Having not met or talked with Hill, I’ll assume for the moment that he is just naive and has good intentions even if he is from CA, and that providing him information of how tricky water is around here will produce a happy ending for all. Can’t say the same for Hawkins and Naylor.

http://f-words.blogspot.com/2006/06/things-we-take-for-granted-part-1.html

Perhaps we’ve missed the forest for the trees. Please, take a look, and see what you think. I’m convinced.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

“Woke up this morning. Drank a flat Shasta. Wrote. Tore up what I wrote. Shouted at everyone. Opened a fresh Shasta. Started over.”

Writers when writing are generally unpleasant. Why would I want to record that bad behavior for posterity? I want to be judged by the end product, the book, not by the awful process of creating it. But there’s Dale again, insisting that this, Liberal Moscow, is my writer’s blog. Flip. Flop. Nonsense. I don’t own this blog; I help manage it. I have donated this space and my time to what I hope will be a community forum. So far, so good. Community members are posting. They’re speaking up and speaking out. We’re having a conversation here. But because Doug Wilson did a flip-flop on blogs — he once declared that they were selfish and dull before he changed to his other mind and started http://dougwils.com — Dale has been on an endless quest to prove that I am as hypocritical and self-serving as his pastor.

I don’t deny that I might be hypocritical and/or self-serving. I’m a writer and a human being, in that order, and as such, I’m certainly not perfect. However, my opinion of writers’ blogs has not changed. I have a website. On it, I link to my work and to a site that sells tacky merchandise for The Church of Auntie Establishment. That’s pretty self-serving. I wouldn’t be blowing $12 a month with Yahoo Webhosting if I didn’t hope to benefit in some way from the website and from the exposure it provides. As far as blogging is concerned, I work for New West Magazine, editing their Northern Idaho node. That would be a blog about Northern Idaho and not (technically) about me. [Note: I'll soon be moving into the role of Senior Columnist on New West, where I will be much, much happier.]

No cigar, Dale. If you want to catch me in a flip-flop you’ll have to try harder. If you want to compare me to your pastor, let’s do it right. I’m a writer. I’m an editor. I’m a lesbian. I’m also an ordained minister: Universal Life Church, December 8th, 2003. My flock is a free-ranging free-for-all. Our motto is “You’re not the boss of me.”

Doug writes. I don’t know if he edits. He’s not a lesbian. He’s not ordained. His flock meets every Sunday in the Logos Field House. Doug preaches to them, and then he puts his sermons up online. Is that a free-ranging free-for-all? Not bloody likely. Doug and the elders are the bosses of Christ Church. Presbyterians have presbyters, who are essentially theological bosses, only you can fire them if they’re rotten. Technically, anyway. How do I know this? I read about it in a book.

Do Doug Wilson and I have anything in common? We might. We both seem to like steak. Doug writes about it quite a lot, and I dine on it whenever I can. I’ve seen Doug around town. I see me every day. This is just a wild guess, but I’d be willing to bet that neither of us jogs. Neither of us bikes. Neither of us is getting enough exercise to make up for the steak dinners. I might run after the ice cream truck, but the Good Humor man never seems to make it out this far. Damn.

The bottom line? Instead of a 30/32, I wear a 33/32. Doug Wilson could never get into my pants, Dale, and that ought to be a comfort to both of us!

Those of you who have no idea what I’m talking should read the seven-page fax sent on Thursday, June 8, to First Step owner and manager, Kevin Owen. [The fax can be downloaded from this site: http://www.fsr.com/fax-6-8-2006.pdf] Kevin and First Step have been threatened with an economic boycott. The anonymous author of the fax offered Kevin an ultimatum: if First Step did not take the Vision 2020 community chat group down by 5pm Friday, June 9, the author promised to launch a bulk mail campaign against the company. As I type this, it’s Sunday, June 11, and Vision 2020 is still up and running, but I want it known that Liberal Moscow stands in solidarity with Kevin, with First Step, and with Vision 2020.

So what about Steven Sitler and Jamin Wight? I offer up this forum for your sensible, reasonable, community use. I’m no Joan of Arc, but I am willing to risk an anonymous threat or two. Good heavens, why not? I receive at least three belligerant emails every day; occasionally, I get them from the likes of The Army of God. Some jackass sending anonymous threats on a University of Idaho Copy Center fax machine is a mere piker next to the folks who brought us serial bomber Eric Rudolph. No, I am not saying, “Bring it on.” I am saying, “Get a grip.”

And so, if you don’t mind, I’ll simply repeat here some of what I have already posted to Vision 2020 on Sitler and Wight — and on Doug Wilson, Roy Atwood, and the Christ Church spin machine. The comments I’ll leave up to you . . .

Welcome to The Wilson/Atwood Spin Doctors Show.

In Episode 1, the series stars, Doug Wilson and Roy Atwood, tried to draw our attention away from the horrific story of an NSA student who molested Moscow children for 18 months. Wilson and Atwood encouraged us instead to focus instead on a load of stupid, swishy gossip on an Internet chat group. That was a smart if disgusting move, and a classic in the annals of spin. Today we treated to Episode 2, which was even worse — and even more clever — than Episode 1. Watch and learn as Wilson and Atwood tag-team a young reporter, Omie Drawhorn, forcing her story to drift from the subject of Steven Sitler, convicted pedophile, to the tired old story of “poor us,” the innocent Christian victims of continued secular attack. Pay close attention. Wilson and Atwood are truly amazing.

From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 9, 2006:

“Wilson, in a letter to [Judge] Stegner dated August 19, said he hoped Sitler’s penalties would be ‘measured and limited.’

‘It’s not the same as light, but it’s not an ‘Oh, my God’ response,’ Wilson said. ‘Steven did not realize the magnitude of what he was doing. Now I
believe he does.’

Wilson and New Saint Andrews College President Roy Atwood said they feel they are being targeted.

‘This whole thing is coming from the same group of people interested in zoning code violations, tax issues and issues related to perjury,’ Wilson
said. ‘My interest is in keeping victims and their families protected.’

‘They are exploiting people’s tragedy for a political purpose. That’s beneath anybody’s reasonable treatment of other people,’ Atwood said.

‘Society is becoming more tolerant of sexual sins and perversions,’ Atwood said. ‘Homosexuality and other forms of sexual perversion are becoming
mainstream.’”

Clever, eh? First, Wilson claims that Sitler wasn’t aware of the magnitude of his crimes. He molested countless children across at least two states. He boarded with a Christ Church family who had small children, and he admits to molesting them. There’s a letter in his court file from a couple in Colville, Sitler’s home town, describing in detail what Sitler did to the couple’s two-year old daughter. Under the circumstances, why did Wilson request that Sitler’s penalty be “measured and limited?” Wilson says it’s because Sitler, who was attending NSA when he committed the Moscow crimes, didn’t understand what he was doing. Here we have a young man who’s not just in college, but in a self-described elite Christian classical college, and he doesn’t understand the “magnitude” of sexually abusing small children. What is the basis for Wilson’s assessment of Sitler’s understanding? And what change has taken place in Sitler since he was removed from NSA and placed in the tender loving care of the Idaho criminal justice system that helps him to understand the magnitude now? Does jail offer better learning opportunities than a classical Christian school?

I’m not looking forward to Episode 3 of the Wilson/Atwood Spin Doctors Show, but I do anticipate it with some interest. I wonder how long Wilson will get away with such blatant elision? He’s code-shifting here; he’s setting up his next move. What is that move? To change the subject. Let’s all stop talking about the NSA student who sexually assaulted babies and talk instead about the queers, the feminists, the atheists and the infidels are out to get Christ Church.

Never mind that Michael Metzler is not gay. Never mind that Michael Metzler is not a feminist. Forget that Michael is a devout Christian and he was, until a few weeks ago, a member of Christ Church. Michael broke this story. No one else. But notice how Wilson and Atwood manage to manipulate Omie Drawhorn’s story. Wilson begins with “Sitler didn’t know what he was doing” and quickly moves on to “the Intoleristas are out to get us.” The real kicker, however, is supplied by former University of Idaho Professor of Communication Roy Atwood. Drawhorn’s story ends with the following statement from Atwood: “Homosexuality and other forms of sexual perversion are becoming mainstream.” Why should this nonsense, of all things, be the last word in a story about Steven Sitler, NSA student, Reformed Christian, and convicted child molester? Why not end the article with a few observations about sexual abuse and the clergy? Or how about some statistics regarding child molestation among fundamentalists? This information is readily available; it’s well-documented; and, by God, it’s scientific. (Look it up. It’s also deeply disturbing.)

Pedophilia is a pathological disorder; homosexuality is not. More than 95% of all child molesters self-identify as heterosexuals, and the overall recidivism rate among convicted pedophiles is 75%. This is why Sitler should NOT be driving himself, unsupervised, to his twice weekly therapy appointments. This is also why Doug Wilson’s “measured and limited” penalty request smacks not of pastoral care but of vulgar self-interest. A lesser sentence suggests a lesser crime, and a lesser crime can be more easily spun away from the Church, away from New St. Andrews, and away from Pastor Wilson. I’d be interested to know who edited Omie Drawhorn’s article. Who decided that the last line — the line that will stick with readers — would have nothing to do with the pedophile Steven Sitler but instead be an attack on gays and lesbians? Only a very poor editor — or one who was as green as goose shit — would fail to see that an expert spinmeister was turning the Sitler sow’s ear into a bigot’s silk purse.

What’s going on here? What’s the real story? Steven Sitler drives himself to his therapy appointments. That means he’s out by himself cruising the highways and byways twice a week. Because Sitler is not yet a registered sex offender — his mug shot won’t appear on the sex offender website until he’s officially released into the community — the broader community has no idea what he looks like. Twice a week, Sitler poses a risk to every child in the county. But again, Doug Wilson has succeeded in spinning this, the real story, out of the light and spinning his favorite targets — gays, lesbians, and a McCarthyite list of shadowy secular enemies — onto center stage.

The best defense is a good offense, and Doug Wilson and Roy Atwood couldn’t be more offensive.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com

PS: If you want to learn more about the Sitler and Wight cases, I refer you to the original court documents, available here:

Wight: http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02500/

Sitler: http://www.tomandrodna.com/CR_2005_02027/

I also highly recommend Michael Metzler’s blog, http://poohsthink.com, the blog that first broke the Sitler and Wight stories. Michael’s research and documentation is meticulous. He also has a link to an analysis of these events by Dr. Terry Morin, a former elder of Community Evangelical Fellowship, Doug Wilson’s church before it became Christ Church.

(No, Dale Courtney, this NOT the writer’s blog I said on my website, www.joanopyr.com, that I would never create. Do you not read and comprehend, man? Goodness gracious me. Anyone would think you were spoiling for a fight.)

But I digress. I have changed the status of some registered users from “Author” to “Editor.” It’s my hope that this will resolve the new post problem. If it doesn’t, then ya’ll will have to wait until Chasuk has some spare time because I’m at the very limit of my blogging abilities. There you have it, folks. I have risen to the upper-most level of my computer incompetence, and here I sit, co-administrator of a blog I don’t actually know how to operate. All I need now is a corporate paycheck, and I could serve as a textbook example of the Peter Principle.

We (meaning Chasuk) will work out the bugs. We (meaning Chasuk and I) are committed to this blog. We (meaning all of us) will have to be patient. What choice do we have? I suppose we could all move over to Dale Courtney’s blog, but that would mean sitting between Ann Coulter and Bill Sali, and they both have serious cooties.

Circle, circle, dot, dot . . . please feel free to finish the rest of this post in the comments section. For now.

Joan Opyr

Liberal Moscow users are grouped into the following categories:

* Administrator – Somebody who has access to all the administration features
* Editor – Somebody who can publish posts, manage posts as well as
manage other people’s posts, etc.
* Author – Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
* Contributor – Somebody who can write and manage their posts but
not publish posts
* Subscriber – Somebody who can read comments/comment/receive news
letters, etc.

If you aren’t a bully or a troll, we want you to be able to start fresh topics at your discretion. This means that Joan or I need to invite you to Liberal Moscow and set your role to that of Author. If you aren’t an Author, but a Contributor, you can originate as many topics as you wish, but the messages won’t be published (visible to other users) until they have been approved by someone acting in the roles of Administator or Editor. A Subscriber can comment on existing messages but can’t originate messages.

To become an Author, send an e-mail to Joan or myself making that request, and we will make it happen. You can also make the request in this (or the Free Association) forum.