Access Consciousness gets a little more MSM lovin'

You know what? I just realized that I've been smiling all day. I've been smiling partly because of the results of yesterday's U.S. presidential election. I don't hold out any great idealistic hopes or anything, but for several reasons the guy who won is, in my not very humble opinion, a better choice than the other guy. As usual, my pal Salty Droid nails it about some of the reasons Romney would be pretty bad for the US of A. One reason is that, as the little fake robot put it in today's post:

... Mitt Romney is from Scamworld. That article on The Verge :: or this one on Mother Jones :: or this one on Salon :: or this crap right here on The Droid about the kid torturing assholes ... barely even touch the surface of it.

All righty, then!

There's another reason I'm smiling. Award-winning journalist Craig Malisow at the Houston Press became interested in doing a story about the cultish Access Consciousness, in part from poking around on my Whirled. As you regulars know, I've been blogging continuously about Access since 2007. It seemed nobody was really that interested. There was a bit of scuttlebutt earlier this year when retired NFL player Ricky Williams made the news with his Access kids' activities, but that died down.

Then Craig stumbled on my blog while researching something else, and he got interested in Access. And today the Press published his terrific cover story about Access: "What's Behind Gary Douglas's Scientology Knockoff?"

It's good to know that the wackadoodle Access is FINALLY getting more mainstream press coverage. Craig actually did all of that due-diligence journo stuff, including a lot of digging and researching and talking to people on the phone (I HATE talking to people on the phone) -- though oddly enough, many of the Accessories just didn't want to talk.

Funny, they don't seem to have any problem with sending in anonymous or pseudonymous comments to my blog, telling me how ignorant I am while boasting about how free and open Access encourages people to be. Some of them, including Access founder Gary Douglas himself, have even fake-praised me for raising questions about Access because it's all part of a healthy, open, honest convo that encourages people to explore and make their own choices, blah blah blah.

But few of them -- including a quite prominent Houston society type named Curry Glassell, who claims to be an Access facilitator -- wanted to actually talk to a serious journalist doing a serious piece. Nevertheless, Craig turned out a fine story. He was able to find out more about Gary Douglas' Scientology roots, and other tidbits from Gary's past, than I ever could with my half-baked research efforts. I couldn't be happier.

I often think that "alternative" weekly newspapers are the last best hope of print journalism. Kudos to Craig and to the Houston Press.

So... big smiles all around.

Here again is the link to Craig Malisow's Access story: http://www.houstonpress.com/2012-11-08/news/gary-douglass-access-consicousness/

Here's the print-friendly version: http://www.houstonpress.com/content/printVersion/3165798/

And here are links to some of my own Access-related offerings:

• August 2012: Access Consciousness wants kids, and lots of 'em (The beginning of the mainstream media love affair with Access)
• August 2011: ACCESS Consciousness: a cult (or scam) by any other name...
• May 2011: Calling all trannies! (and Harry Potter fans) (This one has one of my very favorite Photoshop efforts on my entire Whirled. I'm just wild about Harry. Potter, that is.)
• March 2011: What's next? Access death panels?
• March 2011: Warning: Accessories on the loose in Houston!
• June 2010: Access asks: Are you humanoid, or merely human?
• June 2010: Mad monk makes eyes at riled Realtor...and the rest, as they say, is hysteria (The tale of how Gary Douglas became best buds with Rasputin)
• June 2010: Now Heer this: Top ACCESSory woos Oprah!
• February 2010: A little motion on the ocean
• October 2009: ACCESS: The incredible lightness of boinking
• May 2008: On a would-be marriage, and a horse's ACCESS (scroll down to "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose")
• June 2007: The excess of ACCESS
• June 2007: Grabbing a hot piece of ACCESS
  

Oh, yes, and here's the link to Andrew Blanford's wonderful Access Schism site. Just launched this past June, Access Schism is an excellent resource for ex-Accessories, the people who are worried about current Accessories, and the idly curious.

PS ~ There's another big mainstream media story coming up about another one of my favorite snark targets, any day now. This isn't my project but I have been interested in it and have supported it from the beginning. I am not at liberty to talk about it in detail at the moment, but...well, any day now.

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