Why John Butler Left Jehovah's Witnesses

[JOHN BUTLER]

3 hours ago, Anna said:

Well at least it's popular

Yes what else would we do with our time  But I must admit my mixed feelings are getting even more mixed as I read every comment. 

If only life was simple .... 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

18 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Also, for @The Librarian. The note that Brother Covington could sass back the Supreme Court Justices and get away with it I read in a Look Magazine article prior to 1970. I never forgot the factoid, but I also never kept the article. Do you have it or know where it might be found?

When I was a teenager researching Jehovah's Witnesses, I would catch the bus and go downtown to the Main Public Library, and they had a viewer that could show archived newspapers, magazines, etc.  You would sit down and run a roll of tiny negatives through a projector to a screen in front of you.  I think it was called "microfiche". They had issues of the New York Times, back to the beginning.

Make some phone calls to Main Public Libraries, ... they might still have that old technology, or something newer.

I have purchased specific issues of mid-1960's LIFE magazine off of Ebay.

Who woulda figgured?

 

[TrueTomHarley]

9 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Make some phone calls to Main Public Libraries, ... they might still have that old technology, or something newer.

For as many times as the Librarian has rapped me on the knuckles, the old hen, for whispering or chewing gum or lighting a firecracker under her chair, you would think that when I actually show interest in using her library for its intended purpose she would joyously put down her bottle and hasten to find it for me.

When is she finally going to get rid of that card catalog and go digital like everyone else? Then she could find it in two seconds.

[TrueTomHarley]

27 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Who woulda figgured?

I read your posts very carefully and never miss a syllable, so as to give instant razor sharp analysis. But with anything else it is possible for me to recall something inaccurately. I don’t think so in this case, but I have misremembered things before. 

At any rate, I just searched a government Look database and came up emptyhanded. Possibly it is just the titles, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were not in the headline. New World produced nothing. So I gave up.

I wonder if Joel Engardio would have tabs on it as background material for his film Knocking?

Besides Covington, it covered the huge conventions of the 50s along with the makeshift kitchens assembled and then disassembled that would feed tens of thousands. If I recall correctly, it began with arrangements about to be ruined by rain, but then the sun came out with but a short time to spare, and the brothers in charge responded as if to say ‘But, of course.’

Needless to say, the writer was sympathetic to the cause.

[Anna]

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

go downtown to the Main Public Library, and they had a viewer that could show archived newspapers, magazines, etc.  You would sit down and run a roll of tiny negatives through a projector to a screen in front of you

You mean like they do in the movies?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

11 minutes ago, Anna said:

You mean like they do in the movies?

yEP!

I saw one of those old "microfiche" (?) machines being used in a recent movie (last five years or so, I think...) . 

I study movies for detail, and am amazed at the old props they dig up ... especially if they have the right camera equipment for the era or time period.  I can tell cameras and flash equipment back to the 1920's, and when they mismatch equipment ... I know.

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

You would sit down and run a roll of tiny negatives through a projector to a screen in front of you.  I think it was called "microfiche".

I actually did this at the local library when I was researching a post about Russell's one-time partner, Nelson Barbour. Recall that he was from Rochester. 

I discovered to my amazement that I had once lived 100 yards from him! (and also 100 years)

There were articles about him in the old Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspapers. There was also much more prominence given to a Presbyterian preacher of that name: Clarence Barbour, as well as a woman I took at first to be Nelson's wife, an Elizabeth, who was listed as "suspended, erased, and excommunicated" from that church. How could it not be his wife? I reasoned, but de Vienne, who has co-authored the book 'A Separate Identity" about early doings of Zion's Watchtower, tells me that it was not; they were two separate families.

'She's nuts,' my gut tells me, but I don't dare cross her. It is ten times more dangerous that crossing @JW Insider and 100 times more dangerous than crossing @The Librarian

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2009/02/nelson-barbour-and-the-rochester-connection.html

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

3 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

My question to you, is this why some people are removed?

I don’t know what you mean by this. What people? Removed from where?

[Anna]

7 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I study movies for detail

Me too! It detracts a little from the movie but it's fascinating. Even in the best movies there are sequence or continuity errors. Like you know, in one shot the character has her hair in a pony tail, and in the next shot its loose. It surprises me sometimes how script supervisors don't catch some of those things. My cousin is a film director and he tells me some interesting stories. And have you noticed, there is ALWAYS a green desk lamp in every movie (well almost).

[Space Merchant]

2 hours ago, Anna said:

And have you noticed, there is ALWAYS a green desk lamp in every movie (well almost).

Well now you spark my curiosity. Never noticed.

[Evacuated]

10 hours ago, Anna said:

And have you noticed, there is ALWAYS a green desk lamp in every movie (well almost).

This has to be the best off topic entry ever!

And have you noticed (in the movies) 

• Everyone has a black umbrella if it rains at a funeral
• People always leave car keys behind the sun shade
• Computer passwords and even government systems are always hackable in seconds or minutes
• You can nearly always park just where you need to
• Single bullets can spectacularly explode cars
• Friends, (and others) can often just walk into houses
• People are always having dreams that make them sit bolt upright in bed
• Gangs often walk four abreast in rows whether goodies or villains
• Nobody ever finishes their breakfast
• Heroes can often shoot rifles accurately one-handed, but baddies demolish walls and ceilings with automatic assault rifles
• Pedestrians always jump out of the way of reckless drivers, even if they are driving on the pavement
• Ventilation shafts are often accessible, human sized, well-lit, spotless and go anywhere you want
• People often clean their teeth without toothpaste, in fact only villains have bad teeth. And regardless of overall dirty appearance, goodie's teeth are perfectly white and dentally manicured.
• News reports about you always start as soon as you turn on the TV, even though someone told you it was on already

[TrueTomHarley]

14 minutes ago, Gone Away said:

Computer passwords and even government systems are always hackable in seconds or minutes

Fear not. In my upcoming movie I have devoted myself to realism:

With seconds to spare because the evil ones are hot on his heels and will discover his whereabouts presently, our hero locates the Master Computer. He breaks through layers of security as though passing through a subway turnstile. He locates the file that will save the planet and send the bad guys to prison for 1000 years. He hits the download key. He twiddles his thumbs as he waits and wait and waits. His nemesis both finds him and shoots him through the head, as the machine chokes on adware, malware, battling virus software, operating system updates, and random reboots to digest it all. The world goes up in flames as the villains grin ear to ear.

23 minutes ago, Gone Away said:

Ventilation shafts are often accessible, human sized, well-lit, spotless and go anywhere you want

How do you think I manage to sneak up on @James Thomas Rook Jr. and kick him in the rear so often?