James Thomas Rook Jr.

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With my usual lack of humor I present the Draft Copy of the December 2016 issue of the Watchtower which showed a Brother shaving on the cover ... it was changed before being distributed, because the Brothers responsible for the VERY GOOD and accurate article ... disappeared mysteriously.
Dec 2016 Watchtower draft article .pdf
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The first man seems to have got some kind of terrible news; his blood pressure shoots up and he has a stroke - now in hospital. Helps us to remember Jesus's words about not being anxious.
 
The second part of the picture seems to me to be some kind of emergency. The man seems to be warning the community to flee from the area. Hence the lady with the injured or sick child, trying to flee. Could be a warning of unsafe shelter/building after a bombing or earthquake event.
Many scenarios are possible - and all bring anxiety of the worst possible kind. Critical times hard on everyone.
 

I love it. Just a couple of nights ago, I "drove" through my old hometown in a place I hadn't been in for 30 years, to see if I could still find the places I had worked, the old territories I had worked by myself as a pioneer (my "magazine route"), schools I attended, the bowling alley, the parks, the restaurants, my studies and return visits, where all the friends from the congregation lived. It's a great way to trigger memories I might otherwise have forgotten about. I was able to make a list of about 60 names from a congregation of 70 publishers. 
Judging from his shirt, I think he's saying this:
JOGGING IS A SNARE AND A RACKET! MILLIONS NOW JOGGING WILL STILL DIE! 
But you are right that we can't make any assumptions here. In NYC there are competing voices at the same corners as the Witnesses all the time. At Union Square Park (14th St) the carts used to set up early last year, and there have been so many competing messages for the past couple years that this park hardly sees any Witnesses now except on the weekend, and even then it's in the quietest area where hardly anyone notices.   

I think the man with the loudspeaker is walking up and down past the hospital building rapping and beatboxing at the top of his voice, but really, really badly, and he won't shut up. He's been going at it for 5 hours straight and believes his new composition is the best he's done yet so he wants the exposure. Meanwhile inside, a mother and child are in great distress - see the child is crying. This contributes to the awful din being heard inside the hospital, so much so, that the patients and hospital staff are getting severe headaches. Everyone is in a state of high anxiety. To throw off all that anxiety, throw things at the man.
Hope that helps.

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Bible Speaks:
First of all I have been on the Archive for somewhere around 5 years and more, and made over 6,400 comments, and you must have just discovered my postings.  My outrageous sense of humor is certainly an acquired taste... if EVER adjusted for. 
Some people enjoy my satirical, biting comments some don't ..... but I try to give insight in to how people work, and WHY people do things ... of COURSE based on my particular life experiences and observations.
With some people, having similar perspectives and life experiences as my own, they will INSTANTLY get what I was trying to say with this post, REALIZE it's only a joke, laugh, and move on and have a nice day.
Other people will have reactions from mild entertainment, to understanding NOTHING .. the worst being the convening of a witch hunt.
..and as far a something upsetting me .... in the case of Global Thermonuclear War, I plan to get a lawn chair, and a case of beer, and sit out in the middle of my street, and watch the show!
 
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Hahaha...  Yes, really a rare kind of humor, but mostly okay ! JTR, we know us from Librarian's last website...  I also remember the story and pics of your beloved dog?  and it so touched my heart, yes ?   I want say, welcome here, Brother James.  

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Bible Speaks:
First of all I have been on the Archive for somewhere around 5 years and more, and made over 6,400 comments, and you must have just discovered my postings.  My outrageous sense of humor is certainly an acquired taste... if EVER adjusted for. 
Some people enjoy my satirical, biting comments some don't ..... but I try to give insight in to how people work, and WHY people do things ... of COURSE based on my particular life experiences and observations.
With some people, having similar perspectives and life experiences as my own, they will INSTANTLY get what I was trying to say with this post, REALIZE it's only a joke, laugh, and move on and have a nice day.
Other people will have reactions from mild entertainment, to understanding NOTHING .. the worst being the convening of a witch hunt.
..and as far a something upsetting me .... in the case of Global Thermonuclear War, I plan to get a lawn chair, and a case of beer, and sit out in the middle of my street, and watch the show!
 
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You are probably right, but I still need his reply so I can comment....

Hope you are feeling well, and will feel even better soon. 

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I think this could be a good "Class Project" !
Everybody that reads your question give their interpretation, and let's see what everybody comes up with!
As an example, the guy with the megaphone could have removed the electronics and D sized batteries, and turned it into a funnel, so facing it into the wind, he can, in the manner of John the Baptist who ate locusts, be collecting high protein insects to eat ...
That's what immediately came to MY mind, but the artist may have had something else in mind ....
.Your turn !
 

You made some very good points. I was not referring to the type of people who cancel a life insurance policy, or stop paying their loans back on time, sold their homes, or put off all dental appointments and elective surgery, etc. I did know about people who claimed they were putting off the dentist for the next couple of years, but this was often said in jest. I knew of only one person who took that a little too seriously (the Gilead missionary) and I remember it because my father had hired him to work in one of the engineering labs at the university. I often hung out in the electronics labs in the afternoons after pioneering, and this brother's enthusiasm for 1975 was a little too embarrassing for my father. He had to tell him to tone it down, and I then heard them get into a discussion that turned toward the idea of why everyone else had faith in the "1970's  date." But "many" according to the Awake! made significant life-altering decisions:
*** g74 11/8 p. 11 Is This the Time to Have Children? ***
The evidence is that Jesus’ prophecy will shortly have a major fulfillment, upon this entire system of things. This has been a major factor in influencing many couples to decide not to have children at this time. They have chosen to remain childless so that they would be less encumbered to carry out the instructions of Jesus Christ to preach the good news of God’s kingdom earth wide before the end of this system comes.
 
Even my own parents sold their house to move into a rental near the Kingdom Hall. They also talked my brother out of using a full scholarship to a nearby university (he was good at electronics) so that he ultimately opened up an office cleaning business instead. But this might have happened anyway, and I still never think of this as related to 1975.
For myself, I was to graduate in 1975 and was allowed to quit school if I passed the GED (high school equivalency) to start pioneering in May 1973. I know full well that my own experience was related directly to 1975, because I had a serious discussion about it with my parents who were split on whether I should finish high school or not. My mother was not a fanatic about it, but often said she believed it was more likely to come in 1974 since everyone would be looking for it in 1975 and after. My father, the congregation's presiding overseer at the time, spoke about living a reasonably ordinary life because we hoped the end would come as soon as possible, perhaps even tomorrow, but we can only know that it will come within this generation, which could last from 1914 to 1994 for all we knew.
My father had been given district assembly parts in the past, but had not even been assigned a circuit assembly talk ever since he was disciplined by a district overseer for toning down a pro-1975 talk at a 1970 or 1971 circuit assembly. (These assignments started up immediately again in 1976 or 1977.) I heard my father discuss that experience with my uncle who was a circuit overseer in another circuit at the time. I know that the discipline was based specifically on his addition of Matthew 24:36 to the talk, and he was reminded about the Watchtower's comments:
*** w68 8/15 pp. 500-501 par. 35 Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975? ***
This is not the time to be toying with the words of Jesus that “concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matt. 24:36) To the contrary, it is a time when one should be keenly aware that the end of this system of things is rapidly coming to its violent end.
 
We were in Missouri at the time, but yearly we visited my uncle who was a circuit overseer in California, and he was of the opinion that 1975 should be promoted strongly (this was in 1973) because even if the end doesn't come in 1975, we still know that it will be here before the end of the 1970's (1979). I didn't get involved too much in the conversation, but I must have believed about the same thing, because I remember thinking that even if it didn't come by then, I would like to apply to Bethel, and could even be there from 1976 and beyond the four years I had originally intended.
Immediately after the 1976 Watchtower, however, ideas changed completely, and everyone's view seemed to suddenly normalize. My mother claimed to never have put any weight on 1975. My uncle said it was never really emphasized that much anyway. It was surreal to me, and by the time I got to Bethel, there was absolutely no talk of working the rest of our careers at Bethel, this side of Armageddon. Mentioning 1975 was a taboo, and the July 15 issue quoted was one of the very first issues we studied for the Bethel Watchtower study after I got there. The comments by the conductor were just as surreal about putting the blame on the brothers who read too much into the "Life Everlasting" book. 
But my point was that, if you were spiritually mature, you were expected to make changes in your life based on the idea that the 1970's would bring the end of the generation, and that this idea, along with the end of the 6,000 years, would make it the "appropriate time for God to act." If you had Bible students you were expected to give them an ultimatum about making up their mind within 6 months. If you didn't believe the end would be here by the end of the 1970's you were pretty much required to believe it would be here by the end of the century (1999/2000).  
Our family also knew Brother Toutjian in California and we laughed at the way his own experience was toned down from a "1975 rootin'-tootin' Toutjian" to the way he states his own experience in a 1984 Watchtower:
*** w84 2/15 p. 25 Always Ready for the End ***
Decades of expanded activity passed quickly, and the question now was, What will the 1970’s bring? My two sons, Duane and Jonathan, and my daughter, Carmel—a fourth generation—were grown and had families of their own. We were expecting that 6,000 years of man’s existence would be reached in 1975. Would this date bring us to the start of Christ’s Millennial Reign? That possibility intrigued us.
Now we can look back on that year and appreciate that the words of Jesus at Matthew 24:36 do not allow us to fix a date for the end. 
At the time, 1984, my father admitted to me that he laughed at that line about how "that possibility intrigued us." By then my mother, still pioneering, had forgotten all memories of 1975 fever, and was already claiming that the Society never said anything about 1975 even being a possibility, even though Brother Toutjian was probably still on tape somewhere (from a 15-year-old assembly talk) embarrassing himself. 

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I think this could be a good "Class Project" !
Everybody that reads your question give their interpretation, and let's see what everybody comes up with!
As an example, the guy with the megaphone could have removed the electronics and D sized batteries, and turned it into a funnel, so facing it into the wind, he can, in the manner of John the Baptist who ate locusts, be collecting high protein insects to eat ...
That's what immediately came to MY mind, but the artist may have had something else in mind ....
.Your turn !
 

Everyone is familiar with the "Ten Commandments", but that was only half of the total "Ten Commandments and Other Suggestions", which were on the tablets that Moses Destroyed.
11. Don't track mud across the tent floor.
12. Don't eat with a hunting knife as a fork
13. Never run with scissors
14. Don't let your babies chew on the sacred scrolls.
15. Never swim less than an hour after eating.
16. Don't eat yellow snow.
18. Before great danger, say "Here, hold my beer!"
19. Leave the comedy to the Professionals
20. Never bring a big stick to a sword fight.
These were recovered from Caves in Israel, from carefully preserved Polaroid photographs in a large clay screw top Mason Jar.
 
 

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.... In order to have organizational consistency, in the New System,  Sisters will not be allowed to shave their legs and other areas, but male lions will be trimmed to look like poodles.  Few things are more respectable than a lion with a shaved snout.
.... that means nose area, for those in Rio Linda....
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As Mel Brooks said in his 1981 film History of the World, Part I " ... "It's GOOD TO BE KING!

Hya JW Insider ... !
Like the Doctor said of the man who had been hit by a Concrete Mixing Truck ...  "He's as well as can be expected."
A year ago my Elders severely castigated me for my comments on the Archive, and to do the best I could, I left The Archive, intending to stay away forever if they would be placated, but I asked them for a list of things I needed to do to gain their approval
... perhaps something written on an index card ... as I refuse to be interrogated in "Room 101" anymore on fishing expeditions, and they flat REFUSED to give me anything in writing. 
It's been a year since I left, more or less, and our meetings changed to Saturdays, so Today I endured another public talk .. something about "Youth" ... and the WT Study ... and this is what I learned ..... The Worship of Jehovah God requires a LOT of endurance .... SUPERHUMAN endurance ... like one might need when stuck in the 7th Grade for a half century.
Since after a year or so, I have not received ANY credit whatsoever for offering to do anything they would tell me do, including cut off my Freedom of Speech ... I gave up .... AND HERE I AM!
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As Mel Brooks said in his 1981 film History of the World, Part I " ... "It's GOOD TO BE KING!

Hya JW Insider ... !
Like the Doctor said of the man who had been hit by a Concrete Mixing Truck ...  "He's as well as can be expected."
A year ago my Elders severely castigated me for my comments on the Archive, and to do the best I could, I left The Archive, intending to stay away forever if they would be placated, but I asked them for a list of things I needed to do to gain their approval
... perhaps something written on an index card ... as I refuse to be interrogated in "Room 101" anymore on fishing expeditions, and they flat REFUSED to give me anything in writing. 
It's been a year since I left, more or less, and our meetings changed to Saturdays, so Today I endured another public talk .. something about "Youth" ... and the WT Study ... and this is what I learned ..... The Worship of Jehovah God requires a LOT of endurance .... SUPERHUMAN endurance ... like one might need when stuck in the 7th Grade for a half century.
Since after a year or so, I have not received ANY credit whatsoever for offering to do anything they would tell me do, including cut off my Freedom of Speech ... I gave up .... AND HERE I AM!
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"The death of one man is a tragedy ... the death of a million men is a statistic" - Josef Stalin

There are probably easier ways to get a copy of this movie from YouTube, but I download a LOT of movies from YouTube to my hard drive, and here is a way you can download THIS movie and say, perhaps a set of 50 in a set at one time, if they are already in a playlist, as they often are .... use the FREE Software "YTD Video Downloader"  Many colleges put entire lecture series in Groups for their students, and others, and you can get a free non-credit college education, and have it on your hard drive for easy review.
Remember, the price of ignorance has ALWAYS been death and destitution, and it is administered by a Universe that is completely impartial.
 
And now, as they used to say on Monty Python ... "something completely different...", depending on how sharp your perception is ....
VATICAN CITY—Quickly scanning the alley to make sure no one would see him with the scraps he had placed on a spare offering plate, Pope Francis reportedly stepped out the back door of St. Peter’s Basilica late Wednesday night and slipped leftovers to the false god Moloch. “I know I should be forsaking him, but what am I supposed to do, let the poor thing starve?” said the pontiff, cooing in Aramaic as he fed uneaten portions of chicken casserole to the bull-headed Canaanite god of child sacrifice. “Maybe it’s heretical of me, but just look at the guy—he’s nothing but skin and bones and horns. If I don’t take care of him, who will?” Reached for comment, the heathen idol Moloch expressed appreciation for the leftovers, but confirmed he could only be fully satiated by consuming the flesh of a living man-child set forth in offering upon a burning pyre.

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I have been a contributor to JW-Archive.ORG for somewhere around five years now, and made somewhere around 6,360 comments, and although I think it is important that the Truth be fought for, and deception and error exposed, especially when there are cover stories to keep it hidden, there is a time to lay down the "rifle" and rest ... especially when there are those who are emboldened enough to carry on the fight.

I am completely worn out.

The Elders in the Congregation I attend,  have made it quite clear to me they consider my fight for Justice and Truth inconsistent with current policy, and do not view Freedom of Speech the same way that I do .... as a way to SOLVE problems ... and carve a pathway to true Freedom and Justice, and real and consistent Truth.

If memory serves, in Shakespeare's play "Henry V" the King of England went among his men at night in disguise to find out what his men were thinking the night before a big battle in France, and as he stood in the dark listening to them around the campfire, he overheard one soldier say (paraphrased) " If what we do is wrong, the King will have to answer before God, our obligation is to obey the King..."

I am stuck.

 I feel it is my obligation to obey the Elders and the Governing Body, as to the best of my knowledge and belief, Jehovah's Witnesses are the "only game in town", even when I do not personally approve of MANY things that are  going on, or agree with MANY points of the operational philosophy, including the restriction of the exercise of Freedom of Speech.

Besides .... if 6,360 comments are not enough to make necessary points ... nothing in this "System of Things" ever will.

I would like to leave the Archive with a parting observation which I believe to be as much true as ANYTHING is:  Fight for what is TRUE ....  and everything else will take care of itself.

Iron sharpens iron .... politically correctness sharpens NOTHING! .....  and creates a nation of cowards.

Only with actual unvarnished Truth can you actually achieve REAL Justice ....... only with REAL Justice will you ever ACTUALLY be able to exercise REAL  Love.

Please, stick close to Jehovah's Witnesses, and put up with the silly crap, and the blatant, brazen error ... they are the ONLY GAME IN TOWN !  Such things are NORMAL among humans .... and always have been.  It was true when God ONLY dealt with the Jews .... and it is true now.

ONLY by doing so can we someday have TRUE Freedom, as the Sons and Daughters of Jehovah God.

I wish you strength, and courage, and resolve, and that through Justice you may continue in brotherly love, and the approval of God and his Christ.

James Thomas Rook, Jr. (JTR)
Tom Rook "

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I have been a contributor to JW-Archive.ORG for somewhere around five years now, and made somewhere around 6,360 comments, and although I think it is important that the Truth be fought for, and deception and error exposed, especially when there are cover stories to keep it hidden, there is a time to lay down the "rifle" and rest ... especially when there are those who are emboldened enough to carry on the fight.

I am completely worn out.

The Elders in the Congregation I attend,  have made it quite clear to me they consider my fight for Justice and Truth inconsistent with current policy, and do not view Freedom of Speech the same way that I do .... as a way to SOLVE problems ... and carve a pathway to true Freedom and Justice, and real and consistent Truth.

If memory serves, in Shakespeare's play "Henry V" the King of England went among his men at night in disguise to find out what his men were thinking the night before a big battle in France, and as he stood in the dark listening to them around the campfire, he overheard one soldier say (paraphrased) " If what we do is wrong, the King will have to answer before God, our obligation is to obey the King..."

I am stuck.

 I feel it is my obligation to obey the Elders and the Governing Body, as to the best of my knowledge and belief, Jehovah's Witnesses are the "only game in town", even when I do not personally approve of MANY things that are  going on, or agree with MANY points of the operational philosophy, including the restriction of the exercise of Freedom of Speech.

Besides .... if 6,360 comments are not enough to make necessary points ... nothing in this "System of Things" ever will.

I would like to leave the Archive with a parting observation which I believe to be as much true as ANYTHING is:  Fight for what is TRUE ....  and everything else will take care of itself.

Iron sharpens iron .... politically correctness sharpens NOTHING! .....  and creates a nation of cowards.

Only with actual unvarnished Truth can you actually achieve REAL Justice ....... only with REAL Justice will you ever ACTUALLY be able to exercise REAL  Love.

Please, stick close to Jehovah's Witnesses, and put up with the silly crap, and the blatant, brazen error ... they are the ONLY GAME IN TOWN !  Such things are NORMAL among humans .... and always have been.  It was true when God ONLY dealt with the Jews .... and it is true now.

ONLY by doing so can we someday have TRUE Freedom, as the Sons and Daughters of Jehovah God.

I wish you strength, and courage, and resolve, and that through Justice you may continue in brotherly love, and the approval of God and his Christ.

James Thomas Rook, Jr. (JTR)
Tom Rook "

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I have been a contributor to JW-Archive.ORG for somewhere around five years now, and made somewhere around 6,360 comments, and although I think it is important that the Truth be fought for, and deception and error exposed, especially when there are cover stories to keep it hidden, there is a time to lay down the "rifle" and rest ... especially when there are those who are emboldened enough to carry on the fight.

I am completely worn out.

The Elders in the Congregation I attend,  have made it quite clear to me they consider my fight for Justice and Truth inconsistent with current policy, and do not view Freedom of Speech the same way that I do .... as a way to SOLVE problems ... and carve a pathway to true Freedom and Justice, and real and consistent Truth.

If memory serves, in Shakespeare's play "Henry V" the King of England went among his men at night in disguise to find out what his men were thinking the night before a big battle in France, and as he stood in the dark listening to them around the campfire, he overheard one soldier say (paraphrased) " If what we do is wrong, the King will have to answer before God, our obligation is to obey the King..."

I am stuck.

 I feel it is my obligation to obey the Elders and the Governing Body, as to the best of my knowledge and belief, Jehovah's Witnesses are the "only game in town", even when I do not personally approve of MANY things that are  going on, or agree with MANY points of the operational philosophy, including the restriction of the exercise of Freedom of Speech.

Besides .... if 6,360 comments are not enough to make necessary points ... nothing in this "System of Things" ever will.

I would like to leave the Archive with a parting observation which I believe to be as much true as ANYTHING is:  Fight for what is TRUE ....  and everything else will take care of itself.

Iron sharpens iron .... politically correctness sharpens NOTHING! .....  and creates a nation of cowards.

Only with actual unvarnished Truth can you actually achieve REAL Justice ....... only with REAL Justice will you ever ACTUALLY be able to exercise REAL  Love.

Please, stick close to Jehovah's Witnesses, and put up with the silly crap, and the blatant, brazen error ... they are the ONLY GAME IN TOWN !  Such things are NORMAL among humans .... and always have been.  It was true when God ONLY dealt with the Jews .... and it is true now.

ONLY by doing so can we someday have TRUE Freedom, as the Sons and Daughters of Jehovah God.

I wish you strength, and courage, and resolve, and that through Justice you may continue in brotherly love, and the approval of God and his Christ.

James Thomas Rook, Jr. (JTR)
Tom Rook "