Watching my "first" church on Sunday mornings

I am somewhat in a state of flux at the moment.  See, I've been living in the Spartanburg, South Carolina area for going on eight years now.  But I don't know if it can truly be called that I've "set down roots" here.  This is one of the fastest-growing areas in the entire country, there are people coming to live here in mega droves (the constant residential developing is something that's irking longtime members of the community) but even so, there's not been a peace on my heart about staying here.  If I can swing it I'd love to relocate to the Greenville area.  I have a lot of friends and family there, it would be nice to be closer to them.

One of the things that has suffered because of that "lack of peace" is my spiritual life.  I've been here for the better part of a decade and I still haven't found a place of regular worship that suits my needs and what I've come to appreciate most in a church.  Truth be told, I haven't had something like that since I was married, almost twenty years ago.  I feel closer to God than I ever have before.

But still, we as Christians are not meant to "go it alone".  We are supposed to be in fellowship and communion with one another.  We are meant to lift each other up, encouraging and edifying one another.  Scripture even instructs us in this matter: Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

So I've been searching for a church.  Some come close to the mark but I've found that I can't be in regular fellowship enough to make it a home church.  And maybe that's God's way of goading me to move on elsewhere.  I did report in my book that when God spoke to my heart, all the way back more than ten years ago, He said that I would not find my lasting happiness quickly.  I've found a great deal of happiness, yes.  But if my spiritual needs aren't being met, well... that's a lot missing from the equation of my life.

I have compensated a bit though.  I'm not entirely without spiritual nourishment.  Indeed, this easily ranks as the congregation that is dearest to my heart, because this is the church that I was attending when I first accepted Christ into my life almost thirty years ago (wow, thirty years?!?  How did THAT happen?!??).

If you've read Keeping the Tryst then you know about my fondness for Antioch Community Church in Elon, North Carolina.  The final steps of my journey to Christ took place in the fall of 1996, and a massive part of that steering toward God happened because Antioch and the services that it held on Sundays for students at the nearby college.  I wish that I had been able to take more advantage of what Antioch and its members and clergy had to offer, because it might have given me wisdom enough for things that happened later in my life (again, something that you can find in the book).  The people of Antioch are a real family of brothers and sisters in Christ, more than any place I've found in all the years since my salvation experience.  I really miss that kind of fellowship.  And I had missed the preaching of pastor Mark Fox and the occasional sermon by others in the congregation.

So for awhile now - and I must thank my dear friend Geoff Gentry for first telling me about it - I've spent an hour on Sunday, either during its live broadcast or later on, watching the service at Antioch Community Church via streaming video through Facebook.  It's much of what I remember from being there: the praise and worship songs, the reading of the scripture, Mark Fox's teaching... pretty much everything stopping only for the meet and greet among attendees and the periodic communion.

It's not completely being in a spiritual community.  I think that's going to come when my dog and I are where God truly needs us to be.  But for quite some time and I think it will go on into the future, watching or listening to the messages from Antioch Community have been sustenance that I cherish and incorporate into my life.  It's something that I am very thankful for.

So... wanna check Antioch Community Church out for yourself?  Their website is antiochchurchnc.org.  If you find that you want to watch the services as they happen, here is their Facebook page from which the live video streams every Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. EST.  You can also find each week's preaching on their SermonAudio archive.  However is best for you I think you'll get a lot out of it.  I certainly do.

And if you so choose to want to visit in person, Antioch Community Church is physically located at 1600 Power Line Road in Elon, North Carolina.  No doubt they would be delighted to see you!  Be sure to tell then that Chris Knight says hi! 😊

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The Hand of Darth Sidious: A Star Wars Theory by Yours Truly

What if the Palpatine we saw in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker was not the "real" Palpatine at all?  What if he was some kind of replica without an iota of Palpatine/Sidious's spirit whatsoever?

There is precedent for such a notion.

In Timothy Zahn's two-part "Hand of Thrawn" novel duology from the late Nineties, the galaxy hears whispers about the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn.  Thrawn in the still-venerable expanded universe, you may recall, was killed toward the end of The Last Command.  The galaxy thought he was dead.  But he prophesied that he would return in ten years' time if he ever was thought to have died.

Long story short, it turns out that at Thrawn's hidden fortress (see what I did there?) in the Unknown Regions, the grand admiral had prepared a clone of himself.  It had been in stasis all that time.  Just waiting to be "brought online" by his faithful Chiss followers.  It would not have had any of Thrawn's soul, but it definitely would be Thrawn after a fashion.

What if Emperor Palpatine did such a thing for himself?

I can easily imagine that Palpatine went to Exegol and had himself cloned, and had it put in storage.  It would be waiting, for the "unlikely possibility" that Palpatine would die.  Who knows how but perhaps the clone was given the original's memories and abilities (it seems to have been the case for Joruus C'Baoth in the expanded universe), ready to be taken out of its vat and brought online.  The Emperor would be reborn.  But as Palpatine says in a deleted scene we know exists, he would be "more than a clone, less than a man."

So Palpatine/Emperor/Darth Sidious creates the clone and when his Sith Eternal followers get the news that he died and the Empire is finished, they activate the clone.  Just as Thrawn's people were about to do with his own clone.  And THAT is who we see in The Rise of Skywalker: a replica of Palpatine, created as a failsafe in case the real one was killed.

Such a notion preserves the idea of Anakin Skywalker being the chosen one who brings balance to the Force.  While at the same time restoring Palpatine as the overarching mastermind behind the dark events throughout the Star Wars saga.

Just a theory, I confess.  But it's one as good as any other.

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Aliens came out forty years ago today

 One of the seminal motion pictures of the science-fiction and action genres hit theaters on this date in 1986.

And it still holds its own four full decades later.  Aliens is going to prove to be as timeless as its predecessor.  I love pretty much everything about this movie.

Bit of a side note: a week and a half before 9/11 I had dinner with Jenette Goldstein, the amazing actress who played Vasquez.  She's an absolutely delightful woman.

Happy anniversary Aliens.  And no doubt we will be enjoying you just as much forty more years from now as we do today.

 

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Fallout 5 is officially in the works, and remasters of two previous games are coming! Along with...

It is official: Fallout 5 is in development.  Bethesda mastermind Todd Howard confirmed it yesterday.  Right now it's being called "in pre-production", which could mean a lot of things.  Depending on how far things are it could mean that concept art is being created.  It could also mean that the staff are still trying to determine where this new Fallout game takes place.  Previous games have been set in the California desert, the ruins of Washington D.C., the Boston region, and the landscape surrounding Las Vegas.  Where will the next Fallout take us?

Speaking of Las Vegas, Howard also said that remasters of Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3 are coming.  Which will become an enormous time sink for me.  Fallout 3 sucked me in so hard that I spent over 130 hours playing it.  I got sooo obsessed with finding every secret, talking to every character that I could.  If someone said that Fallout 3 must be my most favorite game ever, that would probably be close to the mark.  And as I said a few days ago about Fallout: New Vegas I seem to be cursed to start that game but never close to finishing it.  Maybe I should wait for its remaster to begin anew?

Howard also reconfirmed that studio Obsidian - the outfit that brought us New Vegas - is at work on their Fallout game (there's no word on where that takes place either).  And there are updates coming to Fallout 76 and mobile game sensation Fallout Shelter.

And finally, Howard reports that something special is being planned for the thirtieth anniversary of the original Fallout next year.  The event is to be held in Washington D.C.

I'm looking forward to Fallout 5.  Although it will be somewhat bittersweet.  I'm probably going to ve in my mid-sixties, at the least, before Fallout 6 comes out.  Maybe I should begin that Fallout tontine I suggested a year ago.  Might be a fun lil' exercise to get involved in.

Anyhoo, be of good cheer.  Lots of good Fallout is coming down the pike.  

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Memories of the giant turtle

My memoir Keeping the Tryst has been getting around some.  I confess, its biggest audience seems to be composed of people who have known me, friends and family.  It's gotten some other purchases, though it's far from being a "bestseller".  Still, I've been happy.  And one never knows how far a book will get in the larger scheme of things.  A lot of books started out selling small but went on to bigger things.

One of the most consistent remarks that I've gotten about Keeping the Tryst has been about my memory.  This book covers half a century of the lifetime of an American boy, and it does so in at times almost microscopic detail.  As I said in the first chapter, I have no idea how it is that I remember some things so vividly and clearly.  It just "is".  Sometimes I feel like Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: unstuck in time.  One moment I'm here in the present and the next I'm anywhen else down my timeline, and sometimes it's as if I can see a little bit ahead, too.  The memories come often without anything precipitating them.

Like this latest one, that has me stumped about why it should come to mind many decades later.

A few nights ago I remembered something that I saw on television, at an age so young that I couldn't pinpoint what year.  It had to do with a giant green turtle and a beautiful woman with glowing green eyes.  It was a movie.  And for some reason it made me sad, like it had a tragic ending.

I knew that I wasn't imagining this.  It's something that has crossed my mind a number of times over the years, without warning.  This was a thing that I had seen with my own eyes and it must have been before I ever started school at the age of five.  And it was haunting me.

Why?

The other day, the memory came again.  And finally, at long last, I plugged what little I knew into Google and braced myself for whatever might come.

Well, it turned out that I was not the only poor soul who had gone looking for the giant turtle and the girl with glowing green eyes.  Many others had too.  And so I followed the trail...

It led to one Michael Summers, proprietor of the Dangerous Universe website.  And with his post from 2000 titled "Dream of the Big, Huge Turtle" the final link in the long chain going back to my childhood snapped into place.

It was a movie after all.  Its title is The Bermuda Depths.  And it was broadcast on the American television network ABC on January 27th, 1978.

That was a few months shy of my fourth birthday.

I read the article on Wikipedia and found out more...

The Bermuda Depths is a science-fiction/fantasy/horror film, starring among other people Carl Weathers (who was in between the first two Rocky movies) and Burl Ives.  It's about a young man who grew up on Bermuda, meeting a girl named Jennie when he was younger, and after some time away comes back to the island.

I remembered that much, too.

And then there was that monstrously enormous turtle.  That more than anything else is what made the impression on me.  It was a terrifying spectacle.  I remember there being a fight with it toward the end of the movie.  And I think that in a way the turtle won.

I have memories of watching the final scenes and crying.  I cried a lot, as a child. I was very sensitive.  Sometimes I would cry listening to a song.  It just needed to sound sad enough.  Songs that don't faze me and haven't for a long time since then.  The Bermuda Depths made me cry, and I don't know why.

I suppose that I'm going to have to watch this, sometime or other, maybe in the near future.  I did a looksee and it's available on DVD at Amazon for thirteen bucks.  Maybe when I do see it, the real last pieces of this movie that has at times haunted me unbidden will fall into being.  Perhaps then I will understand why memory of it has lingered and persisted for going on fifty years.

If I do see it, I'll make a post about it.  But then again, I wonder if I really should watch it.  There should be a bit of mystery in one's life.

However this goes, my memory has a name now.  And I know that I wasn't imagining it.

EDIT 07-18-2026 02:06 AM: I was so startled by discovering that I hadn't hallucinated it that it didn't occur to me until just now that there might be clips of The Bermuda Depths on YouTube.  But there are some.  So I'll post that link and lure others to also partake of the madness.

(Turtle picture generated with Google Gemini)

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The trailer for I Play Rocky goes the distance and I wanna see MORE!

I have already told my best friend Chad that if I can get 250 miles to where he lives in November, we are going to see this movie.

Yowza!!  I believe already that MGM has a solid, solid hit on their hands.  This is going to connect with the fans and the critics.  Darn it, we need a feel-good inspirational movie right now, if we ever needed one at all.  And the story of how Sylvester Stallone came up from the streets to write and star in Rocky is as inspiring as it gets.

I Play Rocky comes out in select theaters on November 6th and all over the place later in November.  Plenty of time for award consideration.

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13-year old kid struck by lightning while playing video games

This is why I still cherish my Game Boy Advance.

I found this story at Not The Bee: the "real life news" daughter site of The Babylon Bee, one of my favorite places on the whole heapin' World Wide Web.  Seems that 13-year old Vlad Skuridin of Cypress, Texas was playing a game on his computer.  Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck his house and blew him out of his chair.  For good measure the lightning strike also set a small fire in the attic and knocked a hole in the wall.

Here is young Vlad describing the incident to KPRC reporter Corley Peel:

Okay, let's be clear: playing the video game itself did not cause lightning to strike Vlad.  It doesn't sound like the bolt was channeled through his computer and from there jumped to Vlad.  He just happened to be touching a metallic surface when the bolt hit the house.  It sounds like a one-in-a-zillion freak of nature situation.  Even so, it's not a bad idea to unplug everything you can when a storm is threatening.  I certainly do while lightning is a severe threat.  Especially the computers.

And Vlad is a wise young man too.  It's true: you never know when something might happen.  Be good to the people in your life.  Let them know that you care about them.  That you love them.  We aren't guaranteed tomorrow or even an hour from now.  So make your life count!

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There's a new Fallout game coming! And guess what...

 ...it's being made by Obsidian, the studio that almost 16 years ago brought us Fallout: New Vegas.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that the new Fallout game is guaranteed to be good.  But a lot of people put great store in Obsidian.  New Vegas is widely considered to be the best Fallout game produced yet and the onus is going to be on the studio to deliver.  They know this.  I have faith in them.

And I say that as someone who has still not finished playing New Vegas.  It's sort of become a curse in my life: I cannot continue that game without something happening to throw me so far off course that by the time I get back to it, I've forgotten where I was and how I got there.  The last time I played it I had just come to New Vegas itself and was trying to find Mr. House.  But that was two years ago.  My main PC died on me and I need to get it fixed and when that happens I'll probably want to restart the game just to get the full experience.

Well, I should have plenty of time to do that.  It's probably going to be at least three or four years before this new Fallout game is ready.  And Lord only knows how long it will be before we get a proper Fallout 5.  All I'm sure of is that by the time Fallout 6 comes, many if not most of the people reading these words will either be retired or dead (see my idea from a year ago about having a Fallout tontine with your friends!).

Anyhoo, the announcement about the new Fallout game comes hot on the heels of Microsoft letting go thousands of employees from its Xbox and gaming divisions.  You can read about all of that over on Nerdist.com and their article about Obsidian going to work on Fallout whatever.

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Indian Simulator: NOT for those with weak stomachs!

This is terrible!  But having endured more than two hours of tech support based in India during the past few days, I'm feeling ornery enough to share this anyway.

If you've ever wondered what it is like to live in India, those good people have produced Indian Simulator.  We have gobs of simulators about American life already - flight simulators, goat simulators, and of course the Grand Theft Auto games.  But what is it like to make one's home on the subcontinent?  Indian Simulator is the game for you then!

Now that's ONE pre-order I for one will be avoiding like a disease-ridden brahma bull!

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Haven't seen Young Washington yet. I did see Disclosure Day though...

On Independence Day some friends asked if I wanted to join them at the theater to see the new Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day.  I went with them and we agreed afterward that it's a great movie!  Not Spielberg's best but it's definitely tapping into "old school Spielberg" that a lot of us remember from our youth, with a dash of the "mature Spielberg" who has been with us since Schindler's List.

That is how I gauge our greatest living filmmaker.  There is the Steven Spielberg that I met at the Boy Scout Jamboree in 1989: the "big kid" who was as giddy as a schoolboy, dancing around in his Scout uniform.  That's the man who brought us E.T. and Indiana Jones and Jaws and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.  He had a childlike twinkle in his eye and we were fortunate to have him.

Then Spielberg went off to Poland to make Schindler's List.  He wasn't the same after that.  The twinkle went out of his eyes.  The Spielberg who came back was a darker figure, and it reflected in his work.  The Jurassic Park sequel was Spielberg attempting a return to form, but it... lacked something.  I can't put my finger on what it was, but it did.

It was like that for Steven Spielberg for awhile, until 2001.  It took finishing his pal Stanley Kubrick's work with A.I.: Artificial Intelligence to pull him back to the wonder. Even there, I don't think it was a complete return.  The Spielberg of fifteen years earlier might have left David inside the amphibicopter, looking at the blue fairy, until his power ran down and everything was frozen around him.  That would have been a downer of an ending and yet one with hope.  The Spielberg of 2001 couldn't leave David like that, he instead gave him a more concrete ending.  One that was completely absent of humanity, it must be noted.

Over the past quarter century it's been coming back in fits and starts, and with Disclosure Day we have gotten as close to the old-school Steven Spielberg as we've gotten post-Schindler.  This is definitely going back to Spielberg's fantasy/sci-fi roots, the rich soil that bought forth Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.  Disclosure Day is a pure Spielberg film, with a script written by longtime collaborator David Koepp.  And the cherry on top, a terrific score by John Williams (this is the thirtieth project that Williams has done with Spielberg).  It's got all the classic Spielberg cinematic style, and it's pretty obvious that true to form Spielberg chose to shoot this with real film: it's got that beautiful grain look to it.  Visually I thought it much resembled the look of 2002's Minority Report, and that's not a bad thing at all.

I'll have to say that I recommend Disclosure Day.  It's not a perfect film, but it is a fine enough motion picture made by the greatest filmmaker of our time.  Try not to make sense of it as you go along, is the biggest advice I'll give it.  Suspend your disbelief at the theater door.  Trust me, it will make sense toward the end of the movie.

So that's what we saw on Saturday.  My friends already had tickets for Disclosure Day.  Had we gotten to the theater without any real plans in mind, we might have seen Young Washington, which debuted the day before.  I have heard nothing but amazing about that movie.  More than enough to make me want to catch it while it's in theaters.

Young Washington is produced by Angel Studios.  I've had my eye on Angel for awhile now and it has been a pure pleasure to watch it grow into a solid, solid mid-tier studio and maybe more than that.  Angel is building off of lessons that faith-based filmmaking has long been in the process of learning.  Let's face it: the Christian filmmaking community has made some real stinkers over the past fifty or sixty years.  Only now, in the last fifteen or so, has it come to realize that the message is little or nothing if it's without a story that sincerely entertains the audience.  Sherwood Pictures earnestly began the trend with their movies like Facing the Giants and Courageous, and now others have come along too.

Keep an eye on Angel Studios.  They really have become and continue to be as formidable an outfit as there is apt to be for a venture of its size and scope.  And it's only going to get better.

But I think that Angel Studios missed a real marketing opportunity with Young Washington.  One of the current gimmicks for seeing movies in a proper theater is that they offer the opportunity to have special popcorn buckets.  I've seen them in all shapes and sizes.  Some amazing to behold and some downright ridiculous (the one for Dune, a plastic sculpture of the sandworm, was... shall we say, "suggestive"?).  But they have become very popular and nice collector's items.

Angel Studios should have had a popcorn bucket for Young Washington.  It could have been a tricornered hat.  Holds your popcorn during the movie, and fashionable to wear afterward!

Yeah, it's a ChatGPT rendition.  I'm still sticking with my vow to not produce any AI-"written" work on this blog.  And if there is any AI "art" I'm going to disclose that.  But I needed a hat/popcorn holder pic and that was the fastest/dirtiest way to have one :-P 

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Happy 250th Birthday America! And a recommitment...

---

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

From the excellent HBO miniseries John Adams...

And with that, a new nation - one unlike any other in the history of the world - was born.

To the Founders: It hasn't been easy.  We've made mistakes in the past two and a half centuries.  But a lot of us still regard with precious sentiment that you pledged your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor.

I have tried to uphold the duties imparted unto me as a citizen of this land.  In reflecting upon the occasion, I am impressed with the conviction that my efforts have been found lacking.  Few of us, it must be said, have so thoroughly dedicated ourselves to uphold the responsibilities that come with the qualities that you announced for all time were of full rights to be bestowed upon every man and woman.

So it is that on this occasion, the two hundredth and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our nation, that I resolve to devote however many years are within my lifetime to serving my native land with all the strength, and wisdom, and temerity that are mine to command.

I challenge every citizen of these United States to do likewise.

We are not yet the perfect Union.  But we have come to be a more perfect Union.  This is a process, lumps and all.  And for all of the sins of the Founders that have become fashionable to condemn, it must be stated with all due confidence that those men, the greatest of their generation, gave us the means to draw closer to the ideals of freedom.  America is and always has been a work in progress.  We lift up what works and we take down what doesn't.  It's gotten us this far, despite our faults and foibles.  Maybe it can get us a little further.

I think a lot of harm has been done to our republic over the years.  Especially in the past century.  Too many of us have come to see this country as something to exploit and take from without having to contribute to it.  Many people have done things that in a sane world would be deemed outright treasonous.  Those will be dealt with in due time.  Nobody ever got away with it forever, and so it will be with our republic.

But for all of that, America is still that shining city upon the hill.  It is a sacred trust for her citizens, and an inspiration for those in distant lands who may not yet fully know freedom.  It is still something that we can be thankful that we are a part of.

So I'm committing to be a better citizen of this great land.  It's what an Eagle Scout, no matter his age, should do.  And I call upon ever other American who is reading these words to do that also.

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Thirty years ago we celebrated our Independence Day!

It occurred to me that it was thirty years ago today that the science-fiction blockbuster Independence Day came out in theaters...

I saw this movie seven times that summer!  The only other movies I saw during the summer of '96 were Twister and A Time to Kill.  And I can tell you exactly on which dates I saw Independence Day each time.

It was on July 4th that was the first time.  I was working a summer job at a bindery and we had a few days off for the holiday.  Ed, my best friend at Elon, and I caught the movie at the now-non-existent Janus Theaters in Greensboro, North Carolina.  We loved it so much that we caught it again two days later.  And then a little over a week later my friend Bennie from Belgium was visiting for a week, and we saw it together. Then a few days after that my friend Johnny announced that he was engaged and asked if I would be one of his groomsmen.  I said yes and to celebrate I took him to see Independence Day, too.  The following weekend I saw the movie for the only time on my own.  Then the following week Ed and I caught it again and then a few days before classes started at Elon he and saw it once more with our friend Gary.

To this day I cannot explain what it was about that movie that had me going back over and over to see it.  Maybe it was getting stoked about Star Wars's special editions coming out in a few more months and it made me want to see any big-screen sci-fi blockbuster at all.  So Independence Day was preparing me mentally for that.

Well, I could say more, but actually I already did.  Here is the essay I wrote in 2006 about Independence Day and it's pretty much what I would write today if I had to all over again.

(In case anyone's wondering, I have not seen the sequel.  It came out during me and Tammy the Pup's epic journey across America and for various reasons I didn't catch any movie that summer while we were out and about.  I really don't care to see it either.  The original movie was too much "lightning in a bottle" and I don't want to diminish thinking that.)

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Video: Japanese guys handling guns in a Bass Pro Shop (this is what America is all about!)

Two Japanese tourists, in the country for the World Cup soccer tournament, visited a Bass Pro Shop.  Somehow they found their way to the firearms department.  They could not buh-leeeeve all that magnificent firepower on sale to the general public.  The Japanese guys asked if they could touch the guns and as you can see they got the full enjoyment out of handling them.

Oh yeah, and notice that they are wearing Buc-ee's hats.

This has to be the greatest video I've seen in awhile.  The look on the Japanese duo's faces as they heft aloft various handguns, rifles and shotguns.  Doing something that is definitely not allowed in most of the world (but it should be allowed, that's what truly free countries do).

I've heard lots of stories about how foreign guests here for the World Cup have been discovering the real America and being impressed by all the freedom and opportunity that we have here.  That is refreshing.  It should also make us as Americans all the more thankful for the blessings we have been given.  We are still that shining city on the hill, despite the efforts of some to diminish that beauty.  We still have a magnificent example to show the world.  This video demonstrates that.

Okay well, 'nuff from me.  You want to see America at some of its best.  Mash down here for the video of two Japanese men in Buc-ee's caps handling guns in a Bass Pro Shop.  And prepare to smile :-)

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Disappointed, but not surprised, at Trump vs Barbara

That's pretty much the summary of it all.  I'm quite disappointed, but not surprised at all, at the Supreme Court's ruling about birthright citizenship.

It's the third rail of American law: that EVERYONE born on American soil must therefore be an American citizen.  The high court had the opportunity to rectify that assumption.  But that requires a boldness and adherence to the Constitution as written that is all too absent from the halls of government in our era.

As I've come to understand it the 14th Amendment applies to people born to those who are already under American jurisdiction, and at the time that was indeed former slaves and their children.  Those born to foreign citizens while in America are subjects of those foreign places.  The amendment is pretty clear on that.

Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito are correct in this case.  But the politics of the matter was too much for Roberts and Barrett.  The three diehard liberal justices, it was a given that they would vote to uphold citizenship for those merely born on American territory.  Kavanaugh surprised me: he voted to uphold birther citizenship.  But he also described a means of legally defining that citizenship belongs solely to those who are solidly within American jurisdiction.  I think his nuance in this case will be noted for many years to come.

But what do I know?  I'm just a guy who has studied the Constitution for most of his life going all the way back to Miss Jones's class in fifth grade. Some are going to say that I'm against the 14th Amendment and "obviously" want to put people back in the chains of slavery.  I'm looking at the reality of the law, not the political expediency of it.

My conclusion: this ruling will make a bad situation even worse.  One day we may recognize that.

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Happy 100th Birthday to Mel Brooks!

 

Only 1900 years more to go!

(Die-hard fans will get the joke ;-)

And he's still going nonstop!  Coming next year is the long awaited Spaceballs sequel.  It wouldn't surprise me if Mel Brooks has more up his sleeve for after that.  The man has been a comedic force of nature for most of his life, what else might he entertain us with?

There is no doubting what I'm doing this afternoon to celebrate Brooks's centennial.  I'm going to watch Blazing Saddles for the hunnerd zillionth time.

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So I watched Citizen Vigilante yesterday...

I had never heard of Citizen Vigilante, Uwe Boll's new film starring Armie Hammer, until a few days ago.  That's when I read that this movie has been effectively banned in Germany and the United Kingdom.  Something about it encouraging violence against migrants.

But then Elon Musk made Citizen Vigilante available to watch for free on his X (formerly Twitter) platform.  Something that would avoid the censorious thought police and let the people see and decide on their own.  Which only made the German and British governments even more furious.

Rush Limbaugh called it the "Streisand Effect": trying to keep people from watching a thing, makes people want to watch it even more.  Suddenly I found myself curious enough to check out Citizen Vigilante.  That's what I spent part of the afternoon yesterday doing.

What did I think?

It's a far shot from being award-worthy.  There have been other films - I'm especially thinking of the original Death Wish and also Harry Brown - that deal with vigilantism much better than does Citizen Vigilante.  There are some things about this movie that should have been left on the editing room floor (the brothel scene was especially cringe-worthy).  The entire movie looks like it was shot on an iPhone with no color correction or other tweaking.  I could tick off a few more things that are problematic with this movie...

But those things aside, I do believe that this is a film as relevant as any other during this particular time in modern history.

Citizen Vigilante is a movie that dares to acknowledge something that too many corrupt officials in all the wrong places would rather not have the people thinking about.  Namely, how out-of-control immigration that allows any so-called "refugee" into the civilized countries of the western world.  And with those "migrants", who refuse to assimilate into proper society, has come obscene levels of violent crime. Including rape and murder.

The officials in government don't dare touch the issue, they're that afraid of looking "racist" and "bigoted".  A lot of judges have been letting the migrant defendants - whenever they can be brought to court - off with easy sentences.  Their rationale: that migrant youth "don't know any better" and are even simply "misbehaving".

Meanwhile the actual citizens of those countries must live with two-tier law enforcement that places migrants above them.  To raise the issue and dare challenge it is to invite condemnation from the government.  Indeed, it's now a punishable offense in England to post criticisms of the migrants on the Internet.  Do so and you're going to get the constables banging on your door to take you down to the hoosegow.  The real citizens are treated much more harshly than the illegal aliens.  Everybody knows it's happening.

Citizen Vigilante in inspired by that radical disparity across Europe between law for citizens and "law" for migrants.  It's a very rough movie but there is no doubting the central message: that increasingly people are having to fend for themselves because the government refuses to help them.  If there is a breakdown of the law and the duly-appointed officers cannot or will not intervene, then it becomes the duty of the people to address it themselves.  And that is what Armie Hammer's character Michael Sanders does.  He's taking out the bad guys, including the judges who are much too lenient, in order to drive the people into taking charge on their own.

This is a very, very brusque film.  Not a spectacular film, and it won't win any prestigious awards.  But it will get people talking.  If they cannot readily see it because of their "democratic" governments refusing them access to it, they're going to want to watch it.  I suspect that there might be a thriving underground commerce for Citizen Vigilante across Europe (is The Pirate Bay website still functioning?).  It's going to make a lot of people think... and be moved to act.  I doubt - and I really do want to doubt - that this movie is going to entice sane people into doing some of the things that Sanders does in his war against out of control migrants who refuse to like civilized folks.  But it will anger them enough to take the bull by the horns and bring their governments back under their control.

My advice: go watch Citizen Vigilante, however it is that you can find it.  Don't expect a pretty and easily palatable story.  But you will find a very timely one.

EDIT 03:16 AM EST: I just checked and The Pirate Bay Is indeed still online.  And yes, Citizen Vigilante can be found there.  Disclaimer: I don't advise piracy of anything in any form.  But if governments like the British and German ones continue to try to keep this movie from being seen by their own people, I'm almost tempted to say that downloading and distributing this movie might be a moral and ethical thing to do after all.

 

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