Hopefully the last post on the Beck issue. I think interest has died down somewhat. However next Monday Martha Beck will reportedly be on KUER's Radio West. (90.1 FM in Utah, but available via streaming MP3 via their website) I've not been able to confirm this though and their website doesn't have their future shows listed. I'd suggest that if you do decide to call in, that you be respectful, restrained, and conservative in claims and charges. The following day, Tuesday, Beck's sister Christina Mincek will be on, presumably answering Beck's charges and giving the family's perspective. The show airs from 11 AM to 12 PM but is generally available for download for the two weeks following the show.
On Thursday (3/31) Beck will be on one of the valley's other NPR stations, KRCL, from 12 PM to 1 PM. That's on 90.9 FM but it too has streaming MP3 from their website. (I believe they also broadcast on 1010 AM)
I may be posting on this topic from time to time. Especially a controversies pop up. Although to be honest, now that some time has passed since I've read it, the controversy of it all seems much less that I thought it would. It truly seems like a woman with mental problems that perhaps a publisher has taken a bit of advantage of so as to earn some money through the controversy. The more I think about it, the sadder I am for Beck. In any case I've put up a single page that'll include links to all the stories I do on the book.
1010 AM (KIQN) isn't the right station, for the record. That's yet an other local NPR station. I think there are something like 10 public radio stations in the valley, about half of which have the same shows. It's kind of confusing at times. Is that common elsewhere? It seems like every college has an NPR station. They have different themes at times. KBYU does classical, for instance. KUER does Jazz in the evenings and news the rest of the time. The Ogden station does some classical and folk. The Park City one, which is I think the one Beck is on, does Jazz, some techno, and some more alternative folk. KIQN does pretty much all news, from what I can tell. (They don't broadcast strong enough in the evenings to be picked up in Provo)
Just listening to RadioWest right now. They are doing a show on Terry Schiavo. (As if we need more media on that) So the story about Beck being on (at least today) seems false.
BTW - as a tangent, they had a show on Friday with Elaine Pagels that some might find interesting.
Just a note that apparently Beck will be on tomorrow (Tuesday) with her sister being on Wednesday.
I am wanting to contribute to this discussion because I have read this very strange book by Ms. Beck and find myself wanting to talk to someone about it. I myself am a Catholic and come from a Catholic background. I say this because when I have read the comments about the book, the discussion here and elsewhere focuses on the veracity of her opinions about the LDS religion, her father's scholarship, or the Mormom community. I would like to point out some things that were disturbing about the story regardless of her particular religious or cultural background. These are some things that led me to not only mistrust her story, but also to begin to dislike her as she portrays herself in the book: I did not like the fact that she was hounding her father--no other word for it--a very elderly man who is obviously a strange (speaking in allusions, dropping into foreign tongues) and avoidant personality, with whom she had never been close. It was obvious to me that he would not "open up" and it began to seem cruel that she would keep insisting that he listen to her. I just kept coming back to the fact that the man was old! Many people from that gereration are/were not open to psychological discussions. Also, these types of confrontations are often futile and get the "victim" nowhere. There is not necessarily "closure" or healing from them. She reminds us constantly throughout the book that she is a trained sociologist yet seems utterly blind to the phenomenon that occured in the early 1990's--namely, the popularity of books like The Courage to Heal, which encouraged many people to believe in recovered memories of incest, along with just the heightened interest in stories and talk shows discusing formerly hidden domestic abuse of all kinds: this, I am sure, led to the standing-room-only crowd at her lecture, which she describes in the last part of her book. She assumes that there are many women attending because they have been victims of abuse, but I couldn't help thinking that, hey, it was 1992 or so--lots of people were talking about these topics--and so lots of audience members were probably just curious about it. Another troublesome aspect of the book is the way she kept insisting on seeking and having "peak" sprititual experiences. She had had these during her pregnancy with her son, and it bothered me how much she kept seeking this. I can believe that God was helping her through her pregnancy, and God was giving her strength for the difficult future that lay ahead of her--but that's why it was an extraordinary experience--it's a rare thing. I believe that she believes in God; however, I kept feeling that she was seeking peak experiences like an addict. Someone in the book warns her of "sign seeking"--a term I'm not familiar with, but which made perfect sense to me while reading this--and yes, I felt that was what she was doing. It is as if she could not be content without drama and chaos, even in her spiritual life. Finally, I had doubts about her mental or emotional health. There are many forms of mental illness. I have had a family member who is mentally ill and is always finding conspiracies, phone taps, and the like. This person is also convinced that much familial abuse occured--and I can tell you, as can all my family members, that it did not. What is irksome for family members--and here I sympathize with the Nibley family--is that many people take ANY abuse claims as truth--no matter how crazy, improbable, or ridiculous. And they are not always true, even if the family is wacky, weird or anything else. Thanks.
Thank you for the comments. Obviously I can't speak to the core issues of Beck's claims. However, like you, I do find the conspiracies she keeps finding odd. She mentions them in many odd places. Of the ones that can be clearly be verified, such as deleted references to Mormon feminists, she is also clearly either lying or delusional. It all adds up to make one leery of the core issues that one can't really speak to one way or the other.
I rather hope that in tomorrow's radio show someone raises this issue. I suspect we'll at least get clarification of some of these points. I'll post the link to the MP3 when it becomes available. (Probably Wednesday)
Beck's interview is up at KUER.
I listened to the Beck interview. I was fairly disappointed. While I understand why the majority of the interview focused on Beck's views of spirituality and her children, I would have liked the interviewer to have at least delved into some of the more controversial issues. He really didn't (unless he did in the initial 15 minutes).
One caller did raise the issue of Beck's invention of a story about her pseudonymed therapist. The pseudonym was Grant and then Beck tells a story about the relation to the former Mormon Pres. Grant. It's quite well written until you realize the story makes no sense if the name is actually a pseudonym. Tania Lyons brought this up in her review. Beck acknowledges this, but defends it because she thought about going to a therapist named Grant. She also disputed the claim that her therapist was actually Ruth Killpack, despite having openly thanked Killpack as her therapist in her prior novel, Expecting Adam. She also appeared to deny that she had thanked Killpack in that book. When the caller asked whether this undermines peoples' ability to trust the book, she basically said it shouldn't but that it clearly does for some. But it really wasn't a good answer at all.
An other caller apparently was with Beck in a therapy meeting where the caller claimed the therapist induced false memories in her. She later realized they are false memories. She didn't appear to have a bias towards the Church, since she was critical of it and apparently had left the Church. But it seemed like a big problem for Beck. Beck's response was that while she went to therapy she had actually recovered the memories earlier and thus there was no induced memories. (Which is also her claim in the book) However she brought up the scarring issue but the interviewer never raised the issue of her previous sexual assault which presumably could have brought about the scarring. This was important since in the interview Beck said it was this outside evidence that convinced her that the abuse was real.
It will be interesting to hear to interview with Beck's sister tomorrow.
The second interview with Beck's brother and sister is up at KUER. They definitely aren't as good speakers as Beck, however a lot of the charges are quite devastating, in my opinion.
The sister, Christina Mincek, is pretty clear quite frustrated and angry and it affects her presentation. Alex is much more relaxed and comes off a little better.
One caller did raise the issue of Beck's invention of a story about her pseudonymed therapist. The pseudonym was Grant and then Beck tells a story about the relation to the former Mormon Pres. Grant. It's quite well written until you realize the story makes no sense if the name is actually a pseudonym. Tania Lyons brought this up in her review. Beck acknowledges this, but defends it because she thought about going to a therapist named Grant.
An excellent example of how the book is about Beck, and nothing else.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0405/jennings042105.php3
Nice last word on the story.
Liked these from the family website when I first read them, they still resonate now:
Postscript
"I helped raise Martha. I cared for her as a child and have tried to support her in every way possible throughout her life. Martha has always lived life as a melodrama, bouncing from one form of self-destructive behavior to another," said Christina Nibley Mincek, an attorney who has studied and written on sexual violence." Her accusation that our family would in any way tolerate a crime as hideous as the sexual abuse of a child is probably just another sad attempt by Martha to claim the limelight and make herself the hero/victim in one of her fanciful stories."
"Martha and I have remained close and I often spend holidays with her," said Rebecca Nibley. "During that time [the period when "Leaving the Saints" takes place], she encouraged me to get my own recovered memories of being abused. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember anything untoward concerning my father's behavior toward me, and I can't validate any of Martha's claims. I love Martha dearly and hope she knows I am there for her under any and all circumstances."
"She was my big sister and I idolized her, and still admire her in many ways. We shared a bunk bed during the entire time Martha says she was being abused," said Zina Nibley Petersen, Ph.D. "We shared everything -- clothes, friends, secrets. I don't believe for a minute that during that whole time, she was being molested by our father. I'm shocked that her editors would release this book without checking even the most basic facts."
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