Obama's Rage: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Link to:  "Roots of Obama's Rage" by Dinesh D'Souza and the upcoming movie "2016": Definitely worth a look!

Image from http://livinglifeboomerstyle.com/TheRootsofObamasRagebyDineshDSouza.aspx

I loved Dinesh D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Christianity so much, I was anxious to read some of his other books, and though I still haven’t read his What’s So Great About America, I did check out his book Letters to a Young Conservative from the library, and thoroughly enjoyed it, and tried reading his biography of President Reagan, Ronald Reagan: How and Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.  I was always an unabashed fan of President Reagan, yet I shy away from calling myself a politician, or being a devout follower of politics.  I am too easily distracted (which is probably the politicians' Machiavellian plan).  I remember an episode of NewsRadio in which the characters Dave and Lisa are shopping for a TV, and right there in the store, she becomes entranced by C-Span while Dave is mesmerized by an old rerun of Green Acres.  As much as I might be a Christian conservative republican, in this instance, I would be Dave.  In other words, as much as I admired Reagan, this biography didn’t hold my interest.  D’Souza’s focus was, I felt, more on Reagan’s politics, and less on Reagan the man.  I have always preferred the human stories that lie underneath the politics.  And like many Americans, I have the tendency to entertain my brain to mush.  Those Hulu aliens must be salivating!

     But it’s not the same with this book!  This book is more human.  I can follow his reasoning here, and I find it fascinating!  It’s not that Obama is so much a bleeding heart liberal or a Muslim sympathizer.  He may be these things, but D’Souza paints him here as, above all else, and anti-colonialist.  It fits with his Hawaiian upbringing and his father’s difficulties in Kenya, and he was influenced by many other anti-colonialists in his upbringing and education.  Much of D’Souza’s theories about Obama are not his own; they came from Obama’s own book, Dreams from my Father, and noting how the title reflects Obama’s reverence for his absent father in the title alone.  It’s not Dreams of my Father, indicating the dreams Obama’s father had, but Dreams from my Father, indicating that Obama Sr.’s dreams have been passed on to his impressionable son.  They are not Obama’s dreams as much as they are the dreams he received from his father.  

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_from_My_Father

I find Dinesh’s book The Roots of Obama’s Rage captivating and stimulating, and the writing vivid and alive, much like it was for some of his better books.

            Right now, I’m on chapter four, and will definitely have more thoughts as I continue to read.  I found Laura Ingraham’s book The Obama Diaries a bit too jokey for its own good, but this is a searingly serious criticism against a man who deserves it, especially since he is the leader of this nation, and D’Souza mounts a well written, well mounted attack.  I am now that much more interested in reading D’Souza’s next book, God Forsaken, which includes on the cover this explanation:  “BAD THINGS HAPPEN.  Is there a God who cares?  YES.  Here’s proof.”  (Amazon lists all of this as the title, and if so, I’ll have to admit, it’s kind of clunky.  It’s even clunkier than some of my longer titles on my blog, such as “Killer Robots, The Vampire Next Door, an Elephant Named Rosie, and Minnie’s ‘Special’ Chocolate Pie: Four Recent Movies I Liked”).

            I’m looking forward to reading more of this interesting expose that examines why Obama does the things he does, and a look inside what might really be going on in his head.  If true, it deserves the same tagline Geena Davis gave for that old horror film remake of The Fly:  “Be afraid.  Be very afraid!”

Lestat & Louis, Chucky & Tiffany, and a Cinderella Story: 10 Fun Old Movies

For years, I’ve been writing in a journal, and I like to write about all types of different things, from the serious to the trivial.  I write about what happens with the family every month, and at work, in church, in the news, as well as the music I’m listening to, the books I’m reading, the shows I’m watching, who I’m admiring, and the movies I either loved or hated.  In fact, since 1999, I’ve been keeping track of all the movies I’ve been watching and keeping a running tally of the ones I like and the ones I didn’t like, be they old or new, or something I’ve never seen or seen perhaps one too many times.  But I’ve been picking my monthly favorites and stinkers in this way for years.  These are the first ten I picked when I started this monthly journal way back in 1999 and that I loved enough to pick as favorites.

     I don’t always write a ton, and in fact, often it is just a blip as I say what I liked or didn’t like about it.  Blade, starring Wesley Snipes, I described as a “hip…stylish…guilty pleasure…with superb style, FX, stunt work and editing.”  Of Evita, I wrote, “Who cares if Madonna can’t act; she doesn’t have to do a lot of that here.  But the music is superb.”  I thought the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona “has such a pleasing, southern quirkiness to it” and it “delights and tickles the funny-bone” and “moved me to laughter.”  I found The Mask of Zorro to be “a breath of fresh air… an old fashioned and lighthearted romp with lots of swordplay, good actors playing interesting characters,” and said it “was well put together, and most importantly, was well written.  In fact, I was surprised by the level of the writing!”  I wrote that “the story and special effects” in Mighty Joe Young “are first rate, and can stand up to any other live action family film Disney has ever made, and I’ve always liked Charlize Theron and Bill Paxton.”  I gave “kudos to director Stephen Summers and the gang…for finally dusting off that old Universal horror film icon” The Mummy “and giving him his own big budget remake, just like they did recently for Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man with the modern films Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Wolf.  They did a good job with this new and modern mummy movie” with “lots of adventure in this humorous swashbuckler that is more thrilling than scary.”  I even “applauded two made for TV miniseries that were a little better than the norm,” though I preferred Leelee Sobieski as Joan of Arc to Leonor Varela as Cleopatra, and wrote that “both of these May Sweeps Events were very well done, and both outdid other versions of these stories, with Joan of Arc being better than the recent theatrical release Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, and Cleopatra was more interesting and engaging than the infamous Elizabeth Taylor version from the sixties.”  It was actually through films like this that I became a fan of Peter O’Toole.  Here’s a few other films in which I said just a little bit more:

Interview with the Vampire

I know, I know!  First Blade, and now this five year old movie!  What, am I obsessed with vampires now?  Well, maybe.  In fact, there have been some very good vampire movies made in the last couple of decades, including Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Vamp, Near Dark, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and I might even include a few problematic vampire films that still had some promise, like John Landis’ Innocent Blood and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn.

     Then again, I also rented and watched John Carpenter’s Vampires, which I listed as the worst I saw all month.

     There were several things that made Interview with the Vampire stand out for me.  The actors all did wonderful work embodying these characters, in particular Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst.  Anne Rice’s source novel was, as much as I might hate to admit it, very well written and rich with intricate emotions and powerful themes.  The adapted screenplay borrowed just the right amount from the book, giving the actors scenes they could really sink their teeth into.  The costumes, make-up, and art direction were of very high caliber, particularly for a vampire film, following honorably in the footsteps of the numerous academy awards Bram Stoker’s Dracula won for these same categories.  The overall directing and editing of the film created just the right mood.  Lastly, I myself can identify somewhat with the character of Brad Pitt’s tortured Louis, because sometimes I find myself crying over the hatred of the world like he does here (Louis and Dr. Zhivago have a lot in common, starting with their artful, compassionate souls), and the part of the movie where he finally loses Claudia stirs my emotions.

Bride of Chucky

Well, with Blade and Interview with the Vampire as favorites, and now this fourth Child’s Play film about the murderous killer doll Chucky, I guess you can tell I like horror films!  I chose this one mainly due to surprise.  This could have been awful dreck, and as it was, it wasn’t really Academy Award material (being the fourth Chucky movie, there’s no way it could be!).  Yet it actually turned out to be pretty good, with lots of humor this time around, and without skimping on the scares.  The story’s pretty average, but they do well with it, and Jennifer Tilly adds a lot as Chucky’s former girl Tiffany who winds up in a doll herself, heading across the country with her stitched-together, demon-doll lover and causing mayhem in their quest to use two stupid teenagers as receptacles for their demented, evil souls.  After the dreary Child’s Play 3, I wasn’t expecting much from this sequel, and when it started out focusing on some characters who were sexually immoral, including trampy Tiffany, my first thought was that it was going to be nothing but exploitative trash.  But then I discovered something:  the filmmakers weren’t just churning out yet another Child’s Play movie to rake in the dough from dumb kids who didn’t know any better.  The makers of this movie actually like this genre in general and the Child’s Play movies in particular (at least the first two), and just had fun with it.  There’s lots of humor too, from Tiffany using a book called Voodoo for Dummies to bring Chucky back from beyond, to the scene where the two dolls make love, and Tiffany asks Chucky if he’s got a rubber.  “Tiff,” he replies, “I’m all rubber!” 

     The film doesn’t mind making fun of itself on occasion, such as when the hero finds out the dolls are alive, and asks, “So how did you end up like this?”

     “It’s a long story,” Chucky replies.

     “It sure is,” Tiffany chimes in.

     “In fact,” Chucky says, “if it were a movie, it would take three or four sequels just to do it justice!”

     Along with lots of blood and gore, some rather goofy plot turns and deaths, and some classic homages for everything from Friday the Thirteenth to The Bride of Frankenstein, this was just a fun, popcorn horror comedy all the way through.

Ever After: A Cinderella Story

Drew Barrymore was an endearingly cute child actress in such movies as E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial, Firestarter, and Irreconcilable Differences.  The only problem was that she was too aware of her own charm, and usually spoke her lines with a knowing smile, as if to say, “I’m so lovable!”  As she grew older, it became more and more obvious that she couldn’t act, and that her career rested on her toddler appeal and adorable lisp.  After her troubled “former-child-star” teen years full of wild parties, drugs, and alcohol, she emerged in the racy thriller Poison Ivy, which I never saw, and seemed destine to travel the same path as the likes of Shannon Doherty and the infamous Corey’s, Feldman and Haim.  But instead, she was determined, and tapped into a persona that was box office gold in some cute romantic comedies like The Wedding Singer and this one, Ever After, a live action retelling of the Cinderella story that adds lots of charm and magic, and pulls off the almost impossible task of comparing favorably to Disney’s classic, animated 1950 version.  With costars such as the valiant and handsome prince played by Dougray Scott and the evil step-mother played by Angelica Houston at her wickedly delicious best, this movie actually rivals Edward Scissorhands as one of the best modern fairy tales put on film.

Three Parables and a Rabid Dog: Nope, Nothing Wrogn Here

Yes, the word "Wrong" in the title is misspelled intentionally, to make an ironic point...

It seems as though my spiritual walk these days is a constant struggle between the man I am and the man I want to be.  But before I go ahead and write something stupid, like “Hell, isn’t everybody’s?” I need, instead, to look at some of Jesus’ parables in which the Christ illustrates analogies to men and women at different levels in their spiritual walks.  Some of these people really ARE where they are supposed to be.  Am I?

     Our Pastor has been doing a series lately about Jesus’ parables.  The three latest they talked about concern people at different points of belief.  In one of these parables, Jesus verbally paints the picture of a farmer planting seed on different types of soil (Mark 4:3-9).  In another, a self-righteous Pharisee and a sinning tax collector both pray to God at the Temple, but only one of them goes away acceptable before God, and it may not be who you think it is at first (Luke 18:10-14).  Lastly, our Missional Communities Pastor most recently shared Jesus’ parable about a wedding banquet, with the King inviting people who refuse to come, and finally inviting anybody he can find, but throwing out the man who is not dressed for the wedding (Matthew 22:1-14).  In each of these cases, as I believe is the job of any good Christian, we should look at these parables and try to determine which one of these people in these stories we are.  And if we do not like who we are, we should change.

Image From http://insidelifexchange.blogspot.com/2012/03/parable-of-sower.html

     In the first parable, Jesus later explains that the seed the farmer sows is the Message, and the different soils are the different ways people receive the Message.  Some seed falls on a hard pathway, and birds come and eat the seed that falls there.  Some seed falls on shallow soil with rock underneath; the roots cannot take hold and the plants wither away when the sun comes out.  Some seed falls on soil among thorns, and the plants are choked out, and some falls on good fertile soil where it grows and produces a great crop.  A good Christian should be the last example, and this should be evidenced by the crop that is produced.  I know I am not the first or the second example, but if I’m being honest, I also don’t think I could claim the last example as a good Christian should.  If anything, I’d probably be the third example, and I also think many Christians in America are.  We let the worries of this life choke out the Message.  Instead of spreading the Gospel, we have our jobs, and our lawns, and our “Honey do” lists.  We have our kids’ soccer practice and football games, movies and shows to attend, our DVR’s crammed with TV shows, and all those get-togethers with family and friends, and we shove God in on the weekends, if there’s time.  That is not a healthy walk with God.

Image from http://writeforgod.stblogs.com/2009/03/21/the-pharisee-and-the-tax-collector/

     In the second parable, a righteous Pharisee thanks God that he “is not a sinner like everyone else.”  He thanks God for all the sins he doesn’t commit, and for all his righteous behavior.  “I’m certainly not like that tax collector!” he adds.  Meanwhile, the tax collector is asking God to have mercy on him, a miserable sinner.  “I tell you,” Jesus advises his disciples, “this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.  For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  As C.S. Lewis states in Mere Christianity, it is the sin of Pride can cause the good Christian to stumble, the same Christian who is careful to watch out for all the other sins.  This is because, at the same time he’s patting himself on the back for being able to resist all the other sins, such as anger, sloth, lust, gluttony, envy, and greed, he can unknowingly suffer the sin of Pride if he thinks this resistance is all his own doing.  Like the Pharisee in this parable, he may start to feel he doesn’t need God or His grace to get to heaven.  “Look what a perfect little Christian I am,” would be his thought.  That’s why the old saying is “Pride comes before the fall,” instead of one of the other seven deadly sins.  One legend states that Satan was once God’s favorite angel, until he started to think of himself as “special.”  As God’s favorite angel, he didn’t succumb to the other sins.  Rather, it was Pride that brought him down, and then God cast him out of heaven.

     I’d like to say I’m definitely the tax collector, for I know my sins, and have, on many occasions, asked God’s forgiveness.  I know it is only through God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice that I will make it to heaven.  Unfortunately, Christians often wear masks, among each other and the rest of the world.  We don’t want other people to know the struggles we have, so we have a tendency to wear a costume when we’re out in public.  Like the character of the Professor in the novel Cujo, a trademarked spokesman for children’s cereal, we tell the world, “Nope, nothing wrong here!”  Of course, in the novel, the red dye used in the cereal scares the hell out of hundreds of parents across the country who now think their kids are bleeding internally, and this marketing campaign comes crashing down, and adman Vic Trenton may be out of a job.  In the same novel, Donna is fooling around, but keeps it from her husband Vic.  “Nope, nothing wrong here.”  Their son Tad is scared by the monster in his closet, but Vic makes up “The Monster Words” and now everything is all right.  The Cambers have their problems, and basically treat their dog Cujo as almost an afterthought.  They never took him to the vet, he developed rabies after being bitten by rabid bats, killed his master, and lay siege upon Donna’s car stalled in the middle in their farmyard, causing the death of her little boy Tad.  Now it’s a little late for the Professor’s catchphrase, “Nope, nothing wrong here!”

Image from http://www.dvdizzy.com/cujo.html 

     And like this allusion, some of us Christians are walking around with a smile and a skip in our step, repeating “Nope, nothing wrong here!” while the Monsters we keep locked in our closets are just waiting to lay siege upon us and cause countless amounts of devastation to our lives.  We may be truthful to God in our prayers, admitting all our sins to Him, and asking for his forgiveness, but we are reluctant to share them with the rest of the world.  It’s perhaps understandable why we don’t, keeping up appearances with friends and neighbors, but it leaves us somewhere in between the Pharisee and the tax collector in our spiritual lives.

     Finally, there is the parable of the wedding banquet.  A King prepares a great wedding feast, and sends his servants to tell those invited it is time to come.  Refusing the invitation, the King sends his servants out again, and this time, some ignore the servants, going about their business, while others “seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.”  Angered, the King retaliated against them.  “The wedding banquet is ready” the King tells his servants, “but those I invited did not deserve to come.”  He then urges his servants to go out to the street and invite anyone they can find.  The wedding banquet now filled with guests, the King then sees a man without wedding clothes, and tells his servants to “tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and knashing of teeth.”  Jesus finishes this parable by warning “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

     And once again, the Christians must look at this and determine which of these people they are.   Are they the servants?  Are they the invited, who ignored the invitation, going about their own business, or actually mistreating and killing the servants?  Are they the others who were invited?  Are they the man who was invited, but wasn’t wearing wedding clothes?

     This one is a little more difficult to determine.  The servants would be anyone who serves the King, which could be either angels or good Christians delivering the gospel to the world (the “good soil” in the first parable).  The ones invited to the feast are the Jews, who rejected the Message of Jesus, but could possibly represent anyone who rejects the Message.  The people in the streets who are invited would most likely be the sinners who hear the message and make it to heaven ahead of those who merely seem righteous.  The man without the wedding clothes is most likely someone who heard the message, but does not have anything to show for it, meaning that when we are invited, whether or not we are truly Christian will be reflected by our deeds and the life we live, in essence, the “clothes we wear”.  This is the same message in the book of James, which is not that we need to earn our way into heaven, but that “He will know us by our fruits”.

Image from http://giveustoday.com/

     For this parable, I think I would be one of the invited guests from the street, and I’m half afraid that I am the man without the wedding clothes, because I don’t always live my life for Christ the way I think I should be.  I live a comfortable existence, but I should be more for my Lord.  By the same token, seeing within myself the soil choked by thorns, and the tax collector when praying to God and the Pharisee when I present myself to others, and the man without the wedding clothes at the banquet does mean that there is still hope for me.  It shows me that I am still not perfect, and still much in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.  

At any rate, at least I’m not prideful.

Strangely out of place / There's a light filling this room where none would follow before
I can't deny it burns me up inside / I fan the flames to melt away my pride
Do I want shelter from the rain or the rain to wash me way?

I need you, I need you, I need you / I need you, I need you, I need you / You're all I'm living for

I might sound like a fool / But I think I felt you moving closer to me
Face to the ground to hide the fatal cut / I fight the weight / I feel you lift me up
You are the shelter from the rain and the rain to wash me away…

You're all I'm living for / All I'm living for / You're all I'm living for

Face to the ground to hide the fatal cut / I fight the weight / Feel you lift me up
Can't deny it burns me up inside / I fan the flames to melt away my pride
Only had a second to spare but all the time in the world to know you're there
You are the shelter from the rain and the rain to wash me away…

You’re all I’m living for

            - “I Need You”

               Jars of Clay

Understanding Tragedy from the Theist Perspective: Revisiting the Columbine School Shooting

These mid-week blog posts are journal entries I made years ago.  In this one, I tried to make sense of the Columbine School shooting in 1999 from the perspective of the theist, not the naturalist, and was written after this previous blog post of mine about theism vs. naturalism:  http://scifichristianguy.blogspot.com/2012/02/case-for-theism-and-why-its-better-than.html

All of this is merely an attempt to understand why two teenagers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, launched a mass attack against their high school, Columbine, in Littleton, Colorado, that resulted in the deaths of twelve of their fellow students, one of their teachers, and themselves from self-inflicted gunshots, as well as many others wounded physically, and a nation scarred with pain, grief, loss, and tragedy.

Image from http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19990503,00.html

     A lot has been said about this tragedy already, and everybody has their opinion.  It has affected the whole nation.  Why did they do it?  Weren’t there warning signs, and if so, why didn’t somebody heed them?  What will happen now?  Where does God fit into a senseless tragedy like this?  Everybody seems to have an answer to these questions, as do I, but first, let me shed some light on the naturalist’s view of this travesty, and why I think it is incorrect, for as I said before, although there is more to this world than meets the eye, God did set this world up with a series of rigid physical laws that actually do dictate much of our existence.

     If this world were strictly physical, the way the naturalists believe, then none of us are to blame for what happened, including Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.  In this model, the massacre was just the outcome of the events that led up to it.  We can’t blame their fellow students who shunned them, or their parents, teachers, community, government, justice system, media, or even the boys themselves.  Everybody simply acted the way they did based on their personalities shaped by their DNA passed down from their parents and their past experiences, like a row of falling dominoes.

     Maybe the parents should have been more aware, or should have tried to intercede with their sons, but they didn’t.  Maybe the hate spewing German metal bands the boys idolized should have thought about the possible negative impact their music might have on disaffected, unfeeling, and unremorseful kids, but they didn’t, and used the usual artist’s cry of freedom of expression, no matter what that expression might be, or how irresponsible.  Maybe the authorities should have identified and heeded the warning signs of what was about to go down, but they didn’t.  Maybe the kids at that school should have been a little more accepting of differences rather than running in the usual cliques and treating these two human time bombs as funguses, but they didn’t.  Maybe Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold really needed God in their lives, but they didn’t have Him.  In the naturalist’s view of things, none of these things could have happened, because the chain of cause and effect didn’t allow for “should” and “maybe.”  In the naturalist’s view, there was only one way things could have turned out, and that is the way things did turn out.

     So no one is to blame in the naturalist’s opinion.  However, in my opinion, since I believe in God, and concepts of right and wrong and responsibility, there can be blame.  People must be held responsible for their actions and the consequences of those actions, because the choice to do right or wrong was not just cause and effect, but a God given ability to choose one or the other.  Why, even in the naturalist’s world of cause and effect, there must still be societal structure, including blame, responsibility, and laws, even if they are only man made, and part of this whole cause and effect chain.  Each effect becomes a new cause producing new effects.  Certain causes produced the effect of the Columbine massacre, and that bloody rampage became a new cause producing new effects.  What naturalists will tell you is that, like studying all the aspects of horse racing, all the causes and effects are predictable, if only we knew enough information about what led up to them.

     So everything that happened after this worst school shooting in the nation’s history was predictable according to the naturalist, and even I could have told you the media would go wild, with constant coverage on the news examining every angle possible in daily investigative pieces, even going so far as to send Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Katie Couric to Colorado to report live across the nation from the front lawn of Columbine High School.  Political figures predictably used this as an opportunity for sound bites about the state of America.  Experts and social analysts launched attacks on the bands the boys listened to and the violent video games they played for hours, and the movies they liked, and anyone with half a brain could have foreseen the artists who produced this stuff defending themselves and their freedom of speech, explaining that they were not the cause, or to blame in any way, issuing condolences to the hurting family and friends of the children who were mercilessly slain.  Howard Stern, in his bluntly unfeeling callousness, created a huge movement to get his insensitive butt thrown off the air when he made a filthy comment about the female victims.  Based on the past, I predict that his popularity will falter, but only to a certain point, and then he will bounce back stronger than ever, riding an underground wave of popularity as the king of liberal authority haters.  I could have told you that nutcases would have crawled out of the woodwork, calling in bomb threats, committing copycat crimes, or claiming to have been involved when they weren’t.  It was also easy to predict that some people would turn to God.

     So when we ask the question, “Where does God fit in?” that would be a very good answer.  The way I see it, there are several possible answers to that very question:

1.                  Satan is as real as God, and can and does manipulate this world.

2.            There are over 5 billion people on this earth, and horrendous tragedies take place every single day, and have throughout history.  God and angels may live in heaven, and hell may be populated with Satan and his demons, but man is somewhere between angels and demons, and is quite often a bloody creature.  Again, evil exists because God gave us free-will to pick right over wrong, good over evil, and if there was no evil here, and our only choice was to pick good, then what’s the point of existing here?  If there were nothing here but love and good, then this would be a world with no pain, suffering, or tragedy.  Well, excuse me, but isn’t that what the next life is supposed to be, in Heaven?  This life is a primer for the next one, and what we learn here, and the choices we make, will have an effect on where we wind up in the afterlife, so we better learn well, and make wise choices.  Wisdom can only exist when choice is present.     

3.           We cannot understand God.  I equate our relationship to God to that of a fictional character’s relationship to his author.  Now, I’ve read a lot of stories, and seen a lot of narratives on TV and in movies, and I’ve even written a few of my own, and no matter how skilled a writer or actor is at breathing life into a character and making him or her seem real, the simple fact is that they are not real, not like we are.  Fictional characters in books only truly exist in the minds of the writers and the readers, and are really nothing more than thoughts and ideas in the mind, and physical words on a page.  And like a story created by an author, so too was this existence, this world, created by our author, God.  John 1:1 calls Jesus the Word:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  If God is the author, Jesus is the Words he used to create this existence, and we are his work in progress, but the book is not finished; it is still being written.  We cannot understand God any more than any of our fictional characters would be able to understand their own authors.

Image from http://booksncpl.blogspot.com/2011/10/metamorphosis-by-franz-kafka.html

     And Gregor Samsa was in pain!  The rotted apple in his back was really starting to hurt!  With all the strength he had left, he tried to look up, but being a sow bug, he couldn’t look up very far.

     “Why did this happen?” he shouted to his walls and ceiling. 

     Out in the family room, he overheard his sister exclaim to his parents, “Listen, do you hear?  He’s starting in again with that incessant bug chattering!”  But Gregor didn’t care.  He wanted answers!  

     “I don’t understand!” he shouted.  “Why have I become a sow bug?  What have I done to deserve this?  Can’t you see I’m in agony, God?  I beg of you, please end my suffering!”  And so he remained there, the apple in his back stinging, and he being able to do nothing about it.  He sat there in silence for quite some time in torment and misery, not only from the rotted apple, or his predicament of no longer being human, but of receiving no answer from God for why these things had happened.

     Then, when he had just about resolved himself to never knowing why this had happened, he heard the voice of his creator coming from somewhere, but he knew not where.  It seemed to be all around him, and even inside him.

     “Oh, Gregor, Gregor!” the voice said, “My poor, poor, tormented soul!  As my creation, I love you!  I really do!  Don’t you know how much I really love you?  I created you as you are, a poor, miserable creature, because that is simply what was required.”

            “Required for what?” Gregor shouted back, confused and angry.

            “For the story,” the voice of Gregor’s creator replied.  “You see, the reason why you are what you are, a human turned into some disgusting sow bug, is all for the story.  I am your creator.  My name is Franz Kafka, and I am a writer; the writer of your very story ‘The Metamorphosis.’  You were created simply to make a point about the plight of the common man, but more than that, I’m just trying to tell a story and perhaps earn a living at the same time.”

Being Human X2, BBC & Syfy: Still Enjoying It on Both Sides of the Atlantic

Stop me if you've heard this one.  A ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf are roommates...

     It's not a joke really.  It's the theme for Being Human, a show for the BBC that was recreated in America for the Syfy Network.  The BBC show has started it's 4th Season (or "Series" as the British call it) and the American one is in it's second.

     I’m not sure what is going on with the English show.  Did the actors just feel they needed to move on?  At the end of last season, they had the character of George kill Mitchell by driving a stake through his heart, and I was left wondering how they were going to bring Mitchell back for the fourth season.  They must have something up their sleeve, I thought.  Certainly they don’t just want to kill him off.  After all, they killed off the character of Herrick, the leader of all the vampires in Bristol, at the end of the first season, ripped apart by George the werewolf during the full moon!  At the end of season two, they have two vampires, Cara and Daisy, bleeding over his grave to resurrect him, and he claws his way out of the ground a bloody, muddy mess, only to show up towards the end of the third season as a complete amnesiac.  If the writers could bring back Herrick, surely they could bring back Mitchell!

     However, I realized they had written themselves into a corner.  There weren’t a lot of redeeming qualities for this supposed vampire hero.  Oh, there were some, to be sure, mostly centering on his relationship with George and Annie, but in the end, even Mitchell realized he didn’t have many redeeming qualities.  Along with Daisy, he had killed 20 innocent people in a subway car, and when the authorities were investigating it and started closing in on him, his actions were selfish and horrendous, putting everyone in jeopardy and costing lives.  His main heroic act was to convince George, his best friend, to kill him, thereby fulfilling a prophecy that he would be killed by a werewolf.  Mitchell was a complicated and interesting character, but not much of a heroic protagonist.

     But then the makers of this show did the unthinkable, and perhaps they didn’t really want to.  It might be because Sinead Keenan and Russell Tovey were simply ready to move on.  At any rate, as we return to the former Bed and Breakfast where our remaining heroes live on Barry Island in South Wales, we find that Nina has given birth to a daughter who spells a prophetic doom for the vampire community.  In the first episode, we also learn that Nina had already been killed by vampires shortly after the birth, and George has become a shell of the man he was, having lost his best friend, and the love of his life.  Standing guard over the crib of his new daughter was changing him, making him hard.  He was not the same lovable neurotic.  And then they killed him off!  I felt like I did at the beginning of Alien³ when they killed off the entire cast of the movie Aliens!  How dare they!

     Yet I’m also a realist.  Perhaps the actors just wanted to move on, and the producers felt they still had more stories to tell, and truthfully, we still had Lenora Crichlow as Annie, promising a dying George that she would protect his baby daughter at any cost.  But the show was always about a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf living together in a world full of humans.  That’s why the title is “Being Human”.  It’s what they were always striving to be, even though they weren’t.  So with the vampire Mitchell gone, and now the werewolves George and Nina, that left just the ghost, Annie.  How were the producers going to remake it into what it had always been?

Damien Molony, Lenora Crichlow, and Michael Socha as Hal, Annie, and Tom, the new  cast of the BBC Series 4

     Enter Tom McNair and Hal.  Fans were already familiar with Tom.  George and Nina, who were about to have a possible “werewolf” baby of their own, had come across Tom and his “Dad” McNair when they thought Tom had been born a werewolf.  That turned out not the be the case, and McNair, who taught Tom everything he knew about hunting and killing vampires, turned out not to be Tom’s real dad.  Still, he was the only dad Tom had ever known, and since he died at the end of the last season, that left Tom on his own, a young werewolf who was connected to Annie through George and Nina and their defenseless little baby daughter Eve.  And I’d have to admit, I liked the character of Tom.  Actor Michael Socha managed to bring a humanity to him that was appealing.  So far so good.

     Now then, where to find another vampire who might want to take up house with a ghost and a werewolf?  The answer:  a vampire who had already been living for a long time with another ghost and werewolf!  Leo is introduced as an old black man and werewolf who is suffering from the pain of the transformations.  He might not live much longer.  For the past half a century, he has been helping the vampire Hal control his vampiric urges, and it has worked.  In the same house with them is the ghost of Pearl, a woman who died in the 50’s, which is revealed immediately by her hair and style of dress.  They come to Annie (and the prophetic Eve, daughter of two werewolves) seeking answers, and while there, Leo’s health deteriorates.  He will not survive another werewolf transformation.  Annie figures out that Leo and Pearl have always loved each other, but never admitted it.  Right before he dies, they admit it to each other, and when his death door shows up, hers shows up as well.  All she needed to move on all this time was to admit to Leo that she loved him.  When they pass over together, they leave Hal behind.  Annie is more than willing to take him in, and in the first few episodes, he and Tom come to an understanding and start forming an actual friendship.

     This could still work, even without my favorite characters of George and Nina.  I was impressed with the story involving Leo and Pearl that brought Hal to live with Annie and Tom, as well as Tom’s story, and the actors playing them, and I’ve always liked the character of Annie as well.  Being that they lost most of the cast and had to start from scratch, I’m fairly impressed with how they managed to reinvent it.

I was rather indifferent to the American version of the show last season.  The show had a few strengths; just a few things I liked more than the BBC version, most notably the ghost effects for the character of Sally, but everything else seemed to pale when compared with the BBC show.  Josh was likeable, but not as much as George, and his relationship with Nora was not as endearing as George and Nina’s.  Sally was cute and bubbly, but then again, so was Annie.  Although I like the ghost effects better on the American version, the more organic werewolf effects on the BBC show were preferable, and the finished werewolves were definitely scarier.  Since this was the American version, they had to make it somewhat like the BBC show, and so the first season followed the plots of the British show’s first season, for the most part.  I found myself disliking most of the storylines that strayed from the BBC show, such as the “Old Ones” returning to keep Bishop under control, though I did like the episode where Josh showed up at home again and Aiden arrived later for a comedic dinner scene.  I also found myself cringing at the similar storylines they managed to keep pretty much in tact, with less appealing characters and a few unwelcome twists.  The final showdown that left George facing off against Herrick and scratching his girlfriend on the BBC show was handled much differently, and poorly, on the Syfy show, as was the entire subplot about the vampire roommate and the girlfriend and then the little boy he turned.  All of this was handled much better on the English show.  The Syfy show had its moments, but paled compared to the English original.

Sam Huntington, Sam Witwer, and Meaghan Rath as Josh, Aiden, and Sally from the Syfy version

     Then season 2 hit and they took it in a whole new direction; and I like it.  Oh sure, the vampire stuff is still hard to swallow.  As with Mitchell and his ongoing struggle with his own bloodlust and his connection with all the other vampires, Aiden is headed down this similar, gory, unredeemable path.  But things are heating up with Josh, as Nora became a werewolf, and under the influence of a couple of twin, purebred werewolves, killed her former boyfriend and embraced the monster within her, much to Josh’s horror.  Even better is the ongoing storyline for poor Sally.  Whereas the writers for the BBC show didn’t seem to know exactly what to do with Annie, having her hang out with a psychic or take care of a ghost baby in season 2 or simply become little more than Mitchell’s love interest in season 3, things around Sally are always hopping.  Thinking a reaper has been after her, and after facing off against Danny, the ghost of the man who killed her, the reaper appears and shreds Danny, telling Sally that to create a balance in the universe, he’s either going to have to shred her too, or she must become a reaper.  Now it seems as though Sally has gone crazy.  There never was a reaper.  It was her all along, and she’s the one responsible for shredding all the ghosts she blamed on the reaper!  There was never a storyline like that for little ol’ Annie, and it now makes this American version seem more vibrant and exciting than the BBC version.

     I still like my BBC show.  It’s a little more quaint, perhaps a bit more eccentric and charming in an offbeat sort of way.  The vampires are often bloody and repulsive, but at the same time, in half transformation, George looks just a bit ridiculous.  That’s all part of its English charm.  Meanwhile, the Syfy version is taking this story into places it hasn’t been before, and I like it, especially the whole narrative surrounding Sally.  The vampires I could really take or leave, and they have always been the one element I’ve had the most trouble with while watching both shows.  Some of those sex scenes on both shows with the vampires covered in blood are simply disgusting.  But there is enough going on here with all the other characters – and even occasionally the vampires – that keeps me coming back for more… in America AND England!

Damien Molony (the vampire Hal) and Michael Socha (the werewolf Tom) give a thumbs up!

American Freedom and the Dreaded "M" Word!

Freedom: The most important American word.  More important than the word “God” is this word “Freedom” to Americans.  It’s definitely more important than the words “Religion” and “Christian.”  It holds much more meaning for Americans than the words “Morality” or “Responsibility.”  We look at nations that have less freedom than us, and we love our freedom even more, and then the word “Patriotism” takes on more weight, and the word “Pride.”

Image from http://bumpshack.com/2011/06/18/hustlers-larry-flynt-offers-anthony-weiner-a-serious-job/l-9/

I realize that the more weight we give to the word “Freedom,” the less important the others become.  Contrary to popular belief, a society that is 100 % free is not a Utopia, and would face many problems.  For one thing, it would not be a safe society.  It would not have any rules.  You cannot impose rules on people who are 100 % free.  It seems to me that the freer this society becomes, the more rules we have to make and enforce to keep this immoral society in line.  It’s the ultimate Catch-22!

       We take our freedoms for granted, and so we pay the price for freedom without responsibility and without morals.  The government gives its citizens freedom without accountability or morality, and in fact, fights for the rights of its people to have freedom without these hard-to-define limitations.  Questions like “Whose morals?” are ballied about as the nation degrades to such a point that the government has to step in and impose restrictions to freedom.  The interesting thing about all this is how the whole system is designed so that the taking away of these freedoms is done with the majority support of the society’s citizens... for our own safety, you know.

Remember this?  Image from http://popcrush.com/tags/janet-jackson/

     If you ask me, the solution to our dilemma is not to curtail freedom, but to increase morality, thereby increasing a sense of responsibility and achieving freedom with the intelligence and wisdom it takes to handle it correctly.  And if we start asking questions like “Whose morality should we use?” then why not ask, “Whose morality are we using when we have to impose rules and regulations on an immoral society?”

    Maybe that’s the main problem.  Too many these days have the short-sighted view, saying “Let’s clean up this place,” instead of the long-sighted view, “Let’s plan for tomorrow.”  The first attempts to clean up the past, the other looks to the future.  When an earthquake destroys a building, instead of cleaning up the rubble every time it happens, why don’t we learn from this and build a better building, one that can withstand an earthquake?

Image from http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/08/11/miley_cyrus_pole_dance_at_teen_choice_aw   

     A society that has freedom without morality and responsibility is really not free at all.  And that describes America just about perfectly.

    America!  Land of the Free!  But you can’t own handguns, and you can’t put up any religious symbolism at school!  It doesn’t sound so free to me!

When will the world see that we need Jesus?

If we open our eyes we will all realize that He loves us!

When will the world see that we need Jesus?

When our hearts are as one and believe that He’s the Son of our God!

The Lord is our God, and we shall never want

The Lord is our God, and we shall live forever

Oh, if we share the love of Jesus, see each other as He sees us

Then His love will see us through!

(Oh, you know His love will see us through – oh, you know His love will see us through!)

When will the world see that we need Jesus?

When sister and brother love one another as one!

When will the world see that we need Jesus?

When our hearts are as one and believe that He’s the Son of our God!

-     “We Need Jesus”

      Petra

- From my Journal, September 1999