I, and three other guys tried to save a dying man today. Louis Martinez, one of my customers, suffered an apparent heart attack in the men's bathroom in the building where I work. It was difficult just getting to him, since he had his full weight leaning against the only door that opened inward. We had to get to him, so we could move him to the open hallway to render first aid. At first, there were only three of us rotating, doing CPR. One of us did chest compressions. The next guy did mouth to mouth, and the third guy held Louis' neck and head in a position to maximize flow of air through his windpipe. We were unable to get a pulse, and that was his condition when the medics took him rushed him to the emergency room. Through a series of circumstances, we estimated that Louis had been unconscious for at least 20 minutes.

I was just getting to know Louis. I knew that he sang in a mariachi group. He was a caring man who understood his friends faults without articulating them to all within earshot, yet remained loyal, regardless of them. I suspect that Louis deserves to be remembered for his life, and not for how and where he died. He was 58 years old. He was a good man.

Get Smart, the movie has some laugh out loud funny moments, but it is loaded with double entendre's interspersed with scenes that lack subtlety. The simulated male homosexual sex scene is one that comes to mind. The full lip lock between Steve Carell's and Dwayne Johnson's characters is another. Steve Carell is one of the funniest guys in the movies today, and Anne Hathaway is one of the most beautiful, but physically comedic actresses to grace the screen, but this movie is not family fare. As a fan of the television series back in the '60's, I had great hopes that I could totally relax and be entertained. I found myself squirming in my seat, hoping that the previous sex joke would be the last. I loved Alan Arkin's character and his typical dry performance. Dwayne Johnson turned in a credible performance that added to the story. In the end, however, Hollywood managed to distract and detract from a winning combination. That it did well at the box office on the opening weekend doesn't change my opinion. I simply have difficulty recommending it to my friends.

What can I say, but that she forgave me officially on December 27, 1975.

It's amazing how two separate and distant lives actually come together. Sue and I were both in the 7th grade at the same time. I was in Beaver, Pennsylvania at the time, and Sue, born in Beaver, Oklahoma, was in El Reno, Oklahoma. We were both sophomores at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. We first met at a college supper, hosted by the First Baptist Church in Norman. I was getting up for seconds, when I bumped into Sue who was trying to find a seat to eat her firsts (and only). Her food ended up down her front. She managed to forgive me.

Stay tuned.

This picture taken on November 7, 1954, shows me at 11 months being held by my grandfather, Luther Whitfield Marks. My grandfather was an honorable man in the notoriously dishonest business of oilfield landmen. He acquired a lot of land, giving much of it to the the municipality of Edmond, Oklahoma, which expressed no gratitude in return. He was defrauded of other assets by an unscrupulous partner, who showed no remorse. He was generous to his family and to his community. He cherished both, and considered both as an enduring legacy of love and honor. He did not die a rich man, by current cultural standards, but left his wealth to the world throught his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and generations to come. I have no special reason for honoring him this day. I just came across this picture, and was reminded of what kind of man he was. I'm proud to be called his grandson.

Normally, I can do without George Clooney, but there are two movies in which he has starred that I thoroughly enjoyed the roles he has played. The first one is O Brother, Where Art Thou, and the second one is the just released Leatherheads. In Leatherheads, he plays an aging football player in the fledgling pro football league, starring opposite Renee Zellweger, a cynical, wise-cracking Chicago newspaper reporter. I loved this movie. Set in the mid-1920's, it is well-acted, well-directed (by George Clooney), has great characters, is funny, and has a great story. I loved it. Did I already say that? Who cares. Go see it. It is sprinkled with profanities, but not distractingly so. I just wish that Hollywood came up with more movies like this. . .stay for the credits. You won't be disappointed.

Vantage Point is a mixed bag. It is both fascinating and frustrating. Another way to phrase it would be that as the tension builds, so does the irritation. Forrest Whittaker turns in a great performance, and I'm glad that William Hurt is not the President of the United States. The story in the movie is about 20 minutes long, but it is repeated 8 times with each successive point of view just a little shorter than its predescessor. The movie is long on action, but very short on character development, except for the characters played by Dennis Quaid and Forrest Whittaker. I hope they have the behind-the-scenes segment on the DVD on how the movie was made. For now that is the only reason I would rent it.

Sylvester Stallone's latest installment in the Rambo series is a winner. Up until now, First Blood was my favorite, but this one has the action of two and three with the character development of the first one. When I first heard that there was going to be another Rambo movie, I was very skeptical, but after I heard Stallone's interview on Rush Limbaugh's show, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. It's not for the fainthearted. It clearly deserves the R rating assigned to it. The carnage is frequent and explicit. There is some partial nudity, but it's brief, and not erotic. Stallone, although in great physical condition for a man his age, does not try to hide his age. In fact, it is part of the story. I give him kudos for that.

The story is set in the middle of a real-life, decades-long civil war currently going on in Burma. Rambo, who is hunting snakes for the seedy gambling and tourism trade in Thailand, is approached by some American Christian medical missionaries who are attempting to get into Burma to help a tribe caught in the genocidal war. There wouldn't be a story if nothing went wrong, so something does, and Rambo has to decide if he's going to do what he does best.

Speaking for my fellow audience members, this story strikes a nerve in a very visceral way. It's one of the few times in my movie-going life, that I heard people cheering. Americans, who like winners, conversely hate losing. This story appeals to that sensibility without glossing over the idea of killing another human being. I heard a friend, a former Marine combat veteran in Vietnam, say recently that there are some bad guys that need killing. Halfway through this movie I was thinking the same thing. In our post-911 world, those in trouble don't go to France, Chile, Spain, Iceland, or Sweden. They come to the United States of America. They want Jack Bauer or John Rambo, because those characters know what to do with bad guys.

I'm sure that the effite, intellectual snobs, as Spiro Agnew called them, will hate this movie. I don't care, because they don't and won't understand how this story appeals to Americans. I hope that this movie is successful, if for no other reason than the attention it will bring to the atrocities currently being perpetrated in Burma. I hope this movie helps clarify the issue in our political arena. When a bad guy has his knife to your throat, who do you want to call for help? John McCain? He's more worried about what the world thinks than our safety. I'll take John Rambo.

3:10 to Yuma has an interesting scene that is a lesson in appeasing tyrants and madmen. The good guys are holed up in a Yuma hotel with the bad guy (Russell Crowe's character, Ben Wade) as their prisoner. Seven surviving members of his gang arrive in town to free him. The local sheriff and his two deputies join with the good guys to get Ben Wade to the train station, spouting the importance of maintaining the rule of law. Outside on the street, the gang members up the ante, by offering anyone in town $200 cash for each one of Ben Wade's captors they kill. Faced with these odds, the sheriff has second thoughts, and backs out, claiming that he had family, and wasn't prepared to die that day. He and his deputies walk out the front door of the hotel, and lay down their weapons in front of the seven gang members who are lined up side by side while mounted on their horses. As soon as the sheriff and his deputies raise up from laying down their weapons, the bad guys empty their guns on them.

It rather reminds me of what the Nazi's did to those who sought to appease them in 1938. It's also a lesson in what will happen if we, as infidels, seek to appease the islamofascist terrorists. I appreciate Hollywood showing us that object lesson in foreign diplomacy.

Having just watched the second in a line of the National Treasure franchise, I thought a review would be timely. To put it simply: it was fun. It was worth the time and the ticket. Nicholas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, et al, reprise their roles with twists that reveals another aspect of each character. Being a self-confessed Helen Mirren-phile, I think she was a wonderful addition to the cast in this sequel, playing Ben Gates' (Cage) mother. Her strained relationship with Patrick Gates (Voight) just adds another line to the overall story. There was plenty of action with the sharp, witty dialogue we saw in the first movie. And, as in the first, one must suspend belief in measure, but this is Hollywood entertainment, not a History Channel documentary. I, for one, look forward to seeing it again--after I buy the DVD.

The problem with sound bite history is that it is usually one dimensional, and in the case of grievous error, has a high likelihood of being repeated. Take the case of the British appeasement of Hitler and his Nazi cronies prior to the open hostilities of WWII. Most amateur historians can recite of the then Prime Minister of England Neville Chamberlain's spineless and lackluster leadership that led to that line "we have peace in our time." They can even discuss the disgraced Chamberlain's resignation, opening the way for Winston Churchill to rise to the Prime Minister of England.

These two historical figures do deserve our study, remembrance, and even understanding of the roles they played, whether for good or bad, but there is more to the story than what is found in most history books. Neville Chamberlain did not take his appeasement position in a vacuum. He had counselors and advisors. He had political friends and supporters who had concluded that the Nationalist Socialist party that was ruling Germany was doing a good job. Today, we call that sort of position Nazi sympathizing. There were also loud voices warning against getting involved in continental Europe's problems. Among these last voices were Americans, and they were dubbed "isolationists". Roosevelt had his own political battles to fight, and the looming hostilities had Americans nervous, as well. They also raised their voices. In 1937, Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to Great Britain, a highly coveted diplomatic post.

Not only was Kennedy an isolationist, he was among those who admired what Hitler had accomplished in Germany. He was also quite aware of the military build-up within the young Third Reich, and didn't want to offend, so as to incite them to attack England. As America's leading diplomat, the father of John, Robert, and Teddy Kennedy could have an audience any time he wanted with the Prime Minister, and he used his position of influence to exhort Chamberlain to embark on what history now knows as a foolish and cowardly act that resulted in the deaths of millions, not including those of the Holocaust itself.

This story of Joseph P. Kennedy, a most dispicable man, can be found as a part of the book, The Man Called Intrepid, written about William Stephenson, by William Stevenson. Written in 1972, I can't believe it has taken me this long to get around to reading it. It is well-written, highly fascinating, and completely relevant to today's political and military discussions/debates that are raging around the world today about the advancement of Islam. This book is a must read. Now when liberals, led by Ted Kennedy, use the same tired-out, proven to be false, 70 year-old slogans, I have the confidence that their solutions have already been tried, have already failed, and have already been proven by history to be catastrophically wrong.

First let me say that I'm a Helen Mirren fan. She does not disappoint in this 2-part HBO production of England's Queen Elizabeth I. Having an English history-phile at my side while watching this movie, didn't hurt my appreciation for the accuracy of the production, either.

Although significant evidence exists that Elizabeth I had daliances with more than one admirer, she did remain unmarried her entire life, choosing a more independent life. She defied the conventional social and political wisdom of the day. She was very much a woman, but very much a tyrant when she needed to be. The men who got close to her were almost like moths attracted to flame. If they got too close, they got burned, and the smart ones learned to at least feign attraction without seeking to dominate and control. What made the movie so intriguing was the personality and motivations of the lead character. She wanted to be loved and adored, but cross her, and one could (and did) lose their head, not to mention their entrails. Speaking of which, there are scenes not for the faint-hearted, but so much a part of the story and the nature of the times of that period that they were not gratuitous.

Jeremy Irons, as Lord of Leceister, one of the Queen's paramours, did his usual superb job in basically an all-English cast. There are other familiar faces and talent that add to the story, but Mirren carries the day. Her performance is alone worth it.

We just saw the move, the ultimate gift, and loved it. From the novel of the same name by Jim Stovall, the production, the cast, the writing, and last, but not least, the story are excellent. Some of the faces like Abigail Breslin, James Garner, Brian Dennehy, and Lee Meriweather, are recognizable, and certainly added a lot of class to the production.

Directed by Michael O. Sajbel, the story has some similarity to Brewster's Millions, starring Richard Pryor, John Candy, and Hume Cronyn. There's the rich, old codger (played by Garner), who delivers part of his last will and testament on video, forcing his wayward, spoiled grandson (played by Drew Fuller) to go through several life's lessons to get any inheritance. In the case of the ultimate gift, this is not so much a comedy, although Abigail Breslin has some great lines, as it is a coming-of-age, inspirational story with overtones of a faith-based message. For once, Jesus Christ was mentioned in a Hollywood in a reverential context.

We were both exhausted from a hard week, and half expected to fall asleep during the movie, but neither of us had trouble staying awake, we were that engrossed in the story. I don't mean to damn the movie by faint praise, but to send another kudo to this movie. I recommend for the whole family. We need more productions like this one.

I just finished reading the book, Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the fugitive and ex-Moslem Somalian turned Dutch turned islamic terrorist target. Ali, a striking and intelligent woman writes a tell-all book on life as a woman under Islam. It's not pretty, hopeful, or desirable, and she describes the abuse and inhumanity heaped on and even accepted by submissive, devout women in this culture of death with vivid, non-sparing detail. From female circumcision to arranged marriages, to spousal abuse, she bombards any westerner's sensibilities with what she and countless others have suffered and continue to endure.

What is even more amazing to me about Ali is that she doesn't write from the perspective of a westerner or a Christian. In fact, she writes about her decision to embrace atheism, which, of course, was rather disappointing. Regardless, she maintains a clarity of judgment about Islam in terms of what it teaches, versus how it is practiced. She spends a lot of time about the teaching and traditions of what constitutes modesty for women. She brings into question the morality of the Moslem man, who cannot control his own lusts and passions, so he imposes an austere behavioral cultural tradition on women.

For her expose', Ali is a marked woman for death, and must live in seclusion. Her collaboration with Theodor van Gogh, the murdered Dutch film maker, precipitated the fatwa against her, but she continues to move forward quite remarkably. This is a must for the Westerner.

My family has just gotten bigger with the addition of Jennifer Claire. My son, Christopher, is a blessed man, and his mom, sister, and me share in his joy.

Enron - Ideas Have Consequences

Just watched the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, directed by Alex Gibney. I have a number of conclusions, so let's get started.

1. Threaded throughout the piece was the unapologetically, explicit philosophy of Darwinism which was prevalent at Enron, from top management to commodity traders. If you embrace the tenets of evolutionary thought then you are rejecting creationism. You are rejecting the God of creation. If you reject the God of creation, you reject His laws, His ethics. His Law can be summed up with the following: Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Just that simple, yet profound truth, if embraced at all, would have stopped the fraud before it had begun.

2. For the most part, those that documented the sins of Enron are most likely Darwinists themselves - a herd of blind hypocrites. This is not very surprising, but quite typical. Current American culture attempts to retain part of God's law, while wholesale rejecting the Author of it.

3. During the rolling blackout/brownouts of California, conservation radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh were roundly criticizing the liberals of that state for being in lockstep with the wacko environmentalists who were regulating or restricting any corporate industrial effort to build more energy producing refineries/plants. The then Governor Gray Davis and his Democrat buddies were being thorough excoriated while Enron traders were instructing the power plants to shut down from time to time. I don't remember hearing any apologies acknowledging that it was pure corporate and personal greed that caused those blackouts, not failed liberal policies.

4. Among several reasons that liberal policies are failed, a significant one is because they are stupid- both policies and policy makers. Californians haven't quite figured all that out, so eventually, we'll see this history repeat itself.

5. For many, but certainly not all, of the Enron employees, I do not sympathize with their plight of lost pensions and investments. Those that generated the cash flow were complicit with the fraud, enriching themselves at the expense of others. The administrative types and field personel of the different Enron entities are the ones that suffered, and should not be blamed or even painted with the brush as painted Kenneth Lay, Jeff Schilling, and Eddie Fastow, to name a few.

6. The philosophy or mission statement of Enron is not exclusive to Enron. Much of corporate North America (wouldn't want our Canadian friends to feel left out) holds to the same ethic as Enron, except instead of perpetrating fraud, because now there is a real consequence (like jail). They treat their employees like expendable commodities that can be easily replaced. This is especially true of companies listed with Dow Jones or Nasdaq. The stock analyst is now the engine that drives corporate America, and it is impersonal and cold. Corporate execs, whose performance bonuses are now determined by formulas established and monitored by stock analysts, personify Darwin's theory on the survival of the species. Having worked for both privately held companies (large and small) and public companies (always large), I know the difference. Given a choice, working for the private company is much more enjoyable--almost humane.

7. There are enough Darwinian lawyers who will get some of the money back for the empty pension funds from the fortunes that were amassed at Enron.

It's time to take a shower and go to bed. After viewing all that scum, I'm ready for a little cleansing.

Selling Your Soul for a Crisis

I'm in the middle of reading the book, Witness, the autobiography of Whitaker Chambers. The name doesn't resonate with most folks, but for those folks who have a walking-talking knowledge of Alger Hiss and the House Committee for Un-American Activities in the late forties, early fifties, they just might recognize the name.

Amongst liberals and commie-philes, Chambers is a despicable traitor to the cause of what they define as freedom. From the early 1920's to the late 1930's, Whitaker Chambers, by profession a journalist, was an active member of the American Communist Party. The incident--or epiphany--that convinced him to reject communism was quite simple, but utterly profound. One morning in the late 1930's, Chambers was sitting in his kitchen watching his youngest child sitting in his high chair eating. Transfixed by the complexity of the human being, even in child-like form, he realized that this "perfection", as he termed it, could not have happened by chance. There had to be a Creator. A tenet of communism denies the existence of God, so Chambers realized he couldn't be a communist.

I am still in the middle of reading this book, but I've read enough to say that describing it in a couple of sentences is almost two simplistic. Whitaker Chambers was a very intelligent, articulate, and complex man. His writing reflexs this. Reading his story is like reading the playbook of the modern-day Democratic Party, however, because of his insights into the liberal mindset. I say this somewhat circumspectly since so many of the modern-day Republicans seem to want to be like their Democrat counterparts.

Here are some excerpts from Witness:

Page 193
Few Communists have ever been made simpy by reading the works of Marx or Lenin. The crisis of history makes Communists; Marx and Lenin merely offer them an explanation of the crises and what to do about it. Thus a graph of Communist growth could show that in numbers and its power increased in waves roughly equivalent to each new crest of crisis.

Page 194
Under pressure of the crisis, his decision to become a Communist seems to the man who makes it a choice between a world that is dying and a world that is coming to birth, as an effort to save by political surgery whatever is sound in the foredoomed body of a civilization which nothing less drastic can save--a civilization foredoomed first of all by its reluctance to face the fact that the crisis exists or to face it with the force and clarity necessary to overcome it.
Thus the Communist Party presents itself as the one organization of the will to survive the crisis in a civilization where that will is elsewhere divided, wavering, or absent.

This is what we have been seeing in our professional, elitist politicians. This is especially true during election season. The writer of Ecclesiastes said that there is nothing new under the sun. Hearing the promises of either political party are nothing but echoes from the past, vowing to take care of and provide for the citizenry. The citizenry's abdication of personal responsibility is also an echo of past mistakes, and those past mistakes led to the destruction of once-formidable civilizations.

May God have mercy on us.

Running for their pension, not to serve

We are so far from our Founding Fathers' original intent, and even further from the Biblical paradigm, that we might as well be living in a parallel universe or on Pluto. Whether they are Republican or Democrat, today's politician--particularly those on the state and national levels--it is so blatantly obvious that serving their constituents is the euphemism for staying in power.

For me, the United States Congress, the federal union of bureaucrats, and most of the clergy of ECUSA have one and the same purpose: saving their pensions. They are willing to commit evil and to ignore evil for what they consider to be self-preservation. In the meantime, they rob from the ones who pay their salaries, and call it service. I would not want to be in any of their shoes, or even to be standing close to them when they appear in judgment before God.

Under Their Thumb: the Lesson of United 93

It's been sometime since my last posting, due to computer problems, so I have several things on my mind. I will begin with the most recent impressions that arose last evening as my wife and I watched the movie, United 93.

First of all, I was struck by the incredible amount of confusion that existed on so many levels in government, from the FAA air traffic controllers to the military to the passengers themselves. But that was what made the terrorists' methods so ingenious. Their effectiveness was determined and rewarded (in their own minds), by that element of surprise.

The second lesson I observed was the transformation of the surviving passengers and crew members after the initial attact. Once they realized that they were spectators to and unwilling partners of a suicide mission they took decisive action. Their action deserves our unwavering honor, respect, and rememberance.

So, this is the lesson I take from this painful story:

1. The action of a brave few, who saved many more lives.
2. You cannot appease anyone, whose goal and purpose is to kill you even at the expense of their own life. Your reaction must be quick and decisive. This is not a matter of sending the bad boy to "time out". This is a matter of killing the bad boy before he kills you.

Do you want to know what life would be like living under the thumb of Islam?

I wish that it were possible to overstate how wretched that would be, but those who ignore history will find out.

Tribalism est Rex

America is increasingly becoming a land without law, that is law passed by duly elected officials and enforced by legitimate authorities. I suppose that one can be delusionally functional on this matter, but the one-time aberration is now becoming the norm. There was a time that this was kept in the ghetto, but helped in part by the tireless efforts of civil rights leaders and protesters, the ACLU, and mindless liberalism, but largely fueled by a wholesale rejection of God and His written Word, anarchy is fast becoming an equal opportunity affliction.

I have heard ad nauseum those talking heads that express fear that the influence of Christian conservatives pose a great danger to freedom. I don't care what poll says otherwise, but America has bought into this fear that loving God with all of your heart and soul and mind is bad, along with loving your neighbor as yourself. Oh, the humanity!! With our new-found, hard-won freedom we can no longer allow our children to play in their own front yard without responsible adult supervision. Two doors down from my home resides a registered sex-offender who assaulted a ten-year old girl. The courts put this guy back on the street, and his only punishment is the stigma attached to his crime. And I'm supposed to bask in my freedom?

Joseph Edington, a patent lawyer in Fairfield, Connecticut, was told by his wife after coming home from work that their two year old daughter was sexually assaulted by a 58 year-old single man living next door to them with his 87 year-old mother. Edington decided to not wait for the courts or police to investigate and act, but that night climbed through the neighbor's window, and killed the guy with a knife. Taking the law into his own hands--which was wrong--is understandable, knowing how our current legal system, being an extension of current cultural norms, operates. But that is where we are. We are headed for vigilanteism where might makes right. Yes, that's a cliche, but that doesn't change the reality of our present condition. We are in trouble, and tragically, only a small minority has more than a clue.