Zion's National Park, Utah

Came through Zion's National Park after attending a meeting in Las Vegas. Zion's is one of those naturally blessed places, something Utah has so much of. And fortunately for those of us who live here, one of the most endowed places in this country is off the tourist's beaten path.

It was one of those quiet Winter mornings in the park. I was one of the few visitors, with the only other traffic being deer.

This guy didn't stop at the stop sign. He's lucky I didn't report him.

I managed to get fairly close to this adolescent mule deer with the big ears. The secret to getting so close is to be quiet, keep low, no abrupt movements, and try to blend in as much as possible with the vegetation. With my bright yellow Lands End jacket, I blended in well with the local banana trees. Make sure one's camera has as humongous a telephoto lens as possible. I did. Oh, and one last thing. Be in a national park where wildlife is protected and are used to being around people. That helps a lot.

Even then this guy somehow spotted me and darted off, despite my camaflouged bright yellow jacket.

I've been around this big wide planet. What a blessing to have some of its best features right here at home.

Scorpion Queen and Centipede King Marry

Here's a match made in heaven if ever there was one. I mean, they just fit together like... well like a scorpion and a centipede. Yahoo's Odd News leads with this beautiful Valentine's story:

The couple with a soft spot for creepy crawlers; Thailand's Scorpion Queen and Centipede King; held their Valentine's Day's wedding Tuesday at a haunted house.

This story just pulls at my heart strings. Some things are just meant to be.

Uh, which one in the photo is the centipede?

Kimchi-spiced Air Conditioners Fight Bird Flu

Now I think I've heard of everything. I happen to love Kimchee so if it can ward off any bird flu virus that might hit, more power to it. This puts kimchi over the top to include in my food storage program.

South Korean firm LG Electronics is poised to start marketing an air conditioner with a filter made using an enzyme from the pungent national dish kimchi that is aimed at protecting against the bird flu virus.

All I can say is that some Kimchee and air conditioner marketer are worth their weight in gold. What genius.

While I'm thinking about business, I wonder if there is room in the valley for another multi-level marketing firm? I could start out a healthy morning drinking Noni, Pomegranate, Transfactor, Xanga and round it off with a glass of medicinal kim chee juice and extracts. Mmmm, mmm good.

Hey, there's a business idea for Utah if ever there was one...

The Real Olympics

This was picked up by a friend of mine -- a back-handed compliment to Latter-day Saints around the world from the Opinion Journal.

"Here's a proposal to increase harmony and goodwill among nations. Cancel the Olympics forever... The Games are the reason that Nancy Kerrigan got kneecapped, Danish cyclist Enemark Jensen died under the influence of amphetamines, and hundreds of East German women were involuntarily turned into hairy testosterone-stuffed she-males. Olympic fever could even corrupt Mormons, and did."

Photo by Tex, Just Tex via Flickr

Self-Esteem

This blog post is a week late but I had to comment on one of my favorite commercials from the Superbowl on self-esteem for girls. I'm a guy who had to find out through my two daughters how tough the world of girls can be. Unfortunately, a girl's understanding of what brings happiness is not yet fully mature. It's easy to be led astray. Their really cool self, the girl on the inside, gets easily pressured by the fog of peers and what is popular. My eldest, whose stunning Eurasian features has won her a number of modeling jobs, wanted to dye her hair blonde, looking like all of her close friends. (How come there are so many blondes in Utah's schools?)

If you don't know what I'm talking about, rent a copy of the movie Mean Girls to see what happens to a cool American girl who's been abroad when she trys to integrate into life in an American High School.

The great meme that we LDS have to be true to our higher selves, the source of real happiness and self-esteem, is that "we are in the world but not of it." The world and its pressures confuses us. Being in the world but not of it reminds us to rise above its corruptions and scoffs. Bad grades, a game that didn't quite go so well, or not quite fitting in can make us feel down. And peer expectations are so fleeting. No matter how hard we try, we are inately different so might as well feel comfortable about it.

Here's counsel from someone who knows and loves us best to remember in times of low self-esteem.

1 Corinthians 2:9. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Proverbs 17: 22. A merry heart doeth good like medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

The State of the Union 2006

The 2006 State of the Union was one of the better speeches that our prez has given, in my humble opinion. But it's hard to take these speeches too seriously. After all, State of the Union addresses seem more like a laundry list gathered from various bureaucracies than a speech with political clarity and aim by the prez. I mean, remember when President Clinton was going through the Lewinsky mess and he threw everything into his SOTU address including the kitchen sink?

So in the spirit of the times, here's a parady of the 2006 SOTU. This line is a killer:

"I understand that there is an enemy out there that kills theirselves. My message to the suiciders is that we will hunt you down and kill you."

One word of caution to my fellow Republicans before watching the video -- please have your sense of humor ready.

Whale Vomit

What is one whale’s vomit is another woman’s perfume.

At least, that's what I learned growing up as a little tike with a scuba diving family in Hawaii. I learned at age ten that if whale vomit floats on the ocean long enough, it becomes a perfume -- expensive perfume at that.

My father would run check-out dives on the weekends. And during one of those diving trips, he recovered whale vomit off the Maui Channel. Having been told that perfume was made of sperm whale vomit, I picked it up and sniffed its sweet smell. It was such a bizarre story that I've always remembered it. My family never acted on cashing in on the rather petrified gray matter. Like so many other things in life, we interacted with it and let it slip by.

But judging from this story about an Australian couple and the riches a single regurgitation of whale vomit brought them, my family could have been rich too – if only we had sold that lump of gray floating rock. If only...

Reading the Bible As Literature

This is a great thought by Eric Russell in his blog A Motley Vision.

"But I think there’s great value to reading the Bible as fiction – as literature. I think the greater variety of ways we can interpret the scriptures, the better...Christ’s parables all had a central purpose, but they are imbedded with innumerable lessons directed at multiple audiences. I think much of the Bible is the same way. The more we can mine out of the text, the richer our experiences will be."

Well said. When we read the scriptures as modern-style history, we miss a lot if we do not let the tools of literature jump out at us. For example, there is a definite parable in demons jumping out of a madman into unkosher pigs, only to have the little porkers plunge into a tempestuous sea. Or there is symbolism in Christ causing the blind man to see, besides the history of Jesus healing an afflicted man.

The good news messages linked with the story as a parable reinforce each other. Read it only as history and you risk missing spiritual truths behind such events.

"The significance of this miracle [at the marriage of Cana] may be better appreciated if the unique symbolism of water and wine in Old Testament theology is recognized. Water appears in ancient scripture as a powerful symbol of universal death, particularly that which results from disobedience to God...The transmutation of water to wine foreshadowed the work of the Lord in overcoming death..." [The Waters of Destruction and the Vine of Redemption, 37 Allen J. Christenson, Provo, Utah]

Then there are the nuances of the actual story and how meaning can shift significantly depending on how you might read the detail of a single word. Often I can only see what I have been trained to see. I find taking a legalistic approach in asking myself to see only what is in the story helps me check my assumptions and gain additional insights into the scripture.

Those are the approaches that work for me.

I'm No Job (But A Good Job Will Do)

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” - Duke Ellington

I'm no Job of Old Testament fame but when it rains it pours. And when it pours, the quote above from Duke Ellington is good advice. It's more constructive to write some blues and I can do so on my blog.

One bit of bad news this past month to sing the blues about, among many, was carcinoma of the bladder, something I didn't expect to hear at my age with my clean lifestyle. But, as Job would say if he spoke French instead of presumably Hebrew, “c’est la vie.” There are certain bumps and threats that are just part of life.

On second thought, maybe Job wouldn't say that. Each language brings its own lenses on the world that are embedded in its words. His buddies with the funny names tended to think in more black and white terms of divine causality. e.g. “For though God wounds, he also bandages. He strikes, but his hands also heal. (Job 5.18)” Hebrew speakers probably didn't think in terms of "such is life" or "stuff just happens".

And they certainly didn't know how to sing the blues when bad stuff did happen. They'd have to learn that from the Duke in America. The thing to learn from the story of Job is not the blues but rather patience and faith amidst adversity, even when you don't understand "why me".

I went to the hospital before Christmas to undergo cystoscopy, where a fairly large tumor in my bladder was scraped out. This kind of tumor tends to be a somewhat benign form of malignant cancer – if that makes sense. The doctor explained that there was no such thing as a benign tumor of the bladder. It’s all bad. It just depends on how bad. I was fortunate in that the carcinoma cells were shallow and growing slowly. The unwelcome cells, as unwelcome as a flasher at a BYU football game, were escorted out of my body completely and without complications. This bump in my life was now gone.

Some men tend to get quiet and introspective when serious things happen, while others are quiet even when unserious things happen. I’m somewhat quiet when unserious and really, really quiet when things get serious. Hence, my muteness on my blog.

I managed to get out to smell the roses during the holidays though. I enjoyed seeing and photographing the Christmas lights one cool crisp evening at Temple Square. That's when I took the photo above.

The construction there slowed down the flood of humanity, much like road construction in the middle lane of I-15 slows down both North and Southbound traffic during rush hour. I don’t know where the sampling of dense humanity around Temple Square comes from, maybe from the Diaspora of Utahans around the country returning to family. At any rate, it was busier than the exit of a NY skyscraper at lunchtime.

Still, I can’t think of any place more christmasy than Temple Square during Christmas week with the lights on. It was good to be alive and to have good health.

Newsweek article on "Mormons: Heavenly Prophecy"

Get ready. Eliza Souka and the team at Newsweek are getting ready for another Newsweek article for the Dec 26 - Jan 2, edition, Mormons: Heavenly Prophecy.

Eliza writes, "'You're not going to mention polygamy, are you?' I was asked by more than one fellow Mormon when they heard I was working on a story about the church's founding."

My vote is that it would be more interesting if they did devote some space to the issue. After all, not writing about it is like mentioning Joseph Smith without mentioning Mormonism. It ain't quite all there.

A built in weather tower for water readings

Science is about asking the why's and wherefore's. For example, why does a narwhal have such a long tusk coming out from under its mouth? I've always thought it was for some macho thing like fighting for a mate, but then why do the females have it? Well, it turns out that this is a unique organ for detecting the slightest changes in the aquatic environment, such as ever so slight changes in salinity. As amazing as that finding is, the question now is why would a Narwhal need to know if the barametric pressure is rising or if salinity levels are dropping?

It is hypothesized that it may be an arctic mechanism to tell it if ice is freezing in the area. I would have thought seeing the ice with their eyes or feeling the water like the rest of their cousins would be good enough. This opens a whole lot more questions.

Fascinating.

Singers in renowned Mormon choir revel in anonymity

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is on a roll this Christmas season, and some papers are featuring their local singers. Judging from a Casper, Wyoming article featuring one such choir member, it is better to blend in, to be part of the group. And oh what music that heavenly blend of voices make.

This particular Casper Star-Tribune reporter queries about their Wyoming choir member singing solo. It is such a natural query - when is our local boy going to get his chance to shine for the boys back home? We are a culture of individualism and individual heroism, probably accentuated by the Greeks and their Olympic games long ago.

When I worked with Nike in Asia-Pacific, our sports marketing team had a tough time persuading a Korean soccor team to join us. We wanted to sponsor teams but to highlight and give extra compensation to super star individuals -- you know, we wanted a Mia Hamm of Korea. Our Western sentiment and commercial savvy told us that people rally around individuals more than anything else.

The Korean point of view was that any individual that shined did so because the team made it possible for that individual's talents to be so brilliant. Each individual was only a part of the whole and their contribution alone could NOT create a win. Such notions were as silly to them as playing baseball with a one man team. No individual was greater than the team and so (here's the killer) all should receive equally of the benefits. There was a clash of perspective and culture. We wanted to create the Yao Ming (the Chinese basketball star) of Korean soccor but the Koreans were too collective in orientation. We wrestled with them for quite some time. Finally, the money, our efforts and our perspective won out but not after a long time of not being able to sign the team, much to our chagrin.

The Choir is an institution -- an organization of collective Christian voice and song. There is something of a clash of cultures here to the modern beat, albeit subtle. Nonetheless, we find ways to accomodate such modernity. The Choir accomodates the roar of us moderns by featuring individual world-class singers to let their voices shine, with the choir accompanying them. Yet, the choir and its very size is a testament to earlier days of supressing the individual to the needs of the whole body of Christ.

John 17: 21. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

In a lifetime of receiving one church calling after another (after all, our local clergy are all lay clergy of volunteers) many of us relate to this choir member's sentiments. To get a sense of how busy we members can get, think of your local priest or minister, besides their ministerial duties, think of them having another 40 to 60 hour a week job and a family to support. That's us and that certainly is our clergy. We are a church that has a church calling for everyone.

In a busy world, we all want to help but we also relate to the pleasures of doing it anonymously and with less of a hefty calling. Blending in can be a virtue.

What some people will do for frequent flyer points

This guy has way too much time on his hands and must have one really healthy body. It's hard to imagine being able to accumulate one million frequent flyer miles in 56 days. Ouch!! After two months of zig-zagging across Canada by plane, frequent flyer Marc Tacchi has reached his goal of accumulating one million miles of credits -- and become something of an Internet celebrity in the process. The 30-year-old embarked on his venture using Air Canada's North America Unlimited Pass -- a C$7,000 ticket that allowed passengers limitless travel within the continent between October 1 and November 30.

Alas, poor Yorick

In my discussion of Hamlet and his journey through life and death, I would be remiss if I left this famous speech out. The once familiar funny court jester that Hamlet runs into on his return home is not at the top of his form. What's left of him is a skeleton next to a grave. The humor of his old looks and for that matter his life are now long gone.

I include the modern English text instead of Shakespearean English. I find the contemporary vernacular for this excerpt easier in following Shakespeare's line of thinking.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite fun, of most excellent imagination. He has carried me on his back a thousand times, and now, how repulsed it is in my imagination! I want to vomit. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I don’t know how many times. Where are your jokes now?"

"Your games? Your songs? Your flashes of laughter that always make the audience roar? No one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite jaw−fallen? Now, get you to my lady's bedroom, and tell her, let her put on make−up an inch thick, she must come to this party, make her laugh at that." (Hamlet 5.1)

Source: Hamlet e-text with modern translation (pdf file)

Hamlet's profound questions on life

I watched Franco Zeffirelli's movie version of Shakespeare's Hamlet with Mel Gibson as Prince Hamlet and Glenn Close as Queen Gertrude. Zeffirelli -- you know, the director of Romeo & Juliet, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Taming of the Shrew (think Elizabeth Taylor).

I’m not a literary critic nor have I been a particular fan of The Bard but that is changing. I’m smitten by the power of some of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly Julius Caeser and now Hamlet -- of their themes of life, ambition and death. Shakespeare frames it this way, "All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity." (Hamlet, 1. 2) I just wish the language was a little more modern and understandable so that I would not have to think so much about what was being said. One shouldn't have to think when someone says "hi" or "goodbye". Fortunately, the old tongue has been modernized (Hamlet text in pdf format).

The play starts with Hamlet returning to the castle after his father’s death and his uncle’s immediate ascension to the crown and quick marriage to the Queen, thus further solidifying his position as the new king. Things are fishy in Denmark, which is, afterall, a pretty fishy place. Ever encounter a smiling jackal who schemes their own ambitions at your expense? For Hamlet, the world combines to be unjust, and his response is anger, depression, scheming and a touch of madness.

Hamlet speaks with depression and anger at the unweeded garden of this life (see photo).

O that this too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self−slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

Returning from a university education, which is quite an accomplishment back in those days, Hamlet is a thinker who weighs things out before acting on them. An apparition of his king father appears and asks his son Hamlet to seek revenge. There are those of us who wouldn’t give this otherworldly instruction a second thought. We simply obey. Hamlet can’t help but ponder – to think of the justice of such actions, of the meaning of the instructions and the source itself. Is that really His Father or is it a devil? Maybe his life would have been simpler and not a tragedy if he straight-forwardly carried out his father's wishes, but Hamlet's humanity must wrestle with such things.

He addresses the question that we sometimes think as we turn out the lights and lay in bed at night.

“What the hell am I doing with my life?” To live. To die. What's the difference? Is it best to not rock the boat of an unjust world or should I fight the fight? Are we stubborn in the things that we believe will make a better world, which will surely bring resistance? Or do we bend and not rock the boat so as to make the smoothest course possible? And what’s all this suffering for?

To be, or not to be,−−that is the question:−−
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?−−To die,−−to sleep,−−
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,−−'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,−−to sleep;−−
To sleep! perchance to dream:−−ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,−−
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,−−puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I'm not doing the play much justice in my description of what touched me. It does skirt through about as profound a theme as it gets -- life and death. Shakespeare was on top of his game when he wrote Hamlet.

There are probably answers to each of Hamlet's questions in LDS and the broader world of Christian doctrine, but Hamlet again questions neatly packaged answers.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (Hamlet, 1. 5)

Certainly, God is all-knowing but there is a huge chasm of what we know and what He knows. And there are things that we think we know that we do not. But even more fundamental than our lack of answers, we are still discovering the very questions to be dreamt of.

References: Shakespeare in Classic and Modern Texts
Wikipedia on Hamlet