Posts Tagged ‘proper decisions’

Being Loud Does Not Give You The Right To Be Rude

Posted: April 3, 2013 in Reflections, Social Activism
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As you all know, I’m a huge fan of Anne Rice, so when I got my Facebook back in December, I immediately subscribed to her page. As I quickly learned, Ms. Rice likes to use her page to talk about issues important to her, especially LGBT and women’s rights. Earlier this week though, something happened on the page that caused quite the cyber-ruckus: Ms. Rice posted about how female genital mutilation–sometimes euphemistically called “circumcision for girls”–is still practiced openly in many nations and secretly in some such as the US and Great Britain. The reason behind this practice, which causes women to have very painful sexual intercourse and in some cases can cause medical complications and infections? Not consecrating them to any sort of higher being or health reasons like male circumcision, but in order to ensure chastity and virginity. In other words, the sexist belief that women have uncontrollable sexual urges and unless men do something about it, they will have sex left, right, and center.

You wouldn’t believe the meshuggas that happened on her FB page.

When Ms. Rice posts about an issue on her Facebook, she usually does it to bring attention to the issue and cause discussion, hopefully to enact positive change. The unexpected effect though, was that several people on the page began railing against male circumcision and making it impossible to have any rational discussion unless all visitors to the page include male circumcision to their disgust to female circumcision. Some of these people went a step further, insulting anyone who tried to stick to the topic at hand or tried to defend male circumcision for religious and/or health reasons. My own parents, rabbis with many years of experience, were insulted and called nasty words after I tried to defend my religious beliefs against them.

The next day Ms. Rice said that the issue should’ve stuck to female genital mutilation, that she had no idea how the topic got so out of hand, and that those who had been especially insulting would be banned from her page forevermore (apparently she has the power to do that). Many of us, including myself, gave the woman a huge “THANK YOU!” and then started a rational discussion on female genital mutilation.

Now, this was an isolated incident, but it got me thinking on past incidents where people were loud and then incredibly rude. Foremost in my mind was when President Obama came to campus in October, and pro-life advocates showed up to protest with signs that were clearly Photoshopped. Whenever those there for the event tried to be reasonable with them, they jsut seemed to get louder, interrupting every sentence, and getting up in their faces.

And there are other incidents in mind, ones I’ve attended and others I’m happy to have been far away from. There are people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate who will say the worst things about whatever side isn’t their own. Gun advocates will often scream at the government trying to take away their Second Amendment rights. And just so I don’t sound like the liberal I probably am and turn off more conservative readers, there are advocates of environmentalism who are so aggressive with their beliefs that it can get out of hand and they will scare people with it. All of these things have a common thread: loud people being incredibly uncaring and callous in their treatment of those who don’t think like them.

Unfortunately, these sort of debates can bring out the worst in people. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

Now, I don’t see anything wrong with being passionate in your beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with that. However I draw the line when those who are loud start to swear and call people who believe differently than them horrible names and blame them for the ills of society. That’s not the way to get people on your side, especially if people who are undecided one way or another on an issue. In fact, if I had to summarize what’s the way to get people on your side of the debate, it’s not to be virulent, angry and inflammatory. No, it’s to be calm, respectful, and only armed with facts. I believe that’s the way famous saints and leaders have won the masses to them and made great impressions on history.

And the people who are loud, rude and imflammatory…well, I hesistate to say anything about them, lest I get called nasty names by these exact same people for the examples I might bring up of people who were like them. But you see the effect these sort of people have on others. They thrive on anger and use fear as their weapon, hoping that fear will make those opposed to them at least quiet down for fear of their wrath (we sometimes see this with lobbyists and Congress, unfortunately).

The lesson here is not to let your anger get the best of you, but let it drive you to enact better change, no matter what your beliefs on any issue may be. That’s the only way to make change, and to try doing the opposite will only cause you and your cause problems that may not be overcome. And no cause wants that, right?

The Importance of Build-Up And Mystery

Posted: April 3, 2013 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
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What is in that fog? Something wicked this way comes.

I’ve often used this blog to rail against horror movies where filmmakers have spent a ton of money on CGI and making a top-notch movie, and yet the most exciting aspect of the movie is the trailer. I’ve even done lists of what you should and shouldn’t do when making a horror movie (for that post, please refer here: https://ramiungarthewriter.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/what-not-to-do-when-making-a-horror-movie/). Now I think I’ve identified two more factors in horror films that could separate a good scare from a boring waste of $6.50. Those factors are build-up and mystery.

For the first one, I’d like to call attention to the beter films in the Friday the 13th franchise versus the remake, the latter of hich I never get tired of ripping for how really bad it was. In the better films, the filmmakers had a way with building suspense that terrified audiences and made them want more at the same time. The best way to illustrate this technique, if you ask me (and I’m assuming you are, you’re reading this blog post after all), is through stream-of-consciousness from the POV of a moviegoer:

“Oh, she’s going out to that shed. Will Jason kill her there? She’s in and the light’s on. She bends over–I can’t see what’s behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Good. Oh, she’s bending over again! I can’t see behind her! Oh, Jason’s not there. Oh, how many lightbulbs does she need? Oh, Jason’s still not there. Okay, she’s heading back to the house. Will Jason get her now? Opening the door…OMG! What was that? Oh, it was just the cat. God, I feel as silly as the actress in that close-up–OMG there’s a machete poking out her front! She’s being lifted up! Yikes it’s Jason! AAAH!”

Somedays his writers do great with him. Other days…you know. All depends on how the suspense is added to the story.

You see there? Through visual dynamics and waiting until the least expected moment, they get the tension really high, make us think that we’ve seen everything to get scared of, and then WHAM! They scare us when we least expect it. In the better Friday the 13th films, this technique would scare the bejeezus out of people, and made the films famous and box-office smashes. Now contrast this with the reaction of me when I watched the remake:

“Okay, the naked chick with the bump on the head is hidden under the dock on the bad side of the lake. Jason’s probably seen her. She’s so dead. He’s on the dock. She’s looking up like he might get her. He steps away from her. Machete through the roof of her head! We see her bare breasts. She’s dead and in the water. Wow, so scary. NOT!”

No surprises in that film. We knew when a character was going to die, and there was no build-up of suspense to make us terrified. There was a reason that fans and critics hated that film. The only reason it did well was because people went hoping that the reviews were just by people who were overly critical and hard to please.

This is why it’s important to get a feel for building suspense like in the better of the Friday the 13th films. it makes the movies that much better, and if you’re really good at it you can keep it going throughout an entire film and even afterwards without letting the suspense and terror abate. And if you do become good at it, you can hopefully become someone in the horror movie industry.

Another aspect of making horor movies that can make a horror movie great is mystery. To illustrate that, I’d like to use The Amityville Horror and its remake (I love showing how bad remakes can be. Maybe people will learn something from it). In the original Amityville Horror, we never get a sense of what exactly is haunting the house. We see flies and hear masculine voices shouting “GET OUT” at priests. Things move on their own, and anyone of a religious nature gets horribly sick near the house. We know the little girl is playing with an imaginary friend named Jodie, who somehow locks the babysitter in a closet (that’s scary as it is), and there’s a room painted red under the basement stairs that causes the very-spiritual family friend to go into hysterics and scream “It’s the gateway to hell!” Later, the male lead sees a pig with glowing eyes in the window, which we assume tells him to kill his family, and later the same guy falls through the stairs into the hidden room and falls through the floor of that into a pit of blood.

Beware this room: its darkness is only rivaled by so little we know about it.

But do we really understand what’s haunting the house? NO! We know that the murder of the preivious residents of the house were killed by their crazy son, but we’re not sure if they’re causing the haunting or if they’re just one small piece of the puzzle. We also hear something of a satanic preacher living on that land many years ago, but it’s not assumed that he’s behind it in any way. At the end of the movie, we’re left thinking: “Oh mygod, I’m so scared! What was with that house? What was in it? And where did all that blood come from? And the pig in the window…what the f*** was with the pig in the window!” You see how awesome the amount of mystery in that movie makes it?

Contrast that with the remake, which is utilizing the whole mythology from all the films based on The Amityville Horror. Right away, we’re made very aware of what’s causing everything. Messages through TV, little ghost girls that manifest themselves in front of everyone and are held by mysterious arms against the ceiling. Messages in blood on the mirror…need I go on? There’s no mystery, except for a supposed-to-be startling revelation about the satanic preacher. At the end, we understand too well what’s causing the haunting, and we’re left very not scared. The mystery of the first film made it awesome, while the lack of mystery stripped the second film of any scariness.

At least that’s what’s happening with this film.

Is that all that is needed to make a scary film? Heck no! A lot goes into scaring anyone with anything, be it a story, a movie, or even a silly prank for Halloween or April Fool’s Day (I speak from personal experience on all but one of these). But these two factors–a build-up of suspense and an air of ever-present mystery–can create a terrifying experience that leaves those doing the experiencing chilled for the rest of the night. So keep these factors in mind when creating your own story (and it doesn’t necessarily need to be a scary story). You might end up creating a wonderful work of art that’ll be remade in thirty years by a high-powered team of filmmakers and debated about by fans in chat rooms for years to come.

We Should Be Better Than This

Posted: March 18, 2013 in ideas, Journalism, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Social Activism, Writing
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To many, rape is just this: a hand reaching out of inescapable waters, but with no one to grasp it.

Over the past two days, I’ve read about four or five stories online about the Steubensville rape trial (for those of you unfamiliar, two teens from a small town in my state sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl while she was intoxicated and unconscious, urinated on her, and then posted the damning proof of it on Facebook). The two teens who committed the act were found guilty yesterday and sentenced to juvenile detention centers till they were 21. What upset me though, and what has upset many people as well, was not only that the poor girl was sexually assaulted, but the defense attorneys for the case tried to twist the concept of consent out of order by saying that since the girl was intoxicated, she never really said “no”; that there may have been a cover-up by the local high school, whose football team these boys belonged to and which is a source of pride among the local community; that those who witnessed the crime and were responsible for the photos on Facebook were not charged (though that might change pretty quickly, according to the Ohio AG); and that some of the coverage of the trial, which has gained nationwide attention through the Facebook posts, were actually in favor of the two boys charged.

The two rapists in question. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Yes, in favor. ABC News first reported the case not too long ago by saying the boys “took liberty” with the girl, which is definitely a new one if ever I’ve heard one. And yesterday, CNN seemed only able to lament the fact that these boys had promising futures stolen from them, that they could’ve made names for themselves at Ohio State and then in the NFL, that now they have to register as sex offenders, possibly for the rest of their lives. Underneath the spoken words, the silent implication: that the “good boys” weren’t to blame, but the victim for getting drunk and presenting an all-too-appealing oppurtunity for these boys to have a little bit of fun.

The same day, a story broke out about another gang-rape in India, where a camping couple from Switzerland were attacked, beaten, the wife raped, and then robbed. Arrests were made hours afterward (a record for India), but some public officials have blamed the couple for camping in that area. More victim blaming? I guess after the initial outrage of the bus gang-rape, some people still don’t know when to shut their yaps.

As an ardent supporter of women’s rights and of human rights, I’m abhorred, appalled, and disgusted. This victim blaming turns every woman out there who is the object of unwanted sexual advances into sex toys and shames them into being quiet, tells them they should accept what they get or they will be the ones at fault, that they will be scrutinized for their clothes and behavior and will be called sluts forevermore. Meanwhile, men can wear whatever and drink whatever and screw around as much as they want, and they’ll rarely be called a “man-whore”. This double standard mystifies me as much as it makes me ashamed to be a man. Yes, ashamed! I’m ashamed that my sex gets away with so much while the other half of the species is put down and turned into objects so much.

It also makes me think of a novel I plan to write in the future. I first came up with it by thinking to myself, “What’s the worst event that could happen to a singular person and then use whatever happens to them in the story to help them at least begin to heal?” Being so influenced by Law & Order: SVU (for better or for worse), my mind went right to rape. Only the victim can feel that terror and trauma that comes from rape, they often suffer in silence, and when they do come out, they are often at the recieving end of brutal victim-blaming and stigmas and questions about what they experienced that are never about clarifying the events as they happened. It fit what I was looking for to a tee.

At first though, I considered changing what that tragedy would be for this character. I mean, even I have my limits for what I’ll write, and that’s a lot for a horror writer. But I decided to stick with rape, though at the time I wasn’t sure why. But when I see articles in the news about victims of rape being blamed for what happened to them, even just subliminally, I’m reminded of why I kept rape as that character’s tragedy. Just like Reborn City has themes of the evils and lies of Islamaphobia, this novel of mine and this character can be a way to encourage women to come out about their attacks, to show men that rape, under any circumstances, is rape and their own fault, and perhaps a wake-up call for many readers that rape is a problem and our attitude towards it needs a major change.

I’m not sure if I’ll write an actual rape scene when I do end up writing this novel, but I do know that when I do write this novel, I’ll be channeling my rage, my disdain and my disgust for rape and rapists into it. Perhaps some will feel this underlying rage and learn something from it, like rape is never the victim’s fault. Or that the rapist is the only one to blame. Or there are no circumstances where rape is okay.

Savannah Dietrich was raped last year, but spoke out on Twitter and named her rapists when she felt the plea deal they got wasn’t enough. Sadly, she was nearly charged with contempt of court for naming her rapists.

And perhaps then, the world will change for the better. Because you know what? I shouldn’t have to be writing about this! I shouldn’t have to be telling people on my blog that I find rape and the double standards surrounding it disgusting, or that I plan to channel my rage over this insanity into a novel! I shouldn’t have to check my email and then see that another girl was raped, or that someone in an important position insinuated that the victim had no one to blame but herself. I shouldn’t have to, and neither should anyone!

But we live in the sort of world where all this happens on an all-too regular basis. And you know what? I’m not going to stop raging about it until it does stop, until change does happen, until that novel’s heroine is able to break free of her chains and start the move towards healing. Because I know the world should not be in this state, and I see a moral and an ethical duty to try and make it better. If what I write here does end up helping someone, then that’s great. In the meantime though, I have a lot of work to do, and I’m getting started right now.

For the victims who are blamed. For those who live in fear. And for those I can help before it’s too late, and this dark culture gets them into the wrong mindset.

What about you?

I Can’t Believe The Entertainment Industry Is Taking Most Of The Flack

Posted: February 10, 2013 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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Today on the bus downtown I was reading my latest Entertainment Weekly, and there was an article talking about how the entertainment industry is under increasing scrutiny for gun violence in the United States and different perspectives on the debate. Not long after that, my friend and fellow blogger Matt Williams posts an article about how two Swiss human rights organizations have recommended taking certain aspects out of video game violence because in the real world those same aspects might constitute war crimes if performed (for said post, please click this link: http://storiesbywilliams.com/2013/02/10/war-crimes-in-video-games/#comment-8258).

Has the world lost its mind?

First off, the movies, TV shows, books and video games are all fictional. FICTIONAL! Not real, never happened, the product of someone’s imagination and transferred to us using words, visuals, and (increasingly) technological gizmos. If you can mistake something in a movie or a video game for real, I think that points to some underlying psychological disorder.

And that’s the problem here, isn’t it? People with psychological problems getting their hands on guns, and often they get them through legal means more often than they get them illegally. In fact I read the other day an article about a man who was released from a mental institution after being incarcerated for murdering his mother. Not long after he got out, he bought up a ton of assault weapons and wrote in an online diary that he thought about killing all the time. It wasn’t until a police officer noticed the man had bought the guns, realized who the man was, and that he shouldn’t have guns in the first place did the man get arrested again. Seriously folks, we need more help for the mentally ill and better protection from dangerous weapons.

By the way, nowhere in this article did video game violence come up.

In fact, not a lot of killers are actually influenced by the entertainment industry to become killers, if any at all. Eric Harris was a sociopath who influenced Dylan Klebold, a manic depressive, into becoming a killer. Adam Lanza seemed to have Asperger’s syndrome and a few other problems, plus access to a bunch of guns in his mother’s house. The guy who shot the Sikh temple in Wisconsin was a neo-Nazi who believed he was doing the world a favor. The guy who shot up the first responders in New York was inspired to kill by Adam Lanza! The guy who kidnapped the child off the bus in Alabama seemed to have a thing for conservative pundits on the radio (not very entertaining, right?) and possibly suffered from a persecution complex. And James Holmes? Well, I’m not so sure The Dark Knight is wholly responsible (I have my own theories on what drove him to murder, but I’m not a psychologist, so unless asked to tell I’ll just hold off).

In fact, our psychological state of mind is based on biological, sociocultural, and environmental factors. So if James Holmes’s biology, culture, environment, and his social circle was defined by The Dark Knight, then maybe we might have to examine the entertainment industry. Besides, there are no studies that indicate a link between video games and gun violence. Not even a correlation, which is only a possible indicator of causation. Emphasis on possible. And the people who say that there is a link that just hasn’t been found yet, such as Wayne LaPierre, are usually in favor of gun rights or are actually paid to advocate for gun companies. Should we really believe these guys when they say the guns they own and try to sell say that guns can’t be apart of the problem our society is facing?

Besides, I still believe that humans are rational beings with the power of choice. Most people know that killing is wrong, that firing a bullet at someone means they probably won’t get up again if they’re hit, and that the soldiers in video games or the serial killer I created or Bruce Willis’s character in the Die Hard films are not real and therefore so is the gun violence, which means the cool gun violence in those examples are as real as the tooth fairy. And most people choose not to kill others. Those who do, and do it with assault weapons are, like I’ve said before, are mentally ill and need pscyhological counseling.

So stop blaming the entertainment industry. Yes, there’s more violence in media these days, but that’s a response to both the world and what the world wants in its media, but if we start censoring our TV shows and video games and movies, I think we’re doing more to set up a totalitarian state than we are by confiscating dangerous weapons. And where does the censorship end? When media is dull and boring? It’s a horrible direction to go down.

So let’s not censor. Instead, let’s actually work to create a safety net for those with mental illnesses that make them dangers to themselves or to others, keep military-grade weapons out of the hands of citizens (even well-intentioned ones), and institute universal background checks. That’s a responsible response to the wave of violence the United States is facing right now.

Another Shooting Happens, Yet Some Are Still Not Seeing The Point

Posted: February 1, 2013 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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Yesterday, a shooting occurred at a junior high school in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the news reports, the working theory is that two students got into some sort of fight, one pulled out a gun, and started shooting. The student who fired the gun is currently in custody, while one student who was shot in the neck survived, is in the hospital, and at last update, was in good condition, thank God. There were other minor injuries, but thank God no deaths. The school itself, as well as neighboring elementary and high schools were placed on lock down for two hours before students were released to their anxious, loving parents.

It seems President Obama was correct when he said we are suffering from an epidemic of violence. And speaking of the President, deliberations over gun control are still raging in Congress, where some still deny that we need stricter gun control. I mean come on! A kid nearly died of injuries because another student somehow got access to a gun and brought it to school with him! And yet there are people who use the craziest arguments to say that we need looser laws on guns. Let me repeat that: looser laws on gun control. And I italicize that for a reason: because it’s nuts, and it’s not a solution.

Now I know conservatives fear that stricter gun control laws will immediately lead to a dictatorship where guns are only held by the authroities and the people are powerless. This phobia of theirs is the basis of all their arguments. For this phobia, I recommend seeing a psychiatrist, because it’s just not going to happen. America is not going to turn into Nazi Germany, because Nazi Germany was the result of a madman taking advantage of a system with way more flaws than our system and a people who were unused to democracy and thought it was decadent. Does that sound like our system? Does that sound like our President?

Oh, and Mr. LaPierre, you said nearly fifteen years ago that you supported universal background checks (and so does a majority of the organization you head, by the way). What changed? All those checks from gun manufacturers go to your head? And to Ms. Treyor, the woman who told the thrilling story of a woman who used her legally-bought home weapon to defend herself against attackers, the woman in your story used a shotgun, not an assault rifle. The weapon in question would be allowed under an assault weapons ban. How can you not know this before you tell your story?

Honestly, I find the fact that I’m compelled to write these posts every now and again ludicrous. I mean seriously, we regulate driving and women’s uteruses more than we regulate guns! The last I checked, guns were killing more people than cars or uteruses! There needs to be some consistency here, folks! We need to stop this epidemic of violence.

And not only do we need stricter regulations on guns, we also need to do something for those with severe mental illnesses, especially those whose illnesses make them a danger either to themselves or others. Ever since deinstitutionalization in the fifties and sixties, there’s been no safety net for those with mental illnesses that aren’t helped by drugs. We need to reestablish a safety net, if only to see that these people can get the help they need. Sure it might cost us a little more in taxes, but it’s better than having another Sandy Hook, isn’t it?

So Congress, stop listening to the fear-mongering and the lobbyists with the checkbooks, and get to work doing your jobs, which is helping the American people. Because sitting around and quibbling over whether or not an imaginary dictatorship waiting to rise from Clint Eastwood’s friend the chair does not help us with our actual, not-imaginary problems.

The Gun Control Debate Is Heating Up

Posted: January 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Social Activism
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I wanted to hold off a little on writing this post, but now I find I can’t hold back anymore.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced a number of ideas he wants to implement in order to stop the wave of gun violence our country has been plagued with this past year, and that has been building up for years. Among the ideas he put forth, created in part by Vice Presdient Joe Biden , are required criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; banning armor-piercing rounds; providing mental-health services in schools; and establishing a federal gun-trafficking statute, among others.

Unfortunately, getting any of these proposals through our famously dysfunctional Congress is going to be tough, which is why President Obama ordered 23 executive actions, including requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant information for background checks; providing better training for law enforcement and first responders; and requiring the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence, among others.

Of course, there are those who immediately cry foul over these new proposals, the NRA being the loudest (I’ve got a nickname for these guys that uses the same acronym, but I’m not going to say it so as not to offend any readers who are possibly NRA members). The NRA’s president, Wayne LaPierre, has accused Obama of attacking guns and forgetting children, and the organization’s advertising division (or propaganda machine, depending on which angle you look at it from) has released an ad saying that the President doesn’t want to protect kids other than his own by giving Sasha and Malia Secret Service protection in schools. Has it ever occurred to these guys that other people’s kids are not always at risk for being used in terrorist plots? Obviously not.

There’s also the guy from Texas I talked about in an earlier post, the guy who wants to impeach Obama if he makes any moves on guns (good luck with that). And Governor Rick Perry of Texas says that instead of gun control measures, we should “pray for protection”. Um, I think praying and spirituality is nice and all, but I’m pretty sure the gun control proposals might be God’s answer. You want to wipe your butt with it? And honestly, prayers are not going to shield you from a mentally unstable shooter’s bullets if, God forbid, he should point his gun at you.

There’s a rocky road ahead, whatever the case, for these gun control proposals of President Obama. However I think they should be passed. Otherwise Republicans in the House and in the Senate might lose many of their seats as the people become more pro-gun control. Well, let’s see what happens, and hope for a better future, whatever the outcome happens to be.

New York Takes The Lead on Gun Control

Posted: January 15, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Social Activism
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The shooting at Sandy Hook that took 20 children and six adults was a tragedy that should never have happened. But thankfully, it seems that something good may be coming out of the tragedy: today, New York leaders passed the first new gun control laws since the tragedy in early December. The bill was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Republican who has embraced gun control and made it a central part of his agenda, saying “At what point do we say, ‘No more loss of innocent life’?”

Frankly I agree, so I’m glad that the new law comes with so many provisions meant to protect our citizens (not take away guns as 2nd Amendment fundamentalists believe). In addition to an assault weapons ban that prohibits the further sales of any guns with one military feature and the registration of those already in private ownership, the law requires immediate background checks, bars assault weapon sales over the Internet, and, because of the shooting of firefighters in Webster last month, lengthens the sentence of those convicted of shooting first responders.

Plus, the number of rounds in a magazine has been decreased from 10 to 7, put tougher restrictions on the sales of ammunitions and guns and, in what I see as a very good move, requires therapists to notify authorities if they feel a patient made a credible threat to use a gun illegally would be required by law to report it to the authorities.

That last part I see as the basis for a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

As other states are considering bills with new gun control measures, I hope they follow New York in example. I’m talking to you, Ohio Governor Jon Kasich. Seriously, you signed a bill that allows firearms in the garage of the statehouse. Do you want to play a video game or reenact a movie scene in the statehouse garage with actual guns? Are you insane?

However, not everyone seems to be thrilled with the new spirit of gun control. Representative Steve Stockman, a Republican from Texas whose last term of office was in the 1990s, says that he’s willing to go as far as filing articles of impeachment if President Obama threatens his Second Amendment rights with new gun control legislation. Hate to break it to you, Mr. Representative, but the last time you were in term, there was an assault weapons ban, and the world did not end and the 2nd Amendment did not die during the ten years it existed. If anything, it came out stronger after the law expired.

Oh well. Here’s to a safer country and less lunatics running around trying to kill us or arm us all.

Taking Risks According to Anne Rice

Posted: January 6, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Ever since I decided to skip the traditional publishing route and go into self-publishing, I’ve had people in my head and people I’ve known for years telling me that it’s a big risk, especially since depending on how I do it I could end up spending a lot of money and not get a lot out of it. Sometimes these voices do worry me.

But I stay optimistic, I stay strong, and I plug ahead without hesitation or fear. And I think things will work out for me. Sometimes you just got to take risks and say “F**k it, I’m going to do it.” Which is definitely my intention.

And if you don’t believe me, believe Anne Rice. She’s taken her own shares of risks in her lifetime, and she’s willing to talk about them.

Forgiving A Bully For Old Hurts

Posted: December 23, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Looks like I have something to be grateful to Facebook for: I found an old bully of mine. In 3rd Grade he made my life hell with his friends, and I was so happy when I left that school and transferred to a school that, although I had a rocky start there, I felt I had found a home for myself. However the memory of that bully never left me, and I sometimes wondered from time to time what happened to him. I do admit I was bitter up until a few years ago, still upset about what I went through. I even made him a character in a story I wrote once, changing his name a little, where he ended up killed because he was an evil vampire.

Now, I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed to know that I wanted to put all the hurt I felt into a weapon and get back at him through the power of writing. And at some point I realized that holding onto this hate wasn’t going to do me any favors. So I tried finding reasons to forgive him. After a bit of soul searching, I found one: I was molded into a writer of scary stories by many sources, first and foremost by an experience involving two staff members at a synagogue scaring the hell out of me after services one day when I was no older than six. But the torment I went through in the third grade–the teasing, the isolation, the one time a friend of his put glue in my hair and I didn’t notice until someone pointed the glue out to me–helped mold me as a writer and as a person. It wouldn’t be the last source to warp me, but it played its role.

And I emerged from that experience much stronger than I had been. I started writing, found I loved it, discovered I loved writing horror, learned how to scare people with some effectiveness, and started getting some of my work published. In addition, I began to feel an empathy not only for those who were bullied, but for those who’ve been hurt and discriminated against because they were a little different than others. It’s a part of me I cherish, because it makes me a better person.

I’m now over the hurt, even though I still don’t like it when certain aspects of that time are brought up (my immediate family probably knows what I’m talking about). I write a lot, I emphasize with people, and I try to treat everyone as kindly as possible. But I wanted to find this guy, if only to ask why, or to get a little closure or something. I had trouble finding him, particularly because I didn’t want to use social networking to find him.

But I got a Facebook page to spread the word on my writing. Lo and behold, I found him. I sent him a message. And I told him I forgive him for all the hurts, and I wish him happiness and success in life.

Now that I’ve sent the message, I feel a sense of peace. I feel like I’ve finally gotten something off my back, and now that it’s gone, it feels so great. I don’t know what’ll happen next though. Maybe he’ll read the message. Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll send something back. Maybe he’ll ask to be my friend. I don’t know. But I do know that he’s in California and I’m in Ohio, so the distance between us is enough that I feel comfortable enough to just see where this goes and not worry that he’ll show up and harass me or something.

In the end, I’ve closed a chapter of my life that deserves to stay closed. And now, I would like nothing more than to continue working on the short story I’ve been working on since this morning.

Happy Holidays, everybody.

And I Heard Something Dumber Than What Huckabee Said

Posted: December 17, 2012 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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During the election, I got incensed when politicians and media personalities said idiotic crap about women’s bodies. Now, I have plenty of material on politicians and gun control! For example, Mike Huckabee said that “systematically removing God” from public schools was the reason behind the massacre, and that he “wasn’t surprised” that the shooting happened. He tried to clarify his views later by saying that he meant “God’s name is only invoked after the tragedy”. That’s sometimes true, but we all understood what you meant the first time you said it.

However, I just heard something worse: Representative Dennis Richardson of Oregon said that teachers should be allowed to carry guns on campus and in the classroom, and if he’d been a teacher, he’d have shot Adam Lanza. Yes, he is a Republican, and no, I have no idea if he’s had psychological testing.

Still, I have to ask: WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?! DID YOU GO UPSTATE FOR SOME WEED THIS WEEKEND?

If you didn’t get that last question, you haven’t been paying attention to the drugs debate enough and you need to brush up on your US geography.

But seriously, what the heck are you suggesting? That teachers have guns? That’s a stupid idea. A tattoo or a piercing is okay, it may be a little garish or obscene to some people, but tattoos or piercings don’t have negative effects on children, they don’t harm children. Guns though, can harm children. And even if you lock the guns up, there’s always the one kid, even in kindergarten, who can get into places they shouldn’t. And every time a gun gets in a school, it always causes chaos, as this past weekend demonstrated well enough. How does putting guns in school for the teachers supposed to protect anyone?

I really don’t understand how giving people more access to weapons of death and destruction is supposed to protect others and stop the killing that comes from these same weapons. It’s counterintuitive, if you ask me, and I also think Representative Richardson is not going to be reelected because of this comment. If anything, we need less guns, especially the powerful assault rifles. Like Senator Feinstein from California said, those guns aren’t for hunting deer, they’re for hunting people!

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