Weary of Well Speaking

I have a terrible bias against good public speakers. Here are some possible reasons for this:

• Perhaps this is because I am not one. My presentation tends to be terrible, given that I tend to cry when I am nervous or discuss anything I care about. People who can remain unemotional when discussing something important lack passion or conviction in my eyes.
  
• To me, good speaking tends to indicate a lack of substantial ideas, glossed over with flowery language and anecdotes. Unlike much of the international community, I actually find comfort in the fact that President Bush is a terrible speaker, because it indicates to me he is sincere in his thoughts, elected for his ideas, not for his charm. One of the main reasons I would never have voted for Kerry was his speaking ability: smooth, eloquent, and able to speak about nothing for hours. Very typical of the modern career politician, and in my view, the main enemy of progress in government. Politics (and by extension, life) seem to be so much about how you say things and who you are, rather than the actual ideas you have. Rather than consisting of plans and positions, so much of any speech is just vague filler statements, the kind that I would slash through with my red pen if it were an essay.
• Debaters. Bad experiences with debaters. Something seems so wrong to me with the idea of debate competitions. We teach students to argue either side of an issue, as if your personal convictions, or actually truths, about right and wrong are not really that relevant. They are taught to cut into flaws in evidence and presentation, undermining their opponents not by superiority of ideas but by seeming technicalities. They ignore, or cover up, the valid points of their opponent, pitting the worst of their opposition against the best of their own thought. This seems to me a short, sloppy, and least-effective method of argumentation. If you really want to prove something true, you must take your opponents' best arguments, rather than their worst, and you must acknowledge the weaknesses of your position. Only if you can convince someone in spite of both of these things have you truly found truth.
  

Does anyone else feel this way?

Illegal Immigration: A Necessary Part of the American Economy?

Illegal labor has become the backbone of many businesses in America, particularly for agriculture, restaurants, construction, and many service industries, providing low cost labor that reduces consumer prices and increases profit. That may all change with the introduction of Bill HR 4437, which passed in the House last December and is currently being debated by the Senate. Titled the “Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005”, this bill would enact a mandatory “employment eligibility verification system” to be in place in the next six years. Employers still using illegal alien labor after that time are subject to a fine up to $50,000 for each worker and possibly one year of imprisonment (H.R. 4437, 2006, Title VII: Employment Eligibility Verification).

These extremely harsh penalties and forced conversion to legal workers have many employers worrying about the feasibility of a complete switch of their labor force in the next six years. With many industries so dependent on illegal labor, they wonder if there are enough American workers to replace an estimated 9-12 million illegal aliens. Business owners say they can not find legal workers to do these jobs, many of which are undesirable, hard labor positions. Even if a replacement labor force exists, many companies may not be able to afford the drastic increase in wages necessitated by hiring at minimum wage and providing benefits. The increased costs of labor will have to be passed on to consumers, perhaps causing dramatic price hikes for basic necessities like food. Businesses worry that consumers will be unwilling to pay the increased prices, resulting in serious damage to American businesses. These business owners claim that America depends on the cheap labor provided by illegal immigrants and that a conversion is economically impossible.

According to a study by Thomas J. Carter, a member of the Department of Economics at the University of Florida, illegal workers affect the labor market in two ways. First, illegal workers take jobs that legal workers won’t take, exactly as business owners claim (Carter, 2005, 777). In these sectors, a continual flow of new migrant workers creates a surplus of labor that keeps wages low and allows business owners to increase their profit margins. However, there is a second effect of illegal labor that employers generally ignore: as the number of available workers increases, as it has for the past few decades, industries who used to employ legal workers turn to undocumented workers in order to cut costs (Carter, 2005, 777). Because migrant workers are willing to work for much less than American workers, legal employees become unable to compete for these jobs and are gradually phased out in favor of cost-cutting immigrant labor. Over time, this second effect leads to the first effect: a labor market dominated by illegal labor taking jobs that Americans “don’t want.”

However, it is important to remember that at one point Americans were happy doing these jobs because they provided wages that could support a decent living. These jobs only became undesirable when employers lowered their wages because there was a labor market willing to accept them. This transition can be seen in the many industries currently undergoing the switch to illegal immigration. Take for example the construction industry, in particular, David Shafer, the latest in a family of house framers in Suwanee, Georgia (Feagans, 2006). In the heyday of his business, Shafer had managed to earn over $100,000 a year, a more than decent living by any standard, and owned a vacation home by the lake (Feagans, 2006, Family of framers section, para. 6). The workers on his crew also earned a decent wage, $15-20 per hour, but now Shafer’s company is unable to get any work contracts because of cheap, illegal labor, and “many of his crew members eventually switched to commercial construction or left the business altogether, unwilling to work for such low wages” (Feagan, 2006, Bids weren’t that close section, para. 3). Shafer said, "I can't get a job because these guys work so cheap. . . . I'm going to have to sell a coin collection to buy my wife a Christmas present" (Feagan, 2006, para. 5). The same thing that is happening to Shafer’s construction industry is happening to other jobs all over the country. Jobs that were once respectable have become jobs that Americans “won’t do.” However, we should remember that only a few years ago, Americans like David Shafer and his crew were doing these jobs, but they just can’t or won’t do it for the wage demanded by the illegal labor market. When the labor market is again deprived of this inexpensive labor source, and wages go up, these Americans will mostly likely return to doing the jobs they have done in the past.

But how can increasing the cost of labor be good for American businesses? Won’t the resulting increase in consumer prices cause a large economic collapse? First, remember that increasing wages works on both sides of the argument. It increases consumer prices, but it also raises the spendable wages of the group least able to afford current prices. Indeed, the lower-middle class and poverty classes, the ones who would be most damaged by a price increase, are also those whose improved wages caused the price increase.

Compared to the increased take-home pay for the lower classes, the price increases might not be as harmful as some might think. While statistics on possible price increases due to loss of cheap illegal labor vary widely (from $.19 per head of lettuce to $5.00), a worse-case scenario thought experiment on the subject can give us an indication of the possible effects of using legal labor. Even if an employer is forced to raise wages for agricultural workers by the high amount of $10.00/hr and assuming that worker to only be able to pick 50 heads of lettuce per hour, the increased cost per head of lettuce picked by that worker is only about 20 cents a head. If we add on an increase of pay at packaging plants and grocery stores, it is conceivable that the total price increase might be around $1-2. However, this same full time worker who is purchasing that lettuce would now be making around $400 more every week. Even if the worker’s total weekly grocery costs increase by $100, the increase in take-home pay of workers seems to still be significant enough to allow workers to increase their spending, which could then be passed on to the farm owners, who might stand to actually make money due to an increase in spending.

In general, the upper-middle class will not be as drastically affected by a possible increase in grocery and service prices as some believe. In fact, America’s grocery costs are currently much lower than for similar developed countries. According to an unpublished study by the US Agricultural Department, “Americans spend less on food than the citizens of any other industrialized country” (Katel, 2005, Overview section, para. 31). Specifically, the Encyclopedia

Britannica says that American households spend 7.9% of their income on food in the home, much less than Germany (13.90%), France (14.7%), the United Kingdom (16%), or Japan (23.3%). An increase in grocery prices would simply bring the United States closer to the standard of the world market. The average income in these countries is similar to that of the United States. If their middle and upper classes can afford to pay more for groceries, there is good reason to believe that Americans would be able to do the same.

In the short term view, the switch away from illegal labor may cause some financial problems for businesses as Americans adjust to a new price scale, but these problems are not permanent, devastating, or unsolvable. In the six year transition period, a worker shortage is possible, but there is no evidence that American workers will refuse these jobs, once the wages are brought up to a decent standard. Indeed, workers in industries that are only just experiencing the conversion to illegal labor, like house framer David Shafer, would gladly take their old jobs back. Though wage increases may make a large initial impact on businesses that have been using illegal labor longer, the increased spending capability of their workers will eventually be beneficial to their business and the American economy. Prices will increase across the board, but so will Americans ability to afford them. There is time over the next six years for American businesses to prepare for and survive the transition to a legal labor market, ending America’s dependence on cheap but illegitimate labor.

Why I Enjoy the Da Vinci Code

In the days leading up to the release of the Da Vinci Code movie, I have been enjoying the opportunity to discuss this book with the people around me. (I missed the first wave of discussion since I was one of the last people I knew to read the book.) So far, I've seen two main arguments as to why people didn't like the book:

1. Historical Inaccuracy/Improbability - Lots of people complain about the history in this book being just plain bad. I mean, overall, it's not good history: ancient texts taken with much more certainty than they can possibly be given, jumping to conclusions based on only a lack of evidence. Not even to mention that Catholics everywhere are mortally offended by the implications. (Of course, I haven't met any of those, but it must be mentioned.)


2. Poor Writing/Predictability - Basically, all Dan Brown books are the same. You think you know the way the world works, but just wait! There's this giant conspiracy run by the people you thought you could trust, and if they are allowed to succeed it could revolutionize the world (for good or ill). Additionally, chapters are artificially terminated to enhance suspense, the characters are flat and static, and the quality of the puzzles is uneven at best. (I managed to guess the answer to the crucial puzzle in both Da Vinci Code and Digital Fortress shortly after they were discovered, which sort of ruins the suspense for the next half of the book.)

Somehow, neither of these things are a problem for me. As infinite numbers of people have pointed out, complaint #1 is sort of silly: this book is fiction. The claim at the front about all the information being correct is a classic ghost-story/Scarlet Letter claim: it enhances the stakes of the story by insisting that it is all true. But underneath all that, no one really believes in magical 'A' shaped comets or in campfire ghosts. The claim is put there to help the reader suspend disbelief, not to make them actually believe the story is true.

The way to deal with claim #2 is less obvious. I mean, what is a story besides good writing? On the contrary, many of the "classic" books have poor writing. Tolkien, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky are long-winded (Please don't attack me! I like . . . well, at least Dostoyevsky.), CS Lewis' Penvensie children are flat characters to the core, and Herman Melville can't stop rambling out on tangents. We overlook some faults in writing because of the quality of the ideas and intent behind them.

Which brings me to the reason that I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. The topic was original--at least, I still have never read anything like it. It dealt seriously with divinity, religion, and gender issues, though admittedly very incompletely. It set me thinking about new ideas and things which I never would have even given a second thought. Admittedly, I disagreed with many of the main premises of the book--being married does not cancel out the possibilty of divinity--but the thoughts it led me on could still have significant meaning. But before this, I had given up on modern portrays of religion in fiction: either you are anti-religion (which paints all organized churches as corrupt organizations, and all truly good people as merely spiritual--think His Dark Materials) or you are rabidly religious (think all Mormon novels--the characters are perfectly righteous except for a minor flaw, all doctrines of the gospel are assumed to be standard, and, almost without exception, the prodigal sons return eventually or die miserably). Very few books deal with religion and truth as a serious issue, and this is one of them. (The Women of Genesis novels and Stone Tables by Orson Scott Card have come close, though.) It felt so liberating to have a book which actually looked at this issue that I was willing to overlook almost any number of faults to enjoy it.

Who cares if it follows a formula? One could say the same about Sherlock Holmes, but we still read him today. Sometimes we like a good formula fiction. Like writing a sonnet, strict, predictable form can liberate content.

Oh shoot. I just compared sonnets to formula fiction. The English Deparment secret police will be knocking on my door any second.

The Circle: A Theory of Knowledge

When I was in the IB program in high school, we were required to take a very interesting class called "Theory of Knowledge." The actual content of the course included basically life, the universe, and everything. More specifically, we talked a lot about how people know things, what truth is, valid methods of persuasion, etc. It was basically a crash course in philosophy, writing, and debate, only a lot cooler because Mr. Campbell taught it. (He has subwoofers under his desks and reads The Simarillion once a year. Yeah, he's cool.)

While I was taking this class, my dad and I came up with our own theory of knowledge. I call it the Circle of Knowledge (third cousin, twice removed, of the Circle of Life . . . not). This idea originated in a discussion of political topics, since that's my dad's main area of knowledge, but ever since I have noted that it seems to apply to almost everything I see it life. Gospel topics, literary criticism, history, you name it, it relates. We noted that for most divisive political issues, there appear to three types of people involved in debate, each with a different level of knowledge and relative stance on the issue. From our observations, we formed the following idea, which I have roughly sketched out below. (I apologize for the bad graphics. I don't have any cool photoshop programs.)

The Groups

• Group 1 is the uniformed and apathetic, who are involved in the debate only in a figurative sense. They either don't care about the issue at hand or lack the information to form any strong opinion on the subject. Their main purpose is to serve as blind followers to be manipulated by group 2, or subjects to be educated by group 3. Thus, Group 1 is henceforth known as "the Sheep." All people in this group are just about the same with reference to the issue. One sheep is as good as another. Also, problem solving is easy with this group: it simply doesn't matter to them what you do, or if you do anything at all.
  
• Group 2 consists of the moderately informed, at least on a social level. They know at least the general banter about the subject: slogans, catchphrases, buzzwords, the latest talk on CNN or Fox. As people begin to gather information, some of the people will form opinions which seem in total opposition to the opinions formed by others on the same information. In the case of a basic knowledge circle, there are two opinions, for ease of two-dimensional drawing, but with a little imagination, you can create a "circle" with 3, 4, or up to an infinite number of such opinions. (I guess you could even do a circle with one opinion, but I'm not sure of its relevance.) Group 2, or the "Party-Line," become convinced that their opinion is the only rational one, and refuse to hear anything to the contrary. You will find these people at all the national party conventions, as well as your local school board, and probably every college issue paper. Obviously, with these people it is impossible to get anything done because they cannot come to a concensus of action. They mostly just sit around yelling about how the other Party-Line is stupid and obviously can't tell black from white.
• Group 3, of course, is the group you want to be in, but it also happens to be the smallest group. These are the people who push past the categorizing mindset of the Party-Line, and try to actually understand how rational people could come up with these two different views. Then, they add the missing ingredient in this problem: original thought (imagine that!). As they come to understand the other opinions available, the "Solvers" in group three reach the truth about an issue, not by valididating the opinion of any of the Party-Lines, but taking true principles from each and forging it into a new and brighter whole. They gain real understanding and knowledge, and when left to their own devices, can solve problems very effectively.

Of course, there are also any number of intermediaries between these groups. We progress in our knowledge around the circle as we study an issue, hopefully one day reaching the common ground at the top. Another idea which I have failed to include in my diagram is that of passion or ownership of an issue. The scale of passion about an issue runs about the same as the knowledge scale: the Sheep are apathetic, the Party-Line is interested, and the Solvers truly take the issue to be their own. This ownership, or maybe testimony, of an idea comes from the deep thought put in by someone in the Problem Solvers group, which forces them to really understand the significance of an issue. It is when we reach the top of the circle that we can really write something about an idea. Sheep simply don't know enough, and the Party-Line repeat old ideas with little new synthesis.

One of the main things I like about this system is that the difficulty of communication between groups can be illustrated by the distance between the groups on the circle. The two Party-Lines have as much difficulty talking to each other as the Solvers have trying to convince the apathetic Sheep. However, once you have reached the knowledge of the Party-Line, it becomes easier to make the jump into full Solver. Luckily, I believe we can train our ability to move up this circle at greater speed. As we train our mind to think more critically and to be in tune with the truth, we can rapidly ascend to the top, spending as little time as possible as the Party-Line.

Thoughts and comments are welcome. This idea is still much in development, so hit it with your best shot. As a brain starter, here's a few of the issues I have looked at using this pattern, most of which I am working towards a level 3 answer to:

• Faith/Works


• Pro-Choice/Pro-Life


• Soulforce


• Capitalism/Socialism


• Post-Modernism/Critical Realism

Questions I am still working on:

• What would a one-dimensional knowledge circle mean?
  
• How could divine revelation/pathos/ethos/other methods of knowing complicate this picture?
  
• Is it ever possible to skip from a Group 1 to Group 3?
  
• What about backwards reversions?
  
• Multiple, intertwined circles? (eg. Your level 3 is really a level 2 or 1 on a higher circle.) Can we ever reach a "last circle"?

Sweet! I feel like Yeats! :D

On Education and Knitting

Some notes from my English 363 reading, both of which are irrelevant to the class, so I thought I'd rant them here. For reference, here's the reading assignment:
The Dynamo and the Virgin - Henry Adams
Venus Transiens - Amy Lowell
Roman Fever - Edith Wharton
A Life Apart - Edith Wharton

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." - Henry Adams

I thought that the Henry Adams piece was very interesting. His statements on education seemed very perceptive. So much of modern education focuses on accumulation of fact, partially because we generate so much knowledge every second that it is overwhelming. There are so many facts that we need to learn that there is no time to sit and talk about what they mean. I think particularly of high school. People are taught to regurgitate facts so they can get the right answer on a multiple choice test or spew them out into a list-of-facts "essay." It's an age of information bulimia, so to speak: we read and read, injesting masses of information, but once the final is over, we throw it all back up, taking little if any important nutrients from the facts to feed our starving minds.

Any digestion of the facts into comprehension, enlightenment, and understanding is left up to the student without the aid or encouragement of the educator. It seems we've decided that it isn't fair to grade students on intellegent thought, only completion of materials. We want to only test them on what the class has taught them. We fear testing students on their actual abilities. Witness the outrage of 4.0 students who score poorly on the SAT because they "can't take tests." What they mean is that they can't take tests that test their ability to think instead of their ability to repeat information. In my personal experience, SAT/ACT are a really good predictor, not of a person's success in school, but of their ability to come up with independent thought. (Most unfortunate that the two don't correlate.)

Whatever happened to demanding essays, research, thought? In high school, it was a rare class in which we wrote an essay which demanded any outside research or thought to write an "A" essay. Simply repeat what you were taught in class coherently with decent grammar and *poof* get a great score. I imagine outside of my honors-track world, it might be much worse. I think more essays need to be present in school. We need teachers who will teach children how to think or, more importantly, how to convey their thoughts to an audience when they write. Teachers seem to shy away from essays, mostly because students complain about them (a lot) or because of the grading workload. But hard work or unpleasantness do not mean that these things are not extremely important.

And now for something completely different and much shorter . . .

"'And you see—' Half guiltily she drew from her handsomely mounted black handbag a twist of crimson silk run through by two fine knitting needles. 'One never knows,' she murmured. 'The new system has certainly given us a good deal of time to kill;'" - Edith Wharton (Roman Fever)

Interesting how knitting is portrayed in fiction. I never noticed this before until 1) I became a knitter and 2) I started knitting in my English classes. Now whenever we come accross a passage about knitting, people stare at me until the teacher notices. Anyway, I think I might like to write a paper on knitting in modern literature sometime. I might have to broaden it out to all sewing arts, but still, there's some interesting stuff. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad's nod to the fates is through two old women knitting at the office in Belgium (? I can't remember), which to me tips knitting as a sinister and mysterious practice. There was one other text in my Brit Lit class about it, but now I can't remember. In this Edith Wharton story, knitting is a sort of "opiate of the masses," assuming that by the masses I mean the upper class. It's a sort of anesthetic to keep you from noticing how truly pointless your life is by giving you something harmless and seemingly productive. Interesting.

I could see how this might be true in my own life. I do tend to knit when I am stressed, nervous, or bored. I should really write this thing. Anyone else know of any knitting in literature that I could add to my list?

Family Drama

This post is an update of an old personal narrative of mine. I found it again while doing some spring cleaning in my filing cabinet. Since then, I've been thinking about it a lot, especially in light of Katherine's blog. I think it's relevant to most of our families, so I thought I'd post it here.

Prologue
Who am I? The oldest, the clean freak, the over-achiever, maybe the bossy one, probably not the kindest, and certainly not the most athletic. That part's easy, but since this act is my life, identifying me gets more complicated.

Act I
The oven timer buzzes in the kitchen, begging Mom to return to cooking dinner. She claims she has stepped away for just a moment. I doubt it. Plastic swords click and clack down the hall, eventually interrupted by wails of terror and pounding feet. Josh has decided he's done with the duel. Michael decides he's not. The opening theme of Star Wars and the clinking of knitting needles comes from the back room, where Heather is working on her latest project: a fluffy scarf in shocking pink.

From the front room, Spencer's fingers fly up and down the piano, the buzzing notes forming the incessant melody of "The Flight of the Bumblebee." Listening to it for the first time was quite a remarkable experience; the song sounded so like a bee flying around your head at a picnic. However, the droning melody could be tolerated only so many times before the desire to squash the insect overpowered the listener. Spencer had been playing the song obsessively for the past hour, and now my fingers itched to take a flyswatter to the keyboard. Luckily, Dad was at work, or the cheering crowd of the NBA semifinals would be added to the already intolerable din.

"Spencer, could you please practice later? I need to study and that song is driving me insane," I pleaded, trudging into the front room with a week's worth of biology notes.

"You messed me up! Now I'm going to have to start all over," he said, with a suspiciously undisappointed grin. "Go study somewhere else."

"I can hear you everywhere in the house, so it doesn't really matter. I have a test tomorrow! Come on!"

"Then go outside. I was here first."

"Argh!"

Act II
"Michael, leave Josh alone. Josh, stop overreacting to Mike. He's just tring to bug you," I quipped, trying to diffuse yet another fight.

"Shut up, Liz! Stop being the mom!" Mike shouts back. His words deflate my false sense of impartiality. Those syllables recall weeks and months of built up tension, mostly from parents who wanted me to stop being so critical and finally coined that wonderful phrase. Of course, the issue couldn't be handled privately and personally. Our family never addressed any elephant sitting on the front lawn until tempers flared and someone wanted to inflict maximum damage.

"You're not the mom, Liz." That phrase, in all its variations, served quite well as the all-purpose comeback, and my siblings had used it to a fault. Seldom could I speak a word without having that refrain echo back to my ears. The constant repetition had created a definite bitterness.

But it's not as simple as that, I rationalize. I know I'm bossy, but I don't do it because I want to be or because I think I'm in charge. All right, sometimes my motives are purely selfish, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes I just want some peace and quiet, for the chaos to just stop. Is it so unfair to want some peace in my own house?

Irrationally, against anyone's better judgment, fragmented emotions stream out of my mouth, the ones that had stewed for weeks. Now they made little sense outside my own head. "You shut up! I know I should stop. So thanks for telling me again, as if I don't get reminded of my biggest fault every second of every day! And I try, I really do. But could you just stop? I can't take all this any more. I'm just trying to help! I don't care what you say."

It's a lie, an act.

Act III
"What?" I said.

I had lost them in November. It was now June.

"We found your DVDs. While Heather was gone at camp, I was cleaning her room and found them under a pile of socks in her closet," said my mother, holding up the discovered items.

I grabbed the DVDs out of her hand and shuffled through them. "But I've been looking for those forever! I specifically asked her if she knew where they were, like, a million times!"

Mom drew her breath, trying to figure out how best to put what she had to say. "When I asked her about them, she said she was sick of you watching that show all the time. You know how she hates it. So she took them."

She stole them.

My breath lodged in my throat as the universe paused. Heather and I had never been close, except in age: sisters, but not friends. I was the designated honors student; she hated me for it and made sure not to do anything that I had ever tried. We even went to separate high schools. We were too different. Despite that, I suddenly felt betrayed, unsafe in my own house. I had found other things of mine in her room before, but never anything as costly and arbitrary as this. What about that brush that disappeared last week? Is that hiding in a drawer in her dresser? Was my favorite shirt stashed under her bed? That single act forcibly removed a security blanket I didn't know I had, leaving me old in my own stronghold.

She stole them.

The universe and my breath rushed back in shuddering sobs.

Act IV
"Mark, Cristina, and the new baby are coming to Salt Lake on Thursday," Mom proclaimed that afternoon. "Cristina's still very sick; she needs people to help her take care of Amelia."

I was still in a state of shock at the suddenness of the events. While most of our family lived in Salt Lake, my aunt and uncle lived across the country. When Cristina became very ill after giving birth, they had no family around to help them. So we brought them here, just like that, without a second thought. I heard the phone conversations myself. "Don't worry about the money." "You just need to be here so you can get better." "It'll all work out."

Mom continued, "Our family is going to fast for Cristina tomorrow, and we're getting together tonight to start with a family prayer. It would be nice if you all could come. Are you guys doing anything too important?" Afterschool clubs and parties quickly melted away.

That night at Aunt Tera's house, we gathered my mom's side of the family--about 40 people, on a few hours notice. The younger cousins chased each other around the house, creating the usual bedlam of a family party, except without the food. Aunts and uncles deftly completed travel and living arrangements, discussed earlier by phone. Those who didn't have room for houseguests offered to baby-sit or provided money for the plane tickets from Washington, D. C. Then, children were herded back into the main room and silenced as we prepared to begin our fast with a prayer. Though the exact phrases weren't memorable, the spirit in the room was extraordinary. I felt a sense of unity . . . and something else, something that I had been so lacking.

This unselfish act set me thinking. There's more here.

Act V
Something was unfinished. I couldn't sleep.

So I began to walk around the house. I shuffled over the forest green carpet in the basement, dodging the usual clutter: unfinished Lego sculptures, a jumble of video tapes invariably not rewound or put back in the case, torn-out pages from YM and Teen, stacks of paper filled with Heather's drawings and story ideas, Discover card bills, and manila folders. But whatever I was looking for wasn't there.

I walked up the stairs, covered in green also. In the kitchen, dinner dishes remained unwashed because of the usual fight over whose turn it was, with more bills and offical looking papers covering the counter. The refridgerator hummed invitingly, but I didn't exactly feel like a midnight snack. What did I need?

The family room: Dad fallen asleep watching TV on the blue sofa again, after another 12-hour day at the job he hated. In the flickering blue light of the local newscast, Spencer was still avidly watching the results of the Jazz game (he never missed the sports--every night at 9:45). As I look at him, something finally clicks.

Inexplicably, I shuffle over to the couch. I reach over to give him a hug, which he is too tired to resist.

"I love you," I realized, and shuffled back to bed.

Epilogue
It's hard to whittle down a lifetime's worth of pain and love into a single play, with themes and a conclusion, mostly because there isn't a conclusion. Life must keep going and going. People keep getting broken and pieced back together, reshaped, and remade. I'm never quite sure who I am, but I keep acting out the play the best I can because that's the way it has to be.

Ginny Weasley Hat . . . Sort of

So, I finished this hat Easter Weekend, but I didn't blog about it because I wanted to wait until this week when I finally got a camera phone! Yea! You can expect to see a lot more pictures of knitting projects . . . and probably just pictures in general. The quality's not too bad, for a phone. :D

Anyway, this is my interpretation of the Ginny Weasley Hat. I know, I know, it's supposed to be orange. But I don't own anything orange, so I decided to just do it in a nice brown. The hat was fairly easy to make, though I had to adjust the pattern a bit as I went along. Since the original pattern is fairly confusing and incomplete (at least I think so), here's my pattern:


Ginny Weasley Orange Hat

Materials:
US size 8 needles (circular for Magic Loop method, or double pointed)
MC: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Worsted Weight [36% acrylic, 10% wool, 4% rayon] or other suitable yarn for gauge. I used color #127 (Mink Brown), but if you want authenticness, you should find some very orange color.
CC: Oxford Italian Fashion [60% acrylic, 20% new wool, 20% alpaca] #701 or other suitable rainbow, varigated, chunky yarn.

Gauge:
13 sts/24 rows = 4 inches in stockinette stich (knit in the round)

Instructions:
Using MC, CO 60 sts. If using magic loop method, divide in half. If using double pointed needles, distribute evenly across needles. Use a cast-on method that will leave purl bumps on the right side of the hat. I used the knitting on method.
Join the cast-on row, being careful not to twist.
Row 1: K all sts.
Row 2: P all sts.
Rows 3-7: K all sts.
Row 8: [YO, K3] until end.
Row 9: [k2tog, K2] until end.
Rows 10-13: K all sts.
Row 14: P all sts.
Row 15: K all sts.
Row 16: P all sts.
Repeat rows 3-16.
Row 30: K all sts.
Row 31: [k7, k2tog] 6 times, k6.
Row 32: [k6, k2tog] 6 times, k6.
Row 33: [k5, k2tog] 6 times, k6.
Row 34: K all sts.
Row 35: [YO, k3] until end.
Row 36: [k2tog, k2] until end.
Row 37: [k4, k2tog] until end.
Row 38: [k3, k2tog] until end.
Row 39: [k2, k2tog] until end.
Row 40: K all sts.
Row 41: P all sts.
Row 42: K all sts.
Row 43: P all sts.
Row 44: [k1, k2tog] until end. (14 sts left)
Row 45: [k2tog] until end. (7 sts left)

Cut yarn and gather through remaining sts. Secure end.

Use lengths of CC to thread through each set of eyelet holes. The original hat looks like it uses a double strand, but single strand looks nice too. Tie bows where ends meet.

Yea! My first pattern! Tell me it's not too horrible.

Modernist Despair: A Need for Faith

A comment I posted on Katherine's blog, that has sort of gained a life of its own. You may want to read this post of hers first.

You know what? I'm pretty sure that almost everyone feels this way sometimes. I mean, my family's one that you would probably consider very normal, but I went through a year in high school where I was convinced that I was completely alone, that no one cared. I didn't have any friends, much less any who only put me second to family. Among the girls our age at church, I felt left out and disconnected. My siblings, parents, and I constantly fought. I felt crushed by my family's relatively-not-great financial situation and overwhelmed by expectations at school. No one seemed to care about what I cared about, and I just couldn't connect.

I still feel that way sometimes, despite the relative stablity of my situation. I've begun to think that this feeling comes not as a result of our situation, but because we are human. Every one of us, in the extremity of our loneliness and isolation, feels the same, regardless of the relative "severity" of that extremity. An argument with a friend, the break-up of a family, or a devastating disease all can make us feel the same way. I've come to the determination that, in a strange way, these feelings are comforting because they remind us that we can feel, that we are part of the larger vision of humanity, who also endures the same suffering we do.

I've been feeling sort of annoyed towards Modernism at the moment. I feel like it forces us to only ask questions, rejecting the possibility of finding an answer. What it really has cut out of our lives is faith. We only trust what we can know, and since we can't know that we know anything, we are left with a broken pile of shattered questions. Not only do we have no answers, we can't even be sure that the questions are right. It essentially haults all progress in its tracks, paralyzing us with fear and doubt. (Hamlet much?)

What modernism needs to realize is that we don't need to know everything in order to do, act, and be. Sometimes we must do the best we can, and then just go, trusting in God to fill in the gap between our intent and our action. When I do that, I always find that I gain the knowledge I was looking for in the first place. When I refuse to try or trust, that's when I find I myself more in doubt than before. Those who do not act will not gain more knowledge; rather, they diminish, gradually losing even that which they had.

We must act like scientists: we can't perform every experiment possible, so we have to simply draw conclusions the best we can and do with them what we can. If we are proven wrong, then we change. We can never know if we are exactly right, but that's really not as important as we think. Even with the incomplete picture we have right now, there's so much that we can do. Why should we despair over what we can't?

As for finding a center, you won't be suprised to hear me says that the only center that can work is the gospel. Not the church, not family, not friends, not self, not intelligence. All other centers shift and change, sending our lives off balance if we allow them. As for finding that center, a relationship with God is the first thing to work on. Don't look for the Sunday School answers; you already know those. Look for Him, a being as real as anything. Once we can understand Him, all the rest falls into place.

And . . . .

Finals are over!! Hurrah!!!

Actual posts are forth coming.

Ambition, Planning, and Willpower

So, it's finals week. In other words, my spring break, since BYU doesn't have one and I don't believe in "studying." I've been using this time mostly to catch up on some of the cool stuff out there on the net (read: surfing around wasting time). I did find a few nifty things, like librarything.com, on which I've already cataloged most of the books I own (should finish up on Monday). Thus the cool book thing on my sidebar. :D

Which leads me to the real point of this post. Not really, but anyway. . . . I've come to realize over the years that I am very good at planning things, but extremely poor at actually carrying them out. I spent about 2 hours last Sunday planning out a study schedule, which I had absolutely no intention of keeping. I mean, why should I? I took my Stats exam cold yesterday and got a 95%. Was the other 5% that I possibly could have gotten worth studying for a couple hours that I could have spent taking over Russia on Civ IV? Not really.

So that's not really a problem since I'm not losing anything by it, but in other cases my lack of willpower holds me back. For instance, for the last few years, I have been sketching out plans for a website/zine/wiki about the history of the Harry Potter fandom. Yes, I'm a nerd, I know, but the development of online communities really facinates me. I even went so far as to take a web design class last summer (not that it taught me anything I couldn't have figured out in a couple of hours--what a waste of $50). I brought up my idea on a Harry Potter discussion group and was actually approached by Melissa from TLC, who's only like the most powerful HP fan ever, about developing it as a subsite of the Floo Network. Unfortunately, I just sort of let the project slip. I could have been part of something really cool, that I'm actually interested in, but I just didn't do anything about it.

This is my problem: good ideas that I have no intention of following through with. Books I want to write (I've got three really interesting ideas floating around, one fiction and two non-fiction, but have done no research and written nothing), projects I want to accomplish (organizing my filing cabinet, actually figuring out some more web design stuff, like CCS and maybe PHP), things I want to get involved in (essay contests, volunteer efforts, volunteer in a chem lab, a social life, you know). And the problem is that I seem to be okay with having these things continue to float in my brain, and on paper even, but never materialize. Lots of ambition and planning, but no willpower to actually accomplish anything.

And I'm not really sure how to go about gaining willpower. I mean, the times when I actually feel like accomplishing something coincide with the times when I am too busy to do anything. When I have time, I just want to sit around and play computer games, watch movies and surf the net. Even catching up on my reading list feels like too much effort to put forth. Any ideas? I just want to feel like accomplishing something again.

Now off to conquer Russia.

How Google Saved my Life

No, really.

Okay, it's a slight exaggeration, but Google did save me from being stuck alone on the highway for several hours, which is a small portion of my life.

To start from the beginning: I went home to Salt Lake City for the Easter weekend. It was lovely: friends, family, candy, and all that. On Sunday night, I left for Provo at about 9:00 pm. About half an hour down the road, I started to smell smoke in my car. Not good at all, so I pulled over to the side of the road. My brakes didn't appear to be working too well either. I managed to stop, but it took forever and I nearly ran out into the on-ramp.

So, now that I was stopped, I needed help. I really had no idea what was wrong with the car. I don't know that much about them, and all the problems I could fix myself (flat tires, overheating) didn't appear to be it. I hopped back in the car to call my dad for help, but alas, dead cell phone battery. Shoot.

I sat there for a while, trying to figure out how in the world I could get a hold of my dad. Then I remembered that my laptop was in my backpack. I pulled it out, fired up Windows, and *tada* got a wireless internet connection from a nearby business.

Now I was connected to the world, but no one on my instant messenger lists was online, so I had no way of instantly getting hold of someone. On a whim, I searched Google for "free text messages," hoping I could send one from online. Lo and behold, Google SMS has a free service that you can send text messages from online. I was saved! I sent a message to my sister, who called my dad at home. Soon after, Katherine later came online on MSN, so I had her call my dad too, just in case. Thanks Katherine! My dad came and fixed my evil-van-of-doom. Turns out the fan belt on the brakes was totally dead, so it was a good thing I stopped.

Moral of the story: Don't secure your wireless network. You never know when it could save someone's life. (Just Kidding!)

Thoughts on Homosexuality, Part I: Choice

Some recent blog entries concerning Soulforce’s visit to BYU have lead me to think more clearly about why I personally, and the Mormon church generally, feel the way we do about homosexuality. In particular, Alison’s comment—containing all the standard left-wing arguments against those who think homosexuality is a sin—has inspired me to write this essay expounding on and defending my position. I hope everyone will bring to this essay the same spirit of open-mindedness and understanding that I have tried to convey in my consideration of the various positions. In the way of citation, my position owes much to Orson Scott Card’s “Hypocrites of Homosexuality,” C. S. Lewis (particularly his books on Christian philosophy), and LDS church doctrine, both in the scriptures and through modern revelation. To make this essay more manageable, I’ve divided it into three sections according to what I see as the major counterarguments. The first, and main, argument presented by Alison is the issue of choice. Over the past few weeks, I’ve realized that when people debate over the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality, the issue they are really debating is whether homosexuality is a choice.

Part I: Choice
When examining what makes a person who they are, we generally recognize two types of traits. First are those that a person is born with, including gender, race, and hair color: the genetics category. The second group includes all the choices we make in our life based on the traits we are dealt from the first set: the choice category. In other words, human nature is a combination of the genetics we are born with (nature) and what we do with it afterwards (nurture, in a sense).

As gay rights advocates are quick to point out, condemning traits from the first set as immoral would be unfair. I agree whole-heartedly. We cannot condemn something which a person has no choice in, because morality implies an incorrect action. (I derive my definition of morality from C. S. Lewis’s. Please consult the early chapters Mere Christianity or perhaps The Problem of Pain for a more thorough discussion of it which I will not reconstruct here. In general, morality is man’s natural sense of “I ought” and “I ought not” about his own actions, whether or not he follows it. In other words, it is our sense of guilt, which, yes, must be natural, for other explanations are painfully lacking.) It is ridiculous, and cruel, for example, to condemn a girl for not being a boy, because she simply has no choice in the matter (setting aside gender change operations, which still really don’t cut it anyway). These rules are pretty much universally agreed upon.

However, condemning traits from the second category is perfectly fair because they are under our control. The word “condemn” may seem strong to left-wing opponents, who associate condemnation with such ignominious movements as Nazism, the Inquisition, and McCarthyism. Please understand that my definition of this word is something more along the lines of saying something is immoral, or perhaps unethical if you prefer. Two fairly universally condemned actions would included theft and murder. Condemnation means recognizing an action as wrong and, if you are in a position to do so, initiating appropriate actions to prevent it. Let this be very clear: by condemnation, I do not mean that if someone takes an action which is deemed “wrong,” it is alright to hate, ostracize or in other ways torture that individual. As is part of LDS church doctrine, we condemn actions, not people. People are all children of God, and their right-ness (or righteousness) cannot be “judged” by us with our limited perspective. But more on that subject later.

Returning to the point at hand, we have two categories of traits we can ascribe to people, one of which we can condemn, and one which we cannot. Now, the essential root of any gay rights argument is over a definition: to which of these categories does being homosexual belong? Clearly, gay rights advocates, such as SoulForce, will argue that being gay is a genetic trait, that gays can’t help being who they are, and therefore condemning or excluding them is a barbarous act, “homophobia,” which is akin to racism. On the other hand, the “religious right” would argue that homosexuality is entirely a matter of choice, that these people chose wrong, and must repent.

So which of these views is right? And which do I subscribe to? Neither of them, actually. The problem is that, unlike hair color or what you eat for dinner, most human characteristics cannot be easily classified as inherited or individual agency. Modern science also leads us to believe that many behaviors, which we might before have exclusively relegated to the choice, are influenced by inborn tendencies from the genetics category. For example, behaviors like depression and alcoholism are widely recognized as having both a genetic and a “choice,” or in this case reaction/coping-mechanism, component. It is this in-between-ness of behaviors that creates the moral problem.

Below is the discussion of one study that shows the in-between-ness of homosexuality. As far as I can tell, it is fairly well-conducted and representative of most other research, but of course I am not an expert on the subject. I invite you to leave a comment for me if you have another study you want me to look at. In this study with identical twins (abstract here), when one twin was gay, the other twin was gay only 52% of the time. When the twins were not identical, the percentage dropped to 22%, and only 9.2% for regular siblings. If homosexuality was a genetic trait, we would expect a result of 100%, since identical twins by definition share the same DNA. Even if homosexuality had to do with how one was raised, we would still expect a higher percentage, since twins are presumably raised in a very similar environment. Interestingly, 11% of adopted brothers were also both gay. Now, this study clearly debunks the myth of gay-determinism, but doesn’t provide evidence that there is no genetic component either. In fact, if these statistics are as I believe them to be, then the fact that there is any correlation at all provides evidence that there is a genetic component, but this component is far from being the only or most powerful influence.

It's great that Ali and SoulForce have a “personal belief” that homosexuals have no choice. However, science currently doesn’t support this idea, and rather tends to debunk it. And no matter how much they believe the world is flat, if the evidence continues to say it's round, it simply can't also be flat. And an argument based on bad science simply holds no weight in a rational society.

And what of this argument that homosexuals wouldn’t choose something for which they knew they would be persecuted? As “not too pensive” pointed out, this argument is just clearly wrong, as people do it frequently through out history. I'll just use one example to prove this, but I'm sure you can think of many more. An ironically relevant example is that of the Mormons in Missouri, threatened, harassed, driven from their homes because of their choice of religion. Yet many of them chose to endure those things because it was something they believed. Therefore, people do sometimes make choices that lead to persecution, and stick with them in spite of it.

In fact, the example of religious persecution gives us a good opportunity to examine why people would choose something in spite of overwhelming odds. In the case of religion, people convert in the face of overwhelming odds because a religion strikes them as true, and once they know it is true, the consequences they believe will come by ignoring truth are too severe to be ignored, even in the face of physical consequences. A similar argument can be made for those who give in to a homosexual tendency, or really any other kind of genetic tendency: they believe that the benefits of improving and acting on the tendency outweigh the cons they incur by “repressing” or ignoring it.

Which brings us to the next major problem of this argument. The entire previous section has merely established the fact that homosexual behavior is a valid human trait to have an opinion on the rightness or wrongness of it. It is an entirely different matter to determine what that position should be and how that opinion should be incorporated into society.

Stay tuned for Part II: Judging.

The Weather and Conference

Oh, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmaaaaaaas . . . . everywhere in Provoooooo.

Sorry, family tradition. When it snows, we call each other and sing that song. :D Yes, it is snowing in Provo. And the slacker UofU has cancelled school. How lame.

So, long time no post. Finals are coming up, so less and less time to write random rants on here. But also, I've been working on a really long essay in answer to Ali's comment on my homosexuality post. Don't worry it's coming. It's already like three pages long though. I will try to finish it this weekend so I can post it on April 10th, when Soulforce is here. Then I hopefully won't have to think about that topic for a while. :D

Anyway, I've been meaning to write some comments on the General Conference talks from this weekend. There were several that I really liked a lot. I know, we shouldn't have pet gospel topics, but several of these addressed my current gospel hobbies.

First, I felt like one of the major themes of conference was agency, as mentioned by Elder Hales in the first talk. This makes sense to me, since so much in the world around us is encouraging us to blame our problems on genetics, parenting, natural tendencies, etc., and give up on changing them. While it is true that we are born with certain natural tendencies, we can choose to give in to them, fight them, or change them for good. For instance, my family has a natural tendancy towards depression. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't inherit the tendancy as much as some of my other siblings, but I still have it just the same. Now, I could give in to my sadness, saying it's just the way I am, or I can fight it, which is what I choose to do. And really, how sad would life be if who you are is determined simply by your DNA? If you had no choice about it, there would hardly be any point to being alive at all. You might as well be a little machine.

President Hinckley's Sunday morning talk did freak me out. I must admit that I felt corrected when he said he didn't want us to think of this talk as an obituary. Seriously, it sounded to me like a farewell. And his last minute decision not to open the Saturday morning session also points towards that. I mean, the man is 96 years old, so I guess we should expect him to be called home soon, but still I will miss him. He is the prophet that I remember the most. The only thing I remember about President Benson was the notice of his death scrolling across the screen when I was watching Sesame Street on KBYU. It will be interesting to have a new prophet. But in the meantime, President Hinckley is the prophet and I fully support him.

Speaking of President Hinckley, from what I have heard, his priesthood session talk was good, not that I've gotten around to reading it yet. I've kind of been annoyed by the backlash of it though. One part in the talk seems particularly directed at "Utah Mormons," who are often viewed by the church as being exclusive, rude, and extremist. Ever since President Hinckley's talk, I have noticed how much criticism and stereotyping of "Utah Mormons" goes on around me each day. Personally, I don't see the problem as being just of "Utah Mormons," but general to the entire church. However, since the church population is larger in Utah, the problem seems greater here. I personally have never known a church family who would forbid their children to play with non-members. I didn't even make the distinction between members and non-members in my own head until I was in third grade (I can clearly remember the day).

Really, those who do such cruel things exist in all communities, not just the church. Outside the church, they do it for race, education level, wealth, lifestyle choices, and other factors. In some cases, I can see how it might be justified. There are some things you don't want your children exposed to. I don't feel that I am qualified to make a judgment about which cases were right or wrong, and I'm amazed that anyone would. Additionally, if you are shallow enough not to realize that one family refusing to let their children play with yours does not represent the whole church, then I am amazed that you have survived this long in society. For every one person with a particular bias, hundreds exist without it. It's like condemning all whites as racist because you happened to meet one person who was. It's a reverse-bias and just as dangerous. Really, we should all be striving to avoid stereotypes of any kind when dealing with anyone else.

Which, ironically enough, brings me to my next and final favorite talk by Elder Wood of the Seventy. He talks about something that is so true of modern society: it is viewed as cool to be extremist and to try to offend other people. He then goes on to talk about how members of the church must strive to understand other viewpoints before correcting them with love and kindness. It reminded me of Elder Oaks' CES Fireside from this summer. In that talk, he said that the members of the church should strive to be moderate in all things EXCEPT in their testimony of Christ. Here is where we differ from the worldly view of tolerance. I believe it is important to understand others and treat them all with kindness and respect; however, as a church member, and more importantly as a human being, it is my duty to stand up for standards of what is right and wrong. We condemn actions as wrong, but we should not be unkind to the people who do them, only firmly but kindly point them in the right direction. (See my New Year's Post on Relativism. PS - I Hate It.)

Yeah, so that's all. Time to go work on some homework now.

Oh, and I found a new knitting project today. Must make Ginny Weasley Hat!

Approval by Google

I feel somewhat proud that my Google ads. It's nice to know that Google has decided that the center of my ramblings is God and my faith.

Also, I'm doing the Rex Lee Run 10K today. No hope of coming close to winning, but I've never run in a race so this is exciting.

Race Update: Yeah! I managed to finish just ahead of my Chemistry teacher at 75-ish minutes. But to me, the important thing is I finished. I have never run that many miles consecutively in my life. :D

Listening is not always the answer

In response to Katherine's post:

Interesting, but very party line, Katherine. I mean, "stigma and condemnation?" "Oppression and persecution?" Without concrete examples, these phrases are meaninglessness buzz words designed to generate mindless outrage.

Homosexuality is not a stigma: it's a sin. We have this pretty clearly from the Bible and modern revelation. As a church, not a social club, we are basically required to condemn sin. It comes with the job description. And can you be more specific than "oppression"? What exactly would you have BYU change about our policy about homosexuality?

And although listening is nice, in this case I believe it to be mostly fruitless, seeing as we are working from an essential difference of opinion on which neither side can compromise. The basic premise of Soulforce's agenda goes against what the Church tells us about homosexuality in all the typical ways. True, we can agree with their message that we should love everyone, but how can we possibly benefit from listening to them "make clear the harmful effects of the false notion that homosexuality is a 'sickness and a sin,'" since that is exactly what we know to be true?

I don't see that this group will be able to tell me anything new or enlightening. I've heard the pro-GLBT rhetoric before, and this sounds pretty much the same. I agree that we should be more supportive to those struggling with this problem, but those who want us to just accept this as 'the way they are' simply cannot fit in here at BYU or in the Church. (See blog for more on that.)

The principle argument for GLBT goes against a core principle of the gospel, and of my personal beliefs: agency. When we deny that people have the ability to reason, decide, and do, in any matter, we have given in to hopelessness and can no longer progress. To me, this is a fruitless point of view. Which is perhaps why moral relativists bother me so much: if there is no right, no truth, then how can we ever learn more? We can't just sit around and not choose for fear of offending or being wrong. We must try, improve and correct, and try again.

Belonging

Feeling a little better today. Thanks for asking.

On a completely different and less depressing note than yesterday, I've been thinking about how the church deals with homosexuality, especially given this article in the Daily Universe about homosexual in Canada who thinks it's unfair that he's been excommunicated, a recent email from BYU about the visit of Soulforce to the Provo area, and (less recently) my reading of Orson Scott Card's (in)famous article on the hypocrites of homosexuality.

My main question is why anyone who has decided to give in to their homosexual tendencies, convinced they are not a sin, would want to remain in the church. (I won't deal with those who are trying to change; that is a completely different issue.)

First, the church's policy on homosexual behavior is clear, and not likely to change. Homosexual behavior is a sin, and has been declared so by God through scripture and modern revelation.

Second, a believing member of the church must believe in revelation, and thus knows that church policy is not up for debate. A church is not a democracy, open to change and suggestion by mutual concensus, or at least it shouldn't be. By definition, a church is an organization founded because it believes a particular way about God, especially in the case of our church, since we believe in direct, continuous, modern revelation from God to a prophet who leads our church. Any believing church member must commit to this before being baptized

Given these two principles, I don't see why anyone who has decided to be homosexual would want to be a member of the church. By acknowledging either of these statements, they must know that they disagree with the church. The point of being a member of a church is that you believe in the same way as other people in that church. There's not any getting around that. A church that doesn't hold its members to specific doctrines is hardly a church at all, but more of a "feel-good" society. How can a homosexual disagree with such fundamental doctrines of the church and still even want to be part of it?

Perhaps for cultural reasons, but really, the church's "culture" is incidental. Unfortunately, when you have a lot of people who get together every week, you are bound to form some traditions. However, if you don't believe the same as the rest of the church, you really can't participate in its culture: you can't hold a calling, do home teaching, bear your testimony. I guess you can go to church bake sales or whatever, but you're just as welcome to do that when you aren't a member. It just seems so silly and superficial. Really, you aren't part of the church anymore. It's not to be mean; it's just a fact.

(To any random people who find this post: Please keep your comments kind and considerate. Remember that I am entitled to my beliefs as much as you are to yours. I appreciate all people as such, but I happen to think homosexual behavior is a sin. This does not mean I think they are evil people. It means I think they are people, capable of making mistakes and equally capable of repenting of them.)

Fears

Today at church, I realized the main fear I have in my life. Most of the time, I don't think about having fears per say. I mean, I live in a relatively stable environment. Sure, I worry about things, but these are not life-threatening, or even quality-of-life-threatening, things.

But today I was struck with an overwhelming feeling of fear. The fear of being alone. My whole life this has kind of been in the back of my head. I am not a naturally pretty girl, or for that matter gregarious, considerate, or kind. In fact, I would fairly accurately describe myself as a loner. If I go to a party, I have to spend several hours afterward alone to recover from the over-exposure to people. (The exception to this is my family, and possibly roommates, at least sometimes, but that's another story.) I can be perfectly content to spend a week at a time simply going about my business, class, work, homework, eat, read, sleep. No interaction with people necessary. Really, I don't have much going for me in terms of finding someone to spend the rest of my life with.

However, everything I have learned and believe about life teaches me that life is about people. The way the gospel works into this is obvious, but pretty much everything else also points to this. In English, what matters is people, how they relate to each other, what they think, feel, care about. Some post-modernist novels seem so meaningless to me because they deny the ability of people to connect. Not so much in science, except that what is the final point of understanding the universe if not to help people. The mere pursuit of knowledge is simply empty and meaningless. Sheesh, it's even in Harry Potter. Why is Voldemort evil? Because he doesn't care about people. He doesn't have friends and doesn't want them. He doesn't love, only controls, manipulates, learns, dominates. Basically, the one thing the world seems to be teaching me right now is that if you can't connect to people, you might as well not exist.

In my heart, I know and feel this. When I argue issues, I try to always be considerate of the welfare of people over anything else. I am sensitive to the plight of other, to the point of ridiculousness (as my mom says, crying at dog food commercials). And yet, in my life, when I should put these principles into practice and connect, I am paralyzed. Completely unable to find anyone, much less a male, available someone, with whom I can connect. I feel so completely isolated, and I know so many steps I could take to try to get out of it. But I am afraid. Simply afraid. And perhaps a little jealous. Jealous of those to whom this comes so easy. Who can talk to people and actually care what they have to say.

Our high council speaker today read us D&C 67:10:

And again, verily I say unto you that it is your privilege, and a ^apromise I give unto you that have been ordained unto this ministry, that inasmuch as you ^bstrip yourselves from ^cjealousies and ^dfears, and ^ehumble^• yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the ^fveil shall be rent and you shall ^gsee^• me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual.

To me, the important part was the connection between ridding oneself of fear and trusting in God. The solution to this problem is to rely on God. To cast away my fears and simply trust that if I fall, if I fail, He will catch me. And He will help me try again. I am determined that I must at least try. I refuse to let my life be wasted without even putting up a fight.

But it will take time to build up the courage to try.

Time is Relative; Relativity is Confusing; ergo, Time is Confusing

Ah, so much to write about, so little time to do it in. So let's cut to the chase. First, I got an extremely humorous reply to my BYUSA rant from Mike and Caleb:

Liz:

Thank you for your email. It is unfortunate that you don't take the time to see what BYUSA actually does. It has been my experience that anyone who has actually taken the time to be involved in it has been changed by it. I know that for me it has been a phenomenal addition to my BYU experience and one for which I will always be grateful. The opportunity to serve and the people with whom I have served have made me a better person in so many ways and, I hope, have helped to make this campus a better place to be.

Mike Maughan

Dude, he totally missed the whole point. :D Being changed as a person by BYUSA is great and all, but that doesn't make it into anything more than a self-improvment organization. I see exactly what BYUSA does, and what it does is not a student government. I see no point to BYUSA Presidents running on a student government-like platform when what they are actually going to do has nothing to do with that. Service is great, and an important part of campus in its own way, but that way is not a student government kind of way. And I don't think we should be disguising BYUSA as something it is not. But anyway, I'm glad these peoples didn't win. I like the other guy's colors better.

But moving on, this week was a week of wonderful holidays. First, we have Pi Day! That'd be 3.14, or March 14 to those who aren't math inclined. We had a Pi/Pie Party (on 3.14 at apt 15 at 9:26 pm (get it? 3.1415926?)), ate 3.14 pies (yes, really), and sang happy birthday to Albert Eistein. It was frankly amazing. Then today was St. Paddy's Day, always a classic holiday in my family, not because we're Irish, but because it's when my parents got married. Aw.

Um, third, here's a random Harry Potter related dramatic monologue I wrote for my British Lit class. Don't worry, we're only graded on participation, but I thought it was funny, and I need to include more Harry Potter on my blog anyway. So, see if you can guess the character and the scene (bonus points for chapter number).

Secretive Riddle

I won’t go! I absolutely refuse!

This place, it’s the only thing I have to lose.

She’s sent you to take me away, that git.

Professor, you call yourself? I doubt it.

I know she doesn’t like me, that Mrs. Cole,

Who’s kept me in this orphanage since I was small.

I’m sure she’s told you her little rant.

But she can’t prove a thing, I know she can’t,

I’ve made sure. You can ask them, they’ll tell you.

Amy Benson, Dennis Bishop. Even Billy Stubbs too.

He’ll swear I had nothing to do with his pet rabbit

Swinging back and forth in lazy orbit

Over his bed that summer Sunday morning.

He was quite shook up (despite my warning).

We played in the cave, Amy, Dennis, and I, nothing worse,

There’s not connection to why they scream for the nurse.

I have done nothing but teach this throng,

No more than get the respect that to me should belong.

So I won’t let you take me to your school diverse.

What? You say that this is magic, not a curse?

Yes, the rhyming is quite terrible, but I still enjoy it. This is one of my favorite scenes from HBP. :D

Oh, about the title: today in Physics we learned about relativity. The universe is just messed up.

From One Puppet Government to Another

I wasn't planning on doing another BYU political rant so soon, but I just finished having an argument with my roomie over the importance of voting in BYUSA elections. Here are some of my not-unbiased thoughts about BYUSA elections:

BYUSA has no power to do anything on campus: they can't publish teacher evaluation results, add eating areas to the library, "partner" with anyone (that implies they have something to contribute), or even change hours at the weight room. Remember, it's not a student union, it's a student service association. They can't effect any change on campus, so why should we even bother voting for them? One puppet student government is the same as another.

As for what BYUSA actually does (get volunteers, advertise, and run on-campus events): Much as I would like to some of these events change or be consolidated, none of the candidates gives out their specific plans for these events ahead of time. So, really, my voting is a shot in the dark at who plans the coolest parties.

My roomie contends that it's better to vote than not because you are at least trying to do something about it. I believe exactly the opposite. The differences between the candidates are miniscule, so the only choice is whether I vote or don't vote. If I vote, it says that I am fine with the way BYUSA currently represents the students. Voting will accomplish nothing in the long run, simply perpetuate an ineffective system of popularity contests and broken promises.

Instead, I choose not to vote, in the hopes that by not voting I will help increase the administration's awareness of BYUSA's unimportance to students. If I were not-voting out of apathy, I would see my roommate's point that I have no right to complain if I don't at least try. However, I am actually making a choice here.

Oh, and I just decided to mail this rant to both campaigns. How's that for taking action?

Curse you, Zeno

I just rediscovered Zeno's Coffeehouse, a site that I found by accident when working on a paper on Zeno's Paradox for my Pen and the Sword class freshman year. The site may not look like much--well, it looks like junk, frankly. But the puzzles are really challenging. The most recent puzzle there is pretty frustrating to me. I figure it has something to do with the product of the integers being non-unique. Something like there are two sets of numbers that add up to the sum that multiply to the product.

Or something. I'll keep thinking about it.

Someone help. . . .

BYU's Political Vaccuum

BYU has an interesting political dynamic. Unlike most American universities, the majority of students are white, church-going conservatives, who tend to be staunch Republicans and think Bush is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. They support the war in Iraq, defy the UN, and dare anyone to tell them they're wrong. But the small but vocal Liberal Mormon minority has dramatically increased its presence in recent years. They are vegetarian,--perhaps even vegan--watch R-rated movies and drink caffeine on a regular basis, and are distinctly disappointed in the narrowminded views of their flag-waving fellow students. What they lack in numbers, they make up in their outspoken opinions about their clearly "enlightened" ways.

And in between? There isn't one. There is a distinct void where moderate voices should be on BYU campus. Those who aren't in one of these two camps seem either apathetic or oblivious in the "bubble." If you've ever tried to speak out moderate position, you've probably been accused of being in one of these groups (probably by someone further right or left than you).

Example in point: the BYU Political Review's recent articles on President Bush's wiretapping program (or domestic spying/eavesdropping, if you're against it). In the February 27th issue, we have an article from Dave Lassen, praising the virtue of the government and deriding anyone who would criticize zecret programs. "We have duly elected representatives who the voters have charged with the responsibility to keep our country safe," he says, firmly trusting the government and its current system of checks and balances. Though he acknowledges that the program may or may not be legal, he still insists that questioning the government in matters of national security is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Predictably, the next week, Max Stoneman fires off an article from the LM point of view. His "fears of government surveillance" show a complete distrust of the government reminiscent of the 60s or 70s. He concludes that the only way to be sure the government doesn't initiate some Black-Helicopters-type program is with a constant stream of leaking and whistleblowing.

Both of these articles really bother me. Though both acknowledge they know little about the wiretapping program and aren't sure it is legal or not, they are quick to pull out the standard party lines on what's right and wrong, just in case. Neither complete trust or distrust in the government makes any sense in my mind. Each issue must be weighed individually, and as of yet, the public doesn't have enough information to form any sort of decent opinion on the wiretapping.

And yet we keep forming opinions. I can understand this from career politicians who need to support their ideals no matter their correctness, but I expect better from church members and specifically from BYU students. For a school that purports to put out morally-aware students, we've done a pretty poor job.