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Creationist Whacko in Tax Evasion Trial — Why Now?
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Creationist Whacko in Tax Evasion Trial

by Bryan

Not a headline you will see in the Pensacola News Journal as the Pensacola Beach Blog points out in his coverage of the trial of Kent Hovind: [part one] and [part two].

Hovind is a local Elmer Gantry wannabe who has been fleecing the flock and failing to pay taxes on his “amusement park” or church or mission, or whatever he calls it over in Pensacola. He hasn’t been paying his local, state, or Federal taxes because “he’s on a mission from G-d”, which sounds like a copyright infringement to me.

Maybe they are saving the “good stuff” for a book, but PBB is getting pretty annoyed with the Jack Webb reporting in the News Journal.

While Pensacola might be a suitable replacement for Dayton, Tennessee, I don’t see the potential for popular interest that was stirred up by H. L. Mencken, William Jennings Bryan, and Clarence Darrow.

2 comments

1 John B. { 10.20.06 at 10:21 am }

Bryan,

You may be right, but Dayton wasn’t any smarter. Local merchants thought they would make a ton of money off the bible-thumpers streaming in for the show. They didn’t. Here is an excerpt from Mencken:

The village Aristides Sophocles Goldsboroughs believed that the trial would bring in a lot of money, and produce a vast mass of free and profitable advertising. They were wrong on both counts, as boomers usually are. Very little money was actually spent by the visitors: the adjacent yokels brought their own lunches and went home to sleep, and the city men from afar rushed down to Chattanooga whenever there was a lull. As for the advertising that went out over the leased wires, I greatly fear that it has quite ruined the town. When people recall it hereafter they will think of it as they think of Herrin, Ill., and Homestead, Pa. It will be a joke town at best, and infamous at worst.

2 Bryan { 10.20.06 at 12:31 pm }

It’s kind of like the local convention center that no one but the pols wanted; that we kept voting against because we knew it would lose money; which they built anyway; and sure enough – it’s a money pit.