Monthly Archives: April 2010
Paranormal Illinois and Coles County
Beth Heldebrandt from the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier has written a fine feature on my new book Paranormal Illinois, which includes three chapters on places in Coles County: Pemberton Hall, Airtight Bridge, and Ashmore Estates. I have a long history in Coles County. I lived in Charleston for nearly eight years, and it was where I first began writing about local ghost stories and legends. It was where I published Tales of Coles County, Illinois, my first work of historical fiction, in 2004. Copies of that book, in its various incarnations, are probably still floating around out there.
Nowhere else have any of the legends and lore of Coles County been documented so thoroughly. Nowhere else has the history of Airtight Bridge or Ashmore Estates been so completely written or well-researched. As a whole, Paranormal Illinois is the culmination of years of research, and it is accessible both to casual fans of the paranormal and anyone interested in Illinois history and folklore (or, what I like to call “folk history”). It’s fun, informative, and greatly entertaining.
I promise you, you have never seen most of this information before! If you think you’ve read everything there is to know about Airtight Bridge from my previous writing, you are mistaken. Paranormal Illinois is the first and only book to contain the complete story, featuring interviews and first hand accounts by people who were involved with the case.
Paranormal Illinois is available at several fine retailers, as well as a local bookstore near you. If you don’t find it there, ask them to order it! The book is also available online at the following websites:
Amazon.com ($12.74 – a really good deal!)
Borders ($14.99)
Schiffer Books ($16.99)
So what are you waiting for? Order it today!
Upcoming Appearances
This summer will be an exciting time. I plan on doing a mini “tour” of a presentation I like to call “Haunting the Prairie: Legends and Lore of Frontier Illinois.” So far, I have the Rockford Public Library and the Ella Johnson Memorial Library lined up, with more on the way. Monday night I am going to be sharing some of my favorite Illinois ghost stories for Carl Jones’ Ghosts, Hauntings, and the Unexplained class at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield. I will also appear on the WREX Channel 13 news in Rockford at 12pm on Tuesday May 18.
Here are a few of the dates and times for upcoming appearances:
- Rockford Public Library in Rockford, Illinois
July 17, 2010 – 4:00-5:30pm - Ella Johnson Memorial Library in Hampshire, Illinois
June 14, 2010 – 6:00-7:30pm - Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Illinois
April 12, 2010
Marxism and Social Justice
My attempt to clarify the recent controversy over Glenn Beck’s now infamous “social justice” rant:
Marxism and Social Justice
Political Christian
Michael Kleen
Much hay has been recently made out of Glenn Beck’s ill-advised comments about the term “social justice.” In the first week of March, on his popular radio and television shows, he said, “I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.” Code words, he claimed, for Marxism. The overwhelmingly condemnatory commentary regarding this quote, though understandable, has so far overlooked a critical point about social justice and Christianity—and its use by some on the statist left—that can and should be debated. There are many activists, such as Sister Diane Drufenbrock (the 1980 vice-presidential candidate for the Socialist Party USA), who have used social justice as a rallying cry in their war against hierarchy and private property, and therefore Beck’s concern about the Marxist use of the terms social and economic justice is somewhat valid. His assumption about the danger of social justice as a moral philosophy, however, is not. His mistake can be excused by his lack of education, but there is no excuse for the trained theologians who willingly distort Christian social teaching for political ends.
The modern concept of social justice incubated in the Catholic Church. In the 1840s, Father Luigi Taparelli used the phrase to criticize the major economic theories at the time for ignoring moral philosophy and for undermining the unity of society by dividing it into competing classes. Since then, the Catholic Church has been clear about its condemnation of both socialism and unrestrained capitalism. In Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, he praised laws that “undertake the protection of life, health, strength, family, homes, workshops, wages and labor hazards, in fine, everything which pertains to the condition of wage workers, with special concern for women and children,” but noted, “it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community.”
Read the entire column…
