“Your article appears to focus on how to avoid keeping your part of the agreement…If in fact you had the funds available – it would seem to the bank that you were CHOOSING to ignore your part of the agreement. And it is only logical that they should begin collection procedures.”

Hal – you missed the point of the article!

Hal, you are absolutely right that at some point the bank does have a right to say “you have $2000 in your checking account and you’re three months past due on your Visa, so we are going to freeze your funds until you bring your Visa current.” I have absolutely no problem with that.

My points were (1) the banks are freezing accounts without any warning, and (2) they are also extending their actions to accounts owned by third parties that would not normally be responsible for paying off another person’s debt – such as your elderly mother’s or a disabled relative’s account that you hold Power of Attorney responsibilities.

In my specific case, my bank account was frozen – not because I was late on any payments or ever had been – but because a relative of mine (who, several years before, briefly had signatory authority on my account while I was in the hospital having open heart surgery) fell behind on a credit card issued by the same bank.

Adding to my frustration is the fact that in 2005 the bank was specifically directed to remove all other names associated with the account after I married and had my new wife added to my bank accounts. The account representative assured me then that she had deleted all other names (this was during a personal visit to the bank), but the bank manager apparently overlooked one minor account that I no longer used but might have had a few dollars left in it. That’s all it took for the bank to find a connection four years later, however remote it might have been, and take action to freeze my account as well as those belonging to my relative.

The truth of my case is that I have been a customer of this bank since 1966. During that time I have had checking, savings, and investment accounts there – some that at times approached the bank’s insurance maximums. I’ve had several auto and personal loans – and still have a Visa credit card with a small balance. In 43 years I’ve never missed a payment on any debt that I’ve owed that bank. In spite of those facts and without warning, they took my accounts hostage to force my relative to pay up on a credit card that I had absolutely no connection whatsoever.

I have been one of that bank’s most faithful customers. When I lived in Texas for ten years (1985-1994), I kept the account open – even though some of my privileges were suspended because I lived outside of the bank’s service area.

When I filed bankruptcy several years ago (thanks mostly to medical bills left uncovered by my limited health insurance policy), this particular bank held the only unsecured bank credit account that I insisted on reaffirming – in spite of my attorney’s objections.

When I moved to Oregon in 2006 I kept that bank as my primary financial institution. I conducted business as normal by using local ATMs and online banking to manage my affairs – and continue to use that bank exclusively for my savings and checking accounts.

This situation might be understandable if I was ever a guarantor, co-signer or co-user – but my name has never been connected with that relative’s accounts in any way. But in my case, and clearly for thousands of other banking customers, the bank does not seem to care if there is or has been a formal legal connection between the parties and their personal banking business.

So what’s next?

If I suggested that a friend or family member move their accounts to that bank, is the bank going to hold me responsible for their debts because of my recommendation? If there is another customer in the bank with my same surname – are they going to assume that we are related and base their punitive actions against me on that basis?

The Internet has hundreds of these types of experiences described in blogs and comments. The one I quoted briefly in the original article was a comment to an online newspaper article.

I’ve managed to work out my particular problem and was fortunate to have other resources to fall back on. But what about a poor little old woman whose son just lost his job and he’s listed as having power of attorney on her accounts? What does she do? What can she do?

I intended that my previous article be a warning to our readers to be aware of what their bank might be capable of doing. In no way am I suggesting that people stop making payments on money rightfully owed to their bank or any other financial institution.

This policy is creating situations where bank customers are unable to make purchases or do online banking even when they have substantial balances in their cash accounts. In some cases, they can’t even make payments between accounts within their own bank, unless they go to a bank branch to handle the transactions.

If you are in that type of situation with your bank, I strongly suggest that you either move your cash accounts to another bank as soon as you can – or payoff and close all credit cards and other loans with your bank.

In many cases, accounts are being frozen without any warning to the customer. You will only realize that there is a problem when you are making a purchase with your ATM card and it is rejected for no clear reason. Another clue that something is wrong will come when you find that you are locked out of your bank’s online system.

A freeze can also be extended to cash accounts of other family members where you might have power of attorney or emergency authorization rights – as might be the case if you are managing the finances of an elderly parent or a disabled family member. Suddenly they can’t access their account either only because your name is connected to it in some way.

In spite of all the taxpayer money the U.S. has invested toward saving and strengthening the banking system, these financial giants continue to abuse and take unfair advantage of their customers. They seem to enjoy kicking their customers when they are down. Bankers see their unconscionable actions as simply “business decisions.”

In the past, cash accounts held by a bank could only be frozen or seized by court order or by government action. Now the banks are doing it without any authority other than that they feel they can, and they will when they feel they might be facing some financial risk. They will point to some small type in one of their past account change disclosures as giving them the authority to abuse you.

Having your accounts frozen can quickly create a financial meltdown. Inability to access your accounts will usually result in late payments to all of your other creditors, almost instantly destroying your credit rating.  This becomes even more complicated if you already have direct deposits and automatic payments moving through your cash accounts – as most of us do now.

One blogger reported that because of a bank error that credited two of his credit card payments to another family member’s account, his account was frozen for nearly three weeks before he could get the problem identified and resolved.

“No matter how hard I pleaded with them to let me access my account so that I could make those payments, the bank’s so-called customer service department refused to budge. I had the money to make the payments, but I simply could not get to it. They would only give me access to my cash accounts if I paid off those accounts completely and closed them – a financial impossibility for me at the time – although it was their error that created this mess. In less than six weeks my credit score fell from the mid-700s to the mid-500s. Because of this, two other unrelated credit cards that I held at the time eventually raised my interest rates a full 15%, even though they were always paid on time. I finally relented and found a way to pay off the credit cards so that I could access my checking account and get everything caught up. As soon as I did, the bank closed all of my accounts anyway.”

I know this to be a fact. I have been recently victimized by this very same bank policy. I managed to work around this unpleasant situation, but only after suffering several days of near panic.

“Caveat emptor…”

Editor’s Note: Events of recent weeks in far western China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, prompted this submission from someone who has been there, and who must – for now – remain anonymous.

Urumqi, Xinjiang is a fascinating city of broad ethnic diversity, mixed Soviet and traditional architecture, a reasonable infrastructure, and excellent food. In addition to the balanced and dominant Uyghur and Han ethnicities, also represented are Kazak, Hui, Mongolian, Kirgiz, Xibe, Tajik, Ozbek, Manchu, Daur, Tatar and Russian. But throughout Xinjiang, it is the Han, associated with the central government, and the Uyghurs, who still call the area East Turkistan, who are, and have been for recorded history, in conflict. As we have seen this summer, the conflict has often been violent.

We traveled to Urumqi from Beijing on our way across Asia on the Silk Road a few years ago. We found the people to be friendly, both Han and Uyghurs alike, but ethnic division was apparent throughout the region.

The year before we traveled through Xinjiang, the Uyghurs had bombed several buses in Urumqi, but it was not fully covered by the Western press, probably for lack of reporters in the region.

Who are these Uyghurs anyway? They live in such a remote part of China that few Westerners visit, or even know it exists. The Uyghurs are a Turkic people, and lay ethnic claim to a huge area of Central Asia reaching as far as Turkey in the west, Iran in the south, most of Kazakhstan and all of Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Early multiple invasions by warring peoples, and modern divide-and-conquer tactics of the Russians, with the consent of China, shattered geographic Turkistan, but the memory of Turkic speaking peoples is long.

Uyghurs, who lay moral and historic claim to East Turkistan (Xinjiang), have been the most active in attempting to regain full autonomy in historic times. As with the Tibetan minority, they chafe under Chinese (Han) rule. That constant burr under the saddle of their steppe ponies, periodically leads them to violence.

The most recent burr was the killing of Uyghurs by Han in a Southern China factory in the city of Shaoguan. The Uyghurs have trouble finding work in their own oil and gas rich region, and are forced to compete with the Han for factory jobs far from home.

As we arrived in one remote village, we were swarmed by a large group of Uyghur men, curious about the rare sight of a Caucasian couple riding a type of bicycle they had never seen. We soon learned they had been waiting for days, a prayer rug and blanket comprising their possessions, for a few low paying hard labor jobs repairing the single road to Kazakhstan. The supervisors were all Han, and paid much more than the Uyghurs

A few days later, near the border with Kazakhstan, a Uyghur had been told an American couple was staying at the hotel, and he waited for us to return from a walk. If you travel independently in China, you soon learn many people know where you are at all times. It can be unsettling at first. Local authorities knew he was meeting with us, and he probably was taking a risk.

Here is an account of our meeting from my journals:

He is a large Uyghur man of 47. He says he was a boxer and basketball player. He is fat now, in a successful businessman sort of way; proof of prosperity, somewhat of a rarity among Uyghurs. He orders the Han staff around like the stereotypical “Ugly American,” though he is a Chinese citizen. However, he is not Han, he is Uyghur, and thus does not see himself as being Chinese. Uyghur is his identity; he knows the bounds of his ethnicity and chafes at the loss of autonomy at the hands of the Chinese.

“Peejo! Peejo!” He waves his arm ordering more beer, and another Uyghur dish, both of which he pushes on us. “America good!” he says, and smiles broadly, setting broadside on his chair, legs spread to make room for his belly. He says something else, raises both hands high into the air, lifting up an imaginary something to great heights. “America,” he sighs. “America.” Then his beatific smile turns to a snarl, “China!” He turns up a little finger and spits on it, ultimate insult. “China bad.” Spit. “America!,” his voice softens again, and he lays his hand on his heart. “America.” Then he brightens, “George Bush! Good! America. Good!” He frowns again, “Saddam. Bad!” He is showing his solidarity with another small ethnic minority, the Kurdish in northern Iraq and Turkey.

We listen. He of course assumes we agree with him completely. There is no use trying to communicate that these questions are more complicated than perhaps he sees from his perspective. We smile. I try to drink just enough beer to please him, without getting drunk. I feel sorry for the poor man. He really thinks (he is not alone among Uyghurs) that America will someday restore the Uyghur homeland of western China to them. He really thinks America will attack China, just like we attacked Iraq. Poor man. Even an ego as big as George W. Bush would not consider attacking China.

The commercial dragon is awakening, and that is arguably good for the world economy; the sleeping dragon of the Chinese military might is not something to be awakened; not for a few million Uyghurs; sheepherders, horse and camel wanderers of the steppes and deserts of China. No, the Uyghurs will be free when they free themselves, and the Han will probably never allow that. They will dominate and eventually overwhelm with sheer population numbers, as they have done to the Tibetans. The dragon sleeps, but is still a dragon.

It appears that many in this major ethnic group, have somehow come to believe that we are their saviors. I’m not sure what our government has told them, or to what purpose, but since some of them are training to be terrorists, which is how they got to Guantanamo, I hope they don’t turn on us in their disappointment.

In coming months I will write about different Chinese ethnic groups, their relationship to the Han majority, and what that could mean for the Chinese government and their single party system.

China is a force to be reckoned with in this century, and we had better learn as much about the people and their ambitions as possible. The Communist government has adopted a market driven economy with a vengeance in recent years. How they bring those minorities, and the poorer Han, into economic parity with the new rich and the ruling class, will partially determine if the single party system evolves, or is replaced by something else. That something else, a system we enjoy, strikes fear in the hearts of the power elite in China.

Should current trends toward social instability remain unresolved, China could, as North Korea has done, turn to imaginary external threats and expand the military. The Han are very patriotic, and any outside threat would bind them together in a way that could threaten the peaceful relationship China has with us now. Let’s hope for continued evolution in China; in the political arena, not just the economic world.

According to government sources these attacks have ranged from low-levels of nuisance hacking to serious and aggressive probes and attacks on many federal government computer networks. There is a strong suspicion that possibly China and Russia, among other nations, have actually supported and sponsored cyber espionage against the West. It was revealed earlier this year that there had been a cyber attack against the North American electrical grid, and that some Pentagon computer networks were temporarily infected by a virus.

President Obama has admitted that even his campaign computers were victimized by hackers. He reassured his campaign contributors and donors that none of their personal information had been tampered with or compromised.

On May 29th, Obama announced that he will choose the person he wants to run a new White House Office of Cyber Security. That position will report to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. An official title has not yet been determined, but the person filling the position will have regular and direct access to the President.

President Obama announces creation of Office of Cyber Security

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_V6ho0lZwY

Because I am not only a Senior Editor for JustOneOpinion.com, but also its webmaster, the security of this website is obviously very important to me. I’ve installed several built-in safeguards that not only protect the website itself, but also our contributors and visitors. So far these precautions have been working exceptionally well and I’ve had no reports or technical indications of any security breaches in connection with this site.

That is not to say that we have escaped unscathed. We are constantly being bombarded with fake and spammy comments, most coming from just a few servers in Russia, Switzerland and Italy. In just the past seven days I have removed over 500 spam comments and questionable emails from this site – and an equal number from other sites that I manage or support. These have all been trapped before they can actually enter into the JOO systems. I’ve also identified and blocked several suspect ISPs that seem to be major sources for spammy emails and comments.

It was recently reported that 97% of all emails during the past year contained spam or other problematic content. That is considered to be an improvement since this number is DOWN from the 99% reported in 2007. For those of us who are heavy users of email this is not much of an an improvement – nor is it an overstatement of the facts.

I have several personal and business email addresses. Each of them average ten to twenty spammy emails every day, whether or not I’ve received any legitimate emails intended for me from friends and business associates.

I recently created a new Yahoo! email address that I was going to use for one particular purpose. I created it, tested it once, and then left it alone for several days. I had not used it at all and had not given it out to any other website or a single living soul. I had not sent a single email from it. Only Yahoo! and I knew that it existed.

When I finally popped in a few days later to write a new email, the mail box already had fifty emails in the “Spam” folder and ten emails in the “Inbox” folder that were all spam. I just want to know how these spammers knew that I was actually interested in “sexy blonde strippers” and “Viaggrra”? Who told these people about my most personal and private secrets!?!?

The bright side of getting all that spam is that I now have a money-gram waiting for me at the local Western Union office and some really nice fellow in Nigeria has 10 million Euros that he wants to transfer to my bank and I don’t have to do much of anything except give him my account number and my password so that he can deposit it for me.

Seriously – it is time that the federal government step in and take a very hard line against cyber crime and spam. In 2003 the Bush Administration passed the CAN-SPAM Act that was intended to be a deterrent. So far it has been a disastrous failure.

Realistically, all that CAN-SPAM did was to complicate the issue rather than act as a solution. It created a few rules for legitimate commercial email and websites that real spammers simply ignore. Now it is often harder to get an email response back from your real estate broker or mortgage banker than it is to get twenty-five clearly spammy ads for “Pedi-Paws.” In many cases your banker has probably tried to comply with the law and still failed to get his email to you – while some spammer who completely ignored the law was able to get dozens of obvious spam emails through unblocked.

Let’s face it, President Obama has his hands full with this issue. The odds are high that maybe a few congressional Democrats and several Republicans will try to put up roadblocks and attempt to make this an issue of “personal freedoms” and “right to freely communicate.”

I think President Obama will have the total support of a majority of American business and personal computer users. At the same time, I would not want to be a member of Congress and have my name listed in the Congressional Record as having voted against such legislation.

The secret to success: “Follow the money!”

For many years I’ve studied this problem and considered dozens of possible solutions to stopping the worst of the spammers. My guess it that if you get the big guys, the little ones will probably be scared off and completely quit the business.

Since the Bush Administration suspended most of our privacy rights under the so-called “Patriot Act” and started listening in to all of our phone calls, the government also has the ability to read and index all of our emails and other online communications. After several years of the Feds “listening in,” there simply has to be a huge resource of data from which the government can mine evidence to identify and take action against the worst of these spammers.

Think about it: There’s no real advantage to spammers to send out millions of emails every hour for nothing. It takes some effort to prepare the emails, gather up millions of email addresses, and to track them. Someone is obviously paying them for doing all of this.

In almost every case, there is a major company or corporation that benefits from sales generated by all this spam. Either the makers of “Pedi-Paws” or some of their distributors have to be making money from the effort of the spammers, so they pay commissions for each sale to the spammers. These commissions can be huge. If the response rate is just one thousandth of a percent, literally hundreds of sales will be made every day for that one product. If a spammer can send out enough emails to generate ten thousand sales and get a 50 cent commission per each, that is $5000 a day, or nearly $2 million a year from just one product. Then all they do is “rinse and repeat!”

A far more important issue with spam is not just that a few computer whizzes have figured out how to set their computers to make a ton of money for them – but rather the danger posed by just a few criminal hackers who also use spammy emails to distribute viruses via hijacked computers or by stealing private and personal data from other folks’ computer hard drives.

Those of us that use PCs (IBM-Intel personal computers) with Microsoft Windows software are especially vulnerable to viruses, spyware and ad-ware. This situation is not so much due to the limitations of the PC or Microsoft software, but rather the fact that there are so many in use in millions of homes and businesses that they make a more tempting target for hackers to concentrate on.

It has been said that Macintosh/Apple style computers are safer to use, as are Firefox and Opera browsers. This is true to some extent, but not completely. There are some very serious viruses that exist that attack those computers, but because the numbers are so much smaller, they are less inviting targets and less profitable for hackers to spend their time on.

What the Government Can Do

• Let the hackers and spammers know that the Feds are coming after them.
• Ask Congress to pass emergency legislation that will make any attack on either personal, business or government computers a federal crime with some very stiff confiscatory and jail penalties. Make this legislation effective within 30-60 days.
• Let the government offer the first one hundred hackers and spammers to come forward, turn themselves in, and work for the government as consultants to catch other spammers and hackers. Carefully monitor their activities so that we don’t “let the fox into the hen house.”
• Have a team of investigators and volunteers start responding to spam, make purchases, and then follow the money to see who gets the final payoff.
• Establish severe penalties and fines for any American business or manufacturer that allows its products to be sold via spam emails or spammy websites.
• Establish severe penalties, including revocation of importing rights, to any foreign company that is found to use spam emails to sell their products.
• Send out regular bulletins and updates to major newspapers and TV outlets that will identify spam emails and the products they sell. Some people may think that buying “Pedi-Paws” through an email vendor might be a good idea. Let the public know the risks and tell them who the culprits really are.
• Create a government website that publishes examples of real and current phishing and spam emails. For example, if a person gets an email from “Bank of America” (I’ve gotten at least a dozen in the past week alone and I don’t even have an account with BofA) telling the reader that their bank account will be frozen if they don’t email back their account number and password, they should be able to go to the government site and look it up to see if it is legitimate or not. If not, they can place a report to be followed up on by investigators. If it is, then the government can contact the bank and tell them to change their procedures and to stop sending the emails.
• If I can follow the tracks back to the computers that are sending spam using widely available software and simple online searches, then so can the government. Let’s see them put some effort behind their wagging tongues for a change.

This is serious, folks! I’m pleased that President Obama has taken this initiative. We need to give him our full support. If he is successful in his efforts, we will see an immediate decrease in cyber crimes, virus attacks on our computers, and identity theft crimes.

In addition to supporting President Obama in this national effort, we should withhold our votes from any member of Congress, any U.S. Senator, or any state government official that opposes this effort. We will never be truly free to communicate through the Internet or by email until this problem with cyber crime is finally under control. Anyone who opposes this effort is either an idiot or in cahoots with the spammers.

Just One Opinion will publish the names of any public official, elected or appointed, that fails to support this effort. They do have the right to speak their mind, and we will publish their comments and concerns, but we want to know what possible reason they would have to not support President Obama’s effort to curb cyber crime and the resulting identity theft that affects us all.

I’d like to suggest that we use NBC’s online predator documentaries as an example of how to deal with spammers. These shows use volunteers over 18 to act as underage boys and girls chatting online. Using MySpace.com and other online social networks they use volunteer experts to lure potential pedophiles into showing up at private homes all across the country with the intent to have sex or otherwise molest these presumably “under-aged minors.” When they do show up they are caught “with their pants down,” so to speak, and then turned over to the local police.

Watch one or two of these shows and you will see dozens of men of all races, income levels and social backgrounds show up to be caught in a trap of their own making. Many bring condoms, liquor, sex toys – and sometimes even ropes, knives and guns. When they do show up, they are turned over to the local police for arrest and booking. In the process, no one is hurt and no children are actually involved.

That is what our government needs to do with spammers: Find a way to identify and locate them, suck them into a trap, and then turn them over to the police. Then let the Feds go after the people they are really working for and do the same to them.

Is NPPC’s concern that disillusioned military vets aren’t any more susceptible to such extreme viewpoints than say, the recently jobless or recently homeless? This disturbing video still spooks me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7heBzRT5s

Hear that patriotic music in the background? See the broad shouldered and highly decorated uniform? Like the coward’s mask? Be afraid, very afraid the message screams. Apologizing for the necessity of the mask, the speaker fashions himself a coward, fearful of his own countrymen. For eight minutes he rambles on about the current threat level to the second amendment. Is this what a true patriot looks like?

As the recent shooting attack at Camp Liberty near Bagdad points out, even current members of the military are suffering from the stresses of multiple deployments just as veterans struggle to assimilate into the mainstream after their service. These are people with disciplined training and a thorough knowledge of weapons, yet some are having difficulty coping and remain untreated for PTSD. Rather than a poor reflection on vets, this is an indictment of the nature of extremism, according to a clarification made by Napolitano.

What is most troubling regarding gun violence is that a recent shooting of three police officers in Pittsburgh was attributed in part to shooter Richard Poplawski’s fear that Obama is going to take his guns away.  Had he been watching this video?

Many others are lashing out with violence as well.

“He must have been a coward,” said Binghamton, New York’s Police Chief Joseph Zikuski, referring to Jiverly Wong, who killed 13 people on April 3. Wong had recently lost his job and had been ridiculed for his poor language skills. He barricaded the rear door of the American Civic Association with his car and donned a bullet proof vest before carrying out the assault with two handguns and plenty of ammunition.

The recent rise in gun violence has been blamed on everything from fears of gun restrictions, rising unemployment and reactions to bullying, none of which should have any impact on our military veterans. Except that suicide among soldiers in the Army is at an all time high. They’re also feeling hopeless.

Carrie Constein wrote this letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star, published April 28:

After spending four years of my life serving in the 101st Airborne Division —a year of which was in Iraq — I find myself facing bankruptcy. I was injured while serving my country; in fact I was med-boarded out because of my injuries.

I was diagnosed with PTSD while still in the Army. I have fought for almost two years for my benefits. I have had surgery, and because of my injuries, I cannot work. I’m on the verge of losing my car and must live with my parents. I consider myself fortunate to have somewhere to live; many of the vets I see are homeless.

You can multiply my story hundreds of times over. Each time I go to the VA hospital, I see other vets fighting for their benefits. We fought a battle in Iraq, but we didn’t think we’d have to come home and fight again for our rights as veterans.

Many other Iraq war vets have expressed strong tendencies toward violence, feelings of isolation and severe depression. Can we hear this call for help? Does Post Traumatic Stress Disorder count as a disability or not? What options do these military vets have?

Wherever our future domestic terrorists come from, there are many sources to consider. Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security certainly have their work cut out for them.

Seven months before the book fair, I received a phone call from the chairperson of the Festival’s planning committee. She had read my book,Growing Up in Mama’s Club, and Esther Royer Ayers’ Rolling Down Black Stockings, a memoir about growing up as an Old Order Mennonite. She believed both of us had interesting stories to tell and wondered if I would be willing to put on a one-hour presentation with Esther to share our childhood experiences.

When I put the phone down, my mind was racing. Why had they paired the two of us? Could Esther write? Would the chemistry work between us? What did we have in common, since I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and Esther as an Old Order Mennonite? I immediately ordered her book and found it to be a quick, easy read. I posted the following Amazon.com review:

“How could you not fall in love Esther Royer Ayers after reading her stirring story in Rolling Down Black Stockings? I know that my wife and I did. Perhaps it’s because Esther and I had strong, dominant mothers who chose non-mainstream religious beliefs and practices over common sense to raise their children. Maybe it’s due to the ghosts that haunted both our adult lives because of how fear trumped love in our parent’s decision making skills while we were growing up. Then again, it may be that as an author, I especially enjoy writers with a gift for words, engaging their readers with eloquent prose, poignant metaphors, and down-to-earth analogies.”

After I read her book, I felt that I had found a sister and called her immediately, knowing she had also just finished reading my story. We had lots to talk about and commented about the commonalities of our childhood experiences. Although we were reared in totally different religious groups, we shared the same pain and shame as children, and we reacted in similar ways when rules and regulations were forced upon us. It did not take us long to figure it out: we had both been raised in a cult and this was our common bond. Esther shares her thoughts on this matter on her own website at EstherRoyerAyers.com. – Click here to read her article.

As we began talking about what we would say and how to present our stories at the Festival, the title for our presentation, Two Remarkable Stories of Growing Up in Cults – Told with Compassion and Humor, became self-evident. We decided to have a lively interactive dialogue about growing up in different cults—exposing surprising and shocking similarities between these two very unique and secretive religious groups. Then we would open it up for questions from the audience. We also came up with the following list to help people identify if they belonged to a cult:

You Are Probably a Member of a Cult

[If your church advocates at least ten items from the following list - per Esther and Dick]

1. The Church’s leaders or leader tell you that your religion, and only your religious group, is directed (exclusively) by God.
2. You are taught that only members of your religious group have the potential to earn God’s good graces and salvation.
3. You are taught that Satan and his demons are the instigators of all false religions (any religion but yours).
4. There is an autocratic, dictatorial, tribal organizational structure in place with “Unquestionable Authority” given to the church leaders.
5. You can’t challenge church beliefs or practices. If you do, you are disciplined or excommunicated, shunned, and treated as apostate. (Blind, robot-like obedience to church authority is required.)
6. You are told to associate with only members of your religious group. Friendships with non-church members are frowned upon.
7. You are told that your church leaders receive divine inspiration from God on how to interpret the Bible, or you believe in a literal (word-for-word) translation of the Holy Bible.
8. Your loyalty to the church and God is continually tested with rules, regulations, and no-no’s that alienate you from societal norms.
9. You are constantly reminded you are never doing enough to please God. In order to win His favor and salvation, you must do more.
10. Women are treated as inferior to men – and the subjugation of women permeates all areas of your life.
11. You are told to sacrifice pleasures and opportunities in this life in order to be rewarded in your next life.
12. Public education is controlled and limited. College is a no-no. Optimum schooling is best provided only from church leaders/journals.
13. You believe the world will be destroyed in your lifetime. (JWs)
14. You are told what books and literature you can and cannot read.
15. You aren’t allowed to pledge allegiance to the flag of your country.
16. You are forbidden to celebrate holidays.
17. Parents are advised to spank or whip their children, and told this is God’s preferred form of discipline to raise them wisely.
18. You are not allowed to investigate the history of your church.
19. Your church advocates beliefs that are not scientifically possible.
20. You are forced to comply with a strict dress code.
21. Members police other members to enforce church rules.
22. You believe irrational human behavior is caused by the Devil.

My big day came on Sunday. Esther and I started our one-hour presentation at 4:00 PM in Koffler Hall, followed by another half hour to sell and sign our books. As the Hall began filling up, I was excited to see so many new faces along with a few close friends. After Esther and I were introduced, the next hour just flew by. The chemistry between Esther and me, and our audience, was what writers doing a presentation can only dream about. When it was time for questions and answers, this engaged group was fully energized with many arms waving frantically to have the moderator call on them. We handled several excellent and well-thought-out questions.

After selling and signing books – and answering many questions on a one-on-one basis – I was left with an incredible adrenaline high and a special kinship with this newly-found sister of mine. I felt very grateful to those people on the Tucson Festival of Books committee who saw the wisdom in pairing Esther and me – and letting us tell our own stories of growing up in cults.