The LACK of Virtue of Selfishness

This rant is inspired by the death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman,an actor I have no special feelings about,but whose work I have enjoyed in select films throughout the years. if ya haven't heard he was found dead in his bathroom today and the early reports are saying he killed himself,accidentally,by overdosing on heroin. Having said that,here's my thoughts on this:

I have a very Libertarian view,as such I am almost entirely a live and let live type of person,so long as it fits into the framework of it 'neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg' I don't happen to feel that it's terribly much my concern. I feel like the use of NON-medical drugs (gotta say it that way since somebody took offense to the term "illegal" since it's the government making them illegal) and the abuse of those substances as well as legitimate drugs available by prescription. Drug abuse hasn't broken my leg,per se,but it sure has picked MY pocket and YOURS. Ya wanna say making pot and coke and meth legal would eliminate that? I doubt it. You still have a multitude of issues that come with those substances that legality won't cure. Pot isn't addictive in the same sense as something like heroin but there are chronic (temporally speaking) users and you can't deny that while using it a person is hardly someone you want to be in charge of anything remotely important.

All that being said here's my point;Phillip Seymour Hoffman seems to have died because he was stupid. He thought he could continue to use heroin (early reports are claiming all of this and even if the reports are wrong all you'll have to do is replace Hoffman with someone else's name) with virtually no consequences. He'd been through rehab and even went through a refresher course last year,but it seems that his willpower was nearly non-existent. Hoffman's actions were nothing but SELFISH. Why? The man had three children who now are missing a parent. Did those kids deserve this? Did they ask for it? I say no to the first and highly unlikely to the second.

There are some things that are illegal for good reason,most non-medical use drugs fall into that category. Is it still up to the individual to decide whether to ever use these substances? Yes,but I don't see any contradiction in that view to the view that the government may deem their use illegal and do what they can to keep them out of the country. I tend to believe that Hoffman did this not because he made an informed decision but rather because he was now an addict that felt helpless to resist using heroin. We should use his selfish act to demonstrate how bad an idea use of these substances is,but we probably won't. He'll be remembered as this great actor and the reason we can ONLY remember him will likely be mostly forgotten or swept aside.

Riders of the Constitution and Such

Anybody remember the Winter brothers? They're albino (I shit you not) rockers out of Texas. (Edgar recorded "Frankenstein" but I dunno what else they've done)

Quite a few years ago the brothers got all pissy and moany about a really great comicbook that had been published. The title,"Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such" was set in the old west and had a mystical tone to it. the particular storyline featured an albino duo that were brothers and evil dabblers in the dark arts. Well the Winter's caught wind of his and sued the publisher (DC Comics) the artist (Tim Truman) and the writer (Joe R. Lansdale).
Why they sued (in my persona opinion) boils down to being thin-skinned,they either don't understand the concept of parody or thought they'd make money off of this,I don't know which.

I bring this up because that crappy film that the Arab world is using as their excuse to murder Americans is the same kind of deal. I don't think the Coptic Christian that came up with it meant it as anything other than a way to paint Islam in bad light (and it was mighty kind of Islamists to help him with that),but he's allowed to make the dumb thing anyway because the First Amendment allows for things like parody,which is ultimately what this thing ends up being due to how over the top it and generally poorly made it seems to be. The movie has had some Liberals going on about how the law does not protect your right to yell fire in a crowded theatre but I don't see this as being the same thing. Maybe if he made the film after the Libyans murdered our people then the argument could be made but even then I think it would still be parody because his film is ultimately a work of fiction and not a documentary piece in which a viewer has an expectation of the unvarnished truth or that the information being presented is genuinely factual. Ever wonder why Michael Moore is referred to as a "filmmaker" and not a "documentarian"?

Mind you I'm not all defending the Libyan murderers or even Islam and their Prophet who's so powerful that his people have to defend him against the slightest insult 24/7,I'm just saying that the asshole that made the movie had the right to do so. We as Americans also have the right to say that his movie is,moronic and that he's not helping matters any,but it's still his right and I'll defend that right,if not the actual idiot exercising his right.

Fortunately in the case I cited at the beginning of this blog post nobody was killed because the Winter's got their noses all out of joint. They had a nice little lawsuit and DC Comics and Lansdale and Truman won (as they should have) because they showed that their work was intended to parodize the Winters' and other musicians as well as,to a degree,the Western genre. If anything Lansdale and Truman,who are also musicians,meant for the characters that got the attention of the Winters to be a tribute rather than an attack.

My ultimate point here is that the Winters had no case to say they were being maliciously attacked or maligned by the comicbook and neither does the Muslim community in the case of this recent movie.
In both cases the offended party has come away looking far worse off than the the things that offended them would have made them look.

Maybe those Muslims need to read some Jonah Hex comics?

http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/jonah-hex/

Always Remember,Never Forget! 9/11

11 years ago today I was still sleeping at around this time. Indiana had not yet been forced to recognize DST so it was still before 8:00 A.M. for us.
Ellen and I were anticipating an enjoyable day constituting a visit from my mother. Our daughter was just a little girl then,only 2 years old and  was asleep still when the attacks began.
Ellen roused me to have me watch the news,she was shocked that some kind of plane seemed to have struck one of the twin towers. We,like NBC in that moment were just a little surprised and were treating it like it was a novelty almost. It wasn't. We just didn't understand yet what had happened.

We continued to watch the news and wait for Mom's arrival and the the worst happened,the second plane smashed into the other tower. It was a moment to surreal to fully grasp.
After this the news just got more terrible and confusing. How could this happen? It's insane to think that two planes could accidentally hit the towers,but of course we did believe that in that moment. I'd like to live in a world where it was the truth,but I don't. The planes hit the towers with deeply malicious intent,they meant to kill and destroy and terrify and demoralize their enemy and they came close to fully succeeding,but ONLY close.

It may seem odd,especially to those without kids,but the worst part of that day for me was getting my sweet little girl out of her bed, She was innocent,she had done nothing at all to encourage these evil men to do this. Neither did any of those in the towers or on board the plane that the passengers bravely battled their captors on only to have them crash it into that field in Pennsylvania. Neither were those in the Pentagon,many of whom were civilians and not members of our armed forces.
They didn't deserve to be killed,many of them also had mothers,daughters,wives. They too were just going about their day. They too loved someone,or were loved by someone,and they too had someone that would be shattered by their death.

Fortunately,no harm came to either myself,or my immediate family (or friends) nor to Madison itself.
My mother visited,we enjoyed one another's company,parted ways,and we tried to make sense of the insensible attacks as we wound down our day. There was no escaping this,even the cable channels devoted to children's programming had already switched to coverage of the attacks as they were unfolding . There was a palpable sense of unease and disquiet throughout the city and there were ludicrously long lines at the gas pumps,including a traffic jam on the bridge over the Ohio River from motorists trying to fill their tanks in Kentucky because of the lower cost.

The terrorist's attacks murdered almost 3,000 people that day. My ramblings here are not designed to dishonor those killed,they're really meant to just serve as a reminder that we all experienced that day,all of us,everywhere. NONE of us came away from that day entirely unchanged,I know I didn't.

Please take a moment today to reflect and remember. Don't treat this as just another day,it's not.

Politics and my (late) Mother

My mom was a Democrat. She's been dead for seven years now so I don't know for sure if she would be a fan of Obama,but she liked Clinton just fine until he was impeached for having extra-marital sex in the Oval Office. She REALLY didn't like that. Mom was a good woman,she was a sweet,compassionate,reasonable well educated and grounded person and I truly,truly lover her and miss her.
Mom was born in the 40's so her being a Democrat seems to have stemmed mostly from JFK (who was more like a classical Republican than modern Democrat). I think JFK was a good man and I think he wouldn't survive in today Democratic party,he wasn't a tool.

I bring this up because of the Chick-Fil-A crapola. I'm not getting into all of that here but I want to go on record with a few things One: Dan Cathy was intentionally taken out of context by CNN about what he actually said to the Baptist Press . CNN has only fanned the flames harder since then (in my opinion).
All Cathy did was answer a question about his faith,that's it. He never said the company won't or doesn't serve or employ someone that fits outside of his definition of traditional marriage. The company's hiring practices aren't based on anyone's sexual orientation.

Anyway,back to my 'point'. My mom was a Democrat but wasn't really Liberal in the sense that you think of it now. She was wholly opposed to abortion,thought food stamps were a terrible thing and felt that only lazy folk used them. I'm not listing my beloved mother's faults here,just laying out who she was in terms of her socio-political views.
So with all of this 'controversy' (manufactured but still a controversy) about same-sex marriage I can't help but wonder if Mom would have been in favor of it. The conclusion I keep coming to is that she probably would be opposed on religious grounds. She wasn't a regular pew-warmer but she did strongly believe in God and held Christian views rooted in her Baptist upbringing,so I can't say that I believe she would have accepted this idea of homosexual persons being allowed to marry. I guess that shows how far to the Left the Dems have drifted (slid) since the day's when my Mom was right there with them on matters of race and war,but I just can't begin to imagine that she'd agree with this.

I 'have' to view these kinds of things through the lens my Mom gave me (my Dad certainly gave me a perspective too but since he and I share a very similar view of many things I don't feel like I 'have' to consider how he feels about this stuff). I don't want to be unable to see the 'compassionate' side of an argument like this so I often use my Mom's views as a filter if I worry that I'm not seeing both sides.
In this argument her view seems to tell me that it's "wrong" (religiously speaking),but I don't agree with what I perceive her view would be.

From the religious perspective this goes against a few Biblical teachings and if we're trying to say that Christians and their many churches should be REQUIRED to accept this and forced to perform marriage ceremonies that outright violate their beliefs then I will fight you tooth and nail. Fortunately this country is founded on Christian principles,but isn't a theocracy. We are free to pursue different ideas and faiths,just so long as they don't harm anyone.
I would include this particular bit of inane bickering over who can be married as being one of those ideas that really doesn't hurt anybody (sorry,feelings don't count).

So here's my way of trying to be compassionate and to try to view this as I think my Mom would: I have no problem with persons of different faiths,nationalities,income brackets,color or GENDER getting married. I don't think we need a law to allow this,we may need to repeal a couple here and there though. I see that as being compassionate but more than that I see it as just being damned human. Mom may not have approved of this but I learned how to see things from a compassionate viewpoint from her.

Kinda funny in a way.
The party my mother identified with is the party that is now the least tolerant and has compassion only for those persons and causes that they can exploit to their own end. Yet here I am,the son of a kind and generous woman that showed great compassion to many but whom probably would not support this particular cause.

The point of all this? For you dear reader,possibly nothing,hopefully a little provoking of thought I suppose,but this was mostly just me writing. This topic was gnawing at me and I needed to explore it and this is a great medium for that.

I'll try for something a little more interesting in my next piece. Probably.

Influences

"No man is an island" Meditation XVII - John Donne

That's an old phrase that seems to have originated from a poem by the above named author in 1624.
Don't think I'm going to get into the works of a 17th century poet,even I don't want to do that.
I use that phrase to set up the fact that I am influenced by some of those persons around me,specifically other writer/bloggers. A lot of what I read is fiction and history,with news writing being a close second,however I do enjoy a little autobiographical writing in the form of the occasional blog. I don't really follow any of them closely,most of them just end up doing what I'm doing here,prattling on about 'blank' issue or 'blank' self indulgent introspective topic. That's not always as bad as it sounds,some folks are really good at it and their writing opens doors of understanding which go on to open other doors of respect and appreciation. Those people are rare but they exist.
At this moment I'm going to prattle on about a couple of them that I happen to know of (like you didn't see that coming,right? lol).

The two bloggers that I admire and find myself to be somewhat (at present at least) influential on my writing style are Wayne Engle and Marla Sink Druzgal.

Wayne Engle is a native of Madison,Indiana which is something I am not and every once in a while still realize. Mr.Engle is retired from the local newspaper the Madison Courier he was a beat reporter for the most part,covered the 'news of the day' stuff,but he wrote a few features that I really enjoyed too.
Presently he's staying busy with his blog Corporal's Corner. He doesn't write 'news' anymore. His focus is on topics of interest to him and,hopefully,his readers.

I happen to know Mr.Engle. We aren't pals,we don't go out for drinks or 'poke' each other endlessly via Facebook,but over the course of a few years we have spoken politely to one another and he's been quite pleasant toward my daughter,always willing to take just a moment to say hi and speak with her. I always appreciate people that will take a moment and speak to kids,especially when they aren't greatly condescending to them.
Just the other day I briefly spoke with him about my writing and he was tremendously supportive of me trying my hand at it. Of course at that time he hadn't seen a single thing I'd written so maybe he'll have different opinion later? lol

What I like about Wayne is that he can give you all the facts of a story but he also manages to convey his feelings on the matter. Sometimes he's a bit obvious but,when he dons a more velvety glove,he's can be subtle and not screamingly obvious. He's speaking as himself and not as some nebulous third party just passing along the facts of a story to those who are taking in his writing.

I aspire to be as professional as Mr.Engle in my writing.

Marla Sink Druzgal is the author of the blog travelingmarla,she's also a riot.
I've had the great pleasure to meet this woman in person and she is an engaging and intelligent conversationalist.
Mrs.Druzgal is one of those persons whose exuberance and energy are not only obvious but also welcoming!
For the most part Mrs.Druzgal writes about places she's been and the people she's met while in those places but,she also has a penchant for capturing a certain mood and energy that allows the reader to more fully immerse themselves in her chosen subject.
Marla is a fellow non-native,she's been here through the month of July accompanying her husband whose job tends to take him to quit a few far flung places (including Vietnam). That this seemingly worldly woman has managed to land in our midst here in Madison is very cool and by her stated admiration and love for Madison she's helped to show that this town has some kind of strange magic that pulls people in and only infrequently releases them.

What I like about Marla is that in her writing she is absolutely unafraid to take the reader on an emotional journey. Hers is NOT the journalistic approach,its alive with color and freedom of thought and the sense that you are with her as she goes about and explores and enjoys her environs. One of her finer qualities,as a writer,is her ability to laugh at herself and her own absurdities. Her blog is full of quite 'awkward' (to say the least) moments that serve to help humanize the experience she's relating and herself.
Not all writers can do that and I see it as a rare gift and it is one that I hope I may possess somewhere inside of myself.

I aspire to be as human as Mrs.Druzgal in my writing.

I have influences upon my writing,I am not an island. I just would like to think that I have particularly GOOD influences. lol

I really do hope that others will read their work and see what I'm talking about.
Good writing doesn't have to be found between the covers of a book,magazine,or newspaper and it doesn't have to be fawned over by critics either. So long as YOU like it and gain something from it that makes it good and isn't that ultimately what a writer wants? Is to have others understand and appreciate his words?


Maybe a paycheck too,but that's a different story.

Introduction and Restart

This is my son. I took this photo myself and I think its pretty good. I entered it into the Open Class at the Jefferson County 4H Fair and did pretty well. I took home the "Sub Category (People) Champion" ribbon and since I took that home last year (with a photo of my daughter!) I feel pretty good about it. :)

So,why share it here? Well beyond the fact I just wanna brag/show off a bit I think the image is pretty indicative of who and where I am in the world. I'm a dad (obviously) and I live in one of the nicest towns around,Madison,Indiana. We sit right on the Ohio River and we're a sleepy little place form the outside but,once ya get a look at what actually goes on around here you see we're actually almost crazily busy somedays.

Who I am is a man that loves his family and has come to a place in his life where I want to try something a bit new and what I am is a guy trying to be a writer.
I started this blog a couple of years ago and kinda lost track of it and put it aside. In the meantime I fell into writing for and about something other than me. Tony Kummer runs a little thing called Madison Indiana Obsever and I kept annoying him with comments and questions on the Observer's Facebook page and ultimately he invited me to write for the Observer with him! After speaking with him I jumped at the chance and have been (semi) consistently writing (blogging) since.

I'm changing this blog a bit,I don't have the stomach for long form political commentating,which is what I thought I'd do when I started this. My new purpose here is to just write about life,mine of course,and with any luck I'll refine my skills as a blogger/writer and find some people out there that think I'm worth reading.
This is a bit of a new beginning and I hope that you'll find "The Ring Of Truth" to your liking.

The Sentinel Of Liberty!

Captain America!

That name may not be familiar to you but if it is you'll understand and if not,well maybe you'll read this and understand my point.



Captain America is a 69yr old superhero character created by the company that went on to become the publisher we now know as Marvel Comics. You can probably infer from his name alone that Cap is a pretty patriotic guy,yeah I know,kinda obvious.

Cap was created during World War II and his origins are pretty straight forward,the character's "real" name is Steve Rogers,a scrawny farmboy who decided to enlist in the U.S. Army in order to help defeat the Nazi threat! Now this being a comicbook origin story you just know there's more to this. Steve was classified as 4-F by the Army doctors that examined him and was deemed as being unfit for service,but some sharp eyed fellows spotted him and offered the chance of a lifetime,the chance to not only serve his country but to serve it as an elite warrior,part of a planned attempt to create Super-Soldiers that would be sent into battle to fight the Nazis in place of our regular forces! One problem though,Steve was the only guy who who could handle the treatments,so the Army made the most of it and gave him the star-spangled suit and shield and a legend is born!



All of that tells you how Cap came to be and to an extent who he is as well and with that out of the way allow me to move on to my main course.



Movie director Joe Johnston,who you MAY know from "Jurassic Park III","Honey I Shrunk Th e Kids",and "The Rocketeer" is the shlub behind the new Captain America movie to be released next summer.

Mr. Johnston is of the opinion that Cap is "jingoistic" and a "flag waving patriot". Now I'll tell you I ma pretty damn familiar with this character and I also happen to be a patriot so you can see where somebody cutting down my favorite characters would end up in my blog!

There is far too much of Mr.Johnston's attitude toward those who lover their country these days. I have been mocked for my love of my country and this,while not directed at me specifically,certainly does the same. Why would Mr. Johnston even take on this project with this character if he felt the character's most obvious and deeply important traits were a flaw that HE has to correct??
The answer is that Mr.Johnston is one who subscribes to the idea that to be Patriotic(at least as an American) is to say that our country can do no wrong and as such it condones ANY act our government may wish to take. Hardly a realistic view. TRUE Patriots will ALWAYS love their country and what it stands for but we will also stand up against the actions that would do harm to our homeland. The Tea Party movement is the example of this,those of us in the movement and who support it are Patriots but patriots who are aware of what our government is doing and hope to call attention to it so that others will see and join us in trying to stop these acts before thay can cause harm to us all. We don't just blindly follow where ever the flag leads us,that would be more akin to Mr. Johnston's view that patriotism and jingoism are virtually one and the same.

I look at the character of Captain America and I see someone who reflects the definition of patriot that I attempted to lay out above. Cap has taken off the star-spangled suit more than once in an effort to demonstrate his disgust at actions taken by the government of the country whom he has sworn to defend so if he were the type of character that Mr Johnston seems so eager to claim that he is I could see his desire to show that he was a good person in spite of putting on the suit and picking up the shield.

I hope that what I'm inferring from the creators of this movie isn't what they mean and that it sin't what the end product will portray but I have my doubts about that.

Captain America is an ICON in the comics world,but unlike Batman,Superman,Wonder Woman,he's the true everyman. He has no special powers,he wasn't born different,he wasn't the heir to a billions of dollars fortune,and he isn't a demi-god nor has he been given any weapons that are imbued with any special powers themselves. Cap is special,more so the character was lucky,Cptain America is very unique because he is a soldier who was fighting for his country! Everyting Cap fights for actually matter to him personally,in short Captain America is not only AN American but he is AMERICA itself,he is strong,steadfast,compassionate and loves FREEDOM and LIBERTY!

Thanks for reading this and God bless America!