Nutcase in Pensacola
This is from today’s Pensacola News Journal following up on a story yesterday where a man in a truck shot up a seafood vendor with an AK-47 because the seafood vendor was out of crawfish. Now, the guy claims the laws don’t apply to him; he is a ‘sovereign citizen’.
It’s humbling. I used to read the Kuwait and Qatar papers, and found all kinds of strange behaviors I thought were hilarious, people who didn’t think the laws applied to them.
In Kuwait, they say “Kaifee Kuwaiti”. I think it’s pretty much the same thing; I’m special and I don’t have to obey the conventions and rules and laws.
But most people in Kuwait aren’t carrying AK-47’s . . . .
A manic shooter peppered a busy Ensley retail strip with assault rifle fire Sunday evening because a local seafood market ran out of crawfish, investigators said. (From yesterday’s PNJ)
Suspect’s beef goes beyond lack of crawfish;
Suspect in shooting claims sovereignty
Written by
Travis Griggs
Today’s PNJ Follow-up story:
Larry Wayne Kelly, the man arrested for blasting an Ensley seafood market with an AK-47 assault rifle fire Sunday, had ties to the anti-government “sovereign citizen” movement, Sheriff David Morgan said.
He also has filed dozens of bizarre lawsuits typically associated with the movement’s followers in the local court system.
“As best we can tell, they’re a fringe group — to put it kindly — and they don’t recognize the authority of the federal government,” Morgan said.
“This is the first time they’ve popped up on our radar. You want to write them off as an oddball fringe group, but when weapons and drive-by shootings are involved, you need to set up and take notice.”
Kelly, 42, is accused of speeding through Ensley, opening fire on a seafood restaurant and leading deputies on a car chase before crashing and being arrested. He’s jailed under $575,000 bond.
He is accused of calling the L&T Seafood Market on Pensacola Boulevard 11 times and becoming “incredibly irate” when an employee said the store didn’t have crawfish. At one point, he got out of his truck and fired numerous shots at the storefront.
After the rampage, Kelly told deputies he was a sovereign citizen and did not have to follow the law or obey law enforcement officers.
According to an FBI report, the sovereign citizen movement is composed of extremists who believe that even though they live in the United States, they are separate, or sovereign, entities.
They believe they can declare independence through an obscure legal process, after which they don’t have to pay taxes and are not subject to U.S. laws or courts.
They often refuse to obtain Social Security cards or register their vehicles, and they won’t carry driver’s licenses or use ZIP codes.
Kelly’s truck had a homemade license plate when he was arrested.
Followers attempt to claim their sovereignty by filing a blizzard of specifically worded legal paperwork with various government agencies and courts. Kelly has filed numerous such documents.
At first glance, the paperwork looks routine, but closer inspection reveals bizarre legal language and obscure references to outdated maritime law.
Followers place particular emphasis on capitalization and punctuation of names in the belief that the variations refer to separate legal entities.
In 2009, Kelly filed a 30-page document with Escambia Circuit Court, claiming that “Larry Wayne Kelly, a real man,” “LARRY WAYNE KELLY, a corporate entity,” and “Larry-Wayne: Kelly, Personam Sojourn and People of Posterity” are different things.
Kelly’s paperwork went on to claim hundreds of items as personal property, including fuel tanks and farm machinery. It also claimed intangible concepts, such as “all rights to exercise dominion over the earth,” as property.
One page titled “Attention and Warning” outlined penalties for government agencies violating Kelly’s supposed property rights. Penalties he cited included $2 million for denial or abuse of due process, $2 million for placing an improper garnishment on bank accounts, and numerous others.
The documents appeared to have been generated with a prepackaged “tool kit,” which can be downloaded from various websites, or copied from books written by supporters of the movement.
Scott Schneider, a special agent with the IRS, said such schemes have no legal basis and are common attempts to avoid paying taxes.
“The bottom line is the courts have regularly held that the movement, and those that participate in it, are wrong and there is no legal basis,” hesaid.
Schneider said he’s made serious attempts to decipher the legal language and references in the paperwork but hasn’t been able to do so.
“Besides the fact that some of the words exist in the English language, there is nothing legitimate about the schemes,” he said.
A Year’s Supply of Kleenex from Kuwait and Mrm.
When we returned from our roadtrip to the Doha reunion and wedding in Pittsburgh, I found this waiting for me:
Yes. Yes. Yes, you see it correctly. A year’s supply of oud-scented Kleenex from Kuwait. I am guessing these are the ones sent by my friend Mrm . . . and oh, what a laugh it gave me. Mrm, it’s the little things that count, and it is your big-hearted generosity that matters, sending me FIFTEEN boxes of oud-scented Kleenex. I just can’t stop laughing, it is so extravagant and so sweet, and just exactly what I wanted. Mrm, I think this is your doing, and thank you.
I only met up with three bloggers, and Mrm and her friend were two of the three. It was an equally funny beginning, meeting up at the Starbucks in Fehaheel and each of us thinking we had been stood up because we were at different Starbucks. Soon after, they came to my eyrie in Fintas, and what great times we had from then. 🙂 I would have missed a whole layer of life in Kuwait had I not met up with Mrm, but – as those who know Mrm know – she has a way of getting what she wants, and making everyone around her glad at the same time. I had so much fun with you and Chirp, and I learned so much from you.
Thank you, Mrm. For everything. 🙂 I will think of you more than a thousand times as I use this Kleenex. Thank you. 🙂
Islamic Architecture from YouTube
I still get e-mail from I Love Qatar.com and even though I no longer live in Qatar, I love their e-mails, I love hearing about what is going on in Doha socially and culturally, and I love this fresh, enthusiastic group of people who promote having fun and learning more about Qatar.
In today’s e-mail was a reference to this lovely video collection by Mballan which I recommend you watch when you have a few peaceful moments to enjoy it – he – or she – has found some magnificent sights, and the collection is beautiful. I only wish more of the selections were identified; I could recognize several, but far from all. Enjoy . . .
A God of Infinite Mercy
This morning, Father Neal Goldsborough of Christ Church Pensacola gave a sermon that held us all totally spellbound. It had to do with the fundamentalist preacher who – once again – forecast the coming rapture, which he says was scheduled for yesterday. (I wonder what he has to say today? He was wrong once before, in 1994. Or maybe people were raptured yesterday, but all the folk I know are, like me, sinners who didn’t make the cut.)
Father Neal talked about his service in the chaplain corp overseas, and faiths which exclude based on narrow rules, specific rules, churches and religions who say ‘this is the only way and all the rest of you are damned to everlasting fire” whether they use those words or paraphrases. He pointed to Jesus, who broke the rules of his time and flagrantly spent time with sinners, and the unclean, and showed them by his love and by his actions what the infinite love and mercy and forgiveness of Almighty God looks like.
It couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
Soon, I will be meeting up with three women who are particularly dear to me, friends for many years in Qatar, friends who worshipped at the Church of the Epiphany in Doha, Qatar. The new Anglican Church of the Epiphany is being built on land dedicated to church use by His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, and will be used by many denominations.
My friends and I all returned to the USA within months of one another, and have been sending e-mails with “reply to all” as we struggle with our re-entry into our old church communities. We struggle with the hatreds and prejudices and ignorance about our Moslem brothers and sisters, and we struggle with the narrow strictures imposed by our churches and study groups. I thank God to have these wonderful women among whom we can share our dismay and our hurting hearts, and re-inforce the lessons we learned living in a very exotic, and sometimes alien culture, but which had so many wonderful and mighty lessons to teach us. I often joke that in my life, God kept sending me back to the Middle East (Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait) until he saw that I finally got it. My sisters-in-faith were quicker studies than I was. 🙂
It was a breath of the Holy Spirit I felt this morning, as Father Neal spoke about God’s mercy, his plan to redeem ALL of his creation, God’s desire for our love and our service. I couldn’t help it, it made me weep with relief to know my church is a church that serves God by including, rather than excluding, and which mercifully welcomes sinners like me.
Here is the really cool part. Christ Church Pensacola has recently begun putting the sermons online. If there is one thing Christ Church has, it is great sermons – and if you want to hear Father Neal’s sermon, you can click HERE, in a few days and you can hear his sermon for yourself. 🙂 Look for the May 22 sermon by Father Neal Goldsborough.
Perfect Pensacola Evening
After weeks of early and sultry heat, Pensacola has had a spell of cooler weather, nights down into the 50’s and even high 40’s, and days in the mid 70’s – and not humid. Great weather for working in the garden or going to a park, weather that just makes you want to be outside.
Last night we went to a meeting of the Gulf Coast Diplomatic Council at a beautiful home out in Gulf Breeze, with a view of the water that goes forever. As you walk in, you can smell wood – or at least I can. I grew up with houses that used a lot of wood, and I love the smell. The heart of the house was a kitchen – dining room – sitting area with that forever view.
It was a lively group. The group only gets together a couple times a year, but what a fun group – all people who are willing to host foreign visitors when they come to Pensacola. I am guessing one of the reasons that Pensacola gets so many groups (besides those glorious sugar-white sand beaches, and the multicolors of the Gulf, and all the seafood and palms and balmy weather) is that the GCDC has developed a sterling reputation with visitors, and the Department of State is happy to send them to a place where they will get such a warm reception.
Attending also were some delegates from other countries. We spent some time with a Namibian farmer, who wants to find market outlets for poor rural women in Namibia. We spent two weeks in Namibia – it seems a lifetime ago – and loved our time there. We made a circuit of the country, from the farms in the east to the great Etosha game park, to the Demaraland, and down the Skeleton coast to Sossossvlei, where we climbed the mountainous sand dunes. It was a great adventure for us, and we have such happy memories of Namibia, and our delegate was so happy to meet people who had spent time in her country, We had a great visit with her and a great time altogether.
There were mountains of food available, but you know how awkward it is to be talking with people and they ask you a question just as you have taken a bite of something that needs to be chewed and swallowed before you can answer? We passed on the food so we could focus on the conversations. In the back of our minds, too, we knew we were close to one of our favorite places, Flounders, so we popped over there for a bowl of chowder, grilled grouper po’ boy (AdventureMan) and grilled shrimp Ceasar (me). The evening was perfect – no humidity, temperature perfect, slight breeze but not too hot or too cold – perfect.
This weekend we are taking care of Happy Baby while our son and his wife head off to a family wedding. Happy Baby is fifteen months old, and a live wire. So much energy and no inhibitions! You have to watch him every minute. He loves climbing, but he has no sense of danger. It takes both of us to keep up with him! He is so much fun to be around, that although it will be exhausting, it will also be a lot of fun.
Did you Tell Him We’re Going Dancing?
I was laughing as I heard AdventureMan talking with his Saudi friend, making a time when they could get together. I knew he had called about tonight.
“Did you tell him we were going dancing?” I laughed as I asked him.
“Uhhh . . . no,” he said.
This is new to us. We are taking dancing lessons, ballroom dancing, at the YMCA. We both had those lessons you take in eighth grade, but we’ve forgotten most of what we learned. I don’t care about going dancing, or fancy dresses, or competitions. I don’t even watch dance stuff on TV; I just don’t care that much. These classes are something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, and it really takes us out of our comfort zones.
We really are having fun. The first lesson – not so much. It is hard work! It doesn’t come naturally, it comes with PRACTICE! Lots of PRACTICE! It’s like fencing lessons, or horseback riding, or karate, or gymnastics – After a while, your body knows what to do, but at the beginning, it can be a little excruciating. As for AdventureMan and I, we mess up a lot, but we laugh a lot too. We are getting better, but best of all we are having a lot of fun. These kinds of things rewire your brains; it may not be easy, but it is good for us.
And I am still laughing, thinking of AdventureMan not telling his friend that he was going dancing with his wife, LOL!
The Minority Prayer
I listen to National Public Radio in my car and in my project room. I finally figured out how to stream WUWF, my local station. Until today, unless I wanted to use my wind-up radio, I had to stream KUOW in Seattle, or NPR which I like because it has so much BBC.
I am really delighted to figure out how to stream WUWF, because it has a lot of local news and events I might miss streaming one of the other stations, and I also like hearing who the sponsors are, so I can tell them how much I enjoy National Public Radio.
So today I am listening to Talk of the Nations, a segment on Pakistani-Americans, and this particularly articulate young lawyer mentions ‘the Minority Prayer.
Do you know what that is? I didn’t. But I laughed when he explained it, because we have prayed it so often living overseas . . .
He was talking about when attending a Muslim-American Lawyers National meeting, and how the buzz spread that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, and how they all sent up a quick minority prayer – “Please, Lord, don’t let it be Pakistan where he was found” – and of course, it was Pakistan. He was very wry, and I enjoyed listening to what he had to say. At the same time, I was grinning. I cannot count the number of times we have heard rumors – in Germany, in Kuwait, in Qatar, in Tunisia, in Jordan – and prayed . . . “Please Lord, don’t let it be the USA who did this . . . ”
It’s very much an expat’s prayer.
If you want to listen to the interview yourself, you can find it here.
Disable Your GPS Settings for Camera on Your Smart Phone
Thanks to my very savvy Kuwait friend for forwarding this timely reminder to be careful about what you post. What stalkers can learn from a photo on a social-networking site is frightening.
Two Saints of the Church
Here is the prayer given for today in the Lectionary:
PRAYER (traditional language)
Loving God, we offer thanks for the ministries of Edward Thomas Demby and Henry Beard Delany, bishops of thy Church who, though limited by segregation, served faithfully to thy honor and glory. Assist us, we pray, to break through the limitations of our own time, that we may minister in obedience to Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
BISHOPS, 1928, 1957
Delany, Henry Beard [Feb. 5, 1858-April 14, 1928] was the second African American bishop in the Episcopal Church, being elected Suffragan Bishop of North Carolina in 1918. He is probably better known as the father of Sadie and Bessy Delany, authors of the popular book, Having Our Say, which chronicled their lives.
Edward Thomas Demby [Feb. 13, 1869-Oct. 14, 1957] was the first African American bishop in the Episcopal Church. He served his first parish in Mason, Tenn. He became “Suffragan Bishop for Colored Work in Arkansas and the Province of the Southwest” in 1918. His career has been covered in a book, Black Bishop.
As we begin to transition from the Lenten season to the great feast of Easter, my heart takes hope from the courage of those who stood in the face of prejudice and exclusion, and focused on doing their jobs and doing them with grace. I think of how hate blinds us. I think of how Catholics and Protestants slaughtered one another, how Mormons were driven West, how Sunnis and Shiites are clashing in Iraq, how Christians and Moslems are battling to the death, and when I am near to losing hope, I try to focus on how earlier conflicts have almost totally disappeared. We are all believers. We believe in the one true God. We squabble like children over his inheritance.
Alexander McCall Smith and The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party
Just back from a wonderful two day trip to Botswana, visiting my dear and beloved friend Precious Ramotswe, who owns the #1 Ladies Detective Agency. For her, I make an exception to the paperback book rule (buy paperbacks because hard covers can hurt you if you fall asleep and they fall over) and get on the pre-publication order list so that Amazon will send me the book as soon as it comes out.
The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party arrived Wednesday night. My husband was expecting a friend, and when the doorbell rang I thought “oh my, he is really early!” but it was the UPS guy, who had left a book-sized package on my doorstep. I had just finished an easy but fun book (The Map Thief by Heather Terrell) and was at odd ends as to what to read next, and this was an easy answer. As my husband drank Arabic coffee and sweet sweet Arabic tea, and ate delicate Middle Eastern treats downstairs, I got to start The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party.
You know the books. They aren’t difficult to read, but while you are reading, you are transported to another world. Precious Ramotswe’s Botswana is not a world without problems, but the solutions to the problems are often found in softer gentler ways, ways that would seem counter-intuitive in our culture, but make total sense when you are raised in Botswana. There is a value placed on peaceable interaction, and maintaining relationships, on forgiveness, and going to extra mile. It’s a sweet world, and a great escape.
As usual, there are several intertwining plot lines with ingenious and unexpected solutions. I suspect that is what keeps me glued to this series – I cannot anticipate the solutions. That, and the gentleness of her outlook, the sweetness of life in Botswana, and the dignity and integrity of McCall’s primary characters.
I don’t know how McCall manages to keep the series fresh, but he avoids the formulaic and I find each book a treat. My favorite part of this book is how Mma Potokwane manages to wangle and invitation to Mma Makutsi’s wedding:
Mma Potokwane noticed the other woman’s uncertainty. “Yes,” she continued. “There’s that problem. And then there’s another problem. Problems come in threes, I find, Mma. So the next one – Problem number two, so to speak – is the cooking of food. You know what I find, Mma, it is this: the people doing the cooking never have enough pots. They say they do, but they do not. And right at the last moment they discover that there are not enough pots, or, more likely, the pots they have are too small. A pot may be big enough to cook your meat and pap at home, just for a family, but do not imagine that it will be big enough to cook for a couple of hundred people. You need big, catering-size pots for that.”
She was now warming to her theme. “And the third problem is the food itself. You may think that you have enough for the feast, and you may be right when it comes to the meat. People usually have enough meat – often rather too much, in fact. But they forget that after their guests have eaten a lot of meat, they need something sweet, and often they have made no arrangements for that. A wedding cake? Yes, but there will only be one small piece of that for each guest – usually not enough. So people find themselves wishing that they had had the foresight to get a supply of ordinary cake for the guests to eat with their tea. And where is this cake? Not there, Mma.”
Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi; this was not the way to speak to a nervous bride, she thought. “I’m sure that everything will work out well,” she said reassuringly. “And if there are any problems, they will surely just be small ones – nothing to worry about.”
Mma Potokwane looked doubtful. “I hope so,” she said. “But in my experience, it never works out like that. I think it’s better to be realistic about these things.”
Mma Makutsi picked up her pencil to add something to her list. “You said something about pots, Mma. Where would I be able to get these big, catering-size pots?”
Mma Potokwane examined her fingernails. “Well, we have them at the orphan farm. Each of the house mothers has a very large pot. I’m sure that we could do something . . . ”
Run to your bookstore and buy The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party!
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