarah reminisced about events that happened in this room and that, some that were happy and others that brought tears to her eyes.

            Boxes of seasonal decorations went directly to the basement. Even as an adult, Sarah didn’t feel comfortable in the large, musty room. Shelves that looked older than the house lined two walls, and there were several pieces of her parent’s furniture connected by cobwebs piled in a far corner. Small rectangular windows let in dull, dust-filled beams of sunlight that did little to warm up the room. She remembered having nightmares about the basement as a child and would only come down the steep stairs if someone else, usually her sister, joined her. Sarah wiped her damp palms on her jeans and trotted back up to the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

            Two days later Sarah found herself back in the basement with Brandon putting more boxes up on shelves. Brandon knocked a screwdriver off of a shelf and bent down to pick it up.

            “Hey, what’s this?” he asked, kneeling down to inspect what appeared to be a doorbell button on the wall hidden under a shelf.

Sarah came over and looked. “I have no idea.”

“Should I push it?” he said smiling. Before she could answer he pushed it. There was a slight “snap” from somewhere and the entire shelf structure swung out slowly like a large door. “What the fucking fuck?” he asked. Behind the bookcase was a wood door with a padlock on it. Sarah’s expression grew concerned. Brandon turned toward her expectantly. “A secret room? You had a secret room and you never said anything to me about it?”

“I didn’t know about it,” said Sarah weakly.

“Come on. You’re kidding me.”

“No. Honestly, I had no idea it was there.

“So you don’t have a clue as to what’s behind the door?”

“No.” Her answer was tentative, and she didn’t know why.

            “And you don’t know where the key is.”

            “No. Of course not.”

            “Could be…treasure, Matey.”

            Like an excited child, Brandon rummaged through a box full of tools, pulled out a crowbar and began violently twisting and turning the lock. Sarah went upstairs to the kitchen, trying to understand the odd feelings she was experiencing. How could she not know about a secret room in the basement? What was her family hiding? She became apprehensive. Maybe I don’t want to know what’s behind the door, she thought, busying herself with tedious tasks. Ten minutes later there was a triumphant cry from below. “Got it.” Curiosity pulled her to the stairs.

            Twisting a fall of her long brown hair with her fingers, Sarah found Brandon standing in a space about the size of a typical bedroom, his arms outstretched, wearing a triumphant look. A single overhead light illuminated the cold room, which clearly wasn’t built for food storage. White soundproof panels covered the walls and ceiling. The floor was concrete with a large drainage grate in the middle of the room. Benches attached to the wall lined the longer section of the room. The smell was overwhelmingly earthy and musty, but there was also a tinge of smoke lingering in the air. It was bare of any visual hints as to its use, but it felt oppressive to Sarah and her eyes teared up.

            “Do you remember something?” asked Brandon.

            “No. I just don’t like it in here.”

            “It’s creepy. I’ll give you that. What the hell were your parents into?”

            She gave him a, “How-could-you-ask-such-a-thing” look and left the room.

            Brandon considered going after her, but the lure of high strangeness in the most common of places kept his feet from moving. Taking a second look around, he noticed details he’d initially missed. There was an air vent high on the wall that brought in fresh air and a dead bolt lock on the inside of the door. He knelt down and discovered four dark marks on the floor in a rectangular pattern, like the scars table legs might make. His mind ticked off possibilities, but he couldn’t come up with a satisfying explanation for the purpose of the room, and was especially puzzled by the need for drainage in the floor. An additional subtle odor in the air caught his attention. He could swear he smelled bleach.

            Sarah stood impatiently at her bedroom window, phone to her ear, waiting for her sister to answer.

            “Sarah?”

            “Did you know about the secret room in the basement?”

            “What? What’s wrong?”

            “A secret room behind the shelves. I was just in it.”

            “Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sarah tried to speak, but her throat was clinching and tears started cascading down her cheeks. “Sarah? Are you okay?”

            “No.”

            “Listen, it’s Friday. I’ll book a flight and be there later this evening.”

            “No, that’s crazy,” said Sarah.

            “So is what you’re saying. I’ll call you when I get in.” The phone went dead.

            Amy, still wearing her coat, stood in the middle of the secret room with a bewildered expression. “I really don’t understand. What is this place?”

            Sarah leaned against the wall, just beyond the room’s threshold in the basement. “You had no idea this was here?”

            Amy turned and locked in on her sister’s eyes. “Not a clue. How could they keep this a secret for seventeen years? What’s it for?”

            “There’s one way we might find out,” said Sarah.

            “She can hardly remember what happened ten minutes ago, let alone the past thirty years.”

            “I know, but every once in a while there’s a moment of lucidity. Maybe we can tap into one. This…is such a weird thing, she might remember.”

            A short time later, Sarah and Amy traversed the hallways of the Webster Assisted Living Center on their way to their mother’s room. They stopped at room 148, each stealing a moment to inhale the stale, urine tainted air before entering. The room was dark and stuffy as usual. A small TV glowed in a corner with its sound off. Elizabeth sat hunched over and sleeping in her Lay-Z-Boy. The women looked at each other and then Sarah reached out and touched her mother’s bony shoulder. It took several gentle prods to get Elizabeth to stir from her slumber. As she did she looked around the room as if everything was new to her.

            “Mom, it’s Sarah and Amy.”

            Gauzy, marble eyes searched in confusion until they finally rested on Sarah’s face. Gaunt, her skin pale yellow, Elizabeth wore a stained housecoat and slippers, her thin silver hair a rat’s nest of neglect. She brought a bony hand up and brushed Sarah’s cheek.

            “Amy, my sweetheart.”

            “It’s Sarah, Mom, but Amy’s right here.”

            Amy leaned in. “Mom, it’s me.”

            “How nice. Is dinner ready?”

            Sarah knelt down and rested her hands on the arm of the chair. “I’m sure they’ll be serving dinner soon.”

            “The food here is horrible,” confided Elizabeth. “I swear they’re trying to poison me. Where’s William? Why hasn’t he been here to visit me?”

            Sarah knew this was going to be difficult. “Mom, can I ask you a question?”

            “Of course, Dear.”

            “It’s about the…secret room, in the basement.”

            “The what?”

            “Remember in your house, where you used to live with William. In the basement of that house, there was a secret room. Do you remember?”

            Elizabeth’s expression went through several transitions before it settled on agitation. “No one’s supposed to know about that.”

            Sarah shot a glance at Amy. “Right. You’re right, but we found it today. What is it?”

            An orderly poked her head in the door. “You all doing okay?”

            “Fine,” said Amy.

            “That’s the one who stole things from my purse,” said Elizabeth.

            “Mom,” coaxed the patient Sarah. “You were talking about the secret room in the basement of our house.”

            Elizabeth’s gaze turned to the window. “It was truly amazing.”

            “What was?” asked Amy.

            “You can’t tell anyone, William said.”

            “You can tell us. We’re family.”

            Yellow teeth appeared behind a sudden smile. “Remember how we used to play hide and seek?”

            Sarah’s expression morphed from expectant to perturbed at the sudden change of topic. “Yes. We remember.”

            “But every time we played, Amy used to hide in that broom closet off of the laundry room. She thought it was the best hiding place in the world. Lord, we caught her every time. Silly girl.”

            “Okay, Mom.”

            “And tell William to come visit me.”

            The late afternoon sky was a low grey blanket and the air was brisk. Sarah and Amy walked in silence across the parking lot amid swirling leaves, pulling their coats around themselves, each lost in the disconnected words of their fading mother. Once inside the car, Sarah turned to Amy. “What do you think she meant by ‘It was truly amazing?’”

            “No idea. Why do you think she brought up playing hide and seek as kids?”

            Sarah pulled the car out onto the highway. “I think we should check out the closet as soon as we get back.”

            Brooms, a vacuum, and bottles and cans of cleaning fluids were now sitting out on the kitchen floor as Sarah and Amy surveyed the small closet off of the kitchen. There was one row of shelving about chest level that ran across the three interior walls. Barely enough room for the two of them, the women bumped into each other as they searched for anything that might be out of the ordinary.

            “Look. Up there,” pointed Amy.  In one corner, near the ceiling there was a paper patch about ten inches long and four inches high. Sarah brought in a step stool that allowed her to reach the paper.

            “It’s covering a hole,” she announced, and then poked her fingers in and started tearing away the brittle covering. Reaching into the dark crevice, she pulled out a black scrapbook and blew off a layer of dust. The women looked at each other, knowing that it was hidden for a reason, and that they may find out much more than they wanted to about their parents and the secret room. Sarah stepped down off the stool with a determined expression.

            “Come on,” she instructed Amy.

            They sat on the couch next to each other with the book laying unopened on the coffee table.

            “Are you ready?” asked Sarah.

            “No, but let’s do this.”

            Sarah turned over the cover. On the first page, three photos were stuck to the thick, black material. Written in the margin next to the photos: “1967 - success.” The images were dark and not well focused, but they appeared to show a group of black robed people sitting in the secret room on the benches against the walls, six on each side. Hoods hid their faces in shadows. In the middle of the room was a waist high, rectangular table like one you might see in an old medical school photo. Candles are burning in wall sconces. Both women shook their heads in disbelief.

            “This is before either of us was born. What the hell are they doing?” asked Amy.

            Sarah reluctantly reached down and turned the page. It took a few moments for the subject matter of the seven photos to reach clarity, and when it did, both Sarah and Amy gasped. Now lying on the table was a naked body. It wasn’t the body of a living person, but a corpse. Patches of flesh hung from the body like torn material. Skin and muscle were missing along the person’s arms and legs, exposing sections of bone. Insects and time had ravaged the face and lips were missing, exposing grinning rows of rotted teeth. The body was in such a state of decay it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. A robed individual stood at the feet of the corpse, hands held out, palms up, seeming to be praying or chanting, but the face was hidden. Amy’s hand came to her mouth as she tried to hold back the nausea. Scanning the photos, Sarah came to the fifth in the series.

            “Oh my God,” she cried aloud.

            In this photo, the upper body of the corpse has risen several inches off of the table. As the robed person supplicates, the subsequent photos record the dead body sitting up until it is perpendicular, its spine poking through the thin skin of its back. Amy took her right hand and angrily pushed the book off of the table onto the floor. Sobbing, Sarah wrapped her younger sister in her arms and they both clung to each other in a state of shock and disbelief.

            “This is insanity. What were they doing?” asked Amy.

            “I want answers.”

            “What?”

            Visibly upset, Sarah got up and retrieved the book. “I want to know what in the fuck is going on here. What does this mean? Is it some kind of sick Halloween prank? Get your coat, we’re going to the Webster Center.”

            They didn’t talk in the car as Sarah drove through the light drizzle, her hands turning white from gripping the steering wheel. The shock of seeing what their parents were involved in had both of them shaking with disgust and anger. Tires screeched as she turned quickly into a parking slot and stopped. Sarah, the book tucked under her arm, and Amy marched across the wet lot to the Center entrance. The small, round receptionist smiled as the women passed, but the gesture wasn’t returned. Sarah pushed open the door to room 148. Elizabeth wasn’t there.

            “Excuse me,” called Sarah as they approached the reception desk.

            “Yes?” the woman managed to say through her perpetual grin.

            “Elizabeth Keppler. She’s not in her room. Do you know where she is?”

            The woman referred to a log in front of her. “Oh right. Her husband came in about thirty minutes ago and took her for a walk.”

            “What?” whispered Amy.

            “I know it’s none of my business,” she said, leaning in and lowering her voice, “but that man don’t look well. Not well at all.”