aligot ripounsous

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Posts by aligot ripounsous

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  23

  ...Happy Birthday "Purple Sofa"..

  by OUTLAW in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  purple sofa... .

  ...................... ...outlaw.

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  aligot ripounsous

  Such a shame time flies that fast , is it already one year since your "I made it !" thread ? Happy birthday, Purps.
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  25

  Are they really closing down branches in Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guyana ?

  by aligot ripounsous in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just got this information on the phone, from a local jw family member : the society is definitely downsizing its worldwide institutional network and they intend to disband their bethels in the three french overseas departements of martinique, guadeloupe an french guyana.

  i've not heard about the fourth departement la reunion in the indian ocean but i gather that they might go the same way there.. i wonder , what about the decent amount of money i donated to them in order to build one of those bethels , is it bound to be siphoned off to brooklyn ?

  objection, that was not included in the deal.

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  aligot ripounsous

  I wonder if this has to do with the French government eliminating the Watchtower's tax exempt status.

  As you probably know, the French tax department asked in 1998 the former association Les TJ de France (which wasn't registered as a religious association at that time) a levy of 60% on all the donations in cash they had received between 1992 an 1996. In theory, that measure was merely the enforcement of the law but in fact it has never been applied to other associations and it is quite discriminatory against JWs. The levy amounts to 45 million €. The association has lost all its successive appeals before the French courts and has paid, so far, 5 million €, but in 2005 they put the case before the European court of human rights, where it is still pending. Now, well informed jurists within the French government think that the latter might lose the case, on the ground of breaching equal rights of french associations regarding taxes. So the Government is seeking to reach an agreement with the JW association.

  I don't think this has anything to do with overseas bethels being closed down. Those branches are simply done away with because they lack the contributive basis of the local witnesses to support their own bethel staff and building maintenance. The increase in the number of JWs in these regions (as in many european countries) is due to foreign input. The new members are not so well off as the local French witnesses, who now don't contribute so much as they used to.
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  25

  Are they really closing down branches in Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guyana ?

  by aligot ripounsous in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just got this information on the phone, from a local jw family member : the society is definitely downsizing its worldwide institutional network and they intend to disband their bethels in the three french overseas departements of martinique, guadeloupe an french guyana.

  i've not heard about the fourth departement la reunion in the indian ocean but i gather that they might go the same way there.. i wonder , what about the decent amount of money i donated to them in order to build one of those bethels , is it bound to be siphoned off to brooklyn ?

  objection, that was not included in the deal.

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  aligot ripounsous

  I just got this information on the phone, from a local JW family member : The society is definitely downsizing its worldwide institutional network and they intend to disband their bethels in the three French overseas départements of Martinique, Guadeloupe an French Guyana. I've not heard about the fourth département La Réunion in the Indian ocean but I gather that they might go the same way there.

  I wonder , what about the decent amount of money I donated to them in order to build one of those bethels , is it bound to be siphoned off to Brooklyn ? Objection, that was not included in the deal.
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  19

  Have you ever googled yourself?

  by keyser soze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just to see what information is out there on you?

  i did, and it was quite disturbing.

  it turns out i've been arrested for attempted murder.

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  aligot ripounsous

  An homonym of me comes first at the top as an histologist who lived 100 years ago. I rank second, many pages behind.
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  39

  Whats the weridst thing youv'e ever seen on the platform?

  by highdose in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  apart from a member of the gb of course.... i've personly seen a brother gesturing so much he sent the mic stand flying!.

  another who opened his mouth to speak and burped loudly into the mic instead!.

  any others?.

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  aligot ripounsous

  Not that it was weird, but I remember the audience being quite interested by tits pointing sharply through the blouse of a young pretty emotional sister who was giving a KM demonstration.
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  16

  The elders of the '80s are retiring

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was catching up on news with a friend of mine from my old hall - a few of the elders have stepped down and some have retired.. these are men who were in their 30's during the 1980's when i was very young - now they are retiring or facing retirement.. i sometimes wonder how they feel after working all those years only to wake up and realize that their working lives are over.. do they ask themselves: what's happened?

  where's armaggedon?

  the day of reckoning has come - the elders who were 30 in 1980 are now 60 years old.

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  aligot ripounsous

  That is happening in my wife's congregation. They were already very few of them, some having been drained away by foreign speaking (chinese, Korean) groups (totally useless, BTW). Two remaining ones, now in their seventies, are moving away to places of retirement in their country houses, they were the two most open minded. Among the two who remained, who were the younger ones, one got a nervous breakdown and had to step down as an elder (was the one who kicked me out). The one who is left hardly understands what he reads. I suspect that he is the one who, after having gotten the CO visit his study group, was at the origin of the suppression of these groups, his group was a real joke, the CO's report to the branch must have been alarming and desperate. All that the congregation now has as elder is this bloke, I wish the members good luck for the years to come.
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  48

  Friends, when you make very long posts, please do make paragraphs or

  by asilentone in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i will not read them.

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  aligot ripounsous

  I 'm not concerned by the remark as my posts are shorter and shorter
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  85

  Leolaia: Where is your story?

  by pirata in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i looked through your posts but couldn't find your life story.

  have you written it?.

  i would love to read your progression from/through jw to avid scholar :).

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  aligot ripounsous

  Thank you Leolaia for clinging to this forum, we do need your erudition. I bet we are many on here who have made a compilation of your so interesting and learnt articles about the cross, book of Henoch, etc. Thanks again.
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  44

  Thousands of people have come and gone from this site....is this part of the healing process???

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i see alot of new names here lately and if you look at the log on names here there are thousands who have moved on....every 2 years the posters change.....some vent and leave, others stay on for years.

  i guess moving on with your life is a good thing, i think this site helps...any thoughts?.

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  aligot ripounsous

  I've never been a prolific poster but when I started on JWD I was still attending meetings, so I was able to give first hand witness about what I was hearing, readind and thinking during these meetings, but as time has gone by I've felt that I had said about everything I wanted to say and I don't feel for repeating the same things again and again. I still see JWN as a good source of information about what's going on in the WT micro world, telling myself, though, that this organisation is not worth the time I spend inquiring about its pettiness.
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  57

  In the past, FAKE newspaper coverage of WT "International Conventions" in the US

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  many people that post or lurk here at jwn are too young to remember some of the huge international conventions jws held many years ago, but probably have seen impressive photos such as of the 1958 eight-day convention held simultaneously at new yorks yankee stadium and polo grounds.

  especially remarkable was the tremendous newspaper coverage of that assembly and other special conventions held in the 1940s and 50s in the united states.

  yesterday, when i downloaded somebodys old scrapbook full of long-ago newspaper articles, http://www.archive.org/details/watchtowernewsscrapbook,reporting on jehovahs witnesses so-called international conventions, i couldnt help but remember what i wrote regarding extraordinary newspaper convention coverage in my www.freeminds.org article, how jehovahs witnesses watchtower religion impacted my family history, part 3 and thought id share the information here on jwn for those who are not familiar with how such wonderful coverage came about.

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  aligot ripounsous

  I remember popular English papers being sold outside Twickenham stadium, around 1978, with such front page large headline as "JWS TAKE THE PLUNGE" and JWs all exited buying those papers at the end of the assembly thinking, as Barbara mentioned, what a wonderful witness was given to outsiders.