yeah in the section on attending the convention, you will find this gem:.
"therefore, we should give attention to our dress and grooming while in the convention city, including when we check in at the hotel.
arriving in shorts and a t-shirt would not reflect dignity.".
I don't have the April KM in front of me, but I snickered the other day when I read that article. I don't think I've ever seen this before, but admonished sisters to wear "modest shoes". What's a "immodest shoe"... one that shows too much toe cleavage???
ok where i live in the pacific northwest in january of this year this elder from the hall called a special meeting and gave everyone some papers that he had gotten from some government place on what to put in an emergency bag to grab in case you have to flee your home in seconds.
i thought it was just my husbands hall being all strange and stupid over this.
one older sister said that the elder told everyone they needed three bottles of water for 14 days that is 42 bottles of water plus whatever other stuff they put in there not sure if she got that right because 42 bottles of water is a lot of weight.
I was talking with a Bethelite about this subject recently, as I'd seen a reference on this board to them all having "Armageddon Bags". He laughed and assured me it was more practical than that. The fact that many Bethelites had the same one was due to the WTS arranging for group discount.
It seems that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Indonesia, the WTS thought it was just good practice for anyone to be prepared for short-notice evacuation. (The perfect example is the news of the large earthquake just a few hours ago that has sent pretty much anyone living near the Indian Ocean running for the hills. I'm sure anyone who had a "grab-and-go" bag is really glad they had prepared one.)
I believe several years ago all congregations received the direction to maintain an emergency contact list (including an alternate contact), so that if everyone had to relocate in an emergency, they'd have the means to ensure everyone made it somewhere safely. I seem to remember that was when they also recommended pulling together a prepared collection of emergency supplies.
biometrics...hope your bag continues to gather dust!
R_O
i had to sit though the the special talk yesterday "is it later than you think", the brother a good deal of time making the case that major earthquakes are on the rise, and how i should believe it is "later than i think" based on that fact.
i took a bit of time to research this today, and sure enough they are not.
the link below has a chart of major earthquakes since the mid nineties, and it clearly shows they are random and all over the place.
If anyone uses the recent earthquake in Haiti as evidence, you can always remind them that the earthquake with the highest death toll in recorded history killed 820,000 - 830,000-- over twice the number as Haiti...
...and it was 500 years ago.
| Name | Date | Location | Fatalities | Magnitude | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Shaanxi" | 01556-01-23 January 23, 1556 | Shaanxi, China | 820,000–830,000 (est.) [ 13 ] | 8.0 (est.) |
R_O
i know this has been covered before but i came across this video and feel sickened by it..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr2jn0ntmjy&feature.
Without taking a stance on whether the WTS should or shouldn't include hedge funds as tool to manage their assets, I just want to share a few observations on hedge funds, and the videos posted by "TheSnarkyApologist" and "TheRecoveringZombie".
First, The Snarky Apologist:
He spends quite a bit of time walking the viewer through a screen shot from Hedge Fund Intelligence. While showing a quote on the screen that says "...which attracts both hedge funds managers and investors from around the globe." He states in his narration that "...unless you're a bank, or a hedge fund, or a hedge fund manager, you have no interest being here."
Did he miss the sentence the part that said "and investors"? If he's saying the WTS has no business being there, then apparently neither does the West Midlands Pension Fund, which is the attendee listed right underneath the WTS.
Next he goes on to say "most hedge funds...are registered in the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, places out there where national governments can't touch them. Why? Because it's widely known that the banks and hedge funds in these areas where governments cannot get their hands on them are used primarily for laundering money."
Does money laundering occur in the Caymans, or the British Virgin Islands? Sure. Does it occur in the US? Sure. But for him to imply that hedge funds registered in any of these places are used "primarily for laundering money" is completely inaccurate. The funds register in those places for favorable tax treatment. If ANY hedge fund wants a U.S. customer, it MUST become a Registered Investment Adviser with the SEC. As a registered investment adviser it is then subject to the "fiduciary duty" requirement (meaning that it must put clients' interests first), it is subject to unscheduled SEC exams, and its clients must pass rigorous anti-money laundering tests and not have any connection to the entities that appear on the list maintained by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"). A hedge fund with US clients is subject to the same securities laws and requirements as your local Merrill Lynch, Edward Jones, Schwab, or Ameriprise financial advisor.
The only thing that separates hedge funds from mutual funds, or your local financial advisor, is that the SEC recognizes that hedge funds may utilize strategies that carry higher potential risk that the everyday investor may not fully understand. Therefore the SEC has established minimum asset and income standards for hedge fund investors-- standards that the SEC believes demonstrates an investors level of sophistication and understanding of risk. The Recovering Zombie does a reasonably good job highlighting this.
As for the rest of The Snarky Apologist's video, or Parts 2 and 3 of The Recovering Zombie's presentation, I'll quote the former: "I don't know what the Watchtower has going on here; I've got my speculations." His statement is spot on. He has NO IDEA what the WT is up to; he's just speculating. And frankly, so is The Recovering Zombie.
Just because someone invests in a hedge fund, doesn't mean you're greedy-- it simply means you're responsible for a large amount of assets. It means that you're understanding of risk is sufficient enough to pursue complicated investment strategies that the individual investor typically will not fully understand. Saying the WTS is "greedy" for wanting to use hedge funds as an investment vehicle would be tantamount to saying the West Midlands Pension Fund, CALPERS, or the Teacher Retirement System of Texas is greedy.
When someone speculates too much, it makes others think perhaps that person should put their tin foil hat back on.
R_O
i told my son that the society is reducing the size of their public edition from 32 pages to 16 pages.
he asked if they will now call it "half awake!".
of course, it could be "half asleep!
What about half a "university education"?
..............
WTWizard,
I thought of the same thing the other day. If reading Awake and WT = 4-year "university education" (which is now "strongly discouraged"), maybe they needed to cut them in half so that now reading Awake/WTs equal a 2-year degree...which is perfectly acceptable.
i mentioned a few times,that in terms of making my time for the past few months have been really difficult.simply because i cant teach something i don't fully believe...so my service has gone down,i used to comment a lot--haven't done that in a while----meeting attendance like normal but now i don't stay back after...or come early...or help with cleaning..... .
so some weeks ago the cobo asked me a completely irrelevant and in no way helpful question---"you did't think that i notice how upset you look these days----that's not a fruitage of god's spirit!".
yeah so today he saw me and asked me a series of question....all which i gave really short answers to...long story short--he says that he would like for me to meet wih the rest of the elders after memorial........ .
From everything I've seen, leavingwt always provides very honest, straightforward, logical information about the realities of situations like these.
I would only add that the elders can only act on what they've seen or heard from you on the matter. By not meeting with them, it may raise flags for them. If you do decide to meet with them, bear in mind that any previously unshared feeling or viewpoints you share with them provides them with that many more jumping off points to dig deeper.
Some choose to avoid meeting with them, and they're left alone for a time. Others will meet with them, let the elders "say their piece" but share little about how they feel or what they think...essentially seeking give the elders nothing but "dead ends". Like leavingwt, I'm certainly not advocating any course of action, simply relating what others have chosen to do.
the announcement of the reduced number of pages in the watchtower & awake will be made after the watchtower study following the "special talk" on april 8.. theoretically, that's when there will be more visitors and "outsiders" than usual.
even the talk itself has 1/2 of its content directed at inactive jws.. obviously this reduction in pages has been in the works for several weeks if not months.
why pick that date to announce it?
"I remember when they claimed that reading the Asleep! was equivalent to university education. Even then, that claim was rubbish. We had 2 Asleep! rags plus 2 Washtowel rags per month."
So now that we have only 1 each per month (and they will soon be half the former content), does that mean that you can no longer get the equivilent of a University degree from them, and will now only receive the equivilent of a 2-year associates degree?? Seems to correspond to the current view on "higher education"....
yesterday during the public talk, the elder was talking.
about the reality god's kingdom said "that 7.5 million.
people would not spend billions of hours going from door.
wha happened...yes, it did indeed hurt my head.
In a recent similar exchange someone repeated the claim that the growth in the number of publishers and pioneers was evidence of Jehovah's blessing and approval and went on to lament the fact that fewer and fewer men are willing/able to serve as "appointed" men to help with the growth.
Person #2: "Oh, you mean how the elders are aging, dying off, and no one younger is stepping up to serve?"
Person #1: "Yes, it's really sad. At every Elders' school, it just seems to get worse."
Person #2: "Wait, are you trying to say that since the Organization is crying out for brothers to serve as MS/Elders-- but still doesn't have enough "appointed men", and shows no signs of being able to-- it means that the MS/Elder arrangement DOESN'T have Jehovah's approval or blessing???"
Person #1: "No, of course not! What would ever make you think that?!"
Person #2: "Well because you just said that growth indicated Jehovah's blessing and approval. I just inferred you must feel that the opposite was true as well."
Person #1: "Don't worry, I don't."
yesterday during the public talk, the elder was talking.
about the reality god's kingdom said "that 7.5 million.
people would not spend billions of hours going from door.
"...7.5 million people would not spend billions of hours going from door to door if God's Kingdom were not real." Someone in my congregation said something similar in conversation recently-- something along the lines of "well 7 million people can't be wrong." My reply was: "That logic doesn't make any sense. That's like saying '1 billion Muslims can't be wrong! Islam is the biggest faith in the world, therefore it MUST be the truth.' They stared blankly at me for a few moments, then replied: "Well, well...THAT'S DIFFERENT! Let's talk about something else." As for not being able to count your time if you're wearing slacks, I would have asked her whether that meant she wasn't able to count the time spend "informal witnessing" with pants on.
at the latest ca in natick ma, district overseer brown w. payne made a comment about a "famous female tennis player who's a sister"... .
we're told she says she's a jehovah's witness and swears in the tennis court.
we all have heard about it.
If the rumors are true that Serena's mom is still an active JW, I wonder how she would feel if she was sitting in the audience and had to listen to the DO go on and on about her unbaptized daughters "sin"...heck, even if she wasn't in the audience, and just found out that a DO was doing that every single weekend to every circuit he spoke to.
Can you imagine a DO going on and on about a specific "sin" of some unbaptized ADULT child of a family in that circuit in a way that everyone sitting there knew exactly who he was talking about?? I'm guessing that person's parents would FREAK and have a word or two they'd want to say to the DO.
