The Lightforce Rebellion

Posted on 25 December 2011 | No responses

The Lightforce Rebellion is now available on Amazon’s Kindle store for $3.99! If you like young adult action/adventure, take a look at it, download the sample, and if you like what you see, please buy it. Once you’ve read the story, please also leave a review. Reviews help convince others to purchase the story.

Here’s the blurb:

Zach Moran has never measured up. And when he runs through a mysterious door in order to escape a bully, he unwittingly finds himself trapped in the strange, yet familiar world of Foronar. The thief Soren has stolen the device that would allow Zach to travel back home. Now he sets out to recover it with the help of his newfound friends Sid and Walter, and a beautiful girl—Erika.

But Erika has a dark secret of her own. She is Soren’s adopted daughter, tasked by the thief to lead Zach to him. For Zach is the key to Soren’s own designs. Designs fit for him, and him alone. Now Zach must conquer his fears, face death, and stop Soren… or remain trapped forever.

This is my first published novel, and the second one I’ve written. The story is up on Kindle right now, and soon it will be available online at Barnes & Noble edition, the Apple iBook Store, Kobo, and Smashwords. Soon after that, there will be a print edition available on Amazon.com.

Like all first-time-published authors, I’m proud and happy that I’ve managed to get something up. For me, I set the challenge for myself in March that I’d get a novel-sized story up online in time for Christmas. It would be fun to read and not suffer from most of the problems first-time novelists encounter and I managed to do it.

For me, that’s big. And I wouldn’t have been as successful if not for my early readers Adam, Anthony, Andrew, Shanan, my parents Craig and Donna, along with Jennifer, Jeff, Laurie, and Brad whose suggestion for a cover artist ultimately led me to some great cover art. Thank you all.

Over the next few months this site will be undergoing a redesign in order to move some things into the right places and to ultimately transform it into a proper author’s site.  In the meantime you can subscribe to my mailing list by clicking the proper link above.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

Categories: SW City, The Lightforce Rebellion, Writing |

Thanksgiving

Posted on 25 November 2011 | No responses

Today I would like to share with you the text of Abraham’s Lincoln Thanksgiving Day proclamation, given in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War. Presidents as far back as John Adams have proclaimed public days of thanksgiving to God–which should surprise those of us who have believed the myth that our Founding Fathers intended to keep all public references to God out of their politics, but that’s not necessarily the point.

This speech was given during the most trying time of our country, the Civil War. On the surface, it would appear that there wasn’t a lot to be thankful for. And yet, this is the proclamation that made the day into a national holiday, and it reminds us of what we are giving thanks for, and to whom we are giving thanks.

Proclamation of Thanksgiving*
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State

*Source: The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.

Categories: Christianity, Personal, Politics, Writing |

The Darker Side of Apple

Posted on 4 November 2011 | No responses

Watch this, then ask yourself, what are you going to do about it? Mike Daisy thinks he’s found the answer. Upgrade your products less frequently until Apple makes Foxconn change its worker practices.

Question for the audience; How many successful human rights campaigns have been waged on the premise of just taking advantage of the products of human abuse only ‘less frequently’?

Big. Fat. Zero.

Mike Daisy is an actor, not an activist. His primary interest isn’t in human rights. It’s for his play. In a year he’ll be on to the next one. But I’m okay with that, because the world needs people who will at least do something to bring attention to the moral evils in our world. Mike has a talent suited to doing so, and I welcome that he’s bringing attention to the labor issues at Foxconn. In fact, he’s the reason I’m posting this and spreading the word, because I care too. I just hope that he stops trying to have his cake and eat it too.

I would hate to stop upgrading my Apple iPod. I really love it. It’s an excellent productivity device. But perhaps it’s time to stop buying products made by Chinese factories that don’t treat their employees right.

Categories: Christianity |

Video Games and the Decline of Man

Posted on 5 October 2011 | No responses

Today Colin Campbell from IGN posted a rebuttal to Bill Bennett’s opinion piece on the “decline of man”.

I would encourage you to read both pieces. Then come back here and read my response to Colin.

The worst kind of critics are those who don’t understand what one is talking about. In this Colin and I agree. But we probably disagree on most everything else because I don’t believe that Colin understands the argument that he has responded to.

Bennett’s opinion piece does not place the blame on video games for the decline of men, or more accurately, mens’ seeming-inability to take responsibility and grow up. While he does include stats about video game playing, they are clearly intended to be an example or symptom of this trend and not causes, exactly like every previous statistic Bennett cited before he got to video games. The examples he cites reference college degrees, employment, how many men get married and/or stick around to be there for their children, religious devotion, and an article on gender role reversal by Hanna Rosin from The Atlantic.

Colin writes a poorly-considered and frankly petulant rebuttal that straw-mans Bennett’s entire thesis, presuming he is blaming video games and then mocking him for doing so without offering any real counterargument. And yet we would think it odd for Colin to come to the belief that Mr. Bennett blames universities for the decline of male responsibility. But that is exactly the sort of thing he assumes with video games, apparently just because they were mentioned in the article.

Contributing to this misunderstanding is perhaps a misconstrued idea of what Mr. Bennett means by the ‘decline of the other sex.’ He does not mean false notions of machismo or piety, nor does he refer to putting women back into the kitchen to make their husbands sandwiches and babies. Rather he refers to what makes man happiest; being productive, creative, and artistic at his chosen goal and disciplining himself to achieve those ends. After all, one will never create a video game if he never gets up off the couch and turns his console off. Rather, Mr. Bennett is talking about a balanced approach to life. One can enjoy video games and they can have their place in man’s life, but one must also discipline oneself enough to go out and–if it is their passion–make their own games. Men contribute productively to society by doing so, but so do they also when they are devoted to a family as much as to their own craft, refusing to let their children be raised by games and TV and other people but instead raising their children with the same values that made them productive and upstanding citizens without making the same mistakes as their own fathers did when raising them.

Mr. Bennett’s blame for this observed decline rests squarely on other things than mere video games, as should be clear to anyone familiar with how argumentative writing works; the thesis is summarized, then supporting evidence is laid out to support that thesis. Then, only at the end, is the thesis justified and fully explained. His last five paragraphs, starting with the question “So what’s wrong?” are devoted to the real causes. Please read them.

Categories: Video Games |

Challenge Mode: Overdrive

Posted on 6 August 2011 | 1 response

I’m just about ready for this book to be done. I can tell because I’m outputting around 2000 words at a time now instead of the requisite minimum of 1000 words. Maybe this is making up for June, who knows? Here’s the stats.

Total Words Written in July: 17435.
Total Writing Days: 10
Average Words Per Day:  1,744
Total Words Written by the End of June: 64,511

And I would have written more if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids! Haha, no seriously, the last day I wrote in July was the 23rd. The last week of July I was faced with having to decide whether I was going back to Kansas to take a new position at my company or stay here in Washington.

I ultimately chose to stay in Washington, but not until I had agonized over the decision for a week. Which would be the week in which I did not write. Any sane person with the longing I have for Kansas would have gone back. But for some reason the people at the church I chose decided to grow on me, and I felt like I must stay here. For a few reasons, but mostly for them. Perhaps as recently as three months ago I would not have made the same decision.

Despite having only written for a third of the days of July, and for two days less than I wrote in June, I managed to output 4,000 more words than I had written in June. I think I’m over the mushy middle. I’ll be outputting at least 2,000 more words tonight once I finish with this blog post. And I fully expect to have the book done by the end of August, although I’m shooting for the third week. Wish me luck!

Life in General:  I’m feeling quite at peace with my decision to stay here, which is in itself quite a different position from where I was a month ago, when I wrote in this space that I was missing home.
Short Story: Synopsis still awaiting approval from the client.
Work: Doing my best to earn that raise in November!
Exercise: Cancelled my YMCA membership, but too late before it was drafted from my bank account for August. This makes me frustrated, especially since I seem to belong to the YMCA where the membership director is never available, which makes it hard to talk to her about a refund.
SW City and Active Worlds: Teh forum drama llamaz, it hurts! Entertaining, but also getting old on its third month in.
Voice Acting: Hey! I’m now the official VO guy for the EU Review! Check them out here!

 

Categories: Writing |

Challenge Mode: The Mushy Middle

Posted on 12 July 2011 | 1 response

June was a unique experience in that I was writing the middle of the book and coming back from a great vacation at the beginning of the month. I managed to write about 4,000 words or so on my vacation, and when I came back I didn’t want to work. So I took the week off.

This feeling of malaise has followed me right up until last week when I finally got the part of the book I’ve been wanting to write. So I suppose you can chalk up the month’s lower wordcount to the vacation combined with writing a part of the book that isn’t my favorite part to write; somewhere between the 50% and 66% mark. Blagh. Let’s take a look at the stats, shall we?

Total Words Written in June: 13,423.
Total Days Having Written: 12
Average Words Per Day:  1,119
Total Words Written by the End of June:  47,076

Ew. Now I don’t usually measure by how many days I’ve written in a month. I much prefer measuring by total output. If that means writing 5,000 words a day for three days then so be it. I might actually prefer it that way, to be honest, as it seems to my mind a more productive way of doing things. But a working professional writer writes almost every day and I need to build up that discipline first in order to plan for eventually writing full-time. So I’m a little surprised and disappointed to realize that I only wrote less than half of the days of the month. I can only do better this month.

The total words for June is 3,141 under the total for May and 3,666 under the total for April. Had I written just three more days I would have matched that level of output.

On the positive side, I’m still around 10,000 words above my minimum goal for June. I’m writing this during a break at work so I don’t have the exact number handy. I seem to have had this problem last month as well. So let’s just say we’re well within the ballpark.

I think it’s possible that I don’t like writing the middles of books. The resultant drop in my motivation to write and the fact that this is the least interesting part of the book for me, combined with me wondering if I will ever finish this make this a likely possibility. But I’ll have to write a few more books to be sure. July, however, is shaping up well as I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

As of July 12th, I’ve written a total of 53,635 words. I want to crack 65,000 by the end of the month, but we will see. This means my book has expanded beyond the initial 60,000 word goal. I’m pretty sure I will go beyond that, but am unsure if I will hit 80,000 words. I would like to, because it would be nice to know that I can plot and write a mass market-sized novel. But we will have to see if there’s enough story there. I won’t be artificially trying to expand it.

Hopefully you can expect July’s update within the first week of August.

The Rundown
Life in General:  I’m missing home already. I’m also addicted to Pokemon, which I’m playing on my new 3DS that I splurged for. Went to the fireworks at Fort Vancouver and traded StreetPass data with two other people. This is a neat idea, but I don’t live in a crowded enough country for it to really catch on. Ideally one should be able to trade StreetPass data with players over the Internet.
Short Story: Synopsis still awaiting approval from the client.
Work: Doing my best to earn that raise in November!
Exercise: Didn’t exercise at all after my vacation at the beginning of June. Curiously I did not gain any weight. Perhaps I’ve modified my eating habits enough. Yet, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I actually kind of miss the running. Since I don’t use the YMCA’s pool or weight machines for the most part, this is probably a good time to leave the Y and get a cheaper membership at another place elsewhere. Or buy a treadmill. Whichever.
SW City and Active Worlds: Active Worlds Inc. has had some staff turnover recently and the resulting soap opera on the forums has been fun to watch, though I sympathize with my friend who works there still. She gets to deal with all the unreasonable and irate teenagers on the phone and in the forums now. SW City hasn’t done much. Toying with planning a reunion-type event, but Ima Genius is doing a cruise in a few months, so that may mean it won’t make sense for us to do our own thing nine months later. This means my ConCarolinas friends will probably get to see me next year. Either way I win!
Voice Acting: Finished my first arc of episodes for the Bubblegum Crisis audio drama. I need to finish up a Podcast intro for a friend this week before I write any more.

Categories: Writing |

Challenge Mode: Writing Vacation and ConCarolinas Recap

Posted on 5 June 2011 | 3 responses

I suppose I’m overdue for an update. This is the beginning of June and so far I’ve written about 36,000 words of a 60,000-80,000 word novel. This is well on target for the timeline I published back in March.

I went on vacation last week on the 28th and am sitting in the Charlotte airport awaiting my delayed flight back to Portland. During that time I wrote 4,951 words. This is an acceptable number, it keeps me on track, although I was going for 1,000 words a day, which would have boosted me beyond just an on schedule finish date to an early one. Oh well. At least I tried. Several storms in Kansas (I got my storms! Yay! I love storms.) and of course some unforseen things that took away from my planned writing time diminished the wordcount a bit. I may have also been a bit overzealous.

I’m actually surprised that I had the energy to write. It’s a lot easier to have some when I don’t have a day job to go to. Often I’m drained after work and it feels like a slog to start writing, although that feeling usually disappears about 15-30 minutes into a writing session.

Here’s the breakdown.  For April I wrote 16,564 words. I started a week late because of some plotting issues, including last-minute negotiations to try to nail down whether I could use the SW City universe or not (turned out I couldn’t, and despite that, I’m happy with the world I’ve been able to create and think it is still able to accomplish most of the feeling I wanted to create by using the SW City universe). Because of this, I had to make a last-minute push at the end of the month that pushed me over the monthly minimum goal I had set for March by several thousand words. Since I’m in an airport I can’t refer to what that goal was, but it was somewhere between 12,000 and 14,000 words, I believe.

May turned out pretty well, all things considered. 17,089 words written. Things went fairly according to schedule. That just leaves 2,460 words that I wrote on June 1 and 2. Ultimately I’m satisfied with my progress but am wishing I could go a bit faster. It’s hard to do that though. I also think for the next novel my weekly goal is going to be 3,000 words. As packed as my schedule is I’m finding I did not schedule in quite enough time for unforseen circumstances and well, just rest days, really.

This vacation has really been a blessing, as I’ve been able to recuperate and just relax. The writing has been really enjoyable for the most part, except for having to rewrite a scene because of a plot-hole I inadvertently introduced.

First I got to meet up with my brother Matthew and his wife and tour their new home. I then spent a couple days for Memorial Day at my grandmother’s lake house with relatives. I find I’m very lucky to have an extended family that doesn’t fight very often, and it was a real treat to see everyone again.

Last Monday we went home and I spent several days there. I even got to see a lightning storm, which Vancouver/Portland doesn’t get, and I’ve really missed the Kansas weather. I got to spend time with my parents, my brother Andrew, and got to see my two aunts on my dad’s side, whom I don’t get to see very often. We met at the Brookville restaurant in Abilene, spent some time in their freezer due to a tornado warning, and spent the rest of the evening (aforementioned writing time) dodging huge supercells full of death-inducing straightline winds and large hail while trying to drive home.

We even got to tour my friend Chuck’s house (he’s more Andrew’s friend than mine, but still a friend), which he purchased. It’s an old-style victorian home with monstrous square footage that he’s planning to rent out. A bit of a white elephant, really, but if he sticks with it he’ll actually make money. I can see why he bought it now.

The next day we found out my parents’ grain elevator business suffered some damage. I can’t upload photos now, but it damaged three grain bins of quarter-inch plate steel, crunching them like pop cans, and completely blew another bin made of thinner material off its foundation. This diminishes the capacity the elevator is able to take in for the wheat harvest in a few weeks, the largest money-making opportunity of the year. The river valley also flooded, which will further diminish the harvest yield for everyone who had wheat growing there. By no means a national disaster, but still a bad setback.

ConCarolinas was this weekend, and i got to see my friends Nathan, Andrew, Sarah, Joe, and meet a new friend, Josh. This year we actually spent more time enjoying each other’s company than going to panels and listening to other people speak. This is as it should be, IMHO. We even got to include Indiana Jim in on one of our conversations via the magic of Skype. He enjoyed it, and I think he was appreciative, since he wasn’t able to come this year due to family obligations.

Overall I think everyone really enjoyed the different feel of our get-together over previous years, this togetherness being the key element here. Some were even open to the idea of showing up on Thursday next year so that we can have an extra day to be together. In fact one person even suggested, independent of my input, that we ought to just get together at Nathan’s house someday instead of going to the con. I doubt that will ever happen, but I would welcome such a change. We could still geek out, but we could do it on our own schedule instead.

It’s not that I find cons boring. I just find my friends so much more interesting. They are why I traveled across an entire continent. Not the Sci-Fi Whose Line Is It Anyway? panel, although that was a blast too. Even got to shake hands with Harry Turtledove before that panel started.

Anyway, there is a storm incoming it looks like and I need to eat before the plane takes off since this plane is delayed and their cutting my layover in Houston short. So I will leave it here. Post questions in the comments section if you want to hear me reflect on something.

Until next time!

Categories: Personal, Voice Acting, Writing |

Challenge Mode: Tee Has A Kindred Spirit

Posted on 14 April 2011 | 2 responses

I’m a little depressed. The two Kansas-style thunderstorms we had tonight perked me up a bit, though. But I’m still a little down. That’s because I was not able to get permission from one of my friends who helped create the SW City universe to use that universe in my novel. You see, a bunch of my friends and I created it collaboratively over the last decade, and so to use it commercially in anything requires I get a license from each one of them by having them sign a contract granting that license. Everyone but one friend agreed to do so. And I needed everyone to agree.

It came down to two reasons.  The first is that he doesn’t feel comfortable with signing any contracts whatsoever. The second is the primary motivation, that he considered it a very personal collaboration between us all and he thought any adaptation of the universe would require similar collaboration or it would spoil in his mind what he considered to be the “SW City”-ness of the result.

Obviously collaboration between seven or eight people is not something reasonably accomplished in writing novels.

I’m… well I still don’t know what to say, except that, Tee Morris, if you’re reading this, man, I so totally can relate to you right now. Luckily my friend is still talking to me and has given me a solid answer, but I can relate to being unable to write in a world you love so dearly because of the misgivings of a co-creator.  So yeah, to say I’m disappointed is at best an understatement.

But the promise I made to my friends when I chose to explore this option was to preserve the friendships we have over everything else. If we couldn’t come up with a way to make it work, I wouldn’t pursue it. This outcome was always a possibility, and I tried to prepare for it, but its hard to prepare for something you don’t want to happen. It really is.

So in the aftermath I tried to find common ground with him in the midst of our difference, to let him know that I felt similarly when some of my cast and crew tried to take over my Star Wars fan film when I was in college, and that I don’t want him to be the bad guy in this. I even have defended him to my other friends who were excited at the possibility of reading a book set in the universe that they helped create and are now disappointed as well. All this bending over backwards has a point; to preserve a valuable friendship, despite our creative differences. These efforts have been largely successful as we are still on good terms.

Differences come with the territory of any friendship. And while I wish this wasn’t one of them, the goal is to learn and live with them. And so I’m moving on from it. I’m worldbuilding a new world with the same plot I devised; a different city set in a high fantasy environment, with different landmarks and different characters, but definitely still inspired by SW City.

It’s just it won’t feel quite the same for a little while. I wanted to capture the wonder of the SW City environment in the book that I felt while building the city with my friends. I can still do that to a lesser degree, I can try to capture the feeling and spirit, but the special significance of what has been a major part of my creative life in high school and college can not now be immortalized in the pages of a novel that I created; that field in which I’ve chosen to make my career.

That’s big for me. Melding my creative work then to the creative work I engage in now matters to me, just as much if not more than what protecting the collaborative nature of SW City means to my friend. It matters because that’s how I create; by taking elements of my past that are nostalgic to me or part of my identity and using them or even remixing them in new ways. It’s my time machine; my instantaneous teleport back to how things were, and simultaneously a way that I can share what I felt–that qualia or personal conscious experience of the feelings that I had on that day and at that time–with others in a compelling way.

That matters.

This solution of creating a similar but different world feels second-best right now, not quite good enough, and yet it’s really the only way I can justifiably stay interested in this project and stay on target with my goal of writing an ebook by Christmas. And perchance to dream, to fall in love with it again. Because when (not if) I do, readers will never know the difference. The only thing I will have lost is a link to my past.

And for some things, because you never know unless you ask, it’s worth taking the risk of the disappointment you might feel to see that link come to fruition.  And if it doesn’t pan out, it becomes a loss worth having pursued as well as a loss worth mourning.

The Rundown
Life in General: Decided to do the church podcast. I’ll probably get to last Sunday’s sermon this weekend. Parents came into town and it was a lovely vacation. Just briefly, we did the old scenic highway to Multnomah Falls, a loop out to the coast and back to Vancouver, Helvatia Tavern, and Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. Taxes also filed, and getting a nice chunk back (but at a terrible investment rate, basically 0%)
YA Novel: As indicated previously, this is no longer an SW City novel. Wordcount is proceeding poorly, with only 1600 words capped. Outlining ran two days over my estimates and parents came into town last weekend, and now I’m having to worldbuild a new setting. My estimates placed me at around 10,000 words ideal by this date, but I’ve built in vacation and busy days to the estimated completion date and will be working this weekend to make up the difference, so I’m not too concerned at this point as it doesn’t really count as falling behind quite yet. Productivity-wise this has just been a lousy half month.
Short Story: Synopsis is awaiting approval by the client.
Writing: Considering going to Wesley Dean Smith’s How to Be A Publisher workshop in October. Luckily its local-ish and I have the vacation days available. Anybody want to come with?
Work: Lots of support e-mails. So much that I’m having trouble finding enough time to get into a groove working on user documentation when I’m not answering them.
Exercise: Ran 20 minutes straight for the first time in my life last week while on a treadmill. Haven’t exercised since. Hoping to make it up this Friday.
SW City: Enthusiasm understandably lacking at this point.
Voice Acting: Just accepted a dual-personality role in a new Bubblegum Crisis audio drama. I’m going to attempt to do an old man’s voice with a Boston accent. Two filters on my regular voice (the Boston accent being something I’m learning right now!) = challenging!

Categories: SW City, Writing | Tags: Disappointment, Friendship, SW City

When Satire Becomes Propaganda

Posted on 31 March 2011 | 1 response

A friend pointed me to this article, thinking it was funny.  He’ s an atheist, outspoken and proud of it.

The article comes from a faux Christian news and opinion site, and it’s about signs a woman might be able to tell her husband is gay.

You should look over it now.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Okay.  What do you think?  My friend spotted the obvious satire, for which I’m glad.  Any Christian would too, because the site so obviously does not reflect their values or their thought processes.

But look at the comments.

It’s troubling for me to realize that the negative stereotype of Christians as stupid, mindless, politics-as-God monkeys bent on hating anyone different than them is so ingrained in western culture that nearly 100% of the commenters believe this is real.  But it’s not all that surprising.

Most people have never been exposed to a believer with a robust Christian worldview, and a good percentage of those have never been exposed to an actual believer (though they may have met people who identify as Christians in the same way most people identify themselves as Caucasian or black or Jewish). And most of what people hear about Christians is filtered through third party media people who haven’t met an actual believer either and are prone to report information using stereotypes and simplistic analyses.  This isn’t necessarily because of any ideological issues.  It’s because that’s how a 24-hour media culture functions.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the obviously overblown, misleading, and simplistic news coverage of the Japan crisis.  My poor aunt who watches a lot of it has been texting me to stay indoors because of the deadly radiation cloud that is apparently hovering over Washington state right now.

It’s even more troubling to realize that the article’s writer is commenting back to outraged people, pretending to be a Christian, and therefore intentionally reinforcing the negative stereotype.

One wonders if this is actually the intention.

And I can’t help but think of the nasty tricks that propagandists like Joseph Goebbels used on the Jews in the 30′s. If this site’s target were any other people group, it would be considered offensive to most of its readers.

It would be easy to compare this site and the article to the ones the Onion puts out.  But that too would be simplistic, I believe.  The difference is that the Onion’s articles are obviously fake.  They’re designed to poke fun and provide a good laugh, capitalizing on the ironies inherent in our culture.  People from all sides of the ideological spectrum enjoy it.

Contrasted to the Onion, this site is just ugly, designed  to mock and deride those who believe as I do by making us out to be people whom we are not.  It’s not funny to believers and people sympathetic to them, and people ambivalent or hostile to our worldview tend to miss the satire completely. It’s mean-spirited. And unlike good satire, which bases its humor on kernels of truth, this site exploits the ignorance of its audience by taking existing negative stereotypes and bases its articles off of them as if they were true themselves, and then its writers continue the charade in the comments even after it becomes clear that the satire of the article is not obvious to most of their readers.

This leads me to conclude that this is propaganda and not satire; designed for people who hate Christians and intended–using false pretenses–to cause people who don’t to do so.

What do you think about sites like this?  Sound off in the comments below.

Categories: Christianity | Tags: satire

I Have Strong Opinions. But Dammit, I Want People To Like Me!

Posted on 15 March 2011 | 9 responses

It’s no secret that I like to mix it up in the political and religious arenas arguing for my point of view.  Like football may be to you, debating is the irresistible sport that I also happen to have a love/hate relationship with.  I want to challenge myself. I want to learn new things. I want to get out there and do my team proud.  I feel bad when they lose.  I love it when they win.  I love it even more when I make the winning touchdown.  I boo the refs (who are sometimes self-appointed in my sport) when they make a bad call.  I guess you could say that like a lot of sports fans and players, I get so into my team when I’m playing for them that I think we need to prevail in order to feel good about myself.  What is my team?  I think it’s Truth.  Its mascot is Bobblehead Jesus.

Whoa there.  I think some of you may be thinking, “You can’t think you’ve got the truth.  That’s not fair to other points of view!”

I can only shrug my shoulders and say that everybody thinks they’re telling the truth (except when they think they’re lying, of course).  Even people who think it’s right to not admit they think they’re telling the truth for fear of offending somebody.

So why not just be honest about it and be up front about that fact? That’s the route I’ve chosen to go.

Problem is… I also want people to like me.  I’m having troubles figuring out what I’m doing wrong.  I go out of my way to be courteous to people who are not of the same mindset.  I try to be gentle.  I try to have a conversation and not a debate. I typically only talk to people whom I have a prior relationship with.

So obviously I know that there’s a time and place.

But it seems that whenever people think they’re being challenged, their defenses go up automatically. Dude! Chill. We’re just talking. Right?

No?

But…  but…

And then I get slapped down with a slogan, like “You shouldn’t judge others.” Or “Bigot!”  On non-political and non-religious subjects, like correcting someone on an inaccurate news report, I inspire frustration, even though all I typically say is that “Well here’s what actually happened. And here’s a link so you’ll believe me that I’m not the only one saying this.”

And I’m left scratching my head.  What did I do wrong?  All I want to do is share the truth.  :(  You know, to help and stuff.

People assume I’m showboating.  Really, I’m not.  No really! I try to be as unassuming as possible.

Ask Mrs. Gourley. 8th grade world studies class. Elian Gonzales. I was the only person in the class not to have an opinion on the subject because a) I didn’t want to be wrong and b) I wanted people to like me. She pegged me with that steely, stern gaze of hers–you know the one that made you dread having her as a teacher only to find out when you actually took her class that she was totally awesome!–and said simply, “I think you need to get some opinions, Chris. It’ll be good for you.”

Sometimes I wonder about that. Now I got opinions. And now people are generally annoyed when I try to share them.

And now I hear you saying, “Well you should only give opinions when asked.”

Really?  Cause.. I mean.. look at anybody’s Facebook wall and it’s filled with opinions.  Nobody asked for em.  Am I wrong in assuming that if they post something on their public wall that it’s still within the bounds of good etiquette to post a respectful disagreement? And most of the time I don’t bother. I roll my eyes and keep scrolling down the page.

Sigh.

A friend also ended our friendship last week (over Facebook at least) due to the fact that I was constantly challenging her points of view.  Well, not constantly.  Let’s put it this way.  She would unfriend me or say I needed to get laid every time I did say something after not saying anything for like… a month.  And it finally came to a head.

Which begs the question… Are most people this lilly-livered or am I just that big of a jerk?  Too free with my opinions?  Too strong in them?  Do people not like being told they’re wrong?

Okay.  Okay.  Dumb question.  That answer is obviously a big fat NO.  Hence the trying to be respectful part, picking and choosing when the right time is, if any.  So on and so forth.

Yet there are a few good people who know what I’m about.  I spent last week having a pleasant conversation with a libertarian-turned-anarchist friend of mine.  I compared his motivations for ending evil and suffering in the world by removing governments similar to leftist motivations for ending evil and suffering in the world by strengthening them.  He stated that the US Constitution was a total failure and implied my supporting military’s presence in Iraq and Afghanistan meant I was supporting the slaughter of innocents and that I shouldn’t be doing that.  It was a fruitful exchange.  And nobody died.  We’re still friends.  Even better, we each have a better grasp of what we each believe.

I think that’s what I try the most to do; learn about why people believe what they believe by challenging their beliefs directly. It is truly an uplifting and positive experience to find someone who disagrees with me who doesn’t get defensive about it. You know, like it was as war or something.  Because I just want to have tea and crumpets.

Some people don’t like this or don’t realize that’s what I’m trying to do.  Or both.  Maybe I just need to get better at figuring out who is safe to engage and who is not.  Or maybe I’m just a big fat, curmudgeonly jerkwad. I’d love to know your opinions below.

And as a bonus feature; if you don’t want to discuss it, because as you can tell I suspect I may be a bit overbearing, just say so and I won’t challenge you.  I’ll just say “Thank you.”  Looking forward to hear your thoughts.  Especially those of you who know me.  Comment below!!!

Categories: Christianity, Personal, Politics | Tags: politics, religion, tactics

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