Based on the acclaimed graphic novel about superheroes that don't fit neatly into the traditional superhero stereotype, the Watchmen movie opens this Friday. As many fans of the dark, fantastic novel, I have waited for months for the movie to finally make it to the theater. Taught in several colleges as a serious work of fiction, the Watchmen graphic novel is a gem to read. But unlike most naysayers, I am happy that they have converted it to the screen. I am also pleased with all of the trailers and special features I have seen. The NBC franchise has even released daily bios on each of the characters leading up to tomorrow's release. I am hopeful for an excellent Superhero film in a long list of great release this last year.

With all of the money that will be pumping into our country over the next weeks and months, I think the most important thing that anyone can do these days is stay in touch with the news and the different packages that are going to be released. From debt consolidation to refinancing your mortgage, there will be some way to improve your current financial condition if you want to take the time to investigate. From the crazy guy on the TV selling his Government Grant book to the infomercial Guru selling his "secrets they don't want you to know about," there truly are grants out there that can help you get ahead if you want to take the time, energy and willpower to hunt them down. Now, more than ever, is the time to do just that. I think that many of these unused grants will increase in size with the stimulus package and it will be easier to get approved with everyone looking at helping the "little guy."
Do your research. Look at what local grants your city and state might offer and then start looking for the national ones. With a little time and effort, you may find yourself in a better position that you were in the past.

Last night I was watching a short part of Fox News and they were discussing a recent lawsuit that has been filed. The lawsuit is against Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus over a photograph that was taken of the actor pulling the corners of her eyes back to appear Asian. The lawsuit has been filed by Lucie J. Kim and is for approximately four billion dollars. Kim claims that she represents one million Asian Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County with a claim of four thousand each (the minimum that you can claim in a civil rights case). Kim says that this image mocked Asian people and felt that the actor should have known that her actions would become public display.
I am totally against a lawsuit of this nature. Kim has taken the law to the extreme and should be denied before this could ever go to a place where it wasted tax payer's money. How can anyone say that they represent an entire ethnic group without first contacting each one and asking if the image offended them? I know that I was upset at both the Dallas Cowboys and the Atlanta Braves when they both claimed that they were "America's Team." No one asked me if they were my team and I would have said that they weren't if I had been asked. How can any one person claim to speak for an entire group especially when it makes the group look petty and small-minded?
Can the court blame any person for their actions in a picture where everyone in the picture (including several of Asian descent) was obviously not offended? The courts and the Constitution say that we have a freedom of expression except when those actions directly incite people to a violent action. The people were obviously enjoying themselves as evident from the photo, no violence happened and there was absolutely no Hate mongering in the actor's activity.
As long as we are so close-minded as to blame the actions of a sixteen year old girl for her actions in a photo and scream that it is demeaning and should have billion dollar consequences, we will never become a color-blinded society. As long as we make such a public display of political correctness taken to the extreme, we will never be able to move past the mistakes of a generation that has past. Unless we forget the past and move toward the future, we will stagnate.

One of the hot news stories is about fans of Heath Ledger wanting DC Comics to retire the character of The Joker from future films to honor the late actor and his performance. The fans argue that it is like retiring the number 23 that Michael Jordan wore to play Basketball. I wonder if they are truly serious about this proposal or if it is just a ploy to get their 15 minutes of fame.
Let's consider the idea.
First: The Joker IS Batman's archenemy. He was introduced in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) as Batman's first enemy and has played a crucial role in the story development for almost 70 years. To remove the possibility of his appearance in any future Batman movie, or in fact, any DC Comic movie would be so drastically limiting that it would deprive the next generation of superhero believers a wealth of stories.
Second: Although I would be the first to admit that Heath Ledger's role as The Joker was the pinnacle of his career. I ask you to look at the rest of his career. Michael Jordan had his number retired because he had a life-long record of playing excellent Basketball. Ledger Fan's want one of the ultimate villains in the history of comics to be retired because a half-rate actor had one excellent moment on screen. They think that one shiny bauble in a sea of horrible acting earns Ledger the right to be honored in this way.
I know that acting and movie preference can be opinionated or Siskel and Ebert would never have had jobs. But, again I have to ask, are you serious? Can you honestly point at any other movie ledger stared in that was in anyway spectacular enough to add to one great role? I say not. Take a second and look at his resume and tell show me another diamond in the rough and I might give him some more credit as an actor but stay away from a legend in the Comic world and don't compare the careers of a Basketball great to the acting career of Heath Ledger.

The President has released a lot of information regarding his Stimulus Plan. As one of the lucky people with jobs, I have watched the progress of the economy closely so that I don't become one of the unfortunate ones who have lost their job in this hard time. Although I am concerned about what would happen if I found myself unemployed, I have to be realistic about the state of my finances. I am a single man with no credit cards, little tied up in loans (all from college) and I am in excellent health. If the worst were to happen, I would probably have to eat a little Mac and Cheese or some Ramen Noodles.
I have to be especially thankful to have a father that ingrained in me the idea, "If you don't have the cash for it, you don't need it." I have always felt a little left out from time to time not having the latest fashion, the coolest car or the newest gadget but I have no major debt buying those things off credit hoping to make enough to pay the interest off. As a soldier in the military and after eight years of college, I have seen too many people live exactly that way. They would get a credit card, max it out and then turn around and do it all over again until they were so in debt from the exorbitant rates that they would need to work for five years to pay off what they owed. It was sad to watch them stress and work two jobs just to make sure that they made their interest payments.
Now, with the economy severely overtaxed, there is one part of the budget that seems to rile me a little. The President said that he wanted the banks to loosen up on loaning. Isn't the rampant loaning of the credit industry what got us here in the first place? And I also hear about debt forgiveness all the time these days. It seems that many people who spent out of their means and borrowed against money they didn't have are now going to be forgiven.
I look at myself.
The car is paid. I don't have credit cards. I have also managed to place a little money in savings while lowering the amount that I owe on my loans. I have done all of this without assistance from the government. The only assistance was the education I received at the feet of my father. He taught me to believe in paper, not plastic.

The last few weeks have been amazing for a person that hails from an area that normally has 6 inches of snow on the ground from November to March. I have even joked with friends from back home that I wouldn't visit until it starts to warm up back there. I have been watching the weather they are experiencing and, although 20 degrees colder than here, they are experiencing uncharacteristically high temperatures as well.

I have never been a big believer in the whole global warming hype. I have heard it touted by every demagogue for the last 20 years. With that said, I feel like this last year is starting to make those once thought of as fools into prophets. I like the weather of this year but it makes me wonder how hot our months will be in five years from now or if this will lead to a new Ice Age as some predict. Either way, I am sitting on the porch at night enjoying what may be the end, knowing only that I like it today.

There were several stories released in the last few days and over the last few weeks about large companies cracking down on Internet Piracy. As an artist myself, I am a firm believer in the legal purchase and use of copyrighted material. However, I can't help to remember the days before Internet when it was cheaper to buy five blank cassettes and record my music off the radio than it was to purchase the artist's tape at the local record store. (Cassettes were what they used before CD's.)
My problem with piracy is two-fold. For this example, I will stick solely with the music industry. The music industry allows you to get music either by purchasing an entire CD at a store or by downloading the individual songs at a per song price (at approved vendor sites). My first concern is that, except for a very small number of artists, musicians are horrible these days. As everyone tries to achieve their 15 minutes of fame, mediocre singers are publishing albums that have only one song worth listening to and costing ten to twenty dollars per CD. If on the other hand, I need to buy a single song, I can purchase the one song I like for $.99 to $1.99. But is a song that I may listen to a couple times a week worth two bucks?
With several sites, I can download the song, listen to it a couple of times, and determine if I like the musician enough to invest in the entire CD. With all of the restrictions and attempts to enforce this as a copyright violation, I am finding it harder and harder to find sites that I can sample songs. "Why don't you listen to it on the radio?" You may ask. The answer is simple. I don't have a radio at work-I am at work all day long-and I don't live in a community that has the music I enjoy playing on the radio.
Also, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for the record industry. If they didn't feel it necessary to charge twenty dollars for a Frisbee with music on it (how many of us really listen to the CD anymore? We burn it right to our MP3 player) then they wouldn't have everyone trying to get free songs on the Internet. Ok, that isn't exactly true. Everyone wants something for nothing. Lower prices would make people like me who are willing to buy a CD at a lower price pay for a CD of worthless songs to get the one I like.

Last night, as I sat eating my dinner in front of the television set, a couple of shows ran back-to-back. They were Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight. Along with random comments about Obama and Bush, they were playing up the pageantry of the Golden Globe. As I sat there watching the display, I couldn't help but be ashamed with the state of the world and our nation.

Our country is in one of the worst recessions we can remember and everyone is being hit hard. Except, I guess, the movie stars at the Golden Globe. Parading down the red carpet in their Christian Doir and their diamonds from Cartier, I watched how many people could have eaten a good dinner just from one earring. On Inside Edition, the recession and its speculated affect on the actors' appearance was addressed. TV Guide host Lisa Rima was quoted as saying that, "Hollywood glamour is what we turn to when times are tough. I think they showed it right tonight, those stars came out [with] beautiful jewelery, stunning gowns, and I was happy to see that."

As I sat and listen to this last comment, my internal bells-and-whistles went off and I remembered Marie Antoinette's famous comment about the poor and hungry on the streets of Paris shortly before the French Revolution. She had said, "Let them eat cake." Marie lost her head for that attitude but Lisa Rima received air time with her sound byte.

I started looking closer at the gowns, tuxedos, jewelry and coiffed hair and I did a few calculations. If there were 300 couples at the Golden Globe and each couple only spent a total of $10,000 dollars on their outfits (You and I both know that some of those diamond necklaces alone cost $10K) then that would be $3,000,000 worth of clothing. Throw in a few more million for the announcers, hosts, catering and all of the other pageantry and more than $5 million was spent on a single evening of frivolity while parents are going to bed hungry just to feed their children.

I have never been a big "save the world" kind of person, but this horrible display of decadence, in a time of hardship, smacked right in the face of all I believe. I guess I will just sit back and eat cake as all of those millions go to buy pretties and baubles and shiny things that will distract us from our woes.

Today is Election Day. Since I only recently moved to North Carolina and still have connections and residency in Nebraska, I filed an absentee ballot. This means that I have already made my choices and now I just sit back and watch what is going on in the world of politics. But what do I think of this election? I have never before seen two parties look just like one and I have never seen the mudslinging and distasteful tactics that have been deployed this year.

The worst that I had seen is in a state election where there have been attacks against one candidate's "ungodliness." Yes, that's right; one of our state candidates is accused of supporting people who want the separation of church and state. Who would have ever figured that in an election year someone would be chastised for wanting to support the 1st Amendment to the Constitution? I know that North Carolina is a very religious state, but isn't there supposed to be a separation of church and state? These are my feelings on the matter.

Finally, to leave you with a thought, is it just me or have the parties moved so far to the middle that they could easily be the same party with differences in opinions? McCain says that he isn't going to follow Bush's standard and Obama saying that he isn't either. If this is the case, then who is running as a Republican?

The bracelet on my wrist has a name on it. That name is LTC Chad Buehring. It also has a date. The date reads 26 OCT 03. This is the day that my mentor, fellow soldier and friend fell in Iraq. Sadly, I have lost many close friends in Afghanistan and Iraq, but none have touched me as much or as lastingly as Chad did. Older than me by 15 years, Chad could talk to anyone as if he was someone you had known all your life. Iraqi, British, American, all who met Chad instantly found some kind of connection. Especially children. Always children. Children were what Chad had a connection with. Maybe he was a child still in some ways, maybe he was the perfect father archetype, but whatever it was, Chad and children connected in a way that made you feel warm inside. That is what I remeber the most. Chad in a swimming pool with the two daughters of our Iraqi translator. They are climbing and jumping off his tall shoulders and laughing in the splashes on a beautiful, sunny, Iraqi afternoon. It is a memory that I hold dear and laugh over still. Memories of the fallen don't have to be tearful and when they are perfect memories like these then they are worth holding onto. Never Forget!