Rick Caruso is running a new ad of Karen Bass praising scientology...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Oh, dear lord. Scientology.

Somewhere in the distant past I was a Writer of the Future, which was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, of Scientology fame.

When I went to the workshop and event for us WoF, we were surrounded by Scientology and Scientologists. It was quite bizarre. But because science-fiction people are generally quite resistant to such nonsense, we persevered. That year we were housed at the Celebrity Center, a former apartment house, which they now own. Actually, it was quite nice.

One day we were all herded out to a tour of scientology (the best way to describe this) which included lots of stuff about L. Ron Hubbard. I had the good fortune to spend the tour next to James Gunn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Gunn) who quietly pointed out all sorts of stuff to me, including the s-f magazine he was first published in. I'd taken a writing workshop from Jim a couple of years earlier, and my Writers of the Future story came out of that.

Anyway, we s-f people were highly skeptical, and showed it. Oh, and while we were all there at the Celebrity Center, sometimes a bunch of us would happen to group together to talk, and every time that happened, we'd then be approached by a Scientology person who would perhaps offer a tour of some other part of the Center we didn't know about. Weird.

Our final night there, we had a major dinner. By this time spouses and other such had arrived and were with us. My husband was napping when I left for the dinner. He showed up a bit late, and said to me, "I'm glad you asked them to call me." What?? I didn't ask anyone to call him. But he'd received a phone call that he needed to get down to the dining room for dinner. They were keeping careful tabs on all of us.

Scientology.