A Different Kind of White House in Marianna, FL

When I lived in Florida, I went to a town called Marianna a few times. My most recent trip there was just this past September when I returned to the state to collect beetle specimens. Marianna has a dark past in a number of ways and is, to this day, a bit out of step with modern thinking. Every so often, something beyond distasteful bubbles out of the place. The following, a story that sounds like the backdrop for a horror movie, is one of them.

'White House Boys' win inquiry of reform school graves

By Rich Phillips

Four men, now in their 60s, met over the Internet, shared stories about the darkest days of their pasts and spurred an investigation into 32 graves at a reform school.

Roger Kiser, Michael McCarthy, Bryant Middleton and Dick Colon talked about whippings and beatings and other boys who disappeared. They discussed the 32 crosses marking the graves of persons unknown on the grounds of the former Florida Industrial School for Boys.

They called their group the White House Boys, taking the name from the single story concrete building where, they say, boys were beaten and tortured decades ago.

The White House Boys believe that delinquents and orphans sent to the concrete White House were killed and their remains buried to cover up the brutality.

This week, the four called on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to investigate. Crist agreed and asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to search for remains, identify them and determine whether any crimes were committed.

The department agreed to look into the mystery of the 32 crosses on the grounds of what is now known as the Dozier School, in Marianna, just south of the Alabama state line...

...A guard confronted the other boy and began to treat him roughly, Middleton said.

"He dragged him to the administration building, and I never saw him again. He never came back to work or to the cottage," Middleton said. "He literally disappeared off the face of the Earth..."

Colon said he remembers entering the laundry one day, and his life has never been the same.

Inside a large tumble dryer was a black teen.

The White House boys, who are all white, said black kids at the school were beaten even more savagely than white kids...

While it's worth keeping in mind that these are only allegations and the 32 anonymous metal crosses may or may not turn out to mark graves where human remains were interred, episodes like this weren't unknown from the time and geography.

If it turns out to be true, it's still unlikely that anyone will ever face charges for the murders. It's been 50 years or more; most if not all of the alleged culprits are likely dead themselves by now. Even if they weren't, I would imagine it would be nearly impossible to tie any surviving employees to a particular crime by now in a conclusive manner.

The image of a teenager in a dryer and the story of one inmate who simply disappeared... someone needs to interview the four survivors mentioned in the story for a horror movie. What a nightmare.

Sphere: Related Content

Exorcism in Texas: American Kindoki Kills Another Child

There's been yet another exorcism-related death in the US. This time it's in Henderson, Texas where a couple of 18 year old parents beat their 13 month old child to death with a hammer and possibly several other blunt instruments in an attempt to "drive the demons out." Oh, and they bit her at least 20 times, too.

Couple Bit Child More Than 20 Times in Fatal Exorcism

by Kenneth Dean

They claim they were trying to drive the demons out of the 13-month-old, but law enforcement officers say the bottom line is a Rusk County couple bludgeoned the little girl to death with a hammer and other objects and bit her more than 20 times in the most grotesque murder the seasoned officers can remember.

Blaine Keith Milam, 19 and Jesseca Bain Carson, 18, both of Henderson, remain jailed on $2 million bonds each. They are charged with capital murder for the Tuesday morning death of Carson's daughter Amora Bain Carson...

"They had multiple stories they went through before they told us they had beaten the child to death," he said. "It is their version of the truth."

Humber said the couple then told deputies the child was possessed and they were trying to rid her of demons.

An arrest affidavit states Milam performed an exorcism of the demons possessing their child. The affidavit continues to state after Milam killed the child with Carson looking on the couple "drove to Henderson to pawn some items to pay for an exorcism."

Officials said Milam and Carson told detectives they decided to hire a priest after the exorcism went badly...

Milam also has a previous criminal record of assault on a child and domestic violence.

This is no different from the kindoki mass panic going on in Africa. It's not even that uncommon that forceful exorcisms occur in Texas, a state whose Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that churches can't be sued for conducting these barbaric rituals. How many more children are going to die as the result of a parent believing in demonic possession? Children are being beaten to death, strangled, and stabbed. Rather than try to stop it, organized churches — the Catholic church in particular, but by no means only the Catholic church — continue to propagate the superstitious belief in evil spirits, adding only the caveat that only their clergymen are qualified to perform the gibberish rites to remove the nonexistent spirits.

Until religious officials stand up and admit that all their bullshit about possession and demons is exactly that, this is going to keep on happening. It will happen again and again and again so long as Evangelicals put forth their deliverance ministries and the Vatican trains exorcists and religions keep telling people that they can be possessed.

It's a lie. It's a fairy tale. It's fraud. Every pastor, every priest, every one of them, is complicit in these deaths. If not for them, the very circumstances that fosters this insanity would ultimately cease to exist. That should have happened centuries ago.

Sphere: Related Content

India Lodges Formal Protest with Pakistan

The government of India has lodged a formal protest with the government of Pakistan over the Mumbai terrorist attack:

Pakistan's High Commissioner was summoned and handed an official protest against Pakistan's alleged failure to crack down on terrorist groups within its country.

The Indian Government says the terrorist attacks in Mumbai were carried out by elements from Pakistan, and it expects the Pakistani Government to take strong action against those responsible.

Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma says the attacks are a grave setback to the relationship between the two nations.

But the Pakistani Government has denied any direct involvement in the terrorist strike.

Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Youssuf Rasa Gilani is urging calm, and says the blame game should be avoided at all costs.

— Source: Australian Broadcasting Company

This "let's not play the blame game" and the denial of direct government involvement in the attack seems a rather insufficient response on the part of Pakistan. It is worse if there was involvement between the terrorists and the Pakistani government, to be sure, but even if there is not, this doesn't excuse Pakistan's failure to clean up it's own house. The ISI certainly had a hand in breeding monsters in the past and the likelihood seems great that this latest batch of fundamentalist militants is at the very least a by-product of those past entanglements.

Pakistan has been, at least nominally, an ally to the United States in The War Against Terror (try the acronym from that one for size), and so its government has been aware of the use of Pakistan as an extremist breeding ground for some time now. They should have acted long ago to change the situation. They did not, and that is, indeed, their own fault.

That being said, a war in the region is unlikely to eliminate the terrorism and very likely to foster more of it. A destabilized Pakistan losing control of, or using, nuclear weapons is clearly in the best interests of no civilized segment of humanity, either. Pakistan should accept culpability in this and, as the brief description of the complaint given above notes, should take the strongest possible action on the most immediate terms possible to insure that they no longer serve as the launch pad for horrors visited upon people who are trying to do nothing more than live their lives.

Sphere: Related Content

India and Pakistan May Be Readying for War in Aftermath of Mumbai Attacks

It's beginning to look like the religious militants of the Deccan Mujahedin may get their way. Indian government officials are stating that they have certain proof of a link between the Mumbai terrorists and elements with links to Pakistani intelligence. Pakistan, for its part, is ending military operations along the Afghan border and putting its own military on stand-by for a confrontation with India.

At war level: India raises security status amid grief

by Randeep Ramesh and Jason Burke

The Indian government raised the country's security to a "war level" yesterday saying it had certain proof of a Pakistani link to the Mumbai attacks.

The dramatic move prompted Pakistan to say it would end military operations against Islamist militants on the Afghan border, which are critical to the "war on terror", for an "unwanted conflict" with Delhi...

...Sri Prakash Jaiswal, India's minister of state for home affairs, said the country's "intelligence will be increased to a war level, we are asking the state governments to increase security to a war level"...

...the group named by India, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has longstanding relationships with Pakistan's security establishment...

The Indian minister said yesterday there was "no doubt that the terrorists had come from Pakistan ... We have evidence of their nationalities. We will reveal everything soon"...

Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is fighting Indian control of the disputed Kashmir region, was behind a deadly 2001 assault on the Indian parliament that pushed New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of war...

Wonderful. Two nuclear powers may end up at war, thanks in no small part to the actions of religious fundamentalists who dehumanize and kill. More death, more destruction, more horrors... maybe huge horrors, and the deaths of more innocent people could be the result of all of this. These are countries with nukes pointed at one another, both of which contain influential religious factions willing to die for their causes in order that they reap some divine reward.

I hope both can be convinced to step back from this brink. I also hope that more moderate heads prevail, even if they are religious ones. (c.f. Muslims Against Sharia).

Sphere: Related Content

Onward Christian Shoppers: Ironic? No.

I was half asleep after the long drive home from Pennsylvania and fully asleep by 7:00 PM. Because of that, I woke up at 2:00 this morning and wound up watching CNN. As I watched the Prime News program anchored by Mike Galanos, I saw the following segment. The pay-off quote here comes at about the 1:35 mark:

Guest and forensic psychologist talks about how the trampling death of Jdimytai Damour at a Valley Stream, NY Wal-Mart on Black Friday was a typical case of herd mentality resulting from the loss of personal responsibility and the anonymity of a crowd situation, but then he notes at 1:38 that there is an "inescapable irony" that the tramplers were Christians. The psychic dissonance at work here was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. How can this event be both typical and ironic? Russell seems to be making the case that we should expect some special behavior from those who consider themselves (and are considered by others) to be members of a particular religion, as if a religious belief would immunize someone against typical human psychology.

I have my doubts about Russell's contention that the crowd that killed Damour, injured his co-workers, and couldn't be bothered to let the police try to rescue the hapless temporary worker, let alone stop their shopping frenzy long enough to lend their own aid, were typical. I'm not a psychologist nor even a particularly observant student of human behavior. He may or may not be correct in making that assertion. I can state from personal experience that I have been in a violent crowd situation, saw someone get knocked down and stopped to help that person get back on their feet and avoid injury. If that isn't typical behavior, in a crowd or otherwise, it's a sad statement about human nature. I didn't stop and think about doing it; I just did it because that's my own instinct. I'd hope that someone else would do the same for me if I needed it. I may not be typical, though. That small gesture might represent abnormal behavior. Perhaps there's something wrong with me.

The notion that one would expect Christians to behave differently, though, that a consciously-adopted belief should alter social behavior, is ludicrous. I don't find anything particularly ironic in Christians trampling someone, at least no more so than I'd find it ironic that Jews, Hindus or atheists would trample someone. Brian Russell seems to want it both ways; what's typical for everyone else is somehow atypical for Christians. Is there some evidence that he, as a psychologist, can present to back up this statement? He doesn't mention any in his discussion with Mike Galanos, and so the statement comes across as rather glib to my ears.

It hasn't been my experience with those who subscribe to the Christian belief set that they act much differently from anyone else. They may ascribe different motivations to their behavior and they may see a different significance to events than others, but aside from some very superficial and intentional things, I've never noticed much of a difference.

One thing that Russell says which I do find myself in agreement with is that the Black Friday homicide of Damour says something about our culture which is profoundly disturbing. That is, according to Russell, it demonstrates a fundamental devaluation of the well-being of others and a synchronous elevation of self-gratification as the highest good. Russell notes several other recent events that he connects with the Wal-Mart trampling, such as the recent online suicide of a Florida teenager during which nobody intervened and the hit-and-run victimization of an elderly man in Connecticut which saw the injured left lying in the street without anyone helping him. One could compile a huge list of such inhumanities, of course. It's easy to do in a country in which a large fraction of the populace can't afford health care.

We live all too much of our lives in customized bubbles now, I think. We have so much technology connecting us in superficial ways that we're losing our ability to connect in unmediated ways. We're suffering not from a lack of religion but from a lack of the real basis of morality. We're losing our empathy, our ability to understand without cogitation that others feel what we feel, are hurt by what hurts us, and have the same needs that we do. That the trampling took place at a Wal-mart is not insignificant; Wal-mart is perhaps the cheapest outlet in America for the purchase of the very devices that mediate our experience of the world, so the death of a human being in the clamor for inexpensive access to mediating, customizable, sensually titillating gadgets is precisely the message that we need to take away from this. These push-button self-gratifications have taken on a life of their own for much of our population, not in the way that another human being might be loved but in the way that our own hand, our own eyes, our own bodies have meaning to us. As we become more fused to the toys and technology that we place between ourselves and the fleshy, carbon-based world in which we should be living, we retreat further into this silicon cocoon. Empathy is abstracted, sympathy is viewed as some sort of deficiency, and "self-reliance" becomes a shorthand for "I'm getting what's mine, screw the rest of you."

Far from being resistant to this mindset, religious belief may make it easier. It allows the use of "God's will" to explain away the unthinkable, but more to the point it is a handy way of dividing people. It's one of the fissures among many that allow one group of people to see some other as less valuable, less good, less acceptable. Witness this statement by the very recently deceased George Docherty, the man largely responsible for cramming the "under God" bit into the US Pledge of Allegiance:

An atheistic American is a contradiction in terms," he said in his sermon. If you deny the Christian ethic, you fall short of the American ideal of life.

— source

Given the willingness that exists amongst the religious to denigrate others in this manner, why on earth should we expect, as Brian Russell seems to do, that they wouldn't be prone to the kind of behavior that occurred at Wal-mart and claimed one life? I am seizing on Christians here because that is the religion mentioned in the segment from CNN linked above, but I don't consider them a special case in this regard. I certainly heard the same sort of talk from Jews when I was growing up in a Conservative to Orthodox Jewish family, for instance. I was once informed by a Hindu priest that I couldn't be allowed to enter a temple at certain times because I was a mleccha, a term which I later learned translates roughly into English as a "barbarian" as well as a class label considered to be even more untouchable than the classic Untouchables. Need the caste system even be brought up in this context?

Such divisiveness is an inherent part of all religions, and the division always implies the lesser value of some human lives as compared to others if it doesn't state it explicitly. That value is assigned largely on the basis of belief. By adopting Christianity, the belief goes, one is forgiven at the outset and can obtain an unlimited number of future dispensations. Christians don't believe this is true of non-Christians, of course, and an atheist... well, an atheist can't even be an American.

It is ironic, though, that a forensic psychologist, who is at least nominally a scientist, should make the kind of statement that Brian Russell made about Christians without the least bit of empirical evidence to back it up. Christians are plenty violent, plenty callous, and just as much afflicted by the empathically deadening effects of consumer culture as anyone else. It was, after all, a Christian contingent that brought us the so-called Culture War in this country. If Christians are capable of declaring war against non-Christians, why should it seem ironic that some of them are capable of killing someone, too? Don't wars usually involve that sort of thing?

Jdimytai Damour was just collateral damage, an inanimate object in the minds of those who killed him and injured those who tried to save his life. This isn't about Christian or non-Christian, believer or non-believer. This isn't about Valley Stream, New York and it isn't about Wal-mart. This is all about America. This is what we're becoming.

Shock and awe hasn't even gotten off the ground yet. Watch out for we Americans; we're capable of anything, and we don't even understand why.

Sphere: Related Content

Christ Tells Texas Man to Punish Other Drivers

Jesus apparently whispered into the ear of a man in San Antonio, Texas that another driver wasn't driving in a Christian enough manner. It was up to that man, 52 year old Michael Schwab, to carry out divine retribution... using his pick-up truck as an instrument of divine retribution at 100 mph.

'God said she needed to be taken off road'

...The bizarre incident that shut down southbound U.S. 281 above the Medina River happened about 7:25 a.m.

"He just said God said she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road," said Lt. Kyle Coleman of the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

The driver of the pickup was identified in a Sheriff's Office news release as Michael E. Schwab, 52, of Blooming Grove.

Schwab told first responders at the scene that "the other vehicle was not driving like a Christian and it was Jesus' will for him to punish the car," according to the release.

The 35-year-old woman was driving her sedan north when the pickup struck her vehicle. Schwab told deputies he was driving faster than 100 mph at the time, Coleman said...

The pickup driver did not specify for authorities how the woman was driving poorly. Investigators determined the female driver "had done nothing wrong," according to the release.

It is expected that Schwab will undergo psychological examination to determine whether he is mentally ill for thinking that invisible divinities are telling him what to do. There's no word yet on whether the other several billion people who believe the same thing will face similar investigations.

Sphere: Related Content

Die for Wal-Mart: Christmas Spirit in Suburban New York

Yesterday was Black Friday, the most important day of the year for retailers in the United States. Millions of Americans get the day after Thanksgiving of from work and most of them go shopping. The stores start opening at ridiculously early hours and shoppers begin lining up at midnight in some places.

This year, the economy being as bad as it is, Wal-Mart is doing a booming business. So booming, in fact, that the Damour family has a whole new reason to call yesterday "Black Friday." It's the day when Jdimytai Damour, a temporary worker charged with opening the doors at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, NY, was trampled to death by a horde of shoppers who thought that getting first dibs on that new George Foreman grill was more important than safety or civility.

Worker dies, patrons injured in stampede at Wal-Mart

By Joseph Mallia & Matthew Chayes

A stampede of shoppers in a Valley Stream Wal-Mart on Friday morning left one worker dead and at least three patrons injured after an impatient crowd broke down the store doors and trampled the seasonal employee, Nassau police said.

Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, was pushed to the ground by the 2,000-plus crowd just before 5 a.m. as management was preparing to open the store, which is located across from the main Green Acres Mall building. Hundreds stepped over, around and on the 34-year-old worker as they rushed into the store...

During the fracas, first-responders struggled to reach Damour to tend to him, witnesses said. Even the first police officers on the scene were jostled around, police said...

Amid the chaos in Valley Stream, shoppers were asked to leave by other store workers, said Cribbs. Others ignored the pleas that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, she said...

Frightened employees initially used the doors as makeshift shields to defend against the onslaught of shoppers, she said.

At that point, lots of people were on the ground, she said, not just Damour.

Authorities said Damour, who was pronounced dead at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream, was working at the store through an employment agency that contracts with the retail giant...

People have lost their minds. A person died, and died horribly, because too many people needed some new toy at a discount more than they needed to stop and think about the well-being of a fellow human. Even when people were on the ground, even when police were trying to help an injured, bleeding person lying on the ground and not moving, the shoppers kept on coming. Nothing was more significant to them than an Incredible Hulk DVD or a sweater or who knows what other insignificant junk that would have been available some other day, if for a few more dollars. There was no reason for this to happen; Damour's death is meaningless and horrible. He was treated worse than we treat animals.

What possesses people to do a thing like this? If you see a crowd of thousands waiting outside a store, go home. Just go shopping some other day... or don't bother. Order online. How could one of these rabid shoppers even give a gift purchased while someone was trampled at the store where they got the thing? "Enjoy your new nose hair trimmer, Uncle Steve! Jdimytai Damour died for it."

If anyone had any doubts about the meaning of Christmas, rejoice. Your query has been answered. It's the most menacing time of the year.

Sphere: Related Content

Mumbai Mujahedin: Terror, Mass Murder and "Blasphemy" Resolutions

Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.

I wonder if the 85 members of the UN General Assembly who voted on November 25 in favor of the anti-blasphemy resolution from whence those words came are feeling any sense of irony today, the day after an undetermined number of terrorists sormed into the Indian city of Mumbai and turned it into a war zone and killing ground. At last count, at least 125 people have died, 325 have been injured, and hostages are still being held by a group calling itself the Deccan Mujahedin.

Indian military commandos continued to exchange fire with an unknown number of militants one day after coordinated groups of gunmen shot and blasted their way through tourist sites around Mumbai on Wednesday night, apparently targeting American, Israeli and British citizens for use as hostages...

One hostage, a Polish national, said he was very happy to be free and praised the Indian military commandos. Moments later, a man identified as being of Lebanese descent was carried out with two other people, too weary to address the throng of reporters.

Most of Mumbai remained in shock today. In many neighborhoods, 80% of the businesses remained closed as police warned residents to stay at home, where many followed the unfolding drama on television.

A previously unknown group calling itself Deccan Mujahedin said it carried out the attack.

We will, no doubt, get some perfunctory denunciations from countries like Saudi Arabia that will tell us all about how these new mujahedin aren't really Muslims. The "no true Scotsman" argument is used so frequently by religious fundamentalists that its faux kilt is in dire need of patching from all the wear. They're not really Muslims in the same way that Ted Haggard isn't really Christian. When the true-believers go astray and start blowing up innocent people or molesting a few children or having sex-for-money, it's so easy to disavow them, isn't it?

In light of the UN General Assembly resolution, we're certain to be told that these mass murderers have no association with Islam. They're actually... what? Martians? Mutant ninja turtles? No, they're mujahedin. They're Muslim fundamentalist holy warriors, and their holy war means blowing up bombs and shooting up hotels and train stations. This is religion once again bringing people together... in morgues.

Although Mumbai has been the scene of several terrorist attacks in recent years, experts said Wednesday's assaults required a previously unseen degree of reconnaissance and planning. The scale and synchronization of the attacks pointed to the likely involvement of experienced commanders, some said, suggesting possible foreign involvement.

The terrorists struck almost simultaneously at the city's domestic airport and a railway station and sprayed gunfire at the Leopold Cafe, a restaurant popular with foreigners. As many as 16 groups hit nine sites on the southern flank of this crowded metropolis of 19 million...

Nobody knew, right? This is probably the biggest, most coordinated attack by holy warriors since the Afghan mujahedin were fighting the Soviets a quarter century ago... but nobody knew. No mullahs, no community leaders, nobody. No true Muslims were even complicit in this attack. Amazing. After all,

Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.

And how beautiful is this holy war that has been brought against the citizens and workers of Mumbai:

...Wednesday's attacks were a brazen frontal assault using automatic weapons.

The targets included police headquarters in south Mumbai, where some officers were pinned down by gunfire.

The victims included Mumbai's anti-terrorism chief, Hemant Karkare, and two of his senior police officers, which complicated the law enforcement response to the attacks. Television video showed Karkare donning a flak jacket and helmet minutes before heading into one of the hotels.

Witnesses said the attackers appeared to fire at random and made no effort to hide their identities, which, experts suggested, signaled a readiness to die...

How glorious. How noble. This is the will of God in action, is it not, that mujahedin should take up arms and fire randomly at human beings as they go about their daily business.

Across India, more than 3,600 people have been killed in terrorist incidents since January 2004, according to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, many involving sectarian disputes...

None of them were killed by Muslim extremists, though, because Islam is wrongly associated with terrorism, just like Catholic priests have been wrongly associated with pederasty. Religious people just don't do this sort of thing.

Aren't we sick of this yet? I'm not talking about Americans or Indians, and I'm not talking about atheists or religious believers. I'm talking about human beings.

Look, I'll be honest. I honestly have no use for religion in my life. I think its widest role in modern civilization is divide people and to hold back the progress of reason in our world. There are plenty of people out there who disagree with me on these points, and that's fine. I don't want to blow any of you up, and I have enough faith in the vast majority of my species to believe that the feeling is mutual.

Still, isn't it about time to confront the fact that much of the violence of the kind that we're seeing in Mumbai, that has been see in India so frequently in recent years, that has happened in the US in places like New York and Oklahoma City, that took place in Guyana 30 years ago, that all of this is tied to religious belief and is justified in the name of doing the work of some deity or another? It's not my place to drum these strains of violence out of religion. People like me are more inclined to chuck the whole thing out and rely on empiricism and empathy, not on allegedly divine laws. It's the place of those within religion to make the changes, if they can be made at all, that will insure that things like what is happening even now in Mumbai never, ever happen again. That can only start when religious moderates come to understand that there is something present in their religion as it is understood by all too many people that calls for war, whether it's a shooting war in India or a culture war in America. When you call for war, you'll find volunteers to carry it out sooner or later.

In Mumbai, those volunteers call themselves the Deccan Mujahedin today. They are terrorists associated with Islam.

The UN General Assembly should spit that stupid anti-blasphemy resolution out like the mouthful of garbage it is and instead start looking into why Islam — and Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, all of these religions — sooner or later foster the birth of monsters.

The blood of the thousands, the millions, of the victims of dehumanized mujahedin calls out for this. Will it ever get done, or will there be another hundred Mumbai Novembers, 9/11's, Tamil Tiger suicide bombings, holy war without end?

Enough. Enough, enough, enough.

Sphere: Related Content

Religion Does Not Make People Moral: Buddhist Edition

I know it may seem that I pick on Christians, Muslims and Hindus when it comes to finding examples of how religion doesn't make people more moral, even those who are supposed to be deeply and dedicatedly religious. I wouldn't want you to think I'm biased, though.

So I'm sure those who think I make a special effort to go after members of the three religions above will be relieved to see that Buddhism doesn't make people moral, either. Even Buddhist monks can be conniving, thieving bastards.

Cambodian monk charged with raping British woman

A 17-year-old Cambodian monk was charged with raping a British woman while taking her on a tour of a mountain cave near his Buddhist temple, a court official said Thursday...

He has confessed to police that he raped her...

The woman told police the monk had offered to serve as her tour guide on a visit to a cave near the Buddhist temple where he lived and, once there, he threatened to kill her if she resisted his attack, Mey Chhengly said.

The monk also allegedly stole $55 and a cell phone from the woman, he said...

You see, sociopathic, criminal sons of bitches come in all religious flavors. Did this young thug commit his crimes because he is a Buddhist? No. Neither did being a Buddhist monk stop him from committing them.

Sphere: Related Content

Inspired by the Prince of Peace, Priests Beat the Crap Out of Each Other

Ah, religion. There's just nothing quite like it for bringing people together.

The video above is footage of a brawl that erupted at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the place where some believe that Jesus was entombed. It seems that a number of different cults like to have fist fights among their clergy as to who controls which corner of the church. In this case, the fighting broke out between Greek and Armenian Orthodox clerics when the Armenian true-believers wanted to have a walk through the church to celebrate something that the Greeks don't believe happened. The Greeks wouldn't let them, and what began as a perfectly irrational argument over mythology soon degenerated into an all-out brawl that had to be broken up by Israeli police.

It's worth noting that these same religious groups are so overwhelmingly concerned about human life that secular authorities have been unable to put a single fire exit in the place. The holy men can't agree with one another where such a life-savingly blasphemous bit of human consideration ought to go, you see, so they're willing to take their chances that there won't be a fire that consumes the true-believers. I guess they believe more in praying than they do in fire exits, and apparently they believe more in punching, kicking and strangling one another than they do is peaceful coexistence and compromise.

At the same time, a rooftop shrine on the church is literally on the verge of collapse because two of the other sects that control little bits of the place — Ethiopians and Copts in this case — can't agree with each other about it.

It's truly a wondrous thing that this single building in Israel can serve as such a powerful metaphor for what these religious cults do to the world. And we're talking about what should be, to any rational person, superficial differences in doctrine that divide these loonies in the first place. No wonder even bigger doctrinal differences lead so often to war.

More about these lovely true-believers in Jerusalem here and here. Hallelujah.

Sphere: Related Content

Hindu and Christian Nutters Kill Each Other in India

It all began on the night of August 23. A Hindu holy man in the Indian state of Orissa, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, was murdered. Nobody actually knows who killed him. It might have been Maoist militants or Christian militants or somebody else. Nobody has been apprehended for the crime to date.

Still, that didn't stop the mobs from beginning to take vengeance on those they suspected of complicity. The logical thing for Hindu militants to do was, of course, to destroy an orphanage. Christian and Hindu groups decided that the best way to display their non-violence and adherence to the Golden Rule and generally turn the other cheek was to go out into the streets en masse with guns and bombs and start spilling blood.

Riots grip India's Orissa region
By Sandeep Sahu

Four people have been killed in armed clashes that broke out between Hindus and Christians in the Indian state of Orissa at the weekend.

Now a total of at least eight persons have been killed in the spiralling communal violence sparked by the killing of an eminent Hindu leader.

Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was killed on Saturday night...

...rival groups attacked each other with guns and bombs...

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said: "Four bodies were found at the scene of the clash at Barakhama. But the identity of the deceased is yet to be established."

Making a statement on the incident in the State Assembly, Mr Patnaik said a small contingent of police personnel present there had done "its best but could not prevent the violence"...

Two people were burnt to death in Tiangia village in the district after rioters set fire to their houses last night.

One person had been burnt to death at Rupagaon village on Sunday night.

Arson and burning of Christian religious places continued on Tuesday in Kandhamal despite a curfew in all major towns and prohibitory orders in force throughout the district.

Even a Flag March by paramilitary forces did not deter the rioters, who went on a rampage setting fire to churches, vehicles and government facilities.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the woman who was burnt to death in an orphanage in Bargarh district yesterday was a Hindu...

Can't you just hear those angelic choirs singing? Laxmi weeps tears of purest joy over the restraint shown in this situation. And why wouldn't they, when people are doing the work of their deities so well by shooting and bombing and reducing an orphanage (see photo at right) to rubble.

Today, however, things are quieting down a bit. The Pope has taken time off from his frog persecuting duties to issue a statement about the situation. Christians and Hindus, meanwhile, are doing what rival religious factions do best when their adherents get killed. They're blaming one another and coming up with religious justifications for the violence which, it turns out, is largely about true believers from one group converting to the other side. Religion is, after all, all about uniting humanity... so long as the uniting takes place under the banner of a particular religious group.

Catholic schools in India protest

Eleven people have died after a Hindu leader was killed in the state's Kandhamal district last Saturday.

Authorities said Maoist rebels were behind the killing, but some Hindu groups have accused Christians.

Over 3000 police have been deployed but attacks on churches continue. Hundreds of Christians have fled their homes.

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the violence as a "national disgrace".

The Pope too has condemned the violence and the Italian government has also expressed its concerns...

The violence was condemned by Pope Benedict XVI who said he was "profoundly saddened" and called for communities to try to restore "peaceful coexistence

"I firmly condemn any attack on human life," Pope Benedict told a crowd of pilgrims on Wednesday.

"I express spiritual closeness and solidarity to the brothers and sisters in faith who are being so harshly tested..."

There's a statement bound to instill a feeling of peace and unity. I wonder whom Pope Ratzi means when he refers to "brothers and sisters in faith." Peaceful coexistence? I doubt it ever existed. But there's more.

The BBC's Rahul Tandon in Bhubaneswar says this is a complex issue - Hindu groups have long accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith.

Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape the Hindu caste system.

As the authorities struggle to deal with the present situation, the divide between the two communities grows wider and wider, our correspondent says...

That's what it's all about. The death of the holy man, which likely wasn't caused by Christians, is just an excuse to start the blood flowing. At the root of all of this is a religious conflict; one religious sect is somehow pilfering followers from another religious sect. This is all yet another instance of people who believe in sky-ghosts taking matters into their own hands when their impotent, in fact non-existent, deities fail to step in and change things. They justify it in their own minds as their acting as the agents of their gods, of course, because it never occurs to them that a deity that needs the protection of its followers is not one that is worth worship in the first place.

The cure for this kind of madness, the clashing of violent mobs, is one that is simple in principle but, sadly, unlikely to happen in reality. It's this: forget the popes and swamis, the gods and ghosts and homa and communion. Chuck it all. All of the rituals, all of the prayers... it's just a shill to separate humanity into insular little groups and ensure that this kind of violence will plague us forever. Instead, look each other in the eye and exercise the power of empathy with which we have been endowed by four billion years of evolution, that slow process of change over time that has honed us into thinking, feeling, moral beings capable of imagining ourselves in the place of the other. Religion is a fog by which reason becomes obscured, and when reason is veiled then what comes forth is animalism. What word could better describe the events in Orissa? These mobs have stripped off their humanity in favor of what they believe is a service to their deities of choice, a thing that they have placed above the value of human life.

Send all the holy men packing. Just be men (by which I mean human, not one gender). The ritual of violence is justified by the ritual of sacrifice. Ask why the sacrifice of life is ever necessary in religion, why Jesus had to die or why a goat was ever tied to a yupa. When the gods are bloodthirsty, can the followers be otherwise?

Sphere: Related Content

Democratic Party Chairman Murdered in Arkansas

The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, Bill Gwatney, was gunned down at party headquarters in Little Rock, AR yesterday. The gunman in this case was Timothy Johnson. Johnson was a resident of Searcy, Arkansas who had been fired from his job at a local Target store for writing graffiti on a wall at his place of employment shortly before he showed up at Democratic Party headquarters. In a scene reminiscent of Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, Johnson told a campaign staffer that he wanted to volunteer, then shot Gwatney several times. Johnson then fled the scene and was eventually shot by the police, who are now looking for a motive in the shooting.

Arkansas Police Seek Motive for Killing of Democratic Official
By Ryan Flinn

Police are searching for a motive after a gunman burst into the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters in Little Rock and killed Chairman Bill Gwatney.

The man shot the former state senator several times in the upper body yesterday, before fleeing in his vehicle and leading officers on a 30-mile (48-kilometer) chase, said Lieutenant Terry Hastings of the Little Rock Police Department.

The suspect was killed in a shoot-out with police and his victim died later in the hospital, Hastings said. Police are investigating whether the shooter had any connection to Gwatney, he added...

Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Associated Press reported. He was fired that morning from a local Target store for writing graffiti on a wall, the news agency said.

Moments after shooting Gwatney, he pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters and said "I lost my job," AP reported, citing a church official...

Does this sound a little familiar? Is Gwatney the latest casualty of the New and Improved Culture War, now with a body count? Could Johnson have been inspired by prior right-wing extremist foot soldier James Adkisson's shooting of several people in Tennessee recently?

Details about Johnson haven't been released yet, but I suspect there will be a philosophical connection between Johnson and Adkisson. Little Rock police spokesman, lieutenant Terry Hastings, has told the press that there was no known previous connection between Johnson and Gwatney. Perhaps Johnson will have also written some sort of manifesto, as in the Adkisson case, that will reveal his motive for the shooting. It will be interesting to find out what he wrote on the wall at Target and whether there was any connection between that and the shooting. Perhaps we'll be finding out more about Johnson soon.

My money is on him being an Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh/Michael Savage fan, maybe a Freeper.

Sphere: Related Content

Biologists Bombed in Santa Cruz in the Name of Protecting Fruit Flies

Numerous UC Santa Cruz biologists have been threatened in pamphlets left at a coffee house in California. The home of one was bombed on Saturday while he and his family were at home. A car belonging to a second researcher, whose name has not yet been released, was also bombed and a third researcher received a threatening phone call but no explosives were found on the scene.

The reason for the bombings? One of the biologists, David Feldheim, studies the development of the nervous system of mice in order to learn how the brain and eyes work together and thereby lay down basic research that can someday be used to treat those who have lost their sight to illness or injury. A second one works on Drosophila. He was attacked for using fruit flies in his experiments. Of course, we get the obligatory statement from outspoken nutsack Jerry Vlasak about how this is justified because fruit flies have rights and it's OK to bomb people's homes to defend them. I guess that when you're a fruitcake it seems logical to defend the supposed rights of fruit flies "by any means necessary."

Santa Cruz firebombs look familiar
Wyatt Buchanan and Demian Bulwa, San Francisco Chronicle

The devices used in two firebombings targeting UC Santa Cruz biologists are similar to some used in the past by animal rights activists, investigators said Sunday.

The bombs were so powerful they were like "Molotov cocktails on steroids," said Santa Cruz police Capt. Steve Clark.

One struck the home of assistant biology Professor David Feldheim on Saturday morning, forcing him to flee with his family. The other exploded just a few minutes earlier, gutting a car parked outside the campus home of a second researcher.

Later, Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies went to the home of a third researcher who received a threatening telephone message, but officers found no explosives.

More than 50 investigators, including some from the FBI's regional terrorism task force, are looking into the attacks.

Feldheim, whose townhouse was firebombed just after 5:30 a.m., uses mice in laboratory research on brain formation.

He told The Chronicle that he and his wife, along with their 7-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, had to drop a ladder from the window of a second-floor bedroom to escape after smoke filled the home's first floor...

Feldheim was treated at a hospital and released, police said. Clark said the attack on Feldheim is being considered an act of terrorism and attempted murder.

Clark said the bomb at Feldheim's house was similar to those used by animal rights extremists in the past, adding, "There are instructions on how to make it on their Web sites."

Feldheim and the unidentified faculty member who received the threatening message were named on pamphlets that were left on a stack of newspapers in a downtown Santa Cruz coffee shop last Tuesday, Clark said. The unsigned pamphlets at Caffe Pergolesi, which printed 13 researchers' pictures and addresses, called them murderers and torturers and said, "Animal abusers everywhere beware."

The name of the researcher whose car was bombed was not on the pamphlets, Clark said...

A different view was expressed today by Jerry Vlasak, a Los Angeles spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, which often posts on its Web site communiques from activists taking credit for attacks. He said the benefit of animal research does not justify its expense or the exploitation of animals.

Vlasak said the bombers likely were not trying to hurt Feldheim, but were instead "trying to send a message to this guy, who won't listen to reason, that if he doesn't stop hurting animals, more drastic measures will be taken ... it's certainly not an initial tactic, but a tactic of last resort."

Feldheim, whose work includes introducing genes into living mouse brains, said Sunday that his research "is aimed at understanding how brain connections form during development, with special focus on the visual system." He said the work is important "so we can learn how to fix these connections after damage due to injury or disease..."

Jerry Vlasak is the leader of a bona fide terrorist organization and makes no bones about it. Why he's walking around free is beyond me. This mujahadeen should be spooning with a large convict bearing a neck tattoo in a cell in federal prison. Our government has managed to sweep up numerous individuals in Afghanistan and hold them without charge for years in Cuba but they can't manage to round up Vlasak and his stinky hippie axis of evil and provide them the due process to which they are entitled? Sounds like extreme incompetence to me — either that or it simply hasn't been a priority. The current administration doesn't care much for science, after all, so how much priority have they given to putting a stop to this?

The Chronicle article refers to these incidents as "an escalation in a series of protests against UC researchers." This isn't an escalation of protest; these are bombings. Someone's home was set on fire and the lives of himself and his children were immediately put in peril by a group of lunatics who are more concerned with the lives of mice and fruit flies than they are with those of humans. That's not "protest," that is, as FBI investigators point out, attempted murder. If I march outside of a business while carrying a sign, if I sit in the doorway and refuse to move, that's protest. The moment I take out a gun and start firing at office workers, it ceases to be protest and starts to be attempted murder. By the standard used in calling this an "escalation of protest," Jim Adkisson was protesting when he opened fire in a church last week. Buchanan and/or Bulwa should be ashamed of themselves for using that word to describe the bombing of someone's home. Is it an "escalation of protest" if I were to be so incensed by this that I waited for them in the Chronicle's parking lot with a machete? Somehow, I don't think they'd use the word "protest" in describing the incident to the police while ambulance attendance packed their severed digits in ice; they'd rightly use words like "assault" and "attempted murder" and "unjustified attack" and "maniac." Acts of violence, attempts at murder, are not legitimate protest. Setting fire to a house containing a seven year old child is even further from it.

Jerry Vlasak's moronic assertion that the bombers didn't mean to hurt Feldheim and his family is so unbelievably stupid that the man should be taken into protective custody at the very least to insure that he doesn't cause himself injury by wandering into a busy intersection. Anybody who buys a statement like that should be treated likewise. The intent of this terrorist act was precisely to cause harm. Feldheim had to be taken to the hospital. The house filled with smoke and the people inside were lucky enough to be able to escape by climbing out of a second-story window. Who in their right mind wouldn't see not only the physical damage that has been done here but the psychological harm that has been done to the victims? How well will Feldheim's children be sleeping? How many nightmares have been inspired, how much fear, how much trauma?

Mice and fruit flies don't have any rights at all. They're born, maybe they reproduce, and they end up as sustenance for some predator. Rights are a social and political construct; insects and rodents have no concept of such things. By the same token, the terrorists involved in these incidents — including Vlasak — should lose all of their rights. They've demonstrated their violent intent toward society and should lose the benefits of membership therein. Vlasak's rights should extend at this point only to that of remaining silent and having an attorney present, and to a speedy trial, and those are the only ones to which he is entitled. He and his junior Unabomber crew deserve even less consideration than do the mice and flies whose lives they consider more valuable than those of the human beings who have dedicated their lives to better understanding the biology and ecology of those creatures for the benefit not only of humans but of the natural world itself — a world which the terrorists themselves don't begin to understand and care nothing about.

As members of civilized society, however, I do think we should give these monsters what they want once they're appropriately rounded up. We can dress them in organic orange jumpsuits and leave them manacled to trees and rocks in the wilderness and let them commune with nature all they like for the day or two that they'd survive their punishment. I still think they have a valuable role to play in the magnificent web of being that is life on earth. They can do community service by explaining to bears, rats, mountain lions, mosquitoes and ants the rights to which they believe the animals are entitled as their entrails are being extracted and maggots hatch in their eye sockets. We can even reduce the duration of their sentences if they can remember the words to "The Circle of Life" while they're being consumed by their clients.

Once they've become bear burgers and vulture vittles, those of us who actually do care about the well-being of this planet and its inhabitants enough to dedicate ourselves to understanding how it all works together will be able to get back to work without pondering whether or not we should be arming ourselves against a cowardly militia of malodorous malefactors.

Sphere: Related Content

Faith, Morality and the Body in the Icebox: Alabama Evangelical Preacher Anthony Hopkins

Another story for the ever-increasing mountain of "religion does not make people moral" evidence comes slithering up from Alabama. Evangelical preacher Anthony Hopkins, described by Pastor Jerry Porter of the Williams Street Holiness Church as being "a bulls-eye prophet. If he told you something, you could pretty much bank on it," raped his children, murdered his wife when she caught him in the act, stuffed her body in a freezer, and then lied about it and continued his career as a preacher for years, right up to the moment he was finally arrested — after police let him finish his last sermon. Predictably, that sermon was about the importance of forgiveness. Who better to stress the import of letting bygones be bygones than a man who now faces criminal charges including rape, incest and murder?

Preacher killed wife, stuffed body in freezer, police say
by CNN

An evangelical preacher killed his wife several years ago and stuffed her body in a freezer after she caught him abusing their daughter, according to police and court documents.

Anthony Hopkins, 37, was arrested Monday night at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Jackson, Alabama, just after he had delivered a sermon to a congregation that included his seven other children, officials said.

He faces charges including murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and incest.

Hopkins was denied bail Thursday when he appeared before Mobile County District Judge George Hardesty. The case is set for arraignment next week, Hardesty's clerk said.

The case began Monday, when the daughter, now 19, went to the Mobile Police Department's Child Advocacy Center and reported that she had been sexually abused by Hopkins since she was 11 years old, according to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant of the preacher's home in Mobile.

The affidavit related the daughter's story as follows:

Her mother, Arletha Hopkins, 36, caught her father abusing her in a bathroom in November 2004. Afterward, her parents argued, and her mother locked her father out of the house. The father came to the daughter's window and asked her to let him in, and she did so.

The next morning, her father asked her to help him hide her mother's body in the freezer in the laundry room of the home.

The girl said she moved out of the home about two weeks ago and was living with a neighbor. She told police that her mother's body was still in the freezer.

When authorities went to the home, no one was there, as Hopkins and the other children were at the church. A body was found in the freezer, the affidavit says...

At the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Hopkins was preaching at a revival, pastor Beverly Jackson told CNN affiliate WKRG. His message, she said, was about forgiveness and not passing judgment -- and at one point, he turned to his seven children and asked them to forgive him his past, present and future.

Police allowed Hopkins to finish his sermon before arresting him, Jackson said. She said she asked police why they were arresting him and was told, "he murdered his wife..."

An investigation has not found any record of Arletha Hopkins' existence since 2004, according to the affidavit. Asked how long police think the body had been in the freezer, Garrett said, "I'm thinking that she's probably been there for a number of years."

He said Anthony Hopkins did not have a regular church but apparently preached in various areas around the South.

"Part of the mystery here is that, apparently, none of these children were in school" but were being home-schooled, Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson said...

Anthony Hopkins, he said, made statements that led him to believe all was not well at home. "He always used to tell me ... 'You're blessed in the fact that you have a wife that supports you and what you're trying to do for God,' " Porter said.

He said Arletha Hopkins disappeared shortly after the couple's youngest child was born. As rumors swirled, Porter said, he confronted Hopkins and asked whether his wife was dead. Hopkins "wouldn't give me an answer," he said.

After that, Porter said, he banned him from the church but remained on good terms with him.

He said he visited the family a few years ago, and their home was clean and well-kept.

"It was the ideal family. I mean, the children were so respectful, just so easygoing," Porter said. "Didn't seem to be no stress at all. Never got that impression, never."

The children, he said, "loved their dad. They were very close to him..."

Porter knew enough to ban Hopkins from his church but didn't notify the authorities that he believed that Hopkins' wife, Arletha might be dead. It took the daughter that Hopkins was molesting to come forward years after the fact to start the investigation. For Porter to say that this was an "ideal family" and praise the "respectful" (perhaps terrified?) children who "loved ther dad" speaks to the fact that there are still some very twisted individuals lurking about in the churches of Jackson, AL. Maybe someone ought to have a look into what this Porter fellow has been up to as well. Was he just practicing the forgiveness and absence of judgment for which Hopkins was such a forceful advocate, or does he have a few skeletons in his closet — or freezer, in this case?

In the case of Anthony Hopkins, we have a man who, when not busy sodomizing his children or stuffing corpses into refrigerators, dedicated himself to preaching the gospel. His life apparently revolved around evangelical Christianity, and these did not make him into a moral person. For the hard-of-reading, let me note before I am accused of saying something that I am not saying here that I do not assert that his religious beliefs turned him into a monster. What I'm saying is that being religious didn't prevent him from becoming one, nor did they make him any more moral than he would have been without them. Hopkins clearly felt no compunction in telling others how they should conduct their lives after he had conducted his by indulging in his incestuous and murderous desires.

Nonetheless, he's still a "man of God." He is due a certain amount of respect by the faithful, as evidenced by his being allowed to conclude his speech to the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ on how others should be forgiving and non-judgmental. He gave this speech while the police were discovering the body of his wife in the freezer where he'd hidden it four years ago, enlisting the aid of the child he was raping in the endeavor.

Is it anymore unusual that ultra-religious people do these things than non-religious people? The list of names of religious monsters grows a bit longer every day. Hopkins joins a stellar roll that includes BTK Killer Dennis Rader, John List, Jim Jones...

Sadly, true believers will still go about truly believing that people who have memorized the bible and deliver convincing rhetoric based upon it are somehow more trustworthy than those of us who think the whole thing nonsense. Atheists, you see, have no reason to be moral, since we're not afraid of divine retribution... unlike Anthony Hopkins.

Sphere: Related Content

The Right Wing Reacts to Tennessee UU Church Murders

Here's a quick sampling of some opinions expressed on FreeRepublic.com regarding the murders that took place in Tennessee. You can stop reading when you find something that sounds sane in this.

What the hell is a Unitarian Universalist Church? That sounds like something a handful of warmed-over flatliners dreamed up after hitting the bong once too often. What are its tenets? Its dogma?

— ought-six

...I once read somewhere that

Jeffrey Dahmer is a registered Democrat...

— forYourChildrenVote4Bush

Did you hear the one about the two Unitarian Universalists that were doing mission work? They came up to a door, rang the bell and when the homeowner answered, they asked: 'Hello, may we speak with you a moment? What do we believe about God?'

— WorkingClassFilth

Well, they have some sole searching to do. What did they do to cause this person feel so aggrieved that he would want to kill them?

This was not so much a crime, as a desperate cry for help.

— tsomer

This guys can't be a conservative.

By picking up a gun, he just became one of them (liberals). Or, maybe, he has been a liberal all along and don't know it.

Isn't this crazy? But, then, isn't liberalism nuts?

— Ben Reyes

He maybe guilty of the action but there have been many cases were people did things only to save their families that were being held hostage.

Everything must be considered before the verdict is read.

— Steve Van Doorn

The Unitarian Church is sort of like Obama, no morals, no direction, just a lot of feel good fluff

— Merlinator

It was probably a mini-rally for The Obamassiah and they were singing "The sun will come out tomorrow ....". Otherwise, a musical about a poor orphan (Annie) who is befriended by a rich capitalist (Daddy Warbucks), doesn't really fit the UU agenda. Now maybe, if there were a lesbian relationship between Annie and Mommy Warbucks or Annie got pregnant and had to get raise money for an abortion, that would be truly a part of the UU world view.

— reg45

This nation has long been in need of a good dose of ".44 Law."

— Roccus

...What do you expect? God is NOT in the center of this church. Human beings are.

— Ben Reyes

This is why there was a loaded Glock concealed beneath my sport coat this morning, and every morning I am at church. Oh, and an extra clip in case they're fat or I miss.

— DaveLoneRanger

To be clear on the matter, there are some Freepers who have expressed sympathy, and a large number who are willing to let God pass judgment on the victims (and on Adkisson, for that matter). The point of this quick-and-dirty list is to simply to provide supporting evidence that there is a sizable and vocal contingent of extremists in our country right now who have more problems with the idea of a non-traditional church and with liberal social ideas than they do with someone who responds to these things with a murderous act.

Some of us are grappling with what happened to the victims. Others are looking for reasons that justify their having become victims. I don't think it will take too long for Adkisson to be portrayed as someone who struck a blow for patriotism by some of this latter set of lunatics who have already fantasized about doing something similar.

Sphere: Related Content

The Memetics of Evil: Liberal Hunting License

It's my blog and I'll obsess if I want to.

The murder of two people by Jim Adkisson at a liberal church has had me thinking a great deal about why things like this happen. I have noticed that the right-wing's explanation for Adkisson's actions is predominately that he was a mental case. It's hard to disagree with that. In my estimation, and I would like to believe that of the majority of American human beings of all political persuasions, anyone who attempts to address their grievances with a shotgun blast is disordered.

Still, there are plenty of deranged individuals walking around unrestrained these days. Some of them are even prone to violence, and the target of their rage has some explanation. Violent people rarely choose a random target; they usually (perhaps always) pick a mark that has some significance to them. That usually means someone who is visibly different in some way. Various psychopaths have targeted those of other ethnicities, or women, or the elderly. They choose their targets based on a distinction, and that distinction has a meaning to them. The significance doesn't arise in a vacuum, either. There may be some personal trauma involved or they may be acting on messages they believe that they're receiving.

It's valid to ask, certainly, why Jim D. Adkisson decided that his hatred would be focused on liberals. Liberals don't look different and, by and large, don't act differently than non-liberals. You can't pick the liberal from the crowd based on their pigmentation or mannerisms. A liberal in a suit looks exactly like a conservative in a suit or a Communist in a suit, for that matter.

Adkisson was almost certainly acting on messages from the media. Somebody told him, in his interpretation, that killing people with a particular social and political philosophy was the right thing to do in order to solve not only his own problems but those of others like him. He even wore a sort of a uniform when carrying out his imagined mission.

A brief dig around the internet this morning yielded such a message with very little effort. It looks like this:

You can buy these from a website calling itself The Patriot Shop for $1.50 each. According to the website:

All sales proceeds at PatriotShop.US support our Mission of Service to America's Armed Services, and help ensure that The Patriot Post is distributed to hundreds of thousands of military personnel and students without a fee...

So, a bunch of people who have fantasies about shooting liberals and sell a product that endorses that fantasy call themselves "patriots" and seeks to influence the military (people with guns). The message here is that it is not only acceptable to shoot liberals, it's patriotic. It's what people who love their country enough to defend it ought to be doing. Anyone who sees humor in this sort of thing is already well on their way down the twisting path of psychopathy. The thought of killing another human being is only funny to those lacking any sense of empathy, the very basis of morality. This isn't patriotism, it's pathology.

This is precisely the kind of message that people like Jim Adkisson are prone to picking up. I have no reason to believe that he ever saw this particular example, of course. The point is that this type of message has been rather prevalent in the media over the past few years. If it weren't, there'd be no market for "liberal hunting licenses."

People who are attracted to this sort of meme aren't patriots, they're problems. They're very big problems waiting to happen. Violent imaginings always precede violent acts, and the people who accept messages embodied in things like the above "hunting license" have already thought about doing things like what Jim Adkisson did to the Tennessee Valley UU Church. If there were such a thing as liberal hunting licenses, they would be lining up to buy them. If they believed that they could get away without penalty for killing those with whom they disagree, you can rest assured that they'd be doing it.

While watching CNN last night, I heard a psychologist (I forget his name) describe Adkisson as a coward because he was hoping that the police would kill him rather than killing himself. I don't see the basis for that statement. Adkisson may well have seen himself as a martyr for the cause, and being gunned down by the police would have helped to establish that aura in his own mind. In his own mind, Adkisson almost certainly making a stand for what he believed in. In his world of violent fantasies, he was a heroic patriot who was answering a call. The enemy had been identified; someone had to do something about it.

If only he could have purchased a hunting license.

If you have a moment, why not contact the management of The Patriot Shop and let them know what you think of their liberal hunting license... and their continuing to sell it in light of events in Knoxville.

Sphere: Related Content

Adkisson Letter Reveals Reason for Tennessee UU Church Killings

Some of the contents of Jim Adkisson's four-page letter/manifesto have now been made public. IN it, he states his reason for the killing spree at the Tennessee Valley UU Church in Knoxville that has so far left two dead. Guess what?

Adkisson said he was frustrated about not being able to obtain a job and how much he hated the liberal movement...

— Source

And there you have it.

Here you have a culmination of the Culture War of which people like Don Wildmon, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are so damned proud that they crow about it every chance they get. Now there are bodies. Happy yet?

People are dead. One of the foot soldiers in the Culture War took it upon himself to pick up a shotgun and turn the vitriol spewed by the Radical Right Taliban sons of bitches who think nothing of tearing America into little pieces to turn a few bucks into a shooting war. Hmmm. Maybe it's not a coincidence that Ann Coulter's most recent hate-screed was entitled Godless: The Church of Liberalism and Adkisson walked into a liberal church that doesn't espouse the ascendancy of any particular god and opened fire. Just maybe. Anyone want to wager whether or not the police have found or will find a copy of that particular manifesto of the Culture War in Adkisson's domicile?

And yes, I know... correlation does not equal causation. In fact, there's a good chance that anyone who owned a copy of that book would be someone who already agreed with Coulter's view that we liberals are subhuman scum out to eat babies and burn churches. Ironic, then, that it turned out to be someone who hates the "liberal movement" who opened fire in a church where children were performing, is it not? Oh yes, the irony is as delicious as the most bitter of wormwood.

How long will it be before some group of wingnuts start calling this guy a hero? C'mon Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, O'Reilly, Stein, all you fat-headed pundts who didn't see this coming years ago or saw it and didn't care, let's hear it. Are any of them going to express sorrow? Sympathy? Sadness? Will any of them mean it? Will any of them mean it enough to realize that when people make a living inciting hatred, it's only a matter of time before that hatred turns into bloodshed for some poor slob like the people who came to see their kids put on a play at a church in Knoxville, TN?

You know, it didn't have to be a church, either. I'm sitting in a research lab specializing in evolutionary and molecular biology as I type this. It could have as easily been a grenade through my window as a shotgun at a UU church, where I also find myself about once a month, by the way. It could have been an ACLU office or a PFLAG meeting, too. It could have been any of us against whom these "culture warriors" have been railing, even calling for our blood (Coulter) for years now.

It was only a matter of time. Now it has happened. What can be done? The ball, and the blood, are in the hands of the heroes who inspired Jim Adkisson to blow people off the planet.

My hunch is that they'll go right back to what they were doing the day, the hour, the minute, before this happened.

When you call it a war and identify a human enemy, someone will get shot one day. It's only a matter of time.

I am, at this moment, frustrated, angry, saddened and horrified. If this entry seems emotional, there's a good reason for it. It is. Nobody should ever die like this.

Nobody. Whether I agree with them or not, whether they hate people like me or they love people like me, nobody deserves what the people of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church of Knoxville got.

I don't know how to end this idiotic Culture War, but it has to end.

Sphere: Related Content

UU Church Shooting in Tennessee: The Gunman Wore Red, White and Blue

The news that a man shot up a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee has already circled the globe. It's an unthinkable horror; kids were performing the musical Annie when Jim Adkisson, a "nice, quiet guy" from Powell, walked in, removed a shotgun from a guitar case and opened fire. Two victims have died and others remain in critical condition. Adkisson has been arrested; a motive for the shooting hasn't been released to the public yet. Whatever it turns out to be, it won't be a good one. However one feels about a given religion, about politics, or anything else, blasting away with firearms is never justified.

As UU churches tend to be, the Tennessee Valley UU Church is a liberal, good-hearted institution. The group of people targeted by Adkisson is part of a half century-long heritage of inclusiveness. They are noted for their support of equality for all, from the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's to the gay rights movement of the present day. In fact, they had a banner welcoming gay people hanging over their door when Adkisson decided to turn a musical performance by young people into his personal shooting gallery. There's some speculation that this may have been the reason he did what he did, though this hasn't yet been confirmed.

Whether Unitarian Universalism as it exists today is a Christian religion is open to debate. Its inclusiveness extends to all sorts of religious views, even those that aren't biblical whatsoever. It might be worth noting that even secular humanists are welcomed into the exchange of ideas that the group fosters. Here in Worcester, for instance, the Greater Worcester Humanists' monthly meetings are hosted at a Unitarian Universalist church. It has been brought up that Adkisson didn't like Christianity much, but considering how many strictly (and fundamentally) Christian churches there are in his area, I don't have a reason to believe that this would have been his motive. An article in the Knoxville News Sentinel talks a bit about what one of Adkisson's neighbors knew about him and his views on religion:

Suspect 'was a very nice guy'
By J.J. Stambaugh

..."I feel sick to my stomach," said Karen Massey, a friend of Adkisson's...

"He almost turned angry," she said. "He seemed to get angry at that. He said that everything in the Bible contradicts itself if you read it.

"I was shocked that he had feelings like that, because I don't have the same beliefs. I believe in the King James Bible, I believe it literally. … He had his own sense of belief about religion; that's the impression I got of him."

According to Massey, Adkisson talked frequently about his parents, who "made him go to church all his life. … He acted like he was forced to do that..."

Jim Adkisson, if this description is true, was neither a religious fundamentalist nor an atheist but, like many Americans, had his own ideas about religion. What they were may become clearer as time goes on. Whether those religious views contributed to his actions remains to be seen.

On the other hand, we do have something that might give us a clue that comes from a description of the shooting itself:

...[Eyewitness Barbara] Kemper said the gunman walked into the side of the sanctuary after firing one shot from a hallway.

She said the gunman was yelling "hateful things" and was wearing a red, white and blue T-shirt...

— Source

So far, nobody has made a statement as to the specific "hateful things" Adkisson shouted. His choice of attire for his rampage may tell us a little something, though. It could be coincidence that he wore red, white and blue, but if this was indeed a "statement" killing as it seems to have been (he had no personal connection to the church), it seems likely that his clothing was part of the statement he was making. I suspect that we will soon find out that Adkisson harbored conservative, probably extremist, views and that his murderous attack on the church was prompted by them.

This is, of course, speculation on my part. When we humans are confronted by tragedy and horror, it is in our nature to search for a reason. For good or ill, this behavior is a root of religion itself as much as it is of investigative disciplines like the sciences. An explanation of some kind gives us a sense of security, a hope that we can recognize the coming of an event before it happens and that we can prevent a thing like this from recurring. My personal hope, the basis of my own speculation, is that something may be learned from this otherwise senseless act of brutality that might prevent another such act. It is a slim hope, but it would at least lend some sort of purpose to the loss that has been suffered by all of the victims of this latest atrocity, both those who died and those who, having survived even without a scratch, now must find a way to cope with it.

Update at 8:05 AM: The Knoxville News Sentinel is now reporting that police have recovered a written manifesto from Jim Adkisson's car:

Police apparently found a multi-page, handwritten letter in the vehicle of the shotgun-wielding suspect charged in Sunday's mass shooting during a children's play at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

The letter apparently offers some clues about accused shooter Jim D. Adkisson's motive for targeting the church's congregation, although specifics were not immediately available...

— Source

That Adkisson brought a copy of his manifesto with him to his rampage lends weight to the idea that this wasn't some random act of violence. There's a reason in that manifesto that the gunman wore red, white and blue, I'm sure. We'll be finding out what it was soon enough.

Sphere: Related Content

Indian Christians Smash Newspaper Offices, Set Fires Over Newspaper Image of Christ

I've mentioned this already in my last entry, but I think it deserves an entry of its own.

When Muslims in Europe and elsewhere protested and called a fatwa against the publishers of a Danish newspaper over the publication of a derogatory image of Mohammad, many American Christians pointed to it as an example of the difference between Christianity and Islam. Christians, it has been claimed, don't do things like that. Christianity is peaceful, Islam is violent, and blah de blah de blah.

A lot of people realized at the time that this was nonsense, of course. While it might be true that Americans are less likely to riot and burn things over something they consider blasphemous (how much less still remains to be seen), this isn't a function of a religious difference between Christianity and Islam but one of cultural context. A most excellent and graphic proof of this comes to us today from India, where yesterday there were violent protests, including the smashing of newspaper offices and fires set to newspapers in the street. The provocation?

A newspaper printed a "blasphemous" picture of Jesus holding a beer mug.

Protests by Christians across State

HYDERABAD: Christians across the State strongly protested the publication of an objectionable picture of Jesus in a Telugu daily on Sunday.

Publication of the picture triggered an attack on the office of Sakshi daily in Chirala town in Prakasam district and demonstrations in Nandyal, Guntakal, Anantapur, Guntur, Ongole and Bhimavaram. Copies of the daily were set ablaze in some places.

The picture published in the religion column of the features section of the daily owned by Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's son Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy showed Jesus Christ in a manner that was reprehensible and hurt the sentiments of the community, Christian organisations alleged.

Reports reaching the State headquarters said irate Christians attacked the Sakshi office at Chirala. The enraged youth raided the office, ransacked the furniture and threw down the computers. They also damaged window panes of an APSRTC bus...

[from a different source]
...The daily's Sunday edition carried a picture showing Jesus with a beer mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The chief minister's family, which practices Christianity, has tendered an apology...

Yep, nothing like what offended Muslims did. Could the innate differences between Christianity and Islam be made any clearer?

Sphere: Related Content

Student in Florida Cracker Case Files Hazing Charge Against Campus Catholic Ministries

There’s been an interesting, and I dare say amusing, development in the Florida Magic Cracker Kidnapping case. Webster Cook, the more-powerful-than-Jesus University of Central Florida student senator who absconded with a sanctified communion wafer, has filed a charge against Catholic Campus Ministries. It seems that UCF has a policy that prohibits hazing, part of which it defines as "the forced consumption of any food." Because CCM is a university-chartered student organization and holds services on university property, it is bound by those rules.

While this may seem far fetched at first blush, Cook has a point. Unless some special exemption has been made for religious organizations in the SGA rules, CCM has the same obligation as any other student organization to allow attendees at functions held on school property the free will not to eat or drink anything that they provide. In other words, the Eucharist has the same legal standing as pizza and soda. Just as a fraternity or secular organization would not be allowed to compel a student to eat pizza until he vomited, a religious organization cannot force that student to consume a cracker. Whether other members of that organization believe that said cracker is the body of Christ or has other magical powers is immaterial.

WFTV of Orlando, Florida has the story:

UCF Catholics Face Hazing Charges For Protecting 'Body Of Christ'

A Catholic student group is facing hazing charges after a worshiper allegedly used force while trying to rescue a communion wafer from a student leader smuggling it out of Mass...

Cook said his hazing complaint cited a UCF anti-hazing policy banning the "forced consumption of any food," in which the "initiation or admission into or affiliation with a University of Central Florida organization may be directly or indirectly conditioned."

The rule presumably was intended to prevent fraternities from force-feeding pledges disgusting food. But Cook said the rule is clear, and applies to all UCF clubs, including the Catholic Campus Ministries religious group. He insists the group is guilty, because members ordered him to consume the Eucharist to remain at Mass...

SGA Officer Anthony Furbush filed an impeachment affidavit against Cook claiming Cook violated SGA ethics when he announced he was an SGA official during Mass, and cited that reason, along with the fact Mass was held in a public campus hall, as why he didn't have to leave when asked.

Cook denied that allegation. Hearings on the impeachment charge could begin Wednesday. If convicted, Cook would be stripped of his SGA position.

SGA officials at UCF are responsible for allocating and overseeing a more than $13 million annual budget, which comes from student fees. The spots are coveted by students, with some candidates spending $10,000 in private funds to win elections for the highest positions in SGA...

Paul Zachary Myers, an athiest [sic] college professor at the University of Minnesota Morris who saw our story has since pledged to desecrate the Eucharist and post photographic evidence on the Internet in protest of Cook's treatment.

That pledge attracted condemnation from the Catholic League, a Catholic civil rights group whose leader, Bill Donohue, suggested that UCF President John Hitt should expel Cook from school, even after he returned the Eucharist.

Cook's friend, who asked we shield his identity out of fear, hopes the controversy will end soon...

Trying to force an interpretation of the anti-hazing rule that would apply only to “disgusting things” is fundamentally dishonest and opens the prohibition to some very odd interpretations. For instance, who decides what is disgusting? One can imagine a scenario in which a group took perfectly ordinary chicken, cook it thoroughly, and dyed it an unappetizing shade of green. Is that disgusting? There’s nothing wrong with it; it’s only chicken with food coloring. What a student organization still be prohibited from forcing a pledge to eat it under the interpreted rule? Moreover, could the same club demand that a new initiate consume excessive amounts of something that wasn’t considered repulsive by ordinary people. I don’t know of many individuals who would consider grapes disgusting, but one might be sickened or even injured by cramming five pounds of grapes down the one’s throat. The real issue here is not the quality of the food consumed but the fact that the initiate could be compelled to consume anything at all.

Cook cannot be said to have done anything disruptive; he wasn’t the one who made a scene during the service. The fact that he was surreptitious in his actions demonstrates that he didn’t stand up, wave the wafer around and shout "I got it! I got it!" The disruption was perpetrated by the individual who attempted to physically restrain him. Therefore, it is that individual who should be brought up on university charges if this whole situation is about disruptive behavior. If, on the other hand, Cook is being charged with being disrespectful, that opens up the question of whether disrespect directed at a religious organization is being treated differently than that directed at a secular organization at UCF. As this is a public university funded largely by tax dollars, to do so would be violating the law. Would a student wearing a "club the baby seals" T-shirt be brought up on the same charges for attending an on-campus Greenpeace meeting? Respect is something that can only be given by consent; it cannot be enforced and to attempt to do not almost always impinges on free speech. A university should not be allowed to decide what any individual should or should not respect.

Finally, we might ask whether a "sanctified" cracker can be given a different standing then an unsanctified cracker by the university administration. If not, then any student removing a Ritz from a reception could be faced with the end of his or her academic career under the university’s stringent “zero tolerance for cracker thieves” policy. If the university decides that it can give special status to a cracker that happens to be part of a religious ritual, then it is giving special privileges to an organization based on particular religious belief— certainly something not allowed when that organization is receiving funding from student fees at a public university.

On the other hand, the person who attempted to prevent Cook from leaving the premises when he so desired has certainly broken the law. The action could certainly be considered assault and perhaps false imprisonment as well. Cook was not posing a threat to any person, nor was he stealing someone else’s property. The cracker was given to him; it was his property. If UCF isn’t already giving special status to a religious organization, it should be more concerned with the violation of a real law than it is with getting involved with vague issues of respect and transubstantiation. Certainly, assault has been proven many times in open court. I don’t think the same can be said of transubstantiation.

I find it telling that Cook’s friend is afraid to reveal his identity. Cook has already been the subject of physical harassment and clearly his friend is worried about his own safety. It bears pointing out that contrary to the assertions I have seen made by Catholics angered over this situation that they are unlike Muslims who rioted in several countries when a Danish newspaper published a derogatory cartoon of Mohammad that, in fact, Christians have taken violent action when they have felt that the object of their belief has been slighted. In India, Christians infuriated by the printing in a newspaper of a cartoon depicting Christ holding a beer smashed that paper’s office only hours ago. It might be true that Americans are not as likely to become violent over religious differences, but to assert that this has anything to do with religion is nonsense. I would assume that Indian Christians are still considered to be members of the same religion as American Christians and that the Catholics of the subcontinent belong to the same church as the Catholics of Florida.

As far as PZ Myers is concerned, I wonder if he would consider accompanying me when I travel to Florida for field work this September. I’m sure his newly-acquired celebrity in that state would net us all sorts of benefits. The vitriol expressed by Floridian fundamentalists would provide motivation against the temptation to leave the field early and seek air conditioning. At least as far as WFTV sees him, he's the "athiest."

Sphere: Related Content