Frances swaggart is a precious woman of god who has the weight of a huge ministry on her shoulders. On Wednesday, after the announcement that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo would not be indicted for killing Eric Garner, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Twitter posted a. Adam Buxton's website. GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL COVERAGE (BBC3, 2000 & 2002) Back in Summer 2000, Joe and I were asked by BBC3 (or BBC Choice as it was then known) to.
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JSM- masters- of- the- sweep — Deception Bytes. Three years ago I moved from North Carolina to Baton Rouge to begin a job as Webmaster for Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. I did not know much about the ministry, but I needed a job and the idea of working for a ministry seemed appealing. The Swaggart’s seemed nice enough at first, but I was soon to find out that this kindness was only offered in exchange for my complete loyalty and subjection to totalitarian- like control. In the days and weeks after moving to Baton Rouge, I was perplexed at the oddity of my everyday encounters with ministry employees. People seemed burdened and stressed.
When smiles were given, they were the stiff and sterile kind, not the kind that invades your face, and crinkles your eyes. In my mind it should have been the most joy filled environment in the world to work in and the lack of levity concerned me. People seemed guarded and paranoid, and never spoke of the Swaggarts without lowering their voice and quickly looking around to see who might be listening. People seemed particularly fearful of Frances. I remember it was at times like this that I would defend her. They would stare back at me unblinking, with cold, dead eyes. I could see I was not convincing them.
There is little upon which Inland Rep. Darrell Issa and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi see eye to eye. So different are the two lawmakers politically and ideologically. Currie Graham, Actor: Pompeii. Currie Graham was born on February 26, 1967 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor, known for Pompeii (2014), Assault on Precinct. To link to this poem, put the URL below into your page: <a href="http:// of Myself by Walt Whitman</a> Plain for. Physical disability/dysfunction in the movies Disabled veterans in the movies Mental disability/dysfunction in the movies. Psychiatrists/Psychiatry in the movies.
I could also see that it was not up for discussion. I still remember someone entering my office and commencing to talk to me in a barely audible voice. I laughed and said, “What, do you think it’s bugged”? They looked at me dead serious and said, “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time”.
I wondered then, just who, or what, I had become involved in. The three years I spent there were three of the hardest years of my life. My sentence came to an abrupt end when I was fired unceremoniously along with four other people. The only thing that tied all four of us together was an unsolicited email that had been sent to my work address which outlined some highly offensive material that was being printed in the ministry’s print shop. Being masters of the sweep, it was important for them to silence the voice of anyone that knew, lest they infect others with the truth.
At Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, it seems that being righteous is not nearly as important as looking righteous. In the days that followed, the print- shop worker who had been so outraged over what he had been asked to print decided to talk to Jimmy. He was still under the impression that Jimmy did not know.
He believed, as I had for so long, that somehow there was a rogue element loose in the ministry perpetrating these things without Swaggart’s knowledge. I felt compassion for him as I knew that when the acid of truth ate through his wall of denial, it would be particularly painful. It was. If I could count the number of people who said to me in my three years there that there was something not right. There was too much secrecy, too much control of information. By controlling the information an individual has, they limit the person’s ability to think for themselves. Individuality is not prized at JSM and is targeted for special treatment. This special treatment involves isolation, shunning, and coercive persuasion.
It is a process designed to break a person’s individuality and replace it with their cloned group- think. If a person still does not bend, then an artfully crafted piece of gossip is skillfully inserted into the grapevine to destroy the person’s character. They have it down to an art form. I watched it happen to others, and I experienced the pain, frustration, and humiliation of it, when it happened to me. Most people cave in and conform.
Faced with forces they feel unable to escape from, they adapt. They learn to anticipate problems and manipulate events to avoid self- incrimination. It is hard to even realize it is happening to you when you don’t know who your enemy is.
Your enemy seems like they are your very best friend and advocate and only have your very best interests at heart. At Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, people come to expect humiliation, isolation, ostracism and punishment, because they can never live up to the ideal. Since they set themselves up to be the ultimate judge of good and evil, their employees live in a state of constant fear of failure, fear of being fired, and constant guilt and shame over perceived wrongs they may have committed against the organization. It does not help that the rules seem to constantly change or that there are two sets of rules.
On more than one occasion when I was being given a particularly coercive talk about my absence from church, Frances remarked that she knew me better than I knew myself. Odd, since scripture clearly states that no one but God can know the heart of man.
She was setting herself up to be Holy Spirit to me, to lead me and guide me in the ways she deemed righteous. It did not seem to matter to her that attending church there was never made a condition of my employment, nor did it matter that there were many people employed there who did not go to church at all, including members of her own extended family. When I told Frances that there were many “unsaved” people who worked there she looked at me coldly and said, “Well that is different, they are unsaved and they don’t go to church anywhere.” Clearly in her eyes it was better to be unsaved than to be saved and not go to their church. After my own experience, I began to search through online material and books to see what others had experienced. I knew that the mistreatment of those in their employ had to be a pattern. In some ways, what I found was therapeutic. Reading the experiences of others and knowing that I was not alone, that many others had experienced similar mistreatment, was somehow affirming.
For obvious reasons, one of the first sources I looked at was award- winning investigative journalist John Camp. Although certainly not the focus of his investigations, he describes some instances that to those of us who have been at the receiving end, seem all too familiar.
In his book, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, John B. Camp describes how he initially became interested in digging deeper into Jimmy Swaggart Ministries.
He describes what he refers to as a “sad- faced truck driver” showing up at his office who complained that he and his wife had been fired unjustly.“The man drove one of the eighteen- wheeler rigs that transported television production equipment, gospel recordings and a variety of religious merchandise to Swaggart’s twice- monthly crusades. The couple had relocated from the Midwest for the specific purpose of becoming helpmates of Jimmy and Jesus. She worked in the warehouse that processed the ministry’s huge mail- order business. However, she was labeled a trouble- maker after complaining of sexual harassment by a supervisor, and the couple was fired.”Not long after, Camp had a mid- level manger arrive at his office who complained about “Jimmy’s arbitrary and unchristian- like treatment.” He gave Camp a stack of internal memoranda that suggested that “the ministry’s top three executives- Jimmy, his wife Frances and their son, Donnie, were overbearing micro- managers consumed with minutiae.”Camp goes on to explain that initially he was not interested in doing a piece on what amounted in his mind to, “internal whining”, but also did not want to overlook a story that had essentially been handed to him.“I started to contact other disaffected former employees.
The complaints were much the same- people disillusioned by the perceived arrogance of Brother Jimmy and his family.”Camp was still not satisfied that he had a story worth pursuing until he met George Jernigan, Swaggart’s former Director of Finance. Not surprisingly, Jernigan had been fired for urging Swaggart to be frank in his fund- raising appeals. The controversy primarily involved Swaggarts misappropriation of funds gathered through emotional appeals in which pictures of emaciated African children were shown to garner the empathy (and cold hard cash) of his Christian viewers. According to Jernigan, contributions were not going to the Children’s Fund but were being siphoned into the general account. Only pennies on the dollar were actually being spent in the feeding of starving children. In, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, Camp describes his encounter with Jernigan.“George Jernigan was not the kind of guy to maliciously spread gossip.
Tall and slender with a rounded beard sans mustache, his posture and deliberate manner gave him the appearance of a stern Amish farmer. He remained almost reverently subdued in criticizing his former employer, once interrupting my questioning to pray for guidance before answering. After prayerful meditation, Jernigan told me of the ministry’s extravagant spending, and explained how contributions of jewelry and other goods were converted for personal use by the Swaggart family.
His biggest criticism was directed at a fund- raising gimmick called the . In speaking at a tape- recorded staff meeting not long after the firing of Jernigan, Swaggart had this to say.“Some of the Brothers here have questioned my judgment. Let me set the record straight. I have forgotten more about administration and organization and business than most of you will ever learn. I know what I’m doing. I probably know more about what I am doing than any man you’ve ever laid eyes on in your life. Don’t ever think I don’t know what I am doing.
Somebody talks about the chain of command and you’re looking at the whole chain, every link in it.”Camp also describes an encounter with the ministry’s former Director of Spiritual Counseling, Noble Scroggins. Scroggins recounted an incident involving an elderly woman who wrote that she and her sisters had fallen on hard times and were barely existing on their meager social security checks.“The sisters were contributors to fundraising appeals to feed starving children. But facing hard times, they were unable to fulfill pledges.
Song of Myself. Won't you help support Day. Poems? 1. 81. 9- 1. I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
And what I assume you shall assume. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I do not know what it is any more than he.
I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you; ). The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great.
On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms. The crew of the fish- smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold. The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle. As the fare- collector goes through the train he gives notice by the. The floor- men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the. In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers.
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it. Seventh- month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!).
Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows. Off on the lakes the pike- fisher watches and waits by the hole in. The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep. Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton- wood or pecan- trees. Coon- seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through. Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas. Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw.
Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great- grandsons. In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after.
The city sleeps and the country sleeps. The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time. The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife. And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them. And such as it is to be of these more or less I am. And of these one and all I weave the song of myself. I resign myself to you also- -I guess what you mean.
I behold from the beach your crooked fingers. I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me. We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land.
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse. Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you. I will accept nothing which all cannot have their. I am possess'd! Iowa, Oregon, California? O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days! I plead for my brothers and sisters.
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Issa, Pelosi agree on something – sort of – Press Enterprise. There is little upon which Inland Rep.
Darrell Issa and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi see eye to eye. Pelosi’s proposal is similar to legislation introduced earlier this year by Issa. But Pelosi’s proposal differs from Issa’s in that she favors a commission made up of lawmakers, something Issa opposes. Modeled after the 9/1. Commission and the Iraq Study Group, Issa’s plan calls for a bipartisan and independent panel to examine the crisis and compile a report to Congress.