Curry County Commissioners agreed Tuesday not to pursue a contract with an Albuquerque rehabilitation program aimed at treating habitual drug offenders. [Picture: "Following Tuesday's meeting, officials toured the Special Events Center. Construction on the Special Events Center is about 98 percent complete with more than $31,000 left in contingency, Construction Project Supervisor Randy Kamradt said."] County Manager Lance Pyle told commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting the Second Chance Center has neglected to return a signed contract to the county since the commission ...

The Anonymous collective has announced a new phase in its protests against the Church of Scientology, targeting the alleged mistreatment of youngsters by Scientologists. Operation: School's Closed is due to take place on 13 September and will involve a wave of protests against the "Church of Scientology management, its attempts to infiltrate schools, and its internal exploitation of children". The planned demos follow seven previous protest days outside Scientology centres around the world, each with a particular theme. The Church of ...

Do your kids prefer adventure stories to doctrinal tomes? Skip Dianetics. Have them read Hubbard's pulp fiction. Before L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics in 1950 and founded Scientology two years later he penned adventure, mystery and sci-fi stories for pulp magazines. Now, Galaxy Press, a for-profit publisher that is owned by the Church of Scientology International in Los Angeles, is releasing those "Stories from the Golden Age" in a series of 80 paperback books—accompanied by a $1.9 million marketing blitz aimed ...

ANNAPOLIS — The board chairman of the University of Maryland Medical System resigned Wednesday amid allegations he was pushed out by Gov. Martin O'Malley. John C. Erickson resigned at a regular board meeting in Baltimore. Mr. Erickson stormed out of the meeting, saying he was pushed out of the job by Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, according to the Baltimore Business Journal and multiple sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. However, he later issued a statement contradicting that account. "I ...

Isaac Hayes, Oscar-winner, R&B legend and musical icon, got two sendoffs in two days here in his Tennessee hometown, and each was as strange as it was surreal. Monday afternoon had been billed as a tribute to Hayes, and many in the Memphis music community thought it would be the day of the Stax Records star’s actual funeral. But in fact, a "secret" service was held on Sunday in order to accommodate a boatload of celebrities who flew into town under ...

The news of the sudden death of Isaac Hayes was shocking to many Ghanaians all over the world. The legendary Grammy and Oscar winning US mega musician and entertainer is also known in Ghana as Nene Katey Ocansey I, Nkosuoehne (Chief for Development) of the Ada Traditional Area and a beloved member of the Ocansey Royal Family. He co-founded the Nene Katey Ocansey I Learning and Technology (NekoTech) Center of Excellence in Ada, Ghana, with Princess Asie Ocansey of Ada. They ...

Thank goodness Isaac Hayes wrote "Soul Man" before he became a Scientologist. Whatever would have become of Sam and Dave or the Blues Brothers if they had belted out a song called "Thetan Man"? According to beliefs promoted by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the immortal soul – or "thetan" – passes from one body to the next through reincarnations over trillions of years. When a person dies, Hubbard said, the thetan goes to a landing station on Venus where it ...

In the mid-1980s, more than ever before, television advertising was about big budgets and excess. Bucking that trend was Scientologist and marketing whiz Jeff Hawkins, whose understated, minimalist TV ads for L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics helped launch the book onto the best-seller list—and arguably sparked a worldwide interest in the religion. Hawkins' ads featured simple questions like, "Why are you unhappy?" in white print against a black background, backed by edgy music supplied by Hawkins' friends, and finally, a shot of ...

The Anonymous group is calling for disillusioned former members to return to the fold ahead of a new phase in its battle against the Church of Scientology. A video posted on YouTube on Friday said it was time for the original founders of the protest movement to return in time for a "shift to more subtle and shocking tactics". Anonymous has staged demonstrations against Scientology around the world over the last six months as part of Project Chanology. Members of the ...

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque rehabilitation program doesn't have nearly as good a success rate as organizers claim, a News 13 investigation finds. The Second Chance program, developed by the founder of Scientology, uses saunas to sweat out toxins and other techniques to try to get people off drugs and alcohol. Judges have sent more than 90 convicts to the facility near the Double Eagle II airport on Albuquerque's West Mesa since it opened in September 2006. The federal government and ...

THE South Australian Government was at odds with the Church of Scientology last night after backing the right of a senior state minister to brand its members "bastards". Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith has also questioned the organisation's tax-free status in comments to an anti-Scientology group called Anonymous, which it posted on popular internet site YouTube. While declaring Dr Lomax-Smith was entitled to her opinion, a spokeswoman for Premier Mike Rann distanced the Government from the remarks, saying they represented a private ...

Scientology’s International Base is located on the sloping foothills at the north end of California’s San Jacinto Valley, about ninety miles east of Los Angeles. When I first moved there in 1989, the valley was still mostly a rural farming community – sheep still grazed on fields near the Base. But the area was being rapidly taken over by LA’s "Inland Empire" suburbs, spreading out east from Riverside like a virus. Nearby Moreno Valley had already achieved the dubious status of ...

It was a warm August day in 1986. I was in my office on the third floor of the main building in the PAC Scientology complex in LA — "Big Blue." We had the windows open and the fans running, to try to suck in any vestige of a breeze that we could. Out the open window, I could see Fountain Avenue below me, and across the street, New York George’s, where I sometimes had a bowl of chili. A simmering ...

It was well after midnight and the Tampa airport terminal was almost empty. Just a few late-night travelers sitting on the benches, reading, trying to sleep or, like me, watching the movie on the screen hanging above the waiting area. They were showing Pancho Villa, the 1972 Eugenio Martin film with Telly Savalas as Villa. I was identifying with Villa – his betrayal and imprisonment, his escape, his revolt against his enemy, Huerta. I could feel Villa’s hot outrage. ''¡Viva la ...

[Abstract] The number of children in the US taking prescription drugs for emotional and behavioral disturbances is growing dramatically. This growth in the use of psychotropic drugs in pediatric populations has given rise to multiple controversies, ranging from concerns over off-label use and long-term safety to debates about the societal value and cultural meaning of pharmacological treatment of childhood behavioral and emotional disorders. This commentary summarizes the authors' eight main findings from the first of five workshops that seek to understand ...

[Embedded Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbZh5sejqHw ] When Rev. John Carmichael, president of the Church of Scientology of New York, came face-to-face with a small contingent of Anonymous protestors this past Monday, he didn't engage them in a spiritual debate. Instead, he leaned into one member on a Times Square street and said, “Let me tell you this: I smell pussy.” Then, looking squarely at the Anon added, “You in particular.” All caught on tape, Carmichael hits a breaking point with the handful ...

Jason Beghe tried to get inside the Scientology building on E. 46th Street yesterday, but was turned away by three beefy security men who told him it was their job to keep him out. The confrontation happened while a contingent of about 50 protesters from the anti-Scientology “Anonymous” movement cheered on Beghe from across the street. Members of Scientology itself didn’t make an appearance during the late afternoon protest. Beghe, who had tipped off the Anonymous activists that he’d be making ...

Kofi Annan, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Voltaire, L. Ron Hubbard. One of these things is not like the other. If you said “L. Ron Hubbard,” then you are correct. On May 12th, the Youth for Human Rights International organization came to our school and hosted an assembly on human rights. For the uninformed, this may have seemed like an ordinary assembly to raise awareness on an issue that we, as Catholics, should be aware of. Sure, this got the point ...

A teenage boy is facing a possible criminal prosecution for holding a sign describing the Church of Scientology as a "cult", police said on Tuesday. The boy, who is described only as a minor, was taking part in a demonstration outside the church's central London headquarters on May 10 when City of London Police officers ordered him to remove the placard. It read: "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult." When he refused, he was issued with a ...