Scientogy and the St. Petersburg Times

I was delighted to see the covered by the St. Peterburg Times about Scientology today.  It's such a good article and really gets the facts straight - not too usual for the media and certainly a nice change for the St. Peterburg Times!
 
 

Here's a link to iT: Scientology's town
  

This is a photo from the story - a view of Downtown Clearwater, with the large white buildings with the red roofs being the two main buildings of the Church of Scientology in Clearwater.

The only thing I would improve on this coverage is the fact that Scientologists really aren't "taking over" the city at all. There is so much room for people of all faiths to live and work together there that this attitude strikes me as being silly.

When I grew up in New York, as a Jewish girl living in Queens, the only people I knew were Jewish. One time I found out the father of one of my girlfriends wasn't Jewish and that was a shock to me as I didn't know anyone who wasn't. When I was in 5th grade a Catholic girl moved to town and she and her mother invited me over to trim their Christmas tree the week before Christmas. The fact that this happened almost 50 years ago and still stands out fresh in my mind tells something of the ethnic make up of the place.

It was a much larger city than Clearwater, population-wise. I went to high school with 5000 other students and it was just a 3-year highschool. There were so many people that I didn't even know the names of the people who lived on my own block.

But no one would ever have called this a "Jewish City".

So although I am really happy with the improvements in Clearwater, I would still like to see myself and other Scientologists viewed for the people we are, and I'd like us to be able to just get on with making Clearwater a premier city through community activity of all residents to improve the lives of everyone living there.

By the way, looks like they mostly got it right here too:

Tampabay: About Scientology