Confessions of a Theater Geek

I didn't believe it even after I saw it. A man was arrested for reading the bible. the BIBLE! Not only that, but the cop arrested the guy for "impeding an open business" Which is bull since the courthouse was CLOSED AT THE TIME HE READ THE PASSAGES! He wasn't impeding anything!



Let's pray for these brave men who dared practice their freedom of religion in spite of a downright tyrannical police officer.

It's been a while, what with several personal issues taking precedence over the blog, but I'm back and have been for the last few days, though my motivation Monday had to take more of a backseat than other posts. Hoping to make up for that, here's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing one of my favorite songs, The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

I've seen more than a few motivational videos in my time, but nothing quite puts a spring in my step like an unapologetic acknowledgment of the greatness of one Jesus Christ, and a defense of his day of birth as a part of our heritage both as a country and as a human being. Here's the video that has put me on Cloud 9 for the time being:

Well, I can't say I didn't see this coming. Not even a day after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the gun-grabbers are already trying to use it as justification for taking away our God-given second Amendment rights. Carolyn McCarthy, a long time advocate of gun control, has unveiled new, draconian legislation that, if passed would (she says) protect people. How? I don't know. She hasn't offered any details. This, more than being told what's in the bill, scares me. Let's set aside the fact that she's capitalizing on a tragedy to further an agenda. Let's set aside the fact that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun (or training only the likes of Chuck Norris have).

McCarthy wants to pass a law that makes it harder for people with mental instabilities to own weapons. Nothing too frightening about that idea, right? However, the next line in the article is what caught my eye. "No one should be allowed to own stockpiles of ammunition such as were owned by the 22 year old gunman." What? No one should be able to own ammunition? Does no one else see how ripe for abuse this idea is? If someone starts trying to tell people how much ammunition they can own, that means only one thing: That they will know exactly how much ammunition is out there. That's the only reason to do something like this.


My previous post went on and on about how we needed to stop capitalizing on this tragedy. When I see something like this it makes my blood boil.

It seems that, through the grace of God, there is reason to hope in the case of Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Congresswoman who was shot by Jared Lee Loughner yesterday. The doctors believe that she will recover, and retain the vast majority of her brain functions due to the realization that the bullet did not strike the geometric center of her brain. The family is no doubt overjoyed by this news, and it furthers my hopes as well that the woman will recover and continue serving the people as she has done in the past. Read the full story here.

This video goes out to all our fighting men and women, retired or not active or reservist, serving in every one of the four branches.

And so do I, your humble Crusader for constitutional justice. Another Christmas has arrived and, as I sit and wait for the better half and her mother to wake so we can ope gifts before heading up to my parents' house, I have yet another video to share. Imagine, if you will. what things would have been like if the wisemen, Mary, Joseph, and others had access to such things as Google Maps, Twitter, and Facebook to spread their message of hope:

My mother continually tried to drill that into my head over recent months, wherein I was dealing with more than a little depression over the fact that I'm pushing thirty and still haven't decided what I want to do with the life God gave me. As the sentence is an obvious paradox (how can everything matter if nothing does?) it took more than just mental prowess to puzzle it out. Of course, that didn't stop me from trying to analyze the statement from every intellectual angle I could before causing my brain to overheat and myself to give up in anger over not being able to solve the riddle.

Enter two friends of mine who attend the United Methodist Church here in Roseville, California. They invited my fiance and me to their Christmas Eve service, which we've just returned from, and I'm still aglow with the injection of faith I received by being around others who believed as I did, that Jesus Christ was born to save the world from its own sins, and that those who accepted Christ into their hearts would join him and his Father in Paradise.

Obviously, this proved to be just the prescription I needed to shed a good deal of the poison I'd been ingesting in the form of "all politics all the time." unfortunately this meat also hearing about the constant attacks on people of faith by those who don't believe, and even some who do. Needless to say, a steady stream of negative stories concerning your core beliefs can wear away at your resolve.

And yet, like the cavalry arriving at the last reel of an old "cowboys and Indians" flick, I was rescued not by soldiers on horses, but by songs of praise for the Son of God. Hearing "Angels we have Heard on High", "Oh Come all Ye Faithful", and other spiritual tunes filled me with the holiday cheer that, despite my efforts to spread it here in various other posts, I wasn't feeling very much of. Fortunately, that's changed, just in time for Jesus's birthday. As far as I'm concerned, that's the best Christmas gift of all: learning and relearning the real reason we celebrate this day and being able to fully appreciate it as a result.

That said, I will once again be delving into the poisonous realm of politics once the holiday season is over, as the bad doesn't go away just because you've been exposed to the good. However, I think I'll be able to go through it now with a more open perspective. I've always been a big picture guy, but I think for a while now I've been missing the REAL big picture: This life only matters for as long as it lasts. Eternity is forever.

Well, this is a switch. After about two years of non-stop work, blood, sweat and tears I've finally reached a point where my financial freedom can and will once again be mine. Also, I picked up a prospect for making a little extra money outside of my job as a copy making drone. My parents, bless them, are out of town for the week and have left me in charge of house sitting their little California farm. Hoody Hoo!I woke the first morning to find a nice crisp Ben Franklin clipped to my little list of tasks that I'm to accomplish every night.

Personal story aside, I'm posting here tonight because, quite frankly, I finally have the time again. Something about being assigned the simple work of caring for a few donkeys, Labradors, chickens and goats while living on three acres of land all alone creates an excellent feeling of solitude. A feeling, honestly, that I had missed and hadn't even known it. Things have been rather hectic for me and my extended family (which consists of my fiancee and her mother) and I realized after waking up Saturday morning that I hadn't experienced quiet, REAL quiet, in over two years, since my girl's father tragically died of heart failure. Since then, I've been so busy trying to survive that I'd forgotten what it's like to live. I haven't even been here on the blog as much as I normally was two or three years ago. It's a nice feeling.

My time to myself has allowed me to casually surf the net looking for articles to be outraged about, and lo and behold, the left did not disappoint. I have just recently heard about a new DVD coming out called Fire from the Heartland, which is supposed to be about the rise of the Conservative woman. What? "Conservative woman? What's that?" you ask, well that would be women like Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and others who not only talk the conservative talk, but walk the conservative walk. Sarah Palin, for example, is the classic low-taxes-cut-spending conservative that this country needs. Michelle Malkin is a balls-to-the-wall (term used loosely) woman who pulls no punches when it comes to Leftist (or even Right Wing) hypocrisy and corruption. Anne Coulter is much the same way, and indeed was in the game long before I'd ever heard of Michelle Malkin. Other such women include Conservative atheist S.E. Cupp of Fox News fame, Michelle Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota, and scads of others that I can't name here in one sitting.

This, for some reason is bad news for the woman-hating Lefties. I've been reading various articles, some of them having directly to do with Fire From the Heartland, some not. All of them are, however, examples of what one of the authors calls "femisogyny", which is the perfect term for something like this. Take the review, for the primary example of what I mean. The author links to several other articles that are not just insulting, but in my opinion downright evil. How can these so-called "feminists" be for all women and yet directly insult the very women they claim to be fighting for? The answer, of course, is that they can't.

Take the primary wins endorsed by Sarah Palin. These wins have caused the feminazi Left to go absolutely APE SHIT over the fact that someone who believes family is important, abortion is wrong, and homosexuality is immoral, can actually help people who believe as she does win in fair and square elections. Oh, the horror! Women who don't march in lockstep with the anti-family agenda? They must be silenced! They might actually influence other Thought Criminals and threaten the power base of the ruling class. Horror and damnation!

Fire From the Heartland has elicited the typical response from the left, very snarkily pointed out by the author of the link above.

I'm in full agreement with the author's point of view. Mama Grizzley's scare the left and their feminist bullies because, like all bullies, these women can't handle a stronger target than themselves. Pushback is creating an environment that has allowed many women to take a stand for REAL feminism that protects a woman's right to think for themselves. Apparently this doesn't sit well with the left because, according to a few of those lefty women, they aren't "real women" at all if they don't vote to kill their unborn child.

Well, all I can say is that Fire From the Heartland doesn't just burn on the big screen, but in real life as well. In my scouring of the net for news articles to bash and make fun of, I've discovered a sense of women feeling that their precious babies are in danger and woe betide anyone who gets in their way. Amen to that, sistahs! Keep up the good fight, because you've got a family loving supporter of a woman's right to be a woman right here typing away.

Continuing to Fight the Good Fight.

Nuff Said

Truer words were never spoken, and will never again be spoken in my opinion. I just read a great post on a sight called American Thinker entitled "You Can't Take God out of American History." So true, so true. Apparently a math teacher had several phrases posted on her walls mentioning god, such as In God We Trust and God Bless America. The school sued the teacher in an attempt to get her to take it down but the judge ruled in favor of the math teacher on the grounds that his rights under the first amendment had been violated. Hallelujah! Sanity from the judges bench! I was beginning to think it was an endangered species.

Today started off kind of rocky. I was a little late to work, though no later than usual thanks to a little "creative driving." Got to work five minutes late, but still in pretty good spirits. I started working on my assigned tasks and, despite a few bumps, managed to get them done, though I was getting pretty miffed at the fact that my machine wasn't working the way it was supposed to. I didn't really start to get angry until I started making rookie mistakes. Things I should have caught I missed, probably due to my bad mood, though I'm not entirely sure. I was pretty miffed, but still managed to get through the day with all my work completed with minimal hiccups.

Still, I was upset enough that by the time my day was over, I was grumpier than the Dwarf of the same name could ever be. I was leaving the workplace at five thirty, since I had to stay late to cover one of my fellow coworkers' lunch breaks. Not really a problem since I can always use the extra cash. The big event, thoulgh, was what I saw when I left the building, clear as day, and more perfect than I thought anything could ever look:

A rainbow.

That's right, a rainbow. A splash of color created by a mix of sunshine and rain. It was on display as if it were placed there just for me to find, and it immediately cheered me up, as I haven't seen a rainbow in years, much less one that visible and that perfect.

When I saw the image, I immediately remembered the Bible story of Noah and the ark, and what the Rainbow actually means to Christians and Catholics the world over. The rainbow is more than just a ribbon of pretty colors. It's a symbol. A reminder. Specifically, it's a reminder that God will never flood the Earth again, a promise made to Noah and his family once the waters of the Great Flood receded and allowed humanity to flourish once more.

I've been in a bit of a bad place lately. Emotionally speaking, that is. I'm struggling through paying down over 2000 dollars of debt that I racked up because I was a bit freer with the plastic than I should have been, my fiance is unemployed and having trouble finding a job despite all her work at it, and let's not even get into all the crap that's being shoveled out of the White House and Capital Building.

Still, the simple sight of this rainbow reminded me that there are other forces at work in this world. Forces that are way beyond human understanding. It was, I suppose, a reminder that no matter how bad things get, they can always get worse, and they WILL always get better. I wish it were easier for me to remember that from day to day, but apparently I'm having a bit of help in that regard from on high.

I have to confess that I've been questioning my faith this last year as well. Some questions I've been asking haven't been able to answer themselves satisfactorily to me. Why are people who believe as I do ridiculed, mocked, and berated for doing nothing more than standing for their principals? Why is it not okay to be Christian in the most Christian nation on the planet? Why is it okay to believe in a hoax like global warming, but daring to teach children about the Ten Commandments in school is seen as hateful and "backward"?

It just doesn't make any sense to me, the hate. But maybe I'm over complicating this. Maybe I'm so busy analyzing events that the simplest explanation is immediately thrown aside as "too obvious". Simply put, the hate I see, the vitriol I hear, and the events that occur in opposition to any such even slightly religious happening can be summed up in one word: Evil.

Darkness always rails against the light, as they say, and I can only make any sense out of what's happening if I look at it in that regard. The ACLU, for instance, tries to destroy any and all depictions of religious activity in any part of the public square. The attacks on Sarah Palin continue to escalate, with the latest one being a heartless attack on her son Trig, who has Down Syndrome.

I could go on and on about the idea of Darkness railing against the Light as it pertains to Sarah Palin all day long, as new attacks mount about her by the hour. I could go on for an equal amount of time about the ACLU. I won't do that because we all know how bad those things are already.

The point I'm trying to make is that I see so much evil in the world now that I am beginning to lose sight of the good that exists as well, though I am reminded of it from time to time, as I was today with the sight of the rainbow.

I always believed that evil existed, but now I realize that it was largely from an academic point of view that I believed in it. I knew people did evil things, but I always thought that they'd get theirs eventually, and never really noticed the impact those evil deeds and individuals had on other lives. I also knew not to do those evil things myself, and am happy to say that as far as true evil goes, I don't fit the bill. Forgive me if I sound like I'm tooting my own horn here.

Heh. And just now I'm confronted with yet another small miracle. Somehow, some way, I was inspired to go looking for Youtube vids appropriate for complimenting this post, and I find this little gem:



Good advice...I think I'll take it.

Continuing to Fight the Good Fight...