Quality Apologies
I’m not a big follower of the world occupied by Katy Perry or her father, Pastor Keith Hudson, but something from that universe caught my attention this week.
In a recent sermon, Pastor Hudson apparently said the following:
“You know how to make the Jew jealous? Have some money, honey…You go to L.A. and they own all the Rolex and diamond places. Walk down a part of L.A. where we live and it is so rich it smells. You ever smell rich? They are all Jews, hallelujah! Amen.”
Pastor Hudson was quickly and rightly taken to task by Jewish community leaders for these Anti-Semitic comments. However, the comments and the appropriate condemnation aren’t what really stand out to me here–it doesn’t take much effort to find people making racist, anti-Semitic, or really anti-anything comments these days. To me, about the only thing worse than the non-stop stream of offensive comments reported in the media is the non-stop stream of pathetic, insincere, dodgy half-apologies. As such, what really struck me as remarkable was Pastor Hudson’s apology. Let’s take a look at the script. Read more…
Hanging Out In Parking Lots With Bloggers
Fact 1: During a recent trip to Utah, I hung out in a parking lot in American Fork with John C. and J. Max Wilson for like four hours in the middle of the night.
Fact 2: The conversation was extremely engaging, had nary a lull, and was almost entirely about Mormon Blogging.
Opinion 1: In my estimation, none of the participants said a single crazy or offensive thing, despite very open dialogue about past…uh…stuff.
Conclusion 1: The thing about Satan coming out at midnight is complete crap.*
Conclusion 2: Meeting people in real life is a wonderful thing.
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*That I resisted the urge to make a joke about J. Max being Satan here is a testament to my quality.
Defunct Blogs Make Me Sad
Since I started blogging way back in the glory days of 2006 (or was it 2007? I can’t really remember when my wife and I started the old blogger site…), one thing that I’ve always enjoyed doing is following links. This usually starts with someone leaving a comment with a hyperlinked name, so I can visit their site. After a few minutes of exploring, I’ll find an interesting link in the sidebar or an interesting comment on that site, with a link to yet another blog. Rinse, repeat. I could do this for hours–it’s kind of like Wikipedia: Open an article on crocheting, and two hours and 45 linked pages later, you’re reading about the endangered yak in some country you’ve never visited. It’s a wonderful way to kill time that you should spend with your family. Read more…
Conclusive Proof
Look–if God had truly wanted me to vote in today’s elections, then He would have prepared a way for my escape from 90 minutes of rush hour traffic on the 405.
Just sayin’…
Guess Who’s On the Waiting List!
Hint: For once, it’s not Utah State. Read more…
Re: USU, BYU, the MWC, the WAC, etc…
GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gospel Essentials, Redux
I recently posted something of a bleg for suggestions on lesson topics and materials for a Gospel Essentials course which I have occasion to teach in my local ward. I made a couple of mistakes in the post and comments, and consequently the thread never really took the direction I had hoped, and instead resulted in (mostly) comments on gospel instruction generally in the LDS Church. The point of the post was to seek ideas for 5-6 lessons which could be taught at any given moment with little advance notice as the need arises. The basic issue at hand is that, on many Sundays, we don’t have any actual investigators or new members attending, and the course is made up primarily of recently reactivated folks, the missionaries, and a handful of others who attend for reasons I’ve never been quite certain of. On those Sundays, I don’t really have a preference for lesson topics, since the attendees have enough experience in the gospel and the Church to handle about any lesson they’re given.
However, from time to time, we do have actual investigators, and on those Sundays, I feel the need to accomplish a few main goals: First, I want to knock their socks off, so to speak–I want them to come away from Sunday school uplifted, inspired, and feeling like they had a meaningful experience in a Mormon meeting. Read more…
Best & Worst Breakfast Cereals
In my office the other day, we were all debating breakfast cereals during lunch. Here are my lists:
Best Cereals: Sugary
- Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries (though I actually like all the Cap’n Crunch varieties)
- Corn Pops
- Sugar Bear (Golden Crisp, Honey Smacks, whatever)
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- Honey Comb
I’m So Proud: California Gambling & Welfare Edition
California often gives me reasons to be proud, but this one may be a contender for the upper echelon of awesome:
California welfare cards can be used in many casino ATMs
Times review finds that in more than half of the state’s casinos and gaming rooms, welfare recipients can get cash from state-issued EBT cards. Officials say they’re moving to block such transactions.
This reminds me a little bit of stories I’ve always heard about students at BYU using their “Dining Plus” cards for basically anything they wanted on campus.
More Fun With Bad Legislation
After signing a piece of evil legislation bill requiring Arizona police officers to determine whether people are in the country legally, the governor of Arizona said she’s requiring training for said police officers.
“This training will include what does and does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States…Racial profiling is illegal. It is illegal in America, and it’s certainly illegal in Arizona.”
-Arizona Governor Jan Brewer
Training? Training will stop racism racial profiling dead in its tracks?
Sigh.
Hope for the Aggies
This is life for fans from small-time schools like Utah State University without the resources, the tradition, or the sexiness required to obtain the recruits, sponsors, media attention, or in many cases, simply the confidence that enable teams to rise above the haze into that elite class of schools with a legitimate shot at glory. Read more…
Lessons from Stake Priesthood Leadership Meeting
As reported by my brother:
I learned at Stake Priesthood leadership meeting that we can increase our spirituality by gleaning insights from the biographies of BYU football players.
I also learned that you shouldn’t make gagging noises during Stake Priesthood leadership meeting if the bishop is sitting behind you.
I Shall Temporarily Sell My Soul
Yes, it is that time of year. Despite all of my principles and the excellent training my parents provided me with as a child, I will spend the next few weeks of my life cheering for BYU.
(Vomit)
As is so often the case, Utah State’s basketball team emerged victorious in their early-season matchup with BYU–the final margin was only 10 points, but having watched the game, it wasn’t that close. On that early December evening, there was no question who the better team was by the time the final buzzer sounded, and the previously-undefeated Cougars walked off the court in sorrow and BYU fans immediately began littering Facebook with explanations and apologies for why the Cougars lost.
(This is in keeping with BYU Fan Rule #1: No BYU fan shall ever admit that any athletic team representing BYU on the field of competition, has been defeated fairly or was outplayed by a superior opponent. All losses shall be attributed to a) poor officiating, b) untimely injuries to key players, or c) dirty play on the part of the opponents.)
Read more…
My Holiday in Finland, briefly
A few observations as I near the midpoint of my trip in Finland:
1. I have flown to Finland 5 times in my life, and my luggage has been lost or screwed up on 3 of those occasions. This was the first time it happened in the middle of a freezing-butt cold stretch in Winter.
2. This is the first time I have returned to Finland since my mission where I have not been asked to speak in church. I am very grateful for this.
3. Sauna is even better than I remember.
4. Cigarette smoke stench on old people in Finland is different than cigarette stench on old people in the US. It has a slightly more stale and bitter twist to it, but less overpowering. I remember noticing this 10 years ago, but had forgotten.
6. Finland is beautiful when there is a fresh blanket of snow on the ground in the midst of the winter darkness that otherwise seems so all-encompassing and impenetrable.
7. There are several things that make a trip to Finland completely worth it–even when it’s been below freezing every minute of my time here: Valio’s Banana yogurt, watching children sing the Tip-Tap Tip-Tap song before Santa Claus comes, candlelit cemeteries on Christmas, and Budapests.
More to come…
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A Brief History of Failure, BCC Zeitcast edition
Unknown to most readers at BCC, there has been a significant effort behind the scenes to reboot the once-proud Zeitcast–BCC’s podcast, in which a handful of permabloggers shoot the bull over the Interwebs about topics Mormon or otherwise. Unfortunately, each and every attempt up to this point has failed, with the grandest and most epic of failures coming last night.
Failure #1:
My first attempt at a podcast! Just before Halloween, Steve Evans, John C, and I discussed Halloween candy, Trunk-or-Treats, and a Book of Mormon-based novel that John found in his local library. After recording, I discover that the software I was using to record (Audacity) has multiple input settings, and that I had chosen the wrong one. Thus, I had recorded 15 minutes of silence. Steve mocks me harshly, and exaggerates the length of time we were recording before I caught my mistake to anyone who will listen.
Failure #2:
Another pre-Halloween attempt, in which Steve Evans, Guest Kyle M, and I fail to launch on account of Steve’s struggles with his recent installation of Windows 7 and Audacity’s compatibility with it. Of course, we don’t realize that his software has failed until we have been talking for 35 minutes or so about a variety of topics, including Halloween, Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, and other minutiae. I feel poetically smug as Steve tries to reconcile his mockery of me the week before with his own foul up.
Read more…
An Insult to Turkey Bowls
I had the temerity to raise my hand in Elders Quorum last Sunday and ask if anyone was interested in putting together a Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving Day, and so was naturally put in charge of the event. I forgot about this responsibility almost as soon as it was given to me (in keeping with my General Theory of Elders Quorum Responsibility Forgetfulness), and didn’t give it another thought until Tuesday afternoon when I got an email from someone in the EQ asking about the game and if anyone was planning on playing. Repenting of my sloth, I drafted a note about the game and sent it to the EQ email list.
By the time the game was supposed to start–yesterday morning at 8:30am–it was clear that the number of hands who had expressed interest in playing was a gross overstatement of the number of people who were actually willing to show up and toss around the pigskin. We waited 30 minutes or so past the scheduled starting time, and finally managed to scrounge up 6 players, myself included. We all stretched out, the hardcore footballers put on their cleats, and we staked out a shortened field since our numbers were so few, and no one really wanted to run much anyway.
Thus went the Harbor Hills Ward Elders Quorum Turkey Bowl 2009: The Armpit of All Turkey Bowls: Read more…
A Whole Year Has Gone By
I just posted over at By Common Consent, and recounted part of the story about how I came to blog at BCC, which happened to coincide with my decision to shut this blog down (which, as you can see, I have reversed directions on a few times). It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I was running out of steam with this blog and struggling to hang on in the wake of the political season of 2008. I am very glad that Sister Blah 2 happened to follow a link from some random comment on a blog I don’t even recall and landed on this website, and eventually invited me to guest post at BCC–if that invitation had come just a few weeks later, it would likely have gone to a dead end email address that I stopped checking when I turned the lights out on blogging.
Destroying the Flock
Mormons may be accused of herd mentality, and they may be guilty of it from time to time, but my Bishop is determined to break that stereotype.
Since I moved into my ward over three years ago, I have observed an interesting phenomenon. Every Sunday during opening Priesthood exercises, which are held in the gym, all the men stand in the exact same formation–we form a perfect half-arc around the 3-point line on the basketball court. No one stands inside the 3 point line except the Bishop, who stands directly below the hoop.
Well, last Sunday, my Bishop put an end to it, and made us all take five big steps in toward him. The awkward tension in the room was palpable–kind of like asking 50 families who have been sitting on the same pew for 20 years to find a different pew, all at the same time.
Double Blind Voting
Submitted by Fletcher, who has posted here previously. Welcome back!
The economic and mathematical analysis of voting has generated a large amount of literature. Ever since Ken Arrow showed that there is no social choice function that satisfies the logical choice properties, people have sought to find the next best solution. Recently, Marginal Revolution had a thread about range voting that generated a lot of discussion about voting systems in general. I won’t bore you with the details of range voting, but to say that you assign a score to multiple options within a range of numbers. The highest score then wins the election. This is actually similar to a Borda Count, where the range in equivalent to the number of options.
Liveblogging the Bill Simmons Book Signing
2:10 pm.
After about a dozen wrong turns around the Disneyland resort, my buddy Jeff and I finally found the espn zone where the event is being held. We picked a cool two hours early, not knowing how many people would be here, given that it’s the only signing inall of socal.
2:18pm.
We just got in line, and it would appear that we guessed right–there are only about 15 people ahead of me in line, and suddenly lots of folks are lining up behind us.
220pm.
My buddy Jeff mentions that he hopes the person in the front of the line knows what he’s doing. That would be hilarious if we are all lined up behind a guy who just needed a place to sit for a while, but has no actual connection to the event.
225pm.
Suddenly the fact that I am going stand here for two hours sets in. Everyone else is mostly sitting on the pavement reading copies of their books.
I am wearing some new pants, and I refuse.
Read more…
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