Posterity Discrimination: The Haves and the Have Nots.....

I was so excited to get married and start the whole "married life" thing. However, once we moved into our new apartment and starting going to church we realized, to our horror, that we would be attending a married student ward. Don't get me wrong. I am ALL about church, I love it. What i didn't like about the whole married student ward thing was what I think I will call "posterity discrimination."

Our first week at church nearly everyone we met asked us how many children we had. The question wasn't, "Do you have children?", it was how many. When we told them we didn't have any, they either looked shocked or gave us the "oh, you are that kind of Mormon (meaning, the kind that go to hell because they've been married for a week and don't have kids yet). No one really tried to get to know us because we didn't have children. This is wrong. Why do we judge when people decide or don't decide to have kids. Is it really any of our business? This is something that I HATE. Most parents ( new or old) automatically assume that people without children can't possibly understand what it is like to have children. In many respects, I agree. I have not yet experienced childbirth. No, I cannot empathize with you there. But we do have some sense, or even if we don't, some of us would like to try to know if you would only take the time to let us be friends or give us the chance. But apparently we are just TOO different."Posterity Discrimination."


I think the infamous Stake Patriarch discriminates based on posterity. We don't have children, therefore, we should be able to do his paper route. I don't see him asking anyone with kids to do it. ( just a little bitter jab there, sorry.)

Then there is the flip side. The people who don't have children who discriminate against those who do. " Can you belive she had kids at 18? What were they thinking? How on earth are they going to pay for school? etc.." Or, "oh, they have kids, so I'm sure they can't go to the movie with us." I think this side too has a disregard for the other parties' feelings. First, it is just not right to judge when someone starts their family. They receive their own revelation, you don't do it for them. And second, you never know when that family might just want to come hang out.

I recently heard from some friends that you can't take strollers into a local aquarium. How on earth are you supposed to take little kids to an aquarium without a stroller? That's insane. Single people discriminating against people with kids, probably?

Why do we do this to each other? Aside from Mormons, I know of no other group of people that does this to each other. We are all a big family. Can't we all just get along? Is it a part of the "big mormon planet" growth discourse? Or are we all just really prideful and judgemental? I hope not.

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A Simple Request

All right....to all you unindicted co-conspirators who read the blog but are too timid to make posts, now is the time, if ever, to stand up and speak your mind!! (Don't try to hide either; we know you're out there b/c we just added a site counter.) With the majority of LYMA's "standard fare" bloggers out of commission for at least another week due to law school finals, it's up to you to keep the banal observations and whiny criticism going at the steady rate it's been recently.

And for those of you who are afraid that someone will respond to your post by tearing apart your logic and leaving you shattered and in tears: don't worry...S, the Czar of Religious Conviction and arbiter of all speech not conforming with the LYMA creed, will spring to action on your behalf and extinguish those comments with his flaming sword of damocles!! (that's what he calls his mouse).

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Warrant: What to do about the crack-smoker

I currently live in beautiful Pensacola, FL, or as I like to call it, "Hurricane City." My wife and I are currently trying to sell our house in an attempt to move further away from the ongoing path of distruction that seems to start coming our way this time of year.

Part of selling the home includes us doing some minor cosmetic repairs, one of which is replacing some old wood on the eve of our house. Since I am not a carpenter, I decided to ask a neighbor who frames homes for a living, 2-3 days a week depending on if he wakes up before noon. So I walked over to his house around 2:00pm and asked if he could help. He said yes, and we started taking various tools over to my house. I would guess for someone who is inexperienced, such as myself, that this job would take at least 6-7 hours. For someone who knew what they were doing, maybe 3-4 tops. As we went back to his house to collect that last of the tools, he went inside and asked me to follow him for a second. After we entered, he locked the door and proceeded to, I'm not kidding, pull out his crack pipe and smoke a couple of rocks!

After very graciously offering me a hit, which I didn't take, he started telling me that he was wanted in 2 counties for some "minor occurances." I played it cool, because 1) I didn't want him to make him paranoid 2) really needed the work done on my house. So he went to work on the eve and finished in about 2 hours. Then he thanked me, I'm not quite sure what for.

The problem that I have been going back and forth with is weither I should turn him in or not. On one hand he is a really nice guy and always looks out for us; house, odd jobs, shooting the breeze. He has never given me a reason not to trust him. On the other hand, I get pissed when I look at neighborhoods that are run down and infested with drugs, violence and people who are dependent on a monthly government check for no apparent reason. Is this the begining of a good neighborhood going south? Any suggestions on how to approach this?

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On Jesus, Lawsuits and Volkswagons

Jesus said a lot of things that, honestly, I don't really understand. Last night, though, I had the thought that maybe the reason I claim not to understand much of what he said is because so much of it seems so utterly impossible for humans to accomplish.

This is especially true when Jesus gets into the dirty particulars. For example, when he says: "Forgive people." I say: "Sure...that sounds good...I think I'll do that." But when he says: "Forgive people - and by the way, when someone punches you in the face, don't punch him back and, by the way, let him hit you again." I say: "Wow, that's hard to do!"

Because we are silly law students, a couple of us were talking about this last night in reference to Matthew 5:40. There, Jesus gets into those particulars again: "if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also." Now I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't referring to your usual "Law & Order: SVU" style lawsuit here. I'm sure things were different then. But still, it does seem like he's saying that when a person forces you at the law to give up your hard-earned cash, you should go ahead and sell your Volkswagon in order to give him even more money. Hmmm?

I suppose there are (at least) a few ways to look at this:
(1) You could take what he said literally, and whenever someone files a complaint seeking damages in the form of your North Face jacket, then you'll be sure to give the guy a cloak too (if you happen to have one).
(2) Or, you could be a little less literal and say that whenever someone asks you for money or even when they sue you for money, you should be extraordinarily generous and not begrudging about it.
(3) Finally, you could inch back into those blessed generalities and say that Jesus was just giving an example (which may or may not be relevant today) of what it means love your enemy. I mean who is more your enemy than your opponent in a lawsuit.

I'd tend to go with number (3), although I'm afraid it's only because generalized commandments give you so much wiggle room. On the other hand, if someone sues me and wins, I think my wife would give me quite the look if I decided to give the guy our car too.

Any ideas about a possible middle ground?

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The Stake Patriarch Strikes Again

I'm not sure whether I should be LIVID or ashamed of myself.

This morning as we were walking to the Metro we see our favorite ( and I mean that in the most SARCASTIC way possible) Stake Patriarch running towards us. Sheldon assumed he was late for the Metro and that is why he was running. WRONG. He was running to catch up with us.


He says, " Are we still friends?" and DH said, "Sure, of course we are." So Stake Patriarch (SP) says, "Friends enough that I could ask you to help us out again?" and DH ( thinking the SP is joking) says, "sure, but it depends on our schedules." SP says, " What? You would put your schedules more important than helping us?" And DH, starting to catch on says, " Well, yes." SP says, "We're going out town again and could sure use your help. We'll be gone about 11 days." DH says, "Well I guess it depends on when it is." SP says, " We have the plane tickets I'm not sure of the exact dates, but sometime during the 4th of July." Which, ironically is when I have been telling DH that we should go to Philadelphia for the 300th B-day of Ben Franklin.... So I mentioned that and SP made some silly remark which I didn't hear... actually I didn't hear much of the rest of the conversation because I was trying so hard to not start crying.....

I DON"T UNDERSTAND THIS MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ONLY time he ever talks to us is when he wants us to do something for him. This is the THIRD time he has asked us to do his paper route. 4 days nearly sent me to the hospital for back pain. 11 days just might very well KILL me.

As LDS do we draw a line? What is the difference between serving with all your heart as the Savior did and then just plain getting used? Is there such a thing?

Recently a sister in our ward called me and asked me to help her come prepare for a 1 day trip. She has a 2 year old son. Her husband was working in the yard. But she called me and asked me to help her, "clean the house, make the child's food, pack, etc...." At first I could not believe that this woman would call me and ask me to do this. I went and helped her for an hour, and it really wasn't that bad. I ended up only cooking food and watching the 2 year old. But I have to admit I was a little ashamed at being so hesitant to serve. I read a book by some LDS author entitled "Love is a VERB" and the book talks about service and how we show love through our works. The author said, "Service is never at a convenient time for us, otherwise, would it really be service?" And I understand her point. But where do we draw the line? Or do we? Would Christ have drawn a line? I don't know.

But for now, I am researching Philadelphia. If anyone wants to come, you are more than welcome.

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DNA?

No DNA evidence was found on the stripper that alleged that the Duke Lacrosse team beat and raped her. 46 of 47 players submitted to a DNA sample (the one black player did not have to give a sample because the victim said her attackers were white), and now they expect the investigation to be over soon.

Here is my question. Do we trust DNA evidence too much? I know that technically you can still proceed with a trial without a DNA match, but it seems like a lot of times it is the main factor. The way science is always moving, who is to say that in five years we won't have some breakthrough that shows that our methods for DNA testing is all wrong, that we have put away innocent people or let guilty people go free because we thought the world was flat. If anyone knows anything about why we should trust our DNA so much let me know, I will admit that I don't know that much about science and I have a problem with trusting it unconditionally.

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A Marketing Scam As Big As The Ritz

The other night I was watching TV as I usually do and I saw a commercial for the Jewelry Factory in Bethesda. It had a bunny hopping through a lot of diamond jewelry on a table with a little jingle about buying your significant other diamonds for Easter to show you that you love them. This is too much.

First of all I should say that I think that jewelry in general is an incredibly stupid concept so you can take my opinion for what it's worth. It is only valuable because hundreds of years ago people liked shiny things and now the industry keeps up the guilt based maketing plan that tells me I have to waste our hard earned money on something that serves no purpose whatsoever because if I don't then maybe I don't love my wife as much as I should(I kind of feel the same way about flowers, but at least they smell nice and are a lot cheaper, plus my dad is now in the flower business). Not to mention the horrible effects that the illusory value of diamonds have on countries that produce them.

So now I'm supposed to think that on Christmas, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries, arbor day, labor day, etc. I should be spending hundreds of dollars on this crap? Don't even get me started on made up holidays like Valentines day. People I implore you, see through the lies, this Easter put back that $ 500 diamond bracelet that you were buying for that special someone and just spend some time together, color eggs, go to religious services, or maybe purchase something useful like lovely roses with things written on them from Speaking Roses in Salt Lake http://www.speakingroses.com/

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Religious Music and the Real World, Part I: The Hold Steady

I subscribe to Duke Ellington's theory of musical catagorization: "There are two kinds of music, good music and bad music." Because of this, I'm pretty open to all "types" of music. Country usually gets a bad rap from the musical elite, but old-style Wilco and Lucinda Williams are as good as they come. One category I've usually kept far from my radar, however, is any pop-music that eminates religious devotion. This is not because I'm not a religious guy, I am. Rather, I think it's because most non-classical religious music (a la Amy Grant or EFY) is corny, false and ridiculous.

Recently I've found that I'm totally wrong in my categorical exclusion of "religious" pop music.

There are some GREAT bands out there that treat religious belief realistically and seriously. "The Hold Steady" is one of them. Their most recent album's sound isn't much different from your average guitar-riff driven rock band. Nothing special there. But the lyrics are amazing!!!

"Separation Sunday" is a concept album about a teenage girl in Minnesota named "Halleluiah" who is stuck somewhere between the allure of drugs and sex and her Catholic upbringing. Pitchfork describes the album like this: "with its greater emphasis on religious wonder and dread, everything is sacred, and we realize that the booze and drugs and shady deals were always just a wrongheaded quest for divinity. As the characters flit from town to town searching for something ineffable, there's a sense, beneath the mounting urgency and desperation, that redemption might always be just around the corner."


The story is good, but the best part is that it's real. The religious life isn't flowers and puppy dogs, despite what the EFY soundtracks would have us believe. It's a struggle and I'm glad someone out there recognizes it. At the risk of giving away the end of the story, here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Halleluiah came to in a confession booth.
Infested with infections.
Smiling on an abcessed tooth.
Running hard on residue.
Crashing thru the vestibule.
The crucifixion cruise.
She climbed the cross and found she liked the view.
Sat reflecting on the resurrection.
Talking loud over lousy connections.
She put her mouth around a difficult question.

She said lord what do you recommend?
To a real sweet girl who's made some not sweet friends.
Lord what would you prescribe?
To a real soft girl who's having real hard times.

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St. Judas?

Yesterday’s New York Times had an article about a newly rediscovered gospel – the Gospel of Judas.

What I find most interesting about this discovery is not that it has spent years sitting lost in a safety deposit box in (no joke) Hicksville, NY. Nor am I particularly interested in the debate over its authenticity (scientists assert that it’s authentic, or at least that it’s authentically old). No, what I find interesting about all of this is the picture this Gospel paints of Christianity’s very own Brutus. According to this Gospel, Judas’s was not the faithless follower we all accepted him to be—the veritable villain of the New Testament—but rather the most loyal of all the disciples. So loyal, in fact, that the Lord himself entrusted Judas with the excruciating responsibility of turning him over to the Romans to be crucified. In short, what the Gospel of Judas asserts is that because Christ’s death was essential to God’s plan, so, too, was Judas’s betrayal.

So here’s the question: do you think it’s possible that Judas has just gotten a bad rap all these years? Our faith is surely one of the few with the flexibility to accept something like this. Unlike most Christian sects, we see Eve’s decision as a necessary choice, one essential to God’s plan. It was not a sin, but a transgression. Could Judas’s role in the atonement be similar to that of Eve’s role in the Fall?

I have to admit, I’m thrilled by the idea.

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Would Someone Please Defend Bush?

So it’s official. In a story first reported in today’s New York Sun (and since picked up by just about every news agency), Scooter Libby has implicated Bush as the man who pushed the red button on the leak of CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s identity to NY Times reporter Judith Miller.

Ouch.

Needless to say, with a 36% approval rating, George W. is not at the top of the public’s list of favorite people. On my personal list, for example, he falls somewhere between the Cat Lady (NY animal rights woman who stands outside grocery stores screaming “stop having kids – you’re killing out animals!” at pregnant women) and Collin Farell (the man throws phones at people’s heads!). In other words, though I don’t quite think Bush is Satan-spawn (notice the blatant the lack of Hitler references), I’m none too pleased with him.

But here’s my problem—neither is anyone else I know. Everyone I talk with seems to share my sense of indignation at Bush’s sneaky dodging of Congress (and, cough, the LAW) to wiretap phones. And my friends are all equally appalled by his condescending smile, shoulder shrug, and reference to terrorism every time a reporter asks him about it. Now I enjoy a good bash fest as much as anyone, but surrounded by so many like-minded folk has started to make me a little concerned. Is there an argument from the other side? Do ALL 36% who approve of him live in Alabama? Why have I not heard a single argument (political pundits excepted) in Bush’s favor?

Hence my plea – would someone please defend Bush?

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Lend me your jokes

Last year I helped coach a high school lacrosse team. At halftime of a game when we were losing to an inferior team the kids were getting pretty down on themselves and each other, and so were the other coaches. I thought the mood needed lightening so I told a joke that my uncle had recently told me (I don't really want to post it, but ask me if you are interested). Everyone had a good laugh and we went out the second half and dismantled Murray High like we should have all game.

I should have kept my mouth shut because I created a monster. From then on I was put on the spot for a joke every game, and I don't know that many jokes, let alone jokes I can tell to high school age kids (while their parents are around). You don't want to have to make people laugh on the spot, way too much pressure. So this year the team has had a slow start and I have startd to get e mail requests for jokes from the other coaches. I still don't know any jokes. Help me out people, let's post your favorite joke on the comment board. Go RAMS!!!!!!!!

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Did you hear the conference talk on illegal immigration?

As the debate over illegal immigration rages on, President Hinckley’s remarks on racism were very timely in my opinion. (Not that a prophet making timely commentary on the state of the world should be seen as a novel thing.) Try as I may to understand the justification for making illegal immigration a felony, I can’t. The majority of job positions currently being filled by illegal aliens are the ones no one else wants. Social security will remain solvent for longer because of the millions of dollars illegal immigrants pay into the system; money they can't pull out. Everything in my life from the things I buy to where I live to the roads I drive on are provided to me cheaper because of illegal immigration.

No one is considering building a wall along the border of Canada?

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This seems healthy to me

I don't have kids yet, maybe those of you that do can tell me if this is as good an idea as I think it is. It would be kind of fun, like a campout.

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