Thursday 5 July 2012

Sword of Truth..the saga of the Evil Chicken

I also posted this on Goodreads
Terrible book, I just could not finish it.

(Spoilers ahead: But if you still want to read the book, you are on your own)

I loved the Sword of Truth series in the beginning. It was different and exciting. But then the series started to get weird. First it was the weird sex that Richard was having with the red clad dominatrix, then the Sisters of the Dark had that strange session with the statue/demon in the forest etc etc.

And after a while, I started to feel about the series the same way as about Grey's Anatomy. How many tragic events can happen to the same characters? In the case of Grey's you just know that the finale of each series will involve murderous killers, bombs, people dying all over the place. Ditto for the Sword of Truth series.

Then, after a year or three I picked up where I left off and started reading the Soul of the Fire.

Richard and Kahlan is back at the Mud People. I always liked the Mud People and that scene in the first book with Kahlan and the apple is still one of my favourite non-sex sex scenes :)

But then people start dying and they realise something is wrong. Enter the Evil Chicken. Amongst all the chickens running around the village, the Bird Man identifies one as a chicken who is not a chicken.

If it was a fleeting reference it would have been fine but for the first quarter of the book, Richard chases after the flippen chicken and most of the conversations he has revolves around "Is it evil...yes, it is. No it is not."

For Pete's sake. Surely one of the warriors in the village could have taken a spear and shoved it up the suspicious chicken's arse. Or someone with magical powers could have blasted it into oblivion. But no, the chase continues. And worst of all, the chicken just ogles them in an evil way most of the time.

Enough with the bloody chicken already.

Then there is a conversation about magic disappearing and then...you guessed it...they go chasing after poultry again.

Then Kahlan is outside running around in the rain. I can't even remember why. So she goes into the building where the tribe kept the bodies of recently deceased. And she is then trapped inside with...you guessed it...the Evil Chicken. The all powerful Mother Confessor is so scared of the damn thing that she cowers in the dark. Still the Evil Poultry does nothing else than stare at her in a menacing fashion. Oh, she also witnesses the same Feathery Fiend from Hell pecking out the eyes of a corpse.

At that stage, it became too much and soon after that I stopped reading.

I still don't know what happened to the bloody evil, satanic chicken. And I do not care. If it turned into a giant ostrich and trampled Richard and Kahlan I could not care less.

I was just waiting for them to be stalked by an evil goose or a satanic butterfly.

The one star is out of loyalty to the first three books.

Monday 18 June 2012

Lady Gaga, Satanism and the Illuminati

Lady Gaga, Satanism and the Illuminati
This morning I read that Lady Gaga is on her way to South Africa. Then I thought: Here we go again.
A year or two ago I received a couple of chain emails about her. The first one stated that she is a “Satanist” and the second, which contained almost identical pictures to the first, read “Lady Gaga is an Illuminati Puppet.”
Scrolling down the comments on News24, I found the references to Satanism and threats to boycott her concerts. Then I thought that maybe I should give the idea that she is a Satanist/Illuminati Puppet some thought and I pondered the possibility for a while.
Now according to what I know (which is a lot less than those intellectuals who study conspiracy theories) the Illuminati is secret society consisting of about 7 people who rule the world’s economy, religion and politics with a series of secret handshakes and dodgy initiation ceremonies. Seeing that they rule the world, I guess the ceremonies take place per email these days. Who has time for lengthy initiations when you are trying to sort out the Euro crisis?
Also, from what I know, there are different kinds of Satanists: Le Veyan, deistic, theistic, atheistic...blah blah. Some worship an entity called Satan, others do not believe in Satan (although they use the word “Satan” when describing their religious dogma...confusing I know). But in South Africa the term “Satanist” usually refers to 13 year old girls who dress in black, steal their mom’s eyeliner and apply it generously, refuse to converse with people older than 17 and listen to horrendous music such as “Rotten coffin metal”, “Death skull rock” etc. They also refer to their “powers” which actually consist of irritating people, causing people to involuntarily make slapping movements in the direction of the young ones’ faces and causing sane people to run screaming into the night. So when I refer to Satanists, I will refer to the 13 year old school girl type as they are the really evil ones the churches fight against in SA.
Terminology aside: I personally believe that the inclusion of Lady Gaga in the league of minions of the Illuminati is a clear indication of the demise in political and economic power of this secret organisation, who everyone talks about. More about this later.
When discussing the very serious subject of the Illuminati Puppets (not to be confused with the Gepetto Puppets or Martha and the Muppets) one has to make a couple of assumptions. The reason being that the recruitment process usually takes place at crossroads, in alleys, basements and antiquated laboratories and we only have anecdotal evidence of what transpired. The assumptions that I will be using are the following:
1.   The Illuminati and Satanism are often referred to being in cahoots according to learned writers such as South African Occult Experts and David Icke (for more info see http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/encyclopedia.html). So I assume, for the purposes of this debate that they kinda do the same thing when recruiting new puppets.
2.   According to scant and anecdotal evidence we have about interaction between humans and the Evil Ones, one can assume that there is always a contract involved.
a.    In terms of evidence we have the records of the medieval witch-hunts (the very accurate babblings of so-called witches who were sleep deprived and then gruesomely tortured by the Church), the rather inaccessible and very complicated rituals described in the Lesser Key of Solomon, the stage play (I know, we are scratching) Faust and various stories and folktales (Van Hunks, the guy in Spanish Train etc etc).
b.   The word “pact” is often used and the mere word conjures images of fire and brimstone. But I prefer the word contract as it denotes an agreement between two consenting adults. (As a side note I may then mention that 13 year old girls cannot, in terms of South African law, make a pact with the devil or in legal parlance conclude a contract with the devil as they are not yet legally competent....never mind, another debate).
c.    But from the available evidence it would seem as if a contract or a pact is a conditio sine qua non if you want to obtain immortality, fame, fortune, unheard of riches etc from an Evil One. So one has to assume that Lady Gaga sold her soul in return for everlasting fame, since Dollars and Euros are from what I understand, not legal tender in the underworld.

3.   Since there are thousands of Satanists lurking around according to so-called occult experts, there must be a lot of people queuing up in front of Evil’s Door to conclude an evil contract and to be rich/famous/intelligent/beautiful/ have a gorgeous derriere. One may then  assume that:
a.   The Evil Forces of the World employ or enslave shrewd and brilliant businessmen and champions of enterprise. (This is a valid assumption since they control the world's economy). One can also assume that the Evil Ones employ legions of attorneys. The attorneys probably work there on a volunteer basis.
b.   There must be some kind of vetting process in place to determine who the Evil Ones want to en-puppet.  Common sense dictates that there must a return on their investment.
Now onto the sad case of Lady Gaga and her en-puppetment.
The following reasons are compelling enough that one can conclude she is not a puppet:
1.   First of all, if you are looking for someone who will sway public opinion and spread the secret messages of the Illuminati discreetly, one would try and recruit a person who is respected internationally, who is preferably a great orator, who has the power to sway even the most dubious and unbelieving minds towards the Illuminati. Great names spring to mind: Stephen Hawking, the Dalai Llama, Bishop Tutu, Barrack Obama, Maya Angelou or even, because she is so good with publicity, Oprah Winfrey.
But who do they choose? Lady Gaga who composed the following profound lyrics to her songs:
·    P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
·    Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-roma-mamaa!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance
·    Let's have some fun, this beat is sick I wanna take a ride on your disco stick

2.   The woman wore a meat dress...Not exactly the kind of outfit that will fit in with the hallowed halls of the centuries old Illuminati.
3.   Some of her shows in Asia were cancelled...so clause 28(1) (a) (iii) of her contract with the Illuminati in terms of which the Illuminati undertook to provide her with: "unlimited success in the promoting, execution, appearance and performance at all concert  venues, both nationally and internationally, including but not limited to providing stage lights with a slimming effect....” were not complied with and the Illuminati will thus be in breach.
4.   She is a bit old to be a Satanist. And she does not wear black.
5.   Individuals who are the most influential in the sphere of politics, economy and religion tend not to take so-called pop stars and their garbled messages seriously (with the exception of certain French and Italian politicians). So clearly Gaga would be the wrong choice to try and influence the world- as- we- know- it.

So all in all, she was a bad choice to en-puppet. Alternatively, it may indicate that the power of the Illuminati is on the decline. Maybe they went to Obama and he told them to go cast a circle in Iraq, maybe they went to Angela Merkel and she told them she is too busy with the Greeks, maybe they went to Madonna and she said she already has fame, fortune and immortality...

Or they may be experiencing financial problems. It is perhaps cheaper to bankroll Gaga’s tour in South Africa than to bankroll one of Oprah’s shows where she showers the audience with gifts.

Who knows?

But all I know is that all is not well in the Recruitment and Enslavement of Really Important Individuals who can Influence the World Department of the Illuminati.

Thursday 12 January 2012

New book: Rose\'s Will by Denise DeSio

Review of Rose\'s Will by Denise DeSio

Some books grab you from the word go and by the second paragraph in the book I was hooked by the words that the author strung into such beautiful sentences. There is word to describe that ability: wordsmith.

I am not one to give endless synopses of books. In short the story deals with a woman, Glory, who has to deal with an extremely painful childhood and who, despite horrendous abuse, tries to reconcile with her aging and belligerent mother, Rose. Her mother is still in denial and this leads to a series of confrontations between mother and daughter. Add to that Rose\'s hostility towards her daughter\'s lesbian relationship and you have an extremely volatile situation.

There are no car chases, no murder that needs to be solved...what there is is a brutally honest narration of dysfunctional relationships. Years of abuse left its mark on everyone, including on the brother Ricky. While Glory chose to leave the house, he chose to stay and look after Rose and he still resents Glory for leaving him to take care of Rose.

It is easy to paint characters in a story like this as either good/the victim or bad/the aggressor. The author side-steps this brilliantly and instead of a one -dimensional child abuser, you have Rose who struggles with her own inner demons. And her boyfriend Eli\'s narration is used as the voice of reason. Like Cicero that he is so fond of quoting, he is the one that approaches life logically. He brings out Rose as she was before the trauma ---the caring, laughing, jovial woman who is fond of dancing and whose laughter filled the canals of Venice.

But this is a multi-layered story. What is striking is that everyone knows that the daughter was abused but still they remain apologetic. As if they are trying to by either trivialising events or by furnishing reasons for the mothers erratic behaviour eradicate the past. This in itself, instead of alleviating the pain of the victim, causes more trauma as it appears as if they do not understand what the person went through. Then the self-doubt returns: Maybe if I acted differently I could have avoided the abuse and the pain. But that of course is a fallacy, you cannot expect of a child to somehow, by behaving differently, stop the avalanche of abuse.

So Glory is not only fighting her painful memories, she is also fighting for the right to be heard, the right to be believed.

In the end, Glory finds solace in the stories of Eli of a mother that was happy, content and caring. He shows her the other face of the monster who brought her up.

The book is an emotional tale and the author\'s layering of perspectives is wonderful. It is seldom that a book with such a theme is such a page turner. The author also manages not to turn it into a sulking, melodramatic "O woe is me" book.

This has been one of the best and most enjoyable books I\'ve read in a long time. I can\'t wait for the second one.