Nasty incident in Glastonbury, Part II

[crowdog66]

Original post here.

And now a link to the LJ of someone who was actually there, with some stuff that didn't appear in the news reports:

http://mevennen.livejournal.com/326518.html

Yikes. And yikes again. The "gentleman" in question who entered the shop sounds like a truly scary individual. Where DO these crazies come from?

Comments

[dark-puck.livejournal.com]

Urge... to harm severely... RISING.

Damn it, why must the loonies keep coming out of the woodwork? Whatever happened to the damn Golden Rule?

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

I am prostrate with laughter after following some news threads about the incident and finding this particular piece of spin doctoring. For those who haven't sniffed around, a brief summary:

- there is a fringe extremely conservative Catholic group that holds a retreat at Glastonbury every year for "youth" (broadly defined as those under 35 disaffected with their faith). There has always been some minor rumpus, but the local shopkeepers (pagan and otherwise) acknowledge that there are always questionable individuals in any large gathering, and it's not a reflection on the religious retreat itself.

- this year one delightful antisocial attendee barged into a local pagan shop, waved about a lit lighter, threatened to burn the place down, and threatened to "shove his fist up the ass" of the owner of the store. The lady in question (who is a grandmother, what a brave lad to be threatening little old ladies) called the police, who charged the man. (In addition to disturbing the peace, he was also illegally parked. Presumably self-rigteous religious intoxication frees one from anything as petty as obeying rules.)

- In the aftermath, the town tallied the incidents. (There was trouble in more than one establishment -- including a bakery, of all things -- every time I think about the supposed Satanist connotations of sandwitch I start laughing...) They came to the conclusion that they would not allow the organization to host a retreat there next year, since they apparently refused to take any sort of responsibility for curtailing the actions of attendees.

- Now, have a look at the article the *group* posted:

"There were several incidents that happened that same weekend that were linked to people who had come to Glastonbury for the retreat. One involved an abusive exchange of words in a local shop, which the owner found offensive and led to police intervention."

-- if someone threatened to burn down your shop and physically assault you (the "shove my fist up your ass" remark was made in front of witnesses, as was waving the lit lighter about), wouldn't you take offense?

"However the statement also added that young Catholics attending the retreat and procession were themselves the victim of harassment, and added that as a result it would be cancelling any further retreats to Glastonbury in the future."

-- some young Catholics were themselves victims of harassment, and the article implies (by omission) that it was by locals. In contrast, the local grapevine had bluntly observed that it was the same individuals that were harassing the local community -- i.e. they were also targeting fellow members of the retreat. There's also an indirect self justification there: "We were harassed, too!" While that's certainly unfortunate, it doesn't make the harassment of the local community any less appalling.

-- they would be cancelling any further retreats? Nice way to make it look like their own decision, as opposed to being tossed out.