St. Maximos' Hut

From Instapundit.

Shouldn't this be front page news, and not just in Colorado?

And shouldn't the press be doing something more than accepting at face value claims like the slave-holder's attorney* that:

"She wants to go back home," Lewis said.

"She's concerned about her family," he said. "They have five children. She wants to bring this case to a conclusion in a way that allows them to get back to normal. That was a huge motivation for her."

Maybe the right answer is that when you enslave someone, you don't get to go back home or have things "get back to normal." You get to spend a very long time in prison. Very, very long. In this case, the defendant is likely to get "home detention" and probation. That seems like an outrage.

And, where is the outrage from religious leaders of all faiths that someone was holding someone as a slave in the United States in 2006?

It is also worth reading an earlier article on the case, in which the defense team for the alleged slave-holding husband attempt to play the "terrorist card".

Lawyers for a Saudi man said they want to know if federal prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against their client for allegedly turning an Indonesian nanny into a virtual slave are looking for a backdoor way to link him to terrorist groups.

and

"We contend that despite the government's protestations that this is a mere criminal case, it is not," Richilano said. "It is a terrorist case."

I'm not sure that trying to prove that the government thinks your client is a terrorist is a marvelous defense strategy. You would think the lawyer would at least make some effort to get a quote in about the client not being guilty of the slavery charges.




* I don't put "alleged" here because she's pleading guilty and in so doing admitting she did it.

USA Today, which I got outside my hotel room door this morning, touts Oprah as "a moral voice of authority for the nation" and "a spiritual leader for the new millenium."

If that's not enough, the story includes the following:

"She's a really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa," says Kathryn Lofton, a professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who has written two papers analyzing the religious aspects of Winfrey. "Oprah has emerged as a symbolic figurehead of spirituality."

Let's see - a "hip and materialistic" Mother Teresa would be.... not Mother Teresa!

The article is worth reading to get a complete sense of the sad state of spirituality in America today.