Amish in the News: Startling Abuse Case, Case, Amish Miner Update, Horse Issues in Kentucky, and More!

By Kevin Williams
Okay, we have a range of stories in this week's Amish in the News. So I'll just jump in and let you pick and choose which you want to read:

AMISH ABUSE CASE: A quiet Upstate New York town has been roiled by accusations that a local non-Amish farmer abused some of the teenage Amish boy workers who frequented his farm. The conventional wisdom is that the man thought the Amish wouldn't report the abuse to the authorities, but they did and the case went into the legal system. Read this story from the Albany Times-Union.
UPDATE - AMISH MINERS AND HARD HATS: A Pennsylvania quarry apparently has no choice but to reassign Amish workers to different jobs, above ground jobs that don't require a hard hat. It's an interesting case that we all thought had been settled 40 years ago but apparently mining regulations fall under a different governing authority than other workplace occupations. Click here for more.

HORSE POOP TRAIL IN KENTUCKY: Total waste of tax-dollars, in my opinion. Does horse waste wash away in the rain? Aren't there other more pressing issues Russellville, Kentucky has than chasing down horse droppings? Click here to read about the Amish request for a jury trial on the issue.

ANNUAL MENNONITE RELIEF SALE IN KANSAS: The event features a lot of....cars and tractors. Interesting. Click here to read more. Going to an annual Mennonite relief sale is one of the items on my "Amish/Mennonite bucket list" that I want to do someday and the Kansas one is, apparently, a superb sale.

HUTTERITE ARTICLE: This really is an interesting article, one of the better ones I have read about Hutterites. The article does a great job explaining the "communal aspect" of Hutterite life. I mean, the colony is supposed to function as one "organism" of sorts. But how does that work? This article really does a great job of delving into how every one pitches in and what happens if someone doesn't want to pull their weight. And it also looks at what Hutterite colonies of the future might look like. Click here to read this interesting article.