Entries Tagged 'updates' ↓

Mormons are Republicans. OK, not everyone, but a lot of them. Especially the ones in the US West. This bothers me, not on the face of it, but because I’ve seen and heard so much from some of these members that suggests they have not fully considered the many relationships between this (or any) political ideology and the doctrine of the LDS church. I’m going to rant for a moment about one of these relationships.

Much has been made by liberals of the Right’s (and Americans’) apparently endless tolerance for violence in media juxtaposed with their moral indignation at representations of (certain kinds of) sex. For me, this was brought poignantly home when Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot” was the subject of questionably valid rumors that this or that general authority recommended members selectively lifting their “R-rated movie bans” to see it, because it was so patriotic–despite the horrific and occasionally senseless violence it portrayed.

Violence is a problem for me. I like a WWII gunfest or an explosion-riddled cop drama as much as the next guy, but I don’t convince myself that this enjoyment reflects well on the state of my soul. I also respond to scantily-clad ladies dancing on poles in videos, so I am aware that I am a flawed individual.

Money is a problem for me. Well, I wish I had more–that’s one problem. Another problem is the verbal and rhetorical contortions and gymnastics practiced by members of the church whenever anyone quotes one of the many, many passages of scripture warning about the dangers of wealth or condemning the love of money. If you have to work that hard to convince yourself that Jesus wasn’t really saying wealth is spiritually dangerous, then perhaps you need to reconsider your relationship to the words of Jesus. Nobody applies this level of forced analysis to the (arguably not-so-obvious-as-they-seem) scriptures apparently condemning homosexual behavior.

So yeah, about that homosexuality. How many times is it mentioned in all of the scriptures? Maybe half a dozen? And some of them are ambiguous, like the BoM reference to the “sin of Sodom,” which–according to our own prophets–is not limited to homosexuality, but refers to all immoral (even, potentially, nonsexually immoral) behavior. So you’ve got a handful of condemnations of homosexuality compared to….

…at least sixty condemnations or negative references to violence. One of these is in the Pearl of Great Price, when God Himself tells Enoch that the main reason for the flood that killed so many of His children was the proliferation of violence on the earth.

…139 hits for “oppression” (and variants). Nearly 150 hits for “justice.” Over 300 hits for “poor.” Over 200 for “money”–some of those will be neutral references, but guess how many are saying how awesome owning money is versus condemning or warning against this. The much more morally loaded terms “lucre,” “wealth,” and “rich” (and variants) give over 350 hits, the vast majority of which criticize, warn against, or actively condemn the substances and states referred to by the terms.

So when I see Republicans talking about “economic freedom,” and then look to see what they really mean; or railing against regulation of the financial industry–an industry based on playing with money to make more money–or, even more horrifyingly, Republicans actually opposing legislation that would ban “gifts” by lobbyists to lawmakers; I sometimes can’t believe what I’m reading. Aren’t many of these Republicans, at least nominally, Christians? Don’t they read the same Bible I do? What do they think these lobbyist “gifts” are? This is, as clearly as anything in history ever was, pure corruption: providing material goods or services to someone in power in order to influence that person’s judgments affecting his or her sphere of stewardship. And then I go to church and hear members casually mentioning that they don’t understand how any “thinking member of the church” can fail to be Republican.

Just in case my point isn’t poignant enough, we all know that our wars in the Middle East have turned into things much more reminiscent of the Mekong Delta than of the South Pacific. We all know there were no WMDs in Iraq, so we invaded a sovereign nation that posed no direct threat to us. The list of our wars of aggression is horrifyingly long. We claim our soldiers are “Fighting for our freedom,” while perhaps failing to ask ourselves how, exactly, our freedom is threatened by Taliban operatives in Afghanistan, and whether we will ever not be at war.

How many times do you think “war” is referenced in the scriptures? How many of those mentions are an endorsement of war?

Finally, I see recent reports that the US essentially floods the world with weapons. We sell to our allies, but also to our enemies, and certainly to people who are up to no good. I don’t dispute the many good things the US has done and represents; but I dispute the mindless practice of ignoring our concurrent and deep involvement in a great many explicitly anti-Christian activities. And I have a hard time understanding how members of the LDS church can ignore these things when they vote.

A vote for the “lesser of the evils” is one thing, and I respect that approach. Mindless devotion to an ideology in denial of its abhorrent elements is another, and I can’t respect that.

Part of me is relieved, as only a doting father can be. Another part, however, feels a growing concern. It’s not her behavior–my darling daughter is a bubbly, adorable infant as she should be–it’s the behavior of–well, things, around her. I still feel a dread at sharing any of this with her mother, who cannot be grieved with vague, probably unfounded worries; but I wish to write my observations, if for no other reason than to discount them with the lifetime of normalcy surely to come.

Two events stand out in my mind: a mere five or ten minutes out of the last week. How important can such a small span of time be?

First is the cat. Not the frightened one, the other one. He purrs when she does. That is to say, she does not purr, but when she is content and comfortable he purrs. He may not be in the same room, but I have tested this several times–he purrs. When her contentment ends, so does his. I have half-convinced myself that he is also more surly and irritable than normal when she is out of sorts, due to an imminent diaper change or a delayed feeding. But perhaps he simply has an affinity for his new sister. Perhaps this is not unusual, even though his behavior seems  keyed to hers even when he is out of earshot and has had no contact with her for hours.

Then there is the television. We are a simple family, with no need for cable TV or a satellite dish. We content ourselves with three computers constantly connected to high-speed internet service, a Netflix account, two personal MP3 players, some thousands of songs on hard drives, perhaps two hundred DVDs. The lack of good hockey–especially during the Stanley Cup playoffs with Vancouver involved–is a trial, to be sure, but we prefer our lifestyle, even though some might call it ascetic or even Luddite. Due to our lack of cable television, when our DVD player ceases to play discs the television eventually reverts to the random static that–as I understand it–reflects cosmic radiation, a galactic or even pan-galactic phenomenon reflected in the interstitial spaces of our quotidian entertainment schedules.

The incident, if that’s what it is, involved this static. Sam’s bassinet was, for reasons I can’t now recall, parked in front of the television for some minutes. The DVD–Mystery Science Theater 3000′s Shorts, Volume 1, I think–had finished prior to relocating her bassinet thus. The DVD player’s screen saver had been silently running for perhaps half an hour. As it does, it suddenly terminated when the DVD player automatically powered down. The television reverted to static–as I said, we are a bit old-fashioned;; this is an old-style CRT, not a modern flat-screen model–though it remained silent, a nice feature when I bought the TV back in 1999. I kept on with my activities, cleaning or something similar, while liminally noticing the switch to static out of the corner of my eye. Then some unexpected stimulus from that quarter of my visual field attracted my attention. I turned to see the static bunching and spreading… I don’t know how else to say it… as if it were waves in a pond or shifting sands in a windstorm. The waves of static fluctuated from left to right as I watched, back and forth, quickly and nearly randomly, though with a repeating pattern: back and forth, as if two wave patterns were intersecting without any system to their movement. I stared for many seconds before I saw a resonance below the television screen. My daughter, as is her wont, was waving her arms and turning her head from side to side. She happily flailed away, unaware that the static behind and above her, like an animated headstone from a low-budget futuristic movie, waved and fluctuated in time with the motion of her hands.

I watched for some minutes, unwilling to believe what I saw, but unable to look away. The spectacle ended with a scowl on little Sam’s face at the exact instant the television turned itself off–another attractive feature on a 1999 model 32-inch Philips/Magnavox set. Or I assume it turned itself off. It seemed a little too soon for that to happen, but I neglected to look at my watch.

Naturally, Alex was nowhere around. If she were, what would she think? But she was not, and what would she say if I were to tell her that perhaps her daughter can control the static pattern on the television? Or perhaps it can control her? Of course I screwed up my courage, later that day, to attempt to replicate the phenomenon, but with no repeat of the inexplicable sight I have described. The static showed no responsiveness to my daughter’s motions. I don’t know what to think, but if I were a drinking man, I might have a drink right now.

I write this with a growing mix of love and dread, mixed perhaps with some fear or fear-like emotion–possibly just extreme nervousness and a bit of flatulence, which–let me tell you–can sometimes turn perfectly ordinary mild fear into full-blown terror. Please let it be the gas. Just the gas. I write so that those who read these words might begin to understand, or at least approximate an understanding, of the heavy @#$% that is going down in the lives of two very normal parents. Okay, mostly normal. Also, what is normal, anyway.

My wife’s pregnancy was uneventful enough, so it seemed: there was some nausea, some glowing, some elation, some very uncomfortable sleeping, some dizziness, some delusions regarding fictitious characters from 1950s sitcoms. All to be expected. Delivery was normal. Everything was normal–delighfully, gorgeously normal–or so I thought at first, and why shouldn’t I? Who expects anything to go wrong, especially something completely foreign not only to his own experience but even to his imagining? Looking back, of course, I can see irregularities. Do they mean anything, or are they merely the hiccups of a genetic heritage that ate too much bratwurst yesterday? Are they omens or the effects of a sleep-deprived new father’s distorted memory?

My beloved’s nausea, first of all, was anything but even. Not even… that’s an understatement; it was not divisible by anything but itself and unity. That’s right: the number of days during which she experienced nausea was prime. Prime. And there were the cravings, which is to say, there were no cravings. Is that normal? Television would suggest it is not. Also there was that time in my wife’s second trimester when I woke up in the middle of the night to find her levitating a couple of feet above the bed, surrounded by a faint greenish light, but that was probably just my imagination. And the snoring. Is it common for pregnant women to snore? I mean, really loudly? Perhaps so, but I swear those snores sounded exactly like a slightly out-of-tune double-belled euphonium. I can’t count the number of nights I woke up mumbling about horse platoons, trombones, pool halls, and shy librarians. The wife did not like me mumbling about the librarians, by the way. Finally, perhaps most tellingly, were the swollen ankles. I have surreptitiously asked a dozen women about this, and my love’s ankles were not in any way normal. If only I had known this at the time. Or is this all in my mind?

The day of delivery was when the true signs, the clear signs, began to appear. My love’s breathing rhythm matched almost perfectly an ancient Aztec chant I once heard in Oaxaca; I was told it was a prayer for mercy from Atlacamani, goddess of hurricanes. When I cut the umbilical cord, I could barely focus on my task, compelled to notice that the cord lay, beyond the cut, in the Celtic rune symbol for “fire.” A slight shift of a nurse’s hand as I severed it curled the cord into the Celtic rune for “game.” Coincidence? This same nurse told me that the three ominous thunderclaps as my beautiful daughter cried her first querulous cries–all but drowning out her new voice–were not out of the ordinary for late spring, but I pulled back the blinds from the room’s only window a few minutes later to see nothing but sunny blue skies, clear to the horizon.

And now we are alone, we three, in this small, comfortable home. Tomorrow it will be three weeks since Sam’s birth. I cannot stop staring at my darling little girl or her beautiful mother; the wonder of what has happened in our lives transfixes me when I ponder it. But the strangeness continues, and I think the… what shall I call them?… phenomena… are accelerating in frequency. Last week I heard our cat

I write this with a growing mix of love and dread, mixed perhaps with some fear or fear-like emotion–possibly just extreme nervousness and a bit of flatulence, which–let me tell you–can sometimes turn perfectly ordinary mild fear into full-blown terror. Please let it be the gas. Just the gas. I write so that those who read these words might begin to understand, or at least approximate an understanding, of the heavy @#$% that is going down in the lives of two very normal parents. Okay, mostly normal. Also, what is normal, anyway.

My wife’s pregnancy was uneventful enough, so it seemed: there was some nausea, some glowing, some elation, some very uncomfortable sleeping, some dizziness, some delusions regarding fictitious characters from 1950s sitcoms. All to be expected. Delivery was normal. Everything was normal–delighfully, gorgeously normal–or so I thought at first, and why shouldn’t I? Who expects anything to go wrong, especially something completely foreign not only to his own experience but even to his imagining? Looking back, of course, I can see irregularities. Do they mean anything, or are they merely the hiccups of a genetic heritage that ate too much bratwurst yesterday? Are they omens or the effects of a sleep-deprived new father’s distorted memory?

My beloved’s nausea, first of all, was anything but even. Not even… that’s an understatement; it was not divisible by anything but itself and unity. That’s right: the number of days during which she experienced nausea was prime. Prime. And there were the cravings, which is to say, there were no cravings. Is that normal? Television would suggest it is not. Also there was that time in my wife’s second trimester when I woke up in the middle of the night to find her levitating a couple of feet above the bed, surrounded by a faint greenish light, but that was probably just my imagination. And the snoring. Is it common for pregnant women to snore? I mean, really loudly? Perhaps so, but I swear those snores sounded exactly like a slightly out-of-tune double-belled euphonium. I can’t count the number of nights I woke up mumbling about horse platoons, trombones, pool halls, and shy librarians. The wife did not like me mumbling about the librarians, by the way. Finally, perhaps most tellingly, were the swollen ankles. I have surreptitiously asked a dozen women about this, and my love’s ankles were not in any way normal. If only I had known this at the time. Or is this all in my mind?

The day of delivery was when the true signs, the clear signs, began to appear. My love’s brediary-of-the-spawn-athing rhythm matched almost perfectly an ancient Aztec chant I once heard in Oaxaca; I was told it was a prayer for mercy from Atlacamani, goddess of hurricanes. When I cut the umbilical cord, I could barely focus on my task, compelled to notice that the cord lay, beyond the cut, in the Celtic rune symbol for “fire.” A slight shift of a nurse’s hand as I severed it curled the cord into the Celtic rune for “game.” Coincidence? This same nurse told me that the three ominous thunderclaps as my beautiful daughter cried her first querulous cries–all but drowning out her new voice–were not out of the ordinary for late spring, but I pulled back the blinds from the room’s only window a few minutes later to see nothing but sunny blue skies, clear to the horizon.

And now we are alone, we three, in this small, comfortable home. Tomorrow it will be three weeks since Sam’s birth. I cannot stop staring at my darling little girl or her beautiful mother; the wonder of what has happened in our lives transfixes me when I ponder it. But the strangeness continues, and I think the… what shall I call them?… phenomena… are accelerating in frequency. Last week I heard our cat howl when I left our baby in the next room for a moment. I rushed back, expecting to see a scratched hand or a tuft of fur. I saw nothing but a broad smile on my daughter’s face. I did not see the cat again for two days; he did not start eating again for another day after that, and now he seems to be reluctant to be in the same room with the girl. Three days ago, as I cuddled my little snookums on my lap, I used my silliest voice and talked about recent behavioral neuroscience research I had read from the most recent issue of a professional journal. Suddenly, I gasped in pain and shock, my disbelieving eyes finding my finger with her diminutive digits wrapped around it. The pressure only lasted a second, but I still have baby-sized, finger-shaped bruises on my right index finger. They make typing this account difficult. The look in my baby’s face as she crushed my flesh can only be described as fury–dark, unrelenting fury of the type usually reserved for her mother if feeding is a few minutes late. Thinking back on the incident, I noticed that I had been summarizing a positron emission tomography study. She squeezed at the exact moment I said “positron.”

I should not dwell on these untoward instances (or, if you prefer, these quotidian events to which my exhausted, semi-hallucinatory mind has attached illusory meaning); we are happy. The days fly by in a blur of giggles and diaper changes, nursery rhymes and sleepytime. I go to work and come home as soon as I can, to find both of my darlings here and happy. I have hinted at my fears to my love, but she seems to notice nothing out of the ordinary. I’m sure she’s right. The random muscle movements all babies exhibit can surely explain the fact that mine lay for over an hour yesterday in the exact body position of Thoth purifying Hetsheput in the mural at Karnak. The same explanation likely applies to her subsequently moving her left hand in the symbol for the ankh, at least five times in a row. It is probably not even worth mentioning that exactly seven birds clustered at the living room window to stare at her as she stared back, arranged in the vines and branches of the bush outside our window in a nearly perfect six-point radial pattern with one in the center. They were not the same species of birds: the outer six were brightly-colored songbirds–a yellow and black one, a blue jay, and some others I can’t remember–and the center bird was twice their size, a jet-black bird with iridescent feathers and piercing eyes. Even when the cat (the one not currently terrified of my little girl) repeatedly flung himself at the window from which these birds were perched mere inches, they did not move. He eventually tired of his efforts and lay panting on the floor as the birds continued to stare, occasionally cocking a head for a better look. I don’t know how long they kept it up; eventually the dishes needed doing. However, from the kitchen I heard a sound exactly as if an avian beak were tapping on glass. It was almost impossible not to parse it into Morse code as I used to do when I was a youngster enamored of the 1800s railway scene. I nearly dropped the soapy plate in my hand when I realized that the tapping had spelled “Tunguska.”

I have had time to breathe deeply and realize how silly this all sounds. I’m sure it’s all nothing more than a terrible combination of too little sleep and too much science fiction. I will try to get some sleep. With any luck, this will be the end of my paranoid imaginings. With any luck.

howl when I left our baby in the next room for a moment. I rushed back, expecting to see a scratched hand or a tuft of fur. I saw nothing but a broad smile on my daughter’s face. I did not see the cat again for two days; he did not start eating again for another day after that, and now he seems to be reluctant to be in the same room with the girl. Three days ago, as I cuddled my little snookums on my lap, I used my silliest voice and talked about recent behavioral neuroscience research I had read from the most recent issue of a professional journal. Suddenly, I gasped in pain and shock, my disbelieving eyes finding my finger with her diminutive digits wrapped around it. The pressure only lasted a second, but I still have baby-sized, finger-shaped bruises on my right index finger. They make typing this account difficult. The look in my baby’s face as she crushed my flesh can only be described as fury–dark, unrelenting fury of the type usually reserved for her mother if feeding is a few minutes late. Thinking back on the incident, I noticed that I had been summarizing a positron emission tomography study. She squeezed at the exact moment I said “positron.”

I should not dwell on these untoward instances (or, if you prefer, these quotidian events to which my exhausted, semi-hallucinatory mind has attached illusory meaning); we are happy. The days fly by in a blur of giggles and diaper changes, nursery rhymes and sleepytime. I go to work and come home as soon as I can, to find both of my darlings here and happy. I have hinted at my fears to my love, but she seems to notice nothing out of the ordinary. I’m sure she’s right. The random muscle movements all babies exhibit can surely explain the fact that mine lay for over an hour yesterday in the exact body position of Thoth purifying Hetsheput in the mural at Karnak. The same explanation likely applies to her subsequently moving her left hand in the symbol for the ankh, at least five times in a row.

It is probably not even worth mentioning that exactly seven birds clustered at the living room window this morning to stare at her, arranged in the vines and branches of the bush outside our window in a nearly perfect six-point radial pattern with one in the center. They were not the same species of birds: the outer six were brightly-colored songbirds–a yellow and black one, a blue jay, and some others I can’t remember–and the center bird was twice their size, a jet-black bird with iridescent feathers and piercing eyes. Even when the cat (the one not currently terrified of my little girl) repeatedly flung himself at the window from which these birds were perched mere inches, they did not move. He eventually tired of his efforts and lay panting on the floor as the birds continued to stare, occasionally cocking a head for a better look. I don’t know how long they kept it up; eventually the dishes needed doing. However, from the kitchen I heard a sound exactly as if an avian beak were tapping on glass. It was almost impossible not to parse it into Morse code as I used to do when I was a youngster enamored of the 1800s railway scene. I nearly dropped the soapy plate in my hand when I realized that the tapping had spelled “Tunguska.”

I have had time to breathe deeply and realize how silly this all sounds. I’m sure it’s all nothing more than a terrible combination of too little sleep and too much science fiction. I will try to get some sleep. With any luck, this will be the end of my paranoid imaginings. With any luck.

I’ma blog a bit about conference. Just random thoughts, and I make no guarantee that I’ll get everything (or even listen to all the talks). Note: I missed yesterday (Saturday) because of childbirth education classes and then trying to catch up on the work I missed while in said classes. So I’m starting with…

Sunday Morning Session

Elder Uchtdorf

• The story about the young girl dying of cancer, requesting a visit from the President, made me wonder if being a General Authority means, in effect, being faced with others’ death and suffering on a much more regular basis than most of us Middle-Class Americans are. Maybe lots of people at death’s door call a prophet. If this is the case, then this might serve as a lovely self-regulating principle throughout church leadership. Maybe our leaders, by virtue of being leaders, are given an increased dose of the existential suffering of others that led Siddhartha to question his luxurious existence — the suffering that Jesus’ ministry largely targeted. I like to think that there are processes like this: the Lord qualifying whom He calls.

H. David Burton

• I unashamedly promote (though do not always exemplify… oops) awareness of the Church’s responsibility to improve the physical fortunes of the poor, not only defined absolutely (those who can’t buy food) but relatively (those whose neighbors all have nice cars and they don’t). I think the existence of such inequities reflects very badly both on our Christianity and our humanity. So this talk was gratifying to hear, preached to a membership that (in my experience) has sometimes seemed willing to promote the principles of the Law of the Harvest over those of mercy and Christlike love.
• “Helping people versus helping people to help themselves.” Absolutely. Sustainable charity. This includes things like preparation, thrift, and all the other things said in this talk. What has often bothered me is the tendency of some members to use phrases like this as a smokescreen for vindictiveness, selfishiness, or petty class warfare. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell whether people preaching “tough love”-type charity really mean this, or are motivated by one of the less-laudable possibilities I mentioned above. One touchstone, I suggest, might be such individuals’ messages regarding education. Those who insist that education should be withheld from those who have reduced opportunity to pay for it are, I believe, probably not motivated by actual caring for the less fortunate. Education is preparation; it provides the skills for self-reliance. Withholding it reeks of the “haves” holding onto their loot for fear that the “have-nots” might get some of it.

Silvia H. Allred

• This talk was nice, but I was busy teasing Alex about falling asleep.

David A. Bednar

• I’m always interested in GA how-to’s about revelation, because — barring angels literally appearing — it’s a pretty ill-defined phenomenon in some of its more particular details. Perhaps that’s part of the point.
• I like this talk for various reasons, but one is the universalization of our experiences. I believe it is excellent to let the members know that they are not alone in the doubts, fears, and imperfections inside us.

Thomas S. Monson

• I have no specific comments, but this was still a lovely talk.

Sunday Afternoon Session

Okay, I fell asleep. I admit it. Don’t judge me too harshly. I missed the first talk entirely.

D. Todd Christofferson

• The Currant Bush Allegory was a bit odd… because of the Currant Bush talking back. But it was a nice illustration.
• After the account of how Richard G. Scott’s wife advised him to look people in the eye, my wife exclaimed, “So it’s his fault!” Then everyone in the Conference Center laughed, so I guess they heard her.

Carl B.Pratt

• Colonia Juárez! I had compas from there (and near there) en La Misión, back in the day.
• The stories about financial rewards for paying tithing always fall a little oddly on my brain. I don’t think the leaders intend for us to believe that tithing is a financial advancement strategy, but we sure do repeat such stories a lot. I note that, in this talk, we get the counter-information: the Lord does not specifically promise us wealth in return for tithing. I like the concrete explanation: the Lord blesses us with wisdom so we can live better on 90% of our income. Gotta love a good, definable, concrete explanation :)

Lynn G. Robbins

• Paraphrasing Shakespeare: classic opening. But I don’t think Hamlet meant what is implied in the intro to this talk. Hamlet was (I think?) trying to decide whether or not to kill himself. But the message presented in the talk still appears excellent.
• This “be” versus “do” thing is pretty deep and philosophical. I fully agree with the message (be>do), but wow is this ever a more complex issue than could really be addressed in a 20-minute talk.

Benjamín De Hoyos

• I really wish I had turned the session on in time to hear who these speakers are. This one is giving a nice talk.

C. Scott Grow (who has probably never been teased about his name)

• Jimmy Stewart voice!
• Your basic Prodigal Son story? I kinda like these.

Jeffrey R. Holland

• I have a soft spot for Elder Holland. Cool.
• I love the fact that he fearlessly drops apparent scriptural contradictions next to each other. I think this is where some of the most meaningful insights come from.
• “…comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  Heck, yes. However, most of us listening to this in English fall into the latter category, not the former–at least economically and freedom-from-daily-terror -wise.
• Hm. Reference to (as DW says they are called) “Cafeteria Mormons.” Of course, I think we’re all in that category, but perhaps the implied categorization is still useful.
• Nice talk. He has always had an ability to synthesize a good “take a step back” view that makes sense.

President Monson

• Brief, to the point, and powerful. Nice.

All in all, another nice conference session. I don’t know that I caught wind of any strong changes in the Church’s direction, but I’m traditionally clueless about such things. That is all.

Dear Sea Monkey,

You are currently at about 34 weeks gestation, and I just saw some birthing videos. Here is your first Life Tip:

HEAD FIRST, FACE DOWN.

That is all.

More from the Foggy Morning photo shoot.

I know one poll doesn’t answer all questions, but the recent CBS poll is the only one I’ve seen on this issue, and since it’s not done by a clearly biased organization like the Cato Institute, Fox News, or MoveOn, I’d rather trust it for now. Here are some results (done by me painstakingly learning the somewhat arcane world of R graphics! Hooray!):

Know what the coolest thing about this is (besides, perhaps, the fact that the majority of Americans want these tax cuts to remain only for clearly middle-class folks)? Lookit the green in “Don’t Know.” It’s the biggest chunk there. I like the fact that the independents aren’t as likely to be sure of themselves as the big party-affiliated folks are.

I’m trying to process why I was so repelled by Dan Savage’s uncontrolled tirade at L.R. in a recent column. It’s not that I expect more of Savage – his regular column demonstrates every week that one should not expect clear thinking from that source – It’s because this week I’ve seen young people linking to that particular post as if there were some kind of reasonable or uplifting message to be found in it. Yes, we need to stop bullying, and yes, LGBT children are probably among the most vulnerable and obvious bullying targets. But Savage is not the poster boy this movement needs.

In order to illustrate how ridiculous Savage’s comments to “L.R.” were, in response to that person’s rather polite request that Dan stop his hate-mongering, I have modified his comments, below. I do not agree in the slightest with the opinions expressed by my satire (or maybe it’s a parody; perhaps both? I should look that up), and I assume you don’t, either; however, I hope anyone reading this (fat chance) can see, in graphic fashion, that this is the kind of ridiculous “reasoning” that has been criticized in certain extremist conservative radio and TV figures for decades.

———-begin parody and/or satire————-

Dear Limbaugh-esque Right Wing Entertainer,

I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and I heard an interview with you about your Keep America Safe campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of Muslim faith and their perpetuation of terrorism. As someone who loves Allah and does not support the current US policies in the Middle East, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the Americans who lost their lives.

There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to the Americans who died, and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my friends to mock, hurt or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Allah is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of His assistance. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.
Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.
— L.R.

Dear L. R.,

I’m sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I’m not. Americans are dying. So let’s try to keep things in perspective: F*** your feelings.

And — sorry — but you are partly responsible for the terror and violence being visited on innocent Americans. The kids of people who see Americans as godless or heathen or arrogant and unworthy of the right to defend their nation from danger – even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing an American person) — learn to see Americans as godless, heathen, arrogant, and unworthy. And while there may not be any Americans where you live, or at your mosque, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are American children in your schools. And while you can only attack Americans at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children will grow up and have the option of attacking actual Americans, in person, in real time.

Real Americans. Not political abstractions, not “unbelievers.” Americans.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of “faithful Muslims,” and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of mosques that “faithful Muslims” intimidate their friends into attending, give your friends license to verbally abuse, condemn, and kill Americans. And many of your friends— having listened to the local Imam talk about how American ideals are a threat to righteousness and how the Great Satan makes their magic sky friend Allah cry — feel justified in physically abusing the patriotic children they encounter in their schools. You don’t have to explicitly encourage your friends to mock, hurt, or intimidate freedom-loving  people. Your encouragement — along with your hatred and fear — is implicit. It’s here, it’s clear, and we’re seeing the fruits of it: dead American citizens.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your Muslim friends with hate? They fill your American friends with despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn’t have hurt nearly as much as what was done to the victims in the Trade Towers, or to the dead American soldiers in Iraq, living day-in and day-out for months in communities filled with bigoted monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false “followers of Allah” they call their friends and leaders.

I was searching for a rape-prevention program called “men’s strengths” or “men of strength” or something similar, for citations in a chapter I was writing yesterday. I asked Google. Google was not helpful (as you can see below), and was actually just a teensy bit insulting. ^~^

men_s strengths

Alex and I have been keeping up our frantic Haiku-writing regimen, but we keep forgetting to post them to facebook (or here). Well, I present episodes 11 through 19.

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Alex and I have waited ’til now to watch LOST. We’ve watched several episodes, and her crackpot idea was to write a haiku about each one. Her crackpot ideas tend to be awesome.

Anyway, here are the first seven, plus a limerick I wrote out of the normal sequence, and an extra haiku she wrote. I’ll post the rest as we go.

I have to get around to responding to my right-wing-libertarian brother’s ideas from Christmas, but that requires more time than I’ve had for blogging since New Year’s. Right now I’m just going to rant a bit about travel, because that requires very few brain cells.

Halifax is gorgeous. I must admit it. As anyone may imagine, I am not (so very not) happy about the idea of leaving my current job, which I love a ton, but I suppose if the stars somehow align and that makes any kind of sense, then Halifax would not be such a bad place to relocate to. Alex’s interview day seemed to go well (though how can you ever tell?), so it’s possible that I might have to consider this prospect.

Travel sucks sometimes. Like when you completely forget what day it is and somehow come to believe that it’s Saturday when in fact it’s Sunday and your stupid delayed flight and forced overnight stay will cut into your work week. It could be worse, I guess, but I didn’t get to teach my seminary class this morning (this is sad; I look forward to seminary about 80% of the time), and I’m missing some meetings. I’ll have to show up out of the blue and teach my stats class, which will confuse the students (and maybe the TA).  But, like I said, it could be much worse.

While traveling, the following excellent or semi-excellent things happened:

• I had delicious gelatto (sp?)
• I got to watch “It might get loud” on an Air Canada flight
• I stayed in a swanky hotel
• Alex and I wandered around Halifax downtown and waterfront
• We saw a good live band and a good hockey game (Canucks won!) at a pub

Probably some other stuff, too. Negatives include getting delayed in New Jersey (ick), then missing my connection in Houston and having to stay the night. I ended up in the Ramada (“One Mile from the Airport!”), which really really feels like last week it was a skanky, seedy Motel 6 that rented rooms by the hour, and this week it’s being remodeled into something respectable, but they won’t be finished with the renovations for six more months. Oh well. The sheets were clean and my six hours of sleep were peaceful.

Time to go catch my flight home.

I like this airport for the following reasons:

1. The alcove of secret free WiFi. Which is barely functional at the moment, so maybe they figured out how to block it?

2. The paper airplanes in the tunnels :D

3. Banjoe’s Cafe. It’s not on everyone’s beaten path, but if you find it, it’s worth the walk. I’m currently enjoying their Thai chicken sandwich. Yum! And I think they gave me a whole by accident instead of a half. I should probably walk back over there and return it, but… I think not. They’d probably have to throw it away anyway. Or some such rationalization.

Lou Dobbs has just quit CNN. I know some Hispanic activism groups will be happy about this, since the move reduces CNN’s perceived hypocrisy in regards to Hispanic and immigration issues, but I’m not as enthusiastic. Don’t get me wrong: I think Dobbs is yet another demagogue entertainer masquerading as a journalist, like Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann (I was going to add Beck and Limbaugh, but I’m not sure they even really masquerade that much; they’re just entertainers, even if many of their fans seem so desperate to validate their own political views that they insist on seeing them as newsmen despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary). However, the news networks, like the political landscape of the country, seem to be getting more and more Balkanized, with less and less true dialogue between individuals who have opposing opinions. Or maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s certainly not getting any better.

Dobbs’ exit, on the one hand, makes CNN just a teensy bit more honest and accurate (by removal of the opposites). On the other hand, diversity of opinion on the network will suffer. I said I’m not enthusiastic, but I also don’t really mind him leaving; I just don’t think it’s as big a deal as some people do.

My guess is that, within a year, we will see Dobbs join O’Reilly, Beck, and others on the Fox Kind Of Like News network. What was a somewhat refreshing conservative point of view on CNN will be lost in the roar of conservative righteous indignation constantly pouring from Fox, which will be a shame. On the other hand, Dobbs will also continue spouting his particular mix of lies, half-truths, and misleading statements about immigration and Latinos, and that will get lost in the roar, as well. I hope.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that I now number among the giants of technology like Alexander Graham Bell and Whoever Invented That Huge Computer That Filled A Whole Stinking House Or Something. Yes, I have conquered pit stains.

I know it’s a gross topic, but it must be discussed. I have researched this issue, and I think my sweat has no more than average pit-staining properties. However, I sweat more than the average Joe, no matter what the temperature, and I live in a place where it’s at least kinda warmish or hottish for about seven months of the year and ridiculously unrealistically hot (with medium to stupid high humidity) for an additional three. So I get more than my fair share of sweaty armpit nastiness in my shirts, after a while. I know I’m not the only one who has this problem. I’ve seen others’ old T-shirts with the crusty, hardened, darkened fabric that has the Smell That Just Won’t Totally Go Away. I won’t name names, but that’s just because I may not be able to remember them. I’m old.

I have previously tried lots of things to kill the pit stains, recommended by well-meaning but ultimately useless posts on the web, articles in magazines, etc.:  vinegar solutions, detergent pre-soak, baking soda, alcohol, commercial products (Spray ‘n’ Wash, etc.), and even adding aspirin to water or vinegar solution. But now I tried something that works.

This most recent pitstain destruction experiment was was influenced by (a) blog posts from some smart people describing cleaning cloth diapers, (b) some nerds restoring yellowing plastic museum computer consoles to their original factory white, and (c) the observation that adding oxy-clean to vinegar makes for some fun laundry-time drama.

Without further ado, here’s the research report. The test subject was a shirt. Button-down camp-type short-sleeved shirt. Light, airy, entirely comfortable thin cotton fabric. I love that shirt. It had become infested with crusty, darker yellow stains in the pits, especially in those underarm seams. You know the ones. After 4 years of frequent wear, the stains were no longer just a color or smell; they were a tangible physical anomaly in the fabric, about as stiff as if I had massaged a thin layer of Elmer’s glue into the fabric and let it dry. Seriously. Kind of disgusting. The stain-crusties had proved resistant to washing, scrubbing, and all the attempted interventions I listed above. So I did the following:

1. Saturated the fabric (dunked it) in 100% white vinegar. Did not wring it out; wanted lots of vinegar. None of that wussy “solution” business you read about on home-helper-type websites. This was all vinegar.
2. Sprinkled (liberally) my local, cheap, generic version of Oxy-Clean on the affected areas of the fabric. It foamed, it got hot (as in “it-kinda-scared-me” hot), it made an enjoyable sizzling sound. It did not all dissolve at this point.
3. I scrubbed the oxy into the vinegar-saturated fabric like I was hand-washing nasty diapers. Next time I might use a scrub brush or nail brush with the fabric on a hard backing surface, to make sure it all gets down in the crevices. I applied the oxy to the inside of the shirt, where the sweat would presumably have first contact with the fabric. The gritty texture of the undissolved oxy was satisfying to grind into the recalcitrant, hardened armpit stains. Die! Die! Die! And like that. Actually, I didn’t scrub it for long. Maybe a minute or two.
4. Added a whole lotta (maybe 50% in the final solution?) Simple Green degreaser to the vinegar and swished around. Threw the shirt in there.
5. Put the shirt in the solution, made sure it was pretty well saturated and nearly covered with liquid, and let it soak for about a day. After a couple of hours I noticed the fabric had soaked up lots of the liquid, so I diluted it about 50/50 with water.
6. The next day, I wrung out the shirt and threw it in the washer with some other clothes.

When it came out of the wash, the pits were pristine in both color and texture, almost like brand new fabric. They were also fresh-smelling. Hooray!

I consider this merely a first experiment. There are several variables that need to be investigated. Parameters must be established. But it worked!

DISCLAIMERS: My hands seem unaffected, but still you might consider wearing dishwashing gloves. The fabric was 100% cotton, with a nice light-colored plaid print. I did not see signs of fading, bleaching, or discoloring, but I only tried this on one shirt, one time. YMMV. I do not know how this method would affect synthetics or any other fabric. I don’t know if the Simple Green was really necessary; I suspect not. I don’t know how strong the solution has to be, or how long it needs to sit. I don’t know if these fumes will kill you or cause your unborn baby to be born a horrible mutant freak unqualified for all but talk show hosting careers. So, obviously use this at your own risk. But it seemed to work, and since I did it I haven’t noticed any slurring of speech or mental confusiowhat are the spiders doing on my walls they are smiling at me wearing Charlie Chaplin masks and doing that weird dance with the potatoes on the forks and holy cow I’m translucent now gotta go

Rukhsana Kauser is my new hero(ine). When the leader of a roaming band of terrorists and some of his thugs barged into her home and started beating her parents, she grabbed a hatchet, surprised the main guy, killed him with his own AK-47,  wounded another thug (with the help of her older brother), and sent the rest fleeing. She killed one of the most wanted men in Kashmir, a leader of one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world.

I’ve found this story on the BBC and other international news sites. Since no Americans were killed or heroized, I can’t seem to find it in any American news feeds. However, it is on certain American blogs: gun rights blogs. After the story is summarized or linked, there are comments like “Hell yeah!” or “Tell THAT to the gun control wonks!”

To overused a phrase of the day… wait, what?

How does Ms. Kauser’s story support the cause of personal gun ownership rights in the U.S.? Ms. Kauser did not stop the terrorists with her concealed-carry Smith & Wesson. She did not stop them with her father’s venerated Remington twelve-gauge. The only gun owners were terrorist criminals. The only guns in this story were probably used in numerous horrific crimes before one or two of them were turned on their original owners. I’m a supporter of a “personal ownership” interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but apparently this has not scrambled my grasp of logic to the point where this would make any sense to me.

I suppose maybe the American gun people are arguing that she should have owned a gun, and I could see that point, but then the story ceases being a very good demonstration of either the benefits of gun ownership or the dangers of a lack of such. She defeated the militants without owning a gun, which is not how these pro-gun stories usually turn out. Still, this is perhaps the only argument I could see as supporting U.S. gun ownership. I mean, if we had roaming gangs of terrorists with AK-47s who regularly took over suburban homes by force.

I have a nagging feeling that’s not the real reason this story keeps appearing on gun ownership blogs, though. I wonder if it isn’t just because there’s a potential victim, and then there is gun-related violence done to a Bad Person. Maybe the bloggers and commenters don’t look any farther than that. If this is the case, it says some small little volumes about the mentality of some of our gun-ownership advocates.

Rukhsana Kauser is not a good choice as poster girl for gun ownership advocates. Feminists, on the other hand…

Kate Harding’s piece in Salon.com pulls no punches, and is not something a minor should read, but she is absolutely right on. I couldn’t agree more. From her conclusion:

Roman Polanski may be a great director, an old man, a husband, a father, a friend to many powerful people, and even the target of some questionable legal shenanigans. He may very well be no threat to society at this point. He may even be a good person on balance, whatever that means. But none of that changes the basic, undisputed fact: Roman Polanski raped a child. And rushing past that point to focus on the reasons why we should forgive him, pity him, respect him, admire him, support him, whatever, is absolutely twisted.

…blurting out inappropriate things in front of the neighbors.

(awesome)