Politics and religion make me cringe a bit

Recently I was reading an article titled 9 signs you may be an intellectually dishonest atheist, by Andy. I’m going to guess it is not the same Andy who knows Buzz and Woody but just a guy named Andy or maybe a woman. Either way no other information about Andy was available. Andy posted his essay of 9 reasons on the site Christian vision. Now those of you who know me are probably asking then how the hell did you find this article. Randomly. One link led to another and then I found it. I don’t have the link back to the original blog but I think the title should be enough to get you there if you are interested. The article beings with a take and a spoiler of a movie. I can relate to this, a lot of lessons in life are in art. I disagree with Andy’s view of the film as it isn’t the only way to look at things occurring in the story but his take on it is certainly valid and one way to explain the events. Essentially the short film review set up the points of the article which is that we delude ourselves or hide from the truth. Andy decided that this applied specifically to atheist because it is for him an opposite view point than his own. I’m landing on that assumption in that Andy is a guy not for any reason other than it will keep things easier in my writing and that he is not an atheist because of where he posted the article. However some of the things he says apply to any point of view and the idea of intellectual dishonesty is the bigger thing being discussed. I have a sneaky suspicion that this idea isn’t really Andy’s idea and he is breaking one of his own points by repeating others ideas, but expanding on a general idea of dishonesty and inserting atheist as the target. The first point is that the intellectually dishonest will only seek out information with which they agree. While I will agree that many people do this but to be cliché a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Anyone who only looks at only one point of view isn’t an intellectual. No matter what the belief hold such a narrow view is dangerous. Andy goes so far as to say if you avoid anything that is contradictory to your own beliefs you are being dishonest. Again I can agree to a point. One of the great things about the internet is that there is easy access to information about anything. One of the worst things about the internet is that there is easy access to information about anything. If you avoid things in your browsing of the internet a lot of the time it is to make it easier to find what you are looking for rather than sifting through an endless sea of stuff and most of which is only regurgitated from something else and doesn’t not add to understanding. Andy uses several of his points to say that if someone disagrees with you they are viewed as stupid, it makes you angry or you are afraid to confront an opposing view. Well Andy sometimes people say really stupid things. I have been known to utter a few. Should we be more gracious, sure however it doesn’t make the stupid thing any less stupid but perhaps the better way to say that is ignorant meaning not informed. Anger, gets a bad rap these days as an emotion, which is really all about how people choose to express their anger not so much anger being a bad thing. Anger serves a purpose which is to change the world. Lots of things make people angry and if you just passively accept things as they are nothing changes and the world stagnates and dies. By the world I mean ideas, logic, reason, intelligence, ect. We do need to learn better ways to express anger but becoming angry about something does not make the person’s point of view less authentic. The last few points that Andy makes in his article are attacking the person with the opposite point of view rather than the idea, and that people don’t really know why they believe what they believe. I agree we don’t know how to argue as a society, by that I mean we don’t know how to disagree without taking it personally. I think this is especially true in the US as opposed to other westernized nations but the rest of the world fails in being able to disagree. Because you disagree with me does not always mean that you are less of a person, less intelligent or less what ever it simply means you have a different idea about something. Like the movie. However Andy’s main target are the atheists and that they hold an opposite view from his own concerning god. However do the masses follow along without a full understanding the why of any idea. Sure, it is easier that way, have someone telling you what to do, what to think is great. The article’s title is really an attack on people who see things differently than Andy it is name calling or designed to belittle while it is a veiled insult it is an insult and was meant to be an insult. I would venture to say that most of what gets tossed around as belief about any topic not just religion / or the lack of religion most people are really only repeating what someone else has told them. In my work teaching there are concepts which I talked about and felt that I understood them and I did well enough to explain them. However, I have developed a deeper understanding of the concepts in the years of teaching and can pass that on to others. The point is intelligence is always growing and just because you are not as well versed as someone else does not preclude you from speaking your mind. However if you are at an impasse in a discussion hopefully you seek out more information from others rather than resort to name calling or attacking the person and not the idea. Sun Tzu and others have said, knowing the enemy (opposing view) is as important as knowing your own strength (own view). I have paraphrased others because Andy says it is not valid to rely on greater minds in making arguments. Usually these are included not because the person doesn’t understand what they are talking about but to show that it is an idea that has lasted and in the case of Sun Tzu for several thousand years. Not that longevity of an idea lends to validity but that there is proof in that idea. The article penned by Andy is built on this corner stone to seek out knowledge to better understand your position and defend it. The thing is that while Andy makes his case that the atheist is the intellectually dishonest person he never once own that the people who share his values are as guilty of the same points he ticks off in disputing the idea of atheism as valid. I would say there are closed minded people out in the world who do not want to see the world in any way but how they were told by other that it should be. One of the rules I try to live by is never discuss religion or politics unless you are paid to do it. You are not likely to change anyone’s mind about and you will only serve to frustrate yourself. We need to learn how to argue and how to disagree or more to the point re-learn these skills and to see that extremes or one way thinking about any belief are bad even for those within the group. Why do you think the major religions are so splintered with sects and all the differing faiths within a religion? There is more that one way to see the world and not everyone is going to agree with your way of thinking. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

My two cent or making it hail on the next Rocky and Bullwinkle

Look around your home, gather up all of the coins you have there, count them up. How much money do you have and what percentage of coins not the amount are pennies. When was the last time you actually spent a penny. How many pennies do you return to the economy or spend as currency compared to the number of other coinage you spend and receive. If you are like most people once you get that penny it is forever removed from the economy and serves no purpose at all. Look in fountains, rivers, streets and land fills and you will find pennies tossed away like so much rubbish. Turn to any DIY site and you will find pennies being used for flooring, lamp shades and various other surfacing material but not for the intended purpose for which they exist, which is to be used in the exchange of goods and services. No one knows exactly how many pennies actually are out in the world but the estimate is two hundred billion. TWO HUNDRED BILLION. The percentage of them used in actual commerce is so low that the US mint has to make millions of pennies to replace the ones that fall out of circulation every year. Millions of new pennies every year. The cost of production for a penny is estimated to be over twice what it is worth, while others will state that it is slightly less than twice. Either way it costs more to make them than they are worth. The division of our currency will always be down to the single cent, and in many cases percentages of a cent. However we don’t have half pennies any longer and as far as I have been able to determine the half penny is the smallest value coin made by our minting. You know why you don’t see half pennies, because we stopped making them. They outlived there function which the penny is well beyond a reasonable lifespan and should be put to rest. The penny is only around in day to day commerce out of nostalgia and serves no purpose. Don’t even say taxes. Our system of collecting taxes from the consumer and seller is misused. I am not saying that we should not pay taxes. We should they serve a valuable function to pay for infrastructure which makes living in a nation this vast workable. However tacking the tax on at the pay out point complicates things and is ultimately misleading leaning toward fraud. The taxes should be in the price that the consumer sees when making the purchase and any accounting to sort our revenue from taxes collected need to be done by the seller after the transaction. The accounting is done this way regardless if you price something with or without the tax in the price. I have work in businesses that have done this both ways. Prices including the taxes and with out the taxes included. Transactions moved much more speedily when the taxes were included. Less change had to be made and fewer errors occurred with taxes in the price than when compared to when taxes were not included in the price. The penny should be eliminated from day to day transactions but kept for bank transactions only. Most people do not even use cash at all but eliminating is not a viable option at this time either. There are studies by economist in the US that say the poor loose in the elimination of the penny however very little evidence in countries where the penny has been eliminate exist to support that claim. The rounding that is done works in the 1 and 2 cent transactions go down to 0 and 3 and 4 cent transactions go up to the 5 and the same for 6 and 7 down to 5 and 8 and 9 up to 0. Certainly there will be businesses who will price everything to be rounded up. However in a free market economy with competition in pricing those businesses will begin to see their customers moving to businesses which price fairly and do not attempt to gouge or bilk the customer. Any use of money serves the purpose to encourage commerce and spending which drive the economy. However it should also be governed in such a way that is economical and sound. Throwing away millions of dollars to produce a coins which are not used and on bills which have no viable life span is wasting money collected in taxes that could be better spent in other ways. Additional waste accumulated in the millions of dollars is the printing of one and five dollar bills. These bills have the least longevity in the economy and each one printed has to be replaced as unusable in less than 5 years. Coins however will remain usable in the economy for 30 years or longer. Replacing all one dollar and five dollar bills will save so much money that the printing of all currency may actually operate at even rates, that the money produced with worth what was spent to produce it. Of all the government offices which exist, this one should not operate at a loss or have as little loss as possible. To say that the use of one dollar and five dollar coins will not work is just a load of propaganda against change. Every other nation in the world with a workable coinage system use coins worth 1, 2 and 5 increments of their currency without difficulty. We say we are the greatest nation on earth yet we can’t figure out how to use coins? Come on it isn’t exactly tough stuff here. It even further speeds transactions and encourages small amount purchases. Having lived in Europe while serving in military I used coins for most of my purchases and paper money for easily less than a third of the transactions I made off the base. The use of coins just worked more easily. The US has attempted to adopt the dollar coins in less than enthusiastic ways in my life time. The Susan B Anthony dollar was too similar in size, weight and visual to the quarter it quickly fell out of favor and disuse. Other dollar coins were not distributed widely enough and even when asking for them in change often times. Businesses did not have any. Only the Post Office regularly had them available. We should be doing things that save us time and money rather than just sticking to the ways things have been done because that is the way that they are done. If things never changed you would still need an ox and a few chickens to buy stuff. Then there is the identity theft issue. How many times a day do you pull out a banking card to make a purchase for something that is under ten dollars, in a month. If you could cut those monthly transactions in half you would be cutting the risk of theft of your card info in half and also reducing the cost your bank spends on managing your accounts. If every person in the US cut their electronic transactions in half the time and money saved by every business would be substantial but they would still be making money. How many times have you had a bill that wouldn’t go into a vending machine because it wasn’t crisp, that problem is gone if you have a coin that works. Or how many times have you not even had a one dollar bill and only a 5 and not one has enough single or change. That isn’t a problem with a coin. Sure the stripper industry would take a hit because throwing dollar coins is more like making it hail than making it rain. That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

When did trash talking become an Olympic event

In any sport there is going to be some division on what is good and what is great. Certainly there will always be those who are un happy about how things turn out from how the game is play, who play, and how things end. Now I am not so naïve to think that trash talking has not been a part of sport from the very first Olympic games in ancient Greece; You call that a tribute to Apollo that is not even worthy to feed to Cerberus. Remembering the Olympics from the past years that I’ve watched both summer and winter I can not say I recall the amount of negativity as is being expressed about these games in Sochi, Russia. Building an infrastructure is a very difficult thing and Russia isn’t the first to face such problems, Vancouver and Salt Lake both had issues, and for every negative thing being said I am sure there are a lot of positive things going on that are not getting as much attention and exposure in the media. Putting aside the flaws with the readiness or lack of readiness of the physical sites and even the lack of winter conditions is the troubling lack of sportsmanship in these games, especially on Team USA. Now before you start filling your glasses of hater-aid and calling me a long hair hippy commie let me explain and then by all means hate away. Team USA across that board regardless of sport or event have been talking shit about other athletes; they don’t deserve to be here, they are too old, too young, too exposed, too stuck up, no talent and on and on. Part of the problem may be that with social media and so much access to world wide publicity of statements which in the past would have remained in lockers or private journal to be never read again or if they were years later and not in the moments as the events are unfolding. Do not tweet when you are emotional. Additionally the mainstream media wants to keep as many people tuned into sporting events which do not have widely followed professional circuits so they find controversy to keep people watching. However, a bigger part of it too is un sportsmen like behavior or what ever the gender neutral term is for not having poise and dignity when things do not go your way as related to sport. Some of the most widely fed controversy is that of snowboarders blasting Shaun White. Now this was not just Team USA other teams including members of Team Canada were involved. Their complaints were all over the place that Shaun White is too old, a sell out, there is a judging bias in his favor. The trash talk went on and on. The first thing which is related to Shaun and other athletes is that he did not need to be on the team in the first place. Well that has little or nothing to do with any of the competitors desire to be on the team as it is up to Team USA and the US Olympic Committee and any governing body of a particular sport. Which may be part of the problem if the selection process is corrupt this isn’t really any one athletes fault as it is a symptom of a bigger problem. I offer that money is the problem. It costs a lot to travel, train, and televise the Olympics. The winter games are not widely followed sports when compared to other sports so selling advertising becomes an issue but if you can sell ads by having a well known competitor on the team as opposed to a slightly better athlete who is unknown it can make a difference. More work certainly could be done by the governing bodies to secure funding for their sport without the athletes tided to the sponsors. Even if the selection process is corrupt that does not excuse bad behavior and being poor sports. Shaun White has done more good for snowboarding and to erase all the bad that the legions of snowboarders in the world bring on themselves. Crashing into skiers, being rude and offensive around families and then being ruder when confronted about the bad behavior, in short many in the snowboarding world are their own worse enemies. Sorry if you are a boarder and are offended but if you are not that type of boarder you know there are a lot who are not considerate of other on the slopes. There are skiers who fall into this category as well but not in as large percentages. I do not speak as an outsider I worked for years as a profession ski instructor and have skied in Europe as well as North America. I’ve seen the poor behavior first hand. I will say there are fine and decent people who snowboard but the bad apples do get a lot of attention. Shaun did decide not to compete in one event he was selected to participate related to injuries. I can not fault any person for deciding not to go forward and compete if they are not feeling 100% healthy. Team USA has doctors those questions should have been asked and then teams selected based on this. It is not like Shaun White was injured privately and then did not disclose his injuries. These were known and the team made the choice to name him over others. In practice he fell aggravated the injury and dropped out. Why fault him for not taking an unnecessary risk with his body. He will have a life after his competitive days are over and would probably like them to be as pain free as possible. Snowboarding has a lot of injuries every year and some deaths. Again from personal experience with the people with whom I worked with in the skiing industry many of them have injuries which cause them pain and limit or adversely impact their mobility on and off the snow. Because Shaun did not finish well does not mean he did not earn his spot, most of the competing athletes do not finish well. Of the 15 different sports and 98 events and nearly 3000 competing athletes only 98 are going to win gold. Ok it is slightly more with the team sports but the point is that is close to only 5 percent of the athletes are winning. Lolo Jones is another getting a lot of guff about being there. If the Team USA picked her because she is well known that is on them not her. Lolo is driven to compete. She did have very fast push times in all of her runs. Her push times were as fast as any other teams. Her driver did not do so well. There were more bangs against the wall on any single run by her driver than some teams had in all four of their runs. And not to say she is a bad driver. She made mistakes. Mistakes on this level of competition when winning is decided by hundreds and thousands of a second, making the smallest misstep can mean you don’t win. Lolo and her driver still qualified for the finals in their event and a lot of teams did not. So for the men’s bobsleigh team to completely shun the women’s events because of Lolo being chosen to be on the Olympic team was petty and childish. The examples continue into most of the events and I’m left saddened and wondering why. The thing is that the Olympics are supposed to be the height of athletic competition, sport for the sake of sport, sport regardless of political, religious or other ideological beliefs, sport for the love of the game and the challenge of competition. Nothing exists in a vacuum and the Olympics are no exception. Athletes still compete under the flags of Nations and personal ideology shapes how they compete and how they behave. Perhaps I am too idealistic and believe that we can be better as people. It is understandable too that the investment that is preparing for the Olympics in training and time and then not making a team for a particular sport is a huge let down on a personal level. It certainly would be a hard pill to swallow especially if there is corruption in the selection process. Take that out on the selection committee and not the individual athletes. For any one person to say that they deserve to be on a team over someone else perhaps they should consider that there are tons of talented athletes that do not even get a chance to train or even be considered for the Olympics for a myriad of reason. I grew up with skiers who if they had the best coaches would have been world class competitors and possibly Olympians. They did not have access to these services. I know a swimmer who could have been on an Olympic team and most likely would have won medals but did not complete because as a minor his parents refused to allow him to put off school for a year to train. There are also those who simply choose not to compete but who are far and away better than those who show up for trials and make the teams. Because the Olympics are on the world stage does not mean that you are actually in competition against the very best athletes in a sport. It is a sampling of people who have had access and a desire to compete in the games. Perhaps the athletes on Team USA need to consider some humility and reflect on why the Olympic Games were revived. The other problems are not going to go away by attacking the athletes, the organizers and governing bodies need to be taken to task by the athletes who complete in the various sports. Maybe these people would also benefit from some reflective time about why the games exist. That’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Was that a bees nest?

Generally I try to avoid controversy just because I don’t like to respond to the backlash that tends to follow making a religious or political statement in my blog. However, as I think about it by not adding my voice I’m censoring myself or allowing those who may disagree with me to censor me. I’m reminded of the poem from world war two regarding the Nazi party taking various groups away and remaining silent and then when they came for me no one was left to speak out. I would include the poem but I think it’s better if you are interested to look it up on your own. I read it; I got something out of it and it has inspired me to speak up. Although I’m not without my voice I vote even in municipal elections when voter turn out is abysmal. However I don’t always speak up when the squeaky wheels are making noise and it is just nonsensical what they are saying. I think surely others realize that this is wrong. It doesn’t always appear that many others do know or if the do they aren’t saying anything either. So controversy shall from time to time enter my blog, feel free to disagree with me. I am okay with that however I am also free not to respond or delete any notes that I feel are inappropriate, vulgar or are not related to the topic. Here in Virginia a few years ago a popular election passed an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as a man and woman only. Virginia did this well in advance of North Carolina passing some similar piece of law. Unlike North Carolina, Virginia somehow avoided the national firestorm and controversy that plagued North Carolina following the laws passage. In my classes where I teach, I predicted that sometime soon someone would challenge this new piece of the VA legal world as being in violation of the US Constitution specifically the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment states that equal protection / due process applies to the states that does means you OHIO, and no state shall pass laws which make arbitrary distinctions between citizens and their rights. Sorry if you are in or from OHIO but you all really push the limits of what that means all of the time. This is fine because there is a thing called States right from the Bill of Rights (10th amendment) which says that those powers not specified to the federal government or prohibited to the states are reserved to the states. Not the point today So does defining who can marry who qualify as an arbitrary distinction between citizens. Well some would argue because the law does not say it is opposed to gay marriage. Gay being the key word it just says all men and all women can marry so long as they marry the opposite of their own gender. So every one is included… Not arbitrary However the semantics of that word play is that the spirit of the law is to prevent a specific kind of marriage, same gender marriages. I say same gender because sex is an act and a lot of marriages are void of sex. Gender refers to being male and female in the parts department not how you choose to use the parts when you play. With the intent or spirit of the law it certainly makes a distinction between the happiness of citizens and rights that come with the State recognizing a marriage. Differing tax rates, inclusion on employee benefits, insurance qualifications, inheritance and the list of rights goes on and on. One simple law closes the door on all of these other things in an arbitrary fashion. However this isn’t over because the first amendment also says that the government shall not pass any law that infringes upon the free exercise of religion. So the government can’t simply say your churches have to marry these people regardless of your beliefs in regard to this type of union. There is no way around this the churches are free to choose who they marry and who they won’t marry. Churches will refuse to marry some men and women to one another and they are allowed to do that too. It gets even trickier because there is some thing in the government which restricts the recognition of official churches. This has more to do with people declaring everything a church and defrauding the government and attempting to qualify for tax exempt status and other benefits of being a church as opposed to some other type of organization. The rub is that no matter who married you or how your religion sees your union to your spouse is a marriage or what ever you call it; as far as the government is concerned the ceremony that unionized you to your true love is a civil union. Sure they call it a marriage license but that is the semantics everyone is caught up on and no one is using common sense. Here is the argument that shows your what ever to whom ever is only a civil union in the eyes to the government not matter what you call it. Even when atheists marry one another it is called a marriage and there is not religious backing to these unions but they are the same thing. Most religions do not allow divorces and will not remarry anyone who has a divorce. However who ever joined the two of you in the “Holy State of Marriage” is undone in the eyes of the government if you go through the court process to dissolve that marriage in a divorce. The government doesn’t care what your church thinks then. 9th amendment your rights end where mine begin. It would be unconscionable to force men or women to remain in marriage if they were in danger or at risk of any sort of ruin with only the church to grant the divorce. Adultery gambling, domestic abuse, incompatibility, mental illness, lots of reasons that people get divorced and the state dissolves those civil unions and frees those people to live their lives apart again without a connection to the other person. Does your church have to recognize your divorce? Nope, not at all, not ever, it is still a legal divorce regardless. So restricting who can be in a civil union is an arbitrary distinction of rights and like it not businesses, other people, churches don’t really have a say in it at all. I include other people in that list of no matters because I’m sure lots of sons and daughters marry people other people wish they did not marry even this doesn’t make it any less valid. The language is merely semantics marriage or civil union it is the same thing. So we don’t have the right to restrict same gender marriages from happening. However if you are someone who wants to be in a same gender marriage you don’t have the right to make your church perform that ceremony or to recognize it as valid. However, businesses do have to recognize them and provide all the rights they would to any other couple who is married. Hopefully the court here is VA will strike down the marriage amendment and allow same gender couples to enter into these marriages. Marriage works for those who make it work and fail for those who don’t make it work. Going to church doesn’t give it some secret mojo to keep it from failing. Because it that were true our divorce rate wouldn’t be at over 50 percent for first marriages and over 80 percent of second and subsequent marriages. Like I said in the front you are free to disagree with me and if you base your objection in your religious faith that is fine I support your right and your church doctrine the right not to recognize it but I do not support the government’s right to deny it to citizens Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Dexter: Series review

Dexter Series review. As I was not, as many people are not, a Showtime subscriber, I am woefully behind the curve. If you are planning to watch the series there will be certain spoilers in here but I will try to keep them to a minimum. Dexter is a forensic tech and serial killer. In concept this is perfect even if your hairs or prints were at the scene of a crime they are certainly explainable as contamination occurs at every crime scene there is no way around it, especially if people are doing the work. Keeping things realistic is difficult in fiction, you have to keep the story line moving and the amount of time to process the evidence they are performing does not happen as instantly as they do in show. Not a critical opinion just an observation about all crime shows. Dexter is a very well rounded character and I’ve read a lot of reviews saying he is played too flat or emotionless or something else related to him not being able to connect to the other people. I have to say I think you missed the point. Dexter is supposed to have trouble forming the social bonds and isn’t phased by the things which others have difficulty. Is it completely accurate to a sociopath, yes, no, maybe, the thing is they stay true to the widely held belief by law enforcement and the psychiatric field that serials killers aren’t raving lunatics. They tend to be in the genius range of intelligence and often blend into social settings pretty well, just not with other people so much. Dexter fits the archetype for serial killers pretty well. Methods of killing aside, what ever really gets the job done, if you are having him find people methodically who fit a certain “code” it stands to reason there is a method to how he kills and disposes of bodies. I’m sure there were other ways to dispose of bodies with less actual traces but there has to be an element that our hero or anti hero might be found out and that adds to the tension and drama. Main characters: Men, Women, supporting The men: Batista, Masuka, Quinn, Doakes and Harry The women: LaGuerta, Deb, Rita and Hannah Supporting: Cody and Astor, Harrison, Jamie If a character isn’t on the list it is; one, because they are a spoiler or two, are season plot movers only and don’t really have an overall impact on the show, i.e. FBI Special Agent Lundy. He really only exists to move season two along and then is really essentially gone. Is he a likable character… yes, does he play the part he needs to play,…yes, does he impact the whole series…no. Men All of them are well acted and remain true to who they are through out the whole series or at least as long at they are in the series. Batista is moral with flaws, Quinn is his polar opposite he is flawed but has some morals. They are both good at their jobs. They are both their own worst enemies. Quinn has too much ego and Batista not enough. Masuka ... Love this character. He is what he is and I think typical of people who are good at what they do, but not much else. He adds much needed comedy in what would otherwise be a very dark series. Masuka also shows a coping mechanism that many people in these fields develop in the warped sense of humor in the face of very disturbing things. Harry. I like that they include Harry through out the series and it works for me how they do it but others may not like it. We all have that guiding voice of our teachers, parents and mentors that help us get through things. Harry teaches the code to Dexter and it makes sense as a detached person he relates to it as not part of his own internalized personality but as an external control that he has to follow to survive. Doakes: He is typical of the law enforcement image; tough, the law is black and white no gray areas. It is right or it isn’t. He is frustrated with the system and bad guys getting away with things that they shouldn’t. He relies on the evidence only because he has too and there inlays the tension between him and Dexter. Dexter as the lab person is the ‘necessary evil’ to doing the job by the book and not a “real” cop which frustrates Doakes more. After Doakes leaves the show Quinn and Batista share the load of system frustration, macho-ism and other things. The women First, I have to say for a series as big as it was, the women who are supposed to be in strong leadership roles were depicted horribly. Weak, manipulative, spiteful etc, every negative stereotype about women in the work place is represented in the main characters and supporting women. It is truly shameful. Rita. She is not the love of Dexter’s life and for her role she is one of the only almost respectable female characters in the series at first. Rita is typical of abused women in this country and the flaws in how they try to set their lives to right. Going back again and again to the men who hurt them and the cycle of violence continues. We meet Rita in this role and she tries to grow and then they just make her bitchy. It would have been nicer to see her grow as a person and break the cycle she was in without the transformation into a micromanaging harpy. However she wasn’t intended to be the love of Dexter’s life and she isn’t which makes it easier when she isn’t in the show because I for one didn’t like her character any longer by the end of her role. LaGuerta: Oh dear lord, could you have seriously have made a character any more shallow and self serving as this character. There was not a single redeeming thing about this character. She was out for number one always, more so than Dexter who is the sociopath serial killer. Let’s just say a place for asses sums up her character. However, Why take the female character in an authority position in a profession where women are not respected as much as less qualified male counter parts and make her everything negative that people say about women in these roles. Shame on you series writers, shame on you. Debra Morgan. Her character is another example of this series asking how can we take a strong female role of a truly competent female police officer and investigator and make her pathetic and unlikable. Now I don’t mind all the swearing that was fine, people cuss and swear, women fuck and drink too. I don’t have a problem with any of that. However this train wreck the writers pass off as being an anchor for a serial killer would be laughable if it were not so pathetic. Whining, lack of confidence, coupled with a misplaced bravado, falls in love at the drop of a hat, and on and on. She is a walking, talking cliché. Debra Morgan is a train wreck of hazardous materials next to a water treatment plant in a highly populated area. If her character was going to exit the series how she did it would have been better to do it in season one rather than at the end of the series. Hannah McKay. She at least is not compromising. She is the only strong female character in the series. She fights to survive, moves past bad times in her life and adapts. I like that they kept her character human and vulnerable when it came to shedding light on her past and how she got to where she is in life. We all have those people, vices or things which break us down. You either cope or you die. She fights, to win even if she stumbles here and there. Supporting Characters Astor, Cody, Harrison and Jamie Batista They really had little to do with the show and Jamie only exists to deal with Harrison. However to play them down as not important isn’t the point. They all have a point of grounding the story in some reality. Putting a serial killer in Miami that is a single guy who never dates and is always killing someone or cleaning up after someone else who has killed someone would be a hard series to make last for more than two seasons. These supporting characters give a depth to the characters and the story that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. The Series overall Wow, how to sum up a series without spoilers. Well each season had good points and bad points. It is very clear to see that there wasn’t really a map to the end, which certainly explains a lot of the up and down things in the series. I think if the series writers had taken the time to say okay this is the character and we want to go from here to this other point, how do we do it, and then mapped out some sort of rough path it would have played better in the low points. What happened was shot gun blast story writing with some things hitting targets and some things not hitting anything. The last season. I heard a lot of negative stuff about the last season and it really is a weak one in the series. However the contrast between Dexter and the final villain is a mirror of sorts one side is Dexter’s life and the other is what it may have been, but really the series had already done this in season one so why repeat it. However the whole Elway / US Marshals bullshit was just unnecessary and could have been avoided especially if they had derailed the Debra Morgan express train to hell in season one. The ending or as I saw it… ok here is the ending…just kidding really here is the ending… just kidding again here is the ending… ok serious this time here is the ending. Fuck you he is our character we will end this on our terms not yours. That said it is open which is nice you can think about it however you want. Something that hurt Dexter was Breaking Bad … here was a show that had a map plotted out, the major story points at the beginning and then drove the car from A to B with some side turns but knowing where it was going the story was able to stay pretty close to the trajectory and had an amazing ending in three less seasons. It left people wanting more where as Dexter lost a lot of people because there was no plan for an end point How would I have ended Dexter? Hannah and Dexter are recruited by Isaak Sirko once Dexter pulls his ass out of the fire and they take the murder road show international and are millionaires in the crime world. Seriously why not this is fiction not reality … Isaak is on the outs with his bosses, he seems to be fairly well connected in the international drug world. Isask was not a peon and was well placed he could make a move on his own with the right people to support him. There is a lot of competition and people who just fuck you over in that sort of business. You need problem handlers, Why not a pair of handlers who don’t mind getting their hands dirty and are pretty freaking good at it too. Who would expect Dexter, Hannah and Harrison to be murderers of the crime world’s competition. Law enforcement would be as light about tracking them down as they were with all of Dexter’s previous trash removal enterprises and chalk it all up to internal struggles that don’t cost tax dollars, eat up the courts time or take up space in the prisons. That’s just me Sorry about the few spoilers I tried to keep them to a minimum. What did you think of Dexter? Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow or some other day most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Inspiration v. Intimidation

As the years go by I’m finding there seems to be a fine line between a lot of things in life. Anytime that there are gaps in the issues of my blog it means that I’ve become introspective or started dating someone. Before you get terribly excited about that last bit I’ll put the kibosh on your hopes if you had any I’m not dating anyone that however is a topic for another day. So as you have likely surmised I have been introspective. Which is usually supposed to end with some discovery which pushes you toward some final understanding, and I have found the meaning of life. However, to quote or paraphrase Deep Thought, You’re not going to like the answer. In fact you won’t like the answer so much I’ve decided that it is best that I not tell you the answer. Rather talk about two things I like to do to occupy my time. Writing and drawing. They say that writers should write and artists should do something in what ever medium they practice everyday. Technically I do write everyday for my job. I have to tell stories of people who for what ever reason have become my clients, if you don’t know I am a child abuse investigator and sometimes the non fiction that I have to write for my pay check takes a toll on want to write anything more for the day. Now this doesn’t necessary take an emotional toll on me but sometimes what ever peeve I had planned to blog about seems to be really rather insignificant and petty in comparison. So I don’t write. On those days sometimes I draw. Which I enjoy but I don’t want to share because I look at most of what I put to paper as a drawing and feel rather wanting in my abilities. Inspiration to become motivated to produce something from an experience or encounter Intimidation to become unmotivated to produce something from an experience or encounter Very similar in meaning and I don’t know if those are the definition you’ll find in any dictionary but it is how I perceive the two words and what they mean as to my ability As to writing content I think I do pretty well however grammatically I shudder when I read some of the things I string together and pass off as the written word. I read stories that are mass produced and know that I keep myself entertained with ideas that are at least equally entertaining. It’s just getting them to paper. As to the drawing I start so many drawings and they don’t usually turn into anything recognizable or worth putting out for public critique. I am my own worst critic and as it would seem I’m also a source of inspiration. I had an English professor while I was in college who said don’t toss out what you write that you don’t like. Every writer I’ve read anything about kept notes galore on the works they produced. The professor was talking about writing poetry with the idea that you won’t sit down and write a poem completely in its final draft on the first run. Even Saroyan’s poem “Lighght” was probably written a couple of different ways or at least in different fonts and colors before it was finished. I don’t write a lot of poetry but I have remembered that and will keep the previous attempts of poems all ways with the most recent on top. Looking back you can see where you have made progress toward the intended message or feeling and perhaps where a wrong turn of phrase has gotten things too far off the way. As to the drawing I’ve not really had any formal lessons as such. I’ve taken the required art classes in school which were really more to expose students too all of the mediums rather than to hone a particular skill Which is fine if you under stand the basic skills then mastering them is just a matter of practice. Using the idea from a writing professor I don’t toss out anything I draw. Well unless it was really horrid. To make up for my lack of funding to take a formal drawing class I watch youtube videos, various animation films and films about well known artists. Mostly watching masters at work is intimidating rather than inspirational. Last night though I was looking for something and stumbled upon some sketches I had done a few years ago and put them next to something I’ve been working on currently. Progress and not just oh I prefer this one to that one but actual progress. The thing is watching a person do something they are well practiced, is often times more intimidating than it is inspirational to others. Social expectations are really skewed in our society where anything other than complete success is ridiculed and scorned often times more than those who don’t even try to do something, which is truly the bigger failure. I think it is fine to find inspiration in the great works of others but coloring that inspiration with an admiration that this person worked and practiced their craft to get to a level of skill and adeptness at what ever they are doing. You don’t always see what goes on being the scenes, or the rehearsals, you only see the finished product While I share some of my written thoughts I don’t really share much of my prose works maybe someday. The same with my drawings, I post some of it on my office door at work and occasionally as a handmade card I don’t really put it out there for public consumption. My desire may be to write a novel that sells very well with some illustrations by yours truly. However my expectation is that I’m most likely not going to be the next George RR Martin or JKRowling and certainly it is less than likely that I’m going to have anything hanging in a museum. However these are things which are relaxing for me help keep things in perspective that I have more going on than the work that I do for a paycheck and can entertain myself rather than relying on someone else to entertain me. Look to others for inspiration, admire their accomplishment, practice what you love, expect nothing and not trying are the only true failures in life. So draw, write, skip, hike, build, craft, invent and most importantly don’t listen to the voices in your head saying you can’t or it isn’t good enough. Who knows you may be a person someone else silently watches for inspiration. Well, that is all for now, other stuff on some tomorrow day most likely Happy Birthday if it is your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it is not your birthday Thank you for reading and please subscribe. Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015

Shut the Duck Up

I remember a time when A&E, the History Channel, The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel were all places you could go to watch TV and not feel completely horrible about the amount of time you spent in front of the TV. It was programming you could watch and get something back. Granted a lot of it was gee whiz I might do freaking awesome the next time I play a trivia game or more than you ever really wanted to know about Hitler and World War II. The thing is you could go there are learn a little bit and still be entertained. Well in the big scheme of things learning doesn’t pay as much as people being stupid. If nothing else we’ve learned from America’s Funniest home videos we love to see some poor schulb take it a shot to the twig and berries, or some kid or pet bust their ass in some wacky fashion as long as they don’t bleed. We’ve had a full decade and probably closer to two now of “reality” TV People getting paid far too much to PRETEND that what they are doing in front of the camera is random and how they act all the time. (cough …bullshit…cough) You can see the scripting without much effort but hey watch what you want. I don’t watch because that is my right to say you know what a bunch of bearded yahoos, hucksters in a pawn shop, a chubby little pageant queen or any of the others because it isn’t how I choose to entertain myself. And if you like watching any of those things you probably equally hate watching what I love to watch. That’s ok too. However to say that this is some big issue involving the US Constitution and the First Amendment is where I have to step in and say, No. Mr. Duck got to say what he wanted. In fact if got printed in a magazine. As far as I know no one is saying he can not go on saying the same stuff or believing what he believes. The only thing I think that has changed is that his bosses, you know the people who wrangle up the money for the ads that pay for his show and all the others have said you know I’m not sure we want to pay you any more. This is their right as the bosses. Mr. Duck can say what he wants A&E does not have to be the vehicle by which he gets to say what he wants. Would your boss keeping paying you if you went out and said some stuff that made your company look bad or your company didn’t agree with. Probably not, but you are entitle to do just that and find out. However there is hope if you want to the show to continue. Launch a kickstarter page raise the money and put it on Youtube or hell Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon might even pick it up. The thing is no one is saying he can’t say what he wants. They are just saying they aren’t going to be the soap box he stands on anymore. Besides there are bigger issues to deal with here other than if a group of successful business owners get to continue to make a bunch more money on top of their successful business anymore all the while pretending it is some religious slight or oppressive censorship. Oh, I don’t know maybe start with our soldiers, or the homeless, or the unemployed. It would be a better world indeed if people got as pissed off about real issues rather than some made up bullshit to sell air time or magazine copies. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff tomorrow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015