Tragedy, Guns, and Rape

I stumbled across this article today and was absolutely astounded and horrified.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6121915&page=1

In essence, an 8 year old boy shot himself with a micro-Uzi, a fully automatic handgun capable of delivering 600 rounds a minute (I got that stat off of wikipedia but it's actually for the regular Uzi. The micro-Uzi probably fires at a higher rate. . .I've seen stats of up to 1700). The kid was at a Firearms Expo with his father, and there was a qualified firearms instructor nearby. I'm not sure exactly what happened, and I doubt anyone will ever be able to definitively say--these things happen so fast--but basically the kid opened up without his father or the instructor close enough to assist him. As a result, the boy was overcome by the continuous muzzle rise and ended up shooting himself in the head. As I understand it, automatic weapons are hard to control, even for adults.

Obviously this was a grievous mistake by both of the adults present that ended in a terrible tragedy. It should not have happened.

Naturally, the anti-gun members of our society are swarming all over this story condemning Americans and their "selfish belief in guns." I was surprised by the vehement anti-gun comments on the article; to find myself labeled as "evil." As if a person who believes in the Constitution, Freedom, and the right to personal protection is somehow misguided by false ideals.

An example of what anti-gun people think about us gun owners: "Gun owners are anything but responsible. They are sick, and they are getting sicker. It's a form of mental illness that's spreading throughout our country and our legislators are responsible for every innocent death. . .Get the guns away from every jackass and luney [sic] tune that shouldn't even be holding a toothpick." (It pleases me that most of the anti-gun comments are neither intelligent or logical).

Here is one of the more disturbing comments that I found, "A woman lying raped and dead on the ground is morally superior to a woman standing with a dead rapist at her feet and a smoking .357 in her hand."

What?! Why is it the woman's moral superiority that is being questioned here?

Personally, I think that the woman standing over the dead rapist with a smoking .357 did a service to humanity. A dead rapist is a safe rapist (I realize this may be somewhat extreme, but this is a subject that merits extremism; I would shoot him myself). A woman has every right to defend herself with lethal force. Period.

Anyway, this has given me a lot to think about. I feel sorrow for the family of the boy that was killed, but I fear the results of this accident will result in more anti-gun legislation.

As an end note: Obama will not support gun rights. His rhetoric is pretty, but he conveniently avoids taking any sort of stance on the second amendment. He says things like "I support the hunters and fishers," and "even if I wanted too, I would not have the votes to ban guns," but it is all just a front. His voting record has been extremely anti-gun (yes, I trust the NRA in this).

Oh, an interesting article on an alternative way to protect against rapists if women don't like the smoking .357 route: http://www.rense.com/general19/rape.htm

A Good Quote

To the universe

belongs the dancer.

Whoever does not dance

does not know what happens.

~Jesus Christ (according to the apocryphal Acts of John) 

A Strange Dream

Let me tell you about the dream that I had last night.  It won't sound as cool or complex as it really was when I try to put it into words, partly because I only remember the barest of details.  Anyway, I'll warn you now; it was rather odd.

I dreamt I was a ghost, and I'm not talking about any of your run of the mill passive spirits, I was a full-blown-all-out-haunting-spirit; rattling chains, causing floors to creak, and doors to mysteriously open, I did it all.  The funny thing about all this was that I was unaware of the creepiness of what I was doing.  To me, I was just behaving in a way that was natural and expected; having a good time, not a care in the world.

I lived in a large old mansion, or a castle, with a family (and this is where the details get fuzzy, because I can't remember, specifically, the people who lived there with me.  I want to say there were a couple girls, damsels in distress and all, but here I might really be dreaming).  There was also an old wizard that lived there, unrelated to the others, and he was kind of scary.

Anyway, here I was living the good life in my castle (and I got the sense that I had been doing this for a long time), when I suddenly began to notice that people were catching glimpses of me as I was going about my daily haunting.  It wasn't anything big, just a flicker of the eyes when I ghosted through a room, small things.  But it was enough to make me worried because nothing like that had ever happened before.  It was unnatural for people to see me; I was a ghost!  So I began to be very cautious; I would hide when people entered the rooms that I happened to be in, diving behind the closest chair or whatever. 

One day, the evil wizard walked in with several other people, and as I had been doing, I dived behind a large orange leather recliner.  But as I did so, I noticed the wizards eyes dart my direction and then away again, as if he had made unwanted eye contact.  As I watched him talking with the other people I knew that he could see me, he knew I was there, and that scared me.

There is a missing fragment here; I can't remember what happened in the interim period, maybe nothing, but the next thing that I can remember is that the wizard captured me.  I don't know how he did it, but his plan was to use me to augment his power and that was really scary.

That's all that I can remember.  I don't think I woke up at this point, there was much more to this dream than what I can remember.  It was one of those dreams that makes you resist waking up because you don't want to leave. . .and when you do, all you can think is, "that was freakin' AWESOME!!!!"

Interesting, eh?  When I tried telling my roommate in the morning it really sounded like I had been tripping on drugs all night long (I swear, all I did was eat at Carls Jr.).

The cool thing is that I can add this to my writing projects list.  I can make a good story out of this.  Which leaves me with about three multiple book projects that I need to finish. . .  Doesn't that just suck?

The Method of Creation

First of all, I have to apologize for my last post. It has a faint hint of bitterness to it which is just lame. Girls, and the association therewith, is a complicated subject for me, filled with high expectations, dashed hopes, and only imaginary success. So, it's hard for me to hear my ecclesiastical leader tell me that I need to subject myself to more of the same; that it is my duty to do so. I am in the wrong for my current lack of initiative, and hopefully, I will be able to regain my. . .nerve.

With that said, I want to talk a little bit about the process of writing stories.

I've been searching for a long time for a solution to the mythology and religion for my current work in progress. I want to include religion in my book, inspirational morals that will help my adoring public go through a cathartic process. However, I want it to be subtle; so much of what I read from religious authors (especially Mormons writing for a Mormon audience) is just blatant preaching, almost painful to read. The worst example of this was a book called Tathea by Anne Perry. . .I'll admit that I quit reading, so maybe I missed out on the book's redeeming qualities, but what I did read (around half), was horrid. The book was supposed to be allegorical in nature, but it was so obvious and clumsily delivered that it came across as some sort of extended sermon, by a really boring orator, disguised as a fantasy.  Anyway, I don't want to fall into that same trap; I don't want to be any sort of talking head or anything in my books.  That's the trick though, isn't it?  To include religion as part of the story, but not to force that religion upon the reader.  Orson Scott Card ran into the same problem with his Ender's Game books.  I love Card, and Ender's Game will probably always be one of the best books that I have ever read, but the main series, Speaker for the Dead, took Ender's character and pretty much killed the series.  It was a bit. . .boring.  I am being overly harsh on Card, who is a magnificent writer, but I had such high expectations after Ender's Game that the rest of the series came across more like, "blah, blah, blah."  It felt like Card set the hook, and then just held us on the line a preached for a while.

Of course, the other problem is to not include any sort of ideals at all, then your writing becomes dark. . .without real redemption. 

This is going in a whole different direction than I intended.  Suffice it to say, I think I found a way to include religion in my book, that will feel authentic, that will still be in line with Biblical mythology (and I use mythology here in the academic sense of the word), but it won't come across as being preachy or anything like that.

I figured out how to do it while I was reading the mythology of the Virgin birth in ancient American cultures.  Namely, I was reading the mythology of Quetzalcoatl, whose name I already understood to be translated as "the feathered serpent."  However, there is another translation that helped me to have one of those magnificent and sudden moments of intense brain activity. . .an epiphany if you will.  Anyway, problem solved.

The moral of the story is, always be ready because inspiration for your writing can come from anywhere!  That is what I was originally going to say before I started ranting on authors and their preaching.  The End.

Duty and maybe Love

First of all I must congratulate myself; this is my 50th post that you have the pleasure of reading. What a milestone! To celebrate I am writing while drinking 750ml of hot chocolate and premium protein. MMMMmmmmm!

I was going to write something big and introspective for this, but I didn't like how it was turning out so you get the short version:

Yesterday was ward conference, and the counselor in the Stake Presidency implied that we elders should be dating three times a week. What!? How can anybody even afford that? My "interest pool" can't even supply enough girls for me to be dating that much.

I guess I wouldn't feel guilty if I was dating once a week. . .or month. I'll not even give a number to how many dates I have been on in the last five years, but I will say that it is a small number.

Anyway, guilt. I guess I'm not doing my "job."

You can't guilt me into finding my best friend! You can't make me arbitrarily assign that label to a girl even if I am dating her regularly. On the other hand, that option will net more girl friends than whatever it is that I claim to be doing. Blah!

BYU 7, TCU 32

I shall hereby fall into despondence and melancholy for the rest of the week. Today blows. Laughing and smiling privileges are revoked for all humanity until the next BYU win.

Perks

Let me tell you a story. At the beginning of the semester in my English 356 class (mythology) the teacher told us that we could buy our books online because they might be cheaper. So I did. I ordered my books from Amazon, and still, a month and a half later, have not received them. I've written a nasty e-mail to Amazon, checked for the books at the library, and tried to buy the books at the bookstore, but none of these actions netted me with any books. So, today was my mythology test and I prayed, quite vigorously, this morning that I would be able to complete the test to the best of my ability. I was asking for help and I got it. The test turned out to be something quite surprising: with a companion, write a story that utilizes 25 of the vocabulary words on the list (that she had given us). . .

I think I passed.

Afterwards the teacher grabbed me as I was leaving and asked me why I hadn't been doing my reading responses, so I explained my sad story, and she was sympathetic and gave me a very easy way to make up everything I had missed.

Generally, like most humans, I am an ungrateful wretch, but sometimes I just have to acknowledge that God helps me out. . . a lot.

On top of that, I got a large envelope from the National Park Service today. When I opened it a found a "Star" award, which I received for "substantially exceeding job requirements." I kind of shrugged it off until I read one of the accompanying papers and found that there was a $500 bonus that accompanied it. :) Can you imagine me dancing a little jig? Hard work pays off.

Last of all, I am currently in love with a new song called "Alone with the Sea" by Hurt. I think I've listened to it about eight times in the last half hour.

And just so you know, "in love" is not a phrase that I use often.

In the manner of Keats, Shelley, and Byron. . .

I am not a fan of poetry; I hate most of it, in fact. Some of it however is good, but those poems are quite rare. With that said, I had to write a lyrical poem for my British Literature class. I thought it turned out badly--not quite living up to the master plan in my mind--but it was well recieved in my peer review group even though it has an extremely lose form. So, I will post it here for your reading pleasure. If you are a poetry critic, please be kind; I'm a little embarrassed.

Lamentation of Silence

Mute are the muses that guide me
in the presence of these sirens
that invade my reverie
haunting me always
with their melodies
that whisper
in the wind and down the byways
like something from a dream
remembered and forgotten.

I pray you, Speak! Feel my plight
ere this holy specter vanishes
from the pleasure of my sight
but not my soul
where her eternal absence
will wroth and roil
like a tangle of serpents
flailing and striking
until all is still.

Come muse, Speak!
Curse these words that choke
Curse this love that binds
my thoughts and words
to formless theory and bitter hope
Speak, and grant me sanity
let heart and mind end this violence
and come together
to end this
the utterance of my silence.

~Joseph Devenport

Palin vs. Biden

I just finished watching the VP debate and I just want to say that I think Palin did quite well. A small town Alaskan, 2 year governor, took on a 30 year career politician and DID NOT LOSE! And considering the media bias against her over the last few weeks I think that this is a great victory for her.

Biden was a little more polished and spouted off more numbers, as expected; tonight he showed himself for what he is, a career politician. Palin was much more eloquent than even I expected, though she tended to give broader answers at times, but it's like she said at one point, she's only been doing this for five weeks.

Anyway, Biden had a strong showing, but I have to give the victory to Palin for exceeding all expectations.