The WOTC Developers Test Friday, September 30, 2005

Here is an article from the Wizards of the Coast where they talk about game design and development. Included is the test they give to prospective hires for that role. Cool stuff. Check it out.

Jonestown (Part 2, 1965 - 1974) Thursday, September 29, 2005

(Continued from Part 1, August 30)

In 1965, some 70 families – half black, half white – followed Jim Jones to Ukiah, California, located in the Redwood Valley. In relative isolation, Jones was able to forge a community dedicated to his radical vision, slowly gathering new followers and pushing out those he considered weak in their conviction. This middle stage of the life of the Peoples Temple, the time between Indianapolis and Guyana, is a time of growth on several fronts as Jones prepared to make his vision of a socialist utopia a reality.

In a way, the theme of migration was never totally submerged and the search for sanctuary was never totally satisfied during the California years; the stay there represented an extended sojourn for Peoples Temple. But those years can be considered a sojourn only because Jim Jones and his associates successfully built a group and organization that possessed the solidarity, the social control over significant numbers of followers, the material resources, and the origanization and political acumen that made it possible to prosper in California and establish an enterprise on the scale of Jonestown. (Hall, 73)

Jones began to form a conglomerate corporate entity, a thriving, independent community funded by the collective donations of the members. Those that "went communal" would hand over some or all of their income and assets to the community, and seniors would sign over their social security checks. In return, the Temple would provide its members with everything from jobs and health care, to tax services and legal advice.

Jones ran bus tours throughout California and the surrounding area, performing faith-healings and seeking converts in the revivalist style of the Pentecostal Christians, and it is estimated that perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 people heard him speak on these tours (69). He would preach in poor, mainly black areas, seeking out the marginalized and speaking to their personal trials in the context of the larger struggle of class and race against the iniquities of an oppressive, segregated and unjust capitalist system. Jones followed the pattern of a black preacher called Father Divine, who is considered by some to be one of the first modern cult leaders (source). Father Divine established several communes in New York during the Depression, and proclaimed himself to be God Himself. Jones at various times claimed to be Marx or Christ reincarnate, and like Father Divine, he encouraged his followers to call him Dad.

The public face of the Peoples Temple was that of a small but devoted Christian church, and they were involved in a number of social work programs. They ran soup kitchens, nursing home facilities, homeless shelters, and addicition treatment programs. Some former addicts became members, and some of those people felt indebted to Jones for saving their lives from drug and alcohol abuse. But other newcomers from northern California were affluent, white college graduates – disenchanted liberals who wanted to become part of a community. They had organizational and professional skills to offer the Temple, and over time, they became Jones' inner circle.

Like Father Divine, many of the members of Jones' staff were white women, who served as secretaries, administrators and representatives for the church. They acted with a great deal of personal autonomy, and they ran many of the day-to-day Temple activities in his name. Carolyn Layton joined with her husband Larry in 1968; she was a high school teacher and Larry was doing alternative service as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. The two were divorced in 1969 after just two years of marriage and thereafter Carloyn became the first and most constant of Jim Jones' lovers. Carolyn's sister, Annie Moore, would follow and join the Temple right out of high school, and they would pay for her to study nursing. Larry remained with the group, and his attractive, eighteen-year-old sister, Debbie, would join as well, explaining in 1971 "By joining Peoples Temple, I hoped to help others and in the process to bring structure and self-discipline to my own life." (Hall, 68) Larry later remarried and his new wife, Karen, would eventually become another of Jones' lovers, as would Maria Katsaris, the daughter of a former Greek Orthodox priest. Carolyn, Karen and Maria would all be found dead with him at Jonestown.

Another couple joined in 1969, Elmer "Mert" Mertle and his wife, Deanna, who each had children from a previous marriage. Mert would quit his job, sell his house in Hayward, and move his family to live with the Peoples Temple, thinking that it would provide them an insulated environment in which to raise their children away from drugs and violence. The Mertles eventually defected from the group and changed their names to escape Jones' wrath, and they would later become his most active opponents. But the most important new follower from California was Timothy Stoen, a talented and idealistic Stanford Law graduate who served as legal counsel for the group from the time he joined until his eventual defection in 1977. John Hall calls him "the hinge upon which the history of the Peoples Temple turned" (211) because not only were his considerable talents instrumental in allowing Jones to deflect legal and political pressure, but also because the custody battle that later ensued over his son turned him into a powerful adversary. In the end, Jones would say

What we'd like to get are the people that caused this stuff, and some, if some people here are prepared and know how to do that, to go in town and get Timothy Stoen .... He's responsible for it. .... He and Deanna Mertle.
—Suicide Tape Transcript of the final moments of November 18, 1978

Stoen first met Jim Jones in 1967 and joined the community in 1969, seeking to learn to control his "latent materialism" and his desire for "power and pleasure" (67). With Stoen's help, the Peoples Temple was able to maintain the appearance of legitimacy and protect itself from outside scrutiny. In a wedding officiated by Jones in the summer of 1970, Stoen married Grace Grech, who also came to a position of responsibility in the group. In 1972, Grace gave birth to a son, John Victor Stoen, but in a signed document dated February 6, 1972, Timothy Stoen affirmed:

I, Timothy Oliver Stoen, hereby acknowledge that in April, 1971, I entreated my beloved pastor, James W. Jones, to sire a child by my wife, Grace Lucy (Grech) Stoen, who had previously, at my insistence, reluctantly but graciously consented thereto. James W. Jones agreed to do so, reluctantly, after I explained that I very much wished to raise a child, but was unable, after extensive attempts, to sire one myself. My reason for requesting James W. Jones to do this is that I wanted my child to be fathered, if not by me, by the most compassionate, honest, and courageous human being the would contains.

The child, John Victor Stoen, was born on January 25, 1972. I am priveleged beyond words to have the responsibility for caring for him, and I undertake this task humbly with the steadfast hope that said child will become a devoted follower of Jesus Christ and be instrumental in bringing God's kingdom here on earth, as has been his wonderful natural father.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. (Hall, 127)

Upon joining the community, Jones had each member sign several blank sheets of paper as a test of loyalty. Stoen later claimed that he was compelled to sign the document as one of many "acts of trust" that Jones demanded of his followers. To this day, the paternity of "John-John" is uncertain, but whether or not Jones was actually the father, the Temple community regarded him as such, and it was understood that this "god-child" would be the inheritor of Jim Jones' wisdom.

When the Peoples Temple incorporated in California in 1966, claiming just 88 adult members, and by 1968, had grown slowly, numbering only 136. But what had also changed was the makeup of the group. With the help of Temple lawyers Tim Stoen, Gene Chaiken and Charles Garry, and the KXTV-TV news bearau chief Michael Prokes, another member, Jones was able to operate on a much larger scale, becoming a player in the world of benefit dinners, political favor-trading, photo-ops and press releases. With ever-increasing assets and a growing sophistication, the Peoples Temple became a political force unto itself. The Temple gave political donations, made savvy legal decisions, and engaged in numerous PR campaigns to position the group in such a way that they could maintain this dual existence of a socialist commune in the guise of a church. Jones came to master the art of what John Hall called "counterposturing," where he would declaim an idea in order to promote it, resulting in a powerful dialectic of intentional ambiguity. He would create a public image that allowed him to operate freely while simultaneously promoting a decidedly anti-establishment message, using the aura of authority as a minister to promote Stalinist ideals in an age still steeped in McCarthyism.

Thus came Jim Jones's first and greatest deception: using the cover of a church to preach that religion was "the opiate of the people." In the United States, serious discussion of socialism effectively has been excluded from mainstream media, and the subject has become virtually taboo for the population at large. One of Jones's converts, Tim Carter, explained, "Telling people about socialism in America, you'd get 20 people. But as a preacher you could get a large audience." In semipublic services in the early 1970s, as a sort of bait to the interested, Jones would allude to deeper truths than those he was presenting, much as gnostics and mystics had done before him. By the mid-1970s, he became more and more explicit about his socialist vision. Like early twentieth-century Black socialist preachers, he used religion as the most straightforward way to inspire followers: both the Blacks he weaned from "jackleg" Christianity, and Whites who were more interested in the "inner light" and the practice of the social gospel. (Hall, 144)

In 1972, the Temple opened the doors to its new church headquarters at Geary Boulevard and Fillmore Street in San Francisco, and another in Los Angeles shortly afterwards, and by 1973 it claimed 2,500 members. Simultaneously, Jim Jones was laying the plans for a second, more ambitious emigration. In 1974, he acquired a lease from the Communist Guyanese government for 3,852 acres of land in the Orinoco River Basin to "cultivate and beneficially occupy" the land for 25 years, which would set the lease to expire in 1999. Jones, with his unique fusion of Christian Apocalypticism, Stalinist socialism and the "back to Africa" movement that inspired Marcus Garvey and Father Divine, sought to build a utopian commune away from the evils of American capitalism and the imminent threat of nuclear destruction.

Pennington Out for the Season Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Yes, Chad's done for the year. Yes, the Fiddler is gone, too, leaving us Jets fans with one hope: Brooks Bollinger. Man, it sucks when your season ends in week 3.

This article was pretty damn amusing, though.

Three Top 25 Lists (Useless Data) Monday, September 19, 2005

Ever wanna see a map of the dominant religious groups in the US? How about the same map, showing the dominant non-Catholic groups? Bet you didn't. It's useless data.

So, in the spirit of such useless data, I present three useless top 25 lists that I decided to share for no particular reason. First, here are the top 25 churches in the United States:

Rank	Church	Members
1	The Roman Catholic Church	66,407,105
2	Southern Baptist Convention	16,247,736
3	The United Methodist Church	8,251,042
4	The Church of God in Christ	5,499,875
5	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints	5,410,544
6	Evangelical Lutheran Church in America	5,038,006
7	National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.	5,000,000
8	National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.	3,500,000
9	Presbyterian Church (USA)	3,407,329
10	Assemblies of God	2,687,366
11	The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod	2,512,714
12	African Methodist Episcopal Church	2,500,000
13	National Missionary Baptist Convention of America	2,500,000
14	Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.	2,500,000
15	The Episcopal Church	2,333,628
16	Churches of Christ, Corsicana, TX	1,500,000
17	Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America	1,500,000
18	Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, Inc.	1,500,000
19	American Baptist Churches in the USA	1484,291
20	African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church	1,430,795
21	United Church of Christ	1,330,985
22	Baptist Bible Fellowship International	1,200,000
23	Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, Joplin, MO	1,071,616
24	Jehovah's Witnesses	1,022,397
25	Church of God, Cleveland, TN	944,857

If you do the math, you'll find the Catholic Church claims more members than numbers 3 through 25 combined.

Here's some more; the top 25 most populous countries in the world:

Rank	Country	Area (sq km)	Population
			Yearly Growth	Daily Increase	Current Population
	World	510,072,000	1.14%	201,331	6,462,237,898
1	China	9,596,960	0.58%	20,758	1,307,974,441
2	India	3,287,590	1.40%	41,435	1,083,579,172
3	United States of America	9,629,091	0.92%	7,454	296,330,464
4	Indonesia	1,919,440	1.45%	9,613	242,742,892
5	Brazil	8,511,965	1.06%	5,405	186,545,188
6	Pakistan	803,940	2.03%	9,033	163,142,604
7	Bangladesh	144,000	2.09%	8,264	144,980,731
8	Russia	17,075,200	-0.37%	-1,454	143,304,001
9	Nigeria	923,768	2.37%	8,361	129,440,897
10	Japan	377,835	0.05%	175	127,431,208
11	Mexico	1,972,550	1.17%	3,404	106,475,248
12	Philippines	300,000	1.84%	4,429	88,211,791
13	Vietnam	329,560	1.04%	2,380	83,725,991
14	Germany	357,021	0.00%	0	82,431,390
15	Egypt	1,001,450	1.78%	3,780	77,808,135
16	Ethiopia	1,127,127	2.36%	4,723	73,431,162
17	Turkey	780,580	1.09%	2,080	69,826,981
18	Iran	1,648,000	0.86%	1,603	68,146,069
19	Thailand	514,000	0.87%	1,560	65,569,164
20	France	547,030	0.37%	615	60,705,368
21	United Kingdom	60,441,457	0.28%	464	60,478,550
22	Congo, Dem. Rep. of the	2,345,410	2.98%	4,906	60,478,255
23	Italy	301,230	0.07%	111	58,111,947
24	Korea, South	98,480	0.38%	504	48,462,974
25	Ukraine	603,700	-0.63%	-819	47,359,850

Anyone else not realize we were number 3? I had no idea. And that Ethiopia has more people than the UK? Weird. The whole list is here.

Last one. Well... I was going to make the top 25 dumb laws the last list, but there's no way to quantify that, so it doesn't count. Though I think it's interesting that it's illegal to pee in your neighbor's mouth in Champaign, Illinois. Then I considered the top 25 most inappropriate things an objectivist can say during sex. Well, that one's just silly. How about the top 25 highest grossing films of all time as of June 22, 2005 (source):

Rank	Film (Year)	Ticket Sales
1	Titanic (1997)	$1,845,034,188
2	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	$1,118,888,979
3	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone (2001)	$976,475,550
4	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)	$926,287,400
5	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)	$924,488,301
6	Shrek 2 (2004)	$918,506,048
7	Jurassic Park (1993)	$914,691,118
8	Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)	$876,688,482
9	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)	$871,368,364
10	Finding Nemo (2003)	$864,625,978
11	Spider-Man (2002)	$821,708,551
12	Independence Day (1996)	$816,969,268
13	E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)	$792,910,554
14	Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)	$789,626,519
15	Spider-Man 2 (2004)	$783,949,228
16	Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)	$775,398,007
17	The Lion King (1994)	$783,841,776
18	The Matrix Reloaded (2003)	$738,599,701
19	Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)	$709,281,058
20	Forrest Gump (1994)	$677,386,686
21	The Sixth Sense (1999)	$672,806,292
22	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)	$653,913,918
23	Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)	$649,476,740
24	The Incredibles (2004)	$617,419,089
25	The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)	$614,300,000

Hmm. All 3 parts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the three Harry Potter films to date, both Spider-Man movies, and the first four of the Star Wars series are all in there, comprising about half the list. Geeks like their movies.

Panda Cam Thursday, September 15, 2005

There's a live webcam provided by the San Diego zoo showing their new panda cub (born about a month ago) and her mother. Really cute.

That's why we call him "LC" Tuesday, September 13, 2005

I originally entitled this post "What's in a Name?", but feared persecution by the Department of Cliche Prevention. However, since the Department of Cliche Prevention was deemed by President Chimp-Face to fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, I have no worries. They have their heads so far up their asses that they'd never notice.

I ran across this article while looking for a new desktop wallpaper for my work computer. I have had Chad Pennington on my desktop since last season, and after Sunday's debacle, I don't want to even look at him. So I went looking for something with LC on it, and found this post. It poses an interesting question: if someone wants their name to be spelled in a way that defies the conventional rules of spelling, are we then obligated to comply?

One example he cites is Jets receiver Laveranues Coles. He pronounces his first name "la-VER-nee-us", but that's certainly not how he spells it. The article's author argues that if one departs entirely from the conventions of English spelling, then authors are under no obligation to follow suit, because (I'm guessing) the clarity of the information being communicated is compromised. For example, when Prince was a symbol, was it wrong to address him in some other way? Do I now have to go create some graphic and insert it into my writing just to satisfy some wacko's idea of self-expression? Probably not. But I do think names are too personal to be anyone's business but their owner's, and if someone named "Bob" spells their name "Shoe", I say so be it. Some explanatory footnote should cover it if the reader is unfamiliar. Proper names have always crossed the boundaries of orthography and convention, and I see no reason to say that "Shoe" (Bob) is any less valid than, say, spelling "Jen" with two n's.

The Political Quiz Show Saturday, September 10, 2005

I like these quizzes for some reason. This one was one of the first I've taken that I felt asked good questions and the result seemed accurate.

The Political Quiz Show rates you on a 0 - 40 scale, 0 being 100% liberal, 40 being 100% conservative. What did I score? The perfect 20, making me a "Colin Powell" Centrist.

Part 1 Updated Tuesday, September 06, 2005

I updated the post below. Just the end. Part 2 in the works. New material. Note the date change.