Those nutty Colorado City polygamists...
Two guys overseeing a fire district in Colorado City were arrested yesterday for allegedly using department funds for their own use, “the Republic says”:http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/08/20100408polygamy-colorado-city.html:
warrants [were] executed Tuesday against Town Manager David W. Darger and Fire Chief Jacob “Jake” Barlow. In an affidavit filed with Mohave County Superior Court, investigators accuse the two of looting money for personal use from the local Fire Department.Based on information submitted to the court, prosecutors received permission to search the suspects’ homes, offices and computers for evidence of fraudulent schemes.
Darger and Barlow have not been charged with any offense. They did not respond to phone messages.
The town and its sister city HIlldale, in Utah, is known as the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist sect that despite its name isn’t formally associated with the Mormon Church.
The paper includes this litany of trouble the town’s gotten itself into:
• The imprisonment of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, known as the “prophet,” for rape as an accomplice in connection with the marriage of an underage girl to an adult. Jeffs, already convicted in Utah, is awaiting trial on similar charges in Arizona and Texas.
• The conviction of about a dozen other men on charges involving sex with child brides.
• The seizure, via civil litigation, of United Effort Plan, an FLDS trust that controlled most of the property in Colorado City/Hildale, once valued at more than $100 million.
• The takeover of Colorado City’s school district, replacing FLDS board members who controlled it.
• The removal and decertification of about a half-dozen Colorado City peace officers.
6:49 AM
How I got screwed by the Easter bunny
According to the Arizona Republic, Easter is losing its punch:
Today, Easter Sunday remains the holiest day of the year for Christians, but it is far less significant outside church doors.
“Somewhere after the ’60s or ’70s, Easter lost its public space,” said Penne Restad, a history professor at the University of Texas-Austin who has written extensively on American holidays. “You can put up a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center or the White House, but you can’t put up a cross.”
Given that—and the fact that Apple is based in godless California—you’d think you could have gone down to the Apple store yesterday and help a friend get a new laptop.
(No, not the iPad—you’d have to be crazy to get the first iteration of a new Apple product.)
I’m not a complete idiot, so I checked the store’s website to see time it opened on Sunday. 11 a.m., it said.
But when we got there, the store was dark, and a security guard, oddly, sat in the darkened interior, reading a book. This was undoubtedly made more difficult by the fact he was wearing sunglasses.
To make matters worse, there was a sign on a stand inside the door, saying clearly that the store was open at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
So, we thought—fuck the Apple Store.
We’ll go to Best Buy, which has those odd little sequestered “Apple tables.”
You can see this coming: Best Buy was closed too.
“If I’m not getting a laptop,” announced my friend, “I want ice cream.”
A perfect day for the classic Phoenix ice cream parlor Mary Coyle, yes?
Nope: No answer when we called.
What was particularly galling, in all three cases, is that the stores didn’t even both to use a sign or an answering machine message to say, “Hey, it’s Easter, numbnuts—We’re closed.”
They just assumed that people would know they weren’t open for Easter.
As usual, the Arizona Republic was wrong.
What did we do?
We went to Gallo Blanco and ate flan and postre de chocolate—and cursed the Easter bunny.
9:31 AM
Chandler state senator introduces bill to put the Ten Commandments on the State capitol
Sen. Russell Pearce of Mesa introduced Senate Bill 1213 that would require a copy of the religious document to be placed on the front entrance of the original 1898 state Capitol building by Jan. 1, 2011. Three other lawmakers have signed onto the bill, which was referred to the Senate Government Institutions Committee. No hearing has been set.
1:38 PM
Mormon leader says the LDS is being persecuted as blacks in the Civil Rights Era were
… according to this AP story on AZCentral.com:
The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern Blacks during the civil-rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon said Tuesday.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church officials described as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.
Oaks suggested that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices
I think there’s a flaw in his argument, but I can’t think of what it is …
… Oh, I just figured it out. The difference is that, in the 1960s, the blacks were the one being persecuted, and Bull Connor and his ilk were the ones doing the persecuting.
Today, gays are the ones being persecuted, and the Mormons are actively working to repress them, specifically by funding attacks on gay marriage across the country.
12:00 AM