Komodo,

I heartily concur, as I would expect would any Ex-Scientologists of the female persuasion.

In fact, I’d go so far as to opine that each night at Twin Peaks, before turning in, the exiled Mrs. David Miscavige breaths a sigh of relief and says a private prayer of thanks – something along the line of “Thank you, Lou, better you than me, kid!”

Communicator with Benefits? I cannot see one benefit of having to touch that monster, he would probaly yell obscenities at her during sex, I’m going to go throw up now.

Good one Mark, but you forgot “THE CHILD DIDDLING”

That is the truth & it’s so damned sad. Possibly he’s also worried they’d TRADE UP…..throw him out on HIS ASS & have Shelly as the new COB since she knows how to handle things AND as you mentioned “she knows where the bodies are buried”.

My heart aches for her, I can’t imagine how it went down…..as in “Surprise Shelly, you’re in the hole for the rest of your life. Don’t worry, you’ll be treated well but I can no longer trust you to keep your mouth shut & my greatest FEAR is that YOU will replace me”.

But it touches on another thing: the extent that Miscavige and his circle have gone to in order to not only make him the successor of LRH, but in a way possibly even supplanting the founder’s legacy with his own. This happens in cults when a succession takes place, and it happens in dictatorships if one dictator succeeds another (even in a father-son succession) – sometimes the “new guy” will continue the legacy of the “old guy” but at the same time wants you to forget about the “old guy”. Miscavige’s attitude towards Hubbard’s family may well bear that out as well (Diana is the last one of LRH’s family I believe still in the cult).

Another feature you find in such movements is that in the founder’s dying years, access to the said founder may well be tightly restricted by the clique that is effectively in control and in place to ensure the successor takes over without resistance.

Miscavige is what – 5’4″? Or is it 5’1″? I’ve read both. But if he’s 5’4″ it shouldn’t have been hard to find a Sea Org girl shorter than that.

“Sidekick”? That is not her hat. Lou is wearing the hat of Communicator With Benefits now.

When one day Dwarf considers her no longer useful she will be summarily let go and just as summarily replaced.

When one day – despite botox injections, eye tucks, neck lifts, Rogaine and Born Blonde #Whatever – when one day Dwarfenfheurer starts to actually look old, feel old, he will require a much a younger CWB.

Coincidentally, right about then, Lou will make some sort of error which will be deemed insupportable. In disgrace she will then vanish and be never more seen by Sea Org members, staff or public.

No one will ever speak about Lou again except to state that they don’t know where she is but wherever she is, she’s there by choice, and totally, 100% happy about it and glad to be there.

By that time a new Communicator With Benefits will have been selected and instant-hatted to occupy this key post.

The new CWB will be significantly younger and prettier than Lou.

Her adams apple will be much smaller.

As these insights come to me, I’ll keep you posted.

Yes it is. Four sooper-dooper super powered 8’s teleported the bridge to Clearwater so Demento could do his photo and then sent it back to be reattached.

It was said, on the quiet, that the teensy-weensy tyrant with the Ken doll sized todger could only remain out of the barrel scotch he was living in for 45 seconds at a time before he started dehydrating. A fun time was not had by all before it was over.

He’s scared shitless of all the potential dirt on him that Shelly has inside her head. So what better way to keep her under control than by banishing her and keeping 24 hour a day guard over her.

Much easier to get a PR photo with the ship not moving. This is no different than getting 20 staff to, not in uniform, sit scattered around an Academy courseroom reading, looking up words in a dictionary, doing a demo or clay demo or practical, with an eagle-eye Supe playing vulture over them.

Why have an SO member holding the wheel? PR, remember. It looks like action. Why female? Probably because pretty and available. Doesn’t have to know what to do, just stand there and be a pretty backdrop to his magnificence. (He’s definitely standing notably closer to the camera, which is at around a table height, using perspective to seem bigger.

I don’t think it’s shopped, given there are two other images on the page, one with him on the steps to one of the decks, and one without jacket and tie (shocking, they followed some sort of safety regulations? or was it a PR thing to look more ‘one of the guys’) around the engineering area.

More likely that was a whole scripted photo shoot, and the fact the mini-me cruise ship was docked was considered good rather than bad.