Glenn Beck is the Mouthpiece of the Empire

Glenn Beck: Forget 'shock and awe, you show the world what America does when we unleash the might and full power of the United States of America. Suck the air out of their lungs and push them back into the darkness so maybe we can have thirty more years before we have to do it again. Scare the hell out of them. That's the only thing you can do with these guys. Kill them. Kill them rapidly and go home. No nation building.

Governor Tarkin: Perhaps she would respond to an alternative form of persuasion.
Darth Vader: What do you mean?
Governor Tarkin: I think it is time we demonstrated the full power of this station. Set your course for Alderaan.

Emperor Palpatine: As you can see, my young apprentice, your friends have failed. Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!

Garbled in Transmission - New Music from Thatjeffcarter Was Here

It's an inexpensive download - and the money goes to support the work of The Salvation Army in Newton, Iowa.


Created in Ableton Live using material I recorded and the following sounds from the Freesound Project:

Random Recording 2 

Digital Glitch 28 

Digital Glitch 26 

Digital Glitch 24 

Digital Glitch 22 

Digital Glitch 15 

FX3 

Timpani Epix 

Broken Machine 1 

Poppy Violin Sustains 

Rhythm Beats Loops 

Icing Nicely 

What I’ve Read this Year- 2013

These are not  listed in the order I read them, or in order of my favor, or alphabetical order either... just a list.  My reviews and comments are in the links

Fiction
Stephen R. Lawhead – The Silver Hand
Stephen R. Lawhead – The Endless Knot

Stephen R. Lawhead - Byzantium

Alan Goldsher - Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion
Seth Grahame-Smith - Unholy Night

Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L'Engle -A Wind in the Door

Madeleine L’Engle - A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Madeleine L'Engle - Many Waters

Katy Stauber - Revolution World

Robert A. Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Ace Collins -Jefferson Burke and the Secret of the Lost Scroll

C.S. Lewis - Out of the Silent Planet

C.S. Lewis – Perelandra

C.S. Lewis - That Hideous Strength

Franz Kafka -The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories

Paul L. Maier - Pontius Pilate: A Novel

Jonathan Maberry - Rot and Ruin

Walter Wangerin Jr. - The Book of the Dun Cow

Tad Williams - The Dragonbone Chair

Tad Williams - Stone of Farewell

Tad Williams - To Green Angel Tower (Parts 1 & 2)

Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle

Philip K. Dick - VALIS

Phillip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly

Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death

Jim Butcher - Summer Knight

Brandon Sanderson - The Rithmatist

Frank Herbert – Dune

Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah

Frank Herbert - Children of Dune

Orson Scott Card - Seventh Son

Orson Scott Card - Red Prophet

Orson Scott Card - Prentice Alvin

Orson Scott Card – Heartfire

Orson Scott Card - Alvin Journeyman

Orson Scott Card - The Crystal City

Ben Bova - Jupiter

George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones

Cullen Bunn - Deadpool Killustrated  

Clive Barker -The Thief of Always

Richard Adams - Watership Down

Robert Penn Warren - The Cave

Glenn Beck - Agenda 21

William Shakespeare - Hamlet

Henning Mankell - Faceless Killers

Henning Mankell - The Dogs of Riga

Newt Gingrich - 1945  

Dan Brown - Inferno

William Golding - The Inheritors

William Golding - Lord of the Flies

Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness  

Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

Stephen King - Carrie

Stephen King - Joyland

Stephen King - From a Buick 8

Stephen King - The Shining

Stephen King - Firestarter

Stephen King - The Dark Half

Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne

Kim Paffenroth- Dying to Live

Matt Bronleewe - Illuminated

Jeff Lindsay - Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Non-Fiction

John Dominic Crossan - Who Killed Jesus?  Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus

Madeleine L'Engle - Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation

James F. McGrath - The Burial Of Jesus: History And Faith

John P. Meier - A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume One, The Roots of the Problem and the Person

Deborah Blum - The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Richard A. Burridge - Faith Odyssey: A Journey through Life

Archibald MacLeish - J.B.

Marvin Meyer -Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends about the Infamous Apostle of Jesus  

Irwin Ginsburgh - First, Man Then, Adam! A Scientific Interpretation of the Book of Genesis

Charles R. Pellegrino - Return to Sodom and Gomorrah: Bible Stories from Archaeologists

Laurence Gardner - Bloodline of the Holy Grail (here, here, and here)

John Larsson - 1929

Edward Jay Epstein - The Annals of Unsolved Crime

Jay Michaelson - God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality

Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes

Thomas Cahill - Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus

Bill Bryson - Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States

Marion L. Soards - Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church Today

Valerie Mindlin - The Epic of the Maccabees

E.P. Sanders - The Historical Figure of Jesus

Travis Walton - Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experience

Louis Untermeyer - The Pan Book of Limericks

Lee Gurga  - Haiku: A Poet's Guide

Susan Stryker - The Transgender Studies Reader

Joseph Reino - Stephen King the First Decade: Carrie to Pet Sematary

Sandra Lowerre - The Cross Dressing Female Saints in Wynkyn De Worde's 1495 Edition of the Vitas Patrum: A Study and Edition of the Lives of Saints Pelage, Maryne, Eufrosyne, Eugene and Mary of Egypt

Kenneth E Bailey - Open Hearts in Bethlehem: A Christmas Drama

Raymond E. Brown - An Adult Christ at Christmas

Michael J. Nelson - Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters

Jason Draper – A Brief History Album Covers

Marcella Althaus-Reid - Indecent Theology

What I’m Reading: Agenda 21

In Agenda 21 radio host and political commentator, Glenn Beck [i], has put to paper an outlandish version of his own paranoid conspiracy theories and dystopian predictions of the future.   I can’t describe the book as a thriller (as it isn’t thrilling in anyway) or as a nightmare (because to be frightening, it would have to be believable, and it isn’t.)

Beck (since his name is emblazoned on the cover, he gets the blame)  has created a bizarre future world wherein a distant and never actually seen Central Authority has crushed the American democratic government and collectivized private property.  Everyone lives in centrally planned communities.  Every decision from birth to death is made by the Authorities. 

And it’s all because of Agenda 21 – a nonbinding, voluntarily implemented action plan developed by the United Nations to promote sustainable development – that is, to meet human needs without polluting the environment and depleting natural resources.  But in Beck’s delusion, this means socialist totalitarianism.  Everything Beck doesn’t like means socialist totalitarianism. 

The novel is dull. 

There is no action, only a series of history lectures given to the protagonist, Emmeline – who is a surrogate for the reader.  She is a home-raised, homeschooled young woman – she did not attend the village school.  Emmeline, ostensibly the heroine of the story, is profoundly ignorant about the events that led up to her world situation and about how to live in that world.  It makes me wonder if Beck isn’t hurting one of his own favorite causes: homeschooling.  Emmaline is unbelievably ignorant.  How could her parents (her mother a history teacher, even) have raised her for 14 years and kept her so sheltered that she knows nothing about the past or her present?  She, in effect, becomes the epitome of that stereotypical ignorant and unsocialized homeschooled kid.

Seriously, the novel is dull.  And it doesn’t help that the writing is flat and unimaginative.  It’s a very easy to read book; I read it in a couple of hours – but that’s not a plus. It’s simplistic and shallow.  The characters are one dimensional (if that) and exhibit none of the complexities that make people so interesting.

But Beck isn’t really interested in people, nor is he interested in human drama or compelling stories. He’s got his own agenda:  Selling tinfoil hats and making lots of money.

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[i] Yes, I am  aware that the book’s afterward makes it perfectly clear that Harriet Parke actually wrote the book, but if Beck is going to splash his name across the cover to take credit for it, then he’s going to take the blame for it too.