Plastic Woman vs. Ms. mag

Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren, plastic surgery survivor and Miss America Beauty Pageant judge, tells USA Today the problem facing Ms. magazine's (relatively) new editor,

''Her challenge is huge,'' says Van Susteren. ''She's got to keep her original base of readers and attract new ones. Our society is constantly changing.''

Last October, Reason took a long look at "how organized feminism has made itself irrelevant."

[Link via Romenesko]

Comments

[Jean Bart]

joe,

He he he he. Has she been e-metered lately? Got to get rid of those nasty thetans. 🙂

[joe]

You're not ready for that information yet, JB. Write me a check for $3000 and we'll work on it.

[Kevin Carson]

A Scientologist--good God! I can understand airhead celebrities like Travolta and Cruise; Scientology's just the Jehovah's Witnesses for stupid rich people.

But Greta belongs to an occupation that is supposed to be "intellectual" (well, pseudo-intellectual, anyway), and she's an expert on all kinds of hard stuff like case law. Doesn't paying for emeter readings and trying to get out those stubborn alien clusters kind of undermine her credibility? "And now, to shed light on the tough legal issues involved, is our legal expert, Operating Thetan Greta Van Susteren..."

And BTW, I thought plastic surgery was supposed to make you look BETTER.

[Anonymous]

It does make you look better, where better = freakish asian alien hybrid.

[dhex]

scientology is hardly a UFO cult. it's a personality cult.

big diff. 🙂

i kinda like few the scientologists i've met. they seem to have a sense of humor (i have a t shirt with a vintage L Ron ascot-sportin' pic with "Ascended Charlatan" underneath it) so long as you don't get too specific along the lines of their particular hobby. sort of like hanging out with comic book collectors.

but yeah, greta got fuckin' bushwacked with the ugly scapel or somethin'.

[dhex]

and to keep this vaguely libertarian, the FDA is the reason the scientologists can't use E-meters anymore.

[Mudflap]

Would anyone have the time to define e-meter for me. I've got no clue as to what that is.

Mudflap

[Rob]

Just out of morbid curiosity, what was the FDA's objection to the e-meter? Do they consider it a medical device?

[Kevin Carson]

dhex,

At a hospital where I used to work, a patient's son came in with two of whatever you call Scientologist clergy, to perform a reading on her. He warned us all, in a very stern and prickish manner, that they were not to be disturbed UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and posted a big sign to that effect on her door. We really wondered what they were doing in there--was he sacrificing a rooster or something? All things considered, it was even weirder than when Pentecostal visitors would hoot and holler and shout "Yes, Jesus!"

And Greta Van Susteren could have appeared in Battlefield Earth without makeup.

[Jean Bart]

An e-meter is a device that detects and as I recall rids people of "thetans." Thetans are supposedly the ghosts/spirits of dead aliens who inhabit human beings, and these thetans are apparently not very nice, which is the reason, Scientologists claims, humans live unfulfilled lives and do crappy shit to other humans.

[joe]

You forgot to mention "UFO Cult Member."

[dhex]

who's a UFO cult member?

[joe]

Greta's a Scientologist.

[JeanInAlabama]

Kevin, you're right in that Hubbard made up his "religion" on a bet. He and several other sci fi writers (can't remember who the others were, but they were "names") were at at writers convention, I think in the 50's?,, and were talking about how people would belive anything, blah blah blah... that morphed into the bet about creating a religion, and whomever had the most success -- members, $$$, whatever -- after some period of time, would win.

Hubbard's creation succeeded so well that he ended up believing in all of it himself! (Or, at least, sure acted like he did.)

[dhex]

actually, L. Ron's roots were with Jack Parsons and other Thelemites in the U.S. - he ran off with parson's girlfriend and yacht as the story goes. considering how publically prudish L. Ron was regarding sex and "deviance" it's *really* funny to think that he started off as a devotee to the world's most infamous bisexual black magician (who apparently regarded him as an idiot, no less, for being too literal with the whole moon child thing hubbard and parsons were trying to do).

the e-meter just registers stress when the "audit" is done - it's basically an aggressive word association game played with an authority figure. the FDA regarded it as a medical device and banned it.

the sad thing about scientology, imo, is that the auditing works, to a degree - if you run through words which are connected to negative thoughts and feelings often enough you can build a resistance to them, which is a really useful way to get rid of knee-jerk reactions to certain thoughts and phrases. why people need not only a sad-sack theology but the gloss of spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to do something they could do for themselves is lost on me. i think this is where the low-level, petty victimization goes on - some auditers, like any group of middle managers, feed off of the low-level power play they get to run on others - which may explain the hospital incident kevin mentioned.

their recruiters do the same thing - a friend of mine and i went to their hq in times square to see the l.ron photo exposition last year. after the world's longest and most boring recruitment video we got 10 minutes of some lady doing a second-rate mesmerism act which wasn't very convincing or intimidating.

to be fair, i don't think scientology's really any weirder or more corrupt than any other religion - certainly far less than dioceses in boston and rockville center and a few other places.

[Kevin Carson]

Jean Bart,

It's actually "clusters" that the e-meter detects. An "operating thetan" is a fully actualized Scientologist operating at the peak of his human potential.

The theology, if you want to call it that, is that Earth was used as a prison planet millions of years ago for tax evaders from this sector of the galaxy. The psychic remains of those prisoners inhabit humans today (as clusters), screw up their perception of reality, and cause them to follow all kinds of irrational, self-destructive scripts. Scientology is the discipline by which the clusters are removed and its followers reach their full potential. (I'm not making this up, really).

I think L. Ron Hubbard, originally, made a bet with some drinking buddies that he could start a successful religion and separate rich fools from their money. I think it's safe to say he won that one. Like I say, the Jehovah's Witnesses for rich people.

I'm waiting for William Shatner to start his own religion. He's done a third-rate job at everything else.