“My Half Year Of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists”

Ken AshfordGodstuff, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

A Polish exchange student is set up with a host family here in Winston-Salem — a family of Christian fundamentalists.  He writes about it in Der Spiegel:

"When I got out of the plane in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, I would never have expected my host family to welcome me at the airport, wielding a Bible, and saying, ‘Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us.’ At that moment I just wanted to turn round and run back to the plane.

Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents hadn’t had sex for the last 17 years because — so they told me — they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart.

My host parents treated me like a five-year-old. They gave me lollipops. They woke me every Sunday morning at 6:15 a.m., saying ‘Michael, it’s time to go to church.’ I hated that sentence. When I didn’t want to go to church one morning, because I had hardly slept, they didn’t allow me to have any coffee.

One day I was talking to my host parents about my mother, who is separated from my father. They were appalled — my mother’s heart was just as possessed by the devil as mine, they exclaimed. God wanted her to stay with her husband, they said.

Turns out, the Winston-Salem fundies had an ulterior motive:

Then, seeing as we were already on the topic of God’s will, the religious zealots finally brought up a subject which had clearly been on their minds for a long time: They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country of Poland. It was God’s will, they said. They tried to slip the topic casually into conversation, but it really shocked me — I realized that was the only reason they had welcomed me into their family. They had already started construction work in Krakow — I was to help them with translations and with spreading their faith via the media.

Read the whole thing.

RELATED:  North Carolina and religious fundamentalism also merge in this news item:

GREENSBORO, N.C. – The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted Tuesday to cut ties with congregations that affirm or approve of homosexuality, formally adopting a rigid anti-gay policy that allows the group to investigate whether member churches are gay-friendly.

The policy adopted by the North Carolina convention, which includes more than 4,000 member churches and 1.2 million members, is even stricter than that of the national Southern Baptist Convention, according to a more liberal Baptist organization.

Bush Personally Approved Torture

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

this seems like a big story:

Document shows Bush guided CIA on detention

The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged for the first time the existence of two classified documents, including one signed by President George W. Bush, that have guided the agency’s interrogation and detention of terror suspects.

The CIA disclosed the existence of the documents in a letter Friday sent from the agency’s associate general counsel, John McPherson, to lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The contents of the documents were not revealed, but one document, as described by the ACLU, is "a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees."

The second document, according to the group is a Justice Department legal analysis "specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top Al Qaeda members."

ACLU lawyers said they would now press for public disclosure of the contents of the documents.

"We intend to press for release of both of these documents," said Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the group said in a statement.

"If President Bush and the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners, the public has a right to know."

We surely do.

Dems In New England

Ken AshfordElection 2006Leave a Comment

(1)  The recounting is done in Connecticut’s 2nd District, and Democrat Joe Courtney won — by 97 votes.  97.  Wow.  This means that there is only one Republican Congressman from all of New England (Chris Shays of Connecticut)

(2)  Carol Shea-Porter is the new Democratic congressman from NH (who supposedly never stood a chance to win).  Her victory is explained on Daily Kos by one of her campaign coordinators.

An Opera About Bill O’Reilly?

Ken AshfordPopular Culture, Right Wing and Inept Media, Right Wing Punditry/Idiocy1 Comment

Yup.  Here’s the scoop from the author of the book and blog "Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly" (gotta love that name, by the way):

In the book "Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly", we discussed the possibility of a musical theater production. We even went so far as to throw together some lyrics. Well kids, in the race to the stage, we’ve been beaten to the punch… and by a guy named Igor, no less.

Mackris v. O’Reilly is the new work by Igor Keller. The oratorio (which is basically an opera without the scenery), is for a 31-piece chamber orchestra, 32-voice chorus and three soloists, directed by Kris Falk.

The libretto is comprised of the original court document and O’Reilly’s on-air settlement announcement. Imagine a two-hour neo-baroque extravaganza including seven chorales, two madrigals, three choruses, four recitatives, two instrumental entrances and numerous arias dedicated to the sexual exploits of the most popular man in cable news.

Crs_1_137x182

Charles Robert Stephens – Baritone
as Bill O’Reilly

Stephens’ performances show "a committed characterization and a
voice of considerable beauty." (Opera News) He has been hailed by
The New York Times as a "baritone of smooth distinction."

Signe_1_137x169

Signe Mortensen – Soprano
as Andrea Mackris

Mortensen’s roles include Musetta in La Boheme (Bellevue Opera),
Pamina in Magic Flute (Skagit Opera), Micaela in Carmen (Opera
Pacifica), Frasquita in Carmen (Tri-Cities Opera), Adele in Die
Fledermaus (TCO), Yum-Yum in Mikado (Skagit Opera), and
Josephine in HMS Pinafore (Northwest Savoyards

Andrea Makris is the woman who sued O’Reilly for sexual harassment.

Does This Sound “Fair And Balanced” To You?

Ken AshfordRight Wing and Inept MediaLeave a Comment

HuffPo obtained an internal Fox memo written by the network’s Vice President of news. The memo details Fox’s game plan the day Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House.  Here’s an excerpt.  Pay special attention to the emphasizd statements and see if you can see a hint of bias — I’m betting you can:

The elections and Rumsfeld’s resignation were a major event, but not the end of the world. The war on terror goes on without interruption. Jennifer Griffin sent in info on Hamas’ call for attacks on American interests. And let’s on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.

The question of the day, and indeed for the rest of bush’s term, is: What’s the Dem plan for Iraq? THis could be a very short live shot for Jim Angle, but he’ll try.

In the House, the newly empowered Dems will shed some fraternal blood before settling in. Murtha will challenge HOyer for the leadership. A former hawk v. a political hack. Garrett will observe.

We’ll continue to work the Hamas threat to the US that came hours after the election results. Griffin and Tobin will include in their lives. Just because Dems won, the war on terror isn’t over.

This type of thing shouldn’t surprise anyone, but there are still those out there who insist that Fox News really is "fair and balanced".  Odd.

FLASHBACK TO JUNE 2006:  The Fox London bureau chief said this in the Wall Street Journal European edition:

Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly.

Yup, nothing to see here. No bias at all.

I Knew This Guy In Law School

Ken AshfordCrime1 Comment

Not well though.  He was in one of my study groups:

GardnerAndrew Gardner’s body was found under a stand of trees in a bird sanctuary in tony upstate Bedford – a mile from the sprawling gray cedar-shingled Colonial home he no longer shared with his college-sweetheart wife and their three children.

Gardner, a charming, socially connected lawyer with a prestigious New York firm, had moved out of his hillside house in Armonk and was bunking in a White Plains apartment with his recently widowed father – overwhelmed at how his storybook life was quickly unraveling.

He was living under a cloud – accused of a rape he swore he didn’t commit while attending a business conference in Atlanta in August.

A graduate of the elite Collegiate School in Manhattan, Harvard University and NYU Law School, Gardner, 39, spent a week in jail before he was released on $225,000 bail.

A month later, he attempted suicide – slashing his wrists in a failed bid to escape what an old Harvard friend described as an "unbearable humiliation."

Two weeks ago, when he didn’t return home as expected, his father, retired ad exec Allen Gardner, panicked and went to the police.

He told cops that Andrew had not returned to either the White Plains apartment or the Armonk home he had lived in until recently with his wife, Kimberley, their twin 13-year-old sons and 9-year-old daughter.

"He stated that his son is suicidal," the White Plains police noted in a missing-person’s report filed Oct. 30.

The alarmed dad said he had last spoken to his son the previous day "and he seemed to be fine at the time."

The officers contacted police in nearby Bedford and learned that an officer there had run the plates on Gardner’s 2004 metallic-gray BMW-325 shortly before midnight after a patrol cop spotted it parked in the Butler bird sanctuary.

When Bedford cops returned to the sanctuary, the BMW was still there, the key in the ignition.

Gardner’s body was found in the woods about 200 yards away.

It’s believed he took his own life.

This Could Be The Greatest Celebrity Divorce Proceeding Ever

Ken AshfordPopular Culture1 Comment

CBS News is reporting:

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline made a four-hour sex tape early in their marriage that he is now threatening to sell unless she gives in to his demands in their divorce case, according to a British tabloid, The News of the World.

First impressions:

(1)  Four hours?  I tip my hat to the two of them.

(2)  Four hours?  I bet she chatters away incessantly for the first 3.5 hours.  You remember this?

(3)  From the article:

But on The Early Show Tuesday, Us Weekly magazine’s contributing editor Katrina Szish said Spears probably needn’t worry.

"If a tape does exist, I don’t think it will be damaging for Britney," Szish told co-anchor Rene Syler. "We’ve seen her at her lowest point. She’s on her way back up. This would be a tape she did with her husband when they were married. Whatever may be in that tape, it really doesn’t matter anymore. "

Well, yes.  I supposed when you get as skanky as Britney Spears, it really doesn’t matter.  But for whole blackmail thing is pretty interesting, even for people who abhor "celebrity" news, Britney Spears and K-Fed.

(4)  While K-Fed may be in the running for the worst "ex" of the year, he got beat out today by this guy:

A man pleaded guilty in the deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s four small kittens, which were tossed into a fire pit after the couple argued.

A War Casualty That Doesn’t Get Tallied

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

Editor & Publisher

Her name doesn’t show on any official list of American military deaths in the Iraq war, by hostile or non-hostile fire, who died in that country or in hospitals in Europe or back home in the USA. But Iraq killed her just as certainly.

She is Jeanne "Linda" Michel, a Navy medic. She came home last month to her husband and three kids (ages 11, 5, and 4), delighted to be back in her suburban home of Clifton Park in upstate New York. Michel, 33, would be discharged from the Navy in a few weeks, finishing her five years of duty.

Two weeks after she got home, she shot and killed herself.

Read the whole thing.

Arrest Googling

Ken AshfordCrimeLeave a Comment

I love it when someone gets arrested.  You can google their name and learn all about them.

Today, for example, a guy named Chad Conrad Castagana was arrested for mailing white powder (fake anthrax) to Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Keith Olbermann, and prominent Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

Doing a little "arrest googling" on Chad (who also uses the name "Marc Costanzo") yields this blog comment regarding Katherine Harris:

Chad Castagana Said: 8:29 am [ Quote ]

Congresswoman Katherine Harris is a remarkable lady !

She has perservered a lot to advance the Conservative Cause .

We Red-Bloooded Americans are obligated to support her, siritualy, not just politically !

Then there’s his profile on the very rightwing Free Republic website:

I am a lifelong Conservative Republican.

I have an Associates Degree in the Science of Electronics .

Ann Coulter is a Goddess and I worship Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin .

English is the langauge of the United States of America- – our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are written in the langauge that expresses our civilized freedoms .

Spanish is the language of Banana Republics, beyond that it belongs in a European country .

Ann Coulter a goddess??  Yikes.

Interestingly enough, he even commented on the fact that Olbermann was mailed anthrax.  Here:

Posted by marc costanzo to Politics4Fun
On News/Activism 10/30/2006 7:34:19 AM PST · 230 of 233

>>Not to make light of the situation, but drama queen Olbermann put on quite a production even after he’d been told the powder was harmless and checked out by doctors and told he was fine. He demanded that he be rushed to the hospital for more tests. I wouldn’t be even remotely surprised if he mailed it to himself. I’ve never seen someone more desperate for attention and approval.

I heard from a liberal blog that Olbermann was a prima donna at the hospital, giving the medical staff and the cops a hard time .

Keith is a whiny little b@tch !

Accepting that, I do not believe he sent it to himself .

But that is just guess work .

Yeah.  Sure it’s not "guesswork".  Loser.

UPDATE:  Others do some arrest googling, too.

What The Hell?

Ken AshfordDisastersLeave a Comment

Shutter1113Looking at my "live webcams" on the right just now, I noticed this "live" picture from the webcam at the Nevada Seismological Lab.

I don’t know much about earthquakes or seismographs, but that looks like one biiiiig and preposterously looooooooog earthquake.

I think the machine is broken.  Can someone call them please?

NOVA Looks Good This Week

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

Handwalkers8tuI still say some of the best programming is on public educational TV.  This week, Nova looks at the so-called "family that walks on all fours".  If you haven’t heard about them, it’s an interesting story.

The Ulas family lives in a remote village in Turkey.  They are nineteen in all (it is a big family) which is unique in and of itself.  But what makes this family Nova-worthy is the fact that five of the siblings — four sisters and one brother — walk on all fours; that is, with their feet and the palms of their hands.  They are known as "handwalkers".

No, they’re not eccentric.  Like dogs or other mammals, they simply cannot maintain their balance on the legs.  In their cases, it is due to a rare genetic brain disorder — a form of retardation that effects their ability to stand.  So they became quadropeds instead of bipeds.

They are of special interest to evolutionary scientists.  After all, our ape ancestors made the transition from walking on all fours to walking on two legs.  It is thought that these five "handwalkers" may be a rare example of "reverse evolution" — i.e., the part of the brain that developed late in human evolution (the part which allows us to stand) simply went missing in these people.

Anyway, the Nova special airs this week.

On Keith Olbermann

Ken AshfordRight Wing and Inept MediaLeave a Comment

SanFran Gate:

Keith Olbermann just needed to find his voice. He’d been a droll sportscaster, a serious news anchor and a bickering critic of Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. But none of those personas really clicked.

Then he found one. A little over a year ago, as the White House fumbled and botched the Hurricane Katrina recovery, Olbermann finally blew up.

He concluded a broadcast of his MSNBC cable news show, "Countdown,” with an indignant rant in the rat-a-tat-tat cadence of his idol, Edward R. Murrow. He called it a "Special Comment.”

And just like that, Olbermann found his voice — the angry everyman. He became a liberal counterpoint to conservative media ranters like O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and an Internet star, too.

The result has been a cultural earthquake.

"Here’s what happened,” Olbermann said in a phone interview this week. "Five years ago (on Sept. 11), 50 percent of the country went quiet. There was this self-imposed censorship. Suddenly it became unimaginable to criticize the administration. And no one else was brave or stupid enough to say, ‘I don’t remember signing that document.”’

Today Olbermann is hot, in every sense of the word. He likes to say that the first step to creating one of his blistering editorials is to "get pissed off,” and that’s certainly how he sounds.

But there’s something more to it, too. Conservatives may hate his attacks, but no one doubts that he comes across as one of the smarter guys in the room. When he laid into then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Aug. 30, he threw in references to Neville Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. Let’s see NBC network anchor Brian Williams pull that off.

Not that he would try it.

"Broadcast networks are not interested in the controversy,” Olbermann says.

Well, maybe they’d better start thinking about it.

Read the whole thing.

I’ve found all this to be true.  He is becoming a bit of a cultural phenomenon.  I’ve become aware of people who are not news or political junkies who have turned into Olbermann and heard his "Special Comments" and been moved.  The comparisons to Ed Morrow are common.  He’s got a good gig, and I hope he keeps it up.