King Arthur Movie Tristan

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

rated: 4 out of 5








When Johnny Smith was a little boy, he fell on some ice and hit his head badly.
Ever since that day he gets strange 'visions', but doesn't think anything of it.
He becomes a school teacher and falls in love with fellow teacher Sarah.
One night after he takes her to a carnival, Sarah becomes sick with food poisoning.
Johnny drives her home in her car, then takes a cab back to his own place. On the way they get into a car accident, where everyone but Johnny dies.
He then goes into a coma for over 4 years.
After he is in a coma for nearly one year, Sarah gets engaged, eventually married and has a child.

When Johnny awakes from his coma, he comes to realize that he has been asleep for a long time. It depresses and scares him. He also finds out that his girl is married to another. His mom has become a religious fanatic. Johnny also begins to have 'visions'. He predicts events for a few of the hospital staff. And soon, the media catches wind of his psychic abilities and comes to ask questions. He has several painful operations and goes through physical therapy in order to walk again.


The story goes on to have Johnny help the police find a serial killer. Johnny can get visions after touching people or objects.
But he also gets all kinds of attention from people wanting him to help them. He becomes a kind of celebrity, though most people view him as a fraud or a freak. Johnny feels he has been cheated out of a life with Sarah, and now he just wants to live a normal life and go back to teaching.


'He was alone now, walking down this gloomy and deserted hall of shadows. And it began to seem to him that it wasn't an illusion or a mirage or a dream-at least not of the ordinary kind. It was as if he had entered limbo, a weird conduit between the land of the living and the dead... '






I enjoyed this book, it was spooky, sad and I like the relationship between Johnny & Sara. I also like the miniseries and the movie 'The Dead Zone'.

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!




Nature XXVII, Autumn



The morns are meeker than they were,



The nuts are getting brown;



The berry's cheek is plumper,



The rose is out of town.




The maple wears a gayer scarf,



The field a scarlet gown.



Lest I should be old-fashioned,



I'll put a trinket on.



~Emily Dickinson

P. J. O'Rourke.

The writer/humourist did a nice job of breaking down Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in last years On the Wealth of Nations: Books that Changed the World. It's a difficult book to handle, and O'Rourke did so deftly.

For that, for his years of satire, (many a blogger, myself included, knows how difficult it can be to write satire) happy birthday, and may you have 60 more.

A quick excerpt from Brian Mulroney Memoirs:

I had long been impressed by the elaborate courtesies extended to former American presidents by their successors, "out of respect for the office," even when their earlier relations were not warm. I was determined to act in the same fashion toward my predecessor.

During the 1984 campaign I had promised a commission of inquiry into the Petro-Canada financial transactions. I was aware of substantive allegations about prominent Liberals - including some close to the Prime Minister - making millions on the deal when Petro-Canada was set up. Upon reflection, I declined to proceed when it became clear that Trudeau would be forced to testify, thereby being caught up in the media circus that could badly harm him and his family. Because I believed it would be wrong to drag a former Prime Minister through the mud, I cancelled plans for the inquiry ... (Mulroney, Brian. Memoirs: 1939-1993. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2007. Page 529)

I point this quote out not because he's right, he's not, at least not when it comes to possible criminal action, but because it says a lot about Mulroney. And it says a lot about our political process. As I mentioned last month about a Warren Kinsella penned article:

Here's a tip for Warren Kinsella, and the rest of the Liberal party. it wasn't the Gomery Commission that dealt the shattering blow, it was the acts committed by members of the Liberal party that the Gomery Commission investigated that dealt the blow.

Same principle here, an inquiry doesn't dis-respect the office, it's the actions of the office holder that stand to disrespect the office.

Stephen Harper is right to call an inquiry, and it should be a full inquiry, looking into Mulroney's actions while in office, as well as the later actions of Jean Cretien regarding the Airbus probe, reporters who won't let this story go, and anyone else involved in this story. It's time for full accountability or, if no accountability is required, to put this story to rest.

This is from last November 10th, and looking back on it, it bears repeating:

Why Wear the Poppy?

The inspiration for this column came from Father William J. De Souza'a Column in today's National Post, Take Up Our Quarrel.

Every year the question of why we wear the poppy comes up, and every year I have felt unsatisfied with the answer. This year, with the Afghanistan mission and the 'surrender poppy' in the news, the question is more important, the answers less satisfying.

We wear the poppy because of the reference to it in Lieut. Col. John McCrae's (1872-1918) iconic poem In Flanders Field. His image of the poppies growing on fresh graves, against a back drop of white crosses, creates a powerful visual:

In Flanders Field the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row.

It is through this visual that the poppy has become universally recognized as the symbol of dead soldiers. However, the poem doesn't stop at providing a nice visual connection between the WWI battlefields and modern day Canada. It also provides with the reason why we should wear a poppy.

The speaker of the poem is not the poet, John McCrae; it is the freshly dead young soldiers who lie in the Flanders graves:

Between the crosses row on row,
that mark our place...

We are the Dead, Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields

It is not ambiguous, you are being spoken to by the dead, their story being given. But the dead also issue a demand to us:

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

And that demand from the dead, that is the reason we wear a poppy. The poppy is a convenant between you and them, by wearing it you are committing to take up their quarrel. It is not enough to remember them, we must also remember why they died, why they made the sacrifice they did. And they are not subtle in reminding us so:

If you break faith with those of us who die
We shall not sleep, though the poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Be sure to wear a poppy tomorrow, and remember that by doing so you are keeping the faith with those who die; and that means taking the torch from their failing hands.

And please, please go to your local cenotaph tomorrow, and show the boys who are still here that we have not broken the faith.

The Vampire Lestat

rated: 4 out of 5






'I am dead, I am a vampire. And things will die so that I may live; I will drink their blood so that I may live. And I will never, never see Nicolas again, nor my mother, nor any of the humans I have known and loved, nor any of my human family. I'll drink blood, and I'll live forever. That is exactly what will be. And what will be is only beginning; it is just born! And the labor that brought it forth was rapture such as I have never known.'






After reading Interview With the Vampire, I wanted to read the rest of Anne Rice's vampire novels.

This book started off slowly for me, but as I kept on reading it took off. I like how you never really know what is going to happen next in this story.


It starts off with Lestat being 'underground' for a many years, then awakening and finding himself in the 1980's. He is stronger than ever and starved for human blood. He finds out that Louis, wrote a book called 'Interview With the Vampire'.
After reading a copy of it, he tears it apart and decides to write his own book. He wants to write the story of his life.


This is where the book really takes off, when Lestat begins to tell his tale.
We get to see a different side of Lestat than the one Louis describes in 'Interview With the Vampire'. We also learn where Lestat comes from and you understand him a bit better. He describes how be became a vampire and what happened to the vampire who made him. We see what happened to Lestat's mother Gabrielle, which is very juicy by the way. (and all of this is of course fascinating to those who read 'Interview')
This book had some very creepy passages and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
A few of the characters from 'Interview' make an appearance in this book as well, as well as new vampires. We also see how the 'Theater of the Vampires' came to be.






'I had to find Louis. I had to talk to him. In fact after reading his account of things, I ached for him, ached for his romantic illusions, and even his dishonesty.
I ached even for his gentlemanly malice and his physical presence, the deceptively soft sound of his voice.


Of course I hated him for all the lies he told about me. But the love was far greater than the hate. He had shared the dark and romantic years of the nineteenth century with me, he was my companion as no other immortal had ever been.'




Anne Rice takes her vampires all over the world in this story. Even to Egypt and to the ancient pyramids. I really liked the references to 'Isis and Osiris' and other Egyptian gods and goddesses.



'The god Osiris was the god of wine to the Egyptians, the one later called Dionysus by the Greeks. And Dionysus was the "dark god" of the theater, the devil whom Nicki described to me when we were boys at home. And now we had the theater full of vampires in Paris. Oh, it was too rich.'






visit the official Anne Rice website

That I did always love



I bring thee proof:


That till I loved


I did not love enough.





That I shall love alway,


I offer thee


That love is life,


And life hath immortality.





This, dost thou doubt, sweet?


Then have I



Nothing to show


But Calvary.




-Emily Dickinson


art by http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/