I’ve had my fair share of religious encounters, and by “encounters” I mean believers preaching to me about faith. To these people, believing in God is about as simple as riding a bicycle. Sure, you’ll fall off a couple of times and you’ll get lost on a road in a unfamiliar neighborhood, but you’ll eventually peddle your way back home. Its a beautiful sentiment, a sentiment I wish I could hold on to in times of crisis. And believe me, I understand why religion and faith exists - to guide people through life. I’m glad that people have God because I honestly believe that some people truly need him, or Buddha, or Muhammad, or hell (wait, that’s an inappropriate word to be using in this context, isn’t it?) Zeus for that matter. Yes, if I were to ever give an acceptance speech for a prestigious award I’d chime, “I’d like to thank God and the 10,000 other incarnations of God for cutting violent crime in the U.S. by 50% for 2009.” If gangsters didn’t have God… oh boy… I mean, someone has to reign in the killing some time. Don’t they?

And I am thankful that belief reminds people to be kind to one another. Of course, it pains me a little to know that people needed some old dude to write down the 10 Commandments so they could remember how to be kind, but it works. Who am I to buck the system? Oh wait, I like bucking the system. Sorry, I just confused myself with someone else. <— Apparently this is why people need 10 Commandments, they must forget who they are and why they are here. Perhaps the vast majority of the general population is suffering from some form of Alzheimer’s? You know, I wake up every day and try to be a good person simply because its the right thing to do. Not because I am afraid of some entity peering down through chalky white clouds, waiting for me to sin so I can be banished to Hell for all eternity. No. I just like to be good. It makes me feel good. It makes others smile. My Mother always said that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I don’t know whether or not this is true, but I reason that I am saving people all over the world from facial exercise. Facial exercise people! Smiling is like natural botox.

Other people need God because they are afraid of Death with a capital “D.” I understand completely. After all, I’m a non-believer. Let me tell you, the prospect of laying down for a dirt nap for all eternity isn’t very appealing. But then, it scares me to think I have a soul because then I’ll never truly get to sleep. I have to reason that if there was a goal to my fleshy existence and I was simply moving from one phase to another that surely, yes surely, my soul has a purpose too. Its like retiring from a white collar job with an excellent 401K only to find out that you’re going to have to come out of retirement to work the door at Wal-Mart. I’d arrive at St. Peter’s pearly gates and groan, “You’ve got to be kidding. Ok God… I get it! Jokes on me! Ha Ha.” I like sleep. I really do. If God does exist I hope we can work out some arrangement where I can sleep the first 1,000 years and then awake in the after life. Perhaps I can be encased in a glass box and animals from the nearby meadows can scamper over to my body while I wait for Prince Charming to…… well, that’s never going to work now is it? But seriously, death is scary. I get that. I just don’t see what’s so horrible about having a finite existence. I think it would make people appreciate their lives on Earth more if they didn’t believe in Heaven. It’s like marriage, everyone knows there is an escape clause. So, if you screw up the first time that’s okay, you’ll get another shot. What a terrible philosophy!

Of course, some people need God simply because they deal with pain and suffering. This is perhaps the greatest argument for faith because I cannot see or imagine a better way of dealing with hardship. I recently came to the conclusion that I need some sort of talisman or good luck charm to hold on to because my life, as of late, has been extremely difficult. Sometimes I feel alone. Sometimes I feel like I’m not being listened to. Sometimes I want an objective shoulder to lean on. I can see the allure of faith. It doesn’t require any material possessions. It simply exists all around you, in everything you do. I want that kind of peace. I want to believe that everything will work out as it is supposed to and all I have to do is continue to participate - God will take care of the rest. But there’s this little voice that creeps up from inside of me that challenges, “People need faith because they are weak.” In my opinion, religion is a patriotic opiate that keeps people from challenging authority. I imagine the government shoving their hands up the asses of every citizen in America and using us for a puppet show at the local library. For some people, this is a perfectly acceptable way of living. But it isn’t for me. I never wanted to fall in line. I never wanted to believe what everyone else believed simply “because.” I need proof.

This isn’t to say that I disrespect those who are religious. I’ve had many good friends throughout my life who are deeply religious. In fact, my girlfriend has an enormous amount of faith. No… I’m just jealous. I wish I could turn off my thoughts and fall in line and simply go with the flow for the sake of my own sanity. I felt this way when I announced my homosexuality too. Why couldn’t I just be like everyone else? Its like selecting myself to go before a firing squad or be hung or bolted up in a stockade. Who wants to endure this communal shame?

Yet, to deny my sexuality would have proven detrimental. So, I suppose that believing in God without truly “believing” would have been equally destructive to my self image. The one thing I truly believe is that believers should believe entirely, they shouldn’t be made to feel guilty or manipulated into belief. No amount of water-boarding in Guantanamo Bay 8 weeks from now could make me believe in God any more than I do at this very moment. Belief is something that comes from within, not from without.

So, until I find my spiritual self I have chosen to believe in the power of a charm to bring good luck. After all, if I believe it works that’s all that really matters, right? Isn’t that what faith is?

I imagine sitting in a large office chair behind the biggest most expensive desk money can buy and considering the resumes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for a more or less “ordinary” job. For the sake of this exercise lets exchange Obama and Clinton’s political experience with academic experience and consider them potential candidates for the position of Dean at a prestigious University. The reason I have chosen this particular field and job is because it does not remove the candidates from a position of hierarchy, importance, or knowledge (skills which I believe are essential for President) and therefore is not as far-fetched as considering Obama and Clinton for, say, fast-food cashier.

Truth be told, I don’t care if Obama can inspire hope and comradery amongst the staff at a University. For me, the ability to get along with and play nice with others is not one of my chief concerns. Its simply icing on the proverbial cake. I’m looking for someone who has experience being Dean or, has experience in a capacity close to the Dean. This, of course, is not an uncommon or unrealistic request. After all, this is precisely what Human Resources personnel look for when they are thumbing through hundreds of applications. Experience, experience, experience. If you’re sending in an application for Data Entry and the closest you’ve ever come to working with a computer is asking your Mother to type up your resume, you’re probably not what the company is looking for. If you won’t hire a fisherman to be an attorney because he has no experience being an attorney, then yes, experience is important - no matter how you slice it and dice it. (The very fact that Obama supporter’s so eagerly throw Clinton’s experience aside in favor of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. like sentiments makes me want to crawl in a hole and wait until the Experience Holocaust has come to an end.) If you wouldn’t hire a fisherman to be an attorney, why on Earth would you elect someone who has such very little experience to run an entire University? Its precisely like saying, “Well, the fisherman hopes he can change the way attorney’s do work!” Is hope and change a job qualifier? I don’t remember being asked this in any of my interviews. Maybe I should have brought up that “I hope I can change the way the company works” during my interview? Maybe that would have gotten me hired? Of course, I’m being facetious. I’m confident that if I had come into an interview touting what I could change about the company and how bitter employees were that I would never have landed the job. Never. Hiring committees would see this as cocky and probably a bit psychotic. You don’t endorse change in a company or in a system unless you have been around long enough to suggest it. Its that simple. Obama’s answer to experience has been that he can change things and make them better, yet he hasn’t been a part of the academic process long enough to know how to go about making change. Clinton wins the experience battle. Sure, she wasn’t the Dean before - but she was married to the Dean and she has an intimate understanding of what its like to live in the Dean’s house and deal with the politics of the University. She is a lot older, has been a part of academics for a lot longer, and is inherently more familiar with how to go about being the Dean than Obama is. Maybe a few more years of experience will give Obama what he needs to win the experience battle. (Of course, you could go back through this paragraph and simply replace the word “academics” with “politics” and “University” with country.)

The reason I have chosen to throw out this mock battle for Dean is because I think people are forgetting what it means to be hired for a job. People have chosen to ignore Clinton’s experience as a politician and as a former first lady in favor of hope and change - two ideals that would get any applicant laughed out of an interview. It seems that Americans want to elect what makes them feel good (Obama) or someone who is good to look at (Kennedy) or someone who promises change (Bush). Actually, the way in which American’s dote on politicians teeters on something vaguely reminiscent to sexual harassment. Why don’t we just slap Obama on the ass and say, keep up the hope inspiring words? Essentially, Obama is catering to every whim of the American people. We. We. We. We can change. We can make the government better. We can make the U.S. what it was supposed to be. All Obama is doing is feeding the American people what they want to hear. He’s certainly not more qualified to run the country than Clinton is. If you want to feel hopeful go read the Bible or the Quran or any other number of religious texts. If you want to hire someone to perform a job, stick to what’s rational and realistic. Hire someone who knows what they’re doing and knows how to do it. Give Obama some time to get some more experience so I can vote for him in another 8 years - could you? Would you?

Furthermore, the Clinton’s have been beaten up by journalists for years. The media has poked every possible hole it could think of poking into Hillary Clinton. There’s nothing left to talk about. What could McCain possibly throw in Clinton’s face? 10 years of controversy that’s all ready been discussed and hashed out in the media? Obama, on the other hand, is like a time bomb waiting to explode. Its just a matter of time before another Reverend Wright situation rears its ugly head. We don’t know enough about Obama. This is a fact that was repeatedly discussed during CNN’s coverage of Clinton’s primary win in Pennsylvania yesterday. According to Leslie Sanchez, “The problem for Obama was that his negative-related searches [on the internet]—searches of terms “Rev. Wright” and “bitter,” for instance – outnumbered all searches for Clinton by a margin of 7 to 1. While folks followed the rumor mill with Obama, even searching his name with Brad Pitt after reports surfaced they may be related, Clinton searchers predominantly focused on policy-related matters like “health care” and “economy.’” (http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/23/web-searches-may-hint-at-late-decider-votes/) Is this surprising? No. No. And no. The media is going to keep digging for facts about Obama. This is only the beginning. Why not let him go back to his Senate seat for a few more years and let the media dig into his background there?

Its just absolutely ridiculous to me that so many Americans are so eager to hire someone for a job when that person has almost no experience and has not been battle tested. Hillary’s resume proves she can deal with the chaos of the Presidency. All Obama’s resume says is HOPE AND CHANGE. Yes, you can hope that Obama knows what he’s doing and that he doesn’t have anymore skeletons lurking in his closet. Or you can change the Presidency by voting for Clinton. Are you an idealist or a pragmatist? Because this is the difference between an Obama presidency and a Clinton presidency. Vote with your mind, not with your heart. In the words of my Father, “You can wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.”

Is it possible to create our own movie magic in the world? I’d like to think so. Every once and while I find myself driving in my car, listening to a particular song, dwelling on happy or sad feelings and I’ll pause to think, “This moment, right here, right now, is movie magic.” Its a moment where I feel so connected to myself and to the world around me that I imagine anyone looking in on the scene would sense precisely how I am feeling and how beautiful the moment is. There is a soundtrack to each of our lives - a story that if scripted correctly would entertain and inspire any audience. The truth is, we’re all so different from one another that I’m sure we’d find most anyone else’s life fascinating, save our own. It unfortunate that our lives don’t always seem magical while they’re happening. And, whether we like to admit it or not, many of us, the world over, spend most of our time on Earth simply trying to escape life and miss the magic entirely.

Over the course of the past month I became absorbed in the ABC show, “October Road” and for the first time in my life, a piece of fiction made my own life seem magical.

The show is centered around an aspiring author named Nick Garrett, who flees his hometown shortly after the death of his Mother. Garrett, a teenager at the time, supposes that by leaving home he will be able to escape his sorrow and begin anew. Unfortunately, he leaves behind his brother and father, close childhood friends, and a girlfriend. In a sense Nick does escape his past. He grows up, writes a critically acclaimed novel about the people from his hometown, and becomes a New York city socialite. At the pinnacle of his success he is asked to return home to promote his book at the nearby college. Nick is hesitant to do so, but reasons the trip will only last a couple of days. So, he hops in the car and makes the journey home.

For Nick Garrett his return is both a joyous and complicated occasion. His brother, father, and friends greet him with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. They trade stories, reminisce, and essentially become the family unit they were before Nick left. However, some people in the town are less than happy with the book Nick wrote. The books highlights numerous scandals that occurred in the town during his youth. Ultimately this makes the people in the town feel vulnerable to the outside world, and they aren’t shy about telling Nick how they feel about this. Furthermore, his childhood best friend, Eddie, wants nothing to do with Nick and promptly avoids conversation with him. You learn that Nick and Eddie had planned as teenagers to open a business together called “Best Friend Windows,” and Nick’s departure landed Eddie with a crap landscaping job. Of course, the more interesting and complex relationship involves Nick’s ex-girlfriend. For all intents and purposes, she was ready to marry Nick before he up and left town and never came back. Nick discovers that she is now dating a guy they went to high school with - a bully and a jerk that he despises. Not only that, she has a small boy who’s age is exactly the number of years since Nick left town. (Is the boy his? I won’t tell. You’ll have to watch to find out.) Needless to say, Nick’s journey home becomes an indefinite affair as he tries to recreate the bonds he so forcefully severed and make peace with the people he hurt.

The thing about October Road is that it reminds me a great deal of my youth. I fled my family and my home to find myself in the world. I made a pit stop in Texas and detoured through Colorado. For one reason or another, I believed I could escape who I was, become someone different. I think we’ve all entertained the thought of running away, fleeing the magic of our own lives, unconcerned with the devastation we leave behind. I have friends who have thought about leaving their children. What would it be like to just be responsible for me? I think this question pertains to everyone, not just those with children. Its a lot of work to keep the people around us happy with who we are and what we’re doing. Yes, I believed I could run away. But, I think that in the end we all find out that running away doesn’t really solve our problems, it just creates new ones. Coming home was really the easiest and the hardest part of my life. It was easy because I missed the people I knew and hard because I missed the magic of their lives for years. Its hard to sit around a dinner table and listen to familiar people tell unfamiliar stories of events that happened while you were away, of children growing up, birthdays and weddings, and even, in some cases, death. In a way, I felt as though I hadn’t actually escaped my life - I’d just overshot it by a few thousand miles.

October Road helped me see the magic of my own life because in a sense, it is my own life - though I’ve never lived in Massachusetts and I’m not a man! Its still my story. Its a story of things I’ve done, thoughts I’ve had, and feelings I’ve felt. It helped me see that my own life is the stuff of movies (or television), that there is a magic to my years that no one else can claim but me. It is possible to create our own movie magic. The secret is to keep living.

Dressing up, for me, is equivalent to walking around with a large flashing sign on my head which reads, “I’m a jackass.” I hate dressing up so badly I have told everyone close to me that when I die, no one is allowed to wear a skirt or slacks to my funeral - people are to come in jeans and a sweatshirt (I do live in Washington. It rains a lot here, so a sweatshirt is probably appropriate.). Of course, I’ll have no way of knowing if my parting wish is fulfilled. After all, I’m not planning on rising from the grave to give a Tim Gunn (Project Runway) like speech about what everyone is wearing. I just want everyone to be comfortable! Is that too much to ask? I picture everyone nestled around my tombstone singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Road,” in flannel shirts and faded blue jeans. It makes me smile to picture this and gives me a strange sense of solace and warmth. Comfort. That’s what my life has been about so far. And that’s what I want everyone to feel when they’re dealing with my death.

The truth is, formal wear is not comfortable. It wasn’t made to be comfortable. Its the adult equivalent of school uniforms and who, as a child, wanted to wear a uniform to school? We all look the same and wear the same ridiculous khaki or black slacks with a blouse or button down shirt of some sort. We’re like trained monkeys. Funeral - dress wear. Work - dress wear. Wedding - dress wear. Church - dress wear. Party - dress wear. Dinner at a restaurant - dress wear. You know what this says to me? Not only does God not want to see me in my Levi’s, but neither do any of my friends or co-workers. The sad part is that I know most of us run home after a day in these suffocating outfits and strip them off as quickly as possible, like they are made of nitroglycerin and have an expiration date.

My sister and my mother insist that they enjoy dressing up. Many people do. But this isn’t true. What they enjoy is everyone complimenting them on their choice in clothing, their sense of style, like they’re being appraised for an art gallery and going to be hung on the wall. They dress for everyone else, not for themselves. My refusal to dress up for weddings or funerals is perhaps the only non-conformist attribute I have left from my youth. I just can’t help but feel that everyone dresses up for all the wrong reasons - for everyone else.

Furthermore, my sense of self-esteem and attitude are attached to the clothing I wear. If I am comfortable in what I am wearing, I am ten times more likely to be kind and considerate to the people around me. If I’m uncomfortable in what I am wearing, well, I’m just as likely to bite your head off and throw your body in the nearest river. I think better, I react better, and I work better when I am in comfortable the clothing I am wearing. Yes, dress wear is like donning a cloak of anxiety/depression - society’s way of telling you that you weren’t beautiful enough to walk out the door in the first place.

To be honest, I feel like a prostitute. Tomorrow I’ll wake up, pull the slacks from the drawer and put them on just so I can impress the corporate machine. Its just as bad as pulling high-heeled leather boots onto your feet and walking the street corner. It isn’t you. It isn’t the person you know and like or want to be… but you have no choice. Money is money and I need it. I want the job. I just don’t want to sell myself to get it.

George Washington, the first President of the United States of America, didn’t want to be President. In fact, he loathed the idea. It is common knowledge that during the American Revolution, Washington fought for the right of the colonists to separate from British monarchy. Even though the Founding Fathers cautiously crafted our system of government and our Constituton, Washington could not see himself stepping into the role of President because he believed it bore too much resemblance to the British crown. Why would he want to step into a role he fought so hard to break away from? Most people don’t know that Washington had to be coerced to step into office, that he did all he could to avoid the position, and when he took on the role of President every step he took was tenuous. Washington was not a politician. He was a war hero. He was an ordinary man that had achieved extraordinary things. He was aware of his own faults, his own desires and needs from his country, and fearful that he would ruin America with his bias. As a result, Washington played one of the most distant Presidential roles in our nation’s history. He was intent on allowing the majority to speak rather than trying to pass his own legislation or create policy that benefited his lifestyle. When historians say that George Washington was one of our nation’s best Presidents they mean it. He embodied the very essence of what American’s were trying to accomplish - democracy. Sure, he had his own faults. All people do, especially politicians. But it was Washington’s awareness of his faults and his desire to allow America to mold itself that make him a Presidential paradigm.

I try to imagine what it would be like to have a Presidential candidate in the 2008 primary season that was half as brilliant or democratically motivated as George Washington. In modern society, politicians want to be President because the position holds unbelievable power. Of course, let us not forget that the position pays well and allows white collar men/women to establish and create more connections, which in turn allows them to make even more money. Bill Clinton took in more than 10 million dollars for his last book alone! I can’t even begin to fathom how well Obama’s Audacity of Hope is doing. Gone are the days where men and women dreaded having to become a part of the political process because it meant making long journeys across the country and taking time away from better paying jobs to participate in a government which offered welfare-like paychecks. Gone are the days when Presidents worked arduously just to ensure that our government wasn’t folding in on itself and becoming what revolutionaries had fought so hard to escape. The fact that Bush tried to amend the Constitution to reflect his own definition of marriage shows how greatly the position of President has evolved. Most people don’t know that the majority of the Founding Fathers were Deists, a non-Christian, nature encompassing religion which largely condemns the Bible. I can’t help but wonder if Benjamin Franklin is rolling over in his grave every time Bush holds a press conference. In the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli the United States government denounced any direct affiliation with Christianity.

The goal of America was to become religiously free, not to recreate the religiously intolerant shit piles Europeans had been stepping in for years. Yet, 208 years later (when you think about the fact that some people live to be 100 years old, this doesn’t seem that long ago, does it?) Bush asked America to claim Christianity by placing an amendment in the Constitution dictating what marriage is for Christians. Wow. Just… wow.

As I said before, look how far we’ve come. Unfortunately, I can’t say these changes are/were good changes, because more than anyone, I believe the quality of our government has been in a constant state of decline since the early years of our nation’s inception. We have taken a relatively good foundation and continued to break it apart for years. In essence, we are screwing up the very thing that once brought us all together. Rome was a 900 year old society when it finally broke into pieces, being absorbed into newly formed states. I can’t help but feel that the Romans knew something the American government doesn’t, that we’re slowly but surely heading towards our decline, but at a rate that far exceeds that of Rome.

You can be sure Obama is every bit as self-absorbed as every politician who has run for President before him. He will not be able to turn back the hands of time. He cannot be as self-sacrificing as George Washington. If he was, he’d be eaten alive by other politicians. The very fact that Obama is able to compete in this primary season seems to suggest that he plays the same games all politicians play. You can’t play a game of baseball without players, and players can’t play well unless they have enough skill and savvy to do so. Likewise, you can’t have a primary without politicians, and politicians can’t do well unless they have enough skill and savvy to do so. Hillary and Barack are competing at the same level with the same blame games and the same support. Polls have shown for months that the two Democratic candidates are roughly tied time and time again. Its a staple of our society at this point to have corrupt politicians. And the fact that two corrupt people are again running for office is really no surprise.

That’s why I propose we forgo the entire primary season and instead, elect me for President. Just think…

Its time someone reclaimed the White House and the Presidency for what it truly is, a shit job with a lot of headaches. It shouldn’t be a position of enormous wealth or power. It should be a position of impartiality, of listening to the public. Now that, my friends, is change - ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Smith’s book begins with four American tourists who are, for the time being, enjoying a relatively relaxing holiday at a Mexican resort. When another vacationer, a German man named Mathias, tells the group that his brother has been missing for several days at a nearby archaeological dig, the group decides to leave the comfort of their four star hotel and venture into the jungle for an authentic Mexican experience and to help find the brother. Pablo, one of three Greek men that has been hanging out with the tourists for several days, asks to tag along (he doesn’t know any English and the group has a difficult time understanding him). He leaves a map of the archaeological site for his two Greek friends at the receptionist counter and immediately joins the fun. Hours later the group piles off of a bus and into the sunny, steamy streets of a city neighboring the dig. They then flag a taxi which drives them down an 11 mile dirt road and deep into the heart of the jungle. Apparently they will have to hike the rest of the way. Upon exiting the vehicle, the group realizes they have no way to hitch a ride back into town. Oh well, they assume, surely someone at the dig will have a car. Yes, surely. But, we all ready know that this is a horror story. So, I’m placing a $10,000 bet on the fact that everyone at the site is all ready dead and this group has no idea what they have gotten themselves into.

Indeed, the group marches for several miles, accidentally passing the path they are supposed to take, ending up in an isolated Mayan village. Of course, the tourists know Spanish - but Mayan? They ask the Mayans for directions to the dig while gnats and mosquitos hover like a mesh screen around their faces, biting at their ankles and cheeks. Apparently none of the Mayans understand English or Spanish, so the group decides to back track. With some difficulty they find the correct path to the ruins and they continue on their journey, growing increasingly weary from the hike, hungry, and dehydrated. Finally, stepping into a clearing the group comes to an abrupt halt and they survey a large hill with two tents perched atop. They’ve arrived. Unfortunately, this excitement is short lived when a man from the Mayan village approaches from the thickness of the jungle on horse back, frantically waving a gun at the tourists and begging them to leave the site (in Mayan) and turn around. I would have left right then and there. But, Smith does a good job of counteracting the irrational with the plausible. He has the characters excuse their fears of the Mayan man through various thought processes like, Maybe this is some sacred site and they don’t want us to be here, not, Maybe there is danger lurking up ahead and he is trying to warn us? So, you can understand how the tourists end up in the positions that they do. I think its part of the human fight or flight instinct to rationalize away fear and to make scary situations seem less so. When the group finally manages to make it to the top of the hill and poke around in the tents, they learn that there is a dark and menacing presence inhabiting the ruins and they must do all they can to save themselves and the others.

I must give credit to Smith for his narrative. Many passages are grusomely horrific in their detail. I found myself aching to close my eyes during several scenes because the imagery was simply too vivid. Its like watching an X Rated horror film in words. I will say there weren’t too many surprises in the text. Smith is excellent at foreshadowing, but I almost found that knowing what was going to happen made the suspense greater. It was sort of like watching a pan fall. You wait for the sound of the pan hitting the floor and you don’t want it to happen, but then it does. My chief complaint with the book is that Smith writes on an 8th grade reading level. I could have read this book when I was in middle school and never had a problem understanding the context. This makes for light and quick reading. However, one of my pet peeves is when an author uses the same word or phrase over and over again. In The Ruins the words implacable and inexorable are used so frequently I now find myself trying not to use them in casual conversation. When I say they are used frequently, I mean like every 7th page. Needless to say, The Ruins is not enjoyable because it is literary genius. It is enjoyable because the story and ideas presented within are so incredibly fascinating that I couldn’t help but get swept up. This book just proves that you don’t have to be an Ernest Hemingway to write a good story.

On another note, I was given this book before the movie arrived in theaters. (Now playing at a theater near you.) My Mother insisted that I read it because she needed “somebody to tag along” with her to the theater. She is absolutely terrified of horror movies. I finished the book on Wednesday and we went to see the film on Thursday. I’d love to give a review of the movie, but I honestly felt that the story was so deeply ingrained within my mind that I couldn’t appreciate the movie for what it was. I have no idea if it was scary or not, whether or not it was in the slightest bit understandable, or whether or not the characters even remotely resembled those in the book. This is the first time I have ever had this experience with a book which has been adapted for the silver screen. The imagery Smith provides is so extraordinary that I couldn’t let my own vision of his world vanish long enough to just “see” the movie for what it was. This is drastically different from my experience with The Da Vinci Code, where my arms were practically flailing about in the air and I was shouting things like, “NO! It didn’t happen like that.” Either Smith’s book is so amazingly vivid that its impossible to not expect the movie to be as it was, or the movie was so close to the book that I didn’t notice. (Although the plot was moved around and bits and pieces were changed here and there, the entire film remained surprisingly true to the book.) You can be sure the book is better than the movie though. There’s something about the psychology of The Ruins one could never tell in film.

P.S. Tangled Up In Blue is a song by Bob Dylan and also a metaphor for the book.

This is the problem with Barack Obama. As much as he dotes on collectivity and change, he offers nothing in the way of universal direction. Yes, he offers up individual hope. But what is his universal uniter? Change? I think its pretty clear that no matter who inherits the White House, we’re in for a change. So, ask yourself, what is it exactly that Obama is offering to you? What does his message of change entail? How does it differ dramatically from what Hillary Clinton is offering you? I’ll tell you what the difference is. Clinton has offered up a position and policy while Obama has offered up a “dream.” Last I checked, one cannot solve problems with dreams. If dreams solve problems I need to sleep more.

Allow me to explain. I want to believe the majority of American people are smart enough to know that Obama’s persistence in using the “We” to talk about national politics is a Thomas Moore, very Utopian dream and quite simply, not achievable. But it seems that most people are falling for his rhetoric left and right. Has any Obama supporter ever stopped to realize that at some point he is going to be required to make a decision which benefits one group of people and not another? “We” are not all equal in our needs and wants from the government. To believe that all of our wants and needs can be satisfied by a person who still has his own interests at heart is simply ridiculous. I want gay rights. This isn’t something my Mother strongly supports because she has wants of her own. She wants compensation from the government for my Father’s service in the military. So, I want to know, when push comes to shove, whose interest does Obama have at heart? He can’t rally for everyone. So, who does he help? Me or my Mother?

It seems that Obama’s greatest victory with the American public is that he didn’t support the war in Iraq. He comes back to this in debates time and time again. Are the people of America suffering from collective amnesia? Does anyone else recall the terror and chaos that ripped through this country after 9/11? The war is no longer popular because the public believes it has evolved in a fashion which has been exceedingly detrimental to this country’s image and because George Bush has done little to stop the bleeding. But, rewind to the months just after September 11^th and ask yourself, if you were a Senator would you have voted for the war in Iraq? I should hope that you would have. It was what Americans wanted from their government. We wanted justice. We wanted to know our homeland was secure. Since that time, things have changed. The fact that Obama did not endorse the war seems to suggest he wasn’t listening to the people – something that he claims to be able to do without fail. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, 62% of the American people polled (2002) approved of “military action” in Iraq (Council on Foreign Relations: http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5051). In another poll, this one conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News in April of 2003, an astounding 72% of Americans supported the war in Iraq. (ABC: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2008/03/war-in-iraq-the.html). Yet, Obama and his supporters repeatedly dote on the fact that he disapproved of the war from the get go as if this was somehow the clear and right decision six years ago. On the contrary, he took the road less traveled. His stance was an incredibly unpopular one and the American people seem to be forgetting this. It baffles me that the same people that supported the war in Iraq from the outset are the same people who are now supporting Obama because he opposed the war from the begining. How naive and hypocritical!

I want to call to people’s attention that Obama has, long before his candidacy, been about supporting what he believes in - not what “we” believe in and his stance on the war is a superlative example of this. In other words, the collective “we” he keeps talking about was no where around when he decided the war was not something he approved of (an “I” statement on his part). Obama states, ” I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars” (The Network Journal: http://www.tnj.com/archives/2004/september2004/final_word.php). In hindsight, does his decision seem like the right one? Of course it does now. But it didn’t resonate with the public opinion in 2002 or 2003. Where’s the “we” in that?

I frequently tell people that if politicians changed their minds as frequently as the general public does we’d have a serious problem on our hands. The inherent beauty of our government is that change is not something that can occur overnight. Change in the American government requires checks and balances and endless debate. The Constitution can’t be ratified in a day. This is a good thing. If the American people had their way, I am sure the Constitution would change on a daily basis.The reason I bring this up is that our incessant desire for change, whether it is to quickly get into a war or out of a war, has blinded us to the reality of change in government. Obama won’t simply step into the White House and change everything you once hated about the government. If you believe this to be true, you’re being naive and forgetting that he will have to fight conservatives and that a majority of government officials and politicians has to agree on the issues to create change. One man is not going to change the thousands of older white conservative men who have been sucking this country dry for years. Change is not a platform! Wake up and smell the coffee! What makes you think that if Bush wasn’t able to pass Constitutional laws dictating that marriage is between a man and a woman that Obama will have an easier time creating liberal changes?

Oh and let’s not forget that even though Obama claims he knew he might have to separate from Rev. Wright during his campaign that Obama gave his only taxable donation to the church two months before he declared his candidacy. What does this say about Obama? The fact that he was willing to stand behind a church and a man who he knew to be making disparaging comments about America just months before announcing his presidential bid seemsto suggest he thought that supporting the church was in his best interest! What does this say about Obama’s character - that he knew his pastor to be making racially charged accusations and yet he is unwilling to separate from him? Let me tell you, if I was going to a church which accused black people of giving AIDS to whites, I’d get up and leave in a matter of seconds. Its that simple. Why is it okay for Obama to be associated with someone waging a racial war and it wouldn’t be for Hillary? Hillary being a part of a non-violent Ku Klux Klan would be just as disgusting to me.

The 2008 primary season has seemingly turned into a high school election for class president! Who is more popular? Who is more charismatic? Its like watching the preppy, popular cheerleader (Obama) face-off against the thoughtful, well-organized nerd (Clinton). And we all know that the nerd was more capable and prepared to handle school issues. So, why on Earth did we vote for the cheerleader? Obama leads Clinton with the youth vote while Clinton leads amongst adults. Since when have the youth had an accurate understanding of the political system? Do we really believe that youth are capable of voting for the more qualified candidate when they can’t do so in a school election?

Actions speak louder than words and so far, Obama’s tank has run solely on words. Are there some issues I disagree with Clinton on? Yes. But, at least I know what my disagreements are. I know who and what I am voting for! Do Obama supporters even have the faintest idea? There is something to be said for experience because you know what you’re getting and how you’re going to get it. I’m sorry Obama, “change” is not a policy or a plan of action. Change is something that happens whether or not we want it to.

I can no longer count on one hand how many times I have become invested in a television series and before it has had the opportunity to come to fruition the network has taken it off the air. Does this upset anyone else? Or am I simply alone in my hate mongering? The 4400, which as far as I am concerned, was the only show worth watching on USA, was canceled this past year. Jericho, the only show worth watching on CBS has vanished “Without a Trace” (Without a Trace is another show on CBS - I’m being facetious). Countless other shows, including gems such as Wonderfalls, Carnivale, and Dead Like Me, suffered similar fates. I find myself hesitating to become invested in new series’ because I fear their untimely end.

I believe its fair to say that watching a television show week in and week out is sort of like developing a personal relationship (i.e. friend or lover). I become invested in the characters, the drama, and the plot. So, it would follow that I would expect some sort of resolution to the problems that have developed because I have invested so much time and energy into caring. My Mother told me when I was younger that someone once advised her to “never go to bed mad.” I heeded this advice with much enthusiasm because I, for one, do not enjoy tossing and turning in my sleep at night. Moreover, I don’t want to dream about my problems. I’d rather have any other number of dreams, including the one in which I go on a shopping spree, then dream about a person I am fighting with. If I never go to bed mad all of my problems are (at least temporarily) resolved. This philosophy is what fuels my discontent with canceled television shows - because I have no choice in the matter. I have to go to bed mad because the problems that were presented in the canceled show were never resolved. Its like being dumped in a relationship. No, better yet, its like finding out your lover is having an affair with your best friend because you’ve been “replaced.” That’s what networks do. They replace your show with another one. Its really, really not fair. Such is life.

So, I find myself asking, why watch television at all? I am the one that has remained loyal over the years. I am the trusting, eager partner in this relationship and I keep getting screwed over and over again. I want to know, who should I direct my anger at? The network? Money? Reality television? There’s so many parties responsible! The networks want to make money so they keep shows which draw more viewers so they can make more money on commercial advertising or they replace scripted television with real crap to keep the cost of production low. AGGGGH! Really, we’re getting screwed by the networks in every possible way.

Over the past year I have become invested in October Road, Eli Stone, New Amsterdam, Lipstick Jungle, Moonlight, Pushing Daisies, Eureka, Reaper, Men in Trees, and Dexter. Half of these shows haven’t done well with audiences and so, will probably be canceled within the next year. I’m dreading the inevitable - the break-up. I imagine that its sort of like waiting for your parents to die. You don’t want it to happen, but suddenly, they’ve been diagnosed with cancer and you know the time you have left with them is diminishing every day. Of course, the death of a parent is entirely more heartbreaking, I’m sure. Still, I find that this waiting around for what I know to be inevitable is really cumbersome and it only serves to make me angry. It takes a heavy toll on the soul. Should I grieve about the loss of people I never knew and places I never visited? I don’t know. But, you can’t fight the human condition - which is to care about things that become a part of your life. Whether they are a part of my life virtually or in reality, I care.

Of course, you can expect a bunch of new shows slated for fall release - most of which we can assume will fail miserably. So, if you’re in to watching five to ten episodes and then having a steel plated door slapped in your face, by all means, go ahead and watch. Some people enjoy this sort of pain. But to all the money hungry television networks out there - you can bite me. There I said it. I’m breaking up with you in the only way I know how. I’m only watching your shows on my terms from now on. I won’t be watching your Fall releases until you indicate that you’re keeping the show long-term. So there suckers!

For the record, my Xbox 360 is broken and I haven’t had a chance to play the only game I truly care about at the moment, LOST Via Domus. I know its available for the Playstation 3. I know the graphics are probably better on the PS3. But, I can’t reason playing a game on the PS3 that I could be earning achievement points for on my 360. That’s just sad if you think about it. I’m sure you know where this paragraph is headed, so let’s just go there now. I know that claiming my Xbox 360 was broken as the sole reason I was suckered into “Second Life” is sort of well, fallacious. I would have enjoyed Second Life with or without the death of my 360. Am I slightly ashamed of this fact? Yes. So, I will continue to look down at my keyboard in a sullen fashion for the rest of this entry. Lets just say there was an opening in my gaming schedule and this allowed Second Life the opportunity to weasel its way into my first life?

I had actually heard about this PC game a long time ago, but the information fled my short-term memory like a leopard on crack. In the life of a gamer, there are so many environments to explore, so many objectives to complete, and so many stories to share that its difficult to remember every single title available for every single system. Furthermore, I’m ten times more likely to play something people have exuberantly discussed in online forums than to walk into my game store and purchase a game I have never heard of. Now, the question is, since millions of people play this game and are addicted to it.. where were these people in the online forums touting the customization features and socialization aspects of Second Life? See… its not just me. Millions of people are embarrassed to admit that they play this game. Second Life is like the bastard child of the gaming community.

At the mention of Second Life in The Big Bang Theory I paused my television set, headed over to my computer, and Googled the game. To hell with the online forums, I thought as the Second Life homepage sprang into view, the game is free. Its a good day when you can explore a game and formulate an opinion about it without dropping a single penny. Truth be told, I’m not sure Second Life is really a game. Its like Facebook and Myspace because its a socializing network. Yet, it has a lot of the same functions and concepts as the best-selling PC game, The Sims. One of the reasons I fell in love with The Sims, and then The Sims 2, and then every expansion pack made available for them, is because I enjoy customization. Honestly, one of my favorite aspects of a sports game is the ability to create unique players with unique skills, or to build and create new uniforms. Perhaps this is the more feminine side of myself? To create is to explore possibility. Its one of the reasons I enjoy video games and reading, and thousands of other activities which require me to use a part of my brain. Possibility is what makes real life so infuriating, happy, sad, depressed, excited, and any other numbers of emotions - and we are the creators of our own possibilities.

But, there’s something about Second Life that makes the creation of possibilities a lot easier and a lot less controversial. In Second Life you can be whoever you want, do whatever you like, and interact with people as you see fit, without consequence. (As long as you’re working within the confines of the Terms of Service Agreement.) Truth be told, it really is a second life. You can go shopping, hang out at night clubs, buy land, build a home, setup a store, participate in discussions, or just “chill” like you would in your own living room. The fun part of Second Life is that it allows you to be someone you’re not, and grants you the permission to socialize in ways that might be unfamiliar to you.

For example, in Second Life, I play a man. (I usually play a man in most video games. You’re not about to see me in high hells… yes, that says”hells”… or a skirt any time soon.) There is something about being a man in Second Life that is very different from being a woman in real life and, oddly enough, these stereotypes mesh with the stereotypes present in the real world. I should know, because my partner now plays as a woman, and the difference in socialization is incredible. So much so, that someone should write a psychology paper about this game. One of the things I first noticed upon playing Second Life as a man is that you are expected to begin and end all conversation with the people around you. This largely includes women, who act about as timid as a cat who’s paw you ran over with the car a week ago. Its odd, because I am unaccustomed to the power of “dictating”, if you will, conversation. My partner’s character, being a female, is bombarded with requests to chat by all of the men standing in the room. (We think this is hilarious.) So it would seem that in Second Life, men are supposed to flirt or “ask first” and women are supposed to stand around and wait to be asked. It reminds me of Leave It To Beaver in a weird sort of way, because the premise of this socialization seems so outdated. Yet, I have so many girl friends who admit to being shy when it comes to men and prefer to be asked out on a date rather than to be the askee. Its this sort of strange social mechanic that makes the virtual world of Second Life full of possibility to actually live and create a true second life.

Apart from the differences in socialization, I’ve had a great deal of fun shopping for furniture and building my own home. Lets face it, if I could live in my Second Life house instead of my First Life apartment, I’d move into my virtual home any day of the week. Only in Second Life can I have beach front property, four fireplaces, a hot tub, and hundreds of other appliances and knick knacks that would break my bank should I buy them in my First Life. You should know, if you decide to download and play this game, that purchasing items in Second Life does require cold hard cash. Some of the environments in Second Life, such as Freebie Island, allow users to download various hair types, skins, eye colors, clothing, furniture, etc; for free. But, most of the quality goods, as usual, will cost you a couple of quarters to purchase. Money in Second Life is called Lindens and you can exchange US Dollars for Lindens on the Second Life website. Today, I bought $15.00 USD worth of Lindens, which came out to about 3,850 Linden dollars. In other instances, if you’re in need of some fast Lindens you can seek out employment in the virtual world or you can fill out surveys. Surveys are a pain, but I’ve gone that route when I didn’t want to use any of my own money to fund purchases in the game.

So, for now, Second Life has me hooked in between its giant muddy claws. Yesterday I learned how to make and design my own shirts. Who knows, maybe today I’ll learn how to run my own store. The possibilities are endless…

Take a well deserved break from your first life and go create a second one.

FYI: The tutorial for this game takes a good 30 minutes to complete. But, you won’t regret it. The tools in Second Life can be a tad bit frustrating to learn how to use. Its like The Sims in that you have to play with every aspect of it in order to understand how it works.

First and foremost I would like to point out that intellectual property is not the sole property of the creator. The reason for this is that almost all intellectual property is shared, meaning that others have access to its function and therefore have access to its ingenuity. If ideas stay in your head, they remain yours forever. When you choose to talk about them or make them publicly available, then you are granting others access to your intellectualism. For example, if I invent and patent a flying car tomorrow, a year or two later other motor companies will have had a chance to sample that car and come up with designs of their own. In a sense, one creation often leads to varying similar creations. Moreover, the flying car I have invented in this example will probably be improved upon by others ideas. This is the process of sharing, a communal, social aspect of society that has been a part of our world for hundreds of thousands of years. The very fact that you are reading this makes you a part of this process. You are sharing in the intellectual highway. Perhaps an idea presented in this article will inspire you to write about something similar, much like Laughlyn12’s article encouraged me to write a rebuttal.

Now, the premise upon which Laughlyn12 argues is that praising a flying car and its quick acceleration based on the fact that you read an owner’s manual telling you it has a special engine in it which enables the car to fly faster is fallacious on your part. According to Laughlyn12 you should know more about an item before you proceed to talk about it, otherwise you are stealing the concepts of another human being in an effort to make yourself look smarter. The inherent problem with this argument is that it is quite impossible to know everything there is to know about something. Even professors at the University level have their own intellectual limitations. How much should someone have to learn about a particular subject matter before they can discuss it in conversation?

Moreover, there is an enormous difference between recapitulating someone else’s argument and recapitulating what would be considered general knowledge. For example, I could ignore the fact that Darwin is considered to be the founding father of evolution and write a long and detailed journal of how I came to the conclusion that various plants and animal life have evolved and adapted to one another. This would be intellectual “fraud” of a sort. (Although, I should mention I don’t like the words “intellectual” and “fraud” together, because, to me, they reference the ongoing battle over online piracy in America.) Darwin’s hypothesis is still, to this day, unique in nature. To claim his ideas as your own would be an “intellectual hoax.” However, the words Darwin and evolution would be considered general knowledge because most people, the world over, have shared Darwin’s theory with one another and know something about it. Granted, they may not know everything there is to know about it. Most people don’t know that Darwin was a social recluse, and that when his work was published, “evolution” was not a word that was associated with his ideas. But, nevertheless, people still know of Darwin and of evolution. General knowledge does not require an intimate understanding to be shared with others because it is exactly what the name implies, “general.”

As a matter of discourse, some people will become interested in Darwin or evolution after receiving information about them. Some will choose to seek Darwin’s material out, read it, and ponder it. Like our flying car, Darwin’s ideas will be expounded upon, explored in new lights, and discussed in different ways. All of this is permissible, so long as the users of his work are not creating exact replicas of his work. Some people will argue that Darwin committed religious heresy, and others will praise him for his scientific genius. It does not matter how they discuss him, or in what context, only that people are sharing his information and thereby, making the world a more intellectually involved place. This only serves to further my point, you don’t have to have read a scientific journal or take a history class to know that Darwin’s ideas were important to science. People will tell you this because its general knowledge.

Of course, Laughlyn12’s main argument deals with the fact that a great number of gamers have mentioned Ayn Rand’s influence on the Xbox 360 game, Bioshock, and that it is highly probable that these same people have never read her work. Thus, Laughlyn12 is implying that Ayn Rand’s work isn’t “general knowledge,” and any discussion of her works as it pertains to Bioshock is intellectual (here’s that word again) fraud because people have stolen the idea that Rand’s work and Bioshock are correlated from other’s reviews.

Ayn Rand, while not a household name, certainly holds a spot on the information highway. People have discussed and pondered her work for years. My Mother recommended Atlas Shrugged to me because she believed that Rand and I shared very similar philosophies. My Mother did not go to a University like I did. She read it because she had heard about the book by word of mouth. So, Rand’s work was passed to me and then I shared it with a close friend of mine. So on and so forth, intellectual property has moved across meadows, forests, and oceans. Rand’s work is infamous in its own right and while she certainly doesn’t hold as high of a spot on the “general knowledge” list as Darwin, she has received plenty of acknowledgements for her work over the years. The very fact that an Xbox 360 game deals with some of the subject matter presented in Rand’s work speaks to her success.

So, Ayn Rand’s book sales (according to Laughlyn12) total somewhere around 35,000 last year. That means that 35,000 people have read her book, probably talked about it with someone else, and shared the book by loaning it to a friend. If you can imagine the world of “sharing” as a highway much like the internet, with no real stopping points, but as a chain of information that continues across continents and into every household, then 35,000 books is a LOT of sharing. Not to mention that this statistic doesn’t count the number of Rand’s books checked out from a local library, or buying the book at a yard sale. (My friend checked out her copy of Atlas Shrugged from the local college library.) Friends that I went to school with knew of Ayn Rand well enough to talk about her work, even though the majority of them hadn’t read a word of her writing. Did this make them “intellectual hoaxes”? I don’t think so. I believe it pointed to the fact that they were diverse enough in their knowledge to be aware of the fact that her writing exists. Rand is like Darwin because her ideas have been exchanged and expounded upon for years. People still talk about her writing. People also disagree over her writing. If anything, this makes her an important participant in the growth of intellectualism and culture.

When you write an article for a magazine or a research paper, you go and dig through other people’s collected information on the topic you are writing about before you write about it. You go to the library and dig through the stacks, or you painstakingly search for credible online resources. Chances are, someone, somewhere has all ready written about your topic. It pays to do research because it makes your writing more credible. The fact that Bioshock is correlated to Ayn Rand’s work in hundreds of reviews is not the fault of bad research. It means that gamers did research before writing their review of the game, saw the book mentioned, and decided to bring it up because they considered Rand’s influence on the game to be important. They don’t have to have read her work in order to bring it up, because hundreds of people all ready agree that this statement is fact. Its like getting information from an encyclopedia, only a community encyclopedia.

If you are writing about M&M’s and fail to mention that they contain chocolate, well, that’s mighty short-sighted of you. (Failing to mention Rand in conjunction with Bioshock at this point is short-sighted.) The fact that M&M’s are made of chocolate is general knowledge. I didn’t have to take a tour of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to deduce this fact. Nor did I need to read a recipe or watch a cooking show. I know they are made of chocolate because people the world over agree that this is what M&M’s are made of. If the world agreed the sky was pink and the grass was blue, then those are the colors individuals would associate with these natural objects. This is what we would call a collective majority. A certain number of people agree that there is a correlation between objects and ideas and then we (tend to) collectively agree with them. It just so happens that the collective believe there is a connection between Rand and Bioshock.

Asking a community of people to ignore information passed between one another seems very ignorant. That’s like asking people not to read the newspaper, or watch CNN, or go to school. Heck, the very moment your foot stepped on to school property you’d be committing “intellectual fraud” according to Laughlyn12’s definition. We all share. Whether its ideas, books, fashion, or games – we look to the people around us to help shape our knowledge and our understanding of the world around us. Should a news reporter fail to mention that a car accident occurred in a small town in Arizona if she doesn’t know where the town is? I should hope not. Whether or not the reporter knows where the town is, the fact remains that the accident occurred. This doesn’t render her incapable of discussing the accident. Nor should someone’s removal from a work of fiction render them incapable of discussing a game. The fact remains, Rand’s book had an influence on Bioshock. Not discussing it now would be about as ridiculous as saying, “There isn’t any chocolate in M&M’s.”

If Ayn Rand wasn’t general knowledge before, she certainly is now.