Creationist finances: Creation Moments

This is the sixth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, the Creation Evidence Museum, and Creation Illustrated Ministries. Next up, Creation Moments. Creation Moments was originally the Bible-Science Association, founded in 1963 by Pastor Walter Lang (not to be confused with the director of "The King and I"). "Creation Moments" was a short radio program and a column in the Bible-Science Newsletter, a monthly periodical published on newsprint that was home to some of the wackier claims of young-earth creationism, which often made for entertaining reading. One regular contributor was Nancy Pearcey, who was played a significant role in the development of "intelligent design," including contributing material previously published in the Bible-Science Newsletter to the book Of Pandas and People. Pandas played a major role in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, as it was over successive drafts of that book that the words "creationism" and "creation science" transformed into "intelligent design" in later revisions. Bible-Science Newsletter editor Pastor Paul A. Bartz was Lang's successor, and as "Creation Moments" became more popular than the newsletter, the organization's name was changed accordingly. The Bible-Science Newsletter ceased publication in 1998, but the "Creation Moments" radio program is syndicated on multiple Christian radio networks and is broadcast in both English and Spanish, where it appears daily. Each year the daily scripts are combined into an annual volume of devotionals which the organization sells along with other books and items like calendars and Christmas cards. The organization is now under the management of Lu Ann Strombeck, its Chief Operating Officer. Canadian creationist Ian T. Taylor, author of "In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order" is on its board of directors and his organization, TFE Publishing, is occasionally paid by the organization to edit scripts. Taylor is perhaps best known for claiming (along with Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingh) that Archaeopteryx is a hoaxed fossil created by putting feathers on a true reptile, while other creationists (such as Answers in Genesis) claim that it is a true bird and not a reptile. Creation Moments, Inc. refers to itself as "CMI," which is the same label used by Creation Ministries International, the organization composed of the Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada groups that split off from Answers in Genesis. Creation Moments is based in Foley, Minnesota. As usual, the 1998 information from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1998: Revenue: $292,318 Expenses: $284,846 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2003 (July 2003-June 2004): Revenue: $308,506 ($218,240 donations, $49,327 program service revenue which is $48,877 in book sales and $450 in seminar income) Expenses: $228,679 Net assets at end of year: $120,440 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $30,900 2004 (July 2004-June 2005): Revenue: $269,996 ($229,007 in donations, $40,645 in program service revenue which is $40,145 in book sales and $500 in seminar income) Expenses: $241,860 Net assets at end of year: $149,233 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $32,471 2005 (July 2005-June 2006): Revenue: $268,966 ($217,492 in donations, $51,050 in program service revenue which is entirely from book sales) Expenses: $256,358 Net assets at end of year: $161,184 Salary: Lu Ann Strombeck, COO: $34,590 Creation Moments has its own building for its offices, and as of June 2006 owes $21,501 on its mortgage, paying $550/mo. The original mortgage was only $35,000; they apparently paid $44,400 for land and $96,166,71 for the building. Their donations and revenue have grown over the last few years, except for a dip in book sales in 2004. You can find CM's 2003 Form 990 here, 2004 Form 990 here, and their 2005 Form 990 here.

Bush doesn't want the public to know who visits

After being embarrassed in the Jack Abramoff scandal by records of Abramoff's visits to the White House in Secret Service records, the White House signed an agreement with Secret Service that the visitor records they collect count as White House property, not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Talking Points Memo has the memorandum of understanding here.

Kerry and the troops photo shows Michelle Malkin's unreliability

A photo of John Kerry eating breakfast "alone" in the U.S. Embassy mess hall in Baghdad was circulating in the right-wing blogosphere, touted as evidence that he was shunned by the troops. The left-wing blogosphere's initial response was to question the authenticity of the photo due to the erroneous date/time stamp on the photo (caused by the photographer failing to set the date on the camera) and the presence of the flags of Britain and Portugal in the background (which other photos and personnel on site have confirmed are really there--and the Portugal one will be removed since Portugal no longer has personnel in Iraq).

Michelle Malkin supplied evidence of the authenticity of the photo (but failed to recognize that it disproved her claim of Kerry being snubbed) by locating another photograph with Kerry, wearing the same shirt, sitting and eating with the troops. She then harshly criticized those who argued that the photograph was a fake, throwing out charges of "hysterics" and "moonbattery."

But now Greg Sargent at TPM Muckraker has tracked down the details of what Kerry was doing sitting with at least one person in a suit (visible in the photo--Kerry was clearly not alone)--he was intentionally sitting away from everyone else in order to have an off-the-record conversation with two reporters, Marc Santora of The New York Times and Mark Danner of The New York Review and The New Yorker. They confirm that Kerry was not being snubbed by the troops, and in fact soldiers stopped by during their conversation to ask for photographs with Kerry:

"Santora was to my right," Danner also said. "It was very early in the morning at about 8:30, in the green zone. The reason that people weren't sitting directly around us was that we were having a private conversation." Asked if the troops showed animosity to Kerry, Danner said: "Not in any way that I noticed. A number of soldiers came up and asked to have their photograph taken with him."

This is typical of Malkin--right on a specific detail (the photo was genuine) but completely wrong in the overall argument (that Kerry was being snubbed by the troops). Will she or the other conservative bloggers who have made the claim that Kerry was eating alone because he was snubbed by the troops admit their error?

UPDATE (February 1, 2007): Snopes also has coverage of this Malkin claim.

More than 50% can be above average

Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia points out how the common example of cognitive bias that "80% of us believe that our driving skills are better than average" can be a correct description of reality, when the median is greater than the mean. By example, the mean time to conception for women trying to get pregnant is 7 months, but 50% of such women are pregnant within 4 months and 75% pregnant within 6 months, so 75% of such women do "better than average."

Creationist finances: Creation Illustrated Ministries

This is the fifth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, Access Research Network, and the Creation Evidence Museum. This time out, I'll look at Creation Illustrated Ministries. Creation Illustrated Ministries began in 1993, producing a magazine called Creation Illustrated. The magazine is published by a homeschooling couple, Tom and Jennifer Ish of Auburn, California, who describe how they got started here. As usual, the 1998 information from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1998: Revenue: $202,950 Expenses: $198,414 And the last three years available through GuideStar.org: 2001 (July 2001-June 2002): Revenue: $232,381 ($52,154 donations, $179,961 program service revenue) Expenses: $241,795 Net assets at end of year: -$66,079 Salaries (18.3% of revenue): Thomas M. Ish, president: $24,000 (plus $7,947 in expenses) Jennifer L. Ish, secretary: $10,500 2002 (July 2002-June 2003): Revenue: $307,582 ($109,715 in donations, $197,700 in program service revenue which is $167,095 from subscriptions, $4,095 from book and video sales, $26,510 from advertising) Expenses: $285,364 Net assets at end of year: -$43,861 Salaries (11.0% of revenue): Thomas M. Ish, president: $15,000 (plus $6,706 in expenses) Jennifer L. Ish, secretary: $12,000 2003 (July 2003-June 2004): Revenue: $357,600 ($96,782 in donations, $259,339 in program service revenue which is $170,815 from subscriptions, $26,005 from book and video sales, $62,519 from advertising) Expenses: $363,742 Net assets at end of year: -$50,003 Salaries (19.8% of revenue): Thomas M. Ish, president: $39,000 (plus $12,205 in expenses) Jennifer L. Ish, secretary: $19,500 Creation Illustrated Ministries is apparently run as a home-based business, with the organization leasing office space from the Ish family, but not actually paying for it. The Ish family have also run up mileage for the nonprofit which they have not been reimbursed for, bringing the total amount the organization owes them up to $305,180. As an organization, CIM is running up debt to its founders/officers, the Ish family, which is the main cause of its negative net assets. It is seeing revenue growth from year to year, but two of the last three years of reports above show expenses exceeding revenue. It looks like it is working well enough to keep going and continue making a living for its founders, but I would expect a business running for over a decade to be able to start reducing its debt as revenue grows. Their website indicates that Jennifer Ish's responsibilities for circulation and fulfillment have been outsourced to "a magazine fulfillment company in Southern California," which may have led to improved efficiency. You can find CIM's 2001 Form 990 here, 2002 Form 990 here, and their 2003 Form 990 here.

Creationist finances: the Creation Evidence Museum

This is the fourth in a series of posts about the finances of the creationist ministries which were previously reported in Reports of the National Center for Science Education in 2000 in an article by John Cole: the Access Research Network, Answers in Genesis, the Creation Evidences Museum, Creation Illustrated Ministries, Creation Moments, the Creation Research Society, Creation Worldview Ministries, the Institute for Creation Research, the Discovery Institute, and I'll add Walter Brown's Center for Scientific Creation to the list. I've already commented on Answers in Genesis, Institute for Creation Research, and Access Research Network. The Creation Evidence Museum (formerly Creation Evidences Museum) of Glen Rose, Texas is run by Rev. Carl Baugh, one of the most unreliable young-earth creationists still around. Baugh, born in 1936, was the Kent Hovind of his day, and boasts a CV that includes promoting Paluxy River dinosaur footprints as human footprints, diploma mill degrees, and running a diploma mill. Baugh is one of the creationists who has been called out by name in criticism by Creation Ministries International. One of Baugh's claims is that a 19th-century miner's hammer he found in a concretion in Ordovician or Silurian rock is an "out-of-place" fossil proving that the earth is young. Baugh has refused to allow the handle of this hammer to be radiocarbon dated. In a written debate I had with Walter Brown of the Center for Scientific Creation, Brown raised this hammer as a problem for evolution, and stated that it had not been dated because of Baugh's three "understandable" conditions for dating it, one of which was that someone else pay for it. Glen Kuban has an up-to-date summary of the claims regarding this hammer. And now, the financial data--first, the 1998 information from John R. Cole's "Money Floods Anti-Evolutionists' Coffers" in Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(1-2, 2000):64-65: 1998: Revenue: $420,460 Expenses: $365,816 And the last three years: 2002 (Aug 2002-July 2003): Revenue: $610,693.35 Expenses: $565,340.58 Net assets at end of year: $1,178,851.97 Salary: Carl Baugh, president and director: $63,780.72 The 2002-2003 Form 990 is printed by hand. 2003 (August 2003-July 2004): Revenue: $493,797.03 Expenses: $498,214.66 Net assets at end of year: $1,174,434.34 Salary: Carl Baugh, president and director: $66,717.50 2004 (August 2004-July 2005): Revenue: $494,361.26 Expenses: $466,491.23 Net assets at end of year: $1,202,304.37 Salary: Carl Baugh, president and director: $68,639.80 The Creation Evidence Museum is another small and not terribly influential organization. About half of its annual expenses go to running the museum, much of the rest to salaries and benefits, with a few thousand dollars a year spent on various forms of "research." Its income is about $300,000 a year in donations, $170,000-$200,000 in receipts from admissions, merchandise sold, etc. The good news is that gross receipts from admissions and merchandise sold have declined, not hitting $200,000 since 2001. It also looks like revenue may have peaked in 2003. The decline is attributable to a decline in sales of "educational products," as museum entrance fees and lecture fees have increased: Museum entrance fees and lectures: 2002: $24,055 2003: $23,295 2004: $27,961 Sales of "educational products": 2002: $151,454.55 2003: $144,242.14 2004: $139,375.02 Most of the museum's assets are in buildings, equipment, five vehicles, and the museum collection of artifacts. At the end of July 2005, it had less than $20,000 in cash on hand, and $61,000 in investments. This is not a museum sitting on a large endowment that will continue to operate if the cash flow were to stop. You can find CEM's 2002 Form 990 here, their 2003 Form 990 here, and their 2004 Form 990 here.

Radley Balko visits Rack and Roll Billiards

Radley Balko of The Agitator paid a visit to David Ruttenberg's bar in Manassas Park, Virginia, and witnessed firsthand the police harassment.

(Also see previous coverage.)

Kearny High School and David Paszkiewicz make the NY Times again

Today's New York Times contains an editorial criticizing the "strange silence in Kearny" in response to David Paszkiewicz's proselytizing in his U.S. History classroom:

The vast majority of Americans deplore such proselytizing in public classrooms. But the truly disturbing aspect of all this, described earlier this month by Times reporter Tina Kelley, is not that one teacher so blatantly crossed the church-state boundary but that so few school officials and community residents seemed bothered by his behavior.

The editorial points out the bravery of Matthew LaClair:

The only reason anyone knows about Mr. Paskiewicz’s behavior is that one student, Matthew LaClair, 16, had the courage to speak up in September. Before doing so, he taped Mr. Paszkiewicz for eight classes because he feared officials would not believe him. He has since received one death threat, lost many friends, and says he can “feel the glares” when he goes to school.

The editorial concludes:

In recent years, the divide between religion and the classroom has been narrowed as conservative courts have ruled in favor of tuition vouchers for religious schools, ruled that religion clubs can meet in public schools and allowed federal money to be spent on computers and other instructional equipment for parochial schools. But even groups like the Rutherford Institute, which provides legal help in religious freedom cases, says that Mr. Paszkiewicz appears to have crossed the line against outright preaching in the public schools.

That he did. While he certainly has the right like anyone in this country to voice and practice his beliefs, he doesn’t have the right to do so while standing in front of a captive audience of students to whom his assertions carry the ring of authority.

The silence among senior school officials is disheartening. Instead of ducking, they should be writing guidelines making it clear that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated in public classrooms.

Until Kearny High School administrators take some real action, this issue won't just go away.

UPDATE: Paul LaClair lays it all out at the KearnyontheWeb forum:

The New York Times quotes me today as saying that we will consider litigation in the proselytizing teacher matter unless Kearny High's students are properly educated regarding Paszkiewicz's anti-scientific mis-statements and the Constitutional separation between church and state. I am opening this topic to explain to the community why we believe this is important.

I hope we all agree in principle that the schools, both public and private, exist to educate our young people. That means teaching them science and enough law so they can function positively as citizens in a democracy. When a teacher mis-states and distorts science and law to such an extent as David Paszkiewicz did (and I suspect has done for quite some time), corrections are mandatory if the school system is to fulfill its educational purposes.

This is especially true when the teacher is popular, as appears to be the case here. The worst possible scenario educationally is that a popular teacher convinces young people that his twisted views of science and the law are true. That also appears to have happened here, judging from student reaction and from the absence of any correction in the past. All the rationalizations aside, the real reason Paszkiewicz is being defended is that some people think his ignorance and his bigotry are acceptable.

I am personally disgusted as a taxpayer, a parent and a citizen that the adminisration in the Kearny school district seems not to care. It is unacceptable that these remarks go uncorrected, especially when so many members of the community and even a fellow teacher (anonymously quoted in The New York Times on December 18) see absolutely nothing wrong with what Paszkiewicz has been doing. This is intellectual poison, I can give it no less strong a term. The only thing worse than no information is misinformation, and this was misinformation.

It is not acceptable that our schools in Kearny are training our young people to be "ignorant and scientifically illiterate," as Dr. Tyson, the astrophysicist who heads the Hayden Planetarium, put it in a letter to The New York Times. That is why Kearny is in the Times again today, and remains in the news. While I truly am reluctant to use the word "stupid," it does come to mind.

Must we really fight with the school board and the administration to ensure that the students receive an education in science, instead of the 2006 equivalent of flat-earth science? Must we have a legal team straighten out the mess Paszkiewicz has made of the students' understanding of the Constitution? This is insanity.

I understand that some people think the issue is resolved, and don't like our continuing to press it. There is a very simple solution, and I address this to the board, the administration and the teacher: admit your mistakes, make appropriate corrections, and let's move on. We've been asking for that for nearly three months now, and obviously these parties have no intention of doing that.

OK, so we'll do this the hard way. We would never have imagined that we would have to fight a bitter battle with this school system to force it to do its job, but apparently that is what will be necessary. I invite concerned citizens to speak up, or to contact us to try to resolve this in an appropriate way, so that the world can say the citizens of Kearny spoke up and demanded a proper resolution.

This post has resulted in the following posted threat, apparently from a Kearny resident who supports Paszkiewicz:

PAUL I NEVER SAY THIS TO ANYBODY ON THIS SITE "BUT FOR YOU I WILL {YOU ARE SCUM AND KEARNY WILL BE SORRY FOR THE DAY YOUR WERE BORN} I HOPE THE NJ BAR SEES THIS FOR WHAT IT REALY IS AND DISBARRS YOU! ALSO YOUR SON WILL PAY THE PRICE FOR YOUR SCAM! HISTORY PROVES ME RIGHT ON THIS JUST ASK THE ****** KIDS!!! ALSO YOU FORGET YOUR IN KEARNY YOU BETTER THINK HARD ABOUT IT IM TALKING ABOUT THE TOWNS HISTORY WITH TROUBLE MAKERS LIKE YOU!!!

Nice. And that's the version that the KearnyontheWeb moderators "edited for content"!

Is there any question who's got the moral high ground in this dispute?

The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006

Dahlia Lithwick gives a rundown.

Books Read in 2006

I read the following books in 2006. These are the ones I've finished--looks like I didn't do nearly as well as last year. The links are to Amazon.com, where I've reviewed most of these.

• James Bovard, The Bush Betrayal
• Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
• John Grogan, Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
• Jim Harper, Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood
• John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise
• Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History
• Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down
• Paul Krassner, One Hand Jerking: Reports from an investigative satirist
• Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
• Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier, Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding & Correcting Common Dog Problems
• John Allen Paulos, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
• John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
• Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11
• V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., and Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
• Mary Roach, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
• Rudy Rucker, Saucer Wisdom
• Thomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire Mind
• Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
• Martha Stout, Ph.D., The Sociopath Next Door
• Nick Webb, Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams

And these are the ones I haven't finished yet--some (Amar, Numbers, Zimmer) I just started, others have been hanging around for a while and I should probably give up on (some of these were started but uncompleted this time last year). The Girard and Lambot book is a beautiful, interesting, and quite expensive book that can be read one short biography at a time.

• Akhil Reed Amar, America's Constitution: A Biography
• Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection
• Greg Girard and Ian Lambot, City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City
• Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain
• Olivia Judson, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
• Ronald Numbers, The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design
• Kevin Mandia, Chris Prosise, and Matt Pepe, Incident Response and Computer Forensics, Second Edition
• Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
• Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
• Spammer-X, Inside the Spam Cartel: Trade Secrets from the Dark Side
• Robert H. Tillman and Michael L. Indergaard, Pump & Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New Economy
• John Viega and Gary McGraw, Building Secure Software: How to Avoid Security Problems the Right Way
• Vernor Vinge, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
• Andrew Vladimirov, Konstantin V. Gavrilenko, Andrei A. Mikhailovsky, WI-FOO: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking
• Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea

(Previously: 2005.)