The_c.o.w.s.

The Katherine Massey Book Club @ The C.O.W.S. hosts the 6th study session on Michael Meiers' Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment. This infamous mass murder has countless parallels to our recent literary selections - Columbine, Michael Swango, and The Hart murder-suicide. The Rev. Jim Jones, a White man born in Indiana, took a thousand people from California to Guyana, South America. On November 18th, 1978, Jones killed nearly all 1,000 of his mostly black followers and orchestrated the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan. Some were shot, but most were poisoned with cyanide, just like "Double-0 Swango." For nearly half a century, this event has been conventionally understood as a bunch of brainwashed black loons following a White charlatan to their demise in the jungle. Meiers' work suggests something far more nefarious. Last week, we learned about the big move to Ukiah, California for Rev. Jones and the Peoples Temple. The reverend recruited black children from the Oakland slums - which could have includ