This is how an economy works:
Let's say you make a product, and it costs you $5 to make this product and it takes 1 hour to make it. Now when you sell product, you want to be able to cover the cost of production, right? So you don't want to sell the product for $4, because you'll quickly run out of funds to be able to make your product. What would be great is if you could sell it for $10, so you make back the money on the initial cost, plus pay for the cost entire of a second product.
But let's say that your product is awesome and everyone wants one. Demand is high, so you raise your price to $15, because everyone wants one. As a bonus, you're able to streamline production and make two per hour. But after a while sales dip, and demand drops. In fact it drops to almost nothing. When demand was high, you could make 2 per hour and barely get them out fast enough. Now, with demand low, even making 1 per hour causes your product to start piling up on shelves in your garage. So you drop the price to encourage demand again.
Now, a national economy (or a global economy) is a lot more complex that my example, but the principle is essentially the same. Economy is all about supply and demand and the balance between the two. What makes an economy strong is the movement of money: purchasing power. You could also call it spending. A company spends money to make a product. A customer spends money to buy the product.
Ok, so let's broaden our example a bit:
Let's say that I have the materials you need to make your product, and that's why I charge you $5. Now, I'm a bigger company than you and have a lot of customers who want my materials. So my company is making $1,000 per day, but I also have 2 employees that I need to pay by the hour for making my materials. And those employees want to buy your product.
So your money goes to me, but some of my money goes to my employees, and some of their money goes to you when they buy a product.
This is called circulation. The money essential moved in a circle (in varying amounts). On a national scale, this circle is huge and complex, but the principle is the same. People get paid for a product or service, who then pay others for a product or service, and so on and so on.
Now, I could talk about how the strength of the economy is (or should be) proportional to the strength of the middle class or the danger of credit bubbles inflating the economy with borrowed money - and both topics deserve a look - but for now, let's keep it simple and say that a healthy economy is one in which people are spending money.
So what happens when the economy is unhealthy, in what is called a recession (the movement of money slows) or even a depression (the movement of money stops)? People aren't spending during these times, so how does the economy start moving again? Companies drop the price on their goods to encourage demand, but they also have a lot of product on shelves to move before they need to increase production again, so with low demand and high supply they don't need as many employees, especially since employees cost money. So companies start trimming. But those employees need their job to make money, so they can buy stuff, which will get the economy moving again. So without the purchasing power of those employees, demand drops even further, which causes a new round of contraction and more layoffs. It's a downward spiral in dire need of a lifeline.
Enter the government.
The government can help the economy in two ways: first, it can create social works projects to create demand. Infrastructure is a great example. The government decides to fix some roads, and contracts some companies to do the job. Those companies hire workers to fill the demand, and those workers get a paycheck that they use to buy stuff from other companies, and so the economy starts moving.
Second, the government creates social programs to help the truly desperate. When a worker is removed from their job, their ability to contribute to the economy disappears. So the government steps in and assists the worker, providing an unemployment check to the worker until they get back to work again.
But what about cuts? The government is spending a whole bunch of extra money trying to help companies and workers get the economy moving. What else can it do?
Could it lower interest rates. Companies could borrow money at a lower rate, and the infusion of capital will help get their production moving. Except that only affects the supply-side of the economy, and if a company's shelves are full of unbought product, why should it make more? Does having a supply of a thing create a demand for it? Not really.
The economy moves because of spending. If consumers can't or won't spend the government has to spend for them. It's the only way out of a recession.
What worries me is that somehow many policy makers seem to lack this incredibly basic understanding of economy. We're in the middle of a global recession, and the calls for spending cuts have never been louder or more fervent.
Now, I grant you, the government could certainly spend smarter. And I grant you, the government wastes a lot of money. But if the people aren't spending, then the government has to. That's the baseline rule.
That's how an economy works.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Amoris Medicum I
A friend posted a link on facebook: "100 Ways to Flirt With Guys". Number 92 says, "Flirt with someone at a bookstore by slapping the book out of their hands and whispering 'books are word prisons!' Then karate chop the air and saunter away." While I agreed with a couple other friends that this method would totally work on me, it's fairly clear that this is a joke post making fun of the teen girl how-to magazines (I hope so! "Bake him a salad" sounds like a joke, but there are a lot of idiots).
And then a friend (a girl) mentioned how at least these suggestions are better than the line, "can I buy you a drink?"
That line always bothered me too, though I never thought about why until today. And then I realized that it's because that statement is not a pick-up line. Not really.
It's an offer.
Here's how a lot of guys think it works: Guy sees girl at the bar, finds girl attractive. He walks over, asks "Can I buy you a drink?" If the girl says yes, she must be into him. If she says no, then no harm done, move along.
Let's look at it from a different perspective: Girl is seated at the bar, a random guy walks up out of the blue and asks "Can I buy you a drink?" Girl gets creeped out by a stranger trying to ply her with alcohol with the intention of getting her drunk enough to take home.
Guys, if "can I buy you a drink" is your opener, you got problems. Because in my experience, the girl you'd rather take home is the one who'd say "no" to an opener like that.
But like I said, "Can I buy you a drink" is an offer. And there is totally a correct time to use the line: after the two of you are already talking.
Here's the thing: lots of people, men and women, go to bars to meet people. So a strange man walking up to a girl is to be expected, that's how people meet (there are occasions, of course, where it should be perfectly obvious to anyone not blitzed out of their gourd that the girl just wants to be left alone). With a reasonable amount of charisma, confidence, and humor (some combination of at least two of the three) any guy can spark up a conversation with any girl at a bar (notice how I didn't mention how a guy or girl looks? That's because, at least initially, it doesn't matter). That's why the girl went to the bar. Drinking at home is cheaper, safer, and easier to avoid talking with strange men.
So get the girl talking. Have a conversation. Don't mention how she looked so hot that you just had to come over and talk to her. She already knows, because you came over and talked to her. If she is already drinking, wait for her to finish. If she isn't drinking and you are, wait until you finish.
Then, and only then, do you say some variation of, "let me get the next round."
The idea you are trying to present is that you would like to continue talking, over drinks. What you are offering her at that point, is the opportunity to assess you and determine whether she wants the conversation to continue.
That's what I mean when I say "can I buy you a drink" is an offer. It's a poor way to start a conversation, but it's a great way to keep the conversation going.
Girls know within 30 seconds whether or not they want to talk to you and they know within 5 minutes whether or not they might be game for the possibility of more than talking. Be patient, be confident, smile and laugh. Compliment her (or tease her if she's being self-deprecating) when she talks about herself and don't be afraid to brag a little when she asks about you.
If she's told you three things about herself and asked three things about you, she's probably going to let you buy her next round.
And then a friend (a girl) mentioned how at least these suggestions are better than the line, "can I buy you a drink?"
That line always bothered me too, though I never thought about why until today. And then I realized that it's because that statement is not a pick-up line. Not really.
It's an offer.
Here's how a lot of guys think it works: Guy sees girl at the bar, finds girl attractive. He walks over, asks "Can I buy you a drink?" If the girl says yes, she must be into him. If she says no, then no harm done, move along.
Let's look at it from a different perspective: Girl is seated at the bar, a random guy walks up out of the blue and asks "Can I buy you a drink?" Girl gets creeped out by a stranger trying to ply her with alcohol with the intention of getting her drunk enough to take home.
Guys, if "can I buy you a drink" is your opener, you got problems. Because in my experience, the girl you'd rather take home is the one who'd say "no" to an opener like that.
But like I said, "Can I buy you a drink" is an offer. And there is totally a correct time to use the line: after the two of you are already talking.
Here's the thing: lots of people, men and women, go to bars to meet people. So a strange man walking up to a girl is to be expected, that's how people meet (there are occasions, of course, where it should be perfectly obvious to anyone not blitzed out of their gourd that the girl just wants to be left alone). With a reasonable amount of charisma, confidence, and humor (some combination of at least two of the three) any guy can spark up a conversation with any girl at a bar (notice how I didn't mention how a guy or girl looks? That's because, at least initially, it doesn't matter). That's why the girl went to the bar. Drinking at home is cheaper, safer, and easier to avoid talking with strange men.
So get the girl talking. Have a conversation. Don't mention how she looked so hot that you just had to come over and talk to her. She already knows, because you came over and talked to her. If she is already drinking, wait for her to finish. If she isn't drinking and you are, wait until you finish.
Then, and only then, do you say some variation of, "let me get the next round."
The idea you are trying to present is that you would like to continue talking, over drinks. What you are offering her at that point, is the opportunity to assess you and determine whether she wants the conversation to continue.
That's what I mean when I say "can I buy you a drink" is an offer. It's a poor way to start a conversation, but it's a great way to keep the conversation going.
Girls know within 30 seconds whether or not they want to talk to you and they know within 5 minutes whether or not they might be game for the possibility of more than talking. Be patient, be confident, smile and laugh. Compliment her (or tease her if she's being self-deprecating) when she talks about herself and don't be afraid to brag a little when she asks about you.
If she's told you three things about herself and asked three things about you, she's probably going to let you buy her next round.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Cogitata Magnus et Potens
So Oz the Great and Powerful, eh? It's been getting some incredibly mixed reviews, including some that are downright loathing. One review in particular, though, had me scratching my head. (Oh, and by the way, I'll be talking spoilers, but since it's a prequel to the incredibly famous 1939 film if you have a problem get over it.)
A friend linked the review on facebook from Jezebel, an e-magazine about celebrity, sex, and fashion with a decidedly feminist slant (Ok, so really the only articles that I've seen linked to the site have been feminist and I'm judging the entire site by that). The review originally appeared here, though, so I'll source it proper. It's titled "Why 'Oz the Great and Powerful' is a Major Step Back For Witches and Women", written by Elisabeth Rappe.
Now just so we're clear, I'm a feminist. But there were a lot of things about Rappe's review that had me scratching my head.
In the very first paragraph, Rappe writes,
But the real point that bugged me was how disappointed Rappe was that the hero was male. She writes, "as you go through the Oz series, one fact can't help but jump out at you: the feisty, heroic characters of Oz are all women."
It's a prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" (and Hollywood is loving its prequels right now), so exactly how should the gender of the hero not be male? She's also ignoring that in Baum's stories he created ensembles of heroes, written from (usually) one girl's perspective. She's also ignoring that Hollywood decided to make a prequel about what is essentially a minor villain from the 1939 movie.
The Wizard is not a wizard at all. He's pretty much just a blustery con man. And that's before Hollywood got their hands on him. So when Hollywood decides to make a movie where this guy is the central character, how are you supposed to take the movie seriously?
The correct answer is, of course, that you can't. Which is why Sam Raimi was a perfect director for the film. I laughed (and at times outright guffawed) my way through the movie. Sorry, Rappe, but a feminist lament of this film was a waste of your time. There are a few reviews (such as this one) that say that "Oz the Great and Powerful" is essentially family-friendly, Disney version of Raimi's 1992 cult classic "Army of Darkness". The comparison is highly apt.
If your eyes can handle it, go see it in 3D. I saw it in 2D, and from the moments the credits rolled I wished I'd shelled out the extra bucks for 3D. It's a gorgeous movie that never forgets that it's based on the unmatchable 1939 masterpiece, but it also doesn't ever take itself seriously enough to try to match it. There are plenty of nods and cameos to the original, plenty of nods to the books (such as the little china girl), a few subtle twists (such as the barest hint that The Wizard was actually Dorothy's father*), and tons of laughs.
But only if you're going for laughs. The friend I saw it with hated the movie and didn't laugh once, but they also had high expectations for a movie that took itself a bit more seriously. (They also complained that Disney totally setting themselves up for a sequel, at which point I laughed and said MGM already made the sequel in 1939.)
Early on in the film, Oscar (who becomes known as the Wizard) says, "I don't want to be a good man, I want to be a great one!" And then it turns out that in the end (and Glinda says it point blank) he's not a great man, but he is a good one.
I think that idea matches the movie perfectly.
*a lot of people seem to be missing this clue, but it's there, I promise you. If anyone is curious, I'll bring it up in the comments.
A friend linked the review on facebook from Jezebel, an e-magazine about celebrity, sex, and fashion with a decidedly feminist slant (Ok, so really the only articles that I've seen linked to the site have been feminist and I'm judging the entire site by that). The review originally appeared here, though, so I'll source it proper. It's titled "Why 'Oz the Great and Powerful' is a Major Step Back For Witches and Women", written by Elisabeth Rappe.
Now just so we're clear, I'm a feminist. But there were a lot of things about Rappe's review that had me scratching my head.
In the very first paragraph, Rappe writes,
[The Wizard of OZ] is such a massive piece of film iconography that it has become the definitive version of this tale, and outstripped the Baum book itself. It doesn't matter that it’s a loose adaptation of Baum’s work, it is *the* adaptation, and any filmmaker itching to make a more authentic version has their hands permanently tied. The outcry – “How dare you remake The Wizard of Oz!” – would be deafening, no matter how illogical the idea (“Hamlet” can survive a hundred versions, but not the adventures of Dorothy!).Hunh? Apparently it didn't stop Hollywood from making The Wiz in 1978 (with Diana Ross and Dorothy, Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow, and Richard Pryor as The Wiz!). It also apparently doesn't bother the throngs who've seen Wicked (though the book was better). This may seem a tad nitpicky, but the argument that The Wizard of Oz is somehow sacred becomes the jumping off point for the rest of the review and obviously Hollywood does not view Oz (or much of anything, for that matter) as sacred.
But the real point that bugged me was how disappointed Rappe was that the hero was male. She writes, "as you go through the Oz series, one fact can't help but jump out at you: the feisty, heroic characters of Oz are all women."
It's a prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" (and Hollywood is loving its prequels right now), so exactly how should the gender of the hero not be male? She's also ignoring that in Baum's stories he created ensembles of heroes, written from (usually) one girl's perspective. She's also ignoring that Hollywood decided to make a prequel about what is essentially a minor villain from the 1939 movie.
The Wizard is not a wizard at all. He's pretty much just a blustery con man. And that's before Hollywood got their hands on him. So when Hollywood decides to make a movie where this guy is the central character, how are you supposed to take the movie seriously?
The correct answer is, of course, that you can't. Which is why Sam Raimi was a perfect director for the film. I laughed (and at times outright guffawed) my way through the movie. Sorry, Rappe, but a feminist lament of this film was a waste of your time. There are a few reviews (such as this one) that say that "Oz the Great and Powerful" is essentially family-friendly, Disney version of Raimi's 1992 cult classic "Army of Darkness". The comparison is highly apt.
If your eyes can handle it, go see it in 3D. I saw it in 2D, and from the moments the credits rolled I wished I'd shelled out the extra bucks for 3D. It's a gorgeous movie that never forgets that it's based on the unmatchable 1939 masterpiece, but it also doesn't ever take itself seriously enough to try to match it. There are plenty of nods and cameos to the original, plenty of nods to the books (such as the little china girl), a few subtle twists (such as the barest hint that The Wizard was actually Dorothy's father*), and tons of laughs.
But only if you're going for laughs. The friend I saw it with hated the movie and didn't laugh once, but they also had high expectations for a movie that took itself a bit more seriously. (They also complained that Disney totally setting themselves up for a sequel, at which point I laughed and said MGM already made the sequel in 1939.)
Early on in the film, Oscar (who becomes known as the Wizard) says, "I don't want to be a good man, I want to be a great one!" And then it turns out that in the end (and Glinda says it point blank) he's not a great man, but he is a good one.
I think that idea matches the movie perfectly.
*a lot of people seem to be missing this clue, but it's there, I promise you. If anyone is curious, I'll bring it up in the comments.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Solummodo Rerum. Et logica.
Well the gun-control debate has been spiraling into the same mess of soundbites and memes as any other political discussion. Now there's a growing discussion that the Sandy Hook massacre is a hoax, and meanwhile everyone is trying to find statistics that support their point of view. Such as the FBI report that violent crime decrease in 2011 by almost 4%, following a five year trend demonstrated by this graph:
What the graph says is that nationwide, a little over 1.2million violent crimes were committed in 2011. Many pro-gun websites are using this report, along with a report of increased gun sales, to demonstrate that violent crime dropped because more people are carrying weapons. Their preferred soundbite: "More guns equals less crime."
The problem with that soundbite is that it is not necessarily true. For one thing, the report on gun sales is actually a report on background checks. Given the variety of reasons a background check may be called for (and the possibility that some people may fail their background check) it's actually incredibly difficult to determine how gun sales are doing.
It's also incredibly difficult to determine the effect gun sales have on crime. I couldn't find a website that showed the statistics on that, which isn't surprising given how difficult it is. You'd have to display crime statistics by region and match it with gun sales data for the same region in order to get anything resembling an accurate picture. And that still wouldn't be proof that more guns equal less crime because we don't have any way of knowing how many crimes would have been committed if there were less guns.
Here are some actual facts, that I think bear mentioning:
What do all these figures mean? Not much, besides the fact that guns are dangerous. How do these figures relate to the gun-control debate? I'm not sure they do. I'm not sure any facts relate. Because at the heart of things the gun-control debate is entire subjective. One side says "I feel safer with guns around" and the other side says "I feel less safe."
Here's what doing all this research has taught me: More guns do not equal less crime, and there's a chance that if you own a gun it will be used against another person.
The problem with that soundbite is that it is not necessarily true. For one thing, the report on gun sales is actually a report on background checks. Given the variety of reasons a background check may be called for (and the possibility that some people may fail their background check) it's actually incredibly difficult to determine how gun sales are doing.
It's also incredibly difficult to determine the effect gun sales have on crime. I couldn't find a website that showed the statistics on that, which isn't surprising given how difficult it is. You'd have to display crime statistics by region and match it with gun sales data for the same region in order to get anything resembling an accurate picture. And that still wouldn't be proof that more guns equal less crime because we don't have any way of knowing how many crimes would have been committed if there were less guns.
Here are some actual facts, that I think bear mentioning:
- According to a 2007 Small Arms Survey, The rate of private gun ownership in the United States is 88.8 firearms per 100 people, ranking them number 1 out of 178 countries for private gun ownership and private gun ownership per 100 people.
- There are 51,438 are retail gun stores and only 36,569 grocery stores and 14,098 MacDonald's restaurants in the U.S. It's statistically easier to buy a gun than a Big Mac or groceries.
- According to Fatal and non-Fatal Injury data by the CDC, over the 5 year period between 2006 and 2010, the number deaths and injuries during an assault where a gun was involved hasn't moved much. In 2006 65,539 people were killed or injured by a gun during an assault, while in 2010 the number was 64,816. While that seems to show a downward trend, in 2008 there were 68,805 people killed or injured, so not really. The number of homicides by a gun are close to 2/3 of all homicides.
- Also according to data by the CDC during the same time period, the number of dead or injured due to suicide or intentional self harm from a gun increased each year, from 20,073 in 2006 to 24,035 in 2010. One of those fatalities in 2010 was a child under the age of 10. The number of suicides by a gun are just about half of all suicides.
- Unintentional fatalities or injuries from a gun during that same period trended upwards from 15,540 in 2006 to 19,396 in 2009, though the numbers dropped to 15,019 in 2010.
What do all these figures mean? Not much, besides the fact that guns are dangerous. How do these figures relate to the gun-control debate? I'm not sure they do. I'm not sure any facts relate. Because at the heart of things the gun-control debate is entire subjective. One side says "I feel safer with guns around" and the other side says "I feel less safe."
Here's what doing all this research has taught me: More guns do not equal less crime, and there's a chance that if you own a gun it will be used against another person.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Et Scripsi Super Murus
It's 2013! Wow, time is flying. A lot's been going on, and there's a lot still to come.
Before we get too crazy about things to come though, I wanted to share about what's going on.
#1. Rue
Rue is a stand-alone graphic novel I co-wrote with Marcel Losada, James Ninness, and Joe Pezzula. This book originally came about because we wanted to have something to showcase our work at conventions. We were going to partner up with Forbidden Panel to put out a book and create some buzz. They are some good people and the collaborative effort of comic book-making is all about networking and so it was win-win.
Or so we thought. After we crafted our spaghetti-western inspired story, the artist dropped the project because he felt some of the content went against his religious beliefs. The violence was okay, but he had a problem with (*spoiler/disclaimer alert) nudity. I know, I know, it seems hypocritical. But consider that one of the most heinous and torturous forms of capital punishment ever invented has become the most famous religious icon in the world. Nailing a person to a board and watching them suffocate to death? Awesome! Let's wear a picture of that around our necks. Boobies? Keep those sinful images away!
Sorry. Rant's over. And I want to be clear that the people at Forbidden Panel are awesome, and I'd totally work with them. Just not with that artist. That bridge was burned.
Anyway. So we lost the artist and missed the opportunity to get our book out for conventions. But we felt we'd crafted a fun revenge story and didn't want to give up on it. So we decided to produce it ourselves.
Enter Scott Irwin. We found him through a different project we're working on (more on that in a few weeks), and realized he was perfect. So we put our heads together, scraped up some funds to pay him, and got thirty great pages of story.
Then Shannon Forrey put together the design of the book and Ben Glibert took care of the lettering, and now the book is done and available.
Yep. I said available. We decided against printing the book and instead made it available digitally. It saved our butts on production costs and also allowed it to be available to readers for $1.50.
James was already putting together his website to sell his own books, and graciously offered to host our group project as well.
I'm proud of this book. Do yourself a favor a pick-up Rue.
#2. The Get Up
Some of you may remember, a little less than a year ago, a kickstarter campaign for this series. It's a four-issue comic book written by me, James, Joe, and Marcel with art by Chris Burkheart, ink washes by James Hiralez, design by Shannon, and letters by Ben.
Well, the kickstarter was successful and we got the pitch done.
The Get Up is a fun sci-fi romp across the universe and it's still looking for a home. Hopefully as the year goes on I'll have some good news about it.
I really want to share this story with you.
#3 Con Jure
Con Jure is another book I really hope I get to share with you. Our kickstarter for The Get Up was successful enough that we were able to put together the funds to pitch this book as well. The usual suspects all worked on this book, but the art this time the artist is the incredibly talented Joel Gomez.
Joel knocked it out of the park. We wanted to do a crime book set in a world as contemporary as the real one, except that the driving force behind technology was magic instead of science. (Con Jure, get it? Because in Latin it means "against the law" and it's a crime book with magic and oh nevermind)
The pitch for this book is done as well, and we're hoping to find a home for this gritty four-issue story soon as well. I'll keep you posted. Trust me.
Before we get too crazy about things to come though, I wanted to share about what's going on.
#1. Rue
Or so we thought. After we crafted our spaghetti-western inspired story, the artist dropped the project because he felt some of the content went against his religious beliefs. The violence was okay, but he had a problem with (*spoiler/disclaimer alert) nudity. I know, I know, it seems hypocritical. But consider that one of the most heinous and torturous forms of capital punishment ever invented has become the most famous religious icon in the world. Nailing a person to a board and watching them suffocate to death? Awesome! Let's wear a picture of that around our necks. Boobies? Keep those sinful images away!
Sorry. Rant's over. And I want to be clear that the people at Forbidden Panel are awesome, and I'd totally work with them. Just not with that artist. That bridge was burned.
Anyway. So we lost the artist and missed the opportunity to get our book out for conventions. But we felt we'd crafted a fun revenge story and didn't want to give up on it. So we decided to produce it ourselves.
Enter Scott Irwin. We found him through a different project we're working on (more on that in a few weeks), and realized he was perfect. So we put our heads together, scraped up some funds to pay him, and got thirty great pages of story.
Then Shannon Forrey put together the design of the book and Ben Glibert took care of the lettering, and now the book is done and available.
Yep. I said available. We decided against printing the book and instead made it available digitally. It saved our butts on production costs and also allowed it to be available to readers for $1.50.
James was already putting together his website to sell his own books, and graciously offered to host our group project as well.
I'm proud of this book. Do yourself a favor a pick-up Rue.
#2. The Get Up
Well, the kickstarter was successful and we got the pitch done.
The Get Up is a fun sci-fi romp across the universe and it's still looking for a home. Hopefully as the year goes on I'll have some good news about it.
I really want to share this story with you.
#3 Con Jure
The pitch for this book is done as well, and we're hoping to find a home for this gritty four-issue story soon as well. I'll keep you posted. Trust me.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Liberos Vivere Nec Mori Durum
On Tuesday, December 11th, 2012, a gunman walks into a mall in Oregon and opened fire with an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon. That same evening at California State University in Fullerton, SWAT teams shut down campus as they look for other gunmen involved in an armed robbery in Moreno Valley.
Today, I walked out of a morning viewing of The Hobbit and find out that a gunman killed some 26 people at an elementary school in Connecticut, 20 of the victims were students.
We have to be doing something wrong, here. Author Neal Stephenson wrote in his book Cryptonomicon a line that stuck with me. The gist of it is that guns may be all well and good for protection or self-preservation, but if the time comes where you need to use it, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I fully anticipate that the gun control debate will flare in a fiery mess of facebook arguing and political soundbites shortly.
A debate? We're having a debate? What the fuck is wrong with us? A person could argue, "It's my 2nd amendment right to own a gun like an AR-15". Hey, they're easy to get, too! Here's a website that shows 10 Brand Name AR-15 rifles for Under 700 bucks!
This gun was designed to be an efficient people-killer. Period. If it's a 2nd Amendment right to own a gun like this, where does the line stop? Should Charlton Heston raise an RPG above his head and yell "Not from my cold, dead hands"? Is a nuclear weapon a 2nd Amendment right? I defy you to argue that what happened in Connecticut wasn't mass destruction.
Since I'm fairly sure that everyone would agree the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee the right to own a nuclear weapon, we can't say that gun-control advocates are all about "taking away people's rights". Make sense? Since we all agree that the right to bear arms doesn't include nuclear weapons, all of us are advocates for weapons-control. The disagreement in the debate is purely a matter of scale. I would encourage ardent defenders of the 2nd Amendment to keep that in mind as they toss their two cents into facebook comments - you don't think that everyone has the right to bear all arms either.
And since we all agree that we have to have at least some control over a citizen's access to weapons, let's try to respect and encourage our lawmakers' difficult decision in finding where the proper line lies between access and control. Should everyone have the right to own a handgun? Or just the people without a felony on their record? Or the people who don't have a mental illness?
Following the shooting in Colorado at the premier of The Dark Knight Rises, a friend on facebook commented that if gun control laws were less rigid then the tragedy wouldn't have happened, that someone in the movie theater would have fired back.
Two things occurred to me when I read that comment. The first is that a statement like that is a complete assumption with no basis of fact. Let's say that someone in the theater was armed and starts firing back at the gunman. And then let's say that the person managed not to hit anyone with "friendly fire" as he tries to take down the gunman. And then let's say that everyone else in the theater understands amidst the cacophony of noise and terror that of the two gunmen only one of them is trying to kill them. Add another innocent bystander with a gun. Does the conflict become easier to understand or more difficult? The answer is that we have no fucking idea and it'd be ludicrous to assume that if there were more people with guns fewer people would have died.
The other thing that occurred to me was actually a quote from Batman Begins, ironically enough. At the end of the movie Jim Gordon is talking to Batman.
And really, that makes sense. These tools were invented to create violence. You can't add more violence-creating tools and somehow come up with a difference. That's just simple math. If a weapon designed to kill is recognized by the symbol "x", and you add another weapon with a similar designation, the equation is x+x=2x. It's impossible for the answer to be zero.
Does that mean I'm an advocate for total gun control? Not a bit. I take our rights and freedoms as Americans very seriously, and don't want them taken away any more than I want to see people take advantage of those rights and freedoms to harm others. The difficulty that lawmakers have is finding how to guarantee the greatest number of rights and freedoms while simultaneously guaranteeing the least amount of danger to others. That's a tough problem, and the answer is not a simple "Let everyone carry a gun" any more than the answer is "Let no one carry a gun".
In the meantime, maybe we should focus quite a bit more on an American culture that somehow takes an otherwise ordinary citizen and turns them into a killer. When people finally snap, they snap hard. And unfortunately, they've been snapping with regularity.
I don't believe it's any one thing that we need to fix and suddenly everything will be fine, but a combination of things that need close and careful scrutiny. Things such as the systemic bullying culture that permeates our schools. Things such as the massive increase in prescribed behavioral drugs. Things such as the disappearance of community. And yes, things such as the ease with which citizens can purchase weapons.
Today, I walked out of a morning viewing of The Hobbit and find out that a gunman killed some 26 people at an elementary school in Connecticut, 20 of the victims were students.
We have to be doing something wrong, here. Author Neal Stephenson wrote in his book Cryptonomicon a line that stuck with me. The gist of it is that guns may be all well and good for protection or self-preservation, but if the time comes where you need to use it, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I fully anticipate that the gun control debate will flare in a fiery mess of facebook arguing and political soundbites shortly.
 |
| AR-15 |
This gun was designed to be an efficient people-killer. Period. If it's a 2nd Amendment right to own a gun like this, where does the line stop? Should Charlton Heston raise an RPG above his head and yell "Not from my cold, dead hands"? Is a nuclear weapon a 2nd Amendment right? I defy you to argue that what happened in Connecticut wasn't mass destruction.
Since I'm fairly sure that everyone would agree the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee the right to own a nuclear weapon, we can't say that gun-control advocates are all about "taking away people's rights". Make sense? Since we all agree that the right to bear arms doesn't include nuclear weapons, all of us are advocates for weapons-control. The disagreement in the debate is purely a matter of scale. I would encourage ardent defenders of the 2nd Amendment to keep that in mind as they toss their two cents into facebook comments - you don't think that everyone has the right to bear all arms either.
And since we all agree that we have to have at least some control over a citizen's access to weapons, let's try to respect and encourage our lawmakers' difficult decision in finding where the proper line lies between access and control. Should everyone have the right to own a handgun? Or just the people without a felony on their record? Or the people who don't have a mental illness?
Following the shooting in Colorado at the premier of The Dark Knight Rises, a friend on facebook commented that if gun control laws were less rigid then the tragedy wouldn't have happened, that someone in the movie theater would have fired back.
Two things occurred to me when I read that comment. The first is that a statement like that is a complete assumption with no basis of fact. Let's say that someone in the theater was armed and starts firing back at the gunman. And then let's say that the person managed not to hit anyone with "friendly fire" as he tries to take down the gunman. And then let's say that everyone else in the theater understands amidst the cacophony of noise and terror that of the two gunmen only one of them is trying to kill them. Add another innocent bystander with a gun. Does the conflict become easier to understand or more difficult? The answer is that we have no fucking idea and it'd be ludicrous to assume that if there were more people with guns fewer people would have died.
The other thing that occurred to me was actually a quote from Batman Begins, ironically enough. At the end of the movie Jim Gordon is talking to Batman.
Jim: What about escalation?...We start carrying semi automatics, they buy automatics, we start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor piercing rounds...Let's say, for a moment, that the States relax their gun-control standards. Suddenly a larger portion of the population owns a gun. Let's say they loosen laws about carrying guns in public or concealment. Will that deter a person (mental problems or no) who is determined to kill a school or a shopping mall or a movie theater over a perceived slight? The idea of escalation says it won't. Not a bit.
And really, that makes sense. These tools were invented to create violence. You can't add more violence-creating tools and somehow come up with a difference. That's just simple math. If a weapon designed to kill is recognized by the symbol "x", and you add another weapon with a similar designation, the equation is x+x=2x. It's impossible for the answer to be zero.
Does that mean I'm an advocate for total gun control? Not a bit. I take our rights and freedoms as Americans very seriously, and don't want them taken away any more than I want to see people take advantage of those rights and freedoms to harm others. The difficulty that lawmakers have is finding how to guarantee the greatest number of rights and freedoms while simultaneously guaranteeing the least amount of danger to others. That's a tough problem, and the answer is not a simple "Let everyone carry a gun" any more than the answer is "Let no one carry a gun".
In the meantime, maybe we should focus quite a bit more on an American culture that somehow takes an otherwise ordinary citizen and turns them into a killer. When people finally snap, they snap hard. And unfortunately, they've been snapping with regularity.
I don't believe it's any one thing that we need to fix and suddenly everything will be fine, but a combination of things that need close and careful scrutiny. Things such as the systemic bullying culture that permeates our schools. Things such as the massive increase in prescribed behavioral drugs. Things such as the disappearance of community. And yes, things such as the ease with which citizens can purchase weapons.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Telam Debitum
The concept of money is a bit strange. So strange, in fact, that most people don't try to understand what it is. I mean why bother? As long as your money rests safely in a bank and you can draw on it when you need to, what's to understand?
Well, the first thing needed to be understood is that your money is not like Harry Potter's stash of gold at Gringotts. You can't just walk into a bank and demand to see your money. They print out an account balance for you. Okay, but that money's got to be stored somewhere, right?
Actually no. When the dollar was pulled off the Gold Standard in the 1970s, your money was made by and out of debt. The very first bankers were goldsmiths. Their vaults were the most secure place in a town, due to the nature of their trade. When other people in the town had gold on hand they wanted to keep safe, they could store it in the goldsmith's vault for safekeeping.
Goldsmiths eventually discovered something interesting: not counting a strange economic disaster where everyone came to collect their gold at once, they only needed 10 percent of their gold on hand to give customers who wanted their deposits back. The rest of it they could loan out.
This eventually came to be known as "fractional reserve lending", where a bank lends out 90% of its deposits. The problem with gold is that there is only so much of it. At a certain point, there will be no more gold to lend. Credit, on the other hand, is limitless.
Check this out: Say you sell a house for $100,000. You deposit this money in your bank, and so the bank has $100,000 on its books. They lend $90,000 to a woman named Mary so she can buy a home from John. John takes that $90,000 and deposits it in the bank as well. So now the bank has $190,000 of deposits on its books. Where did that $90,000 come from? There was only $100,000, but now all of a sudden an extra $90,000 appeared out of thin air.
But wait. Say that Mary pays back her loan. At 6% interest for 15 years, she's paid the bank back plus an extra $46,700. So now $100,000 has become $236,700.
Except it's not, because the bank loaned out 90% of John's $90,000 deposit and magically created $81,000 when it gets deposited back into the bank. Plus, the bank reloans $90,000 from the original $100grand. And so on. And so on.
Do you see the problem? Banks can turn $100,000 into 1 million dollars out of nothing. There is no gold behind that money. There isn't even printed money behind that money. It's all merely ones and zeros on a computer that somehow we've determined has actual value.
This is the system upon which our economy is based. For our economy to grow, our debt has to grow. The problem with debt, however, is that it must be repaid. Go back to that $90,000 loan the bank invented out of nothing. The bank did a little sleight of hand and poof, here's 90 grand. The problem is that working at minimum wage (if you paid no taxes and didn't have to worry about cost of living expenses), that $90,000 is worth more than 12 thousand hours worth of work.
In a debt-based economy, in order for one person to pay down their debt, another person has to increase their debt. Absolutely no work is required to create the debt upon which our economy is based, but excessive work is required to keep our debt-inflated economy afloat. This is a really big, bad problem.
And this problem is even more complex than you think. The Federal Reserve System (which issues Federal Reserve Notes, which you'd call dollars) is the bank of the United States. Except it's not a bank, it's a system of 12 regional banks. And the stock holders of these 12 regional banks are all privately owned banks like Chase, and Bank of America, and Citicorp.
That's right, The Fed is a privately owned banking cartel, not a government agency.
When people mention how deep the government is in debt, who do you think America owes money to? Yep, the Fed.
Yet the problem is even more complex. Banks (yes, the private ones that make up the Federal Reserve) managed to come up with ways to take these loans and package them into derivatives and hedge funds and then make money off of them on the stock market. At least, they did before the first credit bubble - the housing market - popped. There's still a few credit bubbles left to burst, and the popping of only one triggered global recession.
It is vitally important that we understand this because we can't come up with solutions until we first understand the problem. And unfortunately, the solution is not to peg the dollar back onto gold. There isn't enough gold in the world to pay off our debts.
If you want to learn more, I strongly suggest visiting The Public Banking Institute and reading the very excellent book Web of Debt by Ellen Brown.
Well, the first thing needed to be understood is that your money is not like Harry Potter's stash of gold at Gringotts. You can't just walk into a bank and demand to see your money. They print out an account balance for you. Okay, but that money's got to be stored somewhere, right?
Actually no. When the dollar was pulled off the Gold Standard in the 1970s, your money was made by and out of debt. The very first bankers were goldsmiths. Their vaults were the most secure place in a town, due to the nature of their trade. When other people in the town had gold on hand they wanted to keep safe, they could store it in the goldsmith's vault for safekeeping.
Goldsmiths eventually discovered something interesting: not counting a strange economic disaster where everyone came to collect their gold at once, they only needed 10 percent of their gold on hand to give customers who wanted their deposits back. The rest of it they could loan out.
This eventually came to be known as "fractional reserve lending", where a bank lends out 90% of its deposits. The problem with gold is that there is only so much of it. At a certain point, there will be no more gold to lend. Credit, on the other hand, is limitless.
Check this out: Say you sell a house for $100,000. You deposit this money in your bank, and so the bank has $100,000 on its books. They lend $90,000 to a woman named Mary so she can buy a home from John. John takes that $90,000 and deposits it in the bank as well. So now the bank has $190,000 of deposits on its books. Where did that $90,000 come from? There was only $100,000, but now all of a sudden an extra $90,000 appeared out of thin air.
But wait. Say that Mary pays back her loan. At 6% interest for 15 years, she's paid the bank back plus an extra $46,700. So now $100,000 has become $236,700.
Except it's not, because the bank loaned out 90% of John's $90,000 deposit and magically created $81,000 when it gets deposited back into the bank. Plus, the bank reloans $90,000 from the original $100grand. And so on. And so on.
Do you see the problem? Banks can turn $100,000 into 1 million dollars out of nothing. There is no gold behind that money. There isn't even printed money behind that money. It's all merely ones and zeros on a computer that somehow we've determined has actual value.
This is the system upon which our economy is based. For our economy to grow, our debt has to grow. The problem with debt, however, is that it must be repaid. Go back to that $90,000 loan the bank invented out of nothing. The bank did a little sleight of hand and poof, here's 90 grand. The problem is that working at minimum wage (if you paid no taxes and didn't have to worry about cost of living expenses), that $90,000 is worth more than 12 thousand hours worth of work.
In a debt-based economy, in order for one person to pay down their debt, another person has to increase their debt. Absolutely no work is required to create the debt upon which our economy is based, but excessive work is required to keep our debt-inflated economy afloat. This is a really big, bad problem.
And this problem is even more complex than you think. The Federal Reserve System (which issues Federal Reserve Notes, which you'd call dollars) is the bank of the United States. Except it's not a bank, it's a system of 12 regional banks. And the stock holders of these 12 regional banks are all privately owned banks like Chase, and Bank of America, and Citicorp.
That's right, The Fed is a privately owned banking cartel, not a government agency.
When people mention how deep the government is in debt, who do you think America owes money to? Yep, the Fed.
Yet the problem is even more complex. Banks (yes, the private ones that make up the Federal Reserve) managed to come up with ways to take these loans and package them into derivatives and hedge funds and then make money off of them on the stock market. At least, they did before the first credit bubble - the housing market - popped. There's still a few credit bubbles left to burst, and the popping of only one triggered global recession.
It is vitally important that we understand this because we can't come up with solutions until we first understand the problem. And unfortunately, the solution is not to peg the dollar back onto gold. There isn't enough gold in the world to pay off our debts.
If you want to learn more, I strongly suggest visiting The Public Banking Institute and reading the very excellent book Web of Debt by Ellen Brown.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Gentes Testimonium
So on facebook one of the alumni from my high school started an event that was basically a high school reunion for the people that managed to get out of high school and still be a human being. That may sound like a weird statement to make, but then you probably didn't go to my high school. It's an uber-conservative, fundamentalist Christian, private education school tied directly to the church it shares a parking lot with. It was actually a lot like that movie Saved! which came out in 2004.
The event page then exploded, almost immediately, with comments and memories from different survivors, mainly talking about how silly the place was (to put it kindly, in most cases). But then some people started talking about their faith - their personal religious belief system - and started posting their testimonies. For those who don't know, your testimony is basically the story of how your eyes were opened and you accepted Jesus into you heart and blah blah blah.
There were a lot of ways I could've responded, and for the most part I responded with nothing (except once, but I was fairly restrained). And then for a laugh I thought I'd post my testimony, or the story of how my eyes were opened and I saw through all the bullshit. And then I realized the post would be way too long for facebook (and also not very funny), but not, incidentally enough,too long for my blog. I'd posted bits and pieces of this story around the internet in other places, but I don't think I've ever slogged the whole thing down in one gulp. Certainly I haven't done that here.
Before I go on, a little disclaimer: I don't really have a problem with other people's religion. I think it's fine, and in many cases that belief helps people live healthier lives. So if you're a follower of any given religion, please know that this post is not about your belief, nor is it meant to disparage your belief. This is about my belief, and what the hell happened to it.
There were two major events in my life that led to the moment I turned away from Christianity. The first major event started when I was six years old, and lasted approximately six years.
People claiming to be experts in the paranormal state that 3am is "Dead Time", or the hour when supernatural entities are at their most active. In the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose they called 3am the "Devil's Hour" when demons are at their strongest. I strongly believe this to be true, whether it's ghosts or demons or whatever, due to my own experiences.
I guess I'm what you might call a Sensitive. I have a high level of empathy towards people, and will often get weird feelings in various places. When I visited Auschwitz this past month there were several places where I could "feel" the horrors of the place.
Anyway, when I was a kid we moved into a particular house in Santa Ana. I'm fairly sure now that the house was haunted. I say "was" because it seems to have been demolished and a new house built in its place (and I wonder if the haunting was part of the reason for that). Whatever the type of supernatural force that lived there was, it was also evil. Here's what happened:
It was a hot summer night. That kind of sticky hot where you're more likely to kick off the thin sheet you're sleeping under. My bed was situated next to a thin floor-to-ceiling window on my right that looked like it was made out of the bases of yellow glass bottles. About four feet from the foot of my bed was my bedroom door.
That night, I abruptly woke up. Something felt...off. I sit up in bed and check the clock: 3am on the button. I look out my bedroom door and I can see into the next room just across the hall, and I see Something appear. This Something looked human, but slightly transparent and glowing like the ghost of Obi-Wan, except the glow was purple and like the weird glow you see around a black light. It doesn't so much illuminate as it appears to be swallowing light. And the Thing felt evil. When It appeared I felt a sharp chill, like someone dropped a sharp icicle sliver down the center of my backbone and I could feel my hair stand on end.
And then It walked into my room and stood at the foot of my bed, glaring at me.
I was so scared, so terribly afraid. And it felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of me. I tried to call for help, but I could barely gasp out a quiet whisper of a plea - I was that frightened.
The Thing looked over Its shoulder into the room it had appeared in, then back at me. It grinned, and then walked back into the other room and disappeared. Now that Its gaze was no longer directed at me, I felt I could move again. Being the terrified 6-year old I was, I dove under the covers and curled myself into a fetal position.
There was just one problem: because it was a hot summer night, my covers consisted of a thin bed sheet. And because my bed was right next to a window, I could see silhouettes through the sheet. That sharp, icicle chill running down my spinal column still hadn't abated, and when I dove under the covers the feeling intensified.
Suddenly, I see the shadow of a hand, like Thing from The Addams Family "walk" on the pointer- and middle-fingers the side of my bed in front of my face. And then the hand would walk back the other way towards the foot of my bed. Back and forth the hand did this, like it was taunting me to move. I just knew that if I did, the hand would grab me and my life would be over.
So I mouth a prayer to myself, over and over and over. "Please God save me. Please God save me. Please God save me." And I mouth, over and over: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to leave."
In the Bible, the book of Joel 2:32 (chapter and verse) says "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." The book of Romans 10:13 says the same thing. The book of James 4:7 says "Resist the Devil and he will flee." I was taught in church and school that if you believe in Jesus as the son of God and renounce your sin, we can command the devil to leave in Jesus' name and he must obey.
That night presented two possibilities to me: The first was that the Bible was full of shit. The other possibility was that my faith simply wasn't strong enough. I wasn't a true Christian.
Following that dreadful night, for the next six years I became too terrified to fall asleep. That Thing never corporealized in my room again, but every night, without fail, if I fell asleep I would start having a regular dream, and then I would feel that sharp, icicle chill slide down my spine and the dream would...it's hard to explain, but it would darken. If that makes any sense. And then It would appear in my dream, and I knew if I couldn't wake up fast enough, I'd never wake up again. And I would literally kick and thrash my way out of dream-sleep, clawing my way into wakefulness. When I would wake up two things would always be similar about those nights: It was always 3am, and my bedroom door was always open. Even if I shut my bedroom door and made sure it was shut when I would go to bed, if I didn't maintain vigilance and fell asleep, at 3am I would wake from a horrific, terrifying dream and the door would be open.
Six years of self-inflicted insomnia is a hell of thing to do to yourself, even more-so as a six year old kid. I tried talking to my parents about it, but they assured me it was just my (admittedly vivid) imagination and they were only dreams. I tried talking to pastors about it, and they would pray for me or show me all the stupid Bible verses (that never did any good) about how to protect yourself from demonic forces and whatnot.
And because my pastors and teachers made it all sound so easy, that all you needed was belief, I grew up thinking it was all my fault. I didn't have enough belief for God to save me. And I was pretty desperate for someone to save me.
Throughout the years, there were various church services where the pastor would ask if anyone was ready and willing to commit their lives to Jesus. Not every time, but quite often, I would stand or raise my hand or walk to the front (if I could get past my shyness). I think I was the most saved Christian in my class. Well, "saved" being a relative term I guess. Not going to hell after you die doesn't mean much when you go through hell every night while you're still alive.
Eventually, I ending up saving myself. When I was 12, I got into a fight at school. Well, it wasn't much of a fight. A kid was acting stupid, I acted stupid back, and he threw a punch. I remember that it didn't hurt. But that didn't stop my vision from going red. I don't remember what all happened after that, but I know that several kids had to pull me off him because I was straddling his back and beating the back of his head with my fist like it was a nail I could hammer into the ground. I was pretty small and weak at the time (I'm sure six years of insomnia didn't help my growth and development), so I didn't do much damage, thank goodness. But I do know that if those kids hadn't pulled me off him I would've kept swinging my fist until I couldn't raise it anymore. It didn't matter to me if he was alive or dead or if I wasn't hurting him at all or if I was killing him. I just wanted to destroy something.
That kind of rage frightened me badly. I knew I had to get a grip on myself before I really did hurt somebody. But I couldn't get a grip on myself until I got a grip on my nights.
So I did some serious logical analysis (I know, "well duh". Keep in mind I was only 12 at this time). I realized that while I'd been terrorized quite nearly out of my mind for 6 years, I'd never actually been harmed by the Thing. Maybe it couldn't. Maybe it just liked the fear it created. I came up with a term for it, all by myself - I called it a Feeder Demon. I realize I'm not the first person to come up with the term, but the shoe certainly fit. It would create an emotion in somebody and then "eat" the emotion to sustain itself, like a closed-loop parasite. So maybe all I had to do to beat this thing was stop being scared. Easy, right?
I'm not sure what I did, or how I did it, but somehow I managed to take all my emotions - everything this Thing could use to scare me - and locked them away. Fear, Hate, Love, Joy, Anger, Sorrow. All of it. Boxed up and hidden where no one could use it against me.
Not exactly the psychologically healthiest solution, perhaps, but it worked. I started sleeping through the entire night. My bedroom door would still be shut when I'd wake in the morning.
And I never lost my temper.
I started to live like a human being again (a weird emotionless one, true). I started doing better in school. I started to develop physically. And through it all I continued to feed on and regurgitate the extreme right-wing Christian Fundamentalism ("we put the mental in fundamentalism" could've been their logo) being taught to me at church and school.
Fast forward to the end of high school. I've got great grades, I'm accepted into a four-year private University with some kick-ass scholarships, and I'm a Believer. You know the type. I had a Bible verse ready for any situation. I could pray and worship with the best of them. Democrats were godless, Socialist sinners.
And then I go to this private four-year University, and boy-oh-boy was that an eye-opener. For the first time, my education and my religion weren't coming from the same place. Not only that, but my education had many different points of view, many different beliefs. My naive, innocent, virginal Christian self was a bit overwhelmed. It wasn't that I started going crazy in the opposite direction or anything. It was just the first time my beliefs were really being challenged.
And then the second major event that contributed to giving up Christianity as a belief system occurred. A very close friend of mine and I were hanging out, and he decides to come out of the closet to me, and tell me that he finds me incredibly attractive.
And to my eternal shame, my very first thought was, "Oh no, my friend is going to hell." It wasn't gratitude that he trusted me enough to reveal something incredibly personal (and for him, deeply shaming, since he was a Christian as well). It was immediate judgment and condemnation, like a reflex action.
To my credit, my very next thought was, "Holy shit, I'm a dick!" I had no right to make those judgments, the Bible says "Judge not." I had no right to condemn, Jesus charges his followers to live with compassion and acceptance for their neighbors, relatives, and friends. But my upbringing taught me otherwise. Taught isn't even the right word. Brain-washed. That's the word.
And so I started doing my research. Casting off the shrouds of right-wing religious fundamentalism. The Bible was the first to go. There's some value to the book as a manual for moral teachings, but there is so much that it gets wrong, and also, the God of the Old Testament is kind of a prick. The only person who ever really showed me the God of the New Testament was Jesus. All the other books were about teaching me how to believe in and follow the God of the New Testament.
And there's Science and Philosophy and Art, and they taught me more about life and living in four years than my entire K-12 religious schooling. I became, essentially, a deist. And I found myself in very respectable historical company.
That's the story. My heathen testimony. I know some people who keep praying that I'll find my way back to God, but they don't understand that I never left God. I just left them.
There were some amazing psychological repercussions from boxing away all my emotions, but I eventually got past it. I feel like a relatively stable human being now.
I'll still get those sharp, spine-icicle dreams from time to time, but they happen only very rarely any more. I usually wake up from them on my own with no problems (strong flight reflex, how's that for childhood development?), but sometimes a girl I happen to be seeing at the time will shake me awake. After one of those dreams once, a girl told me I was whimpering in my sleep. That sounds about right.
The event page then exploded, almost immediately, with comments and memories from different survivors, mainly talking about how silly the place was (to put it kindly, in most cases). But then some people started talking about their faith - their personal religious belief system - and started posting their testimonies. For those who don't know, your testimony is basically the story of how your eyes were opened and you accepted Jesus into you heart and blah blah blah.
There were a lot of ways I could've responded, and for the most part I responded with nothing (except once, but I was fairly restrained). And then for a laugh I thought I'd post my testimony, or the story of how my eyes were opened and I saw through all the bullshit. And then I realized the post would be way too long for facebook (and also not very funny), but not, incidentally enough,too long for my blog. I'd posted bits and pieces of this story around the internet in other places, but I don't think I've ever slogged the whole thing down in one gulp. Certainly I haven't done that here.
Before I go on, a little disclaimer: I don't really have a problem with other people's religion. I think it's fine, and in many cases that belief helps people live healthier lives. So if you're a follower of any given religion, please know that this post is not about your belief, nor is it meant to disparage your belief. This is about my belief, and what the hell happened to it.
There were two major events in my life that led to the moment I turned away from Christianity. The first major event started when I was six years old, and lasted approximately six years.
People claiming to be experts in the paranormal state that 3am is "Dead Time", or the hour when supernatural entities are at their most active. In the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose they called 3am the "Devil's Hour" when demons are at their strongest. I strongly believe this to be true, whether it's ghosts or demons or whatever, due to my own experiences.
I guess I'm what you might call a Sensitive. I have a high level of empathy towards people, and will often get weird feelings in various places. When I visited Auschwitz this past month there were several places where I could "feel" the horrors of the place.
Anyway, when I was a kid we moved into a particular house in Santa Ana. I'm fairly sure now that the house was haunted. I say "was" because it seems to have been demolished and a new house built in its place (and I wonder if the haunting was part of the reason for that). Whatever the type of supernatural force that lived there was, it was also evil. Here's what happened:
It was a hot summer night. That kind of sticky hot where you're more likely to kick off the thin sheet you're sleeping under. My bed was situated next to a thin floor-to-ceiling window on my right that looked like it was made out of the bases of yellow glass bottles. About four feet from the foot of my bed was my bedroom door.
That night, I abruptly woke up. Something felt...off. I sit up in bed and check the clock: 3am on the button. I look out my bedroom door and I can see into the next room just across the hall, and I see Something appear. This Something looked human, but slightly transparent and glowing like the ghost of Obi-Wan, except the glow was purple and like the weird glow you see around a black light. It doesn't so much illuminate as it appears to be swallowing light. And the Thing felt evil. When It appeared I felt a sharp chill, like someone dropped a sharp icicle sliver down the center of my backbone and I could feel my hair stand on end.
And then It walked into my room and stood at the foot of my bed, glaring at me.
I was so scared, so terribly afraid. And it felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of me. I tried to call for help, but I could barely gasp out a quiet whisper of a plea - I was that frightened.
The Thing looked over Its shoulder into the room it had appeared in, then back at me. It grinned, and then walked back into the other room and disappeared. Now that Its gaze was no longer directed at me, I felt I could move again. Being the terrified 6-year old I was, I dove under the covers and curled myself into a fetal position.
There was just one problem: because it was a hot summer night, my covers consisted of a thin bed sheet. And because my bed was right next to a window, I could see silhouettes through the sheet. That sharp, icicle chill running down my spinal column still hadn't abated, and when I dove under the covers the feeling intensified.
Suddenly, I see the shadow of a hand, like Thing from The Addams Family "walk" on the pointer- and middle-fingers the side of my bed in front of my face. And then the hand would walk back the other way towards the foot of my bed. Back and forth the hand did this, like it was taunting me to move. I just knew that if I did, the hand would grab me and my life would be over.
So I mouth a prayer to myself, over and over and over. "Please God save me. Please God save me. Please God save me." And I mouth, over and over: "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to leave."
In the Bible, the book of Joel 2:32 (chapter and verse) says "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." The book of Romans 10:13 says the same thing. The book of James 4:7 says "Resist the Devil and he will flee." I was taught in church and school that if you believe in Jesus as the son of God and renounce your sin, we can command the devil to leave in Jesus' name and he must obey.
That night presented two possibilities to me: The first was that the Bible was full of shit. The other possibility was that my faith simply wasn't strong enough. I wasn't a true Christian.
Following that dreadful night, for the next six years I became too terrified to fall asleep. That Thing never corporealized in my room again, but every night, without fail, if I fell asleep I would start having a regular dream, and then I would feel that sharp, icicle chill slide down my spine and the dream would...it's hard to explain, but it would darken. If that makes any sense. And then It would appear in my dream, and I knew if I couldn't wake up fast enough, I'd never wake up again. And I would literally kick and thrash my way out of dream-sleep, clawing my way into wakefulness. When I would wake up two things would always be similar about those nights: It was always 3am, and my bedroom door was always open. Even if I shut my bedroom door and made sure it was shut when I would go to bed, if I didn't maintain vigilance and fell asleep, at 3am I would wake from a horrific, terrifying dream and the door would be open.
Six years of self-inflicted insomnia is a hell of thing to do to yourself, even more-so as a six year old kid. I tried talking to my parents about it, but they assured me it was just my (admittedly vivid) imagination and they were only dreams. I tried talking to pastors about it, and they would pray for me or show me all the stupid Bible verses (that never did any good) about how to protect yourself from demonic forces and whatnot.
And because my pastors and teachers made it all sound so easy, that all you needed was belief, I grew up thinking it was all my fault. I didn't have enough belief for God to save me. And I was pretty desperate for someone to save me.
Throughout the years, there were various church services where the pastor would ask if anyone was ready and willing to commit their lives to Jesus. Not every time, but quite often, I would stand or raise my hand or walk to the front (if I could get past my shyness). I think I was the most saved Christian in my class. Well, "saved" being a relative term I guess. Not going to hell after you die doesn't mean much when you go through hell every night while you're still alive.
Eventually, I ending up saving myself. When I was 12, I got into a fight at school. Well, it wasn't much of a fight. A kid was acting stupid, I acted stupid back, and he threw a punch. I remember that it didn't hurt. But that didn't stop my vision from going red. I don't remember what all happened after that, but I know that several kids had to pull me off him because I was straddling his back and beating the back of his head with my fist like it was a nail I could hammer into the ground. I was pretty small and weak at the time (I'm sure six years of insomnia didn't help my growth and development), so I didn't do much damage, thank goodness. But I do know that if those kids hadn't pulled me off him I would've kept swinging my fist until I couldn't raise it anymore. It didn't matter to me if he was alive or dead or if I wasn't hurting him at all or if I was killing him. I just wanted to destroy something.
That kind of rage frightened me badly. I knew I had to get a grip on myself before I really did hurt somebody. But I couldn't get a grip on myself until I got a grip on my nights.
So I did some serious logical analysis (I know, "well duh". Keep in mind I was only 12 at this time). I realized that while I'd been terrorized quite nearly out of my mind for 6 years, I'd never actually been harmed by the Thing. Maybe it couldn't. Maybe it just liked the fear it created. I came up with a term for it, all by myself - I called it a Feeder Demon. I realize I'm not the first person to come up with the term, but the shoe certainly fit. It would create an emotion in somebody and then "eat" the emotion to sustain itself, like a closed-loop parasite. So maybe all I had to do to beat this thing was stop being scared. Easy, right?
I'm not sure what I did, or how I did it, but somehow I managed to take all my emotions - everything this Thing could use to scare me - and locked them away. Fear, Hate, Love, Joy, Anger, Sorrow. All of it. Boxed up and hidden where no one could use it against me.
Not exactly the psychologically healthiest solution, perhaps, but it worked. I started sleeping through the entire night. My bedroom door would still be shut when I'd wake in the morning.
And I never lost my temper.
I started to live like a human being again (a weird emotionless one, true). I started doing better in school. I started to develop physically. And through it all I continued to feed on and regurgitate the extreme right-wing Christian Fundamentalism ("we put the mental in fundamentalism" could've been their logo) being taught to me at church and school.
Fast forward to the end of high school. I've got great grades, I'm accepted into a four-year private University with some kick-ass scholarships, and I'm a Believer. You know the type. I had a Bible verse ready for any situation. I could pray and worship with the best of them. Democrats were godless, Socialist sinners.
And then I go to this private four-year University, and boy-oh-boy was that an eye-opener. For the first time, my education and my religion weren't coming from the same place. Not only that, but my education had many different points of view, many different beliefs. My naive, innocent, virginal Christian self was a bit overwhelmed. It wasn't that I started going crazy in the opposite direction or anything. It was just the first time my beliefs were really being challenged.
And then the second major event that contributed to giving up Christianity as a belief system occurred. A very close friend of mine and I were hanging out, and he decides to come out of the closet to me, and tell me that he finds me incredibly attractive.
And to my eternal shame, my very first thought was, "Oh no, my friend is going to hell." It wasn't gratitude that he trusted me enough to reveal something incredibly personal (and for him, deeply shaming, since he was a Christian as well). It was immediate judgment and condemnation, like a reflex action.
To my credit, my very next thought was, "Holy shit, I'm a dick!" I had no right to make those judgments, the Bible says "Judge not." I had no right to condemn, Jesus charges his followers to live with compassion and acceptance for their neighbors, relatives, and friends. But my upbringing taught me otherwise. Taught isn't even the right word. Brain-washed. That's the word.
And so I started doing my research. Casting off the shrouds of right-wing religious fundamentalism. The Bible was the first to go. There's some value to the book as a manual for moral teachings, but there is so much that it gets wrong, and also, the God of the Old Testament is kind of a prick. The only person who ever really showed me the God of the New Testament was Jesus. All the other books were about teaching me how to believe in and follow the God of the New Testament.
And there's Science and Philosophy and Art, and they taught me more about life and living in four years than my entire K-12 religious schooling. I became, essentially, a deist. And I found myself in very respectable historical company.
That's the story. My heathen testimony. I know some people who keep praying that I'll find my way back to God, but they don't understand that I never left God. I just left them.
There were some amazing psychological repercussions from boxing away all my emotions, but I eventually got past it. I feel like a relatively stable human being now.
I'll still get those sharp, spine-icicle dreams from time to time, but they happen only very rarely any more. I usually wake up from them on my own with no problems (strong flight reflex, how's that for childhood development?), but sometimes a girl I happen to be seeing at the time will shake me awake. After one of those dreams once, a girl told me I was whimpering in my sleep. That sounds about right.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Úvahy o Praha
The last time I went to Europe I was too young to appreciate it, and really it was so long ago I barely remember most of it. I'm not so sure it was a sign of how I've grown when one of my first thoughts upon seeing Prague is, "This city has tons of Vantage Points!"
Once a nerd, always a nerd, I guess. The thought never really left me, but luckily I was drawn into the history, culture, and life of the city such that it wasn't my only thought about the city.
I fell in love with this city. With a good pair of shoes, it's very walkable, but the public transportation is also highly efficient.
It was a medieval city that managed to avoid destruction during World War II so much of its architectural history remains intact. It's become an interesting meld of past and present, with tourist sites and local secrets, and it just felt good to be here.
Another plus about Prague is things run generally cheaper here. A half-liter of beer (if you avoid the touristy pubs) costs between 25 and 40 Czech Crowns, which is less than 2 bucks. The food is also quite delicious, but you should probably be a fan of meat and/or potatoes.
I'm sure there's some down-sides to Prague, but god only knows if I ran into any. Apparently the winters get bitter-fucking cold.
The Fringe Festival showed me a great art scene in the city. The theaters also have a cafe/bar, so when shows end the party can keep going. I've always wanted to be able to pull off my costume, wipe off my make-up, and step outside and immediately have a drink with the people who've sat through a performance. Wish granted!
Prague is quite the smoking city (which isn't really a problem for me), so if you don't like your clothes smelling like cigarettes consider yourself warned.
I'm going to miss Prague. I'm going to miss the wonderful people I met and got to share my week with. I'm going to come back. Soon.
Once a nerd, always a nerd, I guess. The thought never really left me, but luckily I was drawn into the history, culture, and life of the city such that it wasn't my only thought about the city.
It was a medieval city that managed to avoid destruction during World War II so much of its architectural history remains intact. It's become an interesting meld of past and present, with tourist sites and local secrets, and it just felt good to be here.
 |
| There's maybe 12 dollars of beer at our table right now. |
I'm sure there's some down-sides to Prague, but god only knows if I ran into any. Apparently the winters get bitter-fucking cold.
 |
| Winter Prague by Edgar Barany |
Prague is quite the smoking city (which isn't really a problem for me), so if you don't like your clothes smelling like cigarettes consider yourself warned.
 |
| See what I mean about Vantage Points? |
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Aktualizovat z Prahy
Greetings, world, from a different corner of the internet, today!
I'd been hoping to give you an update from Prague a lil' sooner than today, but life is pretty fucking crazy over here. Now that we got our first performance out of the way, however, I'm hoping I can give you a few more updates ere I return to the States.
First things first: the show.
Following our final rehearsal for Venus and Adonis before we left, I felt really confident in our play. We tell a great story, the abstract elements provoke some thought, and the thing moved smoothly. When we got here, though, I started feeling the pressure ramp up. For one thing, there's posters with my face on them posted all over the city. It's a weird feeling, walking around a foreign city and sporadically seeing your face taped on a wall.
Guy Roberts, our host and head of The Prague Shakespeare Festival, has worked his ass off promoting our show. He's a PR machine. He's also, incidentally, a kick-ass individual. But, he'd also never seen the show. He was putting a lot of blind faith in our ability to show up and do something amazing.
The final bit of pressure was that, well, when we originally staged the show I start the play completely naked, facing away from the audience. Through the course of my actions in getting dressed, the audience may get a glimpse of dick. The day before I left, I check the Prague Fringe site, and our show is advertised as having full frontal nudity. Er... So when I meet up with my director in Prague the first thing he says to me is, "So they've been advertising our show as having full frontal nudity." Okay, after he said "hi" it was the first thing. So we changed the start of the show just a bit. When the lights come up, I'm greeting the audience in a pose reminiscent of The Vetruvian Man. It's honestly not too bad (though I guess I can't speak for what the audience thinks). The weirdest part of it all is when the audience walks in, the front of the stage is covered in a plastic sheet we're projecting faces onto. As the play starts, I walk in between the projector and the sheet so my shadow gets thrown on the screen. I hit my pose, Venus rips the screen away, the lights come up, and the show begins. What's weird (and funny, I admit) is my shadow hits the screen at exactly the right height so my penis is in the same spot as the mouths of the projected people. And there I am, a shadow with his arms thrown wide, like I'm getting blow jobs from a whole bunch of random faces.
The really good news is that opening night went really really well. The audience seemed to love it, and we got a pretty kick ass review in The Prague Post. The after-party was a holy fuck-balls avalanche of drinking in a German beer hall that's been around since 1499 followed by a stumbly trip to a vodka bar.
But that also means you might have to wait until later to get a pictoral rundown of the first couple days. It's 3:30 in the afternoon here and I'm still a wee bit hungover.
I'd been hoping to give you an update from Prague a lil' sooner than today, but life is pretty fucking crazy over here. Now that we got our first performance out of the way, however, I'm hoping I can give you a few more updates ere I return to the States.
First things first: the show.
Following our final rehearsal for Venus and Adonis before we left, I felt really confident in our play. We tell a great story, the abstract elements provoke some thought, and the thing moved smoothly. When we got here, though, I started feeling the pressure ramp up. For one thing, there's posters with my face on them posted all over the city. It's a weird feeling, walking around a foreign city and sporadically seeing your face taped on a wall.
Guy Roberts, our host and head of The Prague Shakespeare Festival, has worked his ass off promoting our show. He's a PR machine. He's also, incidentally, a kick-ass individual. But, he'd also never seen the show. He was putting a lot of blind faith in our ability to show up and do something amazing.
The final bit of pressure was that, well, when we originally staged the show I start the play completely naked, facing away from the audience. Through the course of my actions in getting dressed, the audience may get a glimpse of dick. The day before I left, I check the Prague Fringe site, and our show is advertised as having full frontal nudity. Er... So when I meet up with my director in Prague the first thing he says to me is, "So they've been advertising our show as having full frontal nudity." Okay, after he said "hi" it was the first thing. So we changed the start of the show just a bit. When the lights come up, I'm greeting the audience in a pose reminiscent of The Vetruvian Man. It's honestly not too bad (though I guess I can't speak for what the audience thinks). The weirdest part of it all is when the audience walks in, the front of the stage is covered in a plastic sheet we're projecting faces onto. As the play starts, I walk in between the projector and the sheet so my shadow gets thrown on the screen. I hit my pose, Venus rips the screen away, the lights come up, and the show begins. What's weird (and funny, I admit) is my shadow hits the screen at exactly the right height so my penis is in the same spot as the mouths of the projected people. And there I am, a shadow with his arms thrown wide, like I'm getting blow jobs from a whole bunch of random faces.
The really good news is that opening night went really really well. The audience seemed to love it, and we got a pretty kick ass review in The Prague Post. The after-party was a holy fuck-balls avalanche of drinking in a German beer hall that's been around since 1499 followed by a stumbly trip to a vodka bar.
But that also means you might have to wait until later to get a pictoral rundown of the first couple days. It's 3:30 in the afternoon here and I'm still a wee bit hungover.
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