satori001

This season the bimbo's a dude. Still blonde though.

Awesome browser. Anybody else use it?

Hey Abigail, shut up and get back in the kitchen.

I know we are surrounded by germs, and a sterile environment may be as unhealthy as a dirty one. But we also know that they used to throw garbage and sewage into the streets back in the middle ages. The average life span was probably under 30, and epidemics were common place. When they began to practice a little social hygeine, wonder of wonders, people began to live longer, healthier lives. We want to keep our immune systems in good shape, not overwhelm them. The best way to build antibodies is minimal exposure. One careless sneeze in your face is several billion more critters than your immune system is prepared for.

I don't buy it, the deal where the lunk-headed guy just doesn't see it coming. I've been that guy (I know girls, hard to believe), the one that said, "But, but, I thought I had a few more straws left to go." I thought I could always make it up to her, maybe with flowers, or discount jewelry (guaranteed to appraise for more than the selling price!). That was a long time ago. But it hasn't taken me all this time to figure out what happened. All I really had to do was get past wanting to kill the b#tch (or myself) and then I could think clearly again. That took a month or two. Or three. What sucks about understanding, and the reason we don't put that much effort into it, is that you don't feel any better once you do. You may even feel worse. And it's not because you see how grotesquely unequal to life a spiteful (though non-existent) God has made you, that you feel worse. If only it were. There's nothing like a powerful dose of self-loathing to make us feel better about our real selves! "I wish I were the man I know to be!" - Adolf H. Wierwille The really sucky thing is when we understand just how equal we were to winning, continually winning, her love. We realize it didn't have to happen, but now it's too late. "Something inside has died, and I can't hide, and I just can't fake it." - Carole King A lot of guys treat women like a juke box. When the music stops, we stick in another coin, which is to say, whatever we can get away with - whatever it takes to get the music to play again. We delude ourselves into thinking that pleasing her from time to time is what keeps her happy, and that makes her want to keep us happy, which is all we really care about, George. But she wants to be happy too. And she's not a jukebox. She could make the music play long after we've run out of coins, if she's happy. We delude ourselves, but we know better. It's often called "denial." We do know better. It's not what we do, which might momentarily please her, but who we are that makes her happy. Or not so happy. She once loved a guy who was just so. What was that? Funny, confident, tender, "cute," strong, reliable, fun, intimate, and a hundred other things that made us special to them. Yes George, we're flawed. (I'm sure his wife can find a few holes in "socks," too, but that's what yarn is for, darn it, and he's got plenty, ain't he?) Uh, where was I? We're flawed. Always were, always will be. But it's not the flaws that make her unhappy. It's a shift in the balance of our qualities and flaws, perfections and imperfections... toward the flaws, the imperfections. Maybe it's one BIG one, or maybe it's all of them, but the imperfections take over. If we coudn't help it, she'd forgive us. We know how maternal they are sometimes. But we CAN help it, and we don't, and that says "I DON'T LOVE YOU," loud and clear. Whether or not it's true, by the way. Often it's not true, or we don't think so. Sometimes, it is true, and we just haven't figured it out yet. Okay, we're tired. It isn't easy being at our best. We have big shoes to fill. (Ours.) So we gradually loosen the belt, and the priorities, and we forget that she's tired too, and rather than helping her, we're asking her to carry more and more of the relationship while giving her less and less of a reason to do it. I've tried to take this lesson to heart. It cost plenty to learn. No lie. The lesson is still fresh, more than twenty years later. And yet I constantly remind myself. Then again, maybe she's the problem.

Priceless.

If you'll flip a coin, the other side of the cult coin is our willingness to un-believe in that for which there is overwhelming evidence, so much so that we will perform rituals around the truths that keep us alive, all the while denying those same truths. Like what? We get vaccines. We gargle with "germ-killing" mouth wash. We use "anti-bacterial" soap. We cook our food. Why? Because it's part of the social genuflecting we've ritualized from childhood. We've never seen a germ. We don't believe what we can't see, unless it's spiritual of course. If it's scientific, then forget it. It ain't real if we don't see it. Germs. You don't have to be a germ freak to appreciate the need to wash one's hands after one (how do I say this delicately?) takes a crap. But... some folks out there just don't get it. A few minutes in a busy public restroom will convince the skeptics. Some of this blind indifference must be cultural. Some people come from part of the world where water is a precious commodity. Some may believe water must be conserved, used only for drinking, and they smell like it. And soap, soap is just an excuse to waste water. That's what they must think. People will sneeze and cough their heads off in the presence of strangers, friends, family, anybody, they don't seem to care. Or they cough on to the knuckles of their closed fist. What the hell is that? Improved dispersion? We prosecute the dope who lights a campfire that spreads to prairies, forests or towns. But the jackass who starts an epidemic because he's "tough" enough to go to work with the flu doesn't even get a parking ticket. "Bird flu" (H5N1 virus) is just an urban myth in this country. For now. As long as people aren't dropping in the streets with blood pouring from their eyes and ears, the ignorant and the apathetic will continue to behave as if germs are product of superstition and, failing thus to wash themselves properly, continue to spread their invisible filth on everything they touch. I'm guessing they're big hand-shakers and kissers, by the way. The public knows there is a "health care crisis." But it doesn't occur to them what the cause is... sickness! And therefore, it doesn't occur to them what the causes are... Uh, basically pathogens (germs). Okay, there's aging, and injury, toxins, and other contributing factors, but the biggest problem by far is illness. Now I'm not arguing that we need to live like lab rats in gleaming, disinfected clean rooms. I do think we need to pass some laws about cleanliness and get serious about it.

The story is in Yahoo News, and elsewhere. What's really sad is the dogs know the stuff is poisonous, and their masters make them eat it. http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20060106/sc_...icpetfoodrecall

I'd like to echo excathedra's question, but ask it on my own terms: How is it that certain sanctimonious, holier-and-heavier-than-thou "research" types, who cling for dear life to various "splinter groups" in a vain attempt to relive their glory daze, can hold Wierwille in such high esteem, when the man was a sociopathic megalomaniac, a sexual predator and abuser, a drunk, an adulterer...? and yet, even as I pose the question the answer becomes self-evident. It means living a contradiction, but it offers those paltry but essential compensations for which so many remain loyal to the mother cult.

Nobody detected a pattern here, even ten years or more later? What a wonderful "man of God." A man of conscience. A man who stood up against the ministry when it got off the Word. And wasn't he funny?Bullcrap. A self-serving prick, riding high in the center ring of Wierwille's circus, sotted with self-importance, just like many or most of his wretchedly self-promoting, self-serving colleagues "of the cloth" in Way World. (Yes, yes, there were exceptions. We all know one or two.) Of course, his defenders can always point to Martindale, who was worse. Small consolation though. How many people did the Way International leadership get to "write off." Hundreds, collectively, if not individually? Thousands, more likely. Invariably, the written-off were "possessed," which is to say, fatally low on requisite "meekness to leadership." "Write off" is the perfect phrase. Marked and avoided - or just written off. Not even a casualty. Not even collateral damage. Just a write-off.

The sort of action you're looking for is probably best shared by email. Millions of school children read Greasespot you know.

You're right excathedra. It's an important topic, and our puritanical fear of discussing sex frankly may have made our society even more vulnerable to sexual predators, so much so that molesting children has been almost institutionalized by the Catholic Church. The very fact that they have covered it up for decades (or maybe centuries) and moved the guilty from church to church is undeniable, and bears me out. I also wonder if some of the weirdness that makes predators what they become isn't cultivated by the weirdness our society collectively feels about sex. It's fear, mostly. And why is it there? Hey, whaddya know! The church created it, something that is also undeniable. And as grown up as we pretend to be, we are still just children in the shadow of the Vatican, and it's proclamations and prohibitions haunt us from the hidden depths of our collective childhood memories. And what is the ultimate effect, if not the ultimate intent? It makes us vulnerable. It makes us sheep, timid, shy, uneasy, fearful, and easily manipulated. Whatever ya do, excathedra, don't ever say the "d" word, or the "f" word, or the "c" word, or the... It might make grown men blush. It's humiliating, to be exposed like that. Humiliation is anguish. Fear is pain. Pain makes us mean, sometimes. Hail Mary and Praise Allah!

Sudo, thanks for the links. I'm not cut out for nostalgia, though.

-- Still locks up. DIVX is installed. The DIVX site says I have a firewall. Could they mean Windows SP2? Or Zone Alarm?

Without doing any updates, I opened WMP and checked for updates: "Your computer is running the most recent version of Windows Media Player 10 and all of its components. No update is available at this time." I'll check the divx site next.

The link opens, and I get "connecting to media." It then locks up. There's a small link at the lower left, that says "if you can't view the video, click" or something like that. I clicked. It locked up and the browser screen turned white. I'm gonna have to force it closed and may lose this browser too, so I'm gonna post this first. -- Yeah, I was right. It closed both Internet Explorer (6.0.29 - pretty current) windows. -- Won't let me "save target as" either.

Oldiesman finds it easier to forgive wickedness than the consequential unforgiveness it often engenders. When that's the state of grace in our day and in our time, it's no wonder some people, in the direst of personal circumstances, with nobody to lean on but The Way International, just killed themselves. The grace of God becomes the aquittal-by-technicality of the most rotten, and the condemnation of the most wronged. How nice.

Royal Gorge I can't see your videos. I have to force the browser closed and re-open. I think it's the vidlife hosting website. I have no problem playing other videos. Anyway, it's no big deal. I'd like to see them, but it's not working. I can't even post on the thread. It might be more practical to use a link to the video, rather than embed it in the thread.

Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. -- It's all there, in the song. The lyrics, the melody, the message combine to express the ineffable wisdom of the ages. There is nothing else we need to know.

TF, I agree with you. I hardly ever think of JAL, unless I run across something I associate with him, like Rochelle's suicide. In all honesty, if the CES pool ever wanted to be filled to overflowing, well - wait, that didn't come out right - if they wanted to succeed, they'll have a tougher time without JAL's personality. His success was built upon his personality (not his integrity or intelligence necessarily), and that personality is an asset (and liability to be sure) to any organization he joins. I acknowledge his "longsuits." TWI was a cult of personality, or more accurately, a multi-level conglomeration of personality cults, each cluster in the hierarchy feeding the clusters above. At the top, Wierwille, whose mania inspired a legion of leaders. Near the top, the irrepressably real you-know-who stood up, to be counted. And that was the problem. Instead of standing, he should have walked, and sold real estate or something, where he couldn't do any harm.

The two-hour edit policy is downright obnoxious. I tried. The majority has spoken, and gone unheeded. It's a shame.

A mystic is one who directly perceives, or claims to perceive, a reality beyond the realm of the senses. It is an experiential knowledge first, out of which revelations may proceed regarding the nature of existence, purpose, destiny... crap like that. The Cloud of Unknowing is a famous (maybe not that famous) little book about mystical experience written by A. Nonymous. You probably wouldn't like it. -- sirguessalot, A lotta gas, sir. Brevity, for the luvva Pete! Coherence may follow.

We're seeing what happens when cynics mix with mystics. The mystic asks, somewhat naively, "how can you not believe." The cynic is only too happy about the opportunity to explain. The cloud of unknowing collides with the cloud of uncaring. Thunder and lightning, the result. Hey Sudo, excathedra wasn't mean, not to you anyway. I just don't believe you knelt in front of your Christmas tree and wept. C'mon.

['HCW' date=Dec 26 2005, 01:58 AM' post='204892] I'm not running to the defense of JAL, but.... How do you know he HASN'T done acts of "real contrition" privately? Just what is it about renonucing his ordination(s) that defines contrition? What will his begging our forgiveness actually accomplish? I don't think "private contrition" is true contrition. Renouncing his ordination would be one way of acknowledging his betrayal of the so-called "calling" he enjoyed for so many years. Begging our forgiveness, in the most specific terms, would be another form of acknowledgement. As long as he makes that a part of his identity, not merely a phase or a moment of candor, he also acknowledges the value of the lives he harmed. He shows just a little damned respect, something he's always been somewhat short on, actually. If John called me personally or wrote me an email or paper letter begging my forgiveness for the way he treated me while attempting to throw me out of the 11th Corps.. what would that accomplish? What would it change? I felt he was wrong then, would his saying to me, "Howard, I was wrong, I beg you to forgive me," make him any more or less wrong? He would be showing you the respect he once denied you. It has nothing to do with his degree of guilt. Would it do much more than give me the emotional satisfaction of him lowering himself before me? I don't think so. That's you, Howard. I don't speak for you, and neither do you for me. Nor do I think his or anyone's announcement of; "The ordination I operated under was bogus and made a mockery of God...." would accomplish anything. It sure would, whether or not you perceived it that way. No nothing at all that is substantitive.. Again. Nothing beyond giving one seeking some self satisfaction of his own just that. I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Oh, okay. It's all about me. Right. I know John Lynn and I'm 100% certain that HE grieved Rochelle's loss of life as I did. I looked into his eyes when he was giving me the boot, I saw as much respect as he'd ever given me (which was substantial). He actually felt that my leaving the in residence WC at that time was what was best for me AND that I would, sans the rigors of the program, blossom and be able to return a few months later as one of the top guys in the 12th WC. That only tells me that any other "act" of contrition, past, present or future, might amount to that and no more. I simply felt he was wrong. I fought for my life and my place in the Corps. He wasn't just wrong, he was living a fundamental lie. In other words, everything he did was wrong, even the things he got right were tainted by the lie he lived and promoted. Unfortunately my dear friend Rochelle didn't do that. She took her own life. Suicide, by definition is an extreme act of selfishness. They leave the living to suffer and punish us with their loss. For whatever their reason, the act accomplishes the same thing, it punishes us who loved them so. Rochelle needed a pastor, a man of God, someone to comfort and heal her. That man wasn't there because an imposter stood in his place. That imposter was John Lynn. John was caught up under TWI, as we all were. (It is quite possible that John Lynn sat at his desk and decided, finally to give the word that "I was gone" from in residence at the same time Rochelle was deciding finally, to kill herself and did it. The two events were simultaneous, she was 1,000 miles away but it was roughtly the same time.) Rochelle and others handled the pressures of it by taking their lives. Perhaps they thought, as I once did, when I sat on the floor of my bedroom with a loaded shotgun trying as Might to put it in my mouth and "end it all".... Perhaps they felt that their life was as ruined as I felt mine was; ruined by my own hand, at my own decisions... irretrievable. How can I live on? How can I continue even one more moment? This is irrelevant, though tragic. The Way International was a fraud, and John Lynn is (and I think continues to be) a principal of that fraud. I can't. You can't what? One thing we all had in common is that we were all caught up in a web of deceit authored by the enemy of us all. My experience tells me that I was being decieved into believing that ending my life was a viable solution for the pressures of life I was feeling so heavily upon me at the time. I was saved by the thought that I had a daughter who needed my life THEN to help develop her own. To kill myself would have robbed HER of a father. I picked myself up off the floor that day because I could NOT do that to HER. It's very convenient to blame the devil. It is fortunate your love for your daughter was sufficient to save you. The one who seeks not but for to steal, kill and destroy won a few rounds. We all handled the pressures we were under in different ways. We were ALL under the "same" pressures. He killed a few of our beloved brothers and sisters. Destroyed a LOT of our dreams; stole even more from our lives. It is HE, the enemy, who should acknowledge the wrongs, apologise with acts of true contrition. It's very convenient to blame the devil. As we still, to this day FEEL the anger that demands, "I want to see some REAL contrition from these people." While we demand they renounce this and apologise for that, I beg you. ... Have we truly moved on? Of course we've "moved on." Moving on does not require amnesia, nor does it require the suspension of judgement. Moving on does not absolve us of our responsibility for taking care of unfinished business. This is certainly unfinished business for many of us. While we feel these things are we looking back, looking through a window through time at what was then or are we STILL "in" it, living it now? Are as free from as we think? What? I think not. What? John Lynn is as clean as the blood of Christ washed him over 2,000 years ago. IF we believe that we are ALL, and WHEN we believe that we are ALL, just as washed and as clean from our sin, ANY and ALL sin; as clean as clean can be, it is then and ONLY then that we CAN understand... His inner cleanliness does not clean up the mess he left, does it? No, frankly, and sweeping it under the bed makes it worse. When we understand that we will surely say, "His slate is as clean as MINE. His sins are no dirtier than mine." Irrelevant, I think, for reasons I've already stated. He's shown himself to be quite adept at sweeping his own past under the rug of absolution theology, but I'm sure he thanks you for the moral support. IF and when we believe, truly believe what Jesus accomplished for us ALL, we will OFFER forgiveness to "these people" whether they ask for it on their knees or not. Could be. Regardless of what we each did or didn't do, we are ALL just as clean as the other. See, I have a little problem with that. AND... We won't mock God with statements like this, Miraculously? There IS NO OTHER WAY to clean one's slate, all of the "real contrition" and apology and renouncing in the world can't clean ANYTHING. As we bite and snap at each other now, whose side are we really representing? Let me guess. The devil's? You're sanctimony is nauseating. I would suggest that if you cannot forgive THEM, you are not free. I speak unto you a more excellent way. If you say so.