Our first trip to the Mark Twain House in Hartford was with our friend Dan Perkins, the man behind Tom Tomorrow and the This Modern World comic strip. We got a special tour, and at one point found ourselves in Twain's upstairs billiards room where his writing desk was tucked away in a corner. It shook us to stand there, by that desk, and think about what the man had created there during the years 1874 to 1891.
On the wall nearby, there was a very curious artifact. Our guide, Jacques Lamarre, explained that it was a rare panel, about a foot on each side, made from thinnest bone, so that some light could come through from the outside, and it had some symbols carved in it. It was otherworldly.
After that experience, we knew we wanted to have a book event there in 2015 for The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, and Dan was good enough again to take part, asking questions.
So now we get to return the favor, and we’ll be asking questions of Mike Rinder about his excellent book A Billion Years: My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology.
You can see our full-length review of the book here, which we posted the day after the book came out in September. And hey, we'd like your suggestions about what we should ask Mike about the book. Leave us a suggestion in the comments section here or at the dot org site.
Here’s the link for tonight’s conversation.
While you wait for tonight’s event. Here’s a little something that Neil Clark spotted.
In 2016, a person calling themselves “Angry Thetan” approached us with some killer drone footage of Scientology’s secretive properties, including Int Base in Southern California and the smaller mountain compound where we believe Scientology is keeping Shelly Miscavige.
Well, someone has taken Angry Thetan’s lengthy drone flyover of Int Base, sped it up, and added helpful titles to identify various locations at the base.
The result is a fast and thorough inventory of the place, and we found it to be a very worthwhile updating of Angry Thetan’s work.
As you fly over the place, keep in mind that David Miscavige has apparently abandoned this compound for Florida, and that a much smaller crew lives here now than in years past.
Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
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Wow. Thanks for the labeled drone footage. Never really been able to visualize or get the perspective of where what is in relationship to what. It's pretty stunning to me to think that there is only a skeleton crew there now, and that david miscavige doesn't go there anymore and yet a multimillion dollar facility just for him, a multimillion dollar home just for LRH, an enormous pool, a golf course, tennis courts, a cine facility, etc. and NONE of them are used.
ENORMOUS WASTE That's what this place demonstrates. Wasted time, wasted energies, wasted materials, an utter waste of space but most of all the heartbreaking WASTE OF LIVES, lives that could have been spent actually changing the world or a minimum, lives that could have had moments of peace and happiness.
Remember when David Miscavige's personal attorney Monique Yingling was interviewed for ABC's 20/20 show back in 2016, and she described the horror that was Int Base as a workers' paradise? Now that Miscavige has moved his centre of operations to Clearwater, I wonder if the remaining skeleton crew actually does find time to enjoy life a little.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/scientology-leaders-father-ron-miscavige-describes-moment-escaped/story?id=38758691