Yesterday Margaret, my grandmother, and I went into Logan to do some shopping. Margaret was on the lookout for a kitschy Mormon gift for a friend, so she ran into the first stop for seekers of Mormon knickknacks--Deseret Book. (In case you don't know, Deseret is the original Indian name for the Great Salt Lake area-I think it means "Place where one buck has seven does," but that was changed to Utah, which means "Land of stone-cold sobriety.") Anyway, for those who haven't heard of this source of goodness and propriety, Deseret Book is where ALL self-respecting (and self-righteous) Mormons get books, music, videos, journals, and tiny religious sculptures that help remind them not to drink coffee or date a non-Mormon. They carefully screen all their offerings to make sure that there is nothing in the store that could possibly be offensive, promote tolerance, or encourage someone to vote Democratic. It's so much easier for the pious, upstanding church-goer to have someone else filter out the confusing, wicked world that surrounds him. Needless to say, Margaret HATES the store, and only considered getting something there for the ironic ramifications of the purchase. Well, she was in luck--a new Deseret Book super center just opened here in Logan in a new super-duper Mormon strip mall. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed that it was possible, but the mall where the bookstore was is the perfect nexus of Mormonism and commericalism. In addition to Deseret Book, it had a church distribution center, where you can buy church-produced scriptures, magazines, posters, and instruction manuals--essentially all the required reading you could possibly want or need. Next to that was "Dressed in White" which is a store that only sells white clothes, presumably for use in the temple, where that's the only color you can wear. I think it is the only place where you can buy a white suit, white tie, white dress socks, and white patent leather shoes, all to match your white shirt. The place was really hopping yesterday from all the people who needed to dress up as angels in their church Christmas pageants--and everyone knows that male angels don't wear robes, they wear white polyester three-piece suits! The final store in the strip mall is "Flick's: Edited Movies." As the name suggests, this store offers videos that have been stripped of any swearing, violence, nudity, sex, liberalism, intellectual freedom, or the merits of a socialist government. How they get away with altering these movies is beyond me--I would think that Hollywood would be knocking on their door for destroying the artistic freedom and expression of their movie-makers. What struck me as particularly ridiculous was the poster for the remake of "Amityville Horror" was featured in the window! How long could the edited version of this movie be? I would think that after all the above cuts, the movie would be 12 minutes long and be a feel-good story about a young couple in New England who have a wild and crazy time restoring their fixer-upper Victorian-style home. I'm assuming that the edited version of Fahrenheit 9-11 went straight from the opening credits to the closing credits for a total of 4 minutes of movie.