There is a KM that said, “It is not necessary for brothers to host their own websites.” I pondered that one and concluded, “Well, I never said mine was necessary. It’s just me pursuing a hobby.”

“Some indiscreet brothers” are setting up shop on the internet, another KM said. They are, I agreed, and I try not to be one of them—and wrote as much in Tom Irregardless and Me.

More recently was their counsel not to post copyrighted material on social media. A variety of scenarios was described, really everything except just plain linking to it.* So some take it a step further and figure you can’t link to it either, especially since linking software will often fetch a preview picture—even though the ‘Fair Use’ clause on copyright law has long recognized that issue and has imprecisely ruled on it.

The concern expressed was copyright and legal matters—items that do not apply to just plain linking. HQ originates the “spiritual food.” It makes sense to me that they should oversee its distribution. I already wasn’t doing any of the other bad things mentioned, things such as posting artwork and so forth. “That which is not expressly permitted is forbidden!” Vic Vomodog used to mutter. Alas, there do appear to be ones who look at the faith that way.

I like to think that Bethel itself in aggregate does not—‘in aggregate,’ because it is made of myriad individuals, some of whom may look at things that way. But one can entertain the view that the final output does not. Rather, they encounter problems when people speak in their name on social media, and so they say, ‘okay, don’t do it this way,’ and ‘don’t do it that way.’ They lay down bouys so one may regard them as such and chart a course through them. ‘Good counsel,’ I say. ‘I’ll make sure not to do that dumb thing.’

Thing is, there are indiscreet brothers. There are those short on proper presentation. I can easily picture Bethel, observing the cat fight that is religionists bickering over social media, saying ‘Oh, man—we want no part of that!’ It’s a point of view easily imagined. But there is omnipresent training to commit less faux pas in the in-person witnessing. Over time it takes hold, especially if one is not overly fussy in judging results. Could the same be done regarding mass media?

Set up a personal presence online that corresponds to your physical presence in your own neighborhood.

Chat on many topics, as you would in your physical neighborhood, and once in a while you get to bring God into the picture. Of course, in order to do this you must follow or friend or comment upon the contribution of those other than Witnesses. Those already leery of social media will not in the main go there.

(Photo: Pixabay)

Nah—no one thinks social media is the bee’s knees. Still, when companies have some fantastic product to advertise (and who has something more fantastic than kingdom good news?) the very first thing they do is to plan a campaign on social media to ‘advertise, advertise, advertise, the product and its maker.’

The shepherd is cautious by nature. It is suspicious of anything new, lest it be a ploy of the devil or a component of the fence that he owns. A friend of mine, 20 years older than myself, regarded skateboards as a sure sign of decadence when he first laid eyes on one. Nothing is new under the sun. They did it in the first century too. They called Peter into the back room:

“So when Peter came up to Jerusalem, the [supporters] of circumcision began to contend with him, saying he had gone into the house of men that were not circumcised and had eaten with them. At this Peter commenced and went on to explain the particulars . . . Now when they heard these things, they acquiesced . . .”  (Acts 11: 2, 18)

Every once in a while—every exceedingly rare once in a while—the brothers acquiesce and say, ‘Oh. Well, I guess we can live with that. Maybe it’s even a good thing.’

*“These Terms clearly say that no one is allowed to ‘post artwork, electronic publications, trademarks, music, photos, videos, or articles from this website on the Internet (any website, file-sharing site, video-sharing site, or social network).’ Why are these rules necessary?”

Probably because miscreants come along, take the own material out of context, put it in a new malicious context, and beat them over the head with it.

******  The bookstore

Maria followed me on Twitter one fine day and she was drop-dead gorgeous. No, I did not follow her back for that reason. Trust me on this: drop dead gorgeous women throw themselves at me all the time; it is a great nuisance because all I want to do is think about God.

In fact, I didn’t follow her back at all, not even for the reassuring profile photo she displayed, consisting solely of “Jehovah” in gold-embossed letters. However, I did scroll her timeline and found a suitable place to leave a comment. She soon replied that she had just texted me.

Sorry, I told her, I don’t do DM. I stay on the public side of Twitter. “Why?” she wanted to know. “Because if I do so I am immersed in dozens of private chats and I can’t keep up,” said I. She responded that, in that case, I could contact her on WhatsApp. I didn’t reply to that one.

Next thing you know she has disappeared and all her notifications with her! I searched out her username: “Account suspended for violation of Twitter rules.” Hmm. I searched for the name on Facebook. It links to a certain bit-coin trader, also drop-dead gorgeous.

No, Maria, my dear, I have all the bit-coin I need, thank you very much—even though you are drop-dead gorgeous, even though your profile does say ‘Jehovah’ so I know you are one of us, probably belonging to the congregation right next door. I’ve no doubt she has a separate profile that says Jesus, another that says Buddha, Dagon, Moroni, Baal, and a dozen others.

It is called ‘Affinity Fraud,’ winning someone’s confidence through feigned common roots. It factors into the making of E.T—The Sequel, a movie you may not have seen. In the original, cute, adorable, toddler E.T. charms all who are pure enough to let him into their hearts. But in E.T.—the Sequel, he returns as a surly teenager. He curses, spits, brawls, swears, and in the end destroys the earth with his white-hot power beam, starting with Wall Street.

Steven Spielberg, the movie’s creator, had just lost an ever-loving fortune to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. Both were Jews. Virtually all of Madoff’s victims were Jews. It was affinity fraud. Not that Maria’s scheme is a fraud, necessarily, but her means of contact certainly was. She’s probably not even drop-dead gorgeous. She’s probably an old hen. And even if she is not, so what? Is not Mrs. Harley also drop-dead gorgeous?

******  The bookstore

Allen Adhominem, the former JW who bills himself now as a ‘critical thinker,’ posted his helpful chart of who was who in the world of apologists. He is the one who dove into the university, and the instant he received his PhD, he billed himself as Dr. Adhominem. These days, he calls his former brothers ‘cult members.’ “Excuse me for not having a PhD in whatever hogwash your PhD is in,” someone uncharitably said, and he didn’t use the word ‘hogwash.’

How irrelevant his chart is! The only chart that counts is this updated organizational chart of apologists and allies, including a few who went bad, such as Vic Vomodog, Sam Sowmire, and Ida Ho, the latter who became quite immoral—she never was that way in the faith. Even this updated chart is in need of an update; it does not reflect the recent nefarious deeds of Larsen Ahithorolf.

It is not necessary for brothers to blog! Oscar Oxgoad told me, based upon something he read somewhere. Well, I never said my blog was necessary—it’s just me doing a hobby.

Some indiscreet brothers are on the internet! he rebounded. They are, I said, but I try not to be one of them.

That last time I tried to give up blogging—it went well for half a day, but then it was (Sung to the tune of ‘I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face):

“Dam, Dam, Dam Dam!* I’ve Grown Accustomed to my face. It almost makes the day begin.”

“I’m very grateful that this venue is so easy to forget. Rather like a habit one can always BREEAAAK . . . and yet….I’ve grown accustomed to my voice being always in the air, accustomed to my — face.”

*Spelled the friendly and wise (all beavers are graduates of Dam U) beaver way. I don’t want to hear from any language police.

******  The bookstore

One of the most uncouth persons I have known, long since deceased, obviously not a pillar, though a brother accepted by all—that’s what I like about Witnesses, if you love God and conform to a reasonable degree to group norms, you are accepted—offered me his advice that, “A man can only stand so much religion!” I never thought I’d make use of that ‘gem,’ but here arises an opportunity.

The problem with social media is that if I clog up my feed with one controversial subject, the neighbors start to complain. So I respond on my own blog, where people can visit or not as interested. Among those who follow me on social media are some who don’t care about religion one way or the other—and it is not the only interest I have—so I don’t want to deluge them in religious disputes. It is the same thing with anyone’s personal trials. Put them somewhere that people can read or not as their interest holds. It started with OJ (Simpson), I think: the world has devolved into a place where everyone feels an obligation to monitor the trials of everyone else. Plainly, human finiteness makes that course impracticable. Plus, though the squeaky wheel may get the oil, if you convey the notion that there are nothing but squeaky wheels, you have not represented truth well. So I put my response here instead:

***As regards cross and Christmas [a topic that had come up with a certain one airing beefs], everyone knows Witnesses once did these things. At any rate, they make no effort to hide it. As with any subject anywhere, as they learned, they adapted. They correspond to Phillip asking ‘Do you know what you are reading?’ the answer to which was ‘How could I ever do so without someone to guide me?’ (Acts 8:31-32) Most people believe cross and Christmas to this day.

Without the work the Witness organization did, I would still be bamboozled over trinity, fretting over heaven & hell, wondering why God permits evil, wondering whether the kingdom means anything more than ‘being good,’ etc. They gain from me a certain loyalty on that account, flawed though they may be due to being human. Nobody else assumed that detailed work of  illumination. 

Pray to God for relief and he says, ‘I have people to handle that.’ Tell him that some of those people are a bit rough,’ and he says, ‘Well, you’re no creampuff yourself—do you have any idea how much you try me? You’ll just have to work it out somehow.’ Isn’t that the meaning of the Matthew 18 slave who was forgiven much yet would not forgive his fellow slave? There is a certain mindset that says the Witness headship should be an like an infallible pope, an exact replica of Jesus, only in the flesh. I’ve never looked upon it that way. I think few do—though some have, and they respond not well to evidence of imperfection.

Like any system of justice, congregation justice can misfire. It is, after all, a function of humans. At it’s worst, it is far less egregious than secular justice misfiring; secular justice entails physical incarceration and sometimes directly puts people to death. Still, ones have been wronged by congregation justice, sometimes exacerbated by their response to it, sometimes not, and a pent-up desire for ‘payback’ emerges. It’s not hard to understand why. My hopes are that the overall preaching and teaching work is not thwarted by infighting among those of age and stature, thus pleasing those who hate the Bible’s guts, those who say ‘the sooner it disappears the better.’ I suspect God will be less interested in who was right and who was wrong than in, ‘Were those who claim to be Mine able to unite and get my work done?’ “If these ones remain silent,” Jesus said, “the stones would cry out!” but they will have a hard time doing that while flying through the air as projectiles by persons insistent on having their own way.

***I keep a certain distance even from friends on social media. People change. If someone was to be disfellowshipped, would they tell me? If I were to be, would I tell them? It would set up a ridiculous blizzard among those who think the internet can be made into a congregation. I’ve seen people try to enforce congregation discipline online, seemingly oblivious that they are on a worldwide stage and look crazy to the average passerby. The internet is not the congregation and cannot be made to act like one.

So I don’t want to act as though part of an online brotherhood SWAT team. If a brother goes bad at the official site, they just yank him for one who remains faithful. But what if an individual social media figure goes bad? Best not to form close ties with those you don’t personally know.

For a related reason, I display no link to the Jw.org website on my blog, much as I respect it. I suspect (without any evidence other than common sense) that they don’t want you to link there, as though deputizing yourself with a badge. Everyone has idiosyncrasies. If I link to the HQ site, people assume that’s where I acquired them.

***If this was a matter of my choosing, I would wish that we had a bit of training in social media, for it is not the same as interacting with individual flesh and blood persons. I would wish that we not regard it as the fence the devil owns, as it often seems to me we do. We interact oddly on social media when we make use of it—slamming religion, for example, when there is no reason to do so. Everyone knows we stand for something different—it’s not necessary to continually search for an underbelly at which to stab.

I’m amazed at the sniping there is today over headship (though this could be a function of what I monitor)—you never hear a whiff of it at any Kingdom Hall I’ve ever been to—opponents make as much noise as Gideon, hoping ot create the same impression as he—that his forces were overwhelming in number, when in fact they were small. My comment on the last Watchtower Study’s paragraph 9, the one about Hannah, was that scripture plainly says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Earthen vessels are not crystal vessels, nor gold vessels, nor silver vessels. They’re earthen. So it’s best not to focus on the vessels but on the treasure.

Hannah surely did. Eli was an earthen vessel nearly to the point of being unusable—didn’t rebuke his rotten kids, but did rebuke Hannah harshly, misinterpreting something right before his eyes. Yet Hannah’s regard for the treasure did not waver.

It gets to the point with some malcontents (the considerable number that go atheist) that they seem unaware that there even is a treasure, or ever was one—as though the ‘treasure’ was just a scheme to defraud them from pursuing the ‘good’ things in life—be that personal fulfillment, career, living the fun life—whatever. When you give up on everlasting life, you necessarily default to ‘this life is all there is.’

Faced with their onslaught, brothers deputize themselves to come to the defense. Sometimes they become unreasonable. A pardonable error? “I have become unreasonable,” says Paul. “You compelled me to, for I ought to have been recommended by you. For I did not prove to be inferior to your superfine apostles in a single thing, even if I am nothing.” (2 Corinthians 12:11) If modern Witnesses have stepped into it, it’s not as though the ancients didn’t as well! And the bone of contention is the same—headship! The ‘superfine apostles’ of Paul’s day wanted his recognition, though not necessarily his work.

Throw this one at today’s ‘anti-cultists:’ “For I am seeking, not your possessions, but you.”* just as surely as “Uncle Sam wants YOU!’ (2 Corinthians 12:14) Do detractors, with their new definition, call you a cult? Point out that, by that same revised definition, that’s exactly what first century Christianity was. If they keep it up, do what the cops did when the college-educated bunch started calling them ‘pigs’, doubling down when they saw it got under their skin. One innovative officer decided to wear the badge proudly: PIGS: Pride, Integrity, Guts, Service. If need be, do the same yourself: CULT: Courage, Unity, Love, Truth.

*Yes, it is even worse than is feared. The Christian congregation seeks, not your possessions, but you. “This is what Jehovah says, your Repurchaser, the Holy One of Israel: “I, Jehovah, am your God, The One teaching you to benefit yourself, The One guiding you in the way you should walk. If only you would pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” (Isaiah 48:17-18) He wants to repurchase you by means of a price that has been paid, that of his Son.

It’s like when the wary householder cleaning out his boat said, ‘What’s up? Who are you guys with?’ I told him I wasn’t a politician—that with the election just days behind, half of those guys are licking their wounds and the other half are doing champagne and oysters. What I was, I told him, was even worse—I thought that I had a read on this guy, and I was not mistaken.

At an offer to read a scripture, hear what he thinks, and then vanish, the boat cleaner declined even that. You Jehovah’s Witnesses have your own interpretation of the Bible, he said, and we have ours. It did not work to take my ‘common ground’ tack: ‘got it’ that our interpretations of the Bible differ, but we live in a world in which the majority interpretation of the Bible is that it is hogwash: consequently, we could focus on common ground, not scorched earth.

It didn’t work with this fellow. He stayed scorched earth. Though there have been plenty of times when that has been our ground, a style that does little good. Better to look for common ground instead.

******  The bookstore

It must really confound those who accuse the JW organization of being a cult that few people are behaving better these days, or more reasonably, with more of an eye toward the public good. That #CultExpert tweets about how Jehovah’s Witnesses manipulate people, and I reply that their followers put his to shame for vanquishing COVID. Jehovah’s Witnesses immediately transferred all gatherings to Zoom and issued strong counsel to observe government-recommended social distancing—which our people will observe because they strive to be obedient. But his followers? Some will observe social distancing, no doubt—probably even most, but is his mission statement ‘Freedom of Mind’ really compatible with obedience to secular authority? You don’t think some will use their ‘freedom of mind’ to tell the government to buzz off—‘We’ll party on the beach if we feel like it!?’—thus spreading COVID far and wide?

Doubtless they expected ‘scare-mongering’—‘using’ the present crisis to scare new ones into the fold—and in fact, there have been accusations of that. But you really really have to stretch the point if you go there. The lead post on jw.org is the most socially responsible contribution imaginable, replete with suggestions on how to cope with isolation and resulting loneliness. With people beside themselves with anxiety, unable to cope in many cases, you don’t think that is a valuable contribution, perhaps THE most valuable? After all, if your psyche breaks down, all the physical relief in the world does you no good.

It reminds me of the verse on muzzling the talk of the ignorant ones by doing good. To be sure, hostile ones are still criticizing—but in doing so,  they are also plainly revealing their ignorance, and in some cases, their hate.

In fact, I don’t quite go there with the CultExpert, for some of the groups he monitors really DO seem pretty strange—so I don’t go there, though I do think about it—I almost want to say: “LET them join a cult if it helps them get through this and save their sanity! What are you offering in lieu—that we should put our hope in the next crop of politicians? Haven’t we been down that road countless times before?”

Affirming some cult idiot’s charge that I am ‘using’ the pandemic to ‘recruit,’ (to anyone concerned about that, I reply that on the 200th contact I will ask if they want to convert and then they can say ‘no’—in the meantime, it’s just conversation—don’t worry about it) I have many times tweeted that lead post to persons, sometimes in response to a specific plea like with Mr. Fiend, and sometimes I just throw it out there—with good results in both cases. Sometimes the tweets are retweeted. Unless you are a snarling ‘ain’t-cultist,’ people do not misunderstand—they know that you are trying to help.

As always, you tailor your tweet to the person. To persons who appear secular, you say (this one was lamenting a suicide she had read about): “It is a terrible thing. Healthy people struggle when their routine is uprooted, let alone persons unwell to begin with. I sent this to someone who tweeted that he was frankly losing it. There is a spiritual component to it, but it is mostly on combatting isolation and loneliness”—and I attach the link.

To someone decidedly irreligious, you might say: “As a suggestion—nothing more—here is a series of posts on how to cope with isolation and loneliness. Upended routines are driving everyone up a tree. My turn is probably next. Like Bob Dylan: ‘The riot squad is restless, they need somewhere to go.’” I like to play the Dylan card—it doesn’t mean that you have to. You also don’t exempt yourself—hence the ‘my turn is probably next,’

My new pinned tweet is: “With #mentalhealth under assault and even balanced people buckling under the stress, I can’t imagine a better read than this one on coping with isolation and loneliness from #JehovahsWitnesses,” as I include a link to the post.

Note the hashtags. Ages ago my daughter said to me: “They’re hashtags, Dad, not crosstags.” Hashtags are fair game on social media, whereas tagging individuals directly is generally considered rude, unless you know full well that they will welcome it. Hashtags will draw in anyone else who monitors the subject—as an experiment, enter a hashtag anything on social media to see what comes up. You can even use it as your own filing system if you choose a hashtag unique enough.

It can, however backfire. If the hashtag is of any controversial topic, it can bring in people who want to argue, even insult. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are disgruntled former members—‘apostates’—that can be attracted—in fact, they almost surely will be. “Oh, yeah,” you can mutter. “They’ll come alright. As surely as flies to dung, they will come!” But you should not say this because, while you are comparing apostates to flies, you are also comparing yourself to dung—so you should seek another metaphor.

My #mentalhealth hashtag drew in some mental health people, some of whom expressed great appreciation. But true to warning, my #jehovahswitnesses hashtag drew in some ‘apostates.’

“The rather large elephant in the paragraph [about the comfort JWs offer] is the Jehovah’s Witness shunning policy.”

But I replied (in three tweets):

“There is hardly an issue here. Those who would trigger a ‘shunning policy’ are those for whom, at the present time, the last thing in the world they would want is to abide by the principles of those who wrote the article. Even so, they are welcome to take from it what they will.”

“The thoughts expressed in the article are non-denominational, offered freely to all, even those on the outs at present with JWs. It’s meant as a public service. One need not take it. One can always put trust in the politicians, medical staff, and economists to fix matters.”

I looked at the detractor’s profile and discovered that she was one who was trying to torpedo the JW organization’s status as a charitable religious organization, something that they plainly are:

“In fact, it is an excellent post for consideration of the @CharityComms, though not written for that reason. Look, nobody is everything to everyone. But they will recognize that we are well past the time for nursing grudges—not with C19 threatening the mental health of the planet.”

It shut her up! I couldn’t believe it! It is unheard of! ‘Apostates’ never ever EVER give up—I’ve had to block some—and yet she gave up. There is no finer proof of 1 Peter 2:15 than that: “For it is the will of God that by doing good you may silence the ignorant talk of unreasonable men.”

I can’t sleep. Ask me anything,” one person on Twitter said. It is a not unusual complaint these days—there is only so much upending of life that one can take. So I asked him what he thought of the post—the lead jw.org post—on coping with isolation and loneliness. I didn’t hear back.

Other times I have. “Seriously starting to lose my s**t here,” Mr. Fiend said. [**s mine] I sent him the same link. He thanked me, and said he would check it out. It was the second time I had contacted him specifically about the faith. The first was after he said that he didn’t know anymore just what was his place in life—a worrisome remark but by no means an uncommon one these days.

I sent him another link on what had helped me. But he was worried that I was trying to convert him: “Thank you Tom....My parents are both pretty Baptist-esque, though, so I don't feel JW is for me, although I mean absolutely no disrespect by that at all.”

The reply I should have made is: “On my 200th contact, I will ask you to convert, and then you can say ‘no.’ It won’t happen until then. Don’t worry about it,” and then fluff it out a bit to be less abrupt. But what I did say was: “None taken. I wish you the best. These are stressful times for all. Even in the best of times, upending routines is a source of stress.” Our best lines always occur to us too late. Still, the actual sent reply is not bad—it may even be better.

Am I trying to witness to him, or anyone, on Twitter? Not really. That’s not why I started my account. I started it as a platform on which to hawk my books and become rich. That way that ubiquitous drawing in Watchtower publications of a brother thumbing his chest with one hand and gesturing at his possessions with another—fancy home, flashy car, boat even larger than the home, and piles of money, that is not supposed to be an example for anyone—can be one of me. Since my two most recent books—Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia and TrueTom vs the Apostates! are labors of love and are free, there is a wrinkle in my business plan, but I may in time iron it out.

Naw, I just moved into the Twitter community as I would move into a home—in order to find a place to live—and only afterwards do I interact with the neighbors, occasionally finding an opening to witness, though that is not my primary aim. To someone who asked about my blog I said that it is not really a Witness blog. Rather, it is a writer’s blog. Writing is what I like to do. Since I am a Witness, that will form a large portion of my subject matter, but I don’t blog just for that reason. I wish more brothers did this. Instead, the few blogs I see. by brothers are quite plainly for the purpose of witnessing, with almost nothing thrown in to present a rounded person. I like to tell stories, is all. Most stories will be with some backdrop of the faith, because that’s where I am, but it is the storytelling that motivates me.

Mr. Fiend I began to follow for his crazy combination of attributes—really, you can almost not imagine them all in a single person. He is a lawyer—a support one, not a high-flying litigator—and he describes the work as a bit of a grind. He is a pianist who tutors students of all ages and who play Chopin—he has even been giving nightly concerts during COVID days. And he swears like a mobster—it is just so uncalled for and over the top that I am drawn in—it doesn’t mean that you have to be. I even called him on it once—‘it’s a shame he speaks so crudely because it spoils an otherwise appealing personality.’ Most people on Twitter will tell you to f**k off if you do this, but he said something to the effect of, ‘Yeah, I know—it’s just that the injustices and hypocrisies get me going.’ That’s an honest answer, I thought, and I stayed with him.

I throw quips about his salty language right back at him, pretending, for example, for him to have submitted one of his outrageous notes to a client by error, having mixed it up with his official reply. It is a fine exercise in creativity, building off what he has tweeted. For example:

He (recently): “Every morning, you know that *something* in the news is going to come right out of left field.  You just don't know what it's going to be until it happens.  It's completely and utterly unpredictable.”

My reply: “TOP STORY: MR FIEND WINS TOP PRIZE FOR FINE LANGUAGE CONTEST!”

His name isn’t actually Fiend. It is a part of his moniker and I latched onto it. Perhaps his real name is found in the rest of his moniker or perhaps not. One idiot ‘apostate’ thought he could use his real name, highlight some unflattering JW story that I supposedly stood by, and cause Mr. Fiend to upbraid me! What yo-yos these people are! Mr Fiend didn’t take the bait. He tweeted that such and such is a problem everywhere, not the exclusive property of any one domain, as this fellow would have had him believe.

You know, I was going elsewhere with this post, but I got sidetracked. Ah, well. I’ll get back on track tomorrow, or at least some time.

The Dark Lord has made his appearance at the bad & brawling website and people who agree with him in many particulars are keeping an unusually low profile. It is probably because they do not want to inadvertently say something wrong and have him find their lack of faith disturbing.

Case in point is JimmyT. Normally, a mention of climate change will trigger a tirade from him as to how it is a masterful left wing hoax. Normally a negative mention of Trump will unleash torrents of praise for him from his corner. This time, however, not a peep. Well...there is a bit of cheerleading for Trump—you cannot completely erase the spots of a leopard—but he does not pursue it. He and another participant have happily squabbled at great length over both these topics. But he does not do it here with Darth Alan.

Do I blame him for this bit of cowardice? Not at all. He is in his senior years and he wants to live them out. He does not want to be accosted with endless taunts about how stupid he is. He does not want every syllable he utters to be corrected. He does not want to have to open dozens of dialogue boxes to recall just what it was that he said to earn the verdict that he is a moron. He does not want to shake his head in disgust that every other forum participant has learned to use those boxes properly, and only the Dark Lord is too enraptured with his own arguing to constrain himself to quoting just three lines of text that will faithfully reproduce without opening boxes. He looks at another challenger, who has had to triple her blood pressure medication, and decides that he wants no part of it. Who can blame him?

So I will carry his Trump ball for him—not as aptly as he would do it himself, for I am not so vested in it as he—but I will carry it.

In the midst of discussion, the Dark Lord reaches back into his quiver for taunts, chooses a old favorite, and hurls back at me: “Apparently you just make up "news" out of thin air -- just like your idol Trump.”

This is the fifth completely irrelevant reference to Trump since he began participation here, just two or three weeks ago. A moment later, he launches the sixth: “You're doing what ever-Trumpers do very well -- project their own faults onto their opponents.”

Six times he brings Trump into a discussion that has nothing to do with him. Each time it is like ripping a loud one in the concert hall. His audience surely must be among the most apolitical people on earth. Some of them, JW and non-JW alike, think it downright wrong to bring politics into a discussion of spiritual things. The DL knows this. He knows everything. So why can he not restrain himself from continually inserting that which he knows will fall flat with almost everyone and be positively off-putting to some?

It is because he suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I had thought that JimmyT made up the term because he is the only one who has ever used it on the website—another testimony to the apolitical nature of both JWs and many who oppose them—but I see now via internet search that it is not so. DL has that ailment full-blown. He froths over Trump. He obsesses over Trump. He embraces those who every day since before his election experiences orgasm at some new bullet that will supposedly take him out. He inserts references to Trump everywhere, the same way that normal people insert “word whiskers” like “um.”

So what of this taunt that he hurls at me—ME, TrueTomHarley! 

“Apparently you just make up "news" out of thin air -- just like your idol Trump.” 

Is he my idol? That depends. Politically, it is not likely to be so. Trump does the Make America Great routine. He pushes for his country, assumes that other national leaders will push for theirs, and if they don’t, it is all the better for him. On the other hand, as a JW, I look forward to “the kingdom”—a government from God that will eliminate national borders. Even now, visit Bethel, observe the huge globe, and take note that there are no national borders to sully it.

So no, politically he is hardly an “idol.” But that does not mean that as a man I cannot learn from him. I try to learn from anyone that comes to my attention—either through personal interaction or by their being in the news a lot. I even strive to learn from the Dark Lord. Nobody can be said to be worthless, for you can always be used as a bad example.

Politics aside, it turns out that I am very grateful for Trump. His election has vaulted 2 Timothy 3:1-5 to the position of the world’s year text—this year and every year. It used to be that if you read how people would be fierce, unreasonable, not open to agreement, backbiting, and so forth, and your householder did not agree that such was the case today more so than in prior times, there wasn’t much you could do about it. Plainly the verse is subjective. It always will be, of course—I expect that should DL ever have the misfortune to be executed by guillotine, he will ignore that unpleasant fact and his head will continue to insult onlookers as it is being carted away in the wheelbarrow—but with ever-Trumpers and never-Trumpers screaming at each other day and night, it becomes a much more difficult verse to deny.

I also take a page from Trump with regard to his communication skills. At first glance, he hasn’t any. Surely he is one of the most ineloquent public figures in history. And don’t come to him for spelling lessons. But at second glance, one comes to see that he is a master at pushing back at his barrage of opponents. After a brief period of supposing opponents would adjust to his presence, he decided that there was no way on earth that they could be placated, and so he redirects his efforts to defeating them. He does it in the most innovative of ways, taking full advantage of their weaknesses. Time and again, he draws them in as with hooks in their jaws, and just as they are ready to pounce, tasting certain victory, he pulls the rug out from under them.

Case in point is the brouhaha over his inauguration. ‘It was the most well-attended inauguration in history!’ he boasts. ‘It wasn’t!’ counter his enemies. He reasserts that it was. They dive into the archives to find photos of other inaugurations. Obama filled the quadrangle. Trump’s crowd is visibly far less. HA!, they shout in victory—surely now that they have caught him in a lie, he will fess up to it. He doesn’t! 

Night after night they run the two photos side by side on national news broadcasts, ignoring everything else. They point to the gaping holes in Trump’s photos that are not there with Obama’s photos. “These are FACTS!” they are close to screaming. “You cannot dispute FACTS!” He does. He doubles down, nearly to the point of saying: “No event in human history has drawn the attendance of my inauguration!”

Tearing their hair out, they invite his advisor on TV—Kellyanne. They rub her nose, and the noses of their viewers, into their two photos. ‘The FACTS show that Obama drew way more than Trump! Right here—look at just this spot! There is just bare ground with Trump and there is shoulder-to-shoulder people with Obama! FACTS are FACTS!

But Kellyanne says that the President is trying to draw attention to alternative facts. He is trying to draw attention to.........’ALTERNATIVE FACTS!! they are apoplectic. ‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN “ALTERNATIVE” FACT!!! A FACT IS A FACT IS A FACT IS A FACT!! THERE ARE NO “ALTERNATIVE FACTS!!” 

But the Advisor to the President insists that they are, and that the media ignores them. They consist of the fact of popular discontent with the “swamp” that propelled him to victory in the first place. Whatever Trump said to the ignored half of America clearly resonated with them, and it is being ignored by the mainstream media. Today he crows about the economy. Bill Clinton garnered adoration from pundits with his, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Today these same pundits will portray the economy as though an insignificant point.

As for me, I enjoy the spectacle, without taking any position as to whether he makes a good president or not. He may be a terrible one, but I like the way he turns the tables on those seeking to destroy him. I am not even sure that his numerous spelling errors are not deliberate. When he tweets that North Korea has launched its nuclear missels, people of common sense will run to take cover. People of the media will run to their keyboards to point out that the idiot can’t even spell the word right. 

Life is a continued term paper to many of these characters. They did well on term papers in college. They have grades from their professors to prove it. So they launch into the media that only attracts a certain type of people—those who imagine that ‘exposing’ problems is enough to fix them—and assume that life, too, will respect their term paper skills as highly as their professors did. They have little experience in actually doing anything. They are mostly wonks when it comes to government—and the fixes that their type of government can bring is their obsession.

As for me, I take note that if there is any new meme guaranteed to undermine traditional family life, these characters are all over it. If there is any new meme that will bend gender distinctions, for example, these characters are all over it. Gayle King dutifully appended the Q on LGBTQ before she even knew what it meant—I heard her say it. Did it mean ‘queer?’ Did it mean ‘questioning?’ She didn’t know. But she didn’t dare leave it out once the gods of media popularity told her to insert it. With this track record, anyone who can get these characters incensed cannot be all bad.

When the world at last wakes up to a problem, it wildly overswings. It misses its target, who ducks, and hits square in the teeth the unsuspecting, innocent, and ordinary joe standing just behind.‬ Will this be soon be the case in the world of blogging?

Mr. Admin thinks so. He runs a big site. He will go down at the end of the year, he fears, “as will many, many bloggers and other small ad-supported websites due to onerous and draconian data privacy laws.”

He cites an article:

“The [California Consumer Privacy Act, to go into effect at year end] was supposed to curb the purportedly abusive privacy practices of internet giants (like Google and Facebook) and data brokers. Unfortunately, the law overshot this goal; it reaches most businesses, online or off. Facebook may have been the target, but the local pizzeria will bear the law’s brunt.” Cost of compliance to these new mandates, which carries a $20 fine per incident for any internet hit from California are so onerous that anyone not in the same league as Facebook will simply fold.”

“Well, if you are not in California and have no critical interests there, who cares if you run afoul of their law? What’s the worst that can happen?” I asked him. He continued to fret:

“I doubt development companies like IPS or Wordpress have dedicated anything to this problem. They were probably hoping Google would make it go away....Would you risk life changing fines “per incident” to make even $100 monthly profit? High risk + Low Reward = Find a new hobby for most small time publishers/bloggers/forum owners.”

Hmm. He’s not in California. But he doesn’t want to risk a trip to the mailbox to discover a letter:

“Dear Mr Admin:

It’s “Hasta la vista” for you, baby!

Very truly yours

Arnold Schwartsnegger - Governor emeritus of California”

PS — I’ll be back!

Now, I hang out there quite a bit on the forum of Admin. I have written substantial portions of text there latter reorganized to comprise parts of “Dear Mr. Putin - Jehovah’s Witnesses Write Russia,” and “TrueTom vs the Apostates!” I think his fears are overblown and that outfits such as he mentions will come up with some solution that they will use to justify a price increase—hopefully not too huge. Our worst dreams do come true, but they usually come true gradually, not all at once with a swipe of the pen.

There will be a gateway at the entrance of blogs, I predict, where ones who wish to participate will waive away privacy rights. Already I see such things. Or (better yet) there will be developed a firewall to ban anyone from California, and then the outrage of those persons will cause lawmakers to backtrack. They do not want to be like John Jay, who negotiated a treaty with the British so unpopular that he later wrote he could ride the road from Philadelphia to Washington at night, his path lit solely by the burning effigies of himself hanging every 50 yards or so. 

Still, Admin is closer to this than me, and paying more attention. Maybe I underestimate the problem and his forum will indeed go down. If so, I will miss it. But I will also move on. I have used my time well there. Engaging with malcontents, villains, as well as some “avant-garde” brothers has served to hone both my writing and my thinking. In turn, I have used that to write larger collections that stand on their own, even if distribution methods themselves may change. Admin himself rebuked me long ago, and the experience served as a quirky introduction to “TrueTom vs the Apostates.”

It finally dawned upon the troublesome “Foreigner” that Mr. Admin is not a Witness, and he said that now he realized it.

He didn’t know that? Admin has said it often enough. “So here you come charging like a bull,” I told him, “upbraiding for apostasy anyone displaying the slightest deviation from the latest writing of the Witness organization, far in excess of what they would ever insist upon themselves, and you do it all before unbelievers, making Witnesses look ridiculous!”

It is nearly as absurd as (I have seen it) the spectacle presented when brothers tell each other on Facebook that so-and-so is disfellowshipped, and so be careful not to associate with that one. Since you can’t really know what is real and what is rumor, one sister even proposed phoning an elder in the person’s home congregation to ask if so-and-so was in good standing or not. All this before just regular folk who know or care nothing of congregation matters. I responded that if I were that elder, I might comply once or twice, being caught off guard, but after that I would say: “Enough! I have a family, a job, congregation responsibilities, and a life! Now you want me to police the internet? Stay off social media if you have to ask such questions!” The internet is not the congregation and cannot be made to behave like one. Do not venture online if you cannot get your head around this.

Another value to me of the forum (and online in general) that may tank—if it does, it does—is the discipline of addressing heavy, even controversial spiritual topics, knowing non-Witnesses might be listening in, and learning how to say heavy things without turning them off. I mean, they may not like the religion itself, and if such is the case, there is nothing to be done about it. But sometimes it is our own inartfulness that is the turn-off, and I have learned (relatively) how to be artful. It is no more that what Paul said:

“To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to gain Jews; to those under law I became as under law, though I myself am not under law, in order to gain those under law. To those without law I became as without law, although I am not without law toward God but under law toward Christ, in order to gain those without law....I have become all things to people of all sorts, so that I might by all possible means save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22)

Most Witnesses are not good at this. When they engage with non-believers, it is strictly mundane, regarding business matters or the weather—OR they go into “witness mode” and tell them of the paradise, petting the animals, and how the Trinity is a crock. They don’t seem to know how to mix the two. I have learned to do that, and I credit sites like Admin’s with providing the needed practice.

It is a good skill to develop, I think. We won’t be described as so “insular” should we ever pull of that trick. But I think we never will pull it off.. “Insularity” is too close to being “no part of the world”—a condition that must be so for Christians, per James 4:4, for example: “Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is making himself an enemy of God.”

If Admin’s worst fears are realized and his site goes down, other sites will go down for the same reason. That will kick out tons of “apostate” sites, and I have no problem with that. “I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it,” is the saying of Voltaire, not me. When it comes to trashing spiritual things, I’d just as soon they not say it. I can live with it should that become the new law.

None of this will affect the official channel, JW.org, that is not into collecting data in the first place, and when they do for the sake of log-in accounts, I think even already they require applicants to yield on such newfound concerns—and you should hear the apostates howl over that!

In fact, I think what Bethel will say with regard to the apostates who hang their hearts on the BITE model [Behavioral, Information, Thought, and Emotional “control”] is: “The idiots! They pressed their ‘victimization’ complaints to such absurd lengths that the asp came around to bite them in their own rear ends, knocking them all offline.” 

As for Admin, he will have to find himself a new hobby. They are offering pickleball lessons down at the Rec Center, I hear—a fine way for duffers to keep in shape. It wouldn’t hurt me were I to sign up myself, and maybe I will see him there. Maybe someday I will even see him at the Kingdom Hall—that is, if he did not get chased away by the hotheads on his own forum.

After that, in search of new things to do, I may even start to tackle more of Mrs. Harley’s to-do list. Say—you don’t suppose that it is she who spoke to California lawmakers, do you?