While Not The "Whole Story," Israel Still Begs For Spotlight

Recently I posted on my Facebook wall a commemoration to the  thousands of Palestinian civilians slaughtered in Beirut one ghastly  weekend 28 years ago this month.

One of my friends later pointedly said that I "wasn't giving the whole story."  There have been plenty of atrocities committed, she said, by the other side--Palestinian terrorists, murdering defenseless civilians, Lebanese and Israeli alike.
  

And she is absolutely correct.  This is a picture of what remained of a church in the Christian town of Damour, about a half hour's drive south of Beirut, after PLO terrorists had locked women and children inside, set the building on fire, and burned them alive.  The date was January 20, 1976, as the second of 15 horrific years of civil war was just beginning.

These are some of the murdered children of Damour.  No different or less important than those murdered children laying out in the alleys of Sabra & Shatila over six years later.

There is no moral distinction, of course, between the killing of civilians, whatever age, that are Jewish or Christian or Muslim, or any other race or religion.  Some militarists like to make the disingenuous argument that murdering an entire family, or two, or ten, is "unavoidable" because their enemies deploy in civilian areas.

That means, well, sadly the families are expendable because it's for the cause.  A bit like, perhaps, if you had a spouse and kids and are home one evening when a dangerous armed man forces himself inside. The SWAT team outside takes no chances, aims directly at your living room window, and fires that white phosphorus bomb right into your home.  Bulls eye!  And another desperado is "taken out."

Mission accomplished.  Well, sort of.  There is that nettlesome thing the good guys refer to as "collateral damage."  And, yep, it seems that those obtrusive human shields--your spouse and three little children--have also been wiped out.  And you've lost both your legs.  An sadly "unavoidable" effect of fighting the good fight.

Here's a picture of the kind of "collateral damage" the Israelis regularly inflict; one of the byproducts of their "Cast Lead" adventure in Gaza less than two short years ago.  Like that hypothetical gung ho SWAT team, they are the unchallenged experts at these kinds of kills.

The Damour episode was much less subtle carnage, like Sabra & Shitala.  In fact, the same journalist that revealed the gruesome results at the two Palestinian camps in 1982, Robert Fisk, reported on the Damour Massacre.  It went something like this:

"The attackers destroyed the buildings in the seaside village systematically and then took revenge on the remaining Christian inhabitants. The Christian cemetery was destroyed, coffins dug up, the dead robbed, vaults opened, and bodies and skeletons thrown across the graveyard.

The church was burnt and an outside wall was covered with a mural of Fatah guerrillas holding AK47 rifles. A portrait of Yasser Arafat was placed at one end. Other sources claim that the church was used as a repair garage for PLO vehicles, and also as a range for shooting-practice with targets painted on the eastern wall of the nave.

Twenty Phalangist militiamen were executed and then civilians were lined up against a wall and sprayed with machine-gun fire. None of the remaining inhabitants survived."

Estimates of the total civilian body count at Damour were about 584.  Yes, less than Sabra & Shatila.  But no less evil and utterly appalling.

This particular view conjures up visions of what Hell might look like.  It's the largely Muslim slum district of Karantina, in East Beirut.  As you can see, obviously all was not well that day in the neighborhood.  It was January 18, 1976 and there was a massacre unfolding.  Two days later, revenge came roaring into the little town of Damour.

The serial killers at Karantina were Lebanese Christian Militias, the same types that did all that dirty work later at Sabra & Shatilla under Israeli supervision.  The Karantina Massacre resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 men, women, and children.

And, yes, this bloodletting was a spillover from "Black Saturday," a series of Beirut massacres the month before.  And on and on and on it went for the next horrific 15 years.

So my friend is quite right.  There's cruelty and murder and all manner of evil on both sides of war.  Terrorism is a two-way street, in the Middle East or just about anywhere in the world.  It's a cycle that runs like an atomic clock until either one side is completely annihilated or both antagonists can arrive at terms both equitable and lasting.

I've always condemned all forms of terrorism.  But I'm especially troubled when my tax dollars are used to support it.  The world's largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid--most in weapons, including hideous white phosphorus bombs--is not to Arab terrorists but instead to a regime of war criminals.

These Israeli war criminals use American weapons to attack civilians.  Here they are attacking a Palestinian school in Gaza.  There were other targets, too.

Some of the terrorist victims struggled to survive. 

Others didn't have a prayer.

Maybe this will help you understand why Israel does get a spotlight just as bright as the burning phosphorus they use on women and children.  It is OUR country that sponsors these sadistic barbarians. OUR country sponsored the same monsters that sent their extermination units into those Palestinian camps 28 years ago.

Anyone like to trade places with this mother?
  
Israel's blame game for the real root of all this murder and mayhem will continue on as long as the United States keeps serving as its official ATM.  That's the big story here.

Enough.

Remembrance: "The Day The World Stopped Turning....."

He was the first recorded victim of the horror that engulfed us nine years ago today.

Mychal Judge was, in fact, the official chaplain of the NYFD.  Every year at this time they have The Father Mychal Judge Walk of Remembrance, which starts with a Mass at St. Francis Church on West 31st Street, then heads to Ground Zero, retracing Judge's final journey and praying along the way. 

Every September 11 there's also a Mass in memory of this courageous man in Boston, attended by the grieving family members who lost their loved ones on this terrible day.

Five years after Judge and thousands of others were massacred by maniacs thinking they were on a mission from God, a poignant documentary celebrating Father Judge's life was released.  It was called "Saint of 9/11."  It's easy to see how they got the title when you hear his story.  According to the New York Daily News:

"Upon hearing the news that the World Trade Center had been hit, he rushed to the site.....Judge administered last rites to some lying on the streets, then entered the lobby of the World Trade Center north tower where an emergency command post was organized. There he continued offering aid and prayers for the rescuers, the injured and dead.


When the south tower collapsed at 9:59 AM, debris went flying through the north tower lobby, killing many inside, including Judge. At the moment he was struck in the head and killed, Judge was repeatedly praying aloud, 'Jesus, please end this right now! God please end this!'

Shortly after his death, firefighters found Judge's body and carried it out of the north lobby.....Shannon Stapleton, photographer from Reuters, photographed Judge's body being carried out of the rubble by five men. It became one of the most famous images related to 9/11. The Philadelphia Weekly reports the photograph being called an American Pietà."

Today of course is one of those "where were you" memory days. To tell the truth, I recall actually better my unexpected bouts of sobbing throughout the days and weeks following the unspeakable tragedy in New York, and Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

But on this day nine years ago, I was a fifth grade teacher in a Fairfax County school that had some other teachers married to military personnel.  For the rest of my life I'll never, ever forget looking into the tearful, stricken eyes of one of them.

She was a tough lady, to be sure.  But at that moment she was utterly devastated by the thought that her husband who had gone to work at the Pentagon that morning was one of the casualties.

There was still no word from our ground zero only 20 miles away.  She continued weeping as I hugged her and tried to find the words.

As it turned out, he had survived and was working desperately to help the wounded.  Pulling out bodies.  Finally she got the call that ended her personal nightmare.  He would be coming home.

But the terror continued.  There was rumor that the State Department building had been hit.  No one knew what would happen next.  Sons and daughters throughout our school were by now being picked up, one by one, by frantic parents who would do whatever they could to protect their children from the menace.

Many however stayed in a lockdown with their teachers.  I put on a calm face and asked my remaining children to continue working on their assignments.  Somehow was able to fend off repeated questions why one student after another was being called out of the classroom.

Then I remembered what was sitttng in my instructional mood music bin.  I put it on.  The "Bridge Over Troubled Water" played three times. 

None of my students were among those that lost a parent that day.  One of the children somewhere in the country who was one of the 3,251 that did wrote this message:

"It's time for me to go bed now
I sleep with the light on
Just in case you come home
And kiss me good night
I love you so much
I miss you Daddy...."

Beyond "Troubled Water" is an even more powerful song written by Alan Jackson in the wake of the tragedy.  According to one source:

 "Jackson was devastated by the events of September 11, 2001. He wanted to write a song expressing his thoughts and emotions, but he found it hard to do so for many weeks. 'I didn't want to write a patriotic song,' Jackson said. 'And I didn't want it to be vengeful, either. But I didn't want to forget about how I felt and how I knew other people felt that day.'

Finally, on the Sunday morning of October 28, 2001, he woke up at 4 a.m. with the melody, opening lines and chorus going through his mind. He hastily got out of bed, still in his underwear, and sang them into a hand-held recorder so he wouldn't forget them.  Later that morning, when his wife and children had gone to Sunday school, he sat down in his study and completed the lyrics."

To all the ones who left us nine years ago, we won't forget.

The "frightening clarity" of eyes that watch the world and can't forget.....

You can still catch it blasting over the airwaves nearly forty years after its release.  Our inimitable "American Pie" has never lost  its wondrous flavor.

Hypnotic melody and those oh-so perplexing lyrics.  One musicologist has a very intriguing analysis shedding much light on just what the hell is the meaning hidden in the threads of the song.

Yet in the enormous shadow of this epic is another Don McLean masterpiece with starkly different tones & colors, quite literally.
In 1971 the song writer had read a bio about Vincent Van Gough and was so moved he composed the song "Vincent."  It became a hit in 1972, the same year that "American Pie" dominated the music charts.

                                         

Throughout "Vincent" are references to those immortal landscape paintings as well as his self-portraits, the latter of which McLean thinks the troubled artist found solace.

A major aspect of this haunting ballad is the touching tribute to Van Gough himself, his rejections, and horrific personal torment brought on by severe mental illness, possibly bipolar and, later, schizophrenic depression.

According to one source:

"McLean pays tribute to van Gogh by reflecting on his lack of recognition: 'They would not listen / they did not know how / perhaps they'll listen now.' In the final chorus, McLean says 'They would not listen / They're not listening still / Perhaps they never will.' This is the story of van Gogh: unrecognised as an artist until after his death.

"The lyrics suggest that van Gogh was trying to 'set [people] free' with the message in his work. McLean feels that this message was made clear to him: 'And now I understand what you tried to say to me,' he sings. Perhaps it is this eventual understanding that inspired McLean to write the song.

  
"It is also thought that the song intends to portray van Gogh's tough relationship with his family. They were a wealthy family who did not accept him for his bipolar disorder ('for they could not love you') and never understood his will to help the poor. It is thought that van Gogh felt that in killing himself he would make the point to his parents. This is seen in the line 'Perhaps they'll listen now.'"

In 1890, wracked by his mental demons, Van Gough committed suicide by shooting himself.  It took him two days to die. With his brother Theo at his deathbed, his reported final words were "La tristesse durera toujours" (the sadness will last forever).  Van Gough was just 37 years of age.  It was only after his death that he would be recognized as one of history's greatest artists whose 2,000 paintings and drawings helped establish the foundations of modern art.

And yet he sold only one painting during his short life -- in his final year on earth:  "The Red Vineyard at Arles," bought by another impressionist painter, Anna Boch, for 400 Francs (equal to $1,600 today.)  In 1990, "Red Vineyard" was auctioned for the staggering sum of $82,500,000.

"I experience a period of frightening clarity," said Van Gough, "in those moments when nature is so beautiful.  I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream."

Dream indeed.  Dream deferred.

Thank you, Don McLean, for helping us remember the ragged genuis in ragged clothes behind all the colors. 

Edmond Burke: “Never despair, but if you do, work in despair”

Over 140 years ago a French sculptor created a masterpiece that today sits sadly in the Paris Musée d'Orsay.

Jean-Joseph Perraud simply called his statue, "Despair."

It's no mystery.  Look carefully at the picture.  The thousand words are clear, with all the power and pain that could possibly be spoken.

Tribulation.  Dejection.  Anguish.  Was it one of these themes perhaps haunting Perraud's soul, moving him to create this?

I don't know.  What I'm sure of is how we experience varying temperatures of despair in our lives.  Sometimes it's brief, attacking early on.  Maybe it's later, where it can stay longer and sink its burning hooks right through your heart.

Tonight the summer cricket symphony outside my window is louder than usual.  I'm sinking deeper into some contemplative space, lots of churning reflections, things and places and people, some right here, and some very far away.

My mind runs all through it, a roller coaster car navigating every twist, turn, rise, and fall.  Even upside down.  And the ride sometimes ends with me sitting there, feeling just like Perraud's morose friend.

It all starts, I know, with just that one root thought, germinating instantly into The Feeling.  Feeling then wraps around and tosses me into mood.  Enough mood will ensure the newly created--or repeated--disposition.

The thought is key, at least that's what CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) gospel says.  I'm more and more becoming a true believer, though.  I think.

After some painful rumination, I received a wonderful thought from a Facebook friend that changed my direction.  He had posted a clip, a very special one.  Made me cry like crazy.  But it was one those good cathartic cries, the kind where you are deeply reminded about what some of the important things really are.

Immediately afterwards I visited my father who was working quietly in his office.  Went over and embraced him, saying softly, "Thank you for all you do, Dad."  The look in my teary eyes had him wondering out loud if "all was alright," which he always says.

I couldn't speak so I just nodded, and walked away.

Tonight, faith restored.

Reverse Racism Rears Its Ugly Head

Make no mistake, please.  I don't like this woman one bit.

Like the rest of that herd of broadcasting right-wing "pundits," Laura Schlessinger is unbearably self-righteous and rude as hell.

I'd lose absolutely no sleep if I never saw or heard another obnoxious word from her ever again.  But as we've all seen this week, one word in particular got her in a whole lot of trouble on Tuesday.

Schlessinger had scintillating "Mama Grizzly" Palin later swim to her aide, too.  The Huffington Post reported last Thursday:

Sarah Palin has used Twitter to share some advice with Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host who apologized and decided to retire from her highly-rated program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes.
Palin's advice: "don't retreat...reload!"

It's a breathtakingly tone-deaf bit of provocation -- even by Palin's standards.

Dr. Laura, as she's known on her radio program, quickly came under fire for her remarks of a week ago. She immediately acknowledged the mistake and soon announced that she would end the show once her contract expires later this year. She currently commands the largest audience of any woman in syndicated talk radio and overall her ratings are among the top five hosts in the nation.

Palin, once the governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, has been using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to push her messages in recent months. She fired out two messages about Dr. Laura on Wednesday night, the first reading:

"Dr.Laura:don't retreat...reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")

That was quickly followed by:

"Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice, America!" 
 
I'd likely join a multitude and "b thankful" if Constitutional Law Guru Palin would kindly suffer some regular bouts of both laryngitis and arthritis so there might be some blessed relief from her insufferable blathering and tweeting.  Just maybe Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the other neocon troglodytes might do the same.
 
But there's a bigger elephant here in this room and I think a whole lot of people can hear it roar even louder than "Dr. Laura's" apparent capital crime.
 
That's the very much whispered-about issue of REVERSE RACISM.  Yeah, let's put it in upper case so we can at long last cut all the damn whispering and start talking about it.
 
For instance, is it any mystery, indeed, how this clever little double standard works?  Simple, really; you just need to have the correct skin pigment (tan or brown or black, etc.) and ya got an automatic license to sound out "Nigga" to other black people, be it in private or public settings.
 
No, I realize you've never, ever seen this REVERSE RACIST occurrence, right?  
 
Notice the modification of this offensive word.  My PC is clearly alive and kickin'.  After all, do I want to take a chance gettin' pilloried like that upstart honky girl, Dr. Laura?
 
One of the things she did say in her "rant" was:  "If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it's affectionate. It's very confusing...."
 
 

Hmmmm, confusing it is.  Take Chris Rock, as our favorite case-in-point.  This wildly hilarious man will scream that "Nigga" word 100 times plus in his stand ups, then the laughs (from aggrieved black audiences) will continue all the way to one of his many favorite banks.
 
Oh, of course, it's cause he's a comedian, with the required skin color.  Just like those "gangsta" rappers, who stick the word into their charming little raps with a vengeance.
 
Again, while Schlessinger IS an insensitive, meglomaniac talking head, you can bet the farm that had she looked like Oprah, or Chris Rock, it wouldn't have been The Problem it turned out to be.
 
And The Problem is the one called reverse racism.  I experienced  first hand racial hate politics as a white kid growing up in the 60's & 70's era San Francisco Bay Area, as a student in one of the most racist school systems in creation, my hometown of Berkeley, where those ever-thoughtful left-wing politicians imposed forced busing to try an instant experiment to change the racial atmosphere. 
 
The black woman caller, "Jade," who was mistreated by her oafish host made the outrageous claim later to CNN that ONLY minority people could ever know what racism and discrimination felt like.
 
Not quite.  My experience was five years of a "Burn, Whitey, Burn" living hell in the Berkeley Schools Unified District, perpetrated by militant administrators, teachers, and a whole lot of hostile black students.  I got heaping servings of racism, each and every nightmarish day.
 
Reverse racism.....that nasty ol' elephant is still rampaging around our national living room.  Go on, you can keep on looking away.
 
I'll conclude with this important link to some perspective from a black man who I'd enjoy sitting down to coffee with to compare notes on the pathology of both racisms. 
 
Maybe you'd like to join us.   

Balancing The Kiss Of Life's Highs And Lows

"How did it happen that their lips came together?  How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill?
A kiss, and all was said...."
                                                 -- Victor Hugo

The anguish of witnessing a world's endless tragedies and atrocities--refugees or floods or corruption, genocide, famine or persecution--sometimes throws me to the deepest part of a dark well.

In the throes of that moment, I know I have choices:  Remain there, head hanging in swirling gloom, is one of them.

Another is just look straight up to the distant light, finding something that will renew my spirit so much that I'll fly out from that dank prison like a falcon.

We human beings are such a curious lot.  One of the most simple but dramatic observations made was in a precious film called "Starman."  

"He has traveled from a galaxy far beyond our own.  He is 100,000 years ahead of us.  He has powers we cannot comprehend.  And he is about to face the one force in the universe he has yet to conquer.  Love."

That was what the 1984 movie poster read.  But it was a line that Jeff Bridges' extraterrestrial said just before the end that really captured something.  A blog writer for Explore Science Fiction Movies.com noted:

"And when at one point toward the end of the movie he says, 'You humans are at your best when things are worst,' that is not just another sop to the audiences, a piece of ready-made Hollywood wisdom that should make us feel good about ourselves. That line comes from a creature who was shot at and hunted down, and who experienced persecution and hate at the hands of humans."

Monumental ironies all over the map.  That's our fate, it seems, so much of the time, this co-existance of the most wrenching contrasts in our human condition.

Sometimes, too, it boils down to just the extremes of elation and despair.  The heart-warming "VJ Day Kiss In Times Square" photo  at the top of this post well illustrates the former.   

  Something even more horrifying than despair shimmers in a quite different portrait showing us what happens to sisters of Palestinian boys murdered by Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

Again I feel myself plummeting to the bottom of that dark place.  I ruminate, maybe weep like them for a good while. Then I grab some resolve as to what I can do in my own limited path.

But comes the time to look up to that light once more.  It's still there, in the priceless vision of a kiss.  Or a song.  

Or perhaps both.



"In this world of extremes, we can only love too little."
                                           -- Rich Cannarella

Beneath This Twilight....."Life Starts Now"

Only a dream.  That's how it all started seven years ago.

The housewife woke up that summer morning with a vivid image of two young people deeply in love.  There was, however, a chilling difference to the male teen with the odd sparkling skin.

Something else strange about him.  He was sensitive, yes.  Yet cold to the touch and, all the while, overheated with passion.  He was protective of his love, without any question.

The biggest part about the dream, most palpable and most frightening, was that underneath this Romeo's peculiar skin was an utterly inhuman, unbearable thirst for his Juliet's blood.  Stephanie Meyer was so transfixed by what she saw that right after finishing the housework and tending to her three children, she sat down to the computer and began to write.  And write. And write.

“I started out just so I wouldn’t forget the story," Meyer remembers, "but I kept going. I really feel like it was a situation where I had a talent I was not using; I had buried it. And that was my kick-start. I was supposed to be doing something with this talent.  It sounds a little odd to say that you were inspired to write a vampire novel.”


As it turned out, Meyer didn't start it off with a chapter one.  She instead created first what turned out to be Twilight's chapter 13 ("Confessions") in the first-person narrative of the Juliet, teenage character Bella Swan, in a semisteamy interlude in that now-famous meadow with her dangerous Romeo, 104-year-old vampire Edward Cullen.

From the prose one reviewer described as "a gripping blend of romance and horror," an excerpt:

"I sat without moving, more frightened of him than I had ever been.  I'd never seen him so completely freed of that carefully cultivated facade.  He'd never been less human....or more beautiful.  Face ashen, eyes wide, I sat like a bird locked in the eyes of a snake.

His lovely eyes seem to glow with rash excitement.  Then, as the seconds passed, they dimmed.  His expression slowly folded into a mask of ancient sadness.

'Don't be afraid,' he murmured, his velvet voice unintentionally seductive.  'I promise....'  He hesitated.  'I swear not to hurt you.'  He seemed more concerned with convincing himself than me.

'Don't be afraid,' he whispered again as he stepped closer, with exaggerated slowness.  He sat sinuously, with deliberately unhurried movements, till our faces were on the same level, just a foot apart.

'Please forgive me,' he said formally.  'I can control myself.  You caught me off guard.  But I'm on my best behavior now.'

He waited, but I still couldn't speak.

'I'm not thirsty today, honestly.'  He winked."   

Meyer's "kick-start" ignited what would be the genesis of a literary and film phenomena sweeping the globe today.  This year the four-book Twilight saga sold over 100 million copies worldwide with translations into at least 38 languages.  The latest film from the series, Eclipse, has broken box office records, combining with the earlier Twilight and New Moon to rack in a staggering $1.5 billion in worldwide revenue.  It's anyone's guess what the riches from the final two films will be--derived from the fourth novel, Breaking Dawn--but no doubt they'll be nine-digit wonders.  

Meyer, who has a degree in English literature, says her fantasy romance stories are "about life, not death" and "love, not lust," and that each book was inspired by some classics she had to have poured over during her studies at Brigham Young University:  Twilight came from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice;  New Moon, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (big surprise!);  Eclipse, based on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights; and Breaking Dawn came from a second Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Meyer also states that Orson Scott Card and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series  influenced her writing.

According to one source:

"Other major themes of the series include choice and free will. Meyer says that the books are centered around Bella's choice to choose her life on her own, and the Cullens' choices to abstain from killing rather than follow their temptations:  'I really think that's the underlying metaphor of my vampires. It doesn't matter where you're stuck in life or what you think you have to do; you can always choose something else. There's always a different path.'

                                    
Meyer, a Mormon, acknowledges that her faith has influenced her work. In particular, she says that her characters 'tend to think more about where they came from, and where they are going, than might be typical.'  Meyer also steers her work from subjects such as sex, despite the romantic nature of the novels.

Meyer says that she does not consciously intend her novels to be Mormon-influenced, or to promote the virtues of sexual abstinence and spiritual purity, but admits that her writing is shaped by her values, saying, 'I don't think my books are going to be really graphic or dark, because of who I am. There's always going to be a lot of light in my stories.'"

True enough.

Even if her detractors go on about Meyer's stories being contrived and schmaltzy, what cannot be ignored is the wild sensation created and spread like a wildfire onto the big screen. "I've been in the movie business for twenty-five years, and I've never seen anything like it!" remarked series costume designer Tish Monaghan.  "Maybe it's the Internet, which has created this ocean of adoring fans -- there were fans we saw in Italy on New Moon that were recognized in Vancouver!  It's hard to fathom, but there are many different factors."

Right again.

Fused into three beautifully crafted films is surely the most salient of factors:  Life choices -- and their consequences.  Bella's everlasting love for Edward; worth sacrificing her humanity?  Or the good-hearted Cullen family's option for the high road, not feeding on humans, verses the bestial, murderous Volturi that "don't give second chances."  

         

Intriguing was the Eclipse review by Christianity Today ("A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction").  We all know how much our fundamentalist Dudley Do-Rights adored the "demonic" Harry Potter stories & films.  What, then, is their final word on this sordid tale of undead love and devotion?

The Evangelically Convicted reviewer surprisingly spared the film  a hellfire & brimstone baptism.  She even went as far to admit that "though the movie's view of marriage is not particularly Christian, it does hold the institution with high regard...." 

Lo and behold, baby.  There were even some "discussion starters" at the review's end, featuring some seriously thoughtful questions: 


"1.  Bella faced some tough choices that required her to hurt people she loved; did she make the right choices? Could she have handled the situation better?


2.  We see multiple examples of people being manipulated by those they thought loved them. What does true love look like? How can we tell whether we really love someone, or if we're just using them because they can do something for us? 


3.  In her graduation speech, Jessica tells her fellow graduates, "This is the time to make mistakes." Was this good advice? Why or why not? Are there types of mistakes that are okay? How do we know?


4.  Bella and Edward spend a lot of time discussing marriage. What are their reasons for and against it? Are these good reasons? What are good reasons for marriage?"

Now there's those talking points about choices & consequences.  Doggone well-stated, too.  Only wish the same could be said for one of the review's first comments. Note that raging indignant Believer Cherry Howell not once asked whether or not the spirit warrior Quileute wolves were God-fearing:

"People long for consuming love that will change them. This was put in us by God. This movie takes that longing and twists it. Edward is a romantic hero, who honors Bella by respecting her innocence and asks her to marry him. God intended this also. It's a shame that these virtues have to be intwined in a converted vampire saga. Did the Cullen clan read the bible? The movies are relatively clean except for some mild swear words and insertion of modern safe sex advice.

It's a shame Bella is not shone [sic] to be as virtuous as Edward. There is an interesting trend of making evil characters virtuous, i.e., Harry Potter. They are relatively clean entertainment. But there is something sinister going on here and it is directed at our children. Can blood sucking demonic vampires or worlocks [sic] display virtue? These movies are saying that the Bible and what God has told us is wrong. I think Satan has whispered in a few authors ears. There is just enough virtue in these films to deceive many." 

One thing's for sure, Cherry -- there's a hell of a lot of Satanic Author fans out there now.  And, yep, they're gaining strength.  More Twihard websites are popping up every day including the forces of "Twilighters Anonymous," whose battle cry is "Helping Addicts Since 2008 Because We Don't Want A Cure."

They'll be able to get their next fix at the end of November, 2011 if they can stand the wait.  It won't be easy, for sure, because this story has genuine pathos.  Underpinning all the fantasy and action in these superbly cast & directed films is the very profound question about choices we often must make and their inevitable consequences.

There's a song, "All Yours," that comes on when the credits roll at the close of Eclipse.  Contralto vocalist Emily Haines of the Canadian group "Metric" offers a stunning performance, with poignant lyrics and video (below) that could apply to God just as easily as any earthly--or unearthly--love.

Which makes it perfect.     

"Other lives, always tempted to trade
Will they hate me for all the choices I made?
Will they stop when they see me again?
I can't stop now I know who I am


Now I'm all yours, I'm not afraid
You're all mine, say what they may
And all your love, I'll take to the grave
And all my life starts now


Tear me down, they can't take you out of my thoughts
Under every scar there's a battle I've lost
Will they stop when they see us again?
I can't stop now I know who I am


Now I'm all yours, I'm not afraid
You're all mine, say what they may
And all your love, I'll take to the grave
And all my life starts


I'm all yours, I'm not afraid
You're all mine, say what they may
And all your love, I'll take to the grave
And all my life starts
Starts now....."      [ Click link! :]