On Good Friday, we took turns hauling a cross up the cacita to the peak of our part of the mountain. We started with the highest ranking staff member, the director, Phil Redwine, and concluded with the zero levelers, all according to house. (To this day I despise hierarchies of any kind). We’d stop…
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Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real, Part Two
There were always kids at Escuela Caribe whose parents had heard of the school from someone else’s- “the program” encouraged our parents to recruit. In my time, there was a group from San Diego , from Pennsylvania, and of course kids from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and other parts of the Midwest. Before sending me, my parents…
Six years ago today…
Six years ago today, Vic Chesnutt played my birthday celebration. Chris Sugiuchi and Eric Harris backed him. They set up on the skateboard ramp which used to be in our backyard. I love so many things- Vic’s guitar, which said “Chesnutt.” The break where he throws his head back and howls in Cobbham Blues. My favorite…
Stockholm Syndrome Is for Real (for all NHYM Survivors…and anyone who has triumphed over trauma)
I was fifteen. We were building the Director’s house.Our housefather would punish us if we didn’t move faster, faster, faster… What I need to tell you now is about Stockholm Syndrome and how it impacted me.I need to tell you because for the past eight years I have been working on my book about the evangelical…
Tales of Terror via Pulp-O-Mizer
Create your own pulp fiction cover via Pulp-O-Mizer. Fun times!
Lifeline Youth and Family Services Under Scrutiny Stateside
Lifeline Youth and Family Services, the company which assumed control of Escuela Caribe, the abusive juvenile detention facility located in the Dominican Republic, is under scrutiny stateside for negligence. In a recent article in the Stacey Page Online (Kosciusko County, Indiana’s only digital newspaper), writer Stacey Page reports that three commissioners of Kosciusko County…
Craig Lieske
Last Friday the extraordinary Craig Lieske-musician, writer, innovator- suddenly passed. Several of us composed tributes to him for Flagpole. This was mine: Craig Lieske and I became friends four years ago. We were at the 40 Watt, the Truckers were playing and I was raw with grief over a friend’s sudden death. Everyone knew—Flagpole had recently…
Escuela Caribe = Caribbean Mountain Academy
One of the things that led me to question the validity of Caribe Mountain Academies supposed separation from NHYM was not only the use of staff from NHYM but the complete failure of Caribe Mountain Academy to mention in their staff’s work history as the reason all these US citizens were mysteriously in the DR…
Interview with Compliance’s Craig Zobel
Last fall I interviewed sometime Athenian Craig Zobel about his film Compliance. We discussed our mutual love for the work of Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram, the effect of situational forces on human behavior (and how people can be seduced into doing wrong), the exploitation of women in modern culture, working in fast…
Caribbean Mountain Academy in Need of Reform
This summer, I signed a petition addressed to Crosswinds/ Lifeline Youth and Family Services CEO Mark Terrell. Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres wrote the petition after requesting input from various survivors of New Horizons Youth Ministries, including myself. In the petition, we asked Mr. Terrell to implement several changes to protect students enrolled at the…