Verona van de Leur: The star gymnast who reinvented herself as a porn actress
The simple act of cartwheeling at the age of five begins Verona van de Leur’s story, a childhood passion which in turn led to a desire to be an Olympic gymnast.
In the intervening three decades, she became a Dutch national treasure known for her sporting prowess.
But injury curtailed her career and her life spiraled out of control. Locked out of the family home, she says she spent two years homeless and endured a fractious legal battle with her father.
Things got even worse when she was imprisoned, convicted of blackmail in 2011. She says she came within seconds of stepping in front of a train to end her life.
She says redemption came working as a porn actress and, now at the age of 34, Van de Leur has penned her autobiography, laying out details of her life.
She is adamant there are no regrets. Of her foray into the adult movie industry, which she says she stopped last year, Van de Leur told CNN Sport’s Don Riddell: “Actually no regrets because I was living on the streets … I would still do it, so I don’t have any regrets, not the way I did it, no.”
Engrossed by watching gymnastics at the 1996 Olympics, she set her heart on competing at the Games. The medals followed, with silver both at the World and European Championships. She was named Dutch sportswoman of the year in 2002 just before turning 17.
Lisa Deen, who works as a freelance sports journalist specializing in gymnastics, describes Van de Leur as “one of the greatest gymnasts in the Netherlands’ history.”
‘Left with a black hole’
To start with, Van de Leur loved the life of being a gymnast.
“It’s quite strange but it’s also fun of course — I mean you’re a teenager and everybody’s watching you in a good way, asking for an autograph, so it feels special, of course,” she says.
“Your parents are proud, your family’s proud, everybody’s talking positive about you. But you have all the pressures coming and you have to succeed at the next competition again and again.”
Trying to pinpoint when things began to unravel is hard for Van de Leur.
Van de Leur quit gymnastics in her early 20s.
Credit: Picasa / Verona van de Leur
At times, she thinks it could have been as early as the age of nine when she took up gymnastics competitively.
What’s not in doubt is that the downward spiral started in 2003 following an injury. Suddenly, Van de Leur says, she had nothing.
“If I look back, it’s just a sport, a hobby you’re good at,” she says. “But at the time it was printed in my head, ‘This is what you are. You are only a gymnast’. And for me there was no life besides it … For the people around me, I was only that robot, only the gymnast and I didn’t have friends.
“So, if your sport is falling apart, there’s nothing left so you have this black hole.”
Van de Leur says her falling out of love with gymnastics reached its peak in 2008 when she announced to the media at the European Championships that she was walking away from the sport that had defined her life. She was just 22.
Her first reaction was happiness it was finally over, and for once she felt like she was taking control of her own life. However, when she told her parents, she says they remonstrated with her, concerned Van de Leur was turning her back on potential earnings.
In her opinion, their attitude was that “money was more important than their own daughter.” Around that time, she returned to the family home only to discover she was no longer welcome, she says.
‘Locked out of home’
CNN tried to contact Van de Leur’s father for comment via email, phone and social media but proved unsuccessful, as well as her sister.
“I tried the locks, I had a key as I was living there and you try it and it’s not working,” Van de Leur recalled. “You first think, well, it must be a mistake or I’ll just call home. They didn’t answer, they didn’t open and then I realized I wasn’t welcome anymore.”
So, she slept in her car with her boyfriend that night, first annoyed and then heartbroken that her family had rejected her. She says, “The last time I saw them was in court.”
A court summary of the case says Van de Leur argued that in 2008, her father, who acted as her agent, “withdrew an amount of €9,000 ($9768) from the claimant’s payment account without the consent or knowledge of the claimant, of which only part of the claimant was repaid or related to costs incurred on behalf of the claimant.”
She added: “I’ve asked for the accounting and where’s my sponsorship money and all the money I get from gymnastics when I won and it was just all gone. The only thing was to get justice to go to court so that’s what I did.”
An attorney listed as Van de Leur’s father’s lawyer at the time declined to comment to CNN citing code of conduct.
The court summary states that Van de Leur’s father argued that he had “incurred costs including moving the claimant’s personal property out of her trainer’s home, buying gifts for the trainer and her family, replacing locks in the defendant’s home and staying with family related to potential threats.”
However, in February 2009, a court of The Hague ordered her father to pay her €1,355.89 ($1471) as well as allow Van de Leur to return to his home to retrieve a number of items: a sunbed, tracksuits and leotards, and various presents, and to stop running a website in her name.
Reflecting on facing her parents in the court room, Van de Leur said: “From the beginning, I know I lost everything and money doesn’t get parents back.”
Verona van de Leur
Credit: Picasa / Verona van de Leur
‘I wasn’t used to showing myself nude’
For two years after her family fallout, she says she was homeless. During that time, Van de Leur was arrested for trying to blackmail a couple having an extra marital affair — she was charged with extortion — which resulted in her spending 72 days in prison.
“In that time, being homeless, I didn’t care anymore how I got money for food,” she said.
“But even in that worst situation I know it was not my right to determine the law and, yes, I regret that I didn’t choose or find another option in that period of time. Maybe it’s good for me that I have been punished for 72 days to realize I was wrong, and I was.”
When out of jail, the adult industry — first as a webcam model and then making videos with her boyfriend — seemed a good way out. The couple is still together 13 years on.
“I saw it as a chance,” said Van de Leur. “It was a big contract so I could build something, starting my business. I was starting as a webcam model. It wasn’t physical contact, so computer screen was okay. I wasn’t used to showing myself nude, of course.”
The reaction in Holland to her dramatic career change, she says, was mixed, but having been homeless and in jail, Van de Leur saw her new job as offering her a fresh start.
“I didn’t say at the time I lived on the street or where I was coming from but for me this was actually a step up and they only saw that I was going down,” she said. “So, I kept it in my mind, it’s my life, it’s what I like to do and I always saw it as work.”
Van de Leur also made a return to the gymnastics world at the World Championships in Stuttgart last year where she worked as an analyst for the Dutch media, but she returned home prematurely before the event had finished.
As she reflects on the various twists and turns of her life, Van de Leur says she wishes she had been smarter at a younger age when her gymnastics career was taking off.
Above all these days she wants to embrace life — having come so close to ending it all.
It was amid the dispute with her family, that Van de Leur says she went to a railway line to kill herself.
“I went to the train and I was just counting from 10 to zero and I didn’t jump,” she recalled. “I don’t know why but it was really the moment that it could be all over.
“I was thinking about my family that I lost, I was living on the street, I had nothing, nothing to eat, no money in my hands, so I had nothing to live for.
“That was what I was thinking at that moment but, when the train just passed, I don’t know something snapped maybe. I still don’t know why I didn’t jump, I was crying and then just walked away.”
Now, Van de Leur says that moment gives her strength and that she’s learned to “enjoy every moment of her life.”
A harshly judgemental person would condemn her for going into porn, but she clearly only did that out of necessity because her own family rejected her for no longer being a source of income to them. If I had been this beautiful girl’s father, I would have loved and supported her even after she had quit being a gymnast, and encouraged her to pursue other interests as she got older. Then she might not have gone into porn.
But the ultimate hero in all this is the unnamed boyfriend. He never abandoned her, even after she went into porn and no doubt showed off her body to other guys to make money. That would have driven away most other love partners. But he stayed with her, even in the darkest times. He literally saved her life!
Over the last week, new reporting has provided corroborating evidence for a decades-old allegation of sexual assault against former Vice President Joe Biden, a charge that has been denied by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign.
Timeline of the allegations
In March, former Biden congressional staffer Tara Reade told podcaster Katie Halper that in the spring or summer of 1993 that the then-senator from Delaware had cornered her in a private hallway when she was delivering a duffel bag. Reade alleges that Biden began kissing her, propositioned and reached under her skirt and began touching her.
The Biden campaign has denied the allegations.
“Vice President Biden has dedicated his public life to changing the culture and the laws around violence against women,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s communications director, said in a statement to the New York Times earlier this month. “He authored and fought for the passage and reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act. He firmly believes that women have a right to be heard — and heard respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim: It is untrue. This absolutely did not happen.”
The Associated Press contacted 21 former Biden staffers, none of whom said they remembered any complaints filed by Reade, who was a 29-year-old staff assistant at the time. Reade said that after complaining, her duties were scaled back and she was eventually told she wasn’t a good fit before being given a month to find another job. Reade said that she filed a written complaint at the time with a Senate personnel office, which could be with the rest of Biden’s senatorial papers at the University of Delaware. The university has said that an archive related to the former vice president “will remain closed to the public until two years after Mr. Biden retires from public life.”
Last year, Reade said in multiple interviews that Biden had touched her shoulders and played with her hair but did not mention assault.
Corroborating accounts
On Monday, Business Insider published a story from veteran investigative reporter Rich McHugh that included an on-the-record interview with two women who said that Reade had told them about the incident in the mid-’90s.
“I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him,” Lynda LaCasse, Reade’s former neighbor, said. “And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.”
“I don’t remember all the details,” added LaCasse, who said she was a Democrat who still supported Biden. “I remember the skirt. I remember the fingers. I remember she was devastated.”
Another woman, Lorraine Sanchez, told McHugh that she recalled Reade complaining to her in the mid-’90s that her former boss in Washington, D.C., had sexually harassed her and that she had been fired for raising concerns. Sanchez and Reade worked together in the office of a California state senator.
Other allegations
In March 2019, former Nevada lawmaker Lucy Flores alleged that Biden had kissed and touched her inappropriately in 2014. In response to Flores’s allegation, Biden said it “was never my intention” to make Flores or another woman feel uncomfortable.
“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately,” he said in the statement. “If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully. But it was never my intention.”
He added that he did not recall the alleged interaction with Flores, but said, “We have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences.”
Shortly after those allegations were made, a half dozen other women spoke up to say that Biden had made remarks or touched them in ways that made them uncomfortable, although none alleged assault. One was Reade, who told a local California newspaper that Biden had inappropriately touched her and made her uncomfortable. She did not raise an accusation of assault. In 2019 interviews with the Washington Post, Reade said that Biden “touched her neck and shoulders but did not mention the alleged assault or suggest there was more to the story.”
In an April 12 story on the allegations, the New York Times talked to a number of staffers who said they had not heard of the incident and said it was out of character for Biden. However, two former interns told the Times that they “recalled that she abruptly stopped supervising them in April, before the end of their internship,” which echoes Reade’s claim that her duties were scaled back.
The mother’s call
Last week, the Intercept published an August 11, 1993, call to Larry King’s CNN show. Although not identified at the time, the caller was Reade’s mother, Jeanette Altimus, who Reade says she told about the alleged assault at the time it occurred.
“I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington?” said the caller, who was identified as a woman living in San Luis Obispo, Calif., where Altimus resided at the time. “My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.”
King replied, “In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?”
“That’s true,” said the caller.
Congressional records list Reade’s last month of employment as August 1993.
It is possible that Biden does indeed have some personal boundary issues, but so do lots of other men, including Donald Trump, he who said he wanted to grab a woman by her “pussy”. That did not stop Trump from getting elected in 2016, however. So why throw similar accusations at Biden? And more to the point, why NOW?
Since this incident was said to occurred in 1993, the proper time to bring it forward would have been in 2008, when Barack Obama had just chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Then Obama could have dropped Biden and chosen someone else to be the next Vice-President, increasing the chances of Obama winning later. But not a peep about the matter came out…..until THIS year, when Biden is running for President against a man who is KNOWN to be a pervert. Could this be a desperate last ditch effort by Republicans to ensure the reelection of Trump?
Democrats have a problem I call “moral puritanism”, which one would have expected Republicans to have had with their conservative ideology. But clearly morality is no longer an issue if Republicans are willing to elect to the Presidency a twice divorced serial adulterer with scandalous business practices and NO political experience at all. As long as Trump can ramrod the right-wing agenda through the Congress and the Supreme Court, Republicans can overlook moral issues. By contrast, Democrats are often willing to turn on their own politicians for similar issues, which is why Sen. Al Franken resigned after he was accused of sexual misconduct. In hindsight, I think THAT WAS A CRITICAL MISTAKE. Franken should have kept his seat in the U S Senate and faced the voters in the next election.
By making similar allegations at Joe Biden, Republicans hope Biden can be discredited enough to force the Democratic Party to reject him and choose another candidate, who might turn out to be weaker. Biden won the primaries because the rank and file Democratic voters consider him the strongest candidate; they themselves would be less likely to support wholeheartedly anyone else, and the centrist non-partisan voter even less so.
We hit absolute rock bottom with Donald Trump and even if the allegations against Biden are true, he is still better than Trump. After Biden purges the Presidency of Trump’s filth, we can then elect an even better person as Biden’s successor, and ultimately raise up an entire generation of young men who will know better than to violate the bodily autonomy of women. It’s too late for older men like Franken, Trump, and Biden who were raised with different standards and we need to be realistic about that. As long as Democrats and Republicans are NOT on an even playing field, this bloodletting among Democrats must end! We can move forward only by ensuring that Republicans and fellow Democrats can’t make political issues out of private behavior.
Even as the novel coronavirus continues to kill an incomprehensible number of people, many a policymaker, business leader, and president alike want to know one thing: How soon can we get people back to work and everyday life, and can it be sooner than whenever you’re going to tell me because honestly that doesn’t really work for my schedule or the economic platform I was hoping to run for reelection on. While Donald Trump wants to “reopen” the country as soon as possible, actually knowledgable person Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the government is “not there yet” when it comes to having measures in place that could conceivably allow some businesses to safely reopen, like significantly expanded testing capacities and the ability to trace every individual who has been infected.
Also urging caution are a number of Democratic governors, including New York’s Andrew Cuomo, California’s Gavin Newsom, and their counterparts in Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, and Connecticut, who have said that many other conditions will have to be met before relaxing restrictions, including the ability of hospitals to handle a spike in patients; a reduction in the exposure of vulnerable groups; a plan for businesses, schools, and other groups to implement social distancing measures; and a plan to reimpose restrictions if infections begin to rise again. And while we would absolutely hate to draw some sort of distinction between the approach of the two political parties, it would appear that whereas Democrats are urging vigilance, science, and an emphasis on preserving human life, the general take of Republicans might be summed up as: Screw it, some people are going to have to take one for the team. You’ve had a good run, but them’s the breaks.
On Tuesday, that take was summed up by Indiana congressman Trey Hollingsworth, who told a radio-show host that it’s Congress’s job to sit Americans down and explain to them that dying in a pandemic isn’t as bad as the havoc said pandemic is wreaking on the economy. “We are going to have to look Americans in the eye and say, ‘We are making the best decisions for the most Americans possible,’” Hollingsworth told WIBC. “And the answer to that is unequivocally to get Americans back to work, to get Americans back to their businesses.”
Asked by host Tony Katz how he will respond to the critics who will inevitably say he’s anti-science and is going to get people killed, Hollingsworth—who strangely did not mention which of his family members he’d be willing to let the virus knock off for the greater good—replied: “It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say, ‘This is the lesser of these two evils. And it is not zero evil, but it is the lesser of these evils, and we intend to move forward in that direction.’ That is our responsibility, and to abdicate that is to insult the Americans that voted us into office.” Sure, some might argue that the bigger insult is to suggest that people should be willing to die to save the economy—which won’t be in a great place if infections and deaths start surging again as a result of relaxed restrictions—but potato, potahto.
Hollingsworth—whose parents must have had a sixth sense that he’d give this interview one day when they named him Trey—is of course far from the only member of the Grand Old Party making such proclamations. In March, White House National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlowsaid in an interview that “The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re gonna have to make some difficult trade-offs” because the “economic cost to individuals is just too great.” Later in the month, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick claimed on live television that “lots of grandparents” are willing to “take a chance” on their survival for the good of the economy, saying “Those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. But don’t sacrifice the country, don’t do that, don’t ruin this great America.” After all, it’s like the founding fathers said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and sorry if you’re over 70 or have asthma but I refuse to spend another Saturday not strolling the aisles of Bob’s Big Lots followed by a dine-in experience at the Cheesecake Factory, you selfish pricks.”
Bankruptcy and unemployment are lesser evils than DEATH, you bastard? Absolutely not so. If you are bankrupt, unemployed, or even homeless, you can reverse these problems. But you cannot rise yourself from the dead. And even sacrificing your lives would make sense if we were being invaded by an enemy army, instead of an extremely contagious virus. The best way to combat the virus is to stay home and avoid contact with people. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth(less) is actually a TRAITOR!
We need to start auditing our politicians, because I suspect most of them, especially the Republican ones, own stock in corporations that are losing money in this present crisis. So……they want others to sacrifice their very lives so they can continue to make profits?! We should make it illegal for state and federal representatives to own stock in such corporations, to end the obvious conflicts of interests that result from them owning some of the very private companies the government is supposed to regulate on behalf of the people.
I can’t wait for November to come! #voteoutallrepublicans
In the comments section, this person popped up to begin preaching, proving that some Christian idiots simply don’t know when to shut up and act like adults.
@Let’s Discuss with Eliza Well, for us, God is spirit. It doesn’t mean that you can’t see, it doesnt exist. Like “air” for example its not visible for human eyes but that doesnt mean it doesnt exist. When I look at my surroundings, seeing so much detail in everything I see..it makes it impossible for me that it just pops up out of nowhere..i mean thats “scientifically” impossible.. Well thats just my opinion on that, and I respect your opinion too.😄 Godbless!
@FHI Simple, because God is a just God.. would a just judge allow rapist, thiefs, murderers, adulteres, etc. to be free without justice?😊 In fact we are all guilty for these stuff (luke 18:19) and that is why God gave us his only son as a sacrifice for our sins because of his great love for us.(romans 6:23)Even if you dont believe, that doesn’t change his love for you. (God is the alpha and the omega, He is self existing and is not affected by time)😉 Yes, we dont deserve such kind of goodness but thats just how He is. I would glady answer if you any questions😄 hope that helps..
@FHI Do you understand the purpose of the commandments given by God?Now Imagine a world without rules..no punishments, no discipline, no consequences..would you think it would be a great world to live in where humans lives like wild, using their preference in choosing what is good for them like for ex. “It feels good so why not”.(thats what most rapist,murderers,etc. usually use it as an explanation)
@FHI Every other Religion gets you to try and save yourself like falling from a cliff and just flapping your arms hoping. In Christianity, He already did that for you. Thats the difference.. and dont even get me started on how I grew up, Im probably worse than you haha.. I was actually an athiest before. Even after my parents converted, I hated them coz For me, its just a waste of time and the “money thing” stereotype. I hated them so much but later on God saved me from having a sinful life and he is still transforming me till now.. I hope that you read everything on top coz i feel like you still don’t understand what I mean.. Open your heart brother🙂
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So I decided to give this person a verbal body slam.
@TheChosenOne Official No one believes nothing created everything. At least we admit to not knowing where the universe came from. Your assumption that a god or gods must have done it omits one thing…..evidence for such creators.
@TheChosenOne Official ” I was actually an athiest before….. later on God saved me from having a sinful life and he is still transforming me till now.”I doubt your claim and in any case it doesn’t matter. You were probably a terrible atheist and thus we are better off without you.
Moses said, “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers 31 17-18)
On Sunday, 29 March, Russell M. Nelson, president of the 16-million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, released a video from Salt Lake City calling on church members everywhere to join in a fast “to pray for relief from the physical, emotional, and economic effects of this global pandemic.”
Some 71 years before, on 6 April 1949, members of the True Jesus Church around the world responded to the call of their leader, Wei Yisa, to fast and “pray for peace.” Communist forces were advancing on the city of Nanjing, where the church headquarters was located. Shortages were severe and prices were skyrocketing.
“It is hard to buy even one grain of rice,” reported an article in the Holy Spirit Times, the church’s international periodical.
One month’s worth of contributions is not enough to cover basic needs such as a day’s vegetables. It is not enough to cover even one day’s postage. We have begun to take good wood beams intended for building and sell them for firewood.
A worldwide fast as a response to a life-threatening crisis, just as spring was beginning to warm the days and coax bright colors from the earth, is a lot for these two churches to have in common. But the parallels go far beyond this.
Both the True Jesus Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are restorationist churches, claiming to have restored the true gospel of Jesus Christ after centuries of apostasy. The Latter-day Saint tradition starts in the spring of 1820 when a New York farmboy named Joseph Smith said he had a vision in which God the Father and Jesus Christ told him none of the existing churches were true. The True Jesus Church tradition starts nearly a century later in the spring of 1917, when a rural northeastern Chinese man named Wei Enbo said he had a vision in which Jesus Christ commanded him to “correct the Church.”
Both Smith and Wei were charismatic leaders who claimed to receive divine revelation, were reported to have performed miraculous feats of healing, frequently got on the wrong side of the law, and died young. Both were succeeded by pragmatic leaders (Brigham Young and Wei Yisa) who solidified church institutions and ensured the movement’s long-term survival.
Both churches have continued to thrive and expand globally, though they remain tiny as far as world religious movements are concerned. In 2017 the True Jesus Church, now with 1.5 million members, commemorated the 100th anniversary of Wei Enbo’s founding vision. This year the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, claiming 16 million members, celebrates the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s first vision (coincidentally, the day Smith formally organized the church in 1830 was 6 April—the same day as the True Jesus Church fast in 1949).
Restorationist churches are by nature exclusivist. For instance, Wei Enbo taught that no one could be saved unless they were baptized face-down and unless they had spoken in tongues. This exclusivist certainty leads to a universalistic orientation. In other words, the more a religious tradition insists that specific particulars of theology and practice are absolutely essential, the more likely it is to have mission outposts everywhere. If you believe your church is the only complete form of Christianity, when you move to another city or country, the local cathedral or neighborhood megachurch will not meet your needs. Wherever you go, you will seek out fellow believers like yourself, and if there are none, you will begin to seek converts.
Small, exclusivist religious groups tend to irritate people around them. Throughout their history, fellow Christians have labeled these two churches as disreputable and cultish. The Latter-day Saint movement began in upstate New York, but was driven west by flare-ups of mob violence and state suppression. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Communist party-state banned the True Jesus Church, imprisoning leaders and forcing rank-and-file members to meet secretly in their houses.
It’s sometimes difficult for upstart religious movements to strike the right balance between what sociologist Armand Mauss has called the twin dilemmas of respectability and disrepute. This is evident with the case of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus at the center of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea. Also led by a charismatic individual, also accused of being a cult, and also with a membership that likes to do things together, the church is now under fire.
Yet the resonance between the worldwide fasts of the True Jesus Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the spring of 1949 and 2020 suggests that such small but distinctive religious traditions also have something uniquely positive to offer. In the aftermath of World War II and today at the beginning of the twenty-first century, concepts such as “global arena” or “global community” are certainly viable. Yet in actuality, with real people, global scale tends to be overwhelming. It is nearly impossible to cast a global net without being sunk by the size of the catch. Small religious movements, however, are better positioned to pull it off.
Like Wei Yisa’s appeal to the True Jesus Church members in 1949, Russell M. Nelson’s call for a fast at the beginning of the first week of April 2020 went out to believers in such places as China, Japan, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom. Tens of thousands, possibly even millions of stomachs around the world went empty in concert. A fast offering was also collected to aid humanitarian efforts to ease the blow COVID-19 is dealing to the most vulnerable.
In times of global pandemic, inhabitants of the planet realize how inextricably we are connected, and also how little we usually have to do with each other, given vast divides in language, culture, space, and experience. In times like these, believers in tiny global communities who have long been eager to call each other sister and brother offer a sense of what is possible.
First, how can it be “good” to set up and promote sects within ANY religion that divide followers of the same religion against each other? That only appeals to egomaniacs and idiots.
In most cases, you must be a CHRISTIAN and nothing else. Do NOT claim as your primary religious identity any subdivision within Christianity, such as Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Mormon, or anything else. You would be a Christian who might go to a Baptist or Catholic church, but that’s it. Reject as necessary or justified any division within the Christian community that claims to be the one true religion. It is only CHRISTIANITY itself that ever should have made that claim. Not Mormonism, not the Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor any other such radical “reformist” or “restorationist” group within Christianity. These are simply additional divisions that do more damage to the credibility of Christianity itself.
I always thought it was the height of hubris that efforts to reform the Christian churches in the past, like that of Martin Luther and John Calvin during the Protestant Reformation were considered inadequate, but only with someone like Joseph Smith could restoration of true Christianity be accomplished and that only that specific path within Christianity could bring salvation to followers. That actually contradicts what Jesus said.
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Emphasis mine)
Also:
Mark 9:38-40 John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.” “Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.
So a Christian is a Christian, period. All those conflicts and even outright persecutions of various Christian factions by other Christians were a violation of Jesus’ true teachings.
Even more stupid is the commandments of religious leaders to merely pray and fast rather than actually get up and do some practical work to deal with a crisis, like the current coronavirus pandemic. Even the many people that have been thrown out of work recently can still go volunteer at hospitals to help treat patients, but that option was not even mentioned.
Oh, wait….
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
So…..it IS possible to do miracles in Jesus’s name but still be rejected by him in the end. You know, that could refer to charlatans like Joseph Smith and other cult founders that have turned believers in Jesus against each other.
Of course, such inconsistency even in the explicit teachings of Jesus himself would explain the fragmented nature of Christians around the world too.
To me, one of the most damning things about Baha’i history is the way the family of Baha’u’llah repeatedly tore itself apart over the “Covenant” of the Faith. The first such split was between Baha’u’llah and his brother Mirza Yahya (Sub-i-Azal). Yahya had been appointed by the Bab to lead the Babi community, but after a few years it became increasingly clear to most Babis that Baha’u’llah was the better leader and so when he declared himself to be the one the Bab had foretold would come after him, most of the Babis promptly became Baha’is. Perhaps ALL of them might have done so if Mirza Yahya had not rejected Baha’u’llah. In the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha’u’llah condemned his brother for his alleged disloyalty.
I’m loving reddit as a web community more than ever.
An apparent follower of the Bab, but not Baha’u’llah, came to the exBaha’i subreddit. I naturally suspected them of being an agent of Wahid Azal, sent like the others to disrupt our work. Continue reading →
10:1 Now it came to pass, when Adonizedec king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;
10:2 That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.
10:3 Wherefore Adonizedec king of Jerusalem, sent unto Hoham king of Hebron, and unto Piram king of Jarmuth, and unto Japhia king of Lachish, and unto Debir king of Eglon, saying,
10:4 Come up unto me, and help me, that we may smite Gibeon: for it hath made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel.
10:5 Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it.
10:6 And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us.
10:7 So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour. So Joshua and his mighty men of valor came to fight the Amorites.
10:8And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.
10:9 Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night.So Joshua attacked.
10:10And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Bethhoron, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And God discomfited the Amorites at Gibeon, killing them with a great slaughter, and chasing them along the way.
10:11 And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.
10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. 10:13And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
And the sun stood and moon stood still, until Joshua finished killing his enemies. [2]
10:14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.
This is literally impossible. First, because the apparent movement of the Sun is caused by the rotation of Earth, the sudden stopping of Earth would have caused everything on Earth not attached to the ground to be thrown sideways, including water in the oceans, rivers and lakes. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Likewise, the stopping of the moon in its orbit would have caused it to fall towards Earth, eventually crashing into Earth in only a few days.
Therefore the writer of that story above was not sharing the Word of God at all. And one wonders why so many people consider the Bible to be infallible even now.
Here’s a video dissecting one of their early albums:
Here’s one of their biggest hits, probably because it featured Christina Aguilera, who I think should have refused to do this garbage. It’s plainly insulting to the Rolling Stones’ lead singer, who is a far greater rock star than Adam Levine will ever be.
And last year, Maroon 5 got even worse, as I noticed when I started hearing one of their recent songs at my workplace.
Here’s the song, Memories, in a video clearly showing the lame lyrics:
Now listen to THIS:
MAROON 5 RIPPED OFF ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CLASSICAL WORKS TO MAKE THEIR MODERN DAY CRAP!!!
Which is perfectly legal to do since Canon in D is in the public domain (Johann Pachelbel died in 1706), but it is a clearly unethical thing to do! Now millions of people will associate Pachelbel with Maroon 5. Just as they did Mick Jagger with Adam Levine.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Equatorial Guinea argued on Monday that a luxury mansion in central Paris used by the son of the country’s president was protected by diplomatic immunity when it was raided by French authorities in 2012.
The case at the International Court of Justice is seen as a test for the limits of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity, which shields government officials from prosecution abroad.
Equatorial Guinea launched the case in 2016 after the residence of Teodorin Obiang on the grand Avenue Foch was raided as part of a corruption investigation that resulted in a conviction for embezzlement, confirmed last week.
The conviction came after a collection of 25 supercars he owned, including a Ferrari Enzo and a Bugatti Veyron, were confiscated by the Geneva prosecutor’s office under a deal ending a money-laundering inquiry. The cars fetched nearly 27 million Swiss francs ($27 million) at auction in September.
Obiang, 50, is the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony, for more than three decades.
A representative for Equatorial Guinea told the court’s judges on Monday that the luxury apartment, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world, had been bought by the African nation in 2011 and was part of its embassy.
“France has refused to recognize the diplomatic pretext of the building under the false pretence it belongs to the private domain”, ambassador Carmelo Nvono Nca, Equatorial Guinea’s agent, told the judges.
In coming days France will present its side before the United Nation’s highest court for disputes between states. A ruling is expected later this year.
In earlier hearings the French argued Equatorial Guinea was attempting to shield Obiang, known for posting pictures of his glamorous lifestyle on Instagram, by retroactively adding his opulent 101-room home to its diplomatic mission.
Police raided Obiang’s residence as part of a corruption investigation, eventually seizing 100 million euros worth of assets including paintings by Renoir and Degas and another fleet of luxury vehicles.
Obiang was convicted last week by a French court of embezzlement of public funds and ordered to pay a 30 million euro ($33 million) fine.
Diplomatic immunity in any case is a concept by which officials representing a country are allowed to openly violate the laws of another country while living there. It is a form of disrespect for the second country’s government and the people there that are subject to those laws. A basic standard of ethics and justice is that NO ONE should be above the law.
And this is not about some young idiot that didn’t know that he was doing wrong.
Obiang, 50, is the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony, for more than three decades.
Being 50 myself, I know damn well if I were not the son of a ruler who has been in power for far too long, there would be no question of me being imprisoned for my crimes. This case angers me too!
I hope the International Court of Justice rejects this appeal and ultimately abolishes the concept of diplomatic immunity completely. And also that the people of Equatorial Guinea themselves rise up and force their corrupt leader into retirement, and also prevent his son from ever ruling. Sheesh!
One of the most commonly held misconceptions about the man-made global warming hypothesis is that temperatures must increase every year and evenly over the world. No one knowledgable about climate issues would seriously claim that, so it’s an obvious strawman. The question is, why do temperatures fluctuate so much and does global warming explain this? Indeed it does!
Here’s a story that emerged in the wake of Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash last month. Among those killed with him was his 13 year old daughter.
Disney heiress says Kobe Bryant ‘was not a god’ in lengthy Twitter thread about rape allegations
Abigail Disney spoke out about Bryant’s rape allegations Saturday.
Disney heiress Abigail Disney addressed the rape allegations against late NBA star Kobe Bryant in a 24-tweet thread on Saturday that urged people to avoid turning Bryant into a god.
The 60-year-old, who is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney — a cofounder of the Walt Disney Company — had in a tweet January 29 shared an op-ed from the Washington Post about allegations Bryant faced some 17 years ago, writing “The man was a rapist. Deal with it.”
On February 1, the Disney heiress, who has a net worth of over $120 million, doubled down on her previous statement, offering new commentary on Bryant, who died January 26 in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
“OK, time to bite the bullet and say something,” Disney said when she began her Twitter thread early Saturday morning. “If you don’t like it, just stop following. First of all, yes, it IS my business because I’m a woman who has herself been assaulted and spent my life knowing, loving and feeling for women for whom it’s been so much worse.”
At the onset of the thread, Disney offered praise for Bryant amid her discussion of the rape allegations, noting that a person can do both good and bad things in their lifetime. “I mourn Kobe too,” she wrote. “He went on to be a man who seemed genuinely to want to do good. The face[sic] that he raped someone does not change any of these other facts.”
As The New York Times reported, the allegations stem from Bryant’s 2003 a trip to Colorado for an operation on his knee. Byrant reportedly asked a concierge at the spa where he was staying for a private tour. Following the tour, he invited her to his room where they began kissing. Bryant had said what followed was consensual sex, though his accuser said she was raped.
Court documents revealed the woman had bruises on her neck and tears on her vaginal wall, The New York Times reported. While the case never went to trial, reportedly over the accusers’ refusal to testify, a lawsuit between Bryant and the accuser resulted in an undisclosed settlement.
Bryant later apologized to his accuser.
“Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual,” he said in a statement, “I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did.”
Disney went on to compare the allegations against Bryant to a drunk driver killing a person. “Does his lack of intention absolve him of responsibility for the death?,” Disney asked. “If he said he wasn’t that drunk or didn’t know he was drunk, or didn’t mean to kill the person, or is really really really sorry, does any of this absolve him?”
“Of course not,” she added in the next tweet.
Disney’s final takeaway: don’t worship the NBA star.
“So yes, we should mourn him,” Disney said. “We should mourn his daughter and his family and all the other lives lost on the helicopter. It was horrible. But don’t deify him because he was not a god. That’s all. Just don’t deify him”.
There has been a flood of discourse since Bryant’s death over whether his 2003 rape allegations should be revisited as the world mourns the basketball star’s tragic death. The Washington Post received backlash when it suspended a reporter for sharing an article about the 2003 case on Twitter after Bryant’s death. The DC newspaper would later walk back its decision to suspend the reporter, saying her tweets did not violate WaPo policy. Still, it said her tweets were “ill-timed.”
The reactions to Disney’s two-dozen tweets were largely negative.
“Breaking: bored heiress of a multimedia empire has nothing better to do on a Wednesday because her life is completely empty & meaningless,” one Twitter user said in a tweet that was retweeted more than 120 times.
Not all of the reactions to Disney’s thread were negative, however.
“What a thoughtful thread,” one person tweeted. “Thank you for writing it. I have seen the way that fierce emotional identification and defense of abusive behavior can happen with sports figures.”
Abigail Disney did not return Business Insider’s request for comment.
Here are my responses to that story:
Kobe Bryant was ACCUSED of rape, but he was never brought to trial, let alone convicted. From a strictly legal standpoint, he is NOT a rapist, so calling him one, especially when he is dead and cannot defend himself from that charge, might as well be called SLANDER.
It is entirely possible that the supposed victim was an opportunist who after having sex with Bryant proceeded to sue him in an effort to get money out of him. This is why, even if the sex was indeed consensual, KOBE BRYANT WAS AN IDIOT TO HAVE AN AFFAIR.
Bryant had four daughters at the time of his death and I’m sure they would have been shocked at the idea of their father raping anyone. That’s a bigger issue to me than his celebrity sports status. Sometimes it is better to let dead dogs decay.
Abigail Disney’s personal wealth was completely irrelevant to the issue, so why mention it? If she had been homeless and not even related to Walt Disney at all, the issue would have been the same.
Sports figures ARE glorified and thus are largely shielded by their own fans from their reputation being damaged by accusations of wrongdoing. We saw that to some extent with O J Simpson, who was a football star early in his life. To this day, I think Simpson got away with murder because he was a rich celebrity; a poor man would have been convicted and sent to prison for life.
Yes, point 5 does seem to contradict point 1. Maybe someday I will have a more consistent ethical position, but for now I have to keep thinking about the matters more. I just feel that one mistake made by a man shouldn’t destroy his life…..unless that mistake destroys other lives. Murder is far worse than rape or adultery. And all people make mistakes.
London (AFP) – Britain on Friday ended almost half a century of European Union membership, making a historic exit after years of bitter arguments to chart its own uncertain path in the world.
There were celebrations and tears across the country as the EU’s often reluctant member became the first to leave an organisation set up to forge unity among nations after the horrors of World War II.
Thousands of people waving Union Jack flags packed London’s Parliament Square to mark the moment of Brexit at 11 pm (2300 GMT) — midnight in Brussels.
“We did it!” declared Nigel Farage, the former member of the European Parliament who has campaigned for Brexit for years, before the crowd began singing the national anthem.
<snip>
But Britons remain as divided as they were nearly four years ago, when 52 percent voted to leave and 48 percent voted to remain in the EU.
“Rise and shine… It’s a glorious new Britain” said the Brexit-supporting Daily Express. The i, in contrast, headlined: “What next?”
In Scotland, where a majority voted to stay in 2016, Brexit has revived calls for independence and there were protests Friday outside parliament.
And in a sign of potential constitutional trouble ahead First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “Scotland will return to the heart of Europe as an independent country — #LeaveALightOnForScotland.”
In Northern Ireland, where there are fears Brexit could destabilise a hard-won peace after decades of conflict over British rule, a billboard read: “This island rejects Brexit.”
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney tweeted: “Goodbye & good luck.”
– ‘Glad it’s over’ –
Johnson, who remains a polarising figure accused of glossing over the complexity of leaving the EU, has avoided any big official celebrations that might exacerbate divisions.
<snip>
“What happens now marks the point of no return. Once we have left, we are never, ever going back,” Farage told the crowd of cheering supporters.
At a “Big Brexit Bash” in Morley, northern England, Raymond Stott described the four years since the referendum as “a right cock-up”.
“I am just glad it’s all over. We will look after ourselves. We don’t need Europe,” said the 66-year-old.
But for many pro-Europeans, Friday marks a day they hoped would never come.
“Today is a day of mourning,” said Katrina Graham, 31, an Irish women’s rights activist who lives in Brussels, at a protest in central London.
Only an idiot (or an English hypernationalist, which might be one and the same) can expect the Scots to take this insult to them lying down. The problem with nationalism is that it can apply to Scots as much as to the English.
Since both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU, their defection from the UK will most likely cause the Union Jack to be retired, due to it representing a combination of the Scottish, English and Irish flags.
It will likely be replaced by something like a combination of the original English and Welsh flags.
A smaller version of the Welsh flag might appear in the upper left of the new UK flag (Wales is not even represented at all in the present Union Jack).
As for the United States, my contempt for the concept of “states’ rights”, which started the American Civil War, has only intensified, to the point that I no longer want to see states represented in the U S flag. Instead, I want only the Union to be shown as one brilliant sun. Like this:
Because a united, peaceful people, in either North America or Europe, is preferable to conflict resulting in chaos, death, destruction and tyranny over minorities.
It is common knowledge that ads placed by large corporations make up a large part of the revenue of major printed, online, and television publications. And that has some serious consequences.
Before I talk about the actual subject matter of this blog entry, let me pay tribute to Luke Spencer, a music critic who hosts the Rocked channel on YouTube (not to be confused with the long running character on the soap opera General Hospital).
I guess I should have paid better attention to it, because…..
Mallard yearns for the “good old days,” and views himself as a victimized underdog in a world that is being overrun with political correctness, religious secularism, and hypocrisy. He is often in a state of outrage over the news item of the day, usually involving liberals.
Mallard’s politics are very close to, if not one and the same as, cartoonist Bruce Tinsley’s; Tinsley told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that “Mallard really is about as close to me as you can get,” in an October 2005 interview.
Other characters from the strip:
Mr. Noseworthy is Mallard’s boss at WFDR. He is a parody of political correctness in America, afraid of offending anyone or anything. He is also a parody of the mainstream media, which is portrayed in the strip as having a liberal bias. Noseworthy’s catchphrase is, “If you’d gone to journalism school, you’d know this stuff.” He has a daughter in college who “came out” as a conservative.
Chet is a co-worker of Mallard’s at WFDR. He is an arrogant, vain, superficial, Botox-injecting, clothes-obsessed Caucasian male. In a series of strips in late 2003, he discovered he is a “metrosexual.”
Chantel, an African-American woman reporter, is a co-worker of Mallard’s at WFDR. She is described as “smart, aggressive, and liberal.” Unlike most liberals depicted in “Mallard Fillmore,” she is presented as an intelligent, competent person. She is usually used whenever a scene calls for a minority or a minority perspective – although she is offended when her colleagues assume she speaks on behalf of all African-Americans. On average, she appears about once or twice a year.
Dave Quat, a conservative Vietnamese man, is Mallard’s best friend, who generally agrees with Mallard’s politics. He is the owner of his own diner, aptly named “Dave’s Diner.” His wife has never been seen.
Rush Quat is Dave’s young son. Rush is in the fourth grade and hopes to someday become a professional basketball player; he sometimes plays basketball with Mallard. Unlike most of the kids in his class, he does not take Ritalin.
Eddie is Mallard’s pet fish. Unlike Mallard, he does not speak but only comments in thought balloons.
Congressman Pinkford Veneer is a fictional Washington, D.C. DemocraticCongressman. He is a spineless, hypocritical, out-of-touch politician who enjoys tax hikes and opposes school vouchers, even though he sends his own children to a private school. In April 2000, he authored a bill that would require criminals to “give their victims a 30-second waiting period to unlock their trigger-locks” on their guns.
OSHA-Boy is a guardian of workplace safety and safe working conditions who is authorized to “annoy virtually anyone suspected of violating a regulation.” He appears to be a flying, glasses-wearing dwarf (or other creature) with a superhero-like costume, and a clipboard in hand. He appears to be a physical manifestation of OSHA.
Dr. Dilton Twinkley, an education expert, often appears as a guest on WFDR to talk about education issues. He appears to be an exaggerated parody of the NEA and U.S. public school system officials.
Larry, a co-worker of Mallard’s who gets agitated whenever Mallard does not purchase candy from his son for his school’s annual fundraisers.
Mr. or Ms. P.C. Person, a superhero-like physical manifestation of political correctness who prides hirself on being gender-neutral.(This character has come under fire from transgender rights groups because they felt the character promoted bigotry and mockery of transgender individuals.)
I wanted to learn more about the strip’s creator, so I went to:
In 2006, Tinsley was arrested twice for driving while intoxicated, once in August and again in December, both Class A misdemeanors.[1][2] After the December incident, he attacked the sentencing judge, Roderick McGillivray, in several of his comics.[3]
And he’s a conservative? Shouldn’t he be a supporter of law enforcement and not a drunk trying to justify himself even if he screws up?
Clearly, his strip shouldn’t be running in newspapers if those incidents are true!
MPs have backed the Prime Minister’s plan for the UK to leave the European Union on 31 January.
They voted 358 to 234 in favour of something called the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, that’s a majority of 124.
Boris Johnson said the bill will allow the UK to “move forward”.
Getty Images
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told his MPs to vote against the deal, he said there was a “better and fairer way” to leave the EU.
It had been expected that the bill would pass, because the Conservative Party won an 80-seat majority in the general election.
The bill will be discussed again in January after MPs come back after the Christmas break. The details will be looked at at the Committee stage and any proposed changes will be decided on.
The final stage of the bill in the Commons will then take place on Thursday, 9 January, before it heads to the Lords for approval.
Only then can it be made into law.
In a previous blog entry, I pointed out the hypocrisy of English nationalists wanting to leave the EU.
Ironically, the overwhelming majority of the people in Scotland voted AGAINST Brexit. Wouldn’t it be fitting if the UK did leave the EU only to have Scotland revolt and leave the UK? What goes around comes around!
Because of this, Prime Minister Johnson does NOT have an actual mandate for Brexit; he would only have that if BOTH English and Scottish majorities have voted for it.
If Johnson pushes ahead with his obsession with brexit next year, it is certain that the Scots will revolt and leave the United Kingdom, causing it to dissolve. The Scots have fought for their independence before.
The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of Scotland in 1296, and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. The Second War (1332–1357) began with the English-supported invasion by Edward Balliol and the ‘Disinherited’ in 1332, and ended in 1357 with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. The wars were part of a great crisis for Scotland and the period became one of the most defining times in its history. At the end of both wars, Scotland retained its status as an independent state. The wars were important for other reasons, such as the emergence of the longbow as a key weapon in medieval warfare.
Obviously, Boris Johnson flunked history courses in school!
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And just like last time, it was not made clear what personal information was being referred to. How can I know not to break rules if it is never explained the exact nature of my violation? Even in the previous case, I had to guess what my wrongdoing was; I still do not really know because no one in reddit ever actually told me. This is why reddit as a web community has very little credibility in my eyes.
It is obvious to me that Wahid Azal won’t give up until I am totally gone from reddit forever and thus it is easier for him and his cultists to disrupt the exBaha’i community there.
A few days before my second suspension, there was this incident between me and another idiot follower of Azal.
Good observations. Persian Bahais have been put on a pedestal in many communities but that’s not what the Bahai teachings are about. In general, I believe pride is a stumbling block for most people, but especially for Bahais as their scriptures make them feel special… a way to keep people attached to the religion for fear of losing that special status.
Yes, and THAT was why Wahid Azal claimed later I was a “racist”. Not because I have used racial slurs or because I have advocated actual discrimination against any racial minorities. Quite the opposite.
He called you a racist because you exude racism and white privilege despite all your pretensions to the contrary, and upon being confronted with this, you resorted to accusations of “reverse racism,” which is a white nationalist dog-whistle. Believe it or not, but you don’t have to be running around shouting the N-word and making flagrantly racist statements to be expressing sentiments of white privilege.
Needless to say, that claim is absolute bullshit! So I promptly ripped it apart.
ALL white people in white majority countries have white privledge, that’s true, but I have NEVER expressed the kind of bigoted hatred towards any minorities that Wahid Azal started spitting at me once it was clear I would never be one of his blind followers. Being white, even in a southern state like Texas, does NOT make someone racist. Azal simply lied about that, period. He is a fraud and you are a fool to believe anything he says.
Imagine a prominent Muslim theologian who happens to live in a majority pagan country, who was even born in that country and belongs to that country’s dominant ethnic group, as well as being raised pagan and converting to Islam as an adult, being called a polytheist and thus guilty of shirk by an insanely jealous rival, which is something literally impossible for an actual Muslim to be. You can only justify such an outrageous claim if you produce pics of the “Muslim” bowing down to an idol of a god other than Allah. Otherwise, it is just an insulting lie, stemming from racism. That was the basis for my calling Wahid Azal a racist towards me. He attacked me for my Southern Baptist background (which is indeed bigoted), not anything I’ve done since leaving that corrupt form of Christianity.
you resorted to accusations of “reverse racism,” which is a white nationalist dog-whistle.
It can be such……but not actually in my case. It is indeed possible for a black man in an African country like Zimbabwe to express racism towards whites. To say this is fair is to deny that the playing field between races should ever be leveled, instead still favoring one race dominating another. You either believe in racial equality or you don’t. Wahid Azal’s recent attacks on me prove he is an anti-white extremist, not a credible activist for racial harmony and peacemaking like me.
Even the Southern Poverty Law Center, the most dedicated anti-racist organization in America, lists black separatist groups as “hate groups” along with the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazis, and others that favor whites.
No doubt, Wahid must have been embarrassed by my making one of his followers look stupid in public, and his getting me suspended AGAIN was his way of retaliating.
Meanwhile, the coward has fled Germany and moved to Australia.
Since this asshole has lied about me being “racist” and lied about the moderators of the exBahai subreddit being agents of the Haifan Baha’is, what else could he have been lying about? Is it possible that he murdered his wife? Or did he even have a wife and daughter at all? Were those two family members, and the later death of his wife, made up by Wahid to gain public sympathy? Perhaps we will never know. He is responsible for so much fakery on the internet (even while accusing others of having fake identities), that it is impossible to be sure of anything about him now.
For over a century, the leadership of the Baha’i community has sought to make their religion a world one and not just one centered on the Middle East and people of Persian/Shiite descent. Yet because the Faith was founded by such people, they tended to be a privileged class in Baha’i communities around the world. Now, however, not so much. It seem ironic that Baha’is taking the anti-racist teachings to heart are now causing problems for some Persian Baha’is.
As the culture evolves, people who benefitted from the old ways invariably see themselves as victims of change. The world used to fit them like a glove, but it no longer does. Increasingly, they find themselves in unfamiliar situations that feel unfair or even unsafe. Their concerns used to take center stage, but now they must compete with the formerly invisible concerns of others.
To Mr. Kenneth E. Bowers Secretary National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States
I have just read your letter/warnings regarding the activities of one Ms. Bahareh Moghaddam, who you feel is trying to deceive and misguide the Baha’is of Iranian descent by sowing the ‘seeds of discord’. Well, you may or may not be right in your analysis, but as a sincere and third generation Baha’i, I wish to mention that before breaking into pen please follow the principle that Ignorance sometimes is a Bliss (i.e you could have ignored her). Now I am sure many Baha’is will take a chance to connect themselves with the ‘misguided soul’.
Having given my advice to you regarding the Enemies of Faith, I have some very rough and tough questions to ask. You may forward it to Beloved Universal House of Justice for its explanation.
We, Persian Baha’is are concluding that PERSECUTION is something which is destined to us. We face persecution in the country where we pioneer, we face persecution in our own country and now we are facing persecution in our own Faith by fellow Baha’is.
Dear Secretary, we see a very systematic persecution of Persian Baha’is in the Baha’i Administration. It looks like there is systematic cleansing of Persian Baha’is from the Baha’i Administration.
The representation of the Persian Baha’is in the Universal House of Justice has gone down tremendously, and they are being replaced by unskilled, ignorant Baha’is.
The ITC has been cleansed of many Persian Baha’i except Muna Tehrani. The number of Persian Bahai’s as counsellors have come down drastically and the story is not different for the ABMs.
They were asked to leave their place of pioneer where they had established themselves, gained respect, involved themselves in Teaching of the Faith and then asked to settle in some other parts of the world. This is nothing but humiliation and harassment.
The case of Baha’i Scholar Mr. Ahang Rabbani has not been forgotten. After working for 15 years at the World Centre, he died Heart broken.
The way Mr. Ali Nakhjavani was hunted for his misunderstood statement resulting into ignorant Baha’is daring to ask him that why he gave such a statement?
A sincere Persian Baha’i in India was threatened by one of the members of UHJ that he should come in line with the UHJ or face severe consequences.
Jamshed Fozdar and Firoz Anarki were on the brink of being declared Covenant Breakers but some better reasoning prevailed on the UHJ and they stopped from doing such an atrocious act.
There are some misguided Baha’is who are making fake sites in the name of sincere Baha’is for defamation.
A Norwegian Baha’i sent to India made the life of Persian pioneer miserable in India. He was an arch enemy of Persian Baha’is.
Wife of a well-respected former counsellor wanted to attend a Baha’i programme but was refused permission. It was well evident that she was accused of being siding with Persian Baha’is.
The Late Mr. Hasan Sabri along with Isabella Sabri made fun of Persian Baha’is and use to call them KHAR (donkey) and used to say that Persian Baha’is are misguiding other Baha’is.
Many sincere Baha’is were asked not to enter any other countries else face consequences!
We see that if a non-Persian Counsellor retires from his post, he is immediately offered another post in his own country, but if the counsellor is a Persian, and that too a pioneer, never this opportunity of service had been offered to him or his experience used for promotion of the Faith.
A retired counsellor wanted to attend a conference in a foreign country at his own expense but was denied permission by the NSA of that country.
I don’t understand how just for expressing one’s feelings about injustice, is categorized as ‘sowing the seeds of discord’?
I can’t help but think these statements are gross exaggerations. What the writer calls “PERSECUTION” is merely non-Persian Baha’is demanding and getting equality with Persians in terms of social power within the Baha’i communities. If the Baha’i communities around the world have grown to the point that Persians are no longer the overwhelming majority, then the leadership of the Faith needs to reflect that reality. Persians need to stop expecting everything to be handed to them without merit. The Unitarian Universalist Association, a denomination with a white majority, faced a problem of racial justice among themselves in 2017 that forced them to change. If they can do it, so can Baha’is.
For over 300 years, the Roman Catholic Church only elected Italians to the Papacy. It wasn’t until 1978 that John Paul II, who was Polish, became Pope. Since then, it seems Italians have been shut out of becoming Pope, for the two others that have become Pope are also non-Italian (German and Argentinian). I wonder how Italians feel about that.
Jews founded Christianity, only to be excluded and persecuted by Christians later. That was not justice, but neither would have been keeping the Christian communities Jewish dominated, no matter their ethnic makeup. We should keep things balanced and fair for all.
You can either have a single ethnic/linguistic group dominate a religious community forever, or you can have a diverse community spreading around the world. It is wrong to expect both, ever.
Infomercials featuring techniques for “house-flipping” are often shown on TV late at night. I wonder if we should start protesting such crap. For my own view of “censorshit” on YouTube, see:
NOTE: That blog entry is now obsolete; YouTube no longer shuts down questionable videos due to copyright claims so quickly. Here’s hoping they won’t again.
Rebecca bashes another feminist for bullshitting:
Of course, opponents of feminism use such incidents to claim feminism itself is bullshit, so this fact checking is extremely important.
And can we PLEASE have fewer idiots and lunatics running for President of the United States? We already elected one such train wrecker in 2016!
Not to mention her condemnation of former friend Michael Shermer:
One of the many things that makes me so proud to be a Unitarian Universalist and not an evangelical Christian is that UUs have no qualms about being open and honest about human sexuality, even when it comes to teaching children about it, especially girls.
It’s no big secret that I absolutely despise Mike Adams, who calls himself the “Health Ranger” and his insane website titled Natural News. I previously dealt with that nutcase on these blog entries.
Hello. I am Dale Husband, and today I’d like to talk about a certain individual known across the internet as Wahid Azal. Last month, he and I were friends and we made a podcast together in which we discussed the Baha’i Faith and I also talked briefly about my allegiance to Unitarian Universalism. A link to that is below in the description.
Well, a couple of weeks after this, Wahid was banned from the ExBahai subreddit, a link to which is also below,
and this was done for him fighting with another member and also making threats at the moderators of the subreddit. I expressed my profound disappointment over this, since he had clearly brought this punishment on himself.
His response to this was to turn completely against me and begin to attack me in the most ridiculous terms. A link to the blog entry documenting this is also below.
Not content with this slander, he further defamed my character with a second video in which he accused me of somehow being racist. A link to THAT video is also below, so watch that diatribe and then come back and finish this.
OK? Question: How could it have been acceptable for him to collaborate with me only a month before and then begin slamming me for views and perspectives I do NOT have and he cannot prove I have regarding race relations? The simple truth is that Wahid Azal has always had a psychotic, bigoted hatred of white people. Now, of course white people in power have been responsible for a great many evil things over the past several centuries. Does that mean that ALL white people should be condemned for what their ancestors have done? Wahid Azal clearly thinks so. He only found me useful because of my devastating attacks against the Baha’i Faith, and thus I was an outlier to him, one of the “good” white people. Much like a white supremacist like Donald Trump can find “good” blacks useful to them even while demonizing blacks in general, such as Barack Obama. But the moment I stopped being useful to Azal, he began to treat me instead like he has always treated white people, as an enemy.
In addition to slandering me, he also attacked a reddit user named “Christian ExBahai” for being a white American and also repeatedly accused the moderators of the exbahai subreddit of being “gatekeepers” working for the Haifan Bahai leadership in some fashion. There is NO evidence for that claim either and it is certainly irrational for anyone to assume that all white people by their very nature MUST be racist. What would you call someone who asserts things as truth that are not factual?
His anger towards me stems solely from my refusing to be one of his few sycophants. Indeed, I am a sycophant to NO ONE; I am always my own person. If you work with me, we must be equals, I don’t blindly follow anyone. If he was thinking of me in those lowly terms, then he was wrong.
Many times he addressed me as a brother in our battles against the Baha’i Faith, but the thing about being someone’s brother is that you don’t allow simple disagreements to pull you apart from that other person. Wahid Azal is a liar, backstabber and bigot and no one should ever take his insane rants seriously.
Now, I have to wonder if others have also been betrayed and backstabbed by Wahid Azal just as I was. If that has happened to you, please send your story to dale_husband1@att.net and If I get one or more of those stories in the next few weeks, I will publish them in a future blog entry. In any case, beware of that extremist. Trust him at your peril.
Abdu’l-Baha’s claim of infalliblity was directly opposed by his brother Mirza Muhammad Ali, resulting in the latter being declared a violator of Baha’u’llah’s Covenant, which was an outright lie. You don’t violate a covenant by upholding the actual teachings of Baha’u’llah!
Van de Leur quit gymnastics in her early 20s.
Credit: Picasa / Verona van de LeurVerona van de Leur
Credit: Picasa / Verona van de Leur
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 