ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm now a candidate for public office

Readers of my blog are the first people from the general public that are going to hear about this. The official announcement is going to come early next week: I'm still trying to figure out where I should hold the press conference.

I filed late yesterday morning. I am now officially on the ballot this coming November as a candidate for an at-large seat on the Rockingham County Board of Education. This is the first time that I've ever run for public office (Lord only knows if it'll be the last time too, but I'm gonna try for this).

You can find a complete list of filed candidates here. I'll be writing more about this in the next few days or so, including why I chose to run, what my beliefs are in regards to public education, and maybe a little about what to expect from my campaign committee (there's no real committee... it's just me but by law I have to have a campaign committee for the paperwork).

Awright, any questions? :-)

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Something I'm watching with considerable interest

According to the Israeli news service Haaretz, Muslims in Jerusalem are demanding that Jewish groups be kept off the Temple Mount today, the Ninth of Av on the Hebrew calendar.

What they're really trying to do is prevent the Temple Mount Faithful from coming anywhere near the Al Aqsa mosque - i.e. the "Dome of the Rock" - and do what they've set out to do for the past several years now: set about rebuilding the Jewish Temple.

Some years ago when I was a reporter I interviewed Gershon Salomon, the founder and leader of the Temple Mount Faithful. Ever since then I've kept my ears open to anything pertaining to him and the Temple Mount Faithful, especially when it comes to their attempts to approach the Temple Mount. Every time over the years when they've tried to come to the Mount to set the cornerstone of the temple, they have been foiled by their own government. This time the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that anyone can visit the Mount on the Ninth of Av. I can see Salomon - by far one of the most extraordinary men I've ever met - girding up now with his fellow believers to make one more go at it.

You may want to watch this in the next few days, especially with what's going on right now between Israel and Hezbollah. Particularly with Ehud Olmert at the helm in Israel. Who knows... but this may finally be the year when the Temple Mount Faithful are able to begin rebuilding the temple.

All hell will break loose like Jerusalem hasn't seen before if they try to do it.

I say, let 'em build. It's their land anyway. The Muslims didn't even care that much for the site until Israel was established in 1948 anyway, then it became "sacred" to them.

By the way, Gershon Salomon obliged me with an autograph. Would be neat to know someday that I have the signature of the man who led the effort to build the third Jewish temple.

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KWerky Production update at the front end of August

Well, we tried. Honestly, we did. But in the end there was no way we could really get The Charles Schulz Code done. The biggest obstacle was that we couldn't find anyplace suitable to be where we would shoot the art gallery scenes, which were crucial (and demanded some unique specifications). The real hurdle though was how bad The Da Vinci Code bombed at the box office, at least in terms of all the hype that it had generated before it even came out. This was supposed to be a $300 million monster blockbuster right out the gate - something like the newest Pirates of the Caribbean - when instead it creaked its way toward, I think it's something around $200 million after all these months, or maybe less. And general interest in the whole Da Vinci Code thing is finally beginning to wane bigtime. A few years from now a lot of people who bought this book will be asking themselves why did they even bother to pick it up in the first place. However it is, it ended up just not being that good a material for a satire like I was aiming for. Maybe I'll post the script for it sometime though, to let anyone who might be interested see what was going to happen.

Meanwhile, work continues on other projects. And I'll post more about those as they develop.

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What I think about the whole Israel/Lebanon mess

Tonight I was on the phone with a friend, and he asked me what I thought about what's going on right now between Israel and the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. It was the first time that I gave some ventilation to what's been going through my head about this ever since it started... what... three weeks ago?

In the past month or so I haven't posted that much "serious" stuff on this blog. Not like I usually do. There's a lot of reasons for that. I've been thinking deeply on a lot of subjects lately and rather than blab about them on the fly here, I've been letting them percolate more. In the meantime this blog seems to have become about nothing else other than entertainment and minor trivia. Now it's starting to shift back to "real world" stuff.

So, what do I think about this mess in Lebanon right now? I don't believe the United States should become involved in it whatsoever, because this has become a conflict with bad guys but no real good guys either. Yes, Israel has the right to defend itself against those that have actively been trying to destroy her... but that does not mean that Israel has to stoop to the level of killing innocent civilians wholesale in order to get to those bad guys. So of course our "brilliant" leadership is practically giving its blessing to Israel to keep putting innocent Lebanese in the line of fire.

Think about it: would the United States government be in the right, at all, if it supported Great Britain if that country began to carelessly slaughter Irish women and children just to get back at a handful of IRA members?

And this may mark me as a strange Christian, but I can't honestly say that I support the state of Israel as many of my brethren do. Yes, we are instructed in the Bible to honor our Jewish forefathers and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem... but nowhere is it written that we are to thoughtlessly acquiesce to whatever the government of Israel chooses to do. There is a difference between the Jewish people and the government of the Jewish people in their own homeland, just as there is a difference between the American people and the government of the United States: one is not necessarily representative of the other.

So no, I don't completely support the Israeli government in this. And I believe that too many Christians should reconsider why it is that they are blindly supporting that government. No government is that perfect and let's face it: the Old Testament is 60% - or more - about times where the then-Israeli government botched things up. Why should we expect any greater from its present-day incarnation?

So chalk me up as someone who thinks that Hezbollah should be ended as a threat... but also thinks that Israel is fast destroying - if it hasn't completely done so already - its moral credibility in this matter.

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Iraq war vets suffering mentally, study finds

This is what I've feared most during the past three years: the long-term effects of the war in Iraq on our returning military personnel. According to the results of a new study, veterans of Iraq suffer feelings of confusion and even mental lapses at a rather common rate.

I'm afraid to say this, but I expect the suicide rate among those returning from this ill-conceived conflict will rise markedly in the years to come. Especially after President Bush leaves office and whoever is next finally starts to withdraw our soldiers... then it'll finally start to be asked by practically everyone just what were we doing there in the first place. Realizing that one fought in and suffered for a meaningless war is going to pack an emotional whallop, no doubt.

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From the creative mind of George Lucas...

George Lucas really hasn't released that many movies over the years when you think about it. So when one of his greatest triumphs ever reaches a milestone it's a fitting thing to commemorate it. It was twenty years ago today - August 1st, 1986 - that Howard the Duck was hatched in theaters. Yes the summer of 1986 gave us many great cinema classics - Aliens, Transformers: The Movie, etc. - but Howard the Duck certainly stands out as... well, something. Anyway, happy 20th birthday Howard!

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Only twelve posts for the month of July

Must have been a slow month or something.

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