Jim

So VPW arose from the dead in 1997? :) Seriously, my explaination wasn't intended as a chronological order of things, just an indication of VPW's lack of will to continue to keep the board stuffed with Wierwilles.

It doesn't belong to anyone. It belongs to the corporation. No different from IBM or Ford.

That's the beauty of it. Nobody is a stakeholder. Sure, we gave them millions, but problem is that we gave them the money. We didn't demand representation on the board and VPW most assuredly did not want us to have representation. We have no contract with them and no legal recourse to control them. And VPW was pretty clear about letting us know that this is the way it was.

Nope, it doesn't work that way. A non-profit has to stay a non-profit forever. The only thing that can be done is to give the non-profit organization to a similar non-profit organization. Now the property can be sold, like Rome City and Emporia were. But the money still has to stay in the non-profit corporation. It can't go to the investors because there aren't any. As to the copyrights and trademarks, they are no different from any other asset the non-profit owns. They belong to TWI and TWI can enforce them. Just like the Catholics can trademark Knights of Columbus, etc.

There are no shareholders in a non-profit corporation. The whole point of a non-profit is that it gets tax advantages in return for not giving profits to investors/owners.

Here's the short answer... The Way International was granted non-profit tax exempt status many years ago. VP and Uncle Harry gave their share of the Wierwille property to The Way. I understand that brother Ruben did not and was bought out by The Way. Once the property belonged to The Way, the Wierwille family had no direct control over it. The Way International is not controlled by the Wierwille family because they lost majority control of the Board of Directors. For whatever reason, VPW did not choose to continue to appoint family members to the board after Uncle Harry and Don. He could have and he could have charged the family members to keep control in the family. He didn't or couldn't, for reasons unknown to me. Understand that even the board of directors are quite restricted on what they can do with the assets of TWI. They can't just cash it out and keep the money. They can just let it idle along and pay themselves very comfortable paychecks.

And on the same note... "Everybody's welcome at The Way" Now it might have been Howard's trademark, but close enough for everyone but Oldiesman

"You can't go beyond what you're taught" My personal favorite. My dog goes way beyond what he's taught. "We don't use people. We love people and use things" No comment necessary for this crowd. Please add more...

You know, I've always been perturbed with VPW's contention that we can follow his rules and get back to "the God-breathed Word". Knowing a tiny bit about information theory, I know that once information is lost, it's lost. And no amount of fiddling will bring it back. He give us no reasoned argument why his method should be considered reliable, which I find somewhat incredible given his non-stop rants about upholding "the accuracy of God's Word".

I'm sure 100,000 people sat through the class. Just not 100,000 unique people. I must have sat through it 15 times.

Anyone seen Galen lately? I believe he has a PFAL tape set and could give us an authoritative answer.

I remember that night because I was in Reno. Two other believers and I had driven up from Oakland that afternoon. It was indeed snowing. I spent most of the night driving home over Sierras in it, went to work the next morning after two hours sleep and damn near destroyed a $2000 computer because of my fatigue. I don't doubt that Howard just looked out the window and said, "Nothin's fly'n tonight, let's stay here". OTOH, pilots fly in snowstorms all the time, particularly Alaska Airlines which would have been the best ride from Reno to Seattle.

Since this important question won't go away, I thought I'd put it to a vote. I lean towards 4 or 5 myself.

Look at the bright side of it, Ham. We've lived long enough to see it and wise enough to sneer at it

Definitely. Even though I was no more than a non-corps staffer, it was clear that VPW's presence at HQ was considered something of an annoyance by the cabinet. They had their agenda and goals and didn't particularly like their peaceful and orderly routine disrupted by VP's edicts.

LOL. We all did see it in the original. Seriously, I don't know whether to laugh, cry or smirk. And there's worse things to do with your life than working on a farm and reading the Bible for a year. But it's just so creepy...

What makes you think that non pastors don't have to deal with these issues? In the past 30 years I've dealt with and consoled friends, relatives and employees on every one of these issues. Granted, not on a daily basis but still these things come up.

Cheap fans. My company makes thin clients (little tiny desktop machines that can run on 12 volts DC). Just the other day I had to decide whether to use $.50 fans or $6.00 fans. The $.50 fans will behave as you described, the $6.00 fans will last forever. BTW, the pricing is for fans in 100-500 quantities and does not relate to what you would pay. The $6.00 fan would actually be about $32.00 in single quantity.

Operation Clambake

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." -George Orwell

Call me a grumpy old bastard, but they are all suspect until they prove themselves worthy of the calling.

Notta, I gotta ask, What in the world would take 300 hours of typing a week?

I'm thinking carnival. There's surely enough clowns and hucksters to go around.

Set up bunks in the back of the OSC for undocumented workers and put them on grounds and kitchen duty.