Posts by OrphanCrow

21

HLC Letters and Documents

by wifibandit in

as i release a set of hlc letters and documents that i have received, i will add them to this thread.

also, in the future, any other hlc documents will be updated here.

when you see me update, it may be a new letter.

OrphanCrow

Laymen.

Giving medical advice to doctors.

They lack the expertise to evaluate medical studies and sources, but they pressure medical doctors into accepting their direction on what is best for the patient

19

Should Blood Transfusions be forced?

by Fisherman in

1.there are times when a doctor decides that the only life saving medical treatment -short of a miracle- is a blood transfusion.

in such a case, what should be done when a person refuses treatment on religious grounds and why?.

2. should a person be allowed to "mutilate" his body and why?.

OrphanCrow

Outlaw: WTF does that mean?

Eh...it probably has something to do with that sign language video

9

A nurse describes a noblood death

by OrphanCrow in

the jehovah's witness protection program.

my first clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that it was 7 am in the intensive care unit and getting to my patient was a challenge for all of his visitors in his room.my second clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that my patient was african-american and all of his visitors were white.now before we get all racially sensitive, i am very aware that many families are blended in many ways and many of us are close friends with people of all races.

however, in the hospital where i work, it is an uncommon sight to see a room full of white people at the bedside of a black man at seven in the morning.

OrphanCrow

The Jehovah's Witness Protection Program

My first clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that it was 7 am in the Intensive Care Unit and getting to my patient was a challenge for all of his visitors in his room.

My second clue that 'something was up' lay in the fact that my patient was African-American and all of his visitors were white.

Now before we get all racially sensitive, I am very aware that many families are blended in many ways and many of us are close friends with people of all races. As well it should be. However, in the hospital where I work, it is an uncommon sight to see a room full of white people at the bedside of a black man at seven in the morning. Just sayin'.

My patient was a Jehovah's Witness and was losing a great deal of blood. He chose not to receive a blood transfusion. Fair enough. I respect his decision. But I had work to do, so I asked that only two visitors remain in the room. Three men remained.

The oldest of the three, a diminutive man dressed in a white shirt, beige trench coat and glasses with 'flip-up' sunglass lenses stood staidly at my patient's bedside and without introduction said, "I would like to speak to the doctor". I asked my patient if it would be OK for the man to speak with the doctor on his behalf. He consented.

When the doctor arrived, the little guy in the trench coat said "We want EPO and Iron only. No blood products. Fingerstick blood samples only".

The plot thickened. I suspect that these men were from the "Jehovah's Witness Hospital Liaison Committee". or what I referred to as the "Jehovah's Witness Protection Program". Although they never did introduce themselves or state their relationship to my patient it was clear that they were at his bedside to advocate for his choice not to receive blood.

My problem was not with my patient's choice.

My problem was with the fact that the JWPP guys came off all self-righteous and pushy. No "please's" or "thank you's". It was clear that they considered us, the health care team, to be the enemy. At one point, another JWPP rep abrasively questioned, "Why is it taking so long to give the EPO and Iron? Didn't the doctor order it?" Sucking it up, I chose not to say "It's been 15 minutes."EPO" and Iron are not going to save this guy." But instead, I gently informed them that "these medicines would be given in a timely manner, but that they were not considered 'emergent' at this time."

My JWPP team seemed sadly misinformed.

Explaining that "fingersticks" are a great alternative to classic blood draws if you haven't already lost 3/4 of your circulating blood supply was received with incredulity. I had to show them my patient's white, almost translucent fingertips in order to prove the point. I still don't think they believed me.

"EPO" (as they referred to it) is actually "Erythropoetin" a building block of red blood cells that is normally manufactured in our bone marrow. My patient had no difficulty in manufacturing red blood cells. He was just losing them at a rapid rate. "EPO" may not hurt - but in the immediate treatment of profound blood loss, it was not going to help.

Iron is a component of our blood that helps carry hemoglobin (oxygenated blood). Again, without an adequate supply of blood, giving Iron is somewhat moot.

An incredibly courageous choice. My patient knew that receiving blood would save his life and that we were ready to give it to him but he chose not to receive it. Was it his strong faith? Was it his fear of being shunned? Was it the fact that he was not strong enough to change his mind? I will never know.

I do know that his decision was respected by all members of his health care team. I also know that the JWPP could have chosen to sit with him and hold his hand throughout the night while he lay dying in a hospital bed, but instead he was left alone, holding the hand of a health care worker, a nurse he had just met a few hours earlier.

Comments in response to this blog are interesting:

http://www.joanyspot.com/2011/12/jehovahs-witness-protection-program.html

26

In the yearbooks, why 'lands' not 'countries'?

by LoveUniHateExams in

why does watchtower say that the 'world-wide preaching work' occurs in x amount of lands, not countries?

well, i have a theory.

hear me out.

OrphanCrow

Londo: This was brought up at the ARC.

Yes, it was. I remember being a bit puzzled as to why Angus was pursuing that line of questioning. And then I did some unrelated work using the WT's old yearbook service reports and it occurred to me that Angus was trying to get at how the WTS had no respect for "earthly" governments - to the point that the WTS defines their own countries/lands with little to no regard for secular authority.

I even went and dug around in the videos and transcripts from the ARC to re-visit Angus' questioning but he had dropped it without pushing too hard. I think that Angus threw the hook out but the WT guy didn't take it.

26

In the yearbooks, why 'lands' not 'countries'?

by LoveUniHateExams in

why does watchtower say that the 'world-wide preaching work' occurs in x amount of lands, not countries?

well, i have a theory.

hear me out.

OrphanCrow

The WTS has historically used "lands" to refer to any land surrounded by water. That way they can count little wee islands as "lands" to make it seem like they have more impact than they really do.

The other thing that using "lands" does, is that it is a f*** you to "earthly" governments that define countries by politically determined borders. It is the WTS' attempt to lay claim to being in charge of the entire world.

The use of "lands" as a geographical determination reveals the WTS' arrogance in defining the world in their way and not anybody else's way.

27

JW Letter Writing Conspiracy

by freemindfade in

just had a wild conspiracy theory.

get your tin hats everyone.

what if this mass letter writing is all a bethel conspiracy to increase declining service hours?

OrphanCrow

This letter campaign is the GB's way of "going to war" - they are using paper missives to launch an assault on the Kremlin.

The GB views each letter as a "bullet" directed against the big bad Russia. It is a physical assault in the form of paper objects. That is why this is a letter campaign and why emails are not to be used. The GB wants a literal, physical attack to happen - of course it is just paper - but it is still a physical assault.

The GB is stamping their feet and throwing a hissy fit.

This will not end well.

10

RED HERRING

by biblexaminer in

if you have the inclination, call the number and ask ..."is russia banning "reading the bible, singing and praying with fellow worshippers"??.

can you say red herring?.

maybe they should add "feeding your children is clearly not criminal, neither is helping an old woman cross the street".

OrphanCrow

bibleexaminer: Why, exactly, does the WATCHTOWER have a picture of a church in there?
AhA! They are appealing to the mentally weak. They try to make people believe that Russia is shutting down the churches!

No. That is not it at all.

They are using the image to illustrate the connections between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin.

10

RED HERRING

by biblexaminer in

if you have the inclination, call the number and ask ..."is russia banning "reading the bible, singing and praying with fellow worshippers"??.

can you say red herring?.

maybe they should add "feeding your children is clearly not criminal, neither is helping an old woman cross the street".

OrphanCrow

"Reading the Bible, singing, and praying with fellow worshippers is clearly not criminal"

Of course it isn't...but that is NOT the whole picture concerning what is going on in Russia with the JWs.

If that is all the JWs did in Russia, there would be zero problems for them but we all know that the JWs did not, could not, would not, stick to doing just that - meeting and praying together, reading the Bibble, like other religions do.

No...the JWs had to go and try to spread their viral ideas everywhere - they couldn't keep their anti-government apocalyptic message to themselves - they had to tell everybody else in Russia that their religion was the only true one and all people except JWs would be killed soon by their god.

37

GB asks every JW to give Putin their home address

by MrHappy in

jw's around the globe have been encouraged to write letters to putin and the russian government.

they are expected to give their personal details on the envelope.

i appreciate that this might be normal when writing to your own government if they are tolerant, but is this not a bit strange that the gb want to give putin the address of every jw in the world?

OrphanCrow

tor1500: Does anyone know if other religions are being banned as well ? Is this story just propaganda from the org and it's not a big deal in Russia?

I believe the JWs are the only religion facing a complete ban. But they certainly are not the only one that has been told to obey the law in Russia concerning religious activity.

This has not happened out of the blue because Putin was upset when he was woke up early on a Saturday morning by JW door knockers.

The JWs in Russia have consistently, over the past two decades at least, ignored the law concerning religious activity and they have deliberately broke that law over and over and over again. The JWs have refused to respect Russia. Deliberately.

The JWs in Russia have been warned over and over again to stop breaking the law by bringing in banned literature and their website has been banned but they have continued to ignore that and have put up mirror sites so that they can continue spreading their anti-government apocalyptic literature in Russia.

As per usual, the WTS wants to force their brand of pseudo religion/politics on Russia and force changes by pretending to be politically neutral when they are anything but that.

Russia isn't stupid - they know very well that they aren't dealing with a religion but instead are dealing with something made up to look like a religion for political and financial gain.

For good background and details on the situation Russia and elsewhere:

http://www.forum18.org/

http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2261

In an analysis of available court verdicts, Forum 18 has found a total of 53 prosecutions (12 of organisations, 41 of individuals) since the new parts of Administrative Code Article 5.26 came into force on 20 July 2016. Only three women are known to have been charged (as well as two people whose gender is unknown), all other prosecutions being of men.
There were: 11 prosecutions (nine of organisations, two of community leaders) under Part 3 ("Implementation of activities by a religious organisation without indicating its official full name, including the issuing or distribution, within the framework of missionary activity, of literature and printed, audio, and video material without a label bearing this name, or with an incomplete or deliberately false label"); 35 prosecutions (three of organisations, 32 of individuals) under Part 4 ("Russians conducting missionary activity"); and seven prosecutions of individuals under Part 5 ("Foreigners conducting missionary activity").

Prosecutions have involved individuals or communities belonging to the following religious communities: independent Protestants – 18; Jehovah's Witnesses – 13; the Society of Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishna devotees) – 7; Baptists – 5; Seventh-Day Adventists – 4; Buddhists – 2; New Apostolic Church – 1; Ukrainian Reformed Orthodox Church – 1; and Salvation Army – 1. One village elder who permitted an independent Protestant church to display a banner at a village festival in the Mari-El Republic was also charged.

For anyone who wants to find out more about the situation in Russia, and how the Russian courts have tried and tried to get the JWs to obey the law - with no success, of course - this is a blog written in Russian that has several court transcripts, etc concerning the JWs:

http://roman142.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page_07.html

The above link is in Russian but it translates not too badly using google translate.

For everyone who thinks that Russia knows nothing about the JWs and that this is just a knee jerk reaction by Putin, I think you are quite mistaken by that position - Russia knows things about the WTS that we don't even have our hands on in the Western world. I have read transcripts where the Russian court obviously has had access to elder/HLC letters two decades ago that are still not leaked/released here.

27

JW Letter Writing Conspiracy

by freemindfade in

just had a wild conspiracy theory.

get your tin hats everyone.

what if this mass letter writing is all a bethel conspiracy to increase declining service hours?

OrphanCrow

Fisherman: Millions of letters are a lot of letters to shred

You're right. The Russians will probably just burn them.

Easier and less time wasted.