Musings of a mentat poet

Redistrubution of Wealth

2011-10-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Once more into the breeches, dear friends! Remember, if their hands are deep in your pockets, they may be going for something besides your money . . . hey, that sounds like the TSA (Thugs and Sexual Assaulters). Drolleries aside, my friend Todd commented on a tidbit I forwarded to him recently: a chilling excercise in arithmetic which pointed out that the present administration's doling out of trillions of dollars to their banking and corporate cronies amounts to $50,000 for every citizen (and probably most of the illegal aliens) in this republic. If my wife and I had received such checks, we would have four times my present pension and meager social security payments. We would be able to pay off most of our house and the usurers at VISA. We could relax and enjoy retirement; we could . . . who knows what.

A trillion is a very large number. One can almost imagine a million ( especially with the prices at the supermarket lately). If you put a thousand by a thousand dollar bills in a large square, you have a million dollars. Now, if you take that square and put a thousand by a thousand of them in a very large square, you have a trillion dollars. I saw a bumper sticker that made me laugh recently: "Don't tell him what comes after a trillion". I don't know if the world domestic product stretches to a quadrillion dollars (or urals or whatever you call them).

Now, economics, like higher mathematics, is one of my weak areas. I have little interest--and less intention--in plumbing the depths of the economy, domestic or foreign, free-market or Marxist. Blindworm that I am, I am more concerned about the depressing fact that our monthly balance sheet is written in red ink every month. This upsets my comptroller to no end. I am concerned with the economy of the small town I live in. When the transnational owners of the mine near us locked out the wage earners a while back, I was angry on the workers' behalf. The blunt and inescapable truth is that a small group of people who run the great mining cartel that owns the local mine make an enormous amount of money from their operations. Do they deserve their profit? Perhaps. Do they deserve to have much of their profit taken from them and given to people who have done nothing to earn it? I think not.

Redistribution of wealth is an idea with two different roots: Christian and Marxist. This holds true at least in our country. India or China might have diferent perspectives. Like it or not, our economic roots are Judeo-Christian and free-market in the USA. Most of our Founders were Christians (yes, even Jefferson) and, to a man, free-market capitalists. They were not without venality and other sins, of course. But their rebellion against the English king, as shown at Boston Harbor (making it the world's largest tea pot), demonstrated their beliefs. Socialism as an ideology had not really come to public attention yet.

The early Christian church was the first modern example of the collective sharing of wealth. In the first century, many Christians pooled their resources so that no-one went without the necessities of life. The negative example of Ananias and Saphira is instructive. They did not survive their agenda. Jesus was the inspiration and model of sharing and sacrifice. As Paul said, without His atonement for our sins, nothing of what Christians did made sense. It took the French Revolution and Marx' and Engel's Communist Manifesto to remove God from the collective ideal. Unfortunately, without Jesus to inspire charity, socialism has nothing but force to compel the sharing of wealth. Many millions of lost lives have demonstrated this in the last century. In the last analysis, wealth equals power. One can only spend so much on himself or his family. Money=leverage. Remember Obrien's dictum in 1984: The object of power is power.

Reality Shows and Other Abominations

2011-06-26T23:36:00.000-07:00

I have been struck by two phenomena lately, which taken together I find ominous. *Spoiler alert! This is going to be one of those "Things were different when I was young!" essays.* Both trends indicate a dissociation from reality, a distancing. The first is the plethora of "reality shows" on television, especially on the old-line networks. TV is rife with them. The other indicator I see is the increasing use of electronic communication devices and the concomitant use of "social networking". Taken together, these demonstrate a lack of consensual relationships, a fading of the face-to-face interaction which I believe we are designed to experience. Some people think this substitution is inevitable, given the Malthusian pressure we are being forced to cope with. There are just too many people around. That may be a factor, but I don't think it's the only one. Quite a few people are concerned with merely staying alive and eking out a tolerable existence for their families. I'm not talking about them. I'm concerned about the people with discretionary time or money (which, in the end, are the same) who seem to be receding into the background.

Reality shows on TV serve at least two functions. They show us ourselves in situations we wouldn't normally be involved with; and they entertain and titillate by putting Everyman and Everywoman in improbable straits and making us laugh or be horrified. Fictional shows and films do this, of course, but their protagonists are often so idealized that disbelief must be heavily suspended. Reality shows give us our neighbors, warts and all. Our reactions are usually twofold: "Thank God I'm not doing that!" followed by "I wonder how much money they're making?" The movies that show people you might know doing things you might do are called cult classics and are seldom viewed (almost never on television). It wouldn't be so bad if reality shows were real; a few of them seem to be close to everyday life. Taking a bunch of fat people and having them compete to lose weight (I can identify with this!) is not too improbable, though few of us could afford the regimens they undergo. You notice they are carefully screened for orthopedic and medical problems and are usually not sprung chickens. My other pet peeve is the "Survivor" shows. They usually seem to take place in areas where the contestants don't have to wear much clothing. Having one in Finland isn't going to happen. A base part of me wants to see the rejects dumped on a deserted island and hunted by the "survivors"--with spears and knives! Probably a good thing I'm not a producer.

What bothers me about these shows is the "bread and circuses" atmosphere of many of them. You can almost picture Nero giving some poor sweaty fatso the thumbs down--and hear the crowds roaring as motorcyclists whip him with old chains. What really pulls my chain are the sadists who pose as judges and ringmasters. Since we are not in England, I will challenge the libel laws and mention two of my least favorites: Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsay. Both delight in savaging and humiliating contestants on their reality (talent?) shows. They are certainly not aglow with encouragement. Cowell is debuting a new show. I have never heard him sing; I don't know if he can. Ramsay is a master chef with Michelin stars. He seems to enjoy using verbal cleavers on hapless would-be chefs. What bothers me about these men and their shows is that people watch them. Why? Jesus told us that vicarious (and imagined) sin is the same as the real thing.

You cannot go anywhere these days without seeing people talking on cell phones or texting. They hardly seem to know where they are. My wife complains about my talking to people when I'm out of the house. I can't seem to go far without stopping to talk to someone. Sometimes I know the person; sometimes not. It doesn't matter to me. The interaction matters. I've gotten to the point that I can enjoy a phone conversation--I didn't always. If I'm watching television and someone comes to visit, I will turn the TV off. People are always more important than the idiot box. (Besides, I can catch my shows later on the computer.) I will admit to a mild addiction to surfing the Internet. As with television, I pick what I want to watch or read. I am an information junkie. Mea maxima culpa! My wife sometimes spends considerable time on Facebook. The so-called "social networks" are developing into substitutes for physical proximity to other human beings. A friend or ours was actually ready to move to another state because of an Internet friendship. Having five-hundred "friends" online doesn't substitute for one real person sitting near you, drinking coffee. "Tweeting" your every move to an adoring public is, perhaps, the ultimate narcissism. God help us!

Every other commercial on TV seems to be a sales-pitch for "smart" phones or tablets (those diabolical shrunken computers). Remember, though, the NSA (or Whoever) can probably track you and what you're doing easily. Walk down the street. Turn your gizmos off. Look people in the eye. Smile. Talk. Rejoin the human race.

R & R

2011-06-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

My title doesn't refer to "Rest and Recreation"--a topic for another time. I'm referring here to what mechanics and engineers call "Remove and Replace". This is what might be called the "module" concept of constructing and servicing various devices. I'll use my late freezer as an example. I say "late" because it died last summer, in the middle of a heat wave, presenting us with us with seven or eight cubic feet of defrosting food. My mechanical intuition (which often exceeds my mechanical ability) told me the motor had burned out. The freezer, a small reach-in, was venerable; we were its third owner. I called my father for information. He has forgotten more about mechanical and electrical things than I'll ever know. He told me the motor was part of the compressor unit. In other words, the whole unit had to be replaced; this would cost more than a new freezer. So, in this case, "R & R" meant remove the freezer and get another one.

I find this to be a sign for much of our culture. I knew something was up when I was was twelve. My friend David and I were busy buying our weekly supply of candy from Sav-On in Lancaster. It was about 1960. I saw a new display above the candy: Bic disposable lighters. My father was a Zippo man, involved in rituals of fluid, wick, and flint. As I eyed the colorful plastic lighters, I felt a deep premonition, somewhere in my bowels, that all was not well. I told David that nothing good would come of this. The disposable culture had begun.

I am not against "progress"--far from it. (Though I am not a "progressive"--another column.) What I am against is modularizing our lives and quashing ingenuity and practicality. This mouthful simply means that everything in life cannot be reduced to parts or units that can only be replaced when they fail, never repaired or rebuilt. Thus, curiosity and tinkering can't fix what can't be taken apart. We still triumph sometimes. Two examples: One of my cars had rear wheel bearings that were "sealed". You were supposed to buy new bearings (for a lot of money) and throw the old ones away. I forced the bearing shells apart, found the bearings to be okay, greased them, and put them back together. They worked fine. The oven in our stove was refusing to light. It was nearing Thanksgiving, and my wife was quite upset. I went online and found schematics for the "igniter" circuit (no pilot). I bought a new igniter and got a young friend to help me install it. Gloria was happy; the turkey got roasted. Cost: $90.

The throw-away culture and the R & R principle are one and the same. Progress is like a drug. It should be used when necessary. Drugs, however, often have side-effects; some are addictive, and require ever-larger doses for diminishing returns. For two final examples, I will return first to the automobile. I was taught by my father to do as much of my own maintenance and repair as I could. This way you saved money and knew what you were driving. You can still work on your car, a little, but much of the engine is beyond the abilities and equipment of the average shade-tree mechanic. Modern cars contain increasing amounts of gadgets and electronic devices. Whether we need these things or not, we can't work on them. R & R.

My final example is computers. I use them; I like them. I have assembled my own (with a little help from my son, Thomas). Mine is a desktop. I have tried a laptop--my hands are too big. I haven't tried one of the tablets. We are being told desktops are obsolete. I can't work on a laptop, let alone a tablet. Parts are much more expensive than the ones I have put in my desktop. Perhaps there is no solution or alternative to the throwaway culture. We can't turn the clock back . . . too many people. At some point, the clock will stop working. Then the craftsmanship of its Maker will come back. A quote from T. S. Eliot: "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?"

Adulteration

2011-05-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

No, class, I'm not talking about sex, though that could be subsumed by my general topic. To adulterate means to dilute something or substitute inferior ingredients or components. My launching pad today is soap. Hence, blather about lather. My wife recently bought me a bar of Pears soap, which she knew to be one of my favorites. Since she only buys such things at bargain prices, I hadn't had any for a year or more. Now, Pears is a venerable soap, having first been made in England over two-hundred years ago. It was touted as the first "transparent" soap, though the correct word would be "translucent". This is fairly common today and is really just a novelty. I could care less whether one could read text through a bar; for me the unique scent of the soap was pleasing. Pears contained rosin, as well as thyme and several other herbs. In addition, it worked well. It was basically a natural product.

By now you're thinking, A fetish for soap, ehhh . . . Perhaps . . . but I like natural products, with as few unnecessary ingredients as possible. Also, I have made soap several times. The basic ingredients were tallow, olive and cocoanut oil, and lye. The lye saponifies the fats and oils, and this produces the soap. Any other additions are for color, scent, or healing properties. The process is laborious and smelly and is best done outdoors. After the soap is poured into molds, it must age for several weeks. It is then cut into bars.

When I eagerly unwrapped my new bar of Pears, I found it didn't smell quite the same. It had a perfumy note, like some chi-chi ladies' soap. I looked at the ingredients list on the box. To my horror, it listed 24 ingredients! The leading ingredient was sorbitol. This is a sugar alcohol used as an artificial sweetener. Why it was listed as the leading ingredient of a bar of soap is not known to me, unless the bar was intended to be eaten. My favorite soap had been reduced to a chemical stew. I noted on the box that the soap was produced in India under license from England. My first outraged question was, Why? Was the motive economic? Did it cost less to make this faux Pears? Perhaps. . . .

This adulteration, this substitution, this cheapening is happening to many things around the world. Often the motive is economic. Profit margins are shrinking. Without going "green" on my readers (God forbid!), I would guess that increasing population, conglomeration of businesses, and centralization of production would have something to do with this trend. But I don't think this explains everything. There is a strange, underlying sense that "they" want us to be aware that nothing stays the same, that change is the only constant. At various levels, choices are being made for us, and many of them seem arbitrary. As to who "they" are, I have my suspicions; readers of my older posts will know who I mean. Terms such as Illuminati or Bilderbergers have no real meaning. The powers behind the thrones will use whomever they need to do as they wish.

Tradition is now a dirty word in some circles. Since the past cannot be changed, some people feel it must be ignored. There has always been rebellion by the young against the established. That goes without saying, and cannot be stopped. The dialectic of thesis vs. antithesis equals synthesis is as old as humanity. Unfortunately youth lacks one vital quality: perspective. But it comes at a price: inflexibility. Wisdom is the accretion of perspective modified by experience. Some wisdom, at least, must be passed on as tradition. Destroying a good soap simply because you can is at least foolish; doing it to make more money is wicked. I am a poet. One of my influences was T. S. Eliot. In his essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" he advised us to know and understand what past poets had done, before we did something different. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Founts of Misinformation

2011-05-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

Well, fans (all five of you), here I am again--having taken off time for bad behavior. I have decided to return to my outrageous haunts: mini-essays either irrelevant or irreverant, sometimes both. I am, as always, a poet, so concision and compression are my fortes. I propose to stick a few barbs into a sacred cow or two, from my aging, hidebound, reactionary point of view. The old bull(shitter) fixes his nearsighted eyes on a sacred cow, paws the ground, and lumbers into action.

I wish to gore thatInternet ox of information, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, with a few stabs at and other arbiters of correctness. I will be the first to admit to consulting Wikipedia (or, as I sometimes call it, Wickedpedia), and I do so fairly frequently. On simple matters of fact, I have found it to be both concise and accurate. I have no quarrel with most entries I have read. Wikipedia claims that almost anyone can post and edit its contents. It was created by a small group, however, and continues to be governed from behind the public purview. Reader participation is invited; given the scope of information covered, it is necessary. Thus the revolutionary nature of the work. What bothers me, from my perspective of general conservatism and evangelical Christianity, is its growing bias in favor of a liberal, humanist worldview.

I am not going to cite examples of what I consider to be bias or misinformation. That's not my point. I feel there is is a filter in place that slants what we read on Wikipedia in a particular direction. There have been instances of the deletion of all or part of certain "controversial" articles, and these are often ones written from a conservative direction. As I said above, I appreciate the breadth and scope of Wikipedia and frequently use it, but I don't trust it very far. Editors can and do remain anonymous. Some have gone through the site and scrubbed references to certain topics. For instance, one altered many posts regarding Islam, changing things he perceived as antagonistic. Pseudonymity can enable vandalism as well as courage.

Your picador is now going to brandish a sword or two at and , two sites that claim to be reliable, if not final, sources of information. The first is run by a husband and wife who are admittedly liberal supporters of President Obama; the second is run by the Annenberg Foundation. At the instigation of terrorist/scholar Bill Ayers, this foundation was instrumental in backing Obama's rise to power. Now, if you are a left-wing "Democrat", this is all well and good. If, however, you are conservative, this makes some things learned from these two sites suspect.

Dear readers, I take anything these three sites put out with a heap of seasalt. The primary goal of education should be the ability to think for oneself. Facts are good, especially if proven to be true. Propaganda and indoctrination are not, no matter which direction one is pointed in. Read a book!

Four Hours: Habits, Addictions, and Idolatry

2009-09-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

High! My name is Dan . . . I'm an addict. Well, I am--a Vicodin addict. If I take it, I walk; if I don't take it, I don't walk. As my friend Jon has sternly reminded me: If a doctor prescribes it, and I'm following the regimen, then I'm not an addict. Well, I'll bow to superior wisdom--or experience. But I know my personality, which tends toward addiction. The average medication seems to last about four hours. I guess, technically, I'm physically dependent on hydrocodone. That, and Inderal, which is a "beta blocker". It seems to hold down my blood pressure, but, more importantly, blocks most of my migraines. I was getting them on an almost daily basis. Doctors have told me this isn't really possible, but you can't argue with your head (or, at least, you shouldn't). Being an addict is an exercise in diminishing returns: you take more and more to less and less effect (I WANT MOORE--BUT THERE'S LESS OF ME!). In my substance-abusing days, lo these 27 years ago, I much preferred stimulants (CNSS, technically) such as methylesterbenzoylecgonine (cocaine, for you tabloid types) and methamphetamine. When you've been depressed for much of your life, you tend to avoid downers. I always enjoyed the taste a good dark ale, a good dry red wine, or a strong-but-smooth tequila, but alcohol, like sugar, gave me migraines. Pot made me vegetative (feel those roots going down). When I took good acid I couldn't see myself in the mirror, and I astrally projected . . . a little too close to the line. So . . . flying that plane, high on cocaine . . . And then, an increase in speed to make up for lost reality!

Habits might be described as repetitive reactions to unconscious emotional needs. I plain English, I always do something the same way, because at some level I need too. Then again, habits may just be like record grooves cut into reality. The end result: if you don't do something the same way, you feel uncomfortable (you remember what happens when you hit the needle while a record's playing?). They're said to take several weeks to establish, depending on the habitue' and the nature of the habit. They are very hard to break, as we know. I believe this is because we enter into them unconsciously, but it takes a conscious (and often protracted) effort to break or change them. Most habits are innocuous, not bothering anyone save ourselves (well, maybe our significant others; perhaps that's one reason people live alone). Some habits, however, are deadly, at one level or another. Sarcasm is a veiled anger which seeks to humiliate other people: a very destructive habit. Brawling (often fueled by alcohol addiction) is another destructive habit, at a physical level.

Idolatry is an addiction or habit carried to a spiritual level. It is my contention, backed up, I believe, in the Bible, that humans are tripartite beings: we have spirit-bodies, which are imperishable (except by God, of course); we have physical bodies, which act as hosts or carriers for our spirits; and we have mental-emotional (mind+heart) bodies, or souls, which are the interface of the other two. In other words, our "operating systems". This is, I believe, what is seen by some people as "auras" and what can be viewed or photographed by Kirlian "photography". All living--and some inanimate--things have a "soul", but only human beings have a "spirit" which can be linked to God's Spirit by salvation. Idolatry is simply an addiction or habit at the spiritual level, something that interferes with our relationship with God.

I actually took the "est" training with "Werner Blowhard" before I became a Christian. I did get one thing of value out of it: you start with "being", then go to "doing", and then to "having". You are first, then you do, then you have. Everything proceeds from the spiritual, then to the soul-level, then to the physical. Sometimes, God is the only one who can change us. Some addictions and habits are beyond our volition; some aren't. If trying is beyond you, ask God.

Orwell and Pinochio

2009-08-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

I don't usually make statements of record about politics. Most of my comments are oral, made mostly to friends. After this melange, I'll probably have fewer of them (friends, not comments). Sometimes, though, a man has to stand up in public and say what he feels. To quote Whorf from First Contact, as his ship is about ready to be broken up by the Borg, "Perhaps today is a good day to die! Give me ramming speed!"

George Orwell was a socialist and an atheist; I am neither. He was perhaps the most brilliant essayist of the 20th century. With the exceptions of 1984 and Animal Farm, his novels were less successful--and less well-received--than his essays and criticism. Though I sometimes disagree with his starting points or his objectives, I can seldom criticize his reasoning. Once he got hold of an idea he squeezed every drop of juice out of it--and usually found something to do with the pulp. The two novels mentioned above embodied almost all of Orwell's ideas about socialism--and his fears. Animal Farm is satirical and allegorical, but 1984 is nightmarish, a reductio ad absurdem of war and tyranny. Orwell is not really concerned with showing us the process and progression of collective socialism; he shows us the gritty end result of unchecked power exercised by oligarchy. Winston Smith, a tired everyman, knows--has always known--that he will be caught and tortured. O'Brien, his teacher-inquisitor, helps him to understand that there is no point to this process other than conformity and extinction. The central truth is: "The object of power is power." The other truth is that the collective is immortal; there is no need for God. The novel resembles one of those unpleasant dreams you can't escape from.

Barack Obama, in my opinion, is trying to force us in the direction of collective socialism. He is a member of an oligarchy. Whether he is making policy or just carrying it out does not matter. The recent institution of a Whitehouse website to encourage people to tattle on those who oppose Obama's health-care plan strikes me as ludicrous and ominous at the same time. I call it the"rat line". No representative democracy needs a system of informers, although the occasional whistleblower can be a good thing. I'm not going to get into specific proposals or policies right now. I believe the electorate, the people in general, need more input into the process of government than they're being given. You can't lie to them or bury things in thousand-page bills and not expect a backlash.

Pinochio comes to mind here: the myth of the puppet boy who would be real. The longing of the old clock-maker and puppeteer for a real boy is the quest for the miraculous. Pinochio had already been given free will, though he was still wooden. When he lied, he grew asses's ears (hmmm). We go through our lives trying to cut our strings and become real. Our Puppeteer has always given us free will; the Clock-maker wants us love Him as Father and, by believing, be real. He wants you to love Him, Obama, as your earthly father did not. Go to Jesus, Barry.

The Jewish Problem

2009-07-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well, sports fans, it's been too long since Dan the Despicable posted, so . . . Looking at the title of this column, you're probably thinking, "Aha! He's finally gone off the deep end. We've got him now. Next thing you know, he'll be defending Sarah Palin! [Soon!]" Actually, this is in response to several writer-personalities I have found useful in the past. One is in radio; another is the author of Christian books I found interesting, even provocative. They share an all-too-common monomania: hatred and paranoia of Jews. I am a Christian; Jesus Christ was a Jew. The Jews were necessary antecedents of the Christian movement. Jesus never renounced or denounced His Jewish roots. Indeed, He specifically credited them with fulfilling His identity as the Son of God. Many prophecies in the Old Testament, the Hebrew part of the Bible, pointed straight at Him. There is no coincidence in this; it is specifically intended by God the Father. The Jews were anointed as God's chosen people. Abram and Sarai were launched by God straight into eternity as Abraham and Sarah, the parents of the chosen people. Ironically, few Jews believe that Christians are connected to them in any way. More than a few Christians in the past have ignored or distanced themselves from their Jewish forbears. Some, as I mentioned above, have reacted with astonishng hatred toward Jews. Historically, some "Christians" have accused the Jews of being "Christ-killers". He had to be put to death by His own people so He could resurrect as Savior of all.

Jew-haters of the type I mentioned above cloak their hatred with labels like "anti-Zionism". They claim they don't have any problem with individual Jews, just with their rightful homeland, Israel. Bigotry works by establishing unreal distinctions and using them to isolate and hurt target groups of people. It's the ultimate extension of "stranger danger": xenophobia, fear of strangers. Intelligent and learned men become mental cripples. Even Martin Luther is said to have been a victim of this disorder, though I have not researched his case. We need to fight this tendency, people, otherwise we put on mental blinders . . . and end up serving the Enemy. Thus we fail to advance God's Kingdom on Earth.

Whitechapel

2009-05-24T03:51:00.000-07:00

1888 had been, so far, a year of frantic action, as well as conflicting emotions. I had buried my wife, Constance, in the preceding December. It was a sad and dreary time of sleet alternating with fog: London at its worst. Holmes had gently suggested that I move back in with him. As there were no children involved, I had acceded. Constance had succumbed to diphtheria. She was always of delicate constitution, though she tried so hard to be the perfect doctor's wife. She tolerated and even encouraged my friendship with Holmes, though she discomfited him by cheerfully (in the American fashion) using his given name.
Holmes sat with me in Baker Street and, looking at me with those remarkable grey eyes, piercing and masterful, said, "Work is the best antidote to sorrow, Watson." Within a week we were enmeshed with the Douglas family at Birlstone. The pace did not let up. After that we were invited by a scientific team to investigate the murders of several of their members in the Transcaucasus mountains. A large, hairy wildman called the Wodewose was involved. I have been enjoined not to reveal the details of this near-tragedy until after the death "Col. Bombast". Holmes was badly injured; I was injured in the leg. Only my expertise with battlefield wounds was able to save us, and several other members of the expedition. Holmes never again went to a zoo, and his bitterness toward hunting began then.
By April he was chafing to work. The strange little case I called "The Yellow Face" was not one of his more successful cases. Just before that case, the first of the harlot killings occured in the East End. Holmes dismissed the murder, though noting the savagery of the knife-work. "The unfortunate murder of an unfortunate," said he. "When liquor is mixed freely with the baser passions, this sort of thing happens. There is no intellectual interest or redeeming human element in it." He strode up and down our sitting room, flapping his arms like some great, refined bird of prey. "I have told Lestrade, and anyone else who will listen, that Whitechapel is like a powder-keg, only needing a spark to set it off. If Sir Charles keeps provoking them, they will surely blow!"
I had rarely heard him express political and social opinions so freely. Usually, when he was immersed in work, he professed indifference to the social matrix in which he lived. His interest was in the day-to-day intersection of the criminal class with the rest of us, not in Dickensian social reform. "Recidivism, Watson! Recidivism--that's the thing!" he exclaimed.
By September, though, it became obvious that "Jack", as the press were calling the harlot-killer, was growing bolder. The unfortunates lived in fear. Several private citizens of some stature had interceded with Holmes to take an interest in the bloody rampage. But work intervened. The puzzles which engaged Holmes' attention came thick and fast: "The Greek Interpreter", which introduced me to Mycroft Holmes; the case of the Sholtos and the Agra treasure, which rewarded me with my second wife; and the extraordinary affair of the Baskervilles on the moors.
At the end of October we were sitting quietly in Baker Street with a fire going; outside it was raining. We had barely recovered from the rigors of the Baskerville case and its fiendish hound. The bell rang on the ground floor of 221B. Holmes looked at me. "Are we expecting anyone, Watson?" I shook my head, put my book down, and stood. Suddenly we heard Mrs. Hudson's voice: loud and frightened. This was followed by an imperious rapping at our door. Holmes lifted his brows, reached into his desk, and extracted his hair-trigger. He sat back down and covered the pistol with a cushion. "Come in!" said he.
The door opened slowly and a man entered. Taller than Holmes was he, thin and stooped, with a balding head which seemed to oscillate slowly back and forth, like a snake. His forehead was domed and his features aquiline. His eyes were grey, like Holmes. He shut the door and stood staring, from one to the other of us. I had only heard him described by Inspector MacDonald.
"Pray, Doctor, put down your shillelagh . . . and might I suggest, Holmes, that you take your finger off the trigger of your trick pistol? You might do yourself a mischief. I am not here for violence; you know my ways, Holmes." I sat down and rested my heavy blackthorn cane by my chair. Holmes tossed the cushion aside and took his finger off the trigger of his revolver, though he kept it in his lap.
"Please be seated, Professor," he said. His tone was even, but not light.
"Thank you, gentlemen," said Moriarty.
"I can think of no reason for you to be here," said Holmes. "I see that you got to Douglas."
Moriarty gave a small smile. "I do not tolerate opposition--or disobedience. 'Porlock', as you style him, is no more."
Holmes gave a start. "I will settle for you one of these days, Professor," he said quietly.
"And I you . . ." Moriarty said. "But now we have a problem in common, Holmes."
"The harlot killer," said Holmes.

The Beach

2009-04-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

You're 14, on vacation with your parents and your sister, who's eight and very annoying (though if pressed, you'd admit to loving her, but not around your friends). You're old enough to rate your own puptent. Freedom! You wake early, smelling the trees around the campsite and also the beach nearby. This is your favorite beach in North California, because the evergreens march almost down to the beach: pines, with an occasional coastal redwood. Underneath the trees, you sometimes find blackberry brambles; a few of them have delicious sweet berries that stain your fingers. Outside, as you pull your pants on and your shoes and socks, you see tendrils of fog curling through the boles and branches of the trees. Fog! Coming from the high desert, it's a great rarity. You don't realize yet that some people would rather live in the unremitting desert sun.

Nobody else is stirring as you make your way down the trail to the beach. You can barely see the ocean through the fog. Glorious! You can hear the waves breaking; there's no wind as you start walking south, to the left down the beach. You stay just above the line of wet sand, looking down for shells as you walk. You love the ocean, but you don't like to get wet in it. Your sister can spend hours in her bathing suit running through the waves and shivering with pleasure--but not you. You enjoy swimming in the private pool your aunt takes you to, and you swim well, but there's something about the ocean, the great Pacific Ocean. . . .

The fog thins as you walk down the beach. You are headed for one of nature's most fascinating displays: great rock areas of the beach with large, permanent tidepools. A few people are already out, looking down into the pools. The tide is out, so viewing is good. As the sun rises and the fog leaves, you can see farther down into the pools, some of which are ten or twelve feet in diameter. They have seaweed growing in them, in various colors, and sea anemones--large ones--gently waving their tentacles. Small fish swim lazily through the seaweed fronds. Some of the pools seem quite deep.

A little later, as the sun gets a bit higher in the sky and it warms up some (though it's high summer and not really cold), you walk farther down the beach, away from the tidepools and people. The land rises behind the beach, forming a small cliff. Boulders begin to stud the wide strand, buried partway in the sand. Some of them are huge, ten feet around perhaps, though half-buried in the beach. A whole field of them stretches for hundreds of yards. The average one sticks up two or three feet above the sand. Smaller ones the size of basketballs are in between the big ones. You are just about ready for some exercise. And here comes your parents, walking your sister between them. An audience!

You warm up by running slowly and easily down the beach, away from your family, hopping from boulder to boulder in your tennis shoes. You have to watch out for the patches of green, moss-like growth on some of the rocks. You've actually slid off a few of them, though never hurting yourself. Your family is at the beginning of the field, and you're several hundred feet down the beach. You're ready to start your run. You start off fairly slowly, hopping on the smooth colored stones. You soon reach full speed. You're no track star, but you'd like to see one of them do this. Speed and oxygen merge into one exhilirating rush as you aim for your family. Your mother is holding her hand over her mouth (you can hear her southern drawl: "For heaven sakes, Tom!"); your sister is shouting encouragement and jumping up and down; and your father is grinning! Life is good as you fly off the last boulder and land in the sand in front of them, arms spread wide.

Angels and demons

2009-04-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

I use the title of Dan Brown's novel, which is being released as a movie by the Howard-Hanks team, because it leads directly into our subject: Gnosticism. More specifically, I wish to discuss the barrage of novels, tracts, and movies that deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Belief in the triune nature of God is central and essential to Christianity, to the Way. All other religions, cults, and variants of Christianity deny Jesus' role as the second Person of the Trinity. He is not a created being, an illuminator, a teacher, or a guide: He is the Son of the living God, an aspect of the Godhead, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Of course He illuminates, teaches, and guides, but with the authority and power of Deity. He is the only Way to the Father; none may enter the Kingdom of Heaven save through Him. One can separate His sheep from the goats by asking the simple question: Who is Jesus? There is only one answer.

One cannot enter our favorite (and only) bookstore, the Barn of No-Bull, without seeing a book about the Knights Templar, Rosslyn Chapel, or the Priory of Scion. They all seem vaguely Gnostic and they all deny Christ's divinity. The favorite scenario goes somethinglike this: Jesus is conceived and born in the normal fashion. He shows great intelligence and wisdom beyond his years growing up. He finally takes the reins of the Jewish revolutionary movement, but he realizes he must disguise his ambitions in a messianic cloak and fakes his own death. He has already married Mary of Magdala, who, pregnant, escapes to France or wherever, gives birth, and establishes a secret "royal" line, which is finally rediscovered in the Twentieth Century. The Catholic Church and/or some secret group tries to cover up this "heresy" for selfish reasons.

There is no credible evidence for this fantastic conspiracy hypothesis. Brown's "scholarship" has been shown by many real scholars to be false and bogus. Some of the books raise interesting points: Why, for instance, does Scotland's Rosslyn Chapel, established in the early Middle Ages, show representations of New World plants such as corn, well before Columbus' voyages? I, for one, think that a lot more went on back in history than we realize. The evidence, though, for Jesus' crucifixion, death, entombment, and resurrection is powerful and convincing. If it is a lie, a lot of people, starting with His own apostles, have lived and died for that lie. I believe history pivots around that virgin birth.

Eschatology

2009-04-12T02:31:00.000-07:00

We are under attack, people. Whatever your beliefs, however you slice life, there is obviously a concerted effort to deprive us of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinesss". Since I believe that the spiritual precedes the physical, the master plan of attack is implemented by the "Enemy". This is the collective name for the fallen angels, led by Satan (the Devil), the slanderer and accuser of we humans. Satan was possibly God's own archangel and led the worship of Him in Heaven (his name was probably Samael; "Satan" is a title). Through pride he was cast out of Heaven along with a third of all angels. Satan seduced Eve, the mother of all humans, and caused the Fall of Man. Ever since he has gone about the world, which he considers his domain, corrupting and destroying any humans he can. He plans our downfall and co-ordinates his army of fallen angels (demons) to oppose God. Though he was defeated by Jesus' resurrection, in his insanity he cannot stop. This is all explained in the Bible, in various books, culminating with a flourish in Revelation, the last book. The last surviving Apostle, the elderly John, was given this great vision of the end of all things. Like Genesis, the first book of the Bible, Revelation is indispensible for an understanding of God's plan for us. Some "Christians" seem to find these two books figurative or irrelevant. They do so at their peril.

Satan's master plan, founded on four great lies he told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, has never really changed. The Flood (the third great event in our history, after the Creation and the Fall) interrupted his strategy, but didn't change it. Satan has only two objectives for us: to keep us from loving God; and, if we do, to render us ineffective in carrying out God's work. All historical events revolve around these two poles: to serve God or to serve ourselves--hence, Satan. Through the millenia the faces and circumstances have changed but the real battle has been the same. In these last days, at the end of time, Satan's tactics are two-pronged. On the one hand we have the socialists and extreme liberals, who would deprive us of our individual liberties in favor of the state, for our own good. On the other hand we have the Muslims, who are willing to kill us to save the world; they tolerate no opposition, according to their own scriptures.

The two poles of the Enemy's plan seem seem disparate, indeed irreconcilable. If you examine the overall goals of the Enemy, however, the jihadists and the socialists are aiming for the same scenario. They both want a world where there is no opposition, because the state is everything and everyone. If there is only one choice there can be no choosing. The nanny-state and the caliphate are the same. Both are theocracies; and in both, the ends always justify the means. One need only look at World War Two. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the spiritual leader of Islam, was a regular visitor to Berlin, consulting with Goebbels and Goering on the "Jewish Problem". Both groups had the same objective: the rooting out of Judaism and, ultimately, of Christianity. The Muslim leader got along well with the Nazis. After all, Satan was the spiritual leader of both.

My First Car

2009-04-10T03:16:00.000-07:00

Moby Dick, "The Great White Whale", was my first car: a 1964 Ford Custom. He had a 250 c.i. straight six, with a one-barrel carburetor. There was enough room for me to get in the engine compartment, if necessary. A three-speed column shift completed the drive-train. After the second time the shifting tube in the steering column broke, I had a Hurst shifter put in on the floor. Sometimes the linkage got hung up, necessitating a wrestling match with a tire iron under the car. The ignition had points (as did the voltage regulator!): tuneups were an art, done as much be ear as eye ("If it pings, back off the distributor!"). After 150,000 miles, a mechanic friend declared Moby to be "Perfectly worn out". He rebuilt the engine and we got another century out of Moby.

Moby seemed (by today's standards) to be huge, until I compared him to my friend John's Cadillac: a '62 convertible, also white, with fins, that clocked in at over twenty feet. A true land yacht. You could almost see the bow-wave when you cornered. Moby's trunk was big enough to camp in (this was when the trunk was bigger than the hood). Inside, he boasted two bench seats and plenty of leg room. A we used to say, seats six or sleeps two. There were even two seat belts in the front. My father figured I couldn't kill myself if I tried. He was right. I inherited Moby in '66--I was 18. He had been the family battle-wagon for several years and was just broken in. I was the load-master and could just about make his tail drag.

When I started attending concerts "Down Below" (sounds like Hell!), Moby was the steed of choice. Five or six of us would pile in, rolling joints and swigging from quart bottles of Cuervo Special. I was accounted a steady driver who didn't become too incapacitated and didn't sleep too much, although midnight trips back from the Forum were sometimes mysterious, with involuntary lane-changes and other late-night phenomena. I usually couldn't hear too well--my ears would ring for several days after some concerts.

Moby accelerated like an arthritic tortoise. Some of my first conscious prayers were to keep from being squashed by trucks when entering the freeways. How I longed for the belchfire V-8! With gas three gallons for a dollar, we didn't give a damn about mileage. After I got married, we decided to leave Gomorrah-by-the-Bay and return to Lancaster, or as my son calls it, the Mojave Triangle. I sadly decided to leave my faithful steed in S.F. My wife had a German Opel (or Offal). It was my first European experience--but hardly a love affair. Siempre viva! Great White Whale.

Talk Radio

2009-03-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

I do not usually write about politics. As a Christian, I would hope that many of my positions and inclinations would be clear from the Bible, particularly the New Testament. I certainly don't disdain the Old Testament: it is the father of the New: the Son shines in a different way. The Cross, that central signpost in human history, points the Way for us with painful clarity. It is becoming clear to me, however, that our new President is choosing a different direction to go in. He sees the brightly lit exit, the feeder road going to the superhighway. The traffic is heavy but the pace is fast. The destination? Who cares! They say it leads to paradise. . . . Who wants to take that old goat-trail that heads into the mountains--probably need four-wheel drive anyway.

The Senate, as a sop us dumb-ignorant-stupid-conservatives ("Idiots probably listen to Rush, anyhow"), agreed to not legislate the "fairness doctrine". Well, we're okay, aren't we?! But Dick Durbin (the other senator from Illinois) managed to save the day for Hussein I: Amendment 591, "Diversity in Media Ownership". I believe this only applies to radio stations. Most television stations and newspapers are already quite liberal. I won't go into the free-market tirade again; suffice it to say that conservative stations don't have to be subsidized.

Now, as I understand it, what this seemingly innocuous amendment means is pretty clear ["Hey, you know, we'll even let one of them own a station--long as he has the money, and we don't have to have lunch with him!"]. It will allow the FCC to determine who is licensed to run a radio station, i.e., who can own it. And since El Presidente is picking the commissioners and since Rush and Doc Savage and those other wackos are such pains in the ass . . . It doesn't take a Buchanan to spot this one.

They're building the superhighway already, starting from the coast of Tejas and going straight north to Canada. It will be a mile wide, and where American highways cross it, there will be customs stations, with a major "port" in the Kansas City area. It will split the country in two. Of course, we'll be a part of the North American Union, so that won't matter. Now, be still, boys and girls, this won't hurt--just a little chip in the backs of your hands. Then you can never get lost; we'll know how you're feeling; and you won't need money, or even credito facil, any more. Until then, use these ameros; they're just like the urals they use in Eurabia. Remember to face east, and remember, the telescreen can always see you. . . .

Prosody

2009-02-15T06:59:00.000-08:00

And what, you ask in all innocence, is a "prosody"? Is it some minor technique, like flower arranging? Need one wear an apron, perhaps a bit of makeup . . . ? No, Grasshopper! It is the anatomy of poetry, the body politic of epiphany and theophany [but, you ask, aren't those the same?], the arms and legs and fingers and phallus of poetry! If you ask what is poetry . . . "Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit." [Eliot.] It is the body of technique that makes verse into poems. It encompasses meter and rhythm, line and stanza, figures of speech and sound coloration, types and forms. If you think that poetry is made by breaking up prose into indiscriminate line lengths and random stanzas, then read no further. If you think poetry is an irritation that ought to be smacked with a flyswatter, then go back to reading your refrigeration manual or the latest Clive Cussler (though Clive is a hell of a storyteller--he just seems to be poorly translated from German) from the bestseller list.

There is an esthetic conundrum that needs to be dealt with at this point. I will use painting (visual art) as an example (my wife is a painter and sculptor). Traditionalists (and I am one) think that one ought to be able to master the basic tools of a medium, before experimenting. A painter must be able to represent what he sees in a way that someone else can recognize it. He must know how to use the tools and methods of his trade: brush, paper, canvas, easel, pigment, color, line, perspective, composition, and so forth. Only by knowing and reacting against what has gone before can he create something new and fresh. As Uncle Ezra said, "Make it new!" In the case of "modern art", much of what I have seen strikes me as the equivalent of what Woody Allen (in Love and Death) called "practicing in my room". I am no painter, as my wife often reminds me, but when I don't understand what I'm looking at, even when the artist explains it, I am suspicious and have an impulse to ask the artist if he can paint a portrait of his cat. The poet e. e. cummings produced what looked like word salad sometimes, but he knew exactly what he was doing (I think). You have only to read "Epithalamion" or one of his other early poems to see his complete control. Gerard M. Hopkins, who was way ahead (or outside) of his time, did things to English poetry that we're still trying to figure out--but he had mastered available technique (in English and Latin!). One of my favorite influences, W. S. Merwin, has strained syntax, punished punctuation, and done extraordinary things with line and stanza, but his early work is more traditional and magnificently controled.

I was fortunate to have several good poet-teachers in my formative years. The first, Robert Watson, made us buy Prosody Handbook, by Shapiro and Beaume. We hated the book! We felt our teacher was conspiring with Masters S. & B. to torment us and prevent us from expressing ourselves freely. But, by S&B, we knew what a villanelle and both sonnet forms were--and could write acceptable examples of them. Later, Dan Langton, Mark Linenthal, and Stan Rice (late husband of Anne Rice) put the polish on my poetic education. If you don't know your past, you may be condemned to repeat it.

I am not going to go into the mechanics of prosody. There are, as noted above, a number of good books available. Instead, I will offer a small poem, a little reminiscence:

What Has Been Planted

I started reading the unabridged
dictionary when I was twelve
it was the best novel I had seen
I took the words
singly and in groups
and planted them in the yard
not knowing what meanings
what shapes what colors
would sprout
and a different crop
would come up every year
casting their connotations to the wind
and flowering with new sounds
before the syllables went to seed
What has been sown
will be reaped long after I have
gone to rest

Daniel Moore
1-10-09

Race

2009-02-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

Well, here I go again, stirring up the natives! I may have to violate my rule of no-guns-in-the-house (instituted for the safety of the kids long ago; my father kept the family arsenal) soon, if they start coming down the street. I was always a pretty good shot, especially at closer range with the twenty-gauge.

There is no such thing as race in human beings. I repeat, for the farsighted, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RACE IN HUMAN BEINGS. As a Christian, I base this on the first book of the Bible, "Genesis". As I have said before, rejection or adulteration of any of the Bible, but particularly the first and last books, makes the whole of it moot. Either God created the universe (not the "multiverse"--though it's a neat concept for stories) and us, or we might as well give up and join the Dawkins Dunderheads with their "millions and billions of years". Ken Ham, of "Answers in Genesis", first electrified me a few years ago with a short radio sermon on race and Genesis. The argument is simple: God created us in His "image". I put the latter word in quotes because we do not look like God physically; that is impossible. God is a spirit being and has no physical form; or, conversely, He can take any form He likes (remember Moses . . .). What this means is that we are created with an immortal spirit, intelligence, and free will. We are locked into one form (though one wonders about "shapechangers"--the subject for another essay) at this level of reality.

Now for the next sticking point. . . . Humans display mild variation just like housecats. This is natural and is called micro-evolution. Given the fact that we have only been around for, perhaps, twenty-thousand years (though the strict creationists will dispute this), some differences in size, pigmentation, hairiness, and so forth are to be expected. Genesis speaks of God creating "kinds": human kind, dog kind, etc. Biblical taxonomy is simple and to the point. We seem to have varied less than other kinds; perhaps this is due to our tripartite nature and possession of an immortal spirit. In any event, it puts paid to the concept of "races" of humans. Genetically, we can all be traced back to one set of parents. Thus, there is no need to classify people by race; we are all from the same stock. While I'm at it, let us dispense with the nonsense of other or earlier forms of humans, as contained in that odious term "hominids". We are the only hominids; there have been no others! Current research has shown that "Neanderthals" were genetically so close to the average living person that there is no differentiation--no speciation. The existence of "Bigfoot" and other bipedal apes, or "cryptids", might explain the "fossils" touted as missing links between humans and apes. Some of the cryptids are pigmy forms.

The division of humans into races, such as caucasoid, negorid, mongoloid, etc., is inherently artificial and is always done with the intent of creating division and paranoia. Indeed, the adoption by different groups of cultural identities based on race can be divisive and can limit the work of God in establishing the Kingdom of Heaven. I am not talking about groups speaking different languages or coming together from very different cultures. Multiculturalism should be a natural process of blending, a respectful exchange of flavors. It cannot be forced. This country was founded on the blending of cultures, languages, and creeds. It has produced something greater than the sum of its parts: the United States of America. Vive le difference!

Censorship and Suppression

2009-01-31T06:59:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, fans, I have been preoccupied--or post-occupied (why, he's uninhabited!)--lately. I've been writing poetry; have, in fact, joined a poetry group in Tehachapi. I think perhaps it's nearing time to get a real website set up and post Selected Poems. . . . [Thomas . . .?]

I try to stay out of partisan politics here, usually, although my Christian conservatism is in-and-of-itself inflammatory, I suppose. I believe there is a strong possibility B. Hussein Obama was born in Kenya and has abrogated the Constitution in this matter. Be that as it may, he is starting to come against talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative. Whenever Franken (who is busy trying to steal Minnesota) or some other liberal comedian tries to break into talk radio, he expires from disinterest. Obama has publicly denounced Rush Limbaugh, the doyen of media conservatives. I listen to Rush. He is sane and patriotic. I wish I could say the same for some of our elected leaders. At least Bragojevitch has been deposed (what an insult to Slavs he is!)--although if I were Governor Quinn, I would have him searched for weapons periodically!

Now to the heart of the matter: The Democrats are going to revive the "Freedom of Choice" act. Reagan killed it in '87. This misnamed FCC rule would mandate equal time for opposing viewpoints in broadcast media. Sounds fair, eh? What it really does is make it uneconomical for radio stations to carry conservative and Christian shows. Rush and company only rose up in the twenty years since Ronnie killed it. In a free marketplace, liberal commentators have to compete for the airwaves. They have failed miserably. I don't know anyone who listens to NPR; I seldom watch PBS. They have to be subsidized. Conservative media don't. Economics aside, I believe the Democrats are going to try to muzzle conservative commentators. This is contrary to the First Amendment. I repeat, THIS IS CONTRARY TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT! Our Constitution is the thing that separates us from tyranny and balkanization. I hope our Kenyan-American President realizes this. We need to pray for him. God bless America.

Lou Reed

2008-12-29T06:14:00.000-08:00

"And I thought you were a Christian . . . ! Shouldn't you be listening to Michael W. Smith or [insert your own favorite Christian music]?" WHAT WOULD JESUS LISTEN TO? How could we know? I have a hunch he would be listening to Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty (insert your favorite singer-songwrtiters here). After all, the gentry (i.e., the Pharisees, etc.) excoriated Josh for hanging out in the wineshops with tax collectors, whores, thieves, and other riffraff. These were the people who were telling him what was really going on. I'll bet if there were poets and singers to be heard, he listened to the ones describing the underside of life. Of course, he was on a mission from his Father, so he was trying to keep them from going down in flames--showing them the Kingdom of God.

I'm not saying Lou Reed has been preaching the Kingdom of God . . . far from it, sometimes. What he's been doing for the last forty or so years has been picking up the rocks under our feet, turning them over, and showing us the things we've hidden, kicked under there. Then he's been searing them across our hearts with words like hot branding irons in songs such as "Sweet Jane", "Heroin", and "Waitin' for the Man", anthems to the underside of life, messages from the black holes beneath our society. Like Dylan, Lou has never sought lasting popularity. He has constantly changed and experimented with his music. I don't like all of it; I think Lou would be surprised if anyone did. My favorite is Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live! recorded at a concert at the end of 1973 in New York. Of all rock concerts, this is the one I wish I had been at. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner fronted a five-piece band, playing magnificent, symphonic, dual-lead guitars. Hunter's "Intro" to "Sweet Jane" is "arrogantly long", as one critic said, and brilliant--worth the price of admission itself. After all these years, it still sends shivers through me. The rest of Lou's noble and comic characters show us everyday life, as she is lived at the street level. Thank God for Bach--and thank God for Lou Reed. Rock on, baby, rock on!

Merry Christmas, Richard!

2008-12-12T02:30:00.000-08:00

This column is dedicated to an author I encountered online recently. Your website is highly interesting to me, dealing with what I call "protohistory". In particular, your expertise in anthropology and linguistics inspire me. You have published several books in the general area. In addition, you write very well, which is a rarity. I assumed we had some common ground, so I initiated an e-mail correspondence with you. You thanked me for being a "fan". This is a term I will gladly suffer for someone I really respect. For instance, I am happy to be a fan of the great writer Gene Wolfe. Then I made the mistake of telling you I am a creationist. My few readers know this--and still read me, apparently!--even though their views are not necessarily the same. You have taken the trouble to read my columns in this blog, Richard, and have responded by telling me I know nothing about science, history, or anything else and that I am a bigot. Please! I am opinionated, stubborn, and sometimes facile, but anyone who knows me knows that I try hard to rid myself of unreasoning prejudice. We Christians call this quality humility. You told me--warned me--that you were neither atheist nor Christian. This should have tipped me off. I still assumed we could share some common ground in our interest in a previous great civilization. I was wrong. I see from Wikipedia that you are in your mid-seventies; I am 60. I guess that as one ages one's views either harden, like arteries, or become more open, more accepting--though one must beware of gullibility. I have been accused of being overly credulous, and I have had to admit I didn't know what I was talking about. It hurts. What hurts even more, Richard, is unreasoning rejection and the imputation of narrow-mindedness. I know when I am wrong, and have done wrong, Richard; do you? I know you will not read this; you have cut off any communication. But I will try my best to pray for you, Richard. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Nephilim

2008-12-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

In Genesis 6:2 it says, ". . . the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose." In 6:4 we are told "the Nephilim [giants] were on the earth in those days. . . the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." This is from the New American Standard translation, perhaps the most literal of tranlations. Some of the older ones have "giants" instead of Nephilim. The root of the word means "fallen". Whether this is in the sense of fallen angels, or demons, or men who "fall" upon women, is debatable. The term "sons of God" seems generally to mean angelic beings. There are, as far as we are told, two classes of created beings: humans and angels. Demons are angels who rebelled against God. Demons seem to be able to take physical form and interact with humans; there are a number of instances in the Bible. The resulting offspring might well be giants, "mighty men . . . of renown".

Aside from Biblical references to Goliath and other giants, there have been numerous discoveries of giant burials: great skeletons measuring seven to twelve feet in height. They were often buried with armor and weapons of great size and weight. I believe these were descendants of demon-human interbreeding: nephilim. They originally possessed great intelligence and strength. The pantheons of "gods" refer to these nephilim. In other words, Zeus and Thor existed as actual beings. Any preternatural powers they might have possessed would have come from their demonic sires. Great intelligence, demonic knowledge, and great physical abilities would have been enough to dominate their world. Several epistles of the New Testament, Peter and Jude, indicate that God chained some of the fallen angels responsible in deep pits (i.e., Hell).

The fabulous creatures of myth, legend, and folklore (MLF), such as pegasus and centaurs, were actual beings created by demonic manipulation of genetic material. This, I think, is perhaps the main reason why God chose to wipe out most life on Earth. The Enemy perverts, but only God can create. "There were giants in the earth in those days . . ." Until the Flood. . . .

UFO's

2008-12-08T23:26:00.000-08:00

Herewith a post I originally wrote in September but didn't publish. Perhaps my left brain doesn't know what my right brain is up to . . .

"UFO" stands for " unidentified flying object". As a fair percentage of these objects go into, come out of, or operate in water, the "U" could also stand for "underwater" (actually, "USO" is used--S for "submersible"). They have been reported by U.S. astronauts outside the atmosphere and even on the Moon. The existence of these objects, their display of advanced technology, and their reported flight characteristics would seem to place them outside of human manufacture. Their acceleration and maneuverability strongly imply a negation of inertia and control of gravity far outside our capability, let alone physical theory. They exist. There are some interesting hypotheses about what they are. Most people think they are intelligently guided, manufactured craft. A few believe them to be alive! That is, they are manifestations of unknown aerial life. Some fascinating work has been done on this hypothesis but is not relevant here.

If they are made and guided, who made them? At best, the military-industrial black operators (who undoubtedly exist) have only succeeded in "revese engineering" captured or crashed craft. If they are not products of extant technology, where do they come from? There are four answers: aliens, the future, the past, or parallel dimensions. The first and last possibilities place the phenomenon outside the Bible and God's creation. I do not believe in aliens--that is, I do not believe in intelligent non-terrestrial beings. The Bible only mentions two kinds of self-reflective created beings: humans and angels (including fallen angels). I think fallen angels, or demons, have confused the picture here. As for parallel dimensions, I cannot reconcile them with God's creation of the Universe. Why do we need more than one? God may create whatever He wishes, of course. . . . A third suggested origin is the future. This would involve us travelling back in time to observe and interact with our present selves. This has been suggested by Jacques Vallee, a French ufologist, among others. Putting aside problems of causality violations and paradoxes, time travel would seem to be a prerogative of the Lord. Since God is the author of time, He must stand outside of it. Only once did He violate His own nature. . . .

The last possibility is that these craft come from the past. I don't mean by time travel. I believe we are being observed by our own ancestors. These are the descendents of the civilization which flourished before the Flood, or Cataclysm, the world-altering event that happened circa 10,000 B.C. The ancient Dravidian scriptures, some of which may hand down information of a non-religious nature from before the flood, have numerous references to flying machines, called vimanas, including how to make, maintain, and operate them. There are also discussions of space flight, including father-son advice on the subjugation of the "three planets" (Mahabharata)! Atomic bombs and warfare; the effects of nuclear explosions; and the aftermath of nuclear attacks are discussed. Perhaps some of our pre-Flood ancestors survived off-planet. I do not wish to argue with "Genesis"--that only Noah and his family survived. My speculations are definitely extra-Biblical. If UFO's exist, though, this is one explanation.

Magic

2008-10-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

Apologies to my many readers (all three or four of you!) for not having written for weeks. I'm treating this blog more like an irregular newspaper column than a daily journal. "Choose the middle way, Grasshopper!" So, a moderate essay on a big, though occult subject. Remember, "occult" means hidden. There's a good reason for this, from a Christian viewpoint. First, a quote from James Blish (approximate): All magic, without exception, is performed by fallen angels (demons). No lesser class will serve. I am going to illustrate this with several examples, chief of which is a fascinating book, Fire From Heaven, by Michael Harrison. By magic, I mean all preternatural, supernatural, and paranormal manifestations that seemingly originate from human beings. The only exception to this is any and all acts of Yeshua bar El, i.e., Jesus Christ. If you are God, You do what You will. All other acts of this nature are done by angels, fallen or otherwise, sometimes with express impetus from God.

In The Devil's Day ("Black Easter" + "The Day After Judgment") Blish deals with ceremonial magic in a serious manner, neither playful nor romantic, but rather as a species of engineering, almost. Why demons would make bargains with humans is a good question, but beyond the scope of this essay (later, Grasshopper). Remember, all angels are created beings, just like us. Some may be much older and wiser than most of us, but they were still created by God. One Creator, many created. Satan (whose name is probably Samael) was an archangel in Heaven, leading the Worship of God, until he rebelled. He is a powerful being, very knowledgeable, and is to be respected. He also hates God and us passionately, and must be opposed at every turn. Satan and his demons cannot create or destroy; they can only change and distort. God's angels, led by Michael and Gabriel, implement His plans and creations.

Michael Harrison (Maurice Desmond Rohan) was an English writer who wrote fiction and non-fiction. He wrote a "biography" of Sherlock Holmes as influential as William S. Baring-Gould's. His book, Fire From Heaven, deals with spontaneous human combustion (SHC) most intelligently. He also includes sections on Kirlian or aura viewing and "slow vaulting", or control of gravity. The great Russian danseur, Nijinsky, is reported to have been able to prolong his leaps greatly, and to land as lightly as a thistle. This last ability is similar, perhaps identical, to one of the siddhis, or paranormal abilities, developed by yogic masters in India. Garima and laghima confer the abilities to increase or decrease gravity. SHC seems to involve intense heat (2000 degrees C. +) localized or controled so tightly that sometimes clothes are not burned. Often chairs, floors, and other nearby objects are scorched but not burned or melted. There is no tenable natural explanation. To me it smacks of demonic interference--that is, all the molecules within a circumscribed area are accelerated terribly.

Other "psionic" abilities, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, telekinesis, and teleportation, seem to exist, at least sporadically, in people. I don't believe it. I don't believe these "gifts" are inherent in us, at least not in God's present plan. I believe that any miraculous manifestations, whether levitation or healing, are performed by angels, by spirit beings, either God's or Satan's. We are warned in the Bible about trafficking with witches and sorcerers: it is an abomination to God. These "powers" exist, people. So does Hell.--Dan Moore

Rock of Ages

2008-10-06T04:17:00.000-07:00

How old id the Earth? To many, this is a frivolous or meaningless question. The Earth is under our feet: it was there yesterday; it'll be there tomorrow (we hope). . . . I think it is the pivotal, central question about our origins. The scientific and educational establishments have made it the centerpiece of their religion of uniformitarianism. This ill-gotten jawcracker simply means the Earth formed billions of years ago and gradually changed into the form we see now. Bible-believing Christians and others (Muslims included) believe our planet was created by God thousands of years ago and that the Great Flood killed almost all life, re-arranged the surface features, and created the strata, complete with "fossils", the uniformitarians (Lyell-Agassiz-Darwinists or LAD's) call the "geological column". Young-Earth creationists (YEC's) are also, of course, catastrophists, although not out of the Velikovsky mold. Dr. V. was a brilliant man and a careful observer of the effects of our catastrophic past, but his causative hypotheses of the Deluge were too wild to believe. Simply put, YEC's believe Earth was created 6,000+ years ago and all the life at the same time. This included dinosaurs and us. Many species (or kinds) did not survive the Flood.

What about carbon-14 dating? Radiometric dating has been shown (RATE Project, etc.) to be alarmingly inconsistent. Some objects have been dated by different labs at anywhere from 50 to 50 million years old. "Erratics", dates out of sequence, are routinely discarded. Catastrophic events have been shown to affect the balance of isotopes (C-14 to C-16 ratios, for instance). The traditional YEC's, on the other hand, adhere rigidly to dating established by Bishop Ussher from Biblical genealogies. They think (see ICR.org) the linkages in "Genesis" from Adam to Abraham are inclusive and admit of less than 2,000 years. Abraham was born about 2,100 B.C. Thus they date creation at about 4,004 B.C. I believe it to thave been at least ten-thousand years before that date. I cannot logically defend that hypothesis; the traditionalists might accuse me of ignoring the Bible's authority. I still strongly believe in young-earth creation by God. Ex nihilo!--Daniel Moore

Algis Budrys

2008-10-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

I just heard about Budrys' death (June 8 or 9?), three months after the fact. He started writing in the early Fifties. He had been been praised by Blish and Knight early in his career and by many others later. His style was clean and flexible, poetic when necessary; his dialogue was great; and his characterization and plotting beyond reproach. He made you think about what he wrote; he made you ponder the ideas and situations he showed you. Not all writers have this reflective quality. Many writers are evocative, operating at an emotional level (if that). A few convey images and feelings and make you wonder about their convictions. Budrys' signature novels, such as The Death Machine (aka Rogue Moon), Who?, and Some Will Not Die have this quality: they get under your skin and stay there. He wrote many excellent stories and was also a perceptive and influential critic. His short fiction and criticism cry out for comprehensive collections. He wrote ten novels, mostly published in paperback; several have never been reprinted. An omnibus of his best novels would be nice. I remember one of his critical columns in a sceince-fiction magazine from the Eighties. He was discussing one of the middle novels in Gene Wolfe's magnum opus The Book of the New Sun. He said he could usually look behind the scenes and see how the author was getting the effects the reader perceived. In Wolfe's case, Budrys said he had no idea how Wolfe was doing it! He called Wolfe a magician.

Budrys was Lithuanian, from an important political family. They fled to the U.S. after the Soviets took over, and Algirdas Jonas Budrys (his name translates approximately as "Gordon John Sentinel"--Damon Knight says it was adopted) was raised and educated in America. He worked in magazine and book publishing and advertising and taught writing. He was largely unknown outside the speculative fiction genre, and unsung. He deserves at least a symphony.--Dan Moore

Probable cause

2008-09-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since I've posted. . . . Hope you junkies aren't yelling, "I'll be danned, where is he?" Ha ha. Neal Adams' ideas on our expanding planet have given me pause (to follow the debate, go to the s8int.com blog). His premise is that Earth has expanded, forcing the original land mass apart and forming continents and crustal plates. Apparently gravity has also increased. My question is: where did the additional mass come from? Adams invokes "pair production", which, if I understand it at all, involves photons hitting nuclei and producing electron-positron pairs, which annihilate to release energy. Conservation applies. I don't buy it. God creates; man converts.

What I want to discuss is the cause of the Deluge event. This event and its aftermath is the most important thing that has ever happened to us and our planet. The ultimate cause, of course, is God. His dismay at the depravity of man and the fallen angels led Him to initiate our destruction. His love for us gave Noah and his family a chance to try again. The question is: was the mechanism of the cataclysm internal or external? That is, did God activate something on or in the Earth or did the impetus for destruction come from outside? Traditional creationist models, some of them quite ingenious, center on an internal cause. I cannot accept these. Overhead oceans collapsing onto the surface ("vapor canopy") and other absurdities would seem to invoke such special circumstances that we might as well quit and just say, "God did it." Allan and Delair and many others agree that an external cause makes much more sense. As I said in a previous post, why would God create a damaged, chaotic Solar System and call it good? I believe God made Planet Five--Phaeton--explode, thus bombarding many of the planets, specifically Earth. The remnants of Phaeton are the Asteroid Belt; the rest hit the other planets or escaped into space. A fifty-mile-diameter chunk of Phaeton hitting the ocean with sufficient force could penetrate the crust and raise tsunamis up to 10,000 feet high. A number of bolides this big or bigger would break the crust and swanp the continents, at the least. Allan, Delair, and others think that a supernova explosion relatively close to the Solar System blew super-dense chunks through our system and adversely affected the Earth and other planets. Tom Van Flandern's exploding planet hypothesis (EPH) makes more sense to me. Occam's Razor applies, I think. God does as He pleases, but He doesn't seem to complicate things unnecessarily.--Dan Moore

Terra ex nihilo

2008-09-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

Genesis is the first book of the Bible. It details God's creation of the Earth and all the life on it. A literal understanding of this book is essential for Christians; I am also convinced that a correct understanding of the book is necessary to understand our planet and its history. After God finished creation, He is reported to have said, "It is good." I take this to mean that the Earth--and the Solar System--were created in a relative state of perfection, at least before the Fall of Man and, later, the Deluge event. What I have to say now will probably alienate half of my readers (both of them). I believe God made the Earth with an un-fractured crust (no tectonic plates) and no vulcanism or seismic activity; with an upright axis (no inclination) and a circular orbit; and, therefore, with a climate defined mostly by latitude. Man lived with all the animals and plants ever created, including the dinosaurs. Though it was a golden age in one sense, man's increasing wickedness and the direct involvement of fallen angels caused God to initiate the Cataclysm, which altered the face of the planet and nearly killed all living things.

Much of the rest of the Solar System was damaged at the same time. Mars and Venus were heavily damaged and nearly destroyed. Both were, I believe, habitable--and, indeed, were inhabited by us. Why would God create a planetary system so damaged and disrupted? What we see now is the result of our sin, our turning away from God. It's not what He made for us originally. Why would He?--Dan Moore

As I Please

2008-09-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Dan. I'm a reading junkie. I get panicky if I don't have books around me. I read constantly. My wife tells me I would rather read than talk to her. . . . My office has two desks, a filing cabinet, a daybed, eleven bookshelves, and over a thousand books, not to mention the books in other parts of the house. To his credit, our ABCD (American Border Collie dog), Corey, prefers my office. When I travel, even to the store, I take a book. I had trouble learning to read when I was young. My mother would sit with me after school and we would practice with the latest issue of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. The adventures of Donald Duck and his nephews and Uncle Scrooge always used new words in every story and didn't talk down to kids. I still love the Disney characters. When I was 11 I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs and my lifelong infatuation with fantasy began. When I was 12 I started buying Ace "Doubles" and reading Andre Norton and John Brunner. Reading is nearly as essential to me as breathing.

When I was 13 my parents bought Merriam Webster's Second International Dictionary (like Nero Wolfe, I prefer it over the third edition), and my addiction blossomed on this heady fertilizer. I began reading this great tome like a novel, page by page. I was permanently drunk on words. I discovered I could manipulate them in a way that pleased others. When I was 15 I began writing poems. My family was musical and I sublimated any musical talent I had into poetry. My Celtic genes were expressing themselves. Reality for me became a series of imaginary worlds punctuated by epiphanies. Now in my maturity I am tasked with sharing theophanies with others.

Catastrophe!

2008-09-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

The Bible tells us that a catastrophe altered the Earth greatly, at least until the second coming of the Lord. Many other traditions speak of this event. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, says, ". . . the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened . . ." (7:11, NAS). It then rained for 40 days. Before I deal with the cause of the Deluge, its existence must be posited. Aside from the various accounts recorded around the world, which skeptics classify as myth, legend, and folklore (MLF--or, to the establishment, "mostly ludicrous fiction"), physical evidence exists which indicates a worldwide disturbance in the recent past. This includes many deposits of shattered animal and vegetal matter mixed indiscriminately and often forced into caves, fissures, and ravines. Broken skeletons of whales are found on mountaintops; other unlikely scenes abound. Evidence of enormous wave action is everywhere. Temperate and tropical remains found near the poles and the remains of buildings found under water demonstrate a great derangement of the crust of the Earth. Allan and Delair, in their heavily documented book Cataclysm!, provide copious reports of an event that altered the surface of the Earth, extinguished almost all life, inclined the axis of our planet, and fractured its crust. A "nuclear winter" scenario followed unprecedented, worldwide vulcanism, and the first (and only) ice age was born. These "Oxbridge" authors claim that almost all evidence of widespread glaciation could have been caused by titanic tsunamis and super-hurricane winds.

Protohistory

2008-09-15T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well, by popular request, here is the first of many posts on my hypothesis of human provenience. [Pardon the alliteration; I believe it may be genetic . . . or perhaps due to birth trauma; 45 years of scribbling poems on yellow legal pads doesn't help!] This should get rid of my readers (both of you). . . . I believe that the earth and its attendant universe was created recently, perhaps 20,000 years ago. This makes me a young-earth creationist. I differ from most other YEC's (that's pronounced yekk!), such as the doctors Morris, Ken Ham, etc. (for whom I have great respect), in that I do not follow Bishop Ussher's creation date of 4,004 B. C. I think a slightly longer span of time is required. To you firebreathing evolutionists, a difference of a few thousand years can hardly matter. About 12,000 years ago, God caused Planet Five (Phaeton), located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, to explode. The resultant planetary shrapnel wreaked havoc throughout the Solar System. Uranus was knocked on its side; Mars was hit so hard that half its crust and most of its atmosphere and water were blown away; Venus (quite possibly habitable) had its rotation reversed and was mostly resurfaced with lava; and Earth was swept by enormous waves, had its axis of rotation altered, and its geography greatly re-arranged. This event is remembered as the Deluge. Cultures around the world (400+) have stories about the ending of the previous age. The history of our planet can be divided into two periods: Protohistory (antediluvian) and history (postdiluvian). The term "prehistory" refers, in uniformatarian jargon, to the advent of writing. I believe writing has existed almost since the creation of man, so this term is useless. All geological ages, epochs, etc. are fictions of unformatarian science. Catastrophism, by its nature, is anathema to most geologists and biologists, indeed, to most scientists of any sort. More anon. Ex nihilo!

Blogosphere

2008-09-14T01:16:00.000-07:00

A friend who blogs tells me I'm a little stiff in my blogging. I guess I have to choose between being George Orwell and Ann Coulter. That is, am I writing for posterity or for entertainment? Is there a happy medium? Or does she drink? I have my own voice when I write poetry . . . which took quite a bit of writing to develop. I'll just have to keep journalling for my imaginary audience and see what happens. I just watched a trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still. The new version is coming out in December. Speaking of stiffs, Keanu Reeves plays the emissary from wherever. My son, Tom, who is a good actor, tells me Reeves is a stiff and can't act. I think he just underplays. There are so many people out there chewing on the scenery that subtlety seems foreign. Besides, you can't argue with megabucks.

Stiffs aside, is it possible to be Christian and get into science fiction? I started reading sf and fantasy when I was 12. I have always had a soft spot for the stuff. My father, and others, told me it was a soft spot in my head. By the time I was 17, I had over a thousand paperbacks and magazines, all sf (please don't use the abomination "sci-fi"). I was a science-fiction nerd. I am going to advance the notion that science fiction and Christianity are antithetical (is that the sound of sawing I hear behind me?). Here's why: Sf is predicated on the premise that Man is perfectable, that he has what he needs within him to solve his problems. Science is man's savior; progress is nearly infinite. Evolution is a fact. Christianity teaches us that God created us--and the world--in a state of perfection, but that we are rebellious, hence fallen. He gave us free will, so we could choose Him, or rely on our own efforts to overcome our problems, our fallen nature. God created the universe and all living things in it; we have not evolved but have actually regressed from our initial perfection. Only relationship with Him can save us. So, I have problems with the underlying ethos of science fiction, no matter how much I love the stuff. Fantasy is a different matter. Some of it is, indeed, non-Christian--paganism is so much more fun. Tolkien wrote from a Christian perspective, though The Lord of the Rings has some strange elements in it. At least it's not anti-Christian. I love it. I'm looking forward to The Hobbit flicks. Remember, we were created ex nihilo!

Said-bookisms

2008-09-13T05:29:00.000-07:00

I take the title of this "As I Please" from the great early technical critic of science fiction J. D. Blight (this is my amalgam of James Blish and Damon Knight), who defined it ". . . as the systematic avoidance of the word 'said,' in a misguided search for variety" (pp. 125-127). This is from Blish's The Issue at Hand (as by "William Atheling, Jr."); Blish's other other critical books are More Issues at Hand and The Tale That Wags the God. Damon Knight's great early critical work is In Search of Wonder (3rd ed.). Both men were superb writers and unrelenting, trailblazing technical critics of science fiction. More than one hapless hack quit the field after being dismembered by them. If I refer to them henceforth, it shall be collectively (and lovingly) as "J. D. Blight". By the way, if I mention obscure or out-of-print books, go to your public library and look for them! Amazon.com or other online booksellers often have amazingly cheap and good used books--try them. To return to said-bookisms . . . they are also known as speech-tags. There are only a limited number of legitimate verbs that can be substituted for said: whispered, shouted, yelled, etc. The rest, including such favorites as snapped and grated, make the speaker sound as though he's communicating from the zoo at feeeding time. Even worse are the adverbs appended to these clinkers: "A shining example," he smiled sunnily. Another oft-abused example: "Where are you going?" he asked. If there is a question mark, this verb is not needed. Said is fine. Speech tags are really only needed to differentiate speakers, so the reader knows who is saying what. Let your context indicate inflection, intonation, and emotional states. Otherwise, you are repeating yourself.

The above diatribe concerns an aspect of style. Content and style are, or should be, inseparable. Writers, unfortunately, reflect the molar splitting or schizophrenic duality of this fallen world. Thought and feeling are sundered; form and content are wrenched awry. We get popular novels that are travelogues or heavily-researched compilations. At the other end of the spectrum, though rarer, we suffer through stylistic confections so idiosyncratic as to be unintelligible to the average reader (often produced by university writers). The infrequent book in which style and content blend seamlessly is a jewel, flashing from its facets and refracting from its hidden heart. My favorite example is an early novel by the English novelist Susan Hill, The Bird of Night. I find the novel flawless and highly moving; I could not imagine changing a word. It shows us a great, though schizophrenic, poet, Francis Croft, through the eyes of his companion, the Egyptologist Harvey Lawson. Harvey's language is precise and descriptive, if a touch pedantic, as we watch Francis phase in and out of creativity and madness. Perhaps this novel affected me profoundly because I am a poet. Another work about a poet which melds style and substance perfectly, though in a comic vein, is Anthony Burgess' Enderby. This is made up of four short novels detailing the lunatic--and very funny--travails of a shy, middle-aged, flatulent English poet. Burgess was one of the most brilliant writers of the 20th century. He should have had a Nobel Prize and much more popularity (more on Mr. Wilson anon). What I'm trying to tell you, people, in my rambling way, is this: You cannot separate how you say something from what you say. It's like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: the very act of measuring a thing changes its value, its measurement. Therefore, speak like a dramatist, observe like a poet, and narrate like a novelist; be economical; and strive for unity. God will honor it, and so will men. Cheeers--Dan

Style

2008-09-12T22:37:00.000-07:00

I am appalled when I troll sites on the Internet at the lack of good style--indeed, at the lack of even basic compositional skills, let alone proofreading. Some of my favorite sites deal with fascinating topics and some are ferociously researched, but many seem to have been written by inept sixth-graders or to have been badly translated from Urdu (not to malign that language or any other; have you heard Persian spoken?--it's lovely). I am vaguely aware of a "trend" in virtual reality and the e-world towards comressed, simplified style. I remember an interview with the imminent fantast Gene Wolfe I read many years ago. It was published in a science-fiction fanzine: Algol, I believe. Wolfe (about whom more in a later post) specified some of the tools any writer needed to communicate with his readers effectively. Among them were a good grasp of English grammar and punctuation. He felt that readers would be repelled by clumsy construction, erratic syntax, and inconsistent punctuation. It erodes a reader's confidence when a writer bungles these basic skills. Here we must differentiate between skill and talent. A good writer is born with--or at least acquires early--the talent that makes him unique. This encompasses musicality, diction, juxtaposition, and many other qualities beyond the scope of this piece. Skill, though, is what the writer learns so he can handle his language clearly and precisely. An English lady had a book called Eats, Shoots and Leaves published a few years ago on the topic of punctuation. It is a hilarious primer on the peculiarities of the marks that organize our words. The point is that these skills can be learned. You should know the rules and traditions of your medium before you begin fracturing them.

Style, then, is a combination of talent and skill that makes a journeyman writer different from all others. A masterful writer is one who is emulated. Gore Vidal wrote an essay many years ago in which he vivisected the top ten bestselling novels of that period. The results were hilarious and horrifying. Some writers have a gift of storytelling, often combined with a great deal of research, that makes them almost compulsively readable. They sometimes sell an astonishing number of books, despite a lack of one or more of the skills I have been discussing. Some of them seem, as I said above, to have been poorly translated from a foreign language. Science fiction and fantasy (to a lesser extent) was rife with these half-literate storytellers not so long ago. Stylists like Sturgeon, Bradbury, Budrys, and Aldiss were the exception, rather than the rule. To sum all this up: You can learn the skills that will bring your talent to its fullest pitch. Even if the readership is degenerating into electronic Newspeak, you have a duty to express yourself as well as possible. Words live and have power; be wise in their use. Tomorrow: Said-bookisms. Siempre viva!

nineleven

2008-09-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten when I made my first post about the attacks of seven years ago. I was driving to work at a local high school (special ed.) when I heard about the airplane suicide-murder strikes. I remember the same feeling of numb unreality I felt as a student in my high-school classroom when JFK was assassinated . . . going home to watch the TV in shock, desperately wishing for disbelief to descend. It didn't. It is fashionable to attribute the "Islamist" outrages to a small minority of Muslims. Numerically, this is so--thank God. As a Bible-believing, committed Christian, I have to question the co-existence of Islam and Christianity. Most of my fellow believers don't bother, preferring the assumption of a tiny, fractious fraction of Allah's militants. Most Muslims don't bother, either. The shopkeepers and others I come in contact with want only to make a living and get along. The Koran is quite explicit about its options, however: (1) Convert; (2) be a subjugated "citizen"; or (3) die. The leaders of Iran and other Islamic theocracies have no qualms about the subject. To them, Israel does not exist and the USA is the "Great Satan". I do not believe co-existence is in their vocabulary, let alone their game-plan. Jesus abjures us to love our enemies, though they smite us. There is no more difficult teaching in the New Testament.

To continue my introduction of myself: I have been married to the artist (and now psychology student) Gloria Megan for 25 years. We have four children: Michael (31), Thomas (24), Laurel (23), and Timothy (22). Tim, a high-functioning autistic person, still lives with us. Sometimes I wonder if my rampant drug use before I got married contributed to Tim's problems. Questions like this are probably best left to Himself in Heaven. I have been clean and sober since meeting Gloria. Actually I had quit the wild life before meeting Gloria to become a practicing Hindu. Anyone remember Baba Muktananda? It's easy to say he was a slice of Hindu fruitcake, but there is power in such things--and it doesn't come from God I know. After I started chanting "Om namah Shivaya" I didn't need drugs! Siempre viva in Christo Jesus!

anno Domini 2013

2008-09-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

My name is Daniel Moore . . . known to friends as Dan; to family as Danny; to certain others as "fat asshole" (pardon the language; I try hard not to indulge in pejorative language: vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity). As the title of this seminal entry indicates I am both Christian and eccentric. Josh (Yeshua) was born before Herod the Gross burst in 4 B.C., so Zero Dating should add about five years to the current date. This puts paid to the Mayan chiliasts (sorry, Whitley!). There are some interesting reasons to believe His birthday was actually September 29th: hence the ancient observance of "Michaelmas". Dr. John Morris at ICR.org has a fascinating article on this. Then again, the Mayan calendar begins with the year 3113 B.C. (if I remember correctly), so what does this mean?

As to the title of this blog (what an ugly word!) . . . I am a poet (45 years worth) and a generalist or eclectic synthesist (jack of all knowledge, master of none). Apologies to Master Herbert; blushes to Master Heinlein (my maths stop with algebra). I have nearly sixty ae and am retired form teaching high school English and special education. I keep my hand in by hometeaching a few students (Lunatics-R-Us division) at a time. Though born in the District of Columbia, I was raised and still reside in the high desert of SoCal (Land of Fruits, Nuts, and Fakers). We refer to Ciudad de Los Angeles as "Down Below". The implied reference to Hell is not accidental; they should have a large sign over I-5 (north Valley): "Abandon all hope . . ." I am a journeyman poet. In my old age, I am beginning to navigate the creative waters of the vast, undulating swamp of Prose. I will inflict no more poetry on you than necessary. Perhaps I will upload Selected Poems to some virtual annex at some point. . . . Ex nihilo!