Does your God Sanction murder in his own house?

Women's Clinic Doctor murdered in the Lobby of his own church.


So, just a little shout out to all you religious "Christian" whacko fundies out there...

Does your God sanction the cold blooded murder of a man on the Sabbath in a House of Worship? Because that's what happened this morning. A man walked into the lobby of a Lutheran church in Kansas and blew away 67 year old George Tiller, who coincidentally had been shot once before, 16 years ago, and survived. Why, you ask? Was it because Tiller was an "Abortion Doctor?" The police haven't said yet, but probably.

Of course this is all after Bill O'RLLY? and Fixed news did a hit piece on the doctor, calling him "Tiller The Baby-Killer" and calling his clinic a "Death Mill." God forbid we hold Bill and Fox Noise Accountable for this. He'll shrug his shoulders and move on to the next hit piece, and we'll all be left to wonder if some other brainless conservative whacko that tunes in to such garbage will decide to do Bill a favor and the snuff the guy out.

How...please tell me how your religion justifies this? I'm tired of this bullshit from the "Christian" right. Reading the comments on this story on the KSL website here in Utah seriously made me want to throw up. So many people saying..."I'm glad he's dead." There are at LEAST 7 different passages in the Bible that say to the effect: "Vengence in Mine, Saith the Lord." From Deuteronomy to Hebrews. Yet this is once again something the "Christians" fail to abide by in the Good Book. Here's the deal, and I'll explain it so even the most brain-dead of you idiots can understand it.....

If God thinks what someone is doing is bad enough, he'll take care of it. Period. You are not appointed to be judge, jury, and executioner in this life or any other. However, this is just another instance of the "religious" folk doing what they think is right at ANY measure.

Luckily, they caught the guy, and he hadn't killed himself yet. I hope the State of Kansas sends him to meet his maker fairly soon. I wonder if he'll be surprised at where he spends eternity.

So how is this any different than Muslim terrorism? It's not. Plain and simple. This guy should be charged as a terrorist. This is nothing more than domestic terror fuled by the radical right wing agenda. When are we going to start making people pay for this? Please read this article at Huffpost for more views on this.

Folks, abortion is legal in this country and that isn't going to change. The death of this doctor will not prevent any abortions and it will not prevent more unwanted pregnancies. That's something we need to come together to work on, unless of course the "Pro Life" folks would like to just continue to sit by and let cold blooded murder be committed in the name of God, but that's nothing really new to the Christians, is it now?

A pity. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, love your neighbor, etc. I don't believe anywhere in the Bible he said it was ok to murder people who don't agree with you.

My prayers and sympathy for the family of Dr. Tiller. Hopefully some new laws can be passed making this officially terrorism, and then just maybe this man's death won't be in vain.

In which I rant....again.

First off...youtube singing sensation Susan Boyle. ENOUGH. You've got about 2 of your 15 minutes left, use them wisely. Here's the thing that just drives me NUTS about this--sure she's a good singer, but it's not like she's the best singer EVER. The only reason she's had this much of a fuss made over her is because of the way she looks. Now, my folks taught me it wasn't right to judge somebody on the way they look, whether they're pretty or pretty ugly. If, lets say, an average looking American Idol contestant showed up on that show and sang like that, they'd get some light applause and it would be on to the next. Don't preach to me about how awesome this is. She's being exploited for television ratings. It was a set up, folks. And now it sounds like she might be cracking under the pressure. Whatever, I don't have a dog in this fight, but stop shoving her down my throat in every media outlet that exists.

Next, American Idol. Hah. Who the hell cares? So either AT&T rigged it or America is still blatantly homophobic. Quite frankly neither of those things would surprise me.

Which brings me to Prop Hate (8) in California. The State Supreme Court ruled that the amendment passed in prop 8 is legal. Ok, I don't think anyone actually expected the court to rule differently. For the Court to throw out a voter passed Constitutional measure would have been a pretty big deal. Still, it's a good thing that the court let the 18,000 some gay marriages legally performed in California before Prop8 stand. It would have been heartbreaking for the government to execute that mass divorce. What exactly is the big deal anyway? Two men or two women marry each other. So what? You can still go on living your pitiful little life. It's not going to affect you in the slightest. God is going to strike us down? I hate to tell you this folks, but homosexuality has been around pretty much since people have been around, and we're still here. Doesn't God have better things to do than to flip out because two guys that love each other get married? Look at the divorce rate in the USA and tell me us Hetero folks are doing such a good job with god's "sacred institution of marriage." It's a bunch of Hooey. Here's what god said that is important: "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

Obama's SCOTUS pick: Nice job. I don't care that Hush Bimbaugh and Hannitea-bag think she's a racist. Maybe we could use an opinion from somebody that's not an old, uppity, white guy for a change, huh? Besidesm the entire human experience is subjective, why would we ask her to check her life experience at the door? Well because she's not likely to empathize with the rich, white, conservative folks...that's why.

Miss Saigon

So for Easter, my parents got Mariel and me tickets to see Miss Saigon in Salt Lake City. We both love musical theater, but neither of us have been to see a show for awhile. I didn't know much about Miss Saigon, but Mariel's always wanted to see it so we were looking forward to it.

We weren't disappointed either. The production was first class all the way. The story itself (by the same people who wrote Les Mis) is an adaptation of Madame Butterfly, which I saw at the Opera some 15-16 years ago. The story surrounds an American soldier in Vietnam who spends a night with a Vietnemese prostitute, and falls in love with her, deciding to try and take her back to the states. However, as Saigon falls to the VC in 1975, they get seperated and the soldier goes back to America without her. Unfortunately, their short relationship produces a child, and the soldier gets married upon his return to the states. All I can say is, if you've ever seen or know anything about Madame Butterfly, you know it doesn't end well.

Anyways, all the actors were really great, particularly Kevin Gray, who played The Engineer. He really stole the show for me. We liked it so much, and liked the atmosphere at the Pioneer Theater so much, we're thinking about getting season tickets for next year! I'd give this production 5 stars, and while probably nothing will ever top Les Mis for me, this is certainly right up there with it. In fact, I'd probably say I liked it better than Phantom of the Opera, and that's saying something. If you've neglected Miss Saigon or thought that it couldn't be as good as Phantom or Les Mis, you're really missing out, and you should remedy that ASAP.

Book Thoughts: "Stone of Tears" by Terry Goodkind

I really enjoyed the first Sword of Truth book, "Wizards First Rule" and actually read it a couple of times before moving on to Stone of Tears. I didn't like this one as much. Not that it's a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but it just ended up frustrating me.

Many reviews talk about the lack of character development in Gookind's novels. Ok, well it might no be his strong point, but watching the characters, particularly Richard and Kahlan, have the adventure TOGETHER through most of the first book was part of it's charm and to me it negated any lack of individual development. Heck, in the first book Richard and Kahlan are together from the opening pages until the last hundred or so. In "Stone of Tears" after the first 100 or so pages, they're hardly together at all. It gives two distinct threads to the story that set up the third book, but in doing so, this one lost some of it's charm for me. Plus it made me wonder if Richard was going to have a collar in every one of these books!

Goodkind's action writing and battles are one of his strong suits however, and this novel showcases them brilliantly, so despite a little bit of a lull in the 2nd quarter or so of the book, it picks back up and definitely finishes strong.

So for me it's not as good as the first but surely worth the read.

Book Thoughts: "By Night in Chile" by Roberto Bolano.

So I just finished this outstanding book. I was kind of surprised because this is the first time I've actually managed to finish, let alone enjoy, a piece of literature from Latin America.

Anyway, if you know me well, you probably know that I'm not always a real "serious" reader. I read a lot of fantasy or pop culture ready-made mystery/thrillers. However, I routinely peruse the "What Are You Reading" thread on one of my message boards, looking for new ideas on books or authors to check out. Lately the folks on that thread have been speaking very highly of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolano. Bolano died of liver failure in 2003, and many of his works are only now being made available in english. I decided to give him a shot, that it was time for some "serious reading," and I'm glad I did.

This novel, "By Night in Chile" is the death bed rant of Father Urrutia, a Jesuit Priest and notalbe literary critic. It's interesting, because the entire book (130 pages in this version) is one long paragraph, a single rant. It gives the book a very authentic feel, as if you're actually sitting listening to the dying priest recount his memories.

Anyway, Urrutia didn't always want to be a critic. He wanted to be a poet. However, not really succeeding at that, the newly minted priest turns to literary criticism. Through this lense, Bolano writes his own critique of the Chilean intellecual movement during a time of great unrest in the country, chiefly through the reign of the Socialist Allende and the military junta of Pinochet.

Father Urrutia claims to be a man "on the side of history" which seems to be his excuse for looking the other way and continuing in his "intellectualism," ignoring what goes on around him. This comes into play in three seperate instances in the book. In the first instance, two strange men, Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah, meet with him and offer Urrutia a chance to travel Europe for Opus Dei, and study the "disintegration of churches." What Urrutia ends up studying is the use of falcons to kill the pigeons that shit on the facades of the churches, literally causing them to disintegrate over time. Urrutia wathes these Falcons on several occasions, watches them violently kill the pigeons. Finally, near the end of his journey, he visits an aging priest who has decided that pigeons and doves are part of God's creation too, and refuses to release his falcon to kill them. After all, Pigeons and doves are symbols of the holy spirit. As Urrutia arrives at this priest's church, the old priest dies and Urrutia relases his Falcon, and in a very powerful and moving scene, watches the falcon butcher several pigeons and deposit them at his feet. Urrutia basically shrugs his shoulders, sends his final report to Opus Dei, and moves on.

However, Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah have other plans. Having witnessed Urrutia's reluctance to confront the violent (and often surreal) killing of the pigeons by the falcons, they push him to instructing General Pinochet and his cronies in Marxism and political theory. At first, Urrutia is worried about this coming to light, as the dictatorship of Pinochet is a harsh one, however, soon he realizes that nobody cares, and then once again justifies himself by saying he was just doing his duty. Again, he shrugs his shoulders and moves on.

In the final and perhaps most moving part of the book, Father Urrutia finds himself frequenting a gathering of Chile's literary and artistic elites at the house of a new, supposedly up and coming, novelist and her husband. Urrutia is always "uneasy" at these gatherings, but continues to go to them. Later an artist gets lost in the house trying to find the bathroom and stumbles upon a naked man, bound to a bed in a dark basement room. Despite the fact that the man has obviously been tortured, the artist "quietly closes the door" and proceeds about his business. It turns out that the novelist's husband is an agent of the DINA, Pinochet's secret police, and that he had been torturing and killing people in the basement of the house, write under the nose of Urrutia and the other intellectuals. Urrutia claims he did not know of this, however, after the novelist's husband has been captured in the USA, Urrutia returns to visit the woman, but refuses to go down to the basement and see where the torture and murders took place. In this way he refuses to acknowledge that it happened under his nose. He turns to leave after refusing to see the basement, and the woman novelist tells him "that is how literature is made in Chile." He replies to her that "that is how literature is made everywhere." He defends himself one final time by saying he didn't know that the torture was happening until it was too late, that he was not afraid to speak up, but was once again a man on the side of history.

At the end, Urrutia's dreams are haunted by the ghosts of the dead priest and his falcon, the one Urrutia had himself released, and The Judas Tree. Interesting symbols as Urrutia tries to reconcile his life with the events that he observed.

All in all, after you get used to the style, the book is hugely rewarding. A big contrast to the Magical Realism of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and other Latin American writings. If you're in the mood for some serious reading. Check this one out.

In which I rant about a crappy book and the people who read it.

So Sunday morning I decide to go to the bookstore after dropping Mariel off at work. I mean, I had nothing else to do and I was looking for a couple of things in particular.

Of course, Sunday was Mother's Day, and apparently it was also last minute gift time with a lot of teenagers and men in looking for that ever so thoughtless gift for mom. Almost all of the customers, and I'm NOT making this up, were talking about that stupid ass Twilight book by Stephenie Meyer. "Do you have Twilight?" "What Twilight books are out in paperback?" "Do you have the Twilight book with the movie cover?" "What's the newest Twilight book?" "Do you know where I can get the Twilight DVD?" These were all questions I heard the customers asking the clerks, and they were all being asked multiple times. I was in there for about a half an hour and I wanted to fucking scream.

What the hell is it with these books? See folks, I read one. I like Vampire Books. I've read Dracula. I've read Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. I've read a book about vampire and occult crimes in the modern world. I'm familiar with the subject. So I read the first Twatlight book and you know what.....it SUCKED.

The main character is a total teenage emo douche bag who has zero self confidence, and the author has to remind us every ten sentences about how clumsy she is. Oh, and her self confidence is low despite the fact that everybody in the school thinks she's hot. Yeah. Right. Little hot miss Molly Mormon. The boys wanting what they can't have. Right. Yeah. I get it. Anyways....she falls in love with this VAMPIRE boy (OMG SQUEE!!) who is just like SOOOO PERFECT (OMG SQUEE!). But of course being good, proper Mormons, they can't do it or anything like that, so Emo Vamp boy just resorts to the only thing a guy can do in that instance....stalk her and hover over her while she sleeps. Oh, and this after he uses his super vamp powers (OMG SQUEE!) to save her life. Really though, if she's so damn clumsy, isn't this natural selection at work?

Oh yeah, and this vampire who SPARKLES (OMG DOUBLE SQUEE!) isn't a real vampire at all. Well, I don't think so. He comes out during the day, doesn't mind the sun (makes him SPARKLE), goes to school, and DOESN'T DRINK PEOPLE's BLOOD. Right. Good little Mormon vamp. Just have your bread and water at Sacrament. It's ok. Douche.

In the Vampire Chronicles, there's a vampire that gets uneasy about biting people. His name is Louis. Louis is a pussy. Everytime I read about him in this way I want Lestat to smack him in the back of that immortal, not so vaguely homosexual head of his.

Also, in a lot of vampire fiction, the biting of humans and the sucking of blood is symbolic of sex...all he way back to Bram Stoker. Yet the Twilight attitude about sex is profoudly dysfunctional. Yeah, whatever, wait till you're married. That's fine. A little boring and a little risky, but that's fine. Don't you wanna take the car for a test drive? Beyond that however, it goes downhill. Emo teen douche chick is afraid do it even after they GET married (I don't really care if I spoil it for you). She's embarassed. Nice. So it seems to me the attitude that Meyer is trying to portray in regards to sex is that even after you're married it's not enjoyable and dirty, and something to be embarassed about. Of course the only reason she marries douche vamp boy is that she wants him to bite her (which really means nail her), and is that a good reason to get married?

By the way, it might very well be dirty, but if it's unenjoyable YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

In short the plot sucks, the characters (hmmph) suck, the writing itself is simple, dull and sucks. The conflict...there isn't one. That and the douche author spends 4 books trying to convince us and herself that emo non-skank teenage girl MUST HAVE A MAN in order to have any meaning in her life. That's really too bad, because it pretty much takes apart everything that women have achieved in the last 150 years or so in our society, but that's the Mormons for you.

The real kicker for me though--Nobody in this state would give a flying rat's ass about these books if they wouldn't have been written by a Mormon. If a Protestant or Catholic had written these books, they wouldn't be a blip on the radar here, but Utah has this deep dark need to justify the existence of the LDS church by claiming all of these famous people and their stories. "Oh look what this MORMON did! She wrote a bestseller!"

I'm gonna go catch my breath and write a letter to Lestat asking him to come kick Edward's sparkly, boring, and decidedly unvampirelike ass.

OUT.

Movie: Quantum of Solace

So about a week ago, the wife broke down and let me buy the latest Bond movie on DVD, despite the fact that she hates Daniel Craig. Well, tonight we finally wathced it.

It was alright, decent action movie in the Bond style. It was kind of hard to tell what was going on though. Maybe I need to go back and watch Casino Royale again. So much of it happened so fast, plus a lot of it happened in the dark or with the dialogue happening over gunfire or explosions. It was kind of hard to follow. The Dark Knight was the same way for us. Heath Ledger was awesome in it, but other than that we were kind of left scratching our heads at the end.

Maybe I'm just getting old. Boo.