james_woods

Joined

• started 182 topics
• posted 12,226 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by james_woods

• 
  19

  The Rumor Heard Round The World

  by Siddhashunyata in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  al gore is studying with jehovah's witness.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  BTW, be careful on the internet thing - I recently got called a liar (on an environmental thread a while back) by making the same sort of jokes on that internet thing - his real quotation was:

  March 9, 1999 - CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer: "During my service in the US Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet."

  Note: the origins of the internet were made by the DOD (the ARPANET) five years before Gore entered congress. I agree that he did not really state that he technically invented it, but this was in fact a very clumsy attempt to take credit for its creation. He did, of course, introduce bills which helped to fund it's development, and could have modestly said just that. What he did say has now become the stuff of political legend.

  James
• 
  19

  The Rumor Heard Round The World

  by Siddhashunyata in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  al gore is studying with jehovah's witness.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  He'll soon figure out that there is not as much political action money to be had as there was in that Buddhist Temple...
• 
  17

  Is this a trend? More repression == more lethargy...

  by james_woods in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i have been thinking about a linkage between several interesting threads over the past week or so: here is what i think we can derive -.

  * recently, a thread asks if jw are assimilating more into the world.

  consensus: publishers, yes for many.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  I have been thinking about a linkage between several interesting threads over the past week or so: Here is what I think we can derive -

  * Recently, a thread asks if JW are assimilating more into the world. Consensus: publishers, yes for many. WTSociety: fighting hard to stop it.

  * Many threads present a practically Gulag picture of the latest District Conventions. Parking, Seating, Rooming, many talks on obedience, toilet paper, food, talking, etc. Consensus: Attendees are completely beaten down and tired out. This is even born out by comments from the platform.

  * Several threads highlight the practical desperation of the special September campaign. Consensus: english speaking baptisms and publishers hours are dropping like flies. Society is desperate to do something to get them up again; maybe sending the lay-off victims as sort of SSmen to whip them into line.

  * There is a definate plethora of magazine articles screaming out the need for obedience and recptiveness to new light. At the same time, there are more active faders and dissidents (many talking through internet even isolated miles from one another) than ever in WT history.

  My theory is that the WTSociety has in fact been cracking the whip with negative results. They are making things worse for themselves with this lunatic conrtol freaking.

  Anybody else feel this is the case?

  James
• 
  9

  anti DoorKnocking / neo Green River Act in New England?

  by james_woods in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i saw a short piece last night on an activist group in a little town in (i believe) connecticut -.

  they were trying to enact local legislation to limit door knocking.

  the issue was not the jws - it was about one of those general magazine salespeople who got into some elderly ladies house and robbed & murdered her a year or two back.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  Well, kw, that is just great.

  So, In the eyes of the present supreme court:

  * it is perfectly ok for the police to bust down your door without knocking to search the premesis...

  * it is perfectly ok for your city coucil to take your house through eminent domain, in order for their friendly local development company to build a shopping mall...

  * it is perfectly ok for weird religious or political groups (which you do not wish to talk with) to knock on your door at all hours day or night.

  ______

  I also appreciated the earlier comments on how much the society either hated or feared the simple request to register as a door-to-door campaign. Right up to the point of spending the night in jail, in some cases. Hard to see how this would violate any scriptural principle, isn't it...?

  James
• 
  34

  An Inconvenient Truth.

  by Blueblades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.

  al gore.

  has any read this book or seen the movie?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  Excellent point, Terry. There are complex environmental issues here. They should not be taken hostage by anyones individual political agenda.

  A Personal Point in Fact: I support realistic efforts to reduce man-made release of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and sulphur compounds into the atmosphere. I am not, however, certain of the theory that this is the primary cause of climate change upon the earth - nor that automotive airconditioning media is the cause of the ozone/ultraviolet issues in the upper atmosphere.

  Second point - having already been called a liar (or at least an ignorant car-loving redneck) within this thread - let me quote our green hero Al Gore:

  March 9, 1999: (During an interview with Wolf Blitzer, while contesting the Democratic presidential nomination against Bill Bradley): "During my service in the U.S. Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet".

  As a historical reference - the DOD ARPANET (the origins of today's internet) existed in 1971, five years before Gore entered Congress. He did sponsor bills which supported government funding of the internet.

  Quotation from Al Gore's book Earth in the Balance (1992 bestseller which predates and forms the basis for the recent movie An Inconvenient Truth) - "Within the context of the SEI (Strategic Environmental Initiative) it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty five year period."

  My problem with Mr. Gore is precisely the same problem that I have with the Jehovah's Witness Governing Body - I greatly dislike gloom and doom prophets who are perfectly willing to tell me (and in fact the entire global human population) that I should make radical changes in my free lifestyle according to their whims. I also fault the robotic antics of persons who follow such teachings with such a fervor that they cannot engage in realistic discussion of the issues at hand - unless you agree with Mr. Gore's (or Mr. Rutherford's) self-serving initiatives, you are automatically worth of derision or destruction.

  I think we live in a better and more enlightened society than that.

  Sincerely, James

  PS - I know plenty about the Kyoto Accord. It is, of course, one of those Japanese little cars which gets good mileage but has relatively poor performance. I am thinking about dropping a Chevy 350 into mine.
• 
  34

  An Inconvenient Truth.

  by Blueblades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.

  al gore.

  has any read this book or seen the movie?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  Yeah - I know Al was kind of spun around on that internet thing, but he did kind of try to make himself look like the futurist father of it...think of it as my humble attempt as a little strawman joke!

  Did you know that the same thing happened to George Bush the first when they tried to say he had never seen a grocery store scanner?

  The Drew post is correct, this is all very serious business. It certainly is way more important to me than the 607 date or the length of the prophetic year...or whether CTRussell was a mason.

  Thanks, James
• 
  34

  An Inconvenient Truth.

  by Blueblades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.

  al gore.

  has any read this book or seen the movie?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  PS, humanist, thanks for your polite and reasonable remarks. They are thought provoking.

  I will submit that the Margaret Meade analogy was an illustration not of how she got it wrong, but how a whole scientific community suppressed an opposing view in the face of better evidence.

  This is often a regrettable part of human nature, even for scientists.

  BTW, I am a proponent of large scale carbon dioxide scrubbing technology, located close to a selected group of fossil power plants, similar to the way a nuclear sub scrubs CO2 from its on-board air. The CO2 could be compressed and used in secondary petroleum recovery if the locations were picked appropriately. Then, relative CO2 reductions could be measured.
• 
  34

  An Inconvenient Truth.

  by Blueblades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.

  al gore.

  has any read this book or seen the movie?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  No one is proposing any drastic actions without research...

  No? I heard Al Gore say in public that he wanted to outlaw the internal combustion engine within 15 to 20 years when he ran against Bush. Of course, I also heard him say that he invented the internet on which we are now writing this interesting debate.

  Should we also bring up the Kyoto accord?

  James
• 
  34

  An Inconvenient Truth.

  by Blueblades in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.

  al gore.

  has any read this book or seen the movie?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  In regard to the new poster's points (and welcome from me - )

  I find it hard to believe that there is a global conspiracy between scientists from around the world, what purpose would this serve?
  I will offer an analogy - that of Margaret Meade (the so-called anthropologist of the south sea islands of the 1920's). She taught a sort of pre-hippy "free love" amoral culture of the South Pacific islands as mankinds natural behavioral order. Modern society with its mores and rules were said to be artificial results of prissy religions. This was soundly debunked in the 1980's because it was discovered that she was just apeing her mentors and giving positive vent to her own personal lifestyle. She had barely visited the cultures in question - having spent most of her time in various "social" activities. Those who opposed her view, however, were taken to be krackpot nuts by the mainstream university professors, and were immediately supressed. She is still taught in most courses on this subject because she was famous and it has become the norm. The only two girls she is supposed to have interviewed on the island have long since renounced her accounts.

  Like the JWs - the science community has from time to time just started saying and publishing things so long enough to make it into their current political wisdom and so that is what it becomes. They are then reluctant to rethink it. This serves the purpose of those who get money from giving the speeches, writing the books, and teaching these things long enough to get their tenure.
  
  Ultimately, if it could possibly relate to our activities (which seems likely), and we won't enjoy the consequences, why take the risk that the people with the most information are wrong? ...better safe than sorry would seem to be a sensible approach, given that we don't have any spare planets to live on.

  Can you imagine the "risk" we would take by instantly dismantling our electric power grid and current transportation systems worldwide (including rail, sea, air, as well as the highway vehicles)? Or by doubling our fossil fuel power production to run minimal electric cars? Or to try and replace it all with nuclear fission? How do you know that the third world developing countries would not just burn oil and coal to more than make up for those who made the sacrifice. Brazil is in fact, still a petroleum importer - they only make about twice as much fuel ethanol as we do - and have done great ecological harm to their native forests to grow that much sugar cane.

  I submit that if poorly researched panic mode plans are taken, then we might prove to be more "sorry" than "safe".

  Sincerely, James
• 
  35

  convention association

  by candidlynuts in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i havent been to a convention since..................99?

  the last few i went to i remember a lot of people commenting on how hard it was to visit with other witnesses.

  a lot of people were disgruntled and irritated about it.. the convention doors didnt open till about an hour before the session started... so you had time to find your seat and get your kids settled.. no time to visit others... also our seats were assigned.. we were told to sit with our congregation in a specific section that we were assigned to clean.. so we were just around our regular congregation.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  james_woods

  I just want to say that I am completely shocked by this thread. No, not by the poster or anything like that...

  What is shocking to me is this graphic description of what an assembly is like 25 years after the last one I attended. (The one in 1981 where I just walked in and then turned around and walked out of my last meeting ever - ) I had no idea until reading this site for a few months.

  We used to be pretty much free to come and go as family or personal circumstances dictated. No, they didn't serve food during the session but there was ample time to mingle and socialize during the fairly generous intermissions or even during "field service time" during the mornings. There was no such thing as assigned seating or assigned motel rooms. You were not told to clean up an area, this was strictly volunteer work for those who chose to do so. We were encouraged (not discouraged) to make new friends from other congregations and even sit with them, etc. This was called fellowship, and one of the main purposes of the assembly.

  I would suggest that those who are so concerned about Gitmo Bay and the muslims, (all 7 pages of posters on that thread) get busy with a little amnesty or red cross or whatever for these poor witnesses.

  Especially the courageous fading and eyes opened spouses who are going through this hell for the sake of family. Maybe they should ask themselves if this is really worth it...its starting to sound as creepy as Heavens Gate or the Manson family.

  James