The Gremlin's Wings

No, I am not talking about a computer antivirus program. If you were expecting this topic, sorry. I am talking about virus vaccines.

I read a small article where someone actually did a sociology study on the distribution of a theoretical HIV vaccine. It was fascinating to see, mostly because it was an article that was more unique than other articles I have ever seen. Instead of listing results for one country – which has been done – the main researcher collected data from three different countries in the world for this study’s content.

While every study I always have to take with a grain of salt to make sure that I know that it does not represent all people, I can relax a bit on this one. (I still am, by the way; people can influence numbers to say what they want.)

I am just going to go out and say it: HIV scares the crap out of me. It is a deadly virus, in most cases can lead to AIDS, and you can get it from something as simple as having sex with someone (or contaminated blood). There is no known cure, but there are drugs that can help prolong lives and stuff.

In the early 90′s, there was a big awareness campaign about it. You could not see any awards show, for example, without the red ribbon that I show above here on any celebrity throughout the show. It fell out of favor after a couple of years, of course, just like most Hollywood trends.

I wish Hollywood would get tired of this trend, though. Paris, you are ugly, and you are not news. GTFO.

Most people know, however, the threat is still around. AIDS was not exterminated; some say the figures may be as high as 1 in 3 people in Africa are infected with HIV. Tens of thousands of people are infected with the virus in each North American country, if not hundreds of thousands. There is no denying that it is an epidemic, and for a lot of people, it is a death sentence.

I know there is some around that will say the HIV virus is God’s way of smiting the wicked or something like that. I disagree with this statement, since I do not believe a god could be that cruel. What I do believe, though, is that people whom have made the lifestyle choice to put themselves at risk for this virus should not be punished for making that choice, no matter how much I disagree with it personally. Furthermore, for those that do not believe there should be a HIV vaccine because it is “God’s will for the wicked to be cleansed”, do you also believe that a “pure” woman whom was raped should also be subject to God’s judgment in such a manner?

I believe I developed a bit of a tangent from my main point, so allow me to return to it. In the article, I was particularly drawn to this:

We all have our way of thinking and frankly most of us associate vaccines with ‘Okay, now I’m fine.’ The other thing, though, is sometimes we associate vaccines with “Okay, that means that you are going to put a bit of flu inside me.” … Imagine when people think you are going to put a little bit of HIV inside me, [even though] it’s not the case.

This particular part struck me, as I have used the same argument about flu shots. I do not exactly like getting the flu shot, specifically because the vaccine uses a dead version of the virus to allow the body’s immune system learn how to attack the real virus, so then when exposed to the virus the body then can combat it effectively (at least, that is how I understand it). One thing that made more sense about an eventual HIV vaccine: the government would never allow someone to inject another with any form of the HIV virus (at least the Canadian government would not), unless it was proven it works without risk of the person… you know, dying and all that. The version used in testing right now is synthesized to not use the virus, unlike the flu shots.

It leads me to the very obvious question, though, the one I want to base this post on:

If an HIV vaccine was put out tomorrow, would people take it?

It is a legitimate question. I know I definitely would, due to the fact that I would rather be protected against something that could possibly kill me, but would others? Would people in religious communities be shunned for getting a vaccine because of the social stigma surrounding HIV infection? Would the price be too high? Are the side effects bad?

Will taking the vaccine make Vin Diesel ever wear a leather kilt again?

It is a good question. Maybe someone should ask the Pope about it. Yes, I am serious. It would answer a lot of questions right there and then, would it not? It would definitely answer the religion question, and since churches in general tend to dictate behavior in the bedroom and a good majority of the world is religious in some form or another (not to mention that Christian aid organizations are pretty big players in developing countries), it is a valid philosophical question… not the kilt question, but the rest of it.

How will we answer it? I sincerely hope that a lot of the answers come from a personal viewpoint and not a big viewpoint like the Pope or another religious leader, because we need to stamp this out now. HIV has taken too many people away that could not even live up to their own potential as people.

Rest in peace, Freddie. (What? I do not have to put jokes on ALL my picture captions!)

The same can be said for any vaccine. We just hope it does not turn out to be a worldwide placebo, and help the world get over one of the deadliest epidemics to affect the world since the Black Plague (in my opinion only; that may not be a statement of fact).

By the way, I am going to pimp something out here: the World Community Grid. Got a computer that you leave on and are not using all the time? Why not let it crunch a science project for FightAIDS@Home? I challenge you to beat my statistics; I have run over a year of processor time for FightAIDS@Home, and I am proud to donate my spare CPU cycles to a worthy cause such as this.

Now, the vaccine for HIV is many years off – I will be truly surprised if it comes any sooner than five years in the future – but finding out the social impact now of such a breakthrough would be a great thing. I know there are people dying in Africa right now of AIDS – ironically, the one that is rampant through Africa, the place with more HIV infections, is of a different subtype compared to the ones researched in North America, where there is less infected people – and this thing is one of the more adaptive viruses that has ever existed. We should be looking at curtailing this however possible; I would prefer to take all people into the future, if possible.

Let us all hope for a world where we have destroyed this virus, and there is no new outbreaks.

Before I begin, I need to declare that I mean no offense to any religion by what I do, say, or show in this following blog post, nor do I mean to hurt those that say free speech the most sacred of the freedoms that we hold dear. This is only my opinion on the matter.

And here we go…

Bob Martens posted up an article from the Associated Press on his Twitter, and it moved me to make this post. The article itself is one that touches on something that has become a matter of contention in between Islam and the West in general, about religion and free speech. For those who are not going to click on the link, allow me to summarize: a group of Islamic nations from the Organization of the Islamic Conference are lobbying at the United Nations for an international law that will prohibit defamation of all religious symbols. They are in the very early stages of this particular piece of legislation; there is no formal proposal made to the United Nations General Assembly at this time – at least, not one that I can find online. However, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has promised it will be coming.

Earlier this year, the UN passed a resolution which combated defamation of religions all over the world. The original text, I believe it is this one, clearly outlines what it thinks about defamation of religious icons. It seems that there has been at least two other resolutions on this subject, denouncing religious defamation.

I, for one, agree that we should not defame religion. What I do have a problem with, however, is the wording.

I do not meddle much in the matters of international law too much, specifically because I try to take a standpoint of trying to see both sides of the argument, then trying to compromise a solution that is agreeable to both sides. This is probably my main detractor from getting into politics, because I do not like to take sides, and I just prefer being the one who listens to all sides of an argument and helping the two come to a middle ground. Maybe I should be a mediator…

Well, anyway, back to what I was saying. The few things I actually do not like about the text are:

• The interpretation of the resolution is left very wide open. You could open an eight-lane freeway interchange in the space it leaves for what defamation actually is. Does it cover satire? Commentary? Interpretations of religious texts that do not conform with religious norms (which is illegal in some Islamic states)?

I hear UN Resolution Highway is a great drive in the spring time.

• The mention of Islam specifically in the text of the resolution. So… according to the UN, Islam is more important than all other religions in the world? That can not possibly be misinterpreted at all. And yes, I am against the specifically anti-Semitic resolutions in the UN as well.
• This text, which has noble intentions but basically points the finger at the West:

5. Notes with deep concern the intensification of the overall campaign of defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general, including the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001;

6. Recognizes that, in the context of the fight against terrorism, defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general have become aggravating factors that contribute to the denial of fundamental rights and freedoms of members of target groups, as well as to their economic and social exclusion;

I really wish that people got along. I also wish that people would respond more with gentle words and not bombs or religious epitaphs. In diplomacy, we may have resolutions that make sense, but in this… I can not support any resolution that singles out a single religion or group before any others that constitutes infringing one freedom to protect another.

The title of this particular posting is “The Battle of the Freedoms”. Indeed, this is what at least the Associated Press has led me to believe what is happening: the West strictly opposes this resolution, while the non-West supports it almost unanimously. The United Nations is the battlegrounds for this, and the weapons words. The casualties may be a freedom that you hold dear, whether it is your freedom to say what you want, or the freedom you have to be protected against someone telling you that your religion is stupid. Veterans of wars past, I do not envy your position on this.

What will the outcome be?

I sit here, watching the Internet for the next salvo to be fired off.

Should I get myself one of these?

I am worried, not because I like to make fun of religions and that sort of thing – which I do not unless it is Scientology – but it is because of what this law can be mutilated in to.

If I question my own existence in a way that is offensive to the core tenet of a belief of one particular religion, will that make me a criminal in the law’s eyes?

If I am to state an opinion about a policy that a church adopts that is unfavorable, does this mean I will have people calling me a blasphemer?

If I say that I believe a prophet of one religion may be related to another, will I have people calling for my head?

I'm sure the Internet's flying tank will protect me!

I state these, because this is what does happen in some countries. I believe you can do some of the research on this particular point yourself, because there are many examples of where this does happen and will continue happening. The real question I have is… how far will certain countries go to enforce this law in other countries? In this aspect, this is both where the UN both fails and succeeds: it is the democratic way of the member nations, but fundamentally wrong to accept resolutions of this nature that are so open to interpretation.

Because I do not think either of these should be in charge of anything:

And with this… this particular piece of legislation, if it ever passes, will be what has been done.

I am a Star Trek fan.

No one is surprised by this, of course. If you know me, you will know that I have been involved with Star Trek ever since I was a little kid. I remember sitting on the floor, watching this bald guy say “Engage!” on the screen and being absolutely thrilled by the series. And then the original series, one that I still hold dear to my heart, where Kirk would give his famous “Risk is our business” speech, and always get the girl (and get the girl killed, usually). Shatner is the MAN!

Shat happens, baby!

Earlier this year, Paramount decided to release a reboot-style movie about Star Trek. I have got to admire Paramount for having the guts to release this after a very unspectacular Star Trek: Nemesis and the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise television show, especially to a fan base such as the ones that follow Star Trek. I was a little skeptical, but I tried to keep an open mind. I mean, some reboots are fairly good critically and financially, and I expected that one of the most well-known franchises in the world would at least break even.

Of course, we all know how the box office numbers went this summer. Star Trek completely destroyed everything in the box office at the time – even the latest in the X-Men movies, and the movie adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel. It is the only movie that I have gone out of my way to see in theaters this year, and I loved it. I loved its quirks, its humor… and most of all, its story. So did a lot of the world.

(On a side note, the three Valley Girl wannabes sitting behind me in the theater really made me want to hang myself. I am just glad I could not hear them when the movie’s good action scenes started. “Like, oh my gosh, that pointy ear guy is cute!” But I digress.)

As can be expected, I was pretty excited when the movie came out on DVD and Blu-Ray – I would be more excited about the latter if my PS3 was working and not a paperweight right now – and as such, I picked up a copy yesterday and eagerly came home to watch it. I picked up just the basic movie, no extras or special cases, and I am sorry to say that I can not tell you about what I thought about the features that came on the discs. I kind of regret that now, but I also can not afford to spend money on special edition DVDs. Hell, I scrimped just for this regular DVD.

Maybe later, when I get a job, there will be a few bucks around that I can purchase it.

Anyway, the basic DVD actually only comes with one DVD. In it, you get the movie, director’s commentary, a behind the scenes featurette and a gag reel. Pretty standard DVD fanfare. I could not find any Easter Eggs, but truth be told, I was not looking that hard. I was kind of disappointed that the deleted scenes didn’t make it to the basic DVD and I got the gag reel. I would have expected the gag reel to go on the two-disc one and the deleted scenes to go on the basic… or have I missed something about DVD packaging?

I am just really glad I do not make signs

The movie itself? Well, it is good quality, and it is a fun movie.

• All the actors seemed like they actually WERE the characters, to me. This is a BIG thing within this movie that is extremely important, and I think neutralized the concerns about the movie in a big way.
• The Romulan ship. The internals, externals… just how it flowed was so neat. Only thing I really did not get was how it mined things.
• The uniforms. SO glad they stuck to a close to the original series style as possible.
• The storyline. Some may call this movie intellectually lacking, but… that is what I think works for this one. The ones that are looking for a moral just really have to look a little closer than normal to find it, because it is more of a subtext than an in-your-face moral dilemma. See my previous post on morals just to be more sure. Making this movie more accessible to the public is a good thing.

There is really just a couple of issues I have with the thing:

• Lens flares. What the Hell? I do not remember that many in the movie theater. I found myself squinting because of it at times. It seemed to detract from the image of the film, which
• I still think the bridge of the Enterprise either looks like an Apple store or a manufacturing clean room. It does not seem to be a place where people can expect to work without someone with OCD cleaning every surface every 30 seconds.
• Female uniforms. I know this was a nitpick, but pick one, JJ: sleeveless or sleeved.
• This:

Anyway… I would still rate this movie very strongly, despite the above video, considering it does draw parallels in between the two biggest sci-fi franchises. (SHUT UP STARGATE AND BATTLESTAR LALALALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!!) Sure, I can draw similarities in between anything I want too… except Obama and Bush.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with my DVD player.

As I was traveling on the train the other day, I saw someone reading a book about morals. The title of the book escapes me at the moment, but I clearly remember the sub-title of the book: “How to live a moral life in an immoral world”. I can not find the book by a Google search by this string, unfortunately, but that is not the important bit. What is important is this: while I do appreciate a good read every once in a while, this one just seemed to get me chuckling inside, the more I think about it.

Now I know you are probably wondering what I am talking about at this particular point in time.

Truth be told, they inherently are. Most moral codes are instilled in us while we are still young and impressionable. By the time we are teenagers, we have this set of ethics and morals that is harder to change and usually forms the core of our beliefs. Morals, ethics and beliefs are are so closely intertwined that it is difficult to discern where one ends and another begins. Is it the moral thing to chop someone’s hand off if they steal from you? Not in Western culture, but it is a practice that still persists to this day in some parts of the world.

Is your own sense of morality horrified at this?

What is surprising is that mine is not necessarily. They stick to their guns of what they believe in. A belief is what we base our own personal moral codes behind. Again with the Godwin’s Law, Hitler believed the Germans were the Master Race, and all others should be eliminated. He had the moral that he protected Germans at all costs. Then again, Hitler was a crazy man. Beliefs help us shape morals, and are an integral part of the process of creating our morals.

So why did I find this book funny?

I swear, I am not this guy.

Well, it all comes down to why the person would need that book.

I understand self-confidence issues; I have about ten billion of them. However, what I was laughing at was… if someone does not stand up for what they perceive as a moral wrong, what good is it for them to read about other people’s morals? I can sit here and tell you what my morals are. Do I expect you to take them all as your own? No. Most self-help books – and this was the way this book was coming off to me as – promise something of a how to for dealing with life challenges. Personally, I think they are all a joke.

Is it morally right for them to publish these books?

Then again, I guess it may be. Maybe I am wrong in this. Maybe what these books do is inspire people to stand up for what they believe in. Maybe. I do not know. hey, maybe I can get in and write one, see where it would take me. “How to Not Get Ridiculed In My Blog”. Has a nice ring to it, no?

Apparently, that book title was already taken.

But truth be told, this title also got me thinking about something. Something very dark. Something that makes me question things, to see if I have strong beliefs, good morals supporting them.

What would you give up your morals for?

Would you give up your morals if the alternative was to starve to death?

Would you give up your morals if your child’s life (or for the people who do not have kids, the life of the person you care deepest about) was threatened?

Would you give up your morals for large amounts of money?

There are people I know who would not do this whatsoever. There are others that I know would. Some may say that the morals of the people in the military are quite high – at least, the good ones that defend their country – but I submit that some may have turned over their own morals for enlistment. We are taught from a young age to not hit or fight with others, and yet soldiers all they do is fight for our freedom by killing those that would take it away from us. I respect that in them, and I respect that their moral code is changed significantly from what mine is. But still, they gave up some of their own morals to protect our ability to set our own.

I think I will leave this one here, because I want you to feel out the answer to this question yourself. I invite anyone who read this to comment below about what they thought about what they would give up their own morals for. Would it take desperation, a noble cause, love to give it up?

Think about your answer before you say that you would not.

It may come as some shock to you that I was never a born leader. Wait a second… there are people who may read this whom have worked with me in the past. In that case, then you would not be shocked at all. And neither would my parents, my friends, ex-girlfriends… okay, so it might not be a shock to many. But still!

When I am put in a position of leadership, by whatever freakish circumstance there is, I will admit that I am probably not the best choice for the position. I am moody, sometimes getting really irrational, sometimes confrontational, sometimes just wanting to run away… and the list goes on. There has only ever been one position that I was leading in that I have ever even been remotely good at, and even then I am not too sure of it.

One of the things I have learned in my few years out there is that in order to be a leader, you have to do some things differently than what you used to do. It works a lot like customer service, really: no one wants to know what the sales associate’s attitude is towards certain people; they want a sale. Anything less than this, they do not make the sale. Sales associate does not sell something, they get let go. The funny thing is that the same principle is true of leaders, whether it is business leaders (with the exception of Donald Trump), politicians, or something small, like leadership of a gaming guild or a gaming community.

Is his comb-over the source of his dark power? Or his wallet? ...I think the former.

The Internet is a good example of a place where this is present. Generally, if someone is a friendly and courteous leader, they will have people follow them willingly. Some can see why a position of leadership is a position of power. In the case of the Internet, though, the position is usually granted to you by a few people. I, for example, can say things here and I have the power of writing this down because I know that, somewhere, someone will actually read this. According to some, this is a power. I think it is just that I might have something interesting to say and someone may want to read it. Whether they do or not is up to them. That is the way of the Internet.

However, some people who do have people elevating them to a position of power have to remember what comes with great power. This guy by the name of Peter Parker might have some idea, he got told it by his Uncle Ben who died tragically.

With great power comes great responsibility.

It is true, but really it is any type of power has responsibility for usage of said power. It is the moral thing to do.

Take, for example, the situation with al Qaeda. The leaders of the organization were given power by people who believed them, and then they took that power and twisted it into something destructive. Hitler did it too (and yeah, I just used Godwin’s Law), by shaping it up for the Germans being the master race and leading an attack on sovereign nations just because they could.

If you want less violent examples… let us examine the story of the douche bag Perez Hilton. Actually, let us not do that, because that makes me want to break a standard of decorum I decided upon for this space a while ago: I am not going to swear on here. Let us just say, it is already thoroughly covered and move on.

This is an accurate representation of a douche bag.

My original point was that people do listen to the leader of a group, and of all those above examples, the group does listen to those people. Osama still has followers, the leader of the Third Reich used his power to kill dissenters, and Perez has traffic to his site that I would love to see on mine (well, okay, maybe not the people per se because I do not want Valley Girls all over my comments, but you get my point). All leaders do have people that will listen to the leader, and they give them that power.

The question is… what does a leader do with that power? Do they take it and try to do good things with it? Or do they do evil with it?

Obviously I am not saying that we will get the next Hitler off of the Internet. We probably already have that at 4chan.org’s boards. What I am saying is that there is different things that a leader can do. Here’s what a good leader does:

• Stays neutral in debates and moderates the discussion
• Lets others vent their frustrations
• Acknowledges that there may be good points within negative feedback directed towards them
• Listens to and publicly respects the opinions of those they do not personally like
• Acting academically in discussions
• Be understanding of others’ emotions and different volatile relationships

Here is what a bad leader would do:

• Slanders someone who does not have power to further their own point
• Does not listen to the advice of others
• Publicly humiliates those directing negative feedback towards them
• Acting emotionally in discussions*
• Ignore the feelings of others

I do recognize that when I have had a chance to do some leadership, I have done the stuff in both the good and the bad columns. I am no saint when it comes to this, and neither is anyone else.

Not an accurate representation of me. I got a haircut and found my shoes.

I only acknowledge that the good leaders also acknowledge the things that would make them bad leaders, and they try to minimize that impact in their role. I guess you can summarize everything I am trying to say as: try to be good. That’s really all I want to get across.

Now, back to my other writing goals, and less blasphemy for me.

*This one can be taken both ways, really. On the one hand, how you feel about a topic does come into play when defining your own moral code, but on the other hand reacting to others’ points with raw emotions is a bad thing. It is a balance that should be reflected in a leader’s everyday life, and one of the defining characteristics of a good leader versus a bad leader. H-uh. I may have to analyze later.

All right, there has been something on my mind for the last long while. It has nagged at me, especially since I moved back to the city and saw this every day, I feel like a dam that is going to burst if I do not vent this frustration with this particular trend anywhere. The fact of the matter is:

I hate skinny jeans on men.

Yes, this is a fashion trend. Gah!

Just posting that picture up there has made me feel sick to my stomach.

Skinny leg, low-cut jeans on men is a fashion trend that I cannot follow in good conscience, and there is some damning evidence for it as well. First off, I’ve seen this one around for most of the 2000′s (I always get confused in what to call this decade – the 2000′s? The Zeros? The Naughties?), and the first place I saw it? Women. I can admit, a woman in one of these jeans doesn’t look too bad. Maybe they look a little more fragile in these ones, more like a stiff breeze could break their legs, and I think it may encourage the anorexic/bulimic look, but if you have the body for it and it works for your fashion sense, go for it. There is some women that genuinely can rock out this look.

Note I only say some women.

Some fashion designer, in whatever infinite wisdom they use (insert very sarcastic eye-rolling motions here), decided that this look would be perfect for males. And voila. A trend is born.

Problem is… it looks ass-ugly.

I have no problems with some things being unisex. The hooded sweatshirt, for example, is a good example. I think females look good in one – granted, they look even better when wearing mine after a night of… okay, let us not go there – and it is an acceptable thing. Guys’ ties is something that some people are using as a fashion trend on females – a hint, it only looked good on Avril Lavigne for about two years and she stopped wearing it too. Some of the long hairstyles that made it over from females to males I can stand, as well.

Definitely not this one, Justin. Glad you cut it, or else you would be getting a subscription to Ass Pirate Monthly.

But these jeans that is the focus of this post… just… NO!

Unisex is great, but when I hear stories about men interchanging their pants with their girlfriend and wearing their girlfriend’s pants… that is just stepping over a line. (Yes, I have heard that one, from a male who was proud of this fact. Scared me to no end.)  It almost seems that society is trying to castrate men – first the mustache falls out of favor, then male manicures, and now this?!? – and leave us with effeminate males. If I was a conspiracy nut, I would say that a group of hardcore feminists are in control of the fashion world and trying to strike back at males for centuries of oppression, and it was a subtle way of striking fear into those that are male, and proud to be male. I am not, so I will just say it is disturbing.

Why am I speaking up now? Actually, I have told this to the face of several men, whom have just shrugged it off. The one that I mentioned earlier that swapped pants from his girlfriend told me that she thought it was hot. To be fair, I knew both of them, and I always thought they were both semi-freaks of nature as-is. Is this anti-masculinity as a trend, or is that the little paranoid voice in my head that feels that it is perfectly logical to buy a shack in the middle of the woods, three rifles, enough ammo to declare World War 3 and foodstuffs to last a nuclear holocaust talking and saying that?

Yeah, but does it have a good 'Net connection?

Of course, it could just be that fashion is inherently stupid. I mean, have you ever actually watched any of the reality shows where they are competing to be fashion designers? I would not want any of them on a remote desert island with me, and they would be the first ones sacrificed for food if that were the case – a fashionable roast, anyone? – so I tend to agree with that. So really, we are trusting trending to come from these people?

I guess I will just have to live with the fact that men want to be emasculated. The more we buy these clothes, the more plentiful they become in the Gaps, the Old Navys, the Off The Walls, or wherever people buy clothing. I am just wondering when it will be fashionable for men to wear skirts and dress like 80′s hookers… and not be in drag. Maybe never. Maybe in ten years. Maybe we will all look like extras from the Rocky Horror Picture Show in five years. Who really knows?

All I know? I am not going to be doing the Time Warp again. Even if it is just a jump to the left… and then a step to the right.

When I got this blog I never thought I would have to have sequels to my own posts, but apparently I do, especially when I make somewhat erroneous statements that should be corrected, and then within themselves analyzed and explained.

Now, quoting myself:

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

After some humbling I got from certain people whom I hold in high esteem, I decided to take some of my own advice and investigate for myself into the parts where marriage in between two people of the same sex is talked about in the Bible, in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. I read Genesis and Exodus completely, and used Wikipedia as a guide to skip to the parts where the rest of this topic were brought up. This is my results.

What is odd is that people today kind of gloss over the fact that same-sex marriage is not brought up in the Bible whatsoever. I am serious on that. Nowhere does it say, “Two men can not get married” or “Two women can not get married”. Actually, when reading over all the parts that people quote for evidence against same-sex marriage, only one part of the Bible actually mentions same-sex intercourse in between women (and I will come to that later). Most of it has to do with male homosexuality and sexual relations specifically.

As you can probably guess, the word “sodomy” is directly derived from the city of Sodom. The passage that directly relates to same-sex relationships in general is Genesis 19:4-9. I will quote from the New Jerusalem Bible, because it was easiest to find online:

4 They had not gone to bed when the house was surrounded by the townspeople, the men of Sodom both young and old, all the people without exception.

5 Calling out to Lot they said, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so that we can have intercourse with them.’

6 Lot came out to them at the door and, having shut the door behind him,

7 said, ‘Please, brothers, do not be wicked.

8 Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof.’

9 But they retorted, ‘Stand back! This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge. Now we shall treat you worse than them.’ Then they forced Lot back and moved forward to break down the door.

Now, to put it in plain speak, basically these two angels came down posing as people to see if the people of Sodom were bad. They met Lot, who was a good man and gave them shelter and food. That night, a bunch of townsfolk found out about what the two people were doing there and basically preemptive strike them by having sex with them. The rabble, being mostly men, were about to rape the two traveling men. Lot offered his virgin daughters, but the crowd wanted retribution on the two travelers and wouldn’t settle for anything else.

What’s odd about this section is that the New Jeruslaem Bible specifically states “have intercourse with”, but other bibles actually say “meet” (for example, the New American Standard Bible says this). See, one of the things I brought up in the first part was how the original Bibles were written in Aramaic and Hebrew, and direct translations are sometimes not possible. Indeed, even looking at the English language, “intercourse” does not specifically have a sexual meaning. Dictionary.com refers to intercourse as “dealings or communication between individuals, groups, countries, etc.” while still retaining the sexual connotation of the word in a later definition. In Hebrew, it is even more confusing. The word “yada” is used in this passage, which directly translates to “relations” in a non-sexual manner, though it is used as innuendo to sex in other parts of the Bible. It is the key to the very sexual connotation of this entire passage of the Bible, and there’s a question as to its accuracy. What was that gang trying to do to those two? Were they going to gang-rape the travelers, or were they going to simply beat them? A trick of language is really all that stands in between us and the intent of the original writing – note I do not say author.

I realize that the Old Testament is more used by the Jewish religion than Christianity, but all of Christianity is based upon the teachings of the Old Testament. What really boggles me is the next part of the examination of the books, which comes from the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus basically is the closest thing you can ever have in the Bible to a book of direct rules. It is where Moses gets the laws he must pass down to the Isrealites, mostly about procedures for worship and stuff like that. 18:22 is what we’re interested in, though, and is the most commonly cited evidence against same-sex coupling in the Bible, and for good reason. It reads:

You will not have intercourse with a man as you would with a woman. This is a hateful thing.

Again, translation issues with the last little bit there, as well as the intercourse bit. I checked a few different versions of the Bible, and this one is pretty clear-cut as a sexual connotation, though, especially considering Leviticus 18 is going over what is classed as incest before this little gem pops up. So according to the Old Testament, sex in between two men is wrong.

All right then, so we have our clear-cut proof, but why am I still hanging on this point? Because of Leviticus 20:13, that is why.

The man who has intercourse with a man in the same way as with a woman: they have done a hateful thing together; they will be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

Yes, this is a quote that I am going to use against people whom are arguing with Leviticus 18:22. Why? Well, there are a few reasons. First off, if someone is using the Old Testament as a rule reference in Christianity, it stands to say that entire book becomes fair game, right? Second, it very clearly states that the punishment for sex in between two men is death for both parties; if someone believes so strongly in Leviticus 18:22, why are they not doing the duties directed to them by God Himself and putting every gay man to death that they can find as directed by Leviticus 20:13? Third, why is Isreal not following this law? Isreal was set up as a Jewish state with religion making the backbone of the Isreali way of life. The Hebrew Bible – the Old Testament – is the books they follow. Yet, Isreal’s LGBT rights rival that of anywhere in the world, according to Wikipedia. Gay couples can not get married on Isreali soil – this is really the only spread of religion that affects gay couple’s rights – but out of country marriages are recognized.

I am skipping over Ruth 1:14, the Books of Kings “male prostitute” references, and the Books of Samuel story about David and Jonathan, because they are really weak references. Ruth 1:14 is way open to interpretation, as is the David and Jonathan story, and the Books of Kings “male prostitutes” were part of rituals of other religions that were expelled because they were not needed for rituals for God – a morally ambiguous thing since the female prostitutes were kept. Also, I am skipping these so I can get to the New Testament.

I will admit, I was used to the script and voice of the Old Testament when I switched gears over to the New Testament, and I found myself confused when I started to read over the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans. The language was different, definitely. The Apostle Paul was a good writer, and the book is written much like an open letter to the people of Rome. Not a bad way of putting things, I think.

Romans 1:26-27 has apparently the most condemning view of homosexuality, and I can see why:

²⁶ That is why God abandoned them to degrading passions:

²⁷ why their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural practices; and the men, in a similar fashion, too, giving up normal relations with women, are consumed with passion for each other, men doing shameful things with men and receiving in themselves due reward for their perversion.

Yes, this is the mention of female homosexuality that I was mentioning earlier. However, I learned long ago that context is everything, so I read back a bit in this chapter and I discovered that this was apparently punishment for idolatry, the First Commandment. Oh yes, I just pulled out the Ten Commandments on you. The entire structure of Chapter 1 of Romans is starting off with introducing Paul as the servant of Jesus and referred to as an apostle, and he is telling the Romans about how proud he is that the Romans believe that Jesus is the Son of God and their savior. He apologizes for not coming earlier to the Romans to talk with them because he was held up with responsibilities to the Greeks and barbarians, and then expresses his joy at preaching to the Romans. He believes that God is great and for everyone that believes, and that people who do not honour God and acknowledge Him will be abandoned to “unacceptable thoughts and behaviors”.

In context, the standard Christian behavior of today now seems a little clearer, and makes me understand those that are gay in the Christian communities and what they must go through. According to this, people whom have sinned are being punished by giving them homosexual desires. Specifically in this passage is mentioned idolatry, which is putting something else above God whom is supposed to be the highest on the totem pole (now there is a mixed metaphor if I could ever think of one). So a Christian man or woman who is an upstanding member of the community and is the first person to further the word of God and Jesus, feels the desire for someone of the same sex… and this is punishment for breaking the First Commandment? Is it just me, or does this sound like entrapment?

It seems that Paul was the only one that brought up homosexuality in the New Testament, referring to it in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 as well:

⁹ Do you not realise that people who do evil will never inherit the kingdom of God? Make no mistake — the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, the self-indulgent, sodomites,

¹⁰ thieves, misers, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians again is set up like an open letter; probably better to say that this is the recorded text of a verbal sermon given in the church at Corinth. This particular passage, though, suffers from translation problems as well; “sodomites” in the New Jerusalem Bible is actually derived from the greek word arsenokoitēs in the original untranslated version. This is a word whose origin can only be guessed at – and is many times within the different translations of the Bible – and only appears here and in 1 Timothy 1:9-10. It actually can translate out to “abusers of themselves with mankind” as it does in the King James Version of the Bible, or “those who practice pederasty” as it does in other versions.

It is odd that Paul does not say that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of God; Jesus himself said that fornication defiles a man (Matthew 15:19-20 and Mark 7:20-23) and it would be logical to assume that fornicators do not inherit the kingdom of God as Paul said would happen to the sodomites as well. To be honest, it sounded like Paul was homophobic. Why would Paul be the only one to bring up homosexual practices when it was not even brought up by Jesus himself? And why did no one else bring it up? I seriously doubt that only one of the twelve apostles would come across homosexual behavior; after all, pederasty was kind of big in both Greece and Rome.

With how much emphasis has been put on the words pointed out here, I wish there was more on this. I wish the meaning was clearer in what they were trying to say, because there needs to be a way of grokking this better than what we have today. While the Bible is direct in some places, where it is direct has me asking questions, and then other parts combined with that confuse me and make me want to know why. I am not a theology scholar, nor do I pretend to be. I am just a guy seeking answers to questions in my own mind.

Paul also had one other good point that I would like to point out while I am here. It is something I caught from Romans 1:21-22:

²¹ …they knew God and yet they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but their arguments became futile and their uncomprehending minds were darkened.

²² While they claimed to be wise, in fact they were growing so stupid…

If you talk to some people, they will tell you that I have, in the past, been a victim of this. In fact, we all can be at times when we do not see the other side or try to understand why someone is arguing so passionately for or against. This applies to people who believe and people that do not believe as well, which is where I disagree with Paul the Apostle on this subject. Whether it is faith, politics, economics, or any topic in the world, we are all victims of this, and the better we are at recognizing it, the better off the world will be.

…what? Just because I do not have cable means I can not step in and say what I thought about a TV show’s series premiere?

Moving on…

If no one knows what the Stargate franchise is, allow me to summarize. It’s all based off of the 1994 movie named Stargate, starring Val Kilmer and James Spader. Basically, the movie was about this device found in the Egyptian deserts called a stargate that can create stable wormholes in between two of these gates. Blah blah blah, big talk about Egyptian symbols, the pyramids were really landing platforms for spaceships, yadda yadda yadda, BAM they go through the gate and find a tribe of humans that worship the sun-god Ra. Basically after that, it turns into a sci-fi action film. At the end, they blow up the bad guy, the geeky guy gets the hot girl and stays behind, and the military guys go home. Roll credits.

The film got itself a cult following, and eventually a group of people pitched a sci-fi TV show based upon this premise (with a few minor revisions to the details) and then Stargate SG-1 was born, which lasted a decade of (in my opinion) pretty decent storytelling. Sure, there was some weak points, but what show doesn’t? Show me someone who thinks that every episode of any show did not need any improvements that lasted that long, and I will show you every type of happy pill that’s in their medicine cabinet. Then there was another spin-off, Stargate Atlantis, that pushed it further, going into another galaxy.

But, well, what franchise doesn’t try to go that one more?

Stargate Universe logo - screencap for stargate.mgm.com trailer

Stargate Universe, unlike the previous outings, takes, in my opinion, so far what looks to be the grit of the original movie and try to bottle it up into a TV show. I am just going to come out and say it: I like it. I have been a fan of the series before this, and to be honest, the new direction was quite refreshing. 2009 is truly the time of the re-imagined old universes getting their day. We had Star Trek earlier, and now this.

Now, here’s what I like:

• The sets were not “chipper”. If you look at Atlantis, the main sets they needed every day were just so cheerful in comparisons – reds and light blues, lots of bright beauty shots of the base, abandoned for 10,000 years but still in pristine condition. SG-1 was looking to be somewhat hopeful with their sets as well, with the Cheyenne Mountain complex in bright lights and stuff. Stargate Universe tossed 80 people into a hundred thousand year old starship on a course to the edge of the Known Universe, and it felt like it. The sets were dirty, brown and black, there was grime everywhere… it looked old. It felt old.
• Colonel Young/Dr. Rush. No, I am not talking about slash-fic – now THAT is a mental image I want to erase. I am talking about the character dynamic in between the two. I liked the play in between the military and the brainy civilian know-it-all, and I believe the two actors carried the part well. I couldn’t even remember that Robert Carlyle was in any other movies… like The Full Monty.
• They killed Christopher MacDonald. I have seen him in enough asshole parts, and him playing a good guy Senator didn’t really fly with me that well. Thumbs up on that one.
• Desperation. You’re lost out in space, inconceivably far away from home… and you actually got the feeling that they were struggling. Only two sci-fi franchises have attempted something like this, and one failed so miserably with this premise it should be taken out back and shot, while still being a relatively okay series if you ignore that fact. The other was the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. SGU does this job very well so far, and I hope it keeps this momentum for the series.
• Eli. The gamer kid who ended up solving a mathematical proof embedded in a video game – which was Stargate Worlds, by the way – was beamed out of his home and onto a spaceship, and just gets thrown into situations all the time. I loved that.
• According to the literature on the series, Ming-Na’s character is a lesbian. Wow, the person that played Mulan is not so Disney-clean anymore, h-uh?
• There was no big bad guy forced down your throat within the first two hours of the series. The only enemy they really have is each other, and the fractures start to show.
• Small nitpick, but one that fueled online debates: they corrected an error from the Stargate Atlantis finale that really irked people. Thank you production design team on Stargate Universe for naming the George Hammond the RIGHT thing instead of the General Hammond. (For people unfamiliar, General Hammond was the first commander in Stargate SG-1 of the command center for the base. Don S. Davis, the man that played Hammond, died before the series finale of Atlantis, and they made the character die and named a battlecruiser after his character.)

And here is the things I did not like:

• The actors that play the Lieutenant and the Marine Sergeant. I did not like them. They just did not seem… right for the part. The Lieutenant I thought was more believable, but not by much. I wanted to get behind the Lieutenant, and I felt for the Lieutenant… but I could not fully get behind him as a character. The Marine Sergeant was worse; I wanted him pushed out of an airlock.
• Lou Diamond Phillips. Uh… where was he? He showed his face, what, once? I was promised some Lou Diamond Phillips time, now someone please get me some bad-ass Lou Diamond Phillips action time up in this series!
• The three-parter. That irritates the crap out of me. The two-hour series premiere is actually two of the three parts of the general arc of this storyline. That just makes me want to stab things with pointy objects because I have to wait another painstaking week in order to finish my unfinished business with this show.
• Man, the Ancients must be really conveniently seeding the way for this ship to make it this far with drone ships manufacturing stargates for them… it smells like plot convenience, and while I understand that you can not have a Stargate show without stargates… it just seemed to be a little off, and just too convenient.
• I want more! Stabbity-stab-stab-stab.

Well, another thing to add to the “things I would get cable back in my house for” list. Still is not enough, though.

Other reviewers give shows, movies or music thumbs up, stars, percentages… but me? I am just going to say I liked it, and that it drew me in for the next episode. Sure, it has its shortcomings, but hey, what new show doesn’t?

(Oh, and a side note for MGM: if you want to advertise a Stargate show like a movie, then make it a movie, dammit. The trailer was completely misleading.)

I like Twitter.

I like Facebook.

Hell, I like the concept of social networking sites in general, with the exception of MySpace. They are a great way to keep up with the people in your life that you did not really know and do not really see that much, but you can find out where they are now because once upon a time, you used to be friends, or closer, or for those that move away for work and can not visit as often. Some people use it for nefarious purposes, like the one person whom was on the Gap helpdesk line that would search Facebook for names of women whom he thought sounded attractive on the phone. (Yes, that actually happened. No, I am not kidding. Word of advice: make sure your pictures and profiles are set to Friends Only.)

Facebook is a great tool, and so is Twitter. Twitter is an interesting concept: use 140 characters or less to describe whatever you want. It has powered a lot of movement, a lot of press lately, and most journalists who would bash this little slice of web that I call my own would say that Twitter is killing serious journalism – then again, they also say that about blogging, and yet they mostly still have jobs. Tweets generally contain information from the mundane to the groundbreaking, from the general useless spam to the valued updates, from the misinformation to the accurate verified truth.

I consider myself a casual blogger. I am not serious enough with it to start advertising and pull in money, nor start up any type of big writing project, I just write when it strikes my fancy. I write fiction for myself, fiction with friends as part of a few writing groups I’m a part of, simulation role-playing writing (yeah, those that can call me a nerd can do so now), the odd but occasional short story for here, poems, you name it. One thing I’ve noticed, though, ever since I started using Twitter…

I do not want to write anymore.

Years ago, I used to be able to write a five page short story without batting an eyelash. I used to have Word documents on my computer full of stories that were novels, poems, short stories, creations, drafts… I have also written a few blogs before – this is in fact my fourth attempt at keeping a regular blog: two on Internet forums, one on a separate blogging system that shut down. But try as I might, now that Twitter has got me seeing people like Brent Spiner writing stories through his Twitter page, or Ryan Sohmer’s epic-ness using his words on Twitter… it is becoming harder and harder now.

If I could do something like this for the rest of my life – maybe even be a columnist for a local newspaper or something – I can honestly say I would be happy. But I think I now know why journalists do not like Twitter that much, because I may be experiencing a little bit of it: I am losing that little bit of me, the little kid inside of me whom just has all these words floating around inside his head for some reason in a story that makes sense to him and he wants to share it.

Why carefully research a subject when a mass of people will just post us hearsay anyway?

Why write an eloquent article about something close to the heart when an A-list celebrity writes about the dream they had last night on their Blackberry and has 2.3 million followers? (FYI, the most any one of the people I follow has for followers is the aforementioned Brent Spiner, who has 1.1 million. Next in line is Jeph Jacques, writer/artist of Questionable Content with under 30000 followers.)

Why write an in-depth analysis of the swine flu pandemic with truthful facts when people will just go and listen to whatever tweets are trending at the moment?

I see their frustration, and I do sympathize with it.

What’s worse is that Facebook is trying to be like Twitter. This new “put an @ in front of a name and there’ll be a link to their name” thing, I swear, I’ve seen it used in status updates from my friends list… exactly three times. Nice update, Facebook, even being a direct rip-off of Twitter – though, on the flip side, it is probably because they’re trying to win over Twitter users and that is one way of doing it. MySpace even announced a syncing service with Twitter, so you can update status messages from Twitter and vice versa. There’s a long-standing application on Facebook that will do something similar.

The question I have is: Has modern writing devolved into anything that can fit into 140 characters or less? 160?

I would like to think not. I also would like to think that everywhere where this blog gets doled out to, people read it and they have their opinions, and they take something from it and they want to comment about it or how I am wrong and my haircut really hides the Devil horns, they do so. So far, that has proven to be false, so maybe I am wrong. I can admit that.

I really hope, though, that people use status updates on social networking sites responsibly. Facebook, I expect it to be about personal stuff, true, and to a certain extent, I would expect Twitter to as well. Just please do not kill that which I love in the process: the art of the written word.

I would like to eventually get married.

Is this a surprise that I declare this? Probably not, but maybe it is for those that may be uninformed about me. I’m not exactly the most sociable person around, true, but I think that there’s a Mrs. Gremlin out there for me. Some people spend all their lives searching for that special someone, and they may find them. I prefer to look at the positive side that I can find my Mrs. Gremlin, and I still have many years ahead of me, more than what I leave behind. At least, I hope I do. Have I found her already? Yeah.

You know, marriage is a true oddity. It is about the commitment of two people to each other, how they will love each other for all time, etc. Marriage and weddings is a religious ceremony repeated across many faiths; even for the non-religious and the atheists it can be a big production, though. It is one thing that most people across the globe can say that they have in common, that weddings are prevalent in societies. The ceremonies may look different, but the process is almost the same if you look at all of them. The general gist is people joining their lives together. Most of the time, I would assume this is because of another force: love.

I can’t go through a post on marriage without talking about love, and explain a few of my views on this particular subject. Whether you believe love is a wonderful thing that links people together, or a biological reactionary to the human need to procreate, it is essentially present in our lives. It is a passion for something that cannot be easily denied or forgotten, and leaves an incredible impression on our psyche, one that I would dare say would be something that shapes us the most in our lives. We associate most of our relationships through our passion we have for others and ourselves, and the direction we go in life can be heavily influenced by the aforementioned passion we can show for things. To borrow a quote from a Hugh Grant movie:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around.

(TANGENT: Love Actually was an impressive movie that openly discussed love in an entertaining fashion. I would recommend it… but if you are a male, grab a woman before renting it. Definite chick flick, but it’s not as obnoxious as others. Also, rent it in the month before Christmas for maximum effect, preferably within a week or two. You’ll see why.)

Note my use of “passion” instead of “love”? Passion, rather than just being a purely physical thing trashy romance novels try to portray, is actually a general term that should be behind love… and hate, really. Nick Scipio said it best: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.” The same passion you use for love can easily translate to hate, but the lack of passion, the lack of any intense feelings, or indifference, is at the polar opposite of the emotional spectrum. This explains propaganda so well, as the entire point of it is to erase all indifference and set the subject in a passion that is controlled in a way that is favorable to the presenter. Case in point: any political smear ad campaign ever done.

Now that I have gone off and talked about love, the point I was trying to make was that love is part and parcel for a marriage to work. An expression of two people (leaving out polygamists, sorry) to the commitment of lifelong love and partnership is getting married, and who am I to stand in the way of two people expressing that? I ask myself that in this subject, and I cannot really say that I am justified in any way to stand in the way of this, unless I believe that the couple, on a case-by-case basis, does not love each other. Yes, I take that part of wedding ceremonies seriously; you do not?

A few years back, there was a similar debate to this in the United States of America about certain people marrying other certain people. It was against God’s nature, perverse, unholy… you name it, there was an argument against it. What am I referring to? A man of dark skin marrying a woman of white skin… or was it white man, black woman? I know one was frowned upon, even illegal for a long time, within the States. Some places it is still frowned upon and discriminated against, but that is because the people that do are brought up that way and do not know any better. (They are still wrong, though, in my opinion.) Is it illegal anymore? No.

So if the same arguments are being used today for same-sex marriages, did the Bible change?

Did someone find a new scripture?

Did Pope Benedict (whom I always associate with eggs) suddenly come up with a new Bible that specifically says that weddings between people of different skin color is OK, as long as they’re not the same sex?

Actually, that last one has always confused me. WAS there a new bible that specifically forbade two people from expressing their love for each other by getting married? I am not a Christian, true, but I have problems believing that an all-mighty God that is forgiving and loves everyone suddenly hates people that openly admit attraction for the same sex. Did Jesus all of a sudden hate little Billy because he found out he liked looking at Tommy instead of Jill? I just… I do not get it. As far as I know, there is nothing specifically in any part of the Bible that says a marriage is only in between a man and a woman. Marriages had been going on for years before the New Testament was written; it’s only natural the Bible includes at least one marriage ceremony.

(Also, I would like to point out that the Bible as read today has been edited at least once a century. Oh, right, and it’s been translated from Latin. Languages change over 2000 years. Perhaps not Latin, but English does, definitely. Just saying that people reading and translating could have made errors; the Bible may be the word of God, according to Christians, but the Bible was not written in your language first, it was written in Latin or Aramaic. Some impact may be lost in translation, and other via just humans over the years that admittedly sin and seek forgiveness for their sins; nobody is perfect, after all. Whoa, heavy tangent… but I have a strong idea that you may want to question things before trusting them fully.)

The passion I see in fighting marriages in between same-sex partners, I acknowledge. Obviously, there is some passion in this subject, though I do not understand it – how is marriage cheapened by two people whom do not believe in the same thing as you but love each other getting married? – and I do not personally agree.

So everyone out there, can we agree on dropping any modifiers from the word “marriage”? According to common law, marriage has no modifier anywhere else, why should those of the same sex that are marrying be called something different so that “your” term is not cheapened? Ownership of a concept and a word that has been around for thousands of years and predates the Old and New Testaments, practiced around the world just seems to be stupid to me. If a church does not want to perform the marriage, fine. Making others not perform it? Seems like a case of “I’m imposing my morals on others, believe in what I believe in or DIE!” to me. I thought that sentiment was waning, but apparently I was wrong.

Live and let live. You will live longer.