1 Lone Star

Last weekend I received the pleasure of an invitation to view an advance showing of Kingdom of Heaven, the historical drama movie, with Orlando Bloom in the starring role.  It centers in the period spanning the time between the Second and Third Crusade during the tumultuous 12th century.  From 1084 until 1187, Jerusalem was ruled by a Christian king.  Most of them were pretty decent, Godfrey I, who first ruled the region, and Baldwin were notable for that.  Toward the end those that ran Jerusalem, Guy de Chatillon and Reynaud, were absolutely the worst. 

Indeed, the kings of Jerusalem constantly clashed with the popes who ruled European Christendom during that period for precisely the reason that the Christian kings refused to convert  Jews and Muslims by force.  While Baldwin (played in the movie by Edward Norton) and his better predecessors strove to create a tolerant and harmonious city, the pope sent waves of new soldiers and knights, especially among the group called the Knights Templar, to provoke a new war to undo the treaty signed 14  years previously between Saladin and Baldwin, and to make Jerusalem exclusively Christian.  The intention of the church leadership was to force everyone to convert to what passed for Christian faith, and to slaughter the rest, the same as what runaway renegade knights did when Jerusalem was first captured.  While the new commander/king, Godfrey was a noble king, the knights got out of control and slaughtered 20,000 Muslims and Jews.  The Knights Templar were a continuous thorn in the side of the Christian monarchs and their more moderate friends, many of who took up more Eastern customs to harmonize with their new culture (So much so that Eva Green, as the queen Sabella, and sister of Baldwin (dying of leprosy), dressed so much like the part of a local woman--albeit a rich and progressive one--that I first thought she was a Muslim noblewoman, which looked in the previews like a forbidden interreligious love between her and Bloom's Balian).

They sought to undo all that Baldwin attempted to do in making Jerusalem a city where all the major faiths of the city (Christian, Jew, and Muslim), would be able to worship and visit their sacred sites.  They arrogantly thought that God would give only them victory, believing that wearing a cross on the front of their knightly tunics and killing Saracens would ensure their place in heaven (Ridley Scott, past Oscar winning producer-director of Gladiator, and who produced and directed Kingdom, has publicly stated that he highlighted those attitudes on both Christian and Muslim sides to illustrate the background and illogic of religious-based hatred.).  They provoked war by violating the former treaty of Baldwin and Saladin by attacking Muslim trade caravans, raping and killing the sister of Saladin in one of them.  And the provocation backfired, the Christian armies divided, with many of the knights deserting the fight (Tiberius, played by Jeremy Irons, illustrated the moderate element in the historical occurrence), and the rest were slaughtered in a key battle in the Judean desert by Saladin's armies.  The city was then conquered by Saladin (played in the movie by Ghassan Massoud), after a surprisingly hard siege against Jerusalem's defenders, led by Balian, and the city did not completely pass out of Muslim control until Israel's victory over the Arabs in the Six-Day War of 1967, 780 years later.

The story centers around Balian, a humble blacksmith, tormented by his wife's loss of their child in childbirth and grief-driven suicide, his murder of the priest who mutilated her body to assure her 'damnnation' according to Roman Catholic law, and his search for salvation and meaning for him and the woman he once loved.  His rise to become a true knight, and the everlasting fame as "the defender of Jerusalem," as well as his coming to grips with both his honor, his desire for the forbidden love of Queen Sabella (who was married without consent to the ruthless Guy de Chatillon), and overcoming the religious superstition of the time, is the real story that has present-day application now.  There have been many other reviews of the movie, but I want to lock in to one theme, the one I think Mr. Scott thought central to Kingdom. 

That is what I see as the struggle of faith.  No, not the struggle between faiths, that is too obvious, but the struggle of faith.  It is the struggle which Scott notes that still makes Jerusalem of today a troubled city.  Many reviewers I have read, including Roger Ebert's otherwise quite complimentary one, seem to confuse Balian's criticisms of religious zealotry
for open unbelief.  Such shows an ignorance of the HUGE difference between faith and religious superstition, which we see in every spiritual communion of today, from Christianity to Islam to probably Wicca, and definitely within the deadliest religion of all...atheism and the worship of the self which is so common in our world.  In the end, what is the difference between Nero, Nietzsche, Stalin, Torquemada, Mao, and Osama bin Laden?  It's only the object of their misguided zeal and intolerance.  Rather, Balian is ably portrayed by Bloom as a man who holds the truest spirituality of all, that of one who puts the needs of people and the need to show humanity over religious dogma or outward spiritual---or political correctness.

Religious intolerance and cynical non-belief is fought in the film by both of the 'dreamer-warriors' shown in the film:  Balian and Saladin.  Both refuse to give in to those who think that anything is proper in God's name, Saladin versus his religious advisor and Balian (and Baldwin) versus the fanatical Templars and priests.  But both also refuse to abandon faith for cyncism.  Balian refuses to murder his own enemy, Guy de Chatillon, even though Guy sought Balian's own death, Saladin honors the treaty of peace with Baldwin, and Balian also holds to his Christian code of honor, honors his late knight-father's faith (Liam Neesom) and refuses to run away when Guy and Reynald commits the kingdom to disaster, rejecting the loss of faith by his mentor Tiberius (Irons).  Critics will make a mistake when they assume unbelief by Balian when he refuses to believe his wife is in hell, or when he burns the bodies of dead fighters in Jerusalem to prevent plague, in violation of Catholic law, saying "God will understand.  If he does not then God does not exist."  He is not denying God, he is denying the stupidity of rigid religiousity.  I have expressed such sentiments at various times in my own life, and I am a devout Christian.  I therefore easily understood Balian's ease at mixing faith and reason, and the need for both.

Faith maintains hope, wonder, and a belief in the dignity of one's fellow man, and the boundaries necessary for the proper treatment of one's fellows and one's world.  Reason eliminates ignorance and ensures balance and proportionality to faith.  Balian exemplifies this tension---this necessary equilibrium.  We have all seen the result of those who fail to respect that principle.  Failure to maintain this balance always results in madness.  Balian rose from humble origins to greatness because he understood the principle, and never forsook his honesty.  And in doing so, he achieved salvation.  He returned to France in honor, being forever honored in history as the great Defender of Jerusalem, with position as a knight and a baron, and with the love of his life, the by-then widowed Sabella.  In that another key principle, rising out of the observance of that balance comes.  The way of humanity---faith & reason--- is always harder, but it is always greater in its final reward.  In that, Balian is, much more than that of most of those who pretend to the status of spiritual leadership, in community with his Lord and Savior.  And Scott also shows that the majority of mankind, of whatever background, as in the scene of the incredibly stout defense of Jerusalem (I was wowed seeing all of Saladin's siege engines destroyed by the defenders) by Balian's citizen soldiers-knighted by Balian, always seem to be able to sense authentic faith and nobility when it appears.  A present example is shown in the widespread love for the late Karol Vojtyla/Pope John Paul II.  The world is full of pompous men of religion, for which they long have been sickened, but they crave and flock to the genuine article.  Balian drew that kind of adulation, not only for inspiring Jerusalem's Christians, Jews, and Muslims to fight as one for their city and its dream of unity and peace, fighting Saladin's massive army to a standstill, but for showing the humanity not to sacrifice his people for his own ego, a selfish desire to hold the city.  He surrenders on Saladin's promise of clemency, which promise he keeps.

I loved the movie.  The historical background was not adequately explained to the audience, which caused my wife to fill half the movie asking me questions, but otherwise was well-written, and much more faithful to the time than many give Scott credit for.  Those who derisively call this film an attack on Christianity are simply in need to come to grips that Jesus is not in need of historical whitewash.  Some who operated in his name were indeed monsters.  We can take comfort that the monsters of other spiritual paths have a much bloodier slate to own up to, which they one day will, when the craze of present-day political correctness will have been consigned to its own dustbin of history.

--Adios.

No, I didn't make a trillion dollars, or win the PowerBall Lottery.  I made it to 19 years with my bride, or I should say, she made it with me.  Such a woman....such will, determination, love, wisdom, righteousness, stubborn desire to be an instrument of God to reshape the character of a self-centered, immature, irresponsible, underperforming law student, into enough of a man to look at myself in the mirror every morning without feeling I have to take a shower to wash off the slime that would palpably take over me.  And being beautiful and sexy doesn't hurt, either. 

In recent years she has been battered by the ravages of what menopause does to a woman in her early fifties.  An out-of-control adrenal gland, firing off cortisol at the rate of a machine gun, renders her almost incapable of sleep.  Her eschewance of drugs, prescription or otherwise, along with our lack of good finances, have kept us away from doctors and forced her to rely on God and good nutrition to give her the ability to sleep.  Arthritic and fibromyalogic conditions, which causes her pelvic, knee, and other musculo-skeletal regions to become inflammed and infirm, causes her to sometimes walk like a woman much older than herself.  It is sad to watch, and even sadder that I have probably helped contribute to her problem, with the stress that lack of finances and lack of wisdom have caused.  For that alone I owe her complete love, fidelity, and healthy workaholism. 

I love this woman, Gail Evelyn Wilson Fernandez.  Unlike the benighted runaway bride, or perhaps flaky bride-to-be, Jennifer Wilbanks of Duluth, Georgia, this lady did not run from trouble....ever.  Not from me, not from our children, not from the many other things that tried to break her.  And there were definitely times that few would have blamed her for running.  But she didn't, and she has a husband and daughters who would defend her to the death to show for it.  Wendy & Jeanine's character---resplendent in their own right, is testament to Gail's character and inner beauty. 

And she is, in the truest sense of the word, a Christian.  Not the phony, hypocritical, self-righteous, tradition and institution-choked, one-dimensional plastic kind that seems to be all too typical of religious people in general and Christians in particular.  But the kind of authentic kind, completely human in her spirituality, that has made faith in Jesus of Nazareth so attractive to others that He is able to command a faith of billions over two millenia.  Young people from backgrounds as widely diverse as you can imagine embrace the faith because of her; young women from Rio de Janeiro to Paris to Seoul to Okinawa to Guangzhong to Prague to Houston to San Diego are able to call Gail their spiritual mother.

She is embarassed by this adulation, frequently points out the failure of others to heed her wisdom as somehow evidence of her own dysfunctionality.  The heartbreak of her incredibly gifted classical soprano's voice inability to gain the opportunity to have the successful commercial audience she has deserved since her teens has been a sorrow that is a dagger in her heart and mine.  And the rejection we continually had from traditional religious organizations--churches, as we sought to do His work tore at her soul, as much in its inexplicability as in its raw pain.  But she never let that be her end, she did not let her brokenness break her.  For that most of all I love her, and I am most motivated to work to make our later years as full of golden fulfillment as our earlier years have been with disappointment.

This is your day, Gail.  I will not forget.  I will not relent.  I will not surrender.  You shall see, as did your Lord and Master, "the fruit and the travail of your soul, and be satisfied."  A little longer, my love.  It will happen.  Let all who read this be witness to my love, and my prophecy.  Amen.

There has been a lot of interesting stuff going on in the battle over digital file-sharing (Kazaa, Napster, etc.) and the attempt by the music and motion picture industry to shut down free sharing of published works.  The Gettysburg of the whole battle between the high tech world, with coding, programming, and the opening to content and information with the Internet that has brought so much promise, is apparently going to be the U.S. Supreme Court case of  MGM v. Grokster, et al., which was argued before the Court on March 29th, and will be likely decided by the end of June.

I have, frankly, been sitting in the layman's corner on this issue, though definitely not on the side of those old-economy-hard-core types on the right (where I normally am on most issues), who just simply repeat the mantra of, "File sharing is piracy, piracy is stealing."  "The copyright makes it their property.  They can charge what they want."  I have a great deal of trouble with those who think that ownership of the property gives me no voice in what a fair price would be for the work that the big entertainment corporations want to charge.  That was the attitude that the MGM side expressed, through their trial counsel, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, in a Wall Street Journal article (archived--subscription of $6/mo. req'd) at the time.  Last time I checked my Adam Smith, I saw that the fair market price was a function of both supply and demand.  I concluded early on that charging almost $19 US dollars for a CD that costs 89 cents per unit to make is not simply obscene, it is theft.  I hated the change in the copyright laws from back in the 70s, and nothing in the law up to now has made me happier.

However, it looks like there may be a positive result in the Grokster  case, as is expressed in a string of very insightful articles from the Intellectual Property webblog from the University of California Boalt School of Law.  They also have a relationship with  the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is on the lead edge on not only fighting the attack on the innovation and information access that is the heart of the Technological Age, but is proposing some very interesting alternatives that, if employed by the entertainment industry, will make the ability to make money beyond all that has been previously known.  One of the neat quotes in this article by EFF that gives an alternative to the present system of CD and limited I-Tunes-style brand-name digital music networks and movie access systems are the following: 

"The current battles surrounding peer-to-peer file sharing are a losing proposition for everyone. The record labels continue to face lackluster sales, while the tens of millions of American file sharers—American music fans—are made to feel like criminals. Every day the collateral damage mounts—privacy at risk, innovation stymied, economic growth suppressed, and a few unlucky individuals singled out for legal action by the recording industry. And the litigation campaign against music fans has not put a penny into the pockets of artists.

We need a better way forward.

The Premises

First, artists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated.

Second, file sharing is here to stay. Killing Napster only spawned more decentralized networks. Most evidence suggests that file sharing is at least as popular today as it was before the lawsuits began.

Third, the fans do a better job making music available than the labels. Apple's iTunes Music Store brags about its inventory of over 500,000 songs. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that the fans have made millions of songs available on KaZaA. If the legal clouds were lifted, the peer-to-peer networks would quickly improve.

Fourth, any solution should minimize government intervention in favor of market forces.

The Proposal: Voluntary Collective Licensing

EFF has spent the past year evaluating alternatives that get artists paid while making file sharing legal. One solution has emerged as the favorite: voluntary collective licensing.

The concept is simple: the music industry forms a collecting society, which then offers file-sharing music fans the opportunity to "get legit" in exchange for a reasonable regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free to keep doing what they are going to do anyway—share the music they love using whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer—without fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rights-holders based on the popularity of their music.

In exchange, file-sharing music fans will be free to download whatever they like, using whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money goes to rights-holders. The more competition in applications, the more rapid the innovation and improvement. The more freedom to fans to publish what they care about, the deeper the catalog.

The Precedent: Broadcast Radio

It has been done before.

Voluntarily creating collecting societies like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC was how songwriters brought broadcast radio in from the copyright cold in the first half of the twentieth century....Copywright lawyers call this voluntary collective licensing."

The fact is that this system has the promise to actually have much more money made for the music industry in profits than what it presently is able to make in gross sales!  It still amazes me on how, in areas of technology and science, entertainment, politics, economics, and spirituality, the theme is the same.  People will die and kill rather than change.  It's like what we evangelicals call "the seven last words of a dying church:  'We've never done it that way before.' "

Well, that's today.  I'll be back tomorrow, Lord willing.  It's likely to be about immigration law, but who knows?  I have tickets to an advance showing of Kingdom of Heaven tomorrow with Gail and I.  I'll need to tell you about it then.  Adios for now.  God bless.

Well, I am at least writing before midnight this time.  I'm getting better.  I hope to hear from some of those I am trying to engage me in what I am writing here.  I'm a patient man, though.  I know I will eventually get readers...and responders.

There is an excellent read by Hugh Hewitt about an article that went on in the Washington Post earlier today about how one of the chief lieutenants of Osama bin Laden likely set up "sleeper cells" of Al Qaeda here in the USA, going back as far back as 1997.  You can find the pertinent parts of the article in the May 2nd installment of www.hughhewitt.com and the full article of the Post here in this article about  Karim  Mejjati, who also masterminded attacks  that killed dozens in Morocco and probably was part of the 3/11/2004 attack against the Atocha railway in Madrid.  He's dead now, but the cells he founded no doubt live, which is a chilling prospect.  It's a great motivation to have matters settled with God.

Well, I'll be back later.  Adios for now.

I'm at 1:40 a.m., trying to do a lot of catch-up work, sitting with Gail and trying to find a movie worth watching, to no avail.  I read about the Jennifer Wilbanks fake kidnap report, and I bet someone else was in on it.  She is just so totally screwed!  I bet that she will go to jail.  I hope so---I can't stand rich white girls who act like the world revolves around them.  Prison--getting gang raped by lesbians and guards--her life destroyed--it would be too good.  Well, I can only hope.  God may forgive, but us mortals want justice, especially for someone who is just flat stupid and selfish.

In the meantime, I need to get to getting some business done.  There's a lady in Pakistan, and a guy in Brazil needing it, wanting to immigrate here.  I'll do my best.  Out.