Review of SW Revenge of the Sith

The final review is in:

It took several days to digest this monster. It is a behemoth of a film. It is the most action packed, and elephantine, of all the Star Wars movies. It is not a movie I would wish to see in IMAX. It was the best of the three prequels. The writing for this film was much better than the other two films and the acting was much better too.
I still think that Hayden Christiansen was not the right actor for the part. He is too boyish, his voice is too highschoolish, and he had no personality. At least not until #3. Finally he has been reanimated, or animated, or something like that. Natilie Portman got the raw end of the deal for this film. There was lots of sedintary scenes of ther waiting. And her death scene, like almost all Star Wars death scenes, is short and anticlimactic. However everyone was more lifelike in this film. Even Mace Windu was less monastically robotic. One huge problem that Lucas has had is that everyone knows how the story has to end. Finally they got it right. Finally they used that glaring problem as a strength and told the story in such a way that brought shivers to the spine. The fight seen between Dukoo, and Skywallker, infront of Palpatine, gave me the creeps. The Emperor steals the show, as well as the Republic.

The problems I had with this film, and the others, was that the background conflict is a nonsensical bunch of crap that nobody really cares about. This is a biiiiiiiiig problem for me. I think that you could still have Palpatine behind the conflict yet make it more understandable. It would only add to the drama. The war in these movies makes Vietnam look clear.
Without a clearly defined conflict for the Clone Wars the battle scenes lose their dramatic effect since you can't care about either side, other that caring for the side Kenobi is on at the time. The addition of a weezing droid general was confusing; how many bad guys do we need?

The problems of this film did not get in the way of it being a good film. I think they could have taken this film, expanded on certain areas, and made Episode II and III out of it. However I am not in a complaining mood. The visuals of this film are spectacular. They are so well done that they cease being visual effects and are simply the Star Wars universe. What a spectacular universe it is. It is a visual triumph. The film also adequately lights the fires of Episode 7 and if people do not think there will be an episode 7 they do not come from Earth, or understand entertainment capitalism.

Big sprawling epics have a couple of drawbacks. In trying to be big and sprawling and epic, personalities often get lost, and reality is often removed as an obsticle to story telling. There are many faults with these films and the main one, beyond casting, and dialogue, etc, is trying to tell too big of a story in too few films. This about The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As big and epic as they appeared, there was a very simple plot, and few characters.

Star Wars morphed from a simple story about "a boy a girl and a universe" into the decline, fall, and eventual rebirth of an entire galactic civilization done in two parts with the end set before the beginning. Holy shit that was a tall order to fill.

It gets a 10 as it crowns the totality of the Star Wars universe.

People who think depression is a mark of the creative spirit can eat my shorts

I listened to a Dr. talk about recent research into depression and the effects of it on the body. Terry Gross, playing the devils advocate, asked him if the elimanation of depression would some how stifle the creative spirit. What a monsterous thing to say. I would not wish depression on the darkest demon in Hell. I have been lucky enough to have a creative career and I can attest to the fact that depression does not help the creative process. It is a hammer blow upon it. It destroys your energy, saps you desire, reduces your ability to concentrate, and removes joy from work. It is a horrible myth that depressions makes better writers or painters. And even if it did I would rather be uncreative than exist with a giant hole in my hart.

What we need to do

There is no script to life. I have seen no end credits roll after loved ones pass away. There is no seminal moment where all is tied together, explained, made clear. Thre is no first second and third acts. Good people can stumble and make a mess of their lives as surely as bad people can walk between the raindrops and attain glory. All is vanity and a chase after wind. Rising and resting, eating, and laughing, crying, and singing all is vanity and a chase after wind. For no mater your words, be they noble, or mere mumblings, can save you from the end that life meters out to you. So if all is vanity and a chase after wind, what is worth doing? Being a friend, being merciful, and celebrating love, any love. Everyitng else is a waste of time.

Along time ago in a galaxy far, far, away...

Back when Jimmy Carter was President, a gallon of gas cost 64 cents, a average house would sell for $25,000, and the average joe made less than $10,0000 a year, I went with my best friend John Pitman, my brother Mike, and our mutual friends Chris and John Cuevas, to see Star Wars. I had no idea, while riding in the backseat in Mr. Cuevas' car, what I was in for and what it would do to my life and the world.
28 years later I have my ticket in my wallet for the last (yeah right) of the Star Wars films. I only saw the original film in the theater 6 times. I think I saw Empire Strikes back 4 times and Return of the Jedi 4 times. Phantom Menace I saw once in the theater and that was the same for Attack of the Clowns, I mean clones.
As a guy who had his whole adolecense taken over by Star Wars I chuckle as I walk thrugh Toys'R US seeing all the little kids oggling the Star Wars toys. I see their parents and they look as if they too might not have been born when the original came out.
I get all picky about what I like and don't like about the films. The truth is that no Star Wars film will do to me what that first film did. It was the first, and I was twelve. No matter the wating in lines, the masks, the remember-whens, the speaking of Star Wars lines, I can't be twelve again. And no generation will ever see Star Wars the way mine did. The current film, for good or bad, comes into a world chock full of technology, special effects, shock and awe, and videogame cgi wizardry.
In no small way Star Wars helped design this technological terror we have constructed. Movies are products of culture. But when they are imaginative they can be the creators of culture. Now we have to decide whether we should follow Obi-wan or Darth.

May the Force be with us!

Most Delicious Grilled Cheese Sandwich in the World

If you are peckish and wish to partake in the best grilled cheese sandwich in the known world, then go to The Lunch Box on 7th and Hawthorne and ask for the version with tomato and basil.

A note to religious hypocrites

When you are praying the Lords Prayer you come to a part that says, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..."

Most people think that they are simply asking God to forgive us our wrongs. While acknowledging that we try to forgive others. However what we are really asking God to do is to judge us the same way we judge others. If we go around looking down our noses at our fellow human beings, and saying that this person or that is not up to par, and then we go home and ask God to cast our own petty judgement upon us, we are litterally asking for trouble.

What does Christ say about judgement? "If you wish to avoid Gods judgment do not pass judgement on others. For the judgement you pass on others will be the judgement passed upon you, and how you measure others will be the measure taken of you."

If you are not inclined to be merciful toward others. Then do not be surprised if God is not merciful toward you. We all reap what we have sown. War brings more war, famine brings more famine, hatred breeds hatres. Peace breeds peace, understanding leads to enlightenment, and mercy leads to freindship and that leads to love.

Review of Kingdom of Heaven

Don't read this unless you have seen the movie.

I liked the movie. It was an exiting story with good writing, excellent acting, and farily realistic. I give it an 8. What makes this movie good is it's adherence to a kind of reality that does not ask for much suspension of disbelief. Of course it is historical fiction.

The cast of characters:
Balian count of Ibelin: A great guy, altruistic
Guy D'Lusignan: A nasty guy
Sybilla: Sister of king Baldwin IV: Sexy and unpredictable engaged to La-scumbag d'Lusignan
King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem: Suffering from leperosy, a great guy, noble and wise
Saladin: A great guy, noble and wise

Hollywood has this medieval stereotype that it can't seem to shake. Instead of illustrating the subtle complexities of feudal obligations, tribal animosity, and the intense ritualism of all aspects of life, we are fed a predigested goop that resembles the middleages as about as much as a box of animal crakers resembles the serengeti. The medieval world, if ever portrayed for what it was, would make for a far more interesting movie. Religion was taken with deadly seriousness by most Christians and Muslims. Hollywood tends to make all religion either cartoonishly righteous or cartoonishly evil. It was an age where many Christian knights had more incommon with Osama Bin Laden than Christ. Hollywood has trouble handling that level of religious extremism; it makes Dr Dobbson seem aetheistic. In the middleages you could have a knight as good as Balian, who was worldly and wise, and also brandishing an intense religious extemism and capacity to back that extemism up with terrible violence. The will of God was not an abstraction in the 12th century. The only place you would be likely to find anything approaching modern religion would be in the Monastaries or Universities, with men like Aquinas, or Abelard, over even Bernard of Clairveux.

I am also kind of tired of the cliche' about paupers rising to lords. That kind of thing did not happen. And the truth behind Balian, that I will talk about in a moment, would not have made for a bad movie. Yet the cliche' hangs on; like dinning while wearing armor and brandishing weapons. That would have been a severe no-no and breach of courtly manners. Dispite all this I liked the movie very much and would see it again.

The real story:
Balian of Ibelin was not a blacksmith. Balian and his brother Baldwin ran Ibelin from 1177 until 1187. Baldwin gave Ibelin to Balian so he (Baldwin) could be lord of Ramala. Balian supported King Raymond of Tripoli as Regent of Jerusalem while Baldwin IV was still a child and unable to rule, so Balien was older than King Baldwin. He was a foe of Guy d'Lusignan. Balian did defend Jerusalem before Saladin took the city on the 4th of July 1187. He negotiated the surrender of the city. However he did not leave the Holy Land. He continued fighting Saladin until October of 1187. Then he left to Tripoli. He supported Guy d'Lusignan in Lusignan's bid to maintain his kingship of Cyprus. Balian then became an advisor to Henry II of Champagne, another king of Jerusalem (who sort of ruled in absentia). In 1192 Balian helped negotiate peace between Richard I and Saladin ending the 3rd Crusade. He died in 1193.

On the whole the movie had the right flavor. I wish there had been a little explanation as to why certain groups of crusaders were at odds with other groups of cursaders. For instance you have all these groups of knights with certain heraldic devices on their tunics. Balian is wearing a tunic with the Maltese cross. The templars were done up well with white tunics and red crosses. The warriors in black tunics were the Knights Hospitallers. And those in blue were the Knights of Jerusalem. Most Jerusalem bibles still use the Heraldic Jerusalem crusader cross on the cover. I wish that Guy d'Lusignan had not been such a cardboard cut out bad guy. He had reasons to want the crown and to subdue Saladin. They were not noble reasons, or even ethical ones. But it would have made him a more nasty villain. What he and others wanted was to capture Damascus, a wealthier city than Jerusalem. He was already Count of Lusignan in France, King of Cypruss, and head of the army of Jerusalem. He wanted more power. The Lusignans and the Angivens hated each other, there was no love lost between he and Richard I.

Now lets make a movie about Richards mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Sex, scandel, violence! yummy!

Bush the American Dauphin.

In 1415 the Dauphin, Prince and Heir to the throne of France, along with his courtiers, and business associates, completely ignored the warnings of Constable d'Albert. D'Albert was the medieval French equivalent of the Army Chief of Staff. He told the Dauphin to be very careful how he attacked the terrorist army that was then rampaging through the western French countryside.
The Prince, was confident of the honorable knights that were about him. He had canon. he had Genoese crossbowmen, rabble to him, but carriers of the most technologicaly advanced weapons of the age. And last but not least he had the largest army of men-at-arms in all of Europe.
The terrorists were a beaten foe. They had invaded and stormed but one small French port, Harfleur. This had taken them months. And in that time they had their ranks decimated by hunger, disease, and the wounds of war. Now all indications were that they simply wanted to escape destruction. The Dauphin thought little of his adversary, the young king Henry of England.
D'Albert had already been ammassing troops and provisions of war. Unlike the over lusty Prince, d'Albert was wary of the English. He respected them, particularly the English archers, mere commoners.
Finally in October the French, after much bikering, set out to squash the English. They had an army that numbered 25,000 containing 90% of the French nobililty loyal to the French King. Contstable d'Albert was in command but the Dauphin was there too, and he was Prince. In actuality the Dauphin ran the kingdom, since his father was ill with severe depression.
The English terrorists were tired and were indeed wanting to go home. The French had continuosly barred their way to Calais along the river Somme. Frocing them deep into hostile territory. After finally crossing the river the decrepit army reached the town of Agincourt.
To there horror a force of 25,000 French troops sat arrayed against them. Henry, not having time for honor, or another useless mumbo jumbo, was in a tight spot and used his head instead of his hart.
Showing consumate generalship he moved his small "band of brothers", 1500 knights and 3500 archers, into a narrow gap between two forrests. This move ruined the any possibility for the French to out flank the English. He moved his archers into two wings bordering the forrest, creating a killing zone infront of his knights. All were dismounted. He had the archers carve 8 foot long stakes to protect themselves from the French caverly. Then, in the face of certain destruction ordered his army to advance toward the French. He was determined to give the French no ability to use their strengths. He wanted his enemy to fight on his terms not theirs.
d'Albert had given orders for a dismounted advance with the corssbowmen behind. The dismounted knights were in batallions and the crossbowmen could easily fire over them or between them. Caverly was to be used, in the typical medieval way, as a massed shock force to punch a whole in the enmy line.
To d'Albert's consternation the Dauphin, the Duke of Orlean, and other nobility charged with their mounted men-at-arms through the crossbowmen, passed the dismounted knights, and straight into hell.
The first wave of attack was destroyed in short order by volley after volley of arrows. The french ignored the threatening archers since the archers were simple commoners and would provide no ransom. They wanted the english nobles as hostages. So the archers were free to kill the lot of the French chargers. Orlean was captured, the Dauphin was captured, and the sensible d'Albert was killed, along with 15,000 other nobles. The second charge was no better coordinated and resulted in disaster. There was not a third charge. However the French remained on the feild long enough for Henry to order the slaughter of 5,000 prisoners. He simply did not have the ability to hold them and fight off a third attack.
The English lost somewhere between 100 and 500 men.

Now Mr. Bush is our Dauphin. He has been consistently out generaled in Iraq by a bunch of poor fanatics that posess nothing but cunning, a will to fight, an ability to adapt, and complete ruthlessness. They have arrayed their forces in a way that makes our larger numbers, and technology, impotent. They have forced us onto the defensive, and forced us to fight on their terms. And instead of realising this and altering our overall tactics we simply order the next adavnce into hell.

It was very telling when Bush was talking in Russia about how we appeased Stalin. Roosevelt, like Henry V, was in a tight spot, and used what he had to perfection. His decision at Yalta saved millions of lives in eastern Europe, and hundres of thousands of American and Russian lives. Russia could not hold onto eastern Europe and within 50 years of Yalta not only was eastern Europe free, but the Soviet Union was no more.

Generalship is not simply putting on a tunic, raising a sword, and charging into battle. Many fools have done that.

Self revelation is a bitch

We all are at different phases of our lives. Some phases are full of happy times and laughs. Other phases suck. I am currently in one of the phases that have a suction equivalent to space. I find that my brain, that could handle all sorts of things while not in this nasty phase of life, falls down on the job repeatedly while in said phase.
Example 1: While on vacation, a very happy event, some signals get crossed and instead of shurgging and going forward, I flip out. I yell at my Brother, who has done nothing worthy of such wrath.
Example 2: While on same vacation, a very happy event, I end up swating my daughter at a resturante. For no other reason than she is being devilish with food items. Not that there is any reason to do such a pathetic thing.
On both occasions the event is followed almost imediately by a staggering sense of "what the F(#*$ing hell am I doing!"
What makes matters worse. As if they can get worse. Is that I am trying to track this nonsense. Writing it down, documenting what can lead to it.
And it isn't as though my brain says "okay the coast is clear, freak out!" Oh no. I get to do this infront of people I care about. Thus allowing them to share and enjoy the moment. I look like, and infact have acted, like a complete ass.
Situational depression sucks. I can see why people withdraw from the world while in depressive times. Its like the world is nothing but a huge china shop with really narrow isles and I am walking down one with a huge Mexican sombraro and a hoop skirt from Gone With The Wind. I can even understand why people go the extra mile and end their lives rather than continuing through the china shop. However that is not going to be my fate.
This phase will pass, in time, to be replaced by other phases, some good and some not so good. I hope that in the final analysis (pun intended) I can learn from this phase and apply it to the rest of my life to come.

Vancouver BC

All cities have problems. Big cities have big problems. Yet if an alien and was allowed to view , Portland Oregon, Seattle Washington, and Vancouver British Columbia, the alien would probably say that Vancouver BC was the wealthiest city. I don't want to sound like a "grass is always greener" person, but it does infact appear noticably greener north of the boarder. When entering Vancouver from the US I sort of felt like coming to the new world from the old. New America versus Old America, to steal a Bush administration phrase. Of course this is not an accurate assesment. Canada has a population of 32,000,000. The United States has a population of 295,000,000.
The USA has a GDP of $ 13,000,000,000,000 while Canada has a GDP of 1,023,000,000,000. So why the disparity? Why should a nation that is one tenth the size of the US in population and has less than a 10th the GDP, come out looking so well? The answer, to a certain extent, can be found in what Canada has to spend its money on versus what the USA has to spend its money on.
As a red blooded American I get to support 10 active, Aircraft Carrier battle groups. A 600 ship navy. An airforce with thousands of aircraft. An army with 1.5 million soldiers on active duty on hundreds of military bases all over the world. I need, for some reason I am not quite sure of, be able to fight two hemespheric wars at the same time. Never mind that such wars are highly unlikely in this world of interdependant economies. I send billions a year to Exxon and Arco to subsidize oil prices. I spend billions on defense contracts. I spend billions on all sorts of stuff that countries like Canada just don't worry about. So while nations like Canada can spend the vast majority of their tax income on people, the US has to split its tax income between arms and people.
Would I like to live in another country that did not spend sooooooo much money on arms and war fighting? No I would like to live in America that did not spend sooooo much money on arms and war fighting.

Review of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

Simon Jones, Mark Wing-Davey, and Jeffery McGiven were just too good.

The Hitchikers radio series had almost asmuch effect on me as the Star Wars series of movies. I have two sets of the show on tape. I have read all the books; that actually came after the radio series.

You create a perfect thing and then you want to try and recreate that perfect thing using a different medium and things can go wrong.

The stuff that bugged me the most was:
The movies live action sets looked like DR Who rejects. The visual effects were awsome. The art direction sucked in this film there was no cohessive structure and seperation from location to locatioin.

The sound engineering on this film was the worst. Take actors that are mumbling and rushing their lines and compile it with bad engineering and you get and whole lot of "watermelon cantelope" And in a movie where the dialogue makes the picture what it is, that isn't good.

I like to beat up on ol'Dubya just like the other 49.99999% of America and 99% of the world, but Zaphod was just too much Dubya and not enough Beebelbrox. Zaphod is not a moron. He has moronic tendancies but is also a shrewd character and the hippest being in the Universe.

Stuff I liked the most:
The narrator of "The Book" was done well. Slarty Bartfast was great!

All in all I was not amused by it since it seemed to me to be a rippoff of the original without it being a retelling. I was in a funk upon leaving the theater.

It gets a 5

Enough angryman crap.

Look not to Haberblab to spout off about the American Nazis. I know the whole "If I don't speak out now. who will speak for me later" bit but I am tired of it. So no more of that crap.

Limbaugh continues to disgust any "real" American

As a Catholic I am disgusted that Limbaugh, a man who does not practice any religion that I know of, can say that as a liberal I hate the God of Christianity. The judgement that he, and those people like him, passes on others will be the judgement that awaits him. In the Lords prayer we ask God to forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive others. That means that we ask Him to measure us the way we measure others. I wonder if Rush ever said that prayer? And if he knows what he is asking God to do? By saying what he said he will be condemed to everlasting fire. Rush please, to save your soul, reform your life and return to God. I say to my fellow Christians, do not seek power on this earth. You seek an illusion offered you by Satan. Seek to be a citizen of Gods city not the corrupted city of the earth. You cannot be a citizen of both. If you seek power here then you will have your reward here, but not in the here after. For many or wish to be first on earth shall be last in heaven. Reform your lives and return to God. Here the plight of the widow and orphan. Feed the hungry, cloth the naked, comfort the sick, and forget not those in prison. Strive for peace so you shall be called children of God, put down the sword so you will not be struck down by it. Give what you have to the poor and follow Him. And remember that how you treat others will be how God treats you. Reform your lives and return to God.

Because TG was a patrol ship

25th anniversary of the Price of Friendship is coming up!
I mentioned the plot in an earlier post. Hatch Laringa and John Reign are minding their own business doing "busy work" on their beat up piece of crap spaceship, the Renegade. Yuzzem, an old friend, a green skinned, bald headed terrorit, spaceship designer, a veritable renaisance alien, sells the duo on remodeling their spaceship. In return they agree to tow a gigantic refinery (Alien rip-off) to the TG-2000 space station, an even more bigger-er gigantic-er space station.
This film was made in the aftermath of Alien and Empire Strikes Back, ergo the refinery and the astroid belt.

After a percieved passing of time the duo comeback to their ship as little clay people waddling across a set to a balsa wood ship. Then they are human again and in a two room set of the interior of the ship. They thank Yuzzem, "Yuzzem you've done a magnificent job." says John. "Thank you." says Yuzzem.

From there things go down hill. They hook up with the Adon; pronounced add-on. Yuzzem, who has come along, trys to alay fears. Somehow by doing this he sows suspision with Hatch and John. Then they decide to call Cimtar, sort of a claymation Yoda on a disco light box. The little clay dude is about to tell them what Yuzzem is really going to do when he vanishes in a flickering, filmscratchy poof!

Yuzzem, about 2.5 feet away in the next room, has sabotaged the Cimtar machine, or whatever it's called. Hatch and John become really very concerned about this. They are so concerned that right when they are about to ask him about the problem with the Cimtar machine he informs them that they are entering an asteroid belt.

"What!? What are the coordinates?" Asks a bewildered Hatch.
"Uh 1.8 S" responds the suddenly sissyfied court dandy that is Yuzzem.

The astroid collision scene (ESB rip-off) was filmed upside down so the strings are coming off the bottom of the astroids; and your not looking for strings there are you! One of the pumice balls hits a legs-egg dome on the Adon and there is a flash-cube explosion. Oddly enough the first film in this miserable series had the Renegade hit an even bigger asteroid.

Anyhow Yuzzem has stowed his secret weapon onboard the ship to be released at the perfect time. This is the villain Pausba. Pausba and Yuzzem totally fail to coordinate the takeover of the ship and Yuzzem in typical FUBAR fashion accidently shoots Pausba. The film does not say what kind of weapon it was but Pausba speews blood all over the wall as he dies a bloody death. The duo come to the comotion. They somehow have guns, flare guns, and start shooting at Yuzzem. Finally, after ten minutes of film, there is some action. Yuzzem shoots his way off camera and into an escape capsule.

The last bit of film is the duo trying to reason with the now totally eviiiil Yuzzem, who's head piece is just about spent so he has to have his neck wrapped like a guy trying to sue somebody for wiplash. He escapes just as the Renegade and its cargo are headed for TG-2000.

Hatch determines that they will have to "rip-her off" of the Adon and that is what they do. The too escape, letting the Adon slam into the space station killing everyone on the huge thing. They soon fix the Cimtarator and talk to their old clay faced pal. He informs them that Yuzzem was captured "now he's in prison, because TG was a patrol ship" This sounds kinda like "how are we going to have a PC ending where the bad guy is caught?" The conclusion to this film is a bunch if type written end credits that scroll to the end of Pictures at an Exhibition.

So I am trying to track this film down. I have no clue where it is..............

Educating the President

The President is either unifrormed about Social Security or simply lying in order to sway an ignorant segment of America. He says that Social Security is unfair because if a person dies they get a death benefit but have no ability to cash out their account. To educate him and others this is how the system works.

The money I pay into the current system pays the checks for Americans who draw from the system NOW. The money I will be getting will be being paid into the system by my kids. The Social Security System forces our nation to care about the wages of future generations. Shipping all the manufacturing over to the communists (Wal Mart Style) is not going to help me out any.

By diverting money out of the system into private accounts the current retirement community will be hurt, or we will have to borrow and bunch more money from the communists in China. (Isn't it ironic that the US's bank is the Communist bank of China?) The Bush administration has single handedly allowed China to have a direct and determining factor in how our nation works.

Bush can make all sorts of claims. But as a thinking citizen, when I hear Bush talk about how he "knows" there is a problem or is "certain" there is a problem. I grab my wallet and and prepare for the coffins to start rolling off the C141's

Theology

My dear freinds who follow Dr Dobbson. Reform you lives and return to God. For you have fallen away. The God that made the universe, that redeems souls, who is all powerful, and all meciful, and ever living, does not need Man to protect Him or His Sacrements. Dr. Dobbson has stated that the Sacrement of marriage would be destroyed if gay people were to marry.
I argue that the Sacrement of marriage is set down by God's will and thus cannot be destroyed by Man. According to Roman Catholic canon law it is one of the seven sacrements set down by devine evangelical law. If the holy Sacrement cannot be destroyed then what is being destroyed when two gay people marry? Only Dobbson's faith in God. And if his faith is weak enough to be destroyed by two gay people marrying then he has no faith worthy of the name. Again I say reform your lives and return to God.
If God creates a man or woman as a homosexual, why would God then command them to live in discordance with how He made them? To force a gay person to live a straight life is in countervention of the devine will of God and therefore a sin. The Catholic Church admits, under current Canon Law, that some human beings are infact created this way.
I know of no gay person that decided to be gay. I am a straight man and I remember no time in my past where I "decided" to be straight. My father never told me that I had to be attacked to girls. From the time I was 6 years old I found the opposite sex interesting. By the time I was 10 I was trying to pull the bathing suit off the gil next door and clandestinely viewing my Dad's playboys. All while living in a family where personal affection was not openly expressed. I was clearly born straight.
Gay people I know, knew that they were gay when there were kids. However they attempted to live in discordance of how they were made because the society they lived in, and still live in, says that they are "confused" or "evil".
I would say that one should always strive to live in accordance with God. Walking with Him humbly, and accepting the life He gives you. Perhaps Dr. Dobbson had to choose to live a straight life? If so then I am sure his adolensence must have been quite confusing and alarming.
As for marriage. God's sacrement confers His grace upon the people being married. All love is provided directly from God. If two gay people love each other, and share his love, believe in Christ Jesus, and are willing to proclaim that love to Him that gave the love, then I see no reason that He would not confer upon them His everlasting grace.
Furthermore if the men an women who were married, are now forced apart by the government for no other reason than that they are gay, the sin is on the heads of the government. For what God has joined let no man seperate.
The middle ages were a time of superstition and ignorance. God granted us minds to understand the universe we live in and allowed us to leave that horrible age. I see no reason why we should wish to turn our backs on Him, refute the intellect He gave us, and practice superstition and bigotry in this age.

A follow up to Yesterday

Whenever things go really bad in Iraq, like the last couple of weeks, the Petagon trotts out General Meyers to tell us how we "almost" did this and "just about" did that, and "virtually" did the other thing.
Today was no different. The general today said that we "almost" got Zarqaui. Another "almost" triumph! Just like we "nearly" getting Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Or "just about" foiling the 9/11 attacks. Or nearly fighting the dragon of Angor, or almost defeating the vicious chicken of Bristol. -sorry I thought I was in a Monty Python movie for a moment-

If so many people were not living lives in utter misery, horror, (other nasty words) it would be funny. I am sure that in time there will be a boat load of laughs to be had over this era in human life.

What the hell are we doing?

The current situation in Iraq looks to the uninformed eye to be back sliding into further disaster. Apperances can often be misleading. However in this case even the uninformed eye is correct. I want to ask the American people how many more soldiers have to get blown up, and how much more money are we supposed to spend on that dung hill before we decide to come home? The Bush administration has said today that Iraq should work harder at forming a government. The response by the Iraqi UN ambassador was basically "mind your own business."
So what is the situation? We do not seem to be able to crush the insurgency. We cannot keep the streets safe for Iraqi's. The Iraqi government, such as it is, is powerless. The Iraqi army is being commanded by???? The infrastructure of the country is being rebuilt only to collapse again due to lack of maintenance or sabotage.
In case you have forgotten my question here it is again. How many more Americans have to get killed in Iraq? How much more of our money do we have to spend there? And another Q we need to ask it how is the operations in Iraq making America safer? Porter Goss does not think it is making the world safer. The State Department does not think it is making the world safer.
Maybe we are making the mideast safer by showing the other tyrants that we mean business. it wouild be great if the petty tyrants in the mideast were our enemies, but they are not our enemy. The biggest tyrant of all is the king of Saudi Arabia and he is best freiinds with Bush. Osama Bin Laden and his kind, is our enemy. What have we shown him? That we can be checkmated by using very inexpensive systems of resistance. But that is being too defeatist, not gung-ho, not home-alive-in-45 enough. So lets go back to the other idea of us making the mideast safer by showing the tyrants we mean business. So Syria pulls out of Lebanon and we say "hurray!", but again Syria is not our enemy. Syria may pay protection money to Hesbullah and Islamic Jihad, but only in the context of keeping its petty dictator in power. The little men of the mideast have not worldwide ambitions. They are constantly having to keep themselves from getting knocked off.
Osama Bin Laden doesn't like the kings and dictators in the mideast anymore than we do. We can actually agree with him on that count. He sees the dictatorships as all a part of some grand American design to destroy Islam. Sort of like Dr Dobbson sees gays having a grand design to destroy Christendom. Niether Dobbson or Bin Laden can be reasoned with. Their lack of faith in their own religion, and their use of fear and hatred to achieve their ends makes them irrational.
We are in a global war with an enemy that has an irrational view of the world. They have a rational view of power, and how to apply what power they have to kill, but that is about it. Meanwhile our leaders seem irrational in their blind adherence to a policy that shows no signs of winning this war.

A Question for you

Would you worship God if there was no hope of salvation?
Would you still go to church? Read the bible? I say that many people love the concept of heaven, or eternal life, but few love God. We see God as a means to an end, not the end in of itself. He is a facilitator in the consumation of our desires for more stuff, life included. His presences is desired on death beds, but seldom desired in the marriage bed.
We have developed elaborate rituals to ask His forgiveness, but the reasons behind us asking are ripe with suspicion. To ask for forgivness so you can partake in the sacrement of holy communion, is not the right reason. Our relationship with God cannot be a giant game of Redlight-Greenlight.
We are used to asking so we can recieve. But we fail to understand what to ask for. Few ask "How can I be of service today?" We all just want more life for us and our relations. We want to be taken care of and cannot accept that in order for that to happen we have to take care of our fellow man. It is not a quid pro quo either. God may not give you more life, a happier life, if you serve others. The door that opens before you may be the door to a gass chamber as surely as it may be the door to a mansion.
So I conclude by asking the same question. Would you worship God if there was not hope of salvation? And before you answer do not predicate it by saying that there is always faith or hope. Because there again you are trying to use hope or faith for salvation. I guess another way to put the question is what do you love? God or salvation? And if you say that you love God and have faith that because of that love you will acheive salvation then I put it to you that you do not love God but salvation, for where your treasure resides so resides your hart.

BENEDICTVM XVI PONTIFEX MAXIMVS

I think of myself as a progressive person, open minded, believing in science, evolution, global warming, etc. Yet I am really annoyed by people dumping on the new pope as if he was the worst of all choices.
1: He was a hitler youth? All young boys and girls were automatically in that dubious organisation during WWII. It was mandatory.

2: He was a German soldier? True. When he was 16, Ratzinger was drafted into the German army. He deserted Hitlder's army in 1945 shortly before the end of the war. Desertion in time of war, in even the US army, was an offense that carried the death penalty.

3: He's an arch conservative right? Actually his career has been pretty moderate (for the Catholic Church). Benedict, like JP2, is not following the moral and ethical relativism of American conservatism. According to this Pope, premptive war is a sin, as is any form of capital punishment, unchecked capitalism, social injustice. He, like JP2, was an advisor at the 2nd Vatican Council and still defends its conclusions including Nostra Aetate, the document on respect of other religions and the declaration of the right to religious freedom.

4: But he wrote Dominus Jesu, where he says that those outside the Christian faith cannot attain salvation? This may come as a surprise but followers of Jesus Christ like to quote the man. He himself said, "I am the way and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." and "No one comes to the Father accept through me." So from a Christian standpoint, and particularly a Catholic standpoint, the Pope isn't saying anything that should be too shocking.

Lastly Benedict is not JP2. He is not going to be a globe trotter. One Vatican official said it best, "We have to recover from a hurricane" refering to the affter effects of John Paul II's pontificate. Benedict is there to put the house in order and whatever else God wills.

The Price of Friendship and Osama Bin Laden

In 1981 we made the movie The Price of Friendship. In this movie a terrorist dupes two men into navigating a cargo ship to a space station then, at a pre-determined point, the terrorist hijacks the ship to crash it into the space station causing mass casulties. Basically turning a ship into a weapon of mass destruction. This is infact what happens, the two men escapce, their cargo ship destroys the space station and the terrorist escapes never to be heard from again.

April Poll Crunch

Things are not looking good for the President. Current poll crunch gives him an approval rating of 46.6% Gallup has Mr. Bush at 45%. This gives the President the dubious honor of having the lowest approval rating of any president in the last 75 years.

The negative numbers are also begining to hurt him on the Hill. Republicans, normally solidly behind the President, are showing signs of disunity and distance, particularly concerning the Bolton nomination for the UN.

The Republicans are also begining to find out that you cannot really claim to be the underdog when you run the Hill and the White House. While Democrats are finding their footing as a minority party and are behaving like pit bulls.

2nd terms are always a bitch.

No More Terrorism! Hurray!

In a bold move that shows the high level of logic and brain power of the occupents of the White House, the State Department has decided not to issue any more yearly reports on the status of global terrorism.
If we don't report on it, it must not have happened. Right? The White House said that recent terrorism reports, showing increasing terrorism world wide, are viewed as "not reliable".
This is another example of the typical Republican philosophy of either ignoring facts that do not match their viewpoint, or simply not asking for the facts at all. Clearly the White House is upset that their own State Department says that their war on terror is not going well.
The key to all Republican decisions is to let the American people know as little as possible about reality so they can lie to them. It is soooooo simple.
What is next? Stopping CNN from showing the Dow Jones Industrial average numbers? Can't have Americans thinking that stock investments might ruin their retirement.
The Republicans are continuing to offer us a large bucket of cement to put our head in. "If you only put your head in here, all your problems will go away. We will take care of you."
I find it more than a little ironic that the Republican dominated government sees all of us as Terri Shaivo. We are all brain dead, incapable of doing anything for ourselves, and needing Tom Delay et al, to help us spend our money, blood, and lives. And when we dare to try and think for ourselves we are class warriors, or unpatriotic, or even dare I say political.
There is nothing that will make a Republican more cranky than an American citizen not believing in their bullshit. George Bush is a lowsy President, we are not winning any war on terrorism, they don't even know what the hell the war is all about, they are lousy bankers, worthless budget makers, horrible generals, and couldn't make a real deal to save their lives. It is not conservativism that I oppose as much as mind boggling stupidity wrapped in the flag and brandishing a gun.
Republicans suck because they are incompitent.

Nazism Alive and Well on The Weiner Nation!

On Nov. 13, during one of many furious tirades that month about the Southern Poverty Law Center, Savage responded to a caller who seemed to agree with him about the case, but who questioned what appeared to be Savage's Jew-baiting.

And t hen we have Michael Weiner (Savage) He likes to call Liberals Nazi's but listen to this:
"What do you mean I am trying to stir it up?" Savage demanded. "A guy like Cohen, who is obviously a Jew from New York, is going after a decent Christian man. What am I supposed to do? Sit here and take crap from him? I think he is a vile human being who ought to be arrested for a hate crime.

"And I am not going to mince words. And I guarantee you that he says 'goy' behind the scenes." ("Goy" is a Hebrew word for a non-Jew that, depending on its usage, can be derogatory. Savage also uses the plural "goyim.")

At one point in the exchange, Savage seemed ready to advocate violence against Jews. But he stopped short of spelling it out.

"I'll tell you the truth, it's enough to break your heart to see what this country has become," he said. "And I have a lot of things that I really want to say today, that I'm going to have to control myself and not say, because there are things that need to be done that I can't say. But the country's at a terrible, terrible balancing point."

Savage's self-control didn't last long. Later in the same broadcast he mocked Jews in a fake Brooklyn accent and laid out a justification for anti-Semitism.

"That's next isn't it?" Savage asked. "From these verminous Brooklyn College lawyers, isn't it? Go down South and have a tee-hee over the goyim. Laugh at the goyim. Go down there and take away the crosses and they can't touch you, huh Mr. Cohen? [Mock laughter.]

"Mr. Cohen, and you wonder where anti-Semitism comes from. Let me strip the mask off it for you today, because if you think I'm going to mince words you are mistaken. It comes from situations like this, when you have a New York Jew like Cohen going down South into the heartland of Christianity and stealing the religious symbol from Christians."


A note from the blogger (me): As a Christian I wish to say that Michael Savage (Weiner) does not speak for either me or my God. Like all good nazi's he is using other peoples faith as a toothingstone for his own bigotry and hatred. He obviously has not faith in God, or anything else for that matter. Only those who walk in darkness on the wide road to hell can spew such nonsense.

Another Cheer for Democracy in action!

Tom Delay, that pillar of moral might, lobbyed to keep US laws from applying to the US controled Marianas Islands, where thousands of people work in sweatshops to make our shoes and where women are sold into slavery in brothels. He took his birbes in the form of free trips to the islands, as the guest of the sweatshop owners. God bless America! That big fat land, full of big fat people, with big fat mouths saying absolutely nothing. The land of sham, where everyones soul is for sale. Who's righteous rage and moral pretense stand like two ten thousand foot high granite blinders to its own hypocracy. Cheeseburger central where even a pauper can die of corinary artery disease. Does anything remain of the sons of liberty? Is all that is left of our soul, some cold statutes and dusty parchment? "Fire Sale! Freedom 1/2 off! Get it while it lasts 'cause when its gone its gone!"

A different perspective

The Churches perspective of the world is vastly different than our own nation. It can speak of how it dealt with the Emperors of Rome. It watched the Huns ravage Europe and then recede back to Asia. It's perspective on Islam is as an institution that was already 600 years old when Mohammed walked the earth as a child. From it's point of view Western Civilization is not a class to take, but what it forged with the Bible and a sword. It held Europe as a state and viewed kings as vassels. And it gave birth to the University system of higher education.
In 1945 Stalin was asked what he thought the role of the Pope would be after WWII. Stalin said mockingly, "The Pope? How many divisions does he have?" Yet the Church helped destroy Stalin's conquests without lifting a single gun. So when we get frusterated at the Church as an institution that is inflexable and dogmatic, we need to remember that it is the ultinmate survivalist. Empires have come and gone, whole cultures have been born, lived, and died, while the Church went merrily onward.
I am not trying to paint a utopian picture of the Church. It has been responsible for all sorts of not-at-all nice things. And it has splintered, and cracked, and convulsed throught the millenia. It will probably continue to do so on into the future; like a dividing cell, growing the organism by replication and evolutionary variation.
I have all sorts of advice for a new Pope. Let the clergy marry, birth control is a good thing for the third world (don't worry there'll still be loads of Catholics). Counter Evangelical Protestantism by combining the antiquity of the Mass in all its incence, and chanting, with modernity of music and speach. Use the Cathedral as a guide. Remember it was the first multimedia religious extravaganza. There was nothing else like them anywhere in the world.
But of course the Church will do what it is going to do. To us its actions may seem foolhardy. Like when the decided to send monks into lands ruled by bloodthirsty pegan warriors. Or even before that when, after having their Savior executed by Rome, deciding to go to Rome itself to preach. Or even before that when James and John gave up a perfectly good fishing careers to follow a homeless man. Some how I have faith that the Church will survive.

Review of Dark Star

"And I used to think you were cute." This pretty much sums up Dark Star. A movie who's VHS tape sleeve graphics far outshin the actual art direction. Okay enough nay-saying. This film is still pretty funny and has really held up well for a 1974 sci-fi film. It has held up well mainly due to the fact that it must have looked crude even back then. Blue screen? We don't need no stinken blue screen. It's visual effects are only slightly better than The Price Of Friendship and to be frank, not that my name is frank, TPOF's effects were better. The asteroids in TPOF kicked ass compared to Dark Star.
What Dark Star has is campy-fun and a total lack of pretense. It is a more honest film than Phantom Menace.

It was shown in an age before Star Wars, Alien, and all the rest. It sort of falls into that bizzare era betweeen 2001 and Star Wars. Fitting in well with Silent Running and Dr. Who. I am surprised that no body has wanted to do a remake of this film. Yikes!

Review of Popes funeral coverage

I channel surfed a bit in the lead up to the funeral mass. CNN requires that horrible data line at the bottom of the screen giving us all sorts of crud we don't need to read so I opeted for NBC. At least those guys left a full screen and kept the talking to a minimum. For a Catholic the mass, whether in latin, or English or Italian, is understandable. NBC had their clergy-pundit do the translation of the latin bits. I had the KJB open and followed along. Then a couple of things went sideways.
First of all when the psalmist began singing the latin version of Psalm 23, pretty much mandatory in a funeral service, the NBC pundit and the super script that flashed on the screen said it was psalm 22. Brian Williams picked up on the legendary psalm 22 as did the female counterpart. The 23rd psalm is the most famous and oft quoted psalm. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me...etc" Psalm 22 starts out "My God My God, why have you forsaken me ...etc."
The punditry kept quiet until near the end when the crowd was chanting alernately "Magnus! Magnus!" and "Santo! Santo!" letting the Cardinals know that John Paul sould be known as John Paul the Great and that he should be canonized. I have no doubt that both will be done in good time.
The Papel "historian" on the NBC punditry staff then said that this had not occured in recorded Church history since the funeral of Pope Gregory the Great in the 8th century. Well I will admit that I can't recall a papel funeral where the Pontiff was lionized so. Though that is probably because I have only seen three papel funerals out of 264 Popes. The pundit was of course wrong about the date of Gregory's funeral. He truely would have been one amazing pope to have been born in AD540 and lived until the 700's. The truth is that Gregory died in AD 604 in the 7th Century. I know this is papel hair splitting but I find that the pundits usually spew errors like this. The key is to not know anything about what they are talking about, then they sound smart.
Overall I think the news people were at a real loss for accurate words. One glaring omission on behalf of NBC was the lack of words regarding the heads of state. Now you can say that God is dead, and that John Paul was just a Jesus freak. But sitting together at that funeral were the leaders from the US, Iran, and Syria. The funeral of John Paul brought enemies together for 3 hours in one place. Looking at all the Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, Budhist monks, Sieks, and Hindus in attendance one can begin to appreciate what the Hand of God can do when He is so moved. Yet this event was ignored.
Not to beat up on NBC too much though because the real losers were the heads of state that missed a giant, historic, and literally God given opportunity to advance peace.
"May the peace of the Lord be with you all. Let us offer each other the sign of peace." Ratzigner spoke. And as millions in attendance, in Rome and around the world, my Mom and I included, embraced and said "Peace be with you." The leaders of the Earth stood still, or offered their allies a handshake.
How the world might have changed if President Bush had bothered to walked ten steps and offer his hand to the President of Iran or vice versa. But none took up John Paul's staff. If they had only taken to hart what John Paul II said when he first spoke as Pope in 1978. The words were not his but Christs, "Be not affraid."

Magnus Magnus, Santo, Santo! Santo Giovanni Paulo!

Ray

I am not sure why this movie was so good. But it was really good. It is a pretty simple story that plods along in pretty much chronological order and ends happily. There is a lot of predictable, and very well known, things that happen to Ray Charles. He lets success get to him. He is a womanizer. He abuses too much heroine. What saves this movie is the performances by Jamie Fox, Kerry Washington, and Clifton Powell. The performances of this film take an ordinary film and make it extrordinary.

It gets a 8

Human Parots

We have a heck of a time discovering the true nature of ourselves since we are so close to the subject. An objective view of ourselves by us is pretty much impossible. I think we are closer to parots than we might think. If a parot hears the same word enough, and is rewarded upon hearing the word, it can learn to say the word.

Brak!...Conservative Good Liberal Bad...Brak!

We practice a dehumanising culture of name calling, fear mongering, and scapgoating on many sides of the political spectrum. Examples of this are: Democrats do not love America. Republicans want a dictatorship. Christians want to cram God down our throats. Atheists want to ban God from everything. Liberals are amoral hedonists. Conservatives are backward thinking reactionaries. etc.

There was a time when even though people had differing views of politics etc, they had a presupposition that their foes were good people who loved their neighbor and were worthy of respect.
With the continued dehumanising culture of name calling, threats, and broad brush accusations on both sides of America, we are losing a huge part of national security. That being our willingness to stick together.

In our nations past there have been times when this sort of thing has cropped up. Spiraling in intensity until some event takes place to shift our attention back toward cohesion. In the 1930's it was the depression. In the 1850's and 60's it was the issue of slavery that ended in Civil War.

It would be wrong to think that our nations stability is granted to us from above. We have weathered crisis well, as we did in confronting the Depression. And we have weather crisis poorly, as in our ducking the issue of slavery until War came.

My advice is to stop listening to the right and left on the radio. They offer nothing but hatred, and fear.

Bushes other nickname

To the lovers of Bush he is, Bushy, Dubya, or to those who really know him Mephistopheles.

To other there is a word that matches the President in almost everyway. That word, his nickname, Charlatan.

"Charlatan" pron: Shar-le-ten

A person who makes elaborate, fraudulent, and often voluble claims to skill or knowledge;
A quack or fraud.
A person fraudulently claiming knowledge and skills not possessed.
A flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes

I say that this nickname is almost perfect because he is not flamboyent, nor does he tell jokes well. To add to his full nickname I have chosen other words that fit him and his crowd:

Reactionary:
Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.

Know-nothing:
1. A totally ignorant person; an ignoramus.
2. An anti-intellectual.
3. An agnostic.
4. Know-Nothing A member of a political party in the United States during the 1850s that was antagonistic toward recent immigrants and Roman Catholics.

Fuax-Yokel:
A multimillionaire claming to be a rustic bumpkin.

Slime:
1. A thick sticky slippery substance.
2. Biology. A mucous substance secreted by certain animals, such as catfishes and slugs.
3. Soft moist earth; mud.
4. A slurry containing very fine particulate matter.
5. Vile or disgusting matter.
6. Slang. A despicable or repulsive person.

Hypocrite
one who puts on a mask and feigns himself to be what he is not; a dissembler in
religion. Our Lord severely rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their
hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). "The hypocrite's hope shall perish" (Job 8:13).
The Hebrew word here rendered "hypocrite" rather means the "godless" or
"profane," as it is rendered in Jer. 23:11, i.e., polluted with crimes.

So his grand nickname is: A Reactionary-charlatanistic-know-nothing-faux-yokel-slimey-hypocrite. Not a good name but whats in a name?

I make no claim to judge GW damned. Or indeed any human being. Since that judgement would be passed upon me. So I only point out the lousy Rep's stuff and the wastoid liberals stuff to get people to think. Not to assume either side condemed by God.

Sources:
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Review of Motorcycle Diaries

Che Guevara is more a graphic icon than anything elese, at least in the US. The movie trys to make him into a human being again. Well it does and it doesn't. The film never really clicks as a story of Ernesto's early years. The transformation he undergoes during the long gruling road trip is a bit too fake. However the performances are great and as a road trip movie this is one of the best. It shows us all sorts of parts of the South American world that we really haven't seen. It is a nice film too because it was made down south and does not try to sugar-coat things out of a sense of political correctness. If this movie had been made in the US it would have battles, and wars, and lots of mass killings; and of course all those things were taking place in 1950's South America. But this film is more adult than that. It takes forgranted that you are an intelligent person who does not need to be beat over the head with violece. You know it is there. You end up feeling good about both characters and want only the best for both at the end. This film left me wanting more of the story.

It gests a 6.5 for storyline and a 9 for roadtripage.

Well its just gone 9 o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.

Killing Communist Sims.

Yesterday I killed communist sims. I was part of a three man squad that infiltrated enemy territory and instead of talking and dancing with the Sims, we took them out with automatic weapons and grenades. For their part the Sims did not show any desire to put their bling on and boogie with us. They too were armed to the teeth. We got to know them by shooting them in the head.

I then went home and did some chores and then decided to play Sims. My main Sim, Zuul, has recently moved out of his parents home and into a trailer with his friend Dudley. Dudley is a pig and does not pick anything up. He eats a burger then drops the plate on the floor and tunes the radio to heavy metal. He has a grave yard shit job so he sleeps most of the day. He is also careless with the barbeque and sets the damn thing on fire along with the fence. He, being Dudley, does nothing but wines that there is a fire. Zuul has to wake up, for he too works nights, and in his pajamas, has to put the fire out. He dresses and eats some cereal. He hates his suroundings, he doesn't like Dudley. He craves stuff to do. He spend an hour taking the trash out and cleaning up after another Dudleyfest. Then, in a cranky mood, he goes to work as poison tester. To make matters worse he pisses his pants while walking to the bus to go to work. I cannot understand why a teenager would play this hell-game.

Zuul needs to quit his stupid job and join the special forces. Then he can become a member of an elite team, as he works toward the common goal of killing all the bad guys. To Zuul every Sim Communist is Dudley.

Well Done Good and Faithful Servant

So passes one of the giants of history. I did not live in the age of Julius Caesar, or Napoleon. I lived not in the age of Roosevelt or Ramsese. I lived in the age of John Paul II. A man who's life changed the world. I have trouble with some of what John Paul had to say. But on the whole I respect him as a man who was not a hypocrite. He provided a moral compass that was ever fixed upon Christ. He was a great Pope. He presided over the largest gathering of humans in recorded history when he said mass before 7 million people in the Phillipines. He prayed before the wailing wall in Jerusalem and there set in its wall of payer an apology for all the evils done to Jews by Christians. He presided over 3 million people in mass in Krakow, in defience of the dictatorship in Poland. He scolded priets in public that had taken up arms in centeral America. He lectured GW Bush on the imorality of the war in Iraq. He was unafraid of the pompus powers of the earth. He forgave his wouldbe muslim assasin then went to Moroco and spoke of spiritual unity before tens of thousands of Muslims. He sided with the Palestinians on their right to have their own country. He spoke of the dangers of dehumanising capitalism as well as faithless communism. His life will be judged by men and some will say he was a great man and some will say he was foolish. But the only judgement that really matters is Gods judgement. In that regard I have no worry that Karl Woyteja will be welcomed as a faithful servant.

Breaking News: Pundits sweating

The scenes of intense saddness on the faces of TV pundits all over the world comes as no surprise. The fact that the Pontif is still alive has utterly devasted them. Yet not all is in darkness. For there are many pundits who revel in the telling and retelling, and re-re-retelling, of the Holy Father's condition. Producers all over the world are deep in meditation over their productions of "John Paul: A life Remembered", "Way To Go Karl", and Micheal Moore's "The Pope That didn't care for Bush".

So all media men and women silently, and loudly, wait out the last few seconds, minutes, and potentially days or years of this Popes life.

The Vatican has banned TV pundits from the square at Saint Peters. "They make a hell of a mess." Said Msngr. Visconti, in charge of cleaning up after Papal Funerals. "Usually we simply let the Swiss Gaurd get some Pike practice pitching the SOB's over the wall. But tonight, seeing them all weepy at getting to cover this event, we decided to simply kick them in the teeth."

And so, with his front teef mithing, your faiful corithpondet signs off.

Challenging Times ahead for Church

Listeninig to the TV guys, salivating over the coverage of JP2's demise, is enough to make me want to move to the Isle of Sky and be a hermit. But that would be bad since I don't like the concept of being a hermit.

9am: Pope John Paul II is near death. His vital signs are fading.

10am: His organs are shutting down.

11am: The janitor is coming in to take out the trash and has turned the "Open" sign to the off position.

12pm: Pope is really really really not doing to well.

Breaking News: Thousands of TV Pundits make pilgrimage to Rome to take up position overlooking Saint Peter's Basillica. Make ready to comment on Popes death.

Breaking News: The parents and husband of Terry Shaivo, band together to fight the loss of media coverage due to the Popes final hours, file law suit against Catholic Church claiming the termination of media coverage of their problems is a violation of their right to bicker at each other on television.

Breaking wind: National Right to Life group really pissed that they were behind the curve on Pope's Death. Claim they couldn't get the appropriate goon squad to camp outside the Vatican to protest the Popes wishes not to have extreme life saving measures applied.

But seriously folks. Can the Catholic (Universal) Church survive in these challenging times? Well it survived the burning of Rome by the Visigoths, the collapse of the Roman Empire, six hundred years of the dark ages, multiple schisms as well as some really bad Popes and anti-popes. Somehow it has still remained strong and vital.

If the church was only a construct of man, for man, it would have collapsed long ago. It has a devine spark at it's core that allows it to continue. To say the Church is of man for man is to argue that 264 men have really been geniuses to keep the institution alive for 2000 years. Clearly the men who have held the office have not all been geniuses. So the church will continue on into the future adapting to the situation.

Further Clarification of the clarification about dying

Make a living will!

I want to be King of Vietnam!

One day a few years ago, my freind Phong and I were both lamenting the shitty economy, the sad state of things generally, and how far the dollar doesn't go. Phong said that if he and I went to Vietnam, his homeland, that we could live like kings. "Save one paycheck Scott; just one paycheck. And we could live like kings in Vietnam for years."
I am going to either take the bus to work, bike to work on sunny days, or get a scooter. This gas price thing totally sucks. I just put $40 of gas in my van and that will last until Monday. 160 f'ing dollars a month for gas? I know our European bro's have been doing the 5 dollar shuffle for a while now but I'm an American damnit all!
So boyscouts can you name the top 3 oil producing nations?

1: Saudi Arabia clocks in at 8,711,00 a day
2: United States of America (What the fuck? I thought we didn't produce anything?) 8,054,000
3: Russia at 7,286,000

As you can see the reality is that the US is still a gigantic producer of oil. Of course we consume about 16,000,000 barrels a day so we end up importing 50%. The EU on the other hand produces a combined output of approx. 6,810,000 for all EU natioins.

The sad fact is that we have done nothing to prepare for this crap. Portland is far better off than most big cities. It has some pretty decent public transport.

We should be at $4.00 per gallon pretty soon, like with two years. So the idea of living tens of miles away from your place of work pretty much is rediculous.

Another Triumph for Television

As if to bolster my view that TV is to intellectual persuits what driving a 10 inch steel pike through your head is to the desire to have a good time, we have another great TV show for the ages.

Mansquito. Thats Man-skee-toe, like a man mixed with a mosquito. The tagline says it all "First they hunted for a cure, next they hunted a creature."

I could saw my own head off and still be able to write better movie material than this shit. Terry Shaivo could write better material than this shit. A Pumpkin could write better material.

So here is my story idea for the Sci-Fi channel: (copyright Scott Gregg 2005)

Shesnake: Hotty turns into a snake and terrorizes NYC.

Demonspeed: Street racing devil dudes vs. non devil dudes with Shesnake in cameo.

Reality Bites: About a reality TV that is posessed and attacks the people appearing on the show by causing them to mysterously explode..from within!

Numerator: Evil slime creature turns people into numbers.

Denominator: Pre-sequal to Numerator, same plot different day. Turn rubber suit inside out to get new monster.

Lost in Galactica: Billy Mummy is lost in the old set of Battle Star Galactic. Dr Smith, now totally CGI, helps him by being stupid.

Invasion of the plant snatchers: In this rehash the aliens take over unsuspecting plants and turn them into human beings.

Hurray for democracy!

We are selling Pakistan F-16s. The country that has threatened the democratic nation of India. The nation that is a dictatorship. The nation that is unstable and may wind up in civil war. The nation that bankrolled the Taliban. The nation that has sold nuclear weapons technology. But hey that doesn't matter since we are sowing the seeds of democracy. Oh wait, I just checked the bag and it isn't democracy seed, but fertilizer that we are spreading.

Review of all 3 Lord of the Rings Movies

This is the best trilogy ever made, edging out the original Star Wars trilogy by just a little bit. Outstanding storyline, solid characters, a world crafted so well that I am not sure how anyone could improve on it.
So you might ask what parts of the movie blow chunks? Well it is too weepy, and the humor is too forced. The only member of the fellowship to die is Boromir. And the only one of the major good guys to die in the film is King Theodan.
I think that all the crappy Middle Earth style movies along with the crappy lord of the rings animated movie really lowered my expectations about these films. I remember seeing publicity shots in 1999 and thinking "this is going to suck." Because nobody ever makes these films well.
Jackson has done a great job and the Return of the King definitely deserved the Best Picture award.
So the trilogy gets a 10.

Clarification of my position on dying

In my earlier blog I rambled on in a very semi-coherent way about Terri Shaivo etc. So here is some clarification.

I believe that life begins before conception, about 4 billion years before conception, and ends when your bodily processes stop.

We live in a world where we can keep a deadman alive almost indeffinitely. Terry Shaivo would have died the day her heart stopped if it had not been for amazing medical efforts. Listening to neurosurgens describe how the brain heals or does not heal it is clear to me now that Mrs Shaivo is brain dead. Her Cerebral Cortext is no longer present because it has atrophied away over the last 15 years. She wakes up, and goes to sleep since the brainstem is still alive. But nothing is above that. Her eyes may be active and respond to light etc, but there is nowhere for the signals to go after that. She can hear but there is nothing left to process the signals into anything meaningful.

So is our technology standing in the way of a death that should have happened years ago? No. The truth is that, though we use technology to lengthen lives, the quality of life is what truely matters and clearly in this case there is no life for Terry Shaivo. Her brain died years ago. But if we are not standing in the way of her dying then what are we doing? In my opinion we are simply doing what we are supposed to do, argue about life and death.

It is not good enough to simply claim to be a defender of life, the circumstances around that life count. We struggle to make life matter, last, and to pass life on. But we must also admit that we cannot stop God from taking us back to the dust when he chooses, in the manner he chooses. I do not believe that you can war against God to keep yourself alive anymore than you can war against God to end a life. When you go you go. And from a Christian standpoint, earthly life, though precious, is only a brief begining on a long long road. What is the right-to-life goon squad affraid of for Terry Shaivo? It would be nice to think that she already dwells in paradise, it's just that her broken body is still around on earth.

Death is just another part of existance. In the middleages and on into our own time Jews were called "Christ Killers" but wasn't the death of Jesus Christ for told? He new that he had to die. If you are Christian you have to believe that the Jews in those days, along with Rome, were acting out their part in the drama. God is in charge. It doesn't mean that we have no free will to choose. Our choices mean life last long or short. But even if I decide, on th spur of the moment, to jump off the top of the US Bank tower, that doesn't mean that my life and death is in my own hands. God is in charge.

In the end you are left with a sense that life and death is beyond anyones control. God will take Terry Shaivo away when it is her time. Not a moment before.

Jesus said that nothing we do here on Earth can add a moment to our lifespan. God is in charge. We struggle, do our best, fight death, save lives, but He is always in charge.

Mandate Shmandate

Scott's Poll-Crunch has a new number.
The Mandate Number. This number is based on Presidential poll numbers from Presidents that did infact have demonstratable mandates to do stuff. Like Frank Roosevelt.

The Mandate Bar is set at 70% approval

If a President wants to go on TV and tout a mandate from the American electorate he better have poll numbers like this. If not then all that talk is hot air only.

Using this number Bush had a mandate from Sept. 11th 2001 until about Christmas time of that year. After that his numbers plummeted to 43% in 2003 and have not really recovered. Clinton's outgoing poll numbers had Clinton at 65% approval after impeachment.

Bush Approval

I looked at 4 polls today.
CBS News: app: 43 dis:48 notsure:9 polled: 737
Pew Research: app: 45 dis:46 notsure:9 polled: 1500
Gallup/USA Today: app: 52 dis: notsure:4 44 polled: ?
Newsweek app:45 dis 48 notsure:7 polled: 1010
Time Mag: app:52 dis: 43 notsure:4 polled: 1000

Scott Poll-Crunch:
Approval: 47.4 Disapproval: 45.8 Not Sure:6.6

ROBOTS AND I ROBOT

Review of Robots:
I liked the film, it had good characters, predictable plot, no twists, nothing unexpected. However, like Shark Tales, Nemo, and Monsters Inc. it was entertaining. Is it Lord of the Rings? No. it did have an overt moral message that was beyond lovey dovey, and for that alone I give it a 7.

I Robot: For crying out loud people! Can't anyone do a good rendition of an Asimov story? Asimov is to sci-fi what Talkien is to middle earthlings. So much of what we take forgranted in that genre was layed down by Asimov. The Robot books, the Galactic Empire books, and the Foundatioin series is as rich and amazing as any fiction every written. So we have a hodge podge movie, slap-together from concepts layed out in Caves of Steel. But the robots end up being cartoonlike, the humans too stupid.

Instead of Peter Jackson rehashing King Kong he could be in preproduction on the Foundation Series. Instead we are left with Will Smith acting just like Will Smith and robots acting like cartoons.

I Robot gets a 5

Life

There have been three cases in the past couple of weeks that fortell a future of ethical and personal dilemas regarding life and when it ends. The cases involve people making decisions for human beings that cannot speak for themselves. And they are a biproduct of technology and our inability to know absolute right and wrong.
In the firsts case was a 5 month old baby who was born with a birth defect that made life impossible without a ventilator. In Texas a hospital may turn the ventilator off if it deams such life sustaining measure futile. The mother of the baby did not want the ventilator turned off but the courts sided with the hospital and the babys life was terminated by the actions of the hospital despite the wishes of the babys parents.
The second case is far more famous. That of Teri Shaivo. In this case the courts have decided that 15 years of vegitablehood is enough and now the woman should die.
These cases present an ethical, moral, as well as legal dilema. In both cases human beings are being gotten rid of when their continued existance becomes too problematic for their sustainers to put up with. I am not saying that Mr. Shaivo does not love his wife. In his view there is no hope. He may verywell be right.
In my opinion, and that is all it is, there is no moral argument you can make to kill either human. Shaivo cannot tell us if she is in pain or not. The 5 month old could not do this either. Any argument in favor of killing these to people, and that is what we are talking about, is non-ethical. You could not scentance a murderer to death by starvation, but that is the fate, by court order, that awaits Shaivo. Of course she is brain dead and has no cortex left to experience this or anything else.
In both cases the parents do not want the human to be allowed to die. This is the parental perogative. It is a hardwired response set down by millions of years of evolution. However if there was one shred of legal documentation to support the woman's wish not to be sustained in her condition I would support her dying. But not by starvation. Yet there is no document. Only a conversation retold by her husband.
The moral absolutists have raided this drama and will use it as a toothing stone to get more conservative judges, never mind that the ones who are siding with Mr. Shaivo have been Bush and Regan appointees.
The Shaivo case is replayed over and over again in hundreds of thousands of families every year. As anyone who has dealt with the wasting away of a family member knows, death though instant, takes its own sweet time to happen. That is why so many Americans want Congress and the lifer goon-squad to stay out of this. In my father's case we could have opted for more blood transfusions. This may have postponed his death a week or so, or perhaps not. We made a collective decision not to ask for another one. Not that it was even presented as an option. These cases usually play themselves out with more or less the acceptance of death on all sides.
The third case seems oceans apart from the first two. It the case of Apachey Company in Iraq and a nightime shooting incident that left two parents dead and their children orphaned. In a war zone people get killed. We rationalize the deaths of civilians as part of the terrible cost of war. Instead of calling it what it is, murder. Family is trying to beat it home before curfew and runs into an American patrol. Patrol opens fire on car and people die, kids scream, wounds ooze blood. The soldiers that killed the couple and orphaned an entire family were back on patrol the next night. They are supposed to put the hell of war "in a box". Well all these guys are gonig to come home with very evil boxes that will have to be opened at some point. Somehow I doubt that most will have the aid of counseling when those boxes open up and the screams of orphaned children come out. Conservatives who are carrying signs for Shaivo turn a blind eye to this bloody mess. The majority of Americans don't seem to give a damn about all the terrorists we are creating. "I want to kill all the Americans and drink their blood." Said the 14 yearold daughter of the killed parents.
We are all lousy at determining when people should die. That is why most religions tell us not to kill.

Happy Birthday to Operatin Iraqi Freedom

I have not beat up on Fox News since it's actions are so pathetically blatent that they speak for themselves but on this two year aniversary I will make an exception.
FN, the modernday holder of the Hurst prize for yellow journalism, was one of the biggest drum beaters for the war and the lame coverage. They had reporters embedded everywhere. As the 1st ID marched into Iraq, Fox would regularly trumpet the potential WMD sites that were being encountered. After a few months they too gave up on that line. Fox also liked to make things out to be pretty good in Iraq and all the gloom and doom was a product of liberal bais. They had this reporter give broadcasts from infront of these fountains, I guess to make things look like Disneyland.
And guys like O'Reilly, who I saw in person at the Rose Garden, were going around talking about how things weren't that bad and that things were "winding down". He actually used those very words the night I heard him speak. In the morning after that bit of spin, the UN headquarters was blown up and they were pulled out.
So where are the beating drums now? Looking at the Fox News.com site there is nothing marking two long years of bloody fighting in Iraq. If I were and American, and I am, I would find it insulting if a network didn't bother to acknowledge that fact.

So happy birthday Iraqi Freedom.
Happy birthday to the 1,696 families of those killed fighting on "our side"
Happy birthday to the 17,000+ families of those who were fighting on "the other side"
Happy birthday to the millions of refugees, the brutalised, the shell shocked, the depressed
Happy birthday to all the congressmen who never went to Iraq after sending others to fight and die
Happy birthday to Bush for spending 20 minutes in an Iraqi airport with a turkeyleg in his hand.
Happy birthday to all the pundits who lied to us
Happy birthday to all the terrorists that flooded into Iraq after we flooded in.
Happy birthday to all the Americans still dumb enough to think that this war was justified.
And happy birthday to all the American taxpayers who willing spent 160 billion of their own dollars to topple one man and create anarchy. But don't ask them to spend money on national health.

The Past

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Blindness

I am tired of blind people. I am not refering to those who lack the ability to see clearly with their eyes. I am talking about people who, through their actions, cause harm, and sorrow to spread. They open their mouths and speak unkindness, their words are daggers, they cannot love for they do not know love when they see it. Their blindness to others causes them to find nothing in the world worth a smile. So they collapse inwardly, boiling in their own disolving bodies. Braking down like soup thats been cooked too long, canned in a pretty package, then consumed only to taste bland, brackish, uninteresting. They cling to every evil word and deed done to them, even if compounding the wrong in their own heads until the evil is vast and unbareable to behold. They use up what little feeling they have on anger, and fear. They are a sad lot.
I find myself hoping that someday they will have the scales wiped from their eyes. I hope they will see. But they will not see. They will go on in blindness until their lives are spent, wasted on twisting on their cross that they themselves have made; and then pass away to lie cold beneath untened brass name plates, in unvisited graveyards. And as the cold November rains come and soak the brittle leave that cake those forgotten tombs, what of all that wated effort to keep the wound alive? Are they off in some celestial plane weeping for that loss? Are they sitting amoungst each other, all piled ontop of by their countless fellows, prattling on about how wreched things are? Each being oblivious to the pain and feelings of the other. Or are they silent bones resting next to the silent bones of those who smiled at life, even when losing it by the hands of those who are blind.

TV Ratings

As I hardly ever watch network or cable TV I cannot actually rate the overall system. Judging only by the few snippits I do see, I would say that TV is a worthless time waster. I mainly use my TV to watch movies on either VHS or DVD. Today I had a moment and decided, what the heck lets see whats on the tube. First there is the bewildering number of channels and no easy way to know what is playing when. As I scanned the scrolling listing I saw, Matlock, and Cosby, Murder She Wrote, and CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, there were about 20 sports channels, and a host of movie channels showing current hits like All About Eve, and The Sting. I know TV production is expensive and time consuming but for crying out loud can't anyone produce a new series that doesn't include ignorant morons eating worms? I have heard lots of good things about the new Battlestar Galactic series. Pardon me while I stab a pencil into my forhead.
Channel surfing isn't even fun anymore since 90% of daytime and nightime programming are commercials. Here is a sample of what you surf through:
Exercise equipment
Exercise rutines
Fat reduction pills
Food preperation systems
Sexual enhancer pills
Hits from the 60's
So based on the aggregate of my limited TV time I give TV a 1. What a colossal waste of life to allow a minute of it to be spent looking at network/cable/satelite TV. I think that survivor is actually a very good program for the people who watch TV. It is perfect for the human who flushes his or her life down the shitter that is modern TV.

Changing Times etc.

I remember when I was a little kid and sick. My Mom would take me to Dr Chapel. We would wait in the waiting room with the other sick kids and their moms.
Reading the Newsweek article on the overworked mothers I was disgusted yet again to see such a total lack of connection to reality. Today when I took Trudy to the doctor for the second time this week, the place was packed with fathers and their kids. The only women in the picture were the doctors and nurses. It is such a cliche about how tough woman have it in America. The truth is that families have it tough. The men are just as stressed out as the women. They are far more connected to the raising of their children than their fathers ever were. My dad loved me but he never changed a diaper. He never took time off work to take care of a sick kid.
I actually relish taking care of my kids. They can be a pain in the neck and in lowwer regions, but that is the way it is. If people want to bitch about their children they should not have had them. And another fact is that women today have it much the same as the women of the past. My great grandmother worked 8 hours a day in bakery 6 days a week, and worked 4 hours each night in a laundry. All while raising 13 kids, and taking care of her husband who had his right arm shot off. So if women are complaining about taking their kids to daycare, and soccer, and cooking dinner in a microwave, and putting the laundry in an automated machine...well I am sure, some where in heaven there is playing the worlds smallest violin.

Another knife in the back of working Americans

"Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That's the American way," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

He was speaking about the restricting of bankruptcy protection to the working families of this nation. His hypocrasy is matched only by his in human cruelty. How has his party handled their own budget? By borrowing from the Chinese.

Another anti-Christian piece of legislation created by the anti-Christ Republicans

When I came to you naked you did not cloth me.
When I came to you hungry you offered me no food
When I was sick you offered me no comfort
When I was in prison you did not visit me

Republican response: Stop hanging around here you trouble-making jew boy. Who do you think you are..God? Say you look a bit like one of those ragheads, lets send you to Guantanimo, better yet let the Syrians have at you. All this property sharing and communal living makes us sick. You're probably a commi. And stop telling us what we have to do. We can decide what holy words to quote and wich ones to ignore. We're rich, and you don't have a place to rest your head. Why should we listen to a homeless freak like you. Your just a deadbeat. Your dad offered you a good career in carpentry and you skipped town on him and hung out with beggers, fishermen, and a whore. We can decide who gets to go to heaven and who should be sent to hell. We can decide who lives and who dies. You'll never amount to anything you pathetic jew boy.

Jesus: That wich you do not do to the least of my brothers you have not done to me. The judgment you have crafted and passed down on others will be the judgment that awaits you. Go to Hell.

Monty Pythons complete boxed DVD set

And now for something completely the same. I busted a gut again and again. This set is awsome. Lots of little things to amuse and inform, mainly amuse. Python rules! It rules because of its combination of intellectual prowess and total lack of seriousness. Compared with any modern day comedy Python still ranks #1 in topical hillarity. Much of its situation would still be beyond the pale on mainstream American TV. Only the Simpsons comes close to laughs at the expense of the holiest of holys. Python is so good and so ubiquitous that you can't really compare it to anything that has come after it. Since everything, from Second City, to SNL, to Mad TV, all trace their family tree back to Python.
Who else can reash the same skit, originally done in 1969, in 1999 and still get laughs?
"What I object to is all this sex on the teli..I mean...I keep falling off."

Dan Rather

Parental Advisory - Blog may contain harsh, but accurate, words

Dan Rather was a prick. He new the length of his Johnson and was unafraid of letting it dangle infront of other journalists. Since so much of American TV news is dominated by tiny peckered, prettyboys, waiting to have their tiny lizards stroked by Bush, and his masturbation machine, the departure of Rather was predictable.
Snapping back at Nixon or Bush Senior is a mark of self respect. Why would you praise a journalist if he/she spends all their career bent over giving head to all the power elite in the nation? I am sure CBS is looking for some dumbshit who looks good on the tube and is well connected in the Washington DC party scene.
Dan Rather is a toughguy and I am sure 60 Minutes will benefit with him back at it full time.
But what will happen when all the geriatrically challenged newsmen go? Who is gonig to replace those towers of "in your face journalism"?
By now there should be a whole host of 30-40 something killer journalists in the 60 minutes line up. Instead we have the one thousand, eighthundred and seventy five year old Wallace, who cut his teeth covering the 2nd Punic War. Or Andy Rooney who traded jibes with Homer while living at Ephesus in 325 BC. Rather was already middleaged when Cronkite was at his prime back in 1968. Remeber Rather getting banged up at the DNC convention? Probably not since we all were infants at the time, or not even born yet.
Modern TV seems to chew through "talent", for lack of a better word, in about as much time as it takes to chew a piece of gum. So who will ever gain the experience required to know what the hell they are talking about, and have what they are talking about be based in reality.
There are loads of conserva-nazis who are staunch believers in their nonsensical dribble. They will belch their narrowminded, non-reality, of otherworldly doggy dodo, until the drugs they're on require them to fix in the bathroom. Oh they will call a spade a spade alright. Mainly because they can't call a black person a nigger and get away with it. Fags, on the other hand, are fair game - for now.
So we are left with who? Wolf Blitzer and the like? For some reason I can't imagine Wolfy baby poking Bushy in the eye with his pointed questions and intellect.

What is up with boats?

I am sure there are lots of people who lack the required brain damage to wish to invest actual, proper, cash into a boat. Verily I am not one of them. Perhaps it was the head injuries as a child, or maybe it is an hereditary illness.
It is clear that not everyone likes boats because not everyone has them. To the person with the dain-bramage almost anykind of water craft is worthy of inspection. From the 16 foot scow to the 88 foot oceangoing tug (large scow) all are fare game for the boat-brain.
Pier99, is like a crack house to a junky, by the time I have spent an hour walking the peir I have a plan all set in my mind about buying a big boat. Of course the plan is not set in the real world. Atleast not yet.
Personally I like big Chris Craft cruisers. The kind that had their keels laid about the same time I decided to get born. There was this neat 1967 CC Cavelier, all laquered up, a giant wooden fix.
When I was a lad of around 20 I wanted to buy a boat big enough to live on. Nowdays that dream is alive and well but the requirments of such a vessal get in the way of me ever being able to afford the Christiansen Motor Yacht of my dreams.
Would me girls like the boat? Well...(rationalizations galore) of course they would.
I would pilot the vessal from Willamette falls, to Astoria, to the Dalles, and learn all sorts of crap about navigation, and other such stuff.
But then I look at all the boats in the marina and note that most look seldom used, and then remember that it is the brain damage that is responsible for all this.

Large Plume of ash seen over Mt St Helens.

I wanted to scoop all the other media on this.

A Discovery

In the days of Port-32, on Quentab VI, when Star Wars figures were Star Wars figures, and John's pool was the ocean on wich the Vader brothers fished, there was a bottle filled with old crap. This bottle contained a miniature canon, pennies, some SW figure parts, etc.

Well low and behold I have found that bottle. For years it contained the pool water from 1979 along with the stuff mentioned. Well the water has finally evaporated. But the stuff is still in it.

Sirach Chapter 9

A work will be praised for the skill of the craftsmen; so a people's leader is proved wise by his words. A babbler is feared in his city, and the man who is reckless in speech will be hated.

M & E

M&E is the best technical service in the history of the universe. M&E proves time and again that no question is too silly, nor lack of knowledge to catastrophic to flumex them. M&E is the best of the best of the best.

What is the point of all this factoidal knowledge

Here is an example of what I mean. There is space in my limited brain that contains "really important" information like this:

Teddy Roosevelt, as a child, suffered from asthma

I am sure that this is important, but couldn't I use that space for other information of a more practical nature?

We all have brains choked with trivialities galore. At the same time it seems like the stuff we really don't want to forget, like what date do we get our business taxes done, gets shoveled off to the brain's basement almost imeadiately.

Variable Annoyancometer and kids

The best thing about being a parent is that your children permanently adjust your brain so that it takes something really amazingly gigantic to annoy you. Not until you spend time with people who are not parents is the gross annoyance disparity thrown into sharp relief. You are reading a book and your child is bouncing a ball in the house, and at home you would just ignore it until something broke, and the something would have to be really special in order for even that to register. Put this event with people who do not have children and you notice the non-parents get the same look that Iraqi's have when they are checking to see if a suicide truck is headed their way. The person who said "children should be seen but not heard" must have been an alien not of this world in order to utter that with a straight face.

The problem lies deep in the early stages of parenthood. As a new parent you are schooled, via emersion, in all that is loud, uncontrollable, messy, disgusting, wet, and smelly. You are also schooled by the smile you little booger gives you, realizing that, for good or bad, this child thinks of you as his or her God. And whereas we adults can ignore God until we want something, the child has God to look at and scream at all day and all night. The god is quickly trained. And so it goes.

I have calculated that my wife and I have, between the two of us, changed my child's diapers approximately 4,380 times. For me I started this three hours after my daughter was born and finished 2.5 years latter. This has an effect. With dogs you throw them into the backyard and then scoop it up every once in a while. A cat gets a litter box and your neighbors flower bed.

I always get a kick out of movies that make such a big deal out of bowel movements in diapers. At first you are so overjoyed that the kid is born and ok that you change fifty diapers and you might as well be counting your gold bullion.

Then they figure stuff out and you don't have to do that anymore. And all of a sudden you feel, no pun intended, but kinda shitty. From there it just gets more complicated and time consuming. Babies are so much easier to deal with than children. Once they can do stuff on their own look out.

So I look on my non-parent friends with empathy if not sympathy, for though I can understand their annoyance with kids, I have long since passed the point of remembering what non-parenthood was like. I look at old photos and movies and wonder "What the hell did I do with all that free time?" I must have have done something for all those hours each day.

I think that all the sex ED classes are pretty lame since they talk about VD and AIDS and condoms, and other crap that teenagers can't relate to. These classes should start like this:

You know how much fun it is to baby-sit your nephew Bobby? And remember how glad you are to get paid and go home after three hours? Well imaging Bobby with you all the time, everyday, never out of your site, being Bobby. Then imagine that nobody is going to pay you squat for all that time. And imagine Bobby as a teenager getting drunk on his first date and puking all over the inside of your car. And then Imagine Bobby going to college and spending his money on strip clubs, and beer. Then imagine Bobby marrying a woman who you think should be committed. Then imagine those to having kids of their own then dumping them at your house everyday since both of them have to work and neither can afford daycare.

Still want to have sex?

I love my kids and whether they are bouncing balls, or needling each other, or playing nicely, I can, thanks to them, smile and slide on the ice.