On Aging Pop Culture Icons

A friend of mine turned me on to this the Rambo 4 trailer the other day. Its pretty brutal. Click above to check it out.
Yes, ladies and gents, Rambo is back.

After Rocky Balboa, I wondered if the rumors were true that Sylvester Stallone was going to revive David Morrell's character in his successful franchise. Though truth be told, in the original book that inspired four slaughter happy films, John Rambo dies...

So now we have seen the return of both Rocky and Rambo.
What's next?

Indiana Jones 4 began filming this month.
Harrison Ford will be back. And as if he isnt too old for the hat and the whip, rumor has it that Sean Connery is joining him.
Yeah. I'll be there.


Doesnt look to be as brutal or ultra violent as the Rambo 4 flick, but Im sure I will subject myself to both.

One aging star that wont be returning to his roots any time soon is Mel Gibson.No, I am not talking about his floundering "Lethal Weapon" series that started with a bang, and slowly fizzled out over four films. I am referring to one of the greatest and often overlooked sci-fi action series of all time. The story of "Mad" Max Rockatansky... known to American audiences as The Road Warrior. Max will be returning for a fourth run in "Fury Road," but with another actor behind the wheel...
See article:

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/03/14/mad-max-4-announced-mel-gibson-will-not-star/

All thats left is the Governator... can it be?
“I think it’s in his contract [to make an appearance],” MGM CEO Harry Sloan told The Boston Herald when talking about "Terminator IV."
Gee. What will that look like?


Yeah...
as sad as it sounds, I'll probably see that one too.

On Spider Man 3

For those of you who don’t know I am a HUGE comic book nut. I grew up on Spider Man. I remember when the Black Suit was a gift from a God-Like being known as “The Beyonder,” in the Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars limited series of the mid 1980’s. I owned “Web of Spider-Man” #1 where Peter uses the Bell tower to fight off the alien Symbiote. I had it all. When Venom was “bad” and then, when he became...”good.” sort of.

As a fan that loved the first two films, all I can say is...
Spider Man 3 was one of the worst movies ever made for this audience.

Fans wanted to see Venom, but I would rather have had a good solid story then a bunch of CGI effects. I mean we have seen Dr. Curt Connors in all three movies, but we never saw the Lizard. Eddie Brock could have been present without having to force Venom into the picture.


The ending was predictable—teaming up with the Goblin to defeat the Sandman and Venom, and the film cheesy (the Scenes of Peter Parker strutting down the streets of New York with bad hair and swagger to the 70’s disco sound). The only real redeeming part was Thomas Hayden Church as the Sandman. His look was fantastic, the part could not have been cast better, and given the angle of his sick child... it made him touching, and well rounded.
That being said, we ended the movie with him still at large free to do as he would (at least I assume so, I left before the movie was over). The scenes of Church’s Sandman were generally rehashed sequences from “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns.” And what is it about becoming a megalith of angry humanoid sand makes villains lose their ability to speak? As soon as Church turns into the Sandman, his intelligent speech is reduced to unintelligible moans, groans, and roars. How cliché.



If you are a Spider Fan, you will not be pleased. No matter how cool Venom looks, there just wasn’t enough story to keep this franchise alive. I am glad to hear neither McGuire nor Raimi have any intentions of doing more.

Thank God. I don’t know if I could stand another scene of Kristen Dunst singing.

On Buddhism: Is There Room for God? Part I

What is God?
This is a question I will attempt to answer quite bluntly, and so some blanket statements apply.

Answer: the correct answer is...

A word.

Yes. That’s correct; “God” is just a word. Well that’s not entirely true; God is one of these special words that spells another word when you spell it backwards. God is “Dog” in reverse. Before any of you get too upset, bear with me. This is not a pointless jab at another’s faith, but rather a platform for me to demonstrate something that I hope will be quite logical.

Words are how we communicate ideas. So each word has with it, a potentially limitless number of attributes that we as individuals attach to that word. For example, “chocolate” to me means a mouthwatering, bliss-filled experience. To another who may be allergic to the substance, it may mean discomfort, pain, swelling, nausea, or asphyxiation. You see? Each word has meanings given to it by our individual perceptions.

With that in mind, let us examine the attributes that are commonly associated with a Christian/Judaic/Islamic “God.”
1. All powerful
2. All knowing
3. Ever Present
4. Male

Okay. Can we agree on these four things? Just for the sake of argument? If so, then I will continue discussing at a later time how I reconcile the understanding and belief in a Creator God, with my practice of an atheistic philosophy/religion.

Thank you all for your comments and questions. Feel free to pass this blog on to others who may have questions... I can only answer for myself, remember, but I will help where I can.

On Buddhism: In the Beginning

My new friend Dustin asked a little about the basics of Buddhism. Here is what I came up with...
I will start with the basics...
Buddhi, is the Sanskrit word that means “awaken.” If it sounds familiar to you, that’s because—you guessed it... it is the root of the word Buddha, or “Awakened One.” The

There have been, are, and will be, many Buddha’s, but the one credited as the patriarch of the philosophical path called Buddhism, was the man born Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

Please note that I said man.
There is a common misconception out there particularly among those uneducated in other cultures or belief systems that Buddhists “worship” the statue of a short, fat bald guy. This could not be further from the truth in most cases. Buddha never claimed to be God, or even a god. No Buddha was just a man who came to a realization, and had the good nature and heart to share it with others. Simply put, that realization was how to put an end to your suffering. Nothing more, and nothing less. No eternal salvation. No eternal damnation, none of that.

Buddhism began approximately 2500 years ago—which means that it predates Christianity by about half a millennium. It is a philosophy rather than a religion, though there are aspects of both in its practice. I say this in this way because of a passage in S. Dhammika’s book “Good Questions, Good Answers” regarding this very subject.

“The word ‘philosophy’ comes from two words ‘philo,’ which means ‘love,’ and ‘sophia’ which means ‘wisdom.’ So philosophy is the love of wisdom, both meanings describe Buddhism perfectly.”

In fact, I should have thought of this earlier. One significant resource for both practicing Buddhists and those who are just curious can be found online, with many MP3 downloads, e-books (including the one I just cited) and other useful tools. All of this is free to use, and may be more helpful than I am going to be, Dustin. You can find all of this at Buddhanet, which is listed on my links to the right.

I encourage you to read over the “Good Questions, Good Answers.” Then if you have any further questions, I would be happy to go further into the philosophy. Remember that I am more of a Zen guy than a “practicing Buddhist,” and I tend to do little with scripture, and focus more on practice and intention.

Let me know if any of this helps, and please... keep asking.

On Buddhism: The Reluctant Tutor...

Hello friends,
There has been a group of wonderful people. Some I know in the community, some from my job who have asked me from time to time to explain this or that about Buddhism. In the past I have been far from eager to anser these things for fear of explaining something incorrectly. It isnt that I havent lectured or taught before. I did a series of lectures in college, some were even attended by members of the Philosophy department, and I was only corrected once. But still, my practice having suffered over the years and through my loss has made me more reluctant to speak when asked.

Lately however, a dear friend of mine asked me to explain a few tings to him in an email. His questions reminded me of where it is that I am in my life, and where I want to be--and how very different those two places are sometimes. This, coupled with the fact that during a time I needed to process my grief, my own teacher smiled and told me that one day I would be a "great teacher" myself, has encouraged me to speak a little more on the subject. This entry will open the floor for discussion on my insights into the practice of Zen Buddhism. Please enter your comments and I will address them as I am able.

On Being One with Nature

On Friday of last week while returning from a day of work on the nature trails I am constructing for Allegan County, a snake that I had stepped on inadvertently bit me.

I picked up the snake, and identified it as a corn snake. Judging by the way it was shaking its tail like a rattlesnake, I determined that it was pretty irritated.
I took the snake with me back to the unit, and placed it in a 5-gallon pail to take home to my kids. The fact is, I have city kids who don’t experience stuff like this too often. But the snake was highly agitated on the ride home... continuously trying to escape and bite. I finally pulled over and said to it;
“Look, just give me a couple of days to help my children learn to appreciate animals like you and I will put you back in the exact same place I found you. Okay?”

The snake was exceptionally docile the rest of the way home. It lived in a 55-gallon tank for the next 48 hours. The Monday morning before I went back to work, I took it out of the tank to let the kids touch and hold it before taking it back. It climbed on them and was extremely gentle with them, showing no fear or aggression.

That afternoon, I put the snake back where I had found it.
It at first refused to get into the grass, and then I reminded it verbally, “I told you that I would put you back where I found you. Thank you for letting my children learn and hold you.”

The snake very slowly and purposefully, stretched out and I swear to you... It gave me a kiss goodbye. After I felt its tongue on my nose two or three times, it dropped to the grass, and disappeared in a flash.

Pictures don’t lie.

On KIds: Children and Internet Pornography (Or Why I Wont Buy My Adolescent Son a Subscription to Penthouse...)

"It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do."
--John Baptiste Moliére

My wife recently described an online conversation she came across on one of her message boards. As I have a bit of experience working with children and adolescents who have been exposed to pornography and sexual abuse, I thought I would share my opinion on what she told me. Bear in mind that I have not read these posts myself.

An eleven-year-old boy’s curiosity into the opposite sex, and relationships between men and women is completely natural. While most pre-teens are just beginning to really come into a sense of who and what they will become, it is important for parents to be present to answer any and all questions that their children may have—while at the same time being responsible enough to keep them from situations that can cause them lasting harm.

When I heard that there were questions about what to do with (what I assume to be hardcore pornographic) printouts found in the possession of an eleven-year-old boy, who apparently gained access to the material through unsupervised time on the Internet, I became quite concerned. When I was told one solution would be to purchase a subscription to Penthouse magazine, I cringed. Not the approach I would take, and here is why:

I am not opposed to pornography. As the father of six, I am not willing to subject my kids to these materials, however I am also not willing to tell other people what is or is not freedom of expression.

To start, there is a tremendous difference between sexuality, and pornography. Healthy relationships between consenting adults and hardcore sexual acts are worlds apart, and I felt compelled to share some of my professional experiences with children who were exposed to hardcore pornography before their teens.

One young person became interested in the collection of pornographic magazines they found aat a young age. Their fascination with the acts that he saw men and women performing on those pages peaked their curiosity—to the point where they asked the only other person they trusted to experiment with them. When asked why they engaged in a sexual relationship with a sibling, they stated that they simply wanted to experience the things that they had seen. They had been told these were the acts two people engaged in when they loved each other, and they loved each other.

Another young girl was exposed to pornographic material even earlier--before the age of seven She was caught trying to convince her younger siblings to “lick her.” Again, simply due to the fact that she was curious about what it was that she had seen.

In both cases it was not an intention of harm that was the issue, but rather the inability to differentiate between healthy adult relationships between loving partners, and the perceived “normal” interactions between members of the opposite sex. With no way to discern the difference between a sibling relationship and a husband/wife relationship, all many children see is interaction between a male and a female. It is both a little scary and very exciting. Once engaged in such behavior, they then realize that it feels good as well, and may not even consider what they are doing to be wrong.

But acting out in sexually inappropriate ways may not be the only issue. According to the Internet source Treatment Online: Anxiety, Addiction and Depression; “Pornography can be a very harmful thing for children to see, especially at younger ages. Images of nudity and sexual activity can create distorted expectations about body images, romance and intimacy. These negative stereotypes and expectations, especially when encountered during a teen's formative years, can feed into attitudes and behaviors of an unhealthy nature.”

I have seen many examples of what exposure to hardcore pornography has done to children who were too young to fully understand what they were seeing. While hardcore pornography is not always to take on the blame for the results entirely, it has been in more than just a hand full. There is a reason things are labeled for “Mature Audiences” and kept behind counters.

It is important to talk to your children about sex. It is nothing to be ashamed of, nor is it bad when within the boundaries of a consensual, adult relationship. Eleven year-olds do not necessarily have the cognitive capabilities to understand what they see. It is your responsibility to help them through such a time, but exposing them to hardcore pornography is not only an inappropriate way to deal with it, it is also illegal. Most magazines require the purchaser to be eighteen years of age; unfortunately the Internet is not as scrupulous as your local newsstand. It is dangerous to allow unsupervised Internet time for children—regardless of how much you trust your child. They may be too embarrassed to ask questions and seek answers out on their own, answers they may not be prepared to deal with mentally, or emotionally. And dealing with the repercussions of such exposure through CPS or other government agencies is not something I would want to experience.

“Like it or not, porn is a part of the modern, web-based, world. Just as parents warn their children to not talk to strangers or to look both ways before crossing the street, it has become all the more important to teach safe and healthy Internet usage strategies to children.”

Sex is not dirty, or wrong, or shameful, or disgusting. It is natural. We live in a sexually repressive society. I am all about healthy sexual experience and the freedom of speech and expression. I just encourage parents and care providers to act responsibly when it comes to children. It can be argued that pornography can be an enjoyable part of an adult relationship, but I don’t think that applies to eleven year-olds. I could be wrong. But don’t just buy the subscription without the conversation that goes with it, and remember that he is an adolescent boy—he will talk about it with his friends, and he will show it to them. Do you want to be the parent responsible for exposing other people’s children? Are you prepared for the consequences of that?

Lots to think about. I encourage parents to think things through thoroughly before acting.