Today is the three year anniversary of LaVena Johnson’s death. Hopefully, the Johnson family won’t have to see the four year anniversary come without answers to what really happened to their daughter.

This link roundup isn’t all of the LaVena Johnson articles there are but it will definitely get you started toward learning who she was and why this case so desperately needs national attention. I made a LaVena Johnson banner (see the bottom of our sidebar). It isn’t going to win any graphic arts awards, but feel free to place it on your own website/blog if you’d like.

Moue Links:

The Death of LaVena Johnson (covers the basic facts of the case)

New LaVena Johnson Petition Available

LaVenaJohnson.Com Links:

This is the site that collects most of the information and stories about the case in one place. Work your way down their sidebar to see many other blogs that are writing about LaVena.

The Cover-Up of a Soldier’s Death? (basic facts)

KMOV-TV News Report from 2007 (video, news story about the case)

What About Our Daughters:

LaVena Johnson Update

When you’re ready to take action, that excellent post will show you the best ways to go about contacting your elected officials.

The New Petition:

Justice for LaVena Johnson

This petition, created by Danielle Vyas, surpassed its original goal of 1,000 signatures. Now the goal is 3,000. Click and sign to help meet that goal.

Teddy Ruxpin has come up in three separate conversations I’ve had within the past two weeks so I thought he deserved his own post. Teddy Ruxpin is a teddy bear that could talk and move. My own Teddy Ruxpin befell some “illnesses” that made him seem like the best toy on earth from my perspective. First, one eye rolled back into his head. The other one remained fully functional, moving and blinking and such. Then his speech mechanism slowed down so that every sentence he uttered sounded exasperated. My parents saw these as toy defects, but I knew that my Teddy knew what was going on and wasn’t going to fall into a false pleasantry trap like his cheerful brethren.

Previously featured retailer Fuzzy Ink has a new t-shirt featuring Jason Giambi. 15% of all sales will go to an as yet unspecified NYC charity (it will probably benefit ALS). If you’re in the area, the Fuzzy Ink-ers will have a stand set up outside Yankee Stadium (across the street from the parking garage near River Ave/E 153rd St) Saturday afternoon and Sunday night.

The shirt design:

From TPM Election Central:

A voter initiative in San Francisco to rename a sewage plant in honor of George W. Bush
has received a sufficient number of signatures, and will appear on the November ballot. The idea was hatched by a group calling itself the “Presidential Memorial Commission,” which by their own admission was formed over drinks at a bar.

Isn’t that how all good political movements start? I’m all for this movement and I encourage all of you to look at ways in your own community that we can honor George W. Bush. I think I’ll find the worst-graded bridge in my community and push for it to be named after him.

Honestly, I’m at the point where if I never see the word Eucharist again, it will be too soon. Thomas Foley has jumped on the “P.Z. Myers and his cracker loathing associates are dangerous ” bandwagon:

On Friday the Catholic League reported that Thomas E. Foley, a Virginia delegate to the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Minneapolis has asked that increased security be considered for the event in light of Myers’ threat to acquire and desecrate the Eucharist.

“I just felt security at the Republican National Convention ought to look at him and his followers,” Foley told CNA in a phone interview on Wednesday morning. He reported that he had not received an update about his request.

Voicing his concerns about Myers, Foley said: “What I think he has done, he’s loaded a cyberpistol and he’s cocked it and he’s left it on the table. He may have set something in motion that no one can stop. It was irresponsible, a hell of a thing to do.”

Won’t someone please think of the children crackers! Damn, if we atheists knew it was this easy to stage a coup we never wanted to have, we would’ve threatened snack foods years ago. It was awfully devious of us to plant a college student in a campus mass where he was bound to be manhandled into walking out with a wafer. This is where we insert a devious laugh and much beard stroking.

Foley explained that he thought Myers should not be able to incite such acts with “impunity,” saying that he was especially disturbed by the comments posted on Myers’ blog. He said it was “eye-opening” to read the people who supported Myers’ action. Even at his age of 63, Foley said, he had never “personally encountered such bigotry.”

He’s a 63 year old man from Virginia who’s claiming this is the first time he’s encountered extreme bigotry. That tells you all you need to know about Thomas Foley’s world view.

Foley said he believes Myers was telling his readers to acquire a consecrated Host at Mass, which Foley thought would result in disruptions.

“What’s he telling them to do? Consecrated Hosts are not just lying around,” he said to CNA, noting that the only other possible way to secure a Host would be to accost a priest, nun, or layman taking the Sacrament to the sick. Even E-bay, Foley emphasized, has prevented the sale of consecrated Hosts.

Now we’re nun muggers? Impressive. Foley seems to be forgetting that this whole mess started because a student walked out of mass with a consecrated Host he was handed. Obviously, it is quite possible to leave with one and mail it to a Biology professor. P.Z. Myers also has no real way of knowing that the wafers he’s being sent were in fact consecrated. And it is my understanding that to Catholics and non-Catholics alike an unconsecrated wafer is a distant cousin of a Triscuit.

Foley said he thinks Myers’ actions have ended his career. “Who can listen to him lecture on science without thinking ‘Polly wants a cracker’?” he asked.

What is he even talking about? Holy hell (pun intended).

Related Stories:

Much Ado About a Wafer

1-800-Flowers Employee Fired Because Husband Threatened P.Z. Myers

Today is my little brother’s seventh birthday (which puts a whopping twenty years between us in age). I’m clear across country from him so this (and a cartoon e-card) is my best way of being there since he hates speaking on the phone. Happy birthday, Bubby. I love you.

Fun Fish-in-a-Bag Soap, $6.00

I love this magnetic word board because the parts of speech are color coded. Even if your child knows the 381 included word and 15 customized words they can learn whether they’re nouns, verbs or adjectives. The set also includes word fragments, numbers, punctuations and math symbols.

Kids’ Super Bundle Word Magnets, $29.95

Animal Lamps, $20.00 each (light bulb included)

Options: frog, pig, puppy, kitty and monkey

The “Moon in My Room” lets your child cycle through the twelve cycles of the moon via remote. It comes with an informative cd.

Moon in My Room, $29.95

And, to round out the post, some magnetic blocks:

Ball of Whacks, $29.95

It just occurred to me that no post was made to explain why Will’s been somewhat absent from Moue for the past month or so. He’s not pinned beneath the victrola, crying out for help or anything. He had to take on a new job that has crazy long hours that don’t work well around blogging. We’re keeping his seat warm and his bottle in the liquor cabinet sealed.

All of us Moue-sters have full time jobs outside of blogging since this doesn’t actually pay us anything other than the warm and fuzzy feeling of productivity in the name of procrastinating our real work. I have the most flexible real job (I actually get to put down “writer” on my tax forms) so I tend to pick up the slack when the others are too busy.

I admit freely that my taste in movies is rather… specialized. Basically, if I watch twenty movies a month, at least eighteen of them are going to be horror movies. A solid ten of them will involve zombies.

Jeepers Creepers was one of my preferred horror movies. It is well written, well acted and planted an affinity I have for Justin Long even though I’ve never seen him in any other movie. So hearing that Jeepers Creepers 3: The Cathedral is in the works should make me happy- especially since Gina Phillips is back after sitting out part 2.

For some reason, I hadn’t poked around online that much about Jeepers Creepers in the past. I could tell you any bit of trivia from a Romero or Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but my research got lazy this time around. When I finally did start poking around a couple of weeks ago looking for information about a film I’ve owned (and loved) for years, I discover that Victor Salva, the writer and director, is a convicted child molester. He molested a 12 year old boy who was starring in one of his films in the ’80s and only had to serve 15 months of a three year jail sentence. Salva went on to direct that movie Powder, which was financed by Disney and protested by his victim (who was by then an adult).

Crimes like robbery or even homicide can happen with variables that can determine how culpable the person involved is. That’s why our judicial system punishes someone like Ted Bundy more than a wife who kills her abusive husband. But child molestation has no gray zone. You do that and you’re scum. Yes, people do get falsely accused but that wasn’t the case with Salva.

I considered throwing away the Salva DVDs I already own but that would only rid me of objects I already paid for. I won’t be paying to see (or own) Jeepers Creepers 3. But this raised a question for me: should an artist’s works be held separate from their personal lives? Roman Polanski raped a 13 year old girl and fled the country to avoid serving his time in jail. He won the Oscar for Best Director in 2003. Woody Allen is married to his former stepdaughter and he’s still considered one of the greatest American filmmakers (not by me- can’t stand his movies). Is there a level of fame and recognition at which we’ll just forgive and forget any wrongdoing?

Damn you for making me get philosophical about my monster movies, Victor Salva.

Sean Tevis is running for the Kansas State Legislature. Why would I- someone who has never even visited Kansas- care? The opponent that Tevis would like to throw out of office, Arlen Siegfried , is anti-abortion, anti-evolution, pro-censorship, pro-surveillance and the well known incumbent (Tevis is the opposite of all those things). Tevis also has an xkcd-like web comic that depicts his run for office, aptly titled “Running for Office: It’s Like a Flamewar with a Forum Troll, but with an Eventual Winner”.

He’s trying to get 3,000 donors to donate at least $8.34 (to add up to the $26,000 he needs to raise by July 28th to have a chance at beating the other guy). No candidate for the Kansas State Legislature has ever had more than 644 donors. Tevis is currently at 2,250 donors. Click here to add your $9.00 to his fund.

His platform currently consists of the following issues:

No Sales Tax on Food

Kansas is one of only 14 states that charge a sales tax on food. They are one of only four states that charge over 5% sales tax on food. In certain counties and cities that add their own tax, the percent tax on the food can be 7%. With grocery prices rising with the price of fuel, adding a tax to those prices could severely damage a family’s ability to put a proper meal on the table.

Illegal Immigration

Short version: The American workforce is going to need extra bodies but we should make sure they’re legal immigrants by overhauling and improving the federal immigration laws.

Education: Best Schools in the U.S.A.

Transparency in Government

Cracker-gate is still going strong and the weirdos are frantically jumping around outside of the woodwork. As you may know if you read the liberal blogs (or read my post, Much Ado About a Wafer), P.Z. Myers has been receiving death threats because he vaguely threatened to desecrate a Eucharist cracker if someone mailed him one. He offered to do this in response to the Catholic Church implying that college senior Webster Cook was a kidnapper or hate crime perpetrator because he walked out of church with a wafer in his pocket (mostly just to piss off the people inside who had just physically assaulted him).

P.Z. Myers makes it a habit of posting on his blog the complete emails containing physical threats. Which I support 100%. If you’re going to be making physical threats, you need to be willing to be held accountable for them. One of the emails appeared to be from a woman named Melanie Kroll who worked at 1-800-Flowers.

The email (The “P” in the “P.Z.” stands for Paul) :

From: mkroll@1800FLOWERS.com

Subject: your short life

Date July 13, 2008 8:07:31 AM CDT

(…)

Paul,

what I would like to know is how did you even

get a job at a collage.

when you are obviously a moron.

How would you feel if nice folks starting ranting against

Fags, and atheist like yourself.

well sir, you don’t get to blaspheme and walk away from this.

You have two choices my fucked up friend, first you can quit your job for the good of the children. Or you can get your brains beat in.

I give you till the first of the month, get that resignation in cunt.

Personally, I was lost in a fit of giggles once I got to the “get a job at a collage”. Can you really get hired on for a collage? Are they collaborative processes? What are the job titles? “Glue Stick Guy”, “Photo Arranger”…

Anyway, P.Z.’s readers deduced that it probably wasn’t Melanie Kroll since the language in the letter seemed more masculine in nature (threats of beating P.Z.’s face in would most likely come from a man). It would also seem- and this is being generous- that even a person capable of that many grammatical errors would be smart enough to not send a death threat from their easily traceable business email account.

Melanie Kroll lost her job at 1-800-Flowers. But the readers were right that she wasn’t the sender. It was Chuck Kroll, presumably her husband, who has now publicly confessed. And while he seems to (somewhat) regret using such harsh language towards P.Z. Myers, he is blaming P.Z.’s readers for his wife being fired. He was the one that wasn’t smart enough to send a death threat email properly (or to use spell and grammar check, for that matter) but those darn readers tattled to 1-800-Flowers so they are to blame. That makes perfect sense. And P.Z. Myers and Greg Laden have both publicly stated that they don’t think she should have lost her job (Greg emailed the company to that effect). But obviously, Chuck’s in the right there. That poor logic train- so many lives lost when it derailed.

One of Chuck Kroll’s confessions, delivered via the comments section at Breaking Spells (Greg Laden confirms it is him since Chuck also sent him emails):

Melanie Kroll did not send an email to anyone named Paul. Melanie Kroll did not threaten anyone in an email with death, or as was the case in the email in question, a physical beating.

this email did not come from 1-800-flowers, or anyone connected in anyway shape or form to that company, which happens to provide good paying jobs, for lot’s of folks who might otherwise not have them. they also happen to provide a good product at a fair price.

The fact is, that this email to the so called professor, was sent by an angry male catholic, who was very upset after reading that some crazed person in a position of responsibility, charged with teaching children biology, had been encouraging people to steal and desecrate the body of CHRIST, which for Catholics is represented by the Eucharist.

I know this to be true, since I wrote the original email to this so called teacher.

Was the tone of the letter terse, and did I say I would beat his brains in, yes I did.

I wrote this in the same way one does when saying “I’ll beat your ass”, “or kick I’ll kick your butt”
or other such niceties used by members of the unpolished masses, such as myself.

. I live a thousand miles away from this guy. My anger at what he (Myers) was doing, and the fact that there seems to be a double standard used by these so called intellectuals such as Paul Myers to attack the religion of millions of Americans, and to encourage others to do so made me see red. Pardon the pun.

Upon reflection, and reading many of the comments made, I feel that no matter how mad I was, it did not make it right for me to use the language or tone I used. In fact, I think there would have been many more constructive things I could have done, the angry email was just the simplest way.
And I’m sorry.

There are many folks that read, and biog. at this site who are not religious, perhaps you feel it’s silly, outdated, or superstition, fine. This is your right, but for people in positions of responsibility and with the power to encourage captive undeveloped minds to attack their neighbors beliefs is just insane, divisive, and maybe even criminal.

I wonder if that university where mr. myers is employed excepts any money from the state? And I wonder if the good people of this state know that they are paying good, hard earned tax dollars on such a disturbing creature as mr. myers.? I know for a fact that the University is aware of mr. myers antics, and have disavowed his statements.

I am going to write to mr. Myers and offer him my apologies for using such childish language, and the threatening way in which I presented myself to him. It is my hope that he will forgive me, or hold me accountable. However, I think it is his duty to repair the damage that he and his associates have
achieved through their concerted and organized campaign to punish both Melanie Kroll, and 1-800-flowers, who were completely blameless in this matter.

However, this whole incident has caused someone who had nothing to do with the email to mr.myers,.a wonderful, sweet person who would never threaten anyone terrible troubles. Great harm has been done to this wonderful lady, without proof or a question asked, you just accuse, and assume. Wow and I thought you liberal folks were supposed to be the open minded ones.

It is my hope that since the mystery is now removed, and now that the Identity of the horrible person who dared write such crude things to the mr. myers is known, that the same people who put so much effort into harming Melanie Kroll, will use as much effort to right the wrong that has been done to her.

If there is responsibility, and any seek revenge or if there is a need for consequence, it should fall on me, and me alone.

The email account used to send the email was used by mistake, I sent the email from what I thought was my private account, not the 1-800 email account that was used. I had simply clicked on the link to the professors email in the article.

. It’s somewhat amazing to me, that a guy responding (albeit brutishly) )to
a news article about a crazed professor who was encouraging his students and others to
desecrate the American catholic church, could turn into this orgy of innuendo, and an attack on an innocent, hard working mother of three, and a company that hires many underprivileged people, and single mothers as a matter of policy.

I want to thank some of the level headed people that have posted here. Some who seem so super smart to me, it’s almost intimating! My sending mr. myers that wrongheaded stupid email was never the fault of Melanie Kroll, or 1800-flowers, or the pope, or Bill DONAHUE, not even the president. It was just my gut reaction to statements made by mr. myers and his disciples.

In closing I still maintain that if mr. myers. Or anyone, who is encouraging people to desecrate the Eucharist, or if he is doing so himself, I would like to beat his brains in, would I? I don’t know.
I’ve never done so before. Though, at that one moment when I was reading his statements..?
I suppose If I caught him doing it, I would try to stop him.

I wonder if all of you perfectly politically correct folks here, the ones who prefer to stifle any thought, or debate that does not fit into the approved thoughts of the day.
Would find it so interesting, or funny, if mr.myers were attacking the Muslim or Jewish religions, or encouraging others do so?

What many folks don’t know, is that mr. myers seems to have a warm spot for the Islamic religion. We know this from his spirited defense of Islam in the past, he insists Islam differs from other religions. It seems that mr.myers can’t even be a good atheist.

His thesis is that, it’s wrong to attack Islamic houses of worship and symbols, because they are poor and minorities. At least that is what a reasonable person would gather from mr. myers past statements.

That Islam is the largest religion in the world is of no matter to this professor.
why is that? Would not Islam be a fair target for mr.myers disgusting
attacks as well? If you believed that the attacks on Catholics are fair, even correct, then why not
other religions that hold that there is a God. Is Islam less wrong about this then Catholicism or Judaism mr. myers?

My feeling is that mr.myers would never dare attack Muslims, or their beliefs. Even though as an atheist, you think he would. I mean just to be fair. I hate to use a military term here, but my feeling is that Catholics are just easy targets for people like mr. myers.

As mr. myers, should know, and most intellectually honest people do know, attacking the Muslim religion or advocating attacks of it’s symbols and traditions would not have resulted in a stupid but boorish email from a “Nutjob whacko, and all-around asshole catholic ” as ole ylooshi here, so eloquently posted above.

It may very well have resulted (if the recent 30 or so year past is any indication) with the good professor hearing the words Allah Akbar shouted into his ear, while not so nice things were happening to him, perhaps things like, being shot in the lobby of a travel agency, being thrown overboard of his cruise ship, or being shot at the airport ticket counter at lax, or maybe being driven over by a student in the college parking lot, could be the bus he rides would have been torn to shreds by a homicide bomber, or even being murdered while riding his bicycle to work, or perhaps he would have been sitting at his office computer, when one the offended folks drove an airplane through his window.
Now I ask you, if that’s a fact. am I lying.

C. Kroll,

Brookhaven, NY

p.s. it is my prayer that none of these terrible acts that I mentioned above happen to the good professor, or any other American for that matter. Jew, Christen, Muslim, or even atheist.

I’m at a loss for words.