The Wrath Of Khan Goes On

Reel To Reel: Star Trek Into Darkness

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana (and yes, Leonard Nimoy!)
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Action violence, phaser shooting, one very brief sexually suggestive scene involving aliens

I liked what director J.J. Abrams did with the first Star Trek reboot. With the second, he is walking a fine line between reboot and remix, as he walks that other fine line of staying true to the vision Trek fans love while bringing in the next generation. Star Trek Into Darkness borrows a little too liberally from 1982's Star Trek II, but at least it cribs lovingly.

The film opens with Capt. James T. Kirk (Pine) and Spock (Quinto) cribbing from another 1980's film as they run from an indigenous tribe in an alien jungle. I'll pause here while you film geeks make a few guesses. In the process of escaping the planet and trying to save it, Kirk violates a list of Starfleet regulations. He loses command of the Enterprise, which we're amazed to find also works as an amphibious vehicle.

Just as Kirk is contemplating life out of the command chair, a terrorist threat hits Starfleet in the form of one man with explosives and a portable transporter beam. He takes out part of headquarters and Kirk's mentor, leading to the former captain getting a new mission: find this guy and take him out, even if it takes him into Klingon territory.

And who should this guy be but -- cue the drum roll -- Khan! Only it's not Ricardo Montalban's Khan, with that chest too buff to be real and flanked by Chippendale's dancers. It's Benedict Cumberbatch (of Sherlock fame) with a voice that oozes sinister the first time you hear it. The new Khan doesn't need alien baby armadillos to invade people's ears and do his bidding. He's a master manipulator, playing everyone's brain like a piano. Can he work on Spock? Or is he locked into that infamous two-dimensional thinking?

The crew's all here, faithful to their classic counterparts: Uhura (Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Bones (Urban, comfortably hilarious in the role), and Scotty (Simon Pegg in full Scot mode). I admire Abrams' and the writers' campy cool, especially Spock, although Quinto's version suggests the First Officer may be illogically taking a few uppers. Leonard Nimoy's Spock had a restrained rationality. New Spock has a mind running at warp speed, and it makes me wonder how he can remember to be half-human.

One of the most rewarding parts of this re-imagining is how it leaves overdone ethical dramas behind, if you don't count Spock's motor-mouth morality -- and just about everybody else does. Gene Roddenberry would have hated this amped-up version of his space saga, devoid of some blindingly obvious takeaway. Into Darkness plays more like Star Wars in some portions. But can you imagine Han Solo having to tolerate Spock? "Watch your mouth, kid, or it's gonna be a long walk back to Vulcan."

Have You Seen Any Of Those Talking Pictures, Old Sport?

Reel To Reel: The Great Gatsby

Going Rate: Worth full price admission (in 3D)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Brief Violence, A Few Curse Words, Two Sexually Suggestive Scenes (Notice I didn't add "Smoking" like the MPAA did. I refuse to lump cigarettes into a new category of film obscenity, something that comes more from the health police than the moral police.)

F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece has made it into countless high-school literature courses, except for the ones I took. So I will not try to tell you whether or not it lives up to the novel. Honestly, asking any movie based on a classic novel to achieve the same level of prestige ignores the fact we are dealing with two different mediums: one speaks to our imaginations, the other to our senses. Expecting full faithfulness of a film adaptation is not setting the bar too high -- it's moving the bar to a different room.

In the broad outlines of plot, The Great Gatsby sticks to the source material. But director Baz Luhrmann's film is focused on what Fitzgerald was trying to do in words: capture the flavor and decadence of the Roaring Twenties. By that measure, he succeeds glamorously. The movie bathes us in lavish sets and stylish wardrobes. Computer-generated imagery transforms New York City into its Jazz Age self. We jump headfirst into over-the-top parties drowning in glittering girls, gangsters, bootlegged booze, dapperness, and debauchery. They're circuses without animals. The film is tailored nicely to 3D, with confetti and streamers flying in our faces. At times the dialogue explodes into brisk binges, as if the characters are reciting blank verse in a musicless musical. Some of it seems there only for rhythm. Every scene feels choreographed rather than directed. You may have already heard tsk-tsking about Luhrmann substituting hip-hop music for 20's jazz in some sequences. His rationalization: jazz was the hip-hop of its day. It's supposed to make us connect more closely with the film, but I didn't buy into that. Luhrmann does such a fine job recreating the past, so why not go all in?

I won't try to rehash a plot many of you know except to say it revolves around mysterious tycoon Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio) who is trying to woo his one true love, Daisy (Mulligan). She in a loveless marriage to Tom (Edgerton), living in a mansion across a Long Island bay from Gatsby's monstrous estate, site of his wild parties. Nick Carraway (Maguire) lives in a rustic cottage next door. He is a relative of Daisy's and narrator of both the novel and movie. However, the film adds the unnecessary device of placing Carraway in therapy, asked to write out his thoughts as a means of getting more of Fitzgerald's prose on screen. Luhrmann adds special effects to some of that text, making words float around the frame or allowing letters to drop like snowflakes.

In the book, Carraway is drawn into a fascination with Gatsby and becomes one of his few true friends. But Maguire's interpretation has him mostly along for the ride, alternating between innocent and awkward. The part doesn't seem right for him. As for DiCaprio, he could play Gatsby in his sleep. The heartthrob the girls gushed on in Titanic has perfected roles featuring mannered men of stature who've worked their way up. Mulligan and Edgerton do just fine.

I like this movie, even though I know people will consider it literary sacrilege. Four versions have been filmed, one featuring Robert Redford, but none seeming to nail it for the cultural elite. They are not going to like this one either because of its style over substance -- ironically, one of Fitzgerald's themes. They'll be disappointed the film doesn't weigh the novel's moral warnings heavily enough. They'll demand a Great American Film from a Great American Novel. It's an admirable goal, but... where did that bar go again, Old Sport?

He Who Fights Evil With The Coolest Toys Wins

Reel To Reel: Iron Man 3

Going Rate: Worth full price admission
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Action violence, several references to sex, mild language

I wonder how Sigmund Freud would've analyzed Tony Stark. He could spend hours delving into the clash between Stark's id and super-ego, and how his psyche is constantly trying to mediate between the two. My unprofessional diagnosis finds hims to be a walking think-tank, an arrogant supercomputer with ADD that processes information at the highest possible data rate. He designs amazingly smart gadgets, but he's always smarter than any of them, which means Iron Man 3 isn't about the suit, it's about the man who wears it.

But we knew that. We knew it from the original, which turned out to be a bigger hit than people expected, largely because Robert Downey Jr.'s character is so compelling to watch. Iron Man 2 pushed Stark's quirks, which became too much of a distraction. Then came The Avengers, which should've been renamed Iron Man 2.5 for the way he stole the show. Now comes the official third chapter, one that's human and interestingly low-tech in many places.

Stark is constantly working to improve his Iron Man suits, and we see him working on a feature probably inspired from a Harry Potter summoning charm. Or maybe it was Luke Skywalker's light-saber procuring trick. Work seems to be helping him deal with anxiety issues he developed during The Avengers, and he has several shiny new prototypes ready to go.

It looks like he'll need them all. A maniac terrorist named The Mandarin (Kingsley) is breaking into television broadcasts and blowing things up. He's supposed to remind us of Osama Bin Laden, but he sounds more like Dr. Evil after walking onto the set of Kung Fu. What's more, tracking him is frustrating authorities because his handiwork doesn't leave the kind of shrapnel one expects from IED's. (The timing of this film had to cause concerns for Marvel and Paramount Pictures, coming less than a month after the Boston Marathon bombings. No doubt some of the images will be especially disturbing for people.)

Pepper Potts (Paltrow) is back as Tony's girlfriend and personal assistant, but she's getting tired of Tony's suit collection and work habits. She's running Tony's company by proxy when a suitor walks in. Aldrich Killian (Pearce) has a miracle treatment to regenerate lost limbs, only they run a little hot in the process. We learn this is the same guy Tony brushed off years ago during a 1999 New Years' Eve party, which means he must be evil under Hollywood's laws for movie villains. Also returning is Stark's buddy, Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Cheadle) in a cheesy "Iron Patriot" clone.

Iron Man 3 finds the right dosage of Stark's character while giving him more vulnerability. At times he is forced to go old-school, playing more the detective than the mad scientist. He befriends a child (Ty Simpkins) as he tries to get his suit fixed. Their relationship is not an emotional tack-on designed to milk our emotion, but a working partnership that advances the story. Oh yeah, there's action, too. We have huge, over-the-top armor battles where Tony gets to surprise us over and over with his Iron Man gizmos, bugs and all.

I still think the first installment of the series is the best of the lot, but the third ranks a close second, with The Avengers a close third. A sequel to that picture is now in the works, and now the question is, how much has Tony Stark got left in his mind?

The Most Unkindest Sack Of All

New York Jets backup quarterback Tim Tebow is off the team after a stint as a highly-paid charismatic bench warmer. It's disgusting. It's insulting. It defies logic.

"Unfortunately," coach Rex Ryan said in the official press release, "things did not work out the way we all had hoped." Here's where I pause to inhale vapors from a simmering stew of irony, denial, and cluelessness.

The Jets paid $4 million in salary and contract buyout to acquire Tebow from the Denver Broncos. Breaking down his stats with the green and white, that works out to $500,000 per pass attempt, $666,667 per completion, $125,000 per rush, $39,216 per rushing yard -- with no touchdowns. Any GM looking at these numbers would declare Tebow wasn't working out. But the key word here is "work."

Tebow spent more time on the bench than the field this past season. When Ryan sent starting quarterback Mark Sanchez to the sidelines, he skipped over Tebow for third-string Greg McElroy. I have heard various riffs on a universal excuse: Tebow just doesn't have the skillset needed for NFL-level football. So why did the Jets pay out the nose for him in the first place? The team had to be thinking of Tebow's fan base -- all those Christian evangelicals and others he would bring in, because they sure as heck weren't thinking about actually playing him.

ESPN columnist Rich Cimini writes:

Tebow doesn't get away unscathed here. He failed to capitalize on his few opportunities, looking nothing like the player who ran through the Jets in 2011. He put on weight, at the team's request, making him slower.

He threw the ball so poorly in training camp, making the same mistakes over and over, that coaches began to question the trade.

Others say Tebow refused to consider playing other positions. The reported fit he threw after the Sanchez-McElroy slight hurt his chances. But distilling out the drama and speculations, I arrive at two indisputable conclusions: 1) Tebow was hired to be a quarterback, and 2) the Jets never allowed him to be one.

Some players don't rise to the occasion until they are put to the test. The Jets never gave Tebow the chance to perform under pressure, in a critical game, in front of his millions of fans. They never gave him a shot at repeating the playoff miracle he worked for the Denver Broncos. They never let him use what was in his toolbox. You can argue football is a high-stakes business, not a motivational seminar. But the Jets never even tried to force their $4 million investment to pay a dividend. If Tebow had blown a big game, gotten sacked or intercepted too many times, we would understand. Now the best the team can do is say "things did not work out" with wimpy credibility, giving an equivalent of "John Doe is leaving to spend more time with family."

As I go to press, Tebow does not have any other NFL offers. Perhaps that will change as his fan base rallies around him, and he still has his foundation to keep him occupied. On Twitter, he offers Scripture as a window into his feelings right now: "Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding... in all your ways acknowledge HIM, and HE will make your paths straight."

If I had to pick a proverb for the Jets, Proverbs 3:27 seems to fit: "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them."

Ohhhhh, That's Gotta Hurt

Reel To Reel: Pain And Gain

Going Rate: Skip it
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Ed Harris, Tony Shalhoub
Rated: R
Red Flags: Graphic violence, including running people over and cutting them up, graphic sexuality and sex acts, nudity, language

Director Michael Bay says he made Pain And Gain as a break from his stream of bloated multi-million dollar blockbusters, notably the Transformers series. So he picked a darkly comic true-crime tale from 1990's Miami, got Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson to star, held the budget to $22 million... and still ended up making a bloated picture. It's also gross, vulgar, and definitely not the crime comedy he thought he was making.

Pain And Gain recounts Miami's notorious Sun Gym gang, a crew of muscleheads which went down for two murders, one attempted murder, kidnapping, extortion, torture, theft and a rap sheet of other offenses. The gang is led by Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg), a buffed-up ex-con and con man who talks his way into pumping up business at a flailing gym. Lugo is unable to translate his business success into a bigger paycheck, leaving him to live check-to-check in a run-down apartment and drive a car that could've been rejected from a Miami Vice re-run. He's personal trainer to Victor Kershaw (Shalhoub), a swaggering accountant and entrepreneur with a touch of Leona Helmsley: "You know who invented salad? Poor people."

I would think class envy would be enough of a motivator for a disgruntled working man unable to capture the American Dream, but no, the movie introduces us to the first of many bits of bloat. Enter Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), a throwaway motivational speaker injected into the picture to give Lugo more drive. Wu spits and spouts about "doers and don'ters," and Lugo takes it as gospel. He formulates a plan to kidnap Kershaw, take him for all his money, and kill him. Lugo recruits gym buddy Adrian Dorbal (Anthony Mackie), a steroid-injecting bodybuilder who is having -- and I say this politely -- virility problems and needs cash for treatment. The duo also pull in Paul Doyle (Johnson), a purported born-again Christian who's trying to stay off drugs and keep from returning to prison but somehow can't read his moral compass.

Lugo's gang cons its way into getting the tools they need for the job, but they don't pump up their smarts. Grabbing Kershaw happens only after several bungled attempts ("Mission Abort!") in crazy costumes. They bind and torture their mark and get him to sign his life away, but they fail to kill him, even after staging a car explosion and running him over twice. When a battered Kershaw fails to get the police to take his wild story seriously, he turns to aging private investigator Ed Du Bois (Harris). While Du Bois checks out the story with more than a healthy bit of skepticism -- Kershaw's ordeal sounds suspiciously like a drug-related crime -- the Sun Gym gang plows through their mark's plundered wealth, helping themselves to his cars, home and credit cards. Soon they realize they need more loot, and they plot another job that spirals out of control.

None of the film's characters, save for maybe Harris' and Johnson's, are likable. The picture enjoys submerging us in as much of Miami's sleaziness and sultriness as we can handle, as if the torture and kidnapping weren't enough. Miami's Chamber of Commerce should wince. The film paints the town as a haven for crooks, incompetents, derelicts, perverts, and every sort of human trash.

But Pain And Gain's biggest crime is injecting steroids into an already lurid and fascinating true-crime story. Right after seeing the film, I looked up Pete Collins' Miami New Times articles that inspired the screenplay. Collins' reporting contains enough character and plot twists for a solid script without the need for fabricated plot devices, fabricated characters (including the aforementioned motivational speaker), composite characters, throwaway sex scenes, and slowed-down shots of people getting hit by cars or blood dripping from a power saw. What's more, the film wants to be another GoodFellas or Casino with its frenetic edits and multiple narrative tracks -- good influence, poor execution.

Michael Bay is an action director and not a comedy director, and yet he tries to have it both ways, failing on both attempts. This film could be a straight actioner or a dopey gross-out laffer like The Hangover series. Like Lugo's schemes, it wants everything and ultimately gains nothing -- except for the box office money, of course.

How Not To Behave

Some of you have read the crazy email floating around the 'net from a University of Maryland sorority chair decrying her crew's "weird" and "awkward" moments during a Greek Week matchup with a fraternity. I am intentionally not linking to it, choosing to spare you from the possibility of an accidental click which will end up aging you five years prematurely.

I read the profanity-laced, rant-infused, venom-spewing epistle in its hyperactive entirety. "Shocking" fails to describe it. "Insane" comes closer. I'm wondering why I volunteered my eyes to ingest this steaming cesspool of hate after I got a tip-off about it. Now I have a theory: negative reinforcement.

Sometimes the best primers on how to behave come from the reverse psychology of witnessing how not to conduct ourselves. The Crazy Sorority Girl email tops the list. Without sourcing the letter for examples (and trust me, you don't want to read them anyway), here's what I took away:

• Incessant complaining about others' failure to follow makes me wonder if there's a failure to lead. Or to put it bluntly, the fish stinks from the head. I don't find a lick of proactivity in this email.
• Mocking, insulting and inferring your sorority sisters are brain damaged for not showing the desired level of enthusiasm and hospitality will only guarantee more awkward moments.
• Using the f-bomb at a pace exceeding that found in the movie Casino does nothing to endear you to prospective pledges, well-adjusted frat brothers, or the general public.
• Sororities and their male counterparts already have a bad reputation. This deranged email just wiped out months, if not years, of any goodwill generated by community service projects -- which college Greek organizations do but are never remembered for.

In full disclosure, I never belonged to a fraternity in college. I didn't have to. The 7th floor of Hatch Hall at the University of Missouri had enough antics to qualify without anybody pledging. I also knew I wasn't fraternity material, being more worker bee than social butterfly.

I will advise this to the future freshman lords and ladies: think carefully about the Greek organizations you rush. Don't be conned by fears of dorm life. If you are doubtful in the least about the social dynamic you are injecting yourself into, turn on your heels. Great people come out of great sororities and fraternities, and the prospective organization must exist as a vehicle for developing yourself beyond a token service requirement. The brotherhood and sisterhoood must function like a family, not Mama's Family.

The sorority's national office is quickly distancing itself and investigating. A head may roll, or it may not. National offices deal with these issues and are done with them. No broad cultural shift is attempted or expected. We've come to accept Greek-letter organizations as Animal House. And if that's good enough for the rest of us, it's good enough for them.

Fair Ball, Foul Game

Reel To Reel:  42

Going Rate:  Worth full price admission
Starring:  Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Nicole Beharie, Christopher Meloni
Rated:  PG-13
Red Flags:  Adult language, racism, copious uses of the n-word (but not as much as in Django Unchained)

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line years before the peak of the civil rights movement. But he couldn't have done it without the backing and vision of Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey, who recruited and nurtured Robinson, clearing his path from minor-league ball into the majors. If Robinson is the hero on the field, Rickey is the hero in the front office, and 42 gives both due credit.

Rickey is played with a lovable grizzled saintliness by Harrison Ford, proving the aging Han Solo has a few memorable roles left in him. He makes the decision to bring Robinson (Boseman) out of the Negro leagues with ambiguous motives; at first we're not really sure whether Rickey is making a political statement or a business decision. It becomes clear in their first meeting as he lectures Robinson on what he will face and what will be expected. "Your enemy will be out in force," Rickey says. "But you cannot meet him on his own low ground."

Robinson seems to be okay with that, preferring to prove himself as a heavy hitter and base stealer, cheered and booed respectively by black and white fans sitting in separate sections. Robinson has little dialogue compared to his on-field performance, or maybe it just seems that way. We also see the bitter racism of the south and its muted-but-active northern version. A film like 42 could easily degrade into a preachy spectacle, but not here. His teammates, resistant to integrate, slowly come around when they find Robinson, jersey number 42, will get them to a pennant.

Little of Robinson's life outside of baseball makes the screen aside from his relationship with his wife Rachel (Beharie), number one fan and quiet source of strength. We also have a black sportswriter, Wendell Smith (Andre Holland), who serves mainly to help tie together narrative loose ends as he types out details of Robinson's career from the bleachers. Hollywood's minor leagues fills out the most of the roster, which keeps the film from striking out due to egos. According to IMDB.com, producers Howard and Karen Baldwin developed this film after their previous project Ray became a hit. Just like that picture, they ran into difficulty getting this one off the ground, which either tells you something about Hollywood executives or Hollywood's racial philosophies, or both.

42 works because it is content to be a good baseball movie and not an epic biography of Jackie Robinson. Although it has a few compulsory motivational speech scenes inherent to sports flicks, those scenes are handled with economy. I read where Spike Lee was once working on a Robinson picture with Denzel Washington as lead. I thought of how much more charisma Washington could've have brought to the role, but this film isn't about charisma -- it's about baseball.

We're Sorry, Louis Taylor (Even If Barbara LaWall Isn't)

The case against Louis Taylor was filled with problems. A team of lawyers proved it. The Pima County Attorney's office knew it. And still, in freeing the man convicted of Tucson's 1970 Pioneer Hotel fire, which killed 29 people, the best Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall could do for him was a slimy no-contest deal. It got Taylor out of prison right away in exchange for the equivalent of a guilty plea, when he's maintained his innocence all along.

I can't blame Taylor for taking the deal, flawed as it was. Fighting for total exoneration would've taken at least a couple more years. Worse, Taylor's defense lawyer says the County Attorney's office vowed to fight it all the way. After 43 years behind bars on flimsy evidence, he didn't deserve to spend another day incarcerated. But what's puzzling is why the Pima County Attorney's office feels such a strong need to cover for a prosecution team that isn't around anymore. Furthermore, the lead fire investigator on the case is standing by his investigation, never mind that arson CSI has come a long way in four decades.

"We cannot forget the victims," LaWall said. "This was not an exoneration."

She was right on that one, but not like she meant. We're still left with the stench of a flawed investigation, likely tainted by racism. It took two stories on "60 Minutes" before prosecutors decided they needed to do some damage control. Note that Taylor got out only two days after the news magazine blew the whistle again. If Taylor isn't exonerated in LaWall's view, neither are those who handled the original case in 1970. Yes, we cannot forget the victims. But the victims, if they were somehow able to speak to us, would tell us to convict the right person, not the most convenient one.

As a bonus for the prosecutor's office, the deal limits Taylor's ability to sue the county for wrongful imprisonment. It's troubling that a roomful of lawyers couldn't work out a plan to fairly compensate him for the time he can't get back. Watching Taylor speak, I don't see it in his nature to take Pima County taxpayers for every last dime. He just wants to get on with the rest of his life. But he's going to need help putting that life back together, and yes, that means paying him some money.

Taylor says the Pima County Attorney's office could have done the honorable thing. Instead, it did the easy thing. The CA's handling of the case reminds me of why people make crude jokes about lawyers. Fortunately, knowing the nature of Tucsonans, they are more than willing to apologize for the misdeeds of public officials who act in their name. I'm sure they'll help Louis Taylor begin a new chapter of his life.

If It May Please The Court, Or More Specifically, My MAKER...

My views on gay marriage don't fit neatly into a Facebook post, much less an icon, and they definitely won't make it onto a bumper sticker. I will confess to you they have "evolved," as President Obama might say. In 2004, before I got right with GOD, I wrote, "Your Gay Marriage Doesn't Threaten My Straight One." That was before I knew GOD's Truth. My stand reads more like a court brief, so I submit this filing.

Let me start with my personal beliefs. First, I believe homosexuality is a sin because that's what the Bible tells us clearly. The Bible references homosexuality nine times. Four of those times are in the Old Testament (all verses NIV):

• Genesis 19:1-25, which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 19:5 says, "They called to Lot, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.'"
• Judges 19:22-30, a similar incident. Genesis 19:22: "While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, 'Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.'"
• Leviticus 18:22: "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."
• Leviticus 20:13: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

The other five mentions, in the New Testament:

• Romans 1:24-28: "Therefore GOD gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about GOD for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, GOD gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of GOD, so GOD gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done."
• 1 Corinthians 9-10: "Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of GOD? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of GOD."
• 1 Timothy 1:8-11: "We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed GOD, which he entrusted to me."
• 2 Peter 2:6-10 "if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority."
• Jude 1:7: "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire."

Homosexuality is directly mentioned in five of these verses. The others reference it from the broader topic of sexual immorality. But either way, it's clear GOD tells us homosexuality is a sin. Let me deal with two common arguments used by those who claim homosexuality isn't sinful.

1) JESUS never talked about homosexuality. True. But HE never talked about a lot of things in the Old Testament either, because HE didn't need to. The Jewish nation had GOD's law already. Also, JESUS talks about a proper marriage in Matthew 19:4-5: "'Haven’t you read,' HE replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?" So JESUS is on the record for the definition of marriage as a man and a woman.

2) The Old Testament has lots of stuff considered sins like eating red meat and pork that Christians do without raising a fuss! Again, true, but that was the Old Covenant with GOD. Under JESUS, we have a new covenant, one that specifically tosses the dietary laws. JESUS says in Matthew 15:11: "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." Romans 14:17 says "For the kingdom of GOD is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

(FaithFacts offers some more analysis.)

Now let me take on another argument made by gay-rights supporters: "Why is it so wrong for two men or two women to love each other?"

The answer is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, as long as we're talking about love outside an erotic context. Many favoring gay rights point to 1 Samuel 18:1 for support: "After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself." However, the Bible is talking about brotherly love, not erotic love. Reading on through verse 4, we see: "from that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt."

We have more than one type of love: platonic, which is a friendship sort of love; erotic, which extends into the romantic and sexual; and agape, which is an all-encompassing "higher love" -- an affection for people in general and a desire to sacrifice for them. You can argue Jonathan's love for David as the agape type.

Coming back to what I believe, as someone who loves (agape) and wants to serve GOD, I cannot see gay marriage as something other than sinful, and I speak as someone who has homosexual friends and colleagues. You think I like taking this position? JESUS told us living for HIM wasn't going to be easy in John 15:18-21: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated ME first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted ME, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed MY teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of MY name, for they do not know the one who sent ME." Living for GOD requires sacrifice, and that includes sacrificing the easy or popular mindset of the time if it doesn't square with GOD's commandments.

Let me tell you what I do NOT believe:

• I do NOT believe the Bible tells us to act violently towards homosexuals, regardless of that verse in Leviticus. JESUS taught us to love sinners, in the agape way. As for that Leviticus verse, the context of that was GOD's commands to Israel in that time to purify itself and rid itself of sinful practices found in pagan nations surrounding them. If Israel was going to be GOD's chosen people, it had to walk the walk, even in the extreme sense. GOD also had another motive with the Old Testament laws: to show us how it was impossible to live perfectly within HIS will. Boy, did we ever need JESUS!
• I do NOT support that crazy cult church in Kansas that demonstrates at military funerals saying soldiers die because of homosexuality in America. JESUS says in Matthew 7:15-17: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit." You can certainly see from the actions of this so-called church, it's not bearing good fruit.
• I WILL NOT refuse to work alongside people who are gay, nor will I openly condemn my gay friends, nor will I name and shame them publicly by stepping onto some moral high horse for all to witness. I consider that acting like a Pharisee. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of GOD." I don't play the game of "this sin is worse than that sin." A sin is a sin is a sin, and as Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of GOD is eternal life in CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD."

There's also this: not everyone who is gay has gotten right with GOD in the first place, or even believes in GOD to begin with. What good does it do me to argue GOD's Truth to people who aren't of a mind to accept it? This goes for a multitude of sins, not just homosexuality. In Matthew 7:6, JESUS tells us not to waste time trying to hammer GOD's truth into people when they're not ready: "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces." Don't get bent out of shape over the use of "pigs" and "dogs" in this verse. JESUS is talking metaphorically, not pejoratively, like that modern-day saying: "Never teach a pig to sing. It doesn't work and it annoys the pig."

So now I come to the question, should government recognize same-sex marriage? The Bible tells us governments are an authority recognized by GOD in Romans 13:1-2: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which GOD has established. The authorities that exist have been established by GOD. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what GOD has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."

So clearly governments have a responsibility to act within GOD's will.  What happens when they stray outside that will? You can look through the Old Testament and see numerous examples of Israel suffering under the rule of evil kings and leaders who strayed from GOD's law.

What about separation of church and state? Let's be clear about what it means. Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his GOD, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." He was talking about keeping government from messing around with churches, not keeping GOD's principles out of government.

Here's where it gets complicated: clearly, government is within bounds to prohibit gay marriage. But technically, it's also within bounds to declare homosexuality in general illegal, which has been done in the past, but is now largely a relic of our past. Our authorities don't go around rounding up homosexuals -- something Hitler's gestapo did. I don't want that. Most Christians, save for those radical fringes, don't want that. GOD doesn't want that -- in truth, HE'S within rights to round ALL of us up for our sins!

So how can government justify banning gay marriage when it doesn't ban gays? It doesn't have to condone the decisions for same-sex couples to marry. It doesn't have to make gay marriage equal with straight marriage. If a same-sex couple wants to live together, I'm not going to call for government to break them up. But just as our governments don't give marriage benefits to straight couples living together out of marriage, I say they shouldn't feel obligated to do the same with gay couples. I don't consider that to be discrimination; I see it as acting in accordance with what GOD is asking governments to do.

Again, I'm not saying I LIKE THIS. GOD's principles are not there for our enjoyment. I know some of my friends are going to disagree with me adamantly about this, and that's fine. I don't hate you. I don't want to. I am not on a mission to preach and rail against homosexuality, and if you know me, you know that. But when the question is put to me, and I have to answer it and take a position, I'm going to take GOD's position, because I love GOD and want to serve HIM, even if that makes me unpopular with my friends or with the world. That's life. That's Christian life.

Yes, I've changed my beliefs since I wrote that 2004 post. But one thing remains unchanged. In 2004, I wrote:

If you think about it, we don't even need gay marriages to degrade straight ones. We've done that already. We've done it through a 50 percent divorce rate. We've done it through "triple-a:" adultery, abuse, abandonment. We've gotten into commitments we weren't ready for, and we refused to let somebody talk us out of them because nobody else is allowed to be judgmental when we're in love.

So we've all got work to do. Just like the Bible says, "For all have sinned..."

Goodbye, Randy

Randy Garsee (Source: KOLD)

Like many of you, I was shocked to hear the sudden death of former KOLD news anchor Randy Garsee. I hadn't spoken to him on a regular basis since he left the station in 2006, but I knew he was pursuing journalism on his own terms, just the way he wanted it.

Randy arrived at KOLD in 1997, shortly after his longtime partner Kris Pickel and about three years before I stepped into the newsroom. His corner cubicle was adorned with dragons -- his favorite mythical creature -- and a millennium coffee-mug he'd doctored to read "01-01-01" instead of "00" at the end. Randy and the station shared the philosophy that the real turn of the millennium would come a year after the monstrous hype over all things Y2K. He reported and edited a weekly feature, "Beyond The Millennium," which spotlighted futuristic, cutting-edge subjects with a Tucson connection. One story had him checking out paranormal research at the University of Arizona and raising the question of whether mediums might one day testify in court on behalf of the dead.

One story he pursued relentlessly was the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that polygamous breakaway sect of the Mormon church led by shadowy self-proclaimed prophet Warren Jeffs. Randy journeyed to the Utah-Arizona border and a remote ranch in West Texas as he tracked it.

He once tried to get an interview with Jeffs as members revealed what was happening in the FLDS-controlled enclave of Colorado City, Arizona. A camera rolled while he made a call from a pay phone in the town:

RANDY: "Hello, Brother Nephi?"

ISSAC: "This is Isaac."

RANDY: "Hi there, Brother Issac, I was wondering if I could talk to the Prophet today."

ISAAC: "Who is this?"

RANDY: "My name is Randy Garsee. I'm with KOLD-TV in Tucson. Would he be available for an interview today?"

ISAAC: "Negative, he would not."

RANDY: "Does he ever talk to the media?"

ISAAC: "We have no comment."

In the end, it didn't matter. Jeffs went to the slammer for hooking up underage girls with FLDS members. Garsee moved on to the next story.

With his Navy background, he proved to be an invaluable resource for military perspective and technical rib-poking. In 2003, He went to Kuwait when the U.S. tangled with Saddam Hussein again, hoping to get the inside story on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base personnel overseas. But due to a mess-up in the commanding ranks, neither the access nor the lodging he had been promised materialized. He nearly ended up stuck in the Middle East as the nation went to war. "I think I just got somebody fired," Randy said after he complained to the officers.

Randy with then-KOLD photographer Carl Lemon,
taking on "Anchorman."  (Source: Facebook)

In 2001, he came up with a new idea for a movie review feature: have people who share an occupation with characters in the film offer their take on how Hollywood portrays their job. I suggested the name: "Reel Life Movie Reviews." We debuted it with the film Pearl Harbor using three military service members who narrated their thoughts intercut with movie clips. For Spider-Man we turned to a local comic store owner and a spider specialist from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. A Tucson magician offered his opinions on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. When The Passion Of The Christ came out, Reel Life was a natural fit to let members of Tucson's religious community offer their views.  Randy got to see movies on Friday and get paid for it.

But most of Randy's viewers remember his knife-edged wit. He often injected micro-commentary into news items, especially when the station's aging tape decks started breaking up video on the air. "Can we get a working tape recorder around here?" he once blurted out from the anchor desk. In other famous on-air moments, he teased former reporter Kaushal Patel about her wardrobe choice and asked J.D. Wallace why there was barbed wire up at Pima County Democratic Headquarters. I gather he had the Howard Cosell effect: viewers who loved him watched because they wanted to see what he'd say next, and those who hated him watched to see what he'd say next.

In a 2006 interview with Tucson Weekly, he said:

"I always feel like people are inviting you into your living room. This is a job. People know it's a job; it's a career, but everybody likes to have a little fun on the job. Everybody does. That's something I took from the newsroom to the anchor desk. I try not to be too flip or too obnoxious, but my philosophy is to watch the newscast with the viewer, and if things go wrong, or if I do something stupid, which happens all the time, comment about it. Say something about it. I get more e-mail about those kinds of remarks--about referencing video, the jokes at the end of the show--more comments on that from viewers than anything else."

Your humble servant shouldered some of Randy's one-liners. When I took poetic liberties with some news copy, he quipped: "Our producer, Chris Francis Shakespeare wrote that." In the newsroom, when I heard crackling over the scanner about a body being found and noted it was right down the street from my home, he cried out: "Dammit, Francis, I told you to bury those bodies further away!"



Randy was also an aspiring novelist. He'd completed two books in his stint with KOLD, but he was having trouble getting them published, even with help from an agent. I revealed to him I had been working on a novel myself, and he graciously asked to see the first chapter or so. Within days he returned with his verdict.

"You need to seriously pursue this," he said, not cracking any jokes this time. "For somebody to turn around a novel this fast shows ability." Actually, I had been working on it for about 10 years in various forms, including a screenplay, but I had never finished it until months before. He encouraged me to spend the money on a writers' workshop in Tucson, where I could start courting potential publishers and agents while learning the business.

I did so in 2003, doing an interview and sending out some query letters and manuscript samples, but the book went nowhere. I knew I would have to send out oodles more to have a decent shot, but ultimately, I decided the text could be better and focused my attention on my day job. Randy eventually turned to e-publishing to get in print. One day, I might head that route.

Randy's passions for reporting and writing were only matched by the passion of his demeanor. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and I saw him light into more than one person. He believed in fighting for his stories, almost to blows in some cases. Randy also refused to practice office diplomacy, which did him in when he thought his contributions were being marginalized.

Source: Blogspot

It didn't take him long to find his next gig. He went to a smaller station in Ada, Oklahoma, and then moved back to a military job, providing video from U.S. operations overseas. Randy was working as a communications and public affairs adviser for the Center for Naval Analyses and Institute for Public Research when he passed away in his sleep on Sunday. He was only 50, a mere nine years older than me, but with enough experience for two lives.

Randy had a wife and two daughters. One of the girls loved to run up and hug me every time she visited the newsroom.

"Oh, thank you," I said to her. "You know the producer doesn't get a whole lot of hugs."

"I'll hug ya," Randy deadpanned.

Roundup On The Double-Quick

Outside the production trucks at the Tucson Rodeo Parade.

My fretting and fussing for producing the TV coverage for this year's Tucson Rodeo Parade is over before I know it. What usually takes nearly 2 hours gets done this year in about an hour and 15 minutes, with only two brief pauses and no runaway-horse catastrophes. At least a dozen entries pulled out because of worries about the cold weather. And I think the entries that were there wanted to get on with things and get out of the cold.

Rewind five hours as I ride with an engineer and one of our crew in a spare live unit to our coverage location. Their navigational skills are not yet up to speed at 5am. But the truck is.

“Speed bump!” they yell.

WHUMP!

I'm sitting in the back seat with a travel mug full of hot coffee. It stays in my hand, and the brew stays in the cup, instead of flying off into space.

I don't have much to do early, except get set up in the back of Access Tucson's production truck, where I'll be running my end of the show, and help the crew where they needed. Our directors, engineers and the Access Tucson people are handing the hardcore technical stuff, the stringing of wires and cables, lining up microwave shots and checking signals.

Dan and Heather arrive in plenty of time for me to get a few changes to them. They don't need a whole lot of setup; it's all in the huge briefing books I've passed to them, relaying every scrap of information I have on every entry and every bit of parade trivia I think they'll want or need. I also have a roving reporter for the opening cowbell, to be sounded by a kid cowboy or cowgirl the parade organizers haven't found yet due to the small crowds. Yesterday's freak snowfall in Tucson and warnings about morning ice are keeping people away, along with the cold. We have a roving cameraman to capture what crowds we do get.

We're set up in the parking lot of the Tucson Fire Department's warehouse. They generously let us use their restrooms –- several times in my case. All that morning coffee has to go somewhere, and I can't leave my spot during the broadcast.

Wires and cables get one last check, the anchors get into place on a scissor lift above the ground, and we strap on our production headsets. Our director working the production truck's video switcher is in communication both with the parade camera crews and the control room back at the station where another director will add graphics and commercials.

The truck director barks orders a mile a minute. I can't exactly tell when we're on the air or not, but I have a TV tuned to our station. I see when the opening animation is rolled and cue the anchors over their headsets. They start talking and we're in business. They introduce themselves and show the route. So far, so good.

Now it's time to turn things over to Ryan Foran and the little boy with the opening cowbell. We punch up the roving camera, but we can't hear Ryan. His mic had just worked, and now it was out.

“Keep talking,” I tell the anchors in their earpieces, and they ad-lib about how the parade is getting started while the little boy rings a silent cowbell. We can't get the mic, and we can't get a replacement out there fast enough. It's time to get this show on the road.

The entries – all horseback, walkers, or horse-drawn carriages – come at us nearly rapid fire. We have the opening banner, the color guard, the local dignitaries and all the rodeo VIPs up front. Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly are Grand Marshals this year. They go by quickly, waving to everybody. There's no time for words, just smiles.

A spotter calls out the number of the next float coming, and I match it against a rundown I have with me.

“118 Next!”

Several entries may be out of place or missing, so I have to rely on what my spotter sees, not my rundown order. At least four entries have canceled before the start of the parade. I'm more concerned getting the right information on what's coming up next to Dan and Heather, who need only flip to the proper page in their briefing books to find the factoids they need about the band, wagon or rider who's passing by.

“Need a number,” I prompt.

“Looking, looking!”

Several numbers are not in a conspicuous location as they come towards us, leaving us guessing until it's nearly too late. Dan and Heather are adept at verbal tap-dancing until we verify who's next. A marching band is easy to identify; a solo rider, tougher. Our roving camera's picture is going in and out as the photographer moves around, limiting when our director can take it.

Our director barks out camera commands. “Three, you're hot! Back to one! Stay with it, one! Two, that's a great shot, on two! Four, I lost you again!”

Back at the station, a graphics operator is hearing us talk about the entries and throwing up titles in the lower third of the screen over each one.

We have to run commercials around certain times, as cued by someone back at the studio.

“You wanna take a break here?”

“Yeah, after this next float, pitch to break.”

We'll keep the parade going in a box in the bottom of the screen while the commercial fills a box in the top half. Each one is only 30 seconds long, so when Dan says “we're taking a short break,” he means it.

“Stand by!” A studio person is counting down the end of the commercial to our director in his ear, and we're quickly back on the air.

“Cue!”

Some interns who are helping and observing with our production are also doing double duty as coordinating producers: they're running information about canceled entries back to me in the back of the truck, a third voice in my ear on top of the director and spotter.

“214, 218 and 228 aren't here,” one says. No problem. Or was that 215? 216? It doesn't matter. We go with the entries that we see, give that number to the anchors, and they have the information. The rundown is only a rough running order.

It's not flawless. We hear about entries we've skipped over because they're not there, or we misidentify a carriage at first only to quickly correct it. The minutes fly by. This parade is running a lot faster than we planned. An hour elapses and we're already nearing the end, even though we've only run about half the commercials we need to run.

“What are we going to do about those spots?”

We talk back and forth with the station crew.

“We're going to do them at the end.”

After the last entry, Dan and Heather pitch to a final commercial, and we see two minutes worth of ads above a final shot of the crowds and the street sweepers moving in.

“Wrap up and say goodbye,” I prompt through their ears as we come out of the break.

I'm exhausted and frustrated that things ran so fast and not as smoothly as I wanted. But Heather and Dan have nothing but compliments. Our news director has already called in her compliments. The crew is happy. The talent is happy. If they're happy, I'm happy. I shrug off the glitches and consider myself schooled and blessed.

It's only 10:45 when a photographer gives me a lift back to the station, but my day is done. Producing yesterday's snow coverage was much harder than this. Relatively speaking, this was a breeze, a cold manic breeze.

Private Christopher's Academy For Young Patriot Soldiers

Sharing a memory from this past weekend's American Liberty Festival, as presented by We Make History.

They are young, patriotic, and they can't wait to get their hands on a small wooden musket.

Waves of children rush up to me, the Continental Army private in full uniform, and volunteer to fall into line and drill. A fellow soldier passes out the arms to all but one recruit who stands a little taller and older.

"I have something special in mind for you," I say before ducking into the Quartermaster's tent to produce a mock Brown Bess. Aside from a plugged barrel and a painted gray exterior, it looks and weighs like the real thing.

"Dress this line!" I tell the recruits, imploring them to line up straight facing me. "The first command I'm going to teach you is 'Order firelocks.' That means you hold your musket at the right side of your feet like this with the lock facing out."

Some of them stand it by their left side. I correct where needed and move on to the next command.

"When I say 'Shoulder Firelocks,' bring your musket up to your left shoulder like this and hold it by the end with that little tab on the top -- that's the frizzen -- pointing up."

They fumble into line and I begin smoothing them out.

"Order Firelocks! Shoulder Firelocks! Order Firelocks! Shoulder firelocks!"

As they get the motions down, I hear ramrods clinking behind me. The Redcoats are lined up and going through weapons inspection. I have to get this band into shape quickly before the battle starts without us.

"When I say 'Prime and Load,' you're going to reach into your cartridge box" -- which is in their imagination -- "pull out a cartridge, tear it open with your teeth and pour it down the barrel." Some of the young ones have lost their front teeth, but they can work with the others. "Then you will 'Come To The Ready,' take aim and fire!"

I keep getting my Civil War drill mixed up with my Revolutionary War drill. The manual of arms is similar, but the commands are different. I should be saying, "Present Arms" instead of "Come To The Ready." But what has been drilled into to me is hard to undo.

The Lobsterbacks are standing at attention across from us and getting the command to load. It's time to do battle.

"Prime and Load!" I go through it with them standing at the end of their line, my buckled 18th Century shoes next to their sneakers.

The Redcoats are loading and aiming.

"Present Arms! Take Aim! Fire!"

Some of them pop a banging sound with their mouths, and right on cue, a Redcoat topples.

"Prime and Load!"

We go through it again, pouring that imaginary powder down the barrel and taking aim. Another Lobsterback crumbles to the ground.

"Let's advance on them!" I cry. "Company, two paces forward, march!"

"Company, two paces back!" I hear my counterpart bark.

"Prime and Load! Take Aim! Fire!"

Two of His Majesty's Finest bite the dust. "Well done! Company, two paces forward, march!"

Again we serve another volley, and within minutes we've whittled the line down to a pair of frightened Regulars.

"Let's charge them! Company, fix bayonets! Charge!"

The kids run all over them, throwing in a few mock blows to the head with the rifle butt. I have profound respect for our Lobsterbacks' willingness to play the fall guys over and over. They lie all around the overjoyed children who are shouting for joy.

"Huzzah!" I add. "Great work!"

The kids make way for the next round of recruits, and the vanquished enemy picks itself up. Keep calm and carry on. The young patriots eventually see the big boys at play, firing real muskets, chess pieces in a duel of liberty against tyranny -- or in the final climatic battle skirmish of the day, straight-men in a saucy exchange between British and Patriot commanders.

"You forgot your white flag!"

"Oh, I'll accept your surrender now!"

In the end, we beat the Brits, but their commander marches away with a small detachment, retreating to fight another day. The rest is history.

I later realize that during my instruction in the manual of arms, I've been having the children order their firelocks by the wrong foot... over and over. Facing them, I forgot left and right are flip-flopped. That would explain why I'm a private and not a commander.

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories Why Pope Benedict XVI Is Really Quitting

From the home office in Peculiar, Missouri...

10) Twittering getting hard on the wrists.

9) Work on revised catechism a real pain in the encyclical.

8) Began speaking Latin at mass one day and realized, "I could be talking about growing dandelions and nobody would know the difference."

7) Cassock itches and the cardinals just rejected proposal to wear slacks.

6) Mitt Romney offered to take job and ditch the whole Mormonism thing.

5) Heard Genesis is looking for another lead singer.

4) Plans to enter into joint venture with Microsoft to create biggest blessed social network on the planet.

3) Genuinely missing the brats and beer from back home.

2) Got shut out of buying "Current" cable channel.

1) Found out Al Pacino is interested in playing him after he gets done with Joe Paterno movie.

Are You Being Served?

Given the recent tiff over what percentage to tip a waiter, occasionally a situation arises where somebody earns that tip not for meritorious service, but for service following a meritorious screw-up.

Friday night, I was indulging my stomach at a local Pizza Hut. My order was simple: large thin-crust, cheese with beef topping. I placed my order with my server and I waited.

She came back once to verify the order. Then again.

"You just want the marinara underneath, right?"

Yes, I did. I didn't know I had an option, but clarity was helpful -- or was it?

She returned again. "So you want the marinara with the beef topping and the onions and peppers?"

No, no, no, I corrected. Just the cheese and beef.

Then her supervisor came out a few minutes later.

"We're trying to cook your pizza," she said, "and we've gotten three different explanations."

My head dropped to the table. By this time, I'd figured out what was behind the confusion: word corruption. I didn't notice if the server had even written down the order.

"I said I wanted a thin-crust, beef topping pizza," I explained. "I don't know how that got transformed into a beef taco pizza."

Half-embarrassed, the boss went back and straightened it out. The humbled server brought me out some free breadsticks. Her humbled superior followed about 15 minutes later with the pie.

"May I serve your first piece?"

The way she said it, she sounded like she wanted to wash my feet. Normally, I would politely decline, but I indulged this one time because I sensed the desperate need to correct a massive mistake.

"Uh, yeah, go ahead."

They checked on me several times through out the meal as I downed it.

"You ought to be on Man Vs. Food," my server commented. "You ate that like a champ."

She got a nice tip -- above 18 percent.

Failure To Win The Hispanic Vote Is Not An Option

In a Republican strategy session room...

"Okay people, listen up. Forget the party platform. As of now we are improvising a new mission--"

Click. POP! Zzzz...

"Uh, we'll get a bulb for that."

"It's called How Do We Get More Hispanics Into The GOP? We got midterms less than two years away. Now, do we go for a direct amnesty program?"

Grumbles. Chatter. Anxiousness.

"No. No. No. I say path to citizenship. It's the option with the least question marks."

"I agree with Jerry. We do a DREAM-like program, provide a process for the young illegals, make them go to the back of the immigration line."

"The party will not support an option that ignores law and order! We go back to the drawing board, do an about-face, hammer the jobs angle. And besides, we don't have enough time to rebuild the base."

"You're talking about time. We're talking about losing votes here."

"Look, we don't even know how much support we can count on in 2014. If we continue to take the hard line--"

"This party blows up and we die!"

"That is not the argument here!"

"I'm not gonna sugar-coat this for you."

"Okay, everybody settle down. Now law and order has worked pretty well for us. But from what the numbers are telling us, more than two-thirds of the Latino vote went for the other side in the last election. We continue to alienate that demographic, we could blow the whole works again. I'm not gonna take that chance -- it's just too risky. So let's consider the hard line dead. Now border enforcement has only got so much power, so that leaves us with the path to citizenship. We put a sensible plan together with the other side, pick up a chunk of Hispanic votes, get as many Republicans back into office as fast as we can."

"Uh, I'd like to know what the Tea Party thinks about this."

"We can't guarantee support. Illegal immigrants are supposed to be landing back in Mexico, not in the immigration line."

"Well, unfortunately, they're not landing in Mexico. I don't care what our policies are designed to do. I wanna know what they can do. So let's get on it."

With loving apologies to the cast and crew of Apollo 13.

The Truth Hurts

I wrote the following essay for a high-school composition class back in 1988. You are reading the original paper, word for word.

When I came into my seventh-grade science class Friday afternoon, I wasn't thinking about dissecting a cow's eye. Instead, I was thinking about getting out of school and going home. When I saw a box full of cows' eyes sitting by the door, I casually joked about it: "Ohhhh, I think I'm gonna be sick!" I never really considered the possibility that this statement might be true.

Our science class was learning about the human eye. As part of our study, we were to break up into lab groups, and each group would cut open a cow eye to examine its contents. I had never dissected anything before, but I knew I would have to -- sooner or later. Before that day, the thought of having to do a dissection hadn't bothered me.

Mr. Schroer, our teacher, began class by taking an eye out of the box and holding it up for everyone to see. He gave us instructions on how to cut open the eyes and told us what we were to look for. All the while, he continued to hold the eye up in the air while he pointed at it. Every so often, he rotated the eye around in his fingers to make sure the entire class could see it.

I gave him my full attention while he talked, but I couldn't help staring at that eye as he held it up in the air. The way he held it with one hand and turned it with his fingers made it seem... ALIVE!

I began to get a dizzy feeling in my head. My face lost its color, and everything else became foggy. I couldn't hear clearly anymore. My stomach and legs seemed to pull at the upper half of my body, persuading it to fall to the floor. Trying to ignore the situation did not help -- with every passing second I grew dizzier and dizzier. It didn't occur to me at the time, but I was on the verge of fainting.

Mr. Schroer must have spotted my pale face while he was passing out eyes to the lab groups, because he took me outside into the hall. I was surprised I could even walk -- I felt so weak.

"Do you know you look pale?" he said to me outside the classroom.

I nodded my head. Actually, I really didn't know what I looked like, but I took his word for it.

"Let's go back inside and continue," he calmly said as he reached for the door.

I couldn't go back in there. I didn't care what he said; I didn't want to do it. The thought of returning to the classroom made me feel even worse. In my weakness I slid down the wall to the floor. Suddenly, I began to regurgitate my lunch all over the place.

My teacher helped me up and led me down the hall to the school clinic. All along the way I vomited, leaving a visible trail as I walked. By the time we got to our destination there was nothing more for me to lose.

My mother came and promptly took me home, even though I could've continued on until the end of the day. On the drive home, I explained to her everything that had happened to me. She slowly shook her head back and forth as she drove. "Christopher, you'll never be a doctor," she said.

I had no problem with that.

In the years since then, I've had to do many more dissections in school. Every time I have had to sit down, as that dizzy feeling always returned. I never thought of it as shameful or cowardly. It was something that just happened, something I couldn't help. But out of all those times, nothing ever compared to the shock I felt that first time. It was the shock of finding out something about myself that I had never thought to be true -- I wasn't as strong as I thought I was.

If you're asking, I got a perfect "A" on this assignment.

We're Gonna Send A Hoe To Pedro... No, Wait!

Mention "VBS" to me, and my first association with those letters is "Visual Basic Script" or "Visual Basic Source," not "Vacation Bible School." But I've heard some of my Christian friends talk about it in those letters, so I have to keep reminding myself. The first word of the term can be misleading: it refers to the school happening during summer vacation, when there's not supposed to be school. That also makes the term an aspiring oxymoron.

We'll forget the semantics and move on to my recollections of VBS at the Presbyterian Church of my youth. It's one week of songs, crafts, 16-millimeter movies, and some food, all culminating in some presentation during next Sunday's service.

No VBS is without a theme. I wish I could remember what themes Blue Ridge Presbyterian Church in Raytown embraced over a slice of my boyhood, but I do remember one involved adding a paper rainbow to the top of a Kansas City Royals baseball cap.

What's memorable is that at least one of these themes involved starving children in a third world country. On the first day of one session, one of the leaders held up a picture of some boy, whom I shall call Pedro because I forget his real name, and talked about how tough it was for Pedro to farm because of the drought.

Mind you, we are years from Sam Kinison's explosive rant on third-world hunger: "You're living in a [bleepin'] desert! Move!" We are also years from white middle-class youth absorbing hip-hop slang. So at this time, it is completely possible for the little children to sing, "We're going to send a hoe to Pedro" without them collapsing into snickers. If such a chorus were attempted today, a red-faced worship leader would quickly shoo the kids off to crafts and make a mental note of yet another word rendered unusable by popular culture.

I hated VBS. I hated the dumb songs, the throwaway crafts and the focus on kids in other nations who needed food when we had starving kids in Kansas City. Why weren't we helping them? Even at a young age, my still-forming mind must've detected something inherently wrong with sending charity to peoples who were suffering mainly because of their oppressive governments. You want aid? Let's send in air support to bomb the heck out of the regime that's keeping you poor.

Nowadays, it's much different. My church runs a VBS focused on helping children learn about GOD and how to live for HIM, which is the way it should be. The kids get to make a mess like on Double Dare. We don't do pseudo-missionary work; our mission is to reach the majority of people in Tucson who aren't coming to church and get them in the door. By reaching the kids, you reach the parents.

Elsewhere, VBS is taking on a slicker look. In my youth, church teams would have to brainstorm ideas for a theme. Now you can buy a VBS kit online like the ones I found here. They have cooler titles like "Power Lab" and "Kingdom Rock." No Pedro anywhere, unless somebody comes in one of those Napoleon Dynamite shirts.

Church school has come a long way since my scoundrel youth. I'm glad because we don't need more youth disconnected from the church, wondering what they're doing singing about other kids they don't know for a GOD they know they should love but aren't sure why.

Super Size Isn't Everything

"Don't you ever eat?"

People ask that from time to time when they see me blow off lunch breaks. I can run on vapor like a pro, consuming maybe two meals a day or just one. A full stomach slows me down, and slow doesn't make deadlines in a newsroom.

My co-workers at KRGV can tell you about the flip side of that. I was known for consuming gobs of Big Macs. The McDonald's down the street would sell them ridiculously cheap and I would grab a couple every night.

"I can't understand it," one of my anchors said. "I eat a Big Mac, I'll gain 10 pounds. You eat one and you lose three."

They couldn't understand how this skinny guy could put down fast food and not die of a heart attack. People keep telling me I need to see the documentary Super Size Me. I still haven't. It's not like I'm trying to become the next Don Gorske.

My parents will tell you how I could inhale McDonald's fries as a kid. They were both appetizer and dessert: a large before the burger and then another large afterward. When I worked at the Golden Arches for a few months in the summer of 1989, I somehow managed to keep myself from chomping up the burgers tossed from the production bin. That was during a previous policy of them making food ahead of time and throwing it out after so many minutes had elapsed.

One time a McDonald's worker handed me an obnoxiously large order of fries through the drive-through window.

"We accidentally made this and we don't want to throw it out," she said.

It was a large drink cup overflowing with fries. This particular location offered a size reserved for gluttons, one step up from the "Super Size" order. I figured they were giving it to me as some sort of valued customer award. Yes, I ate it all.

But I never stuff myself silly on the job... except when somebody brings in Domino's.

Thus Sayeth The Dog

Your dog can't talk to you, but that's not going to stop him from trying. The next time he yawns, watch carefully, and you might catch a tenacity to form words.

"Rrrr... rowr-wa rohr roah!"

My aunt's Brittney Spaniel, Libby, got disturbingly close to holding a conversation. She would yawn and human syllables would fall out as the exertion of fatigue contorted her mouth and throat.

Most of the time, it's less dramatic. My Dad's Springer, Toby, would just walk up to the Queen Mother and grunt.

"Mrrff."

"You already ate!" Mom would scold this beast constantly looking for a handout.

His predecessor Cinnamon possessed a progressive verbal dexterity. When she needed to go out, she would walk over to the gate separating upstairs from downstairs and sit. If you didn't notice her, she would let out a high-pitched "sheee." If you didn't let her out after that, a "warrf," "arf" and another "shee-sheee-shee" followed.

Cinnamon knew the language, and Mom knew Cinnamon. The Brittney would go into her whimpering act to go outside and Her Royal Momminess would stop the Royal Father from getting the door.

"She wants another bone!" Mom would say, referring to those "Bonz" treats Cinnamon would get after coming back in, snacks she preferred over her dog food. By this time we had her on Science Diet for her main course, and she hated it. We switched her food mainly because the vet recommended we buy it, and wouldn't you know he also sold it. Never do business with a huckster vet.

Sparky, the Dalmatian of my Grandfather and Grandmother Francis, didn't speak much because he was too busy eating. He would make his rounds among the house trash cans at least once a day, chewing up toilet paper and who knew what else. Bits of it would turn up on the floor.

"Did you leave that there?" my aunt would ask him.

Sparky would growl softly.

I firmly believe dogs develop cast-iron stomachs for all they can ingest, but Sparky ate enough hazardous materials to kill half a dozen people. The following is a verified list of what this dog ate:

• Toilet paper
• Any paper
• Birthday cake
• Cotter pins off Grandpa's Volkswagen beetle
• Wingnuts from an unknown source
• A whole can of motor oil -- we didn't have to worm him for a month after that
• A needle and thread
• Pancakes
• Cantaloupes
• Ice Cream
• Change off the dresser
• A 20-dollar bill, almost
• Christmas tree tinsel (which he couldn't pass -- don't even ask how we got it out)

To be sure, Cinnamon had her notorious dietary habits; she once ate an entire loaf of bread in the back of the car during a trip from St. Louis to Kansas City. Towards the end of her life, she loved to travel, whining to the Queen Mother to be taken along just about anywhere.

"She's just a big baby," Mom said when I ask why the dog was in the back of the car one day when she picked me up from work.

Towards the end of their lives, dogs will let you know exactly what they're feeling. And just like with humans, they're often gone before you can offer a last word. That's the way it was with Cinnamon and Toby. Not even a famous last bark.

Frat Boys In Khaki

Scouting is supposed to build character in young men. My troop turned them into frat boys.

It's unknown how that troop, the one that met at a church in Raytown, Missouri, turned into a group that could've hung out at Delta House. I could blame testosterone. I could blame a few well-placed punks. But it's all speculation.

Doing forensics on my memories, however, I see a trend emerging: lack of leadership. Before each troop meeting, the adult leaders would stand in the parking lot smoking, drinking Big Gulps, and cracking dirty jokes, heaping the operation on the Eagle Scouts. They needed to put in some leadership time, and we were a motley crew.

After earning my "God And Country"
award.

It wasn't unusual to see two guys get into a fistfight in a corner of the room beneath a table. Somebody would burp during roll call.  Another guy would pass gas during an awards ceremony. Somebody would throw up on the front table for no discernible reason. You can imagine how campouts went. One session had little outdoor activity; most of the guys were in the bunkhouse diddling with hand-held electronic games. Remember: these are Boy Scouts.

A rummage-sale fundraiser nearly went sideways. The gang uncovered a stack of crummy LP's and proceeded to make them into smash hits.

"Hey, I found a cracked record!" one of the Scouts yelled as he flung it into the air. It hit the church parking lot with a crackle.

Other records followed, flying into the air and crashing all over the asphalt. One Scout figured out how to make an LP perform a touch-and-go landing, throwing it so it skimmed the surface before rising back into the air. We got one stuck on the church's roof. The adult leaders were right next to us, and either they condoned this madness or couldn't stop it.

A few of us still managed to do some decent community service and earn merit badges. I shoveled woodchips for a nature trail in the miserable Missouri summer-humidified heat along the road to my God And Country honor. I'm told it's the equivalent of Eagle Scout. I felt it was the equivalent of probation by the time I got through, and someone pinned the giant red-and-white cross medal on my uniform.

When I hit puberty, my interest in Scouting waned. I only did it for the neat uniform, I figured. I should've gotten into historical re-enactment instead at that age -- if I'd only known about it.