Whoever Said Newspapers Can Never Return To Their Glory Days Never Joined A Korean Cult
November 17, 2010 9:36 AM   Subscribe

Whoever Said Newspapers Can Never Return To Their Glory Days Never Joined A Korean Cult [via mefi projects]
An epic story of flower-selling, mass weddings, insane sex rituals, swashbuckling Cold Warriors, white supremacists and neo-segregationists, Barney Frank & Vince Foster, closeted gay Republicans and where the money goes when you order from a sushi restaurant…
posted by JHarris (16 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
I didn't realize this was mefi's own Moe Tcacik
posted by empath at 9:48 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've always wondered how a group of Southern Baptist evangelical conservatives can, with a straight face, take orders and ideological tips from a man who claims to be the second coming of Christ. I mean, how far are they willing to go to support the Republican party? Would they vote for a Moonie Presidential candidate?
posted by Avenger at 10:10 AM on November 17, 2010 [12 favorites]


This is pretty great stuff.
posted by klangklangston at 10:23 AM on November 17, 2010


Saw this back when it was a baby project. I'm thrilled it turned out so well - great job!
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 10:43 AM on November 17, 2010


Great article. The Washinton Times is one of those real-life things that would be unbelievably outre if you ran across it in a novel.
posted by gamera at 11:06 AM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'd be A-OK with the Washington Times forgetting to come into work one decade, and the Washington Blade moving their operations into the Times' old space.
posted by NortonDC at 11:10 AM on November 17, 2010


i once met a girl who wrote for the w-times and she got SUPER OFFENDED when I made fun of her. I mean come on, if youre going to work for wackos you should at least have a sense of humor about it. She was super-liberal too, so it wasn't like she was mad that I teased her for being a republican stooge. Odd.

Great story evabraunstein!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:21 AM on November 17, 2010


how a group of Southern Baptist evangelical conservatives can, with a straight face, take orders and ideological tips from a man who claims to be the second coming of Christ

That doesn't seem like such a stretch to me.
posted by DU at 11:23 AM on November 17, 2010


The manual dictates which sexual positions are used each day, the positioning of cushions and the obligatory photograph of the Rev. Moon during the various acts, the direction from which “holy salt” must be sprinkled in order to properly “sanctify” the room. There’s also an elaborate process by which the couple cleanses their sexual organs afterwards, using an official church-supplied “holy handkerchief” sprinkled with a mysterious fluid that is supposed to contain the “essence” of Moon himself. Moon preaches that sex that deviates from this rigorous regimen is sullied by a spiritual sort of venereal disease first passed to Adam by Eve after she cheated on him with the archangel Lucifer.

Freaking according to God's Plan?
posted by yeloson at 12:11 PM on November 17, 2010


In a massive stroke of irony the right-wing Moonies also run the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which will accept just about any international student who will pay, including a young man who couldn't even hack the rigours of the now defunct Southeastern University in Washington, DC and flunked out. Luckily for us all, the young man got such a shoddy engineering education at Bridgeport that the bomb he left in Times Square on May 1, 2010 failed to detonate!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 1:53 PM on November 17, 2010 [2 favorites]


For me, Moe Tkacik will always be the woman who had a tampon stuck inside her for 10 days.
posted by up in the old hotel at 3:17 PM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


^^ So these Moonie institutions are giving aid and comfort to the enemy?

Shut 'em down!!! Yeah, it would have felt better to say that when when Bush was still in office, but you use what you've got. Also, I'll be the umpteenth person to wonder what kind of cognitive dissonance gets any self-avowed America-first Right-Wing Republican to work for a Foreign, Messianic National. It could only be the money, which tells you how completely fucked-up our political system is.
posted by vhsiv at 3:24 PM on November 17, 2010


The comedic church of the CIA?
posted by clavdivs at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2010


I'm still waiting to hear the story of Copley Newspapers, which had an unusual relationship with the CIA for many years.
posted by Yakuman at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2010 [1 favorite]


or TIME.
posted by clavdivs at 4:03 PM on November 17, 2010


King of America
John Gorenfeld is also "one of us"
posted by hortense at 12:31 AM on November 18, 2010


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