Do New Mores Plagiarize Design? (A view on Same-gender marriage)

         A copyright is a legally approved document, patent, or seal protecting the creator with his or her invention or literary work. Anything that proves ownership and is wrongfully used by another constitutes copyright infringement, and can be punishable by law. If a speech were recited by someone and never gave credit to the true writer, that would also be considered plagiarism. There is no reasonable doubt otherwise. This excludes many subject matters that can be duplicated, embellished, or composed by another writer.

         For instance, if someone were to write a story about a famous person who lived a hundred years ago, fictitiously recreate dialogue, or a narrative not proved to be true, it would not be a violation because it has long since been placed to public domain. Now for hard evidence to the topic of this particular blog.

           Science and technology tell us things about what is correct and effective in the world of electronics. One can not get a charge, light, or any electrical emission without two opposing forces. If it is a battery, there must be a negative and positive so that the unison produces the effect. When plugging in a lamp or any electronic device, there must be a ‘male’ plug and a 'female' receptor so that there is light or other function. In other words, two of the same forces cannot produce the effect.

           Among many current issues that have been unplugged from what has been considered absolute or truth without opinion challenging society is the question of same-gender marriage. How does this have anything to do with copyright and infringement, or the science of electronic law? According to spiritual law, and documented in the bible, God is the author of life.

            Firstly, man did not invent co-sexual unions. God did. From the beginning, He wrought a purposeful world and destiny for the first humans. His intention of the union was called ‘marriage”. It is proven by the biblical documentation, as well as physical design. It is God’s creation in the order of His first design with the purpose of bringing more beings into the world. Most believers in God know that no human being is self-evolved. A new person can not be made without two opposite genders putting God as the original creator along with any laws or concepts that surround this creation.

           So what about the idea of same gender marriage if this is true? How can we ordain something which was never ordained by man to begin with? Just because we think it to be fair, can we just pick and choose anything that has been first invented by Him and recreate our own law?
          As it is with anything where God is concerned, we should surrender our complaints, issues, and debates to Him who has a higher purpose and definite direction for His people. After all, since He is the author of life, shouldn’t He be the one to designate how it should be used? Should same-sex unions be called something other than what God called and designed it? (If one does not believe in God or what is documented as truth, then it would be considered fair that he/she do whatever they want as long as they are willing to accept the possibility of consequence. Another blog!)

The defensive response that "love" is universal, not bound by gender, race, nations, or any human group, is however, a valid subject that deserves mention. God is love. He alone creates the precepts of spiritual law. He, alone, judges, but we can partake in how he would respond to this universal love. In all twelve mentions of homosexuality in the bible, the jury rests with the deliberation of it being against His design that in ancient times was punishable by law.

We are free to do as we want, but believers are subject to a higher calling. And given the very difficult life the gays have in coming out or choosing sanctity instead of what seems 'natural' to them includes them in this higher calling.

I value that not everyone wants to be with the opposite sex for the rest of their lives, and they don't have to be. And, in my compassion, I don't pretend to understand why they are so drawn to one of their own. But it still does not give license to all the privileges that true biblical marriage provides. It will plagiarize the design. Perhaps many don't think it is, or don't care that it is, or do not have the conviction anymore due to the media's apparent support. But if it isn't any of those reasons, what is it?

This is not opinion, but fact, and I can't say I am glad that it is. But as God's child,  I would never want to tell Him how He should make exception just because I 'think' so.

For study on this design and verification of God's clarity on the matter:

• 2 refer to rape (Genesis 19:5, Judges 19:22)
• 5 refer to cult prostitution (Deuteronomy 23:17-18, 1 Kings 14:23-24, 15:12-13, 22:46, 2 Kings 23:6-8)
• 1 refers to prostitution and pederasty (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
• 4 are nonspecific (Leviticus 18:21-22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Timothy 1:8-10)

Post Script:
I love you all. Truly I do. I owe the truth as sanctioned by the author of life. Plain and simple.

"WINS Verlies-Gained LOSS"

This is more than gorgeous poetry. It is a collection of voices who have met head on with intense pain, isolation, tragedy, and experiences that have moved their souls toward the edge.  A  lovely writer/therapist/editor from South Africa (Myra Lochner) invites these special spirits to share their awakenings in beautiful verse that transcends them to a new path toward healing. Their words are like wings flying over the precipice that once kept them in physical and emotional paralysis. You'll be changed by it. I promise!

Order requests by email:
 myrataal@mweb.co.za

Mailing Address:
Kreativ
PO Box 4404
6539
South Africa         

Within South Africa:

Kreativ
4404 GEORGE-OOS
(SA-POSBUS4404)
( SUID-AFRIKA)



Request your copy today!

Jury Duty in a Criminal Case

Recently, I was drafted to report for jury selection for a criminal trial that involved a father who was charged with child neglect, the most severe charge being a Class A felony making him responsible for physical abuse of his 4 month old daughter, whose many bruises and battery resulted in death. I was reluctant, but looked at the entire situation as not only an opportunity to proactively show my citizenship, but assume this as a divine appointment to which I could be changed in a most significant way. I am grateful to have been chosen. Now that it is behind me, this blog is more detailed on the actual input of the jury of a case rather than the narrative and case per se, so here goes.

Stepping Out Is Walking In
We were given instructions and criteria on which to base the jury's process toward the final day of deliberation, which made our job a little easier. And the fact that we had the fellowship of one another,( the required 12 jurors, as well as a 13th juror as extra witness), kept each of us from being overly burdened and always supported, even during disagreements. We were going to step out of a comfort zone and into a place where conflicts were everywhere. An entire week of interviews, listening to witnesses whose clinical studies and researches were tirelessly pointing to both the defense and prosecution polls, caused me a sickening that can't be explained. I literally felt nauseous most of the time. Starting at 8am, sometimes earlier each day, challenged my attention span, self-confidence and level of intellect.

How could I possibly contain something so 'big', and deliberate toward a fair verdict? I asked myself. But we were surrounded by so many services in every required field for establishing viable witnesses to help us along. Law enforcement, forensic scientists, medical professionals, pathologists, radiologists, clinical psychologists, and experts in child protective services, educated us on what is most necessary in delivering a verdict without emotional bias or opinion.

The Case In General ( Intense Descriptives)
The prosecution was stronger in its findings than those of the defense, but I was very impressed by the defense attorney's statements whose job must have been over the top in effort to stay honest without surrendering innocence on behalf of her client. She used sharp examples of how a person can assume what they see to be the truth to uphold doubt of the father being the perpetrater. At one point she used a FedEx label to illustrate that we can see the sign, but not a hidden 'arrow' within the text of the design, which was apparently used to advertise its focused and fast service. It took me awhile to 'see' the arrow, but the abstract illustration was used to contrast a more concrete suggestion. Clever. Without going into too much graphic detail, we had to see photographs that stung us. A baby whose several cranial lacerations and dotted bruises and broken bones was more than anyone could imagine a responsible parent could induce making its severity central focus. As a jury, we knew we had to speak on her behalf as well as other children in the future to minimize such things happening again as prompted by the law. The timelines had to be examined, which made a difference to the decision of death. For instance, what happened between the doctor's appointment where the child was considered healthy, (other than a virus with low grade fever) and the fatal 911 call from her father at around 6:30pm. that night reporting that this little girl had stopped breathing and her temperature was only 94°? The bruises and lacerations were not seen by her pediatrician earlier, so the child's blunt trauma had to have taken place within three to four hours to give time for her temperature to drop.

Questions on why the report was made at the time she stopped breathing and not sooner defused and clouded the defense. It was becoming more and more obvious that the father and mother, though they were together after the doctor's appointment, and even took time to visit with friends before finally going back to their apartment without the filled prescriptions, were both responsible for at least the neglect. The blunt force trauma, however, pointed to the father who indicated he spent the first part of the late afternoon hours alone with the baby. Although he did not testify (nor is required to), his initial statement was incriminating. He told law enforcement that he and the child's mother, alternated taking naps, leaving the baby on the couch for an undetermined amount of time. Once the 911 call was made, the father was instructed to give CPR to the baby, while the initial ambulatory and fire department came with life support to ascerbate the major efforts of reviving the child. Once arriving at the hospital around 7:30 pm, the CPR efforts allowed for the heart beat to return while also being placed on a respirator. This caused her temperature to raise to a normal range for at least the next 3 1/2 days, though her breathing never did. It was clear the child suffered brain death that began on February 5th until she was formally pronounced dead on February 9th.

How Must We Look At This?
In summation, although the attorneys, judge, and bayliff treated us with uncanny honor and respect, the long hours of sitting still and being attentive to every possible element of the trial, put our bodies and minds in a kind of mild paralysis. I was sore all over and my stomach still has not returned to normal. My family said that my demeanor has been quite serious since the trial's final verdict was delivered to the judge, and I am a little afraid I could not stand up to this much pressure again, although I can't swear to it. Should you be called for jury duty, you'll remember that not everyone is nominated, and even fewer elected. It is by law that you must at least show for the draft process, but be honest if you do not think you can give it your best. I would think you should at least try; nothing negative will happen if you do not.
Also, remember that certain cases require a specific chemistry of individuals on one type of trial, while others require a different breed so that you do not take it seriously should you not be selected. There is always a next time. I hope this has helped you in understanding the process as well as some general ideas on what faces a jury in the instance of a criminal law trial.
Photo: Example of Similar jury seating, courtesy of Seattle Weekly: http://www.google.com/imgresimgurl/

Dots that Connect To the Future- My Culinary Prophecy

    When I was only 9 years old, I created something that would follow me many years later though at the time it did not click. I made a space in our clothes closet and stacked two small empty drawers on top of a small table. It looked like a small china cabinet. Then on the small table, there was an aluminum pan that resembed a sink. I loved taking my tea set, plates, and other miniature things which I arranged on the tiny china cabinet, and pretend I was washing them. I remember that the wooden floor under me was warm due to the length of time I spent in that tiny home manufactured kitchen. Jumping forward to literature class when I was 15, we were asked to create a pseudonym that we could use to author our short stories and poems. I chose "CookieZeal". 

    The first name was reflecting a playful and childlike name. The last had to reflect how I would like to be known. I chose "Zeal", as the virtue attracted me as enthusiastic, energized, and even flambouyant. It took me an extra 40 years to realize this. Yes. When I was 55, and enjoying the artistic approach to cooking, I realized why I was inspired to choose that name. I have practiced on cooking, smoking meats and barbequing, wonderful foods that required time and study by trial and error, which fulfilled the cooking portion. 

    I also have spent more time in the kitchen than anywhere, including my study while writing, because of all the dishes I've washed. How do I pull this together as a big picture? The closet symbolized the cacoon of my future travel. Burrowing in this infantile sac, I was unknowingly rehearsing my adulthood with all the premature versions of cooking. The pen name venture was what I thought could be used for authorship, being a young writer of the 60's with little or no mentoring on how to become published by my real name. Being introduced to the internet, I thought it be just as well to cloak under that name as well. I did not want to be an imposter, but I was being precocious of my identity. The dots connect again, when in these later years, I not only am collecting social security, but my spiritual awareness is showing me that God had a pick in this whole marauding of identity.

Cruelty Begins The New Year for One Family

A family of 5-a mother, father, two natural children and one godchild, are forced to move out of the same house for the second time in the dead of freezing temperatures as we speak. The father’s mother of this family is coping with cancer and their godchild’s mother threatened to take the child away if he and his wife did not permanently keep the child. How could this happen? What else could go wrong?

The family was renting a home on the south side of town for about 2 years. The landlord sold the home so that he did not have to pay taxes on it. The new owner charged the residents with the taxes which they could not afford and which caused them to move out and choose a house in a lower quality neighborhood. He went ahead and paid the taxes, but decided that since they liked the house so much and improved the interior , he would allow them to move back in and verbally contracted them to pay for the home in partial payments to insure their ownership. Delighted to have the house again, they moved back within a few months in hopes to proceed with the buying. However, there’s been a change of mind by the landlord. He is not only reneging on his original agreement of partial payments, he increased the price of the home. The buyers were terribly upset and tried talking to the owner about their original plan and even told them they would have had to go to their church to help with the taxes if they were expected. He had the nerve to suggest that they could ask them for the money for the home as well. Huh?

A caring neighbor told the family that he thinks he knows why. Another woman down the street has expressed to buy the home right away. Shocked and confused, this hardshipped couple sought legal counsel and were advised that due to the depraved way things were being handled, to go ahead and move out.

Could a person be this covetous that he could put a hardworking family out again and really expect to sleep nights? Insult to injury, the owner is digging up old law offense records of the father( not legally relative) in order to validate his reasons. I call this a case of slander, and scrooging cruelty. What do YOU think?

Struggling With the Antagonist ( A Learned Neurosis)

In Margeret Mitchell's epic novel, Gone With The Wind, we see the author's soft appeal and romancing tones in a vortex of voracious conflict. Simple times in the South's early history backdrop the story with beauty and idealism, while a raging domestic war confronts the characters. This technique or effort puts the author at risk. The risk of being identified with the ugly truths that fight its idealism and beauty. Being in this predicament is not at all unique as that is what makes for a good book. In fact, it is critically necessary. The problem is that the writer's true fabric, should he or she be more sheltered, has to temporarily be overcome by this enemy of heroism. Like scratching a blackboard, the sound and feeling make us cringe, but the actual doing it has to bring a healing procedure of massage and meditation nearly impossible. It is most difficult for me as I was raised in a well-guarded and sheltered homelife. Reading other epics is what divided my more pristine response, allowing me to build the 'bad guy' up enough to create a situation. Is it believable? It must be.

Though sheltered in a loving and seemingly well-balanced family, Mitchell was indoctrinated with stories of the Civil war by her parents, her own mother Maybell, independant of the standard femme fatale of the era, supporting the women's suffrage. Later, during college, she landed a job at an Atlanta newspaper as a journalist, and became one of the best in her business. Before Selznick took it on as an academy award winning movie, her book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Though successful, she suffered from bouts of depression that subdued any desire to top the book that turned over the movie industry forever. Some sources say that it was due to her admonitions with the graphic horror with which she wrestled in such a powerful project. There is a hint (foreshadowing) of drawing toward then away from the adversary.

This was just one example among so many whose lives contributed to the balanced effort of the best sellers, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The story deals with moral and religious elements that fiercely fight one another, placing both protagonists and its enemies in a clever duo, a contest of philosophical interests. Different from Mitchell's history in theme, they both contain the firey elements of plot development compelling the readers to stay with the story. Digging for clues planted by those elements of good and evil, the reader can easily become a literary juror who must decide which will succeed, (all the while knowing that good usually wins in the end.)

The antagonistic influence is the most difficult to write into a narrative, be it illustrated in conflictive forces within the story itself or a character. However, reading the basic principles of the best sellers, especially those of the 20th century, we as writers, have hope that we can become well acquainted with the successful art of losing our less candid thoughts behind for the sake of the story. For it is in the passion that makes all stories cohesive, no matter how hard the author must slip out of their own element. The author, in truest sense, wins after all.

On A Subway

The face was quite like I imagined
appearing close to the subway door;
and I, so very shy, thought you would
never remember me; now that I had
a larger frame, and wrinkles under my
scanty brows, tears that still flow
without much warning to give me away;
I would have to tell you how your hair
smelled like pine tar and your skin like
starchy linen in the heat of a sweat.

...and so this is how we never met?
passing up a jaunt to Queens once we reached
the stop in the Bronx. It didn’t matter-
thunder rumbled the screeching brakes
rain swallowing your image,
the wind filtered the smell while your
face was only the ghost of a dream thinking
maybe I should have gone to Jersey after all.

Does the finished book seem too far away?

I finally learned something. Yes. I'm going on the 62nd year of my life, and all the lessons I've learned have suddenly come to the awesome knowledge of 'huh'? Why? Because I'm always on a timeline. You know who you are, and why it seems like finishing a book takes so long and then the whole time you're trying to materialize the abstract of your wild imagination, there is that thought in the back of your mind. " But what if no one wants to buy it? "

Stop right there. If you're like me, writing nearly every day, then half the work is done for you. You just need a support system. Not the one at home that needs to be taken to school. Nor the one who wants meatloaf for dinner instead of stuffed tilapia. You need a group within a sensible driving distance to help you keep the vision, keep you focused, and force some discipline into the dream of being published.

...to be continued

Stellar observation by an Average American

Okay, folks. This is another political thesis on why Obama is not doing the part we thought he would but its angle will surprise you. Although I discern the administration to be awry, I'm always trying to see the side that could make the American public take more responsibility by including themselves in the imbalance of our country. After all, we are the receptors of what the world sells-be it merchandise, jobs, attitudes, and even beliefs. Why shouldn't we take inventory? I also believe in praying for our leaders so that God will get His way according to his order and plan.
Still, I am not like my friend, Paula Harrison Gatewood (Facebook member and political rally leader) who seemingly is answering the call to arms in the campaign against unfair government. My call is evangelism. But it took my sister-in-law to discern the hot topic of Obama's faulty identity that stirred me up on the nearly exhausted issue of religious labeling. So here is her brilliant statement which I will post as best as it was told to me with a little embellishment:

" The reason our country's a mess is not as much about what our president is doing wrong. It is about who he is NOT! It's not even as much as becoming president on the coattails of his cultural popularity. No. What kind of man has the guts to become president and change his religion to be accepted while the very people who voted for him are finding out something pretty serious. He's not who he is supposed to be. He's from a Muslim background; he turned Christian for the label and won and now the world is learning he is a fraud. He got away with something pretty spineless because it is important 'how' presidents are identified by their faith claim. He won't stand by what he is because he knows it won't go over. I'm very mad about that!"

So, folks, my sweet simple country girl sister-in-law breaks ground again and puts the fire back in the bull's feet. Tell us if you think it is important to claim what you believe? Why or why not?
According to Donna, it is not about an issue, really. It's about who someone IS. And in this light, who someone is NOT! ( No inflamed debates, please. Just practical and passionate suggestions.)

Chow down on that one!


M. Dianne Grotius Berry - Senior Editor for "Rantings From River Bay"

Using Poetic Patches, haiku, or haibon

There are little voices that must burst out with a kind of inaudible volume. This allows there to be no limit to its comprehensive. This is the form of poetry.
For example, let me example the Poetic patch;
Between certain paragraphs while bookwriting, this special poetic
device helps to concentrate the meanings with fewer lines while
summating plots, characters, and other focus points for the reader.

In my essay, " Struggling With the Antagonist", an in-depth study of
how an author's real personality and demeanor are brutally challenged by
a novel's antagonist, it breaks away from the narrative and inserts the following poem as a 'patch' that extends and strengthens its details:

"I used to drip down the wall
like a stupified drunk;
but the music of poetry led
me to its wide open door.
Now, the jealousies of great
prose are merely strings of beads
around a sweaty neck."

The story goes on, but after another page, or at the end of each chapter is a poetic patch.
You see? There are more to come.
Leave your thoughts, examples or questions here!