THE WRITING ON THE CEILING

student: "did you know that if you say the word gullible really slowly it sounds like beautiful?"

me: "did you know that in the 90's they actually took to word gullible out of the dictionary?"

student: "really? why?"

me: (coolly walks away)

student: "wait... bastard!"

A PROPER GANDER

imagine, if you will, martin luther king, jr., and thousands of other civil liberals, marching on the washington monument in DC. once he takes his place at the podium to address the walkers, he promptly instructs everyone to empty their buckets of red paint into the pool of water beside them. what would this accomplish?

i have said in the past that peta is a domestic terrorist organization. today, i wish to expound on this thought.

yesterday, a friend (and mind you, she is still a friend--i think) posted this picture and stated: "This is why I hate wool... among other things :(".

the picture is from peta2.com and shows a process called mulesing (a surgical procedure for removing maggots from the flesh of sheep, although this is in no way explained by the picture or caption). upon reading the comment threads on both her page and the link, i found that very few people seem to actually know what this picture shows. most commenters think that it is a picture of sheering gone bad and a mistake caused by the ineptitude of hurrying farm hands (which you can no doubt find on peta2.com as well).

the "conversation" began with two girls reinforcing their support for peta's cause and (in my opinion) showed a misunderstanding of the picture's content:

the phrase that stood out to me as showing the most ignorance was kaycee stating: "they just want to get the job done quick so mistakes are made often." upto this point jill seems to get the picture; kaycee seems to be misinformed. but this isn't kaycee's fault. as i will show, it is peta's fault for intentionally misleading and misinforming viewers through sensational propaganda.

although i don't normally get involved with such pointless debates on facebook, i felt a need to chime in and set the record straight (since peta wouldnt). so naturally i said:

now, i knew that kaycee wouldnt like what i said. but i thought that i said it in an informed, and respectful way. at the very most, i blamed peta, and not them, for being misinformed. she didnt like that...

you can read the rest of the dialog here if you would like, but i dont want to spend any more time on it. my point is this: peta intentionally misrepresents, misleads, misinforms and flat out lies when they feel justified by their goals. this is (ironically) as unethical a political sceme as i can imagine. even the nazi nationalists thought they had a good point. but do the ends justify the means? is the promotion of half-truths any thing less than the promotion of ignorance?

ingrid newkirk (co-founder and current head of peta, last i checked) is to social liberalism, what bill o'reilly and fox news is to broadcast journalism (maybe i will address this in the future). both sensationalize media for their own supposed "just" causes. this is called propaganda and is a common and effective tool used by terrorists, domestic terrorists, and tools alike.

where would blacks be if martin luther king, jr. employed the same tactics that peta uses today? would homosexuals get anywhere politically if they began throwing red paint on newly wed heterosexuals? does hysteria and vandalism really promote progressive change? i humbly submit: it does not.

POLY-SIGH

today, i saw this on a friend's facebook page:

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

MY GENERATION GREW UP RECITING THIS EVERY MORNING IN SCHOOL WITH MY HAND ON MY HEART. THEY NO LONGER DO THAT FOR FEAR OF OFFENDING SOMEONE!

LET'S SEE HOW MANY AMERICANS WILL RE-POST THIS AND NOT CARE ABOUT OFFENDING SOMEONE [caps not added]

and i almost replied: "did you think to ask why people are offended?"

i dont understand how people equate supporting separation of church and state with an aggressive attack on god. if this is the case then the constitution is also an attack on god.

here is my fundamental problem with this debate. taking "under god" out of the pledge does not force god-believers to make an acknowledgement that god does not exist; however, having it in the pledge DOES force non-believers to make an acknowledgement that god does exist--usually in a public setting, no less.

as a side note: the pledge of allegiance was written in 1892, and the phrase "under god" was not added until 1954.

MY STORY

At the end of the Book of Mormon, the prophet Moroni gives a challenge (Moroni 10:3-5) where he admonishes the reader to ask God if the things written in the Book of Mormon are not true. What a great opportunity—a chance to ask God a specific question, and receive a specific answer. What better way can there be to both prove the existence of God and determine His true and living church?

While in high school, I wanted to find out if this was real, and if I really could find out for myself that the Mormon Church was true. So I read, prayed and waited. But nothing happened. Concerned, I thought I must have done something wrong. Maybe I had sinned and wasn’t worthy for an answer yet. So I repented and tried again. Still nothing.

At the end of high school it was expected of me to go on a mission for the church. My family expected it; my quasi-girlfriend expected it; even my non-Mormon friends expected it. Just before my temple endowment, my older brother came home from his mission and raved about how amazing it was and how much stronger his testimony had become. Ah ha! This was what I needed to really get an answer. What better way to know God than to serve Him by going on a mission and preaching and serving others? Surely, God would reveal himself to one of his servants. Surely, God would answer the prayers of one of his children concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, if that child was humbly spreading His word.

I do not regret going on a mission. It was a great experience, and so much more than just a two-year "vacation." I grew as a person, as an American citizen, and as a man. But I never received an answer to prayer. Still, I tried. There was no choice but to keep with it. My family and social ties depended on this. Perhaps going to college and starting a family of my own would show my commitment, and then, yes surely then, God would make it known to me.

So I went to B.Y.U. and earned a degree; all the while, feeling depressed for not knowing, like those around me, of the Church’s authenticity. Every time I would sit in church and hear someone say that they “know the Church is true,” I would asked myself: “How? Your faculties are the same as mine. The promise, the requirements, the whole experience is the same. For over a decade I have tried to know what you claim, but I do not. How do you know? How can you know, what I cannot?”

Spiraling into ever-growing despair, I decided to try a new approach. Perhaps it isn’t true. Perhaps I haven’t received an answer to a single prayer because no one is there to respond. But if this is so, then why do I feel so depressed and unworthy when I sin? Then it hit me. This could be a conditioned response to my upbringing. Maybe, I feel bad because I am told that I must. Once you remove the threat of eternal damnation, there is no reason to hate yourself or feel condemned for not meeting the standards imposed upon you by a “loving God.”

Numerous times I have heard stories of those who accepted the atonement of Christ for their sins and felt as though “a weight had been lifted” from them. I felt the same thing when I acknowledged my doubt. My sins no longer have power over me. I no longer feel unworthy, depressed or condemned. I no longer feel burdened by fleeting perfection. Instead, I embrace my imperfections as part of who I am. And I am fine.

IT FIGURES

(disclaimer: numbers and figures presented are taken from several internet sources, and some may not be accurate--but you already knew that, huh?)

"Using past patterns of growth as a baseline, religious sociologist Rodney Stark has projected an LDS population of 265 million by the year 2080. Using this projection, Stark has predicted that the LDS church will become the next major world religion." --Encyclopedia of Mormonism

did you know....?

....the current world population is ~6.9 billion people

....the current population of christians is ~2 billion

....the current population of muslims is ~1.4 billion

....the current population of hinduism is ~1 billion

....the current population of buddism is ~1 billion (some debate here--silly commies)

....the current number of jews in the world is ~14 million

....the current number of mormons in the world is ~14 million

....the current number of mormon missionaries is 52000 (while in the MTC in 2000 i was told several times that there were 50000 missionaries, so that's an increase of ~2000 in the last 11 years)

....the current annual world growth rate is ~1.2-1.4%

....the current annual growth of the mormon church is 2.5-3%

....the current annual growth of the rest of christianity is 5-7% (depending on denomination)

....70-80% of new mormons no longer go to church after their first year of membership.

....overall mormon church activity rate is ~50%

....in order for mormons to "convert the world" every member of the church (active or not) would need to baptize 485 people

....in order for mormons to "convert the world" every missionary would need to baptize 130769 people

....to do this before the world population doubles (estimated ~58 years--well before Rodney Stark's projection of the growth of mormonism) each missionary would need to baptize 2254 people a year--but by that time, it would only be half the population

....most missionaries are lucky to see 1 baptism per companionship, so if you figure each missionary will have 5-10 companions, then about 5-10 baptisms for a two year mission would be high

....if rodney stark's prediction is correct (265 million mormons in 2080) it will still be under 2% of the projected global population

....by this time the populations of all other major world religions will be 2-4 billion each

....the current population of "non-religious" people is ~1.1 billion and is currently the fastest growing religious category in the USA

BIG > small

there is a lot of talk nowadays about "the man" and "big business" and the "evil corporations" taking over their smaller counterparts. we can certainly see examples of this since the economic crisis a couple years ago. bankrupt businesses like WAMU were bought out by the bigger and more survivable Chase bank. and i still dont know what happened to circuit city.

there seems to be a stigma against successful business models. i mean, look at walmart. now, i dont particularly like walmart, but that is mostly because it is too big geographically and i really dont like walking a quarter mile across the store when all i need is hand soap and mac and cheese. also, i would rather perform a self-lobotomy than stand in those lines. but as a business model, i think walmart is genius. it is incredibly convenient for lots of random things and it provides jobs for tons of people. sure, it isnt exactly a dream job, but neither is being a part-time barista at a local organic coffee shop.

but really, the problem as i see it is more fundamental. i dont think most people understand the real difference between a small local business and a corporation. all they seem to see are the differences in policy or business tactics or federal regulations. but these differences only come into play AFTER a business is classified as a corporation. since all businesses start out small and innocent, what turns them into an evil corporation? in a word, people.

the only fundamental difference between a big business and a small one is the number of people working for the business. once a small business grows to a certain point, it is then and forever more called a corporation. so why is it bad that a small business has become successful enough to employ lots and lots of people? well, it's not.

there is no economic advantage to having a crap-load of poorly-run, and over-valued small businesses instead of a few insensitive, and successful big ones (consider how many families have health care because of walmart. now think of how many small businesses cant afford to offer health care at all). and yet we are fed this garbage in the media all the time. especially when it comes to businesses which pride themselves on being small (unsuccessful) businesses, such as the organic foods industry (who's entire existance is based on the notion that the other guys are liars and bullies). and the funny thing is, most of these "whole foods" and "organic" companies are in fact large enough to be classified as corporations. they just choose not to tell people that. its sort of like the sheriff of rottingham not telling the townsfolk his name is "mervin." denial of truth doesnt affect its truthiness.

now, i dont really care if the organic foods industry survives or not, since, like most gimmicks, it is wholly unnecessary and backed by bad science. but it interests me that there is so much resistance against becoming larger and more successful within their own niche of the market. and why? so they can stifle their own growth and fizzle out like the tobacco industry? ...hmmm.

scratch that, corporations suck.

"LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS"

i feel sorry for people who get sucked in to causes and scams based on misleading information and the misuse of statistics (ie peta, veganism, organic foods, cleanses, most stuff people like which i find stupid or unnecessary). i have taken my share of math and statistics classes and if there is one universal theme that i got from my professors it is to be wary of any one claiming proof through numbers (**correlation =/= causation). as it turns out, the leading cause of motorcycle deaths is simply owning a motorcycle...




today i read an article recommended by a friend. well, a good-intentioned mother of a friend. she is one of the nicest people i know, and yet she regularly gets pulled in to these articles and makes life-changing decisions based on the information they provide. now, i wont bore you with a full review of the article but i will say that as i read it i found it to be nothing more than cleverly worded scare tactics designed to get people to click on their website. it may as well have been national enquirer magazine.




one thing that they consistently did, which really annoyed me, (aside from drawing false conclusions and making bold assumptions and not providing sources for any data and not talking about the actual studies themselves and not discussing the control groups) was use stats to intentionally mislead the reader. for example they said "[eating] one sausage or three pieces of bacon [daily] raises the likelihood of the cancer by 20 percent." a shocking stat to say the least. but this is very misleading. the wording implies that eating these meats increases your chance of getting cancer by a full 20% (meaning if your baseline risk is 10%, then it becomes 30%). but this is not the case. knowing a thing or two about stats would tell me that it is a 20% increase on the original percentage (meaning if your baseline risk is 10%, then it becomes 12%). but this is something that your average reader (ie my friend's mom) wouldn't know.



so i got to thinking, why would they mislead the reader so drastically? it must be because the real numbers they are working with are actually fractions of a percent (which is typical for cancer risk). well, saying that eating a lot of meat increases your risk of a particular cancer by 0.02% (a risk of 0.1% becomes 0.12%) doesn't make for a good article so rather than tell you the actual numbers they just say a 20% increase.



i found similarly misleading stats on peta's website as well.



to anyone who reads this and thinks im just seeing what i want to see, and im not giving the lifestyle a chance, i have this to say. i have studied health and science for years. i know how the body works. everything i know about the body tells me these sorts of diets and crazes and fads are not just unnecessary and based on poorly conducted or unfounded studies, but many are actually harmful to you. there is one diet out there that has been proven to be the most healthy, the most beneficial and is supported by literally decades of research: the food guide pyramid. anyone who tells you different is selling something.



it turns out your third grade teacher was right...



**one professor in particular gave a good example to show what i mean. in the 1800s there was a huge increase in the number of churches being constructed on the east coast. there was also a similar increase in the number of bars in the same areas. now at first glance, one could ASSUME that the because more people were going to church, they were also filled with guilt caused by their "fire and brimstone" preachers, and would use alcohol to numb the pain. or you could say that because of the increased number of bars, and therefore alcoholics, people were driven to church by guilt or by fear of god's wrath. but neither of these scenarios were actually the case. neither one of these increases in NUMBERS caused the other to increase. the real cause, he said, was nothing more than a simple increase in the number of people living there. a population boom, if you will.

BTW

"YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE. I GUARANTEE IT."

(alternate titles: "BEATING (AROUND) THE (PROVERBIAL) BUSH"; and "PAVLOVIAN SLIP")

i have had a lot of (awkward) conversations lately. these are the sort of conversations that start with an innocently curious question, but result in a sort of "lucky shot" at my personal life. sometimes, the inquisitor gets more than they bargained for...


i have never been much of a (good) liar or even a secretive person--just very private. i willingly give opinions on general subjects, but i tend to withhold things that might divulge any real insight (about me). this may come across as a defence mechanism to protect myself from pain or dealing with my issues (as i explain to my students). but this is a HUGE assumption. simply put, it just isnt any of their business.





i think that this sudden increase in public query is (partly) related to my band. now, i am not famous by any means, but as my band gains more fans (as does our apparent notoriety), many total strangers approach me to make small talk. some are so bold as to add me as a friend on facebook. and i am fine with this. i just have to be (increasingly) more careful with the info i give about myself (certain pics have been removed...).


this is where i should use some sort of transition, but im too lazy...


my roommate is retarded. not literally, however; but in the 90's sense of the word. lets start out by explaining that he didnt have a chance to begin with. i have had lots of roommates over the years. some good, some bad, and some retarded. this particular roommate is not a good one, but certainly not the worst. he just has the unfortunate position of being my last roommate (im getting my own place and im not looking back). which means that no matter what he does, anything that reminds me that he is in the apartment will inevitably annoy me. its nothing personal, although it some times comes across that way.


and for the record, acknowledging my own hypocrisy does nothing to diminish my disdain for this ignoramus.


first, there is the bathroom. 95% of everything in the bathroom belongs to him. which in turn means that 95% of any messes in the bathroom are his doing. he doesnt flush, he doesnt put cloths in the hamper, he doesnt wipe up toothpaste spittle (or loogies) in the sink (or on the faucet), he doesnt clean off the blue hair gel on the walls or the blood on the counter (stupid diabetes...).


he is a night owl, which isnt altogether a bad thing since he is usually out and about when im going to bed. but he does get home at dawn on a regular basis...



as a night owl, he goes "clubbing" pretty much nightly, which means his taste in music is club music. now i dont really care for hip hop, dance, trance, techno, rap, r&b, or pop music, but i realize its mostly a difference in preference. not everyone likes my music either. but as the year has gone on (and on and on) i have noticed that its not just that we have different taste in music or that he has bad taste in music in general (musical taste is relative). i have come to realize that because his music library is so unfathomably pathetic that he must simply not have any taste in music... at all.


it was almost poetic when i realized this phenomenon. i know lots of people and everyone has different musical preferences. this is the first time i have ever met some one with seemingly no taste... at all. allow me to explain.


when some one likes a song they buy it and then seek out and buy any comparable songs by the same or similar artists. eventually they will have a nice little collection of a given genre of music. usually they will branch out to other genres, thus expanding their collection.

now in the 90's this was a bit cumbersome since you had to get tapes or cd's and most people didnt bother to make copies for friends. but in the 00's file sharing exploded with the aid of things like mp3 players, limewire, itunes, rapsody, zune market place, myspace, facebook, youtube, and pandora. so i think it is reasonable to assume that the average college student in this day and age of technology would have access to at least a few hundred (if not thousands) of songs at any given time.


so how the hell does a grown man listen to the same 10 songs every single day for months on end?



it truly blows my mind how i am not even exaggerating right now. he literally listens to the same 10 songs every day, and has done so for the last 9 months i have lived with this fool. he will even listen to the same song multiple times in a row... daily. and i bet in his mind he has a good collection. maybe even a well-rounded collection. after all, he does include one power ballad and one slow country love song.


"love the way you lie" makes me want to stab somebody in the face with a soldering iron...

REFRACTED LIGHT

i was raised to be homophobic. i didnt realize i was homophobic until i went to collage and found that i had gay friends. i had to choose to either shun them (like i was taught) or befriend them. i chose the latter.

it wasnt until i took a psychology class at byu, during which we discussed **homosexuality, that i realized that i really didnt agree with the mormon view that homosexuality is a choice, and can therefore be "cured."



this brings me to what caused me to write this. one of my (many) cousins recently made a comment (spurred from a women's conference of some sort where a speaker touched on homosexuals in the mormon church) where she said "i dont see what the big deal is. we dont ask gays to do anything different from any other singles in the church. just obstain from premarital sex. it has nothing to do with being gay."


the problem is that the statement isnt true. gays in the church are not asked to do the same thing as heterosexual singles in the church. here is the difference: because gays can not marry (which is what the church wants) they have to live their entire lives in celebacy in order to remain in good standing with the church. whereas heterosexuals are taught to marry and have a healthy sex life with a spouse. celebacy is not the same thing as abstinance ...at all. just ask any number of returned missionaries who have bible-bashed with a catholic about the celebacy of priests.

now if the church changed its position on gay marriage to allow them to have a civil marriage (not an eternal marriage in a mormon temple) then it would be asking the same thing. or at least a similar thing. but the church has made it clear that they have no intention of changing that policy.


the notion of a cure for the "disease" of homosexuality has been prevelant in the church pretty much since the beginning. LDS social services use "reparative therapy" to cure homosexuality. this method is based on the idea that, with enough prayer and scripture study, one can overcome homosexual thoughts and urges, thus becoming heterosexual again.

this in turn implies that anyone who does not overcome these thoughts is not working hard enough and should read more and pray harder. when this does not work (and really, how often has it worked?) people become distraught and have to make a choice: choose a life of celebacy in a church that does not fully accept them; or leave the church and live a life among people who embrace them.

for many the choice isnt a choice at all. it is more of an epiphany, really. as a social worker, i see teens who seem to be unable to make that decision (usually due to family pressure) and too many of them either leave home or kill themselves. the truly terrifying thing is that this is a growing trend in utah and a sign that something needs to change.

personally, i think it is high time for mormons to get off the soapbox that homosexuality is a choice (and therefore a sin) and let gays get married. afterall, "two dads are better than none" (i realize this is a separate topic--get over it).

current polls on the subject show that younger generations are overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. this means that it is just a matter of time until the older generations die off and gay marriage is passed. when this happens, expect to see an "official statement" by the church... the same thing happened with blacks in the church having the priesthood. the difference is that blacks didnt kill themselves...

**for a long time homosexuality was actually considered a mental disorder by psychologists. but this was partly because scientists had yet to differentiate between homosexuality and gender identity disorder (which is still considered a mental disorder). once the distinction was made, however, they withdrew that section from the DSM IV and have ever since quelched the sentiment that it is abnormal.

keep in mind that one of the main reasons a distinction was made was because studies showed that homosexuality did not cause disfunction (or an inability to lead an otherwise normal life). all mental disorders (potentially) cause disfunction that extents to many aspects of the persons life. homosexuality does not fit this discription.