Category Archives: Crime & Punishment

“Fleecing The Faithful”: Court and Trial Updates

Fleecing The Faithful– Updates

(To read the full text of the report, click here.)

[Note: Some links in these reports from 1998-99 have expired.]

Court Updates, Part 2: Phil Harmon, Insurance Fraud & “Operation Island Scam”:

More: Rogues and Heroes — Photos from the Quaker Fraud Scandals


 

Online back issues of the print edition (1981-93) of  A Friendly Letter

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Carolina Headache for Number 45

From The State, Charleston South Carolina

POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
As Trump visits Carolina-Clemson game, billboards taunting him await. Here’s what they say
BY ANNA WILDER UPDATED NOVEMBER 25, 2023

 

One of eight electronic billboards broadcasting an anti-Trump message Saturday Nov. 25 as Trump makes his way into Columbia for the USC-Clemson game. PAUL OSMUNDSON

As former President Donald Trump makes his way into Columbia Saturday for the Carolina-Clemson game, traffic and tailgating may not be the only things he sees. Seven electronic billboards around the Midlands are rotating an anti-Trump message:

“You Lost.
You’re Guilty.
Welcome to Columbia, Donald.” Continue reading Carolina Headache for Number 45

FUM, John Muhanji, Uganda & “KILL The GAYS Laws: A Few Questions

October is Visitation &  Board meeting month for Friends  United Meeting (FUM). Besides board members from  FUM’s shrinking but scattered territories, notable Friends will be gathering in and around its home turf of Richmond Indiana.

Among the most notable of these visitors is Kenyan Friend  John Muhanji, who heads FUM’s African ministries. Besides official sessions, he’ll be visiting several Friends meetings & churches in the Midwest during the next few weeks.

No doubt the official agendas in these sessions will be full, and discussions lively. But if FUM’s record is any guide, some issues may have a hard time getting heard.

One in particular (unless I miss my guess), despite the fact it’s been in the news, on my mind, and even the pope has talked about it. But neither the pope nor I will be in Indiana this month.

So maybe some reader will pass along the following questions, not only in Indiana but to any other FUM-connected meeting or concerned Quakers:

 

Also . . .

Also, about the gospel being preached . . .

One for all those with financial responsibilities:

Others are asking too:

In Closing: For John Muhanji & FUM:

Big Anti-Abortion Squabble Dogs Campaign in Ohio

AP News: Anti-abortion groups are at odds on strategies ahead of Ohio vote. It could be a preview for 2024

Protect? Women? Ohio? Anti-abortion logo.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Abortion opponents in Ohio are at odds not only over how to frame their opposition to a reproductive rights initiative on the states November ballot but also over their longerterm goals on how severely they would restrict the procedure.

Continue reading Big Anti-Abortion Squabble Dogs Campaign in Ohio

When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”

From Reading Religion:

The End of Public Execution

Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South

By: Michael Ayers Trotti

266 Pages — $32.95

  • Published By: University of North Carolina Press

Michael Ayers Trotti’s The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South opens with a short transcription of a newspaper article about an Atlanta hanging. The report is about the 1891 execution of Frank Danforth, a Black man who had been convicted of the murder of his wife. The report mentions preachers saying prayers and singing, Danforth swaying to religious music, his repeated testimony to his belief in his own salvation, and white women who stood on a jailhouse fence to watch his execution. Trotti observes that the report describes Danforth’s execution as private because it was done behind jailhouse walls, even though hundreds of people were in attendance.

Continue reading When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”