Hurry, get the kleenex box...or a monkey wrench

No, it's not becasue I'm going to watch Cool Runnings or Horton Hears a Who. I'm sick, and tissue needs to be in hand nearly 100% of the time or snot will be all over my face. It's like a leaky faucet that I just can't contain. Before you know it, I'll flood the apartment, or campus, or Provo. Seriously, I had no idea that this much snot existed within me. Once I think it's done, it starts up again and just keeps on coming; sort of like the Barry Bonds steroids issue on ESPN.

What I really think I need is one of these:

Yep, that'll do it. I think I can get it from Harriet Carter.

Shooting an Elephant

I recently read George Orwell's "Shooting and Elephat" for my British Government class. I advise everyone to do the same (http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/english/e_eleph )It's a small short story about a policeman (possibly Orwell) in the Imperial Indian Police during British occupancy of India. It's about an elephant who goes into its must period and tramples many straw huts, killing one man. The main idea is the struggle the policeman has with whether or not he ought to kill the elephant or not. He does not want to, but when he asked someone to fetch him an elephant gun (to protect him) a crowd started to follow him, for they were sure he would shoot the elephant.

THE policeman has come, through his service in Burma, to disagree with the imperialistic reasons he’s there. In his mind’s battle of whether or not to shoot the elephant, he discovers himself in the position of a colonizing tyranny. He did not want to shoot the elephant, but the natives expect him to kill it. This predicament is similar to that of any colonizing country. As an imperial ruling entity, the natives expect certain actions in these situations, and the ruling entity will likely never disappoint, for it is important that they always deliver an impressive performance to the natives. What is expected by the natives isn’t always what is in the nature of the ruling entity to do, but they will do it in order to keep up the appearance of a tyrannical imperial force. Orwell explains that in this way the tyrant destroys his own freedom because he can only choose to do what the natives expect. For this reason Orwell defies his own will and kills the elephant.
THE extent of my exposure to information regarding the British occupation of India is limited to sources in entertainment media. In every movie I’ve seen, however, there is very little sympathy for the Indians. The British are depicted as arrogant and condescending towards the savage natives. The policeman’s character, after observing the brutal oppression of the natives, became overwhelmed with guilt and came to disapprove of imperialism, and despised the work he did in support of such a cause. His opposition to his work was not vocalized, as he “had to think out (his) problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East.” Because of this imposed silence the policeman describes, it could be understood that the there are many others in the same situation that feel the same way, but fail to express themselves. After all, even the policeman succumbed to shooting the elephant in order to save himself from humiliation. To be in a position of authority requires one to assume the tyrannical nature of the post and act as the tyranny would in order to meet the expectations of the ruled.
AFTER just three years in Burma Orwell resigned his post and took up a pen name and a pen to begin his career as a writer. This was one of his first works, which begs me to wonder if Orwell had sold his birthright (his successful career in the Indian Imperial Police) for a pot of message. In addition to the short narrative on the comparison to the British imperial cause that the policeman found, I found an innuendo of this clash of wills (the policeman’s vs. the natives) in his own actions. He could not, for instance, test the elephant’s behavior to determine if it was still mad. Even though he did not fear the elephant (“a white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened”), he could not approach the elephant because if something did go wrong he would be made a laughing-stock. “That,” he says, “would never do.”

I picked up more symbolism of imperialism in the story than the comparison Orwell explains himself. The policeman had never shot an elephant before, and did not know the most effective way to take one down, but out of fear of humiliation he made a guess at where the brain might be and pulled the trigger. The policeman fired three more shots to where he thought the brain was and his last two to where he thought the hear was. The elephant would not die, but laid on its side breathing deeply--even after emptying his Winchester into it, too. Bells went off in my head about the American occupation in Iraq: an imperialist venture set off without a clear indication of how long it might take to subdue the opponent. It has taken much longer than expected with no foreseeable end in sight. The policeman gave up and left the dying elephant in misery while the village people sat like vultures ready to pick the elephant dry. If our new president keeps his promises, we’ll be out of Iraq, leaving their young secular democracy to the wiles of whatever extremist factions that lay in wait to destroy.
BRITAIN had a similar situation with an elephant in India known as Mahatma Gandhi. Through his leadership, India became as an elephant in its must period, but through civil disobedience and non-violent protest. As much as the British shot at it, it would not die, and ended up leaving before his death. Orwell had no idea this would be the case, as it all came to pass much later in history, but I believe that because it has proven analogous of the United States’ invasion and reconstruction in Iraq and the outcome of the British in India countries ought to consider the repercussions of imperialism from the point of view of both the gunman and the elephant as Orwell did.

Born to Run

In August 2003 I arrived at Campus Plaza. One week passed and I hadn't run, then I was bored one morning and just did it. As I returned from my 30 minute jog and hopped in a cold shower. As I stood in the shower feeling the chilled water pelt my whole body I heard an imagined voice whisper into my ear, "Welcome back to the fold." It had been a long time since I had last run. I ran the two mile in league finals, but never trained for it, and after Sections I was done with everything. It got hot in California and I didn't run, because I had nothing to run for. Standing in the shower that day, feeling my body's tire and satisfaction with my run, I knew who I really was. I was a runner.

So I began a training program called '5k at 5:00', and ran every evening. After I started getting my groove back I started running 5 miles at 5:00. I was back in the swing of things, even when it got colder than my running shoes had ever experienced. A column in the Salt Lake Tribune caught my attention when the columnist was training for a marathon and would report a weekly training log. I saw his first week's schedule and decided I could start out like that, and from that time on my marathon training began.

I registered for the Santa Cruz Marathon to be held on June 5th and trained well. School ended and I went home. After being home for two days I ran a scheduled 30 miler on a hot late April day in central California. Running had just become something that I did. Distance did not phase me--especially shorter distances. Two days later I was offered a job at Prima Frutta Packing. I would be working seven days a week, 16 hour days when they started picking Bings locally for the last few weeks. The projected final day of the season was June 5th. I knew that I would not have time to run, and therefore would not be ready for my race. But I also knew that I needed this money to pay for a greater part of my mission and also have some for tuition when I got home. So I took the job and laid my marathon aspirations to rest.

I don't remember running the rest of my time at home preceding my mission. I didn't get to run that much on my mission. When I came home to Idaho I ran. It was cold and windy, but I stuck it out. In Provo I tried, but failed miserably to keep up a consistant running schedule. Until today.

Today I ran five miles , ending a 15 mile week. I decided to take a jogging class this semester. The class requires that I run 140 miles throughout the semester. I needed a running schedule, so I looked online and found a good half-marathon schedule. I decided a couple of years ago that training for the marathon may not have made my body very happy with me at times, and that I didn't really want to do that. Besides, I ran 26.2 miles on my own a couple of times, and there's nothing that exciting about it. Running a half marathon is just as legit a race to train for. So I called up Scott E and asked if he was in, too. He's as fast as (if not faster than) I was when I was his age, and he's in. So late in the summer we'll face off.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm intimidated by his speed. Especially when I started my easy runs coming in with 8-minute miles. But I'm not pushing it at all-I don't want to risk injury. Once I'm accustomed to running greater distances and for longer periods of time (like my 40-minute job today) then I'll switch training schedules to work on my speed. Will I be as fast as Scott? Well, probably not, seeing that he still has track training in his sights. But that'll be shorter distance. When he's running two mile races, I'll be running twelve mile LSD (long slow distance) on Saturdays. Come May I'll have the endurance and he'll have the speed. Possibly by August we'll be on the same track.

The Longest Day

Paul Anka, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Richard Burton, and Sean Connery had a long day back in '62. That's what I feel like now. Christmas takes a lot out of you. A very taxing holiday. My mother told me that it's even longer with little kids, although I won't have to worry about it for a while. Courtney and I tried to inflict slight heart attacks to my parents by unwrapping a little infant onsey from her to me. My mom was speechless, as I tried to be, too. Coach had just got on the phone with Todd. Couldn't fool them. Oh well, it was worth the try.
All in all it was a great day with the family. From breakfast, to sledding, to Cool Runnings and Horton Hears a Who, to doing three puzzles, it was a fantastic--howbeit long--day. A fantastic Christmas. Last night my mom read us the Santa Bag story which shows us hidden meanings of Christ's birth in the commercial and pagan symbols of Christmas (stars, trees, wreaths, ornaments, candles, bells and candy canes). It's good to remember that we're doing this out of respect for the birth of the Savior of the world. It's nice to be with family when celbrating the birth of he who brough salvation to the family,

Another Day to Celebrate America

I heard that the average American will eat 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving day. How else could we possibly celebrate a day of thanks but through gluttany? As Jim Gaffigan put it,

"Thanksgiving, we didn't even try to come up with a tradition; the tradition is we overeat. 'Hey, how 'bout for thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' We do that every day. 'Oh...what if we eat a lot with people who annoy the hell out of us?'"

And eating with family makes many Americans more thankful for their independence from family. And what's the last peice of the puzzle? Beating the crap out of people: football. We watch football, we play football, we talk football--football is the day. These are the founding principles of our nation- independence, gluttany and explosive entertainment. Definitely a perfect fit as a national holiday in our blessed football.

So let's express our American patronage by eating, fighting and tackling this weekend. Such is the spirit of the day, and the spirit of our country.

10-2 Part III

I went to the Holy War yesterday thanks to an awesome friend who bailed me out on a night I was getting kicked out of the house anyways. Courtney was going to kick me out for the night so she could throw a bridal shower for Hilary, and Andrew came over to take me away to Salt Lake where we would brave freezing temperatures and BCS-thirsty Ute students waiting outside for ticket sales to open the next morning. It was a great night at the front of a very, very, long line, full of hijincks and hackey sacks and obnoxious drunk guys yelling at people and breaking the tent Andrew's brother rented. In the end we all came away with tickets to the Holy War, and my anticipation was fulfilled this weekend.
Andrew and Hilary got hitched down in Manti Friday morning, and I saw them again Saturday afternoon when I got to Rice-Eccles stadium. Andrew, his brother Patrick and I painted B-Y-U on our chests, and in the midst of the student section cheered loudly all night long. In the third quarter, Max Hall did something useful and ran into the endzone to cut the Utes' lead to three, 27-24. We were excited, but some Utah fans felt threatened. Some of these plastered students came over to us to give us a hard time, and ended up starting a little scuffle with other Ute fans in the row below us. Security showed up to take the troublemakers away, and all was well, except while they were there Max threw another interception and Utah scored a short time afterwards. The fourth quarter only got worse, and we shivered our chins to our chests in shame, finally leaving when the clock hit 00:00.

We lost; but what an experience! A Holy War in the Utah student section, half naked with paint on my chest and good friends with me--what a night! A lot of people were disappointed with the game, I was, too. But let's face it, Max got rattled and blew the game, it's as simple as that. He's still a good player. We actually outgained Utah in the game and converted both 4th down situations. Before his five interceptions against Utah he had just 7 the entire year. But last night he couldn't handle the heat, and that's that. He had two big wins at the end of last season, but let's look at his performance.

Against Utah in last year's Holy War, Max was 17-40 with an interception and a fumble. This year he was 21-41 with 5 INTs and a fumble. He pulled off one HUGE play on 4th and 18 to make it all count and gain the glory in a game Harvey Unga gained 141 yards rushing on 23 carries. That's a big game for a freshman back. This year? He gets just 15 carries...and amasses 116 yards! That's nearly 8 yards a carry! To take a line from the great Keyshawn Johnson, give him the d*** ball! Our other brother in our Tongan backfield, Fui Vakapuna, gained 36 yards on four touches- 8 yards a carry! Max ran for a career high 42 yards on 7 scrambles. Hey Bronco, RUN THE FREAKIN' BALL!!!!!!! Sure Max fell apart and practically giftwrapped the ball for Utah defenders at times, but more blame needs to be aimed at the Offensive Coordinator, Robert Anae, bless his heart, for calling disproportionately more pass than run plays against a Utah team we've ran well on in the past. Don't get me wrong, Max DID flounder the game with his poor performance, but running on first down would have helped out a few times, too.

The TCU game was a straight up disaster, but Max put up similar stats, 22-42, but only 2 INTs and 6 times sacked. I'm not going to dwell on that game, but the situation was bad there, too. In 2006 we beat a ranked TCU team in their house on our way to the MWC title, destroying their season. And this year they did it to us. Same thing with Utah. In 2006 we came into their house and came back with a drive in the last minute of the game to win on a miracle play while time expired. John Beck’s greatness left some bitter tastes in the mouths of away teams that year, and it came back to get us now.

So Max Hall was exposed as the not-so big game quarterback he actually already was. The defense actually came out to play after the half, too, holding Utah on consecutive drives, but in the fourth quarter, Max just couldn't keep the offense on the field long enough to keep us in the game.

Our third straight 10-2 isn't quite as good as it sounds. Our 9 wins against Div. 1-A teams came against teams with a combined 34-70 record. We lost to teams with a combined 22-2 record. Only one team we beat ended with a record over .500 (Air Force). We played close games against Washington (0-11), UNLV (4-8), and Colorado State (6-6). What's up with that? We got what we deserved. Sure our offense is pretty incredible, but the defense let our opponents in the game nearly every time. We now prepare for an invitation to the Armed Forces Bowl against Houston, Rice or Tulsa of Conference USA. BYU fans will whine and complain about things, but let's face it: we're getting what we played for.

We're only the one's we've been waiting for if we sit around waiting forever like those stupid democrats did

I never was too into McCain. "America, specifically you dumb republicans who let him win the primaries in the first place, John McCain is a loser. He lost to the village idiot of Texas in the 2000 primaries, how could anyone expect him to succeed against a young, charismatic, eloquent, intelligent intellectual. The only reason I wanted to see McCain in office is to provide parity in our branches of government. But he caught some bad breaks (Sarah Palin was a good idea at the time, but I think most Americans would actually prefer Tina Fey, now) and failed over (First debate) and over (Second debate) and over (Third debate) again to convince America that he was a better candidate than his opponent.
I hate the Yankees. I hate them with a passion. But when they won the world series in 1998, they deserved it. Their team earned it. Their opponent, the San Diego Padres, did not deserve it. Barack Obama beat John McCain. He beat him in fundraising, he beat him in debates, he beat him in the popular vote, he beat him in the electoral college vote. Obama knew he was going to win weeks ago. This wasn’t a Rocky Balboa fight that traded head shots and combinations and ended in the last round, the result we saw Tuesday night had been on deck for a while. Now I’m not a Democrat or liberal by any means, but John McCain got smoked like Michael Johnson in that exhibition 150 meter race against Donovan Bailey back in 1997, and I respected the fastest man in the world being Canadian, and I’ll respect the leader of the free world being a Democrat.
A lot of people here in Provo are downright scared of what's going to happen. It makes me sick. Not only do they not hold faith in the limits our constitution places on government, but also a lack of faith in the role of Americans as the Bloodthirsty Capitalist Pigs of the World. This country has had Democrats in the White House before. Some were successful, some were not; all of them had job approvals higher than George W. Bush’s present rating (but none as high as his rating right after 9/11: ). The country has been through hard economic times with both Democrats and Republicans--it happens. The country changes every once in a while. What type of change can we expect in 2009? A couple more liberal supreme court justices, a few liberal reforms here and there, I can’t say for sure, but it won’t be as radical as those who live in fear believe. He can’t get universal healthcare; privatized healthcare has congress in their pocket. He’s not going to raise taxes on the rich--heck, he’s already reneged on that issue three days after election. He’s liberal, but he’s no idiot.
People start quoting scriptures from the Book of Mormon and the Revelation of John, and I think of them, too. “Have mercy upon the rulers of our land; may those principles, which were so honorably and nobly defended, namely, the Constitution of our land, by our fathers, be established forever” (D&C 109:54). This isn’t the prayer we use just when a Democrat is in the Oval Office, it’s for all our leaders at all times. Let faith replace doubt and selfless service replace selfish strivings. And hope replace fear. “Whosoever belonged to my church need not fear” (D&C 10:55). As we “lift where we stand”, as the good Saints did in California this election, and serve our fellow men and our God, His perfect love will sweep out all fear (1 John 4:18).
I don’t think he’s the antichrist. I don’t think he’s America’s savior. I never had the light shine down on me and give me an epiphany that I should vote for him. This Land has a history of failing to live up to its “Promised” status, and who‘s in charge usually bears little sway in the way most Americans live their daily life. So why should it now?