The fire burns warm in the almost pot-belly stove. The bench near by- vacated. Lon reads the Funnies in a suit and tie, jacket removed, and cuffs rolled up. Last night I interviewed John Chesley on that bench. He sat awkwardly before my camera, revealing his inner feelings and telling stories of his relationship with Jackie Monson that brought him to this day- the red dot blinking- to the day of his marriage.

Now, the marriage is nearly done, only the reception remains. The lunch was exquisite. The mood divine. The sealer stumbly, yet accurate and spiritual. At the end of the ceremony, they were asked to rise, the bride and the groom. They stood, and looked before themselves into eternity, between two mirrors. In the mirror before them, their images reflected endlessly, as it was tossed back and forth between the two. A representation of the generations without end that would come as a result of their covenants. They turned, and in the mirror behind them reflected again endlessly their images. A representation of those who had come before, their ancestors, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and all who paved the way. And in the middle, stood them, two children in adult clothing, a beautiful gown and handsome suit. Children.

Yet children of God. Their potential roared as the silence around them listened.

Wealth disparity, flat, or even regressive taxes, seem to be commonly supported by many of the mormons, with whom I deal.

Robin Hood and his merry man now march on France and much of Europe. Germany approves. And Italy is already implementing.

"A tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world’s poor" is the proposition. They call it the Robin Hood tax.

The 99 percent continue to protest in cities across America. A third of our nations wealth is still held by the 1 percent.

The Obama administration remains reluctant to support such a tax however for fear that it will drive away business.

My question here is- in times of such inequality and disparity, how can we as Christians support such a thing as wealth inequality?

I have no grand political arguments. I'm not a mastermind economist and I don't pretend to understand theoretic mathematical concepts. I offer no persuading numbers.

All I say is this-

 There is a closed door.
A person comes and opens that door.
The person walks through.

In this simple example, are we to imagine that the only person involved in opening that door was the person that did the deed of opening?

Nay.

Surely the carpenter who crafted the door should have some credit, for without him there would be no door to be opened. And the custodian? did he not make sure the hinges were properly greased so as to be easily opened? And who told the person the location of the door? Should we imagine that they found it all by themselves? And what of that persons parents? Did they not raise them, and nourish them to be strong enough to open the door? Did they not teach them how to turn the knob and get on through?

And so it is with money. It is narrow minded and foolish to say that I have all of my money because of myself and all of my hard work.

Now I'm not talking about welfare, and government handouts, and such nonsense systems that stunt the growth of a countries citizens. And I realize that mormons are one of the top donating demographics for philanthropies and such.

But what I'm getting at is that we should not assume that what is ours is really ours. We should get through that door and say -Ahha! I made it- and close the door on all the other people behind you. To do so would be ungrateful and, in our terms faithless.

I try to remember that we're all in this together and that not a penny of mine is a penny of mine.

Pomegranate Sorbet

I created pomegranate sorbet. Two fresh pomegranates. Hand sqoozed. One half of a lemon. Hand squozen. Pure cane sugar. Frigid water. Mixed all into the White Mountain ice cream freezer. Meredith, the Goddess of my heart, stirred. I, the master of my heart, churned. More ice was added. Post beef wellington, thinly sliced potatoes toasted crispy, and pleasantly sauteed green beans, we enjoyed the paleteous sensations of fresh pomegranate and lemon frozen goodness. It was aromatic. It was sweet, powerful, strong. It was nearly unbelievable. It was choice. 

Someone may have toppled over upon tasting the art of its confection, I, however, did not. I smiled blissfully, fully aware of the loved ones around me that shared its joy with me. 

And then we were off to the Yule Ball.

So, I haven't for quite some time. Yes. Thats true. In part I've been waiting for I-COMM to get their blogs up and running, because I rather wanted to write for them. But I got tired of waiting so I started writing. And here you have it: a column for the scroll for next week.

Snow's starting to fall, but things are starting to get hot, and I don't know about you, but I need to be heard. And I hope you do to. So,

Sing out, cry out, let it ring out, however you choose to do it. 

Ill-prepared

5 June 1976. “All we had for dinner was bread as we watched the flood waters roll in from our camper atop the hill,” recollected Bruce Eckman, former owner of Rexburg Food Storage. “Our first meal was up on campus in the cafeteria: bouillon soup and sea biscuits.” 

Eckman was 18 when the Teton Dam broke and 80 billion gallons of water came pouring through the Teton River canyon. He doesn’t remember where the food came from but was grateful for it. His father taught in the Austin building at the time, and for what seemed like two months, he and his family slept on top of the podium in the classroom, victims of the Teton Flood. 13,000 cattle deceased, 11 people dead , $2 billion of damage caused. The blessing? School was out of session- few students were on campus during the summer. 

Now, school is in session in the summer and the student population is effectively one half of the city’s total population, and those students are ill-prepared, un-aware, and non-caring towards emergency preparation.

Another flood isn’t likely to wipe out Rexburg, as the locals aren’t keen on the idea of a new dam, but many other potential disasters threaten the area, our homes, and our lives. 

Droughts, wind storms, earthquakes, and fires; from the more mild- a hot day- to the more extreme- the explosion of  the Yellowstone Caldera super-volcano, or trouble at the Idaho National Laboratory- to the most likely-severe winter weather- all challenge your life. Campus, Church, and government officials are all doing their part to prepare, but many students rely on a pillow for a crutch and find comfort in myths of others’ benevolent preparation. 

On campus the University Emergency Council oversees precautions. Compiled of four branches- operations, planning, logistics, and administration- it certifies that students and employees will be safe during emergencies. Electronic sensors and systems allow two-thirds of campus to lock-down at any moment. Campus blue-phones and the text-messaging web facilitate mass communication though out campus and to individual students. A rotated meal supply housed on campus provides nourishment for 72 hours to one-week. Government officials will administer the first nation-wide test of the Emergency Alert System over radio, TV, and cable channels. Nearly 300,000 people died in more than 350 natural disasters in 2010, the deadliest year in the last quarter century. The Church helped victims in 58 countries last year, responded to 119 disasters and provided millions of dollars in emergency aid, according to Newsroom. The campus is astute, the government is ready, and the Church is prepared, and you are playing angry birds. 

I wager that the average BYU-I student’s food storage consists of little more than a Hot-and-Sweaty cooling off in the fridge, and a few cans of green beans waiting to be purchased at the case lot sale. I don’t expect us to build a fortress in the mountains with enough food and ammunition to last a decade, but I do find it prudent to heed the Lord’s advice to be prepared and  self-reliant. As Eckman noted, the most likely disaster isn’t some epic out of Hollywood, but its the loss of a job, a surprising health issue, or rising financial turmoil. Things that happen everyday. 


"If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." D&C 38:3.

And the best part is: if ye are prepared, you will be empowered to offer a helping hand, to be someone’s angel in their time of need. Prepare yourself.

A Note For Sunday

Inspired, I explained that obedience is not about not doing the wrong thing, but more about actively doing the right thing.  We needn't worry soo much about avoiding the bad, as we should about pursuing the good. I challenged all of us in the Gospel Principles class to apply our lesson on the Life of Christ by asking ourselves not what Jesus wouldn't do, but what he would do, and then do it.

In my life I often feel that this is one of the best questions that I can ask myself in any situation. It is inspired as it seeks action, not passive knowledge. It keeps in mind that sin is not only doing what is wrong or rebelling against the law of God, but, perhaps more commonly, failure to do that which is good.

Next time we come to a moral question, let us not ask if it is wrong, but let us ask if it is right.

What would Jesus do?

Loving Austin

Eh, Why not love Austin too?

They call it dirty sixth. Or at least I think they do. All I know is that it is dirty, and it is sixth street. And I danced with a large drunk black woman in the 311 Blues Bar and she was black and drunk and large. My Girl tangled with smoke and tobacco as it rolled out of the speakers and drifted away from its creators on stage. I was a little startled by the woman's agility as we danced, so I tried to dip her on the last- she didn't fall over. The music drifted out past giggling friends and spectators and into the open street- Sixth Street. Four or five blocks were closed to automobiles, allowing pedestrians to roam freely. Women in uncomfortably high heels and indecently short skirts flaunted themselves amongst underdressed men and overly invasive street performers.

Inside the 311 Blues Bar. My lady in red is at the table.

i can't say the club is exactly my thing, however much I like to get my crazy white boy on. So I split my separate route as some of my friends went into the club with the glass floor and later told me that the roof opened up too. I drifted down stream with the music and photographed some guitarists and artists and such, and clapped along with some folk singing with soul. I hooted and howled until I could tell they had had enough of me. I feel I found my place with some nice hippie folk: Happy Happy James and Kim.

Happy James squatted next to his portable drum kit and told me that Austin officials had banned live music outside of clubs after 2230hrs: bad words "and they call Austin the capital of live music!" he exclaimed as we watched his wife, the love of his life dance the hula hoops. He wore his wedding ring with pride. He told me to go to Barton Springs.

Happy Happy James' wife. Proudly.

Kim was next. She drew on the sidewalk. And drew and drew andrew. I watched until we talked. And talked and talked andtalked. She lived in a nice house, a couple hundred a night drawing famous people portraits on the sidewalk with chalk. She had a nose ring and crazy socks and excepted a cigarette when someone gave it to her even though she doesn't "usually smoke". I don't either. She was a nice person and wanted to get big like this other guy. She told me to go to Barton Springs.

Kim and Alfred Hitchcock. It was his birthday.

Long story short. It made me ask myself: why do I desire to willingly subject myself to the capitalist system? Getting paid for less than I am worth, earning less than I work and making a fortune for he who owns the means of production? "Why don't I just go and be free" I said tonight, while I finished my pint of Southern Blackberry Cobbler in a dimly lit kitchen. "Why don't I just be free!? That's what I really want!" I said. Is it? Is that what we all want? Or do we want to be burdened by responsibility and play a respectable role in society? I want to play a respectable role in society to change it for the better and help everyone else out. Or least that's what I tell myself. Maybe I really just want to  go hop on cart 36 with Brother Man Dan.

Love Rexburg

Have I mentioned I love love Love LovE LoVE LOVE Rexburg! And I feel your LOVE Rexburg! right back to me, oh yes I do. My life couldn't be any better.

So this morning I arose from my bright orange hammock hanging in exctasy between to white poles on the pleasant edge of the cottonwood courtyard, had a good scripture read, and headed off to the library at about 0745hrs after a good four hours of sleep to write 1,500 words, and edit 3,000 more before 1200hrs. In the library I proceed to write a good 1,500 scholary words. They flow out of my arms and onto the computer screen nearly free of air. They navigate the waters of definition of such complex terms as Justice and Freedom and cheerios, and proceed forth in such perfection that three hours later when all is written, I notice to my amazement that they need little editing, nearly none above a few typos. To my pleased amazement I format and turn in the paper. I edit the 3,000. I turn them in. Never in my life have I been able to write such a well-founded piece with no need for editing. I live to edit. Usually I edit my papers up to 5 or six times. Thats the way I write them. But not this one. I consider it a miracle from on high.

Especially considering that my predicament was not a result of procrastination only. The Saturday previous sickness had sit in. Sunday morning afternoon many bizarre dream hallucinations, body pains, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, I attend the 3 hours of church and return to my bed. I wasn't feeling well to say the least. No jam was held. That's saying alot. For the first time in about six months. I'm out cold from sunday to wednesday, at which point I think about getting better. About thursday I'm better. Friday I'm good. My teachers extended my finals till this morning for me. Thank you BYU-Idaho.

So, just in closing to this rather unusual rant (there many for things I could rant about which are causing me extreme joy), I'd like to say- I Love Rexburg.

Protests and Charities

So I though an update appropriate. I am currently involved in a handful of protests and my toes are in the door of a charity here and there.

The man in the apartment above me- Ziggy, they call him- yelled down to me the other day: "Let's start a revolution!" My heart leaped up and my hand slapped down on my old wooden stool as I vocalized agreement. By golly, you're on to something, pal. Ziggy, or Bradley, is preparing a sizable paper for submission to the city and school authorities. It advocates better bicycle rights. His comment on revolution was response to my article published last week. Colter Nattrass and Matthew Kiddle also wrote Letters to the Editor in response, calling for regulation reform.

College will be abused in the near future. Torn to shreads in similar fashion to those poor old boys of 1st West. If we don't remember our past, we will lose our future, said Ssimbwa of Uganda. That's the truth. College ave. is no place for enormous towers. Especially not when poleline road is undeveloped for miles. Build elsewhere- not on top of history. Keep Rexburg Real.

On that same note, I attended the chaotic feeding ceremony of Kiwi Loco this weekend, and they were immediately replaced onto the boycott list. Thousands of flavors and none of them come close to Mill Hollow. And its not Rexburgian. Go elsewhere. The King's Fort is no place for you. I don't want to place yogurt in my own cup.

Future Protest. The schools refusal to allow fund-raising. I'm unaware as to the motives as of yet: if they are good, which I assume they are, I will not protest, if they aren't, I will. Their policy was brought to my attention tonight at the viewing of Cultured Pearl: Voices from Uganda. The after party in the lobby. We talked and chitted and chatted about fund-raising. Brenna and her pal Lexi desired to form a group on campus for next semester, in hand with Invisible Children. Their previous fundraising attempts were shut down. Brother Piggot's was as well. Hence the showing of the documentary off campus at the cheap theatre. The why will be investigated.

I will be working with enoughtospare.org in the future, Piggot's site. Perhaps renovating it for him. I love volunteering. I could see Brenna's excitement.

Charity. Now that I am receiving some money for my photography I plan on donating 50 percent of the profits to charities supporting preventive measures. Preferably disaster prevention. If anybody know's of some, let me know.



That's it folks.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Get on your Bikes and Ride

Lately, many antagonistic statements towards bicycles and their riders have perpetrated my ear canals; this pains my heart and stings my soul. 

“Bikes are too fast and dangerous” to be on the sidewalks with pedestrians, but they are “too slow and distracting” to ride on the road with cars. Pedestrians argue to ban them from the sidewalks, and car drivers want them off the road.

Good logic and respect for history prompt me to argue the opposite: bicycles should be the sole means of transportation on the inner-city streets of Rexburg and campus sidewalks of BYU-Idaho. Pedestrians and automobiles should be banned. 

This being the day after our nations anniversary, it is prudent to recall the role the bicycle played in making America

Most of us slept through history class; I wrote stuff on my desk with silly puddy and mocked my teacher’s over-sized tunic-shirts. But that’s what the internet is for: to catch us back up. So regarding bicycle history, one blogger points out, “The bicycle, quite literally, paved the road for automobiles. The explosive popularity of the human-powered, two-wheeled vehicle sparked road construction across the Western world’s cities.” 

Starting with the velocifere of Count Mede de Sivrac and the Hobbyhorse of Baron Von Drais de Sauerbrun, the bicycle revolutionize the world. Evolving from its humble beginnings of intra-garden transportation to the elegant penny-farthing, a favorite of upper-classmen, to the modern cycles we enjoy now, the bicycle in all its many forms has proven implemental in American history. 

Bicycle travel got in with the in-crowd in the late 1800’s and rapidly grew in popularity in the U.S. from then on. So much so that from the 1870’s to 1920’s bicyclitiers of all sorts joined together in the Good Roads Movement, calling on the government to build better roads for inter-city travel. This resulted in the decision of New Jersey to participate in road-building projects, becoming the first state to ever do so.

The two-wheeled vehicle emancipated the amercain woman.“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel." said Susan B. Anthony. All of you girls enjoying comfortable clothes and free movement can thank bikes: they  cut a whole seven pounds of extra weight off from your garbs by providing women with a reason to free themselves of corsets and giant skirts.  

Also, those guys that flew that airplane back in 1903- they were bike mechanics.

So, that being said, should we support and promote the bicycle simply out of respect for the past? Nay. My argument extends to the present benefits provided by the modern bicycle.
The bicycle is the most efficient major form of land transportation in the modern world. “It takes less energy to bicycle one mile than it takes to walk a mile. In fact, a bicycle can be up to 5 times more efficient than walking,” and many times more efficient than cars, says www.exploratorium.edu.. You can play with your suped-up 5.0 liter V-12 engine with hemi’s, and you can fill it up for $4 a gallon with all the gasoline this earth retains, but I’ll take my bike, I’ll fill power it with my own two legs, some local collard greens, and my momma’s granola.  Let me repeat. Cycling is more efficient than all other major forms of on land transportation, including, walking, carpooling, trains, and even horseback riding.

I do not stand alone. Nation wide a trend strengthens. It grew out of a dream. A town is in production in South Carolina. A car-free town, with sustainable places for people to live, and to work, and to play. They call it Bicycle City. It is the first of its kind, but many more will follow, popping up all around the American countryside. This is the future of happiness.
The bicycle made America. Picture America without highways, without planes, and without women’s rights. If you can, then go ahead, get rid of the two-wheeled menaces; ban them from the sidewalks, and the roads, and from all places but the garage. Kick Mrs. Anthony out of the voting booth, throw the plane out of the sky, and toss the unsustainable resources of our gifted home atop the fire.  But if you can’t, then let them stay, let them stay alone, to ride on the roads that they paved and the sidewalks that they once owned.

It is as Goldy Locks said: cars are too fast, walking is too slow- bikes are just right.

I-Prostitute (Unedited)

 I sat on a stool furnished with newspapers in my editors office. I read the below article to a board of three. The reading ended before I read the title "I Am a Plasma Prostitute." And it began shortly thereafter. "I'm sorry, we just can't publish the word prostitute, not on this campus," was the general gist of things. Well, I thought, that's what blogs are for. Every computer a printing press in today's day and age. He who hast ears to hear, hear.

The dusty hot weather dial is cranking up as snow fall slows to only “now and then” for our beautiful springtime Rexburg, and all the boys and girls are starting to show some skin for summer time loving. Skirts shrink up to knee level or lower, shorts remain non-existent, and the T-shirt sleeves crowd the mid-upper-arm all around campus making for a prime situation to meet your special someone. Flower prints, happy plaids, and radiant polka-dots illuminate the world side-by-side with the brilliant greens, yellows, and pinks, of the plasma arm-band. That’s right folks for just 1-3 hours and the little prick of the needle, you can receive up to $30 dollars cash, a cool neon colored arm band, and label yourself a plasma prostitute.

People argue that they are not plasma prostitutes, I argue otherwise.

Prositution: figurative, the “unworthy or corrupt use of one's talents for the sake of personal or financial gain.”

This definition provided by the Oxford Dictionary contains three parts that need to be defined: 1) If plasma donation satisfies these 3 qualifiers, “unworthy or corrupt”  “talent” and “personal or financial gain” then it is appropriately labelled as figurative prostitution. Let us work Backwards from the end.

Personal and financial gain? Easy, they flaunt themselves on the hairy nose of plasma donation. Ask any student with neon colored band and they’ll respond with any combination of the words “college student, poor, money, survival, dates.” $50 for two donations or 4 hours in a week, isn’t much but when it’s all you got it ain’t bad.

Talent? It hides itself within the deep pockets of the donation process. A “natural aptitude or skill,” it does not reveal itself at first glance. As one donor said “You lay down and endure a little bit of pain for an hour and get paid 20 bucks." However, according to the Plasma Proteins Theurapuetics Association, a donor must be above 18 years of age, weigh at least 110 pounds, and be healthy. Also blood vessels must be of a sufficient size. If you do not have these traits then you do not have the talent to give plasma, end of story.

The first two qualifiers being satisfied we are left with one: is plasma donation “Unworthy or corrupt?” To answer this we must answer the questions:  for what is the plasma used? and for what motives is it given?

What is it used for? Bottom line, no fooling around: it is used to administer life-saving therapies and medications to the ill. Victims of hemophilia, Willebrand disease, primary immunodeficiency disease, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and sufferers of burns, trauma, and shock all benefit from the curing power of donated plasma. Hemophiliacs run healthy plasma through their veins to help prevent them from bleeding.

For what motive donate?  If your motive is corrupt, then all of the above qualifiers will be checked positive and you will indeed be labelled a plasma prostitute. If your motive is benevolent then you may qualify to be something slightly better. An example from two internet chatters serves to illustrate the former.

“Who here prostitutes their bodies by selling their bodily fluids twice a week for cash? Just curious”

“Ive been meaning to start. How much do you get?”

Plasma prostitute.

By definition paid plasma donation (slightly contradictory) may indeed qualify as figurative plasma prostitution if it is done for self-centered or corrupt motives. You can embrace or deny it.

As for me and my house, I’ll be the first to proudly declare it: I am a Plasma Prostitute. I sell my bodily fluids for $50 a week, and I’m never going back.

In fact, I beg your pardon, I must depart, or I’ll miss them before they close. Tchau.

Outdoor Activities lead students on a river rafting trip down the Salmon River, Saturday. The Salmon River flowed at a high of 18,000 CSF for the week as 36 students and faculty floated down the river digging in to fight through heavy rapids, making the trip the semester’s largest.

The guides and faculty did everything they could “to make the trip as safe as possible” for participants, said Joe Temus, trip leader and volunteer for the Outdoor Activities. To ensure safety the group utilized a two man inflatable ducky, and a two-person river catamaran to float alongside the 4 larger rafts ready to provide care for any mishaps.

The water was cold and murky as logs and debris floated down the river, however the weather provided sun on the summer day.

The 3 larger rafts carried the majority of student participants with about 10-12 people each, and were guided by student volunteers Lauren Perry, Susan Briggs, and Joe Temus, all certified to guide white water rafts. Faculty advisers Morris Christensen and Scott Hurst headed up an 8 man raft and the river catamaran, and Lydia Montour managed the 2-man ducky.

The trip left from the Outdoor Resource Center at 6 pm on Saturday, 25 June, after the students checked onto the trip using their I-cards and and signed a risk waivier acknowledging the potentially fatal risks of white-water rafting, and a short briefing. The group then drove 4 vans across 3 hours of highland plains and the Lemhi River Valley and turned north at Salmon, driving another 30 miles to their put in.

Students gathered their gear and prepared themselves as faculty and volunteers shuttled the vans to the end of the stretch.

“the most stressful part of the trip was the river, which is the way it should be, and it was big and it was fun, everyone was just so happy and stoked it seemed, the water was big, the waves weer ebig and it just kept on copming at you,” said Temus.

Student participants have filled up each of the white water trips this semester.

“We had lots more girl than guy participants,” Hurst noted because, “girls aren’t video game addicts for one, that might be one reason.”

For the future the Outdoor Activities plans to offer expanded trips during the off times, and provide more leadership opportunities to help students to grow. White water rafting on the snake river, star-gazing, and Road Biking every Wednesday came recommended as end of semester activities from volunteers and faculty.

Comments from my roommate Joe: "This has been a great year for rafting, there's a huge snowpack up in the mountains and the rivers have been running longer and bigger than usual.  Unfortunately this also means flooding for others.  Rafting is an activity where if you just rent a boat and hop in the river you can get really hurt, there's a bit of experience and knowledge needed.  We're really lucky that the school provides these kinds of activities so that lots of students can safely experience things like whitewater rafting."

What I learned in DC

Every man is a politician. In the words of former Senator Smith of Oregon, Whether you know it or not, it's all politics.

Some time ago, about 4 years know, I visited Washington D.C., our nations capitol, with my good friend Justin Oldroyd and many others. We ground herbs in the basement of the Smithsonian with an hindu, we witnessed the beauty of the Washington monument, and we were awestruck by an exhibit of foreign art. In parting we realized we hadn't yet seen all there was to see. In realizing our future was parted and I knew we would come again.

This week I returned. I saw. I beheld. I loved. And I know I will come again, next time to stay.



I have a few posts in the making for things I learned on my trip. I hope you will join in me enjoying them as they are posted over the next few days.


GS

Love Bob Marley. Keep Marajuan Illegal.

 The upcoming rebuttal for the rebuttal in the scroll. And yes, I did write this while listening to the best of Van Morrison.

First off, let us not use the vulgar Mexican slang word marijuana, and refer to the material at hand by its proper name: cannabis.

Cannanbis is a tall plant used to produce hemp fiber and as psychotropic drug. Cannabis contains 400 different chemical compounds including psychoactive A9-tetrahydrocannabinol. “11 percent of the US population over the age of 12 uses cannabis annually, including 28 percent of people aged 18-25, and over a third of children in their final year in school.”

The opinion of cannabis and its effects, like many things, swing on a pendulum. It has moved from the widespread international banning of cannabis products in the early 20th century to the rise of illicit drug use by the counter-culture of the 1970’s to the present day trend of legalizing it for medical use. However, as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime stated in a recent study “the pendulum may have swung too far in the opposite direction.”

It has become a somewhat childish trend to argue for the legalization of cannabis because “yeah, dude, we’ve got to protect our rights, man” because Bob Marley was legit and its all about the Love. Lets put the coolness of tie-dye and and dread-locked hippies aside for a moment and consider reality, not idealized philosophical big words.

I offer 5 points against the legalization of cannabis.

One. If cannabis were legalized because it only harms “oneself” then it logically entails that all other similar substances would also need to be legalized, including less-favorable substances such as LSD, cocaine, and heroine.

Two. The presumption that legalizing the drug will undercut and destroy the black market trade of the substance is established on muddy grounds to say the least. Cannabis would likely become purchasable in the local gas station pinned with a sin tax and an age requirement. Why pay the extra price and fake your age when you can just shoot a text to your home-dizzle down the street?

Three. Its a gateway drug. Even though people say its not and nicotine may be a more effective instigator. Allow the DEA to summarize: “since legalization of marijuana in Holland, heroin addiction levels have tripled.”

Four. Lets learn from precedent. Alaska supreme court legalized cannabis use for adults over 19 in 1975. By 1988 the cannabis use for 12-17 year-old Alaskans was more than twice the national average for their age group. In 1990 Alaskan residents voted to recriminalize the use of cannabis. Lets not repeat history.

Five. When you suck back on that bong, you won’t be the only one affected. Locke didn’t mention marijuana. He did mention fences. He would have liked your joint to have a governement enforced fence around it ensure nobody jacked it. However, if when you inhaled your psychotic fumes and then consistently decided to do something foolish, like hop over some on elses fence and steal their big screen TV, Locke would probably have said, “its time for you to give up that weed, brother.”

Brief example. My friend’s Eagle Scout project in a neighborhood park installing benches, of course. One bench went missing. We found our bench in a shady fort on the backside of some nearby wetlands. An empty, over-sized Hawaian Punch bottle lay on the ground with a tube stuck in it for sucking. We took our bench.

But who’s to say, that was in terrible Washington, maybe weed smokers in Idaho do inconspicuous acts of kindness.

All in all this is my argument. That being said and done, if I get to smoke my weed in a pipe, maybe I'll be in.

Keep Rexburg Real.

Where stood six now stand none. And nobody cares. After a week long demolition project, the historic houses on First West rest diminished to barren holes in the dirt. Where wood beams supported structure now rubble supports chaos. Where trees and sidewalk provided shade and comfort now pot holes and uneven ground allow heat and unease. Memories of the past once resided inside homes and now they have defected with the Rexburg wind leaving a vacant nothingness and stagnant air.  Non-existent homes and cast-away histories give way to a mis-guided future.

The owners of the Pines sealed a lengthy negotiation with the various owners of the houses and soon began plans to put in the Hemming Towers. These buildings will provide much needed housing to many incoming students and better yet will keep urban sprawl down by building up and putting parking down, facilitating an easier walk for future students by keeping things compact, all plusses in my book. The trouble at hand here is not the future, it is the past. It isn’t lovely new apartments that are going up, but it is the destruction of the old ones.

I watched one-by-one the houses be torn down. I rode by them daily on my bike for the past 9 months, through the fall snow, the winter snow, and the spring-time snow; i watched the orange iron beast smash in their sides and crumble their facades, and stump-out their insides, leaving only ruined stairs. I watched the trees they said wouldn’t be taken out be fed to the beast as well, their branches and trunks cracking and snapping under its force. I beheld the pretty brick one smolder and burn, a subject to Madison Fire Department’s training. They kept that one around longer, not because it was pretty but because they needed it to train. It was fed to the beast just like all others. Make way for the future. And forget the past.

The trouble here isn’t the future, its the past. How do we know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from? How do we know who we are if we don’t know who came before us? These houses stood as landmarks, monuments to the past. They were marked with the water line of the Teuton Flood on their walls. Perhaps they  even served as shelters for a war veteran or two, veterans whose names are engraved on the sides of that monument that nobody knows about at smith park. Surely they served as the cradle from the world for many good families. And now they will be forgotten.

Without knowing the past we have no sure direction for the future. We will be compass-less, anchor-less. Our culture and Identity are founded on our past. In a world where the unification of global culture increases and interest-based culture skips across nation and state lines, connecting people by mere electronic impulses, we should fight to maintain our geographic and local identity. Leave your mono-tone-earthen-tone fake stone buildings and frozen yogurt for everywhere else. We don’t need it. Give us something new, but give us something that’s ours. Rexburg should maintain its identity, recognize and celebrate its history, and, yes build on it. Innovate, but do not forsake the past. Celebrate in it. Rejoice for it. Learn from it.

In that I close. I beg of you to act. Keep Rexburg Real.

3,000

Woohoo- 3,000 all time views for Loving Rexburg. Yes! Thank you all for your diligent participation in the blog and well placed appreciation of the written word.

Thank you,
GS

Godzilla What, Kraken What.

This is a little didly I wrote up for my POLSC360 Modern Political Theory class. It was a good time. I turned it in late. You might understand it, its written in the style of Thomas Hobbes of Calvin and Hobbes, or rather the political philosopher Hobbes, of the Leviathan of the Book of Job, if that makes sense?

My hands applaude both the President and the dead man, Osama bin Laden. 

The former for acting so righteously as the sovereign of our country and the latter for providing such a perfect example of man in the condition of mere nature. 

As men are oft to disagree and grow angry at the lack of understanding, let us first set aside some definitions to begin on clear grounds.

Bin Laden’s death a half and a week ago represented the collision of two objects in motion: one the bigger object and one the smaller. The bigger object, being President Obama, let us referre to it as Godzilla, and the smaller object, being bin Laden, let us referre to it as the Kraken.

Godzilla as we know is the gorilla-whale super lizard that pillages and torments villages, created by the Japanese to represent the destructive power of the nuclear bombs of the United States. And it breathes fire. This is Mr. Obama and the nation as a whole, characterizing their confrontational, trigger-happy pridefulness.

The Kraken is a gargantuan spider-like squid monster of enormous size that attacks nautical units with its ravishing tentacles of beastly strength. Perhaps better known by its scientific name Micrcosmus it is a fitting representation of Mr. bin Laden and his sneaky submerged, cloak and dagger tactics. 

Hope is an appetite with opinion of obtaining.

Despaire is the same without such opinion. 

A cup is a cylinder with one side open and one side closed of approximately 8 ounces. 

Now that we have these definitions laid out we may begin. 

First I would like to direct attention to the actions of Godzilla as they excite me. Upon receiving the information of the location of the Kraken, Godzilla counseled with his advisors and then went against their will sending in Navy SEALs to do the kill. The maneuver was successful, his risky move playing out well. 

Thankfully, he went and made the decision himself without even consulting the people, or thinking of their opinion. This is one great step towards a more perfect and stable society. Conversely, he was a foole to council at all with his counsel, as this simply slowed down the decision making process and ran the risk of allowing the victim to escape. If he were to counsel with his council he should make it a point to do so with each one-by-one to gain the proper and unbiased opinion from each. As for the people, there is no reason for you to justify yourself to us, just go and claim the power, finish the nearly done job of becoming sovereign and then all your actions will be justified by simply being your actions. Well done on the unilaterall decision and providing a superb outcome, you near sovereignty by institution.

As for the Kraken, all the poor foole really wanted was to not die. And he failed. But almost succeeded. In a true state of nature Mr. bin Laden raged and lead war against the “infidels” of the United States to promote his own survivall. A pawn of the US in the USSR-Afghan war upon completing his mission he turned his violent heart against his maker, the US. As he had done with the USSR he desired to do to us: lure us into a never-ending conflict which eventually lead us into bankruptcy. And he nearly had us, and maybe would have had us if it weren’t for the quick decision of our sovereign. If yet another air strike had been ordered, who’s to say what would have happened.

Mr. bin Laden, as all men, wanted three things. 

The Kraken desired glory. He rallied muslims across the world in holy Ji’ had, compounding a multitude of problems into one and giving them a singular origin, the United States, all to glorify himself as a saviour figure amongst the muslims and also to win glory for his nation. 

The Kraken desired Gain. He wanted to have more than ourselves, more materials, more monetary wealth, more dominance. By luring us into battle he planned to whittle away at our funds, slowly eating them away until they were no more, at which point he would surely have more than us. 

The Kraken desired security. In the end, this was his desire. He was legitimately afraid of the threat western philosophy and culture posed to the sociall and physicall well-being of his society. He lashed out with all of his many tentacles, attacking from all different directions in an effort to over through us. A lack of space, freedom, customs, resources, and all things existed between Godzilla and the Kraken, so they fought.

He got all but the last; security was not obtained for long. He acted within his right of nature and was justified in his action as no covenant was intact between the two parties. Surely there may have been a covenant between the two in the last years of the USSR, but any such covenants had since dissolved, leaving them in a state without agreement, without norms to follow, and so without justice. Anything went in this war and the Kraken lashed out with everything he had. Godzilla, slightly fatigued, at most, from his attacks, finally quit messing around and pulled out his big guns and blew fire down on the beast, withering its skin, and melting its insides until it died. Godzilla victorious.

In a world where scarcity is omnipresent the unavoidable conflict between the strong and the weak crashed together leaving one dead and one alive. 

Now in closing, I would like to address an issue of particular salaciousness. That is the frat boys of GWU. Regardless of ontology, political standing, and beliefs, their reaction to the death of the Kraken was altogether inappropriate. Celebrating the death of another with drunkenness and crude behavior is indecent and uncalled for in any society. I’m not one to draw out many rules and regulations but I feel like the celebration of death by such means is grotesque and wrong on that it is not beneficial to any party. 

 In sum, I am overall quite pleased with these recent events. I thank President Obama for his decisive action which was entirely justified and I would like to see more actions of power like it. Osama bin Laden provided a classic example of Human Nature and their desire to self-benefit. 

Now I ask you all to act. To subject yourselves to the rule of our President, to provide a more sustainable  society and to preserve your own welfare, and to destroy the remnants of evil wherever they may be. 

Blackfoot Climbing

Thats right, we climbed. The day before I went cycle for a good 20 miles and then I streaked down a friendly part of the Teton in a kayak. I may have wet exited and have been rescued by Joe Temus and his rope, who's to say. But then I redeemed myself with my first in current role. All that practice in the pool pays off. Practice and hard work always does. As well as some intelligent practice. I'd say it was a fine prelude to a rock climbing trip.

And why not film it? Well, I couldn't think of any reason either, so here it is- new for the Outdoor Activities.

The politics of the pump: A rhetorical blowout | The Economist

Is anybody else endlessly boggled by the endless debate over oil prices? People get all riled up as prices near $4 a gallon; politicians get all protesty and call each other names; adolescents keep on play Black-Ops; and all of us grow slightly more confused. Of course its the middle east's fault even though we get the majority of our oil from Canada (but it actually is). We attempt to fund hydrogen fuel, the electric car is invented, and destroyed, and then reinvented with cooler comercials, and some of us await for the Star Trek teleporter or a James Bond personal helicopter to pop-up to get us around. I concur with the above article, that in the end, we just have to face it that oil prices are going to go up because, simply, more people use oil now-a-days. And that's that. Ride your bike.

The politics of the pump: A rhetorical blowout | The Economist: "the best hope for America’s irate drivers is more of the same."

Celebration

This is to be published as an editorial for this Tuesday's Scroll, the student newspaper of BYU-Idaho.

How many people have died inside your home? How many people have been killed inside your apartment? How many people have you killed with the colored buttons of a video game controller and justified it because they were in the confines of a flat-screen boob tube? “Those of you who spend time playing video games where you kill other people ought to reflect on that scripture,” stated President Clark in a recent Devotional.  Thou shalt not kill. Reflect on the phrase “and nothing like unto it.”

Osama Bin Laden was reported dead on the evening of May 1. US Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden in a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, 40 miles outside the capital city of Islamabad in a gutsy overnight maneuver. They confirmed his identity with a DNA test and then buried him at sea. 

Video game killings and the death of a terrorist are two topics not so far separated and they both seem to be celebrated by the public.

The news of his death spread nearly instantly across the globe. Many students here at BYU-Idaho received the news through text messages and online media sources.  Some received the news with “hoo-rah’s” of jubilation and others received it with the due respect for the dead.

It seemed that the overwhelming majority of the audible public received this news with rejoicing, showing themselves to be apathetically detached from the reality of the situation: the death of another human being; the death of a brother.

Frat boys across the nation celebrated their patriotism and victory of their country with drunkenness, dancing, ridding themselves of superfluous baggage,  and then followed it up with more drunkenness. They sang “Na-na-na-na, Hey, hey, hey, good-bye” in not-so-somber mourning of his death, providing, as some say, a sense of closure for those who were terrified little children when the airplanes hit and the towers fell back in 2001.

On the other hand, in Afghanistan, locals expressed their displeasure with the treatment of Bin Laden and the way he was killed, asserting that he should have been captured and taken alive, and that his death will now provoke more of his Muslim brothers to fight.

Yes, he was one of the master-minds of the infamous 9/11 attack that killed over 3,000 people, yes, he has fled from our armed forces for nearly ten years, yes, he is responsible for the death and terror of countless other victims. But yes, he is human, and, no, we should not rejoice in his death.

The death of Osama Bin Laden should instead be seen as a great symbolic victory for the United States, not celebrated with chanting and dancing in the streets, nor with snickering remarks in school hallways. To outwardly celebrate the death of an individual, even one that is labeled “bad” by society is to dehumanize him.  To kill a man who is responsible for the death and harassment of countless others is justified and legal, yet still it is a sad and unfortunate event, as it is the death of a child of God.

 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Matthew 5:24.

We should deal with and accept reality as it is. To laugh over some things and to find humor in mistakes is appropriate but find glee in the death or loss of another inappropriate.

 “I'm disturbed by the idea of celebrating a death. It's just smacks a little too much of the lynch mob there, you know?” as Clarence Page, who advocated celebrating justice not death said on NPR, Thursday.

Death is death. Killing is killing. It doesn’t matter if it’s behind your TV screen or across the world in a different country, just or unjust, it is not something to glorify in. Let us see the death of Osama Bin Laden as the just and necessary consequence to his unfortunate choice of action to attack the United States of America.