We’re back in our underground bunker after a rather eventful trip to the Texas hill country.
The cats genuinely seemed happy to see us. The dog even came over for a rub.
We’re still in recovery mode, and we hope by tomorrow to be more caught up on the things going on in the rest of the Scientology Watching world that need our attention. We have Narconon news to catch up on. More court documents to show you. A couple of interviews that we’ve meant to get done. But we had to put everything on hold for what turned out to be a fateful couple of days at the Comal County courthouse.
For today’s Sunday Funnies, we thought we’d pick out a few of our favorite images that commenters created and posted during our Texas adventure. After that, we have a set of mailers and fliers from our tipsters. And for last, we’ve saved a bit of secret internal church planning for its upcoming IAS spectacular that we’re going to share with you just because we can! Let’s get it on.
First, we must express our gratitude to our loyal readers for posting so many comments and wrestling with the Disqus system during our live-blogging from the courthouse. There were so many great one-liners and keen observations in the mix, and many fun images and shoops.
We’ve picked out just a few that we figured ought to get a little more exposure.
This first gem is from OTVIIIisGrrr8!, who had fun with Church of Scientology International attorney Les Striebel’s spectacularly bad moment during Monique Rathbun’s cross-examination. Are you picking a fight with the Church of Scientology? he asked her, and we really felt pretty bad for him. If you’ve ever wondered what it must be like to work as an attorney for Scientology leader David Miscavige, just put yourself in Les’s place, because there’s little doubt that question came from anyone but Miscavige himself.
Marc Headley — whose book Blown For Good just got the thumb’s up from actress Leah Remini — posted these three great takes on the court hearings. In this first one, Marc picked up on our surprise that Les Striebel, in a lawsuit about the harassment of Monique Rathbun, would bring up the sanctity of Scientology’s copyrights and trademarks…
And what made it crazier was that it became apparent Strieber and CSI were essentially admitting private investigator surveillance of the Rathbuns. But Strieber kept couching in terms of the church preserving its “orthodoxy.”
One incident of Monique’s harassment has quickly become notorious — the anonymously mailed sex toy to her office. Naturally, she suspects that it was sent by Scientology’s dirty tricks division, the Office of Special Affairs. Headley wondered if there had actually been an OSA mailing mixup…
Killer shoop artist Observer posted a couple of great items. This was her take on Striebel’s Clarence Darrow moment…
And she posted (or reposted?) this howler, which seems to capture Scientology’s decadent collapse so perfectly…
And one more reference to the Texas legal showdown. We told you that the attorney representing David Miscavige and doing his best to throw the other defendants under the bus was Lamont Jefferson of the law firm Haynes and Boone. (His brother is Wallace Jefferson, who is about to step down as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas and return to private practice.) Here’s a video of Lamont during a lighter moment…
Getting back to new stuff sent to us by our great tipsters, we have several things in the wake of the big San Fernando Valley “Ideal Org” fundraising event that was held last week, on September 7. The push for cash in the Valley has been intense, and this was intended to be a big make-or-break moment, with strong effort from Nancy Cartwright and Kirstie Alley. One of our inside church sources sent us this report…
Spoke to a friend who was at the event last week. She said there was a pretty big turnout, with more than 400 people. She said Kirstie Alley had a special dinner the night before for all the big donors. But my friend was disappointed because they did not reach their final goal to complete the total amount needed. She indicated to me that in the sequence of events they had some very good entertainment that really got the crowd excited, but right at that high point chose to play a half-hour video that totally brought the mood of the crowd down — and then they started fund raising.
It sounds like Quinn Taufer had orders to play up David Miscavige, but the video made it that much harder to get the crowd to give. And the point is they still have not raised enough to complete the project. I have talked with several friends who are staying away from anything having to do with the Valley fundraising, and these are normally dedicated church members. I think a lot of LA members are getting disgusted with this project.
Our tipster also sent over this post-event flier, with the names of folks who were rooked into writing checks. And notice that Nancy Cartwright and Kirstie Alley are only “highly commended,” and thanked on the second rung. That’s some genius PR, that is.
You’ll remember Jeremy Arezzini, who tried to encourage Valley Scientologists to give money by saying that giving $1 million to the Portland Ideal Org project had made his life worth living, or something. And now, he’s big in the Valley as well!
And so are these folks! But did they get to eat dinner with Kirstie?
We’ll take you now to England, where this handsome young man is clearing the planet with his auditing skills. He also happens to be a nephew to noted author Neil Gaiman, whose Scientology family we’ve told you about numerous times…
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Alex Petry is not just clearing LA, but the entire world!
And finally, we have that secret information smuggled out of the church that we mentioned earlier. On November 8 and 9, the International Association of Scientologists is holding its annual gala not in England where it’s been held for years, but in a big tent that’s been erected in Clearwater, Florida. The tent has garnered a lot of attention not just because it’s been put up right as hurricane season was starting in Florida, but also because a couple of healthy live-oak trees were cut down to make way for it, even after the city refused to give permission to cut them down.
Well, the tent is in place now, and work will soon begin on the elaborate staging that always comes with an IAS gala.
And we know what it’s going to look like!
Well, sort of. We were smuggled this schematic of the big, gaudy stage backdrop (in green ink) and plans for lighting stanchions (in blue)…
You probably can’t make it out, but there’s a notation that the green rectangles floating around the central globe are “aluminum flags.” So, in other words, this thing will be about as godawfully gaudy as every other backdrop the church produces for David Miscavige to stand in front of and drone on for three hours straight. It will be fun to compare this to photos of the event after it happens.
Thanks again to our great tipsters. Keep those mailers and fliers coming!
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Posted by Tony Ortega on September 15, 2013 at 07:00
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