Joke, huh?

Suspect: Church Fires Started As "Joke"
Three Birmimgham College Students Arrested, Charged

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/08/alabama.churches/index.html
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Three Birmingham college students were arrested and charged Wednesday in connection with a string of Alabama church fires that is described in court papers as a joke that "got out of hand," authorities said.
The students -- Ben Moseley and Russell DeBusk, both 19, and Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20 -- are suspected in nine of the 10 fires last month. Translation: 3 bored testosterone-driven morons with too much time on their hands thought it would be cool to burn down some churches.
The suspects were held on federal charges of conspiracy and setting fire to Ashby Baptist Church in Bibb County. In court filings, all three admitted being involved in the arson fires. No one was injured in any of the blazes. No thanks to these soon-to-be felons.
U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said further charges are possible and that, if convicted, the students would face minimum sentences of five years for each count. So they traded one night of practical "joking" for a minimum of forty-five years in prison if convicted. Brilliant.
Authorities will seek indictments from a federal grand jury "in due course," she said.
"It's a good day when we can tell the people of Alabama that we believe this is an isolated instance," Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said.
All nine fires occurred in rural counties southwest of Birmingham -- five in Bibb County on February 3, and four in Greene, Sumter and Pickens counties on February 7. Five of the churches had predominantly black congregations, and four had predominantly white members. (See map)
No one has been arrested in connection with a 10th fire, set February 11 at a mostly white Lamar County church.
"We don't think that there is any type of conspiracy against organized religion or against the Baptists or against religious beliefs in particular," Riley said. "I think that, today, Alabama and all of the faith-based community in this state can rest a little easier."
Moseley and DeBusk are both sophomores at Birmingham-Southern College, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. They made initial appearances Wednesday morning in a federal court in Birmingham.
All three face a bond hearing Friday in a federal court in Birmingham. (Watch one of the suspects after he was arrested at a college dorm -- 1:12)
DeBusk's lawyer, Donald Colee, had no immediate comment. Tommy Spina, the attorney for Cloyd, said "Where we are headed with this case, I do not know." You are headed for another loss on your record. Trust me on that one.
Efforts to reach lawyers for Moseley were unsuccessful. What lawyer in his right mind (oxymoron there) would admit in public to representing this clown?
'Diversion did not work'
Birmingham-Southern President David Pollick said the students have been suspended and barred from campus since their arrest. He pledged that Birmingham-Southern will help rebuild the churches "both financially and in terms of our own labor."
"The students, faculty and staff of our college are at once shocked and outraged, and we share the sorrow of our neighbors whose churches represented the heart and souls of their communities," he said.
Cloyd, who attends the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was taken into custody later in the day, federal law enforcement sources said.
UAB spokesman Gary Mans said Cloyd was a junior who transferred to the university in fall 2005 and lived off-campus. He would not disclose Cloyd's field of study or any disciplinary action, citing federal privacy laws.
According to court papers released Wednesday, Cloyd told a witness that he and Moseley "had done something stupid." Ya think?!
"Cloyd stated to the witness that Moseley did it as a joke (Hysterical. I'm rolling on the floor laughing here) and it got out of hand," an affidavit in the case states. "Cloyd stated that they set a church on fire."
Moseley and DeBusk admitted involvement in the fires, as well, the affidavit states. DeBusk said he was at the scene of the fires in Bibb County, where the three had been deer hunting the first weekend of February, and kicked in the door of two churches that later were set ablaze. (Watch churches reduced to smoldering embers -- 2:17)
Moseley told investigators that he and Cloyd set the other four fires "as a diversion to throw investigators off," the affidavit states. When questioned by investigators, "Moseley said the diversion obviously did not work." No sh*t, Sherlock.
None of the three has a previous criminal record, said Richard Montgomery, Alabama's state fire marshal. Well, I suppose everyone has to start somewhere.
DeBusk is a theater major at Birmingham-Southern, while Moseley's major was undeclared, college officials said. Mark Doll, a Birmingham-Southern sophomore who said he plays in a band with Moseley, told CNN he never heard Moseley speak of religion.
"There was nothing that we can see that would lead us to think he would do something like this," he said. What, he never said, "My buddies and I are going to burn down nine Baptist churches?" Would that be obvious enough for you?
Pollick said he met with Birmingham-Southern students Wednesday afternoon and said they are determined to repair a reputation they said was "tarnished" by their classmates' arrests.
He said students, faculty and staff now feel connected to the communities "in a way that we didn't, in all honesty, yesterday." Oh, I'm touched. You still admitted these arsonists to your school.
"The one thing we are certain of is that this is a place where we belong," he said. "This is a place where we should extend our muscles and our resources and help seek out more resources."
Tire treads tip off investigators
Officials said the arrests were the result of good police work by a task force of about 250 state, federal and local law enforcement officers.
Investigators had said they were looking for a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle that had been seen at the burned churches. According to the affidavit, tread marks left at the scene of four fires matched a rarely purchased set of all-terrain tires. Clearly the three arsonists never watch CSI or any sort of forensics show. That would probably require far too much intellectual ability.
Investigators tracked a set of those tires from a tire shop in the Birmingham suburb of Pelham to a green Toyota 4Runner registered to Cloyd's mother. She told agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that her son was the vehicle's primary driver, the affidavit states. Note to scumbags: If you are going to burn down nine churches, don't be stupid enough to buy rare tires that leave tire tread marks at the scene.
That was one of about 1,000 leads involving 500 vehicles and about 1,300 people that investigators chased down over the past month, ATF spokesman Jim Cavanaugh said.
"We just pushed and pushed and pushed until we could make the break," Cavanaugh said.
CNN's Rusty Dornin, David Mattingly, Mike Phelan and Susan Walsh contributed to this report.


What is wrong with society that three college students would consider it a "joke that got out of hand" to burn down nine churches?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's the lack of moral standards, the refusal of public institutions to impose any sort of restrictions on society, the parents who are never around and expect daycares and schools to raise their kids...the list goes on and on.

Congregation Participation (Grr)

At choir practice last night, we were practicing Mozart Missa Brevis in D. When we came to the Agnus Dei, we went through it until we finished the first "miserere nobis"--and stopped.
Me: Why are we not singing the rest?
Choir Director: The bishop (we sing at a cathedral-KA) thinks that the rest is too difficult for the congregation to participate in and that it is too long.
Me: (grinding teeth) Since when is Mozart too long? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? And how on earth is the congregation supposed to "sing along" with a complicated four-part Mass that most of them have never heard?
Choir Director: (Weak smile)

Now, I have several questions. First, why in heck would we be singing Mozart's Missa Brevis at Mass in the first place? It is clearly not liturgical (look at the nearly operatic soprano parts, among others). Secondly, IF we are going to sing it at Mass, why would we have the congregation sing it as well? This is not Mass of Creation, folks, this is MOZART. You can't just "sing along" to MOZART without an unmitigated musical disaster. Thirdly, IF we are going to sing it at Mass AND we are going to have the congregation "participate" (Heaven help us all), why would we further murder it by cutting off two thirds of it? (As a side note, I suppose a snide answer to the last question would be that at least we don't have to listen to the congregation murder the remaining two thirds.)

And WHY am I considered unreasonable and nitpicking for asking the questions stated in the above dialogue?

Probably because beauty is in the ear of the beholder or some such nonsense. I might go for that (okay, not everyone likes country music and Palestrina) in some cases, but no one but a ranting, raving, ax-wielding lunatic could possibly think for a second that sing-along Mozart sounds "good." Or, for that matter, that one of the most beautiful Masses EVER (however unliturgical) has to be cut short because it is "too long."

Chivalry

Okay, I have a question.
Is there no such thing as chivalry in men under 50?
I know exactly one man under 50 who treats women with the politeness, gentility and respect that I would expect from my future husband. Unfortunately, he is 17 years my senior, so while he will make some woman very happy someday, I'm not that woman.
Is there a reason that fathers no longer teach their sons to open doors and carry heavy loads for women? Are mothers so forgetful that they can't remember that if one is a single woman one would like to be walked to one's car at night?
I have met three categories of men. One group (by far the minority) would leap to open doors for me, would take any heavy parcel I was carrying, and would die rather than have me walk to my car alone at night. Another group simply becomes blind if I walk up to a door with my arms full or if I leave a group to go home and have a ways to walk to my car. If I ask them to get the door or walk me to my car, they usually do; however, I shouldn't have to ask. Finally, there is the third group, which is perhaps the one that makes me angriest: it is the ranks of homeschooled young men who I have met through church. Their parents are so convinced that their sons are merely bags of uncontrollable hormones that they have browbeaten their sons not to speak to any female at any time as it is a grave danger of sin, or some such nonsense. As a result, these young men are unchivalrous bores with whom no young woman in her right mind with any sort of self-worth would spend time. While their morals may be good, they are, in the word of a past generation, cads.
Is there no such thing, then, as young men who have been taught to respect, protect and be courtious to women?
Frankly, I am beginning to think that the answer is yes.
One thing I know for certain, though: if I ever marry and have children (and I pray every night that I will), I will teach my sons to open and close car doors for women, to let them go first, to carry heavy loads as a matter of course. And the living example of such behavior will be their father.

My Take On The Oscars

I shall now join the ranks of the millions of bloggers who have mentioned, criticized, commented on, discussed or contemplated the Oscars.
First of all, let it be said that I have never watched an Oscars show. Movie stars are usually a great deal pleasanter and more intelligent when they are in the movies than when they aren't. Furthermore, after Halle Berry went on and on and ON about during an acceptance speech how proud she was of her black heritage when her (black) father beat the crap out of her (white) mother on a regular basis (before abandoning them both), I wanted to puke.
However, I am utterly delighted that the "gay cowboy" movie (they weren't cowboys, they were sheepherders, and cowboys are notorious for their, ummm, heterosexuality) won a mere 3 Oscars. To put that in perspective, Peter Jackson's King Kong won 3 Oscars.
Crash won "Best Picture." Well, it had Sandra Bullock in it. I have yet to see Sandra Bullock in a movie in which I didn't like her (While You Were Sleeping was one of the best comedies ever, but that scene in which the family is opening presents and gabbing a mile a minute and she is just sitting there, watching and smiling but not really involved is a GREAT moment in film; you would think she must know what it is like to go from having no family to having a huge, wonderful family--ie, being really happy but still kind of unsure).
Rachel Weisz won "Best Supporting Actress" for her role in The Constant Gardener. She is another actress who I have yet to not like in a movie. The Mummy movies were more humorous than horrifying, but I loved her in both of them. That moment in the first Mummy movie in which she knocked over a dozen or so bookcases of ancient books is priceless. Of course, that is coming from someone who could easily see herself doing that. I did find it somewhat...interesting...that when I asked Yahoo for pictures of Weisz (wanted to see her Oscar gown, which was absolutely gorgeous, by the way) the first picture available after the Oscar photos was one in which Weisz was wearing nothing but a strategically arranged (live) boa constrictor.
Reese Witherspoon got "Best Actress." I can't STAND Reese Witherspoon since the Legally Blonde movies, but I love Johnny Cash so I'll pass on that one.
George Clooney (raving liberal conspiracy-theorist nutjob) got "Best Supporting Actor" for his role in Syriana. Argh. He might be all of the above but he is a good actor.
March of the Penguins got "Best Documentary." Maybe I'm just not a documentary gal, but by the end of the however-many-hours that movie lasted (it couldn't possibly have actually been six hours long but it felt that way) all I wanted to do was scream "Quit waddling back and forth across the Antarctic wasteland, get behind an ice hill and lay your eggs and then take turns eating!" On the other hand, it could have been Michael Moore. 'Nuff said.
As far as music goes, this year was a wash. It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp (I kid you not) got "Best Song" while the score of Brokeback Mountain got "Best Soundtrack."
Brokeback Mountain also got "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay." I could have made several very tasteless jokes about the latter award but it's Lent so I won't.
On a final note, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe got "Best Makeup." Well, the makeup was good in that movie, particularly on the Witch. She looked as though she was made of ice.
Well, off to literature. Theology was cancelled this morning, so just one class today. Woohoo!

"Getting In Touch With My Sinfulness"

At Mass today (First Sunday of Lent), the priest repeatedly (four times) told the congregation to "get in touch with their sinfulness." That was after using the same phrase six times during his homily on Ash Wednesday.
Of course, he didn't do anything really drastic and increase the confession times to more than fifteen minutes before Mass and an hour on Saturdays. Silly me, I thought that was a rather important step in "getting in touch with one's sinfulness." Nor did he suggest fasting or penances for Lent. He spoke extensively last Wednesday (Ash Wednesday) on how nice we ought to be to people.
Well, being nice to people is important. Charity is the greatest virtue, and we should see Christ in everyone. And goodness knows that I would rather be told to be nice to people than that the Apostle's Creed was created by the Mayans and Aztecs or that the Incas were the founders of the idea that we as Catholics should pay respect to Mary (yes, I did hear those things recently during a homily; different priest, though).
However, I tend to wish for something a bit more substantial for a sermon to begin Lent with, so I looked forward to Sunday when I thought perhaps we would have a different priest.
Well, we did. The priest we got for the sermon (not the one saying the Mass, who was the priest who said Mass on Ash Wednesday) told us all about how much we needed to up our donations to the church in question so that it could do more and better social work.
Yet again, he missed the point by a mile. Social work is important, but the church doesn't exist as a social agency. It exists as a SPIRITUAL agency. Soup kitchens and homeless shelters are needed, and those who staff them do great work. However, the priests need to be in the confessional to help us spiritually as well as socially.
The best way to "get in touch with one's sinfulness" is through prayer, meditation, confession, penance, and acts of charity. It isn't just a matter of "being nice to people."