WordWolf

Different people had different experiences in twi. Some people were destroyed by twi. Some of us benefited quite a bit-while being indoctrinated. NYC'ers in general are slow to bend their necks, so when lcm insisted on loyalty oaths, we didn't take it seriously. Me, I thought the other top twi'ers would help him get a clue and return to balance. A week or so later came the letter from lcm that he'd fired all the leaders I'd come to respect through experience because he said they served their own stomachs and deceived people. As NYC residents go, ONE person I knew in my borough decided to swear to lcm- a man I knew as a spritual lightweight, and less impressive than I already was despite being a lot older and having more time in twi. (Didn't know so much Bible, wasn't an Advanced Class Grad, etc.) a handful in the city stayed with lcm's loyalty oath, and the rest all left together. Although I'd met a number of knuckleheads in my first few years locally at twi, I'd met a number of quality Christians, too. (Occasionally, they were the same people.) When I took "the class", I was a high school student and had to scrape up the class fee. I asked one person to borrow his Bible to take the class. He said it was ok. When I got to the first session, a brand-new Bible was sitting there-a gift from another twi'er who wanted me to do well. A person I knew was balking at any commitment in taking "the class", and claimed (falsely) the reason was they didn't have the money. Someone they just met, whom I barely knew, then immediately offered to cover the class fee for them, no strings attached. (Someone else had already given them a Bible.) I've known twi'ers with compassion who genuinely cared about people, and who really loved God, Jesus and the Bible (as best we understood each.) I've also known prideful sob's who felt it was their duty to lord it over others- and that's at a LOCAL level! I've said it many times and will say it again- I'm glad I got in, and glad I got out. God's far bigger than the little box I had him in, and the Bible is deeper than I was taught and I've learned more useful (and respectful) approaches to reading it. Finally, I can associate with my fellow Christians now even if we don't all mark off the same checklist of beliefs.

I've posted plenty on this thread in 2 pages already that's worth discussing for or against, and the only things you can find worth commenting on are ONE sentence from each of 2 lengths posts, which you use to level an insult. Now I feel sorry for you. I don't know how much of my posts you actually read, but you certainly don't PERCEIVE most of any of them. After months and months of you singling out little sentences and erasing their contexts, I realize that the majority of the post becomes a mental BLUR and it's like reading it as "blah blah blah 'something I can insult' blah blah blah." (I might have noticed it sooner but I have lots of things on my mind.) BTW, one of vpw's trademarks was making a lot of things about HIM and about twi that were completely unrelated. According to him at different times, twi people living in California prevented the San Andreas Fault from having earthquakes, and Oklahoma City from having one, and so on. He supposedly was invited to meet the President when actually he requested an invite to an event where the President appeared, and they never MET but they were in the same reception hall at the same time. Amazing how so many things around the GSC become about you-whether or not someone's mentioning you or even thinking of you. This thread is about a subject that's been on my mind for YEARS. I've noticed you're unable to actually refute any point anyone's raised, and lowered the discussion to "yo momma" instead. The part about radical fundamentalism takes off from discussions I had the other year with someone else not on the GSC, after I read some news about a Muslim country and what people were being talked into. As others have agreed, it's applicable to twi and post-twi experiences as well. By definition, I was thinking of a NUMBER of people, which is obvious to anyone who reads even the TITLE of the thread and understands it, let alone the first post. I addressed hatred of Jews as well as other targets. Were you making anti-Semetic remarks on another thread lately? It wouldn't even matter if I WAS trying to actually "lecture" you, you only cherry-pick out the things you want to insult as it is. I could post something worthy of a Noble Peace Prize and you'd still be objecting to it. I never said I don't "hate"-in fact, I specified I hate child molesters, so, again, your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. So, you subtracted from the word of WordWolf, which means you no longer have the word of WordWolf. As for being "morally superior", I said nothing about that. You added to the word of WordWolf, which means you no longer have the word of WordWolf. You have what vpw (incorrectly) referred to as "private interpretation". So, one sentence, 3 errors (not actually lecturing when posting, moral superiority, not hating.) I never even suggested it was wrong to have ANY hate, but there's SPECIFIC things that vpw adherents all seem to hate in LOCKSTEP HARMONY. A) He doesn't get to redefine words already in usage in the English language, and it's a bit shocking that anyone would take his definitions seriously 25 years after he was dead, and over a decade after he was exposed as a fraud, plagiarist, con man, and man of the flesh rather than a man who walked after the Spirit. B) Supposedly, according to his "definition", any "strong dislike" is a "hate" (thus, missing a bus when you're in a hurry results in "hate") and 1/2 his definition is impossible for anyone in twi to ever feel. That's a pretty disjointed "definition", which makes sense when you realize the man's degree was in HOMILETICS and not ENGLISH or PHILOLOGY or any related subject. He had no business pretending he knew enough to claim a definition of an existing word-and changing it. None of that addresses the screaming he did at people whenever he felt like it. Was that "hate" as well? He also taught twi'ers to hate the things I mentioned in the first post, even if he never sent out a blunt memo saying "Henceforth, thou shalt hate the following groups...." I'm curious if you're even aware that's what this thread is ABOUT. Different radical fundamentalist groups have succeeded at different levels with their adherents. twi'ers are not known for killing sprees-but they have been known for demanding abortions or beating a child to the point he might actually die when what he needed was a medical exam and medication to correct a chemical imbalance. twi'ers have also reduced a Holocaust survivor to tears when they interrupted her INVITED appearance somewhere by screaming at her and calling her a liar. Only one poster's intervention stopped one man from going off with a gun to shoot someone dead because vpw said outright that someone should kill him. twi'ers have also told people that they or their family would drop dead if they left twi. Before you excuse them by saying adults should know better, yes, MOST adults do-but those indoctrinated into twi are trained to believe ridiculous nonsense and go to extremes defending twi. That leaves aside children who were told such things and were in real fear that they would drop dead. So, SOME radical fundamentalist groups have succeeded more than vpw in instilling hatred, ignorance and blanket accusations. Of course, they had a lead of centuries on him. For only having a few decades, he was quite successful. Decades after his death, there's still people who refuse to go beyond what vpw taught them, because he said "You can't go beyond what you've been taught" and they accepted that. Putting yourself in chains and staying in them for decades is not a sensible thing for an adult to do, whether the chains are steel or dogma.

He was the SON of the B in BTO. (Maybe you mistyped and meant exactly that.)

Another quote might be useful. (Or it might not, depending.)

Now, now....he's trying to change the subject and lob in an insult. Without meaning to, however, he's pointed out something we haven't discussed yet. THE CONTRAST. See, at the GSC, a lot of us agree on a number of things, like "it's wrong to drug and rape women" and "it's wrong to plagiarize things and claim you threw away all your books and used only the Bible and a connection with God to write stuff" and "men of God are supposed to conform to an acceptable standard of conduct that matches what the Bible says", things like that. We also disagree about many things-some are not Christians, some are adherents to a specific denomination or a different one, others do not. Why do we agree on a number of things yet disagree on so many others? Well, that's a matter of THINKING. We each use our free will (as I see it) and DECIDE what to think. If a religious leader says "The truth of a matter is A". we think about that. Maybe it's A, maybe it's not-A. Maybe it's B, C or D. Maybe sometimes it's A, and sometimes not-A or B. When it came to twi, we were all told to think in a specific way, and social sanctions (and sometimes other sanctions) were brought to enforce conformity if and when we disagreed. In twi, there's a lot of uniformity of speech and "groupthink." In the GSC, there's a lot of differences of opinion, but despite that, we agree on some things. Why? Because we thought about them and it is sensible to think those things. Examples: 1) It's a good idea to conform to the letter of the law for US citizens right now. 2) It's good to think for yourself. 3) vpw was a man who claimed to have a special connection with God, yet deceived everyone on a grand scale, including HIMSELF. Do we agree on them because we were TOLD? Do we agree on them because of INERTIA? No. we thought for ourselves and came to similar conclusions despite getting there different ways. ========================== So, twi told me who to hate. However, I don't hate who twi told me to hate. Who do I hate now? Well, child molesters and the like, rapists, like that. I dislike the people who deceive others, including themselves. I don't HATE them. If the suggestion is that I "hate" twi, I do not. I dislike the organization, I dislike the cadre running it, and I feel sorry for the people whose bodies and minds are still trapped therein. If the suggestion is that I "hate" vpw, actually, I don't. I have CONTEMPT towards him, and when he was alive, I would have been willing to kill him with my own hands for the monstrous evil he performed on women for whom Christ died. That wouldn't have been out of hate, but out of a sense of "cause and effect". He did actions which deserved a specific response, and should have gotten it. I actually feel sory for lcm, because he once knew better, and vpw destroyed his life and taught him to destroy the lives of others while thinking he was doing God's will. lcm is a prisoner of the "education" he received in twi. He doesn't even know what was wrong or why. If the suggestion is that I "hate" other posters, I dislike when they decide to misuse the quote function to deliberately confuse issues, and I dislike when they try and change the subject when they see an intelligent discussion but don't like the subject matter but lack the evidence or logic to make intelligent points against what they disagree with. I dislike when someone sees an intelligent discussion, and thinks a reaction and a clever comment is somehow worthy of the rest of the discussion. But I don't "hate" them. I FEEL SORRY for the posters when they do that. Those posters are prisoners of twi, victims as much as any woman vpw raped. They are still operating with the same "programs" vpw instilled- -hate anyone who says bad things about vpw, even if they are 100% true -live in ignorance that there's a LOT of things twi and vpw never knew, and make them your STANDARD -make blanket accusations whenever you don't like something rather than try to understand it. So, the suggestion that I'm "hating" something, actually, illustrates what this thread is about, quite nicely. A blanket accusation posted in ignorance, fueled by blind hatred. Frankly, the thread was incomplete without a live example on it. But someone volunteered to enter one. :)

Well, you included the entire title, "She's So High". I usually prefer the artist be included, but I can live without that. The original artist (there were covers) was Tal Bachman. Tal Bachman's dad is Randy Bachman, the Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive. I've heard it said (could be a rumor) that Tal got the idea for the song when someone told him about some woman he was scared to approach because she was out of his league. "She's so high above me." (His stepbrother? He supposedly tried to get the hottest girl in his high school to go out with his stepbrother...) Your turn!

As someone who came to classic rock more after much of it came out, I have heard a lot of songs without knowing the albums they came from. (I know them from radio-play or compilation albums OR their original albums.) So, it's not reminding me of anything yet. =============================== In other news, let's try another song. This one is more to the usual tastes on this thread, but is also more recent. (1999.) And has an interesting piece of trivia for classic rockers. "First class and fancy-free, she's high society. She's got the best of everything. What could a guy like me ever really offer her? She's perfect as she can be, why should I even bother?"

Admitting you produced something, then improved it later, is a good thing in most of the world. If you're claiming you're superior and, in effect, your work is perfect because it comes from God Almighty, admitting an improvement is a little like saying "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

That shouldn't surprise me. twi information came from undereducated people with bad sources of information who lacked the skills to tell the difference. When I was in high school, I started learning about "detente"- and how the US and "the Evil Empire" the USSR sometimes work together. (Actually, I brought UP the subject and was taught that word as a result.) lcm, he was at the podium saying how the US should let the USSR starve and not sell them food. On the one hand, it would have been bad for our food sales. On the other, the Bible and lcm made a sharp departure. lcm said to let the USSR starve because he said they were our "enemy". Romans 12:19-21 King James Version (KJV) 19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. What happened? The US didn't let the people of the USSR starve. The people eventually lightened up, and a few years after lcm's pronouncement, the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR broke up into its component countries. Our relations with each of them are pretty good, which is a good thing. That made sense according to the Bible and according to diplomacy and politics. It contradicted lcm who had no education in diplomacy and politics, and it seems his education in the Bible was deficient.

I still think that education and a good job insulates against radical fundamentalism like twi. Education means practice with thinking and evaluating, which is something. A good job means someone's invested in their own present and future. They have things they care about, and won't just drop their life because someone else wants them to. Ok, why do I think these were/are targets? 1) The Roman Catholic Church. vpw was against any church structure, but went after the RCC rather vocally. Why? On the one hand, there's doctrines he could attack easily (Mary worship and statues of saints and patron saints are easy targets.) On the other hand, as a man who sometimes lauded his Germanic heritage to the skies, the group Martin Luther objected to in Germany was something to object to as well. On the third hand, vpw was fond of getting some information from esoteric sources, even if those sources wore tinfoil hats to block the CIA scanners. He taught lcm to use them too- and lcm really thought JP II had bought an aircraft carrier. Why are they still hated? It's possible there's some logical reasons, but most really respond "hating them was good enough for vpw so it's good enough for me." 2) Women. vpw was denigrating of women long before he hijacked the hippies. By his own account, he was contemptuous of women and applauded Stiles for being rude to his own wife. (Was he really? According to vpw, he was, but that may have been another lie. We know vpw WANTED Stiles to be rude to his wife, which is the detail here.) Yet, he practically worshipped R1nker. What happened? Why the sharp disconnect? As I see it, there was a contempt and a hatred that suddenly turned to respect and SHAME (according to his own descriptions.) Hate women and suddenly respect one and feel shame? This makes sense if his hatred was masking a deep INSECURITY which he aimed at women. He insulted them because he felt THREATENED by them. Those who were worthy of deep EARNED respect made him almost submissive in response- like the chihuahua who barks nonstop then goes silent when the Rottweiler passes by. All other women were pushed down so insecure little vpw could feel "taller" by comparison. What makes it worse is that-until he turned part of twi into a stable of potential sex crime victims for himself and got twi'ers to worship him- he wasn't really as successful with women as he felt he DESERVED. He wanted lots of women to kiss his posterior, and they saw more of what he really was rather than how he saw himself. When he wanted to fool women, we know he succeeded decades later with some women much younger than himself. With the young and naive, he had his targets. As for those who still do, I think this is as much about their OWN insecurities as anything else. They find so little to laud of themselves that they feel tall only when someone else is pushed down. 3) Jews. A) Another instance of his "I'm siding with my fellow Germans, so..." B) Another instance of his "the people with the tinfoil hats say..." C) Another instance of "I'm insecure so I will target someone else and blame them for all the ills of society." If he was operating now, he'd be targeting Muslims and more current whipping boys. Those who still do it, do it out of ignorance, and to have a target. 4) "The establishment." vpw tried to make himself the ONLY information source for our lives, and any "establishment" people were direct threats to that. They could show him up as an amateur in many things and less than average while he's claiming to be an authority. It undermines his throne, and makes him feel insecure. Feeding vpw's ego was a big part of twi, whether it was with pliant women, cash, luxuries, or adoration.

I think it was the TV show thread, where it happened. There was someone who kept posting with the correct answers, and kept refusing to take a turn at posting something for someone else to guess. It didn't seem fair, then. I mean, it took time to try to find a good candidate for a round (TV show), then find good quotes that were possible to guess from. On the other side, it was fun to try to guess. So it was like someone was refusing to do the work of the thread, but insisted on posting the answers several times, which meant the others couldn't fairly "win" a round by guessing correctly. I mean, anybody can be busy once or possibly twice, but in that case it seemed like they were doing it on purpose. This was obviously not the same thing- you play nice with the rest of us all the time. However, it was starting to feel the same, especially since you posted FAST with an answer and immediately replied "Ok, someone else take my turn." I felt the need to bring it up. I think I know you better than that, and it might even have appeared one way to me but I was sure it was something different.

vpw made a number of changes between editions, and never indicated anything wasn't exactly the same as the previous editions.

I'm familiar with a few others by Weezer, notably "Buddy Holly". (I love the video, with Weezer playing at "Arnold's" on Happy Days.) Then there's "Keep Fishin'" with the Muppets. Waysider, you just refused to post a song twice in a row, with the second one being after you posted pretty quickly after someone posted lyrics. I would have LIKED to either try to guess YOUR song, or answer THIS one (I like "Yes" and "Yess" and "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe.") I'm confident you didn't mean it, but it's like you're TRYING to stop me from enjoying the thread by playing by the rules. If you were going to refuse to go, couldn't you just announce the answer out loud, not post, and let me or someone else fairly answer it?

Go ahead and answer it if you know it, dude!

Before the Enterprise could complete repairs, one scientist was injured and wandered off, and a local saw the inside a moment then took a serious injury. His life was saved on the Enterprise, and the attempt to erase his memories failed. He came back, raving about a god called "the Picard" and said he was The Overseer they used to believe in long ago (a belief in a god.) "Who Watches the Watchers". I find the episode fascinating for all its message. We have a society that EXPERTS say is VERY rational and practical. A member sees something he doesn't understand and IMMEDIATELY decides it is a specific incident reviving belief in an Almighty. He also leaps from "I have seen 'the Picard'" to "'The Picard' is The Overseer' " and NOBODY calls him on it. In a matter of HOURS, people are ascribing SUPERNATURAL significance to a mundane storm. and advocating hurting or killing people in case it MIGHT please 'the Picard.' We also have Picard himself saying ANY belief in ANY god will result in religious wars and "DARK AGES." Finally, Picard all but said outright that it was better to just let a local die from injuries accidentally caused by the Federation rather than violate the Prime Directive. There's quite a message in this episode. Anyway, you go. That was at least the same episode I posted.

BTW, for a quick sample of the kind of things lcm spewed, there's how he dealt with the Way Corps full-time fiasco. lcm had made a replacement for the pfal class. It was awful and grossly inferior to the pfal class. NOBODY wanted to take it. (Few people can be convinced to buy a bad product.) So, lcm decided to increase enrollment for pfal by making all the Way Corps FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES for twi. Now, rather than being sources of income for twi (full-time workers sending in 10% of their income to twi), they became financial LIABILITIES (twi had to send THEM money to live on) in the hopes they'd make the money back in enrollments. This failed miserably because nobody wanted to buy a defective product. The real kicker was the 2 weeks of required appearances at twi. See, twi had the Rock of Ages event every Summer, and Corps Week before that where the Corps arrived, spent time together, and set up the ROA. They did this at their own expense each year. But this year, now twi had to pay for ALL of them to arrive, and pay them for both weeks when they had gotten them to work for FREE BOTH WEEKS before. (vpw had complained that the people who came to hq on their own money and spent what might have been their only vacation time doing manual labor for twi for free- but didn't stay ANOTHER week to do it. He wanted MORE free labor from them and complained some had to return to work.) Shortly thereafter, the ROA was cancelled as an event, which cancels Corps Week as a result. So, this was all because lcm said God said the Corps was supposed to go full-time, which was a disaster for twi in many ways, and also led to more people quitting twi. (All those Corps with no jobs and lots of time were told to meddle in the private lives and homes of all the innies, and some innies finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and left.) Naturally, some people discussed what a disaster the full-time thing was. lcm responded. "How many hours have you wasted debating whether Rev. Martindale is right or wrong in sending the Way Corps full time? What a waste of time. You have no right to discuss whether I'm right or wrong. It's not your responsibility. You make up your mind either to back us up or support us or you're wrong. Period. Wrong." He called that tape ""The Key to Success is to Obey." A few people still claim that lcm wasn't telling people to BLINDLY FOLLOW him.

I've said in the past that the best solution for radical fundamentalism and hate-speech in Islamist countries is EDUCATION and JOBS. The reasons I've said that are clear to me- the people who feel powerless and have nothing (no jobs or underemployment, and undereducated so their prospects are limited) are vulnerable to manipulation. The HAVES (rich Arabs who have all the local wealth and rely on locals having no access to the wealth, enabling themselves to grab it all) manipulate the HAVE NOTS (people with no prospects, struggling to raise families) by giving them simple answers- but especially by telling them WHO TO HATE. So, the Have Nots learn who to hate. Then they are told they can provide for their family by blowing themselves up to blow up their hate targets, because those with lots of money will hand over a little to the family. That's how a lot of suicide bombers get sucked in- they think blowing themselves up accomplishes something God wants and feeds their family. ============================= twi ALSO told people who to hate. "Bushwah!" you might say. I'd point out that all the people who still revere wierwille also still HATE THE SAME HANDFUL OF TARGETS. Who is a loyal twi'er supposed to hate? 1) The Roman Catholic Church. Can't discuss the RCC with them without hearing about how the RCC is unmitigated evil and should be shut down. Anyone remember lcm talking about the previous Pope buying an aircraft carrier and preparing to convert everyone by threatening to blow them up? It's ok to resent the sexual predators and molesters in the RCC, but those in twi must be defended to the last. (Me, I'd prefer both prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and possibly beyond, but according to vpw apologists, I can't be fair or even-handed, so I must not be typing this at all. 2) Women. vpw and lcm stressed how women should be kept in their place. Wives especially must submit to their husbands- and this was meant to mean wives should be submissive and pliant to whatever their husbands said, and should never have a mind of their own. Wives can't make decisions without finding out what he thinks, and all decisions are subject to him overturning them no matter what. Any woman who doesn't fit in that category is to be ignored or vilified. The only time to listen to them at all is to look for talking points to illustrate how misguided they are. (Why else would one quote COMEDIENNES to illustrate how women are hateful?) 3) Jews. vpw insisted that the modern Jews were not the historical Jews at all- and this was definitively refuted using DNA tests. Yet, vpw apologists STILL say that, and say the Holocaust was wildly exaggerated, using the must flimsy of refuted excuses to claim that is so. All the evidence showing vpw was completely wrong in each assertion is to be ignored completely. There were a few others, too. 4) In general, "the establishment" was never to be trusted, whether it's government, any industry (like entertainment), or educational (people with degrees who are recognized authorities on any subject. Anyone else want to chime in on WHY each of these is such a SPECIFIC target, and why vpw was down on them, or why vpw apologists still hate them?

Indeed, it IS. I thought that was a big clue, myself. I also included a few quotes that would have reminded ME of the movie. Most of you are overdue to see this movie again. See it, it's funny. =========================================== "Life's like a movie, write your own ending..." "..keep pretending, keep believing, and that's just what we've set out to do...." "...with the lovers...the dreamers...and you!" The Muppets in the theater at the end, working on the movie. (The last line was a callback to "the Rainbow Connection" from early in the movie.) "Hey you. You with the banjo. Can you help me? I have lost my sense of direction." "Have you tried Hare Krishna?" The Hare Krishna thing was a running gag in the movie, and was even said to be one IN the movie. "We am, is, are, and be, they whom as are known as: The Electric Mayhem!" Dr Teeth's band is The Electric Mayhem! I would have worked out the movie just from that. "They don't look like Presbyterians to me." Fozzie, looking in the church and seeing the band practice. "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?" "A four foot prune!" Floyd and Dr Bunsen Honeydew. "Jack, get rid of this heap. Come out here! "What? What?" "That's my jack." "Oh, hi Jack!" "Jack not name! Jack job!" That big Muppet, who picked up care. "When a German scientist tells you to hold on to your hat, it's not casual conversation. HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT! HAT! HOLD! Good." Mel Brooks as the mad scientist. Go, Raf!

Don't soften what he's doing. It's plagiarism. If someone takes the words of another and uses them without attribution, it's plagiarism. If someone takes the words of another, and substitutes a few words, without attribution, it's plagiarism. If someone takes the words of another, and substitutes a lot of words, without attribution, it's plagiarism. If someone takes the concepts of another, changes the wording, and does not attribute, it's plagiarism. Hendricks knows full well where he got his material. Hendricks knows full well there's copyright notices in the source material. When he used it without attribution, it was both plagiarism and copyright infringement. Don't pretend he didn't know that was both morally and legally wrong. That goes for all the others, too. Even when they break the law for what they perceive to be sufficient reason, they're aware (or are idiots in denial) that they ARE breaking the law.

I shall try to be brief but cover all the points. lcm ("L. Craig Martindale", as he billed himself) was a college student whose skills were strictly average, whose claim to excellence was being on his college's football team, and participating in "the big game" (he neglected to mention he "rode the bench" and didn't PLAY in "the big game." He was recruited straight from college (he graduated with a Bachelors in Psychology, according to him), was impressed by vpw, and immediately afterwards, rushed into the relatively new "way corps" program. When he was unsure he'd be able to pay the full 4 years of tuition, vpw told him he could stay as long as his money held out. Shortly after he "graduated" that program, he was immediately put in charge of the "WOW" program. According to his own account, he began by making elementary mistakes (understandable given how he was never trained in any way for it.) Some time after that, he was placed in charge of the Way Corps program. His entire adult life after college was spent on-site with twi with no time out in a real apartment holding down a real job. His "training" was sporadic, and consisted of vpw trying to make lcm into a younger version of himself-giving him a motorcycle, telling him he would have to "loosen up" concerning sex outside his marriage if he ever wanted to "lead God's people" and so on. When it came time for vpw to retire, vpw made a big deal out of an open search for his replacement, but he had lcm planned for years as his replacement. He once said that the reason was that lcm never questioned his orders-if he told lcm to do something, he'd just do it. The general thinking was either that lcm had been voted in (what I'd been told) or that the Corps "vets" would follow where he led. However, he lacked all the skill at conning people vpw had-and genuinely thought vpw was telling the truth. So, he was a lot more OVERT where vpw would do things quietly and slyly. Shortly after vpw's death, people began hearing about sexual abuse by vpw, or endorsed by vpw and performed by his inner circle including lcm. A number of higher-ups in twi started to try to address this, and over a few years, the result was lcm insisting that his position as President of twi in essence granted him "papal infallibility" and everyone had to follow him. This led to several top twi'ers being kicked off grounds or leaving, and maintaining communication with others in twi. Eventually, lcm demanded an oath of loyalty to him from all twi staff, and all twi Corps "vets". One said it sounded to him like "Craig" was asking him to follow him "BLINDLY", to which lcm replied that HE HAD BEEN DOING THAT ALL ALONG. lcm followed this up with demanding an oath of loyalty all around. About 80% of twi staffers and members in general left twi rather than swear an oath of loyalty to lcm, for any of a number of reasons. This left twi at 20% of its previous membership. lcm seemed nicer for a short time, but then began to sound truly insane, making weird pronouncements and announcements, and making policy decisions that kept damaging twi over and over. Meanwhile, he continued to do what vpw insisted he would need to do-and pressed women into having sex with him. Eventually, one sued, and twi was unable to hush her up. So, all the people who had collaborated with lcm and conspired with him (including Mrs LCM and the current President of twi) all threw him under the bus, claiming they knew nothing of this, he acted alone, etc. Eventually, he was dismissed as President and from other positions and has dropped from sight. (Unconfirmed accounts have him living with twi'ers and having twi provide for his financial needs despite him no longer being OFFICIALLY connected in any way.) A discussion of his own account of his early twi days was on the thread called "vp and me in wonderland." www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/8019-vp-and-me-in-wonderland/

No promises. I don't know this one, and if I don't, and you're excluded from guessing, it's likely no one might. Or someone could surprise me, but that's not a sure thing. Just saying.

"Life's like a movie, write your own ending..." "..keep pretending, keep believing, and that's just what we've set out to do...." "...with the lovers...the dreamers...and you!" "Hey you. You with the banjo. Can you help me? I have lost my sense of direction." "Have you tried Hare Krishna?" "We am, is, are, and be, they whom as are known as: The Electric Mayhem!" "They don't look like Presbyterians to me." "What in the name of Fats Waller is that?" "A four foot prune!" "Jack, get rid of this heap. Come out here! "What? What?" "That's my jack." "Oh, hi Jack!" "Jack not name! Jack job!" "When a German scientist tells you to hold on to your hat, it's not casual conversation. HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT! HAT! HOLD! Good."

Correct, of course. I suppose you recognize that text block as the counterpoint in the song. The drummer sings it twice in the song, at different times.

Seriously- they "marked and avoided" you, and that was the reason, either stated or actual???

"This song was in my head, now it's in my mind, call it reach it get some words and get some timing. And though I realize, I cannot emphasize, I'll stick around but just don't promise, nothing binding. And baby can't you see, that you're so desperately, a standing joker like a vocal one-liner. Instead of sing-a-long, this song is monotone, I've gotta get some soul I gotta get some feeling." "I never say anything at all, But with nothing to consider they forget my name (name, name, name) They call me hell They call me Stacey They call me her They call me Jane." "They call me quiet But I'm a riot Mary-Jo-Lisa Always the same" "Are you calling me 'Darling'? Are you calling me 'Bird'?" If anyone knows the song, they'll get it now. Otherwise, I'll switch songs because nobody here knows it.