A lesson on humbleness

Had some very good news today!  Wish I could share it but I had to sign all kinds of non-disclosure agreements and whatnot.  But trust me, it's awesome!!

During a discussion about how good a turn this is, a dear friend shared something that I thought was rather profound.  It's a notion I've never considered before and it's already greatly impacted my outlook on life.  Here it is, in his own words...

Stay humble, but let me tell you a story: When I first came into the Twelve Steps program, I was saying to my sponsor how bad a person I was.  His response was, 

"Wow. What an ego on YOU."

I replied, "That's the opposite of ego."

He smiled and said, "No it isn't. Do you know the Latin root of the word "humble"? It is "humus".  To be grounded.  Humility is the act of being neither greater NOR LESS THAN who you truly are."

Light bulb went off over my head.  Now I try to be humble.  Neither greater nor less than.

If nothing else I have learned something new to me: the word "humus" and how it's the basis of "humble".

I have been told before that I am humble.  Maybe I've been trying to be too humble.  Hence, something other than grounded.

It's something good to meditate upon for the rest of this evening.

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LGBT Extremism: Not so much "pride" anymore

Have you noticed it also?

There doesn't seem to be the degree of "pride" that there has been in the previous few months of June.

"El-Jee-Bee-Tee-Cue Pride" has been a thing for the past number of decades among the extremists of that lifestyle.  And then following the first election of Donald Trump it found renewed life as supposed "opposition" to the administration.

Then Trump's first term ended.  And the real freak show that was the Biden years began.

Thankfully, most of the American people got fatigued by pretty much everything wacko liberal.  Enough to toss leftism out on its keister.  Right now the only vestige of power that it still has are in the out-of-control federal judges who are imperiling rule of law, sheerly out of a lust to "get Trump" by any means possible.

I was expecting that this June would witness a resurgence of "pride".  A counter-revolution to the "Make America Great Again" movement that propelled Trump to a second term in the White House.  The leftists were going to rally around the cause of LGBT again, regather their forces, throw in the reserves...

...but so far, nothing.

Oh, there have been a few adherents of LGBT ideology who have stuck with it.  A few nights ago I watched A Face in the Crowd, the 1957 movie that was Andy Griffith's first role.  By the end of the film Griffith's character, the "demagogue in denim" Lonesome Rhodes, has been destroyed by his own ego.  Mel Miller (played by Walter Matthau) tells Rhodes that he'll get another show, "but it won't be the same."  There will be a few people who will still watch him after he's ruined his seemingly invincible hold on the public.  But those will eventually disappear too.  And then there will be no one.

That's what the LGBT cause reminds me of.  Lonesome Rhodes.  Screaming in the night for some slight measure of legitimacy and respect.

I'll dare say that the days of LGBT's hold on the business world are over with.  Those active in the movement have had their time.  They've been weighted in the balances of corporate esteem and found wanting.  The court of public opinion is no longer in their favor.  No matter how much gay-friendly beer and "trans swimwear" they might boast of selling.

If only the LGBT extremists had kept low all this time.  They may not have become so reviled by the majority of the American people.

Especially by many of those who do identify as gay and lesbian.

Because it wasn't so long ago the LGBT community wanted to be left alone.  They wanted to live in quiet with others.

A lot of homosexuals and lesbians still prefer quiet.  I believe that there should be no grievance to be had with them, at all.  They respect my right to my beliefs and I respect their privacy.  There is a line that should never be crossed and so long as it isn't there can be peace.

But those aren't the ones involved with "LGBT Pride".

First the LGBT fringe was quiet.

Then they asked for "tolerance" and "acceptance".

Then they insisted that they be "loved" no matter what they were doing to destroy themselves.

And now it is "Pride" that DEMANDS SUBSERVIENCE.  It has come to be that we must all fall in line and surrender to the cause of LGBT or suffer "consequences" (they love to use that word).  That is what Pride has morphed into.

The "LGBT Pride" movement is not and never has been about peaceful "live and let live".  It has always been about coercion.  It is about forcing people against their conscience.  It is "capitulate to us or ELSE".  It is "obey or BE DESTROYED!"

The extremist LGBT movement is like most other things leftist.  A dark iron fist beneath a tattered velvet glove.  They are bullies hiding behind a rainbow flag (or purple and lavender flag, or whatever).

Too many of the LGBT extremists also want to pervert our children.  It's the only way they are going to perpetuate themselves, by making the most innocent among us like them.  They're the ones often called "the groomers".  And they are for all intents and purposes irredeemably evil.

There is nothing virtuous or noble to be "proud" about in homosexuality and its associated lifestyles.  It is a thing of destruction: of others, of culture, and inevitably of one's healthy mind and body.

But that is the choice of homosexuals and lesbians and bisexuals.  Don't get me started on transgenderism: as much an affront to nature and society as there is ever apt to be.

If someone wants to partake of a lifestyle that invites disease, madness and death, then there is little I could do to persuade them otherwise.  But do NOT assume that I or any other conscionable human being must be compliant and give our consent and blessing to such behavior.

Now, can there truly be "peaceful co-existence" between most people and those of the radical LGBT agenda?  It's very doubtful.  The LGBT zealots have to earn our respect.  And they aren't doing that.

Thugs and bullies never do.

But if this year is any indication, "LGBT Pride" is fast losing its luster.  The velvet glove is now shreds of remnant.  Extreme liberalism has been revealed for all to see as the brute power-at-all-costs that it really is, and people are wiser now.  If this past autumn's elections were any indication (and in a historic first, President Trump's approval ratings at this point in his term are higher than that of any other president at similar times) the LGBT movement no longer has any legitimacy.  It is being buoyed pretty much by left-leaning media: another institution that is losing its power.  When CNN's audience is numbered in the hundreds of thousands while Joe Rogan's podcast gets an audience in the tens of millions, there has been a drastic shift away from the mainstream press's hold on the American people.

So if you are seeing "Pride" on display this month, and detest the wickedness that it stands for, take heart.  These are the last days of that movement as it has been defined in the past few decades.  At least until - hopefully a long time in the future - another leftist regime is installed and the LGBT extremists - who a lot of homosexuals want nothing to do with - come out of hiding once again.

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Attention Christopher Schmidt

Christopher Schmidt,

I know where you are.  I know where you work.  For all you're aware of I may even have your home address.

You really should be working right now instead of goofing off on Elon University's Facebook page.

You aren't much of anything, are you?  Just a coward, hiding behind your cellphone.  Or the keyboard of the place where you're supposed to be employing whatever skills your "masters degree" (if you even have one) bestowed upon you.

Good Lord, I really am a better person than you.  Including in life experiences and even education.  Not all learning is done in a classroom or laboratory or the Akron, Ohio public library.  You've never seen the world.  You don't know what it's really like out there.  But I do.  I understand the human condition in ways you'll never comprehend.  And that is how I know that you are going to die a lonely man consumed by bitterness and maybe regret, if you even have a conscience.

You are actually a very small person, alone with your hatred of Donald Trump and anyone your paranoia leads you to think is a "conservative".  You are so insecure, that the notion of someone who thinks different than you causes you real pain.  And so you lash out.  Like a rabid and wounded animal.

You truly won't have anything to show to God when He someday calls you to be accountable.  Death comes for us all, sooner or later.  I've got nothing to be ashamed of.  What do you have?  God loves us but He can't tolerate unholiness... and that is what you are.  An unholy, vulgar, minuscule excuse of a man.

Let me give you some advice: back off.  Law enforcement has your name and address.  Do something dumb and they'll be on your backside like white on rice.

You aren't the first stupid person to try me.  None of the others lasted ten rounds.  You will not do any better than they.

I actually feel pretty sorry for you.  The bounds of your hatred are as far as your soul will ever get.  You won't go farther.

So be a good boy from now on, Chris Schmidt.  Mind your manners.  And stop with the profanity on Elon's Facebook pages.  If you ever really attended Elon, you should be more considerate.  Use harsh language with your wife or kids or patrons if that gives you a rise.  But a respected university is not the place for that.

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Release dates announced for Stranger Things final season

Well, I know what I'll be doing from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve in another six months...

"RUN!!  RUUUUUUUNNNN!!!!!"

Volume One at Thanksgiving.  Volume 2 on Christmas.  The finale on New Year's Eve.

Stranger Things has been the only show that I've followed at all during this past decade. I seriously don't know what's going to fill that void in my life.  It's one of the few things pop culture-wise that I've been interested in all this time.  I haven't watched Star Wars: Andor though I keep getting told that I must see that, it's supposed to be the best thing that Disney has done with that franchise since it took over.

But Stranger Things will forever have a very special place in my heart, just from when it started.  When I was on the road going across America for a year.  That it's ending this coming holiday season, well.. it's almost like that extended life journey since 2016 is finally drawing to a close for me.  Maybe something else will come along now.

EDIT: Netflix has released some pics from season five.  The kids don't look that much older than they did in the previous season three years ago (though it's good that the show is wrapping up now cuz this is no doubt the last time they'll be able to pull off that trick).  Click each image to embiggen it.

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Forcery turns twenty!

Things like this usually doesn't go past my notice.  Guess I've been so occupied with other stuff lately.  But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it...

May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my... or rather I should say our... first motion picture, Forcery.  An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner's film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery.  Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his "number one fan" Frannie Filks.  It's not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.

This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11.  Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW to really go about doing that) on the night before the attacks.  I knew nothing about filmmaking at all.  But I began learning everything that I could about it.  I read, studied, watched how-to videos, got really good at scriptwriting and lighting and editing and whatnot.  Most of all I learned anew how to work with people and collaborate with them on a project.  It's amazing how so many good people came together to work on this.  Forcery is a monument to them and their sacrifices toward making this dream into a reality, and I'll forever be thankful to them.

In the end, our movie was finished, just in time for Revenge of the Sith being out in theaters.  And it's gotten some appreciation over the years.  "Weird Al" Yankovic saw it and told us "Nice job!"  Then it wounded up being featured a lot in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas.  But I'm especially fond of all the good word that has come from Star Wars fans who've watched and enjoyed it.  I think Melody Daniel - who plays Frannie in Forcery - is quite fond of all the guys who have said they  like her especially.  I'm going to be forever indebted to Melody.  She brought a LOT of knowledge and wisdom (and patience) to the set and it would have been a far lesser film without her being there.  Ed Woody, my college roomie from Elon, came up with the portable greenscreen and the "nine dollar dolly" and a lot of other inventions used in production.  And of course there is Chad Austin, my best friend since third grade, who absolutely rocked it as George Lucas.  I told him he could do this and he delivered magnificently.  And there were many others also, who believed in this project and helped it come into being.

Well, you can read more about it on the Forcery page that's on this site.  If you've never watched it before you can click on that link and then watch the original on Google Drive.  Or you can watch it here courtesy of YouTube.

Thank you to everyone who in the past two decades has watched Forcery and took the time to tell us that they enjoyed it.  We had fun making it for you :-)

(And to George Lucas, Stephen King, Rob Reiner, and the estate of Slim Whitman: thank you for not suing us!!)

Note: The top image was made by feeding the original poster for Forcery - which did not depict anyone - into ChatGPT and instructing the artificial intelligence to simply produce a cartoon rendering.  And that is what it came up with.  I am STUNNED.  That looks exactly like cartoon versions of Chad and Melody in costume.  I've no idea how the AI knew to do that... but ChatGPT did it!

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Dream report: Early morning hours of May 23, 2025

Had a very vivid dream last night.  It's stuck with me all day.  I can't get it out of my head.  Maybe sharing it will let me be free of it.

In my dream, I was in a toy store, a large one like the old Toys R Us.  And I found my way to the aisle that had the Star Wars toys.  I've actually dreamed of that a number of times.  What I do most when I dream of that is look through the massive wall of Star Wars action figures, seeing if there are any that I don't have.  And that's what I did this time, too.

But this time, as I was looking through the pegs holding the figures, I spotted something I'd never seen before.  It was a Star Wars figure totally new to me.  I pulled the figures of the peg that were between me and this new figure.

When I finally had it in my hand, it was a carded action figure of someone who I had loved dearly, and have been unable to stop loving even now.

It looked exactly like her, precisely imitated in plastic and paint.  She looked as she did on Christmas Day many years ago, when I got to her parents' house after I drove fast and got there from Reidsville in five hours, not the usual seven.

It was a Star Wars figure of one of the very few women who God ever brought into my life and I could barely stop looking at it.

It was suddenly the most wonderful, most amazing action figure that I had ever seen and I had to have it.  I was gentle with the carded figure, I wanted it in mint condition.  It was going to get a place of highest honor in my collection.

I took it to the checkout at the front of the store.  I got to the register.  And that's when the cashier told me how much it was and I knew that I didn't have that much.  I had to give it back.  I wasn't able to afford the most precious action figure that I had ever seen.

It went back to the aisle, hanging with the other figures, and I knew it was going to be found by someone who could not only afford her, but was probably better than I could ever be.

I started crying in my dream.  And then I woke up.  And buried my face in my pillow and had to hold back what could have been real tears if the meds I take for manic depression could allow for actual weeping.  I felt sad and a little angry, at myself and at God.  I kept thinking of how broken I am.  Broken in mind, in spirit, and too many times in faith.

It seems that my dreams are all broken too, in all the ways that they can be.

So much symbolism in that dream that I'm realizing since having it, about 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time this morning.  And none of it less than haunting.

Well, that's what it was.  A nice dream about a pleasure from childhood and much of the rest of my life even.  That turned into a heartbreaker that has plagued my waking hours all day.

Maybe with it out of my head, it can not have any further power over me.  I'd like to salvage something better out of this afternoon and evening.

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Putting Tammy into AI

Yesterday a couple of dachshunds I follow on Facebook (the inimitable Barney and Fred) posted some pics of themselves that their "pawrents" had rendered by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence system.  It made me curious about how my own little girl Tammy would do.

If you use the free version of ChatGPT it limits you to three renderings a day.  Here is what it generated this morning...

I have no idea why the AI put a glass of iced tea into that last one.  It does make Tammy look like a proper southern lady though :-)

EDIT 05/24/2025: Here's another cartoon rendering of Tammy:

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Just hitting the Intertubes: Trailers for Superman and second season of Fallout!

A couple of things went online today that I've watch a few times.  I've got a good feeling about both of these.

First, it's the first trailer for the second season of Amazon's  Fallout series.  As a die-hard fan of the Fallout games I absolutely loved the first season.  They completely nailed the look and feel of the franchise.  It was an astounding surprise that throughly delighted me.  Season two debuts in December, which may be a busy month for streaming if the final volume of Stranger Things comes out then also (as many are speculating).

So here's the trailer for Fallout season two:

And then there's this: the new (and probably final) trailer for Superman.  This is a project that has gotten me increasingly intrigued with each new spot that's been released.  I think David Corenswet is going to do much as the great Christopher Reeve did in the role: making Superman and Clark Kent two entirely separate personas in the eyes of the world.  Reeve's portrayal is the platinum standard of that and Corenswet seems poised to tap into that also.

More than that though, I can't help but believe that this is going to be a movie we need right now.  The idea of Superman being good and upright and moral in a world that has grown cold and jaded and cruel, like ours has become... there is something uplifting about that.  It seems that there are few absolutes on this earth anymore.  A Superman who can inspire us to be our best should be one of them.

I could say a lot more about that, but anyhoo here's the trailer:

Superman flies into theaters on July 11.

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The night I tried to call John Paul II

This may or may not be a fun time to share this.  But there's been a lot of good humor about the papacy in the past couple of days (I think the best joke I've heard is that Chicago's NBA team is changing its name to the Papal Bulls) so why not?

Inspired by Steve Jobs (who had tried impersonating Henry Kissinger) in the spring of 1996 I attempted to telephone Pope John Paul the Second.  I had managed to find the number to the Vatican switchboard and so I called it.  I disguised my voice to sound like that of President Bill Clinton.  I told the operator who "I" was and that I had to speak with His Holiness.

Several minutes after being put on hold a gruff-sounding man picked up the line.  He said something in a thick accent and then demanded "Who is this??"

"Sir, I am President Bill Clinton of the United States, and I need to speak with the pope."

"You do not sound like President Clinton.  You should be much ashamed young man!"

The line went dead.

I'll never know how close I was to talking with John Paul II but I like to think that I wasn't too far off 😛

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Congratulations to Leo XIV

Cardinal Robert Prevost was announced a little while ago to be the next pope, Leo XIV. 

He's the first American to become pope.  He is also likely the very first person from Chicago elected to office who will end his term without going to jail.

(Oh come on, nothing wrong with a little humor!)

Although I am not a Catholic, I will be praying that Pope Leo XIV will lead his church with wisdom, humbleness, and courage to do right in all things.

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May the Fourth be with you!

The past several years have seen my love for the Star Wars saga take some brutal hits, but my love for the original film will forever endure.

Over the decades I've gotten to meet a lot of people from this movie.  Maybe too many than can be readily counted.  For some reason the ones who most come to mind are Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca, and Paul Blake who was Greedo.  A week and a half before 9/11 I had a VERY wild barbecue ribs dinner with Blake.  Quite an interesting chap.  I asked him about what he thought regarding the changes that George Lucas had made to A New Hope with the 1997 "Special Edition", particularly making it so that Greedo opened fire first on Han Solo.  Blake's response was awesome: "I think it's absolutely BOLLOCKS what George did to Greedo!  Why did he do that?!?  Han was perfectly right to shoot Greedo first.  I was holding a gun on him after all.  I just can't understand why George did that!" 

Well, however it is that you choose to celebrate the occasion, May the Fourth be with you :-) 

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The power of five words

It's ironic that this pertains to Elon University: the place where my real spiritual journey began while a student there almost thirty years ago.  At the time there was a considerable presence of evangelical Christians there.  There was InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and maybe a hundred people or more came together on Tuesday nights for that.  There were the small groups that met for Bible study and prayer throughout the campus during the week.  Associations like Baptist Student Union flourished.  And if you were a student who was looking for a place of earnest worship there was a church service called Elon Celebration that took place every Sunday morning at Whitley Auditorium.

It's been a long time since I've visited the Elon campus, but I've heard stories.  About how the Christian presence is gone.  Oh, there is some marginal representation, but nothing that gets official recognition from the administration.  For that to happen an organization has to agree to take stances that run fully counter to the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic.  The organizations have to be "affirming": code-talk for "you must be inclusive and endorse the homosexual lifestyle as being compatible with Christianity."

Which is something that no legitimate Christian could possibly ascribe to.

It's been that way at Elon for a long time.  The once-fertile ground for real vigor and diversity and conversation is now spent.  The weeds have chocked off the wheat from taking root.  Until now a school that had once been a place of vibrant exchange of ideas, where we could boldly share about our faiths with abandon, has become a den of radical thought that actively quashes traditional Christianity in every corner it is found on campus.

But I like to think that even in such places, God's word holds power.

Case in point: a little drama that has happened during the past few days on Facebook.  Elon News Network - the conglomeration of Elon's various media, like the newspaper The Pendulum that I wrote for while a student - posted something about a "pride event" honoring the school's commitment to apparently being first and foremost known for harboring fringe sexuality.

I saw the post and casually left a comment.  Five little words.  Verse 18 of chapter 16 of the Book of Proverbs, to be precise.  Here is what I shared:

"Pride goeth before the fall."

That's all that I did.  I merely quoted one of the smaller verses of scripture from the Bible.

That was probably forty hours ago, give or take.  And if I had known before that such a tiny verse would pack that much of a wallop, I would have employed it a long time ago.  As of this writing that verse has evoked almost a hundred comments, mostly from people who find it offensive.

Emboldened by the responses, I've shared other thoughts about the matter of "LGBTQwhatever pride".  Mainly, that it might be the most self-destructive behavior that a person can do to himself or herself.  The damage to mind, heart, soul and especially body are horrific.  As I have said at various times on the thread I have seen what that lifestyle does to men and women, whether as a healthcare professional or just someone trying to be a decent human being.  And it's something I never want to have to look at again.

The feedback generated would almost be hilarious, if it not for the fact that the people responding actually believe what they do.  One former classmate automatically posted that I'm a homophobe, racist, hate-spewing, etc.  He pretty much comes across as a parody of a parody of what a leftist homosexual whacko is supposed to be like.  Another person made a thinly-veiled threat of violence.

All of this and more, stemming from five words.

If only these people had any grasp whatsoever of the wisdom and validity of that verse.  They are demonstrating it well enough.

This past week at least two colleges went bankrupt and had to close down.  They were small-ish campuses, much like Elon.  They couldn't afford to remain in business as educational institutions.

Once upon a time, I wouldn't think that such a thing could possibly happen to my alma mater.  But that time is long past.  Elon has abandoned its intellectual and spiritual vibrancy and put something far more dark in its place.  There will come to be consequences of that.  Maybe not today or next year, but there will be a price to be paid for running off potential students whose consciences dictate that they cannot subscribe to a radical agenda.

My advice to any young Christian man or woman who is considering colleges: avoid Elon University.  And it absolutely breaks my heart to have to say that about a place that I made so many happy memories at.  You won't find your faith welcome there anymore.  You will be expected to yield your minds to fringe ideology.  It is the kind of place where any sincere faith in God will be sniffed out and put on display for public ridicule.

I only shared five words of scripture on a Facebook page.  Lord only knows what will happen when... not if, when... the spirit might move a sincere Christian to share more than that in a classroom discussion.

But as one who majored in history at Elon, and among other things represented the school at a national research conference, I have confidence.  The people who have been riled up against my quoting scripture aren't doing anything new.  Theirs is not "new wisdom" but old foolishness.  VERY old foolishness.  And the tide is turning against them.  This past election signified that.

They have a sick fantasy on their side.  I and enough others have reality.  I believe I know who will prevail.

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The night I was taken away from it all

 It was twenty-five years ago tonight that for the very first time I was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

The bipolar disorder had started during the preceding winter, but I didn't know that's what it was (it would be another four years before that diagnosis was handed to me).  I had been manic most of the winter and then the depression - what I came to call " the dark fountain" - decided that it was time for it to show itself.  The death of my grandmother toward the end of March intensified the blackness.  All I came to think about was death and dying.  Everywhere I looked I saw dead people waiting to happen.  It was a dark fountain that was smothering me, driving me to the brink.

It got bad enough that one night some friends took me to the hospital in Burlington.  The doctors there said that I was having intense depression.  They were worried about my safety, afraid that I might do something to myself.  And so it was that they signed orders to have me taken involuntarily to John Umstead, a mental hospital northeast of Raleigh.  I got to call Dad before I was to leave the hospital, so my family knew where I was going to.

A cop came in a short while later.  He took me out to his cruiser.  We were five minutes down I-40 when his radio crackled to life and he was instructed to turn back around to the hospital and pick up another patient: another "compassionate", the situation was called.  So we returned to the hospital.  The officer opened the back door and told me to come out and he said he had to put handcuffs on me.  I was horrified: I'd never been handcuffed before.  I asked if I could just stay in the car and he said that was against the rules.  So I had cold carbon steel slapped on my wrists for the first time in my life.  We went back into the hospital though the emergency entrance.  I did my best to hide the handcuffs from view, but nobody seemed to notice anyway.

A few minutes later the new patient, a young lady in her early twenties, was brought out.  The cop put handcuffs on her too.  And so he escorted us out and into the back seat of the car and we took off.

"Hi," the girl told me.  "I'm Tracy.  I'm crazy."

She began telling me about how her parents thought she was going to cut herself again.  She told me about sticking pins and needles into her bare arm.  I asked her why did she do that.  "Oh, just to feel something," she told me.  Tracy kept talking for the whole ride.

It took about an hour to get to John Umstead.  We were taken inside.  Tracy was met by two orderlies who took her down one way and I never saw her again.  The officer took the cuffs off of me and I was taken down the other way.

I was brought to a room and told to take my clothes off.  I did, behind a cloth screen so nobody had to look at me without attire.  My shirt and jeans were taken away, my shoes too.  They let me keep my underwear.  I was given pajamas and "grippy" socks to put on.

A short while later a psychiatric nurse came into the room to give me a preliminary examination.  She asked some questions.  She also gave me a series of numbers and asked me to remember them.  A little while later she asked me what the numbers were and I recited them back to her.

She asked me "Who is the President of the United States?"

Sometimes when things are dark, I fall back into using humor.  That's what I tried to do this time, because this was about as bleak as things could get...

"Hillary Clinton," I replied.

The nurse gave me a harsh look and I could immediately tell that I had answered way wrong.  I quickly told her that I was kidding.  "I'm just really nervous right now," I added.

She made a note of what I had told her.

She finished the exam.  By this point it was approximately 2 a.m. on Friday morning.  I was brought to the ward. Taken to a room.  There were two beds inside, but nobody else was in there.  The assistant told me that if I needed anything that I could come to the nurses station down the hallway.

They had let me keep my book bag all this time.  There had been nothing in it but my Bible.  I sat up on the bed and crossed my legs, and took out my Bible and held it close to my chest.  I started rocking back and forth, my Bible a talisman against the night.  Whatever gets you through the darkness.  I tried to pray, but the words would not come.  All I could think about was that I was two hours away from home, in a part of the state where I knew nobody.  I was in a mental hospital, the last place that I had ever expected to be.  The depression was playing on the edges of my mind but I was too frightened and confused to really let that overwhelm me at the moment.

I looked out from my window.  There was a darkened courtyard beyond the glass.  I stood there, and suddenly thought that this was like that scene toward the beginning of The Godfather Part II, where the child Vito Corleone is locked up in the room at Ellis Island because he's too sick to proceed on to America.  Looking out his window at the distant Statue of Liberty, young Vito starts to sing.

I was locked up too.  Away from the world that I knew.  But I couldn't sing.  

"Especially," I reminded myself, "not in Italian."

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"Trump tariffs" will bring game manufacturing back to America

It's been awhile since I've been able to enjoy any real gaming and by that I mean board games, miniatures games, what have you.  The most interaction I've had lately with anyone in the competitive sphere has been coinciding with the twentieth anniversary going on right now of the online role-playing Guild Wars... and I rarely get into that "player vs. player".

No, I'm talking about actual games one-on-one in the physical world, where you and your opponent are looking at each other across the table and able to pick out each other's nuances.

But gaming is still something I keep an eye on, if only to stay up to date on what the industry is up to.  And lately that has inordinately crossed over into the realm of true-life politics.  Enough so that it bears bringing up by your friend and humble blogger.

The tariffs that have recently been imposed on products coming into the United States, particularly from China, are eliciting a wide response from the gaming industry.  There have been more than I have been able to readily keep up with, but this very thoughtful statement by Loren Coleman, CEO of Catalyst Game Labs, is typical (it's also one of the best written I've seen coming out of the businesses being affected).  Incidentally, Catalyst Games Lab is the current publisher of BattleTech: a game and fictional universe that I have long admired and respected.

Coleman's treatise however is missing one element that otherwise has been ubiquitous throughout writings from interests in the community: it doesn't emphasize that these are "Trump tariffs".  Most are making it clear in no uncertain terms that the tariffs - and the resulting higher cost of games - are the result of the policies of President Donald Trump.  Coleman's omission of that terminology is something I am glad to take note of.

It is the general consensus of game publishers that the tariffs are making it much more difficult to market their products.  The smaller companies especially are feeling the impact.  And that is regrettable.  It absolutely is.  Not I nor anyone that I personally know want companies in America to be squeezed out of making a profit that in better circumstances would be enjoyed more.

But these are not those "better circumstances".

So let me cut to the chase: I for one as a gamer don't mind the higher costs.  I'm not unsympathetic to the American publishers but I'm also not blind to the reality of the situation.

And that is this: I would rather there be a temporary increase in the price of games, because of the tariffs, if that means we start transiting manufacturing of games back to the United States.  In the long run we are going to likely be thankful that we did that.

For far too long, American companies have looked to China for the production of goods that are ostensibly the results of domestic conception and design.  It's been cheaper, the argument has been.  No doubt that it has.  But it has also incurred a cost in jobs and financially overall.  That is money that could have been better kept infused within our own economy.

For sake of good as least expensive as it could probably be, we have been inflicting enormous harm to our country.  And it's been this way for many long decades.

The tariffs that President Trump has imposed - and which we should hope that Congress enshrines in legislative action should it come to that, though it can also be argued that Congress long ago already passed along the power of tariffs to the executive - are admittedly going to make a lot of items on this country's store shelves more expensive for the foreseeable future.  That is no doubt going to be an effect that trickles down to smaller businesses.  But I don't know if that's going to be avoidable.  This is the cost of having production being in China and other foreign countries all this time.  That should not have happened.  American companies, including game publishers, should have kept the manufacture of their products here to begin with.

In the grander scheme of things, the higher prices we will pay because of tariffs are our own fault.  We wanted cheap goods, we got them... but there was always going to be a price to pay in the end.

I love playing games, be it Go or Settlers of Catan or X-Wing Miniatures.  But I love our country even more.  And I would rather there be a temporary higher costs of games and other products, that would precede bringing their manufacture back to the U.S.  Because among other things doing so will bring about more permanent cheaper prices for us in the long run.

American game publishers should have kept manufacturing here to begin with.  But they didn't.  And now we are going to have to make up for letting China make the actual physical product all this time.

But I can't emphasize it enough: this won't last forever.  This is going to incentivize bringing the products of our own ingenuity back to where they rightfully belong.  This is temporary.  Nobody apart from our foreign competitors wants there to be higher prices forever.  That won't do anyone on our side any good.  Americans like stuff and they're willing to be reasonable in how much they pay for it.  It's going to hurt for awhile to have some good things, but in the long run we are going to be thankful that we did.  It will be more jobs in this country, a stronger economy, and yes even lower prices at the friendly local game store among other retail outlets.

The pain is momentary.  But the benefits are forever.  If we want to keep them, anyway.

Be of good cheer.  And hang on for awhile.  It may take a year, or three.  But we've done this before.  Some are comparing what Trump and his allies are doing to the Smoot-Hawley Act and are declaring that the tariffs will lead to another Great Depression.  I on the other hand see this more as being in the line of President Reagan's efforts in the early Eighties to bring back American industry.  Those measures worked magnificently, and we were all the better for it.  I'd dare say the entire free world profited from our taking more control of our own destiny.  It worked then and it can and will work now.

It's going to be tough.  But it's going to be worth it.

And when this is over, I will be more than happy to engage in a few games of BattleTech with this blog's readers.  It's been too long since I've gotten to play House Kurita.  I promise to be honorable.

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