The Ripleys – ex Melb moved to Perth now back again. Michael is a Victorian, Sharon is a gas & oil engineer originally from Singapore. Very nice couple the kind of people you hope would wake up..

Jan and Craig Middleton – own a cleaning company in Melbourne’s Eastern suburbs. Both from the UK. Jan was MEL FDN staff for years , is still WTH Rep for Victoria. Their daughter Jasmine was featured on the Scn Network.

Beats family – own a wildflower business in Victoria’s Wimmera region. Shane and Amanda’s daughter Kat used to represent the family business at the Melbourne Markets but left to join the SO was based at AOSH ANZO and may still be there. Nice girl but never really knew her place in the world.

Hunter Leonard – marketing extraordinaire. No one loves Hunter more than Hunter…

As discussed above Canberra is pretty much dead with a few diehard stalwarts holding the fort – Matt Dent, Iona Kentwell, Wenda Moore, Renate Barton (the Capital Pancakes Bartons), Ayla Mottl, Harry Crawford…. no new public and zero foot traffic. Will be interested to see where they place their National Church in Australia, been talking about it for years but Brisbane and Adelaide appear to be the focus of the fundraising regges these days.

Ripped and torn flags hanging off the side of Auckland org, video display units out of action and unrepaired in Sydney org, nothing of substance in any of the org comms. Fun times in ANZO

The saddest thing about her is that had she not gone all Chola, Marisela would be a pretty woman. She has really pretty eyes, but the treatment is not flattering. Someone please tell her that a cement trowel is not an appropriate makeup applicator, and Sharpie is not a brand of cosmetic.

As a photographer, I don’t like that side look for the most part. Too try-hard. But then this is no more than a selfie with a phone, and maybe this look is the new DuckLips(tm)?

As a photographer the side eye makes you look mysterious, complicated and intriguing. Unfortunately, taking your photo in the less-than-flattering interior lighting of a 1988 Ford Escort is likely not a winning composition. If only someone at Scn had access and experience (LOTS of experience) with photoshop.

Ms. Marisela’s photo is an absolute velour dream compared to the nightmare that is the Chan Man. Every photo of him looks like he just busted through the door of a public toilet stall and then took a moment to give a steamy, lingering side eye glance to the horrified occupant before disco-sliding away leaving the stall door open so he can maintain eye contact a little longer. (Hey, you have your fears and I have mine.)

The only prize Marisela will win is the booby prize, and we don’t even get a look there. Could it be because they inhabit the Flatlands? Only the Shadow knows.

p.s. all the photographers who make their subjects look way off out of the corner of their eyes are straining some eye muscles and introducing an unnatural look for no good reason. Try it yourself and see how uncomfortable it really is. I predict bad headaches to come soon. BTW, somebody forgot the cheek blush, give a call back to the make-up artist, Marisela’s face looks like a monotone balloon. Watch out for sharp objects!

Separately, are Stevens Creek and Los Gatos really being dragged around by Mountain View to that degree? Do they even count SF as a “Bay Area” org? Weirdness. I wonder how many trained auditors there are on staff between all the Ideal Orgs and Missions within 50-75 miles.

I don’t know how many are following the Masterson trial but it sounds like it will be really interesting. They were discussing the witness list yesterday. Hmmmmmm.

This makes me laugh. I can see it actually happening, in my imagination, of course. Blood in the water definitely draws in the sharks.

This reminds me of one of the first red flags I encountered shortly after being ensnared by the cult. There was a message board of sorts at the mission where I was doing the comm course. It had all sorts of notices posted there. For some reason there was a notice that someone had completed their staff contract and was not going to be renewing it. Naive me thought it would be a great idea to have some sort of get together to acknowledge this person’s service and contribution as a staff member. I mentioned my idea to another staff member. The look of disgust was palpable. There is no such thing as someone “retiring” as a staff member in scientology and remaining in good standing. They are looked at as someone who has betrayed the cause. The only thing that lets them remain and be somewhat tolerated is money. If someone contributes enough cash they are deemed worthy to remain but they are never looked at the same in the same light.

This Staff Reunion event is nothing more than a thinly disguised effort to recoup ex-staff members because other sources for recruiting have dried up. Anyone interested in moving to Chicago?