Who's Messing with Charlie Brown's Christmas!?

Two dogs are pecking away on their keyboards, very intense. One says to the other, with much enthusiasm, “On the internet, no one knows you're a dog!” Yeah! That's the trouble with the internet. You never quite know where anything is coming from.  A laureate or a liar? A psalmist or a sorehead? A philanthropist or a philanderer? It's hard to tell. Maybe that's why Awake! is....shall we say...reserved in it's endorsement of the online world, even citing that old New Yorker cartoon about the dogs.

 
However, I spotted a dog on the internet when nobody else did, so I'm unusually full of myself these days....even though 'pride comes before a fall.' I spotted the dog, and now I'm going to put a muzzle on it, or at least try to.


Someone sent me a Peanuts strip from 1965,  a strip that's all over the internet lately. They thought I would agree with the caption....and in fact, I do. But I also smelled a rat. See if you can, too.

 Peanuts christmas strip    altered
Okay. Got it? A little anti-Christmas, wouldn't you say? Now, you may (or may not) agree with the wording here, but it sure doesn't ring true to what Charles Shultz was about, does it? Would he really have authored such a strip? I don't think so. Even though Linus is indeed a know-it-all windbag, even though he does quote scripture from time to time, even though he is well-versed on theological things. But it doesn't fit.  So I poked around some. It took a while, but I found the source of the smell. The strip has been doctored! In the  enlarged frame, those first two speech bubbles are genuine, but the last one has been modified. Here's the original:

 

Peanuts christmas    original

Now, I don't think Charles Shultz would like this. Bitten by one of the dogs on the internet! You ought to be able to write your own comic strip without some smug little snot of a propogandist replacing your words with his. You understand, I don't have a problem with the modified words in themselves. What they say is not untrue. It's attributing them to Shultz that burns me up, because he would never have penned such a thing. Write your own strip! Rejection of Christmas on account of it's non-Christian origin may ring true with us, but religious folk in general have no problem with it. Part of our 'rich diversity,' and all.

If you use someone's work as underpinning to your own, you keep the two separate. It's not only ethical to do that, it's also practical. Your whole case crumbles when someone spots that you've built upon a fraud. Don't do it. Go out of your way to make clear you don't do it. Just like when the Watchtower used to quote  evolutionists saying things that undermined their own dogma...I mean, they were perfectly accurate quotes...but then grousers would accuse us of misrepresenting those luminaries, so the Watchtower took to pointing out, whenever using so-and-so's words, that these folks nonetheless believed in their own theories...they weren't jumping ship to endorse creation. I don't think it was necessary, but I appreciate why they did it: to avoid even the appearance of misrepresentation. (It didn't satisfy the grousers, however)


Or when the translators of the New World Translation refused to translate Ps 22:16 as “they have pierced my hands and feet” even though they agreed such a rendering would perfectly fit Christ Jesus' role. They refused to do it because the underlying manuscript evidence was dubious. Few other translations had such scruples. Whatever you do, do it honestly. Don't fudge facts to fit your agenda.

Although, having said that.... I can think of one exception. Nothing's absolute. For the life of me I cannot condemn Nick Regalia for altering the work of another when he first became a JW. See, Nick was trying to clean up his life at the time, so he drew bathing suits on all the posters of naked women at his workplace! Lemme tell you, he was none too popular for a while. Of course, this was many years ago. Today, he'd be doing those artists a favor, saving their jobs, probably, since sexual harassment laws will get you into a lot of hot water now and displays of porn can easily trigger them.

But Charles Shultz didn't do porn. He did Peanuts. And Peanuts was (and is) one of my favorite strips. So if someone sends you that phony strip, send it right back with the notation that it's a fraud. You can't undo matters completely. Once toothpaste is out of the tube, you just can't put it back it. It remembers how tight it was in there, and it just won't go. But we can at least be on the right side of the fray.

Now.....who might have done such a thing....altering Shultz's work to paste in his own anti-Christmas tirade? Oh please please please.....let it not be one of our people! We might forward the strip to our pals, thinking it's genuine. How would a person know? But...no....don't let it be that one of ours originated it. I don't think anyone would, we don't usually stoop to such tricks, but.....um...well....I mean...........look, there's nothing about Bible teachings or JW beliefs that make a person fanatical or unbalanced. There isn't. Bible teachings, when applied, mold a person for good. However, if you already have an unbalanced fanatical bent to your personality, then you've found a home among us. Overbearing excess will be chalked up to commendable zeal, and even though your fellow brothers may roll their eyes a bit, they'll put up with it, knowing that, most likely, you'll balance out eventually. So I was a little worried that some brother might have done this, probably some firebrand kid.

Ahhhh.....good! It's not us. It's some 'Jews for Jesus' type character, as near as I can tell. Here's the site. Note how he admits, in fact even boasts about, changing that last panel. Now, the next step is, if it lands in your inbox, send it back.

The reason I smelled a rat is because I knew that Charles Shultz was not against Christmas. And 1965....the date of that strip? That's the year that the first of many Charlie Brown Christmas specials was released on television. I remember the program. That's why it's good to have some years on you. No young person could be expected to spot this fraud. But an old buzzard like me, who's been around awhile, can nail it, and I did!

In fact, I begin to suspect that even the strip I took as original, from which that bastardized phony strip was derived......even that strip is a fraud. I snared one dog on the internet, only to find a whole pack of them is on the loose! I'm not sure, but I suspect it. Alas, I have to leave it to someone else to figure that one out, preferably someone with one of those monstrous anthologies of Charlie Brown comic strips and the time required to comb through every page. It's not easy catching dogs, and for now I'm content with one.


I suspect the "original" is also phony because, in that 1965 Christmas special, windbag Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas to poor Charlie Brown, and he does it merely by quoting scripture! Luke 2:8-14. Those are verses about Jesus' birth. He doesn't say anything at all about 1) Jesus wasn't born on that day, 2) Jesus never said anything about celebrating his birth, anyway, or 3) the customs associated with with the celebration of Christmas all stem from non-Christian roots. Peanuts creator Charles Shultz gravitated to the sentimental traditional meaning of Christmas, period. The other stuff didn't bother him. And both the strips I've reproduced are set as in a show production, with stage curtain as backdrop.....as if satirizing a television production!

Yeah!! I'm hot on the scent now! But I'm also worn out. That first dog took a lot out of me. The bitch bit me bad as I tried to muzzle it!! So I'm just going to lay out what I have here as a work in progress, for now, and pursue the rest in an upcoming post.

********************************

Read ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’         and   No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

 

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'

My Meeting Notes: Week of March 25, 2024 - Psalm 22

Just a single psalm for the Bible reading this week: 22. There are verses in this psalm that NT writers later apply to Christ. Read 1 and 8, for example. They sound awfully familiar. 

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (1)

And at the ninth hour, Jesus called out with a loud voice: “Eʹli, Eʹli, laʹma sa·bach·thaʹni?” which means, when translated: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

The April 2021 Study Watchtower suggests 7 possible ways that cry might be understood. (Questions from Readers) Click on the Research Guide for Psalm 22:1

****

All those seeing me mock me; They sneer and shake their heads in derision: “He entrusted himself to Jehovah. Let Him rescue him! Let Him save him, for he is so dear to Him! (7-8)

”In the same way also, the chief priests with the scribes and the elders began mocking him, saying: “Others he saved; himself he cannot save! He is King of Israel; let him now come down off the torture stake, and we will believe in him. He has put his trust in God; let Him now rescue him if He wants him, for he said, ‘I am God’s Son.’” (Matthew 27:41-43)

One verse not cited by any NT writer is Pslam 22:16. Almost alone, the New World Translation renders that verse (the last phrase): “Like a lion they are at my hands and feet.” Almost all other translations pick up a corruption of the Septuagint and render that phrase: “they pierced my hands and my feet.” The NWT sticks with the earlier Masoretic version. Frankly, they’d love for it to say ‘pierces my hands and feet’ too—it fits better with the program—but it doesn’t say that originally. It says ‘like a lion they are at my hands and feet.’ This was not brought out at the meeting, but I knew it anyway from when the Lutheran evangelical tried to convert the rabbi.

It was our circuit overseer this week. In showing a video, he was all excited that when Jade says ‘Oh, I get it!’ in the coffee shop setting, at that same moment the cash register bell goes off. ‘Ka-Ching’ and he is convinced it is deliberate. Ha! It probably is. I can see it being slipped in as a cute little joke, as though to see how long it would take for anyone to pick up on it. Who would have thought it? Maybe, Governing Body members themselves don’t know about it.

Next day, I told him that, for his talk, I and some others had brought little bells that we would ring every time he made a point that we understood.

Then, there was Transgender Visibiltiy Day, proclaimed by the President for that Sunday—Easter Sunday. Now, Witnesses don’t do Easter, and there was no mention of either Easter or the Visibility Day, but you should have heard the uproar on social media! Carrying on about the desecration of a sacred holiday and all.

Ah, well. Doesn’t it proves that it is not possible to dress up a pig?

As any Witness knows, Easter is an example of slapping a Christian label on a pre-existing sordid holiday, in this the celebration of the goddess Ashtarte—always coinciding with the rebirth of the earth every springtime, once again the explosion of life, and so carried out with orgies and fertility rites. Hence, the bunnies and eggs which clearly have nothing to do with Jesus. Then along come the church fathers much later, hoping to hijack and redirect an already-wildly popular holiday by pasting a Christian label on it!

Witnesses seem to never tire of revealing the unsavory roots of holidays such a Christmas, Halloween, and Easter. My response is to say, ‘Give it a rest already. Nobody cares. If people haven’t given them up by now, they’re not going to.’ It’s like what my brother, who is vaccinated against Covid-19 but drew the line at the frequent boosters, said about the State’s incessant vaccine ads; ‘Sheesh! You’d think they’d realize that if people haven’t gotten it by now, they’re not going to.’

But, in this case, those Witnesses are right on the money and I am wrong. Transgender Visibility Day (as though they were invisible before) is no more than the holiday reverting closer to its origin. I mean, there have been people misgendered at birth. Occasionally, sexual organs are not distinct. Yet, we all know that when small children are queried at school or the pediatricians office as to whether they are really a boy or a girl (as happened with a young mother in our congregation)—question that perhaps they were ‘assigned’ the wrong sex—something is seriously out of whack.

As to the rededication of the day to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, good as it is, Jesus never said to celebrate it. Same with his birth. It’s a good thing, plainly, but Jesus never said to celebrate it. Churches celebrate both. The one event Christ did say to celebrate, the commemoration of his death, they do not do—at least not in the way we typical celebrate great events, as an annual occurrence. Instead, they attach a level of mystery to it and do it routinely so that nobody knows just what it is they are doing. I mean, the Lord’s evening meal, the first memorial of his death, was held on Passover night, Jesus giving it new significance. You would think that fact would dictate how often the Memorial was to be celebrated. “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,” Paul says. (1 Corinthians 5:7)

 

*******  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'

Halloween Witnessing

“Theologians Confirm 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' Doesn't Apply To Your Kids' Halloween Candy” reads the Babylon Bee headline. The accompanying photo is one of mom and dad raiding their kid’s candy stash.

Mine did not do that. Believe me, I would have known. The day after Halloween, I would dump my catch on the carpet, apportion it out and figure it might last three months. Invariably, it was gone in a week—and it wasn’t my parents’ fault.

Fast forward a few decades and a religion change later. A householder opened the door to me, the day after Halloweeen. Eyeing the porch jack-o-lantern, I told him I was half a mind to introduce myself as a trick or treater, my costume being a Jehovah’s Witness. 

It proved an icebreaker. I asked him if he had many trick or treaters the night before. He had, he told me, about 100. I have never had one, nor my neighbors, but that’s because we live on an unlit, unsidewalked street not conducive to kids. His neighborhood—I looked over my shoulder to spy a house with plastic blow-up ghouls almost the height of the house itself—teemed with kids. When I told the man my candy was devoured within the week, he expressed surprise it had lasted that long.

No sense in being a spoilsport. Some of our people go into overdrive dissing the macabre holiday—all of the holidays, for that matter. It works as a research project, if you’re into that sort of thing. But it’s not a witnessing project. It’s always good when you witness not to lead with a list of things you don’t do.

It’s a like when my Scrabble-cheating brother talks back to the state ‘Get Vaccinated’ campaign. They’re just tireless at it, pounding away at the mantra to ‘Get vaccinated.’ My brother, who is vaccinated against Covid but who drew the line at the frequent boosters, said, “Sheesh, you’d think they’d get it through their heads that if people haven’t taken the shot by now, they’re not going to.”

Same thing with Halloween. 1343C28C-715A-49F9-AE66-A9FD95736AB3Sure, point out its unsavory origin, but understand that nobody cares. If people haven’t trashed the day by now, they’re not going to. ‘It’s fun for the kids’ is what trumps all. You risk looking picayune and sanctimonious if you harp on it as a plan of action. Confine it to your own research. The holidays are among the trash carted to the curb a century ago by the ‘messenger preparing the way.’ You don’t obsess over the trash in real life. Why do it here? Move on as to what you’ve saved and what you’ve accumulated, not what you’ve thrown out. 

If there’s a party going on, children will want to be a part of it. Still, growing up, there were all sorts of celebrations Jewish kids would not take part in. (though I never heard Halloween was one of them). Nobody ever said they were deprived. It was assumed they had stuff in their own background to compensate. I don’t recall my kids raising a fuss over Halloween. If they did, it was minor. We tried to do things to compensate.

It certainly was nothing like the phony ‘Witness’ kids of the Clint Eastwood movie, A Perfect World. The Witness mother in the film—they made her out to be like a puritanical Amish— squelched the complaints of her two kids, upset that they could not do Halloween trick or treating, with the pious platitude, “We have a higher calling.” No Witness in a thousand years is going to say “We have a higher calling”—they just don’t talk that way. So I knew that Clint probably didn’t know anything about Jehovah’s Witnesses and probably didn’t have it in for them in particular; he just wanted a premise for a good movie.

And now it’s time to wrap this post up and raid the fridge for lunch. “I have a higher calling.”

******  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'

Listen Obey and be Blessed on a Christmas Album? I Don’t Think So.

Publisher BMG has plunged itself into a copyright lawsuit with elements that are so bizarre it's hard to fathom what the company was thinking of. According to the complaint, BMG illegally used a song owned by religious group Watchtower in a for-profit Christmas album, featuring songs from other faiths, which are set to be sung in cathedrals. Needless to say, Jehovah's Witnesses are outraged.”

Well, I wouldn’t say that they were “outraged.” It takes a lot to outrage us. But we don’t do Christmas. And the songs aren’t for commercial use anyway. What in the world were they thinking?

The song is Listen, Obey, and be Blessed. Imagine—the friends hear the album, and there it is as one of the Christmas carols! From us, who don’t do Christmas! I don’t think so. It’s not their song. It’s our song. It is a song for what Witnesses see as pure worship. It is not to be sung by every interdenominational Tom Dick and Harry, each with his or her own peculiar notion of who God is and what he wants.

“Listen, obey, and be Blessed” as a interdenominational song? Obey what? Obey the religious call to give the election to Trump? Obey the religious call to promote choice (abortion)?  Obey the religious call to defy authorities and pack out your church, Covid notwithstanding? Obey the religious call to protest the police? And suggest that you will be “blessed” regardless of who, how, what you obey? No way. Of course Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t like it. Of course they’ll take action to stop it. BMG should know better, dealing in copyrights the way they do. Make a buck on our song? No.

I’m not even sure why they would take that song, anyway. It is far from my favorite. It’s not one I would select if giving the public talk. The public speaker selects the opening song, and the WT study both begins and ends with one—3 in all. (Today the opening and closing songs were the same. Sometimes that happens. You can’t check every little detail.) I think there was a time I selected a song that had nothing to do with the talk, and I may have even said so. I selected it because I liked it.‬ That song was—no, I won’t say— maybe BMG will grab that one, too.

During his lifetime, Theodor Geisel fiercely resisted offers to commercialize his creation—the Dr. Seuss characters. After his death, his wishes were discarded, and now those characters are everywhere, dressed up like puppets and written into any crass and sappy narrative.

His widow subsequently said, “If Ted could see this, he’d say, ‘I’m glad I’m dead.’”

In the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless and Me, I wrote of how Prince tried to do that, with much better motive, but still he didn’t get away with it. The only backdrop one must have for this is that some doctor said that Prince died of ‘VIP syndrome’—that is, maybe his doctor was so awed by celebrity that he forgot to do his job, that he neglected to lay down the law for his famous patient:

New to the faith, it didn’t take long before Prince cast his eye upon the Kingdom songs that are sung at each meeting’s beginning, midpoint, and end. Maybe he could – you know – spice them up a little. Remix a few. With the best of motives, he began doing just that. CDs were released and began to circulate among the friends. Whenever that sort of thing happens among Jehovah’s Witnesses, it happens fast, for every Witness knows every other Witness. The Governing Body caught wind of it. Would they be flattered that Prince stooped to iron the kinks out of their music, like Mozart repairing the little ditty his employer’s (another Prince!) house musician had composed? Would they be jellified with VIP syndrome? If the learned doctors had turned to mush, what chance had bumpkins like they?

“Prince is reworking our music, and rightly so!” Would they say that?

“They excoriated him: ‘Get your hands off those songs! Those aren’t your songs – they’re OUR songs! They’re not pop, they’re not rock, they’re not funk! They are KINGDOM SONGS! Do you know how to spell ‘copyright?!’ Touch them again and you’re toast!’

“Then they sent out letters to the congregations telling Witnesses not to play those CDs because they weren’t authorized. They managed to overcome their VIP syndrome pretty well, didn’t they? (Dr. Klitzman’s colleagues would have let Prince gown up and lend a hand in the operating room) They told him to keep his hands off their songs! Of course, they were nice about it – they always are. Their letter acknowledged his good intentions, but they laid down the law. I’ll bet Prince found it refreshing to be told off! What a change of pace from toadying doctors.”

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'

The GitHub Arctic Code Vault—In the Northernmost Town of the World—Mother of All Conspiracies!

It is a good thing for you people that I keep up with multiple universes and know how to connect the dots! Thus I can see right through the machinations of the GitHub Arctic Code Vault, which you should see right now. I know the forces truly at work.

 

GASP! “Northernmost town in the world?”

We know who lives there.

SANTA CLAUS!

So it is HE who is gathering data on us!

It is HE who pulls off the most sinister ruse of all time, under the guise of children’s beneficiary!

EVERYONE except some religious oddballs lets this agent into their homes with open arms each year! They’ve done so for two centuries!

Dropping off presents takes two seconds. What does he do with the REMAINDER of his time—rummaging through file cabinets while sugar plums are dancing through our heads? And we even leave COOKIES for him, little suspecting that he is planting his own cookies on our hard drives so as to enable MIND CONTROL!

Where are the anti-cultists when you need them?

It is the mother of all conspiracy theories revealed!

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'

There Goes My Study With Santa Claus

All that I will say on this is that the last meeting was enough to end my study with Santa Claus. He had been making such good progress. I had finally gotten him to stop disrupting meetings with a “HO HO HO!” whenever the speaker made even the lamest of jokes. He had stopped pronouncing the elders “bad” when they asked him and me to take his outbursts to the back room. He had even said he was giving up the extreme sports stunt he pulls every late December, out of regard for appreciating the gift of life.

It wasn’t the full beard the fellow had at the beginning that stumbled him. Nor was it the shaven-off beard that he had at baptism. It was the half-beard that he had at his study, thus indicating progress.

Sigh...and he was a good study. His wife always served the most delicious cookies

[Later edit: Issue resolved! Wait till I tell him!]

 

******  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'

The Serena Williams Child Doesn't Do Birthdays

Few things cause more distress in the world of celebrities than a neglected birthday celebration. Yet Serena Williams presented them exactly that woe 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 Daily Mail. Why?

Serena says: “We’re Jehovah’s Witnesses, so we don’t do that.” She repeats the tack 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 from 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 right 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 have come to like Serena Williams more and more. She doesn’t buckle under pressure, mumbling something half apologetic. No. She says: “We don’t do that.” She reminds me very much of a young Witness named Jackie who was hounded 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 in sports, you will hear her criticized for that from time to time, often 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 event for Witnesses. Now, with 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 has served her well in another instance. When the man she was dating wished her a Happy Birthday and she responded as she does now 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 the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter wrote four incendiary articles about Jehovah’s Witnesses, he used this group as his source of information and between articles he 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. 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 the reporter from the Philly paper is on your side. Just make sure that you read up on Haman before you do it.

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 carry out, just as like-minded Witness haters 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, seemingly supportive of Witness teachings but unsupportive of the human leadership. Such will always be the sticking point in the divine/human interface.

See Doesn't Do Birthdays. Part 2

From the book TrueTom vs the Apostates!

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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'

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'

What an Idiot Tom Harley Is

On Groundhog Day the Great Hog attempts to fulfill any contractual obligations before emerging from is hole. He usually has a gig or two lined up and he has cashed in on his reputation by selling Hyundais, mattresses, and time-shares.

This year was to be his greatest for he had inked a deal with the famous JW author Tom Harley for a coordinated GH day release of his second E-book 'No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash. He rushed inside his lair, toward the opening, carrying a stack of dozens. However, it had rained the night before, the roof collapsed and all copies of Tom' wonderful book are muddy messes that must be hosed off.

What an idiot Tom Harley is! Why can't he release an e-book like everyone else on the planet? He thoroughly tried everyone's patience with his Tom Irregardless and Me. I mean, we were thoroughly underwhelmed with the book.One fellow even said it was preachy! He's nuts! Well, it does rant a little, maybe, but it doesn't harangue. Tom is very quickly wearing thin.

Give it a day or two and the new book will be out.

Tom Irregardless and Me. ****  No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

Image

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'

On Groundhogs Days Eve Around the World, the Great Hog Appears to Little Children Everywhere

On Groundhog Days Eve around the world, the Great Hog appears to little children everywhere, bringing them much joy and leaving chocolate cookies. Or are they turds? I just sweep them up without looking.  Sometimes he picks up tics and lice beforehand, and he is responsible for major outbreaks among children.


He visits while dogs are asleep, just like he visits tiny children while they are asleep, though not for the same reason. Even so, he must be very careful. Last year, my German Shepherd was up for a midnight snack when he came and tore the little thing to shreds.

This year he has a new gig. Somehow Tom Harley has talked him into promoting his new book 'Tom Irregardless and Me' He's getting desperate. I mean, the book's really not very good. One person even said it's 'a bit preachy!!!'' But Smashwords.com has a few great reviews of it, so it must be just different tastes. He is an academic, used to academic ways, and the book makes no pretense of being written that way. But it has garnered several fine reviews at Smashwords.com and they're not boiler-plate crap, either. They're obviously written by people who think.

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'

The Groundhog's Day eve Visit of the Great Hog

 

Each year on Ground Hog's day eve, the Great Hog kicks down your front door and pays a visit. Of course, you must have the little children in bed by then, as the vermin has been known to gnaw on children left unattended. Nonetheless, all rejoice at this wonderful event.

The Great Hog, if you are good, will leave chocolates on the floor. Or are they turds? I just sweep them up without checking.

Proving he is indeed magical and mystical, my security system has never detected him. If it had, I would meet him at the door with a shotgun. ImageBut he evades me every year.

Photo: Archer10

Look for the Groundhog's Day release of my 2nd e-book 'No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash' at Smashwords.com.

'Tom Irregardless and Me' available at Smashwords.com Search: Tom Harley. 30% preview is free. Then we'll talk, your people and mine. Should someone want a free coupon b/c budget's tight, email me at [email protected]

bit.ly/2hjSMHE 

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'