VirusHead - Mutating bits of contagious discourse, because language is a virus.

Happy Mother’s Day!
Social activist and poet Julia Ward Howe wrote the original Mother’s Day proclamation after the American Civil War as a powerful effort to unite women against war.
Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
“We will not have great [...]

Items like these show the outer limits and effects of JW family involvement, which includes a rationalization of childbeating (from a common mistranslation and misapplication of a biblical verse that children will become “spoiled” if not physically beaten). Parents, who envision themselves in a power pyramid, will sometimes take out their frustrations on those with [...]

Courant.com | Lockdown In Search For Beating Suspect
Joseph Ambrose, 55, is charged with attempted murder, first-degree assault and first-degree kidnapping of his estranged wife.
Two of the couple’s four children were home while he beat his wife. Ambrose is a member of the local Canton (Connecticut) congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Police found several rifles at the rented [...]

This is just one of the reasons you don’t hire private contractors to act like soldiers.
Are private security thugs just killing civilians for the fun of it?
Telegraph | News | ‘Trophy’ video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers
A “trophy” video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked [...]

Man Kills Another in Dispute Over War — Press Calls It a First
Kentucky, August 6, 2006 at a flea market. Two firearms dealers, friends, standing outside a “snack shed.” The one who backs the war shot and killed the one who opposed the war. No charges as yet: he claimed self-defense.
“I’m sorry this has happened,” [...]

The Christian Paradox (Harpers.org)
Check out this excellent excerpt from Bill McKibben’s article in the August 2005 edition of Harper’s Magazine.
The basic point is that although the overwhelming majority of Americans profess to be Christian, the USA is the least Christian in its behavior (compared to other “developed” nations).
A few nuggets:
“In 2004, as a share of [...]

Article at Watchtower News
At Boston Herald
Kevin and Nancy Hensley, Jehovah’s Witnesses, had been separated only a couple of weeks when he beat and choked her to death and then dumped her body beside a toilet in the basement - what prosecutor Dennis Collins called the “final indignity.”
The couple’s religion teaches [...]