Trump was "the highest vote earner of any Republican candidate ever," exceeding George W. Bush's 62.04 million votes in 2004, though neither reached Clinton's 65.9 million, nor Obama's 69.5 million votes in 2008, the overall record.
The Cook Political Report, reports the election hinged not on Clinton's large 2.8 million overall vote margin over Trump, but rather on about 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
In state-by-state tallies, Trump earned 306 pledged electors, Clinton 232. They lost respectively two and five votes to faithless electors. Vice presidential candidates Pence and Kaine lost one and five votes, respectively. Three other votes by electors were invalidated and recast.
Posts by Terry
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21
What`s wrong With American Politics ?
by smiddy3 inwhat`s wrong with american politics ?.
96% of american people who got off there arse to vote, chose hillary clinton to be president of the united states of america over donald trump.. and the electoral college overode the will of the majority of the people who bothered to vote , and gave the office of president to donald trump who was the 2nd choice, an also ran , of the will of the people.. it`s a furphy to say that some larger blue/red states can dictate to smaller red/blue states or vice versa to rig the elections ,simply because people can, and do change there preferences in any one state whether it be traditionally red or blue.. both democrats and republicans are both guilty and responsible for the gerrymander that is the electoral college.. there i`ve said it ,.
nobody else seems to be able to say it how it is ,.
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Terry
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DON'T read this - if you are sensitive!
by Terry indon't read this if you are sensitive.. .
skid marks in our brain .
harboring bad thoughts is like having skid marks in your underwear.
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Terry
Amen, Bro!
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TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARY of going to prison. I was 20 years old.
by Terry intoday is my 51st anniversary.
of going to prison.. i was 20 years old.
i stood before district judge leo brewster and made a plea of "guilty".
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Terry
was a new boy: Why were you not pioneering at 20? If the answer is in the book, don't answer, I'll read it for myself.
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That's a salient question!
Back in 1967 there was "no such thing" as Asperger's or 'spectrum Autism disorder" or whatever they're calling it now. So I was undiagnosed. Psychology and Psychiatry, as you well know, was verboten by the Society.
I would explain the answer to your question this way. I didn't drive (I walked everywhere no matter how far or how long it took) and Pioneering required a partner with a car willing to drive way across town to collect me and return me.
There was none such person in the Congregation.
So, how did you get to the Kingdom Hall for Meetings, Terry?
My best friend (who inducted me into JW-dom) had parents who drove each and every meeting and they were my ferry. Amazing, isn't it?
Had they not happily done that very thing - I'd never have even been a JW.
The Brothers who became my friends had cars, of course.
If we went anywhere - they drove.
Asperger's is my only explanation for not caring about driving or owning a car.
Hell - I couldn't go out on dates without transportation (and consequently couldn't get into 'trouble').
When I was paroled in 1969, an ex-Brother donated to me (for Pioneering purposes) his 1961 purple Plymouth Fury. That's how I was able to Pioneer.
(That ex-JW had joined the Navy rather than go to prison and he told me he was "moved" to donate his car out of "admiration" for my courage.)
It was NOT courage!
Asperger's again. I was and am very stubborn. I could grit my teeth and do crazy things. My focus on what I am doing is scary. :)
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Was it 53 years ago this day in 1967? Or 51 years ago this day in 1969 when you were released?
I don't celebrate in my heart or my head the parole date.
It was the beginning of a terrible period in my life even, perhaps, worse than prison. (
Moot point, I assure you.)
I remember and celebrate the fact I have an event (1967) which serves to remind me I can get through absolutely anything life throws my way because I - a Momma's boy - made it through the ordeal of incarceration.
I learned about life, about men, about police, about Federal institutions - a whole stack of learning I'd never have gotten otherwise.
Life Lesson, you might say.
That is what I commemorate. -
14
TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARY of going to prison. I was 20 years old.
by Terry intoday is my 51st anniversary.
of going to prison.. i was 20 years old.
i stood before district judge leo brewster and made a plea of "guilty".
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Terry
My understanding is that LBJ President Johnson was afraid nobody would accept induction if it became well known you could avoid prison through the means JW's sought. We were "made an example of" and this comported with the WatchTower's plan of advertising our "purity" with martyrs of a kind.
One of the Brothers in prison with me came from a family which had money and he fought the prison situation as best he could afford. As I previously mentioned, his family hired the "famous" Hayden C. Covington. (Flat fee of $10,000).
Hayden C. Covington, one of the most influential figures in the history of First Amendment law. Beyond the numerous First Amendment cases he argued or co-argued in the Supreme Court, he also prevailed on behalf of the Witnesses in over “100 decisions handed down by various state supreme courts, and . . . also triumphed in dozens of lower federal court rulings.”
“In the mid-twentieth century, Covington handled as many as 50 major cases every year involving the civil liberties of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who frequently faced persecution because of their uncommon beliefs and often provocative behavior.”
Covington took over all Supreme Court appeals for the organization. While he had argued many cases before the Supreme Court prior to this time, Rutherford’s death left him firmly in charge of the Witnesses’ constitutional battles. During one week in 1943, Covington argued fourteen cases before the United States Supreme Court.
SOUNDS IMPRESSIVE!
Read on ...
In the middle of my friend Sammy's trial, Covington got a phone call from Muhammed Ali's people offering him a considerably higher fee than Sammy. $250,000!
Clients can fire attorneys but a lawyer can't fire their client. Covington, according to Brother Sam Salamy, asked to speak to the Judge in his chambers. When he returned the Judge sentenced Sammy to 2 years.
Covington told Sammy he had saved him $10,000 in fines and had cut the 5 year maximum down to 2.
Years later, Sammy learned that the 2-year sentence was on the books mandated from the Federal Government for all JW's (unless they were under 21 like me!)
In other words, Covington didn't even try! He hurried off to court on behalf of Muhammed Ali and pulled the same stunt. Ali was found guilty and Covington was fired. (He sued for his quarter of a million dollar fee.)
Ali hired better attorneys and the case was reversed, Ali never spent even one hour in jail.
I tell you all this not to prove any point at all. It's just cards on a table. Make of it what you will. If Covington had been in top form and had cared - his previous experience and success would indicate he could have arguably saved the day for a lot of JW's - but he was an alcoholic. So, there's that.
It is a matter of record that Covington was handling about 50 cases a year for JW's who had money! He pulled the same stunt; parlaying his fame and Supreme Court success rate for cash. -
4
Party Poopers (my Radio Play)
by Terry inparty poopers a radio play.
cast of characters.
(narrator) terry (a crow wrangler).
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Terry
PARTY POOPERS
A Radio Play___
Cast of Characters
C.W. (Narrator) Terry (a Crow Wrangler)
Z.K. (Zombie Apocalypticist) Robert has an exterminator business.
Shay (Tattoo Artist) roommate with Robert
Weird Al (curly haired) roommate with Robert (his ambition is to be way cool.)
Lulu and Sadie (Robert's idea of fun guests) (Laverne and Shirley style)
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NarratorIt is now about five forty in the morning and I have just realized I don't have the strength to write this in my Journal right now. So, I’m recording it instead.
Robert, a former roommate of mine, called and asked if I had plans for this evening.
Long story short- I rode over to his house to play Chess.
Outside Robert’s house is his giant pickup truck with ZOMBIE KILLER painted on the side.
In other words, expect the unexpected when it comes to this guy.
What happened next you’re about to hear right now - if I don’t pass out first . . ._________
Sound of auto arriving. Engine off. Footsteps to door and doorbell.
Ad lib small talk for Greeting.
CW and ZK end up at a kitchen table with a chessboard. Beers are opened.
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CW: "Hey, Robert, how's it goin'?"...
Z.K. "S'okay. S'good. Watcha got there, a new chess set?"
...
C.W. "Yeah, on eBay. I got cheated though."
...
Z.K. "Why's that?"
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C.W. "It's 35 X 35 centimeters instead of inches and there's no black Bishop--but there is an extra rook."
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Z.K "Well, I don't think in real life there are any Bishops who are black."
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C.W. "Say, Robert--did you get a haircut?"
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Z.K. "Un-huh. Yeah."
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C.W. "Your head now looks like an acorn - I hope you got your money's worth!"
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Z.K. "Nah. I did it. I used my huntin' knife."
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C.W. “I hope you’re joking.”
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Z.K. “In combat, you shave off all the hair because of lice, but you leave hair on top to hold your helmet in place."
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C.W. "You served in the armed forces?"
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Z.K "Nah."
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C.W. "I noticed your windows are down on your truck. It's supposed to get colder tomorrow. Maybe it'll rain."
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Z.K. "I remain skeptical of that. They've fooled me once too often."
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C.W. "Um,--THEY? Who are THEY?"
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Z.K. "Those tricky bastards. Oh, by the way -- I invited some girls.”"
C.W.: “To do what?”
Z.K.: “They’re comin’ over. “
C.W. : “To do what?”
Z.K.: “My wife and I are gettin’ a divorce.”
C.W.: “Which means…?
Z.K..: “When the cat’s away the mice come to play.”
C.W.: “So, we’re playing with mice and not chess?”
Z.K.: “Nah. We can do both! When’s the last time you had some fun?”
C.W.: “Just before I ended up in prison.”
Z.K.: “What? Yer lyin’--aren’t ya?”
C.W. “I wish.”
Z.K.: “What was you in prison about?”
C.W. “About two years.”
Z.K. “Nah--I mean what’d ya do?”
C.W. “I murdered a roommate in cold blood.”
Z.K. (Snickering and then groans skeptically) “Nah.”
______
(Ding Dong)Z.K. “That was the doorbell”
CW “Or a prophecy.”
Robert steps to the front door.
Narrator
I sat there sniffing my beer, bracing myself.
“Napoleon brandy in my beer? No wonder Robert is obsessed with the dead.”
Thoughts about what happened to Napoleon entered my mind.
(A woman’s voice. It sounds like Carol Burnett. Footsteps approach.)
******
Lulu: “Say fella, could you come help us get Sadie out of the backseat of my car?”
C.W.: “Hello to you, too.”
Lulu: “Oh--excuse my manners. Could you---?”C.W.: “My name is Terry.”
Lulu: “Oh--I’m Lulu--could you come help us get Sadie out of the backseat of my car?”
Z.K. “Sadie passed out. We’ll have to lift her out of the back seat and carry her inside.”
C.W.: “Hold on, hold on! Is there any reason why we shouldn’t just let her stay in the backseat of the car? What’s wrong with her?”
Lulu: “Aw, she’s got a ‘condition.’.
C.W.: “What condition is her ‘condition’ in right now?”
Z.K. “She got too high - that’s her condition. We’ll have to lift her out of the back seat and carry her inside.”
C.W.: “Is this WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S?”
(Lulu snorts)
Lulu : “Sadie ain’t dead. She’s just got a ‘condition.’”
C.W.: “But wait--hold on--why can’t she just sleep it off IN THE CAR?”
Lulu: “ Sometimes she craps her pants. Not in my car- no Sir!”
Narrator: At this point I poured more Napoleon brandy into my beer.)
CW: “So, if I follow your chain of logic here...it is better to have her INSIDE THE HOUSE crapping her pants?”
Z.K “Yeah, Lulu--what about that? You gonna change her diaper?”
CW: “DIAPER?”
Lulu: “Robert, she don’t want nobody knowin ’that. Why’d you say that to a perfect stranger?”
CW: “Hang on here just one minute. Just to keep the record straight. I’m NOT perfect.”
Z.K. “Nevermind all that - let’s go get her and we’ll work this out while we’re playing chess.”
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(Sound of voices and footsteps out to the driveway.)
CW: “Good god - is this a 1955 Nash Rambler? Those dents look like the surface of the moon gleaming under starlight.”
(Sound of car doors opening)
Z.K. “Lulu - is that you’re grandmother? She’s gotta be at least 110 years old!”
(Sound of snoring in background.)
Narrator:
Her very white skin looked like crinkled paper. Not so much dead as undead.
Oh hell, just use your imagination.
I don’t want to think about it anymore!
(Sounds of effort, grunting, complaining)
Narrator:
We hefted her every which way, yanking on ankles, tugging on elbows… It was a push-me-pull-you situation.
At long last, Robert and Lulu managed to drag Sadie the unconscious lady into the house.
I stood still in the driveway wondering how far I could run and how fast I’d get there.
___________
(Insert fake radio commercial)
__________
Hail Hail the Gang’s All HereNarrator:
Sadie was dumped on the rug in the middle of the living room like the body of a deer in a highway accident. Or if somebody threw their grandmother out of an airplane without a parachute at ten thousand feet, crashing through the roof onto your rug.
We all just stood there a moment and then shrugged.
We turned off the lights so we didn’t have to look at her and all sat down at the kitchen table.
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CW: “So, Sadie is who, exactly--your Grandmother?”
Lulu: (Offended) “Don’t be a smart ass! She’s my sister! She don’t look her best right now.”
CW: “I should hope not.”
ZK: “Shall we all play chess now?”
Lulu: “I didn’t come over here to play no damn game of Chest. I thought we was gonna party.”
Z.K.: “It ain’t gonna be no party with your sister all zonked out like that. Now my friend Terry here ain’t got no date!”
CW: (Alarmed!) “Wuh-wuh Whoa. Hang fire. Nobody said anything about a DATE!
I’m more than happy to leave the two of you to your own resources and I’ll just go home and clip my toenails.”
(From the darkened living room the sound of a crash could be heard, followed by a loud “OOF!” A string of colorful cuss-words and astonishment erupts.)
Narrator:
From upstairs, Robert’s roommate Shay (Sheffield) lay draped across the body of Sadie.
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Lulu: “What the crap! Get off my damn sister! Who told you you could get on top of her?”
Shay: (Sounding more puzzled than the human mind could conceive) “I tripped in the dark, dammit. You shouldn’t oughta leave your sister in the middle of the floor in the dark like that.
It ain’t my fault!”
Z.K.: “Yeah, Lulu. Lay off. Shay, allow me to introduce you--this is one of my girlfriends, Lulu…”
Lulu: “What do you mean--ONE OF your girlfriends?”
(Shay scrambles to his feet and straightens himself out; all the while staring at the woman on the floor.)
Shay: “Is she dead, or what?”
CW : “No, but I wish I was.”
Z.K.: “Lulu--all I meant was--I’m not completely divorced yet.”
Lulu: “You saying your WIFE is one of your girlfriends?”
CW: “Who’d like a BIG STIFF DRINK--if you’ll pardon the expression?”
Shay: “I for damn sure wood.”
______
Narrator:
At that opportunity Shay and I left Robert and Lulu in the living room arguing while we poured a drink and started a game of chess. The yelling went on for quite awhile.
I don’t know what time it was when the two of them came back into the kitchen and not before turning out the light in the living room once more.
Somehow or other, we ended up sitting around the table taking turns playing a really insane game Robert thought up. It was called QUEENS.
Z.K.: “Here are the rules: All the pieces on the board are Queens.”
(The sound of a loud crash in the living room.)
CW: “ Lulu, I think Robert’s other roommate just met your sister.”
__________
Radio Commercial
_________
_________The More, the Merrier!
________
Narrator``Weird Al” was a low-key throwback to the Hippie era of the 60’s. Al is only about 21 years old - he’s never even heard of Hippies.
W.A.“Hey! Dudes--did you know there’s a dead granny in here?”
Lulu: “That’s my sister, you asswipe!”
CW: “Speaking of asswipes--did anybody think to bring some--just in case?”
ZK: “Hey, Al, how’s it going?”
Weird Al: “Oh, hey Robert. I thought we were playing some chess this evening?”
Lulu: “She ain’t crapped her pants yet.”
CW: “Praise Jesus!”
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Narrator
Shortly after that a new game is introduced by Robert the Zombie Killer.
All the chess pieces are pushed to the center of the board, smushed up close to each other.
The game begins with strict rules of chess in effect!
I think it might have been fun--or, maybe the Napoleon brandy was having an effect.
(A loud voice from the darkened living room.)
Sadie: “WHERE AM I? WHAT THE FORK IS HAPPENING TO ME?”
Z.K.: “Hey, Terry, your date just arrived!”
CW: “Very funny. And by that, I mean NOT funny at all.”
Sadie: “SOMEBODY GET ME OFF THIS FLOOR!”
Lulu: “Let me introduce you to Sadie. Come with me.”
CW: “No, that’s okay. Where’s that bottle of brandy?”
ZK: “I’ll help you.”
Weird Al :(Voice filled with disgust and wonderment) “That’s YOUR date? Why is she on the floor?”
CW: “The landlord smashed the couch to pieces a couple of months ago trying to get rid of bed bugs.”
Weird Al : “Oh. Okay.”
(Offstage mumbling as Sadie and Robert enter the kitchen.)
Sadie: “Hi. I’m Sadie, I’m gonna be your date this evening...according to Robert.”
CW: “I’m afraid there has been a BIG misunderstanding about that, Sadie. A MONUMENTAL misunderstanding. Robert made some assumptions without discussing any of it with me.”
Sadie: “What’s a matter, too much of an age difference? I’m 51-years-old. How old are you?”
CW: “I - uh- I - uh - I’m WAY TOO OLD for a young woman such as yourself. There are laws against this sort of thing.”
Lulu: “He’s right. Good god, Robert--what were you thinking?”
Z.K. : “Hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t think he was THAT OLD.”
Sadie: “You don’t LOOK that old.”
CW: “Oh trust me. I’m way old. I’m a real party pooper.”
Sadie: “Yeah well--that happens to me, too.”______
Radio Commercial (laxative)
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END OF ACT I
Based upon True Life incidents! -
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DON'T read this - if you are sensitive!
by Terry indon't read this if you are sensitive.. .
skid marks in our brain .
harboring bad thoughts is like having skid marks in your underwear.
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Terry
Don't read this if you are sensitive.SKID MARKS in OUR BRAIN______Harboring bad thoughts is like having skid marks in your underwear. Nobody else knows - unless - they can smell it.We are all on a sliding-scale of "okay to unbearable."What's YOUR skid-mark?Well, whatever it is - GET RID OF IT.INDIVIDUALLY, we can do it.Is it in our music? Get rid of it.Is it in our favorite movie? Get rid of it.Is it in our humor? Get rid of it.Is it in our friends? (Are you able to get rid of them?)And so on ... and so on ...Step by step.WE CAN'T READ MINDS but it is in the mind prejudice begins.It is an attitude. Superiority/Inferiority two-sides of the same coin.There can be no acceptable carve-out for one group over another or it merely flips the script and remains with us forever.Continue to support worthless leaders who make promises they don't keep and you'll feel you've done your Civil Duty.But nothing is worse than virtue signals in an empty gesture.It is up to each of us to end our own skid-mark.Calling out a deplorable people is acceptable - but only if THEY CAN HEAR YOU. Hiding at a distance and calling out is just showing off how noble you are.We make a difference by BEING different!Serve as an example without polishing your social reputation by mouthing off "politically proper" rhetoric.We are surrounded by counterfeitsaints,counterfeitleaders, counterfeitinstitutions, and filthy and polluted entertainment EXEMPTED from criticism.Double standards are everywhere.It's sounds so simplistic and yet it is inescapably true:BE the best person you know how to be. Clean your own filthy room and stop pretending how pure you are POLITICALLY.Yes, my fellow human - we are all soooo great at telling other people how IMPURE they are but all the while - we have skid marks in our brain and everybody can smell it.Begin where the stink begins and the world will start to improve.
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TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARY of going to prison. I was 20 years old.
by Terry intoday is my 51st anniversary.
of going to prison.. i was 20 years old.
i stood before district judge leo brewster and made a plea of "guilty".
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Terry
Truth_b_known18 hours ago
Terry:
You are not alone. I recall when the Watchtower changed its stance on alternative service to compulsory military service. I saw pure pain in the face of an elder when this was said from the platform at a Circuit Assembly back in 1993. I think that was my first experience in waking up.
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Thanks. I was completely out of the Watchtower world by the time they got around to dis-fellowship and it - frankly - shocked me and saddened me and I wept like a baby.
Honestly, the worst part of this whole thing is how many people's lives I impacted in a bad way. My mother, grandmother, and grandfather were gutted by my imprisonment. I was a virus and infected all of them.
JW's are SUPER-SPREADERS of contagion of the mind.
I'll never get my 21st birthday back, that's for sure.
The only thing I can think is that my life actually began the day I was disfellowshipped. FREEDOM was a sad, sad thing ...until it wasn't.
Takes about ten years to free the mind but the tarnish never goes. Nope. -
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TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARY of going to prison. I was 20 years old.
by Terry intoday is my 51st anniversary.
of going to prison.. i was 20 years old.
i stood before district judge leo brewster and made a plea of "guilty".
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Terry
mickbobcat
I know elders who did hospital work instead of going to Vietnam. Back in the early 70s.
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TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARY of going to prison. I was 20 years old.
by Terry intoday is my 51st anniversary.
of going to prison.. i was 20 years old.
i stood before district judge leo brewster and made a plea of "guilty".
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Terry
TODAY is my 51st ANNIVERSARYof going to prison.I was 20 years old.I stood before District Judge Leo Brewster and made a plea of "Guilty". Refusal to comply with the Universal Training and Military Service Act.I was termed a "Conscientious Objector" during the Vietnam War.I'd never been in any legal trouble before in my life - so this was a BIG start to my criminal careerSince I wasn't an "adult" yet - the judge had to sentence me as a "YOUTH" under the Youth Correction Act.I remember asking what sort of "correction" could be expected since it was a matter of religious conscience and belief.The Judge made one of those faces an adult makes when a kid is a smart-ass."The maximum sentence for an Adult is 5 years in prison. Since you are not an adult - I sentence you to the maximum sentence for a Youth, which is 6 years."Technically speaking, it was termed an "Indeterminate" sentence which meant the Federal Correctional Institution's parole hearings would determine how long I remained locked up.Judge Brewster dangled a bit of mischief in front of me."IF at ANY TIME during your incarceration you decide to CHANGE YOUR MIND, send word to me and I'll have you out in 24hrs and you can satisfy your duty to Alternate Miltary Service."Here's what that means:
When I couldn't take it anymore - I could get out. I could simply go to my Alternate Service job in a Hospital. Easy Peasy, right?Jehovah's Witnesses, like any Conscientious Objectors, were not required to serve in combat, but only to serve equivalent time performing hospital service. Sounds very reasonable, doesn't it?Of course it is!But here is the rub! Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed by their Governing Authority to accept alternate service. It was deemed a "compromise" and viewed exactly as the same thing as having gone into the infantry and pulled the trigger!Crazy? Sure.Unreasonable? Certainly!JW's claim to not be a CULT. Does this sound like "not" a cult?
_____I was sentenced and taken immediately to the Tarrant County Jail for processing.My butt was searched for god knows what and I passed inspection, then put on an elevator up six floors to a long corridor of concrete and steel.I'd have to get used to the echo of slamming steel for awhile.I entered a large cage with 20 inmates who stared at me with the kind of expression monkeys see on human faces at a zoo.Ironic.I am six feet 4 inches and I weighed 165 lbs. It's hard to blend in with 80% black and Mexican inmates.Every one of them had cigarettes lit and thick smoke in that cell never went away. Cheap tobacco - not regular cigarettes. Roll your own stench.
_____I sit here this morning at the age of 73 looking backward through time at that 20 year old nincompoop who was me.I wasn't so much "scared" as I was in a state of hypnotic, self-willed "determination".I began an interior dialogue:"If I were outside and free I'd be standing or sitting or walking. So I CHOOSE to stand in here, sit in here, and pace about in here. I CHOOSE THIS."
____And that's how it began ...51 years ago this day in 1967.MyBrothers and Sistersin the local Congregation would never send me a postcard, come to visit, write a letter or indicate they knew I was alive.The day I got out in 1969, nobody in my congregation threw a party or patted me on the back.Several asked me, "How was college?"My prison sentence was viewed as a kind of sabbatical for self-indoctrination.The human mind is a mysterious place where anything can seem noble and courageous if one is committed to BELIEF.I went in wanting to "Do the right thing" and came out with a mind wrecked and dazed.I threw myself into Full-Time door to door ministry until I crashed and burned and had a quiet nervous breakdown.In 1974, I took my family and fled from Texas to California to escape the clutches of my "Brothers and Sisters" who didn't give a flying fork about me.None of those people will talk to me - my old "Friends" and Brethren view me as a "mentally diseased Apostate."They have been stuck in that cult for these 51 years.At the funeral of my (former) best friend (who pulled me into the JW religion) I looked at their hang-dog, depleted faces filled with weary steadfast obliviousness and I shook my head:*There but for the grace of *________* go I." (Name withheld to protect the guilty.
________From my book:
I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon (A Prisoner of Conscience in a Time of War)"Jail is like living at the bottom of a drain with the hair, spit and rotten teeth. Jail is for cheaters, thieves and molesters, bullies, sober drunks and dangerous creeps. There is no safe distance or personal space or intermission within the s-t-r-e-t-ch-ing elasticity of time. Jail is not for 20 year old virgin Christian boys who had never hurt a fly."
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Publisher's blurb:I imagine there are a great many young men and women who--unless I warn them--will go down the self-same path I took, wasting my youth.I WEPT BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON is a cautionary tale for unwitting travelers on their imagined road to heaven or paradise. I mark the blind alleys, pitfalls, side-tracks to nowhere and last horizon where sanity drops off and HERE THERE BE DRAGONS.IF I can stop just one more person from going along with the Watch Tower allure of empty promises and broken dreams, I can stop my nightmare from its eternal return. You see, it was too late for me. But, while there is still breath in my body, I have determined to raise the cry:PLEASE! DON'T GO INSIDE!For the casual reader, it is a historical recounting of the conscientious objector grappling with the Draft Board, FBI and federal justice system during the Vietnam War.The 1960's was an incredible decade in which all the old values were turned on their head and a youth movement unhinged the power structure of modern society. Totally at odds with the hippies, flower children, rock n' rollers, druggies, war protesters and existentialist poets--young Jehovah's Witness men were clean-cut, polite, squeaky clean oddballs about to be fed by their Governing Body into a meat grinder on purpose. My book reveals that purpose and the human rights violations wrought by men of hubris who ran the publishing business cum religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. The path from ancient Rome and early Christianity up through the centuries to the time of Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford provides an enlightening contrast. Each denomination, sect and cult insisted they read the same Bible and followed the same God--and yet--the results of their absolute certainty were ever at odds! How does it happen and what will make it stop? Read my book and hear my own answers. I WEPT BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON has succeeded in granting me peace of mind, at last. -
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Second-Temple Period Messiahs
by Doug Mason inwriting is a lonely discipline that is constantly beset with self-doubt and constant self-criticism.
that is the way it needs to be.. there are times when i need to reach out for help in the form of criticism from others.
this is particularly the situation with this material.. https://jwstudies.com/second-temple_period_messiahs.pdf .
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Terry
Simply from a reader's standpoint (not a scholar's) a more "friendly" opening is suggested rather than a mile deep plunge into the etymology of a word. By friendly, I of course mean "inviting curiosity" motivating curiosity and drawing the reader into investigate.
For example:
"Pouring, smearing, or sprinkling olive oil on your furniture or your priest or a king seems ridiculous!
Why would smearing oil on a person come to signify special selection by Almighty God? It's an odd ritual, is it not? Most of us who hear the word Messiah certainly don't connect any smearing of oil to its meaning. Yet, that's at the root of Messiah.
Could it be the absence of soap in ancient Israel that motivated the use of oil as a natural cleanser and beautifying agent which created an association of the oil with beauty, cleansing purification and therefore ritual symbolism was the natural result?"
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Most of the minutiae concerning etymology "feels" like it belongs in the margins for academics with boundless and ravenous appetite for the meaning of meaning itself :)
A reader's attention must be arrested by a mystery, an unanswered provocation.
"Were the ancient Jews the only people pouring and smearing olive oil and heads and sacred furniture?"
"How many Messiahs have come along over the decades and centuries? How do we know which ones were recognized as legitimate or illegitimate?"
"Where do we find the answer to history's confusing plethora of pretenders, poseurs, counterfeit Messiahs and how important is it to know which distinctions make such differences?"
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In other words, your "audience" must detect a grand plot and sort out the cast of characters (historically and religiously) provoked by the realization "Messiah" is in modern parlance tossed about casually rather than knowingly.
Where did this "murder" occur and how do we solve it?
This is not much help, I'm sure. But it is the only suggestion I'm qualified to offer.
"There's gold in them thar hills."
The reader who recognizes the presence of gold shall be strongly emboldened to become a prospector hellbent on excavating the rich vein of information you are uncovering.
Great job, Doug. Keep on keeping on!
