Linda Z

OldSkool said: "That was my first exposure to GSC. Reading a thread that she had left on her desk... Yep." That is far and away the funniest thing I've read on GSC in years. Thank you for the laugh!!!

I don't think so. We would have heard.

I've seen him on a talk show with his kids. They're extremely supportive, and he's very realistic and open about his disease. He knows he's not always cognitively "with it," and it appears that his kids are very much looking out for him. He said he just wants to perform as long as he can. God bless him and his family. It's a difficult disease to be sure.

Hooray! Been praying for you and yours. Did the rest of your family come out of it okay?

I was thinking the same thing, Raf, but we'll have to make contact to find out.

After posting yesterday I did find a newspaper article that said her town was, in fact, very hard hit. A friend was able to talk briefly with her son, but she was at work. No more details than that, but at least it sounds like they're okay. I still can't reach her on her cell phone, but it's quite possible the cell tower isn't functional. I know she'd be on here if she had reliable Internet access, so I'm guessing that's iffy, too.

Still no word here. A mutual friend let me know her town, and I tried googling it to see how the town fared, but I didn't find anything. If anyone hears from her, please let us know. Praying she and her loved ones are all okay.

Not a peep. I called her and left a message shortly after the storm, asking her to let me know if they were okay. God only knows if her cell phone was charged or whether she got the message or whether she could respond. If anyone's heard from her, please let us know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program Under the "Twelve Steps" subhead. (Not hard to find quotations. All you have to do is enclose them in quotation marks in Google, and if they've been quoted accurately, voila.) Back to the topic, I guess LCM ragged on AA after my time. Ironically, I never heard VPW say anything bad about it. The legend around NK was that he had helped get a chapter of AA started in the area. I have no idea if that was true, but I heard it more than once from HQ old-timers.

Thanks for answering my nosy question. :)

I've never heard of this group except on GS, but I've avoided all offshoots like the plague so I'm way out of that loop. Thomas, have you attended a fellowship she spoke at, or read something she wrote? I'm just curious how you know she's clueless and seems nice. You seem to know about many offshoots. Did you check them out personally? That would be an interesting thread for you to start if you have.

If I were in their shoes (thank God I'm not!), I might do the same thing. I wouldn't want to be confused with the hate-mongering group that put out that video. Of course we all know they've slandered plenty of individuals, but that aside, I was surprised they were aware enough of what's going on outside WayLaLaLand to even know about this issue.

Happiest of birthdays, dear Socksness!

Socks said: I thought I wanted that, until I found out just what I was getting immersed in. I didn't mind serving beyond the hours of my regular job. I expected that when I asked to be on staff. It wasn't all the mandatory meetings, per se, that turned me off. Had they been meetings filled with evidence of God's inspiration and love and power, those meetings would have been uplifting and exciting. But 99 out of 100 were just plain mind-numbingly boring. It wasn't the low pay, either. As I said before, the cost of living in NK was extremely low. What I hadn't foreseen was that I was getting immersed in a truckload of bull$dang. Sorry for the vulgarity, but it's an apt description for the hypocrisy, micromanagement, and legalism that were going on at twi HQ at that time. Much to my surprise and disappointment, VPW was neither oblivious to nor simply passively allowing all that crap to happen. He was, in fact, promoting to top positions of responsibility and authority the people who were masters of hypocrisy, micromanagement, and legalism. Socks, I think you nailed it. VPW kept the old timers happy by extending much, much more grace toward them than he did to the rest of us. Johniam mentioned feeling appreciated. For the first couple years I felt appreciated. I had a good dept. coordinator, and he shielded us from much of the BS. Then Rosalie took over our dept. and it was quick slide downhill into the steamy, smelly stuff from there! Even when Rosalie was smiling that smile and speaking in that Southern-lady drawl and saying nice words, I never felt appreciated under her reign. Not for a minute. I felt used, criticized, looked down upon, and unhappy. So I walked. Others apparently weren't as unhappy as I was. God bless 'em.

IMO, that's too pat an answer. I think it's all of the above possible reasons you gave, Patriot. Different people have different reasons. A few of them might have even bought into the "we're the faithful remnant" crap that RFR has peddled. Since you referred to the low pay a couple times, I assume you're talking about people at HQ. (As for the person sitting in someone's living room studying the Bible and singing songs, I still run into people who are "out" but in a splinter group who don't [or won't] believe bad things about twi or VPW because they don't want to "think evil.") I left HQ staff in early spring of 1986. I resigned, and I was never so happy to leave a place in my life. I hated the mandatory meetings, Rosalie's micromanaging, the rampant hypocrisy, etc. I never regretted getting out of there. In contrast, a couple years later, when I had severed my ties with twi completely, I had a long talk with someone who was still "in," a friend who was a member of the president's cabinet and had held very high positions. He was fully aware at how flocked up things were and what Rosalie was like. But he, who was younger than I was and better educated and better equipped to change careers, said, "If I left, how would I support my wife and child?" I was astounded. It was the fear in the heart of that man! Re: the low pay: If you're debt-free and living in that neck of the woods, you don't need much money to live comfortably. My rent in NK was very reasonable for a nice apartment, and my utilities were next to nothing. Lunch in the OSC was mandatory (gag, gag), so I only had to buy food for 2 meals a day. For people approaching retirement age, as the older staffers must be, if they've stuck it out this long they probably think it's an okay gig. But they'd better not get sick, or they'll become someone else's "burden," and off they'll be sent with no retirement fund, no social security check, nada. For those who have the type of personality that allows them to tolerate mandatory meetings and syrupy-sweet smiles from a "president" whose grins hide daggers, and all the other BS, twi is just the place. God bless 'em. All those things gave me a headache and a heartache.

Great comparison, Twinky!

Can you imagine how crowded the planet would be if people could really believe to live forever? Yikes! Having seen how frail my dad became before his death, one month short of his 92nd birthday, I have no desire to shoot for 100 years like George Burns. And forever? With the state my body is in already, I sure as heck wouldn't want to live in it forever. No thanks. I'd prefer to go quietly in my sleep and wait for the NEW body.

Thanks for all the interesting comments and insights. I like to keep FB for fun and for catching up, too, but every now and then, I feel strongly enough about something political to put in my 2 cents.

Socksness said (and I am totally taking it out of context because it just struck me as funny): Nuh uh! Not me. No way. Never again.

Hi HAP I see your FB posts, so I know how political they are. I also have seen that they start some fairly reasonable discussions, too, which is good. You're right...the tone there is much more civil than it was in the political forum here. MUCH. I find that difference interesting and have a few theories about why that might be, but no time to verbalize them now. If it were just a matter of pi$$ing off or not pi$$ing off my old twi friends, I wouldn't hesitate to state my political positions frequently. But for the sake of elderly relatives and other family members I love, I think zipping my FB lip is the way to go. It's hard. If one particular beloved aunt posts one more "Don't you miss George W. Bush" blurb I might have to stop biting my tongue and say, "Not only no, but hell no!" :)

I hear ya, Socksness. I have an ex-sister-in-law who flooded my page with cutesy (to her) quotes, every picture she ever found online showing any kind of animal (I love 'em too, but enough already), what she's doing at every point of every day. By the time I got to view my FB page, it was filled with her "stuff" and causing everything else to scroll away too fast. Politically speaking, though, the people I'm trying to keep from virtually choking each other don't fall into that category, and I want to see all their posts to see how they're doing. Some of them live on the other side of the country. But I have Pres. Obama lovers and haters in my family, gun nuts and gun control advocates, so it can get a little dicey. The unfriending question just came up because of exwafer friends who clearly don't share my political views. I haven't dumped any of them, but suspect I have been dumped. :D Family's something different. I certainly have no intentions of "unfamilying" anyone, and hopefully they feel the same about me. Come on in, the water's fine! And I would never unfriend you, either! Amen to that!

I've always thought that, too. Unfortunately, many people think their way of thinking politically is the only way, with no shades of grey. Discussion too often turns into a verbal cat fight.

Disclaimer: I'm not starting a political discussion. Please don't turn this thread into one. As the presidential election approaches, the number of posts on Facebook about politics has skyrocketed. We used to see the same increase around election time when there was still a political forum here. I posted a few political opinions on FB, but I've decided because I have loved ones on both extremes of the political spectrum, I am not doing it anymore. I don't want them to hate each other, since they can all see my posts/responses, and I figure if they want to discuss or argue politics with me, they can do it face-to-face or not at all (my preference being the latter). Thinking about all this led me to another thought...I wonder if any of my Facebook friends--especially ex-wayfers who still hold the same/similar political views they held while in twi--have unfriended me, or if any of my other FB friends have unfriended each other over politics. This question occurred to me when I saw someone's name here on GS whose posts I used to see on FB but no longer do. She and I are not of the same political persuasion, and I didn't "break up" with her so perhaps she unfriended me. This leads me to the rhetorical question, "Is politics worth losing friends over, either those in real life or online?" Of course not! (I know it was rhetorical, but it was my question so I answered it anyway.) I love people's passion about politics (it's so much better than indifference), as long as it doesn't destroy relationships. If you're on FB, do you engage in political discussion/debate? As far as you know, have you had any friends unfriend you there over your politics? Have you ever gotten so annoyed with someone else's political views that you unfriended them or hid their posts?

Kit, did you post on your FB page? I bet that would get a response.