Kids these days

Kids these days
Originally uploaded by Theorris
My normal week-day walk usually takes me past a statue of Parley P. Pratt. The statue was erected in his honor to honor his contribution to local history (and place names), since he built the first more easily passable road into the the Salt Lake Valley through the Wasatch Mountains. His fame as a builder of roads is celebrated in the statue, rather than his scandal-tainted death in Arkansas (q.v.). To be fair, however, some see his death as martyrdom, and I would not wish to fan the flames of religious acrimony. Pratt was certainly a person of his times, and Mormonism was particularly controversial at that time. Of course no one deserves death for either their religious beliefs or for seemingly scandalous behavior with women in Arkansas. Whether Pratt deserves a statue, is certainly not up to debate for his proud descendants or for most people in Utah, it would seem. Statues certainly been erected for much much much worse human beings.

In spite of Parley's fame (or perhaps because of his infamy, which I doubt anyone really knows about) local teens often take it upon themselves to decorate him with a variety of items. At Christmas time he generally is donned with a Santa cap, and at Hallowe'en, a pumpkin is usually placed on his transit. Aside from these rather innocuous seasonal celebrations, however, I've witnessed poor old Parley festooned with a variety of items: a 40 of Michelob, or a Playboy Center fold hanging from his outstretched hand, for example. Invariably such risque paraphernalia is quickly cleared away by someone in the neighborhood who keeps and eye on Parley's virtue.

I hadn't ever seen, however, until the other morning on my daily walk to the bus stop, Parley sporting a hot pink thong bikini. Later when I was laughing again at the audacity of the kids who played dress-up with Parley, I jotted the following on my notepad:

Like God, kids these days
Are no respecters of person
Heroes included.

The next one that gets me in trouble or 49 Days and Counting

What did Jesus do
The day after Easter?
I mean the Gospels
Aren't so clear on that
Subject

After a busy weekend of
Dying an excruciating
Death: scourged, crucified,
Stabbed in the side for
Blood and water to fall
To mother Earth
And give salvation to
Mankind (all that on
Friday, mind you)

Then, according to
Catholic magesterium,
Harrowing Hell of all
The righteous prior to
His ministry on Earth
All day Saturday
(The reception line on
That one must have taken
Most of the afternoon)

Then rising in
A flash, leaving only
The imprint of His
Humanity on a disputed
Shroud

What did Jesus do
That fine Monday morning?

I prefer to think
He took a vacation
In Tahiti or Samoa
Lounging on the beach
Not worrying about
A single thing
But loving and living
Life eternal and blessing
All the little sea
Birds that flitted
By his beach chair.

Becoming God Almighty,
Afterall, is no easy
Task. He deserved
Some time off.

Salvation

Each night we baptize

Spoons and cups and dishes

Washing them clean of filth

Readying them for another day

Of sin

Pickle's Day Out

I believe I saw this 10 years ago at the Spike and Mike animation festival. I think pickle might be right.

"We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power"

Recently Ben Stein has been on the warpath for his movie Expelled, proclaiming that science makes us murderers. I have the chutzpa to refer Mr. Stein (and the zealots who may follow him) to Jacob Bronowski who also had family members killed in the Holocaust: Signifying nothing: Feeling forward (4/29/2007).

Bronowski was a scientist and a fervent Darwinian. Along with the murder of his family in Nazi death camps, he also witnessed the aftermath of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

I tend to trust his thoughtful perspective over a Nixon speech writer, Ferris Bueller actor, and game show host.

The most powerful hand

Five simple candles,
Gaudy with sanctimony,
Punish me with fear.

Radio Lab

This week's This American Life podcast featured an excerpt from Radio Lab a cool show out of WNYC. Radio Lab has some very unique production methods such as narration that talks over interviews. The production tends to make the show engaging, but the content is the thing, of course, that makes at least the current episode stellar. The current episode is on morality, and how a moral sense is most likely ingrained in our our brain structures as well as in the brains of some other animals. As a research scientist Dr. Joshua Greene states of a genetic disposition to morality: "We think of basic human morality as being handed down from on high, and it is probably better to say that it was handed up from below--that our most basic, core, moral values are not the things that we humans have invented, but the things that we've actually inherited from other people. The stuff that we humans have invented are the things that seem more peripheral and variable" (Radio Lab, "Morality," 12:28-12:48).

Fascinating stuff.

Verily I say unto you, there will be much gnashing of teeth

Oh my, Christopher Hitchens takes on the LDS Church.

I expect a great tumult. It should be interesting to watch. No doubt it will be fraught with cries of persecution of the people, who, I was once told by a zealous student writer, are "the most persecuted people of all time!" (complete with exclamation point.) That person apparently forgot about, oh let's say, black people, the Jews, and Armenians for a really sad, and small, sampling of the history of human atrocities.

Verily.

Why I don't write about the Catholics occupying channel 3 on Comcast or How to piss another religious group off

Channel 3 on my loverly Comcast[TM] cable network is current showing nothing but the ever-famous ETWN (Eternal Word Network) a.k.a. the angry Nun channel. I used to watch ETWN for fun when it was on channel 72 or whatever on Comcast[TM], but after being removed from the cable network for a year or so, they are back, decidedly so, on channel 3 where they used to show Park City TV and a ton of fun snowboarding and skiing highlights.

Now I salute Comcast[TM] for being committed to religious diversity, especially since they offer 2 channels devoted to LDS concerns and one (channel 72) devoted to fundamentalist concerns, but come on! Put ETWN back on the high end of the dial where I can surf between evolution and poker.

In any case, I was very amused while wandering around between the Simpsons (who had a great slam on Utah, by the way) and Family Guy, to find either a Benedictine or an Augustine Monk (can't tell the difference between their gray garb) proclaiming that "Jesus was offensive to all the religions of his day" since he proclaimed himself or was proclaimed the son of God. He also mentioned that Mohamed would have been very offended by such a proclamation, because (like the Jews) followers of Islam believe that God is one god and that there can be no "son" of god.

Now all of that is sound, in that both Islam and Judaism proclaim that. His next claim, however, was extraordinarily specious: pagans (i.e. the Roman/Greek religion) would also never accept that a man could be god.

I stood (yes I was standing), stunned, not thinking of my next hit of the button to change channels. I had to wonder if this monk really believed that. Did he not know that Julius Caesar was declared a god by the Romans? Did he not know that Augustus (while seemingly denying his elevation in lifetime) was also declared a god?

What about the ever-problematic Caligula? He proclaimed himself to be Jupiter himself.

Nero too.

Claudius, the god.

Ignoring cultural context and proclaiming something unique seems to be a rather human foible.

ksl.com - Some Christians Celebrated Palm Sunday

Oy, with a decidedly insular view, KSL informs us that Some Christians Celebrated Palm Sunday. Yes while most Christians did not? Gimme a break, KSL. It should read "Most Christians Celebrated Palm Sunday While a Small Percentage Tuned Their TVs to LDS General Conference and Went About Cleaning Their Houses or General Not-paying-attention-related-activities-but-still-the-tv-is-on-Bishop-Christiansensonson!"

At least they didn't really keep up the intentional or unintentional snootiness in the body of the story:

Christians around the world celebrated Palm Sunday today. Christians of many denominations marched through their churches throughout Utah, carrying palm fronds and singing hymns at the official beginning of the Easter week.