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From: claris!netcom!ergo@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Isaac Rabinovitch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: 666 and Ignorant People
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Date: 9 Aug 90 19:20:14 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 555, Message 2 of 9


> In the P&G case, for the
>past decade, P&G has received several hundred cards and letters DAILY
>from people who express concern that (in the words of the rumor) 'the
>chairman of P&G has a pact with the Devil, and shows his love for
>Satan by the arrangement of the stars and ram's head in the corporate
>logo of P&G'. Arranging the stars in the logo in a certain way, you
>see, forms the evil 666. P&G has squelched the rumor several times,
>only to have it start up again. They finally had to drop the corporate
>logo they used for a hundred years, it got so hard to deal with. 

One of these fundamentalists once posted his version of the rumor on
our company bulletin board (the old-fashioned kind, not a BBS).  This
version had the P&G Chairman announcing his Satanic affiliation on one
of those late-night talk shows!  I seem to have missed that show.
Anyone see it?

A few years ago, P&G sued the editor of a trailer-park newsletter to
get him to stop reprinting these stories.  The guy wasn't even a
fundamentalist -- he just thought the stories were funny.

Some time back, an underground paper in Santa Cruz printed an article
claiming that the badges worn by local cops were actually hex signs.
I've often wondered if there wasn't something to this.  I mean, where
did the custom of police wearing badges begin, anyway?  One
possibility is that cops wore them to ward off the curses of perps,
back when "Damn you to hell!" had a very literal meaning!  

>Where telcos are concerned, subscribers whose phone numbers end in 
>X666 have complained bitterly about receiving huge numbers of obscene
>and/or hate calls, accusing them of being Satan worshippers, etc.
>The people spreading the rumor are vicious.  PT] 

Or perhaps dumb, like the folks who held Anita Bryant, then well known
for her anti-gay cruasade, responsible for Hurricane Anita.  Or the
folks who miss an eclipse because of the weather and call the
observatories to find out when it's been rescheduled.

I'd think, though, that you'd get a lot more flack for having a 13 in
your number!


ergo@netcom.uucp			Isaac Rabinovitch
atina!pyramid!apple!netcom!ergo		Silicon Valley, CA
uunet!mimsy!ames!claris!netcom!ergo


[Moderator's Note: About a month ago, P&G sued two more people: a man
and his wife in Parsons, KS who were peddling the rumor. P&G has
tracked down the story several times to people who happen to be Amway
distributors ... however Amway corporate flatly denies telling their
distributors to pass along such garbage, and in fact a couple years
ago told their sales force specifically to NOT make such claims. Maybe
its just the nature of people who would peddle Amway door-to-door.
Part of the rumor says the Chairman of P&G appeared on the Phil
Donahue show (that figures! .. in some versions it was O. Winfrey) and
publicly professed his worship of Satan. No one ever actually saw the
show, it was a friend of a relative's friend who saw it.   PT]