Community television for cultists ...

(Above: screen cap only, no hot links. First do no harm ...)


The pond used to spend too much time on a Sunday meditating about religion, but since Cardinal Pell has gone, the game has gone flat, and all that's left are tawdry examples of shame and child abuse, with the recent report on matters that occurred in Newcastle a most peculiar and curious affair, in which the whistle blower was blamed for blowing the whistle, while at the same time it was concluded that the whistle blower had plenty to blow his whistle about ...

Only in New South Wales ...

The Sydney Anglicans also seem to have dropped the ball, though as usual they're out and about peddling hate, and it's not just for women's and gay rights:

Beetson, and even Churchill, I never could have loved. They always played for the enemy.

We keed, we keed, it's just David Mansfield infatuated with thugby boofheads in Gasnier's State of Origin. 

No turning of the cheek or loving the neighbour in thugby boofhead land ...

Only in New South Wales and Queensland ... and Victoria and the rest of Australia ...

It turns out Mansfield is a loser in love with the losing St George and Richmond Tigers, and the mention of those epic losers reminded the pond of a curious discovery during a recent trip to Melbourne.

As always, the pond poked down laneways, and looked up alternative activities, as a sure guide to the strange ways of the natives.

And strange they were.

It turns out that Channel 31 is running a Scientology program, and if this blog entry, Scientology infiltrates Channel 31, is any guide, it's been doing it since before September 2009.

Who'd have thunk it, but yep, there it is, scheduled for screening this very night at nine o'clock:

L. Ron Hubbard providing practical and workable solutions to many of life's everyday problems, and don't you go worrying about the cost ...

Workable solutions? Is that a reference to Narconon?

It seems that dole bludgers on drugs is a major worry in Australia.

Perhaps the federal government could take a leaf out of L. Ron's book, and use his techniques to end addiction, and never mind a few deaths along the way. There's always a little wastage to be expected ...

Never mind, it turns out that Melbourne scientologists are wildly excited about being on community television, and they also run all their episodes on Vimeo (the scientology website here, approach with caution and only with sound mind) though it did occur to the pond to wonder if they could use Vimeo, why did Channel 31 feel the need to give the show a run?

And so community television compounds chaos and confusion in the land of cults ...

Oh sure, they still run all sorts of other stuff, but what happened to "first do no harm"?

Why couldn't they have just stuck to psychics and all the other new age touchy feely stuff that makes up the alternative circuit?

We can all lose our innocence at various stages in life, and the pond just lost its innocence in relation to community television.

Along with all the admirable ethnic and minority programming, they peddle the mind-warping activities of a cult?

Only in Melbourne? Or does community television elsewhere provide air time for cults?

Thanks to the blog post which alerted the pond to how long this has been going on, at least the pond was reminded of that splendid image, eminently suited for a meditative Sunday: