I saw your post at that other board. Those JW's posting there are nuttier than the average.
DevonMcBride
JoinedPosts by DevonMcBride
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25
Tell me why I bother?????
by asleif_dufansdottir in(i used to be a truck driver.
trust me.
i have the vocabulary).
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Mankind's Search For God
by rocketman inmany of you no doubt remember when the society released the book mankind's search for god.
i had always figured that, since there were questions printed at the bottom of each page, the book would be studied at the congregation book study.
till this day, it has not been studied, and in fact, besides a couple of placement campaigns, not much was ever really done with that book.
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DevonMcBride
That's the book my JW friend gave me when he tried to
educate me about the truthconvert me. The book was very vague about some religions and really didn't get into the what, wheres, whys, and hows of these faiths.Devon
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Does anyone else find this strange?
by Sadie5 inthere is a small threater(sp?
) downtown that is now owned by an elder and his wife.
the wife's dad is po of the congregation.. each week there is a country gospel group performing at the place.
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DevonMcBride
If you wanted to be revengeful, you could send a copy of this ad to Watchtower and others who might find this interesting.
Devon
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Part 2 The Greatest Story Ever Sold
by hooberus inscholar, visionary
acharya s has gained mastery in several religions, as well other esoterica and the supernatural, and has a number of students and devotees.
she is also the author of several books, including
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DevonMcBride
I just finished reading this book and found it fascinating.
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SHUNNED FATHER GOES TO COURT - AGAIN
by SHUNNED FATHER inthe watchtower has been trying to get my wife appointed as the representative of bethany's estate so they would be in a possition to sue the doctors, hospital, child welfare and provincial government.
i decided to get involved to prevent this.
after many months of legal battling , the wts thru in the towel and gave up on the idea.
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DevonMcBride
My thoughts and prayers are with you Lawrence. Go get em'
Devon McBride
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Venus Williams New Career
by DevonMcBride inhttp://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/5858007.htm
posted on wed, may.
venus williams already courting a new career .
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DevonMcBride
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/5858007.htm
Posted on Wed, May. 14, 2003 Venus Williams already courting a new career
BY CHARLYNE VARKONYI SCHAUB
South Florida Sun-Sentinel(KRT) - Make no mistake: Venus Williams still lives to play tennis.
She talks about the sport that has brought her four Grand Slam titles and $12 million in prize money with the wistfulness more often reserved for someone recalling a first love.
But this savvy 22-year-old isn't a typical myopic sports star, caught up in the belief the glory days will never end. She has seen the future ... and it has more to do with fabric and focal points than slams and sets.
Last November, Williams called a press conference to announce she was starting V Starr Interiors, an interior design firm based in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (The business name is a play on her full name - Venus Ebony Starr Williams.)
Since then, the firm has attracted clients, decorated a room for the Red Cross Designers' Showhouse in West Palm Beach, Fla., and generated a tide of controversy among the interior design establishment.
Why does one of the superstars of women's tennis start planning for her next career so soon? Is she ready to pack away her racket for a new career after losing her No. 1 ranking and three Grand Slam finals to younger sister Serena last year? Or is she just planning for the future?
"I did this because Mom and Dad taught us to be forward-thinking," she said, while sitting on the upstairs terrace her firm designed for the recent show house. "I love to be busy, and when I'm off the court I do things I love, and this is something I love."
This family propensity for planning meant she incorporated the business seven months before the press conference. She hired Bonnie Nathan as design director in August. Nathan, a licensed interior designer, owned Interior Space Affiliates in Boca Raton, Fla., from 1985 until this year. Before that, she had her own design firm in Syracuse, N.Y.
"Venus and I are consistent about our design philosophy and the philosophy of the whole firm," Nathan said. "Service is our motto.
"We are opposites on only a few things. She is tall and I'm short. She is black and I'm white. She's a Jehovah's Witness and I'm Jewish."
The two women met the high-tech way - over the Internet. Nathan posted her resumes on two job Web sites, and Williams responded. They had three hour-long interviews on the telephone before they met face to face. Nathan was impressed with the young woman, but she didn't know her true identity.
"I had no idea who it was," Nathan said. "She said her name was Ebony Williams. She had studied fashion and needed some help in getting her new design business up and running because she had other interests right now."
Williams needed more than some help. She needed someone licensed as an interior designer. Although Williams loves interior design, she has little formal training. She studied fashion design at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., enrolling in October 1999 and leaving after the fall 2001 semester. Now, she says she is studying interior design through Rhodec International, a London-based correspondence school.
"I haven't been back to the Art Institute in more than a year," she said. "I got tired. I guess when things calm down I may go back, but I also want to play tennis."
Williams' lack of formal training has given her foray into the design business a slightly rocky start. And it has stirred up some resentment in the tight-knit world of interior design, which is highly regulated in Florida. Anyone can be a "decorator," but you can't call yourself an interior "designer" unless you are licensed. And when licensed designers suspect misrepresentation, they call foul.
"We had a complaint based on a newspaper story that Venus was holding herself out as an interior designer," said Lee Smith, who investigated the complaint for the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design. Under Florida law, only those who are grandfathered because of work experience or pass a tough three-part examination can call themselves interior designers.
Williams, it turns out, didn't misrepresent herself and Nathan, her design director, had the proper license. The problem was the firm wasn't properly licensed with the state.
"They are now licensed and have everything they need," Smith said. "They have been completely cooperative."
Kevin Davis, Williams' attorney in New York, said Williams and Nathan thought all the proper filings had been done and all regulations were followed.
"It was a technical error and it was corrected," Davis said. "The board didn't fine them."
But the semantics game continues. In her promotional materials, Williams is described as a "certified interior decorator."
"There is no such thing in Florida as a certified interior decorator," says Mary Jane Reeves of MJR Interiors in Boca Raton, a member of the state Board of Architecture and Interior Design. "She can call herself an interior decorator. It's the certified thing that doesn't work."
Williams' certification comes from Certified Interior Decorators Unlimited, a private organization founded by Ron Renner. Members pay a $15 application fee and $295 a year in dues. Unlike interior designers, decorators are not required to have a college degree.
"They are required to be educated in interior design, whether it's a three-day, three-month or longer course, as long as they have a certificate in interior design and decoration," Renner said. "They must also pass a 40-question exam pertaining to every element of interior design."
Design director Nathan says the certification fills the gap between those who are studying and seriously planning a career in design and those with good taste who have a card made and call themselves decorators.
"CID (certified interior decorator) is not anything that has any professional meaning," she said. "We are very regulated in Florida, and we are aware of that. Venus was very proud to be asked to join in recognition that she is studying interior design and intends to go forward with the program to become a professional interior designer."
Whether she is talking about design or tennis, Williams is somewhat of an enigma.
The 6-1 1/2, 168-pound athlete appears tough on the court, known for her powerful serve that has been clocked at 127 miles per hour. Yet in person, she shows a calm, almost Zen-like peacefulness.
She used to drive a fancy sports car, a Porsche 911 convertible. Now she drives a SUV, a Toyota 4 Runner SR5.
While she is known to wear Versace tops and Fendi heels, in this interview she wore off-the-rack cuffed black slacks, a black top with flared sleeves and tied at a tiny waist. On her feet were black-and-white-striped flip-flops, revealing a bright pink pedicure.
"I just threw this on today," she said, giggling and flashing her 1,000-megawatt smile. "How I dress is how I feel that day."
What she wears is important to her and so is clothing design. She recently designed the Venus Collection in cooperation with Wilson's Leather. The line, mostly in black, includes jackets, blouson tops, pants, vests, skirts and blazers. Pieces sell for $200-$400.
A clothing line may also be in the future for Venus and sister Serena, who are close despite the intense competition on the court. Williams said she's in the research phase for the clothing line, looking into staffing and where to get things made.
"I work with Reebok and can call and ask questions," she said, referring to the nearly $40 million endorsement contract she has with the company. "It's like an apprenticeship in merchandising."
Although Serena has bought an apartment in Los Angeles, the sisters still share La Maison des Soeurs (house of the sisters), their $1.8 million BallenIsles house in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The four-bedroom house has 8,873 square feet, a pool/spa, outdoor barbecue and wooden gazebo. Although they have been living there three years, Venus doesn't describe it as decorated in a particular style.
"My house comes second, third or fourth," she said. "If a dog attacks a cushion, it stays that way for six months." (The culprit could be Bambi, Serena's pit bull, or one of their mom's dogs.)
The sisters have divergent personal styles. If Venus, with her clean lines, is Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena, who wore a skin-tight black cat suit at last year's U.S. Open, is Madonna. So how do they reconcile their styles in home decoration?
"After a while she says, `Venus, you do it.' She cannot choose another decorator or another design firm. She has no choice but to use V Starr. She was born into it," Williams said, giggling.
Although still touring for tennis, Williams has been spending some time working with clients. During an interview with The New York Times in January, she was checking out a swatch of fawn-colored linen for a client's shower curtain. The client was a recently divorced, retired manufacturing executive with a condominium in Palm Beach. Nathan won't give names or numbers, but says they now have "several clients and several proposals."
The firm is moving from Palm Beach Gardens to Jupiter, Fla., where Nathan lives, in mid-June. They have hired another designer and will have student interns, but they are taking it slow.
"Venus has a great sense of color and a wonderful sense of quality," Nathan said. "She is still studying and we don't want the firm to get out of hand or grow too fast."
Even though she's rated No. 2 in the world (behind Serena), she knows tennis won't last forever. What is her dream for 10 years from now?
"In 10 years, I suppose I will be finished with tennis," she said. "I would like to take a vacation, to go places and actually see things. I have never been to Africa. I don't have time right now. I can't take three weeks off."
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© 2003 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
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JW Burnout
by mackey inover the past few months i've had very infrequent contact with my witness friend for a number of reasons.
her social circle, my failed attempts to open her eyes, and the mind control all had a part in our drifting apart.
i've recently heard that she seems to be under alot of stress, to the point where there has been a noticable change in her atitude and physical appearance ( i guess she just looks worn out).
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DevonMcBride
mackey,
I have a similar story to yours with a JW friend. My friend suffers depression which got much worse after his baptism. I also tried to open his eyes about the Watchtower and since, we have very little contact. Last time I saw him, he looked awful. I'm afraid he may be suicidal.
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Researchers Remove Brains from Corpses - incl. a JW
by DevonMcBride inhttp://www.theday.com/eng/web/mktplace/re.aspx?reidx=0f8a1d5c-44b5-4179-98c0-2636fec87420
london authorities probe macabre medical finding.
researchers secretly removed some 22,000 brains from corpses.
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DevonMcBride
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/mktplace/re.aspx?reIDx=0F8A1D5C-44B5-4179-98C0-2636FEC87420
London Authorities Probe Macabre Medical Finding
Researchers Secretly Removed Some 22,000 Brains From CorpsesBy SARAH LYALL
Published on 5/13/2003London— Nothing about Cyril Isaacs' death was easy, from the way he carried it out — hanging himself with the cord from an electric kettle — to the distress that his widow, Elaine, felt over the authorities' insistence on performing an autopsy.
But that was not the end of it. Thirteen years later, in 2000, Elaine Isaacs' inadvertent discovery that her husband's brain had been removed and handed over to researchers touched off a grim and far-reaching investigation into the fate of the brains of the dead.
On Monday, the government announced that as many as 22,000 brains had been removed, most without relatives' permission, from people who died between 1970 and 1999.
The rationale was research: research into sickness, research into the functions of the brain and research into depression and mental illness. So eager were officials to get hold of new brains for their studies that in one case, the report said, a hospital mortician was paid about $16 for each fresh brain he provided.
Removing organs and tissues from corpses without relatives' consent was explicitly outlawed in 1999, after an earlier scandal at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool. In that investigation, researchers were found to have removed and kept the organs of 3,500 children who had died at the hospital, returning the bodies to the families without revealing that they were incomplete.
The report on the brain investigation by Dr. Jeremy Metters, the country's Inspector of Anatomy, concluded that there was a possibility that a brain could have been taken from anyone on whom an autopsy was carried out by a hospital or a coroner from 1961 to 1999. Metters made 32 recommendations, calling, among other things, for greater openness in planning and carrying out autopsies so that relatives were apprised of the option of organ donation.
“There are a lot of people who would give their consent for research on the brains of their relatives,” he said. “It would be a tragedy if my report was to undermine lawful post-mortem research that has the full consent of relatives.”
Sir Liam Donaldson, the country's chief medical officer, emphasized that the policy in the National Health Service had been tightened considerably since the incidents described in the report.
“Removing organs or tissues at post-mortem examination without lawful authority is an affront to families who have lost a loved one,” Donaldson told reporters. “I can assure them and other families that since the time of the activities described in this report, the practice of routine retention and use of organs and tissue without consent is no longer acceptable practice” in the National Health Service.
Metters' report chronicles the fights of a number of families to find out what happened to the brains of their deceased relatives.
In the case of David Webb, a depressive who said he was going for a walk and was found the next morning asphyxiated in his car with the exhaust still running, his widow emphasized to officials at the time that as a Jehovah's Witness, Webb would have objected to having his organs used for transplants or research.
Webb died in 1988. Thirteen years later, after reading about the Alder Hey scandal, his widow began making inquiries about his organs. She received a letter from her local hospital, in Cambridge, saying: “With the exception of the brain, all organs were returned to the body prior to the funeral.”
She later learned that the brain, meant to be used for research into depression, was instead being stored in a deep freezer.
But it was the long campaign of Elaine Isaacs, an Orthodox Jew incensed that the treatment of her husband's body had violated the family's religious beliefs, that prompted the government's investigation.
She discovered in April 2000 what had happened as she read through correspondence about his medical care. It turned out that researchers had not even used her husband's brain but instead had incinerated it in 1993.
A large section of the report focused on the behavior of medical officials in Manchester, where the Isaacs family lived, in the 1980s and early 1990s, when a great many brains were taken.
“The practice of the coroner, his officers, pathologists and researchers from Manchester University led to the unlawful and unethical removal of Cyril Isaacs' brain, and the brains of many others, including vulnerable mental health patients,” Elaine Isaacs said in a statement. “Action must be taken to ensure such events cannot happen again, so that our suffering, and that of other families, is not in vain.”
Advocates for the mentally ill said they were horrified at the disclosures. Cliff Prior, the chief executive of Rethink, a mental health charity, said that the report was “a shocking indictment of the way people with severe mental illness and their families have been treated for decades.”
He added: “It is no longer acceptable and never has been for people to be treated with such a total lack of dignity and respect.”
At the same time, Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of Sane, another mental health charity, said that while it was essential to get permission from families before keeping brains for research, the work carried out using brains was vital to finding treatments for mental disorders.
“Our concern is that the emotion surrounding this and previous inquiries has already almost killed post-mortem research into illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression,” she said in a statement.
She added, “We would call for a revival of organized brain banks and systems such as donor cards so that those who suffer now are encouraged to leave their brains to prevent suffering in the future.”