Posted by Max on March 20, 1999 at 05:05:59 {MWKglaQqh7SVg}:
Last time I posted here, I said I'd try to get a grip to go with the life I've got since leaving the JW's. Well, I've been trying...but a wine or two has helped me back to H2O.
Last week it was the excellent SBS show on blood. This Monday is the Chicago Hope episode ('McNeill violates the right of a young Jehovah's Witness to refuse treatment'). On Tuesday it's All Saints (local equivalent). The guide says 'When a Jehovah's Witness is admitted for treatment, Terri (Nun nurse) and Luke (secular Jew nurse) find themselves on opposing sides of an ethical dilemma'. (Got a Memorial invite too).
It'd be hard for JW's to claim overt bias in the SBS coverage. It was JW's who did much of the talking. I was impressed that they got the JW grammar and phrasing right. JW's get riled and tune out quickly when people say 'Jehovah Witness' or 'church' or such like. SBS didn't. (Does this go to the mind control thing - talking in a special language no-one else can quite master so can't quite get through??)
John Moritz' (the bethel elder) rather, ummm, self-confident (his reputation would suggest, well, egotistical) personality came through well. (How can a 60-something man say he's too young to remember 1980 - pleeezzze�)
When I try to do a circular reference in Excel, it tells me off. Right after Jan Grovenveld and two other named ex-JW's had been talking on camera, Moritz made the usual JW complaint about anonymous dissenters like LE (named) and others (most here I guess) hiding behind the relative anonymity of the Net. When asked why they did so, he replied 'That's a very good question' in the context of implying that they were just one or two 'troublemakers' with multiple personalities. So, reveal your ID and be ignored as an irrelevent non-entity with a grudge or whatever; or remain an anonymous irrelevent non-entity with a secret grudge - I think that's circular reasoning - where's the circuit breaker? At least an error message :-)
Enough.
Bye
Max