No Haven

[willoweyes]

Is nothing sacred?

When college professors (that most cautious of bipeds) go on the rampage, the center does not hold.


ATLANTA — Three people were shot to death on Saturday at a community theater in Athens, Ga., and the authorities are searching for the suspect, a professor at the nearby University of Georgia.

The Athens-Clarke County coroner, Sonny Wilson, said the three were shot around 12:30 p.m. at the Athens Community Theatre near downtown. An alert on the university’s Web site identified the suspect as George M. Zinkhan III, a professor of marketing.

“Zinkhan is a white male in his mid-50s with a goatee or beard,” the Web site alert said. “Current information is that he was last seen wearing a polo shirt, blue shorts and a backpack.”

The Athens-Clarke assistant chief of police, Alan Brown, told The Athens Banner-Herald that there is “some indication he may have had multiple weapons.”

In a statement, Michael F. Adams, the president of the university, said the community was “shocked and saddened.”

“Our first thoughts are for safety of the university community and for prompt apprehension of the person responsible,” Mr. Adams said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those who have been affected.”

The university notified students of the shooting through a text alert, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Dr. Zinkhan is the co-author of two books, on consumption and electronic commerce, and served as editor of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, according to his biography on the university’s Web site. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1981 and a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in 1974.

[suebee]

seriously, is another of the four upon us?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090426/ap_on_re_au_an/swine_flu_world

[willoweyes]

Obviously, this points to the need to allow guns on campus (a very hot topic in OK and TX--and that corridor of blood that separates them--the Red River Valley).

This way, if your prof goes crazy, you can take him out.

Besides, who remembers George Carlin's (may he RIP) riff on "Guns for All!"

He said "Guns for All"* (TM) is a wonderful way to put evolution back to work for humanity, not to mention the progress in population control."

[suebee]

"the only difference between the taliban and the american anti abortion movement is 8,000 miles. and the christian churches have been in the forefront of this kind of fanaticism." from a doctor on rachel maddow.

as soon as republicans got control they pulled the plug on funding for federal protection for doctors and clinics which they are entitled to under specific federal law. you know the local law enforcement is not gonna do it.

and from last nights show:

Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer, who grew up in the religious far right, who made a documentary anti-abortion film series in the 1970s, and whose latest book is titled, “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elects, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back.”

Mr. Schaeffer, thank you very much for your time tonight.

FRANK SCHAEFFER, AUTHOR, “CRAZY FOR GOD”: Thank you for having me on, Rachel.

MADDOW: Today, writing at “Huffington Post,” you apologized, as a former member of the religious right, for what happened to Dr. Tiller. Why did you feel the need to apologize?

SCHAEFFER: Well, words have consequences.

And what we did in the ‘70s and ‘80s, my father, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who became Reagan's surgeon general, members of the Republican Party who worked with us to make abortion part of the Republican agenda, the Roman Catholic allies that we had in the church -various people—we talked, and our talk got more and more extreme, and less and less democratic. Until, finally, my dad actually went so far as to write a book called “A Christian Manifesto,” where he said the use of force to change Roe v. Wade and roll back the law legalizing abortion would be legitimate and he compared Roe and the American government to Hitler‘s Germany in the 1930s.

And when you look at what happened to Dr. Tiller, there‘s a direct line connecting the rhetoric that I was part of as a young man and this murder. And so, people like me are responsible for what we said and what we did and the way we raised the temperature on this debate out of all bounds. And so, when O‘Reilly talks about the fact that these people of the far left are against FOX or against him or trying to muzzle the debate, he‘s telling a lie.

I am not a member of the far left—until I voted for Barack Obama in the last election, I was a lifelong Republican. I am still pro-life. I also believe abortion should be legal, but I agree with Barack Obama when he says we ought to find ways to help women, help children, give contraceptives, sex education, to lessen the number of abortions. I think abortion is a tragedy.

But I also think that pretending that you can call abortion murder and Tiller the baby killer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera—and that these words don‘t have an impact, is crazy.

So, this is what helps unhinge a society, talking like this. And I
was part of that, and that‘s why I apologize—and I would apologize again.
I am sorry for what I did.

And I think that people who say extreme things should stand up and take the consequences and admit when they were wrong. And in this case, we were wrong. We were wrong morally. We were wrong politically.

And as a believing Christian, I was wrong in terms of someone who says he follows Jesus Christ.

MADDOW: There are a lot of people in this country, obviously, who are part of the pro-life movement, the legal pro-life movement, and who hold pro-life views and who seek to change the laws of this country about abortion. There‘s what I consider to be a terrorist movement who believes not that the laws should be changed but that people who are legally engaged in providing abortion services are legitimate targets of violence and that they should be intimidated, harassed and in some cases killed.

Those two movements are not the same thing. And it‘s important to me as an American that people who are pro-life feel that they can safely articulate those views and that they are not being attacked for what extremists have done.

SCHAEFFER: Right.

MADDOW: But I also don‘t want to excuse anybody who incites violence, or who, I guess, makes excuses for the violent wing of this movement- a movement that has two very different wings. How do you see the connection there?

SCHAEFFER: Well, you know, the book you mentioned earlier, “Crazy for God,” has a number of chapters talking about the way we took the movement from its early stages when it was more a moral concern, not so much about politics and not so much about changing the law, and radicalized that movement. I follow the step by step process. Secret meetings with Pat Robertson down at the 700 Club, Jerry Falwell sending his jet up to me to bring me down to his church to speak.

And what we did is we talked one game to the large public and we talked another game amongst ourselves. And amongst ourselves, we were very radical. And I don‘t think it takes much imagination to guess that, tonight, there are people who are publicly saying, “This is terrible, we never advocated killing, abortion is murder, but we didn‘t mean people to take us this seriously.” But in private, you know, if these folks popped champagne bottles, they would be drinking a toast to this murder tonight.

I know that this is the case because of the fact that I was part of the movement, but also understood very well what we were doing back then was building up the politics when we talked to people like Ronald Reagan and the Bush family and Jack Kemp—the late Jack Kemp that we were very close to in all this. But on a private side, we also were egging people on to first picket abortion clinics, then chain themselves to fences, then go to jail.

We knew full well that in a country that had seen the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther king, two Kennedy brothers and others, that what we were also doing was opening a gate here. And I think there‘s no way to duck this. We live in a country in which guns are all over the place. We have plenty of people with a screw loose, plenty of people on the edge. It only takes one.

What scares me is that I see the rhetoric of the Republican Party right now—including the former vice president—about our newly elected African-American president that has the same sort of coded stuff in it. 'He‘s not a real American. He‘s making America less safe. He‘s a secret Muslim.' Some Christians in the same groups that are pro-life groups are running around saying he‘s the anti-Christ.

They also know full well that we have people out there who will take it to the next step and say, “Well, gee, if he‘s the anti-Christ, if he‘s anti-American, if he‘s a communist, maybe the best thing we can do is pull another trigger some other day.”

We live in a country where people get killed for their views. We‘re a very divided nation coming out of this culture war.

It is irresponsible for people to make these wild statements—like Bill O‘Reilly does—and then step back after it happens and say, “Oh, I never meant that.” Yes, they did mean it. They meant exactly what they said.

And when you start calling people those sorts of names—the way I did back in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s—for which I am apologizing today, not just because of this but other incidents like this, if people don‘t stand up and actually take back these words, take back these angry word, they are still culpable for the next event that happens. And we need to be able to just call it what it is.

MADDOW: Frank Schaeffer is author of the book, “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elects, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back”—Mr. Schaeffer, it‘s just bracing testimony from you tonight. Thanks for—thanks for being here on the show.

[Isaiah Mpski]

I'm reminded of that song from about 1970-Crosby,Stills,Nash,and Young,

"...hey children,what's that sound what's that's sound going round.
There's a man with a gun over there.Telling me I got to beware.. etc and so forth"

Obviously the nobel dr Tillar had some sort of a death wish.
I mean he'd already been shot at least twice and standing outthere without any protection.
The guy musta been craazy,
However I've always said,people who kill themselves maybe destined to become abortions.