Posts by asleif_dufansdottir

54

Does your cat eat grass?

by JH in

jw
friends

my cat lives inside, and once in a while i bring her outside.

i bring her outside to walk and get exercise, but no she sits there and eats grass.

that's all she does is eat grass.. then she comes back inside and a few hours after she throws up the grass she ate.

I have 2 Coons. A 12 lb girl and an 18 lb boy. Both need to get more muscle and less 'belly-bag'. For several years I had 4. I am very familiar with rat-sized hairballs. If you can do it, going once a week or 2 on a day-long or half-day fast seems to 'bring them up' easier. I don't leave food out for mine all the time. They're fed 2x a day.

Cats are true carnivores. They have a short digestive tract. They can certainly injest vegetable matter, but can't really extract nutrition from most of it (it's not in the cat long enough). They do need roughage. Wild felines get nutritional value from partially digested stomach contents of the rodents they caught (sorry, might seem gross but true). Cats can't synthesize the amino acid taurine and will go blind if fed a totally vegetarian diet.

I don't know whether it was an old wive's tale, but I was told as a kid that cats and dogs eat grass instinctively, and that it helps clean their digestive tracts of worms. So, either it's a natural emetic (makes ya throw up) for a sick animal or a vegetable colon cleanser...your choice.

17

Discipline or abuse - Which?

by Lady Lee in

jw
friends

i am having a discussion on another board about the topic of disciplining children.

some people seem to think that as long as the child did something to "deserve" it then the parent has the right to hit anyway they want.. grrrr.

many of us grew up in a society that accepted the practice of corporal punishment.

asleif_dufansdottir

My mom used 'the leg whipper'. It was, at various times in my childhood, either the rubber hose from a hot water bottle, or an extension cord.

Poor Frank. How awful. I can relate. At least your ears weren't really huge and deformed. My mother never lost any opportunity to make fun of me for being fat. I'll never forget, she saw me in my underwear one day (I was, maybe 13?), and started laughing, and told my dad, "There's what your daughter would look like in a bikini." My dad asked her why on earth she would say such a thing. Unfortunately, I was fat (still am) and everybody else, from my classmates to other people I interact with as an adult, feel free to comment on my weight. I think I'll go think about something else for a while...

25

What GOOD has ever come about from Christianity ?!?!

by Hamas in

jw
friends

people have touched on this subject in other posts.....

i was just wondering ..... has there ever been anything good come about thanks to christianity?.

all i can think of is oppression, torture, hypocrisy, etc....... .

asleif_dufansdottir

Perhaps the question should be, "What good has come about from Christianity, that would not have come about from another religion?"

My husband's grandma was a dear woman, wonderful, generous, loving...she would have been all those things if she had been some other religion. Good people who feel impelled to do things for others through education, medicine, other types of charity, do those through whatever religion they belong to.

A religion that encourages self-control and kindness (without heavy emphasis on dogma) is a good thing. Some Christians emphasize these positive qualities of Christianity. Good. But I think any other religion which emphasizes good qualities is equally good.

In reading this thread, I didn't see any suggestions that were made as proof of Christianity's goodness, that other religions could not claim as well (or at least very similar claims, in the case of European unity - assuming that's a good thing and didn't have more to do with Roman megalomania).

Liz, militant agnostic ("I don't know and you don't know either!" )

115

Mother arrested after child put in washing machine

by Cassiline in

jw
friends

i heard about this on the news earlier, i only caught the tail end of the report.

what i dont understand is why she did it.

why she was only charged with child endangerment and not attempted murder?

asleif_dufansdottir

Correct me if I am wrong let’s assume the mother was “playing” with her child. Don’t you have to insert money first BEFORE the washer turns on? This fact in self seems to imply there was more of a malicious intent to her actions.

I have had laundromat washers and dryers turn on without having to put money in them. I don't know whether somebody else had put money in (either by the last person to use it overpaying, or somebody putting money in several washers and then not using one - I've also seen that happen) or whether the machine itself was messing up. My uncle was a repair person and said that he has known people who knew how to do it, make laundromat equipment run without requiring money (I think it involves messing with the control panel or the controls on the back of the machine).

There are many, many facts that are not obvious from the news stories. Was she playing 'hide-and-go-seek' and made a horrible mistake? Was she at her wit's end with a toddler running around and screaming in a laundromat full of strangers, and tried to put her in a washer to keep her from running out the door and playing in traffic or getting snatched by a stranger while mom loaded the washer or moved stuff to the dryer (I hate going to the laundromat - I can only imagine going with a 2 year old)? Was she an abusive parent who finally got caught?

There's no way to tell. We are not given enough information by the article. Obviously she made a huge mistake. How many of us can say we have never done anything dumb in our lives that could not have, under the right circumstances, have had catastrophic consequences? If she is indeed an abusive parent, I'll be at the front of the mob with the torch. I just can't make a determination without more facts.

44

Any Good People left in the Organization

by jst2laws in

in another thread islandwoman said:my point is, should we now believe that all the "good" ones are out and there is no possibility that others may still exist?

to me it does not make sense to believe that.

personally, i know that there are still fine brothers there but that is my personal experience not worth much on a discussion board so reason must be applied, imo.. .

asleif_dufansdottir

There have to be good people who are still JWs, who doubt and then blame themselves for not being strong enough, who see the faults and flaws in the org and then beat themselves up for allowing 'human imperfection' to stumble them. The whole key to JW mind control is that all the problems are the individual's fault and all good things are attributed to the org.

Sometimes it's a case of not being personally affected by the flaws of the org...ie, you 'just can't believe' that there is a pedophile problem until if affects you, you 'just can't believe' that truly repentant ones are df'd rather than lovingly helped until it's you or someone you're close to. You 'just can't believe' that someone would be baptised or made a MS when they were obviously not ready (still smoking occasionally in the first case - the female study conductor actually fought with the elders that the woman was not ready for baptism), until you see it happen to someone you know well, and are told your hall 'needs to get their numbers up' and they're going ahead with it.

Sometimes it's a case of thinking 'it's just our congregation' (I've seen this in my old hall). People are convinced that the massive problems in their hall are just an abberration and that other halls are better, more like the picture the society paints of itself. If so-and-so wasn't PO...if this wasn't allowed, if that wasn't allowed...and if we just 'wait on Jehovah' he'll correct the problem. It's not that way in other halls...it can't be if it's the truth. Combined with the qualities I talked about in paragraph one, this can keep people in for years, struggling to blind themselves to problems they know exist. All the while, the WT is busy laying the guilt and mind control on as thick as possible. Those who move around may realize that it is that way everywhere...that the WT's press about itself is lies and half-truths.

11

We Are The Other People

by Ravyn in

jw
friends

16 then yahweh god gave the man this admonition, "you may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden.. 17 nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die.

you will not die!.

you will not die!

asleif_dufansdottir

Good ol' Oberon. I've always loved this story. I also loved the story I heard on a Pagan list once, about the JWs knocking on someone's door the morning after a...well...interesting ritual (I guess this was back in the 70's...) most participants were still asleep on the floor, naked and vaguely hung over (fyi - Asleif doesn't do those types of rituals ).

When the JWs, desperately trying to recover, asked if those present knew about Jesus. I believe the response was something along the lines of..."Yeah, he was here. He polished off the rest of the wine. He still owes me $5. WHen you see him let him know I'm looking for him."

76

What kind of music do you like?

by JH in

jw
friends

what kind of music do you like?

what groups do you listen to?.

do you just listen to music from your generation only or do you also like music from the past?.

asleif_dufansdottir

I love an incredibly wide range of music, from most different traditional ethnic styles, to (some) country, (some) pop, (lotsa) classic rock, occasional hard rock (very few songs), cajun, bluegrass, classical, John Denver, india.arie, alanis, a group that sings at RenFaires called the Jolly Rogers, Oh, and possibly the most talented singers I have ever heard in my life - an a cappella men's group called Chanticleer, who have albums ranging from 'old negro spirituals' to renaissance and medieval (love Gregorian chant) to some modern things - their Christmas albums are my very favorite!

This discussion reminds me of a conversation my family had. My uncle Glen was an honest-to-god hippie...VW bus, the works. He was always the coolest of my dad's brothers. The rest of my family were giving my rock-loving baby brother crap, telling him that, when he grew up, he'd like country to (it's a natural progression, they said). In walks Glen. My brother, thinking he was saved by the guy who still has all the Beatles, Floyd, etc vinyl albums he bought when they first came out (egg crate furniture and an expensive stereo, that was my uncle Glen), says "Glen! What kind of music do you listen to?"

"You mean, me, personally?"

"Yeah"

"Country, why?"

"AAAAaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhh"

My personal epiphany was when I realized that "That 70's Show" was about an era as long ago now, as "Happy Days" was back then. Hubby says it's time to go directly to the home when AC/DC is being played as elevator music.

9

Having a witness as a neighbour

by JH in

jw
friends

.

did you ever have a witness as your neighbour?

i did for a while, and it didn't really bother me, until i was starting to miss meetings.. did you, or would you have liked to have a witness as a neighbour?

asleif_dufansdottir

I've actually been wondering about this.

We're moving from a house to a condo. I would imagine there might be JWs in the complex (it's a big one). Guess I'll just put a pentagram on the front door or something if it becomes a problem.

Actually, having them for neighbors wouldn't be as bad as being in one of those areas near the KH where everybody "starts their time" if you know what I mean. Though if we had that problem I'd just find which hall had our territory and send that lovely little Do Not Call letter that somebody posted on this board - the one that says 'don't call even under pretense of updating your records.' Love that one. At least we wouldn't have to worry about cigarette smoke filtering in through the walls if we had JW neighbors. In the 8 or so years we've lived here, I think we've actually had JWs at our door twice (the last time we had them put us down as a DNC and have never even gotten the 'elders coming by to update'...suppose that's because I told them we were xJWs who didn't believe anymore?? ).

If they figured out we were Pagan, they'd be likely to give us a wide berth, which would be cool. They might even feel the need to move away.

14

Are there any teachers on this board?

by logansrun in

jw
friends

so, i'm thinking about becoming a high school teacher.

i'm finishing up a summer course at my community college and will be going to northeaster illinois university in the fall.

i've been thinking about majoring in biology and secondary education (instead of history and secondary ed.).

asleif_dufansdottir

If you have any reservations at all about teaching, I'd seriously reconsider. It's hard, and unless you have a burning desire, you probably won't stick it out long in the classroom (unless you turn bitter - haven't we all had those kind of teachers?)

What do you like about biology? Have you thought about getting a grad degree in it and doing some sort of research or other work? Medical Bio is where the big $$ are today (not necessarily med school, but other types of research and stuff)

29

Circuit Overseer: "You Are Not Really Stressed. You Just Think You Are"

by minimus in

jw
friends

then he said, "if you were in africa and had people chasing you with a machete, then you'd be stressed.

otherwise, you're really not stressed.

"

asleif_dufansdottir

Feeling so good that newbie c.o. is not pressuring her she begins to YAKETY YAK, YAKETY YAK,about every thing she wants to get off her chest.
Next meeting with the Elder Body, be careful what you say around sister pioneer she got a loose lip and so on,and so on.She is complaing about you guys pressuring her,keep up the good work.

So much for the CO being someone a publisher could trust. Someone to go to if there was a problem.

Typical JW crap...learn to fear everyone, clear up the ladder, even more (especially Jehovah, sure can't trust him either, better not tell him anything). Can't trust anyone, can't be honest with anyone...no stress there.