Month: June 2005

Yay, it’s official! People with bigger brains are smarter than people with smaller brains.

My head is flippin’ huge. I must be a genius then.

According to Thursday’s AP News Report, many Utahns think polygamist clans in southern Utah aren’t getting prosecuted enough.

Warren Jeffs, who has been previously mentioned here (and also a related case here, which attorney general Mark Shurtleff declined to prosecute), was recently indicted for sex crimes for arranging the marriage between a teenage girl and a 28-year-old man. This is the first indictment of a high-profile polygamist in the western US in quite some time. John Daniel Kingston, another Utah polygamist, only served 28 weeks of his earlier sentence for felony child abuse, and was in court again on May 21, 2004 for continuing to abuse his illegitimate children.

In my humble opinion, it’s very telling that Utah prosecutor Mark Shurtleff has not been willing to go up against the polygamists. Instead, Arizona has stepped up to the plate to do the dirty work to bring Jeffs to justice.

Mark Shurtleff’s spokesman, Paul Murphy, states, “Anytime there is a victim who will come forward to testify, we’ll take the case. Those victims have been few and far between.”

To the contrary, says twenty-year-old Rachel Strong, recently escaped from Jeff’s polygamist clan, “Here I am. For over six months I’ve been willing to testify.” Additionally, Tapestry Against Polygamy, a Utah-based group assisting women and girls escaping from abusive polygamous relationships, distributed a list of escapees willing to speak during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Tapestry’s task is made more difficult, however, by the existence of the Blood Atonement Doctrine, which, although repudiated by the mainstream LDS church, is still considered doctrine amongst fundamentalist Mormon sects in Utah backwaters. Blood atonement mandates the murder of apostates and those who violate certain fundamentalist church edicts. According to Tapestry, “Many wives have been threatened with this Blood Atonement.”

I suspect this complicates obtaining willing witnesses for a trial.

From where I sit, it seems as if the illegal nature of the polygamous relationships themselves are not challenged in Utah. The potential five years’ imprisonment for the crime of “bigamy” is rarely pursued. Instead, prosecutors go after the easier charges of child abuse, and the perpetrators receive a slap on the wrist in a county jail, soon to return to their previous practices. It seems fairly obvious that our Attorney General can’t — or won’t — make an effective case attempting to enforce laws banning bigamy.

What’s the right approach, then? Well, from what I understand, “raids” of polygamous households do not seem to work well. It didn’t work when federal troops attempted it against mainstream LDS leaders in the 1800s, it didn’t work at Waco with the Branch Davidians, and it doesn’t work today against the Fundamentalist LDS and Polygamist Christian groups. Such attempts simply send the leaders into hiding, and risk injuring the victims of the polygamous system with unnecessary violence. Raiding Jeffs’ compounds in Utah, Arizona, and Texas probably isn’t the best solution.

I don’t know that there’s a “right” answer for this situation. But what we’re doing now sure doesn’t seem to be doing the job.

OK, so I just got back from one of the WORST pizza delivery shifts I’ve ever had, and so I feel the need to vent this information to the general public. If anyone out there has delivered before, and has different ideas, I’d love to hear them.

OK, it’s pretty much accepted that the amount to tip your waiter in a restaurant is at *least* 15%, with the standard starting to approach 18%. This is as it should be. Waiters have one of the most difficult and thankless jobs on God’s green Earth.

However, no one really knows the standard for delivery drivers, so here’s what I have found while working at Vocelli’s Pizza.

1) The minimum tip is either a) 2 dollars, or b) 10% of the check, whichever is greater. Also, it helps to know how far away your delivery location is. If the driver has to travel for more ten minutes to get to you, throw in at least another dollar. Not only does this cover the extra travel time (which could have been spent on getting another delivery order), it also helps offset the rising cost of gas.

2) Most drivers do not carry more than twenty dollars at any given time (for safety reasons), so please don’t be waiting with a fifty dollar bill on a ten dollar order. Also, please don’t ask for exact change. Dealing with coins inevitably means rummaging in pockets, and there’s time wasted all around. Calculate tip, then round off to the nearest dollar amount.

3) Please understand that if we get your pizza to you late, it is quite honestly usually not our fault. Either a) there was a backup in the kitchen (you can only have so many pizzas in the oven at once), b) you just live a long ways away, or c) there weren’t enough drivers, so one driver had to deliver multiple orders, which takes extra time. Also, if you live in a place where the driver will have to cross even one major road and it’s during rush hour, don’t expect it within 30 minutes every time. Line ups at traffic lights can sometimes exceed 5 minutes during rush hour. Also keep in mind that drivers are now heavily trained NOT to speed. It was one of the reasons why Domino’s got rid of its 30 minutes or its free policy: too many accidents. Of course we want to get you a nice hot product, but if I’m driving at night through a residential area that families live in… sorry, that extra four minutes ain’t worth taking that kind of risk.

So to sum up. The average order is around 15-20 bucks. Anything less than two dollars is cruel. Three bucks is always nice. Four or above (on a twenty dollar order) and the driver will be very happy AND will make sure to hit your house first next time he/she has to prioritize between multiple houses. We remember these things.

Thank you for listening to my lecture. Again, if anyone’s had a different experience delivering, or honestly feels that delivery folk shouldn’t be tipped as much, chime on in.

As some barnson.org readers are aware, I recently swapped schedules to the night shift for my work. I should be on this shift for quite a long time to come.

Knowing this, I’ve had some discussions with co-workers over how best to handle working nights, particularly how to get enough sleep.

Sleep is something I’ve always taken for granted. It’s simply a thing I had to do for between 6 and 9 hours every day, like a chore. No big deal. Yet now that I’ve switched to night shift, it seems as if sleep time is as precious as gold. I’ve done some reading on “Circadian Rhythms”, and tried to understand what I can do to maximize the productivity of my sleep while minimizing the amount of time doing it. Unfortunately, as far as controlling my Circadian cycle, my 45-minute-long commute home at the end of the day pretty well nixes that, as it’s after 9:00 AM and bright daylight by that time. Some friends have suggested in my bedroom windows might help my Circadian rhythm “keep step” with my new schedule, but given the length of my in-daylight commute, it’s doubtful.

Anyway, I came across some interesting research. First among these is news that people who sleep the full 8 hours die more. Yep, if you sleep less than 8 hours a night (and more than 4), you are less likely to die young than someone who sleeps the full 8 or more. Curiously, the lowest mortality among the 1.1 million people studied was among those who slept 5-7 hours per night. So from a pure “avoiding death” perspective, the 5 or 6 hours that I’ve been able to squeeze out during the day seems about right.

Yet I’m still tired all the time. Maybe just because it’s my first week back on night shift that I’m so tired and grumpy.

Critically, although those who sleep 5-7 hours per night don’t die as early as those who do 8 or more, they suffer reduced dexterity, mental acuity, and so forth.

There are some drugs that are supposed to help. Modafinil — marketed as “Provigil” — ostensibly keeps you alert without the crashes associated with caffeine and amphetamines. There was an interesting article on Slate some time ago about it. It’s only been out about 10 years, and doctors only prescribe it for occasional use if you’re not a narcoleptic, so it’s not a viable long-term option.

When you’ve had odd sleep schedules, how — and how well — did you cope? Did you shorten sleep, or find ways to nap frequently? Or are you a natural short-sleeper?

*** A sad note.. after a few failed attempts to reestablish ties with the person in this article, I have decided, out of respect, to remove all references to her on the site. She had expressed some discomfort in the past with th searchability of her name related to the site, and so, as a sort of last act of friendship, I am honoring what I think are probably her wishes. I wish her well.. and best of luck. The other content of the original post has not changed.***

BEGIN ORIGINAL POST Its true, first off.. although not the only point of my Blog. She is. I’ve acted beside her, directed her, watched her in 3 or 4 shows I had nothing to do with, and she is phenomenal. If you’re about to stop reading, I wanted to make that much clear, and to encourage anyone to visit her site at *******.com, especially if you are looking for a fantastic actress.

If you have decided to stick around, please read on, there is a reason and a rhyme. Still there? Good.. I ran into **** at Batman Begins (EXCELLENT) tonight, and after the normal pleasantries (and me trying and failing to be cool), she brought up the fact that often she will be told by someone that there is this blog that mentions her in sort of a “my high school girlfriend’s best friend” type of way. Turns out its Barnson.org. Its a testimony to the readership and listing power of this blog that this would happen, and it made me think the whole concept of the “Long Lost”

We, all of us, have the list of “long lost friends”, a list on which **** has never before been. After high school, we were not the very close friends we had once been, and really not even talking, and it didn’t matter that we lost touch. When we became friends again, though, it was really a lot different. I have her to thank for getting my acting career started, and for being my first real friend when I returned to Montgomery County. She was and is very dear.

But, like so many, life kind of gets in the way. Its never intentional (although the little lost kid inside always worries that it is), but we get busy, and that coffee date never happens. We get jobs, kids, married (as she did to a really cool guy), homes, We intend to keep it and we don’t. And suddenly its next week and month and year and then, well, there’s that list.

My list, Van Lindberg, Kara from williamsburg, Joey Johnson, Nick from college, Brett Clawson.. the names aren’t important. If you’re reading this you have a list of your own. People you would love to just see and have back and who probably feel the same.. but life allows little room to add the old attachments.

There are powerful tools.. Barnson.org is one.Look at this place, littered with friends old and new, Sam and Matt, two of my first friends in HS, Ben and Tim who I knew better in college through weird coincidences and connections.

Some people you give up on, some you don’t. I think **** is one of the latter (she is, after all an AWESOME actress). Some are successes, like we here, and some you just realize you will likely never see again.

But, for today, if youre reading this, maybe you should take the time to write that email to that friend on the cusp of becoming one of the “long lost” and let them know you’re not quite ready to relegate them to the dustbin. Don’t put it off.

In fact, why don’t I go take my own advice….

(typing…)

I am now with the times. I took Genna to see Eposide III yesterday. I am embarrased to admit this to my friends on this blog site…but…I have never seen Eposide I or II. I remember seeing 4, 5, & 6 but that was a million years ago. So I went out and bought the first two. They were pretty good but I got lost in the first one.

The third one was really really good. I was impressed. This one is going to make the last 3 seem like nothing. Of course, now I am going to go out and buy the last three so it will make more sense to Genna.

She got a little scared in the big scene at the end with Anakin and Obe One. But she loved it.

The Beastie Boys’ “To The 5 Boroughs” album was released last year and I still don’t like the album. I’ve tried listening to it over and over, giving it the chance to grow on me. But it’s not happening.

Here’s why this is such a big deal:

In 1992, while driving around college campus, one of my UMBC hockey teammates was pumping tunes in his car. It turned out to be a track from “Paul’s Boutique”, the Beastie Boys second album and first album release to follow their mega-popular “License To Ill.” This is significant because “Paul’s Boutique” then went onto become a driving force in my life. Actually, the album became a religion. It was played 24-7 and every line on the album was memorized by Weed. In fact, we still speak about the album to this day with reverence. I would argue that “Paul’s Boutique” is the greatest album ever recorded in the history of popular music.

Subsequent to “Paul’s Boutique” were other popular BBoy albums that all were wonderful creations of sound and rhyme. Some of the albums didn’t initially take, but the more I listened, the more I loved. Each time I listened, there were new things to discover.

It’s not that way with “To The 5 Boroughs”. I can’t get into the individual tracks, the flow of the tracks, any motif in the rhyme cadence, no identiable sounds…nothing. It’s a dud. You think that six years in between albums would result in another sonic masterpiece?

So tonight, Christy and I got talking about neighbors. You know, the usual scuttlebut you discuss at 2 in the morning when hanging out at a friend’s house.

Anyway, we came upon the fact that our new neighbor 2 doors down is a convicted sex offender. He’s guilty of Sexual Abuse of a Child.

He’s apparently got a wife, no kids, and I haven’t really talked to him yet. I ran into this situation a couple of years ago, when I discovered that a former co-worker of mine, whom I liked and respected, was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor. The difference with “aggravated” is that the person is in a position of trust with the child, and abused it (or was a stranger who made friends for the purpose of sexual abuse); in his case, it was his stepdaughter.

How do you deal with convicted sex offenders in your neighborhood? I mean, caution dictates you probably shouldn’t hire the guy as a babysitter. You may want to be careful about your children playing near his house. But do you avoid him, ostracize him? Or try to make friends?

I just really haven’t thought about this much, and they live so close. I’m interested in your take.

(Yes, I really did post this at 2:44 AM. I am switching to night shift, and like to take a night or two to get into it before reporting for work.)

We’ve been in drought here in Utah for about seven years, the entire time we’ve lived in our house. Greatfully the weather patterns have changed this year. We’ve had lots of precipitation. It’s so wonderful.

But the storms coming through have kept the weather rather cool. Please understand, I’m not complaining, I love it! Yesterday was a high of 63 degrees. Normally this time of year we’re in the 90’s and too hot with more dry heat on its way. The one drawback is I’m nervous about camping because it rains all the time now.

What kind of weather patterns have you all had in your corners of our wonderful world? Are you having odd weather? Or is it normal?

• Utah leads the nation in cases of rape per capita. A woman is more likely to be raped in Utah than in any other state of the Union. And Utah is one of the few states which does not count any teenagers in rape statistics, so the statistic is actually lower than the reality.
• Utah has more teen pregnancies per capita than any other state.
• Utah is ninth in the nation for suicide.
• Utah is the 3rd-poorest state per capita.
• Utah’s