Xanthippe

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Posts by Xanthippe

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  9

  Evolution is a Fact #18 - Fish Fingers

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  it is an amazing intermediate form between fish and land animals complete with both lungs and gills as well as ribs, a jaw, a flat head and teeth.

  crucially it displayed the beginnings of leg bones that are common to all modern tetrapods.

  it had a humerus, radius, ulna and wrist bones but also retained the fin-ray bones of it's fish ancestors.. tiktaalik is just one of many fossils that display the journey of our ancestors from the sea to life on dry land.

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  Xanthippe

  Thanks Cofty for the vid about Jenny Clack and the first tetrapods, the aquatic development of limbs. Absolutely fascinating. Her mind is very clear and she explains everything in a no nonsense way, without ego but with the pure joy of scientific discovery. The first women in her field to be accepted into the Royal Society! Well deserved.
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  19

  Where are they now?

  by Sabin in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  geoffrey jackson.

  terrence o'brien.

  vincent toole.

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  Xanthippe

  What about the reply Jehovah`s Witness Organization gave to the ARC 70 or so recommendations they needed to conform to ? They challenged every one of them , how is that going ?

  
  The ARC is continuing for another two or three years investigating the policies of child safeguarding of religious and other organisations including schools. When the ARC has completed its investigations it will report its findings and recommendations to the government.
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  30

  Do you think JWN members would be surprised if they got to know you in real life?

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't think you'd recognise me much at all.

  i'm a royal mail postman, i love my job for the early starts and midday finish, the outdoors and the exercise.. i get on with people but i'm quite insular and don't enjoy crowds.

  i'm happiest when i've fired up the charcoal and i'm making souvlaki or adana kebabs for my family and a few close friends.

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  Xanthippe

  Stan I would but Simon might object
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  37

  My experience with the people in my hall

  by Freeandclear in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i've been awake now for about 6 months i'd guess and a member here for a couple of weeks.

  it's been eye opening to read other peoples experiences on here and i appreciate all of you.

  i've noticed in many, seemingly most, of your comments that you were not treated well at your hall or you have had very negative experiences in the "org" so i thought i'd like to share mine.. in all my time as a jw i have to say for the most part i always loved the people.

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  Xanthippe

  Lostandfound yes strange thing is I never liked this guy who my husband always referred to as the salt of the earth. My husband begged me to try and get on with him and I did try but I always wanted to say ' why, he doesn't even like you?' Sometimes I wish I was occasionally wrong about people!
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  30

  Do you think JWN members would be surprised if they got to know you in real life?

  by nicolaou in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't think you'd recognise me much at all.

  i'm a royal mail postman, i love my job for the early starts and midday finish, the outdoors and the exercise.. i get on with people but i'm quite insular and don't enjoy crowds.

  i'm happiest when i've fired up the charcoal and i'm making souvlaki or adana kebabs for my family and a few close friends.

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  Xanthippe

  I love your description of your summerhouse Nic. Can you see the stars? Do you watch the sunsets on summer evenings? I've always liked the idea of a summerhouse, conservatory or something similar so you can stay in your garden as long as possible, see the sky darken and the stars come out but be sheltered from the cold as well. Love chicken souvlaki, I eat it in Greece but I'm rubbish at BBQing. Since I was a child I have wanted to stay outside until the last possible moment. In the summer I'm gardening every day I'm not at work, then it's cook dinner, eat it outside with a glass of Italian red. I like a good Italian in the garden.
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  37

  My experience with the people in my hall

  by Freeandclear in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i've been awake now for about 6 months i'd guess and a member here for a couple of weeks.

  it's been eye opening to read other peoples experiences on here and i appreciate all of you.

  i've noticed in many, seemingly most, of your comments that you were not treated well at your hall or you have had very negative experiences in the "org" so i thought i'd like to share mine.. in all my time as a jw i have to say for the most part i always loved the people.

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  Xanthippe

  Welcome to the forum Freeandclear. I also knew some really kind people in the organisation. People who fed me when I was pioneering and one lovely family who put me up in their house for weeks when I left home while I was looking for a place to rent and a job. That sister was always the first one to visit someone who was ill too.

  I think you don't find out what it's really like until you get on the 'inside'. I read your bio thread and you were in and out for years I think. My husband only lasted four years after becoming an elder. He went along to elders meetings and expected them to be arranging shepherding calls and talking about ways to help the brothers. We were naive too! Instead they were fighting one another for power and gossiping about the congregation. If someone had mental health problems they were rubbish and were a waste of time, not worth a visit.

  We thought it was that particular congregation so we moved to another one. My husband continued as an elder while we waited for his letter of recommendation from the previous congregation. He had a book study group and gave public talks. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. Then the letter arrived. They didn't recommend him. They didn't say anything bad about him, there was nothing to say! They just said one or two brothers have said they don't find him as caring as he used to be. Pot, kettle, black! We did both get depressed before we left the old congregation and decided to care more for each other. But that was just nonsense saying that he didn't care.

  What did our lovely friendly congregation do? They took the group off my husband because he didn't get appointed and people started cutting us dead at the Kingdom Hall. We'd done nothing wrong and there we were, shunned before we even left! My husband contacted our old congregation for some feedback which you are allowed to do. It turns out a particular elder, his former pioneer partner had been the force behind the negativity, someone he considered his best friend! After that we soon found Crisis of Conscience and realised it wasn't a local problem at all.

  So you see you really have to be involved to find out about all the power struggles. On a day to day level you don't get to know this.
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  23

  Your Favorite Poetry

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.

  many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.

  rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.

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  Xanthippe

  Kubla Khan

  BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

  Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
  

  In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

  A stately pleasure-dome decree:

  Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

  Through caverns measureless to man

  Down to a sunless sea.

  So twice five miles of fertile ground

  With walls and towers were girdled round;

  And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

  And here were forests ancient as the hills,

  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

  
  

  But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

  Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

  A savage place! as holy and enchanted

  As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

  By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

  And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

  As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

  A mighty fountain momently was forced:

  Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

  Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

  Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

  And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

  It flung up momently the sacred river.

  Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

  Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

  Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

  And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;

  And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

  Ancestral voices prophesying war!

  The shadow of the dome of pleasure

  Floated midway on the waves;

  Where was heard the mingled measure

  From the fountain and the caves.

  It was a miracle of rare device,

  A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

  
  

  A damsel with a dulcimer

  In a vision once I saw:

  It was an Abyssinian maid

  And on her dulcimer she played,

  Singing of Mount Abora.

  Could I revive within me

  Her symphony and song,

  To such a deep delight ’twould win me,

  That with music loud and long,

  I would build that dome in air,

  That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

  And all who heard should see them there,

  And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

  His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

  Weave a circle round him thrice,

  And close your eyes with holy dread

  For he on honey-dew hath fed,

  And drunk the milk of Paradise.

  
  

  BTW Coleridge had an opium addiction. Can you tell?
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  14

  Evolution is a Fact #17 - Belyaev's Silver Foxes

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in stalin's ussr the science of genetics was deemed "reactionary and decadent".

  scientists were sent to the gulags or simply disappeared.

  dmitri konstantinovich belyaev lost his job at the at the central research laboratory of fur breeding in moscow because of his commitment to classical genetics.

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  Xanthippe

  I saw a documentary about these foxes, beautiful animals. You can email the Institute of Cytology And Genetics where they breed the domesticated silver foxes.

  This is the website

  http://www.bionet.nsc.ru/en
  
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  23

  Your Favorite Poetry

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.

  many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.

  rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.

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  Xanthippe

  Here it is SBF.

  He remembers forgotten Beauty - W B YEATS

  1. When my arms wrap you round I press
     My heart upon the loveliness
     That has long faded from the world;
     The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
     In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
     The love-tales wrought with silken thread
     By dreaming ladies upon cloth
     That has made fat the murderous moth;
     The roses that of old time were
     Woven by ladies in their hair.
     The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
     Through many a sacred corridor
     Where such gray clouds of incense rose
     That only the gods' eyes did not close:
     For that pale breast and lingering hand
     Come from a more dream-heavy land,
     A more dream-heavy hour than this;
     And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
     I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
     For hours when all must fade like dew,
     All but the flames, and deep on deep.
     Throne over throne where in half sleep.
     Their swords upon their iron knees,
     Brood her high lonely mysteries.
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  23

  Your Favorite Poetry

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thank you, dear friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.

  many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even english grammar.

  rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- i would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Xanthippe

  The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

  And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

  Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

  And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

  
  

  And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

  Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

  There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

  And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

  
  

  I will arise and go now, for always night and day

  I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

  While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

  I hear it in the deep heart’s core.