James Thomas Rook Jr.

What they are ACTUALLY saying is EXACTLY this:
".... The men taking the lead among us have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us."
WOW!
I guess that is why we were once taught that men having sex with men, or animals does not dissolve a marriage, and we are taught TODAY ... today,  that two Bethelites sitting naked in chairs, watching each other masturbate IS NOT pornea.
".... The men taking the lead among us have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us."
OF COURSE THEY DO!
The question that needs to be asked is this ....  how can people be dumber than rocks?

What they are ACTUALLY saying is EXACTLY this:
".... The men taking the lead among us have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us."
WOW!
I guess that is why we were once taught that men having sex with men, or animals does not dissolve a marriage, and we are taught TODAY ... today,  that two Bethelites sitting naked in chairs, watching each other masturbate IS NOT pornea.
".... The men taking the lead among us have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us."
OF COURSE THEY DO!
The question that needs to be asked is this ....  how can people be dumber than rocks?

Can anyone exercise their conscience without the ability to think independently?  
"But a spirit of independent thinking does not prevail in God’s organization, and we have sound reasons for confidence in the men taking the lead among us."  W 89 9/15/pp 20-25

It is funny that JWs say that the CCJW in no part of the world. BUT, then when CSA is mentioned JWs say, yes but it's everywhere in the world.   

In this case the answer is not particularly important, nor interesting. The situation prompting the question is what arouses interest. Here is a list of religions ‘of the world.’ Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are ‘no part of the world’ are not on it. Who cares why? I don’t.
Even so, I did mention three possibilities: 
“Is it an oversight? Is it a snub? Is it avoidance because any story about Jehovah's Witnesses will reliably attract swarms of their virulent "apostates' alarmed at any favorable mention and insistent upon maligning their former faith and so RNS just doesn't want to deal with it?”
Which one of the three it is doesn’t interest me. It is like when the Die Hard villain finally dies himself, after two hours of mayhem, and you learn in the epilogue that he was also behind in his contributions to the United Way. Who cares?

This coronavirus stuff reminds me of the story of the Grasshopper and the Ant.
Everybody sthe story of the Grasshopper, and the Ant.
The Grasshopper played the fiddle all summer, goofing off, while the industrious Ant stayed busy storing up food for the coming long, hard winter.
When the first snow of winter came, the Grasshopper had no food, but the Ant had more than enough food for the winter.
So ...  the Grasshopper got in his sports car and went to Florida, ... and someone stepped on the Ant.
 

TTH:
It concerns me NOT AT ALL to be slighted by people that I care absolutely nothing about ... or even the ones I do care deeply about,
You care so deeply, as evidenced by your Epistle  .... YOU make the phone call
Or ... as an alternative ... you could continue to be slighted, indignant, and ignorant.

We have been renting for many years. We now rent a residential part of the house (two room flat) we live in and also a large part of one house a little further away. We have always had lower prices than many others..... And we pay taxes to the state  . One tenant is currently without a permanent job because of Covid 19. We told the tenant that the rent amount, which is otherwise for one month, will be for the next three months. Hopefully they can find some work and a paycheck.

4J:
You have a habit of getting your attributions mixed up, and your analysis is too simplistic, as well as mixed up.
Details are important.

I would be stunned if the WTB&TS, et al, was successful in their lawsuits, as in the United States the concept of "whistleblowers" is held in very high regard, and the "Fair Use Doctrine" of U.S. copyright law is interpreted very liberally.
There is a lot to be said and considered on this matter, and an excellent source is WIKIPEDIA.
.... want to be smarter and well informed on this specific issue?
Read THIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
I personally think we should be proud of every thing we say and do, and not object if someone else shouts it from the housetops.
If we SHOULD be ashamed of anything we have published, and the "Pillowgate" videos immediately come to mind, it is ONLY by public disclosure that whatever it is, that it will ever change.
Sometime  around the 1960's, at Assemblies, we used to have a Public Relations Department set up, but they changed the name to News Service, because PR was asking for something, and NS was giving away something for free.
Their lawsuit will generate more publicity by a factor of at least X 100, than ever existed before ... and when all is said and done, and if the WTB&TS wins the lawsuits ( improbable at best ..) it will NOT stop Brothers from leaking these videos to others, or them publishing them, actually IN the public interest, to anybody who has a computer and a piece of free software, such as "Freemake Video Downloader:.
That genie left the bottle a long time ago.
 

Learn to dig ditches and wash dishes, .... or design, build, program, and repair robots.
The ONLY constant in the Universe ... is constant change.
If you snooze .... you lose.

If you snooze ... you lose.
People used to say to me, "Take it Easy, Tom !", because I was always hustling, and walking fast, and reading.
My reply was  " ... can't do that ... someone will have me  for lunch,  and I would be the lunch ! "
Everything changes.
Keep up ... or be run over by those who do.

I will give it three minutes before it falls off the roof, and requires $37,000 in repairs.

Good comeback!, and funny, too!
But cereally folks, I started studying the Truth in the 1960's,, and it was about the mid-60's that I noticed that a different culture was evolving.  Back then, if a JW family broke up, it was usually the husband left the wife for another woman, and the Society taught at that time that if a brother was a homosexual, or had sex with animals, it was NOT pornea, and she had no grounds for divorce. 
I am sure this caused a LOT of misery and suffering.
Today in the "pillowgate video" , the brother stated that if two Bethelites are sitting in facing chairs, naked, watching each other masturbate, that is also NOT pornea, because no one is touching another person.. I have posted that here, many times, so I will not do it again.
It is seriously creepy. Even the specificity of that is seriously creepy. Makes me wonder who got caught that could not be disfellowshipped.
The point of the above is that there are good reasons why I keep my own counsel on the matter of keeping and bearing arms, and being ready to defend the innocent at all times, and not pay too much attention to those in authority that have a long record of being seriously creepy ... and wrong.
 

I would be stunned if the WTB&TS, et al, was successful in their lawsuits, as in the United States the concept of "whistleblowers" is held in very high regard, and the "Fair Use Doctrine" of U.S. copyright law is interpreted very liberally.
There is a lot to be said and considered on this matter, and an excellent source is WIKIPEDIA.
.... want to be smarter and well informed on this specific issue?
Read THIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
I personally think we should be proud of every thing we say and do, and not object if someone else shouts it from the housetops.
If we SHOULD be ashamed of anything we have published, and the "Pillowgate" videos immediately come to mind, it is ONLY by public disclosure that whatever it is, that it will ever change.
Sometime  around the 1960's, at Assemblies, we used to have a Public Relations Department set up, but they changed the name to News Service, because PR was asking for something, and NS was giving away something for free.
Their lawsuit will generate more publicity by a factor of at least X 100, than ever existed before ... and when all is said and done, and if the WTB&TS wins the lawsuits ( improbable at best ..) it will NOT stop Brothers from leaking these videos to others, or them publishing them, actually IN the public interest, to anybody who has a computer and a piece of free software, such as "Freemake Video Downloader:.
That genie left the bottle a long time ago.
 

I would be stunned if the WTB&TS, et al, was successful in their lawsuits, as in the United States the concept of "whistleblowers" is held in very high regard, and the "Fair Use Doctrine" of U.S. copyright law is interpreted very liberally.
There is a lot to be said and considered on this matter, and an excellent source is WIKIPEDIA.
.... want to be smarter and well informed on this specific issue?
Read THIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
I personally think we should be proud of every thing we say and do, and not object if someone else shouts it from the housetops.
If we SHOULD be ashamed of anything we have published, and the "Pillowgate" videos immediately come to mind, it is ONLY by public disclosure that whatever it is, that it will ever change.
Sometime  around the 1960's, at Assemblies, we used to have a Public Relations Department set up, but they changed the name to News Service, because PR was asking for something, and NS was giving away something for free.
Their lawsuit will generate more publicity by a factor of at least X 100, than ever existed before ... and when all is said and done, and if the WTB&TS wins the lawsuits ( improbable at best ..) it will NOT stop Brothers from leaking these videos to others, or them publishing them, actually IN the public interest, to anybody who has a computer and a piece of free software, such as "Freemake Video Downloader:.
That genie left the bottle a long time ago.
 

As you say, it may be nothing more than a rumor. Anything asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. So we can just wait for the evidence before concluding anything. Of course, it is also very important to various groups and political entities to make sure there is a CURRENT negative story about China available at all times. Most of these turn out to be nothing or untrue, but just having the story out there, no matter how short-lived, is important to skew opinion. So if this one is untrue, then it adds to a growing list of failed propaganda stories against China.
The CCP enjoys overwhelming support from Chinese people of varying class and wealth within all parts of China, so that even a terrible scandal would probably not have much effect on its stability. Within China the President (Xi) has been given high ratings for many years. The Chinese view of their own economy, the reduction of poverty, "peace and security," ease of transportation, even their own "human rights" are important to them.
If such a scandal turns out to be true, it would probably have to be leveraged from political and economic forces outside the country before it had enough of an effect inside China to bring down a popular political party.

Good comeback!, and funny, too!
But cereally folks, I started studying the Truth in the 1960's,, and it was about the mid-60's that I noticed that a different culture was evolving.  Back then, if a JW family broke up, it was usually the husband left the wife for another woman, and the Society taught at that time that if a brother was a homosexual, or had sex with animals, it was NOT pornea, and she had no grounds for divorce. 
I am sure this caused a LOT of misery and suffering.
Today in the "pillowgate video" , the brother stated that if two Bethelites are sitting in facing chairs, naked, watching each other masturbate, that is also NOT pornea, because no one is touching another person.. I have posted that here, many times, so I will not do it again.
It is seriously creepy. Even the specificity of that is seriously creepy. Makes me wonder who got caught that could not be disfellowshipped.
The point of the above is that there are good reasons why I keep my own counsel on the matter of keeping and bearing arms, and being ready to defend the innocent at all times, and not pay too much attention to those in authority that have a long record of being seriously creepy ... and wrong.
 

Whilst this an excellent contextual question, the apostles' understanding of what Jesus said is hardly a sole criteria for understanding what Jesus said, John 14:9.

Wasn’t that the day that JTR quit Bethel?

In Richmond Virginia, I once knew a Pioneer Brother who "worked" at nights in a funeral home, merely as a someone to be there with the stiffs, as apparently family or someone wanted someone there.  He LITERALLY got paid to sleep.
I thought of several practical jokes to play on him, but they were all too much work.

At Bethel in Brooklyn all brothers would be periodically assigned to either a few hours of after-dinner dish duty or a whole night of guard duty, which entailed walking through totally dark floors in the factories at Squibb (25/30 Columbia Heights) or the 4 main factories at 117 Adams. You would try not to bump into anything as you searched for "key boxes" with a flashlight. Then you'd turn a key and go on to find the next key box, using a page of ambiguous instructions instead of a map. If all the key boxes were hit correctly and in a timely manner every night, the Society could save a lot on insurance. Being the kind of non-sleeper that I am, I never did dish duty, and always swapped it for guard duty.
I was shown where a brother, 20-some years earlier, emptied 6 rounds into a roll of printing paper because he didn't know that rolls of paper can expand and contract due to temperature changes and the pops they make can sound like gunfire. 25 to 30 years earlier the Bethelites could still carry a gun on guard duty. This probably stopped in the 1950's, I'm not sure. It probably stopped soon after that shootout with the paper roll. 

April 30, 2020, 2:12 PM
COURT: S.D.N.Y.
TRACK DOCKET: No. 1:20-cv-03366 (Bloomberg Law Subscription)
An entity owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses sued the owners of the religious whistleblower site FaithLeaks on Thursday for allegedly infringing copyrights by posting the group’s materials publicly on the internet.
The Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania says the Truth & Transparency Foundation illegally reproduced 74 of its in-house videos on the FaithLeaks site.
FaithLeaks’ website says it is a “religious document archival project” that collects documents from whistleblowers in religious communities. It has published internal Watch Tower documents concerning the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ handling of sexual abuse claims and personal data.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/jehovahs-witnesses-sue-faithleaks-owners-over-convention-videos

The best cure for never ever watching that type of stuff is to have a job in which you are all alone, middle of the night, in some big creaky warehouse, and you begin to imagine a surprise around every corner or through every door.

oh my,  This is precisely what people expect from certain high control religious groups. Does any of this sound like a parallel to Waco TX? Jonestown? Heaven's Gate?  
I have no doubt that there are many who would subscribe to this same thinking, if they are privy to such talk. 
Realistically, the amount of infrastructure and resources needed to pull this type of thing off isn't that far fetched. I am positive that there would be countless people NOT involved in jws who would donate funds to make this happen.