Feds, some Rainbow members make deal

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June 29, 2005
Feds, some Rainbow members make deal


By The Associated Press


HILLSBORO — Federal prosecutors cut deals with several members of the Rainbow Family on Tuesday, allowing them to pay $30 or perform eight hours of community service without pleading guilty to violating a land-use permit rule in the Monongahela National Forest.

The offer prompted free assembly advocate Scott Addison of St. Louis to call Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Warner “uniquely humane.’’

“This is one of the good guys,’’ he said.

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U.S. Magistrate Judge John Kaull held court in a small meeting room at the Cranberry Mountain Nature Center near Hillsboro, ushering through the first of about 145 defendants in groups of nine or fewer. The proceedings were expected to last all day with trials Tuesday afternoon for those who rejected the offer.

By early afternoon, 15 people who took the deal paid $30 each while nine who opted for trials were convicted.



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http://wvgazette.com/section/Today/2005062829

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1. Rainbows seek peace, fellowship at annual gathering

Posted on Thu, Jun. 30, 2005


Rainbows seek peace, fellowship at annual gathering

VICKI SMITH

Associated Press


HILLSBORO, W.Va. - Some come every year, drawn to the Rainbow Family gathering for reasons as varied as the brilliant streaks in their tie-dyed T-shirts. It's a place where every woman is a "sister," every man a "brother." A place where "Welcome home" is the standard greeting but where no house stands.

For some of the 4,000 camped out this week in the Monongahela National Forest, the gatherings are a vacation from jobs and reality. For others, they are a chance to live without authority, structure or money. Some people pray for peace, to be part of something larger than themselves. And some, like the homeless, come because they have nowhere else.

"A lot of times, it's the only place all year where they feel at home," says Stone, a slim, bespectacled medical student from Chicago who, like many Rainbows, does not use his real name at the gathering.

"Here, what can you do if you're an accountant?" he says. "It doesn't mean anything."

What does? Building a kitchen. Digging a latrine trench. Slapping together a pingpong table from plywood and two-by-fours.



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http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/12025397.htm