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"What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a Deacon or some highly visible form of Christian within our culture?"
Buber, Good and Evil, p. 111 as quoted on page 76 in People of The Lie by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

A bizarre scene unfolded out on MSNBC's Hardball the evening of July 5, 2006, as
Norah O'Donnell, impeccable in her dress, her make-up a facial coif of sorts, became the angry and dogmatic Mother Superior intent on defending her apparent christ from the onslaught of truthful statements made against him by the Rebellious Student sitting in front of her, namely, one Cindy Sheehan.

Mother Superior (O'Donnell) started her dogmatic berating of Sheehan by stating, "Americans may hate the war, but they don't necessarily hate the president. How do you expect to get change by going around the world and trashing the president of the United States?"

(Dear Mother Superior, have you been out of the convent lately? Have you read any of the blogs in the bloggosphere, or any of the progressive websites? The America I know HATES George W. Bush. Okay. The America I know feels repulsed by George W. Bush. What do you call people's emotion when they want to lunge things at the television every time George Bush appears on their screen? What do you call people's emotions when they feel the need to give him the finger as the gunship helicopter transporting him flies over their rooftops? What emotion would you say propels people in America and in the world to take to the streets, or stand on our highways and overpasses with signs that say, "fire the liar", "He lied and people died", or "Neoconned, America's Been Duped". I mean, have you really been outside of the corporate convent recently, dear Mother Superior? Have you looked at the wave of revulsion your all too human dictator christ has wrought on this world?)

Sheehan, the Rebellious Student, the student capable of thinking on her own, coming to her own conclusions, and of making her own decisions, sat there mild mannered, not seemingly intimidated one bit by Mother Superior's dogmatic reprimands and offered in a calm voice, very reasoned out answers like, "Actually, I don't trash the president; I trash the president's foreign policy, which is fundamentally and inherently wrong and immoral."

(Oops! Did this strike a chord with you, Mother Superior? It might have, because your immediate reply sounded more like a reactive one, calculated to stoke the fires of reactivity against Sheehan. You said, "But you called him, 'the biggest terrorists in the world.' So you are trashing the president." There, you have it guys: Mother Superior said it and so it must be believed as dogma. Seriously, though, you refused to accept Sheehan's direct eye-to-eye, face-to-face explanation to you of a distinction between trashing Bush and trashing Bush's policies and you made it your dogmatic statement that she trashes your idealized Bush, insisting that she called him, "the biggest terrorist in the world." And, insisting that Sheehan is, "trashing the president.")

The rebellious student sitting in front of you would have none of your dogma, nor would she let herself be intimidated by your Mother Superior act of constantly shaming and ridiculing the living daylights out of her. She patiently she explained that, "Well, you know, he says a terrorist is somebody who kills innocent men, women and children, and there have been over 100,000 innocent men, women and children killed in Iraq on his orders."

(... Did truth score a point here Mother Superior? You dropped the subject faster than a pair of hands might drop a hot potato and went on to ask about Sheehan's recently begun two-month hunger strike. Then, apparently not wanting to be informed on the subject, or perhaps afraid of how her answer might instruct the people who are desperately looking for a way to fight George Bush off of their backs, you interjected, even before she answered, "Isn't this really more of a publicity stunt?" To her answer that, "NO...It's a moral reaction to an immoral war ..." you offered up some more ridicule and minimizing the intent of her hunger strike, you stated, "But do you honestly expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, or the president of the United States to say, Cindy Sheehan is going on a hunger strike and so I'm going to end this war?")

Again, the rebellious student would have none of your bait. She gave you a calm, reasoned-through answer, "...what we're trying to do is ...awaken consciousness in the United States and around the world to get more people out and active, because we know two-thirds of America disapprove of George Bush and his policies in Iraq, but I don't see two-thirds of America out protesting, writing their congresspeople and changing policy."

With that, the Rebellious Student, sitting on the bench of the accused lifted your facial coif in one swoop and showed us how you really labor to keep truth from coming out and people from becoming active against your idealized, dictatorial, christos.

Dear Mother Superior, what I wonder is, when you go home at night, and take off your make-up and look into the mirror, can you see yourself? Can you honestly peer into your soul and say to yourself that you've done the right thing?

Do you believe, Dear Mother Superior, that people cannot see through your pre-packaged agenda?

Authors Bio:
E.T.SIMON ... Keeping the Bio Real and Transparent ...
E. T. SIMON is more often like a transplanted palm tree from the land of Santiago de Cuba where she was born to a Cuban, Tulane University, lawyer educated father and, a Mississippi, mother, great-granddaughter of American Revolutionary War hero, Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who is credited with the victory against the British in the Battle of the Cowpens. Although at times, E.T. Simon is more like, the fruit of the pecan of her Mississippi grandparents pecan farm of long ago, or even like the Sycamore so firmly rooted in the Florida Peninsula. As such, the daughter of bi-cultural, bi-lingual parents, E.T. Simon navigated the bi-cultural ties, bi-lingual shores of her birth, while learning to appreciate Cuban and Southern cuisine and cultures, from a very early age.

At the age of 15, two years after her mother's death, she dreamt about running away from her home to join the , "Bohemians" of the 1950s in New York's Greenwich Village and become a writer. She did not. In 1961, at the age of 18 her father sent her across the pond to her mother's family in Mississippi in an effort to keep her from falling prey to Fidel Castro's repressive agents who were on her trail for her opposition to Fidel Castro.
Bumpy rides, or not, In 1976, E.T. Simon, after twelve years of part time studies, with in-between times-off for parenting, obtained her B.A. in English with a Major in Literature and a double minor in Psychology and Philosophy. In 1985 she obtained her Master's Degree in Counseling and in 1987 her License in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Her quest to pursue a MFA in Creative Writing was derailed when a stuffed shirt Chaucer Literature Professor graded her paper on The Prioress Tale short of the A she needed to establish her credentials in the MFA Creative Writing Program, even while receiving the support of the Academic Dean who told her with a certain urgency, "don't stop writing. You'll find a way."
Prior to pursuing her graduate studies in counseling, Ms. E.T. Simon joined a Creative Writing Group where she honed in on some of the art and craft of writing and had the pleasure of attending poetry readings by Tess Gallagher, Denise Levertov, Rutabaga Rose and others.
Following her 1985 graduation, Ms. E.T. Simon proceeded to work as a counselor/family therapist until 1998 when, following surgery, she became a near recluse and has remained a near recluse for the last twelve years or so.
It was during those years that she worked as a counselor/family therapist that Ms. E.T. Simon learned that grief is a powerful agent which often contributes to the derailing of families; that human hearts can bury grief for generations and generations with the grief popping up unexpectedly as a symptom anywhere, sometimes even in someone else further along in the generations.
Ms. E.T. Simon also learned that when careful unearthing of buried grief happens and a person is enabled to truly grieve the pain of a loss they have been holding on to for years, then rebalancing of the derailment takes place and true healing occurs.

Writing is a lifelong love of E.T. Simon's, and whether she kept her writings buried in dusty drawers, or shared them with university professors, writers' groups, editors, or published them, the writer's flame burns undying in her. The flame of truth also burns in her along with the need to stand up for the underdog, of which, today, she finds herself to be one. This blended well in her throughout her years of computer activism for peace and social justice.

E.T. Simon's articles have been published under the name of TERESA SIMON-NOBLE, the pen name of ELENA DUMAS; and at times, under the additional pen name of SKYAGUNSTA, or SKYAGUNSTA PICKENS, both of which are a direct reference to her great-great-grandfather Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who was named "Skyagunsta," by Native Americans who came to appreciate him as a man of conscience. Please also know that whether the articles have been signed with one name, or another; with a pen name, or another, the writings have always come straight from my heart, my perception, and my core values.
In other words, it has always been me, and only me, writing the articles.