Posts by Rabbit

16

First Assembly of Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses-United State

by Scott77 in

jw
friends

hmmm..., why not organise it?

we have all the experiences in our group.

afterall, we are a significant block.

Rabbit

Come on down to Dallas for one our famous ApostaFests ! I attended my first 'convention' 5 years ago...it was the first one where I could stay awake. And have fun, too.

3

Politician fumes over "gay" elephant ...

by Rabbit in

the things 'leaders' get upset about.

ya' think they've got too much time or maybe hate on their minds ?.

i like the zoo keepers response below...'just wait & see'...i'll bet that works with all mammals -- even humans.. .

Which Blackberry product should I purchase?

by asilentone in

jw
friends

i am not so sure which one should i choose?.

I've been looking at BB for my business use. Does it snyc remotely with other programs on your PC? For instance, I'd like to comunicate with Quicken to look up/edit customers invoices...is that possible ?

3

Politician fumes over "gay" elephant ...

by Rabbit in

the things 'leaders' get upset about.

ya' think they've got too much time or maybe hate on their minds ?.

i like the zoo keepers response below...'just wait & see'...i'll bet that works with all mammals -- even humans.. .

Rabbit

The things 'leaders' get upset about. Ya' think they've got too much time or maybe hate on their minds ?

I like the Zoo keepers response below...'just wait & see'...I'll bet that works with all mammals -- even humans.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090410/od_nm/us_elephant_1

Politician fumes over "gay" elephant in zoo

Fri Apr 10, 1:34 pm ET

WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish politician has criticized his local zoo for acquiring a "gay" elephant named Ninio who prefers male companions and will probably not procreate, local media reported Friday.

"We didn't pay 37 million zlotys ($11 million) for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there," Michal Grzes, a conservative councilor in the city of Poznan in western Poland, was quoted as saying.

"We were supposed to have a herd, but as Ninio prefers male friends over females how will he produce offspring?" said Grzes, who is from the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party .

The head of the Poznan zoo said 10-year-old Ninio may be too young to decide whether he prefers males or females as elephants only reach sexual maturity at 14.

(Reporting by Chris Borowski; editing by Andrew Roche)

177

Should Pot Be Legalized?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i don't smoke anything but i know many that do--- some frequently, most infrequently.. personally, i don't see much difference between drinking alcohol and pot use.. should pot be legalized?.

Rabbit

Burplesofa and Elsewhere -- thanks for bringing in the current Science on Pot. Most people base their beliefs about it on hearsay, tradition, group-think, fear, psuedoscience...Hey!...that sounds a lot like religion...

OK...my answer is Yes! Legalize it. Like any other intoxicant...children shouldn't have access to it. Tax it?, sure. That's one way to get the attention of politicians, but, I believe folks should be allowed to grow their own, just like carrots, rosemary, thyme, etc. We adults are allowed to brew our own beers and wines -- tax free.

Also, I say treat it like and other substance that interferes while driving, flying, etc. YOU DON'T DO IT !

Here's a thread I started a few days ago: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/members/politics/173506/1/Marijuana-causes-Cancer

It's real science -- not hearsay guesses. From WebMD no less !

64

I'm disgusted by YOU

by skeeter1 in

jw
friends

posts on fluff are fun...i admit.. posts knocking jws are therapy...i know.. posts revealing wt lies, deception, etc...well, they help those who are still in.. but...... how come no one wants to do any grass roots, writing letters, etc.

to the governments about the jws?

ireland is about to set national policy for its hospitals and doctors on how to handle jehovah's witness patients.

Rabbit

As someone whose JW mother did die, because of the WT's blood policy, just like Skeeter's mom...I absolutely understand any hate that wells up inside her. I understand her anger when ex-JW's don't seem to 'hate' this shitty, ignorant blood issue -- as much as we do. And, I am not saying all of don't hate it, it's just it gets much, MUCH more personal when someone carries that particular pain around.

Having said that -- there are PLENTY of ex-JW issues, right ? Not all of those affect me like they will another. For instance, so far, I'm not DF/DA which affords me some access to some of my JW relatives. I hate the fact the WT still has a measure of influence & control over my actions & my mouth, but, if I push it too far...I'll lose that access. I'll lose those few opportunities to plant anti-WT seeds, to regain lost ground with my children and to refute, by my obviously much happier life -- that leaving the JW's is a bad thing. I am seeing progress.

Other ex-JW's have TOTAL shunning or have experienced Child Abuse. Others have lost close friends or relatives to JW guilt suicide (Me) or failed marriages because they question or no longer believed the JW Lie. Me, too)

Skeeter, I think you took the wrong approach to 'ruffle feathers', "honey works better than vinegar''?

I have written 'letters to the editor', about the blood issue, but, had to be anonymous. Many politicians & newspapers won't accept letters if you don't give them your name. So, right now, I can't ID myself out of concern the WT will look me up -- and I'll lose what is most important to me -- access to my JW children.

I may have missed it -- did any of the people with hurt feelings feathers notice that her mother died? Anybody try and understand that? If ya' did...I think it would be a little easier to understand where she's coming from, even if you disagree with the method.

52

Witness 007 returns to wife and meetings..I give up! Sorry no choice!

by Witness 007 in

my wife's been having mental problems since hurting her back at work...we split for 8 weeks {her doing} then she rings me and says she "can't cope and is lonely" so i return {the drama continues} she seems more stable, sleeping all night...what a change!

her mood had become alittle more stable.

she found a part time job, and has not been dragged off by security like her last job...much improved though she dropped 10 kilos in weight.

Rabbit

My marriage to a uber-dub started crumbling as soon as I started to question Watchtower thinkings. How dare I have clearly independant thoughts ! Well...to make a very long sad story -- short -- the result was divorce. I, like you, still loved my wife and tried to be true to myself and what I had learned about the Troof.

Nothing mattered. You know how JW's are viewed once "...they knew The Truth and turned their backs on Jehovah's Organization...". I was told I "...had a demon, probably from some stuff I bought a a garage sale." My 'then' wife tried to help me. She burned a bunch of my stuff one day. Talk about true love.

True JW's truly fear Jehovah and all His other invisible employees, including Satan and his minions, too. They are ALWAYS WATCHING THEM !

Can you say MENTAL ILLNESS T-R-I-G-G-E-R-S !?

Please...for both of your sakes...take her to counseling. You've agreed to go to the KH, right ? If she won't go (mine wouldn't) then go for yourself (I did). These very smart people won't tell you the 'answers', but, mine sure helped me sort out the chaos (like you have right now).

I'm very happy with my new life now, despite all the shunning from my JW relatives and some of my children.

I wish you and your wife -- the best.

13

OK, Where's Gumby?

by unclebruce in

jw
friends

ok, what have you sick bastards done with me ol' mate gumby?

.

and don't give me any of that abducted by space aliens crap!

Rabbit

I miss Msr. Gumbe'...he must not know how much we need him here! I wish him and his family the very best. I know he went back for the love of his family -- not for any love of the WT.

He's a good guy on-line and in real life. And...I think he has the strength not to fall under their spell again.

He's armed with his own doubts, questions and grief...and all of ours out here, too.

untitled

by Rabbit in

what a difference a president with an open mind can make !.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_gay_rights/print.

us endorses un gay rights textby matthew lee, associated press writer matthew lee, associated press writerwed mar 18, 3:08 pm et end .byline washington the obama administration on wednesday formally endorsed a u.n. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former president george w. bush had refused to sign.. the move was the administration's latest in reversing bush-era decisions that have been heavily criticized by human rights and other groups.

Rabbit

What a difference a President with an open mind can make !

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_gay_rights/print

US endorses UN gay rights text

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer Wed Mar 18, 3:08 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Wednesday formally endorsed a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign.

The move was the administration's latest in reversing Bush-era decisions that have been heavily criticized by human rights and other groups. The United States was the only western nation not to sign onto the declaration when it came up at the U.N. General Assembly in December.

"The United States supports the U.N.'s statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity and is pleased to join the other 66 U.N. member states who have declared their support of the statement," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

"The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world," Wood told reporters. "As such, we join with other supporters of this statement, and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora."

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the administration would endorse the statement.

Gay rights groups hailed the move.

"The administration's leadership on this issue will be a powerful rebuke of an earlier Bush administration position that sought to deny the universal application of human rights protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals," said Mark Bromley of the Council for Global Equality, which promotes equal rights for homosexuals.

"This is long past overdue and we are encouraged by the signal it sends that the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people will now be considered human rights," said Rea Carey, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force .

Human rights groups had criticized the Bush administration when it refused to sign the statement when it was presented at the United Nations on Dec. 19. U.S. officials said then that the U.S. opposed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation but that parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

According to negotiators, the Bush team had concerns that those sections could commit the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In some states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.

But Wood said a "careful interagency review" by the Obama administration had concluded that "supporting this statement commits us to no legal obligations."

When it was voted on in December, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration, which backers called an historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with anti-gay discrimination. It was endorsed by all 27 European Union members as well as Japan, Australia and Mexico .

But 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality — and in several, homosexual acts can be punished by execution. More than 50 nations, including members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference , opposed the declaration.

Some Islamic countries said at the time that protecting sexual orientation could lead to "the social normalization and possibly the legalization of deplorable acts" such as pedophilia and incest. The declaration was also opposed by the Vatican. {And all the JW Co-Popes, too !}

10

Women in Congo speak out about rape despite taboo

by Rabbit in

what's the old saying...about "...walk in another man's shoes...?".

wait til you finish this article about women in africa.

i cannot imagine their real life suffering, but, i know more than i did and more than i ever wanted to know...!

Rabbit

What's the old saying...about "...walk in another man's shoes...?"

Wait til you finish this article about women in Africa. I cannot imagine their real life suffering, but, I know more than I did and more than I ever wanted to know...! BUT -- to support the brave women, finding their voices, we all need to know what has and is happening.

5 Million people have died been killed in the last 14 years and almost nothing has been done. Where is the outrage over this African Holocaust ?

Too bad they had no oil, gas, gold or diamonds, eh ?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090314/ap_on_re_af/af_congo_stop_the_rape/print

Women in Congo speak out about rape despite taboo

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer Michelle Faul, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 14, 12:02 pm ET

DOSHU, Congo – Zamuda Sikujuwa shuffles to a bench in the sunshine, pushes apart her thighs with a grimace of pain and pumps her fist up and down in a lewd-looking gesture to show how the militiamen shoved an automatic rifle inside her.

The brutish act tore apart her insides after seven of the men had taken turns raping her. She lost consciousness and wishes now that her life also had ended on that day.

The rebels from the Tutsi tribe had come demanding U.S. dollars. But when her husband could not even produce local currency, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. When her two children started crying, the rebels killed them too. Then they attacked Sikujuwa and left her for dead.

The 53-year-old still has difficulty walking after two operations. Yet she wants to tell the world her story, even though repeating it brings back the nightmares.

"It's hard, hard, hard," she says. "I'm alone in this world. My body is partly mended but I don't know if my heart will ever heal. ... I want this violence to stop. I don't want other women to have to suffer what I am suffering."

Rape has been used as a brutal weapon of war in Congo , where conflicts based on tribal lines have spawned dozens of armed groups amid back-to-back civil wars that drew in several African nations. More than 5 million people have died since 1994. Women have become even more vulnerable since a rebel advance at the end of last year drove a quarter-million people from their homes and fighting this year left another 100,000 others homeless, according to aid workers.

Now some of the women are fighting back the only way they know how — by talking about what happened.

___

A campaign spearheaded by the U.N. Children's Fund is working with local groups to break traditional taboos around talking about the violence. They're using radio stations broadcasting in local languages, and more activists are getting to remote areas.

"Many more victims are coming forward. We receive a lot of SMS text messages and cell phone calls from women who have been raped and need help," says campaign leader Esther Ntoto.

Five months ago, U.N. officials began bringing together women to tell their stories to rooms full of local officials, community leaders, even children. One sign of success is that more men than women have volunteered for training to encourage victims to come forward and their communities to confront the issues.

Video footage of the campaign Women Breaking the Silence shows officials startled by the atrocities recounted. A provincial minister interrupted to ask reporters not to film a woman's face. But she took the microphone to declare: "I am not ashamed to show my face and publish my identity. The shame lies with those who broke me open and with the authorities who failed to protect me.

"If you don't hear me, see me, you will not understand why it is so important that we fight this together."

That woman, Honorata Kizende, described how her life as a school teacher and the mother of seven children ended when she was kidnapped in 2001. She was held as a sex slave for 18 months and passed around from one Hutu fighter to another until she escaped. She is now a counselor and trains others to help survivors of sexual violence.

One of the difficulties is the "huge problem of impunity," said Mireille Kahatwa Amani, a lawyer working at an office at HEAL Africa Hospital opened a year ago by the Chicago-based American Bar Association .

"It's difficult to prosecute perpetrators because they can buy off the police or a judge. There's no guarantee of justice," she says.

Still, with funding from the U.S. State Department, lawyers have interviewed more than 250 victims and pursued more than 100 cases. In 11 months, they have received 30 judgments with only two acquittals. Those found guilty have been punished with sentences of five to 20 years in jail, Kahatwa says.

Her big success this year was against a man who has been condemned to 20 years in jail for raping a 6-year-old neighbor and infecting her with the AIDS virus. Kahatwa says the judgment came just a month after the complaint was filed, a record.

___

Kasongo Manyema takes small, careful steps, fearful of unwrapping the cloth tied like a baby's diaper to catch the blood, urine and feces that has been dribbling from her body for 2 1/2 years.

She was 19 then, when men in military uniform attacked her as she weeded her family's cassava field.

A U.N. helicopter has brought her to HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, where reconstructive surgery could help her incontinence and the stench that follows her and thousands of other Congolese women suffering from fistulas.

Fistulas usually result from giving birth in poor conditions. In Congo, they are caused by violent rapes that tear apart the flesh separating the bladder and rectum from the vagina.

Dr. Christophe Kinoma, one of only two surgeons who perform the reconstructive operations in east Congo, says there's a 50-50 chance that surgery can mend Manyema and others like her.

"Yesterday I did five fistula operations and we have more than 100 women waiting here and who knows how many out in the bush who never ever get to a hospital."

Kinoma says it has become the norm for armed men to use guns, knives and bayonets to rupture their victims' bodies. Sometimes they shoot bullets up women's vaginas. Victims often are rejected by their families, contract HIV, and are left to live in pain and shame.

In December, he operated on an 11-month-old baby raped by a 22-year-old neighbor. During one week in February, it was a 12-year-old girl who had been savagely raped by five soldiers. They stuffed a maize cob inside her.

Also treated last week was a 4-year-old whose mother sent her across the road to get something from a neighbor. She was kidnapped by soldiers and gang-raped.

"An American doctor who was here just burst into tears and collapsed. She couldn't believe what the soldiers had done to this child, just torn her body apart," he says.

Kinoma says he may be able to mend the physical damage, "but the psychological trauma never goes away for some." The hospital offers counseling but has no psychologists.

"The 11-month-old I operated on, every time she sees a man, including me, she starts screaming," he says.

The 4-year-old was infected with HIV , and they await results from a test on the 12-year-old. "If three, four, five soldiers rape you, you are almost assured of contracting AIDS ," Kinoma says.

___

The trauma that haunts these children and women also affects those who help them.

Hortense Tshomba, who has been counseling victims for three years, says she hopes to give them the courage to return to their homes. Many are rejected by husbands and fathers who say the attacks have left them "unclean."

"We try to counsel them as couples. For girls rejected by their parents, we try to intervene. Some families accept them back; others don't."

When counseling does not help, HEAL Africa offers lessons in sewing and handicrafts to teach them to survive financially. She says rejected women who don't get help often are forced from communities and become beggars.

"Sometimes I have nightmares," Tshomba says. "When I leave after hearing all these horror stories, really it's like my brain is on fire. I have to listen to some jazz to ease my soul."

But there are successes like 13-year-old Harriet, who came to HEAL Africa four years ago. Harriet's parents were killed by the rebels who attacked her and then burned down their home in Rutshuru, north of Goma. She nows lives with a woman who counseled her at the hospital.

On this day, Harriet is so delighted she cannot stop grinning, a wide beam that's infectious in its joy. Her fingernails are black with dirt, but she is wearing lip gloss and eyeliner.

"Today, I got my results and I am top of my class," she announces, flaunting a report that shows she averaged 88.5 percent in math, French and English exams.

"When I came to HEAL Africa, I had never been to school. I was 9 years old. Now I'm beating students who have been to school all their lives," she says. "My teacher says I'm very intelligent, that I should go to school in the United States."

As for the future: "I think I want to be a doctor, so that I can help people the way these doctors helped me."

___

On the Net:

HEAL Africa: http://www.healafrica.org

American Bar Association : http://www.abanet.org