RonVitale

Peace Takes Courage

Ava Lowrey is 15 years old and she puts me to shame.  She has created a website named   Peace Takes Courage  that she started when she was 14.  She’s home schooled and she wanted to put together flash animations in which she is able to express her opinion about the war in Iraq.  She’s a peace activist at 15 years of age.  I took some time out today to review two of her animations “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?” for those who aren’t Christian) and “No More Broken Promises.”  The visual imagery that Ava uses is emotionally disturbing.  Unless you are inhuman or devoid of all feeling can you watch the pictures of wounded Iraqi children and not reflect on what America has done to the people of Iraq.  Bombs will fall in the wrong places, bullets stray, and in the aftermath the wound will need to pick up their broken bodies and move onward.  I am a proponent of peace and in America ending the war.  The catch-22 of the situation is that the people in Iraq will be worse off if American troops leave their country.  The stability of the country is obviously not secure.  Insurgents are still attacking with bombs and safety is still an issue.  If America were to pull troops out, can the Iraqi army handle the job?  Or would the enemies of the new Iraqi government step forward and overthrow democracy?  Honestly, the situation in Iraq is a mess.

With that said, children are dying, American troops are being wounded and killed, and it’s a mess in Iraq.  Ava Lowrey is a 15 year old voice of reason.  She sees the problems in both our country and in Iraq and has put together images to grab at your heart strings.  Yes, it’s manipulative, but for those who have blocked out and forgotten that we still are at war, Ava’s message is profound and courageous. 

Why am I ashamed that Ava has done so much and I so little?  I’ve written to my Senators and Congressmen about the war, but little has come of my actions.  Instead I’m using my free time to create Magic: The Gathering video podcasts or I worry about a story I’ve sent out in the mail.  My last story 20,170 and 1 is a piece that most closely reflects my personal beliefs about America’s depravity and its obsession with violence and the media.  In all that I have written in the last few years, I am extremely proud of this piece.  It’s been called “heavy handed” by one critic and has been rejected at many of the major sci-fi magazines.  I currently have the story out to   Escape Pod  (a podcast site that creates audio versions of stories).

I have tried in the past to not overtly write about political issues, but more personal ones, yet I’ve found that in the last five years my writing has taken a religious doctrine/political turn.  I’ve begun to write about issues that are bigger than my own personal feelings.  I’ve tried to reflect on issues of personal loss that are sorely ignored by society.  As a rhetorical question to myself: I wonder if I should write more on this? What matters most to me these days are my role as being a father/husband and the strains of every day responsibilities and my understanding that the current rulers of America are so far from the country that I love that I am sickened. 

Where are the writers, musicians, and the artists to rise up?  We have been mostly silent.  Yet I have heard comedians more openly lampoon the Bush administration, Pink’s new album contains the scathing   Dear Mr. President  and I can only pray that more people stand up to be heard.

I am not shamed to express my free speech in saying that I am not a supporter of Bush’s administration.  But I am ashamed that I have not used my voice to be more active in spreading the word.  Do yourself a favor: Watch a few of Ava Lowrey’s videos and share them with your friends.  If you’re uncomfortable from seeing the images in them, good, it means that you’re human like the rest of us and there’s still hope.  We can change the world.  One person at a time.

Writing workshop

I’ve been busy. But I always say that so there’s nothing new there. I was working this morning at 6:20 a.m. on sending out a story of mine to a magazine. I submitted the story after having written the cover letter and wish the story luck. We shall see what happens. I’m hoping something good comes of my story. I really like the one I sent out. It’s the most recent story I’ve written and although it’s not long, I like the feel of it. For those new to my blog, I don’t write about my stories that I have out in the mail. I’m a bit superstitious that way: I just like to send the pieces out in the mail and see what happens. After they’ve been accepted and published, then I’ll talk about them. I know that makes me a bit of a private man when it comes to my writing, but I just don’t like talking about pieces that are out. If I’m in a writer’s group, I’ll share the story or even share it in an online forum for writers, but I would rather just keep quiet about it. I like to wish the stories luck and then just let them go. In other news, I’m seriously thinking about joining a writing workshop that takes place from the middle of May until June. I think it might be a good experience to meet up with other writers in the area and get a chance to get some work done. The price is right and I received some good feedback from the teacher of the workshop as to how the class will be run. My only concern is that it’s from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. They’re going to be some long days for me. Although it’s only once a week, still having been up since 5 a.m. and then working from 7:30 p.m. until near 9 p.m. is going to be extremely taxing. I also won’t have a chance to see my son on those days. I’m not too happy about that, but I don’t know what else I can do to try and advance my writing skills. Well, I’m starving and haven’t eaten and it’s getting late. Got to dash. Take care.

Episode 13: Dissension Prerelease

Download the video blog in 640x480 divX 5.1.1 format (54.7 MB)
Download the video blog (right mouse click on link and select "Save target as...") in 640x480 WMV format (20.8 MB)
Download the video blog in 320x240 MPEG-4 format that can be played in Quicktime or on an iPod (21.9 MB)

Show Notes:

--Introduction to episode 13: Dissension Prerelease --Talk of my attending the Dissension prelease. --Review of some of the Dissension cards I played with (or had played against me) at the tournament on April 22nd.

Total running time: 13 minutes and 1 second.

Creative Commons License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Contribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Editor's Note: Quicktime will allow you to play the 320 x 240 .m4v file. If you see no video when you trying to play the DivX file or if the video does not play at all, we suggest you download the VLC media player (nearly every OS) or the DivX codec.

Subscribe using iTunes: To subscribe to The Magic Sock using iTunes, simply click here. (You'll need to have iTunes installed on your computer.)

For more information on how to subscribe to a podcast (video or audio), be sure to check out episode 5 of The Magic Sock: How to Subscribe to a Podcast.

Closing: Magic: The Gathering is trademarked and owned by Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The Magic Sock is not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro in any way. To send feedback, send an e-mail to themagicsock@gmail.com. Audio feedback is welcome but please keep the mp3 file to under 45 seconds and be sure to mention your name and city/state/country.

Dissension or Bust

I intend to go to the Magic: The Gathering Dissension Pre-release tomorrow.  I had had some ideas of bringing my camcorder and taking so video, but I think I'm going to bag that idea and simply do an audio only podcast once I return from the pre-release.  The goal--hopefully this will all work out--is to have the sealed deck that I played with in the tournament and I can go through all my card choices in an audio only podcast.  Then I could put the podcast together and release it out over the Internet by Monday.

At this point, this is the goal.  As to whether I'll be able to pull this all off, we'll have to see.  I can tell you that I am more excited with the cards I've seen so far with Dissension than I did for the Guildpact set.

I'm looking forward to relaxing and having some fun.

Have a good weekend and hopefully I'll be able to post the episode by late Sunday night as an mp3.