Picket photos:

[This will probably duplicate some stuff others have already said]

It takes about 7 hours to drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles. So I spent 14 hours driving in order to spend about 14 hours with critics in LA. It was worth it.

The big news Saturday morning was that the police had arrested a suspect in the arson of dozens of new Hummers in LA several days ago. The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) had claimed credit for protecting the environment by destroying all these gas guzzling vehicles. See, some activists are just dumb.

I drove around in the morning looking at Co$ properties. I saw that L. Ron Hubbard Way had been closed off and lots of tables and decorations had been set up. On the south side they had placed cloth walls about 10 feet high across the entrance to the road. That way, any picketers ouside that wall could not be seen. I saw people making some more of those walls, probably for the north side. The parking lot was surrounded by this same high wall of cloth. There was a big stage set up (I'll try to post pics later).

The Celebrity Center was pretty quiet, as were the Hollywood Blvd. properties. So I read the paper then went to our lunch meeting place. 3 others showed up, one was a new ex that I had never met before; Skippy. So we had a good lunch and took off.

We went to the Hubbard Life Exhibit, a great place to hand out fliers. We probably handed out about 200 fliers there (a guess). Skippy was very good at handing out fliers. Graham and Tanman joined us there, as did another ex and 2 pedestrians. So we had a good group and weren't harassed at all that I can think of. Many people walking by said in low voices "boy we're glad you're out here!" And, "Finally somebody is doing this!" We got positive responses and several good conversations there. Some people refused our fliers saying "I already know it's bad, give it to someone who doesn't know." I think we were there about 2 hours and some.

As we were taking a drink break at the pizza place kitty corner from the Life Exhibit, I saw that the security camera on the Life Exhibit building was pointing exactly at the entry of the pizza place. How strange! And of course, when we went back on the sidewalk, the camera went back to pointing at the sidewalk.

And you know, since *we* have Total Freedom, we just out of the blue decided to go to the testing center down Hollywood Blvd. and protest there for a while. And you know what? We didn't have to have a committee about it, ask uplines for permission, or anything. Somebody suggested it, we all figured it was a good idea, so poof, there we went.

The first thing we noticed when we got to the testing center was this group of maybe a dozen black guys preaching on the sidewalk just west of the testing center doors, maybe 30 feet away. They were very loud and constantly preaching. One would preach, and another would yell out Bible quotes when prompted. They would harangue people going by, and even did a short bit about what might be wrong with Scientology.

So Graham and I held up the WWW.XENU.NET banner closer to the testing center than the black guys (I think their group is Black Israelites or something like that - they claim to be the Lost Tribes). Others walked up and down with the great new picket signs. Tanman somehow had parked his car right in front of us, and suggested we drape the banner on his car. So we draped it on the left side, holding it in place with the windshield wipers front and back. This was great as any cars going by and anybody across the street would see this. I went across the street for a look and it stood out even more than any Co$ posters or signs (again, pics later).

We had a pretty good time, even with the competition of the black guys accosting pedestrians, us handing out fliers, and the Scientologists handing out fliers, all in the same little area. There were no confrontations or anything from that. But as we were just talking about leaving, Tory said that the cops had arrived. So we hung around to see what the cops wanted. They talked to Tory, Graham, and others, but I didn't talk to them at all.

These cops didn't seem clear on what they could or should do, so they called their supervisor. I went down the couple of blocks to put more quarters in the meter for my car, and when I got back there were 2 cop cars, 2 bicycle cops, and even more Scientologists talking to the cops. So it was a kind of hectic scene on that corner; Black Israelites preaching away, us with our signs and fliers, the Scientologists handing out their fliers, and OSA and about 6 cops having a heated conversation. Tory wrote about what happened with the cops, but I just kept picketing so I don't have direct info. on that.

A few people stopped to ask about who Lisa McPherson was on my sign, or just to converse. One guy asked if I knew that Seagram's had bought Scientology in 1983. I said no, I'd have to look into that.

Finally the cops left (and note; they NEVER talked to the noisier, more aggressive Black Isrealites), about 45 minutes after we first started talking about leaving. It was time to get to The Party, so we took off. Graham and I talked about picketing the Auditor's Day event that night, and then off we went.

It was a good party, with good food and conversation. Graham arrived a little later, but we were both a bit bushed from all the picketing we had already done, so once again - since we have Total Freedom - we just decided not to go picket. Can you believe that? We just decided that resting, conversing, and eating heavy chocolate cake was more our calling at that time.

Later that night I took off to begin my long journey back to Phoenix. My car gets 36 mpg.

Jeff Jacobsen