Year: 2013

Atheist Chic

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

I have a forum on chessgames.com–which I pay for–where I and my Esteemed Colleagues discuss a variety of issues, including religion and politics. As host, I insist that the conversation be civil.

But of course that never stops atheists from coming in and calling me “stupid” for believing in God, and calling themselves “smart” for not believing in Him. They come into my virtual living room, as it were, and pee on the rug.

Where do they get their enormous sense of entitlement? I guess all they have to do is look around the culture and see that those who hate God and despise God’s people are hailed as oracles and intellectuals, and they want a piece of that. Either that, or they were all raised in some incredibly rustic environment where even the most rudimentary good manners are entirely unknown.

Well, I don’t care. God is God, His word is presented to us in the Bible, the blood of His Son has washed away my sins, and I would rather win eternal life than eternal praise from fools. I don’t care how many letters they have after their names. I don’t care what schools they went to.

I’m nothing special. But it doesn’t matter. I have God’s word to guide me, delivered through Moses and the prophets, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the apostles, and by Jesus Christ Himself. I may be a pygmy, but I stand with giants.

Happy New Year, everybody. And thanks for visiting this blog.

2013 in review

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Are My Books Biased?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

A dear friend has pointed out to me that my fantasy novels do, indeed, display a certain “Protestant” slant. This is not an unfair observation; but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

The Temple in Obann–that is, the Religious Establishment–is riddled with corruption. Under Lord Reesh’s direction, the Temple has given itself over to worldly concerns and has no real connection to God. Although the Temple is corrupt, the worst thing about it is that it is ossified.

I never meant the Temple to be analogous to the Roman Catholic Church. The First Prester is more like the Archbishop of Canterbury than a Pope, and he has a seat on the High Council of the nation’s oligarchy. What’s really wrong in Obann is that the Temple doesn’t preach and teach the word of God and has led the people into an empty, ritualistic semblance of religion.

In that respect it resembles many churches and denominations in our own world, Catholic and Protestant alike. In that the Obann Temple has substituted man’s words and traditions for God’s laws, it resembles the religious establishment in Jerusalem as characterized by Our Lord Jesus Christ: for instance, “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). There was no RC Church when Our Lord spoke those words, but there was a religious establishment.

I’m sure that if one reads all the books in the Bell Mountain series, it will be easily seen that the Temple in Obann does not represent any particular church in our world, but rather an established religion in general, an institution whose interests have become an end in themselves.

The difference is that there are probably more good individuals in the Temple than there are in the three branches of the United States government.

A Meditation

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Sometimes I feel like I went to sleep in my own bed and woke up in a strange room. While I was asleep, the America I knew got taken away and something else put in its place. No one can tell when or how it happened.

Now fools are hailed as wise, the wicked as the country’s benefactors, and the works of our own hands, and the corrupt desires of our own minds, are our gods. We reject beauty and celebrate ugliness. We turn away from life and embrace death.

Why did no one stop this from happening? Where was the Church? What were our families so busy doing, that they never even noticed what was being done all around them? How many careless people were recruited to the service of evil, without them even knowing it?

Trust in the Lord.

There’s no one else.

‘Freddy the Pilot’

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Sometimes I just can’t stand it anymore, tracking the slow murder of our civilization by its leaders and sages.

It’s times like that when a book like Freddy the Pilot, by Walter R. Brooks, really comes in handy.

In this outing, Freddy the pig–poet, detective, banker, newspaper editor, football star, traveler, magician–learns how to fly an airplane. In fact, he learns it just in time to use this new skill to save Boomschmitt’s traveling circus from the evil Watson P. Condiment, whose unrequited passion for the circus’s star performer has moved him to hire a plane to buzz and bomb the circus’s performances.

Yes, the whole thing’s totally daft. That’s the beauty of it. Freddy books are billed as children’s literature, but I’ve found they work even better for adults. Brooks’ humor operates on many age levels.

If you’re too old for Freddy the pig, see your doctor. You may be dead.

 

‘The Hobbit II’ Review: Water in a Sieve

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Guest Writer: Laura Andrews

[Editor’s Note: Laura is a regular visitor to this blog, and I enjoy her writing style. If you do, too, visit her “Taleweaver” blog at http://lauraeandrews.blogspot.com .

I’d like to bring in more guest commentary as time goes on: so if you’ve got a good idea for an article or a rant, let me know. I always check my “comments,” so I won’t miss you.]

Hello, all! I’m so pleased to b e featured on Lee’s blog for the first time. A while back I interviewed him on my blog, and now here I am with a review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I guess I’d better start off by saying that I have very fond memories of my dad reading The Hobbit to us when I was about eight years old. At the time, I knew nothing of the “fantasy genre.” I don’t think I’d even read Narnia yet. So The Hobbit was my first fantasy book, which makes it a bit special to me. If the tone of my review is a bit hard, well, that’s why. Don’t take it personally if you disagree.

The Hobbit is a story about, well, a hobbit–a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins, who goes on an adventure with thirteen dwarves to reclaim, by burgling, a treasure stolen by the dragon, Smaug. Along the way he is almost eaten by trolls, briefly enslaved by goblins, finds a magic ring, and becomes an indispensable member of the company. This is Bilbo’s story, and the movie ought to have acknowledged that. Instead, it’s The Tale of Thirteen Crude Dwarves and Two Amazing Elves. [Editor’s note: neither of the Amazin’s appear in Tolkien’s novel.] I don’t have space here to point out everything wrong with this movie, so I’ll go with three examples.

1. Bilbo has no brains and relies solely on dumb luck. He hardly ever uses his ring when it would be the perfect time for it. On the rare occasions that he does use it, he almost immediately takes it off: one time he lets Smaug see him by doing this.

2. A completely new character, Tauriel the Elf, is introduced. Legolas is in love with her but, predictably, she falls for Kili the Dwarf [Editor’s note: Aaack! Ugh!] and this becomes an integral part of the non-existent plot. Instead of the story moving along to the actual important parts, we’re treated to flirty little scenes and Stupid Things Done For a Crush.

3. Fighting. Seriously, I’ve never seen a movie in which there was this much fighting. All three Lord of the Rings movies put together probably had only a little more fighting than Desolation of Smaug. The only fight that was actually in the book, Bilbo vs. Spiders, was rushed, while we are dragged along to witness Elves vs. Orcs, Elves vs. Spiders, Dwarves vs. Orcs, Dwarves vs. Smaug (who doesn’t really seem to care whether he catches them or not), Dwarves vs. Elves, Gandalf vs. Sauron (really!), Gandalf vs. Orcs, Thorin vs. Bard (verbally), and others that I can’t remember.

Not only was this a terrible adaptation; it was a terrible movie as a whole. It dragged on and on, the dialogue was horrible, the acting was for the most part subpar, the plot didn’t exist, and the characters were lifeless paper cutouts. I think I know why this movie seemed so cluttered. It’s because it’s supposed to be about Bilbo, with the Dwarves as side characters. Instead, it’s completely switched around so that we have to endure thirteen Dwarves who are supposed to have each his own distinct characters, plus a myriad of other characters who, despite attempts to give them depth, end up being as shallow as water in a sieve.

[Note: If you enjoyed this, Laura has a longer and less favorable review of this movie on amazon.com .]

 

A Fake, Phony, Bogus Holiday

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

According to my Humane Society calendar, today is the first day of Kwanzaaaa–a big fat joke of a pseudo-holiday coined a few years ago by some schmendrick of a black militant, intended to be a substitute for Christmas.

Why is this fake holiday on the calendar? Because libs ‘n’ progs love to push Kwanzaaa. Because they are human debris. And because all sorts of schleps out there are afraid, terrified, that if they don’t pay homage to Kwanzaaa, people will think they’re racists.

I don’t know a single African-American person who celebrates Kwanzaaaa. This is strictly white liberal crapola. This is for noozies, teacher unions, and Democrat politicians.

I mean, really, you have to be a total blithering twollop if you buy a Kwanzaaa card or try to bake a Kwanzaaaa cake. Do something constructive: go soak your Kwanzaaaa head in a Kwanzaaa bucket.

It’s Christmas Day!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

In a few minutes we’ll be heading off to my sister’s faraway and hard-to-find house for Christmas dinner, via the Road of Death, the Garden State Parkway. Please pray for us to get there and back without any harrowing adventures.

But what really matters today (and on all the other days) is this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,  the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.   John 1:1-5,14

You servants of Satan, who misgovern the nations and feed your people’s souls to the Devil, the light that shineth in the darkness will destroy you and erase your works: for the Lord hath spoken it.

Raping Tolkien

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Yesterday, giving it a last-minute once-over before it goes to the printer, I found a typo on the cover of my new book, The Palace. Happily, it’s fixed. Nothing like a totally wrong word in the cover copy to make an author look bad.

But I can’t imagine how I’d feel if some movie-maker were doing to my books what Peter Jackson seems to be doing to Tolkien‘s classic, The Hobbit. Unlike Tolkien, I am not dead.

Jackson has taken a fairly compact book and stretched it out into a three-part movie marathon. The Hobbit II: The Desolation of Smaug has just been released, in time for Christmas. And no, I haven’t seen it. Are you kidding? These days, for the price of a bad movie, you could get a good book (one of mine, for instance). But I’ve been reading the reviews, and I have arranged for someone who has seen the movie to write a review for this blog.

It would take too much space to list all of Peter Jackson’s insults to Tolkien. Let me focus on just one of them.

For no cogent reason whatsoever, Jackson has invented a new major character to throw into the story–a gorgeous Elf-maid who is also the greatest warrior in Middle-Earth. (Barf bag, please. Excuse me for a minute…) I mean, what’s a fantasy without the most worn-out old cliche of them all?

But he doesn’t stop there. He has Miss Mirkwood fall in love with a Dwarf! Uh, Elves and Dwarves are different species. So this is like someone falling in love with a Shetland pony.

I think I might pay not to see this. I certainly wouldn’t pay to see it.

What did Tolkien or his heirs ever do to Jackson, to deserve this? Could the next movie please be directed by Reggie Jackson? Or LaToya Jackson? Anyone would do a better job than this. I am quite sure the specter of an Elf-Dwarf romance will ruin my sleep tonight.

But enough of this–I have a Christmas tree to decorate!