When you click on the title link, you will see the programming schedule for a semi-independent/CW station in the New Iberia/Lafayette/Lake Charles region, which reaches across the Atchafayala Basin & Mississippi to my 10-year-old rabbit-ears TV.When you're up & about in the wee small hours, as I am wont to do, you flip through the channels, looking for some pleasant or at least none-offensive babble to play in the background as you're online, doing physical therapy homework, attempting artsy-fartsy shit, doing the most useless and pointless activity on earth (housework), whatever. I don't put my Netflix in when there's at least ONE show on that's not an infomercial, because when I watch my movies/documentaries/AbFab & related Britcom episodes, I don't want to miss what I'm actually watching, if I were doing PT or typing slowly or whatever.
Sometimes, I really regret that I keep the TV on, or that I keep it on certain stations. What they don't tell you in the weekly scheduling pages is what those infomercials are gonna BE.
I'm sure that I'm not the first person, nor will I be the last, to be blown out of my chair by the sheer idiocy, lunacy, shitty dentures, creepy voice, or utter unstoppable BULLSHIT known as L.Ron Hubbard. Up until this point, my interactions with "scientology" have purposefully been kept to the bare minimum that I'd need to know in order to know to avoid those people at any cost. Yes, several dozen of them showed up at the Parker Coliseum "to help" the LSU Vet School staff, students & volunteers during & after Katrina, and that was appreciated. That none of these fluffy little twits could differentiate their own asses from a hole in the ground was NOT appreciated, especially by those of us who were dropping off supplies and they didn't even know what that MEANT. The "Lay Ministers" were truly more useless than tits on a boar hog, and if you don't know what that means, look it up. I myself am more than grateful to the wonderful people of the Vet School, especially the lady who was actually RUNNING that major-league operation (yes, far too many pets were abandoned; even more were murdered by gun-happy rednecks in CHALMETTE, who got off SCOT-MOTHERFUCKING-FREE for that massacre, but the folks @ LSU & at Lamar-Dixon in Gonzales went above and beyond the call of duty to try and save every single damned animal that they could.). The same day that the FUCKTARDS FROM FEMA showed up, requisitioned their ENTIRE OPERATING BUDGET (which I don't think is even remotely fucking LEGAL), I showed-up with another truckload of the donations that y'all generated, along with a respectably-sized wad of cash, and I've never in my life seen ANYONE so happy to see me. FEMA and the Homeland Security (uber alles!) twinks were fucking it ALLLLLL up, so we helped, at least for that day.
But of course, I digress.
I'm flipping channels for background noise tonight as I'm reading e-mails, making dinner, attempting artsy-craftsy shit in order to eventually regain some of the dexterity & hand strength that I've lost to the herniated disk in my neck. Used to be able to do all kinds of artsy-fartsy shit, now I'm truly useless. Used to be able to type 70wpm, now can barely do 20, counting typos. But that's not the point, I'm all over the fucking map tonight.
The above-linked schedule might disappear before too long, as they are like SiteMeter, they roll their schedule pages over as soon as they need a new one, rather than archiving. And what you will see in the 1A slot reads "Infomercial," as I'm sure that the uber-catholic ownership & management of KLWB would not want there to be EVIDENCE that they're taking money to disseminate the batshit-crazy ramblings of a disgustingly-pretentious, half-educated, certifiably-nuts bourgie wannabe such as L-Ron. His "interviewer," obviously a convert, is British, so L-Ron likes to throw in words like "mate," "vit-a-mins" (short "i" in the British pronunciation) and similar affectations.
Now, I make no bones about the fact that I have very little control over my language & accent adaptations; if I talked to my Nannie for 5 minutes, after years of radio training to the contrary, it was like I was right back in Klan Central and had never left. So I understand when I or other people's ACCENTS change (though yes, "Madge" pushed that shit way beyond the pale), but when their VOCABULARY pretends (or portends) to "adapt" to present company or the imagined audience, then they come off as the slimiest kind of used car salesman. Kinda like a "missionary" or "w***a" wannabe going "down to the hood," and adopting caucasian ebonics. It's one thing if you live there, it's a whole other fucking thing if you're a TOURIST.
All of that blathering to say this: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE BRAIN. IT HURTS. I CAN FEEL IT BLEEDING!!!!!!
The Dianetics commercials were the ONE form of benign "mail-fraud," impersonation, or mail-in-coupon harassment that I have NEVER inflicted upon ANYBODY, be they friend, becoming-former-friend, or even a royal asshole who was so catholic that he was AFRAID OF EATING PUSSY. I don't know why; if they weren't running commercials when I needed new ammo, or if it was an intrinsic reaction of avoidance. But trust me, if I ever do get back into my "practical joke" phase (it's so hard nowadays to SHOCK anybody, especially MY friends, and you have to find the right flavor of freaky for each potential victim), I WILL ***NEVER*** INFLICT SCIENTOLOGISTS UPON ANYONE. Those glazed-over eyes just skeer the living shit outta me. And not just L-Ron's, either.
I'll never understand how a half-assed excuse for a sci-fi writer, who blamed psychiatry for all of his problems (when the proper application thereof might have saved the world SO much agony...), who couldn't even get properly-fitted teeth (I know, I should talk about bad teeth, but for fuck's sake, if you can con THOUSANDS of people into joining your uber-batshit cult, you oughta be able to afford a REAL DENTIST!!!), but had to hiss THROUGH THEM with every syllable, how in the HELL he convinced people around the world to buy-into this bullshit, I will never understand. Granted, he didn't have the heavily-armed colonizing forces of the RCC, the apeshit colonists of the Puritans, or the OBSCENE money power of the lizard-licking mormons, so it's gotta be a really GOOD line of bullshit (or there are a helluva LOT of stupid motherfuckers out in the world, who are now inordinately-confident assholes whose "confidence" is in no way proportional to their actual abilities or intellect) to get worldwide like the Jeehovers and the skinny black ties on bicycles. Prolly won't ever amass the fortune to truly compete with the juice-and-crackers crowd, but they are growing in numbers that do skeer the living shit outta me.
Somebody please tell me, that after having suffered through that "interview" that provided fewer actual answers than every press conference Dumbya ever did COMBINED, that there's going to be some kind of space-alien "RAPTURE" for the scientologists. Please tell me that they have a Nikes-and-purple-scarf "OUT" planned at some point. Somebody, anybody, please tell me that these freaks are NOT going to be colonizing the entire fucking PLANET. It's hard enough being one of THREE atheists in this entire hillbilly hellhole parish, I do NOT need shit shoved under my apartment door, telling me about the teeny-tiny aliens who "live in my bloodstream." I hope to hell that their "mother ship" really DOES show up and fucking SOON.
And yes, there will be people who will call me a bigot and hate me because I've probably named their personal cult in the above rant. I can't help that. I could lie, and say that the genocide, misogyny, forced ignorance, moneychangers-in-the-fucking-temple aspects to those cults DON'T bother me, and that I don't really "mean" the bad things that I say about those cults.
But I'm not gonna.
So if anybody wants to stop "liking" or "loving" me because of what I've said here, go forth and be. Won't be the first time, won't be the last. Fuck, I'm hardly an atheist scholar of any type, I'll never be Madalyn Murray O'Hair, but I know what I know, and I know that invisible sky-fairies ain't done SHIT for ANYBODY on this planet. L-Ron says that religion's "purpose" is to "make people better." That's the ripest shit that I've smelled since the last time I had to muck a horse stall. Religion's purpose is to CONTROL PEOPLE, which is why reich-wing regimes ENJOY keeping the proletariat all culted-up and obedient to whatever Flying Spaghetti Monster-wannabe that massah sez to worship.
Whatever your baggage or pain is, no matter whose fault it is, only you can fix it. Nobody is going to do it for you, and no invisible sky-fairy is going to "make" you a better person. If the only reason that you do good works is because a 4,000-year-old book of fairy-tales "told" you to do them, then fuck you. Do it because it's the RIGHT FUCKING THING TO DO. Not because you've been promised a McMansion in a "heaven" where you'll never be fat, depressed, asinine, ignorant, poor or hungry again. Hate to break it to y'all, but that real estate ain't there, and you will never see it. Just hope that you get lucky and the chemical electricity in your brains goes to a nice end of the universe, if it ever escapes this planet. I'd like to be a poltergeist, myself. WAY too much fun to be had there. Can't say that it'll actually happen; for all I know, I'm just more fish food (my ashes will be dumped in the Mississippi & the Atlantic after I donate whatever few organs are still functional). But I'd dearly enjoy the chance to fuck with a few of those who'll be "left behind." Heh. Take that however you wanna, it's funny either way.
7 comments:
Oh, Annti...
I've been playing with the Scienos for not quite 15 years now. I realized as I read that Dennis Erlich had been raided by the cult on 2/13/1995 and today is 2/15/2009--14 years. Wow. In one way, I feel old, and in another way, it's like it happened yesterday.
I wish I could tell you that there was some sort of Nikes and purple scarves way out, but no, afraid not. The Scns believe that Elron has gone off to Target Two and is still continuing his investigations, but the organization itself doesn't have a self-destruct switch. It's really more of a money making apparatus.
But the world has changed in 14 years. In 1994, nobody knew about Xenu. Now, Xenu is used as the punchline of jokes about Scientologists. When word got out about Xenu, the cult tried suing people. They were only slightly successful and managed to piss off at least a few judges in the process. (I still remember federal judge Leonie Brinkema getting as pissed off as a federal judge can get about a decision of hers that the cult had had a magistrate seal--because it contained the Xenu story in it. She unsealed it.)
The cult also managed to hack off a lot of free speech activists like yours truly. I could have lived my entire life without knowing all the $h!t I know about Scn. Yes, I could. But no, I'm the kind of person who gets a teensy bit bent if someone is being RAIDED and SUED for talking about $ooper $ekrit $pace $kripchers. Now this stuff has been pretty much liberated and spread all over the place and so much for Scn believing (a) that if you read about Xenu, you'll die of pneumonia and (b) that they could keep something as ridiculous and karaaazeee as Xenu secret forever.
The other thing that I've learned in the last 14 years is how religious organizations all over are surely man-made. You look at Elwrong Hubbard and his outfit and how it grew and developed. Then you start casting backwards through Herbert W. Armstrong (Worldwide Church of God), Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses), Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science, not to be confused with Scientology), Ellen White (Seventh Day Adventism) and finally, back to the biggie, Joseph Smith. All of these people founded religions in the era of print. And there's not a one of them that doesn't have some sort of moral failing or massive "doctrinal change" or some such (or all of these things) wrapped up in their beliefs. You know, things that the current-day followers don't want you to know (either until you pay a lot of money or NEVER).
And then you start thinking, if you go back far enough, well, if every single person who started a new church has these kinds of holes in their underwear, what about the guys who started religions before the era of print? You know, uh, like Jesus? And then the alleged Truth starts looking not awfully truthful. And you can tell that Paul was fighting it out with the apostles in Jerusalem over who was going to control the beliefs of the early Christians. And that Paul won, posthumously, if only because of events that were out of his control (i.e., his converts outside of Palestine survived the Jewish War while James and his converts did not).
So you get to the point where you realize that Jesus was just a normal guy, not born of a virgin, not the "Son of God" as we're taught to think of him today, but just Normal Joshua of Nazareth who had some religious ideas, raised a bit of hell, got into trouble with the local authorities and got himself crucified for the trouble. It's kind of doubtful that he was raised from the dead after three days, considering that nobody's done that trick before or since, and the people who would know had pretty much died off by the time the gospel writers got around to putting goose quill to parchment. (Paul--he never actually met Jesus. He had visions which he claimed were just as good as what the Jerusalem crew had. This did not go over so well with the Jerusalem guys.)
So, I have Scientology to thank for finally unmooring me from "faith," as it were. If I hadn't started looking at Elwrong Hubtoad and comparing him to other religions and then seeing what kind of creepiness obtained there and then casting even further backwards, it's doubtful that I'd now be in the position I'm in now. Stone cold agnostic. No idea. Driving my mother karaaazeee. You know.
Good stuff, Mirele. Lot that I didn't know. Ya gotta tell me what teh Xenu is, and no, I ain't sending in a payment to that pyramid scheme to find out.
Ya look at all of the cults, as I figured out as I was extricating myself from "the church" (small "c," charismatic/non-denominational/batshit-crazy pentecostals-who-wear-makeup-and-get-divorced-on-a-dime), and they're all still using the same schtick that was ostensibly "learned" from Peter, "Teh Rock upon which Teh Church was founded," blah blah blah. Of course, they stole most of THEIR shit from Zoroastrianisms, Druids, and the like, those ambitious young Romans/etc.
Costumes.
Preacher/intermediary who is the commonfolk's only "access" to "gawd"/Planet Zorbit/invisible sky-fairies/saints/etc., and who runs the joint/most benefits from the largess/tithing of teh sheepul.
Rituals/candles/incense/annointing oil/"holy" water/other magical items wrought by the hand of man but somehow "blessed" or otherwise imbued with those magical powers before they get to the consumer.
Creation myth, ancestry myths, magical-trick stories ("miracles"/"transformations"), other assorted Grimm's Fairy Tales.
Promises of gain/salvation/fiscal reward for adhering to the teachings of teh cult. Will go to purgatory/won't go to "hell", "Jeebus wants you to prosper/drive a Hummer/have big hair," "72 virgins," "Hale-Bopp Comet," and then there's that planet for teh lizard-lickers in the funny underwear, but the name escapes me at the moment. I *know* it, but I can't pull it up out of the files right now.
THEY'RE ALL THE SAME FUCKING CULT, using all of the same damned stories with altered main characters, achieving exactly the same end: Money/Power for those in control of the cult, being controlled for teh sheepul.
Baptists, presbyterians, catholics, lutherans, mormons, xian scientists, 7th-day nuts, sci-fi-entologists (yeah, I SO believe that TRAVOLTA is a SCIENTIST, don't you?!?!?), voudou, santeria, islam, pick a cult, any cult, and anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of them can draw very obvious parallels.
And yes, most of the wars & genocides currently being perpetrated are because "My gawd is better than your gawd, INFIDEL!"
BUT, If anybody thinks that the smokescreen of religious bigotry is why we went to Iraq, they're more naive than the ones who think that we went there to "enforce democracy." It was an easy answer to the "force Jeebus to come back and rapture us" batshit-crazy motherfuckers who bankrolled Dumbya/Dick, but it was as fake as Colin Powell. Trans-Afghan Pipeline, Halliburton, Blackwell, Bechtel, Shaw Group, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, it's a whole plethora of motherfuckers who got our kids killed to protect THEIR profit margins.
And the current economy is nothing but a manmade smokescreen whilst they sneak away with a big hunk of the U.S. Treasury, to boot. When the rich motherfuckers started pulling out of the stock market, almost 3 years ago, I knew that THAT was where it was going.
So all of the bigotry-motivated beat-downs of Sikhs, Muslims, and other Americans of Asian/Middle-Eastern/African ancestry were just what the massahs wanted, because it showed how effectively their bullshit worked in convincing the proletariat to get behind their fake-ass war.
And thus ends my sermon for today.
One of these days, you gotta tell me the story behind your nic, Mirele.
Just another reason why i don't watch TV.
You do too!
The only TV I watch is through the computer where I control the programing and there is very very little advertisement. Even when I bought my now dead TV 6 or 7 years ago it was only ever used for VCR veiwing. This past weekend at the hotel I did flip through the channels on the TV there around midnight and out of the 50 or 60 some odd channels there was not a single thing that caught my eye worth leaving it on for..... well OK Sat. night I did leave it on some weird ass movie on HBO premium(?) and caught a bit of it between trips outside for a smoke. Some strange movie about a group of 5 graduate students killing off right wing nut cases, not a well made film but interesting story plot.
Yeah when I made the reservation at their 800 number I asked THREE frigging times if it was a smoking room and they said yes. When I got the confirmation it said non smoking so I called the hotel direct and found out they have NO smoking rooms. One person I talked to out in the cold where they sent us to smoke said she had the same thing happen. You'd think a place as supposedly upscale and expensive could at least spend a couple of grand to build a decent smokers shelter!! They did have one spot that did have overhead cover and some wind protection but it was about the other end of the damn place. Luckily it was clear and not too windy while I was there. It definitely is prett6y damn tacky of them though to not have something decent for smokers. And of course they allow alcohol which is responsible for a hell of a lot more second hand deaths then tobacco! Fuck the Raddisson Hotel chain!!!
And yeah that was a good story plot to that movie, wish I could remember the name of it.
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