The Collected Writings

Sandcastles The following was entered in 2014 for a speaking competition Optimist Club of Chapel Hill, found at www. ch-optimists.org. The prompt for a five minute speech was to answer the prompt: "How My Optimism Will Help Me Press on to 'Greater Achievements of the Future'". I delivered it twice, coming third in the semifinals. I love foreign myths and fairy tales. They’re just wonderful. You can always tell what a culture values from their stories, and my favorite fairytale of all is a traditional Chinese story, called ‘The Farmer and his Luck’. It goes something like this; Once upon a time, there was a farmer who lived a pleasant life with his adolescent son. One day, his fastest horse jumped over the fence, and ran away. The townspeople took pity on him and told him ‘Such bad luck’. The farmer responded ‘Perhaps’. A day later, the horse returned, with two wild horses it had befriended while away. The townspeople were envious. ‘Such good luck!’ they sai...

The Island Where the Nazis Won By Cameron Byerly Published in St. John's College  The Gadfly , December 21st, 2015 The Act of Killing is the most brilliant documentary I have seen in my entire life. It has no close second. It also happens to be the most nauseating experience I have forced myself to sit through since its release in 2012. It is painfully difficult to watch. I add this as a warning, because despite a deep sense of guilt with recommending it, I have been desperate since my first viewing to convince as many people to watch it as I can. Allow me to explain. In 1965, the Indonesian government was overthrown by the military. Anybody opposed to the military dictatorship could be accused of being a communist: union members, landless farmers, and the ethnically Chinese. In less than a year, and with the direct aid of Western governments, over one million ‘communists’ were murdered. The army used paramilitaries and gangsters to carry out the killings. The...