Davis Cleveland and the Chaos of Twitterverse

Sounds like a book, doesn't it? Actually, it's a serious problem that is obviously more rampant than most parents and adults know about.  First, a brief introduction.  Davis Cleveland is a Texas-born actor who plays "Flynn," Bella Thorne's mischievous little brother on the Disney sit-com Shake It Up.  His storylines are, in my opinion, too short (pun intended,) and he was born to play the role.  The banter he had with "Henry" (Buddy Handleson) was hilarious, some of the best lines on Disney in the past year or two.  A couple of clips here:

 

The clip on the left actually brought about some interesting events outside of television, and, like uncovering bugs from under a rock, it uncovered a not-so-nice side of children these days.  The episode in question had Cece and Rocky going to a party hosted by "Shake it Up Chicago" moderator Gary Wilde. There were at the party supermodels who took an instant liking to Flynn when he shows up with his mom, busting the party.  There are a couple of jokes made about how the supermodels don't eat, etc...  Well, turns out that former Disney actress Demi Lovato saw the episode, and, having had bouts with eating disorders, among other things, went onto Twitter and http://www.nickandmore.com/2011/12/24/demi-tweets-disney-pulls-episodes/">criticized Disney for not having girls of all sizes on the shows.  Davis tweeted back, http://demelzellion.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/twitter-drama-davis-cleveland-vs-demi-lovato/"> taking up for the show. I'm not trying here to analyze who was right or wrong.  Notice that the Tweets were done shortly before Christmas, 2011.  From that point until now, fans of Demi Lovato have been barraging Davis' twitter account with threats, curses, and insults, most of which have overshadowed his efforts to help out fans with Cystic Fibrosis, and more recently, helping out the (far too late) cause of preventing bullying at school.  To show a demonstration, and to warn you, it does contain vulgarities:

Now, everyone's up to date.  To analyze this mess, we have to see how the Internet has changed our way of thinking, of communicating.  For, as Neil Postman famously said, "The Medium is the Message."  The Internet has created an instant communication relay, allowing anyone and everyone to talk about anything without regulation or censorship.  It has, as Postman talked about in The Disappearance of Childhood, taken away the ability of parents to control what information children receive. It is now entirely possible for kids, or anyone, to find out about anything instantly, from terroristic ideas to pornography of every variety.  It also has the ability, through Twitter and Facebook, to provide an instant open communication between a child and potentially every person on Earth.  This has brought the teasings and insults that children would normally get in school (and believe me, I've been the target of many of them), and launches them into the privacy and safety of the child's bedroom.  Thus the recent suicides due to cyber-bullying.  

What I want to understand, however, is exactly why this happens.  The internet effectively removes all barriers between children and the outside world.  In a place where everyone is equal, where social media makes everyone closer than they could possibly be before, it also isolates people to be utterly alone.  People are at once surrounded by friends, and totally alone.  Isolated and anonymous.  As if they were stranded on some far off island.

Which is what brings me to Davis' situation.  The girls who have insulted Davis can be easily compared to the boys stranded on the island in William Golding's Lord of the Flies.  Without rules, the boys slowly turn into feral beings, turning on friends and companions and wishing their deaths.  And Piggy, the sole voice of conscience in the story, is killed when a boulder is dropped on his head.  It is only when adults show up in the end and rescue them that the boys start to weep, to show remorse for all that's happen.  The island was set on fire by the boys, trying to get their enemies flushed out, and thus the place where they enjoyed freedom becomes a nightmare and unlivable. 

Twitter has become much like that island for some children, where vile insults and, honestly, death threats, are launched through the twitterverse without repercussion.  There is no thought of right or wrong, simply of entering text and pressing "Enter."  And since the idea of anonymity is so strong online, there are no consequences for any thought or word placed in cyberspace.  Thus the rumors of RIP(insert famous person here), or the cyber-bullying of students and the outright lies that float around on the Internet ocean like so much Flotsam.  

There are no boundaries on the Internet.  Now, the question is, how to fix the problem?  Parents can try to monitor and provide regulations for their children on what can be done and said online.  The websites could try some sort of technical restrictions on Facebook accounts, especially of famous people and television shows most likely to be followed by children. I say this because the amount of disgusting things hurled at iCarly's Facebook posts every day is amazing.  You should check them out.  It's very easy to get around age restrictions, but certainly something can be done.  But for the most part, it's up to the children online to regulate themselves.  Why would children like those above say those things?  It makes no sense.  But if kids were taught ethics, right from wrong, instead of being set free in the midst of the world's ideas without a single road to follow, maybe a lot of this mess could be controlled.  I guess it's up to the discipline given out by the parents.  And I've been a teacher and a retail worker long enough to know that parents' able to discipline their children effectively are getting fewer and fewer.  It's also up to children, in the online community, to understand the technology they are operating. Facebook can be easily controlled so that those who would say harmful things are blocked.  And if those insulting things are said by people that you don't know (I would say that all of the people hurling insults at Davis have never even met him, nor he them. ), just ignore them.  Take them as part of the static and noise that covers the Internet. Davis is ignoring them, while showing the world how, without rules, children become feral monsters, taking down anyone with lies, vulgarity, even threats.  It is good that Davis is as strong as he is, and that he realizes that very few of these kids will ever meet him.  Notice that the threats that are pictured above happened in February, some two months after the original exchange.  It's my advice that some of these people get help, from their parents, or from psychologists.  Without rules, these girls will wind up becoming adults with major problems, and words will become actions.  We don't need this.  

What we need to do is laugh.  Thankfully, Disney, Davis Cleveland and his crew, as well as most of the other shows are there to make us forget about some of this junk.  If only life were more like some of these episodes, with all the problems taken care of in 22 minutes.  But, alas, in today's world, it's just not to be. 

Book Reviews: Magogs and Mither Mages

So what kind of books do I read in the break room of a Christian Bookstore?  Why, books about wizards, werewolves, and dragons, of course.  Not that this is anything different from what I read normally, except it's odd to suspend one's disbelief in a store where belief is required.  Fantasy literature and religion have often gone together, what with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien having founded the idea of modern day fantasy.  And interestingly enough, both the books I have recently read have touched upon the idea of the Christian church within a world where magic exists.

I first picked up Donita Paul's Dragonspell from Lifeway's bargain stacks.  The series centers around Kale, the perfect depiction of a fledgling soul, and her growth from slave girl to a keeper of dragons.  The book screams Christian Allegory, so much more than Lewis' Narnia series.  Aslan was the figure of Christ in the land beyond the wardrobe, and Paul does an adequate job of creating "Paladin,"  a human teacher with benevolent powers.  The story is enjoyable and well crafted, although I miss a more subtle angle that Lewis would have taken.  When an author takes it upon herself to be a creator of a world, the very role that God had in this world, everything must be created from scratch.  To place such an obvious character as Paladin in a fantasy world is to disrupt the total transformation of the world from a Fantasy realm to one constructed by an author just to make a point.  The world becomes secondary to a Sunday School teacher, using make-believe to illustrate a point.  C.S. Lewis was a master in balancing the two ideas, which is why the books can be read as Christian Allegories or as fantasy novels to entertain readers of any age.  Knowing that Donita Paul's works are Light Allegories with an obvious message and audience, it does not detract from the enjoying the books.  I look forward to reading the rest of her works, as I have found the rest in the bargain stacks as well.
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It's not often that you store your book in the same locker as the person who wrote it, and I have the pleasure of knowing Steven Warnock, who works with me at Lifeway and has written The Magog Gambit, a work with vampires and werewolves and hosts of undead creatures.  However, before getting an image of Taylor Lautner in your head, it is very much more than the silly brooding teenage tomes that have attracted so many readers today.  Warnock has taken the idea of Faerie, the parallel world of magic and wonder that co-exists with our world, and placed not only the elves and nymphs in it, but the modern day vampire and zombie as well.  Using the real world as a place of fantasy is both easy and difficult, as it gives the reader an obvious place to start out, in this case, Covington, Georgia.  The problem, however, arises when you have to explain all works of supernatural causes within the framework created.  Eoin Colfer did a great job in Artemis Fowl, and Steven has also managed to balance religion and magic in our own world.

The novel centers around Jordana, a college student going to a small college in Covington, and a professor, Gideon Shaw, who just happens to be much more than he seems.  Of course, a supernatual book would be nothing without romance, banter, and a ton of action, all of which this book has.  The thing that impressed me most was the pace of the book through dialogue.  Almost all description of characters and setting is done through the banter of the characters.  It is a skill that Orson Scott Card does tremendously well.  His book Speaker for the Dead is a clinic on character development.  It is this quality that Steven has done quite well.  The people are fleshed out and instantly empathized with, even the bad guys, which can be cardboard cut-outs of evil in some books. The dialogue moves along at a clip which made The Empire Strikes Back so interesting (well, if it weren't for the Degobah interludes), between Han and Leia.

Since Steven might read this, I found two parts of the book to be a little confusing.  So I'll criticize a little. The Prologue needs a little work, as I was confused in parts, as if there was a system, rules of "how things work" that I didn't know about, and that if it were a new author that I did not know (and knowing how self-published authors often are) I might be tempted to give up on it.  It would be a great shame for that flaw to keep readers from discovering such an entertaining work.  The second spot, and this is being picky, is the first fight in the park with Dark Word agents.  They're all named.  Every stormtrooper didn't have a name, and no one is expected to know Ensign Jimmy's name when he gets eaten by a carnivorous flower on Star Trek.  I felt it would have flowed a little better if only the main guy would have a name, and the rest just be, "the thug with the knife."

I've never read a book by someone I've actually known, and so there were some interesting parts of the story where I recognize someone from real life in the book, or where a character says something and I think, "That's something Steven would say," forgetting that he actually *wrote* the book.  I was reading a book by a good author, not "Steven's Book" or "a self-published book that only will be read by his friends." Because that's not the case.  It deserves to be given a wider audience, and when the publishers of those silly vampire novels get a hold of this one, they'll want to publish it, too.
***

And speaking of Orson Scott Card, I then read The Lost Gate.  When it comes to reading OSC, I usually read his books in only a couple of days, and when I go to the kitchen to get food, I walk back wondering what amazing TV show I was just watching.  Then I realize that it was a book, and the images were in my head.  He is my favorite author, and I'm very eager to see how the filming of Ender's Game comes out.  On that side note, I've heard many different reactions on the casting of the characters.  Some have said that the actors are too old to play the parts (and this has always been a problem with books about children that are not always *for* children.  Take A Clockwork Orange, for instance. The main character was only 14 at the start, yet a very adult Malcolm McDowell played the main character.), while some of the rejected scripts had given Ender a girlfriend.  I happen to approve of the cast right now, and hopefully they won't butcher the story, especially since OSC had to approve the final script.  But I digress...

Perhaps it was the film that affected his book The Pathfinder, because his usual amazing work was flat on this one.  I couldn't finish it.  Which is why I hoped that his foray into the world of Faerie, of magic and wizardry, wouldn't turn out that way.  I waited a year or more before actually reading it.  Thankfully Card is back up to his usual brilliance with this work.

The challenging thing about a first novel in a series is how to create the world and portray it in such a way that the reader becomes comfortable with it.  With Crichton's Jurassic Park, I had to keep a list of who everyone was, so complex were the first few chapters.  I have never started reading Jordan's Wheel of Time series because I've heard from a lot of people that the first book is so painfully slow and difficult.  Now Card has to create a world, characters, a complete magic system, and make it into a story that today's readers, with their e-books and their attention deficit disorder lifestyles, will take the time to be familiar with.  I've had friends that never watched the original Star Wars movies because they were too slow, didn't hold their interest.  Orson Scott Card creates a book with two worlds, two different sets of characters, settings, a complex "gating" system, and does it with ease. Only at the end are their passages of complex magic theory that is a little difficult, but by then, we have the knowledge to understand it.  Critics will say that Danny, especially when he's in Washington DC, delivers soliloquies of moral reasoning, of a nature that most adults wouldn't do nowadays.  But readers of Card understand that his child characters are brilliant, and that their thought processes, which Card elaborates to a large degree, fits in with the story.  I thoroughly enjoy an author who will put his or her beliefs on the page, to merge ethical thought with fictional characters.  I guess that's why Ayn Rand's characters were so thrilling for me. 

As this is obviously the first of a large number of books, I hope that it will be as wonderful as the Memory of Earth, Alvin the Maker, and Ender series were to read.  I would even be up for this becoming a TV series, much like Martin's Game of Thrones is now on HBO.  But for now, I'll just wait for the next book to come out, and with baited breath.

MegaUpload to Holodeck

So one of my friends, S., posted this picture on Facebook, which is the going thing these days.  As if creating a picture will explain the whole world.  It's amazing, the way that people choose to communicate with each other.  Facebook was supposed to be a method for people across the world to talk to each other, but more and more I've seen just these pictures posted, without discussion or even thought about what they mean, how they impact the processes of the mind, how things are connected to others through synapses, often incorrectly so.

It seems to me that someone in the Occupy Wall Street crowd was downloading something on MegaUpload and all of a sudden {blink}, it's gone.  No more downloads of music, movies, software.  And let's not kid ourselves about this, it has nothing to do with all that for the normal computer user.  It's all about the Porn.  We just gave the Porn industry such a boost, because once you get rid of all possible places where pornography can be downloaded for free, the people who view such things will be forced, once again, to buy it.  But I got off track...  And so they think, it has to be the greedy bastards sitting at the top of their skyscrapers making money from all us poor people.  It's just not fair. Wall Street must be responsible for all this.  And in a very small way, that's part of it.  But the larger issue, one that is beyond this pictures ability to communicate, is that the Justice department was the one that implemented the raid and closed down the site.  That, along with the suspended SOPA bill, is giving the government full power to regulate the stuff that's on the Internet. Now, if that were the whole of it, I would go off on a tangent about how we should be able to download all the stuff we want, and haven't the RIAA and MPAA made enough money and blah blah blah.... except that's not it either.  There is no way that this issue (not SOPA, but just MegaUpload) can just be summarized in a picture. It is an argument of intellectual rights, free market issues; ideological, philosophical, and asethetic issues; so many issues. It could easily take up a book. We could produce arguments for and against MU, and be both right and wrong.  This issue brings together all the opinions of Free Market Capitalism, intellectual property, freedom of distribution of information, everything that the current generation feels about the way the world works.  The internet is a cacophony of information, stimuli, communities, vices, mind-numbing wastes of time, and we have ti pumped into our heads continuously throughout the day.  I go into most workplaces nowadays, and the workers have their iphones on and tuned into Spotify or their MP3s, and they're texting and checking their Facebooks, even watching videos when no one is watching.  It's an epidemic that is probably costing businesses tons of money.  And outside of absconding everyone's gadgets when they first come in, there's little anyone can do about it.  Everyone must have their fix of bytes and bits and kilos of data.   And that, too, is just a small part of it, and not what I was really focusing on.

I've gotten episodes of Disney shows from MegaUpload, they are free* on the Disney channel, so... was that wrong? Maybe. Is it illegal? Maybe. Should the government regulate such things. I don't think so, but the Libertarian paradox applies here. In the end, MU's shutdown won't matter much, as technology will change, methods will change, people will still get their copies of intellectual property. They'd have to shut down the internet entirely to stop it.  That would be the quickest way to start a revolution. Reminds me of the Pendragon Series, book 4, The Reality Bug, by DJ Machale. The Internet, and the things we download from it, are the fantasies by which we escape our own lives. To take that away would be akin to taking drugs away from the user. The withdrawl would be too much to bear. For the government to become that of Brave New World, they have to realize that the easiest way to control the people is through happiness, and whether our SOMA comes from a pill or through fiberglass cables, they have to keep the escapism alive.

I think that it's up to the providers of movies, games, etc... to come up with viable alternatives to free* downloading of their product. Spotify, for instance, is an amazing method, and would be more effective than any regulation or lawsuit. Hulu, Gamefly, Netflix, Redbox, also, are viable alternatives.  Another option would be the current companies that distribute intellectual property to vastly expand their "On Demand" line-ups, encompassing the entire line-up of TV shows and Movies that are available.  To do so would take an incredible amount of server upgrading, but would certainly doable, since the storage companies like MegaUpload basically have it already.  And there would need to be some way for the artists and producers to be compensated for their work. Basically, that would be Comcast or Cox or Charter hosting something like itunes or whatever, which would work. It's a viable option, something they should think about if SOPA actually passes with the vitrol it had in it previously. It would keep them from being liable while providing users with legal ways of obtaining their fixes. And if we can think this up, surely they can as well. Wouldn't be surprised if it's already in the works.  Comcast would have to increase their charges (or make it as a separate service) in order to do this, much as iTunes does now. And the public would have to accept that as a method better to get their fixes than downloading media online without compensation. It's a mental thing, a change in the minds of society's consciousness. That paying artists is actually a good thing, that the idea of the artists being just another part of the 1% is wrong, that they actually produce work for society and should be compensated as such, just as a worker laying the beams for a new skyscraper or the person making your Subway Sandwich. Changing the beliefs of Western Civilization is hard. It is done through technology or religion, and "Thou Shalt Not Steal" isn't working, so a change in technology is the best method. Thus the idea of Spotify and the iPod or like technology to provide all music everywhere with commercials. Although I think at some point it'll be a paid service (beyond the Premium service they already have).

I think that's the main issue here, when you get down to it.  The overwhelming idea that the Internet is free (totally and utterly free, without the * on it), and anything and everything that can be transmitted through the internet should also be free.  This ties in with the idea that artists and authors and directors are paid by these megacorporations that make millions (by other people besides me) and so they don't need the money from one measly download.  Because we're all broke, and we need our fix, and that fix is stronger than any legality or moral beliefs that would keep us from obtaining it.  It would be like speeding down the highway.  The desire to get to our location as quickly as possible is more overwhelming than the consequence of a speeding ticket, even if the ticket would equate to a whole week's worth of work.  The subsequent consequence for downloading a song or a video would be much more than that, even jail time, but most people don't even think of such things, so overwhelming is the desire to have music, film, games, and porn, all at our fingertips, and all free.  It's the thought process which is key here.

Once again I bring up two books which must be read to understand the idea behind changing the philosophies of Western Civilization.  If you can find, or download, these two books, they will be well worth the time to read them.  They are Clifford D. Simak's Ring Around the Sun and Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's The Light of Other Days.  Both are amazing books which show how, through technology, the entire mindset of the world can be changed, much quicker than through a religion or through the machinations of corporations or governments to control the activities of the people under them.  It simply won't work.  However, changing the technology to adapt to the citizens' mindsets will work, just as the invention of the Internet changed the way the world thought and worked some years ago.  It's simply an adjustment, from one mindset to the next as the world speeds along forward, from book to radio, TV, Internet, Ipad, to Holodeck.  One day, we'll get there.

4th and 1

Ah, the Playoffs... to quote Jimmy Mora, "Playoffs??"  It's been a season of heart-pounding excitement and mind-numbing boredom.  Seeing the Atlanta Falcons only scoring 2 points, I learned some things about this sport of 20th century gladiators.  There is nothing... NOTHING... more that spurs the adrenalin of a football fan more than the words, "Fourth and One"  Especially when they're close to the red zone.  It's like you can smell the carnage... a whole 6 points, if only the QB would just lean forward and pass the ball over that one yard.  So simple, right?  The emotion of the game takes over, heartbeats speed up to dangerous limits, and the coach has to make a decision, faced with the ridicule of the fans if he kicks a field goal (and gets 3) or goes for it and misses.  It's a chess move with sometimes the whole season on the line.  And so, Mike Smith, faced with a 4th and 1 in Overtime against New Orleans, goes for it, and falls short.  Saints Win.  However, in the recent Saints game with the Lions, they go on 4th down and make it every time.  So it's a toss up.

It's just like playing Price is Right.  There are rules for playing any game on there that will increase your odds of winning the most money.  But they don't.... they go with their emotions, risk it all, and more than likely, they wind up losing.  For example, on "Temptation," always take the prizes.  Or on "Cover Up," it's a very smart move to purposely pick the wrong number on the first row in order to get another chance down the line to win the car.  But these things never happen (it's also why I'd never get picked on the show.).  You go with your emotions, and you might win, or not.  But the smart thing is to go by what will work.

For instance, 1st Quarter, no score, you're on the 23 yard line, ready to score, but you get stopped, so it's 4th and 1.  Kick. The. Field. Goal.  Get points however you can, because those points could mean the difference in the game later on.  Now, if it's 4th quarter and you're down 21, that's a different story.  But Coach Smith went for it, and it didn't work....twice... that was 6 points, which might have made a difference had Drew Brees not gone touchdown crazy later.

When it comes to 4th and 1, the issue, ultimately, is trust.  Trust in the entire football team to execute the plays as practiced and to perform at the top level of their sport.  And it's the trust of the spectators that the coach will execute the plays necessary to provide a win, to justify the revenue that has been shelled out to spend three hours of one's life watching people run a ball up and down the field.  Without trust, all games that we call "sports" would be moot.  It wouldn't be worth watching.  In the situation of 4th and 1, there are 4 issues of trust that arise.

First, there's the trust that the offensive line can achieve the one yard needed to continue the drive.  Mike Smith went for it, mistakenly confident that the offensive line could force the defensive line of the Saints back three feet so that Matt Ryan could basically fall forward and get the 1st down.  It didn't work, and the issue here is that the O-Line needs improvement. The other option Ryan had was to either hand it off to Turner (which would have failed), or throw it to any of the Wide Recievers (who had been dropping the catches all day) or to Throw it to consistently reliable Tony Gonzales, who, for some reason, had only ONE catch that whole day.

Second, there's the trust that the defense can stop the other team's offense in case the 4th and 1 play doesn't work.  There shouldn't have been any trust in the case of the Falcons/Saints game because there are very few defenses (outside the 49ers, obviously) that can stop Drew Brees.  Or, Mike Smith should have realized that if they punted on 4th and 1, Brees would have scored easily anyway, so it was more justified to go for it and keep Brees on the sidelines.  Except that didn't happen.

Then there's the lack of trust in the Kicker.  Someone needs to get Morten Anderson and Vinateri together and hold a practice session for Field Goal Kickers, because every game I've watched this year has been woefully lacking in reliable FG kickers.  It could be that the ascendance of Soccer in the United States as a popular sport has drawn the FG kickers away from Football.  Or it could be that drafting other players, such as WR or QBs becomes more important than the FG kickers who score more points than any other person on the team (that was sarcasm). But most likely, I think that the lack of FG kickers is based upon the treatment that kickers get in any level of football.  Even Payton Manning referred to Adam Venateri as "that idiot kicker" when he missed one.  They face ridicule and name calling every time they miss a goal, and with the rise of social media, it just gets worse.  Reminds me of the U2 video for "Stuck in the Moment." Why would anyone want to be a kicker in Football and have to face those issues?  I wouldn't. Also, the kicker doesn't get to tackle someone, to lay out all their aggression and primal instincts into flattening another player on the ground.  It is a position that says, "We give up." They are a white flag, a surrender sign.  And sometimes coaches don't want to call the white flag onto the field.  Of course, there are exceptions, the 1999 St. Louis Rams, for instance.  Late in the season, the Field Goal kicker became injured, so "The Greatest Show On Turf" simply went for it every time, and with the offensive weapons they had (Faulk, Warner....etc.), they made it consistently.

Lastly, there's the unique position that every team playing the Chicago Bears have.  Namely, that, if they punt the ball, it will fall into the hands of Devin Hester, which I have talked about at length prior.  Hester would, on any given runback, achieve as many yards as the kick was, or potentially run into the end zone for a Touchdown.  It's much better, field position-wise, to go for a 4th and 1 and not make it than to kick it to Devin Hester and risk a Special Teams touchdown.

In the end, the Falcons lost the game with the Saints, and then in the playoffs with the Giants, and now let us hope that the team practices 4th and 1 for at least an hour each practice.  And give the ball to Gonzales, for Pete's sake.  He just got a one year, $7 million dollar extension. Make it worth your money.  And reevaluate your trust in your team.  The real trust, not that based on emotion and gambling, but that based on the logic and reason of knowing the strengths of the team and using them.  And if that's not enough, go get the right players during the off season (which means the Offensive Line) and we'll try it again next year.  Punt, and let's go at it again.   

Why I Don't Go to Church

 If you ask me which church I attend, I'll tell you, but in all actuality, I've not gone to any one church for quite a while. And while having worked on Sundays for years is part of it, the truth is, I have no interest in attending the today's churches anyway. Here's why. We live in an extremely complex world, filled with philosophical ideas, political stances, religious sects and fanatical beliefs that drive people to suicide in the hope that they find justice in the eyes of their god.  The customers I saw wandering about the religion and metaphysical sections wanted nothing more than something to believe in, some basis for their lives. More often than not they selected Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power or Hicks' The Laws of Attraction, something that would give them power over their own lives, often at the expense of a relationship with a loving God. Often I would find customers buying copies of the Jewish Kabbalah and the Koran, both at the same time, just to find the proposed mysticism of the religions. And as for Christianity, people wanted to know about the Apocrypha, the Book of Enoch, the Lost books, more than they cared about the New Testament or anything that had to do with Jesus dying for our sins. They wanted to see what powers were given to people if they joined the Christian faith. Those that did seek ancillary materials for Christianity were interested in being Prayer Warriors, choosing to believe that exorcism, the outcasting of demons and such were possible just by speaking of a word, as if they were Jesus himself.

In my opinion, looking at these lost souls, the current church does very little to prepare Christians for dealing with the issues that non-believers have. When it is successful, such as the self-help advice of Joel Osteen or the financial advice of Dave Ramsey, it's only a partial hold, without the central ideas of Christianity being brought into focus. I firmly believe that someone could sit in the Lakewood amphitheater, listen to Joel Osteen, and feel perfectly good about themselves, as if applying a band-aid, or taking Prozac would help the underlying problems in their lives. But ministerial Prozac is not what I would want, it's merely giving people fish instead of teaching them how to fish, as Jesus' parable goes.

My experience at the Sunday School at the church I have gone to has left me not at all satisfied with the training that teachers are supposed to be giving us to deal with the real world. The teachers would come in, talk about the weekend plans, the football games (and here in the South, Football is a religion, so it must be addressed.), the social rumors and the like. Then the "lesson" would begin, which was just us reading everything out of the book, verbatim, and then the teachers asking us the questions in their booklet. The questions would be, for instance, "Who is your hero?" "What was a time that you took someone for granted? Who did that hurt the most?" And so forth. And people would answer, Jesus, and God, and having swept any in-depth answers to the side (for "God" is the "right" answer for any question asked), we pray and then wait around for the time to go to the sanctuary for "big church." My fellow peers would look like they were brainwashed, only waiting for the end of the class, not willing to spend any time on actually delving into the ideas of the Christian faith, or what makes the other ideas out there so appealing. They are applying a feel-good social balm on an itch that won't go away. And when the unsaved masses walk by with their strange beliefs and their self-help books, we say nothing.

As much as I didn't like my stepdad for many reasons, I completely understood his reluctance to go to Church at all, despite being a very Christian person, a bass singer in a Southern Gospel Quartet, etc... He would invite Jehovah's Witness people in to apply his knowledge to their questions, firmly driving them from our house, never to return. He was determined to save his relatives' souls, even at the cost of having them live with us and take valuable items before we finally kicked them out. He didn't always do it right, but you couldn't argue with his belief systems. He didn't go to church because he found that there was little he could learn from the church pastors, and even less from the Sunday School teachers. He always asked me, "What did you learn at Church today?" I was always annoyed at the question, but I realize now that the answer I gave, "Nothing," was the correct one. To diligently seek (Luke 11:9) God's Word, it is better to read the Bible and other materials ourselves, and climb the path of our beliefs without the help of the current Christian population. It's why, on my Facebook page, I list my religion affiliation as "Libertarian," because I believe in having a relationship with God in my own way, learning from books and life in my own way, and when I die, God can show me where I was wrong. It is through His grace that we are forgiven of our sins, after all.

I would rather go into a Sunday School class and have the teacher say, "God doesn't exist." and then challenge us to prove him or her wrong. Train us in conversing with people, as the topic comes up, about our faith and our beliefs, as well as that of the world. Debate is only possible if we know the philosophies by which everyone believes, as well as our own. It is only possible if we listen first, not excluding those who are outside the realm of Christianity while we live in a safe zone away, apart, and superior to our gentile brethren.

I learn more from a fifteen minute lesson from someone like   Mark Lowry than I do a whole season at Sunday School. Because he thinks, he is willing to diligently seek to find the answers to his questions. And he is hilarious in doing it! Mark doesn't stand outside a college campus and shout to the top of his lungs how he is right and all the sinners on campus are going to Hell. No, he takes life, the humor in it, and crafts it like clay into a message that we can all understand. Even a serious motorcycle accident or a deadly tornado can become at once an entertaining laugh riot and a deeply affecting discussion about the Kingdom of God. And these are things we cannot get at church.

So as I was perusing the Bible section here at Lifeway, I saw an edition called the Christian Apologetics Study Bible. The Apologetics, as I have found out, do exactly what I have been talking about. They study philosophy and other "worldly" ideas as well as the Christian texts in order to understand and converse with those who aren't Christians. While I am certainly not an evangelical person, in other words, I'm not going door to door to bring people to Christ, I think the people who do should be trained in conversing and, if necessary, debating those who have other beliefs. Those who come from the Sunday Schools I've been in wouldn't stand a chance with those who have questions and doubts about the Christian faith. Being willing to talk about the answers in detail, even to challenge your own beliefs, that is the only way to become stronger in one's faith. Being brainwashed isn't going to do it. Diligently seeking is the only way to learn, be it about Christianity or any other subject or philosophy on Earth.

Movie Review: Hugo (Cabret)

Movie Review: Hugo Cabret

There's a tightrope a director must walk when producing a children's movie. The most finely crafted films for children will have storylines, dialogue, etc, to keep the parents who have taken their children along to see it.  On the other hand, because the children will more than likely wind up chasing each other down the isles of the theatre, there's this need to keep children entertained in a children's movie. Mind you that  this is an increasingly difficult thing to do. What used to keep children occupied, say, Star Wars in the 1980's, would bore kids to death now.  And I've seen it happen, trying to show children the first movie (episode 4, you know) of the series, and seeing that it rapidly lost their attention. Even kid's movies now have computer pixelation, fast moving scenes to keep the ADHD in all of us glued to the screen. Chase scenes, that sort of thing. The master film storyteller must intertwine the undertones of a fantastic story while keeping elements of flashy gimmicks to attract adults and children alike.


Hugo is a movie about children, made from a children's book, but for the most part,  The appropriate audience is adults. This was clearly not what Scorsese wanted, although as his specialty is in grown-up movies, it might be that he couldn't help himself.  He had to craft a magnificent movie into something that children would watch and be entertained by.  That, unfortunately, doesn't work very often. It's important when making a movie to know your audience. In this case, it was the child within the adult, not the adult or the child that would like the movie.  If you want to see movies like this, I would recommend Secondhand Lions , Cinema Paradiso, and Where the Wild Things Are.

Hugo is based on a book by Brian Selznick, who combines illustrations and words together to form a story. Often the setting and some actions are based on the drawings instead of written words.  The illustrations of Paris, establishing the setting of the clock system inside the main train depot, is expertly done without using words at all. I've never understood reading Terry Brook's Shanara series where he describes every setting, every tree in the forest, which becomes very time consuming. But Selznick dispenses with those pages of words and relies on pictures. This translates into the first minute or so of film where the imagery of crowds of people bustling in the station is brought to life with the 3D imagery. It reminds me of the painting by Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte where the depth of people is created by the height of the characters in the painting.  The 3D mastery of the clock innards is also amazing, along with the trains and the steam coming from the stacks. Very well done.  Scorsese did not rely on cheap parlor tricks but instead enhanced the magic of the film by adding those effects. This was my first experience with 3D film, glasses and all. I really had to get used to it, and from what I saw of the trailers prior to, it is an effect wasted on useless computer animated films whose sole design is to get parents to pay $10 to see a film that would normally only cost them $5.

The big flaw in the movie, and Orson Scott Card details this in his review of the movie, is that Scorsese, like Shakespeare, uses comedic relief to attract the attention of the masses (children). Yet unlike the bawdy nurse in Romeo & Juliet, the slapstick French policeman, the flower woman, the fat bachelor who is always bitten by his crushes' dog, are more irritating than entertaining. And while the chase scenes are necessary, I suppose, they are laboriously done and meant only to entertain children who have probably forgotten the movie quite before that. I almost want to take the movie and edit out the parts that irritate me, much like most people want to do with Zar Zar Binks in episode 1 of Star Wars. I think deleting about 30 minutes of the film would make it much better to the audience it clearly is intended for.

As for the rest, the film rest squarely on the shoulders of Asa Butterfield, who is best known for his role in the TV series Merlin. He has just been cast as Ender in OSC's Ender's Game, and I agree with Card that he is an excellent actor to fill the role. If you look at the YA cover of the Card novel, it even looks like him, so it's a great fit.

The movie deals with Hugo Cabret's father and his discovery of an Automaton in the attic of the museum where he works. He and Hugo set out to fix it, but in the mean time, his father dies in a fire. The fixing of the machine drives Hugo forward throughout the movie, as if some finality would be resolved, some justice to be reached upon the completion of the machine. Yet, like so many other circumstances, it is the journey in which he repairs the machine that opens up the world to him.  Very well done movie in this respect.  I get the feeling that Card was ultimately disappointed in the movie because he had read the book beforehand. I have not as of yet, and it suits me to leave it there, to remember the fantasy of the movie rather than of the book. At least this once, the images on the screen are more appropriate than words and pictures in a book.

A final note. There is nothing better than watching a film in the theatre where you are the only one in the audience. I've done that four times, and thoroughly enjoyed it every time. 

Home

I recently took a walk through my neighborhood, with my trusty walking stick in hand, just for exercise, and because moving keeps me from being cranky.  Anyway... I noticed that everyone was out mowing their lawns, or blowing leaves from the front yard, constantly maintaining the outside of the houses.  My main thought was why would anyone want to have something that large to take care of.  I'll admit it, I'm lazy.  I don't want leaves to rake and grass to mow and ivy to cut off the house side.  I've always said that I would be perfectly happy living in a small apartment, or an out of the way fishing shack.  I remember driving down 212 on the way to Milledgeville seeing a log cabin type house right next to Lake Sinclair, and I thought that would be the best place to live, out of the way of the world (well, it was next to the highway), and next to a lake.  Just give me a broadband line to the Internet and I'd be all set.  Or another "house" I remember seeing... I was jumping on the trampoline with a friend of mine in Milledgeville, off in the middle of nowhere, and next to the trampoline was a small trailer/house that couldn't have been more than a bed, a table, a kitchen and bathroom, all in the same room, it seems like.  Probably no bigger than my bedroom. I asked Marcus what that was, and he said that someone lived there.  I'd be happy there, as little as it was to take care of.

And all these houses, spread out everywhere in my neighborhood, with all that work that goes into it, wouldn't people be just as happy in apartments? Wouldn't Le Corbusier have loved to make the housing for an entire city, leaving the land to be used for leisure, education, preservation, natural living? Or people living in those places underground, with the same intents for the land.  I'm not an environmentalist, by any means, but I see the construction of new buildings and houses and Publix shopping centers (that in a later blog) and I get depressed.  All that wonderful forest land being toward down just so we can put up another box.  It's not worth it.  Why don't we let the forests be, and be a world that lives with the world that we have been put on.  I mean, Earth is our "Home," for the most universal meaning of the word.  It's where we live, and keeping the natural beauty of this planet is very important.  I mean, we could take everyone in my neighborhood, put them in a tall building, both above and below ground, give them wonderful apartment spaces for the cost of the houses they currently live in, and return that space to the trees and animals.  I mean a huge building, with fireproof protectors since I know that every apartment building in Atlanta seems to catch on fire.  And below ground would be the commercial section much like the Metro area in Washington DC, and away from the building would be a school and church, partnered with the outside world.  I know I've said these things in other blogs (click on the label for Le Corbusier at the end of this blog).

So what is "home?"  Why should the people want to own houses?  I know that Locke used (paraphrased) the idea of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness for the evolution from Locke's statement to the Declaration of Independence), and the stacks of people living in shanties in London and in Europe was far different from the wide open spaces that the colonists found when they came here to America.  Here, owning a piece of that vast country became everyone's dream. To have a house, to have the freedom and privacy, it was engrained into the very core of living in the United States. And to live in a country where the government couldn't take that freedom or privacy away from its citizens, that's where "home" becomes very important.  Democracy allows for the houses to be built, for the dreams to be realized, and without this, the walls won't keep anyone, be it the mobs or tribal kings, the governments or the terrorists, the churches and the kings, from entering and taking at will.

(Look up Winslow Homer's paintings for ones like this at the right. He painted rustic American and Carribean scenes during the late 1800's when urbanization drove people into the cities and away from the small towns, but also at a time when Manifest Destiny drove people west throughout the Plains and into the West.  It reminds me of the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889, when settlers sought out land to build their own houses and farms.  I participated in a mock land run at my Elementary School in 1987 before I moved to Georgia.)

The American Dream.... for everyone to own a home.  Forgive me if I think people took that too literally.  We all had to own a home, no matter what it took, or what legislation had to be brought forward for the banks to give everyone a loan to own a home.  Obviously, that didn't work.  And now there are a bunch of empty houses all over the place while those that were living in them are now stacked up in apartments, if they're lucky, or living in the basements of their parents, or worse.  All because they thought that the absolute necessary thing for them to do was to own a house.  And I've heard my brother talking about houses he's been in, to answer false alarm calls on security systems, huge houses where all they have are a couch and a TV (flat screen, of course), and a bed in the bedroom because they can afford nothing else, other than the cable and the utilities and the mortgage payment which is ridiculously high.  And this is their dream.  And people "occupy" the banks in New York City and elsewhere demanding that the banks "give" them homes, which makes no sense, because such things have to be earned and owned.  A dream is not an entitlement, not a right, not something to be handed out to every soul on this earth.  The people who designed the papers by which we govern this country gave us the right to pursue that dream, not necessarily that we would find it.  Property is not the goal to that dream, just part of it, because the true dream is that of freedom.  And that is something that a house cannot give you, not by a long shot.  In fact, a lot of people will find that owning a house is the very opposite, a jail, a nightmare, not something that gives freedom. 

Freedom transforms the inside of the mind, breaks down the walls that keep us locked into ourselves.  Owning a house, being able to do whatever you want inside that house, that is truly freedom, I guess.  But if doing so causes more trouble than it's worth, is it truly freedom?  To me, give me a one room shack someplace and leave me to my own devices, and I'll be free.  Give me a corner of this world, and, given a good book and the Internet as my playground, I shall be more at peace with my surroundings than those who live in mansions.  And further, give me the freedom to do what I wish in that space, to come and go as necessary, without question or critique, and it will be bliss.  For the American Dream, I think, is not the actual property that you own, but the state of mind that you are in when there. 

A friend of mine asked me what "Home" is.  What was "home" to me.  It took me no time at all to answer that home was in my apartment in Milledgeville, for the 6 months I lived there.  That was a time when I had total freedom to do whatever I wanted.  I worked at the grocery store, drove to the park and took walks around the lake, went to Lake Sinclair and swam, stayed up at night watching TV and made it ice cold in the summer and dry and warm in the winter.  I washed my dishes, cleaned my house, did my laundry, all the things I was supposed to do.  My apartment was always clean, and I had pride in it.  Because it was mine.  Not that I owned it, but that I could truly be myself, without any masks or restrictions.  "Home" is a state of mind. 

I would also say that home is where you are most comfortable.  I would say that, for a time, Borders was home, during the time that Jeremiah was our GM (and I know people will disagree with me on that), but I felt as if I could be myself almost completely there, and I was happy working like a well oiled machine.  You know that feeling when you watch Star Trek: TNG when everyone is clicking, and you feel that it would be a perfect working environment?  That's what I felt like there.  There were no parts of the machine that were off, rusting away.  That is Home.  It's the place you go to where you don't want to be anyplace else,  and would be content to be there for all eternity.  Home is as close to Heaven on Earth as you can get.  But the one thing I learned from all the places I've been, is that Home is a transient state.  Home can never stay in one place for very long.  After 6 months, I had to move out of my apartment.  After 6 months, Jeremiah moved back to Maine and was replaced with the bankruptcy of the company and other managers that didn't work out as well. 

Home is, for some people, a place where there are other people.  As Billy Joel sang, "Wherever we're together, that's my home." And for others, like me, I'm perfectly at home when I'm alone.  Freedom comes in solitude, for there is no society or government to define the rules, only those

that reside in the mind.  Self-regulation becomes that which defines walls.  My grandmother always says that "Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in."  In a land of solitude, there is no one to keep you out. Would that I be Thoreau sometime in my life, and live in a cabin where I wouldn't have to see anyone for days, even as my mind wanders about the universe.  I will not deny that people need each other, and I certainly do need the people in my life, those at work or here on the Internet, but for true "Home-ness," for true freedom, that is done alone.  Or, I guess, with someone that you love.  Yes.  I think Billy Joel talked about that in his song.  Because Love goes with Home in a very personal way.  A home is shared by two when they can be together and still be free, when the walls are knocked down between the two.  The threshold becomes crossed then, and two homes become one, to mix some cliches. 

So that is what Home is.  It's Freedom.  It's a state of mind.  It's being alone and unencumbered by the world.  It's finding someone to share that freedom with you, without prejudgements or opinions, and living, beside the fire and in front of the screen, and being content.  Yes, home is a place where you can be content, and, as fleeting as that is, hopefully, everyone can find a place they call home, for it will sustain them through all their journeys.