Frustration sets in.....

You know the only thing worse than going through college, getting a degree, and then not being able to find a job? Doing the whole thing over! Going back, getting another degree (one that is supposedly better) and still not being able to find any kind of a decent job.

So here I sit. A year after signing up for a crap job to help my wife and I scrape by. I start to wonder how much longer I can put up with it. Hell I could probably make more money off of unemployment benefits than I make at this job, but I wasn't raised to take hand out when there was another option.

All the same though, having two college degrees but still having to schlep crappy products to dumb red necks and cheap skates makes me want to put a bullet in my head. Every day I get to go to work and wonder if I'm gonna get yelled at by an idiot because we don't have the life vest he wants in stock. I'm fucking tired of it.

I'm sick of this. "This is America, all you have do is work hard and you can live good life." Yeah well, if that's your position, I'd like to kindly encourage you to bend over and kiss my ass. My wife and I both have college degrees and we both have jobs, yet we can't go to the doctor without draining our savings. As much as we both look for jobs, they're not there, and that's coming from a place where the economy isn't as bad as it is in some other areas.

So many of the the types who sit on their duffs behind a desk all day for some business or for the government have no clue about what the rest of us go through. "Yeah I got job on base because my mom knows people, and I just pretty much sit and read novels." Meanwhile that person has no clue how the people that run the register at the store she shops at struggle. She doesn't know that the people flipping her burgers or serving her table at the cafe can't go to the doctor for something as simple as a mild cough.

Therein lies the problem with America. A fundamental error. When the hurricane hits, we all run to throw money at the affected areas and then pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves how wonderfully generous we are, yet we ignore the plight of thousands of people we come into actual contact with every week. We tell ourselves that if these people work hard and have faith, they'll be ok.

So don't tell me I'm fortunate to have a job. Trust me, I know I am. I couldn't imagine being totally unemployed right now. I know there are always people worse off than I am, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to be frustrated with my situation either.

I'm gonna be ok, we'll be ok, my wife and I. I still do have enough faith that we're gonna catch a break at some point, and I'm trying to make that break happen as best I can. Still though, the longer it takes, the more that faith decreases. and the temptation to give up becomes ever stronger.

Underneath this smile Lies everything
All my hopes, anger, pride and shame

Make myself a pact, not to shut doors on the past
Just for today,... I am free

I will not lose my faith
It's an inside job today

I know this one thing well...

Morality, religion, and an excuse for close-mindedness

I'm just wondering, what makes you think you're right and the other guy wrong?

Just curious.

Is it because you think the other guy is immoral? If so, who or what tells you it is? Some sacred text, or perhaps a deity himself tells you?

I've been thinking about this because of all of the gay marriage stuff in the news. Recently, two gay men were kicked off of Main Street Plaza in downtown Salt Lake City for having a public display of affection on LDS church property. Of course, the LDS church doesn't sanction homosexual behavior, so they have every right to ask that it not be done on their private property. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that this has served as a means for people to keep spewing hate by people who have a problem with the homosexual lifestyle. Lets sample some comments from the KSL Salt Lake City Web Forum.....

User Hardtail writes: "Why is it that the Liberal Pukes of society cannot
fathom the Bible?"

User Lance T writes: "I am now to the point that I will treat them like a person but I will not tolerate anything homosexual. I will tell them it is wrong, sick, unnatural, unhealthy, and deviant. I will not support it in any way."

User Chris N writes: "We should all revert back to Biblical times and just stone them all as this kind of behavior should not be tolerated in our society."

The same user Chris N writes: "in the last days we will call good evil and evil good. I'm all for bringing on the wrath of GOD; the sooner the better, before we all become corrupt."

User Dolsen writes: "What gays want is a special category all for themselves. Special rights and all new laws just for their category or preference. That can never happen without chaos following. Next, the category who want to marry their pet will stage kiss-ins with their pets all over the country. Then will come the category who want to marry their SUV, boat, plane or their 6,000 sq. ft. home with a pool. There is no end. The answer needs to be a firm "NO"! Marriage is from the beginning between one man and one woman, period, the end."


I could go on, this only covers about half of the comment page.

Not that these individuals aren't entitled to have their opinion and express it, indeed this is still America.

However, I do wonder where they derive the authority of their opinion.

Is it from the Bible? Sure. Everybody cites the book of Leviticus. I don't really think anyone would argue that the Bible is anything but anti-homosexual. So I guess we can accept that. What ELSE does the Bible say though? Leviticus Chapter 20 states the people should be put to death for homosexuality, adultery, idol worship, incest, and bestiality. It also says that if a man has sex with a woman while she's having her period they both should be cut off from their people.

So...really, Bibleman? Can you imagine what would happen if we executed everyone who had had sex with someone other than their spouse? Bye-bye Governor Sanford. Hell, we'd probably be killing a third of our population. Do we honestly want that form of moral authoritarian rule? Well maybe some do. However, in modern society we've come to agree that women shouldn't be dumped outside the city while they're having their period, that we don't execute people for homosexuality and adultery. Leviticus also says we should put to death children who curse their parents. How many of us would still be around if that law still existed? The Bible says Male master can legally rape their female servants (Exodus 21, Leviticus 19, Deuteronomy 21). We certainly don't sanction that anymore.

So why should we believe what the Bible says about homosexuality? The problem with the Bible is that it is quite obviously antiquated in many ways. if it is all indeed the inspired word of God, we better adhere to all of it, not just pick and choose what fits our agenda. Right? My kid better not ever smart off to me! Where's my female servant? Yeah?

So I don't really care what the Bible says about it. Don't EVEN try to bring up the book of mormon. No credible non-LDS scholar gives the book of Mormon any kind of scholarly weight whatsoever.

So maybe God tells you that this stuff is wrong. Or maybe God's prophet. Okay, here's the deal. I work on evidence. You can't convince me that some old fart sitting on his duff in Salt Lake City is any more a prophet of God than the old fart sitting on his duff in the Vatican is the Vicar of Christ. They're old, white men. Period. Please, oh please give me some argument not based in RELIGION, because your religion doesn't mean jack squat to me. I have many of the same beliefs that you do, yet we can still disagree and I can validate my argument just as well as you can validate yours. Even the devil can quote scripture to suit his purpose.

All your religion and your morality do is give you an absolute excuse to be close minded. You never have to think critically, you never have to be introspective, you never have to evaluate your beliefs. It's all just given to you. How lazy! America was born because some guys (most of them deists, by the way) bothered to think outside the box and decide that just because the King said so wasn't good enough anymore. We've lost spirit that now as the "moral" wing of this country seeks to shove their agenda down everyone else's throat.

Do Christians honestly think they're the only "great" religion to grace the earth? The ancient Greek and Roman religions lasted for thousands of years. Many of the forms of Ancient Native American beliefs are still practiced today. Islam, a younger faith than Christianity, is growing by leaps and bounds. Who's to say that 2000 years from now there won't be a new "great religion?"

If you think you know the mind of God on homosexuality or anything else, and that you have a holy mandate to crusade against gay people, may I remind you that the people who flew the planes on September 11 thought they knew the mind of God and had a holy mandate as well. Interesting huh?

Oh, I forgot, they're wrong and you're right, God and the Bible say so.

Give me a break and think for yourself!

Book Thoughts: "Deep Fathom" by James Rollins

I love James Rollins, he's certainly one of my favorite authors. I've mentioned this in other reviews, but in my opinion he puts about every other thriller writer out there to shame. Still, I was a little hesitant on this, because I had only read one of Rollins' other non-Sigma novels (Excavation) and didn't like it as well, not that it was a bad book by ANY stretch.....

However, Fathom was everything I hoped for and more. Both the characters and the action are top notch. Though Kirkland doesn't show up in the Sigma novels (at least the ones I've read so far), his character could easily fit in with that mold. The tragedies of Kirkland's life make him all the more believable and adds a lot to the color of the story. We do see Lisa Cummings pop up again starting in "Black Order" and it was cool to see the genesis of that character.

Really the whole book was great, but the last 150 pages or so practically took my breath away. I read them in about 45 minutes. Wow! I don't often write in these kind of glowing terms about a book, but this one totally deserves it. The little twist at the end (though I saw it coming after reading the later books) is set up well and extremely satisfying.

Rollins is one of the best out there, and this would be a good place to start reading him, before moving in to the more well-known Sigma Force novels. 5 stars.

New Star Trek Movie, plus Star Wars versus Star Trek.

I really should have posted this sooner, but I really loved the new Star Trek movie, as did the wife. We actually went to see it in the theater 3 times, the last two of which were late night affairs with the entire joint to ourselves. Great date night, right there.

Anyway, I've never been a huge Trek fan, so what did I like about it? Well first off I thought did an excellent job of balancing the old with the new. The look of the movie was obviously updated for the 2009 audience, yet the details, down to Enterprise itself and the uniforms seemed to be very loyal to the original designs. I also really enjoyed every single character. I was a bit surprised to see one of the MILF guys from American Pie turn up as Sulu, but even he was spot on. The actors obviously bought into the established characters, yet still seemed to make them their own, particularly Zachary Quinto as Spock. In the original series, Spock doesn't get in on the action a ton. He's more of a side line commentator. It was nice to see him right next to Kirk in the Battle on Nero's ship. Plus I think the relationship between him and Chris Pine has a chance to be every bit as good and dynamic as Shatner and Nimoy are.

Plus, hell, the story was awesome. It was an action movie with a plot! An effects movie with a plot even! Wow, is that allowed? I also really enjoy the idea of rebooting the franchise in an alternate reality. That's really going to let the writers and actors shine, without having to be pinned down too much by the existing Star Trek Canon.

So why can't Star Wars do this? After all, it has a huge fan base too. For me, it's all in the way the franchise has been handled. Star Trek has lived on as a steady presence on our TVs or Movie screens since at least the late 70's or early 80's with the original movies, then through The Next Generation and all the other spin off series. Star Wars hits us suddenly, stays through the mid-80's, then takes a break until the mid 90's. Thus, while Star Trek has not only kept it's core fans from the late 60's interested, it's been steadily creating more fans and younger fans over the years. The 2009 movie is a master-stroke of that. In the coming years, the new Star Trek Franchise will be viewed by young people who weren't even a twinkle in their parent's eyes the last time Shatner and Nimoy were together on the big screen. Kirk will be Chris Pine, and they'll chuckle to hear the original Kirk was that guy on Boston Legal. (No offense to Shatner, he's absolutely FANTASTIC as both Kirk AND Denny Crane).

Star Wars has flubbed this. There was no real running Star Wars media between the original three films and the prequels. Yeah, there were books, but they were pretty much the realm of the uber nerd, and not talked about much in the mainstream media. Then, when the prequels hit, a new generation was finally introduced, but despite the Franchise name and a huge budget, the movies kind of stunk. The plots were convulted and bogged down with Lucas's politics-heavy story, and the casting/acting were pretty much atrocious. Now, they have the Clone Wars animated series, which is a bust for a lot of die hards, and the animated movie, which was a flop.

So this begs a question. Could Star Wars have pulled off what Star Trek has pulled off? You know, rebooting the franchise with different actors in those main roles of Luke, Leia, and Han? I'm not sure it would, at least not with Lucas at the helm. They'd have to have a better story. The stories are out there, some of the books are really good. Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy would make an excellent movie trilogy, with the right director and cast. It'll never happen though. Pity. It pains me to say this, but I guess Star Trek is indeed the superior SciFi franchise.

These things scare me....

Okay folks, settle in for a rant.

First, read a little of the column by Bob Lonsberry on Sarah Palin's resignation.. Then read through a few of the comments left for him to get the proper context for this rant.

Now Mr. Lonsberry is a die hard conservative, and he and I don't have much in common politically. However I do enjoy reading his columns from time to time because he often offers a bit of a different slant on things. This piece on Palin was no different. You might have expected this to come from the pen of Keith Olbermann or the airwaves of Air America Radio.

As much as I think Mr. Lonsberry was spot on with his criticisms of Palin, I was appalled by many of the comments left by his readers. Some of it is truly scary. There are a number of posts refering to Palin's breasts, calling President Obama by his middle name only (yeah, you are all still stuck on that, we get it), several posts refering to Obama as the Anti-Christ, and even this little gem, which I'll quote word for word.....

"You are a damn idiot, first, anyone who still watches SNL, Keith Oberman, Alan Colmes, David the heart attack Letterman, Hardball, (yea hardball, I wish I could show this bleached haired girlie man what hardball really is) Wolfe Blitzer, (with a name like Wolfe, his physical stature he is a legend in his own mind, he is a pussy).

# 65 you have no life or future, it is people like you that condemn this Country to obscurity.

Godless people like will soon learn a harsh lesson!"

Emphasis Mine.

This is the crap that really scares me. This guy sounds like he wants to be uber-Christian, that's he's on the offensive for the Kingdom of Christ. I wonder if Jesus finds calling people "damn idiots," "girlie man," and "pussy" to be acceptable, I have a hunch that he doesn't. Let's forget about that though.

Read this:

5. The so-called morality of the liberal is no morality at all, rather an encouragement to betrayal. Therefore, they have no claim to protection from the state.
6. The liberal is not smarter than we are, rather only cleverer and craftier. His system cannot be defeated economically — he follows entirely different moral principles than we do. It can only be broken through political means.

Think you could see that or something like it on a right wing blog site, or maybe hear it on Rush Limbaugh? Well it's actually an excerpt from "Der Jude," Der Angriff. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit. It was written in 1929 by the Nazi propagandist Goebbels. I just substituted the word "liberal" for the word "Jew."

I do this to make a point. Throughout human history we have made a practice of scapegoating other people. We fear people who don't agree with us, or have a different religion, who don't look like us, or who are of a different political party. We tend to do this the most when we feel like we have God on our side or that or cause is just despite any reasoning to the contrary. 6 million Jews died for this kind of reasoning. The reasoning and the power of fear and blind political pursuit of power. It can happen here too, in the good old USA. During World War II the US Government detained thousands of Japanese-Americans in camps because of the FEAR that they might be spying for the Japanese military. In the 1950's hundreds if not thousands of Americans were openly persecuted by Senator McCarthy and his RED SCARE. We had to round up the communists. We were afraid of them. We went to war in Korea and Vietnam because we FEARED the spread of the ideology of Communism.

Now of course we also fear Muslims, right? I mean, hey, we all lived through 9-11.

Go back to the portion of the comment from the Lonsberry site that I emphasized...
"Godless people like (you) [sic] will soon learn a lesson." Now imagine had that post been made by a Muslim on a national news website or forum. There would be people calling the FBI saying it was a terrorist threat. I guarantee that. Of course, it is a threat, but here in America we don't see it that way if it's coming from a good Christian, right?

Point is, a religious fanatic is a religious fantatic, no matter what religion you are. We seem to have a growing club of Christian right wing fanatics in this country. You know, the kind of people who shoot people at the holocaust museum. The kind of people who call Obama the Anti-Christ. The kind of people who walk into a church on Sunday and shoot a doctor in cold blood in the name of God. The kind of people who will refuse to refer to our President by anything except for his middle name.

You see what I did there?

Damn straight I lumped you all together.

The Palinesque faction of the Republican party has tapped into the fear and hate of everyday Americans. It's tapped into the worst sentiments of people who openly say they FEAR for their culture and their country. Fear is a powerful motivator. So is believing you have God on your side.

The guys who flew those planes on 9-11...they thought they had God on their side too.

We are just left to wonder if these will continue to be idle threats. Let's hope so. We're all in this together and it's time we started acting like it.

A great man once said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That was FDR, a democrat. You've seen him on our money. You'll never hear Palin or Glenn Beck say that.

It's pretty powerful though. Maybe it's time we cut the fear and started working together before more people get hurt...huh?

July 4 Festivities & Other goings on

Well, it wasn't a pool party, but we tried.

A few weeks back Mariel and I got a kiddie pool on sale at work. It's not a huge pool, but not a dinky one either. Anyway, it's finally getting warm enough to use. We have to fill it with hose water from the house, which is pretty cold, so it has to be about 90 out for it to be comfy.



That's me in the pool the other day, wearing one of my dad's old Taco Maker shirts. Makes me look like a fat cow.

Anyhoodles....

We were hoping to be able to set up the pool for July 4th, but alas, we had some Thunderstorms role through Friday night and cooled things off a little too much. So we had to go to plan B.

We decided to go out to Iggy's, a local Sports Bar type place where I had a huge beer. Unfortunately, I wasn't carded for said beer, which made me feel real damn old. *fumes* Also, we had to sit and watch the coverage of Steve McNair's death, which was a bit of a bummer for a holiday. Whatever though, the food was good and the beer was even better. It had been awhile since I had a beer.

We also stopped by work. We had some polo shirts on sale for ten bucks and I wanted to pick up another one. While we were there, we also picked up some fireworks.

After coming home and taking a nap, oh and playing a little Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, We lit the fireworks. It was pretty fun, we didn't buy a ton, but we got our ten bucks worth of Sparklers and fountains. Good times. You can see some pictures either on my facebook or on our photobucket.

After we blew crap up, we came in and some chocolate cake to finish the day.

In other news, yes, I decided to do the facebook thing, we'll see how it goes. If you want to find me, search by my email brandonlbc@gmail.com.

So that's about it. Mariel and I both have a couple of days off and we're looking forward to sleeping in a bit.



Some of our fireworks..