i have a dilemma...

...that makes me feel childish, yet i am nearly twenty.

it is possible that someone is reading this who knows very well the person to whom i am referring, when i state that i have likely royally screwed up a friendship with someone i never got the chance to get too close to, before i went and buggered it up with short-sighted remedies of simple anxiety. and now, i am afraid to lose her friendship because she seems really cool.

maybe i'll get another chance, but for the time being, pray as i might for things to return to normalcy, i have no idea how i must act to fix this for the long-term.

anyone who's known me more than a year can gather a fuller extent of info simply based on experience with me. yeah, it's probably what you're thinking. and yeah, i need help, and suggestions.

this'd be so much easier if i just knew more people here. then i'd have balanced everything out to begin with, but i didn't know hardly anyone else, so i messed up by focusing so intently on one friendship that i frankly blew a hole in whatever had been built up.

tonight i went out with some guys from church (all at least 3 or 4 years older than me, which made me feel special) to see Leatherheads, after watching some Rob Bell sermon stuff at bible study, and it was really helpful to get out again, with GUYS!!!! when the freak did THAT last happen?! it was cool.

balance is re-taking what it once held to its own, and hopefully with this balance, and with my striving to give her just the right amount of space, there will be healing, and i will rejoice in that. for now, though, i'm content to be working in the right direction, and asking God to help me get there.

pax, everyone.

so i made a short

...it's all summed up from about 48 minutes of video i shot of a RISK board game with my brother and my dad, and then i've got some random footage from a walk through the park with my friend Christi the day prior. and then i needed some fun opener shots so i got some sunset-ish video during the game, right after one of my turns, and then i returned to find out that dad had rolled for me while micah was attacking me, and i had lost an army while the general was on leave... never. doing. that. again.


i had fun... there's a sequence of dice-rolling and troop-removing in the latter part that gets kinda tedious, but if you enjoy the song ("Silver and Cold" by A.F.I.) then you'll survive, i promise!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YovJIxBke1A


i'm already trying to plan my next short, but i need some actors... i need people willing to play as children. i need a bully, a nerd, a teacher, and a few extras... one way or another, i'll track you all down. i'm thinking of shooting at my church here in Lafayette, but i guess i gotta get some permission first. ;)

i'm planning on not being in front of the camera on this one, so um... have fun guys! tell me whatchya got!

Sunday!

today is the first sunday i've had off work since like two months ago! the weather outside is bloody brilliant!

(here's a look at my view from the library's second floor! and then one of me, chillin here, too!)





in about an hour and a half i'll have walked across a lovely little wooden bridge over a creek through many green backyards, and arrived at the house of some friends from church where i'll be worshipping with them together in the setting of their home church... i.e. church done the way it once was, back 2000 years ago... including a taco bar when we're finished haha! (ok, maybe peter, paul, and mary never had quite this kind of fiesta, but you get the picture!)

i had a lovely lunch, drove around a bit with the windows down, blasting great music and enjoying the view (for once, Indiana's farms actually become incredibly appealing lol!) and now, as you know, i'm chillin at the library while micah reads and i watch a couple old-school episodes of Disney channel's 'So Weird'... from like seriously 6 or 7 years ago! man this show rocks!

as i've come to discover... Peace is good, it is very good indeed.

PAX.
-archer

confession (round 2)

last May i posted about several major character flaws of mine.

since that time i haven't really had too many opportunities to say anything further on the topic of my character flaws. but now i've come up with a reason for that to change.

i've got another character flaw to address and willingly expose to the few who don't already see this in me. tonight i had a bit of a chance to reflect on all my past relationships with girlfriends... i was driving home from a Bible study where the leader's daughter (a friend of my little sister) said something along the lines of, "so, i heard you got engaged in Africa?" apparently my sister had not only blabbed to this friend, but to a hand-full of other friends i've never even met, not to mention this friend tonight told her mother, and i've already told her father, in another related discussion.

it doesn't really bother me at all that people know this about me (as long as i'm able to explain and contextualize that statement!) fact of the matter is that i was, in fact, according to cultural norms, engaged to a girl i met on my team in Arusha, simply because i found her attractive and she caught on. it was all a whirlwind from there. we ended up fine by the end of it, sticking to our single selves, however, somewhere along the lines i'd further damaged my credibility, and apparently, she had as well. or i had done so, for her. i don't really know, or comprehend it all.

the point is, including the fact that i've been engaged already and "broken it off" (though i was oblivious of the severity of it until about a month and a half later!) i've simply had too many girlfriends too deal with myself. i'm not proud of it, and it's shown me just how weak i really am in this area.

i wear a purity ring. it's a small, ding-ed up silver ring on my left ring finger. from over 5 feet away, looks like i'm married. i look over 20, sometimes as old as 26, apparently... basically, with this ring on, i look untouchable.

that's just the way i want it to be for now--i'm still trying to go a couple years on my own, just workin things out with God, since i really haven't had such a chance since my sophomore year of high school... ergo it's time for a bleedin' break!

basically, i mess up. i ROYALLY mess up. i go back and forth between the Reign of Over-Zealous and the Reigned-in Over-Cautious! apparently, subconsciously i think that firing both kinds of weapons will balance things out and create a pleasant, neutral reaction. sometimes i get lucky (i.e. not dumb) and i ease in a statement here or there, where it could've been quite explosive instead, and totally read in the wrong (or right) way! thankfully, that hasn't happened too recently... barely.

just trying to hold myself together, and keep my sights on Aslan, and not get too tripped up trying to play the field for the time being. i've done enough of that at this point. i apologize to all whom i've hurt. please forgive me.

hopefully this next stint on earth will prove better-handled.

PAX.

off my chest

when something's bottled up for a while and doesn't go away, it's cool to get it off your chest, even if you risk pain or perpetuating confusion. at least you've said your piece. and now i have peace. and grace to continue.



thanks be to God, my beautiful, adoring Adonai. for you have blessed a humbled man.

Smile Empty Soul vs. An Unforgettable Pair

i found this video on youtube.

the song's 'This Is War' by Smile Empty Soul

the lyrics are profane, but otherwise not graphic, and the scenes from Black Hawk Down are gruesome, but it fits, in a poetical justice sort of way.

here's the chorus:

"i drove in a car
i flew in a plane
to come to your house
and kick your door in

and now that it's down to this
it's just you and me
i'll blow your f----- head off
for my country"

----

i know half the time all i do on this blog is complain about war and war crimes and human rights abuses.

i know there are lovely flowers out there, but sometimes the stench of death and war can overcome the soft fragrance of flowers.

i don't think i'll stop writing about this stuff every now and then until every last person recognizes that we all need to be "anti-war" in order to let love in.

as an example, today after work i went to a coffee shop i'm falling in love with, down on Main Street today, just myself and my books, and a couple dollars. i ended up only reading about two paragraphs before getting so wrapped up in a fun conversation with Michelle--the girl who served me my regular 16oz. and a mocha that she decorated just for me, since she felt she forced it on me (just so she could make a pretty design) who's hoping to study forensic science in the fall (and already has the "geek's guide" to it--and Greg--a regular customer at Jerry's shop, a good friend of Jerry's, and an expert on experimenting with cigars and making jokes and being welcoming (who has a half-smoked cigar in the ash-tray of his truck and is happily divorced, and doesn't watch many movies).

it was cool. we talked about whatever, for almost an hour, informally, and i came to really like them. i hope i'll run into em both on the same day again, it was really cool. i realized that just having a conversation with them made me really care about them. kinda weird, and over-sappy, but it was cool.

if we just take the time (and have the guts) to talk to someone, we could enjoy an invaluable connection, and the world will become smaller, and nobody will really be a stranger (or enemy) any longer.

thanks God, you made my day with that pair!



pax.

that that don't kill me (pt.2) (content warning)

a collage of evil men and a woman with an iron grit.
a collage with nothing left to give but a fight against the evils.

Geneva turns us down, and we're almost arrested before heading out the back door. so now it's not just our governments chasing us down, but the International Criminal Court, as well.

the very thing we're trying to help is now hunting us down. we figured it would.

it takes little time before we're back on track, and flying over the border into Serbia for our first trip, strapped up to our chins with ammunition. even Maggs is packin on our bouncy chopper ride. just a magnum, but it'll do. she's only fired it about seven and a half times, but we're hoping she'll never have to play the shooter. all the flak should be coming our way and not hers.

the thing we're all thinkin, especially Valentino, is that either way we play this, we all end up the same. it's kinda like an attempt at atonement. an attempt that we already see the rejection stamp ominously on. but for Maggs, she's got a clean slate except for whatever crimes she's just racked up in the past year alone. nothin in her past to make her a choice cut for any administration. nothin in my past to keep me from being anything but a choice cut.

Serbia goes well. well enough. three of us are licking our wounds, and Emil finds it strange to be capturing half the men he used to play poker with. we learn pretty quickly of head-hunters dispatched from several federal organizations. CIA, NSA, and even an extended detail from within the Secret Service. no word yet on Russia's response to our rouse.

maybe they figured they've taken enough. the Czar's washed his hands of us.

three months into the job we've turned over 72 war criminals from five continents and the focus shifts.

there's one continent left where criminals are hiding out.

the most difficult this far, since they're surrounded by cameras, guns, over-zealous animals in a patriotic haze, and the two of them are almost never in the same place. when they were in office, it was official policy to keep em separate for "national security", but as of now, they're just runnin scared.

they're the reason a couple of us and our buddies got off easy. we're grateful, but we're also the only ones who've really changed. we figure now their time is up. the world's waited long enough to see them come to justice.

thanks to them i am scarred. my marriage failed. my children deserted me. my country scorned me. but over half of the country still supported the ones who sanctioned us. f----- double standards!

---

"this is going to be tougher than anything, ladies and gentlemen. I've been dying to get this done, people. it's been several decades since i found out the office that was to blame. the torture bill overturned was the last straw, back in '08. that's how long i've been waitin for this, guys." Valentino's got his crowd's attention. we've got some vague clue of who he's talking about.

Maggs runs her fingers up and down on tee sharp edge of the steel beams supporting the caving ceiling of the warehouse we've made our haven, in Israel. (where better to hide than the country they'd never invade?) this is hitting her pretty hard. she blames these guys for the disappearance of her brother. makes sense to me.

just like Charlize Theron's Stella, this one's pretty personal for her.

we found a lot of the other administration in hiding around the world (ironically a couple were in our new shack). they'd scattered once they realized someone was having success in hunting their kind down.

(it sucks that we've had to kill so many unknowing amateurs who've been conned into protecting devils, but it's sometimes the only way to finish the job. it's not like this is anything new for us. just sad that the demons just get prison and their lackeys get the grave)

and now the last two are making their haven in the bed of vipers, still. latest intel would have us believe so.

it's kind of hard for us to all put everything into this, because once this is done, we can't think of anyone else to go after. the ICC's already in the middle of tens of tribunals and trials. anonymous "drop-offs" started filling their quota a long time ago.

they've finally got some bite, and for the most part, nobody seems to laugh at them anymore.

except for these two.

Emil pipes up, "Valentino, you know what happens when we finish this, right?"

Cal picks it up: "they'll bury the truth. call it a freak accident or a stroke."

"not once we get Al-Jazeera to air our live feed," Maggs says coldly.

"our what?" I'm thrown off a bit here.

"our live feed," Valentino continues, "Maggs will cover us and give a couple of us cameras on our headlamps when we're in the bunkers. she's gonna be using the same signal strength that allowed these two pigs their satellite TV when the world first threatened their empire on 9/11. Al-Jazeera will air it around the world, both Arabic and English, and right now we're still looking for additional networks based off the continent. but Al-Jazeera's a pretty safe bet there won't be anything like a sort of censorship."

"the media was once about truth." Maggs stares all of us down, in turn. "it's what ruined my brother, back when they'd fully gone shoddy on us. now that the west has effed everything up, we've got a little bit of hope outside our normal borders, gentlemen."

i remember that Al-Jazeera was the one that knew everything about everything going on outside the western world. and now they really were going to be a weapon against the west. it wasn't something any of us naturally tended to like. we liked our homes and safe suburbs at one point. but i guess that's all changed on us, so we might as well bite back.

the questions and straight-forward, strong answers keep coming, back and forth for a bit.

then Valentino excuses himself, and slips out of the room, leaving us in an awed, excited, breathless tension. i look over at Maggs, who's beaming.

"you sure you're not a little over-confident about all this?" Miller asks her.

"yeah, i've been working on this little network thing a lot longer than any of you can imagine." cool as ever, our wonder woman dispels our fears.

we're left in another silence as each of us contemplates what comes next. right about the time it should be getting awkward, our SOA brother walks in with his hands behind his back, and a smile bigger than Maggs'.

"gentlemen, the preparation for this will take us several months of cold, hard work. we've got a lot of research and planning to do. these two guys won't just be sitting on their a---- waiting for us. undoubtedly they know they're next. some would think they're old news, but we all know that an old crime is still a crime. at least in the US."

he pauses. for some reason it's kinda comforting. even if this is the last thing we ever do during our natural lives, and even if heaven won't take us, we're gonna do what we can for what we believe in.

"since there's not much good news waiting for us in the next months, or at the end of all this, so we thought we'd invest in a little something that appreciates in value, that'll give us some incentive."

he brings forth a bottle of '49 champagne. it's a fitting year, '49.

we erupt in muffled applause and Maggs laughs for the first real time since i opened the door for her back at our steakhouse meeting. she thought me still a gentlemen, even though she was the one who knew my record the best. she had access to all our files on the same hard-drive as that of the targets.

it's a strange and totally perfect atmosphere that's ushered in by a bottle filled in the greatest year in human rights history.

Maggs hands us each an identical dossier with everything the US government has on our next two guys.

their pictures make my blood boil, for what they made me do at Abu Ghraib:














Valentino raises the bottle high in the spirit of August 1945, "we'll toast to justice the night before we go in!"

for only seven of us, the cheering and applause is deafening. my heart thunders.

From Journal & Courier: "Area groups plan peace rally"

Several Lafayette area groups are sponsoring events next Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War.

A peace rally is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. at the Tippecanoe County Courthouse.

A peace march will follow at 6 p.m. along State Street to the Purdue Mall.

A panel discussion titled "Why the Iraq War Must End" will be held at 7:30 p.m. in 218 Stewart Center.

The public is invited.

--Staff reports

[taken verbatim from Journal & Courier March 14, 2008, page C8]
[image from http://www.tippecanoecountycourthouse.com/chmaps.html ]

that that don't kill me (pt.1) (content warning)

--a narrative of pain and failed efforts--

part.one

we started this league about a year or so ago. freelance sting operations. a couple ex-black-ops, some KGB defectors, and some old-school gangstas. and one smokin hot computer genius!

it was a little project we devised one day as we met together at a steakhouse. poring over my extra rare slab of expensive meat, i suddenly became nauseous. an image from a stint in Iraq popped into my head. musta been somethin about the redness of the meat on the dirtying plate before me.

Maggs looked at me strangely as i choked a little bit.

i tried to give her, and the rest of the crew, a look tellin em i'm good, but all i end up doing is glare right into their hearts. i get that way when i remember the actions of the others around me at Abu Ghraib.

"Mark, you alright, man?" Cal gives me the same look i used to get from my family, when i first got back. i want to punch him.

my stomach heaves again, and the six others around the table start panicking.

"Mark you better get movin, bro!"
"you look messed up."

i make a break for the can and my head screamed at me as i hobbled along between tables of calm patriotic citizens oblivious to everything that slowly enabled our heads of state to pull out of the UN. my knife and fork clatter against my red oak chair and thud against the maroon-carpeted floor.

seconds later i burst through the stall door furthest from the door and let go.

the images crowd my head, the charges against my detail, the abductions of the 15-year-old girls and the effed-up s--- we put them through. one of the guys from the next barracks over had showed up online fessing up to the prostitution he forced upon one girl, leading her to her own suicide by sundown. the photographs of sodomy. the legal battle and congress' failings against waterboarding and other torture methods. all the s--- that our president passed into legality... all the black ops became legal according to him.

that's when i got out. that's actually ow i met the others. i left during the same week the other black ops guys did and the ex-KGB pair put their fingers on us and we formed a band of brothers. dissenters in the fullest form. none of us loyal any longer to a flag or government.

we were a bunch of ex-war criminals venting to each other about the others' who'd been worse than us.

from the secret US arsenal there's:

**me-Mark-32-- (i did a bunch of pre-cog jobs in afghanistan and was part of the small number of folks--including Bush--who knew of 9/11 before the planes took off that morning. i've since spent time at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and helped operate a torture camp and prison in southern Pakistan. i helped prepare the bombers and the shooter that assassinated Bhutto a few years back, at the end of '07)

**Cal-46-- (his history in black ops is so long that he backed the guys in Somalia who took out Siad Barre in '91, and then backed the guys who took down General Aidid's clan from '93-'96, and his last job was in helping topple the Somali Transitional Federal Government--after helping them and Ethiopia come to power 6 years earlier, of course)

**Miller-38-- (this kingpin is responsible for half the police killings in Mexico, since the turn of the century. he worked for both sides and the federal green that told im what to do was all taken away once he tried to tell his story. he barely got out of El Paso with his life. he's gone off the grid as much as is possible in this country. he's on the FBI's most wanted list)

**Valentino-25-- (a product of the School of America, the first one to use his new "skills" against three governments in one day. he's supposedly dead, according to the CIA, but we're pretty sure they knew about him again by the time we met for steak that day)

from the former KGB we have:

**Leo-42-- (killed 734 civilians and politicians fro capitalist nations. at one point, he had his scope on the first Bush. Kremlin threatened to disappear him if he pulled the trigger, once they learned of KGB's plot. their call saved his life by two and a half seconds. he defected after the others from that plot started vanishing as well)

**Emil-45-- (waged war against civilian Afghans and is the reason that Kosovo no longer exists. he bailed from Russia's secret killers and chess players right after he witnessed the effects of the gas he'd been implementing--on his wife and three children)

and our hot techie:

**Maggs-27-- (just out of harvard law school, a very athletic runner, a quick learner, and the one who caused the 2004 blackout of northeastern US... just so she'd have no night classes on anatomy. her motivation in this cause: army-brother Frank's gone MIA. two years ago in Tehran. she'd been lookin for us for over a year by the time we all met up through different connections and sat down for dinner)

---

great, so the first meeting we all have TOGETHER, and my stomach goes AWOL.

i finish wiping my mouth and wash my face for a good five minutes. Emil comes in and puts a hand on my shoulder.

in a thick Rusky accent he says, "Mark, my friend, you look like hell!"

"you'd know it, Emil." i regain my feet better, and lean back from the wall mirror. "let's get the check. i'm sick of waiting."

"already done. we're outside having a cigarette. i'm guessing you don't want one right now?"

"no, probably not. who's paying?"

Emil smiles a crafty smile, hands me a credit card. for a second i think it'll be mine. i recognize the name of an ex-senator with a horrible record. "Uncle Sam," he chides proudly.

"you son of a b----. i'm gonna like working with you!"

---

outside, i watch a few of the others desperately trying to keep the wind from their newports and black'n'milds and camels. Emil lights his half-gone Cuban cigar and hands it to me.

i take a drag and allow the smoke to circulate. fighting a gag reflex with too much recent practice, i focus on the side of the busy city street. the cabs are flyin by on this misting new york night.

Valentino comes up to me, the sweet flavor of his black'n'mild--creme--nearly knocks me off my feet.

he starts speaking, looking at me, but addressing the whole crew, "Mark, we're heading out to Geneva tomorrow. it's time we leave behind our lies and face our burdens head on. call some folks, say your goodbyes, and then you can kiss this soil goodbye come morning. chances are we'll all disappear by year's end, but before Sammy catches on to us, we'll at least be able to extradite, capture, contain, arrest, and reign in half the world's war criminals. i guess if we get lucky we'll come back by here sooner or later. if Geneva won't take us, it's no matter. we all know people. we'll make this happen.

"the flight's gonna suck and mess up your clocks, so make sure you actually sleep tonight, alright? we're no use to the free world if we're snoozing our a---- off, droolin on our AK's."

we all know the drill already, all except for Maggs. the one who'll be the most use to us, is also the one who has absolutely no extended overseas experience. a flight like this will knock her out. i pray she's prepared.

i spend enough time standin in one spot that i finish Emil's cigar. now i've gotta find my way back to our motel 6. on the other side of the river.

----- end.part.one

[all images are public domain, all characters and names are fictional, all events are possible]

not the norm.

i am going to break a lot of rules by writing what i will write next.

if you have a weak stomach, are patriotic, or know anyone who'd be offended by condemnation of particular US soldiers, or would be offended by an affront to the American psyche of super-importance... then stop reading this entry.

---

i first read a story of a woman named Maria Osman, a Mogadishu resident, about two weeks ago. Yahoo News journalist Kevin Sites has been touring the world's conflict zones for about a year. he stopped in Mogadishu and met a woman named Maria.

her arm is useless. rendered so by the bullet wound that she earned for trying to reach the crushed body of her dead young daughter... under US Black Hawk helicopter Super Six One. When the first Black Hawk went down on October 3, 1993, it would herald the end for 18 American soldiers.

and the same fate came to roughly 600 to 1,000 Somalis.

we glorify the black hawks.


and we ignore Maria Osman's story.


the film makes no mention of the girl crushed by Super Six One.

' "I hate the Americans," she says, her eyes maintaining their empty sadness rather than shifting to anger. "I hate them for what happened to my daughter. If I saw one I would cut them up into so many pieces." ' -Kevin Sites quoting Maria Osman

if you think this is wrong, i agree with you. i think hate is a horrible thing, but i can see where it comes from.
but apparently she's not the only one guilty of this.

"An anonymous man wearing a US Special Forces T-shirt is a war criminal, if his three-minute YouTube interview is to be believed. In it, he claims to have taken part in routine torture of Iraqis — Hajji’s in soldier slang — in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison..." -Captain Eric May, on Soldier X's Youtube interview (i won't put the link to it, but search "soldier x interview" if you absolutely don't believe me in any other way. but please, don't view it unless you're completely ready to hear what he has to say, while smiling)


last month i joined the All Somali Forum. i wrote a blog on there about the war crimes of the Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, and when someone read it, they posted a comment asking me if i am anti-TFG.

i told them that i am, for the time being, since they are committing war crimes and getting away with it. i am against any war criminal. frankly, as you can guess, that does mean tat my enemies include many americans. by far, hopefully not a majority, but definitely more than i'd normally think.

there are always people against people. but if it's going to go that way, it should only be the armed against the armed. civilians should never be targets. and there is such a thing as War Law. so if you're going to lose your head, at least do it by the rules.