"Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?"

I refuse to begin this blog with a cliche' like "The
Dark Knight" "rocks" or is "awesome" or something
like that. At age forty-nine, I am legally too old to
use such expressions! But I will say that "The Dark
Knight" is a movie for both fanboys and non-fanboys
alike . Indeed, I think one could reasonably call it not
just a movie, but a film. Oh, it has all the requisite action
and special effects that one could expect from a summer
blockbuster (and proves, in the process, that Marvel has
not necessarily cornered the market on terrific superhero
movies), but this latest entry in the "Batman" sage
addresses some important issues and really makes you
think and even perhaps do some soul-searching.


This is not a movie review, per se, so I am spared from
spoiler alerts. I just want to look at one important issue
that the movie raises: the possibility that the most moral
among us may be corrupted by evil under the right
circumstances. To get right down to it, the central
characters in "The Dark Knight" are, of course, Batman/
Bruce Wayne, district attorney Harvey Dent, and the
unpredictable, sociopathic anarchist The Joker (we
never learn his real name, which is probably just as
well. Trickster gods are best left a little mysterious).



Dent, the Batman, and good cop Jim Gordon have
done a fine job of cleaning up crime in Gotham since
the conclusion of "Batman Begins." The mobs are
pretty much laying low, seemingly outfoxed at
every turn by the "dynamic trio." But all that
changes when the Joker arrives on the scene.
The Joker messes with everybody, thugs and cops
alike. He isn't trying to "win" or get wealthy; he
just wants to create chaos. Maybe it would have
been just as easy to call him Loki, but that is
another comic book enterprise altogether!



Oh, the Joker commits crimes, sure, lots of them
and in a very violent, sensational and, yes, gleeful
manner. But the turning point of the film is when he
orchestrates the kidnapping of Dent and his girlfriend,
Rachel Dawes, a fellow prosecutor and former old flame
of Bruce Wayne, and ties them up in separate ware-
houses in different parts of Gotham, warehouses chock
full of barrels contaning volatile liquids rigged to explode.

Batman faces a real conundrum: he cannot save them
both, so he has to make a choice. So Batman rushes to
save the girl, only too find out that the Joker, no surprise
here, sent him to the wrong warehouse. Dawes is blown
away but the intrepid D.A. survives..

However, Dent does not escape unscathed, either in
body or in soul. The barrel to which he is tied
develops a leak and the corrosive chemicals pour
down the left side of his face, leaving him disfigured.
And that's when everything gets really interesting.

See, Dent discovers that some members of Jim
Gordon's squad were actually traitors. They had
been helping the Joker and the mobs and some of
them were involved in the kidnapping. Dent is furious
and, with a little push from the twisted Joker, becomes
a vigilante himself, but without the Batman's scruples.
Taking on the moniker "Two Face" in homage to
his deformed, ghoulish face, Dent begins his own torture
and murder spree in order to avenge the death of his
beloved. In doing so, of course, he becomes the very
kind of person he has been trying to bring to justice
and get off the streets: a thug, a criminal. And that was
the Joker's game all along. He wanted to destroy
Dent's reputation, not just to make things easier
in Gotham for the criminal element, but primarily,
it seems, to prove that it could be done.



Now many, if not most, of us pride ourselves in
being good people. We think we could never
become criminals or do horrible things. We do
not think it conceivable that we could ever shed
our goodness and put on a cloak of evil as easily
as we change our clothes. But Harvey Dent did it
without missing a beat. So why should we consider
ourselves to be invulnerable to corruption?



So let us not ask, "Could I be corrupted by evil?"
A better question would be, "What would it take
to push me over the edge?" If we can answer
that question, then we might be able to formulate
a strategy to help us avoid the fate of Harvey "Two
Face" Dent.

House of Elrond: One Thing to Rule Them All

House of Elrond: One Thing to Rule Them All

One Thing to Rule Them All

It is a thing of great power that can be used to dominate
the entire human race, to force it into subjugation. It appears
to have a mind of its own and seems to be controlled by unseen,
malevolent forces that use it to toy with human beings. Does it
sound like the ring of Sauron? Yes, but Frodo and the gang took
care of that little problem, didn't they? But we still must contend
with an mighty and pitiless force that would control all life on this
planet. We call it " oil."


Oil has us by the short hairs. Oil "drives" the world. It is no
stretch to say that oil rules the developed world with an iron fist
that would make the Dark Lord green with envy. (And oil is black, so
maybe it's a "Dark Lord" too). And, if you haven't noticed, we are
doing very little about it. Hybrids are o.k., but they are not enough.
Furthermore, a lot of things use oil and its by-products besides
automobiles. When are we gonna get a hybrid John Deere, I want
to know? Anyhoo, I believe we could have had viable alternative,
renewable fuel sources for years if the oil companies, government,
and automobile makers had wished to do so. And if we as a
public had demanded it.


Yes, we the consumers are complicit in this crisis as well. We use
oil and gas as if there was no tomorrow. But guess what? Tomorrow
has come. A lot of very smart people believe that we have already
crossed into the scary world of "peak oil." That is, at this point,
oil supplies are only going to continue to diminish in the face of
increased demand and the price will keep on going up and up.
Friends and neighbors, gas is right now as cheap as it's gonna get.
Sit with that sobering throught for a while. This situation leaves oil-
dependent nations madly scrambling for solutions and hoping
there is enough time.


Well, many are concerned about this phenomenon but not enough
people and not nearly enough of the right people. Certainly a lot
of people in positions of power have not become adequately
sensitized to this issue. Indeed, some deny this unpleasant
scenario just like those who bury their heads in the sand about
the human causes of global warming.

And every day, oil prices skyrocket and the common person
is the one who really bears the brunt of it all, while oil CEOs
are laughing all the way to the bank. And it seems like every
week, we hear a different spin on the situation in the news:
"Oil is in short supply." "No, wait, new supplies have just been
discovered!" "Sorry, just kidding." "Oil field workers may strike
in Nigeria and prices may go up.... or not." "The dollar is getting
stronger and oil futures are coming down." "My bad. False alarm."
"OPEC is going to raise production." "OPEC changed its mind."

Is it just me or do you read headlines like these in the news
every week? Makes me feel like a puppet or a piece on a chess
board, being manipulated by shadowy players who remain hidden
from the eyes of ordinary mortals.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Oil's gonna run out, period. Even if
we could "Jurassic Park" a new generation of dinosaurs and
exterminate them (we are actually very talented at that as a race),
we can't wait millions of years for their remains to turn into oil.
Well, I guess we COULD try cryonic suspension, but I imagine
we'd all have a real case of freezer burn after a few million years!
We need renewable resources and it cannot be put off any longer.

We the people must demand it. We must demand that our politicians
and business leaders get serious about alternative fuels. We ignore
the danger to our peril. In The Lord of the Rings, when Sauron
was defeated at the end of the Second Age of Middle Earth, the
free peoples of the world had a chance to destroy his Ruling Ring,
the One Ring of the Rings of Power, and rid the world of his malice
forever. They did not do so and missed the chance and a new
generation had the fun of engineering Sauron's final defeat. Oil
is our Ring of Power. We can end its tyranny now, or we can let
our progeny deal with it. We can only hope they will be as successful
as Frodo and company, but it will be to our everlasting shame if we
act so irresponsibly and force them to fight that battle. Let us have
the courage to fight it ourselves. We have helped to create this monster.
It is only fitting that we should be the ones to destroy it.

Poison Ivy sucks!

Poison ivy sucks! There is no other message, no subtext,
no symbolism implied. Poison ivy sucks and I see no good
reason it should exist. But gnats and mosquitoes and Rob
Schneider movies exist too, and there is no good reason
for any of those things either. Poison ivy sucks!

Adopting the Poor

It's no secret that, among the myriad of reasons that can be
used to explain why poverty exists, one of the foremost is
the fact that a relatively small percentage of people in
the world control a disproportionate amount of the world's
wealth. (I am, unfortunately, not one of those privileged
few.) Now I am not interested, at least not in this particular
forum, in discussing why this is the case and what the
ramifications of this phenomenom may be. I reckon it has
ever been thus. For those in that privileged class, I would
just say, "Hey, remember Marie Antoinette?" But I digress.


No, I am proposing a way to tentatively reduce this
income disparity, at least in a modest sense. It is through
adoption. Those folks whose income exceeds a certain
threshold, say an annual income of $200,000, could be
given tax breaks or tax credits if they "adopt" an
underprivileged family for a time. The adoptive families
could also receive tax credits for the volunteer hours
they might spend helping said families. And, yes, I know
that churches and civic organizations sometimes "adopt"
certain marginalized groups or economically depressed
geographic areas as the loci of their humanitarian concern.
But my idea makes it more personal and more specific.


This is how I see it going down. The wealthy family,
let's call them the Smiths, adopts a poor family,
let's call them the Jones (Not terribly original
monikers, I admit. But I am tired and my imagination
is running on fumes. So sue me! If you come up with the
solution to end poverty, you can have this blog!) Anyhoo,
the Smiths agree to provide the Jones financial assistance
and other resources to help them become card-carrying
"productive members of society." This assistance would
continue until the Jones no longer need it.


Now this is NOT a "handout," but in the immortal
(?) words of Jesse Jackson, it is a hand up. The
Smiths, you see, would have gone through a rigorous
selection process conducted by a blue-ribbon panel of
leaders of the social service, religious, and health care
fields in the community in which the Jones reside.
And no, that is not a sarcastic way of saying their
names were picked out of a hat! For lack of a better
term, call them the "worthy" or "working" poor.
But because they have jumped through a series
of pretty rigorous hoops, they have earned the
right to be "adopted." These hoops might include
criminal background checks, occupational aptitude
tests, character references, and documentation of
the reasons regarding their need for assistance.

Now this is how the process would work. The Smiths
would not assist the Jones with anything they can
already do for themselves. They would only fill in the
gaps, by paying a past due utility bill, for example, or
by providing a "nest egg" to help the Jones build up
their savings and maybe a college fund for the children.
Perhaps the Smiths might lend them some money to
help the Jones start a small business.

Furthermore, the financial assistance would be on a
sliding scale. As the level of the Jones' income increases,
the amount of support provided by the Smiths would
decrease, with the goal that eventually the Jones' would
stand on their own feet and require no further assistance
from the Smiths, at least not of a monetary nature.

Furthermore, the Jones' would have a numberof
responsibilities in this scenario. For every two adults over
the age of eighteen in the family unit, at least one
would have to have a full-time job or be actively looking for
work or in training for a job. Until such time as they secure
employment, they would volunteer with charitable
organizations in the community or some type of community
helping agency. Habitat for Humanity has the right idea in
demanding "sweat equity" of their families. It promotes both
personal responsibility and a sense of pride. Documentation
would be kept for all of the above, e.g. copies of job applications,
school records, a log of calls made to potential employers, an
accounting of the hours per month spent in volunteer activities,
that sort of thing. If the Jones needed assistance in getting
from work or school, the Smiths could help arrange it.

The Smiths could also serve as informal mentors or "job
coaches." They could perhaps assist the Jones, if necessary,
with financial management, household budgeting, and the like.
There would also be a personal relationship. The two
families would be required to socialize in some fashion at least
once a quarter.


Hopefully, this relationship would be of benefit to both
families, as well as benefiting society as a whole. The Jones
would have a relationship with successful people who could
serve as role models and the Smiths would be exposed to
how "the other half lives" and would hopefully become more
sensitized to the needs of the poor. Now I know this sounds
like a private sector version of "welfare to work," but so what?
Poverty is a terrible thing and we must try anything that
has a chance of mitigating its terrible effects. And in any
event, often the private sector can do such things a lot
better than the government. But really we need both the
private and public sectors to address and take seriously
this terrible problem. Furthermore, I believe the
personal component of this program is its unique twist
and what might make it effective.

Yes, I know Jesus said the poor would always be with us,
but I don't think he was suggesting that as a reason for
inaction.

Good Violence?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for peace. I'm aboard the peace
train. I really identify with Bilbo's comments on the DVD intro
for "The Fellowship of the Ring" when he speaks of hobbits loving
quiet lives and good tilled earth and most of all peace! I can also
identify with their love of food and ale, but that's another story.
Never been much of a hand for pipeweed, however, but I digress.

The thing is, peace is not that simple. If peace only means an
absence of conflict, then count me out. To be in a small room
with people who hate each other so much they are not even
speaking and to say they are at peace because they are not
beating each other to death? Well, that doesn't sound like
peace to me. Peace is better defined by the Hebrew word
shalom, which is a very holistic term. One way to define
shalom is to say that it speaks of abundance, abundance for
all with heapin' helpins' of justice AND security thrown in
for good measure. There is no threat of being harmed by
the wicked in this version of peace. The lion lies down with
the lamb, and BOTH have adequate food, clothing, shelter,
and health insurance!

The realist in me suspects, however, that until that "great
gettin' up mornin' " when God makes everything o.k. again,
in this life sometimes the only way good people can live without
the threat of being harmed by the workers of evil is, as the
quotation goes, when rough men are willing to do violence on
their behalf.


No, I am not putting forward an argument for pre-emptive war!
Enough of that non-sense. Iraq was and continues to be a mistake,
a bloody, horrible mistake that has destabilized that part of the Near
East for decades to come, most likely. Saddam was really no "clear
and present danger" to the United States, even if he was a real terror
to his own people. Because of the policies of the current
administration, Iraq has lost almost a whole generation of its people.
On the other hand, we have managed to create a brand new crop
of terrorists. Terrific! Shameful doesn't cover it. But some people
never learn. Watch out for an "October surprise" with Iran.

Nevertheless, there are, it seems to me, good reasons at times
for rough men, or shall I say, rough PEOPLE, to do violence on
behalf of the innocent and oppressed. And the fact is, you don't
even have to think that hard about it: the Congo, Darfur,
Myanmar all come to mind. Regions with genocide and the loss
of innocent life on a massive scale. Civilians in the Congo have
been massacred and tortured due to greed over gold, gold that
causes wicked men with weapons to shed the blood of innocents,
gold that often finds its way into European and American hands.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in recent years in
Darfur, Sudan, many of them Christians killed by the Janjaweed
militia. And many people are not aware of how the Karen people
of Burma/Myanmar have suffered at the hands of the
military regime. They have been systematically killed, raped,
tortured horribly, driven from their homes, forced into what is,
essentially, slavery. In such cases, especially Myanmar, I would
completely support armed intervention by the international
community. Myanmar, or Burma, in particular is an travesty.
The common people of Burma have been horribly oppresed by
the military regime for decades and then, after the recent
cyclone, the government won't even allow them to get the
assistance they need. Indeed, the military goons have even put
some of these suffering people to work at manual labor to clean
up from the disaster. They aren't even allowed to beg by the
side of the road. If any country ever needed a midnight visit
from the 82nd Airborne and the 75th Ranger Regiment,
it is Burma! However, it seems we are willing to rattle our
sabers if it is in our "national interest" but not when people are
suffering that we as a nation don't really give a damn about.

If you have seen "Hotel Rwanda," you know the relief that
was evident on the faces of the international guests when the
U.N. troops arrived to escort them from the nighmare Rwanda
had become, a country awash in its own genocide. And their relief
was due to the fact that those soldiers were ready and willing to do
violence on their behalf. That's why we are elated when Ironman
shows up to kill, yes, kill the terrorists, who are, well, terrorizing
the innocent residents of a Middle Eastern village. That's why we
are excited when Superman shows up in the nick of time to resuce
Lois Lane and every time we see Gandalf smite the Balrog's
ruin on the mountain side in "The Two Towers."

Violence of course must not be glorified and must be
used judiciously and can very easily be put to use in the service
of greed and power. It is, unfortunately, often our first resort
instead of our last resort in times of conflict. But that does not
mean that even the most peace-loving hobbit can ignore its
sometimes sad necessity. Give peace a chance? By all means.
But sometimes peace can only be achieved by the judicious use
of the righteous hammer of the wrath of God.

Observations

"There are some things that one can only observe." That's
one of my favorite sayings, if I do say so myself (yes, I made
it up). Take bumper stickers, for instance. I love the one that
goes "I fake it so my husband will buy me stuff!"
And then there is a "gimme that old time religion" bumper
sticker that has a pentagram on it. As Larry the Cable Guy says,
"Now that's funny right thar, I don't care what anybody says!"

But why do we put bumper stickers on our cars or wear
"message" t-shirts? Because we want to be noticed. We want
to say something about ourselves. We are telling the world
that we belong to the Masons or like pretty girls or that we are
Yankees fans or support Obama or whatever. We are
screaming for recognition, for someone to say, "I notice you.
I recognize you as a fellow human being. You matter."

Well, if we know that is what people need, why wait for them
to put on some t-shirt that say "I'm with stupid" or "Hottie"
or the like. Instead, look people in the eye. Smile at the next
person you meet. Hold the door for someone, even if their t-shirt
indicates they are gonna vote for the candidate that you are voting
against!