As men, we look at our sons, sometimes without realizing it, and remember all that we want for our sons. We want them to enjoy the feelings of success in sports we, ourselves may never had enjoyed. We want them to enjoy the social success with their peers, we may never been able to fathom when we were their ages.
And so we drive them hard. We drive them to succeed. We push them to catch, to throw, to run, to shoot, to be better at everything at their age, than we were. Like it or not, we admonish them to be better than we were.
But here is the truth. It’s not about you.
It’s not about him being a representation of you. It’s not about your having a second chance to live vicariously through your son. It isn’t.
And that is a hard thing to admit.
Because, if you are lucky, will see yourself again and again in your son. When he goes to bat, when he is on the field somewhere, when he struggles with is homework, when he fails in a spelling bee, when he scrubs out on his brand new bicycle. When he goes to high school, when he stays out late, when he doesn’t get into the college you think he should.
When he defies you and tells you to drop dead.
He is as he should be. When he is a little boy, the man he becomes is directly proportional to the love, support and willingness to let him succeed or fail on his own merits. Teach him to play, teach him to excel, teach him to fail well.
Then step back and let him grow. Be there with him both when he succeeds and more importantly when he fails. Both have lessons he will need to learn and no one will ever teach him better than you.
Except maybe Mom, but we’ll keep that under our hat. He’s not a man yet. And every day you spend with him will make him the man he’s supposed to be. And that’s not you.
“Every human being we save, is one less we have to fight.” These are the wisest words coming out of the next, terrifying zombie apocalypse movie, World War Z. Unlike zombie apocalypses of the past, these zombies can’t be stopped with a liberal application of brain power (see my previous articles on Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse: http://wp.me/p1UgIB-6y).
This is not your grandfather’s zombie apocalypse with shambling zombies who catch you because you fall asleep while you wait for them to corner you somewhere. These aren’t you dad’s zombies, the track stars of 28 Days Later who never get tired and run you down like a gazelle running from a lion. Nor are they the idiot zombies of Zombieland, The Walking Dead or Sean of the Dead, mostly slow, but incredibly numerous and deadly in bunches.
These zombies move like a force of nature, in a manner similar to a tidal wave or a comet smashing into the Earth. The military spends its time in the trailers running for its collective lives against an absolutely inhuman enemy. Fast, merciless, completely willing to commit everything to your consumption and absorption. My advice for previous zombie apocalypses cannot be applied here.
See that? That is how these new zombies roll, right over each other to get to YOU.
My advice? Have a helicopter, commandeer a Navy ship. Stay at sea as long as possible. Anybody look sick? Throw them overboard with speed and alacrity. All it takes is one and you are all dead. Feel bad, be alive, run faster…
World War Z is coming… Like nothing you’ve ever seen!
RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2013 in the United States
Personally, I think the book is better than the movie will be, but that is just my opinion.
Here’s the book by Max Brooks with its newest cover (support the artist, click the book to go to Amazon). Here’s an NPR interview with Max and what he thinks college kids could learn from World War Z (besides how to wet themselves when they see a crazed horde of super-zombies running their way!)
Robert Downey’s corpse scheduled to appear in Iron Man 11.
Robert Downey Jr, true to his word said he would live and die in his role as Iron Man. Being paid $100 million up front in Iron Man 10: The Revenge of Obediah Stane didn’t hurt.
Unknown to most fans, Downey actually dies while filming Iron Man 10. The death scene is so authentic, it is left in the film and makes the Iron Man retread actually worth watching. When you see the aging Tony Stark breathe his last, he’s really doing it. Talk about method acting!
Is this really the end of Iron Man? No other actor was willing to touch the role since Downey has left his fingerprints, beer stains and other unmentionable fluids all over the Iron Man armor. So the possibility of Downey’s corpse making Iron Man 11 seems as high as ever!
Using new servo-mechanism technology, Downey can continue to deliver his wooden pre-recorded one-liners as the Iron Zombie in a retreaded 1990 storyline where the entire Marvel Universe becomes zombies.
After all when has Death ever kept a Marvel hero down? (Except Uncle Ben and Captain Marvel?)
–AP News, May 13, 2045
Making fun of Justin Timberlake and Robert Downey Jr. in “Suits that Fly”
Reblogged from the 50 Best Websites 2013 Time Magazine Article
This is such an amazing thing to read today. I am happy to be the number two ranked writer on the Scifistackexchange.com. It's great to know someone out there recognized the awesomeness of this resource. I think the writers there are excited their effort and enthusiasm for all things science fiction and fantasy is appreciated.
The house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight were held for ten years. –AP
Charles Ramsey Interview, rescuer of Amanda Berry, a missing Cleveland woman
1:22 Seconds into video
Ramsey: “About five minutes after the police got here, the girl Amanda told the police ‘I ain’t the only one, there some more girls up in that house.’ So they go up there, thirty, forty deep and when they came out, (it) was just astonishing. I thought they were gone come up with nothing. I figured, I mean, whoever she was and like I said, my neighbor; you’ve got some big testicles to pull this off, bro.”
Ramsey: Cause we see this dude, everyday! I mean, everyday!
Reporter: How long has he lived here?
Ramsey: “I’ve been here a year. You see where I’m coming from? I barbequed with this dude. We eat ribs and whatnot and listen to salsa music, you see where I’m coming from?
Reporter: And you had no indication there was anything wrong?
Ramsey: Not a, bro, not a clue that that girl was in that house or anybody else was in that house against their will because how he is, he just comes out to his backyard, plays with the dogs, tinker with his cars and motorcycles and goes back in the house. So he’s somebody you look and then you look away because he’s not doing nothing but the average stuff. There’s nothing exciting about him. Well. Until today. (nervous laugh)
Reporter: What was the reaction on the girls faces, I can’t imagine, to see the sunlight, to be around people?
Ramsey: Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a Black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway.
Reporter: Charles Ramsey, thank you very much.
Cultural Insensitivity
When I first started hearing about this story, I did my patrol of the news articles and discovered a disturbing trend. So many people (a large number of them men) kept saying “Why didn’t they leave? Why didn’t they escape? Why didn’t three women overpower this one man?”
I found those statements to be galling and frustrating. As we would later find out, there were three men involved. The door was blockaded and barely able to be opened as Mr. Ramsey attested and the police used a large number of officers to break into the place to rescue the women successfully. There were also statements indicating the men proposed violence to the young women when they were still very impressionable. They were said to have told the girls “I took you from your home, I can go back there and harm your family any time I like. If you leave, I will do that.”
With such a threat hanging over their heads and without any knowledge of how they were physically constrained at the time, how could any compassionate individual make the statement WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST ESCAPE?
I started my transcript at the 1:22 mark because of the statements Mr. Ramsey made I found to be the most telling about this incident.
“We see this dude, everyday!” At least one of the suspects made no attempts to hide. He interacted with the neighborhood, he shopped, he was seen in the yard, he liked his dogs, his cars, barbeques and salsa music. This is the nature of their pathology. They were completely able to blend into the neighborhood looking just like anyone else. The boldness of his actions meant he had no expectations of ever being caught and for ten years or three thousand, six hundred and sixty five days (at least) three women lived in daily terror of their lives.
I mention this because I have been studying human trafficking and believe there is more of it taking place than we are ever truly aware of. This case is a perfect example of an abduction which left no clues long enough for the children who were abducted to be declared dead and the case considered cold if not completely closed.
Our nationwide lack of compassion toward children/women, hell anyone, who has been abducted and held against their will is poisoned by the idea that people will escape their captors, in a fashion similar to depictions in Hollywood. Bold, daring and completely self actualized, these characters find a way to foil their captors and return to their lives, barely changed by the event.
The truth is far more terrible. They are stolen as children, prevented from reaching a sense of agency, a sense of purpose, they are abused, misused, psychologically mutilated, bereft of identity and left in conditions often worse than if they were fending for themselves on the streets. These are not the heroes of cinema, they are the victims of a nightmare which for many have gone on so long, they have little hope of escape. And if their captors are competent, any will to escape is eroded by abuse, drug addition, torture and examples of what may happen if you try to escape. These victims are psychologically broken, often unable to escape unless a clear opportunity presents itself.
We, as a nation, need to be more aware of the nature of human trafficking, more aware of its effects on our society, our way of life and on the victims of it. They are victims, questioning their willingness to escape is the same as empowering the idea they should have been snatched from their lives and turned into slaves in the first place.
No doubt, more of this sorrid and terrible tale will be made available and as it is, it will be up to us to decide how we want to be involved in the reduction of human trafficking in our neighborhoods. Yes, no matter where you live, this insidious monster could be living right next door to YOU. And you have no idea of it.
Yes, Charles Ramsey is a hero. But not for the reasons you think. His greatest contribution to this conversation is to point out the temerity and boldness with which such monstrous behavior wanders invisibly into and out of our lives. That is the second greatest gift he could give to all of us.
He is an everyday hero who stepped up when he could have gone back into his home and never given it a second thought. Personally, I am so glad he didn’t turn away. There is too much of that going on already in this nation. Well done, sir, well done.
Random House recently started Hydra, an electronic-only imprint for science fiction stories and short novels. But, as noted by Writer Beware here, the terms in a Hydra deal sheet shown to them are pretty damn awful:
* No advance.
* The author is charged "set-up costs" for editing, artwork, sale, marketing, publicity -- i.e., all the costs a publisher is has been expected to bear.
