Everyone Matters, Or No One Matters

 

There is a TV show called Bosch that aired on Amazon. It is about a homicide detective, Harry Bosch, brought to life by actor Titus Welliver, who did an excellent job playing the complex character. I was surprised by the ideas presented in the show, because being literally set in Hollywood, there is not a lot of crappy woke ideology present. Instead, there are old fashioned values. How life is important. To everyone. And how when lives are snuffed out, their loved ones deserve justice. Bosch had a saying that he used throughout the series: "Everyone matters, or no one matters."

That is how I feel. I have, for a long time, decades even, felt that the gift of life is sacred. See my articles “Modern Slavery” published in May of 2007, “Exporting Death” July 7, 2010 and “The Unspoken” from October 15, 2017.

That is why when I recently read of CNN promoting and legitimizing the cartels that I was outraged. I wrote many things angrily but honestly, about the deaths that are occurring in the US. Over a million overdose deaths since 2017. People get hooked on a substance that has 50x the addictive qualities of heroin the first time they try it. Then if they don’t die the first time, they continue to use until they die. I hate that. I know people and families whose lives have been completely ruined by this horrible thing.

Then, a certain person whose name I will not mention came on my thread on May 6 and started standing up for CNN. He started dismissing the involvement of cartels and placing blame on those who died. He was stating that I was dishonoring both those who had dealt with addiction as well as our losses in the Viet Nam War. This person is not from the US. To my knowledge, he has never dealt with these issues in society.

Then he compared me with freaking Hitler and said I was goose stepping back into World War Two. He accused me of wanting to kill people who disagreed with me (which I believe meets the definition of LIBEL.)

I responded with great restraint and addressed the idea that CNN was indeed attempting to legitimize the cartels. I stated that I felt that this was treasonous. We continued the discussion in private tells and he informed me that I would have to make a public, written retraction in order to keep him from de-friending me and removing me from all association.

I viewed this, and still do, as an attempt to get me to forswear and reject my solemn commitment to viewing life as sacred. 

I refuse. I will not bend the knee to this idea that 1,000,000 US lives, overdoses since 2017, do not matter. That is one in every 350 people in the US.

So, after misinterpreting my post, after comparing me to Hitler, after accusing me of “advocating for state-sanctioned ideological killings,” and demanding that I publish public written retractions of my views to appease him, I said no.

I sent him a note afterwards, telling him that he had placed clothes on me which do not fit, asking for at least some kind of reconciliation. I did not back down from my convictions. He never replied.

As of this time, I am considering options. Comparing people to Hitler is fighting words where I come from. He stabbed me in the back when he claimed he was my friend.

Everyone matters, or no one matters.

G. Houtchens

Armchair coach

Amateur historian

With Thanks to Mel Gibson and David Wood

 With Thanks to Mel Gibson and David Wood

 

In an interview with Joe Rogan, Rogan said to Gibson, “The part that requires the most faith is the resurrection,” to which Gibson replied, “Yes.” I immediately stopped the video in disagreement.

I say No.

No, it is not the part of Christianity which requires the most faith. Why? Because it is in mankind’s nature to attempt to survive. It is an innate part of Mankind’s being to continue living. People will not willingly die for a lie. Therefore, why would the surviving apostles and Paul be willing to testify even at the point of death that Christ is Lord; that he came back from the dead? Doubting Thomas, according to tradition, traveled to India on foot and there died in his stubborn resistance to preach the gospel there. Paul was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down. Why?

Unless… unless they knew the resurrection of Jesus to be true. Unless the saw the evidence with their very eyes. Unless they experienced personally, firsthand, the resurrected Lord and savior of mankind. Unless they absolutely knew that Jesus was who he said he was.

It seems to me that being an atheist takes a much greater amount of faith. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in any natural process, the total entropy (chaos, disorder, randomness) of a system and its surroundings always increases. In other words, things tend to break down into simpler elements, not build up in more complexity. Human beings are incredibly complex. How could a wrist watch be formed by itself out of raw elements, materials, metals and bone? The wafer-thin springs, the delicate gears, the tiny screws, the perfectly formed sprockets… only to assemble itself together… by chance.

But DNA is much more complicated than that. Imagine a zipper with four kinds of keys that stretches from here to the moon. All the keys on each side of the zipper must match exactly in order on opposite sides all the way, all 238,000-some-odd miles to make self-replicating cells that support life. Imagine the complexity needed to even bring the smallest organisms of life into existence. That flies in the face of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

As a former Science teacher, I think it is a good idea to have a skeptical outlook where science is concerned. However, one must have a realistic outlook. Science is severely limited, both by our limited senses and by our limited minds. There exists such things as love, as fulfilled prophecy in scripture, as the story of God’s love for man, that science attempts to explain very poorly. Just like creation in the face of ever-expanding entropy.

Some people might explain it mathematically. The smartest man in the world, with an IQ over 200 believes in God, and God’s love towards man. The existence of our Maker seems readily apparent to me.

Which brings me to the astounding, one take story of David Wood. It is violent. Provocative. It takes David’s journey to extremes. It’s also worth the watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb2ggj9mKM0

A Response for Deffy

 A Response for Deffy

 

A Response for Deffy

Crap. Well, I keep trying to respond to my friend Deffy, but freaking You Tube keeps deleting my comments. So, it comes down to this. Me vs. the infernal computer network. Therefore, I am writing this responding post in antagonistic opposition to the rasser frattin, tootin shootin, gall darned Skynet of algorithms, the blasted, craptastic You Tube twits that think it is okay to censor me. It. Is. Not.

So, for the third time…

Dear Deffy, what I have been trying to respond with on your last X Com 2 post is the viewpoint of what has been happening from a writer’s perspective. You touched on it briefly in one of your comments, I think. We want to cheer for our heroes. Not for our hoes, which is another subject entirely, but our heroes. We root for them. We want to see them succeed. It the same kind of thing when we cheer for our favorite sports team. We celebrate vicariously with them.

However, when an author is bad, they will kill characters for no worthwhile reason at all, or in fact, just to manipulate the reader (or viewer for a TV series or movie.) A prime example of this was The Walking Dead series when favorite characters were killed off at the end of each season. I got so frustrated with this that I finally started rooting for the zombies, then stopped watching altogether. It’s BAD WRITING to kill off characters for no reason and it is like cheating the reader.

And this leaves you with a predicament because you didn’t have much of a say with the game literally cheating and the enemy having unreasonable (and unseen) advantages. It was difficult to see all the great characters either dead or in the hospital resembling Swiss cheese lined up like sardines with red letters next to their names.

Now in Campbell’s Heroes Epic Journey plotline there IS a place to take heroes and throw them from the pan into the fire, and that is in the second act (or the second movie in a trilogy.) An example of this might be Luke and Han in Star Wars The Empire Strikes back. Then, when they overcome their setbacks, we can cheer along with them as they start winning. The same is true of the formulaic way professional wrestling bouts are scripted. The evil dude has the champ on the mat, and he start twirling his evil villain mustache and prancing about the ring, taunting the live audience. While this happens, the hero wrestler makes a fist. Then he starts shaking it. Then he gets up from the mat behind the villain wrestler’s back and opens up a can of whoop ass. The hero wins; everyone is happy and celebrates.

So I am glad you are now toning back the actual language in the program to modify for these unseen aberrations in the story of your X Com 2 campaign. When your heroes heal back, then we can cheer them on as they deserve. And perhaps in future campaigns or seasons, we can see once again the people we left behind.

Oh, yeah. And screw you, You Tube.

G.Houtchens

Armchair coach

Amateur historian