What's this site about?
The unlikely but formidable political influence of Sun Myung Moon. He is best known for officiating at mass weddings as the leader of the "Moonies" in the 1970s, demands absolute obedience from his followers, and calls America "Satan's harvest," citing its loose women and "dung-eating dogs," or gay people. He owns UPI, the Washington Times and several Congressmen, and he says he is the Messiah.

May I reprint material from this Web site?
Please do. Thanks! I only ask that you give me credit for breaking these stories, as a professional journalist -- along with a small army of bloggers and Bit Torrent hackers who spread the story in a new way. I broke the story on this Web site in April, 2004. Then the story became well-known in the blog world. I wrote the first piece in The Gadflyer June 9, followed by a piece in Salon.

Where do I even begin to start?
I suggest you read this first, look at these pictures, and then browse this index for the topic of your choice.

Do you write about anything else?
Yes, I'm a contributing writer to Salon.com and other magazines, and you can read my articles on a wide variety of subjects here.

Are you available for a radio or TV interview?
Yes, I've talked about my work on both liberal and conservative radio programs and welcome all invitations.

Why do you write about this stuff?
It's the ultimate journalism challenge: To see if one man, working in the new world of blog-driven journalism, can scoop Washington newspapers on a story too mind-boggling to ignore.

Can we hire you?
Send job offers here. My bio is here.

What about the expression "Moonie," what's up with that?
I try to avoid using it. First of all, it leads to an unnecessary argument about respect for religion, and then I'd have to explain that the Unification Church proudly adopted the term "Moonie," then proceeded to discard it as part of a conscious and multimillion-dollar PR move to improve the image of a group that was widely disparaged. I don't have anything against the individual members of the church, and it is not the intention of this website to mock people for their deeply-held beliefs.

Secondly, the term just isn't as appropriate anymore. It once described an American alternative to "hippies" who prayed for Nixon to be forgiven on the steps of the Capitol, under Moon's orders. Today Moon's organization is much more diverse, established and widespread than the youth movement of 1973.

Why should we care about this stuff?
Americans should know who the heavy hitters are in American political life, and what philosophies are informing the "family values" movement.

The story is mostly about the national-level members of the American government and what they're willing to endorse. But muckraking aside, I have become fascinated with the amazing phenomenon of Moon's Republican and inner-city political empires.

Are you a former member of the Unification Church?
No.

Who are you?
See here for my professional bio.

How did you get interested in this stuff?
One day at UC Davis's Fair Day I met a self-declared Galactic Prophet who claimed he'd been chanelling messages from space, like the anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Somewhat skeptically, I asked him how it all started, and he said Reverend Moon's One World Crusade in Berkeley. I thought, "Who is this guy Reverend Moon?"

Years later, I was searching for someone's name, and came across some of the most amazing documents you've ever seen, at Unification.net: Moon's sermons. Wild boasts of controlling key Congressional leaders in the Republican Party, James Bond gee-whiz stuff about taking over the world using a secret fleet of submarines, religious talk blaming the Holocaust on the Jews. I was hooked. I couldn't believe no one was writing about this, especially after I discovered that $475,000 in Abstinence-Only funds were supporting Moon's missionaries.

How do you know this stuff really happened?
My major sources include the pre-2000 Washington Post, Frontline, public documents, and primary documents from Moon's own websites, including video footage of the March 23 event at the Dirksen Senate Office Building crowning him the Messiah. I encourage you to search Unification.net yourself, or read some of the news articles reprinted at ex-member Steve Hassan's Freedom Of Mind site.

Something on your blog changed!
I'm updating past entries all the time. Because this is a new kind of online investigative project -- almost a database -- and not a site for the usual political debate, I'm treating the posts like encyclopedia entries that I'll go back to, reorganize, and tune up for purposes of accuracy. Also, I've altered past entries for balance and fairness as the tone of the site has changed. In the past this was a site about how I couldn't believe no one noticed a Messiah was crowned in Congress. Now it has become a more serious project. If you feel there's something that needs a public correction, e-mail me and I'll put it on a forthcoming corrections page.

So I found this article at Executive Intelligence Review tying Moon to H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and the Da Vinci Code.
I don't link to publications put out by Lyndon LaRouche, which combine some interesting reporting on Moon with some theories that sound like they're from The Da Vinci Code, linking the Unification Church to everything from Satan to ancient Italian banking families to who knows what. Both LaRouche and Moon gained access to the Reagan Administration, but LaRouche has fallen out of favor; never has been coronated at the U.S. senate office building, unlike his fellow ex-felon Moon; and is probably a little out of sorts as a result.

What's the name of the site mean?
It's a play on the beloved 1980s Apple ][ computer game by the Broderbund company, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" (an educational mystery caper which would give players hints like, "He said he wanted to go to the Beehive State," as they tried to figure out where someone would show up next.)

Is this site affiliated with any other site or organization?
No, this is solely my project.

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