Fiction?

Although I am trying to read more non-fiction, my second most favorite thing to do, behind talking to folks, is to read fiction.  I've helped to track down the worst of the serial killers.  I've saved the world from total destruction by catching the bad guys and stopping their evil plans in their tracks.  I've helped to build a great cathedral in Europe.  I've helped Hunter Quatermain find King Solomon's mine.  I've rafted down the Mississippi.  I've helped Ayn Rand to answer the question, "Who is John Galt?".  I've broken wild horses and wooed the fair maidens of the Old West.  This doesn't sound like much good would come from it except to rest and kill time.  However... I am going to quote a couple of things I've read just lately that seem to say, at least to me, that a lot of what I think is fact and not fiction.  Even fiction authors seem to want their protaganists to be real and, once in a while, I like what those characters are and what they have to say.  That said, here we go.

From "Unspeakable" by Sandra Brown:

     His travels had exposed him to different relegions.  He had sampled peyote with a shaman from one of the tribes in Arizona who believed the gods spoke through drug-induced visions.  He had caddied one summer for a golfing rabbi who had talked to him about God's covenents and the promised Messiah.  He had discussed the gospel with a group of Christian seminary students at an outdoor rock concert.
     All believed wholeheartedly that something greater than themselves was directing their destiny.  Something greater than themselves was at least helping them choose the right path.
     Jack didn't know which relegion was valid, or if any of them were.  He couldn't imagine a God who was omniscient enough to create the cosmos only to direct the lives of men with such petulance and caprice.  The reason for natural disasters escaped him.  He didn't comprehend why bad things happened to good folk, or why mankind was forced to suffer pestilence and famine and war.  He wasn't so sure about the whole concept of redemption, either.

From "Booked to Die" by John Dunning:

     Today I'm a mess of contradictory political views.  I believe in human rights.  I believe in due process, but enough is enough.  I'm a fan of a just and swift execution where vicious killers are concerned.  It's just ridiculous to keep a guy like Ted Bundy on death row for ten years.  I hate abortion, but I'd never pass a law telling a woman she couldn't have one.  I believe in the ERA, find it hard to understand why two hunderd years after the Bill of Rights we're still arguing about rights for half our people.  I like black people, some of them a lot.  I supported busing when it was necessary and would again, but there's something about affirmative action that leaves me cold.  You can't take away one man's rights and give them to another, even in a good cause.

Understand, I don't believe or endorse all of this, but the fact that you are reading fiction doesn't mean that you aren't thinking.

Here I Go Again!

As I get older, I find it harder to climb up on my soapbox. As long as I keep reading the newspaper and watching and listening to news reports however, I'm bound to continue to use that platform. Two items have made the local, national, and even international news over the past few days. I feel a strong need to comment on them both. The really good thing about my blog is that I do it mostly for me. If you happen to read it and agree with what I say, that's great. If you don't agree, I sure don't mind hearing from you. If you decide not to read it at all, that's okay too. Its not like I'm trying to make a living writing it.

The local item first. At East Forsyth High School, near Kernersville, a SRO (School Resource Officer - our euphemism for campus cop) broke up a fight by using a Taser on one of the two students involved. An argument began in a classroom and turned into fisticuffs in the courtyard. The SRO, a police officer assigned from the K'ville PD, followed his training and protocol to end the fight, by firing his Taser, when one of the two involved was slow in responding to the SRO's orders to stop. Evidently the weapon used is low-power since, although it knocked the student down, he was able to immediately follow the order to "put your hands behind your back" while on the ground. The K'ville Chief of Police and the school principal have publicly supported the SRO's actions as being correct. That said, I'm very sorry that the action had to be taken. I'm even sorrier that we have to have SROs on each school campus, from elementary through high school. The W-S Journal reports that East Forsyth has about 60 fights per year. That's about one fight every two or three days! The Journal has also reported that there are gang problems at East Forsyth. With that and the fact that we are really growing some big high-schoolers now, I support the SRO 100%. Here's where I have a real problem... both students were black and the police officer was white. S. Wayne Patterson, the president of the W-S chapter of the NAACP said that the "incident is outrageous." He continued that "If racism didn't play a part, then the officer would have talked to the students instead of using his Taser. Anything could have happened to that young man." He is right. The student could have had his head bashed in in the fight, been sliced with a knife, or had much more damage done while the officer was trying to "talk" to them. Race! Race! Race! Why is it I don't find it hard to believe that, if a black officer had tased a white student, under the same circumstances, and the white community had complained, Mr. Patterson would have accused the white community of being racist and defended the officer? As long as our leaders, at any level, use race as the culprit in any and almost every situation, we will never find peace and acceptance among the races.

Now the national and international incident. Four battle Marines will, sooner or later, be identified as those pictured urinating on the bodies of enemy combatants. These Marines, men in size but hardly adults in age, have been shot at, bombed, seen their buddies bodies torn apart by the ravages of war. They have suffered much more than most of us can possibly realize. I lament that the picture was taken and published, but I especially lament the fact that these Marines will be thrown to the dogs. The U.S. imprisons living human beings in Guantanamo and offers them no rights under law. In North Carolina, we debate whether or not a prisoner on death row should be able to use any legal argument in his defense. Many feel that the sooner we put them to death, the better. These are warm, living bodies. Where do we get the right to take the moral high ground and condemn the Marines. I'm in favor of telling the Taliban that, if you don't want the bodies of your folks urinated on, don't put them where they are going to be killed. I'm also very much in favor of keeping our troops where they have much less chance of being killed! During my generation's war, I heard more than once said, "If we catch one of those pajama clad bastards alive, we're going to rip off their heads and shit down their necks." Given what was happening in Vietnam and the U.S., I think I would have joined the line to do just that. Our Marines aren't perfect, but they are the best defense we have. If we grant them the right to kill the living, how can we condemn them for having no respect for the enemy dead? Semper Fi!