Three weeks ago the beard-cutting hate crimes convictions were overturned by a federal appeals court in Ohio. Following part 1 of his look at the case, today Donald Kraybill shares some analysis of the case reversals, including why they happened, why they matter for future cases and what might happen next. Maybe not surprisingly for a legal argument, it turns out the reversal hinged on the interpretation of just…
I love this time-lapse video. It’s the best I’ve ever seen of its kind. Here you can observe 10 hours of barn-raising condensed down to about 200 seconds. This took place in LaRue, Ohio, which is the Kenton Amish community. The photographer’s wife gives the back story: My husband, Scott Miller, shot this video with a Canon 60d Camera using a Pixel TW-282/E3 Wireless remote…
My father passed away two weeks ago, having been diagnosed with mesothelioma back in March. Following surgery in July, we were hopeful, but shortly thereafter learned that the cancer had already spread, and there was little more to be done. We lost him a few weeks later, at home. When you read about mesothelioma, a rare, aggressive disease which comes from asbestos exposure, you learn it is…
It’s been over 18 months since Sam Mullet was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the beard-cutting attacks carried out on Amish in Ohio in late 2011. Others in Mullet’s group, including those who actually did the cutting, got sentences ranging from one to seven years. Donald Kraybill’s new book Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz…
What do you know about the Amish of Geauga County, Ohio, the fourth-largest Amish community? Over 15,000 Amish live here. Yet the settlement kind of gets overlooked, especially with Holmes County so close. Among the buggies, windmills, and laundry lines of Geauga County, you’ll find something not often seen in other communities: the classic ice vending freezer. A friend who recently visited Geauga describes there being “hundreds” of them “all over the…
The Watertown Daily Times has published comments from the father of the two girls abducted last week in upstate New York. Mose Miller has 14 children, and is one of the Heuvelton community‘s bishops. In an interview with Johnson Newspapers in their Heuvelton home on Sunday, the girls’ father — Mose Miller, 44 — said he feels “sorry” for the suspects. “It’s sad,” Mr. Miller said. “They…
Local news outlets are reporting that two Amish girls in upstate New York have been abducted while tending their family’s produce stand (Note: since the girls have now been found, the Amber Alert info, artist’s sketch, news station videos, and the girls’ names, originally included with this post, have been removed). The St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s office has activated the Amber Alert for New York state. The thing you…
Now is a great time to get produce from Amish stands. David Arment of Arment Photography has ten photos today featuring various foods in Amish country, and the signs which advertise it. About half of these are produce, and half we can just call “other”. I’m not sure all of them are from Amish businesses, but most are. Which shot do you like best? What…
MacGyver used to be one of my favorite television programs. If you don’t know the show, Angus MacGyver was the secret agent-science whiz famous for using his quick wits to escape precarious situations. Each episode featured MacGyver working his wizardry to get out of yet another jam, using only his inventive powers and whatever resources were at hand. As an operative for the fictional Phoenix Foundation, MacGyver was constantly thwarting bad…
One of our readers, Anne, has a son named Ed (not his real name) who became Amish a few years ago. We hear from Anne from time to time in this ongoing series called “When a son joins the Amish”. Anne has previously written about the photo policy when she visits her son, a hard winter, her friends’ reaction to her son’s conversion, and dental problems. Anne recently…