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Date: Fri, June 8, 2012 11:41 am Hi Orange, "I have a random thought as well...I've been thinking about both what I have experienced and witnessed during my many years in and around the 12-Step culture beginning with childhood. Seems that one someone "relapses" they really get chastised for having made poor choices, from the same people whom declare that addiction is a disease and the addict is powerless to stop without a miracle? I have seen this consistently, how can it work both ways? Why would you react with anger (and often punishment) to this when it's supposedly a sickness?" Jamie G.: Theres loads Of Craziness That Dont Make Sense In Them Steps.. I mean How Can You come to believe That You can be restored to sanity? Insane People Dont Know They're Insane Because.....Well They're Insane... Orange Papers: Yes, "I am an alcoholic and my insane mind thinks that practicing an old Nazi cult religion will solve all of my problems, and restore me to sanity, too." Yeh, right. Dennis M: Long-time steppers are some of the most emotionally unstable people out there. Most long-timers either turn into dogmatic, controlling gurus, or are a constant mess needing to "share" and "sort it out". No thanks. Daniel H: I have seen this all too often and it sickens me. It says in their book That if an alcoholic doesnt tow the line then they should find someone else to work with. I think That has been translated to mean, turn your back on someone if they relapse. :) Dennis M.: I think what it really means is turn your back on someone that doesn't blindly follow your bullshit. Karen T.: The insanity is thinking they have the qualification and real knowledge to tell people how to run every bit of their lives. I was insane for believing it once. What a dangerous path that was. Thank you for turning the light on and seeing the truth for real now is what works for me. Xxx 
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters312.html#Meatbag ]
Date: Fri, June 8, 2012 8:21 pm (answered 10 June 2012) Actually, iTunes music isn't DRMed at all, so it's fairly easy to convert into a different format. However, everything else on iTunes is DRMed. The only thing that can remove that DRM is Requiem, and that's hard to find (hint: torrent sites are your friends). From what I gather, Apple's DRM is an even bigger PITA than Adobe's. Not worth the trouble.
Hello again, Meatbag,
I agree. Not worth the trouble. I just avoid the entire mess.
I have no reason to buy anything with DRM, and lots of reasons not to.
Seems like all ereaders I've noticed are closed systems. It's not hard to get around that, though. I had alternative firmware on my Sony PRS-350 (which had nothing to do with its death), and I've jailbroken my Kindle. I haven't done a whole lot with the jailbreak, though. Just installed usb networking, a launcher, and a terminal emulator (the Kindle actually runs a form of Linux). Hmmm. Neat. It seems that the Android/Linux-based systems are special in that regard. I hear that an iPad is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Just like how the MacIntosh was. The good news is Tor Books is opening a DRM-free ebook store. And O'Reilly Media has their ebooks DRM-free, as well.
You know, the funny thing is that actually reading ebooks with a reader is the least of my concerns.
I don't intend to buy any ebooks.
What I want is a lightweight device that can FTP files up to my web site, and run a terminal emulator and SSH, and
do email and run a web browser — basically a very small notebook computer.
Reading ebooks is an afterthought.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Meatbag is here.]
Date: Sat, June 9, 2012 5:33 pm (answered 12 June 2012) I will open with a funny tidbit. I was reading something on the site about the more eccentric AA organizations (Midtown, LA, etc). and I came across Clancy I in AA. for the longest time I was reading that as "Clancy the First" as in a monarch before I realized it was his opening initial. as for who I am, I'm a 21 year old that has been addressing a drinking problem over the past several months, and having increasing success. I was guided into 12-step by the substance abuse counselor I was seeing and have been to probably three or four dozen AA meetings. I was always skeptical about how a bunch of guys in Ohio 80 years ago could magically write something of scientific-level efficacy, and the more I've read the more I've gravitated towards SMART and Rational Recovery. luckily I have three SMART meetings in my area per week. David
Hello David,
Thanks for the letter. I'm glad to hear that you are doing well, and your mind is still alive.
King Clancy the First. Now that is funny, especially because it is so apt.
I'm glad to hear that they have SMART meetings in your city. I'm sure you will like them a lot
more than A.A.
Have a good day and a good life now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters312.html#Tom_H ]
Date: Sun, June 10, 2012 7:59 pm (answered 12 June 2012) I read your e-mail this morning and blew my coffee right out of my nose I laughed so hard. You forget Agent Orange that I was in the military the same exact time you were and we are the same age. During the late sixties, in the military, one would only see a psychiatrist if they were attempting a phony mental discharge to get out, or they were bird sack crazy and the military thought the person to be dangerous to themselves or others. You know it and I know it. Period. You never did answer my questions over all these years whether you got kicked out of the military. You played the "veteran card" with me and gladly took my money when you were desperate and on the street. ( you had been sober for years ) And how you would allow your readers to "thank you for your military service" over a ten year period of time says it all. Tom H.
Hello again, Tom,
Starting with your subject line, no, I won't "just quit". People are dying over this stuff.
I did not forget that you were in the military. I remember all of it,
including your complaining about how
you suffered from people looking down on you when you came back.
I also remember
your sneering when I had
to get a new apartment.
(And
here, and
here.)
I also remember
this attack, which was not worth
answering.
You have written many letters over the last 10 years, and said all kinds of things.
I pretty much remember all of it.
I did answer your questions. I got a General Discharge for
being "Characteriologically Unable to Adapt to the Military" — it was not
what you call "a phony mental discharge to get out".
(I tried for that, but that is not what I got.) I got out because I
was morally opposed to killing a million skinny starving rice farmers over
on the other side of the planet, and I just couldn't go along with it.
I am still a Veteran, I still went through my share of suffering, it was just a different kind of war.
I was just noticing that there is one great similarity between the military and a cult: Both insist that
they are entitled to do your thinking for you, and that they get to decide what is moral and ethical,
and what is not. They will even go so far as to declare that they have the right to decide who you
will kill.
Neither has actually established any reason for us to have such faith in them.
I had no such faith in the military. History has shown that I was right.
Two million Vietnamese and 59,000 Americans killed, leading to another
two million people killed in Cambodia, and for what? What was accomplished?
I do not generally talk about the Vietnam War in my web site because I am fighting the battle of A.A. now,
and Vietnam is history. Arguing about Vietnam is just a distraction now.
But let us never forget.
And I have never hid my past, like you are claiming, but refighting the War in Vietnam does
nothing for anybody's sobriety now, so I don't talk about it much.
By the way, not only were we both in the military at the same time, but
I grew up in the military, so I have about 20 more years of experience
with the military than you had. I had a lot of reasons to not trust the military.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters312.html#Meatbag2 ]
Date: Mon, June 11, 2012 5:27 pm (answered 13 June 2012) I'm keeping this short, since I got new meds, and I can feel the sedative side effect kicking in. Hi again, Meatbag, have a good nap. I admit that I get a perverse joy out of bypassing a company's DRM, so I will buy DRMed products provided it's not a pain to bypass. There's a reason why all of my PC games use a no-CD crack, aside from the convenience of not having to switch CDs all of the time. Of course, no DRM is the best option.
Sure. Bypassing DRM is an act of power. Thou shalt not control me.
And that routine of having to put a "game CD" in the drive all of the
time is much more than just a royal pain. It is often prohibitively inconvenient.
I bought a bunch of SIMS games at Goodwill, and discovered that they are rigged
so that you have to put a disk in the drive all of the time that you play the game.
Hey! I have other uses for that drive. Now I won't buy any more SIMS stuff. Glad that
I didn't pay much for it.
I love SimCity, which is also from the same "Electronic Arts/Maxis" company,
and it does not require a game disk in the drive, and I have let it run day and night for several days, so
that my successful city gets to be 10,000 years old and rolling in money.
During that time, I may well need to use my CD/DVD drive for something else.
It really is arrogant of those game manufacturers to think that they can monopolize
your computer's hardware.
I realize that game makers have a piracy problem. But that is their problem,
and they should not make it my problem.
Actually, I won't let them do it. I'll boycott them. Like I'm already doing right now.
Anyhow, I just moved, and I went on my brother's boat this weekend. Didn't see much wildlife, but I did see a mallard drake, as well as a goose family. I couldn't tell how many goslings there were, but I could tell that there were goslings. Neat. Which species of goose? Paul's latest letter has got to be one of the most pretentious things I've read in a long while. It reads like a C student's essay for Philosophy 101 (disclaimer: I have nothing against C students). Yes, it was quite a learned essay on philosophy. A quicky tour of Western Philosophy. Really like Philosophy 101. Still, strangely enough, he was trying to use facts and logical arguments to prove that facts and logic are invalid and useless, and we should not have any faith in them. That's quite a contradiction. I am reminded of the old slogan from the 'sixties: "Fighting for Peace is like Fucking for Chastity!" Or stealing for honesty, or lying for spirituality. Or logicking for illogic. It's also ironic that a cult member would call others automatons. Still, I am a delusional lunatic. It's nice to know that, if none of these meds work out, I have a nice career as a cult leader ahead of me. Judging by Bill W, it pays well. Now if I could do something about these pesky ethics.
Yes, I have thought about that too. With what I know, I could be a great cult leader.
I know the tricks, and how it's done. And yes, it can be highly profitable.
I just have this small problem that I feel
bad when I lie to people. Especially when they look me in the eyes and ask,
"What will save me?" Darned pesky ethics.
And lying to sick people about what will cure them is way over the line.
I really wonder how people like Bill Wilson did it. Was he a totally heartless psychopath, or
a completely delusional nutcase who drank his own koolaid? Or so grossly dishonest that he
even lied to himself, and believed his own lies? Or some strange combination of those things?
I know that Bill Wilson suffered from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which can make people pretty
delusional:
Maybe you just have to be a narcissist to be a cult leader. Oh well, have a good day now. == Orange
[The next letter from Meatbag is here.]
Date: Thu, June 14, 2012 9:16 am (answered 16 June 2012) Hey Orange, Just came across your site today, and would like to extend you a big thank you. I've been sober for about 4 months now, no thanks to AA. I read and tried a lot of things along the way. What eventually worked for me was a combination of cognitive-behavioral reading (Albert Ellis), Buddhist thinking and meditation, and perhaps most importantly, a biological understanding and treatment of my addiction. Along the way I gave AA an honest shot, and was glad I bailed out when I did (after about 2 months). It took the already difficult process of getting sober and turned it into something much worse than it already is, and in my opinion, needs to be. I was immediately surrounded by people trying to 'convert' me to a blinded way of thinking. I didn't need to accept a 'higher power' on the one hand, and on the other was being pressured by a sponsor to 'surrender.' And the people sitting around talking about what miserable drunks they are, and by association I was... well, there had to be another way, and there was. Anyway, as for most I'm sure, I could go on and on about my experiences with AA. What most concerns me most is AA being the most visible game in town. I would hate for someone who truly has a problem and wants to get help to not find what they were looking for with AA, fail, then give up. Yet AA would have you believe that they are the only way of getting there. I greatly appreciate your site and it's deconstruction of AA for what it really is. People need to know the truth, and people need to know there is hope and that there are other solutions to dealing with addiction problems.
Best,
Hello Rob,
Thank you for the all of the compliments, and I'm glad to hear that you got something useful
from the web site. And congratulations on your recovery, and chosing to live healthy.
About those people in need not getting the help that they need, yes, that really is the giant elephant
in the living room that the A.A.-based "recovery industry" does not want to recognize.
In fact, we were just talking about that
in a previous letter.
For me, the first real eye-opener during my earliest days of involvement with A.A. and recovery
was the death of a hooker with a heart of gold and
another girl who just relapsed repeatedly
and was kicked out of a program, and disappeared.
Those people did not get any help from "the program".
And they were just the first of many.
In some kind of strange backwards logic, I always got the best of everything, even though I didn't
need help so much.
I had no great difficulties in staying clean and sober, and I never flunked a breathalizer test or drug test,
so the rehab program managers congratulated me, and patted me on the back, and wrote up in
their reports that they had "helped" me, and I was one of their success stories.
Never mind the fact that I actually quit drinking two weeks before
the so-called "treatment program"
started. They didn't bother to mention that tiny little fact.
That was also two weeks before they sent me to A.A. meetings.
But the people who were really sick and messed up flunked tests often, and got kicked out of programs,
and then they lost their housing and were denied benefits, and they were just kicked out onto the streets
with nothing.
The programs gave me the best of everything because I could keep myself clean and sober in spite of A.A. and N.A. nonsense,
and the really sick people got nothing.
What kind of "help" or "treatment" is that?
Oh well, have a good day. And I'm glad that you are also in the not-so-sick category.
== Orange
Date: Wed, June 13, 2012 6:54 am (answered 16 June 2012) Mister T, Thank you for all you do. You're a better man than I am. A thought came to mind of a line from a song "Its a strange, strange world we live in Master Jack". I found the song on the Internet. "Master Jack" by Four Jacks and a Jill. It made sense to me so I thought I would remind you of the song from 1968. I am considering denying ever having been a member of XA and eliminating 12-step completely which would necessitate my resignation from the Newcomers Rescue League, although I would remain a consultant. I will be 67 years old in October and have been a sober/clean cult member since 1980. I got sober in a rehab on Long Island and never felt a strong connection to AA or much later NA. Rather than a realization that 12-step is dangerous, XA has just lost its relevance for me. It was once entertainment but is now a redundant, repulsive rationalization. I am now thinking of the song "Is that all there is". However I will not "breakout the booze" because I choose not to.
Thank you again.
Hello again, Bob,
Thanks for all of the compliments, but I don't really feel all that great. Just another guy making it
through the night.
About totally quitting A.A. meetings, that has its pros and cons. Like you said, that means quitting
the NRL.
But on the other hand, it would amount to so much less frustration.
Me, I haven't been to an A.A. meeting in over 10 years. I remember what a relief it was to not have
to grit my teeth as I listened to the reciting of the plastic-laminated lies at the start of every meeting.
There are other options, like that you could start up SMART meetings, or SOS or Lifering in your city.
Or you could just retire and take a well-deserved vacation. Whatever.
So have a good life, whatever you decide. And have a good day too.
Oh, and thanks for all of your years in the NRL.
== Orange
Date: Thu, June 14, 2012 10:22 am (answered 16 June 2012) You obviously believe what you write and it is easy to set up paper tigers and knock them down by directly quoting bits and pieces never in context. Much like the right wing fundamentalists of today. I note your loaded words such as "Nazi" and we joke about that and do find humor in our founders and AA itself. Bui heck you can certainly believe in what you want to. Your description of AA is so far from the truth that I can only feel sorry for your take on this issue. Your position is so self righteous and ego inflated that I really hope that you get some satisfaction of your beliefs because they are built on shifting sands and as far from the truth as anything can be. Yes AA's founders especially Bill were far from saints although I note you don't talk about Dr. Bob........we say in how it works that we strive for spiritual living not perfection. yes AA's have flaws but even in the Big Book Bill states that AA does not have all the answers and that other avenues such as medicine and psychology should be explored. In all the AA meetings that I have attended never have I heard directions as MUST do this or that. You will probably throw this email out or delete it because I happen not to agree with much of what you write and I gather it is your take on AA as an issue which is the absolute the only way. Maybe AA is your answer to how live a better life but no you seem to enjoy being bitter, angry and disappointed. Good luck, Walt S
Hello Walt,
Thanks for the letter. Alas, it is loaded with misstatements:
Besides, you have confused your terms. China called the USA a "paper tiger", declaring that American military
might was a hoax, and that the USA was actually very weak, and unable to defeat even
tiny Vietnam. Hence, the USA was allegedly a "paper tiger",
a flimsy façade that was frightening in appearance, but there was actually nothing behind the threat.
I never used that kind of terminology to describe Alcoholics Anonymous.
Perhaps you were grasping for the
"Straw Man" term.
To quote out of context is taking just bits and pieces of something in a manner that changes the meaning of the
words. I am very careful not to do that. At times, I quote whole paragraphs or even whole
pages so that there is no confusion about what the text is saying.
Trying to reject all quotes that you don't like by claiming that they are "taken out of context"
is just another propaganda trick. Politicians use that one every time they get caught in a lie or a flip-flop.
The truth is, you are upset because my quotes really are what the A.A. scriptures say.
It's funny how A.A. members read the Big Book so reverently, as if it was a holy revelation from God,
but when I quote the book back at them to make a point, they complain that such quoting is unfair,
and say that I don't understand what the words really mean. Oh yes I do.
I challenge you to find even one quote where I misquoted it, or quoted it out of context,
and changed the meaning of the words. I don't do that. I don't have to. The words in the Big Book are
so bad that they alone are enough to condemn A.A. as a cult religion.
No. I have nothing in common with right-wing fundamentalists. That is just
cheap name-calling, another propaganda trick.
You may find it "humorous"
(that's the propaganda trick called "Laugh It Off"),
but the fact remains that Bill Wilson, Dr. Robert Smith, and Clarence Snyder were
recruiting alcoholics for Dr. Frank Buchman's Oxford Group cult in 1935 and 1936, while
Dr. Frank Buchman went to Nuremberg Nazi Party rallies
as the personal guest of the S.S. and Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler.
Not a one of them quit the Oxford Group in protest
when Frank Buchman came back from the 1936 Berlin Olympics,
where he was again the personal guest of Heinrich Himmler, and declared,
"I thank Heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler..."
To quote Reinhold Niebuhr, the author of the Serenity Prayer:
"In other words, a Nazi social philosophy has been a covert presumption of
the whole Oxford group enterprise from the very beginning."
And that is not a quote "taken out of context." Click on
Reinhold's name there
and you can read the entire article where Reinhold Niebuhr nailed Frank Buchman for his Nazi philosophy.
And remember that Dr. Frank Buchman was the theological father of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Bill Wilson just wrote down the practices of Buchmanism
to get the 12 Steps and the religious dogma in the Big Book, and Bill Wilson even emphatically said so:
Where did the early AAs find the material for the remaining
ten Steps? Where did we learn about moral inventory, amends for
harm done, turning our wills and lives over to God? Where did we
learn about meditation and prayer and all the rest of it?
The spiritual substance of our remaining ten Steps
came straight from Dr. Bob's and my own earlier
association with the Oxford Groups, as they were then
led in America by that Episcopal rector, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker.
Bill Wilson was, of course, hiding the name of Frank Buchman by listing Rev. Sam Shoemaker Jr. as the leader of
the American branch of the Oxford Group, because the British and American people hated Frank Buchman because
of
his treasonous Nazi sympathizing
and
aiding and hiding draft dodgers
so that they wouldn't have to fight against Adolf Hitler.
Still, the whole mess was Frank Buchman's religion.
That is Escape via Relativism
— the propaganda trick that asserts that
it's just one person's opinion versus another opinion, or one belief versus another.
It is not a matter of beliefs, it is a matter of FACTS.
You have not supplied any facts to support your opinions.
So you think that I am self-righteous for criticizing criminals who lie to and exploit sick people?
Why don't you? What is wrong with your morals?
And you think my beliefs are "built on shifting sand"? Now who is the fundamentalist?
That phrase about "shifting sands" comes from the Bible, of course. Fundamentalist preachers who want you
to join their religion love to harp on that story about some people building their castles on a rock, while
others build on shifting sands. And the implication is that their religion is the rock, while
everybody else in the world is building on sand.
FYI: My beliefs are built on facts, something that your letter is woefully short on.
Basing your life on the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous is worse than building your house on sand.
That is Minimization and Denial.
"Oh, those psychos weren't really so bad..."
As if it's okay to base your life on the ravings of some lunatics.
And I do so criticize Dr. Bob — he was a vicious nutcase who shoved a 32-year-old philandering alcoholic,
"A.A. Number 4 Ernie Galbraith", on his 17-year-old daughter. Look here:
Disturbed Guru, Mentally Ill Leader.
That is just a slogan. If you want real spirituality, you have to start telling the truth.
Again, that is
Minimization and Denial.
It's also a bait-and-switch trick:
First, they will tell you to see a doctor, and say
that "we know only a little", but then it's "We know more than doctors",
"We are the experts on addictions", and "Don't take medications."
Sorry, but that is so far removed from reality that it is pathetic.
The story that there are no MUSTS in A.A., only suggestions, is just another one
of those totally-untrue slogans that A.A. members parrot mindlessly, without even thinking.
The reality is just the opposite.
For starters, the Big Book is loaded with "MUSTS".
Have you never heard somebody reading the Big Book out loud at an A.A. meeting?
Just where did that "vision" come from? Prayer, meditation,
belladonna,
delirium tremens,
LSD, or delusions of grandeur?
(By the way, the Angel of Light is Lucifer. Jesus told us to have love in our hearts, not shiny lights
in our eyes.)
You MUST, or else you die.
You MUST do Step 5, and confess everything to somebody else, and
wallow in guilt and self-contempt.
Yes, you MUST pray and meditate until you hallucinate, and hear
voices in your head, and start talking to dead people,
like Bill Wilson did.
(Really, no joke.)
Yes, you MUST go recruiting yet again...
Need I continue?
That is just the tip of the iceberg.
See the file on the Bait-and-Switch stunts of A.A. for lots more:
No, I won't delete it or throw it out. I try hard to answer ALL letters, even those from people who
are grossly misinformed and brainwashed.
I am not "bitter, angry and disappointed." I just object to a criminal outfit shoving cult religion
and quack medicine on sick people, and lying to them about how well it works.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here = http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters312.html#Meatbag3 ]
Date: Fri, June 15, 2012 6:02 pm (answered 19 June 2012) I haven't taken my meds yet for the day, so I'm wide awake now. Yeah, the whole CD check thing made more sense back in the days where hard drives were smaller and more expensive, so the entire game couldn't be installed to hard drive. I have the first two Fallout games, and both of them had an option for me to install the entire game to hard drive, which I took, considering those games are pretty much nothing for a 1 TB hard drive. Neither of them ever ask for a CD. Fallout New Vegas doesn't ask for a CD, either, but that's because it uses Steam for DRM, and the disc was just a glorified download code. I was very annoyed to discover on Christmas that I had to wait for my shiny new game to download. If I wanted to do that, I would have downloaded instead of getting it on disc. As for the Sims, I think you can take the disc out once you get past the initial check. Still, the manual doesn't tell you that, and the Sims is one of those games you could leave running for several days (ideally with sanity hacks, so the sims don't kill themselves in the process). On another Sims-related note, the later expansions of the Sims 2 basically install a rootkit to your system. If you download a no-CD crack immediately after installation and directly run the executable (instead of going through the launcher) each time, you'll never get it. But how is your average legit customer supposed to know that? And of course, that rootkit didn't do anything to prevent me from pirating most of those expansions. (Hey, not my fault the stores stopped selling the expansions in favor of Sims 3 stuff once I actually got a computer that could run newer expansions. Combine that with being broke, impulsive, and not particularly inclined to care about EA's [Maxis is long gone] welfare, and you get a recipe for piracy.)
Sims 3? They are up to Sims 3? I'm still at Sims 1.
Like I said, I got them from Goodwill.
And I have noticed that Sims 1 games and expander packages are not compatible with Sim 2 games.
And let me guess... not compatible with Sims 3 games, either, right?
What a racket for making people buy all new stuff every few years.
Why are they worried about piracy when they obsolete their own stuff every so often?
It doesn't matter how many copies of obsolete stuff are laying around.
If you're ever interested in games, a lot of indie stuff is DRM-free, and as a bonus, they're more likely to run on Linux. Good Old Games sells older games without DRM, too. Now if only I could get around to convincing my bank to letting me use my debit card for GOG. As for the geese, they were Canadian geese. I saw them near the waterpark, probably because there's lots of humans with food, and nobody hunts in a waterpark.
Yes. They are surprisingly intelligent that way. Funny how those supposedly stupid
animals manage to figure out where the hunting is allowed, and where it isn't.
And it's counter-intuitive: a wild animal should think that the center of a big
city is a dangerous place, with all of those people and cars and trucks and busses,
and everything moving so fast. But no. It's the safest place, because
no one can (legally) fire a gun, and harrassing the wildlife is illegal.
They are protected in a city park.
And of course they notice who feeds them, and who doesn't, and where.
Speaking of which, the day before yesterday, we reached a new milestone. Three of
the families of geese with babies sat down and took a nap with me. I'm getting
ahead of the story in the pictures, but many families of geese have had babies, it's
up to 10 now, and some of them have become very tame.
The children tell their parents that they've been getting food from me all of their
lives, and I never hurt them.
Several of the families have become so accustomed to me feeding them that they follow me around.
I've been feeding them rolled oats that I buy at the local farm supply store in 40-pound bags.
(Yes, they eat a lot. And there are a lot of them.)
Well, three of the families and I were hanging out in the back boondocks by the
second pond to the south. There was another family with three goslings, and one
with four, and another with six. After I put out piles of oats for them, I just
sat down and watched them eat, and photographed them.
After they got stuffed, they just sat down and went to sleep in front of me, just
a dozen feet away from me. Now that is a new level of tameness and trust for them.
Mind you, they really are wild geese, and they migrate, and all of that.
They are intelligent creatures, and they are good at figuring out what you are about.
I think Bill probably bought what he was selling, considering his history as a cult member. It probably helped him that he had virtually no faith in humanity, believing the worst in people. It's easy to lie to assholes.
Yes, that makes sense. And it's an interesting flip-flop. On the one hand, Bill Wilson liked to declare
that alcoholics were the most wonderful charming intelligent sensitive people who could compare favorably
with any crowd (and as their leader, he was the most wonderful charming and intelligent one of all).
But then, alcoholics were the most selfish disgusting immoral sinners and they needed
to confess how bad they were in a 5th Step. Go figure. I guess that is yet another
bait-and-switch trick: First alcoholics are charming,
and then they are disgusting.
I'll have to add that to the list.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Meatbag is here.]
Last updated 11 February 2014. |
