I suspect that the WTS's teachings/practices in 2040 will be as different from the WTS's teachings/practices in 1990 as was such in 1940 compared with 1890.
MadApostate
JoinedPosts by MadApostate
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15
BETHELITES NOW PERFORMING COMMUNITY SERVICE
by MadApostate inediting thread back to original name.. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.
i posted this thread titled, "bethelites now performing community service", and it was read 66 times in 12 hours.. every time that i think that this group of xjws can't disappoint me any more, they do.. well, let's try a "title" more suited to this community's interests.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/01/27/bedell27.htm.
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15
BETHELITES NOW PERFORMING COMMUNITY SERVICE
by MadApostate inediting thread back to original name.. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++.
i posted this thread titled, "bethelites now performing community service", and it was read 66 times in 12 hours.. every time that i think that this group of xjws can't disappoint me any more, they do.. well, let's try a "title" more suited to this community's interests.
http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/01/27/bedell27.htm.
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MadApostate
Editing thread back to original name.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I posted this thread titled, "Bethelites Now Performing Community Service", and it was read 66 times in 12 hours.
Every time that I think that this group of xjws can't disappoint me any more, they do.
Well, let's try a "title" more suited to this community's interests.
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http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/01/27/bedell27.htm
January 27, 2002
New park two years ahead of schedule
Neither snow, nor ice, nor cold over the past 12 months has deterred volunteers from taking 83 acres of overgrown brush and woodlands and creating a picturesque park.
Located on Route 52 in Walker Valley in the Town of Shawangunk, it has been named the Verkeerder Kill Park after the freshwater stream that borders the property.
Almost before the main road was graded, a flagpole was cemented in place and the Stars and Stripes hoisted high. The flag seems to wave as incentive to create a peaceful and beautiful place for people to enjoy for many years to come.
It's been a dream for Warren Moore and Richard Greer, co-chairmen of the project.
Now, a green-and-white sign painted by state prisoners and anchored with an American flag marks the entryway to the park. A sign is posted saying, "There's no ice skating today.''
Still, dozens of passersby drive up the dirt road almost in disbelief. There, under an open pavilion, is the ice rink. When the cold weather passes, the structure, which is wired for electricity and cable TV, will hold dozens of picnic tables. There's a smaller pavilion about 500 feet away. Reservations for the pavilions will be handled by Peg Tremper, town clerk, at 895-2611.
Children's playground equipment is in place at both pavilions and is being used by the public.
A cinderblock building with a tin roof has been wired and is ready for toilets to be installed.
One hundred yards away, a trail leading to the Verkeerder Kill, a Class A trout stream, is about half-finished. A basketball court has poles for baskets cemented in place, and brush has been cleared and the ground graded for a sand volleyball court and soccer and softball fields.
"It was exactly a year ago this month that our committee started meeting weekly to clear brush,'' said Moore, a retired contractor. "We've exceeded expectations and are two years ahead of schedule.''
The committee has worked comfortably within its $95,000 budget, thanks to volunteers from Ulster, Sullivan and Orange counties.
All the heavy-duty equipment has been donated by the Boniface family, which owns Pine Bush Equipment. Jehovah's Witnesses from the nearby Watchtower Farms put in the road, donated top materials, carted shale and dug holes. Scott Smith put up the steel for the buildings, Mark Watkins of Triple M General Construction in Pine Bush has volunteered for hundreds of hours, and Greg Greer Jr. built the entryway stone pillars.
Volunteers as young as James Webb, 7, a student at Pine Bush Elementary School, have regularly visited the site and helped in many ways. But there's lots more to be done.
A Community Day is in the works for spring.
"It will be a great way for the public to see what we've done,'' said Greer, an IBM manager who has been ankle-deep in mud many times while laying drainage pipes and cables.
Meanwhile, the Town of Shawangunk Police Department continues to patrol the site regularly and volunteers continue to meet from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
"When the ice is frozen for skating,'' said Moore, "we'll have a table for donations of skates that people can borrow. And if people have skates they'd like to donate, we're happy to receive their calls.''
Moore can be reached at 744-3346. -
39
WTS MILKS HOLOCAUST FOR $$$ AND P.R.
by MadApostate in"adultresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with god?
whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of god.
"they are no part of the world, just as i am no part of he world.
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MadApostate
D. PROPOSAL FROM JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ORGANIZATION
WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Address: 100 Watchtower Drive, Patterson, NY 12563; Tel No: 914-306-0700
Contact: Carolyn R. Wah, Associate General Counsel
Date of Proposal: December 7, 1999; as supplemented August 23, 2000; on August 10, 1999 and on June 22, 2000 the Special Master met with Carolyn R. Wah, Jolene Chu and James Pellechia.
Proposal Summary: Special consideration should be given to applications of the surviving Jehovah's Witness victims of Nazi persecution. The Watch Tower would use a portion of the Settlement Fund to support its ongoing research and archival work on the Holocaust and presentations of its findings. It would devote any allocated monies solely to Holocaust education and the remembrance of the prisoners who bore the purple triangle, which represented the Jehovah's Witnesses. Watch Tower proposes to establish a legal entity to make cash payments and in-kind distributions to needy Jehovah's Witness class members.
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Two Rocket Scientists:
by Kent ini would love to yell at you, but that isn't scriptual.
i would like to say that is awful that someone has to dedicate thier life to bring down others beliefs.
don't you have any thing else to do?
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MadApostate
From a Minister/Pastor:
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...I am not interested in any of your hatred and bigotry. Christianity is not about hate, it is about loving your brother and that would include those who you slander with hateful terms and categorize as a "cult". Name calling is contrary to the teachings of our Lord. I love my brother Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, Lutheran, Mormon, and Baptist. We are all God's children and Jesus died for us all … and yes that includes Jehovah's Witnesses.
...
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Two Rocket Scientists:
by Kent ini would love to yell at you, but that isn't scriptual.
i would like to say that is awful that someone has to dedicate thier life to bring down others beliefs.
don't you have any thing else to do?
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MadApostate
From a Pastor/Minister:
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...If you categorize the Jehovah's witnesses as a cult, you need to also include the rest of the Christian world. They have their set of beleifs like all the other deniminations. Another interesting point is that the only Christians that have ever come to my door to spread the good news about our Savior have been Jehovah's witnesses. I think we could all learn something from them.
This is the kind of attitude that resulted in Christians persecuting Christians during the dark ages. Please take me off this hate filled mailing list and spew your hate elsewhere. I am not interested.
God Bless!
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39
WTS MILKS HOLOCAUST FOR $$$ AND P.R.
by MadApostate in"adultresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with god?
whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of god.
"they are no part of the world, just as i am no part of he world.
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MadApostate
The Cost of Spiritual Resistance: Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Era
James N. Pellechia,
Associate Editor of Watch Tower Publications and Director of Public Affairs Office, Watch Tower Society
Mr. Chairman Emanuelis Zingeris, Mr. President Valdas Adamkus, Mr. Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, Mr. President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Lord Russell-Johnston, Mr. Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury of the United States Mr. Stuart Eizenstat, honored colleagues, on behalf of the Watch Tower Society and Jehovah's Witness victims of Nazi persecution, I am pleased and deeply honored to address this important gathering. We have observed with interest the energetic efforts by many of you present here in working for a fair and equitable settlement of difficult issues. The progress since the conferences in Washington and London has been remarkable, thanks to your committed work.
This conference marks the first time that Jehovah's Witnesses have been formally invited to participate in discussions regarding losses sustained during the Nazi era. My brief remarks will be a presentation of diminutives. The victim group is small; therefore, in monetary terms their losses were correspondingly small. Scholarly research is scanty, having begun in earnest only in the last few years; therefore, substantive data on looted cultural assets is practically non-existent. Restitution for the victims has been sporadic at best, completely denied at worst (1). In short, little has been done; therefore, there is little to say.
Still, I am grateful to address you on behalf of the victims, to provide an overview of the toll exacted on this small Christian community, and to summarize the current status of restitution of Holocaust-era assets.
The community of Jehovah's Witnesses, or Bibelforscher, in Germany numbered about 25,000 in 1933. Several thousand Witnesses lived in countries later occupied by Nazi forces. As in all countries, Witnesses abstained from political involvement. Nazi persecution of the religious group was swift and severe. The Witnesses were among the first groups targeted by the Hitler government. The demands of the regime were wholly incompatible with the teachings of the Witnesses, whose religious tenets included strong ethical values opposed to Nazi antisemitism and violence. The Witnesses' conspicuous refusal to pay homage to Hitler, to participate in nationalistic and military activities, and to adapt their religious doctrine to the Nazi racial agenda led to severe consequences. Danish journalist Niels J¸rgensen, imprisoned in Neuengamme, later wrote of the Witnesses: "Their 'crime' was that it was against their profound religious conviction to bend their knee (or stretch out their arm) to any human ruler."(2)
Witnesses also determinedly continued their religious ministry despite a series of government bans, which were instituted progressively in German states beginning in April 1933. Having firsthand experience with the criminal nature of the regime, Witnesses used their printed underground literature to expose Nazi brutality against their members. The Witnesses' international publications also carried extensive details about Nazi crimes against others, focusing particular and frequent attention on the looting and destruction of the Jewish community. The Gestapo invested considerable resources in an effort to suppress the production and distribution of The Watchtower and other Witness publications. Where underground printing operations were discovered, Nazi authorities seized printing equipment and punished offenders with utmost severity. Those executed for participation in this work included a grandmother who lived near Oberhausen, Germany. She was arrested on June 2, 1944, and beheaded. The vigor with which Nazi authorities pursued Witnesses and seized their property must be said to be in large measure due to their nonviolent resistance, as exemplified in Witness pamphlets.
Persecution increased markedly with the introduction of military conscription, and the Witnesses count among their dead 364 conscientious objectors, 260 of whom were executed following sentencing by military courts. This constitutes, by the way, the largest number of executed conscientious objectors belonging to a single group. This fact also bears heavily on subsequent efforts by surviving members to receive restitution for their losses. I will deal with this in more detail in a moment. Evangelical theologian Martin Niemöller said of the Witnesses, "And to think that we Christians of today are ashamed of the so-called sect of the Ernste Bibelforscher, who by the hundreds and thousands have gone into concentration camps and died because they refused to serve in war and declined to fire on human beings."(3)
Among the legal measures enacted to penalize individual Witnesses were expulsions from civil service and teaching posts, confiscation of businesses and property, seizure of bank accounts, cessation of pensions and disability insurance, removal of children to reeducation facilities, sterilization, and incarceration(4). Property and assets were seized by authorities and little was recoverable after the war. Ultimately, some 10,000 Witnesses served sentences in camps and prisons. Some 500 children were taken into custody. About 2,500 Witnesses died as a result of torture, maltreatment, or execution.
The Nazi persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses was clearly based on the regime's hostility toward the Witnesses' religious ideology. The Witness victims were mostly ethnic Germans, and at first the Hitler regime hoped they could be rehabilitated; thus, they were not slated for wholesale physical annihilation. This is evident by the remarkable offer of freedom to any incarcerated Witness willing to sign a document renouncing his or her faith and pledging allegiance to the State. No such choice was given to other Nazi victims, especially not to victims of racial persecution. Few Witnesses consented to adopt Nazi ways. Hence, thousands suffered years of imprisonment and abuse and, in the process, lost everything they owned. This was true in occupied lands as well. For instance, in the Netherlands, a directive by the Municipal Police of Emmen stated that once an individual was identified as a Witness, "all possessions, houses, land or any property must be confiscated, in addition to magazines, books and name lists."
Specifically regarding losses of cultural assets, it should be said that the Witness population constituted a relatively young community in Europe with a short history and few material holdings that could be considered museum objects. Witnesses had been active in Germany since about 1902, but more than half the Witnesses in 1933 had only joined the faith during the previous five years.
Worship services were commonly held in rented meeting halls, which were usually simple and unadorned, and the manner of worship did not include ceremonial objects.However, each congregation would have had a collection of sacred books and reference works, and some also kept valuable archives of the religious life and activities of its members. With the community's emphasis on Bible scholarship, individual members also maintained personal libraries of Bibles and study books. Since "witnessing" was a key component of the faith, many congregations or individuals commonly owned printing equipment and substantial inventories of Bible literature for distribution to the public. During raids and house searches, the police and Gestapo routinely confiscated and destroyed all such valuables.
For instance, when the Magdeburg, Germany, office of the Watch Tower Society was seized and closed in late June 1933, 25 tons of literature, then valued at $750,000, were confiscated and destroyed(5).
No systematic demographic survey has been done to determine the socio-economic composition of the community, the members of which seem to have been drawn from every level of society. Although many personal testimonies of Witness victims have been gathered, assessment of material losses has been made more difficult because their testimonies tend to focus on the spiritual battles they waged to retain their faith and values. Little mention is made of their pre- or post-War economic situation. Witnesses generally accepted their losses as the price paid for maintaining their religious convictions. With the help of donations from fellow members overseas, the victims tended to concentrate on rebuilding their family life and religious community, rather than to pursue the recovery of plundered assets.
A hindering factor in any such efforts was the reluctance of government officials to recognize the victimization of Witnesses, thus offering them little hope of ever recovering lost property.The situation regarding restitution in individual countries is as follows:
In Austria, about 35 Jehovah's Witnesses have received a single payment out of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria. A few more have applied for and received a small pension. However, many have found it difficult to obtain official recognition as victims of the Nazi regime. There have been special difficulties in the case of men who were executed for refusing to perform military service. Surviving relatives were initially denied compensation. Witnesses who were sent to asylums and Nazi reeducation facilities as children still find it difficult to receive any compensation.
In Belgium and France, a few Witnesses have received small payments. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, Russia, and Ukraine, no known compensation has been received by victims. In Poland and Slovakia, a few dozen Witnesses received a small amount from the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust. In Norway and the Netherlands, partial compensation was received by the national offices of Jehovah's Witnesses for confiscated property.
In Germany the Federal Law for Compensation recognizes Jehovah's Witnesses as a so-called group of persecution. Paragraph 1 of this law grants claims to all who were persecuted because of "reasons of religion."
However, a problem exists with regard to Witnesses who suffered as conscientious objectors. German law does not consider Jehovah's Witnesses who were conscientious objectors because of religious conviction as being entitled to compensation, nor does the German Federal Court regard the subsequent persecution of these individuals as persecution "due to reasons of religion." The court has reasoned that it was not their religious conviction that motivated Nazi courts to punish them but their denial to "perform the legally required military service."
Therefore, the court has concluded that "a specific National Socialistic act of injustice" could not be established(6).
The German Democratic Republic (GDR) originally recognized Jehovah's Witnesses as "victims of Fascism" and "persons persecuted by the Nazi regime". However, in 1949 steps were taken to strip the Witnesses of this status because of their position of Christian neutrality toward the Communist government. The decision rendered on February 1, 1949 stated that:
"The status of Victim of Fascism must be awarded only on the basis of political activity and exemplary execution of vocational assignments. It cannot be expected today that special privileges are granted only because a person was persecuted during the Nazi period due to just any religious or political reason."As a result, all qualifying Witnesses in the GDR lost their rights to compensation from 1949 to 1989, resulting in a lifelong economic loss to an estimated 6,000 persons(7).
On the positive side, Jehovah's Witnesses have been identified as one of the class categories in the Swiss Banks Settlement Agreement and many will also qualify for payments by the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future. The losses of the small community of Jehovah's Witnesses pale beside the inestimable and tragic losses of the Jewish community, as well as other targeted peoples. Material losses notwithstanding, the surviving Witnesses would count it among their greatest losses if the blood of their brethren, as well as their own sufferings for the sake of their God and their religious values, would go unrecognized in the record of history. I am therefore gratified to represent them here today.
(1) A special dilemma has been encountered by at least one Jewish survivor from Lwow who became one of Jehovah's Witnesses after her incarceration. She suffers severe health problems from maltreatment in Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. Her application to the Claims Conference was refused because, as stated in their letter dated Frankfurt, 26.08.99, "The financial means that the Claims Conference administrates are meant for Holocaust survivors who were Jewish at the time of persecution and are still Jewish now [emphasis in original]." This reply caused the survivor acute distress and has discouraged her from further efforts to apply for financial assistance.
(2) Jorgensen, Niels. Paa det tyske Slavemarked (Copenhagen, 1945), pp. 157-158.
(3) Niemöller, Martin. Of Guilt and Hope (New York: Philosophical Library [no date]), p. 58.
(4) Of German Witnesses, 1,687 lost jobs, 284 lost businesses, 457 had trade licenses revoked, and 826 were denied pensions.
(5) "The Society has sustained a great material loss, its name has been injured and besmirched by the action of the German authorities, thousands of books belonging to the Society, valued at about $750,000, were burnt and destroyed without justification and without warning." (The Golden Age, April 25, 1934, p. 455)
(6) Commenting on Germany's restitution to non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, Special Master Judah Gribetz commented:
"Persecuted Jehovah's Witnesses and Roma have been eligible for compensation virtually from the inception of these programs, such as Germany's BEG promulgated in the 1950s. . . . Nevertheless, compensation to the Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled and homosexual victims of the Nazis generally has been more limited in scope and beset by difficulties, including continuing prejudice and mischaracterization of the victims." (In Re Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation [Swiss Banks] Special Master's Proposal, September 11, 2000, p. 139ff.)
(7) Information for this summary is largely based on "Spiritual Resistance and Its Costs for a Christian Minority-A Documentary Report of Jehovah's Witnesses Under Nazism 1933-1945," October 1999, submitted to Special Master Judah Gribetz as background documentation on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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39
WTS MILKS HOLOCAUST FOR $$$ AND P.R.
by MadApostate in"adultresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with god?
whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of god.
"they are no part of the world, just as i am no part of he world.
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MadApostate
I still maintain that the WTS's "Holocaust Education" program is just one facet of the overall PR strategy developed in the late '80s to insinuate its' way into the good graces of the world.
Jolene Chu is making her annual appearance at the Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. Chu's topic of expertise is somewhat interesting.
Excerpt from Schedule for 32th Annual Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches
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Tuesday, March 5
...
...CONCURRENT SESSIONS
1C: Rescue & Resistance
Chair:
F. Burton Nelson,
North Park Theological Seminary (Chicago, IL)Jolene Chu
Jehovah's Witness Holocaust-Era Survivors Fund, Inc.
(Patterson, NY)Patrick Gerard Henry
Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA)Sibylle Sarah Niemoeller von Sell
(Doylestown, PA)George S. Pick,
(Arlington, VA) -
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They Overcame Their JW Upbringing
by MadApostate inarticle #1.
brilliant ambiguities spring from artist's childhood .
thursday, december 6, 2001. by regina hackett.
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MadApostate
GUY LeCHARLES GONZALEZ
Guy LeCharles Gonzalez was born in New York, NY in 1969, the only son of 18-year olds, Frank and Deborah Gonzalez. After his parents separated when Guy was three, he was raised by his mother, spending most of his childhood in the Claremont Park section of the Bronx with later moves to Manhattan, Mt. Vernon and Yorktown Heights, from where he graduated Lakeland High School in 1987.
It was in 5th grade that Guy wrote his first story, a result of nearly getting caught plagiarizing because he liked the praise he received for a story taken from a kid's book of ghost stories so much, he decided to copy another. Hiding the book in his closet, he sat down and wrote a story that he wishes he remembered what it was about. Unfortunately, he doesn't, which kind of makes this tangent irrelevant... Over the years, he'd write several stories, most often influenced by his current taste in books (Ian Fleming, Stephen King, Sue Grafton and Lawrence Block were early inspirations) and girls (most stories had to do with him getting the girl in question, usually at the expense of a boyfriend cast as the bad guy). He also dabbled in journalism and broadcasting, writing for his high school newspaper and writing/reporting/directing for a local public access show.
Post-high school, after a year or two as a full-time Jehovah's Witness where he began to develop his speaking and debating skills knocking on doors in Northern Westchester County, he had a crisis of faith - partly inspired by the movie It's A Wonderful Life, which he saw for the first time at eighteen - and moved back to the NYC-area, staying with his estranged father in North Bergen, NJ. A year later, in 1990, he moved to Miami Beach, FL - living four blocks from a beach he somehow only went to four times! - and spent a semester and a half at Miami Dade Community College before blowing his student loan money and hopping a Greyhound back north. Having gotten rid of all his winter clothes the year before, he spent his first week back in NYC sick and ended up signing up for the US Army, leaving three weeks later for Ft. Dix, NJ and Basic Training/AIT where he trained for six months, followed by another three weeks in Ft Benning, GA for Airborne School. He then spent the next two years stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY with the 2/5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) as a Light Wheel Vehicle Mechanic, doing everything he could to avoid Somalia, Saudi Arabia, getting ditry working on HMMWV's and figuring out what was next.
October 30, 1993: He returned to New York City - after an ill-advised, three week attempt at returning to Miami - with an honorable discharge, an assignment to the NJ National Guard and not much else. Within a month, he'd found temp work at a business directory publisher and began an accidental career in magazine circulation.November 25, 1994: The Nuyorican Poets Café. He'd heard of the place and their infamous poetry slams and had been intending to check it out for a while. He finally made it on this night, the day after Thanksgiving, a long weekend on which he was apartment-sitting for his cousin in the Bronx. The specifics of the night are blurry, with a vague memory of Bob Holman and a Rush Limbaugh look-alike that did parody songs and won the slam. It was a watershed moment. He spent the rest of the weekend banging out the proverbial "loosely auto-biographical" screenplay. It was 42 pages long and was amazing. Not! Two years later - after three significant rewrites and dozens of minor ones - he attempted to shoot it himself on video with a cast of friends from his acting class at Jersey City State College (now New Jersey City University). It was an unmitigated disaster with his cameraman backing out over creative differences, him having no clue how to direct for video and his leading lady knowing NONE of her lines or motivation! Another year passed and, at the suggestion of his acting teacher, Annette Cardona (Cha-Cha from the original GREASE!), he reimagined the script as a stage play.
Re-enter the Nuyorican Poets Café, summer of 1997. Rewind first, though, to early 1996 and the Flippin' the Script: Rap Meets Poetry showcase at SOB's, curated and hosted by Bob Holman. It was there Guy first saw Willie Perdomo, and a seed was planted. Willie was promoting his debut collection, WHERE A NICKEL COSTS A DIME (Norton, 1996) and for the first time, he heard a poem that hit him in the gut and connected on a visceral level like never before: Nigger-Reecan Blues. It was watershed moment number two.
Back to the Nuyorican. Between that first visit in late 1994 and the summer of 1997, Guy had become an avid fan of the Friday night poetry slams and often used the venue as a first date. In July of 1997, after taking another acting workshop with Ms. Cardona and living through the worst back-to-back break-ups of his personal life, poetry began to find itself pouring out of his pen.
Really bad lovelorn stuff and dumb, pseudo-political rants to be sure, but it was a start. In the back of his mind, though, were a couple of other things: 1) his script, for which the Nuyorican was a perfect venue for its production; and 2) his job at Poets & Writers Magazine for which he imagined an article could be written. Armed with three poems - a suicidal one, a f**k America one and a lost-love one - he took a shot at the Wednesday night slam which anyone could sign up for and compete. Outside the venue, he chatted up Keith Roach, then host and curator of the Friday night slam, picking his brain about the scene, the Café and poetry in general. That night, he made the second round, his suicide poem scoring him a solid 27.5, leaving him unsure of how to feel. He ended up in 5th place overall. On his way out, Roach invited him to slam on a Friday. Thrilled, he picked August 8, 1997, which, coincidentally, was right in the middle of that year's National Poetry Slam being held in Middletown, CT.
He won that first slam handily which put him in a semi-final. Surprisingly, to both him and many of the "veterans" in the audience, he won that one, too, becoming the first person qualified for the following summer's Grand Slam Finale. In the time between, his work continued to develop and his true voice began to emerge, moving away from the simplistic, crowd-pleasing rants that were winning him slams and towards more honest, textured narratives that began to win him respect. A small group of like-minded poets - including Lynne Procope, Roger Bonair-Agard and Stephen Colman - started hanging out together, holding informal workshops and critique sessions in smoky bars like Botanica, where the beginning of the a little bit louder collective began to take shape.
In December of 1997, Guy took over hosting the Nuyorican's Open Room, the post-midnight open mic that followed the slams on Friday nights. In March of 1998, he took over the Monday night slot at 13 Bar Lounge and founded the a little bit louder reading series.
Summer, 1998: After losing the Grand Slam Finale, he tied Alix Olson in a slamoff for the third spot on the Nuyorican's National Poetry Slam team and, when the audience turned down a tie-breaker, both of them made the team. They - along with teammates Procope and Colman, with Bonair-Agard as coach - brought home the Nuyorican's first-ever National Championship, winning the trophy in Austin at the 9th Annual National Poetry Slam.The event was covered by CNN/Entertainment Weekly, who followed the team throughout the week, taping performances and candid interviews which included an arrogant Guy sitting poolside explaining why New York was better than everyone else, and that there was no reason they couldn't win the whole thing. Good thing they DID win!
Upon their triumphant return home, Guy started up a slam at his Monday-night series that would create a third team from New York City: NYC-Union Square. Within two months, he was dismissed from hosting the Open Room and another couple of months later, after some virulent email battles and an ill-advised Wednesday night performance of a poem offering his metaphorical take on things, was banned from the Nuyorican.
For the next three years, he ran the a little bit louder series whose slam team made the National Poetry Slam Finals in its first two years (he was on the team in 1999; slammaster-only in 2000, 2001) losing the competition both years on time penalties while winning national respect for New York City in general and the series in particular with well-written, well-performed poetry.
Spring of 2000 saw the publication of the well-received BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE by the radical indie publisher, Soft Skull Press (best known for republishing FORTUNATE SON after St. Martin's Press pulled the original edition), which combined selections of his work along with that of his teammates and included an introduction by the founder of the Nuyorican's Friday Night Slam, Bob Holman.
Summer of 2000 saw the fractured NYC slam community come together when Guy co-produced the recording of the nycSLAMS CD which brought together representatives from all three slam venues, repairing rifts in the scene and partly contributing to NYC dominating that summer's National Poetry Slam Finals as all three teams made it in for the first time ever.
Spring of 2001 found Guy elected to the Executive Council of the non-profit Poetry Slam, Inc., the organization that governs the National Poetry Slam.
At the end of 2001, he stepped down from the a little bit louder series to prepare for a move south to Norfolk, VA where, as of sometime in March 2002, he will reside with his beautiful wife of 3 ½ years, Salomé (to whom he proposed from the Nuyorican's stage on March 20, 1998) and their one-year old son, Isaac.
He continues to write, performs and conducts workshops on occasion and expects to one day revisit that script that started this whole crazy ride.
Contact: [email protected]
PUBLICATIONS
*di-verse-city 2000 (AIPF, 2000)
*Burning Down the House (Soft Skull Press, 2000)
*Will Work For Peace (Zeropanik, 1999)JOURNALS
*Drumvoices Revue, Summer/Fall 2000 (SIU, 2000)
*STOVEPIPE, Fall/Winter 1999 (Sweet Lady Moon Press, 1999)
*ONE(DOG)PRESS #39, August 1999 (ONE(DOG)PRESS, 1999)AUDIO
*nycSLAMS (re:VERB Recordings, 2000)PERFORMANCE
*Connecticut Poetry Festival - 2001 *Austin International Poetry Festival - 2000, 1999
*SoUPFest - 1999
*National Poetry Slam - 1999, 1998 -
15
Masonry????
by apostate man ini have been reading some things about free masonry and how some say russell was a mason.
i have been skeptical up to this point but i am now finding more information that says this may be true.. question: .
why in the world would an organization that teaches against idols and flags etc., use a pyramid at the grave of its founder????
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MadApostate
in my opinion he was not a mason, but was familiar with many of their rites because of his father being one.
Please provide PROOF that Joseph Russell was ever a Mason.
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15
Masonry????
by apostate man ini have been reading some things about free masonry and how some say russell was a mason.
i have been skeptical up to this point but i am now finding more information that says this may be true.. question: .
why in the world would an organization that teaches against idols and flags etc., use a pyramid at the grave of its founder????
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MadApostate
Larc says:
In Russels' case, he borrowed ideas from several places. It would be fairer to say that he was most influenced by the Millerites, who became the Seventh Day Advenists.
WRONG!!!"It would be fairer to say that he (Russell) was most influenced by the" SECOND ADVENTISTS, who evolved out of the Millerite "movement", as did other groups such as the SDA.
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This should take care of Cyngus's doubts that "the Pyramid" was erected by the WBTS, although this did occur while JFR and the other Directors were in prison. It's doubtful that "anything" would have been done without JFR's approval, but I know of no actual proof of such.
AT THE GRAVE
On Monday, a party of about 150 was conducted by Brother Bohnet to the grave of Brother Russell. Upon a hillside, sloping towards the south, we joined hands around the grave and sang: 'Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.'
Our last lingering look upon the scene recalled the peaceful manner of our Pastor's 'passing beyond the vail.' Brother Rutherford's words came to mind: 'I am glad this prison experience was reserved for us, rather than for our dear Brother Russell.'
We visited the marble works and there watched the workmen slowly but surely chisel out the monument to be erected as a memorial to the Society. The Watchtower Society burial lots in Rosemont United Cemeteries, five miles due north of Pittsburgh City, contain ample grave space for all the members of the Bethel family, and the pilgrims and their wives — in all more than 275 adult graves. In the exact center of the Bethel lot will be erected diagonally the Pyramid Shape Monument as designed by Brother Bohnet, and accepted by Brother Russell as the most fitting emblem for an enduring monument on the Society's burial space. The size of this structure is nine feet across the base, and its apex stone is exactly seven feet above the ground surface level.
It rests upon a concrete foundation five feet deep and heavily reinforced with barbed wire, the work of Brother Bohnet, who would not entrust this important task to anyone else, so we are assured that the job was well done. The brother gave a full description of the securing of the rock material at the time he piloted the conventionists to the cemetery and urged us to help ourselves to souvenir chips in the shop of the granite worker nearby ...
Each slope of the pyramid will face one of the large lots, and on each of these slopes is cut in four-inch embossment a Teacher's Bible, on the pages of which will appear the names of the ones buried there. The burial space for Brother Rutherford was indicated and his name, like that of Brother Russell, will be at the top of opposite Bible pages. A Bible space is being set apart for the Pilgrims — all in one lot of forty eight grave space[s], so all their names will appear on the same Bible.
Above the Bibles are spaces for inscriptions in full, W.T.B & T.S., I.B.S.A., 'Dead with Christ', 'Risen with Christ', etc. And above these the Cross and Crown and Wreath, and the whole capped with the apex stone, highly polished — its shape of course being pyramidal.
Within the structure, incased [sic] in a block of granite, will be a sealed metal box in which is a complete set of Karatol Scripture Studies, the Memorial Tower, and one of every tract, photographs of Pastor Russell, a copy of the Society's charter, and many other things to interest the people who at some future date may open the pyramid and find them.
It is expected the monument will be in place before the next Decoration Day. Any truth people desiring a chip of the stone may send postage enough to carry a piece about the size of an egg, with enough additional to pay the Society for the trouble of having it wrapped for the mail."Souvenir Report of the Bible Students Convention, Pittsburgh, PA. 1/2-5/1919, p7.