If you are not familiar with Trail Life, checck out their website.They are one of the groups founded after the Boy Scouts agreed to accept gay members.
While I was visiting a friend in Texas today, a young man and his son showed up to sell car air fresheners as a fund-raising project for this group. Both the man and his son wore the green Trail Life uniform, which seemed a bit odd because the colors (chosen to distinguish them clearly from the khaki and tan Boy Scouts) are actually the colors associated with the Girl Scouts.
Both the man and his son were very pleasant. After my friend bought an air freshener -- in the shape of Texas, needless to say, and costing six bucks -- and was assured that she would receive it in about a month, we wished them good luck and they left.
My friend turned to me and said, "What a cute little girl."
I explained that the cute little girl was a cute little boy and told her the background of the group.
What can I say. I see many challenges ahead for Trail Life.
Seeking a Town on the Border of Fiction and Reality
The former Agloe fishing
lodge near the intersection of Morton Hill and Rockland Roads in the
fictional town of Agloe, N.Y. Mapmakers invented the town in the 1920s
to guard against copyright infringement.Credit
Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times
SOMEWHERE
NEAR AGLOE, N.Y. — It is one thing to lose your keys or your iPhone,
even the love of your life, but to lose an entire town? Yet that is what
just happened in upstate New York. Last week, Google did something it
almost never does — it wiped a town off its maps.
Don’t blame Google. The town’s provenance was suspect.
How,
Agloe, a speck of a hamlet in the western Catskills, wound up on maps
90 years ago remains a cartographic enigma. How it persevered is an
existential riddle.
“I’ve
never heard of it before,” said Matt Nelson, manager of Beaverkill
Angler in Roscoe, a tiny town within shouting distance of Agloe, at
least on some maps.
Describing
Agloe as a mere hamlet is particularly apt. When it was first
acknowledged, on a free road map distributed by Standard Oil Company of
New York, or Socony, gas stations in 1925, its population was given
indeterminately as from zero to 500, which was probably a peak.
Agloe’s anomaly begins with its name. Is it a-GLOE or AG-loe?
“You can take your choice on how you want to pronounce it,” Roscoe’s official historian, Joyce Conroy, said.
A postcard depicting the fishing lodge.Credit
Collection of the Colchester Historical Society
Even the precise location of Agloe has been a conundrum. The Driving Route Planner website
lists its exact geographic coordinates (for the record, latitude
41.964111300, longitude –74.907832100). Complying with those coordinates
would deliver you just beyond Bill and Darlene Beers’s backyard in the
Town of Colchester in Delaware County, barely across the Sullivan County
line from Roscoe.
Following
Google’s slightly vaguer driving directions, before they were deleted
from the web, would still leave you in Sullivan County near a secluded
concrete shaft protruding from the Pepacton Reservoir.
“We
were thinking of putting up a historic sign,” said Elaine Fettig, the
former president of the Roscoe-Rockland Chamber of Commerce, “but where,
exactly, would we put it?”
Last
week, a reporter for The New York Times noticed a mention on Twitter
about fake towns, which mapmakers would invent to guard against
copyright infringement. An Internet search turned up Agloe and the
Google map, complete with the driving directions. Agloe was a mapmaker’s
creation.
“It
wasn’t uncommon for cartographers to put something fictitious so if
they spotted another work with it they knew it was lifted,” said William
Spicer, the president of Maps.com.
Among
those countless copyright traps, Agloe achieved a rare distinction: The
name stuck. As early as the 1930s, a fishing lodge named Agloe opened
nearby (which later helped Rand McNally successfully claim in a lawsuit
that the Agloe on its own map had not been copied from Socony’s).
Agloe
survived on road maps by Esso and Exxon into the late 20th century and
even long enough to evolve from a so-called paper town into a digital
one on websites like Google, where it made its debut only last year.
It was even mentioned in a 1957 travelogue in The Times
about “scenic drives through the Catskills,” which rhapsodized about
“an unmarked country road that goes north through Rockland and Agloe.”
A 1948 map with Agloe, N.Y.
The town in the western Catskills of New York wound up on maps 90 years
ago, but visitors will no longer find it on a Google map - or at all.Credit
William P. O'Donnell/The New York Times
As
recently as 2008, Agloe gained a modicum of notoriety, and, since then,
an occasional teenage tourist, because it figured in the climax to John
Green’s young adult novel “Paper Towns.” (Last week, Fox 2000 announced
that it would turn the novel into a film.)
A
team of local experts — Mrs. Beers, Mrs. Fettig, Dr. Conroy, and the
historians of Colchester and Delaware County, Kay H. Parisi-Hampel and
Gabrielle Pierce — was asked to dissect Agloe’s pedigree.
What
inspired the name? The original mapmakers, Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest
Alpers of General Drafting Company, scrambled their initials to form it.
Darlene Beers in front of her
house in Roscoe, N.Y. According to some maps and websites, the
community of Agloe is just beyond her backyard, in Colchester, N.Y.Credit
Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times
Why
did they plant Agloe in upstate New York? According to Mr. Lindberg’s
obituary, he went fishing one day in 1923 and got lost going home. “A
mapmaker by profession,” the article said, “he made up his mind to
provide the public with maps to prevent such situations.”
Any
serious trout fisherman, like Mr. Lindberg, would have eventually found
his way to Roscoe (where there also happened to be a Socony gas
station). In 1930, five years after Mr. Lindberg invented Agloe, Ms.
Beers’s grandfather, the son of an immigrant Irish family that fled the
potato famine and was squeezed by the Depression, sold off a prime
angling spot flanked by the Beaver Kill and Spring Brook. The buyers
called their new venture Agloe Lodge Farms.
How
had life imitated art? “Among the first guests at Agloe,” a local
newspaper explained in 1944 when the lodge was already run down, was “an
official of a map publishing firm, who suggested to the owner that he
‘put the place on the map.’ He did.”
On March 17, though, Google removed it, within hours after The Times inquired about its provenance.
Joyce Conroy, the Roscoe town historian, said about Agloe: “You can take your choice on how you want to pronounce it.”Credit
Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times
“As
we’ve said in the past, we’re always working on making Google Maps as
useful, accurate and comprehensive as possible,” Susan Cadrecha, a
Google Maps spokeswoman, said. “The inclusion of Agloe is no exception —
stay tuned in the coming months for places as varied as Mos Eisley,
Narnia and the lost city of Carcosa.”
Just
as Google had promised, the 123-mile trip from Manhattan to Agloe took
about two and a half hours. For any latter-day Magellan, though, the
challenge on arrival was proving a negative: that you can’t get here
from there.
Today,
where “here” is supposed to be, Agloe groupies can still find a
surviving barn; a pale yellow former creamery; a tiny wooden hangar that
served a private airport; a reputedly haunted fairy tale castle, which
belongs to the Masonic Order; and, of course, the derelict white frame,
green-trimmed former Agloe fishing lodge near the intersection of Morton
Hill and Rockland Roads.
“I
don’t know anything about it,” said William Ksiazek of Montvale, N.J.,
the lodge’s current owner. “I know it as the Hempel place.”
A weather-beaten screen door still bears the initial “H,” after its former owners.
While
there appears to be no visible legacy of Agloe, it still remains on
some maps — poised, perhaps, as it nears its 100th year, to reappear.
“Is it real?” Mrs. Fettig said. “What’s your definition of real? If it exists in enough minds, it’s real.”
Family business takes me away for the next ten days or so. I may have an opportunity to blog, but I know internet connections will be weak. Don't worry. I'll be back.
As a person of faith, Hobby Lobby says it shouldn’t be compelled by the government to act against its Christian beliefs.
But I was having a hard time understanding how a store could be a
person, let alone a person of faith. And the more I thought about it,
the more confusing it became.
So, if Hobby Lobby is really a person of faith, I have some questions for it:
Is Hobby Lobby circumcised?
Is Hobby Lobby baptized?
When was the last time Hobby Lobby went to confession?
If Hobby Lobby went to confession, what kind of sins would it confess? (Dear Lord, I coveted my neighbor’s bridal shop?)
Does Hobby Lobby only date other Christian stores?
Are there Mormon stores too? And do they spend a lot of time telling coffee chains how to live?
Has Hobby Lobby ever been married? (I’ll bet Walmart’s looking for an uptight Christian brand who knows its place.)
How old should a store be before it can merge?
How does Hobby Lobby feel about inter-racial mergers — you know,
when, say, an arts and crafts store wants to merge with a sports store?
Is that an abomination?
Is American Girl a jezebel?
Is Abercrombie kinda gay? And if so, do we now need a Defense of Corporate Marriage Act?
For the first time, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is citing its dependence on
customers using food stamps in order to maintain its revenues and
profits.
Wal-Mart's annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission
included a required cautionary statement which informs the public of
factors that could harm future profitability, according to The International Business Times on Tuesday.
Wal-Mart's statement included usual warnings such as as natural
disaster, civil unrest, changes to income and corporate tax rates, and
ongoing investigations against the company, but said the public
assistance inclusion was new.
"Our business operations are subject to numerous risks, factors and
uncertainties, domestically and internationally, which are outside our
control," the Wal-Mart statement said.
"These factors include ... changes in the amount of payments made under
the Supplement[al] Nutrition Assistance Plan and other public
assistance plans, changes in the eligibility requirements of public
assistance plans, ..."
"In other words, Wal-Mart for the first time in its annual reports
acknowledges that taxpayer-funded social assistance programs are a
significant factor in its revenue and profits," wrote Angelo Young of
the International Business Times. "This makes sense, considering that
Wal-Mart caters to low-income consumers. But what's news here is that
the company now considers the level of social entitlements given to
low-income working and unemployed Americans important enough to
underscore it in its cautionary statement."
Wal-Mart has blamed the brutally harsh winter and food stamp cuts for a decline in late season sales, according to the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch blog in January. The weather was a theme for negative sales reports for other outlets as well, reported Market Watch.
"In all, retailers have reported more than 35 pre-announcements and
earnings misses, according to research from Susquehanna Financial
Group," wrote Steve Goldstein of Market Watch in January. "The
Susquehanna report said Kroger, Supervalu and Safeway could also be hit
by food-stamp cuts. Some of those supermarkets saw bigger losses on the
day than the roughly one percent decline seen for Wal-Mart. The world's
largest retailer has lost more than six percent year-to-date."
[Damien's Note: You can save time by just looking at the unerlined bits.] LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – "Chrisley Knows Best" is prompting debate [Damien: Who is debating this again?] if Todd Chrisley’s net worth
is being twisted for reality television viewers. In a show that is all
about money and work, how rich is Todd Chrisley, what does Todd Chrisley
do for a living, what is Chrisley’s net worth, and where did he make all his money from?
[Damien: What does he do for a living? Overact on this television show. What is his net worth? I don't know, I haven't seen the net. The one he wears on his hair at night? Or the one he uses to fish for weak laughs?]
Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley tell viewers that a Chrisley and Company Department Store
is the future multi-million dollar project that will convey the
family’s “brand”. That family includes Savannah Chrisley, Chase Chrisley
and other children Lindsie, Kyle and Grayson.
Todd Chrisley tells "Chrisley Knows Best" viewers that he makes millions of dollars per year. But Todd’s bankruptcy trustee claims that Todd allegedly does not even work. Even worse, Todd’s attorney claims that his client has doesn’t have millions of dollars in the bank. Rather, his total cash net worth of checking and bank accounts is allegedly one hundred fifty-five dollars ($155.00)?
Chrisley Knows Best has become more about what we are not told about
Todd Chrisley than what we are told. First, what does Todd do for a living?
Viewers see very little of his employment. Rather we hear more than see
it. “I have made 95% of my money in real estate”. The vague statement
is followed up with the reality TV catchphrase viewers have grown to
dislike; Todd Chrisley is working on his “brand”, his “lifestyle brand”.
Todd tells news “and I am now going to be able to … have a life in
fashion. This is my closet. Things are organized by season. In a year we
spend $300,000 in clothing. Chrisley and Company is a department store that we are branding after our family. … it is not just apparel, it is a lifestyle brand.”
Second, what is Todd Chrisley’s net worth, how rich is he, and how
much money does he make per year? First he says “I love my businesses”
(plural). But what are they? Then he adds “I make millions of dollars a
year”. But doing what?
Third, we are told of his future spending limits.
“The building is for sale for $4.5 million. We are investing 35% of our net worth
in this business.”
And finally as to his oldest son he says “I have
spent a million dollars to have find yourself.” The cash register for
Todd Chrisley keeps on ringing. But much of this is even real?
Does Todd Chrisley make two million dollars per year working? No, claims Jason Pettie. Who is Pettie? He is Todd Chrisley’s bankruptcy trustee.
Even worse Pettie claims “Neither [Chrisley nor his wife, Julie] has
been employed since 2012,” Does Todd Chrisley have thirty-five percent
of his net worth to invest in a department store? According to Todd Chrisley’s attorney, Todd has $55 in a checking account and $100 in cash. How about that three hundred thousand dollars in clothing spending per year? Chrisley allegedly owes the IRS nearly six hundred thousand dollars in unpaid federal taxes.
And it’s even worse. Chrisley claims that he has allegedly $4.2
million in assets. It remains unclear where those assets are. His
mansion featured on the show was listed previously at more than that
price. But it is now for sale for around two million dollars. Chrisley
has twelve million dollars in mortgages. And added to all this, Chrisley
has filed for bankruptcy. In total, Todd Chrisley claims $155 in cash,
$4.2 million in assets, and $49.4 million in debt.
--------------------------------------------------
Okay, we all know reality tv is not real. Don't we?
Apparently not.
When Duck Dynasty loons make homophobic remarks, then conservative politicians get all excited and supportive because those guys represent "real America" and you can tell just by watching their show. Oh, yeah. The beards? The clothing? Well, there are lots of photos of the guys prior to the "reality show" wearing golf shirts and looking like the country club folks they pretty much want to be. Not the faux rednecks they claim to be.
Of course, Duck Dynasty has started tanking in the ratings -- no matter how you spin it -- due to overexposure, not to any LGBT backlash. I am seeing all sorts of Duck Dynasty crap on clearance at Walmart. It is time for some other faux celebrity to get his/her 15 seconds in the sun lamp.
Even without this latest news -- which may just be another marketing effort for all we know to punch up ratings -- I could not figure out why anyone would want to watch this Chrisley show. It's more grisly than anything, though in a bloodless and lifeless way.
And if that man's wife thinks ... well, you know.
Just sayin'.
-------------------------------------------
On a side political note: When conservatives get all in a dither about class warfare, they should look at the image projected by shows like this. It's not the lesbian mothers on a Disney show that are the social problem. Its the Kardashians, the Chrisleys, the ....
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What do you see in the photo? A man holding a baby/toddler or the face of ... Jesus perhaps?
Now look just at the section outlined in red. Try to ignore the rest of the photo entirely. See the child, wearing a bonnet, sitting on the man's lap with her right arm lying across her lap?
This is not even an intentional optical illusion. It is an example of how our brain fools us.
Pareidolia (/pærɨˈdoʊliə/parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, a form of apophenia. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.
I have been pondering the role of a sort of social or cultural pareidolia, whereby entire groups of people see the impoverished but nonetheless working class as being lazy, stupid or even wicked. My brain is socially conditioned to see this pattern: hard work = success = financial prosperity. When I see someone working but not becoming prosperous, my brain tells me that what I see -- a person holding down two part time jobs and putting in 60 hours of back-breaking work each week while trying to raise a family but never having enough to save or improve his or her life -- must not be what is there. So what I see is someone who is stupid or lazy.
That is an example of how politically conservative people might be fooled into seeing what isn't there or fail to see what is there. This mechanism can work, however, for/against all people: liberals, centrists, Tea Party, Green Party, libertarians, socialists, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics and on and on and on.
What template am I imposing on the world that causes me to fail to see what is there?
Shake Shack, a burger chain with locations in
Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. as well
as international locations in the Middle East, Russia, Turkey, and the
United Kingdom, pays starting workers $9.50 an hour outside of New York
City and $10 an hour for New Yorkers, CEO Randy Garutti told
ThinkProgress. It also offers full-time employees health, dental,
vision, retirement, and disability benefits plus paid time off.
But on average, workers get $10.70 an hour thanks to a program it
calls Shack Bucks. Every month, it gives employees a percentage of the
company’s top-line sales. “It’s sort of immediate revenue sharing, not a
long-term program,” he noted.
The company pays about 70 percent of employees’ health care premiums
and also matches contributions to their 401(k)s. He added that he is
“more excited” than all of these perks about how many employees move up
into manager roles. “There are a lot of people who started making $9 an
hour and are now general managers in our restaurants making very good
money,” he said. The owners started in fine dining and brought the
compensation practices from those restaurants into its original burger
and hot dog stand.
When asked if these practices have come with concrete benefits for
the company itself, he responded, “Absolutely,” adding, “Our turnover is
lower, we can hire the best, they stay longer, and we can grow them
into management.” And it pays off for customers. “If the team feels
taken care of, then they’ll go out and take care of the guests.”
And he thinks other business owners in the fast food industry can
take this approach and see similar results. “I know they can,” he said.
“Because I just know that it works.”
And Shake Shack isn’t the only eatery taking this approach to its workforce. Michigan’s Moo Cluck Moo pays entry-level workers $15 an hour,
a move its owners say leads to less turnover, better customer service,
and more skilled employees. In-N-Out, a West Coast burger chain, pays $10.50 an hour for entry-level employees. Outside of the burger world, Boston-based burrito chain Boloco pays starting workers anywhere from $9 to $11 an hour, which the owner says increases loyalty and productivity and, in turn, profitability.
In light of the conversation to raise the minimum wage, others have
decided to join in. Two pizza companies in St. Louis will soon pay at least $10.10 an hour. It has also spread outside of the food industry: clothing retailer The Gap recently announced it will also raise its lowest wage to $10.
After a couple of years, the pants pockets of a New Jersey public works inspector are getting a well-deserved break.
Thomas Rica, 43, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to stealing $460,000 worth of quarters over the course of more than two years.
Rica
apparently used a master key to enter a Ridgewood Village Hall room
loaded with parking-meter quarters, taking regular deposits in the
hundreds of dollars every couple of days. To avoid detection, he would
deposit the coins in machines at several different bank branches.
Rica finally was caught in the act last year in the middle of a $500-plus heist, Timereports.
"It was just temptation," Bob Galantucci, Rica's attorney, told the New York Post.
"He was in a room with a lot of money. He was raising a family. As a
result, he thought he would supplement his income with that."
The
penalty for bagging more than 1.8 million quarters? Not much with the
guilty plea -- Rica won't have to go jail, but he will have to return
the money he stole within five years, including a lump sum of $69,000.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Supplemental income: additional funds earned through a means that is different from your normal income stream
It is sometimes also qualified as not a living wage.
If he considered almost a quarter million dollars a year supplemental income, it does make me wonder what his salary is.
The Creativity Movement (formerly known as World Church Of The Creator),
is a white separatist organization that advocates the whites-only
religion, Creativity. It was also a descriptive phrase used by Ben
Klassen, that included all adherents of the religion. The use of the
term creator does not refer to a deity, but rather to themselves (white
people). Despite the former use of the word Church in its name, the
movement is atheistic. Creativity is a White Separatist religion that
was founded by Ben Klassen in early 1973 under the name Church of the
Creator. After Klassen’s death in 1993, Creativity almost died out as a
religion until the New Church of the Creator was established three years
later by Matthew F. Hale (photo) as its Pontifex Maximus (high priest), until
his incarceration in January 2003 for plotting with the movement’s head
of security, Anthony Evola (an FBI informant), to murder a federal
judge.
We ... believe that in 6000 years of recorded history,
Nature's Eternal Religion is the most profound and meaningful religious
book ever written for the survival of the White Race. It is a
fundamental creed, based on the eternal Laws of Nature for the survival,
expansion and advancement of the White Race, the noblest creation in
Nature's realm. We are confident that the White Race will soon return
to reality, embrace our powerful new Religion, regain control of its
own destiny, and advance forward to new heights never before dreamed
of.
It is towards this noble objective, the survival, expansion and
advancement of the White Race, that Nature's Eternal Religion is
dedicated. It is for this reason our dynamic religion was founded. We
call our religion Creativity, and members thereof, Creators, because,
we believe these words, in essence, best describe the characteristic
soul of the White Race.
We completely reject the Judeo-democratic-Marxist values of
today, and supplant them with new and basic values, of which race is the
foundation. We take a new, revolutionary and dynamic approach to the
problems that face the White Race today in its desperate struggle for
survival.
Although our religion is new, the laws embodied in our religion
are not new, nor are they something we have invented. On the contrary,
we have only observed and put into words that which Nature in her
eternal wisdom has decreed for the survival of all her creatures from
the beginning of time.
Nor is it at all remarkable that we should have observed these
laws and based our religion on them. What is most strange is that the
creative White Race has not done so centuries ago. In fact, it is
amazing that the Romans and the Greeks failed to do so in their time.
Going back even further, it is hard to understand why the highly gifted
Egyptians failed to do so in their great White civilization 5000 years
ago. Had the White Race done so in its earlier history, it would not
now be trapped in the idiotic and precarious struggle for survival in
which it now finds itself ensnared.
March 19 is the Solemn Feast of St. Joseph, Spouse of Mary, for Catholics and some other Christians. Fr. Jerome of the Mother of God (Jerome Cracian), a close friend of St. Teresa of Avila, wrote a book about the excellencies of St. Joseph, to whom Teresa was extremely devoted. Excerpts from the book have been translated into English.
Among other things, the good Father mentions that St. Joseph was handsome and had all his teeth, because it would have been unseemly for the man chosen as protector of the Virgin Mother of God and the Christ to have some physical flaw.
On the other hand, he did not say that Joseph had all his hair. Fr. Jerome was pretty bald, although he was reputed to be handsome, too.
All in the eye of the beholder, I guess, and in the pen of the author.
Some Christians make much about how the Holy Family (Joseph, Mary and Jesus) is a model for families today. Since it was by all accounts a non-traditional family in many ways, perhaps they are right.
The firm 3D Babies has begun selling (for $800) 8-inch-long fetal
sculptures manufactured from 3-D ultrasound images developed with
computer graphics and 3-D printing technology (“printing” successive
layers of material continuously, eventually creating a physical object).
(Four-inch and two-inch models are available for $400 and $200,
respectively.) For celebrity hounds who are not planning imminent
parenthood, the company sells one fetal sculpture off the shelf: the
Kim Kardashian-Kanye West fetus (“Baby North West”) for only $250. [FastCoDesign.com, 1-17-2014]
Imagine holding your baby before he or she is born.
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Use the coupon "30-OFF" to get 30% off the price of your
Halfsize (4 inch) or Mini (2 inch) 3D Baby.
Your pregnancy with this child is a once in a lifetime experience. Recall those feelings with your own 3D Baby™.
At 3D Babies™, we create an adorable
baby sculpture resembling your baby's facial features and body position.
Through doctoral studies in Bioengineering, we understand what
technology can do to make our lives better. As parents, we know how to
feel love for a developing child. Using technology, we capture a
parent's loving feelings and excitement about the coming birth. We
want all parents to feel the joy that we and our customers experience
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If the above paragraph disturbs you, visit the webpage.
As for the obvious questions in your mind, I have no idea! To paraphrase Faux News: I report. You decide.
Recently I mentioned the custom of pinching people who did not wear green on St. Patrick' Day. I went online to see if I could find a reason, and I found so many that it probably means that no one really knows.
Some people claim the that custom arose in Ireland itself to punish the Irish who did not participate in the battle to keep Ireland out of the hands of the English. Others that it arose in the States among immigrants to punish any Irish who tried to conceal their national background to escape persecution.
And there is the group that blames the leprechauns. There are conflicting explanations on this score, but it seems the leprechauns only pinch those not wearing green because those wearing green to honor the saint are thereby rendered invisible to the pesky pinching little people.
At any rate, may you have a happy and pinch-free day!
Fred Phelps Sr.,
the founder of the Kansas church held in disgust worldwide for its
antigay protests of prominent funerals, is in hospice care and "on the
edge of death," according to one of his estranged sons.
Nate Phelps posted the information on Facebook Saturday night, adding
the revelation that his father had been excommunicated from the church
in 2013. A church spokesman told the Topeka Capitol-Journal that Phelps
was indeed in the hospice but that Nate Phelps "is not well informed."
The spokesman also refused to comment on the allegation that the elder
Mr. Phelps has been excommunicated.
Another son, Mark Phelps, told the Capitol-Journal that its information on his father's health "is accurate."
-----------------------------------------------
A number of people have commented that Mr. Phelps will be surprised when he gets to the Pearly Gates for any number of reasons. Others assert confidently that the Pearly Gates are not going to be his destination for any number of reasons. Some claim that a man who fostered so much hate deserves no mercy or forgiveness, divine or human.
G.K. Chesterton, in one of his Father Brown stories, had that little priest tell someone that it was true that some things were humanly unforgivable. But that was why he held out for divine mercy -- because he knew human mercy had not the strength required.
----------------------------------------------
Equality Kansas (formerly the Kansas
Equality Coalition) today urged members of the Kansas, United States,
and worldwide LGBT communities to respect the privacy of the family of
Fred W. Phelps, notorious pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church. “If the
reports of Fred Phelps’ declining health are accurate, then his family
and friends are certainly saying their good-byes and preparing to mourn
his loss,” said Sandra Meade, chairwoman of Equality Kansas. “We ask
that everyone understand the solemnity of the occasion, and honor the
right of his family and friends to remember and mourn his loss in
private without interruption or unseemly celebration,” Meade said.
“For over 20 years, Phelps and
the members of his Topeka-based church have harassed the grieving
families of LGBT Kansans and others,” said Thomas Witt, executive
director of Equality Kansas. “He and his followers showed utter
disregard for the privacy and grief of others for many years. This is
our moment as a community to rise above the sorrow, anger, and strife he
sowed, and to show the world we are caring and compassionate people who
respect the privacy and dignity of all,” Witt said. Equality Kansas
asks that its members, supporters and allies refrain from protests or
demonstrations should reports of Phelps’ imminent passing prove true.
“Our focus must remain on our mission: ending discrimination based on
sexual orientation and gender identity,” Meade said.
The International University of Nescience is the
educational arm of The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic
Agnostic. It was founded to provide degrees to members and clergy of
the Church in recognition of the high degree of effort and intellectual
rigor required to understand the finer points of doctrine of Apathetic
Agnosticism.
At
first glance, this photo appears to show a parrot perching on a tree -
sporting a curved beak, colorful feathers and a pointed tail. But, in fact, as may be easier to see in the larger version below, it is a woman whose entire body has been cleverly painted to resemble the tropical bird. The spectacular work of art was created by Johannes Stoetter, a former world champion body painter.
The
35-year-old artist, who lives in Italy, spent four weeks painstakingly
planning how he could transform the female model into a parrot.
He
took four hours to paint the woman's body using special breathable
paint - adding intricate detail, dark shading and even a bright green
eye.
He then spent a further hour positioning her on a tree trump, before taking a series of photographs. The
finished creation sees the model's outstretched left leg become the
parrot's tail feathers, while her right leg and arm become its wings.
And her left arm - wrapped around her head - forms the tropical bird's head. Mr
Stoetter, who was crowned World Body Painting Champion in 2012, said he
had chosen to position the model on a tree stump to enhance the
'parrot's' life-like appearance. 'Getting
the scene set up took about five hours, then it took about another four
hours to paint the model and an hour to get her position right,' he said.
TYLER Johnson runs a ministry called the Dead Raising Team
in the US. He claims to have brought 11 people back to life. He says he
even persuaded the authorities in his state to issue him with an
official photocard which lets him through police lines at car accident
sites.
Johnson, according to this BBC report, appears in a new documentary film called Deadraisers, which follows enthusiasts as they trail round hospitals and mortuaries trying to bring people back to life.
Bring out your dead: This lot, who feature in the documentary, want to practice their resurrection skills.
Sadly, those they pray for in the film remain resolutely dead.
Tyler and his wife Christine are blissfully married
with four kids. They hope to see a DRT started in every city in the
world, so that nobody could die without being prayed back to life. Tyler
is a graduate from Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry.
Johnson is unwilling to provide successful case studies. And in
general, the proof that believers cite is a bit unconvincing – for
example, there is an American heart surgeon who allegedly brought a
heart attack patient back from the dead with prayer … oh, and a
defibrillator.
Other doctors find the story entirely unremarkable. One wonders why.
The BBC’s Jolyon Jenkins then got to meet Alun and Donna Leppit, a
British couple who are convinced that the dead can be raised through the
power of prayer.
Alun and Donna Leppit
The evangelic loons were subject of a BBC 4 programme today called Out of the Ordinary: The Power of Prayer.
During the course of the broadcast, Donna lamented that there aren’t too many corpses in the UK that they can practice on.
The one that they did try to resurrect to was Donna’s brother, who died of a heart attack.
By the time they got to the mortuary, he had been dead for eight
hours. They prayed over him for nearly an hour, and although at one
stage they thought they saw him move, that was as good as it got.
Are they discouraged? ‘Not at all,’ says Alun.
‘Practice makes perfect,’ adds Donna. ‘But in this country, we don’t
often get access to dead bodies.’
Jenkins added: And it takes a lot to shake Alun and Donna’s faith. Alun himself
has serious medical problems. He was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis
in his 20s, has had complications, major surgery, and is now on a
waiting list for an ileostomy. He needs a miracle. But so far, and
despite the prayer, none has come.
The Leppitt are the UK end of a worldwide fellowship of evangelical
Christians called Global Awakening. In countries like Mozambique and
Brazil, Global Alliance missionaries are converting people to
Christianity with spectacular displays that claim to heal through
prayer. They say they cure blindness and deafness in big open air
meetings.
From another healer, Ian Andrew in Somerset, Jenkins heard of a woman who got a new heart as a result of prayer.
Literally, a new heart? Yes. What happened to the old one? It was replaced. These claims are, by any standards, implausible. But in the world
of Pentecostal healing, no-one worries about that. In fact, the more
impossible the miracle (and they use the term without embarrassment) the
better, because it’s more effective for spreading their message.
Shake Shack, a burger chain with locations in
Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. as well
as international locations in the Middle East, Russia, Turkey, and the
United Kingdom, pays starting workers $9.50 an hour outside of New York
City and $10 an hour for New Yorkers, CEO Randy Garutti told
ThinkProgress. It also offers full-time employees health, dental,
vision, retirement, and disability benefits plus paid time off.
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