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Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

May 20, 2013 by Huston

Saw this live once at a community theater performance and loved it.  Still love the movie–fantastic dancing.  And the humor in this musical is just excellent.


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Posted in Arts | Tagged , , |

Hooray For Aging!

May 17, 2013 by Huston

The tagline for this blog has always been, “The rebel of the 21st century will be old fashioned.”  I could add that the true rebel of this century might just be old.

I don’t want to write a screed about our society’s wretched worship of youth, but I will say this:

I love being 35.  Our media worships being a teenager, but that’s all just for marketing and easy profit.  I hated being a teenager.  I work with teenagers, and most of them seem to hate it, too.  It’s a painful, constricted time.

Being 25 was ten times better than being 15, and being 35 is ten times better than that.  I can’t wait to be 45, and I have no doubt that being 55 will blow my mind.  I can’t be the only person who feels this way.

Posted in Living well | Tagged , , |

“No one knows when the harlot’s cry…”

May 14, 2013 by Huston

Regarding the recent viral rant by Texas high school student Jeff Bliss against his history teacher (below), there may well be legitimate grievances here.  Three things that deeply worry me about this are the three things that nobody is commenting on.

First, the whole Internet is rushing to get on this kid’s team.  But none of us were there.  We don’t know the teacher’s side of the story.  We aren’t qualified to take a side.  What could prompt such a mad, mass bandwagon of groupthink?

Everybody criticizes the herd mentality unless, you know, you’re in on it, because then it’s just obviously right.

Second, nobody is talking about who recorded this and put it online, and why they did it, and if that was a good idea.  I agree that public school classrooms need to be open to the world, but this is a selective moment published just to hurt a teacher.  Nobody is worried about the precedent here?

Which brings me to the third point: as the UK’s Daily Mail notes in its weekend article on the controversy, “Meanwhile, the teacher in the video has been  placed on administrative leave while the school investigates…”

Wow, some kid posts a video online of another kid criticizing a teacher, and the teacher gets suspended and investigated.  Her career is likely ruined.  Over a one minute video where all she really does is calmly reiterate that a disruptive student leave.  What he says may be right, but she deserves to be harrassed and investigated over this?

I’m reminded of the sword of Damocles.

I’m reminded of Reverend Hale’s line in Act IV of The Crucible: “No man knows when the harlot’s cry will end his life.”  Or when the student’s cry will end her career.  Apparently, society is OK with a witch hunt if the accused are only mere teachers.

 

Posted in Education | Tagged , , , , |

“Music Box Dancer” on Hammered Dulcimer

May 13, 2013 by Huston

Posted in Arts | Tagged , |

The Moon Landing and The Book of Mormon As Hoaxes?

May 12, 2013 by Huston

Does the Book of Mormon make sense as a hoax?  Compare it to the 1969 moon landing.

I just saw about the billionth joke on TV about the moon landing being a hoax.  This old conspiracy theory is usually referenced as a crackpot belief these days, and rightfully so.

Consider all the logical problems with the moon landing being a hoax:

  • Motive.  Beating the Soviets in the space race?  Couldn’t it have been achieved with far less effort and risk in many other ways?
  • Benefits.  What did we really get out of this?  A brief bump in pride and some cool photos?  Again, these could have been achieved in far easier ways.
  • Costs.  Absolutely staggering amounts of money were sunk into building and executing this project over many years.  Not sensible if it was fake.
  • Means.  Did we really have the ability to pull off this scam?  It would have required tons of complicit agents, sets and props, bribes, image effects, and a host of lying witnesses, to say the least.  The whole scheme seems very implausible.
  • Secrecy.  With all that would have been involved, nobody blew the lid on this hoax, ever?  Even when there would have been huge financial rewards for doing so?
  • Odds.  What are the chances that all this worked out, if wasn’t real?  History shows that such attempts fall apart.  The singular legacy of this project attests to its reality.
  • Repetition.  Where else has our government pulled off a hoax on this scale?  If they were able to do it once, they would have done so again.

Of course, each of these seven things also testifies of the reality of the Book of Mormon as an ancient document, divinely delivered to and translated for the modern world, and not as a 19th century hoax by Joseph Smith: Continue Reading »

Posted in Religion | Tagged , , , , , |

A Great Quote on Living Deeply

May 11, 2013 by Huston

I wrote on this subject a few weeks ago, but just today I came across this quote below.  It perfectly illustrates my own take on the other quote I used in that other post.  This is exactly what I have in mind:

I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.

–Linda Bentley Johnson, in the 1997 BYU Women’s Conference, about what kind of summing up she wanted her life to have.

(hat tip: Real Intent)

Posted in Living well | Tagged , , , , |

The Odyssey on Living Well

May 9, 2013 by Huston

From the Robert Fagles translation

 

On family:

“And may the good gods give you all your heart desires:

husband, and house, and lasting harmony too.

No finer, greater gift in the world than that…

when man and woman posses their home, two minds,

two hearts that work as one.  Despair to their enemies,

a joy to all their friends.  Their own best claim to glory.”

Book 6, lines 198-203

On sports:

“It’s fit and proper for you to know your sports.

What greater glory attends a man, while he’s alive,

than what he wins with his racing feet and striving hands?”

Book 8, lines 169-171

Posted in Language and Literature, Living well | Tagged , , , , |

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