Feb15

Hey, Mayans, are you SURE you didn’t mean 2013?

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Artist's Rendition of a Catastrophic Asteroid ImpactI often lie awake at night wondering if a chunk of space rock the size of Tuvalu is hurtling towards Earth with aspirations of causing a nice little extinction level event. I used to do that anyway, but ever since yesterday’s explosion of a meteor over Russia injured a few hundred of our erstwhile Cold War enemies, my anxiety level has ratcheted up significantly. Of course, I tried to ease my mind by watching three consecutive episodes of Mega Disaster: Asteroid Impact on The History Channel, which lowered my stress level about as effectively as gouging my own heart out with a spoon could have accomplished.

Waiting for a big hunk of rock or iron from outer space wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have abundant evidence all over the world of our celestial lifeboat’s storied and tragic history with big hunks of rock and iron from outer space. Even casual scientific readers and fans of Disney’s Dinosaur are familiar with the Chicxulub Crater most astro-geologists believe is the remains of the Earth w/ asteroid collision that ended the Age of the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and even that little slice of joy pie pales next to the supposed impact that produced “The Great Dying” or what scientific types call the Permian-Triassic Extinction. That impact, if it actually WAS an impact (some scientists disagree), over 250 million years ago, wiped out 95-98% of ALL LIFE ON EARTH. Gives a whole new meaning to “being the 1%” doesn’t it?

Trees near the Tunguska Event epicenter 20 years after the blast occurred.

Trees near the Tunguska Event epicenter 20 years after the blast occurred.

If all that doesn’t bother you much, consider this — yesterday’s explosion over Russia isn’t even the biggest explosion the largest country in the world has ever seen. Within living memory (albeit a very small, very select, and quickly shrinking number of memories) SOMETHING blew up in the sky over the Siberian forest near the Stony Tunguska River and flattened half a million acres of the aforementioned forest. The most likely culprit is a meteor “only” 100 feet in diameter FIVE MILES over the Earth. We’re talking a boom bigger than a Hiroshima / Nagasaki type explosion almost four decades before the birth of the Atomic Age. Luckily the blast occurred way out in the middle of B.F.E. A similar event over any modern city today would flatten the place and, keep in mind, that’s just a baby meteor.

Apophis the night it was discovered in 2004. The asteroid is indicated by a faint circle drawn around it.

Apophis the night it was discovered in 2004. The asteroid is indicated by a faint circle drawn around it.

Thanks to NASA’s efforts to catalog near-Earth objects, we know some big hunks of burning rocky love are wandering around the neighborhood close enough to Earth orbit to eventually wander into our path and impact us. Some of those are big enough to reset the biological clock on this  Pale Blue Dot back to ten minutes ’til bacteria. I live in fear of something out of a movie like Asteroid, Deep Impact or Armageddon. As recently as March of 2009, a Tunguska sized asteroid passed within 44,000 miles of Earth. That’s WAY closer than the Moon. Then we wait and see what happens in 2029 when a rock named Apophis for the ancient Egyptian god of destruction will, theoretically, pass between the earth and SOME SATELLITES. For all the laypeople like me in the audience, that translates in to “holy crap that was close!” Just to put some extra stress spice on the worry cake, if Apophis passes within a tiny (in space terms) area known as a gravitational keyhole when it swings by in 2029, its trajectory will change just enough so that its NEXT visit in 2036 will smack Earth head on. BTW, for anyone wondering, Apophis is what astronomers refer to as a “planet killer.”

I know a lot of people think I’m nuttier than Aunt Alice’s Black Walnut and Rum cake for worrying about getting hit by an asteroid. After all, as smart as the governments of the world are, they could protect us, right?! Right?!! Most governments are like ours and can’t agree on Coke or Pepsi for a lunch break drink, much less possessing a level of organization on a planetary scale to halt the end of the world as we know it (cue Michael Stipes). Well, just in case your faith in them is about like mine, check out this video of what COULD happen if we encounter something like Apophis and remember it’s ALREADY happened before . . . twice . . . at least. If that doesn’t keep you up tonight just consider scientists estimate we would need at least ten to fifteen years of lead time  to have any chance of altering the orbit of an asteroid with Earth’s name on it and that’s IF we see it coming. Astronomers warn of asteroids whose orbits bring them “out of the Sun” towards us will be impossible to detect until it’s entirely too late to do anything but put our heads between our legs and kiss our butts goodbye. That is unless THESE guys can help us:

Guys? Y'all got this, right? Bruce? Guys?

Guys? Y’all got this, right? Bruce? Guys?

And on that cheery note I will close with saying, Love y’all and keep those feet clean because if we’re going to be vaporized by an asteroid collision, we’ll need clean feet and fresh underwear.

Feb13

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Leave the Bunker

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Pope Benedict XVI is set to retire 28 February 2013.

Pope Benedict XVI is set to retire 28 February 2013.

Today is Ash Wednesday — at least for a couple more hours. Since Catholic ritual and Lent in particular have always fascinated me, I thought I would post on the meteoric news currently causing tsunamiesque waves in Vatican City. The news — for those who have been under a rock since Monday — is nothing short of monumental. For the first time in six centuries, the Pope — the head of the Roman Catholic Church — is going to resign instead of remaining in office until death as is customary.

To give y’all an idea of just how big of a big honking deal this announcement is, in the loooong history of the papacy, 266 men (or maybe 265 men and Pope Joan) have occupied the Holy See. Of that number, a whopping total of EIGHT have resigned. The rest served until their deaths.

The last pope to “resign” was Gregory XII way back in 1415. You read the date correctly. The last time a pope resigned, Christopher Columbus had yet to be born, much less “sailed the ocean blue.” I put resign in quotes for Gregory XII because he didn’t really want to step down but the church was in a serious hot mess called The Western Schism which saw three popes, or more correctly one pope and two antipopes, claiming the highest church office. Gregory was a decent guy or anyway had a good sense of responsibility so he took one for the team and stepped down voluntarily so the other two guys could step down and save face . . . and save the Church in the process.

Gregory XII resigned to help save the Church.

Gregory XII — Team Player

The last Vicar of Christ to step down because he jolly well wanted to was Celestine V in 1294. He had been a monk and a hermit before his election as successor to Saint Peter and he LIKED being a hermit monk. When he found out the College of Cardinals had elected him, he ran away and hid, but they found him and he ended up serving a grand total of five months during which time he impressed everyone by being the worst, most incompetent ruler of anything since Joffrey Lannister/Baratheon. Finally, the cardinals realized they should have left the poor guy alone in the woods and told him he could leave, which he did — immediately.

Now I realize all this papal trivia is wildly fascinating to most of you, but I mention it all just so I can get to the main part of the post and the reason for such a sinister title. It seems even though we dodged the Rapture in 2011 and the Mayan Apocalypse in 2012, we remain in the cross-hairs of Armageddon. It seems Pope Benedict’s resignation has the unintended negative effect of ushering in the End of the World . . . again.

What I am referring to is the swiftly trending on Google topic of The Papal Prophecy of St. Malachy. It seems a text surfaced in the 16th Century purportedly written by the mystical 12th Century Archbishop St. Malachy who was apparently some sort of Papal Nostradamus. The prophecy takes the form of a list of every pope from Celestine II, who was pope in St. Malachy’s lifetime, all the way to the last pope known simply as “Peter the Roman” who would come to power 112 pontiffs later.

Celestine V who famously whined, "But I don't wanna be Pope!"

Celestine V who famously whined, “But I don’t wanna be Pope!”

I’ll give everyone three guesses what number on the list the current Pope Benedict happens to be. Ding, ding, ding!! You guessed it! He’s number 111, which means — according to the prophecy — whomever the College of Cardinals elect to the Holy See in March will be “Peter the Roman” who by some accounts will be the Anti-Christ and by others will be the savior of the Church in “The Last Days.” Now as an NBC article points out, this new pope isn’t going to take the name of Peter II. So far, no pope has possessed the cajones — and believe it or not, the cardinals used to check to be sure — to name himself after the Fisherman from Galilee. Still, some people think whoever is next to occupy the Papal Throne is going to cause some serious upheaval in the world.

Of course, just as many if not many more people believe the “list” is about as useless as a milk bucket under a bull and about as accurate as Mitt Romney’s tax disclosure. They point to several historical inaccuracies in the “original” document as well as to the fact no one had ever heard of this whole prophecy deal thingy for over 200 years after St. Malachy died.

Well, as they used to say on the X-Files, “The truth is out there!” I’m not going to deny the whole thing creeps me out a pretty good bit. I was raised being taught the Rapture was imminent and those who didn’t go got to stay behind to face The Great Tribulation and live in a world ruled by The Anti-Christ. As a result of all the “Rapture talk” I grew up listening to from my elders, I have a bit of a phobia of “The End of Days.” I realize such a confession might make me look naive and unsophisticated in the eyes of some intellectuals and all atheists, but I’ve got a story I’ll tell later that gives credence to my fear.

Luckily, I had a thorough Biblical upbringing so even though the creep factor is high, I tend to discount any notion that a monk — however saintly and knowledgeable — could predict the End of the World accurately. I hold with Matthew 26:36 where Jesus told all the date setters around Him, “”However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.” I figure if the last day is something even Jesus doesn’t know about, I have nothing to stress over.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t stress anyway!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Feb2

The Perils and Pitfalls of Prescription PAs

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EffexorIt’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I figured I owe my few but loyal readers an explanation of where I disappeared to for the past fortnight. Quite simply, my meds were screwed up.

For those who are late joining this party, I have some mental health issues that I’m not particularly proud of, but which I don’t make any pretense of hiding either. Without knowing it, I’ve followed the advice Tyrion Lannister sagely gives Jon Snow to “Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.” I’ve just supposed as long as I’m open about my issues, no one can throw them up at me and I may just help someone else along the way.

But I digress.

First of all, you must know I am thankful for my wife’s very good insurance coverage which allows us to buy medicines with only a small co-pay. I remember some years ago when we went through a period with no insurance at all and it gave me a tremendous appreciation for those co-pays as well as an equally tremendous hatred of pharmaceutical companies which is a rant for another time. During that stretch, my primary anti-depressant — Effexor XR — hadn’t crossed over to the generic side of the street and a bottle of 30 cost slightly north of $200 dollars. Luckily, Mama was still making good money then and carried me for about a year buying that expensive medicine monthly.

Now, though, times have changed a bit. I require two capsules per day to keep on a somewhat even keel. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, our insurance company claims to know more about my mental health needs than my wonderful psychiatrist. According to them, I should STILL only need one capsule per day, and therein lies the rub. In order to get my two capsules per day allotment, I must obtain the dreaded “prior authorization” form and have Dr. Stephens fill it out and fax it to the insurance company.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with some ways insurance screws you over, here’s a jolly good one — they don’t keep you from getting as much medicine as you want. If you have a prescription with six refills on it, you can get ALL SIX refills at one time if you desire . . . but they are not paying for it. I can get 30 capsules (or fifteen days worth) for $12.50 but unless I get the PA signed and faxed, the other 30 capsules to finish the month will set me back over $100 — and Effexor IS generic now.

Oh look! It's a map of the Eleventh Circle of Hell!

Oh look! It’s a map of the Eleventh Circle of Hell!

I’ve had to do this moronic little dance now for over five years. My 12 month PA runs out in November and I have to get a new one pushed through so I can get my December prescription filled. Well, this year when I got my November refill, the pharmacist didn’t put anything on the bottle about my PA running out as she had done for the last several years. That got me to thinking I no longer needed a PA since this was the first year for generic Effexor.  I went merrily about my way and got a refill again on December 26, 2012 and still had no information about needing any forms renewed. When that bottle ran out, I called in a refill once again and picked it up. When THAT bottle ran out, I called in another refill and trouble started immediately.

Apparently, I DID still need a prior authorization back in December, but with no note or anything, I failed to notice the bottle only had 30 capsules in it. Furthermore, when I picked up the second refill in January, that bottle only contained 15 days worth of medicine as well. So when I went back to get refill two for this year, the computer shut me down. I couldn’t get my refill without getting a new PA on file.

Now in the past, the computer would shut me down in November so I would get the 15 day supply, download the form, take the form personally to Dr. Stephens, watch him fill it out, and fax it to them myself. This time, with no note, I didn’t pay attention — which is my fault — to either bottle I refilled so I found myself sitting at the window of the pharmacy being told I couldn’t get my meds without paying full price . . . well over $200, even generic.

I immediately went into a panic because I was OUT of meds. Now that might not seem terrible for any of you who have run out of cold medicine or cough medicine or some such before, but when you run out of psychotropic medicines, it’s a whole new ballgame. If I miss ONE dose of Effexor, I am lethargic all day. If I miss TWO full doses, I get a migraine headache that will incapacitate me for AWHILE, and those are the GOOD withdrawal side effects. Normally, if I see I’m going to run out, for whatever reason, I’ll take a half dose. I still feel like warmed over death on a stick, but I can carry on for the most part, except for the dreams.

Whenever I’m in full or partial Effexor withdrawal, my subconscious really has a field day when I go to sleep. Within a day, I begin having the most vivid, psychedelic nightmares you can imagine. I have been chased by Jason Vorhees riding a transmuted werewolf and leading a pack of orcs and zombies. I have been sacrificed, tied up for the kraken, and more other weirder and more terrifying dreams.

Sleeping. Is. Hell.

If you are here and don't know if you are awake or asleep, it's not ending well.

If you are here and don’t know if you are awake or asleep, it’s not ending well. Just saying.

Budge won’t let me sleep in the bed when I’m in withdrawals; not because she’s mean to me but because she’s looking out for her safety and the safety of our cats. I have woken up from a withdrawal nightmare in full combat mode punching the couch and stomp kicking the coffee table. I’ve woken up by diving off the recliner into the floor and hitting the coffee table on the way down. At a certain point, I start hallucinating and can’t tell if I’m dreaming or in reality. That’s when I stay away from driving and sharp objects. It is miserable and if I go too long and start back taking my meds . . . I get to experience the same effects while the meds ramp up in my system again. Did I mention HELL?

Luckily, the pharmacist on duty was a former student of mine. He fronted me ten capsules and by halving my dosage, I was able to make it til my PA went through, but it was a near run thing. I still had some kooky dreams but nothing like full-blown withdrawal. So that’s where I’ve been, everyone. I just haven’t had the wherewithal to make a post. Hopefully, I’ll be back in the high life again and can start up my former erratic schedule. Here’s hoping anyway.

Until then, keep those feet clean and know that I love y’all.

Jan17

“Truthers” Prove Einstein Correct

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tinfoil hatAlbert Einstein famously said, “Only two things are infinite, the Universe and Human Stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” The group of “people” known as Homo sapiens veritas are the best proof Einstein was correct in his assessment of the endlessness of human stupidity.

Homo sapiens veritas, better known by their common name — Truthers — are some of the most irritating, far-fetched, and unfortunately downright dangerous people you will ever come across. They share several common characteristics. First of all, the majority of Truthers are white and predominantly male. This is not an absolute because some minorities manage to get sucked in to the Truther vortex and enough females wander in to the orbit of these people to ensure future generations of the herd. The one thing setting Truthers apart from all other members of society, however, is their near religious zeal to prove nearly every event in world history is either an out-and-out hoax or a sinister conspiracy out of the shadows.

Allow me to give you just a sample of what these people believe, write books about, create websites for, and hold conventions expounding. I will offer no explanation of their beliefs and when you read the list, I think you’ll understand why.

    • The Holocaust was fabricated by Zionist Jews to drum up support for a Jewish state, Israel.
    • FDR knew all about the impending Pearl Harbor attack and ordered the information buried in order to ensure America would enter the Second World War.
    • JFK was assassinated by shooters on the “Grassy Knoll” or snipers placed elsewhere, but under NO circumstances did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone. (“Up and to the left; up and to the left; up and to the left”)
    • The United States government orchestrated the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9-11-2001 to justify a war with Iraq and Afghanistan.
    • Barak Obama is not a U.S. citizen, has a fake Social Security Number, and IS a Muslim.
    • Contrails formed behind jet airplanes at high altitudes are actually chemical clouds of an unknown origin and substance being released by our government for an unknown, but nefarious purpose.
    • Global warming caused by mankind’s actions is a fabrication to get more money earmarked for scientists.
    • The Apollo moon landings were all faked and filmed in the basement of the Pentagon.

These and many other ideas come from people who believe them enough to die for them in some cases. Now, though, a new and horrible conspiracy theory has started spreading with the attack once again being led by “Truthers” and this one is truly heart-wrenching. Truthers are spreading the notion that the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre was not the work of the mentally ill and well-armed Adam Lanza, but instead was carried out by a group working for the Federal government. They claim OUR government is so insidious that politicians had 26 innocent people — including 20 FIRST GRADE CHILDREN — basically executed.

Why?

As an excuse for tightening gun control.

I’d laugh if the notion wasn’t so unGodly perverted. A sizable group of people in this country are so enamored with their guns and so against ANY type of gun control that they have resorted to spreading conspiracy theories surrounding this school shooting, as well as the Aurora, CO theater shooting, in order to cast doubt on our government and save their precious guns.

That is what America has come to. Guns are more important than children.

Folks, I like guns. I LOVE guns. I enjoy shooting any type of gun I can at a range or in a field. I don’t hunt because I cannot kill an animal if my life depended on it. I just don’t have the nerve. My daddy and brother are hunters. Many of my best friends are hunters or gun lovers. I think guns are cool and if I could afford more, I’d buy a few more.

But children are more important than guns.challenge_accepted

It gets worse. The things I’ve been reading in the “comments” section of ANY article REMOTELY touching on gun control would be hysterical if these people weren’t dead serious. Several people have stated they need to hold on to as many guns as possible so . . . get this . . . THEY CAN OVERTHROW A TYRANNICAL US GOVERNMENT! These people actually think in the very near future the “gubmint” is going to go door to door and confiscate every firearm in private hands.

First of all, that’s never going to happen. Second of all, IF on the uber-miniscule chance that it did, when the Feds come to get the guns, the Feds are going. To. Get. The. Guns. To all you wannabe battle hungry folks who say “they’ll take my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands”, the US government has one thing to say — “Challenge Accepted.”

You see, all my NRA worshiping Sparkies out there, contrary to what you may think, you are not modern-day Minutemen or throwbacks to the patriots who fought the British to win our country’s independence. Our government isn’t 1776 Britain either. That was a simple war — they had muskets; we had muskets and a few rifles. Guts and determination and some timely help from France and Spain were all we needed.

Today, private citizens have rifles, pistols, and shotguns and the US government has rifles, pistols, and shotguns . . . and tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, artillery, jets, rockets, and more toys than even Santa and all his elves could put together. A friend of mine told me “The government would never use tanks against American citizens.” I told him what I’m telling you now — if things have gone far enough down the crapper that the government has declared martial law and feels the need to confiscate all privately owned guns, they’ve gone far enough down the crapper for troops to use whatever they need to use to do that, ala V for Vendetta style.

Let me wrap up by saying this; I don’t like the way our country is headed, but it’s still the best in the world. I don’t like everything our politicians do, but I think they fall into two basic groups — the ones in it for the money and perks and the ones who want to do good but don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anything done. I don’t think any of them CARE enough to want to set up some crazy dictatorship.

Maybe someday, but not just yet. We’ve got problems, sure, but our problems aren’t so awful we need to place guns above the value of people.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Jan11

As The Book Is Banned, A Cautionary Tale

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NeonomiconBannedI haven’t written a librarian post in quite some time, mainly because I haven’t been an official librarian in several years now. However, I remain a librarian at heart and just because I’m not working in a library, I haven’t turned a blind eye to the library world and the eye of the library world is blackened and puffy due to events transpiring right in my home town public library system. A book has been banned in from the Greenville County Public Library System.

The Greenville News has the entire story, but allow me to give you a short precis’. Last year, a fourteen year old girl used her father’s library card to check out Alan Moore’s graphic novel Neonomicon. When she showed the book to her mother, the mother was aghast and appalled at the content so she took the book back to the library and lodged a formal complaint. As per the library’s policy, a materials review committee went over the book using all the various criteria for selection such as literary merit, author reputation, awards, etc. After a thorough and careful review, the committee voted to uphold the book’s inclusion in the library’s collection. Then events took an ominous turn. The director of the library system, one Ms. Beverly James, used her “executive authority” to go against her own policy and OVERRULE HER EMPLOYEE COMMITTEE by ordering the book removed.

Let’s review. ONE person made a complaint about a book. The complaint went through proper protocols and channels. The committee upheld the book’s placement. The library director — a librarian with education and experience — went against their recommendation and BANNED THE BOOK.

A LIBRARIAN BANNED A BOOK!! This wasn’t a city council pressured by picketing pressure groups or a school board acting to quell an imagined scandal. This was a librarian taking a book off the shelves because ONE PARENT COMPLAINED! What’s next? Garbage-men pouring trash into the streets? Plumbers causing leaks in pipes? Congress passing meaningful legislation?

In the interest of full disclosure, Neonomicon is a harsh book. Alan Moore wrote it as a commentary on the horror genre and how it is racist and misogynistic. Since it is a graphic novel, it has pictures and some of the pictures show an orgy and later a rape scene. Did I mention it was a horror book? I can understand a parent not wanting his or her child to read this book. I get that, but that’s the issue.

This is Ms. Beverly James. She ordered a book banned after her materials review committee upheld it.

This is Ms. Beverly James, Director of the Greenville County Library System. She ordered a book banned after her materials review committee upheld it.

If you are a parent, you have EVERY right in the world to monitor your child or teen’s reading habits. You have the right to order YOUR child not to read something. You have the right to impose your views on morality on your children. I don’t have a problem with that. What I have a tremendous problem with is when YOU try to impose YOUR views on MY child and — regardless of how you want to sugar coat it — that is what censorship is, one person or one group of people imposing THEIR views on others by denying others the opportunity to books, movies, etc which the others have a First Amendment right to see and read.

Simply put, NO parent has the right to RAISE ANOTHER PARENT’S CHILDREN, but that is exactly what this ONE woman has done. She has, with the complicity of the HEAD LIBRARIAN of our county system, told EVERY teenager in this county “You cannot read this book because I don’t like it.”

I find that appalling.

Someone in the comments section of the article tried to defend Ms. James by saying she was acting in the interest of the prevailing views of the community and THAT is where another serious problem crops up. Librarians are PUBLIC servants. They act as agents of the state / city. As agents of the state, librarians are responsible for acting in the interest of the ENTIRE COMMUNITY, not just those who hold power or majority views. A librarian does not and should not have the luxury of allowing his or her personal views to taint his or her service to the community served. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Is it just me or is the resemblance amazingly uncanny?

Is it just me or is the resemblance amazingly uncanny?

A friend of mine is a librarian in a high school in the upstate. She has a good selection of LGBT young adult novels as well as reference books and other non-fiction books that address LGBT topics. She put this collection together because her school has a growing number of students who identify as LGBT and she wants THEM to have a place and voice in the library even though she personally doesn’t support the LGBT lifestyle because it runs counter to her beliefs as an Evangelical Christian. She is and has always been VERY conservative but she realizes something lots of people don’t — she is an agent of the state from the time she gets out of her car on campus until she gets back in to leave.

She gets a lot of heat from people, including people in her own family for having such a liberal selection policy, but I applaud her because she realizes something too many Christians, especially in the South in general and the communities here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt do not — THE MORALITY OF HER STUDENTS IS THEIR PARENTS” RESPONSIBILITY, NOT HERS. Her job is to serve the school community as a whole, not promote any agenda.

Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t or won’t see the bigger picture. I support freedom to read, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state NOT because I am not a Christian, but because I am and I’ve realized something — our majority is slipping. Islam is growing in America by leaps and bounds. Latin American Catholicism, which has some unsettling differences from the run of the mill Catholic churches around here, is growing with the growing influx of Latinos — legal and illegal. What happens when W.A.S.P.s are no longer in control? It’s something to think about and think about carefully. Sure, you probably support prayer in schools, but what happens when the class president or valedictorian is a Muslim and wants to pray in Allah’s name instead of Jesus’? When that day comes, and it WILL come, many Christians will be wishing they had listened to Thomas Jefferson’s message to the Danbury Baptist Association much more carefully.

So what does that have to do with the book banning? Everything. To boil it down, if WE insist on banning THEIR books today because we can, what do we say when the shoe is on the other foot and they want to ban OUR books? Think about this before I go; the woman who started the ball rolling which ended in Neonomicon being banned cited the book’s graphic depiction of violence and nudity as her reasons for wanting the book off the shelves. As an amateur theologian who has read the book cover to cover many times, I can tell you this — if graphic depiction of violence and misogyny were grounds for banning a book, the Old Testament of the Holy Bible wouldn’t  last a week.

Love you all, and I hope this makes it to the computers of some of my former colleagues so they can spread the alarm around the state and around the country. Now, keep those feet clean AND dry and I’ll catch you next time.

Jan3

Happy Birthday, Beren!

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jrr-tolkienJ.R.R. Tolkien would be 121 — “twelvity-one” in hobbit-speak — today were he still with us in body. I say “in body” because any person moderately interested in the fantasy genre knows full well just how omnipresent Mr. Tolkien is in spirit and influence. I am not, however, of the faction who feel Tolkien created the world of high fantasy. Certainly Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle — to name a few — blazed part of that trail before Bilbo set off on his most unBaggins-like, unhobbitish  journey.

Tolkien, though, picked up their trail and turned it into a superhighway traveled by the “usual suspects” of fairy tales like shape-shifters, dragons, and elves — though Tolkien’s elves wouldn’t have been recognizable to the Grimm brothers, but also by new wayfarers like orcs, wargs, and — of course — hobbits. I can’t say much that isn’t already written in the multitude of volumes in libraries today extolling Tolkien’s works and cutting into the minutiae of Middle Earth. I have nothing in my poor hack writing to add to them. What they cannot do, however, is tell what Tolkien, hobbits, and Middle Earth meant and still mean to me.

I read The Hobbit for the first time thirty years ago when I was a fat, awkward kid in sixth grade. The library at Gray Court – Owings School was a welcome refuge for me since I was nonathletic, unaesthetic, and borderline neurotic. One October afternoon, I had just finished off the last book in the World War II section of non-fiction when Ms. Goodhue, the finest school librarian to ever hold the title, sat me down and asked if I’d ever read any fantasy. I could honestly reply in the negative because I wasn’t really sure what fantasy even was. Without fanfare, she went to the paperback section of the “big kids” side of the library (supposedly for 7 – 8 graders) and brought back The Hobbit. She told me to try the first few chapters and let her know if I liked it.

Much to the chagrin of my 3-6 period teachers AND my grandmother, I read the entire book before bedtime that night, stopping only to take a spelling test and eat supper.

Grave_2

Just in case you’re wondering who in the world is Beren and why is he in the title of a post about Tolkien.

The next day, Ms. Goodhue took my glowing report of how much I loved the book then reached into her book bag and pulled out HER PERSONAL COPY of The Fellowship of the Ring for me to borrow. I read it — and The Two Towers and The Return of the King — by the end of the week. That Saturday, I went to the now-long-defunct Waldenbooks in the now razed-to-the-ground Greenville Mall and bought a matched set of all four books with my entire piggy bank . . . and a little “advance” from Papa Wham. To this day, they sit in an honored place on my office bookshelf. I’ve read and reread those four books AT LEAST sixteen times cover-to-cover in the intervening years. In fact, that set is so precious to me, it nearly caused my beloved Budge and I to “have words.” The movies were due out and she wanted to read the books beforehand so she asked me if she could read MY set. Having seen how she was prone to treat other paperback books she read — crushing their spines and bending pages — I flat-out told her NO to her (and my) utter shock. In my defense, we’d only been married about four years and I did not possess the wisdom and knowledge a husband of more years would have displayed. I immediately recanted and told her she could, but as every woman reading this knows, I couldn’t have PAID her to TOUCH “those books of mine” so I took her to dinner RIGHT THEN and we bought her very own set — which I have not touched to this day.

That incident is just a taste of how The Lord of the Rings has been a thread through my last three decades. I think the major reason is I discovered the books at a time when I was in profound need of seeing someone small and insignificant use wits . . . and a bit of Tookish luck . . . to overcome tons of negative stuff being hurled at him. Even though it had been five years since my parents’ divorce, I was still unable to process why my mother and father were not together. To top things off, Daddy had remarried and so had Mama and now Mama was realizing exactly what the wise aphorism “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face” really meant. In short, I was at a time of overwhelming mental and emotional turmoil. Tolkien gave me a place to go. When I was in Middle Earth, I was aware of the dangers, but they were dangers I could face on equal terms with sword and steel instead of lying helpless before words and people more cruel than any orc. Middle Earth was my refuge at a time when I desperately need one and it has sheltered me from many more woes and foes this world has offered.

So thank you, Professor, for turning the horror of WWI’s trenches into a world where a little boy could escape, if but for a little while and join a heroic quest to a Lonely Mountain because, as writer G.K. Chesterton so eloquently stated, ““Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Love you all and hope the new year is off to a great start! Keep those feet clean.

Dec30

2012 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 50,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 12 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Dec27

Happy Birthday #60, Mama!

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Me and Mama when I was in 5th Grade.

Me and Mama when I was in 5th Grade.

Today has been my beloved Mama’s sixtieth birthday. She completed her sixth decade in spite of fighting a terrible battle with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD that saw her hospitalized for two weeks with two bouts that left her very near death’s door. More than once, I thought I was going to lose her.

Anyone who has known me more than an hour will know how much Mama means to me. She has been the one guiding star and constant throughout my life. Some people take being called a “mama’s boy” as an insult, but I’ve worn it as a badge of pride all my days.

One facet of our relationship that’s made our bond so strong is for many years at many times, we were all each other had. Mama and Daddy separated when I was five and finalized the divorce when I was eight. Today, people don’t think much about divorces but at that time (1977) in such a small town, I was the only one of my friends who entered kindergarten with divorced parents. Of course, by the time we graduated high school, several of my friends joined me on the Split Up Family Express, and I found out later I’d gone to school with other divorced kids, but I didn’t know any of them as friends so it wasn’t a great help to me.

The divorce was hard — way hard — on Mama. People didn’t know nearly as much about depression and its effects in those days as they do now. I have an early memory of sitting on her lap with her sobbing uncontrollably and I put my hands up to her face and said, “I’ll take care of you, Mommy.” Today, 35 years later, when she has an anxiety attack and starts smothering, I still put my — now much bigger — hands around her face and say, “I’ll take care of you, Mommy.”

What a lot of people don’t understand about Mama and me is how much I’ve felt her sacrifice throughout my life. In the picture of us on this page, I’m in 5th grade so Mama would’ve been about 28, which isn’t too old to start over by any scale and as you can plainly see, she was a beautiful woman. She had numerous suitors vying for her affection, but she always brought me out immediately in the conversation and any man who balked hit the bricks. She had more than one man of wealth who would have loved to marry her and make her life much simpler and easy, but she always put me before herself and my happiness before hers so she never took that risk. Security was one of the wonderful gifts Mama gave me.

Of all the things Mama gave me, though, the greatest was her faith. Mama gave her life to the Lord when I was barely three and it guides her still. I have a crystal clear memory of being six years old. It was summer. We were in the first trailer Daddy and Mama had bought and put on the homeplace in Gray Court where Mama still lives. I was playing in the floor in the living room putting together Lego blocks and I heard Mama crying in her bedroom down the hall. Like I always did when I heard Mama crying, I went to be beside her, but when I got to her bedroom door something made me stop. Mama was kneeling at the foot of the bed with her head resting on an open bible, sobbing. Through the tears, I could make out one sentence over and over, “I can’t raise him alone; You have to help me. He belongs to You, not me.”

Folks, I’ll be as honest as I know how. I’ve done a multitude of things I won’t mention. I’ve been a terrible person. I’ve been drunk, high, and stoned out of my mind. I’ve hurt people and been hurt myself, but no matter where I’ve been; what I’ve been through, or what I’ve done, I’ve never been able to get that scene out of my mind. More than anything else in this entire messed up life of mine, the reason I believe there is a God, a man called Jesus, and a place called Heaven is they’ve lived in my mother’s eyes since I was three years old.

One day, maybe sooner, maybe later, I’ll stand beside a pink casket over an empty grave next to Papa John’s in Cannon Memorial Gardens. I’ll read the 23 Psalm and the 31st Chapter of Proverbs before I say a prayer for Mama’s soul, and while I am completely certain my heart will be broken into shards t0o many and too fine to number, I’ll have the knowledge that I will see her again. Until then, however, I’ll cherish every moment with her.

I love her. She’s my Mama.

Love all of you, too! Keep those feet clean.

Dec25

And So This Is Christmas

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A_Christmas_CarolI just finished watching my favorite version of A Christmas Carol. In this rendition, Captain Jean Luc Picard plays the part of Scrooge and brings such a weightiness and excellent acting to the part that I tape the version each year to watch on Christmas Eve. As I told a friend of mine while chatting on Facebook tonight, I believe Dickens’ novella is the greatest story of a man finding redemption to be had outside the pages of the Bible. He starts the movie a hard-hearted miserly old . . . well, SCROOGE, but four ghosts later, he is a changed man who knows the meaning of Christmas isn’t presents or even family. The true meaning of Christmas is redemption.

Scrooge can find redemption for the same reason we all can, because a little over two thousand years ago, God was born in the flesh to a teenage virgin girl huddled with her betrothed in a dank odoriferous cave converted into a makeshift stable behind a cheap motel in the backwater town of Bethlehem in the equally backwater region of Palestine. That girl then wrapped God — creator of the Universe — in clean, but frayed cloths and laid Him in a feed trough and probably sang Him to sleep. Royal robes to old rags; angelic choir to a mother’s lullaby. All so that He could undo the tremendous mess His most prized creation had gotten the world into. He came as a baby with one purpose in sight — to die on a cross and save the world. Everyone born WILL die; He was born TO die . . . and save us all.

Atheists, scientists, other religions’ leaders down the centuries have tried to disprove that teenage girl ever had a child named Jesus. They’ve tried through time to say He never existed, and when they failed in that, they tried to say He existed, but He wasn’t God. I think they’ve failed at that as well.

See, the name of the holiday (holiday = holy day) is Christmas. Literally, that means Mass of Christ. Now I’m not going into all the theological historical arguments about Christmas being a usurpation of the pagan Saturnalia and Jesus not being born in December. I know all of those arguments and if you insist on hashing them out, give me an email in the comments and we’ll talk. Now, back to the name. A mass is a celebration so Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ. It’s right there in the name.

The name isn’t “Toymas.”

It’s not “Santamas”

It’s not “Treemas” or “Partymas” or “Frostymas.”

It’s not called “Shoppingmas” or “Retailmas” or “Giftmas.”

We don’t sing about “O Shopping Night” or “The First Black Friday.”

We don’t because no matter how much the rising tide of secularization tries to wash away anything Christian to do with Christmas, they haven’t thought to change the name. They’ve tried a time or two. Years ago it started with “Seasons’ Greetings” and today the most PC among us go with “Happy Holidays” (again:  holiday = holy day). Christmas is still on the calendar though. The name of the Federal holiday (holy day) is “Christmas” and not “Winter Holiday.”

The Roman Empire was one of the mightiest political entities ever. They tried to kill the holiday in the womb and stamp out Christianity, but they couldn’t get it done. Neither could Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao and they ALL had more power than any of our Presidents have ever possessed.

Every gift you run around buying? You are constantly reenacting a central part of the Christmas story — the Magi bringing gifts to the Christ child. Every scrap of “holiday” music you listen to from Halloween to December 26th? Reenacting the angelic host announcing to the shepherds the birth of the Christ child. Wrapping all those gifts? Just like Mary wrapped our ultimate gift.

So try to stamp it out. Try to humbug it like Scrooge did, but at the end of it all, despite the best efforts of generation after generation of genuises, the message of Christmas is still Christ is Born. To quote the greatest showman wrestler of all time, Mr. Richard Fleer, aka Ric “The Nature Boy” Flair, “Whether you LIKE it, or DON’T LIKE it, sit down and LOOK at it, because it’s the best thing going today!”

Can I get a “whooooo?”

Love y’all, keep those feet clean, and Merry Christmas.

 

Dec20

It’s Already Tomorrow in Australia

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It seems reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!

It seems reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated!

As I’m writing this, folks who slept in all around Southeast Asia are just crawling bleary-eyed out of bed and on their side of the International Date Line, it’s already Friday, December 21, 2012 and the BBC, MSNBC, and FoxNews are all reporting nothing of consequence is happening across the Pacific. So, it looks like 12-21-12 is going to join a long and distinguishedly infamous list of other dates under the heading of “Days the Apocalypse Didn’t Come.”

I know some people are seriously disappointed. I don’t mean “fake disappointed,” either. Some folks are probably sitting around scratching their heads in real consternation wondering where all the earthquakes and meteors are or what happened to Nibaru? I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to hear some disturbed individuals will have committed suicide by the time 12-21-12 makes it all the way around the globe. Echo and the Bunnymen said it best, “People are strange.”

I never seriously considered the world ending today. I still owe money and haven’t hit the lottery. If you ever see me on TV holding up one of those funny, oversized PowerBall checks, THEN you should probably make preparations because I’m willing to bet if I ever get rich, the game is going to end. That’s just my luck.

In the interest of some vein of seriousness though, any thinking person should have realized the world wasn’t going to end on this specific day. First, look at the problem scientifically. The Universe couldn’t care less about dates. The idea of dates — as well as most other divisions of time — are human inventions. “Tomorrow” or “next century” don’t have any meaning to planetary forces like earthquakes. Comets don’t punch time clocks. Any scientific end-of-the-world scenario hitting on a particular date is simply the wildest of consequences. The Universe just doesn’t have a calendar.

Secondly, from a theological standpoint, God doesn’t have a calendar. Neither does Allah or any of the other myriad gods man has worshipped over the millenia. Time doesn’t matter to an eternal being. God will end the world if and when He gets good and ready and not before. A being who exists OUTSIDE of time has no need of specific dates so anyone trying to pin a date down is just flirting with disappointment.

We petty human peons are the only creatures on the planet things like the page on a calendar or hands on a clock mean anything to. Animals go by seasons and the sun and natural rhythms. Tides have no time, but only the pull of the Moon and the Sun. We alone fret over our arbitrary conventional invention.

So get over it and go shopping, people. Christmas is only four days away! Go on. Occupy yourselves some other way until the next big prediction comes along. But until then,

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Geez, people, you took our lands, you took our gold, you took our way of life . . . can't you take a freaking joke? Just turn to the next calendar page!!

Freaking A, people, you took our lands, you took our gold, you took our way of life . . . can’t you take a freaking joke? Just turn to the next calendar page!!