Mayor defends stance on psychic at library

Here’s A Follow Up on Mayor of Ripon CA, Chuck Winn, and his decision to cancel the speaking engagement of Irma Slage — a self-proclaimed psychic.
“The controversy that is occurring is not really benefiting the community at the moment,” Winn said in an out-of-town phone interview from where he is attending a conference. “This has been blown out of proportion, and that really takes the focus off of the things that are really important in the matter.”

September 30, 2005 by Uncategorized 3

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3 Responses

  1. Curmudgeony says:
    September 30, 2005 at 11:39 am

    Out of proportion
    “This has been blown out of proportion, and that really takes the focus off of the things that are really important in the matter.”

    Yes things like your threatening to pull budgetary funds if you didn’t get your way. Nobody likes a bully Mr. Mayor, least of all a bully that blusters and backs down when challenged. If this woman was such a grave threat to society. Why then was there no ourcry when she appeared at another Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library in
    April 2005?

    Reply
  2. Lee Hadden says:
    September 30, 2005 at 7:03 pm

    Psychic Controversy
    This is really bizarre. If he kept this woman from performing because of the objections of fundamentalists and “community standards,” then the next step is to burn the witch “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18)
            After all, the Witch of Endor in the Bible called up the spirits of the deceased and spoke to them, just like this modern psychic claims to do.
              This rejection of witchcraft also appears to be a community standard, as it is repeated often in the Bible, dealing with people who converse with familiar spirits, speak to the dead and do other stuff considered uncanny by the rubes rather than a confidence game by someone who works the audience. See:
    Leviticus 20:31
    Deuteronomy 18:10
    1st Samuel 15:23
    2nd Kings 8:22
    2nd Chronicles 33:6
    Micah 5:12
    Nahum 3:4
    Acts 8:9, 11
    Galatians 3:1
    Galatians 5:20
    and so forth…
            The point is that when you use the bible to inhibit people who disagree with you, perhaps you should read the Bible further and figure out whether you should go the who way and top them off. Remember, Old Judge Lynch never sleeps, and Mob Rules beats democracy any day. I would be worried about a mayor who uses Biblical justification for his actions to inhibit one of the citizens- you never know how far the inhibition will go by the people who support you.

    Reply
  3. Tertullian says:
    October 1, 2005 at 6:00 am

    Re:Psychic Controversy
    Irrespective of the mayor’s reasons for cancelling the psychic, what was the library thinking hiring the psychic in the first place? In this day and age, with libraries in budgetary meltdown, librarians going unemployable, etc., what possible information provision purposes could be served by a library’s spending precious resources in such a fashion?

    Reply

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