Warren Jeffs

I read until 3 this morning, riveted to Carolyn Jessop's book "Escape," the story of how she got herself and her 8 children away from the FLDS cult they'd been born into - the one that's currently in the news because of the feds' recent raid on their compound.

I was reminded of a college professor I had once, whose favorite saying was, "one in six people in this world is a Chinese peasant." His point? All of us privileged folk here in his history class came closer than we ever knew to being Chinese peasants.

Often, I'll think about the luck - sheer, dumb luck - that I ended up a woman in one of the most forward-thinking nations in the world (for all its' faults) rather than in one that treats a woman as a possession. The sort of place where, even if I possessed the know-how to navigate the internet, I could be jailed or killed just for writing this post.

I'll think about how the things that I take for granted every day - driving, drinking clean water, having the respect of most people (excepting the occasional car salesman), literacy, the ability to have sex for the pure enjoyment - all these are banned from women in many, many places on Earth.

Today, I am bowled over by the sheer, dumb luck that kept me from being one of the women in this horrible FLDS cult, made harder and more horrible by their sick, Hitler-loving head, Warren Jeffs.

Does it seem a longshot that I might have been one of these women? Well, remember, one in six people in this world is a Chinese peasant.