[Vision2020] Re: Stop

[J Ford]

Way to stick to the point of the letter, Dougie.  Again, you try to distract 
and detract from the main point.

Must be hard on the neck to be constantly turning your head in circles like 
that to make sure you don't miss any opportunity to sidetrack.

Care to answer, LIKE A MAN, the charges being made here?

No?

Oh well - nothing new there.

J  :]

P.S.  GREAT letter, Miss Joan.



>From: Douglas <dougwils at christkirk.com>
>To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Re: Stop
>Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:17:39 -0700
>
>Joan,
>
>It wasn't until the last paragraph that I realized that this was a peace 
>offering. I have to say that the trajectory was well-hidden throughout. I 
>hope you don't do that in your novels.
>
>Douglas Wilson
>
>
>
>Bill London wrote:
>>Sent from Joan Opyr to Vision2020 at her request:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Stop, Doug; stop spinning.  Put out the kick-stand, get off the 
>>>gyroscope, and stand on the solid ground.  Bite the bullet.  Accept 
>>>responsibility for the part you played in this whole shameful, disgusting 
>>>mess.  Apologize.  Make amends.  Tell your congregation, and the broader 
>>>community, that you made a terrible mistake, that you have learned from 
>>>it, and that it will not happen again.  Humble yourself.  Ask for 
>>>forgiveness.  Expect the worst, but hope for the best.  You write, talk, 
>>>preach and lecture extensively about being a "Man of Chest."  Why not 
>>>practice being a simple adult?
>>>
>>>A serial child molester attended New St. Andrews for 18 months.  He 
>>>boarded with a Christ Church family.  He was welcomed into Christ Church 
>>>homes, homes full of vulnerable children.  Sitler confessed his crimes to 
>>>you -- or sins, if you prefer -- but for eight long months, you did not 
>>>see fit to alert more than a few select members of your church.  Some in 
>>>the Christ Church family are only just now finding about Mr. Sitler, and 
>>>they are finding out in the worst possible way: through an unmoderated 
>>>Internet chat group.  They should have been told by you, their pastor.  
>>>While you dithered and you strategized and you waited, children who may 
>>>have been in need of counseling and assistance were neglected.  Your 
>>>negligence is inexcusable.  Don't try to excuse it.  Don't try to change 
>>>the subject.  Own up.  You broke trust with your congregation, Doug, and 
>>>you broke trust with the broader Moscow community.  At this point, you 
>>>may not be able to fix things, but you might at least accept the 
>>>responsibility you bear and repair what damage you can.
>>>
>>>You tell us that Jamin Wight is a hypocrite, and that he was expelled 
>>>from Greyfriars.  Spin, spin, spin.  When Wight committed his crimes, he 
>>>was a student in good standing.  But you tells us that none of this is 
>>>your fault.  This is all about your "enemies," about people who out to 
>>>get you; who are out to bring you down; who are out to destroy the saints 
>>>of Christ Church.  No, Doug.  This is not The Pastor Wilson Show.  This 
>>>is not the time for you to play bride at the wedding and corpse at the 
>>>funeral.  It's time to play focus on the families, Doug.  Focus on your 
>>>flock and, if you can find it in your Grinchly heart, you might try to 
>>>spare a thought for the rest of Moscow as well.
>>>
>>>This is a town of only 21,000 people.  According to 
>>>http://www.watchdog.com, there are 20 registered sex offenders in the 
>>>83843 zipcode.  You're not responsible for any of them, except insofar as 
>>>we are all responsible for one another.  We all have an obligation to our 
>>>children and to ourselves to be protective and vigilant.  When it comes 
>>>to Jamin Wight and Steven Sitler, however, you do bear a peculiar burden. 
>>>  No one could or should blame you or Christ Church for what these men 
>>>did, but you are open to fair criticism in your response to their 
>>>actions.  Why the eight month delay in telling (select) members fo you 
>>>congregation about Steven Sitler?  Why did you not mention of Jamin 
>>>Wight?  If you failed to mention them because you were worried about bad 
>>>press, you sadly miscalculated.  You've now got bad press in spades.  You 
>>>could have avoided that.  You could have avoided all of this by the 
>>>simple expedient of justly serving your flock and by having a care, 
>>>however slight, for the Moscow community.  Instead, you sat and you 
>>>fretted, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You plotted and planned and 
>>>strategized not like a minister with a trouble flock but like Donald 
>>>Rumsfeld with Abu Ghraib.
>>>
>>>The penitent man is humble before God; he kneels before God.  (No, I'm 
>>>not quoting the Bible.  I'm quoting from "Indiana Jones and the Last 
>>>Crusade."  If Jesus is too turn-the-other-cheeky for you, Doug, then 
>>>perhaps you'll listen to Harrison Ford.  Or Chuck Norris.)  Technically, 
>>>I am off Vision 2020, but I will ask Bill London to forward this letter 
>>>to the list.  I left the list several weeks ago without writing one of 
>>>those annoying public farewells, AKA the Cartman "Screw you guys, I'm 
>>>going home" letter.  Instead, when the level of noise-to-content on 
>>>Vision 2020 reached intolerable, I exited, stage left, and got together 
>>>with my friend Chasuk to begin work on a moderated community blog called 
>>>Liberal Moscow.  It should be up and running next week.  Chasuk will make 
>>>an invitation/announcement on this list, and I do hope many of you will 
>>>join us.
>>>
>>>But that's for next week.  To get back to the issue at hand, I don't know 
>>>how others feel, but friends have forwarded me some of the insensible 
>>>back-and-forth on Vision 2020.  It comprises the inevitable mix of a few 
>>>seeds of truth, a lot of misinformation, disinformation, and far too much 
>>>rank speculation.  You say, Doug, that your concern is primarily for the 
>>>victims of Sitler and Wight.  If that were so, you wouldn't have made 
>>>such a dog's dinner of the whole damned thing.  You would have addressed 
>>>these matters up front, clearly and forcefully.  Instead, eight months of 
>>>silence suggests that you instead worried about how to spin this so that 
>>>your "enemies" didn't use these cases to rain down shame and disrepute on 
>>>your college and your seminary.
>>>
>>>You sat behind me in court at Jamin Wight's sentencing, Doug, and you and 
>>>my mother-in-law exchanged some harsh words afterwards.  What then did 
>>>you do?  This was on May 12th.  A look at the archives on your blog 
>>>(http://dougwils.com) indicates that you beetled down the hill from the 
>>>courthouse to Anselm as fast as your legs would carry you.  You did not 
>>>pass go; you did not collect $200.  You immediately posted a paranoid and 
>>>cryptic warning to those in know that you anticipated a hostile broadside 
>>>against the Church from its infidel enemies.  You said that "the 
>>>Intoleristas" would be eager to take this tragedy and use it to bring you 
>>>down, the victims be damned.  You were wrong.  Again.  This story broke 
>>>on Michael Metzler's blog (http://poohsthink.com).  Michael is (or until 
>>>very recently was) a Greyfriars' student himself and a member in good 
>>>standing of your own flock.  It was from Poohsthink that this story 
>>>exploded onto Vision 2020.  Those of us you call Intoleristas, and 
>>>against whom you direct your imprecatory prayers, have known about these 
>>>cases for weeks.  I  have known about them for months, but I have said 
>>>nothing.  I didn't write about Sitler and Wight on Vision 2020, nor yet 
>>>on New West.  Perhaps I should have done the latter; New West is, after 
>>>all, paying me.  But to be honest, I didn't think I could do the story 
>>>(or the families involved) justice.  I didn't think I was qualified to 
>>>break this case to the public because I am not a trained journalist.  
>>>This was a story for a professional.  I'm still waiting for one to step 
>>>up to the plate -- preferably a real hard-ass with a strong investigative 
>>>track record.  Attention any budding Woodward or Bernstein: this one's 
>>>all yours.  Please, do it justice.
>>>
>>>That's my story and my hope.  Now let's ask why none of the 
>>>"Intoleristas" made this public?  Perhaps it was because they each came 
>>>to conclusion that doing so would hurt the victims.  Some things are more 
>>>important than the desire to kick your ass up between your ears.  The 
>>>families of Christ Church and the victims of Sitler and Wight are real, 
>>>live human beings.  They are not a backboard for scoring three-point rim 
>>>shots off the great Douglas J. Wilson.  You thought that's what the 
>>>families were to us, didn't you?  Because that's what they were to you.  
>>>(Please, prove me wrong on this.  It would be a relief to me to think 
>>>that you cared for your flock more than you care for your reputation and 
>>>your lofty ambitions.  I honestly don't want to think as ill of you as I 
>>>do.  I don't want to believe that a man of your abilities, your 
>>>intellect, and your obvious charm is as self-centered as I've come to 
>>>fear that you are.  I don't enjoy being a cynic; I consider it a moral 
>>>failing.  What I want is to believe in the perfectibility of humankind.)
>>>
>>>I've written before on Vision 2020 about the double-entendre in the title 
>>>of your book, "Future Men."  I'll soon be writing about it again -- this 
>>>time for New West.  I'll repeat myself here and rehash what I said in 
>>>that earlier post, just in case you missed it.  In my many written 
>>>exchanges with the male members of the Kirk, I've come to understand that 
>>>all of the men who follow you, Doug, are "future men."  None of them are 
>>>men, meaning adults, in the here and now.  You all operate in a kind of 
>>>Peter Pan Neverland.  You play-act at being Oxford dons; at being 
>>>professors, or seminary students, or poets, philosophers, theologians, 
>>>theocrats, great writers and great thinkers.   As you puff on your cigars 
>>>and swill your fine brandy, you also play at being jolly Victorian 
>>>patriarchs.  You claim authority and status, respect and power that you 
>>>have not earned and do not deserve.  You claim omniscience.  There is 
>>>nothing that you will not pretend to know and no subject on which you 
>>>will not speak with the blustering inerrancy of a precocious 14-year old. 
>>>  Back when you started Logos School, Doug, you advertised a full 
>>>classical curriculum.  At the time, you were taking beginning Latin at 
>>>the University of Idaho.  What qualified you to teach it at your school?  
>>>Sheer hubris, that's what.  You wanted to teach Latin because you wanted 
>>>to offer a full classical curriculum and so, by God, you did.  No wonder 
>>>you are so dismissive of public education and university teaching 
>>>credentials.  If you admitted that there were such a thing as genuine 
>>>qualifications, you'd be up Brown Creek without a paddle.  I suppose we 
>>>should consider ourselves lucky that you didn't decide that you were 
>>>self-qualified to perform brain surgery -- but then Granny Clampett of 
>>>"The Beverly Hillbillies" had already beaten you to the punch with her 
>>>pioneering work on the head transplant.
>>>
>>>I know that you are an admirer of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War," Doug.  So 
>>>am I.  "The Art of War" is a masterpiece of strategy if what you want to 
>>>do is conquer.  I don't want to conquer; I want to abide.  I want to 
>>>survive and thrive and live a genuinely good life to the best of my 
>>>ability.  I sincerely wish that you would (or could) do the same.  I 
>>>recommend to you Yagyu Munenori's "The Life-Giving Sword."  I've taken to 
>>>reading it instead of Sun Tzu, paying special attention to "the art of 
>>>the no-sword."  Once you've internalized the strength of your sword, you 
>>>need never use it again.  Think about that.
>>>
>>>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>>>www.joanopyr.com
>>>
>>>
>>
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>>                                 mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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>>
>>
>
>_____________________________________________________
>List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the 
>communities of the Palouse since 1994.                 http://www.fsr.net   
>                              mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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