Scientology Today has a great article on the VMs today!

Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tours Aim to Impact Important Social Issues

The 21st Century presents this paradox: while the Internet has made access to information instantaneous, and with means to distribute goods and services better now than at any time in history, the United Nations reports that 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes. It is issues like this that motivate many of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers to do the work they do. By providing effective technology through seminars to those who are actively working to improve conditions, Scientology Volunteer Ministers are impacting society. And while it is hoped that this week’s appeal by the UN Secretary-General to G8 leaders to tackle poverty will result in meaningful changes, individual action, initiative, and skill are vital components to a permanent resolution of these problems. In October 2004, at the anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Scientologists, the first Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tours were launched. Announced by David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center, to the thousands of Scientologists who attended, these Tours bring help to people, largely in developing countries where no Scientology churches, missions or groups exist, and give them tools to improve conditions in their own lives, help their families and tackle the most important social issues of our time. As stated by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Scientology religion, the Aims of Scientology are “a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights.” The Goodwill Tours are making headway toward accomplishing these aims. Sponsored by the International Association of Scientologists, these tours include massivte pavilions, 3,400 square feet in all, set up as full delivery centers, where courses, workshops and seminars can be conducted and hundreds of people can be helped at the same time. Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tours remain in a given city for a full month or longer, where they train and establish groups of new local Scientology Volunteer Ministers who carry on their work after the Tour moves on. Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tours provide one-on-one help to anyone who visits their tents. But perhaps their most important service is the seminars and workshops they provide to civil servants, health care professionals, NGOs and community leaders. By providing these people with know-how in in such subjects as the basics of organization, communicationand conflict resolution they arm those most committed to improving their communities with the skills they need to upgrade their service and really make a difference. Education and literacy are vital components to raising the standard of living in developing countries. And Scientology Volunteer Ministers tackle this with study technology seminars to educators and volunteers. As one teacher put it, “I am giving these personal sentiments as a professional teacher. After all the experiences as a teacher at the primary, secondary and university level for over 16 years, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers have reminded me of the same high expectation of education (teaching skills) that I had… .I recommend the research of the barriers and practical solutions in order to ensure the success of education so that the society will see the actual fruits of a successful education.” Scientology Volunteer Ministers work with community leaders, civil servants and other volunteers, providing them with the know-how they need to maximize the help they give their communities. In an essay in which he first announced the Scientology Volunteer Ministers program, L. Ron Hubbard wrote: “If one is going to find fault with something, it implies that he wishes to do something about it and would if he could. If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can be a Volunteer Minister and help civilize it.” The volunteers, manning the Scientology Goodwill Tours, are living examples of this kind of help.

The ether has been deluged with ominous allegations of a “Scientology connection” in Will Smith’s new private school. And OMFG, it is even reported that there are Scientologists planning to teach there! Hurry! Where’s the bird flue vaccine!

Can you please chill out? Someone must really think Scientology is big news if they think this is a “story.”

I admit Will Smith is one of the sexiest men alive. But let’s really put this in perspective. The Google Directory indexes web sites of more than 600 Christian colleges and universities just in the United States. At least 34 of these are Catholic schools. Do you read about this in the news? Not very likely. Do we then have people clamoring at the gates complaining their kids are being proselytized? I don’t think so. CBS News ran a homey, friendly, everyone-thinks-it’s-great show in 2006 about the most famous graduates of Notre Dame, including Joe Montana and Regis Philbin. Was this followed by a spate of controversy over whether Regis was a closet priest of Joe really wants to join a monastery?

So what’s the controversy? That Scientologists claim they get better results than the school system by using study technology? That Will Smith would prefer that his kids learn karate and sports and how to read and write than that they spend their school days learning how to cheat on tests and sneak in a toke in the bathroom?

If Will Smith wants to spend his money setting up a school so his kids get a step up in life, I say go for it.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers are active everywhere in the world. They number about 100, 000 and are trained in a large variety of tools to help people (most of them covered in the Scientology Handbook.

I have done this training five years ago and use a lot of it in the course of a month, for myself and people I see in need of help. But I never went to disaster areas. Many Volunteer Ministers have set up their life to be ready if disaster hits. Some take only a few hours to turn over their work, arrange unpaid vacation, someone to water the flowers and feed the dog , and off they go in unknown areas all over the world, from Java to Louisiana in the US, from Kenya to India.

Aside from this loose Emergency Response group there are about a dozen or so Volunteer Minister tours going on, organized and manned with Scientologists who take off from work and join in the “Largest independent relief force on earth” with all their heart and soul.

If you want to see what the “VMs” - as they call themselves - are doing, check out their website.

Or visit the site of a photographer and member of the VMs who traveled 12,000 miles through South-East Asia with the VM disaster response group and later published his works in a free photo book and websites at afterthetsunami.org .

News releases about the VMs are scarce but somehow I understand that they like to spend their time helping people and not writing articles. However I found some on the Scientology Today website.

23 June 2008: Kenya Scientology Mission Provides Seminar to Nairobi School

It started with an an email to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers web site from one of the teachers at the Zelyn Academy in Kibera, Kenya. Kiberia is the Nairobi neighborhood where her school is located. It is also home to more than half a million people who live in abject poverty in a district smaller than New York’s Central Park. The teacher, Elisha Ooga, wrote in to inquire about the free online course the Volunteer Ministers offer. But on learning of the school and the selfless work of these educators, the Scientology Volunteer Ministers contacted the director of the Church of Scientology Mission of Nairobi to get help in providing training not just to the teachers but to the children of the school as well.

“The first thing I did with the children was a Locational Processing Assist:

“L. Ron Hubbard developed numerous applications of his discoveries for the mental and spiritual aspects of a person’s physical difficulties. And as more and more techniques evolved, a new body of technology came into use, called ‘Assists.’”

“One of the easiest assists to render is Locational Processing. A Locational is done by directing a person’s attention off the painful area of his body or his difficulties and out onto the environment.”

“Then, using a mixture of English, Swahili and the local language so everyone could understand, I taught them about study tech—technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard based on research into what prevents a person from being able to learn any subject. The teachers were very enthusiastic about what they learned.”

23 June 2008: Scientology Volunteer Ministers South East Asia Goodwill Tour in the City of Cebu in the Philippines

The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas in Cebu in the Philippines teamed up with the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Southeast Asian Goodwill Tour last month to launch a program to help the residents of the island cope with the problems they face in life and deal with disaster.

19 June 2008: Scientology Volunteers Use Study Tech to Help Homeless Children in Kolkata, India

24 June 2008: ZAMBIA TIMES article, “Zambia: Scientology Ministers Offer Olive Branch”

“DO not always feel low or negative about yourself just because you are going through a certain situation. Remember, something can be done about it,” says the scientology volunteer ministers currently conducting training and various workshops in Zambia.

Questions?

Source here

“In celebration of the 58th anniversary of the release of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the Church of Scientology has now launched a new and interactive portal at http://www.Dianetics.org for access to testimonials, videos, excerpts, home extension courses, and all information regarding Dianetics. The launch is also supported by a national television advertising campaign. By doing so, the Church of Scientology is able to provide expansive and enlightening information to those who have questions about Dianetics.”

It’s a video site now, worth checking out!

Source

The Civil Defence department of the state government today signed an agreement with the Metro Railway with a view to start a training programme on disaster management for Metro Railway and Civil Defence department officials. The one-month programme is starting on July 1.

Altogether 20 officials, 18 from the civil defence department and two from the Metro Railway will be imparted training by Scientology Volunteers (SV), an organisation based in London that has been roped in by the state government to train Metro and Civil defence officials in disaster management in Metro Railway.

The state government has already signed an agreement with SV, who took an active role in the rescue operations during the London Tube bombing last year.

‘‘The training will first be conferred at public places like markets or cinema halls because understanding crowd behaviour is a part of the programme,’’ Srikumar Mukherjee, minister of state, civil defence, today said. SV is going to send its teams time to time for the training, Mukherjee further added.

The training will be later imparted inside Metro stations.

Later, Metro Railway will train 10 officers of the Civil Defence department in rescue operations inside Metro tunnels.

The minister also said that his department will train 68 volunteers who will be deployed at all the 17 Metro stations to help people in case any disaster strikes. ‘‘There will be four volunteers, each at the 17 stations. They will be chosen from the general public, from youth clubs, NGOs, even political parties. They will not only help people in case of a disaster but during normal times too. If a passenger faces any problem except something related to law and order, the volunteers will come forward to help the one in need,” the minister said.

Find out what’s keeping you away from your desired goals: four hours cost Rs 980, reads a poster in a sprawling house in upmarket Hauz Khas Enclave. And that includes a book. One of the brightly coloured varieties decked on shelves in the reception, one presumes while waiting to meet Horst Tubbesing, executive director of Delhi’s centre for scientology.

Ever since its inception here in March 2002, scientology has slowly been spreading its wings, with 1,700 active members and over 12,000 people who have attended lectures, bought books or visited the centre. Scientology in Delhi, however, is broached far less as a religion than for its multitude of self-help courses. Says one practitioner (name withheld), “I’m not a scientologist. I don’t even know what that means. But its tools work for me.”

With the centre offering over 50 courses ranging from ‘How To Resolve Conflicts’ to ‘Create Better Relationships’, a growing culture of self-help is leading Delhiites to its shores.

“We are not trying to convert people,” Tubbesing says.

Whereas in other countries its branches are known as Churches of Scientology, in India the words church and mission are avoided. Meghna Budhia exemplifies this disconnection of scientology from religion in India. “I am a Hindu, but I believe in the application of scientology,” she says.

Instead, proving most popular in Delhi is ‘study technology’, based on Hubbard’s premise that the only reason a person gives up studying is when he or she has gone past a word not understood.

Those who have taken the course claim it works. Like many, Jatin Kapadia (name changed on request) from Doon School was introduced to scientology through hearing about its impact on, arguably its most famous ambassador: US actor Tom Cruise. And in a letter to the centre he writes how the course helped him overcome dyslexia. Now in Class XII, Kapadia reports a dramatic improvement in his grades.

Results, however, come at a price: the course in communications, for instance, costs Rs 3,500 for 35 hours, and Hubbard’s lecture packs can set you back anywhere from Rs 6,400 to Rs 12,600.

For both Kapadia and Budhia, however, money is no barrier. “I want to learn everything scientology teaches, compared to the gains the cost is nothing,” Budhia says.

At the centre’s cafe are businessmen, students looking for jobs, and even housewives. So, what is it that draws people to scientology? While Tubbesing says the course is for everyone, Kapadia muses: “Those troubled, looking for answers beyond the everyday.”

But for its critics, especially vocal in the US and Britain, scientology poses a number of problems. Most famously denounced in a report by Time magazine in 1991, and again in a BBC investigation last year, scientology is no stranger to controversy.

But protests by activists such as Anonymous, campaigning to close down scientology, are absent in India. “We have not faced any hostility in Delhi,” Tubbesing confirms.

Source

Defensive attorneys for the teenager accused of making a Halloween threat against blacks and athletes at Adlai E. Stevenson High School remained adamant during opening arguments Tuesday that the threat was a joke and was not targeting any local school.

Lawyers argued that Jeremie Dalin, 17, of Fox River Grove posted an elaborate threat on Web site 4chan.org because he wanted to elicit reactions from other posters, but he didn’t plan to carry out any action.

The trial is expected to continue this afternoon. If convicted, Dalin could be sentenced to four to 15 years in prison and fined $25,000.

In the Oct. 29 threat, which was accompanied by a photo of a shotgun and two shotgun shells, Dalin wrote that he was tired of being picked on and contemplated suicide. It went on to say that he will take matters into his own hands on Oct. 31 and get revenge at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. The threat specifically targeted athletes and blacks.

“I won’t let anyone get away with this. I have suffered too much,” Dalin wrote in the message.

Ten days later, Lincolnshire police charged Dalin with making a false terrorist threat.

The FBI did not press charges because it deemed the threat not serious.

Dalin did not have any weapons at his home or a history of being picked on at school.

Dalin’s attorney, Michael Levinsohn argued Tuesday that his client was simply posting a “crazy” story on a site that accepts works of fiction. He also said Dalin was unaware of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, despite being a student at Barrington High School, just a few miles away.

Dalin said he picked the school name randomly from a Web site listing American high schools, and thought he was targeting a school in New York, which is where one of the nation’s four Adlai E. Stevenson High Schools is located.

The threat remained on the 4chan Web site for about nine minutes, until Dalin realized people were taking it seriously and he removed it.

Whether it was meant to be taken seriously or not, the threat was made and that itself is a crime, said prosecutor Mary Stanton, Chief of the Cyber Crimes Division of the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office.

The day after the threat was posted, many concerned parents phoned police in Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove about the safety of students.

On Halloween, more than 500 Stevenson students were absent.

(Source)

Someone did a little informal survey about “Anonymous”. Take a look, it’s a bit scary though.

A former Wisconsin grocery clerk must serve six months in federal prison for making bogus Internet postings warning of terrorist attacks against NFL stadiums, a judge ruled Thursday.

“People have to know they can’t go around posting these things on the Internet,” U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares said, adding that it scares the public and can expose weaknesses in security responses.

Jake Brahm, 22, must also serve six months under house arrest following his prison term, but a fine was waived.

He faced a prison term of six to 12 months under federal sentencing guidelines. His lawyer had sought probation.

Brahm said the postings were not meant to be taken seriously and were at a Web site, www.4chan.org, that is “outrageous.” … more at the source

Shoot…. I missed it. But good on the Church to take action now.

Over 100 law enforcement and government officials, clergy and educators attended an interfaith conference in May at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center International in Hollywood to address the growing problem of Internet hate crime and to see how they can work together to improve Internet safety and security.

Over 100 law enforcement and government officials, clergy and educators attended an interfaith conference in May at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood to address the growing problem of Internet hate crime and to see how they can work together to improve Internet safety and security.

A panel of leading experts shared their insights, professional experience and concern over how the Internet and advanced cell phones are used to perpetrate civil rights abuses, hate crimes, terrorism, fraud, identity theft, sex slavery, terrorism and pedophilia.

Internet technologists explained how the Internet is structured and used as the base for attack and as shelter to maintain anonymity, while millions of users are vulnerable at any given moment when logged on. Even big
business and governments constantly battle with intruders attempting “break in” to steal money, assets, or valuable information.

Bishop Ted Frazier, President of the Faith-Based Coalition of the San Francisco Bay Area and guest speaker, stated, “I am shocked and dismayed at the types, severity and volume of crime and intolerance found online.
This information is too valuable to sit on. We have to go state-wide with this, get every clergy council involved, become united, teach our communities these things.”

The roster of notable speakers included Deputy Chief LAPD Michael Downing, who spoke about the encroachment of hate crime and terrorism on the Internet. Brad Dacus, the President of the Pacific Justice Institute posed and answered the question: Is religious freedom on thin ice? While he noted with considerable accuracy that religious institutions are under attack online, he also articulated the need for solidarity amongst all faiths to pull through and that conferences such as these are one of the mechanisms to do so. He punched home the principle that “a crime against one religion is a crime against all religions” so all religions should stand together against hate and intolerance.

Detective Chris Keeling of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Dept Gang & Hate Crimes Investigation Unit gave an in-depth view into how kids access far more information on the Internet than their parents or teachers would approve of, and how these secrets are masked, leaving the door open to danger from on-line predators.

Information technology specialists Mr. Andrew Duggan, President & CEO of Dynamic Energy Capital Inc, Mr. Ryan Sherstobitoff of Panda Security and Mr. Bob Lotter the CEO of eAgency, each articulated the risks and
dangers inherent in the digital communications revolution, exploited by online criminal hackers, pedophiles, the 12-billion dollar sex slave industry and modern terrorist cells operating via secret networks, and they gave suggestions for solutions to these crimes.

In closing, four prominent clergy took the podium to express the power of solidarity when faiths join together as a cohesive whole. Dr. Edward Nasioki of the World Missionary Fellowship, Ms. Shazia Kamal of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Bishop Ted Frazier of the Faith-Based Coalition of the San Francisco Bay area each articulated in their own special way the importance of a spiritual resolution to these evils. And the conference was closed by the indomitable Rev. Cecil (Chip) L. Murray, who offered a fitting prayer of strength, hope and love. Rev. Murray expressed what most attendees felt–that the conference gave “a superb lift to the faith-based community” and that much was accomplished.

Mr. Bob Adams, Vice President of the Church of Scientology International, which co-sponsored the event, said, “I am really pleased with the outcome, the enthusiastic response to the lessons provided by these experts. The Interfaith community came together in harmony and learned something that we can apply immediately to improve this vital problem.”