Too Gray Now

Leaderdang, Edjudication, Acquisition, Distraction (or true L.E.A.D.) Distraction: What an effective way to stop trailer trucks!! Get TWO good looking women out there on the pavement, they show a little leg… let their long hair go wild… then the guy tries to look like he isn’t interested…. and you could pull over a whole convoy of trucks. And here I thought it was supposed to be about prayer, and being like minded…. nope… just show some leg! That is what I learned at LEAD. The original acronym seems pretty bogus to me.

Leaderdang, Edjudication, Acquisition, Distraction (or true L.E.A.D.) Then there was Acquisition: Bill Fury traded every thing he could get (including toilet paper to yours truly) to get as many of those carob things that were almost a candy bar. He was headed for some SWEET fellowship on his duo… and THEN…. he got apprehended by Gary Le_ C _ _ _ S. He made him take all of carob out. Then Bill started to leave… and Gary said… “Come on, Bill. I said ALL of IT!”. Bill F. looked like some guilty 12 year old. He reached deep into his pockets… and …. I don’t know how he did it, but he also had about a dozen “Mallow Cups” stashed in his pack, too!! Talk about CONTRABAN!! Come to find out, someone had ratted him out since he wouldn’t share. So he had no sweets for his Sew Low. Darn shame. That was Acquisition.

Leaderdang, Edjudication, Acquisition, Distraction (or true L.E.A.D.) Then Edjudication. (actually spelled Adjudication). Remember when they would judge if you were trying hard enough or when you had enough… I remember this girl… cried her eyes out because hiking was so hard and she was so tired. She about had a cow right there in the middle of the trail. So what did our leaders do? Screamed at her for being weak minded, out of shape, spiritually off, yadda, yadda, yadda. She just sat there. If I remember I gave her something to wipe her tears. She was grateful. I was glad to help. Got some looks from people who though I was aiding and abetting the enemy. Could not figure out who would judge someone so harsh just because it wasn’t her thing. But hell, I was first year corps… wasn’t “spurt-chull” enough to Edjudicate like them staff folk. What a GIFT ministry they had! Take someone who was already CAVED-IN, and then…. verbally abuse her until she is completely in a heap!!!

Leaderdang, Edjudication, Acquisition, Distraction (or true L.E.A.D.) Regarding the sew low… certain people in our group had some real issues… Take the Leaderdang issue… I couldn’t get my climbing belt off FAST enough to answer natures call. Apparently, some of the staff never got schooled in the fine points of the affects of water-born protozoa that lurked in the local water supply. Didn’t climb much for 3 days. So… TomStrange… don’t even mention squirt gun around me. Heck, I couldn’t get out of camp fast enough at night to make it, either. I ended up turning over a rock 2 feet in front of my tent door. Yup. I went in the camp. A real No-No. But you Do-Do when you gotta Do-Do.

Exxie... Lemme get this straight.... you LIKED the sauna? Hey i know, i know... sugar an spice an everything nice an all but ours hones to god smelled far worse than any locker room i ever set foot in. Now about Moira, yup i went with the wife, but we went with her, too. twas a 3 way (hitchhike, that is. She was great. i wonder what happened to her??? she sang songs to this truck driver's kid and he was in LOVE with her!! she could have been mrs. rogers the way this young boy locked on to her. i think the driver wanted to take us all the way because moira was so good to his son.

notinkansas you are getting warmer. Actually, I only remember the name of our band... not all the bands. I never did have black hair, but was married the whole way through. Now,if you were in way prod your second year, we definatly met. Hey EX... I was a nut. I loved lead. Heck, before I got in twi, I taught instructors from the Outward Bound School on some skiing techniques. So lead was a vacation to me. the wife HATED it. on my solo, I blew up a rock with my camp fire (not on purpose). honest to god. it put my fire out, it stuck a fragment in a tree like some kung-foo fighting star, miracle, though, none of it hit me. hardest thing for me was the smell in the "indian" sauna. nasty. bunch of guys that had not had a bath in 12 days get in a hot hut and share their odors. skank nasty is the only way to describe that.

Hey Strange one: Nope. Never did D.R. set up. I am not that man. I have also looked behind the curtain and saw a huge pile of jack shi_. Being spooked by the realization that TWI was full of it, I quit looking, went out on the field, and proceeded to refuse any full time positions.

Hey Ex, So you WERE 9th corps...??? What brought me to this thread? Because I was 11th, I knew a lot of 9th. And this thread was cookin' compared to the 11th. I am looking for people I might know. I did already give you a big clue in a prior post when I said that George Kelly recorded with us and I was in one of the bands. Enough said. How about a clue from you...? And you would be....

Not a monk... but I know to whom you refer....

And you were in what corps.....???? HMMMMM???

You guys are pretty good at the Colombo thing! I was 11th corps. There. It's out. You squeezed me. Hey Ex... sorry about the "pamphlet" thing, that was a cut and paste error on my part. Meant nothing. I can't spell worth a shi_ so I gotta cut and paste from MSWord so I can spell check... you are lucky I don't post engineering specifications by mistake. Engineers can't spell. Hell, we can barely add. Now you are on to something about the good seed thing.... That is how I got to know Rick P. I was in one of those music groups back in residence. I am not George Kelly, but George did record a song with us on one of our tapes. But the question about what corps you were in was directed towards you, Ex.. I thought I read in another post that you were NOT in the 9th... maybe the 7th??... Do you know Barbara Crane/Bennett? But as we close in on who I am... I gotta find out who some of you guys are... seems only fair.

simonZ... Bingo! Year 2. But how do you KNOW I am not you? Are you too gray for your age? If not, then you're right. You aren't me.

HEY Ex.... so you are behind on your sponsorship... Eh? Need Money, do you?? Let me see your journal. I am sure you are still keeping a journal, right??? Every day?? My bet is you have been writing some negative stuff in your journal and it has acted like a giant “GO BROKE MAGNET”. When that magnet gets energized, it is a sure recipe to run OUT-O-CASH in residence. So here is a little secret. SEXXIE… or EXXIE… sorry…when in residence, there were a bunch of us making our own money. Yup. A book I stole a long time ago taught us how. Got it off the junk table in Advanced Class 77. It had a similar title to something VP had written. The book off VPW’s junk table was entitled "CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE PHOSPHOROUS". Notice the spelling of the last word. This was a real find . The other book, “Christians Should Be Prosperous” was a joke VP made up just to get people not to read the phosphorous book. Anyway, here is how we did it. You make money by buying a whole bunch of kitchen matches and scrapping off the heads of the matches (the phosphorous) and then you turn it into a paste by adding moonshine (available on grounds at the above locations, prior post)… then you add some India Ink that you could steal from Devine Design (they never missed it!!) then get some lawn clippings from in front of Kenyon Hall… and some linen from the bellows off the pipe organ (this stuff was hard to steal because, Steve Un_ _ _ _ _ was there rebuilding it)… convert all to a slurry and then go to the Top of Anderson Lib. and pull out the 3rd brick from the seventh step in the upper area of the turret, and pull out the $20 plates. Put the slurry in, and come back in 3 days, and you had $1,000 in crisp 20s!! True. I lie not. Bill Fury laundered it in poker games off grounds. That is how we got it switched out. EX - I made money for a lot of people. You should have let me know you needed some… course I don’t know who you are, either.

HINTS You want, hmmmm? HINT 1: I drank while in residence. On grounds. If you were in residence, then you know there were only a few places to do this or you didn’t know it happened at all. Where would you go to get Moonshine in residence at Emporia? College Division people. Rick Pany_ _ _ usually had something. Marrian Myster_ _ _ (sp?) used to keep a stash of moonshine in her room, too. If you had a particularly hard day and could handle your liquor, you could go to her room and she would fix you up. Nice girl. Big heart. Had a lot of fun with her and others who just could not stand it without a break sometimes. Pat L_ _ _ ‘s. apartment was another good watering hole. There weren’t that many drinking buddies that were in residence…. so … you had to be discreet. HINT 2: Ronnie Wallace was my WOW 2 brother. (that ought to narrow it down. He only had two and one never went in the corpse.) HINT 3: I went lead with Moira Kinney(sp?) There. Enough clues. pamphalet You said in an older post you were not 9th corps... so what c. were you?

Sorry Tom Strange... I just talked about you like you are ready to be put in a nursing home.... by talking over your post... right past your nose, and asking EX who you are...like you are some Altzheimer's patient or something. so... tom... who are U...?? wanna give it up...??? I don't know anyone here either... Tell you what... You show me yours... and I'll... never mind. keep your screen name. I ain't tellin either. Solidarity, brother! Annonimity for ever!

Hey Ex...Who is Tom Strange? Have you figured out who this guy is, yet?... his writing reminds me of the way Bill Fury looked. Kind o wild. But very funny.

If you are asking about Skip Mesquite, (Tower of Power, Way Productions...) he is still in the San Fran area doing music. He was/is a heck of a musician and a good man.

Ramming Speed!! Remember that line from the movie Ben Hur? All the slaves rowing to the beat of the drum, chained to the oars... and the BAM !@! The ship gets broad-sided by another vessel and starts to sink. Then the slave (Ben Hur) escapes and saves the captain on a floating piece of wreckage... Nice movie. Good parallel to the current innies... Everyone has to wonder and work out for themselves if they are going to be the "Ben Hur" or just a hapless slave. There is nothing that guarantees there will be a Ben Hur outcome where some ?lowly? person gets to "Save" the President of TWI... given that everyone is willing to go down with the ship or is chained to it... then the BEST THING that could happen would be to hear... RAMMING SPEED!! And let the resulting CRASH be the deciding factor that helps sort everything out. A sudden impact would be better than dragging out the slow demise of this fiasco masquerading as a ministry and to watch fine people whither as they row with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and might? who are slaves that exist ONLY to give power to the ship.

Goey: This topic struck a nerve with me because I am a business owner and have been to court and have a respect for what meets the reasonable man test. TWI does not. You focused on MOTIVE, I focused on MEANS. Together, they create a 1,2 punch that is very damning. It is always more difficult to PROVE motives of the heart. I am sure there are innies that would not even CONSIDER what you propose... that their Board of Trustees are cons, rotten to the core?. They just won?t consider it. The fact that you offer a ?likely explanation? does not mean it will be received as such by innies. And that is ?Damn Sad? all by itself. On the other hand, a reasonable (read: responsible) company would have ALREADY acted and put measures in place to protect against what has happened at the top, regardless of motive? simply based upopn the OUTCOME ... but they have not done so? If I was running a company and let corporate secrets out of the bag so that insider trading could take place, I would be fired and convicted when caught. There are laws on the books to prevent such a scenario. Why? Because there is enough past history to show there are OTHER problems created that damage the company and market FAR more than the $$ that resulted from the inside trade. The problems that came as a result of allowing LCM to do some insider wife trading? or other ?insider? things? was MUCH more damaging to the organization at many levels and should never have been allowed to continue by the Board of Trustees. Wall Street and the Securities and Exchange Commission have procedures in place whenever they see insider trading because they know that such secret, forbidden fruit results in EXPONENTIAL damages? and it does not take 50 years to figure out stuff like this?. Any responsible person knows that human nature has not changed? people will cheat. People will deceive. Wall Street figured it out, but TWI hasn?t figured it out, yet. One thing is for sure, the leaders of TWI are unfit to run the organization... regardless if they are the two-bit cons or if they are the irresponsible people that I claim them to be... There is no organizational clout within that would empower ?followers? to come forward and demand that the Board of Trustees (BOT) actually BECOME RESPONSIBLE and require that they do things in the best interests of the followers. The BOT have never put in place ANY mechanism that creates a responsibility to its members? there is no membership, you can not join TWI, legally. There is no means to do so. By any corporate standard, the BOT have shown themselves to be, in the face of every past crisis - incompetent. By some measures, they might prove to be shrewd operators, and by other means - .they may very well prove to be ? criminals in a court of law. In the mean time, I have little hope that they will ever get to the real matters of the heart that you or I raise, Goey. And deception is always a matter of the heart. Sad. Damn sad.

Can deception be adequately confronted? To me, that question has two different answers. From a personal perspective and from an organizational perspective. The organizational perspective is much "cleaner" to determine. From a personal perspective, one has to ask "Have I done what I must in order to confront the issue?". If the answer is ?yes? then that would be "adequate" on a personal level. If I judge that I have passed the reasonable man test, then the blood is on the other party's head and hands. Pontius Pilate, move over and make room. I am sitting down. However, on a practical basis if an organization has no MEANS in place to address such an issue, one would have to wonder which of the two answers are true (and neither is very pretty): 1. The Organization denies deception is possible. If the organization doesn't CARE about stopping deception, then there will be no mechanism in place to do so. (Which, with TWI, at the top, there is not). After 50 years of people getting "possessed", Mark and Avoid policies, summary dismissals, etc... One would have to conclude that the organization RECOGNIZES the POSSIBILITY that LOWER people can be deceived. Since the aforementioned issues HAVE arisen, one must conclude that the organization IN FACT DENIES the possibility of deception permeating the highest levels. If this is so, then how do the ?Fog Years? get explained by the top people?? I thought they were deceived at that time? 2. The Organization Does Not Require a Formal Means for Dealing with Deception because it is not a routine occurrence. If this were true, then it would mean that TWI top people have actually found a way to ESCAPE this world and our fleshly condition. I know they say it is called renewing the mind?. But if you believe that you only have to renew your mind once and it is forever clean in that area? then you have just told me that you are already deceived and in a high-minded form of denial. So no matter which way you slice it? TWI has been remiss by implementing any internal mechanism to deal with this OBVIOUS problems that HAVE ALREADY occured AT THE VERY TOP. They are in extreme denial about reality and human nature and are trying to ascend to ?God? status thinking they are above deception. So no. Deception can NOT be adequately confronted from within given the fact that organization is over 50 years old... In PRACTICE, they have shown their belief? deception does not exist. Very sad state of affairs. You can NEVER confront a drug addict about his problem until he believes he has one. From their point of view, they do not have a problem. The blood is on their heads.