I’m a disabled veteran. 80%. I’ve been on narcotics for 4 years, so my mind’s a little mushy. I haven’t published a book in 14 years; so in anticipation of writing my next book, I knew I needed to sharpen my writing skills – and my mind.

 

Thus the idea of writing a blog was born.

 

When I first started shopping for a home for the Statusphere, I liked what I saw in Blogstream:

(a)   It’s free.

(b)   Blogs are listed on the main page as soon as they are updated.

(c)   Popular blogs get permanent placement on the main page.

(d)   Randomly selected blogs are featured on the main page.

 

I moved in, got right to work and on September 5, 2006, posted my first entry. Humble beginnings, but hopeful beginnings.

 

Over the next several months, however, I noticed a pattern emerging:

 

Statusphere has NEVER, EVER been listed in the “Recently Updated Blogs” list.

In fact, I posted the previous two entries – BlogScream Haiku and Party without the Guest – as tests just to see if they would show up on the home page. They didn’t.

 

Some of the “Featured Blogs” have been deactivated… for months. So the only way anyone was ever going to find out about my little corner of cyberspace was for me to e-mail the link to everyone I know and comment on other blogs to exchange links.

 

After e-mailing Blogstream to no avail, it’s clear to me that this relationship simply isn’t working out. While I feel that the weblog is a great vehicle for anyone developing their writing skills (or anyone with ideological exhibitionism issues), I find it hard to measure any improvement without receiving feedback from others. Since Blogstream has failed to provide me with the same support they give to others (even those who are long gone!), then I think it’s time to saddle up and ride into the sunset toward new territory. Who knows? Maybe once this blog dies out it’ll finally get featured on the main page!

 

I wish all the best to Whit, Lucy, Topaz and the others who have Blogstream locked up solid. But we newbies need a level playing field. If you wish to contact me, I’ll be at Gather.

 

Happy New Year and Farewell.

 

Imagine that, once long ago, you bravely ran into a blazing building and saved the lives of a dozen people or so. Suffering horrific burns, you proudly wore the scars as a sacrifice of love for people who didn’t even know you. You were hailed as a great hero, and were given awards and acclaim. The people you saved decided, as a debt of gratitude, to celebrate your sacrifice on a certain day each year. They called it “The Party for our Hero.”

 

They would bring cake, gifts and a sincere appreciation for another year your courage and selflessness gave to them. As people moved and lives changed, this one event became the opportunity for them to reconnect through a common experience.

 

Over the years, though, it seems as though you have become less and less the focus. Those you saved take the occasion to get up to date on each other’s lives, to meet their children and grandchildren. Soon, those you saved become old and frail, unable to travel. Some die and pass the tradition to their offspring. The occasion becomes known as “The Hero’s Party.”

 

As time goes by, the decorations become more and more elaborate. The presents become the focus. People argue about the décor and compete for attention. The cake becomes the centerpiece… so much so that people even have their photos taken with it each year.

 

Years pass. Few people even talk to you anymore. They may say a passing “hello” as a pseudo-acknowledgement of who you are and what you did… but your heroic deed all those years ago becomes more and more irrelevant as it is lost to living memory.

 

Now known only as “The Party”, people with no connection to the original event are invited, and they in turn invite others. They exchange gifts with one another, admire the decorations, and – of course – pose for pictures with the magnificent cake. You are rarely approached: on two occasions, though, you are politely asked to back away from the cake, your cake, out of camera range so others can take photos. You’re not even offered a piece of cake… you end up eating the leftovers when everyone’s gone.

 

This year, no one even speaks to you. Here you sit, in a nearly surreal scenario: a party that was originally intended to celebrate you is now a celebration of itself. Some people look at you, whispering, with looks of disgust. How horrendous – this scarred, disfigured old cripple has no place among such festive beauty! You, like they, wonder why you’re even here. In your heart, you weep. Crowded to standing room only, you are escorted by people who have no clue who you are to another room. You consider just leaving. Leaving and never coming back. Why are you here at all?

 

Just then a little girl, about 8 years old, comes over to you. She takes your gnarled hand, looks you straight in the eye and says, “A long time ago you saved my Great-Grandma’s life. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive today. Thank you.” She brings you a piece of cake and a drawing she made of you carrying a woman – her great-grandmother – out of a burning building.

 

No one else at The Party seems to know, or even care. But a tear slowly wells up in your right eye and streams down your cheek as this innocent child remembers the real reason.

 

December 25^th is not about gifts, or decorations, or food, or togetherness. We were all doomed to burn, yet years ago someone gave His best while we were at our worst and saved us. Let us pause to remember the real reason why we celebrate the Christ Mass… or, as we have come to know it, Christmas.

 

Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah, lived a perfectly sinless 33-year life and offered Himself as a blood sacrifice to do something you can’t do: pay for your sins. Forgiveness and salvation cannot be earned: it is a gift freely given. You only need the humility in your heart to accept it. It’s as simple as that.

 

Have a merry and joyous Christmas – for the right reason.

 

 

– G. Lamar Wilkie

Statusphere obscure
Never makes the "Recent" list
What's a guy to do?

I believe the Conservative Movement, as currently led by the Bush/Rove cartel and its neocon minions, is doomed to a rapid death… and a well deserved one, at that.

 

Neocons – New Conservatives – seemingly base their decisions on economic interests above the needs of this Nation and her people. They are, however, wolves in sheep’s clothing: even though they try hard to be sheep.

 

Irving Kristol called NeoConservatives “liberals mugged by reality.” Once a liberal (who bases his or her worldview on emotions rather than reason) is confronted with a crisis of identity, they experience a paradigm shift to conservatism.

 

For example: a recent college graduate, properly indoctrinated by four years of poisonous propaganda, believes in open borders and rights for illegal immigrants. Once they get out into the workforce, however, they’re confounded that their dream of landing a high-paying job has been shattered by reality. Entry-level jobs are hard-won as American citizens cling with white-knuckled grips to anything that pays the bills… because illegal immigrants are flooding onto the market at wages Americans can’t live on.

 

The minimum wage in Mexico is $5 a DAY. With several thousand of Mexico’s unemployed crossing the border every DAY, employers in America enjoy the luxury of hiring people who will work their fingers to the bone for OUR minimum wage… a king’s ransom to them. They live 10 and 20 to a house, cutting their expenses to a minimum. Adding insult to injury, these illegals don’t spend their money here in America: they wire it home, to Mexico. Money transfers from the U.S. are now the third largest contributor to the Mexican economy, after tourism and Pemex, that nation’s national petroleum company. Muchas Gracias, Western Union!

 

The unskilled and uneducated, particularly the black population, are hardest hit. They’re being lost in a sea of illegal immigrants, criminal trespassers, who artificially drive down wages. Illegal immigrants receive more taxpayer-funded services and pay virtually no tax. They suck money out of our economy like leeches. They don’t integrate into our culture, they don’t learn our language. And their kids often get in-state tuition at colleges… something American citizens don’t even get.

 

Neocons only have it half-right, though. It ISN’T just the economy. America herself is at stake.

 

We need a TRUE Conservative movement. Old Conservatives – Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt conservatives who will do the will of the people and disregard the K-Street lobbyists and multinational corporations who demand cheap labor and high profits.

 

We need TRUE Conservative leadership who will BUILD THE FENCE and lock down our borders, who will deport illegal immigrants and block services to people who don’t belong here. Who will ratify a Constitutional Amendment establishing term limits for federal judges and will impeach activist judges who mandate bankrupting states to provide public services to social parasites. Who understand that our national identity is at stake. Who will enact the National Sales Tax (FairTax), forcing illegals, criminals and the Underground Economy to pay their fair share each time they buy something.

 

American Liberalism is a mind game for the ultra-wealthy elite who aren’t bothered with real life. They are the Eloi, the Beautiful People, from Wells’ The Time Machine. The illegals and the working class are the Morlocks from that prophetic story, providing the infrastructure and perpetuating the illusion of utopia… at a price. To realize the true liberal utopia, America must be destroyed.

 

We must conserve this nation, beginning with borders, then language, then culture. Anything else is national suicide. Are we willing to destroy America to perpetuate our utopian ideals? Or will we brave the ridicule and outrage from the Aztlán supporters of immigration without limits and do what is right?

 

Okay, folks, Bible believers have long known that when you remove God from the equation He will be replaced by the only alternative. Here’s another example of the cultural “slippery slope” down which our society has never before trod:

 

Enter Bryan Hathaway. Actually, it was Bryan who did the entering… and that’s the problem. This 20 year old, who has issues that would send Freud out for therapy, can’t seem to understand that there are plenty of creatures in his own species who could use a little lovin’… so he’s been taking a walk on the WILDlife side.

 

He was arrested for having sex with a dead deer he found in a roadside ditch. Apparently the sight of the vandalized venison lit up his libido, so Bryan hauled the bloody bambi into the woods for some wilted whitetail. No details on whether or not the deer was adorned with horns, but the adjective certainly applies to this pervy perp.

 

Bryan’s already served time for killing a horse so he could engage in unnatural acts with it – and who can blame him? That sort of thing’s liable to get him a good swift kick! I guess it’s not enough, therefore, to have sex with an animal… it has to be with a defenseless animal.

 

Let’s see: so far we have bestiality, necrophilia, rape (or at least sexual assault), lewd and lascivious conduct… can you think of any others? Let’s face it: this guy’s got a few skeletons in his closet… apparently four-legged ones.

 

Are women really THAT ugly in Wisconsin????

 

Defense attorney Fredric Anderson is not denying the act… rather, he’s denying that the act was with an animal. Since the deer was dead, the act was with a carcass. Bestiality laws, he argues, were written to protect animals from physical or emotional harm and therefore don’t apply here since you really can’t “harm” road kill.

 

I have to speculate if Bryan’s parents aren’t considering a conversion to Islam so they can take advantage of what’s known as an “honor killing.” Can you imagine the looks they get? Sure, old Sailors can tell you that “any old port in a storm” is one thing… but when a guy starts taking chickens for a spin or gazing lustfully at dead animals, one has to wonder what Dad was up to when time came for “The Talk”.

 

Apparently the whole issue boils down to the legal question: is it okay to get fresh with something that ain’t?

 

In truth, however, the whole issue also boils down to the moral question: does the still, small voice in your heart tell you “this is wrong”?

 

Thought so.