#A Litigious Town

[usefullistanbul]

A Litigious Town

Constant Lawsuits in Tirnova

Tirnova is known for having many lawsuits. It might be something in the air, or maybe it’s just the way things have always been. But no other town in Bulgaria has as many legal disputes as Tirnova. The courts are always busy. However, it’s not because the people of Tirnova are dishonest or greedy. They take pride in their reputation for lawsuits, and even the street in the town where lawyers work is famous.

The Lawyers of Tirnova

The lawyers in Tirnova have shops, just like stores that sell goods like cigarettes. In the windows, there are stacks of dusty books, but they also make sure there’s space where people can see them working. The lawyers are often sitting at their desks with papers in front of them, a cigarette in their mouth, and a cup of coffee nearby. If they have a client, they’ll sit by the window, where passersby can watch them talk. If not, they sit in front of the window, staring blankly across the street, but always ready in case anyone needs legal help. In Tirnova, if a person isn’t going to court regularly, people think something is wrong with them Ancient Bulgaria Tour.

Pride in the History of Tirnova

The Historic Significance of Tirnova

The people of Tirnova are very proud of their old town. For two hundred years, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tirnova was the capital of Bulgaria. The kings lived there, and I stumbled over the crumbling walls they built to protect the city from invaders. This is where revolutions were planned, and where kings died in battle. In 1257, during a bloody time when kings and princes were killed, the first National Assembly met there, and Constantine Ticho was chosen as king.

Although Bulgaria’s power weakened over time, and other cities like Sofia became more important, Tirnova never forgot its role as the heart of Bulgaria. It still insists that it is the most important town in Bulgaria and deserves respect.

Tirnova’s Influence in Bulgaria

When Prince Alexander was forced to leave his throne by Russia, the three men who became the Regency came from Tirnova. When Prince Ferdinand was chosen as the new ruler, he didn’t truly become the prince until he had visited Tirnova and been proclaimed there.

The people of Tirnova are proud of their history. A man from Tirnova may seem calm and lazy while sitting at a cafe playing dominoes, but when the conversation turns to their town’s history, a spark of pride lights up his eyes.

[goldenhornist]

A Litigious Town

Constant Lawsuits in Tirnova

Tirnova is known for having many lawsuits. It might be something in the air, or maybe it’s just the way things have always been. But no other town in Bulgaria has as many legal disputes as Tirnova. The courts are always busy. However, it’s not because the people of Tirnova are dishonest or greedy. They take pride in their reputation for lawsuits, and even the street in the town where lawyers work is famous.

The Lawyers of Tirnova

The lawyers in Tirnova have shops, just like stores that sell goods like cigarettes. In the windows, there are stacks of dusty books, but they also make sure there’s space where people can see them working. The lawyers are often sitting at their desks with papers in front of them, a cigarette in their mouth, and a cup of coffee nearby. If they have a client, they’ll sit by the window, where passersby can watch them talk. If not, they sit in front of the window, staring blankly across the street, but always ready in case anyone needs legal help. In Tirnova, if a person isn’t going to court regularly, people think something is wrong with them Ancient Bulgaria Tour.

Pride in the History of Tirnova

The Historic Significance of Tirnova

The people of Tirnova are very proud of their old town. For two hundred years, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tirnova was the capital of Bulgaria. The kings lived there, and I stumbled over the crumbling walls they built to protect the city from invaders. This is where revolutions were planned, and where kings died in battle. In 1257, during a bloody time when kings and princes were killed, the first National Assembly met there, and Constantine Ticho was chosen as king.

Although Bulgaria’s power weakened over time, and other cities like Sofia became more important, Tirnova never forgot its role as the heart of Bulgaria. It still insists that it is the most important town in Bulgaria and deserves respect.

Tirnova’s Influence in Bulgaria

When Prince Alexander was forced to leave his throne by Russia, the three men who became the Regency came from Tirnova. When Prince Ferdinand was chosen as the new ruler, he didn’t truly become the prince until he had visited Tirnova and been proclaimed there.

The people of Tirnova are proud of their history. A man from Tirnova may seem calm and lazy while sitting at a cafe playing dominoes, but when the conversation turns to their town’s history, a spark of pride lights up his eyes.

[istanbulobelisk]

A Litigious Town

Constant Lawsuits in Tirnova

Tirnova is known for having many lawsuits. It might be something in the air, or maybe it’s just the way things have always been. But no other town in Bulgaria has as many legal disputes as Tirnova. The courts are always busy. However, it’s not because the people of Tirnova are dishonest or greedy. They take pride in their reputation for lawsuits, and even the street in the town where lawyers work is famous.

The Lawyers of Tirnova

The lawyers in Tirnova have shops, just like stores that sell goods like cigarettes. In the windows, there are stacks of dusty books, but they also make sure there’s space where people can see them working. The lawyers are often sitting at their desks with papers in front of them, a cigarette in their mouth, and a cup of coffee nearby. If they have a client, they’ll sit by the window, where passersby can watch them talk. If not, they sit in front of the window, staring blankly across the street, but always ready in case anyone needs legal help. In Tirnova, if a person isn’t going to court regularly, people think something is wrong with them Ancient Bulgaria Tour.

Pride in the History of Tirnova

The Historic Significance of Tirnova

The people of Tirnova are very proud of their old town. For two hundred years, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tirnova was the capital of Bulgaria. The kings lived there, and I stumbled over the crumbling walls they built to protect the city from invaders. This is where revolutions were planned, and where kings died in battle. In 1257, during a bloody time when kings and princes were killed, the first National Assembly met there, and Constantine Ticho was chosen as king.

Although Bulgaria’s power weakened over time, and other cities like Sofia became more important, Tirnova never forgot its role as the heart of Bulgaria. It still insists that it is the most important town in Bulgaria and deserves respect.

Tirnova’s Influence in Bulgaria

When Prince Alexander was forced to leave his throne by Russia, the three men who became the Regency came from Tirnova. When Prince Ferdinand was chosen as the new ruler, he didn’t truly become the prince until he had visited Tirnova and been proclaimed there.

The people of Tirnova are proud of their history. A man from Tirnova may seem calm and lazy while sitting at a cafe playing dominoes, but when the conversation turns to their town’s history, a spark of pride lights up his eyes.

[istanbulsurf]

A Litigious Town

Constant Lawsuits in Tirnova

Tirnova is known for having many lawsuits. It might be something in the air, or maybe it’s just the way things have always been. But no other town in Bulgaria has as many legal disputes as Tirnova. The courts are always busy. However, it’s not because the people of Tirnova are dishonest or greedy. They take pride in their reputation for lawsuits, and even the street in the town where lawyers work is famous.

The Lawyers of Tirnova

The lawyers in Tirnova have shops, just like stores that sell goods like cigarettes. In the windows, there are stacks of dusty books, but they also make sure there’s space where people can see them working. The lawyers are often sitting at their desks with papers in front of them, a cigarette in their mouth, and a cup of coffee nearby. If they have a client, they’ll sit by the window, where passersby can watch them talk. If not, they sit in front of the window, staring blankly across the street, but always ready in case anyone needs legal help. In Tirnova, if a person isn’t going to court regularly, people think something is wrong with them Ancient Bulgaria Tour.

Pride in the History of Tirnova

The Historic Significance of Tirnova

The people of Tirnova are very proud of their old town. For two hundred years, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tirnova was the capital of Bulgaria. The kings lived there, and I stumbled over the crumbling walls they built to protect the city from invaders. This is where revolutions were planned, and where kings died in battle. In 1257, during a bloody time when kings and princes were killed, the first National Assembly met there, and Constantine Ticho was chosen as king.

Although Bulgaria’s power weakened over time, and other cities like Sofia became more important, Tirnova never forgot its role as the heart of Bulgaria. It still insists that it is the most important town in Bulgaria and deserves respect.

Tirnova’s Influence in Bulgaria

When Prince Alexander was forced to leave his throne by Russia, the three men who became the Regency came from Tirnova. When Prince Ferdinand was chosen as the new ruler, he didn’t truly become the prince until he had visited Tirnova and been proclaimed there.

The people of Tirnova are proud of their history. A man from Tirnova may seem calm and lazy while sitting at a cafe playing dominoes, but when the conversation turns to their town’s history, a spark of pride lights up his eyes.

[istanbulhistorical]

A Litigious Town

Constant Lawsuits in Tirnova

Tirnova is known for having many lawsuits. It might be something in the air, or maybe it’s just the way things have always been. But no other town in Bulgaria has as many legal disputes as Tirnova. The courts are always busy. However, it’s not because the people of Tirnova are dishonest or greedy. They take pride in their reputation for lawsuits, and even the street in the town where lawyers work is famous.

The Lawyers of Tirnova

The lawyers in Tirnova have shops, just like stores that sell goods like cigarettes. In the windows, there are stacks of dusty books, but they also make sure there’s space where people can see them working. The lawyers are often sitting at their desks with papers in front of them, a cigarette in their mouth, and a cup of coffee nearby. If they have a client, they’ll sit by the window, where passersby can watch them talk. If not, they sit in front of the window, staring blankly across the street, but always ready in case anyone needs legal help. In Tirnova, if a person isn’t going to court regularly, people think something is wrong with them Ancient Bulgaria Tour.

Pride in the History of Tirnova

The Historic Significance of Tirnova

The people of Tirnova are very proud of their old town. For two hundred years, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Tirnova was the capital of Bulgaria. The kings lived there, and I stumbled over the crumbling walls they built to protect the city from invaders. This is where revolutions were planned, and where kings died in battle. In 1257, during a bloody time when kings and princes were killed, the first National Assembly met there, and Constantine Ticho was chosen as king.

Although Bulgaria’s power weakened over time, and other cities like Sofia became more important, Tirnova never forgot its role as the heart of Bulgaria. It still insists that it is the most important town in Bulgaria and deserves respect.

Tirnova’s Influence in Bulgaria

When Prince Alexander was forced to leave his throne by Russia, the three men who became the Regency came from Tirnova. When Prince Ferdinand was chosen as the new ruler, he didn’t truly become the prince until he had visited Tirnova and been proclaimed there.

The people of Tirnova are proud of their history. A man from Tirnova may seem calm and lazy while sitting at a cafe playing dominoes, but when the conversation turns to their town’s history, a spark of pride lights up his eyes.

[mabelsguidetolife]

york is getting ever closer to finding out who killed laura palmer ANNA GRAHAM

[tempus-fugit-memento]

John Proctor (60)

August 19th, 1692

“The Magistrates, Ministers, Jewries and all the People in general, being so much inraged and incensed against us by the Delusion of the Devil, which we can term no other by reason we know in our own Consciences, we are all innocent persons..”

Many may know him for being the tragic hero in Arthur Miller’s 1953 play “The Crucible”, however what many do not realize is that the real John Proctor is very different from his stage counterpart. The real John Proctor was not a young Daniel Day Lewis, but rather a 60 year old farmer and tavern owner who got caught up in young girls allowed to go mad.

John Proctor was born on October 9th, 1631 in Suffolk, England to John and Martha (Harper) Proctor. John was their first born, between his birth and 1651 the couple would go on to have 8 more children . In 1635, when John was just 3 years old him and his family immigrated to New England aboard the ship(s) Susan and Ellen. The family settled in Ipswich MA, where John spent his childhood and some of his young adulthood. In 1652, John married a woman named Martha (last name unknown) and the two would go on to have 4 children, however out of those 4 only one would survive to adulthood, his son Benjamin. Martha sadly died in childbirth in 1659. In 1662, John then went on to marry Elizabeth Thorndike and have 7 more children. The family moved from Ipswich to the Western part of Salem Town (today Peabody) in 1666. He owned an impressive amount of land there that included a house on Ipswich Rd. The Proctors obtained a tavern license in 1668 and they opened up a Tavern out of the home. Elizabeth sadly passed away in 1672 and not long after John would remarry to Elizabeth Bassett in 1674. They would go on to have 7 children, one of whom dying young. Elizabeth was from Lynn, MA with a less than ideal past. Her Grandmother, a Quaker Midwife named Goody Burt, was suspected of witchcraft previously, something that may have played a role in what was to come in 1692.

John and his sons would spend hours tending to their large and extensive property while the women tended to the house and tavern with the help of their 20 year old servant, Mary Warren. John was known for being a good businessman who could comfortably work with anyone, regardless of who they were, earning the respect of many who knew him. That does not mean that there were not some problems. One of those problems came from neighbor Giles Corey, who lived to the West of the Proctors. The relationship was litigious, even suing each other on more than one occasion. One time John accused Giles of setting fire to his house, later turning out that one of John’s sons was careless with a lantern. Giles also accused John of seeking liquor to Natives from the tavern, which was illegal at the time. Despite the feud, the two were known to have shared a drink together from time to time. Some speculate the source of the tension between the two was the land which John owned being so close to Giles property. Giles was not the first person, however, to bring up issues with the Proctor’s Tavern. In 1678 the family was charged for allegedly accepting items in pawn for drink, however it is unclear how much truth this holds. Another problem goes closer to home. According to son, Benjamin, John would come home at an “unreasonable time with a wooden bottle of rum and drank to drunkenness”. Mary Warren would speak of arguments between John and Elizabeth that happened with some frequency.

When the trials of 1692 began, John was skeptical and did not shy away from letting people know about his skepticisms. It should come as no surprise that he was furious when Mary Warren’s fits began. It was said that he “kept her busy at the spinning wheel and threatened to thresh her if she tried that again..” all under his watchful eye, which seemingly did the trick until John was called away from home, and the fits began again.

On March 25th, 1692, John encountered Samuel Sibley at Walter Philip’s Tavern while on his way to Salem Village. The two had a conversation about how things in the town were and Samuel informed John of how bad the night before was, including his maid’s afflictions. Mary had stayed overnight after court, and that was where John was going. Samuel was not expecting John’s response, which was that he was going to “fetch his jade home and thresh the Devil out of her” and that he would have rather “given up fourth pence than to let her go in the first place..” John warned that if the girls were allowed to continue, “we should all be devils and witches quickly. They should rather be had to the whipping post.” “Hang them!” He said in exasperation, “Hang them!”. His words would later come back to haunt him.

While whatever he did to Mary once home “Cured” her of her afflictions, leading her to tack a note on the meetinghouse door giving thanks, it led to her also being suspected of witchcraft. On April 11th, 1692, while his wife Elizabeth was on trial having been accused and arrested, John found himself amongst the accused. While in attendance, the accused began to list all of the things his wife had afflicted them with, obviously angering him. He was heard muttering that if “John Indian were in his custody, he would soon beat the Devil out of him”. Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam Jr, writhing and twitching, blamed John and called him a wizard, soon all except for Elizabeth Hubbard were in fits. By that time, John was taken into custody. Several afflicted claimed that John’s specter tormented them, and claimed so up until his death.

While in jail, John witnessed and brought to light one of the more disturbing things officials did to the innocent. Martha Carrier’s two sons, 18 year old Richard and 16 year old Andrew, were accused and brought to Salem Village. After adamantly denying the accusations, both brothers were taken from the meetinghouse and brought to a different chamber where they were tied “neck and heels till the blood was ready to come out of their noses”, this happened until they would confess. This is the same torture John’s son, William, who also found himself accused would experience. He recounted this all in a letter which was sent to the Boston Magistrates, begging them for their help.

On August 2nd, 1692, John would sign a new will while in Salem Jail, omitting his wife. It is speculated that their trials occurred that day and due to the fact that they were both convicted, he believed that neither would survive or maybe their marriage was as unhappy as the rumors said. The only real surviving testimony against John is from the afflicted, including Mary Warren. It was at this tie that two petitions surfaced, one with nineteen signatures from Salem and another with thirty-two signatures from Ipswich, all vouching for John and Elizabeth. Sadly, this would be no use. John and Elizabeth were both found guilty and sentenced to hang, however, Elizabeth was found out she was pregnant, something which saved her life. Expectant Women could not be executed, so she was granted a delay until she gave birth, should she survive the ordeal of childbirth, but by that point the trials had ended. John would not be so lucky.

The night of August 18th, 1692, John made one final plea, saying he was “not fit to die”, but this would also prove unsuccessful. The next day on August 19th, John Proctor, George Burroughs, George Jacobs, Martha Carrier and John Willard were taken out of the jail and carted up to Gallows Hill, where one by one they maintained their innocence and forgave their accusers and begged that no more innocent blood be shed. One by one, they each hung. Thomas Brattle wrote that “In the opinion of many unprejudiced, considerate and considerable spectators, some of the condemned went out of this world not only with as great protestations, but also with as good shews of innocence, as men could do.” He then signals out John Proctor and John Willard with special praise for “their whole management of themselves” before their deaths. The bodies were cut down from the tree and put in a shallow grave, where family members would allegedly retrieve the bodies under the cover of night and bury them privately. Nobody knows where John’s body is, however it is likely that he is buried in “Proctor’s Tomb”, located opposite 310 Lowell Street at the Lowell Street on-ramp to 128.

Elizabeth survived the trials, giving birth to a son whom she named after his father and the two were released from prison. The family was given £150 in restitution for not only John’s imprisonment but for Elizabeth’s as well in 1711 by the General Court of Massachusetts.

John’s legacy lived on through his children, his son Thorndike rebuilt the family home in the exact spot, in the exact way as the original which is still standing today, though closed to the public as of December 2024. Gallows Hill was later renamed Proctor’s Ledge and a simple memorial was built at the site.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Express: The 'rebranded' Sussexes with their 'relaunched' website are more narcissistic than ever by u/Von_und_zu_

Express: The 'rebranded' Sussexes with their 'relaunched' website are more narcissistic than ever The 'rebranded' Sussexes with their 'relaunched' website are more narcissistic than ever. Harry and Meghan brazenly exploit their ties to the British Royal Family at every opportunity or ignore whenever it suits them, writes Christopher Smithers.This was a delicious piece and very well reasoned, in my opinion.The dynamic duo from Montecito appear to feel that it is somehow their God-given right to live in the lap of luxury, all the while dispensing wise words from their lofty perches - based on their vast experience of... what exactly? \***The book, if you believe you can call it that, is billed as unflinchingly “honest”. Oh really? Well, you’d have fooled me because much of the “unflinching honesty” has been debunked as decidedly dodgy in substance, up to being an outright load of porkies.Many commentators, including this one, sincerely believe Haz to be so enraged to the point of losing his grip on reality much of the time. He seems to be subject to the whims of his wife every time she clicks her fingers too.His maniacal litigious pursuit of the tabloid press perhaps shows his obsessive sense of victimhood more clearly than his other self-centred traits.Playing the victim, seeking sympathy as a driving force for ultimate empowerment seems to be something that he has in common with his wife as well. The result of all this might seem to expose a tendency toward stratospheric narcissism on the part of both, wouldn’t you say?\***None of their perceived great achievements were accomplished solely on their own merit, were they? There is a common denominator that links everything they do or say.The direct ties to the British Royal Family, a fact that they seem to brazenly exploit at every opportunity or ignore whenever it suits them. But without it then who are they? Well, in my opinion, they’re just like a pair of empty barrels making an awful lot of noise.\***The Haz and Megs show hit the town to promote the Invictus Games, which they now want to commercialize apparently. Someone who makes “TV deals” to tap a source of revenue has been retained too. Might not a wholly vulgar description of these events then become appropriate? Philanthropy for profit seems to resonate rather well, but you can make up your own mind.Even a cursory glance reveals that their website is emblazoned with the prominent display of the Sussex Coat of Arms, coupled with extensive use of their titles throughout. Is this trading on their royal status for commercial gain? Is this in violation of their agreement and promise to the late Queen? Well, you be the judge.What planet are these two living on if they honestly believe Harry’s family will take them seriously, much less welcome them back into the fold with open arms, all sins forgiven?It beggars belief that anyone could fall for this!https://ift.tt/MWN934k post link: https://ift.tt/ERWchlQ author: Von_und_zu_ submitted: February 19, 2024 at 08:18PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[twelvelms]

I haven't ever really talked about The Wizard Books and the author that wrote them on here. I grew up loving those books and it is a devastating thing to navigate as a grown up trans guy. It's partly because I live in the UK and said author is particularly litigious, and I'm a trans person with a precarious income whose job is to make shows for the internet, and I want to avoid attracting the author's attention if I can.

Though I loved those books, I've always been pretty critical of their central thesis. Part of what was interesting about the earlier books to me were the flaws in wizarding society, the moments where ministry propaganda seems to bleed through into conversations between children. How horrifying and fascinating a thing, I thought! I wonder where this is going.

By the later books in the series it was clear that these flaws weren't a part of the central message of the book in the way I thought they were, and I found that really disappointing, and then. Well. We all know what happened next!

When I was younger, I loved wolfstar. I had my house scarf and tie and I read and reread the books so much my copies began to disintegrate. When I missed a delivery of Order of the Phoenix, I rode my bike 3 miles into the town over where the postoffice returns place was, even though I never cycled on roads because I'm functionally blind in one eye and have no depth perception so I can't tell how far away the cars are. These books were a huge inspiration to me as a child; they're part of the reason I've been a writer since I could reliably hold a pen, and they're one of the reasons I was inspired to make Twelvelms.

If you go back far enough on the Spirit Box Radio tumblr, you'll probably still find posts I made prior to the start of the show about some of the characters in those books, talking about some aspects of them I found interesting that I felt were overlooked.

If you're looking at my list of influences for this show and thinking that these books are a glaring omission from them; yeah. I've deliberately not put them into any of the copy, even where I'm talking about the kind of works which inspired me to make this one because I don't want to bring a painful conversation into focus, and because I don't want to accidentally say something that might catch the attention of the author of those works, and because those works are EXTREMELY popular and if I compare anything I do to them, even to cite them as inspiration, there's a risk I'd look incredibly cocky.

In the world of Twelvelms, the system is broken. Propaganda bleeds into conversation. The characters have grown up with strange beliefs baked into everything they think is true about the world and how they interact with it, and many of those beliefs are harmful. Twelvelms University is a magical and exciting place with hidden rooms and Roman baths in the basement and hallways that whisper to you in the depths of the night. But it's also an institution that fundamentally fails the scholars inside of it.

The people in charge in this world are wrong. The fact the main characters end up in the positions that they do is a bad thing. They should never have been asked to make the choices they are forced to make in this show, but they are. The system is against them, and they didn't notice until they started to ask why things are the way they are.

Why is mage society so completely isolated? Why are half-mage children asked to leave their homes at 13 if they show a talent for magic? Why are Happeners - mages who are born into unmage families - forced to abandon their old lives, set up somewhere new, often in proximity to the most powerful mages in the Alliance? Why is it that when things went wrong in the past, there's suddenly a lack of certainty and information about how it happened and who was responsible?

These questions are at the heart of the story of the show and the world that it is set in.

[mynewrock]

The Canonization

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,         Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,         With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,                Take you a course, get you a place,                Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face         Contemplate; what you will, approve,         So you will let me love. Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?         What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?         When did my colds a forward spring remove?                When did the heats which my veins fill                Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still         Litigious men, which quarrels move,         Though she and I do love. Call us what you will, we are made such by love;         Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,         And we in us find the eagle and the dove.                The phœnix riddle hath more wit                By us; we two being one, are it. So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.         We die and rise the same, and prove         Mysterious by this love. We can die by it, if not live by love,         And if unfit for tombs and hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;         And if no piece of chronicle we prove,                We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;                As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,         And by these hymns, all shall approve         Us canonized for Love. And thus invoke us: "You, whom reverend love         Made one another's hermitage; You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;         Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove                Into the glasses of your eyes                (So made such mirrors, and such spies, That they did all to you epitomize)         Countries, towns, courts: beg from above         A pattern of your love!"

by John Donne

[blonde0chaos]

A stupid thought I had the other day. I want walkable cities so bad it's scary. I want sidewalks, dedicated bike lanes, and fully integrated pedestrian/car/bike traffic signals like I saw in Rotterdam. HOWEVER! I also acknowledged that property owners don't want side walks and sort of agree with that.

For example, I bought a piece of land in a golf subdivision at a tax deed auction in January. Part of why I bought in that area was how impressed I was with the bike lanes around town and how pedestrian friendly it seemed. When I was talking to the lady at the county she commented how nice it was that my parcel didn't have a side walk in front of it. The reason being, even though I own the land, the sidewalk falls on an easement so it's open to public use. Which means I couldn't prevent people from entering and crossing my property BUT I'm also liable for any injuries that occur on my property. This wouldn't be a big issue if AMERICANS WEREN'T THE MOST LITIGIOUS PEOPLE ON EARTH. There have been legal cases of people suing home/buisness owners for injuries sustained on side walks. Hell there was a guy who sued a home owner for hurting himself in their yard after he jumped their fence while running from the police. Even if these cases get thrown out by a judge, it's time, stress, and money spent by the property owner. Which discourages people from wanting sidewalks.

This video points out that not only is our road system HIGHLY flawed so is our legal system. In America there HAS to be someone to blame. I think a part of the problem is we're not incentiving property owners to help maintain public walkways. If we offered property owners legal protections similar to "good samaritan" laws for CPR certified folks, it would open people up to the idea of sidewalks more.

Unfortunately, we'll have to lean on private property owners to host sidewalks at the end of the day. Cities/counties/municipalities aren't keen on directly owning the land sidewalks sit on because every parcel of land has to pay property taxes at the end of the year. The city/county/etc is more open to footing a one time payment for the sidewalk its self (looks good on a ballot after all) but they're less keen on paying for the sidewalk AND paying the property taxes on it.

None of this is a "be all end all" fix to our deeply flawed road ways. It's just some proverbial fat to chew on.

the things that are reported matters. the language used matters. what is left out of the story matters.

[salvadorcavendish]

Full Name: Salvador Cortes Cavendish.

Nicknames: Sal.

Pronouns and Gender: He/him, cis man.

Birthday: September 4th, 1990.

Birth place: Aurora Bay.

How long have they been in town?: On and off for most of his life / has always been based in California, just not necessarily always Aurora Bay.

Sexuality: Bisexual.

Housing: Crystal Cove Condominiums.

Occupation: Owner of Lost Spirits.

Family: Aurelia Cavendish (sister), Atticus Cortes (maternal cousin), Gus Wells-Cavendish (son).

tws for biography: violence, law enforcement, arrest, injury, blood.  

BIOGRAPHY.

first born and only son of carmen cortes and currently unknown bio father.

while salvador’s mother’s saw his conception and impending birth as an overwhelming potential mistake, her employers at the time she saw it as an opportunity.

with all the means and money in the world, luca and eloise cavendish's life was only lacking in one department, their yet to be grown family. attempts to conceive had been a fruitless struggle and they solved it the way they did best -- by seizing an opportunity and throwing money at it.

carmen didn't need much convincing to agree to the adoption, innately aware that they could give her child the kind of life that would never be accessible to her and so without her family's blessing or backing, she agreed.

five months later salvador cortes cavendish was born, named by his birth mother before being handed off to his adoptive mother.

five years later in what seemed like a small miracle in itself, his sister aurelia came along naturally and rounded out the family.

despite being handpicked by the cavendish's before even being born, being raised by them was no easy feat for sal, unattainable expectations were the foundation of his life and meeting targets was seen as the only plausible outcome.

the only reprieve he got from his parent’s often suffocating ideals was when he was with his sister. from the day she was born, the only goal he placed on himself was to be someone that she could look up to and rely on. 

despite how much control his parents tried to exercise over his temperament, no amount of long talks about manners and instruction could stifle the anger that resided deep in him. he was never good at regulating it, but he could keep himself in check for the most part, even if that did mean he got comfortable lying about where cuts and bruises on his knuckles came from and why friendships for him seemed to come to a sharp and drastic end. 

always excelled in academics, especially in physics, mathematics and anything in the realm of engineering.

wanted to be an astronaut when he was a child, but after one too many times of his father tutting and telling him he had his head in the clouds like it was an insult, he settled on aiming to be an aerospace engineer. 

was a little bit of a wayward teen and liked to push the limits of both his parents patience and his own luck, which resulted in him nearly being arrested at 18 which he narrowly avoided by a generous check and a litigious. that was a wake up call for him and he decided to focus his all on the future he had been working towards. 

took it incredibly hard when his mother passed suddenly in a car crash when he was 19 years old and tried to throw himself into his studies to avoid dealing with it.

graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering from massachusetts institute of technology before he went on and did a masters for two years after that. 

at 26, after a slew of internships and short term employment opportunities in industry, he finally got his dream job and uprooted his life to california to work as an aerospace engineer at nasa’s neil a. armstrong flight research center in edwards. 

he was back and forth to aurora bay as much as he could be to check in on his sister, never missing a holiday or a family event, but by thirty he was certain his life was no longer there. 

fate would have other ideas when that same year he found out he was going to be a father with his long-time friend louie. after some initial apprehension and uncertainty in himself about whether or not he could be a father, sal was on board and their song august orion wells-cavendish (gus) was born in 2021.

with his career on a steady incline, sal had eyes on how he could move up internally, but that all came crashing to an end with more damage than any test flight gone wrong he had over seen at the end of october 2022. 

during a routine ground test for an aircraft, a comment from a co-worker he had never gotten along with had him seeing red. the reports of the incidence afterwards read that it was unprovoked and vicious, resulting in broken bones and blood on the cement but even when he had been dragged off of him by three members of site security, sal hadn’t been able to see it as anything more than an inevitability. 

his dismissal was immediate and absolute and he knew there was no salvaging his career with nasa. with nothing else holding him in place and the possibility of a criminal charge that would further impede his employability, sal knew it was time to come home. 

he’s been back in aurora bay full time ever since. 

PERSONALITY.

+ quick-witted, intelligent, precise. 

- violent, hot-headed, inconsiderate. 

FUN ADJACENT FACTS.

father to a three year old called gus, possibly the only thing in his life he doesn’t feel like he’s actively failing at. 

became the owner of lost spirits as an act of sincere defiance to his father for years of ongoing pressure for salvador to step up and take over the family business that he's always felt was more lia's birthright than his.

was never charged for the october 2022 assault and is certain his father had something to do with it though he refuses to say either way.

used to go to egypt every summer with his mother until he was 21. 

his favorite beer is stella and no, he doesn’t mean artois, he hates that one. 

has told people he’s an astronaut before to get laid / avoid having to get into explaining what it is he actually does (did).

fond of alcohol but is more hesitant with drugs, knows from experience they don’t mix well with his personality. 

CURRENT CONNECTIONS.

older brother of @cavenshh

baby daddy of @louiewells

father of @delilahcarreno + @buddywellls' nephew

​older cousin / big brother vibe to @atticuscortes

childhood / current friend of @connievanderbilt

former almost brother-in-law of @presleyfarrow

close friend of @eddieferguson

aerospace engineering dweebs with @nellie-eddowes

SPECIFIC WANTED CONNECTIONS.

childhood friends: self explanatory, the folks he goes way way back with. can go any way dynamic wise. 

california based muses not restricted to AB: folks he would have known over the last near decade he was living/working elsewhere in state. can be friends/co-workers/exes whatever the heart desiresss.

customers: come buy some booze so he pretend he's not in a deep flop era. will he be pleasant about it? streets are saying no KJSHGSHJ 

more to be added! 

GENERIC WANTED CONNECTIONS.

connections wise he’s pretty much an open book right now, but some baseline ideas that can be springboarded off are:

friendly.

a best friend(s) / ride or dies / close friends / childhood friends / friends / drunk friends / new friends / people he knew from massachusetts when he studied there / people he knew from california when he worked there. 

romantic

flirtationship / friends with benefits / one time hook ups / tinder matches / unrequited crush (can be either way) / exes from high school / exes from his twenties / exes on good terms. 

antagonistic.

enemies / former (best) friends / exes on bad terms / frenemies / rivals / negative influence / people he’s fought with (can be several, for a variety of reasons from serious to downright stupid). 

[warningsine]

https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2018-janfeb/selections/hernan-diaz-342846/

Martha Malini’s death from respiratory failure was mentioned in several newspapers around the world. Her unique appearance—white hair down to the waist, ivory saris and suits, downcast eyes that seemed to regret the attention the rest of her body drew to itself—ensured that even the briefest reports came with a large picture. She could be seen giving talks, opening exhibitions, and launching books in every continent. Some of the pictures also featured Francis Towne, her late husband, who was the subject of the talks, the topic of the exhibitions, and the author of the books.

Having suffered from a slow but relentless form of sclerosis from his youth, Towne required constant care by his early fifties. Malini, thirty years his junior, became his assistant shortly after taking one of his classes at Columbia University. By the end of the semester, she was pushing his wheelchair around campus and along the river during long promenades. Soon they were living together. Despite his illness, Towne traveled often and wide to accept awards, receive honorary doctorates, and, until he lost his ability to speak, give lectures. Malini always traveled with him. Although they seemed to lead a happy life in the Upper East Side—and even though he received the best medical care available—shortly after his eighty-first birthday, Malini took Towne to a clinic in Montreux, where they got married two months before he died. She was his only heir and managed his literary estate with firmness. Aside from the occasional foreword to a new edition of her husband’s work, she never published anything of her own. And yet, her fame had grown steadily through the years so that when she died, about three decades after Towne, she was a modest international celebrity.

Most of Malini’s obituaries stayed close to these uncontested basic facts, adding words of praise for the zeal with which she had protected and promoted Towne’s work, a task to which she had given almost her entire life. But there were also critics who claimed that she had done great damage to the writer’s legacy by greedily giving every unpublished scribble to the press—juvenilia he abhorred, intimate papers, damning letters, and other documents that quite obviously tarnished his reputation. Other detractors pointed out that the only good thing about the critical editions that she oversaw was the exquisite cloth binding with gilded lettering. And above everything else, all her opponents denounced the effect of Malini’s litigious tendencies. She spent a great deal of time in court, suing anyone who dared use her husband’s name or work without her consent, which resulted in effectively taking Towne out of the literary conversation and mummifying his work—he could not be quoted, parodied, or pillaged in the ways that keep a writer alive and relevant.

Although opinions on these matters were divided—some believed that any addition to Towne’s body of work was a gift, that the critical editions and compilations were important achievements, that the lawsuits protected the sanctity of his writings—they still referred to verifiable facts. But Malini’s most bitter adversaries had objections whose veracity was harder to corroborate. For those who had not been close to Towne, the tales could not be more than hearsay, however eager they were to believe them. Still, it was true that many of the writer’s former close friends had, despite some incongruities, similar stories about Malini. It was said, for instance, that her Hindu halo (her conspicuously austere garments, her references to deities and myths, her palms so often pressed together in front of her chest) was an affectation acquired after moving in with Towne—even if born in India, Martha’s father, an Illinois dentist, had no recollection of his native land, and her mother was of Irish descent. If true, this would only mean that Malini was somewhat frivolous in character—a harmless accusation. Other allegations, however, were far graver. Most former friends claimed to have been cut off from Towne by Malini, who had isolated him completely. Of course, several people from his old circle remained close, but it was said that she had the final word on whom Towne was allowed to see. She only took him out, some alleged, to attend highly publicized events (presumably for large fees), while keeping him away from the intimate dinners and gatherings where more vibrant and meaningful conversation took place. According to other rumors, still harder to validate, Malini abused and terrorized the invalid writer by not speaking to him for days, by neglecting to wash him, and by underfeeding him. Someone claimed to have seen him reduced to a soiled heap in a dark room.

As a Towne scholar, Harry Davis was familiar with these stories and believed he could tell truth from slander. Moreover, he had formed his own opinion after meeting Malini at public events and speaking with her on the phone over a dozen times. He had first called her some six years before her death to ask for her blessing for a compilation he was putting together of Towne’s lesser-known journalistic pieces. She was, he thought, tense and maybe frightened under her white, calm surface. She seldom raised her voice above a whisper and spoke in a hurried staccato that, perhaps, she hoped would pass for assertiveness. In time, he discovered that her conversation was limited to issues that concerned her directly—practical matters, for the most part. Because of her age, some sort of strategy, or simply her vanity (Davis could not tell which), each time they spoke, Malini asked him to start from scratch and remind her who he was and tell her everything about his project. Invariably, this was followed by her legal admonitions. There was something petty about her, and he thought that very pettiness was precisely what made her incapable of the monstrous deeds she was accused of. In his view, a monster could never be so fastidious and insecure. In fact, lawsuits aside, Davis found her quite harmless. Vain, incompetent, and possessive—yes. But to him, there was something touching about these demerits. In short, he did not believe the darker stories told about her and was convinced these myths were misogynistic reactions of the old guard who could not stand to see the work of the great man in the hands of a woman.

Davis’s compilation got mired in endless exchanges with attorneys, agents, and publishers, and it never saw the light. Still, after he had given up, he kept calling Malini a couple of times a year. These awkward conversations had no clear purpose and never led anywhere, but if Davis insisted on them, it was because Martha Malini was the strongest living link to Towne, whose work he revered. It was Towne who had instilled in him the desire to become a writer; it was Towne to whom he had devoted seven years of his youth at a doctoral program; it was Towne’s books he taught his students one semester after the other; it was Towne’s voice he had to suppress in each novel he tried to write. He had barely been born when the great writer died. So, even if he found her somewhat questionable, Davis stayed in touch with Malini. Each time they spoke, after the customary reminders and clarifications (during their last conversations, Davis felt that she pretended to pretend to remember him), she invariably would deliver a long jeremiad. She was so busy and had no life of her own. Not a moment to herself. Every second of her existence was dedicated to Towne. A foreword to a commemorative edition, a speech at the Frankfurt Fair, an exhibition of his manuscripts at the American Academy in Rome, managing the foundation, a tribute at the PEN Festival, the sale of some papers to Princeton, interviews with the press, a reading at the British Library, commissioning new translations into Japanese, meetings with agents. It never ended. And the lawsuits. Always the lawsuits. Copyright infringements, libel, plagiarism. There simply was not enough time. She had not a moment to herself. No life of her own. I have no life of my own, she repeated over and over again.

Eventually, Davis stopped calling. Malini had unleashed her lawyers on two young writers who had published experimental texts based on some of Towne’s stories. One of them refused to pay his fine and was sentenced to prison. That the young author, who was also a performance artist, seemed rather excited about the verdict did not help Davis. Like many others, he felt Malini had gone too far. Besides, Davis’s own writing career had finally taken off, and he lost interest in his academic pursuits in general and in Towne as a scholarly subject in particular. His moderately successful first book freed him from the great author’s overwhelming influence. He lost all contact with Malini. She died three or four years later.

One month after her death, Davis received a call from Malini’s attorneys. He played the message several times, searching for a ciphered meaning in the few recorded words asking him to return the call as soon as possible. Surprise yielded to fear. Could Malini be suing him from beyond the grave? He went through all the articles he had ever written about Towne, searching for unattributed quotations or defamatory passages. A few paraphrased segments worried him. Once he had all his published papers and monographs at hand, he called back. The conversation was too short for anyone to notice the tremor in his voice. They simply asked him to come in at his earliest convenience. It was about an important matter they could not discuss over the phone.

The following morning, Harry Davis was sitting at a conference table together with four lawyers and Michael Chatham, Towne’s literary agent. They read Malini’s will. Most of her assets went to hospitals and libraries in New York and Kolkata. There was only one legatee who was an individual, and his name came up at the end. Davis was the sole inheritor of Francis Towne’s literary estate.

He decided to keep the news to himself until he could make sense of it. Malini had not left a letter or any kind of explanation, and he needed a narrative. The world had changed from one moment to the next, without any transition. It was like with magic tricks, where the process is concealed from the spectator, who is presented only with a result. Or like pure chance—an effect without a visible cause. Yes, it was as if his name had been entered into a raffle. Absurd as it was, this made more sense than any other explanation. Why would Malini bequeath him the estate? She would never have recognized his face in a crowd. She barely knew his name—just enough to feign that she had forgotten it. Had she secretly been following his career and reading his writings about Towne? Had she been testing him all those years? Perhaps she had read Davis’s novel and deemed him Towne’s rightful heir. Davis did not care about Malini’s literary judgment, but this mere possibility flattered him. Maybe she was lonely—completely lonely. Maybe Towne’s circle, her only society since her early twenties, had shunned her. Maybe Davis’s calls had been her only social interactions outside her professional duties. This seemed even more ridiculous than the secret lottery. She was disliked, no doubt, but she must have been surrounded by sycophants and freeloaders. Legions of hypocrites surely had been working on her steadily for years, hoping to be written into her will.

About ten days later, he saw his own name in the papers. Since the lawyers were bound to silence, Michael Chatham must have been responsible for the leak. The multiple calls he received from his office seemed to confirm this. Chatham, who had once turned Davis down as a client with a form letter, now wanted to sign him on as soon as possible—it would make sense to consolidate everything, he said. He also pushed Davis to release a statement at once. Davis wrote a short text expressing his surprise at the honor conferred on him, acknowledging Malini’s tremendous work over the last decades, and promising to do everything within his reach to preserve and promote Towne’s legacy by making it more accessible to everyone.

Immediately after the announcement, Davis was overwhelmed with congratulatory messages and requests for interviews. At first, he tried to send personal responses but soon was using the same template for everyone. He agreed to see a few journalists, as long as there was no video involved, a ban he stopped enforcing after a few days. In all his interviews his main point always was that, as an executor, he wished to disappear behind Towne’s work. He would just be a facilitator. Besides, he had his own career to look after, and he wanted his own pursuits as an author to remain apart from his tasks regarding the estate. But he discovered it was impossible to keep these spheres separate. Davis’s book sales soared once his name became associated with Towne’s. The first edition had been released by an independent press, but Chatham made a new deal with Towne’s publisher: they would reissue Davis’s first novel and sign him for two new books. Davis knew this sudden success was because of Towne—but he also felt he deserved it.

With the new contract came promotional obligations. For a while, Davis was all over the media. Despite his best efforts, every feature or interview at some point veered toward Towne and the estate. His name always came with the same apposition—he had become “Harry Davis, Francis Towne’s literary executor.” After a few weeks, he realized that he would spend more time promoting Towne’s work than his own. Malini had scheduled numerous commitments months and even years before her death, many of which Davis now had to honor. The Guadalajara Book Fair, the ZEE Jaipur and the Hay festivals, UNESCO, and the Berlin State Library resulted in a leave of absence from his university position. Between trips, he had to deal with a constant stream of requests. Someone wanted to put together a compilation (very much like the one he had planned years ago); someone was thinking of adapting one of Towne’s novels for the screen; someone planned to reissue his radio interviews. And then, of course, the lawyers. Davis was far from litigious and intended to manage the legal aspect of the estate in a more open way, but almost every day he was presented with documents that required his consideration, his signature, and, sometimes, his presence in court.

When he received the inheritance, Davis had just started work on his second book. Now, a few months later, he found it impossible to regain the lost momentum. The plot, the tone, and the structure were clear in his mind, and yet he was unable to write a convincing page. To make more time for himself, he hired a personal assistant. Although at first it embarrassed him to have one, his assistant soon became a crucial presence in his life. Still, regardless of how much work he delegated, there were too many social appointments and issues that demanded his personal attention. And whenever he found a spare moment and managed to overcome his exhaustion, everything he wrote seemed lifeless.

Little changed over the next three years or so. He honored all the commitments inherited from Malini, but these engagements led to new ones—more book fairs, universities, literary festivals, and libraries. The foundation alone was almost a full-time job. Sometimes he was invited to read some of his own texts or give a workshop, but after a while, he started to turn down these events. It was embarrassing to be able to read only from his first book, written too long ago, and to give writing advice he was unable to follow. He did, however, give several talks and keynote addresses on Towne’s work. Because of his constant travels, he finally had to give up his teaching position, so he welcomed every chance to lecture and even started to pursue these opportunities, although they were all related to Towne.

Five or seven years ago, Davis moved to the country—someplace near Hudson. They say he finds the New York literary scene oppressive. Every six months, he has lunch with his editor. At first, they used to discuss Davis’s novel in progress and had passionate conversations about the books that would follow it. In time, however, their meals started to revolve around literary gossip, TV miniseries, and frequent flyer programs. Davis stopped asking for extensions—it was understood that he had been granted an open-ended one. Both his editor and his agent still believe country life will help his work. Since he moved Upstate, Davis has become a very private man. Except for his public appearances connected to the master’s legacy and the occasional interview (where he avoids talking about himself), he is barely seen. His compilation of Towne’s early journalistic pieces is due out any day now.

[stealmyheartaway]

i worked for a little school district in a no-name unrecognizable rural town that disney brought legal threats against for the choir singing songs without permission, and i have a friend whose school had legal contact from nintendo because a clip of the band playing nintendo music without permission got a few thousand views on youtube... and these are just my personal anecdotes as a relative nobody >_>'

both companies have a pretty well documented history of coming out of nowhere, swinging ridiculously hard at potential violators of their intellectual property rights. disney fans are notorious snitches: the same form where artists can request permission to use disney IP in projects has an option for non-artists to report use of disney IP without permission

i'm not saying anyone should respect IP holder rights and trademark law, they're majorly stifling of human creativity and wouldn't exist in a world where capitalism wasn't so dominant, but it's incorrect and, worse, pretty irresponsible to say 'hey go put your fan works up for sale without much forethought it'll be fine' when you have no idea whether it will be or not. anyone who wants to make money from a fan work should be seriously invested in learning about how they can do so in a manner that won't get people in suits at their house with a cease and desist and/or gag order

also, just in recent memory, i can point to tumblr user pukicho who had to pull from sale and redesign that one little doodle shirt because someone decided it was too recognizable as pikachu and thus too much of a legal risk to let sell

there's a whole trend on twitter of replying 'i want this on a shirt' to disney content in order to get bots that generate shirts from twitter images to make shirts featuring disney IP because disney is notoriously litigious about that sort of thing. i don't want to be mean i'm not trying to kick your shit in i promise but why would you double down. was your internet experience up until now truly so different from mine and all of my friends' that you had no idea how big a deal this could be. is this bait or trolling or just mistaken what's up [rhetorical question]

Guys I don't think Disney would have cared if you drew Mickey as an anime girl with big boobs or his saying I did 9/11 before this year. The main difference is you can now slap pictures of him on anything and put him on mass production and sell it. Companies never give a shit about fanart. If you're going to waste your time smugly drawing a character you don't like at least put it on redbubble

[podawful]

Is Ethan Ralph SOBER? - POD AWFUL PODCAST LF13

Ethan Ralph claims to be "sober as a judge." "OBJECTION!" screamed the entire internet. After Mr. Metokur's New Skeleton Bone Drive Stream, I joined Ethan in a Twitter Space and the results were a bit disastrous. As a small-town Pizza Lawyer, and someone who has never had a drop of the drink, it's not really my place to re-litigate this whole issue. Speaking of litigious, Gabe Hoffman shows up to theorize that Ethan has had a stroke. So I leave it to the court of public opinion on whether or not Ethan is truly sober or not. We play the evidence, hear the testimonies (poetry by Metokur and Alex Stein), bring in my Mexican doctor as an expert witness, and during recess get confronted by an INSANE JAN 6 TRUTHER. When the defense rests it's time to declare: TOTAL SEKTUR DEATH.

https://podawful.pizza/posts/2383 

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBxGI--CtRI 

PIZZA FUND: http://podawful.pizza 

RSS FEED: http://podawful.com/rss 

YOUTUBE: http://awful.tube  

DISCORD CULT: http://podawful.com/discord   

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INSTAGRAM: http://podawful.com/instagram   

DLIVE: http://podawful.com/dlive 

ODYSEE: http://podawful.com/odysee 

FACEBOOK: http://podawful.com/facebook  

MERCH: http://podawful.shop   

http://podawful.com  

#podawful #ethanralph #metokur

Pod Awful Is an anti-podcast hosted by Jesse P-S

Check out this episode!

[whatisonthemoon]

Moonstruck: The Reverend and His Newspaper

Preface

I became  interested in the Reverend Moon and The Washington Times while reporting on the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings for Vanity Fair in 1991. The Washington Times aggressively covered the Thomas hearings both on the front page and in its editorial pages--with multiple stories about the identity of the suspected leaker of Anita Hill’s explosive testimony. During this period, I learned that Times’ reporter Dawn Weyrich Ceol, daughter of the conservative icon, Paul Weyrich, had resigned from the paper claiming that her coverage of the Hill/Thomas hearings had been re-written and politicized by her by editors.

I was further interested when I learned that the paper’s deputy editor at the time, Josette Shriner, hailed from the same town in New Jersey that I had. I remembered well her father,  James Sheeran, a former WWII paratrooper and FBI agent and the Republican mayor of our town, West Orange. Few could forget his public anguish during his campaign with the Unification Church to win back his three daughters who had become converts. Indeed, it was Mayor Sheeran’s tenacity that triggered  investigations into Moon--with Senate hearings in 1977 and later tax evasion and perjury charges that eventually sent the Reverend to prison. The fact that the fiercely proud Irish Catholic patriarch had won his battle against Moon- but lost his daughters  [though Josette reportedly left the Church a few years ago]- was the stuff of Greek tragedy.

My editor Tina Brown seemed keen on the story--and dispatched me back to Washington. I spent nearly a month there--at some expense--interviewing dozens of staffers as well as boosters and critics of the newspaper. The conventional wisdom that reporters, famously thin-skinned, resist the spotlight when turned on themselves, proved not to be the case with this story. It seemed that everybody in Washington wanted to talk about The Washington Times--including the paper’s staffers. But, the most generous and garrulous sources turned out to be among the most influential players in the conservative establishment.

I spent another two months doing research into Moon and his Church. It was within his Church that I encountered the veil of silence—with the exception of former Moonies. But some of the stories from former Church members were as bizarre as science fiction. Hence, I had made the decision to tape all interviews relating to the story.

Because of the tapes, I thought I was home free. But alas, as I would learn in ten years on staff at Vanity Fair, there is no guarantee of publication until the magazine hits the stands. Stories were sometimes killed even after they went to “blues” - an advanced and expensive stage of print production.

I was never given a specific reason why this story was killed. However, reservations were expressed about litigious Moonies. I think it is fair to say that taking on a billionaire mogul, especially one who happens to believe he’s the Messiah, with powerful pals in the White House, and more money (and lawyers) than God, was the primary, and perhaps, only factor.

MOONSTRUCK: The Reverend and His Newspaper

In  May, The Washington Times will celebrate its tenth anniversary as  "the conservative alternative to the Washington Post," with a month long party. While launching a second newspaper in a major city is an extraordinary achievement in ordinary times, sustaining it through a recession that has silenced dozens of newspapers nationwide, is nothing less than astonishing. Not only has the paper survived, it has carved a niche for itself inside the Beltway, championed by no less than a current and  past President. "Quite simply, life would be hell in Washington without it," says William F. Buckley, founder of the National Review and the guardian of American conservatism. However, the existence of the Times owes virtually nothing to its circulation numbers or advertising revenues, the traditional criteria  of a newspaper's health, but rather to the munificence of its owner, the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Though the Times is technically  a part of News World Communications, a media conglomerate owned by Moon’s Unification  Church, few doubt who the power is behind the checkbook. Nearly a decade of public relations' work assuring the public that the Times had no ties to the Reverend flew out the window last July when the 72 year old Moon made a surprise appearance at a party at the newspaper's downtown headquarters.

The Reverend, who has described himself as the Messiah, addressed some 200 staffers, wearing a beige suit and a snug-fitting silk shirt. According to one guest,  Moon spoke to the gathering in "rapid-fire, high-pitched peals of oratorical Korean alternating with incomprehensible English," with both languages requiring the translation services of Moon's close ally, Times President, Bo Hi Pak. Bristling with emotion while thumping the podium, he told a stunned audience that he had already poured a staggering  $830 million into the Times. Moreover, he said that he personally raises the $7 million dollars each month needed to keep the newspaper afloat.

If Moon’s figures are correct, they are a record-shattering sum for the newspaper business, surpassing previous estimates of $35 to $50 million annual losses for the paper. Time-Life pulled the plug on The Washington Star when its losses hit $30 million while The Dallas Herald owners closed their doors after less than $20 million had seeped into the red. Nevertheless, Moon told his audience that it was his privilege to fund a newspaper which was part of the fight for a new, moral, and Christian America-- one free of drugs, crime, and homosexuality.          

According  to John Podhoretz, an editor at the paper at the time, the evening's most embarrassing moment came when  Reverend Moon demanded of his audience of paid employees, "Do you like me?...Some people don't like me...You don't like me, do you?...Do you want to see more of me here?" After a protracted silence, a scattering of applause broke out,  primarily from the two dozen Church members present. His remarks concluded, Moon vanished into his Rolls Royce limousine.

For the editors and staffers who have doggedly pursued respectability and acceptance in the nation's capitol, it was a demoralizing evening. Once again, they would have to face charges of being a Church-controlled organ and hear their newspaper, which even Times’ critic Michael Kinsley describes as "perhaps graphically the most beautiful paper in America,” contemptuously dismissed as "the Moonie-paper." Their fears were soon confirmed. Six months later, a PBS Frontline segment on Moon hurled a volley of charges--the most serious being that the paper is in violation of the Foreign Registration Act, as a political entity financed by Korean and Japanese money.  Nor was it the first time the charge has been made.

Worse,  credible rumors persisted that  Reverend Moon, despite his boasts to the contrary, had recently taken some mighty punches with record losses in several segments of his empire. How long can the Reverend throw away $84 million annually on a newspaper that has yet to turn a profit?  

The paper's birth in 1982 could not have been more auspiciously timed, only months after The Washington  Star, the sole challenger to the Post's supremacy, had died. Conservatives, at the apex of their power with Reagan's presidency, lamented the Star's demise and hungered for an alternative newspaper that spoke to them.  Although many had misgivings over Moon's ownership of the paper, the hiring of veteran editor James Whelan from the eminently conservative Sacramento Union, owned by right wing crusader Richard Mellon Scaife, did much to soothe jitters. Whelan says he signed an ironclad contract which stipulated "there could be no direct contact between any of the editorial staff and the Moon organization," and was able to assure staffers that "Church officials understand the only way The Washington Timescan become anything is for them to keep their hands off of it."  

To further bolster credibility,  Smith Hempstone, whose venerable Republican family had once owned The Star, was brought on board as executive editor. When asked at the time whether  he had  misgivings working for a Moon-owned enterprise, Hempstone quipped, "I've worked for lots of publishers who thought they were God."      

Soon, an extraordinary romance bloomed between right wing ideologues and Church members--a courtship fueled not by common interests but by a common enemy: the dragon of communism. In 1982, communism was still, if not a national obsession, a Republican one. Ronald Reagan was lambasting the former Soviet Union as "the evil empire," while Reverend  Moon was telling followers that communism was the earthly manifestation of Satan.

As no one else was about to fork over the bucks to start a major newspaper, there was a great urgency to make the marriage work. According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, who later became the Times editor-in-chief, "I went around cap in hand all over the country to raise funds after The Star folded and I talked to the one hundred wealthiest people in America. All everyone wanted to know was when they were going to get their money back."

At the Times’ lavish debut gala, held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, some 2000 Washingtonians showed up for lobster and crab claws. While protestors outside picketed  the event with placards reading, "You've been Duped by The Moonies," and  "The Washington Times is a Moonie Paper," inside staffers and Church officials were rubbing shoulders with conservative heavyweights of the day like Moral Majority co-founder Richard Viguerie and S. I. Hayakawa, the late Republican Senator from California.

From the outset, no expense was spared on the paper. More than twenty million dollars was spent converting a shabby warehouse on the outskirts of D.C. into a sparkling ode-to-God office building, replete with marble floors and walls,

bronze fittings, oversized doors, cathedral windows and a state-of-the-art, computerized newsroom. "The office joke is,” noted one staffer, “that if the newspaper fails, they can always turn the building into a Church." With unlimited funds on tap, Whelan and his staff were able to put out an impressive, lively, well-illustrated newspaper. In its early months, the paper didn't

even solicit advertisers. Free introductory subscription offers drenched the nation's capitol and bright orange boxes selling the daily sprouted up at every street corner--right next to the Post’s boxes. A host of toys and ploys were offered to new subscribers including a raffle for free Caribbean vacations.

But  persistence had its rewards and circulation grew--slowly but steadily  to roughly 100,000, where it remains  today. Although never a threat to the Post, with a circulation of 830,000, the Times established itself as a voice and presence to be reckoned with.

The paper's most powerful booster, President Reagan, let it be known that he "reads the  Times first thing every morning at breakfast." It quickly became apparent that the Reagan Administration was doing more than just reading the paper; the Times became the enviable recipient of numerous leaks and exclusives, including coveted interviews with Reagan. The paper was the first to report the President’s  intention to seek re-election, the resignation of James Watt, and the defection of KBG honcho Vitaly Yurchenko, among other scoops.

Although its critics charged that the paper was little more than a house organ for Administration policy, the Times was the first to break the story that former Reagan aide Michael Deaver was lobbying former contacts with unprecedented greed-- charges that led to Deaver's conviction--and even investigated charges about an alleged callboy ring servicing high-level Republicans (the charges proved unfounded).

Among the ace journalists currently on staff are foreign correspondents Paul Bedard and whiz-kid Warren Strobel, national  reporters George Archibald and Rowan Scarborough, who broke the Navy’s scandalous handling of the explosion on the battleship Iowa which killed 47 sailors, and Metro writers Patrick Boyle and the eagle-eyed Paul Rodriguez who dug out stories on the House check-cashing scandal months before it became news elsewhere.

Notable among  early hirees were the children of conservative luminaries,  a

group dubbed the "mini-neocons.” They included John Podhoretz,  whose

parents Norman  Podhoretz and Midge Dexter are a veritable conservative institution, Liz Kristol, Irving's daughter,  Danny Wattenberg, son of Times’ columnist Ben, and Dawn Weyrich Ceol, daughter of conservative icon, Paul Weyrich.

Podhoretz, 30, who left the Times last October after five years as a columnist and an editor, describes his tenure at the paper as a "wonderful and extraordinary opportunity." Known for his encyclopedic memory (he was a five time Jeopardy winner) , Podhoretz says he had little patience with colleagues who complained about the Church owners, who, he says, stayed clear of the editorial side "99% of the time. There was exceptional freedom at the paper, but the price of working there was that sometimes you had to carry water for a madman."

Podhoretz spent time with the "madman" on four separate occasions, including the July party where Moon spoke for nearly 45 minutes. "He was ranting and pacing  behind  the podium," remembered Podhoretz. "He wanted credit for the paper and wanted to be thanked and no one felt very grateful. He was saying things like, `Maybe I should shut this place down?' in this rhetorical style and then he'd say, `But I'm not going to!' He started telling us this parable with nautical imagery about how he was the fuel of our boat but then he tripped over the parable so it made no sense. He was more histrionic than just whining. There was a pall of embarrassment over the room. Basically, he was there to remind us how grateful we should be."      

Podhoretz describes his decision to leave the Times as a "personal one which I will not discuss." However, some of his colleagues say that he was deeply troubled upon his return from an Alaskan fishing trip he took with Moon last August. Moon used the occasion, say sources, to expound on his "Zionist conspiracy theories" and what Podhoretz perceived to be undiluted anti-Semitism.  Indeed, some of Moon's teachings contend that the Jews have "suffered 4000 years of punishment for killing Christ."

"Everyone knows there's a price for working at the Times," said former staffer Mary Belcher. A  current staffer notes that the newspaper “knows they have to offer more to get people to work here. I don't know anyone who wouldn't leave for a job at the Post, " despite generally higher salaries at the Times. Jack  Shafer, editor of D.C.'s alternative  weekly, City Paper,  and a longtime Times' critic, derided the broadsheet’s payroll  as "Moon welfare."

Charlotte Hayes, who wrote a hilarious and snarky memoir  in The New Republic entitled "I was a Moonie Gossip Columnist" about her tenure at the paper, still laments the loss of her generous expense account. "This is on the Rev," Hayes, a thoroughbred conservative,  would tell sources as she lunged for meal checks. “The Times,” she added drolly, “is a place for free-market conservatives to escape the free market."      

Despite the financial perks, many reporters have been unable to make the leap. Jan Ziff, a top Mideast  correspondent for the BBC,  remembers being offered the prestigious job of Deputy Foreign editor several years ago while she was between jobs.  "The money was fabulous, just fabulous,"  she said, "and I was practically out of money. It was very, very tempting but the more I thought about it, I just couldn't work for the Moonies."  

In July, 1984, founding editor James Whelan discovered that he could no longer work for the Moonies either. "The rule was that there had to be a wall separating the paper and  the Church,"  says Whelan, "and they were constantly challenging it."  He objected to Moon’s newsroom visits and he said he felt harassed by complaints from Bo Hi Pak—the Reverend’s right hand man--about  the paper's reporting on Church matters.

Until quite recently, all coverage of the Church and/or Moon was conducted via the wire services to avoid charges of conflict of interest. Church officials, says Whelan, were especially miffed by the lack of a positive write-up on Moon's mass wedding of 2075 couples at Madison Square Garden in 1982, an event that included 75 staffers. Then there was the paper's reliance on AP reporting of Moon's appearance before a Senate subcommittee concerning charges of tax evasion and perjury filed against him in 1982 by federal prosecutors. "We might as well give our money to the Washington Post!" Pak hollered at Whelan.

"I have blood on my hands," Whelan says of his tenure at the Times. Lately, he has made something of a career out of Moon-bashing. He says that the newspaper's owners agreed they would never use the Times’ building for any Church-sponsored business. "A week after my leaving, they broke that rule, "  lamented Whelan, who noted that the building has since become a veritable dance hall for social functions for the Church's hundreds of front organizations. "Another rule was that we would not have any Moonie officials at any of our tables at any events such as White House Correspondence Dinners," said Whelan. "There is almost a bidding war to see which news organizations can seat the greatest number of heavy hitters at their tables. Well, a year after I left, that rule went out the window and a very startled  Donald Regan, then Chief of Staff, found himself seated next to Bo Hi Pak." Ronald Godwin,  the current  President of the Times, disputes all of Whelan's charges, adding that "Whelan was asked to leave."

After a brief stint as editor by Smith Hempstone, Whelan's shoes were filled by Arnaud de Borchgrave, who says he has read "a  confidential  file," and concluded that Whelan was simply  "very greedy. He was asking for a limo around the clock, a driver on standby.  He thought this was an endless source of welfare for himself. And it's very convenient when people don't get what they want to shout `the Moonies have taken over.'"  Though de Borchgrave was not the first or even fourth choice for the job, he proved to be a match of, well, divine inspiration.

A veteran of Newsweek, the indefatigable de Borchgrave was a legend of sorts, having covered a dozen wars including seven tours of Vietnam where he was twice wounded. But in 1980, he was fired for politicizing his reporting with his fervent anticommunism. Born in Belgium and educated in English public schools, he has been nicknamed "the short Count" for his eccentricities and upper class drawl.  Famous for his year round tan, the George Hamilton of the Beltway has been said to go into combat zones carrying a sun reflector. Although an irrepressible name dropper, he is nonetheless regarded with bemused affection by most staffers. "Arnaud has no hidden agenda," says Mary Belcher, "he wears everything on his sleeve."

I caught up with the jet setting journalist at his father-in-law's condo in Los Angeles, a pit stop on his return from a vacation in Acapulco. "I've never worked for Moon in my life," he began, clinging to the notion that businesses owned by the Church, such as The Washington Times, are not Moon-controlled.

"If it was owned by Reverend Moon," he insisted, "I wouldn't have been there. I've never known such freedom in my 45 year career. I fired 25 people who were members of the Unification Church without  ever knowing they were members and I never got a phone call saying you can't fire so-and-so."

De Borchgrave literally lived at the newspaper for much of the first three years of his watch. "I installed a bed in my office and worked around the clock," he says proudly, "to turn this damn thing around and put it on the map." In addition to

revamping the newspaper, plastering the newsroom with his personal memos known as  "Arnaudgrams," he started the weekly magazine Insight after shutting down a short-lived national edition of the newspaper.  

As one of the capital’s marathon party goers, de Borchgrave's social connections opened significant political doors for the newspaper. Republican luminaries, including the Reagans, former CIA chief Bill Casey and Senator Bob Dole, became frequent dinner guests at the de Borchgrave Georgetown home.

Though de Borchgrave's first year at the helm coincided with Reverend Moon's time in federal prison for tax evasion and perjury, de Borchgrave says he was untroubled by the matter. "I investigated through the Justice Department exactly what led to his conviction," he says, "and five assistant attorney generals recommended against pursuing the case.  He can barely speak English. Obviously, he is not filling out his own tax returns. He knows nothing about it.

“I don't fill out my own tax returns."

Convinced of Moon's innocence, de Borchgrave became one of the guru's most outspoken champions. In August 1985, following Moon's release from Danbury Federal Penitentiary, de Borchgrave gave a rousing speech for 1700 of the Reverend's supporters at a welcome home bash. Months later, he published an open letter in the Times, arguing for a presidential pardon for Moon.

De Borchgrave denies publishing the letter at Moon's behest but concedes that "a pardon is very important to him." Podhoretz, who described de Borchgrave "as a force of nature," says "the letter was entirely Arnaud's  show. I don't think he takes prodding from anyone."

Asked whether the letter didn't make him a target for critics charging that he was pandering to his boss, de Borchgrave retorts, "Let them take a shot at me. Who cares?  I've survived much worse, including 17 wars."          

Indeeed, de Borchgrave shrugged off the resignation of four editors in 1987 who accused him of being a "lackey" of the Church owners. William Cheshire, who was the paper's editorial page editor of three years, issued a statement that "it is no longer possible for the Times to maintain independence from the Unification Church under the editorship of Mr. de Borchgrave." At stake was a planned editorial that criticized South Korean President Chun Do Hwan for a crackdown on human rights and a retreat from democracy. Cheshire, who became editor of The Arizona Republic, claims that after de Borchgrave made a visit upstairs to Sang Kook Han, the senior vice president of News World and longtime Moon pal,  the editorial was rewritten "changing its essence 180 degrees."  

De Borchgrave doesn't deny speaking with Han, who once served as the Korean Ambassador to Norway and Finland, but says he saw no impropriety about incorporating an owner's input. "It was a personality thing," says de Borchgrave, "Cheshire hated my guts. He felt he should have had my job."

As for the undiluted conservative slant of the paper's coverage, de Borchgrave makes no apology.  "I'm not a rightwing fruitcake," he says.  "I'm a Republican. Ben (Bradlee)  says, `I'm an independent.'  Well, that's hog wash. Ben is a liberal Democrat. There's nothing wrong with that at all. What's wrong is to conceal where one is coming from."  

De Borchgrave even  wrote a passionate editorial denouncing the termination of U.S. financial aid to the Contras and ran it on the front page. Inserted at the end was an announcement that the Times owners were donating $100,000 to a newly created fund, the Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters, to keep the Contras armed.  De Borchgrave denies reports that he was in cahoots with Oliver North, whom he claimed he barely knew at the time, explaining that he was simply "trying to raise money for the Contras. I had nothing to do with running the fund. I just had the idea for starting it."  Nor did he see any ethical problem for a newspaper to solicit funds for a guerrilla group seeking to topple a government. When asked how he would have responded if Ben Bradlee had solicited $100,000 for the Sandinistas, de Borchgrave is uncharacteristically quiet.

The one blunder he admits to was running a page one story under a banner headline during the 1988 election asserting that Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis saw a psychiatrist after his brother's death. The story, attributed to the candidate's sister-in-law, turned out to be false, and prompted the resignation of reporter Gene Grabowski. "The Dukakis story was bogus," says conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, "and it really hurt their credibility."  

“It was a deadline rush. I admitted I goofed and apologized,” says de Borchgrave. “How many people admit they goof in this business?! No one!’

Unlike his predecessors, mixing newspaper functions with other Church businesses did not trouble de Borchgrave. “He's appeared at every Church picnic, conference, symposium, seminar, and clam bake under the sun," says Whelan. De Borchgrave doesn't deny having socialized with Moon and Church officials, and admits to taking fishing trips with the Reverend, even flying to Seoul to attend Moon's 70th birthday party. "The (editorial) wall was very important," says de Borchgrave, "but I didn't go out of my way to insult the owners, which is what Whelan did. I went out of my way to be diplomatic with them."  

While de Borchgrave views the Times as just one of the many businesses owned by the Unification Church, many regard it as the crown jewel of Moon's empire. Moreover, says Whelan, it is the medium for Moon to garner the necessary respectability to accomplish his goals which, he adds, are nothing less than “the conquest of global power in order to establish a  totalitarian theocracy headed by Moon."  

Reverend Sun Myung Moon is a man of no small ambition. The entrepreneurial guru claims that Jesus Christ visited him when he was 16 years old on a North Korean hillside on Easter Sunday, 1936.  According to Moon's teachings, Jesus told the young man that he was to be sent on "an important mission to accomplish the fulfillment of God's providence."  In 1990, Moon went even further, telling a stunned San Francisco audience that the world was in search of its "true parent, the Messiah. To fulfill  this very purpose, I have been called upon by God."    

To accomplish his destiny, Moon created his own religion, founding the Unification Church in 1954, a theological stew of Christianity, Taoism and Oriental mysticism.  For his anti-communist and religious activism, Moon says he did three stints in a North Korean jail, though the government of South Korea, where Moon found refuge in 1950, claimed his crime was draft evasion, a charge denied by the Church. A French journalist has also charged that the last arrest in 1955 was for adultery and bigamy, which Church officials say is "absolutely untrue."

In 1960, the 40-year-old Moon remarried for the fourth and last time, to 18 year old Hak Ja Han. They have thirteen children. In Church theology they are regarded as the "True Parents" of the entire human race and are addressed by their followers as  "True Mother" and "True Father." Marriage is crucial to spiritual development according to Moon, whose teachings state that Christ failed in his mission by getting crucified and also by having never married. Moon has been reputed to speak for sixteen hours at a time and according to James Baughman, president of the American Unification Church, True Father is in contact with the spirit world.  Asked to be more specific, Baughman claims that Moon has direct channels to Adam, Jonah and Lucifer.

Unification missionaries first came to America in 1960 and laid the foundation for Moon's arrival in 1971.  Followers were encouraged to call themselves "Moonies," and did so until quite recently when the term was abandoned because  it had acquired a pejorative connotation. The Church's aggressive recruitment techniques created a public relations disaster, not unlike that of rival Scientology. Scores of parents claimed that their children had been kidnapped and brainwashed into evangelical robots spewing the miracles of Moon; travelers  in the 1970s often had to dodge clusters of young Moonies at airports peddling flowers and handing out Church literature.

Then there were the mass weddings. In 1982, almost 11,000 devotees who had never met each other, were paired off by Moon and married en masse at Madison Square Garden and in Seoul.  Church officials claim that today their flock comprises more than three million members, with the great majority living in Japan and Korea. Although the Church says they have 5,000 American members, congressional sources say the figure is less than 3,000.

In late 1982, the bubble burst for Moon when he was convicted on four counts of perjury and tax evasion. He eventually served 11 months of an 18 month sentence followed by two months in a halfway house.  

Despite his criminal record, Moon decided that he wanted to be a world leader, not just an evangelist--and he was willing to pay for it.  Some insiders contend that the Unification Church was the number one contributor to conservative causes throughout the 1980s. In  1984, the Church gave $750,000 to the Conservative Alliance, a group spearheaded by the late Terry Dolan. It was a transaction riddled with irony: the Church fiercely condemns homosexuality and Dolan, a closeted gay man, was already sick with AIDS.   Two years later, the Church bailed direct mail king Richard Viguerie out of financial trouble by buying his Virginia office  building for a whopping $10 million dollars. Observers saw the transaction as a reward for a longtime friendship; Viguerie has handled the Church's direct mail business since the late 60's. In 1988, the Church made a $50,000 contribution to President Bush's re-election campaign.

In pursuit of a Presidential pardon for himself, Moon spread even more money around. Paul Laxalt, Reagan's best friend and the former senator from Nevada, was put on a retainer of $50,000 a month plus expenses to lobby Reagan while Sen. Orin Hatch became the point man for the "pardon team." Moon was said to be prepared  to offer a half million dollars to anyone willing to  guarantee him a  pardon from Reagan. Rory O'Connor, who produced the Frontline documentary on Moon, believes that  it was  Nancy Reagan who terminated speculation about any such deal.

From the start, the Times PR team made sure everyone knew it was not the only church-owned paper around, citing The Deseret Times of Salt Lake City, funded by the Mormons, and the well respected Christian  Science Monitor.  "I can't say that the Unification Church is much loopier than some of the tenets in the Mormon Church,” noted Times critic Jack Shafer. “The difference between a cult and a religion seems to be about a hundred years."

However, while there are other Church-owned newspapers, The Washington Times is the only one that is also foreign financed. "To date, the Times has hidden behind freedom of press and freedom of religion," says Lars Erik Nelson, a New York Daily News reporter who has investigated Moon's finances, "but there's no excuse for them not registering under the Foreign Registration Act." That legislation, created in World War II  to prevent the dissemination of German and Japanese  propaganda, specifically states that any newspaper financed by a foreign principal must be registered with the State Department.  

Currently, such diverse organizations as the British Information Services and the Japanese Auto Owners Association,  which publishes sales bulletins, are registered. However, despite the fact that Church officials have admitted that  most of the Times financing comes from Korea and Japan, the newspaper has never been required to register. Registration under the Act, which requires all entities to disclose the source and amounts of its financing, would quickly demystify Moon's empire. Critics contend that the Reagan-Bush Justice Department turned a blind eye to the conservative newspaper's finances and possible violation of the law. Calls to John Martin, whose division at the Justice Department enforces the Act, were not returned.

Seeking to divine the source of the Church's vast wealth, I met with Ronald Godwin, senior vice president of the Times for the last six years, and Tony Webb, their new general manager. The interview was held in Godwin's third floor office at the newspaper, a sparsely decorated room, save for an American flag standing next to Godwin's desk.

Godwin, who was sporting a Rolex and hunting boots, prefers being called Doctor Godwin in deference to a  PhD. he earned at Florida State in planning and management. He is a wiry Southerner in his 50's who previously worked for Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. "I've made a career working for controversial religious leaders," he said. Godwin says he was recruited by Moon’s top aide, Bo Hi Pak, also a supporter and generous contributor to Falwell.

Asked about reported frequent sightings of Moon in the newsroom, Godwin dismisses them as rumor, and asserts that Moon has visited the paper "maybe ten times in ten years. Total." Although Godwin says "there's been no lessening of commitment to the paper, it's fair to say that our owners are expecting an increase in revenue. I don't want to be a foundation publishing house.”

Godwin, who dismissed the Frontline documentary as "the Geraldo show” and a “prostitution of the journalistic process," was particularly irked by the program’s speculations concerning Church's finances. Asked why the Times’ owners haven't revealed their funding to silence their critics, Godwin said, "They regard it as a private business, which it is, and frankly it's none of anyone's business."  In any event, says Godwin, it would be "an exercise in futility" to open up the Times’ books. "As Bill Clinton has learned, the questions would never stop." Webb said that after viewing the Frontline segment, he wanted to know "what the hell is wrong with democracy, the fight against communism, and supporting the troops and Desert Storm?"  

Forty-five minutes into the interview, Webb asked pointedly.  "What's the tone of your story? What's your angle?" Told that the story would  be a profile of the newspaper and its benefactor, Godwin's eyes narrowed. "I didn't fall off of a pumpkin wagon yesterday," he grumbled and signaled that the interview was over. All previously scheduled interviews with other staff members were suddenly canceled. The Washington Times was no longer available to answer questions.  

                                              ***

In July, 1991 de Borchgrave handed over the reins to managing editor Wesley Pruden and became the paper's editor-at-large. Although observers talked of  feuding between the two very different men--the imperial de Borchgrave and the reclusive Pruden, a Baptist from Arkansas--de Borchgrave dismissed such reports. "I simply adore Wes,"  he said. Pruden, who has been in the trenches at the Times since its inception, is best known for his hands-on aggressive editing, known in the newsroom as "Prudenizing," a process that invariably insures that stories have the correct conservative spin.    

Jim Whelan says that he hired Pruden at the urging of Smith Hempstone despite the fact that Pruden had been fired as a staff writer from the now defunct National Observer magazine, according to Whelan and others, for having “doctored” quotes . (Pruden refused repeated requests for an interview.) "He had been on the beach for almost five years," says Whelan. "I hired him and put him on probation for the first year." Eight years ago, he began a thrice weekly column, Pruden on Politics, which he continues to write in addition to running the newspaper. His reign began auspiciously enough with a lunch date on day one with President Bush and then chief of staff, John Sununu.

Directly under Pruden is deputy managing editor, Josette Shiner, perhaps the most enigmatic member of the Times family.  Shiner, an attractive woman of 37, is frequently described as the "number one  Moonie" at the paper.  Some, in fact, regard her as the "de facto power," and one recently departed staffer says that "Josette runs the paper more than Wes." Following Whelan's departure in `84,  Shiner and another Church member, Ted Agres, were made assistant managing editors. While staffers are known to snicker over "the mindless cheerfulness" and "vacant eyes," of some Church colleagues, Shiner gets consistently top marks for her work, even from snipers who call her "the Ice Queen." Recently, she was invited to join the Council of Foreign Relations, nominated by de Borchgrave. "She simply breaks the mold," says Dawn Weyrich Ceol, "You would never know she's a Moonie."

In 1975, 21 year old Josette made headlines when her distraught father, James Sheeran, then the New Jersey State Commissioner of Insurance, charged that he, his wife and 14 year old son had been beaten up by Moon followers when he tried to find Josette and her two sisters at the Church's 200 acre compound in upstate New York. Sheeran, a decorated World War II paratrooper and former FBI agent, had been a two term Republican Mayor of West Orange, New Jersey where he raised his large Irish Catholic family.

Following the lead of her older sister Jamie, Josette had dropped out of the University of Colorado in late 1974 and joined the Church. A third sister, Vicki, signed up with Josette. "I have seen personality changes in my daughters," an anguished Sheeran said at the time. "They seem to think that there's a Communist under every bush and they're seeing God all the time. I really love them, but Moon's got them selling peanuts and other stuff on the street while brainwashing them into thinking that no assault took place."      

Two weeks after the assault, the three blue-eyed Sheeran girls, flanked by Bo Hi Pak and other Church officials, read a prepared statement at a press conference saying "we love our parents very much," but stating they had no intention of leaving the Church. They also denied being brainwashed. In 1982 Josette told The Washington Post that she “joined the church full well knowing it is something not yet understood by society. For me, it has an intellectual appeal."

Although the assault charges were later dropped, the publicity generated by the Sheeran family's distress galvanized state and federal investigations into Moon and his Church, culminating in Moon's eventual indictment for tax evasion in 1982. Despite his war against Moon and the Unification Church,  Sheeran failed to win back his daughters into the family fold and faith. Several years later, however, a family truce was declared, though Sheeran says hopefully, "I still believe the Moon organization will fall by the wayside by its own weight."

Josette eventually returned to college. Upon graduation, she went to work in 1976 in the Washington bureau of the now defunct News World, a Moon owned daily. She was one of the principal forces behind The Washington Times, and some staffers believe that the idea of starting the paper was hers. The Church, however attributes the paper’s founding "to a vision of our Heavenly father," meaning Moon.

Although Josette has a cool, efficient demeanor, she is also a woman of

considerable charm. According to staffers, she is the only Church member at the paper who regularly socializes with non-Church  staffers and editors. Nevertheless, no one doubts her devotion to Moon and the Church.  

In October 1982, the Sheeran sisters were among those married off at the famous Madison Square Garden wedding ceremony to spouses selected for them by Moon. Vicki, who runs a struggling photo agency for the Times, was matched up with a maintenance man at the paper, and Josette was married to Whitney Shiner, who recently completed a doctorate in theology at Yale.

However, former staffer Lisa McCormack said that Whitney was not the first candidate proposed  by Moon. According to another ex-staffer, "Josette was able to nix the first one because she had enough clout with the Church." The couple now have two daughters  and, according to close friend de Borchgrave, "it's a terrific marriage."

Some staffers believe that the wall separating editorial from the Church owners has eroded considerably under Pruden's watch. He has abandoned the practice of relying on wire service copy to cover Church or Moon news, and has published columns and editorials flattering to Moon and his businesses. Pruden has taken a defensive stand on the subject, telling a Post reporter, "No one can find a single word of Church propaganda in this paper."  However, in  January, the paper ran an editorial by Nicholas Eberstadt celebrating the meeting of Moon and North Korean strongman, Kim Il Sung, and chastising the South Korean government for its irritation with Moon's visit.

But  there was no explanation in the column or anywhere else in the Times for the sudden fondness that Moon, the great Cold  Warrior, now feels toward Kim, the world’s most despotic communist dictator. Then there are Moon's other new pals, the Red Chinese, with whom he has invested $250,000 in a Panda car factory.

"Moon was willing to do whatever was necessary to suck up to the Chinese for business and evangelical reasons," says Andrew Ferguson, a speechwriter for President Bush and a former editor of The American Spectator, where he penned a tract critical of the conservatives' alliance with the Unification Church. "[Moon’s] only credential as a conservative was being an anti-communist and now that's shot. It proves that, fundamentally, he's an opportunist."  But the greatest embarrassment for Pruden came three months into his stewardship when Dawn Ceol quit.

Dawn Weyrich Ceol has the kind of fresh-faced, all-American blonde good looks featured in soap commercials.  In 1988, she was hired by the Times at the age of 24 with very little experience.  "After a year on Metro, they promoted me to the national desk,” she said. “It was a tremendous opportunity. I knew I was doing something that people wait fifteen years to do."

Concerned about the baggage of being the daughter of conservative think tank founder Paul Weyrich, she decided to use her married name, Ceol, as her byline. "Because I'm Paul Weyrich's daughter, there's a kind of wariness about  me,"  she  said, "especially from liberals. I have been very careful  and circumspect to have balance in my stories."  For nearly three years, Ceol had smooth sailing in the newsroom--personally unaffected  by office or Church politics. She had not even been “Prudenized" --not until she was assigned to cover the Clarence Thomas hearings.

Ceol had her first whiff of trouble after she filed a story about Anita Hill's initial appearance at Senate hearoings.  Late that night, remembers  Ceol, she got a message from her line editor telling her she might want to check out her story. "I went into the  computer and saw what had happened," says Ceol,  "The story had been completely rewritten and had a new head and lead.  Next

to the changed copy was Pruden's computer password. I had Anita

Hill's testimony in the lead. After Wes rewrote the story, you didn't see her testimony until the eighth paragraph. It was all about Clarence Thomas. "

Distressed, Ceol called her editor, Fran Coombs, at home who took a look at the revised story. "He told me, `Dawn, you're really tired. You're working really long hours and you're overreacting. I think it's a good story,'" recalls Ceol. "So I thought to myself, `Maybe he's right. I am real tired.' The next morning after a night's sleep I looked at it again and I knew I was right and I made a promise to myself that it would never happen again."

Days later, the panelists at the Senate hearings for both Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas testified. "I wrote another story and structured it like a tennis match, going back and forth between the two sides," said Ceol. "In the first edition, my copy went out  untouched." The headline of the first edition was, "Thomas Accuser Lauded, Assailed." Ceol began another story while watching the hearings. "John Doggett, that wacko, was testifying," she said, referring to the bombastic Thomas witness who characterized Hill as a woman who deluded herself that men, including himself, were romantically interested in her. "My impression was that Doggett was not a credible witness," said Ceol, with a roll of her eyes.

Wes Pruden felt otherwise. "My editor, Alan Bradford, called me saying, `Wes told me that he thinks Doggett is a fantastic witness and he wants you to do a write thru for the second edition,'" remembered Ceol. "I said, `I don't think so. I don't think he deserves more than a paragraph or two.'" Because Ceol was so busy, Bradford suggested that another reporter write up the Doggett paragraphs. Ceol said fine.

Sometime after midnight, Ceol decided to check on the story in her computer. "I saw a slug that said ‘new Thomas head' and next to it was Wes' password,"  recalled Ceol. The headline was now "Miss Hill Painted As Fantasizer," and the first eight paragraphs were devoted to Doggett. Ceol was furious. "There were also factual errors," says Ceol, "which really upset me because I'm a stickler on facts. Because of my last name, I feel  I really have to do excellent work. I read the story and I was crazed. I called up Alan  Bradford and said, `if you don't get my byline off of this,  I'm resigning.’" Bradford made some calls then got back to Ceol saying it was too late, the story had been plated. Ceol said she told him, "’I don't care.’  I was in the Senate press gallery with several colleagues around when I had made the call," says Ceol. "When he told me it was too late. I started screaming, `Then accept my resignation!'"

At  two in the morning, she wrote and sent a two line  letter of resignation through the paper's computer. The following day, she sent another resignation letter, this time calmly citing her reasons.  "The story in today's final edition not only gives an unbalanced impression of yesterday's testimony," wrote Ceol, "there  is not one mention that four witnesses generally corroborated Miss Hill's statements...In many ways, I  believe this paper has gotten an unfair shake, but this kind of activity does not help dispel our reputation."

Ceol says she got more than fifty calls of support from her colleagues at the Times, "from the copy desk to the editors -everybody but the glass offices. People were very upset because this was happening a lot. As a result, they wanted to start a union to protect the writers from exactly this."

The resignation of Ceol was humiliating for the Times. There was no way to blame the mess on liberals. Not only was Ceol a blue blooded conservative, she was also a known admirer of Clarence  Thomas, having first met and interviewed him during his Congressional hearings for the Court of Appeals.

Ceol was thrown a farewell party by her friend, Peter Baker, one of the few  Timesstaffers to be hired  away by the Post. “At the party, according to Ceol, "somebody put out  some union literature, just as an  afterthought."   The following  Sunday, Pruden took out a full page "Message From the Editor" ad in the Times declaring as "FACT" that  "a Washington Post reporter hosted a union organizing party for Washington Times employees," and accusing the rival paper of setting out "to destroy us from within."

Pruden informed staffers that Ceol's charges were "a total lie," and that her father, Paul Weyrich, had advised her not to quit and had tried to change her mind. It was a charge that infuriated Ceol. "My father gave me 100% support for what I did," she said.

The Ceol affair hardly helped boost morale that was already flagging from budget cuts. Austerity had finally hit the Times. A wage freeze was announced after more than 80 staffers had been fired in the previous year. Finally recognizing that Insight was never going to be TIME and was losing subscribers like a sieve, the glossy magazine was downsized from 80 to 30 pages and made into the paper’s Sunday supplement.

To some, Insight’s very future is in doubt, with one former staffer betting that the magazine will not survive the year. The unlimited expense accounts and lavish lunches are history.  Even more chilling were the whispers that the Reverend, like so many tycoons of the 80s, may have hit the financial skids.    

Few of Moon's American holdings have ever been regarded as big  moneymakers.  News World, which  publishes the Times as well as several Hispanic and Korean language papers in the U.S., and a 700 page monthly magazine called The World and I, has always required a massive subsidy. The Church's successful American businesses are believed to be fishing enterprises in Massachusetts and Alaska, extensive real estate holdings, and numerous video production companies in the D.C. area.

The bulk of Moon's wealth has always come from his businesses in Asia, principally Tong-Il Ltd., an extremely lucrative South  Korean corporation that manufactures automobile parts, machinery, and military hardware. Additionally, Japanese church members are believed to have poured millions into Moon's coffers through the selling of religious relics and icons, a business which came under government scrutiny for its massive margins. It is also believed that many Moon devotees in Japan and Korea have turned over substantial assets to the Church.

One sure sign of unrest in the empire was the recall of Bo Hi Pak back to Korea to oversee  Moon's businesses. Pak, once a Lt. Colonel  in the Korean army, began his career in the Korean CIA, which some believe supplied money to Moon and the Church to aid his anti-communist crusade.  Pak's devotion to Moon is seemingly boundless. In 1984, his daughter, Hoon Sook Pak, a ballerina with the Church-owned Washington Ballet, was married to the spirit of Moon's dead son who was killed in a car crash a month earlier.

She is now known as Julia Moon. This became somewhat problematic

four years later, when the Reverend announced that his son’s spirit had been reincarnated in the body of a visiting "black brother" from Zimbabwe. After it was clarified that the African was only the vessel of the son's spirit, it was decided  that cohabitation would be unnecessary for the two.

The ever faithful Pak is said to be attending to such debacles as the loss of some  $250 million in the Panda car company in China and the Church's diminished standing with the Korean government.  There has even been some unusual infighting within the Church. In 1984, a high ranking Japanese Church member, Yoshitazu Soejima, broke with the Church, telling a Washington Post reporter that Moon was no  longer  "working for the world, but for himself."  Several months after leaving the Church, while preparing an article critical of Moon,  Soejima was attacked outside his home and repeatedly stabbed. He survived the assault and the article was published in a Japanese newspaper.

“Business is bad for the Moonies," suggested Andrew Ferguson. "Col. Pak made numerous financial commitments to conservative causes that he couldn't fulfill." Lars Erik Nelson of the Daily News, who has tracked Moon’s finances for years, noted that “all of Moon's businesses, here and in Korea and Japan, are losing money."  Still, no matter what perils Moon may be facing, it is unlikely that he will ever sell the Times.“The Times was the top priority of the Unification Church," said Soejima. He adds that Japanese  Church members, responding to the exhortation of  Moon, sent a monthly $2.5 million to the U.S. specifically earmarked for the newspaper.

Whatever misgivings they have regarding the Unification Church, even some of the Times' detractors, say they would mourn the paper's demise. Notwithstanding the reservations I  have," said Ferguson, "it would be a disaster, just horrendous for Washington, if it died."  If nothing else, he said, the Times has kept the Post awake at the wheel.

Most liberals disagree.  "I'd hate to see any newspaper go out of business,” said Crossfire’s resident lefty, Michael Kinsley, “but if I had to pick one, it would be The Washington Times." Not even the specter of the nation’s capitol being a "one paper town," leavens the negatives of the Times for some. “If the choice is between a monopoly press or intellectually dishonest journalism," said Howell Raines, The New York Times Washington Bureau chief, "I'd go with the monopoly. It's more unhealthy for journalism to be financed by churches with a political agenda.”

The Washington Times’ impact on the city's pulse generates more raucous debate. One Bush administration staffer said that "everybody in the White House, in the media and all the players in town read the Times."   Kinsley concedes that it has "a certain amount of influence,” drolly adding, “plus the cachet of letting us peer into the conservative heart of darkness." Nevertheless, Charles Krauthammer, of the Post, contends that while the Times " has  largely transcended its origins and is now the town's conservative voice, it is not required  reading like the Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.”

"It's a must read for people who want to be well informed," counters Jeanne Kirkpatrick, the conservative columnist and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under Reagan. "At one time, it had more foreign coverage than the Post…It also has great food pages and a lot of life in its Life section and it scoops the Post from time to time. Of course, the Post scoops the Times all the time but it's still a very good newspaper."

For Ferguson and many other conservatives the ideal solution would be for the Church to sell the paper. "Their primary purpose is to get legitimacy for the Church," said Ferguson. "They should realize they're never going to get it and sell the paper to some media megalomaniac like Murdoch." A sale would certainly be a relief for many fretful conservatives. "Are we really going to depend on South Korean philanthropy to fund a newspaper?" asks an incredulous William F. Buckley.

But the Times remains the most important weapon in Moon's public relations arsenal. "He needs it to impress the Koreans, Japanese and Chinese governments that he's a serious player in the nation's capitol," Whelan points out. Without the Times,  he notes,  Moon would never have been able to chat up former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in a private audience in 1990 nor have been a VIP guest at Ronald Reagan's inaugural  ball.

For a pudgy Korean evangelist with a global dream in his heart, it seems that $830 million has been worth the price of admission.                        

About the Writer

Ann Louise Bardach won the PEN/USA Award for Best Journalism in 1995.

She  is the author of CUBA CONFIDENTIAL: LOVE AND VENGEANCE IN MIAMI AND HAVANA (Random/Vintage) which was a finalist for Best Nonfiction  for the PEN/USA Awards and the New York Public Librar’s Helen Bernstein Award. She is also the editor of CUBA: A TRAVELERS LITERARY COMPANION (Whereabouts  Press). She has covered Cuba for the New York Times and Vanity Fair where she was a Contributing Editor for ten years. She is a Visiting Professor of International Journalism at University of California at Santa Barbara.

Original post: https://www.bardachreports.com/moonstruck-the-reverend-and-his-newspaper