Defend The Faith

Monks brawl while cleaning Bethlehem Church inspires this blog. The spectacle of men who have devoted themselves to living a holy life whacking each other with brooms in a dispute over cleaning the Church of the Nativity is educational. People are human. Sometimes they forget the larger goal in petty disputes. We can't feel too smug, because this is a failing all of us have.

The same thing has been true of Congress in 2011. Instead of trying to find solutions to the nation's problems, the GOP members decided to oppose the President at each and every turn. They refused to enact measures necessary for the nation's health and prosperity. Instead of cleaning house, they've been whacking at another with brooms...they've been manufacturing issues, like the national debt and defaulting. They seem to think this is the 1990s and that there are no real problems in the country that they need to address.

Politics and religion have a lot in common. Both are efforts to control people, to enable them to live together in harmony...to make them better. Because both deal with large issues, they can be controversial subjects. They stir up the emotions and make it that much more likely that people will start whacking one another with brooms.

2011 treated us to the spectacle of women, small children and peaceful protesters being sprayed in the face with pepper spray in the name of the social order.

Unfortunately, 2012 will be a Presidential election year in the USA and due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, there will be no spending limits. Expect huge amounts to be spent on TV advertising by anonymous groups with patriot-sounding names. Lies of all stripes will be pushed in our faces.

The rule is divide and conquer. I can only appeal to my friends of all political stripes: don't let them divide us. There is only one way to defend the faith and that is to live it one day at a time. Even if a political ad resonates to your emotions, stop and try to look at it objectively. Don't hurl the broom at some other person just because the TV tells you that person is less than human.

We are all human.

This is the first blog of 2012 and also the 8th blog of Christmas. Happy New Year!

Beginning Here

Despite the yahoos on TV and elsewhere, Christmas Day is not the most important date on the Christian calendar...that would be Easter. For the devout Christian, Christ's death and resurrection make the whole point of Christ's existence.

Buddha was born a prince, but if he'd stayed in the palace the world would have been a poorer place.

It's not the beginnings that are most worthy of celebration but the completion. There's nothing unhealthy or morbid about that statement. It's great to find that wonderful first sentence that hooks the reader into the story...but until the last sentence is written the story is not complete and will be a disappointment to the reader.

Human beings are somewhat unpromising at the start: needing to be fed, and cleaned and carried around like luggage. Fortunately for the species, human babies are cute and are entertaining. But years of parental investment are required to make children into adults with something to contribute to society. I'm grateful that my Christian parents not only provided the material wherewithal to allow me to grow physically but blessed me with their own spiritual foundation. They fed not just my growing body but my inquiring mind.

They allowed me to read the Bible straight through, to question what I found there and to ask those large questions that have no answers: is there a God? If so, why does He allow suffering and evil in this world that He supposedly created?

They shared their own answers to these questions and also indicated that at some point, one must make up one's own mind and get on with life and the business of living. And they put up with my reasoned decision to become an agnostic. As an adult, I was more prone to going to religious services with friends...mostly to understand where they were coming from spiritually.

A friend and a co-worker from Eastern Kentucky introduced me to Buddhism.  I took all the courses on meditation and philosophy offered by the small ashram on the fringe of the University of Kentucky campus. The philosophy appealed to me, but the discipline of sitting meditation was difficult. When one of the lay instructors who lived at the ashram told me that the purpose of meditation was boredom, I balked at that stupid idea as a waste of time and went off.  I had things I wanted to do; experiences I wanted to savor...there was more to life than sitting still.

Years later, I was to realize this guy had it wrong. Life and age and illness will impose limits on our endeavors; death is the ultimate stillness. But if we sit still, open, listening, the universe or God or Enlightenment might have a chance to catch up to us. I have been more alive since I have learned stillness; my mind can take me further than any plane ever will.

The Old Testament of the Bible is the history and religion and cultural background of a people who lived in a particular part of the world long ago. The New Testament is about a man of that people who did and said unusual things for his time. He transcended the vindictive tribal law of revenge and conflict. In his parables and philosophy and practice of going off into the desert to meditate, it's pretty obvious that the man we know as Christ had encountered the philosophy and teachings of a man who lived four hundred years earlier. To put it bluntly: Christ was a Buddhist. He never claims to be the son of God; he refers to himself as the Son of Man.

And just as every notable teacher of Buddhism has added something to the tradition, Christ extended the meaning of compassion, charity and love to the highest degree.

So on the day after Christmas, we begin with the legacy of these two spiritual geniuses. The world is still unfinished...how do we complete this story?

This is the seventh blog of Christmas.

Compassion & Empathy & Why Christ Was Born In A Stable

It's a funny story. Years ago, I sprained my right knee in a horseback riding mishap and in the course of getting physical therapy for it other problems were discovered and treated. My physical therapist, a woman who rode horses herself, sat me down with the air of imparting bad news and had the following conversation with me:

PT: You understand that the damage to your right knee means you won't be able to post a trot, right?

Moi: Yes.

PT: And this condition that we've discovered with your lower back and pelvis, you realize you won't be able to sit a trot, correct?

Moi: Yes.

PT: So you know what this means concerning horseback riding, correct?

Moi: It means I need to get a gaited horse.

The physical therapist slapped her forehead. "That's not the answer I had in mind, but it might work."

For the non-horsy people who may be reading this, a trot is a gait of medium speed that bounces, and can only be ridden by posting (moving up and down to miss the half the bounces) or sitting (absorbing all motion in pelvis and spine). A gaited horse is an animal belonging to one of several breeds of horses developed to carry the smooth sequence of the walking gait to higher and higher speed. This kind of horse has smooth paces and does not need to trot under saddle.

A few months after this conversation, I purchased an unregistered Tennessee Walker gelding, named him Rudy and found him apt for training. He learned quickly to come when called by his new name, to stand at a mounting block and also aided me in other ways. I could grab his mane with my right hand, say "handrail!", and he would adjust his pace to mine and allow me to lean on him to support my weak right knee.

I had him only a few months when I went with a couple of friends and their horses to try out a place that had some beautiful trails. Unfortunately, in the parking lot, Rudy spooked and collided with me as I came around the corner of the horse trailer into his forward blind spot. I felt my LEFT knee pop and give way. I insisted that my friends go ahead and ride. Rudy was put in a small holding pen. I sat on the back of the horse trailer, holding ice on my knee, listening to my friends whenever a bend of the trail in the forest brought them close.

I knew that my life would never be the same...but I didn't appreciate how severely this injury would affect me. Humana, the HMO that my then employer used in the state of Kentucky, tried to convince me that a woman in her mid-forties did not need to be able to walk. They would not authorize the surgery to repair the damaged ligaments until after I "tried a knee brace" but although the brace could have been ordered directly from the manufacturer and been delivered in two weeks, I had to order it through a local supplier and the brace was delayed for months.

My left knee would almost heal but then something ordinary such as climbing up the single step to my front porch would re-injure it. I was reduced to petting Rudy across the fence. He acted worried and anxious and would rush to the fence when I arrived--I told myself he could not possibly feel guilty, but he was certainly missing attention.

Four months after the injury, it seemed hugely improved. I paid a visit to Rudy who had been confined to the diet pen because he was getting too fat with no one riding him. I drove almost down to the gate and decided to go into the field to reassure him that I was truly on the mend. Also stuck in the diet pen was Mo, an Arabian gelding belonging to my best friend.

Mo had a great personality and is still mourned by all his friends, of whom I was proud to be numbered. I had trailered Mo to horse shows and endurance rides, held him for his owner and for the farrier, ridden him on occasion and he had every reason to regard me as one of the special people in his life. Mo came up for treats and petting and jealously chased Rudy away. I told Mo how rude he was and shooed him out of my personal space. As Mo departed, he flicked his heels at me -- a certain tit-for-tat was part of his personality, but he didn't mean any harm. I had to take two quick steps backwards and stepped into a depression with my bad leg. The knee buckled under me and I fell hard. The pain was agonizing and swift--worse, the knee joint didn't respond to the muscles that should control it. Later an MRI would reveal that two of the three ligaments in the knee had been completely snapped.

However my first problem was that I had fallen in a field where several horses were and I needed to get out. Horses are lovely, gentle creatures but they can't see where they are putting their feet and they are also curious. A notable trainer once described falling in a field, being surrounded by curious horses and getting knocked around under their hooves--a terrifying experience that could have been fatal. I started to crawl to the gate--not far, maybe twenty feet away, but my progress was slow.

Normally horses are attracted by anything curious that humans do...just try to mend a damaged fence or do any work in a field where horses are. I was surprised that none of the horses seemed to notice me and looked over. I saw Rudy, standing between me and the herd, his body perfectly positioned to screen me from their sight.

"Odd," I thought and continued to crawl. Halfway there, I looked again. Rudy had moved with me, as if deliberately blocking for me. Furthermore, although he was the lowest ranking horse in the field, he was pinning his ears and shaking his head in threat.

I was astonished. This couldn't be an accident. I crawled faster as I did not know how long Rudy could block for me. I reached the gate and started to pull myself up on the bars. With a gentle whuff, Rudy shoved his head beneath my left armpit and tried to help me stand. I was thunderstruck. I had trained Rudy to act as a handrail for my weak RIGHT knee but he had correctly determined that I needed support on my LEFT side. Furthermore, he maneuvered his body to help me open the gate. I believe he would have taken me straight to my truck, but I told him to stay in the field. He leaned against the gate holding it closed while I latched it and remained leaning against the gate while I crawled to the pickup truck.

Rudy has since proved this was not a fluke--in our years together he has come to my aide in other situations.

Rudy has changed my opinion of horses as rather unintelligent creatures, just working for the next treat.

Consider what his actions show: he accurately placed himself to hide me from the other horses and moved to maintain the screen. Then when that was no longer necessary he came close and attempted to provide support where it was needed--and considering the different body shape between horses and humans what kind of compassion and empathy was needed for Rudy to do this?

I know I remain humbled by this experience. This is a challenge my own horse has given me that I strive to rise to: to feel and show as much compassion--to have as much empathy--to see beyond the differences...if a horse can have feeling for a human, can not human beings see beyond the differences of culture, religion and politics? How many human beings can show this much empathy and compassion for others?

This explains why Christ was born in a stable... and thus ends the sixth blog of Christmas.

Rudy - July 11, 2001

I took this picture about one year after the events detailed here. Rudy's rescue 

of me took place in September 2000.

My left knee was repaired by surgical graft in November 2000.

The 5th blog of Christmas 

The color of "Calling Birds"

"On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me four calling birds...."

Sounds pretty, doesn't it? Four birds calling and singing Christmas carols....

Except it's not that. It's a great illustration of how the words of one century get twisted and turned around in later eras.

What sounds like "calling" to modern ears is "colly" or "collie" in the original, as in the related word collier meaning a miner of coal. Colly means "colored like coal" or black. The lady's true love is giving her four blackbirds, the same variety of which gets "baked into a pie" in Sing a Song of Six Pence:

Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye

Four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie

When the pie was opened the birds begin to sing

Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

And yep, blackbirds were really grocery items back in the day. Think chicken pot pie except not chicken...

And the notion of putting live birds beneath a pasty crust was the medieval equivalent of the dribble glass, considered to be just hilarious. Presumably after the bird were released and had pooped all over the diners, the chef would bring in the real pie.

The above picture depicts the Twelfth Night Feast (Christmas Feast) at the Duc de Berry (he's the gentleman in ornate blue robe with the gold pattern and we are greatly indebted to him for the lovely illustrations he commissioned which showcase his time for us). I regret that there are no bird erupting from pies, but probably that took place off-camera.

But the difference between calling birds and colly birds should cause us to reflect on the untrustworthy nature of words to shift and change...sometimes right in front of us. Words like "gay" and "straight" for example are words where the meanings changed in the blink of an eye.

Whenever anybody tells me that the only safe way to interpret the Bible is literally, I think of the colly birds and how a nice gift of food got turned into something fanciful. I always want to ask the literal Bible reader which translation they are using, and which translation that translation was based on and other things which are probably unkind to ask. They usually fall back on "This is the word of God" defense and all the translators were divinely inspired so they wouldn't have made any mistakes. Asking them to compare different editions and translations of the Bible is downright cruel because there are some passages where the translators have given us diverse images.

Most of these passages are not that important. Not sure why anybody would worry about whether
Agag came* "on trembling feet", or "with a blithe step" or "in chains". Agag and his gruesome Old Testament fate doesn't seem to have much bearing on what Christ did or said later, but he sure did give the translators fits. Maybe his purpose was to keep them humble and remind them that however divinely inspired they thought they were, they were only human.

Thing like words and the marvelous way they twist and change down through time interest me, because I like words and the whole aspect of trying to communicate with the little devils is so fraught, especially when dealing with things like religious truths that have to be approached sideways and through parable and metaphor.

To me there's an added dimension to knowing that the beautiful "calling birds" of my imagination were plain old blackbirds once upon a time. Plus I think the knowledge tempers extravagant expectation with prosaic reality. Not a bad thing for a holiday...or for a people or a religion or a political campaign--because when the shouting stops, you still gotta govern. A pinch of reality makes  true love stronger.

This is the fifth blog of Christmas.

*I Samuel 32 - My King James Revised American Standard Version says "cheerfully". Anyway he gets hacked in pieces in Verse 33.

the 4th blog of Christmas

The 6th blog of Christmas - Why Christ was born in a stable. 

Christmas DAZE, or What's In A Date?

Christmas is widely celebrated on December the 25th. Also, Christmas is celebrated on January 6th--in those traditions Twelfth Night or the evening of January 5th is the most important date. Christmas is also celebrated on all the days between, so St. Stephen's Day or Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, New Year's Day all fall in the Christmas season according to the older traditions of Christianity. The 28th of December is the Feast of the Innocents or Childermas.

Interestingly enough, in North America, the "Twelve Days of Christmas" are stood on their head and the countdown begins before Christmas...somewhere around December 14th and thus ends on December 25th. I don't find any Christian tradition in Europe that does this. It appears to be an American innovation, like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Possibly this is done to clear the way for post-Christmas sales or for New Year's Eve parties?

However, the date or the day of Christmas is determined there's a very clear reason why it falls in the darkest months of the year, near the time of the winter solstice when daylight is in scant supply. The harvest is in; agriculture is idle in the northern hemisphere and the fathers of the early Christian church wanted a festival to supplant/compete with the older festivals that celebrated the renewal of hope and the return of light.

Think about that: the renewal of hope and the return of light. I think these things are universal needs of the human heart.

We don't know the exact date of Christ's birth but from the evidence provided by the Christmas story of his parents going to be registered by the degree of Augustus Caesar, it's likely that their journey would have taken place at a more seasonable time of the year...but maybe not. Palestine is pretty hot and desert-like. When I was growing up in West Texas, December was a pleasant month for playing outside and harsh weather that would make travel difficult was rare. It was a better season for travel or being outdoors than August, that was for sure.

Wouldn't it be funny if the people who grumble about the pagan origins of Christmas were completely wrong?

What if December the 25th or January 5th, or one of the dates in between is the actual birthday of Jesus?

And then when one has savored that thought, one realizes that the best way to "defend Christmas" is to renew hope and seek light all 365 days of the year...366 days if it is Leap Year. It's not in the date or even for one day...it's for our darkest hours that we may rise above them.

This ends the 4th blog of Christmas.

In support of "Happy Holidays" -the 1st blog

The 3rd blog of Christmas

Pearl Harbor Day - December 7th, 1941

Lt. H. Earl Mizell driving an Army jeep - Pacific Theater - Saipan?

Take just a moment from the joys and travails of the holiday season to think back 70 years ago to "a Day that will live in Infamy". And so it does.

Let us remember not only the men lost on those ships at harbor but look beyond...not just the war that came to America's doorstep that day but the peace that those men bought us by their sacrifice.

Dec 7, 1941 changed the life of the man in the black and white picture. He could already see that war was coming and had enlisted right after gaining a Master of Science degree in Agriculture. He'd wanted to go for radio training but the recruiter said that specialty was full up, what else can you do? And so the farm boy from Southern Illinois spent the months before Pearl Harbor getting his basic training in the horse cavalry.

He had a spirited horse called Red, a chestnut who'd been too much for the other men in his unit to handle and he greatly enjoyed galloping across the plains of Kansas.

Pearl Harbor happened and hours later, he was on a train for the East Coast and he never saw that fine chestnut horse again. By sheer fluke of luck, he was dumped into training for radio communications. The war took him places he'd never imagined: New York City, Florida, Canada in the dead of winter, California...and finally, overseas to the island cluster of Guam, Saipan and Tinian.

At the end of the war, he had a chance to go to Japan, but decided to go home instead. That decision enabled him to eventually meet my mother. So life happened. In 1979, I went to Japan to attend a student conference and for years after that, my parents hosted any of my Japanese friends who managed to get to my hometown.

One of those friends spent half a night talking to my Dad and was thunderstruck that a veteran of World War II in the Pacific would welcome the son of a former enemy into his home. My father explained that the war had nothing to do with me, his daughter, or anyone of my generation. The war was over and Japan and the United States were friends. Nothing to forgive or forget: the war had brought our nations together and it was up to the young to make sure it stayed that way. That young Japanese feller became a doctor, working on the military base at Yokohama, treating the ills and injuries of American servicemen.

So let us remember and reflect and also turn our eyes to the future. Nothing lasts forever; the enemy of the past becomes the staunch ally of the future. That is embodied in the message:

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all Men. 

As Christ said, love your enemies. Turns out it is a great strategy and guarantees the future. So, yes, we have our struggles, but let us not demonize our foes.

Peace on Earth. To my friends in Japan, recovering from the terrible earthquake and tsunami that ravaged your beautiful northern coast, I think of you. Stay safe and away from that nuclear reactor.

Goodwill to all. May we meet as friends someday.

 This is, oddly enough, the 3rd blog of Christmas.

The 2nd blog of Christmas - That Pagan? Tree 

Christmas Daze - the 4th blog of Christmas

The Question of the Christmas Tree

An offhand comment from one of my friends on Facebook prompted me to do research on whether or not the Christmas Tree was pagan in origin.

It's an interesting question because there has long been two theories about Christmas in America and two ways of celebrating. One is very austere: no tree and few or modest presents and hours spent in church. The other is a lavish tradition of a brightly decorated tree, feasting, gifting and parties as well as church. And everything in between--Christmas is never one thing.

Folk who feel that the more austere Christmas is more religious tend to claim that the Christmas Tree and whatever elements of the lavish Christmas they disapprove of is "pagan".

However it turns out that decorating the house with palms or other greenery is appropriate for Jewish festivals such as Passover. Palms are not available through out the world; however evergreens are widespread and carry a symbolic message of long life, immortality or hope in times of despair.  While the idea of a Christmas Tree is linked with supposed pre-Christian pagan rituals, I'm not able to locate any definitive tradition of what, exactly, those supposed pagan rituals were.

I do find accounts of medieval morality plays at Christmas that feature a tree inside the church called "the Tree of Paradise". Typically an apple or apples would be tied to the branches for Adam and Eve to pluck. This might have inspired the idea of tying gifts for small children to the branches of a tree. Who knows?

I also find accounts going back to the 15th century of trees cut down and displayed in guildhalls at Christmas. Often the trees were used to fuel winter bonfires in the village square where the young men and women could dance. This may or may not be a pagan relic--it might just be a way of cheering up the grim season of darkness in Northern Europe.

There are traditions in Christian culture that go back 600 years involving the use of evergreen trees to symbolize that even in the depths of winter God is with us. The "modern" tradition of gifts being placed under the tree goes back at least 200 years. I think if Christians want to decorate a tree at Christmas, they can do so in good conscience, at least from the standpoint of their religion.

After all, if Buddha found Enlightenment under the bodhi tree, what's wrong with the kids finding a little fun on Christmas morning?

All I ask is that you recycle your tree. And don't forget to plant a new one on Arbor Day. Thus concludes the second blog of Christmas.

The first blog of Christmas - "Happy Holidays"

The 3rd Blog of Christmas - Pearl Harbor Day in this season

In support of "Happy Holidays"

I have some dear friends who are Christians who have requested that I not use the greeting "Happy Holidays" on the grounds that it is "politically correct". They have requested I use "Merry Christmas" instead.

My response is "Hello?"

I've never used "Happy Holidays" to be politically correct. I've used it because my company has instructed me to use the more inclusive greeting in phone interactions with clients. I've also used it as shorthand for: "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"

The end of the year is crammed with festivals and celebrations from many cultures and religions. I don't think it is wrong to say "Happy Holidays!" in the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill to all humanity. "Happy Holidays" not only covers Christmas but New Years Day -- a day important to me for quiet reflection, to acknowledge the changes of the previous year and to embrace the possibilities of the next.

If you say "Merry Christmas!" to me, I'll thank you for the good wishes and respond in kind. If you say "Happy Holidays" I'll thank you for the good wishes and respond in kind. If you wish me "Happy Hanukkah" or "Happy Kwanzaa", I'll respond in kind. But if you wish me "Happy Eid-ul-Adha" I'll look at you oddly because that was last month. If you want to wish me "Happy Ashura", you've got until  Monday Dec 5th in the Middle East and Tuesday Dec 7 in North America. Al-Hijra/Muharram is still going on, having started on Nov 26 and ending on Dec 24. (All these dates are 2011.) Rohatsu as the very name implies is celebrated on December 8th.

All of these holidays are important to someone. Most involve a serious religious purpose and are not occasions to shop and spend money. Christmas has almost become a universal holiday being celebrated wherever department stores are present. I sympathize with my Christian friends who would like to put the religion back in their holiday. The best way to do that is to emulate Christ and I strongly believe that Christ would not bite my head off if I wished him "Happy Holidays".

This is the first blog of Christmas.

The 2nd Blog of Christmas - The Tree ?

Not Tonight, Honey....I'm having convulsions.

The best excuse to leave a movie or not go at all:

Breaking Dawn Causes Seizures in Guys

****

The 2011 Award for Refusing to Face the Music goes to Michelle Bachmann:

What do you expect of a comedy show?

****

This Will Show We Aren't Stupidly Profiling Award goes to Alabama:

German Mercedes-Benz executive arrested under AL Immigration Law


And the best commentary on that story goes to:

alabama-cops-arrest-stupid-mercedes-benz-executive-it-was-his-own-stupid-mistake/

I just couldn't bear to change the tag on that link in any way.

*****

It is a true fact that most people become zombies after Thanksgiving Dinner. Are you prepared for a zombie attack? Take this quiz and find out:

Zombie Preparedness Quiz

A-Macing Grace--the Pepper Spray Addiction

Going to Walmart? Make sure you pack your pepper spray. After all, it is your Constitutional right to bear arms. That way if someone else gets that Xbox you've got your eye on, you can just whip out your handy-dandy canister and spray them down.

CBSnews Black Friday Shoppers Pepper Sprayed

Twenty people were injured but nobody died or had a serious allergic reaction. My first thought, based on my own experience of retail, was that this would be a perfect cover for a pair of shoplifters. One douses the crowd with pepper spray creating a massive distraction, while the other moves in on the merchandise. I don't buy that "competitive shopping" hogwash.

That story got the widest coverage and there was coverage of robberies, shootings and attempted hijackings of Christmas presents in other Walmarts across the country. Coverage of all these incidents was widely circulated in the foreign press. Belief in American Exceptionalism may be waning here at home, but foreigners still think we're pretty special.

Here's another good one you may have missed. Some folks, relatives of a player, traveled to a high school football game and tried to cheer the players up after they lost by performing the Haka, a traditional Maori dance that is now a male bonding football ritual the world over. You know the thing: chest-beating, stomping around, sticking out the tongue, making ugly faces?

Well, the police had never heard of such a thing, so he maced them: Washington Post:: Too Much Team Spirit

A clip of the pepper spraying of the Occupy UC Davis protesters went viral on Facebook on November 18th. It was chilling but only 37 seconds long. Here's another video of the same incident, shot from a different angle that shows more detail. In addition to the guy walking along the front of the line of students spraying them in the face, there was another cop behind them spraying the back of their necks and grabbing unresisting people to spray them at pointblank range. Also batons...

Occupy Protesters Pepper Sprayed at UCDavis 1:05minute

What's kind of scary is that after the UC Davis incident, a bunch of folks went over to Amazon and posted a bunch of satirical reviews on the pepper spray products. Since then the product has been flying off the shelves! Get yours before they are all gone:

Buy Pepper Spray on Amazon--but enjoy the reviews first.

Some of the reviews posted earlier even suggested the use of the product to clear out the lines at Walmart. Oh, bad karma on that one....

If they could figure out how to tax crazy, this nation would be on a sound financial footing again.

The DMV for Artistic/Poetic/Literary Licenses

Generally speaking, we creative types are not satisfied with the world as it is. Whether the venue is poetry or prose, paint, chalk, bronze or film, sometimes reality has to be tweaked to make the story or the image "better". Artistic license has been something the author/artist TAKES but the reader/viewer GRANTS.

Lately, I've gotten very tired of politicians/political spin doctors/advertising mavens appropriating such license. I'm announcing that I personally will be issuing artistic, poetic and literary licenses. No longer is this market unregulated. Here are examples of licenses I will and will not grant.

First: POETIC LICENSE


Poetic license is is where the poet alters the usual grammatical order of words, or the pronunciation of a word to fit a meter:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.  (lines 1-5)

  

or 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!  (lines 29-30)

 

Poets are still free to do this at their pleasure at no charge. There's no money in poetry. Likewise, song writers....you folks go on doing what you got to do to make the words fit the music. People like George W. Bush or the writers of the panels on Farmville...apply now and I won't levy a fine for past transgressions. But you will be required to take a course in grammar from a certified teacher of English before I will issue you your license.

Secondly: ARTISTIC LICENSE

Examples of artistic license can be found all over, not just in the realms of fiction. Events in history are often depicted according to the way the "truth" ought to have been. For example, when Lincoln died, newspapers and engravers rushed to bring images of the stricken President and the important visitors to the small room in a lodging house across the street from Ford's Theater.These images vary widely and don't necessarily depict the people in the room when Lincoln died. Often they show who should have been there or people who visited the death chamber at some point or even Cabinet Members who wanted to be there. Some depict Lincoln's children who weren't there. A couple show Mrs. Lincoln even though she broke down completely and had to be taken to another room in the house.

Prints as Historical Evidence-Lincoln's deathbed by Chris Lane

I will temporarily grant artistic license to folks creating actual art including pictures, films, video clips, posters, cartoons and other areas of the visual arts. If you PhotoShop a recent picture of me to make me look young and skinny, I'll allow that. If you are the bonehead making Vladamir Putin look ripped, however, I will come down on you like a ton of bricks.

Manipulating historical images has never been so easy or so wrong. Intelligent people can make allowances for oil paintings but photos fool the brain into thinking it must be real. Since one picture is worth a thousand words the fine for messing with a photo of historical importance needs to be a thousand times as much.

Thirdly: LITERARY LICENSE

This is like artistic license for writers. Some permissions are granted by the genre; for example, science fiction writers can have FASTER THAN LIGHT speed on their space ships. Some stories could not take place without this or other assumptions of technological breakthrough.

If you are writing an historical novel and are altering points of historical fact, this needs to be noted in an afterword in your book. Writers of history and historical novels have a similar responsibility not to knowingly misrepresent the past to the present. Both sometimes speculate from the known facts. I get really, really annoyed by people who think their story is so great they can tailor history to suit.

In particular, folks who take historical figures and make them fictional characters in novels have a steep road. To cast Jane Austen as a detective makes me more than a little queasy. I did grant the author of this series some license for the space of a couple of books but than began to feel that Jane's time was being wasted in detection. Stephanie Barron was writing too many books and Jane Austen only got to write six...not fair.

Biographical novels are a different story. A novelist's imagination can sometimes see under the skin of a famous person to make them live again for the reader. As long as the novelist is using what facts can be known and making a good faith effort to speculate to the facts, this kind of work can be very valuable. Robert Graves wrote some exceptional novels, including I, CLAUDIUS. In some ways, the modern reader can approach more easily famous figures from classical or medieval times via a good historical novel than from strict history.

So once again rushing in to fill a great cultural void, apply here for artistic/poetic or literary licenses. Lawyers and politicians must submit a filing fee of $100 and submit a through proposal. The actual cost of the license will be determined on a case by case basis. Some may wish to complain about this. I can't help it. Please note that I do not issue Dramatic Licenses. That's another department. Go down the hall, third door and throw a hissy fit. Judges will award points for style and volume and grant licenses based on how convincing your performance is.

High Wires and Low Rollers - Your Questions Once Again Answered

A correspondent, disputing the earlier ruling on which way the toilet paper should hang submits the following cartoon in evidence:

To visit shoeboxblog.com and see this and other funny stuff:

The correspondent in question is co-owned by a number of cats and gives this as an excuse for putting the toilet paper facing the wall, as if it is a misbehaving child forced to sit in the corner. Tsk, Tsk, and Tsk again.

A simple adjustment can be made to the toilet paper roll which allows the paper to be freely dispensed for human beings but not for life forms without hands (however superior they may be in intelligence to the average Congressperson).


Observe the ordinary roll of toilet paper:

Should your house be inhabited by small animals who enjoy using this object as a toy, here is how you can adjust the roll:

Step One: With Roll Lying on Side, Squish.

There is no Step Two:













One now can mount the roll on the roller, with the free sheet facing toward the room. If no sheets are left to dangle, there will be a tendency for the torn sheet to be at the top of the roll. The human can then grasp the sheet, lift and tear off the desired quantity. Because the roll does not spin quite so easily, it loses its attraction to the felines in the vicinity...unless your cat is a shredder in which case you should hire it out to those candidates and corporations with the most to hide. The next image may be too graphic for some viewers:

Ahem. Well...

---------%-------%---------%-%---Birds on Power Lines--------%-----%--%--------%----------------

Another correspondent asks about birds on power lines...don't their feet tingle and why don't they get electrocuted.


Actually, power lines are a hazard to birds. If you touch a power line and then touch something else, it does not matter whether you are feathered or not, you will be zapped. Little birds are small enough to sit on the wire and touch nothing else; since they don't complete a circuit they are safe. The larger the bird, the greater the chance of its being electrocuted. For more details, go to this excellent government website (unless you are a Republican who wants to shrink government, in which case you can remain uninformed and may experiment by touching all the power lines you like...see how that works for you.)  www.fws.gov/birds/documents/powerlines

The same correspondent asks why psychics don't win the lottery.  First of all, the odds of winning the lottery are about 1 in 16 million. Even if you know via your psychic powers 2 of the 6 numbers that are going to be drawn, you only drop the odds to something like 1 in 39,000. Secondly, psychic powers are only granted to enable the psychic to help other people; God or a falling power line would strike them dead if they tried to profit in this way. Thirdly, there are no such thing as psychics.

Pilgrimage - Part III - Return to The World

No pilgrimage is complete without a return. Unless the pilgrim is immediately translated into the space of Bliss, he or she must go back to ordinary life.

What use is grand revelation if we can't take it home with us and let it make us a better person? Thinking about all the things I had seen, I reclaimed my dog, climbed back into my pickup truck and got back on the interstate. My hometown of Lexington and my hometown friends waited for me with tickets to the National Horse Show at the Kentucky Horse Park. I could not be so close and not go home...

I used to live only twenty minutes from the KY Horse Park, which is the horse person's version of Mecca and the Promised Land. I used to spend most of my weekends from April to October at the park, sometimes as a spectator, sometimes as a volunteer and sometimes as a competitor. The park has only gotten larger and the facilities more impressive since the 2010 World Equestrian Games were held there. Where it was once the finest facility for horse sports in the nation, it is now an international venue capable of staging 7 or 8 international events at once.

Here's a brief clip of the Grand Prix showing a horse completing a clear round over a demanding course. This was only the second clear round of the evening and one of only five to reach the jump off:

The video also shows the large indoor arena. The crowd seems rather sparse, but the Breeder's Cup races including the Classic were happening in Louisville that same evening.

That night I slept well but I dreamed about the Buddha Relic display. My dreams lingered over the bead-like objects identified as the historical Buddha's as if to say "Look again." I believe these sights were so unusual that my dreams were taking great care to fix this episode in my memory.

I would love to undertake a longer pilgrimage: to go to India and Nepal and see the places were the Buddha was born, achieved Enlightenment and died. I feel a kinship with all pilgrims, no matter their religion. I send good wishes to those devout Muslims who began the traditional journey to Mecca at about the same time I was setting out for Louisville.

A pilgrimage takes us outside of our comfort zone (in my case, driving at night). We will meet new people. They may impress upon us the sad state of the world like the people living in the cheap motel or they may expand our horizons like the volunteers at Unity. Unity of Louisville is a remarkable church; only in America could a synagogue modeled on a mosque be a Christian church hosting a display of Buddhist artifacts. Despite my skepticism, I was moved to spiritual insight. My own practice of meditation has gained a new dimension. I am still processing what I have seen and learned. My own inclination is to be a rational Buddhist...however I have been working on a series of novels about a heroine who can't help but be a mystic. Certainly this is something she would have gone to see and in some dimension the two of us are arguing over exactly what we have seen.



A pilgrimage is distinguished from an ordinary journey by the reverent mindset of the traveler. I'm going to try to keep that mindset wrapped around me as I journey through life.I think by doing so it is possible to travel an infinite distance without moving.

Pilgrimage - Part II - Into the Light

ENLIGHTENMENT is the goal of the spiritual seeker: to emerge from the primal night of our animal nature into the sunlight of the presence of God. So it was with me, driving through the darkness of Friday night and the mists of early Saturday: when the sun came, I found myself in Western Kentucky surrounded by trees that staggered skyward like narrow steeples. The leaves looked hammered from precious metals: bronze and gold, rust and copper. When the wind moved amid the birch and sycamore, the undersides of the leaves showed silver.

Following directions, I took the St. Catherine exit into downtown Louisville and found Unity of Louisville about three blocks down Brook St. The description of a brick building with a dome did not prepare me for the reality. I regretted not bringing my camera, but that was one of the decisions I had made: to travel light, to leave the electronics at home (except for the cell phone, necessary for communication and for safety). The building that houses Unity began life as a Jewish synagogue built on Islamic principles after a Byzantine model; Unity is a non-denominational Christian church seeking to respect all religions.

Handwritten yellow signs advertised the Buddha Relic Tour and also directed pet owners to the grassy space beneath the tree on the left side of the staircase where pets were being blessed. A kind volunteer at the booth offered to walk my dog around while I went inside to view the relics. The tour began with a video in the lovely sanctuary under the dome and then descended into a labyrinth that wound through the old building to the shrine area set up in the fellowship hall. At each step of the way, eager volunteers explained what was being shown, the proper actions of the ritual and the spiritual purpose behind each action.

I found it unexpectedly moving. The incense and the chanting evoked the fellowship of the ashram in Lexington where I took my first courses in meditation and Buddhist philosophy. The kindness of the volunteers, who were sharing their time and their unexpected place of worship with me affirmed the principle that Buddha and Christ may have departed the material earth but they are still to be encountered in human hearts.

The relics themselves? I don't think The Buddha himself would blame me for the feelings of skepticism I felt as I looked upon these objects in their beautiful little stupas of gold and glass. He taught that all earthly things are impermanent and ultimately unreal; that seekers of Enlightenment should not blindly accept what they were told but should think and reason and compare it to what he taught.

Reason tells me that the Buddha died approximately 2400 years ago. No clear line of provenance comes with any of these objects. The legend states that bead and crystal-like stones were found in the iron coffin that encased the Buddha's body after it was cremated. Eight kings contended for the relics; a great war was averted when a leading disciple of the Buddha divided the relics into shares. Each contender erected a memorial stupa to house the remains and honor the Buddha and incidentally profit from the pilgrims who came to visit. King Ashoka who came to rule a Buddhist empire is said to have found and opened the original memorials and to have redistributed the relics in 84,000 stupas throughout his realm.

Traditional Account of the Division of Buddha's Relics

That seems to require a heck of a lot of relics.* Reasonable reflection tells me this is no problem.  Give me a handful of gravel and a rock polisher and I could create a reasonable facsimile of the supposedly miraculous objects in front of me. Faced with a need for relics to unite his empire, what would King Ashoka do?


But here's the rub of all religion. If your practice of your religion hinges upon some material object or some specific holy verse or any ONE THING, than that one thing is actually your crutch and you don't have a religion. If you need a piece of the True Cross to feel closeness to Christ, then you haven't absorbed the meaning of Christ. But human imagination is powerful. Just as a sliver of wood might provoke a Christian into contemplating the meaning of Christ's death, so these shiny irregular beads, housed in gold and velvet, surrounded by incense and chanting and hungry belief, spoke to me of a man who had left a palace to walk the world dependent on the kindness of strangers. His words and his philosophy still serve as a lamp in dark places.

And amid all these reverent stones, isn't it possible that one really is a survivor of the historical Buddha's funeral pyre? I walk softly.

The first stop in the ritual is a basin of water in which a charming statue of the Buddha as a child stands. One selects a wooden dipper and slowly and reverently pours out water. I poured the water to wash out doubt with the first dipper, the second to wash away stress and the third to open mind and heart.

The second action is the striking of a Tibetan bowl bell. The sweet tone pierces one's flesh, delighting the heart and shimmering in the mind long after the metal has ceased to vibrate.

One then views relics of other notable Buddhist masters. Ananda, the Buddha's loyal companion and servant, was there. He's a favorite of mine, always getting into trouble, wanting to look at women, an ordinary man stumbling after a spiritual genius. He's not highly regarded amid the intellectual monks around the Buddha. The guys who immediately grasp what the Buddha is teaching are sent out to become missionaries; poor unEnlightened Ananda stays by the Buddha's side. After the Buddha is dead, his followers are dismayed. Who can remember the Master's teachings? Humble Ananda stands up and begins to speak, word for word, all the Buddha's sermons. The fellowship gasps; it sounds as if the Buddha is still there, speaking to them from beyond the grave. Ananda gives us all hope; if he can become Enlightened, than all of us can, with due diligence.

One then reads a sacred text and kneels on a cushion while a container of relics is placed on ones head. This is the heart of the ceremony. With my bad knees and physical issues, I could not kneel and expect to get up again. The very short lady doing the ritual held the relics as I bowed and recited the chant. Skeptic or not, I felt an energy radiating through me; I felt it coming from the other people in the room.

After the blessing, one can sit and contemplate or use a gold pen to trace a prayer in a special book. I have always loved to write so I traced the Buddha's name in an empty line that someone else had skipped. By staying at the cheap hotel described in Part I, I could make donation. I put money in the prayer box upstairs to thank Unity for hosting the relics; donated again in the basement to aid the charities supported by the tour and purchased a medallion with the image of Green Tara from the gift shop. All the objects there are made by the Tibetan refugee community in India.

I could not linger. I needed to reclaim my little dog and return to the world. No pilgrimage is complete without this part. To be continued....

For more information on the Buddha Relics Tour, visit this link: Maitreya Project. - Buddha Relic Tour

*For a rather gross and scientific discussion concerning the creation of Buddhist relics from more modern Buddhist masters and a comparison of the crystal like beads with other bodily objects go to:

Mummified Masters and Sarira-like objects from other bodies

Pilgrimage - Part I - In Darkness

Traveling from one place to another is only a journey. In a pilgrimage, motion in the outer world has the goal of promoting spiritual progress. Inconveniences, delays, even hardships can attend an ordinary journey. A good pilgrim should view these sufferings as an opportunity to grow in spirit.

On the weekend of Nov. 5-6, 2011 I made my own small pilgrimage to Louisville Kentucky to view the Buddha relics tour which was stopping that weekend at Unity of Louisville. Unity lies near the heart of downtown Louisville on the corner of Brook and College streets, an usual building that echoes in modest brick the famed Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The route seemed simple: five to six hours traveling east on I-64 to Louisville with reasonable pit stops and walking breaks. But construction and repair have closed not only the I-64 bridge from Indiana to Kentucky but the I-65 crossing as well. The only bridge open is on the bypass far north of downtown. A local friend had advised me that it was a huge mess with up to three hour waits to cross the bridge. My plan for driving in on Saturday hinged on easy access off the interstate and wouldn’t work. In addition, I learned that the Breeder’s Cup Races were being held at Churchill Downs that weekend. I wouldn’t be able to stay downtown and traffic would be heavier than normal with all the world in from out of town.

So I left after work on Friday, driving through purpling dusk to meet the darkness head-on. I used to be fearless about night driving but age, caution and awareness of my body’s fading capacity make me reluctant to undertake a long drive after a long day at work. As night closed in around my pickup truck, the outer darkness reflected my condition as an ordinary human being trying to make sense of life and death.

The road outruns the reach of our headlights. We can see so far but what is really ahead of us is a mystery. Sometimes others pass us and we can see the gleam of their lights for some distance, taking that as assurance that there is something out there and that the road continues. As long as the road is familiar, we feel a degree of comfort but night hides all landmarks and changes everything. Familiar signposts bob up without context in a formless, alien landscape. 

If we travel long enough, inevitably we will be forced to take detours and unknown roads and will suffer anxiety.

My goal for Friday night was Evansville, Indiana. I’d often stopped there for gas on my trips to and from Kentucky as it lies about halfway between my current home and my old hometown. This time I would turn south, searching for the cheap hotel I’d booked, to snatch a few hours of rest. The main attractions of the hotel were that it accepted pets and was within my means.

The motel had always been cheap, but now it was battered by time and the rough economy. In some freak counterpoint to the rundown building and people, the place offered free copies of The Wall Street Journal. The desk clerk was gruff but took pains to describe where the ice machine was. The room had the stagnant smell of a room that never got aired. For a “nonsmoking” room there seemed to be too many cigarette burn marks around the sink. However, the sheets on the king bed were clean, the blanket warm, the mattress firm and running the fan freshened the air.

I read the Wall Street Journal, including the article about what kinds of art to acquire as an investment; the cheapest piece mentioned was $25,000. The Wall Street Journal has changed since I used to read it in graduate school. Less information, less overseas and business analysis and more feature pieces designed to make the well-heeled reader think that all would be well despite the protesters camping in city parks across the nation. In 1979, my business administration professor had praised the Wall Street Journal as a national chronicle of the American Dream. Now, under the aegis of Rupert Murdoch, the Journal is an advocate for riches without responsibility.

I had pushed myself out of my usual routine in search of spiritual insight. But the contrast between the sad motel and the smug Journal roused up the political beast and thinker within me. Feeling despair from the material world, I folded away the newspaper and took solace from my woolly little dog. We were tired—my dog settled down on the bedspread, I settled down under the blanket and both of us enjoyed a nice curl up and snooze.

I awoke at 5AM with the sensation that the sour air was corroding my lungs and the stale odor was sticking to my skin. The free breakfast, available at 7AM, was no inducement to stay. The dog and I decamped. Only the dog got breakfast.

I drove south, still in darkness with the additional complication of mist that grew thicker and thicker as I followed Route 41 south through town. Most people in that part of the world still slept. The houses were dark; none of the restaurants I passed were open. The tourist maps that I had were not clear exactly how the river crossing here was accomplished. Evansville maps showed only that town and a slice of Indiana; Henderson maps showed that community and a swathe of Kentucky. The depicted curves of the river were artistic and did not match. By crossing here I would avoid the construction zone in Louisville but I worried about finding the junction to the Pennyrile Parkway.

The dark, the patches of fog, sometimes so thick that where lights tried to illuminate the exits the world turned to impenetrable haze…this material reality reminded me of the difficulties the spirit faces as it struggles toward the light. But by following the road, I discovered that the way had been made easy for me. I came to an unheralded bridge and suddenly I was in Kentucky. Where the fog thinned, clumps of skinny tree trunks stood like streaks of ink laid down by a master calligrapher. The road was the same, but it turned out to be the road I needed. I was already on the Pennyrile, heading in the right direction. 

Premonitions of dawn gave me hope, but darkness and fog and hunger eventually drove me off the road for breakfast at a fast food joint. When I got back on the road, I suffered another check. The SERVICE ENGINE SOON light came on. I pulled off at a truck stop where there was a service depot for big rigs. One of the mechanics looked it over. He asked questions but my answers caused him to shrug.

"Did you buy gas?" He asked.

"Yes," I said.

 "Sometimes the light just goes on, just for that. You may have a bit of carbon on the sensor," he said.

With that slender assurance, I got back on the road. Perhaps he just wanted me out of his parking lot, but perhaps he was right. The truck ran fine throughout the trip.

Dawn came while I was eating. With the sun, the fog began to thin. Like a metaphor that Enlightenment can happen suddenly, the veil lifted and the trees, rust and red and bright, bright yellow, burst out of the gray netherworld into glorious light. The rest of the drive to Louisville was an excursion into lyric poetry. Western Kentucky boasts a landscape more beautiful than any description of Heaven. Under an autumn sun, with the varied trees cloaked in dying glory it is a feast for the eyes.

(to be continued)

Capital Punishment-The Moral, The Just and The Just Plain Messed-Up

As the correspondent who asked this question knows, this column was a long time in coming. Let me break out this complex and troubling question into separate components:

The first aspect is the MORAL imperative, which all religions that I know about and all human societies subscribe to: THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

That's clear and absolute. In a perfect world, we would all obey and no further question would arise. That we live in an imperfect world is shown by the qualifiers that some otherwise religious people would put on this absolute moral imperative. It's okay, they say, to kill the rabid dog that is about to bite you or your child or some helpless person near you. Killing in self-defense or the defense of another is allowable, if there is no other choice.  Lots of other qualifiers are also bruited about: that it is not wrong to kill animals for food and sustenance or that is acceptable to kill other human beings in war. Note those other points for now and let's focus on the idea of self-defense, because I think that is central to the proponents of capital punishment.

What about human beings who kill other human beings? On an individual level, once again, all major religions agree that it is not acceptable. On the collective level, society in the abstract and government in the practical has the might (i.e. the weapons and legitimacy) to do what no individual should do and call it "justice".

The argument for that goes like this: SOME PEOPLE JUST NEED KILLING.

All justifications of capital punishment eventually boil down to this Texas bumper sticker. Defining the "SOME PEOPLE" is the difficulty. What actions make a human being into the equivalent of a rabid dog that must be put down to secure the safety of society? Long lists of crimes which invoke the death penalty have been seen in early legal codes, but the trend is for fewer and fewer crimes to be so considered. The death penalty for sex crimes or theft or political rabble-rousing or talking on your cell phone in public can actually hinder prosecution as an ethical person might/should hesitate to bring charges. The crime of murder is one in which the death penalty seems symmetrical--if someone intentionally takes a life their own life should be forfeit. Seems fair, right?

As I examine my own heart I find that I fully agree with the moral imperative THOU SHALT NOT KILL. My sense of self-preservation hopes that society will protect me from predators. Once I have assigned that duty to a government, I must be ruled by the consensus that creates the law by which justice is defined and meted out. I can understand the bitterness of friends and family of the victims; I can consider the agony the victim might have experienced. And even if the deterrence value is weakened by the delay in administering the penalty, it holds some weight to deter the rational offender. In other words, if society requires the execution of murderers, then I don't argue.

But when I look at the actual dispensing of justice in modern America, I don't always see it. What should be a justice system is JUST PLAIN MESSED UP. The courts as constituted do not provide equal treatment under the law. T. Cullen Davis and O. J. Simpson are names that spring to mind of wealthy men who beat the rap of murder. Confessed murderer Shane Ragland goes free because of his father's money. If you are a millionaire, you can command the legal talent to argue that the evidence against you is flawed.

This can be seen for all crimes at all levels of the American justice system: in cases such as that of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the dismissal of the sexual assault charges against him. It was considered a great coup for  American justice that Strauss-Kahn was even arrested, but then it was found that the hotel maid who said he sexually assaulted her had fudged something in her background to get refugee status and misrepresented some circumstance to get housing. DSK admitted the sex, and the woman's bruises and other physical evidence at first convinced the prosecutor to yank the man off the plane and put him in handcuffs. But once the lawyers had succeeded in ferreting out and putting the worse possible implication on the hotel maid's legal forms, the prosecutor concluded that he couldn't put the case to a jury. Only a perfect woman, a combination of Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary, could bring such charges against such a wealthy man and have the prosecutor follow through.

The justice system is supposed to accept the release of the guilty to protect the innocent wrongfully accused. But the wealthy always seem able to obtain 'reasonable doubt'. Being innocent and poor will increase the likelihood a defendant will be convicted. In Illinois, the Innocence Project examined the cases of 25 inmates on Death Row about nine years ago and discovered serious flaws in 13 cases.

So even if you subscribe to the principle of SOME PEOPLE JUST NEED KILLING, it's rather hard to argue that the justice system is doing a good job of defining who those folks are. So that brings us back to the moral imperative: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Given that, suspending all executions in this country to allow for a nationwide Innocence Project is something that I can support. Show me that the system can be fixed. Suggest ways to presume innocence for the rich and the poor and make justice blind to wealth.

Downstate IL Innocence Project

The Innocence Project

A book review: Rin Tin Tin - Was the author dog dazed?

The first half of this book, where the author talks about Lee Duncan and his dog was fabulous. Here is a gripping saga of a boy who spent part of his early life in an orphanage, growing up and going to war, befriending a mother dog and her litter of puppies on a battlefield in war-torn France. We learn where the name "Rin Tin Tin" originated and why Rin's mate was called "Nanette". This is an enthralling saga of a dog who became a movie star.

The author also discusses other dogs who performed in the silent movie era and notes what was about Rin Tin Tin that made him so special, despite the dark coat that made him hard to light for the camera.

I loved this part of the book. I enjoyed the author's chronicle of her search for the town where Lee found the puppies and how hard it was, since the name and spelling of the town had changed in the years since World War I.

There is real value in these pages about the early days of movie making and the changing culture of the times. In silent films, a dog actor closely bonded to his human trainer could give a more natural and affecting performance than a human overacting to compensate for the lack of words. Attitudes toward animals were changing. All these factors allowed for Rin Tin Tin, but the essential element of the story was and remains the bond between the human and the dog. And the dog was something else as anyone lucky enough to have seen even a snippet of one of his silent films can attest.

But the latter half of the book is about the branding and marketing of Rin Tin Tin, of the lesser dogs that succeeded him, of the plastic figurines that depicted them, of the declining fortunes of his trainer, of the TV producer who created a show to capitalize on the name and of all the tawdry schemes and hoaxes and frauds and cheats and dog breeders who tried to exploit that. And of the lawsuits.

And none of that had anything to do with the dog. I really wish I could give the author five stars for the beginning of the book. I really wish she had found some redeeming twist at the end. In fact, she only fantasizes about an ending; it becomes all about her. What I felt as I ground my way through the last chapters was that the author had lost sight of her subject completely and was desperately padding out her material to achieve some predetermined length.

Or else she was betrayed by her own first sentence: "He believed the dog was immortal." She seemed to believe that she could go on and on, talking about tangents that weren't really about the dog in the hope this would prove her point. As if exploiting the name "Rin Tin Tin" somehow was the same as immortalizing our animal hero--but it isn't. I came to the end of the book feeling ashamed -- my interest in Rin Tin Tin the real dog had been exploited by the author. If I had wanted to read a book about showbiz lawsuits and marketing I would have looked in a different section. I can't recommend this book to animal lovers...maybe fans of pop culture would have a different take on it.

----this same review appears on the Amazon product page of the book under the title "Dog Dazed"----

Rin Tin Tin -book product page on Amazon