I've been to Ethiopia a few times. Spent some time in Addis Abiba. It's a stunningly beautiful country (and really worth visiting if anyone has a chance... go to Lalibela and visit the churches carved into the rock) - and there no way at all... that an uneducated local (Ethiopian) would be ever offered a job paying 3000 Eur per month. None. Zero. There are people in Ethiopia earning that kind of money - almost all foreigners (with PhDs) working for NGOs.
joeblow
JoinedPosts by joeblow
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90
Stupid not just once but twice, and it is praised
by therevealer in12 the watchtower ?
5 what good results there can be when.
children are trained to keep a simple eye!.
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16
It is so frustrating trying to get cable TV
by life is to short inok my husband and i finally decided to get cable tv, as we finally got a new tv after having our old one for over 15 years.
being it is a flat screen high def we thought we would get cable.. i tried shopping around as all we want is the main networks such as nbc, cbs, abc and pbs.
we really do not watch that much tv as we watch dvd's for the most part plus everyone i know that has the 250 channels of cable only watch the major networks for the most part anyway.
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joeblow
Cable TV gives you what? 200 channels of crap... rehashed "reality" TV and other mindless pap. Can you honestly find a channel in the 200+ available that has anything intelligent to offer? The History Channel? Nope, not anymore... Discovery? Nope... what about the regular networks.. ABC, NBC, CBC (if you're in Canada)... nope... more shouting and low IQ programming.
I have cable because it's included in the rent where I live. I've watched it probably no more than... about 30 minutes in 6 months.
My entertainment solution... internet :-) Sources like Hulu, Netflicks, BBC iPlayer, etc are great for legal streams of movies and TV shows. You can pick and choose what you watch. Can't get Hulu because you're not in the US? No problem... just use a VPN service like OverPlay.net and no more problems... you can get BBCiPlayer, Hulu.. any stream you want. Sports? use MyP2P.eu and problem solved. Anything I missed? :-)
I've got a computer hooked up to my TV... one of those mini PCs that is the size of a small book. It's running Linux... Boxee for the movies on my network drives, and just a Firefox browser for things like Hulu and BBC iPlayer. This route seems so much more... useful to me. You can watch the stuff you find entertaining on your schedule instead of the networks... on-demand is so much better than cable.
I suppose... you can't surf the channels like you used to if you go this route :-) but... small price to pay. Ha ha ha.
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38
Did you have higher ed when you were in? If so how were you treated as a result?
by highdose ini went to both collage and uni when i was a jw, i got marked and shunned as a result.
it seemed like every week there would be some dig made from the platform about " those that chose higher education" , my so called "freinds" were constandly on at me " why don't you pioneer highdose?!!".
i even had the ciruit overseer denounce me from the platform as being "spirtualy weak" never mind that most of the peers i grew up with had got themselves reproved or disfellowed and that i was the only who had been good!.
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joeblow
I also opted for a Uni degree while I was still "in". I wasn't treated badly in any open way... I do know the elders "encouraged" some of the more brainwashed of my peers at the KH to spend time with me and try to redirect my energies. I wasn't having any of that though. i fought long and hard to be able to go to Uni in the first place.... higher education is expensive and my family weren't exactly rolling in the cash since my parents were good JWs working low paying jobs. When I graduated no one showed up for the grad ceremony... I didn't even get a "good job" from friends at the local cong.
Do I care no one showed up? Nope. I got my education, and have been able to travel the world.
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12
LINUX-users left in 'the dark' with Watchtower Library CD's ??
by linux-user inhi, i was wondering why there isn't any native linux-version yet of the watchtower library cd's available?
because i(as many others) don't use windows, but the free ubuntu-linux( http://www.ubuntu.com/ ) on my computer, and can only view those cd's with a free 'emulator', called 'wine', but that is not always 'working good' .... so, please, can there in the future be a possibility to get a native linux cd ??
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joeblow
If you're struggling with Wine, you can buy a license for Crossover... the WT lib is a "Gold" app there (which means it should work but you may need to follow the instructions in the Tips and tricks section to get it to install/work correctly).
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=8365
On the Win vs Linux thing... if you wish you could run Linux, but find you need Windows for work or from some app, check out VirtualBox. It runs on Windows, Linux and OSX... and you can install just about any modern OS into the VirtualBox. I use this app all the time. Linux is my main OS, and for work, I just run Windows in a virtual machine (VirtualBox)... problems solved.
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counting time (2)
by varian ini know i m a simple mind, but if 3 jws study with a jw-child or someone else for an hour, they ll all report there own time, which will add up to 3 hours, right?
but the real netto time spent for the study is obviously 1 hour, no matter how many jws took part.
am i seeing a mathimatical fault?.
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joeblow
This all reminds me of my own time reporting.
My parents would do what they could to get the family out at least one Saturday per month for at least 2 hours. I would of course report that time - I didn't have much choice since my father was responsible at the time for collecting all the service reports.
When I hit 18 and moved out on my own to a different town, my "real" field ministry dropped to zero, although I still reported time. At first it was hours similar to what I reported while living at home... about 10 hours per month. I'd put a different number every month... sometimes 9 hours, sometimes 12 and so on so it appeared to be more real on the monthly reports. That soon dropped to 1 hour per month just to put in a number... This 1 hour thing continued for about 10 years... I still attended some meetings simply because it was expected... so since i was attending, I was also pressured into submitting a report. Funny thing is, for virtually the entire time I never once was out in FS with anyone in the cong.. but no one questioned it as long as I submitted some kind of report.
Eventually I clued in that no one was really checking on me... so I stopped submitting FS reports altogether. I was hounded a few times to begin with, but soon that stopped. They never asked... I never volunteered any info.
This was not just in one cong either, but stretched over many congs in at least 3 or 4 different countries over the space of about 20 years.
I know I'm not the only one that has done this. I remember looking at the YearBook, and checking the service reports for various countries and wondering how many of those hours were faked. i knew I wasn't the only faker... I guessed that at least half of the people I was aquainted with at the time... maybe even more, faked their FS reports.... extend that out over a city... a country... that's a LOT of fake hours.
Hmmmm just like so much in the JW thing... fake everything.
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31
How is everybody dealing with the snow
by d inhi everybody, i was wondering how were you dealing with the snow.here in connecticut the snow is brutal.so i was wondering how people were surviving was is being the worst winter since 1978..
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joeblow
Snow? What snow? No snow here (I'm somewhere in Europe :-) ). Temperatures have been hovering around 0C (none of that silly Fahreheit here) all last week and pushing to 10C this week.
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I thought that witnesses were the only religion that uses this name
by man in black ini was browsing some of the businesses and schools that already closed since the big blizzard is going to hit tomorrow.. one thing caught my eye : .
jehovah lutheran school.
chicago.
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joeblow
My partner's sister is very religious, and her church (no idea what one... never asked) uses the name Jehovah a lot... she always does a group prayer before traveling and prays to Jehovah. I find it weird when she prays for my partner and I to have a safe flight home after every visit (she prays right in the airport... discreetly, but still...). I respect her choices and go along with it.
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what are the rewards for not being a witness any longer
by Curtains inif the carrot and stick aspect of being jehovahs witnesses upset you how do you reclaim your desire for reward?
i'm assumng that you all agree with me that feeling rewarded is a basic human desire.
how much effort do you think we should put into trying to make our lives rewarding?
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joeblow
The reward for me is the freedom to think and reason for myself... to not be told what to think... to no longer live in fear of being "found out"... and to not live a lie. Living a lie is a soul sucking self destructive way to exist....
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A Concerned Elder Speaks
by Franklin Massey ina lot of talk has centered around information dispensed at the recent km schools.
many brothers feel there is a "tightening up" taking place.
i had a recent experience that you may find interesting.. after the meeting i was working with our cobe on some congregation tasks when out of nowhere he said, "have you looked up any extra information about higher education since the km school?
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joeblow
I'm one of the rebels that got a university education... the ONLY one in the congregation I grew up in. Seriously, I'm the only one of the various children that were there in the 70's and 80's that was "allowed" to go to university... and that was only after I spent almost 4 years post high-school convincing my parents to allow me to go. Yah, I know I could have just gone at 18... an adult etc etc, but university is expensive, and I absolutely had to have their buy-in and support to be able to manage it. I paid for it myself through loans etc, but I still needed help (they filled my refrigerator with food once per month during my university years, and helped put gas in my car).
The flak I took for my decision to go to university was stupid... I wasn't "marked" but I certainly was treated differently... not in a good way. but I survived :-) It was actually one of the things that convinced me I was not cut out for cult life.
The scary thing is now, even with my BSc, it's not enough in the real world. The vast majority of jobs I am looking at now all require a Masters (minimum) or PhD (preferred)... granted I'm looking at some very specialized jobs (that I'm qualified for through experience but not formal education) in very specific parts of the world, but the reality is... getting any job above a "janitor" usually requires a lot more than just a college diploma. It's a tough fast paced life out there, and you have to keep up.
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Mammoths, Mastadons, Siber Tooth Tigers
by NewChapter inso, i've been thinking a lot lately about the chinks in my "spiritual armor" and my journey from jw to atheist.
i realize now it all started with a mastadon.
i visited one of my favorite places, the natural history museum, where i stared contemplatively at lucy.
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joeblow
The funny thing about stories and myths is that there is usually a tiny grain of fact at the very core... a real story that over the generations (real generations not JW generations) are changed, forgotten, invented, reinvented, changed again and so on. Maybe the flood is one of those stories....
Why do I say that? Well... think about the region it was written in/about... roughly where modern day Turkey is right? Plus or minus, but roughly that area.... bordering what is now the Medeterranian. There is an interesting theory that I saw a few years ago about the formation of the Med... which would amount to a massive flood of water pouring into the region from the Straits of Gibraltar. Hmmm.. so a major flood in the area... which would appear to be so huge that it was their whole world.
Oh wait.. it was 5.3 million years ago.. nevermind :-) The Flood was "clearly" only a couple thousand years ago. Haha... OK, I'll stop stirring the pot now.