Book Reviews-The Book of Joby, Beyond The Black River, Black Science Fiction, One Shot

The Book of Joby
by Mark J. Ferrari

This was Ferrari's first novel. It's impressive. The book is longer than 600 pages. I don't think that Ferrari needed quite that much room to detail everything that happened. But the story hardly ever drags. 

The Book of Joby is as you might expect from the title, an epic, humorous and magical retelling of the The Book of Job from The Bible. It also nods to some other popular religious conspiracy books but that doesn't become apparent until later. As usual Lucifer is trying to find a way to destroy all creation. Lucifer remains convinced that man is God's biggest mistake. Due to his pride (he was the Morning Star after all) Lucifer thinks that God is simply too stubborn to admit that Lucifer is right. God remains an engaging being who has seemingly infinite patience for Lucifer's shenanigans. God reminds Lucifer that Lucifer has only won bets with God twice (Adam and Eve and Judas) and that both times Lucifer's victories rebounded to God's and humanity's glory. Eager to prove his creator wrong, Lucifer claims that God cheated in the Jesus situation. God responds that He never said Jesus would stay dead. Lucifer just assumed.

The two immortal beings make another bet. Lucifer still insists that given time and resources he can make even the most righteous human despair and curse God. God says he can't. If Lucifer wins the bet, God agrees to wipe creation and start over using Lucifer's ideas, which primarily involve getting rid of that nasty little free will feature that humans have. Free will drives Lucifer crazy. God will pick the human whom Lucifer will get to test for about 30 years. Neither God nor any of His angels will interfere. Lucifer and his hellish subordinates can't kill the human or threaten to kill him but can do anything else.

The chosen child is one Joby Peterson, an unabashedly happy and optimistic nine year old with fantasies of being King Arthur, fighting the devil and doing good. Both God and Lucifer appear in Joby's dreams and obtain veiled permission for his role in what's to come.
Starting immediately and ramping up through first puberty and later adulthood, Lucifer and his minions find many ways to attack Joby's self-esteem. They seek out every weak spot and exploit it. Whether it's preventing Joby from finding true love, causing a Joby led protest to go horribly wrong or telling Joby that only perfection may get God's love and entrance into heaven, Lucifer stays busy. The story's funniest parts are Lucifer's interactions with God or discussions (really more rants) with his own sullen subordinates in Hell. At a managerial status meeting, irritated by another devil's incessant table tapping Lucifer calmly tells the hapless employee that if he taps that table one more time, his fingers will be the least of the appendages which he loses. I had a boss like that once. I still have all my fingers but it was touch and go for a while.

Joby grows into a mediocre sad man beset with self-doubt and riddled with hidden rage. But Joby has something secret which Lucifer didn't see. Joby is drawn to Taubolt, a hidden town that Lucifer and his agents don't know about. And something here hurts, incapacitates and can even kill supernatural evil creatures. 

This story seamlessly blends a very Western Christian understanding of free will with Arthurian legends and Biblical stories. It's a very enjoyable book. Lucifer constantly accuses God of cheating only to be forced to admit that no their agreement really didn't include the contingency that Lucifer didn't see but which God did. There's a lot here about missed opportunities and sacrificing for your children. Children play an integral role in this book. If you skim over the "silly kid stuff" you may miss some important things.

I appreciated the lack of cynicism and anti-heroes. The Book of Joby shows cynicism, despair and pessimism masquerading as honesty to be bad, even demonic things. This book was a much needed break from morally gray stories. This book will touch people (especially religious folks) who enjoy seeing the good in life and like watching the butterflies and eating fresh summer strawberries. The good guys may not win, but they are the good guys. The bad guys don't have redeeming features, unless it's Lucifer's fondness for fine suits and accoutrement. He really is a man of wealth and taste. Lucifer's also incredibly mean, petty and short-tempered. Hell reflects Lucifer's vile nature as rival devils constantly attempt to one-up each other and replace Lucifer as King of Hell.



Beyond The Black River
by Robert E. Howard

One thing that Robert E. Howard often did in his stories, besides including an idealized version of himself, was to show his amateur yet deep knowledge of history. In one story Conan is tangling with Vikings but in another he's matching wits with barely disguised 16th century Spanish privateers. The effect is very intoxicating, especially as Howard's prose pours from the page and transmits you to a world that never was yet feels so true to life you'll swear you're reading and experiencing historical accounts. Beyond the Black River is one of Howard's best stories.

Here Howard draws heavily for inspiration from the history of White/Comanche wars in Texas. He learned some of this from his mother and other female relatives. Howard also traveled extensively around Texas as a child and later as an adult, soaking up history from older ruins and forts. Beyond The Black River also appears to have been very strongly influenced by James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking tales. You could strip out the minor fantastic elements and this story would work just as well as a colonial America tale or as a Western. Some characters sound like Texans. Even the title hints at "Injun country", that zone in the American mind where the laws of the white man do not apply.

Conan is roughly at the age where he's "getting too old for this s***" . Conan is serving as a scout for the Aquilonian military, which is overseeing a settlement expansion beyond the Black River (the previous boundary between Aquilonian hegemony and Pictish controlled lands). Howard's Picts were a fictional creation based on the indigenous Scottish/Welsh inhabitants but here they very much read as Iroquois or Comanche. Aquilonia is the age's superpower, something akin to High Middle Ages France/Britain. Obviously, the Picts aren't very happy about this expansionism and are fighting back in hit and run attacks.

Conan meets up with a slighter more civilized version of himself, a settler named Balthus. They find the body of a merchant who's been killed with sorcery by a Pictish nationalist and wizard named  Zogar Sag. Zogar Sag has the power to talk to and even control animals and deadlier things that lurk in the woods and swamps. Zogar Sag could unify all the Pict clans. Conan gets the assignment to take out Zogar Sag. Conan agrees, even though he thinks the Aquilonians are greedy and overconfident about being able to take and hold land so far from home. Being Cimmerian, Conan has an atavistic hatred for Picts but he has a grudging respect for their fight against Aquilonian colonialism. Howard has Conan show a strong class consciousness and speak approvingly of land reform. Conan says, "This colonization business is mad anyway. If the Aquilonians would cut up some of the big estates of their barons, and plant wheat where now only deer are hunted, they wouldn't have to cross the border and take the land of the Picts away from them. " Conan himself was part of a successful Cimmerian attack against Aquilonian invaders when he was just fifteen. Conan, Balthus and a few others, including a Pict hating dog named Slasher (its previous owner and family were murdered by Picts) set out to kill Zogar Sag. But they find themselves making a last stand far from home while a Pict army attempts to overrun the Aquilonian fort and settlements and kill all of the settlers. Despite being action packed, this story is also somewhat philosophical as Conan spends some time ruminating on what he sees as the hypocrisies and savageries of "civilized" men. 

This short story is famous for its final quote, that of a woodsman looking at Conan. The quote pretty much expressed Howard's views as well.

"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.





Black Science Fiction
by John M. Faucette Jr.

John Faucette was a Harlem born black science fiction writer. He may have been best known for his allegorical novels Warriors of Terra (inspired by Harlem gang wars) and Crown of Infinity (inspired by Black experiences in America). Faucette, however, did not become wealthy from his writing endeavors. He had tremendous experience and frustration with racism in the publishing arena and more specifically with scarce black presence in science fiction. By his own admission he was not at the top of his craft and like many writers regardless of race had to deal with constant rejections. The foreword to this book drips with anger about the rejections. Evidently he took this very personally. I guess I would too after a while.
Faucette's insistence on writing black heroes or mildly disguised allegories dealing with racism, slavery and colonialism added to his unmarketable reputation. Other times, publishing houses just weren't selling work by black authors. Period.

Black Science Fiction is a self-published collection of short stories that are more or less exactly what they sound like. Often, not always, the protagonists are black. Faucette wrote that "I am no Hopkinson, Delany, Butler, or Barnes. But I try. I will always try. Till the day they bury me". This collection came about in part because of an uptick in interest in some of Faucette's older stories and the ability of the internet to link together like minded people. Faucette discovered people who actually liked his older works as well as younger writers who were self-publishing e-books and the like. So Faucette decided to publish short stories he had written over the years.

He's deceased now but this is an interesting group of stories. The collection is highly uneven in quality. Faucette was correct. He wasn't the best writer. But he did have a great talent for "what-if" stories and an insight into the underdog's mind. He also didn't mind putting extremely frank erotica into a story, if he thought it necessary, sort of like Martin or Laymon. So this collection isn't really a group of stories for kids or prudes of any age. However as my brother reminded me it is probably just the sort of thing I may have read myself as a teen and "neglected" to tell anyone about.

Black Science Fiction is a little over 400 pages and contains about 40 short stories of varying length. Standouts include "The Redemption of Robert E. Lee" in which Pickett's Charge succeeds and leads to a southern victory and an attempt by General Lee to outlaw slavery; "Hitman for a Day" where due to overpopulation pressures, citizens can play a lottery and kill someone they hate; "The Outrage", where a security guard must defend aliens accused of rape from a human lynch mob; "The Slave and The Time Machine", where an enslaved African goes to the future and comes back with some little friends for slave owners to say hello to; and "The Promised Land" where a black secret agent who can pass for white discovers that the victorious Confederacy is creating a Final Solution for blacks out west. There are other stories here which I didn't like and a few which I positively hated ("Cinderella 3000") so YMMV. If you like speculative fiction writers with an idiosyncratic and occasionally rather perverse take on things, this book might be worthwhile. If you don't like a particular story, just turn the page. There's probably something better coming up shortly. Overall I'm glad I have it in my library. 



One Shot
by Lee Child

This is the book which the Tom Cruise movie Jack Reacher was based upon. I'm not enough of a Tom Cruise fan to go run and see his movies in the theaters. But I was intrigued by the howls of fury from Lee Child fans that Tom Cruise was playing the titular role. So when I saw this book on sale a few weeks back I bought it.

Now I can understand why book readers would have been disappointed, even upset with Cruise taking the movie role. In the book Jack Reacher is a former Army MP who is a blonde haired, blue eyed giant of a man, standing 6-5 and weighing about 250#. Few people want to tangle with him physically. He consciously and subconsciously uses his size and muscle to subtly intimidate people. I don't think Cruise could have brought that element of the character to life visually.

Though Reacher's size is an important part of his overall persona and how he is viewed by others, it's definitely not the most important thing about him. Reacher's primary tool is his brain. He's able to out think just about anyone he's up against. He's sort of a modern day Sherlock Holmes or Doc Savage. Reacher notices and remembers things which other people don't. He has quite the talent for living and moving off the grid. This second is somewhat less believable in a post 9/11 world but then again Reacher is ex-military with skill sets other people lack. He's a ghost. You can't find him. He finds you.

The story opens in a small Indiana city with an unnamed man methodically shooting five people from his parking garage perch. He misses one shot and does not retrieve all of his ejected cartridges. All five people that he did shoot are dead. Obviously this is a skilled sniper.

The physical evidence all points to a former Army Sniper, one James Barr. James Barr tells the cops they got the wrong guy and to get Jack Reacher for him. But Reacher, who was engaged in empty sex with a beautiful woman, is already on the way to the city. He saw the news. He and Barr have history. Bad history. The case appears open and shut. The lead police investigator and DA are basically already congratulating each other as the trial appears to be a mere formality. Barr can no longer assist in his defense as shortly after being put in jail he was beaten into a coma. Barr's semi-estranged sister Rosemary doesn't believe her brother did it despite the abundance of evidence. Reacher is nothing if not a straight shooter and after talking to the police and DA he doesn't see much to shake their faith in Barr's guilt.  But someone is shadowing Reacher's moves around town. Reacher becomes aware of this not long after the reader does. Someone wants to make sure that Barr is convicted. Eventually Reacher notices a few anomalies, things which other investigators wouldn't have. And he starts pulling a few strings. Hard. Even though Reacher would like to hurt Barr and doesn't always care about the exact letter of the law, his sense of honor, intelligence and quiet morality won't let him leave Barr to the tender mercies of the Indiana courts if Reacher is not convinced that's where Barr should be.

Barr's defense attorney, Helen Rodin, is the daughter of the DA prosecuting the case. She, Reacher, Rosemary and a Reacher associate uncover a conspiracy. The shot-callers aren't happy. They play for keeps. They take increasingly deadly steps to take Reacher off the board. This was a very quick fun read. The author walks you through many ways in which people unknowingly leave evidence of who they are and where they've been all through the day.

Granny's Got a Gun!!!!!

Many people who are hostile to concealed carry or dismissive of an individual right to keep and bear arms like to say "No one needs a gun in today's society" or "Why does anyone need more than x" bullets. Well, recently in Detroit one suburban 56-year old great-grandmother found out that having a gun with a magazine of more than six shots can be pretty handy when you are in the process of being beaten and mugged. I'm glad she was able to defend herself. It seems as if she might need to spend some more time at the range, though. Just maybe.  In any event it's an excellent example of how when it goes down hard, you really can't count on anyone but yourself. Feminism and fatherlessness killed chivalry. Most people don't want to get involved. An older woman can't automatically rely on anyone to come to her assistance if she's being attacked. I used to ride this bus WAY BACK in the old days when I went to U-D. It's the Wild West Side of Detroit. Of course it's a good thing this didn't happen in New York, as under the new law, magazines with more than a seven round capacity are illegal. We are definitely living in strange times. Incidents like this are why I am so vociferously in support of every law abiding person's right to keep and bear arms. We live in neither heaven nor earthly utopia. This world is unfortunately full of people who live to do wrong, some areas more than others, it seems.  When a grandmother feels the need to be ready to come up blasting, something has gone DRASTICALLY wrong in our society. Watch the video below as the lady explains just what went down and how she reacted.

DETROIT (WJBK) -- When a local great grandma couldn't find a good Samaritan to fight off a mugger, she went for the next best thing -- her gun. At 11:30 Thursday morning on a bus near the University of Detroit Mercy, a guy in his early twenties attacked Ramona Taylor-Kamate.

"He said, 'Give me my bag auntie.'  I said, 'I am not your auntie, boy, and this is not your bag.'  So he hit me.  So when he hit me, we started fighting," she explained.
Taylor-Kamate said there were more men than women on that packed bus, but not one guy would help her.  She traded punches with the punk, then he grabbed her purse and ran out on the sidewalk with grandma dragging along.  She said other bus riders yelled he has a gun.

"He reached down like he was going in his boot.  They already [said] he had a gun in his boot.  So he reached down in his boot.  When he reached down, I went in my secret compartment... and got my H&K out and I started shooting at him."
She has a concealed pistol license and said she feared for her life.  She fired her 9 millimeter handgun and emptied the gun.  She said he ran away with her purse and did not appear to be hit.  She had ten rounds in her magazine and one more loaded in the chamber.  She fired all eleven shots.

Fox 2 News Headlines

Phil Mickelson, Taxes and Fairness

You can pay Uncle Sam with the overtime
Is that all you get for your money
-Billy Joel "Moving Out"

During my time on this planet I've known several people who are doing much better financially than I am. I'm sure you have known people more successful than you are. Some of these people were born to it or inherited it. Others worked for it. Some were smarter and harder working than I was. Some have skill sets which I lack. Other people are just older and more experienced. Other folks simply happened to marry well. In any event very few of them liked giving money away, and certainly not to the state or federal government. I remember listening to a rant by a former friend, who having built an income in the high six figures, was outraged that to her mind, so much of it, too much of it was going to the federal government. It seems like it was a weekly event of listening to her whine about taxes and how it wasn't fair and blah, blah, blah.

I've also known a few wealthy people who made it a point never to complain publicly about their taxes because they considered it gauche and something not likely to engender sympathy. I certainly didn't feel much sympathy or empathy for the friend I mentioned. This lack of sympathy often occurs because when you're living paycheck to paycheck you don't see how someone making high multiples of what you make can have too many financial problems. I look at some people making more than I make and think they have it made. But I also know some people who earn much less than I do and think I have it made. And I assure you that is so not the case. It's all relative.

This feeling of "Buddy we've all got it tough" could be what golfer and California resident Phil Mickelson ran into when he complained about the high taxes he was paying, and specifically the increased taxes he would owe under the fiscal cliff deal and California's just passed 13% income tax rate.

LINK

“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”Mickelson, who lives with his wife, Amy, and their three children outside San Diego, his hometown, said he planned to elaborate on his comments in more detail this week when the tour stopped in his backyard, at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif.

“It’s been an interesting off-season,” said Mickelson, who cracked open a window into his thought process last week during a teleconference. Asked if he has considered following his United States Ryder Cup teammate Steve Stricker, another 40-something golfer, into semi retirement, Mickelson replied: “You know, I think that we’re all going to have our own way of handling things, handling time in our career, our family, handling what’s going on the last couple of months politically. I think we’re all going to have to find things that work for us.”

In December, Mickelson, who was part of a group that had bought the San Diego Padres four months earlier, abruptly announced that he was no longer involved in the business deal. His reversal came shortly after California voters approved Proposition 30, which imposed a 13.3 percent tax rate on incomes of more than $1 million.

Asked Sunday if the election results played a role in his decision to sever his ties with the Padres’ ownership group, Mickelson replied, “Yeah, absolutely.” "I'm not going to jump the gun, but there are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and...it doesn't work for me right now."

Mickelson faced a backlash over his comments with some people claiming he should only be paying 52% of his income, not 63% and therefore should stop whining and take it like a man.

Mickelson frenemy Tiger Woods came to Mickelson's defense by pointing out that high taxes were one reason that he had previously left California. But perhaps not wanting to seem insensitive or place himself within political controversies any more than he already had, Mickelson issued an apology for his statements.

"I'm like many Americans who are trying to understand the new tax laws. I certainly don't have a definitive plan at this time, but like everyone else I want to make decisions that are best for my future and my family. Finances and taxes are a personal matter and I should not have made my opinions on them public. I apologize to those I have upset or insulted and assure you I intend to not let it happen again".

Mickelson was, according to Sports Illustrated, the second highest paid athlete in 2012. Floyd Mayweather was #1. So even by the elevated standards of New York or Hollywood, Mickelson would remain rich even if the federal, state and local governments really were shaking him down for 63% of his total (not marginal) income. Perhaps he really should just keep his mouth shut and pay up. Never complain and never explain is often really good advice for an adult to heed. If you're paying a lot of taxes, you're probably earning a lot of money so what do you really have to complain about when all is said and done? Mickelson's net worth is estimated at or around $180 million. So it's not like I'm ever going to see Mickelson on my homeward bound expressway exit forlornly holding up a sign that reads "Will putt for cash. Please help".

So this raises an interesting question. There are as stated, very few people who like paying taxes. People at all levels of income complain about the bites various governments take whether they're getting clothing at goodwill or going shopping for suits in Paris and Rome over the weekend. Presumably Mickelson and his wife know better than anyone not in the IRS, how much he pays in taxes. Whatever his tax burden is, by Mickelson's reckoning it's too damn much. He has a right to say so. California's 13% income tax is by my standards, too high and could well be a reason why some people who have the ability may consider departing California for more pleasant (lower tax) locales. You need not be a right-wing free market fundamentalist to recognize that there is a point where higher tax rates do not result in higher revenue. Because all else equal people can and do decide to leave the political unit where high taxes are imposed or failing that work less. For a high tax area to succeed, it needs to offer some other super high quality services to go along with the higher taxes-high quality schools, high income potential, clean air and water, great roads, open space, responsive police and fire service. Does that sound like California these days? I couldn't say...

But Mickelson should count himself lucky. Progressive talk show host and author Thom Hartmann thinks we should outlaw billionaires.  Mickelson doesn't make that cut yet but if he keeps whining I'm sure some people might decide that a 100% wealth tax on anything over 1 million might be a good idea. On the other hand I am shortly due for significant pay raises and bonus, though the increases are sadly somewhat short of $60 million. I imagine that I will be rather po'd when I see how much of the increase in income goes to the federal government. Last year I remember going to my boss wondering if the check was correct. NO ONE likes taxes!!

Questions:

Was Mickelson right to speak out? Do you have any sympathy?

Was an apology necessary?

Is 63% of income going to government too high?

How much of his own money should Mickelson get to keep?

Movie Reviews-Supernatural Season Five, Amelie

Supernatural Season Five
created by Eric Kripke

In Season Four Sam (Jason Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) sniped and feuded all season long about Sam's use of strange psychic powers, the disgusting things he was doing to maintain these powers and his closeness (that kind too) with the demon Ruby (Genevieve Padalecki) who claimed to want to help Sam kill the demon Lilith. Dean and Bobby (Jim Beaver) took drastic steps to try to "cure" Sam, including locking him in a supernatural detox tank, from which he escaped. The bad blood culminated in an ugly, vicious, lengthy knock-down dragout no holds barred sibling battle royale which the bigger, stronger and by now much angrier Sam won. Despite Dean's final warning Sam chose Ruby over his brother and went off to kill Lilith with Ruby's assistance.

Well it turns out that sometimes big brother Dean really does know best. Trusting demons is never wise. Sam killed Lilith and got revenge for all the evil things she had done. But as Ruby triumphantly revealed to Sam, Lilith's death was the final seal to unlock the key to Hell. Ruby was a secret agent who was ordered to manipulate Sam into killing Lilith. Lilith was a willing sacrifice. By killing Lilith Sam unwittingly opened the path for Lucifer to invade the earth and set off the Apocalypse. Dean learns where Sam is and with Sam's help, kills Ruby. But it's too late. The Morning Star himself is entering our plane of existence

The brothers mysteriously escape Lucifer's arrival. They don't know how they did it and the angels or demons don't know either. The brothers get more bad news. As things are in Earth so are they in Heaven. Just as Sam and Dean have a fractious relationship with Sam being a rebellious son to John Winchester while Dean was a dutiful son, Lucifer and Michael have the same exact relationship with each other and God. In fact each Winchester brother is destined to play a part in the Final Battle, on opposite sides! When Dean broke under torture in Hell and agreed to torture others, that was the breaking of the first seal and Sam's killing of Lilith was the last.

Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino), who has temporarily taken over a hapless human, is convinced that Sam is his true vessel. The angels also believe that Dean is the vessel for the Archangel Michael. The only drawback from Lucifer's and Michael's standpoint is that a human must willingly agree to possession by an angel. Sam and Dean vow never to agree. But eternal beings, whether devil or angel, have all sorts of tricks to wear down human resistance. Lucifer has near eternal patience. He is immortal after all. He confidently tells Sam that eventually Sam will say yes to letting Lucifer possess him. It's only a matter of time. It's a question of fate. And fate can't be denied, something that the angels and demons seem to be very insistent upon. Each side scoffs at the notion of free will. Neither bears much love for humans or cares that the Final Battle will at the very least wipe out half of humanity.

So the brothers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The angels (with the notable exception of Castiel) are eager for the Final Battle to take place. As Zacariah puts it "We like our chances".  God has evidently left the building. There are only a handful of angels who have ever seen God. Word on the celestial street is that God is dead. Castiel (Misha Collins) finds this impossible to believe and offensive to even imagine. Castiel starts a quest to find God since he can't accept that God would want the Apocalypse to occur. During this search Castiel angers his angelic superiors so much that they cut off his access to Heaven's powers.

This season was a bit uneven. I believe this was originally intended to be the last in the series. The ending certainly made it seem like that was the plan. Supernatural simultaneously gets caught in a bit of a rut but also takes some pretty big chances with maiming or killing off critical characters. The Winchesters are not only bad news for the bad guys but also often unfortunately bad news for their friends. Sam and Dean even split up for a while. Dean won't stop needling Sam about the Ruby situation and finally says he can't trust his brother. Sam is tired of Dean's snide comments as well as taking orders from big brother. Sam doubts he still has the judgement to be a hunter. And he's dealing with guilt both over setting Lucifer free and over his inborn rage. If you have a sibling, you've probably argued with him or her on occasion. Imagine that turned up to 10 here. The brothers do spend most of their waking moments together and that can be irritating. Nobody knows better how to get under your skin than a family member does. Sam and Dean illustrate that perfectly. The pressure is incredible. Only all existence is at stake.

Lucifer releases the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Pestilence, Famine, War and Death) to bring further misery and suffering to the world. And they all do just that. The thing is though, the Winchester Brothers still think it's their job to save the world. And when they put their mind to something, if you're in the way, you better duck. Even if you are one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or Old Scratch himself. There are ways for humans to fight angels or other immortal beings. And with the help of old friend and paternal figure Bobby Singer, mother figure Ellen (Samantha Ferris), her daughter Jo (Alona Tal), the irascible Rufus Turner (Steven Williams) and a few other hunters the Winchesters intend to make their last stand. As they frequently remind each other over Season Five, they're all they have. This is even more the case when other once friendly hunters learn of Sam's and Dean's role in bringing about this chain of events.

Supernatural is or was popular with some fan fiction writers and live action role playing people. The series gently mocks those folks and itself here with the depiction of a convention of Supernatural fans who have come to listen to Chuck (Rob Benedict) speak of his Supernatural series. Chuck is an amiable and nervous weasel of a man who just happens to have written down all of the adventures of the Winchesters in his best selling "fictional" series. He even knows what will happen next. Chuck is a prophet of the Lord. In the future the deeds of the Winchesters will be the basis for a new religion. But for now Chuck is content to preside over groupings of basement dwelling adults who are eager to dress up like the Winchesters, start online flame wars over what sort of leather jacket Dean wears or discuss "homoerotic subtext in the Supernatural books". Yeah. Sam and Dean aren't very happy with Chuck. But Chuck does become something of an ally when a real supernatural danger is revealed at the Supernatural convention.

The Winchesters travel from town to town, dealing with new threats brought on by the Apocalypse, resisting increasingly angry angels or demons who want their favored brother to say yes to their master, searching frantically for a way to stop or kill Lucifer, eliminating run of the mill supernatural threats in their spare time, and of course, trying to get some. This last was somewhat muted in Season Five as horndog Dean decides not to go pick up women on Valentine's Day, something Sam finds incredulous. Valentine's Day has always been ladies' man Dean's favorite holiday. He calls it "Unattached Drifter Christmas". There's a Terminator shout out. The angels decide if Dean won't say yes to possession by Michael, the best way to stop Lucifer is to go back in time and kill Sam and Dean's parents so that Sam will never be born. The angel tasked to do this just happens to be the female angel to whom Dean introduced the pleasures of the flesh. Other episodes give nods to HP Lovecraft. The brothers also run across the Antichrist, encounter pagan gods who want to stop the Apocalypse, and have the first of many chats with Death (Julian Richings), a charming cane bearing fellow with a dry British sense of humor, total disregard for all life, and a fondness for stuffed pizza. 

Season Five Trailer
Season Five Fan Trailer(mixes images from Constantine)
Season Five Intro




Amelie
directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet

Amelie is a French language movie with English subtitles available if you are so inclined. I took French way back in grade school and later high school but outside of school trips to Toronto never had an opportunity to use it in real life and so forgot almost all of it. So it was fun to occasionally turn off the subtitles and see if I could follow the storyline. I usually got lost after a few sentences. Anyhow I had purchased the music soundtrack ages ago and loved the songs. But I never got around to watching the movie. My brother sent me the DVD a few months back and here we are. The story is incredibly predictable but I mean that as a description and compliment, not a criticism. It's about a woman (the titular character) who, if she doesn't take steps to change the path she's on, will become an old Eleanor Rigby type who really will die in the church and be buried along with her name. She's completely, almost painfully aware of this but is too scared to change. Her shyness and introversion prevent her from living life to its fullest. Amelie is a person who mostly reacts to decisions that are made by others instead of seeking to change her own destiny.

We see how some of her passivity got started in her childhood. Amelie (Audrey Tatou) had eccentric somewhat standoffish parents who misdiagnosed an issue which Amelie had as a young girl and as a result crippled her self-esteem and confidence. This was made worse when her mother died in a freak accident which Amelie witnessed. Both Amelie and her father are people who just want to be left alone in life. Amelie has a very active, almost hyperactive imagination. Amelie works in a cafe where a number of like-minded, well , losers, hang out. There's an oh so cool writer full of pathos and wisdom but who has never run across anyone who's read his (unpublished) work. There's a plain looking slightly overweight older woman who despairs of having love and hides this by claiming to suffer from every disease or condition ever discovered. Most humorously there's a bitter trollish fellow, who having been romantically dumped by another waitress, shows up every day in a jealous seething rage to tape record her imagined flirtations with other customers and dictate his own incredibly offbase insights about women's nature. He sees two women talking, assumes it's about him and records himself sneering "2:30 PM. Obvious female plot taking place. But I'm onto them.". All of the characters are introduced by the narrator who quickly details or shows their little quirks or activities in which they find pleasure, like skipping rocks across ponds or tasting roasted chicken fresh from the oven or arranging items in their proper order or a million and one different things which make us all so unique and human.

On the day that Princess Diana died, Amelie finds an old box containing toys, mementos and letters that belonged to a boy who lived in her apartment back in the fifties. Impulsively she decides to try to return these items to the man, wherever he might be, in the hope that by doing so she will bring happiness to the man's life. If she's successful then she will continue to try to help others (and live vicariously through them). Showing resourcefulness and grit she doesn't normally display in her day job, Amelie does find the man. She anonymously arranges the return of his childhood belongings. Amelie discovers that the man was indeed made incredibly happy by this act of kindness. In fact the man intends to try to make up with his estranged daughter. Amelie enthusiastically decides to take it upon herself to become a righter of wrongs, a sort of female Zorro. She sets things up so that the hypochondriac woman and the bitter man start to think of each other as attractive, tries to convince her withdrawn father to take some trips around the world, stands up to a bully and generally does her best to spread some joy among the people she knows, or even most memorably among people she doesn't know. There is a scene where she carefully leads a blind man to his destination, all the time telling him of all the wonderful things that are going on around him. After she leaves the shot of joy and love on his face, shot from a crane, is really something to see.

But while Amelie is watching others and trying to see how she can improve their lives, someone else is watching her. An older man with a degenerative bone condition who is known as the Glass Man, Dufayel (Serge Merlin) befriends Amelie. He paints original work of his own and reworks Renoir paintings. He's having difficulty finding the correct facial expression for a girl in a painting. Amelie gives him suggestions on what the girl might be feeling or thinking. Over time the girl in the painting becomes the vehicle by which Amelie is able to haltingly and with plausible deniability express some of her own deeper feelings. When Amelie sees a man her own age lose a photo album, she gets the book and intends to return it. But Amelie is physically attracted to the man, Nino (Mathieu Kassovits), which is partly why she was watching him in the first place. She starts a complex flirtatious but anonymous cat and mouse game with Nino that will involve long searches around Paris and disguised visits to Nino's workplace to casually inquire if Nino has a girlfriend. Her shyness keeps tripping her up though, even as Dufayel shows he knows more than he lets on. You can guess the rest I'm sure.

You might say this is a romantic comedy. Obviously there are romantic elements but actually that's really a very small, though critical part of the story. It's really about doing what makes you happy, trying to help people and make the world a better place, as none of us knows when we won't be here any more. Rather than a romantic comedy Amelie is really more of a magical realism type story. We see people's hearts beat more quickly when they are happy. Pictures and photographs talk to people looking at them and discuss the person after they've gone to sleep. When someone's heart is broken they turn to rainbow colored water and suddenly crash to the floor. This was a fun movie to watch and an excellent example that people are all the same no matter where you go. As I mentioned the soundtrack is sublime. I also enjoyed the director's use of color, which can be described as psychedelic and wondrous. The ending is superb. If you haven't seen this film, you're missing out.

English Language Trailer
French Language Trailer with English subtitles available

Hot for Teacher-Adult Actress Teacher Stacie Halas Fired

I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I've got it bad
I'm hot for teacher
Hot For Teacher-Van Halen

It's been a minute since I was in grade/middle school. I don't remember having crushes on any of the women teachers there. I knew virtually nothing about their personal life and wasn't that interested. It was big news when occasionally their boyfriend or husband would pick them up from or drop them off at school. I mean who knew that Miss or Mrs. so-n-so actually had a life outside of the classroom? Of course I was a bit of a solipsistic young lad and the times were more conservative so it wasn't surprising that I didn't know anything about a teacher's extra curricular life or her activities and lifestyle before she became my teacher. Of course, as the Stacie Halas story shows us, maybe it's a good thing that I didn't know anything about my teachers' lives prior to them becoming an educator.

32 year old Stacie Halas was a California middle school teacher who was recently fired from her job. She lost her appeal of that firing as well. Why was she axed? Well she was terminated from her position because she was, prior to working as a teacher in her current school, but perhaps not other schools, an adult film actress. Evidently some other teachers and/or students recognized Halas' .... (ahem)... face and did some quick research to make sure. Once this information became public, Halas was let go. People found interviews in her movies in which she talked about being a teacher and hoped her other job choices would not be discovered. I wonder who got the job of downloading and reviewing those movies, purely for research purposes of course.

Her lawyer, Richard Schwab, said Halas had tried to be honest but was embarrassed by her previous experience in the adult industry."Miss Halas is more than just an individual fighting for her job as a teacher," he said Tuesday. "I think she's representative of a lot of people who may have a past that may not involve anything illegal or anything that hurts anybody."

Halas has been on administrative leave since the video surfaced in March. Teachers then showed administrators downloads of Halas' sex videos from their smartphones. 

In hearings, former assistant principal Wayne Saddler testified that, at the start of a sex video, Halas talked about being a teacher, and he felt her effectiveness in the classroom had been compromised.

In October, Oxnard Unified School District spokesman Thomas DeLapp told CBS Los Angeles that once students were able to find the videos of Halas on the Internet, they made it difficult for her to be an effective teacher."We even had kids who were referring to her by her stage name in class, from catcalls in the back," DeLapp said.

LINK

Of course there are other jokes I could make about this but right now I don't have any more*. When I first heard about this I was somewhat opposed to the school board's action because people can and do change. Do we want to put a scarlet letter on someone for the rest of their life for a bad, but legal choice they once made?  Halas' time as "Tiffany Sixx" appears to be in the past. It's not as if she were arriving directly from the studio sets to teach impressionable young teens/pre-teens and/or tell them all about her deeds. At least, that doesn't appear to have been the case. But thinking more about this teachers are indeed supposed to maintain a good moral example for the children they instruct. Performing circus sexual acts on film for money with men and other women is usually not considered to be setting a proper moral example. I used to be a 12 yr old boy. I can definitely say that Halas' effectiveness as a teacher would be near zero if she was teaching boys of that age. So for that alone, even if I don't care about her previous career, she'd probably have to find a different job.  

And while the sordid details of her paid interactions with men or women may have been outre, the fact is that virtually every teacher, heck almost every human being has had sex or will have sex at some point in their life. There's just a record of some of her activities.  If she had announced she was gay, should/could she have been fired for that? That is still considered deviant in some circles and to be setting a bad influence. But working essentially as a prostitute is, unlike gayness, something that still unites many on the feminist left and on the traditionalist right in disgust. So maybe it's not as cut and dry as people might think.

And let's be honest, it's not just about the children. That's something of a cop-out. I do not think that in the average corporate workplace, were it discovered that the budget analyst in general ledger was or had been an adult actress, that she would be able to keep her job, or at least keep her job with the same level of respect and productivity that she had had prior to that information becoming public. Is that fair? Probably not. People should be judged on what they do at work, not on what they've done in their private lives. But that's idealistic. The reality is that often you sell not only your on the job skills to your employer, but also the implied or actual promise that you won't embarrass your employer or bring undue complications to your job. If, for example, a man who was an actuary, supply chain mgr or officer for a Fortune 500 Company decided to supplement his salary by investing in perfectly legal strip clubs or lingerie football leagues, chances are good that his company might bid him adieu. That's just how it goes.

So what do you think?

Was the school district within its rights to terminate Halas?

Was it the right thing to do?

Would you be concerned if Halas were teaching your children?

If you were a male student in her class would you ask her for extra "homework" or some one-on-one tutoring? (*Ok, just one joke)

Movie Reviews-Zero Dark Thirty, The Baytown Outlaws

Zero Dark Thirty
directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Zero Dark Thirty (ZDT) is an extremely well crafted film that flirts with a message that is morally despicable and vacuous. It is about the search for and ultimate assassination of Osama Bin Laden (OBL). The driving force behind this is a midlevel CIA analyst, Maya, played with barely restrained fury and icy discipline by Jessica Chastain. Maya is less analyst and more Valkyrie. Maya is likely a composite character. Does the first "other" in an environment need to try harder to fit into the dominant model? Yes. The first black policemen or firemen had to deal strategically with racism in order to lay the groundwork for those coming after them. In the seventies and eighties some professional office clothing for women tried to hide that women aren't men and don't look like men. In ZDT Maya is ice water, that is when she's not cursing at CIA Director Leon Panetta (James Gandolfini) or engaging in other bad behavior usually considered to be men's bailiwick. Perhaps this story element appealed to Bigelow, who is a first of her own. Only Bigelow can say for sure. It certainly seemed that way. 

Better writers and smarter people than I have debated ZDT's stance on torture. Naomi Wolf compared Bigelow to Leni Riefenstahl, which may seem like a low blow, but shows you how seriously people take the issues. Bigelow defended herself by writing that "depiction is not endorsement" and that smart or artistic people should understand that. I don't think that Bigelow consciously set out to make a pro-torture movie. And I don't know and don't really care about her politics or those of the film's primary actors. But she opened herself up to criticism by claiming that the film is "journalistic". ZDT is a film that strongly implies that:

• Torture works
• Torture helped us find OBL 
• Everyone in the relevant government agencies knew about the torture 
• A woman is heroic to the extent that she engages in morally questionable behavior, just like the guys 
• Torture is a fitting punishment for some people.

In ZDT no one questions torture's efficacy or morality. In real life, that wasn't the case. Torture did not help us get OBL. There are many US laws, international laws and UN treaties against torture. It is a war crime. There is no exception. It is a shame, a sin, and arguably a crime that President Obama did not prosecute those who tortured, ordered torture or wrote legal memos defending torture. But as Bigelow smartly shows, when Maya is watching a drone attack, is torture worse than killing someone without trial?  Bigelow worked with CIA sources for ZDT, presumably including some people who wanted a different story placed for public consumption. So you must take care watching this film. Despite the director's avowed best intentions it can come across as propaganda. 

When a film that depicts torture is ONLY concerned about the well being of the torturer (one person jokes he's seen too many naked men while another briefly shows her disgust at the stench of human feces) and NOT at concerned with the well being of the brutalized prisoner something has gone wrong. If you think torture is ok or argue that in this particular case we had to do it, I would just ask you where you are willing to draw the line? Were the cops who tortured black suspects in Chicago wrong? And what if, as shown in the Samuel Jackson movie Unthinkable, a prisoner won't break under torture himself but might break if his wife and children were harmed. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to order or commit rape and worse on innocent women and children for the greater good? Unfortunately ZDT doesn't address or answer any of these questions. ZDT is a procedural detective story with a heroine instead of a hero. 

ZDT opens up with darkness and real life recordings of the 9/11 attack where 3000 Americans were killed. Maya is a novice CIA agent who has just been reassigned to the search for OBL.

In buttoned up attire, Maya arrives at a CIA black site where a CIA agent named Dan (Jason Clarke), Chastain's co-star from Lawless, is interrogating an Al-Qaeda minor functionary named Ammar (Reda Kateb). Dan is by turns solicitous and savage to Ammar, whom he has already viciously beaten and starved. When Ammar gives an answer Dan believes to be untrue it's waterboarding for him. Dan casually asks Maya to assist, which she does. This proves her bona fides to Dan, who takes her under his wing to teach her the ins and outs of detainee "interrogation" and how to navigate the treacherous political waters of the CIA and Washington D.C. scene. There is no sexual tension between them so Dan is a friendly big brother type for Maya. Maya is a quick learner with a fanatic attention to detail. She swiftly picks up on minute discrepancies between stories. She learns to tell the difference between someone who is lying to protect the Al-Qaeda organization and someone who is lying from fear but has no valuable information. 

Working primarily out of Pakistan, Maya gets to know Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) an older more experienced CIA officer who, after a bit of "who does this smart kid think she is" back and forth, becomes Maya's close friend and big sister/mother substitute. Maya is gung ho to find OBL. After Dan takes reassignment to Washington in part because he doesn't "want to be the last one holding the dog collar",  Maya steps up to lead her own interrogation team, ordering beatings and watching "interrogations" or drone attacks with clinical detachment.

Ammar makes an admission which sets Maya on the trail of Bin Laden's top courier and messenger, Abu Ahmed. And she's like a pit bull. Once she grabs hold she doesn't let go. Her singlemindedness brings her into regular conflict with her direct boss, Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler), CIA Pakistan Station Chief. Jessica is killed in the 2009 attack on Camp Chapman. Maya herself survives multiple assassination attempts. After these traumatic events the already intense Maya turns up the heat on herself and everyone else. The hunt for OBL becomes very personal for her. She reviews data and leads in which other people have lost interest. When her peers won't help she appeals, cajoles or finds ways to go around them. Maya's a very persuasive individual who never takes no for an answer. Eventually a detainee makes a mistake which Maya notices.

The story briefly veers into ever so slight ridiculousness as Maya is now more macho than every man she meets. Maya tells the Seal team that they are going to kill Bin Laden for her. When CIA Director Leon Panetta asks who she is, she replies "I'm the muyerfuyer who found Bin Laden". Right. Because people talk to their boss' boss' boss like that all the time. Maya daily harasses her new supervisors to devote what she considers to be proper time and resources to the OBL search. Basically she throws an extended temper tantrum. YMMV on this. I didn't care for it myself. It's not because it's a woman displaying jerkish behavior. I just don't like jerks. Period. I am repelled by real life women who wrongly think that acting like the crudest stereotype of men is the way to attain male respect. It isn't.

ZDT provides a cornucopia of very interesting and doubtless quite misleading information about the various methods and technologies used to locate Abu Ahmed and ultimately OBL. A little treachery, a little money and a lot of legwork evidently went a long way. ZDT is at its best when it shows the long arduous work needed to connect a seemingly innocuous comment from one detainee to a lie from another detainee to a strange behavior pattern from a man who has no legitimate reason to act strangely. Now do all that in a foreign country where your skin tone immediately marks you as an outsider. Obviously Seal Team Six does actually locate OBL and send him to hell.

I can't overemphasize how "real" this movie feels and how much of a skilled craftswoman Bigelow is. I loved her camera work. Everything, from the intelligence status meetings in Washington or Islamabad to the attacks in Afghanistan or Pakistan to the hesitant or aborted friendships among various CIA officers and staff, is so true to life it's like you were there. At lunch women giggle over the cute male co-workers and in the next breath discuss torture or executions. Bigelow has a great eye for detail. Although you already know the outcome Bigelow still makes a suspenseful movie. Chastain gives this film her best performance I've seen so far. Maya has no backstory, no love interest, and evidently no other goal in life than to locate and eliminate OBL.

My basic issue with ZDT is that I simply don't think it's very heroic to hurt living things who have no ability to respond. It's like shooting wolves from helicopters or beating up a six year old. That's what torture is. It's easy to front as a tough guy or gal when a man is tied up and you have two or three men the size of J.J. Watt helping you inflict pain on him. The Seal Team Six raid on Bin Laden's compound was more interesting to me because as soldiers, they accept the risk that people will be shooting back. I think that's more heroic. Watching someone be sexually humiliated or forced to crawl through his own excrement is not heroic. It did happen, though perhaps not quite as Bigelow shows it here. Torture hindered the search for Bin Laden. Senators McCain, Feinstein and Levin claimed the film was "grossly inaccurate". Bigelow's film makes you think torture was essential. Despite her protestations, it takes a side. And I'm not on that side.

Although the violence is explicit, it's not in the same universe as an average slasher/horror movie. It's not all that different than what's shown on Scandal, 24 or Homeland. This film has far too many top character actors to list. I got a kick out of seeing Stephen Dillane (Stannis from HBO's Game of Thrones) play a world weary National Security Advisor. I was hoping he would ominously intone "Osama will bend the knee or I will destroy him. The cold winds are rising." but no such luck. This film is long but never drags.
Other actors of note include Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Harold Perrineau, Edgar Ramirez, Chris Pratt, and Scott Adkins.

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The Baytown Outlaws
directed by Barry Battles

This film is like a less deliberately offensive The Devil's Rejects, though it certainly tries to be as offensive. I'm not sure the director's heart was as in it. Like that movie it takes characters who are dangerous, despicable and deadly and makes them the heroes by the simple trick of spending time with them, setting them against worse people and most manipulatively, giving them a child to protect. Still it was fun to watch if you're in the mood and I was so it's okay by me. You may feel differently. Some bigger name actors are slumming here and they appear to be having a good time. This film works if you don't think about it too much. Certainly the actors don't.

This film opens up with the Alabama based Oodie Brothers paying a visit to a house inhabited by drug dealers. There are three Oodie Brothers, Brick (Clayne Crawford) the oldest and leader who usually wears a Confederate Flag T-shirt, Lincoln (Daniel Cudmore), the middle brother and biggest/strongest who can't speak because of injuries suffered during wrestling, and McQueen (Travis Fimmel), the youngest and most hotheaded. The Oodie Brothers kill everyone in the house during the opening sequence. Unfortunately as McQueen discovers from a telephone bill, it was actually the wrong address. In flashback it's shown that all three of the brothers are dangerous killers with long records of mayhem and other crime.

A witness to their crime, Celeste (Eva Longoria), follows them back to their home and makes Brick an offer. Kidnap her godson from her estranged husband Carlos (Billy Bob Thornton) and she'll pay them handsomely. Intrigued as much by the sight of Celeste in cut-off jeans and a clingy top as by the $5000 down payment, Brick agrees, despite McQueen's angry insistence that intervening in custody disputes isn't really an Oodie business service.
Meanwhile a Northern ATF agent (Paul Wesley) tries to talk to the local sheriff Milliard (Andre Braugher) about the strangely low rate of crime in the area, the fact that so many criminals either disappear or turn up dead and oddities he's noticed about the Oodie Brothers. Sheriff Milliard pretends not to know what the agent is talking about and gives him the runaround with that peculiarly Southern mixture of politesse and hostility. It is jarring and funny to see a black man playing this archetype of Southern White Maleness. Braugher pulls it off perfectly, even throwing in a post-ironic dig about the Civil War.

As it turns out Milliard and Celeste were both less than truthful with the people questioning them. Celeste was married to Carlos but the boy she seeks to rescue, Rob (Thomas Sangster), is not her son or Carlos' son. Carlos murdered Rob's real parents. There's something else about Rob which explains why Carlos wants him. And Carlos isn't just some schmuck. He's an absentmindedly malicious drug dealer and gangster. When two hapless low level mooks make the mistake of letting Carlos know they'd do things differently, Carlos (paraphrasing) says "Let me stop you right there. See I see my empire as the Wal-mart of bottom-dollar retail crime. What you two yahoos are talking about is a word I don't like to use. Partner. I don't need partners. I need baggers. I need clerks. See partners lead to another bad word. Mutiny". It doesn't end well for the duo. Nevertheless the Oodies crash into Carlos' home and kidnap Rob, who isn't what they expected. They aren't able to kill Carlos though. He sets a number of different cartoonish hoodlums after them including female dominatrix/prostitute bikers, black gothic road warriors, and Native American thugs.

And Milliard knows the Oodies all too well as he is the closest thing to a Daddy they have. There's very little that they do that he doesn't direct or know about. And the movie lurches on its merry way. Mayhem, bloodshed and aforementioned tenderness for a helpless child ensue. Michael Rapaport has a cameo as a cowardly but horny bartender.
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Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax and Notre Dame

People will do anything to keep the hype going. That's the lesson I learned from the Manti Te'o story. Actually that's the second lesson I learned. The first lesson I learned about Manti Te'o was the one that Eddie Lacy delivered a few weeks back as he ran around, through, over and under Te'o in an Alabama a$$-kicking of the Notre Dame football team and especially of Te'o, whose job it was to stop the run. Ok well Eddie Lacy made Te'o look silly. But Lacy did that to a lot of people this year. No big deal, right? Te'o was still a character guy at a character school (Notre Dame) who had been through a lot of tragedy with his grandmother and girlfriend dying so close to each other (within 6 hours). Te'o was everything that was right about college football. He was classy, honest and hardworking. If he could persevere despite those body blow tragedies then surely we lesser beings could get off our keister, get out there and win one for the Gipper, right?

Well not so fast. Deadspin did some very basic fact checking of Te'o's story and started to find some discrepancies. The fact checkers found some very ugly and obvious discrepancies. Like no one had ever seen this Te'o girlfriend. Evidently Te'o had been dating Mr. Snuffleupagus. His girlfriend did not exist.

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te'o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. 

Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI's Pete Thamel described how Te'o would phone her in her hospital room and stay on the line with her as he slept through the night. "Her relatives told him that at her lowest points, as she fought to emerge from a coma, her breathing rate would increase at the sound of his voice," Thamel wrote.
Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te'o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te'o would appear on ESPN'sCollege GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple's fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

LINK

I don't know why a grown man felt the need to make up a girlfriend that didn't exist and continue to claim things about her, even after by his own admission, he knew she didn't exist. That makes no sense to me. All I will say for sure that Notre Dame and Te'o are full of crap, as is the entire NCAA system but that's a different story.  I think that both Notre Dame and Te'o knew the value of a good story and decided to roll with it, regardless of whether they came up up with the original con or not. (and I think Te'o did) And all I know is that as a Michigan Man I couldn't be happier to see Notre Dame and Te'o revealed as the lightweight lackadaisical lying lowlife losers I always knew they were. Please read the entire deadspin article and weigh in. 

Questions:

Do you think Te'o is telling the truth about being conned?

Is it possible to fall in love with someone who never existed?

Why would Te'o lie?

Should this give NFL teams pause before drafting him?