"The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power" is a Time magazine article highly critical of Scientology that was first published on May 6, 1991, as an eight-page cover story. Written by investigative journalist Richard Behar, the article was later published in Reader's Digest in October 1991. Behar's article covers topics including: L. Ron Hubbard (pictured) and the development of Scientology, its controversies over the years and history of litigation, conflict with psychiatry and the IRS, the suicide of a Scientologist, its status as a religion, and its business dealings. After the article's publication, the Church of Scientology mounted a public relations campaign to inform the public of what it felt were falsehoods in the piece. It took out advertisements in USA Today for twelve weeks, and Church leader David Miscavige was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline about what he considered to be an objective bias by the article's author. The Church of Scientology brought a libel suit against Time Warner and Behar, and sued Reader's Digest in multiple countries in Europe in an attempt to stop the article's publication there. The suit against Time Warner was dismissed in 1996, and the Church of Scientology's petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States in the case was denied in 2001. Behar received awards in honor of his work on the article, including the Gerald Loeb Award, the Worth Bingham Prize, and the Conscience-in-Media Award.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thriving_Cult_of_Greed_and_Power

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1881:

Andrew Watson made his debut with the Scotland national football team and became the world's first black international football player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Watson_%28footballer%29

1913:

The future capital of Australia was officially named Canberra during a ceremony officiated by Lady Gertrude Denman, the wife of Governor-General Lord Thomas Denman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canberra

1930:

Gandhi began the Dandi March , a 24-day walk to defy the British tax on salt in colonial India. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Satyagraha

1952:

Hastings Ismay was appointed as the first Secretary General of NATO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ismay%2C_1st_Baron_Ismay

2004:

The National Assembly of South Korea voted to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun on charges of illegal electioneering and incompetence, a move that was largely opposed by the public. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roh_Moo-hyun

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

ebony (n): 1. A hard, heavy, deep black wood from various subtropical and tropical trees, especially of the genus Diospyros. 2. A tree that yields such wood. 3. A deep, dark black colour http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ebony

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Life to each individual is a scene of continued feasting in a region of plenty; and when unexpected death arrests its course, it repays with small interest the large debt which it has contracted to the common fund of animal nutrition, from whence the materials of its body have been derived. Thus the great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are filled by another and another generation; renewing the face of the earth and the bosom of the deep with endless successions of life and happiness. --William Buckland http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Buckland