Month: July 2008

Cohen: I have no quarrels with my wife! In the case of BIG issues I am the decision-maker, in SMALL ones my wife is. This was our arrangement from the first minute on. Gruen: Does it work? Can it work? Really? Cohen: Yes. There were no big issues in our marriage in the last forty years.

Most memorable scene of the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight”: The Disappearing Pencil Trick. Not a doubt in my mind. One of the most memorable and subtly gruesome scenes ever.

Seen the movie yet?

This morning I dropped my oldest child off for Oakcrest summer camp at a LDS “stake center”. There were hordes of 12 and 13-year-old girls about. My daughter had some trouble locating her stake leader, but eventually figured it all out and settled down on the lawn to chat with her fellow camp-goers. It looks like she’s going to have a fun week.

I am reminded of similar camps when I was a youth. There was the school-run sixth-grade-camp I went to, from Darnestown Elementary. One night I was woken up, convinced it was morning and that I had KP duty, then locked out of the dormitory with a leering, red-headed kid named Kevin sticking his tongue out at me. He turned off the lights, and left me screaming at the top of my lungs while pounding the door for Mr. Yoxheimer to eventually wake up and, grumpily, let me back in.

That Kevin kid was a jerk.

I am reminded also of the stark contrast such camps were to the religious campouts I went to as a youth. Similar to sixth-grade camp, there was no shortage of peer-on-peer cruelty. For instance, at Goshen Scout Camp, one of my camp-mates thought it would be funny to crack a rotten egg on my sleeping bag while I slumbered therein. Those kinds of shenanigans are painfully well-remembered. I learned what it meant to be the new kid in a school full of children who’d known each other all their lives. To this day, I sometimes have difficulty figuring out when someone is having a laugh along with me, or ridiculing me.

On the other hand, the religious camps had the trappings of traditional summer camp, with a relentless focus on drawing moral or religious lessons from each activity. I would be pulled aside regularly for one-on-one interviews in which I was pressured by an adult to talk about my most private experiences and have that used as a lever to get me to go along with whatever the doctrine du jour was. The one that stands out most, actually, wasn’t at a LDS summer camp: it was a Methodist summer camp that I attended with my girlfriend (we were trying to convert one another), where the counselors were aghast that I had no interest in “surrendering” to Jesus.

My logic at age 16 went something like this: “What’s the point of surrendering when there was never a war to begin with?” Using the word “surrender” to describe one’s relationship to a deity implies there was some sort of conflict that you’re giving up. If you feel you are living your life in harmony with your god’s wishes — despite a few failings — what need is there to surrender? Why not use the word “negotiation”, or perhaps “subsume”, or “obey”?

The camp counselor pounded me on this for around fifteen minutes, then gave up, saying “Well, I understand where you’re coming from, but until you are saved and surrendered to Jesus, you won’t understand.”

Similarly, I was pulled aside for a several-hour seminar on the evils of masturbation at Priesthood camp. In particular, the counselor focused on “mutual masturbation” — the male-LDS-1980’s euphemism for homosexuality — and cautioned us not to give in to peer pressure to do that while at camp. We were then pulled aside for individual interviews with our priesthood leaders, and the only thing I remember getting asked about was whether or not I wanked, at what frequency, and what mediation plan we should come up with to stop it.

The other facet of summer camp that was part of the mind-job was the isolation. This lack of outside contact provides a fertile ground to enter a reality-distortion field, where you can be convinced of many things. I recall another Scout camp where a boy had a broken leg for hours before they finally took him to the hospital, then only after they had him all put together again did they bother to inform the parents.

I understand that it’s nice to get away from it all and unplug for a week. But at summer youth camp you should be swimming, playing, and telling scary stories around the campfire, not being quizzed on your sexual practices, pressured into signing an instrument of surrender on the religious version of the USS Missouri, or hiding serious injuries from parents.

I have some concern that Utah, with a Greater-Reality-Distortion-Field surrounding it already, might amplify the weird and coercive influences I experienced as a child.

As I handed my daughter her blue information sheet to help her locate her leaders, I asked her if she had her cell phone. She replied, “No, Dad, we’re not allowed to bring our cell phone.”

I was briefly taken aback, and responded, “Sara, I don’t want to be a subversive influence on you, but please, remember who you are this week. Just because someone is an authority does not mean they are right. Some leaders and peers take advantage of summer camp to try to advance their own agendas. Have fun, but be willing to say ‘no’.”

“I’ll be OK, Dad” she replied.

And I think she will.

What’s something you could do, would be within your current means and time, but you just haven’t gotten around to it?

For me? I would book a flight back to the East Coast, rent a car, and see the home where I lived up until age twelve. I don’t know why, it’s totally irrational, but it’s almost like I just need to see the place to remind myself that it’s not the same as when I left it, wild in a swamp.

What about you?

I cringe to look at these pictures (not explicit, not gross, just the implications): http://basia.blog-city.com/tykes_on_bikes.htm

Entire families riding on a single motorcycle. Life is cheap in India, I guess.

Sample photo:

I ran across a piece that gives a concise description of why we are currently withdrawing from Iraq (according to the President’s news conference yesterday) and the motivations for this move. Although some of my more liberal friends, I am sure, will take issue with the reasons for withdrawal and positive emphasis on the timing, it’s a useful description of the motivations for the move.

I think it’s interesting that, lately, the right-wing has begun emphasizing the talking point that we are withdrawing “based upon our successes”. As if withdrawal from Iraq is some kind of cookie for doing a good job. I’m not on-board with that analysis, though. I think it’s an excuse for trying to sweeten the well for the coming election. Bush has encountered a hostile congress, and the back-pedaling seems, to me, to be a lame attempt to try to reconcile in time to get incumbent parties re-elected come this Fall.

Too little, too late. Although the anti-incumbency sentiment was at its height in 2006, I think enough remains that we’re going to end up with a Democratic White House and at least either the Senate or House of Representatives is going to tip Republican.

From the noises they are all making lately, though, I’m not sure it makes much difference what party controls the Congress. My party — the Republican party — held the ideals of less government, lower taxes, strong military, and fiscal responsibility dear. The current Administration, both Presidential candidates, and the Congress, seem to be ignoring those ideals.

Yeah, you read that right, NASA is in need of more urine in order to test their Orion space capsule.

Odd request. Even odder that they’ve filled it. But based on the trickle of jokes on Slashdot, I foresee a stream of responses.

And sings.. and makes music..and.. oh its gonna be fun..

“DR HORRIBLE’S SING ALONG BLOG”

A NEW musical by Joss Whedon is now available to watch for free at drhorrible.com – but its crashing a lot and it will go down in a few days.

I decided to just buy the thing from itunes so I can have it forever. Act 1 is today.. act 2 is tomorrow, act three is the next day, then in a week it disappears.

Haven’t watched it yet.. but am about to..

Two weekends ago, I had an opportunity to ride my father-in-law’s four-wheeler around the ruins of the Teton Dam. It was an incredibly good time, and now I realize the appeal that these types of tiny vehicles provide. It’s a totally different experience from riding a car.

So, in typical Matthew style, I read up on the sport. An overriding interest of mine is “how do I avoid getting hurt?”, since I have heard and read all kinds of horror stories about people new to motorcycles or four-wheelers really hurting themselves. To that end, I found The Hurt Report. I came to the following conclusions:

1. Take a safety course. Fully 92% of all motorcycle accident victims did not take a safety course. That’s a pretty staggering statistic to me. If you are self-taught or had a family member or friend teach you, you’re eleven times more likely to be in an accident.
2. Don’t ride a motorbike if you’re between ages 16 and 24. No, seriously, statistics indicate that you’re judgment-impaired. You’re safest if you’re between 30 and 50.
3. If you’re a manual laborer, student, or unemployed, you may want to hold off on buying that cool motorcycle until you change careers.
4. Put fairings and windshields on your motorcycle.
5. Ride with your lights on.
6. Wear brightly-colored clothing in orange, red, or yellow.
7. Over half of all fatal motorcycle accidents involve alcohol consumption. Don’t ride your motorcycle late at night when there are likely to be drunk drivers on the road, and of course, don’t drink and drive.
8. Wear a helmet. Those who wear helmets are less likely to get into an accident. Almost all motorcycle accidents occur within a 45 degree field of vision in front of the rider, so complaints about lost peripheral vision when wearing a helmet are irrelevant to safety; you’re much safer with a helmet than without.
9. A bigger motorcycle is less likely to be involved in a crash, but is more likely to hurt you severely if you do crash.
10. Intersections are the most dangerous for motorcycles; be extra-careful there.
11. If you have had a moving violation in the past three years, don’t ride a motorcycle.

Now, admittedly, some of these statistics are kind of funny, like “rule yourself out if you’re aged 16 through 24”. But according to the demographics represented, I’m a perfect candidate to be a safe motorcycle rider.

I do hate wearing orange, though.

I’ve been struck over the past few days with the scope of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts. I mean, we’re talking about the taxpayers footing the bill for the difference between US house values and the borrowed price for a $5 trillion portfolio.

These bailouts are rising in cost and graft, with FNMA boasting $1M+ salaries for the top twenty executives and over $250M in bonuses over the past five years to those same twenty. These were supposed to be organizations devoted to bringing housing to those who could not otherwise afford it, not institutions responsible for absorbing over half of the entire nation’s housing debt.

Capitalism is dead. Or, if it’s not dead, it’s certainly being handed its hat.