We did get in three more episodes from the Lost Season 1 DVD set today, finishing up with "Numbers", which is Hurley's episode... which was a HECK of a lot of fun to watch.
No party that turns a blind eye to the problem this country is having with illegal immigration is something that I wish to associate with.
I never left the Democrats: they left me. Ten years later the Republicans abandoned me too. And neither one is giving me a reason why I should turn back to look... but the GOP is giving me a helluva lot more reason to keep on walkin'.
No, it's not the people of most countries in this world that do things like start wars and preach hatred of those in foreign lands... it's our leaders. With damned few exceptions, none of them are the least bit interested in serving the people that they are supposed to "lead". They follow their own appetites instead, and consider their people to be mere pawns in the games that they play. This world... and this country especially... is so screwed up because we've allowed too many narcissistic sociopaths to take the wheel. I mean, it's not like they've a brilliant record of management, is it?
No, I don't hate anyone in Iran. I've no reason to. Most of the people in America have no personal beef with them. That still won't stop the warhawks from beating the drums as they have lately (which I am more and more inclined to believe has to do with Iran's move on the oil industry rather than their nuclear research). Is Iran's head guy nuts? Yeah, definitely... even more than anyone I know of in the Western Hemisphere. And it's his fault too that a lot of his countrymen are probably going to get killed.
You see what I'm trying to say here? Us, the British, the Iranians, the Palestinians, the Russians under the Soviet regime... all of us and more have "been had" by a very small group of insane individuals that in a rational world should have been imprisoned at the least, and maybe shot for good measure, for the sake of everyone.
Well, I could say more about this, but there's a really good article by Michael S. Rozeff called "When Rulers Err" that says it a helluva lot better than I can. From his article...
...The higher-ups or rulers who have power produce the big crises and wars. Their subjects, few of whom benefit from them, do not. The masses are not irrelevant, but their impact on major events is secondary. The Iranian people are not making the decisions about nuclear power. They are not issuing threats, and neither are the American and European peoples.Mash down here for more.Rulers are men accustomed to gaining and using power. This implies they possess an above average dose of certain characteristics. Benign philosopher-kings don’t become rulers. Those who rule tend to be overly aggressive, rapacious, hard-nosed, opportunistic, pragmatic, cruel, violent, and manipulative. Even if these tendencies are not abundantly present, their power allows freer reign to their worse instincts. Rulers are hawks, not doves. Their number includes more than its share of troublemakers.
Rulers talk to and make deals with other rulers. They aim to maintain and boost their positions by exchanges that give them advantages. These interactions are complex and often for high stakes. Rulers often gamble the lives and fortunes of the peoples they rule...
Common folk, which include most of us, our families and in-laws, working acquaintances, schoolmates, townspeople, those whom we have done business with, etc., do not ordinarily engage in the tactics rulers are accustomed to. Although movies and soaps feature many conniving people, it’s possible that a good many viewers do not think of their rulers being like that and worse. They still do not have a deep realization that their rulers do not have the same ethics that they do. They think of them as acting like ordinary people. Rulers would like the masses to revere their position and power while simultaneously thinking of them as being just men of the people...
I've had mixed feelings about capital punishment over the course of my life. I used to be strongly supportive of it. But the path my spiritual life has taken me, especially in the past decade, has led me to believe that it's wrong to take life, that it's left only for God to do that. The only exception being in situations of self-defense, when killing someone is not only the right thing to do but the moral one also, however terrible one may find the idea of taking another's life.
That said, I can't see how Perrie Dyon Simpson deserves anything but death. And it would have been wrong for Governor Mike Easley to grant him clemency. Easley denied Simpson's request earlier today, clearing the way for execution after midnight tonight. Had Easley granted it, he would have nullified the decision of the jury that sentenced Simpson more than twenty years ago. If capital punishment had been abolished in North Carolina by act of legislation, Simpson could have received life in prison. But that never happened... and it would be wrong to decree otherwise by decision of the executive when there is no possible mitigating circumstance in this affair. It may be one of the few things about having a system of checks and balances that we still have in our government, and that has to be respected and upheld. And unfortunately for Simpson, he's going to reinforce that tenet of republican government with his life.
But it was his choice over two decades ago that led him to this night, and no other's. And call me "hypocrite" if you wish but in spite of the part of me that hates the thought of another man dying, justice has to be served, and punishment for evil meted out if there is to be any semblance of law in a society. And if capital punishment is the route that the people of this state have chosen, then few paid for their ticket more than Perrie Dyon Simpson. More than twenty-one years later and this is still something that literally sickens me to think about. It was on a summer night in 1984 that Simpson and his girlfriend Stephany Eurie came to the house of 92-year old retired preacher Jean E. Darter in Reidsville, my old hometown. The day before Darter had given Simpson and Eurie four dollars, some food and use of his home's telephone. When they came back the following night Simpson repaid Darter's kindness with quite possibly the most gruesome murder that anyone in this area ever heard of. I was ten years old when this happened, and I'll never forget the stories I heard about how they found Darter's body... stories that turned out to be all too true. Someone I came to know several years later served on the jury that sentenced Simpson to death: he said that he was against capital punishment too. But the things - like the crime-scene photographs - that he saw in the courtroom shivered his blood too much that he had no choice but to hand down the death penalty... said he would have felt guilty to not have given it to Simpson.
You know, to take the life of anyone, for any reason, is the most terrible failure of all. It means that despite everything you could have possibly done, and despite every desire you had to avoid bloodshed at all costs, you have failed to convince another person of the wrongfulness of their actions. And depleting every other course of action, the only action left to take... indeed, the only action demanded... is to deprive that person of mortal life. That's the core of the belief in the "just war", I think: war is something to be abhorred above all other things on this earth, but sometimes the corruptness of human nature leads to war without alternative. We just have to make damned sure that there is no other option left but to go to war, and for the right reasons: none of which have to do with political or financial gain. But I digress...
Perrie Dyon Simpson is going to die tonight. This society failed to utterly convince him that the brutal murder of his fellow man is wrong. But he failed us by refusing to live by rules that are above worldly jurisdiction: the same rules that most of us do abide by. And tonight he's going to pay for that failure with his life.
Maybe capital punishment is a moral thing after all: maybe this is one way how we defend the right for each of us to live as God would have us do so. But necessary though it may be, I still do not enjoy the thought of another man being deprived of that life for any reason...
...but then, that it has to be this way isn't really God's fault, is it?
Well, good journalist/commentator that I try to be, if new information comes in that reasonably disputes something I've written then I've no problem with passing that along too, and let the reader judge for him/herself. And yesterday I was given some new information all right, straight from a source very close to one of the previous winners of the American Idol competition (I ain't saying which one though). According to the source, the producers of American Idol make videos - like the one for Carrie Underwood last year - for everyone who is in the top twenty or so contestants after they've all been sifted from the scores who get brought to Hollywood. At this point in real life although we're seeing the auditions that were taped months ago, the two-dozen or so from which will come the finalists that perform live for the cameras have already been tapped out, and have been for some time. Everyone who's in that semi-finalist group gets to be followed by cameras for background videos to be made of them. But with only so much time to focus on all the good ones (even if the bad ones weren't spotlighted so heavily) not everyone can get zeroed-in on. Which does make sense. And I'm assuming that the nervous cowboy guy last night is going to wind up being one of the top singers because they ran his bio video as well.
Speaking of which, we watched the last 20 minutes or so of American Idol last night, after going through two more episodes from the Lost Season 1 set (the backstories for Charlie and Sawyer) before the new Lost episode aired at 9. So we saw nervous cowboy kid and the "cosmic coaster" inventor. And we also watched this... person... perform:
New Lost was pretty good though: I watched the "orientation" film afterward and couldn't help but think that the leader of the Others looks a LOT like an older vesion of DeGroot, the grad student who started the Dharma Project. Just wanted to throw that out there.
This past summer the Supreme Court handed down their Kelo decision, in my mind the worst thing the court has done since Roe v. Wade more than thirty years ago. According to the ruling, government can now use the power of eminent domain to condemn private property and give the land to another private party if it's determined that doing so would be financially advantageous (i.e. more tax money coming into the city or state). In other words if you've been living in the same house for the past forty years, with everything on it paid up, and if the town decides that it could make a lot more money by kicking you off your land and putting a Wal-Mart there instead, it can legally do that now.
Some people's houses have already been condemned under Kelo, and now it looks as though not even the house of God is safe. National Review Online is reporting about a church in Oklahoma that is being told it has to vacate its property, so that the site can be cleared for a Home Depot and other retail development.
I wrote about this a month ago, after hearing some Christian legal quisling on the radio say that Christians should do whatever government tells them to do so that government officials won't "get mad" and take their churches away. And after thinking a lot about it, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing morally wrong at all for Christians in this country to start defying our government openly and brazenly on some things, especially when it comes to our rights... which God has established, not the state. Our elected officials have by and large failed us miserably, and it's once again falling to the common man (and woman) to draw the line and say "to this point and no further". Better we do that sooner than later, if for no other reason than because forestalling initiative now will mean a far harder task at setting things right down the road.
If we don't do that, well... Welkome to Amerika, komrade.
If I'm writing a lot about Lost lately, it's only 'cuz I'm just now finally getting hooked on this show, after a year of this somehow being under my radar. And I can't believe that I've been missing something so good. THIS is a show for the thinking person. It's the rare find that entertains without catering to the least common denominator by insulting the viewer's intelligence. And shows like that have been darned too few and far between.
For the past few days Lisa and I have been watching all the episodes in the Season 1 DVD set that we got for Christmas. Tonight was time for number six, "House of the Rising Sun", focusing on the Korean couple Sun and Jin. It's a good story. But the one that's been on my mind the most since we watched it Sunday has been "Walkabout", the first (of many I hope) episodes centering on Locke... who's emerging as my very favorite character on the show. I've been a fan of Terry O'Quinn for a pretty long time now, ever since he played Peter Watts on Millennium, and it's so delightful to see him given such a deep role that's showcasing all his talents. Every scene he's been in has been nothing short of captivating. If Jack is coming out as the leader of the group, Locke is definitely becoming its spiritual center, or at least the cipher between the survivors and the island.
So this is what we watched tonight, after a very few minutes of American Idol that made it pretty clear it was gonna be little more than plain ol' nastiness all around. Maybe some funny stuff happened, I don't know... but I'm glad we got to watch something instead that will stick with us for a lot longer. I just can't wait to get to Hurley's episode (which is supposed to be in this set somewhere) and to find out more about the mysterious John Locke.
2006:
"Give up your liberty or you're going to die!"
-- too many Bush supporters
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -- Benjamin Franklin
Well, that's what we did, and it took about eight hours of driving across the length of the state to get there. We saw Graceland and got totally Elvis-ed out. Later on Friday night Lisa and I were on this trolley car that goes through a lot of the downtown area: it wasn't a "guided tour" thing at all, just something to ride for fun. We crossed Beale Street, saw the Memphis nightlife in full swing. And then off to our right I saw a building that looked very familiar somehow. And it took all of three seconds to realize what it was that I was looking at...
It was the Lorraine Motel.
It's the place where on April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed as he exited a room onto the second floor balcony.
We had a good rest of the evening in Memphis, and the next morning drove back to Georgia through Mississippi and Alabama, stopping in Tupelo to visit Elvis Presley's birthplace (how did the King wind up in so much of our first week of married life?). In every way we had a terrific honeymoon. But seeing the Lorraine really had an impact on me after that. It's not everyday you see a place that tragic from American history.
So today is Martin Luther King Day here in the states. Which I've never liked the idea of at all, because if you've ever studied his speeches you'll know that this isn't how Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted to be remembered. He wanted to be recalled as a man of humility, and I'm afraid that what's happened instead is that in the past few decades he's been transformed into an icon of power. Man of God that he was, he would not have desired to be turned into an object of veritable worship. King definitely would not have wanted his memory to be used for political gain either. The man was by no means perfect - yes, I'm aware of the apparent plagiarism that he committed - and I don't think he tried to project that he was in life. So why should we be disingenuous to his memory by making of him what he never was, and what none of us can even be?
Like David - another great leader with many flaws - King relied upon and was sustained by his faith in God. And God rewarded that faith by transforming Martin Luther King Jr. into one of the greatest orators in American history. When I think of great speakers of the past half-century in this country, only three names readily come to mind: John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and King. Each of them has his style of why he is that memorable, but of the three King's was by far the one that most burned itself into the American conscience. Maybe it was because not since Jonathan Edwards had a preacher man been so eloquently powerful.
So this morning I caught myself thinking of something that's pretty darned sobering: could Martin Luther King Jr. have been so successful at conveying his message if he were doing so today, instead of the 1960s?
More to the point: is it even possible at all for another Martin Luther King Jr. to rise to the occassion in today'a America?
Do we still have it within us to produce a King? Or a Frederick Douglas, or a Gandhi, or a Lech Walesa, or any other person who has possessed both the vision and the desire to seek nothing more than the liberty of his fellow man?
All of these men and more possessed one striking characteristic, no matter the background of where they came from: they sought no glory for themselves, and everything for others. They didn't want to be great leaders. They probably would have tried anything but involving themselves in petty politics, and they still wound up not only becoming involved, but turning their worlds topsy-turvy in revolution... and peacefully at that.
Might someone of their caliber still be found in this country today? Or could someone of their stature even be allowed to rise to the fore?
Let me tell you a terrible secret, dear reader. There is a minority in this country - I would even dare say throughout this entire world - that is despised above all others. Throughout history it has been the most loathed and scorned faction of all. Every other group that comes to mind has had its champions, but in contrast to those, the heroes of that which I speak of have been sorely few and far between. On the lists of persecuted minority groups, this one is almost certain to be absent, and not even considered at that.
The minority I speak of is that of the individual.
And that is what this country's next "civil rights movement" must be about. There is every right given to the sundry factions of this land... but very few given to those who wish to be apart from the collective mindset. And what rights they do enjoy are threatened with each passing day: obviously by the bureaucrats. But those merely effect the will of they who hate the individual, because the individual possesses something that those in the faction do not: the simple strength of will to listen to a different drummer and step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
If there is ever to be another leader that America produces who will be anything of the stature of Martin Luther King Jr., that leader is going to be one who speaks not of the rights of the many, but champions the rights of the one.
He (or she) will be someone who looks past the meaningless politics of today's America. That person will not be bound by the cruel illusion that is the "conservative versus liberal" mentality. This person will certainly be no subscriber to either the Democrat or Republican parties. If a Christian, this leader will eschew the corruptness and lust for temporal power that plagues too much of the modern church: the champion of the individual will seek to free the Bible from the flag, not bind it up even more. In every way, this person will fly in the face of everything that we accept as being the status quo... and that person is going to be endangered far moreso than Martin Luther King Jr. ever was.
Because such a person will stand not against one faction, but all of them at once. And whatever supposed "differences" that those groups clammoring for power may have with each other, they will not hesitate to make a concerted effort toward vanquishing the one who threatens the world they have established even as they have been at each other's throat. However much they speak of "tolerance", the voice of that one will be that which must be silenced at all costs. Because if one person dares to speak against The Way Things Are, then he or she would assuredly show others that they too could defy the masters of this world.
In the least, this person will be ignored by The Powers That Be and their lackies in the mainstream press. At most, such a person could very well be marked for assassination. But even that could not stop so determined an individual: far worse than the death of the body is the death of one's principles. "They" are led by a tiny group of madmen who would not hesitate to rob others of their earthly existence. But there is one part of each of us that can never be chained, and can always be denied them so long as we choose to deny them that victory: our own minds. And the person who teaches his fellow man that it is time for each of us to assert the mind given us will be a person marked for destruction indeed... because he or she, like King and Gandhi, threaten the very foundation of society.
Is there such a person to be found in America today? I like to believe there is. That's why I'm writing this right now. I don't know who may read this. Maybe that person is out there somewhere, and he or she will find this essay and ponder what I'm trying to convey here. That is how I have my victory over the things of this world, in my own small way. That is how Martin Luther King Jr. had his victory - by choosing a way other than those of which he was expected to take - and for his effort he was rewarded with greatness. If what I write can reach just one person who could be inspired by it to become the next Martin Luther King Jr., then I will be eternally thankful to God that He led me to write all of this out.
Somewhere out there is the next great orator of American history. And he or she is going to start a chain reaction that throws off the shackles from the minds of the American people. And for the first time ever, we are going to be a people truly of Dr. King's vision: considerate of each other, and not what group we boast of belonging to.
Whoever you are, you're out there somewhere. I pray you will be used by God in a mighty way, and sooner rather than later.
It was around midnight when we were headed toward the West Virginia/Ohio state line on US 35, and we saw a sign that said the town of Point Pleasant was 7 miles ahead. And that got my mind reeling: "Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant... where have I heard that name before?" Not the Point Pleasant in New Jersey where I have family, but I was sure I'd heard of "Point Pleasant, West Virginia" somewhere...
And then it hit me, and I remembered how it was that I knew of Point Pleasant. And I immediately wondered if we would be going over that bridge. Sure enough a little while later we crossed it. And I told Lisa that on the way back I wanted to take a picture of the bridge.
So a few days ago TNT was showing The Mothman Prophecies, a movie with a lot of problems but more or less is based on something that supposedly really happened: the Mothman sightings that occured in the late 1960s. The whole story took place around Point Pleasant. And the bridge we took over the Ohio River was the Silver Memorial Bridge: the one built to replace the original bridge that collapsed in 1967, claiming the lives of 46 people. The bridge you see in the movie is the Silver Bridge that's there now.
Well, seeing that the movie was on reminded me that after all these months, I've still not posted any pictures from Star Wars Celebration III on this blog. The thing of it is there were so many pictures that it would have made a single post too unwieldy. That and the fact that I was just wiped out from too much Star Wars to have put them up immediately after we got back, and then other things took bigger priority. Maybe sometime soon I'll find somewhere to store them all online and then just make a link to that from this blog, but I can provide some photographic evidence that we did, indeed, make the pilgrimage.
This was taken the first day of Celebration III: that's Deborah, a very dear friend from Texas (and super-talented costume-maker and jewelry designer) and me (note the Forcery t-shirt I'm wearing). Deborah is in her Mara Jade costume. I'm holding the lightsaber that I built for her three years ago for the costume she wore at Celebration II: it's a replica of Luke Skywalker's original saber...
This next one was taken Sunday morning, the last day of Celebration III: Lisa and me in the Artoo Builders Club room, along with Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio. Notice that we (and Deborah in the above pic) are wearing the four-day passes - the ones with Darth Vader printed on them - around our necks. I've also got my lightsaber - the one I built for that crazy marriage proposal stunt in 2001 - clipped to my belt...
Several hours later, on the journey back home, we pulled the car to the side of the road on the Ohio side of the state line. Looming ahead of us through the fog and light rain was the Silver Memorial Bridge. We both got out of the car and Lisa took this photo of me with the bridge in the background...
And there's probably a hundred more pics that we took, and someday I am gonna find the time to get those hosted probably. But if not, at least there's now proof that we came, we saw... and then we came back :-)
Capsule Carrying Comet Dust Lands in UtahI hope that's ALL that's inside that capsule: don't wanna see this happen, do we?Jan 15, 8:40 AM (ET)
By ALICIA CHANGDUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah (AP) - A space capsule ferrying the first comet dust samples to Earth parachuted onto a remote stretch of desert before dawn Sunday, drawing cheers from elated scientists.
The touchdown capped a seven-year journey by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which zipped past a comet in 2004 to capture minute dust particles and store them in the capsule.
"It's an absolutely fantastic end to the mission," said Carlton Allen, a scientist with NASA's Johnson Space Center.
A helicopter recovery team located the capsule Sunday and was transferring it to a clean room at the nearby Michael Army Air Field. The capsule will be flown Tuesday to the Johnson Space Center in Houston where scientists will unlock the canister containing the cosmic particles.
Researchers believe about a million samples of comet and interstellar dust - most tinier than the width of a human hair - are locked inside the capsule...
