May 27: Curtain rises on 85th season of the Lost Colony/Snyder named deputy supt. for NPS Outer Banks Group/Great Manteo Girls’ soccer season ends in 4th round of playoffs.

In KDH, a debate over rules on itinerant vendors

New navigational channel at Oregon Inlet

Christopher W. Ward of Elizabeth City, May 24

The view from the other side of the voyage

KDH beach nourishment project to begin after Memorial Day

By Peter Hummers on May 26, 2022

“For in a way beset with those that contend, on one side for too great Liberty, and on the other side for too much Authority, ’tis hard to passe between the points of both unwounded.” (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651)

“I am a pilgrim, and a stranger, traveling through this wearisome land.” (Traditional hymn from The Southern Zion’s Songster, 1864)

Under the Banner of Heaven, which was inspired by Jon Krakauer’s true crime bestseller, follows the events that led to the 1984 murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her baby daughter in a suburb in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah.

As Detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) investigates the “powerful” Lafferty family, called “the Kennedys of Utah,” he uncovers buried truths about the origins of the LDS (Latter-Day Saints) religion and the violent consequences of unyielding faith that lead him to question his own faith. Series creator Dustin Lance Black, who grew up in a Mormon household, created the characters of Pyre and his “gentile” partner Bill Taba, to illustrate the impact of the case on both a typical LDS and a “non-member.”

Pyre is personally troubled by his interrogation of Brenda’s husband, Allen. He had been shocked, appalled, and actually grief-stricken when he was shown the murder scene by an equally upset uniformed cop, but Allen’s description of “peculiar men” with “old testament” beards, leads Pyre to suspect outsiders. “Here, the church vigorously discourages [beards], so this could be meaningful,” he tells his sardonic partner, Detective Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham, Yellowstone, 1883 et al.), a Paiute “non-member” recently from Las Vegas.

But when Allen tells Bill, aside, to “look to the Mormons,” meaning fundamentalists, adding that he himself was no longer LDS, but that his wife was, “seven days a week,” Pyre rushes into the interrogation room, and recites, “Thou shall love thy wife with all thy heart, and shall cleave unto her and to no-one else, Doctrine and Covenants 42:22,” before handcuffing Allen to the table in front of his mystified partner.

“I met with her in the temple. I brought her to church with my family. You look at these as signs of innocence, but they aren’t,” Allen says, before recalling how he introduced his new girlfriend, a “perfect Mormon girl” from Idaho, to his large Utah family and its patriarch Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl, Hell on Wheels, Tin Star), a friendly but judgmental family leader.

“I bet you think your testimony is bulletproof, that you know our history, the Gospel, all our … truth. If you feel certain, that certain … You don’t know a thing, sir,” Allen tells Pyre. “If you really believe our god is love, then you don’t know who you are … brother.”

Allen intersperses his narrative with that of Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS church, including accounts of unsavory episodes involving Smith and Brigham Young, which were news to Pyre and become increasingly relevant to his investigation. When Pyre asks his own Bishop about these episodes, he is told, essentially, that the past is the past, and time starts now.

(In advance of the source book’s release in 2003, Richard E. Turley, managing director of the Church History Department of the LDS Church, argued that the book contained historical errors and incorrect assertions, and showed “unfamiliarity with basic aspects” of the Church’s history, theology and administrative structure; and criticized the work for lacking a “scientific methodology.” He accused Krakauer of “condemn[ing] religion generally.”)

“I’m here to work this out with words, not bullets.” (Gary Noesner)

As the Church of Latter-Day Saints was regarded with fear and loathing in the 19th century, so the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists came to be in the 20th. Founded in 1955 by Benjamin Roden, they regard themselves as a continuation of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, established by Victor Houteff in 1935.

Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant, wrote a series of tracts entitled the “Shepherd’s Rod,” which called for the reform of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. After his ideas were rejected by Adventist leaders, Houteff and his followers founded the Davidians and settled on a tract of land on the western outskirts of Waco, Texas.

Waco is an account of the 51-day federal armed siege of the compound, which ultimately took the lives of five federal agents and more than 70 Branch Davidians, including children, in 1993.

It opens as Vernon Wayne Howell, aka David Koresh (Taylor Kitsch, Friday Night Lights), the charismatic leader of the sect, watches a line of ATF trucks roll up to the compound. He tells the women and children to get upstairs, and his brethren, who have armed themselves, to hang back while he goes out to “talk to them.” He is ordered to the ground at gunpoint as he shouts, “There are women and children here!” We hear a gunshot and the opening credits roll.

“Nine months earlier,” David appears before his congregation, long-haired but presentable, and announces, “This morning I woke up with this funny feeling right here in my gut. And it took me some time to put a name on that sucker. I thought I ate something bad, but that wasn’t it. Then I realized what it was. Joy.” His congregation is made up of whites, blacks, hispanics and natives, all respectfully if casually attired and cheerfully attentive. They include a Harvard graduate, an engineer, a theologian, working men and women; they look like a cross section of Texans or Americans. But one idea, a tenet, that Koresh turned out to share with Joseph Smith in Under the Banner of Heaven, will help to bring them to grief.

Meanwhile, Gary Noesner (Michael Shannon, Boardwalk Empire) conducts exercises with trainees at an FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit in Washington. (Waco is based in part on his book, Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator.) The essence of Noesner’s training is “to listen. Ya gotta think if someone’s talking to an FBI negotiator, they’re having the worst day of their lives. And your voice, it might be the only thing keeping them alive. So remember, how you say something is as important as what you say.”

From this setup to the Waco siege’s aftermath fills six riveting episodes. In the first, we see the prelude, the 1992 siege on firearms violation suspects Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, which was ultimately resolved by negotiators, only after Weaver’s 14-year old son, Sammy; Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan; the Weavers’ dog; and Sammy’s mother were killed. FBI agent Mitch Decker (Shea Whigham, Boardwalk Empire, Homecoming) commanded the force that initiated the original shootout; Noesner was responsible for peacefully resolving the matter with the help of a friend of Weaver’s.

Both the Weaver family and Harris brought civil suits against the federal government over the firefight and siege. The Weavers won a combined out-of-court settlement of $3.1 million. After numerous appeals, Harris was awarded $380,000. The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information held hearings and issued a report calling for reforms to restore public confidence in federal law enforcement.

But the siege in Texas was a whole other thing: Waco is a brutal cautionary tale for all who would take too hastily to the sword.

(Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon’s prices.)

Click here for more Stream On: What to watch on TV columns by Pete Hummers.

NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING TO REVIEW PLANS FOR AN OUTER BANKS EVENT CENTER County Dare, North Carolina Dare County Tourism Board

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Visitors Bureau will hold a public meeting to review the plans for an Outer Banks Event Center. The meeting will take place on Monday, June 6, 2022 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the Keeper’s Galley building at Haven on the Banks, 115 Dove Street, Nags Head North Carolina 27959.

Still in the conceptual phase, the Event Center is intended to provide suitable and flexible space for year-round events, concerts, sports, meetings, smaller tradeshows, galas and any number of other uses. Learn more about the benefits for visitors and residents and how the Event Center is planned to complement the new Soundside boardwalk that is being designed.

Staff will be on hand to answer any questions. For additional information, please visit our Event Center FAQ page.

Mail (will not be published) (required)