The Courage of Ordinary People

Dec3

The Courage of Ordinary People, that is what America or the USA is really all about. When was it that we forgot that we are the government of this country? The petty tyrants on display only have power over us because we allow it. We allow their unjust mandates and decrees to dictate our lives, and, yes, I’m no better standing up to them than you probably are. I have gone into a couple of stores without a mask on, however, and how liberating, how cathartic is it to breathe and smile freely! And smiles are definitely contagious. I highly recommend it and hope I have the courage to do it more and more often as winter settles in.

This post is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness about current events going on today. How appalling that the media is barely covering all of the important hearings and things going on in the country! Most “normies” as people who don’t follow alternative news are often called, have no idea how much our republic is at stake. And it’s hard to tell them, because they either are apathetic about it or put it into a “conspiracy theory” category because the news is not covering it.

I encourage you, however, to seek out this information. Go to sites like theconservativetreehouse.com and Right Side Broadcasting and watch the hearings that Giuliani is holding in Michigan and other states. Watch the awesome rally that Sidney Powell and Lin Wood had in Georgia yesterday. Watch the many witnesses to voter fraud this November give their testimony. These people are awesome and many clearly smarter than our supposed representatives listening to them. This is the courage of ordinary people standing up for their country, and it’s puts me to shame that some of them are immigrants, immigrants testifying to our fellow countrymen’s blatant disregard for the law. How awful to leave a corrupt country only to find yourself in one that is inarguably worse, for we want to pretend it isn’t so. Follow codemonkeyZ on Twitter, who is reading through the Dominion handbooks and really driving home what these machines are for: one thing and one thing only: to cheat. Hey, follow your President, President Trump on Twitter! Watch his speech from yesterday, or if you don’t have time, find where the text is available. Voxday.blogspot.com has it, as does the The Conservative Treehouse.

Have a look at The Great Awakening Group on Gab. Have a look at Gab in general. They won’t censor your political views as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube will. Many of these people are Christians. Many of these people are also Q followers, and if you don’t know about the information dump of Q from the past four years and want to know what Q called on people to research, read the posts yourself at qanon.pub. Read how people theorize this is all connected to General Flynn and give him a follow. In the Michigan hearing, watch Jenna Ellis’s closing statement about the Constitution. It is a sobering speech for all of us.

Again, these ordinary people have extraordinary courage and are doing something to save our republic. Watch the feeds of those who went down to film in Georgia where they are trying to get rid of the election fraud evidence. These people don’t have to do this, but they care. They are not crazy, they care about our country and not living under Communist Chinese rule. Yes, that’s who’s ultimately behind this, but the patriots’ anger is mostly for the traitors in our midst, for the enemy is the enemy and they are going to do what they’re going to do, but Americans are supposed to be loyal to this country. Sadly, many are not.

Watch Amazing Polly on Bitchute, she’s got a lot of opinions on mask wearing, and a great, great video of strangeness going on with selling things online, specifically Wayfair. She also has a lot of research on the WHO, Fauci, the CDC, and the lot of corrupt bureaucrats who are basically grifters and not health professionals at all. Really let the news sink in, and it’s a lot of news that you maybe never heard before because the regular news doesn’t cover it. They don’t do their jobs and basically they are the ultimate enemy, gaslighting us into believing things we otherwise would not.

Again, check out the hearings and the evidence presented. Did you know that witness testimony is evidence? It is, though the media would keep telling us it is not. These people signed affidavits to what they saw, and there are hundreds of them. They are putting their lives and well-being on the line for this. They could go to prison if they are found to be lying. Again, these are regular people who are your neighbors, people who cared enough about our election integrity to be out in the figurative field of battle on election day. What they saw and witnessed should horrify every one of us. As President Trump says, this corruption has to be fixed or we simply will not have a country. General Flynn and others are murmuring about martial law. With the staggering amount of corruption, Trump would have a good case for implementing martial law and restoring the rule of law and order in this country. He would absolutely be right to do it, in my opinion.

But there is also another way: We the People! We are the government of this country, the government of the people, by the people, for the people! We have the power to stand up against this ourselves! Really think about it. I am almost every day at this point. God is calling for us to stand up to the truth, to testify to it. What good is it if we Christians proudly proclaim the truth of our Savior Jesus Christ, but then deny the other truths around us. What message does that send? God cares about all truth, he is for the truth, he is the truth. If I sound too passionate for you–good! I live in Minnesota where most of us are wimps, not all, but most of us. We believe in being “nice,” and all that often means is not telling the truth when we should. I have no doubt our state was also stolen in the election, but it is the other, more passionate states, the Pennsylvanias and Georgias that are leading the way on this. Still, even in Minnesota there are signs that people are getting to the end of their figurative ropes. More and more people are not wearing masks here and there and also at least talking about how oppressive the mandates from our governor are. Minnesotans for years have known that our state is not “blue.” It is only the Twin Cities that are, and I have to wonder for just how many years the Democrats in MN have been cheating. Maybe the Cities aren’t really “blue,” either.

That’s the huge deal with all of this, and it is a huge deal! Right now we can have no trust in our voting and electoral process! There is NO indication that your vote actually counts as it should. And it really makes me angry that the news, the MSM, is not covering all of these topics like they should. One good thing to me, is that maybe they are covering some of the bad sides to vaccines, because they have TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome, so everything he promotes, they try to discredit. That part is good when it comes to vaccines. I do think vaccines are poison and that it’s ridiculous to even have a vaccine for something that has a 99+% recovery rate for most age groups. If you’re interested more in the vaccine stuff go to thehighwire.com and give Del Bigtree and his team a watch. Do you know and understand that any company that makes a vaccine has zero liability? They don’t. If something goes wrong, you have to go to the government, to the USA’s vaccine court. That’s how great vaccines are, that’s how confident these manufacturers are in their product: They blackmailed the government in the 1980s, saying if they had to deal with all the lawsuits and money they would have to fork over in recompense, they would go out of business. They refused to make more vaccines unless Reagan said they could be exempt from liability. Yes, that Reagan. He, like, me at the time–okay, I was just a kid having to take the vaccines–believed them to be good, almost a cure for a disease. They are not, they absolutely are not. A vaccine is not a cure, not at all, and if they are the least bit good or helpful, they pale mightily in comparison with one’s own God-given immune system.

Ok, I’m all worded out now. Whatever happens in the next few weeks is going to be epic, either for bad or for good. We will lose our country or keep it, I don’t know which. Either way, it’s certainly not boring times and God is again blessing us by giving we ordinary people opportunities to stand up and be counted for truth and justice. It’s a great time to be alive, and the more things happen, the more I consider how I am willing to fight. What am I willing to lose for the sake of the truth and our country? What have these witnesses already lost in the fight? What has our President lost? Much. Much and so much and for our sake. Again, these people are Christians, they follow a God who gave up everything, who gave his own life, his own Son, to save us. It is not only the simple truth of the Gospel that will split families. No, other truths do and can as will. Truth is a sword, as Jesus once said. It is the sword that shapes the world.

Restaurant to Another World: Book Review

Nov29

Never before have I read a book that made me so hungry! Restaurant to Another World, book 1, by Junpei Inuzuka, is a light read focused on gastronomic goodness. Every Saturday, Western Cuisine Nekoya restaurant in Japan connects to another world, a world full of magicians, elves, warriors, and the like.

Restaurant is charming in its approach: It is from the perspective of the people in the magical world who come to the place to eat their favorite dishes. Although there is some awkward phrasing with the English translation, it mostly works as we are seeing things from the perspective of fantasy people and creatures who struggle to describe the delicious alien dishes. It’s fun seeing our food–and it’s a variety of dishes, not just Japanese dishes–from that viewpoint.

I enjoyed the book, but it was more a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive story. Any and every fantasy creature populates this other world, from Lord of the Rings characters, to tiny people, and there is a complete lack of forward momentum or overarching story arc. Character and food descriptions are okay, but I’m a reader that likes plots, and often complicated ones at that. Perhaps in the subsequent volumes there’s more going on plot wise, but at this time I’m not going to spend the money to find out. The bland names for the countries in the fantasy world disappointed me also: Ocean World, Mountain World, Desert World.

It also seemed unrealistic that not a one of these fantasy creatures and people tried to get out of the restaurant into our world. We get a basic background of what’s going on with the character, they find a door to the restaurant and either order their favorite dish or try it for the first time. Sometimes they get takeout. That’s it, that’s how each chapter plays out.

The idea for Restaurant is creative, and I can see this could be something that teachers could use in the classroom for creative writing. Explain the concept to the students and then they have to think of their own fantasy creature or person and write a short story of what’s going on in their lives, how they come across this restaurant, and the describe the dish they ordered and ate. Describing the food alone would be a great writing exercise. This would totally be something I would have used back in my teaching English as a second or foreign language days.

Updates

Well, Nanowrimo was a bit of a bust for me, but then November, even this November is always very busy at work, so it’s difficult to find the time and brain space for writing. I did get over 10,000 words, so that’s something. Kevin and Becky Colossus are getting into serious trouble and the actors in the Etherland are realizing they are not alone there.

Readingwise, I’ve started The Last of the Mohicans and will also be starting another Regency romance. My stack of possible reads for winter is piling up, and I’m aiming at reading the entire Narnia series, finally getting to The Wings of a Falcon by Cynthia Voigt, and other books which I’ll detail in a future blog post.

Giving Thanks

Nov25

Happy Thanksgiving, America! Even with all our troubles, we still have so much to be thankful for. The truth will out! God wins!

And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. … For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor ANY powers, neither high nor depth, nor anything else in ALL creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8: 28; 38-39

Flower of Evil: Love Is a Verb

Nov20

It’s a made-for-a-Lifetime-movie plot: Police detective Cha Ji Won (Moon Chae Won from The Good Doctor) is married to a serial killer but doesn’t know it. When she finds out, she loses all faith in men, reaching for her girl power and… No, no, no, that’s not it. That’s not it at all, because this is a Korean drama called Flower of Evil, also starring Li Joon Gi (Lawless Lawyer, Two Weeks) as said serial killer, who is the actual main character. The story is largely his and all about him learning what love truly is.

That being said, this is a half-review, as I haven’t finished the series yet. Flower of Evil is suspenseful and action packed, as many of Li’s dramas are. Moon’s character is no slouch, either, and her detective keeps up with the boys well while still maintaining her femininity. The music is intense and really helps carry the story and often reminds me of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on occasion. Spoilers ahead.

For years, Baek Hee Sung (Li) has lived as someone else. His real name is Oh Hyun Soo, the son of a long-dead serial killer, who is wanted for murdering one person and possibly assisting his father in killing his victims. We know from the beginning that Hee Sung and Hyun Soo are the same person, and because Hee Sung seems like a great husband and father, we hope that this murder and killing stuff is all a mistake.

The writers dance the tightrope well in this story, giving a little hope here, and taking it away there. Baek Hee Sung also has Antisocial Personality Disorder. Basically, he doesn’t have feelings like normal people and manipulates people without thinking. To bring hope and humor into the story, we get to see Hee Sung persistently learning how to mirror human emotions from YouTube videos. It’s sweet, yet kind of scary at the same time. We also learn that he hallucinates, seeing his dead father staring at him with blacked out eyes and carrying a dog chain and collar, something he used on his victims.

I was sure this wasn’t going to end up in the Lifetime arena when reporter Kim Moo Jin (Seo Hyun Woo, The Good Wife) comes on the scene. Their tense first encounter turns into a pretty cool bromance that carries much of the first quarter of the show, especially after it becomes obvious that whatever psychological problems Hee Sung has, it’s nothing compared to others who would perhaps consider themselves “better” people. This is pushed to the forefront throughout the show as we start to learn more and more about what happened in Hee Sung’s village in the past.

Flower of Evil isn’t all action and mystery solving, it is also a relationship drama, plumbing the depths and weirdnesses of family relationships. Cha Ji Won and Baek Hee Sung might end up being one of my favorite Kdrama couples ever. Their trust and loyalty in each other is challenged again and again, yet both rise to the occasion, the perfect match for each other. It is Cha who tells him and gets him to understand by her actions, that love isn’t a mere emotion, a feeling, but something you do. DC Talk said it best back in the say: Love Is a Verb. It’s an interesting question: Can you love someone without really feeling that you do? The answer is: of course. But it’s just not how we often think about love.

As much as I’m able to guess about this show, though, it keeps throwing me for a loop. I don’t know how it’s going to end. I suspect happily, but in episode 11, it’s revealed we are dealing not with one messed up family, but two, and the second family might actually turn out to be worse. The show eerily echoes Hundred Million Stars from the Sky starring Seo In Guk and also produced by SH Studio. At least one of the same sets is used on this show, as are the themes of trust, loyalty, and family relationships. The 4th wall is nudged a bit by the introduction of Do Hae Soo (Jang Hee Jin, Babel), Hee Sung/Hyun Soo’s sister, who’s trying to live quietly as a makeup artist for gory movies. How much her serial killer father really affected her or her brother, for that matter, is still to be revealed. Hee Sung doesn’t remember anything from before he was ten, but Hae Soo, being older, surely has some answers.

Can you really live with a person and not know they are killing people? Another interesting question. I was thinking about that driving home today: how many times we surely see something strange but never think to pull the thread. Well, who wants to imagine the worst about their fellow man, much less someone they live with or a family member? Sometimes people don’t know, sometimes they choose not to, and sometimes they suspect or know without realizing that they know. It’s only much later that we often realize we did indeed know all along, but it was as if we were seeing things through a veil. If only monsters revealed themselves outright, how much easier it would be to fight them. There’s that action again. Love is a verb. Good fights and defeats evil, that’s what makes it good.

Well, I’m off to watch another riveting episode. After the last big twist, I’m really not sure what’s going to happen next, and I’m inwardly kicking myself for not figuring it out earlier. This messed up other family started as seemingly shoe-horned in, yet they are not, they are totally not. And they all think that what they are doing is fine, because of course they do. All I can say is that Hee Sung better hold onto Cha Ji Won for dear life. She is his anchor and he hers.

Book Review: The Meaning of Everything

Nov15

Books are a joy to read multiple times, because if they’re good, one gleans more information and enjoyment every time. This is my second time reading Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary, and I quite enjoyed it. It is the tale of how the Oxford English Dictionary or OED came to be, and what an enormous undertaking it was.

This book actually started with a different book that Winchester wrote called The Surgeon of Crowthorne, later to be retitled, about the contribution of a murderer and madman to the OED. The Meaning of Everything describes the full scope of the project.

I have to say the beginning chapter describing the difficulties and strangenesses of the English language compared to others, although interesting is far less so than the stories of the men that follow. Philology, or the study of language and languages, can be nearly as tedious as advanced math, if not more so. There’s also a bit about the history of dictionaries in general. The famous Samuel Johnson wrote his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, and it was the book of reference for the next hundred years. Others who tried their hand at dictionaries were The Brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm, who had a lot of people reading for their work. Webster’s Dictionary from America was a great success also, and not too long after that The Philological Society in England started talking about making their own dictionary of the English language.

Dean Trench gave the initial paper and presentation on the subject in 1857 entitled “On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries.” The main deficiency was simply that no dictionary was comprehensive enough. The scope of the Oxford English Dictionary was to be huge, recording not only the various definitions of all words in and taken in to the English language over time, but also the origins of those words. This book was to be the authority on the language. Neither Trench or any other member of the Philological Society foresaw that the project would take 70 years to complete, and the enlisting of hundreds of readers to help them.

Readers for a dictionary are necessary. These are people who read specific books, articles, etc., to find unique or definitive uses of words. That they had so many volunteers really shows how smart and well-read people were at that time. They would send their findings on carefully sized slips of paper that were stored in massive cases of pigeon holes.

The first two editors or project heads for the dictionary did not last long. The first, Chenevix Trench, burnt out quickly, and the second, the diligent but sickly Herbert Coleridge died in a year. The third one, Frederick Furnivall, lasted much longer, but was not fit for the job. He was an eccentric who ended up irritating a lot of people and was overly interested in young women. Thankfully, Furnivall himself realized he was no good at it and recruited one James Murray to take over.

James Murray was amazing–all these men were–having dropped out of school at fourteen, as his family was too poor, yet teaching himself numerous languages and having a vociferous appetite for knowledge of all kinds. He was a bank clerk and later a teacher, beloved by his students because it seemed like he knew everything about everything.

Rival to Murray was Benjamin Jowett of Balliol College in Oxford. He at first tried to hijack the project from Murray, causing Murray to threaten to leave, but another great man, a peacemaker named Henry Hucks Gibbs (later to be a Lord) whose family made money in the guano industry intervened. Eventually Jowett became one of Murray’s greatest supporters.

Some interesting readers, contributors, editors and subeditors of the dictionary were: J.R.R. Tolkien of The Lord of the Rings fame, Fitzedward Hall, an American who taught Sanskrit in England and later became a hermit who found good work working on the OED, and William Chester Minor, another American who was schizophrenic and a murderer placed in an asylum in England. Reading for the OED was his therapy, and notable enough that Winchester first wrote about about him before proceeding to this story.

It’s quite a tale, and The Meaning of Everything is littered appropriately with a plethora of words to look up in the dictionary. Winchester describes the difficulties the editors had with certain letters of the alphabet, especially finding word origins and the like. The end result was a body of 12 volumes that would never really be done as languages are continually in flux. The men who worked on this project were shockingly good at languages, as were the numerous readers that sent in their slips. I have only met a few people in my life who have learned ten or more languages and it boggles my mind, as I seem to only pick up a few words here and there. It’s quite a super power, that one. One of the editors, Henry Bradley, taught himself Russian in only fourteen days.

This story of the beloved OED is fascinating and I think would make a great movie or documentary. The OED today is mostly online with a variety of print editions available. If you are interested in reading obscure or new books for the dictionary, you can go to public.oed.com/contribute-to-the-oed and see the requirement for submitting digitals slips of words. Another aspect the dictionary is currently working on is the confirmation of all of Samuel Johnson’s examples he used in his dictionary, tracking down what work they came from. On the website it sounds like OED editors are assigned to this task and there’s not a lot left to find, but if you are an avid reader of, say, Francis Bacon, and come across the quote, “the chymists have a liquor called water of depart,” be sure to contact them and let them know where you found it.

Loss of Freedom

Just a quick item here. It seems as if WordPress is now in the business of censoring political speech, and is starting to ask Conservatives of “wrong think” to move elsewhere. As my readership is small, it may be some time before they ask me to leave or cancel my account, but if that does happen, I will simply be found at gab.com under Pixie Beldona. (Sorry, haven’t posted much on there at this time). With such, frankly, fascist, censorship going on, it may be soon that all webhosting sites will deplatform anyone not of a leftist and/or globalist mindset, and I don’t have enough money to buy and run my own server. I’d much rather focus on writing. For now Gab is good and for free speech, and hopefully will stay that way. I urge you again, please, please pray for our country. We have the boot of tyranny preparing to slam down on us, should we not rise against it.

Is This the Biggest Sting Operation Ever?

Nov12

Reading and watching all the news about Dominion and election fraud, I have to wonder, if all that is really true, did we as Americans just participate in the biggest sting operation ever?

The fraud is so over the top. The criminals overplayed their hand because at the last minute they had to made up sooooo much difference between the two candidates. Way more people voted for President Trump than they anticipated. Probably, they started to believe their own lying polls.

With the prime feature–it’s not a glitch–of electronic voting/counting machines to change votes from one candidate to another, how in the world did Donald J. Trump win in 2016? No wonder Democrats had massive meltdowns. At the time someone, at some site online, I don’t remember where, had said that all the good guys did was make sure that key swing counties could not cheat. Now, I am thinking, maybe that is what actually happened and the criminals were too rattled or too stupid to realize it.

Who could stop cheating in that fashion, so specifically? It would have to be someone in government who planned it out, and they planned it out that way because they wanted the cheating to continue. I think November 3rd, 2020 was the biggest sting operation in history. The good guys wanted these people to get caught and eventually prosecuted. But they had to wait until now, until President Trump had drained as much of the Swamp as he could, until more honest judges could be put in place, until more and more of the regular people woke up to the lies around them and didn’t want to participate anymore.

Politics has its own history and story and that’s why I follow it, because I am all about having A Life of Story. How I wish more people would understand just how much it matters who our leaders are at every level. It matters if they are people of integrity. What they do affects our everyday lives, something we were given a very good lesson on this year with the COVID crisis. Real or fake, whatever your opinion on it, it revealed just how power hungry many of our leaders are, how eager they are to suppress our freedoms and to even steal food from our children’s mouths by not allowing us to make a living.

Sometime this weekend I will have a review of The Meaning of Everything, but let me leave you with a key quote from lexicographer James Murray:

I think it was God’s will. In times of faith, I am sure of it. I look back & see that every step of my life has been as it were imposed upon me–not a thing of choice; and that the whole training of my life with its multifarious & irregular incursions into nearly every science & many arts, seems to have had the express purpose of fitting me to do this Dictionary… So I work on with a firm belief (at most times) that I am doing what God has fitted me for, & so made my duty; & a hope that He will strengthen me to see the end of it … But I am only an instrument, only the means that He has provided, & there is no credit due to me, except that of trying to do my duty; Deo soli gloria.

Letter from James Murray to the politician Lord Bryce, 15 December 1903, p.134, The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester.

The Truth Will Out

Nov6

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1

For the sake of ten righteous people, God would not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Sadly, those cities did not possess even that.

Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:2

In the hopes that Judah would turn from their evil ways and repent, God sent the prophet Jeremiah and other prophets to tell of the coming destruction. He gave Judah 40 years to repent. They did not.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords. His love endures. forever. To him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever. Who by his understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. Who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. Who made the great lights–His love endures forever. The sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. The moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:3-9

For love of sinful human beings who deserved nothing from their Creator they so spit upon and despised, God sent his one and only Son, sacrificing himself in order that they would be saved. Sadly, many have and will reject that sacrifice.

To him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt His love endures forever. And brought Israel out from among them His love endures forever. With a mighty hand and outstretched arm; His love endures forever.

Psalm 136: 10-12

The Living God of the universe is a God of love and of justice. He is patient with sinners to the point of it being ridiculous; but then, love can appear crazy sometimes, as it’s something out of this world. The world witnessed God’s absolute commitment to love and justice and his own holiness in the person of Jesus Christ. The world fell into sin and payment had to be made. No human could ever make up for that sin and because he loved us, God intervened, himself living up to the holy standards we could not. Himself being placed on the cross as punishment for the sins of all of mankind. Justice was satisfied, but it didn’t end there, for God also proved love does conquer all by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, bringing life everlasting to all who believe in him.

To him who divided the Red Sea asunder His love endures forever. And brought Israel through the midst of it, His love endures forever. But swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea; His love endures forever.

Psalm 136: 13-15

If you don’t think a reckoning is coming for the election fraud on gleeful display this week, you underestimate God’s commitment to justice. God will not be mocked, and he is all about law and order, so much so, that he did not go against his holy nature when those he loved sinned. Instead he gave his one and only Son to become human and live a holy life in the sinners’ place, and then die and pay for their sins, an atonement once for all. One man died for the rest, an innocent man at that. If God did not spare his own, innocent and holy self, why would he spare those openly defying him and the law, order, and justice that are a complete part of himself? Repentance is necessary; faith is necessary, as it bestows righteousness on the believer.

To him who led his people through the desert, His love endures forever. Who struck down great kings, His love endures forever. And killed mighty kings–His love endures forever. Sihon king of the Amorites His love endures forever. And Og king of Bashan–His love endures forever. And gave their land as an inheritance. His love endures forever. An inheritance to his servant Israel; His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:16-21

God is our Savior, our ultimate knight against the dragon. He fights on when in our weakness we fail and despair. He never gives up hope on repentance, faith, and salvation. He is always open to prayers, and many, many times in human history has in his lovingkindness interfered on behalf of good due to those prayers. If you love God, holiness, righteousness, law and order, truth and justice, God is asking us to get down on our knees this week and pray in repentance for deliverance, and he hears us.

It is no accident that President Trump held up the Bible in front of the church that day. It is no accident that he is also a fighter and is for truth, justice, law, and order. God is holding him up as an object lesson for us. God is calling us to repent and believe. Calling us to throw away despair and fight on. He is calling us to live in joy and freedom against the evil that clearly worships lies, chaos, and wretchedness. He is calling us to not be lukewarm or apathetic in the face of this blatant fraud taking place in America right now. Those who have the power to do something: This is your chance! God is on your side and he will bless your efforts.

It is God who choses the rulers of this world and for his purposes. He put Trump in place for just a time as this. It’s insanely ridiculous when one thinks about it, how feeble a candidate Biden is, unable to even think, unable to even stop himself from saying he was planning to win by fraud. God is giving us a huge neon sign right now, and it’s been burning for at least four years. This is our chance. Do we have ten righteous people? Do we love law and order or would we rather live under lies and tyranny? God will bless us if we pray to him, if we do the right thing and hold to the truth.

To the One who remembered us in our low estate His love endures forever. And freed us from our enemies, His love endures forever. And who gives food to every creature. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven. His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:23-26

This isn’t over, not by a long shot. This is just the beginning of a very fierce battle for America’s heart and soul. Americans, please pray for your country and that our leaders will hold to the truth. Our friends, please pray for us that we put on the armor of God, as Q, prophetic in nature, has so often reminded us to do. Pray we walk the walk and not just talk the talk of wanting true justice, God’s justice, in this country. Pray that those who think winning by cheating will lead to a good end, will become sober of mind, and realize that all sin without repentance leads to death. Pray that America’s leaders that still have a conscience would do what they can to prosecute and punish those responsible for trying to steal an election. They are stealing against their fellow Americans and human beings. They are stealing not just a physical vote, but our very futures. God’s reckoning will come for that certainly in the next world, but here and now, God’s giving us an opportunity to have a reckoning on earth as well. The truth will out! God’s love endures forever! He is merciful and loving, patient and kind, and rejoices when we repent and turn to him. Thank the Lord for this opportunity! He is good and His love endures forever!

One more thing: It’s Redemption Season! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV_uXnL2DVM

Missing: The Other Side: Kdrama review

Oct31

Spoilers ahead. If you’re planning to watch this show, I highly recommend watching it first, then reading this review.

Leave the audience wanting more. That is one of the best compliments a movie or TV show can get, and something that Missing: The Other Side earns from the audience in it’s scant twelve episodes. One the one hand, the amount of time was exactly correct for the plot and characters, on the other hand, the time was too short and the plot and characters could have easily handled longer story arcs. This is rare, especially for television, which almost always draws things out too long, ruining great beginnings in the process.

Missing is essentially a ghost story, but it’s also a procedural crime drama. I found it to be a good mix of both and didn’t make the mistakes of either wallowing in its own violence or succumbing to over-explicating. Episode one was a doozy and so much better if one doesn’t know a thing about the plot, so one can along with the main character, Kim Wook (Ko Soo, Heart Surgeons) be left reeling, wondering just what on earth is going on.

Kim Wook is a con artist who works together with a couple of other friends, one a pawn shop owner, the other a hacker. Through a series of coincidences, Wook ends up in a forest in the country. Here, he survives a couple of near-death experiences and comes across a village that he belated realizes not just anyone can see. The old man who saves his life can also see the village and the people in it. Jang Pan Seok (Heo Jun Ho, Come and Hug Me) has been living just outside the village for quite some time. Turns out the village is a bit of a purgatory-like place, a stopping off point for ghosts who have particular unfinished business. The unfinished business is that their bodies haven’t been found by any human. Many of them also died violently or due to circumstances they don’t remember.

Wook catches on pretty quickly to just what Pan Seok has been up to: Doing what the police detectives could not do, finding the bodies of these people, allowing them to move on to the next life or sphere. They work together, sometimes with the police, and sometimes not. One detective in particular, Shin Joon Ho (Ha Joon), keeps running into Wook and gets roped into helping them. Considering Wook sounds crazy and sees things he cannot, Detective Shin is pretty openminded, and a good thing, too, as he solves more cases by being so.

In this story, the “missing” are people missing in real life, but also those whose bodies are missing. It’s an interesting dynamic and allows for, well, a lot of heartbreaking scenes as those still alive realize their loved ones are dead, and also that their bodies need to be found for them to be at peace. Detective Shin’s story is particularly tragic as he first realizes that his fiancee is missing, then discovers she is dead. The fiancee Choi Yeo Na, played by the beautiful Seo Eun Su (A Hundred Million Stars from the Sky) also struggles with the fact that she has died. In the village she can eat, drink, sleep, feel, touch, etc., and continually plans to escape in whatever way she can.

The rules of the village–which I think is called Duon–were masterfully done. It was a good mix of clarity, subtlety, and little or no explanation. The ghosts in the village seem real to each other, having all their senses, and, again, the ability to eat, drink, fall in love, cry, have sorrow and pain. For the living who can see them, the village is much like a real place, with buildings and furniture they can sit on, food they can eat, and people they can interact with just as if they were still alive. The ghosts move on when their bodies are found, that’s their only out. For the still living people, by the end of the show, it’s revealed they are seeing this village because they have a connection to it. They know a person in the village somehow and when that person moves on, they can no longer see the village or people. Many of the inhabitants in the village have been there for years and lead fully lives. They have the ability to learn to skills and to work if they want to. It’s an interesting angle. One of the oldest residents is an owner of the local bar/coffee shoo/restaurant. He’s named Thomas and was once a freedom fighter for Korea and died under Japanese rule. Another couple, who fell in love after they died, have been in the village for over twenty years. And so on and so forth.

Missing is unique and really keeps one guessing in some ways, but in other ways telegraphs everything that will come. For the main mystery of a missing grandchild, it was easy to tell how that was going to play out. But other things threw me, like Thomas’s status as a Renaissance man, and the revelation that bad killers who died also come to the village and wreak terror on their fellow ghosts even if they technically can’t kill them anymore. That aspect is so disturbing that I’m glad the writers don’t dwell on it too long. These poor people die tragic deaths and then get molested again in the afterlife? Ugh, just ugh! It definitely adds another level to the plot, though, as what to do with the baddies isn’t always easy or obvious.

The acting in this show was really good. I came to like Kim Wook more and more, though he wasn’t super likable at first. I was surprised to find the actor that plays Thomas, Song Geon Hee is actually really young. He plays and old soul well, and I would say had the most iconic screen presence of the show, so much so that it was highlighted at the end when Thomas goes to the next life. Ha Joon, who played Detective Shin, threw me out of the story at first, as he looks at lot like American actor Scott Wolf to me (Party of Five, White Squall – WWG1WGA! – sorry, gotta get a Q reference in). He is a cutie born in 1987 like some other famous actors–Li Min Ho, Li Seung Gi, Seo In Guk among others. Something good was in the water in Korea that year. He and the other leads did great jobs with their crying scenes, and there were many. They seemed genuinely sad and heartbroken.

Because Missing to its credit doesn’t explain much about this purgatory world, there’s little of religion in it aside from both the alive and ghost humans pleading and praying to God when they need it. There’s little of magic, either, but the amount was sufficient to me as the focus was always on the characters and on solving the various mysteries. I wasn’t quite sure if they were going to keep Thomas in the village at the end or have him move on. The writers chose to have him move on, but then alluded to Wook and Pan Seok continuing to have the ability to see the ghosts of the missing and being able to continue solving mysteries.

All in all a great show and so much potential if they had wanted to continue it–leaving Thomas around as a staple, for example, or adding new ghosts and/or new humans that can see them. It was only twelve episodes, so shorter than many Kdramas, but it was sufficient length for the mysteries they chose and I don’t think they left any major strings untied by the end. This is the kind of show, though, that could sport several seasons and much longer story arcs. It’s also something easily adapted to other countries and cultures. Every place on earth there are people who go missing and die violently, with their bodies never found. My belief is that of the Bible, that when they die people go to heaven or hell, they don’t stick around, but this was a great way of showcasing the idea that some could and why they could. I liked that it wasn’t just about finding the killers, but that it was about the finding of the bodies and giving them a proper burial and recognition. Duon village seemed like another dimension or realm that none of the characters fully understood. Thomas speculates that there could be other villages of its kind, and the ending hints that as well.

Next Week: I am not yet sure what I’m going to review, having belatedly decided to do Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month, to get more of Trolls for Dust, Season Three under my belt. No way will I be writing 50,000 words in November, but I will be very happy if I can get over 25,000. My plan is to still post or do a review weekly, but we’ll see how that plays out. Happy Halloween, and for the Lutherans, Happy Reformation Day!

RRR: Marriage by Decree

Oct24

Can a man really be forced into marriage? This is a key question posed in Marriage by Decree, the Signet Regency Romance by Ellen Fitzgerald. Published in 1988 and part of Signet’s Romantic Interludes, this is only one of a few that Fitzgerald wrote for Signet. The story wasn’t half bad, but I didn’t find it to be a keeper, as the magic just wasn’t there.

Back to the question: Can a man, or a woman, for that matter, be forced into marriage? Certainly in some cultures, yes. In the Britain of the Regency Era, though, it was a lot easier for a man to escape an unwanted marriage than a woman. They simply had more resources, especially legal ones, to avoid it. However, this isn’t really what the author refers to in the story. What she’s talking about is the nature of manhood, primarily man’s purposeful pursuance of romance. Basically, it works like this: The man pursues, the women succumb. Don’t believe me as now women are so liberated? Women, try chasing and winning a man who doesn’t want you. Time and time again, you will find it just doesn’t work, but with the tables reversed, women often give in and/or are won over and it all works splendidly. And that is actually very romantic.

In Marriage by Decree, two people are decreed by royalty, aka, the government, to get married. Scandal being the reason. Alice Osborne, our heroine, is an American this time, and not too fond of the British due to the Revolutionary War and its following skirmishes and battles. Alice’s father, Charles, is more optimistic about improving relations between the two countries, and has agreed to be a diplomat to London at the request of the President, who in 1815 would have been James Madison. As they travel by ship to England, Alice is openly scornful of anyone on the ship who looks as if they might be a British soldier.

Deep down, though, Alice is a good soul, and during a storm on the sea, saves one of those soldiers from being washed overboard. This part I thought could have used more description. Help came too quickly, though the way some women can scream, would definitely garner immediate attention. At any rate, despite holding him fast and screaming, Alice doesn’t do much, it’s one of the sailors who gets the solider below deck. Despite that fact, tall, dark, and handsome Robert Saint-Aubyn is overwhelmed with gratitude for the pretty red-headed eighteen-year-old. The lesson, here, ladies is to assist handsome men when they are in dire need as they will be extremely grateful and will perhaps even want to marry you.

Despite what would normally be a turning point for someone, Alice is still scornful of Robert, though attracted. Definitely attracted. Sadly, he already has a fiancee, something Alice’s friend Phoebe bemoans, as she has been instantly smitten. When they arrive in England, Alice and Phoebe part ways, as Phoebe’s going to live in Scotland. The Osbornes settle in London and Alice is able to meet Richard’s fiancee, Janet. At first, Janet seems quite helpful to the women who saved her fiancee’s life, but the “help” soon grates on Alice, who as an American is used to more freedom.

Janet sends a harridan of a woman to be a companion to Alice, but the woman proves to be overly strict, causing Alice to react poorly, leaving the house secretively to meet men she barely knows, much to her father’s horror. Of course he responds by making her prison even tighter around her. It is not without reason that Alice should have a chaperone everywhere she goes, the streets of London aren’t always safe, men do have sinister motives, and young women are very naive. However, Alice is more naive than most, and that grated on me during the story. She is so loathing of Britain in the beginning, yet how quickly a handsome stranger persuades her throw caution to the winds.

Soon Alice finds herself in truly dire straights. The handsome fiend, a womanizer named Lord Winston, helps her escape her house in the dead of night and take her hours away to the whorehouse of a French emigre. Alice’s stupidity doesn’t end there: She allows the Lord to ply her with enough alcohol to make her drunk and lead her upstairs to “rest.”

In comes our hero, Robert, who has not forgotten Alice and keeps talking about her life-saving heroics to Janet, who is obviously quite jealous by this time. Turns out Lord Winston is a friend of Janet’s and they have both plotted together to ruin Alice. Winston will sleep with Alice and leave her, allowing her to fall out of all good society. When Robert hears of this he goes into knight errant mode and immediately takes off to rescue Alice, with barely a thought for Janet in the process. After the rescue, the pair find it slow-going to get back to London and have to stop at an inn at which there is only one room left. When Robert drops her at home, the servants hear him speaking of their adventures and scandal ensues. So much so that the Prince Regent himself, a friend of Robert’s, decrees that Robert and Alice must marry even though they did not sleep together. Janet leaves Robert and he caves, agreeing to marry Alice.

At first it seems as if the two may make the best of things with this unwanted marriage, but after arriving at Robert’s estate called The Towers (Wives and Daughters! So have to read that again), he takes off for days, deserting his new bride. Alice despairs, thinking she will never find happiness with a man who was forced to marry her. But her servant wisely says that no man can truly be forced into marriage. On some level, Robert did in fact want to marry her. Robert himself struggles with this reality. He finds himself needing some time to get over Janet, who has stupidly eloped with Lord Winston, but when he returns is resolute, and also horrified to find that Alice has been riding out with Tim, one of the stable hands–not romantically, of course, but servants will talk. He is at once afraid that all women are like Janet, but soon finds that Alice wants to be true to him, it’s just that she needs some help.

Here’s a lesson for the men: It’s not logical and if they try, women can fight against the mentality, but if a women doesn’t have some kind of connection with her man for a few days, she may become anxious. This is entirely due to the nature of women. We want to please men and we want reassurance we are accepted. If we don’t think we’re accepted, we may determine to find out how to get accepted, to be pleasing, change our clothes, or hair, even behavior. We really are very anxious to please. A women who doesn’t hear from her partner in a few days will be much, much more anxious than a man will. A man will logically think she’s just busy. A woman will illogically think there must be something wrong. Men in relationships, help yourselves out here: Don’t leave your woman hanging for too long. Connect with her as much as you can and reassure her that she is the one you want. Yeah, it’s annoying, but it will save you so much time and energy in the long run.

This illogical anxiety is Alice’s state of mind and she just doesn’t have the maturity to realize it for what it is. Her servant helps her the most by telling her that Robert wouldn’t have married her if he hadn’t wanted to do it. Neither prince or country could make him. Robert comes back and proves that this is true. He soundly beds his wife and makes her incandescently happy.

The last half of the story I didn’t find super interesting. The villainess Janet rises again, being as she’s one of those people who think if they aren’t happy, no one should be happy, and it just gets over the top, what with Alice getting kidnapped by an angry ex-soldier and held hostage. It was just too, too much, although the contemplating of the mood between America and Britain at the time I did find interesting. It’s not something we think a lot about today. Not a bad story, not bad writing, but forgettable. Nothing really stood out about it to me, except the intriguing question from above.

We are in different times today, and in many countries it’s not likely one would be forced into marriage. I think it likely few of either sex today would allow themselves to be forced into a marriage they didn’t want. Men sometimes say that women trap them into marriage by getting pregnant, but I think it’s just something they say to avoid the fact it was their choice to sleep with the woman and also their choice to marry her. It’s takes both a man and a woman to make a baby. It just does, and it’s silly to blame another person for choices one freely makes. So, can a man be forced into marriage? Can a woman? Do babies force marriage? It is a true kindness and goodness to a child if his parents are married, but our current society doesn’t make it mandatory. I think the answer is that no, neither sex is forced, not these days. If they get married, it’s because on some level they want to either be married to that person, or to just be married.

One more thing for women: Women’s anxiety over her man. It’s a thing, we do have this, but if you are married to a good man, or even a bad one, remember that he chose to do it. He chose you instead of all the others out there. There should be some security in that. And often if he’s not in touch or not around much, he truly is busy. He’s dealing with work or projects he has to get done. Men, I would like to say the reverse is true, but it’s not a great sign if your woman is not in touch with you. Working women are in fact forced into single focus man mode while on the job, so that’s an exception there, but otherwise it’s generally not in the nature of a woman to stay disconnected from you. We crave those connections constantly.

Alright, and that’s my Regency Romance advice for today! What do you think? Do you think that’s true about men and women or am I just spinning yarns of worlds here? Too many romances going to my head, perhaps?

Up next week, a review of Missing: The Other Side, a ghostly tale perfect for Halloween.

Melting Me Softly: Age Is Just a Number

Oct16

Rom-Coms can really be so fun. I enjoyed watching this one, though I think it was a tad slow to binge watch. Melting Me Softly stars the ever handsome Ji Chang Wook (The K2), and Won Jin A. The plot is science fiction, but the genre is definitely romantic comedy. Ji really impressed me this time with his acting–he’s definitely getting better over time, and he had great chemistry with Won, who’s a petite firecracker with a really cool, low voice. She reminds me a bit of So Ye Ji from Lawless Lawyer and Save Me.

Melting Me Softly is about cryogenics. Ji plays Ma Dong Chan, a top-of-his-game production director, who in 1999 decides to do an experiment in freezing people for his hit show. Won plays Go Mi Ran, a college student who works part-time doing crazy stunts for the same show. Mi Ran agrees to be frozen with Dong Chan for a total of two hours, and the production assistants will get it all on camera. Due to a mishap, the two end up being frozen not for two hours, but for twenty years!

I really enjoyed watching this despite the often slow pace. It was so fun to revisit the 90s and many parts were funny, with both over-the-top scene chewing and deadpan humor. Some of the jokes were quick one-liners I almost missed. It was hilarious watching the leads wake up in 2019 and encounter their friends and relatives, now all twenty years older.

At the beginning, Dong Chan is 32 and Mi Ran, 24, so when they end up in 2019 they are technically 52 and 44. Much fun is made of this, as both the leads and people around them decide to treat them as their past age or their technical age, depending on the circumstances. Many of the supporting characters are just as they were in 1999, just a bit grayer and wrinklier, but some have become even more outlandish. Some of the best comedy comes from this, and the four standouts were: Lim Won Hee (You’re All Surrounded) as Dong Chan’s subordinate, who still sports longish hair and bites his nails; Jeon Su Kyeong (Devilish Charm) as Dong Chan’s now alcoholic younger sister; Kim Won Hae, who is a Kdrama staple, as Dong Chan’s younger brother (Kim also plays their dad, who in 2019 has passed away. Dong Chan keeps mistaking his younger, now older brother for his dad); and, finally, Shim Hyung Tak (My Sassy Girl), who plays Mi Ran’s weirdo ex-boyfriend who still has a thing for her twenty years later. Shim chomped the scenery five times over and gave that crazy character his own solar system.

This show stuck pretty close to rom-com territory. There’s a couple of cartoonish villains, but not a lot of action as a whole. Most of the plot centered around relationships, which was a way to use the jump in time well. To heat up the romance, the bane of being frozen is that the leads’ body temperatures need to stay at 31.7 degrees Celsius or about 89 degrees Fahrenheit. The “steamiest” scene is a cold shower makeout session, and much of the last half of the show is spent with the doctors and scientists trying to figure out how the two can live and love normally. Good foreshadowing for the ending, and I give the writer props for working it in so well. We know it’s coming, we know it’s coming, and then it happens.

The best part of the show is that it reinforces the idea that age is just a number. Dong Chan is still given respect even though he looks 32 not 52, and Mi Ran considers herself 24 or 44 depending on her mood, and no one much cares because she looks young and beautiful. The friends and relatives they knew in 1999 still have the same hearts and essential cores in 2019, and it’s cool to see that the siblings who are all now technically older still need their older brother or sister. Vitality and goodness of heart as being more important than age is constantly reinforced, as well as the idea that no matter how old you are, you can always improve and change for the better. This is also a great show for those who are thinking being frozen would be a good thing. Living out one’s life in real time is something that one can’t get back, should one choose to skip it by getting frozen. The twenty years missed still hang over the couple, and I think their share in that sorrow is really what pulls the two together into a romance. No one else on earth knows what they are going through.

My next Kdrama review will be a weird one: Missing: The Other Side. It’s a creepy, supernatural one, so I’m not sure I’ll make through the whole thing, but we’ll see. One episode in, and it’s intriguing simply because I have no idea what’s going on. Look for that review in a few weeks.