Monday, November 10, 2008
Mixed blessing
I recently bought a pair of those high-tech Gap chinos with the space age treatment infused in the very fibers of the pants that make them impervious to stains and repel liquids like the back of a duck. Well, I've loved these properties up until an event a couple of days ago that have made me rethink the benefits. I was holding Lucy and I heard the telltale noises that indicated that something was going on in her pants. Then I looked down and realized that the substance that escaped the diaper hit my space age pants and instead of soaking in, just ran down them and all over my shoes! Ugh. It is MUCH easier to wash a pair of pants than get poo out of sueded shoes, believe me!
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Just call me a hopeful romantic
I am so happy to be ending this drought of posts with such historic news that Obama was elected the next president of the United States. And to say that I am surprised, relieved, and hopeful about it is an understatement. I think for me, the magnitude of this election underscores my hopelessly romantic and idealistic view that America is first and foremost an idea. Unique among nations, it was founded not by coincidence of geography, homogeneity of its population, or benevolence of its ruler but by a simple idea summed up in our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Such power was held in that idea that it expanded to much more than the white, male, landowners it was originally meant for to eventually include blacks, women, Indians, indeed everyone. The power of this idea struck me full force a couple of years ago when Margaret and I were in Oslo. Despite all the time I'd spent there while on a mission, it wasn't until going back on vacation that I actually got the chance to visit the Oslo City Hall. The building is quite amazing and the symbolic significance of it being the site where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year only adds to its gravitas. Upon the building's completion, the major artists of Norway were invited to paint murals and frescoes inside. All of them were impressive, but one completely reshaped my perception of America.
Åge Storstein painted a fresco in one of the rooms that went from floor to ceiling on all four walls. The fresco is titled "Menneskerettighetene" or "The Human Rights." In it, the concept of human rights and liberty is symbolized by a flame. A flame that is ignited in America at the Revolution, spreads to France, then to the rest of Europe. The flame is almost extinguished by the Nazis, and on that panel, there are a huddled mass of Norwegians hiding underneath debris, carefully guarding only a tiny ember. Finally, in the final part of the fresco, the shackles of oppression are thrown off and the flame is allowed to burn brightly and be held aloft. 
Looking at this painting, and subsequently thinking back on it, I was struck by the wonderful gift that America gave the world and how thankful the world was for our contribution. But I was also struck by the change in our role in the world. Rather than being a force for good and freedom in the world, we'd become preoccupied by more selfish goals that belied the noble ideals of our founding. I was no longer living in the same America that saw patriots fight for the idea of liberty and justice. I was no longer living in the same America that my grandfather fought for and my grandmother sacrificed for for the sole purpose of bringing liberty and freedom to people on the other side of the world. I was no longer living in the same America that the rest of the world saw as a beacon of hope and possibility. Such were the emotions that I felt upon seeing this painting.
That was a long introduction to why I am so hopeful about the outcome of this election. Seeing the thousands of people gathered in Chicago to hear Obama's victory speech I felt hope. Hearing the fireworks, whoops, and honking cars at my house starting less than five minutes after the polls on the west coast closed and Obama was projected as the winner, I felt hope. Reading the Norwegian paper online and seeing that the top TWELVE articles were about the election and how excited the Norwegians were about our selection gave me hope. The following morning, seeing people still so excited gave me hope. All of these things combined to give me a hope that we can live up to our ideals once again and be a flame that gives light to the dark places in the world.
I don't think Obama can do this on his own, though. We'll all have to work together for this idea called America. The excitement, optimism, and hope that Obama has inspired in so many tells me that America still has it in her to be a source of good for this world in desperate need of our characteristic can-do, idealistic, creative nature to come shining through. And that, above all else, gives me hope. So after reading this post, you'll probably think that I'm just a hopeless romantic, to which I'll respond, I may be a romantic, but after that election, I'm far from hopeless.
Such power was held in that idea that it expanded to much more than the white, male, landowners it was originally meant for to eventually include blacks, women, Indians, indeed everyone. The power of this idea struck me full force a couple of years ago when Margaret and I were in Oslo. Despite all the time I'd spent there while on a mission, it wasn't until going back on vacation that I actually got the chance to visit the Oslo City Hall. The building is quite amazing and the symbolic significance of it being the site where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year only adds to its gravitas. Upon the building's completion, the major artists of Norway were invited to paint murals and frescoes inside. All of them were impressive, but one completely reshaped my perception of America.
Åge Storstein painted a fresco in one of the rooms that went from floor to ceiling on all four walls. The fresco is titled "Menneskerettighetene" or "The Human Rights." In it, the concept of human rights and liberty is symbolized by a flame. A flame that is ignited in America at the Revolution, spreads to France, then to the rest of Europe. The flame is almost extinguished by the Nazis, and on that panel, there are a huddled mass of Norwegians hiding underneath debris, carefully guarding only a tiny ember. Finally, in the final part of the fresco, the shackles of oppression are thrown off and the flame is allowed to burn brightly and be held aloft. 
Looking at this painting, and subsequently thinking back on it, I was struck by the wonderful gift that America gave the world and how thankful the world was for our contribution. But I was also struck by the change in our role in the world. Rather than being a force for good and freedom in the world, we'd become preoccupied by more selfish goals that belied the noble ideals of our founding. I was no longer living in the same America that saw patriots fight for the idea of liberty and justice. I was no longer living in the same America that my grandfather fought for and my grandmother sacrificed for for the sole purpose of bringing liberty and freedom to people on the other side of the world. I was no longer living in the same America that the rest of the world saw as a beacon of hope and possibility. Such were the emotions that I felt upon seeing this painting.
That was a long introduction to why I am so hopeful about the outcome of this election. Seeing the thousands of people gathered in Chicago to hear Obama's victory speech I felt hope. Hearing the fireworks, whoops, and honking cars at my house starting less than five minutes after the polls on the west coast closed and Obama was projected as the winner, I felt hope. Reading the Norwegian paper online and seeing that the top TWELVE articles were about the election and how excited the Norwegians were about our selection gave me hope. The following morning, seeing people still so excited gave me hope. All of these things combined to give me a hope that we can live up to our ideals once again and be a flame that gives light to the dark places in the world.
I don't think Obama can do this on his own, though. We'll all have to work together for this idea called America. The excitement, optimism, and hope that Obama has inspired in so many tells me that America still has it in her to be a source of good for this world in desperate need of our characteristic can-do, idealistic, creative nature to come shining through. And that, above all else, gives me hope. So after reading this post, you'll probably think that I'm just a hopeless romantic, to which I'll respond, I may be a romantic, but after that election, I'm far from hopeless.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Truth in advertising
I wonder if the McDonald's worker places these stickers on in the hopes that it educates people that if you'll end up a pig in a sty if you eat too many hamburgers.
Catching up
Sorry about the paucity of postings lately. What with the Big Event, new fatherhood, and composing my interpretive dance opera "Caffeine!", I'm lucky to find the time to shower. Just kidding, I think I'd rather skip meals than one of my thrice daily showers. It's just one of the debilitating effects of germaphobia. (Although it also has a positive side, in that Lucy is now pushing 6 months and hasn't been sick yet... knock on cyberwood.... and she hasn't even been kept in a bubble or ANYTHING!)
To catch you all up, here's what's been going on: I'm still working to cut down on the amount of Diet Coke I drink in preparation for a trip to Utah in December. (Just in case I get called to work for the Church while I'm there.). Margaret has been going to work on Wednesdays, so I have been using the remaining paternity leave I have to stay home one day a week with Lucy. That's been interesting and enjoyable. Although last week I think I completely pooped her (and myself) out. Here is our day: get up and go to Noah's for a bagel and Diet Coke(s), go in to work for a few hours because The Event was that weekend, go to Taco Bell with a coworker, head home for a minute to refill bottles, etc., go to the grocery store, meet Margaret at a restaurant for dinner. Phew! Then Margaret took Lucy to her craft club. By the time Lucy got home, she practically fell asleep as we were laying her down in her crib. And Margaret and I collapsed into our bed.
The Event went well. My family was here all weekend and they focused all their attention on Lucy, despite the fact that, HELLO! I'm standing right here! You could at least say 'Hi'! Now that The Event is over, things are winding down a bit, although we have trips to Idaho and Utah planned before the end of the year. With that many more flights, trapped in a closed container, I don't know if Lucy will be able to maintain her sick-free streak for much longer!
To catch you all up, here's what's been going on: I'm still working to cut down on the amount of Diet Coke I drink in preparation for a trip to Utah in December. (Just in case I get called to work for the Church while I'm there.). Margaret has been going to work on Wednesdays, so I have been using the remaining paternity leave I have to stay home one day a week with Lucy. That's been interesting and enjoyable. Although last week I think I completely pooped her (and myself) out. Here is our day: get up and go to Noah's for a bagel and Diet Coke(s), go in to work for a few hours because The Event was that weekend, go to Taco Bell with a coworker, head home for a minute to refill bottles, etc., go to the grocery store, meet Margaret at a restaurant for dinner. Phew! Then Margaret took Lucy to her craft club. By the time Lucy got home, she practically fell asleep as we were laying her down in her crib. And Margaret and I collapsed into our bed.
The Event went well. My family was here all weekend and they focused all their attention on Lucy, despite the fact that, HELLO! I'm standing right here! You could at least say 'Hi'! Now that The Event is over, things are winding down a bit, although we have trips to Idaho and Utah planned before the end of the year. With that many more flights, trapped in a closed container, I don't know if Lucy will be able to maintain her sick-free streak for much longer!
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Yes, yes it does
This sign was on a shop window on my street. (I had to post it to maintain the 'R' rating that my blog received.
Week of craziness
Sorry about the complete lack of posts for the past while. I organize a big event at work that happens this weekend. It generally sucks all my attention, energy, and life force and I'm looking forward to next Monday!
Anyway, to tide you over, there were two interesting things in today's paper that I had to pass along:
1. This is from John McCain and considering recent events, REALLY makes me want to move to Norway where there is universal health care:
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
YIKES!
and
2. This is a quote from the retirement announcement of Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the comic strip "Bloom County" and "Opus":
"With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I'm suspending my comic strip to assist the nation. The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America's kids. I call on John McCain to join me."
I would love to see a McCain children's book!
Anyway, to tide you over, there were two interesting things in today's paper that I had to pass along:
1. This is from John McCain and considering recent events, REALLY makes me want to move to Norway where there is universal health care:
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
YIKES!
and
2. This is a quote from the retirement announcement of Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the comic strip "Bloom County" and "Opus":
"With the crisis in Wall Street and Washington, I'm suspending my comic strip to assist the nation. The best way I can help is to leave politics permanently and write funny stories for America's kids. I call on John McCain to join me."
I would love to see a McCain children's book!
Friday, September 26, 2008
One can dream
Considering the current state of the US economy, leadership, etc., etc., I found myself wishing for something more akin to this speech coming from the president. Below is the text of FDR's inaugural address:
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear … is fear itself … nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels: taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side, farmers find no markets for their produce, the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.
Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failures and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.
Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit, and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This nation asks for action, and action now.”
I'll forego the smarmy comments, as I think these words speak for themselves.
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear … is fear itself … nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels: taxes have risen, our ability to pay has fallen, government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income, the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade, the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side, farmers find no markets for their produce, the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.
Primarily, this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failures and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True, they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit, they have proposed only the lending of more money.
Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored conditions. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money, it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be values only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit, and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This nation asks for action, and action now.”
I'll forego the smarmy comments, as I think these words speak for themselves.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
No long up to BYU standards
Sadly I've just found out that this blog has received a rating that would make it ineligible for consumption at BYU, or anyone wanting to go to the temple. So if either of those fits your description, delete me from your bookmarks before you're found out. And guess what things gave it an ignominious "R" on its chest, you ask? It used the following words: "sex" (3 times), "crap" (1 time), and.... wait for it, wait for it.... "MISSIONARY" (used 4 times)!!! I guess it assumes that I'm talking about missionary position, which of course I'm not. BORING! But speaking of missionary position, that reminds me one time when I was a missionary in Norway... oh, look at the time. Well, I'll tell you that story some other time.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Pumpkin bagels are back!!!
Margaret was ecstatic at the news that Noah's pumpkin bagels are FINALLY back in stock. Every year, when I see them, I think back on that very first Halloween, when the Israelites dressed up as Russian peasants the night before they fled Egypt for the Promised Land.... or something like that. I mean, why else would there be a traditional Jewish food in pumpkin?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Aaaa! Where's my mind bleach?
And here I thought that Mormonism couldn't get more commercialized and treacly. This book is the unholy union of the Book of Mormon and Anne Geddes! Because that's just what the world needs, pictures of cute kids reenacting scenes from the scriptures to make people believe in them even MORE! And I shudder to think of the poor kids posing for the photos of Bathsheba bathing, the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the slaying of Abel by Cain scenes.
If, by some ironic need or head injury, you would like to get this book, it is of course available from that veritable purveyor of all things kitschy Mormon--Deseret Book (read about Margaret's last visit to one here)!
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