Thursday, April 01, 2004

East Texas newspaper recommends Moonie marriage as black alternative to "Thug Life" [sic] 

Here.

[link] posted by John : 7:07 PM

Linguists confronted with the dawn of R. Robot 

Here and here, there are some discussions of R. Robot, my Perl creation. One asks an interesting question:
...a new topic for computational social theory and symbolic dynamics: which varieties of ideological discourse can be captured by context-free grammars, and which require the higher, more powerful levels of the Chomsky hierarchy? Those with an evolutionary turn of mind might ponder the transition from simian proto-ideologies (presumably mere regular expressions) to the full glories of human thought.


[link] posted by John : 5:13 PM

"San Francisco's City Hall looked like a Moonie Wedding Chapel" 

Those are the words of conservative columnist Kathleen Parker.

What are the odds she'll write about the Dirksen Senate Building becoming a Moonie coronation chapel? And does she know that you're not supposed to use the word "Moonie"?

[link] posted by John : 4:51 PM

Moon org accused of money-laundering in Brazil 

Here.

[link] posted by John : 11:58 AM

Welcome to the Gilded Age 

...please let me know if you recognize any of your elected officials in these pictures.

(This is not an April Fool's photo)

[link] posted by John : 8:02 AM

Synergizin' 

Also lending his name to Rev. Moon's coronation in the Dirksen Senate building...it's Dr. Stephen Covey, the Mormon author of The 7 Secrets of Highly Effective People.

Here are his seven secrets, in case you're curious.

1) "Be proactive"
2) "Begin with the end in mind"
3) "Put first things first"
4) "Think 'Win-Win'"
5) "Seek first to understand, then to be understood"
6) "Synergize"
7) "Sharpen the saw"

Thanks to Nancy in the comments section for recognizing Dr. Covey's name. His book is required motivational reading for Unification Church members. (Also recommended: Tim LaHaye, Milton Friedman.)

Writing jokes for material like this would just be redundant.

[link] posted by John : 7:14 AM

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

"Now, Al Franken, we don't want to crush Rush. We wanna crush his ideas." 

A snippet from the inflammatory new radio show, "The Gore Room." (From Le Show.)

[link] posted by John : 5:32 PM

Always bet on Black 

Let's take a closer look at the "invitational committee" listed for Rev. Moon's March 23 address, when the pleasure of his company at the Dirksen Senate Office Building was requested, and Moon informed assorted Congressmen and others that he was the Messiah. In tiny print:

Why, it's Mr. Charles Black, the ultimate Republican insider! A strategist in the Bush Sr. and Reagan campaigns, he's chairman of BKSH & Associates -- a public relations firm which represents Ahmed Chalabi, of the Iraqi exiles. From the Seattle Times:

BKSH & Associates, whose chairman, Charles Black Jr., played key roles in the campaigns of Bush and his father, gained valuable contacts when it represented the Iraqi National Congress, an alliance of Iraqi exiles opposed to the government of Saddam Hussein, many of whom now hold power in the provisional government set up by the United States.


[link] posted by John : 9:43 AM

Tuesday, March 30, 2004

From the New Yorker in 1998 

Some good reading about the man Congress just coronated.
Little seems to shock Moon's followers--not even his unorthodox discourses about sex and anatomy. One of the unusual aspects of his sermons is that, although he talks relentlessly about the evils of "free sex"--that is, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality--he engages in intimate discussions of sexual activity, and he makes it clear that a fulfilling sex life within marriage makes God happy.

"Can we say that the waste of a holy man is holy waste?" he asked during a sermon on May 1st. "Can we say that the anus of a holy man is a holy anus?"

Nobody in the audience was quite sure what to say, so Moon continued: "On the human body we have many orifices, but which orifice does the baby come through, the most special one?"

"Sexual organ," a few people replied, tentatively.

"But doesn't urine also come out of there? Why? It's like that with a seed. You bury it under smelly topsoil. You understand?"

"Yes."

Moon noted that a man's penis-"love organ" was the term used by Peter Kim, looking a bit uneasy--goes into the same "hole" that urine flows through.

"Think about it," Moon said. "Do you think that hole is a dirty hole or holy hole?"

"Holy hole," someone ventured.

"Holy hole!" Moon bubbled in English. "Holy hole! Holy hole! Make sound!"

"Holy hole!" the crowd repeated.

The author has a blog.

[link] posted by John : 9:44 PM

Michael Jackson, too! 

Here.

[link] posted by John : 4:26 PM

Moon "coronated" at Senate office building 

This claims that cult leader Sun Myung Moon made a speech to the U.S. Congress on March 23, claiming to be the Messiah. Anyone hear about this?

Read this article on Gordon Neufeld's seduction into a cult, and then see if you can wrap your mind around this. Does Moon get a trophy for Most Improved Washington Figure? No? Okay, then.

UPDATE: It was at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Atrios has more. Speaking to your elected officials, Moon counted among his admirers Stalin and Hitler:

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.


[link] posted by John : 9:11 AM

Exports 

Mysterious death of a LaRouche cultist in the UK. We do seem to export a lot of nutjob organizations to other countries.

In other news, this Canadian newspaper article, recounts how a Calgary resident was "thought-controlled" by the "infamous" and "fanatical" Unification Church. Now, I'll leave you to decide whether you believe in brainwashing. But it's curious, to say the least, that the guy in charge of Moon's Canadian church at the time -- the guy who'd be in charge of the hypothetical "thought control" department -- is now a federally-funded sex educator under Bush's Abstinence-Only program.

[link] posted by John : 8:17 AM

Monday, March 29, 2004

Moon: "homo marriage" is driving me out of America until 2012 

The last time Moon said he was giving up on America, taking his ball, and going home was 1992. That was when the the defeat of Bush Sr. soured his feelings for a country he henceforth denounced as "Satan's harvest." This weekend, he's announced he's jetting -- while rolling back the date of completion for his Taliban-esque "Fatherland" to a Blade Runner-ish 2012. Is he envisioning a two-term John Kerry presidency as a long time out for Moonie access to the White House?

From a Mar. 24 appearance of conservative media mogul Sun Myung Moon (as read on his Unification Church listserv), the following disjointed ideas.

True Father spent 34 years here in America to guide this country in the right way. Yesterday was the turning point. Now I'm going back to Korea.[...] Thirty years ago, Christianity agreed with Father how to save the world. Now it's right I received the crown...[...] The reality is, if America doesn't follow heavenly ideals, it will perish. Homo marriage abuses blood lineage.
In a speech tinged with Lieberman-esque bitterness, he concluded with one of his cryptic recent references to helicopters, as well as a shout-out to United Press International chairman Chung Kwak.
 Tomorrow I'm going back to NY for a helicopter deal. Welcome Rev. Kwak as president of UPI in your heart.
  He's also been talking about Jews and the importance of taking down the Christian cross.

[link] posted by John : 10:34 AM

Saturday, March 27, 2004

A really short history of anti-immigrationists 

In the 1800s, people who detested immigrants (the Irish, etc.) used to call themselves "know-nothings" or "nativists." In the early part of the 20th century, they wrote nasty articles for Hearst papers talking about brown hordes of "celestials" (Japanese, Chinese, etc.) poised to sweep into San Francisco from Asia and compromise the sanctity of American womanhood.

Now there is columnist Michelle Malkin, author of "Invasion" (2003) about America welcoming various people to our shores undesired by Ms. Malkin (Arabs, Mexicans, etc.). And it turns out that this Ann Coulter emulator is one of Jack Kelley's fellow faculty members at the increasingly sketchy World Journalism Institute. It's a religious organization dedicated to making newspaper reporting more divinely inspired, or something like that.

[link] posted by John : 10:57 PM

Counterspin on Jack Kelley 

I recorded two interviews this week at NPR West, the state-of-the-art new recording facility in Culver City, CA. Here I am talking to Peter Hart from "Counterspin" while trying to avoid being hauled out of the building by an NPR West office manager, who was asking, "Do you work here? Are you supposed to be in this building?" while I was discussing USA Today's fraudulent reporter.

[link] posted by John : 7:55 AM

Friday, March 26, 2004

Antics 

From the Arizona Daily Star:
PHOENIX - State senators voted 15-10 Thursday to ask Congress to approve a U.S. constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, after debate that was often emotional and angry.[...] The proposal's prime Senate sponsor, Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, conceded all five senators who were absent for Thursday's vote have told him they do not support what he's trying to do. [...]

Tempers flared when Sen. Bill Brotherton, D-Phoenix, a foe of the amendment, said lawmakers should be tolerant of the beliefs of others.

He said, for example, some religions believe in mass marriages - a clear reference to Anderson, who is a member of the Unification Church, founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, which traditionally performs that kind of ceremony.

"It's a minority view, I would think," Brotherton said. "Yet we don't bring it up, we don't throw stones at it, we don't question the sincerity of those beliefs that he has and we don't throw derision on those beliefs or that lifestyle."

That brought an objection from Sen. Robert Blendu, R-Litchfield Park, who said Senate rules prohibit members from maligning one another. Brotherton said he was doing no such thing.



[link] posted by John : 6:57 AM

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

You won't find this on your Congressman's website 

He's the Rupert Pupkin of politics. Like Robert DeNiro's deranged character in "The King of Comedy," Sun Myung Moon has a little fantasy he wants to achieve by associating himself with the famous and powerful.

Last night, according to a story in his Washington Times, Rev. Moon honored a bunch of people as "ambassadors for peace" (along with a special lifetime achievement award for himself -- his Washington Times foundation has, after all, funded causes like Contra nun-killing in the '80s)

It is my unpleasant duty to tell you that a number of Congressmen (why no women at these things? Is "holy love organ" talk a guy thing, or is it because he preaches the subjugation of women?) lent their credibility to the Moonie event. While Moon's agenda is overwhelmingly right-wing, he does seem to be diversifying his portfolio by buying potential Democrat critics. According to the Times, VIPs at the "Crown of Peace" event included

Democrats Republicans
  • Sen. Mark Dayton
  • Rep. Danny K. Davis of Illinois
  • Harold E Ford Jr. of Tennessee
  • Sanford D. Bishop Jr. of Georgia. 
  • Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland
  • Christopher B. Cannon of Utah
  • Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania

Certainly this bipartisan delegation helped reassure Moon of his imaginary future as leader of a "peace kingdom" -- a Taliban-like government by God that he often describes. Why is his Times the only paper covering this? And how, you wonder, did Curt Weldon listen to stuff like this with a straight face?

What gift could be more precious than that of completing the family ideal in your family, so as to guarantee eternal peace and happiness to your children? Surely no one who has such an opportunity should hesitate to take up the task of building the peace kingdom on Earth."

Oh, surely. As New York Press columnist Michelangelo Signorile wrote, Moon's idea of a "peace kingdom" includes purging the world of homosexuals.

[link] posted by John : 6:53 AM

Monday, March 22, 2004

If Stephen Glass had covered the most unstable region on Earth 

Here's my latest story for Salon.com, about the fake articles of USA Today reporter Jack Kelley. A warm welcome to new visitors to the 'blog.

[link] posted by John : 8:03 PM

Thanks, Scoobie 

Surfer/blogger Scoobie Davis has joined the campaign to interest Howard Stern in the "holy handkerchief."

[link] posted by John : 7:49 PM

Animals 

Washington Times owner and Bush family friend Sun Myung Moon had some interesting things to say yesterday about same-sex marriage.
Dark Forces tried to kick me out of America. but I overcame. Now a great transition is on. The Jewish and Christian people have been at odds but now the solution has come. Now the homosexuality is coming out. It is worse than an animal lifestyle. However we will solve it.

It's been on his mind often. In January, he hinted that a "purge on God's orders" would be the answer.

Maybe some of the Congressmen attending his events might have a better idea of what he means.

[link] posted by John : 7:04 AM

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