The magazine was called P.O.V. and as a comic book guy I couldn’t help but notice it said, ‘Premier Issue’.  I bought the copy and read it cover to cover. The Kramer interview was hilarious. Their advice about Skyy vodka being hangover proof was quickly put to the test and passed. And then there was the Kornbluth article, “The Cult of One Good Thing”.

Now before I go any further it’s important to note that at this point in my life I wasn’t making $35,000 a year. I wasn’t making half of that. My resume was short and unimpressive. But so what. There might be a thing or two in the article I could use and I’d probably be making $35K in no time anyway (not true but optimism in youth is eternal).

The basic premise of the article is that you can live a really amazing lifestyle (or at least appear to) by focusing on quality instead of quantity. This is true. The article suggested good clothes to buy and that joining various clubs and other social gatherings are the way towards a better life and to do so, one should avoid spending copious amounts of money on sub-par stuff for a sub-par apartment. Out in the world, no one knew what kind of place you lived in as long as you appeared presentable.

When I read all of this at 20 years old, it was a revelation. I felt like this article was giving me some sort of cheat codes to life. There was one particular bit of it that struck a chord with me. Regarding other people like yourself who aren’t making a lot of money he said, “At the end of long days, their idea of fun may be to flop in front of the tube and share their miseries; if you hang with them long enough, that will be your idea of amusement too.”  I had many people who did exactly this. Most of them watched sports which I found just mind-numbing. I had no interest in ever becoming someone who drank Bud-Lite while watching the Super Bowl.

Over the years, I would reread this article. I would quote relevant parts to friends from time to time. One friend asked me if they could borrow it and being a lender of things, I let him borrow it. He then promptly lost it.

I continued to purchase P.O.V. until it went out of business in 2000. And to be perfectly honest, I actually used almost none of Jesse Kornbluth’s specific advice. (I still don’t own a Brooks Brothers shirt.) But the theme of the article echoed in many of my actions. The idea of buying something of high quality regardless of price instead of something that was average and cheap stuck with me. Right now I do have beer in the fridge. They are four bottles of craft beer bought at 99 Bottles rather than a case of Bud Lite from 7-11.

A few years ago I decided to find out what Jesse Kornbluth was up to these days. It turns out he’s still giving advice on the good life. He has a website called HeadButler.com which specializes in recommending awesome books, movies, and music. I subscribed to his newsletter immediately. Thanks to the newsletter I saw the excellent and haunting movie Winter’s Bone, I read Cara Hoffman’s incredible novel, So Much Pretty and even reviewed it on this site.  Recently I was thinking about that old article from P.O.V. and I decided to email him and see if he still had it. He wrote back and said that he did not have it.

If it were still 1995, that would have been the end, but since it’s not, I looked on Ebay and found a copy of the premier issue of P.O.V. for $12. This was four times what it cost in 1995 but I didn’t mind. After all, the theme of the article was that quality sometimes costs more.

- Jack Cameron

As the surviving brother begins what will undoubtedly be his long journey to justice, there are those calling for him to be tried as an ‘enemy combatant’. These are many of the same people who insist on calling them Chechan (when they aren’t confusing Chechnya with the Czech Republic).  When an atrocity occurs there is a a reflexive instinct to distinguish ourselves from the monster responsible. It must be something ‘other’ than us.

But the truth is that Dzhokhar and his brother are American citizens. They are as American as I am. However, it’s equally important to note that being an American has nothing to do with the quality of your character. Sure, judging from my site hits, most of you reading this are Americans. So am I. But then again, so is Charles Manson. So is the man responsible for the Newtown shooting and the man responsible for the Aurora shooting. These people were all Americans. And so are all of the people calling Obama everything but the President of the United States for simply treating Dzhokhar like any other American citizen who has committed a horrific crime. They’re all Americans. Some of them just are bad Americans. Saying otherwise is a lie and when we’re talking about tragedies and atrocities committed against American citizens, it’s a very bad thing to lie.

Dzhokhar Tasanaev is an American and he will be facing justice in an American court. As it should be.

- Jack Cameron

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

Years ago I volunteered at my son’s elementary school. In order to do so I had to present a valid Washington State ID. I had to fill out a form with a bunch of personal information, sign it, and then wait for a Washington State Patrol background check. Once I passed this, I was able to get on a school bus with my son and his class and go on a field trip. Yesterday Congress decided that I did not need a background check in order to purchase a gun that with the proper mental defects in place, I could use to shoot a classroom full of children.

Around that same time I was working for the Law Enforcement Support Agency. This was a job in which I dealt with police records. In order to do that, I had to fill out a 20+ page application. I had to provide half a dozen professional and personal references. I also had to go through an extensive background check. This was in order to be in regular contact with pieces of paper that chronicled the crimes of my city. Yesterday Congress decided that I did not need a background check in order to purchase a gun that I could have concievably used to shoot up the office I worked in.

I recently went to Scotland. In order to do so I had to get a passport. Anyone who has a passport knows the extensive information they need. It usually takes between 30-60 days for them to process it and run a background check so that I have a document that lets me leave the country. Yesterday Congress decided I did not need a background check in order to purchase a gun I could use to shoot up an airport.

Congress has decided that it is more important that I have easy access to devices that only have one purpose: to kill a lot of other human beings. They decided that no amount of dead children, no amount of dead Americans, no amount of dead mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, or brothers was too high a price to pay for this particular freedom. And so I must ask, if Congress believes I do not need a background check in order to purchase any number of guns and bullets, then what’s the point of having background checks at all? Why is it more difficult for me to get a car than it is for me to get a gun? It’s not because of the second amendment because the founding fathers knew just as much about a Ford Taurus as they did about a .38 Taurus pistol.

Yesterday was a shameful day in American history. It was a betrayal of the very freedom we claim to love because for any rational human being the freedom to walk down the street without being shot is much more important than the freedom to have a gun.

I know that this post isn’t going to change any minds. Those who are against something as simple as a background check before purchasing a gun are not arguing from a rational point of view. They are quite simply fanatics. So much so that in the countless debates I’ve had with them, they almost always initially assume I want to ban all guns because somehow they think I must be every bit as extreme as they are. I’m not. Almost all of the people I know who are in favor of gun control are not. We simply think it should be more difficult to buy a gun than it is to go on a field trip with your son.

- Jack Cameron

This week I decided to revisit the Die Hard franchise in preparation for seeing A Good Day To Die Hard opening night. If all you care about is what I thought of the last one, feel free to scroll down. Otherwise, join me as I go over the death of John McClane.

Die Hard

The original Die Hard is a masterpiece of action filmmaking. It was exactly the shot in the arm the genre needed. It’s easy to forget because of what came after Die Hard, but John McClane spends a good portion of the movie running away from the bad guys and trying to get help from the outside. These are things that typical action movie heroes simply don’t do. When McClane is injured, it’s more than just some fake blood on his face. He hobbles. He winces. He looks like he’s actually going to die. Bruce Willis plays McClane in a way that is a sharp contrast to every character guys like Swarzenegger have ever played.

Die Hard is also helped by Alan Rickman playing Hans Gruber. As bad guys go, he’s one of the best. He has a clear objective and a plan for achieving that objective right up until John McClane gets in his way. And once that happens, it’s not until very late in the game that he starts to get genuinely concerned that McClane might actually defeat him.

The original Die Hard also happened to have some great people behind the camera as well. Director John McTiernan crafted a film that slowly builds and then barely lets you catch a breath once it gets going. Michael Kamen turns in one of his best scores in a career full of great music.

I’ve probably seen Die Hard fifty times and I never get tired of watching it.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder

Both Die Hard and Die Hard 2 are based on novels. They’re written by different authors and in the case of Die Hard 2, it strays so far from the source material that it’s almost unrecognizable. This is due in large part to the filmmakers’ doing everything humanly possible to make Die Hard again.

It’s Christmas Eve again. They put his wife in jeopardy again. They put him at odds with the authorities again. They give him one main bad guy with a large group of henchmen again. They even manage to squeeze in the LA cop McClane was buddies with and the slimy reporter from the original Die Hard. I have to assume that the guy who play Argyile the limo driver was busy or something.

Instead of terrorists taking over a building, this time they take over an airport. Like any sequel, the danger is amplified. About midway through the take over, the terrorists crash a plane full of people just to show they mean business. In the original, there were 30 hostages. In this one they kill 230 people on a plane just for the hell of it.

Die Hard 2 isn’t necessarily a bad movie. And it does stay true to the characters. However, when McClane says, “How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” it turns out there really is no answer for that.

Renny Harlin directs this one. He’s an average director and he makes an average Die Hard movie. It’s the sort of movie you might watch if it were on cable, but unless you were doing a Die Hard marathon, you wouldn’t put it in the DVD player.

Die Hard With A Vengeance

With the first movie taking place in LA and the second movie taking place in DC, it’s only natural that the third installment would be in New York City. After all, John McClane is a New York cop. Or at least he was in the original movie. In Die Hard 2 they mention he’s moved out to LA, apparently to be closer to his wife and kids. Now he’s back in New York with no wife or kids.

John McTiernan returns to the director’s chair. Yet again he shows that he can create great action sequences. While there are a couple of nods to the original movie in Die Hard With A Vengeance, there is no mention whatsoever of anything that happened in Die Hard 2. It seems that McTiernan is ignoring that particular episode.

Die Hard With A Vengeance also adds a buddy to the mix with Samuel L. Jackson playing black militant, Zeus. The two have a good chemistry together, but it also ends up watering down one of McClane’s most enduring qualities: that it’s all up to just him.

Jeremy Irons plays a serviceable villain who is out for revenge because it turns out he’s the brother of Hans Gruber, but it turns out to be an elaborate distraction so that he can pull off a giant heist. While the movie takes place all over New York City rather than confined to an airport or a building, it’s still a variation on the plot from the original movie.

In terms of quality, this movie fall far short of the original and isn’t even as good as Die Hard 2 really as some of the action set pieces are outright absurd.

Live Free Or Die Hard

No one expected there would be a Die Hard 4. Made over a decade after Die Hard 3, it was assumed that the Die Hard movies were over with. My DVD set of the first three movies even says, ‘Ultimate Collection’ on it. Even the movie studio thought they were done. And perhaps they should have been.

Previously terrorists had taken over a building to steal a bunch of money, taken a sky full of planes hostage to rescue a political prisoner, and planted bombs all over New York City to rob the Federal Reserve. So in Live Free or Die Hard they upped the ante a bit by having the terrorists steal ‘all the wealth in the United States’. This premise is every bit as over the top and crazy as the rest of the movie.

By the fourth movie in the series, John McClane has lost all vulnerabilities. He now kills people without a second thought and causes collateral damage on a level that would impress most sociopaths. This is due at least marginally by director Len Wiseman who is used to directing immortal vampire warriors in his Underworld series.

In contrast to the other Die Hard movies, this one bares little resemblance to any of them. McClane isn’t trapped anywhere. While he is occasionally one his own, he spends most of the movie with a sidekick who is significantly less effective than Zeus and the only time the authorities aren’t helping him is when he can’t get in touch with them.

Timothy Olyphant plays a reasonable bad guy, but he isn’t really given much to work with in terms of character. He is there so that McClane has someone to kill at the end of the movie.

In the one and only attempt to tie this movie to the others, they have McClane’s grown up estranged daughter show up as a hostage.

A Good Day To Die Hard

Having spent the last four days watching Die Hard movies, I knew going in that the only real expectation for this movie was that Bruce Willis would likely be shooting bad guys. I also knew not to expect something spectacular. Director John Moore had done a few average movies but wasn’t exactly known for great films. Writer Skip Woods gave us the near franchise-killing movie Wolverine: Origins.

In the fifth Die Hard movie, McClane has gone to Russia to rescue his grown up estranged son. There’s a quick scene to establish that McClane is still somehow a New York cop and somehow a fellow cop has managed to pull the arrest sheet from Russia on McClane’s son who he apparently only just decided to have interest in.

McClane is in Russia roughly ten minutes before things start exploding. The resulting car chase is one of the most absurd car chases I’ve ever seen. Not since Bad Boys II have I seen a movie where the ‘heroes’ care less about human life. Dozens of occupied cars are destroyed during the chase. The man who once freaked out and gave away his position when Mr. Takagi was killed in Nakatomi Tower is now happy to drive a truck through any car in his way regardless of who might be inside. And in what is my least favorite scene in the entire Die Hard franchise, John McClane punches out a motorist who yells at him after the motorist hit him with the car because McClane was standing in the middle of the street. McClane then steals his car and makes a comment about the motorist not speaking English apparently forgetting the part where he’s in Russia.

The previous four movies had only a few things in common: A main bad guy, a central heist of some sort, and McClane as the antagonist. Apparently, the filmmaker’s of A Good Day To Die Hard decided they needed to fix that. Here we get a guy who seems to be the main bad guy until he isn’t. This actually happens a couple of times. Similarly, the heist is one thing, then it’s another. In more capable hands these might make for clever plot twists, but in this case, it just feels like needless bait and switch. This is because the movie spends no time building any of the bad guy characters on any level unless you count one of them mentioning he wanted to be a dancer. The result is that one Russian thug is just as good as another so who really cares which one is the real bad guy?

There is a small attempt to have some sort of storyline between McClane and his son, who it turns out has become some sort of Jason Bourne-like secret agent, but with none of the skills.

I think what bothers me the most about A Good Day To Die Hard is this. If it had a different title and the two heroes weren’t named McClane, I wouldn’t have said, “That should have been a Die Hard movie” after seeing it. There are a couple of sad attempts to echo the first Die Hard, but they feel more like a rip off than an homage.

John McClane started out as the everyman action hero. He was you or me in a set of bad circumstances. Since then he has actually become the very invincible action hero that the first Die Hard was the antidote to. The John McClane from the first Die Hard sadly died a long time ago. And that’s too bad because I’d love to see a movie with that character again.

- Jack Cameron

I used to be a much more violent man than I am today. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the thing that seriously minimized my use of violence as a solution was a quote I read from actor Martin Sheen: “Violence is an act of desperation.”

Now I don’t mind considering myself occasionally depressed, badly behaved, angry, or any number of other negative terms. But I’m rarely if ever desperate and even when I am, I don’t want to admit that I am.

And so whenever I felt like being violent regardless of the situation, I would ask myself, “Are you truly so desperate that violence is the only response?”

My point here is that violence, including gun violence comes from people who are desperate. If we want to cut down on gun violence, we need to work on making people less desperate. Like all social solutions, it’s not as simple as it sounds. That said, I think the first step is making people aware that using violence does not make you brave or smart or great. It makes you desperate.

When it comes to gun violence, it’s important to note that almost twice as many people kill themselves with guns as kill other people. There are few things more desperate than feeling the best option in your life is to shoot yourself. If we could find a way to stop these deaths from happening gun violence would be a third of what it is now.

Don’t get me wrong. There are situations in which violence is the only remaining solution. But that’s just it. It should be an act of last resort. For those for whom violence comes easy, we need to do our best to make them aware that violence isn’t strength. It’s weakness. It’s admitting you’ve either run out of options or are simply not smart enough to come up with a better solution.

Violence is an act of desperation. And I am far from desperate.

 WHAT OBAMA’S PLAN DOESN’T DO

Before we look at what Obama’s 23 Executive Orders and his other proposals do, let’s take a look at what they DON’T do.

It Doesn’t Take Away Any Guns You Currently Own

Nothing in what Obama is proposing takes away your guns. If you’ve got an assault rifle with an extended clip, that thing will stay legal even if Obama gets everything he wants. The proposal only affects future production and purchase.

It Doesn’t Cost Too Much

No matter what, $500 million seems like a lot of money. However, that’s because you’re not the federal government. Bush spent an estimated $700 million a DAY on the Iraq War. From a Federal budget perspective, it’s cheap. To put it another way, $500 million is 0.00003041956% of the national debt.

It Doesn’t Infringe On The 2^nd Amendment

There is nothing in Obama’s proposal that infringes on the 2^nd Amendment. The words ‘well regulated’ are often forgotten in the 2^nd Amendment. The assault weapons ban isn’t even anything new and was first proposed by Ronald Reagan.

He Hasn’t Created Any New Laws

Obama’s 23 Executive Orders did not create 23 new laws. They didn’t even create one new law because we don’t live in a dictactorship and that’s not how laws are created. Similarly, his proposal is just that. It’s a proposal. Congress will do with it what they will, but it isn’t a royal decree.

These are all things that pro-gun people were terrified of and still are. Many think that everything I just said isn’t true and that Obama is taking away guns, spending more money than any President in history, eliminating the 2^nd Amendment and just making up laws on the fly. And yet, he’s doing none of these things. The only one that’s even possible is that there may end up being some new gun laws on the books, but that’s only after congress passes them because that’s how things are done in America.

 THE EXECUTIVE ORDERS

So let’s take a look at what Obama’s plans would actually do. We’ll start with his Executive Orders since they are the only part of his plan that are definitely happening.

Better Background Checks

The first six of Obama’s 23 Executive Orders are about improving background checks on gun buyers. This is something that should be a no-brainer. A thorough background check before giving someone a deadly weapon is just common sense. Background checks are already a typical part of many gun purchases. This just makes those background checks easier and better.

Increase Gun Safety

Three of the Executive Orders (7, 8, and 15) are about increasing gun safety. This is something that the NRA in the 1960s would have spearheaded. These include launching a gun safety campaign, reviewing standards for gun locks and safes, and creating new gun safety technology. Accidental shootings and shootings using stolen guns are all too frequent. This again seems like something obvious to me and isn’t really something any pro-gun person should be against.

Increases Mental Health Awareness And Coverage

Six of the Executive Orders (16, 17, and20-23) are about mental health. They include having clarifying what Medicaid must cover and making mental health a priority when it comes to essential health benefits. It also clarifies that health care providers can ask about guns in the homes of patients and report threats of violence from patients. One of the loudest arguments heard from the right is that this isn’t about guns. This is about mental health. So there should be no pushback from the right on this.

Make Gun Crimes Easier To Track And Prosecute

Three (9, 10, and 13) of the Executive Orders are about assisting law enforcement in the pursuit of crimes committed with firearms. They include requiring all guns recovered in criminal investigations to be traced and making information on lost and stolen guns widely available as well as focusing on prosecuting gun related crimes.

Encourages Schools To Have Armed Guards

This was the centerpiece of the NRA’s press conference and Obama has decided to make it part of his plan. Three of his Executive Orders (12, 18, 19) are specific to schools and school shootings. They include having training for school officials and first responders in how to deal with active shooting situation and providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. His proposal includes language asking for incentives to hire police officers to guard schools.

Actually Study What Causes Gun Violence

The fourteenth Executive order requests the Center for Disease Control to look into what we can do when it comes to curbing gun violence. This is an interesting choice because it both acknowledges the problem as a social one and also implies that Obama is admitting we don’t have all the answers yet.

For those of you keeping count that’s only 22 of the Executive Orders I’ve talked about that’s because the eleventh Executive Order is simply nominating a director for the ATF. All of the stuff mentioned about is everything that the Executive Orders did.

 THE PROPOSAL

Obama’s proposal is another story. First off, as mentioned before, it’s a proposal. It’s not a set of laws. It’s not a bill for Congress to pass. They’re just ideas the Obama administration believes would increase public safety and lower gun violence. Some of them are ideas that could be put into law assuming they get through both the House and the Senate. You can read the full proposal here. I’ll quickly go over some of the ideas he covers.

The Assault Weapons Ban

Obama wants to reinstate the assault weapons ban. He also wants to close many of the loopholes that make it possible for assault weapons to get around the ban. However, he’s leaving one giant loophole in: If you’ve already got one, then you’re fine. This loophole is likely to result in many paranoid gun enthusiasts purchasing assault rifles.

Ban High Capacity Magazines and Armor Piercing Bullets

The proposal asks to ban any magazine that holds more than ten bullets. The idea behind this is simple: It’s hard to mow down a crowd of people when you have to reload. This is a measure specifically designed to stop mass killings. Again, if you’ve already got one, you won’t be in trouble. The same cannot be said of armor piercing bullets. Already illegal to sell, his proposal would also make them illegal to own.

The rest of Obama’s proposal has to do with increasing the number of police officers, school counselors, and mental health professionals. All of which are good ideas that have nothing to do with infringing on 2^nd Amendment rights.

And yet, in every forum I’ve gone to today, I’ve encountered people who are freaking out at the cost and calling Obama a socialist and saying he wants to take every gun in America and going stark raving mad at the sheer audacity of Obama to even mention the concept of doing something about gun violence. They’re so mad in fact that they don’t see this for what it is. It’s a gift.

Obama is being widely praised for being ‘bold’, but really every single thing he’s suggested is entirely reasonable and not really any sort of attack on the lives of gun enthusiasts. He could have suggested that anyone with a gun that’s not a hunting rifle has to turn it in to be destroyed. He could have suggested we re-examine the 2^nd Amendment in its entirety. Instead he’s basically said, ‘Hey, keep your guns. We’re going to make policing gun crimes easier. We’re going to focus on mental health. And if you happen to want an assault rifle, go ahead and get one right now. No problem.’

Many of the things Obama have suggested I whole-heartedly agree with. There are many more that he didn’t even mention that I’d like to see happen. I would have liked him to require every gun owner to go through both psychological testing and firearms use and safety testing immediately and if they fail firearms test, they have to take a class before they can legally own any firearms. I can only imagine the mouth-frothing rage that right wingers would have had if he had done that.

Conspiracy theorists insist this is the same girl.
The rest of us see it as two photos with two girls in a hand-me-down dress.

Cover up stories and conspiracy theories are always entertaining. This is why X-Files was on for nine years. It’s why people still talk about JFK. Everyone loves to hear what REALLY happened.

The latest conspiracy theory to be bounced around the Internet is the idea that the recent tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in which a man murdered twenty children and six adults before killing himself is actually a big government conspiracy of some sort. This includes the allegation that a six-year-old girl killed in the massacre was not REALLY killed in the massacre and that her father is not really her father but a paid actor. Take a look at this video:

Newtown Conspiracy Theory

Of the twenty-six victims, it seems that they think this one six-year-old is the magic bullet to this conspiracy. For ‘evidence’ they cite that Emilie was not in her classroom photo and that there is a girl who looks like Emilie wearing the same dress as Emilie days after she was killed. Instead of making the obvious choices (that Emilie wasn’t in school the day the picture was taken and her little sister is now wearing her big sister’s dress,) these conspiracy people want you to believe that one of the three sisters from that family disappeared, the one who was murdered is really alive, and that for reasons unknown her father is being played by an actor.

There are dozens of ways to debunk this, but before we get that let’s talk about something else really quick. In order for a conspiracy or cover up to exist, there must be an agenda. People don’t go to the trouble of creating elaborate conspiracies unless they have an agenda. So even if someone came up with a viable conspiracy theory that COULD be true, you have to establish some sort of agenda. It’s all well and good to say, “On 9/11 the government fired a missile into the Pentagon. It wasn’t a plane.”  But first you have to answer the question, “Why would the government fire a missile at their own building when the twin towers had already been hit ?”  If there’s no agenda, then all you have is an overly-elaborate idea that no one would actually do.

It’s cute how the video linked above dismisses the earlier ‘Libor’ motive as a hoax. They do this because it sounds like the must know what they’re talking about but really, at least that conspiracy theory has a motive. They think that some guy running through the woods is some mysterious ‘2^nd Shooter’ and that at least one of the children of the massacre isn’t really dead and her father is being played in the media by an actor. This sounds every bit as ridiculous as the Libor conspiracy theory.

The photos they are comparing are one of Emilie provided by the family. So it’s probably not a brand new picture. It could be a few months or maybe even a year old. They then compare it to photos taken days after the shooting in which a little girl in the same dress is with Obama. Emilie had a little sister who is only a year younger than her. So it would make sense that they’d pass down the dress to the younger sister who looks like Emilie because she’s her sister.

All of this may seem like harmless flights of fancy except for one thing. Emilie Parker was a real six-year-old girl who was killed by a mass murderer. Take a moment and think of a horrible reality in which your six-year-old daughter has been murdered. Then imagine that someone on the Internet starts posting pictures of dead daughter, your surviving children and you who they claim is an actor. This is a reality for Robbie Parker. It is disrespect on an abhorrent level.  It would be like going to a random guy’s funeral, getting up in front of everyone and telling them in detail how you were viciously raped by the dearly departed.

Some conspiracy theorists like to point to things like Watergate where dogged and determined journalists blew the lid off a story that actually did go all the way to the President. The problem with this is that the journalists actually went out and talked to people. They knocked on doors. They fact checked. They had a hell of a lot more than two photos of two girls who look alike before they went to press with anything.

It’s fine to question authorities. It’s fine to think twice about the new you are provided and try to find ‘the truth’. But you’re not a crusader for truth when you look at a few things you find odd, make a wild accusation that if false is the worst kind of slander, and then try to find ‘evidence’ to fit your narrative. You have a hell of a lot more than a couple of photos that look alike before you start dragging a dead six-year-old girl into your fantasies.

For more on some other debunking of Newtown Conspiracy Theories, check out the links below where real journalists spent some time debunking those who apparently have nothing better to do than make up things about dead little kids.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/newtown-shooting-conspiracy-theories/60126/

http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp

- Jack Cameron

The first problem is that you don’t only have to be talented, you have to be lucky. Your work needs to be put in front of the right person at the right time. Sometimes this happens. Sometimes it doesn’t. The second problem is that you lose control of your work. Studios have been known to buy scripts with no intention of ever making the movie. Sure, it’s nice to get a paycheck, but most writers I know would rather see their work produced.

The good news is that modern technology makes the old system an option and not a requirement. As I write this, I have a friend who is producing an album with another guy on the other side of the country. They’re both using Macs with a few inexpensive accessories. Last year some friends of mine used Kickstarter to finance their movie. Their budget? Four hundred thousand dollars. That’s almost half a million dollars with no studio involvement. Sure, that’s not a lot compared to the budget of a MichaelBay movie but you’d be surprised how much you can get when you’re not having to deal with studios. More to the point, there’s no bosses telling them that they need to throw on a happy ending or make sure that there’s a sex scene. They can tell the story they want to tell.

This is why my next book is going to be entirely self-published. It’s not because I don’t like the system. It’s because I want to have complete creative control.

And that’s where the ‘bad news’ comes in. It’s a lot of work. Yes, it’s possible to just throw together a manuscript and have it published and tossed up on Amazon.com. Thousands of people do it every year and it’s largely what’s responsible for making the word ‘self-published’ seem disreputable. But the truth is there is no reason you can’t make a book every bit as professional as anything the big six publishers put out. That’s my goal.

My plan is to have my novel available for purchase by my birthday, December 5^th. It’s not going to be easy. The key to doing anything well is realizing when you can’t do something and hiring someone who can. In order to do this right, I’m going to need to set things up for more than just this book. I’ll need to start my own publishing company. As I go through this process, I’ll write about it here, along with anything else I feel like writing about.

Welcome to 2013. It’s going to be a good year.

- Jack Cameron

As much fun as the Avengers movie was and as much fun as I’m sure Avengers 2 will be, I know that the purple guy at the end of Avengers shines best in the comic book he comes from because Thanos’ story is fairly screwed up on a level that you won’t see anywhere but a comic book.

I think my favorite thing about comic books is that unlike other media, it isn’t just the small indies taking risks, though the independent comic book scene these days is incredible. Marvel Comics this week ended Amazing Spider-Man with issue #700 and the ending was absolutely shocking for those who didn’t read about the leak online first. It’s the sort of thing they’d never do in a Spider-Man movie. And the most incredible thing to me is that this is Disney-owned Marvel Comics. If ever there was a company you might expect to play it safe, it’d be this one.

There’s no way to talk about this without spoiling things so if you plan on reading Amazing Spider-Man #700 and haven’t yet, stop reading and come back.

For everyone else, here is the basic story. Doctor Octopus (you may remember him from Spider-Man 2) switches bodies with Peter Parker. There are a couple of things that make this significantly different than your standard body-swap story. One is that each of them retains the other’s memories. So not only is Doc Ock in Peter Parker’s skin, but he knows everything about Peter Parker. The other bit is that Doc Ock’s body is hours away from death. The story culminates with Peter Parker in Doc Ock’s body trying valiantly to switch back and being unable to. And so he uses the link between them to share with Ock what it’s been like to actually be Peter Parker. Suddenly the villainous Doctor Octopus gets it. He suddenly understands that ‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’. And then, Peter Parker, the Peter Parker who has had comic book adventures since 1962 dies, still stuck in Doc Ock’s body.

Doctor Octopus vows to become an even better Spider-Man and Peter Parker than the original ever was. It’s a powerful story that is expertly told through great writing and great art. And it’s managed to piss off Spider-Man fans the world over. Dan Slott, the writer, has even received death threats.

It should be noted, that another reason that Marvel (and comic books in general) get away with this stuff is that absolutely everything that happens in a comic can be taken back. A few years ago Captain America was shot and killed. He came back. Even more recently Human Torch was killed. He came back too. Other lesser known characters such as Cable and Colossus and Scarlet Witch and Wasp have all died and come back in the last few years. Death at Marvel is a bit of a revolving door.

And with Spider-Man being a major movie property, the odds of Doc Ock-Spidey sticking around past the premiere of Amazing Spider-Man 2 aren’t particularly good. But none of that detracts from the great story that Dan Slott has managed to tell. Issues like Amazing Spider-Man #700 are why I read comics.

- Jack Cameron

- Jack Cameron

Like the rest of America, we were shocked and saddened by the tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. Out of respect for the friends and families of the victims we have remained silent until now. As with any loss, there is a search for someone or something to blame. We want to know how to make sure this never happens again.

The truth, unpleasant as it may be, is that we can’t stop this from happening again. Madmen will get their hands on dangerous weapons and kill innocent people again. This is true regardless of what new laws or restrictions we put on the books. Tragedies like Newtown will happen again.

However, this does not mean that we should not respond. The National Rifle Association was once the symbol for responsible gun ownership in America. We sponsored clubs in high school. We helped write responsible gun laws. What we have become is little more than the gun version of the Big Tobacco lobby.

While the ease with which the average American can get a gun cannot be fully blamed for any event of gun violence, neither can it be entirely excluded as part of the cause. The safety and respect that citizens once had for deadly weapons has evaporated. It would be easy to blame this on a ‘culture of violence’, but this misses the point. We cannot change the culture. We can change how we respond to it.

We were once the voice of reason when it came to gun control and we can be so again. Every gun owner should be required to go through an NRA sponsored gun safety course. Every weapon should be registered and that registration should be renewed every year. These changes do not infringe on a citizen’s right to bear arms and will foster more responsibility when it comes to gun ownership.

Many of our members have years of experience with guns and likely feel they have no need for a ‘gun safety course’. We ask that they participate in the course and help share their knowledge with those with less experience.

As we all know, there will always be those in society who do not obey the laws and do not abide by regulations. Many of these people arm themselves with weapons obtained illegally. We ask that authorities in this country crack down on all use of weapons by those they are not registered to. We ask that the weapons used in crimes be destroyed or returned to their rightful owners.

Lastly, we ask for a law requiring that all guns when not in use be locked and that owners be held responsible for the use of unlocked guns.

Yes, gun ownership is a fundamental right of every law abiding American and with that right comes the responsibility of gun ownership. We want to help with that responsibility. We also want to hear from our members and our critics. We want to know your ideas and how you feel we can help improve as an organization for responsible gun ownership.

We cannot stop madmen from doing horrible things. This is a sad truth, but responsible gun owners can do something about making America a safer and better nation. We hope you’ll join with the National Rifle Association in making that happen.

Thank you.