Posts by Juan Viejo2

8

Anybody near Los Angeles California?

by hardtobeme in

is there anyone here currently living near la?

if so, can you send me a message?.

i wish i can meet others like me, that have woken up.. thanks!.

Juan Viejo2

There is a meetup group in south Los Angeles (Downey).

http://exjwslosangeles.org

Good folks and still relatively active. Well worth investigating.

JV

10

JW.org Kiosks whats up with these? Where did this idea come?

by Crazyguy in

has anyone seen these in their area.

they are kiosks, small buildings either inside an area of a larger building like a mall or outside by themselves maybe on a major street.

not sure whats all in them but from what i can gather there a bigger fancier version of the book shelf on wheels that is so popular now.

Does anyone know where one or more of these can be found in the USA? Knowing the price of land and clear space in downtown areas in most cities, these places must have to pay horrific rental fees. It's one thing to roll in a temporary stand and set up a card table in a public square, but to put up a semi-permanent kiosk in any major downtown area in a city must be prohibitively expensive.

JV

28

Brother Knorr's Cadillac and other secret perks

by tim hooper in

back when i was a wee lad, my dad told me that the brothers in brooklyn had voted to purchase a cadillac motor car for the sole use of the then president, nathan h knorr.

he'd got this information from the london bethel, him being a chum of the then branch overseer, pryce hughes and his pal ron drage.

religious leaders of non-profit sects are supposed to take a vow of poverty!.

Juan Viejo2

I owned several Cadillacs in my working years. Why? Because I needed the room inside and in the trunk they provided. i had three daughters and a step-daughter and we all traveled together on vacations and other trips. I also had a middle management job with a public utility and was expected to have a car that I could use to take high management people to lunch and to meetings. I usually owned one that was 2 to 4 years old because I could not afford a new one.

But the cars I loved to drive were my 1974 Datsun 260z and my 1981 Toyota Corolla. Those were good cars and fun to drive. The Caddies were crap with leather seats.

In recent years, even though I am older and can afford a Cadillac or Lincoln or even a Lexus, I've found that my favorite car is still my 1995 Toyota Camry. It has 210K + miles on the odometer, but it starts every time, has a nice ride, and everything works. I drive it several times a week and the damn thing won't die and it's now 20 years old. I also own a recent model of Hyundai Sonata - a very good and reliable car. But when my wife and I bought it a couple years ago we drove everything out there - including some high-end models. The difference between the Sonata we bought and most of the other cars we drove that cost tens of thousands more were insignificant. For my wife, most of the others were far too technical and we realized that she would never master the use of the more complex radio and navigation systems.

Looking back, other than the big trunk and extra seating space (in those days all cars had bench seats in front and back), the big Caddies, Buicks, Lincolns and Chryslers offered no advantages at all. In fact, they were harder to park, more expensive to insure, used more gas, were far more expensive to maintain and for the most part were ugly. I remember my subordinates at the public utility I worked at laughing at me when I pulled into the company parking lot in my 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood. "Here comes Mr. JV in his 'Jew canoe'!" So for me, other than space for my family, having a big car was not much of an advantage, but more of an embarrassment. My then wife loved riding in the car but preferred to drive her VW bug to work. A small woman, she really hated driving that beast, because it made her look like a 12-year old driving a truck.

Cadillacs, Chryslers and Lincolns, big Mercedes and BMWs were not very good cars - and were not that much fun to drive.

Some of you might think that for the WT leaders being chauffeured around in a big Caddy or Lincoln would be a big deal. My guess is that except for Rutherford who proudly showed off his Cadillacs, for the others it might have been more embarrassing. I think that is why most of the cars leased by the Watchtower's own auto rental companies are most Buicks (and equivalents). Big, comfortable, etc. - but not too flashy - especially for COs, DOs and Branch Overseers. Not sure what they drive and ride in in Europe. Does anyone here know?

JV

15

Any Veggie Juicers Here?

by SnarlingRaven in

i have been juicing off and on for a couple of years ever since i saw a the documentary, sick, fat, and nearly dead, and my health has taken a remarkable upswing.

no doubt in my mind that drinking live celled water rich green veggie juice is one of the best things you can do for your health and longevity.

time is sometimes a thing, and don't always have the time and patience to juice the veggies and clean up the juicer parts.

Juan Viejo2

BTW - one more thing...

I have a friend that you all know and love - someone who contributes here very regularly. She sends me emails with health information and articles about food and medical treatments almost every week.

While my wife has little or no (let's just say "no") interest in my ex-JW activism, she loves what this famed lady sends us nearly every week and keeps everything in a special folder for future reference.

Just goes to show you that even ex-JWs can have other interests besides undoing the damage caused by our cultish friends at the Watchtower. JWN is proof of that...

JV

15

Any Veggie Juicers Here?

by SnarlingRaven in

i have been juicing off and on for a couple of years ever since i saw a the documentary, sick, fat, and nearly dead, and my health has taken a remarkable upswing.

no doubt in my mind that drinking live celled water rich green veggie juice is one of the best things you can do for your health and longevity.

time is sometimes a thing, and don't always have the time and patience to juice the veggies and clean up the juicer parts.

Juan Viejo2

My wife and I started juicing after we saw "Sick, Fat and Nearly Dead." We bought the right kind of juicer and strainer for that style of juicing and it was truly amazing how fast the weight dropped off of both of us.

While neither of us would be classed as morbidly obese, or probably not even "obese" at all in the general sense, we were both 20 to 40 pounds over our target weights. My doctor was concerned about my weight as I am a heart patient, have had surgeries and am on medication. She was concerned because my numbers were sneaking up to the point where I could become diabetic as well.

My wife is fairly tall and slender, so her weight was all in her stomach. She hated that and exercise just didn't work for her at all. Overall she is good healthwise, but has arthritis in her hips that makes sustained exercise and long walks very uncomfortable for her.

So while the juicing as shown in the SF&ND movie was effective weightwise, we soon grew tired of the taste of nothing but green vegetables and apples.

So we gave it up and gained all the weight back and then some. You can see that we are very typical USAers.

Then my wife saw a demonstration of the heavy duty Vitamix mixer. Damn thing was priced at nearly $600 USD. She told me that she really wanted it and would like to use it for juicing again. I told her that she could buy it only if she promised to really use it regularly and for juicing at least part time.

She went out and found a book that promoted juicing, but the kind that uses the whole fruit or vegetable and also allows for some regular meals to go along. Bingo!!! That did the trick for us. I am down nearly 30 lbs. and she lost over 20. And it all came off evenly. We still lose about 1 to 1.5 lbs. a week and are very close to achieving our goal weight. My doctor indicated that she no longer considers me in danger of going into Diabetes and is very happy with our progress. My cardiologist is totally happy and told me to keep doing what I am doing because all of my numbers are right where he wants them.

To be absolutely truthful, we go off the diet quite frequently. For example, we hosted Thanksgiving this year and had several family and guests over. We went traditional - roast turkey, rolls, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and ice cream, and copius amounts of wine (mostly reds). The males in the group had a whiskey on ice while we all watched football on the wide-screen TV.

Next day I was up 3 lbs. My wife was up 2 lbs. After our guests left we went back to our juice regimen in the AM and leftover turkey sandwiches in the PM. Four days later we are back to our goal weights and feeling great. We will probably juice twice a day for the rest of the week just to get back on track.

Here's the difference from the SF&ND diet: We mix green veggies (kale, spinach mostly) with berries (frozen blue berries, strawberries, mixed berries) with fresh banana, frozen pineapple and guava. No added sugar or salt, but she does add some flax and chia seed to the mix. We also add some unsweetened almond milk (vanilla) and maybe a few nuts that we have leftover. She adds some filtered water and ice and grinds it up. We each drink one large (10-12 oz) glass of that mix. It is delicious and is easy to digest. Unlike the SF&ND diet it doesn't get old and become a burden.

My wife will also exchange a regular meal for another "drink" in the evening made from almond milk and Spiru-tein protein drink. It too tastes good, goes down easy and is quite filling. Our regular meals are made up of scrambled eggs and turkey bacon / or baked chicken thighs and fresh mashed potatoes / or a frozen Chinese mixed veggies with meat / or fresh salmon or white fish when available. We avoid pasta unless we are guests at someone's home. We eat a lot of avacados when they are in season and try to have oranges, bananas, and tangerines as side treats every day. We snack on nuts (mixed or cashews). Our treat at night while watching TV is a few squares (4-6) of Trader Joe's dark unsweetened 50% chocolate.

While my wife has mostly given up all alchohol (it inflames her athritis), I continue (with my cardiologist's blessing) to have 2 glasses of red wine (merlot, pinot noir, syrah) that I sip in the evening between 6 and 9 PM while working on the computer or watching TV.

Bottom line is that my wife and I are losing weight, not holding on to anything when we go offline for a day or two, feeling extremely well and are rarely hungry. Unlike the SF&ND diet that was burdensome and after a day or two felt like we were drinking medicine and not healthy food, this diet really works for us. If either of us goes over or has to eat out with other folks, we just come back and do a day or two of "green drink" and "chocolate protein drink." In a couple of days we are back on the mark.

While the above diet may not work well for families with children, it should work very well for singles and married couples not having to feed others besides themselves. The diet is not expensive - even though almost everything we eat is fresh, organic, and non-GMO. We buy fresh every 2-3 days in small quantities. Above all, we do not nag each other if one of us opts for going out and having Mexican or Chinese one night on the spur of the moment. We just do two drinks the next day.

The book my wife uses for her green drink recipes is Green Smoothie Joy by Cressida Elias (list $14.95 USD). Everything she suggests tastes great.

Above all - we feel great (we are both over 70 anos) - our doctors are very supportive and happy with our progress. My cardiologist has moved my regular checkups out from 3 mos to 6 mos because my numbers are so good and consistent. i've dropped 30 lbs since Xmas 2013 and expect to maintain that weight range through the holidays this year.

And we do cheat. Most weeks I will go out one night and buy a full length Subway sandwich for each of us. We will eat one half for dinner that night and the other half for dinner the next night. Our other meal for the day will be a green drink. This breaks up the monotony. Believe it or not, the next morning I see little or no weight gain after having a 6-inch subway the night before. Your results may differ...

One last thing: We are trying to be consistent (except for bananas and citrus fruit) to try to go 100% local, organic, and non-GMO on our veggies, fruit, dairy and meat. We eat very little processed food like chips or anything that comes in a box.We don't go crazy or deny ourselves if we can't find everything in that category during a trip to the grocery, but those are our preferences. I have to say - the food really does taste better and the cost (for two old folks) is not significantly higher.

JV

53

TYRED OF SPELING ERURS? SIK OF BAD GRAMMUR?

by Terry in

jw
friends

.

Juan Viejo2

For my formal editing in Word and other word processing programs I use Grammarly primarily. One thing I love about it is the "plagiarism" feature. While I do not plagiarize source materials, it does allow me to find other sources that have used similar phrasing about the same subject. In one case, I actually found a reference that pointed out that a source that I intended to use as a resource had actually plagiarized much of what I was about to quote. While I still used much of it, I was able to redirect my footnotes to the earlier and proper source.

For online and website editing I use After the Deadline, an often free addon to Chrome and Firefox. If set to automatically find errors or make suggestions, it helps me edit while I am writing and before I publish. It's not perfect (I am always going back and finding errors in my published writing) - but it does help me correct most of the errors as I go along.

I recently read an article about a local Protestant (read "holy roller") independent church school that decided to toss out the state approved English grammar text book because it contained too many phrases and words the pastor did not approve. When the local newspaper reviewed the text book they planned to use instead, it ran a PDF version through its own spelling and grammar checker. The result was that over 50% of the paragraphs in the book (not examples) had moderately serious spelling and grammar errors.

The biggest issue that most of us have is that we are either too lax about spelling and grammar or we become anal and go overboard, checking everything we send out (Facebook, email, notes to family) to make sure that they are absolutely correct. When we do that we often take out the fun and personality inherent in our own writing and turn it into something that sounds like it was written for Funk & Wagnalls...

JV

12

Barbara Anderson scheduled to appear on "Chuck Morse Speaks" from 11-12 AM ET on November 11, 2014

by ABibleStudent in

i found out that barbara anderson is scheduled to talk about the watchtower's child abuse problems on chuck morse speaks from 11-12 am et on november 11, 2014 about child protection and/or sol reform.. .

to listen to podcasts for $0.99/month, click on this link chuck morse speaks.. .

to listen to chuck morse's show 'chuck morse speaks" on the radio, complete an information form for the irn usa network using this link: station finder | irn usa radio.. .

Juan Viejo2

For those who might be interested, there is now an edited (eliminated the first hour of the show, commercials, excessive music and show tags, etc.) version available on Barbara Anderson's website and on YouTube. We've also deleted some repitious material while adding some photos and screen grabs to give some visual interest to the (now) 35 minute interview.

Personally I found Chuck Morse to be a better than average interviewer, although he could have stepped in more often to break up Barbara's segments to make it more conversational. While he seems neutral on the religious aspect of the JWs and even supports the theological application of the two-witness rule, you can also hear the frustration in both his and Barbara's voices when she starts counting off all of the child abuse cases that have happened just since she found about the problem in 1991. The Watchtower is appropriately compared to the Vatican as well in their willingness to spend millions defending their indefensible positions and failure to protect children. For those who don't know, Barbara is also active in SNAP.

If you choose to stay with it all the way, there are more photos per minute at the end than the beginning and there is an "easter egg" during the end credits. Those of you who frequent JW websites, YT videos, and Facebook threads will like have heard and seen it all before. But those who are not familiar with Barbara Anderson or her work will get quite an education.

The video can be found on her home page at http://watchtowerdocuments.org (an article will follow in a few days) and direct from YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXlKSmNVFY0

Feel free to leave your comments...

JV2

116

Creationist Should Dismiss Genesis Quickly

by Coded Logic in

chris tann,.

in your earlier post you seemed to be under the impression that genesis and science were somehow compatible .

however, the truth is the two are not reconcilable at all.

Juan Viejo2

Good one, Coded...

12

Barbara Anderson scheduled to appear on "Chuck Morse Speaks" from 11-12 AM ET on November 11, 2014

by ABibleStudent in

i found out that barbara anderson is scheduled to talk about the watchtower's child abuse problems on chuck morse speaks from 11-12 am et on november 11, 2014 about child protection and/or sol reform.. .

to listen to podcasts for $0.99/month, click on this link chuck morse speaks.. .

to listen to chuck morse's show 'chuck morse speaks" on the radio, complete an information form for the irn usa network using this link: station finder | irn usa radio.. .

Juan Viejo2

An edited version will be available on line during the 3rd week of November. There will be both a audio version and a video version available.

JV

35

Earth rotates the wrong way. ( no one even knew that )

by kairos in

i've heard it mentioned a few times.. the rotating earth graphic in the background on jwtv rotates backwards.. i've mentioned it to the active and they are not concerned at all.. my response is, "it's something they are portraying that cannot be more wrong".. .

two gb members have stood in front of it telling us to trust them.

how can you when they think the sun rises in the west.... .

Juan Viejo2

Maybe the GB has confirmed that the South Pole is really the top of the world, not the North Pole. We know that the North Pole was predominent because 80% of civilization lived in the northern hemisphere when map making began. It was thought that the North Pole was the "top of the world." I don't know of any reason why the north pole has to be at the top except that near it is "magnetic north" - so our compass needles all point in that direction. However, scientists tell us that the geographic/magnetic North Pole is actually the south magnetic pole. So we could turn our maps upside down, put the South Pole at the top, let the earth rotate backward and change all of our clocks and maps. We could still leave Greenwich as the center point for time, except our clocks would go backward.

But we live by the traditions and guidelines developed by the Greeks and Romans - although the Babylonians and Egyptians were no slouches either. And we also have to give the ancient Arabs their due as well - since most of their mathmatics, map making, and geography systems still form the basis of our modern science standards.

Maybe in the New World Jehovah will order that New Light be directed from the south instead of the north and that the world will spin in the opposite direction.

JV