Iowa Jury Decides Assault Just Fine for Pastors

That isn’t what the headlines read, of course, but it’s hard to read it any other way.

The confirmation student testified earlier Friday that the incident started when he wouldn’t stop using his cell phone in class.

The Mason City High School student said he was using his cell phone in class to text a friend about the Mason City High School homecoming football game.

He said Nelson told him to put the phone away and when he didn’t Nelson allegedly snatched it out his hand.

The boy said he responded by saying “What the (expletive)?”

The boy said Nelson punched him in his upper right arm eight to 10 times with a closed fist.

The only differences between the teen’s testimony and the pastor’s are that the pastor says it was six times with an open hand and that the teen swore twice instead of once. Continue reading “Iowa Jury Decides Assault Just Fine for Pastors”

Iowa Jury Decides Assault Just Fine for Pastors
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Dana and the Message of the Rocks

It pains me to announce this. It really does. Once upon a time, and not really all that long ago, I recommended Dana Hunter for Freethought Blogs. I wasn’t the only one by any means, but I started the ball rolling. Today, however, Dana is leaving us.

That isn’t the truly painful part, though.

Maybe we should have seen it coming. Dana has always been something of an “evangelist” of the rocks. Her post on Sunset Crater, the paean to geology that earned her a spot in OpenLab, both communicated the strong connection she had with rocks.

It really wasn’t until this week, though, that the nature of that “connection” started to become clear. That was when Dana started talking about the “mystery” of the rocks. That’s when she started drawing diagrams pulling out features that were kinda, sorta visible in the picture–if you squinted right.

I don’t usually comment on Dana’s geology posts. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, so I don’t have much to add. It was the same here, but the post left me uncomfortable enough that I felt I should say something. So I sent Dana an email with a little joke about mystical rocks.

Dana’s response floored me. Continue reading “Dana and the Message of the Rocks”

Dana and the Message of the Rocks