satori001

I hate the "everybody does it" comments. Would a defense attorney say to the jury, "Sure my client murdered someone, but everybody does it?" There is one issue at hand, the consummate depravity of the Catholic empire, from Pope to cardinal, to bishop to priest. When individuals within an institution commit a crime, the institution is defined not by the crime but by its response to the crime. There is bound to be institutional inertia with respect to instituting reform but that's why most institutions are LED by individuals and not committees. The INDIVIDUAL who failed Catholic children the world over was John Paul. The Pope may not have been a pedophile himself, but he was an enabler, therefore a facilitator, therefore as good as a procurer. Where decisive action was required he was passive. How is that different from Bernie Law's own conduct? It doesn't matter whether John Paul's scented hands weren't in some kid's pants. He protected those whose hands were guilty. Until things change, any Catholic who knowingly sends money to Rome, directly or indirectly, is funding institutionalized pedophilia. The church's hesitation to purge itself of the practice suggests the practice is rampant, and more, that it does not wish to purge itself.

The church takes the long view. In a generation or two all of its victims will be long dead. The Catholic "church" has committed far worse crimes throughout the ages, and most of those "grievous" sins are forgotten or denied. This is why the church's victims cannot be "patient." Time is against them. It rewards the evil that stands its ground. (Consider TWI, which follows the Vatican's example.) They cannot wait a generation or two for things to change. The so-called "institution" is made of people who sit on the crapper every day, just like everybody else. Is it any wonder they will probably elect one who defends the status quo?

On the one hand, John Paul is praised for being a man among the people, aware, educated, sensitive, compassionate. So when sex abuse scandals are all over the media, American and foreign, shall we then say the Pope had no knowledge other than that given him by assistants? I don't buy it for a second, WordWolf. If he had a shred of a hint that this was going on, it was morally incumbent upon him, and imperative, that he take the lead. To suggest he was concerned with more important, spiritual matters is somehow disingenuous, given what Jesus taught us about children. John Paul was a friend and defender of the pedophile priests to the end, because he used, or did not use, his power accordingly, to effectively stonewall against their prosecution. I hope he burns along with them.

Didn't Paul repent first? Law's so-called apology was on the heels of a huge expose done by the Boston Globe, and in the face of dozens of lawsuits. This is the same jerk who allowed John Geoghan to be in charge of ALTER BOYS even after he had been warned by one of his own friggin' bishops. Heartfelt apology my foot, he was still covering for the church. Where is the Vatican's contrition? And who gives a damn how "contrite" they say they are when they honor priests like Bernie Law? Hey you Catholics, whadd'ya think Jesus would really do if he were to walk through the Vatican today? Ashes and rubble. This, among many other "signs and wonders" belies the so-called "Pope's" true virtue, the patron saint of the pedophile priests. Damn, the guy flashes a smile, travels around the world, and spouts a lot of inane platitudes and he can do no wrong. The media sucks it up. He can go straight to hell for what he really was. What a godless, goddam sham.

Gotta love the daily freakshow. Can a command performance by Michael Jackson be far behind? -- edited to remove broken link; excathedra has kindly posted the text of the article (or similar) below

Frank, nobody was outside your window, praying and holding candle-light vigils as you took your last breath. But why not? You were world-famous. You had character, charm, charisma... What was lacking? I think you just weren't wicked enough to please most people.

Frank, I almost forgot. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe you ever used your considerable power to cover up for child-molesters in your employment, or white-wash endemic, organizational corruption. You never used your public voice to criticize the unsurpassedly generous United States (to friend and foe alike) for its "avarice" while you lived ensconced in a fortress which hordes unimaginable and ill-gotten (mostly) treasure, and yet promoted doctrines keeping your followers ensconced in their "holy" penury. About the worst you could be accused of is not speaking another language, leading to some embarrassing moments. Like the time: In an attempt to reach the Hispanic market, the now-famous slogan "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken" was mistakenly translated for publication as "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate." True or not, it makes a funny story, unlike the other.

You probably fed a lot more people than the ailing Pope ever did, and the wealth you leave behind was earned, not extorted from the rich or flim-flammed out of the poor. You never crusaded against contraceptives, which might have spared countless millions the poverty and suffering brought upon them by having more mouths to feed than they could ever afford, or being one of those hungry mouths. Okay Frank, if God has feathers you're in the frier now buddy, but otherwise you'll go down as one of the un-sung good guys who built a business that employed and fed a lot of people, and that ain't chicken ..... Speaking of which, how's the Pope?

From a newsletter I get: ----------------------- Today's Tourbus Topics: More Gmail Invites / KCRW Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from deep behind the orange curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, where we are frantically trying to figure out what a cubit is. [A cubit is a unit of ark-building measure approximately 18 inches or half a meter in length. Southern California is undergoing a rainy season of biblical proportions.] TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. Please take a moment to visit today's sponsors and thank them for keeping our little bus of Internet happiness on the road. On with the show... ------------------------ A Few More Gmail Invites Audience: Everyone ------------------------ So, in my last post I casually mentioned I had fifty Google Gmail invites to give away. Guess how many people wrote in to get one? ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY...in the first FOUR HOURS! Gmail invites are popular little buggers, aren’t they? For those who weren’t able to get a Gmail invite, I apologize. But, all is not lost. Thanks to a tip from Justin Baugher, I found a few more invites. How many more? Oh, over a quarter of a million! No, really. Just point your web browser to http://isnoop.net/gmail/ Requesting a Google Gmail invite from isnoop.net is a snap: 1. Key in your email address into the box at the top of the page. 2. Click the "Request invite" button. 3. WALK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER! I mean it. Walk away. Go grab something to eat, read a book, watch a television show-- just walk away. Isnoop.net takes just short of forever to process your request and send you an invite. Your patience will be rewarded. Eventually isnoop tells you "Your invite has been sent to the email specified." Check your email. Sitting in your inbox should be an brand new email from gmail@isnoop.net with the subject "The Gmail invite you requested." Oh, happy day! I do have a favor to ask of you, though: If Gmail ever gives you any invites of your own to share with others, please send them to gmail@isnoop.net. That way the folks at isnoop.net can replenish their pool of invites and share them with others.

Clearwater, are you John Lynn?

Rod Price of Foghat has died. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...n_mu/obit_price I always enjoyed Foghat, and Price's slide-work was a nice contrast to Duane and Eric. He may have influenced a lot of aspiring guitar players of the day. --- from AP Music on Yahoo! (in case link is broken) WILTON, New Hampshire - Guitarist Rod Price, founding member of the blues boogie band Foghat, died Tuesday after falling down a stairway at his home, a family friend said. He was 57. The London native's solos drove Foghat to three platinum and eight gold records during the band's quarter-century career. After many years of touring he settled in Wilton in 1994. Many in town knew Price as a loving father who never missed his son's baseball, soccer or basketball games. Fewer people knew of Price's musical background. Price had played with Champion Jack Dupree, Eddie Kirkland, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and Honey Boy Edwards. In recent years, Price concentrated on his blues projects, cutting several CDs and giving private guitar lessons at his home.

WordWolf, between his phone number and socks' recognition, I think his credentials are as good as you're gonna get, short of Pawtucket doing the Greasespot DNA test. Besides that, a quick read kinda tells me his voice is coming right through the words. People who know him (though I don't) seem to hear it.

Thanks. I've been meaning to find out more about this. I have an iRiver iHP120. Works pretty well, although I've only used it for music so far.

John Lynn is a poster-child for TWI's post-POPped leadership "TWIaspora," and in that role symbolic of a greater exodus, our own. Each of us having severed TWI's apron strings has had to choose which new path(s) to follow. In this context, John is not the subject of the thread, but the object, and as object, the catalyst for deconstructing our own feelings about post-cult spirituality and personal accountability. Post-cult spirituality and personal accountability - but I repeat myself. If you'll skip over one individual's somewhat inflammatory posts, and the obligatory indignation they kicked up, you'll find a number of posts (my own included) which asked earnest questions. Most Americans have never heard of John Lynn, and in that light he may resemble a "private citizen," but most ex-Ways, especially here, have known or known of him for decades, and within TWI's closed society he's led a very public life. Through CES, he's continued to market his "ministry" (which is also, by definition "public"). John has not shied away from attention, has he? The more the better. So why is it off limits to examine the validity of choices made by a public figure? Or the implications of his personal defeats? If a marriage is celebrated as a glory to... whomever, and I've no doubt God got the "glory" (whether He wanted it or not), then a failure to ask why it failed looks like the syndrome of denial on our part. A thinking person would have to look at JAL's list of publications and ask, "If it's as easy as pie to succeed, where did the recipe go wrong?" Was it mere human failure, or are the so-called "principles" worth a second look? John has my sympathies, but a hell of a lot more people than him have read his books, as if they were the last word on God's Word. And what if he's wrong about it? I'm more concerned about them than him. THEY really have my sympathies. Maybe John is working on a new title called, "Will the Real Me Ever Get Real?" Or maybe he's not, but at Greasespot, each in his or her own way, the rest of us are. Part of the process is to take a close look at the men and women lurking "behind the curtain," and at those foolish emperors who wear no clothes, and to mark, not avoid, what we see.

Utilizing cursory subtextual analyis, I immediately thought of another phrase that goes, @#$@ you! I'd stake my reputation as a linguistic whatcha-ma-callit that I have decoded the greatness of John's exhortation to the church at Greasespot.

I'd rather they abolish the death penalty and send those who merit it to a place like Harry Potter's "Azkaban," where there is no joy, and no hope, and not a moment's comfort or relief for the rest of their damnable lives. Yeah but that would be "cruel." Today, anything that fits the definition of "punishment" by society's standards fits the definition of "cruel" by a liberal activist court, so we get to support these monsters in a lifestyle which approximates a camp for wayward youth, and at huge cost.

Main Entry: 1pot·shot Pronunciation: -"sh?BR>Function: noun Etymology: from the notion that such a shot is unsportsmanlike and worthy only of one whose object is to fill the cooking pot 1 : a shot taken from ambush or at a random or easy target 2 : a critical remark made in a random or sporadic manner JAL isn't being "ambushed" here. We didn't invite him in for a nice chat. He can read and respond from the comfort of his own seat and in his own time. Neither is he being singled out at random. His Wayworld legacy is what it is, and he made it. His subsequent behavior, same. "Unsportsmanlike" suggests there is something unfair happening. Isn't he good enough with words to post here? As laleo demonstrated, JAL is as slippery as an eel (my characterization, not laleo's). What should he fear (false evidence appearing real) from Greasespot? There isn't anything "random or sporadic" about the posts here. They are on-topic, and concern a former high-ranking "leader" of TWI, as CES too, for that matter. Regarding oldiesman's quotation and mischaracterization of my post, my comment about Bally's was intended to draw a parallel between JAL & LCM. Poor oldiesman only has the one, monotonous strategy for defending TWI and its leadership - he changes the subject, or at least he tries. He objects to the style, ignores the substance. oldiesman also ignores JAL's belittling of Greasepot participants and their remarks, pointed out by Shaz and Wordwolf, etc. He loyally carries the TWI standard here at Greasespot. It happens to be a double-standard.

Doctors and lawyers can be sued for malpractice and lose their credentials. Clergy in those damnable denominations can be defrocked. A certain ex-Way "reverend" offers a few peremptory mea culpa's and it's off to the next cult. No Al Poole, I don't want "blood," if you should ask me. I would only like to think he'd be required to find a new line of work. As for your quote, "the true measure of a man is not how well he loved but rather how much he was loved by others," well that would include quite a rogues' gallery, wouldn't it? Seems so.

What a relief! I thought he had left CES.

Now I'm going to have to go look it up. I think it's a flock of ducks and a quack of doctors.

Yours is a rare gift Jim. And God undoubtedly appreciates the nod of confidence.

Many of our "leaders" were quite insulated from real life. While most of them didn't have a lot of money, they had the things money could buy. They had helpers, although they preferred to call us "servants," which is what a doulos is, more or less. Their needs were provided for. Even sexual needs, as they saw fit, isn't that the case? If one of the servants, or servants-in-training (Corps, WOW's, other assorted categories of suckers), didn't put out with the appropriate gratitude, he or she was often ripped one anew (known as reproof). Putting out had to do with your ability equalling your willingness, and comeliness of your members in particular. That was The Way culture, and leaders partook. If you became an inconvenience, inasmuch as you could not carry the combined weight of leadership and thee, you were cast like bread upon the waters, as food for ducks, not upon a fountain of living waters, but upon a broken cistern, one with quacks in it. John Lynn was once entrusted with many people's lives. The delicacy with which we are now entreated (here and there) to treat dear John is not the delicacy with which he treated others as Lord of Emporia. Should we ask Rochelle W. about that, who John set upon the road home, though still nursing injured body and bleeding soul from the infamous LEAD accident? Okay it was a trick question, because she's dead. Still she answers, doesn't she, even so? As a "leader," he made the tough choices. As followers we must understand the tough choices, and never show him the same "compassion" he reserved for some of us. Like I said, I feel sorry for him and hope he straightens his life out, and yet on the bright side is, he may be less apt to "lead" others to a similar ditch.

Wouldn't it be a flock of ducks? A herd refers to cows, ex10. For your information, there are people who put cows in giant catapults and shoot them into the air. These cows are now known as the herd shot 'round the world. It isn't funny!

More foggy than cloudy.

Here's a guy who has made his "living" for decades telling others how to live their lives - teaching, counseling, exhorting, reproving... leading by example? What's wrong with that picture? I feel sorry for him, and for all of us who, at one time or another, bought into the myth of "believing" as the key to abundance and victory. It was a big con, a confidence game. Wierwille sold the snake-oil but he didn't invent it. It's been sold throughout the ages. If it were TRUE, don't we think a lot of people would have figured it out centuries ago, and the world would be a much different place? I don't mean "faith" per se is the con. I'm not qualified to judge because I haven't got a CLUE what it really is. I mean this goddammed formula which misrepresents "faith" as the combined effect of commitment, emotional conviction and mental focus, as if they were somehow magical. When they work, they work on account of action which produces results. Sorry, it's not magic. Red drapes, my foot. It seems to me that life tries awfully goddammed hard to teach us that "believing" does NOT equal receiving, but when you're hooked on hope, you're just another junkie. It's hard as hell to learn life's lessons because "believing" tells you not to pay attention. They're SCREAMING at you, and you hold your ears and "positively confess" lies to yourself. Suit yourself. It doesn't matter whether you gamble on your shallow understanding of the greatest of ancient mysteries when you "believe" for your desires to come true, or on your shallow understanding of probability and statistics when you buy a lottery ticket. I hope John can straighten out his life. I look at the bright side. If he can keep himself fully occupied with that, maybe he won't be so busy teaching others the same nonsense that led him to his current state. He's been wrong about a whole lot of ...., and it didn't end with TWI. The moment of realization will be the beginning of wisdom. As for CES, or whatever they are called these days, he's better off without them. I hear Bally's can always use another over-the-hill jock with the gift of gab.