The Serena Williams Child Doesn't Do Birthdays. This Gets Interestinger and Interestinger

Few things cause more distress in the world of celebrities than a neglected birthday celebration. Yet Serena Williams presented them exactly that scenario with regard to her baby daughter, soon to turn one. “Serena and husband Alexis Ohanian won’t be throwing an over-the-top birthday bash for their baby girl…In fact, they won’t be throwing a party at all,” reported Caitlyn Hitt for the DailyMail. Why?

Serena says: ‘We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, so we don’t do that.’ She repeats the tactic that she took with President Obama, back when she was “excited to see Obama out there doing his thing….[but] I'm a Jehovah's Witness, so I don't get involved in politics. We stay neutral. We don't vote...so I'm not going to necessarily go out and vote for him. I would if it wasn't for my religion.'' Let me tell you that she took heat for it from people immersed in civic affairs, not to mention those who dislike Witnesses.

Notwithstanding that the support organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses encourages congregation members to give reasons for their stands and not just say “I do it because I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” there are times when the latter response is exactly the thing to say. The actual reason takes a while to explain and people don’t necessarily want to hear it. You have to know your audience. I begin to like Serena Williams more and more. She doesn’t buckle under pressure, mumbling something incomprehensible. No. She says "We don’t do that.” She reminds me very much of a sister named Jackie who was ribbed at school for her modest way of dress. She threw it right back at them. “I set the style,” she told the would-be bullies. “If you want to be cool, you dress like me.”

Speaking of modest dress, Serena hasn’t exactly done that over the years on the tennis court. Even given that you want freedom of movement, every so often you will hear her criticized for that, primarily from people who think they can embarrass Jehovah’s Witnesses on that account. Outspokenly she has thanked Jehovah for her tennis victories, yet how does that work with the flag at the Olympics? Jehovah’s Witnesses are circumspect about the flag of any nation, declining to salute, not for any reason of protest, but because of the second of the Ten Commandments. And didn’t she cuss out that official at a certain match? Ah, well, athletes have been known to do that and people cut them slack. After all, if she was mild-mannered Clark Kent, she would find transition into Superwoman difficult.

So she has sent mixed signals over the years. Why would that be? Ah, here it is in the Caitlyn Hitt article: Last year she told Vogue, “Being a Jehovah’s Witness is important to me, but I’ve never really practiced it and have been wanting to get into it.” Okay. She was brought up in the faith and has made part of it her own but not entirely. Apparently, she is not baptized, a big deal for Witnesses. Now, with the birth of a child, she means to change some things. The birth of a child will frequently trigger a shift in priorities. Likely, she is conscious of a spiritual need not completely attended to in her own case and she does not want the same for her daughter. Since Jehovah’s Witnesses call each other brother and sister and I am old enough to be her dad, I tweeted: ‘Knock it out of the park! You go, my daughter.' I’m sure she saw it out of the gazillion tweets she receives each day, many from JW detractors telling her that she is nuts.

Her outspokenness served her well in another instance. When the man she was dating wished her a ‘Happy Birthday’ and she responded as she now does for her daughter, the man admired the courage. He “saw this gesture as Serena stepping outside her comfort zone for him and decided immediately that he wanted to marry her.”

It only gets more interesting. He is Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. He is not a Jehovah’s Witness, and was not raised with any religion at all, but is reportedly okay with Serena’s faith. Now, it turns out that Reddit is a huge online discussion forum in which topics are hosted for everything under the sun. One of those groups, with thousands of participants, is dedicated to bringing down the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When Philadelphia Inquirer reporter David Gambacorta wrote (so far) four incendiary articles about Jehovah’s Witnesses, he used this group as his source of information and between articles checked in with them, as though Trump playing to his base.

It therefore reminds – I mean, it is not a type/antitype kind of thing, but it sure does remind one of Jewish Queen Esther of long ago, married to the wealthy Persian King who had been maneuvered by enemies into decreeing that her people be destroyed, and the sentence surely would have been carried out but for Esther’s (putting her life at risk to do it) bold intervention. Yeah, why don't you go in there to Mr. Ohanian, you Reddit Witness haters, and tell him that his wife is crazy? That sounds like a brilliant plan to me. Tell him that Mr. Gambacorta is on your side. Just make sure that you read up on Haman before you do it. (See the entire short Book of Esther)

Look, it is not parallel in all respects. Nobody is literally threatening to kill anyone, but they are threatening to kill the Christian organization that supports and coordinates the worldwide work that Jehovah’s Witnesses do, just as like-minded ones are now doing in Russia. Moreover, Mr. Ohanian cannot be expected to pull the group’s Reddit credentials; he runs a website dedicated to free speech. There is also a pro-JW group on the site, as well as a squirrelly in-between one, supposedly supportive of Witness teachings but unsupportive of the human leadership. Such will always be the sticking point in the divine/human interface. It was even true with Judas. He and God were tight. There were no problems there. But that yoyo claiming to represent him was just too much, not at all what Judas wanted to see. And those bumpkins he was attracting! Don’t even go there.

No, it is possibly not history repeating itself. Mark Twain [allegedly} said that does not happen. History does not repeat, he said, but it does rhyme a little.

"I am stronger than you. I bless Heaven for it," said Miss Pross to the wicked foreign woman trying to destroy her Loved One, resisting her "with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate." 

455px-Serena_Williams_at_2013_US_Open

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Cool Hand Luke

37410683-0538-49CA-94D0-49F91E507D7ACool hand Luke gazes into the rafters inside the abandoned church. “God, I never had much to do with you,” he says, “but you have to admit, you haven’t given me much of a break. If you are really up there, now would be a good time to show yourself.”

Silence. For several seconds.

‘Yeah, I thought so,” he says, and a generation of movie-goers say, ‘Yeah, we thought so too.’

It is like when Jerry Reed sees the judge:

Well, when he took us inta court I couldn't believe my eyes, The judge was a fishin' buddy that I recognized

I said "Hey, judge, old buddy, old pal, I'll pay ya that hundred I owe ya if you'll get me outta this spot"

So he gave my friends a little fine to pay, He turned around and grinned at me and said, "Ninety days, Jerry, when you hot, you hot"

He should have paid him back that hundred he owed him. Not only did Cool Hand Luke not get out of his spot. He got shot. It’s just a movie. Same as when the cast of Good Lord Bird showed up at Harper’s Ferry. The National Historical Park ranger told me people began asking them all sorts of questions about what John Brown did back then in that town, as though they were the actual participants. Look, it’s just a television show, they said.

The only one who you don’t have to worry about getting out of  spots is God himself. It’s part of the qualifications for being God: “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,” he says. What! You’re going to get him out of that spot? (Psalm 50:12)

There are in the archives many life experiences of those in a spot from which they call out to God and later say they were answered. But they generally propose a ‘deal’—‘get me out of this spot and I’ll do your will forever,’ something like that. Maybe God, who can read hearts, after all, translated Cool Hand Luke’s makeshift prayer as, ‘God—get me out of this spot—so I can raise hell among your people just like I’m raising it here.’ 

And a cadre of humanists say, ‘How shocking! He should be able to raise hell wherever he wants!’

 

******  The bookstore

 

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Making a ‘Great Name for Oneself’: Part 2

Part of a multi-part series.  Here is Part 1

Whoa! That certainly blew up in my face! George can rest easy. The friends love him

Not only was Aubree pounded into mush by everyone who chimed in, but one sis mistakenly took her sentiments as mine—I think she only read the preview—and chewed me out royal! She stuck up for George: “I happen to know that Brother Benson has taken time from his busy schedule to donate time doing specific songs that are original songs.” What’s more, she said as she slammed the door, ‘your books are rubbish!’

And here I am trying to be the JW successor to Mickey Spillane, the one who threw it back at his high-brow critics by vowing to never introduce a character who drank cognac or wore a mustache because he didn’t know how to spell those words! I mean, George doesn’t have this problem.

Quite a few people told her (and my new-found critic told me) to MYOB!. It was enough to recall to mind a certain young chum, continually accosted by someone who wanted to ‘encourage,’ who answered tersely, “1 Thessalonians 4:11.”

The bro intent on encouragement said he didn’t know that verse. ‘Look it up,’ was the reply.

The next day that brother, who was also a modest man, approached to say, “You’re a pretty good teacher.”

(“Make it your aim to live quietly and to mind your own business . . .” 1 Thess 4:11)

***

Said Aubree: “If he was in my congregation I would say nothing. His choices are his own. I would listen to him at a get-together for sure....But I said what I said because I come here to share an opinion which I may not express any where else.”

Understood. It’s my fault, really. She says what she says before just a few and I relay it to the whole wide world! I changed her name of course, but it’s like what my daughter once told me: “Dad, it’s getting so I can hardly say anything to you because I’ll next see it on social media! You think calling me “Amy” covers it? My friends know who it is!” Well, they shouldn’t be here. I mean, none of us are ‘recommended’ to be on social media.

Give Aubree her due because the points that motivate her are certainly valid. I just didn’t like it applied to a specific person, even if it was on the tiny private forum that I swapped for a public stage.

She pointed to how “there are many brothers and sisters who have left lucrative political careers, football careers, ballet careers, singing careers, acting careers and other careers for which they have natural talent and have all the necessary skills - for to put Jehovah first in their life. … I would rather show great encouragement to young artists to practice their craft at home for pleasure of their friends - and I tell them it is not the time now to go out in the great entertainment world to make a name for themselves - unless they lose focus and lose their life. … Football, singing and a few of these professions take their toll on the young ones.  ..... that is all I wanted to say.”

Can anyone say she doesn’t have a point? Of course, she does. She cites two persons she personally knows who chased after entertainment careers and were never seen nor heard from again.

I do mentor young singers in the truth, and I have seen some of them go into the world to never return....... career and ego. I always warn them when they are good!” Of another, “I have told her to be cautious.”

Trouble is, it’s not in the nature of young people to be cautious. ‘The beauty of young men is their power,’ the verse says, not their caution. Sometimes I think we do damage to young people by eternally telling them to be cautious in circumstances that their peers face without the bat of an eyelash. But nobody can say, ‘What has she been smoking?’ Everyone has seen play out what she speaks about. I admire her for having the courage to say out of pure motive something she knows will be unpopular. But I’m still with George.

It’s just that those of creative bent, who may not excel in more practical gifts, are always being urged to tone it down, stay low key, keep their talents under a basket—whereas if your talents lay in putting down carpet, you would be honored in the highest places. Understand, it’s not the honor that is sought—it is the ability to move about freely.

There are brothers who are craftsmen, FBBC160A-9784-43CE-9A62-0C0E5CC434ACwho truly excel at their field, and are highly sought after. One of them locally is snapped up by a Fortune 500 company that puts him on their private jet and flies him all over to their various facilities, treating him like royalty. Nobody ever dreams it is an improper tending to his career or that he is unhealthily inflating his ego. As to me, my quip for the longest time has been ‘if it pays, I’m not good at it. If I’m good at it, it doesn’t pay.’

(Photo: Fran1 at Pixabay)

For crying out loud, even my books sell like ovens in hell! Let some malcontent write a book and it goes off the charts because all his/her friends buy it! Let me write a book and it trickles beneath the chart because all my friends consider one ought not look into ‘the deep things of Satan!’

‘How come you never taught me practical things?’ I said to my aged dad, who was handy. ‘I did,’ the amiable fellow said, having long outgrown his former taciturn ways. ‘You just weren’t paying attention that day.’

I think he fell for the mantra then in vogue, ‘To get a good job, get a good education.’ You can always hire people to do that lesser stuff for you.

I have what I need. I don’t complain. I do let off steam from time to time, but that’s like the Eastern European man who went to the police to assure them that the political views of his parrot were not his.

To be continued….

******  The bookstore

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Making a ‘Great Name’ for Oneself: Part 1

As shown in link, George Benson, long known as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is still going strong at 79..

This news did not sit well with all.

You would think at this age he would put Jehovah first. Instead his career still going....still working hard on his career,” said Aubree.  “Older people like this could set the right example.”

Tom: At Prince’s funeral, one of the congregation’s pioneers told reporters, (I included the quote in the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless & Me) “I was just standing there and all of a sudden, in he walks. I thought, ‘He just wants to be treated like an average person,’ so I just kind of acknowledged him, and he came in and sat down.” She added: “I think he wanted to be private and my observation is: he had to have his creative outlet. Maybe he just needed it to survive.” 

He wanted to be treated like an average person. But people do what they need to survive. I’m not sure that he’s not ‘putting Jehovah first.’ We can expend too much energy pounding square pegs into round holes.

Aubree didn’t give up:

When one is famous and has a lot of income coming in from royalties.... one can cut your life-style and put Jehovah first….There are many brothers and sisters who have left lucrative political careers, football careers, ballet careers, singing careers, acting careers and other careers for which they have natural talent and have all the necessary skills - to put Jehovah first in their life.”

Tom: I would not assume that he is not. Time was when coming across someone like him we would say that he has his own special territory, one that others will find hard to reach. As to income, who is to say he does not put it to very good use? The angels may sing out, “Another nickel from Harley!” at the end of the month, but it is perhaps guys like Benson who provide much of the practical fuel.

I do not share the same sentiment.…I have a nasty suspicion it is the ego that remains involved.... the need of achieving something and still be admired by the people!

On the other hand, “Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.” Do these ones all grovel around in sackcloth? These days ordinary publishers are given counsel not to let spiritual gifts go to their head. Why conclude just from his work that he has an inflated ego? If he does, he has plenty of company in others who have yet to separate their own egos from bringing their gifts to the altar.

In the mid-seventies, rumors swirled that Glen Campbell had become a Witness. The rumors were untrue. He hadn’t. However, one of his band members had and proceeded to talk Bible so much that an exasperated Glen forbade all discussion of religion during working hours. Who is to say that George is not doing the same before people who cannot tell him to shut up? He’s to quit this gig in order to write letters? Given the restricted forms of ministry available today, it’s even more understandable he would choose to continue what he does.

Aubree still doesn’t back down. She seldom does. It’s the prerogative of we old people who have seen a lot and think we have something to say, who see young people chomping down on cotton candy, imagining it substantial, and would warn them that it’s not. And it certainly is true that those who ‘reach for the stars’ come to spiritual ruin far more often than not. So I will tell her a story that spins things her way.

The story was told at LeRoy’s funeral that he, as a young black man in the Deep South, was invited to play along as one of B.B. King’s band members. His son confirmed it. He declined the offer, on the basis of family and spirituality. Instead, he went on to make his living on the railroad. He came up from the South in his later years to my neck of the woods. For a time we served together on the same body of elders. He was outspoken, even occasionally outrageous in things he would say, but always genuine and universally appreciated. In time, he stepped down as an elder. I even helped persuade him that it would be a good thing, that he had done it all, and should go out ‘on top,’ not when his faculties were starting to decline and people would start to say bad things about him. He was true to the faith till his death and would frequently get together and jam with brothers young enough to be his grandsons. 

I used to tell him that, should I die before him, I wanted him to give my funeral talk. What a trip that would be! “Hee hee hee,” I could picture him rumbling in his deep roguish and jocular voice, “that Tom Harley was a good ol boy, but he’s deead now, D-E-A-D!”

I don’t know. Maybe George is being a bad boy. There he is posted with a ‘Look! A celebrity! And he’s one of ours!’ type of admiration. Is it really so that having celebrities onboard somehow buttresses your cause? Some of the silliest people on earth are celebrities—all of them, really, except our guys, and we only have a handful. Serena doesn’t even count, because it doesn’t appear she was ever baptized and she has gone on record saying (now that she has a daughter) she means to get serious about the faith she was raised in. We shall see what comes to pass. I have a chapter in TrueTom vs the Apostates on the brouhaha surrounding that statement of hers..

No, I suppose George is not the one to emulate. But don’t we do damage when we become too insistent that everyone must be ‘an example?’ Leave the fellow in peace and appreciate him for what gifts he has. Here we put the constantly repeated, ‘Do not compare yourself with one another’ counsel in a setting that we usually don’t put it in, though it applies nonetheless. Alas it is human nature that we will do exactly that.

Growing up, I took one of those psychological tests in which you answer all sorts of nosy questions and are rewarded with indications of what vocation you are best suited for. Being raised in a suburban and non-Witness home, I imagined results would point me to some nice secure field, the sort in keeping with the saying then in vogue, “To get a good job, get a good education.” My dad, raised on the farm, used the GI bill to put himself through engineering school after WWII and took a job with the local utility. He figured that since everyone requires heat and electricity, no job could be more secure. People raised during the Depression came to highly value security. 

Instead of similar recommendations, results were that I should be A) a music performer, or (slightly lower priority, but still head and shoulders above anything else) B) a youth counselor. I’ve never done either of those things, but I have come close enough to satisfy both urges. Public speaking (and now blogging) is not so different than music performing. Shepherding (and now writing) is not so different than youth counseling. 

So I have a thing for creative people. And I don’t like  to see them dismissed as ones ‘trying to make a name for themselves.’ or persons incessantly in quest of satisfying their ‘big egos.’ That doesn’t have to be the case, though it can be.

***

Workers could be crude at the power company, though my dad was not one of them. “I just wasn’t prepared,” said one brother who started working there as a young man, “for one of those guys to grab me from behind and another pull my pants down,” a common hazing of new employees. He came to know my dad, as he was sometimes assigned to the nuclear plant where my dad had been promoted. Nuclear technology was then brand new. This plant was among the first in the country. Tour guides would lead visitors through the plant. By prior agreement, an employee would walk by staggering and drooling, muttering nonsense. “Don’t mind him,” the guide would say. “He’s one of the earliest here and absorbed a little too much radiation.” 

Another story this new employee told, our brother who is now retired, was of visiting laborers being advised that invisible radiation hangs around at the 3 foot level, but if you stay below that, you’re okay. They would walk about and work all day, even carrying heavy gear, in a crouched over position. 

Here were jokesters satisfying their ‘big egos,’ though perhaps not making ‘a great name for themselves.’ Or maybe they were. Our brother remembers these donkeys decades later as though it were yesterday.

To be continued here

******  The bookstore

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Elon Musk does the Babylon Bee: Part 3–Ben Franklin

To begin the entire thread, start here.

One of those ten squirrelly questions 8F888CB8-524A-452A-AE1A-697E85D251F8the Babylon Bee guys ask Elon Musk  before getting to their main one was: ‘Were you able to meet anyone you want, living or dead, who would it be?’ Musk thinks a moment, and then suggests, well—maybe Ben Franklin.

Way to go, Elon. Good choice. Among the American ‘forefathers,’ it was Ben who was the Renaissance man—mastering myriad activities, just like Musk. It is he who came closest to grabbing the spot of first USA resident philosopher. He never sought public office but also never turned it down. They would draft him as a compromise candidate— a capable workhorse that would get the job done rather than the hotheads or milquetoasts in the wings that would screw things up.

His visit as diplomat was a sensation in French society—his visit to the dying Voltaire the grand climax, as though the too-long-delayed meeting of corresponding national philosophic titans. ‘Look how he lets his grey hair falls unadorned upon his head!’ the French society women swooned, so different from her accustomed French heroes who coiffed themselves up to high heaven.

Franklin mused on theological things too in a quirky sort of way. He wrote a short story on a resurrection snafu, and called it ‘A Proposal to Madame Helvetius.’ She did exist. She was a widow and Ben proposed to her. She turned him down. Did he work out his heartbreak though storytelling?

Here is a source that claims the proposal was just good-natured fun, but I seem to recall the Great Courses professor in his series of lectures on Ben Franklin claiming the statesman truly was smitten with her. Maybe I have it wrong. I’ll have to check it out someday and the material is not now at my fingertips. At any rate:

In the story, he wrote how he had courted the widow of his good friend, but the woman turned him down flat, saying how she could never be untrue to her husband even though deceased. Then, in a dream, Ben went to heaven and meets the husband, an old friend. They exchange pleasantries and friend says: “You must meet my new wife. She’ll be along soon.”

Ben Franklin is dismayed! ‘Your earthly wife is more loyal than you!’ he rebuked. ‘She turned me down cold on your account!’ ‘That’s too bad for you,’ the friend says. ‘She is an excellent woman and I missed her terribly at first, but now I am in a new place and it is time to move on.’

As Ben Franklin grumbles, the ‘new’ wife shows up—and it is Ben’s own deceased wife! Ben now turns to scolding her, but she will have none of it. “I was a good and loyal wife to you for 50 years,” she says. “Let that be enough for you!”

Franklin was anything but a pious guy. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have plenty of respect for Christianity. To the Constitutional Convention that would forge a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, he pleaded for a return to the “prayer piety” that had helped inspire the revolution:

“I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests. Our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down into future ages. And what is worse, mankind may here thereafter from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.”

Okay, so it’s not a ‘quick and solid acceptance of Jesus as his Lord and Savior,’ as the Babylon Bee sought from Elon Musk. But it does hold Christian principles in high esteem, much like Elon’s own answer to the missionary Babylon Bee host. He’s not very religious, he says, but “if Jesus is saving people, I mean, I won't stand in His way. Sure, I’ll be saved. Why not?” Allowing for a 200+ year gap between the two Renaissance men, it works well enough.

Now, what can be said of the Babylon Bee itself?

To be continued:

 

Visit the bookstore.

 

 

Defending Jehovah’s Witnesses with style from attacks... in Russia, with the book ‘I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses—Searching for the Why’ (free).... and in the West, with the book, 'In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction'

Elon Musk Does the Babylon Bee: Part 1

The Babylon Bee has taken to embedding that interview with Elon Musk into their posts. As well they should—who would ever have thunk Musk would show up there for an interview? Apparently one of the BB crew had mused about what it would be like to interview Elon Musk, whereupon Elon Musk, who is a fan, contacted them. ‘You want to do an interview? I can do it Sunday.’

I watched it. I confess my opinion of him soared. [Get it? He’s a rocket guy. Ha ha ha] I had expected a guy with serious eccentricities. Instead, he is surprisingly (one more time—sorry:) ‘down to earth.’

I like it when people are uncomplicated. The BB guys were stumbling around—one of them fessed up how unqualified he felt to interview Musk, and seized upon, ‘Could H&R Block do his taxes?’ They easily could, was the unexpected reply. His finances are completely transparent. He stashes money nowhere, draws no salary, and “does not live a life of conspicuous consumption.”  His worth is all in his 20% stake of two companies that became huge. He does not ‘diversify.’ If Tesla and SpaceEx went bankrupt, he would too, immediately, and he stated his belief that it should be that way—if his investors suffered, he should too. And there were many times early on when the companies veered perilously close to bankruptcy.

He just wasn’t flakey as I anticipated he would be. He’s sending rockets into space, laying plans to colonize Mars, so you expect—I mean these guys are almost always this way—him to rhapsodize about the billions and billions of stars that just have to be home to brilliant aliens. Instead he says, “If anyone would know about evidence of aliens it would be me, and I’ve seen nothing.”

Probably he’s all swooning and agog over the trendy ‘metaverse’ to come, I figured. Instead, “I don’t know if I necessarily buy into all this metaverse stuff….It just sounds kind of buzzwordy.” And that neurolink that he speaks of implanting into people and it makes everyone think he’s a mad scientist? Oh—it makes perfect sense when he explains it. Even in the best person, the mind thinks at lightning speed. Computers and the internet operate at lightening speed. It is all hampered by the snail like interface: the speed at which we manually type. What if we could bypass that? But he’s not even thinking about regular people. He’s thinking of those impaired, like those with locked syndrome, fully alive in their head, but unable to move a muscle. “That ought to help a lot of people,” he says of his envisioned neurolink.

One of the guys brought up his online squabble with a senator (Elizabeth Warren). “She struck first,” he said. “She did actually call me a freeloader and a grifter who doesn’t pay taxes. I’m literally paying the most tax that any individual in history has ever paid this year, ever, and she doesn’t pay taxes, basically. And her taxes and salary is paid for by the taxpayer like me. If you could die by irony, she would be dead.” He told the senator, among other things, that she reminded him of his mom who used to periodically enter the family room to yell at him along with all his friends for no discernible reason.

He’s paying the most tax in history because he sold some Tesla shares to do so. Other than that—he draws no salary and doesn’t live high—“What am I supposed to do?” he says. “Do I send shares to the government? Unless I sell shares there is no actual mechanism to pay tax. So I said ‘should I sell 10% in order to pay tax?’ I asked Twitter and, on balance, they said yes.”

He had observations about humor too, and spoke of the “woke mind virus” that he thinks is spoiling it all. “Wokeness wants to make comedy illegal. … Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate, basically?” he asked. “At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be cruel, armored in false virtue.” Works for me.

Seems to me the guy uses Twitter as diversion, as B.W. Shultz put it, a guy as old as time who has co-authored two volumes of the most exhaustive historical research out there on forces that shaped the early Bible students who later branded themselves Jehovah’s Witnesses, my people. Shultz likened Twitter to the background chatter of a coffee shop that you can follow with half an ear and participate in whenever you wish. Yeah. That makes three of us. I view it that way too.

All told, I’m not sure that Elon Musk fits into that seanburkeshow satire of the BBC science documentaries—the one that speaks of extremely hot places like the sun and extremely cold places like “the arse end of Jupiter,” before cutting to scenes of “the most massive entities in the universe, such as the egos of billionaires”—and there against a backdrop of stars is a superimposed Musk, Bezos, and Branson. I don’t think Musk belongs there. He just doesn’t strike me as a person of insufferable ego. The mock professor Burke, “dressed as a cool substitute teacher,” also has concerns about finding aliens, but they are not the same as Musk’s and he needs to down several beers in order to spill them. It’s a tiny bit crude, but survivable.

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At interview’s end the Babylon Bee guys ask Musk their ten questions, which are like the Ten Commandments only not so important one of them says. They ask them of every interviewee. They’re oddball questions, most of them, that take Musk by surprise as they would anyone. But Elon is cool, not wound up too tight, and he regroups. The final question—since the Babylon Bee is a ministry, its founder points out, is—will he really screw up his courage and ask it? Yes! He presses on: “We're wondering if you could do us a quick solid and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? … Personal Lord and Savior. It's a quick prayer."

Just how does the richest man in the world deal with that one?

To be continued…

 

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Bill Shatner and the Gorn—Thoughts on Celebrity

“Serious question, Bill Shatner. How many actors watch each episode of shows in which they star and how many never give them a second glance?”

He sent a shrug emoji—he hadn’t a clue.

Another person chimed in: “I can't speak to how many actors do watch the episodes of their shows, Tom, but it's a pretty common thing to hear from an actor doing talk shows or press that they never do. Enough that it stands out. You hear it when they’re doing commentaries too.”

I took a dislike to Bill from a talk show appearance long ago. It took my son-in-law for me to reassess. His self-parody song ‘Has-been’ did it for me. You cannot hold a grudge for someone who does self deprecatory humor. And what about when he tongue-in-cheek played some self-absorbed media personality in a Columbo episode—so in love with himself that a huge portrait of himself dominated his mansion? It calls to mind my own line—of how I love self-deprecatory humor and also the kind of humor where you make fun of yourself. (I also liked the Galaxy Quest—it was a parody of Star Trek—star rolling when there was no need to, the other crew walking behind him)

“I find everyone’s creative process to be interesting,” said another. “I never really thought about how many actors watch themselves. I bet most do.”

Probably. But it will be counterbalanced by the fact they are always creating new stuff. Bob Dylan said he barely looks at the old stuff once he has done with it—and even while he is working with it. He is known for a maximum of two takes before release. Actors have a good gig and may come to view their series work much as a a plumber or electrician views their latest job—that is, not too much other than to mull over encounters, mistakes with a view of learning for the next time, etc

I follow very few celebrities. Bill may be the only one actually, and I have written some unkind things about them, such as “some of the silliest people in the world are celebrities—all of them really, except our guys” and we don’t have that many. With Prince’s demise, is there anyone at all? Two or three, maybe, in the second tier.

But that unkind assessment was mostly due to celebrities weighing in on political matters where they reliably know nothing. Shatner is refreshingly apolitical, and is not even American, but Canadian. This calls to mind one of the Lake Wobegon folk misunderstanding a radio mispronunciation of Granada during the Reagan years. “Canada?” he said. “Why on earth would we invade Canada? What could we possibly gain from that?” The answer of his neighbor: “The element of surprise!”

Bill takes sides somewhere in the autism dialogue—on which side I am not sure—and he takes a lot of heat for it. He blows them off and blocks those who get too obnoxious. I used him for inspiration when I had to blow off a few trolls of my own.

He may be the only celebrity but there are several public figures I follow, and—let us be honest—you do get a little zing whenever one replies to you (unless it is to say what a moron you are). You get this zing even though you know full well that it is silly—that you’re just dealing with another mortal—like Paul and Barnabas were when they had to point out that circumstance lest they be worshipped: “Men, why are you doing these things,” they cried, “We too are humans having the same infirmities as you have.” (Acts 14:15)

The zing comes from the sense that you have connected, however briefly, with a “famous person,” but the overall lesson is how difficult it is to do it. The constraints of time, attention, other obligations, and energy hem them in to a greater extent than we, since they also have to separate the wheat from the mountains of chaff—I would imagine it is hard for many of them to know real friends when they see them, so obscured by the sycophants are they—how can you tell who is who?

I mean, if I get a comment, I can give it full attention, because I don’t get too many of them, but what can the “famous person” do? Thus if you are in possession of the very secrets of life (which I am) and want to convey it to someone high up who may do something with it, you find you cannot for all the noise at the top. What is that saying about the war that was lost because the battle was lost because the regiment lacked a knight because his horse was out of commission because a shoe was lost for want of a nail—or something like that. There is a lesson in there somewhere and someday I’ll figure it out. For now, it is that the king operates blindly because the ones who could give him honest feedback are too far down in the food chain for him to notice.

As for Shatner, he just seems to be enjoying himself—not taking himself too seriously. How can one not like a guy like that? And my all-time favorite GIF, applicable to so many situations, is that of he shoving back at the Gorn. I have used it many times. Sometimes a guy just doesn’t want to put up with crap from the reptiles—whoever they may be—and has to push back some.

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Doesn't Do Birthdays. Part 2

No sooner did I liken Serena Williams to Queen Esther for her possible future role of exposing the evildoers, then someone said: “Um, she’s not exactly Queen Esther, you know. Didn’t she appear bare-naked, unmarried, and pregnant on that Vanity Fair cover? And you know that birth is not like the one of Mary.”

Well, I actually hadn’t thought of that, if I ever even knew it in the first place. Still, it changes nothing. She openly acknowledges that she likes the faith but has not practiced it. Now she means to. Is it a bad thing that she has, in the past, called herself a Jehovah’s Witness?

I think not. People love celebrities and will usually concede that they live in a world of their own, facing unique pressures. For better or for worse, nobody makes a big deal of sex before marriage anymore. I don’t even think the news writer of the article that her child won’t do birthdays thought to mention it, or maybe she did and it didn’t register with me. That people do not make a big deal of it is ‘for worse,’ usually, because the Word says that they should, but in this case, it is ‘for better.’

Totally without evidence, based only upon a feel for the way people are, I think that many of her most vocal critics on this front are ones who dislike Jehovah’s Witnesses, who spot the disparity of past conduct and want to slam us with it. Few others care.

Has she lived up to the faith in the past? She says very openly that she has not. Now she reaches a point where she says she will. I think it is a very good thing. Okay, okay, so she is no Queen Esther. Queen Esther did not play tennis. Call Serena the Samaritan woman by the well if you like, a woman who also fell short of the mark, yet became a powerful witness for the Lord.

Do we have a woman who is a mixed bag, having done things both fine and unfine, and who now wants to make them all fine? I’ll take it every time. It is in the spirit of Jesus, I think, who came to save persons ill who had become aware of their spiritual need. She will straighten out all those things before baptism, of course, should she continue on the path she now says she wants to pursue more single-mindedly. Love hopes all things and believes all things. Sometimes it is shown up as wrong in a given case. But it keeps on hoping and believing.

Moreover, to go back to the point of a prior chapter, this Reddit group has done Witnesses huge mischief. The Philly reporter used it as his source to write four incendiary anti-JW articles in a row to damn them in a seeming scandal, but omitting the context that illuminates it.

This group is trying with all its might to equate Jehovah’s Witnesses with the sins of the Catholic church. It is a stretch, because abusers in the Church are clergy. Even after making adjustments for size, if you want to get the same ‘catch’ among Jehovah’s Witnesses, you must broaden your net to include, not just ‘clergy,’ but everybody. That doesn’t mean that some are not diligently trying to do it, as they strive to equate some non-reporting to authorities in previous years to being actual perpetrators of child abuse. They are up to no good, and the alleged sin in such cases is generally “failing to go beyond the law” in reporting such cases to police. I continually make the point that if it is so crucial to ‘go beyond the law’ then that should become the law, the same point that Geoffrey Jackson, a member of the Witnesses’ Governing Body, made to a recent inquiry.

If Serena was to prompt her husband, the Reddit founder, to weigh in on that group in our favor and expose them for what they are—renegades from religion who longed for greater immediate freedom with lesser immediate consequences and who nurse no end of complaints, most quite petty, but some with substance—she would be forgiven ‘a multitude of sins,’ even if she never did manage to get it all together in her own life as she seems to want to do. In fact, in the event of that outcome, and to bring matters full circle, that would be an example of something else Mordecai said to his niece. If salvation does not come through spotless Esther, it will come through some other source. Either way, I’ll take it, say ‘Thank you’ to the Lord, and look around for more ammunition.

See Doesn't Do Birthdays. Part 3

From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

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Kavenaugh Plays His Trump Card: He Was a Virgin!

Kananaugh unloads his secret weapon when he states he was a virgin and had nothing even resembling sexual intercourse until well after school days. It is obviously true, for in today's culture, nobody admits to such a thing. It is to scream from the rooftops: "I am a loser!"

Now, he doesn't view it that way. And I come from a religious background where such is more common than uncommon for unmarried persons of that age, due to their beliefs on the sanctity of marriage and their conviction that the One who have the gift of sex knows best how it is to be employed, and , so I don't view it that way either. But his most vociferous opponents, irreligious almost to the person, cannot conceive of such a thing. It catches them completely flat-footed. Some of them pursue sex almost as though it is the purpose of life.

He tells them he was a virgin? It is the most definitive answer he could give and ought take the wind completely out of their sails. They would never ever ever admit to such a thing were it true in their case. It would be a matter of deep shame. In fact, wasn't there a shooting recently by someone who hasn't scored with the females, and he and his are passed off as 'of all men, the most be pitied,' to misquote 1 Corinthians 15:19? I think they have even coined a word for that type, as though it is an ethnic group. Yes, here it is: They are ‘incels.’

Kavanaugh is not ashamed of it at all. He is proud of it. That doesn't mean he willingly advertises it, for it is a personal matter. But when backed into a corner, he states it as his perfect defense to charges that he is raping here and raping there. Not likely, he says, since he was a virgin. 'Well.....well....just when did you have sex, anyway?' say his opponents, since this is a hugely important topic for them. But there is a limit to how much he will indulge them, for next they will want video footage. It is enough to say 'well after.

It is too much. There is no better way to defang an enemy than to freely admit to a weakness. This is especially true if you do not regard it as a weakness at all. Not getting the true sense of it, one pundit, sympathetic to he and his cause, complained how disgusting it was that he should have been maneuvered into revealing his then-virginity. He didn't get maneuvered at all. He played his trump card. And, yes, I will indulge his enemies and state that he also played his Trump card.

 

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The Serena Williams Child Doesn't Do Birthdays. Parts 2.5 and 3

Normally the progression is from Part 2 directly into Part 3. It should be here as well, except that Serena Williams reached a landmine of her career in the interim and it cannot be passed over. At the U.S Open she made headlines for converting a physical loss into a moral win. But it depends on who you talk to. If you didn’t like her before, you will dislike her more. If you liked her before you will like her more. I’ll take the latter.

Part 2.5:

The U.S. Open ref with the poofy hair penalized her three times, only the second of which was a slam-dunk for real. When you’re hot, you’re hot, and she blew up at him. Not at first when she said: “We don’t have any code and I know you don’t know that and I understand why you may have thought that was coaching but I’m telling you it’s not. I don’t cheat to win, I’d rather lose. I’m just letting you know.” (The coach said later that he was coaching, but that it happens all the time, and he does it less than most, a point on which sportswriters agreed.)

But she sure did blast him after missing a shot and mashing her racket (which also is common): “You owe me an apology,” she shouted. “I have never cheated in my life, I have a daughter and I stand what’s right for her.” See what motivates her these days? See what she had been stewing about? Her daughter and the example set for her. The same daughter that does not do birthdays.

She called the ref a ‘thief’ for taking away the point that presaged her meltdown and that also counted against her. Men say “F**k you!” to the umpire all the time without consequence, so most agreed that she did catch it on account of being a woman, as she heatedly charged.

Her opponent Osaka won the match, but everyone booed. As soon as Serena noticed her upset and tears, she ran and embraced her and told the crowd not to boo, even through her own tears: “I don’t want to be rude. I don't want to interrupt and I don't want to do questions. I just want to tell you guys she played well and this is her first grand slam,” at which point everyone cheered.

It is so like the Bible admonition to “keep an eye, not on your own interests, but on those of the other person’s” that one wonders if she did not absorb it from her Witness upbringing. Or maybe it is just her and has nothing to do with the Bible. Either way, it means she will make a fine Jehovah’s Witness should she get everything together. She has high reputation. “…people who hate on Serena Williams' "character" obviously don't follower her off the court. She's a competitor between the lines, but a role model off the court as a person and a celebrity,” tweeted sports commentator Jeff Eisenband.

One can even picture Serena retiring at this point. Not that I would will it, necessarily, but it could happen. She is now a mom with suddenly another life to care for, a common turning point in a woman’s life. There are things about Jehovah’s Witnesses and pro sports that are not entirely compatible, such as providing opportunities to blow one’s top. The two courses are not absolutely incompatible, but they pose a challenge.

Part 3:

Part 2 ended with the suggestion that Serena might succeed in showing up the anti-JW Reddit group for what they are. It is a chicken’s way out—say something like that and then close the post, thank you very much, take your beefs to the curb. It is better to take a square look at just what they are. ‘What are they,’ anyway, that Reddit group? They are a motley assortment of people of varying talents, with the common denominator of distaste for discipline and a determination to kick over the traces. It’s regarding the Witness organization here, but the trend is seen everywhere. Despite abundant evidence that unbridled self-determination does not work out particularly well for people, they nonetheless want to go that route. It is the order of the day. People do not want to be ‘told what to do’ by anyone and they are very touchy on what constitutes being ‘told what to do.’ Thwart their definition and you are toast.

If they are to be called ‘apostates,’ they mirror apostates of the first century. Of them, Peter says they “revel in their deceits while carousing with you,” have “eyes full of adultery,” “are insatiable for sin.” How does that become a problem unless there is someone who would tell them they can’t? The governing arrangement back then cannot have been too different from what it is today, given that it oversaw a much smaller field. Plainly, there was discipline then, and the ‘apostasy’ came from those who didn’t like it.

The Reddit grousers carry a range of beefs against the Witness organization, many quite tiny and pumped up, but some more substantial. Of the latter, there are those aggrieved at suffering child sexual abuse, rarely from someone in authority, but occasionally so. They now want a day of reckoning if it turns out that the molester was not turned over to police, regardless of how they were handled through congregational investigation. It is not the same as the Church, where abuse appears common among clergy. With Jehovah’s Witnesses, even after adjusting for size differences, if you want a similar ‘catch,’ you must broaden your nets to include, not just ‘clergy,’ but everybody.

An aggrieved victim of child sexual abuse is proving the most powerful force in the universe these days. Who would ever have thought that the greater world would attempt to ‘out-righteous’ the Christian congregation on this one? It has happened nowhere else. Moreover, the ‘out-righteousing’ is illusory. Despite 30 years combatting pedophiles, there is precious little to show for it. We constantly hear of crimes committed by ones already tagged as abusers—why, they lived right down the street. While reporting abusers is certainly a good thing, decades of doing so has made little dent in the pandemic. Better to focus on prevention, and here there is reason to feel that the Witness regimen and teachings are effective to a greater degree than those of the overall world.

The ‘crime’ alleged of the Jehovah’s Witness organization is rarely an actual crime. It is generally ‘failing to go beyond the law’ in years past, to report abusers, unless members themselves chose to do it. They could have, but often they did not because the Witness religion is ‘insular,’ the charge goes. Being ‘insular’ is but a tiny misstep away from being ‘separate.’ The latter is a biblical requirement of those who would serve God.

You almost wish there would be a statement someday from the Witness organization:

“Look, here’s what happened. We extended 1 Corinthians 6:7 into non-financial matters. We did it because we were insular, an unintended byproduct of being separate. We believe that saying separate from the world is a biblical necessity, the only position from which to help distressed ones in it. “Really, it is already a defeat for you when you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why do you not rather let yourselves be defrauded,” is the verse we extended. We tried to root out child abuse in our midst at a time few others looked into it, and we did the best we could. Sorry.”

Yes, frame it as an apology, if need be. People love apologies and forgive much for it. Determined opposers will not, of course. They will say it is an admission of guilt and/or incompetence and proves you must be fired, but this is par for the course and happens everywhere. Might such a statement stumble some of the ‘sheep’? Possibly, particularly ones who know nothing of it. But it will be more than offset by new persons who admire the candor and can well understand that real Christianity must be separate from a decaying world. And the stumbled ones are not lost. Another mea culpa may do the trick, such as with a 1975 date that didn’t turn out as hoped:

“Um, sorry. We never outright said it, really, but we came close enough to stoke up the hopes of people who hoped to see it that way. At the drop of a pin, Jesus’ followers thought The End was tomorrow. In hindsight, maybe we should have reckoned more on how easy it is to get people going. Still, we did not want to ignore the Lord’s command to ‘keep on the watch’ and the trigger that prompted the excitement was not nothing.”

The former announcement will not make people happy on the Reddit forum; they still have 50 more beefs. But it will many others. Not all victims of injustice within the congregation go the outside legal system and sue their brothers. Most will say: ‘Congregation justice may not be perfect, but it sure is head and shoulders over the justice of the outside world.’ It is a lawyer’s playground out there, with massive transfers of funds in all directions for every conceivable wrong with the barristers netting a third Some congregation members, even wronged ones, will prefer to put their trust in 1 Timothy: “The sins of some men are publicly known, leading directly to judgment, but those of other men become evident later.” It’s not perfect. But it beats the greater world’s justice which so frequently falls down of the job.

Serean 3

 

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The Serena Williams Child Does Not Do Birthdays. Part 2

No sooner did I liken Serena Williams to Queen Esther for her possible future role of exposing the evildoers, than someone said: “Um, she’s not exactly Queen Esther, you know. Didn’t she appear bare-naked, unmarried, and pregnant on that Vanity Fair cover? And you know that birth is not like the one of Mary.”

Well, I actually hadn’t thought of that, if I ever knew it in the first place. Still, it changes nothing. She openly acknowledges she likes the faith but has not practiced it. Now she means to. Is it a bad thing when she has, in the past, called herself a Jehovah’s Witness?

You know, ordinarily, yes. But in this case, not necessarily. People love celebrities and will usually concede that they live in a world of their own, facing unique pressures.

For better or for worse, nobody makes a big deal of sex before marriage anymore. I don't even think the news writer of the article that her child won’t do birthdays thought to mention it, or maybe she did and it didn’t register. That people do not make a big deal of it is 'for worse,' usually, because Word says that they should, the but in this case, it is 'for better.'

Totally without evidence, based only upon a feel for the way people are, I think her vehement critics are ones who dislike Jehovah’s Witnesses, who spot the disparity of conduct and want to slam us with it. Besides these ones are many Witnesses themselves, who also spot it. Few others care.

Has she lived up to the faith in the past? She says very openly that she has not. Now she reaches a point where she says she will. I think it is a very good thing. Okay, okay, so she is no Queen Esther. Call her the Samaritan woman by the well, a women who carried on more than Serena ever did off the court, yet lived to be a powerful witness for the Lord.

Do we have a woman who is a mixed bag, having done things good and bad, and who now wants to make them all good? I'll take it every time. it is in the spirit of Jesus, I think, who came to save persons ill who had become aware of their spiritual need. She will straighten out all those things before baptism, of course, should she continue on the path she now says she was to pursue more single-mindedly. Love hopes all things and believes all things. Sometimes it is even proved wrong. But it keeps hoping and believing

Moreover, to go back to the original point of my post, part one, this Reddit group has done Witnesses huge mischief. The Philly reporter used it as his source to write four incendiary anti-JW articles in a row to present a seeming scandal without the context that illuminates it.

This group is trying with all its might to equate Jehovah's Witnesses with the sins of the Catholic church. It is a stretch, because abusers in the Church are clergy. Even after making adjustments for size, if you want to get the same 'catch' among Jehovah's people, you must broaden your net to include, not just 'clergy,' but everybody. That doesn't mean that some are not diligently trying to do it, and equate some 'non-reporting to authorities' in previous years to being actual incubators of child abuse. They are up to no good, and the alleged sin in such cases is generally  'failing to go beyond the law' in reporting such cases to police. I continually make the point that if it is so crucial to 'go beyond the law' then that should become the law, the same point that Geoffrey Jackson, a member of the Witnesses’ Governing Body, made to a recent inquiry.

If Serena was to prompt her husband, the Reddit founder, to weigh in on that group in our favor and expose them for what they are (see upcoming Part 3), I believe she would be forgiven 'a multitude of sins,' even if she never did manage to get it all together in her own life, as she seems to want to do. In fact, in the event of that outcome, and to bring matters full circle, that would be an example of something else Mordecai said to his niece. If salvation does not come through spotless Esther, it will come from some other source. Either way, I’ll take it and say ‘thank you’ to the Lord and see if there is more ammunition lying around.


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