Bewitched, bothered and dissociated

Sometimes I don't want to write because it takes me out of the comfortable mental envelope protecting me from the shock of reality: dissociation.  My mind unhinges, and drifts away on a cloud of minutae and the perfect activity to reinforce this warm stew of mental passivity: web surfing.  So sometimes I just have to force my fingers to the keyboard and begin typing, no matter what comes out.

Things I've seen today surfing?  Christopher Bowman (who I'd never heard of) former champion figure skater and child tv actor, died of a suspected overdose in a motel room somewhere off the beaten track.  I'd wonder if he were playing checkers with John Belushi in the afterlife, if I believed in an afterlife, which I don't.  Ashes to ashes/dust to dust.  We go into the ground or our ashes get scattered and that's the end of it.

Until the Day of Resurrection and the Final Judgment.  Not only is that the scenario I believe in, it's the scenario I prefer to believe in.  The thought of consciousness surviving bodily death is too terrifying, and fantastic--like a grim fairy tale. 

Once we were having a conversation about this during a trip to Ashland.  When I laid out these views and defended them, saying that was what I was taught in Sunday School and by my mother--Cyndee, one of our group, snidely said, "well that's fine for a child, but what do you believe as an adult?"

So, I was the one who didn't believe that consciousness survived death--and I was being called childish...

I've decided to write about these moments that return to my consciousness, seemingly at random, but really not randomly at all.  There's a purpose for why I remember these events which I might, except for some mysterious component, have long since completely forgotten.

Other surfing news:  Mike Huckabee lost 110 pounds and wrote a book about it.  That's the Republican healthcare platform--lose weight.  I look forward to losing weight when I move to Iowa.  It's already begun.  My pants are very loose.  Although I was up to 315 at my sleep medicine appointment on Wednesday, I suspect that I was actually heftier than that--probably 325 or 330--a few months ago.  Stress has a way of creeping up on you.

So here's my thought on that:  I could stay in my current job and make enough money to eventually be able to afford a heart bypass--or I could move to Iowa, reduce stress and my waistline, and avoid the operation, and come out none the worse financially.

And in the meantime, do more enjoyable, satisfying, authentic work.

The Inadequate Assassin

"You've got an 'inferiority complex.'"  Or so I've been told.  So it gives me pause when I read criminal profiles of inadequate loner types who fantasize and then kill.  The recent mass murder in Colorado at New Life Church and the Youth With a Mission training center, involving Matthew Murray, is an example of an extremely shy, awkward teenager, with limited social maturity due to having been homeschooled, and with an underlying psychosis:

Richard Werner, who was Murray’s roommate at YWAM in Arvada in 2002 for missionary training, recalled Murray as an odd 19-year-old who was painfully shy and displayed extreme “mood swings.” Werner said Murray, who growled and spoke to himself in the middle of the night in strange voices, had trouble socially with other young people.

Clearly here are personality traits that are shared with other mass murderers, including the Columbine killers, the Virginia Tech killer, and the recent Omaha Mall shooter, who may have been instrumental in sending Murray over the edge. Martin Bryant, responsible for the worst mass murder in modern Australian history is described as "a quiet lad and a bit of a loner." 

What separates these types from other inadequate loner types apparently comes down to three things: 1) proximity of guns or other weapons (one mass murderer used a tank), 2) a psychopathic belief that his needs trump those of other human beings, 3) a stressor that sends him over the edge.  The stressor trigger is often "the straw that breaks the camel's back," yet also the result of months or years of slowly building rageful feelings and homicidal and suicidal fantasy. 

When confronted by an armed security guard, Matthew Murray shot himself in the head.  He needed to control the outcome completely.  While he sought out unarmed and defenseless victims, when challenged, he opted out of confrontation because it wouldn't have fit his fantasy of slaughtering a hundred or more church-goers.  He was a coward.

The two sisters at New Life Church were his perfect targets, representing other happy, well adjusted young Christians which he felt estranged from and victimized by.

“If you’re an extrovert, and popular, then yes, there is plenty of love waiting for you in christianity,” Murray wrote May 8. “If you ask questions and want to understand things and/or desire a real and deep spirituality, or if you’re just not popular . . . well . . . you are considered as one of the horrible people and are either going to be abused or kicked out by ‘holy spirit love filled’ christians.”

One of the great treasures of my life has been connecting with other introverts.  I have sought out and bonded with people who share my interests and understand my feelings.  I have also succeeded enough in my pursuits to avoid the damning inner voice of the "critic" which would indeed motivate me to violence if it wasn't held in check.  This sometimes manifests as an interior verbal monologue of self-criticism, or of painful memories from my past, projected into my mind's eye, usually at a vulnerable moment.  I have learned to deal with this phenomenon, which is a symptom of depression.  I am not the only one who suffers.  My own treatment has involved heightened awareness of the voice, when it is speaking or showing me embarrassing or stress-causing images.  I take a moment to stop and confront the unreality of the negative thoughts.

For various reasons, the killers above did not have the coping skills necessary to avoid their violent codas.  Three things can be done: 1) Learn to recognize underachieving loner types and reach out to them.  This can be harder than you think.  In the case of the Virginia Tech killer, one of his professors took extraordinary steps, including private seminars and counseling, to reach him.  She failed.  He was too far gone.   2)  If you're introverted, seek out other introverts.  You both will benefit.  Have the courage to say hello.  3)  Don't buy guns, no matter how strong, capable, macho and in control of things they make you feel.
 

 

Borat Sued Again

The producers of Borat will be defending against another lawsuit.  Another disgruntled individual, duped by the producers of the smash hit film, is fighting back.  The producers make my teeth grind with statements such as this:

"He signed a release, and we have an agreement," [producer] Brilliant said. "Now, 2 1/2 years after giving his consent and more than one year after the movie was released, Mr. Psenicska has decided to file a lawsuit, citing the financial success of the film, in spite of our agreement."

First, there's a statute of limitations involved: probably 3 years.  Mr. Psenicska likely filed suit in order to preserve his claim against the producers.  Allowing the statute to run would negate any legal standing he has.

Second, Mr. Psenicska signed an agreement to be in a documentary about foreign born people adjusting to life in America, and this is clearly not the film Mr. Brilliant or the other producers of Borat planned to make.  The producers lied in order to coerce cooperation from Mr. Psenicska, because if he had been in on the joke, it would never have been as funny as his reactions were while being duped.

Other filmed entertainment has met this same litigious fate.  Candid Camera was sued.  More recently, Scare Tactics was sued.  I don't know, but I imagine there are bad feelings and billable hours concerning Punk'd. 

You can't lie to people to induce them to sign a contract.  You don't even have to go to law school to know that one.  If Mr. Psenicska was not fully informed, he could not have made an informed choice entering into the agreement.  The contract is null and void.  If he suffered damages, he deserves to be made whole. 

All Mr. Psenicska is asking for is $100K plus punitive damages (which are usually less--but this is likely a California venue, so who knows?)  That's chump change.  Mr. Brilliant complains that it was only because Borat was successful that Mr. Psenicska is suing.  Well, that stands to reason that the more successful the movie was, the more people saw it, and thus the more damage was done to Mr. Psenicska.  I see no profiteering motive here since the damages prayed for in the lawsuit are so freaking LOW.  Because the damages are so low, I imagine the case will settle and quickly.

Mitt Romney and the Temple of Doom

Christopher Hitchens, my favorite conservative athiest, has written a crackerjack editorial about Romney's duck, cover, obfuscate and dodge strategy with regard to his religion and answering questions about it in the press.  My position:  While I hold no personal animosty toward individual Mormons per se (with the lone exception being Orson Scott Card), the church as a whole has the kind of nutty supernatural/science fiction nonsense shared by Scientology.  Purported golden plates and faux old testiment nomenclature are not enough to make me a believer.  As I have said before and am proud to say again, I believe Joseph Smith was a False Prophet.  If I didn't, I would be a Mormon, wouldn't I?  I suppose that goes without saying, and that by saying it, I'm effectively spitting in the eye of the CJCLDS--be that as it may.  The famous anti-Morman South Park episode, which turns the tables at the end, taught us: all religions are a little bit nutty--what the church believes doesn't matter, it's what the flock does that matters.

Oh, really? 

Hitch raises the specters of racism and polygamy that the LDS eschewed by prophetic fiat at critically convenient times.  Some might see that as divine inspiration, while others might see it as the Prophet holding his spit-covered finger in the wind.

My position: I don't know what's in Romney's heart, nor do I presume to judge.  I only know what he does, and says.  Right now, he's saying nothing about an issue that matters.

Gaming

Why don't I like Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 as much as I should?  The game is far too complex.  Rules for rules's sake really, which relegates story and structure to the back burner. 

I like roleplaying games because I get to play a role--not roll a bunch a dice.  Role/roll--get it?

I still think that Chaosium's Fantasy Roleplaying (CFR) is the best system I've ever used.  Granted characters can die much more easily than in D&D, but them's the breaks as they say.  I became familiar with CFR playing Call of Cthulhu.  The "game" aspect of the activity was simply a method for gathering a group together to create interactive stories in which the game designer creates the scenario and the players interact with each other and the given circumstances.  This is the kind of gaming I like.  Fast.  And roll checks are simply there to throw obstructions in the players' paths.  Because if it's too easy, it's no fun.

But it's also no fun if it's too hard!  I played D&D last night, but it is simply too complex.  In order to combat the drow rogue I was fighting, I had to stand inside an anti-magic area which negated all my magic bonuses.  I didn't care to do the necessary math so I simply made up a number.  I guessed.  When you're roleplaying, it's difficult to engage the part of the mind responsible for calculations and math.  So I simply don't.  Not my job, as they say.  My job is to roll dice and have fun.  Someone else has to do the math.

Political Pragmatism

Okay, so I didn't vote today and I don't plan to.  I'm leaving the area in a few months and they can have it.  It's hard not to get apathetic when the majority of the electorate votes against new sports stadiums several times and they get built anyway, and when the majority votes for a particular kind of mass transit four times and it doesn't get built.  But that's Seattle politics for you.  Democracy shemocracy.

We can't let issues of such importance be left to an uneducated and politically incorrect electorate!

I'm tired of political correctness, except when I'm not.  What I really want to discuss today are gay Republicans.  Or more specifically, Republicans caught with their pants down with someone of their same gender.  Usually with Republicans there's at least a generational age difference between the two parties, usually but not always, boys.

Thus do gay activists get their homophobic cake and eat it too.  First, a member of a party that is unfriendly to gay concerns is outed as a gay person themselves, and by extension a hypocrite.  Another c**ksucker is exposed in the party of family values, is the subtext, and gay activists know it, and they know it's homophobic.  Their rationale is that they're using homophobia against the homophobes.  But they know the hate and the irony go even deeper.

They know that political correctness has seeped into the very fabric of American life there will be Republicans who will not deal harshly with the gay Republicans exposed in their midst because they don't want to appear to be gay bashing.  They don't want to appear to be the homophobes they probably are...

Gay activists know that this is how they'll react.  So the gay Republican at the center of the scandal is allowed to keep his position because his party members don't want to appear to be intolerant and some of them really are tolerant.  But the gay activists know that the longer the gay Republican stays in office the more difficult it is for the party of Lincoln to appear to be the party of family values.  The gay activists are counting on those gay Republicans at the center of the storm to become a priori evidence of Republican hypocrisy at the next election.

Thus are the gay activists exposed as the homophobes they are.  But hey--it's a political win-win for them...  Karl Rove isn't the only one who knows how to use fags to further his own political ends.

Studying Genocide

Pacific Lutheran University has received an endowment for a Holocaust Studies chair.  I've never heard of such a thing, but it makes sense.  I've researched only one of the concentration camps, KZ Mauthausen, and have discovered that what I knew about the holocaust before undertaking the research was a mere drop in the ocean.  I learned enough to know that I knew very little. 

So much of what I knew about the holocaust was based on films and television, and the odd documentary or two that I had glimpsed.  The truth of the horror was far more involved, planned, and complex than I had imagined.  The genocide of the European Jews was an industry that employed tens of thousands of people - only a fraction of whom were ever brought to justice. 

We must find a way to understand how it happened.  To simply say it was the abberant result of a madman's fiendish plan is to completely discount the possibility that it was the result of a fundamental shift in the conscious, shared perception of reality in the minds of millions.  And that it was facilitated by the poison of propaganda.

We look back at the militarized politics of Germany and say that it could never happen here.  But it may be happening right now!  In 60 years, how will the world look back on what we're doing, or allowing to be done, by our leaders?

Soon all who had direct personal experiences during the holocaust will pass away.  We must find a way to preserve their stories.