Childrearing in Christianity without denying evolution

In a forum, this question was posited:

"How would you teach a child about Christianity without denying evolution?"

"I have a friend who wants to raise his son Christian but doesn't know how to get thru the evolution cliche that the bible and science have. Any Ideas"

My response to that First, and no offense, but I wouldn't raise a child Christian, or with religious expression as any form of intelligent consideration or paradigm by which to live one's life by. I would teach them about it, but not raise them in it as a viable way by which to live one's life by.

But if I were, there need be no disparity between evolution and a God concept. The issue is religion and how it was diluted with misinformation (See Mormonism, Scientology, they both prove you can create any nonsense and turn out good people, as you can with atheism, or Shintoism (ancestor worship) for that matter).

You can, in Christianity, separate out the old and new testaments, the new with what Jesus said and with what was said about him, although it all is hearsay anyway. I would agree that it would be better to teach them what the desired end result is, how we treat one another, than following specific and adulterated indications by using a book that was compromised any amount of times throughout two thousand years.

Christianity, and religion in general is rampant with picking and choosing what you want to believe. So pick the best, and teach that. When your child comes up to you pointing out the disparities in the teachings (and they will if they are intelligent or have been shaped to use critical thought), just skip to saying, don't worry about the specifics, what is important is who you are as a person.

After all, there will always be people pointing out how you are going about it all wrong anyway. You have to, when you delve into such questionable philosophies, close your mind's eye and bully onward, get through life, die, and hope that those whom you left behind you, those whom you have touched with your model of how you live your life, and what you have stated as truth, have gotten the best you had to offer; and that it helped them make it through their life until they die and those whom they have touched have similarly been affected.

Religions are not created on a large scale to encompass all and every. They are created small, as a kernel, for a specific people in a specific place at a specific time. They then try to evolve as they grow, though some fundamentalists try to keep that healthy thing from happening. Still, they immediately begin to devolve as they grow because as you can easily go wrong, when at the beginning of a boat journey across an ocean, you make on minor miscalculation, and you end up on another continent altogether, so to with a religion created without foresight or a sense of what is out there that it will encounter, eventually it goes awry.

You can teach a child to grow up with critical thought inherent in their being, then introduce them to religion, and allow them to find the good in it, but you cannot learn and grow appropriately from the inside of religion, rather you have to experience it from the outside, otherwise you become contaminated and the lack of insight about the real world all around you; especially those parts of the world you, and the religion (created by geoethnocentric individuals who are most likely uneducated in other areas as well), have no knowledge of and will eventually incorrectly interact with and adversely affect.

You can raise a child with a religion like Christianity, but only if you avoid all the facts, only if you teach only some of it. For to divulge all, as has been known for centuries, you destroy the religious elements, because even a child can see at some point, how it all makes little or no sense, and doesn't function well in the real world.

You cannot "prove" God, by using the Bible as the proof. Sorry. But if a text is called into question, you cannot use that text to prove it isn't false by quoting from it. The initial step off point by theocrats is always to start with the assumption that to deny their beliefs is where to start the argument, from that point forward. "God exists, now prove that false." But it lies the other direction. "God does not exist" isn't an argument either.

See? The starting point really starts before a "God" concept, which is how atheists always fail in their arguing the point with theists. It's like arguing a point of logic, by switching types of logic, yes, you can win an argument that way, but only if you are arguing with someone who has no knowledge of logic. And logic isn't really that necessary. So atheists, always get stuck with "prove God does not exist" when really it is, "prove God does exist." End of argument.

But the question was about children. I think my previously stated points are still relevant. Raising a child Christian, should be easy. Simply deny what doesn't make sense. The entire religion is set up that way, right? So, if you are going to immerse yourself in such a format, why should it be a problem? Do not worry about making it logical, that is the wrong way to go.

You just say, as we've heard so many times before, "you just have to have Faith", which is actually a way to point out a defect in oneself and saying that you cannot handle many challenges in life so you choose to ignore them. Giving your fears over to an outside force, real or unreal, has been proven to be effective for humans and can allow them to achieve great things. Thinking beyond oneself is after all, noble.

That, is a viable choice in one's life. This is America. We are loosing freedoms one after the other. So I will defend your right to believe in whatever crazy beliefs you want, as long as you are that way with others who believe what you may choose to think is crazy to you (atheism, perhaps). Although, I believe we would have a better world with a realistic belief system worldwide.

But if you choose to go that direction, then be proud of you choice of believing in a structured (albeit poorly) ethereal belief system. Just don't try to make it sound otherwise. It takes all kinds to make the world go around. We just need, from here forward, to be sure it doesn't have anything to do with harming other people as too much has been made about God and killing as we have seen for some time now. And there are Christian elements starting to think, around the world, that maybe Muslims are right and that has to be watched for, and put down.

"Regarding my Christian theistic belief, I have said more than once in previous posts that I do not, and cannot offer scientific "proof" for my position ... that is not a burden I need to carry."

Seriously? Okayyyy... that leaves me somewhat speechless and leaves one thinking that way, with a belief based upon shifting sands. It is good to ask theists to take on the burden of proof, as all though history they have pushed the burden onto the few rational ones who tried to stand up to them, and typically were murdered, by the way.

I also do not consider myself an atheist. To me that presupposes I am against a condition that did not exist to begin with, as we start with there being no God, then the addition of a belief in God comes after the beginning. Theists have chosen the non-theist argument all through history since this argument began, a very productive method used by theists to obfuscate things. The Bible, after all, is only a few years old in comparison to the entirety of time, even historical (recorded) time.

Again, I suppose if one wishes to have a belief based not in scientific or rational thought which is based upon something more solid, that is one's choice. Still, it is curious to desire to believe in things which are based all upon hearsay, and edited over time by those with a vested interest in control of those uneducated masses, as they saw it, beneath them.

But they are your kids. I leave you with a video from Hitch.

9/11 conspiracy

I'm watching a film on Netflix. I'm busy editing a novel I'm finishing up. I like to watch movies while I do that. If I hit an especially difficult passage of the book, I pause the movie.

So I saw this film, rated four out of five stars. It is called, "The Reflecting Pool", from 2008.

Directed by the star, Jarek Kupsc. The production values aren't "A" level but the story is solid and engaging. The write up on Netflix says "A journalist teams up with a man who's daughter died in 9/11 to investigate the U.S. government's possible involvement in the destruction." Okay, this is a movie. You make a drama, you make it work, it is not a documentary. But the web site for the film has an interesting research page available for people to look things up for themselves. And they have an intriguing story, because it asks reasonable questions.

I have watched the twin towers go down in replays, since it happened, over and over again. I listened to the explanations. I heard all about the Pentagon, the plane that crashed in the field because of heroic efforts of the passengers. It all sounded to me like Bin Laden did it, from the information we heard over the months and years afterward. But every since I first got the news that it was happening, I've had questions.

I've had friends talk to me about conspiracy, over the years. I first heard of conspiracies over Vietnam, decades ago. They are fun, interesting, intriguing. But then I looked into the phenomenon of conspiracies, how they work, the psychological process, etc. They are easy to build in hindsight, even when there is nothing there, we tend to find patterns. Many things that look like a conspiracy, just aren't. So I wasn't really interested in hearing 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Now, that being said....

This film brings up some good points. Some that bothered me too, right from the beginning. For instance, building seven at the World Trade Center, goes down pretty symmetrically. Why and how? The twin towers drop straight down. Now, the explanation was that the jet fuel burns hotter than what the buildings were designed for, so when one floor drops, it brings down all the rest beneath it.

The pentagon was just being rebuilt to protect against just that kind of attack that happened, so the terrorists struck a part of the building that had few people in it and had been reworked to prevent a really devastating event. How convenient. There were cameras pointing at the pentagon, the film of which we were never shown, with only five frames made public that showed nothing but an explosion. We saw no plane, before, during or after. There were no pieces of a plane at the crash site that we saw. The flight pattern was too sophisticated for bad pilots to have pulled off. On and on.

Now all this may be explained by the explanations given. But that would have taken a "perfect storm" of events to have all happened together. Occam's Razor states that from among competing hypotheses, selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions usually provides the correct one, and that the simplest explanation will be the most plausible until evidence is presented to prove it false. Unless, an event, or events have been designed so that it appears one way, when it is actually, something else. A kind of Rube Goldberg event, if you will. An event that makes no sense, unless Occam's Razor makes the most sense, but would be totally incorrect.

Typically, this falls through, as it requires incredible planning, high caliber individuals to pull it off and secrecy the likes of which government's don't seem to be able to pull off. Not in democracies anyway, unless there is a controller behind the controllers; a government inside the government, a rogue element the size of which requires secrecy beyond the point of believability. Sounds like Churchill's vision of the old Russia, doesn't it: "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Anyway, I assume that the pilots on 9/11 were Bin Laden's. I can assume luck had some part to play in it. I assume most of what we've heard about 9/11 is true. But that is how to build a good conspiracy theory so that people will discount it. Sometimes you can see what is there by looking at what is not there. Make it mostly true but manipulate things behind the scenes so they point away from the truth. What about all the peripheral elements? The film does a good job of pointing these things out, of building a plausible scenario with previous incidents that allowed a country to go to war by faking attacks against itself. This has been done in the past, as the film also points out. A scene, that is a little bit chilling, to say the least.

I have to assume that this is in a way, the same situation as with the Kennedy assassination. We may never know what happened; at least, not until no one is alive any longer who really cares. If we ever find out what happened, and it was our people attacking our country, then those people should be put to death over it. If the president did it, it would send a good precedent and bolster our claims of what a great country we truly are. Those responsible should either be brought to justice, or a future president should sign off on their demise. I would say, maybe Guantanamo, for life would be a choice appointment.

Now, let's change gears a little.

Ron Paul recently made a statement about the demise of our country: “I fear there will be eroding civil liberties, a Soviet Union-style economic collapse, violence in the streets, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria!” Then he said: “If you really think about it, there have been multiple warning signs – possible government shutdowns, natural disasters, the Kardashians…”

Obviously, the man has seen "Ghostbusters" and has a sense of humor. But if you think about it, what is going on here? Yes, it's going on all over the world. We seem to be going through the death throes of the old ways. Something, is changing anyway. But what? The question is, is it what is best for "We, the People?"

Doubtful.

I had the same questions that the film I've discussed brings up. What took so long to respond to the 9/11 attacks?  If you stand back and look at the overall picture, it does make you wonder. Bush wanted to hit Saddam Hussein (so did I); it would seem, he wanted to clean up the mess his father left in Iraq when he was in office and took on the Nut in Bagdad. Saddam had to go. I agreed. But I was offended when Big Bush had the guts to take on Saddam, got him out of Kuwait, but then didn't kick him out of his (life) office in Iraq. I felt offended for the Iraqi people.

But we sent in the CIA with Special Ops troops to take out the Taliban from power in Afghanistan within weeks of 9/11, as they were supporting Bin Laden. We pretty much took them out in short order and got Bin Laden on the run to Pakistan. Now, Ole' Bin is done. That should have been the end of it. So, why'd we hit Iraq again, after getting Bin on the run?

Even if Bin Laden sent in those pilots to take out a few locations in the US, some of the peripheral events leading up to, and after the fact, are very peculiar. When you put that all in context with how things are going now in the US, it's really very strange. If you then look at the "Arab Spring", it throws more dust in the eyes of history. Are these all simply disconnected events? Is anything anymore, disconnected, in the world stage?

We helped the Soviet Union to fail by scaring them so bad militarily, that they ran themselves into bankruptcy over their military industrial complex, among other things, including their own bad management and greed. Have we done that here now, too? Manipulated change? We've seen bad management, and greed. Obviously, but does it include 9/11? And does it include what else is going on? Or did the banking and home mortgage bubble bursting throw dust in the eyes of those with plans, against us? I say against us, because I find it hard to believe, with what I've seen, that they, whoever they are, are doing this for us, for the majority of Americans, for the guy or gal in the street.

Who is it, and why are we making changes in the US that are so questionable? Why do our civil liberties keep eroding? I'm not really seeing any changes myself; life for me seems to be pretty normal, but then, I still have my job, I'm one of the lucky ones. But is that all part of the plan? That we don't notice because we are looking in the wrong directions? We've long known when large events are about to happen, the government will do something big to distract the people. Mostly, not a big deal, but sometimes, sometimes, it gets out of hand. In some cases, millions have lost there lives over it.

But not to worry, that could never happen, here.

If someone keeps changing the laws so that they can one day, "if necessary", take all your money, and then one day, they deem it necessary and all your money disappears from your bank account, isn't it then, too late for you to do anything about it? Won't they just say then, that they are "only following the law"? Sounds pretty reasonable, right? Following the law. Wouldn't you then feel that you should have done something about it, ahead of time?

We are asleep. All this protesting makes us think we are awake, alive, but we're not. Changes are continuing to be put into place, right under our noses and we're not doing a thing about it. And who do we have speaking out? No one, no one who can do us any good. Only crackpots and people who never have a chance of getting into power. No one who is really playing in the game, will speak up. Why? Because then they will no longer be playing in the game.

We need to keep our eyes open, and start asking questions. All the time. Be annoying. Question authority.

It's been said that Thomas Jefferson said that "A government afraid of it's citizens is a Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!"

I'm not sure if I'm afraid of my government, yet, but I'm not feeling real secure about it anymore.

Anyway, as I said, I don't typically believe in conspiracy theories. Because they are so easy to pick out, in hindsight. But when you have so many elements that don't make sense, you have to stop and ask yourself, "what's going on here"? Because obviously, something is going on here. I just don't know what.No one seems to. Now there, is a conspiracy theory.

Yes, I am concerned. We should all be concerned.

Becoming a Screenwriter

To become something like a screenwriter, one needs to read how to do it, learn the format, and do it, right?
There is a little more to it than that. Yes, you need to know how to do it, and you need to be able to do it well. But you also have to survive. Allow me to explain.

In May of 2012 it will be three years since I decided to put all my energy outside of my day job into writing, in the effort (and not hope) that I can change my career into something I love doing. I have been working in information technologies for a couple of decades or so, back since about 1986 and I'm ready for a change. I stuck with it, even though I wanted to write for a living, because of the steady paychecks. I made attempts to change over the years, but never could get it to click. It's hard to do raising a family and being the only breadwinner.

Some of this will be rehash to some.

I started out as a mainframe computer operator and worked my way into being a Technical Writer. I eventually tired of that and moved in to web development, network administration, server administration and platform administration. I am now being cross trained in many other technologies. But, I simply want to be a writer, full time, and make a living at it. But not just any kind of writing, fiction writing in particular: short story, novels, screenplays.

Years ago I had read Isaac Asimov's first autobiography, "In Memory, Yet Green", which affected me so much, that the first short story I ever got published, "In Memory, Yet Crystal Clear", was in tribute to his writings, and his attitude toward things like writing, life and being a forward thinker. Yes, I've heard the stories about Isaac's penchant for the ladies and partying.

A friend of mine said she was at a convention once and ended up on an elevator alone with him. She called him a "leech" to me, meaning that he thought she was cute and she didn't appreciate his advances. To be fair, she was in costume. And he was probably drinking. Not that this is any excuse. Other women who knew him have basically said, "That was Isaac and we loved him."

To the point, Isaac had said in his book that all the great original sci fi writers started as tech writers for the military during WWII. It taught you perseverance, extreme attention to detail, finishing what you start and, producing, typically large uninteresting products like manuals for things you probably know or care nothing about. In my experience as a tech writer for some big companies, I found in the end that a lot of it was being a psychologist, a journalist, and a scribe. You sometimes had to pull information from Subject Matter Experts, with a mental pair of pliers.

I finally got tired of it, as I only wanted to write, not interact with people who really weren't interested in talking to me at all and to whom I was only a burden. I wanted to write what entertained me, intrigued me, and entertained others. As I once said (as I was almost blowing a job interview), "there is just no story development in tech writing, and no character development with no fun punch at the end. You had to get all the information out there up front, there was no tension allowed."

There was some research done a few years ago, where they tried to teach children how to play piano. One group were taught traditionally. Another group were taught by teaching the melodies with mistakes in them. These mistakes were obvious, as there would be one note off. The kids would pick up on it and it bothered them. In the end, the researchers found that the children they taught in this defective way, learned the melodies better and faster than those taught in the traditional ways.

And so I feel I have learned fiction writing to a much higher degree, which I had actually already gotten down pat pretty good according to feedback I had in college. But after years of tech writing, I think I had learned so much more.

When I started this process a few years ago of getting back into writing, this time, to actually switch careers, I bought a box full of carefully chosen books on writing. Some specifically on screenwriting, some on peripherals, such as comedy writing, novel writing, even the poetics by Aristotle, a must have book for any writer. I felt that by the time I finished reading all these books, I'd be ready for an agent. So the last books I had purchased were for getting an agent. I've now read all these books, and even picked up some new ones.

The last book I finished just today was Karl Iglesias' "The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters - Insider secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers." I found it very enjoyable, enlightening, delusion breaking, and in the end, it gives great hope to a struggling writer. I suggest this book to anyone who is writing their first screenplay, or thinking about it.

One of those books I have bought since, I had found one day browsing through an antique store. It is Lee Server's book, "Screenwriter - Words Become Pictures - Interviews with twelve screenwriters from the golden age of American movies." I'm looking forward to reading this.

My point in all of this is that you need to practice to write, whatever you have decided to write. But you also need to practice writing a wide scope of things. You need to read, a writer, reads. You need to read about the craft, specifically, and examples thereof. So, screenwriters need to read books on screenwriting, but also screenplays (specs, not shooting scripts which are typically sold to the market). You not only need to read books on the technical side of screenwriting, you should also read books about the screenwriters themselves.

The skill is all important. A poorly formatted screenplay won't get you very far. But you have an emotional side to this, too. You need to keep up your energy levels, your emotions, your passion for what you are doing. You also have to love doing it, love the process. Love writing, and love rewriting. Writing is rewriting. Few can write a single draft and be done. They do exist, but mostly with short story writing.

You have to write for the right reasons. Otherwise, you may not maintain the level of dedication you will need to survive. There are lots of barriers to getting anywhere with writing but the biggest is not having a catalog of works. The larger the better. That being said, you shouldn't just write and never get them out there, but try to get a catalog built up and after you have five or so, completed screenplays, start getting them out there. And keep writing new ones.

Also find other writers who you can talk to. Join a group, either in person, or online. To finally get somewhere, you will need to persevere through the years, through multiple drafts, through ten, twenty, even thirty screenplays before you sell one. You will need to pitch, to talk to people in order to sell it. You will need to deal with rejection, repeatedly.

It can be done. Just know that many get into it for the wrong reasons. Or with delusions of grandeur. It's hard work and requires a lot of it, for years. There are a lot of people out there trying to make it as a screenwriter, so there is a lot of competition. In order to make it, you will need to be the best you can be, and then some. But it is possible.

For those who think they can write a single screenplay and make it, yes, it's been done. Just don't expect that to be you without first putting in the work.

All that being said, best of luck. Go out and kick some Hollywood butt!

HearthTales - a screenplay

Okay, this is just funny, I guess. I set this blog to post today, but in 2011, forgetting to increment one year, forgetting it's no longer 2011. As you can see, I've now corrected this. It happens to me every year, until I write the new year date for the very first time. Usually I catch it, but I was tired last night when I had realized I hadn't set up a blog for today.

So, obviously, we're off to a bang up New Year here! Anyway, all the best to you and yours, and may your new year start off better for you.

I have been working on a kind of portmanteaux screenplay called, "HearthTales". It was a concept I came up with in the late 90s and put away. Just submitted this to InkTips. I put it online for their week trial, and submitted to a ProdCo who was looking for pretty much that type of script. Again, maybe nothing will come of it, but it's either scary or exhilarating. I'm going with the latter. :)

The original thought was to build a screenplay around three short stories I had and wanted to do something with. So I threw them into a quickly drawn up screenplay. I thought it had potential and needed a lot more work. So I put it away as I was getting ready to move with my family and then I forgot about it. About a year ago I was looking through my old writings and found it again. So I brought it back out and started working on it. I found it was pretty entertaining to play with and then I had to put it away again.

I had come across Producer, Writer, Actor Chris Soth and spent a few months working with him on another script called, "America". I had to stop that for a while and went back to my novel. Then I got a reader review from WILDSound on HearthTales and they liked it but found some problems. I decided to fix those. So I fixed the easy ones.

Some others were harder to fix and one or two were structural. Not big changes, just changes, but still at a structural level. So I put it away and went back to the novel. But then something came up where I might have to show it to someone and I was back on the screenplay and have been ever since. Because I think I can finish up pretty quickly, and have a decent draft available if I need it and then go back to the novel. But also because I'm enjoying working on it.

A few things evolved since then in the screenplay that have come off quite well.

Initially, I liked the image of friends sitting around a warm fire on a cold, rainy Seattle night, eating snacks, drinking something tasty and a little inebriating, and telling stories, entertaining one another. I liked the idea of two of them being old friends, and one of them being a new friend. Romance in the air, is always nice. Add to that a touch of scary stories and a clock ticking with doom on its way.

To add to that, while this is going on, the wife down in Beverly Hills has her own much darker, threesome (of a kind) going on. Bryce's den is styled in antique Middle Eastern. Franks living room is styled with some antique Japanese.

HearthTales is the story of Bryce, a world class Horror writer, a cross between Stephen King and Clive Barker. An Irish ex-patriot who had fought along with Frank, in the Irish unit of the UK Special Services in Iraq and Afghanistan, his heroics had been honored in his saving his men and his friend Frank.

The story revolves around a trip he makes to Seattle for business. He takes his assistant, Eva, an attractive and faithful individual who crosses that line between perfect manager and good friend. H leaves behind his wife, Dawn, a sexy, attractive, manipulative woman who will walk over anyone to get what she wants and takes whatever she wants, whenever she wants. His home life is unsatisfactory, even to that of his friends. For a good friend, he must travel. Bryce is at the end of his rope with his unfaithful, conniving wife, but having been raised Catholic, he has difficulty in getting divorced... again.

He figures if he can just stop by his friend, Frank's house, to blow off some steam and have a mini vacation, maybe he can go back home and face his life again. Maybe he hopes she will leave him. But he is also approaching the point of no return with his spouse, and avoiding that as much as possible. Eva would like nothing better than for Dawn to be out of the picture and Frank feels the same way.

Connolly in Boondock Saints

Frank is an old Scottish warrior and another ex-patriot who is based on comedian and actor, Billy Connolly. The character of Frank has much of that same humorous view on life and a bit of the acerbic. And he can't stand Dawn.

Bryce has recently received a book of the occult from his and Frank's old friend from Afghanistan, Saleel. But this book cannot be given away unless someone accepts it or there will literally be Hell to Pay. There is danger in the transfer for both the giver and the receiver. Because of this book now being in his protection, Bryce has made two major mistakes. One, he unknowingly let his wife find out the combination to his safe; and two, he told her too much about what the book can do. Worse, she believes it.

Thinking she can use it to kill her husband (or, use it as a ruse for the guy she hires to perform the ritual to simply have him killed), she hires through an intermediary, Jacques, a Voodoo Priest, to perform a conjuring ceremony. A demon conjuring ceremony. A demon to find and kill Bryce. She also figures that even if the ceremony doesn't work, she will at very least have an interesting experience in the dark arts, one including including sex with a random anonymous model type.

She had a damaged childhood, what can I say?

pictured, Geoffrey Holder

Jacques is nothing like she expected when he arrives and she finds herself attracted to him. But he isn't all she thinks he is. Assuming he is just some sleazy witch doctor for hire. But, he puts in a call, in order to protect those for whom he really is going to set a demon upon with murderous intent. Those to whom he assigns this task, are the Steampunk duo of Gray and Lover.

The other night I was on a Vokle video chat with the truly warm and lovely, Felicia Day (Eureka, The Guild, Dragon Age: Redemption, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, etc.) and her crew and fans. Vokle is an interesting platform. Everyone was enjoying it quite a lot.

 During the two hours and ten minutes, someone asked Felicia if she would consider doing anything with the SteamPunk motif. She said yes, but she hadn't come across a good concept as yet. I was quite enjoying the interaction between the Dragon Age production crew and fans, including myself. Then it occured to me. I was working on a screenplay with two women in it who are Steampunk. So I've been trying to contact her so she can take a read and see if she might want to extract and use them.

Back to HearthTales....

Dawn invites Jacques in, little realizing he has a hidden agenda. He sees the book, meets the duo, the anonymous model type needed as a sacrifice to conjure the demon and once satisfied, calls his protection team of demon fighting steampunk warrior girls: Gray and Lover. Up in Seattle, they are partying at the bar of their friend and fellow ("heavyweight") demon fighter, Patrick. See, Patrick takes on the really tough cases. Getting the call from Jacques, they are now on assignment and just wait for Jacques "Go" call, once the demon is in town.

Eventually, the demon appears and happens by the bar the girls are at. As Jacques has programmed in that the demon will pass by their bar before taking off after Bryce, the girls sit tight. Once Gray sees the demon through the window, they are off.

However, because of Dawn's interference in the ceremony, the demon has been incorrectly conjured to no fault of Jacques and a smooth situation evades rapid resolution and the girls have trouble tracking down the demon, just as the demon is having trouble tracking down Bryce. This is dangerous for Jacques, more so for Bryce however, as well as the city of Seattle. But this also leads to rather humorous situations with the demon as his powers are slightly off and so is he. Or, it.

After a few encounters with Seattle citizens and the Space Needle, the demon finally tracks Bryce down. But his trail has been easy for the girls to follow and hopefully, they can arrive in time for Bryce to survive.

What is unclear is, what is Jacques alternative agenda? Will the girls make it in time? What will happen to Dawn, no matter what happens? Will Frank and Eva survive? How many people will die before the demon finds its prey? And once found, then what? After all, the ceremony was defective and can the girls take down a demon like this alone? Or will they need Patrick, too? Who is Jacques working for and why does he want the book? What happened to Saleel?

We also see the demon's dimension that he lives in, the horrors it has to live with and its mortal enemies.

Then there is the burning question, just what does Osama Bin Laden have to do with all of this? That is something you find out in the opening just after, FADE IN.

Wrapped by all this are the three stories the friends tell around the hearth at Frank's house. Can Eva hold her own in telling stories around a fire with two of the greatest Horror writers in the world today? Do they try to "out Horror" one another, or just mess with each other's minds?

The screenplay has been well received so far and I've made some very good changes since then and blended in some good advice I've received.. Now all I need to do, is sell it. Wish me luck!

You know in writing this article, I really didn't give away any of the good stuff that happens and I leave out a lot of the twists and turns, but I discovered two elements I need to fix, one of which I hadn't seen until I wrote this summary up. So, thanks guys!

Weekend Wise Words

Be Smart! Be Brilliant!

Happy New Year's!

I don't know why my blog has been so heavy this past week. Maybe because it was the first time I've had Christmas without my kids as they've now grown up and moved out. My son is in Portland, living the life and I'm so happy for him. My daughter, slightly younger, is backpacking through the world, literally, and living the life, as she sees it. And I'm so happy she is enjoying what this world has to offer. Even though she's scaring the hell out of Dad. Maybe it's because I have a couple of weeks off from my intense day job so I can write day and night and kick out at least the end of my novel and a screenplay I have worked on through most this past year. So I've had time to watch in the background, quite a few good movies and documentaries.

But this is the New Year's weekend and a new year is dawning. A chance for a fresh start. Yes, it's arbitrary, but it's a good kind of arbitrary. The Catholics were onto something with their Confession. Confess your sins and transgressions, and move on, to try to be a better person. Reevaluation and reexamination are good, but then you have to go and try to do better.

So, go for it. Make 2012 a far better year than any previous one. Go ahead, give it a shot, what have you got to lose. Make changes for the better, even if they hurt a little. Stop relying on credit if you are. Stop eating wrong, or so much. Understand that if you are overweight, EXERCISE enough on a daily basis, so it doesn't much matter how much you eat. Educate yourself. Read. Watch documentaries, and not just ones that already agree with how you think. Evoke change. Occupy you life, occupy your country. Demand better conditions.

And now, as it is the weekend, and with all that having been said, I offer some positive quotes on a new year.

A very Happy New Year's to you, your loved ones, the citizens of our once and hopefully again, Great Nation and the citizens of the world!

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~Bill Vaughan

"Be at war with your vices; at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man." -- Benjamin Franklin

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Hal Borland

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas. Author Unknown

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. Anaïs Nin

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. Oscar Wilde

New Year's Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. James Agate

It goes Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day. Is that fair to anyone who's alone? If you didn't get around to killing yourself on Christmas or New Year's, boom, there's Valentine's Day for you. There should be a holiday after Valentine's Day called 'Are you still here?' Laura Kightlinger [I can most definitely relate to this one]

"Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average, which means you've already met your New Year's resolution." Jay Leno

"Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?" Ogden Nash

The Ground Truth - a documentary on war

I just watched a documentary titled, "The Ground Truth". I'm not going to accost you with images of the horrors of war here. I think the words are bad enough. But we need to take care of people when we send them in harm's way. And we have always fallen down on that account.

First let me say, I when I was younger, I was ready to go to war. I wanted to kick ass and take names. Then I got to work in the military with many of the vets who were there in Vietnam, which would have been my war and I only missed going to by a hair's breadth. And I started to understand reality, aside from nationalistic pride and youthful exuberance, foolishness. From that time on I opened my mind and started to see war from the other side.

Every American, should watch this documentary. And every one should be angry at the treatment of our veterans.

I'm not going to tell you all that was in this film, you should check it out yourself. I will say something, however. And if I seem like I'm being "heavy handed", after watching that film, I guarantee you, I'm being rather light handed, compared to how I'm feeling at this time. I'm sure some may have gone to war and come out unchanged, though I don't see how. But that is beside the point, they are not our vanguard in the realm of those damaged by war; those damaged by it are. If you feel what I'm saying is nonsense after reading this, then watch the documentary, or go to a modern day war. Then reread this, especially if you've had a limb blown off, or had to live through these nightmares.

We seem to run on a credit card mentality for every little thing in our life. We go to war, for oil? And claim it is for something else, when we should have finished the war we started over a decade earlier. So ironic that Bush started the Gulf War, and his son, ended it, so much later. We send troops to fight and die but we send them in with second class equipment with the hope of catching up later and if some die, tough beans. We let their families send them protective equipment, and we should be ashamed as a nation. We kill and maim innocent people in the cause of fighting terrorism, when we were in the wrong country. We watch as our young are maimed and die. We do not watch as our "Heroes" return from battles, broken in spirit and body. We do not accept that war and what they have seen and lived through, can cause PTSD, can give them mental problems; we try to dodge the expense that accepting that would cause us because, those soldiers, should just cope, right? Because war is no different than normal life back home. Right? When they return, we expect them to blend into normal civilian life, after giving them license to kill, maim, see horrible things, watch the enemy who are other human beings, die before them; watch women and children die before them, sometimes at their own hands, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose, which is the most damaging.

We do those things. We avoid dealing with those things. We don't want to know we do those things.

I could almost handle that, I suppose. But to then turn a blind eye, and not take care of those who were damaged, sent at our beck and call, those who answered that call with courage and pride in their mind's eye, only to later be disillusioned by the reality of war and our foolish mismanagement; is all far worse than what the terrorists have done in provoking us in the first place.

But we are the "good people". We are absolved of wrong doing, because we are the good guys.

Get on Netflix, watch "The Ground Truth". Watch it with your eyes and mind open. Feel bad for a little while, but don't worry, you will forget it shortly. After all, isn't it the job of those damaged in our wars to remember these things? Because they are the ones who have to hobble around, feel depressed, scare their spouses and children with their duress and outbursts; then perhaps, commit suicide.

But we don't have to worry about it. Apparently, it's not our problem.

When you leave the theater of war (yes, they call it a theater, they don't like to use the word "kill", either), they ask if you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). If you say yes, they don't let you have the one thing you want more than any other, to go home. They keep you in the country, where the war is on. To get you "healthy" again, before sending you home where you could infect the civilians with what? Reality? Truth? Information about what is going on? If you answer no, then you don't have PTSD, even though it can easily takes a while to sink in and returning home, seeing what is normal once again, would have to trigger that.

One veteran in the documentary mentions how he has seen vets in wheelchairs, rolling from one department, one building, after another, around and around all day just trying to straighten out a paycheck issue. But we take care of our war heroes, our veterans. Right?

Such is our mentality.

It reminds me of our issue with school teachers. Those lowly paid, poorly trained individuals who teach those who will one day run our country and our retired lives. We can't afford to pay them properly, so we just don't think about it. But our children come first. Our veterans come first. We are the good guys.

Or, perhaps we're simply deluding ourselves?

Perhaps, our priorities are messed up. Perhaps. I mean, is that even possible? Have we grown to devalue life so much that we can't see beyond the expense? If we can afford to go to war, why can't we afford to clean up after it? Why does the government try to ignore, devalue, our veteran's claims when they need help? But if we simply disagree that they need help, then we don't have to help them. How economical for us.

If only....

How is it we don't accept PTSD as being as prevalent as it obvious is? How is it, you can think that a normal Human being, can enter into a war zone to see some of those things, close up, where their life is also on the line, and they do not come out of it with a traumatized spirit, with nightmares, paranoia? And their life being on the line is paramount, because watching these horrors is hard enough, but when you are there, experiencing that you may be next, or just almost were, it is an entirely different thing.

Perhaps, if we calculate in the costs of the after war along with the war prep and deployment, perhaps we would go to war less? Surely, when there is genocide happening, every country in the world should send in troops to end it. Immediately. Surely Israel would be first in line when genocide is happening, anywhere in the world? Perhaps if it was generally accepted, I don't know, that genocide is wrong(?), it would be necessary far less than it is? Then those who commit genocide, would think twice if they knew, once they start, the entire world will immediately crush them. After those types of conflicts, wounded vets could return home and even though they are knowingly defective for the rest of their life, they would know what they were doing and why. That can make a great deal of difference in one's attitude. Was that the same for the Middle East recently? Then why do so many vets wonder now, what they are doing there, or why they were there?

Steel sculpture

Above: 70,000 steel ball bearings, representing the projectiles we use to kill each other, were welded together over two years to create the life-size sculpture by Marcus Eriksen. About the motivation for this sculpture, he says:

"On Feb. 24, 1991 a truck filled with a dozen marines making a steady B-line for Kuwait City stopped the convoy when I yelled, “Hey look a body!”  The paralyzed figure of an Iraqi soldier lay 50 feet from the incinerated jeep he was blown from.  His knees were bent, eyes and mouth open,and his intestines poured out from under his shirt.  We were both covered with specks of oil from the fires nearby, and soaked by the rains that made me miserable, yet washed his face clean.  Before he died he must have waved his arms, like the way kids make snow angels. He made wings in the sand.  My angel in the desert."

How can one not be moved by that experience? And as these experiences go, this is a rather light one. 


I would say that we should never go to war, but that I know, is unreasonable. There are bad people out there. There are always, seemingly, new people who want to abuse those under their care. I would ask however, that we only go to war when absolutely necessary. Not when a president or a political party needs a boost in ratings. And that when our citizens, our soldiers are damaged, physically, AND emotionally (CAN you be damaged physically and not emotionally in a war?), that we do something for them, everything we can. And acknowledge their issues and see that they have the help they require. And follow up with them, possibly for the rest of their lives, or at least for the next ten to twenty years. Sounds expensive, right? Tell me, did you actually just have that thought pop into your head?

Maybe if the cost after the war exceeds the cost of going to war, we will start to be smarter about our actions and more circumspect.

I would like to believe that the world is in the throes of the end of adolescence and these wars are fits of growth into adulthood, our possible, only the end of childhood and terrifyingly moving only into adolescence. Either way, I would like to believe that we are closing in on a time when we will no longer have to have wars.

But whether we will continue to have them or not, we still must pay attention when our veterans say in documentaries like, "The Ground Truth", that many still aren't getting the help they need.

Our new God, Status Quo

Recently I wrote a blog about how energy is the big evil. And that may be true in the ways I delineated. But that is the physical side of things. The emotive side I believe, is status quo. Two small words. They sound rather innocuous, don't they? I always thought of the status quo as a good and proper thing.

How many things have been done under the paradigm of maintaining, or increasing, the status quo? How many unethical transactions have been perpetrated? How many people ruined or imprisoned? How many murders, how many wars?

When I look at our current crises, I find the same thing. Greed. But greed isn't so much gluttony, as it is fear and laziness. And an addiction to comfort. We all have it, to some degree. And it's a good thing, to some degree. But the degree to which it has become the standard operating procedure, is pathetic, and scary.

Strike that, it's terrifying.

I have seen Congressmen/women making decisions that include our country continuing on as we are, with the consideration of murdering thousands of people, or maintaining dictators, thugs, murderers, all in the sacred name of, status quo.

We find there are secret, behind closed door type meetings. Secret, because the moral of us might object to abusing people in other countries whom we may never get to meet personally. I know I have no desire to abuse people I have nothing against. But then, I don't like to abuse anyone, unless it is to get them to stop abusing me, or others. Yet we have paid people to do this kind of thing, for us. For... us.

How we have practiced all our lives through religion for one, to turn a blind eye, to turn the other cheek, to hypocritically ignore what strictures we have dedicated ourselves to believing and following. I have heard person after person say they believe in the bible and all it says, until I pointed out many, many things in it that they said they would not follow because they were contra-indicative, illegal, simply wrong as they know it in their "gut", or because they contradict the same stricture elsewhere in the bible.

And we have grown up with that from childhood. I asked my parents about something I read in the bible and their answer? Just ignore that. Shut up. Or you can't understand God's mysterious ways. Etc., etc., etc.

But this isn't about religion. It's about status quo.

It's about how we have ignored what our leaders have been doing, or not doing, for decades. For forever maybe. How did we get in this situation? Who allowed it? Who, is responsible?

In the end, we are. We all are. But then, we hire people do do what is right, to find out what is right, then make a proper and ethical decision and carry it out, and be responsible for their actions. But, do we? No, we let them make the wrong decisions, then get away with it, as they point to us and say to us that it's OUR Fault.

Uh, I don't think so. Sounds like obfuscation to me. Shirking their duty. And their responsibilities. Again.

We really need to start holding people responsible and having laws that allow us to do so. That latter part, is kind of important. Our laws are pretty screwed up. Our concept of Law is good, we just need to do something we seldom do, but it interrupts the status quo and it's expensive. We need to adjust once in a while and we need to wipe some laws off the books occasionally.

That's the small picture. The big picture has to do with nations, and people who are not American citizens. We need to go into their countries, we need to negotiate, we need to not abuse them. Make a good deal? Certainly. But rip people off? No. Because that in the end, as we've seen with the Middle East, is against our long term interests. And oh, it's wrong, too.

Yes, we need energy. But that isn't necessarily oil, okay?  We may need to make some drastic changes. But the funny thing is, we should have done this a long time ago. Who didn't do it? Our leaders. Gee, we keep coming back to that.

If and when you have a CEO who does a bad job, runs the company into the ground, what do you do? You fire them. What do we do now a days? We give them $10 million and send them on their way.Is that right?

Now tell me, does that really make any sense to you? I could go into how much more a CEO makes than a more lowly person at the bottom of the company, or the majority of the employees there, but let's not get off the track here.

We also need to not abuse our own Citizens. Something we're losing track of when it comes to fear and terrorism. We have been building our way around our constitution and the laws that protect us all for a while now.

How, I have no idea, but that seems to be the way of things lately. Why? To maintain the status quo, to continue to have safety everywhere in America. Well, I'm all for that, but then again, America stands for something and we need to stick up for that too, even when it causes us some grief, or pain.

If a bully beats you up, you fight back. If you don't, they keep doing it. When they stop, you don't keep beating them up. You don't keep harassing them every minute of the rest of their lives. You use reasonable responses. But you don't put up armed guards at the entrance to everywhere, just because one place has had problems. If there are problems there, you evaluate them, find out why they happened, ask if that can spread, what behavior is causing it to occur, are there socioeconomic elements that need to be addressed, and so on.

This isn't touchy-feely egg head stuff, it's cause and effect. And the fix, is hard to do and expensive sometimes, but we either do it correctly, or we do it wrong. And we've gotten into we either do it cheaply, or we do it wrong, also? What kind of thinking is that?

There is no answer here to give. We simply need to talk more about these kinds of things. When you find things in your life that are nonsense, speak up about it. People will look at you like you're nuts sometimes, but the more people talk about it, the more odd it will start to sound and the more people will want to make things right. Just pick a word, repeat it aloud or in your mind until it starts to sound, odd. Understand? The more we bring up these problems, sooner or later it will sink in, people will get the point, and start to wonder, to ask questions, to feel there is something wrong.

Koyaanisqatsi. Native American Hopi tribe for "Life out of balance". It certainly is.

What we need here isn't to suddenly make everything right. Frankly, I think that is impossible.

What we need to do is change our paradigm for how we make decisions. We need to change our way of thinking about things. We need to apply critical thinking against nearly everything. I agree that we need some fantasy in life, it is a basic Human survival skill and to lose that would be ludicrous.

But we need to start getting used to becoming adults in the modern world. We need to shuck off our childhood and deal with things in a critical fashion. If we run out of water, we die. If we pollute our environment, our social environments, if we don't start thinking world wide about everything, we're going to be in some tough ways; very possibly, far sooner than we think.

The days of just doing what is expedient and worry about the costs later, or let our children or grandchildren deal with it, are over. Very soon we will be making decisions on what will affect us within a few years. For many things, we are there now.

So the next time you hear someone in charge say they have done something very creative to maintain your statu quo, ask them what they mean by that. Question authority. Question too, the little guy, the "dumb" guy, because even the village idiot has his story to tell; question the guy who has nothing to do with it, but might himself have a creative idea, maybe one that spreads a positive influence rather than negative ones. Think outside the box. Think. Challenge.

But be ready. In the end, yes, it's all our responsibility. But someone has to be in charge, to push the buttons, give the orders, make the decisions, take the responsibility. That has got to mean something. And remember, we do not apply the status quo to everything.

When someone breaks the law, or breaks a corporation, or a country, they don't get a golden parachute and retire to Martha's Vineyard. They go to jail, they lose money; they do not make money, they stop doing what they are doing; others stop doing what they were doing. They get punished for their bad behaviors.

 Does maintaining the status quo sound now like the cool thing is used to be? This wasn't meant to be an ad for the Occupy movement, but they certainly have a point and I think I've just supported it in a way that has nothing to do with them. It just makes sense.

I suspect that statu quo was always this way. We just didn't see it all until we were better educated and the world continued to shrink for us until now, along with instantaneous communications, we have woken up from our intellectual slumber and have come to see reality as it really is. And it's pretty scary.

Status quo, sure, if you like; but it's at your, and all our our peril.