WordWolf

I gave myself 5:1 odds it would be Ah-nuld over Max. So, it was possible, but I wasn't expecting it. :D--> Now, if I had only seen that Travolta movie (it looked horrible, so I skipped it), I could jump in again...

A Piece of the Action James Earl Jones Conan the Barbarian I was going to link James to the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars Holiday Special, since it was a tv special in the US but was sent to theaters in France, but I think enough people have been traumatized by that thing as it is. Mainly, I keep mentioning it because it's cheezier than Rocky Horror, and Lucas has said off-the-record that his one wish would be to smash all copies with a hammer.

That was the God's honest truth. Comparing ROA 1988 to ROA 1989 was how I came up with my original estimate for 4/5 of the members leaving- 4/5 of the attendance for the previous year was missing-and more (like me) were missing right after that. You missed all the small crowds everywhere. Me, I went to see personally if all the second-hand reports were true. (They understated things, if anything.) I also went to raid the bookstore one last time, before I discovered that Christians have decent bookstores, too. Heck, Barnes & Noble carries a decent selection. The transparent appeals to authority, the absence of spontaneity among the attendees, the corps listening in on all conversations (one proving my point- he interrupted one where, earlier, I had said this sort of thing happened), the physical threats for asking questions, donna calling lcm "our spiritual leader" and "our spiritual head" from the main stage, lcm unable to tell that the distinction between "sonship RIGHT" and "sonship OBLIGATION" was entirely in twi's eyes and neither phrase was in Scripture, the transparent attempts to tug heartstrings, the mainstage appearances of every member of the wierwille family who could be convinced to attend, the prostituting of mrs w onstage to say that people who REALLY love her could only be people who would stand with her in the ministry.... I miss ROA 89 so much.

Are you saying that CT had one of the largest fellowships in New England? Hard to believe!! Not that hard to believe. Membership increases in an area are ONLY due to members from OTHER areas moving INTO your area. With an aging membership, states where people move as they get older will get more members. Ct is seen as a place to settle down and raise kids. So, you might see membership in a 5-state area migrate to places like Ct and Fl, say.

1) But who cares if their lives are ruined? twi didn't care-they still got their money. 2) Which, of course, is one reason more of the members were run off. This only concerned twi as regards the loss of their tithes/abs money.

Well, the whole "whoever wears the crown is king" thing is what led to this. twi endorsed whatever its president/mogfot said as if it was excathedra/holy writ. vpw looked among his followers, and chose the one who was most loyal to him as the one who was "worthy" to ascend the throne. That divine revelation was completely missing from this decision should be obvious from the results, and vpw WAS overheard to say it was his loyalty that was the determinant. vpw chose a man who lacked skills vital to doing the job right, who had been "trained" by vpw to be even LESS worthy of the position by inflicting his own worst habits on him, making him two-fold the child of hell he himself was. So, lcm's ego was fed, THEN he was given the position and people were told to follow him mindlessly. "In multitude of counsellors there is safety." (Proverbs.) No words disagreeing with lcm were allowed under any circumstances. One of lcm's stupid policies was to shove his own face in front of everything that had anything to do with twi. One of lcm's stupid decisions based on that stupid policy was to demonstrate his own lack of skill at "Biblical research" by making his own class on "Biblical research" and replacing vpw's class. vpw's class could have been improved on (like by using the originals), but lcm's incompetence guaranteed this would NOT happen. It was confusing, cold, and loaded with errors. lcm knew that two of the keys to all the money was the lack of outflow (the Dead Sea/twi is dead for that reason) to places where it would be of use and bless people, and the continued inflow of people giving 10% of their income. So, since he couldn't increase the money NOT going out (you can't send less than zero dollars to a place), he decided to increase his money by increasing the inflow. He attempted to accomplish this by doing two things: A) order people to give 15%, 20%, and more of their income (increasing to 15% increases the inflow by 50%, 20% DOUBLES the amount of money.) B) get more members, thus increasing the number of givers Since the numbers were always dependent upon the number of people taking vpw's pfal class (which also produced a one-time tuition), he decided this would be done by increasing the number of people taking lcm's wap class (which also produced a one-time tuition.) So, he actually thought people would be as interested in wap as in pfal. This was also wrong for 3 reasons: 1) the cultural climate had changed 2) there were other sources for this all over Christianity 3) wap was an inferior product However, since he foolishly failed to consider ANY of this, he said "we must have more people take the wap class". This could be done using 3 types of people: a) the rank and file (who had no confidence in that mess, those who stayed) b) the way disciples (whose numbers were shrinking wildly) c) the way corps (who were indoctrinated to "dont think-just follow orders) The way corps it was, then! So, he decided the way corps was going to be the key to bringing in more money, by getting more people to take his crap/wap class. So, he was required to make them FULL-TIME so they had time to advertise. Of course, it never occurred to him that there were no real ways for them to advertise his class-he thought his class was so good, people would line up to take his crap/wap class. ===== So, what were the results of this "sound financial decision"? -More income went out to the salaried corps. (Unless a lot more money comes in, that's a net loss.) -Not many more classes were demanded-nobody wanted to take this thing. (It was crap and still is.) This meant the salaried corps didn't meet expenses to "break even". -People who sat thru it ran like hell. (It was inferior to what conventional churches now offer.) This meant the wap class as a whole was/is a failure, and is unable to be used to turn people into cash-cows. So, money went OUT, and LESS money overall came IN. When the inevitable happened- the way corps all had to be paid for 2 weeks to come to corps week and the ROA- the 2 weeks of not bringing in income (albeit they served as staff at ROA, and for its setup)- lcm hit the ceiling. THAT's what ended the ROA. (That and nobody was lining up to advertise a bad class, which meant that its function as a wow/way disciple festival was defunct.) ===== So, the other result was, we now had leadership adults with lots of time on their hands, whose only significant trainings were in teaching Bible lessons and in throwing their weight around, who were all over the country. Even lacking specific orders, they were going to meddle in people's lives. (No, not every corps person, but too many of them fit this profile, especially after the 89/90 purge.) Of course, despite this being a failure of: A) insufficient corps training-which used to be lcm's program B) a crappy class C) absent support for the crappy class sent out as "damage control" D) an archaic structure that has been superceded by most churches E) poor management at the top ALL of which was lcm's responsibility, ALL of it was painted as failures of everyone BUT lcm. "People didn't sell wap hard enough", "People acted poorly at ROA", "those homos ruined everything", yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah. ===== The difference between massive stupidity and grand executive mass stupidity is this: they're still running that thing to this day.

"Love of money is the root of all evil." I read that somewhere.

Why in the WORLD did you think the numbers would be HIGHER in the 90's? Depending on who you ask, 1979 was probably the largest regular ROA, and 1985 was the last big get-together. Remember-it was all about vpw up top, not the Bible and God. It wasn't long after vpw was buried that things started to come apart. Depending on who you ask, it was due to one of two things. A) Once vpw died, "that whole network of believing" generated by vpw's brain was gone, and the Devil planted doubts in people's heads or B) the illusion of infallibility was gone, and JS' study on Adultery was censured for daring to say the Bible disapproved of adultery, and some of the top types realized that an incompetent was sitting on the throne. Further, the act of trying to suppress a Biblical teaching showed the writing on the wall to more than a few people. In 1987, a handful of top guys left over what was happening. Around that time, the POP letter came out, and there was some confusion and milling about. In 1989, lcm fired all leadership who didn't cower in a prostrate manner and lick his boots. Immediately after that, he called for an oath of loyalty among the rank and file as he had called for one among the leadership. In response to those 2 acts, 4 out of every 5 members walked. (That was my estimate then, and statistics later bore that out.) AFTER that, more people left in 1990, people who wrapped up business rather than leaving in 1989. Since then, no year has ended with more members than it started, nor as MANY as it had when it started. That's called "negative population growth", and it's said twi has been hemorrhaging members. For several years, they DID concern themselves with numbers, which is why they'd attempted to run classes with a very aggressive approach. That didn't work. "People don't care what you know until they know that you care." To twi, new people weren't sought because they were to be loved with the love of God-they were sought because they were a source of revenue when they paid for the class, and a source of CONTINUED revenue if they paid 15-20% or more of their income as "leadership" shook them down for "God's protection money" to keep them from being a "greasespot by midnight." So, all the cold machines approached units with the intention of getting the tuition for a class or 20% or more, and the response was that the people who were approached either ran, gave them a fake name, or slipped out as soon as it was obvious it was all mechanical and about the money. Now, twi can only mimic love and mercy, ape the form of love but lack the function. Even if they TRIED to love and tell the truth, NOBODY THERE KNOWS HOW. ===== It's like that scene in "Crazy People", when the advertisers realize that being truthful about a product was working for some ads, then they held a closed meeting, trying to come up with something truthful to place in ads in their own campaigns. They were so practiced at lying, and so unfamiliar with telling the truth, that they were unable to come up with a single truth for their ads.

But that was the POINT. He was faking an accent he didn't have, and trying to pass for Scottish-unsuccessfully. I bet Ford can do a CONVINCING Scottish accent when he wants to, and had to practice doing a BAD one.

"But what makes you think that the people will follow you?" "Because-unlike some Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent." (King John and Robin Hood, from "Robin Hood: Men in Tights") ====== Then there's "Ramirez" in Highlander, played by Sean Connery, with a Scottish accent, and Marissa Tomei in "the Perez Family." I kept wondering who all these "Jews" were she was talking about. Her "accent" consisted of saying "jou" instead of "you."

Uh, guys..... There's a copy of this thread enshrined in "Greasespot 101", except for the posts from the last 2 days.... BTW, Hello, GC. Hope you enjoy your stay. I recommend "Greasespot 101" when looking around.

Oh, and count on "negative population growth" as long as places like the GSC exist. :D--> That alone makes it all worthwhile. If nothing else, twi is disintegrating slowly under attrition since almost nobody is joining, and visitors don't STAY. Since twi continues to lose people due to: death, teens leaving as they are able to, and people sick and tired of being sick and tired (GSC crew, take a bow again! ) it's just a matter of time, and how many lives of those remaining "in" they can ruin to maintain their cushy jobs at the top.

I'd say, currently, LESS than 3000. When we discussed it before, the "5000" figure was derived as the maximum number of people that they could count-thus including children-at the time they derived the figure. That was several years ago by now. twi has been experiencing "negative population growth" since 1989 if not sooner. Let me break it down for the average schmoe. Are new people joining twi? I suppose, somewhere, someone is joining now. That's true of almost every organization active now. Are old people leaving twi? Yes. That's true of almost every organization active now. So, population is measured by 2 things: the actual number of people involved, and "population growth", which is a measure of how the overal number of people is moving. If the number of people leaving in any month is the same as the number of people joining, then they experience "zero population growth" as the number of members remains about the same over time. If the number of people leaving is LESS than the number of people joining, then they experience "population growth" or "positive population growth" as the number of members increases. They can lose a lot of people, but the number of people joining more than makes up for it. If the number of people leaving is MORE than the number of people joining, then they experience "negative population growth" or "population shrinkage", as the number of members decreases. They can bring in a lot of people, but the number of people leaving more than makes up for it. twi has been referred to as "hemorrhaging members" for about a decade- and that was after periods where 80% of the membership walked. So, before several years of negative population growth, they had 5000, including children. We're not counting children, so figure 3000 (members are older, so they're more likely to be settled down with kids) plus kids at the time the 5000 number was derived. I figure the real number of members is somewhere between 1500 and 2000, just as a "guesstimate", at present. ======= Let's look at their notice, in light of the utterly deceptive methods they use to reinterpret the facts (lie thru their teeth): "over 1000 people attended" That means "1001 people attended", and attendees include: staff forced to attend twi VIPs who attend and are catered to loyal members convinced to visit for the weekend from wherever local members browbeaten into attending (250 mile radius DOUBLED for the special occassion) total strangers begged to attend by the local members browbeaten (family and friends to the local members, but strangers to twi) children of all of the same All of that should easily exceed 2500 if twi was as big as it claims. "nearly 4000 more joined in on phone lines". There is no way to determine this accurately, therefore, this is a complete fiction invented so they can pretend they haven't lost thousands of people over the past few years from when they claimed 5000 total. This number's justification would probably sound something like this: "Well, there were 100 phone lines in use. We were told people were gathering for local meetings of 40 to listen in. So, 100 times 40 equals 4000." Does anyone who worked A/V know how many phone lines twi has? If we knew that, we could work out a maximum/minimum for people hooked in, if ALL lines are in use.

Well, I tried to figure out who he was without cheating. I did an Image search on Google so I could see his face. Still nothing. So I looked him up. STILL doesn't ring a bell. In the interests of keeping the ball in play, then, I trust no one will mind if I post AFTER looking him up, just this once. (I'm still using my memory for the rest of the link, though.) If this IS a problem, just skip my step, then. ======== Cherry 2000 Melanie Griffith Working Girl

Not sure at all. However, "Chainsaw 3.5" MIGHT be what you're looking for.

*looks it up* No, it wasn't "Scarface."

Supposedly, he studied all of Moody's courses and they have no record of him. Supposedly, he was on this basketball team and invented the hook shot, and there's no record of him. What can this mean? Maybe he was good with aliases. Maybe he was full of balloons.

Mind if I quote you on that, Groucho?

Are you sure any of us have SEEN this movie? I'm sure I haven't, except for the name.

Actually, typing "Actual Errors in PFAL" in the "exact phrase" line and "Raf" as the author brings it right up. (I never use the non-Advanced search function.) I missed this thread, mostly because I last checked in when it was about water. I got everything from the first few pages back then.

Ambassador One was sold???? Who's got the Motorcoach??? You didn't know they sold off the plane? It was costing them a lot more money than it was worth to maintain it. So, when they were selling off the properties, one of the first things to go was the airplane. They didnt exactly broadcast that-in fact, they sometimes denied outright they sold ANYTHING.

I'm betting this crowd will get this one fast... "You'd do it for Randolph Scott."

Robert Ridgely Robin Hood:Men in Tights Cary Elwes Robert Ridgely was the hangman in Blazing Saddles (he had a noose on the sheriff's neck, and the horse's neck) and the hangman in Men in Tights ("Want a blindfold? How about 1/2 of one?" "No noose is good noose!")

"Dangerous Minds." Michelle Pfeiffer's character, the teacher, says it. :D-->

a-nal-o-gies 1. a) Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar. b) A comparison based on such similarity. You may notice, he DID get out.....