James Thomas Rook Jr.

...but does your car have lifting hooks on the roof so when you stop for a break at McDonald's for a hamburger, you can have a helicopter take you back to the Territory?

Yes, but they have to hold it at arm's length straight out, with the other arm bent and hand on hip, and the head covering has to be a large Mexican Sombrero, with tassels.

... JUST A NOTE ALLEN SMITH:
... for what it is worth, and certainly worth the price of electricity of a few photons on a screen ... um ... when someone defends a view that is completely contradicted by actual real world facts, and they are intelligent people, normally prone to use their intellect, as you are ... they have a choice .... change their viewpoint to reflect what is real .... which will almost always involve a great deal of anguish ... and consequences from those who hold the same irrational viewpoints ... or begin that slippery slope that leads to a fractured, and fragile mind.
As the group The Eagles sang in their incredibly perceptive song from the late 1960s or so, (paraphrased) ...
" ... Take it easy, take it easy ... don't let the sound of your own wheels, MAKE YOU CRAZY ..."
I have to daily remind myself of these things ... as the Universe will decide what is true .. and it is without mercy.
" There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." " — Daniel Webster
.
 
 

I like his OLD nickname as well ... "The Turtle".
 

Yeah,
I look in the mirror and forget what I look like, just like the Scripture says ...
That's why I use a picture of Yassar Arafat to shave by.

Arauna:
Thank you for that fine and accurate analysis of the reporting and theocratic and secular responses, now and over the years..
I agree with each and every word, except the last sentence, which subject  I have covered elsewhere using the example of the man who stole a truck during last weeks Las Vegas massacre, who, if he had been one of Jehovah's Witnesses, he would be convicted in ecclesiastical court as an unrepentant sinner, because he could never repent from having stolen that truck ... to take wounded and dying to the hospital, and his "extenuating circumstances" would not be considered. 
1.)   HE STOLE A TRUCK.   GUILTY BY HIS OWN CONFESSION.
2.)  HE WILL NEVER BE REPENTANT
I have seen this sort of reasoning used in actual practice .... where policy overcomes rational justice.
Like the young girl who, walking along a beach covered with stranded starfish,  threw a starfish back into the ocean ... in the grand scheme of things it matters little, but it does matter to that particular starfish.
To elaborate about Justice .... we both know that real Justice you only get from Jehovah God ... all else is just local due process which sometimes, perhaps even most of the time, approximates Justice.
The reason we have a trained conscience is to individually make those decisions.  Otherwise we do not need one at all ... institutional policy controls everything. 
I am sure you have read more than enough of my rants about that.
I agree with "Pastor Russell" that INSTITUTIONALLY, this is the wrong thing to do, as in actual practice it leads to witch hunts, punishment by personality, and destruction of family and extended family ties to punish one person. 
This is not Justice, this is cruel, unusual, and "theocratically" illegal ... and it has a great chilling effect, and turns families against each other unnecessarily. Adopting the methods of the old Soviet Union is not conducive to Justice, or reason, or mercy.
And... because we are dealing with humans from every background and walk of life, and education, experiences, and biases both at the "management" level, and the "employee" level, ( GB to average publisher level), as in EVERY political, social and religious organization that has ever existed, the power base tends to do whatever is necessary to insure it stays in power.
One particular problem I see is that there is no one on Earth to fire the Governing Body when THEY  do whatever is necessary to insure they stay in power, including they themselves being governed by the need to keep the money rolling in through illegal "theocratic" intimidation, making the usual mistakes, but destroying whole families as they go.
From my observations, the "Emperor has no clothes", while the city insists he is finely dressed, and have convinced themselves of that. 
I am convinced otherwise.
I agree with shunning on an individual basis for unrepentant sinners without mitigating and  extenuating (and unusual) circumstances.
I do NOT agree with institutionally destroying their whole families.
That is why these discussions, like between you and I, as rational humans, are essential.
I only shoot the "Green Dragons" in the head if they chew on me or the Brotherhood, first.

Thank You, Melinda .... !

You are asking the wrong question, Arauna, about people who have police power (bayonets) to enforce whatever their perspective is .... right or wrong.
The question SHOULD be... the question you should be concerned about is why does the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society LIE to the Bulgarian Government that we do not impose congregational sanctions on those who accept blood... SPECIFICALLY, disfellowshipping, and and extreme shunning.
ANY JW, ANYWHERE, knows this is NOT TRUE.
THIS is what you should be concerned with.
Oh, as an aside, I still do not have my answer about are there congregational sanctions currently against a person voting in a political election.
The answers we get are so weasel worded that they can mean ANYTHING.
If you know better ... please correct me.
What I am looking for is the latest information, in light of Norway's threat to withhold MONEY from the Society, for violating what Norway considers one of the most basic of all human rights... and labeling us us as "extremists".
I strongly suspect because there is MONEY involved, we are soon, if not already, going to be allowed to vote without being censured or disfellowshipped.
 

MONEY .mp4

I have only been to two Operas in my life, and I was bored out of my mind.
I understood the expression "It ain't over 'till the Fat Lady Sings !", the first time I heard it.
We shall see what we shall see, as time goes on.
It ain't over until the last .... *coff* ... Roundup.

I agree.
He should have used clip on wireless microphones with the receivers plugged into the mic jack of his video camera,  I have AZDEN mic system that will take two wireless clip-on microphones on separate channels and combine them at the camera. 
It would have made for much more consistent sound when he was outside.   Also ... there was no explanation about what the SUBJECT of his disfellowshipping hearings was all about, ( all hush-hush ... can't tell you...) so it seems that his whole spiel was about an ignorant and clueless CO, of which we know from experience, there is no shortage.
No news there.
I was once explaining to s high ranking Elder type about how I view duty to put up with the shortcomings of the Elders sort of like being in the Marines, and you have to obey the officers even though ..... and he cut me off in a loud angry voice "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING ABOUT THE MARINES!" ...  and so I was not able to explain my viewpoint at all.
And that elder had ASKED .... for.... my viewpoint.
What he accuses is entirely believable, ONLY because I have seen similar things over and over and over.  He, however, provided no proof .. or even relatable context to make HIS story anything but noise.
Although the author of this video may have some legitimate concerns, he did not provide any background information, such a "who?, what?, when?, where?, how?, and /or why?", so like his compressed air train horns for his truck, although impressive, had no meaning.
Without enough information to check any story he might be trying to tell for accuracy, it is worth what it is.
NOISE.

Apparently, from your thread, Jack Ryan, almost a million people saw the show. ... and there will be MORE about Jehovah's Witnesses.
I clicked on "21 replies", in your above post, to review it.  I had forgotten much.
The Governing Body was invited to be on the show ... but declined.  ( !!!!!!! )
Instead, the program showed their published opinions  in recordings and videos, verbatim.
It was QUITE fair. The Society was quoted and shown with precision accuracy .....sigh.
This is where understanding the Law of Unintended Consequences is so very vital.

The simplest solution if you wanted to use a ramp ... would be a spiral ramp around the outside of the pyramid, and start building it from the center of the square bottom .... not from the bottom up...but from the inside out.
The "trick" they had was telekinesis, which does not exist among humans today.
Remember ... the Egyptian High Priest ALSO changed his staff into a serpent, during Moses' audience with Pharaoh.
 

...and now ... we return you to your regular scheduled programming ....
Evil laugh Hillary Clinton.mp4

I hope that when the "slave class" finally decides on who the "King of the North is THIS time, they will say in one short paragraph, with NO scriptural artillery barrage to back it up.
The theocratic landscape has acquired more craters than the surface of the moon.
They have ALWAYS gotten it wrong before, and I have been trying to pay very close attention for over 50 years, now.
.... but have had DAYS of us sitting all day at Assemblies to hear the scriptures and reasoning, and nuanced referencing ... and years of Assembly talks, and Watchtower articles, and hour long public talks ..... to absolutely PROVE, without any shadow of a doubt ... just WHO was ....... the "King of the North".
Many times.
...and every time it changes, the cycle repeats.
They have ALWAYS been wrong before, so personally I would appreciate when the NEW explanation comes out ... it be something you could email me on a single page.
...or even better ... HALF a page.
Or even better ... a single paragraph.
Since it cannot POSSIBLY affect anything in real life down here on the ground ... that I can do anything about ... I would be HAPPY to accept ANYTHING the Governing Body says , at face value.
( I would even accept Caleb and Sophia as patron saints ... but PLEASE, spare me the "process" of why this would be true. )
Our Assembly Hall is in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and at my age, after a long Assembly in a hypnotic tone of voice,  I risk falling asleep at the wheel after a long drive, each way.  
Getting "New Light" could LITERALLY ...  kill me and my wife!
To borrow a phrase from World War I .... I am shell shocked,.
... but I don't want to EVER hear any more about "Gog of Magog".
 

THIS is the single paragraph I had in mind ......
BOOM!

I have often given thought as the MOST PROBABLE way to calculate time ... and it is ONLY my BEST EDUCATED GUESS, at the present time ...  is first realize that the PERSPECTIVE of the narrator in Genesis is of one standing on the surface of the Earth watching it's formation.
It is NOT a "view from Space".
Then ... we know from MOUNTAINS of very hard evidence (  no pun intended) that the Earth went from formless and void about Three and one-half BILLION years ago to a ball of molten rock from collisions with impacting and accretion materials, became an oblate spheroid (generally a ball...) and it took that long to become the Lovely Blue-Green-Tan Planet we have today., with the Moon in EXACTLY the right place, for the first time in the history of the Solar System, so that Earth observers can use it as a tool to wrestle the secrets from the Universe, as Einstein waited 18 or so years for a Solar Eclipse to verify his theory of relativity as being TRUE.
So ... if you take 3-1/2 billion years divided by six creative days, (and a day of rest ...), that is 3, 500,000,000 years divided by 7, which gives you each of the seven "days"  is about a half-billion years long.  
Time to have the entire Earth go through many changes, from a ball of super-heated steam covered incandescent rock in total darkness, to a lush jungle and ecosphere with hundreds of millions of frolicking dinosaurs and other critters swarming over the Earth.
My current BEST GUESS ... based on VERY hard evidence ... is that we are living in God's rest day now .... but where we are in that half-billion year long rest day would be wild guessing without any hard evidence.  (That means delusional fantasy, for those in Rio Linda...)
The entire Universe SCREAMS! ...  screams .... SCREAMS! ... of the existing time scale of all things .... stars, planetary formation, geological epocs,  climate variations , life .. extinctions ... life ... extinctions, etc., and of vast and widespread civilizations of proto-men, precursors to "Homo Erectus" , eventually leading to the direct creation of "Homo Theocraticus" ... the first sanctioned  humans ...by God.
             By the way ... this "theory" SOLVES the problem of  evolution's  billions of tons of hard evidence across all sciences being irrefutably true, and the Bible account of the first "Humans" being the direct creation of Jehovah God.          
IT FITS ALL KNOWN FACTS FROM BOTH SIDES .... WITHOUT ANY COMPROMISES OR OBFUSCATIONS OR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.
If it takes more than one paragraph to explain ANY concept ... it probably is NOT true.
I am 70, now, and these things are for younger and smarter people to work out the details.  
As Kenny Rogers sang in his song "The Gambler" ....
"You gotta know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run.
You can't count your money, while you're sittin' at the table ..
The'ill be time enough for countin' ...
when the dealings done."

To me, it is very simple .... what definition of a "Generation" did Jesus have in mind, that when he told HIS DISCIPLES ( NOT US ! ), 2,000 or so years ago .... and using the words Jesus DID USE .... what understanding did the Apostles, and disciples have.
Only those bat crap crazy, and loony as a tune could visualize Jesus holding up a chart like Bro David Splain of the Governing Body needed to try and explain it as an "overlapping generation".
The people ... EVERYONE not retarded or insane back in Jesus' day knew what a generation was ... it was the same definition used by the whole world.
... including Jesus!
Of course, to avoid having to apologize for being WRONG  every day for a hundred and more years ... WE, the "enlightened ones", presume to know better.
However, that bright "new light" ... is an oncoming train.
I am just going to sit way over there, and watch.
 

Anna:
Thank you for the kind complements, but it was in the Boy Scouts that I learned the motto "Be Prepared", and later to "adapt and improvise".  Interestingly enough, in my lifetime I have had several other people make the same comments, that I was born a hundred years too late, and am a poor fit for this century.
  I never cared much for John Wayne the person ... except for his work ethic ... but I do feel a closeness to the majority of the characters he played, in Westerns.
Common cowboys developed the "Code of The West", and Wyoming actually has an official "Code of the West" which the legislature adopted in 2010, as follows:
The legislation designates ten ethics derived from the book "Cowboy Ethics" by James P. Owen:
 1.  Live each day with courage.  2.  Take pride in your work.  3.  Always finish what you start.  4.  Do what has to be done.  5.  Be tough, but fair.  6.  When you make a promise, keep it.  7.  Ride for the brand  8.  Talk less, say more.  9.  Remember that some things are not for sale. 10. Know where to draw the line.  

You cannot expect evil, determined people intent on
MURDERING YOU .... to follow ANY signs or ANY rules !
NONE WHATSOEVER!
That is the one thing Snowflakes never understand about EVIL.

Nnaemeka:
The phrase comes to mind, paraphrased ... " ... If a man does not take care of his own, he is worse than a man without the faith."  To me that means spiritual education, food, shelter, secular education, and when necessary DEFENSE.
An incompetent defense is no defense at all, and a MAN is supposed to know the difference.
I almost cried when I read your post, as when I was young I too was an idealist, and I miss the old me .... but I am 70 plus years old and have been all over the world, and seen hundreds of times , and sometimes been a part of the travesty, to my everlasting shame, how people with the very best of intentions  give BAD advice, and wrap it in a sarcophagus of scriptural references that ALMOST apply,  and with honest hearts, and the very best of intentions, ruin people's lives .
Been there ... done that. 
In all my years of watching and carefully noting the affairs of men, in and out of the Brotherhood, I have NEVER, EVER seen Jehovah intervene to protect anyone from evil, and have seen Brothers and Sisters infinitely better Theocrats than I am cut down.
In World War II, and even in Malawi, there is ZERO examples of God rescuing ANY individual person ... except in liberal fantasy not connected with what is REAL.  ZERO real evidence.
Zero ... none ...  nada ... goose eggs.
Apparently this ceased during the times of the Early Christians.
I am NOT going to even try to dissuade you from your faith, because right or wrong, Jehovah gives us full credit for what we do to the best of our ability with the conscience we have at any particular point in time.
Half of your first sentence I will take to heart ... as we all have to live with our conscience.    I am NOT a sheep person. I am a Sheepdog to my bones, and if I am wrong, Jehovah will judge me appropriately ... but I would rather die forever than allow innocent people to be harmed, especially my immediate family, the whole association of the Brotherhood, or even the clueless Snowflake beset upon by evil ... when I consider it my responsibility to protect these people, and myself ... if I can.
I did not exist for 14.5 or so BILLION YEARS, and it bothered me not in the slightest ... If I am not resurrected because of who I am, the Brotherhood will be better off without me.
FAMILY COMES FIRST!
For me, if I shirk this responsibility, I am not a man .... merely a BORG with male plumbing.
.
 
 

Sometimes Lawyers wear some pretty strange clothing, depending on the Venue.

A LOT of people that know the Clintons have died mysteriously ... According to pilots' logbooks, Bill Clinton made 26 trips with Epstein to Epstein's personally owned "Pedophile Island".
Dead men tell no tales.

The Society's Lawyers and Accountants are now running the show, and our "official theology" has been modified a dozen times to keep the financial coffers full.
It has been a sad, sad thing to watch evolve.
When this generation passes away, those that saw these changes will no longer be able to recount them, and the memory of them will disappear.
There will be no "overlapping generations".
Those that spin control the past, control the present.
Those that spin control the present, control the future.
...... and I will be safely ....... dead.
 

 
 

Without a bullet through the brain stem, or a radical frontal lobotomy, I am not sure anymore that one can truly be "neutral" about anything. 
Perhaps the best we can manage is be uninvolved. (?)
To not have an opinion about things going on around you means that you are brain dead.
NOT GOOD.
It is my understanding that the Society now allows voting to be a matter of conscience ( to keep from being sued out of existence for sedition ?) ... but I have not really been keeping up on that issue.
 
 

There is nothing that warms the cackles of my heart more than contemplating a well hydrated chicken.

If they are referred to as being chicken ... they have a good excuse!
Results vary ....