APPLES TO APPLES

From the comment section on a forum in Topix

Richard Laird was a tattooed, loud-mothed biker who self-medicated
for his untreated ADHD and organic brain damage with small quantities of meth. He had far more problems than Ed Gingrich had. Laird and Chester both got the death penalty. Yet, this Amish man - Ed Gingrich - who abused his wife and ended up beating her to death and then proceeded to gut her like a deer on the kitchen floor in front of their children got a slap on the wrist. He served less time than people who write bad checks!

La de da, tum de dum, nothing wrong here, birds singing, crickets chirping, keep on smiling, keep on smiling!

HALLELUJAH

From the NYT

“In the evangelical church in general there is kind of a push back
against the Republican party and a feeling of being used by the Republican political machine,” he continued. “There are going to be a lot of evangelicals willing to vote for a Democrat because there are 40 million people without health insurance and a Democrat is going to do something about that.”

Now where is the Mea-culpa from my peeps? Where is the local press on this? They were willing to cover the Amish fawning over Bush. Are they going to ask the Amish if they still support him, and if they will vote for Giuliani? BWAA HAA HAA

MEDICINE, LAW, AND THE AMISH

What does the Ed Gingerich case tell us about how the Amish fit into our society? Is it an anomaly or does it point at larger fundamental flaws about the Amish , nonAmish relationship?



Ann Rodgers at the "Pittsburg Post Gazette" did an extensive piece on Gingerich in April 2007.

Edward, a paranoid schizophrenic, kicked his 29-year-old wife Katie
to death. His children Enos, 4, and Mary, 3, watched, while 5-year-old Danny ran for help. Ed Gingerich gutted his wife's body like a deer carcass, removing her internal organs with a kitchen knife.
In 1994 he was convicted of involuntary homicide but mentally ill
and sentenced to 2 1/2 to five years in a prison psychiatric ward.
In 1998, with his condition brought under control by medication and his term served, he was released from state prison. His terrified Brownhill Amish community asked that he be locked up forever. Other Amish, saying he should be forgiven for a crime that he committed while insane and that he deeply regretted, helped move
him to an Amish mental health facility in Michigan.To outsiders, all seemed quiet until April 18, when his daughter Mary, now 17 and living with her grandparents, was reported hijacked from a buggy. Five days later she was found safe with her father and other members of her family in McKean County.

Mary is back at her grandparents farm. Her father, 42, is jailed on charges of conspiracy, concealing the whereabouts and interfering with the custody of a minor. If convicted, he could be sent back to jail for up to 22 years, according to the Crawford County district attorney.

If someone were to write a novel based on this case and do it from the perspective of the seventeen year old daughter, what kind of social critique could be made of the Amish and the non-Amish? My scripture recall isn't very snappy, but somewhere there's something about being judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us. I can't imagine the verdict on this one is going to be pretty.

ELI STUTZMAN, GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER

How does the Eli Stutzman case compare with the scenario in my last post?

Gregg Olsen on the Stutzman case. found here

Olsen said he is convinced Stutzman killed his wife,

"There are so many people there who wanted me to solve this crime
(of Ida Stutzman"s death),

Olsen continues to harbor hostilities against Wayne County
investigators, who, he said, listened to Stutzman and initially ruled the fatal fire was an accident.
Then-coroner Dr. J.T. Questel "really let Ida down," Olsen said. "She
deserved a full investigation. It makes me really angry."
Olsen maintains had Stutzman been convicted of killing his wife, he would not have had the opportunity to kill others.

The relationship between the Amish and our government is clearly, whatever happens to be convenient at the moment. Which brings me to the police response to the Nickel Mines school shooting. Can we please, review this incident in a way that will remove any question that this incident was handled and processed as if it had happened to your child or mine. More on the Stutzman case here

CHURCH AND STATE

From the Cleveland News

While police elsewhere in rural Ohio focus on meth labs and wife-beaters, Middlefield's cops have a curious fetish for busting the Amish.

In 2000, Geauga County Amish leaders asked police to help curb public
drinking. Albert, now a Geauga County Commissioner, was happy to take the job. "He'd always cuss out the Amish when they were caught drinking," Tina says. If an Amish kid walked into Albert's courtroom, he or she could be sure to spend a weekend in jail. Albert says he was simply honoring elders' wishes.

The Anabaptists who gave their lives for their faith (largely due to an unhealthy "church, state" relationship) must be turning in their graves.

On the other side; what about all of those who gave their lives for the idea embodied in our constitution?

TASER THIS

From the A.P., at TPM

University of Florida police were justified in using a Taser
against a student who refused to stop questioning Sen. John Kerry on campus last month, according to a state investigation released Wednesday.

If we believe we need the police to forcefully intervene each time some jerk is obnoxious, we have truly crossed a line that we will regret having crossed. If I wanted to live under an authoritarian regime I could have stayed Amish.

AMISH IN THE CITY

By Amishlaw

So, it was that I found myself at O'Hare Airport this weekend with
a need to use the bathroom. And I found myself being reluctant to go in there, now that my eyes have been opened as to what's really going on in airport bathrooms. Might I discover that some of the noises I hear are not coming from the relief of flatulence but baser activities? And what if some undercover cop spotted me doing something that I didn't realize was a secret code? Maybe putting soap on my hands before I wet them is some kind of signal that I didn't know about.

Read the rest here.