Haven't seen Young Washington yet. I did see Disclosure Day though...

On Independence Day some friends asked if I wanted to join them at the theater to see the new Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day.  I went with them and we agreed afterward that it's a great movie!  Not Spielberg's best but it's definitely tapping into "old school Spielberg" that a lot of us remember from our youth, with a dash of the "mature Spielberg" who has been with us since Schindler's List.

That is how I gauge our greatest living filmmaker.  There is the Steven Spielberg that I met at the Boy Scout Jamboree in 1989: the "big kid" who was as giddy as a schoolboy, dancing around in his Scout uniform.  That's the man who brought us E.T. and Indiana Jones and Jaws and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.  He had a childlike twinkle in his eye and we were fortunate to have him.

Then Spielberg went off to Poland to make Schindler's List.  He wasn't the same after that.  The twinkle went out of his eyes.  The Spielberg who came back was a darker figure, and it reflected in his work.  The Jurassic Park sequel was Spielberg attempting a return to form, but it... lacked something.  I can't put my finger on what it was, but it did.

It was like that for Steven Spielberg for awhile, until 2001.  It took finishing his pal Stanley Kubrick's work with A.I.: Artificial Intelligence to pull him back to the wonder. Even there, I don't think it was a complete return.  The Spielberg of fifteen years earlier might have left David inside the amphibicopter, looking at the blue fairy, until his power ran down and everything was frozen around him.  That would have been a downer of an ending and yet one with hope.  The Spielberg of 2001 couldn't leave David like that, he instead gave him a more concrete ending.  One that was completely absent of humanity, it must be noted.

Over the past quarter century it's been coming back in fits and starts, and with Disclosure Day we have gotten as close to the old-school Steven Spielberg as we've gotten post-Schindler.  This is definitely going back to Spielberg's fantasy/sci-fi roots, the rich soil that bought forth Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.  Disclosure Day is a pure Spielberg film, with a script written by longtime collaborator David Koepp.  And the cherry on top, a terrific score by John Williams (this is the thirtieth project that Williams has done with Spielberg).  It's got all the classic Spielberg cinematic style, and it's pretty obvious that true to form Spielberg chose to shoot this with real film: it's got that beautiful grain look to it.  Visually I thought it much resembled the look of 2002's Minority Report, and that's not a bad thing at all.

I'll have to say that I recommend Disclosure Day.  It's not a perfect film, but it is a fine enough motion picture made by the greatest filmmaker of our time.  Try not to make sense of it as you go along, is the biggest advice I'll give it.  Suspend your disbelief at the theater door.  Trust me, it will make sense toward the end of the movie.

So that's what we saw on Saturday.  My friends already had tickets for Disclosure Day.  Had we gotten to the theater without any real plans in mind, we might have seen Young Washington, which debuted the day before.  I have heard nothing but amazing about that movie.  More than enough to make me want to catch it while it's in theaters.

Young Washington is produced by Angel Studios.  I've had my eye on Angel for awhile now and it has been a pure pleasure to watch it grow into a solid, solid mid-tier studio and maybe more than that.  Angel is building off of lessons that faith-based filmmaking has long been in the process of learning.  Let's face it: the Christian filmmaking community has made some real stinkers over the past fifty or sixty years.  Only now, in the last fifteen or so, has it come to realize that the message is little or nothing if it's without a story that sincerely entertains the audience.  Sherwood Pictures earnestly began the trend with their movies like Facing the Giants and Courageous, and now others have come along too.

Keep an eye on Angel Studios.  They really have become and continue to be as formidable an outfit as there is apt to be for a venture of its size and scope.  And it's only going to get better.

But I think that Angel Studios missed a real marketing opportunity with Young Washington.  One of the current gimmicks for seeing movies in a proper theater is that they offer the opportunity to have special popcorn buckets.  I've seen them in all shapes and sizes.  Some amazing to behold and some downright ridiculous (the one for Dune, a plastic sculpture of the sandworm, was... shall we say, "suggestive"?).  But they have become very popular and nice collector's items.

Angel Studios should have had a popcorn bucket for Young Washington.  It could have been a tricornered hat.  Holds your popcorn during the movie, and fashionable to wear afterward!

Yeah, it's a ChatGPT rendition.  I'm still sticking with my vow to not produce any AI-"written" work on this blog.  And if there is any AI "art" I'm going to disclose that.  But I needed a hat/popcorn holder pic and that was the fastest/dirtiest way to have one :-P 

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Happy 250th Birthday America! And a recommitment...

---

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

From the excellent HBO miniseries John Adams...

And with that, a new nation - one unlike any other in the history of the world - was born.

To the Founders: It hasn't been easy.  We've made mistakes in the past two and a half centuries.  But a lot of us still regard with precious sentiment that you pledged your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor.

I have tried to uphold the duties imparted unto me as a citizen of this land.  In reflecting upon the occasion, I am impressed with the conviction that my efforts have been found lacking.  Few of us, it must be said, have so thoroughly dedicated ourselves to uphold the responsibilities that come with the qualities that you announced for all time were of full rights to be bestowed upon every man and woman.

So it is that on this occasion, the two hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our nation, that I resolve to devote however many years are within my lifetime to serving my native land with all the strength, and wisdom, and temerity that are mine to command.

I challenge every citizen of these United States to do likewise.

We are not yet the perfect Union.  But we have come to be a more perfect Union.  This is a process, lumps and all.  And for all of the sins of the Founders that have become fashionable to condemn, it must be stated with all due confidence that those men, the greatest of their generation, gave us the means to draw closer to the ideals of freedom.  America is and always has been a work in progress.  We lift up what works and we take down what doesn't.  It's gotten us this far, despite our faults and foibles.  Maybe it can get us a little further.

I think a lot of harm has been done to our republic over the years.  Especially in the past century.  Too many of us have come to see this country as something to exploit and take from without having to contribute to it.  Many people have done things that in a sane world would be deemed outright treasonous.  Those will be dealt with in due time.  Nobody ever got away with it forever, and so it will be with our republic.

But for all of that, America is still that shining city upon the hill.  It is a sacred trust for her citizens, and an inspiration for those in distant lands who may not yet fully know freedom.  It is still something that we can be thankful that we are a part of.

So I'm committing to be a better citizen of this great land.  It's what an Eagle Scout, no matter his age, should do.  And I call upon ever other American who is reading these words to do that also.

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Thirty years ago we celebrated our Independence Day!

It occurred to me that it was thirty years ago today that the science-fiction blockbuster Independence Day came out in theaters...

I saw this movie seven times that summer!  The only other movies I saw during the summer of '96 were Twister and A Time to Kill.  And I can tell you exactly on which dates I saw Independence Day each time.

It was on July 4th that was the first time.  I was working a summer job at a bindery and we had a few days off for the holiday.  Ed, my best friend at Elon, and I caught the movie at the now-non-existent Janus Theaters in Greensboro, North Carolina.  We loved it so much that we caught it again two days later.  And then a little over a week later my friend Bennie from Belgium was visiting for a week, and we saw it together. Then a few days after that my friend Johnny announced that he was engaged and asked if I would be one of his groomsmen.  I said yes and to celebrate I took him to see Independence Day, too.  The following weekend I saw the movie for the only time on my own.  Then the following week Ed and I caught it again and then a few days before classes started at Elon he and saw it once more with our friend Gary.

To this day I cannot explain what it was about that movie that had me going back over and over to see it.  Maybe it was getting stoked about Star Wars's special editions coming out in a few more months and it made me want to see any big-screen sci-fi blockbuster at all.  So Independence Day was preparing me mentally for that.

Well, I could say more, but actually I already did.  Here is the essay I wrote in 2006 about Independence Day and it's pretty much what I would write today if I had to all over again.

(In case anyone's wondering, I have not seen the sequel.  It came out during me and Tammy the Pup's epic journey across America and for various reasons I didn't catch any movie that summer while we were out and about.  I really don't care to see it either.  The original movie was too much "lightning in a bottle" and I don't want to diminish thinking that.)

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Video: Japanese guys handling guns in a Bass Pro Shop (this is what America is all about!)

Two Japanese tourists, in the country for the World Cup soccer tournament, visited a Bass Pro Shop.  Somehow they found their way to the firearms department.  They could not buh-leeeeve all that magnificent firepower on sale to the general public.  The Japanese guys asked if they could touch the guns and as you can see they got the full enjoyment out of handling them.

Oh yeah, and notice that they are wearing Buc-ee's hats.

This has to be the greatest video I've seen in awhile.  The look on the Japanese duo's faces as they heft aloft various handguns, rifles and shotguns.  Doing something that is definitely not allowed in most of the world (but it should be allowed, that's what truly free countries do).

I've heard lots of stories about how foreign guests here for the World Cup have been discovering the real America and being impressed by all the freedom and opportunity that we have here.  That is refreshing.  It should also make us as Americans all the more thankful for the blessings we have been given.  We are still that shining city on the hill, despite the efforts of some to diminish that beauty.  We still have a magnificent example to show the world.  This video demonstrates that.

Okay well, 'nuff from me.  You want to see America at some of its best.  Mash down here for the video of two Japanese men in Buc-ee's caps handling guns in a Bass Pro Shop.  And prepare to smile :-)

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Disappointed, but not surprised, at Trump vs Barbara

That's pretty much the summary of it all.  I'm quite disappointed, but not surprised at all, at the Supreme Court's ruling about birthright citizenship.

It's the third rail of American law: that EVERYONE born on American soil must therefore be an American citizen.  The high court had the opportunity to rectify that assumption.  But that requires a boldness and adherence to the Constitution as written that is all too absent from the halls of government in our era.

As I've come to understand it the 14th Amendment applies to people born to those who are already under American jurisdiction, and at the time that was indeed former slaves and their children.  Those born to foreign citizens while in America are subjects of those foreign places.  The amendment is pretty clear on that.

Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito are correct in this case.  But the politics of the matter was too much for Roberts and Barrett.  The three diehard liberal justices, it was a given that they would vote to uphold citizenship for those merely born on American territory.  Kavanaugh surprised me: he voted to uphold birther citizenship.  But he also described a means of legally defining that citizenship belongs solely to those who are solidly within American jurisdiction.  I think his nuance in this case will be noted for many years to come.

But what do I know?  I'm just a guy who has studied the Constitution for most of his life going all the way back to Miss Jones's class in fifth grade. Some are going to say that I'm against the 14th Amendment and "obviously" want to put people back in the chains of slavery.  I'm looking at the reality of the law, not the political expediency of it.

My conclusion: this ruling will make a bad situation even worse.  One day we may recognize that.

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Happy 100th Birthday to Mel Brooks!

 

Only 1900 years more to go!

(Die-hard fans will get the joke ;-)

And he's still going nonstop!  Coming next year is the long awaited Spaceballs sequel.  It wouldn't surprise me if Mel Brooks has more up his sleeve for after that.  The man has been a comedic force of nature for most of his life, what else might he entertain us with?

There is no doubting what I'm doing this afternoon to celebrate Brooks's centennial.  I'm going to watch Blazing Saddles for the hunnerd zillionth time.

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So I watched Citizen Vigilante yesterday...

I had never heard of Citizen Vigilante, Uwe Boll's new film starring Armie Hammer, until a few days ago.  That's when I read that this movie has been effectively banned in Germany and the United Kingdom.  Something about it encouraging violence against migrants.

But then Elon Musk made Citizen Vigilante available to watch for free on his X (formerly Twitter) platform.  Something that would avoid the censorious thought police and let the people see and decide on their own.  Which only made the German and British governments even more furious.

Rush Limbaugh called it the "Streisand Effect": trying to keep people from watching a thing, makes people want to watch it even more.  Suddenly I found myself curious enough to check out Citizen Vigilante.  That's what I spent part of the afternoon yesterday doing.

What did I think?

It's a far shot from being award-worthy.  There have been other films - I'm especially thinking of the original Death Wish and also Harry Brown - that deal with vigilantism much better than does Citizen Vigilante.  There are some things about this movie that should have been left on the editing room floor (the brothel scene was especially cringe-worthy).  The entire movie looks like it was shot on an iPhone with no color correction or other tweaking.  I could tick off a few more things that are problematic with this movie...

But those things aside, I do believe that this is a film as relevant as any other during this particular time in modern history.

Citizen Vigilante is a movie that dares to acknowledge something that too many corrupt officials in all the wrong places would rather not have the people thinking about.  Namely, how out-of-control immigration that allows any so-called "refugee" into the civilized countries of the western world.  And with those "migrants", who refuse to assimilate into proper society, has come obscene levels of violent crime. Including rape and murder.

The officials in government don't dare touch the issue, they're that afraid of looking "racist" and "bigoted".  A lot of judges have been letting the migrant defendants - whenever they can be brought to court - off with easy sentences.  Their rationale: that migrant youth "don't know any better" and are even simply "misbehaving".

Meanwhile the actual citizens of those countries must live with two-tier law enforcement that places migrants above them.  To raise the issue and dare challenge it is to invite condemnation from the government.  Indeed, it's now a punishable offense in England to post criticisms of the migrants on the Internet.  Do so and you're going to get the constables banging on your door to take you down to the hoosegow.  The real citizens are treated much more harshly than the illegal aliens.  Everybody knows it's happening.

Citizen Vigilante in inspired by that radical disparity across Europe between law for citizens and "law" for migrants.  It's a very rough movie but there is no doubting the central message: that increasingly people are having to fend for themselves because the government refuses to help them.  If there is a breakdown of the law and the duly-appointed officers cannot or will not intervene, then it becomes the duty of the people to address it themselves.  And that is what Armie Hammer's character Michael Sanders does.  He's taking out the bad guys, including the judges who are much too lenient, in order to drive the people into taking charge on their own.

This is a very, very brusque film.  Not a spectacular film, and it won't win any prestigious awards.  But it will get people talking.  If they cannot readily see it because of their "democratic" governments refusing them access to it, they're going to want to watch it.  I suspect that there might be a thriving underground commerce for Citizen Vigilante across Europe (is The Pirate Bay website still functioning?).  It's going to make a lot of people think... and be moved to act.  I doubt - and I really do want to doubt - that this movie is going to entice sane people into doing some of the things that Sanders does in his war against out of control migrants who refuse to like civilized folks.  But it will anger them enough to take the bull by the horns and bring their governments back under their control.

My advice: go watch Citizen Vigilante, however it is that you can find it.  Don't expect a pretty and easily palatable story.  But you will find a very timely one.

EDIT 03:16 AM EST: I just checked and The Pirate Bay Is indeed still online.  And yes, Citizen Vigilante can be found there.  Disclaimer: I don't advise piracy of anything in any form.  But if governments like the British and German ones continue to try to keep this movie from being seen by their own people, I'm almost tempted to say that downloading and distributing this movie might be a moral and ethical thing to do after all.

 

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New documentary examines what went wrong with Star Wars Galaxies

Are massively multiplayer online role-playing games still a "thing" anymore?  Oh sure there is EVE Online (more than two decades old and still going strong) and I'm going to hazard a guess that World of Warcraft is even today enjoying much play.  And every so often when curiosity hits I log into the original Guild Wars, now 21 years since its launch and as beautiful as ever while also remaining free to play.

Once upon a time though, MMOROGs dominated much of the market.  And one of those games was Star Wars Galaxies.  It was a title that gave me countless hours of enjoyment and thrill and it did for many others too.  At last we would not be simply watching the Star Wars saga, we could be living in it too.

So it was that a few days after Christmas 2003, I signed in and began my online Star Wars life as Slanner Kwintz (nobody has ever figured out the inspiration for that name).  And after a humble beginning I gradually built up my toon until he was a fairly good bounty hunter.  But there was a softer side to Slanner too.  He supplemented his income by farming and mining.  It's what got him his own cute little house near Mos Eisley on Tattooine, complete with moisture vaporator... and wasn't it so nice to watch the twin suns setting from my front porch.  Slanner had a ship named the Mare of Steel (another reference that nobody seems to have picked up on) that after some clever item crafting and placement featured a holding cell for captured quarry.  Also among his possessions were various droids, and a rideable dewback that I named Brunnhilde.

That was my own personal story in Star Wars.  And a jillion other people have wanted to have theirs somewhere in that universe and Star Wars Galaxies was a chance to do that.  The publishers presented the players with a sandbox inside of which a magnificent economy thrived.  It was a true thing of  beauty.  For some people that was enough: they were content to live simple lives like Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.  That could take any number of forms, including being a medic or an entertainer (I've lost count of how many lap dances I got in the cantina).  But many more wanted a life more daring and so they became full-bore Rebel agents, Imperial officers and stormtroopers, smugglers (whose contribution to the economy was their manufacturing spices that bestowed temporary boosts to abilities)... there was a way to participate in Star Wars for practically anybody.

And then there was the Jedi.

Sony Online Entertainment said before the game came out that players could become Jedi.  But the path was a difficult one, and not something that could be replicated by other players.  Becoming a Jedi involved finding certain very rare items, completing various career tracks in a particular way (unique to each character)... as Star Wars Galaxies was set during the period between the movies A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back the Jedi were extremely few and far between.

They were supposed to be anyway.

It came to be that a lot of players were griping about not getting to be Jedi.  And that led Sony Online to alter Star Wars Galaxies with "new game enhancements" that among other things let players be Jedi right out the gate.

It ruined the game.  There almost instantly came to be too damn many Jedi.  Everyone could have an overpowered character now.  The career tracks that were so lovingly nurtured went right out the window.  And so did the game's economy.

The new game enhancements destroyed nigh nearly everything that made Star Wars Galaxies so special.  It ceased being a title that let people make their own unique impacts on the saga.  Instead it became "Star Wars Costume Party".  I knew the game's days were numbered the moment I saw dozens of Jedi and presumably Sith fighting it out with lightsabers in a market square on Corellia.

Star Wars Galaxies became an object lesson in not necessarily giving players - and people in general - what they want most.  Because if something special and unique gets to be grasped by everyone, it fast loses its allure and charm.  What Sony Online Entertaiment should have done was to allow Jedi to be a playable class but keep having it be quite difficult to achieve.  There was nothing wrong with it being that way.  Had Sony kept to that, and better managed the game, I don't think there would be any reason why Star Wars Galaxies couldn't have endured to this present day.  Sony was granted a license to print money with this game, practically.  And instead they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

A YouTube channel called /noclip is devoted to producing documentaries about the various aspects and history of video and computer gaming.  A few days ago they released "The Story Behind Star Wars Galaxies' Notorious Jedi Problem", a 33-minutes long examination of the Star Wars MMO, its glory days, and its downfall.  It's quite a worthy work to watch if you're at all interested in Star Wars or gaming.

Who knows.  Maybe someday there can be another Star Wars MMORPG, set during the classic period of the original trilogy.  Perhaps the studio and Lucasfilm will have learned the lessons of Star Wars Galaxies and set out to make another terrific player experience that doesn't require or even want to be overwhelmed by over-powered characters.

Perhaps someday, Slanner Kwintz will hunt again.  I'm looking forward to that if he can.

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Popcorn Sutton: The last one

Earlier today Pam Sutton, the widow of legendary moonshiner and American icon Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, shared the following photograph on the official Facebook page for the annual Popcorn Sutton Jam.

This is the very last photograph that was taken of Popcorn.  It was made the morning before his passing...

 

Pam Sutton elaborates: "This is one of the pictures that I don't like to share very much. You see, this was taken the day he left this world. This was my last image of him. I loved him so. If you look at his feet, you will see the jars that would become his first legal run. He was the first moonshiner to go legal in East Tennessee."

I will forever be lamenting that I never got to meet Popcorn Sutton in person.  Having come to meet and know several people who were in his life, I can't help but feel that it would have been a true honor to have gotten to know him also.

But his legend endures.  Every time I see his face show up in a meme on social media, or occasionally spot someone wearing a Popcorn Sutton t-shirt, I have to smile.  He was larger than life when he was with us and he casts a seemingly bigger penumbra since his departure.

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New project: writing another book

After a few years of percolation, and occasionally writing notes about cool neat stuff to include in it, today I began at last earnest work on a writing project that truly excites me.

It's a romantic novel, the idea for which came about before the COVID plague descended upon humanity.  It's a notion that I haven't seen anyone use before, so maybe I'm breaking some new ground.  I'm getting to employ my history training, formal and otherwise, into it.

(No, it's not like Casablanca!)

Lord willing that this gets completed, I think it will get much better reception from literary agents than has Keeping the Tryst.  My autobiography has confounded all the representatives that I've presented it to.  The primary problem is that it's way Christian for secular audiences and it's much too secular for the Christian market.  But based on what I've heard from a lot of people who've read it, that seems to be part of the appeal.  As one commenter on Amazon remarked it presents a lot of my personal theology, but it doesn't preach down to readers.  That was something I wanted to avoid and in that regard the book has succeeded.

This new project isn't like that all.  It's going to be a challenge, in many ways.  But I'm committing to completing it.  And then I'll be content with whatever others might take away from it.

As happened with Keeping the Tryst, every so often I'll post a "progress report" on how the new book is coming along.  A little peek into the the workings deep within the inner fog of a romance novelist.  Who knows, maybe it will inspire others to write their own such books.  If it does, then I will be greatly pleased and quite honored to know that mine had such effect.

As always, more soon.

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Did Elliott and E.T. ever see each other again? Steven Spielberg has the answer...

 

To be honest, it's not a notion that I've given any real thought to, now almost four and a half decades since first seeing E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.  It's the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, E.T. and Elliott had a happy reunion many years later, when Elliott was all grown up.  Might the heart-burning alien who found his way everywhere in 1982 (or at least all over your own house especially when you had small children... and let's not forget the Atari game!) have made a return to Earth?

It's a question that Steven Spielberg himself has now addressed.  Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to discuss his new movie Disclosure Day (a friend said it's worth seeing especially for John Wiliams's score), Spielberg shares about whether Elliott and his pal had a reunion...

"No, never saw him again," he said.  "But he did dream about him.  So there was a psychic link between the two of them.  If you notice that E.T. touched Elliott right here [points to his forehead] and said, 'I'll be right here.'"

I can live with that, as heartbreaking as it might be for some people to be told that.  Sometimes there are people who come into your life for however brief a season.  They make an impact on you, and you like to think that you make one just as strong on them.  You may never see them again but they're with you, bright in heart and memory.  In E.T.'s case that is quite literal.  And maybe someday, in ways you've never imagined or thought possible, there gets to be a happy reunion after all.  It's certainly happened in my own life a number of times.

But if not, I like to think that Elliott grew up happy, and now has a family (maybe he's even a grandfather) and that the days he spent with E.T. are forever a special part of his childhood.  No doubt something that he's shared with his own children.

That's as good an ending to the story as any.

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"The Intolerance of Tolerance": Something I wish I could have written

A few days ago I posted about "Pride Month" and how disgusted a lot of us have become with having sexual deviancy shoved into our faces during the month of June.  That post came following another in which I addressed the matter of someone accusing me of "bigotry" because of my beliefs about homosexuality.

The entire situation can be summarized by this statement I heard a number of times from the opposition: "We will not tolerate intolerance!"

I've been familiar with Karl Popper's "paradox of intolerance" for quite awhile now, going back to a philosophy class that I took in college at Elon.  The gist of it is that a society must be intolerant of intolerance, or else there is no tolerance at all.  To a point, I can agree with that.

To a point, mind you.

But the reality has been for a very long time, that the "tolerant" have been abusing the paradox as a weapon against those who have even the slightest disagreement with them.  The so-called "tolerant" - who are almost invariably of the "left side" of the ideological spectrum - do not seem capable of consideration of the viewpoints of others.  They instead are locked inside a fragile bubble, an "echo chamber", of their beliefs.  Any contradicting statements to their tenets are a dire threat to them, and are to be destroyed with all due vehemence.

How is there any dialogue possible, with people who think and behave like that?

In my own case, I did not initiate attack on anyone.  I did however profess sincere opposition to the beliefs of those people about social matters.  Matters which have corrupted and are destroying long-established and respected social institutions.  There is no such of a thing as "gay marriage", I will always believe.  Per the characteristics of true marriage, such a thing is impossible.

However, expressing that is enough to get labeled "bigot" and "intolerant" by individuals who are far more closed-minded than they realize about themselves.  They cannot oblige a person even merely thinking such a notion.  Anyone who does, they believe, should be destroyed.  And they are such gleeful bearers of the torch and truncheon.

George Orwell had a word for where this "intolerance of intolerance" would lead to.  That word is "thoughtcrime".  And that is what these policemen of allowable ideas have deviated into becoming: the watchful overlords of all concepts that a person might contain within the few square inches of his or her brain.

They come in many shapes and sizes: from the common "street thugs" that came to this blog over the course of the past week, to polished elites who occasionally descend from their towers to share their alleged "wisdom" on networks like CNN.  They share the same motivation: seek out and destroy dissidents.  They would have been excellent Stasi agents during the heyday of East Germany.  They possess a collective consciousness: dare defy one and they all come swarming in to counter-attack.

Such people are capable of "feeling".  They are incapable of thinking.  Especially for themselves.  And so it is that the merest slight against their common beliefs turns them into raging berserkers, fueled by the lust to destroy anyone who dares oppose their fragile ideology.

There is your true "intolerance", ladies and gentlemen.  There are your real bigots.

I decided to spend a few hours today investigating further the concepts of tolerance and intolerance.  Along the way I came upon a fascinating essay from a few months ago by one Greg Koukl.  Writing for the website Stand to Reason, Koukl addresses the fallacies of "tolerating no intolerance" and in doing so provides a counter to the assumed absolutism of Popper's paradox.

Koukl's essay is "The Intolerance of Tolerance".  Here is an excerpt:

"Most of what passes for tolerance today is nothing more than intellectual cowardice, a fear of intelligent engagement. Those who brandish the word “intolerant” are unwilling to be challenged by other views, to grapple with contrary opinions, or even to consider them. It is easier to hurl an insult—“you intolerant bigot”—than to confront an idea and either refute it or be changed by it. In the postmodern era, “tolerance” has become intolerance."

That is one selection from the essay and I am delighted to have come across it this afternoon.  It's a bit long, but well worth your time if you ever, like me, are confronted with so-called "tolerance" often hiding behind anonymity.

Thank you, Mr. Koukl.  You have put it in better words than I would have ever come up with.  You make me wish now that I had majored in philosophy.

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Perfect memory incident for 06/13/2026

Tonight it's another case of perfect recall come unbidden.  I've been told that how this translated into the writing for my book is pretty astonishing.  Sometimes I feel this is what it was like for Billy Pilgrim, the unstuck-in-time protagonist in Slaughterhouse-Five.  One moment I'm here in the present, then Bam! I'm in the past, reliving the moment.  And sometimes it's like flashes of the future come too.

So here's the latest trip back in time...

I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on this night in 1992.  I was in Virginia Beach, there to see a friend I had been known in middle school and high school until she and her family relocated (her father was a Methodist minister and he was given a new church to pastor).  My sister and I had come to see Dana graduate from high school.  Anyway, that afternoon my friend and her family, and my sister and I went to the beach and had a great time.  We got back to their home and had pizza for dinner.  Then Dana's brother and I spent an hour just chillin' and watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (the episode was "The Masterpiece Society").  After the show we entertained ourselves, like a particularly cutthroat game of UNO at my friend's kitchen table.

Then the next morning we said our goodbyes to each other and my sister and I found our way back to US 58 and the six hour drive home.

I bought a Super Soaker while we were in Virginia Beach.  I still have it.  It's in perfect working order.

For once a pleasant memory.  I should try to evoke them more often.

Edit:  I forgot to mention how that evening I was wearing my favorite The Far Side t-shirt...

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I'm not homophobic... I'm homo-nauseated

 "Pride Month" - that quasi-observed annual genuflection to sexual deviancy - seems less pronounced this year than it previously had been.  Many are saying it coincides with the changing political climate in this country.  That is certainly possible: Fewer Americans than ever before are supporting so-called “gay marriage”.

Even so, there are plenty enough adherents to the "Pride festivities" to be loud and they demand that you pay attention to them, damn it!  In a number of places "el-jee-bee-tee-cue" faithful have tried to run "pride flags" up the pole and over the proper banners of the United States and their respective jurisdictions.  Removing such flags never seems to fail to bring around the television news crews come to document the "hate" toward gay people.  A few nights ago the Los Angeles Dodgers had "Pride Month Night" and Blake Treinen refused to wear the team’s special cap for the occasion, which angered LGBT activists.   Some of the more “progressive” churches have unfurled the “Alphabet Mafia”’s spectrum of colors in their sanctuaries.
 
It is important to note that there are two general types of sexual minority in our culture.  The first kind is homosexual etc. but its members remain very quiet about it.  They tend to not be homosexuals who join any movement like “Pride”.  Such people are private, inward-focused.  There should be no issue with such people.  Even if there can be no support of their lifestyle, there can be respecting their privacy.  The two are not exclusive of each other.  I have a number of friends who are homosexual and bisexual.  They know where I stand in regards to how they live.  But they also know that I’m not going to think any less of them.  There is a mutual respect between they and I.  And that’s how it’s supposed to be.
 
The same cannot be said of the second type of sexual minority: the LGBT extremists.  The ones who demand that every person acquiesce to their radicalism and allow “gay rights”.  Which, there is no such thing.  Homosexuals and other sexual minorities have just as many rights as the average American enjoys.  They are instead demanding special rights, which would in truth make all rights unequal for everyone.
 
LGBT zealots are like fascists.  They will only accept total capitulation.  There is no deviation allowed from the tenets of their cult.  Theirs is an unholy war, a jihad, wrapped in the blasphemed colors of the rainbow, and they lust for nothing but completely falling down on our knees for them.  They will not abide any turning away from their religion.
 
How tolerant of them.  Or as one LGBT supporter put it, "We will not tolerate intolerance!"
 
I'm discovering that to defy the LGBT extremists is to invite scorn and hatred.  That doing so brings out what must be the most vulgar and vile aspects of the human condition.  Several days ago, on a Facebook group that I visit occasionally, an individual posted a “pride” graphic.  It was something that no doubt a lot of people didn’t care to see, particularly since it was on a Star Wars forum of all places.  And though I had a suspicion what would happen if I did it, I decided to interject something that might make people think.  So on the graphic’s post I made a comment with a mere four words:
 
“Pride goeth before destruction.”
 
It was like ringing the bell for Pavlov’s dogs, slobbering with hunger.  Immediately after quoting those words of scripture from the Book of Proverbs I was jumped-flunky on by LGBT wackos.  Four words, comprising eight syllables… and that was enough to trigger more unbridled hatred than I had seen on the Internet in quite awhile.
 
The original poster did not like it.  He began a campaign to “out” me.  He began following me around cyberspace, gleefully declaring me a homophobe, all because I cannot and will not condone the LGBT “lifestyle”.
 
I made a blog post calling out this person who has done his best to paint me as a "bigot”.  The last time I checked, that post has been seen a little less than a thousand times.  I have no idea how it got around so fast except that I responded to that nitwit on Facebook with it.  So far, 80-some comments have been left on the post.  A few are supportive of me but most of them not.  Not one of the negative comments has been anything but obscene to one degree or another.  Many of them seem preoccupied with whether or not I am a virgin.
 
When uttering four simple verses of scripture - "Pride goeth before destruction" – is enough to evoke such a reaction, there exists an irrational fear that is impossible to have meaningful dialogue with as decent human beings.
 
The masses comprising LBGT “Pride” be they homosexual and trans themselves, or their fellow travelers, are fixated on sex while ignorant of everything else in this world.  They worship the orgasm: sexual pleasure is the be-all and end-all of the human condition for them.  They cannot comprehend that there are people who are not thinking about sex constantly.  To tell them that one does not want sex all of the time is like trying to tell an alcoholic that one does not drink: the person can not believe that anyone would refrain from drinking.
 
There is no reasoning with such people.  It is like a black man circa 1880 trying to reason with the Klansmen who are about to lynch him.  In fact, that’s exactly what it’s like.
 
"But Chris, homosexuals can't change how they feel when they're attracted to people of the same sex!"
 
I never said that they could.
 
I have said this so many times that I'm practically blue in the face: I definitely, most certainly do believe that there exists a homosexual inclination.  The question is though: What does a person choose to do about that inclination?
 
As a Christian, I understand and accept that there exists temptation.  It can take many forms.  Some temptations are sexual.  Others are for substances like meth.  There are food temptations.  As a former mental health professional I have seen a bewildering variety of temptations, many of which might surprise and completely shock people.
 
It's not the inclination, the temptation that is wrong.  It is the acting upon it to satisfy the temptation.  Nobody… and I mean nobody… is forced by their own mind and body to have sex with anyone else.  I can't think of anything more ridiculous than the suggestion that anybody must absolutely express themselves sexually with another person.
 
The LGBT extremists however believe that human beings are base creatures without a moral core.  They expect that a person has no choice but to yield to his or her lusts.  And they absolutely hate it when it’s suggested that a person can opt out of surrendering to temptation.  They look at others and see them as scum, lower than animals.
 
I’ve been called homophobic.  Which is ridiculous.  "Homophobic" insinuates a dire fear of  same-sex relationships.  And that’s not me.
 
What I am… and I earnestly believe that the same goes for most people in this country… is that I’m homo-nauseated.
 
I’m sick to death of having “pride” shoved into my face.  I, and many other people, just don’t want to know what two men are doing with each other.  We are also tired of the Pride flag making its way onto seemingly every product conceivable (what next, Pride-kitty litter?).  I can’t remember there ever a heterosexual flag or there being a straight parade whose participants boast of sleeping with a stranger of the opposite gender.  Just so, I and a lot of other individuals don’t need obscene and grotesque thoughts of men having sex with one another playing across our gray matter.
 
Homosexuals?  Fine.  They can knock themselves out.  But it doesn't make them any more special or worth revering than anybody else.  “Pride” wants to be worshiped for their sexual preference: perhaps the least noble thing that a person should be remembered for.  Many of us would rather they quit bothering us and politely go away.  They aren't wanted and no amount of corporate advocacy (almost always done under threat) is going to change that.
 
Or perhaps “homophobic” is a word with meaning after all.  It can mean a fear of what the LGBT brigade can do to one if a person deviates from the pro-homosexual narrative.  It indicates a terror campaign on the part of the LGBT extremists: surrender your morals or be declared guilty of hate-mongering.  That is a homophobia that's the LGBT jihadis not only acknowledge, they actively encourage.

There is the real bigotry.  That is the true fascism.  And it’s time that normal people begin to defy and resist, and demand that the real hate-mongers leave us alone.

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Chris and Tammy's Great Adventure: Ten Years Later...

Today is June 12th, 2026.

It was ten years ago today, June 12th of 2016, that I packed up the bare essentials in my car (clothes, Bible, computer, my dog's belongings, the iPad Pro, a Boy Scout pocketknife, and a black cast-iron skillet), and then my dachshund Tammy and I left Reidsville and set out into the unknown.

I didn't know what our final destination was going to be.  The entire enterprise was predicated on the notion that God was going to lead me along the way, to wherever it was that He needed us.

The only reason we went west at all is because Ed, my best friend since college, invited me to join him for a special screening of the original Ghostbusters in Asheville.  Here we are, note that Ed is wearing his customized film-quality Ghostbusters uniform:

That's how it began: the year-long adventure across America for my dog and I, looking for a new home.

As I've shared in my book Keeping the Tryst, sometimes I feel like the journey isn't finished.  A full decade later and there's a sense that I'm still not where I'm supposed to be, despite all the good that's happened along the way (writing, being a mental health professional, getting back into filmmaking etc.).  I'm waiting for something.  What that is, God will reveal in His timing.  I'm not ready to declare the odyssey completed yet.

The saga continues.

That morning, about 9 a.m., we left the hotel where we had been staying in Reidsville.  A few minutes later, as the car got onto US 158 headed west, I started playing a song from my iPad.  My favorite bit of music from the television series The Walking Dead.  It set the mood perfectly as we embarked on our journey.

Here is "Blackbird Song" by Lee DeWyze.

Maybe ten years from today there will be more to report.  I like to believe so anyway.

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Coward Alert: "The SW Geek Hub" on Facebook

Update 06/23/2026:  It has come to my attention from a number of sources that SW Geek Hub really is behaving in a manner not unlike that of the Nazis following the passage of the Nuremberg Laws.  Geek Hub has been very busy conspiring with others to destroy the careers of people who disagree with him.  He claims that they are "bigots" and he and his supporters are gleefully proclaiming that such people can't escape the "consequences" of their beliefs.  They have already cost at least two people their jobs and are now working on someone who Geek Hub doesn't like for the simple matter of a choice of word.

This is something straight out of the playbook of the Nazis and too many other oppressive regimes throughout modern human history.

Geek Hub and his followers (I'm pretty sure that it isn't more than ten of them who have been responsible for most of the comments on this post) didn't like it when on "The Intolerance of Tolerance" post I alluded that too much of the Pride movement parallels Nazi Germany, so far as intolerance of "ideological impurity" goes.  What Geek Hub and others are doing ie EXACTLY what the Nazis did in denying jobs to the Jews and other minorities.  That they cannot or will not see that, says a lot about the evilness of their mentality.  No wonder they won't come out of hiding and show themselves.

Hello SW Geek Hub.  Here is something new for you to ponder: "The Intolerance of Tolerance".  Maybe you should quit saying that other people are "bigots" and look at yourself.

New blog post: "I'm not homophobic... I'm homo-nauseated"

It seems, ladies and gentlemen, that your friend and humble narrator has picked up a cyber stalker.

"The SW Geek Hub" is someone on Facebook - who has a woeful case of arrested development it seems - who is obsessed with rooting out what he calls "bigotry".  This meaning that anyone who does not acquiesce and condone the homosexual/lesbian/bisexual "lifestyle" is a bigot to him.

"Bigot" must be the only substantive word that he can use.  He keeps trying to talk to me and "bigot" is the word that most circulates the little dark drain of his disturbed mind.

I know a real bigot when I see one.  And that is most certainly people like "SW Geek Hub".

I have learned a few things about "The SW Geek Hub".  He is in England, in the London vicinity.  He hates people older than he is.  He has visited this blog several times in the past number of days, looking for anything pertaining to homosexuality.  Curious, that.

He is a fascist wannabe who is afraid to step out of line.  Maybe that explains why he is too intimidated to do anything about the country he lives in.  England is a place whose people are fast losing their rights of free speech and religion and the right to defend themselves.  The recent Henry Nowak case demonstrates that the people of  Britain are now at the mercy of a government that places their best interests behind those of invading "migrants".

"The SW Geek Hub" is losing his country but he won't do anything about it.  "I know my place guvnah!" he practically tells us.

"The SW Geek Hub" is also deathly afraid of showing his real name and his face.

He is a hit and run stalker.  He'll pop up, make his accusation of "bigotry", then refuse to be an adult and show the world who he really is.  Funny, that, considering that the vast majority of people on Facebook do show their names and faces.  I mean, it's in the name of the site: Facebook.

I doubt that "The SW Geek Hub" is very much a real Star Wars fan.  Finding and posting Star Wars memes is the limit of his activity.  He certainly can't discuss the saga to any great length.  Neither does he, I suspect, have anything like the experiences some of us have.  I've met a lot of people associated with the saga, including many actors and actresses from the original and prequel trilogies.  I've engaged in conversation with individuals like the conceptual artists who created the look of the Star Wars movies.  I even made a film that was watched by the people at Lucasfilm.

"SW Geek Hub" is nothing more than a glorified Reddit user.  A legend in his own mind.

He has no actual life, other than associating with some other lonesome souls down at the pub on trivia nights.  I suspect he will someday die, bitter and alone, with nobody remembering who he was other than some vague memory of a childish man who cried "bigot!" at anyone who dared hold a differing belief than what few he himself might have had.  He has no real family or friends.

Now you know what I know.  That there is a very deranged individual on the Internet who refuses to behave like a civilized adult and has for whatever reason chosen to follow me around like a child fixated on a shiny toy.

Come on, SW Geek Hub.  I'm calling you out.  Show us who you really are.  You seem hellbent on stalking me.  Here I am.

Stop being a coward and tell us who you are.

Edit 06/13/2026: Since first posting this some information has come into my awareness.  It seems that SW Geek Hub has quite a history of attacking people he doesn't like and declaring them to be bigots.  He's done it a LOT.  I'm far from the only one he has branded a bigot.  And in at least one case he threatened to "dox" someone who dared oppose his ideology.

So my estimation that he would cause harm to others if given the opportunity is a valid one.

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