Thoughts about the "One Big Beautiful Bill"

There is both jubilation and lamentation abounding tonight following Congress's approval of President Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill".  Personally, I have some mixed feelings about it.  I'm not going to let the shrill hysteria coming from some quarters persuade me that it's an entirely bad thing though.

I think the thing I've heard most from those opposing the budget is that it's going to starve "millions" of people.  And that it's going to deprive many others of necessary medication.

Well, let's see what someone who has in times past been on government assistance for food, and medicine, and has worked in the public sector as a mental health professional, has to say about the "One Big Beautiful Bill".  You ready for this?  Because you may not be expecting what I'm about to speak about it.

Okay, here we go...

The public food assistance is horribly abused.  A lot of people are on it that don't need to be.  Cut them out and there will be MORE assistance for the ones who do need it.

America is the only country in history that can not only produce more than enough food for its own people, it can also feed entire other countries.  That's a pretty good system if you ask me.  Not "perfect", that is not possible and never will be.  But nobody is going to starve because the "Big Beautiful Bill" was passed.  This of all countries is a place that doesn't have to worry about people going hungry.  If they need food they CAN get it.

I know!!  I've had to get help myself.  There are food ministries and other charities that are dedicated to providing sustenance.  It may not be the choicest food but it will feed and stave off hunger well enough.  Enough to hold out and wait for the bad times to end.  It's what I've had to do.  As rough as times have been, I believe enough in America to have faith that we shouldn't be defined by our circumstances.  A lot of people here have been reduced to near nothing, only to come back stronger than ever.  The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't intended to be a hand-out... but it will be a hand-UP to those who need it.  We aren't meant to be wards of the government.  Get some help when we need it?  Yes.  But that shouldn't be forever.  A person should want and be driven to achieve more than that.  It's certainly been one of my motivations.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" isn't going to starve "millions" no matter how much people on the left claim that it will.  It won't deprive anyone of medication if they need that.  I've worked in the healthcare industry, in the public sector, and I have faith that people won't be losing services.  The bill is going to slash wasteful spending and make things more efficient though.  What resources have been there already, are going to be better allocated.  I for one am not worried about how it's going to impact mental health services especially.  That is arguably the most critical medical need that government can allocate resources to.  Take care of the mind and a lot of other things are alleviated, like substance abuse and homelessness and malnutrition.

We can't tax ourselves into prosperity, though that has been the core belief of modern liberalism for many, many decades.  And we are taxed to the breaking point already as it is.  We need tax cuts, very much so.  We need spending cuts too, and be wiser with our expenditures.  We can't keep going as we have been.  That has been found to be foolishness.  We have only been hurting ourselves.  Cut taxes, eliminate the waste, and watch the revenue come in.  It worked forty years ago and it will work today too.

It didn't have to be this way.  We could have avoided all of this.  We could have been more demanding of the representatives we sent to chambers of legislation from town council on up to the Capitol in Washington.  But it's better to willingly face reality now, than be compelled to confront it under harsher circumstances.

"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

 Something I read on a news/politics discussion forum last night that has stuck with me almost 24 hours later:

"The earth isn't going to produce justice."

Isn't that the truth?

As much as things are wrong and we want to make them right, the sad fact is that this is a fallen and corrupted world.  No matter how much we long for it and try to bring it about, there is no lasting good.  There might be some temporary reprieve, it seems.  But it never lasts.  Wickedness will always prevail, at least until such time as Providence sees fit to directly intervene in our affairs.  Indeed, it seems that the more we strive for good, the more that effort is corrupted and brought to ruin.

What do we do, then?

Do the best we can.  Accepting that that's the best we can do.  Deceive none.  Let your "yes" be yes and "no" be no.  Seek wisdom and discernment.  Bind not yourself to the spirit of party, which is invariably reduced to collective foolishness.  Do not trust in governments of men: however well-meaning their beginning, though it may take centuries they will always let us down.  Don't trust in men.  Trust in God instead.  We should dedicate our efforts to Him. The good work is ours, but the results are forever His.

Those of wicked device in this world seem to be all powerful.  But they are as mortal as any of us.  They will pass in time.  Their realms will pass with them.  And in due time, a better world will be brought forth, wrought from holy Hands.

The earth isn't going to produce justice.  That is true.  But we can do what is within our power to seek justice.  Knowing that we will fail but having satisfaction in knowing that we at least tried.

It's how I try to live, anyway.

Kenneth Colley, who played Admiral Piett AKA the luckiest guy in the Empire, has passed away

The sad news is coming out today that Kenneth Colley, the British actor who portrayed Admiral Firmus Piett across two Star Wars films, has passed away at the age of 87.

Colley had enjoyed having many roles in his six decades as an actor.  He did some work with Monty Python (that's him playing Jesus in the opening of Life of Brian) and he appeared in Clint Eastwood's 1982 sci-fi Cold War thriller Firefox.  Colley was also among the amazing cast of the sweeping television epic War and Remembrance.

But it is his portrayal of Captain... and then Admiral... Piett that is most remembered in the annals of pop culture.

Piett first appeared in 1980's Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as the captain of Executor, Darth Vader's flagship Super Star Destroyer.  Following the deployment of thousands of probe droids across the galaxy, Piett was monitoring their progress when a droid in the Hoth system picked up signs of habitation.  Admiral Ozzel was quick to brush it off, though Vader took interest and was convinced that this was the Rebel base that the Empire was looking for.  Vader ordered the fleet to set course for Hoth, as Ozzel gave Piett a spiteful glare.  Piett merely stood in quiet confidence, content to have done his job to the best of his ability.

I think that Darth Vader appreciated that.  Vader appreciated Piett as a man.  I have to wonder if Vader had wanted Piett to be higher up in the chain of command all along.  It would explain Vader's disdain for Ozzel.  When Ozzel messed up by coming out of hyperspace too close to Hoth, Vader was all too eager to express his displeasure.  Vader immediately tapped Piett to take Ozzel's place: "You are in command now, Admiral Piett."  Piett expressed his thanks and immediately gestured for Ozzel's corpse be taken off the bridge.  And then toward the end of the film, when standing there after Vader had lost the Millennium Falcon, Piett awaited his lord's next action, certainly that he now would be punished.  Instead Vader walked away, and no doubt Piett breathed an inward sigh of relief.

Piett showed up again in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.  He must have been doing something right because by that point in the story he had survived being admiral aboard the Executor for a year.  Admiral Piett had been ordered by Emperor Palpatine to move the fleet around the Death Star to the far side of the Endor moon, where it waited to ambush the incoming Rebel forces.  In the massive space battle that followed a Rebel A-wing veered out of control and slammed into Executor's bridge.  Piett and the rest of the command staff were killed, and Executor was sent smashing into the second Death Star's  surface.

Piett has been called one of the most important of the many background characters in the Star Wars saga.  Kenneth Colley certainly brought dignity and gravitas to the role.  It was one of those nuances that gave Star Wars its rich and deep presence in our culture.  It also endeared himself tremendously with fans, who Colley always came across as being very appreciative of.  I had the honor of meeting him a couple of times, at Star Wars Celebration II and then III a few years later.  The first time we met, I told him that it must be quite something to be known as "the luckiest guy in the Empire".  Colley said that he heard that quite a bit actually!

He played an honorable and decent bad guy, and you had to respect a character like Piett.  Colley really was the only person who could have pulled that off as magnificently as he did.

I think that in his memory I'll plop in my Blu-Ray of The Empire Strikes Back for background sound as I work this afternoon.  Which includes this classic scene of Darth Vader "promoting" Piett to admiral:

I'm going to start a Fallout tontine

This November will mark ten years since the release of Fallout 4.  That game was published seven years after Fallout 3.  There was Fallout: New Vegas in 2010 (still need to finish that one, my friends swear it's the best of the series).  And I suppose there was Fallout 76 in 2018 but that game just isn't the same.  Fallout really is more of a single-player experience, though I know that Fallout 76 does have its loyalists.

So this will be a full decade without a mainline Fallout entry.  Surely we're going to get word sometime soon that a new one is coming, right?  Right?!?

The sad fact of the matter is, friends, is that video game production is now (a) very expensive and (b) very loooong.  Grand Theft Auto V was first published in 2013.  Its follow-up was announced two years ago and it's going to be fall of 2026 before it's released.  Which if the trend continues means that Grand Theft Auto VII won't see the light of day until around 2040.

See where this is getting at?

So when I came upon this article at Gaming Bible about when we might expect to see Fallout 5, my heart fell.  But I suppose I should already be braced for it.  The next Fallout game may not get published until I'm pushing sixty.  Maybe by the time Fallout 7 comes out I'll be looking forward to seeing Halley's Comet for the second time in my life.

Let's just get the obvious out of the way: there are many people reading these words who won't be with us when Fallout 5 comes out, and certainly not when Fallout 6 is released.

I've got something figured out though.  A strategy that will help pass the time.  I'm going to start a Fallout tontine.

You probably know the concept even though the word is fairly rare in the English language.  A tontine is an agreement where a party of individuals put something in security.  It could be a sum of money.  It could be a more material item.  And whoever is the last surviving member of the agreement gets the goods.  There was an episode of M*A*S*H where Colonel Potter and his friends during World War I had saved a bottle of fine French wine, and the final friend left got the bottle to enjoy.  It was also the subject of an episode of The Simpsons.

Here's the plan: I'm going to get some friends together.  We're each going to contribute some money to the tontine.  Whoever is alive when Fallout 6 comes out (I'm going to allow for robust health between now and then) gets the money, which after accumulating interest should be enough to buy a then-modern generation video game console, a new high-def screen, and a copy of the Fallout game.

No, seriously, this is what I intend to do.  I may be coming up on eighty years old when the chapter of Fallout following the next game is released, but I'm going to do my best to play it.  It's going to be a life goal.  And if I don't make it to then, I will get the satisfaction of knowing that a good friend is going to play it in my honor.

I do NOT plan on doing this with a BioShock game though!!

Book Update: I am in LOVE with this picture

I'm starting to wonder if the most realistic route to getting my book out there might be publishing on Amazon.  It's not really self-publishing, it's pretty much like traditional publishing in many ways.  As much as I would love to see my book on the store shelves that may not be possible right out of the gate.  Going through Amazon would let me keep the rights to my work, it gets released, and maybe it will sell well enough that a proper publishing house will want to buy it.

I've noted before, that this book is probably too Christian for the secular market and it's much too secular for Christian audiences.  Maybe this gets to be something that breaks new ground for other books that can't be readily defined.  Which would be a great honor if that happens.

So yesterday afternoon I had some time on my hands and I decided to work on a cover for my book, if it goes to Amazon first.  I went looking for pictures depicting men of chivalry.  My first resource to investigate was a website that hosts a big image of the Bayeux Tapestry.  For an hour I looked all over that thing and found nothing that really jibed with what I had in mind.

About 45 minutes later though I came upon this pic.  It's from the Codex Manesse and dates back to the very early 1300s:

It's perfect.  It absolutely fits with the themes of my book.  It's very beautiful too.  I honestly can't believe that I came across this image.  I could have been looking forever and not found an adequate pic for the cover.  But this one absolutely fits with what I have written.

It will make even more sense when the title is revealed.  I'm still not ready to reveal that.  It's not time for it.  But I can't but think that the time for that is drawing closer.