Psychopaths and Mass Violence: The Ideological
Component

Click here to view this media

There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing and hand-wringing in the coming days as we begin to process the awful tragedy that unfolded early this morning in Aurora, Colorado. In particular, it seems that right-wingers are eager to point fingers and are being hypersensitive about any suggestion of right-wing politics being even remotely involved in this case.

Of course, one of the foremost facets of events like these is that premature speculation is almost always wrong. It's wisest to let the facts emerge first, at which time we can begin making a rational appraisal of the event and its underlying causes. (We will, of course, be keeping a close eye on just what is in those "items of interest" found in the home of the suspect, James Eagan Holmes, since that will tell us a great deal.)

Unlike a lot of the talking heads out there, though, it seems silly to run and hide from the political dimensions of these kinds of tragedies, especially when it comes some of the broader social ramifications, most notably the role of the mass proliferation of handguns in American society that's occurred in recent years. Just ask folks in Seattle if that conversation isn't already under way here.

As Michael Grunwald says, there are always political dimensions to cases like this, and it's absurd not to deal with them forthrightly -- once, at least, the dust begins to settle and the facts begin to emerge.

Still, there are things that are clear even at the outset. Regardless of any ideological affiliation the Aurora gunman may have had (and I will at least observe that stockpiling armaments and bomb-making materiel is not usually the provenance of liberals, but is very common indeed among NRA-ginned-up gun nuts), one thing we can almost say definitively, given the cold brutality of the rampage, is that it seems highly likely that Holmes is either mentally ill or a psychopath.

Of course, mental illness has been cropping up as a factor in these tragic rampages, most notably in the Tucson rampage of Jared Loughner. Unfortunately, this seems to stop any and all further conversation of the subject, as though insanity is some kind of random X-factor that renders the acts of the insane utterly meaningless. This is, of course, an obscene cop-out.

However, given the skill and care with which Holmes clearly planned out this rampage and its aftermath (particularly in booby-trapping his own apartment), it seems far more likely that what we're dealing with here is a psychopath.

It's important to keep in mind that psychopaths are not mentally ill in any clinical sense. They are distinctly twisted individuals, but their warped personalities do not incapacitate them or render them incapable of comprehending reality.

What we're talking about here is known clinically is an "antisocial personality disorder," which, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is the category that earns one the label of "psychopath" or "sociopath" (the distinction between these two lying in whether the symptoms originate from the subject's innate nature or with his environment, or some combination of both). Its symptoms include "a longstanding pattern ? of disregard for the rights of others. There is a failure to conform to society's norms and expectations that often results in numerous arrests or legal involvement as well as a history of deceitfulness where the individual attempts to con people or use trickery for personal profit. Impulsiveness is often present, including angry outbursts, failure to consider consequences of behaviors, irritability, and/or physical assaults."

Dr. Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia psychologist, compiled a checklist of the major traits of psychopathy in the 1990s (since revised modestly) that has become a major tool for clinicians and law-enforcement officers in dealing with the depredations of psychopaths in the past decade and longer. Hare's checklist has played a major role in investigations into such noteworthy crimes as the Columbine High School massacre and the Green River Killer case.

He cites two key factors: a personality built on "aggressive narcissism," and a "socially deviant lifestyle". The traits of the first factor include a glibness and superficial charm; a grandiose sense of self-worth; pathological lying; cunning and manipulative behavior; a lack of remorse or guilt; shallow affect in their interpersonal relations, in which genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric; a callousness and lack of empathy; and a failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions.

A psychopath's case history manifests a "socially deviant lifestyle" if it demonstrates a need for stimulation and a proneness to boredom; a parasitic lifestyle, sponging off the work of others; poor behavioral control; a lack of realistic long-term goals; impulsivity; irresponsibility; juvenile delinquency; and early behavior problems. Other traits, uncorrelated to either of the two chief factors, include promiscuous sexuality; many short-term marital relationships; and criminal versatility.

The likely presence of a central psychopathic player in this case brings to mind another great national tragedy that occurred in Colorado: the 1999 killing rampage of two teenage boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, at Columbine High School, in which 13 people died and another 21 were injured. As Dave Cullen explored at length in his remarkable study of the incident, Columbine, the conclusion of investigators was that Eric Harris was a cold-blooded psychopath, while Dylan Klebold likely suffered from a personality disorder, but he played a key role in enabling Harris's massacre plans.

There was no obvious ideological component in that rampage, either -- Harris was a psychopath who just hated the world and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, and Klebold was his willing enabler. And that may well turn out to be the case here.

But that does not mean that there is never an ideological component when a psychopath perpetrates some horrendous tragedy, either. Indeed, certain right-wing movements are highly prone to attracting psychopaths and mentally ill, unstable personalities, because their rhetoric and appeals so closely replicate the discontents of these people's interior lives.

The classic case of this is nativist border-watch movement, which crumbled under its own weight with the unholy host of angry, dysfunctional personalities that were naturally attracted to its ranks -- embodied, ultimately, by the convicted child killer Shawna Forde.

The rhetoric of the Minutemen and their related nativist organizations ? including, nowadays, the Tea Party ? appealed to psychopaths like Shawna Forde and Jason Bush because it reflected so much of their interior psyches, and moreover provided an irresistible opportunity for grandiose self-inflation and validation. Minuteman rhetoric often reflected the very traits of personality disorders, particularly in its political mindset, which sought to blame weak and helpless (contemptibly so, from the nativist view) Others for their own, often self-inflicted, national problems. It was frequently grandiose, particularly in its claims to be preventing terrorist attacks and its larger claims to be in the act of "saving America"; it indulged a marked propensity to lie and dispense false information, ranging from Glenn Spencer's "Ebola" rumor and "Reconquista" claims to Chris Simcox's bogus "border fence" scam to Jim Gilchrist's bathetic, and ultimately futile, attempts to distance himself from Shawna Forde. The Minutemen also frequently distorted facts, if it did not falsify them, in order to manipulate public sentiment, and they did so remorselessly. Most of all, despite occasional lip service to the plight of immigrants, the Minutemen's rhetoric was profoundly lacking in empathy for the targets of their ire; indeed, the more callous and cold-hearted the remark, the more widely it was circulated. If ever there was a movement tailored to recruit and promote psychopaths, it was the Minutemen.

We'll have to wait and see what motivated James Holmes to open fire on a theater full of innocent moviegoers. But if he turns out to be a psychopath with an unholy attachment to some right-wing ideology, it will not really be surprising. Indeed, it will be all too familiar, all too predictable.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/psychopaths-and-mass-violence-ideolo

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Wash Post editorial on Michele Bachmann's loony
racist attack on Hillary staffer

Washington Post:TO CONSPIRACY theorists like Rep. ­Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the Obama administration?s approach to the Arab world is the product not of considered diplomacy but of wicked ?influence operations,? traceable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its agents. Exhibit A among those agents with murky ?ties? to the Muslim Brotherhood, Ms. Bachmann warns darkly, is Huma Abedin, a longtime...

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/so4HyKnBhU0/wash-post-editorial-on-
michele.html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

I Bet John Quinones Loves Eatin' Some Chick-fil-A

Cathy & Quiñones-- why do they always looks like this?
I bet Chick-fil-A is desperate to claim that homophobic sociopath Dan Cathy [could a name like that make someone homophobic or is it a genetic thing?] did not build his business-- and to distance itself from their own founder and president. Chick-fil-A's Facebook page sure is trying to make up for Cathy's assertion this week that the restaurant chain has an anti-gay agenda:

The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect-? regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.

As Josh Israel reported at ThinkProgress yesterday, "The Chick-fil-A corporation has long funded anti-gay organizations. According to an Equality Matters analysis of public records, in 2010 the company?s foundation distributed nearly $2 million to anti-LGBT groups including the Marriage & Family Foundation, the Family Research Council, and Exodus International-- and millions more in previous years. But this past March, when Northeastern University rejected a proposed contract to bring a Chick-fil-A restaurant on campus, a Cathy bizarrely claimed that the company had 'no political agenda.' He said in a media statement 'we are not anti-anybody and Chick-fil-A have [sic] no agenda, policy or position against anyone as some reports continue to represent.' Chick-fil-A is one of a very small number of major national companies that refuses to offer any employment protections to LGBT employees. In fact, the company received a 0 rating from the Human Rights Campaign and has a record of firing employees it believes engage in 'sinful' behavior."

I'll bet that unless you're a political junkie in Florida you never heard of John Dowless, founder of Millenium Consulting and the chief consultant right now for John Quiñones, an Osceola County Commissioner and one of several Republicans attempting to run against Alan Grayson in the new blue district in central Florida. Quiñones hired himself an odd bird to run his efforts. Dowless, the former head of the Florida Christian Coalition is hysterically, vehemently anti-gay (obsessed with it many who know him say) and, of course, gay himself. Mubarak Dahir didn't report if Dowless was sucking down any Chick-fil-A thighs but he sure did spill the beans on one Republican hypocrite a few years ago:

On a humid day in Tampa last month, John Dowless could be seen passing out cards at Landry's Seafood House to a group of about 40 of Florida's most conservative religious leaders, including members of Family First of Tampa and the Pinellas Crisis Pregnancy Center, an anti-abortion group.

Dowless arranged the lunch on behalf of Mel Martinez, the former housing secretary who is now one of eight Republican candidates trying to get his party's nomination for the U.S. Senate race this fall.

As Martinez railed against the threat of same-sex marriages to the traditional family, Dowless handed out cards to the religious leaders imploring them to "pray for Mel Martinez" and to get involved in his
campaign.

Dowless was just doing his job. Formerly the executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, Dowless is now a private political consultant in Orlando.

Because of Dowless' strong connections to the state's conservative religious groups, Martinez hired him several months ago to help the campaign reach out to conservative Christians.

"My role is organizing grassroots stuff for them," particularly among conservative Christians, Dowless said.

In a crowded primary field, many Republican candidates in Florida, including Martinez, are angling to get voter attention by running as far as possible to the right.

Martinez in particular has sought to distinguish himself as the candidate perhaps most vocal against gay rights, including running a statewide radio ad encouraging the Senate to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, and attacking one of his opponents for supporting hate crimes laws that would include protections based on sexual orientation.

Ironically, at least two powerful men working for the Martinez campaign are gay.

One of them is John Dowless, the political consultant. The other is Kirk Fordham, who is employed as Martinez's finance director.

It was about 10 p.m. on the evening of April 2 when a man called "Sam" entered the Lava Lounge, a gay bar in Orlando.

Sam, a gay resident of Washington, D.C., was in Orlando on business, and went out to meet a friend for drinks. After ordering a beer, Sam bumped into a former colleague from Washington, someone he describes as "a well-placed political operative."

When Sam asked the man how he liked working in Florida, the man replied that politics in the state was "weird."

How so?" Sam wanted to know.

"He began telling me about this guy who used to be the head of the Christian Coalition," Sam said. "He said the guy is gay and out, and goes to the gay bars all the time, but is involved in all this anti-gay political campaigning. That struck me as incredibly hypocritical."

Twenty minutes later, John Dowless walked into the Lava Lounge.

"The guy I used to know from D.C. pointed Dowless out to me, and I made it a point to go over and meet him," Sam said. "I was just so intrigued that someone could play both sides of the fence this way."

Dowless identified himself as gay and conflicted about how to reconcile his sexual orientation with his religion and his political beliefs, according to Sam, whose account of Dowless' statements that evening was witnessed by a Washington Blade editor, who was also present.

Sam describes Dowless as handsome and affable, a person who was easy to meet and talk to.

"We talked about his work, but we talked a lot more about religion," Sam said.

"I am a fairly devout Christian myself, and I was interested in why he felt being Christian and gay were so completely incompatible," Sam said. "He was very adamant that it just wasn't possible to be both, in his understanding."

After a few drinks at the Lava Lounge, Sam jumped into his rental car and followed Dowless' silver SUV to Southern Nights, another gay bar in Orlando, where the two men continued their conversation. All together, they spent approximately two hours speaking about religion and homosexuality that night, Sam said.

"When he admitted that he uses homosexuality as a weapon to win campaigns, I got the feeling this guy was not just struggling with the issue of being gay and Christian," Sam said. "I felt maybe he's a
ticking time bomb."

But Dowless didn't let their difference of opinions stop him from making a pass, Sam said.

"John [Dowless] made it very clear he was interested in me, that he found me attractive," Sam said. "I just told him I was out with friends and couldn't get away to spend the evening with him. Then he said he wanted to see me again."

Dowless took out a business card and, with a pen, wrote his cell phone number on it.

"He told me to call him the next time I was in Orlando," Sam said.

But if he happens to go back to Orlando, Sam won't be calling Dowless.

"I could never abide by someone being gay and using homosexuality to be so destructive in a political way," Sam said. "I found John both sad and deplorable."

Reached at his office at Millennium Consulting Inc. in Orlando, Dowless confirmed that he had been working for the Martinez campaign "for two or three months." But he declined to talk about his sexual orientation.

"Oh come on, I'm not going to talk about that," he said. "I'm just not going to address that with you or anyone else. That's about me, not about the Martinez campaign.

"I'm helping Mel Martinez, who I believe in, and who is a good candidate," he said. "My personal life has no regards to his campaign and it's no business of yours or anyone else's."

However, after being confronted with the fact that several sources identified him as a patron of the Lava Lounge in April, Dowless conceded, "Yeah, I go there."

He would not say what he was doing at the bar, and he continued to refuse to answer questions about his sexual orientation or how he reconciles being a gay man working for the political campaign of an
anti-gay politician.

"I told you I am not going to answer that. I don't know why you are doing this, why it matters," Dowless said.

...Bill Stephens, the current executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, confirmed that John Dowless had been the organization's head for about five years in the mid to late 90s.

"Wow, that's shocking and that's news to me," said Stephens when asked if he knew Dowless was gay. "I didn't know anything about that."

When asked if it might affect Dowless' work among Christian conservatives, Stephens replied, "Of course it would, of course. But I don't think I want to say anything else about that right now."

Stephens made a point to say that Dowless was no longer affiliated in any way with the Christian Coalition. "He does not do any work for us anymore, and hasn't for some time."

In 1999, Dowless quit the Christian Coalition to work as the Florida director for the presidential campaign of millionaire Steve Forbes. Dowless promoted Forbes as a conservative alternative to Bush.

He told the St. Petersburg Times that social conservatives were upset that Bush was not outspoken enough on abortion. Forbes had pledged to appoint only judges who opposed abortion.

At the time, Dowless also said one reason he resigned from the Christian Coalition was because of his frustration at the group's inability to push its agenda through the Florida Legislature as much as he would have liked.

In 2000, Dowless ran an unsuccessful bid for a Republican House seat in District 40, an area around Orlando. He lost to Rep. Andy Gardiner in a 54 to 46 percent tally.

Throughout his career, both at the Christian Coalition and after, Dowless has had a long history of pushing an anti-gay agenda.

As far back as 1994, Dowless, then the director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, was quoted in the New York Times opposing the popular Gay Days event at Disney World in Orlando because it allegedly was a threat to kids.

"This whole day is focusing on sex," Dowless was quoted as saying, "and when you put these elements together, there is the greater possibility of illegal activities on children or some harassment."

In 1997, Dowless, still in his role as director of the state's Christian Coalition, cheered when the University of Florida rescinded a student spouse ID card that had been given to the partner of a lesbian student. The card gave spouses of students special advantages, such as use of the university's libraries and recreational facilities.

"Marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman," Dowless told the Alligator, the student publication.

In 1998, Dowless successfully blocked a move by the state legislature to write the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into the state Constitution. The move would have prohibited discrimination based on a variety of attributes, including gender.

But, according to the St. Petersburg Times, Dowless opposed the gender provision, saying it would be a possible loophole for allowing same-sex marriages.

And in 2002, Dowless created a misleading phone message for Gov. Jeb Bush. The message, sent to 50,000 social conservatives in the state, claimed that voters should cast their lot with Bush over Democratic rival Bill McBride because Bush was "the only candidate who supports traditional marriage."

But the statement was false. McBride did oppose same-sex marriage, and after a public controversy, the phone message campaign was pulled.

Just last year, Dowless was scheduled as one of 25 guest speakers at a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference held Oct. 24-25 in Fort Lauderdale. Promotional materials indicate he spoke about grassroots organizing among conservative Christians.

Other speakers included such conservative religious icons as Roy Moore, the ousted chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Interestingly, of the 25 speakers listed, only the Dowless entry did not include a photo with his bio.

So what about Quiñones? Here's his voting record as concerns the LGBT community while he was in the Florida legislature:



Wednesday night I listened to a story on American Public Radio's The Story about a crackpot religious freak, a born again in Odessa, Texas. In the beginning of the piece "God" had persuaded her to be a bigoted jackass and by the end of the story God had persuaded her to be a decent human being. Reading about Dan Cathy and John Quiñones and John Dowless made me think of mindless people who claim some God made them do this or that or the other thing. Should these kinds of people really have the right to vote? I mean, come on, get real. This is 2012, not 2012 BC. The only people who still believe in this Chick-fil-A kind of homophobia are sad and befuddled throwbacks like Joe Pitts.

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-bet-john-quinones-loves-eatin-some.
html

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Tea Party Nation President Accuses Obama Of
Hiding That He’s Secretly A Gay Junkie

Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has come to Mitt Romney’s defense in his refusal to release his tax returns. In an email to members of the Tennessee-based corporation on Thursday night, Phillips wrote, “There are a lot of records that Americans should want to see from Barack Obama.”

Phillips demanded that Obama release his Occidental College records to make sure the president was not on a foreign scholarship, as well as his medical records, which Phillips suspects contain proof that Obama has smoked crack cocaine and had anal sex in the 90s.

The latter accusation stems from an entirely discredited tale by con-man Larry Sinclair, who wrote a book alleging that he and Obama had sex and smoked crack cocaine together in 1999. Sinclair failed a polygraph test and has been arrested on forgery and theft charges.

Phillips also criticized other Republicans for pressing Romney to release his tax returns:

Is Obama an addict?  Was he an addict in the past? These are all legitimate questions to ask about a man who has his hands on the nuclear trigger. Why is Obama hiding these records and why isn?t the drive by media asking these questions. Why aren?t Republicans demanding the answers to these questions, instead of telling Mitt Romney he needs to play into Obama?s hands by releasing more tax returns?

Phillips has previously called on members to “stand with” Marcus Bachmann’s ex-gay clinics and proudly stated that it would be a “wise idea” to restrict voting rights to property owners.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/07/20/559161/tea-party-nation-president-accuse
s-obama-of-hiding-that-hes-secretly-a-gay-junkie/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

NRA Magazine Sends Insensitive Tweet Hours After
Colorado Shooting, Then Deletes Social Media Accounts

The theater where the shooting took place

Just after 9:00 am EST, as most of the country was just learning about the tragic shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the National Rifle Association’s publication American Rifleman sent out a tweet that, in context of the day’s news, was very poorly received:

The message was widely circulated around Twitter for several hours this morning, before the organization first deleted the tweet, then nixed their entire account. Commenters also noticed the website appeared to be down early in the afternoon, supposedly for maintenance. A representative from the NRA’s publications division wasn’t immediately available to comment.

By 2:30 pm, the website for the American Rifleman was back up, but links to the publication’s Twitter and Facebook accounts were removed, and the accounts themselves no longer exist. Here is what the menu bar looked like earlier this year versus this afternoon:

This would not be the first time the NRA is accused of insensitivity following a tragic shooting spree. Thirteen years and thirteen miles is all that separates Aurora from Colorado’s last massacre, when two teenaged gunmen killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Back then, the NRA ignored pleas by the city and its residents to relocate their annual convention away from Denver, instead inviting 3000 gun advocates to town less than two weeks after the massacre in the city suburbs. And that winter, the NRA gave thousands of dollars to state lawmakers to beat back attempts at strengthening gun regulations.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/07/20/558271/nra-magazine-sends-insensitiv
e-tweet-hours-after-colorado-shooting-then-deletes-social-media-accounts/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Fox Proposes Banning Costumes at Movies, AMC
Theaters Already Has

I’m sitting in the airport waiting to hop a plane to Los Angeles, and Twitter’s exploded with the news that, in the wake of this morning’s terrible shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, some folks on Fox have suggested banning costumes at movie screenings. AMC has already moved to do so:

AMC Theatres said it will not let any guests in costumes or face-covering masks into the theaters, and issued a ban on fake weapons. The company added that anyone wanting a refund in light of this new policy will be granted one. ?We are taking necessary precautions to ensure our guests who wish to enjoy a movie this weekend can do so with as much peace of mind as possible in these circumstances,? AMC Theatres said in a news release.

I get this as a matter of company practice, and the ban on fake weapons may even be sensible, both from the perspective of preventing people from walking in the door with the real things disguised as fakes (although as Aurora tells us, that’s hardly the only way to get guns and gas into a theater) and from the question of where they put them once the screening starts. But it does make me pretty sad to think that theaters would start banning costumes altogether. Whatever a lone murderer does, the impulse to play, and dress up, and pay creative homage to culture you love is not the problem here.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/07/20/560291/fox-proposes-banning-costumes-a
t-movies-amc-theaters-already-has/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Ex-Gay Leader’s ‘Bondage Of
Homosexuality’ Remarks Accidentally Resurface, Clouding New ‘No Cure’ Mentality

When Exodus International’s Alan Chambers started telling media outlets that there’s “no cure” for homosexuality, the media in turn described a “rift” in the ex-gay movement. In reality, all the ex-gay groups are still shunning homosexuality ? just to different degrees. Still, the infighting has provoked candor from those involved, such as NARTH’s founder Joseph Nicolosi describing the non-pornographic images his clients use to imagine (his word) being attracted to them.

Now the “rift” has led to an unusual development: Charisma magazine published ? then unpublished ? an essay by Chambers that was actually written in 2004, but that was updated to adjust for anachronisms, such as the number of states that have passed marriage equality. According to Box Turtle Bulletin, Charisma is “looking into it,” but Chambers has now stated (from the beach, literally) that he had nothing to do with the republishing of “an 8-year-old article that I am embarrassed that I ever wrote.” Still, it is worth revisiting the rhetoric Chambers was using just eight years ago to describe homosexuality, with thanks to Right Wing Watch for preserving the post before Charisma pulled it:

Have you noticed that America is becoming a gay nation? The land of the free and the home of the brave is morphing into a homosexual haven… How did this happen? We have been naive targets of the most successful marketing campaign in history. [...]

After much counseling, prayer, obedience, tears, deliverance and daily submission to God’s will, I am free from the seemingly unbreakable bondage of homosexuality. I am living testimony that gays can change. [...]

Because my parents knew homosexuality was anti-creation and anti-God, they instilled in me some of those “old-fashioned” values that are greatly lacking in so many homes today. I’m thankful they did. [...]

Pro-homosexual leaders realized the same truth employed by Hitler and Marx: To advance their agenda they must radically influence the hearts and minds of young people. [...]

If you ask the average kid, even the average Christian kid, how they feel about homosexuality, nine out of 10 will tell you they believe it is genetic, normal and just like heterosexuality. We have allowed an entire generation of young people to be brainwashed with an alternate morality. [...]

Now, perhaps too late, we are waking up from a three-decade sleep to realize that the gay lobby has taken America hostage. I hope we are not so naive that we think their agenda stops with legalizing same-sex marriages. [...]

The moral crisis we face today is the result not of sinners running loose but rather of Christians remaining passive and prayerless. Only if we repent, recommit and remobilize do we have hope for reformation.

Chambers’ rhetoric has no doubt improved, but this essay is an important reminder of what has motivated him to champion harmful and ineffective ex-gay therapy for a living. If he is truly embarrassed that he ever wrote this, perhaps after his vacation he should write a new essay disavowing the claims he made. Exodus’ new approach of only suppressing sexuality instead of changing it is a distinction without a difference. So long as Chambers still sees his own homosexuality as something to “struggle” with, he will unnecessarily encourage others to do the same.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/07/20/558421/ex-gay-leaders-bondage-of-homosex
uality-remarks-accidentally-resurface-clouding-new-no-cure-mentality/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Erratic Weather Is No Bowl Of Cherries: Michigan
Copes With Stunted Crop

by Margaret Francis, via Planet Change

The cherry: a little scarlet globe of sweet pleasure. This time of year, those of us in Michigan eagerly anticipate stopping by our local fruit farm in search of this tiny, flavorful vermillion prize.

Last week I excitedly searched my utensil drawer to dig out my coveted cherry pitter for its annual exercise of de-pitting 10-pound boxes of this favorite fruit for canning and freezing to sustain me through the long winter. My head was afloat in sweet thoughts of jams, pies and other good treats I would make.

With over half a million expected attendees this week at one of the state?s largest gatherings ? the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City? we cherry-lovers face a sad scenario: the Michigan cherry crop has been devastated and our erratic weather is to blame.

A freakishly warm March jump-started the growing season causing trees to blossom early, and then subsequent typical freezes in April blasted the young buds. As a result, the cherry crop was decimated: A 90 percent loss in the tart and 80 percent loss in the sweet varieties. Prices rose 40 percent. Because fruit was so sparse, much of it had to be hand-picked instead of using shakers, an increased labor cost which may have added to prices. Festival goers will eat mostly local cherries, but they will be supplemented by cherries from Washington and Poland.

What we?re seeing in Michigan may likely be part of a larger issue. Carbon pollution is warming our Earth, causing increasingly erratic weather, including earlier springs and more frequent droughts, floods and heat waves. One study by a Nature Conservancy scientist found global warming has the potential to greatly reduce temperate fruit and nut crop yields (including cherries), resulting in losses of $93 billion annually, and impacting the ability of growers in some regions to produce the same array of crops as they have in the past.

This week the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will offer assistance to fruit farmers in nearly all of the state?s affected counties. The impacts may not only be local: Michigan supplies 75 percent of the country?s tart cherries, which are used in many food products, and 20 percent of the sweet kind.

The last time Michigan?s cherry crop was hurt badly was in 2002, and prior to that, 50 years earlier. Although this year?s extreme spring weather may have been an anomaly, some scientists say that warmer temperatures, wetter conditions and more erratic weather events linked to a changing climate could impact Michigan?s crops, making me fret about the long-term fate of the precious local cherry.

I made that anticipated call to my fruit farm to inquire if cherries were available and this year?s price: $42 for a box of the sweet kind versus $28 per box last year. Yikes! Talk about climate change hitting my pocketbook.

As I face the economic dilemma of paying significantly more for my cherries, I bitterly stifle my urge with hopes that next year?s crop will be better, and back goes my pitter to the drawer. Let?s just say erratic weather is the pits.

Margaret Francis is Assistant Director of The Nature Conservancy?s Great Lakes Project. This piece was originally published at the Nature Conservancy’s Planet Change and was reprinted with permission.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/20/557191/erratic-weather-is-no-bowl-of-
cherries-michigan-copes-with-stunted-crop/

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Our regular featured content-On This Day In History July 20 by TheMomCatPunting the Pundits by TheMomCatThese featured articles-CNBC Financial Ignores the Facts by TheMomCatGermany Flips on Spain & It's a Flop by TheMomCatThese special features-2012 Le[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.docudharma.com/diary/30406/today-on-the-stars-hollow-gazette

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!

Mitt Romney losing the Bain battle, ctd.

Until today, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has generally applied a simple rule in evaluating the accuracy of attacks on Mitt Romney's record at Bain: If the alleged activities took place after February of 1999, the attack was false. Why? Because Mitt Romney said that he had retired from Bain in February of 1999 and if he no longer worked for Bain, then he couldn't be held responsible for its actions.

Over the past few weeks, however, reporting from Mother Jones, TPM, Boston Globe, and Daily Kos have undermined Romney's claim to have had nothing to do with Bain Capital after February, 11 1999. And now Kessler has reassessed:

Going forward, unless new evidence emerges, on a case-by-case basis we may withhold the awarding of Pinocchios when the claim rests mostly on the question of when Romney stopped managing Bain Capital.

Moreover, reports Kessler, neither Romney nor Bain are providing sufficient evidence to counter the evidence undercutting his retirement claim:

Romney has failed to provide sufficient evidence that he had ?no role whatsoever? at Bain. Over the past few days, we have repeatedly asked Bain Capital whether the firm could provide a statement that a review of Bain board meetings had shown that Romney did not attend any such meeting, either in person or by phone. We are still waiting for a response.

With Kessler reporting that Bain won't provide evidence of Romney's lack of involvement in board meetings, it appears that Romney's last line of defense is crumbling. Politics is moving in slow motion today, but in the coming weeks, this shift will be a big deal.

1:55 PM PT: By the way, isn't it absurd that Mitt Romney's definition of losing the Bain battle ... is for people to believe that he worked there?

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/I5se8CEgS38/-Mitt-Romney-losing-th
e-Bain-battle-nbsp-ctd

Add to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Furl   Add to reddit   Add to myYahoo!