My First American Crime Write-Up

I’ve been watching the new ABC series, American Crime, which is on Thursday nights at 10 pm.
I want to write some of my reactions to the show, and I’ll use as my starting-point wikipedia’s succinct description:

“The show follows the aftermath of a murder in Modesto, California. War veteran Matt Skokie is killed during a home invasion in which his wife, Gwen, is brutally attacked. The series uses the crime and its subsequent journey through the legal system to explore complex issues, mainly through the lenses of the victims’ and suspect’s families.”

I’ll go through some (but not all) of the characters so that those who have not seen the show will know what I am talking about when I share my reactions.  It is tedious, I know, but it is necessary background information.

Felicity Huffman (of Desperate Housewives) plays Barb Hanlon, who is Matt Skokie’s mother.  Timothy Hutton plays Russ Skokie, who is Matt’s father, and who is divorced from Barb (and it was a bitter divorce).  David Hoflin plays Mark Skokie, who is Matt’s little brother, and who is also in a branch of military service.  On Gwen’s side of the family, Penelope Ann Miller plays Eve Carlin, Gwen’s mother.  W. Earl Brown plays Tom Carlin, who is Gwen’s father.  Lili Taylor (of Six Feet Under) plays Nancy Straumberg, who assists Barb as part of a victim’s advocacy group, and who herself lost a daughter to murder.  They are all white.

The person accused of murder is an African-American named Carter Nix.  His girlfriend is a young white woman named Aubry Taylor, who uses drugs, but who does love her boyfriend.  Regina King plays Aliyah Shaheed, a convert to African-American Islam who does not care for her brother’s decisions, but who is marshaling resources from her community (i.e., an excellent lawyer) in order to support her brother.

We learn in the course of the first two episodes that Matt and Gwen were not picture-perfect as people thought.  Matt was selling drugs, and he was selling drugs even before he went into the army after 9/11 to fight in Afghanistan; that was why his Mom got him to join the army.  Gwen was sleeping around, and her father Tom is disappointed to learn that, calling her a slut.

The show explores racism.  If Archie Bunker was the stereotypical angry white man, Barb is an angry white woman.  She has prejudice against people of other races—-not really at the KKK level, but in the sense that she looks down on them and thinks that society gives them special privileges.  She may have had those prejudices most of her life, but they were amplified after her husband left her and her kids due to his gambling addiction, and she had to raise her kids in the projects, where she says that her kids were bullied by some of the minorities there.  Aliyah, the sister of the accused, is an African-American Muslim.  She does not trust white society, hates her brother’s relationship with a white woman, and even mocks one of the prosecutor’s Jewish names.  Barb and Aliyah are different in their ideology, but they are remarkably similar in certain respects: there is their prejudice and sense of disenfranchisement, but there is also their strength.  They are confident, intelligent women who will not let anyone push them around, who do not hesitate to say what they think, and who fight to get what they want.  In terms of differences, I would say that Barb is a lot more morose than Aliyah is—-and that’s not just because Barb has lost a son but because she is a rather bitter woman, in general.  Barb is like Felicity Huffman’s Desperate Housewives character, Lynette, in terms of her strength and confidence, but Barb is a lot more morose than Lynette was.  Aliyah, on the other hand, has found fulfillment and pride on her religious path.  I like stories in which strong characters confront (yet hopefully come to understand) each other, so I am eager to see what the interactions between Barb and Aliyah will be like.

Mark, the brother of Matt, seems to me to be a peacemaker.  He probably had to fulfill that role much of his life—-with his parents hating each other, and his brother dealing drugs.  In one scene, Mark tries to encourage Tom (Gwen’s father) to be a responsible parent and to support his daughter, even though Tom thinks that Gwen is a slut.  Mark shares some secrets about his own family that Tom does not know and urges Tom to be better than that.  In a moving scene at the end of last Thursday’s episode, Tom and Eve are watching as their daughter Gwen comes out of her coma, and you can tell by the look on Tom’s face that he is ready to support his daughter, whatever mistakes she may have made.

Last Thursday’s episode was the best so far because it went into the backgrounds of various characters.  There is Aliyah’s phenomenal, powerful speech about why she became a Muslim.  There is also Nancy’s advice to Barb about how to dress at the trial, and Nancy’s tragic personal story about why that is so important.  I get tears in my eyes as I think about last Thursday’s episode.

Movie Write-Up: Grace Unplugged

I watched a Christian movie a few days ago: Grace Unplugged, which came out in 2013.  Although the movie is Christian, Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions released it, and they release a lot of secular movies.

The movie is about an 18-year-old girl named Grace Trey, whose father, Johnny Trey, used to be a rock star.  Johnny was known as a one-hit wonder, and he left the secular music industry when he became a born-again Christian.  Now, he and his daughter perform at their church, and also at other churches.  The two of them clash quite a bit.

When Johnny’s former agent, Frank “Mossy” Martin, comes into town and tells Johnny that his one hit is becoming famous again, Mossy invites Johnny back into the secular music industry.  Johnny declines Mossy’s offer, but Grace runs away from home, meets with Mossy, and becomes a success in her own right by performing her father’s hit.  Her father tells her that she is not ready for the secular music business, and she struggles to define the role of faith in her life.  She bumps into a nice Christian intern, Quentin, who befriends her and encourages her to make the Christian faith her own.  After Grace experiences a few professional bumps, Mossy tells her that she will be making her own album with songs that others have written for her.  When she objects that one of the songs depicts a one-night stand and goes against her values, she leaves the secular music industry and goes back home.  She remains a professional musician, however, along with her father.

The movie was not earthshakingly good, but is was all right to watch.  It shows how hard it is in certain settings to stand by one’s values, especially when they are unconventional.  In once scene, Grace and some higher-ups in the secular music industry are toasting with champagne, and Grace drinks it to fit in with the crowd.  I myself have no religious objections to drinking, but I do not drink because I am a recovering alcoholic, and I wonder what I would have done in Gracie’s situation: would I go along with the crowd, or would I just not drink from the glass while not being obvious about it?  I have to respect the Hollywood celebrities—-and there are many—-who are in Alcoholics Anonymous and may have to find ways to be social and fit in at drinking functions, without actually drinking.

Some of the actors in Grace Unplugged were familiar to me.  James Denton played Johnny Trey, and I know James Denton as Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives.  I always liked Mike.  And I learned that Quentin was played by Michael Welch, who has been in some of the Twilight movies, but whom I know from the series Joan of Arcadia.  He played Joan’s nerdy little brother, who brought a scientific dimension to the show, and who also made a good point that there is a distinction between facts and the interpretation of them.

I read Christianity Today‘s negative review of the movie, and I have two thoughts about that.  First, the review tells about a host of a screening of the movie who scolded evangelicals for going to see The Hunger Games rather than Grace Unplugged, pleading with them to go in masses to the opening night of the latter movie.  I really did not like this, for a variety of reasons.  I get sick of evangelical leaders bossing around other evangelicals as if they’re children, or pressuring them to see a movie they may not want to see just because they are supposed to root for Team Evangelical.  While my opinion of Grace Unplugged was not as low that that of Christianity Today‘s review, I still laud Christianity Today for not being afraid to question Team Evangelical!

Second, I liked what the Christianity Today review said about the music manager in the movie, Frank “Mossy”: “Kevin Pollak sidesteps the film’s biggest potential landmine by making Frank a grown up, rather than a predator.”  I actually appreciated that, myself.  Mossy was not a Christian, and he did not share some of Grace’s values, but he was a good and a dependable agent, who knew how the secular music game was played.

RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Volume 2: 18

For my write-up today on volume 2 of Richard Nixon's memoirs, I'll use as my starting-point something that Nixon says on pages 522-523:

"Before long I concluded that the release of the income tax returns had been a mistake.  It was the same old story: those who had been demanding that I put out my returns did not really want conclusive proof that the stories about the allegedly illegal purchases of my houses and the supposedly vast secret investment portfolios were false.  They seized on the fact that I had large deductions as if it were immoral not to pay more taxes to the government than the law required to be paid."

The context of this passage is Nixon's tax scandals.  Overall, Nixon affirms that the accusations against him were false.  In a couple of cases, however, Nixon acknowledges that things were rather murky.  First, there was the question of whether Nixon's sale of some of his San Clemente property was a capital gain subject to taxation, and Nixon says that his own accountant and tax professionals said no, whereas others said yes.  My impression is that Nixon went with the no answer!  Second, there was the tax deduction on the donation of pre-presidential papers to the National Archives, a deduction that had been used by Lyndon Johnson.  In 1969, the deduction was eliminated, and Nixon just assumed that those doing his taxes and handling the donation documents took that into consideration.  Unfortunately, they did not.  It was in the context of disclosing his finances that Nixon said his famous line of "I am not a crook."

What I'd like to talk some about in today's post is Nixon's statement that "They seized on the fact that I had large deductions as if it were immoral not to pay more taxes to the government than the law required to be paid."  I'm reminded of a variety of things here: Mitt Romney's release of one of his tax returns during the 2012 Presidential election, and the criticism of him for not paying enough taxes, as if he lacked civic-mindedness in taking the deductions that he did; how prominent Democrats, such as Al Gore and Tom Daschle, have been criticized for trying to avoid paying higher taxes, when Democrats are the ones who promote raising taxes on the rich for the common good; statements by wealthy men such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that they should be paying higher taxes than they do; and Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria's statement at the 2012 Democratic National Convention that she needed a tax cut when she worked as a waitress, but she did not need a tax cut as a successful actress.

What can I say about all of this?  On the one hand, I think that taxes are necessary for the public good----for parks, for programs for the needy, for public libraries, and for a host of other services, as well as deficit reduction.  Government, in my opinion, accomplishes a lot of good.  On the other hand, government can also be quite wasteful, and so I can understand the concern of some that taking more of their money and giving it to the government is not a good use of their money.  Economist Bruce Bartlett says that, in parts of Europe, people get their money's worth from their taxes.  Here in the U.S., my impression is that many people don't think that they're getting their money's worth.  Either they take certain services for granted, or they have had bad experiences with government, or something else accounts for their cynicism about government.

While I believe that the rich should pay more taxes, I don't judge Mitt Romney for deciding not to pay as much as he could have.  The reason is that he donated a lot of money to charity.  He's civic-minded, but that's expressed through private donations, as opposed to paying more taxes.  I am much more disheartened by the wealthy and prominent Democrats who try to dodge higher taxes, for, if they are so optimistic about the government doing good, then they should demonstrate their commitment to that notion in their own lives.  And I admire the wealthy people who admit that they don't need a tax cut.

I think that, somehow, the government needs to show people that it actually deserves more of their money, rather than just assuming that it does.  Perhaps it can do so by making people feel that they're getting their money's worth through government programs, and by cutting out governmental waste and inefficiency.

My Posts that Talk about Kathryn Joosten

Actress Kathryn Joosten has passed on due to lung cancer at age 72.  I know her as Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, as one of the manifestations of God on Joan of Arcadia, and as Mrs. McCluskey on Desperate Housewives.  It's ironic that she has passed on, since her character on Desperate Housewives also passed on in the final episode of the show. 

I'd like to share some posts that I wrote that discuss Kathryn Joosten's moments in television:

The West Wing:  Bartlett's Jobian Rant.

Joan of Arcadia: A Disappointing God in Joan of Arcadia.

Desperate Housewives:  Alone No More; Caught Up on Brothers and Sisters (Sort of); God of Borg; and The Desperate Housewives Finale.

R.I.P. Kathryn Joosten.

Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family 10

In my latest reading of Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, Santorum offered some thoughtful insights on movies and stories.  A lot of his discussion on this topic was lamenting the illicit sex without consequences and the anti-hero in today's stories, which he contrasts with the clear delineation of good and evil in stories of the past.  But Santorum makes clear that he's not in favor of flat stories that do not show anything unpleasant.  Here are some of his insights about stories:

Page 275: "An ancient rabbinic saying is that 'God made people because He loves stories.'  I say, 'Man makes stories because God made us to love.'"

On page 282, Santorum quotes novelist Walker Percy, who said: "Judeo-Christianity is about pilgrims who have something wrong with them and embark on a search to find a way out.  This is also what novels are about."

Pages 285-286: "Cultural capital consists of the stories, images, music, and practices----all the 'artifacts' and the activities that are the fruit of leisure----that explain ourselves to ourselves, the whole of ourselves, and which do so truthfully, honestly."

I agree with a lot of this.  I love stories that encourage me to care for the characters.  I believe that good stories have characters who grow.  And I think that good stories have realism or (even if they're unrealistic) communicate values.

Santorum takes a swipe at Desperate Housewives, but I think that the series fits what Santorum considers to be a good story, at least in many areas.  It makes me care for the characters.  It presents characters who learn and grow, notwithstanding their flaws.  And, while I agree with Santorum that it does not promote a morality in which sex is reserved solely for heterosexual marriage (since there are gay characters and also people who live together), it does have story-lines that depict the bad consequences of adultery, as well as highlights that pre-marital sex can result in a baby.  Moreover, it has had positive episodes about faith.  I'd say that these are characteristics that I've observed in a number of TV shows and movies nowadays.

The Desperate Housewives Finale

Here are some thoughts about the Desperate Housewives finale.

1.  Bree’s murder trial was wrapped up quickly and neatly, as Karen McCluskey (who doesn’t have long to live) stepped forward and took the blame for killing Gaby’s abusive step-father.  Was this satisfying?  Well, on the one hand, I was hoping for more length and drama to the resolution.  There was drama, for I enjoyed watching Ben refuse to reveal Bree’s secret on the witness stand and going to jail as a result.  But I hoped for more, since the murder of Gaby’s step-father, the subsequent cover-up of it, and the resulting tensions have encompassed this entire season, and so you’d expect more to the resolution than a quick confession by Karen McCluskey soon followed by a dismissal of Bree’s case.  On the other hand, Karen McCluskey’s confession was a neat way to resolve this plot-line, and I admired McCluskey for doing what she did.

2.  There was long talk that Marc Cherry would make a spin-off about Karen McCluskey and her sister, who is played by Lily Tomlin.  (And, as West Wing fans know, both actresses played Jed Bartlet’s secretary on The West Wing.)  But Karen McCluskey died, and so that’s now out of the question.  I do not know for certain, but Marc Cherry may have canceled the idea due to Kathryn Joosten’s lung-cancer.

3.  I enjoyed the last episode, but I can’t say that I found it riveting, until the last few minutes.  Why were the last few minutes so riveting?  For one, we see that the ladies drift apart from each other.  Susan sells her house and moves.  Lynette, Tom, and the kids go to New York, where Lynette becomes a big-shot executive in Katherine Mayfair’s new company, grows old, and has grandchildren.  Gaby and Carlos stay close to each other in their marriage and start an online shopping company, and eventually a TV show.  And Bree marries Trip (played by Scott Bakula, whom I love as an actor), moves to Kentucky, and enters the world of politics (presumably as a Republican).  All of this was sad and yet good (since it left an emotional impression on me).  It makes me want to wait a while before I watch old episodes of Desperate Housewives because, if I were to watch them now, I’d be sad that the ladies’ good times at Wisteria Lane would eventually come to an end.

Second, there were the ghosts on Wisteria Lane.  I could identify some of them but not others.  Fortunately, wikipedia has identified them, along with providing links to who they are.  I’ll quote wikipedia, and I’ve taken the liberty of supplying the links that wikipedia left out: “As Susan departs the lane one last time, the ghosts of the lane watch her. Among them include Mike Delfino, Karen McCluskey and her son, George Williams, Juanita ‘Mama’ Solis, Mona Clarke, Karl Mayer, Ellie Leonard, Nora Huntington, Rex Van De Kamp, Lillian Sims, Beth Young, Chuck Vance, Alma Hodge, Bradley Scott, and Martha Huber.”

There were a variety of reasons that I was moved by the ghosts scene.  (1.) What better way is there to say good-bye to the show than to see the various characters who have appeared in the show’s history?  (2.) It was interesting that good people, bad people, and weak people were among the ghosts, and they all had peaceful expressions on their faces.  Mary Alice said that these ghosts hope that the living will learn to put aside regret and bitterness.  I like the concept of redemption for the wicked, who look back on their lives and realize that they made poor decisions, perhaps out of insecurity and ego, and they hope that the living will learn not to make the same mistakes. 

It was disappointing not to see certain characters in the afterlife.  Eedie Britt was not there, but I’m not surprised, since the actress who played her is not on good terms with Marc Cherry.  But I was especially disappointed when I did not see Ida Greenberg, whom I really liked.

(UPDATE: The wikipedia article has been updated.  First, it says that Matthew Applewhite was in the background as a ghost----and Matthew Applewhite was Betty's son in Season 2.  Second, it says regarding Eedie: "Edie Britt's ghost is absent in the final scenes because of the lawsuit pending between Nicollette Sheridan and show creator Marc Cherry.  In an interview in Summer 2011, Cherry had previously hinted that he wanted to ask Sheridan back for the series finale 'to pay homage to everyone who has been on the show'.  However, though they could not get Nicollette back as a ghost, there is a blonde woman during the final scene in the background that could be Edie.")  


Third, at the very end, we see that the lady moving into Susan’s house has her own dark secret, and we’re not told what it is.  Life on Wisteria Lane continues!

My Twenty Favorite Desperate Housewives Episodes

The last Desperate Housewives will be on this coming Sunday.  Last year, when Smallville was ending, I wrote a post that discussed my fifteen favorite Smallville episodes.  This year, I’ll talk about my twenty favorite Desperate Housewives episodes.

Season 1
“The Pilot” (Episode 1):  I fell in love with the show from the start.  There is so much to praise about the pilot episode, but I’ll focus on what I particularly liked.  I enjoyed the part when Mike Delfino first met Susan Meier at the reception for Mary Alice’s funeral, tasted Susan’s macaroni and cheese, and remarked to Susan that it tasted burnt and undercooked at the same time.  It was hard not to like Mike, but (like most viewers) I was wondering what exactly he was up to.  And then there was the end, when the ladies read the note that Mary Alice received shortly before her suicide: “I know what you did, it makes me sick, I am going to tell.”  Mary Alice narrates beyond the grave that she did not want to burden her friends with this, and one of the ladies says, “Oh Mary Alice, what did you do?”

“Running to Stand Still” (Episode 6): My favorite part of this episode was when it showed Carlos and Gaby signing their prenup, as Carlos’ mother (or, as Carlos called her, his “Ma-MA) looked on.  Savvy woman!

“Your Fault” (Episode 13): Bree tells the pharmacist, George, about how she met her husband Rex.  She met Rex at the Young Republicans Club, and after meeting him she talked late into the night with him about big government and other issues.  (Incidentally, the actor who plays Rex was the Republican Speaker of the House in episodes of The West Wing.)  This stands out to me because I like it when television touches on politics.  And, although I am more liberal nowadays, I enjoy watching Republican TV characters, such as Archie Bunker and Alex P. Keaton.  As an honorable mention, I’ll refer to the opening scene of Episode 15, where we see that Bree has a huge picture of Ronald Reagan with a cowboy hat hanging on her wall.

“Sunday in the Park with George” (Episode 21): Susan is estranged from her boyfriend, Mike Delfino, because she has learned that Mike has a criminal record for killing a cop.  Susan goes to Noah Taylor’s house to question him about what happened.  Noah Taylor (played by Bob Gunton) is the wealthy father of Deirdre, who was Mike’s girlfriend (and Deirdre is now missing and dead).  Noah does not answer Susan’s questions, but Deirdre’s sister Kendra privately tells Susan what happened.  According to Kendra, Deirdre was a drug addict who had been in and out of jail, and an undercover cop caught her using and made her have sex with him in exchange for her freedom.  When Mike found out about this, he was furious and tried to put a stop to it.  When the cop pulled a gun on Mike, the two of them struggled and fell over the balcony.  Mike got up, whereas the cop died.  When Susan learns that Mike killed out of self-defense and went to jail for trying to save Deirdre, she cries and says “I knew he was good.”

“One Wonderful Day” (Episode 23): This was the final episode of Season 1.  In it, the mystery of why Mary Alice killed herself, what Paul Young was hiding, and why Mike Delfino was in Wysteria Lane is solved.  Essentially, Deirdre (a drug addict) sold Angela (a nurse) her baby, and Angela then changed her name to Mary Alice and moved to Wysteria Lane with her husband and her new child, whom the Youngs named Zach.  After Deirdre uses her rich father’s money to track Mary Alice down, she comes to Wysteria Lane and wants her child back.  Mary Alice thinks that Deirdre is still on drugs and does not want to give Zach up, so Mary Alice kills Deirdre.  But Mary Alice then looks at Deirdre’s arms and realizes that Deirdre had quit using drugs.  Mary Alice and Paul dismember Deirdre’s body, place its parts in a toy-chest, and bury the chest underneath what would later become their pool.  Mary Alice kills herself years later because Martha Huber, whose sister was a nurse who worked with Mary Alice back when Mary Alice’s name was Angela, knows that Mary Alice bought the baby, and Martha sought to blackmail Mary Alice in an attempt to solve her own financial problems.  In this last episode of Season 1, Mike Delfino takes Paul Young into the desert, points a gun at him, and demands to know what happened to his girlfriend Deirdre, but Mike does not shoot Paul after learning the truth; rather, Mike leaves Paul in the desert.  Mary Alice’s closing narration is inspiring, for Mary Alice says that she roots for her friends, even if she’s not sure that all of them will make it.

Season 2

“I Wish I Could Forget You” (Episode 6): Zach Young was the biological son of Deirdre and Mike Delfino, and the adopted son (if you will) of Paul and Mary Alice Young.  Susan pays Zach to go to Utah in search of Paul, since Susan wants to keep Zach away from her daughter, Julie.  Mike finds out about this and is upset with Susan, and he confronts her when she is trying on a wedding gown, hoping that Mike will propose to her.  Susan runs after Mike into the streets, crying and begging him not to leave.  After Mike drives away, the other ladies rush to the street to comfort Susan.  I love this scene because, a lot of times, we try to keep our pain private and hidden from our friends, and it’s beautiful when our friends can support us, even when we show our sadness in public.  You can watch the scene here.

“Coming Home” (Episode 10): Carlos has found religion, and the insidious Sister Mary wants him to go with her on a mission trip to Botswana, to Gaby’s chagrin.  When Carlos tells Gaby inside of a church that there are a lot of suffering people in the world, Gaby responds, “And there will be a lot of suffering people in this church if you don’t wipe that patronizing look off your face!”

“One More Kiss” (Episode 11): Betty Applewhite and her sons, Matthew and Caleb (who is developmentally-delayed), have moved to Wysteria Lane.  Nobody else in Wysteria Lane knows about Caleb at this point because his Mom keeps him locked up in the basement.  This is because Betty thinks that Caleb killed Matthew’s girlfriend Melanie in Chicago, after Melanie rebuffed Caleb’s request to be her boyfriend.  The residents of Wysteria Lane think that the Applewhites are hiding something, but they’re not sure what.  Melanie’s family hires a private investigator, Curtis Monroe (played by Michael Ironside), to track down Caleb.  Curtis enters the Applewhites’ residence to take Caleb hostage, and he falls through the stairs to the basement while his gun goes off.  Curtis dies.  When Betty and Matthew come home, they see Curtis’ corpse and decide to put it in his car.  The corpse is accidentally discovered by Susan, and the residents of Wysteria Lane gather to see what’s going on.  Betty at first says to Matthew that she is not worried, but, when she sees the ladies looking at her with suspicion, she says, “Now I’m worried.”  Betty was a mother who knew how to keep her cool, but she was worried that her secret would be exposed once the ladies started to talk.

“Silly People” (Episode 14): After Bree sneaks into the Applewhite’s home and sees Caleb in the basement, she demands that Betty tell her what is going on.  Betty tells Bree the story, and I’ll quote from wikipedia’s summary of it: “Melanie Foster was Matthew’s on-and-off girlfriend in Chicago. After one of their feuds, Caleb called Melanie and asked to meet her at the lumber yard. Melanie saw this as harmless and agreed to meet him. Caleb told Melanie that if he was her boyfriend he would never break up with her or fight. Melanie laughed in his face. Caleb tried to kiss her, but this made Melanie uncomfortable and she slapped him. This angered Caleb who picked up an axe and killed her. This, Betty believes, is the reason why she felt it was her fault and not his for not protecting him ‘from himself’ since she is his mother and could not see him going through imprisonment or even death.”  After hearing this story, Bree puts her hand over Betty’s hand to show compassion.

“Thank You So Much” (Episode 15): Bree has a drinking problem, and Lynette suspects that something is wrong after Bree babysits Lynette’s children and falls asleep, during which time the kids leave the house and go to town.  Lynette learns from Mrs. McCluskey that Bree was drunk, but Bree brushes off the accusation when Lynette confronts her.  Lynette looks through Bree’s garbage and finds a bunch of wine bottles, and she lines them up in front of Bree’s house (which would make an impression on the socially-conscious Bree!), leaving a note that says “Do you still think you don’t have a problem.”  Bree and Lynette then look at each other in silence.

Season 3

“Bang” (Episode 7): I’d say that this is my favorite episode of the series.  Laurie Metcalf plays Carolyn Bigsby, a former neighbor of Orson Hodge, who has recently married Bree.  Carolyn thinks that Orson abused and killed his first wife, Alma, and so Carolyn tries to warn Bree about Orson.  Bree then informs Carolyn that Carolyn’s husband, Harvey, is having an affair.  Carolyn is outraged, and she goes to Harvey’s supermarket and holds it up with a gun.  Lynette is in the supermarket with Nora, with whom Lynette’s husband Tom had a one-night stand (before he met and married Lynette) and a child.  Nora recently tried to seduce Tom, and so Lynette is upset with Nora (not that she liked Nora in the first place).  When Carolyn learns about this, she shoots Nora, who then asks Lynette to take care of her daughter.  After Nora dies, Lynette gives Carolyn a sermon about how life is hard, but we should deal with it.  When the hostages finally make it out of the supermarket safely, we see Lynette lying on a bed, having her recurring nightmare about the time that she saw Mary Alice shortly before Mary Alice’s suicide.  Lynette sees Mary Alice reading the note, “I know what you did, it makes me sick, I am going to tell”, but this time Lynette does something different.  She puts down her shopping bags, goes up to Mary Alice, and asks her what is wrong.  Mary Alice tells Lynette that she cannot save her, but that she should enjoy each beautiful day.  Mary Alice narrates that this was the last time that Lynette dreamed about her.

Season 4

“Sunday” (Episode 11): I wrote about this episode here.  It gets into such issues as going to church and the Bible to find answers, and the difference between ritual confession and genuine repentance.

“Free” (Episode 17): Season 4 introduced Katherine Mayfair into the series.  I will not describe her story in detail, but what happens in this final episode of the season is that her abusive ex-husband (a cop) finds her and threatens her, and he is killed.  Bree quickly gets her friends together to coordinate their stories so they can lie to the cops and protect Katherine.  I found this to be a beautiful scene because the ladies did not get along with Katherine before, but they came to have compassion for her.

Season 5

“Home Is the Place” (Episode 11): I talk about this episode here.  What I liked about this episode was that it highlighted how much Gaby had to give up to take care of her husband Carlos while he was blind.  Gaby (a former model) loved jewelry and beautiful clothes, but she had to give those up to meet the family’s expenses.  And Carlos had to decide whether to take a job working with the blind, which he felt would nourish his soul, or take a six-figure job in which he could be the shark he didn’t want to be.  For Gaby, he picked the latter.  I had to admire Gaby for the sacrifices she made, since she can easily come across as a shallow character.  But there’s depth there!

“The Best Thing That Ever Could Have Happened” (Episode 13): I talk about this episode here.  Beau Bridges plays Eli Scruggs, a handyman who helped people.  We learn that he did so because Mary Alice helped him when he was dirt poor, and he felt awful after she killed herself.

“Mama Spent Money When She Had None” (Episode 14): I talk about this episode here.  Gaby joins a boot camp to lose weight and fit into a dress.  When she does not show up one morning, the Israeli drill sergeant of the camp brings boot camp to her front door!  This episode is also noteworthy because Eedie gives Gaby a lecture about humility.  Eedie was good at giving convicting lectures, even though she herself was far from perfect.

Season 7

“Down the Block There Is a Riot” (Episode 10): Paul Young is exacting his revenge on Wysteria Lane because the residents abandoned him during his legal problems.  His revenge is to construct a halfway house for released convicts, which troubles the inhabitants of Wysteria Lane.  A disturbing riot erupts in protest, and Paul gloats to Lynette that the residents of Wysteria Lane are obviously no better than he is.  Lynette is sorry about her role in causing the riot.  This episode was disturbing rather than enjoyable, on account of the riot, but my favorite episodes are the ones that stood out to me, not always the ones that I enjoyed.

Season 8

“Always in Control” (Episode 7): The ladies are covering up that Carlos killed Gaby’s step-father (who raped her when she was younger and came back into her life to threaten her) and that they buried the body in the woods.  But Susan is in an art class, and her instructor (played by Miguel Ferrer, whom I know from The Stand) wants Susan to create honest art.  And Ben Faulkner, a construction man who has hired Mike, has learned from Bree about what she did to Gaby’s step-father (since Ben is using the land where the guy was buried). Ben asks Mike to bury the body under the concrete of their construction project, and he is surprised that Mike agrees to do so without question (for, unknown to Ben, Mike is protecting Susan).  As dramatic music plays, Susan paints a picture in which she and the ladies bury Gaby’s step-father.  And Mike is supervising as concrete is poured over the place where he buried the body.

“Suspicion Song” (Episode 8): Carlos is drinking heavily because he feels guilty about killing Gaby’s step-father, and his work suffers.  When a rich client learns about this from Gaby, he demands to see Carlos right away.  Right when you think that the client is about to chew Carlos out, the client pulls out his sobriety chip and strongly recommends that Carlos get help.  You never know who is in AA!

“Any Moment” (Episode 18): Mike Delfino has just been killed, and his and Susan’s son, MJ, is acting out at school.  Susan figures out a way that she and MJ can release their anger over Mike’s death—-they throw jars of jam (which were given to them as a gift) against the wall.  MJ throws the jars against the wall, and then he just drops a jar to the ground, with a look of dejection on his face.  This was a very sad scene.  At first, MJ was mad; but then he was just sad.

This series has made me laugh, cry, and think.  I picked my favorite episodes based on the ones that made the greatest impression on me.  I’ll miss Desperate Housewives, and I wish those involved with the show the best.

Stand Your Ground Laws

I can see some point to the controversial Stand Your Ground laws, even though I agree with critics that something is seriously wrong when those sorts of laws can be used to excuse George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin. I'm saying this, not as a lawyer or an expert, but as someone who has begun learning about what those laws are.

I was thinking about this issue after I watched last night's episode of Desperate Housewives. In the story-arc for this season, the ladies have been trying to cover up Carlos' killing of Gabrielle's step-father, Alejandro, who raped Gabrielle when she was a teenager and returned into her life years later to threaten her. Carlos whacked Alejandro on the head (and I think it was the back of the head) when Alejandro was giving the impression to Gabrielle that he had a gun and was implying his intention to rape Gabrielle. But Alejandro did not actually have a gun, and so Carlos feared going to jail for killing an unarmed man. That's why the ladies buried Alejandro's body and have been trying to cover up what Carlos did throughout this season.

But couldn't Carlos come forward to the police and claim self-defense? I don't know. A salient feature of Stand Your Ground laws is that they say that a person does not have to retreat before defending oneself from an assailant (see here). A person can stand his ground, in short. As I look at wikipedia's summary of Florida's law, my impression is that, had Carlos lived in Florida, he would have been able to claim self-defense, even though he did not retreat before he whacked Alejandro from behind. The reason is that Carlos was protecting his wife from an attacker. But suppose that Carlos lived in a state that required him to retreat before using deadly force, perhaps to show that he was the one who was defending himself as opposed to being the attacker? In that case, I doubt that he could claim self-defense.

But should the Stand Your Ground law get George Zimmerman off the hook? Jeb Bush, who signed the bill into law when he was Governor, says that he did not envision the law being carried out in that manner, for Zimmerman was the one who was following Trayvon Martin. I think that I can see the purpose behind Stand Your Ground, but I wonder if there's a way for the law to be written so that it cannot be abused----so that it cannot allow people to shoot others unnecessarily in cold blood and to claim self-defense.

UPDATE: As often turns out to be the case when I write posts like this, the issue is more nuanced than I thought. This article says the following:

"Florida's increasingly controversial 'stand your ground' law was passed in 2005, eliminating the requirement that a person seek an alternative -- like fleeing -- before using force if they felt they were in physical danger. The National Rifle Association and other advocates had argued that citizens were being arrested for merely defending themselves.

"Florida, like many other states, has long held that citizens have the right to defend themselves in their own homes. Court rulings have expanded that right to include employees in workplaces and drivers in their cars. But there was long a reluctance to extend those rights to public places, so judges had ruled that citizens under threat must make some alternative attempt to violence to escape danger.

"In 2005, the Florida House of Representatives voted 94-20 in favor of a new, 'stand your ground' bill that eliminated the requirement to flee."

My understanding is this: Even before the 2005 Stand Your Ground law, Carlos would have been able to claim self-defense, since Alejandro was threatening Gabrielle in Carlos' own home. If this occurred in a public place, however, Carlos and Gabrielle would have to seek an alternative----like fleeing----before using deadly force. But the 2005 Stand Your Ground law gets rid of the requirement that people retreat before using deadly force in a public place.

The Loop; Introvert Power; Last Night's Desperate Housewives Episode

I have two good quotes for today, as well as some thoughts on last night's Desperate Housewives:

1. Rachel Held Evans had some good Sunday Superlatives yesterday. One of them was Brett McCracken's In Praise of Being Out of the Loop. McCracken says:

"I desire to be more out of the loop. I want to go a day without knowing what the Twitterverse is talking about. I want to let trending topics come and go without ever knowing they happened. I want to be like Marilyn Hagerty, who didn’t know (or care) that for the rest of the world, Olive Garden was 'old news.' I don’t want to care about something just because it’s hot right now and everyone is talking about it; I want to care about something because it is interesting, important, worth thinking about. I don’t want to blog, tweet, or talk about things I haven’t mulled over or wrestled with first. I want to resist the idol of quick-to-the-draw commentary."

I love Olive Garden myself: the salad, the breadsticks, the pasta, the breadsticks!

2. In the comments section under Rachel's post, Dan from Georgia linked to a CNN article about introverts, which states:

"Our culture is biased against quiet and reserved people, but introverts are responsible for some of humanity's greatest achievements -- from Steve Wozniak's invention of the Apple computer to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. And these introverts did what they did not in spite of their temperaments -- but because of them."

3. Last night on Desperate Housewives, there was Mike Delfino's funeral. I was reminded of reasons why I (and probably so many other Desperate Housewives viewers) like Mike. There's his down-to-earth quality, the fact that he tried to help people, and how the mistakes he made in his life (i.e., drug addiction) made him into a fairly non-judgmental person. As Julie (Susan's daughter) noted, Mike wasn't much of a reader. But I loved Mike's description of heaven to his son, M.J.: eating delicious hamburgers with the people you love more than anything in the world, fishing, cheering at a ballgame, etc.

Something else that I appreciated about last night's episode was that I got to see some old faces, by which I mean, not faces that looked elderly, but rather past characters who were killed off: Carlos' Ma-MA Solis and Rex Van der Kamp.

I am confused by one thing: Where did Tom meet Lynette? I remember an episode from a while back that said that they met at work, and it showed a flashback of Lynette getting into an elevator where Tom was. Last night's episode coincided with that story----though Tom and Lynette looked different in last night's episode from how they looked in the flashback of Tom and Lynette meeting at work, for, in the flashback I'm thinking of, they look like they always look, whereas, in last night's episode, they looked more 70's-ish.

But I also got the impression that there was a version of the story that said that Tom and Lynette dated in college. Does anyone else remember anything to that effect?

Remembering Mike Delfino

Desperate Housewives should be good tonight. TV Guide says, "On the day of a beloved Wisteria Lane resident's funeral, each of the housewives reflects on the effect this person had on their life."

Of course, as those who watched last week's episode know, "this person" is Mike Delfino. I always liked Mike: he's a good, down-to-earth guy. I'd be a lot sadder about his death if it had occurred before the very last season of the series. But I'll enjoy watching the memories about Mike on tonight's episode.

GCB

I watched part of ABC’s GCB last night. GCB is based on the book Good Christian Bitches. There are Christians who are screaming “persecution” in response to this show. Some have glibly stated that there would be an outcry if there were a program called GMB, with the “M” standing for Muslim. In this post, I’ll list some thoughts:

1. I don’t think that Christians should only be portrayed positively in stories and media. The impression I get from folks on the religious right is that any negative depiction of Christians amounts to persecution. In my opinion, though, religious hypocrisy is fair game when it comes to stories. We’d have to eliminate a lot of literature if we could only accept the stories that depict Christianity or religion positively. George Elliott’s Middlemarch had a religious hypocrite, Bulstrode. There was the cold guy in Jane Eyre who told young Jane that she was going to hell. There’s Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. There’s the Bible! Then, going to the evangelical realm, there are Christian movies that depict one or more Christian character negatively. I think of the movie Hidden Secrets.

2. I do like to see some positive portrayal of religion in stories and in media. One reason is that many Christians are good folks, and their religion inspires them to do positive things. Another reason is that faith and the search for meaning are a part of our (and many other) cultures, and so stories that talk about the big questions can be quite powerful, when they are well-written. Overall, I feel that television, the movies, and books are positive when it comes to their depiction of religion and spirituality. I think of such programs as Six Feet Under, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, LOST, and a host of others. I did not watch all of GCB last night, for it did not particularly draw me in. But I hope that it’s about much more than bashing Christians, and that there will be something deep and reflective about it (but I’m not optimistic). The movie Saved! also lampooned the evangelical sub-culture, but I liked it because it had positive things to say about faith—-where it is right, where it can go wrong (in the author’s opinion), etc.

3. I can somewhat sympathize with my evangelical friends who feel that society is tolerant of everyone and everything—-except for them. What would the reaction be to a show that depicted Muslims, Jews, homosexuals, or African-Americans in a negative light? Shouldn’t we refrain from condemning all groups, including evangelical Christians?

I do not have a good answer to this question. I think that, on some level, evangelical Christianity is fair game because of its prominence in American society (though, of course, many evangelicals would claim that they are marginalized in the United States). I myself am not against acknowledging that people may have problems with elements of Islam or Judaism. The West Wing, for example, talks about Islamic extremists, but (in contrast to Islamophobes) it does not apply that label to all Muslims. So I’m not sure where I land on this question of depicting groups. I’m against stigmatizing entire groups of people, but I also realize that stories reflect reality, on some level, and there are times when people use their religion in evil ways. In my mind, it’s acceptable to highlight that.

It's Not Censorship (Technically-Speaking), But It Still Stinks

This will be a rambling post.

In a sense, I can identify with the companies that have pulled their sponsorship from Rush Limbaugh's radio program. These companies support such values as civility and respect for people, and they do not feel that Rush practices those values. Consequently, they choose not to support Rush. I understand and I respect that.

But I myself have no intention of trying to get Rush kicked off the air. In fact, I'm getting sick of conservatives getting kicked off of programs, period. I think of Pat Buchanan being fired from MSNBC due to pressure from a left-wing group. In my opinion, we lose out when voices are silenced. And, while we may think that society would be better off if certain voices were simply not heard, I believe that those voices should be addressed and countered through debate, not silencing them. (I'm refraining from using the word "censorship" here because the government did not remove Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, and I define censorship as the government repressing freedom of speech.)

"But you're a right-winger, James." Well, I'm more middle-of-the-road nowadays, maybe even center-left. But let me say this: I'm not going to join right-wingers to get things kicked off the air, either! The conservative American Family Association has long liked to target sponsors to get certain programs kicked off. I have not joined them, for I happen to like the shows that the religious right dislikes (i.e., Desperate Housewives, Picket Fences, Brothers and Sisters, etc.). L. Brent Bozell (nephew of William F. Buckley, Jr.) has for years sought to remove Family Guy from television. I happen to like Family Guy. I think it's funny. It goes too far at times, but I'm not going to support getting it kicked off the air.

Another pet-peeve I have: When someone expresses an opinion, people act surprised and outraged that he has expressed that opinion. I have in mind Kirk Cameron's recent comments on homosexuality, which GLAAD has criticized. Look, criticize away, for this country is all about debate! But should we really be surprised that Kirk Cameron made those comments? He's a conservative Christian! Of course he feels that way! There are many people in the United States who still believe that way! I hope Kirk Cameron is not pressured to contrive some phony apology. People are still entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is wrong and (in the eyes of some, such as GLAAD) outdated.

I tend to admire people----on both the Left and also the Right----who acknowledge and respect that there are people with different points-of-view, whether or not they agree with those viewpoints. Let's go a step further. I admire those who also try to understand why other points-of-view exist.

Is It Orson? Star Trek Voyager Anniversary

I have two entertainment items for today:

1. On Desperate Housewives, who is the one who is leaving Bree notes and ran over Officer Chuck with a car? We know that it’s a man, for, last night, we saw his hands on the steering wheel of his car as he was watching Bree. Here’s my guess: it’s Orson Hodge! He ran over someone before—-Mike Delfino. He was married to Bree for a while. But the question is this: How, if it is him, did he find out that Bree and her friends buried the body of Gaby’s abusive stepfather? Of course, the way that these ladies have been blabbing, it’s a wonder if anyone does NOT know by now! But the person who left the note knew early on, when it was supposedly a tightly-kept secret.

2. Today is the seventeenth anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager! I love this series, probably more than other Star Trek series that I have seen. I like the one where Harry debunked a group’s beliefs about its afterlife, and yet learned from Captain Janeway at the end that perhaps the people’s souls go somewhere after death. I like the one where the Doctor (or, actually, a copy of the holographic doctor) awakens in the future and sees a misrepresentation of Voyager and its crew—-as part of a people-group’s history. There are so many awesome episodes! I watched Voyager when it first came on, but I fell in love with it when it was in syndication, probably because I was older at that point and could identify with things on it more.

Danforth Keeton's Addiction

For my write-up today on Stephen King’s Needful Things, I will talk about Danforth “Buster” Keeton. Danforth is a town selectman who has developed a gambling problem, and he’s getting on the radar of the authorities because he has been embezzling money on account of his gambling problem. Danforth does not appear to acknowledge his own role in his difficulties, however, for he blames his “persecutors” rather than himself. Danforth did not always have a gambling problem. He was student council President in high school, and he made straight A’s at a business college. He was responsible, he was organized, and he was going somewhere. But when the head selectman, Steve Frazier, invited him to the race-track, Danforth went and got caught up in the excitement of the game and his surroundings, and he was also happy to have won some money. Danforth rarely felt as if he were a part of anything, but he now felt included in something.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff there. The narrative that I have heard from twelfth-step recoverers is that sobriety can help a person to go places—-that alcoholism is an elevator that only goes down. In a sense, that is true. Granted, as far as I know (and that is a key phrase, for there is a lot that I do not know, and I could be wrong even on this), studies do not indicate that people who don’t drink make more money than those who do drink. Some have even referred to studies in which the opposite is shown to be the case. But I do believe that alcoholics do better—-financially, socially, etc.—-when they do not drink, for drinking often does cost them relationships, money, and (in some cases) even their freedom.

The problem is that many with alcoholism or addictions feel as if they are outsiders. I’ve heard stories from real-live people about this, but, to return to the imaginary world of our novel (or, actually, Stephen King’s novel), Danforth felt empty, even though he was going somewhere professionally. Danforth was a part of things, for he was on the Board of Selectmen, and he had a wife. But he only felt like he was a part of something at the track—-and the track also appears to be the only place where he experienced excitement.

I think that recovery includes a variety of elements. A significant part of it is to try to help people with addictions to feel less like outsiders. This is attempted through recovery groups, and also through the twelve steps, which help people to identify how they have wrecked their relationships. Rather than blaming other people (as Danforth did), people with addictions take a good hard look at themselves to identify where they were at fault (which is not to say that they were necessarily the only ones at fault in their situations). People have told me that they experience happiness when they become a part of a community and deal with their personal baggage, and they gain hope when they get advice on how to deal and to cope with the challenges of life.

One factor in the lives of many addicts is a craving for drama and excitement (which was what Danforth sought at the race track). I do not know how that problem is addressed in every case, but I do know that many recovering addicts get to the point where they are tired of drama: they simply want for life to run smoothly, and, for them, that is more likely to happen when they are sober.

On a related note, I really liked the latest episode of Desperate Housewives. Carlos is developing a drinking problem, and that is causing him to miss meetings at work. When a rich client learns that Carlos has a drinking problem, he demands to see Carlos right away. Right when we think that the client is about to chew Carlos out, the client shows Carlos his sobriety chip and tells Carlos his story about his own recovery. The client is there to help Carlos, not to chew him out.

Bottling It Up and Talking It Out

In my reading last night of Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, a theme that came out was suppressing problems, as opposed to bringing them out into the open and talking about them.

On page 271, we read of Lisey’s thoughts about people having a “don’t think” zone: “She wonders sometimes if everyone has a curtain like that in their minds, one with a don’t-think zone behind it. They should. It’s handy. It saves a lot of sleepless nights.”

That reminded me of something that I read about Hillary Clinton a while back—-that she used to give advice to her daughter, Chelsae, about keeping out bad thoughts (i.e., resentment, etc.).

On page 297, we read the following, after Scott was telling Lisey how his father killed Scott’s brother, Paul, because Paul was going feral:

“I used to think trying that last time was how I got him killed. Right up until the night I thought that, but talking about it—-hearing myself talk about it—-has helped more than I ever would have believed. I guess psychoanalysts have got something about that old talking-cure stuff after all, huh?”

Scott blamed himself for his brother’s death, and he saw the situation that way for years—-until he actually talked about it with somebody else and got a different perspective.

Vocalizing a problem can be therapeutic. Talking through a muddled sense of melancholy can clarify things and hopefully make them less muddled, as we get clear ideas on what is disturbing us. Talking with somebody else about a problem can also be helpful, for that can reduce the scope of how we see the problem. I think of a scene in Stephen King’s The Stand, in which people in the Free Zone were carrying around dreadful nightmares about Randall Flagg, but the nightmares did not appear to be that big of a deal after they talked about them with each other and shared experiences.

Some would say that bottling up a problem is not a good thing, for then the problem can come out unexpectedly. I’ve heard real therapists say this. Going to a fictional realm, that’s also what Mike Delfino told his wife, Susan, in the current season of Desperate Housewives, once he learned that she helped bury Gabrielle’s abusive step-father, after Carlos killed him. Carlos himself is having a hard time dealing with this problem, for, in last week’s episode, he could have talked to someone from Alcoholics Anonymous about what was driving him to drink, but he chose not to do so—-and understandably so, since what he did was a crime (though I wonder if he could plead self-defense).

There can be disadvantages to talking a problem out, though—-if one does nothing else but talk about one’s problems, revisiting them, reliving past hurts, etc. For me personally, a “don’t think” zone is actually handy to have. But I have also felt some relief after talking about my problems with myself, and even greater relief after discussing them with somebody else—-especially when the other person gives me decent advice on how to cope, or how to address my problems, etc.

Redemption and The Stand, Desperate Housewives, and the Prodigal God

This will be a rambling post, in which I’ll be discussing my reading yesterday of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, last night’s Desperate Housewives, and Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God, which my church’s Bible study group is reading.

On page 603 of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, Trashcan Man is elated because Lloyd (one of the evil Randall Flagg’s lieutenants) has offered to shake his hand. We read here: “Trashcan Man shook the offered hand and had to struggle to keep from weeping with gratitude. So far as he could remember, this was the first time in his life someone had offered to shake his hand. He was here. He had been accepted. At long last he was on the inside of something. He would have walked through twice as much desert as he had for this moment, would have burned the other arm and both legs as well.”

The theme of acceptance shows up elsewhere in this book. Tom Cullen is a developmentally-delayed man, but he is on the side of the righteous Mother Abagail. On page 519, we read: “For Tom, Nick reflected, these last two weeks had probably been the happiest of his life. He was with people who accepted and wanted him. Why shouldn’t they? He might be feeble, but he was still a comparative rarity in this new world, a living human being.” I must admit that my heart is not warmed by the idea that Tom was accepted just because he was one of the few people left in the world. But, like the passage about Trashcan Man on page 603, this passage conveys quite well the desire many have to be accepted.

I somewhat feel bad for Trashcan Man. He was a person who had a hard life, and he desires some degree of comfort from God, but he does not believe that he will receive it, for he thinks that God has ditched him for teaming up with Flagg, plus he does not feel that God has done much for him throughout his rough existence. It would be nice if he could be reassured of God’s love for him, but things don’t exactly work that way for most people in The Stand, as far as I can tell. The rule is that people are either good or they are bad, either chosen by God or chosen by Flagg. There are some indications of nuance to this general picture, however. Larry Underwood has character flaws (he’s a taker), but he is well-intentioned, and he is growing, so it’s not a surprise that he’s on Mother Abagail’s side. Nadine Cross is a compassionate schoolteacher, so it’s odd that she has been selected by Flagg. Harold Lauder is probably one of the few characters of the book who is offered a choice between good and evil: he can either leave behind his resentments about his past life and his desire for Fran and embrace a new life for himself in which he contributes to society, or he can cultivate that resentment and serve Flagg as a means to take out his revenge.

But, overall, the Trashcan Man appears to be hopelessly lost. He has a dream about Mother Abagail when he is in Nebraska (her home state), and he is one of her troublesome weasels. He receives no comfort that God loves him from Mother Abagail, a prophetess. Mother Abagail does have a vague sense of pity for Trashcan Man (page 586), but that is like the pity that some evangelical Christians have for the “sinners” of society: it doesn’t exactly lead her to reach out and help someone who is lost.

I turn now to last night’s Desperate Housewives. One of the plot-lines that stood out to me was Lynette’s reunion with her sister, Lydia, who is engaged to some wannabe-mystic who goes by the name of Rashi. Lydia was often the basket-case of the family, whereas Lynette was the one who had her act together and was going somewhere. Now that Lynette has separated from her husband, Tom, Lydia is paying Lynette a visit in order to rub in Lynette’s face that she (Lydia) is happily in a relationship, whereas Lynette is not. When Rashi sees Lynette and Lydia fighting, however, he is disappointed in the “real” Lydia. He does not want Lydia to bring her negative energy to his long meditation session. A sorry Lynette interrupts Rashi’s session in order to convince him to take Lydia back, telling him that Lydia is growing and that Lydia only acted as she did because Lynette was pushing her buttons. But Rashi is reluctant because Lydia reminds him of his own stressful family. Lynette finally convinces Rashi, however, and Rashi takes Lydia back and encourages Lydia in her growth as a person. When Lynette and Lydia talk that night, Lynette regrets that she has often tried to force her will on people, which she thinks is what drove Tom away. Lydia responds that Rashi told her the the first step to solving a problem is to admit that you have it.

I liked this plot-line because, like many plot-lines of Desperate Housewives, it was about growth and redemption, something that I haven’t seen much in The Stand (as much as I enjoy the book). Lydia learned genuine rather than feigned compassion for Lynette. Rashi learned to cut some people some slack, even though they may fall short of the spiritual path he’s pursuing. And Lynette identified her character flaws in relationships. It is rather phony that all of this growth took place in a matter of minutes, but it’s still edifying to watch.

I turn now to my reading last night of Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God. Tim Keller talks about the elder brother in Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son. The elder brother served his father for what he could get and was not fully assured of his father’s love for him. But the father did love him, for he did not leave the elder brother in his bitterness, but rather went out to him to assure him of his love for both of his sons. I fear that my Bible study group will take Tim Keller’s insights and try to turn them into rules, for example, that we shouldn’t be like the elder brother and spend a lot of our prayer time asking God for things, but rather we should spend more time adoring God for who he is and what he’s like. Trying to conform to artificial spiritual rules does not work for me, and it often does not last for me. But I can identify a number of elder brother traits in myself: I do not cut others slack (sort of like Rashi in Desperate Housewives), I am angry at God because I feel that he does not bless me as much as I’d like, I hope to gain God’s favor by doing religious activities, etc. I tend to disdain the self-righteousness of those who point out to me these flaws in myself rather than simply letting me be, for I do not see any humility in their pointing out my flaws, I wish that they wouldn’t assume that everything I do is out of a bad motive, and their identification of my flaws only produces resentment and defensiveness on my part, not anything productive. I hope, however, to come to the point where I rejoice that the lost have been found. I’m not talking so much about them saying a prayer and going to heaven instead of hell. I mean people who have made disasters of their lives finding a better way to live, a way that is more conducive to love, joy, and peace.

Guilt

At church this morning, our usual pastor was not there, for he and his wife are on vacation, and so the Pastor Emeritus (Pastor John) spoke to us. Pastor John told us a story about his seminary days. A fellow seminarian had lived with another woman besides his wife, and he felt as if he could not be forgiven by God. John told him that the blood of Christ could cleanse him even of that sin, but the man was not convinced. Finally, John told him that the Holy Spirit would have to reveal to him that God could forgive his adultery.

I’m different from that man in the sense that, while I have done some stupid things in my life, I have never committed a sin that I felt God could not forgive. I have wrestled with Bible passages in which Jesus says that God won’t forgive us if we don’t forgive others, for I struggle with resentment and an unforgiving attitude, but, in the end, I think it’s pointless for me to conclude that God does not forgive me. I mean, what’s the point of having that kind of attitude? How does it help me to move on with my life and be better?

But if I committed adultery or, say, took someone’s life, either in a fit of rage or accidentally, I would probably have a hard time believing that God would forgive me. I’d feel that I did not deserve forgiveness, and that I needed to be punished for the scales to be even (if they could be even). I’d be like Susan on last week’s episode of Desperate Housewives, who felt guilty that she helped bury the man Carlos killed (who was threatening his wife), and she tried to deal with her guilt by committing minor misdeeds so she could receive some punishment.

How can one deal with guilt? What if one doesn’t want to deal with it because she feels she deserves punishment? Pastor John may be on to something: we can try to reassure that person, but, in the end, God may have to reveal to him or her that he offers forgiveness. I hope that God brings people that kind of healing.

The Mysterious Note-Writer; Ben Faulkner

The Desperate Housewives episode this week had good scenes. Last week, I was speculating about who left the note in Bree’s mailbox, which had the exact same wording as the note that Mary Alice Young got in Season 1. I thought that Paul Young may have arranged for someone to put the note there, for he knew the contents of the note that Mary Alice received. In the most recent episode, Bree apparently thought so, too, for she visited Paul Young in jail. But Paul denied Bree’s charge, and he told Bree one more person who knows about Mary Alice’s note: the cop Bree is currently dating.

I don’t know if the cop will turn out to be the one who left the note. Arguments for the “no” side are that he acts like he doesn’t know about it, and it’s too early in the Season for a mystery like this to be solved. Arguments for “yes” is that he’d have to be blind not to figure out that something is up (unless he’s blinded by love), and I can somewhat envision him playing games with Bree to make a point—about the importance of even society’s elite obeying the law, or something like that. But I am inclined to say that somebody else left the note.

I enjoyed a couple of the scenes with Ben Faulkner, a contractor, who is played by Charles Mesure, an actor I recognize from V (which I’m sad was not renewed for a third season). Renee is attracted to Ben, and, when she learns that Ben reaches out to the elderly, she tries to make him think that she likes the elderly, too (which she doesn’t, since she’s rather self-centered). Ben then takes her on a date, and the date turns out to be serving senior citizens at a seniors’ home. Renee walks out the door in disgust, and Ben goes after her. When Renee tells Ben that she hates charity work and that places like the senior citizens’ home make her uncomfortable, Ben responds that he’s the same way, but he knows why they make him uncomfortable. Ben and Renee both learn that they have something in common: a time in their lives when they were poor and had to accept charity from others.

I liked this scene for two reasons. First, it overlaps with some themes that I discuss in my post, Self-Recognition, Glenn Bateman’s Summary of Sociology, in which I talk about Larry Underwood’s (of The Stand) honest realization that he is a self-centered taker. In many cases, knowing who we really are is an essential step in our progress to become better people. Ben knew why charity work made him uncomfortable, and he was able to take who he was and move on from that point so he could help others. Could the same thing happen to Renee, or would she simply know why she avoids charity work and keep on avoiding it? That brings me to point two: perhaps Renee could remember why she hated being the target of charity, at least be happy that there were people who were willing to help her at that time, and then go on to help others in need—and yet do so in a manner that shows respect to those receiving the charity, respect that she herself did not receive when she was the recipient.

In another scene with Ben, Ben is hiring Mike Delfino for his company, but he cannot “bond” Mike because of Mike’s criminal record. Years before, Mike killed a cop who tried to rape his girlfriend (or, actually, the cop said he wouldn’t arrest her for drugs if she slept with him). Ben wonders why Mike did not tell him this, and Mike replied that he did not like to lead with that foot, and he’s not the same person today. Ben says that he hopes Mike is the same person—one who will defend the people he loves. Ben said that life is about two things: getting what you want, and protecting the people you love. This statement somewhat surprised me, since Ben does a lot of charity work. But I did like Ben showing Mike understanding.

Chapter 32 of The Stand, and the Season Premiere of Desperate Housewives

In this post, I’ll write about Chapter 32 of Stephen King’s The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, and tie that in to the Desperate Housewives season premiere.

Chapter 32 focuses on Lloyd, who is in jail for murder. The problem for him is that the guards and the prisoners are dying from the super-flu, and so Lloyd is in jail with nobody bringing him meals. Lloyd remembers when he was a child and had a pet rabbit, whom he forgot to feed for a while. When he remembered that he had a rabbit, he went to see it and saw it was dead, and it’s paws were ragged and bloody. Lloyd thinks that the rabbit’s paws either became that way because it was trying to get out of its cage, or because it was so starving that it was attempting to eat its own paws.

It’s sad to read about living things that suffer and die. But, to Lloyd’s credit, he did not deliberately set out to kill the animal, as did Henry Bowers in IT when he groomed the Hanlons’ dog by feeding him to gain his trust, then fed the dog poison meat, or Patrick Hockstetter in IT, who got a perverse satisfaction out of killing animals. Lloyd is not a psychopath who takes pleasure in killing. At the same time, Lloyd does not strike me as one who is overly perturbed about the death that he has caused, either intentionally or unintentionally. Even when he comes close to thinking thoughts of regret about his murders, for example, he doesn’t really feel bad about his victims; rather, he blames his friend Poke for getting him into his mess, for Lloyd feels that he by himself was not ambitious and would only be capable of small-time trouble, not mass murder.

This brings me to Desperate Housewives, which also touched on sensitivity to the sanctity of life. In last season’s cliff-hanger, Carlos kills Gaby’s step-father, who raped her when she was a child and was threatening her as an adult. Gaby’s friends (led by Bree) help Carlos to cover it up. In the current season’s premiere, we see that Carlos and Susan have reservations about this. Carlos feels guilty that he has killed a man, and he seeks absolution, but his priest tells him that he will only receive it if he confesses what he did to the authorities. In a touching scene, Gaby tells Carlos that she absolves her husband, for she was terrified for years that her step-father would find her and hurt her.

Susan feels guilty that she is covering up a murder. She feels that she and her friends will be found out, but she also thinks that it was wrong for Carlos to take the life of Gaby’s step-father. After all, we’re not God, and perhaps there were people who cared about Gaby’s step-father and were wondering where he was. In one scene, Susan and her class are burying a pet rat (or some animal) who died (only she can’t mention God, because she’s told that one of the kid’s parents are atheists, lawyers, and major jerks), and Susan emotionally erupts and talks about the sanctity of life. Susan’s feelings of guilt are hurting her relationship with her husband, Mike, whom she cannot tell because she and her friends promised to keep their burial of Gaby’s step-father a secret. I think that Mike would understand if Susan told him what she did, since he himself has attempted acts of vigilantism in the past. But I can understand why she is not telling him what she and her friends did, for that would implicate him if their deed were discovered by the police, and he’s legally safer in a state of ignorance.

But somebody outside of this circle apparently knows, for Bree finds a note in her mailbox saying “I know what you did. It makes me sick. I’m going to tell.” And, of course, people who have watched the show for a long period of time know that this echoes Season 1, in which Martha Huber leaves Mary Alice a note that said precisely that, communicating that she knew that Mary Alice bought a baby from the mother and killed the mother when the mother tried to get him back. Martha Huber is dead, so who could have written this note to Bree? Rene? Ms. McCluskey? Did Paul Young from jail get someone to put the letter in the mailbox? Paul would know the exact wording of the letter to Mary Alice (who was his wife) years earlier, and he may still be holding on to hatred for the ladies of Wysteria Lane, who judged him, and he has wanted to show them that they are no better than he is.

Four Lessons from Last Night's Desperate Housewives

I enjoyed last night's Desperate Housewives episode. Here are four items that stood out to me:

1. Tom Sciavo decided to take that high-powered job, and he expressed excitement to Lynette that people are actually eager to know what he thinks. That's what many of us want: to know that our opinion is valuable, to feel as if we are movers and shakers who are taken seriously. But many of us go through seasons (in many cases, long seasons) in which we feel invisible, or when we think that nobody is interested in what we have to say, or even when it seems as if people are jeering at our insights rather than taking them seriously. Are these wilderness experiences designed to make us humbler when we finally do get success? Perhaps things can work out that way. But I think of one episode of Touched by an Angel, "The Sixteenth Minute", which had Grant Shaud, the actor who played Miles on Murphy Brown (see here). Shaud played Ed Gold, an under-appreciated man who received a short-lived celebrity status after rescuing a woman in a collapsing mine. When he got fame, he became pompous, and he frantically sought to hold on to his celebrity status. His years of feeling invisible and under-appreciated actually did not make him humbler, for he enjoyed finally being noticed, and he wanted to stay in the spotlight. He also began to neglect his marriage, which many of us probably thought that Tom was about to do with his new-found prominence and influence. But Tom brought flowers for his wife, Lynette, at the end, and so, hopefully, that means that he will remember the important things in life even while he's a mover and shaker.

2. Susan Delfino had a lucky streak. She is a perfect match for a new kidney. She is winning at poker. Yet, she's sad. She wonders why she has good luck, whereas others have bad luck. For example, a friend she made in the hospital---who had also needed a kidney---recently passed away. And Susan is afraid that her good luck will not last.

But Susan has a talk with Roy, Miss McClusky's boyfriend, who is played by Orson Bean of Dr. Quinn fame. Roy tells Susan about when he was in the war, and a friend of his died, whereas he lived. Roy asked his commanding officer why, and the commanded officer replied, "Why ask why?" Roy told Susan that she shouldn't ask "Why?" when it came to her lucky streak, but she should enjoy it while it lasted.

I've thought about these sorts of issues before. Yesterday, for some reason, I was appreciating the fact that I was able to walk. But I was reluctant to thank God for that because that would make me ask why there were people in the world who are not able to walk. Also, I wondered how I could be secure that my current blessings would last. But why ask why? I can enjoy the good things that I have now, while they do last. And, whether I thank God or not, I can tell God about my joys, not only my insecurities and concerns.

3. Andrew has joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and so he feels a need to make amends to people whom he has harmed. Early in the series, Andrew accidentally ran over Carlos Solis' mother, and Andrew and his mother, Bree, have been hiding that from Carlos for years. Andrew finally tells Carlos what he did, as part of his AA program, and Carlos is livid. When Bree tries to intercede for Andrew---telling Carlos that Andrew got his alcoholism from her---Andrew says to his Mom that this is between him and Carlos, and that his Mom cannot bail him out forever. As Bree watches her son and Carlos reconcile from a distance, she tells Gabby that she is proud of her son. Andrew has come a long way from the conniving, self-centered jerk that he was in the earlier seasons. I think that Bree expressed a sentiment held by many parents: they want to help their children, and yet they are proud of their children when they take responsibility for their own actions and achieve some measure of independence.

I need to note that not everything is rosy, for, at the end, Carlos ended his friendship with Bree---telling her that neither he, nor his wife, will ever speak to her again. For Carlos, Andrew was a kid, but Bree was an adult, who was wrong to hide Andrew's deed from Carlos. It will probably be a hard road before Carlos forgives Bree, for Carlos loved his "ma-MA." But I think that he will eventually do so, for my impression is that he is essentially a good-natured person.

4. After Carlos learns that Andrew ran over his mother, he tells his wife, Gabby, that she never liked his Mom in the first place---that Gabby always resented his mother's continual interference. And one of the episodes in the earlier seasons had a good scene about that: Before Gabby and Carlos got married, they signed a pre-nuptial agreement, as Carlos' mother stood nearby and supervised the whole event!

But Gabby responded to Carlos that, while she indeed resented the constant interference by Carlos' mother, she came to understand it after she herself had children (which was not the case when Carlos' mother was still alive). Gabby wanted the best for her kids---she desired to protect them---and she realized that this was why Carlos' mother had interfered so often. I think that's part of growth: understanding where someone else is coming from, even when we may not like his or her actions.