Mommie Dark

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Posts by Mommie Dark

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  2

  Food TV and other cable delites

  by Mommie Dark in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  is anybody else a foodie?

  .

  fans of comedy central and bravo?

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  Mommie Dark

  Is anybody else a foodie?

  Fans of Comedy Central and Bravo?
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  14

  Reading Recommendations

  by Kristen in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i'm a bookworm and would love to hear some of your recommendations.. besides the traditional coc, in search of christian freedom, etc.

  books that help facilitate one's journey out, please feel free to share the titles you found helpful to your own growth after leaving the organization.. thanks a bunch!

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  Mommie Dark

  I recommend some fiction because it helps open the doors of yor perception, especially for those of us who were so closed-minded as cultists.
  Here are some of my faves that helped expand my horizons:

  The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. In fact, almost anything of hers will help pry your mind open, but this one was especially wonderful for me.

  Towing Jehovah, by Robert Morrow

  anything by Tom Robbins. His take on religion is incredibly refreshing and he is a screamingly funny writer.

  Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Follow this with other Vonnegut but be careful. His work is deceptively simple but idea-rich, you can get overloaded before you realize. Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five are my choices for #2, then take a break before you read more of his stuff!

  I hope you'll try some of these. Let me know if you found this helpful?

  Love
  MD
• 
  16

  Subjection Does No-One Any Good.

  by Englishman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ive been thinking a lot about this subjection thing that is so much a part of wt teaching.. i mean, what is the point of it?

  who does it benefit?.

  why cant couples work out a who does what pattern that suits themselves, why should they pay any heed to the wtbtss edicts about women being in subjection?.

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  Mommie Dark

  Careful Englishman, you tread perilous close to blasphemY! Us wimminz are weak vessels, prone to sin, led by our ovaries to be silly featherheaded broads or foolish cows. Now get with the program and take up that rod!

  !!!!! ;) ;)

  In our household, we have worked out a system where the best-qualified person delegates to the rest. Whoever has the most training or expertise leads the way. Nobody has a problem following instructions. Nobody feels threatened by being told what to do, or how to do it, or when, if it serves the greater good of the household. I have no qualms submitting myself to someone else if they are the designated boss. Thus if my 9-year-old son knows more about something than me, he leads. We all follow Papa's word as law in all technical aspects of our home. Nobody feels threatened by acting subordinate if it serves the family's purpose.

  If you used the words 'headship' or 'humble submission' in our house you would get blown out the door by the gusts of laughter. If you prove you are the best man for the task at hand, though, everyone here will line up to find out how you want stuff handled, and then do their best to carry it out successfully. (this is the ideal, mind you, we fight and argue and stravage along like any other family, ;D. But we don't have anyone claiming 'headship' by virtue of gender or age or other pointless criteria.)

  Dunno why some folks (mostly menz) are threatened by such an arrangement but dang, some peoples have MEAN things to say about it! Fortunately we all have elephant hides when it comes to criticism of our...eccentricities...besides it works for us so why go back to an archaic and awkward system?
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  31

  I want to know more about you. REALLY!

  by jst2laws in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i so desire to know more about the people i am listening to, and occasionally talking to.

  aol has profiles.

  some other web sites have them.

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  Mommie Dark

  Hi there, jst2laws.

  Mommie Dark's history is available at Free Minds Inc. in the section titled 'Rose's Cantina'. Mommie Dark has a little corner in the Cantina where she tells True Scary Stories of her JW life. So if you would like to see inside Mommie's head, try there first.

  I'll fill in your list since you ask:

  Name: Mommie Dark aka Lynn Atwood

  age: 47 in a couple of months

  Sex: female human (with pit bull genetic stock, LOL)

  current temporal location: Corntown, middle USA

  family status: Married to Papa Dark, boy genius. Three sons, ages 23, 24, and 9. Of nine siblings, three brothers and one sister still speak to me. The other five are either dubs or believing walkaways who hate my outspokenness against the cult. (My darling sister is at home under hospice care for cancer. Death is an old acquaintance of ours, and we are preparing to meet him again, we hope NOT too soon, but so far she is WAY more resigned than I to this meeting.)

  dislikes: authoritarianism, fearmongering; ignorant smug arrogance in cultists

  likes: most everything I don't dislike!

  music: the 10% of all genres that isn't crap. Currently I've been listening to Fatboy Slim (LOVE that new video with Walken dancing...), classic Traffic, lotsa Mozart, ICP, Barenaked Ladies, Cleo Laine, and the soundtrack to 'Brother, Where Art Thou?'

  books: Mommie is a literature omnivore. If it holds still, I'll read it...

  poetry: Jong, Plath, cummings, Thomas, Blake, and other mad human conduits

  hobby: researching crackpot conspiracy theories and using them as fodder for storytelling.

  favorite food: Papa Darks' Melting Uranus Chili (tm)

  favorite tv show; That's My Bush on Comedy Central, Becker on CBS (a tie)

  current most time-consuming pastime: Trying to live a semi-normal life with progressive degenerative arthritis and tendinitis. Finding perspective through a filter of increasing pain. Learning to cope with the growing invisibility of disability (having recently been spoken around by a public servant as if my cane rendered me stupid or deaf... what a humbling experience! I wonder how our friends in wheelchairs maintain good cheer in the face of this idiocy?)

  OK that's enough about Mommie. If you want to know more, ask. Otherwise, poke me with that fork, I think I'm done...

  as always,
  Mommie D.
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  3

  a poem I wrote

  by Mommie Dark in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i hope it's ok to just hop in here and post.

  i wrote this on reply to a fundamentalist born-againer who would not stop preaching at a message board no matter how politely (or otherwise) he was asked/told/screamed at.

  i am not quite so peeved at churchianity these days but it still expressed my feelings pretty well.. religion.

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  Mommie Dark

  I hope it's ok to just hop in here and post. I wrote this on reply to a fundamentalist born-againer who would not stop preaching at a message board no matter how politely (or otherwise) he was asked/told/screamed at. I am not quite so peeved at Churchianity these days but it still expressed my feelings pretty well.

  Religion

  I confess to a growing intolerance

  for those who thrust the supernatural

  beneath my nose.

  Like swamp-dwellers lifelong steeped in

  that ubiquitous methane,

  immured by association to the stench,

  they seek to share the fetid effluvia

  of demons and deities

  as if it were blessed incense,

  the breath of life.

  The sweet air of reason----

  perfume of human sharing,

  spice of humor, tang of clash and parry:

  scents of the tangible, the tao of reality

  (physical and virtual)----

  is free and clean.

  But superstition

  and the associated vapors and vicissitudes

  is a chicken farm upwind on a hot day.
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  27

  To Mommy (Wendy) & Prisca

  by LoneWolf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  to wendy & prisca,.

  you badly misjudged both my intentions and what i wrote.

  isnt that exactly what ive been saying all along and the reason that i posted in the first place?

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  Mommie Dark

  Tom said:
  To Mommie Dark
  Let me add a little here on the serious side. You say that I’ve misjudged you. I would like to believe that. I’ve seen a few of your posts that were reasoned and logical and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Why you waste your time and talent on putting others down without giving them the benefit of the doubt is beyond me. You can do better than that."

  No I never said that you misjudged me. I say you have NO right at all to judge me. I say that you THINK you have some right to exercise headship over women based on the hairy little thing dangling between your thighs. I say that a man who admits he dated and discussed sexual matters with a thirteen-year-old ON THE FIRST DATE, and justifies this by saying he kept her virgin until he married her, is probably NOT an arbiter of morals for others. Especially for women.

  (BTW Elvis always said Priscilla was a virgin until he married her although he spent long dark nights alone with her in a dark bedroom. My father also bragged about my virginity to anyone who would listen; all the while in secret he was trying his best to see how close he could get to bending my virginity without breaking it. So forgive me if I got a real horselaugh out of your rationalization about your child-bride. Boy do I feel sorry for THAT little girl! She never had a lick of emotional or intellectual freedom...you made her your property before she was even done sprouting her pubes!)

  I say that a person of either gender has to EARN the right to exercise headship. You think you have it as a god-given right. You think my belief that women don't need avuncular paternalists leading them around by the nose makes me a featherhead.The fact that I don't suffer fools doesn't mean I'm incapable of 'giving others the benefit of the doubt.' But when a man like you keeps blowing and blowing and blowing stinky meaningless rhetorical gas all over in a vain attempt to put uppity 'feminists' in their place, you REMOVE all doubt.

  I don't want to 'put you down.' I just want you to quit posting these long BORING diatribes, trying to justify your hatred and mistrust of strong women and your need to try (feebly but annoyingly) to dominate us all, because ultimately you think your mom wasn't nurturing enough.

  BTW how does a 'featherheaded broad' manage to be 'reasoned and logical' except when she disagrees with you?

  Absolutely DONE responding to this meat puppet,
  MD
  (castrating bitch and featherhead extraordinaire)
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  4

  Best of times, worst of times

  by Mommie Dark in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  life is so not black-and-white, either/or, us-versus-them!

  life is such a rich pageant, such a glorious heady brew of perfume and musk and spice and manure and mold and rot, sometimes all in the same little experience!...i used to let this stuff make me crazy, trying to find the patterns, the meaning, the reasons for the absurd details of daily existence.

  since i quit measuring everything against the big sovereignty/salvation yardstick, i try to just let things happen, and lately i'm delighted more and more at the quirky propinquity of good and bad in every experience.

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  Mommie Dark

  My name is Dark 'cause I'm married to Papa Dark. Like the good submissive wife I am, I took his name for better or worse until death do us part.

  BTW our name is 'Dark' becuz some of us aren't all white. No deep evil mystery involved. So no imminent name change on this horizon...
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  4

  Best of times, worst of times

  by Mommie Dark in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  life is so not black-and-white, either/or, us-versus-them!

  life is such a rich pageant, such a glorious heady brew of perfume and musk and spice and manure and mold and rot, sometimes all in the same little experience!...i used to let this stuff make me crazy, trying to find the patterns, the meaning, the reasons for the absurd details of daily existence.

  since i quit measuring everything against the big sovereignty/salvation yardstick, i try to just let things happen, and lately i'm delighted more and more at the quirky propinquity of good and bad in every experience.

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  Mommie Dark

  Life is so NOT black-and-white, either/or, us-versus-them! Life is such a rich pageant, such a glorious heady brew of perfume and musk and spice and manure and mold and rot, sometimes all in the same little experience!...I used to let this stuff make me crazy, trying to find the patterns, the meaning, the reasons for the absurd details of daily existence.

  Since I quit measuring everything against the big Sovereignty/Salvation yardstick, I try to just let things happen, and lately I'm delighted more and more at the quirky propinquity of good and bad in every experience. There IS no Ultimate Meaning. And I find that a good, no, a WONDERFUL thing! It makes the random rottenness more bearable, and the sweet sweeter.

  You just never know what is going to happen. You could be horribly discouraged by a debilitating progressive disease, and lose your means of income, and find out someone you love is dying, and have to rush your kid to the e-room for stitches. Then you could get a check you didn't expect on a day when you need money RIGHT NOW. And your doctor could walk up to his billing lady and say, 'no, you charge these folks for a level one visit, not level 2' and save you $25 bucks, and offer to bill you!

  Listen close: that ticking is NOT your heartbeat, it's the big dice, rollin&tumblin in the realm of Faith or Luck or Whatever. The good and the bad will both roll your way, some days wrapped in the same package. Trees always bloom beautifully in a cemetery.

  For every door that closes, there is not necessarily another one opening. It's not that tidy or predictable. Those doors just slam open and shut with no rhyme or rhythm or reason. Nobody knows who (if anyone) is doing the slamming and knob-turning. Look for him, scan all directions: all you'll see, if you see anything at all, is the hem of an indefinite garment disappearing out of the corner of your mind.

  The doors extend in all directions, into infinity. If you look hard enough, it can be downright paralyzing to discover how many of the doors are mirrored...and how easy to get lost in loving---or hating---the image reflected in those mirrors! Meanwhile those doors are still slappin' open&shut all around in all possible dimensions... If you decide to use an open door, my advice is: don't hesitate. You never know where or when the next one will come&go.

  It helps me, when thngs come thick&fast, to think of my exploration of the Omniverse as a ride on a giant rollercoaster. Whenever it makes me queasy, I just stick up my hands and yell, "Whee!" It works fine, so long as I manage to keep down my lunch. The real trick is, to keep yelling 'whee!' while seeing my latest hurl hang in mid-air in that split-second infinity just before it splats on my head...when I can keep laughing while cleaning it off, I will be Enlightened.

  This outburst brought to you courtesy of Dr. Jeff Kontak, who has no idea that his bit of human decency bought this ticket on the Coaster today...

  Love as usual,
  MD
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  27

  To Mommy (Wendy) & Prisca

  by LoneWolf in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  to wendy & prisca,.

  you badly misjudged both my intentions and what i wrote.

  isnt that exactly what ive been saying all along and the reason that i posted in the first place?

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  Mommie Dark

  to the making of many blowhard words there is no end...

  Tom get off your high horse, please? So you hate your mother. Fine. Spend the rest of your life trying to slap women who insult your masculine pride. Then spend endless long windy diatribes justifying your outdated and primitive attitudes with endless and mostly pointless anecdotes, sans actual fact. But do it someplace else, ok?

  Maybe someone who is really spiritually starving will be impressed with the volume of your verbiage. It's like thin cabbage soup for a thousand, but without the cabbage.

  Now could we move on to a topic that isn't about Tom Howell's prejudices?
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  10

  Cults or mere Abusive groups?

  by Amazing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  defining what a cult is, is difficult.

  similarly, in science, there is no established definition for what a weed is; at least i have found none.

  there is no clear-cut way to separate and define a weed from other non-weed plant life by logical methods.

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  Mommie Dark

  The best modern example of thought control in everyday life is probably advertising; most particularly, television advertising.

  Once you start looking for thought control techniques in advertising, you find them to be ubiquitous. Then if you have a brave heart, start looking at media programming content with that same critical eye. You may find the tv news a little less trustworthy if you try this though...

  Now go check out a day of Disney/Nickelodeon propaganda. Look at their biggest competitor in the syndie market: Kids' WB. (I'm not saying this sort of 'mind control' is necessarily evil but it shouldn't be supplanting parental guidance.) Our kids are being programmed to be ravenous little consumers.

  It's not really hard to manipulate and control people if you know the techniques. It's exactly like training animals with stimuli: ring the bell, the dog salivates. Ask any composer who makes a living writing film scores...human emotion can be easily manipulated on levels that barely impinge on an unsuspecting consciousness. It can be done with sound, with color, with light, and with suggestive language.

  In some instances, suggestive propaganda can be useful: public service announcements, public information programs, educational and instructional programming, can all be used to instill citizenship and civic responsibility. (making recycling sound hip with celeb endorsements, anti-drug peer reinforcement commercials, safe sex adverts....).

  Or it can be used to instill terrified obedience to a vengeful God into the hearts of children.

  In this as in so many other areas, knowledge is power. Forewarned is forearmed. Cautious as serpents and all that...