Broward Palm Beach News Blog

If you're headed to Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, you can leave your Sunday best in the closet. Services are streamed online. For communion-by-computer, you can bless your own bread and wine. And if you're a newcomer, fill the bathtub, because Flamingo Road also does virtual baptisms. See above.

In February 2008, the church, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, performed what it billed as the world's first internet baptism. How can that sacrament pass through a high speed connection? Well, I set out to find out.

Besen: NARTH "Peddles shame and profits from pain"

​WTF is it with the Marriott anyway? First the Delray Beach Marriott throws open its doors to CAIR and Geert Wilders, now West Palm's Marriott will offer a cozy welcome for this year's national NARTH conference. The National Association of Research and Therapy for Homosexuality, in case you're new to this, is a pseudo-scientific association dedicated to the proposition that gays can be cured with a little "reparative therapy." Or, actually, probably quite a lot of reparative therapy, and it don't come cheap.

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Of course Houdini's ghost would carry chains.

​ If the most famous magician in history were to come back from the dead as a publicity-related favor for any group or organization, it would probably be the skeptics.

Harry Houdini spent most of his career debunking psychics and scamsters, convincing the world that these people are frauds -- not worth the price of admission. He was so dedicated to this end that, nearing his death, he told his wife a secret word and said that if returning from the great beyond were possible, he would come back to her with that word.

Since his death on Halloween in 1926, there have been a number of seances held in the Houdini museum and elsewhere, each aimed at summoning the magnificent mystifier. Most of these rituals are performed by kooks and hucksters (as James Randi says, "woo-woo"). But now a group of local skeptics -- with help from some big-name celebrities -- are gonna give it a try themselves.

Don and Derek: Two racially appropriate names for baby.

​If you were a jew-hating, black-bashing, out-and-proud white supremicist, what would you name the little bun you had baking in your oven?

We've been poking around on the web forums of our own homegrown hate group, Stormfront, lately. In part because theThe Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition has claimed

Sure looks like the folks behind Coral Ridge Ministries are courting the defectors of Fort Lauderdale's Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. The Coral Ridge Ministries, originally founded as a media arm for the church's icon, Rev. James Kennedy, is now a separate entity. In a series of Youtube clips the Ministries take a much more aggressive political path than the one charted at the church itself, and it was especially at odds with the personal growth preachings that came after Rev. Tullian Tchividjian was named pastor.

But since the effort to remove Tchividjian crumbled last month, the church's most conservative members have been leaving, and it's no coincidence that in the video above John Rabe of Coral Ridge Ministries is talking about how sometimes a good Christian must take a stand, Martin Luther-style.

Photo: Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune

Indisputable evidence that this ex-Dolphins clergyman is a born-again Bears fan

​God only knows how good he is in the pulpit, but there's no doubting Rev. Greg Barrette is a master of self-promotion. Several years ago, when he was a pastor in Delray Beach, he landed a gig performing the invocation at a Dolphins game:

In front of 80,000 fans, he asked God to watch over both teams but added, "Don't forget, our guys are in the aqua and orange."

Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune recounts that moment in a column about Barrette from this weekend . But now that Barrette has moved to the Chicago area, he's calling in religious favors for a new team, giving instructions to Bears fans about how to pray for their team without effectively bringing a curse upon the opposing team.

A story in yesterday's Sun-Sentinel says the Mormon Church has plans to build a new temple somewhere in western Broward County. It will be one of five new temples built in the United States and abroad and is expected to help serve the state's roughly 100,000 members living in Florida. 

Now, SoFla Mormons trek to Orlando to hear the word. Local leaders called the announcement Saturday "a blessing."

But one local Mormon questions whether the new temple is necessary, since it's not exactly hard to find a seat in the Orlando locale. "I have no idea how Florida will get enough Temple workers and attendees to keep the Fort Lauderdale Temple filled," writes Geoff B.

He does mention, however, that it will help all those Mormons living in the Keys, since that drive from the quintessential Margaritaville to Orlando is a real killer.

I'm trying to picture a Mormon living in Key West. But I'm willing to go with it.

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​If you've driven south recently on I-95 in North Broward, then chances are that God has shown you a sign. Not the subtle kind, either -- see left. There's another one near I-95 and I-595. What's God got up his sleeve?

Flickr: Chuck Diesel

​I'm not a good enough Catholic to judge Rev. David Dueppen, and frankly, neither are you. For those men angry about the Pembroke Pines priest who had sex with a stripper: Maybe you're just mad that you didn't think of it first:

The elusive exotic dancer cannot be seduced one dollar bill at a time, we've learned. Rather, she wants what she can't have: the man who must choose between her and God.

Keep your cash; she wants your soul.

Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort Lauderdale houses one of the nation's greatest pipe organs, but this week it no longer has an organist. Tipsters to the Juice say that Sam Metzger, the church's senior organist, playing in the video above, left his post last week, along with the church's Minister of Music Dr. John Wilson, apparently in defiance of the new pastor, Rev. Tullian Tchividjian.

For the last few months, the legendary church has been caught in a civil war between Tchividjian's new school approach and the old school members who seem to think he and his young followers lack respect for the ministerial tradition of Rev. James Kennedy.

Despite the effort by those traditionalists to send Tchividjian packing, on September 20 the church members voted overwhelmingly to keep Tchividjian as pastor, leading to talk that the old schoolers will split off to form their own church.

But to one of Metzger's non-Presbyterian colleagues it's hard to imagine a dispute that would lead an organist to abandon an instrument like the one at that church.
"It's the most prestigious organist job in Broward County -- because it's the biggest organ in the region," says the local organist, a member of Broward's chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Metzger and Wilson did not be immediately return messages seeking comment.

UPDATE: Neither Metzger nor Wilson have returned calls, but in a church letter circulated to members Tchividjian confirmed the departures of the two. He says he didn't ask for their resignations, that he "loves both men" but that Wilson felt called to serve another church and that Metzger simply lost his own call to serve Coral Ridge Presbyterian.

JREF

​Tickets for self-proclaimed "spiritual teacher and psychic" Sylvia Browne's first two appearances at the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek later this month sold out so fast that the casino booked Browne for a third evening of...of...whatever it is Sylvia Browne does. She says it's reading people's minds and talking to the dead. Skeptics, like The Amazing Randi, call Browne's act "flim-flam."

Tickets for the final night, September 29, are on sale for $30, which is a deal considering a 30-minute phone sessions with Browne go for more than $700.

The trio of dates are part of what Browne calls her "farewell tour." Randi, who heads the Fort Lauderdale-based James Randi Educational Foundation, says Browne's act hasn't gotten any better since they appeared together on Bill Bixby's television special in 1989. "And this farewell tour has been going on since 2002," Randi says. "Apparently she likes to linger on the doorstep when she says goodbye."

He says he's not surprised that Browne would come to South Florida, where there are plenty of skeptics -- but also plenty of commercial, self-proclaimed psychics. "She's a real money maker," he says.

Randi has, on several occasions, offered Browne the chance to prove her paranormal powers and collect his million dollars. She accepted the challenge in 2001, on the Larry King show, but never followed through.

Other skeptics have followed Browne's antics for years, chronicling her at StopSylvia.com.

For the cover story I wrote about James Randi last month, I tried to contact Sylvia Browne via email (no reply), phone (a member of her staff said she would consider the interview, but said she normally gets a fee for such things, then never returned the call), and silent psychic signals sent from my brain (all day, every day, for weeks). She didn't respond.

After the jump, video of some of Sylvia Browne's most audacious psychic predictions (and the results).

The turd doesn't fall far from the dog

​Stories in the New York Post and today's Palm Beach Post confirm that the tan, leggy hooker in the ACORN hoax videos is in fact an FIU student. Hannah Giles, one of two college kids who traveled around the country on a $1,300 budget shooting videos of ACORN workers making asses of themselves, is also the daughter of self-promoting hoohaa and Aventura pastor Doug Giles of Clash Church and Clash Radio. One of the senior Giles' many motivational tomes, The Bulldog Attitude, is sold on Amazon.com. Writes one reviewer of Pastor Giles' self-help advice: "The bulldog attitude translates into an intolerant attitude towards everyone else who isn't on the same page."

Shall we speculate here about how much of this message the younger Giles may have absorbed from her daddy? The too-hip-for-thou Clash Church appears to have been founded by a pubescent marketing firm hopped up on Coca-Cola and thrash metal: "An energetic church that meets you right where you are" goes the tag line. Daddy Giles appears in sunglasses and open-necked shirt against a background of garage band, mouthing inanities about the devil in a voice evidently modeled on The Big Bopper. Everything -- from Daddy Doug's three-minute video chants to any of his many self-published books -- is for sale in the online church store.

Looks like Hannah G is a chip off the old mutt.

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Rosenblit says he smokes pot because it helps him "hear God."

​You may have seen Daniel Rosenblit's van cruising by the beach in Fort Lauderdale, or parked next to him as he preaches on the streets of Broward county. The large cargo van has the paradoxical phrase "Living Martyr" on the side.

Recently Broward Sheriff's deputies charged the Living Martyr, a Lauderdale Lakes resident, with misdemeanor possession of marijuana. Rosenblit, who has a loud, scratchy voice and a potent biological aroma that can sometimes offend the senses of strangers, has been a street preacher in Fort Lauderdale for nearly seven years, telling people about his plan to unite all monotheistic religions (something similar to Reverend Moon's ideas a few decades back) and save the world. He says he intends to use a spiritual defense against the charge.

So far, nobody has ever won a pot possession case using a spiritual defense. "I'm gonna be the first," Rosenblit says. "It was God's will for me to get busted for possession."

On his usage, Rosenblit says, "Smoking pot helps me communicate with God. It bumps you up. It breaks you free of your limited thinking. Everyone in the church should be smoking pot and doing mushrooms. It makes us fools before God, able to receive His message better."

Randi has a geek-chic following of intellectual skeptics.

​

In last week's cover story, about "The Amazing Randi" and the skeptic culture he has helped foster over the past 40 years, we gave you 5,000 words on the man, his adventures, his detractors, and his future (not in the Sylvia Brown/Uri Geller way though, mind you).

But much was cut from the story too, including a few bits editors thought too literary (or not literary enough, maybe?). One of the many joys of the Juice, though, is that this space allows us to tell you more.

For instance, the story once had the following epigraph:

"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religions. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough." - Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and grandson of a biologist.

For me, that's what the story was all about, the men and women who believe -- and vocalize -- humans behaving with "gratuitous folly."

There were also a few scenes reported from the Amazing Meeting (so named for Randi and organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation).

After the jump, a few of those.

Flickr: fleuranna

In the prequel to Finding Nemo, the fish protagonists help a barge worker to the surface.

​Bruce Watters is a jeweler and "pillar of the community" during the week and a faith healer on the weekend. That's right -- the kind who summon the Holy Spirit, lay their blessed hands upon the lame and command, "Stand up in the name of Jesus!"

His story, which appeared in Sunday's St. Petersburg Times, is fascinating, though the only indisputable miracle is how Watters and his followers can reconcile their belief in the power of God to heal with their acceptance of sickness and death as a human condition. Among those followers is Ed Morehead who recounts a this brush with mortality off the coast of Fort Lauderdale:

He was presumed drowned in a barge accident in Fort Lauderdale. After three hours, he was found floating near the barge. The stunned superintendent cried out, "Here's Eddie!" Morehead tells the story often. He says he saw a bright light down below and swam toward it, two fish on either side. The light led him to the surface.

After the jump, a video of Watters in his capacity as a jeweler.

​We liked this one for the judicious use of indoor furniture and the commitment to xeriscaping: As you can see there isn't much lawn here, and presumably the statuary doesn't require more than the twice weekly waterings allowed by the city. Drought tolerant plants like cactus and succulents complete the environmentally sound design; the skeleton serves as Halloween/Day of the Dead-ready decoration and also as a friendly philosophical reminder that -- especially in our hurricane-prone environs -- no yard is forever. 

Take a look at that video, evangelicals and anti-Muslim crusaders. Are you really, really sure you want to risk your credibility on the Fathima Rifqa Bary case? Y'all remember how the Terri Schiavo thing backfired, right? Actually, this one is the media mutation of the Schiavo story and Elian Gonzalez -- a Florida-based custody battle with a religious catalyst. Yikes.

Anyway, Christians: Are you all positive you want to stand squarely behind a guy like Blake Lorenz, the pastor of a church called Global Revolution? And lest that name be too cryptic, here's how Lorenz described the stakes in the St. Pete Times:

"These are the last days, these are the end times, and this conflict between Islam and Christianity is going to grow greater. This conflict between good and evil is going to grow greater."

OK, pastor, I give up. Which side is good?

​"Dear Media Friends," the email read. "The Wexler 'town hall' meeting is a sham. Tickets. Reserved seating. Written questions. In other words, NO DISSENT INSIDE.

"To speak to real, independent thinking citizens, be in the South County Civic Center Parking Lot at NOON."

The email was signed "Sid."

The Juice knew that "Sid" could mean only one thing -- it had to be the irrepressible Dinerstein, the guy forever urging us to "grow up!"

Sid Dinnerstein and friends at Delray protest

​We're perennially Peter Pannish over here at the Juice, but we thought we'd mosey over to the Delray Town Hall Healthcare Forum this afternoon to speak to the real, independent-thinking citizens Dinerstein was so excited about. And also to see if anybody could explain the health-care bill to us, because we got tired around page 2,052 and stopped reading.

That's Rev. Tullian Tchivijian, the fresh-faced grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham explaining the principles of his book Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different. In the first several months of his pastorship at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, that's been a hard sell to church traditionalists -- especially a group that includes Jennifer Cassidy Kennedy, daughter of the Rev. James Kennedy. The Sun-Sentinel reports that this weekend she was kicked out of the church along with five other members for leading an insurgency that aimed to remove Tchivijian for trying to bring too radical a change to the megachurch that Kennedy built.

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The bad guys were last seen driving this truck.

​It's one thing to boost a truck from a church. It's another thing altogether to then use the church's truck to steal from landscapers. But the Palm Beach's Sheriff's Office is reporting that the two incidents over the past three days in Jupiter are related.

The truck disappeared from Calvary Chapel in Jupiter on Saturday, according to PBSO. The thief made off with a load of music equipment, which investigators say they found Monday at the Ladybug Nursery-Landscaping. But gone from that nursery was roughly $50,000 in lawn maintenance equipment. So it seems the thieves are more interested in landscaping than developing their musical talents.

According to a PBSO statement, the truck was found at 1:30 this morning in Hialeah. It appears detectives are still looking for the stolen equipment and for the people who did it.

New Mount Olive's the Rev. Mack King Carter will retire a rich man, but he will not be immortalized on a Fort Lauderdale street sign.

This summer, admirers of Carter had filed requests for NW Ninth Avenue, from Sunrise to Broward Boulevard, to be renamed in the pastor's honor.

Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Bobby Dubose, whose third district includes New Mount Olive, told the Juice that the item had been placed on the commission's agenda "prematurely," especially since it was becoming apparent that a number of residents objected to the idea. So he pulled it from the agenda and says that about a week ago, before he had time to consider his own opinion and to put the item back on a future agenda, its backers at New Mount Olive withdrew the request.

Flickr User: TomFlickrPhotos

​In advance of his retirement next month, the Rev. Mack King Carter of New Mount Olive Baptist Church has drafted an awesome wish list. The letter containing those items was made public in a court filing Friday. Carter asks for:

• the title of "Pastor Emeritus."
  
• the church pay his health insurance premiums for the next four years.
  
• the rights to the income generated by video and tapes of his sermons.
• a $50,000 annual payment for the rest of his life.
  

And if that's still not enough to boost his wallet and ego, a source with knowledge of church affairs tells Juice that Carter is also seeking the right to collect a portion of the profits from a $75-per-plate gala in his honor at the Hollywood Westin Diplomat. Finally, don't forget that the church has also moved to name a street after Carter. (That effort encountered opposition and was recently withdrawn.)

Located in an impoverished section of downtown Fort Lauderdale, Carter's members are mostly working class. Some of them are poor. Yet every time he has asked for money, they've given it to him. They've made him a very rich man. Just not quite as rich as he'd like to be.

Shortly after Elisa Moed moved from Boca Raton to Israel in 2005, she realized that the country could improve the way it markets itself to the droves of Christian tourists in America. That idea grew into Travelujah.com, a site that can help a Christian have an inspiring trip to the Holy Land. Or to at least an inspiring visit to the website.

It's a bit odd for a Jewish woman like Moed to build a business for Christians, but Moed tells the Jerusalem Post that while growing up in Detroit, she came to know Christians as friends and to understand their faith well enough to serve as their tour guide.

"Travelujah is an opportunity for Christians around the world to share their stories, connect with other people, write blogs, and hopefully one day travel here," Moed says. "This is the cradle of faith. There's only one Holy Land. And Travelujah is a Christian social network that offers ways for people to experience the Holy Land, either virtually or physically.

Kaufman: Setting her sights on Shadowood.

Fort Lauderdale's WFTL-AM (850) talk-radio host Joyce Kaufman is smelling conspiracy everywhere lately. She has hooked up with those zany folks over at the Florida Security Council and believes that there's a radical Muslim hiding under every rock. "I am obsessed with exposing radical Islam," Kaufman told us by phone. "Sharia law is infiltrating my society, and if something isn't done about it, America will fall. I'm just addressing these issues in an open and honest way. Islam needs to go through a major reformation; it's a nontolerant religion. You had the same thing with Christianity, the Crusades, early on, and eventually Christianity was reformed. I look at London; I have friends who can't live there anymore. The same thing is happening here."

 Even the high stink of the popcorn machine at Shadowood movie theaters in Boca can't throw her off the scent of a secret plot. When Kaufman and a group of friends went to see The Stoning of Soraya M. last Sunday, a film about the dire effects of Muslim sharia on a woman living in a small Iranian town, she and her group were turned away at the door.

A lens on the  projector was broken, they were told. And no, they couldn't bump one of the kids' movies showing and screen Soraya instead of Transformers.

"The manager was like an 18-year-old kid, and he was nervous. We asked him if he knew what the movie was about, and he had no idea," Kaufman says.

It's a controversial film -- maybe you don't want to show it to us, one of Kaufman's friends suggested.  

When we phoned Shadowood this week, a manager told us they'd had a power failure that night that blacked out one of the projectors. But they were showing the movie at its regularly scheduled times for the rest of the week. Had al Qaeda perhaps cut the power lines? We phoned FPL and were put on hold for a really long time.

mateoutah

Beginning Sunday, August 30, at 7 a.m., Comcast will air a half-hour TV program devoted to news about the Middle East. The show, run by the so-called Israel News Network (INN), will be unabashedly pro-Israel and makes no secret of its aim: to counter the growing influence of Al Jazeera, which began as a TV station in Qatar (it was essentially the Arab world's CNN) and has morphed into a worldwide news network.

A news release states, "Each INN program would feature a segment that is related to the Al Jazeera report of the week that INN will expand upon. For example, if Al Jazeera reports that Israeli checkpoints don't allow Palestinians to get proper medical care, INN would run a feature about IDF medics who work in the West Bank and treat EVERYONE who needs help, even injured terrorists."

Little information is available about INN, but the show is "supported by" Freedom Watch, a conservative nonprofit organization founded by Miami- and Boca Raton-based lawyer Larry Klayman, who, in his efforts to fight corruption and "preserve freedom," has sued the Clintons, Dick Cheney, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Freedom Watch's missions include abolishing the United Nations ("a bastion for terrorist nations"); stopping the "Obama-Clinton crowd" from "turning the United States into a Euro-style socialist state"; and forcing the government to open its files about extraterrestrials  ("It is important for our citizens to know the truth so we can prepare for the day when [an extraterrestrial visit] openly occurs, to prevent worldwide panic.")

Thomas J. Madden, a spokesperson for INN, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Photo courtesy Nathaniel Green / New Mount Olive Tape Ministry

Dr. Mack King Carter of New Mount Olive

The New Mount Olive Baptist Church has chosen to honor its long-time pastor, Dr. Mack King Carter, by naming a Fort Lauderdale street after him. A noble gesture, considering the $3,500 fee, and an especially bold leap of faith when one considers the church's having already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend Carter against allegations by the church's former trustees that he took more than his share of the church proceeds.

In December 2007, I wrote this feature article about Carter's battle with the former trustees. I phoned Attorney Willie Jones today expecting to learn how the case concluded. On the contrary, it's still open, and will be marking its third anniversary in August, with no end in sight. Carter, who had previously said he'd retire in June, now says he will retire as pastor in September.

The trustees sued Carter after he suspended the church board, a move that prevented trustees from taking a closer look at the church's finances. Carter and his allies then reorganized the church structure. The dismissed trustees claim they were replaced by those who are uncritical of Carter.

"Even if we found a million dollars had been misappropriated, it's my belief that the current membership of the board would not do anything about it," says Jones. "The case will probably continue until there's some new leadership -- people who see the wrong of (Carter's) ways and do something about it."

Flickr User: .faramarz

I hope the people behind the April 27 Free Speech Summit in Boca Raton were watching this weekend's protests in Tehran. Being free with speech in that Iranian city means risking a police baton to the chops, or worse. These were Muslims -- thousands upon thousands of them -- bravely opposing a hard-line fundamentalist regime, despite their "Supreme Leader" having declared the presidential election to be fair and blessed by God.

If all the followers of Islam are extremists who hate the West and follow their religious leaders blindly, as the Free Speech Summit's keynote speaker, Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, has said, then why did all of these Muslims react with such outrage?

Clearly, it's because that insulting premise is flawed. A great many Muslim people recognize when they're being manipulated, and this weekend proved they'll risk their lives for democratic principles.

I understand that the election of Mir Hossein Mousavi may not have changed Iran's nuclear ambitions and that ultimately the Supreme Leader calls the shots. But Mousavi's campaign stressed a more conciliatory tone with the West. More freedom of speech, expansion of freedom for Iranian women. The eagerness with which Iranians responded to his message is an indication that the citizens are independent thinkers not fooled by the propaganda of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Adam Hasner

Nations like Iran don't need to be invaded to learn the wonders of a free society. Rather, the small favor that Americans can do for people from these cultures is to make them feel welcome here, which is why the paranoia expressed by Delray Beach State Rep. Adam Hasner toward Muslim Americans is so disappointing. Hasner, who legitimized the summit with his appearance there, has still not bothered to distance himself from Wilders, who once called Islam the "ideology of a retarded culture."

That slur is free speech, and one must admit, grudgingly, that it deserves protection in a free society. But it's of a far lower quality than the speech that is being suppressed today in the streets of Tehran, which is why this week makes bad timing for the summit's organizers, Florida Security Council, to file its lawsuit against the Delray Beach Marriott, which apparently canceled the scheduled summit, forcing organizers to change locations. When it comes to abridging free speech, canceled hotel reservations score on the mild end of the spectrum compared with what's happening in Iran.

After the jump, Tom Trento, a reluctant reader of the Juice, warns of the litigation to come.

Maybe there's method in the seeming madness of Adam Hasner's right-wing associations. The House majority leader from Boca Raton sparked controversy in late April when he took a break from the state budget to make public appearances with anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Based on exit polls from elections yesterday in the Netherlands, Wilders' Freedom Party won 15 percent of votes, meaning it stands to get four seats of the 25 that nation sends to the European Parliament.

Wilders and cohorts are fierce critics of the European Union. The global economic slump has made a valuable recruiting tool.

Still, Europe's move to the right and the rising international profile of a politician like Wilders (who has talked of deporting Muslims or at least stripping them of their freedom to practice the religion) clashes with the empathetic tone President Obama has struck during his visit this week to the Arab world.

Then again, there's increasing tension between Obama's administration and the Jewish American community that favors hard-line policies toward Palestinians. Hasner, who is Jewish, has demonstrated his distrust of Muslim groups, and politically he may be betting he can appeal to Jews and conservatives upset over Obama's policies.

It may have looked like a strategy for staking out his differences with Congressman Ron Klein in advance of the 2010 election, when Hasner is termed-out of his state seat, but Hasner has said he's not running for any office next year. Still, there's talk he'll make a bid for Florida attorney general.

As for how exactly his views on Islam overlap with those of Wilders', Hasner has yet to respond to this open letter.

It's been years since the television cameras stopped rolling, but Mike "Bogey" Boguslawski, the television icon who turned consumer reporting into performance art, is still plying his trade -- now in South Florida. A household name in Southern California, Bogey's gruff confrontational style endeared him to audiences in the late Nineties. Since Bogey first appeared on East Coast stations nearly a half-century ago, a generation of television news consumer reporters have mimicked his style. But none can match the original. Check out the first few minutes of this tape, from when Bogey was harassing California Gov. Gray Davis, a campaign that he says proved to be career suicide.



Bogey moved to Fort Lauderdale two months ago to be with an ailing relative. But he's much too restless to be a retiree. Last month he began working on his first big Florida project: building a new sanctuary for the New Covenant Church on the Lake in Pompano Beach.

After the jump, my conversation with Bogey and an interview with the bewildered pastor of New Covenant, who's still reeling from his encounter with the gravel-voiced Good Samaritan.