The Other Koresh

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This Friday, 19 April, marks the 20th anniversary of the fire that ended the Waco siege, after a 50-day-long standoff between David Koresh and his followers, and the FBI. Seventy-six people died in the inferno, and the name “Koresh” is forever infamous as a result. What most people don’t know is that a century earlier, there was another Koresh… also American, and just as messianic, if less randy.

Cyrus Teed was born in 1839 in New York State. This was a time of great religious ferment in America, and utopians, prophets, and saviours roamed the land, founding sects and communes, and awaiting the arrival of paradise on Earth. These groups fascinated Teed, an army medic by training, which led him to pay his first visit in 1873 to the Harmonists, a communist sect awaiting the return of Christ. The Harmonists were interesting, but he joined another group… the Shakers. The Shakers were a big deal in the 1870s; during Teed’s time, there were 58 settlements dotted across the USA. Founded by a female Christ-figure, who went by the name of Mother Ann, the Shakers weren’t only communists, but also celibate, with a tendency to release sexual tension during sacred worship by trembling, shaking, writhing, and jumping up and down.

Teed liked the celibacy and communism, but he was developing his own ideas about salvation. He went into private medical practice and treated his patients with something he called “electro-alchemy”. Meanwhile, his updated version of this mediaeval science led him to make great discoveries. In 1869, he not only discovered how to transmute base metal into gold (allegedly), but also experienced a revelation regarding the nature of reality. What had he discovered? That the Earth is a concave sphere and that we live inside it, on the inner edge; that God is half female; that reincarnation is a cosmic law; that the Bible is a symbolic text which requires a prophet to interpret it correctly and… that Cyrus Teed was that prophet (or messiah, if you will). Teed also learned a few other things – that money is evil, heaven and hell are within us, communism is awesome, etc…

Thus, in the early 1880s, ”Koreshanity” was born. He derived the name from his own… Cyrus is the English form of Koresh, the Persian king who released the Jews from Babylonian captivity, thus, being acclaimed by the Israelites as a “messiah”. Cyrus-Koresh now founded his own celibate commune in a third-floor New York City apartment, where he lived with four women. Nevertheless, for the next 16 years, the sect was a dismal failure, until the day Teed received an invitation to lecture in Chicago. For some reason, many middle-class ladies in that city liked his message. Soon, he was living with 126 (mostly female) followers on a pleasant country estate, apparently in celibate bliss, although rumours swirled about his attachment to Mrs Annie G Ordway.

However, Teed had bigger plans. The Spirit sent him to Florida, where he persuaded an old German immigrant that not only was the Earth concave, but that he should sell Teed 300 acres of prime real estate for 200 dollars. Teed summoned 24 Koreshans from Chicago to Florida, where they commenced building the “Guiding Star City” in anticipation of the arrival of 10 million converts. Things were looking up. The Koreshans had their own post office, sexually-segregated dining halls, and a bunch of nice houses. They even had time to conduct experiments that apparently proved Copernicus wrong, and that the Earth really is hollow. However, then, alas, it all went awry… although it had nothing do with guns, underage sex, or the FBI. Koresh/Teed got involved in local politics, and this unnerved his neighbours as a couple of hundred Koreshans could affect the outcome of elections in so sparsely-populated an area. In 1906, a street fight broke out between the Messiah and a man named Colonel Sellers. Teed received a drubbing, suffering nerve damage, and afterward was often in excruciating pain. In 1908, he died.

The Koreshans believed in reincarnation, but Teed proclaimed that he’d resurrect himself without having to go through all that time-consuming malarkey. The faithful duly waited for three days, by the end of which Teed was rapidly decomposing. Therefore, the Koreshans planted him in the ground, had a schism or two, and then limped on into the 1960s, at which point the last handful of surviving Koreshans gifted their property to the state of Florida. It’s a feeble story, really. This Koresh had no guns, he committed no crimes, he just died, and, then, the community he’d founded slowly petered out. Of course, this is a much more common fate for messianic groups than the fiery annihilation of his namesake’s organization in 1993. A charismatic leader persuades a few people for a little while… then, it all just vanishes. It’s better that way. Look… the people of Florida even got a nice park out of their Koresh.

To learn more about the Koreshans, read David Standish’s fun book Hollow Earth (Da Capo Press, 2006)

17 April 2013

Daniel Kalder

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/columnists/20130417/180695525/Transmissions-from-a-Lone-Star-The-Other-Koresh.html

 

27 February 2013. “Slowpoke Rodriguez” oca.org Lives Up to Their Usual (Low) Standards

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It’s all over the internet… Metropolitan Iosif Bosakov is leaving New York for Bulgaria. I read the news last night. Does oca.org mention it at all? OF COURSE, NOT! Why, if that did that, it’d mean that they were attending to their duties (for a change). American church news is part of their “beat”, yet they act as though it didn’t happen. I think that all items posted have to pass censorship from Lyonyo, Jillions, and Dahulich. Ergo, news doesn’t get up in a timely fashion, making the oca.org lot look incompetent and clueless (is Lil’ Mizz Ginny Nieuwsma still there? Perspirin’ minds wanna know). Things are getting worse, not better. Shall we have to drain the cup to the bitter dregs? I bloody well hope not…

BMD

 

Northeastern USA “Blown Away” by Blizzard Nemo, 9 Dead

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A potentially record-breaking snow storm brought the northeastern USA to a grinding halt and left nine dead. Thousands lost power amidst flight cancellations and a nuclear plant shutdown, as authorities declared states of emergency in five states. A blizzard dumped record snow of 97 centimetres (38 inches) in parts of Connecticut as it continued blowing through Boston and the rest of New England on Saturday. Life was returning to normal in New York City, where up to 31 centimetres (12 inches) of snow fell. New York airports reopened earlier Saturday, after being closed for nearly a day. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “We were very lucky. We avoided the worst of it”.

In neighbouring Massachusetts, snow tapered off in the afternoon after reaching around 60 centimetres (24 inches), and authorities lifted a state-wide ban on all driving after 24 hours. Instruments recorded wind gusts of 120 kilometres an hour (75 miles per hour) through the night at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which wasn’t expected to reopen before late Saturday. On Cape Cod, the hook-shaped Massachusetts peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, waves up to 6 metres (20 feet) high crashed onto beaches. Jane Miller, a resident of Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts, told reporters, “This has been like a hurricane with snow”. She said that the island was spared heavy snowfall, but surging tides prompted the local government and Red Cross to open a shelter at a high school for people living near the coast who wanted to evacuate. Coastal flooding was particularly bad along Massachusetts’ southern mainland coastline, a stretch that was also hit in the October hurricane-turned-superstorm Sandy. The US Postal Service suspended service in seven states.

In New York State, media reports said that a car that skidded out of control struck a female pedestrian, and a man died in a tractor rollover while clearing his driveway. A Massachusetts 12-year-old died of carbon-monoxide poisoning when he sat in the family car to warm up after helping his father shovel snow. Named Blizzard Nemo by the Weather Channel, the storm’s heavy snow and terrifically-high winds toppled trees, causing caused power outages for more than 600,000 people across Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Some 400,000 blacked out electric customers were in Massachusetts alone, where the Boston Globe published a photo of total storm whiteout with the headline: “Blown Away”. Late Friday, power outages caused a shutdown of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth MA, according to a local radio station.

According to the National Weather Service, parts of Connecticut appeared to have received the heaviest snowfall, ranging up to 97 centimetres (38 inches) in Milford and 91 centimetres (36 inches) in other areas. The coastal town of Portland ME received a record 74 centimetres (29 inches) of snow. A news crew for CNN reported that the doors of their satellite truck had frozen shut overnight on Cape Cod, and it took them an hour to reopen them. Wind whipped snow drifts more than a metre (40 inches) high in Boston. A city worker told the DPA that it was the worst storm since 1978, when a 36-hour blizzard killed 100 people in Massachusetts and neighbouring Rhode Island. In the 1978 blizzard, hundreds of cars were stranded in the snow, and some drivers froze to death along interstate highways. More than 5,000 flights were cancelled since Friday, and, at its height, the storm shut down all rail traffic from Philadelphia to Boston. The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Maine declared states of emergency.

Prime News reported that Russian airlines Aeroflot and Transaero plan to maintain scheduled flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday despite anticipating huge snow falls from snow-storm Nemo. Nemo, which hit the northeastern USA on Friday evening, is expected to be one of the most powerful in the history of New York. Over 4,700 flights were cancelled across the USA due to the storm. Aeroflot said, “There’ve been no changes to our timetable”, whilst rival Transaero reported, “departure is expected as normal”, for its morning flight to New York. Meanwhile, the weather was also making life hard in Moscow, where pedestrians and drivers woke on Saturday to find the city covered in a slippery coat of glass-like ice after freezing rain fell overnight, causing accidents on several main highways into the capital.

New England braced on Thursday for a possibly record-setting winter storm, with forecasts of up to 2 feet (61 centimetres) of snow already causing airlines to cancel thousands of flights and utilities to prepare for power outages. The storm was blowing in from the Midwest where it began dropping snow on the Chicago area on Thursday afternoon. It was due to bring light snow to the Northeastern USA on Friday morning before ramping up to blizzard conditions by afternoon. Alan Dunham, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said, “This one doesn’t come along every day. This is going to be a dangerous winter storm. Wherever you need to get to, get there by Friday afternoon, and don’t plan on leaving”.

In Boston, which was expected to see some of the heaviest snowfall, on Friday, Mayor Thomas Menino ordered the city’s schools to close and urged businesses to consider allowing staff to stay home, to reduce the risk of commuters getting stranded. Menino told reporters, “We’re hardy New Englanders, let me tell you, and used to these types of storms. But I also want to remind everyone to use common sense and stay off the streets of our city. Basically, stay home. Stay put after noontime tomorrow”.

City officials up and down the northeastern USA were bracing for the storm, readying fleets of ploughs and salt trucks to keep streets clear, whilst airport officials advised travellers to try to reschedule flights ahead of the storm. The National Weather Service said Boston could get 18 to 24 inches of snow (46 to 61 centimetres) on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in two years. Light snow is expected to begin falling around 07.00 EST (04.00 PST 12.00 UTC 16.00 MSK 23.00 AEST) on Friday, with heavier snow and winds gusting as high as 60 to 75 miles per hour (97 to 121 kilometres per hour) as the day progresses. Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Taunton MA said, “It’s the afternoon rush-hour time frame into the evening and overnight when the height of the storm will be”. Cities from Hartford CT to Portland ME expected to see at least a foot (31 centimetres) of snow.

9 February 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_10/US-northeast-blown-away-by-blizzard-Nemo-9-dead-VIDEO/

Editor’s Note:

There was little disruption here in Albany NY, even though it’s at the geographical centre of the Northeast and it’s the transportation hub of the region (all major roads and trunk rail lines in the Northeastern USA converge on Albany). There was a snow emergency declared by Mayor Jerry Jennings, but he cancelled it before it took effect, as so little snow has fallen. We took a lovely motor through the lower Adirondacks this afternoon after services, and there was little snowfall as far north as Lake George (75 kilometres (46 miles) from Albany). The Lake George Winter Carnival was in full swing, with no problems due to the weather (the Carnival runs during the weekends of February… so, if you’re in the region, check it out). It was a fairly-comfy -5 (23 degrees Fahrenheit), with no biting winds (trust me… it can get MUCH more nastier than that in this neck of the woods; it was a balmy winter day by my lights). My Nicky bought a bumper sticker with three bears on it… so, it was a good adventure. No, we didn’t “suffer” in the least. We had no power outages, no heavy snows, and no disruption to normal life. We lucked out.

BMD

Getting Sick Not an Option for Many American Workers

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Like the protagonist of some cold medicine commercial, Robert said that he couldn’t afford to get sick and miss a shift at the upscale restaurant where he waits tables six nights a week in the American capital. Robert, 31, told RIA-Novosti this week, “It’s expensive to live in this city. You can’t just be missing days”. Robert, who asked that his last name not be published because his employer hasn’t authorised him to speak to the media about this job, actually has more access to paid sick leave than many Americans do. He works in Washington DC, which is one of just three American cities… along with one state, Connecticut… to guarantee paid sick leave for employees. An estimated 40 million American workers have no paid sick leave, which the US federal government defines as a “benefit” rather than a right.

A national debate over mandatory sick-pay grabbed headlines in recent weeks in the USA, which is in the grip of a flu outbreak that health authorities said has reached epidemic proportions. The USA is one of the few industrialised nations that don’t have a federal law mandating paid sick leave, a situation that critics say pressures ill employees to come to work out of fear of losing a pay-cheque .. or their jobs. They say that this results in decreased employee productivity and increased public exposure to infectious illnesses, particularly when workers like Robert and other food service employees… whose jobs involve face-to-face contact with the public… shrug off symptoms and clock in anyway.

According to a 2010 study at the University of Chicago, more than two-thirds of Americans reported going to work whilst ill. According to the study, employees without paid sick-leave are 18 percent more likely to show up at work sick and 10 percent more likely to send their sick children to school or day-care. New York City legislator Gale Brewer told WNYC radio in an interview earlier this month, “I’m sure right now as we speak kids are going to school sick. Their parents can’t take a day off”. Arguably, New York City is the current epicentre of the sick leave debate, with local lawmakers pushing for the nation’s financial capital to guarantee sick pay for workers. Brewer is backing a bill that would mandate that businesses with five employees or more must offer some sort of paid sick-leave; the legislation has received backing from a range of civic and religious groups, as well as celebrities like American feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem.

However, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said such that legislation would hurt business during already difficult times, a position that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed as well. New York Times columnist Michael Powell noted with irony that Bloomberg’s opposition to the bill is at odds with his reputation as a public-health activist… an image burnished by enacting public smoking bans and crackdowns on oversized sugary drinks. In October, Powell wrote, “Bloomberg worries a lot about our health; he’s banned smoking in bars and vat-size cups of soda, but suggest that a couple of women should be allowed to take off a day rather than cough bacteria into the chicken quesadillas, and his free-market spine stiffens”.

According to a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Public Health, the lack of paid sick-leave in the USA helped lead to an additional five million infections during the Swine Flu outbreak in 2009. This week, Michael Sinesky, who owns several bars and restaurants in New York City, told the AP that the bill would hurt his operations, particularly in the destructive wake left by Hurricane Sandy late last year, saying, “We’re at the point, right now, where we can’t afford additional social initiatives”. Lawmakers in several other American cities are pushing for mandatory paid sick-leave bills as well, including Portland OR and Philadelphia PA, whose mayor, Michael Nutter, vetoed a bill requiring sick pay in 2011. Joel Mathis, a columnist for Philadelphia Magazine’s website, argued this week that the city should pass paid sick leave legislation in order to protect customers as well as workers. Mathis wrote, “Want the flu with your fries? Some pertussis with your poutine? A cold with your cold beer? Because that’s what the current system is designed to provide”.

25 January 2013

Carl Schreck

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130124/179003388/Getting-Sick-Not-an-Option-for-Many-US-Workers.html

Editor’s Note:

That’s why I went to work feeling poorly this past week… I lacked sick days as part of my compensation. Of course, according to the rightwing received-wisdom, I’m a “taker”… I deserve nothing but a swift boot in the arse for laziness according to Steve Forbes, Wet Willy Romney (have you seen how quickly the Repulicants dropped their erstwhile standard-bearer?), and James Paffhausen. Then again, Steve Forbes said on 12 October 2012, “Yes, [Romney] will win this election, despite all the claptrap to the contrary”… he believes in crackbrained foolishness such as the gold standard. Romney actually believed his own propaganda (what would one expect with a youthful nappy-wearing incompetent such as Priebus at the head of the RNC (he was white, though!)?)… and Paffhausen actually thinks that he’s a victim of the OCA Holy Synod and that he deserves “compensation”. Not very good for the “makers” of this world, eh? Shitbirds of a feather flock together… never forget that. Yes, taking care of sick people is “Pro-Life”… more so than waving a placard in a bootless “March for Life“. Think on that, if you will…

We need a “new” New Deal… the sooner, the better…

BMD