Paul Mirecki Suing KU (Video)

Posted by Bill Hennessy on December 10, 2005 under Latest | Be the First to Comment

Here’s the video from KUID TV 6 in Kansas. Mirecki refused to be interviewed on camera, but did grant an off-camera interview in which he claims his black eye is “my battle scar in my war against the religious right.”

Meanwhile, Douglas County Sheriff’s office has seized Mirecki’s car and computer as part of its investigation into Mirecki’s alleged beating. Says Mirecki, “I’m being treated more like a criminal than a victim.”

If Mirecki was forced to resign, why did his letter sound so conciliatory? Also, why didn’t he hire the lawyer and fight the resignation instead of complying with KU’s demands? The longer this story goes, the more improbable Mirecki’s claims seem. My guess is that his wife, Amy Beecher-Mirecki, a public relations consultant at KU, is the the best source to get to the truth of the matter.

For its part, the sheriff’s office is keeping quiet about the investigation. A spokesperson for the department said they do not yet have enough information to make a statement on the veracity of Mirecki’s claim.

Both the sheriff’s office and the chancellor seem to contradict Mirecki’s take on things.  First, the sheriff:

“Until we are provided with a document from Mr. Mirecki, we are not able to comment on it. Our agency continues to thoroughly investigate this crime against Mr. Mirecki,” Wempe said.

Sounds like the sheriff’s office, at least officially, is still treating Mirecki as the victim.

Hemenway said he had been told by other administrators that Mirecki stepped down from his chairman’s post. He said KU has supported Mirecki.

“Professor Mirecki still has a job at the University of Kansas,” Hemenway said. “That would appear to be support for his rights to his tenured position and his rights to free speech … The university deplores the fact that he was apparently attacked. We’ve said so.”

If KU’s administration has long knives for the prof, wouldn’t they be holding the door open for him to leave the university altogether?  On the other hand, notice that Hemenway hedged on the alleged beating, saying “The university deplores the fact that he was apparently attacked [emphasis mine].” 

Michelle Malkin has more, including the text of the lawyer story. And Michelle links us to Mike Adams of TownHall.com who attempted to interview Professor Mirecki.

UPDATE: Nosing around Technorati, I’ve noticed a shift in the numbers. On Wednesday, more than half (about 70%) of the first page blog entries were from lefties demanding retribution on the fundies. As Mirecki’s story loses credibility, the shift is on–more than half of the front page links now doubt Mirecki’s beating story. For instance:

Foyle at Verum Serum says, ” sounds to me like the police are as suspicous of his story as I am. I don’t blame them.”

Bill Quick on Daily Pundit says, “I think th is guy is a bit of a jerk, and of course I have some suspicions about his rather convenient ‘beating.’”

JKelly on Irish Penant has this headline: Paul Mirecki is becoming the Ward Churchill.
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Mirecki’s Intolerance Runs Deep
Moonbat Overconfidence

Narnia

Posted by Bill Hennessy on December 9, 2005 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I received an e-mail from NewsMax today about the Disney film “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”  It contained warnings from variously striped Christians that the movie may not be true to the Christian intentions of C. S. Lewis.

Included in the e-mail was a quote from the film’s producer, Mark Johnson:  “When I read the book as a child, I accepted it as a pure adventure story. It never occurred to me Aslan was anything more than a great lion” rather than a Christ figure. 

Disney Studios, for sure, has been no friend to Christianity in recent years.  The company was among the first to actively promote homosexuality among its employees and park guests. 

Still, I remember the lesson of Patton.

The 1970 movie “Patton” starring George C. Scott was intended as an anti-war film.  Scott and the film’s producers hoped to capture Patton, the greatest General officer in American military history, as a blood-thirsty murderer.  The goal was to vilify a WWII hero, thereby vilifying the military in general. In 1970, though, a film could be only so false.  There were more than 200,000 men who served under Patton still alive in 1970.  Gross lies would be exposed. 

The writers and producers believed that Patton’s own words, culled from his memoirs compiled into a book called “War as I Knew It” would be enough to make America hate him and the Army he stood for.

They were wrong.

Instead of becoming a beacon of anti-military leftism, “Patton” is the darling film of the pro-military right.  Patton’s true character was too powerfully and sincerely American for a director, writers, and actor to spin.  Scott’s Patton turned Americans back toward its beloved Army, not against it.  The truth betrayed those who hoped to hijack it.

C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I trust, will survive Disney’s attempt to secularized.  The Word of God will always overpower attempts as usurpation.  Indeed, just as Patton’s renown only grew from the movie, Lewis and Christ, Lewis’s protagonist, will grow from this film.

“We believe that God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film,” said Lon Allison, director of Illinois’ Billy Graham Center.

While Graham might not like an endorsement from a Catholic, I have to say that if this film is good enough for Billy Graham’s folks, it’s good enough for me.

Mirecki’s Intolerance Runs Deep

Posted by Bill Hennessy on December 8, 2005 under Latest | Be the First to Comment

The Topeka Capital-Journal (free registration required) online has a piece that exposes Professor Paul Mirecki’s anti-religion intolerance. While I’m not ready to say his “beating” was a hoax, after reading more about the case since getting home from work, one could make the case that Mirecki used some injury as an opportunity to strike back at those he perceived to be attacking him: Christians and the media.

Consider the depth of Mirecki’s intolerance and the leading university response to Mirecki:

The university continued to distance itself from the professor.

“The additional e-mail comments of professor Mirecki that have come to light are offensive, ill-considered and do not represent the values of this university, its administration, or its faculty or staff,” university spokeswoman Lynn Bretz said in a statement Wednesday night. “Our university stands for respect for people of all religions, races and creeds.”

She said she talked to one faculty member Wednesday evening who was “irate” about Mirecki’s comments. Mirecki couldn’t be reached for a response.

University officials and an administrator of the list-serve did their own investigations into the site’s contents to find the e-mails, confirming them as Mirecki’s.

In one, Mirecki described his first experience in a Catholic Mass:

“I had my first Catholic ‘holy communion’ when I was a kid in Chicago, and when I took the bread-wafer the first time, it stuck to the roof of my mouth, and as I was secretly trying to pry it off with my tongue as I was walking back to my pew with white clothes and with my hands folded, all I could think was that it was Jesus’ skin, and I started to puke, but I sucked it in and drank my own puke. That’s a big part of the Catholic experience. I don’t think most Catholics really know what they are supposed to believe, they just go home and use condoms, and some of them beat their wives and husbands.”

I am not surprised that Mirecki is a fallen-away Catholic. Nor do I refute the gist of his assertion that the Catholic church has done an abysmal job of catechizing the faithful over the past 40 years. Pay attention to the last sentence, though, as it seems to indicate a strong hatred for Catholics–not just the hierarchy, but the parishoners. “[A]nd some of them beat their wives and husbands.”

Indeed. Imagine the outrage had Mirecki been discussing blacks, Jews, or Ward Churchill American Indians. Just listen to this sentence:

I don’t think most African-Americans know what they’re supposed to believe, they just go home and use condoms, and some of them beat their wives and husbands.”

As you can imagine, having such volatile opinions exposed can bring a lot of pressure on a professor. How much pressure? Well, enough to influence his collegues to advise Mirecki to resign as chairman of the department. He admitted that peer-pressure was involved in the resignation letter. On top of that, the school’s chancellor, who had only last week announced his support for Mirecki’s controversial Intelligent Design as Myth class, was quoted as calling Mirecki’s e-mails “repugnant.”

I have no doubt that something happened to Paul Mirecki on the morning of December 5. Many witnesses have seen his bruise, though their descriptions of his injuries are milder than MSM reports. Still, considering the rank inconsistencies in Mirecki’s various stories, I think it fair to conjecture that he isn’t telling the whole truth or limiting his stories to the truth.

This is a story worth watching, and the MSM probably won’t touch it again.

Moonbat Overconfidence

Posted by Bill Hennessy on under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

I orignally posted this as an update to the Mirecki Hoax blog below, but I think it deserves its own space:

MOONBAT BLOG UPDATE: Representative of the kind of knee-jerk jumping to prejudiced conclusions that liberals and the “educated” are famous for, someone named Elaine Meinel Supkis (who claims 100% personal responsibility for turning Pope Benedict XVI into a ‘conservative’) ignored all of the known facts of Paul Mirecki’s alleged and highly doubtable beating story:

A professor at the University of Kansas was attacked on a back road by thugs outraged at him talking about “Christians”, mocking them for their childish belief in a fantasy world where gods create things out of thin air and then kill everything out of spite. They don’t want anyone to mock them while they ran around acting like bezerk lunatics. Christian thugs have been ruining our holidays, ruining schools, ruining everything they latch onto, especially poor Jesus.

First, we do not know for sure that Prof. Mirecki was, in fact, attacked on a back road by anyone. Second, how does Elaine know that these thugs were “outraged at him [for] talking about ‘Christians’, mocking them for their childish belief in a fantasy world where gods create things out of thin air and then kill everything out of spite?” The only mention of possible motivation was given to Mirecki’s friends by Mirecki. It was not included in his report to the police. And what Mirecki reportedly told his friends was that his assailants mentioned the ID course. As I posited yesterday, they could have been liberals outraged that Mirecki cancelled the course.

Next, Elaine, who doesn’t believe in God but does believe she can read minds, tells us even more details about the alleged assailants’ opinions and motives: “They don’t want anyone to mock them while they ran [sic] around acting like bezerk [sic] lunatics.”

I have a question for Ms. Meinel Supkis: If Professor Mirecki admits that whatever happened to him was not related to the ID class, will you apologize to the Christians you have maligned?

UPDATE: Doing a Technorati search on Paul Mirecki, I found this gem from Sean Gleeson.

In a case chillingly reminiscent of the fabricated atrocity suffered by Kansas bigot Paul Mirecki, the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat now claims it was assaulted this morning, by two “Bible-thumping Nazi cowboys.”

Mirecki “Beating” A Hoax?

Posted by Bill Hennessy on under Latest | Be the First to Comment

Michelle Malkin has done great digging and found more holes in Prof. Paul Mirecki’s (see this and this) beating story than in Howard Dean’s brain.

For instance, Mirecki’s description of injuries do not match the hospitals. The police report gives very little evidence. Mirecki’s claim, that he got out of his truck to confront two yahoos who were crowding him makes little sense UNLESS Mirecki is the kind of guy who likes to settle things with his fists (which would greatly increase my respect for the guy). Also, Mirecki resigned as chairman of KU’s religious studies department on the recommendation of his peers. (Isn’t that like a no-confidence vote?)

Read it all. It’ll be interesting to watch this unfold. If you hear nothing from the MSM about it, then you know Mirecki lied.

UPDATE: While the left continues to confidently proclaim Christian zealots ‘terrorists,’ carefully reviewing the facts of the Mirecki story make their side of the story seem unlikely. Check out these telling paragraphs from a Lawrence Journal-World follow-up story entitled “Mirecki Mum on Details of Beating”:

Key facts about the reported attack remained unclear Tuesday, including exactly where it happened. A report released by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the location was “unknown” and listed it as south of 31st Street on either East 1400 Road or East 1500 Road.

Louisiana Street turns into East 1400 Road outside the city limits. Haskell Avenue becomes East 1500 Road.

Also, there was conflicting information about whether Mirecki reported it at the scene or at the hospital. In an interview Monday with the Journal-World, he said he called police from the side of the road, but sheriff’s officials said they were dispatched to the hospital.

Mirecki declined to clarify the discrepancy when asked about it Tuesday outside the sheriff’s office.

“I can; I just don’t want to,” he said.

Don’t you love the attitude? “I’m a liberal college professor, and I should be believed without question.” My advice to lefty professors: Don’t draw attention to yourselves! It’s a bad career move.

UDATE: Poking around on Sean Gleeson’s site, I found this perfect analysis of Mirecki’s unbelievable story. Oh, what I would give to talk to Mrs. Mirecki (a public relations consultant at KU) about all of this.

I Confess . . .

Posted by Bill Hennessy on December 7, 2005 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have read Christina Martin’s Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae, and have found it a worthy new addition to my blog roll. I ask you, my brothers and sisters, to read it with me.

Then She Was There Again

Posted by Bill Hennessy on December 6, 2005 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

It’s a blessing that one should experience these moments. The blessing’s doubled or quadrupled when the feeling lingers with for a time, striking you like an erotic tickle at unpredictable moments throughout the days.

I was sitting on the couch watching a movie. My eyes wandered right. There, not more than five feet from me, sitting on the hearth, talking to the dog was the most beautiful, most lovable, most desirable girl-women I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I gasped inaudibly. My mind recoiled in happy shock. So complete was this joyous surprise that it took me a full fourteen seconds to realize that this beautiful, rare creature is my wife.

When it’s 18 degrees and windy and you’re crossing the street to the big building where you work, your mind slides in funny ways, like a car on icy pavement. You don’t expect to feel like you did that time in the morning in first-grade, wanting desparately, painfully, tearfully to return to your mother’s arms, convinced in the irrational way that six-year-olds are that you might never see her again–or your sisters or your dad. A tornado could wipe them all out, leaving you an orphan. But the day after Angela talked to the dog, I so wanted to turn back to the car and drive to her school and steal her from the kids who get her all day. I wanted to take her home but park a block over and grab her hand and run through the common grounds laughing while she yells, “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

And the guilt. I’m too old, too responsible for such childish frolicking with my dream girl. So I continue into the building and up the stairs, through two sets of double doors, to the left, then the right, to my desk. I take off my coat and hang it carefully on a hook and strike ctrl-alt-del to bring up my log on screen.

And everything reminds me–and I mean everything–that every keystroke this day is for her and for her Creator who blessed me uniquely and undeservingly with human being who shows Him to me in such meaningless moments as a conversation between my wife and a Labrador.