Dear God...

Maybe since the internet age is upon us, Thou hast decided not to listen to vocal prayers and has decided only take them over the net. I don't have thy email address (I tried god@heaven, but only got a response from a daemon), so I hope thou art a dedicated blog reader. If that is indeed thy thing, then there's a few things I'd like to ask thee for.

Would you please heal my back?
Would you please keep my mind off dying?
Would you please help me find a publisher for my book?
Would you please help me pay off my debts by helping me find a job?
Would you please help me get some compensation through the VA appropriate to the amount of sacrifice I made and suffering I have endured on behalf of my country?
Would you please bless all my friends and their families, and my family and their families?
Would you please let the light of your peace shine in the hearts of all those around the world who would do violence to their neighbors?
Would you please answer my prayers?
Would you please forgive the snarkiness of this blog post (along with the rest of my inummerable shortcomings, weaknesses, poor choices, and sins)?

Your hopeful servant,
Brownie

Free Speech On It's Way Out with the Bees

Forgive me for being brutally frank, but this is the Libertarian in me dying to be unleashed:

An African-American organization is having a funeral for the word "nigger."
Don Imus was fired for saying "nappy-headed ho's"
A couple of shock jocks were fired for doing an over-the-top asian accented comedy piece.
Larry Flynt won a supreme court decision which allowed him to print his pornography.
Neo-nazis and KKK members are routinely granted permits to march and spread their points-of-view.
Public outcry drowned out O.J. Simpson's right to speak his mind in his book "If I did It."
"Hate speech" in and of itself is in the process of being criminalized in parts of the country.
Some crimes already covered by existing laws (murder, assault, battery, harrassment) also take on harsher penalties if accompanied by "hate speech."
Dissident groups who peacefully and lawfully protest the war in Iraq are harrassed, abused and infiltrated by police.
Efforts are under way by liberal groups to silence conservative talk radio folks all over the country because they disagree with what's being said.

(VERY LONG SIGH)

I remember a very simple, yet very honest and insightful phrase from my youth, one I think our lawmakers--no, everyone--should try to remember and take to heart: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." A bit simplistic perhaps, but the sentiment is one we've forgotten or abandoned. Why is it we celebrate our diversity of culture, but these days we are being forced into conformity of ideas? I know some of the examples I used above fall on different sides of the issue, but my point is:

"CANT WE READ ANYMORE????"

TO WIT: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech..." etc.

When did we become so willy-nilly that we could no longer stand up with our own voices to those we disagree with, and instead decided to do everything we can to SILENCE them. Sounds like HATE to me. Or at least intolerance.

Let every jerk out there you disagree with speak their minds (as we allow the KKK and neo-Nazi's to do). I urge you to ignore and suffer and counter-protest these fools til the cows come home, but do not muzzle them. Because if we remain on this track and follow the course of events I see being played out before me, eventually, YOU TOO will say something some group will hate intensely and you'll be the one who ends up getting muzzled.

To me, this all this sounds like the proverbial slippery slope, on which we've already started our way down.

P.S. I can't wait to see the comments on this post. Especially the ones that want to muzzle ME.

Untitled

I'm well adjusted to frustration
I function when I can
And remember all the moments, I just want to forget.
Slide along my life
Right behind me, if you can
The view is better in the front
But the danger only grows there
Too simple to be repeated
Too dumb to chase away
Silence is the guide I want for my tribe.
A thousand aching roses
A million sleeping sighs
A billion dollars aught to do it
(keep the fat from off my thighs).
Flashlights of memory
Phasing in and out
Just another moment
To be reflected out.
You trash your only friend
Like fire eats the fire
A dormant, unseen trailer
Wait for you to die.
To walk away--to walk away
From all you cannot see
The emerging distance in your heart
Stalks with sweaty teeth, slung toward the sky.
Underneath the pillowcase
I often wonder why
I have no camel friends
Nor magic in my eyes
No word to heal the wounds
Or end the endless cries.
Suppose I walk without you
Suppose you change your name
Try never to replace me
In your neverending game.
March out to the drummer's beat
Bloody two-by-two
Carry nothing sacred.
Unless there is no other.
A price uncertain paid
To the holder of your sanity
An unseen burrower
worming through your viens.
Not one, not one, no not one can see
The vanity
Of our collapsing window panes
In vain all emptiness gathers
Everything's the same.
A pig may hold your station
When you return for your door prize
A mighty madman awakened
To bear our your demise.
Shining cowlets, less bells
Swagger now in the sun
Betrothed to endless slaughter
A value to be undone, and aided by flies.
Spoken in the darkness, they
Like powder from a smell
In motionless agreement
Detract nothing from our Hell.
Wrap it up too tightly for my taste
Splatter it with my blood
A shrine to lasting indifference
My organs on the floor.
Nature abhors the vacuum in your head
And so do I.
There is no life jacket bouyant enough
For those who would walk on water.

-M.K. Brown

Bizzy Buzz Buzz Bye-Bye

So, now I hear the bees are disappearing, and at a rather alarming rate. Many beekeepers report loses as high as 50% over the last year.

You may ask: "So what? The price of honey will go up, big deal."

The problem is that bees do a great deal of nature's work for us. Their constant business of collecting nectar transfers pollen from one plant to the next allowing for germination and therefore reproduction, flowering and fruit-bearing to take place in countless thousands of species of plant life. Imagine if we kept planting all our corn and beans and fruit trees and whatnot, but they no longer produced fruit because all the bees had died off.

I am not really scared of things that might do me harm, though I'm careful not to be foolhardy with my body in daily life, nor do I court danger like those absolutely insane BASE jumpers. But stuff like the bees dying off does scare me. With 6 billion mouths to feed (and the numbers are growing at an alarming rate), we, as a species, cannot afford to lose one of our closest friends: the bee.

Lord, bless and protect your bees.

My Regret

Everyone has done things they are not proud of. Most of which are of little consequence in the big scheme of things, so I try not to sweat the little things (as long as my Prozac is working it's magic), or things I believe God is willing to forgive me for. But there are a few things we do in life that have far reaching consequences and from which we find we have a hard time ever reconciling these actions with our present state of mind. Some things just resononate endlessly through time, echoing off the bare walls of our minds, back and forth and back and forth, for so long we find them difficult to ignore. Or forgive ourselves for doing (or in my case, not doing) in the first place.

Many years ago, I met a young lady. We became very close friends over time and spent a great deal of time together and eventually I knew I was falling in love with her. Not just in a puppy-dog or google-eyed she's a real fox kind of way, but the kind of love that I know now is real. Based on real caring for one another, deep concern, the ability to talk about anything with each other and a physical closeness (though I never even kissed this lady) and comfort that I have never found in any other woman I have met since.

Yet I never expressed to her fully how I felt, so our relationship eventually fell by the wayside, as we became physically seperated by a few thousand miles and by our chosen career paths. Out of sight, out of mind I guess, though for many more months we continued to write one another regularly. But the seperation was too much, and my (unforgivable) inaction still haunts me. I thought, and frankly still believe, she was my soulmate, but I let her slip away because I was too weak, or too scared, or just too plain stupid to open my heart to her fully.

A few years later, she married and is quite happy these days (by all appearances) with a loving husband and beautiful children. It may sound cliche to say so, but I am truly happy for her. But this post is about regret, so here it is: I do regret not making my feelings known to her, for I believe with all my heart we could have carved out a beautiful life together. But that never came to pass, and of all the poor choices I've made in my life, that is the one I most truly regret.

So now here I am, trying to look forward, yet still trying (and often failing) to ignore the echoes of that beautiful (in every way) woman in my head. Still trying not to compare every woman I meet with the memory of her. And still failing miserably.

I wonder if I'll ever find that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If I don't, my regret may consume me, and that just sucks.

Okay, enough whining.

Who am I again?

Verse of the Day

Low dost swing this weary cry
A fortune- lover's lost
That permeates the broken sky
Alas, the precious cost.

-an excerpt from "The Mariner's Dream" by M.K. Brown

I, Movie Hound

I don't remember exactly when I became so fond of film, but it was probably in my late teens when I started dating, and the usual thing to do was to go to a movie, get a bite to eat and then snog somewhere relatively out of the way. Later, a friend began having 'movie nights' at his house, where a bunch of friends would get together and try to see how late we could stay up and still pay attention to the movie playing on his father's brand new Betamax. (Wow! You can watch movies on your TV!! Amazing!!)

So I became interested in film in my late teens, early twenties, but purely for its entertainment value. It wasn't until ten years later or so (around age 30) that I really started to see film as an art form. To see that it often had something important to say. This rather astonished me. That something I had dismissed as a pastime actually had the power to change how I, or perhaps millions of folk, looked at life. I think of this time as my personal awakening. And film was a big part of it.

Now some folks say that a movie is bad because it has bad language, or violence or sexual content in it. Some say it's bad if it doesn't entertain. Some say it's bad if it doesn't convey an important message or sentiment. Well, everyone's entitled to their opinions. To me, a bad movie is one with one or more of the following: a bad story, a bad script, bad acting, bad directing, or bad editing. I really do look at film now not based so much on it's content (though that still counts for an awful lot), but its execution, which I find much more interesting. Because, I find if it is executed well, the subject matter just doesn't matter a whole lot to me. Still, there have been a few well executed movies I've seen that I abhored (Flags of our Fathers, The Thin Red Line, most Robert Altman films, a few others).

Anyway, I love movies. Here are SOME of my favorite movies, in no particular order: Brazil, Garden State, Almost Famous, The Godfather, On the Waterfront, The Lord of the Rings, Young Frankenstien, Do the Right Thing, Casablanca, A Christmas Story, True Grit, Whale Rider, The Professional, Caddyshack, Paths of Glory, The Birds, A Fish Called Wanda, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, Stripes, Simon Birch, Judgement at Nuremburg, Star Wars (IV), My Life as a Dog, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rain Man, Rob Roy, The Fisher King, It's A Wonderful Life, This is Spinal Tap, Unforgiven, Sergeant York, A Night at the Opera, Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, Planet of the Apes, Glory.

(Just to name a few)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...

It's been a while since I've posted (mostly because Blogger made me change to a Google account to access my account, and I've been a die-hard Yahoo man since the infancy of the Net and I hate changing when it's not my idea) but also, a lot of well...stuff... has happened to me over the last month. I don't intend to have my blog become a sounding board for my conscience or a forum for amateur psychologists (apologies to those professional psychologists out there), just suffice it to say that the last few weeks have been very difficult...and through the love and aid of a good deal of concerned friends and family I am back on the road to...who knows? But then again, who ever does?

So mostly, this post is about gratitude. Without my good friends, I might very well be standing on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean pondering how far I could fly with a 40 pound ruck on my back. (What IS the air-speed velocity of an un-laden Swallow?) Instead, I am back in Hoosierland, trying to deal with things that I am loath to deal with and swallowing all the pride I've stored up for myself over the years. I'm bitching again, when I should be saying thank you.

Thank you all. And you know who you are. May God bless you all.

Humbly, Brownie

Many Shall Come in My Name...

From the Book of Matthew - And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

TO WIT: José Luis de Jesús Miranda is the founder and leader of the Growing In Grace International Ministry, a cult based in Miami, but with tens of thousands of followers around the world (mostly in the Americas). Miranda claims to believe that his life and teachings supersede those of Jesus Christ. He often openly refers to himself as the Antichrist and has had a "666" tatoo or brand put on his arm, as have many of his followers, to show their personal support and devotion to him. Yet sometimes he also referred to himself as "Jesus in the flesh."

So which is it, bud? Christ or Anti-Christ. Make up your mind. If you have one.

I guess what bothers me most about this guy is not his blasphemous ways (they do bother me a great deal) but the fact that so many fools are willing to follow this guy. He is obviously a charlatan, a liar, a thief, a narcissistic egomaniac, along with a host of other unsavory characteristics that have nothing to do with Christianity. And those are just his poor secular qualities, don't get me started on the guy's spiritual and orthodoxical problems.

I wish someone could answer my How? How can people be so blind?

I guess in the abscence of real leadership (a fault of the Christian church on earth as a whole) people are willing to follow anyone who'll give them some sense of order (Hitler, anyone?).

Once again, I sigh with a heavy heart. This time, for the poor folk who follow the "666 Christ."