*Magnify*
SPONSORED LINKS
BY ONLINE AUTHORS
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/palindrome1996/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/2
Review Requests: OFF
225 Public Reviews Given
227 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
Previous ... 1 -2- 3 4 ... Next
26
26
Review of Change of Heart  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Good story.
If it's true, I'd like to offer some advice...it's not warning advice, or negative advice, or anything of the sort.
What it is is basic long-term relationship advice.
For any relationship to work, both people have to believe they are doing more than their share of the work...and keep doing it, because it means that the other is "getting a break". When you think you're doing ALL the work, or if HE feels that way, it becomes trouble. The one feeling that way has become (or always was) selfish, and is incapable of putting the baby first, much less you.
And you really have to be willing to feel that you're the one doing more, that you're content in that, even if it means that if something makes the other unable to carry "any weight at all", then you have a solid relationship.
I was fortunate enough to have that strong a relationship, until my health issues put me in a position where the best I can do, usually, is a couple hours worth of housework, most days. No trips to the store, no running the kids to various events. Then my wife discovered she wasn't willing to keep on doing more, and decided I was doing "nothing", regardless of visible effects I had on the cleanliness of the house, and preparations of meals, and so on...and it means our relationship is already dead, but we're sticking the last 4 years, to make certain the kids keep the lifestyle they're used to.

So be CERTAIN that both of you are willing to carry that weight...or be aware that eventually you will be carrying all of it, no matter what you try to avoid it.
27
27
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
ROFL...I'm sorry, but I have this indelible mental image of the narrator as a cheerful diner-waitress type in a more formal business environment, with an innate need to just "keep things going" around herself, and filling the empty space with her own voice, if it got too quiet...like if there wasn't noise, even if it was coming from her, the world will suddenly contract and implode.

I've met a fair few of this type of person...and absolutely love them, if they aren't the "stream of consciousness" babblers, but are the ones who quite clearly TRY not to "go there", but by some inevitable gravitational pull, get sucked into it, anyhow.
28
28
Review of Good Morning, Ian  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Gibson-esque. Which is a good thing, in my opinion, as Gibson, and other cyber-punk or cyber-phobic writers turned out some great stuff. Gibson is probably best known for the Outer Limits episode based on one of his stories, where the people from the future "kidnap" all the people who history says were killed in an airline crash, and replace them with "clone dummies" (I believe this was his, anyhow...fairly certain), and is definitely the first author to seriously address completely manufactured recreational drugs designed to skirt laws, and having nightmare side-effects.

But despite this whole "machines are unfeeling, and will turn everything into impersonal and unsatisfying processes, offering not even an alternative" theme (a VERY good theme), it lacks a climax or conclusion...just leaves you with the message that "Hail to the King, no different than the last!"

If it's an unfinished work, take that as "it's got a lot of promise, and is being handled in a style that NEEDS more artists practicing", if you feel it's a finished piece...please let me urge you to follow it further...there IS a conclusion in it, even if it's his death...or destruction of the machine in a fit of frustration, leading to his death or unexpected consequences...possibly the fit leads to such a level of exertion that his heart gives out...right after the doctor has assured him, for what seems the billionth time, that the cancer is getting better, closing with an autopsy with the morticians commenting on how clear it was that he was going into remission from cancer, too bad his old heart gave out?
29
29
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (5.0)
Sometimes, the trick to teaching children is to stay as entertainingly oddball as possible...slapstick does the job quite well.

I'm not an educator, aside from heavily supplementing my kids' educations, all through school, which resulted in all of them topping the highest available math course in their high school by the end of their freshman year. Thanks to electives, and the opportunity to stack sciences or humanities, they have classes to take to fulfill required hours in the high school (by sophomore year, they were in the highest English course supplied by the HS)

But in doing this, I have often found myself with their friends involved in these bits of "supplementary teaching"...and it HAS to be kept entertaining, otherwise it's "Oh, man...your dad just talks blah blah blah, let's go do something"...so it inevitably ends with kids going home with knowledge it might not be ideal for them to have, having learned the principal (and possibly method) by observation.
30
30
Review of I.F.  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
          As a soldier from Desert Storm/Shield and Operation Just Cause (Panama), I have to admit I read a lot into this that may not have been the author's intent in display...but I have to give credit for an elegantly structured, and emotionally evocative piece.
         I don't know how many of our soldiers understood exactly what was going on, there, with them either being too young to fully have a grasp on political realities, having lived life sheltered, in its way, by the military, or believing what a media that doesn't like soldiers, EVER, excepting when there is a clear victory, and our soldiers come home "heroes", has been telling them that "everyone else believes, so it must be true" (even when that "victory" isn't one, as I am shortly going to explain).

         When we, and the Brits, returned to Iraq, it was not a "new" war. Our Congress (and British Parliament) had continuously voted, as their respective laws require, to uphold the state of war that never ended in 1991. A UN-brokered cease-fire was called, at Hussein's appeal to the UN to intervene and "ask mercy"--ask us PLEASE not to "conquer" in the manner we were giving evidence we would, in no more than days.
         The UN asked both the Brits and the US to return, several times, when the third-person, neutral investigatory teams were being stonewalled, deceived, and sometimes blatantly blocked from their duties under that cease-fire. This was so blatant that it made liberally biased network news media comment on Clinton's resistance to act upon request of the UN. Comment was again made when Bush resisted it for the first three years of his administration.
         We finally returned when the UN insisted that we do so, or face international condemnation. We overthrew the Hussein regime, as we had intended to do, and had announced intention to, before the ceasefire agreement was brokered...there was no search for WMD being the supposed instigator...you can look at news archives, and see that 10 days after we resumed occupation was the first time a reporter asked a question to a White House press agent anything at all about WMD, and it was framed in the same manner that the middle school bully "have you told your parents you're gay, yet?" questioning that there's no right way to answer...for four more days, the WH press agents managed to respond strictly with "Weapons of mass destruction are not a factor in our resumption of hostilities with the Hussein regime"....until a "fill in" press agent made a mistake, while the president and staff were overseas, and the head press agent was present with him to make releases on diplomatic matters (interestingly enough, they were in Saudi Arabia when this mistake happened), and that fill-in agent deviated from the official response, and said "We have not found any weapons of mass destruction, and it is not our intention to"....and continued on
         Ah-HAH!, Now the station originally starting the loaded questions had a hole in the releases to latch onto...so, 14 days after the resumption of hostilities, the media cry suddenly was all about the supposed failed search for WMD...forcing the WH to respond to those attacks without seeming to back up on itself.
         Once the regime was toppled, the UN asked us (and the Brits) to maintain a presence as a stabilizing force, until Iraq could establish a legal interim government. When that was done, the temporary (and soon permanent) Iraqi PM, Nouri al'Maliki asked us to maintain troop presence until the legal government could establish footing throughout the nation.
         Before leaving office, Bush and al'Maliki agreed on a date for full troop withdrawal that was a full four months before our current administration even began to withdraw, and our Senate had ratified that agreement.
         The "discarded" agreement would have had us out two months earlier than the date Congress had to re-ratify the deployment of combat or occupational forces by law...that ratification, held to last minute, failed. Giving the president 60 days under the Presidential War Powers Act to maintain deployment...which is why we saw the fastest withdrawal of troops and equipment from an area of operations done in American (or any other major nation, speaking in "last 100 years" terms) history...there were only 60 days in which he could do it, by law (and already had impeachment proceedings in House, pretty much waiting for the kind of violation that would allow presentation of charges)

         What I am trying to say is that my brothers and sisters, by blood spilt, and uniform worn (and in some cases the guys that started out as snot-nosed, just graduated high school punks that I had a part in training), were there for good reason, and were dying for legitimate reason, not oil, not money, not because of a failed hunt for WMD...excepting those lost in the last four months of deployment.
31
31
Review of Expectations  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (4.0)
Several semantic untruths in this, as well as some self-deception, though the work itself is rather good.

If the person you truly are is not the person they fell in love with...who holds blame? You. You were the one holding up a false mask for them to fall in love with.
If expectations are premeditated resentments, then one intended to fail, or placed their expectations on the actions of another...in which case both the expectations and resentment are the fault of those expecting and resenting. The only time you can honestly expect anything is to have it within your control, which means not in the hands of the actions of another, or in circumstances beyond your control. This is something successful people know, and successful relationships are founded on. This fact is uncovered again and again in interviews and biographies of successful people, or people with long-term successful relationships. The difficulty in maintaining this attitude, or going into any part of life with this very uncommon attitude, is to blame for job dissatisfaction statistics, and divorce statistics. It is rarely "I do this, then this, then this" in planning, but "I do this, then if they do this", or "I do this, then if this happens, I can do this"..."if" requires someone else acting or doing as you wish, not relying on yourself, and what you have control over.
But, in your statements, you show that YOU had expectations from THEM, as well...which, again, were things beyond your control, and relied on THEM acting as you wished, instead of relying on things within your control.
32
32
Review of Homecoming  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Somewhat too predictable...but a wonderful illustration of "not all of those that appear to have a long road full of success in front of them manage to stay on it".

Which is a story I know all too well, having lived quite a bit of it, myself. Passed on going to arts school for music in high school, joined the Army instead of going to college, despite having a partial scholarship close to being forced down my throat, went out while in the Army and "came back a hero" just to have 14 years of troubles of one sort or another due to issues related to that time, which I refused to have treated (including working in fields and having incidents where I was shot, or shot at, for very low wage, when I had skills that would have paid three or four times what I was making for taking those chances, AND had union benefits)....though your story illustrates it quite well, living on that road, and STAYING on it seems to me to be something easier for those who have to work their butts off to get on and stay on, or who are in such circumstances that "daddy", or wherever the family money comes from, can keep them on it by unfair influence, than it is for those who appear to be on it with little to no effort.
33
33
Review of Living in Fear  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (4.5)
Still a bit of flavor of naivete coming through on this. A bit of parroting what your parents believe, and have fed you, and recognition that that teaching is "off center", and would be viewed as something it really isn't--there is good reasoning behind all of it.

May I point out some issues that "stockpilers" rarely think of, that you might use for your own contribution? Stockpiles give out. No matter how well you do it, they give out. And completely insular living is virtually impossible, and, if it comes down to it, your neighbors will know--making your stocking a target, both for them, and for "the enemy".

Yes the economy is in the tank, yes it is likely to get worse...worse, I started predicting more than 20 years ago that if the US fell, it would be to internal economic issues creating a weakness that China (even then the "ascending superpower") could take and make use of to create a "bloodless takeover". Honestly speaking, China, and a small few other nations, combined, own more of the US economy than the US does, now.

Rather than stockpiling, though, I have approached a different method. If this "goes down" there may be, probably will be, a resistance movement. It won't be a movement easy to survive, and survival of my family is my goal...survival and the ability to do a WWII "French Resistance" style "raid, and withdraw" that has been very effective at driving occupying forces into doing what you want them to o, and to wasting huge amounts of resources and numbers of men, throughout time.
Our Apache Indians used this method, Kurds (read up on their history, some time, they are amazing), Gurkha tribal warriors (not what we currently know under that name, but the warrior bands made of a chosen few from a specific family of tribes), Montangyards, even the Mongols used a modified version of it during their conquests. They would find a weak point, go in in a "thunder run", do as much damage as possible, the disappear over the horizon while the enemy was still trying to organize a response.
Additionally, our "modern warriors" (various special forces groups) have a saying that is rather applicable--"a handgun is only good for getting a shotgun, which is only good for getting a rifle"...stocking firearms is foolish. more than one shot from a given area is a sure way to get triangulated..but the nature of power and authority means that a SILENT weapon can be used to get either a shotgun to get that long rifle, or the long rifle directly...and there is no desperation that relying on supplies of ammunition for rifles included. Modern bows, with practice, are accurate up to 90 yards. And can be bought, and fully equipped with top end equipment for less that a good long rifle and scope. They also penetrate body armor (unlicke fragments from bombs, or even direct bullets), as the DEA has discovered.

So my approach has been to stockpile medical supplies and texts (which I vacuum seal, and bury at points I mark on all of the handheld GPS/radio sets we use for hunting), I collect "camp foods" like MREs and the "gourmet" crap from REI, and do the same, I bury caches of arrows, replacement parts, fletching equipment...all of this buried at least 2 feet down, in areas only accessible by foot, and even then by using belaying tactics to get a hundred feet or more off any sort of established track.

So all I need to keep at home are a handful of rucksacks with "weekend hunting camp" gear in them, multiple sets of camouflage that suit the purposes of hunters as well as anything else...and knowledge. OLD school knowledge. methods for forging on a wood fire, adzing a timber from a cut log, for construction purposes, how to get several planks from a fallen tree, to make siding of a house that will be relatively weatherproof, how to camouflage such a building, how to spin various fibers into rope or thread, how to make a loom (or even a medieval flying shuttlecock loom), how to dig a well and "privy", and where to do it, even how to (given time) provide themselves with running water.


Point out to your folks that stockpiling goods is stockpiling GOODS, they run but...but stockpiling a computer with a hand-crank charger, and vacuum sealing it provides an unending supply of vital knowledge
34
34
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (5.0)
Though most Westerners, if they are smart, learn three things pretty quickly--the bacteria die easily enough if you cook it right, you don't want to know what kind of meat it is, and whatever you do, do NOT express admiration for a belonging, or pay the first named price for goods. In the case of expressing admiration for material objects, most cultures feel "envy" is wrong, and attempt to save you from it by "gifting" the item, no matter how much of their wealth it represents, or the value they attach to it, and refusing it is seen, by them, as saying it isn't enough, or isn't GOOD enough. In the case of paying "first price", most cultures make an art of haggling, paying first price marks you as both a sucker, and someone with too much money, which everyone on the street notices instantly, and the less savory characters will inevitably endeavor to relieve you of some of your "burden".

I had been warned by my grandfather, prior to spending some time in South Korea, and thus, the first thing I did after checking in to base was find myself a hooch, and hire a "mamasan"--I'll tell you, that woman taught me more about the world's social and economic workings in three weeks than a full year of sociology and economics classes, each, managed in college. And I swear I will never see her like in the wringing the absolute last drop of value out of a coin, if I live to 150. You know the "cheap" jokes we make about the Scottish? I think they must have been trained by Korean nannies.
35
35
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Evidently not written by a psychologist, but funny as hell. The irony, and intermingling was a short reminiscent of Victor Hugo, and his ability to make a whole story revolve around 7 characters with another 5 multiple line secondary characters, despite limiting to 4 personalities, and interweaving them all as one main character and 3 sub-characters of substance into one short story.

Keep it up, it seems you have a gift for the humorous.
36
36
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (5.0)
Excellently done.

Nitpick: "sewn" is the wrong spelling for the use you put it to, it is "sowed"..as in you sow seeds, not as in you bound with thread.


As familiar as I am with the calls to Mom and Dad saying "I'm sorry I did that to you" over my adolescent children, the rebellion part (dying hair black to spite you) was actually one I managed to mostly avoid, and possibly my method might help you...they think they're grown up. Hormones are rushing around, they feel everything much more strongly than ever before, they have a need to try to be independent...

So do exactly what so many interviews with kids say the kids want--talk to them. Make sure that they know that if, at the moment you are "dictating" or being "not fair", either then, or if you're busy at the moment, later the same day, you can discuss it, and actually discuss it, don't talk AT them (and if you don't let them get their part in, or don't seem to be giving it fair thought, then that is how it's seen...recall that from your own childhood?).

Make compromises, any time possible. (example, my youngest wanted to grow his hair out, and dye red streaks in it....after discussion where he made a point I knew very well to be true, that my parents never accepted "I can cut it, bleach the dye out, or just let it wear out, any time", we compromised---long and natural colored, or cut, styled in a style I approve of, and dyed to his heart's content--he had that piece of "freedom", and I lost nothing by indulging, and GAINED respect and a willingness in him to listen). If you do this, then when they want to do something truly stupid (for instance, my eldest wanting to "gauge" his ears), then you will probably retain the influence to get them to listen long enough for you to SHOW, not tell why it's not a good idea (when he wanted to do that, I took him to National Geographic's website, and showed him the end result of the "primitive body modding" such self-decoration is based off of, and said "do you want your ears looking like that, when you have small children to grab the hole and yank?"--no gauged ears, HIS choice. plain old earrings, not what I wanted, but again, his choice, and reasonable)


It's a fine balance with adolescents, and a difficult one...but the biggest pat in maintaining it is interacting with them as if they are simply inexperienced new-hires on a job...the job being "life"--they need training by example and illustration, without being talked to as if they are something of an inherently unintelligent nature. I've got 3, one entering his junior year of high school on a program called "running start" which means he takes his courses at the local community college and graduates high school with a transfer degree (associate's degree in general education) at the same time. His sister is a year ahead of him, in the same program, but working towards an associate's in arts, and plannign to take an extra year to get the gen ed degree to propel her through "serious school", and my eldest used the same program, leaves for basic Training for the Army reserves in 3 weeks, and plans to use the Reserves money as pocket money, while using ROTC at school to cover four years of college (when he needs two for a conventional bachelor's), so he can do a double major and a strong minor that he'll be able to turn into a third bachelor's with GI bill money after completing his term as an officer in the military. They aren't perfect kids, by a LONG shot...but I have been able to guide them SO much more easily than other parents I've observed and/or talked to, and more easily than my own did me, by sticking to these ideas....


Good luck :)
37
37
Review of The Navy Corpsman  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
If, as represented in the story, you truly are a corpsman, many men (including I) thank you for putting your life at risk selflessly in order PURELY to work at saving others. As a former Ranger--I wouldn't be here had it not been for a field medic willing to hunch over me while hellfire was raging all around. Not many men will jump into a firefight with nothing to fight back with except a bag of bandages, medicines, and IV solutions.

Technical picking: Marines is always capitalized, you missed it in your 3rd sentence.
"Bullets are whizzing pass, I can hear them making contact with metal, the ground and worse of all, people" pass" should be "past", and "worse" is a mid stage, there is no "worse of all", since "of all" is an absolute statement..."worst" is the proper word, bad, worse, worst.
38
38
Review of Eternity  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
EEEW!
Excellently done creepy-crawly horror! Prometheus made of his own folly, not from the vengeance of jealous Gods! I have to say, I love it!
You need to get in-depth with the agony associated with being devoured alive, though...and it might not hurt at all to include rats, not just insects, in the "assaulting horde"
39
39
Review of The Interview  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Law firm interview? She must've made Senior Partner almost instantly!

All kidding aside--quite dark, yet in its brevity, very entertaining. Though I'd rather she have killed the bald guy, after some (revealed in the telling) inner conversation that determined HE wasn't quite predator enough, in his flaws...
40
40
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
I like the layout, and the subject matter.
But I think you're being a tad TOO cynical. Some of us grow up. OK, it's rare, these days, and getting more so. But there are still folks going the distance, putting in the effort to make things keep rolling, even when it hurts, or takes work, or just seems boring.
Don't despair.
41
41
Review of Is It Worth It?  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: ASR | (5.0)
I never had to ask "Is it worth it?"
From day one, I knew that whatever price I paid for my children would be worth every cent, every bead of sweat, every tear, every hour, minute, second of effort, fear, anger, of regret over words said.

But DAMN, if this didn't tear tears out of me, anyhow.

I did, however, spend a lot of time calling my parents--at first just my mother, because my father and I really stopped talking to each-other beyond "hi, is Mom there?" "I'll get her for you." when I was 15, until..well, until shortly before her death. My calls were usually of the "I know what I did to you now, and I'm sorry" and "Was it this hard for you?" and "How do I handle this, properly?" and "Now I know why you did/said that, and I just did it, too."
42
42
Review of Last Legs  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
I really don't know how I feel about this piece.
I, myself, feel really old, and beaten down, in many ways, at the age of 42, but it's a result of a SERIOUSLY overactive life up until health issues caught up with me (issues related to desert Storm Syndrome), but the only regrets I carry are those of not doing MORE, and not knowing how much more time I have to do what I'm still physically capable of doing.
I still have a "worthwhile goal", of pumping as much life out of what life I have left to sympathize with the air of defeatism carried in the poem, and don't (and never have) understood those who will pick up a "it's not worth it to try" attitude.

So I'm stuck with one half of me going "know what you mean, brother", and the other half saying "get off your whiny ass, man up, and live what you have left to the fullest...drink down the last dregs of the mug, even if it's been bitter and murky beer, all the way down"
Which really leaves me in an ambivalent position.
43
43
Review of Somehow  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (4.0)
Well enough written, though the double use of "living doll not just a toy" is unclear, seeming a negative in one, and a positive in the other, but describing the same thing.
As well as making one wonder "Why would you want a living doll, even if it was more than a toy? A doll would still be a possession, an object, not a human part of the equation to give wholeness"
The gist comes through loud and clear, though.
44
44
Review of A Father's Heart  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (4.0)
And they all break our hearts, eventually. They grow up, move away. They fall in love, and replace us with some punk kid (and ANY guy stealing your daughter's heart from you IS "a punk kid", even if they're completely respectable, going places, able to be a good provider, and likeable).

Mine isn't out of the nest, yet, but I already know the path. And the descriptions are great. Larger than the universe, yet held in her hand...yup, your heart is big enough for ANYTHING where she's concerned. Harder than a diamond, fragile as gossamer...yup. Former soldier, combat vet, hunter, and more comfortable with machines than people...the machines make SENSE. But the wrong words from her, the things said in the angry moments of a teen-age girl's temper fit with fracture far more deeply than any would expect. All of it, great metaphor and description, and absolutely true.
45
45
Review of The Dinker  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (5.0)
Yup. Everyone could do with a bit of "dinking around" on a fairly regular basis. And the kids grow up with fonder memories, because of it, the relationship with a spouse is made stronger by it, because shared smiles or laughs have been scientifically PROVEN to stimulate several "good" hormones and physiological responses, creating a better and healthier state for mind and body, as well as strengthening emotional bonds (seriously, how often can you have relationship-straining arguments if you know you're going to be grinning at each other at random times in the next 24 hours, due to "dinking"?)


On the indoor hockey...disarm the wife. buy some dowels, make a trapezoidal frame that can have the garbage bag's lip stretched over it, and play "hockey" by finishing filling up the trash bag with incidental trash. Then tell her "we *are* putting out the trash, dear! Just doing it the FUN way!"
46
46
Review of One Day to Live  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: E | (4.5)
Slightly disjointed, but the point got across quite well.

In answer to your questions, though, from a personal point...you life is what comes together when you reflect on it...the worst and the best, all comes to mind. Too little or too much time matters not, because all that is is "static" noise, filling the void. An older person may have had the benefit of years within which to acquire their experiences, good, and bad, while a baby of just a few days may only be able to scope hers in a series of remembrances of the small things coming through that short existence...nonetheless, that baby's "lifetime" is no greater or lessor than the old person's....what there is is a series of highs and lows that are the best and the worst, that are one gestalt of what "lifetime" was.

Myself, I've had the ups, and the downs, memories of both. I recognize that "where did the years go?" applies, but also "minutes as days" does. I know from experience that some of the most minute, flash-in-less-than-a-heartbeat things can be memories played over and over, in slow motion, while YEARS of happy living can be seen back to as swift as a sparrow's flight.

A lifetime is NOT years, though I pity those who have spent years, and have no significant punctuation of experiences. What it is IS that punctuation. No matter how trivial it may seem to another, it is what you hold the rest of your experiences up to as a measuring stick.

I've been scared enough to jump under tons of steel, and start digging into the sand, barehanded, unable to be dissuaded until the hole was almost 3 feet deep. That is my measuring stick of "fear". Another person may have "merely" almost fallen off a steep slope to certain injury, but unlikely to be deadly...and that may be THEIR measuring stick. Neither is more valid. Neither is more true. Neither is more valuable. Your happiest or most secure memory might be the babe's memory of being held close, nursing, dying before anything "more" could be experienced...or it could be watching your first child born. Or watching them graduate. Or holding your grandchild for the first time. It doesn't matter, your own life is the measuring stick with which you measure a "lifetime". Bland or exciting, short or long, that is the essence of life.
47
47
Review of Old Glory  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
RLTW! All I really need to say about my service, '89-'93--you know what it means to me, and my brothers, living and dead.

Thank you for a show of the cross-generation relationships between soldiers, the respect inherent to them, and the instinctual exercise of those duties.
48
48
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
A fair representation of both the conference and Buddhist dogma (dogma is NOT a bad thing, it is the code of beliefs one operates under).

However...there are a number of things that the conference this is drawn from (and the multitude of differing speeches that carried the same theme throughout) failed to acknowledge.

Freedom ALSO conveys the freedom/right to face the consequences of one's free actions, which mean that, as wrong as this gunman was, he had the rfreedom to take action, in that way--and face the consequences of the action. yes, it deprived innocent people of their freedoms in several ways. But there IS no "right to life" for a human being, so THAT can't be a freedom infringed upon. If there was such a right, that right would be being infringed upon, constantly, by nature, acts of self, and acts of others. Freedom really consists of the rights that CAN'T be taken away. You can't stop someone from loving, or exercising their religion, or pursuing happiness. Impossible to do, under no circumstances can these be taken away. They can be made extremely difficult, but they can't be stopped.

Anything else is a societal or legal fiction.

The concept of "celebrate diversity" is one I have always found disgusting--not because of lack of respect for that diversity, but because those rallying to that flag fail to see they are doing the OPPOSITE of what they want to accomplish. "Celebrate Diversity"--allow Islamic students to leave class for prayer time, but DON'T allow others to express their own religion---what you have done is shown special treatment to a group, which drives a wedge between them, and the rest of the population, making it "us", and "them". "Us" and "Them" thinking is the worst possible position for humans to find themselves in, all the horrors of history came to fruition from the seeds of an "us" and "them" morality.

"Celebrate diversity" needs to be STRONGLY abolished, to push for smooth and equal assimilation and influence of cultures. ANY hint of "us" and "them" needs to be blocked, forcefully...this doesn't mean "affirmative action" type attempts, but a simple case of, if someone feels they were denied a job, or fair treatment, they appeal to the same government they do now--who doesn't immediately say "he's a minority, you have to hire him", but, instead, compares applications, and interviews the hiring manager, to ensure that the other applicant WAS the more qualified one.

For us to become one, peaceful, people, we CAN'T be "us" and "them"---anywhere. We have to be "we".
49
49
Review of Spare Change  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
A fun little piece of work.
Somewhat circuitous, chasing some part of it's tail (tale) with others, which function as a distraction (but also keep the reader off-balance. As much so as the protagonist)

I do like the idea of semi-twin little girls being the embodiment of--well, Metatron or Gabriel, in Christian terms (God's voice, or His messenger), but the concept that "God is really a Goddess" is hardly new (and not only do most primitives know this, but even most Christians, even if they only use her as a part of the "one called three".

A philosophical offshoot of the story, though...the girls tell him that the rest of mankind thinks they invented him, despite HIM knowing he had come to be in the normal, accepted way--is it not possible, under this idea that EVERY person exists with the permission of (or even will of) the rest? Kind of a multipersonality solipsism?

That question aligns with one of my own philosophical "what if" trains I play with, at times, played like this:

The universe was created, no doubt to that. HOW doesn't matter, whether it was deliberate doesn't matter--there was nothing, no space, no energy, no matter, no points, volume, depth, or duration. None of these COULD exist until ALL did. Thus there was nothing in what became our 4 dimensional phenomenon we call "the universe", until something OUTSIDE those frames of reference were brought into a created point...created a singularity that had existence in our reference...which demands an intelligent presence to happen.
This does NOT mean "God" in any way beyond "the creator through deliberate or accidental results of an action"
So from there, this "God" clearly does not exist in reference to our own 4 dimensions, though it may be able to introduce variables, which it may, or may not do, deliberately.
Since it has no reference to our "duration", it is, by nature, able to see all of the phenomenon we see as "duration" in one chop--the same way we can see the squares formed of slices of a cube--omnipotence--knowledge of all that happened/is happining/ will has happened (no proper grammatical referent)
Since it is not constrained to our spacial reference (outside of it from the get-go, or "creation" couldn't happen), it is able to observe all of it, in the same way we can observe the whole of the activities in a 3 dimensional construct over a duration--omnipresence
And since it can perceive both of these as a single gestalt, by the fact of its existence outside of our framework, you have omniscience--knowledge of everything, every where, every when (at least everything happening any when within this universe, which is the functional definition)

From there...this is a curious being, or whatever was done to cause creation wouldn't have happened. We know data can be stored in an energy matrix (light reflection in digital media disks, magnetic fields from old magnetic tapes or modern hard drives, and even solid state thumb drives and solid state hard drives.

In order to know EVERYTHING, free will must be established...for good reason--this creator IS in and of everything, and will naturally avoid painful experience, if possible (or uncomfortable experience, anyhow), plus needs intellects to push new experiences into being, so he/it learns/experiences them...

And we know that there is an energy field around all living matter that dissipates almost immediately upon death...

So supposing that that field is a form of data recording, the only limitation would be it can't be accessed and "known" while in use by the "recording device" (hence the rarity, if it has EVER happened, of divine intervention in favor of a living being)

Now...positing all of this, then there is ONE energy in the universe, and only one...and it is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, by demand--and can't access that little bit represented by something currently living--but when that living thing dies, the...being...knows, always will know, did know, the data collected--the experiences of the being

Now take it a step further--this being, being the source of all energy, really IS the only energy/soul in existence, is not bound by time, and is curious--what better way to learn than to shut its memories of itself off as completely as possible, and "inject" itself in each of these bodies, so IT is "the soul"...which would explain man's need to have and recognize a God...inability of a curious being to completely suppress its ego, which requires its "tools" to find a way to cope with such unexplainable subdued feelings, hence religion.

Coming back to the idea that we are all God, but playing a joke on ourselves, where we don't know we're God, until our "piece" is off the field, and every other living being in the universe truly is a creation of our imagination, despite being 100% real.


Fun, huh?
50
50
Review of BOUNDING HOME  
Review by C Scott Gray
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
This is so well written, I'm given the idea that the author is a veteran, himself, and a huge history buff, on top of it (seeing the likeliness of actually being a WWII vet is vanishingly slim, these days), on top of being a talented writer.

Most certainly, he has at least a "textbook" familiarity with a piece of what a soldier, coming back from combat deployment, deals with in immediate terms. His description of the physical sensations, both of the draining of fatigue, and severely infected wounds over an unhealthy period of time, are accurate enough (I've dealt with both, up close and personal, in my life).

I'd certainly like to see more of this style of work by him.
85 Reviews · *Magnify*
Page of 4 · 25 per page   < >
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/palindrome1996/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/2