Two Moments That Changed How I See Authority

There are experiences that don't announce themselves as formative while they're happening. You don't feel the ground shift. You just notice, months or years later, that you are standing somewhere different than you were before -- and you trace it back.

Two things happened to me in the late 1970s at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington that I have written about separately over the years. A book I couldn't finish. A church I couldn't get out of fast enough. I've been thinking lately that they belong together, because they were teaching me the same lesson from opposite directions.

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The Book

Picture the young man who would read that memoir.

I was a parachute rigger in the Strategic Air Command, working with B-52 bombers at a nuclear alert base in Spokane, WA. Fairchild AFB. I had a secret security clearance. I also had the longest hair on the base -- kept in something approaching regulation shape by a daily application of Dippity-Do hair gel, worn under my service cap until I got home and showered, mostly to wash off the JP-4 jet exhaust from packing drag chutes all day, partly to get my hair back to something resembling human. That annoyed my friends to no end as they had gotten $50 ticket for hair out of regs and had to -- and this really annoyed them -- pay for the haircut. 

To put this in perspective, I got awards for my work in the survival equipment shop, the parachute shop, which came with a three-day pass (not attached to the weekend -- WHY?), I received a Good Conduct medal. I wasn't a rabble rouser, but I questioned authority. At least internally. I got away with a lot. How? I read the manual. Literally. I knew what I could get away with and how far to go. When questioned, I'd state the regs and, I was always right (or I wouldn't do whatever it was). 

Think, when higher ups give you grief, and you say, "Fine, I'm packing these chutes 100% by the T.O." Technical Manual, which they knew would take forever. I wasn't a wise guy. I had a sense of humor, I was likeable. I made other people look good. I played the game. I think when I got out of the service, it broke our Shop Sergeant's heart, seriously. He told me he saw me as a son. I miss the guy. But I wasn't staying in. I got out and went to college.

When I turned twenty-one I bought my first legal handgun -- a Walther PPK/S .380, from a department store in Spokane. Great firearm. I'd had a .357 Magnum since I was eighteen, acquired from a friend in circumstances that were not exactly textbook legal (see The Teenage Bodyguard, an award winning screenplay). But the Walther was mine -- properly. The older gentleman in a suit looked at me across the store counter at -- a young guy, hair tool long for regs -- and said he didn't believe I was actually in the service. I showed him my USAF ID with security clearance. He said, "Okay, I believe you. But, how--? He spent a moment marveling at the hair while he completed the paperwork.

That was who picked up Westmoreland's book. Not a naive kid. Not a credentialed analyst. A young man who read the newspaper, watched the evening news, carried a concealed weapon legally, worked with nuclear weapons delivery systems, and had been listening for years to his older brother's friends -- seven years his senior -- who had come back from Vietnam with stories that often bore little resemblance to official accounts. 

Not My Lai level atrocities, but close enough to the edges of things to make a person skeptical. The Pentagon Papers had been public for several years by then. I hadn't read them cover to cover, but I had absorbed what they meant: that military leadership had been systematically misrepresenting the war to the American public while privately knowing better.

So, when I picked up General William Westmoreland's memoir when it came out, A Soldier Reports (Doubleday, 1976), I came to it with genuine respect. He was the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. Whatever you thought of the war, the man had carried an enormous burden. I gave him every benefit of the doubt a young reader could give.

I signed up Vietnam era service. Delayed enlistment until there was a job opening for Law Enforcement. September 1975. That summer the war ended. I got all the war benefits on the G.I. Bill but they eventually recategorized me, Post Vietnam Era. 

So I got into Westmorland's book. And for a while, it worked. He wrote with authority and precision. He knew things I didn't. He was, by any measure, a subject matter expert.

But somewhere somewhere around the midway point, something shifted. The book began to construct a world I didn't recognize.

Westmoreland's argument, laid out with great confidence and considerable detail, was essentially this: the military had a sound strategy; the war was winnable; what went wrong was the failure of civilian leadership, the interference of politicians, the distortions of the press, and the damage done by the antiwar movement. 

The military, he contended, had been betrayed from within and from without. Victory had been stolen.

I remember the feeling of reading that and thinking: but I was there for this. Not in Vietnam -- but alive, paying attention, reading the news, talking to guys who just came back from there, mostly -- messed up guys. I knew about the body count metrics that Westmoreland had built his entire strategy around, already widely exposed as manipulated and strategically meaningless. I knew that the same Pentagon Papers documenting civilian failures also documented military leadership providing falsely optimistic assessments to Washington while privately knowing the picture was far darker. I knew what those B-52s I worked with had been doing over North Vietnam and Cambodia. I knew the guys who had worked on them other there. I worked with them every day.

Westmoreland wasn't lying in the way a con artist lies. I don't think he was cynical. I think he genuinely believed his version. That was almost scarier. He had taken the enormous complexity of a failed war -- a war with deep strategic contradictions, moral catastrophes, and institutional failures at every level -- and recast it as a story in which he and the military were the heroes, and everyone else was the villain. He hadn't written history. 

He had written mythology, dressed in the uniform of history.

I didn't have a word for it then. I do now. It's the stab-in-the-back thesis -- the same narrative structure that German militarists used after World War I, blaming civilian betrayal for military defeat, which fed directly into the conditions that produced Nazism. Applied to Vietnam, it became the founding myth of a certain kind of American right-wing grievance politics that is still very much with us.

What I knew, in my bones, before I had any of that language, was simpler: this doesn't add up, and he's asking me to forget what I already know in order to accept it. I wondered about the leadership above me at the time in the service, who were the same guys who were in Vietnam.

I put the book down.

That was when I discovered a theory. Conspiracy theory. Now when you have a theory of a group doing something unknown openly, and they are doing something bad, it may well be a conspiracy. They happen. Usually, they are uncovered for a variety of reason. One I noticed in the military. It doesn't run perfect, except through a lot of effort and determination. That's doing good things. If those were bad things? Different animal altogether. 

THAT'S what the conspiracy theorists of today don't seem to comprehend.

I started studying not the conspiracy itself, but the nature of conspiracy thinking. Rather than diving into Westmoreland's specific claims and trying to refute them one by one -- which is the rabbit hole -- I started asking: how does this kind of argument work? What are the structural features that tell you something has gone from analysis to mythology? My older brother, encountering the same kind of thing, tended to defer to the expert. I went the other direction. Trust but verify. I became interested in the architecture of false certainty. 

Also, it explains a lot about how I think. How I later ended up at university getting a psychology degree as what my department advisor professor had said (and I questioned him on this, but he thought about it and said that, yes, he was sure), I was one of the top psychology undergrads at any university in the nation. Damn. I mean, cool.

Anyway, that mental divergence has shaped everything I've written about politics since.

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The Church

About a year or two after I set down Westmoreland's book, I was at the base gym as my friend in the shop with me and I did daily. One day racquetball. Next day, weightroom. We'd gotten friendly with the equipment room attendant over borrowing equipment from the gym (don't remember now, what?) -- the usual slow accumulation of gym friendship, guy talk, nothing remarkable. We made one another laugh. He seemed, cool. Normal. Mostly was.

Then one day he asked if I wanted to come to his church. He said I could bring my wife. My friend could come too (he begged off immediately). He also said later, I could bring my gun.

That last part was odd enough that I decided to actually bring it, obviously to carry concealed -- the Walther PPK/S -- which I was legally entitled to do. Something about the invitation had put me on alert without quite articulating why. Go to church -- with a gun. Not the old Slovak Catholic church I had grown up going to, had been head altar boy at. 

He picked us up at my house and drove us out of Spokane on a Sunday morning, his wife with him, my wife and me in the back of his, what passed back then for an SUV. We crossed the state line into Idaho. I got nervous and asked about it. He said not to worry -- no concealed carry permit required in Idaho, and where we were going it wouldn't be an issue. Crossing the state line was only peripherally on my mind, why were we leaving the STATE?

But still. I held a secret security clearance. I worked with nuclear weapons delivery systems. I was crossing a state line carrying a weapon, heading to an unknown location. The math on that was not comfortable. Being in the service changes things legally for a military person. Breaking any law with a secret clearance is worse, with nuclear weapons clearance, much worse. he didn't have that. It never occurred to me about that disparity, honestly, until right now -- as I write this.

The compound was in the hills of Idaho. Locked gate. He had to call on a phone out of a box by the gate. Someone came down, unlocked the gate, let us drive and, locked the gate, and followed us up. We saw a traditional church with a steeple. A well in the center of the property. Several men in grey uniforms designed to look just different enough from Nazi uniforms that you technically couldn't call them Nazi uniforms -- except for the salute, which was identical. When I noted the resemblance, they were offended. "We're not Nazis!" (no, neo-Nazis, maybe)

The name of the organization was the Church of Our American Christian Heritage. I'll never forget it. I have since learned to treat any church name containing the words "American" or "Heritage" as a yellow flag. A church that has all the answers is another. I'm reminded of the last episode of The Boys, on Amazon Prime, where head sociopathic superhero Homelander has gone off the deep end and started the "Democratic Church of America." With Homelander himself as head, not as leader, literally as -- God.

But I digress... 

Their national leader had come up from Georgia specifically to speak that Sunday. He didn't know my wife and I were there as complete outsiders. Newbies. He didn't filter himself. He let loose -- a full accounting of their beliefs, their grievances, their vision of a purified nation, their contempt for nonwhites, their specific disgust at Vancouver, B.C., which apparently represented for him a kind of living offense against nature and civilization. The old ladies of the congregation were the most virulent true believers in the room.

Let me be clear about Vancouver, British  Columbie, Canada. I've been there and Victoria, on Vancouver Island since I was a kid, with my family. I love it there. Love Canada, like a cousin, or a brother even. I was OFFENDED, right off. 

My wife spent the entire service sitting close to me, gripping my sleeve hard enough to nearly tear it from the shoulder, occasionally leaning close to whisper urgently: Get us out of here. 

I heard my sleeve rip twice by the shoulder seam. Once in church, once as we were headed out of church.

The older woman in the back surrounded us and oh my God, I'd never met old people, anyone that racist. The national leader came up and introduced himself. Big smile. He apologized for cutting loose like that. He was just told we were new. 

I smiled and shook his hand and said, "No, I'm glad you did. Good to hear exactly what you believe." I braced myself for his reading my meaning, if not sarcasm. I mean, I was being honest. The next second was interminable. Then he broke into a huge smile (it worked). He had decided he liked us a LOT.

We got out as soon as we could. Services were over. We all made out goodbyes, and my "friend" drove us home. We made small talk along the way, did all we could to keep him and his wife at ease -- he talked about getting together again. He dropped us at home and drove off smiling and waving. 

The next day I considered reporting him and his group to the base authorities. They needed to know about this. I told my racquetball friend in the shop that day. He said he'd drop by after work at my house. 

When he stopped by that afternoon, he had thought about it. He got me alone and talked to me about what he had come up with. He did his best to talk me out of telling anyone on base anything. I wasn't having it. 

Until. He pointed something out, reasonably and chillingly. "They picked you guys up here yesterday morning?" "Yes." "They dropped you off -- here." "Yes." "So Those people know exactly where you both live. And when your wife would be home alone?" "Uh, yeah..."

I never went back to that window at the gym to get equipment. Neither did he. From then on, we brought our own. We never spoke to him again. Not long after, we noticed he wasn't around the gym anymore and we wondered about that, for a very long time.

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What They Had In Common

It was a general construction of an alternate history -- of a war. They were a quasi-military white nationalist congregation in the Idaho hills. On the surface, very different things.

But the underlying structure was identical.

Both were communities of people who had taken real grievances -- about the war, about social change, about lost certainty -- and converted them into a sealed explanatory system that could not be falsified. In both cases, the complexity of the actual world had been replaced by a story with clear heroes and villains. In both cases, outside information was not evidence to be weighed -- it was enemy propaganda to be rejected. In both cases, belonging to the group meant accepting the story, and the story protected the group from reality.

The difference was one of degree, not of kind.

Westmoreland's version was respectable, credentialed, published by Doubleday, reviewed in major newspapers. The Idaho congregation's version came with grey uniforms and a compound with a well and a sheriff who wouldn't come onto the property. They passed newsletters about their grievances; there was no internet back then to help a subculture such as they were explode upon the American psyche. 

But they were running the same cognitive operating system. Wounded certainty, calcified into mythology, defended against all comers.

I didn't know then that I was watching the seedbed of what would eventually become the American political landscape of the 2010s and 2020s. The stab-in-the-back Vietnam narrative fed directly into a politics of grievance and betrayal that never fully went away. The Christian nationalist militia movements of the inland Northwest were not anomalies -- they were early iterations of something that would eventually find mainstream political expression. 

I didn't know at the time about the confederates who after the Civil War had migrated up to the Pacific Northwest and made a new home free of the government for the most part in the east of Oregan, the east of Washington state, and in Idaho. Especially in the back hills, the back roads, the roads less travelled certainly by government officials. 

My late older right wing MaGA brother now gone about a month (miss ya big guy, sad as our interactions were this last decade of the Trump infection), had moved years ago to Home, across Puget Sound via the Narrows Bridge, the other side of Highway 16 from Gig Harbor. It's a community on the Key Peninsula and borders the waters of Carr Inlet, an extension of Puget Sound.

He had told me that those citizens who had enough of the "bullshit of Tacoma government" had moved there and called it "Home" because it wasn't Tacoma, it was, home.

What protected me about this kind of mind worm dynamic, I think, was not superior intelligence or education -- I was a young enlisted man without a college degree, smelling of JP-4 jet fuel exhaust by mid-morning after packing B-52 drag chutes, with my longish hair shellacked under my service cap, "white walls" of shaved skin surrounding my ears to put on a good show for the annoying "lifers", but not so much the "career enlisted" (who we differentiated, as they were just trying to get through to retire one day but not thoroughly "ate up" like some old codgers were). 

What protected me was a combination of things: a grandmother who taught me that books demanded honesty, and to finish one when you started it; an older brother's friends who told me what Vietnam actually looked like from the ground; a willingness to trust my own perception when it told me something didn't add up; and the crucial decision to study the form of bad thinking rather than just the content of any specific claim.

You cannot fact-check your way out of a mythology. The mythology has already inoculated its believers against facts. 

What you can do is recognize the architecture -- the sealed system, the designated enemy, the unfalsifiable narrative, the group that has all the answers -- and decline to enter.

I learned that from a book I couldn't finish and a church I couldn't leave fast enough.

Both were trying to sell me a story in exchange for my grip on reality.

I kept the grip.

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Related posts: - A Book I Couldn't Finish – And How It Taught Me About Truth, Authority, and Conspiracy Thinking (January 2026) - Church and Guns (May 2016) - Conspiracy Theories – Incompetence More Than Insight? (April 2014) - America's Dezinformatsiya and компрометирующий (August 2019)

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Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

JZ Murdock is a filmmaker and author based in Bremerton, Washington. His novel Death of Heaven was honored with the New York City Big Book Award for Horror. His film Pvt. Ravel's Bolero has been lauded worldwide with many international festival awards. The film companion book is forthcoming.

If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi.

Cars, Guns, and the Constitution: Why Training Matters

About the Minneapolis church tragedy, yet another mass shooting in a church. My heart goes out to that community, and to Americans everywhere living under the weight of this vile reality. This post was already written and scheduled before that event occurred.

As for those now trying to twist the story into a trans issue because of the shooter’s identity, all it really shows is the urgent need for better mental health care for trans individuals. To denigrate, stigmatize, or deny care to that community is not only cruel, it is criminal.

Mass shootings are overwhelmingly a male problem, rooted in guns, culture, & untreated trauma. A rare case involving a trans person doesn’t change that.

This isn't a trans issue. Don’t scapegoat a community...fix access to guns.

Former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy on the Minneapolis shooting: "We're going to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. How many school shootings does it take before we're going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out of -- it's always a young white male"

But also, there needs to be better mental health care, for all Americans. Something painfully pointed out by the current president's problematic mental health status and that of many of his followers, supporters and yes-men types he has surrounded himself with which is NEVER good for ANY leader, especially one with an autocratic orientation.

This topic was already on my mind after a recent visit to a local gun store, where I noticed a case filled with suppressors.

I've been a gun owner since the 1960s. Helped teach hunter safety courses back then. I've been a armed bodyguard. I'm a military vet. I taught my kids about guns. They may own some now. 

This could get attention... 

Cars are not a right...but sanity is, logic is, and reason has to be.

I see common sense as necessary in any society. We need opposing sides, we need debate, and we need both sides of an argument pushed and tested. But to become extreme and remain there, against all reason and sanity, makes no sense by definition. And yet that is what the modern gun culture has spawned.

The fundamental goal of any society, and any government worthy of the name, is to protect its citizens and the nation as a whole. The point is not to force individuals to fend for themselves except in reasonable circumstances, but to relieve them of that constant burden.

We already accept this principle in many areas of life: public health, infrastructure, disaster response, education. Citizens should not have to shoulder every risk alone.

The idea that a “good” government is one that continually does less and less is irrational. A mature, functional government does not push responsibility back onto the people it serves. It handles the things no individual should have to face on their own.

Arming citizens and insisting they remain perpetually responsible, and fearful, for tasks that government can and should manage, such as basic public safety, is not strength. It is failure.

Worse, it edges toward autocracy: the idea that citizens must remain armed not because their government protects them, but to guard against the government itself. History shows how fragile that logic is. Authoritarian regimes may tolerate heavily armed citizens for a time, but only until power is consolidated. Once disarmament comes, resistance is impossible, and by then it is too late.

The irony is stark. Today, many who claim the need for private arsenals also support leaders and movements that openly seek authoritarian control. That contradiction exposes the flaw in the argument. Weapons in private hands are no guarantee of liberty when the very government those citizens empower is the one eroding it.

We have allowed ourselves to become twisted up, chasing single-issue purposes without considering the whole.

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Cars and Guns

It seems obvious to me: if society demands training and a license to drive a car, why not apply the same standard to firearms?

Driving is not a constitutional right. It is a modern privilege, regulated because cars did not exist when the Constitution was written. As cars became part of American life, we decided they were too dangerous to leave unregulated. That is why you need driver’s ed, testing, licensing, registration, and insurance to operate one legally. We accept this because it keeps roads safer.

Now imagine the opposite. What if driving had been written into the Constitution as a right?

By the logic of today’s gun advocates, we would need no driver’s ed, no test, no license, no registration, no insurance. Anyone of any age could climb into a car, drive drunk, untrained, or reckless, and claim the Constitution protected their “right to operate a vehicle.”

That sounds absurd. And yet, that is exactly how guns are treated in America.

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The Constitutional Twist

The Second Amendment begins with:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

For most of U.S. history, courts interpreted that as tying guns to militia service, not unlimited individual ownership. It was not until 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller that the Supreme Court redefined it as an individual right. Even then, Justice Scalia admitted:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited… it is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Even the most conservative reading recognizes regulation as part of the deal.

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Cars vs. Guns in Practice

Cars: A modern privilege. Regulated with training, testing, licensing, insurance, and renewal.
Guns: A constitutional right. Some background check paperwork, but no universal training, no licensing, no required proof of safe use.

If America treated cars the way we treat guns, the roads would be a slaughterhouse.

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Arguments from the Gun Lobby

Gun advocates often claim most “anti-gun” people are simply uninformed. That is too convenient. Many citizens may not know every detail of firearm law, but the larger problem is that our system allows easy access to powerful weapons with little or no training. That is what regulation could fix.

They also like to strip away whole categories of deaths to make the numbers look smaller. Suicides “don’t count,” gang killings “don’t count,” and soon the toll appears trivial. But suicides do count, because firearms make attempts far deadlier. Poverty and gangs do not excuse homicide, and those lives count too.

Another favorite point is that criminals get their guns “illegally,” so laws will not help. Yet those black-market guns come from legal markets first, through theft, straw buyers, or loopholes. Better regulation would choke that flow. Claims that “hundreds of thousands of crimes” are prevented each year are shaky at best, based on self-reported surveys rather than actual crime data. And the idea of a gun as an “insurance policy” ignores the evidence that keeping one in the home raises the risk of suicide, homicide, and accident more than it prevents crime.

In the end, these arguments are less about facts than framing. By redefining the numbers, narrowing the definitions, and dismissing regulation, they protect an absolutist view of the Second Amendment. If we can demand licensing, training, and accountability for cars, we can demand the same for firearms, because every life in those statistics matters.

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Suppressors: The Surreal Example

Walking into a gun shop and seeing suppressors on display today brought this contradiction home. At first, the idea sounds noble: protecting hearing, reducing disturbance to people or animals. But the flip side is darker. A tool that makes killing in a public space less noticeable is dangerous, and that danger outweighs the benefit.

Yes, suppressors are federally regulated under the National Firearms Act. You need a background check, a $200 tax stamp, and months of waiting. But once approved, you can take one home with no training required.

A handful of carefully licensed individuals owning fully automatic weapons, assault rifles, or suppressors might not be a major concern. But the general population? That is another story.

A device designed to muffle gunfire, marketed in pop culture as an assassin’s tool, is treated more casually than a car muffler. Used responsibly, suppressors could make sense for hunters. But paired with military-style rifles in a country with no universal gun training, it becomes reckless.

That is not just reckless. It is surreal.

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The Madness of American Exceptionalism

Other developed nations treat guns the way we treat cars, with training, licensing, and renewal. The result is far fewer shootings.

America clings to the idea that freedom means no responsibility. But freedom without responsibility is not freedom. It is chaos.

If cars, which kill over 40,000 Americans a year, require licensing and regulation, why can’t we demand the same for firearms, which kill tens of thousands more?

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Closing Thought

The real question is not whether Americans can own guns. The real question is whether Americans can handle them responsibly.

If we accept rules and licensing for something as ordinary as driving, then we can, and must, do the same for firearms. Anything less is negligence written into law.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Gumdrop, a short horror -.The Editing Continues

I've been editing the video I've shot on my short horror film, "Gumdrop, a short horror". This blog is for those new to filmmaking really, as more experienced filmmakers already know much of what I'll say and may even roll their eyes from time to time or simply shake their head wondering how I even turn out a product. Well, it's working for me. For now. And I'm learning as I go. And as we all do.

I passed twenty minutes in length yesterday and I'm hoping to keep it under 30 minutes total.

First, I would like to congratulate my friend and cartoonist, Pat Moriarity! He is doing very well with his first animative project, "The Realm Beyond Reason"(using Adobe Animator with Adobe's aide in software development) which he world premiered at our Gorst Underground Film Festival recently. He just won a "bloody" award at the Bellingham, Washington, Bleedingham A Northwestern Horror Short and Film Festival! Congratulations, Pat!

Moving on...

If things go well this coming Saturday, November 2, 2019, at the Bremerton Historic Roxy Theater "Slash Night" event I will be screening it for attendees along with other horror films, live entertainment, and filmmakers with their films. If I don't get it ready in time with a rough cut, I'll premiere it again the following month on December 14, 2019. Slash Night is first Saturday night at 10PM (December saw a previously scheduled event on the first Saturday so we're using the second Saturday).

Gumdrop", is my short horror film, a prequel based on my original short horror true crime story, "Gumdrop City" which was published in 2012 and I first heard about in an abnormal psychology class at Western Washington University toward my degree in the major of psychology and a minor in creative writing and team TV script and screenwriting.

[Note 2/22/2022, UPDATE: our film has won some awards and continues to do so...]

It was a horror show of a class the day we were told about this crime. And so I wrote it as a fiction story and worked it up as an unfinished screenplay with a producer in Hollywood a while back. I may still finish that feature film as I'm not signed and have a producer attached to my other true crime and biopic, The Teenage Bodyguard with producer Robert Mitas.

My blog for last week was also on "Gumdrop" but I've made progress and because I may (hopefully) be showing it this next weekend, I'm updating my progress leading up to it.

I'm new to this editing software and I started editing film as a kid. Then did a phenomenology film in 1983 on black and white reel to reel videotape, a documentary in 1993 using VHS videotape and a short last year using this Sony Vegas Suite software on "The Rapping", which won one small award and showed at the NY Midnight Horror Festival.

One of the things that bugged me in this new effort with many hours of video shot and about thirteen actors involved was the paring of my separately digitally recorded audio with the visually recorded shots. What is the fastest way? I tried several things and it was painfully slow.

So I just moved forward, finding the best shots, following my screenplay roadmap, cutting them in, sometimes finding better shots or "lost" shots and replacing what I'd edited. Sometimes finding that a different order of shots or scenes comes out better than the planned route and readjusting to fit that new slightly different story and editing it as what turns out the best film. Or perhaps I should say, movie, as it moves along and isn't on film but video.

This was/is all rather frustrating at times, but the end product, not my feelings, or energy levels, or emotional state, or level of perseverance, really matters. On that plane, the thing that matters really, is your audience and your intentt in your project. First off? FINISH IT!

What I've settled on is to just cut and edit. Finish it.

Then I will go back, list all the audio clips/filenames and video clips/filenames and process the audio in my audio software (I'm using Reaper), then marry the audio to the video and replace the video in the editor. That will replace all the clips all through the project. Not for the faint of heart, but in the end, it will certainly produce a much better product and... audience experience.

I do have a backup mic ON my camera but if I'm using autofocus (which I seldom do but has almost accidentally given me some incredible shots...when it works right), you can hear the motor on the autio focusing. Besides, the digital recorder (Roland R-26) using a boom and separate and better mic (Rode) allows me to better position the mic where it needs to be recording from.

The amazing & talented "Bobby and Bobby" as "Gays for Jesus" with lead actor Tom Remick

So far? It's been an interesting experience editing.

I've learned how to push through the frustration things I missed on set, like an actor "spiking" the camera (looking into the lens, breaking the "fourth wall" and ruining a shot. Or my saying "cut", too soon in a shot (do NOT do that!). Always record a bit before acting begins after saying "action" (or whatever you say, as the Clint Eastwood story goes that he doesn't because he was used to not hearing "action" on a set with horses so as not to spook them and the same goes with some actors).

And let the camera record too much even in silence, at the end of a shot. You never know the gold you mine in that sometimes. Everyone rushes on camera for some reason. Well, inexperienced actors whom I'm mostly using. Oddly enough, the most experienced actor n my production is Jennifer True and I only used her for some voiceovers, sadly. But she came late to the production and... maybe in the next production. Hopefully.

Whenever an actor during a shoot has an alternative to how I want something shot, I listen to them. I don't always take the shot, unless they insist and then sometimes it's just easier and faster to shoot it and move on than to argue over it.

Sometimes, they don't want to do what I want but another way. So I listen, and if I can't get them to drop it, I just sa:

"OK, let's shoot it your way. But, and especially because I wrote [when I have written] the screenplay, let's also get my shot down also because it's stuck in my mind. Since I wrote it and I may indeed while editing, use your idea/shot and I will honestly look at using it. But I can't move on with a clear mind unless I get MY shot. It will continue to bug me going forward, just as not getting YOUR shot as you want, now. So please...and, action!"

Filmmaking is indeed a collaborative endeavor. Even though I AM my entire crew now. I do hope to get a crew eventually. It would be so much easier, though scheduling then becomes the nightmare it usually is.

Still, I do believe that you need to choose the right actors for the parts because that's half the work. The actor learns the role (hopefully) and knows the character (again, hopefully). So when they say, "I think they might do this, or say that...", listen. Give it a moment's thought. Even if it's "ridiculous".

Because sometimes you don't et it at first and they are right. it can take time to absorb it. Understand it. But the4y are living the character more than you and that is collaborative,, and highly useful. Use ALL your resources. Not just your desires, your roadmap, your style. Be open. And you will find a wealth of two things. At times, utter annoyance and frustration. And at others, sheer bliss and perfections as if touched by the Gods.

More to come...

2nd Amendment, Delusion Revisited

I certainly prefer art over politics for all the obvious reasons. It seems pretty apparent today, especially looking at our current disaster of a POTUS, his thoroughly misled and confused conservative base and his GOP leaders that there are far more geniuses and visionaries in art than politics and government.

That being said, it occurs to me just now that the 2nd Amendment clearly and prejudicially states, it points out ... "well-regulation", "militia" and "keeping/bearing arms". No kidding, right?

That means using correct and appropriate gun control/ regulations. Well regulated. So, background checks, obviously. Sane gun laws, not stupid anti protection knee jerk conservative disinformation supported by Russian and profiteering groups like NRA and gun manufacturers.

Just because the Russians took the Czech's guns in 1967 really has no bearing on our Constitution. And I have heard that as the reason the 2nd Amendment has to be and mean what some want it to, again and again. Thus we can't have ... gun laws? Seriously? That cannot be an adult's position. Because that would be delusional.

But then, we are Americans and we do have our delusions. Just look at who's president now. And what it takes on a personal psychological basis to still support him. Donald Trump is not a serious consideration for the White House. Never was, isn't now. Never will be.

As such:

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Skipping we did not have a standing army or national guard then and we do now for some time, precluding the need for citizens to keep or bear arms...

That Amendment clearly states one important element that is not ever in this form, considered in arguments for or against.

That if citizens outright have that right (which is not clear, honestly), they need regulation and the "orientation" of militia. I am not saying int hat they need to belong TO a militia but that they need by requirement the training and education of a militia. And considering the advancement, since the Amendment was written, it's now a matter of higher education between the various types and powers of today's weaponry.

How that translates today would be, not that any citizens could go out and buy and own a gun, and/or carry one either in plain sight or concealed, it is to be sure first a requirement by the Amendment they be trained or well regulated, or part of a militia and therefore well regulated and trained.

More guns aren't an answer, they are a desire. As with most things, sanity,
intelligence and acting appropriately are the answer.

I am not even seeing a question about that as a requirement for the right to keep and bear arms.

Therefore to acquire, own and bear arms, one should be trained by a priori requirement and justification... and to be sure, we need that all citizens with arms are competent in their use for the situations and environments the citizens would traverse in any potential and reasonable situation.

As of today, that is not the case.

To whit, citizens with arms and no APPROPRIATE training, AND THAT INCLUDES EX or ACTIVE MILITARY who do not just get to own a gun in civilian life as civilian environments are not military to be sure.. as IN A CIVILIAN ENVIRONMENT ... therefore we are at this time for those unregulated citizens, unconstitutional and illegal and those arms should be confiscated, until such time that citizens have acquired the appropriate training, indoctrination and education in each of the firearms they are to own or carry.

There is our right and reason to confiscate all firearms from all citizens who do not have the required training on each and every gun they own.

That alone would end so many mass shootings.

Who should pay for this training?

Well, if it's a Right, the nation, not individuals. That means taxes.

How much would this cost? A lot.

What would it do? Slow down and decrease gun ownership and increase the alignment of owning and using weaponry to an acceptable degree.

Why? Because many gun owners don't want education, just blind allowances to own devices to kill, without responsibility, without knowledge, education, or a cohesive knowledge about them to a degree they required and demand.


And what is demanded in the place of what is needed?

Entertainment. Guns fulfill one major component of gun owners and it's not safety.

It's entertainment and false sense of security against all the wrong things in all the wrong ways.

Our best protection against crime is support and empowerment of all citizens.

Our best protection against a tyrannical government? Education, Health Care, Sanity. Vision. All the things the GOP does nto support.

Face it. Voting Republicans out is our quickest way to a strong America.

And never again allow this kind of crazy into control of Congress and our Courts or the office of the President of the United States.

Have a gun. Just know what you have and how to care for it, use it and store it.

As previously stated, I certainly prefer art over politics for all the obvious reasons. It seems pretty apparent today, especially looking at our current disaster of a POTUS, his thoroughly misled and confused conservative base and his GOP leaders that there are far more geniuses and visionaries in art than politics and government.

Now, back to the people I know and work with who are so much more cohesively sane and informed...

Easily Debunking NRA's Wayne LaPierre's Lies

"Happy Mother's Day. You're child's been shot and killed."

This is life today in America and around the world. Except America has chosen it outright. We have argued it's a right. We have argued it's just as important as Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or is even greater than that.

We have got to lay to rest this nonsense about how:

"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun."

First off, it's not true. Did we not only recently see how a young black man stopped a bad guy with a gun... with his bare hands?

Not that President Donald Trump would mention that in his racistly disparaged beliefs. Weren't there also two Marines in Belgium who did the same on a train just not that long ago?

Yes.

Certainly not the preferred method of going up against a gun, but it doesn't only take a gun, or a good guy.

After all, two guys rob a place, once starts shooting people, couldn't the bad guy suddenly go, "Hey, WTF?" And just shoot his partner because he may be a robber but not a murderer?

Yes.

There are some very serious realities that are being completely ignored in that soundbite pro gun nuts so dearly love to reiterate like (not smart parrots) but dumb mimics. You'll never hear reality (stated below) from these people, because they are in love with their guns and their hero worship complex.

MANY people who carry guns ARE looking to get to use them someday. That is really not what you want in a person carrying because they view it romantically. They see it more as a toy, entertainment, through a kind of faux hero syndrome filter. Not as what it is, a killing tool. Not as a machine of death, as it was designed to be. (oddly enough, they also deny that, much to the offense and confusion of gun manufacturers who put a lot of money and research into just that end)

MANY people who carry guns are carrying out of fear and will NOT use them in a real life shooter scenario unless their life is directly at risk. It just makes them feel safe. To pull a gun in a real scenario takes far more than they are willing to experience, and do not experience UNTIL they are faced with having to pull or not to pull a gun out and face down someone shooting at them. It's all fun and games until someone really is about to get hurt. And they know, they may miss entirely as they get gunned down.

MANY people who carry guns are not trained or not well trained. Sometimes not trained is better as they won't pull their gun when faced with death. A semi trained person can be a danger both to themselves and to others. When you can buy a gun and get a license to carry (or not and still carry), with no training whatsoever, you...YOU are the danger to society.

MANY people who carry guns will NOT ever pull out their gun and use it, UNLESS maybe directly threatened in a mass shooting and possibly, not even then. Facing down the reality of death evokes fight or flight, or FREEZE.

MANY people who carry guns will miss if they do pull and shoot, they will instead hit bystanders, never hitting the shooter at all. They will actually add to the death toll, the maiming count and in the end, the shooter could potentially get away or kill the "good" guy with a gun too, anyway. Effectively having helped in killing or harming as many as possible, which was the shooter's purpose in the first place. And how does THAT help the situation.

Let's not forget, some carring and pulling could potentially be shot by police when they arrive. Especially if you are black or a minority or look like a bad guy, merely from your dress. What if you're Muslim? Or just look Muslim? Police see a white guy who WAS shooting people, but they don't see his gun but instead yours, who's going to get shot?

These are the things you NEVER hear alluded to in that statement:

"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun."

It's a trap. It avoids reality. It avoids dealing with the actual issues of there being guns killing innocent people in the first place.

It's a stop gap measure to add guns to stop guns, but it's not the solution, not the long term fix.

It just sounds good, and makes people feel like they are important.

And after all, that's what pro gun types and organizations like the NRA, the GOP, are all about.

We're better than that. We CAN be, better than that.

BE, better than that.

Having Constitutional Awareness

I grew into adulthood thinking there was the great disparity between the haves and the have nots. I cane to realize it was also between those who knew and those who did not, the educated and the uneducated. As I matured in my learning and understandings I came to find that the haves did not always know, even if they were uneducated. Their wisdom was problematic.

I'd assumed they didn't pay attention in school or to life. Then I thought they may have or not, but they followed a path of ignorance in the realm of knowledge.

Then I discovered that there is not just objective truth and subjective truth. That there is subjectivity in objectivity and there can be some objectivity in subjectivity.

Finally I came to the realization that if three people take a path to knowledge, but very dissimilar ones, you could find one who was on one path, and correct. One on another path and incorrect. But then the third could also be on a correct path.

I found that curious.

Until I discovered that there is a truth that is objective. But the orientation behind it, or the desire for what it should lead to, could be very different, even opposing in nature.

And so that brings us to our current political climate.

Even if considering only the best in this situation (that is sans Russian intervention in our culture, both social and political engineering), we could still have a situation with two passionate parties, each arguing opposing things, with very different and moral reasons. Where the question at hand isn't: are they right or wrong (they both are or can be, specifically). The issue is more all encompassing.

Even if your desired path achieved the goals you strive for, are the priorities "correct"? Will they have any collateral damage you SHOULD be aware of and concerned over and are not seeing, or considering?

When you then bring into the mix the paradigm regarding how this country was set up and how it has evolved, what should be morally correct? What is considered by some, of typically fewer numbers and in an Elite, supportive of the structure of the nation? Is the nation built upon the ideals of humanity? Economy? Or merely an elite who should make the important decisions?

If you study those questions and the reality supporting them, it is rather amazing.

When you try to make a situation (or yourself) look better than it (or you) actually do, or change the narrative to seem more positive or reasonably productive, we call that reality, "spin".

When it is used in a negative fashion as weaponized information to hide something or change the narrative in a negative way against others, we call it disinformation (from the Russian, Dezinformatsiya). A favorite Russian, Donald Trump, GOP and NRA tactic.

Also that of the tobacco and car industry. But those two have been slapped down and told in courts to stop it. And it was very costly in the end for them, but no where near the amount of money (or "winning") they did for decades (or the innocent lives lost to line their pockets with money).

Then there is the Russian concept of Maskirovka, using a mask or camouflage in your actions, using the fog of war (or society, or media) to your benefit. Be that in war, or peace time actions. It is in the grey area between war and peace. It is subverting your enemy's processes (America mostly and western democracies) to the abnormal. It disorients. Unbalances. Disrupts. And it is effective. At times, even when the subject (victim) knows about it.

What we have today are people on both sides doing what they believe is their best for our country, while having opposing paths and not giving due consideration for the fundamental concerns of "the other" or "others". For the most part regarding considerations one does not fully understand, gives priority to, or even sees as essential to the goals. It's the old situation with two opposing armies, both praying to God to help them win because they are in the right. It's ignorant. And dangerous.

That being the goal of, a healthy nation. One would presume....

But there are objective truths. It just depends on what what dimension(s) you are viewing the situation from, and are you selecting the appropriate dimension(s) to begin with?

Constitutional originalists do not give as much weight to the reality of our evolved constitutional laws as the original, or original intent of the Founding Fathers with little or no consideration for a "living" US Constitution (ratified 1788) meant to evolve to enhance the original intent.

The argument for a living, evolving Constitution is inherent in its existence.

It has after all, been amended. By the Founding Fathers themselves, who wrote it. Which therefore makes it a living evolving entity by definition. Not a religious tome, those which are defective in that sense from the day they are born into existence. IF they did not mean for it to be a living document, they would have rewritten it, added in the amendments as the original documents, and resubmitted and ratified it.

But they did not. They chose instead to amend. Arguments that ratification was too delicate to have gone through again is merely divisive and subjective, by those who desire one thing against all history and reality. You cannot argue that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing in the 2nd Amendment, but did not know what they were doing in making it to begin with...an amendment.

Much therefore is against those arguments of those 2nd Amendment (ratified in 1791) types who demand it is written in stone. Or given to us, as some have actually said, Wayne LaPierre of NRA for one, from God. Because after all, their favorite amendment then, which they would argue gives them the right to own and bear arms, regardless if they are war weaponry or not, regardless if for militia use or not, evaporates quickly.

We can end the confusion on the 2nd Amendment. And then there is the related slavery issue. Many have said that part of the reason for the odd wording of the 2nd Amendment does have to do with this issue of slavery and slavers protection and control over their "property". The north and south had contention on this and so, best not to be too clear on certain things. I doubt the foresaw the issues it would cause two hundred years later when this was no longer at issue and this oddity was still abusing our nation. Only now it's a matter of children being murdered in their schools and in the streets.

It just takes good men and women to do what is most needed and greatly desired by many. So too about issues of the fundamental structure of America being built on money and not people. Humanity.

The US Constitution actually begins....

"WE THE PEOPLE..."

Why? If then not for the people rather then starting with, "FOR OUR MONEY AND WEALTH"?

There is a reason for that.

Another interesting phrase says:

"...promote the general welfare...."

It does not however say:

"...promote the specific and minimal welfare...."

We have our path. We just need to stay on it and if necessary, continue to evolve America as our Founding Fathers set up for us to do and to beware, those who would abuse our charter and our ideals.

Now, all that being said....

It is interesting (and greatly concerning) how the alleged basis of this gun issue is about citizen gun owners who continue to disingenuously claim that their guns protect their rights. They say they are the protectors of all our rights, even those of us who do not even want some of those "rights".

Some even being questionable rights at this point in history anyway. Some not even being the rights they were given and utterly misunderstanding the intent and meaning. In part due to poor education that continues to be made worse on purpose (uneducated being easier to control), but in greater part due to those elected representatives who with a wink and a nod, control their electorates opinions. Distract them. Abuse them.

There is nothing more powerful, certainly no gun, no weapon, that is able to achieve as much as... a vote.

But because of voting incorrectly for so very long, because of voting against one's own best interests for that of the proffered shiny objects in the room, some citizen's (mostly #Republican it seems) have put us in this dire position.

They (yes, we too) have allowed Citizens United, Gerrymandering, and money to have a vote for the lofty and the few, until finally we have this counterintuitive situation wherein they cannot think themselves out of...except to repeat the same tired old dysfunctional mantras and sound bites they have been peppered with to say by their enemies whom they believe to be their friends and leaders.

It is a position from where they have convinced themselves to believe (unknowingly having been convinced by others for their own benefits divorced from those concerns of these poor citizens) that their need for guns against their own government does something for them. Arm everyone. Arm teachers (who mostly do not want that, just school supplies they cannot even afford).

Where their available and allowed personal weaponry along with a manufactured and delusional conceit of a how a citizen militia could outflank the US Military, Our standing army was not at first desired by the Founding Fathers and a state by state militia could potentially counter that. And so we have that in our National Guard. But people believe it was in Joe Bob's weekend militia were we seek our counter to the federal military branch?

Laughable really, but we do love our delusions.

And so, our children continue to be slaughtered.

And their suggestion to resolve this is what?

Simply more and more of what is killing us by adding gasoline to the flames with the only and ever the same mantra from the NRA and gun owners:

More guns, more guns!

Vote. But vote, correctly for a change and see life, not death in a gun culture such as we are and such as we have been.

Humanity, is more important than any of our devices, or our games, our toys, our guns.

Change American culture to something that can again be respected. Not just in the homes of gun owners and the boardrooms of gun manufacturers and the NRA, but the entire world. To once again look up to us and appreciate us for who we are and not who would once were, or certainly who we now could be, if only....

The situation as it is, in even considering repeal of the 2nd Amendment was brought about greatly by the NRA and extremist gun supporters who wouldn't give even an inch. So here we are. Your bed, you made it, you set yourselves up for this possibility. Your actions have demanded, either giving into anything you want, or repeal.

You are also somewhat culpable in these mass shootings.

According to the 2nd Amendment, let's start slow and take it's lead. That should satiate the NRA.

Also why has, why WOULD, the government block research on this issue?

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

So ONLY those who have been militia'd (current and ex military), who had training ("well regulated" and "Militia" (capitalized)), should have greater than hunting weapons?

Let's face it. ALL citizens having weapons is not well regulated or a Militia.

Perhaps then when ex military are no longer of military age, their military style weapons could go away, as they are no longer useful as a fighting force, so why would they needs military weapons?

Or we could leave them with them as award for services rendered (not all of them, perhaps).

One could also argue MOST citizens do not need hunting weapons (is it a weapon if against a defenseless animal?)

The 2nd is not open house on doing whatever you want. Only an uneducated child would read it that way. Or an addict.

It's a complicated and long term issue going back to the founding of our country.

But really, it's not all that complicated. Some people just want to make it out to be complicated.


#NRA #GOP

A Christmas Reflection

Merry Christmas! May we all ever better mind our own business!

Walk with me a moment.

Yes, an atheist and a Buddhist of my own orientation, I can certainly celebrate Christmas. Especially having been raised with it as a Catholic. After all it was something that started out as a pagan celebration and was blended with Christmas and Christianity by the Catholic church in order to assimilate those pagan's lands they wished to acquire.

It certainly can be a pagan or secular holiday, too and has become one more and more anyway. And no we don't have to remember what it's roots are in order to celebrate it. But, it is wise to do so for several reasons.

Odd, I know. But true enough.

We can easily use it as a positive reason to treat one another with respect and love without needing to bring a deity into it. A strange consideration for a theist of that particular denomination but hey, there it is.

I think Jesus might just be more accepting of that than many want to believe, or his followers could accept.

Moses? Probably not so much either.. But then, he was a kind of an Old Testament sort of guy.

Muhammad? Well, let's face it. He had some pretty weird ideas and wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack and pretty much the same with anyone believing in all that.

I suppose Jesus had some odd ideas himself but he wasn't actually the one who turned his beliefs into magic. He wasn't the Buddha surely, but then according to the Dalai Lama, Jesus himself was a Buddha. And he taught some basic Buddhist beliefs in order to alter Judaism.

Perhaps Mohammed too was a Buddha, though I have my doubts on that.

Jesus had that need to blend with Judaism and the old Testament in order to build change into the nonsense he had grown up and into. Teachings that weren't so ridiculous back then before the advent of refrigeration and other advancements. Though he did as I said, incorporate elements of the Buddha Dharma to create his new Judaism (later, Christianity) and well, that was a very good thing.

But let's face it. In simply reading the record...we have Mohammed on the bottom, then Moses, Jesus and finally and foremost, Buddha, from least to most. It doesn't take a genius to see that's the order. Sad? Perhaps. But reality can be difficult. And besides, that is to be expected since Gautama Buddha, Siddhartha, was the best educated and least superstitious of all of them.

Still it matters little as all their legacies have been abused and subverted by some or many. It is after all what you pick and choose to believe. Sad as that is. It is much like trying to decide which is the best martial art. A foolish endeavor and does no one much good, for it is all about how you use what knowledge you have chosen, how you apply it, that is most important.

It isn't because I understand Buddha (not his descendants, not his followers, but The Buddha), makes more sense than all the rest of them combined. Consider, Jesus in his life had access to the teachings of the Buddha from travelers, if not from his own. He incorporated those teachings into Judaism and tweaked it so it worked to lead Jews into a more sane belief system. Just as Catholicism centuries later would incorporate paganism into their beliefs in order to assimilate new tribes and beliefs as they infected their world. These aren't wild beliefs. Just reality and history.

I read, I discussed, debated and analyzed and that's how it panned out. Look, don't get mad at me. If God supported anyone of those guys (and I don't think he does, or exists for that matter), then He would have made it quite obvious who was on top. Not much more to say after that, is there....

Yet that's not really what is important here, though. No, really. It's not.

First... allow me to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, a cheery whatever you wish you want to enjoy and celebrate at this winter solstice time.

But what is all this really? Let's lay off for a moment with what history, reality and tradition tell us and just think about what actually is.

You see, there is after all, magic in life.

It isn't the magic of religion or Gods or what we wished (or fear) exists. It's the magic of Humanity. Though we're mostly too humble to allow ourselves to accept that. As vain and greedy, terrified in the face of the universe and life as we are, we are still too humble to accept that we are it. That this is it. All of it.

Isn't that odd?

There is a movie that exemplifies what I'm trying to say here. A 2011 film with one of my favorite entertainers in it, Eddie Izzard. The film is Lost Christmas. It's not about religion but the magic that is Life. And if that doesn't work, here's some others who can explain Christmas a little better.

In life, we have who we have and the memories we have with them. We also have what we believe we will have and those memories that we will then have with them, whomever "they" will be. What we leave, after we no longer exist, really isn't what we will have ourselves at all. Though sometimes we act like it, but it is really what others will have after we are no longer there.

So all we really have is ourselves, our others, our memories. Then we're simply gone and it's the end.

It is hard for many to contemplate dying, or not existing. We don't relate to it as humans. And so we have invented ways, som rather bizarre ways, in our ancient ignorance to deal with it. Okay.

So now let's take a step beyond that and talk about....

Religion and Guns.

No, really, bear with me a moment longer.

Believe it or not, there is something familiar there between those two things.

I'm going to tell you a secret. Something people need to share. Something people need to not keep quiet about. In fact if you need one thing in life to shout to the world, this would be it.

Those who want to spread the "word" will tell you otherwise, but that is from their inside out. Possibly your inside out, too. But that is dysfunctional. It is dangerous. It is against the need of the many, the need of all. Here it is.

Do not share your religion with everyone. Please. Keep it to yourself. Share it with others of a like mind. Offer to those who inquire of you about it. And let that be it. For the benefit of us all. Be open to sharing. But be quiet about forcing the issue on others. You're only doing yourself and your beliefs a disservice. And a disservice to all the rest of us. Regardless what you religion or leaders tell you. Especially in the money grubbing  super churches and many of the evangelical corporate thinking type endeavors.

Evangelicism being one of the great banes America has infected the world and our nation with.

Although some of us do believe you should be ashamed to share your "faith" in these beliefs you hold, with anyone, you are welcome in my world to live your life as you see fit, to pursue happiness for the most part, as you see fit. This is America, still, and hopefully we will survive Trump and his minions.

And so everyone is welcome to their own delusions which we all have. Just be aware, if you bring down our most basic ideals of freedom in the  name of a faux freedom as designed by the greedy now in charge, you will eliminate not on that freedom but your right to your own personal delusions. In religion, in everything.

And you will have to begin to believe in what those in power want you to believe. Much as Trump is doing now, in forcing fakeness and diatribe upon us all in order to enrich both himself and his cohorts.

With only this exception.

For the good of all you should wear your faith under your coat, not on your sleeve for all to see. Signs of your Faith, quiet signs like jewelry, is fine. But the vocal part, you should wear just as you should wear your gun under your coat and out of sight. If you have a gun, and want to carry it around.

Though better it is best for all for you to leave it at home. Rather than forcing force by vigilante actions, force the government to apply funding and resources to protect us properly. THAT is a far better way. Hold our representatives to task to protect us so we do not have to protect ourselves to the degree tha is now perceived, many times incorrectly, but so many. And so many whoa re ignorant and believe whatever their favorite pundits say.

Faith extremists will tell you to preach the word to all and any! Spread the word to assure the continuation of your addiction! Shove your beliefs down the throat of any and all because your God demands it!

But no. That is the way of the immature.

As in religion they will say, propagate, raise your children up with your religion. Force religion down the throat of all humanity until they have no choice but to be subjugated to whatever your choice of religion is and to Hell with all others! Because they become indeed then, The Others.

But that is from within. Don't you see?

From without, from within the whole of humanity, we are many and varied. Diversity is good. But delusion not based in reality is of late, endemic and dangerous and could bring about our own demise.

We need therefore to coexist in order to be, together. That means we need to allow others to seek their faith as they see it. Even when it seems foolish or anti to your religion. Because your religion (even if it's guns) may seem anti to theirs.

Maybe you're right. Maybe, they're right. Because, what if you're wrong? But then, your religion doesn't allow for that, does it? Would it? No, because that is the design of religion in the first place. Isn't it.

And that is fine, I suppose. Mostly. For now.

I would say that in today's world it has now reached a point where we need to kill those who push their beliefs on others so that those who do not, who live to allow others their lives and beliefs, can be the ones in the end to survive and prosper.

Because we do not need those who will push their beliefs on others. Besides it will only, counterintuitively lead to the demise of those who are most obnoxious and pushy. As religion is on the decline globally anyway. It just seems like it's growing because any animal dying and in a corner, becomes louder and more dangerous, until it's dead.

For they are the troglodytes, those who push the ancient and archaic mythologies as reality. The proto humans who need to die off so the evolved humans can survive to propagate and replace them.

Just as children one day finally need to leave their childhood selves behind so that they too can become adults.

We all need to grow. But we do not all need to make others into our own image. Even if we believe that is the image of our God. We need... to all live together. Together in ways that will allow us all to live and prosper and be happy. Together.

And those who do not believe that?

They need to find their end. Quickly. And if they cannot then they need, they are asking us for, our help to end them in their difficult journey.

Hard words, right? Well? Life is hard. But it doesn't have to be. Global warming is real. To think that "God will save us" or "God will fix it", is ludicrous and childish.

We don't need to be making it any harder. Regardless what our beliefs are. We just need to get along. Believe what you will, but remember to treat others with respect and leave the judging to your God. Because if you don't believe your God will judge them, then you do not believe in your God. So either way...stop being demeaning to others.

So, a cheery winter's solstice to you and may you be happy and may you leave others alone, when they need it.

Sláinte!

I wish you all the best, the best of Life, Memories and the after...for your others.

One last thing....treat one another as if all you know was:

And you only have, one another.

Finally....

Sex or Violence? Choose.

It seems really weird, a kind of stunted child development of our legislators that sex and weed are the devil's tools, but guns are God's gift to humanity. Is it really true that sex and nudity are obscene but violence is not? We are seeing many abuses of Americans and our government on the Trump Republican side of things.

This bleeds over into the conservative agenda of pushing guns on America but maintaining that legalizing cannabis is bad when it has been shown clearly to be good for America, lessening crime, cutting out Mexican and other drug cartels from drug trade in America and yet we have not yet legalized cannabis all across the country out of ignorance and ideologies.

Why is violence a God to conservatives? And sex (and weed) the tools of the Devil or something? The Trump administration is now floating the idea of cracking down on legalized Cannabis. There go state's rights after all their talk about them.

Guns good. Weed bad. Really? Alcohol good, weed bad? Behaviors that harm are good, but getting stoned, watching TV, eating munchies is bad? But carrying guns literally anywhere is good?

So a kids watching two people showing love and kindness and say walking on a beach naked is utterly horrible but watching people blown apart with guns is okay and fine? How did we ever get to THAT point?

I guess because the former gives you liberals and the latter, conservatives?

Then I vote for the former if we have to choose. Why is it bad for conservatives in their mind? Because fear. Because what if we go to war. Because we set up and cause so many environments requiring war all around the world. What if we used diplomacy and an agenda of setting up people for success rather than invasion and death?

How messed up is that?

Nudity and sex in films and frankly, even in life, is bad, horrible (so we should force women to wear full body bags and only show their eyes or we might get what, a twinge in the crotch?). Grow up guys, Be a real man, be responsible for YOUR own actions.

Yet violence, people being blown away from gun shots, heads torn completely off, people blown up with bombs, even cannibalism is good clean fun. Well yeah, I'd agree to a degree.

Make believe violence is so much more preferable than real violence and yet so many people don't seem to get that.

Why? Is it because conservatives just can't seem to understand things that are counter-intuitive, but true?

Regardless, WTF people?

Church and Guns

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant recently signed a bill allowing people in his state for churches to legally have armed security.

Let that sink in.

On the props: Reagan book, Bible with holstered gun on top

Note from 5/4/2026: An update is available on this at: Two Moments That Changed How I See Authority

When a national gun culture finally invades your churches, your religion, it's really time to pay attention. Arming churches is not a religious reaction. It's a human, scientific reaction. We don't need to arm and militarize churches. Yes, they have been attacked. But few and it's not really reasonable in arming your church.

Religion should be a baseline for humaneness, for peace, spiritual security, for joy. Historically, for sanctuary. Not for anger, not lethal reactions.

This lack of continuity between religion and believers is untenable and hypocritical. People fear putting their beliefs on the line. They always have. And yet, they have martyred themselves to perpetuate their beliefs. Beliefs that have inspired countless millions over thousands of years. But many now see that it is better to arm their church, than to possibly die for their beliefs.

When I think about Church, about guns, I think back into my past. Back to when I was in the Air Force. My final main base was in Spokane, Washington. In 1975 I was at Fairchild AFB, a nuclear bomber base in the Strategic Air Command (SAC). We had fuel tankers, B-52 bombers, and were on alert 24/7/365.

In about 1977, I got friendly with the guy who gave out equipment in the base gym. My friend and I played racquetball every other day and lifted weights on those other days. If we needed anything we'd go to the equipment room attendant. We got to talking over a period of weeks about things in general, "guy stuff", guns and eventually, oddly enough, religion. Then one day he asked if I wanted to go to his church.

I was at a point in my life where I was ex Catholic, had been head altar boy at our church and in fact had been the altar boy serving at our old priest's open casket Mass for his funeral. My first time seeing a dead person. He looked good, the gentle kind soul I had known for years and served Mass with.

Later I went to a single final and graduating year of Catholic primary school (eighth grade). As I entered my young adult years, I was looking into the universe to see what there was, other than what I had been taught. I read a lot of books on philosophy, religion, even magic, a sign of the times in the 60s and 70s. You name it.

So with an invite to visit what sounded like a cool church, I figured, why not?

I told my wife about it. She probably couldn't have been happier that I wanted to go to church. After all, she was raised Baptist and we had been married in her church. Yes, the whole big church wedding and all. We divorced the year I got out of the Air Force. The guys told me when I arrived at my main base that no one survives that base and remains married. There were a lot of divorces, a lot of philandering, mostly with wives of enlisted fooling around with officers, especially pilots, the God's of the Air Force.

So my wife and I agreed to check out the guy's church with him and his wife. I told the guy the next time I went to the gym. Which was the next day. He said he would pick us up with his wife on Sunday morning and he would drive.

Well, that's nice of him, I thought.

Government as an entity, is typically rather stupid. Elements within the government however can be quite intelligent. yet there is a healthy dose of stupid among the employees. I was about to be stunned by the stupidity of this "nice" guy from the gym.

He had told me to bring my gun, that it was cool to wear a gun to church. I thought that was odd, but hey, I was open to see new ways of viewing the world. I carried concealed, legally, my Walther PPK\s .380 auto. Yes, I should have seen it coming. I should have seen something coming.

We headed out of Spokane toward the border. As we were crossing the border I got nervous and asked him about it. He said it was okay, the compound was in the hills of Idaho and it was beautiful there. About my concealed gun and his, and considering we were in the military, and I had a secret clearance unlike him, I was concerned about federal issues.

He said not to worry, you didn't need a concealed weapons permit in Idaho and where we were going it wouldn't be an issue. When we finally got there up into the hills of Idaho it was beautiful. We arrived at a gate that was unlocked and allowed us to pass. We were now on the property of the Church of Our American Christian Heritage. Beware a church that has in its name, "American" or "Heritage". Or any church who seems to have all the answers.

We drove up in his truck, a forerunner to today's SUVs. he pulled into an area of the compound with a traditional type well int he center and several buildings, one being an old fashioned church with the steeple and all. Several guys were wearing what looked to me like Nazi uniforms, only a different grey color, looking just different enough that you COULD claim, they weren't Nazi uniforms. When I mentioned the similarity (as well as the Hitler salute they used) they got offended. They weren't Nazis! Sure seemed like it to me though.

I won't detail the entire morning. But it was bizarre, surreal, disturbing, and scared the hell out of my wife. I worried if I didn't play it right, would I end up in the bottom of that well. They told us stories of how the local Sheriff was afraid of them and wouldn't come onto their property. The old ladies were the most racist people I had ever met.

Their national leader was there from Georgia to give a lecture at their church service. He didn't know we were there and were novices to their beliefs. He had really let go intimately detailing their beliefs and disgust at non whites, about the "cesspool of humanity that was Vancouver, B.C. Canada."

We got out of there eventually and never looked back. Don't get me wrong, these were very nice, polite and friendly people. I know deep down they meant well. But the things they believed in were immature, foolish, and frightening. As well as bad for humanity in general.

By time we got into the truck to head home that day, my wife had inadvertently nearly ripped off the sleeve of my shirt from repeatedly having grabbed it and holding on with dear life, while trying to look happy and at ease. Occasionally smiling and whispering she would say into my ear, "Get us out of here!"

The next day I considered telling the base about what was going on, but my racquetball friend talked me out of it. After all he said, those people know where you live and when you won't be home with your wife. It brought to mind a scary situation.

Gun and church do not belong together.

Pairing them is a massive warning that something is wrong. Perhaps, if your country has been invaded by an active force as happened in France, there is reason. But not here, not in America, and not since the Revolutionary or Civil War.

Needless to say we need a separation of Church and State, and Church and guns. If you want to protect your church from attack, try non lethal forms, try metal detectors, try anything, but leave your guns at home.

If your church is at all about death or killing, find another church. If your religion is death oriented like the three major desert religions of the Middle East, rethink your life choices.

Religion needs to be positive, life affirming and not about killing people.