The College Life

The Fall Semester is halfway over at Carson-Newman. It is true that time goes by faster as you get older. I've known that for the past 20 years. I am taking a religion class, physical education, Introduction to Liberal Arts, English and Biology. So far, my favorite class is religion. The class is covering the New Testament and has been specifically covering the Four Gospels for the past month.

I am also videotaping practices and games for the football team. The biggest thing I've learned is how the day-to-day life of a coach is like from scheduling practice sessions to recruiting to handling all the various administrative tasks. Being a coach and/or teacher is definitely up my alley. I would like to coach football, but I would be just fine with coaching a baseball/softball team or track and field.

Happy Birthday Jean and Rita!

Celebrating birthdays today happen to be two more actresses that I adore: Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth.

When I think of Jean, the first word that comes to mind is witty. She was also shy which would explain why she did few movies after 1940. She was quite good in screwball comedies. She was known to a favorite of Frank Capra. But she was also very good in dramas. "Mr Deeds Goes To Town" and "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" are two Capra movies that showcase her talents very nicely. Not to mention she looked great in hats.


The first word that comes to mind in describing Rita is sultry.
But she has also been described as "a tender, sensitive, beautiful human being. A lovely person. Very gentle." Her most famous roles are probably Sheila Winthrop in You'll Never Get Rich, as Doña Sol des Muire in Blood and Sand and Gilda Mundson Farrell in Gilda. She had a number of fine movies throughout the 1940's and early 1950's. Sadly, she passed away a bit too soon in 1987. Her marker includes the inscription "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."

Jean and Rita, I wish you both a Happy Birthday and may you both be resting very well. I look forward to meeting both of you someday.

I'm Glad It Is Fall

Taken at 2009 Orange and White Game
My favorite season is Fall. It is the time when the weather cools down (although this summer had been reasonably good compared to previous summers) and the air is crisp. You can breathe again finally.

In addition to football, it is the time when the leaves turn colors and there is plenty of opportunities for photographing nature. I also enjoy carving pumpkins and going to Halloween parties. Thanksgiving is also fun since it gives me an excuse to pig out. What is your favorite season?

Happy Birthday, Deborah Kerr!

(Note: I posted this a year ago)

The first actress that comes to mind when I think of whom I would like to have as a wife is Grace Kelly. The second one is Deborah Kerr. Deborah who died last October at age 86 of course stood apart because of her red hair and fair skin. But she always had this understated sensuality about her. There are those who have seen two Deborah Kerr scenes: "Shall We Dance?" from the King and I and the kissing-on-the-beach bit in From Here to Eternity.

Deborah Kerr exuded class, that is indisputable, but she also happened to be one of the most emotionally and sexually complex screen performers, whether female or male. That is what made her so compelling at least in my mind.

First of all, Kerr’s refined women had a yen for sensual, macho men. In addition to the aforementioned The Proud and Profane, she fell for Stewart Granger in King Solomon’s Mines (1950) and six years later she was filled with repressed attraction for Yul Brynner’s bald, bare-chested King of Siam — a non-white object of desire. And there were many others, in all different sorts of social, cultural, and psychological settings.

In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1946), Kerr is an Irish nun who, while at a monastery in the Himalayas, discovers that she has strong feelings — i.e., sexual urges — for a handsome, virile doctor played by David Farrar. Now, compare Kerr’s dark, torn performance in Black Narcissus — or in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), in which she plays a nun who lusts/has feelings for earthy Robert Mitchum — to Audrey Hepburn’s nun, pining for Peter Finch in The Nun’s Story (1959). Hepburn is excellent as the conflicted nun, but unlike Kerr she never comes across as a woman on the verge of an erotic breakdown.

Kerr is equally powerful in From Here to Eternity (1953), stealing the movie from her male co-stars, as an unhappily married woman who has a torrid affair with an officer shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Fred Zinnemann’s Academy Award-winning melodrama marked one of the rare times when Kerr’s physique played a part in her erotic persona, as she parades around Hawaii in Lana Turner-type shorts and frolics on the wet sand with brawny Burt Lancaster.

Less obvious is her headmaster’s wife in Tea and Sympathy (1956), who, despite her discreet clothing and demeanor, ends up seducing one of her husband’s teenage students. It’s all for a good cause, of course — the "sensitive" boy thinks he may be gay — though it’s hardly the type of behavior society would look kindly upon. Additionally, Kerr makes it clear that she isn’t going to lie down with young and handsome John Kerr (no relation) merely out of charity.

All that in addition to extra-marital liaisons with Van Johnson in The End of the Affair (1956) and Burt Lancaster in The Gypsy Moths (1969), in which Kerr appears nude.

She was indeed innocent, but equally complex. Rest In Peace and may your memory last forever, Deborah.

So There Will Be A Revolution! Let It Be!

I've been involved in the liberty movement for almost ten years now. If you asked me in 1999 where I saw myself in ten years, I would have replied "Perhaps working on movies or music videos". I thought a college degree was good for something. But my experiences and the experiences of millions of others causes me to doubt its true value at least in this day and age. It is nice, but can't solve all of life's problems. Now I am majoring in Physical Education and would love to get into coaching in some capacity. But I also know that very soon, my current plans will be delayed as I go about facing bigger issues in the world. Once upon a time, my plans not working out the way I wanted them to was upsetting. I am at peace with that now as I have learned to accept the fact that there are bigger forces at work in the world.

On one hand, I'm thankful that I woke up and have since then, life has taken me in a direction I did not expect nor intend to happen. I knew something was up with George W. Bush before it was cool thus I voted for Harry Browne instead of him. I already knew Al Gore was a fraud, so he wasn't going to get my vote anyways. I worked on Michael Badnarik's presidential campaign in 2004 and Ron Paul's campaign during the 2008 GOP presidential primary.

Some people don't like the fact I don't buy into the "official" version of what happened on 9/11 anymore than I buy into the magic bullet theory. I ask people "Cui bono?" Who benefited from the buildings going down? Dick Cheney? The Rothshchilds? The Rockefellers? What a tangled web we weave! I do not believe that Bush was the mastermind although he knows more than he lets on. He was for the most part a puppet in a cruel game that has been played since ancient times.

The simple fact of life is that in any society, there are leaders and followers.
A few people will lead for better or worse and everyone else follows. It is human nature. Think about that the next time you buy a product or get together for a party with friends. Someone had to have suggested the idea.

Years ago, I also came to the realization that economic collapse, martial law and open warfare would be inevitable. I was being called spooky, crazy and some other things too, but guess what? I was right. Lately, my attention has been turned to concentration camps and so-called vaccines. I ask again "Who Benefits?" I don't have a crystal ball. But I do study history and my studies have lead me to this conclusion: life is cyclical, not linear. People come and go as do buildings, nations and technologies. Events while the details may differ follow similar patterns. There are famines, war, rumors of war, civil strife, corruption and a host of other issues. It is human nature. Perfection is impossible.

Since war is inevitable and the actual plans for martial law have been in the works for decades such as Rex 84 and Operation Garden Plot, we must brace and prepare ourselves for what is to come. Are we going to continue to deny and delay? Shall we continue to believe we are living in liberty while bounded and shackled? Is being comfortable more important than life itself?

I made my decision almost ten years to resist the Devil. I will continue to do so even if others choose not to. Now is the time to make a decision. Death in the Lord's name is preferable to slavery.

Rethinking How We Think About Education

As one who has attended both public schools, a community college and now Carson-Newman, I've had my fair share of exposure to the education system or shall I say the formal education system. What comes to mind when you decide to attend a college or get your diploma? Is it to find a job? A career? Get more education?

While it has been marketed in this manner for much of the 20th century and now, I have learned that it is actually neither of these. Instead the purpose of public schooling was and is to create bored people. Being a bored person means a better consumer. "Since bored people are the best consumers, school had to be a boring place, and since childish people are the easiest customers to convince, the manufacture of childishness, extended into adulthood, had to be the first priority of factory schools. Naturally, teachers and administrators weren't let in on this plan; they didn't need to be. If they didn't conform to instructions passed down from increasingly centralized school offices, they didn't last long." John Taylor Gatto

Perhaps most kids are dropping out of school because they aren't learning anything, rather than they drop out of school because they don't want to learn as traditionally advertised. Just a thought.

I have experienced this first-hand, but it didn't really hit me until I began waking up almost ten years ago. Granted, I've known that corruption existed in a general sense and that yes people do get together to do bad things. But I gathered at the time it was mostly isolated incidents. But as I did more research and asked questions most wouldn't even think to ask, I have learned that corruption and evil can be institutional, legalized and has a top-down approach. After all, in any given society, there are leaders and followers. Most follow and a few will lead even if they are of bad character. Little did I know then that many of the themes from The X-Files did indeed have basis in fact.

A few years ago, I was a reporter for a newspaper which I shall not name. While covering the school board, I encountered the politics that is part and parcel to education today. As a fellow reporter told me, generally school boards are actually the most political entity at the local level, not the county commission or sheriff's department. I butted heads with the board chairman over several articles pertaining to the violations of the Sunshine Law. On top of that, while conducting research for an in-depth article on "No Child Left Behind", several administrators did not wish to go on the record about their opinion for fear of retaliation from certain individuals or organizations. Many teachers go into teaching because they want to teach, not to get into politics. Yet, the system is inherently political and rewards and punishes on the basis of adhering to a certain agenda.

At the college level, it is somewhat better, but still there are grounds for improvement. Have you ever failed a class because your professor voted for one candidate and you voted for another? Have you noticed the tuition and cost of room and board? Are you getting a return on your investment? On top of that, while getting your diploma and/or degree meant a rewarding career or a higher paying job a generation or two ago, people of my generation are learning the hard way that a college degree doesn't ensure a better life or more money.

The college loan program is another area that is in need of improvement or shall I competition. The first thing that needs to happen is to take back education and learning on a personal level. This requires a lot of unlearning and relearning. The U.S. Department of Education ultimately needs to be abolished, but it will start at the local level.

Embarking on New Business Opportunities

While I am preparing for college and embarking on a work-study with the Carson-Newman football team which will primarily consist of videotaping practices, games and breaking down film, I am also embarking on several business opportunities.

If you are interested in booking a vacation or a particular travel package, feel free to visit World Ventures

I am also an independent representative for JuicePlus

Let me know if you have any questions.