You wanna talk peeves? I'll give you peeves!

I can't watch a night of tv without finding some peeves - not even pet peeves either. I love the History Channel, but I watched with some skepticism an episode called The Mountain Meadows Massacre", supposedly documenting a true version of a terrible event in Mormon Church history, to this day still unclear in all its facts, about the massacre of about 100 settlers going through southern Utah in 1857. As they made their way across that barren land, allegedly some Mormon leaders down there along with some Paiute Indians they hired, decided to kill everyone execution-style, except all children under 12 for whatever unknown reason. The innuendo throughout was that they were commissioned by Brigham Young, LDS prophet at the time to do this, though John D Lee was the only one ever found guilty of this terrible deed.

It happened. How and why is still a mystery, but the speculation was rampant that it was a setup and ok with the Mormons, based on the words and records of a few, who could have had some ax to grind and wanted to blame this church. And there's no question, there could have been some maverick LDS, still full of hate toward outsiders who contributed to their early heinous persecutions in the East, who might have done this. I've heard mention that some from this wagon train might have either been associated with former persecutors or may have stirred up these Mormon settlers down there and incited them to revenge.

But what was missing was any reference to the terrible treatment of the Mormons by non-Mormons in Illinois and Missouri, including an extermination order against the LDS members by then Governor Boggs of Missouri. Thousands of new converts lost their lives in this land of supposed religious freedom because of blatant bias, prejudice, hatred and harassment, even the their prophet, Joseph Smith, who was martyred defenseless while he was imprisoned. This ultimately led to their exodus from their beautiful city of Nauvoo and their perilous trek across the wilderness to the Great Salt Lake, with Brigham Young as their leader and new prophet. Many lost their lives on that journey too. Not mentioning that more balanced perspective peeved me - a lot!

Another peeve? I watched an episode of Cold Case in which a young baby had been taken from its crackhead mother by some people who wanted to give it a good home. But when the mom sobers up, she goes out to find her son and ultimately prosecutes the people who saved her kid from herself. So those Cold Casers bring the kid back to her, now 5 or 6 and already bonded to his nurturing parents, and return him to his sobered up mom, and make it look like this is supposed to be one big happy reunion, like the kid is supposed to be happy to be reunited with a mother he doesn't even know??? Outrageous! And while current laws support that kind of action in favor of the rights of the original parent, I think they should be changed.

Whoever the child bonds to should be the parents, so the kid isn't wrenched away from them to be with someone he doesn't know, doesn't care about and now will probably have permanent trauma because of all his life. Kids need stability and love without any disruption in those early years, staying with the family that brought them up and protected them, rather than giving them back to parents who spawned them but didn't ever parent them. What a sad jolt to any kid who has to go through that. Rethink that law, please, for the child's sake!

And yet another peeve? I happened to turn the tv on to a roast of Joan Rivers the other night. I thought it might be funny. I didn't watch much of it, because what I saw was one of the most vile and filthy- mouthed rips on someone I've ever heard, with all these "stars" feeling they had total license to call her every name in the book, all in fun of course, while she just sat there with this weird smile affixed on her face, probably put there earlier by one of her plastic surgeons, so she couldn't react. Just to listen to these famous names indulge themselves in coarse vulgarities at her expense and think it was all so funny? It was pathetic and tasteless and ugly and sad - and she just sat there, emotionless. Maybe she was dead and we just didn't know it. If so, I don't think she died laughing.

Ok, one more - not tv related, but I listened to a radio interview with Heather Armstrong a while back on NPR's Radio West. Here's a woman who writes about motherhood in crass terms and foul language, a former Mormon who thinks she's so liberated because she decided in an English class at BYU once that she could have thoughts independent of her parents - so she throws away her religion and family connections. And because so many sad people with no life of their own just adore mavericks and rebels, no matter what they are against, but just because they are turncoats, she now makes thousands a month on her blog because some women think she's so cool for leaving her faith and snubbing her roots and even speaking out against it all. Not cool. I know I won't go there to get any child-raising tips. She really peeves me! So there!