Robert Minch - I Say: Following the scent... - Red Bluff Daily News8 April 2011, 2:33 pmUpdated: 04/08/2011 11:25:23 AM PDT
I wrote, a week or so ago, of a New Yorker article critical of the Church of Scientology, and within 3 days, a Ms. Karen Pouw, from their L.A. Public Relations Department, had fired back suggesting I should read up on the church and perhaps mend my ways. I replied in my conciliatory fashion.
"Dear Karen Pouw,
"Thank you for your letter of the 28th in which you commented upon my 'I Say' column in the Daily News. I am just a little fish in a small town pond. Nevertheless, readers occasionally agree with what I have to say...and when I quote from the New Yorker, it could become gospel to them. I wrote said column with a built-in prejudice towards organized religion, per se...so it was just a hop skip and a jump for me to believe what Lawrence Wright wrote about you folks and your movement. I suggested to my editor that he might publish your letter with my comments and annotations, but he said, in his opinion, readers in our small town were more interested in local issues from local columnists than Scientology. So I am the Lone Ranger on this one.
"You wrote 'Not For Publication' in your letter. I don't know what that means.
Perhaps if I were to reprint it verbatim, you could sue me. In any case, I will only extract a few of your comments and corrections. You state the offending Wright article ran to 25,000 words. I had merely done a rough count when I wrote of it running to 10,000 words, so I defer to your math. You state that 'Dianetics' was published in 1950 instead of 1936. You are correct again. The article was so long my eyes glazed over from time to time and I misstated the date. And you avowed that your founder, L. Ron Hubbard was in the Navy not the Army. Whatever service in which he served, you did not disavow the fact that, despite published Scientology tracts, he was not wounded in battle...nor did he graduate from college. These facts, by themselves, should not denigrate whatever good he may have accomplished when founding his movement, but they do tend to put the camel's nose under the tent, so to speak. It will be approved as read...such is the power of the press. "Sincerely, Robert Minch"
more at
http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/opinion/ci_17802614
