- \n\u2022 Nine sets of cremains from Jonestown were discovered in an abandoned funeral home in Dover, Delaware in August. The story, with links to some of the widespread press coverage, is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u2022 A lawsuit filed in May 2011 by the Guyana Tribute Foundation in an effort to force Evergreen Cemetery to remove four memorial panels at the mass grave, was dismissed in May 2014. Dr. Jynona Norwood, the head of the foundation, has since appealed the decision. A story about the lawsuit is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 The main library in Georgetown, Guyana received a donation of 30 books related to the Jonestown tragedy early this year. Until the receipt of the books, according to Antony Arcusa who arranged for the donation, the library had fewer than five. A related story appears here<\/a>.\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n Other major stories from 2014:<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Podesta apologized<\/a> to House Speaker John Boehner two days later, but the comments triggered a firestorm throughout Washington, D.C. Among the reactions:<\/p>\n This story was also covered by USA Today<\/i><\/a>, Headline & Global News<\/i><\/a>, and Examiner.com<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n But most of the article\u2019s criticism of Milk \u2013 as well as of the segment of the political spectrum represented by WND \u2013 was over the politician\u2019s long-standing association with Jim Jones. Quoting such Temple opponents as Lester Kinsolving and Daniel Flynn, the column reminded its readers that neither the presidential statement honoring Milk, nor the eponymous movie released a few years earlier, noted the link between the supervisor and Peoples Temple, which the columnist then proceeds to document.<\/p>\n In addition to these news articles, Jonestown and Peoples Temple is often mentioned in the mainstream media both as cultural icons and in serious considerations of religious and political issues.<\/b><\/p>\n Jonestown in Guyana News<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n The bloodshed of Jonestown and Essequibo<\/b><\/a> \u201cJonestown could be restored\u201d- say Port Kaituma residents<\/b><\/a> Jonestown in Political Contexts<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Tennessee Lieutenant Governor says Islam advocates violence and Muslims refuse to condemn 9\/11 hijackers<\/b><\/a> Jonestown in Cultural Contexts<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Jellyfish Jonestown<\/b><\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n Commentaries on Jonestown and “Drinking the Kool-Aid”<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Film maker Joey Cotroneo is urging Staten Islanders not to drink the \u2018Kool Aide\u2019<\/b><\/a> Horror of Jonestown tainted Thanksgiving 35 years ago<\/b><\/a> Coverage of 35th Anniversary of Jonestown<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Mass Suicide of Peoples Temple Cult at Jonestown Turns 35<\/b><\/a> Relatives Remember Jonestown, 35 Years After the Killings<\/b> The Forgotten, Non-Kool-Aid Drinking Victims of the Jonestown Massacre<\/b><\/a>![\"koolaid](\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/koolaid-cartoon-300x227.jpg\")
<\/a>\u2022 John Podesta, a longtime Democratic Party adviser and official in several Democratic presidential administrations who was appointed White House counselor at the end of 2013, made news at the time when he compared the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives to Jonestown. \u201c[Administration agencies] need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a second term against a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress,\u201d Podesta told Glenn Thrush of Politico Magazine<\/em> in December.<\/p>\n\n
\nNew White House advisor compares Republicans to \u2018Jonestown\u2019 cult<\/a>, Fox Business<\/i>, December 19, 2013<\/p>\n
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\nA panel of Fox News analysts dissect Podesta\u2019s comments on this video clip.\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n\u2018A Cult Worthy of Jonestown\u2019? Hey, Democrats Embraced Jim Jones!<\/a>, by Jim Geraghty, National Review Online<\/i>, December 19, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201cThe comparison of today\u2019s GOP to Jim Jones\u2019s followers is deeply offensive and obnoxious, but also ironic, considering how some of the Democrats still on the scene today were all too eager to embrace Jones when he could provide political assistance.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nMedia Report Podesta\u2019s Apology for Jonestown Quote, Ignore Jim Jones\u2019s Strong Democratic Ties<\/a>, by Mike Bates, News Busters<\/i>, December 19, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201c[C]omparing House Republicans to Jones\u2019s cult was particularly shameless, given his Democratic connections. The media could have pointed that out, but of course chose not to. They\u2019ve consumed their own kind of grape punch.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\n“Republicans drink the bitter ‘tea’ just like Jonestown Kool-Aid,” by Barry Ellsworth, December 19, 2013. (Editor’s note<\/strong>: This article was published on a website that has since gone defunct.)<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201c[Podesta] called the Republican Party a \u201ccult worthy of Jonestown,\u201d but he\u2019s wrong. In Jonestown, they drank poisonous Kool-Aid; the GOP drinks tea laced with bitterness and a blinding distrust of government.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nJohn Podesta and the Imperial Presidency<\/a>, by David Weigel, Slate Magazine<\/i>, December 21, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201cRepublicans pounced on the incoming White House counseler’s comparison of Republicans to the Jonestown cult\u2026 [but they] missed the forest for a particularly stupid-looking tree\u2014the more intriguing part of Podesta’s theory of Republican intransigence was that he wanted the executive to find more ways around Congress.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nJonestown Revisited<\/a>, by Lloyd Billingsley, FrontPage Magazine<\/i>, December 23, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\nThe author takes the opportunity afforded by the comments to repeat a number of sensationalistic charges against Peoples Temple, its leadership, its members, and \u2013 worst of all, given the editorial viewpoint of the online magazine \u2013 its connection with well-known Democrats.\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nPodesta’s comments out of line<\/a>, Opinion, Minot Daily News<\/i>, January 2, 2014<\/p>\n\n
\n\u201cRest assured that if a leading Republican compared Democrats in Congress to members of a murderous cult, there would be calls for the offender to be shunned in Washington. No amount of apologies would suffice for President Barack Obama, Democrat leaders on Capitol Hill or liberal media pundits.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nPodesta’s Climate And Environmental Agendas Will Add To Obama’s Executive Disorders<\/a>, Opinion, Forbes Magazine<\/i>, January 5, 2014<\/p>\n\n
\nSaying that Podesta\u2019s comments show \u201clittle respect for constitutional separation of powers or for policy opposition,\u201d Forbes<\/i> added that the adviser \u201ccan be expected to push Obama to act upon his executive authority to circumvent a Congress which the administration sees as unwilling and unable to pass legislation on climate change or much else.\u201d\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"milk,](\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/milk-harvey-stamp-192x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\u2022 Harvey Milk, the first openly-gay man to be elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and who \u2013 along with Mayor George Moscone \u2013 was assassinated in November 1978, ten days after the deaths in Jonestown, was honored on a U.S. forever postage stamp in May 2014. Criticizing the USPS\u2019 decision to issue a stamp depicting the \u201chomosexual activist,\u201d WND, a news organ of the political right, described<\/a> Milk\u2019s sexual relationships with teenage boys and quotes another WND critic as saying, \u201c[h]is chief cause was to do away with the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nOpinion, El Universal<\/i> (Caracas, Venezuela), November 28, 2013<\/p>\nNoting that Jonestown was located in \u201cthe jungle of Essequibo, the territory claimed by Venezuela,\u201d and that \u201cthe true successor of the Peoples Temple in Essequibo is another, more dangerous and powerful, sect: organized crime of the international drug trafficking,\u201d this Venezuelan newspaper calls upon \u201cboth parties, Venezuela and Guyana, [to] find a satisfactory solution for the practical arrangement of the territorial dispute.\u201d<\/ul>\n
\nby Zena Henry, Kaieteur News<\/i>, November 28, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\u201dJonestown could be saved, restored and \u2018despite the disaster of it, Jonestown is a part of Guyana\u2019s history and should be preserved.\u2019 Captain Rodwell Astil Paul, one of those spared on that dark November 18, 1978 day, introduced the idea of revitalizing the potential historical site, and the people of Port Kaituma have seconded it.
\n
\n\u201cIn a visit to the North West District last week, residents expressed their support to have the area restored. They said that not only will it be good for their community, but it will also be beneficial to the country, since annually, Jonestown guarantees a number of visits, especially from large church congregations. This, they continued, is despite the overgrowth of bushes and difficulty in accessing the area.\u201d<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\na blog by Chas Sisk, The Tennessean<\/i>, December 5, 2013; uploaded to Islamophobia website, December 6, 2013<\/p>\n\n
\u201dLt. Gov. Ron Ramsey says in an interview with the student journalism program at Middle Tennessee State University that the Sept. 11 hijackers were members of a cult and he doesn\u2019t think other Muslims are willing to call them that.\u2026 He goes on to draw an analogy between Jim Jones, the man behind the 1978 Jonestown murder\/suicide, and the 9\/11 hijackers.
\n
\n\u201c\u2019Jim Jones in Jonestown had everybody drink the Kool-Aid. He did that in the name of Christ. Well, that\u2019s not Christianity. That\u2019s a cult,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I was talking about. When they take their religion, and they distort it into something nobody meant it to be, then I don\u2019t know what else you call it.\u2019\u201d<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nBrowsing the Atlas<\/i>, a blog by Juliann Wetz, April 9, 2014<\/p>\n\n
In her description of the scores of jellyfish which had washed up on a beach on Tybee Island, Georgia \u2013 which she says were \u201csomehow menacing even as they died,\u201d the blogger adds:
\n
\n\u201cThey fascinated me. I took picture after picture of each and every one\u2026 Everyone else just walked around them. They made a minefield along the water\u2019s edge where some of the corpses were collected in groups we dubbed \u2018Jellyfish Jonestown.\u2019 It looked like they\u2019d gone together, whole families who\u2019d veered too close to land.\u201d<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nby Kiawana Rich, Staten Island Live<\/i>, March 21, 2014<\/p>\n\n
This column analyzes the expression \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d as one of those \u201crepetitive expressions of disgust that have become clich\u00e9d to the point of boredom,\u201d adding that \u201cAny column that is remotely political brings the inevitable Kool-Aid comment.\u201d<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nby Christopher Harper, The Washington Times<\/i>, November 27, 2013<\/p>\n\n
A reporter who traveled to Guyana 35 years before reflects on what the country has learned \u2013 and what it hasn\u2019t \u2013 from the Jonestown tragedy, and concludes:
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\n\u201cMany of those who died at Jonestown did not blindly follow Jones to their deaths. It upsets me that people don\u2019t know that. On this Thanksgiving Day, I thank God I have had the opportunity to tell people about evil, including [Jim] Jones, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini and many others.\u201d<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n
\nby Michael Gryboski, The Christian Post<\/i>, November 19, 2013<\/p>\nRetrospective of Peoples Temple and Jonestown story<\/ul>\n
\nby Joshua Johnson, KQED News Fix<\/i>, November 18, 2013<\/p>\nSan Francisco Public Radio station coverage includes recorded conversation with Jynona Norwood, who leads an annual memorial service at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland<\/ul>\n
\nby Justin Peters, Slate<\/i>, November 18, 2013<\/p>\nRetrospective of events of November 18, 1978 focus on Rep. Leo Ryan and his aide, now-Rep. Jackie Speier<\/ul>\n