The Auto Auction Group

An Italian court judge set to rule whether Jesus Christ existed or not.

……………………………………………………….. ….

This is no bosh shot. Jesus Christ has “appeared” in court for trial. This controversial man has refused to exit the news headlines. It is either that he was born December 25 or not. Or that he performed miracles or not. It has also been argued as to whether he resurrected or not. Is he God or the son of God? Is it true that his mother, Mary, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, without conjugation? You decide! A church priest even labeled him a “hypocrite” and “trickster.”

Presently, the focus is on whether Jesus was a fictional, or non-fictional, character. Now, listen up: A court judge has been saddled with the responsibility to decide if the man who died about two hundred years ago ever existed, or set foot, on earth. Moreover, the scene of this drama is Italy, the home of Roman Catholic Church, the most populous religion in the world. And this church is headed by the pope, the veritable Vicar of Christ who never lived! (Play me Sitting on Edge.)

At his trial before High Priest Joseph Caiaphas and Governor Pontius Pilate when he was alive, Christ had no attorneys. But in this celebrated case, lawyers on both sides are busy marshalling arguments in court as to whether he lived or not, before bemused onlookers. (Trust the learned men in wigs and gowns.) But how did it all begin?

TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON “SPECIAL ESSAYS” IN THIS WEBSITE:

http://controversialwriter.tripod.com Maito: controversialwriter@yahoo.com

Arthur Zulu is an editor, book reviewer, and the author of A LETTER TO NOAH and HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER.

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Phone bugs are among the most popular of devices for surveillance. This is because there is something that humans enjoy about listening in on conversations and learning things that others may not want them to learn. For those who aspire to involve themselves in professional surveillance, and even for those who just participate in surveillance as a hobby, knowing the basics of phone bugs is valuable information.

Phone bugs are interesting because they are versatile. There are different types of these listening devices, and it is even possible to combine two or more different bugs into one bug that can act as its own backup device. These hybrid phone bugs are constructed from one of four different eavesdropping techniques: radio frequency (RF), ultrasonic, optical, and acoustic.
RF phone bugs are the most popular of covert listening devices. This is because they are inexpensive and they are difficult to trace. Even if the bug is discovered, chances are that it will not be traced to you. Radio waves are transmitted from the bug’s location to a secondary location. They are usually small and can easily be hidden in a device or very near the phone.

Ultrasonic phone bugs are bugs that read audio pressure waves. The signal from the talking is captured and then transformed into a signal too high for human ears to hear. It is transmitted to another location where it is turned back into an understandable signal. These bugs are harder to detect than RF bugs, and do cost a little more money.

The optical bug is the least popular of all the phone bugs. It is rather expensive and can be difficult to use. What the optical device does is turn sound (or even data, so it can be used to bug VoIP phone calls) into pulsating beams of light. The light is then reconverted into sound in order to be heard by the eavesdropper.

Finally, the last weapons in the covert listening devices arsenal are the acoustic phone bugs. These, however, are not technically bugs. They are merely low-tech options that allow you to listen in using things like rubber tubes at construction “soft spots” and open windows.

Know your listening devices, and you will be able to more effectively find out what you should know with phone bugs.

(c) 2005 Copyright www.spyassociates.com. This article is about: Phone Bugs

To learn more about Spy and Surveillance Products visit www.spyassociates.com Read other related articles at spyassociates.blogspot.com/

Lately, the world of reformed Christian churches (often called “Calvinists” and “Presbyterians”) has displayed a fervent preoccupation with a doctrine gaining currency, which bears the name “paedocommunion.” This heterodox notion aspires to usurp the unanimous testimony of the Holy Scripture and the solitary testimony of the confessional reformation, usually identified as “credo-communion.”

What is paedocommunion [hereafter "PC"]? It is the practice of giving the Lord’s Supper to baptized children, even apart from a rite of passage or criterion such as confirmation or the making of a credible profession of faith. Herein, unless specified more particularly, however, PC refers to the doctrine which advocates the practice of giving the Lord’s supper apart from a prior examination, rather than to the practice itself.

Contrariwise, I will use “credocommunion” [hereafter "CC"] to refer to the doctrine which advocates the practice of requiring a test (criterion) for cognitive and moral maturity (as judged by the elders of a particular church) as a prerequisite for participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. The following provides an excellent and brief overview of the confessional perspective on the Lord’s supper. It is this position I purport to defend at present, though the whole confessional position is much longer, consisting as it does of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 29 and the Larger Catechism, questions #168 – #177. Here is the abbreviated form from WCF chapter 29:

I. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his Church unto the end of the world; for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death, the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him; and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other, as members of his mystical body.

III. The Lord Jesus hath, in this ordinance, appointed his ministers to declare his word of institution to the people, to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation.

The title above indicates that the doctrine of PC incurs a “transcendental failure.” What I mean by this maybe better understood with a brief history of the idea of a “transcendental.” This referred with German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, to the most basic categories (i.e. modes, etc) of human perception, or (in more modern terms) ways in which people are “hardwired” to view and interact with the world. A more obscure Dutch theologian, one Cornelius Van Til, used the idea in a novel way by applying these not to people, but to the worldviews — basic units of thought which form an interpretive matrix for understanding what kind of world this is (metaphysics), how we know what we know (epistemology), and how we ought to live our lives (ethics). For Dr. Van Til, transcendentals comprise the most basic parts of a worldview, which woven together properly provide the foundational picture of the world that enables us to make sense out of life’s experiences.

“Transcendentals” thus render human experience intelligible to us. Without them, one’s attempts to account for the different features of what we wake up to in the morning (the unity of our experience and yet the many different kinds of particular things making up that experience, called the “problem of the one and the many” by some) would leave some or all such features of reality unexplained. Thus, transcendentals skillfully interlaced into a cognitive framework — as with the Christian worldview — provide the elemental interpretive components sufficient to “make sense of it all.”

But for the transcendentals to render an account coherent, they must be related to each other in a consistent fashion. For a worldview to accomplish its “interpretive function,” it cannot permit internal dissonance among its many parts, for this would ruin its claim to coherence. Each part of the worldview in question must sweetly comport with the others — both the transcendental, or more basic parts, as well as those more peripheral, in order to manage the “consent of all the parts.” Thus any worldview whose basic elements relate to each other like Larry, Moe and Curly (dissonantly) necessarily cannot provide the transcendentals — for some of its parts would logically exclude some transcendental elements, thus promoting “epistemological chaos.”

Now how is any of this profitable to this discussion? It implies that one may test the veridicality (truthfulness) of any doctrine by superimposing it, as it were, upon the Christian worldview to see if it implies the other parts of that worldview, so that one may see clearly whether it relates to the biblical outlook either by the consent of all the parts (logical coherence) or else by the dissent of many of the parts (logical dissonance). When we attempt this — and we will do so shortly — our exercise clearly falsifies the counterfeit doctrine of paedocommunion, identifying it as an element foreign to the biblical perspective — as we shall see.

Our first test for the PC doctrine finds it wholly incompatible with a biblical doctrine accepted by most advocates of PC, one typically dubbed “postmillenial eschatology.”

A. Paedocommunion v. Postmillenial Eschatology

PC advocates promote as a reason for yielding to their view the idea that the early Christian Church unanimously or generally promoted PC for the first nine centuries of its history. Moreover, they often give various reasons for why the Reformed confessions at present unanimously reject PC in favor of CC. This means that both sides are agreed, at least, that the Christian church’s confessional position presently is CC, not PC.

This places an interesting question before us then. Given postmillenial eschatology’s demand that the Church must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus progressively over time (corporate sanctification), which should we tend to favor, that of the early (far less doctrinally mature) or the much later and much more learned church? Or, put differently, which view identifies the era of greater grace and sanctification in the Church, the second or the seventeenth century? By answering the question consistently with the postmillenial outlook, the progress of the corporate sanctification of the Church would require us to favor the CC position.

B. By What Standard? Paedocommunion vs. Theonomic Ethics

Many, if not most, of the advocates for the PC position hold to the biblical position ordinarly dubbed “Theonomy,” the biblical view which maintains the principle of continuity as a rule for distinguishing which of the laws of the Older Testament continue to bind men and women to the performance thereof, and which laws do not, in the Newer Testament. This principle simply affirms that unless abrogated or qualified by a New Testament passage, or by the logical force of several such passages combined, Older Testamental laws continue to bind men to perform them as orginially given.

This implies, and Theonomists like the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen state so explicitly in their works, that God judges all men by the one and same standard — the law of God — which may be known by a proper application of the principle of continuity in studying out the various texts — together with other sound rules for properly interpreting the Word of God. So far, so good. But PC advocates quickly run up against an enigma created by one of their very own exegetical necessities.

Now PC proponents need to circumvent the CC requirement for children to show themselves able to examine and assess the moral quality of their lives against the standard of God’s Word as a way of preparing to partake of the Lord’s supper in a worthy manner. The perennially disputed passage in question reads, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup . . .” Here, PC adherents quickly point out that this must not apply to children (for it says “man”) and the early typological counterpart (see 1 Cor. 10:1 ff) surely included children without requiring such a test.

If we grant this position, however (simply for the sake of argument), we may quickly note that none of the persons — children OR ADULTS — in the typological shadow of “spiritual food and drink” in the previous chapter had to meet any such cognitive criterion; yet in 1 Corinthians 11, PC advocates expect us to accept the view that God has now chosen to require one communion standard for adults, and a different one (none at all), for children.

But Proverbs 20:10 clearly weighs in against just such ethical bifurcations required by anti-theonomic positions: “Differing weights and differing measures, the Lord detests them both.” I hasten to add here the very next verse, which in context deliberately expands on it — reads, “Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.” And since to do what is right means to do what God has commanded, the Bible clearly teaches that children and adults NEVER properly have two different ethical standards applied to them — as the PC position requires in its conflicting interpretations of “one standard for all,” and yet different standards used in 1 Cor. 10 as set over against 1 Cor. 11.

Thus, we find the PC advocate cannot maintain his pet exegtical strategy in 1st Corinthians 11, on the one hand, and the integtrity of a single ethical standard required by his Theonomy, on the other. How did Dr. Bahnsen say it so often … oh yes, now I remember, “You cannot have it BOTH ways.”

C. Paedocommunion vs. the Biblical Doctrine of The Nature of Oaths and Covenants

Next we come to examine whether or not the PC position meshes with the biblical teaching on the requirements for confirming covenants. These, we will see, are different than those required for initiating oaths and covenants in the Bible. First, we note that God has given historically two sacraments as signs and seals of the various administrations of the covenant of grace: the first initiatory and probationary, and the second continuous and confirmatory; in the first, the recipient of grace remains passive and receptive; in the second, the receiver of grace actively participates in the oath-based ritual in question.

The two trees in the garden of Eden provide examples: the trees of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil. The first showed a kind of probation and the other signified and sealed one in righteousness. The Old Covenant likewise displays two sacraments, (initiatory and probationary). Those circumcised into the Mosaic covenant took on this initiatory rite to enter the OT Church, the people of Israel.

Israel’s sacrificial system, summed up in the Passover, continued throughout the life of Israel, confirming the life promised by the covenant Lord. Here, the sacrificer waxed reckless only at his own injury (2 Samuel 6:5-15 and Lev 10:1-3).

The New Covenant also displays two sacraments where Baptism corresponds to circumcision (See Colossians 2:12-13), both of which function as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. Neither confers grace merely by the elements themselves.

After — and only after (note the biconditional) — one’s probation is fulfilled, he may be confirmed in his rights and priviledges of the second sacrament, which, in the case of the NT is the Lord’s Supper.

These examples, both from the Older and Newer covenants provide instances of a more general point about making and taking oaths (of which covenants are a subset). The making of any oath by one recognized as a domestic inferior in the Bible (i.e. a wife, son or daughter) is subject to judicial review and nullification by the federal head of the house.

Numbers 30:3-5 reads:

If a woman also vow a vow unto the LORD, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the LORD shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.

D. Common Objections to Credocommunion Overcome.

Some have alleged that this position requires an arbitrariness on the part of the elders since the Bible provides no objective way to decide when a child may begin taking the Lord’s Supper. I answer that a non-arbitrary marker of delineating readiness for the Lord’s supper does in fact exist in the Bible: nature itself. With puberty comes physical development, including the ability to think in terms of abstract and moral reasoning. This then provides the obvious point at which elders ought to begin an inquiry for readiness on the part of the child in concert with the assessment of the head of the house.

Moreover, Paul regularly appeals in the Scripture to such markers offered from nature, saying things like “does not even nature teach us…” . In the case of maturity as readiness for communion, the Scripture (Luke 2:41) agrees with this.

“And when he was 12 years old, they went up [to the passover] according to the custom.” That this was Jesus first trip to Passover is manifest from the context, and in this most commentators agree. J. Jeremias, in his landmark Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, throws some valuable light on this custom. He says, “…we may conclude (from Luke 2:41) that it was custom among people from a distance to bring their children when they reached twelve years of age.” (p. 76) Before twelve years of age, they remained at home.

Some have challenged that all the privileges of membership in the covenant community belong to all the saints, and that covenant children (being saints) should be admitted to the Lord’s Table.

I answer that this overlooks the obvious point that one may not necessarily undertake every covenant privileges from the moment of his entry into the covenant community (i.e. Church). Although each person (saint) in principle has every spiritual blessing in Christ from the moment of his or her baptism, yet he does not inherit them all at once in practice — but only in principle. Likewise, he obtains all his spiritual gifts from the moment he is born again, but this does not entitle him to begin preaching the gospel — even if he is so called — without first undertaking intellectual preparation and certification by elders of the church.

Examples of “delayed privileges” in the Bible include the facts that:

* No male can go to war to fight for his country until he reaches the age of 20.

* No minister may begin ministering in an official ecclesiastical post until he reaches the age of thirty, (see the Levitical age requirement and the Lukan account of the age at which Jesus began ministering) even though he receives the gifts for ministry at the moment he is born of the Spirit.

* No one may “practice the theology” (Ahem) of the Song of Solomon until he or she is first married.

E. Paedo-communion vs. Salvation by Grace alone through FAITH alone.

The classical reformed (and biblical) formulation of the grace communicated by the sacraments comes to the heart of the believer who participates rightly via the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit who indwells every regenerate saint. But the doctrine of PC seeks to circumvent this understanding by making the Lord’s supper efficacious in the life of the UNbelieving saint also — the saint before he is old enough even to understand the gospel, and, therefore (ordinarily) to possess saving faith. The Scripture says plainly enough that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God [preached]. By making the sacramental grace efficacious APART from the faith-imparting work of the Spirit results in (i.e. implies) affirming the doctrine of “mechanistic grace” common referred to by people addicted to Latin as “ex opere operato.”

But this has the easy and swift refutation that mechanistic grace is a “yes or no” proposition in which it would not be possible to receive baptism in an “unworthy manner” – you either do or do not receive it – and no one would ever die from participitating in such a version of the Lord’ s Supper the wrong fashion. This is because the curse as well as the blessing attending holy communion remain the work of the Spirit of grace.

But since faith is in fact a biblical prerequisite for receiving the blessing of communion, so also is the proper understanding of the gospel (intellectual maturity), since faith comes by hearing and understanding the Word of the Lord.

CONCLUSION: From this brief introduction and internal critique of a counterfeit doctrine and the positions normally associated with it in a Christian (Theonomic-Postmillenial) worldview, it should be apparent almost immediately that the doctrine of paedocommunion contradicts several major features of biblical teaching, denying in principle the consent of all the parts. Therefore, the Bible necessarily teaches the doctrine of credocommunion, and the Westminster divines once again win the day. These were wise men.

Carson Day has written 1.3 gazillion articles and essays with insightful — and sometimes even conventional — viewpoints. But don’t get your hopes up on the conventional part. Carson studied the history of ideas in college, and really likes to study up on the internet, the world wide classroom.

To visit Carson’s websites, go to: http://ophirgold.blogspot.com (The Omniblog) or http://extremeprofit.blogspot.com (Carson’s Day Trading Outpost)

‘ECCE HOMO, ECCUMENICO EST’:

Creative impulses seem much more
Than what humans seek to store
If we see where it comes from
Will it make our minds succumb?
To things perceived, not understood
To put it simply – just be good
Trite expressions, clichéd nomenclature
Jargon, ‘New Age’, anaphoristic vernacular
Perhaps better than the past priesthood
We must vigilantly live with ‘Brotherhood’.

No one is better deep within
Enable everyone to chin
UP!
Way up!
Feel the heavens creative sway
Do not focus on one day
Bring men past mediocrity
Allow all women to be free.

Our science brings us closer yet
To G-d in truth, I’ll make a bet
Eschew the callous callow leeches
Who cull the Earth as they beseech us
As Jesus said it is ‘within’
Buddha surely agreed with him
Let’s end the denominational prejudices
Accept there is only one true Path
End the endless expressing of wrath
Based on stupid religious differences!

About the Author

World-Mysteries.com

A newcomer to the world of investments in the notion of “Virtual Real Estate Investing“. What is meant by “Virtual Real Estate Investing” ranges from online games like SecondLife (where real profit can be made) to the use of internet technologies to make normal real estate investors more profitable.

To find out the real story, I had a conversation with Bryan Ellis, widely considered to be one of the originators of the concept of Virtual Real Estate Investing.

When I began using the term virtual real estate investing in the late 1990s, I did so because I saw clear parallels between the strategies used for profiting from physical real estate and those that would create income in the online world, said Ellis.

Bryan Ellis cites the similar strategies one can employe to make money from “virtual property” and “physical property” as a primary parallel of the two markets. “There’s a huge difference between a website and a piece of real estate, but the ways you can profit from them are similar: ‘flipping’, rental/leasing, advertising sales, etc…all of these apply to both markets” he states.

The parallels really are obvious. Consider this: If you own a piece of real estate in a desirable neighborhood, your real estate has value because other people are interested in that location. Similarly, ownership of a desirable domain name is valuable for the same reasons. In either case, you could sell or lease the asset and turn it into cash.

In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing, Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.

Networking with another professionals and companies is the key to grow freelance translation or interpretation business sector. It is also very challenging to develop steady cooperation with perspective clients since the market is overwhelmed with any type of translation services. However, if one possesses creativity, and knows which domains are demanding, and less competitive, he or she may find networking and self-promotion easier to conduct. By brainstorming an interpreter or a translator may discover, for instance that a Speech- Language Pathologist will need his or her services.

What does a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) do? SLP evaluates, diagnoses and treats individuals who exhibit speech, language, voice, fluency, and swallowing disorders. Now, you may wonder why this professional needs your interpretation or translation services. SLP who works in culturally diverse areas such as Australia, Canada or United States (USA), he/she finds working face-to-face with an interpreter necessary. For instance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau there are approximately 50 million people in the USA who speak a language other then English at home. (American Community Survey, 2002). In Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities in the USA there are 150 languages spoken in public schools, and many cultural communities such as: African American, Armenian, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian and other. When working in US public schools, SLP is required by the law (Special Education Legislation) to conduct assessment in student’s native language. That’s when an interpreter or a translator plays an important role. An interpreter can be involved in many different tasks such as participating in process of evaluation, diagnosis and treatment when collaborating with SLP. One of the responsibilities is to translate spoken words from one language to another when SLP performs the standardized or non-standardized testing, and gives instructions to a patient. In addition, an interpreter will be involved in some type of analysis that will help SLP to distinguish between language difference and language disorder. An interpreter therefore, will not only interpret words but also pay close attention to the production of sounds, language competence such as grammar, pragmatics of given culture and cognitive behavior of a patient. An interpreter will help SLP to determine if a mother tongue of a client is deviant, and if the “errors” that occur in second language are due to interference of first language. Moreover, an interpreter will be needed during an interview when SLP collects background information from a client such as medical, developmental history, speech/language acquisition history, and family and social history. Furthermore, an interpreter may be needed during treatment when SLP or a client decides that therapy in native language is necessary and beneficial. A translator may offer his/ her services to SLP since the questionnaire forms, consent forms, evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and progress reports should also be presented in native language of a client who may not be able to read in his second language. How can I network with those professionals? First of all find places that are cultural and linguistically diverse. Promote your services by contacting or even visiting public schools, private practices that offer speech/language therapy, hospitals, local clinics, rehabilitation centers, nursing care facilities, colleges and universities, state and local health departments, state and federal government agencies, home health agencies. Also, visit ASHA (American Speech Hearing Association) website.

Starting a screenplay can sometimes be as hard as finishing one. Impatient to pull up to the front door of a classic motion picture, I want to get everything right so quickly. This impatience challenges my trust in the work, the creative process of screenwriting. What exactly does trust mean? If I don’t trust my writing, then what am I? Frightened. This is the battle. If I’m scared that everything I’m typing is worthless, then what? My hands find something else to do. So trust is good and important and essential to beginning this journey, alone, a trip that will eventually take what comes out of you into millions of people. But its just you now. And your trust.

Now, does trusting your writing mean sitting down with no ideas, opening a new document, and starting to type? Of course. And no. What I need to do is make a decision and execute. And this decision often comes back to whether I should write an outline or treatment before I start writing my screenplay, or, with a rough idea, a shadowy shadow of something calling from my brain, start writing?

I have done both in the past. When I wrote the first draft of LOVE LIZA, I really had very little idea of where the story was going. I had a few things to start off with, and somewhere I wanted to end up down the road, but that was it. It was terrifying and difficult to remain seated. But the most original characteristics of the screenplay came out of the immediacy of trying to come up with whats next, with my fingers resting on the keyboard. I became sold on this process. Outlines killed creativity, because writing an outline is not actual screenwriting. Its outlining.

But then I came to Hollywood and tried to tell executives the little ideas I had. I would very proudly announce an image, a picture in my head, that I knew contained the fire of an entire epic. I was shocked when they asked, Then what happens? I didn’t have an answer. Why? Well. BECAUSE I HADNT WRITTEN IT YET. It seemed like a completely stupid question. What happens? What happens?? Did I say I had a complete screenplay to show you?!

You know the rest. No phone calls and bewilderment and then I found myself in the city of pitches, and starting to flesh out things into 14 page screenplay treatments. I did so, convinced that it could never be that good, that it was forced, and staged, and predictable. I was shocked to find out that it did not destroy my creativity. I was still able to come up with interesting, original things. But deep down I knew. This was still not screenwriting. This was not the art of screenwriting. And I’m right.

So now what was I going to do? What was better? If I was to sit down and spec something out, how was I supposed to go about it? First off, I’m lazy, so having a treatment or an outline sitting next to my laptop to walk me through the first draft is very appealing, despite knowing that the inspiration driving a treatment is different than the juice that comes when writing the screenplay blindly. And I have sat down and written 90 pages, trying to find the story, only to simply start over. This is a lot of work, but I’ve come to recognize that this work is not lost. This is the path. It hurts, it kills, it bludgeons, it fatigues, it flattens, but its the road. Believe me.

But what about a heist movie, or a mystery? A thriller with twists? Aren’t movies sometimes puzzles? Can we find this stuff without a plan? Don’t you have to figure this stuff out? Yes and no. Flying by the seat of your pants often produces jaw-dropping turns the audience will never see coming. Why? The writer didn’t. This is the largest reason why studio movies are predictable—-the fabric of the script is shot through with the knowledge of the ending of the story.

If we are to plot out the map of our movie with a treatment, beat sheet or outline, we better be damn sure its the real thing. Putting our best foot forward with a very strong outline is only the start of what will end up as a screenplay. Despite putting that golden outline next to our keyboard, we will find that turning it into a screenplay is still, I’m awfully sorry, a lot of work. Scenes that we imagined to be amazing will suddenly be impossible to write. And why does that upset us? Why does that frustrate the writer?

Well, we thought we had a short cut. We thought we were going to sneak into the back of a classic movie. My journey as a writer has been marked by the learning and relearning that all that wood has to be cut out there in the back yard, whether I like it or not. If I wanna do this, I have to swing the axe.

But we know, if we trust our gift, that something beautiful is coming, regardless if we have an outline or not. Perhaps the writers who work from outlines should throw them out. Perhaps the writers who write like the house is on fire, with nary a note within miles, should sit down and write a treatment. Treatments are fun, too.

I do both, switching back and forth when I need to. When I’m writing and I start to feel blindfolded, I turn to jot down a few notes, sketch a few ideas, track a character arc, reorder an act. But when I think I’m caught up in pitches and notes and beat sheets and the safety of plans, I chuck it all and write like I did when I was a kid.

Did we use notes when we were kids?

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Copyright © 2006 BlueCat Screenplay Competition

Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival for LOVE LIZA , Gordy Hoffman has written and directed three digital shorts for Fox Searchlight. He made his feature directorial debut with his script, A COAT OF SNOW, which world premiered at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival. He is also the founder of the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. Dedicated to develop and celebrate the undiscovered screenwriter, BlueCat provides written screenplay analysis on every script entered. In addition, Gordy acts as a script consultant for screenwriters, offering personalized feedback on their scripts through his consultation service, www.screenplaynotes.com. For more articles by Gordy on screenwriting, visit www.bluecatscreenplay.com.

I often relish being asked to do a book review for an author, but there have been a couple of books recently that I have not been too impressed with.

So how do I handle this type of situation?

Because I am a small publisher I too have had to look for quality reviews for one of my titles, only to have sent out books and never hear from the Reviewer again, or to find a less than nice review on Amazon without so much as a word from the Reviewer as to where they were going to post their review. I have learned a lot the hard way.

Perhaps my hard knocks have taught me something about business etiquette that I have decided to incorporate into my own way of doing business. Let me share one of these with you.

The Author/Publisher Has the Right to Know Why.

I strongly believe in keeping the lines of communication open between myself and the author/publisher. If I have agreed to accept a book review request then it is now my responsibility to examine the book and write the review, or write the author/publisher and tell them why not. Remember, it is your right to refuse any book review request.

At first, I felt that once I had the book in my possession I was committed to writing the review; whether it deserved one or not, and that guilty feeling made me want to wiggle out of agreements the easy way: by never returning the author/publisher’s emails. But the honorable way of doing business didn’t permit me to do this; instead I decided that to be a reputable company, one that the next client would want to work with, was too important. That meant that I had to sit down in front of my computer and draft out a “sorry” letter to my client.

I always write a formal business note on company letterhead; I include the details of the book (Title, ISBN, Publisher, etc) at the top of the page, and then begin by apologizing for not being able to write the requested review, then I briefly give a reason or reasons why I am refusing the request.

It only takes a few minutes and it maintains your reputation for being honest and responsible.

Cindy DeJager is a free-lance writer who reviews books by new and self-publishing authors on a casual basis.
For more reviews or articles email her at dejagerc@telus.net

Hundreds of avid snowboarders will presently be dusting down their ski equipment and scooting away in search of the largest snowfall.

And doubtless the result from our carbon footprint will be close to as far down the list of holiday essentials as a Christmas tree after the Christmas vacation.

Merely last Christmas, a sluggish snowfall made the the broadsheets and holidaymakers were terrified about the smattering of snow disappearing nearly as soon as they landed.

Skiing company Chalet1802, located at the base of Mount Blanc in Chamonix village in the Alps, is one of the first autonomous firms to go carbon negative and afford skiers an environmentally friendly option whilst organising their ski trip.

Chalet1802 proprietor Farren said: Last season was a bit of a surprise with the warmest winter in 60 years in the French Alps. Snowboarding ski fields like Araches-la-Frasse, Les Menuires and Chastreix-Sancy lacked clients.It was balmy and the snow didnt last so a lot of the early winter ski season in the Alps was uneven. We decided to become carbon neutral to help preserve the skiing resort.

Farren said: We are not seeking to dictate to holiday makers only we think it is important to provide the clients the selection without augmenting the price of the trip. If the customer book with us and goes on holiday to our Chamonix chalet they can more than off-set their carbon footprint and we absorb the other costs. Of course we still have a sauna and a hot tub – people wish for lavishness but not at the expense of the environs, so we viewed methods of diminishing the affect of a guest traveling over here for a snowboarding holiday.”