Remember a couple days ago when I clumsily mentioned this when talking about a novel I thought was pretty awful?

Have you ever heard the rule of thumb that when a gun is introduced in a story (no matter how benignly) it will eventually get USED in some kind of a climactic moment?

Well. I can now put a name to this. It’s Chekhov’s gun and here is a link to a discussion about it. I’m sharing it without having read it.

Two things:

1) I found the Chekhov’s gun reference in my *next* book (after the Snakes) when the main character eventually used a GUN that she purchased in an early chapter.

2) I do NOT know why I couldn’t remember the Chekhov reference because even though I am not exactly a literary giant, I did hang around with the YAG theatre guild for a number of years and it was certainly discussed a number of times and I betcha any of the serious Yaggies know the whole thing by heart. Me? I was busy keeping up the admin side of things, the necessary part of running a non-profit org that the executive/artistic director couldn’t really do and was a wee bit paranoid about, at least the tech part that I introduced…

Sharing without reading/watching? Posting without knowledge? One of the annoying facebook shares I have endured in the last few days was a video knocking down AOC (google her if you don’t know who she is). While I don’t agree with everything AOC (or anyone) stands for, I admire her GREATLY for her courage in giving us straight talk and I think we DO need to let our younger citizens take the lead in terms of the future. We will not be around. I will may blahg about this in relation to a horrific event in my own family’s relatively recent history some other day. Seeya then, Kassandra.

So a recent facebook share (by a high school classmate with an advanced degree no less) was a Fox News clip showing a border patrol official who tried to dismiss AOC’s claims about the horrific conditions she encountered when visiting the border detention centers. I admit that I didn’t watch the whole clip (4:46 minutes, no thank you) but I got the gist. (And not all of Fox news is bad so please don’t go there.)

One of my more intellectually challenged high school classmates made a random comment that it was horrible that AOC swore on a Quran when taking her oath of office. Of course this is not likely true as AOC was raised as a Catholic. Not to mention that according to the constitution, a specific book is not required for swearing to office and a religious test is not a requirement to run for office in the United States. As another classmate [bravely] pointed out.

The point? Read/watch and THINK before you share ANYTHING you find on the internet. If you have time to watch a 4:46 minute video, you have time to think about whether it is true or reasonable or whether there’s another side to the story that is not portrayed. And even time to research it.

And look up what our Constitution has to say. I know how hard that is because I struggle with it too. But it’s important to understand the basis of the laws of our beautiful country.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 10th, 2019 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.