More Interesting Times.

I suppose some of you have read the Sunday Saint Petersburg Times feature on David Miscavige. He’s the head mucketymuck of the Scientologyt  organization. Chairman of the Board is what they call him or the acronym “COB.” COB is more than apt because, according to the Times piece, he beats his staff members. This according to the Times is based on several high level defectors from Scientology , apparently, according to the Times, he’s got a nasty temper and uses a management style right out of Joe Stalin’s playbook.

That’s not really news to anyone following this little teapot tempest, Miscavige’s comical rages and predilection to violence have been a persistent rumor for years now.  I don’t remember when I first hear about this, five years ago? Ten? Seeing this story sitting on my driveway was…different! I’ve been hearing that something like this has been brewing for a few weeks now. They certainly didn’t disappoint!

Scientology responded in their usual ham-handed way. Their pet spokesperson Tommy Davis tried to say that it was all lies, that they never had a chance to respond (other than the three months the Times reporters gave them, other than the eight hour rebuttal sessions where reporters were blocked from leaving the room by a hoard of people trying to tell them that Miscavige would never –ever –ever hit any one.

“After eight hours, when reporters readied to leave, church spokesman Tommy Davis brought in nine senior members of the management team. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the exit and insisted they be heard. Marc Yager, Guillaume Lesevre, Ray Mithoff, Mark Ingber, all said Miscavige never struck them.”

Actually Tommy Davis rebuttal makes him sound like a complete lunatic!

Do you really think I’m making this up?

Then…THEN  he informed the Times reporters that it was the DEFECTORS who beat up people and it was Miscavige who, when he wasn’t saving little birdies had to go in  and DISCIPLINE this nest of vipers abusing his staff. (Marty Rathbun) “he’s a bastard and a coward, and he’s psychotic… psycotic!” exclaimed Tommy Davis during a calmer part of his rebuttal.

Sheeze! A simple “f%& you  no – comment” would have been 1000 times more effective. They might as well have signs around their necks which say “I CANNOT tell the truth!”

One really interesting thing about the Times piece is they publish excerpts from the Defector’s PC folders. Now a PC folder is a record of a Scientologist’s confessions. They get hooked up to their lie detector thing (which just measures electrical resistance like an electrician’s volt-ohm meter,)  Then they are asked all sorts of leading questions. like “do you have any bad feelings about our glorious leader?”  Supposedly a skilled operator can tell if a person is lying, I think you could fool such a device in any number of ways. But people are forced to confess their “crimes” and make up some if they can’t think of any.

Those PC folders are supposed to be confidential, so how did the Times get them?  Tommy Davis the Scientology spokesperson provided them to discredit the defectors! “Now they say the defectors are trying to stage a coup, inventing allegations so they can topple Miscavige and seize control of the church.”

One really funny thing is, there is a rumor going around that Scientology was so alarmed by this feature that they’ve had people going all around Tampa Bay buying up every issue of the Times they could get their hands on. I’ve looked around a bit and yes, all the Sunday edition of the Times are sold out. Having some experience in the newspaper business I can tell you that some circulation manager is rubbing his hands together in glee right now.  I can say that I did find one box with papers in Largo -  just one!. I drove by around 25 empty ones to find it.

I went to the World Protest Scientology day on Saturday, it was rather small, only about a dozen people showed including a couple of gents from Sarasota who didn’t seem to fit the “anon” type, they were both very overweight, did not protest and were going on and on about PIs and Scientology members with cameras. I told them that after the first couple of protest the Flag people were more or less leaving the protesters alone. They seemed disappointed.

However this small group made one sortie in the blazing Florida heat. They marched over to Ft Harrison and Gulf to Bay, then waved at the beach traffic and listened to the love in the form of blaring car horns. Flag hired a couple of Clearwater’s finest to make sure the Anons didn’t rob a bank or something.  We spoke with one of them who was pretty concerned that we had enough water (there were several cases.) He told me that Clearwater has several thousand Bosnians living here now and they were a bigger problem than Scientology.

One lady made a point to chew the group out saying they didn’t understand the word “cult” and they should look it up. “All religions are cults” she said.

That’s a pretty typical response here in Clearwater; most of the Scientology folk are angry about the protests but can’t seem to come up with an effective retort. Sure all religions are cults if you are not a member. If you are a member of a cult, you don’t think you are in a cult. So what?

***

Downtown Clearwater is quiet tonight; the usual people are hanging around Starbuck’s. Some Bosnian ex-patriots, some fellow pretending to read the paper. There are a few Sea Org and Flag staff marching by, I’m seeing a few dozen, never the groups of two hundred or more like I used to see.
I’m starting to get an end-game feeling. I can’t predict what the future is going to hold for this town. I’m sure it’s going to be interesting.

It usually is.

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The Hard Drive Is Inside the Computer

Via Shashdot

“Those of us who work in technology have a jargon all of our very own. We know the difference between CPUs and GPUs, between SSD and HD, let alone HD and SDTV! Yet, our users are flat out calling everything ‘the hard drive.’ Why is it so?”

From ...here

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“It’s just giving everyone a bathroom wall to write exactly what they think.” — Irin Carmon

BAD INTERNET: The panel was about the future of filmmaking, but that didn’t mean anyone had to like what they saw. “I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet,” said Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive officer Michael Lynton. “Period.”

At a breakfast cohosted by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and The New Yorker Thursday, Lynton wasn’t just trying for a laugh: He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.”

Co-panelist Nora Ephron, who started her career in print, said the Internet has had a greater effect on “our beloved print than it’s had on the movie business.” But, she conceded, “We’re in the last days of copyright, if you want to be grim about it….Stop it. I dare you.”

Found at

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wait just one flocking moment!

Commercial aircraft co-pilots are making only $16,500 pr year? Your run-of-the-mill grocery store truck driver makes mor than that!

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And April, into Summer!

At some point in time you have to decide that enough is enough, and that the bad guys have to win. Sometimes they deserve it!

A couple of people have noticed that I’ve not been writing here very much. I could say it was a time thing and be mostly truthful. I’m reading lots more than I usually do. One book is this hideous thing called “The Turner Diaries.” Now I don’t believe in censorship but if there was one book to hunt down and burn every single copy of, it would be The Tuner Diaries. Mr. PH asked me why I put myself through it

“sheer curiosity” was my answer (or something close to it.) I wanted to find out how depraved one mans’ imagination could be.  I wanted to look radical racism in the eye and then leave it where it belongs, on the trash-heap of history.

It’s not that the book is badly written (though frankly, it’s no Gone with the Wind. ) The Turner Diaries is more or less a first person account of a racist insurgency which, after bombing buildings and firing mortars into public gatherings ends up capturing some ICBMs and manages to start World War III,  completely obliterating all non-whites and Jews. Around six billion people all told.

I can’t even to begin to express my revulsion of this book. There is no justification for the mass slaughter (lovingly described) in this story – other than “they is not whait like us!.” Over and over again we are treated to atrocities in the name of white purity (whatever the hell that means.) The author justifies wholesale indiscriminate slaughter for nothing more than a belief in his own superiority.

Say what now? Dragging people out of their beds at 3 AM, reading some claptrap about race betrayal (coz they have black associates) and hanging them from lampposts can be justified?

I think someone should make a movie of this book- as a warning. Nor really!  They should play it straight too, just like the novel describes. A cautionary tale about how insane people can get. I think there will be some people (Like Timothy McVey) who will mimic the crap this novel describes. Most (I am ever hopeful) will get it and understand that any society based on the depravity described in The Turner Diaries will be xenophobic and brutal, not unlike some fundie Islamic sects.

It’s a bunch of crap, read it only if you are curios.

***

We took E’ and Mable to a local mutt derby

Unsurprisingly she won her heat and came in second overall, that freaking dog is fast!

***

Swine flue is big news. Two people in my county happened to get it, out of a million. I’d bet that more people were diagnosed with terminal cancer or died in motorcycle crashes today.

***

Deb and went to a couple of SCA things this month. This is the first weekend in a while that I’ve been able to do much other than work. Next weekend I will be working and the weekend after we have another SCA event.

Otherwise, ‘E’ finished up his “spring” soccer season. School is winding down and everyone has spring fever.  It’s been hot and dry this spring (very unusual) and the economy sucks. Deb and I decided that the Japan trip was out of the question this year, ‘E’ was thrilled with that news, he was never very warm to the idea of spending a couple of weeks there, now he may be spending more time with his cousins.

***

Watchmen came out to great fanfare, than vanished as soon as people went to see it. Mr. PH and I went to the matinee because we were too cheap to pay full price anymore. We were horrified that some moron brought their small children, thinking that this was a family movie! I suppose they missed the ‘R’ rating. Mr. PH went over and had a word with the parents just about the time “Rorschach” threw boiling oil on someone. Watchmen was not a nice film just like it was not a nice graphic novel. The film captured the essence of the original piece pretty well I thought. Mostly i think Watchmen is going to be forgotten under the onslaught of more popular summer fare.

The new Star Trek movie is just coming out this week, the reviews have been outstanding but I suppose I’ll catch this when it hits HBO next month. I really haven’t watched movies or TV in a long while. Some times I pop a DVD into the desktop when I’m working on someone’s web page or PC but even that is a bit too much.

Now if I could just figure out what this was all about!

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More March.

I don’t know what it is about late February- Early March but this time of year makes me feel crummy! This has been going on for a few years now and each time is a little better than the last. This year I upped my Vitamin B complex by about 1/3 and that seemed to even things out.

Still; I have bad dreams this time of year. Sometimes I have nightmares about eating Wheat Thins. (I have Celiac so eating Wheat Thins is a bit like chewing on ground glass.) Last night I had a very vivid one about atomic war. We saw the flash of nearby cities going up, and then a missile struck our home town, everything went white and suddenly I found myself a survivor in a brave new world after the holocaust. Then I realized that I was being crushed by debris and the survivor stuff was just my expiring mind’s swan song.
Funny thing is, I sleep extremely well when I have these dreams, it’s like my mind is getting rid of a bunch of ugly clutter, spring cleaning as it were.

I went to see Watchmen with a friend a couple of weeks ago. It was well worth the four bucks (I’m cheap, we went to the matinee.)  I saw Watchmen back in the 1980s and liked it, I loved the complex interplay and rich background material. Superheroes who behave like assholes, who would have thunk it?
The movie is about as close an adaptation to graphic novel as possible. They changed a few things, improved on the storyline a bit. (I thought) The ending is still weak but not as weak as the comic. The cast was spot-on. The dialog was drawn verbatim from the source; the look and feel was very close. I was impressed! (Which reminds me, not to drop name but I know someone who is on the graphic novel’s credits.  I need to get my two copies of Watchmen autographed and mail one to somebody.)
Galactica ended last week and I’m a bit bummed. I liked it. It was the only television program I watched religiously. Ok I watched “Sarah Connor” for the first season but got sidetracked and never came back. Galactica was in a class by itself though. The writing was uniformly good for the entire run. The blow-off neatly tied the loose ends and finished somewhat deeper than I expected. Not too deep mind-you. “Our Heroes” I’m sure get eaten by lions or more likely struck down by disease or childbirth.

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February, let alone March!

Sometimes you wonder how in the hell you got through the last couple of weeks. I cannot begin describe all the stuff that’s happening.

It’s been really dry lately, we had a bout one afternoon of light rain in the last two months. The weather is fine for this time of year, cool at night and high 70s during the day. But dang; lawns are dying and the county is starting to hand out stiff fines for people watering at all. Someone needs to tell some of my nie

Last night Deb, E’ and I went to see the Kodo Drummers over at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Kodo is a Taiko drummer group from Japan. They played a two hour set and is sure didn’t seem like it. E’ was not too sure he wanted to go last night but he was riveted. We have been trying to sell him on the Japan trip idea. He’s not too sure that he wants to go. Japan is a big, scary, alien place to him. Hell it’s pretty scary to me too and I’ve been there a couple of times.

Work has been a hassle, people are frightened and it’s starting to become obvious. Our admin people are being as reassuring as they can be and things look solvent for now. I’m in an industry that’s thankfully buffered a bit from economic problems. People always need to be educated, there’s always money available for that or so I would hope. Deb’s in much of the same position, her county digs are not likely to change drastically other than possible pay cuts. How the county can even think about cutting teacher salaries I’ll never know.

E’s football season wrapped up with his team getting district champions. They just missed regional by one point. I managed to take a bunch of video at the last couple of games and did a couple of little YouTube-like pieces which I’ve mastered into a  DVD disk to present to the parents at the season wrap party.  I’ve been doing various video things over the last year, PC power has gotten to the point where a modest rig like mine can put out pretty nice looking stuff. Hell even my laptop can produce full motion-professional grade material. I’m kind of astounded by that, after growing up using super8mm and splicing that junk together with tape.  Now I just need to get a nice 3CCD DVcam with image stabilization – and a pony!.

Deb just called to tell me we are going to the dogs tonight (like I didn’t already know that.)  Oh yes and Watchmen tomorrow.
It never ends!

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I know what you did last Saturday!

I know this is going to totally add to my DA pack over at OSA HQ CIC or whatever stupid name they call it Now why would a church have a Combat Information Center Anyway?

Well, a few weeks ago I was in Washington DC to attend the inauguration of our new President. On Saturday, January 10th I bugged out for a short time, and went to the DC Anon protest over at the so-called founding church of Scientology.

It was a smallish protest, only about nine or so people. I introduced myself and told them where I was from. (referring to my notes) It was cold, in the teens and a fitful wind was blowing. I didn’t attempt to hide my identity or any of that stuff. I figured if Scientology was paranoid enough to even care that I was talking to protesters, so be it.

And I chatted, with most of them. They were much like the folks in Clearwater. Very young, rather idealistic a bit geeky. They were very curious about the conditions in Clearwater. How the Sea Org were different than the public Scientologists that walked in and out of this place.How they reacted to protesters.

And people were coming and going from the Org, about one every five minutes or so.  It seemed to me to be more or less the same people though. They had webcams taped to the awnings but one of the Anons pointed out that they were not connected. Apparently the police “asked “ them to stop filming passerbys on a public street.

As for the police, we did see a few but they merely walked by, not at all like the off-duty guys the Flag people keep hiring.

Hardly any of the Scientology members spoke to us. Some were challenged by the Anons, “hey, what do you think about working for 39 cents an hour?” yelled one of the kids.  None of of the Scientology members paid attention to that.

One lady pulled up with a bunch of luggage, “did you hear about your buddy getting arrested for hate crimes in New York?” Coincidentally we had just been discussing “agent pubic.” Some New York Anon smeared himself with Vaseline and “body hair,” then ran around the New York Scientology offices smearing the goop on books and people. It was kind of childish I though and I pretty much told the DC Anons I thought so. I’d be pretty hard pressed to call this a hate crime though. Very much a prank—sophomoric.  one that I’m afraid the people involved are going to pay dearly for.  But hate crimes? Hah!

Anyway, the lady turned out to be a well known member who had been out talking with the Anons before. Her name was Cynthia I think . She was really the only person who spoke to the Anons, one lady demanded to know what people had against Scientology (a church don’t cha know) but scurried away when some of the Anons started telling her. All in all it was quite peaceful and interesting.

I wandered back towards the Mall after a while, I ducked into a Metro train at the last moment and saw a couple of girls just miss it, they looked just like a couple that walked in and out of the Org several times , or perhaps I imagined it.

When I emerged I saw a fellow handing out booklets, they were “the Way to Happiness” (big surprise! ) I took one of the books, thanked him, then mentioned that it was too bad many people in his organization didn’t seem to follow the stuff written in this book. He looked confused and mumbled that he’d been in a long time and everyone follows the tenants in the Way to Happiness. I mentioned that his church thought I was an SP and certainly didn’t practice that stuff to people like me.  He looked scared, and scurried away.

I always find it amazing that people who are supposedly trained “talk about anything” and who consider themselves superior  are so incapable of even facing the inherent conflicts in their beliefs. Their communications skills seems stunted to me….retarded.  It’s not like these are stupid people, they just strike me as a group that has given up some of their basic human gifts. That of questioning, discovering, and creating new ideas. I find it very sad and I find them … sad. I feel a sense of loss when I’m around them because deep down I know they are lost to the rest of us. To the six billion that make up the population of this planet, this group of a few tens of thousands have turned their backs on growth and imagination. They think they haven’t, they believe that they are a vibrant—vital group that is going to save the planet.

I don’t see how they can do that by running from us.

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Escape from Foggybottom.

Out of the cold, back to the Grind.

Things get busy at work and we find ourselves with too little time to reflect on things. It’s get up, get breakfast, get the kids off to school and try not to get too stung out at work, rinse – repeat.

I was trying to remember exactly what we did after the Inauguration. We went to the Holocaust Museum,  we tried to explain to E’ why we wanted to take him to such an awful place. He doesn’t understand that what happened to large swaths of humanity in the 19300s and 1940s could happen again and they only way to prevent it is to understand it, talk about it. I mentioned to the  students my take on the Holocaust, that it wasn’t a new thing and that it didn’t end with the fall of the National Socialists in Germany. I mentioned the Khmer Rouge, -  they stared.

We went to the national Spy Museum and the Natural History Museum. We saw the Library of Congress and toyed with the idea of getting a “permit” and doing some research there. (Alas! Another time.) We saw the Washington monument and spent much of Friday morning at Arlington before coming home.

DC has always been one of my favorite places. I’m not sure why. It’s a strange place, we have very little back home that is like it. There is an ornate nature about DC, an American baroque that is hard to define but easily recognized. DC is our place, I felt that again and other people do as well. It belongs to the people, held in common so that future generations will walk down the National Mall and gaze in wonder at what we have wrought, as I did.

Some of my contemporaries are cynics and defeatists. They say that the United States is doomed, that we are seeing it’s last days and an age of terror and ignorance will soon be our lot. But what I saw last week was nothing short of a miracle. Not that Barack Obama is black, It’s not as simple as that. Or I should say, it’s much bigger.

What I witnessed last week was an orderly peaceful revolution. One that did not include the turmoil and violence that always accompanies such things. I watched a new government take control. I watched the old commander and chief just flying away in Marine One, he had them circle the District once before departing to the airfield.

That was our revolution. We had lunch afterward.

How is this possible? In a world where other revolutions seem to require the pathos of complete upheaval and breakdown. Where millions of people are uprooted and thrown about like so much human flotsam into refugee camps. How is it we can do this, for over two hundred years without setting the great city alight and murdering those who live there? How is it we don’t have rioting and people howling for blood?

How is it possible?

The very question gives me hope.  We have a future you and I, if we are only brave enough to embrace it—love it because it is our future, and in it we can do anything!

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Hoodwinked to Foggybottom 4.0

Our big plan was to get there early. Everyone we spoke to said we should get to the metro platforms when they open, they open at 4 AM!

So! Up at 2:30 AM. Dressed warmly and go out into the streets by 3:45. The local station was already packed and we waited out five trains before we got one that was empty enough to get on.  We emerged a short distance from the Capital to a scene out of Cloverfeild, darkness, lots of people, helicopters churning the air overhead, sirens and many police.

It was rather cold, around 19 degrees and windy. We lined up about a quarter mile from the “silver gate,’ and waited. The line got moving about an hour later, it was slow going and we ended up just under the gate when the line pretty much froze in place. People in our line ended up dancing the electric slide just to stay warm.  We kept asking ourselves, what the bloody hell were we doing, freezing our butts off this early in the morning?

The sun started to come up and the line got moving, we passed through security and parked ourselves behind a Jumbotron, one of many that lined the mall for the event.  There were squads of sharpshooters everywhere, helicopters and even a predator orbiting overhead.

It was a long wait but the ceremony began after a while. We could see quite a way up the mall and the ocean of people around 2 million was just astounding. The sound was like nothing I’ve ever heard. The throng was like a living thing, once cheering when  a familiar face flashed on the screens, next booing when someone like Newt Gingrich was introduced.

Finally, after all this buildup, the main event. First Joe Biden was sworn I, then Obama. The oath was flubbed ( I heard they redid it so the nutballs would stop fussing,) otherwise it went off and people went nuts! For many, this was an event like that of the moon landing or 911. I was joking with Deb that we just elected the Pope. I spoke to to some of the security people, it was the largest crowd any of them had ever seen. One fellow had worked five inaugurations and he said this was the largest in history

After the main event we started moving towards the Rayburn Building which was nearby however because of the crush of people, it took almost an hour to get there. We went into a side entrance, the main was reportedly socked and the one we lined up for the security screen. All the office buildings have x-rays and metal detectors, even the monuments.

They had lunch for us (and other guests) Congressman Bill Young’s office. The famous congressional bean soup was served and sandwiches (with very strong coffee- thank god!) We warmed up, Congressman Young invited us into his office and chatted with us for a while.  Then we were invited to get more food, it looked like they had more than they could give away, we ended up taking a bunch home with us. I got to thank the people who helped me out with my passport issues a few years ago. We also took some names, Bill Young’s staff has done an exceptional job with us and we need to write some thank you letters.

Back to the hotel where ewe all crashed for a while. We were all very tired but happy to have witnessed history this way, the cold notwithstanding. From my point of view, it made the event that much sweeter.

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