1. The New York City Subway map makes things look close and easy enough to get to.
Do not believe it.
2. Mat Parke is not, in fact, the general counsel for a grocery store chain.
(yes, I m stupider than I look!)
3. Really good cheese tastes a *lot* better than pretty good cheese (thanks, Kaimi!
)
4. Steve Evans is funny. And his dad played the villain in an old church movie.
Somehow that makes him seem even funnier.
5. I can get along just fine (swimmingly, actually) with at least one of the Bell brothers.
(which makes me suspect that pre-millenial reconciliation, or at least detente, with the Fowles might even be possible 
6. It is unwise for me to stay up past 1 a.m.
, as fatigue puts me in a confessional mood. It s a good thing we weren t drinking heaven knows what scandalous tales I might have told 
7. Did I mention that Steve Evans is funny?
I actually fell on the floor laughing at one point (of course, almost everything is pretty funny by 2:15 in the morning)
8. JWL was the only person who was almost exactly as I d imagined him, and just as wonderful.
9.
Kaimi, whom I had always imagined as a righteous man, careful to bring up his children in truth, has been corrupting his innocents with that great evil of our time Yankee fandom. Fortunately, his children will still have access to the spirit, which can whisper truth to them in spite of the false traditions of their father.
10.
D., besides having very quickly become one of my favorite people on earth, is a FABULOUS host. His place is beautiful, the food was wonderful, and he was so warm and welcoming.
He even flew back from Utah a day early to arrange everything perfectly. What a guy!
--109902925741194371-->Am I the only one who finds the Bloggernacle more interesting than television? In case you ve spent too much time watching Scrubs, Lost, The O.C.
, and the other fare , here are a few Bloggernacle highlights since .
Justin gives short teasers on that are in the works for next year. Yes, they are both on Mormonism.
The one subtitled The Cultural History of the Mormon People looks quite promising. I wonder if blogging will make it into the last chapter? Givens, Jr.
blogs (he was a regular commenter at T S at one point) so there is a chance the Bloggernacle will at least get a footnote.
Rusty talks about the for some Mormon teenagers. Y all can chime in with your opinion, but I ve never seen any official recognition of the fact that wake-up times for EMS students have morphed from early morning (7ish) to very early morning (6ish) to very, very early morning (5ish) as high schools have beefed up their curricula and schedules.
Declining interest by some teenagers is a sign of their sanity. Failure to adjust by CES is a sign of rigid thinking, the kind of make the people fit the program approach that makes the Mormon Church such a wonderful place. Try holding Sacrament Meeting at 6:00 a.
m. and see who shows up! My sympathy, of course, to instructors like Rusty who are caught in the middle.
John C. at new blog United Brethren is trolling for who is trying to deal with his initial foray into Mormon Studies via Jon Krakauer. I would tell him to tell the kid to start blogging, but the question probably deserves more serious treatment.
Go drop in and share your unique BCC insights.
The best I could come up with over at was on the how regularly he sees Mormons with left-leaning political convictions leave the Church while one rarely sees right-leaning Mormons take the long walk. Try to suppress your knee-jerk liberal reaction and read the post, which recognizes that this is a delicate subject and treats it as a question that deserves serious discussion.
We form singles wards and Polynesian branches . . .
how about a Democratic branch or two? I d even settle for a few politically neutral congregations.
--109891304103433611-->OK, you weak-minded fools, you love your T.V. You spend more time worshipping the boob tube than on your knees before your Maker.
That s O.K. you are no different than the rest of America and the world.
Better for you to be mesmerized by the phosphors than to be a total social outcast.
That being said, no amount of T.V.
-watching will make you normal, unless you watch the right T.V. Being an fanboy of Antiques Roadshow and Charmed will get you neither into the Celestial Kingdom, nor the Great and Spacious Building.
So, your friends at BCC have put together this friendly guide to the new Fall schedule, so that you may set your VCRs, program your TiVos and rearrange your Family Home Evenings as appropriate. This is a guide to prime time viewing on the major networks only mormons are too cheap for HBO (though we discuss the best of HBO below).
We ve tried to present three options for each time slot.
The first option in a timeslot is what you ought to watch, as a cool member of society; the second is what you could watch, if offended by cool content; the third is what you must never watch, for fear of contracting social leprosy. Links are provided to each show s homepage. Feel free to disagree with our picks to your hearts content, you knobs.
Monday
8:00 p.m. /F.
H.E./ .
Not much to merit watching this hour of television, sadly. 7th Heaven is a dark, evil addiction which grips my family. You can justify watching it, however, by virtue of the rumor that Aaron Spelling originally planned to make it about mormons.
Just have F.H.E.
, and get yourself right with the Lord before 9:00.
9:00 p.m.
/ / . Everwood is class A WB stuff. Truly enjoyable writing, fine cast, and it s filmed in Utah!
The show is heartfelt, and deals with some interesting issues, at least occasionally. The other two options are horrible. Of course, come Jan.
10th, the truly awesome begins in this timeslot, so 24 vs. Everwood should cause you to rush out and buy TiVo right now.
10:00 p.
m. /local news/ . Will David Caruso stop trying to seem like a Bad Dude?
Come on, scrawny man! You re not fooling anyone, and your show is even worse than the original CSI, if that s possible. What a waste of Miami!
At least Miami Vice involved Michael Mann and a Ferrari.
11:00 p.m.
, MONDAY-FRIDAY: , on Comedy Central. Really, this is the only must-see T.V.
that still exists. You could also stay up after and watch South Park, you perverts.
Tuesday
8:00 p.
m. /scripture study/ . GG is a great show: snappy writing, a weird, funny world, and involving characters.
It has the fastest pace of dialogue of any show on television, and I ve grown to really enjoy it. Don t like the WB? Get over it.
Watch PBS, you nerd.
9:00 p.m.
/ / . VM is the new, better written . What an amazing, soon-to-be-cancelled show, with a strong, smart woman and a thoughful writing style.
It s about the nosy daughter of a P.I., but it s really much more interesting than its premise.
Plus a really cool intro song this is the best show ever on UPN, including when they stole Buffy. Scrubs will do in a pinch for dumb comedy. Not in the mood for great TV or mildly interesting comedy?
Watch PBS again, you nerd.
10:00 p.m.
local news/whichever Law Order show is on, and ready yourself for Wednesday.
Wednesday
8:00 p.m.
/ / . Lost is another JJ Abrams masterpiece, kind of an meets Cast Away meets Land of the Lost. The premise?
Crawl out from under your rock people are lost on an island somewhere weird. Interesting, suspenseful, well-executed T.V.
, that ranks up there with Veronica Mars for best new show. 60 Minutes is always fun to watch, but try to avoid Smallville, which takes a great superhero franchise and reduces it to creature-of-the-week T.V.
Awful, made more so by its potential.
9:00 p.m.
Another FHE/ / . Not much on at 9:00 p.m.
Wednesdays, and don t give me West Wing, cause this season sucks rocks compared to years past. It ll be gone next year, I guarantee. I put in Spike TV because tonight they re showing Dog Day Afternoon, which puts them up a couple of notches in my book.
10:00 p.m. See Tuesday.
Thursday
8:00 p.m. / /Journal writing.
Mock if you must, but The O.C. is great, pulpy T.
V. at its best. It has soap opera-y storylines, to be sure, but it s snappy fun, great to look at, and gets you hooked pretty quickly.
It has some good James Dean moments, believe it or not. And that Adam Brody is dreamy! Joey is there for you if you really miss Friends, I suppose, but it s fairly forgettable.
9:00 p.m. / /Organizing food storage.
This is a good hour to just keep the T.V. off.
CSI is awful stuff, the worst ham-fisted writing in the world. But it s Bruckheimer-produced, so if you liked Bad Boys then this may keep you drooling. The Apprentice is included so that you can keep up with the water-cooler talk the next day, but Trump is a moron.
10:00 p.m. Late night temple session?
Friday
8:00 p.m. / / .
Complete Savages is a sitcom produced by Mel Gibson, that has a real Chuck Jones-style comedy angle. It s fairly dumb, but has moments of hilarity, and is the best on-screen depiction of an all-male household I ve ever seen. Joan of Arcadia is basically a smarter teen version of Touched by an Angel, but it still sucks, despite its emmy nods.
Dateline NBC represents the worst of news journalism.
9:00 p.m.
PPIs/ / . This is the time of night you regret having a T.V.
If you have an Xbox, Gamecube, or Atari, break it out. Otherwise you ll face the worst cheese of middle America. Sumer really likes Reba, because she hails from Texas and it s not ridiculous.
You be the judge. Reba is a single mom, working hard to keep her family together. *yawn* As for JAG, Catherine Bell ceased to be a sex symbol years ago, and Bellisario (the producer) hasn t made an interesting show since Airwolf s 2nd season.
10:00 p.m. Get a life!
Get out of the house, potato! Go !
Saturday (are you really watching T.
V. on a Saturday night? Loser!
)
Not much of note comes on Saturday night. But I must divulge one of my many secret pleasures, . Man alive, there s something deeply satisfying about seeing the darker side of humanity.
Sunday
Sunday has a host of funny and intersting shows. Here are the highlights, but you may as well just program your T.V.
to swap automatically between ABC and FOX. Otherwise, feel free to watch , or to your heart s content just don t expect anyone to want to hang out with you, ever.
7:00 p.
m. . Sure, it s a bit of a guilty pleasure.
But you never get tired of someone taking a golf ball to the crotch, people! To me, AFV is a microcosm of America itself; it shows our vices, our pleasures, our failures. Well, more accurately, yours (O Canada )
8:00 p.
m. . The best animated series on television, and arguably the best ever, depending upon how many Futurama fanboys you talk to.
Those who think The Simpsons are in poor taste obviously haven t seen a lot of South Park (must be the same people who think T S is a liberal blog *snicker*).
8:30 p.m.
. AD is by a mile the best comedy on T.V.
, and certainly the best show Jason Bateman s ever been a part of. Produced by Ron Howard, and starring some of the best comedic talent available (including Mr. Show s David Cross), AD is the ultimate tongue-in-cheek family sitcom.
If you haven t watched it, you owe it to yourself to upgrade from the shlock that normally passes for comedy, such as Everybody Loves Raymond.
9:00 p.m.
or (starting in January)/ / . Desperate Housewives is listed as a shout-out to Gigi Parke, who is addicted to the show (as a mirror of her own life, perhaps?).
But it s highly regarded and has an interesting ongoing series of plots. My only objection is that it s a little too racy than it needs to be, and is sometimes a little obvious with its themes. The same could be said for the other show ABC slots at this time, Alias.
But somehow, Jennifer Garner kicking butt as a super-spy seems more harmless. Last season s Alias was terrible compared to its spectacular first season, but rumor has it that JJ Abrams is back on track if Lost is any indication. I ve included L O - CI as an option here because Vincent D Onofrio is really good at being a creepy detective, but there s not too much else that distinguishes it.
Again, you want class? Watch PBS, nerd.
10:00 p.
m. Go to bed!/News/ .
Can you really consider watching Boston Legal? Just because William Shatner and James Spader star doesn t make it worthwhile cast isn t everything (tell that BTW to the dorks behind !).
Soon to come: cable shows, HBO and others. Please feel free to snark away should you disagree. We will cruelly mock you.
For those who deeply care about T.V. (and you all should), behold an invaluable resource: .
This is the internet s best recapping and review site, where the reviews are often better than the shows themselves (esp. for 7th Heaven).
Go forth and watch, my children!
In yesterday s post, Steve talks about jobs in bad environments for terrible pay that his mother forced him to take. Folks, it s as if we led parallel lives.
Either that or we have the same mother. That isn t as implausible as it sounds with so many kids running around its possible that we just didn t bump into each other.
As it turns out, even before reading Steve s post, my employment history had been on my mind.
Last Saturday I called Mom up to review the record. I began by letting her know that I am paid decently at my law firm and asked if I should give some of the money back. She seemed surprised at the question and asnwered no , a position I find inconsistent with her insistance that I not take the $3 an hour Sister Slagowski offered me for yard work when I was 12 because it was too much .
My first real job was working for my father. I grew up on a farm and Dad, in an attempt to teach me about money, paid me a summer salary from which I was expected to buy my own school clothes. When I started I was 10 and we agreed to $120.
I wasn t being paid to do my chores of course. Daily milking the cow, feeding the chickens, pigs, and cows, mowing the golf course we conservatively called a lawn or weeding the garden that produced enough to can hundreds of quarts a year was all gratis (or as my mother put it earning my keep . Chores were expected I, along with my older brother, was paid to run the farm.
We threw siphons, pulled head-gates and dug cross-dikes day and night when it was our water turn and eventually grew two crops of alfalfa and a few thousand bushels of wheat from the stubborn Idaho soil. At the end of the summer Dad called me into his study to reckon the books and cut me a check for $60. He was bishop at the time and scrupulously honest, but in money matters his memory was notoriously bad, so I ended up wearing Toughskin pants for another year instead of the more expensive Levi s I had fantacized about.
The next year, having no better offers, I again worked for my father. The controversy from the year before had been put to rest by his promising to pay me $120 this year. After we had cut and baled the hay and harvested the grain, I met again with Dad in his study where he sold me my first investment.
He would cut me an $80 check and I would use the other $40 to buy a pair of piglets in the spring which I could raise and then sell on the open market when they were adults. Making money never seemed so easy and I readily agreed to his proposal. Sitting in my law office and thinking back on this, it occurs to me that I should have read the fine print but who thinks about that when they are 11.
The next spring Dad drove me to a farm a few miles from ours and we purchased two piglets. I grained and watered them every day, carried the pig slop (scraps from our kitchen) out to their pen whenever it was full and after about a year we had two large pigs ready for auction. My father proposed simplifying the transaction, foregoing the auction and buying the pigs directly.
He offered me the magic number, $120. This was below market price, but on the other hand, I hadn t paid anything for the grain and an $80 profit (tax free!) looked pretty good.
So we slaughtered the pigs. Dad then explained that things hadn t gone well with the farm that year (my entire family engaged in group-delusion by insisting that one year things would go well with the farm), but that he would pay me when he had the money. I guess he never got the money because I never got paid.
I advertised the injustice of the situation often and loudly enough that the Pig Money has now entered family lore. Now when we get together for family occasions, I sometimes ask Dad when I m going to get paid. Trying to be philosophical about it, I comfort myself by thinking that if at age 30 the worst thing you can say about your father is that he welched on the Pig Money, you can t complain.
No, not Pedro.
I live in a smallish building on the Upper West Side five families, 6 floors and a basement.
Each of us lives on a separate floor, but we all share some common areas in the building, like any other condo. We have a small garden out front. We take turns taking the trash to the curb; we take turns shoveling the walk.
We all pitch in to tend the garden and clean up common areas. Tis a harmony of the highest order, 4th Nephi-style.
Or so it should be.
Some of us are more lazy than others, which means every once in a while, the snow doesn t get shovelled or the trash builds up. When there are only a few families, and we all take turns, a particular family s failure to contribute becomes extremely obvious. We all come from very different backgrounds, so some of us have never performed this type of manual labor before, while others had several crappy jobs through high school that their mother got for them that made them do all kinds of junk like this for the worst pay imaginable and you had to work with total coke fiends.
Anyhoo enter Pedro. One of the families knows a super from down the street, named Pedro. For $150 a month, Pedro has offered to shovel our walks, take out the trash and periodically clean up our sidewalks.
Pedro does a very fine job at his other building, and has enough spare time to work on ours, too. $150/month, $30 per family, seems a reasonable amount. But I have a weird aversion to hiring Pedro to do these tasks for me.
I m worried that it will fragment the culture of our building, making us rely on others to do work which is rightly our own, while causing each of us to participate a little less towards the common good. This all seems to cut against the grain of my pioneer blood and the spirit of the mormon work ethic. Isn t it good for me, in some way, to get out there and shovel my own walk?
What are the effects of hiring people to do our work?
Pedro would be a good President. We have a contract with Pedro to perform services, and he fulfills these tasks gladly as promised.
We have him work for the collective good, and in exchange we each work a little less. Pedro is the central government executive branch, performing our work in exchange for our money. We all participate a little less, and pay a little more, but the tasks get done more efficiently and we live worry-free.
Pedro is Big Government. Vote for Pedro!
--109871761576363674-->The cover article in the New York Times magazine this weekend was about a family in New York in which the two parents are gay women who have raised to now young adulthood two daughters (each conceived through male sperm donors and borne by the mothers, one each). I was particularly interested in the article because I worked for one of the mothers, Sandy Russo, when I was at Legal Services one summer. The thrust of the article was as follows: there is political cachet on each side of the debate over gay marriage and gay couples raising children as to the sexual orientation of those children as youths/adults.
The body of social science research performed on families like this is small, as the possible sample size is still very small. However, there have been studies, as one might expect given the cultural issues at stake, coming down on both sides of the debate over the welfare of children raised in gay unions. Some evidence exists that the children of these unions are as or better socially well-adjusted as children of other unions on all the typical indicators for these things.
Let s take it as a given that gay unions turn out happy, productive members of society. What I am interested is the question, as articulated by the subjects of the article and exemplified by these two daughers: do openly gay parents who raise their children affect their children s sexual development in such a way that those children are more likely to question their sexual orientation, act on homosexual impulses and/or identify as homosexual? In the Russo-Young family, one daughter is gay; the other is straight.
After reading the article, my conclusion was that these kids are influenced in their sexual development by their parents homosexuality. First of all, kids are influenced by everything their parents do; whether we adopt our parents attitudes, activities, or politics is something every one of us struggles with in the process of defining self and growing to adulthood. It is only sensible to me that sexual orientation is just like any of these other things.
I also believe that our sexuality has both innate and cultural aspects, and, controversial as this is, I think women s sexuality is probably more malleable than men s. Given these assumptions together, gay parents sexual orientation will surely affect their children s orientation, most likely insofar as those children struggle more consciously with sexuality as a choice between homosexuality as the norm and heterosexuality as the alternative. This was certainly expressed by the children profiled in the article.
So, my question is, what does it matter? As members of this church, we are taught that our sexuality should only be expressed in heterosexual marriage. But this standard doesn t jibe with the reality of many people s experience, particularly for those who don t identify as heterosexual.
I ve heard more progressive members of the church say that given the assumption that our sexuality has both innate and acquired attributes, we should be accepting of homosexuality but not encourage it. Would that then mean that we love and support our homosexual friends but don t encourage them to raise children.?
I don t think this is a tenable approach. At bottom it still marginalizes gays, lesbians and transgendered people because it still assumes that these modes of sexuality are wrong (and denies them basic human freedoms).
What is the church s stance?
Is it correct? I am intrigued by the phenomenon of the closeted blog-reader.
You all know who you are. You read By Common Consent religiously (and maybe occasionally stoop to visit ), you stay home with your computers on Saturday nights just in case something profound pops up on this site, but you never actually dare to make a comment yourself. Why is that?
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