New text for Keeping the Tryst's cover

It's been almost six months since the release of Keeping the Tryst.  It's reached a nice sized audience already yet I'm still tinkering with it behind the scenes.  Finding small places that can be improved, etcetera.  Nothing drastically major: it's still the same story that was published in early October, just cleaned up in spots.

There is one detail that has irked me though: the text of the back cover.  It's easily the one thing I wrestled most over.  The back cover text should be something that readily sells the book, without saying too little or worse, too much.  Keeping the Tryst is such a wild book though, it was always going to be tough to synopsize it into a digestible packet.  So it is that the back cover description hasn't really been something I've been satisfied with.

So with some hours to spare last night and into this early morning, I dedicated myself toward improving it.  And I'm much happier with what has come of it (click to enlarge):

I've already uploaded the revised cover.  It should be live on new orders for the book in the next 72 hours.

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Chuck Norris is gone

 

Part of me is tempted to declare that this is as fine a time as any for a Chuck Norris fact.  The man himself loved those jokes, even if he was really quite humble about it.  Norris chuckled at how powerful people claimed he was.  But in truth he knew that the real power in his life was his faith in God.

Death didn't get Chuck Norris.  Heaven just needed Chuck Norris to teach the angels how to roundhouse kick.

(That's the very best I can come up with.)

The world without Chuck Norris... just doesn't seem possible.  He was a force of nature on two legs (one was named "Law" and the other was named "Order", that's one of my favorite "facts" about him).  An action legend, a loving family man, and also some will remember that he was an excellent op-ed writer (he had a column for awhile at World Net Daily).  Chuck Norris could do seemingly anything.

Almost anything.

Goodbye brother Chuck.  Until we meet someday.

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North Carolina State Senate District 26: The Republican primary that won't end

Phil Berger (left), Sam Page (right)
Image courtesy WRAL.com

Look, I really don't have much of a dog in this hunt.  I don't even live in North Carolina anymore, much less live back in the state senate's 26th district.  But I did spend most of my life in Rockingham County and I maintain strong connections there.  I visit back there every so often.  And I've met Phil Berger and Sam Page at various times over the past two decades.  All of that, and the political commentator that's been inside me for well over thirty years now is just aching to weigh in on this mess.  So that being said, here it goes...

For those who haven't known, the 2026 race for North Carolina State Senate District 26 has been thrown into beyond the singularity: a place where future events cannot be estimated.  What happened is that Phil Berger, who has represented Rockingham County and a good slice of northern Guilford County for a quarter century now, has been running for re-election.  It's worth noting that in the time since first coming to Raleigh, Berger has risen to be Senate Leader.  He's arguably the most powerful politician so far as North Carolina state government goes.  He gets to decide what bills rise to the top and have a chance of becoming law.  His influence is considered greater than that of the governor.

Berger, a Republican, filed to run for another term.  And he likely would have gone on to win again in the general election.

But then Sam Page filed to run, too.

Page, the sheriff of Rockingham County, has alleged that Berger has become too attached to his power and  is no longer adequately representing the people of his district.  Page has listed a number of issues that have arisen because of Berger's pursuits and policies, including an attempt to build a casino in western Rockingham County (presumably to compete with the Harrah's casino in nearby Danville, Virginia).  Generally though, it's been trying to make a case that Berger has become out of touch with his constituents.

So it's been incumbent Phil Berger versus Sam Page the county sheriff for the Republican nomination for state senate... and it has by a very significant margin become among the filthiest races in North Carolina history.  If for no other reason than because the balance of power in the state capitol is in dire jeopardy.

Just trust me.  I've seen things shared on Facebook that make me feel embarrassed to be a son of Rockingham County.  I really thought better of the place that I came from.  I'm not naming anyone in particular, I'm only expressing my disgust at the entire spectacle that has unfolded during the past year.  It hasn't gone unnoticed by others.  Even here in upstate South Carolina, Berger versus Page has become a topic of discussion.

It's also renewed my disgust with the stranglehold that the two party system has on this country.  For far too many involved in politics it's all about the power.  And not at all about serving the people.  The Democrats and Republicans have each lost sight of what's most important.  If anyone were to ask me which is the worse I would immediately say the Democrats: they have become so fixated on the accumulation of power that they have become completely unmoored from reality (how hard is it to define what a woman is?).  But the Republicans aren't far behind and the higher up in government the GOP is found the less effective they seem.  Especially in the United States Senate.  But that's a rant for another time.

Anyway...

Millions of dollars have been poured into the race between Berger and Page.  Mostly to Berger's campaign, from outside the district.  The Republican bigwigs desperately want Berger to be re-elected.  Page's support has been far more localized.  His campaign has been nothing like the effort by that of Berger's.

After all the deviousness and dirty tricks, it all came down to the Republican primary in North Carolina earlier this month.  And when all the precincts had reported in on election night, the apparent winner was Sam Page over Phil Berger... by two votes.

(Has this race been dramatic, or what?)

That was just over two weeks ago.  Since then there has been counting the absentee and other outstanding ballots that were submitted before the election.  With those taken into account and after canvassing, it now stands that Page has a 23-vote lead.

True to North Carolina tradition, this has triggered further motions being made in the way of recounts, etc.

WRAL has a pretty good story about where things stand right now in the Berger/Page race.  Including how Guilford County election officials might wind up stretching this affair to at least April 6th.

All that said, here is my honest take: it doesn't look like anything is going to change that would benefit Phil Berger.  With each attempt to pull a win out of this, it's increasingly obvious that it isn't going to happen.

It really is becoming apparent that the Republicans of District 26 have chosen to nominate Sam Page to represent their part on the ballot in the general election come November.  And that Phil Berger's time in Raleigh is drawing to a close.

I am of the mind that Phil Berger has indeed lost touch with the people of his district.  But I also can't but believe that he didn't start out like that.  He gave the district some good service.  That has to be acknowledged.  He fell prey to something that has affected those in political circles since time immemorial, and always will so long as Man is granted dominion over his earthly destinies.  He came to put his position over his service though, and that can't go unaddressed.  It's now time for new representation.  Now is the time for Phil Berger to be a good man again, and acknowledge that the people of his party have spoken.  And with that in mind, he should honor that choice.

There is no dishonor in conceding an election.  Hey, I had to do it almost twenty years ago, when I didn't win a seat on the school board.  But it was an amazing experience all the same.  There has never been any regret for being unsuccessful in that race.  And there doesn't have to be regret for Berger coming up short in the primary.  He can leave office knowing that he served his people, and be content with that.

That's just my two cents about the matter.  Or maybe five dollars and seventy-five cents.  Enough to buy a little over a gallon of gas at current prices.

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Happy 50th Showbiz Anniversary to "Weird Al" Yankovic!

It was fifty years ago tonight, on March 14th, 1976, that radio personality Doctor Demento played a song that had been submitted by one of his listeners.  "Belvedere Cruisin'" was composed and performed by a sixteen-year-old young man with an accordion from Lynwood, California.  His name was Alfred Yankovic.

Doctor Demento could not have known it then, but he was premiering the music of one of the greatest artists that has ever come in the history of pop culture.

Happy fiftieth anniversary to "Weird Al" Yankovic!

Here is the recording of that fateful evening:

There is another Weird Al anniversary this week.  March 12th marked the thirtieth anniversary of the release of the album Bad Hair Day.  For a number of reasons that is one of my favorite albums by Yankovic.

Here's looking forward to many more years of Weird Al music!

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Red Hot Deal: Keeping The Tryst for Kindle at 25% off this week!

Starting this morning, for the next week the Kindle edition of Keeping the Tryst is 25% off.  I'm making this an offer especially for readers of this blog.  I'm forever going to contend that the very best way to experience a book is when it's a properly bound volume of paper which the reader can have a tactile connection with.  But I also recognize that many people don't mind having it on their tablet or smartphone, and that has its own qualities.  So this event is going to acknowledge appreciation of that.

Keeping the Tryst at $5.99... an author would have to be crazy to offer such a great deal! 😛

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EMDR, Part 3 (only six years later!)

There are quite a few people who've told me that they appreciate when I share about my experiences with bipolar disorder.  Doing so has helped them better understand what it is to have a condition like this.  I suppose it helps me too.  Writing about it gives me that much more strength over something that really should have killed me years ago already.  So here is another report from the wacky world of manic depression!

This morning I saw my counselor for the first time in several months.  Getting as much substitute teaching in as I can has prevented me from adequately addressing my overall mental health as much as I really should have been doing.  Controlling my bipolar disorder involves many things.  Medication and counseling are two of those, and they work hand in hand.  The meds restore a measure of control and the counseling helps me develop tools that the meds can't provide.

I went in today with especially fresh issues to confront: the depressive episode that's been dragging on since at least the holidays, that only in the past few weeks have I realized has been happening.  Dovetailing with that is my inability to be able to write like I need to.  Those were the two biggest things that I sought to address with my counselor.

What came about during that time was something I had been looking forward to returning to for some time now: I underwent a session of EMDR therapy.  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a technique I had been treated with for two sessions before COVID hit.  My counselor at the time and I tried another session over Zoom during the lockdown but that proved to be infeasible.  Today was the first time in six years that I had the opportunity to undergo EMDR in the presence of a trained professional.

At the time, six years ago, I was being treated with EMDR in an effort to aggressively counter the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from abuse I received as a child many years earlier.  Because of COVID bringing everything to a screeching halt my treatment of that was interrupted.  But in the time that I had it I was able to find some ways to counter the PTSD.  If you read my book Keeping the Tryst it will probably give you some insight into how I was able to overcome that particular monster.  The abuse from my mother is something that no longer troubles me.  I've come to a place at last where I'm not being constantly haunted by that any more.  So that's good.

When I went at length this morning describing how I've lost my writing capacity, my counselor suggested we have an EMDR session.  I readily accepted the offer.  She has many of the tools that are used in the typical round of therapy.  Today we used these hand-held buzzers that the counselor can adjust the rate and severity of buzzing.  My job was to hold the buzzers and close my eyes and engage with the counselor in conversation.  Sounds weird, but it does help to peel back the layers and bring definition to some things that evade ready description.

We did EMDR for the better part of half an hour.  What was the result?

I think that it might have had some effect.  None to immediately impact my writing ability, but it did help me narrow down my expectations of myself and put my abilities into focus.  My counselor suggested that I'm in a place right now where I'm not compromising my ethics when it comes to what I choose to write and HOW to write.  The issue of artificial intelligence came up, something that I am 100% sure is being used for a LOT of the writing that I'm seeing lately.  I can't use that, I told her.  It would violate my integrity as a writer.  She said that it's good that I know what I can and can't do in that regard.  And that probably sooner than later there would be a swing away from using AI in everything and that there will come new appreciation for those who do not embrace AI in their work.  Hearing that made me feel much better.

I'm also visualizing my "writer's block" in a new way.  Every time I've felt stopped from writing, I have literally envisioned a solid block of concrete or hard stone standing in the way of where I am and where I long to be.  I keep hammering at the block with my fists and all that it achieves is that my hands become ragged and scraped and nothing has yielded.  After this morning I'm seeing it differently.  I'm now seeing it as a block of marble, the kind that Michelangelo had standing in his studio.  And just as Michelangelo came to see David trapped in the marble waiting to be freed, so I now also can see my own block as something to work at freeing a sculpture from.  I can stop hammering with my fists and try addressing it as an artist chiseling away at it with finer tools.

Like I said, there is going to be no immediately seeing the impact that today's session had.  But I think it was a great step in the right direction.  There was some very real movement, the kind that I needed to have happen.  I prefer to believe that it's going to soon prove to have been time well spent with my counselor, that there is legitimate fruit that will be borne from it.

How well will it work?  We'll come to find out, I imagine sooner than later.

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Boffins in Australia make human neurons play Doom

For some time now there has been one ultimate benchmark for whether or not something has a truly computerized central component: Does it play Doom?  More than thirty years after iD Software released their 3D first-person shooter, it has been ported to seemingly everything from refrigerators to tractors to home pregnancy tests.  And more often than not, they do indeed run Doom.

A few years ago an outfit in Australia called Cortical Labs, working with lab-grown human neural cells, coaxed a Petri dish of neurons into playing Pong.  Which is about as rudimentary a video game as there can get.  Almost immediately the company started getting asked the same question: Could their "brains on a chip" play Doom?  Something that would require substantially more sensory input and calculation than simply moving a virtual paddle up and down.  The real matter was, people didn't want to know if the neurons could run Doom.  They wanted to know if it could play it with some semblance of a human being's participation in the game.

Lo and behold, Cortical Labs has done it.

A little high-tech box containing 200,000 human neurons is now playing Doom at Cortical Labs's facility.  It's playing FreeDoom, which is a port of the original source code that iD released a long time ago.  The classic imps, cacodemons and former humans aren't in the lab's version of the game - that would be trademark infringement - but it's still the same basic design and functionality.  "Doomguy" is moving around in Doom's simulated 3D space and firing his weapons at the generic enemy targets, just as he would if it was a living person operating him.

Furthermore, the neurons are gradually learning the parameters of the game.  They are getting better.  One can only wonder what would happen if they got turned loose in the classic doom.wad game file and started discovering how to evade, and then shoot back at, the original in-game enemies running their now-primitive but back-in-the-day awesome programmed artificial intelligence.

This is a major step forward toward the development of true AI.  If this kind of technology comes to migrate out of the lab and into industrial production, Lord only knows what kind of applications could come of it.  Some good, and some... not so much.  This is the sort of development that William Gibson wrote about in his novel Count Zero (the sequel to Neuromancer) forty years ago.  It was kind of scary then and it's a bit scary now.

I guess there could be some benefit though.  If you ever needed a more-than-silicon opponent to play Call of Duty against, there might be an ever-ready one sitting in a lab dish waiting to compete with.  That might be a spinoff (albeit not an altogether comfortable one to have).

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Earl Burton, the world's greatest weatherman, has passed away

Okay, maybe I'm more than a little biased.  But as long as I am on God's green earth I will never believe that there was ever a meteorologist who was as accurate and honest and entertaining as Earl Burton.

Earl Burton was born in Reidsville, North Carolina in 1940.  Two things happened in his young life that wound up spinning him into someone legendary: his love of broadcasting, and the volumes of weather records that he began keeping as a teenager.  Eventually he came to be an announcer on WREV AM-1220 out of Reidsville.

His flair for radio and his vast knowledge of local meteorology collided one fateful afternoon when Earl was about to relay a forecast from the National Weather Service to his listeners.  He was set to read the report calling for rain when he stopped, paused for a moment, and told the audience "Folks, I think that's wrong!  I think we are going to see snow!"

It indeed snowed.  Earl Burton was right on the money and the professional meteorologists were wrong.

From that point on, Earl was the person to get the weather forecast from if you were in the Reidsville/Eden/greater Rockingham County area.  And he had a style all his own when he was giving his prognostication.  With that velvety voice perfect for radio, what would take most weather people three or four minutes to share with the audience, Earl would turn that into a seemingly half-hour long masters thesis on atmosphere, humidity, pressure systems and how they were going to meet over the area.  And I would say that he was 95% accurate most of the time.  Earl had a way of explaining it all, making something as complicated as weather into something that everyone could grasp and appreciate.

I can't talk about Earl Burton without mentioning how beloved he was by the school children.

So many winter days there were when there were rumors of snow coming in.  I think every kid in the county would be tuned into 1220 AM and what Earl had to say.  It would sometimes take him ten to fifteen minutes to get to the point but if the situation aligned well enough we would hear Earl say the magic words: "this is just the right conditions... for snow!"  When he said that, you could pretty much forget about going to school the next day.  It simply wasn't going to happen.  Earl Burton had said it, we believed it, and fifteen hours later we saw it with our own eyes.

Earl Burton was among the finest personalities in the field of radio.  And later on he complemented that with also being the weatherman for Reidsville's WAEU Channel 14 television station.  His forecasts on TV were a tad more in keeping with that medium's scheduling but they were no less effective, and for many people it was their very first time putting a face to the voice.

What makes small towns so special are their larger-than-usual percentages of personalities.  The people who give a place their true character.  Reidsville is fortunate (maybe) to have had many such people over the years.  Few of them had as much virtue and qualities as Earl Burton.  And to this day, whenever I see a weather forecast calling for snow in an area I happen to be in, I find myself wondering "What would Earl say?"

Earl Burton passed away on February 25th, 2026.  He leaves behind a grateful town and generations of school children who hung on his every word on so many winter afternoons.

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Scouting America vows to Pentagon: No more transgenderism or DEI policies (EXCELLENT news!)

Finally, some sanity is returning to Scouting.

But is it too little, too late?

On My Honor, Norman Rockwell

 

A few hours ago it was announced that Scouting America, what was formerly Boy Scouts of America, is no longer allowing transgender members and it is abandoning "diversity, equity, and inclusion" policies.

It has made this vow to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously raised concerns about the "woke" tilt that Scouting has made in recent years.

This is a massive win for Scouting traditionalists, who have been against many of the changes that the organization has made over the past decade and a half or so.  The worst, in my belief as an Eagle Scout, was allowing homosexuals into the ranks.  Scouting's ideals are incompatible with any sexual behavior other than monogamous heterosexuality.  A Scout takes an oath to "Keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight": virtues that homosexuality cannot adhere to.

Neither have I been impressed by allowing Boy Scouts to allow girls into the ranks.  Look, boys and girls are complementary, but different.  They each have their own particular needs that their respective organizations are meant to address.  Unfortunately I think it started with Girl Scouts of America long ago turning "progressive" and failing in its mission to bring up young women of faith and virtue.  Girl Scouts began allowing homosexuals into its own ranks and from there it was only a matter of time before the organization deteriorate to the point where it's barely clinging to life.  No wonder that many young women wanted to belong to something with values and virtue.  They found it in the Boy Scouts of all places.  But they should have their own organization all the same.  Ideally Scouting America would separate young men from young women and indeed, this is what is making competing organizations thrive.  Scouting America has seen a significant decline while groups like Trail Life are growing substantially.  One must wonder why that is...

Still, today is a great victory for Scouting.  The organization has been given six months to get its act together before the United States military - long a partner in Scouting's mission of bringing up young people of sound mind and body - judges whether the changes are significant enough to warrant continuing their relationship.

Scouts have done far more than that with less time.  Look at it this way Scouts: just as what happened in 1985, the hurricane has blown through the jamboree.  You have half an hour to set all the tents back up.  You can do it!!

(Eagle Scout 1992)

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Happy fortieth anniversary to The Legend of Zelda!

 

Released on this date in 1986.

I played the heck out of The Legend of Zelda when I got my Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas 1988.  It was so much fun exploring around, setting fire to every bush that was within reach.  To say nothing of always keeping bombs on hand to blow up possible hidden entrances to shops (or to caves with old men who make you pay for destroying the front door).

Now I have the Zelda theme playing in my head and it won't stop!  I don't have anything to play the original game with but I think in honor of the fortieth birthday of the start of the franchise I'll play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my Game Boy Advance.

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It's the Fortieth Anniversary of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

 

The first issue of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns hit the stands on this date in 1986.

Four full decades later, it remains perhaps the most definitive tale of Batman's persona as a human being.  Watching an older Bruce Wayne turn his back on his age and embracing his heroic persona once more is nothing short of magnificent... and also engenders much reflection on the part of the reader.

I first read The Dark Knight Returns in June of 1989: the "Summer of Batman" when the Caped Crusader was seemingly everywhere.  It was unlike any comic book I had yet experienced.  It totally changed how I perceived Batman and his world and it forever raised my expectations on what graphic novels should deliver.

Frank Miller, thank you for bringing us this story.  It will always be my favorite Batman story and no doubt it is for many other fans too.

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The object lesson of Jesse Jackson

 

Jesse Jackson passed away today at the age of 84.

I'm not the kind of person who speaks ill of the recently deceased.  That's something that I learned during my upbringing in rural North Carolina.

But in the case of Jesse Jackson, I am going to make an exception.  Because I believe that there is much to be learned from his life and the choices he made.

Jesse Jackson had been a very good man.  A great man even.  He preached a terrific message to young black people, encouraging them to rise above their circumstances and make something better for themselves.  Jackson was also - I was shocked to discover - VERY vehemently pro-life and spoke often about the evil of abortion.

The original brand Jesse Jackson was a real leader.  Someone who had earned respect from many, many people.

But then Jackson ran for President in the 1984 election.

What happened to Jesse Jackson is almost Shakespearean.  The man sold his soul to the Democratic Party in order to acquire more power and influence.  He abandoned his principles and the messages he had so eloquently spoken to people needing wisdom.  Jackson left all of that behind and instead became someone who embraced an ideology that stood against everything that made this a wonderful country for all of us.

The Jesse Jackson who had stood with giants in the civil rights movement - he was at Martin Luther King's side when he died - had gone away.  And in his place was someone altogether different.  Shallow.  Manipulative.  The furthest thing from a true statesman.

That Jesse Jackson - the "race hustler" - became responsible for engendering more racial division than most any other person in modern American history.  Jackson paved the way for others who exploited race and division: people like Al Sharpton and Barack Obama, and now the proponents of "critical race theory" and pushers of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" that drive wedges between us instead of bringing us together in a common American experience.

Yes, Jesse Jackson had been a good man.  But for more than forty years he had been someone else.  All because of selling out himself for a bigger seat at the table.

There is a great lesson to be learned from the example of Jesse Jackson.  All who would pursue power would do well to study his life.  To learn from the great mistake that he made.  They should be made to contemplate the true price of chasing after temporal affluence.  That is a grievous error that many have made, even in our more recent history.

Tonight I will try to bear in mind the good man that Jesse Jackson had once been.  Not the ruined soul who caused so much damage to our culture.  And who but God knows, maybe Jackson repented of some things before he passed.

I hope he did.

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What clip to honor Robert Duvall's memory with?

Robert Duvall, one of my all time most favorite actors, passed away two days ago.  The news broke about it yesterday and ever since I've been struggling to come up with the best way for me to pay tribute to him.  The man did so much.  It's very hard to pick the movies and roles he had that I like the most.  I absolutely loved his portrayal of Augustus McRae in the epic television miniseries Lonesome Dove.  There were his appearances in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.  I could say something about The Apostle: a film he not only starred in but directed and financed (no company believed in it enough to front the money, but it wound up winning a slew of awards).  There was his Academy Award winning role in Tender Mercies.  His very first film appearance in To Kill a Mockingbird where he played Boo Radley... the man was a force of nature on and off the screen!

I decided that in his memory I'm going to share one of my favorite clips of Duvall.  This is from the movie Secondhand Lions, which came out in 2003.  A very delightful film also starring Michael Caine.  Here is Robert Duvall as Hub McCann, laying it down on some young punks:

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Me according to ChatGPT

Lately there's been a little bit of a fad on Facebook: where people are asking ChatGPT to make a caricature of them based on what the AI knows of them.  ChatGPT asks for a photo and some information and it chucks out a pretty neat likeness.

I joined in on the fun.  This is a rather accurate facsimile of my life right now (note the Vault Boy poster from the Fallout games behind me):

Of COURSE I had to include Tammy!  She is certainly a major component of the operations here at Knight Shift Headquarters.  Of my life in general actually, more than I've let on.

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A message to the people - and candidates - of Rockingham County, North Carolina

I'm going to come out and say it:

It is absolutely shameful what is happening right now in Rockingham County politics.

Regardless of distance in its various measures, I have still been proud to be a son of Reidsville and the surrounding area.  But what I'm seeing lately from afar is utterly heartbreaking.

Twenty years ago I was a candidate for public office in Rockingham County.  I didn't win my race but it still became one of the greatest experiences of my life.  My campaign was an honest, sincere, and upbeat one.  It was FUN!  When the results came in, there was no bitterness at all for not getting a seat on the school board.  There had been too much enjoyment from coming to meet new people, hearing and talking about ideas, harnessing creativity to make signs and shirts and television ads.  I didn't run against anyone per se.  I merely ran as myself, being completely forthcoming with voters, and let the chips fall where they may.

Why can't it still be that simple?

I'm so damned sick and tired of people lusting for power and influence.  All it does is show that they are the LEAST worthy people to have power at all.

Some are going to interpret this as being a commentary on the state senate race between incumbent Phil Berger and challenger Sam Page.  But I'm not casting blame on anyone in particular.  It's just become a wholesale disgusting situation that is embarrassing even those of us who are expatriates of Rockingham County.  It has actually made the press here in the Upstate of South Carolina.  I remember the county's district attorney race of 2006 and that was disgusting.  What is happening now is far, far worse.  It's going to go down in history as one of the most bitter races in North Carolina history.  EVERYBODY needs to step back and refocus on pitching themselves to the voters, instead of trying to convince their would-be constituents why their opponents *shouldn't* be elected.

See?  THIS is why I'm so effin' SICK AND TIRED of the two-party con job that's been worked on over this country.  It's all about power and control and skimming  off the top whenever the chance comes.  The politics of the county has twisted and distorted real vision and principles.  When I ran I had a rule: I would never go negative.  EVER.  I vowed that I would never do something that I would regret later down the road.  There is nothing wrong with holding to that.  Be the best candidate you can be and be content to let the voters decide.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  But the candidates have become so fixated on destroying each other, they've lost grasp of WHY they're supposed to be running in the first place.  Why SHOULD any sane and rational person want to vote for anyone like THAT?!?  I sure as hell wouldn't.

(Please pardon the profanity.  I NEVER use that unless it's absolutely necessary to getting my point across, when polite language has failed.)

Come on Rockingham.  Do better.

As an entertaining aside, I'll close with this.  One of the candidates in 2006 started turning too negative for my tastes.  This is the ad that I created in response to that.  Not necessarily "against" him but I wanted there to be something happier/feel-good out there as a counterbalance.  Of the three ads that I made, this is my most favorite...

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Final thoughts about this year's Super Bowl halftime show

It really shouldn't have been any surprise, that the Bad Bunny performance would be so ridden with vile content (in whatever language it was "sung" in).   Or there was one person who is now a bit more educated on matters than I had been before this morning.  I understand now, and I see that "entertainment" like what happened at the Super Bowl is just going to continue and grow increasingly worse.

It turns out that ever since 2020 or so the Super Bowl halftime shows have been produced by Jay-Z.  The guy who made an unconscionable amount of money rapping about gangs, drugs, sex, violence... you get the picture.  I will never understand why it is that some of the most negative aspects of the human condition are so commonly deemed to be high art to be praised by all.  But we are far from the glorious years of the Renaissance.

So of course the halftime shows are going to be vulgar.  They ultimately derive from vulgar minds.  Minds motivated by lots and lots of money, something the NFL as an entertainment powerhouse amply provides.

Yes, the Bad Bunny performance had audience numbers.  "Largest ever for a halftime show", it's being raved.  It was fifteen minutes that cost tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of man hours to construct and choreograph.  It was money well spent indeed, if the goal was to arrest the attention of moral misanthropes from sea to shining sea.

The Turning Point halftime program had much less lead time, involved far fewer people, did not have the bankrolling of a multimedia corporate monster, and still pulled in a sizable audience.  Yet this somehow "lost" to Bad Bunny.

It doesn't impress me at all.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more disappointed I am in my fellow man, that he has sold out his principles in defending an "entertainer" and system that denigrates human life instead of lifting it up.

But those are things for "mass men" to celebrate.  I am not a mass man.  For all my occasional dalliances with pop culture, my mind is still poised toward something higher.  It's why I wrote my book the way that I did.  It could have been something else, more "marketable".  But I knew who I intended my readers to be and so I wrote for them.  I feel like I'm going to be the least successful writer in human history sometimes.  For all of my talk of being a writer, I have never achieved anything remarkable.  But I can take pride in knowing what I have to offer is authentic.  Something that I didn't have to sell my soul to produce.  And that I will never attempt to insult the intelligence of my readers with.

Perhaps someday the National Football League will come to its senses, and again produce Super Bowl halftime entertainment that reflects the better of human nature.  But that is not going to be anytime soon.  Not while men of vulgarity are calling the shots and presenting THEIR perverse vision of American identity and culture.

It didn't happen on this occasion.  But give it time.  If the league continues catering to the least common denominator, eventually there will be a halftime special competing with the "official" one of the Super Bowl.  And it will be so wildly successful that there will be board members of the NFL turning in their resignations come Monday morning.

Until then, if I need entertainment while waiting for the second half of the game, I will do as I did this past weekend: watch the In Living Color halftime show from 1992.  A product of a much better and more innocent time, when we weren't expected to hate others without sound reason.

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