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[personal profile] elfs
In downtown Seattle, the clams are engaging in a full-frontal assault on our sensibilities. If you wander down to Westlake Center, that vast, brick-lain triangle dedicated to mad consumption, with its brick-shaped Starbucks inappropriately chromed and bumpered, its crowds of shoppers, and its front facings to Nordstrom's and the Westlake Mall, in the middle of this you'll find five large, scary-bright yellow tents, each about twelve feet across, each decorated with a black and white banner proclaiming "SOMETHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT."

No mention about what "it" is or what that "something" is; this bland appeal to curiousity in bright yellow turns out to be an army of clams: a horde of "Scientology Volunteer Ministers" attempting to pry you out of your favorite worldview and into the paranoid vision of L. Ron Hubbard, the most prolific dead author of our century. And there they are, the Volunteer Ministers of the "Cavalcade", tallow but hardly callow youths with perfect haircuts and parentally purchased smiles pasted to curiously immobile faces, as if the first Thetans cleared from their minds and bodies were the ones that operated the muscles of emotional expression.


And in what may be the most disgusting case of food industry corruption yet seen, a soy sauce company in China has been busted for using human amino acid blends in its product. The amino acid syrups, produced independently of the actual sauce and mixed in as a bulking agent, were derived from piles of human hair collected from barbershops and similar sources, and processed down with industrial (rather than food) grade acids.


And in Naperville, Illinois, it's illegal for a minor to be in the presence of other minors who are drinking or intoxicated. In the spirit of the Law of Unintendend Consequences, this is a biggy: it means that no teenager can be a designated driver or even approach a party to drive the kids home. The only way kids can get home from such a party... is to drive home with other underage drinkers.

Um, it's illegal what??

Date: 2004-06-18 10:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] omahas.livejournal.com
And in Naperville, Illinois, it's illegal for a minor to in the presence of other minors who are drinking or intoxicated.

It's illegal for a minor to do...what? You left something out, love. :)

Re: Um, it's illegal what??

Date: 2004-06-18 10:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elfs.livejournal.com
To be in the presence of... (I'll fix it in the original)

Date: 2004-06-18 10:11 am (UTC)
ext_3294: Tux (Default)
From: [identity profile] technoshaman.livejournal.com
Oh, you're kidding. The CLAMS? Angels and ministers of grace, defend us. If I didn't have billable work I'd hit Kinko's, print up a bunch of Operation Clambake leaflets, and go picket. Good god. Those jokers are in some ways a bigger attack on freedom than Dubya ever was. And that's saying something.

(Distinction: I can't fly, and that's enforced at the point of Dubya's guns. But I can still drive, and I can still make this post. Those few that the Clams do get, their freedom is GONE. All of it. AMF. Me, I can still protest. As long as it's not in Dubya's presence. And that rat bastard can, thankfully, only be in one place at a time.)

Date: 2004-06-18 01:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elfs.livejournal.com
Heh, if you don't mind wandering into their sites, you can see photos of the tents (http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/briefing/volunteer-ministers/) and read their spiel about it. Apparently, this is a "liberal cities" tour, attempting to convince mushy-minded folks that Scientology has a cure for the current war and terror paradigm.

Date: 2004-06-18 10:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swirlgrrl.livejournal.com
Ok... .so I was eating left over Chinese food for breakfast.

Date: 2004-06-18 05:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] memegarden.livejournal.com
I saw these tents the other day, and was boggled. The big yellow Scientology truck with the cross logo on the side scared me, as did the hordes of happy indentured servants in yellow T-shirts trying to get me to take the tour. I would have, but I had to catch a bus, so I just took a flyer. Strangely, as I was boggling at all the Scientologist Volunteer Ministers in their yellow T-shirts proclaiming them as same, an apparently unrelated and oblivious person walked by wearing a T-shirt that said "I am a cult leader. Do what I say and no one gets hurt." Blink blink.

Here's (http://www.iasmembership.org/en_US/news/vm/index.html) the Scientologists' site about the Cavalcade. I can't find a schedule, though, so I don't know how long they're in Seattle. I'm seriously considering handing out counterinformation, although that might get me some bad enemies....Thanks for the Clambake link.

Date: 2004-06-19 06:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] omnifarious.livejournal.com

I live within walking distance of there. It'd only take me about 15 minutes. :-)

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