An addendum, of sorts

After my last post, I got to thinking and decided to post a translation of Senhor Andrade's poem. I decided to do my own translation because I hadn't translated anything for awhile and I figure I could probably use the practice. I'm not going to retype the Portuguese version, you'll just have to look at my last post if you'd like to see it. So here goes:

In the middle of the path there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the path
there was a stone
in the middle of the path there was a stone.

I will never forget this occurrence
in the life of my fatigued retinas.

It will not be forgotten that in the middle of the path
there was a stone
there was a stone in the middle of the path
in the middle of the path there was a stone.
- Carlos Drummond de Andrade (translation by Bill)

Some people may disagree with my translation, so I would like to explain some of my decisions.

The first thing I'd like to explain is my translation of "tinha". Roughly "tinha" is translated as "I/you had" or "I/you used to have". I chose to translate it as "there was" in this case because I think it's more in keeping with the feeling of the poem in Portuguese. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the meaning of the Poem, and maybe that is why I seemed to have such a different view than my teacher who is a native Brazilian, but it's what I understand when I read the poem, so in essence I'm translating my understanding.

The second thing I'd like to look at is some of my English word choices. For caminho, I chose path. I suppose I could have used way, road, street, direction, etc. Something about the word path, however, seemed appropriate. I tend to use the word path when thinking in a metaphysical way. I feel that "path" implies multiple layers of thought that some of it's synonyms do not and this lends itself to greater imagery and depth as you contemplate the poem. I also chose the word "stone" to take the place of "pedra". I originally thought pebble because of the "p", but I think stone is more correct. The word, "pedra", is kind of generic; given neither size nor shape. I feel pebble would be to specific to fit this poem accurately. "Stone", however, allows the reader to give his own personal dimensions to the object.

The words that I had the most trouble with were in the second stanza. In the first line I decided to use "occurrence", but I'm still not entirely sold on it. I'd also thought to use: happening, incident, and event. My first instinct was to use event, in fact that was the first word that came to mind, but it seemed to short to fit. I eventually whittled it down to occurrence and happening. I still feel like happening could work, but I decided to go with occurrence for now. The second line gave me some trouble as well. The phrase "fatigued retinas" doesn't seem right to me, but I think this rather raw translation is in keeping with the spirit and intent of the poem. I considered other words, but none of them seemed quite right. I thought of changing retinas, but most of the words that I thought of have direct translations into Portuguese, so I didn't want to use them because senhor Andrade didn't use them. For instance, I thought of using, "tired eyes", but that could have been easily expressed in Portuguese as "olhos cansados". I decided that Andrade was looking for a deeper meaning, and I didn't want to lose that. I seem to get a sense that the use of "retinas" implies a depth. It's the back of his eyes that are tired, and not just tired, they're fatigued. Perhaps to say they're tired of looking at the path before him? It's this lack of clarity that has led me to keep the "raw" translation, because I would rather have a crude translation that keeps the interpretation open than to force a reader to read my interpretation.

The last part that I had difficulty with was the first line of the last stanza. I originally translated it to match up with the first line of the second stanza, but the two lines are written differently in Portuguese. It's actually a very subtle distinction, and one that is perhaps lost in English. In the third stanza Andrade adds a reflexive "me" to esquecerei. The reflexive "me" would, I think, roughly translate as "myself", but one of my grammar books pointed out that it's often used to represent a passive voice. I decided to try and take this tact and attempted to make the first line of the third stanza passive. I'm not really sure if I succeeded in my attempt. Perhaps an English scholar could critique this for me. If nothing else, I did find a way to differentiate the two while maintaining the meaning.

Hopefully my translation hasn't butchered the simple complexity of this poem. Also, I hope you understand why I made the choices that I made and that those choices are acceptable. If you've never translated something before, I hope this has opened your eyes a bit to the world of communication. I know that even though I'm not a professional translator, the exercise of translating has taught me a great deal about communication and people in general.

No meio do caminho

I apologize for my absence. I haven't felt like writing this last little bit. Sometimes I find myself in these little ruts where I just feel out of sorts for awhile. I've decided that I've ignored this site long enough, and even though I still don't feel like writing, I've decided to share something I wrote awhile ago, but never shared. Perhaps typing it out will help me to get back to normal. Many of you won't be able to fully understand this post, because it's based on a poem that was written in Portuguese by Carlos Drummond de Andrade entitled, "No meio do caminho". I'll start by citing the poem and then share what I wrote.

No meio do caminho
No meio do caminho tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.

Nunca esquecerei desse acontecimento
na vida de minhas retinas tão fatigadas.

Nunca me esquecerei que no meio do caminho
tinha uma pedra
tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho
no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.
-Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Now for what I wrote:

Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho.
That's what the poet wrote.
"What does it mean?", she asked.

I responded that it took me
back to his land,
when I walked in the caminhos.

Some were paved,
some cobbled,
but mostly dirt.

The dirt ones stayed with you.
On your pant legs, in the treads of your shoes.
They'd get into your shirts and coat you skin.
You'd breath them in on the hot, dry days.

Sometimes you'd walk on the paths when it was raining
or after they were turned to mud.
You'd slosh through the mud, sometimes ankle deep.
Hard going, walking in mud; your pants get dirty, your shoes heavy.

Maybe on a day like this he saw a pedra in the caminho
and was grateful that for a moment he had a sure dry
place to step, to kick some mud off his shoes
before continuing on.

Maybe I'm right,
probably not,
but she didn't need to laugh
and say that I was wrong

How does she know?
The poet never said.
I stepped. I thought it was a pedra,
but it was only mud.

Bed sheets and Vampires

Here are a couple of very random thoughts:

A few nights ago I was tossing and turning in bed and having an all around difficult time falling asleep. Unfortunately it was almost literally an all around time. Covers and pillows were all over the place as I tried to find a position in which I could fall asleep. As is usually the case in said situation, my mind was pondering many a thought when I struck upon one that I thought was worthy of sharing. The vast majority of the aforementioned thoughts are not worth sharing and are usually disjointed half thoughts that only a pot head or philosopher (did I just repeat myself?) would find of any interest. This idea, however, may or may not be worth something.

It started by my thinking, "What will my future wife think when I have a night like this? I'm liable to be kicked out of bed and sentenced to the couch." At which point I began to ponder what kind of couch I should buy for this future inevitability when I decided instead to think of ways to prevent the problem in the first place, which is to say the bed place, that being the first place that many of us think to visit. So it was that I conceived of a new type of sheet for Queen and King sized beds. It would be just like a normal set of sheets, with a fitted sheet on bottom and a top sheet, appropriately enough, on top. However, in addition to the norm, we would add a panel running perpendicular to the two planes down the middle of the bed, bisecting the whole into two equal halves. The two halves would preferably be the left and the right as opposed to the foot and the head, or bottom and top if you prefer; as the left and right sides of the bed are the typical sleeping arrangement for couples. Now this center panel shan't run the entire length of the bed from top to bottom as this would create an undesirable separation, well hopefully undesirable. Instead the panel will start at the foot of the bed and stretch about half way to three quarters of the way to the head of the bed. This will allow for canoodling while preventing the legs from kicking ones partner in sleep or during a tossing and turning episode. Also, I believe this could have the added benefit of preventing one person from stealing all of the covers during the night as the panel will only allow them to pull the covers so far.

I think there are some drawbacks to this arrangement, but since I have yet to experiment with this conceptual sheet design, I can't say for certain how it will work out. It's probably not a good idea to implement this design in a honeymoon suite for instance, but perhaps it might help a couple a little ways into the arrangement. Like I said, just a random thought, and one in which I lack experience, so hopefully I don't sound too naive.

The second thought that I would like to share is something I thought of today in church. While I was sitting in Sunday School, a fellow by the name of Oliver was making a point about something or other during the course of which he noted that the logo for Bacardi is a vampire bat. This got me to thinking about vampires and I suddenly realized what an amazing symbol vampires are, especially because they have been somewhat glamorized of late. I began by thinking, what is a vampire? A vampire is an undead creature that sucks the blood of normal folk in order to survive, but the blood doesn't give them life it merely sustains them for a short time, with a secondary byproduct being either the death of their victim or the victims conversion into a fellow vampire. I began to think how this represents people who search for happiness and satisfaction in unrighteousness. Having lost the life that comes from God they are forced to prey upon others who are still alive in Christ for temporary satisfaction, either to destroy them or to make them miserable like themselves. I think it's similar to the tales in the movies that just as the vampires consider themselves better off as they are, so to people who are without the light of Christ in their lives think that they are doing the "living" a favor by changing them. This is not to malign non-Christians in any way or to imply that they're vampires. I'm merely using the phrase "the light of Christ" to mean any person who seeks after righteousness, it being somewhat akin to following one's conscience though a bit deeper. If you would like to know more on the subject of the meaning of "the light of Christ" please feel free to so indicate in the comment section below. Speaking of light, I think this lends itself again to the simile. Vampire's by definition can't abide the light. Likewise those that work in darkness shun the light of truth and shrink from it. The light of truth burns them and destroys their craft. I think the persecution and criticism by these people is somewhat akin to vampires trying to suck the life out of their victims. If you allow yourself to be enticed and listen to them, then you give them a chance to suck the spiritual life out of you. At that point, you die spiritually and become even as they are.

I think one of the main differences with this symbolism is that, unlike vampires, people can be reborn spiritually, or in other words they don't have to remain like vampires but can be redeemed. Unlike the movies where the only way to stop the vampires is to destroy them, we are able to put an end to the threat by helping them return to life and true joy. I can only imagine that this symbolism wasn't arrived at randomly, but that it was part of the original idea, whether intentional or not.

If caulking is an art than I've found another art form that I'm no good at!

A few days ago I was presented with a challenge from my father. There was a piece of trimming at the bottom of a door sized window looking out onto his deck that had rotted out and needed replacing. He proposed that I should fix it and being a decent son, I accepted his challenge figuring what the heck it's not my house.

The first step was to remove the remnants of the existing board. This was simple enough. I used a utility knife to slice through the latex paint and a pry bar to pull the wood out. I didn't get any pictures of this because I didn't think about blogging this until after I screwed up the caulking procedure. Half of the board had disintegrated. Somehow water had gotten in behind it and wood rot had gone into full effect. Strangely, the other half of the board was completely sound, but I discarded it out of spite. If it's not going to take of it's other half than I have no use for it. If one half fails the whole fails. I know it's a stern lesson, but how else is that board going to learn that it needs to tend for the wood around it?

The second part of this labor was to find a replacement board. You would think this would be simple, but it wasn't. I went to a Lowe's Home Improvement store with my dad in search of the perfect piece of lumber. We were looking for a board that was one half inch wide, one and one half inch tall, and thirty one inches long. Unfortunately this isn't a standard size for boards in the exciting world of lumber. We weren't too concerned with the length because we could trim it down. It was the height that was the problem. There were one inch tall boards and there were two inch tall boards, but wouldn't you know it, no one and a half inch tall boards. This wouldn't have been a problem if we owned a table saw or other similar power tool, but we don't. So it came down to, do we buy a table saw for a couple hundred dollars and a two inch board, or do we just buy the two inch board, slap it on and call it done. Well we took our time and did the math, and after completing our price comparisons, my dad decided that we'd probably get the best bang for our buck by converting the window frame to a new two inch form factor. Sadly, I was forced to concur, though I still think that you really can't put a price on the joy of owning a table saw, yet somehow Lowe's found a way to put just such a price on their table saws and therefore I was left wanting as it was not my buck that we were trying to get a bang out of.

The third thing that had to be done was to kill the mold and mildew that was growing on the frame where the board would attach. This was accomplished with bleach! What would the world be like without bleach? That stuff is fantastic! I put some bleach in a spray bottle and spritzed away. I figured, what's the harm, I'm going to be painting the thing white anyway, so what if it bleaches a little. Of course, after I put the bleach on I had to give the boards some time to dry out. I originally thought I'd give it a day, but somehow I got distracted and this stretched into a couple days. During this time, I thought to myself, "Bleach is good, but what if it isn't enough?" At this point I remembered back to my time in the pest control profession that boric acid was often used in the treatment of lumber to make it resistant to molds, mildews and wood destroying organisms. So I diluted some boric acid dust in some water and treated the raw wood with my concoction. I then had to let the board dry again. By this point the exposed wood was looking much lighter than it had just a few days before and I took this to be a positive sign.

Finally, installation day arrived. I measured my board and cut it to the correct length. Actually I cut it a little long, only to discover that I had actually cut it to the correct length. This, of course, is in keeping with the old Carpenters adage, "Measure twice, add a little on, cut once, don't curse your life and those around you." Ah Karen, where would we be without you? As I was setting it into position and admiring my good fortune at cutting it so correctly, it occurred to me that I didn't currently posses any sealant with which to caulk the board. This necessitated another trip to my friendly neighborhood Lowe's. At Lowe's I perused the sealant section trying to look like I knew what I was doing as much as possible. I studied the various labels with great care and I only needed the store attendant to point out that I was looking at the wrong product once. Eventually I whittled down my choices to a product produced by GE and a product produced by DAP. This was made all the simpler by the fact that there were only two choices to begin with. I eventually settled upon the DAP because it had a name, namely ALEX, so I could relate with it, I also having a name. However there was a bit of advice on the GE tube's label that would have saved me some trouble had I heeded it. It seems GE knows a thing or two about caulking and they recommend putting down tape on either side of the area you'll be caulking so as to make cleanup a little easier. Oh, if only I had heeded that advice! However, I didn't and the rest is, as they say, history.

Back home, I nailed the board in place with some surplus nails that we had laying around. My dad has an excellent collection of old hardware, so finding the proper nails wasn't difficult. Then I began the caulking procedure. I cut the tip off the tube and inserted it properly into my caulking gun and away I went. Everything was going fine until I got to the first corner. At this point I had a big goop of caulk and I thought, "I'll just smooth that out." I first attempted the procedure with a putty knife which was a little futile. I then resolved to use the greatest of all tools, my finger. I smeared that blob out quite well, I then decided to even out the entire line I had just put down and try and blend it into the board to make for a smoother paint job. Bad decision. Before I knew what had happened I had caulk everywhere. To make matters worse, when I set the caulk to the side to focus on the board the caulk kept exiting the tube without my permission. It just kept pouring out. Several paper towels later I got the project to a point I could live with and decided to just paint over the mistakes.

Painting was an easy enough process. My dad had some spare paint laying around. I had to choose between two varieties, and of course I chose the wrong one. We had some Valspar American Tradition Exterior 100% Acrylic White, and BEHR Premium Plus Ultra Pure White Exterior Semi-gloss Enamel. I was seduced by the patriotism of the Valspar. I also wasn't sure about that semi-gloss concept. Is it glossy or not, make up your mind. So I opened up the Valspar and set to stirring it. It wasn't long until I noticed that there was a lump in my can, no not that can, the paint can! Anyway, I didn't let that initially stop me. It was only after I started painting that I allowed my doubts as to the paints condition effect me. I began to think that if it wasn't mixing properly then maybe it wouldn't last as long and I'd find myself back outside replacing another board. So I decided, out of self-interest, to switch to the BEHR paint. It wasn't until later that I noticed the bold lettering across the front of the can that read, "Ultimate Durability, Improved Hiding Power For Great Coverage." Had I seen that in the beginning I would have selected it, because if there was anything this project needed it was "Improved Hiding Power".

I painted the section where the board was and then I noticed it wasn't quite matching the rest of the bottom, so I decided to paint the entire bottom of the frame. My dad really liked that so he had me paint the bottom of the other side as well. He thought it was looking a little shabby and of course they all needed to match. This was all really uneventful. In the end I think I did a pretty good job and if you don't look to closely, you can't even notice any of the flaws, well except for the copious amounts of sealant that made its way onto the green parts. I think that could be a good life lesson, but what lesson is it? Don't look to closely or you'll see the flaws? Don't tell your dad a board is rotting? Use tape when you caulk? I'm not sure, but I'll think about it. At least, until another project or random thought comes my way.

Pumpkin carries the day, will LeBron do the same?

It's over! A winner must be declared, and that winner is the Pumpkin! Long rule Pumpkin, most beloved of the gourd family. I'll keep the poll up for a little while, but for posterity's sake, King Pumpkin won with fifty percent of the vote, a total of six people. Watermelon came in second with three votes, or twenty-five percent of the vote. Zucchini was third with two votes for sixteen percent of the total. Calabash received a vote for eight percent. Cucumber and "my favorite isn't listed" didn't receive any votes. Funny side note, if you add up all of the percentages you'll notice that we only get to ninety-nine percent. I'm not really sure how that happened, but maybe I'll just give that extra one percent to cucumber because I'm feeling a little sorry for the poor guy.

Now that the gourd issue has been resolved and order has been restored to the universe, I've placed a new question on the site. It's something I've been pondering, but I'm not really certain what the outcome would be, so I'm soliciting your opinions on the matter. Perhaps we'll reach some sort of consensus. So vote now and let your opinions be heard. The new question is, "If Godzilla fought LeBron James today, who would win?" I think this is a compelling and pertinent question. If you would like to comment on it or to lobby for an answer feel free to use the comment section of this post to do so. I think an argument can be made for all of the selections. Would it be the cagey veteran in Godzilla? The young phenom in LeBron? Would it be the residents of the great city of Tokyo who would most likely host the event? How about the viewing public, this kind of spectacle doesn't come around very often? You also know that wherever such a major event is, you're going to find corporations trying to exploit it. Would Nike be able to score a major advertising coup? Would ESPN be able to turn this into the ratings bonanza of the century? When contemplating this question, I think the best way to break down the problem is to think about who would be the biggest winner out of this whole thing. I think there can be multiple winners, but who is the biggest winner?

We could call it Jiffy-tooth

I was recently sitting in a Jiffy Lube in order to fulfil my civic duty to have my car inspected by representatives of the state of North Carolina. These representatives were of course Jiffy Lube employees and not, unfortunately, elected officials; though I might have paid double to see the honorable governor Mike Easley out there checking my tail pipe. That would have at least been entertaining. Instead of being thus entertained, I was stuck being bored in the traditional car place waiting room. The kind with the following standard accouterments: old magazines, a couple newspapers that had been read a few dozen times, hard plastic chairs, the two part gumball machine full of runts and nuts, the overpriced soda machine, the unisex bathroom (door slightly ajar), television mounted to the ceiling with FOX news on just loud enough to make listening to my iPod difficult, but not loud enough to be understood. It was this last piece of essential car place waiting room decor that got my mind to thinking.

I wasn't really all that interested in watching the FOX news program, but as a typical American I find myself drawn to the shimmering screen whenever or wherever it is. I've found in my life that even if nothing is on, I'll sit there and flip through channels aimlessly and be perfectly content to bask in the glow of mediocre programming. I discovered while I was sitting in the Jiffy Lube that the thing I found most annoying in this particular situation wasn't that FOX news was on, but that the sound on the TV was set at just the right volume to prevent me from understanding what was being said while simultaneously being loud enough to ruin everything else. It was at this point that I thought to myself, why not just broadcast the sound on bluetooth or something like that, so that if I didn't want to hear it, I could just turn off my bluetooth earpiece. Of course in my circumstance, I don't own a bluetooth earpiece, so my options would have been slightly limited if the aforementioned situation had it in fact been the reality. However, failing to hear the FOX program would have allowed me to listen to my iPod in peace.

After I left the Jiffy Lube with my freshly certified roadworthy sticker I continued to contemplate the magnitude of this thought. It occurred to me that this idea could go way beyond auto shop waiting rooms. It could extend to all waiting rooms and beyond! Imagine for a moment that you're at the airport, and you actually make it through security with time to spare before your flight. You're sitting there at the gate, doing what? Staring up at the TV showing CNN or something like that. Of course since the airport authority doesn't want to bother anyone in a busy terminal they don't play the sound, they just put it on closed captioning, so that you end up reading the lines to the story about a forest fire in California while the TV's showing video from last nights political debate (hold on that might actually work). What if you could just slip on an ear piece, tune in the TV and listen instead of having to go through all the work and effort of reading lines that seem to have been written by laid off Japanese film translators? That would be great! You could take this idea to anywhere you can see a TV, but not hear it. It could be at the gym while you work out, a bar or restaurant (especially sports bars), a break room, in prison, the DMV, wherever. In fact this idea might be able to expand television into more public areas, which is great because if there's one thing this nation is deficient in it's television viewing time.

Color, color every where but not a drop to drink?

A few days ago, I was helping my dad with some yard work. He wanted to spruce up his yard for summer. One of the things we did was to rake out the flower beds and put down some new mulch. This year my dad decided to go for a darker look, so he got Scott's "Nature Scapes, Color Enhanced Mulch, classic black". I'm not sure why it's called classic black. I mean, it is black, but I've never considered the classic color of mulch to be black. In fact I think people from the classical era actually shunned black mulch since shifty mulch dealers would often disguise recycled soot as mulch and skip town before the hapless land owners knew the difference. That being said, it's nice to see that Scott's engineers and scientists have found a way to give us a reliable source of true black mulch. Perhaps the "classic" nomenclature refers not to the classic use of black mulch, but more to the fact that black is indeed one of the sixteen original colors in the universe back when it only supported CGA. Thankfully those days are behind us, but perhaps Scott's marketer's are trying to play the nostalgia card. Whatever the case, my dad liked the look and bought quite a few bags of the stuff.

As I was spreading the mulch out, I was really impressed by the contrast of colors between the mulch and the various plants we have growing in the flower beds. For the most part they are still just a myriad shades of green. There was one bush in particular that's a blueish green that really caught my eye. The black mulch really made the colors pop in a way that the previous brown cover hadn't. The flower beds seemed to take on a new life. I was fascinated by how a simple change in background could have such an amazing effect on my perception of the flower beds.

As I continued to spread the mulch out, I began to consider the possibilities of mixing mulches, which I believe is more acceptable than mixing metaphors, but the jury's still in the bag on that one. I remembered an art class that I had taken several years ago where we were drawing using conté crayons. We were exploring contrast by only using white, black and sepia colored crayons. Originally I thought that all conté projects were done this way, however, I've since learned this is not the case. Admittedly I was crushed to learn that I had been wrong all of these years, but after a short while of pondering how I could convince the world that my certitude was better than it's certitude, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. None the less, as I was pushing the mulch into position around the yet to bloom lilies, my mind hearkened back to this incorrect idea. Though I was incorrect about contés, I was not incorrect about contrast. I began to ponder how delightful it might be to use different colored mulches to make designs and pictures in the flower beds. I had just seen the red mulch at the hardware store and my mind associated it with the sepia crayons of my class. The problem I ran into is that I don't believe there is a pure white mulch, but I quickly decided that a light tan color would do the trick. I'm not much of an artist, but I think it would be an interesting medium to explore, the natural floor that is. Especially as plants grow up through your work and fill it with contrasting colors. I also thought that it might be easier and longer lasting to do this kind of thing with rock, since it would be easier to get the colors and because rocks have a greater life expectancy than do multi-colored wood chips (especially in a termite infested region such as North Carolina). The more I think about it though, the more I think mulch would be more interesting. Maybe it's the transient nature of mulch, the idea that it will begin to change and degrade so quickly after you place it, much more so than rock. I'm still not sure. I need to think about this a little more before I come to any real conclusions, but I'd be interested in other perspectives on the topic. I'm sure "real" artists have done similar things, or perhaps already done this exact thing. I think I'd like to learn more though.

It's great to be here at Wrigley Stadium! -- Jeff Gordon

I had an amusing thought this morning (which are the best thoughts to have, I might add. Prove me wrong, I dare you!) as I was watching a little Sports Center on ESPN. They were showing highlights from the Tampa Bay game yesterday, which I believe Tampa won, though I wasn't paying much attention because I was musing on my amusing thought. Oh, I think they were playing the Orioles. If you don't keep up to date on baseball stats, and I'll admit I often don't because my favorite team, the Reds, is usually not relevant to the post season discussion and because I don't get a lot of baseball in this area; then you probably haven't noticed that the Rays are doing a pretty good job this year and are currently in second place in their division, just a game and a half behind Boston. Of course if you don't tend to keep up on baseball stats you probably don't know that Tampa Bay changed their name from the Devil Rays to just the Rays, or perhaps your still reeling at the news that Tampa has a team.

Anyway the amusing thought that I was musing was that how sad would it be, and by sad I mean absolutely hilarious, if Tampa were somehow able to win the World Series before the Cubs could win another one. That would mean that in their short span of existence both Florida teams would have won a combined three world series (at least) before the mighty, large market Chicago Cubs, who probably draw more fans in a single game then both Florida teams combined draw for a season; could win one in a hundred years of trying. (That was a cumbersome sentence. You might need to reread it.) It would also mean that both of the Florida clubs would have won a world series before the San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers a.k.a. the Washington Senators, Washington Nationals a.k.a. the Montreal Expos and the Colorado Rockies. For some reason I think this is very amusing. Of course in order to pull this off the Rays will have to win arguably the most difficult division in baseball, though the Yankees are trying to help them out with that this year. Granted they could also make it by being the best of the rest and get the wild card as well.

Another thought that has struck me in all of this; why the Florida Marlins? Why not the Miami Marlins? Traditionally baseball teams have been named after their cities, i.e. the Cincinnati Reds, the Boston Red Sox, the St. Louis Cardinals. Why the sudden statesmanship with the newer teams? Arizona, Colorado, Florida; what's up with that? They should be the Phoenix Diamondbacks, the Denver Rockies, and the Miami Marlins. Does baseball really think they're fooling the other residents of those states into thinking that they're "state" team is going to play in multiple cities? Do people in Flagstaff really think they'll get to host a couple of D-backs games a year at the local municipal diamond? Do people in Aspen and Vale even care about anything other than money, let alone whether or not they've got a baseball team representing them? If baseball truly believed this could help attract more fans and build a stronger fan base why don't they rename the other teams? Something like: the Missouri Royals, the California Dodgers, the Minnesota Twins, the New York Yankees! Just say them aloud, it sounds ridiculous! What is baseball thinking?

A little blue pill for you, a cure for me?

I thought I'd share an idea that I've been kicking around for awhile. It began it's germination when I was watching an interview of Michael Moore on the topic of his movie, "Sicko", which I thought I might like to see, but never actually got around to seeing. However, even though I didn't see the movie, the interview alone got me thinking about the pharmaceutical industry in this country, that would be the USA, if you're on the Internet then you're on US territory because we made it and we make it great (with the help of Japan and Europe and South America and Asia...etc). Anyway as one of the many Americans whose health care plan centers around pain tolerance management, I started to think about ways to improve the system. Now it has been my experience that necessity is the mother of invention and usually the people with the best ideas to fix a problem are generally the people dealing with said problem. That being said, it's probably not wise to assume that well paid politicians with the best health care package in the world are going to be quick to act on changing the system or necessitated enough to come up with solutions. I however on the other hand feel like my impoverished condition puts me at a proper perspective to attack the problem.

I've had many a thought on the health care system in this country, but I choose to write about just one for now. I have on occasion had the privilege of sitting in a doctor's waiting room and appropriately enough I've been waiting. One of my favorite things to do while I'm in a doctor's office waiting room is to watch the steady stream of pharmaceutical reps approach the receptionist and barter with her (it's always a her, have you noticed that?) for a few moments of the doctor's time in exchange for product samples, brochures that the doctor never has time to read, clocks, calenders, pens, notepads, and little flashlights that have only one function, entertaining small children and bloggers with Bjorn in their titles. You sit there in you sickened state and watch these intrepid peddlers of pills drag in their bags of goodies like dear old Saint Nick almost oblivious to the end users scattered around them. I've often wanted to ask some of them to skip the middlemen and go right to the source, me. I want free stuff! Sadly most of these pushers of pens and pads often have samples for things I don't really need. This brings me to the point. In this country and probably every other one for that matter, it is more cost effective to develop and manufacture drugs that we don't need then to develop and manufacture drugs that we do need. The reasons for this are many, so I'll only address a couple that I'm aware of. One is that if you manufacture a drug that saves lives, then only a cold hearted scrooge would let someone who couldn't afford it die. No, you need to give it to people for free, or at a price deemed reasonable by politicians worried about reelection. Another reason is because the drugs that save lives often are used by small groups of people. Companies could easily spend a billion dollars developing a cure for a disease that would only be used by a hundred people a year. Now if you're one of those hundred people, this seems like a good idea, until of course the company tells you that it will cost you ten million dollars a dose (much cheaper at the moment if you're earning Euros) which takes us back to the first point. A company could also spend a billion dollars developing said drug for said one hundred people only to not have it approved once it was said finished. Then they wouldn't even have the option of charging someone ten million dollars a dose. They might be able to sell it for two million dollars a dose in Mexico or China, but that's a little sketchy and not in America so it doesn't really apply to a discussion of the American health care system.

So to sum things up, because I noticed that my last paragraph was a bit lengthy, it's more cost effective for companies to manufacture drugs we don't need to live; like erectile dysfunction tablets, new and exotic headache medicines, yet another allergy medication, crack, meth, etc, than to create drugs to save lives. I think, however, that I've come up with a way to make it cost effective for companies to make the drugs we really need. It's fairly simple, so it should make a lot of people angry, at least that's the hope anyway. I think we should allow companies to transfer their patent rights from critical need drugs to non-critical drugs. Now before you shoot my idea down, allow me to explain how this would theoretically work, then you can shoot it down. First we'd need to create a list of critical needs. There are two difficult parts to consider here. Who is "we" and what is a critical need? I think "we" could be a group of experts, such as doctors. A critical need could be defined as a condition that will directly result in death or impairment. These will probably be refined by lawyers if this idea ever goes anywhere, so I'm not to concerned with these definitions at the moment. So this group of "we" gets together and puts out a wish list of cures. Pharmaceutical companies can look over the list and work on the cures. When they develop a cure, they submit it for review. If it is a cure they can have the option of applying some or all of their rights to the drug to another of their non-critical drugs. A company might want to transfer the rights because having the exclusive rights to a critical needs drug may not be worth keeping. Going back to the reasons I gave for not developing them in the first place; they may not be able to sell enough of it at a high enough price to recoup their losses. However, if they could take those years of exclusivity and tack them onto the end of a less important, but better selling drug, then they have something to work for.

I don't know if I'm being very clear, so allow me to give an example. Say Pfizer has a big time money maker, perhaps a little blue pill for instance, that isn't critical for saving lives, but lots of people want. This pill is making them a boatload of money. However, after a certain amount of time, anybody will be allowed to make these little blue pills and sell them for whatever they want. Suddenly, Pfizer isn't making as much money as they used to. If my system was in place, Pfizer could have a way to keep the little blue pill and all of its profits all to themselves for a longer period of time. Pfizer scientists would look at the critical need list and come up with a way to cure something like Hurler Schie Syndrome. At which point, Pfizer could decide, do we want to charge a few people half a million dollars a dose for this stuff, or would we like to keep exclusive rights for our little blue pill for an additional ten years (number of years is negotiable in this idea, I just chose ten because I'm a decimal kind of guy). Most likely Pfizer would chose the blue pill and suddenly the cure for Hurler Schie Syndrome goes straight to the open market as a generic that can be manufactured by anyone. We might even allow for a government sponsored generics program to subsidize their manufacture, for instance companies that manufacture them could get tax breaks. In the end, Pfizer would be able to recoup its losses and then some by keeping it's little blue pill in a monogamous relationship for a little while longer and sufferers of Hurler Schie Syndrome would have a cure with a reasonable price.

Are there problems with this idea? Let me know what you think they are. I can't see any, but that's probably because my head is swollen up because I can't afford the proper medication.

Vote now!

As you may have noticed, I've added a poll question to the blog. I think I'll make it a monthly staple. I originally wanted to find a way to let people comment on the poll question within the poll question area, but unfortunately I'm not very HTML savvy, so I'm stuck with this generic blogger page element. I queried my web-knower-how-to-do-er friend Tim about it. He didn't seem to have any simple ideas, and by simple I mean something that I can understand without taking a three month course or being bombarded by mutating radiation, thereby being transformed into some sort of super intelligent rat like in the book, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH", which is a great book by the way. Much better than the movie as is usually the case. Though I have to admit that in the book, as well as the movie, the rats actually started out as rats and they weren't bombarded by radiation. I'm merely pointing out that if I was bombarded with radiation one of the possible outcomes of being radiated would be to be like the Rats of NIMH. However, in lieu of such things (things being courses, or radiation, or courses of radiation), I'm stuck with writing a blog entry so that you can comment on the poll. I think I might also include the final poll totals into the comments section for this entry so that it can be remembered in perpetuity.

Now that I'm done with the explanation, go ahead and vote! I added a "my favorite isn't listed" selection as somewhat of a catchall. Just remember that melons and squashes are parts of the gourd family, so if you like honeydew melon or butternut squash, that's the category for you.

Where in the store is Carmen San Diego?

I was perusing the aisles of a rather large local store, i.e. Wal-Wart, recently; looking for a rather obscure bit of merchandise when an idea came to me. Wouldn't it be nice if the store could tell you where everything is? Now unfortunately stores are currently unable to talk, which leaves only the workers within the store to assist us. This can be somewhat problematic because the workers are often as lost and confused as we are. This is explain in Franz Smith's theory of really big stores which states that the size of the store is inversely proportional to a store employee's willingness and ability to assist shoppers. It should be noted that willingness and ability are variables and not fixed within a set ratio, however; per the law, both desires can't be high at the same time, while it is possible for both to be low and in some extreme cases to both equal zero. Unfortunately for me Wal-Mart is very much effected by this malady, it being a large store. I endeavored therefore to find a way to circumvent this natural barrier by appealing directly to the store for help. I had time to ponder all of this because my wanderings about were unfortunately in vain. I never did find what I was looking for, but as with most futile quest, I came away learning something that I hadn't set out to find. This of course begs the question that if the quest really was futile, would I have been able to come away with something that is useful? This is something else to ponder, but at a later date. For now I'll return to the discussion at hand.

I think it would be nice if stores would create a digital map of their floors and as they place inventory on the floor have it automatically tell the map where the item was placed. I think this could be done with a few tweaks to current inventory practices. We already have bar codes on everything, and products are already scanned into databases in order to keep track of what's where. I'm just proposing an additional layer. Once this inventory map of the store is completed, it should be automatically updated every time a worker scans a new product onto the floor. Now at this stage, I've created extra work for the employees without actually helping the consumers or the store. So far this plan would only seem to help depress the "willingness to help" variable within the equation. However, if my full plan comes to fruition, Franz's law will no longer be applicable, though we will need to continue to consider the ramifications of these changes in relation to Thompson's laws of checkout line dynamics, but that's for another time.

Now, to give the store its voice! In order to do this the store's inventory floor map will have to be accessible and searchable. I believe these technologies already exist, but I don't now what they are or where to find them. My solution to this, like most things is to Google it, or just turn directly to Google for help. I think the most convenient method would be something that would allow someone to pick up their web enabled cell phone or PDA (no not that PDA! The data assistant kind.), pull up the store's plan and do a search for what they're looking for. Imagine if you were in Wal-Mart looking for say, multi-colored toothpicks, and you couldn't find them. You pull out your phone/PDA and load the store map. Then you do a Google Local Store Map search and it tells you they're on aisle seventy-two and gives you a picture of the store plan with a dot showing you where on the aisle it is, plus which side. Think of the convenience! We could expand the whole Google Maps engine to the local store level! Instead of street view, we could have aisle view. We could use GPS tracking to show where you are in the store. You could even enter your shopping list ahead of time and have your phone alert you if you passed something so that you don't have to go back for it. You could even use the map to optimize your route ahead of time. Think of the time you'll save if you use the real time traffic update info to reroute around jams and slow moving traffic. I think the applications for this kind of technology are limitless! Of course, we'll have to implement security measures in order to keep this technology out of the hands of terrorists, but I think we're up to the challenge. The risks are worth the rewards that we stand to reap if we're successful in deploying these new techniques.

Sweet home Chicago!

Alright, so I had a bit of a random thought on my way home from church, and since this site is dedicated to my random thoughts I thought I would share it, which may or may not be random in it's own way. So I was on my way home, imbued with the Spirit of God and all that and I thought to myself, "How cool would it be to see a musical version of the Blues Brothers?" Now I don't know if there has ever been a stage production of the Blues Brothers, this being a random thought that popped into my head, I haven't had time to research the subject; but I think it would be fantastic to see that story portrayed on stage. I think the really difficult part would be how to present all of the chase scenes. The chases are a major part of the story and I'm not sure how you'd be able to wreck hundreds of police cars as you race through downtown Chicago. Of course, I don't need to figure that out. I'm not the special effects guy. I think that someone on Broadway could figure it out, they're pretty smart. I think the rest of the story would translate well to a stage performance. The movie is a musical after all.

I'm putting you on Notice

I would like to begin by apologizing for my long blogging abstinence. I have a fairly good string of excuses for it, however, and if you'll indulge me I'll delineate them from the beginning. Of course if you don't want to indulge me you might want to skip down a bit and not read the rest of this paragraph. When last I wrote I was at my sister's home in Arizona along ole venerable Route 66 (pronounced like root sixty-six). That little trip in March sort of knocked me out of my rhythm. So that covers the first little bit of April. However, my life was about to be altered drastically. Sometime in April, I don't remember quite when, I started having some problems with my computer. I had recently converted to Linux because I lost my copy of Windows XP when my hard drive died and my computer is not capable of running Vista which is probably a blessing in disguise, though a thinly veiled one at that. I was able to replace my hard drive, but it seems like the problems went much deeper. Long story short, my ThinkPad is now more of a ComaPad. I'm currently writing on a borrowed computer which brings me to the reason why I've delayed my blogging ways. You see, I just hate this keyboard I'm using. I'm so used to my ThinkPad's keyboard, that now I find it a pain to go back to a desktop style. It might help if the keyboard I'm using was a nice one, but it's not. It's old and some of the keys stick and half of the spacebar has lost it's springiness making it a little more difficult to produce space's on the page, and as you can see I use the spacebar profusely as would anyone else in my situation. As a side note, I think it's very annoying that my spell checker insists that spacebar is two words. I, however, contend that it is one word, and I'm not going to let a computer tell me otherwise. Of course if any of you would like to comment on the one word, two word controversy feel free, just know that I'm stubborn. Anyway, getting back to my monologue, to sum everything up, I haven't been blogging because it's somewhat inconvenient at the moment. The problem is that some of you don't think that's a good enough excuse and have told me as much, so I've decided to force myself back into the habit.


For my first blog back, I've decided to share a sight with you that I had while I was visiting my sister. I had asked a dear friend of mine for some feedback concerning this here blog of mine. She said that it was nice, but that she would like to see some pictures because she says, and I quote, "One thing I love about blogs is that they are totally voyeuristic." With that in mind I will totally present for you're amusement a sight I had while visiting Disney's California Adventure. I went there with my sister and her family, partly to celebrate my birthday and partly because my sister wanted another adult along to help with the kids on a family vacation. Unfortunately she was sorely mistaken in my adulthood, being somewhat misled by the numbers on my birth certificate. Anyway, it was late and I was standing in line for the roller coaster, California Scream, with my two nephews when I saw the following sign:





I thought to myself, "that would make for a great CD cover, especially if the name of your band is 'Notice!'" Now I don't mean the paper art stuff. I mean that this image would be really cool if it was printed on the top of the disk. I also think the wording is somewhat profound in a 90's alternative emo rocker sort of way. It kind of reaches out and says, "pass the Cheetos, man."

Flight of Fancy

This last Saturday I flew to Arizona to visit with my sister and her family. On the flight out, I had a couple of thoughts.

The first thought was, how cool would it be if commercial jetliners had transparent ceilings. I think it would be neat to lean back in my chair and stare up into the sky. Now, I think I'd only want to do this during the night as it might get a little hot in the day with the Sun shining in. Therefore the plane would need some sort of retractable window covering in case the cabin got too hot or too bright. Think how neat it would be though to stare up at the stars on a clear night, or to see lightning flashing all around you during a storm. Granted some people may prefer not to see all the lightning crashing around them, but I think it would be exciting. I originally thought it might also be a good idea to have a transparent floor, sort of like a glass bottom boat, but this seemed somewhat impractical for a commercial jetliner, though perhaps it might be feasible for a private plane of some sort. Don't get me wrong, I personally would find it exhilarating to have a transparent aisle where I could see thirty thousand feet down, or to watch the runway grow ever closer as the plane lands. However, the impracticality is that you have a cargo/baggage compartment below most aisles and as fun as a transparent aisle may be, the excitement of staring at peoples luggage for several hours doesn't seem to merit the expense of installing such a perk. It's just too slight an improvement over the existing situation, unless of course the cargo hold was filled with objects that react to a decompressed environment such has cans of soda, people's pets, or Cuban refugees; then it might be interesting enough.

The second thought I had was that airplanes are like a microcosm of life. I compared my flight to our journey through life. Life is like waking up on a plane that is just taking off and you don't remember who you are, where you're from, or where you're going. All you know is the inside of the cabin and the people inside with you, all of whom are as forgetful as yourself. The thing that really struck me is how, on a flight, you feel like you're in control and that everything is alright. However, in reality, if something goes wrong, there's really nothing you can do. Your realm of "control" and influence is wholly confined to the cabin; how you interact with your fellow passengers, whether or not you choose to listen to the occasional warnings and announcements from the pilot over the intercom, to heed the safety card or ignore it. I think this is very similar to life. I often feel like I'm in control of situations, but how much control do we really have? In the end, the only thing we actually have any true control over is our own internal lives. We control how we respond to and influence the environment in which we're placed. I think our environment can extend into our own minds. We often think of our environment as our physical surroundings, but I think it also includes our chemical makeup, which when you think about it is a physical component of ourselves. The challenge is not to try and control other things, it's to act and react in the proper way to all of the various stimuli and challenges we face, be they mental or physical. I feel it's a comfort to know that there's a pilot and a destination on our "flight" through life and that everybody is capable of discovering this if they choose to seek out our "pilot" and ask about our "flight" information. I think that we need to remember that how we conduct ourselves on our "flight" is more important than how many bags of peanuts we receive, or whether or not we get a blanket, or how much leg room we have.

The Sun will come up tomorrow (though it will be a little earlier)

Like many of you, this weekend I took part in the annual rite of springing forward, though I have to admit that I don't spring forward like I used to. This years "springing" event was exceptionally bad for me in that I only got about an inch off of the ground, tripped on my way down, twisted an ankle and bumped my head. This was still better than my falling back event in November, which I'd rather just try and forget about. As I lay on the ground rubbing my head and massaging my ego; I began to ponder this silly tradition of ours.

My ponderings led me to an interesting thought that I'd like to share. It seems that we are now on Daylight Savings Time longer than we're on Standard Time. This makes me wonder, is Standard Time really standard? It seems to be more of the anomaly than the norm. Perhaps, Daylight Savings Time is the new Standard time. Of course, if it's the new Standard Time, than what is the Old Standard time? If we do decide to move forward with this new nomenclature, then maybe "Old Standard Time" should be called "Daylight Spent Time", since we've used up all our daylight during the "New Standard Time" which leaves us in the dark from November through February. This is especially true in the northern climes, as anyone who lives up north will attest. Those months can be pretty bleak and since we've never actually been able to develop an effective means of saving, storing, and redistributing sunlight during this dark period, I feel the new wording is therefore doubly apt.

I think this new arrangement would also reflect the modern American trend of spending more than we earn. If we can spend more money than we earn, then why not spend more sunlight than we receive? In truth we've been running a net sunlight deficit for years, but we've been fooling ourselves into thinking that we're saving. In reality our trade deficit with the Sun is out of control. The Sun continues to manufacture and send light to the earth without opening it's markets to Earth based light manufacturers. According to recent scientific reports, if this trend continues the Sun's reserves will become so massive that within ten to fifteen billion years it will expand to such an extent that it will absorb the Earth. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that this will lead to a loss of our sovereignty. In order to combat this threat to our freedom, I believe our government should sends our top ambassadors to meet with the Sun's government to work to break down these trade barriers. In the mean time, I think we should all do our part by consuming more Earth based light products and cutting down on our use of solar imports. Once they see that we're going domestic, they'll be forced to negotiate a fairer trade pact.

Are the Democrats Mavericks or Spurs?

I was recently struck by a similarity between the current U.S. presidential race and the NBA. Everyone seems to be convinced that the Democrats have all the momentum and that the Republicans have pretty much tanked their chances of retaining the presidency, but I'm not so sure. This is where the similarity with the NBA comes in. The NBA is made up of two conferences, the East and the West. The West, as anyone who has listened to even the slightest amount of sports talk radio can tell you, is stacked. It has the top teams. They're the most fun to watch. They're high energy. They're innovative. They're what's right with basketball. The East, not so much. Not good. Not fun. Not high energy. Not innovative. They're, let's face it, the least. However, that doesn't mean that the West is guaranteed the title. It seems like that for the last few years many of the sports pundits have called the Western conference semi-finals the true championship series. However, the East has gone on to win the title a few of those times. Most recently two years ago when the Miami Heat upset Dallas.

I wonder if we're making the same mistake with politics. Many of the political pundits seem to believe the strength is with the Democrats; they've got the high energy, the fun, the appeal, the innovation. The road to the White House is being portrayed as being decided in the Democratic primaries. I wonder, however, if there might be too much strength in the Democratic position. In the NBA, the Western Conference teams usually beat themselves up just to make it to the finals. They're emotionally and physically beat up when they meet their Eastern Conference foe. The Eastern Conference champion however is usually fresher because of the easier path to the finale. In a similar vein, I believe that the Democratic nominee, whether Hillary or Barack, will be bruised and spent from just trying to get the nomination. Whereas John, for the Republicans, is fresh and already focused on the general election.

This of course is not a predictor of the final results. Is it better to be tested throughout the playoffs, or to have an easier first couple of rounds? In the NBA, Miami topped Dallas in 2006; but the Western Conference Spurs swept Cleveland in 2007. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that this race hasn't been decided yet, and it won't be until November. I think the lesson we can learn from the NBA is that surprises and injuries happen and that a position of strength is not a predictor of victory. The Democrats should take a lesson from the Spurs. Don't be overconfident, play your game, stick to fundamentals. They probably should "sweep" the general election, but let's not count our hanging chads until Florida is disqualified from the Union.

Pennies from heaven

I had a bit of a disagreement with a friend of mine recently. It seems he wants to do away with the penny. Personally, I'm all for the penny. It's the basis of our monetary system. What would happen if you could no longer break a dollar into all of it's constituent parts? I'll tell you what would happen; our society would collapse! We live in a base ten world. If we did away with the penny, we might as well do away with the centimeter, or the centiliter, or the centipede. Our entire society revolves around tenths, except for computers that are base two or eight depending on your perspective; oh and the whole old English weights and measure system really isn't base anything, well maybe base King George's foot, or something like that; but everything else is base ten. So my concern of course is for the children because let's face it, they'll be the ones that will really suffer if we do away with the penny. I can see it now. Poor little Jimmy is sitting in kindergarten/first grade (whenever they start learning about coinage) and he learns about the dollar. He learns that the dollar can be cut in half, it can be cut into tenths, it can be cut into twentieths, but then when he goes to break it into hundredths; BAM, sorry Jimmy, that's illegal. The poor kid will be devastated. Another example. Poor little Susie just learned to count to ten. Now she wants to show her mom by counting out the change, but can she do it? No, she'll have two nickles, but somehow two equals ten. What's that going to teach anyone? Two equals ten? What kind of crazy mixed up world is that? Not the kind of crazy mixed up world I want to live in.

However, the anti-penny establishment makes a very strong argument when it points out that it costs the government more money to produce a penny then the penny is actually worth. Of course we all know that this lose is made up over the life of the penny because of inflation in other countries (except recently, this has sort of backfired on us). Also it assumes a fifty year life span in which the penny remains in circulation and not in a jar on top of someones dresser, or in a wishing well (do they even take pennies any more?), or being scuffed up and burned, or flicked at people by teenage boys. So it is possible that the government is losing money by manufacturing money which the Argentinians have proved is not a winning business model on numerous occasions.

To every ones relief, I believe I've devised a solution. I'll wait for the applause to die down........... The solution is as simple as it is brilliant. The government needs to begin manufacturing pennies from recycled cardboard! Currently both programs are money losers, but together they can be money winners! Think about it. Used cardboard is nearly worthless. Pennies are nearly worthless. Therefore used cardboard equals pennies. It's a classic use of the transitive property! Besides, using used cardboard could really cut down on production expenses. People could manufacture there own pennies. The government could supply a template on the Treasury Departments website and presto a cottage industry is born! We won't have to worry about being swamped with pennies either because cardboard doesn't hold up as long as zinc or whatever it is we're using now. Also, this could help mitigate the homeless population and reduce poverty as it would be the poor and small children (let's not forget the children) that would be manufacturing the largest number of new coins. Bums wouldn't have to spend another day sober. Jimmy would be able to break a dollar. Susie would be able to count to ten with ten coins instead of two. The best part of all, however, is that it's environmentally friendly. In one fell swoop we would reduce the amount of cardboard going into our landfills while simultaneously reducing mining cost for more metal. With all the savings, the government would be able to pay down the national debt, or more likely declare war on yet another small nation, preferably one that is rich in cardboard reserves.

"Jumper" on this!

There's something I need to get off my chest. Don't worry it's not excessive hair or day old pizza, at least, not this time. No it's a pet peeve of mine (which I'll admit is shedding, which would take us back to hair removal, but that's another story). Anyone who has watched television in the last two months has undoubtedly seen an advertisement for the upcoming Hollywood movie, "Jumper", which I believe is a documentary about a double dutch jump roping squad from Texas. However, regardless of what the movie is about, there's a scene in the trailer where Samuel L. Jackson says something to the effect of, "Only God should have the power to be in all places at all times!" That's the line that irks me. This character is seemingly a religious zealot of some sort. He's justifing his actions by assuming that God wants him to do it. Now, I'm not opposed to religious zealotry. The Lord knows that they've added comic relief for ages. It's true, just ask Him, or if not Him, than anyone caught up in the Spanish Inquisition, hilarious. My problem is that Hollywood seems to portray all religious people as extremists that, as soon as something goes wrong like a power outage, or an earthquake, or a river's water turning into blood; they feel the need to light a bunch of candles, condemn scientist as heretics and offer human sacrifices to the God of Love.

What bothers me is this portrayal of religious people as all being self-righteous, intolerant zealots who feel they have to take everything into their own hands and who assume that God wants them to punish the perceived "sinners" for Him. I once heard a religious zealot defined as something along the following lines (those of you who know me, know that I have a problem with direct quotes), a zealot is someone who does what he thinks God should do if God were there (which is interesting since God, by "definition" is everywhere, but where is that?). In other words, a zealot is one who ascribes his own thoughts and beliefs to God. This is opposed to a disciple who could be defined as someone who seeks to discover what God would have him do, and then does it or at least attempts to do it. In other words disciples try to ascribe God's thoughts and beliefs to themselves.

Now, perhaps I'm overreacting a bit. Perhaps, I'm seeing all of these perceived slights at religion because I'm ultra-sensitive to it. Maybe we see so many zealots in the movies and on television because they make for better characters than "normal" religious folk. However, I wonder if all of this portrayal of zealots is having an effect on the real world. We often associate things based on our perceptions and not necessarily upon reality. If we believe that people can become desensitized to violence because of movies, then what might the constant association of zealotry as mainstream religion be doing? I wonder if people turn away from religion because they don't want to be seen in the same light as these irrational characters. What kind of an effect are these misrepresentations having? It's human nature to stereotype. I've often had people question my beliefs based not upon my beliefs, but upon the perceptions they have of my beliefs. Often a simple explanation is all it takes to set them straight, but how many people never voice their doubts or feelings? I think it's important that "normal" religious folk need to be a good example to help balance out these portrayals of extremism. We can't allow someones only example of religion be that which is seen in movies and on television. Stories by their very nature are skewed and rarely as complex and intricate as real life, yet society seems to except them has portrayals of reality. This seems to add weight to Christ's admonition to be, "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" (see Matthew 5:13-14). In this world with so many perceived zealots, let us all strive to be better disciples and examples to everyone with whom come in contact in the hope that we'll help people see past the intrensic shallowness of stories.

Knock, knock...

So, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. Mormons, in honor of the great prophet-historian, Mormon, who compiled the aptly named Book of Mormon; though I have to admit that those who originally branded us "Mormons" did so disparagingly and not with the intention to honor Mormon or his scriptural compendium. However, I digress. The purpose for my declaration of religious affiliation is to help explain why I was attending a Stake Conference meeting. A Stake Conference is a large meeting attended by the members of several congregations within the Church of Jesus Christ. By tradition there is a Saturday evening session held for adults, of which, sadly, I am one. This is sad in the sense that I'm an adult and not in the sense that I had to attend the meeting because I'm an adult; this being one of the benefits of the sad reality of being an adult.

I found this Saturday's session, on the whole, to be quite delightful. I admit that there have been occasions when they haven't been delightful, but this is because I haven't properly prepared myself beforehand, so instead of being spiritually nourished, I find myself doodling aimlessly on my notepad for the duration of the meeting. However, this time I was somewhat prepared and the meeting was a delight. Perhaps I was more prepared for this particular meeting because one of my good friends was asked to speak on the topic of testimony. I'd like to report that she did a fantastic job. I took a copious amount of notes (copious being here defined as a page and a half of a steno pad), and may in the future devote a post to her discussion. However, at the moment, there's something else that has struck me. Our local mission president (a mission president is one who presides over a mission in case you couldn't figure that out) was also asked to speak. He spoke briefly about a scripture that he has been discussing with the missionaries that serve under him. The scripture is from the book, "The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", hereafter referred to as D&C (for the obvious reason that I don't want to keep typing that title out), section 88, verses 63 and 64. They read:

Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my name it shall be given unto you, that is expedient for you;

There are similar scriptures in the New Testament (Matthew 7:7 and Luke 11:19) as well as in other locations throughout the the Book of Mormon and D&C. He was using these verses in a discussion on drawing closer to the Lord with an emphasis on prayer. He made a distinction between "asking" and "knocking", which I hadn't really considered before, but when you think about it makes a lot of sense. The Lord distinguishes between the two. He states them as two separate things with two separate outcomes. Asking causes you to receive, but knocking opens things. I think we all understand, or at least it's accepted that asking refers to prayer, a verbal communication with the Lord, whether aloud or in the silence of our hearts. So as he was speaking I began to wonder, "What then is knocking?" The mission president made the point that he felt knocking refers to a persistence in drawing closer to the Lord, a persistence in asking. However, I'm not so sure. At least, if he's correct, I don't think he's captured the entire idea. I began to look at what makes up the two acts. Asking as I stated earlier is something you say (whether in thought or aloud). Knocking is something that you physically do. It's a physical action of striking an object with the usual intent of summoning someone. So how does this apply to the Gospel of Christ? I feel that "knocking" might refer to a physical act or actions, but what? Perhaps it deals with ordinances such as: being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, etc. Maybe it refers to keeping the commandment upon which, the blessing we seek, is predicated (sorry for the crazy sentence structure there, but if you read D&C 130:20-21 it will make some sense). I'm really not certain at the moment. This has opened a new realm of thought for me and I feel it is something that is beneficial for us to ponder.