Re: Survival
This is getting awfully close to my puddle of concern. Doesn't anybody care about frog-pond security?Originally Posted by Kevin Parker '59
Perhaps, since it's a bit closer to NK. Then again, if they miss by a few miles the missile would likely land in the Pacific and cause little loss of life. Might have to lay off the mahi-mahi for a few decades though :-)
I think this was one of the Strauss Howe predictions...fighting cost of higher education.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0617/p...tryBottomStory
http://books.guardian.co.uk/lrb/arti...975892,00.html
Apocalypse now
Armageddon is hot in America, and publishers have been quick to fill bookstores with novels alerting us to the imminent apocalypse. In the latest exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, John Sutherland explores the phenomenon of endtimes fiction and the work of two of the undisputed champions of this booming Christian genre
Thursday June 12, 2003
Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins Tyndale House, 398 pp, ?15.99
Religious fiction is the hot line in American bookstores. It isn't a new genre - Pilgrim's Progress still sells; what's new is its popularity and profitability; and, most strikingly, its doctrinal aggressiveness. We know that eschatology has filled the vacuum where cold war ideology used to be. But the cold war fantasised Mutually Assured Destruction, leaving the faint hope of permanent stalemate; Christian fiction prophesies the coming of the 'endtimes'. There is no escape. Prepare. The novels will help.
The first sign that the apocalypse was approaching was the foundation of Israel in 1948. The Jewish 'homecoming' was both miraculous and prophetically inevitable. As Mark Hitchcock, the author of The Coming Islamic Invasion of Israel and Is the Antichrist Alive Today?, puts it, in his latest and most excited tract, The Second Coming of Babylon: (1)
The Jewish people were exiled from their homeland in ad 70. It had been almost 1900 years! It was unthinkable. But the Jews endured the horror of the Nazi death camps, and within a few years thousands of them were home. Over the past 50 years, millions of Jews have returned to Israel. About 37 per cent of the Jews in the world now live there. The current and continuing stream of Jews back to Israel is setting the stage for the Antichrist's peace covenant with Israel that will trigger the seven-year tribulation (see Daniel 9.27).
Israel, as Tim LaHaye likes to say, is 'God's timepiece'; its foundation is the 'supersign'." Significantly," LaHaye writes, "the return of the Jews happened in our generation" (LaHaye is 75): "more weighty evidence that we are indeed living in the endtimes. Something of enormous proportions is about to happen." What liberal Christians had limply read as allegory is, for hardliners, demonstrably converging with history.
Endtimes theory was formulated for a popular audience in Hal Lindsey and CC Carlson's book The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), which linked the cold war, imminent nuclear annihilation, Middle East crises and apocalyptic prophecy. Hitherto 'dispensationalism' (a doctrine that separates history into several ages in which different tasks were required of man, after the teaching of John Nelson Darby, a 19th-century Plymouth Brethren minister) had been of no more importance, theologically, than Tennessee snake-handling. Lindsey broadened dispensationalism's doctrinal base and gave endtimes religion mass appeal. In his sceptical monograph, Iraq: Babylon of the End-Times?, J Daniel Hays recalls the impact Lindsey's book made: "As a college freshman in 1971, I brought a copy of The Late Great Planet Earth with me to Auburn University. Everyone on my wing of the dormitory, Christian and non-Christian alike, read the book that year. It scared us to death. We thought the end was near." (2)
Hays, now Professor of Hebrew Biblical Interpretation at Ouachita Baptist University, no longer thinks that, but millions do. A belief that the endtimes are imminent is a central tenet of the Christian Right. Since 1989 particularly (the USSR was one of the early candidates for modern Babylon), all 'significant' world events have been variously interpreted by endtimers according to key Biblical texts. Conviction has been progressively hardened by 9/11, the supposed clash of civilisations, the expansion of the European Union and the double destruction of Babylon in the two Gulf wars.
The endtimes themselves will begin with the rapture, which, unlike other apocalyptic events, will be 'signless' - unannounced. Guiltless children (even those in the process of being aborted) and the Christian-minded will be instantaneously teleported into heaven. For the remnant (some of whom, although not the abortionists, can still be saved) there will follow seven years of tribulation. During this period of pestilence, conflict and global catastrophe, the Antichrist will come to power. He will use diplomacy to create a new world order, which will last three and a half years. In this time he will rebuild Babylon and offer Israel a spurious covenant. (Hitchcock disputes the timing of this road map: exegesis is fraught.) Israel itself will be transformed by the 'ingathering', when 144,000 Jews repent their great error and accept Christ as Messiah, leaving the intractable 'Satanic Jews' to suffer damnation. The converted Jews will ally themselves with the army of the righteous for armageddon. Inevitable victory in the battle will herald the return of Christ, who will establish his 1000-year kingdom on earth in a purged Middle East.
Endtimes Christianity has encouraged an unlikely alliance between certain hardline Zionists and the Bible Belt. Some Jews wonder whether it is intellectually respectable or spiritually healthy to accept the support of inflexible bigots who are happy to bet on Israel's collective apostasy, and prophesy another and more dreadful Holocaust for those who do not recant. For the moment, however, they find it pragmatic to do so.
According to a Time/CNN poll conducted in July 2002, 17 per cent of Americans believe 'that the end of the world will happen in their lifetime' and 59 per cent that 'the prophecies of the Book of Revelation will come true.' If you drive into the American heartland and twiddle the dial, those figures will begin to make sense. The preachers, who share local radio time with country-music strummers, all thump out the message: Be Rapture Ready and, if you are left behind, be sure to be on God's side in the great battle to come. American evangelicals, with their congregational instinct, have been alert to the usefulness of the worldwide web. On his site, www.raptureready.com, Todd Strandberg monitors current events to compile a Rapture Index confirming the imminence of the end. The index measures activity in 45 categories, from 'False Christs' through 'Drug Abuse' to 'Floods'. It currently stands at 166 - down from a high of 182 in September 2001. 85 and below is rated as 'slight prophetic activity'. Above 145 is 'Fasten your seat belt!' The endtimes are nigh.
Meanwhile, the racks in bookstores swell with endtimes narratives. The undisputed champions of this brand of fiction are LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Armageddon, the 11th instalment of their Left Behind series, hit American bookstores in April. The covers of the paperbacks of the earlier volumes in the series claim more than 50m sales, though the latest hardback scales this back to a modest 35m. Armageddon has an initial print run of three million. With so much money involved publishers usually like plenty of lead time in which to promote their property, but with Operation Iraqi Freedom looming, Tyndale Books brought publication forward six months. Why not make a few bucks before the world ends? Despite the abruptness of its arrival, Armageddon topped the New York Times bestseller list in its first week. If it follows the pattern of its predecessors (the safest of prophecies) it will stay there for months. The authors see their astounding sales success as a mark of divine approval. "God," LaHaye says, "has chosen to bless this series. In doing so, he's giving the country and maybe the world one last, big wake-up call before the events transpire."
The first in the Left Behind series appeared in 1995, complete with the usual PR genesis myth. LaHaye, an author and evangelist (but not, at this point, a novelist), was flying to Europe on a Boeing 747 when, as if by divine inspiration, an idea struck him. In Left Behind, the resulting novel, all the good Christians on a 747 to London are suddenly transported to heaven, leaving little piles of clothes and uneaten lasagna behind them. The same happens all over the planet. Call it the rapture or the rip-off: Stephen King had done the disappearing passenger thing in The Langoliers in 1990. But why should the devil have all the good stories?
Left Behind sets up the narrative framework for the subsequent volumes. Rayford Steele, the pilot of the enraptured jumbo, lands at Chicago to discover that his wife, Irene ("attractive and vivacious, even at 40"), and most of the congregation of the church of which she is a born-again member have been beamed up. The novels go on to chronicle the seven-year tribulation for those, like Rayford and his daughter, Chloe (a formerly free-thinking Stanford student), who were left behind. Unceasing battle rages between the remnant (gun-loving American Christians) and the evildoers, easily recognised by the mark of the beast on their foreheads. In command is the Antichrist himself, Nicolae Jetty Carpathia, the 33-year-old President of Romania, who uses his promotion to secretary-general of the UN to create a common European currency and then a global community of which he (after his death and resurrection) becomes potentate with his capital in New Babylon - Baghdad. From here he fights the bad fight with all his might. The good fight is led by Trib Force: a motley guerrilla group with, at their head, ex-747 pilots, Jesus-accepting Jews and fiendishly clever (evangelical) orientals who can do anything with computers.
Criticism lacks terms adequate to describe the narrative feebleness of these novels. But then what can the narrator do, other than dutifully transcribe? Whenever Nicolae seems to gain ground we know (and the novels constantly remind us) that divine intervention (a plague, a sword-wielding angel, or Rayford and his righteous pals) will confound him. Why does he bother since he can read the Book of Revelation as well as the next superman?
The series excludes anything that might bring a blush to the cheek of the small-town American maiden. Rayford misses out on rapturous salvation because, while piloting his plane, he idly considers whether to have a drink with Hattie Durham, a flight attendant (she has idle thoughts, too - so no rapture for her either). Rayford does not intend "anything overt". The idea that a 747 pilot might bang a good-looking, willing stewardess is wholly off-limits: if you want that sort of thing, try Arthur Hailey. The minister who instructs Rayford and Chloe confesses the sin that prevented him going up with his flock: "I was lazy. I cut corners. When people thought I was out calling, I might be at a movie in another town. I was also lustful. I read things I shouldn't have read, looked at magazines that fed my lusts."
Armageddon finds Nicolae, the global community potentate, girding himself (despite a devastating plague of darkness which makes New Babylon uninhabitable) for the 'cosmic battle of the ages'. He mobilises his weapons of mass destruction and a million-strong army to attack the remnant of the faithful at Petra. Human interest is supplied by what happens to Chloe, who is caught by the enemy, rather tepidly tortured and sentenced to public execution. Nicolae has gone into the mechanics of capital punishment with a thoroughness that a Governor of Texas might envy. There are seven guillotines, all rusty and crusted with blood and designed to chop off the head with the maximum of suffering. Executions are prime-time TV material and this provokes a little moralising as Chloe patiently queues up for her turn on the block. This is where reality TV leads:
Chloe had been as alarmed as anyone when television had gone from bad to worse and from worse to unconscionable. The worst possible perversions were available on certain channels 24 hours a day, and literally nothing was limited. But when studies showed that by far the most-watched television shows every day of the week were the public executions, she knew there had been one more far corner for society to turn after all, and it had turned.
Despite an intervention by the angel Caleb (who for his own angelic reasons fails to save her), Chloe's head falls into the basket and she ascends, a prayer on her lips, "to the life eternal".
LaHaye describes himself as the 'engineer' of the Left Behind series. His 'mechanic' (ie pen pusher) is Jerry Jenkins, the author of more than 100 books, who assisted Billy Graham with his autobiography. LaHaye himself is the patriarch of Christian Conservatism. A product of Bob Jones University, he has founded innumerable pressure groups. In 1979, he founded the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell; he has headed the American Coalition for Traditional Values; and had close connections with the Reverend Moon's Unification Church (when Moon was still respectable). LaHaye's consistently proclaimed aim has been to help 'Christian candidates' into political office. His wife, Beverly, runs Concerned Women for America, which claims 600,000 members. Between them, the LaHayes have political muscle. They are plausibly credited with helping get John Ashcroft appointed Attorney General, and Ashcroft is on his way to achieving CWA's grand aim - overturning Roe v Wade.
LaHaye's current political machine is the Council for National Policy. He founded it with the help of like-minded Texas billionaires (a club which, if the Left Behind series continues to sell at its present rate, he may one day be eligible to join) and was its first president. It is a secretive organisation, made up of some 500 invited members, including former senators (Jesse Helms), congressmen (Tom DeLay), figureheads of the radical right (among them, Larry Pratt, leader of Gun Owners of America, the fanatic pro-lifer Ralph Reed and the convicted criminal Oliver North), and such high-profile evangelists as Pat Robertson. Ashcroft was a member before he joined the administration. CNP meetings are closed to the public and the press, but it's likely that they see their job as being the formulation of policy on 'Christian reconstructionism' - the closing of the pernicious gap between church and state.
LaHaye recently joined forces with Jerry Falwell to establish the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy, which offers an intensive one-year diploma programme at Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. "We have undertaken this effort with the idea that the school will educate the next generation of Bible prophecy authorities," Falwell said. "Dr LaHaye will serve as president of the school and will be involved in many lecture series in the programme." But will there be a next generation?
Bush addressed the CNP in 1999 (there is, of course, no public record of what he said) and begins every day poring over Bible commentary. Do he and Laura read themselves to sleep with LaHaye? That he is sympathetic to what LaHaye stands for, religiously and politically (assuming they can be separated), is a legitimate conclusion. In 1993, Bush unguardedly divulged that only Christians can get to heaven. He secured his base, at the beginning of his presidential campaign, by speaking at Bob Jones University - which he refused to criticise for its ban on interracial dating. At his inauguration, he chose Franklin Graham to deliver the ceremonial prayer - the son of the venerable Billy (the evangelist who saved Bush from the demon drink), who has become notorious for telling the world that Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion".
Whether or not Bush is shoulder to shoulder with LaHaye on all points, the forces represented by endtimes doctrine press on current American foreign policy. The White House is not merely disinclined to deal with the UN, but sees it as morally contemptible, if not quite (yet) the instrument of the Antichrist. So, too, 'Old Europe', or at least the EU. According to Mark Hitchcock, "an elected president of Europe would set the stage perfectly for the rise of the Antichrist." 'Peace' in the Middle East is a snare and a delusion. The way to salvation is more conflict: Armageddon.
(1) Multnomah, 184 pp., $11.99, March, 1 59052 251 6.
(2) Baker, 144 pp., $12.99, April, 0 8010 6479 1.
John Sutherland's many books include Mrs Humphry Ward, Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? and Where Was Rebecca Shot? He teaches English at University College London and at Caltech.
Make of this what you will.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/...04/detail.html
Breastfeeding Driver Claims Innocence
Husband Says Wife's Actions Save Time
POSTED: 4:40 p.m. EDT June 18, 2003
UPDATED: 6:57 p.m. EDT June 19, 2003
PITTSBURGH -- A woman is facing child endangerment charges for breastfeeding her daughter while driving from Detroit to Pittsburgh, WTAE's Shannon Perrine reported Wednesday.
Catherine Donkers, 29, was apparently spotted by a truck driver while nursing her seven-month-old on the Ohio Turnpike. The driver became alarmed and called the state Highway Patrol.
Officers tried to pull Donkers over, but they say she wouldn't stop until she got to a toll booth in Portage County. She offered an affidavit as identification and was cited for not having a license, police say.
Donkers claims she did nothing wrong because Michigan has an exemption to its child restraint law for nursing mothers, but police say they have to abide by Ohio laws because that's where the stop occurred.
The suspect said she fed her baby before leaving Detroit but the child became hungry again.
Donkers said she doesn't think her actions were excessively dangerous.
"It's not like I'm trying to change a diaper while I'm driving," Donkers told Perrine. "She pretty much just lays there on the pillow in my lap. I would certainly submit that talking on a cell phone causes far more distraction than nursing a child while she's just laying there."
Her husband, Brad Barnhill, agrees.
"Most of the time, when she runs back and forth between here and her mom's place or here and her home, she stops at the rest stop to nurse," said Barnhill. "But that turns a five-hour trip into a seven-hour trip, and she had things to do. OK?"
In addition to the endangering charge, Donkers is accused of child seat violations.
Donkers said she was wearing a seatbelt because she would have "been a fool not to," but she did not restrain her baby because "it's lawful to nurse my child while I'm driving. It's not like she's sitting on the floor mat for a seven-hour drive."
The suspect believes the laws of her home state apply on an interstate highway. She and her husband say they plan to fight all charges and file a lawsuit.
Donkers is scheduled for an Aug. 6 court appearance in Portage County, Ohio.
Copyright 2003 by ThePittsburghChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
youre a nazi moronHerr Ashcroft obviously will not listen to Jesus. Perhaps he will listen to Martin Niem?ller. I doubt it, but perhaps....
serendipity.magnet.ch/cda/niemoll.html
According to Harry W. Mazal, the exact text of what Martin Niem?ller said, and which appears in the Congressional Record, 14, October 1968, page 31636, is:
When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church ? and there was nobody left to be concerned.
(Notices that Dotty has lost his ability to capitalize, spell, and punctuate concurrent with the recent name change. Dispatches one of the Wicked Witch's flying monkeys to see if there is anything else wrong. Monkey taps on Dotty's head and listens.)
Your local general nuisance
"I am not an alter ego. I am an unaltered id!"
That must be his idea of being creative.(Notices that Dotty has lost his ability to capitalize, spell, and punctuate concurrent with the recent name change.
Hello. My name is Marc, and I'm an alcoholic.
The moral of this story is, i think, that you can only push the "multitasking" envelope but so far, before bad things begin to happen.What would have happened to that poor baby if Mom had to suddenly stomp on the brake pedal???
It would be counterproductive to put this idiotic mom in jail. However, I believe a hefty fine is in order, and a suspension of her drivers license for a year or so.
Legislating against stupidity
Can you believe Michigan (allegedly) allows breastfeeding while driving?
It is an interesting point about states being required to honor other states' laws. I've heard that marriage laws in one state need to be honored in others (I think) but what about in a situation like this? States must be able to protect themselves, their citizens, and other states' visiting citizens from such stupidity.
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.
She and her husband divide time between Ann Arbor and Pittsburgh, and it looks like she doesn't have a license in either state.The moral of this story is, i think, that you can only push the "multitasking" envelope but so far, before bad things begin to happen.
It would be counterproductive to put this idiotic mom in jail. However, I believe a hefty fine is in order, and a suspension of her drivers license for a year or so.
Certainly on the part of a backseat passenger who is buckled up. It was probably not intended to include the driver. And since she doesn't have a license, that makes the case for following Michigan's law harder to make. Ohio law does allow for the driver's state's law to apply in cases like this, which is why Ohio is charging her with child endangerment - no loophole there.
RE: Idiots who drive and breastfeed
Thanks John.
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.
So We The People should fine her heftily for child endangerment, failing to keep her child in a baby seat, and for driving without a license.She and her husband divide time between Ann Arbor and Pittsburgh, and it looks like she doesn't have a license in either state.The moral of this story is, i think, that you can only push the "multitasking" envelope but so far, before bad things begin to happen.
It would be counterproductive to put this idiotic mom in jail. However, I believe a hefty fine is in order, and a suspension of her drivers license for a year or so.
Certainly on the part of a backseat passenger who is buckled up. It was probably not intended to include the driver. And since she doesn't have a license, that makes the case for following Michigan's law harder to make. Ohio law does allow for the driver's state's law to apply in cases like this, which is why Ohio is charging her with child endangerment - no loophole there.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
It's not a matter of her being on an interstate highway like she claimed. It's a matter of Ohio law saying that for something of this caliber, if the driver was following the law of his/her own state, the charges can't stick. Whether 1) she is really a Michigan driver (she lives in both MI and PA and has no license), and 2) that Michigan law was really intended to cover a driver doing the feeding, is harder to prove.
Child endangerment, comparatively, seems open-and-shut.
As for marriage laws, if a marriage was performed legally in one state, the other states (generally) do have to recognize it.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
If she is not licensed to drive in Michigan, then she is not a Michigan driver! That seems pretty open-and-shut to me.It's not a matter of her being on an interstate highway like she claimed. It's a matter of Ohio law saying that for something of this caliber, if the driver was following the law of his/her own state, the charges can't stick. Whether 1) she is really a Michigan driver (she lives in both MI and PA and has no license), and 2) that Michigan law was really intended to cover a driver doing the feeding, is harder to prove.
Child endangerment, comparatively, seems open-and-shut.
As for marriage laws, if a marriage was performed legally in one state, the other states (generally) do have to recognize it.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
It does to me too. But would it for the average juror?
Re: Legislating against stupidity
I am frightened by how scary that thought is, if you follow my meaning.It does to me too. But would it for the average juror?
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
Only if the marriage is between two persons of the opposite sex!
Re: Legislating against stupidity
There are those who would dispute that. The limits of the 'recognitions' clause in the U.S. Constitution are one of the things that promise to make any SCOTUS vacancies in the near future so contentious.Only if the marriage is between two persons of the opposite sex!
It has implictions far beyond gay marriage, as well.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
Which is why I said "generally" - thank you, Defense of Marriage Act. (And another reason why Howard Dean shouldn't have his hat in the ring.)Only if the marriage is between two persons of the opposite sex!
Beyond that, of course, anything goes. And it's an American tradition to run across the state line for a different blood relationship standard (some states still allow first cousins to marry), a different waiting period, etc. That's not at all limited to places like Las Vegas, or Elkton, Maryland.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
That's what the prosecutors thought too, and they offered a generous plea bargain to just make this go away. But her husband turned it down. (This is just starting to get fun!)
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6156959.htm
Man uses strict faith as defense
Husband says woman shouldn't be defendant in breast-feeding case
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
A woman given a ticket for breast-feeding her daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike last month could have gone on her merry way with a slap on the wrist and a $100 fine.
At least that was the offer from the Portage County Prosecutor's Office on May 9, the day after a trucker called 911 to report that he had seen the woman driving her car with a baby in her lap.
The woman's husband, however, is trying to make a federal case out of it -- literally -- by claiming she is not the real defendant.
He said he is.
He made that claim, citing Mosaic law from the Old Testament and writings from the days of the Founding Fathers because of the couple's"deeply held spiritual beliefs'' that the husband is "the sole head of the family'' and the only one who can punish the wife for a public act.
He said he would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to prove his position.
Local court officials bite their tongues at the mere mention of the case, but it's all on the record in three bulging case folders filed in the Portage County Courthouse in Ravenna.
Charges against mother
According to the court docket, 29-year-old Catherine Nicole Donkers is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 6 on misdemeanor charges of child endangering, failure to comply with the order of a police officer and several other driving infractions.
She could have had the original charges -- driving without a license, obstructing official business and violating the child safety-seat law -- reduced to a single guilty plea to driving under suspension, according to court records.
But that, said her husband, 46-year-old Brad L. Barnhill, would have been an impermissible violation of their faith.
"The situation here,'' Barnhill said during an interview last week, "is that, according to our faith, I'm the head of the household. I'm responsible for what she does, and no one can punish her except me.
"So if they want to punish somebody, let them punish me. I am the defendant.
"That's the way I have to do things under my faith. And if I fail in that duty, I'm going to hell.''
Barnhill, who said he lives with his wife in an apartment near Pittsburgh, said they will never compromise their faith.
"If they refuse to allow me the free exercise of my religion,'' he said, "then we're going to appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and they're not going to be able to try her before then.''
Religious beliefs
Barnhill said his faith is rooted in The First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, an organization founded in the late 1990s, according to information on its Web site. The founder was a man named Christopher Hansen.
The Web site, which bears the heading Patriot Saints for the Kingdom of God on Earth, says the fellowship's headquarters is in Henderson, Nev.
Hansen says on the Web site that the fellowship's main objectiveis to convert and educate sovereign Americans "to demand and defend their God given rights and fulfill their duties as freedom loving Christians against the encroachment of the Beast and his agents.''
Hansen identifies the Beast as the federal government and some of its agents as the IRS, Social Security Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Barnhill said he is a minister in the fellowship with 650 followers who "regularly correspond'' with him by e-mail and letters.
He and his followers, Barnhill said, believe in the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other writings from the late 1700s.
"You can understand we're a little different,'' Barnhill said.
His wife was prohibited from paying the fine in the initial offer from the prosecutor, he said, because that would have meant she was "bearing false witness,'' which would deny her "entrance to the Kingdom.''
Violating state law
He said, his wife was not in violation of Ohio's child-restraint law because of a provision in the statute that permits the nonuse of a restraint system if there is a law to that effect in the state of which the person is a resident.
Despite the fact that he and his wife live in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, where Barnhill said he is working under a six-month contract as a computer systems analyst, his wife has a home in Michigan and, therefore, is a resident of that state, he said.
Michigan law makes an exception to its child-safety seat requirements for an infant being nursed.
Sean P. Scahill, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said he could not comment on any aspects of the case.
Lt. Rick Fambro, an official at State Highway Patrol headquarters in Columbus, said Barnhill and his wife are mistaken that they were following Michigan law.
Because she was operating a vehicle in Ohio, Fambro said, she is "covered by Ohio law.''
Lt. Chris Butts, a commander at the patrol's post in Hiram, where the incident originally was investigated, said Catherine Donkers initially refused to give the responding trooper any identification but finally turned over an ID card from Pennsylvania.
Butts also said Donkers drove for 3 miles after the trooper turned on his siren and overhead lights and told her to stop over his patrol car speaker.
Donkers had an explanation for that in an affidavit her husband filed for her among the ever-growing stack of court documents.
She said she has been "physically assaulted by several police officers on two prior occasions -- once on the side of a road near an interstate highway.''
It further stated: "My Husband has directed me that if I am ever stopped by a law enforcement officer, that I should go to the nearest public place with witnesses where I would have a reasonable assurance of my safety and that of our Infant Child.''
The affidavit went on to say she signaled the trooper that she was going to stop and pulled off at a tollbooth plaza.
Asked why his wife did not stop to nurse the child, Barnhill said she didn't want to turn "a 5-hour trip to Michigan into a 7-hour trip.''
Lisa Mansfield, an Akron leader in La Leche League, which supports the rights of breast-feeders, said Donkers erred.
"I don't agree with what she did,'' Mansfield said, "because the safety of the child is the big issue here. She should have pulled over. That's just what's going to happen when you have kids.''
A conviction for the offense of child endangering carries maximum penalties of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Scahill, the assistant prosecutor, filed that charge and the charge for failure to comply with the order of a police officer, on June 5 after receiving the completed highway patrol investigation.
And now he, too, has become a defendant in the case -- according to Barnhill.
The additional charges, Barnhill said, were made in "bad faith'' and with an intent to "intimidate'' him and his wife.
Barnhill said he will remedy that during his next court appearance by making a citizen's arrest on Scahill.
"If the people do not hold public officials responsible for their actions,'' Barnhill said, "who will?''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
? 2003 Beacon Journal and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
Re: Legislating against stupidity
That's what the prosecutors thought too, and they offered a generous plea bargain to just make this go away. But her husband turned it down. (This is just starting to get fun!)
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/6156959.htm
Man uses strict faith as defense
Husband says woman shouldn't be defendant in breast-feeding case
By Ed Meyer
Beacon Journal staff writer
A woman given a ticket for breast-feeding her daughter while driving on the Ohio Turnpike last month could have gone on her merry way with a slap on the wrist and a $100 fine.
At least that was the offer from the Portage County Prosecutor's Office on May 9, the day after a trucker called 911 to report that he had seen the woman driving her car with a baby in her lap.
The woman's husband, however, is trying to make a federal case out of it -- literally -- by claiming she is not the real defendant.
He said he is.
He made that claim, citing Mosaic law from the Old Testament and writings from the days of the Founding Fathers because of the couple's"deeply held spiritual beliefs'' that the husband is "the sole head of the family'' and the only one who can punish the wife for a public act.
He said he would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to prove his position.
Local court officials bite their tongues at the mere mention of the case, but it's all on the record in three bulging case folders filed in the Portage County Courthouse in Ravenna.
Charges against mother
According to the court docket, 29-year-old Catherine Nicole Donkers is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 6 on misdemeanor charges of child endangering, failure to comply with the order of a police officer and several other driving infractions.
She could have had the original charges -- driving without a license, obstructing official business and violating the child safety-seat law -- reduced to a single guilty plea to driving under suspension, according to court records.
But that, said her husband, 46-year-old Brad L. Barnhill, would have been an impermissible violation of their faith.
"The situation here,'' Barnhill said during an interview last week, "is that, according to our faith, I'm the head of the household. I'm responsible for what she does, and no one can punish her except me.
"So if they want to punish somebody, let them punish me. I am the defendant.
"That's the way I have to do things under my faith. And if I fail in that duty, I'm going to hell.''
Barnhill, who said he lives with his wife in an apartment near Pittsburgh, said they will never compromise their faith.
"If they refuse to allow me the free exercise of my religion,'' he said, "then we're going to appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States and they're not going to be able to try her before then.''
Religious beliefs
Barnhill said his faith is rooted in The First Christian Fellowship for Eternal Sovereignty, an organization founded in the late 1990s, according to information on its Web site. The founder was a man named Christopher Hansen.
The Web site, which bears the heading Patriot Saints for the Kingdom of God on Earth, says the fellowship's headquarters is in Henderson, Nev.
Hansen says on the Web site that the fellowship's main objectiveis to convert and educate sovereign Americans "to demand and defend their God given rights and fulfill their duties as freedom loving Christians against the encroachment of the Beast and his agents.''
Hansen identifies the Beast as the federal government and some of its agents as the IRS, Social Security Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Barnhill said he is a minister in the fellowship with 650 followers who "regularly correspond'' with him by e-mail and letters.
He and his followers, Barnhill said, believe in the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and other writings from the late 1700s.
"You can understand we're a little different,'' Barnhill said.
His wife was prohibited from paying the fine in the initial offer from the prosecutor, he said, because that would have meant she was "bearing false witness,'' which would deny her "entrance to the Kingdom.''
Violating state law
He said, his wife was not in violation of Ohio's child-restraint law because of a provision in the statute that permits the nonuse of a restraint system if there is a law to that effect in the state of which the person is a resident.
Despite the fact that he and his wife live in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, where Barnhill said he is working under a six-month contract as a computer systems analyst, his wife has a home in Michigan and, therefore, is a resident of that state, he said.
Michigan law makes an exception to its child-safety seat requirements for an infant being nursed.
Sean P. Scahill, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said he could not comment on any aspects of the case.
Lt. Rick Fambro, an official at State Highway Patrol headquarters in Columbus, said Barnhill and his wife are mistaken that they were following Michigan law.
Because she was operating a vehicle in Ohio, Fambro said, she is "covered by Ohio law.''
Lt. Chris Butts, a commander at the patrol's post in Hiram, where the incident originally was investigated, said Catherine Donkers initially refused to give the responding trooper any identification but finally turned over an ID card from Pennsylvania.
Butts also said Donkers drove for 3 miles after the trooper turned on his siren and overhead lights and told her to stop over his patrol car speaker.
Donkers had an explanation for that in an affidavit her husband filed for her among the ever-growing stack of court documents.
She said she has been "physically assaulted by several police officers on two prior occasions -- once on the side of a road near an interstate highway.''
It further stated: "My Husband has directed me that if I am ever stopped by a law enforcement officer, that I should go to the nearest public place with witnesses where I would have a reasonable assurance of my safety and that of our Infant Child.''
The affidavit went on to say she signaled the trooper that she was going to stop and pulled off at a tollbooth plaza.
Asked why his wife did not stop to nurse the child, Barnhill said she didn't want to turn "a 5-hour trip to Michigan into a 7-hour trip.''
Lisa Mansfield, an Akron leader in La Leche League, which supports the rights of breast-feeders, said Donkers erred.
"I don't agree with what she did,'' Mansfield said, "because the safety of the child is the big issue here. She should have pulled over. That's just what's going to happen when you have kids.''
A conviction for the offense of child endangering carries maximum penalties of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Scahill, the assistant prosecutor, filed that charge and the charge for failure to comply with the order of a police officer, on June 5 after receiving the completed highway patrol investigation.
And now he, too, has become a defendant in the case -- according to Barnhill.
The additional charges, Barnhill said, were made in "bad faith'' and with an intent to "intimidate'' him and his wife.
Barnhill said he will remedy that during his next court appearance by making a citizen's arrest on Scahill.
"If the people do not hold public officials responsible for their actions,'' Barnhill said, "who will?''
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Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com
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? 2003 Beacon Journal and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
hmm
four t
What's the big deal? This Michigan mom just violated the open container law.
No news here. Just move along.
Don't tell me, tell her husband. And if you can figure out what they do, let me know. (They're both listed under "Account Represenatives.")
Somebody's full of it
I checked out the link. "24% Annual Returns"!?!?!?! Dang, I should quit my job, take out a bunch of low interest rate credit cards, and invest!!!Don't tell me, tell her husband. And if you can figure out what they do, let me know. (They're both listed under "Account Represenatives.")
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.
Culture wars???
Here's an article about the ruling in the Taxas sodomy law ruling.
(They shot it down). Is this a blow for individual rights? An example of the culture wars (referenced in the text) still going on?
Here's the link.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/929327.asp?vts=062620030800
May need to cut and paste it.
