Torture Is Bad

I have not approved of how my nation has conducted its defense ever since 9/11.

The reason I don't approve is because of the Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar were arrogant, violent, mass murderers, and incredibly wealthy. In order to take their wealth, the king of France had them rounded up and tortured until they admitted to all sorts of absurd and completely unbelievable behavior. Many of them were burned at the stake after very lengthy imprisonments, for which there was no due process.

Before the Knights Templar were rounded up and tortured, your average medieval European did not like them. After the Knights Templar were rounded up and tortured, they became martyrs, heroes, and their fame lives to this day.

I've read quite a bit about how these men were tortured. It's scary how little the techniques have changed since the early 1200s. The Knights Templar were chained in dark dungeons where they were subjected to the whims of the outdoor temperature. They were fed hog slop and deprived of sleep and daylight. They were not allowed to wear clothing, except in "court." The Inquisition would torture one man while the others watched.

All of this barbaric torture did not elicit a single verifiable "confession," because there were no charges filed in the first place.

I cannot believe that the United States of America is treating human beings this way in the 21st century. It boggles the mind.

It also runs absolutely counter to every logical manner of national defense.

When people are tortured, those who love them venerate them. Those who might have been mildly interested in the cause become zealous about it. Torture does not curb terrorism. It creates martyrs. Heroes. It reflects badly on the nation that initiates the torture. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but in the centuries to come, even in the decades to come. Even in the nearest years to come.

I would rather myself and my beloved daughters be killed in a terrorist attack than be a citizen that condones the inhumane treatment of individuals in my defense. In fact, in the remote chance that anyone in my family actually is harmed by a terrorist, refer to this post! I do not condone torture!

The men who flew those planes into buildings were barbarians. Our response to those acts has been equally barbaric. What is it we teach kids about bullying? Don't fight back! But why, then, have we responded to bullying by being worse than our attackers? What does that solve? What does that say about us?

It could very well be that, 800 years from now, there will be boys' service clubs called Bin Laden. Jacques de Molay was pretty much a dimwit when he led the Templars and was burnt at the stake. Now his name is highly regarded. Torture does that. It makes heroes out of people whose deeds should be vilified or at least long forgotten.

I'm ashamed of my nation. "God bless America" is a strong damnation of the Christian deity.

Light a Candle for the Templars

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," coming to you live (sort of) an hour before dawn on Friday, October 12, 2007!

Tonight commences three nights of faerie revelry at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, i.e. Faeriecon. There are still tickets available for the events! I'll bet you could even get a standby seat on a plane if you live far away.

Don't you love how I spend your money for you? Well, if I had any of my own maybe I'd be more frugal with yours.

I must run off and teach school today, then run home and make dinner for my peerless seamstress of a mother-in-law, who is joining us for the festival. Then my daughter The Heir and I are going to the Good Faerie Ball. (Trying not to be nervous about driving into Philly and parking in a garage. It's too late at night to take the El.)

Still, I want to pause a moment today, and especially on October 13, 2007, to mark the 700th anniversary of the arrest, torture, and suppression of the Knights Templar. This little bit of history may seem to be so far in the past as to be inconsequential. Think again.

Few events have had such a sweeping effect on modern Europe. Any time anyone has opposed state-based religions, any time anyone has argued for separation of church and state, any time the folk have risen up to depose ruthless monarchs and dictators, the ghosts of the Templars are there.

Just ask a member of the Freemasons. You'll have to choose a live Mason, because George Washington is dead.

So please light a candle for the Knights Templar and shake your fist in the direction of the nearest despotic ruler ... err ... bad guy in power, and say, "Today the folk are raised up, and casting down the proud! We remember Jacques de Molay!"

I don't know how Elmore Leonard wrote all those great novels at this hour of the morning. My TaB-free brain is in shutdown.

Faeriecon! See you there!

Long Night's Journey into Day

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we think marathon running should be confined to moments when the British are coming! Let Mercury do the running for you. Slow it down a notch! The race is to the steady, not the swift.

Princess the faerie and I are here today with great news.

A real, live publishing house has agreed to publish my novel, Gray Magic! This is not just some vanity thing I'm doing on my own to make myself a millionaire. This is editors who believe in the work. It will come out in an affordable, durable paperback edition, as sturdy as that copy of Mists of Avalon in your local library. You know, the one that's been read by every woman in town.

Gray Magic is set in the Middle Ages. It's about the Knights Templar. And I started it a decade before The Da Vinci Code came out, so it's no rip-off of Dan Brown. It just has a similar theme, done in a completely different way.

If you know anything about the Knights Templar, you probably know that they were Crusaders and bankers with enormous wealth who were suddenly arrested, detained without legal representation, tortured until they confessed to bizarre, unreal things, and then burnt at the stake if they recanted their confessions. These men were held in impenetrable fortresses for years and years. Many went mad. Some committed suicide.

Gee, what did I say I was writing about? Is it Guantanamo, or France of 700 years ago? The latter, bearing chilling similarities to the former.

This is absolutely bizarre, but the 700th anniversary of the Templars' imprisonment will occur this coming Saturday. While I am at the Faerie Con. Coincidence? Nope. We at "The Gods Are Bored" do not believe in coincidences. Let's call it serendipity and hope it means that the ghost of my central character is indeed looking in upon me to help get his story out.

As the process of producing Gray Magic continues, I'll tell you a little bit about the plot and characters, just so you know it's the kind of thing you'd like to stuff in the old beach bag and read at the edge of the pounding surf. I studied fiction writing with John Barth, but I am no John Barth and never was, and never ever will be. This book is something that anyone can read. It's an adventure story with a moral and more than one nod to faeries and the Old Bored Gods.

Princess went with me to New York yesterday to review the contract. She thinks it's swell. So do I, because I've been working on Gray Magic for 15 years, it's gone through about 10 drafts, and after that long I bet I could have taught at least one monkey to type War and Peace perfectly.

So you know it will be good.

Faerie Con is just days away! Come, please! I'm going to get to meet Brian Froud! I'm so excited!

For once there's good stuff going on. Pinch me and wake me up.