Isaac's Adventures in Spiderland

The Inherent Contradiction of American Exceptionalism

2011-02-07T14:53:00.003-05:00

I've been a little disturbed lately by how others perceive the world and wanted to share with you a contradiction that I've observed in American Ideals. But first, a quick introduction. The other day I read this article on the situation in Egypt arguing that Democracy often leads to Tyranny and that we should not be quick to cheer on the revolution that is happening in Egypt right now. I can only assume this also means that we should have been against our own revolution, the color revolutions that were instrumental in the end of the Cold War, the current Tunisian, Jordanian, and Yemeni revolutions, and all similar revolutions where a downtrodden people sought to overthrow a despotic government that was holding them down.

I also read a comment on facebook recently with an argument saying that you can either believe in American Exceptionalism or you can agree with President Obama. Of course, in that actual post referring to the President with any term of respect would have been impossible, but I digress. Last year when the health care reform bill was passed I read a different facebook comment about why the reform was bad saying that we have the greatest health care in the world and we don't want to mess with that.
Arguments like these frustrate me to no end because they promote this concept of American Exceptionalism, that we are the best at whatever we do. That this nation has been blessed to be the greatest nation on earth and as such we will succeed. I'm sorry, but although we are a great nation and are the strongest nation militarily, and the most powerful economy in the world, we are not guaranteed to be such nor do military and economic strength equal greatness in all areas. For all those who believe we have the greatest health care system in the world, I apologize but the facts just do not back that up. Our health care system is broken, the new law attempts to fix it; I believe it helps but understand how others can disagree. I do not understand how anybody can disagree with the objective reality that our health care system is in disrepair.
Similarly, one of the best regarded documentaries of 2010 is a documentary entitled "Waiting for Superman." You can watch the trailer here or at the end of this post. The United States has fallen behind most other developed countries in terms of educational achievement and yet our students still believe they are the best in the world. American Exceptionalism is dangerous because it promotes complacency. We believe we're the best and refuse to acknowledge evidence to the contrary. As such we sit and watch others surpass us all the while burying our heads in the sand and saying to ourselves, "we're the best."

But my argument today is not because of the inherent dangers in American Exceptionalism, it is because American Exceptionalism contradicts our most treasured ideals. Last night before the Super Bowl they read the Declaration of Independence, word for word. It is the document that stated our ideals, despite its lack of legal force it is a vital and important part of our history and identity as a nation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." These are words that should echo in every patriotic American's heart, they are profound and powerful and encapsulate so much of what the United States is at its best, and strives to be. It does not say, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Americans are created equal and all persons of any other nationality are inferior to us." Yet that is what American Exceptionalism says at its core, if America is the best then every other nation is worse. If you believe that the United States deserves to be the greatest nation in the world because of an inherent value in its people, then you do not believe all men are created equal.

President Ezra Taft Benson, in his seminal address "Beware of Pride" spoke about the nature of pride, that pride seeks to put itself above another. If we want to be humble, it is okay to be proud of our country but we must also acknowledge that there is good elsewhere as well. We are not the best at everything, until we recognize that and seek to learn from the great examples of those who have excelled where we do not, we will sit complacent and watch as the rest of the world passes us by. Then we will be behind everybody else in all things except our confidence. I'm proud to be an American because we haven't historically done that; we've promoted democracy and cheered it on, even when it may not be in our best interests. Because we're not just self-interested, we want for all to rise up and be great.

In Loving Memory...

2010-12-01T00:17:00.013-05:00

I woke up Saturday morning to find that the most Christlike man I have ever known passed away. Even those who only casually knew my grandfather, Boyd Fugal, could tell that he was a great man. He was a decorated veteran of the Second World War, a successful businessman, and a church leader. But more important than all of these things, he was a loving husband, father, and for me grandfather. Forgive me if you think this hyperbole, but "if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Boyd Fugal, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men." I miss you so much already Grandpa, but I am so grateful to know that you are in a better place and will suffer no more. If I had been no more fortunate than to have made your acquaintance my life would have been greatly enriched. To have lived with you, learned from you, and felt of your love is such a monumental blessing that I do not know how to express it.
After returning home from my mission I was blessed to be able to live with Grandma and Grandpa Fugal in their home in Pleasant Grove for a few years while I was attending BYU. Already in their 80s and having successfully raised nine children and helped raise several more grandchildren, they had done enough parenting to fill several lifetimes. I am so glad that they so warmly welcomed me into their home. During the time I lived with them, they made me feel as though I was one of their own children and provided me with some of my fondest memories. That he could make each of us grandchildren feel that way is a testament to how loving he was when you realize that he had 38 grandchildren and 70 great grandchildren. I only wish I could sit and watch Perry Mason as Grandpa nodded off into sleep again, or sit and enjoy Lawrence Welk on a Saturday afternoon with them.
Grandpa's passing was not unexpected. In October he suffered a major heart attack just prior to his 89th birthday, and we didn't know if he would see his birthday this year. I was only able to speak with him once or twice by telephone after that, but I could tell that he was prepared to return to his Heavenly Father and was in quite a bit of pain. Selfishly, I hoped that he might hang on until Stephanie and I returned home for Christmas so that I could see him one more time in person, but that was not meant to be.
Grandpa taught me hard work. Growing up I always admired Grandpa, when I was 11 or 12 we went to visit and he asked if my brothers and I would be willing to get up early the next morning and help provide service for somebody he knew was in need. I think all of us went grudgingly because we were supposed to be on vacation, but Grandpa always taught by example. No matter his current situation, he would serve and work. Even in his eighties he would regularly be seen out fixing fences, planting corn, cleaning out irrigation systems, weeding, and keeping things in order. Grandma would always fret and worry because Grandpa's body couldn't keep up with everything he wanted to do - but he loved to work. When my parents were first married my dad worked for Grandpa's company and he has often told us how Grandpa led by example. Grandpa never expected anybody to do work he wasn't willing to do, and once on a construction job he had an accident that resulted in a serious injury. As soon as Grandpa was out of the hospital he was back at the job site, digging in the trenches as if nothing had happened.
Grandpa taught me generosity. I've already mentioned how Grandma and Grandpa welcomed me into their home and took care of me while I went to college. If ever there was anything I needed, Grandpa was willing to provide it, and he tried to provide it even if I didn't ask for it. Every year that we planted corn would be followed by visits to the neighborhood dropping off big bags of delicious sweetcorn. On another occasion when I was younger Grandpa and I went for a walk in the early morning, he showed me the neighborhood where he lived, where my mother had grown up, the house I was brought to as a baby, and land that he used to own. I didn't know then, but much of that land that he owned he donated or gave away to good causes or to help support his family. I have never known a more generous person with his time, energy, or means.
Grandpa taught me about forgiveness. My parents' marriage did not end well, and my mother was hurt more than I think I will ever be capable of understanding. It didn't take much time being around Grandpa to know how much he loved his family, and my dad seriously hurt one his little girls. But, in a situation where it's understandable for there to be some enmity and distrust, my Grandpa has always been a support to me and my family. On more than one occasion he has taken me aside and said "I always thought Russ was a good man" and asked me about how he was doing. That example of Christlike love and forgiveness was more comfort to me than I think Grandpa ever knew. I love my dad so much, and so many people had unkind things to say that to hear the loving words of Grandpa were, and continue to be, a tender mercy to me.
I can remember few times in my life when I have felt worse than after disappointing Grandpa. Knowing him and living with him and his example has made me a much better man. If I live to be half the man that Boyd Fugal was, I will have lived a great life. I was able to visit the graves of many of our family members each year with Grandma and Grandpa on Memorial Day and to learn about my family history. I was able to enjoy drive Grandma and Grandpa as they attended weddings, gatherings, and shows. And every time I was able to speak in Pleasant Grove was more exciting because I knew that Grandma and Grandpa might be able to attend and Grandpa was always so supportive with his words and advice. I experienced my first true heartbreak while living with Grandma and Grandpa, and he was there to give me gentle encouragement and a much needing blessing from a spiritual giant. And I was so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa attend as I graduated from BYU. Without their support college would have been an entirely less fulfilling experience. I treasure my memories of sitting down to breakfast as Grandpa asked me what I was learning and how my life was.
Of all my memories of Grandpa, my fondest are little tender moments I observed between him and Grandma. My grandparents were married for more than 65 years, astounding to me as Stephanie and I approach our first anniversary. And yet, after all that time they were still learning from one another and about one another. And they were still very much in love. One morning as we sat down to breakfast Grandpa started telling me a story from his youth, before Grandma and her family moved to Pleasant Grove from Provo. As he finished his story Grandma turned to him and said "I didn't know that!" I thought it was so awesome to see how two people could know one another so well and yet still learn more about one another. On another occasion Grandma was out of town on a trip with all the girls (my aunts and mom) while Grandpa and I stayed home. I answered the phone one evening and it was Grandma calling to talk to Grandpa, but he was out in the field working on his farm. Grandma asked me to have him call her when he got back inside, and then with a little extra tenderness I could hear in her voice she said, "and tell him that I miss him." When Grandpa came back in I told him that Grandma had called and that she wanted him to know that she missed him. I watched as that amazing smile of his changed and he choked back a few tears and said in a moment of complete sincerity "well, I miss her a lot too." After so many years you could just tell that they still meant the world to one another.
I was single a lot longer than I expected to be, and I knew that my grandparents would eventually pass on. I secretly hoped that I would be able to meet my wife before they did, so they could know her and so that she could see what wonderful people they are. Just over a year ago I was able to take Stephanie home and introduce her to Grandpa. We had a nice little dinner with Cy and Brittany, Grandma and Grandpa all in their little dining room. He gave her one of his big hugs and said "well, I think the two of you should team up." When Stephanie and I sat across from one another in the sealing room the sealer commented how in all his experience he had never sealed together two people where all four grandfathers were present in the room and what a special experience that was. I am so glad that Stephanie got to meet Grandpa and that he was able to witness at our wedding. To have him there was one of the great blessings of my life.
Grandpa, you were always such an amazing example to me. I have kept this picture of you protecting Grandma from the cold wind on my desk or at my bedside from the time I left on my mission. I use it as a reminder of how I want to be, I hope that I can be a husband to Stephanie like you were to Grandma. I hope I can shelter my loved ones from the cold. I hope that enough of you rubbed off on me for me to be as kind, generous, forgiving, and wonderful as you. I miss you so much already Grandpa. I wish that Stephanie could get to know you better, that my future children could have known you. Selfishly, I wish you were still with us. But I know you are home in the everlasting embrace of our Heavenly Father. Don't worry Grandpa, I'll try to follow your example. My kids will know you because I will tell them all about you. Thank you for being such an inspiration, thank you for raising my wonderful mother, and thank you for watching over me.
When I woke up on Saturday and saw the message from Mom that Grandpa had passed, I responded by saying that I wished we could make it home for the funeral. Finals start on Monday. Christmas is Stephanie's busiest time of year as a photographer. I wish we could make it home for the funeral. It didn't make sense in terms of time or money to try to make it home. But every time I think of you I know that there are more important things than school and money. I'm so glad that I have a wonderful wife who knows that I need to be there. I'm so glad that we found a way to fly home that won't be too expensive. It's currently 2 AM and I can't sleep because I feel like I need to share what I'm feeling. I've cried myself to sleep every night since you passed, I don't think Stephanie has noticed because she's usually asleep before I start to think of you. Don't worry Grandpa, there are more tears of joyful memories than tears of sorrow. I hope you know how much I love you, how much we all love you. The world is a darker place without you, but heaven will be all that much brighter. Until we meet again. I love you.

Grandpa's Obituary
Grandma and Grandpa's 60th Wedding Anniversary Video

If You Think the First Ten are Good, Check Out the Other Seventeen

2010-10-28T10:31:00.005-04:00

As some of you may know, I subscribe to the Economist. While I am not always able to read each issue in full, I usually at least get through the briefings section. I like it because it helps me to keep up to date on what is happening outside of the United States. I don't feel so entirely insular and unaware. In addition to keeping me informed about the happenings outside of this nation, I appreciate much of the commentary on the United States, even when I disagree - it is nice to have an outside perspective.

Well, with the elections approaching on Tuesday, I've been thinking a lot about the Tea Party movement and the tendency for some people within our nation to worship the constitution. So, I was very pleased to read a recent article on constitution worship, which can be found here.
I recommend that you read the entire article, but here is one paragraph that really encapsulates how I feel:

"When history is turned into scripture and men into deities, truth is the victim. The framers were giants, visionaries and polymaths. But they were also aristocrats, creatures of their time fearful of what they considered the excessive democracy taking hold in the states in the 1780s. They did not believe that poor men, or any women, let alone slaves, should have the vote. Many of their decisions, such as giving every state two senators regardless of population, were the product not of Olympian sagacity but of grubby power-struggles and compromises—exactly the sort of backroom dealmaking, in fact, in which today’s Congress excels and which is now so much out of favour with the tea-partiers. "

There are many people who look upon our constitution as scripture, and it makes me cringe every time I hear it. Don't get me wrong, I love my country and the constitution is an incredible document, I think the founding fathers were visionaries and are rightly venerated. But they should not be worshiped, they were men, not demi-gods, with flaws and disagreements. The constitutional convention was an exercise in compromise. The resulting document is not tantamount to scripture, however inspired some of the founding fathers may have been scripture is the result of divine revelation, the constitution is the result of political negotiation and compromise.

Stephanie recommended that we read the constitution for our family home evening this week, which has only strengthened my resolve to speak out on this topic. Those who worship the constitution all too often speak of going back to the founding fathers, getting back to core constitutional principles, and stopping all this "progress" we've had. I like progress, and all too often those who revel in constitutional originalism fail to remember that the original constitution was a profoundly flawed document with certain provisions that directly lead to a civil war that nearly crushed this nation in its early years. They forget that those demi-gods of democracy we honor so much (Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, etc.) were joined by Charles Pinckneys and Elbridge Gerrys. They forget that after that constitutional convention, the document was felt to be flawed enough that ten amendments were passed only four years after the original document was ratified. And they forget that after those ten amendments, there have been seventeen more.

Each of the seventeen amendments is a part of the constitution. It boggles my mind to hear people proclaim the constitution as inspired while they lament its downfall in one moment only to hear them declare that we should repeal the fourteenth and seventeenth amendments. While I think the seventeenth amendment was a mistake, I am not proclaiming that the constitution is some kind of scripture that we all have fallen away from - all twenty-seven amendments are part of that document, each amendment was passed in accordance with the constitutional provisions allowing them, and as such the entire document is one whole. You cannot claim it as inspired and then denounce the provisions you don't like, it's not a consistent ideology. And it makes me crazy. So, with that introduction I want to introduce you to the constitution in its entirety, its original flaws and how, thankfully, many of them have been overcome.

The three fifths clause: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
The original constitution never explicitly mentioned race, but in the fourth sentence after the preamble it separated human beings into separate classes (including free persons, indentured servants, Indians, and implicitly slaves) and only acknowledged slaves as 3/5 of a person.

Slave Importation: "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."
In order for the constitution to be ratified, the northern states had to agree that congress could not pass any laws against the importation of slaves until 1808. While the southern representatives claimed they too abhorred slavery and thought it would die out soon, they knew their home states would not accept the abolition of slavery. Slavery died out so soon that some war was fought over its expansion in the 1860s. Because this clause only operated until 1808 it is still a valid part of the constitution and has not been revoked by subsequent amendments like the other slavery clauses. In other words, reference to slavery is still part of the constitution.

The vice-presidency: "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided."
The original constitution created an office that John Adams, upon holding said office, called the most useless office ever invented by man. While precedent has been set over the years giving the Vice President more authority, constitutionally it is an almost pointless position other than to have a ready successor to the President and a tie-breaking vote in the Senate.

The Fugitive Slave clause: "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
So often the more conservative part of our electorate proclaims "States' rights" that it makes me laugh to think how the constitution was a document established to limit state rights, to strengthen the federal government, and how in that document even the state sovereignty that was intended to remain was infringed by the slave power. States' rights? If we get back to the original constitution you can't decide who is free or slave within the boundaries of your own state.

1st Amendment - The establishment clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion"
The first clause of the first amendment, separation of church and state. The tea party loves the constitution, we need to get back to our roots - and yet the very first thing amended was to make sure that church and state were separated. Despite Christine O'Donnell's claims, it's in the document, actually it's in the document twice. The third paragraph of the Article VI reads in part "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

9th Amendment - Unenumerated rights: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Despite this amendment, many rights retained by the people are denied and disparaged precisely because they're not enumerated in the constitution. Of course, this is not unconstitutional, as it is people (more often than not those who have placed the constitution on a pedestal) who disparage and deny said rights, not the federal government. But again, it smacks of hypocrisy to love the constitution and deny so many of its provisions, even in the document as established by the founding fathers.

10th Amendment - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"
A favorite of those who proclaim the sanctity of states' rights. While I will repeat ad infinitum that states' rights have been used to commit many of the greatest atrocities in our nation's history, and are the reason why we had a civil war and a need for a civil rights movement, I just wanted to point out the last part of this amendment "or to the people."

THE OTHER SEVENTEEN

Okay, now we get to the other seventeen. I'm going to just go over a general review of them first and then get into particulars when it comes to what is important to me, and is often forgotten by those who would exhalt our constitution as it was founded and not as it is. Because we have the ability to change and alter our constitution slavery is now illegal, all people (without respect to color, race, creed, or gender) are entitled to the franchise, our government can levy taxes needed to function (especially important for the military), no single person can have dynastic rule over our country (although I'm glad we had Roosevelt so long), we know who will lead the country even in the event of catastrophe, U.S. Citizens in Washington, D.C. can vote for their president despite not having representation in Congress, no poll taxes are allowed, 18 year olds can vote, and congress can't give itself a pay raise. I may not agree with every change in the constitution, I don't think it's a perfect document. But it is a far superior document today than it was in 1787.

The 14th Amendment -
Citizenship clause - "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The constitution establishes rights of citizenship, but never defines the term until the 14th Amendment. This is important and yet the tea party (or some members thereof) want to strike this. It is hypocrisy to adulate a document and then to try to change it. Furthermore, all those who claim that President Obama has no right to be President because they don't believe he was born here will lose their argument if there is no more definition of a citizen.
Privileges and immunities clause - "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"
For the first time, the federal constitution extended its protections to prevent States from violating the federal constitution. Many people don't realize (outrage at certain commentators being fired, or having boycotts threatened against their advertisers) that the rights in the constitution only prevent government intervention. And prior to the 14th Amendment they were only protected against the federal government, now they're protected against state governments as well.
Due process clause - "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"
More protections against government intervention. Strange that the people who do not fear government are the same ones who most laud the 14th amendment and its protections against government intervention in our lives. Don't mess with my 14th Amendment!
Equal protection clause - "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"
The most important amendment to the constitution (either this or the 1st) was passed more than seventy years after the founding fathers ratified the document. And those who claim to want to get back to the constitution consistently denigrate this amendment. It changed our country so much for the better, and even after it was changed the states, claiming their rights, did everything they could not to follow it. That's why we needed the 15th and 24th amendments as well. But the 14th amendment does have some serious flaws.

Second Section of the 14th Amendment - "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."
All people were finally recognized as whole people by our constitution, but unfortunately for the first time gender is explicitly recognized in our constitution. The right to vote shall not be denied to any male - because of this codification women's suffrage was set back and it would be more than fifty years before the 19th amendment would finally fix that.

I for one am glad that there is no more slavery in our nation, that there are no more Jim Crow laws. I am glad that my wife can vote, that I know I am a U.S. Citizen and what that term means, and that the rights established in the Bill of Rights can't be infringed by the Federal OR State Government. I'm an independent - I would have been a Republican in 1860 and a Democrat today if I had to join a party because I agree with progress. For the most part, the progressives in this country have made it a better place, not a worse one. They have helped us move forward rather than backward - the good old days weren't so great. Teaparty, nobody stole your country from you, they voted according to the established methods defined by the Constitution you so venerate to elect representatives who represent what they desired. If on Tuesday your candidates are elected to office, it will be by the same method.

Vote Tuesday, vote informed, and know why you're doing it. If you don't know who's on the ballot in your area, find out. Votesmart.org is an excellent resource to find out about who will be on your ballot. And please, just because you know Person X and dislike what they've done, don't automatically vote for Person Y. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. This is exemplified in Nevada. I don't care how bad you want Reid out of office, Sharron Angle is worse, thankfully Nevada has the option to vote for None of the Above. I happen to like Harry Reid, but even if I didn't, I would still be sick to my stomach that Mitt Romney (somebody I respect but who keeps disappointing me) endorsed Sharron Angle. See more of her below.

And just because I fear the tea party, here's some of the why:

Man arrested for going to Public Event for Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor

Woman Tackled and Stomped On after Debate in Kentucky by Rand Paul (R) Supporters

Reporter Arrested at Joe Miller (R) Alaska event

A Whole Lot of Sharron Angle

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Analogies and Harry Reid

2010-09-20T12:29:00.004-04:00

This post is coming a little late to the controversy, but that's how I do things, I suppose. Several weeks ago Senator Harry Reid commented on the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" that while he supported the right of those who are building it to build it wherever they want so long as they obtain all the legally required permits, that he does not believe they should build their mosque so close to ground zero. I thought of writing him a letter saying how disappointed I was in him. As a left-leaning Latter-day Saint, it is nice to have Senator Reid as a political example, and I wanted to let him know I support him in most of his actions, hope that he wins against Sharon Angle because the last thing this nation needs is Senator Angle, but to express my frustration that anybody who is LDS would not wholeheartedly support the religious rights of others in this country. Religious intolerance of the LDS people led to an extermination order of all Mormons in the State of Missouri and in the eventual Mormon Exodus to Utah as nobody within any of the States of this Union was willing to accept us. We, of all people, should be especially aware of religious intolerance in our nation.
But, I'm saving that topic for a paper I'm working on in my class on the Equality Principle in U.S. jurisprudence and culture (the idea that all men are created equal and how that has evolved from a constitution that allowed slavery to today). But, I wanted to make a point by way of analogy against the arguments of insensitivity and callousness that are made against the faithful Muslim people who want their community center.

So, SAT style here goes some analogy.
Muslims are to 9/11 terrorists as Christians are to ________
Let's fill in the blank -
Mussolini
Jim Jones
Many famous murderers killing in the name of God

Timothy McVeigh

It's terrible - there are Christian churches within blocks of where these people terrorized people. Don't you know it's disrespectful to those who died in the Oklahoma City bombing for a church to be near there? How could you be so insensitive?

That's a ludicrous argument, just as the argument that having a mosque near the World Trade Center site is disrespectful to those who died on 9/11. Muslims died on 9/11 too.

The people I named above corrupted Christianity! They aren't real Christians, they're people who corrupted and twisted a beautiful religion for their own sick purposes. Just like the 9/11 terrorists.

I read somewhere a rebuttal against the idea that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian, where the author wrote "His action and deeds definitely does not reflect that of a virtuous believer." Timothy McVeigh did not act in the name of God, it is true, and his actions are not those of a virtuous believer. Nor were the actions of the 9/11 terrorists those of virtuous believers in Islam.

It is not insensitive to build Christian churches near where members of a Christian faith have committed terrible deeds, it's a blessing that others can see that Christianity is not what those people represent, but the beautiful religion of "virtuous believers" in Christianity. I believe the same is true with Islam and mosques.

DMV Adventures

2010-05-03T12:03:00.003-04:00

It's finals season. I don't need this. I need to be finishing my twenty page paper, and studying for final exams that must be taken by the end of this week. I need to be focused on Professional Responsibility and Land Use Planning, not the code of motor vehicle for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

First of all, let me stress that up until May 01, 2010 I have been in complete compliance with the law, although I have had some challenges. You see, back in May of 2009 it was time for me to re-register my vehicle. I was living in Virginia at the time, but didn't want to deal with going to the DMV and all the procedures it would take to change my registration so I just quick renewed online with the State of Utah. They processed my credit card and let me print out a temporary registration until the new permanent one and the license plate sticker would be mailed to me. Not thinking, I didn't update my information and so they still had my address as my grandparent's address in Pleasant Grove, Utah. No big deal, I thought, my grandparents forward me everything and the temporary registration will give me a nice comfortable window. I waited and it never arrived; I asked my grandparents, they never received my registration; I contacted the DMV and they said the address did not exist. Of course it exists! I've visited my loving grandparents since, it's an amazing wonderful home and it's the same address I used for years while at BYU. My temporary registration has it on there accurately.

Oh well, I thought, I know I've complied with the law and if cited I can prove registration if I have to, no big deal. Virginia police won't be happy with my Utah plates anyhow! As a member of one of my old bishoprics, Steve Leetham, used to tell us he never put the new sticker on his plates until he got pulled over. He would just keep his new registration in the car and when asked about it he would pull out the current registration and apologize that he forgot to put the stickers on. He was former police officer, it was a fun game he played. I wasn't concerned about it and when I was pulled over last July 4, the police officer saw my expired registration and said "that's alright, I can tell you own it from this." It was good enough for the officer!

Fast forward to today. I go to the Virginia DMV's website on Saturday and look up the requirements to change my driver's license and registration, I figure I might as well, we might end up staying here after I graduate and insurance is cheaper if I'm registered here. We go to the dealership and get my car's safety inspection done, taking time away from my studies. I fill out the forms ahead of time, make sure I have all the items I need.

Today (Monday), we go to the information desk at the DMV, they ask if I have the proofs I need - proof of address, proof of legal presence, proof of title, and proof of Social Security. I have the proof of address, apparently my debit card being mailed to me doesn't count and we get electronic bank statements so I don't have any of those. The utilities are all in Stephanie's name and we need a letter with MY name on it, not hers. Ah, but they say a pay stub will work for proof of address and I printed out my last pay stub (you see, as with most things I'm paid electronically as well). The information desk looks it over, sees my social security card and says that works as proof of social security (why I need social security to drive, I'm still unsure), the pay stub works, my old registration she thinks will work to prove title even though they need it within the past year and it expired April 30, 2009 (1 year and 3 days ago), but for a driver's license I need my birth certificate for proof of legal residence. I have never needed my birth certificate for anything! I don't have it here, I don't know if I've ever seen it...

Quick aside - proof of legal presence, that means proof that I am legally in the United States. I was born in Utah 27 years ago, I have left the country on one occasion, all the way to Tijuana for about 3 hours. I have a current driver's license, social security card, and am working and going to school in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I am a U.S. Citizen, my family has been here for generations. But proof of legal presence is required for a driver's license in Virginia. And, although it only cost me $18 and a quick Internet search to request my birth certificate, which should be here in 7-10 business days, right now I have no proof of my citizenship that will satisfy the Commonwealth of Virginia. That is why the new Arizona law is so frightening, if they aren't racially profiling, which they claim they aren't, then there is no way to have a truly reasonable suspicion that somebody is here illegally. It is either illegal and racist, or police could have a reasonable suspicion of me being here illegally. I just found out today that it will take me 7-10 business days to have proof of legal presence. I could be in jail for that time. That's not what they're doing, they are racially profiling, at least that's what I believe. But if they aren't - well, I could be in jail for 7-10 days waiting for a birth certificate to show that I'm a citizen. That's why the law is jacked up. I mean, there's a not insignificant segment of our population that does not believe our president is a citizen of the United States - if the President has trouble proving he's a citizen, why do you think you'll have an easier time? Okay, off from my aside.

Oh well, no driver's license - I'm a student and my Utah license is still current, I'm still law abiding if I can just register my car. So, give up on the driver license and seek the registration. The woman at the information desk thinks what we have will suffice. We wait in line, our number is called, we go up - proof of address please? Hand them the letter that my bank sent my bank card in, to this address - sorry, we can't accept that. Hand them a letter from the County Attorney's office, nope - that's not on the list. Okay, well, the woman at the information desk said that my pay stub will work - so here's my pay stub. You just printed that off, I don't know if we can accept that. Well, I'm paid electronically. Let me check. No we can't accept that, (hands me the list of things they can accept, clearly states pay stub, nowhere does it say no printed pay stubs) voter registration card? have it but not at my current address, I was going to update that today, bank statement? electronic, utility bill? still all in my wife's name. We don't have anything with us, go home and search for our taxes - there's my W-2 and tax return, full folder. Yay! In the mean time I order my birth certificate and check, just in case, on how I can get my Utah registration that is freshly expired instead of just over a year expired, $4 sent by letter with a copy of my driver license.

Here is the handwritten letter I am mailing them today:

"Dear Utah DMV,

I registerd my car last year in your great state but never received my registration. I would like to register my vehicle in Virginia now but they want to see my registration with you. It's okay that it's expired. I am enclosing a check for $4.00 (four dollars and 00/100). Please forward me a copy of my registration.

Much thanks,

Isaac K. Adams

P.S. Letter writing is a slow process and unduly onerous. I hope some day that telephone and/or Internet requests might satisfy your insatiable bureaucratic needs. It is also wasteful."

Annoying, but maybe the DMV will accept the registration I have, after all it's only 3 days past a year (I know you have to draw the line somewhere but ugh!) and I have the temporary registration that shows that the registration was renewed. Stand in line at the information desk again. You're back? They wouldn't accept my pay stub. They wouldn't accept your pay stub? Nope, she starts getting us the forms again. We still have the form, it's okay, we just need a number. Back in the chair waiting, number finally called. Up to the desk, we bring the tax returns - she barely looks at them, they're legit so it's all good. There's no process of confirming them, just a quick eyeball. But they couldn't accept my 9 other proofs of address... oh well. The process is almost done - where is the car titled? I don't have the title, I'm financing the car (as I assume most people are, majority of Americans don't own, they finance or lease.... but the law is written for owners and barely accounts for those who might finance or lease). I had checked the website and it asked for my title, I knew I couldn't bring it, the bank has it and it's electronic so I brought my registration - the woman at the desk said it should work. I'm sorry, we need something within the last year. So we're 3 days late? Yes, I'm sorry.

So, I ask the woman, hypothetically speaking - if I were to let my registration expire on a financed vehicle for more than a year and decided I wanted to register it again (nothing wrong with that if you're not driving it) what would I need to do? You would need to get the car registered in the state of title and then you could come here with that registration and we could take care of it. But I don't have the title, the bank does. Yes, but the place where you bought the car is where it's titled, even if the bank doesn't exist there. Wow.... so I have to drive my car back to Utah to get it inspected and have it go through emissions testing (the reason I can't renew online this year), pay all those fees, then drive it 2000 back here to comply with the law that wants my car registered. Isn't there another way? Well, you could call the lienholder and tell them you need to register the car in Virginia, have them release the title to you and have title transferred to Virginia then reassess the lien. Hmmm - I tried to refinance my car two months ago and they barely let me see a copy of my title, they said I wasn't even allowed to see it for purposes of refinancing, I don't think they're going to let me do that.

Defeat. I can't comply with the law, not for another few weeks. I need my car, I want to have it registered, but I can't... They won't let me. It's safety inspected. It's a good car. You know the VIN and the ownership and everything, but the registration from last year didn't get sent to me, and the other one has been expired for one year and three days... I was three days late. Now I'm supposed to be studying and writing and working on school and I'm distracted by this. I just want to register my car!

Dear DMV personnel. I know you don't write the laws and you have no control over what you're allowed to accept, I get that. It is a largely thankless job that has been derided much over the year. I'm not upset with you. I'm just frustrated.

Dear House of Commons for the Commonwealth of Virginia. And, to a similar extent Dear Legislature of Utah. Please, realize why you have these laws and recognize that the main purpose is for public safety. Also, please realize we are in the 21st century. So much has gone electronic, we have the option of receiving everything other than our tax documents electronically on your list of proofs of address, Virginia, if we had gotten married one month later I would have no proof of address at my current address. Utah, you tried to take my registration away when I lived there because you didn't think I had insurance - I did have insurance but you didn't think I did and you caused me great stress. Now you failed to send me my registration, I realize it's largely my fault, but you're also charging me four dollars for something I've already paid you for. And you will only accept this four dollars by letter delivered by the USPS. Guess what, there are ways to have secure transactions - I can get my proof of citizenship (birth certificate) over the Internet with a Credit Card, I need my registration ASAP, as do most people who lose their vehicle registration. Get with the times and make something other than check by mail available as a way of requesting my registration, please.

You make me not want to register my vehicle when I have to go through this. I'd rather risk getting pulled over and paying the fine. Ugh. Thanks for listening.

Thoughts on Veterans' Day and the 17th Amendment

2009-11-14T22:24:00.005-05:00

So, I realize that I'm a little past due on this one. What with Veteran's day being on Wednesday and me not writing this until now. I've really been thinking a lot about our Veterans and all that they do for us since Stephanie and I went to the Vietnam Memorial back in July. As we walked past those walls, filled with the names of so many young lives lost, tears filled my eyes. Steph asked me if I was okay. Just standing there and seeing how much was sacrificed made me at once grateful and outraged. There was a man leading a tour of some sort there, he was talking about the brave men and women who fought for our nation in that conflict and he said "freedom isn't free." Freedom isn't free. That's a concept I agree with wholeheartedly. But it seemed so wrong in the context of the Vietnam War Memorial.

What does "freedom isn't free" have to do with that fight? Decades removed from the social, cultural, and political sentiment of that time, it's impossible for me to understand how we can say that so many valuable lives were lost in the cause of freedom. Whose freedom? Maybe I just don't understand.

Freedom isn't free. I study and learn of the Revolutionary War and it's impact and effect on so many lives. The sacrifice not only of lives lost but lives dedicated to the concept of a better nation. I think of the struggles of the Civil War, and lives lost to hold our nation and its ideals together, and free a race from the oppression of slavery. I think of the World Wars and the fight against tyranny and despotism. But when it comes to Vietnam and, to a lesser extent Korea, I have a harder time understanding how that sacrifice is for freedom.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I always admired the Anti-nephi-lehies more than there children in the Army of Helaman. John McCain says that his favorite book is Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and also lists among his favorite books Erich Maria Remarque's classic World War I novel "All Quiet on the Western Front." Despite my disagreements with many of the policies he said he supported, I maintained hope that he wasn't the warhawk old codger he seemed because of that. Those two books are powerful documents about the fraternity soldiers feel, and of the great tragedy it is when men in power send them to death for trinkets. I love those books, and had intended to re-read them before making this post. I've been thinking about this post since July, but with Veteran's day it seemed appropriate. The great lesson of "All Quiet on the Western Front" for me is this, valiant young men fight and die in battles of powerful men who never learn what true sacrifice is.

I apologize for meandering like this. I suppose you may not get my point. My point is this - First, thank you veterans for your willingness to serve, for your devotion to the founding principles of this country, and for the sacrifices you have made. I am not cut out for what you do, but I thank you every day for doing it. And though I may disagree with some of you on certain issues, I respect you for all you do for this great country. Second, do not take your duties lightly, you leaders of men. Mr. President, you and our past presidents have a great obligation to value and respect the lives of your brothers who have volunteered to serve this country. There are times when freedom needs to be defended, I may admire their parents more but I love the Sons of Helaman who gave their all to protect their homes and family. Please, don't waste another precious drop of blood on a conflict that you aren't certain is for a good cause. Not for politics, but for family, for country, for true principles - not forced upon foreign nations. Freedom isn't free, and it is also implicit in the idea of freedom that people must choose liberty for themselves. Please, don't ever waste our nation's valiant sons on another conflict for political or fiscal gain. Life is far too precious.

Now, on to another topic. I hope I don't seem disrespectful in addressing this issue in a post meant primarily to honor our veterans. I hope they take my comments in that sense. Those veterans I know personally are great men. I want to discuss now our Constitution and the respect we give to the founding fathers and their ideas.

First, there is a significant legal community that seeks a complete originalist interpretation of the constitution. To them I say this, remember that the original intent of our Constitution is that of compromise between many competing political ideologies. That is part of why it is such a miraculous document. Remember further that as lauded as it is (and rightfully so), that original document included certain inherently flawed concepts, including the idea that some people were not people at all. Luckily, the constitution had a system for amendment, and the 14th Amendment helped to end that tyranny.

Today I would like to talk about what is, in my personal opinion, the worst amendment to our constitution. The 17th amendment completely changed our system of politics in ways that are mostly unhealthy. When the founders ratified the constitution they sought to compromise between various strongly held political beliefs. The two ideologies in greatest conflict were those of the federalists and anti-federalists. You see, our nation was founded on the idea of a confederation of States - each State sovereign to itself and yet United under one central government. Hence our name, The United States of America.

After the success of the Revolutionary War the former British colonies were united under the Articles of Confederation, in which each individual state's sovereignty was valued far more than the central government, and as such the central government was impotent. Seeing the need for a union that would last, important leaders gathered at the Constitutional Convention to ratify a document that would recognize each state's sovereignty while giving the federal government enough power to be effective.

Those who fought for states' rights argued that the central government needed to be weaker, others argued that there was great need for the federal government to be supreme and far more powerful. In order to overcome the conflict of opinion, compromise was reached. There would be two legislative houses, a bicameral system of legislation. This division of legislative houses was incredibly significant at the time. The House of Representatives was elected by the people, representing the interests of people in their district and being up for re-election every second year. This system was put in place to insure that the representatives be truly representative of their constituents - this is the representative democracy that gives our form of government its name, Democratic Republic.

If we have a representative democracy in our Democratic Republic, where is the Republic part? That is the higher house of congress, the Senate. As envisioned by our founding fathers who struggled to make a system of balances that not only checked the powers of different branches of the federal government against one another, but also checked the federal government against each sovereign state's government. As part of this envisioned proceeding they decided that the senate would consist of two people from every state being elected for terms of six years. They would stagger the elections so that only one senator would be up for election at any one time. And these senators, these men who were elected to represent their states were to be chosen, not by voice of the people but rather by voice of the state legislature.

Then came the 17th amendment, people decided that they didn't want their duly elected legislatures of their home states to do the electing, but rather the people of the state. This eliminated the republican portion of our government, making that higher house answer directly to the people rather than to their states. Why is this bad? The one legislative body that was supposed to be representative of the sovereign states, the legislative body that serves longer because it is meant to be immune from the whimsy of a less informed public, just became a sort of super house of representatives. The senate no longer represents a state's interests, it represents the common voters interests.

The founding fathers recognized that the average voter does not have time to fully understand and research the positions of everybody running for high office. They also understood that the most important elections, for everybody, are those elections closest to home. As such, they put in place a system that emphasized knowing and voting for the officers closest to you, who would have to answer to you - representatives in your local district going to the house of representatives and state legislators going to the statehouse from your precinct. By making senators a statewide, popularly elected body we de-emphasized the importance of electing our state legislators, that used to be how we had a say in who went to the U.S. Senate. And we weakened our system of State and Federal governance. The individual, sovereign states became less sovereign, corruption was pushed further along the chain, and high money/high power donors gained an overly powerful influence on those running for higher office.

It used to be that there wasn't much value in buying off a senator, because the legislature back home would be aware of that and shut it down. You could buy off the state legislatures, sure, but that's more people who are closer to the voters, and then our right to vote was more powerful, the corruption was closer to us and so we had more say. The corruption got pushed further down the line so we don't see it as much, and so we have less say in controlling it. I hate the 17th amendment.

Okay, sorry - just wanted to share that. My thoughts were a little scattered. Oh, and I suppose I should probably also share that I proposed on Sunday November 8th. She said yes. We're getting married on December 15th in Utah, the reception will be the night before. If you'd like an announcement/invitation please send me your address. Contact me for more details. Some people might be mad if I made a whole blogpost without mentioning that.

Thematically Speaking

2009-10-25T00:52:00.002-04:00

I know. I've had a brief hiatus from blogging. I apologize. It may have been somewhat more than brief. July 10? Nothing has happened since then! Good news for anybody who actually follow my blog though - I almost never write anything directly about what has been happening in my life, so you don't really miss out on anything - I just meander and share thoughts. A few quick notes before I start off on my latest diatribe. First off, I'm alive and well, working hard with school, work, and two jobs (I've been doing some work for a family law practice here in Richmond). I have a lot of ideas I've been yearning to get down, so you lucky few who read this will get to have a taste of those. So, upcoming blog posts: First, this week is a week of birth, the past few weeks have been weeks of rebirth - I'll be writing another post on birth and what it means to me in the wake of these past weeks and especially the past few days: my beautiful niece Honor was born to my amazing little sister Amanda and her loving husband, Craig. My Grandfather just celebrated another year of life. My dear older brother just had his birthday. These are some of the most important people in my life. I have to recognize them, hopefully I'll get my thoughts out soon. Later this week.
Next, I've given two talks in church since my last post, I think they're pretty good and hopefully you'll enjoy reading them. They'll be edited and posted sometime soon as well: one on obedience and one on education. Also: an analysis of Where the Wild Things Are - I love film and want to try out an in-depth analysis, in conformity with my post today. Upcoming: Freedom isn't Free and what that means - I've got two books to read before I make that post, but I've been thinking about it since July. Hopefully my thoughts will be of some worth.

Now, a quick post. When I was in my high school freshman English class, my teacher, Jasper Warembourg, told us all that up until that time most of us had only ever read books for plot, and that he was going to teach us how to read for theme. I don't even know whether I did learn the difference then, but I know now that learning that difference was one of the most important lessons I've learned in my life. Plot is important, but theme is essential. That is the difference between a true classic and cultural fads. I read the first book of the Twilight series, and I have some serious qualms about its structure, style, and substance. But recently I realized that the real reason that I find little value in that series is that it is based almost entirely on plot. There is no richness of theme, no deeper meaning behind the stories to be told. I find that Harry Potter is a series of books that is also not extremely well written, and I also have serious issues with it's style and substance. Rowling uses many of the crutches that Mayer does, but she is a superior author in her form. Despite that, it is the richness of theme that saves Rowling. Albeit a typical thematic choice, the Harry Potter explores the nature of right and wrong, politics, and the challenges of growing into maturity. Perhaps I underestimate Mayer's work - it seems that, thematically speaking, she may be addressing adolescence and growth into adulthood in her own way. Perhaps it is something that is more thematically rich to those who have experienced female adolescence, I cannot understand its appeal.
Excuse that digression, I mean it only as an illustration. My favorite works are often blunt in their themes - C.S. Lewis was straight allegorical, and Hugo used blunt tools as well. But despite the bluntness of the theme, its profundity and richness has touched my heart. Truly great works, whether they be in film, music, literature, or whatever medium, have levels of depth and meaning to them. So it is in our lives, each moment can have greater meaning than we recognize, and to reach greatness, I believe, we must be able to recognize the depth of meaning in our own lives. I have heard it said that when you have the proper spirit, even the worst sermon will touch your soul. I agree, but I also feel that there also exists a part in the sermon. A person who sees the themes in the world, a person who follows the spirit, will recognize profound truths in even the smallest and simplest things. But this is not to say that the same person, when guided by the spirit, cannot find far greater things in that which is truly prfound....

Hopefully my musings have some sense to them. I apologize if they don't. In closing, just in case I fail to write as soon as I intend - Cy, Grandpa, and Honor.... Happy Birthday! Thank you so much for loving and supporting me, Cy and Grandpa. You've both been such wonderful influences in my life. And Honor, you have an amazing mother and father - and aunts and uncles aplenty who will spoil you (as well as your grandparents!!) welcome to the world. I cannot wait to meet and hold you, I love you already.

My Fathers

2009-07-10T17:23:00.000-04:00

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to express how grateful I am for the fathers in my life. I hope you will indulge me, as I introduce my topic today by telling you about my fathers. Many of you know my grandfather, and I hope those of you that do can recognize the spiritual giant that he is. For the past 3 years, I have lived with him and my grandmother, and that opportunity has been one of the greatest of my life. During this time he has been my father away from home. He is one of the kindest, most generous, and most loving people I have ever known, and a patriarch in every sense of the word. I hope some day that I might be able to say that I lived a life as good as his. [I have a picture of he and my grandmother next to my bed, they’re on a cruise in Alaska, and he is comforting her from the cold… that picture is a goal for me in life, I want to emulate my grandpa in my life.]

Then there’s my stepfather, Scott. A drinking, smoking, foul-mouthed catholic [and former pig farmer and long-haul truck driver from outside of Chicago] who met a single LDS mother of 5 and changed his life. He came into my mother’s life when she was truly struggling, and was willing to help her raise 5 children between the ages of 8 and 15. At the same time he gave up smoking and drinking and began to attend church with us despite the differences in our beliefs. With time, he took the discussions, joined the church, and was sealed to my mother. I can only hope he knows how much I love him, I don’t know where me and my siblings would be without him. And for being a support to my mother during one of the most difficult times of her life, I will be eternally grateful to him.

Which brings me to my father… those of you who have heard me talk of my dad have probably heard me say that he is my ultimate example, of both how and how not to live. I love my dad more than words can fully convey. And I will use his story, and mine, as a narrative of a much larger and more important topic today. When I was 10 years old, I thought my parents had the perfect marriage, I thought my dad (who served as our ward’s Elder’s quorum president) would be our next bishop, my dad was my hero. Suffice it to say, on my tenth birthday I was not prepared for the year that would come. Over the following year my parents would separate and then divorce, and my dad would be excommunicated from the church. My father, my hero, had fallen.

Brothers and sisters, although my fathers have always been there for me I am aware that not all are so lucky. [Unfortunately, because of circumstance, many have lost their fathers prematurely, and even more unfortunately, some fathers neglect their duty towards their children. Although that has never been the case for me, I have known what it is like to be in the only worthy priesthood holder in my home, as a deacon. I remember on more than one occasion getting myself up and walking to church when nobody else would. I remember finding for the first time in my life just how important it is that I not only had fathers here on earth, but that I had a heavenly father.]

It is the first article of our faith that “we believe in God, the eternal Father,” OUR eternal Father. And the best-known hymn in the church expresses that same, simple truth that far too often goes under-appreciated. “I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.” [As we have recently celebrated our mothers, and as today we celebrate our fathers, I urge you to remember the truth taught in that hymn, that he has given us our earthly home, and our beloved parents.] Despite all the emphasis given to this most important of doctrines, I am saddened along with Elder Holland who noted in 2003 that “some in the contemporary world suffer from a distressing misconception of (God)… there is a tendency to feel distant from the Father, even estranged from Him, if they believe in Him at all. And if they do believe, many moderns say they might feel comfortable in the arms of Jesus, but they are uneasy contemplating the stern encounter of God.” Jeffrey R. Holland – the Grandeur of God, October 2003

Joseph Smith taught that "it is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God.” He said “I want you all to know Him and to be familiar with Him.” History of the Church 6:305 and he admonished us to have "a correct idea of his . . . perfections, and attributes…the excellency of [His] character." Lectures on Faith (38, 42)

Brothers and sisters, the primary character of God is that of a Father. Of all the titles given to God, the supreme Governor of the universe, perhaps Abba (Daddy) is the most appropriate. When we address one another as Brother or Sister, we are expressing a most profound truth. We are all, in a very real sense, children of the same loving father.

[My dad grew up on a dairy farm in Lindon. He was one of ten children. He gained the ability to work hard and a lot of toughness. He was a successful high school basketball and football player. In spite of his size he made all-state on the offensive line for Pleasant Grove High School. Since he was young, he would get up early to go fishing by himself, and every year he eagerly awaits hunting season. If there is such a thing as a cowboy, my dad fits the description – when he talks about his mission he often says that one day he was out birthing calves in a field and the next he was in a suit and tie, and trying to understand the accents of the Irish people he had been told spoke English. There is no place where my dad is more comfortable than up in the mountains. ]

[For as long as I can remember my dad has worked as either a maintenance man or a janitor, taking on as many side jobs as he can to pay the bills. He has cleaned pools, dug trenches, milked cows, coached basketball and fixed just about anything on the side just to keep his head above water. He works almost 80 hrs/week, despite health problems and despite the fact that both his knees have lost their cartilage and need to be replaced. Life is not easy for him. And] on more than one occasion, while looking in my eyes he has said to me – “I may not have a lot in this life, but I have 6 wonderful children who have grown to be amazing people, despite their father. If it weren’t for you kids, I think I might just go up in the mountains and live.” Please believe me when I say that if anybody could and would do it, it’s my dad. If I’m sure of anything in this life I am sure that my dad loves me more than I can understand – I know that the love of a father towards his children is truly great.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 One of the best known scriptures in Christendom again conveys the same simple message I hope to convey to you today. God is the Father of our spirits and he loves us more than we can understand. He sent his only begotten son, our elder brother to this earth because he loves us, because he is our father.

When Enoch spoke to God and saw him cry, he asked, "How is it that thou canst weep? . . . Thou art just [and] merciful and kind forever; . . . Peace . . . is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?" And Our Father responded:
"Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands. . . . I gave unto them . . . [a] commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. . . . Wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?" Moses 7:29–33, 37.

I don’t know if there is a greater example of God’s nature as our father than that found in Moses 7. He who is above all things weeps over us, because he so loves us. He is our Father.

When I was nine I went to my parents bedroom and asked them, “what if the church isn’t true? what if Joseph Smith just made it up?” My dad looked at me and rather than correct my doubt or panic about my question just asked, “What if he did just make it up, Isaac? What then?” I believe that moment was when I first started gaining a testimony of this work for myself. I stopped an thought, and I began to recognize that I didn’t understand a world where the gospel wasn’t true. That day I started on the path toward conversion. In the ensuing years, despite all that has happened my dad has been a great influence on my testimony. This excommunicated member, who has been the victim of vicious rumors, and who has lost most of the friends that he had in the church has never denied his testimony. Because of my father here on earth I have come to know my Eternal Father. And because of my Eternal Father I know the truth of this gospel. Bear Testimony.

A Weekend of Independence

2009-07-07T14:06:00.006-04:00

I had an eventful 4th of July weekend. I had the day off work on Friday and Stephanie didn't have any appointments so we got up bright and early and drove up to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I'll have to get some of the pictures she took while we were there but it was an amazing day. We went through the National Soldiers' Cemetery where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, dedicating the cemetery to those who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was a pretty amazing place to be. Afterwards we walked along Cemetery Ridge, where Pickett's Charge occurred. And, without having planned so, we were there on the afternoon of July 3rd, the same date and time when the charge occurred.
Gettysburg is a beautiful little town, filled with rolling hills, trees, and wildflowers, if it weren't for the numerous monuments and plaques placed in memory of the events that took place, it might be hard to believe that such a bloody battle occurred there over 3 days in July of 1863.
As we drove home to Richmond, we decided to cut west and go the long, scenic way around so that we could avoid Washington, D.C. traffic. Interstate 81 is a beautiful peace of highway that cuts right through the Shenandoah Valley and it was really nice to drive down it and past the Blue Ridge Mountains. Made me miss the mountains back home. On the way back we decided to stop and get some dinner and ended up in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. While we didn't visit any of the historical parts there, we did have a nice dinner and get to see this peaceful little town that was once the site of Brown's Raid. It was also interesting to learn that Lewis and Clark went to Harpers Ferry to get their weapons before beginning their westward trek.
Now, for the sad part of my Friday. After having driven more than 500 miles I dropped Stephanie off at her house and headed home. I was ready for bed and not even paying attention anymore, I guess, because apparently I coasted downhill on a road in a 35 mph zone and let my car get going a little too fast. A police officer pulled me over and wrote me a ticket. So, now I get to go to traffic court in late August. Fun. Luckily I haven't had any speeding tickets before this so I should be able to get traffic school and not have it count against me. At least, I'm told the Chesterfield County judge is a big fan of traffic school.
Saturday morning I woke up early to go to our ward's pancake breakfast and enjoyed a good meal. Before we all ate, Susie Levin, the bishop's wife, gave a short program talking about the importance of the holiday we were celebrating and the faith of the founding fathers of our nation. It was really quite good. Then, after breakfast a few crazy people (we ended up being a group of 17, I think) decided to drive up to the Metro station just south of Washington, D.C. and ride into the city to watch fireworks and do some tourism beforehand. I've been in Richmond, only a couple of hours from our nation's capitol, for nearly a year now and this was the first time I really went into the city. Crazy. I loved it!
We walked around and saw the White House, got some lunch, went through the American History Museum, then took a hike over to the Jefferson Memorial where we set up place to watch the fireworks. While we waited for the show to start, some of us went and spent some time looking at the Jefferson Memorial and walking over to the FDR Memorial, which is awesome! It was a lot of fun, and the fireflies were out too, so it made it really neat. Finally, it was time for the fireworks to begin. Coming from a small town, I'm not used to big fireworks displays and I should say that D.C. has a pretty impressive show, especially from our viewpoint across the reflecting pool and seeing the Washington Monument. It was amazing.
After all that we had to leave the city. Trying to get 17 of us to stick together as we walked over to the metro station and then all getting on the same train was insane. And the ride back to the Springfield station where we had parked was very crowded, we got to be very comfortable in one another's close proximity. But it was lots of fun and totally worth it.
Watching the grand finale of the firework display, I paused to think of the significance of our celebrating our independence with such an array. They let off so many fireworks, so quickly, that much of the display is muted by the noise and the smoke, and you can see clearly how the fireworks represent the artillery and violent explosions of the war that was fought for our independence. Touring the battlefields and seeing the cannons and positions of the Civil War and reading Lincoln's short dedication to the soldiers
who fought to maintain our nation's unity, caused me to pause and think of how great the sacrifice has been to get us where we're at. I think I've always appreciated the blessings of living here, but I don't know that I've always properly understood the sacrifice that has gone into providing them. One of my favorite books is All Quiet on the Western front by Erich Maria Remarque, which tells the tale of soldiers on the German side of the First World War and their realization of the loss on both sides of that war. Standing in Gettysburg and then driving back to Richmond, capitol of the Confederacy, caused me to pause and to think about the sacrifice of war on both sides of conflict. How fortunate we are for those whose lives have been lost. May we always remember the cost of war.

Family

2009-06-29T16:05:00.011-04:00

So. I posted about my life earlier today. I didn't like it, so don't expect much more of it. I don't know why, I feel awkward talking about what's going on in my life in this forum, it's weird considering how open I generally am. Father's Day just passed. Last year I got to speak in church and honor the fathers in my life. I think tomorrow I'll post that old talk. I've been thinking about family a lot lately, about the nature of family and how it relates to everything in our lives. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that. But first, I'm an uncle! I suppose I should announce that here. Now, to introduce you to my niece, Michelle, my future niece, Honor, and my two honorable nephews, Max and Connor. And let's not forget Teesa. Hope nobody minds me stealing some pictures! :)

Michelle Ann Adams was born June 18, 2009. She is the first daughter of my older brother Cy and his beautiful wife Brittany. I can't wait until I can go home and meet her. She's lucky to have such wonderful parents.

Then I have Honor Celeste Hadfield coming. My younger sister Amanda and her husband, Craig are excited to be parents and according to Amanda's blog there are 121 days left until she joins us. I can't wait to meet her too.
So far all I can show you is an ultrasound image. But I'm sure she'll be super cute. I've also been super fortunate to be close friends with some amazing people who have recently had children. Jimmy Salmans and his wife Hilary welcomed Maxwell into the world this March. I was able to visit with them and to meet Max the last time I traveled home. Returning from my grandmother's funeral, I was still dressed in my suit, and he decided to spit up. That's just a hazard that comes with kids, so I didn't mind at all. But Jimmy and Hilary were very sorry and informed me that it was Max's biggest spit up to date! So glad I could be there for the moment. He even managed to launch everything enough that he got a little past me and to my friend Rachel who was next to me. :)

L to R: Maxwell Salmans, Connor Swart

Healthy boy there. And on Saturday my good friend Johnathan and his wife Jannene welcomed their son Connor to the world. I was able to talk with Johnathan last night and he, like Jimmy, pronounced me an honorary uncle.

Finally, I may never know her, but when I talk about being an uncle I have to remember my beautiful little sister's gift to a loving family. If I remember right, it was February 2, 2005 when Teesa was born. Amanda's Adia Faith.
I remember driving with my father to be in Logan when she was born. I remember getting to meet her before she was adopted. I remember the opportunity I had to talk about my brothers and sisters with my dad, to talk about the joys of family and the importance of the little moments in life. Lately, I've been thinking about my family a great deal, and about the nature of family. The family is ordained of God, I have no doubt of that. By and through it he provides us with our closest friends and our greatest support. And in experiencing the highs and the lows of the family relationship, we come to know God better. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once noted, of all God's titles the one he prefers is Father.
Joseph Smith once said that it is the first principle of the gospel to know the true nature of God. The true nature of God is as our Father, loving, caring, providing for our needs and watching over us, guiding us. And as our father he watches our foibles, our errors, our mistakes. He sees us hurt, and he mourns for us. He is our father, and I believe that to become a parent is to begin to understand how our Father in Heaven sees us. Congratulations to all of the new parents in my life. Thank you for allowing me to be an uncle! I cannot wait until I can join your ranks as parents, remember that you are being entrusted with the care of God's children. Love them and care for them. Thank you for offering me a place in their lives. I'm so excited for all of you! And for so many other friends and family who are new parents or who have recently had newborns. Congratulations all.

An Update on Life

2009-06-29T13:21:00.003-04:00

I figure that I should get back in the habit of blogging sometime soon, and the only way to start up again is to start posting again! So, unfortunately y'all are going to have to deal with reading up on what I've been up to. Which is probably what most people had expected from this blog when it started... oh well, I forget the purposes of my projects at times.

So, let's fill you in on my status. A few weeks ago I started working with the Genworth Financial Agency Virginia Office, which services people who are interested in Longterm Care Insurance in the Virginia and Washington, D.C. area. I'm currently the Administrative Assitant pro tempore, as the previous Admin Assistant changed position to become a field agent. I'm filling in while others are interviewed for the permanent position, but in the fall I will begin as the Marketing Intern, so that will be exciting.

About the same time that I started working at Genworth, I also started dating a young lady named Stephanie, so far so good on that front. She's a photographer and on Saturday we went to the Canal Walk in downtown Richmond so that she could practice some lighting techniques and improve her mad photography skills. Then Saturday night my friend Daniel tried to get 100 people into the theater to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Not a great movie, but it was fun to gather with everybody.

Other than dating and work, I've tried to keep busy by reviewing and preparing for the upcoming term of school and catching up on lots of reading. My latest book obsession is studying the Presidents of the United States (not the band) so I've been collecting books written by each president. So far I've only gone as far back as Franklin Roosevelt with my collection (in reverse order) and I've decided that I need to read what I've got at the moment before I invest in the memoirs of Herbert Hoover, which are actually quite extensive. I've also been reading a lot of books on the Supreme Court, which is fascinating. I love the history of the court and while no book has been as good as The Brethren by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, I'm learning a lot.

I guess that's the update for now. I'm teaching the Institute of Religion class this Tuesday and the topic is Chastity and Moral Cleanliness, so I may update you on how that goes.

Primary Colors

2009-06-09T17:25:00.003-04:00

Those of you who read me regularly, know that I don't write on my blog regularly. At least not anymore. Perhaps I'll improve on that. I might blog about my new employment, or what happened over Memorial day weekend, and other exciting happenings in my life. But today, today I voted in the Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, and so I want to share some political thoughts again. Everybody who hates me talking about politics, altogether say "yay!"

To begin, I should state that I live in a largely Republican precinct, and that it is just a primary for the gubernatorial race. There is only one candidate for governor from the Republican party this year so there was no primary. But it's an open primary, hence independents like myself and Republicans can vote in the primary. I voted today at 5:05 PM. The polls opened at 6:00 AM. I was the 27th person to vote in my precinct today. In 11 hours, they had fewer than 30 people vote. This makes me sad.

So many people have died so that we have the right to vote in Democratic elections, so many people have fought, marched, and worked consistently so that we all can vote. And while I have abstained from voting at times because I felt uneducated about the candidates and feel strongly that our right to vote is accompanied by an obligation to vote knowledgeably, I am shocked that so few people made their way to the polls today. I know people don't vote in primaries as much as in general elections. I know that people don't vote in gubernatorial and senatorial elections as often as presidential elections, that they vote even less in local elections. But it makes me sad. Why do we get so passionate about presidential elections and forget to vote for the people who have so much more control over our immediate lives? Why don't people educate themselves on all of the primary candidates and vote so that they can help determine the candidates in the general election? So often I hear others lament that they feel as though they're voting for the lesser of two evils! And so many of them failed to vote in the primary, where they could have chosen a non-evil... I'm sad, vote. Please, vote. And vote knowledgeably, it doesn't take that long to look into the candidates, learn the distinctions between them, and vote for the person who can best represent you.

While I'm on the topic, I want to say something about the last presidential election a little bit. Many of you know that I love President Obama, that I donated and worked for his campaign, and that I believe he has the potential to be the greatest president I will see in my lifetime. With that being said, I have something to say about other supporters of President Obama. He ran with a campaign slogan of "Yes, We Can!" a slogan garnered from his concession speech after the New Hampshire Primary returns showed him losing to Hillary Clinton. If you haven't heard the speech, I reccommend you watch it on youtube. It's one of his best. So that became the slogan, it was on bumper stickers. Good times, it's an inspiring message, if we work together we can change the world and our nation. Listen to the speech, that's the message. November 7, 2008 Barack Obama wins the presidential election, November 8, 2008 bumper stickers appear on cars saying "Yes, We did!"

I shake my head everytime I see that. The message was that together, working as communities, we can change and improve our world. On November 7 the majority of voting Americans voted for a man who believes in that premise and wants to enact a type of that change. That's all. Yes, We Can isn't a slogan saying "Yes, we can elect a black man president" or "yes, we can elect a guy with a funny name president" or even "yes, we can elect a democrat president." Yes We Can is a slogan saying that we can improve our world, that by working together we can enact real, positive change. Yes We Did what? Ugh. Yes, we can, but we haven't done yet. Why doesn't everybody realize that? No one man can do everything that needs to be done. Just getting the man you want to lead you elected accomplished something, but not everything. Nobody should say "Yes, we did."

Christ, The Helmsman

2009-05-06T14:23:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody, I know it's been a long time since I've updated this. Sorry about that, hopefully I'll get a little bit better. This past weekend I was asked to speak at Stake Conference. Some have expressed interest in reading the talk I gave, so the closest thing I have follows. As always, this is an approximation of what I said based on the talk I brought with me and what I can remember changing when I gave the talk - I think it's fairly close to the talk I actually gave. Here you go:

Imagine yourself out on a small boat at sea. The night falls and a storm comes, water beings pounded against you, the boat tosses on the waves. You fear capsizing, thunder roars as you being taking on water. How do you react, what do you feel?
Now, imagine yourself at home, lying in bed. It’s a clear cool night and just as you’re about to fall asleep for the night you hear shouts in the street. Your friends and neighbors are being beaten, and forced from their homes. They’re coming for you as well. Your house is being torn down, and all you possess is being tossed into the street. You try to reason with your oppressors but all they know is hate for you and your people. Screams of murder fill the night. And even when you finally find a new place to live, a little north, you feel safer – but you have no home, and it’s the winter. You’ve lost most of your possessions. How do you react? What do you feel?

Is it peace?

“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” (Mark 4:39) “Let your hearts be comforted… for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God.”

When others faced these challenges, the Savior came to them and gave those words of comfort. He taught them peace. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27). All of us will know intimately both joy and sorrow in our lives. Yet the Savior's message in times of sorrows has consistently been that of peace, of his peace. When Alma, the younger faced harrowing so great he thought he would perish, he remembered the Savior of whom his father had taught and received joy so great as to exceed his sorrow. Jacob, the brother of Nephi described his life by saying "the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, castout from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our bretheren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore we did mourn out our days." (Jacob 7:26). When Joseph Smith faced despair as he was imprisoned and his people faced discrimination he called out " O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?" (Doctrine and Covenants 121:1) In response he was told "thou art not yet as Job" (Doctrine and Covenants 121:10) and "The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (Doctrine and Covenants 122:8). When Christ tells us that he offers us not the peace of the world, but his peace, we should look at His life. This man who knew little more than scourn throughout his life, he was betrayed by one of his closest friends, spit upon, mocked, tortured, and killed. The peace he spoke of was an inner peace, a comfort that comes when we entrust our lives in his hands.
This past week I had a small experience with trial and trusting my life to be led by my Savior. Last Thursday morning I received a phone call from my Dad. He and I are close, and we talk fairly often, but I cannot recall the last time I talked to him on a Thursday morning... He had called to inform me that my grandmother had passed away the night before. When I asked how he was doing I could hear sorrow in his voice as he said "you're never ready to lose your mother." He told me that he would let me know about the funeral details and I said I wished I could make it, but I had finals the next week and probably wouldn't. After I got off the phone with him, and spent a few moments recalling my grandmother, I felt a strong impression and desire to go home. I needed to say goodbye, family is far more important than school. I flew home to watch as my grandfather said goodbye to the woman who had been his closest friend from the time they were 13 years old. I spoke with and embraced each of the 10 children, my father, my aunts, and my uncles, who were now without their mother. As I looked at the frail body that had been her vessel in this life, and watched our family mourn, I felt peace. And as I spoke with my grandfather, and my aunts and uncles I could tell how much it meant that I was there, where I belonged. Among the greatest blessings I received for being where I belonged happened the morning of the funeral. For the first time I can recall in my adult life, I heard my father pray. You would have to know a great deal more of my life and my past to understand what that moment meant, but it may have been the greatest blessing I received so far this year.

It may be death or illness, poverty or heart break. But, all men, no matter their station in life, will pass through sorrow. Whatever struggles we have in life, however minor they may seem can shake us. The storms of life will come upon us, they will toss us, and we may fear capsizing. Yet, if we have Christ at our head, all will be well.

Jesus, Savior, Pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea;
As a mother stills her child,
Thou canst hush the ocean wild;
Boist’rous waves obey thy will
When thou say’st to them, “Be Still!”
Wondrous Sov’reign of the sea
Jesus, Savior, Pilot me
(Hymn 104 – Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me)

Christ calls unto all of us. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Christ is at the helm of this church, piloting us through life’s stormy seas. He is at the helm of our lives, if we will only let him have the wheel. When his disciples were on that storm-tossed boat, they asked “what manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:41). He is our Savior, the manner of man who can command the wind and waters that rage on in the storms of our lives, and they will obey him. Whatever travails we may pass through, they will be for our good, and if we trust in him, he will stop the storm before we perish. Who would you rather have at the head of your lives than He who is master of earth, wind, and sea? He who can calm and command the storms in our lives.
He lives. I know that he lives. He has comforted me through those few trials I have faced so far, he will guide me through all trials that may come. Because of this Restored Gospel, I know him more intimately and personally. He has given men on this earth his authority that they may aid him as he guides us through life’s rocky shoals. Trust him, and he will lead you home to that God who loves you. I testify of this. In the name of Jesus Christ, my pilot, Amen.

I Understand

2009-02-27T08:40:00.002-05:00

What would you do? What could you possibly do if you were faced with something that for so long seemed impossible? There's a difference between what we desire and what we should desire. Fortunately for must of us we never have to face that reality. We are never confronted with a package of all that we should desire, but don't. But what if you were... what if everything you should desire should suddenly appear in your life? What if it were wrapped in so much you truly do desire? What would you do?

One Christmas in the mission we received a special surprise from our families, everybody wrote us letters telling us how much they loved and appreciated us. I remember being so touched by all the thoughts expressed by my parents, my brothers, and my sisters. Sadly, I cannot find those letters today. But I remember that in my father's letter he told a story that I loved. It's a Christmas story about two sons, one an unfailing optimist, the other a persisting pessimist. The parents of these sons did an experiment for Christmas in an attempt to curb the extreme behavior of those sons. Usually, I focus on the story of the optimist, a little boy who entered his room Christmas morning to find a pile of horse manure and rather than despair began digging. When his parents asked him why he was so happy when his Christmas gift was so terrible, he smiled and replied "with all this manure there has to be a pony in here somewhere!" I'll talk about that little boy more at some point. But what of the other son? His room was filled full of marvelous toys, and yet he sat in the middle of the room crying, terrified that he would break them. Terrified.

Life is not so simple as the stories. We, each of us, have a little bit of each son within us. At different times, different aspects may become apparent. Sometimes, we find our new toys and at first we are enamored with them. But what happens when we realize that they are capable of breaking, that we must be careful how we play with them? In John Steinbeck's short tale "Of Mice and Men," Lennie doesn't want to hurt anything, but when he sees something he likes he just wants to have it. What then, of that thing you don't expect to find - what then, of all that you should desire when it suddenly appears to you? You rush to it, you embrace it and with the same fervor of Lennie you try to make it our own. But in that fervor, you hurt it. Unlike Lennie, you recognize that you've damaged this beautiful thing and you can't stand to hurt it more. You're afraid not only of hurting it, but hurting yourself. How could you live with yourself if you destroyed that marvelous thing?

You step back, you decide that you need to be more careful. But still, it represents so much... Still it is there tempting you, not with carnality or sin, but with the potential of heaven. There, before you, is the possibility of joy. But you're not ready for it, who is? In life's journey we all wander from the path at times. You've just regained your footing, you're just starting back on the path... the treasure is supposed to be at the end of the path, not here, not now! You're not ready for this. You're not even sure if this is the path you want to be on... And yet it beckons to you, the possibility inherent in all that you should desire. Lamentably, that is all it is - everything you should desire, not everything you do desire. Perhaps one day you will, and then what a fool if you leave it alone! But for now... for now it is just potential and you're not sure if you want that potential. It would take work, it would take changes in all your vast web of belief.... And you might break it and eliminate the possibility that somebody more capable, somebody better prepared might love that thing. You don't want to break any of your toys, but this one? This toy you know you should love.... the thought of destroying it is too much. Besides, are you ready for those possibilities? It was always just something in future, it was always just something that would happen when you were ready and the time was right... You aren't ready yet, the time cannot possibly be right. Ever cautious you reject this thing. Ever cautious. You might break it, it might break you. What if it, like so much else in life, fails you? What if it isn't what it's supposed to be... could you handle that? You read your Kafka and your Flaubert. All is vanity - apparent exceptions are just mirages. It was never real. Maybe there was joy there, but isn't safer never to know... Isn't it safer to live outside the fire?

In his story "The Great Divorce," C.S. Lewis tells of a dream he once had. In this dream he saw a vision of heaven and hell. He tells this parable, he finds this guide and at the end of the dream the angelic guide tells him that it is only a vision, that he could not handle the fullness of what heaven and hell are, but that it is as close as he can comprehend. So it is with me and this. Perhaps I see only the shadow, but I think I understand. Beauty, awareness, caution. If only caution could be thrown to the wind! But it is inherent in you... I have so far thrown caution to the wind. I always shall. And that has made all the difference.

Loving your fellow man

2009-01-27T16:44:00.002-05:00

The last week was really hard on me, one of the most difficult weeks of my life. I guess life is just a struggle sometimes. Luckily, I was able to pause and reflect upon how little my struggles amount to compared to others.
My bishop out here recently wrote a new book with a holocaust survivor, entitled "The Gazebo" which is the account of Alexander Lebenstein who was willing to share his story with Bishop Levin. He came and gave a fireside Sunday night and told us his story. The message I heard was one about the futility of vacuous nature of hatred.
I've been thinking lately about what the worst word in the english language is. I realized on Sunday night that the worst words that can be spoken by the human tongue are those that are accompanied and arise out of hate. Slurs. So often hate we feel is mindless, reasonless. So often we neglect reason and fall into line with others around us. It makes me sad.
Other news - Saturday I was an auctioneer for a service auction. I highly enjoy being an auctioneer. I think I'll try it again sometime! And yesterday we had a comedy/variety show for family home evening. I read a book by Mo Willems. I love Mo Willems.

To My Friends and Family, 2008 Edition

2009-01-27T16:14:00.003-05:00

Every year since I have returned home from my mission, I have written about the year that passed when the new year arrived. I'm a little late this year, I hope you will forgive me. 2008 was busy and brought a lot of change in my life. Last January I had just graduated from BYU and got the results of my LSAT back. This January I'm in law school at the University of Richmond, living 2000 miles away from almost everybody I knew before I moved out here.
As with previous years I have experienced love and loss. It's sad to say that I can barely remember where I was a year ago. I had a fun summer, filled with concerts and friends. But I didn't date much because I was moving out here. I got to finish out my calling as co-chair of the activities committee and plan some fun stuff. But, honestly, I don't think I made the most out of my last few months in Pleasant Grove. In August it was time to leave my grandparents and some of my closest friends. That was hard. I still miss so many of my close friends from college and the Mt. Mahogany ward, but it was time to move on.
One of the great opportunities I had as I moved out to Richmond was driving across the country with my mother. She told me once that sometimes she thinks I just tolerate her. That just made me realize how little I do to show her how much I appreciate and love her. Spending that week with my mom was one of the best moments of my year. I hope she knows how much she means to me, my mother is one of the most amazing people in the world. I don't think I tell her that enough.
I guess this isn't going to go in chronological order, because talking about my Mum makes me think of my Dad. In the past several months I've had pause to reflect on how much he really means to me as I've realized how fragile life is. Dad was rushed to the hospital twice as teh year wore down... Tomorrow is Dad's birthday, and I wish I had the means to give him a gigantic gift and to let him know how much I love him. Unfortunately, I can mostly just tell him I love him. But as I think about it, to be able to hear somebody who really means it say those words, well, that's one of the most meaningful things in the world, isn't it? The more I live life the more I realize how much the simple things mean. How much goes into being able to truly say that you love another person.
The day I arrived in Richmond I got a phone call from my dear friend Erin, one of our friends from our ward in Pleasant Grove had died in a car accident. I would be remiss if I didn't pause for a moment to remember Kaleo and the influence he had on my life. Funny how loss affects us. Watching as my close friends deal with the loss of their loved ones, remembering my close friends and family who have passed, and recognizing how quickly those who mean the most to me can go, has made me appreciate ever more the value of the life I have and the importance of making the most of the time I have.
Since moving here I think the thing I have to say the least about is school. It's good, I like it. I need to work harder at it. Other than that I don't think there's much to say. I've made so many great friends here. I've grown in the gospel and been able to see many others grow. I guess I don't have much else to say, 2008 was a great year.

Winter Gala Ball

2008-12-12T10:25:00.007-05:00

I've had a few busy weeks and let blogging fall behind. So, today I think I may write as many as four different entries. Hope y'all don't mind! Here's the thing, this post here will probably be the most interesting one for most of you who read along hoping to hear how my life is going. As you can clearly see in this picture, I was in a tux with a stormtrooper. That's how my life is going! AWESOME. Well, let's start with last weekend. Last Friday night there was a large regional YSA activity for people all across Virginia and the D.C. area. So, my good friend Daniel and I decided to get some tuxes and some dates and go have a grand ol' time at the Downtown Richmond Marriott. We all went out to dinner and had a great night of dancing and fun. I took a good friend of mine who is heading back to BYU Idaho on Tuesday. I've been fortunate to become good friends with her.
Well, Melissa and I had a good time and I got to dance with lots of other close friends as well. It got to the point during the dance that one of my friends was standing at the side while I was dancing with another friend and she started talking to me, saying that I hadn't asked her to dance and she just had to stand on the side, so the girl I was dancing with excused herself and I danced with the other girl. Haha. I was very popular and was asked to dance as often as I asked people to dance.
So, that was the dance, we had a great time and met a storm trooper afterwards. The next day a group of us got together for a group date and a hockey game where we all had seats on the ice. The game was awesome as we watched the Richmond Renegades win in an overtime shoot out. It was lots of fun and crazy times.
In other news, I had my first final this Tuesday for Property Law, I think it went okay. I hope so anyhow! Life's been busy but super good. Oh, yeah... and I have kind of started dating this girl, Crystal. She's not in any of the pictures I have up on here because so far I don't have a picture of just the two of us together, but she's great. She's a 2nd year dental student from Holladay, Utah. I was fortunate that she was willing to give me a dance when we were at the ball, and she was even willing to let me spend some hours with her last Saturday. For those of you who are counting, that is 3 dates I had last weekend... We studied together on Monday, as she had her last final on Tuesday and I had my first final. And then we went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate the end of her finals and watched the movie Australia. I like her. So there's that. Thanks for reading, hope you all keep reading down for the other posts I've just made. Also, I'm super lazy and don't feel like fixing the picture layout. So deal with it.

Home

2008-12-12T10:24:00.002-05:00

I'm going home soon, for Christmas. I'm so excited to be there and to see everybody. But thinking about it and telling people that I'm going home has caused me to think a great deal about the concept of home. In one of my favorite movies, Garden State, there is a scene where the protagonist is speaking with his new girlfriend in a swimming pool and he says to her, "You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone." She quickly responds by saying "I still feel at home in my house." He responds by saying, "you'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place." I like that scene.
In some sense I think I can inversely identify with that scene. I see people who have that same kind of concept about home, where once they've left the house they grew up in for the world, they just can't find their home. In the movie he finds his home again as he falls in love with his girlfriend and begins to experience life anew. Lucky for me, I can only identify with his thoughts on home in an abstract manner, it has been the opposite for me. I feel like telling people who ask if I'm going home for Christmas that I'm flying home on the 21st, then I'm going to drive home with my sister, then I'll go back home for a few days with my grandparents, until I fly back home. If that last sentence doesn't make sense, don't worry, I hope it will.
The phrase "home is where the heart is" may be trite and cliche in many ways, but it also contains a great deal of truth. In my life, I have been truly blessed to find home wherever I have lived. Pinedale was my home growing up, and every time I return, although it has changed drastically since I left, I feel at home. I feel like I'm returning to a place that will always hold a special place in my heart, a place that truly is my home. But whenever I got to Pleasant Grove, whenever I get to see my grandparents who so generously allowed me to live with them while I went to school, I also feel like I've returned home. In Pleasant Grove I had so much family and I made so many friends that whenever I go there, I can't help but feel love. When I'm in Pleasant Grove I am home.
Finally, I'm here in Richmond. I moved out here in August without knowing a single soul closer than Charlotte, North Carolina. In a few short months I have come to know and love so many people. The bishop here told me on Sunday that I am one of his "peeps" and I have a place to go for every holiday if I need to. As surely as I know that my friends in Utah and Wyoming will go out of their ways to help me, I know that my friends here in Richmond will do the same.
What is the meaning of home? Where is it that we can truly call home? For me, the answer has fortunately been everywhere I go. It may take some time, it was a while before I could call the areas on my mission home, but the more I live the more I realize that home is where I am. Home is where I feel comfortable, and where my dearest, closest friends are. I can't wait to go home for Christmas, and I can't wait to return home for New Year's and see my grandparents, I can't wait to return home and start my study of the law back up. How did I get to be so fortunate as to find a home wherever I go?

The Suppressed Correlative

2008-12-12T10:23:00.002-05:00

In one of the first Ethics classes I took, taught by Dr. Gates at BYU, we had a day where we discussed a fallacy called the fallacy of the suppressed correlative. This fallacy is a fallacy of relativistic ethics, where those who claim that what is ethical is based upon every culture's own ethical theory. Basically, the idea of relativism is that each culture defines right or wrong according to its own set of standards. The fallacy of the suppressed correlative comes into play because once you make right and wrong subjective, or only objective according to a community, you deny the very nature of right and wrong. You can have no comprehension of what is right unless you understand what is wrong. This is what Lehi was pointing out to Jacob in 2 Nephi 2, there are some concepts that have no meaning unless the opposite exists. Without evil, good would not make sense. Without sorry, happiness could not exist. The contrast gives life to the good and the bad.
Well, that's the introduction to what I want to say here. I've been thinking about this a lot. In Law School teachers like to say that they use the "Socratic Method" of teaching, a system of dialectic where the teacher asks a series of questions to the students in an attempt to draw out the correct answer. This means that the student must explore each question and discover the answer on his own, and it is an effective teaching method.
However, I take umbrage at calling this the Socratic Method, not because it doesn't closely approximate the style Socrates used in his famed dialogs, but because the intent is wholly different. Now, take this with a grain of salt, as I only have a BA in Philosophy and may be largely erroneous in my understanding, but I believe that Socrates' intense with those he taught was not to teach any knowledge, but to teach ignorance. Socrates recognized the nature of true wisdom, you cannot be truly wise unless you recognize your own ignorance. Socrates primarily taught those who were high of mind, who thought they were experts in a given area, and demonstrated the flaws in their beliefs. He showed that even those with the most knowledge are largely ignorant. To be aware of that ignorance is the first step to becoming truly wise, no matter how much knowledge we obtain we will always have more to learn.
This is what I think about sometimes, the nature of virtue. Wisdom is a virtue that cannot be obtained until we are aware of its inverse, ignorance. Likewise with courage, the only truly courageous man is the man who acts despite his fears - it is only in recognizing the inverse that the man can be come truly courageous. You'll notice that I don't say the opposite, but the inverse. I think this is right, courage and fear are not opposed, but rather just on different ends of a spectrum, inverted, if you will. The Christian virtue of humility is impossible to obtain without a recognition of our own pride. If we would be virtuous we must recognize vice.

8 things

2008-12-09T16:38:00.003-05:00

My 8 Favorite TV Shows
1. House
2. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
3. The Colbert Report
4. The Office
5. Boston Legal
6. Countdown with Keith Olbermann
7. The Rachel Maddow Show
8. Mad Men

My 8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Tucano's
2. Mimi's Cafe
3. Jalisco
4. Ruby River Steakhouse
5. Cracker Barrell
6. IHOP
7. Chick Fil A
8. Waffle House (just for Mike Stafford)

8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. Property Study
2. Final Torts Class/Review
3. Time with Crystal
4. Frost/Nixon interviews arrived
5. Blessed a sick kid
6. Bought gas
7. Washed my car
8. Stayed up late

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. Cy and Brit's baby
2. Home for Christmas
3. Inauguration day
4. End of recession
5. End of Iraq War
6. Finishing school
7. Having time to write
8. Sleep

8 Things I Love About Winter
1. Christmas
2. My birthday
3. The New Year
4. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
5. Hot Chocolate
6. The smells
7. Cooler weather
8. Calm blankets of snow

8 Things On My Wish List
1. To be a husband and father
2. To visit Greece
3. To publish a book
4. To teach
5. To speak the 10 most spoken languages
6. The ability to slow and speed time
7. My own personal library
8. That my friends/families wishes will come true

8 People I Tag
I don't play tag.

The leaves are turning

2008-11-12T09:34:00.006-05:00

I'm a little late on this blog post so I'm going to include several stories from last week on it. The leaves are starting to fall here and for the past several weeks it has been really beautiful outside. I love the fall and Virginia is a great place in the fall, especially the University of Richmond campus. I think that the leaves in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island are still superior, but it's a really nice place to watch as things change.
So, speaking of that change, I am very happy about our new president-elect. I think that just in terms of how the world perceives us, he has already been a huge success. I had the great opportunity to work for the Obama campaign's voter protection program on election day. So, to be a poll watcher I had to be at Glen Allen Elementary School by 5:00 am, and I didn't leave until they called in the election results at about 8:30 that night. VERY long day. But it was a great opportunity and really inspiring to watch democracy at work. Glen Allen ended up favoring John McCain by about 400 votes, and by 3:00 PM we had nearly 80% voter turnout in that precinct.
Working with the people who gave their days to be poll workers was also pretty amazing. It was really funny because there were some high school students who were volunteering as well, and some of the older women at the polls started talking to me about how cute one of them was. Quickly realizing that I am a little out of high school one of the women said "yeah, but she would be jail bait for him." I barely stopped myself from laughing out loud at hearing a woman in her early 70s say the word jail bait. Even after that they didn't stop the conversation, going on to debate how they would feel as the parent of a 17 year old girl if a guy my age were trying to date her. At first they all agreed that they would not be comfortable with that, until one of them pointed out "well, he is going to be a lawyer." I stopped listening at that point, so I'm not sure what they concluded. As for my own conclusion? I'll stay away from 17 year old high school students, thank you very much.

More on the leaves turning. First, I need a camera. I've thought a bit about buying a camera, but maybe I should save my money. Around here somebody always seems to have a camera and they all have facebook accounts, so usually I just steal their pictures. It would be nice to be able to photograph all of the things I've been able to experience though. On Saturday my friend Mike and I spent the day with his family going to a place called Belle Isle, here in Richmond. It's a beautiful little island on the James River with a lot of history. Mike's sister-in-law Debbie took a lot of pictures of us, so I'll try and post some of those if I ever get them.
Mike called me up Saturday morning to see if I could help our relief society president move apartments, so I headed over there and Mike, Joseph, and I helped April, Natalie, and Jessica make sure Natalie's move from one side of the hall to the other went off without a hitch. Somehow, I think that we did more playing dress up than we did helping move. Luckily my quirkiness is matched by other people around here.

I gave a talk about the Prodigal Son on Sunday and that went really well. A lot of people seemed to really appreciate it. I also got to teach the lesson at Family Home Evening on Monday night, I taught my lesson based on a training I did back on the mission about avoiding weariness. That also seemed to go well, although not as well because we had FHE at a park and some people were cold. We went on to play a game of ultimate spoons and then headed back to a member's home for some hot cocoa and Krispy Kreme.

Basketball injuries and Halloween

2008-11-03T09:58:00.005-05:00

Everybody gather round for a super exciting story. Okay, first - look at this picture. Do you see my nose? Do you notice little bits of blood on it? How it's kinda-sorta damaged? Yeah, well... let me explain. So, I had a super hot date this week with an amazing girl - but I was a total jerk. At the end of the night I tried to move in for a kiss - and BAM! she punched me right in the nose with all of her might. I didn't give up easily and went in again - and BAM! Another hit, damaging the side of my nose. I don't know what's up but that girl can bunch in a manner that causes more scraping than normal punches to the face... I'm also not certain why she decided to punch my nose instead of just give me a nice shiner. It must just be her way, I guess. Anyhow, we're going on a second date this Tuesday....

Well, either that or I just made up a story. You guys can decide. In other news, there is a group of us that gathers together to play basketball every Thursday. A few weeks ago I twisted my ankle pretty bad while driving to the basket and landing on my own teammates foot. I actually kinda ended up tackling her, but I got hurt a lot worse than she did so she didn't beat me up or anything. That's only on dates. Despite the pain in my ankle I keep playing, but I have to play with my glasses on because I let my prescription for contacts expire and haven't made a new eye appointment so I can get some more contacts. Maybe I should do that soon, considering that something weird might happen while playing basketball. Something like, say, running into somebody who's arm hits my face in such a manner to cause my glass to flip up and kinda scrape the bridge of my nose. If something like that were to happen I could possibly get a scab similar to the one I got from that hot date last week.... Hmmm - maybe I shouldn't worry about it. That kind of thing seems HIGHLY unlikely. It's much more likely that a girl would punch me in such a manner when I try to kiss her on the first date, cuz that's totally my style, all aggressive and stuff. And after beating me up she would happily accept a second date with me. And I've never made up non-existent female companions for myself before. So you know that nothing like that basketball injury I just described could ever have happened, right?

So - now that we have that cleared up. This weekend was Halloween! I like Halloween.... it's kinda fun. Last year I was the Green Lantern. Because I was the Green Lantern last year I had these sweet spandex tights that I bought so that I could be the Green Lantern, cuz he's a superhero and wears tights. Well, for some random reason, perhaps the proximity to Halloween, this Thursday I decided to pull out the tights and go old school Dwyane Wade on the basketball court. Cuz the tights were totally the coolest thing in the NBA until David Stern got upset and changed the dress code so that he could deny Dwyane Wade that most basic of human rights, the right to wear tights! Fortunate fool that I am, I never made it to the NBA and so David Stern's fascistic rules do not apply to me! Thus, I wore my tights proudly as I played the games of basketball that, if it weren't for that hot date who beat me up, may have resulted in my nose getting scraped. Sadly, I tend to ruin all the nice things I get in life. And my style of basketball tends to be the hussle and dive on the floor style... which may lead to floor burns when not wearing tights and holes in tights when I wear them. That's right, I have a hole in my tights.... The Green Lantern may never rise again - how sad is that?

Luckily, my friend Tara had an idea for a different costume for me this Halloween. I have to admit that I kinda slacked this year and was not prepared at all with about a week before the big day. Well, Tara contacted me on facebook and basically commanded me to be Popeye the Sailor Man (that's right Tara, COMMANDED! mwahahaha [with and m]HA!!!). Well, I kept on procrastinating even after I finally had some idea of what to be and didn't try to put a costume together until Halloween day. Needless to say the result was somewhat less than spectacular as show in the picture to your right. I had to make a makeshift pipe out of a small plastic cup and a drinking straw. I didn't have a proper sailor hat to wear so I borrowed one of my friend Phil's hats. He later gave it to me (that's right, now I have a super sexy hat for my second date with that one girl that may or may not exist). You can't tell in this picture (another picture of me in this costume is rumored to exist, but I have not seen it yet - I may update), but I bought two small tan towels and drew an anchor tattoo on them then used elastic bands to tie them around my forearms, bought me a can of spinach, some navy blue pants that were totally high-water, and a nice black polo shirt to finish the ensemble. Also, I do a terrible Popeye voice. I am ashamed. We had a big ward activity handing out candy to kids and then a dance afterwards - others in this picture include from Left to Right: Melissa Penman, Arianne Barrus, Isaac the Sailor Imitator, Mike Stafford, and Melissa Richardson. Costumes are: olympian, elvis, Isaac, Ron Burgundy?, and pirate - in case you were wondering. After the dance some people went and watched the Orphanage, an excellent Spanish-language horror film.

In other news we had a semi-Stake Conference this weekend. Because President Packer came two weeks ago they didn't do the normal Sunday sessions of conference but we did have the adult session on Saturday night. Our ward was supposed to sing and the bishop's wife was really worried about people showing up so I told her I'd try my best to be there. In one of the all time tragic moments of my life a friend from the ward had an extra ticket to go listen to Tony Blair speak! I was crushed as I had to keep my promise to Sister Levin and miss out on THE Tony. I have some interesting Tony Blair anecdotes to share - but I'll save those for another day. PS - my nose hurts a little bit. Not as bad as when I think I broke it though.

On Dating

2008-10-28T11:00:00.001-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything on here for a while. A lot of you have probably stopped reading my blog with my infrequent writing as of late. I apologize profusely. I also apologize because those of you who for whatever reason enjoy reading my blog will probably get a bit of overload today. This will be the first post I make today and I'm going to postdate it by an hour or so, that way it will appear at the top of the page and explain why you're getting 3-5 blog posts at the same time. I haven't blogged in a while, I just want to catch everybody up on all of my thoughts. First, to something I know a lot of you care about, and something that I will touch upon lightly as a matter of relative topics in my other posts today, my dating life.

I'm sure many of you would like to know how I'm doing when it comes to dating. At least, if the number of people who asked me to send wedding invitations as they said goodbye to me in Utah is any indication, people want to know about that. Well, let me say that I haven't dated very much since arriving here, you've probably read the post about the Sadie Hawkins dance and seen the pictures of that date. Since then I've been on two dates, both of which were great and with great girls. Last week I was able to take a beautiful young lady to a Sheryl Crow concert after our stake temple trip. My roommate had access to free tickets to the show and offered them to me that Friday and I said I could probably find a use for them. We had lots of fun and it was fortunate that I gave her something to do once we got back from the temple, because she had leant her car keys to a friend and was locked out of her car until that friend returned.

As for non-last-minute dating, I did ask out one woman in my ward a few weeks ago. Those of you who know me probably know that I tend to see what I like and then go after it. This has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that I tend to ignore other things around me, which is unfortunate. In this case, I've tended to ignore other women in my ward - there are many attractive girls here, but this young lady caught my eye the first time I saw her. Unfortunately for me, she is very busy with school and life in general, so I was only able to get an hour of her time two Saturdays ago. I enjoyed every minute of that hour and asked her if I might be able to borrow another hour of her time in the future. Hopefully I'll be able to get a second date with her soon once she returns home.

Other than that, not much has happened with dating. But I thought I'd update you all the same. Hope you read through the rest of the thoughts I've posted below - that way you can catch up on my last couple of weeks and some amazing experiences I've had, and that way I can share with you some things that have been on my mind (no worries, no politics).

Family

2008-10-28T09:12:00.002-04:00

It's not a question I'm asked much anymore, I haven't been asked it much since I really decided what the answer was, as a matter of fact, but it is a question that I think about quite a bit. That question is "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I don't know when I decided what my answer was, but it's been a while. The answer is quite simply, I want to be a father and a husband. I hate that when people get to know one another they often identify others by their career. I hope and pray that my career does not define who I am, I would much rather be known as a good father and a good husband than as a good lawyer in the future. As important as my career will be, I hope it always takes a back seat to family.

A good friend of mine lost her mother to cancer yesterday. I wish I knew the proper words to say to console her in a time of what I can only imagine is immense grief. Sometimes those who matter most to us are not here as long as we would like them to be. There probably are no words of proper comfort at this time for her. I can only imagine that she always hoped that her mother would be able to see her get married, and to be a grandma... and those dreams are gone now.

On Saturday I got a phone call from my older brother, informing me that my Dad was in the hospital. He had eaten something, they still don't know what, that he had a terrible allergic reaction to. Fortunately my step-sister was near and able to get him to the medical clinic back home before his tongue and throat swelled to a point where he was unable to breathe. I must admit that I thought what it would be like if I lost my Dad. The pain that I feel as I imagine that possibility is great, and so as I think of my friend and her loss I cannot imagine how much she must be struggling. Fortunately, she is a strong woman who is probably better able to deal with loss than I.

I am incredibly fortunate to have the knowledge that I do have. I trust that all will be well in the end, even if I do lose those who are closest to me. Those of you who have heard me talk about my dad know how much I love him, how much I would miss his presence in my life. But I know that he won't be absent from my life, even after his own life here has ended. As I think of my friend and her loss, I know that she has that same understanding. Her mother will be there to see her married and to meet her grandchildren - she just won't be able to see her.

My family means everything to me, and as I decided to move out here the thought that I might miss out on some great events in their lives was one of the more difficult things to think about. I might become an uncle while I was out here, and that would mean I would probably miss out on seeing and getting to know my brothers' and sisters' children until they're a little bit older. I began to cry with joy as I found out that I am going to be an uncle again. And they're going to be great parents! I only wish I could be there... if I can't be a father yet, at least I get to be an uncle.

A trip to Chesapeake

2008-10-28T08:58:00.003-04:00

This weekend was a wild and crazy one. Me and my friends Daniel, Mike, and Jeremy decided to go to a regional activity that was about two hours away in Chesapeake, in an area not too far from the North Carolina border. Well, the activity started at 7:00 on Saturday, we weren't worried about being a little bit late, so we decided to leave here at 6:00. Well, Mike never makes things easy and decided not to show up at Daniel's house, where we were meeting, until about 7:30. Finally, we were on our way, but as we were loading into my car we could hear air deflating from a tire. Lucky for me, it was Mike's tire.... we decided that we would all jump in my car and go, then fix the tire when we got home.

Well, the dance/pumpkin carving party was actually a lot of fun. One of the most entertaining parts was that Daniel and I decided that Mike was going to have to get 2 phone numbers from the girls out there or else we would not allow him into my car for the ride home. This was because Mike wouldn't do anything but sit on the sidelines at first and because when we were riding out there he kept complaining and saying that the party better be good. Well, he got his phone numbers and as we were leaving the party we asked how it went. Apparently it went well, some girls invited him (and subsequently all of us) to stay and watch a movie with them. Sadly, it was already midnight and we had two hours to drive. Well, we asked if he was going to take advantage of his successes that night and he said that he wasn't. "Those girls are too young" he said. Well, funny thing - Mike is a young man straight off his mission. There shouldn't be a "too young" for him unless they're still in high school so Daniel and I bugged him. Apparently, he had a bad experience dating an 18 year old in the first few months he was home from the mission. Well, we wanted to know who she was and he wouldn't tell us. So we shoved him in my trunk for the ride home.

Well, we actually just shoved him in long enough to take him back to the party and embarass him. Except that he used the emergency latch in the trunk and jumped out of my moving car. Luckily he didn't get hurt! Anyhow, it was a lot of fun and we finally made it back home and remembered that we had a tire to change. The nuts got a little stuck on his tire and we struggled to get all of them loose - and as Daniel worked on one he kind of fell backward and broke Mike's sideview mirror, I guess that's what he gets for not doing it himself... It was really funny (not badly broken). Well, after a nice struggle to take care of all that we headed home for the night.

Sadly, that is not the end of the story. You see, Mike had a talk to give in church on Sunday and apparently he gained a lot of insight from his experiences with me and Daniel. He decided to share a few stories about getting water poured on him and how Daniel and I changed his tire and broke his mirror. He broke Jeremy's heart by neglecting to honor him with stories about our adventures, but I think he apologized for that. Oh, and he also shared with all of us that the donut that replaced his flat tire, it went flat too! So, that was my weekend this week. Here's a picture of me, Daniel, and Mike at last night's family home evening. (Daniel is in the middle, Mike on the right).

Australia, Temple, Prophets

2008-10-28T08:31:00.004-04:00

So, I should have let you all know about this last week, but I'm a hoser and don't do that kind of thing. Anyhow, last weekend was a great weekend. The stakes in our area had planned a large stake temple day for the 17th, including a special meeting in the priesthood room of the D.C. temple with the temple presidency, and our ward had procured a private screening of the Joseph Smith movie that is shown at the visitor's center as well as a conference room for a short fireside from our institute director, Brother Janson. The ward hired two buses for the day and bused most of us to the temple for this opportunity. I got to spend a lot of quality time with some of my new friends out here, reliving the old high school bus ride experience, and laughing as we got a little bit lost on our way home. As for the temple, the temple president had to be at a different meeting (I'll get to that in a second) so the counselors and their wives spoke to four stakes full of endowed members in the priesthood room at the top of the Washington, D.C. temple about the importance of temple work. It was a great message and an amazing experience.

As for the temple president, well... he had to be back in Richmond where many leaders from many stakes gathered for special leadership instruction. President Boyd K. Packer of the quorum of the twelve came to lead the training of stake presidents, bishops, and the temple presidency. Along with him came Elder Cook of the twelve as well as Elder Andersen of the presidency of the seventy, and Elder Causse of the first quorum of the seventy, as well as area authorities. While this training was for the leadership and so had little effect on me directly it did mean that the next day at church we were able to listen to President Packer, Elder Causse, and Elder Marriott (an area authority seventy) in our stake. To sit at a prophet's feet and listen to his words is an opportunity that should be cherished and one for which I was grateful. As an added bonus our ward had been asked to form the choir for the special meeting and we were all able to sit on the stand directly behind these great leaders.

Now, I've told you the stories of the great spiritual enrichment I was able to receive last weekend, so it's only appropriate that I end with a story about our Crocodile Dundee party. You see, we have a woman in our ward who is here from Australia to teach school for a few years. As a kind of special get to know Emily and her country party we had a Crocodile Dundee viewing and Australia appreciation party last Friday night. Well, the party was loads of fun to start with but it became especially exciting when a giant kangaroo with root beer in hand (and a root beer in hand for the joey in its pouch as well) came bounding into the room as we watched the movie, followed by an aboriginal warrior who proceeded to beat the kangaroo with his boomerang.

As you can see from the pictures, it was all quite exciting. Well, fortunately for me, John, the man with the costume, decided that he should let other people try it out. And try it out I did. I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable without a kangaroo costume on again!

A Weekend with Bill and Sarah

2008-10-13T17:34:00.002-04:00

Growing up in Pinedale, Wyoming is a unique experience in many ways. I knew most of the people in my high school graduating class since kindergarten; there was nothing remotely resembling a city for 100 miles; and some of the most beautiful sites in the world were only minutes away. I love my hometown more than I probably should and I'm incredibly grateful for the experiences I had growing up there. One of the least likely things you would expect to find in a little town somewhere lost from most of the world is contact with the most powerful people in the world. But Pinedale never had a shortage of important people nearby who somehow found out about the beauty of the Wyoming wilderness.
One of the first things I can remember was walking into the living room when my mom had left the TV on in the middle of the day and seeing President Ronald Reagan addressing a press conference. I have no idea what he was talking about, I don't even know what time of year it was... I couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years old, our family was still living in the Bargerville area between Pinedale and Boulder, Wyoming. I can remember looking at him, though, and thinking that he was a good man. I liked him instinctively. That was my first experience with politics. Later, I remember President George H.W. Bush coming to spend some time just outside of Pinedale. My brother, Cy, would talk about the helicopters and the secret service agents and how cool they were. The President of the United States was just outside of our hometown - Pinedale wasn't the middle of nowhere, the President vacationed there!
I was in the third grade when the next presidential elections were held. At that time Ross Perot was my hero. I remember having what I thought were mature conversations about the issues of the day with my friends at school. We would discuss the race between President Bush, Governor Bill Clinton, and H. Ross Perot as though we understood what was going on. I can still remember claiming that Ross Perot would have never left the race if his family's life hadn't been threatened, and I was certain he would have been president had he stayed in the race. In fifth grade I can remember discussing President Clinton and how terrible I thought his policies were - I had no idea what his policies were, but in Wyoming, they were terrible. Well, everywhere in Wyoming except Jackson Hole.
Jackson Hole, the closest thing to civilization around Pinedale, is 77 miles northwest of Pinedale. It's not exactly close, but in Wyoming terms it definitely was close. And President Clinton loved Jackson Hole. We would here about his vacations there on a regular basis. Strangely, coming from my little town in Wyoming, I was somewhere where the important people of the world would come. And while President George W. Bush had stronger ties to Texas than to Wyoming, he picked Dick Cheney as his running mate. There was even a chance that Dick Cheney might be the speaker at my high school graduation.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing all of this about Pinedale and the Presidents, I think it's to partially explain why I enjoy politics so much, and partially to explain how excited I am to be in Virginia right now. I didn't choose where to go to law school with politics even remotely in my mind, and yet here I am in a state that's being touted as one of the most important battlegrounds on November 4. Our governor, Tim Kaine, was on the shortlist to be Senator Obama's running mate and the congressman in the congressional district where I live, Eric Cantor, was a name that was being whispered as a possible running mate for Senator McCain. I feel like I'm in the middle of something important here.
With Virginia having its current status as a battleground state, important people have been showing up, trying to get our votes. The first thing I take from this is the beauty of our electoral system. It may have many flaws, but the votes of individuals do matter and the most important people in the world have to go through the average people of the world to get there, that's democracy. The other thing I gain from this is an opportunity to listen to some of those people. Presidents may have vacationed near Pinedale, but here in Richmond the important people aren't coming for vacation, but for me and people like me. Madeline Albright spoke at the University of Richmond a few weeks ago, and I was sad to miss the opportunity to hear her. And Barack Obama was campaigning about an hour away in Newport News last weekend, again I missed out on the opportunity.
But this weekend was different, I'm on fall break and the important people were coming to Richmond. Last night a friend and I lined up blocks away from the student commons of Virginia Commonwealth University to listen to President Bill Clinton speak on the behalf of the Obama campaign. I was surprised and impressed that the event began with an opening prayer followed by the national anthem. The introducing speakers included several students and spoke highly of their candidate, barely referring to Senator McCain. President Clinton gave a good speech, highlighting the differences between the candidates, but focusing on Barack Obama, barely referring to Senator McCain other than to say that Obama's plans were better. But that's not what impressed me about the event. Rather, I was impressed by the raw charisma of the man. He spoke with total confidence and one could easily see how he had inspired others to vote for him. Then, when all was said and done, he didn't leave immediately but first went and hugged the student who had introduced him, then he went down into a crowd of supporters and shook their hands. He stayed for quite a while, just shaking peoples hands.
Today I was able to go with some other friends to a Sarah Palin rally at the Richmond International Speedway racetrack. And while I am biased, today's rally didn't have the same feeling as last night's. There were many more people there to see Sarah Palin than had been at the Clinton rally last night. This was partially because the raceway could hold a lot more people, not to disparage her popularity with many people. The traffic going to the event was terrible and we missed the beginning, so I can't comment on how it opened, but we arrived just as Governor Palin took the stage. She first introduced Hank Williams, Jr. as a special guest and as singer of the national anthem. He proceeded to sing one of the worst renditions of the national anthem I've ever heard, but that's neither here nor there. He then sang a song against the liberal media and praising McCain, which was better sung but also irrelevent. The people had come to listen to Governor Palin. Unfortunately, it was hard to see her and the sound system would cut in and out. She spoke highly of John McCain and his policies and was much more restrained in her rhetoric against Barack Obama than in many of the rallies that have been shown on tv in the past few weeks. Perhaps it was because the crowd was too big, perhaps it was because she didn't have the same aura as a former US President must have, I don't know why, but the claps seemed much weaker and the crowd far less inspired.
The most interesting part of the Palin rally, to me, was when she quoted former Pennsylvania governor, Bob Casey, Sr. Governor Casey's son is an Obama supporter and U.S. Senator, and the Casey's are a democratic family. While much has been said about Governor Casey's position as a pro-life Catholic within the democratic party, and the possibility that he was denied a speaking spot at a democratic convention because of this, the Caseys have not been Republican backers. Governor Palin quoted Governor Casey talking about how you can judge a society by how it treats its weakest members. She used this to argue that we need to treat special needs children with special care. It was the strong point of her speech, but it didn't make sense to me. She made no accusation that Barack Obama wouldn't care for special needs children, or at least I didn't hear her say anything about that. She just said that it's important how we treat the weakest in our society. I agree with her wholeheartedly on that point, which is nice because generally speaking I don't agree with her on anything. She's right about loving everybody and taking care of the weak, but politically she said nothing about herself, unless you just assume that Barack Obama and Joe Biden don't care about the weakest among us or love others.
Speaking of that point, I'm just finishing Joe Biden's book "Promises to Keep" and I have to say, I'm impressed with the man. At the vice-presidential debate I think the strongest moment was when Senator Biden shared that he knows what it's like to raise a family as a single father because his first wife and daughter passed away in a terrible accident. I think the strongest moment in the last presidential debate for Senator Obama was when he was talking about healthcare and talked about how nobody else should have to watch their mother suffer through cancer and instead of resting and seeking treatment, have to fight insurance companies so she could pay for treatment. Who are the people running for the highest offices in our country? It's a question that has been asked a lot lately - rather than just saying that you don't know - take the time and get to know them. Everybody but Sarah Palin has written at least one memoir... Whatever side of the political aisle your on - look into the men. Sarah Palin was right today, as was the man she quoted, Governor Casey, but before you assume that she and John McCain are the only ones who do care for the least among us, find out where the other people stand. I cried as I read about Joe Biden's fight to pass the violence against women act - you may not agree with the man, but he cares deeply. Anyhow, now I'm just wandering through thoughts - I'll let you go. Here's my picture for the week, you know, so you don't forget what I look like! This one is glasses free, as per Melly's request.

A Story About Pants

2008-10-06T15:16:00.002-04:00

Here's a story about a pair of pants I bought, and where we have gone together. It's a very important story in my life... It all started when some old mission friends, Andrew and Moroni, invited me along for a trip to Park City. Andrew and his girlfriend at the time (now wife) Belem really wanted to go shopping at the outlet stores and Moroni (Maldy) and I tagged along. As we were shopping we stopped at the Calvin Klein outlet store and while we were browsing Maldy challenged me to try on a pair of their jeans. Why? Well, Moroni put it this way "they're so comfortable you'll feel like you're naked!" How could I pass up an invitation like that? So I went in the changing room and tried on a pair of Calvin Klein jeans, and you know what? They were THAT comfortable... I bought them. This will always be a fond memory for me, as it was one of the first times I got to spend a good deal of time with Belem, who is a wonderful person.

Since that time my Calvin Klein jeans have been very special to me, they made me feel like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, and I started singing Chuck Barry songs whenever I wore them... although not always Johnny B. Goode. Sometimes I'd sing Huey Lewis and the News songs too. Crazy, huh? Me and my jeans had some good times, but sadly at one of the first activities I attended here in Richmond I was helping move a couch and as I lifted my jeans ripped. It was only a small hole, and the comfort of the 100% cotton leads to a less durable pant, so it was understandable, but still very sad. I decided I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my jeans yet, though, so I went to Target and purchased a patch for my jeans. After ironing on the patch my jeans and I had several successful outings together... sadly that would change.

On Friday, September 26, 2008 a group of friends and I loaded up in a truck and headed to Newport News, Virginia to attend a YSA dance they were having out there. When we first arrived they were having problems with the music and the men outnumbered the women by a large margin, so we went in search of food. This is irrelevant to my pants, but it's part of the story, so deal with it. After a successful outing that included calling the "waffle and steak" house right as it closed, we finished our Taco Bell and returned to the church gym where the dancing was going on. After eating much candy, the guys and I decided to hit the dance floor and show off our moves. Well, things were going well - we even had a strange little announcement of our names thing going on... when for some reason I decided to slap the floor wearing my Calvin Klein jeans.... I heard a tear and decided I should probably exit the dance floor.

Upon finding a wall to shelter my backside, which could clearly feel more of a breeze than it had moments before, I inspected the damage - I had a very large rip in my jeans this time. I probably wasn't going to save them. As the other guys in my group were building relationships of trust with young ladies who they had just met, I stood outside with my butt against the truck to not show my lack of modesty. Me and my jeans, we were breaking up - they just weren't going to be with me anymore. That is my story... I hope you enjoyed it. Here's a picture of me for the week - and a picture of my jeans!

Please, Be Informed

2008-09-27T12:06:00.006-04:00

Being more liberal in the LDS church is an interesting experience. Since moving here to Richmond I have had several discussions where others looked at me in shock as I tried to explain why I support Barack Obama and why John McCain and Sarah Palin frighten me. Don't worry, this post isn't about that - but the story of one of those occasions segues well into what I want to say. A few weeks ago I was at a party and one of the girls in my ward, saying she didn't know who she supported, asked me why I support Obama. As I explained my point of view to her a crowd of people surrounded me, and for over half an hour I stood in the middle of a circle of maybe ten people, discussing our differing opinions in an open and friendly way. Politics can be incredibly divisive, people have strong feelings and often react in a visceral manner to disagreements to some of their most deeply held beliefs, it makes it a difficult topic to discuss. That is why at the end of this discussion, I implored everybody not to vote for Barack Obama, but to make an informed decision when they vote. That's what this post is about.

Watching the presidential debate from last night, I noticed that there were multiple occasions when John McCain or Barack Obama would make an assertion about the other's policies, only for the other to respond by saying "that's not true" or something of the sort. Please, watch the debates, hear and understand where the candidates stand and watch their demeanor. But also, find out who is right when they openly disagree about the facts. Fortunately, in this information age we have open access to tons of facts. John McCain said several times last night that we can "look up the history" on websites like Citizens Against Government Waste and other websites. I want to make everybody aware of a non-partisan website called factcheck.org. Go there when you have a question about something that a candidate says and doesn't sound right, go there after major events like last nights events or the party conventions, and see how they analyze what the candidates have said. Unfortunately, politicians spin things - this is true on both sides. At times they outright lie or are misinformed, factcheck.org is a great place to see how the facts match up to the assertions made. Click here to find out what the situation really is on the issues that were debated last night.

The key to having a successful democracy is not just that the citizens get out and vote, but that they make an informed vote. It is not enough to vote based on party affiliation, personalities, or even on policy. We need to have a comprehensive understanding of what it is we're voting for. I don't ask that everybody be as intensive as I am, I get nearly obsessive about these issues - and although I have chosen my horse in this race I still seek to understand both sides as fully as possible. I own 4 out of the 5 books that John McCain has authored with Mark Salter, and both of the books that Barack Obama has authored. I own the book that Joe Biden wrote, and if Sarah Palin had written a book I would own that and read it. Sometimes candidates feel that only parts of their history are relevant, or only parts of their backgrounds are important to understanding their character. We each must decide how important each different factor is in the decisions we make but John McCain's association with the Savings and Loan Scandal and the Keating Five should be relevant, just as his time as a POW in Vietnam. Barack Obama's ties to radical political figures is relevant, but so is his work as a community organizer, a job that I feel is more important than some have said.

Finally, please inform yourselves not only about the presidential campaign but also about your local politics and other federal campaigns. If there is a senatorial campaign in your state this year, look into the senators and their positions - listen to what they have to say. Every two years your House Representatives run for reelection, know their positions and make an informed decision on election day. Democracy works best when we vote from a well informed foundation. If you want to be able to research how politicians vote and whether they're telling you the truth in their advertisements, speeches, and debates, please visit votesmart.org and factcheck.org. Fact check, again, is a site that fact checks the statements made by politicians and is great for the presidential campaign, and Project Vote Smart (votesmart.org) is a non-partisan compilation of voting records and ratings by various groups on people campaigning for positions across the US, from state legislative campaigns to presidential campaigns.

Finally, make sure you're registered to vote - registration deadline for some states is as early as October 6. Sites like Rock the Vote and JustVote.org can help you register if you're not sure what to do. Also, if anybody who reads this lives in Utah House District 59 (or knows people who do), please look into the campaign of Paul Thompson at electpaulthompson.com - He is as honest and good a man as I have ever met and as my mission president he helped me grow as much as anybody outside my family ever has. Look at his positions and tell your friends about him, running as a Democrat in Utah is a daunting task, but he is more than qualified for the job.

UPDATE: If you have 90 minutes and didn't see the 1st Debate you can watch it here or here.

Some Pictures

2008-09-23T11:02:00.003-04:00

I've received a few messages from people who don't know what a lava-lava or sarong is. So I thought I'd post a few pictures from the dance and what we all were wearing.

Otherwise there hasn't been too much interesting going on lately. I've mostly just been busy with school and that takes up plenty of time.

I forgot to do something...

2008-09-21T18:11:00.000-04:00

Oh yeah! I haven't blogged in over a week. That's highly inappropriate, but bonus because of that is that you get to have two blog posts in a row with a hideous picture of me. Don't you feel so blessed? Well, I guess I have a whole week to get you caught up on, right? So let's get going!

Umm... what did I do this week? Oh, I have Internet in the house now, hence me blogging on a Sunday (because I would not be at school on a Sunday and that's the only place I had Internet before!) I am actually incredibly happy about that and finally got caught up on my Daily Show and Colbert Report. I never thought I'd say this but I'm glad they were off for a week when I didn't have Internet here, because I can't miss those shows! In other TV news, the season premiere of House was this week - and I'm excited for the new season.

We had a small ward temple trip this weekend and that was really nice. For lunch we went to a Kabob place in D.C. so I got to see my first little bit of the actual city. I'm definitely going to need to plan some time one of these weekends (probably several of these weekends) to go and check it all out.

School continues to go well and I am enjoying it. Although I am definitely not a big fan of my Mondays (my first class starts just after 8 and my last one ends just before 8).

Okay, onto the most exciting news - the Amazing Incredible Sadie Hawkins Dance Crashing Party of Funness. (Henceforth the AISHDCPF). So for the AISHDCPF my date and her roommate, Mindy, decided that it was lame to make the dance semi-formal and they weren't supposed to wear jeans and all that jazz, so they decided that since Lava Lavas are formal wear in some countries we would go that route. So, a group of about 6 of us were lavalavaed up ready for the good times to start at this dance thing the ward was trying to do. Once I got the bone properly put in my hair and Stephanie was loaded with a bat, and after we had all filled up on Arby's goodness we headed to the church gym. (Henceforth, the dance zone).

We triumphantly arrived at the Dance Zone and the AISHDCPF in full dance attire and commenced to get jiggy with it. Strangely, our arrival seemed to be the biggest moment of the evening that far, and at first I thought that we had stumbled upon some kind of middle school dance. Groups of people huddled together as dance music played, we quickly tried to fix this problem but just became a different huddle of people that was actually dancing - oh well, things started getting better after a while.

Later in the night, after loads of dancing goodness and impressing all with my incredible dancing abilities, we loaded 6 people into my car (it's only meant to seat 5, but since when do I care?) and went to get some ice cream. While eating our ice cream we found out all sorts of meanings for the word Mindy (apparently a Mindy is some sort of Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex Animalistic Woman with a deep voice that can commonly be found on New York City street corners and offers a specific type of service that you have to request by name). Now that you know that, you are ready to be entered into my secret society... contact me later with a code name.

Anyhow, the point of the story is that we all had a lot of fun, didn't get in too much trouble, and got to know each other a little bit better. (note: some day I will follow Julie's advice and let people talk about themselves instead of just talking about myself, unfortunately I am very conceited and love myself to death, as such I think everybody else must feel the same). Oh, random note: Sister Willis (one of the bishopric's wives) came up to me today at church and said "I need to know more about you after seeing your dancing on Friday night" and she even asked me where I learned to dance. Apparently she was unaware that I was clueless and merely did my best not to appear that way. Oh well. Good times! And that is today's blog post. I look forward to comments!

THIS WEEK'S PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Me, Asleep, On my bed! (aren't you excited? I'm just pretending to be asleep, by the way)

The things we don't realize

2008-09-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

The other night I got a text message that I was definitely not expecting. My bishop from my last ward sent me a text message that said "I hope you're studying and not partying at this late hour. We all miss you. Keep the faith." Messages from back home have helped me recognize how much I meant to people. As I get a message from my mom or dad, or from my grandparents saying how they don't get to see me anymore, I realize that I mean as much to them as they do to me.

Perhaps it's one of my idiosyncrasies, but I think it is fairly common for all of us to see those who surround us and be grateful for their presence and influence in our lives without recognizing that we, too, are influences on their lives. Bishop Call helped me so much and was a great leader and friend while I was in Pleasant Grove, I miss him dearly. The thought had never really occurred to me that he would miss me. My grandparents opened their home to me and provided for everything I could possibly need and then some, they gave me a home while I was at school and did more for me than I could ever express. I know they love me, but for some reason I never thought that they could miss me like I miss them. In a strange way, moving away from all of my friends and family has been great for me, not only because I am meeting new friends but also because I'm better able to recognize how much the old ones really mean. I'm also beginning to see how much I mean to them, and that's a good feeling. I'm so glad that despite myself people like having me around, and were grateful for me.

I had a meeting with my bishop last night. When I went in to talk to him, he said "I've met you, we talked for quite a while on Saturday" and I just smiled and nodded and we talked about Daniel, the executive secretary for a bit. You see, Daniel wants the bishop to meet all the members of the ward and so he sets up these appointments for "get to know you" meetings with the bishop, but it confuses the bishop because sometimes he has these meetings with members of the ward who he knows quite well. It was good to chat with him for a while and get his perspective on things, he was a practicing attorney for quite a while before he decided to change careers, but he knows what the law school experience is like so that's nice to have. School continues to go well and we finally got the first part to getting Internet set up at our house ready to go and my car is finally fixed! Big accomplishments, now I just have to try and get reimbursed for some of my car rentals - that should be fun, but the biggest headaches are out of the way.

Oh, and since I haven't done it yet this week - here's what I look like now, so you don't forget! Ha ha.

Settling In

2008-09-08T13:37:00.000-04:00

So, I'm starting to get much more settled here. People are learning my name, I'm learning their names, it's really quite nice. And I even got to meet the bishop of my ward, so that's always a good thing. I wonder now, what am I going to write about to keep people up to date on what I'm doing? School's going well, law school's not that bad. I've got a lot of stuff to do but it's not overwhelming and I'm making a lot of good friends.

This weekend there was a birthday party for one of the members of my ward and it was nice to be able to gather and have fun with a lot of people and get to know them better. Unfortunately, it was my least favorite kind of party (sorry Evan) the kind where it's not really anything planned, just a bunch of food and a bunch of people. I like to do stuff! Saturday night the ward had a fun activity where people baked cookies and we got to judge them and then we watched the movie Enchanted. I had a couple of people ask me if I was on the activities committee because I was running some of the stuff, I just laughed and told them that I still hadn't met the bishop, how would I have a calling?

Oh, Saturday was also my first experience of a tropical storm, pretty much it was a lot of rain as Hannah came in, and as my roommate Jason said "you just hunker down and watch a lot of movies." It was neat, I'm not used to the warm rains that it brought, or that much rain at all. Guess that's what I get for coming from the high mountain desert.

My adventures with getting the air conditioning fixed in my car are continuing. The inspector called the repair shop today to say that he'd be there, so finally I'll get my second inspection and they can order parts. Sadly, he will be the 5th person to verify the exact same problem on my car, it's ridiculous! Right now I'm driving a sweet Chevy Aveo that can't lock on the driver's side door. Glad I don't have anything valuable in it! I guess I don't have much more to say right now, sorry this post was kind of boring.

Life and Love

2008-09-03T09:40:00.001-04:00

The other day I decided that I was tired of studying and would try and better organize my pictures on my computer. For a while I worked pretty consistently at scanning a bunch of old pictures and getting pictures into an electronic format, so I have quite a few on the computer. Well, for some reason I decided to see what pictures I had in the trash section of iPhoto and found out that iPhoto just leaves pictures in its trash until you tell it to delete them for good. This means that in my trash I had a whole assortment of old pictures from when Tiffany and I were dating, and a few from when Emilee and I were together (we never took very many pictures).

As I looked at the pictures, old memories came back to me and I remembered what it was like to be in love. It's funny, for so long seeing pictures like that just kind of made me sick to my stomach, now they bring back fond memories instead of pain. I'm glad for that, I'm glad I can think back to those times as the incredibly happy times they were instead of looking back with regret that things didn't work out differently. I loved those girls so much and now I'm just happy that they've found their companions.

Unfortunately, at the same time as I'm able to remember what it was like to be in love and to have that kind of companionship, it makes me yearn all the more to have something like that again. Thinking of my time with Tiffany invariably leads me to think of my dear friends Jimmy and Hillary. Jimmy was in many ways the reason Tiffany and I ever dated at all, and he and Hillary dated at the same time as we did. I remember having conversations with Jimmy late at night as he would talk to me about how he thought he was falling in love with Hillary and how he really didn't want to do that. Funny, how those who aren't really seeking love find it so much easier! The thing I noticed in all those conversations with Jimmy and in later conversations with other close friends is that many people are so afraid of getting hurt that they never really pursue something they truly desire. They're hesitant about putting themselves out on the line.

When Emilee and I broke up the first time I thanked her for breaking my heart. She laughed nervously and asked what on earth I was talking about. That experience of heartbreak was one of the most valuable experiences of my life and taught me more about myself and my emotions than I could have expected. And while I'm not so certain that I gained the same value from subsequent heartbreaks, I can say this - I'm glad I keep jumping and hope I have the courage to jump again. When I think about the dating life I compare it to a young bird learning to fly for the first time - at some point the bird has to jump from a great height and risk crashing to the ground and getting seriously hurt. To many it may not seem worth the risk, but the thing is if the bird doesn't fall then it flies. And the flight is worth all the other risks inherent in jumping, if I've learned one thing it is that no matter how bad heartbreak hurts, it will never hurt as much as being in love pleases.

So, just some random thoughts on the topic. Since we're on the topic I would remind everybody that I've only been here a few weeks, old pictures spurred this post and nothing else! Now for the requisite, this is what I look like this week picture.

Law School Personal Statement

2008-09-02T12:44:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd give you some more of my writing to read. Aren't you so excited? I'm going to blog about this weekend later today or tomorrow for those who want an update. But for now, here is my personal statement for law school. When you apply to law school you are asked to send in a personal statement because they don't interview candidates, you get two pages to write just about anything you want to try and convince them that you're a better candidate than somebody else. This is what I wrote:

I can still remember the day when I decided that I wanted to know everything. It was the same day I decided I was going to change the world. On a cold in November 2002, I walked down an empty street in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I was working there as a missionary for my church and as I headed to my next appointment, I thought about my future. I thought about the plans I had made. I was going to study computer science. After all, I had already held several jobs as a computer technician and I was good at it. But I realized then, as I walked down that street, that I would not find fulfillment in that field. I needed to improve the world, to directly benefit the lives of others. As a missionary, I primarily did two things: learn and help people. And walking down that empty street, I realized that was all I really wanted to do. I realized that by doing those two things to the best of my ability, I would find fulfillment; I could change the world for the better.
Experience has taught me that knowledge truly is power. Even the most trivial knowledge can influence others and enhance relationships. I’ve made many friends simply by referring to some obscure movie or TV show. While trivial knowledge can be power, I recognized greater power in practical knowledge. As a missionary, I learned to speak both Spanish and Portuguese. Subsequently, I have also learned to speak Russian. I hadn’t realized how much I was missing until I learned a foreign language. Speaking a foreign language does so much more than allow communication, it opens doors to parts of the world you don’t even know are there. As I saw the influence language could have, I decided to pursue the study of linguistics.
While studying linguistics, I learned a great deal and saw the power of practical knowledge but something was lacking. Luckily for me, I also took a course in the history of philosophy and there found an even more powerful form of knowledge. I began to learn how to think. Knowledge is most powerful when we know how to apply it, when we know how to think. For a time I pursued a double major in philosophy and linguistics but I soon realized that philosophy was where my heart lie. While most of my friends and family don’t understand what I study, the lessons I have learned from philosophy have provided me with knowledge that helps me change the world.
Many people think that changing the world is a lofty goal. I disagree, I think we change the world merely by our presence in it. We can’t help but change the world; the real question is how we change it. We often think that it takes some great thing to influence our world, but the small things are what make the difference. No newspapers reported when my teenaged sister gave her baby up for adoption because she could not provide a home for her. But she changed the world for a young couple who couldn’t have children, and for that baby girl. No cameras have been present when teachers and professors have stopped to teach me, nor when they have taken the time to stress the importance of learning. But those men and women have changed my life and my world. They have changed the lives and worlds of many others, and will continue to do so. As I pursue a career, I hope to do those small things that will truly improve the world.
I want to know everything and I want to change the world. The first, I will never accomplish. The second, I have already done and will continue to do without even trying. The trick is to get as close to the first as possible, and to make sure that I do the second in such a way that it makes the world a better place. Helping and learning, that’s all I really want to do in life. Fortunately, they work well together. As long as I take the power that comes with learning and use it properly, I can help other people. I have pursued these two goals since that day in November of 2002, and I will continue to pursue them. Right now, I’m taking the next step in that pursuit.

Rainy Days

2008-08-29T09:50:00.000-04:00

Now that I come to think of it, I've never lived for very long outside of a desert. Coming from Wyoming and Utah, all this rain we've been getting in the last few days is a new experience. It keeps on coming. Jason says that the rain lately has been more of a winter type rain, which is just a completely foreign concept to me. If it's winter there's snow, not rain! Oh well, it's been nice to have things cool down a lot lately, especially since I still have no air conditioning in my car.

The past few days have been pretty uneventful, mostly just going to class and learning some of the basic tenants of property and torts law as well as civil procedure. I don't think there's anything more exciting in the world! Matt's family is visiting him this week and Jason's on vacation, so the house has been more lively than normal, I guess.

Here comes the Labor Day weekend! Luckily as a law student there is no such thing as Labor Day weekend and I have class on Monday. Oh well, I'm excited to keep going and don't know what I would do with an extra day off anyhow, probably just more reading. Wow, this is a boring post.

Why I'm so Liberal

2008-08-28T11:50:00.000-04:00

Well, I got an e-mail message not too long ago from my friend John and I've taken far too long to correct a mistake he informed me about. When I said I didn't know anybody for 500 miles I was mistaken, somehow I neglected to see how far Charlotte, North Carolina was, which is where John is. Luckily, my mistake wasn't too gigantic, seeing as how John will be moving to Nebraska shortly and is so busy finishing up with his current work and I'm so busy starting law school that I won't be able to visit him and vice versa. So, soon my mistake will be corrected, except that now I know people here too - although not as well as I might like.

Anyhow, I meant to respond to John via e-mail, and I still might. I just don't get to e-mail as often and apparently he read my blog at least once, so who knows - maybe he'll do it again. But, other than acknowledging my mistake, there was one other thing I wanted to tell him.

Warning: if you aren't comfortable reading or discussing politics, or if you are like many of my friends and family and especially conservative, you may want to avoid this next section. You see, John and I used to discuss politics in high school all the time, he would wonder how I could have a lot my view points and still side with Republicans, and I wondered how John could be so capitalistic and still side with the Democrats. Well, John, I've been converted. To an extent.

First off, I'm an independent. Since I've been able to vote I have never registered with either party and I hope I never will. I am adamantly opposed to a two party system and agree wholeheartedly with George Washington's statement in his farewell address. On the topic of political parties he said "It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another." As such, in my younger days I had no problem with Bill O'Reilly claiming to be an independent, as a matter of fact I still have no problem with that claim. The problem is that O'Reilly now claims (perhaps he did before and I was unaware) that he is a moderate - agreeing with certain viewpoints that have been labeled liberal, especially ones that are widely accepted as being true (e.g. global warming) does not make you a moderate. There are conservative independents and liberal independents, there are authoritarian independents and libertarian independents, and there are all sorts of independents in between.

I digress, the point of this post is to explain why I'm a "liberal" when it comes to politics and so I first want to explain that I'm not just a liberal, I'm also quite libertarian in my views. For those of you familiar with the political compass I fit in the southwest quadrant, just a little northeast of men like Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. (For insight into where your political views fit according to the political compass try taking their test at http://politicalcompass.org/test). Basically, my assertion is this - after paying attention to both sides and having experienced how the policies of both sides have affected me and those around me, I am strongly inclined to say that for the most part it is a good thing to support social programs and that having a strong government is not necessarily a bad thing.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid came to speak at BYU last year, and as he addressed the crowd he said "some people may wonder how I can be a Mormon and a Democrat, but for me being a member of this church and the policies of the democratic party go hand in hand" and continued to explain his affinity for his party. While I will never support one party or another, I think it is best to dispassionately pay attention to who candidates are and the positions they espouse. To me it is a wonder that the people who follow a religion whose core teachings are those of acceptance, love, and service feel that John McCain is a superior candidate to Barack Obama. Just in terms of personal character - one is a loving family man whose children clearly adore him. The other cheated multiple times on his first wife before leaving her for one of the women he cheated on her with. One seeks to fight only in wars that are "just" while the other seems ready to continue our engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan but also to expand and possibly fight both Russia and Iran. Just watch the speeches given on the night Barack Obama clinched the nomination for the Democratic party back in June (McCain vs. Obama) - if it were a movie you would know that Obama is the hero and McCain is the villain.

Again I digress. Basically, I want people to know that no candidate is perfect, that every candidate will have positions that you disagree with, but that we should vote based on what the candidates character and positions are as compared to our own. Also, be aware that some of the issues that voters find most important (abortion, gay marriage) will be little affected by who you vote for as president. The most a president can do is appoint a supreme court justice who may overturn gay marriage laws or the decision in Roe v. Wade. Just so you know, it was Chief Justic Warren Burger's court that delivered the decision in Roe v. Wade, a court that was mostly appointed by Republican presidents and with a conservative majority. Four of the justices on that court were appointed by Richard Nixon. As opposed as you may be to the legality of abortion (I myself am not), who you vote for president will not get Roe v. Wade overturned. Who you vote for president will not change the status of gay marriage, a debate that the courts have left for the states to decide so far. Who you vote for president will affect how we deal with foreign nations - and I for one hope that nations will view us favorably again. Barack Obama definitely has the upperhand there. Who you vote for president will affect the direction of our economy in the coming years, John McCain has openly acknowledged (though he denies it now, see in his own words) that he doesn't know as much as he should about economics. Anyhow, I understand that their are legitimate disagreements in policy, I'm on the other side from many of my closest friends. Just know that the best way to discuss them is to look at their positives and negatives, and to look at everything as a whole, not at the D or R next to somebody's name. Lately I'm inclined towards the Ds, but that won't always hold true.

A Shorter Post following a Long Post

2008-08-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

I said I would be posting a picture about once a week to make sure you don't all forget what I look like, the picture that appears to my left right now was actually taken on Friday night when I decided that, since I was going to the temple the next day, I would say that I had enough of my facial hair catharsis and shave - so that's about as hairy as I got. Eventually I'll grow a full beard, I think, just not yet. But I figure I ought to post a picture of how I look today, since it's been a week as well.... so at the bottom of this post you'll see that picture! Yay.

SO - I kinda screwed up last night, I just figured that it was okay to plan to go to FHE at 7 because, that's what I always did back in Utah. Well, unfortunately for me when I looked at my schedule for classes I only paid attention to the classes that were listed as Section 3 (my section of the incoming law class) and not at the classes that were labeled as Section 9 (the law class is divided in 3 sections for most classes but they divided into 12 sections for smaller classes when it comes to Law Skills and Legal Research). Apparently I have Law Skills from 6-7:40 every Monday Night. That means no Family Home Evening for me! Oh well, Jason and Matt (my roommates) have their own FHE every Monday so I'll at least get that.
I got an e-mail this morning asking me to stop by the admissions office. You see, in law school it's a much bigger deal when you miss a class and the classes are generally smaller - there are only 162 students in my entering class. So when 162 is divided by 12 that means you only have 13-14 students per classroom, which means my absence was noted. The instructors were concerned when I didn't show up and one of the women at the admissions office asked me about it. Now I've missed an important class and that's no good - I should be fine though, I'll just be behind. Sad day.
In other news, the continuing saga of getting my air conditioning repaired has some new updates. My warranty company won't pay for anything other than aftermarket parts and Mazda dealerships won't unstil anything but official parts, meaning that there's a gap in what my warranty will pay out and what Mazda would charge of about $1700. So I'm taking my car to a different shop to make a new claim and start everything all over again. The woman at the warranty company said that they shouldn't need to reinspect the car to verify that the parts need repair as long as I get it into another shop soon. Funny, they shouldn't need to reinspect at all, and they shouldn't have needed to inspect in the first place! Oh well... unfortunately I am now out a fair amount of money because of the technicalities of this issue because the warranty company basically forced me to rent a car and they won't pay for it unless they approve a claim, and since my claim is a new one if I go to a new shop I'm out the 3 days of car rental - that's a lot less than the $1700 difference though. Oh, and I also had to pay Mazda for the work diagnostic work they did - thank you warranty company, you suck. That is all I have to say for now! I like it here so far and I really am happy, other than the stupid car problems.

Oh, and this picture is of me sitting at my carrel in the law school library - good times!

Something You Don't Want to Read

2008-08-26T16:25:00.000-04:00

So, I figured I'd post another example of something I've written. I think it's one of the better pieces of writing I did at BYU but it's on a topic that most of you will not find at all interesting - the nature of paradox and the applicability of two of the most basic laws of logic. Hope you enjoy!

Excluding Excluded Middle: How to Live in a World of Paradox

Introduction

In this paper I will explore two basic laws of propositional logic: the law of excluded middle and the law of non-contradiction. These laws, though fundamental to classical logic, have recently faced challenges. Some logicians challenge the viability of these laws while others insist that they are essential to our understanding. While there are several theories that oppose excluded middle I argue for a view called dialetheism. Dialetheism holds that true contradictions exist. It does not say that all contradictions are true, only that some are (Priest). Among possible true contradictions are logical paradoxes, which have troubled philosophers for centuries. I feel that philosophers have failed to properly resolve the conflicts that arise from these paradoxes. The only way to properly account for these paradoxes is to allow for contradiction. Thus, I will argue that excluded middle and non-contradiction cannot hold as absolute laws.

Dilemma

What we have is a dilemma: we must either accept non-contradiction and excluded middle or deny them. However, this reasoning requires the use of excluded middle and so difficulties arise. Any time we make a statement of the form “either p or q” we require excluded middle. The word “either” is tricky; it seems to restrict the meaning of the “or” operator. For example, if I were to say “either I will live in Provo or I will live in Pleasant Grove” it seems to restrict the proposition to just those two choices. I can say “I will live in Provo or I will live in Pleasant Grove or I will live in Denver” without a problem, but when I add “either” a third option seems out of place. This restriction of use can lead to fallacy. One of the more common fallacies of deductive reasoning is that of false dilemma. The fallacy of false dilemma is to say something like “you’re either with us or against us” giving only two possible options. It is not true that we are either in agreement “with” a group or “against” that same group; we can be neutral. The United States was effectively neutral during the early years of World War II. If a Frenchman had said “you’re either with us or against us” in reference to the United States, he would have erred; the United States was not fighting along with the French but it was most certainly not fighting against them.
It is easy to find a false dilemma, but the existence of false dilemmas seems to imply the existence of true dilemmas. If true dilemmas exist then the best example of a true dilemma is the law of excluded middle. Excluded middle doesn’t say “you’re either with us or against us” but rather, “you’re either with us or not with us” and works with our example. It could be said that we were not with the French in terms of fighting alongside them and so the example holds. Understanding what constitutes a true dilemma will help us with our dilemma. We should not phrase the problem as “either accept or deny excluded middle and non-contradiction” but rather “either accept or not accept excluded middle and non-contradiction.” If we accept this as a true dilemma we must choose a side of the disjunction.

The Laws

Excluded middle and non-contradiction have been recognized since the days of Aristotle. In Book IV of Metaphysics Aristotle says “it is impossible that contradictories should be at the same time true of the same thing,” an early formulation of the law of non-contradiction. He also says that “of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate,” an early formulation of the law of excluded middle. For Aristotle these laws were absolutely vital; he even described non-contradiction as “the most indisputable of all beliefs.” Following Aristotle’s example, most logicians continue to hold these laws as indisputable. In fact, these laws are essential to most forms of classical logic.
Classical logic has not been able to fully represent all of the concepts we want it to. For instance, classical logic can only say that a proposition is either true or false, it cannot account for indeterminacy. But certain propositions are indeterminate, for example, future contingent statements. A future contingent statement is a proposition whose truth value cannot be assessed until the future, for example “I will buy a car next year” might be true or it might be false, we won’t know until next year. Jan Lukasiewiecz attempted represent future contingents by developing a multi-valued logic that provided a truth value of ½ for indeterminate propositions (Bourne 122). This system of logic functions very well with unrelated disjunctions, such as “I will eat breakfast tomorrow or I will jump off a cliff tomorrow.” Unfortunately, it fails to work properly if the disjunctions are contraries, as in “I will eat breakfast tomorrow or I will not eat breakfast tomorrow.” In this case, Lukasiewiecz’s system says that the truth value of the disjunction is indeterminate and, as such, denies excluded middle.
In Future contingents, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle muddle, Craig Bourne argues that there is a way to have this bivalent logic without abandoning the law of excluded middle (125). According to Bourne, the key to maintaining excluded middle in a bivalent system is properly understanding the truth-values of different statements. Bourne’s logic uses 0 to represent falsity, 1 to represent truth, and ½ to represent something that is of indeterminate truth-value. This is similar to Lukasawiecz’s system of representing future conditionals except that Bourne maintains the law of excluded middle. He does this by interpreting negation differently, so that in his truth table ~1/2 (i.e. not indeterminate) is a true statement. Because the proposition says something true the proposition’s has a value of 1 (i.e. true) and not of ½ (i.e. indeterminate). Bourne’s logic seems to work and is representative of a three-valued logic that maintains excluded middle. He accurately represents future contingent statements in a straightforward way. Unfortunately, representing future contingent statements is not the only problem in logic. Bourne recognizes that “this system is not functionally complete” (127). His assertion that “the sorts of truth-functions that cannot be generated by the connectives of this system have no application anyways, and so can be ignored” shows that he neglects possible functions of logic in order to accomplish his goals.
While excluded middle and non-contradiction have been problematic with traditional ideas about logic there are some who have developed logical systems that deny their principles completely. For example, the intuitionist movement in logic is based on premises that do not allow excluded middle to hold. Intuitionists deny the objective existence of mathematical objects, saying that any assertion must be shown by construction (Shapiro 19). This system led to a denial of excluded middle when mathematics evolved to include infinite objects. Posy recognizes this as he says “other logical laws maintained their validity; excluded middle did not” (334). Brouwer, one of the better known intuitionists, claims that classical logic can work for finite domains but fails to account for infinite domains.
For the intuitionist, many of the mistakes of classical mathematics evolved from misunderstandings caused by excluded middle. “Says Brouwer, Hilbert’s oft-repeated slogan that every mathematical problem is ultimately solvable is equivalent to the principle of excluded middle and, as such, amount to an outmoded, ungrounded belief” (Posy 335). According to Brouwer and his intuitionism, classical logic and mathematics rely upon an unfounded belief in excluded middle. Intuitionism recognizes problems in classical logic and mathematics but it chooses to completely reject them, leading to logic and mathematics that are not fully functional.
Excluded middle also faces challenges in classical logic. Perhaps the biggest challenge comes from the inference rule of addition. Addition, or disjunction introduction, is an important inference rule used in predicate logic. While not a law, like excluded middle, addition seems to be a sound rule of inference. But addition and excluded middle cannot both hold. Formalized, excluded middle is “p v ~p”, saying that either p is true or it is not true; it does not allow for any other options but the inference rule of addition does, using addition (and commutation) I can say “p v ~p v q.” As such, there may be a viable third option. We must either change the meaning of our operator “v” or say that excluded middle is not absolute.
Many of the problems I’ve named apply directly to the law of excluded middle, but not to non-contradiction. Formally speaking the two laws are distinct: excluded middle is “p v ~p” and non-contradiction is “~(p ^ ~p).” But according to laws of inference, they are logically equivalent. If I apply De Morgan’s theorem to non-contradiction I get “~p v ~~p” and then through the rules of double-negation and commutation I get excluded middle “p v ~p.” Because the two laws are logically equivalent they are both subject to the same problems. It may be objected that we can resolve the problems I’ve already explained and should not reject fundamental laws without significant evidence. We find significant evidence against these laws when we examine paradoxes.

World of Paradox

Paradoxes may be the greatest challenge to these two basic laws of logic. A paradox is “an apparently unacceptable conclusion derived by apparently acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises” (Sainsbury 1). The mere notion of paradox appears paradoxical; paradoxes seem to dispute the indisputable. Paradoxes abound, and every true paradox challenges the viability of excluded middle and non-contradiction. I will explore three especially challenging paradoxes.
The first paradox I will explore is the liar. The liar paradox has confounded philosophers for centuries; it is even found in the Bible. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the liar is its simplicity. Simply put, the liar says “this sentence is false.” If we say that the proposition is true then what it says is false; if we say the proposition is false then what it says is true. This simple proposition challenges the fundamental laws of logic. Because people view excluded middle and non-contradiction as indisputable truths, they struggle to resolve the liar paradox. Some try to resolve it by saying that the statement is neither true nor false, that it has no truth-value (Sorensen 95). On the other hand, some think that the problem with the liar paradox lies in its self-reference (Erickson 109). Unfortunately, every explanation that denies the possibility of contradiction requires us to introduce systems of reasoning that seem counter-intuitive.
Graham Priest argues that paradoxes of this form demonstrate that dialetheias exist (9). The liar and other self-referential paradoxes provide valid and contradictory conclusions from true premises. Priest asserts that if philosophers want to deny dialetheias then they must demonstrate a flaw in this apparently valid reasoning. This usually involves challenging one of the premises of the argument. Not wanting to deny excluded middle or non-contradiction, philosophers respond to the liar and similar paradoxes by explaining complicated issues of self-reference and truth. Some say that the liar is senseless and has no truth-value, while others say that the problem goes away if we just eliminate self-reference (Yablo 251). Unfortunately we can formulate many paradoxes without any need for self-reference (Yablo). And if we claim that some propositions are senseless we must have criteria for doing so beyond saying that they are otherwise paradoxical. In any case, if we follow Occam’s razor the simplest solution is to say that dialetheias exist. This principle holds true with other kinds of paradox as well.
The second paradox I will explore is the heap paradox. The heap paradox is a type of paradox we call a sorites paradox. A sorites is a chain-like argument that uses the conclusion of a set of premises as the premise for the next part of the argument. A sorites paradox uses this method of argumentation to lead to an absurd conclusion. For example, we may have a premise that claims 10,000 grains make a heap of grain (Sainsbury 29). Nobody should reject to such a large pile of grain being called a heap, but if 10,000 grains are a heap then so are 9,999 – removing just one grain will not stop the pile of grain from being a heap. If we continue along this line of reasoning we get: if 9,999 grains make a heap then so do 9,998 grains, and so on. Eventually this line of reasoning will lead to the conclusion that one grain makes a heap. This is obviously wrong but seems to follow from valid reasoning.
While this paradox doesn’t challenge excluded middle and non-contradiction as directly as the liar, it does reveal important information about language. According to excluded middle our collection of grain is either a heap or it is not a heap, but the heap paradox shows us that this is not true. This is because of the vagueness of concepts, like heap. If we reverse the argument we can make a similar chain: one grain is not a heap so two grains are not a heap, and so on until we get to 10,000. This version says that 10,000 grains are not a heap, which is just as wrong as saying that one grain is. There are many concepts that we can only vaguely define. We can’t define a heap as a collection of exactly x number of grains or greater. The law of excluded middle fails to account for this vagueness.
The last paradox I want to examine also challenges excluded middle and non-contradiction through principles of vagueness. Theseus’ paradox examines a ship that belongs to Theseus and has docked for repairs (Olin 4). The ship is made of 1,000 planks and workers renovate the ship, plank by plank. First, they take one plank and move it from the first dock (dock A) to the next dock (dock B), placing it in the exact same position it had on the ship. Next, they replace the first plank with a new plank of wood and continue in this manner until all 1,000 planks have been replaced. In the end there are two ships; one is at dock A and the other is at dock B. But which ship is Theseus’ ship? The ship in dock A begins as Theseus’ ship, and replacing one plank of the ship obviously does not change that. Using a sorites we can conclude that the ship in dock A is Theseus’. In contrast, the ship in dock B has all of the planks that constituted Theseus’ ship arranged in the same manner. As with the heap we can reverse the argument and say that the second ship is Theseus’ ship. We cannot clearly identify which ship is Theseus’ ship.
These three paradoxes use sound reasoning to challenge our notions of non-contradiction and excluded middle. The liar directly challenges the law of non-contradiction, using self-reference to cause a clear case of contradiction. The heap paradox denies the law of excluded middle as it shows that some concepts are vague and that not all things are either have or do not have a given property. Theseus’ paradox compounds the problem introduced with the heap paradox and shows us that concepts are not merely vague but that without accounting for their vagueness we may even have problems with identity. In a world where paradoxes persist, we must either explain how they can be consistent with excluded middle and non-contradiction or we must accept that these laws are not absolute.

Problems of Vagueness

The problems with vagueness that the heap paradox and Theseus’ paradox introduce do not only occur in paradox form. Vagueness occurs in many different concepts, e.g. colors, emotions, and tastes. Excluded middle says that something is either white or not white, but what about shades of white? According to excluded middle, an animal is either a bird or not a bird. But how is it that a penguin is a bird and a bat is not a bird? Or more importantly, if I have a dead bird is it still a bird? The arguments behind the heap and Theseus’ paradox can help illustrate the problem. Just as it is impossible to say when a heap becomes a heap it is impossible to determine when a bird is still a bird. If I have a bird without a wing is it still a bird? If it’s missing its head is it still a bird? What if it’s missing both its head and its wings? The law of excluded middle cannot deal with vagueness.

Conclusion

There are good arguments both for and against the law of excluded middle and non-contradiction. The complete acceptance of these laws seems to ignore important paradoxes, inference rules, and principles of language. On the other hand, if I totally deny the law of excluded middle then I deny the plausibility of classical logic and mathematics. I also deny many of the rules I use for basic reasoning. But if I were to wholeheartedly accept these laws then I would deny many alternative logics that also provide great utility and provide us with applicable and valid results. I would also have to explain how non-contradiction and excluded middle can account for vagueness and paradox. It seems we should only conditionally accept the laws. It seems that it is wrong to affirm the law of excluded middle and non-contradiction as either true or false. Like so many other things in this world, these laws are both true and false. As absolute laws they fail to account for important considerations but that does not mean they do not apply at certain times and in certain situations.
The arguments both for and against these fundamental laws convince me. I feel as though the best thing to do is to say that these fundamental laws of logic hold most of the time. In classical logic the dilemma we’ve examined would be formalized as “(p v ~p) v ~(p v ~p).” According to this formalization, even those who deny the law of excluded middle must follow it. You can only conclude that the law of excluded middle does not hold by using the law of excluded middle. I say that there is no middle to exclude here; we do not have a disjunction but a conjunction. It is not “law of excluded middle or not law of excluded middle”, it is “law of excluded middle and not law of excluded middle.” There is value in classical logics and it is impossible to completely deny the law of excluded middle, but it is not absolute. The same is true of non-contradiction, it is wrong to completely deny it. Completely denying non-contradiction would allow absurdities, but completely accepting it allows its own set of absurdities. We must find a way to accept both positions.
The problem with non-contradiction and excluded middle is that they deny a middle ground. According to excluded middle, something either has a property at a given time or it does not. According to non-contradiction, something cannot at the same time be true and false. Unfortunately, paradoxes and natural language contradict non-contradiction and excluded middle. The simplest way to overcome this problem is to deny the absolute nature of these laws. It’s okay that paradoxes contradict the laws, even though it violates those laws. With dialetheism, Graham Priest has proposed a functional system that others have failed to refute. What Aristotle held as indisputable is disputable. The consequences of this position are profound and widespread. In order to accept dialetheism we must shift our paradigm and view the world differently. Completely shifting paradigms is a huge change, but this change can account for paradox and at the same time provide a formal system of reason.

Works Cited
Aristotle. De Interpretatione. 350 B.C.E. Trans. W.D. Ross. The Complete Works of Aristotle.
Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.
Aristotle. Metaphysics. 350 B.C.E. Trans. W.D. Ross. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed.
Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984.
Bourne, Craig. “Future contingents, non-contradiction, and the law of excluded middle muddle.” Analysis. 64.2 (2004): 122-128.
Erickson, Glenn W., and John A. Fossa. Dictionary of Paradox. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1998.
Olin, Doris. Paradox. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2003.
Posy, Carl. “Intuitionism and Philosophy.” The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic. Ed. Stewart Shapiro. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 318-55.
Priest, Graham. In Contradiction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006.
Sainsbury, R.M. Paradoxes. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
Shapiro, Stewart. “Philosophy of Mathematics and Its Logic: Introduction.” The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic. Ed. Stewart Shapiro. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. 3-27.
Sorensen, Roy. A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind. New York: Oxford UP, 2003.
Yablo, Stephen. “Paradox without Self-reference.” Analysis. 53.4 (1993): 251-252.

Washington, D.C. Temple

2008-08-25T12:07:00.001-04:00

Unfortunately we are still in the process of getting Internet at my house, so that means that I only have Internet access when at school, and as such you don't get any weekend blogging. So, that explains that!

Saturday morning Jason, my roommate, invited me to join him and some friends who were going to the DC Temple, so I decided it would be a good thing to do. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and I was glad to be able to go. Funny, I guess I don't have that much to say about it - I went to church for the first time here in Richmond and it seems like a pretty good ward, hopefully I adjust quickly. I volunteered to help out with baptisms for the dead this coming Saturday so I'll have an early morning then as well, and another opportunity to meet new people.

This morning I officially started law school with my Property class and my Torts class. So far I don't understand why people are intimidated, but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. So far so good.

In other news, I am now driving around in a Chevy Cobalt because the warranty service's inspector didn't come to see the damage to my A/C unit on Friday and so I took my car back for the weekend and had to bring it back today in case he decides to show up, look in the car, and verify that the Mazda people are not lying to him. The best part about it is that I still don't know if they'll pay for my car rentals ($80 now) and once they finally confirm that my air conditioning needs fixed the dealership will still have to order the parts and wait until they arrive before they can fix the car. Meaning that my wonderful extended warranty has made it so I'll have to wait probably 2 weeks to fix a problem that should have been fixed in half a day once parts arrived. Good times.

The Seed

2008-08-22T18:37:00.000-04:00

I'm going to try and post a few examples of my writing and talks I've given, so be aware that some of these will be religious, some of them highly philosophical and hard to understand, and others not so bad - first up is the talk I gave when I returned from my mission to my ward back home in Pinedale, WY. As always, comments are appreciated. The seed:

It is good to stand in front of you today. It has been more than two years since I last had the opportunity to speak to the Pinedale Ward, I had the opportunity to address you as I prepared for missionary service. I said at that time that I would not speak on missionary work for I did not yet fully understand it, but that perhaps upon returning I could better touch the theme. Rarely have I been so anxious as I have prepared to speak, I pray that what I say today might be accompanied by the Holy Ghost. It is now my desire to share with you what I have learned about missionary work.
When I last spoke to you I spoke of hope, a word that means a lot to me, about what it meant to me, about how it has helped me in my life - hope is a good thing, one of the best of things. We read in Alma 32:21 of a hope for things which are not seen, but which are true. Alma teaches us that our faith gives us that hope, and he proceeds to teach us of faith, how we might grow - he tells us to plant the word in our hearts as though it were a seed and that it will grow and enlarge our souls. “Now behold would this not increase your faith?” But what is that seed, or word, of which he speaks? Elder H. Brian Richards challenged us in his conference address a few short weeks ago to find out that answer, may I share with you what I have found...
The answer, he said, could be found in the 33rd chapter of Alma - here Alma has just addressed a people humbled by their circumstances and taught them of that word which they must plant in their hearts - not completely understanding they ask him more. I paraphrase from that chapter:

They sent forth unto him desiring to know...how they should plant the seed and Alma said unto them “Behold, ye have said that ye could not worship your God because ye are cast out of your synagogues. But...I say unto you, if ye suppose that ye cannot worship God, ye do greatly err, and ye ought to search the scriptures...Zenos, the prophet of old has said concerning prayer and worship...’thou art merciful O God for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness... Yea, and thou wast merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field...and thou didst hear me...And again, O God, when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me in my prayer...thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee...Yeah, thou hast been merciful unto me and heard my cries...and thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out and have been despised by mine enemies...And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, for thou hast turned thy judgements away from me, because of thy son’...and Alma said unto them “do ye believe those scriptures? If ye do, ye must believe what Zenos said; for he said ‘thou hast turned away thy judgments because of thy son”...have ye read the scriptures? If ye have how can ye disbelieve on the Son of God? It is not written that Zenos alone spake of these things but Zenock also, he said ‘Thou art angry, O Lord, with this people, because they will not understand thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of they Son.’ This is not all; these are not the only ones who have spoken concerning the son of God...he was spoken of by Moses and a type was raised up in the wildernoess that whosoever would look upon it might live...but few understood the meaning of those things and this because of the hardness of their hearts.
Brothers and sisters, few understand it, few they are indeed who understand and comprehend what the true mercies of the son of God are. I am going to use a movie that we heard a great deal about in the mission field to illustrate my point. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Passion of the Christ...at many doorsteps we were asked if we’d seen it, if we were going to see it, what we thought of it... once I responded that I had not seen the film and that we did not watch movies as missionaries, to this answer came the response “that’s because it’s the truth, and you can’t accept the truth.” What is this truth that people such as this woman don’t think we can accept? From my understanding of the movie it shows in graphic detail the brutal torture and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and little else. Some people have come to a greater understanding of what exactly it was that the Romans did to Christ, the physical suffering he went through in his final hours - they perhaps begin to understand what he was willing to do for us, and for that the film should be commended.
Unfortunately such depictions cannot lead one to understand what Zenos and Zenock are teaching us... they have not spent the hours in prayer in all manner of circumstance crying out to Him, watching a movie cannot make us feel the true mercies of the Lord in our lives. No, nor can we understand the true miracle behind all that Christ has done for us. He was not the only man ever to be scourged and crucified... he was not the only victim to the Roman soldiers - they were masters of torture from years of experience... no, to say that the physical suffering there is what Christ did for us is to say that he experienced little more than the two thieves with whom he died.
Perhaps it is because we can more easily wrap our minds, our understanding, around the physical torture and pain - perhaps that is why we look to the physical suffering, we can more easily comprehend it. Brothers and sisters, the true miracle happened before Jesus was arrested, in a little garden spot called Gethsemane. There he prayed to the father and experienced and did something far greater than to allow men to spit upon him, or abuse and batter him. No man made device could cause such torment that one should bleed from every pore, try as we might we have not in our power to construct such devices. In those quiet moments the Savior of the World, the Son of God, our loving older brother took and drank of the bitter cup. We cannot comprehend the harrowing of a souls as he felt such exquisite agony... he did not take upon him only physical pain and death... no, in that garden spot as Alma tells us “He suffered pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sickness of his people. And he will take upon him death that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
He felt everything, he overcame everything, the atonement of Jesus Christ is infinite. He not only suffered physically (more in the garden than at the hands of the Romans) but emotionally, mentally, spiritually, his soul felt everything you have ever experienced and more. He felt every bit of sorrow, loneliness, disease, heartache, distress, guilt... that he might understand and know how to succor his people, ho to help us according to the flesh. The spirit knows all things and could have told him of all these but as Alma tells us, he suffered so that he would understand it in the flesh - so that he himself had experienced it!
Imagine, if you will, how hard your life has been at times, some of your moments of greatest grief and difficulty... imagine all the trials, temptations, heartache, stress, and illness of your own life - imagine having to deal with all of those together, all together, in a space of 3 hours... everything you’ve ever felt - good and bad. Do you think you could handle it? Now imagine taking upon yourself not only those moments, those trials from your own life but adding upon them those of just one more person? It would destroy each and every one of us... and yet Christ took upon him not only the pains of one, or two, but billions of people - all who have ever lived. If the Passion of the Christ is how the rest of the world understands what Christ did for us they are missing out on the true miracle, the beautiful mercies of our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why, brothers and sisters... we should have a greater understanding of exactly what that is, what the mercies of Christ are. After all, is there another church at the head of which sits he himself, our Redeemer Jesus Christ?
I am sure there are some who have a greater understanding of the mercies of Christ than that afforded by a movie... no movie can express what happened in Gethsemane. There may be some who have a fairly solid understanding of Christ and his love for us, but only through the truth can one come to fully understand these things.. And so it is that we mus first gain an understanding of the truth, we must plant that seed in our hearts.

Alma continues in chapter 33, his sermon on the seed:

“If ye could be healed by merely casting about your eyes that ye might be healed, would ye not behold quickly?...then cast about your eyes and begin to believe in the Son of God, that he came to redeem his people, and that he suffered and died to atone for their sins and that he rose again from the dead and brought to pass the resurrection that all men shall stand before him, to be judged at the last and judgment day, according to their works. And now my brethren, I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and as it beginneth to swell even so nourish it by your faith. And behold, it will become a tree, springing up in you unto everlasting life. And then may God grant unto you that your burdens may be light, through the joy of his son. And even all this can ye do if ye will.”

Matthew 11:28-30 reads “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” He has taken upon him everything, he understands when you’re sad, when you’re tempted, he has felt the pains of cancer, he has felt the anguish of a guilt-ridden soul...he has provided us a way to become clean of our sins, to return to live with him and our Heavenly Father with eternal life in our wings... he has provided a way to make life’s trials a growing experience rather than a destroying experience... he can lift us up from depression, from guilt, from pain, and from loss - we just need to trust in him, put his yoke upon us, and follow him.
“For I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I know that he loves and supports me, that he suffered incomprehensible agony and despair that I might not. I have felt his love and it has overwhelmed me, to the pint where at times the testimony, the spirit of his love, burns within me and I cannot, as the sons of Mosiah, bear that another should perish, not knowing of his mercies. I have planted the seed, it has a lot of nourishing and growth to go, but I know that when we have truly planted that seed in our hearts it burns withing us and we have to share it with others.
I am not yet to the point where my concern for others is anywhere near constant, but it is at times present, and I would invite you, brothers and sisters to plant and cultivate that seed... the mercies of the Son of God in your lives - and when it begins to grow you will share the gospel for you will truly begin to understand how valuable it is, just as Lehi immediately looked about to see with whom he could share the fruit of the tree of life. When you feel the love of God your instinct is to share it, for selfishness is the very opposite of the nature of the love of God.
Will you join me in gaining a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ? I know him, I love him, more importantly and more truly, he knows and loves me... I have begun to realize that the love I’ve felt, the desire to sing the song of redeeming love... I’m starting to see that he loves everybody else just as much as he loves me. If I love him how can I leave them without? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, it is guided today by Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith was his prophet and restored these wonderful truths to us in our day. Gordon B. Hinckley speaks to the Savior in order to guide us today. I know that Christ lives and loves us, I pray that we all might know of this more assuredly everyday, this is my prayer, this is my hope, this is my faith. He lives, knowing that is the key to the entire gospel, to all of missionary work. As we begin to develop this faith the church will not have 60,000 missionaries throughout the world but 12 million, and when that time comes that number will rapidly increase. It is not easy, nothing worthwhile ever was. There is a lot of work ahead, even after planting the initial seed, but I know it is the first and most vital step. He lives and loves us, I am so grateful for that. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Not the best day to forget my wallet

2008-08-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

I woke up yesterday morning with a simple plan. I would drop my car off at the local Mazda dealership so that they could look at my A/C and decide exactly what was wrong and how much it would cost to fix and order the parts. I would then take the dealership shuttle to school for my second day of orientation. After orientation, I would call a cab, get a ride back to the dealership, pick up my car and schedule a later time to have the repairs made once the parts had arrived. Simple plan, should have been easy, right? Not so fast.

I was running a bit behind and knew I needed to make it to the dealership before 8 so that I could catch the shuttle, in my hurry I neglected to grab my wallet. Not noticing my lack of driver's license and money, I dropped off my cars and handed them my keys, not realizing that my house key was on the chain. As I rode the shuttle to school I realized my mistake and was filled with a sense of dread - how was I going to get back to my car? If I called a cab to go home, I had no way of getting inside my house to the money, if I called a cab to go to the dealership, I had no way of paying him cuz all that I would have there is my car and keys. Also, I had no way of paying for lunch, but that was okay - I can survive without eating one meal. Anyhow, orientation ends for the day and I decide "it's not that far, I'll walk!"

Well, google maps tells me that's only 3.5 miles, I can walk that easily! Except that it's along busy roads that aren't designed for walkers... and I'm from Wyoming which is a cold, dry state. Virginia is not cold nor is it dry, luckily the weather was fairly mild but I sweat more than I am accustomed to as I made this walk. Well, the dealership had called and left a message saying my warranty claimed not to have my contract under record and that I should fax the contract to them. Seeing as how I was on foot and my contract is in Wyoming I called my Mom to save the day. She said she had the stuff and would fax it right away and actually ended up calling the warranty company who said that my records came "right up" with no problem. Strange. After calling the dealership and telling them the warranty should be there, they said they would call and get it taken care of. About 20 minutes later I got another phone call from the dealership saying that, unfortunately, the warranty company refused to let them do any work on it or order any parts until they had an inspector look at it, and as such required that they keep the car for the next 24-48 hours - they couldn't give a more specific time than that.

Joy of joys! Now I was walking 3 1/2 miles to a dealership where my house key was but I wasn't going to be able to take my car or rent a car, because I didn't have my driver's license or form of payment. Great. When I finally arrived the dealership was kind enough to let me borrow my car for a few minutes while I ran home and grabbed my wallet, they called the rental company and had a car brought over for me and now I am driving a lovely yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Good times. Other facts of note - the warranty company covers rental cars but not until they approve the repairs, which means I may or may not be reimbursed for a car I had to rent because they demanded that my car be kept at the dealership. Also, the guy at the dealership, Matt, was great and said that the person on the other end was quite the pain and dubious of every claim he made about the damage to my A/C compressor. In other words, I don't recommend getting an extended warranty through these people, they make it a real pain in the rear end.

Those were my adventures yesterday! Fun fun fun.

On Whim

2008-08-21T11:33:00.000-04:00

As I sat for lunch yesterday with two other new law students and our student advisor the normal questions were asked. Where did you do your undergrad? Have you been out of school long? What brings you here? The funny thing is that people think I'm joking when I give my answer to that last question. Why did I go to law school? Whim. Why did I decide on the University of Richmond? Whim. That's usually how I answer, and I guess there aren't too many people like me who could say that and be partially serious. But whim is a good term for what guides a lot of my life, not that it's random (although sometimes it is) but life for me is pretty dynamic.

Case in point, my time as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer with the BYU Positive Behavior Support Initiative. I was working as a secretary with the PBSI when my boss asked me about my plans after I graduated. Student employees aren't allowed to stay on in the same capacity once they graduate, and for some reason they liked me there. Haha. He asked if I would consider being a VISTA volunteer and explained the basics behind the program to me, I would get a small living stipend while you volunteer and at the end of my service I could get an education reward to go towards furthering my education. I would work 30-40 hours a week, and in our office I would probably work on multiple research projects, doing all sorts of different tasks. Basically, he was asking me to make a 1 year commitment to work for very little pay and without the ability to work any other jobs. Without consulting anybody or even really thinking about it for more than five minutes, I signed up. That's all it took for me to set the course for the next year of my life - a few minutes thought. And you know what? It was a good decision. I loved my time as a VISTA, and although I probably wasn't the greatest VISTA volunteer that office has or will see, I think they enjoyed having me there.

So, how can I say that Law School was whim? I guess it's not a good idea to go about making decisions that put you into heavy debt based just on what you feel like doing - but strangely it works for me. I mean, the decision makes sense and it is a field I think I will enjoy working in, but when the decision was made I hadn't worked out the logic - I just decided. To start, I had no intention of going to law school, although that's the normal course for many philosophy majors. My friend Jimmy took me to lunch one day and we ran into one of my friends from the philosophy program, Bart. Bart was telling me that I had to go to law school, that I was being foolish with my plans to pursue a PhD in Philosophy, and that I knew that law was the right way to go. I was unconvinced, but Bart had this idea of going into practice together and so he felt like I needed to go to law school for sure. I asked, jokingly, are you going to pay for me to take the LSAT? Bart had an idea, he said that he would pay for my LSAT if I would agree to go into practice with him once we were both through the process of law school, and if I ever changed my mind about the whole thing that I would have to pay him back. Free LSAT? I signed up. I still didn't care very much and decided I would just see how well I could do on the LSAT without any preparation, with very little study a few months later I took the test and did well enough that Law School seemed more attractive. About then, after seeing the test results on a test I never had any intention of taking, I figured Law School seemed like a decent idea. Strangely enough, Bart changed his mind and decided not to go to law school - I think it's decisions like that are what made me and Bart get along so well (and I think since he changed his mind, I'm free of any and all obligations from our deal). (If you want to get an idea of the kind of guy Bart is, read his website celebritymisinformation.com)

How did I decide to go to the University of Richmond? It just felt right, as Stephen Colbert might say, I went with my gut. I remember the first time I got a pamphlet from them in the mail suggesting that I apply for law school there, I looked at it and I had a good feeling about the place. While I investigated and applied to many other schools, I just had some kind of affinity for the University of Richmond. It wasn't the highest ranked school I was accepted into, nor the school that offered me the most money - it was just the one I felt best about.

My friend Casey asked me before I left if I had prayed about my decision. My answer to him was "of course" but that doesn't give an accurate portrayal of my decision. I never prayed specifically about the University of Richmond, I more prayed to know if I was going in the right direction. Kind of "let me know if I'm screwing this up" more than questioning where the right school was. When it comes to my education, I feel that the answer is to get as much education as possible wherever seems right, and Richmond seems right. So far, my gut hasn't led me wrong on this adventure, and I'm going to keep on trusting it. So how did I end up where I am? Whim - may it take me further than I can see.

Song Lyrics

2008-08-21T03:00:00.000-04:00

In case anybody is interested, I thought I'd post lyrics to some songs I wrote a long time ago. Chorus is in italics, and feel free to comment - even if its to say "keep your day job." I am more than a little embarrassed about some of them so no worries. Thanks. I'm currently working on lyrics to a song called "Her Name is Jane" based on several inside jokes, because I need to finish an inside joke - in case that swallow starts singing! "Working on" is a relative term, by the way. Without further ado, song lyrics I wrote once:

You May Not Be Mine, but I'm Yours

In my mind I yearn to find
The words to tell you
The way that I feel
The words I could tell you
That would keep you near

My brain is racing, contemplating
Earnest seeking, ways of keeping
You

You're beautiful, engaging, amazing
My darling, you're all things
I'm seeking, except you're not
Mine
In spite of this fact
In spite of the hard times
You know me, I know you
I love you
You may not be mine
But, girl, I'm yours

If only there were some kind of token

Some magic something
That could convince you
To choose me, not lose me
Please be mine,
Cuz you know that I'm yours

CHORUS

I'm hoping and waiting
Anticipating that day
When I can call you mine
Please be mine
You might not be mine
But I'm yours
If you want me
I'm yours….

Jacked Up

It's all jacked up
It's so jacked up
I do my best
Pass every test
It's all jacked up
So jacked up
Only to be passed by
She takes the other guy
It's all jacked up
It's so jacked up
I can't do anymore
She kicks me out the door

Everything,
Everything
How is it that I
Can be everything
They tell me that
They're wanting
Time and time again
I start to love
"Sorry, my best friend
I just don't feel that way"

CHORUS

She describes
Her perfect man
He's standing
In front of her
Here I am!
There's nothing
I can do
To impress
Any of you
Girls don't know
What they want
They say they need
A man like me
But here I am
Standing alone… again

CHORUS

A World Without Me

The first time I met you
I saw dreams come true
An angel that haunted
You had everything I wanted
Your eyes opened windows
I saw into my soul

I loved you too much
I offered you all things
The world and then some
There was nothing I would not give
Until that day when
I realized what you thought
In spite of my caring
The love I was sharing
The world that you sought
Was a world, without me

A world without me
The hardest gift to give
I loved you too much
Gave up my right to live

Thank you so much
For asking too much
I gave you my gift
I left you to live
In a world, without me

CHORUS

So lovely, so perfect
An omen ignored
"A girl will find you
She'll hypnotize you
You will be taken
Until you're heart broken
I can't thank you
Enough for taking
My innocent heart and stomping
You never knew
How much I offered you
I was all you ever dreamt of
But you never knew me

CHORUS

Because I left you
When you asked me
Because I gave you
A world without me
I have found the reason
A world to live in
No longer your world
There's a better girl
Thank you for asking for…

CHORUS

I'm glad I gave you
A world without me
It seemed you asked for
All I could give and more
After all I've been through
I'm better without you
If you had known
All I offered
You would have had
Your dream man
But now I see
You never knew me….

Not My Bluebird Anymore

It was Summer that year
When the bird appeared
She landed looked at me
She started talking
Little bluebird was my friend
Hello little bird
Won't you come on in?
Entered into my life
Oh pretty bird
She brought sunshine
Made me happy

She's not my bluebird anymore
She flew off to another door
Brought into my life
Happiness and smiles
My sweet little friend
Flew away from me
Not my bluebird anymore
Fly away my friend
You're not my bluebird anymore
Time to go away
It's not summer now
I'm standing in the cold

Looked outside the other day
See if a bluebird might come my way
Nothing on my lawn
The good times they are gone
I don't have a bluebird anymore

It feels like winter now
The warmth has gone away
The bluebirds in my life
They decided to migrate

It's such a cold night
And I just want a friend
Please bluebird come
Melt the snow with your sun

CHORUS

Some day there'll be
A bird that stays with me
She won't choose to fly
Off into the sky
A bluebird for my friend
Friendship to never end
Little bird will stay with me
The summer's warmth
Will stay with me
Someday some pretty girl
Will be my bluebird
Forever more.
But for now this last one's
Not my bluebird anymore.

Some day there'll be
A bird that stays with me
She won't choose to fly
Off into the sky

Until You Came Along

Standing all alone
A windy rainy night
No place to call my home
'Twas a life I couldn't fight
I was by myself
Until you came along

Until you came along
The darkness was my life
I couldn't find my place
There was no guiding light
Until you came along
The world was so dull
My feelings had gone numb
But now my life is full
Because you came along

Have you ever felt this way?
Seeing only shades of gray?
I really cannot tell
The impact you have had
The difference you have made
Because you came along

The world's a scary place
There's so much I could fear
But when I see your face
I know that I'm safe here
When I see your face
I need you to be near

CHORUS

Now I'm not alone
Today I am not scared
There's laughter in my life
There's happiness and joy
I've found my will to live
Because you came along
I've finally found the one
Who understands my mind
I've finally found myself
When I look into your eyes
Such beauty kills the pain
And all is right again.

CHORUS

For so long I have searched
For a woman I could love
I found so many girls
To take my heart away
But now I've found the one
Who will give her heart to me.

The cold and rainy night
The time I stood alone
My life was not complete
Until you came along.

A Player's Window

It's another night
He's with another girl
He puts in his time
But doesn't want to be with her
In his mind is a former love
The new girl's waiting
And he's there, but she's all alone

I look inside the player's window
I look inside the player's soul
I see his hurt from life's great passion
I see his lack of moving on
So many girls, should be so much fun
It's too bad, he just wants one
The girl left him, she sent him off
So now he'll find a new girl
And he'll hurt her like she hurt him

So many women
They just want love
But the player cannot give
For some other girl
At some other time
Took away his will to live

Women get hurt
Players hurt too
The human heart
Is a fragile organ
And it spreads its pain to others
A broken heart
A broken man
He seeks healing
They don't understand

CHORUS

It doesn't matter
How many girls
The player goes through
The hurt's still there
Until he gives up his fear
He will never love again
He will never live again

Life is painful, scary
And heartache hurts so bad
Afraid of falling
He cannot leap
But you'll never fly
If you don't risk your heart.

Someone My Home

I'm just trying to find myself
Put all these lies up on the shelf
Help me please to find my place
I'm no longer the person I was
I no longer know who I am

I want to be that somebody
Who somebody loves
I need to be that somebody
Who I once was
I'm trying to be everything
But I don't know where to go
I'll find my self in her eyes
I need someone my home

All alone feel so lost
I can't find myself
Here I am in a room
Full of some selves
But which self
Is my self
I truly cannot say
I'm not the man I used to be
Said goodbye to yesterday

CHORUS

Some one, my home
The home I'm looking for
There I'll find the peace I seek
The warm welcome door
It's home I need
It's home I want
I have lost my home
All alone, by myself
Yearning for those eyes
The eyes of someone
Some one my home.

CHORUS

It's in those eyes of that one
That I find my place
When I see those eyes
I remember me
The man who I used to be
The man who I will be
My goodness, my greatness
My potential full
I'll find it
In her eyes
Someone my home

First night at a new home

2008-08-19T10:39:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm officially moved in. Still unpacking and with a ton of chores to do, but I'm liking it. I got to meet a few people from the singles ward at family home evening last night. It was crazy, there were almost 60 people there so it was basically impossible to get to know too many people without butting in to some pre-existent groups. I'm starting to get my bearings and understand where I'm at, and so far I'm really enjoying myself. So far so good.

Just a note to everybody, so far I've mostly posted journal type entries, and will probably continue to have journal type posts more often than not, but I will at times post other material, including posts on topics like religion, politics, and sports. Those are three things people are pretty passionate about, so I'll make sure to warn you before I go off on one of my rants.

Oh, and so you all can see how my personal appearance and surroundings change (don't want you to forget what I look like!) I'm going to post an image of myself taken at the time of my blogpost once a week.

Arrival at a new home

2008-08-18T00:32:00.000-04:00

So, I made it to Richmond today. That's an accomplishment. Suddenly, the entire reality of what this means is beginning to set in. My roommates here seem like great guys, and I don't foresee any problems with that at all. But I am just now realizing how powerful it is to say goodbye to almost everything you know and just set out on a new adventure. Other than those two men I met earlier tonight, I do not know a single soul for nearly 500 miles. That's a weird feeling. I don't know how well I would deal with that without the church. As for everything else, the campus here is beautiful and I'm looking forward to getting everything started. Hopefully the weather stays mild until I can fix my a/c. Life is good - Hopefully I adjust quickly to these changes.

One more note - in memory of my friend Kaleo who passed away this weekend while on vacation in Georgia. I've only known Kaleo for a few short months, but he was a good friend and a good man. I still remember the first time I talked with him, and I will miss him a lot. Life's not supposed to end while you're in your 20s, unfortunately for those of us who are left behind some people go on to eternity faster than others. Kaleo, you join a group of much loved people who I will remember fondly and my life is dimmer for your absence in it. Goodbye.

Road Trip Day 2, Blog Trip Day 1

2008-08-16T23:46:00.001-04:00

Hello friends, family, everybody! I figure now that I'm leaving most of my friends and family 2,000 miles away, I ought to do something to keep all y'all informed. So - here we go. Blog post 1. The first day of my trip east went pretty well, except for the fact that my air conditioning in the car decided to die and may cost me $1500 to fix. Hopefully my warranty covers that, it's been pretty mild weather so luckily the lack of a/c hasn't killed me and my mums.

We stopped over in Topeka, KS last night and are in Louisville, KY tonight. Mum isn't too happy with the motel she picked for us tonight, good times! This morning we stopped off at Liberty Jail to see where Joseph Smith spent 5 months of his life and received some of the most inspiring scripture from the Doctrine and Covenants (sections 121-123). It was a great experience, amazing to see how those men had to live for so long. Good stop on my trip.

I still don't think it has hit me that I'm leaving everything I know behind - if I'm lucky it won't hit me too hard. Law School should be a great experience... but I'm going to miss so many people. Well, I'll update you with all sorts of stuff, and post song lyrics I've written, talks I've written, and other neat stuff on here. Hope lots of you will stop by here to see how I'm doing on occasion. Thanks for everything, love you all.

-Isaac

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