tsukimoto, I've been sick in bed with the flu for two days, and I have to tell you, reading that above post about Poets Laureate and All That Jazz was the best thing to happen to me in two days!! Thanks SO much for posting that!

I was still a card-carrying member in 1981 when I heard about the International Poet Laureate thing, and I shook my head in bewilderment at the time - HIM?? THAT poetry?? I couldn't *stand* his poetry! It was so terrible! I mean, puerile, fatuous, self-important blather intended to sound lofty and noble but really sounding just tedious, strained, and flat. But now I understand! It's just the equivalent of another bought doctorate - anyone who ponies up the cash gets one!

I remember telling myself that his "poetry" must sound better in Japanese O_O

Why stop at World Poet Laureate? Why not go for Poet Laureate OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

?

Did I ever tell you that, when I was a YWD back at the end of the 1980s, something we were doing at our Kotekitai meetings (separate from the "practices") was to analyze a poem of Shitferbrainseda's - word by word? Each person was given a word and the next week (this was back in the ra-ra rhythm of weekly meetings of every sort) present the definition, background, flavor, whatever about that word. I can only imagine how people hoped to get "the" O_O Since I was so new - this must have been 1987 - I never got assigned a word and I never even showed up to all the meetings :P It was painful. Truly painful. What an ordeal to put fresh-faced young women through! Just the sort of thing to suck all the joy out of life.

Just so people know, you can browse a lot of the old thread at the Internet Archive.


This goes up to page 528 on this thread.
[web.archive.org]

There might be other captures that go to a further date, if people click around and see under each date.

[web.archive.org]

Good to be back with crew. Had a few nervous moments as I had to look around a bit to find ya. Hope the rest of the lost swimmers will make there way here soon. Maybe someone could send up an e-flare so everyone can spot us a little easier on the search engines.

300+ pages of some excellent posts need to be retrived before its lost forever?!? Hope some of you tech savvy peeps can manage that before its too late!

Glad we still have a place to gather.

Spartacus

If anyone wishes to retrieve any posts it would very much appreciated.

The search engines will eventually spider through the board again.

The search results will now be much stronger for the word "cult."

A great deal of development is being done for the Cult Education sites.

Everything at this board is carefully being backed up daily.

It is very sad that there was a backup failure at the message board during the transition.

Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Every precaution has been taken so that it will never happen again.

I am deeply sorry that this happened.

Senseless really is self-published after all, though, isn't he? I can't see any legitimate publishers being anxious to publish his drivel. Once again, I thought it was just me not getting the mentor/disciple relationship that gave me such contempt for his writing. Or, like STaP, I was thinking that it had to sound better in Japanese. I'm glad to realize that the reason for my lack of appreciation is the general opinion that it's just crap. "There once was a man from Nantucket" is ever so much more compelling than any of the poetry Senseless has composed. I've always found most of the publications to have an equal level of quality; I can't think of a single book or article that I could've shared with a non-member without embarrassment.

Moderator, I can only begin to appreciate how distressing the loss of posts has been for you. When you're relying upon a service that has been hired to maintain and back up a site, there is no reason to go back and check to make sure that they are doing what they're supposed to be doing. If they prove unreliable, it's hard not to feel accountable for their shortcomings. I think we all appreciate what a difficult job you have sometimes, and that all message threads were affected by this can only be devastating. Thanks for all that you do to keep this a safe and (relatively) sane place for us to come and type our little hearts out. I really appreciate all of your hard work and diligence, but crap happens. Large companies with deep pockets can afford to hire disaster recovery services - I expect that much of what goes on behind the scenes here is a volunteer effort and that there's a shoestring budget. Keep up the great work, and don't beat yourself up over something that you truly had little control over.

Quote

Senseless really is self-published after all, though, isn't he?

Oh, it's better than that! He created his own organization that became rich enough to do whatever he wants it to, including publishing! SGI has its own publishing house, called "Middleway Press." Here - take a look - they feature almost exclusively books purportedly by Daisucky Ick-eda: [www.middlewaypress.com] The other books are by other SGI leaders - it's a dedicated SGI publisher: All SGI, no waiting O_O

So, yeah. Senseless IS self-published, using all the happy culties' donations to fund his colossal ego! There aren't enough monuments, awards, or accomplishments in the world to satisfy his grasping greed and insecurity.

Yup, I know all about Middleway Press - that was where my comment/facetious question was coming from. It's kind of impossible to be a member for any length of time or have gone to krg more than once or twice to not notice the publisher's brand on everything. That drivel he spews couldn't get published anywhere else, and I'd venture to say that other than the shite poetry, he's written very few of the books published in his name. According to the sgi website, he's written more than 1,000 books; truly, no one has that much to say that's worth listening to. Wouldn't that equate to about 16 books a year since he's been in the saddle? He'd pretty much need to be excreting them to achieve that kind of output (but that would go a long way in explaining the quality of the writing).

I think of all the books that I started reading (and I admit, I couldn't get all the way through any of them), the series that I found most offensive was the new human revolution. Talk about mental masturbation! What a transparent effort at self-aggrandizement. I mean, what pseudo-religious leader really needs all those books to tell his story? What is it, 24 or 25 volumes? And didn't he write an earlier series on the same topic? What freaking hubris. I can't remember ever reading anything purportedly written by him where he doesn't go on about how great he is. Once again, going back to my earlier days as a member, I just thought it was a cultural thing that wasn't translating well, but it is just his great honkin' ego shining through that makes them unreadable. Ugh.

I threw away every single sgi-related publication - just plunked it in the garbage, because I felt that's where it belonged. I didn't even want to give them away to other members, because I didn't want to spread the poison. Besides, isn't the whole thing is that you're supposed to "make a cause" by buying this crap yourself? In other words, don't borrow books or publications - buy your own so that you can send more money into the organization.

If I received any "protection" at all during the time I practiced, it was that I was too broke to contribute as much as others in more comfortable financial situations. When I think about the people I know who not only contributed thousands of dollars every May but also made generous monthly contributions, I just shake my head and thank my lucky stars that I was never in that position. I was lucky in so very many ways.

I threw away every single sgi-related publication - just plunked it in the garbage, because I felt that's where it belonged. I didn't even want to give them away to other members, because I didn't want to spread the poison.

Since I had small children, I bought a few of their children's books. One was "Kanta and the Deer" and the other was the "I like to..." set - see below:

[www.daisakuikeda.org]

I couldn't even find an image of the "I like to..." set of board books (for youngest readers) - perhaps I was the only one who ever bought it??? They were something like "I like to chant", "I like the altar", "I like my juzus", "I like to go to meetings" Ugh. I was trying SO HARD to be a good little SGI Buddhist!!

Oh, and I got THIS one, too: [bookstore.sgi-usa.org] I don't believe we ever opened it -_-

My husband read Kanta and the Deer to our son - my husband liked it well enough; I couldn't stand it. Bleach. Just boring and stupid. And as for the others...they ended up in the trash as well. Some material is so offensive that you don't want anyone else to even *see* it. Reminds me of that time I found a copy of "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" - that one ended up in the trash as well. Garbage. Hours I'll never get back.

No, Dai-suckee, not just *anyone* can write children's books!

Quote
tsukimoto
And THIS organization honored Ikeda? Some honor! I wonder how much money you have to donate to be chosen as World Poet Laureate.

It was no surprise to find that WORLD POETRY SOCIETY INTERCONTINENTAL, the organisation that named Senseless as World Poet Laureate, was under his Patronage. Although we've lost the original links, fortunately the webpage that reveals this is still there at [poetryworldpublications.weebly.com]. Look further down the page to see who the patron of this (very dodgy now defunct) organisation was. I've pasted the info below and saved the original webpage at Freezepage now.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POETRY WORLD PUBLICATIONS
THE PUBLICATIONS DIVISION OF
WORLD POETRY SOCIETY
INTERCONTINENTAL
Africa - Anglo-America - Asia - Europe - Latin America – Oceania
Whose Voice for Peace is "Poetry World".
(Founder - President : The Late Dr. KRISHNA SRINIVAS)

We publish Poetry Books and Poetry Monthly

POETRY WORLD
International Monthly
Edited and Published by
S. Krishnan, M. E.,Secretary General of WPSI
(Which is continuation of POET International Monthly edited and published by
the late Dr. Krishna Srinivas for 48 full years, till 2008)

Under the patronage of
DR. DAISAKU IKEDA, President, S.G.I., Tokyo, Japan.

Title of poetry books and others pages under construction

Contact us at:
118, Raja Street, Dr. Seethapathi Nagar, Velachery, Chennai - 600042, INDIA
Phones: 9144-22432902, 9144-22433186.
E-mail < poetworld@gmail.com >
Website: [poetryworldpublications.weebly.com]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was reading in an SGI booklet of poems that Senseless was 'World Poet Laureate' that was one of the final straws that brought me to my senses about the SGI cult scam. I was so horrified that someone who wrote such awful stuff would dare to compare himself to Tennyson etc that it made me really think about and research the whole thing.

So he bought the company that subsequently gave him the honour. A fitting action for a Buddhist leader don't you think?

And hey, if you are still in SGI and reading this, and trying to think of excuses for this behaviour by claiming that it is his over-enthusiastic followers who organise all these bogus honours for Senseless remember that, were Ikeda an honourable Buddhist leader, he would ask his followers to stop doing stuff like this. He would surely be embarrassed at receiving bogus honours? Have no doubt that Daisaku Ikeda is a con-artist who seems to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This is not a person who should be revered as a buddhist leader or anyone's 'mentor'. Wake up! (I did, thank goodness).

Bad poetry aside, the epitome of his self-aggrandizement was putting himself as an equal to King and Gandhi. This Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of King's "I had a dream" speech - a reminder that while Senseless talks a good game about working for world peace, human equality and all of the other buzz-phrases that got a lot of us in the door, he never did more than that . . . talk. He never got off his arse to actually DO anything . . . unlike Gandhi and King, he has never put himself on the front line to work toward accomplishing any of the goals touted by das org. At no time has he ever put himself (or his income) at risk to stand up for his wobbly principles and, as a member, I was frequently told that by participating in politics or peace marches (as a member), I was risking offending people. That never particularly worried me. For an organization who says that they are fighting for Cousin Rufus, they keep a pretty low and cowardly profile. Cousin Rufus is screwed if fat-boy is the best representative it can find.

As we've discussed so often here, sgi has little to do with true Buddhism, and ick-eda encouraging the belief that he is a living Buddha approaches obscenity. Having only recently left the org, my memory is pretty fresh regarding the lack of study of the Lotus Sutra or Nichiren's original writings. It's all ick-eda, all the time. About the only exposure to the goshos is a brief blurb as a header at the beginning of monthly discussion and study topics, but the focus is on senseless' interpretations. The last meeting I attended, the topic was "the gift of an unlined robe." This was in May, by the way. The gist of fat-boys interpretation was, of course, give the most you possibly can; it completely overlooked the point that the robe was gifted during the summertime, and a lined robe would've been pretty useless at that time of the year . . . too hot! No, let's skew the point so that it aligns with contribution month and wring the members for as much as they can squeeze from their budgets.