rhino

I never had need for a CV, and I've told maybe two people I had a bachelor of theology, both times more in light of "what a waste of time". Degree mill or not, was it ever decided here if those Rome City degrees were accredited? I thought that was the point of using the laxer standards in Indiana or something. I did spend a couple weeks there. oh .. and I did receive credit from U of Illinois for Way College work. Because I needed one more hour of open elective (and had actually turned down that hour on an open elective U of I class ), I wrote in and sent my research paper from the Corps, and with a letter of explanation received one hour philosophy credit, probably out of pity.

VP told us what he really wanted ... nd, of course, at that time I thought, "Now that's a dandy. Boy, if I learned this Word of God, everybody will listen to me. The same type of motivation for saying he invented the hook shot. Well, he did get a lot of attention, but believing it was pitch black in daylight seems less about straining at a gnat and more about swallowing a camel.

Well ... straining at gnats can be fun ... of course it is talking about the sky, not black flakes. But was this daytime? We don't know here, but what does he say in piffle? This needs research. ... Oh wait, it says ... "And the sun was shining brightly. It was in the fall of the year. Gorgeous." Well, it was his vision, so he can have a black sky in his brain if he wants. But a pitch black sky during mid day? I guess God could make it pitch black, but still make the snow visible some how.

Maybe the mogfat attitude is a recessive triat that tends to skip a generation ... :o

That is a very interesting observation skyrider ... it could mean vp wasn't thinking clearly when he made the story up it could mean his vision came from darkness instead of light sounds more like a tell on his tendncy to dramatize/hyperbolize his stories, though that seems a rather obvious oversite. If Gawd taught him like it hadn't been since the first century, then he taught it thru other men that vp then plagiarized. Or maybe God would gladly teach any man like He hasn't been able to since the first century, but man is so incapable that no man ever is able to learn it. I'm sure God is willing to perfectly teach any of us, like any "perfect parent" would gladly teach their children. But kids are imperfect. Maybe VP's desire to be "the special/chosen one" opened him up to those spirits of ego? His first thought was ... Boy, if I learned this Word of God, everybody will listen to me. But God just (allegedly) promised to teach him, not to have everyone listen to him. Each of those snowflakes was one of those angels of light ... legions of them out of the darkness. ... I just need to fit some spiders in there.

It seems you are rural Ron, so that may account for all the animal parts coming in to the yard. Our pasture renter has two smaller dogs that are constantly bringing back animals parts, whether deer or calf parts, or whatever. They may get a mole or groundhog on rare occassion, but they seem to find anything that has been killed and make some part of it their toy. For all the hours they spend barking at treed squirrels, they hve never brought one back dead. Fortunately they don't usually bring it right up in the yard. I don't have any answers, but am interested in getting my own dog sometime ... not sure I'd want to feed a wolf though, or have it chewing up equipment parts.

Yes George, I guess that is pertinent, and why it was somewhat humorous they had him doing floors. I think they are building a house in Costa Rica, so I guess he did OK in either vet work or floor buffing. And yes, "probe every orifice" is also a vet' phrase, though you can apply it however you wish. :o

John spent a year at Emporia (or maybe a little time at another locale) ... seems he was instructed in the fine art of floor buffing. I believe he did ground breaking teaching on the subject of "probe every orifice", and discussed various male animals' sexual lengths, in one ambassador room teaching afterglow meeting (maybe). In hindsight it is not surprising jal or lcm, whoever it was, found that information relevant ... or maybe just entertaining.

Good reporting RumRunner, I always wondered about vp being in connection with scientolgy's aliens. MUFON looks like a fun group. Dallas Morning News described it as ... MUFON investigators are a cross between the Ghostbusters of the movie and the amateur detectives of the Scooby-Doo cartoons. Like the Ghostbusters, they know they're taking on a task with a high giggle factor. Mars Attacks ... one of my favorite alien movies ...

Well everyone watches the DOW, and they are 30 BIG stocks ... but the S&P or even broader indexes pretty much track with each other. When you see the DOW rally some 600 points in a few hours, you have to wonder what is going on. It is probably indicating a bear market, where you get these sharp fast rallies. I also started around 1982, just did my IRA thing for some time ... but we were spoiled, because that was the start of one of the greatest bull runs in history. It sorta ended around 1999. It probably should have ended in 1992, but then you had the Clinton stock market bubble, and then the Bush real estate bubble ... now we have the weak dollar, and the unwinding of a lot of leverage and debt. It is good to have a plan, and good not to panic. Bu it is also good to know stocks can go down or sideways for 20 years.

I thought when you did a titration, the color was supposed to change .... it looks like she is doing a test where the smell changes.

Overall I would probably lean slightly to a non white non male ... that leaves several minorities, and females or daffy duck. But that would be a small factor. I just saw Obama on CNBC talking with Jack Welch, who seemed to like Obama better than Hillary or Edwards. Dick Morris seems to think the strong black vote for Obama instead of Hillary, may turn the white Democrat vote away from Obama. Now the idea that Obama has been "ghettoized" as the "black" candidate has become the accepted template for the campaign--even the point that a win in hotly contested South Carolina on Saturday is seen as actually hurting Obama because (in Dick Morris' analysis) [w]atching blacks block vote for Obama will trigger a white backlash that will help Hillary win Florida and to prevail the week after. Here we thought we were getting the Mondale/Hart campaign of 1984--without Mondale's likeability or Hart's weirdness--and instead we get the Dukakis campaign of 1988, in which an marginally likeable establishment figure established his mainstream (white) bona fides by running around the country thumping Jesse Jackson.

well now what? The DOW looks to open around 11,700 this morning. Monday and Tuesday around the world stocks are down over 10% ... yes, in two days. Yikes ... There is a little recovery, but it is pretty scary ... worst day in 18 years in Australia I think I heard.

OK, sorry, I don't know anything about you except what you just said. YOU said it certainly was NOT a partnership. I'm still not clear how else to construe that. To me this quote seems to put this spouse corps in second class, even if it was due to the corps spouse obeying the TWI standard ... I was not treated as a partner in our marriage because my spouse was in charge of my spiritual growth that I would have recieved through the program. He was the teacher, the over seer, the tc. I felt I had no voice. It certainly wasn`t a partnership :( Everything was measured by how quick I obeyed and how closely I followed instruction.

Well I can certainly see if your own spouse treated you as second class, there would be a problem. In my little branch space, I didn't get much direct intervetnion, and the spouse corps were treated like their spouses. What a hellish world it would be to have a spouse hold that over your head. But I guess at that point some thought marrying into the corpse was a good thing. :o

what was the etc. part?

fine ... wimp out if you must ... but I don't get what the spouse corpse are lamenting ... they didn't go throught the corps torture program, and they are irritated that they got treated like they didn't go through the corps program, but ony married into the corps program? So once you married the corps beach or sob, you thought you deserved the same undeserved status as the poor sap that went through the program? That is just crazy talk. There was supposed to be something to the training, why would you be treated the same if you did the program?

What track are we supposed to be on? :) After 10 days, I'd guess most everyone has taken the poll. 83 seems like a high number of responses. Now it is time for analysis? Around half the folks that bothered to respond were in the corps, about two thirds went WOW, one in eight were thrown out. It is our common experiences that brings us here to chat. I think at the time, I did use to treat corps differntly, I basically assumed they would help with all big functions. Others were looked at as more volunteer. Also there was and is the common experiences of beign in residence that "unites" on a certain level. I "unite" with George St. George because we both went to U of Illinois. I unite with other people at different boards based solely on being a fellow alumni. With just a little effort I could argue against those darn REd Sox fans, and unite with Johniam as fellow Cardinal fans. It is interesting to see the different divisions here, but we were all in the cult. Getting out sooner was better than later ... being non corps was better than being corps ... generally. I don't quite get bemoaning not going corps but having the tag with the sp on it, I guess we all had our special form of h ell.

Which "some" are you referring to? The spouse corps I knew best wasn't treated at all like having a social disease. He spent a year in res', was ordained, and became paid staff for an area. Another that married a corps gal was older and a great guy. I don't remember how he was treated at corps only functions, there weren't that many. At other functions he was treated just fine. Maybe twi life was different in the 90's, but I don't recall any stigma attached to spouse status. And certainly you were better off with spouse stigma than actually having to spend those years in residence. But then if your spouse status meant that some twi hot shot told your spouse to divorce you and sell your house, you probably have reason to be bitter. But if you married someone that committed to twi, you are still probably better off being shunned by those that respect nametags, than being a still committed corps grad. Now that I think of it, the only TWI guy I hung out with briefly after leaving TWI was a spouse corps.

Doesn't that just mean you were hanging out with the wrong people? What a strange little world we lived in back then. Of course I s'pose going through four years of that BS does put you in a "special class." Did you do any time in the joint George? (I mean the in res' joint) I did notice that 2/3 of the people responding to this poll, left over 15 years ago. So most of us got in in the 70's and left in '86 or by '92, except a few wiser folks who "bravely" left before POOP. Only one in eight were in within the last 10 years. I figured everyone would leave after poop, and can't imagine being in through lcm in the 90's, from what I read. That must have left some marks. Certainly corps didn't offer anything like the military in training, pay, commitment, physical danger, or long term health care .... but I wonder just a little if there could be some other comparisons. We (the non ego maniacs) were mostly grunts ... and to a much different and lesser degree, it was like going through Viet Nam? We felt there was some great cause we were fighting for, we were in it with this team (though were often disillusioned by our mentors), we saw some bad sheet, and we returned to real life a little changed, some more than others. George, that is kinda blurred with your stream of consciouness thread, so I may finish the thought there ... but here what caught might attention was the poll set up. The "rankings" should have been reversed, with those that reached the "highest" levels being ranked at the bottom. If all you ever did was get in and go to a twig for a year, then left because you saw it was just structured insanity, then bully for you. Those that lingered as slaves and became full time minimum wage workers with no long term benefits, either out of a misguided sense of well doing, or more likely because your ego got hooked and you were desperate for some cause to join ... then gee, what bad decisions you made. That maybe put you at the bottom of the barrel. (along with me ... well I never got paid, and did real work after becoming a corpse grad) Anyway, "what levels did you reach" could have been termed "what depths did you sink to" ;) Of course everyone is different, but George, would you really have wanted "praise" for having spent time in residence? That would have indicated you had spent time in the asylum in residence, but it was the wrong cause. I guess some spouse corps spent a year in the crazy place, but they had a corps grad spouse to guide them through the bs ... and the poor spouse that had to go through another year ... I forget what they did for the year. But I do recall what a different world it seemed when I saw married corps had their own room. It must have helped their sanity a little. I had no private space, just a bunk in a room with 4 to 40 other people. But my nametag didn't have the "sp" on it... gee, isn't that special.

If the BOT had been the least bit adeherant to Biblical standards, there would have been no need for this lawuit, because the abuses never would have happened. There probably could have been 1000 other lawsuits if people had documented some of the abuses better. Bad people get away with things most of the time, I believe.

Am I reading this right? He sends 10 a day with $20 each time? That is $200 per day? If he is doing that he must still have savings/income from somewhere. If there is anything left to save, they may be to a point where your siblings could have him declared at least financially incompetent. If he does have assets remaining, your parents retirement may be more comfortable if they have some money left, instead of depending on the government. It is a difficult thing, having aging parents. The choices can become complex, and the awefulness of isolation and lonliness should be considered. Assisted living can be great if they are still able to get around. In central Illinois for a couple including meals, it was like $34,000/year.

OK, these show why didactic is a good word for your preachings. You repeatedly give two options ... believe like you think, or admit I just don't believe in God. I really don't think I was ever so close minded. Actually I said I decided to get in and decided to get out. That was in response to you saying we had decided to get in, but God delivered us out. This is a basic philosophical question ... the problem of evil .. if God is all good, why does he allow evil to exist? I'm not convinced your answer, that God IS evil, is satisfactory. Do you think the Devil is God's messenger? Or did he fall from grace by free will? I think biblically ... it is something like "darkness was found in Lucifer" ... like it wasn't exactly created there. But whether you strictly adhere to the Bible or not, it is a difficult question.

I reemmber going to some holy roller church in twi daze ... they did the dancing in the aisles and slain in the spirit ... a little kid in front of me was drawing and he had pictures of ghosts ...and I think the cross or something. I figured he was discerning spirits LOL (ghosts like at the bottom of this picture ...) But here is another story ... Little Tony was staying with his grandmother for a few days. He'd been playing outside with the other kids for a while when he came into the house and asked, "Grandma, what's it called when two people sleep in the same room and one is on top of the other?" She was little taken aback, but decided to just tell him the truth. "It's called sexual intercourse, honey." Little Tony said, "Oh, ok.", and went back outside to play with the other kids. A few minutes later he came back in and said angrily, "Grandma, it isn't called sexual intercourse. It's called Bunk Beds. And Jimmy's Mom wants to talk to you."

Didactic ... good word. It did seem CC9 was preaching ... if we don't accept her truth, she will shake the dust off her feet and go to the next door. (or is CC9 a he?) Ding Dong.