My mother was baptized in the huge public swimming pool building just up the beach a ways in 1952. The roller coaster at the Pike was even scarier than the one at Venice beach in Los Angles...
JV
Juan Viejo2
JoinedPosts by Juan Viejo2
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4
Anyone Here Have Fun At The Long Beach Pike In The 1950's?
by LoisLane looking for Superman in.
i remember some of the badboys/smart guys, missing the sunday talk to go on the roller coaster at the pike.. i remember what fun the old bumper cars were.. just lois .
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66
Hayden Covington's unwitting role in harsh disfellowship policy
by Terry inin the january 8, 1947 awake!
magazine the following article appeared.. .
the above article was published under the watchtower presidency of nathan knorr.
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Juan Viejo2
Terry -
I'm glad this was bumped. I missed it when you started this thread over a year ago. Thanks Wulf!
I saw Hayden Covington when i was about 8 or 9 years old giving a special talk at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. An amazing speaker, everyone was captivated by his stories and confidence that JWs were the right people at the right time engaged in the right fight. With Jehovah on our side, how could we lose? Of course, just about every young JW male between 18 and 22 went to federal prison, many right to Terminal Island (Long Beach, CA). Not one of my acquaintances escaped - except me: I was married, had a kid, bad knees and was color blind. That gave me a pass.
Every JW I knew worshipped Covington and when he was on the road with his special talks the auditoriums were jammed.
Wow - if I had only known the truth about him then...
JV
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52
Are you pro-activist, anti-activist, or passive?
by cedars ini ask this question because, having been on this forum for a year now, it's clear to me that there are many shades to so-called "apostasy", and this is particularly evident in the realm of anti-watchtower activism.. when i use the word "activism", likely picketing kingdom halls and conventions springs to mind.
however, activism can be far more subtle than that.
just having a website or a book that sheds light on the flaws of watchtower dogma is really a form of activism - arguably the most effective form at that.
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Juan Viejo2
Mrs. Jones - you have PMs
JV
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Juan Viejo2
CommitteeChairman-
Welcome to JWN, home of the sheep, wolves, and vultures of the JW universe.
I look forward to reading your posts. I have just one suggestion that may make your participation here more tolerable:
Don't try to defend or promote Watchtower doctrines or policies. Just explain them and give us your honest opinion as a human being as to their value and credibility.
Let the rest of us argue over the issues you identify or reveal. If you get involved directly, the apologists and moles will come after you with a vengeance.
CC - stay out and above the fray...
JV
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447
Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..
by OUTLAW ingood afternoon jwn... .
i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .
aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.
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Juan Viejo2
Ignat - No I can't. I am not a heavy user of FB and not a great fan of it or Twitter. I've set up three Facebook pages in my day and except for AAWA all were just open to anyone and not that controversial.
So maybe you should direct your question to others here on the board that are more competent and heavier users of FB.
Sorry...
JV
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447
Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..
by OUTLAW ingood afternoon jwn... .
i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .
aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.
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Juan Viejo2
Mind blown - your items 2 and 3 are actually the same non-AAWA website. But there were two distinct incidents involving that site that I am referring to in my earlier message:
1. The unapproved adding of unaware FB to our site without our knowledge, or theirs (Thursday 4/4)
2. The hijacking of our header image and logo and continued referral of non-JW oriented persons to our website (Sunday 4/7)
There was no "bogus" website set up by AAWA members. The "bogus" was actually the same website involved in #1 and #2 above who was acting as if they were an agent of AAWA - which they were most definitely not.
We only had just a few complaints from those added by our own members. As far as I know those have all been resolved amicably. As I said, we have had no recent complaints, but rather a very positive and rather large rush of volunteers and supporters.
JV
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447
Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..
by OUTLAW ingood afternoon jwn... .
i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .
aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.
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Juan Viejo2
Dagney and others -
There was a combination of over eagerness and over reaching on the part of several individuals. I don't really believe that anyone was maliciously trying to hijack any of our Facebook pages. I spoke to the one person who has a rather large group of followers on his own website and Facebook pages who clearly got overly excited and began auto referring all of the members on his site to ours. That was why we had the unbelievable influx of members even before we had barely mentioned our Facebook site on our website or here.
I was one of the first to notice that there might be a problem brewing, but it was late in the evening where I live and I was quite tired from traveling all day. Bo Juel Jensen noticed it as well and at first was overjoyed at what seemed to be an amazing number of new friends of AAWA after only 24 hours. Before I went to bed that night, I took one more look at some of the people who had "joined" our fan page and began to suspect that something was very, very wrong. There was nothing I could do about it at that late hour so went to bed.
The next morning I took a hard look at what was happening. Yes, there were some referrals by our own advisors and volunteers, but there were only about 50 in that category - not exceptionally high considering. But nearly 1000 had been referred or automatically "joined" to the group page by just a couple of other non-AAWA individuals and groups.
Among those who "joined" were several names that I did not recognize at all. But some I did and knew that they would not be expected to join a group like ours. There were others who were very evangelical and also some who I would consider to be Watchtower apologists who showed up on the list. Many others seemed to have no connection to JW activism or discussion whatsoever. I wondered why all of those types of persons would be joining our group.
Then I noticed as I scanned through the names that one person in particular seemed to be referring the majority of these unknowns. At that point I brought my concerns to the attention of the other advisors and the officers of AAWA. Their first reaction was that this was not necessarily a bad thing. After all, we welcomed support from every source and our doors were open to all. That is how I also felt some 12 hours before - but that morning I was literally panicked by the problem we were facing.
At that point Bo had to make a decision about what to do with our Facebook page and we all agreed to let him just go ahead and make it "open to all."
It was only after we took that step and the whole affair became news here on JWN that we started getting complaints that some of those people who had been "referred" or "recommended" to the site were unhappy that someone had done that without their knowledge. As it has been well discussed in several threads - several in which I personally have commented and tried my best to give an honest and straightforward explanation about what happened. We all have done our best to identify anyone who had their identities revealed on our site to be removed. On the other hand, and what some here have failed to realize, is that they must have had membership in other JW or religious oriented websites when this happened to have been "automatically" referred.
Yes, one of our volunteers did add and invite a few of her acquaintances. But again - this was a very small number. The most harm came from one other particular Facebook account not related to us at all.
Sometime over the weekend it was brought to our attention that another website had also placed our header and logo in their featured/header image slot. Someone wrote me and asked if we had joined forces with this other site? Shortly thereafter I got another FB message that showed the owner of that site was proudly sending out messages essentially notifying everyone of his new header image - almost an exact duplicate of AAWA's. About that time I started seeing more referrals coming into our own FB site indicating they too were being directed over from the offending site.
Let me explain that although I handle technical issues and am the webmaster for AAWA, I had very little to do with the Facebook page other than to set up the basic page, lay in some of the graphics and test it. At that point I turned it over to the others to do with it as they wanted. The "secret page" management was handled by others and I assumed that the settings were correct. I do not fault them and I should have stepped in and checked as well, but I failed to do so because at that point it was outside of my assigned duties. It was only later when so many "strangers" were joining the page that I realized that something was terribly wrong and felt I needed to speak up, warn the others, and take some responsibility on my own shoulders.
When we noticed that the other site was using our header and logo, one of us mentioned it on our private group site and a remark was made on the Facebook page. Shortly after, the offending site took down the original header and put up a very crappy version (looked like something from an old box camera) in its place.
At that point I messaged the owner of the other site, gave him my phone number and asked him to call me at home. He did and we talked. I requested that he immediately take down our logo and stop referring people to our site without their knowledge or permission. I'm not sure if he hung up on me or we were simply disconnected, but I now had his number on my cell phone. So I called him back. I could tell he was upset with me, but while I was on the phone he removed the crappy image of our logo and put up another image totally unrelated to AAWA - or even his own Facebook page. He agreed to stop sending new members to our site and indicated that he would notify all of his members that they might want to check our site and remove their names. Since then he has changed the status of his page to a more private setting.
While our conversation was a bit tense and not entirely friendly, I tried to make it clear that we did not consider him our enemy and appreciated his trying to help us get a good start, but going ahead on his own without checking with us had created problems for us and had offended and outed many FB users. I tried to explain to him that I considered him a friend, felt we both had similar goals, but there was a right way and a wrong way to assist our growth. He just "went ahead of Jehovah" - oops, I mean "AAWA" - and in doing so had caused us a great deal of embarrassment, grief, and cleanup work.
We've been closely watching our membership levels and so far they have remained steady at around 1325 members. So in spite of the complaints here on JWN about this fiasco, we have not seen any indications of a mass exodus of "offended" members, and any who have left have been immediately replaced by an equivalent number of new members. There has been only a trickle of any emails sent to us or through our website complaining about this situation, and most have been quite understanding about it all. It has only been here on JWN that complaints and accusations have been continuous and harsh toward us about this incident. If anyone still has a problem, email me at [email protected] and I'll see that it is immediately corrected.
Personally I don't think the offending Facebook administrator meant us any harm. He just embarrassed us and himself. I think he means well and I personally wish him the best. I hope that at sometime in the future we can find a common project to work on together and get past all of this.
Here is AAWA's official position on this incident:
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"It grieves us to know that harm was done to many people be being added against their will to AAWA's Facebook Page. To be honest, we were (at first) blown away by the response. We have set up more than one website, and most have remained secret with no one being added against their will. However, on the one page that did have problems we accept part of the blame. We needed to be more prepared and we weren't. You surprised us all. We certainly didn't expect a tidal wave coming at us within our first 48 hours.
"This has taught us a huge lesson we won't forget. We can't go back and undo what happened last week. In the future we will warn people about the dangers of joining any Internet website, including ours - and if anonymity is important to them, they need to have a second account that provides a cover for them.
"Again our sincerest apologies. We hope that in the future we can regain the trust that was lost due to this serious problem."
The Board of Directors and Advisors of AAWA
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I hope this answers all your questions. I've held nothing back in this post. We need to move on. AAWA has a lot of work to do in the coming weeks and months. We hope we have your support and good wishes. If not, then we will just have to face our tasks without your help.
Thanks again for JWN and the moderators for giving us this wonderful forum to share our exciting story and a chance to express our apologies.
Juan Viejo2
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535
AAWA is here!! (The Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists)
by cedars inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcic4g5tulw.
http://www.jwactivists.org.
facebook the association of anti-watchtower activists.
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Juan Viejo2
fizzy,
Then you need to contact that person and express your displeasure - if in fact you are displeased about being on the FB page. There may have been a few individuals added along the way by folks within our group, but the mass immigration of new members was primarily due to one over eager person.
wasblind,
I agree wholeheartedly. But we are still going through growing pains. We know there will be a few missteps along the way, but our hearts are in the right place and we know that we have a group that can succeed with just a little support from folks like you and others here on JWN.
JV
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535
AAWA is here!! (The Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists)
by cedars inhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcic4g5tulw.
http://www.jwactivists.org.
facebook the association of anti-watchtower activists.
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Juan Viejo2
Dagney and others -
There were a few overeager folks - definitely not associated with AAWA - who took it upon themselves to use the Facebook auto referral feature and link literally hundreds of new members to our FB group site without our knowledge. That site was supposed to be a private, protected FB page, but we realized that over 1300 folks were suddenly members, many whom we did not know at all.
Our elation quickly turned to panic.
We knew that something was terribly wrong, but we faced the dilemma as to how to determine who wanted to be on the group from those who had been added and linked there without their knowledge.
Obviously, the site was no longer "private." We decided to make it an open group and let those who wanted to stay to remain, those who wanted to leave to opt out.
For now, my suggestion is that if you are getting any messages from the AAWA site via Facebook and you did not join our page on your own, please immediately opt out. I can assure you that none of your personal information has been retained. We won't be offended and understand your displeasure with the situation.
I have personally contacted the primary person responsible (not a member or associate of AAWA) asked that person to cease and desist from linking anyone without their knowledge or permission. We are confident that this was not done maliciously, but rather due to over eagerness to try to show support for our group. There may be others besides this one person who were also over-enthusiastic about our group and were just trying to help, but at this stage we have not identified any one taking action at that same level.
I apologize on behalf of the AAWA advisory group (many are sound asleep at this hour) and am personally sorry that we didn't act in a more assertive manner sooner. But what is done is done and now we must move on.
The good news is that the Facebook page is, in fact, now open to ANYONE WHO WANTS TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION...
JV
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79
Summary of WT Appeal Brief in Conti Case
by Chaserious in[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng /> </o:officedocumentsettings> </xml><!
[endif][if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>normal</w:view> <w:zoom>0</w:zoom> <w:trackmoves /> <w:trackformatting /> <w:punctuationkerning /> <w:validateagainstschemas /> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:saveifxmlinvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:ignoremixedcontent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext> <w:donotpromoteqf /> <w:lidthemeother>en-us</w:lidthemeother> <w:lidthemeasian>ja</w:lidthemeasian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>x-none</w:lidthemecomplexscript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables /> <w:snaptogridincell /> <w:wraptextwithpunct /> <w:useasianbreakrules /> <w:dontgrowautofit /> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark /> <w:enableopentypekerning /> <w:dontflipmirrorindents /> <w:overridetablestylehps /> <w:usefelayout /> </w:compatibility> <m:mathpr> <m:mathfont m:val="cambria math" /> <m:brkbin m:val="before" /> <m:brkbinsub m:val="--" /> <m:smallfrac m:val="off" /> <m:dispdef /> <m:lmargin m:val="0" /> <m:rmargin m:val="0" /> <m:defjc m:val="centergroup" /> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440" /> <m:intlim m:val="subsup" /> <m:narylim m:val="undovr" /> </m:mathpr></w:worddocument> </xml><!
if they were able to win on this ground, they could get out completely (although it could still be appealed to the ca supreme court).
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Juan Viejo2
Breakfast of Champions asked:
"Did I miss it, or has anyone leaked Watchtower's appeal "brief" online?"
The full set of documents can be found at http://jwactivists.org/blog/watchtower-appeals-the-conti-lawsuit/
Downloadable PDFs
JV