i am an american, and so is my president.
this is an iron no speech can hold.
it can only be experienced.
PLike D8TA, the amount of applause seemed ridiculous and reminded me of both the Communist Party speeches under Stalin and those talks you got at the district assemblies by the chairman, where he paused regularly to encourage you to break into 'spontaneous' applause.
I'm rather impressed how many know-it-alls there are on this thread. Why aren't they out solving the world's problems?
i am not a jw myself but i am wondering if this is the proper punishment for kids of jws ?.
my 2 neices are aged 12 &10 their step dad and mother are practising jw,s and the step dad thinks this is acepptable punishment for these girls.
he pulls down their knickers and hits these girls with a belt untill there are welts on their backsides.
It is not an acceptable form of punishment for any children, JWs or not. I was never beaten and only rarely spanked as a child and there was only one family that beat their kids in our KH and this reflected their non-Witness background far more than any Bible 'education' they had recieved on becoming JWs.
Linking severe corporal punishment with JWs is a nonsense, it's far more likely to have socio-economic causes and should be reported to the authorities.
My tuppence.
has anyone else read philip pullman's trilogy his dark materials?
yes it's for kids but is fabulous attack on religion and the concept of the divine.
anyone else got their own daemon?
Has anyone else read Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials? Yes it's for kids but is fabulous attack on religion and the concept of the Divine. Anyone else got their own daemon? Mine's a marmoset.
i saw the film "pay it forward" some weeks ago.
now, whilst most of us stoical brits will snort somewhat at the emotional hokum, nonetheless the movie featured many salient points, not least the theory that humankind needs to put something back into society if it is to retain it's own sense of worth.. as it happens, i agree with that theory.
also, since leaving the jw's, i find that i have much more concern for the welfare of my fellow man than i used to have.
This is something I think about quite a lot.
I've been completely out of the borg for 10 months and don't want to rush off into some other cult but plan, by the time I've finished university in 18 months, to work in the voluntary sector. As much of my JW life was focused around helping people, however misguidedly, I think I'd be inclined to continue that. I have a friend that's a policy developer for Women's Aid and she's fortunate enough to be in a postion to affect government policies that can make real differences to people's lives. She's pretty amazing.
A lot of ex-witnesses I know have retrained as psychologists or other medical therapists. Thier own inclination and life experience has shaped their choices.
dont know if this has been discussed so sorry if it has... .
just watched the interview with the 70 year old mr crow who is paralysed from the neck down and will soon loose his voice.
today he is flying from england to switzerland to die....very moving.
I notice that somebody mentions that the potential applicants (I can't think what else to call them, customers or patients doesn't sound right) should be checked for signs of treatable depression. The clinic in Zurich had assisted a schizophrenic brother and sister in taking their own lives. Their parents were both instituationalised and they felt that the prospect of living their lives suffering from the side effects of their medication was not living at all and the clinic respected this wish.
It's interesting that society in general does not view suicide as an acceptable exit from mental pain but does for physical pain, and yet mental pain can be worse.
Euthanasia, assisted suicide, withholding antibiotics from weak elderly patients - how do we decide? I've had 3 friends take their own lives, and witnessed the degrading decline of granparents through Alzheimerrs and a friend's parent with Motor Neuron. I would much rather take a barbiturate overdose than endure what they did but maybe not in that dingy Zurich apartment, I prefer my last view to be of the Matterhorn.
last week, i was gurgling merrily at an episode of the simpsons.
it was the one that is a parody of the "thelma and louise" film where marge and her chum are being pursued by homer and chief wiggum.. marge's chum is trying to impress her with her cool music, but when she turns on the car radio, it begins to play one of her less cool tunes, something that i have never heard before called "sunshine and lollipops".
this repeated itself several times in different vehicles, whenever anyone turned on the radio, sunshine and lollipops came blaring out.
The Cheeky Girls are fabulous synthetic pop. I took their single to a party at the weekend and by the end of the evening the floor was heaving with people doing the Cheeky Dance like there was no tomorrow.
in today's copy of the scotsman there's an article on people that don't celebrate christmas for a variety of reasons and sure enough a witness family are featured.
they are spending christmas day on the beach in the canary islands and after pointing out the fact that the 25th is christ's birthday go on to say.
"it would be churlish to say that our children are not affected by peer pressure about christmas, but we feel bigger issues are at stake - independant thought and standing up for what you believe in.
It was the claim that they represent a fight for 'independant thought' that bugged the hell out of me.
I was raised a witness and have to say that not celebrating Christmas never ever bothered me, it always looked tacky And to now be wrapped in tinsel etc just doesn't hold any appeal.
from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2587707.stm
in pictures: world trade center plans .
seven new plans for the site of the world trade center, destroyed in the 11 september terror attacks, have been unveiled in new york.
Rebuilding does seem to be 'showing the finger' but this seems to be the premise of much that has occured since the terrorist attack.
Cities are vibrant living places and the concept of the whole site being a memorial I find rather disturbing. It was an atrocious event that wont be forgotten, memorial or not. Hiroshima, Dresden and London were rebuilt after massive devastation and memorials small in scale.
One project that I saw in The Architects Journal was for one vast building that had two hollow voids from top to bottom where the WTC originally stood. I quite liked the idea behind that but the exterior was bit brutal, like the original buildings. On architectural merit I voted for the Libeskind project - the guy's a genius. Or is that furthe evidence of a Zionist plot?!
in today's copy of the scotsman there's an article on people that don't celebrate christmas for a variety of reasons and sure enough a witness family are featured.
they are spending christmas day on the beach in the canary islands and after pointing out the fact that the 25th is christ's birthday go on to say.
"it would be churlish to say that our children are not affected by peer pressure about christmas, but we feel bigger issues are at stake - independant thought and standing up for what you believe in.
In today's copy of The Scotsman there's an article on people that don't celebrate Christmas for a variety of reasons and sure enough a witness family are featured. they are spending Christmas Day on the beach in the Canary Islands and after pointing out the fact that the 25th is Christ's birthday go on to say
"It would be churlish to say that our children are not affected by peer pressure about Christmas, but we feel bigger issues are at stake - independant thought and standing up for what you believe in." and goes on to say:"We do not exchange gifts on 25 December, or choose a different day to do this. To swap one day for another would seem like a sham."
Most Witness families I know have a 'Present Day', often on the parents wedding anniversary. This is a very well off family, he's a property developer and she has inherited wealth and their four children attend a private school. I wonder why they didn't choose your bog standard family where both parents are cleaners and they claim state benefits. Perhaps the fact that he was on the ill fated PR project he made the well-off, articulate appearance the borg likes.
ugh.
i saw this movie over the weekend.
i think he did a very good job addressing the subject of guns in america.
i walked away still not knowing exactly why there are so many more murders in this country than in any other countries.
the loss of revenue K-Mart will suffer as a result of no longer stocking amo will be far outweighed by the free global advertisement they have received courtesy of M Moore. There was no ethical decision made on their part, just a clever corporate decision.
