Repression Started

Received an e-mail from Smashwords today. Pen Pal has given them a week to delete all stories in the erotica genre that have elements of children in sexual situations, bestiality, rape and incest.
Smashwords has no choice but to comply since Pay Pal handles all their payments even processing credit cards. Smashwords alread has a prohibition on minors involved in or being present in sexual situations. I removed one of my flash stories upon publication dealing with a 16 year old boy and an older woman. Can't write The Summer of 42 anymore.
Did anyone vote for Pay Pal to be the arbiter of public morals?
I know some of you are saying what's wrong with censoring these abominable items. And they are, but what's to now stop them from censoring political comments they don't like, anti-war stories, or a children's book that puts a bad light on lumberjacks (The Lorax- now a movie).
They've qualified the ban on rape as that which is tittilating, whatever the hell that means. This is the one item that affects me.
In my novel Human Sacrifices my heroine is raped by her husband the first time she says no to sex after they're married. Her husband quotes scripture saying that the woman's body belongs to her husband and she doesn't have the right to deny him. It is essential to my story to show the fundamentalist belief in women being subject to their husbands as explicitly stated in the Southern Baptist Conventions revision of the Faith and Message Statement in 2000. I don't believe the way I wrote the scene it would be of purient interest to most readers, but I can't vouch for every reader particularly one looking to be offended.
For my snarky take on this I'll post on my Captain's Log further steam.

Goodbye Old Friend

When I was 14 a friend started to lead me astray. Mike was a year behind me, but lived down the street. We became friends because all his life he had the ability to make good friends instantly. He got me smoking cigarettes which led to jumping a wall at the school into the backyard of an empty house and smoking during lunch. We were caught and suspended for three days. My parents went ballistic, but I was struggling with smoking before this. My brother the year before set the school record in the 600 yard dash and received a trophy at the awards ceremony. I vowed I'd break his record and I knew that there was no way I could do that if I smoked. Being suspended gave me the excuse to stop smoking. Mike and I hung around for a few weeks after that, but I refused to light up with him. When basketball season started I had practice after school and that was when we stopped hanging out together. I set the school record in the 660 yard dash winning the city championship the next year.
Two years ago we started attending a home church. At her work my wife made a friend whose husband pastors the church. Steve and I became friends and when I retired he asked if I would help in his law firm. It came as a surprise when Mike and his wife showed up to church. We hadn't seen each other in forty years. He spent time in the military, found the Lord, was baptised and ordained as a minister. Everyone who knew him before and after conversion witnessed first hand the transformation in his life. The one thing he couldn't shake from his old life was smoking and it killed him. Yesterday was his memorial service. It was the first time in over 40 years I said hello to his older brother and younger sister.
I've searched my heart for the past two years knowing how his health was failing what I could have done for more of a difference when we were younger, if my stopping smoking and moving away provided influence that later led to his conversion? On only one occasion we talked about God because he knew I went to church with my family every Sunday morning and night as well as Wednesdays. I'm afraid I wasn't very articulate in answering his questions.  I do know his conversion made a huge impact to those around him and many now know Jesus as their savior because of him.

Busy Busy Busy

• Since buying back the publishing rights to Optimus I've been editing it. Easier to write than edit.
•  We've reroofed the house and put on a nice new white door with oval window and storm door. It really brightens up the house both inside and out.
• Tried to have a little getaway with the wife Friday, but got called in to work in the morning. It was still nice to spend two nights away from everything going on in the house.
• Played first golf tournament yesterday a two man scramble, didn't do too well, but it was fun. Golfing tomorrow with a golfing buddy from a couple of years ago trying to get him in the Gaggle.

What Church and Faith Should be About

I grew up in church. From my earliest memories church was always there. My parents helped start at least one if not more from our living room. My brother has a doctorate in theology and I went to a Baptist University and a year of seminary. My wife has worked at the state convention for 30 years. There's hardly a church in this city we haven't attended or been members. Faith has always been a part of our lives.
In 1978 a retired state supreme court judge from Texas and the associate pastor of the largest church in Texas mounted a political attack on the Southern Baptist Convention. It's called the "fundamentalist take over" and it disenfranchised my family spiritually to this day.
A couple of years ago we started meeting in a home church. A lady my wife works with, her husband pastors the church. I gave the pastor my book Optimus and he liked it so much he has been giving me legal assistance work supposedly to help him with his openings and closings, but so far every case where I could do that has settled before the trial.
He brought me in to work on a case after only one day of retirement from teaching. I don't technically work for him since I have my own business and bill him for my services, technically he's my client, just my only client. We have become very close working in the same office and worshiping. He's working on his doctorate of ministry and has me look over every paper before turning it in.
I keep telling him that his papers have many "whereas's", but no "therefore." He counters that in theology you don't have the right to an opinion until after you've earned your doctorate. He seems to be right as he gets nothing but praises for him papers.
Michael Manning's post today brought these thoughts up and made me realize just how much the fundamentalist take over robbed me of social contact with other of my faith. They drove a wedge of conformity on certain beliefs which had nothing to do with being Baptist, just fundamentalist.
My pastor and I disagree on a number of issues, but we recognize each other's faith and respect each other.
Last September at a conference we encountered a young couple who moved here on faith. They graduated from seminary and plan on setting up what are called cell churches. A connection of home churches. The SBC entity that is supposed to support them has lost their paper work 6 times. They didn't have jobs, but were in an apartment. She was about to deliver their first child. They were in desperate need of a support church for financial and tax reasons. Our church agreed to provide this support. Since then they had a little boy, have both found jobs and just this last week bought a house where they will begin their ministry. It has felt good to assist this young couple begin their ministry.
Michael's post about social networking to help those in need rang a bell and I pray our church can reach out and help out other couples in need as well.

Free At Last

I now have the publishing rights to Optimus: Praetorian Guard. PA over the last 4+ years has done a roller coaster ride on pricing that it was difficult to generate sales. They got me to buy over a hundred copies, most of them given to family and friends. I sold some at book signings and a few to blogger friends who gratefully wrote reviews.
I plan a complete re-edit and e-publish at Smashwords and Amazon for a reasonable price. The sequel "Stephanus" is in the works.

Grandparents

Michael Manning has a post about Airstream travel trailers that sparked a warm memory. My maternal grandfather was sad that his only children were daughters so Mom named me after him with my middle name. My son and grandson now share the same middle name.
My maternal grandmother was diagnosed with cancer in either 1958 or 59. She was given 6 months. Grandma and Grandpa owned a building in Pueblo, CO living upstairs and the bottom floor was the Record Music Company. One of my dear friends in my Writers2Writers groups that meets once a month is from Pueblo and remembers buying records there. "The shop" as Mom always referrs to it was the first store to sell color television sets.
When Grandma was diagnosed with cancer Grandpa sold the shop to my aunt and Mom. What happened to the shop after that is another story and why we moved to Albuquerque.
Grandpa bought a brand new pink Cadallac, the only car Grandma was comfortable riding in, and a Boll's Air travel trailer. It was beige and white and square, but about the same size as the Airstream. He felt that if they only had a little time left they'd spend it traveling around the country since they'd spent most of their lives working in the shop.
Grandma received radiation treatment for her type of cancer and lived thirty more years. They got to do alot of traveling in that trailer. Grandma liked riding in the Caddy, but resented the two or three times extra cost to get work done on it.
When they'd come home from their travels they'd set up in a trailer park and we'd go over to visit. They'd set up a screen and show us the slides they took in Florida, Texas, California and other states they traveled through.
A few years later Grandpa sold the trailer and car. They settled into a house in Pueblo and bought a GMC pickup with a KamperKing. It was a beast. We'd already moved to Albuquerque. Mom and Dad were both working so they offered to take my younger sister, who was a toddler and me for the summer. When we were in Pueblo I'd work at the shop selling records and my aunt feeling some guilt for shoving us out of the business let me keep as many 45's and LP's as I wanted. After converting the LP's and looking at the huge stack of 45's now I wish she hadn't been so generous. The shop also sold band instruments so my brother got his coronet and I got my clarinette.
It was in the GMC truck and camper that we went fishing. Colorado has great fishing lakes and three times over that summer we went out. I remember stopping between Coatapaxi and Salida to spend the night. It was still a little light out so we got our fishing poles to see if we could catch something in the Arkansas river. I had the reel that has the button you take your thumb off to let the line fly. I threw the whole thing into the river on the first cast. Grandpa had to get out his waders, grab a flashlight and in the rushing water retrieve my rod and reel. We didn't catch any fish that night. Dad would have exploded, but Grandpas, and now that I am one too I understand, have more patience.
In all I spent three summers with them working in the store and going out fishing. They are great memories. The last summer when I was thirteen they were living above the shop again and my bedroom window overlooked Colorado Avenue. They turned in early and that left me with a lot of time on my hands to read. I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy that summer, special thanks to Mrs. Mojica who read The Hobbit in my English class that school year gettin my head full of elves and goblins and dwarves and dragons.
The last time we went fishing was at John Martin Dam outside of La Junta on the plains not far from Kansas. Up in the mountains it gets cold at night; on the plains it stays hot. There you fish with minnows. Grandpa was fishing off a pier and I found a nice spot where I could sit on the metal minnow cage where they farmed the minnows they sold to the fishermen. I caught four fish fairly good sized rather quickly then nothing for about an hour. I'd put the fish I caught on a stringer and left them in the water by the cage. When I picked them up all that was left were their heads. A turtle got a free meal.
From then on Grandma and Grandpa would come down to visit, but our summers of fishing were over. I haven't been fishing since. I don't think it would be the same.

New Year, New Start

Guess that's the nice thing about a new year is that alot of the bad stuff that happened in the old year can be put in the dust bin and you start over.
Came down with a stomach flu New Year's Eve. If I'm going to feel that bad at least it should be for drinking!
Finally feeling human. Back at the office today, getting my mini-van fixed up and later this week getting the front part of the roof on the house reshingled.

Enjoy the Season

Everyone have a very merry Christmas, even if you celebrate something else or don't believe in it.

Christmas is Progressive

Robert Creamer at the Huffpo has an article on the real attack on Christmas coming from the Right, not the Left. He discusses the importance of Ayn Rand's Objectivism to their philosophy. He compares that to Christ's parable of the Good Samaratan as the true spirit of Christmas and Christianity in general. He finishes with this statement:
    
A few years ago I read a book by a planetary scientist named David Grinspoon called Lonely Planets. It explores the question of extraterrestrial life.

     Toward the end of his book, Grinspoon speculates on the chances of survival for intelligent life in the universe. He argues that every civilization of intelligent creatures must pass through a gauntlet that tests whether the values and political structures of the society are capable of keeping pace with the exponentially increasing power of the society's technology. If its values and political structures can keep pace with technological change, the society may pass into a phase of enormous freedom and possibility. If it does not, the power of its own technology will destroy it. Perhaps, he postulates, civilizations are like seahorses. Many are born, but only a few survive.
     For the first time, a little more than half a century ago, human society entered that gauntlet. Our technological growth reached a point of takeoff that for the first time gave us the power to destroy ourselves and all life on our tiny, fragile planet. From that moment on, the race began.
The next several generations of humans will decide how that race turns out. We won't simply observe it, or describe it; we will decide it. Whatever the future holds will be a result of human decision for which we are all responsible.
     I believe that progressive values -- love your neighbor and empathy -- are our greatest evolutionary treasure.
     Progressive values: that we're all in this together, not all in this alone; unity not division; hope not fear; equality not subjugation; the premise that if each of us is better educated all of us will be wiser; that it is not true that for me to be richer you have to be poorer -- but rather that if each of us is more prosperous, all of us will have more opportunity; that our success comes from cooperation and mutual respect. These progressive values are the most precious assets that will give human beings the ability to make it through that gauntlet -- and to create a truly democratic society.
     That is just one more reason why at this time of year, we should celebrate these values -- the true spirit of Christmas -- and defend them from those who want to take society back to a time of social Darwinism, to the law of the jungle, to "survival of the fittest." Because the fact of the matter is that in the future, if we govern our society by the precepts of selfishness and the survival of only the fittest, we may find that human society is not fit enough to survive at all.

Life Comparison

My mother-in-law's funeral will be on Wednesday. She lived 92 years. A long life. When the funeral home and those at our church said, "Tell us about her." Our first thought was that there wasn't much to say. Something should be said.
The best way to explain some things is by comparison.
Rose didn't tell stories of her life, she was a very humble person, but she did tell me one thing about her growing up in Leadville, Colorado. As a little girl she remembered an old woman walking out of a wooden shack at the mouth of the abandoned silver mine and going into town to buy groceries. Everyone in town knew the old woman who always dressed in the same long black dress. Baby Doe Tabor.
Baby Doe Tabor had songs written about her, movies about her life and museums filled with her memorabilia. She married a Senator. Teddy Roosevelt attended her wedding in Washington D.C. Horace Tabor her husband owned a silver mine in Leadville, but when the Gold Bugs defeated all measures at Free Silver they went bankrupt. For the last twenty years of her life she lived alone in the shack widowed and abandoned by her children waiting for the price of silver to rise enough to reopen the mine and be rich again. She froze to death March, 7 1935 when she ran out of wood.
Rose was the daughter of an Austrian immigrant brought over to work in the mines of Leadville. Growing up her family never had much money, but got by. He older sister married and started a family in Belen, NM. Rose moved in with them to help with the children while her brother-in-law and sister ran a bakery. She met Ed during the war. He was stationed at Kirtland Army base and when he got leave would spend it with her. They married in 1947 when he started working as a parts manager in a car dealership in Belen. They lost their first child. Ed found employment with the Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Albuquerque and worked as its parts manager for 35 years through various owners and locations. Rose stayed home and raised two children, losing a fourth child. Ed and Rose lived a very quiet and simple life around friends, family and church. Ed was a deacon at their church and Rose was an active member in the Woman's Missionary Union. They bought their house in 1948 and made a few additions to it over the years. My brother-in-law married and moved to Nebraska. When I asked Ed for his daughter's hand out in the front yard at their house while he was watering flowers I thought he'd twist his neck with the double take he gave me. It didn't come as a surprise to Rose. When our children were born Rose was our day care giver. She helped raise them as much as we did.
Over the years we ate many meals at their house. Rose was a good cook. Her enchiladas were better than the ones in the most expensive Mexican restaraunt in town. We planned on having her move in with us after Ed passed away, but nothing could get her out of that house. Finally her health forced her to sell the house and move to Nebraska with her son and family. She had a nice cottage at an assisted living village managed by her daughter-in-law and spent the last year of her life in a nursing home surrounded by family and new found friends passing away peacefully. She lived a full life filled with love and loss beloved by all who knew her.
Our culture is obsessed with beauty, wealth, possessions, accomplishments, what good did all that do for Baby Doe Tabor? Yet when you mention that Rose was a housewife content to live her life taking care of husband and family you're looked at as if she was a Stepford wife or she lived a meaningless life. To those of us in her family and friends she had great meaning and accomplished much.

Time Passing

Mother-In-Law passed away today at age 92. A say week ahead.

Killashandrea Rhee has stopped singing.

Anne McCaffrey left us on November 23, 2011 at age 85.
When I started to read prolifically in junior high school like most boys at that time who grew up on Saturday afternoons watching Science Fiction Thriller movies. I was natural I'd start reading sf. Isaac Asimov, Rober Heinlien, Poul Anderson, Harlan Ellison, Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey.
She wrote hard scienc fiction like her Crystal Singer series and Ship Who Sang then incoroporated it into fantasy with her Dragon rider stories. In 1986 she was one of the few writers in this genre that hit it big on the New York Times best seller list with the third book in her Dragon Riders series: The White Dragon.
I read the novella that was later turned into the first novel: Dragon Flight in an anthology of Hugo Award Winning Stories. (Hugo's are the top awards for sf & fantasy) What was fascinating about the dragons in her stories is they imprint and are linked telepathically to their riders. This makes the dragons equal characters with their riders. It is a total bafflement to me and I'm sure many of her fans why none of her stories have been turned into film. CG technology has been up to the task for at least ten years and I've seen numerous movies with lesser dragons than and stories than hers.
I joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club and picked up about six books a year for nearly ten years through them. I dropped the club in the mid 80's because they stopped having books that were sf being mostly sword and sorcery. I fell in love with her Fire Lizards. A subset of the planet Pern where these stories are set in the Harper Hall books dealing with a young haper (singer) named Mennoly who imprints a clutch of fire lizards. After I read the first of these books Dragon Singer I gave it to Penni, who was in high school at the time, and the first thing she said after reading it was, "I want a fire lizard."
When I married decades ago I read all these stories to my wife. Reading to each other helps keep us close. The Crystal Singer stories with Killashandra Rhee were her favorites.
Notice how singing is so integral to her stories? It's not often any writer adds the importance of music to their make believe worlds.
Teaching 7th grade English I aquired a classroom set of Dragon Flight, and not all the students liked it, but I'm hoping I made a few of them Dragon fans.

Soul Searching

Since I've started e-publishing I had like most writers lots of stuff gathering dust that they'd written, but either never got around to finishing or thought it wasn't good enough to send to a publisher. I'd been writing a flash story a day for some time. I'd choose a picture, describe it as practice for my other work. Eventually just describing a face or flowers or scenery became quite dull so I started weaving a quick little story of the picture. The person's expression was where I usually got started, if the person looked happy, why were they happy, satisfied, same thing, anger, sad...
I compiled these stories into three anthologies when I started e-publishing and then started going back and taking some of the flash stories turning them into short stories. I'd turn a 500 or 1,000 word story into a 3,000 to 5,000 word story. One I turned into over 18,000 words.
Most of the pictures I used for these stories I chose from the Playboy Cyber Club. Out of 30 pictures of a model only about 10 show nudity. They usually have a glamour shot of the model's face and many of those were my inspiration. If you can describe a person's face you can describe just about anything, and the women are gorgeous.
One of the flash stories I developed into a short story turned virulent on me. The characters took me to a place well past the line I thought I could go. There is a thin line between describing the human body in all it's glory and pornography. This story crossed that line and when I'd finished the story the characters wanted a repeat and I wrote a second story and recently a third. By the third story I went as far as I'm willing to go and now it's time to step back, say, "I'm glad I got that out of my system," and pull back.
A friend of mine, who I respect greatly read one of those stories. As a friend he told me how much it troubled him, not because he's prudish, more like giving a drink to an alcoholic.
Optimus: Praetorian Guard is my pride and joy. I don't want what this book and the subsequent sequel tarnished by these characters. I've unpublished them. Yes in this e-publishing world you can unring a bell.

Vander's is out

Way back in 1989 on a 286 pc without a hard drive using Bank Street Writer I wrote my first novel over the summer. It was for Ted Turner's Tomorrow awards. The story had to deal with a positive future. I didn' win.
Strangely I kept the story through all the different incarnations of computers and when I started e-publishing last March I dusted it off and have been editing this story. Today I pubished it at Smashwords.com and Amazon.com

Plot:
Eugene Vanders is an electircal engeneering professor at UNM. He's living a comfortable life with wife and daughter. A student tells the police he's a drug dealer and they raid his house. The new police chief trying to avoid law suits and bad publicity has a standing order that all drug raids produce drugs. They plant cocain in Vander's garage and he is arrested.
While in prison his wife is murdered and daughter commits suicide. Vanders swears that those responsible will pay.
He develops silicon discs that can make anything placed on them fly. The first real magic carpet. He fights with corporations and government to market his invention and revolutionize transportation while getting even with those who set him up. He's torn between seeking revenge and giving forgiveness to rebuild his life with a new wife and step-son.
This story deals with the abuses and problems with our war on drugs which is just as pertinent today as it was twenty years ago. It also is about how difficult it is to market new transportation technology while fighting oil companies, automobile corporations and government regulations. It's positive message is that this technology is possible and it will become reality.

Crazy Year In Writing

A year ago I had a really bad case of something that kept me in bed for nearly the whole month. When whatever it was let go of its grip I needed out of the house, but still wanted to write. My client didn't have much legal work for me so I approached him about using the office for my writing and I'd do a few gofor things as a quid pro quo. He agreed.
I came across an article about Yellowstone being a super volcano that could explode at any time and that it would nearly wipe out mankind when it does. I started a novel with the premise that if we can fly into space, build underwater hotels, survive in the arctic and antarctic that our technology is now capable of meeting even this challenge. I hit 80,000 words starting my story The Fan Plan in 1963, but the back story reaches to 1948 and worked my way up to 1990. I set the eruption around 2017 to 2020. I hit a wall at that point so I put it aside. I finished editing Human Sacrifices which I had worked on for ten years while editing and printondemand publishing: Optimus: Praetorian Guard. I submitted it to Publish America after Anne Littlewolf did a wonderful cover for it, but then discovered the wonderful world of e-publishing. I backed out of the deal with PA and felt a 900lb Gorilla fall off my back.
I published HS and the first 40,000 words of The Fan Plan (up to 1976).
For years I'd been writing descriptive flash stories based on pictures as an exercise. I compiled them into three anthologies and published them.
The very first novel I wrote Vander's Magic Carpet over the summer of 1989 on a 286 pc with monochrome screen on 51/4 inch floppies for Ted Turner's Tomorrow Awards. A 50,000 word piece that didn't win. I discovered that I'd transferred it to 3.25 floppies and then from hard drive to hard drive of numerous computers and still had it. My client looked it over since I start the story with a court case and he gave me advice on how to make it more authentic. I started editing it and then discovered that marketing flying cars around the year 2000, which was the future when written wouldn't sell today with our war on terror. I've put it on the backburner until I have time to edit it more for the present. I think the story will still work.
So projects in the works:

• Update Vander's Magic Carpet.
• Finish Fan Plan
• Research and write sequel to Optimus: Praetorian Guard

My client suddenly needed me to do some actual work, taking documents to the courthouse, getting ready for a trial, which has been put on indefinite hold, and now that documents are being submitted digitally I scanned his current cases and have just finished scanning all his dormant files. For the past three months I haven't had a lot of time to write. I was also doing 10 hours a week volunteering at a golf course to get free golf. I'm kind of thick at times. After three months I figured 10 hours to golf once a week for free wasn't worth it. That has freed up some time.
With scanner at the ready I've given my card to numerous attorneys and said, "Have scanner will archive." So far no takers, which is good for my writing.
While doing all of the above there was no sense in working on novels. I started looking at some of my flash stories and developed them into short stories. It's been so nice that once I have a 3 to 5 thousand word story done I can post it at Smashwords and Amazon for Kindle. Smashwords then sends them out to Kobo, Nook, Sony or readers can download a HTML or PDF files. I've even been getting royalties. Wow who would have thought it a couple of years ago that the average author could now get royalties instead of rejection letters or be an indentured servant of print on demand!
I'm hoping to have the second part of Fan Plan and Vanders ready for publishing by the end of December so I can get serious about Stephanus (my sequel to Optimus).
That is if my client doesn't tie me up with legal work or I get takers on digitally archiving.
Where's this coming from?  I ran into fellow teachers at a Mickey D's yesterday and they asked if I was getting by on retirement. I handed them my card with pmprescottenterprises.com on it and said, "Check it out and see how I'm doing."

Ethics and Virtue

I'm tying a few scattered thoughts into a thesis so stay with me as I connect the dots.
Point 1:
I recently received a newsletter from Logsdon Theological Seminary tied in with Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene Texas. It was two lectures on T. B. Maston the best know ethics professor in the last century among Southern Baptists. You can listen to the lectures here. The first lecture was a biography and the second on his thoughts. I was very impressed with the summation of Maston's thoughts and will share a few, which I wholeheartedly agree with concerning Christian Ethics.
So what is ethics: the term 'ethics' is singular. Second, ethics has to do with oughtness-with what a person or a group of persons ought to do, with what is right.
Okay, so what should a Christian "ought" to do?
The basic characteristic of the cross-kind-of-life is self-denial or servanthood. Maston wrote: "The first or basic law of life is not self preservation but self-denial and self-sacrifice. This is the 'way of the cross. " He emphasized that the cross involves the crucifixion of self with selfish ambition and purpose because Jesus made clear that the cross calls for selfdenial in the life of the Christian. Maston often quoted Jesus' statement recorded in Matthew 16:24: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me." The first followers of Jesus knew the cross not as jewelry or architectural symbol but as an instrument of suffering and death. They clearly understood Jesus to be calling them to a life of sacrifice and servanthood. (bold emphasis mine). Let me be clear here. This applies to Christians only. I am in no way saying that everyone in the U.S. or the world for that matter should apply their ethics by this standard. However since so much of the Republican party and the Moral Mafia do feel this way, and that they call themselves Christians I feel this should be a standard applied to their thoughts and actions over the last thirty years when they first got in bed with a major political party.

Point 2. Read Paul Krugman today. He had an article concerning people who concider him (Krugman) to be hypocritical because he makes lots of money, but advocates for higher taxes on the rich and a strong social safety net. He ties in Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot and another person's critique of how patriotism wasn't a virtue of the film because the film's hero didn't fight for his country, but only out of revenge for the British attack on his house and family.

So to say what should be obvious but apparently isn’t: supporting policies that are to your personal financial disadvantage isn’t hypocrisy — it’s civic virtue!
But, say the wingnuts, you say that rich people are evil. Actually, no — that’s a right-wing fantasy about what liberals believe. I don’t want to punish the rich, I just want them to pay more taxes. You can favor redistribution without indulging in class hatred; it’s only the defenders of privilege who try to claim otherwise.
Lind’s essay about Mel Gibson ended with concerns that we may have lost the sense of what citizenship and its duties mean. Indeed. If people can’t comprehend what it means to work for larger goals than their own interest, if they actually consider any deviation from self-service somehow a sign of phoniness, we, as a nation, are lost.

Point 3: Cognitive dissonance is believing two diametrically opposed ideas at the same time, and that is what is happening in the Republican party. It's a coalition of different types of conservatives. Social conservatives such as the moral mafia that fight against abortion, same sex marriage, dancing, drinking, breathing, etc. and Physcal conservatives or financial conservatives that are against regulations on big business, taxes and are for wars because they're good for business and deplete the surplus population. The bible for the business crowd is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Ayn Rand's philosophy is 180 degrees opposite of Maston's Ethic.
Atlas Shrugged page 953-4 (paperback 35th anniversary edition)
"'Sacrifice' does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious. 'Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of evil for the sake of the good, but the good for the sake of  the evil. 'Sacrifice' is the surrender of that which you value for that which you don't...
"If you want to save the last of your dignity, do not call your best actions 'sacrifice' that term brands you as immoral."
Rand has John Galt end her doctoral disseertation on economics by saying page 993:
"You will win when you are ready to pronounce the oath I have taken at the start of my battle...
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
Conclusion:
If those in business want to live amorally, fine. The only beef I have with them is using pennies out of their pockets to buy congress critters to legislate them Billions of taxpayer money when they don't chip in and help out and get us into needless wars for their profits. That's an economic and political difference.
I have nothing but scorn for the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and the others of the moral mafia who have sold their souls to the crooks for lip service on their pet issues. The physcal conserevatives have stacked the Supreme Court and got what they wanted: Corporations have human rights. Roe v. Wade hasn't been overturned yet, nor will it because the crooks know that once the moral mafia gets what it wants their votes will melt away.
Christians and patriots know that giving is better for those around us and even for our own sense of self-worth. It's what makes us human. Sociopaths are only in it for themselves. Too bad so many of those who claim to be Christians are really sociopaths only interested in the money and power.

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Between Cake

Yesterday was daughter's birthday and tomorrow is Grinnygranny and my 33rd anniversary. Had a nice dinner with all the family for daughter. Tomorrow we haven't decided about yet. I might work a little while in the morning if my client has something for me to do, if not we're both free to get away for a few hours.

National advertising and numerous critiques heralded a movie named Anonymous. It deals with the Oxfordian theory of authorship for all the works of Shakespeare. I read a few posts by Michael Prescott (no relation) on his blog a few years back and it peaked my interest. I fall in the catagory of who the bloody hell cares, but thought it would be a nice period piece set in one of my favorite time periods. Guess what. None of the theaters in backwoods New Mexico is showing it. Not happy.

I have a post at the Captain's blog concerning a military approach to economic stimulus.

Economic Anorexia

There's nothing more horrifying than watching someone struggling with anorexia. They're purposely starving themselves to death all the while deluding themselves that they're getting more and more beautiful. Isn't that what the fresh water economists are doing here and in Europe. Cutting taxes, cutting spending starving the economies and deluding themselves while millions of people are losing jobs, homes, cutting education, adult children unable to establish independence after graduation, underemployed dying without health insurance etc. and the economic experts look at the economic starvation all around them and delude themselves that this is beautiful.
Just as a human body needs food to maintain all aspects of the body so does an economy need money to feed all those living in the system. Governemt spending is that food. It's needed now.

John Denver Lives On

One of the many memories of going off to college in 1972 out on the windy dusty plains of Texas was an up and coming singer that had songs about mountains. The one thing I was really homesick for over those years were mountains. When I fell in love, many times over those four years, there was the perfect song for someone passionate about a woman: You fill up my senses... (Annie's Song) Not hard to sing along with if you drop an octave.

  It's hard to imagine it's been 14 years since John Denver's plane ran out of fuel and his voice was lost to the world. At one time his album An Evening With John Denver was the biggest selling of all time. Of all his songs the one I love the most on this album is: Grandma's Featherbed.

Today on the anniversay of that tragic day his Windstar foundation in Colorado is hosting an open house and auction to continue his work.

John Denver is one of the celebrities that purchased a painting from Anne Littlewolf. She recently did a John Denver collection of paintings based on his songs, and Windstar accepted them for their auction. Over the next month I'll put on the paintings on my heading. I've started with Portait of a Hawk.

Security surrounded by enemies

Bruce has a post concerning Israel, here's my take:
Israel: A militaristic state surrounded by enemies outnumbering them 10/1. Yes they are a democracy, but their only weapon of survival is keeping those surrounding them in fear of their military. It worked in 1948 when they created their country. They used their armed forces to good advantage in 1967 and defended it well in 1973. Since then no single country around them has tried to invade them and they are on the defensive against terror attacks. Their only real chance of survival is to increase their population, which they've done by birth rate and taking in Jews from Eastern Europe, and then slowly driving out the Palestinians with settlements in the occupied areas gained from the 1967 war. The U. N. can recognized Palestine as a separate country, but slowly and surely Israel will shove them out and fill up what they conquered. The stubborness of the surrounding countries refusing to admit them as refugees is delaying Israel's success, but won't stop it. This will not be a process for the squemish and hasn't been since the British left and the whole mess got started.