Ma Chalmers lives, and she's destroying school lunch

Please tell me that isn't a soybean that Michelle Obama is extolling the virtues of in that photo.

The current First Lady has somehow become the nation's Food Czar, with a capacity of recommending, implementing and apparently enforcing her own policies on the country. No other First Lady has enjoyed such power. Not even the much-beloved Nancy Reagan, who channeled the massive respect given her toward no less a gesture than encouraging America's children to steer clear of drug abuse, was granted such authority to wield.

Michelle Obama, however, is hellbent on imposing her own whacked nutritional vision upon the children of those who "just said no".

Michelle Obama has directed the United States Department of Agriculture to mandate school lunches that can best be described as "skimpy" and "lacking". Not to mention downright unpalatable. The government is determined to limit elementary kids to 650 calories and high schoolers to 850 calories.

Hasn't Michelle ever paid attention to her own children? I mean, elementary kids are supposed to run around and be energetic and that burns up calories. To say nothing of high school students engaged in sports like football and basketball. I was on our high school's swim team and I ate a lot to have fuel for practice and meets: I don't think I could have gotten fat if if I tried during a season.

The students are starving, they know it and they also know who's responsible for it. Some enterprising youngsters have even begun operating black markets for such federally-verboten items as chocolate syrup and potato chips. The kids just don't want to be commanded by the government about what they can and cannot eat when their parents are supposed to be in charge of their nutritional needs. One of the obvious consequences? Vast amounts of food getting wasted and thrown away.

And yet in spite of it, the government is blaming the children for apparently lacking enough wisdom to enjoy federal oversight of their lives! From Kyle Olson's article at TownHall.com...

Nancy Carvalho, director of food services for New Bedford Public Schools, was quoted as saying that hummus and black bean salads have been tough sells in elementary cafeterias. That means even smaller children are going through the day fighting hunger pains, which can never be considered a good thing.

One government official tried to put the blame on the students.

"One thing I think we need to keep in mind as kids say they're still hungry is that many children aren't used to eating fruits and vegetables at home, much less at school. So it's a change in what they are eating. If they are still hungry, it's that they are not eating all the food that's being offered," USDA Deputy Undersecretary Janey Thornton was quoted as saying.

I know of no other way to put it than this: Michelle Obama has become Emma "Ma" Chalmers.

If you've never read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Ma Chalmers (mother of Kip Chalmers: he who instigated the chain of events that led to the horrific Winston Tunnel disaster) comes in fairly late in the novel. With the national economy imploding under the weight of looters and moochers and as the transportation infrastructure is collapsing, Ma Chalmers comes on the scene with her national mandate for soybeans...

But thirty million dollars of subsidy money from Washington had been plowed into Project Soybean -- an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest of soybeans was ripening, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma Chalmers, better known as Kip's Ma, was an old sociologist who had hung about Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by her recent conversion to Buddhism. "The soybean is a much more sturdy, nutritious and economical plant than all the extravagant foods which our wasteful, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect," Kip's Ma had said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise. "Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee--and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple diet, it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more people. The greatest food for the greatest number--that's my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it's our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome foodstuff on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted for centuries. There's a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient."

Ma Chalmers exploits her "friendships" and political pull to bring the bulk of the country's available railroad cars to her soybean collective in Louisiana, while at the same time a record harvest of corn and wheat - more than enough to feed the country - is bulging at the seams in Minnesota... and the farmers have no way of moving it.

It does not end well.

In Minnesota, farmers were setting fire to their own farms, they were demolishing grain elevators and the homes of county officials, they were fighting along the track of the railroad, some to tear it up, some to defend it with their lives--and, with no goal to reach save violence, they were dying in the streets of gutted towns and in the silent gullies of a roadless night.

Then there was only the acrid stench of grain rotting in half-smouldering piles -- a few columns of smoke rising from the plains, standing still in the air over blackened ruins -- and, in an office in Pennsylvania, Hank Rearden sitting at his desk, looking at a list of men who had gone bankrupt: they were the manufacturers of farm equipment, who could not be paid and would not be able to pay him.

As for the government-mandated soybeans...

The harvest of soybeans did not reach the markets of the country: it had been reaped prematurely, it was moldy and unfit for consumption.

"Unfit for consumption." That's a good a description as any for darn near everything coming from our "brilliant" leaders in Washington D.C.

Read More

I don't even keep up with football...

...and even I can't believe what happened during last night's Seattle/Green Bay game.

I was wondering late last night why my Facebook and Twitter pages were going crazy. Now I know.

Can't say it any better than how one friend put it: "The NFL has become the WWE."

If you're still trying to figure out this mess, Mash here for ESPN's report.

Read More

Secret to male longevity: CASTRATION!

Hey guys: wanna live longer? Lose the family jewels.

(I tried to find an accompanying image for this, but the only ones readily available pertained to barnyard procedures, "shock" websites and full-color medical techniques...)

Discovery.com is reporting a new study about castrated men which finds that eunuchs live quite a bit longer than, errrr... "normally equipped" males. The researchers delved into records of Chinese dynasties, including the last of the court eunuchs from a century ago. From the article...

The researchers found that the eunuchs lived 14 to 19 years longer than other men did. Three even lived to 100 or more, a feat of longevity that remains relatively rare among men even today.

The effect wasn't just due to fine palace living either, since kings and other male members of the court had the shortest lifespans of all. The eunuchs also spent time both inside the palace and out.

"Since castration extends lifespan by reducing male sex hormones, we still believe that the effect would be the same today," Min told Discovery News. "In fact, castration was also performed in the early 1900s in a Kansas mental hospital. Castrated patients lived 13 years longer than intact patients, which is similar to (the results) of our study."

However...

The possible negative consequences of castration include "decreased libido, depression and loss of physical strength," according to coauthor Kyung-Jin Min of Inha University.

No doubt.

I bet asking for grant money to fund this research took balls!

(I'll stop while I'm still ahead. Oops...)

Tip of the hat to Erik Yaple for coming across this article.

Read More

Guilty as charged

What had been a terrific and fun-filled Saturday night with my girlfriend and two close friends ended up crashing hard with an e-mail I received shortly after returning home...

Chris, just wanted to let you know that I am de-friending you because basically you are not a friend. Like most other "christians" I know, you seem to be two-faced and unreliable... my "christian" friends seem to be about the most worthless and unreliable of any that I have. I have atheist and agnostic friends who I trust implicitly. At least you've shown me that "christians" truly are a lying, two-face bunch of hypocrits.

That was written by someone who I have known for over thirty years. I cannot be responsible for the choice that this person has made in severing our relationship.

But it is true: I am a hypocrite.

So is every other Christian. Every Christian who sincerely lives and strives to put God first and foremost in his or her life will admit to it, at least. And I would dare say that every Christian who ever lived has been a hypocrite in one way or another. Sometimes in plenty of ways... and I'll admit to being more guilty than most on that charge, too.

Yes, Christians are hypocrites. We are sometimes two-faced and we can be especially unreliable! We even lie sometimes. In short: we are every bit as stupid, scurillous and scoundrelous as any other human being. That we dare to be so ridden with faults while yet claiming to follow One who lived perfectly makes us out in the eyes of many as being the worst of low-life scum.

I know that I am a hypocrite. In more ways than I want to share here.

But neither am I afraid to admit that I am a hypocrite. And so long as I find myself convicted of hypocrisy... which will be until the final breath leaves my lungs in this fallen world... I will continue to confess that flaw in my character.

I am a hypocrite. But it is not what I want to be. And the only hope I have of being sanctified is to continually surrender that frailty to God.

Yes, those who seek mercy from God will be granted mercy. I have no reason to doubt that those who are secured in Him will remain secure forevermore. But rather than being reason to rest from our nature, to orient one's heart toward Christ entails the life-long process of sanctification... and as I have discovered during my own faith journey, that becomes the most difficult and painful part of all in this path we have chosen.

Why must it be so? I have thought about that much over the years. And nothing else makes as much sense as this:

That knowing how frail and fallen we are, we as Christians are not to persuade others to become Christians. We are however meant to persuade others of Christ. And there is no greater way than to show His work - that which is finished and that which He is still accomplishing - in our lives.

If evidence is demanded for conviction, then I will gladly plead guilty every time.

Read More

Last night we watched HUGO

I cannot remember the last time that a movie has so captivated me, that the next day I am still overwhelmingly enchanted by its beauty, its grandeur, and its sense of humanity.

 Hugo came out late last year, but until last night I knew precious little about it save for some of its cast and that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. And that it was based on a book. And that it was in 3-D. Maybe that was one reason why I didn't see it in theaters earlier, because truth be told I have become exhausted with the 3-D fad. Too much use of it in places where it shouldn't be used at all.

After watching Hugo for the first time however, I am kicking myself for not catching it during its theatrical run. I would pay good money just to watch that very first shot of the train station in 3-D, because even on a 2-D high-def television screen it was jaw-droppingly gorgeous!

So neither Kristen or I had ever seen this movie before. A friend of ours let her borrow it, so yesterday evening we settled in for a Sunday evening's enjoyment of some cinema. By the time the film's title is shown to us, several minutes had gone by but so entranced were we by the story and the visuals that we hadn't even noticed it was missing until it finally turned up. And it just kept getting better from there...

Good readers, I'm gonna choose to not go into a terrible amount of detail about Hugo. This really is a movie that you owe it to yourself to go into as unaware as possible. I mean, there are so darned few surprises in this world these days. Especially, it sadly seems, in the movies. And if you genuinely want to experience the movie the way they once were and could still be again, then you can not possibly go wrong with Hugo. Boasting the finest-assembled cast in recent memory - with Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, and Asa Butterfield turning in a wondrous performance as Hugo - this movie is an epic triumph in every sense.

Hugo gets this blogger's absolutely highest possible recommendation! I'll be getting the Blu-ray of this for my library for sure... and Lord willing I ever have children, this is one movie that I'm exceedingly looking forward to watching with them.

Now if that ain't praise for a movie, I don't know what is :-)

Read More

Musing on mere religion

I will not make being a Christian more important than being in Christ.

Read More

Burger King hassles customers at McDonald's in Rome, Georgia

Police in Rome, Georgia (a town that I have some firsthand knowledge of) are on the lookout for none other than the Burger King himself, who allegedly stood outside the McDonald's restaurant there and commenced to handing out free hamburgers.

From the CBS News story...

Police were called to a local McDonald’s in relation to a disturbance caused by a man dressed as the Burger King.

In a police report provided to the Rome News-Tribune, officers indicated that they were summoned to the fast-food restaurant around 1 p.m. on Monday, in response to a call about a suspicious person on the premises.

The person was allegedly resplendent in full Burger King regalia.

Police stated that, upon his arrival, the Burger King mascot reportedly began to hand out free hamburgers to customers, and stopped to take pictures with several children.

Officers were additionally told that one child ran away from the man in fear, the paper learned.

Only ONE child ran away?! I'm a grown dude and the King wigs even me out.

Might as well have some fun with these pics that I collected last year when Burger King retired their creepy mascot, but haven't used yet...

And even though it's not about King Creepy, this is still too good not to share...

Read More

Trailer for THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

And high-def Quicktime versions of the trailer are up at trailers.apple.com. We wants it my Precious, yesssss...

I made Kristen promise me something late last year: that we will see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey together at its midnight premiere, Lord willing, no matter what. Seeing this trailer has stoked my longing for this movie that much more. December 14th cannot get here fast enough! Okay yeah it can, but you know what I mean...

Read More

Obama Administration brings back Bush-era "free speech zones"

Students at Wright State University who were protesting against Joseph Biden when he visited the campus last week were quarantined a quarter-mile away from the Vice President by the Secret Service. This happened not once, but twice. The rationale given by the Secret Service: they "didn't want the protesters to be too close to the motorcade."

Before any Republicans or Romney supporters cry "foul" about this, it would be well to remember that this exact same thing was routine policy during the presidency of George W. Bush! But that fact hasn't deterred a number of people on "conservative" websites from claiming that the Secret Service is violating the First Amendment, that Obama is violating the Constitution ad nauseum... when Obama's predecessor, a Republican president, was also insulating himself from public dissent with the very same methods, and on a much more chronic basis. Very many of Bush's following at the time had no problem whatsoever with the First Amendment rights of protestors being quashed. But now that the shoe's on the other foot...

"Free speech for me, but not for thee." I guess depending on who has the power, more animals really are more equal than others.

I don't want to hear any whining about Obama or Biden's use of "free speech zones" from past or present supporters of George W. Bush. As far as I'm concerned, come January we'll have had at least twelve years of regime by successive egomaniacs with narcissistic disorder. And I don't give a flying rat's butt which party either one belongs to.

So people: what's it going to take for us to quit supporting this sham?

Read More

This is the greatest Star Wars thing I've seen in YEARS

A seriously talented dude on YouTube with the username "otaking77077" has created what is by every possible measure the most astounding work of Star Wars art that has been produced in a very, very long time. Fellow YouTuber "JPL4185" added some music and sound effects from pre-existing sources. But it's the animation that will drop your jaw and have you begging for more...

Mr. George Lucas, THIS is the Star Wars that we the fans desperately want to see!! No more of that CGI stuff. otaking7077 has taken Star Wars and animated it in the style of Robotech and it is in this blogger's opinion the purest Star Wars sequence that I have seen since... dare I say it... the original trilogy. I especially loved the details inside the TIE Fighters that were liberally taken from the LucasArts X-Wing computer game series.

You know what watching this makes me feel like? What it was to be a Star Wars fan in the early to mid Nineties. That magical, mystical time after Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire reignited our love for the saga. That near-decade before the prequel trilogy when all we had were the novels and the comics and each other across the Internet. It was the Golden Age of Star Wars fandom and this animated work by otaking77077 took me totally back to that.

THIS is what Star Wars once was, and what Star Wars could be again.

And in a sane world, this dude will get hired by Lucasfilm immediately so he can give us a traditional animated Star Wars epic. Make this a television series, and the ratings would shatter the roof.

Read More

"A Town Called Mercy": Spaghetti western, DOCTOR WHO style!

Before getting into the review, I wanna say from the getgo that I thought this week's episode further demonstrates a theory I've had for the past few years: that the Doctor is an unconscious agent of God. Last year's "The Doctor's Wife" might have supported that notion, but I mean, c'mon: how is it that the TARDIS is always landing in a time and place that the Doctor is needed? How else... unless there is a Higher Power guiding the Doctor, whether he is aware of it or not?

Anyway...

In spite of the beautiful special effects work (along with the reunion of Harry Potter alums Mark Williams and David Bradley, each of whom turned in fine work) I found last week's "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" to be somewhat lacking. Maybe that's because it came on the heels of this season's Doctor Who premiere "Asylum of the Daleks", which was a hard episode for any chapter to follow.

But I was thoroughly pleased with this week's episode, "A Town Called Mercy"...

It's 1870, somewhere in the American west. In the years following the Civil War, the town of Mercy welcomes any and all who are looking for a second chance from their past. Including those who may not be from Earth at all. But the quality of Mercy is threatened: a cyborg gunslinger stalks the outskirts of town. Anyone passing (or who gets exiled) beyond the wooden plank-defined border finds himself prey for a high-tech kill.

Of course, the Doctor (with Amy and Rory in tow) finds himself in the midst of it all.

I've always thought that the best Doctor Who stories were those which examined and tested the Doctor's morality and ethics. "A Town Called Mercy" is one of those stories. Some might even be reminded of "Genesis of the Daleks", which had Tom Baker's Doctor weighing whether he had the right to commit genocide on the Dalek race before it had a chance to become a threat.

"A Town Called Mercy" is a far smaller, more intimate setting, but just as powerful nonetheless. The strength of Matt Smith's performance as the Doctor has consistently been when he's compelled toward the last Time Lord's darker, more guilt-ridden nature, and we see that in spades here. Indeed, the scenes of the Doctor wielding an honest-to-goodness pistol are sincerely striking. Disturbing, even.

Look for Farscape's Ben Browder as Isaac, the sheriff of Mercy. And Murray Gold composes a score that truly recollects the westerns of decades gone by. All in all, a very satisfying episode.

"A Town Called Mercy" gets 3 and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers. And dang nearly 4.

Next week: "The Power of Three".

Read More

Unintentionally hilarious children's test answers

WARNING: This might be the most gut-bustingly funny link that I have ever directed this blog's readers to! Kristen and I enjoyed looking at these last night and we literally could not stop laughing! One of them in particular (feel free to guess which one) had me so hysterical that I was nearly keeled-over on the floor. If you are sitting at a desk with a drink, it is HIGHLY advised that you set the beverage safely down before clicking on to this page at HappyPlace featuring inadvertently hilarious test answers from children. And if you're a teacher or otherwise involved in education you'll especially get a giggle out of these :-)

Read More

At #5 on Cracked.com's list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired...

...it's... me!

That was almost six years ago. I really am never gonna live this down, am I?

Well, it was a lot of fun running for school board. The entire experience, I mean! One that I would never trade for anything. I learned a great deal more about election laws and running for office than I had ever known before. I didn't win a seat but that's okay: it was a great run, I campaigned my own way and kept it positive, upbeat, and I wanted to present my beliefs in an enlightening and entertaining fashion. I wanted just ten people to vote for me, and wound up getting nearly forty-seven hundred.

But I didn't for once believe that this commercial was going to grab any attention beyond Rockingham County... and much less still be going strong more than half a decade later!

Well anyhoo, Cracked.com has my Star Wars-ish school board campaign ad at #5 on their list of The 6 Most Baffling Political Ads Ever Aired.

And if you haven't seen it for yourself yet, here's the link to "Christopher Knight for School Board TV Commercial #1".

Now, it would be really nice if the video that I spent most of the afternoon shooting got even a tiny amount of that kind of attention...

Read More

Warhammer 40K wildly popular among U.S. military personnel

Warhammer 40,000 Sixth Edition came out over two months ago and I still haven't gotten to play with the new rules! Just been busy on multiple fronts. Which makes me look positivalutely pathetic compared to what these dedicated players go through...

Slate Magazine has a terrific article about how the futuristic tabletop war game is incredibly popular among the men and women (okay, mostly men) of the United States armed forces, and especially with many who are serving overseas in places like Afghanistan (including players such as Army Sgt. Steffan McBee, pictured). Warhammer 40K's publisher Games Workshop estimates that perhaps 25 percent of its very large American player base are active-duty personnel: some of whom go to great lengths to have their stockpiles of miniatures shipped safely to their duty posts around the globe.

What's the appeal of a war game played on tabletops with plastic and metal models? Members of the armed forces enjoy the tactical thinking and execution critical to carrying out a 40K battle. But there is also the more hobby-ish aspect of assembling, painting and oftentimes customizing the models. One Marine comments that the strenuous regimented lifestyle of the Corps obligates an attention to detail that carries over well into the grim darkness of the far future that is Warhammer 40K.

It's a most excellent write-up by Alan Siegel, and one that'll have you appreciating anew what our armed service folks do to keep themselves entertained far from home. And hey, as a devout Ork player it makes me proud to be in good company with United States Marines who also enjoy a fine WAAAGH! :-)

Read More

A-maize-ing: World's biggest QR code

On the fertile green plains of Alberta, Canada, the Kraay Family has engineered the world's largest QR code into a cornfield.

And yes, the code works! Hold your smartphone outside the window of a hovering helicopter and when you point it at the code you'll be directed straight to the Kraay Family Farm website.

The QR code takes up about 1.1 square miles of land and has just been verified by Guinness as being officially the world's largest functioning QR code. It's just the latest in a tradition going back more than a decade for the Kraay family: every year they do a "maize maze" featuring wildly intricate designs in their cornfield.

Mash on over to Engadget for more about the Kraay family's techno-agricultural art!

Read More

Behold the world's oldest known color motion picture!

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President after the assassination of William McKinley. The Wright Brothers were still experimenting with gliders and motorized propellers. Tsar Nicholas II reigned in Russia and the British Empire mourned the passing of Queen Victoria. A child named Walt Disney was born in Chicago. Guglielmo Marconi used his newly-invented radio to send the first trans-Atlantic signal.

Meanwhile in England, a photographer named Edward Turner was experimenting with color negatives and the recent advent of motion pictures. Among other things Turner recorded footage of his three children, Hyde Park, and traffic in London.

More than a century later and after exhaustive research, it is now being reported that Edward Turner's film is the oldest color motion picture that has ever been found.

Wanna see it? Of course ya do!

The palette of the macaw is particularly striking. But after watching the soldiers marching and the Union Jack flittering, I can't help but wonder what might have been had Turner's process and Kinemacolor later on become more widely available. I mean, just imagine the color footage that could have been made of World War I a few years later.

Edward Turner himself passed away at the much-too-young age of 29 in 1903. But it's great to see him and his work getting appreciated today.

Read More

Federal Reserve begins QE3

This can't end well...

Read More

In-vitro adoptions rising among evangelical Christians

Krista Kapralos writes a most fascinating piece in The Washington Post this week: about how evangelical Christians are coming to the forefront of adopting frozen embryos that have been fertilized in-vitro. The article cites that there could be approximately 600,000 embryos being stored in liquid nitrogen around the United States. And that in keeping with their pro-life values, many who identify themselves as conservative Christians are choosing to legally adopt children... and then carrying them to term on their own.

From the article...

The embryo was frozen in liquid nitrogen when Gabriel and Callie Fluhrer found it. They didn’t know whether that embryo would grow to be a boy or a girl, or whether it would even grow at all.

But to the Fluhrers, it was worth the risk. That tiny collection of cells was a baby, they believed. And if they didn’t pluck it from the warehouse where it had been stored since its biological parents decided they didn’t need or want it any longer, it was likely to die.

“If we’re going to stand against abortion, it’s not simply picketing a clinic,” said Gabriel Fluhrer, a public relations and publishing coordinator for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. “It’s doing the hard work of adopting the orphans around the world, whether embryos or orphans living in China.”

Anna Fluhrer was born in December 2010: from a frozen embryo to a healthy baby girl.

For some reason or another, I found myself studying human embryology last week, particularly the first few days and weeks of the zygote. Something that keeps fascinating me: how the heck does a little ball of cells like that know how and where to achieve bilateral symmetry? That seems like such a tiny detail but for the life of me, I can't figure it out.

Pondering about that reinforced something that I was told years ago by someone in the medical profession: that a baby truly is a miracle. There are a thousand things that could go wrong in a pregnancy, but more often than not a healthy human being is born. We don't appreciate that nearly enough.

So back to this story: as a person who strongly believes that human life begins at conception, I have to applaud that there are many people who are willing to demonstrate their ethics in this fashion. I'm also of the mind that medical knowledge is a wonderful gift from God and that it absolutely can be a blessing for those who need it, including for those who on their own cannot conceive a child.

But I'm also now seeing how my friends among the Catholic persuasion are onto something as well with their church's position that in-vitro fertilization is wrong. Because of all those hundreds of thousands of lab-fertilized embryos, many of them won't be implanted at all. Quite a number of them are fertilized but otherwise not viable for coming to full term. And therein is the ethical problem: that the in-vitro procedure, in an effort to bring about new human life, must also acknowledge that human lives will be lost as an unavoidable consequence.

I'm not coming down one way or another about this. Just wondering aloud if, perhaps, in some ways the miracle of medical technology exceeds our moral grasp.

Read More

Two sequels to INDEPENDENCE DAY being produced

"Welcome to Urf"... again.

(Hah-hah-hah, did you see what I did there? Did you?!)

Word breaking this afternoon is that TWO sequels to the 1996 sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day are in the works. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are trying to get everyone from the original back on board. Right now the follow-ups are titled ID Forever Part One and ID Forever Part Two. How clever...

I have extremely mixed feelings about this. Yeah, even considering how much of a fan I was - and always will be - of the original. 1996's Independence Day was a unique product of its era. It should remain as much. At the same time it was such a great concept now tied down to being so dated a film that it's one of the few movies that I could see a reboot/remake being in order. Just as long as those eyeball-goggling practical effects make a return.

Oh yeah, it's also been announced that the sequels will be filmed in 2-D and then converted to 3-D in post-production...

"AWWW HELL NAW!!!"

A tip o' the hat to this blog's good friend Drew McOmber for passing along news of this... thing.

Read More

Why the hell do we even have embassies in Egypt and Libya?

Civility is a chosen virtue. It cannot be imposed or expected from those who refuse to accept it and its responsibilities.

Time to get out of the Mid-East until "countries" like Egypt and Libya learn to behave. Pull EVERYTHING out, including all those billions of dollars of aid they get from us one way or another.

If they want to return to barbarism that bad enough, who are we to stop them?

Read More

Fire the striking Chicago teachers... and ban them from the classroom for life

More than 400,000 schoolchildren in Chicago are without educators today after the teachers union there went on strike. I say "educators" lightly because by some accounts nearly 80% of eighth graders in Chicago public schools don't have adequate reading skills.

So these "teachers", who are already paid on average between $71,000 and $76,000 before benefits, and are only working nine months out of the year anyway, are going on strike because a 16% pay raise apparently isn't enough. These people's starting salary is $50,000.

Chicago is paying an insane amount of money out of the public treasury and getting some piss-poor results from it. So who the hell are these "educators" to demand more pay?

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel should take some real leadership initiative and order every teacher back into the classroom within 48 hours, under penalty of being banned for life from teaching in the city's public schools. Just as President Reagan fired thousands of air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981. I don't doubt that there are many sincere and dedicated teachers out there looking for work and who would be exceedingly satisfied to take those positions... and for a far more sane rate of pay, at that.

Would Mayor Emanuel have the courage to defy the teachers union like that?

Never mind answering that question. I was being facetious.

Read More

Hound of the Baskervilles?

It is seriously foggy this morning. Like, the kind of fog that Arthur Conan Doyle used to vividly describe as covering the moors of Britain in his Sherlock Holmes stories.

So after letting Tammy out to do her "doggie business", the notion struck that there might be a photo opportunity.

And here she is, bounding out of the mists like a ferocious creature in murderous pursuit of prey...

Okay, granted: a four-month old miniature dachshund puppy is not that ferocious. But please don't tell her that :-)

Read More

"Asylum of the Daleks": Season premiere of DOCTOR WHO is certifiably insanely good!

Is it just me, or has Doctor Who suddenly become a bigger presence in American pop culture than ever before? Every Barnes & Noble I've been into lately has an entire table devoted to Doctor Who books and other merchandise. Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor was on the cover of Entertainment Weekly earlier this summer. A friend in Roanoke spotted a comic book store this past week: the marquee outside said "TALKING ABOUT REGENERATION" to advertise Doctor Who stuff inside.

I've been watching Doctor Who since the winter of 1981. But in more than thirty years I've never seen the Doctor and his mythology as wildly popular on this side of the pond as it is now.

It's been almost a year since last season's finale "The Wedding of River Song" and more than eight months since "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe". However you figure it, this is the longest respite we've had since the BBC brought Doctor Who back in 2005. But showrunner Steven Moffat sure knows how to make the wait worth it...

I wasn't able to see "Asylum of the Daleks" until the morning after it premiered this past Saturday night. And I didn't get to write about it sooner but I have watched it twice more... and I'm still not getting enough of it! This is by far the strongest premiere of Doctor Who that we've seen yet and if this is any indication of what Moffat and his crew have in store for us the rest of this season, we are in for a hella dark and scary ride. Maybe even darker than last year's series...

"Asylum of the Daleks" opens with a sweeping and frightening vista of a place we haven't seen in a very long time: Skaro, the original home world of the Daleks. In quick fashion we witness the Doctor (Matt Smith) - still believed dead by the universe at large - along with Amy and Rory (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill) abducted by human agents of the Daleks and brought to what might be the most horrifying place we've seen yet in Doctor Who history: the Parliament of the Daleks. Yes folks, seems that even the Daleks have politicians. And right when you'd think that they are ready to at last exterminate their oldest and greatest nemesis, they screech out a frantic plea: "Save us."

It's a prelude to what is doubtless an even more horrifying location: the Asylum. A cordoned-off planet containing millions of insane Daleks: the absolute worst and most uncontrollable of the most evil alien race in all the universe. And now it looks like the inmates are going to break loose.

It's a terrific story, and in finest Moffat-scribed fashion one replete with twists and surprises. It is also a hoot to see every Dalek variant since the show's beginning represented in the Asylum, including the Special Weapons Dalek first (and last) seen in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks. My one beef with the episode is that I was extremely looking forward to seeing all of those insane Daleks going full-tilt whacko, when for the most part we see them inert and passive. Well, except for the ones in the intensive care ward... but you'll just have to watch to see what makes them such a special case. All in all though, this was a rollickin' wild and fun opening for the season. Showing the Daleks madder than usual was quite an innovative way to re-emphasize their evil nature. And by the end of the episode we get fairly good confirmation of what will be this season's motif: the question that was mentioned in "The Wedding of River Song". The first question. The oldest question in the universe. Hidden in plain sight. The question that the Doctor has been running from all his life...

"Doctor who?"

Like I said, if "Asylum of the Daleks" is any indication, this season is going to be in-tense.

I'm going to give "Asylum of the Daleks" Four and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers out of a possible five. And next time on Doctor Who: "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship"!

Read More

Kristen's Korner: "My Bipolar Boyfriend"

Yesterday evening the lovely and effervescent Kristen told me that she had composed a lil' something for this blog. I had no idea she was working on this, but after reading it I couldn't help but think that she expressed some things about bipolar disorder better than I have and maybe ever could. And she wants to write more stuff for this site, too! So expect more out of Kristen's Korner from here on out.

So without further ado...

"My Bipolar Boyfriend"

First, I’d like to thank Chris for letting me borrow his blog. I don’t have the time nor the patience to keep up a blog of my own, but I do (on occasion) feel led to write, and requested a venue to share my thoughts.

Second, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Kristen Bradford. You’ve perhaps seen my name referenced in Chris’ entries, or even seen pictures of me on here in the past year. I am proud to have earned the role of “Chris Knight’s girlfriend.” He is my first boyfriend - the only serious relationship I’ve ever had in my 27 years of life, and I can honestly say I have never been so happy before.

Now that I’ve gotten the housekeeping things out of the way, it’s time to delve into what I want to talk about... bipolar disorder.

Those of you who have been reading The Knight Shift for some time will know that Chris has not kept his mental condition a secret. In fact, he wants you to know about it. We were barely in the “open communication” stage on eHarmony when he revealed his condition to me. At the time, although I had heard of it, I didn’t really know much about it. Fourteen months later, I am still struggling to understand what bipolar is... although I never truly will, since I don’t have it.

***
I am one of those people that likes to help others. Whether it’s a friend who needs someone to listen, or a veteran’s disability case I’m working at my job, I want to do whatever I can for others. So it’s been difficult for me this past year, because although Chris has become the person I am the closest to, I can’t always fix things. Sometimes he calls me in the midst of a bipolar episode. All I want to do is comfort him and help him feel better, yet I may fail in doing so. Those are the times that I feel inadequate as a girlfriend, wishing I could do more.

But I am slowly learning that I can’t just fix bipolar. Chris is always going to have it (unless, God-willing, a cure is discovered). Nothing I say or do will make it go away. Chris may be a person of reason, but bipolar doesn’t deal with reason. He has to battle his mind, a mind that wants to trap him in either a state of depression or mania. I cannot fully comprehend what that must be like, and honestly I don’t think I want to know.

All I can do is be there for him. If he needs to talk - even at 3 in the morning - he knows I’ll be there to answer the phone. I’m not going to fix his condition, but I am someone he can lean on when he needs it.

What makes this difficult on the loved ones surrounding someone with bipolar? First, you never know when an episode will strike. Although medicine does wonders, it isn’t a cure. Episodes still happen (but luckily, they do pass). It’s especially hard for me, though, when Chris is at his home and I’m at mine - about an hour and half away - and I can’t physically be there for him during an episode. Sometimes episodes will put a monkey wrench in plans that have been made. But that can happen with any type of illness - even the common cold or a stomach flu. I am trying to remind myself that although there may not be much projected outward (since it’s a purely internal disorder), that doesn’t negate the fact that it is a medical condition that may require time apart until Chris feels better.

I’m also learning that bipolar is nobody’s fault. It’s not my fault if he gets depressed or recalls a bad memory - I just may happen to be there when it happens. It doesn’t mean I caused it (which is taking me a while to understand). And it’s certainly not Chris’ fault. Chris is a genuine, decent, and honest person that I am thankful to have in my life. He is one of the kindest people I have ever met. But because of bipolar, he has done things in his past - and even a few things since we started dating - that can be attributed to the bipolar, not him. I cannot blame him for a mind he can’t always control. He is always apologetic, regretting what has happened, but I know the true Chris inside is not the person that bipolar may portray him to be.

That’s what I want people to recognize - bipolar doesn’t define a person. It is, unfortunately, a part of the person that has it. It’s like Bruce Banner and the Hulk. The Hulk is inside Bruce, but Bruce can’t control when he turns green or what havoc he may cause afterward. But the Hulk doesn’t define Bruce Banner - Bruce is an intelligent scientist who uses his talents to help others (anyone watch “The Avengers” this summer?). But there are times he gets angry, and the Hulk emerges - ready to smash! Can Bruce Banner be blamed for what the Hulk does?

***
What do I want readers to take away from this?

-Remember that bipolar disorder isn’t an easy thing to deal with - for the person suffering OR the loved ones surrounding.


-You have to learn patience. It may take a while to find the right medicine to manage the condition, and episodes can be difficult but do pass.


-Don’t give up. If you have bipolar (or any mental condition, for that matter), remind yourself that it can’t keep you down forever. Rely on your support system, your counselor, your medicine. You are not alone. And to those who know someone with a mental condition - please don’t give up either. Don’t give up on that loved one. It’s not going to be an easy road to walk, but you may be the only support they have.

I know that life has its ups and downs, and may be moreso with Chris and I, as he goes through life managing his disorder. But I wouldn’t take any other road than the one I’m on. We all have our burdens to bear - Chris just has one that is more difficult (yet less visual to others) than most people. Despite the bipolar, he can still have a normal life. And I’m honored to be part of it, and know we will get through whatever challenges may arise down the road.

Bipolar may not be easy to live with or have a cure... but it is controllable, and doesn't have to stop those affected by it from enjoying life. Chris and I are certainly enjoying ours.

Read More

About the Republican National Convention...

Since three readers have asked me this afternoon what I think about the Republican National Convention going on right now in Tampa... and about the crazy rules changes that the Romney camp seems to be hellbent on implementing... maybe that means I'm supposed to post something.

So here it is:

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Republican party were to split apart after this election, and maybe even before then.

If so, I can't see how that would be anything but a good thing.

I've seen this coming for a long time. So have a lot of other observers. Those among the Republicans who genuinely desire less government, slashed taxes and cut spending believe - with no small amount of evidence supporting their claim - that they have been incrementally squeezed out of having influence within their own party. The "old boys network" of party elites can't have the grassroots gettin' too uppity, ya see. The rank and file have to be clamped down on. Punished, even. But I can't remember it ever being so blatant as it is become this week down Tampa way.

I'm not active in the Republican party. But I do know plenty of good folks who are (along with good people in the Democrat party). And a lot of them are getting mighty peeved at what the "GOP-e" are doing to their sincere efforts toward reducing the size of government.

The Republican bigwigs have become like an abusive spouse: the kind that beats the poor wife and then says "Where else are you gonna go bay-bee?" It's been that way for awhile now. And the Republican leaders are choosing to be ignorant of the fact that the ordinary citizens making up the party are getting up the nerve to at long last retaliate.

Like I said, I can't see how this could be a bad thing at all. If the Republicans split, it could give this country something it hasn't had in a long, long time...

A real honest-to-gosh second major party.

Read More

An open letter to the citizens of New Orleans

Dear people of New Orleans:

Right now Isaac is still a tropical storm. But we all know how fickle these Atlantic cyclone systems can be. It could still draw enough strength from the warm waters of the Gulf to intensify into a major hurricane. And at the moment most of the computer models have it following the same track that Katrina did seven years ago.

I blogged a lot about Katrina and its aftermath in 2005. Most of it had to do with the failures of government at various levels, from the mayor's office on up. I don't want to do that again in 2012.

So let's be blunt...

Ray Nagin is not mayor of New Orleans anymore.

Kathleen Blanco is not governor of Louisiana anymore.

George W. Bush is not President of the United States anymore.

You folks still have time. My advice is to play it safe, take some initiative, and get the hell out of there right now.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Chris

Read More

"The Eagle has landed."

Neil Armstrong
1930 - 2012

Read More

Jerry Nelson has passed away

Late last night it hit me that I haven't posted any classic Sesame Street clips in quite some time. And I almost went for another Bert and Ernie skit. Even had one picked out. It just sorta popped into mind for no apparent reason. Dunno why I didn't use it at the time but it was like something was telling me, "wait". Maybe it was providential...

The very sad news today is that Jerry Nelson, legendary puppeteer who brought Count von Count, Herry Monster, Sherlock Hemlock, Amazing Mumford and many other lovable Sesame Street characters to life, has died at the age of 78. It had been eight years since Nelson had done physical puppeteering but he continued to provide his voice to the characters. He even appeared as the telethon announcer in last year's movie The Muppets. Nelson also worked on The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock.

Here is Count von Count, in a clip that seems especially appropriate today...

And that clip that I thought of using last night? Here it is: Jerry Nelson performing Count along with Jim Henson as Ernie and Frank Oz as Bert, in one of the most disturbing (just look at Ernie's eyes) Sesame Street skits ever...

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this afternoon.

Thanks for all the great laughs and good memories, Jerry. And if the Count could, he would be counting "ONE! One new angel in Heaven, AH-AH-AH-AH!!"

Read More

Todd Akin is why the 17th Amendment was always a bad idea

As I intimated in my previous post, I arrived way late to witness the tempest surrounding Todd Akin at the apparent zenith of its wrath. But now that friends have caught me up to speed on it...

Let's ignore for the moment that what Akin said is not an isolated incident. That in fact ridiculous, nonsensical and downright ignorant statements seem to be a chronic malady of those in high office (how Sheila Jackson Lee is still in Congress, I haven't a clue). It's not even the worst thing I've come across said by a politician about rape: the all-time record holder for that has to be Clayton Williams who once remarked that if rape is "inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."

Now that I know what the Akin situation is about, what is most on my mind about it is that this is why the popular election of senators was never a good thing, and why the Seventeenth Amendment needs to be repealed.

I have to point out that the Founders intended for the House to represent the people and for the Senate to represent the individual states. Senators were not to be glorified "congressmen": they were to be chosen by their respective state legislatures.

I can tick off a lot of benefits found in the original system. That it necessitated a state's people to be more aware, more involved and as a consequence tending to be wiser in regard to their local government was one of them. And I've long thought that the legislatural appointment of senators had an elegance to it befitting the wisdom of the Founders.

Look at what popular election of senators has degenerated into: the guttermost disgusting campaigning in American political history, only a hair shy of that for President. We already knew that but the Todd Akin situation has made what should be a matter solely for the state of Missouri and her people... into something of national "importance". Indeed, most of the demands for Akin's withdrawal from his race are from his fellow Republicans who insist that their party's retaking the Senate trumps any and all other considerations.

Good God. Have we really come to this point, as a country? Where we don't even pretend anymore that our politics is anything but a game to be "won" by any means necessary?

This is why the United States is supposed to be a republic and not a democracy. And for once I don't even need both of the "major parties" to make my case. Just one of them is doing it fine enough.

There can be no return to "civility in politics" when the current process itself is codified incivility.

Read More

It's late, I'm tired and maybe a little cranky...

I'm just getting back home from a few days and this is what I find...

Harry Harrison passed away last week, Tony Scott died yesterday and now tonight word is that Phyllis Diller has left us.

Augusta National Golf Club has caved and is now admitting women as members.

And some congressman named Akin is all over my news feed about "legitimate rape" or somesuch, whatever that is.

Last night Kristen and I saw The Expendables 2. 'Twas the most dumbest fun/funnest dumb gloriously loud hella awesome action movie I've seen since the first movie two years ago. And it still makes more sense than too much of real life that I'm looking at this late hour.

(Incidentally, this movie has the highest testosterone level I've ever seen in a film... and that's even before Chuck Norris arrives to show up everyone :-)

Seriously though: Harrison was a master science-fiction writer. His Make Room! Make Room! was the basis of the movie Soylent Green. Also should mention that his West of Eden was one of the first serious sci-fi novels that I ever read. Tony Scott left an indelible mark upon motion pictures with Top Gun, Crimson Tide, True Romance and a bunch of other movies (the opening titles of Days of Thunder alone are considered a masterpiece). And I've no doubt that Phyllis Diller is back onstage with Bob Hope tonight, playing to a crowed theater in Heaven.

Thoughts and prayers going out to their families.

Read More

BEING BIPOLAR, Part 6: Back In The Saddle Again

This is the sixth installment of an ongoing and admittedly irregular series on The Knight Shift about what it is like to have the mental illness called bipolar disorder. I am attempting this endeavor with candor, with honesty, and at times with humor. If you're a new-ish reader of this blog you may wish to read the previous entries of Being Bipolar and check out the video supplements along with them. You don't have to go back into previous essays in order to "get" what I'm writing about this time, but you are certainly invited to read them at your convenience :-)

So it's been awhile since I did an installment of Being Bipolar. Like, more than a year.

Much has happened since then. Mom passed away. There have been other family and friends that have also left us. But also, many new family and friends have come into my life as well.

I've been able to do the first bit of serious traveling that I could enjoy in a long time. I finally have that female miniature dachshund that I've been threatening to possess.

The second most important thing that's happened is that God brought a very wonderful, sweet, godly and beautiful woman who I am madly in love with into my life... and for some reason or another she seems to be madly in love with me too.

Most important, is that I can see now how everything that I have gone through has drawn me closer to God than I've ever been before.

Are there regrets? Yes, absolutely. Regrets that I can't doubt I will continue to carry with me until the end of my days in this broken world.

But I have also seen God's wonderful hand at work, that He has always been holding me. I would have to say that one reason for the absence of writing about the bipolar has been that, I was able to let go of some things that were beyond my control. Things that I was desperately trying to fix and could not. And I had to finally acknowledge to myself and to Him that "God, I can't do anymore. I've done all I can. This is Yours to handle. Take it."

I had to reach a point of complete physical, emotional and spiritual exhaustion from my own efforts, and do what I should have done months earlier: lay that burden down before God, not knowing or even caring what He might do with it.

How could I have possibly known that He was preparing me to have so many good things?

In spite of it all, I was able at last to forgive myself for the wrongs I had done and for the things which went wrong that I could not have prevented and yet carried the burden of. And when I did that I was able, for the first time in my life, to experience the utmost joy of the grace of God.

I would go through it all again, if I had to, to reach the place where I am now with Him. With where He has put me. With where He is taking me still.

What have I been doing for much of this last year and more? Beholding His mighty hand.

I would say that all things considered, this past year has seen me able to be happier than I've ever been at all before.

And still lurking in the background of it all is the mental illness that nearly two years ago I publicly disclosed that I have.

From One Never-Ending Battle...

In one way or another, bipolar disorder has factored into nearly every major aspect of my life and way too many smaller ones. In fact, even as I write this I am experiencing a bipolar depressive episode. It makes putting my thoughts together and being motivated to write much more difficult than it would be for me under "normal" circumstance. It's one of the reasons why I haven't composed a Being Bipolar post all this time: so many false starts that I couldn't push myself through to complete.

It might be different this time though. I'm on a new medication for one thing. I'm still taking a daily dose of the other drug: the only drug we've found among the wild plethora of pharmaceuticals across this past decade which has allowed me to keep the bipolar in check. The new drug... which I am still getting accustomed to... allows me to be more productive during the depressive episodes especially. It's letting me be more physically fit as well. The previous drug I was on caused a weight increase that... well, was pretty heinous for a guy of my build, not to mention bringing about considerable lethargy. I have lost around fifty pounds since going off of that rotten stuff this past November. Physically I'm in the best shape that I've been in years. My newfound hobby of ballroom dancing might have something to do with that too, but anyway...

My mood is drastically more stable than it was over a year ago. Sometimes I've wondered if it might have been a good thing to wait this long before another Being Bipolar. In the short term you can't see much change one way or another. Only in retrospect, when you're able to study the data over a prolonged period of time, can you be confidently assured that yes, you really are observing yourself getting better.

There are new strategies that I have discovered and developed since last time that help me keep the bipolar in check. I'm going to be talking about some of those during a future installment. One of them, well... let's just say that it would be totally cool with me if a certain piece of software could get ported to the iPad so I could take my "therapy" wherever I go.

And then, there is the matter of my having gone public about bipolar disorder. Ever since I began this series and because of the coverage it received from Fox 8 WGHP, many people have written me to express tremendous amounts of appreciation and gratitude. Very often it comes from individuals who also must contend with bipolar disorder, either themselves or because they have to watch a loved one suffer from it. To have heard from so many, to be shown in some small way that this has made a positive impact in the lives of others, has been some of the best therapy I can imagine.

Revealing my bipolar disorder and choosing to chronicle my battle through this blog has turned into all kinds of curious blessing. And it has brought a huge sense of liberation with it. I'm no longer having to hide something that shouldn't be hidden away to begin with. Instead I'm free to confront it, to be bold in attacking it. This was something that I was born with, had no choice in being afflicted with it... but I'll do whatever it takes to control it.

Maybe that's why God let Mom pass when she did. One close friend told me after the funeral that Mom was able to see me take back my own mind and my own life. If so, then I will have to count that as one more "wink from God" among the many that have happened these long several months.

Most of this probably sounds remarkably easy to someone who doesn't have a mental illness. It has been anything but. I'm not deluding myself into believing that I will ever totally conquer bipolar. It's something I have to take responsibility for every day. Sometimes more than that. And I'm going to have to keep taking responsibility for it all the rest of my life.

I wish that I could have had my condition this much under control years ago. It would have no doubt kept me from getting hurt. It would have kept me from hurting many other people. My life would have probably turned out to have been radically more successful than it has been.

...To Another

Yes, what if I had been able to address my condition far more early?

What if I had never suffered bipolar disorder at all?

I'm going to share my asking "What if...?" because I have wondered about it. Have and even now been many times tormented by those questions.

Being able to enjoy life for the first time without bipolar wrecking havoc with it, has in some ways wrought a suffering almost as bad as the bipolar itself.

There is a second front in the war for my mind. One that in recent months I've found myself fighting as fiercely as against the bipolar: doing my best to not dwell upon what might have been.

I don't do "fake". I don't believe in "fake". If there has been any purpose at all to the strange weird path that my life has taken, it is to strive toward that virtue which the Bard articulated in Hamlet: "To thine own self be true". I am an ongoing experiment of the human condition, just as you are along with everyone else in this world. If a mental illness is what I have been dealt, then I will be honest about it, about all of it. I am not perfect and I'll never claim to be perfect. Whatever mistakes I make along the way, I'll own up to them if I haven't done so already.

Some people have tried to seriously convince me to take a stab at politics again. I doubt now that will ever happen. Too many people want an "ideal" candidate... and that's not me. Coming out with bipolar disorder has no doubt disqualified me from a lot of opportunities: maybe not officially, but in other ways.

I'm okay with that. I try to be okay with that anyway. On most days it works. And others...

What would my life have been without my own mind turning against itself? What opportunities could have opened up, absent the bipolar?

What if I could have been a successful writer, or filmmaker, or lawyer, or scientist? My interests are vast and sundry. My mind enjoys contemplating so many fields of study and yet has been kept in one way or another from pursuing them as much as I... as I... would have wanted.

What if I had been able to already be the husband I always wanted to be?

What if I could have been a father already?

"What if...?"

Two words that plague me when I'm alone at night. And most of the time those are followed by another word: "Why?"

"Why, God? Why did You let me have this?"

He never tells me anything but the same thing again and again: "My grace is sufficient."

But what if I could live my life all over again, only this time without the bipolar?

There was an episode of Lost where the survivors still on the island were propelled backward in time, to a night when they could have potentially changed the course of their fortunes. Locke knew that, but he refused to do it. It would have saved him a lot of pain, Sawyer reminded him. "No, I needed that pain," Locke replied, "To get to where I am now."

Maybe I needed all of this pain too. Including the pain of a mental illness that I would not wish upon a worst enemy. Maybe what I consider to be a good life wouldn't be the best life that I could have had accompanying that pain.

Kristen reminds me that if that had been for the way I've had to live with bipolar, we might have never met at all. She doesn't have to tell me the rest: that I would have missed having that happiness. Neither would I have possibly been drawn into the deepest and most wonderful relationship that I have with God today, without letting myself discover His grace and mercy at the end of that suffering.

I can't know what might have been. My heart knows that. My head... is learning it too.

I shouldn't regret where life would have taken me without the bipolar. I can only look forward to what will come of my life now that I have it under control, now that I'm learning with each new day how to make sure that it never again hurts me or those closest to me.

Fighting against my mind while also fighting against my doubts. And trusting God to not let me fall along the way.

I don't know if some people would consider that to be a "good" life. But it's certainly not a boring one. And from where I'm sitting tonight, depressive episode and all, looking back on where I've been and what I've gone through... it gives me a tingle to think about what God might yet have for me.

Maybe someday, long years from now, I won't have to ask "What if...?" or "Why?" anymore. On that far-flung day, the only thing I want to be telling God is, "What a great ride that was!"

Coming Attractions

Well, now that I've finally got Being Bipolar back up and running again, what can be expected in the near future?

More videos, no doubt. Heck, I still haven't made one with my iPad (and there's a wazoo of video apps on it that are begging to be employed!). Most of the times that I've tried to write about bipolar this past year were about the normal (more or less) routine that I go through to manage it. I'm able to do that now, and at least one thing I want to elucidate upon might arouse some chuckling from you, Dear Reader.

I also am feeling led to write about what bipolar disorder does to the ones that you love. Something that I have ample experience in regard to (unfortunately). But I've promised myself that I'm going to delve into this no matter how heartbreaking or painful it may be. One person already wrote to tell me that this series helped him to understand his wife's bipolar. Who knows: maybe this can save some relationships out there. If it does then I can't take credit for it. The work is ours, but the results are God's.

One thing that I knew but didn't realize how pervasive it is, is how many creative and artistic types out there are afflicted with bipolar. Okay, my own creativity has taken a hit too from this thing, but I'm gonna do my darndest to write about that and how I've been striving to get it back. I think it might be working 'cuz for the first time in awhile I've some new short film ideas. A few writing projects, too. So if producing this series is aiding me in finding my Muse again, so much the better for me. And I'm more than happy to use that to help others as well.

So keep your earballs and eyedrums wide open, 'cuz we're gonna hurtle even deeper into this blogger's strange and twisted mind! I can't promise you'll exit at a gift shop, but I'll do my best to educate, enlighten and entertain along the way. Sorta like Jerry Lewis! At least before he got canned.

Read More

Russian Devolution

In 1917 Russia, the revolution to overthrow the government was started by the Bolsheviks.

In 2012 Russia, the revolution to overthrow the government is being started by Pussy Riot.

I'm telling y'all here and now: our grandchildren's high school history books are going to be something else...

Read More

Photography at 1 trillion frames per second

My mind is reeling from thinking about the applications possible with this...

A sharp-thinking dude named Ramesh Raskar and his team of techies have come up with a way to take photos... at 1,000,000,000,000 frames per second. That's fast enough to watch an individual packet of photons from a laser moving through a soda bottle and being able to observe how the light particles scatter throughout.

And if you watch the video, you can also see how this technology might find its way into everything from medical imaging to search and rescue.

One thing that comes to mind is that in another decade or so, with enough refinement something like this could be put into a smartphone. The result? Your very own ESPER straight out of Blade Runner.

And then there is the notion of aiming this camera at a house, from across the street or from an aircraft, and being able to search it without having to acquire a warrant...

Well, as with all such things, with anything really, it's not the tool. It's how we choose to use it. And I'm thinking there are going to be some very neat uses for this.

Read More

6 Inches of Freedom: City of Reidsville discriminating against disabled! Pro-Monument protestors given "ridiculous" amount of space! ADA violation could incur $$$ penalties!

The Police Department of the City of Reidsville has as of late last week implemented and begun enforcing a policy of limiting those protesting for the return of the Confederate Soldiers Monument to a six-inch wide raised enclosure surrounding the former site of the monument, The Knight Shift has learned. Those who do not limit themselves to this "area" will be arrested.

This writer has attempted to contact Chief Edd Hunt to learn why. As of this evening I haven't heard from him or from anyone else in the police department. However one source did suggest that the policy came from "higher up".

Obviously there is a question of whether this policy violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, in that it is restricting of the rights of free assembly, of free speech, and also of petition (in the form of protest).

But that might be the least of the City of Reidsville's worries, folks...

Because this policy is also apparently in violation of Title II of the American with Disabilities Act of 1990!

A bit of refresher for those not up to speed (no pun intended). Early on the morning of May 23rd, 2011, the driver of a van crashed into the Confederate Soldiers Monument that had been standing at the intersection of Scales Street and Morehead Street in downtown Reidsville. The monument was erected in 1910 in honor and memory of those from Rockingham County who served in the Confederate army.

Now, you would think that the City of Reidsville - and its mayor, James Festerman - would have done the responsible thing, the right thing, by having the monument repaired and replaced with the insurance money. That's what's supposed to happen in a situation like that. But for the past year Mayor Festerman and the city council have done their absolute darndest to ignore this issue, hoping that it will simply "go away". In place of the monument there is now a plum-ugly planter sitting in the center of what most still refer to as Monument Circle. That hasn't stopped many people - from all walks of life - from standing on the circle to protest the city government's negligence. The protests are still going on strong more than a year later. A group called the Historic Preservation Action Committee (HPAC) has formed to pursue legal action in order to restore the monument.

(I have written about the monument issue previously, in an open letter to Mayor James Festerman and some thoughts about what the monument honestly stands for, in spite of "political correctness".)

But now it looks as if the City of Reidsville intends to wipe out peaceful demonstration in favor of the monument... or at least sparing it a half-foot of liberty.

The Reidsville Police Department is as of last week warning individuals that they must stand on the concrete enclosure surrounding the flower bed at the center of Monument Circle, if they wish to protest at all. Failure to do so (i.e. standing on the brick walkway) can and will result in arrest.

As of this evening, no one in the Reidsville Police Department has been able to tell me what city statute this policy derives from.

Here is Monument Circle this afternoon, looking east from Morehead Street...

I didn't know how much space exactly it was that the protestors now have to stand on (other than it was, as one pro-monument leader told me today, a "ridiculous" amount) until I whipped out my tape measure...

Six inches! Six measly inches in which those standing on the site petitioning for the monument's return must be restrained to, under threat of arrest. The enclosure is almost twice as high off the surrounding walkway.

Why should anyone be given such an insanely tiny amount of public land - technically park land - in which to peaceably assemble and exercise their right of free speech? Especially when there's a whopping FIFTY-THREE INCHES of brick sidewalk on which they can safely stand?

But in doing this the City of Reidsville is also - as best as I can tell - in gross violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Specifically, Title II of the ADA, which pertains to discrimination on the basis of disability by state and local governments.

Six inches of "free speech zone"? Deviation from which will result in arrest?

Because I cannot for the life of me figure out how a person whose mobility is limited to a wheelchair, or a motorized scooter, or even one who must employ crutches or some other aid, can protest under such a ludicrous policy and not be arrested. For nothing more or less than the obligations demanded by their individual circumstance.

If the City of Reidsville insists upon limiting protest to those six inches of cement, then per the ADA it has the legal obligation to construct equal access to those with disabilities. Ever seen a wheelchair ramp leading up to a six-inch wide strip of concrete? Me neither.

But I can see this much: the City of Reidsville is discriminating against disabled individuals on top of some possibly egregious violation of constitutional rights. And for actively violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, that alone could make the City of Reidsville liable for $50,000 in penalties. Perhaps even as high as $100,000. Maybe even a lot more, if it's found that the city government is committing multiple violations of the ADA.

Mayor Festerman, members of the Reidsville City Council, I ask you...

...is it really worth trying to shut up the majority of public opinion about the Confederate Soldiers Monument with six inches of free speech? Is this attempt at political correctness honestly worth possibly losing a hundred thousand dollars of money that Reidsville doesn't have?

Read More

A question about Paul Ryan

Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm for fiscal conservatism and letting the free market be responsible for itself, without government interference. Meaning that among other things that I've never thought anything favorable about government bailout programs.

A few days ago Mitt Romney, the assumed Republican candidate for President, announced that Paul Ryan would be his running mate in this fall's election.

Paul Ryan is being touted as a "Tea Party conservative".

Okay, well then...

Why should this blogger, or anyone else for that matter, vote for a Romney/Ryan ticket when Ryan:

- voted for the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP)

- voted for bailouts of $14 billion for General Motors and Chrysler

- voted for bailouts of Bank of America, BB&T, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and other banks

- voted for bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

- voted for the insanely expensive Medicare Part D

?

The auto industry bailouts alone have honked me off to no end. As they should every citizen of this country.

So I'm sincerely asking supporters of Paul Ryan: how is his voting record indicative of someone who holds to financially conservative and responsible values? More to the point: why should I or anyone else vote for Ryan based on his record?

Don't even bother offering up bullcrap about "You're voting against Obama". I am not now or ever have voted for Obama. I need to know why I should vote for Romney/Ryan.

Read More

A word of wisdom from a minister friend

"The Law is a widower constantly seeking a girlfriend, and usually finds one at church."

Something that James Hodges, a very dear brother in the Lord and Baptist minister (and also bona-fide sci-fi novelist!) wrote.

I thought it was more than well worth sharing with my own readers.

James also recommended studying Romans 7:1-6 as that seems to be what led him to that terrific analogy.

Read More

Review of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

It's taken me two visits to the theater before my thoughts have settled enough about The Dark Knight Rises to articulate them.

So what did I think of this, the final installment of Christopher Nolan's take on Batman?

More after the jump!

Read More