James Thomas Rook Jr.

Neither I or my wife have ever taken an annual "flu shot" (vaccine). "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu," Trump tweeted Monday morning. "It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!" ================================== So ..... think about that! One thing to consider is which is the most dangerous ... in your PARTICULAR case ...considering age, immune system, underlying health conditions, and other things applicable to you personally, is whether or not you want to take the risk of the Coronavirus being a threat to life, or long term health ... or a vaccine rushed to market. I just got this email from an Elder in my congregation: " Good evening everyone. Tomorrow evening our service group is assigned to do the light cleaning, which means we are responsible for disinfecting "all frequently touched surfaces in the Kingdom Hall including but not limited to door and fixture handles, microphones, seat arms, hard surface furniture, sinks, toilets, urinals, and drinking fountains" after the meeting. (The whole congregation is invited to do this before the meeting.) The more hands we have the more quickly we can get this done. Thanks! " I am pretty much going to ignore the whole virus apprehension/scare thing, but probably wash my hands more often. I already avoid people. Do we stop eating at restaurants, or handling canned goods at the grocery store, that some checker has bagged? I understand a Dilbert character, Ratbert, intended to achieve immortality by living in a coffee can away from all of this, but after a day of hiding in a coffee can, found immortality to be overrated.

I hope it works out well for you. I will just wait and see what happens ... unless I am already safely dead.

This is where the term "plausible deniability" gets used a lot by spooks, using their tradecraft.

Perhaps in small definable chunks, when I am not so tired. ... and it was not meant as an insult ... merely an evaluation, or a lamentation of how normally highly intelligent people of good conscience get sidetracked to the point of no return. I do think you need to take what you know from Revelation, and make a chart on poster board, with a heavy marker, about the time lines of events forecast. I am too tired to do it for you.

To walk in the depths of your understanding would not even involve getting the tops of my feet wet. You should have paid better attention to the timelines of what you were reading, if you got that far.

The REAL question should be ...... DOES ANYBODY?

At least attempting to bring TRUTH to the average person, about God and his Kingdom. As an example, the basic core truths of the Bible were also correctly discerned many years ago by Sir Isaac Newton .... but he kept them to himself.

Kosonen: It is general diplomatic protocol that a President of the United States should not vomit all over the Japanese Prime Minister at a reception.... but years ago, President Bush (43) DID EXACTLY THAT. "Stuff Happens" (paraphrased). As you probably know, I am NOT a big fan of the Governing Body ... and some of what you say is completely valid ... I have carried that load on my back, personally, but the fact of the matter is that (stealing the title from a 70 minute documentary movie) Earthlings are Ugly Bags of Mostly Water. Don't expect too much from ugly bags of mostly water, or you will give yourself a mental wedgie. So ... thought of a name for the Governing Body, more to your liking?

You complain without offering a better solution, as to what to call those trying to keep over 8 million people directed, focused, organized, and productive with fine works. How about "Board of Directors"? How about "Managing Staff"? You gotta call them SOMETHING. How about :"Managing Directors"? I personally do not care what anybody calls me, as long as it's not late for dinner. Many sports organizations, tennis, soccer, golf have those who try to provide discipline to the sports, and "Governing Body" is a common nomenclature, as it is for many City and Municipal Governments of various sorts.. It is a commonly used term, used by many secular groups.

As Ronald Reagan once said "If you are explaining, you are losing". Presidential candidate Joe Biden has that problem now ... as he is trying to explain why he does NOT have onset dementia.. ..... I suspect it will be harder for JWs.

...about this, I have no idea ... it seemed to fall apart when Larry showed up. UPDATE: I just checked .. this IS what used to be called the open club. The name of the Jehovah's Witnesses open club was changed to a closed club ..... and the former Jehovah's Witnesses closed club is still a closed club, but has been re-labeled JWs Only. whew!

..and I believe you are "projecting", and can't tell the difference between a "shaggy dog story" told as a joke, and basic reality. When I used to drink alcohol, many years ago, I was a light drinker .. perhaps a beer a day, but because it interacts badly with my heart medications, I stopped drinking alcohol several years ago. What you believe, over and over and over has proved false. ...but it is certainly entertaining to read your bluster.

Kosonen: I seriously doubt if ANYTHING you have said is true, or relevant to the REAL world, except perhaps a reference to what others have written ... which has its OWN problems. Theology is like dandruff ... some people just like to play with it.

Srecko: You needed to coordinate your speaking assignments, and gestures, with severe lightning and thunderstorms.

No, actually ... figuratively speaking I am sitting on a beer keg in my driveway with a big frosted mug, watching people on BOTH sides of the fence, AND those sitting on the fence, and those running around screaming with their hair on fire. I have related this before, but one day after the Watchtower Study, I was surrounded by three Elders in the aisle way, and the one in front of me asked, without any preamble whatsoever "Brother Rook ... What do you think of the Governing Body?" I replied in an instant .. : " I do not think of them at all." The stopped harassing me for several years after that. ------------- I have to answer directly to Jehovah God. THEY have to answer directly to Jehovah God. I just watch and take notes as they run around with their hair on fire.

Think of this ... when someone of the 144,000 dies, they are said to be "transformed in the twinkling of an eye" to the same Heaven Jehovah occupies... and our Universe of conventional spacetime, which had a beginning about 14 billion years ago, is about 28 billion light years in diameter ... so to be "installed" in the heavens (outside of OUR physical Universe, where there is no entropy or "laws of dynamics"), that distance is traversed instantly ... not in billions of years, even at the speed of light. Einstein discovered many great truths about our Universe by continually doing "thought experiments". Perhaps we can do this also.

I always found it cringe worthy that we were listed in telephone phone books Yellow Pages, under "businesses"., but then again, so are other churches.

All that aside, Losch was in my opinion a craven coward for NOT appearing as ordered ... and chickened out on a magnificent opportunity to defend Truth, whatever it was. He was the PMQ (Person Most Qualified), as determined by the California court system, as he was the only Governing Body Member whose institutional memory went all the way back to the beginning (?) of the CSA cover-ups. He chose to subvert the determination of what is true, to save a great deal of money, and a great deal of real estate. Righteousness comes when TRUTH comes first, and your survival comes second. He did not, at his age, want to be a greeter at the door of Wal-Mart, and live at poverty level.

Leander ...um... may I call you Larry, or would you prefer Alan Smith? Your credibility is ZERO. You assume the screen nickname of Leander H. McNelly, an Officer in the military of the Confederate States of America, and Captain of the Texas Rangers, yet the photo you use as an avatar is of Alexander Hamilton, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, reading the constitution of the Bank of New York.. Whatever pills you are taking, I suspect you are not taking nearly enough of them. You are truly a Legend in your own mind. ..... either THAT, or you might be a Watchtower Lawyer or Accountant.

I thought you might be interested in that, Leander H. McNelly, as your namesake was a Confederate Officer, and a Texas Ranger during the American Civil War, and obeyed the dictates of his NATURAL conscience.

As an interesting aside, dovetailing with another discussion I started of "WHY ... does God not consider Warfare .... Murder ?" (paraphrased?) ...here is how the United States viewed General Lee's waging of war against it. =========================================================== From the Spring 2005 Issue of " Prologue Magazine":: " On a spring day 140 years ago, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee met face to face in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's house in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. On that historic occasion, April 9, 1865, the two generals formalized the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, thus bringing an end to four years of fighting between North and South. After agreeing upon terms of the surrender, the generals each selected three officers to oversee the surrender and parole of Lee's army. Later that day, Lee and six of his staff signed a document granting their parole. On May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to persons who had participated in the rebellion against the United States. There were fourteen excepted classes, though, and members of those classes had to make special application to the President. Lee sent an application to Grant and wrote to President Johnson on June 13, 1865: "Being excluded from the provisions of amnesty & pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th Ulto; I hereby apply for the benefits, & full restoration of all rights & privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Mil. Academy at West Point in June 1829. Resigned from the U.S. Army April '61. Was a General in the Confederate Army, & included in the surrender of the Army of N. Va. 9 April '65." On October 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, he signed his Amnesty Oath, thereby complying fully with the provision of Johnson's proclamation. But Lee was not pardoned, nor was his citizenship restored. And the fact that he had submitted an amnesty oath at all was soon lost to history. More than a hundred years later, in 1970, an archivist at the National Archives discovered Lee's Amnesty Oath among State Department records (reported in Prologue, Winter 1970). Apparently Secretary of State William H. Seward had given Lee's application to a friend as a souvenir, and the State Department had pigeonholed the oath. In 1975, Lee's full rights of citizenship were posthumously restored by a joint congressional resolution effective June 13, 1865. At the August 5, 1975, signing ceremony, President Gerald R. Ford acknowledged the discovery of Lee's Oath of Allegiance in the National Archives and remarked: "General Lee's character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride." " =========================================================== Perhaps it is because of conscience, that God does not consider warfare, murder, as all non agenda driven men of conscience fully realize.

Even in the military, if one Officer gives another subordinate Officer a legal, but clearly humiliating order .... such as scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush ... he is obligated to obey that order ... or resign his commission as an Officer in that military. Robert E. Lee, a Union Army Military Officer, was ordered to wage war against those States in rebellion, including his native Virginia, during the American Civil war. He disobeyed that lawful order, stating "I cannot raise my sword against my native Virginia", resigned his commission in the United States Army, and joined the Confederate States of America, and DEFENDED Virginia against invasion, and waged war against the United States of America. Sometimes a REAL man has to disobey legitimate authority over him, to obey the dictates of his own conscience. You have to be a man first ... before you can be a theocratic man, and of course that applies also to women. Insects have males and females. MEN ARE NOT ANTS.!

The CCJW has a LOT correct .... like going to McDonald's to get a fish sandwich. I REALLY like those fish sandwiches ... but could do without the "Ronald McDonald" clowns with the size 200 patent yellow shoes. ..... same thing.

Of course.... I consider that authentication that what I know is correct.