James Thomas Rook Jr.

I agree about moving on ... but not forgetting the indelible lessons cruelly burned into our bodies and souls as if with fire, by those who intended to rule wisely ... but who, above all else ... intended ....... and still intend ....... to rule. They CANNOT be fired ... and they know it.

To a reasonable, rational person, what you have stated above is inescapably true .... ALMOST all of it. What is also true is that Jehovah God considers blood his personal property, and demands respect for it ... a common theme that runs throughout the ENTIRE Bible. The fact that the WTB&TS is now run by the Lawyers and Accountants, and the PR Department is whole OTHER issue. That is why, in my recent heart surgeries, I insisted on no blood or blood fractions. The GB caved to public pressure, and a fear of losing money via court actions ... and they changed the rules. God did NOT. They had the blood issue correct ... and instead of "new light" ... they dove into deep darkness with insane reasonings .... for political reasons.

All cases are different, and this is not a "scientific" observation .... but having had five heart surgeries completely without blood or fractions is what I attribute my good health to today. If you insist on a more capable, skilled surgeon, then "Manny-the-Used-Car-Salesman and Heart Doctor" who insists on using blood will have to use his messy sharp spoon on someone else. The race is not always to the swift ... or the battle to the strong .... but that's the way to bet!

Hmmmmm.... I wonder where they got the stem cells to transplant from? The Society approves Hemopure, an "artificial human blood", which is made from highly filtered cow's blood. Where do they get the stem cells?

Soon enough .... perhaps TOO soon, we will ... each and every one of us ... will know for sure. In the meantime, my major concern is to have common sense, a correct view of reality the way it REALLY is, and to stay sane when it seems all around me, people are going bat crap crazy, interpreting invisible things with absolutely no REAL evidence of any kind. What that means is ... I am going to do the best I can ... and ignore all the prognostications. In the history of civilization .... no one ... no one at all ... has so far gotten it right. I hope it will be good enough .... but if it is not, perhaps I will die ..... but at least I will be sane.

Meanwhile .... during construction of World HQ, at Bethel Warwick Infirmiry ....

Anna: Oh yeah ... I had forgotten about THOSE crazy years ... because I never believed any of that .... but I did get caught, BIG TIME, in the "1975" fiasco, even though during the run-up to 1975 I openly ridiculed it ... right there at the end, I reasoned, in the fall of 1974 "How could I be right, and everybody else ... people I respected, loved and cared about .... everybody ... be WRONG? ( About the end coming in 1975)." It did not seem probable to me that EVERYBODY (In the Truth) was wrong so I quit the best job I ever had, in Zaire, the Congo, to be back home with my Mom and Dad in Virginia, when "the END came". To this day, Brothers and Sisters "swear" that never happened ..... but in the Watchtower, March 15, 1980 issue , paragraphs 17 and 18 ONE TIME admitted that they did say that ... in the book "Life Everlasting - In Freedom of the Sons of God". I did not find out about that "soft admission of culpability" until Mr. Google and I became good friends, many, many years later ... but long before that I learned to trust my own instincts over that of anything the Society said or published. If they are wrong, only we down here at the bottom have to pay the price for their error. If they permanently screw up our lives ... they pay no price whatsoever.

Obedience to who, or what? It DOES make a difference. "The Devil is in the Details" - Anon

When you go to a car dealership to buy a new or used car ... you are met by a friendly, personable car salesperson who is truly happy to see you. Unless he has bad teeth his smile will be large, and radiant! "Our friendly smile and warm greeting say much about who we are and what kind of God we worship." Not necessarily. Not even a majority of the time. In fact, there is probably not one person in twenty thousand sane people that would draw that conclusion. THAT'S the person that pays the list sticker price for a new car.

I am a Dog Lover ... I love all dogs ..... and have spent many thousands of dollars on Vet bills ... but if my dog and her puppies got rabies ... because I DO LOVE THEM ... I would shoot them all. .... same thing.

Immorality outside of adhering to the direct commandments and underlying principles of those direct commandments is not "galactic standards morality". It is local or personal preference. Snowflakes think different than Warriors. Children think different than adults. Everybody decides what their own morality will be ... and it can be based on their own standards, or any standards. August 6, 1945 the United States Government burned to death about 80 thousand men, women, children and babies, one morning before noon, and three days later, August 9, 1945, burned to death another 30 thousand men, women and children and babies on another sunny morning. Those not instantly killed lingered in agony with little or no medical care and over the next four months approximately 100 thousand more Japanese died of their injuries sustained on those two mornings. When civilization and liberty or tyranny is in the balance, Jack Ryan's sentiments expressed by proxy closely imitate the thought processes of a petulant, child who has no concept of the big picture. May I suggest to ANYONE getting the "Big Picture", and start thinking like an adult. Destroying the Empire of Japan's ability to wage war against the United States necessitated the deaths and torture to death by injury, of perhaps a quarter-million total Japanese, including infants, with two Atomic Bombs. That does not even count those who survived and were maimed for life. In this theater of war, approximately 400 to 600 Americans died in this effort, most from radiation poisoning. The alternative was to accomplish the same ends (winning the war, and unconditional surrender of the Empire of Japan) with, based on experience in battle, 4 million Japanese killed, and 1 million American deaths in battle. The destruction of the Japanese Empire actually freed the Japanese as well from a millennium of tyranny by their own internal Bushido code based Imperial government. Women were treated like animals. Men were treated like slaves. Grow up people! Start thinking like an ADULT. What Jehovah did in Egypt thousands of years ago, was justified, and in the best interests of all parties involved ... a whole NATION OF GOD'S PEOPLE was freed from slavery, oppression, mistreatment and tyranny .... but like any dramatic cancer surgery ... there is a bill that has to be paid. There is no other way .

ANNA! I think I just GOT IT! ... and it only took a full hour! Did you mean that my absurd parody would have NOT been believed , say during the 1960's ... but that as nutty as things are now ... the parody might be entirely believable as contemporary reality NOW? If that is the case, you are right ... both me and my correspondent grew up in the Truth in the 60's, and early 70's.

Anna, Anna, Anna, Anna ....... Ye of so little faith! In dealing with humans there is truely INFINITE variety ... pesky DNA! Even Einstein did not understand the Internal Revenue Tax System ... or how to comb his hair.

.... that gets the non-sequiter "Cuteness Award".

Every country in the history of the world that has experimented with Socialism has gone the same route as Venezuela ... Even wealthy oil countries like Venezuela cannot win against the irresistible force of uneducated stupidity.

No country on Earth considers warfare to be murder. If I was at war, and had to kill ten thousand parents, I could see the necessity of killing the children also ... as the army I was in would become babysitters instead of soldiers. ... and babysitters of children who would be trying to kill me and my soldiers, and later in wreck vengeance on my and their children. If you have to "play that game" ... those are the rules. August 6, and August 9, 1945, the United States of America burned to death somewhere around 50,000 civilian children with two atomic bombs, and horribly maimed tens of thousands more. War is a rough game to play ..... The only way for a Christian to win ... is NOT PLAY. Jehovah God had different rules for the Jews.

I think we had an article on this in the past year or so, and I remember how appreciative refugees would be if you gave them a colorful tie.

I would like to hear an entire Assembly on the theme: "Defending and Establishing the Good News against accusations of extremism and sexual cover ups." ... a non-fantasy version.

It's alway good, when Minions are happy!

Isn't the ALPHABET sign language? Or is the translation with a zillion pictures of little tiny hands with motion symbols ((((((( wag ))))))))) ?

I often wonder, if one family of the 5 million Jews that left Egypt, and got stuck in the sands of the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years, had decided to head North, instead of wandering around in circles for 40 years ... if they would have been better off ... or worse off. From the Biblical accounts, the Jews were generally a bunch of nasty, cruel, hard-headed people.

If you were a real sheep, that's a VERY good idea. When you get invited to dinner ... YOU are on the menu. With THE WAY that we are doing disfellowshipping today ... we ARE ... eating our own. (Baaaaaa!)

We don't actually kill them. We just make those treated with cruelty, in some cases, commit suicide. ..... plausible deniability.

She did exactly that in the movie "Blues Brothers"

There are good detectives ... and there are bad detectives. Bad detectives do not detect much.