With Apologies to St. Luke

A certain kitchen between the basement and bedrooms fell among slobs, who stripped it of its order, soiled it, and departed, leaving the counters unwiped and the filthy dishes stacked higher than the can opener.

And by chance there came up a certain teenager, a high school graduate and Deseret Industries worker: and when he saw it and his leftover gluten-free pizza, he passed by on the other side.

And likewise a teenage girl, when she was at the place, came and looked on it and plopped a few more dishes by the sink, and passed by on the other side.

LIkewise a third came by, and seeing the cold leftover pizza, ate himself another slice but did not put the rest in a container in the fridge nor did he consider the soiled counters or dishes, and passed by on the other side.

But a certain father, as he journeyed, came where the kitchen was; and when he saw it, he had compassion on it, knowing full well if he passed by on the other side the wife, still in the basement and ever hopeful that someone else would take pity on the kitchen and clean it would be chapped at its current state. So behold, he cleaned it. Well, most of it, leaving a few things to soak.

Thus we see the father wiped up the counters, and to the sink poured in water and fairy liquid, and took out the overflowing garbage, and brought the kitchen to a state of near cleanliness that may still draw a frown but not weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Hoping on the morrow, when he awoke, someone else would take out the recycling and give it to the bins, and say unto them, Thus will I do forevermore, and whatsoever I'd rather be doing than cleaning the kitchen shall be put off until it be clean.

Which now of these four, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto that which fell among the slobs?



(And he did listen to appropriate music as he cleaned.)

Why I Mark Books

I’d like to talk for just a moment about Mortimer Adler and the act of marking books.

As I read your responses to Adler’s article, I noted opinion typically fell into two camps, with some variation in each.

Camp One marks some books like their scriptures and see how marking up other books or reading material might be helpful.

Camp Two decidedly does not mark up reading material at all.

Adler’s pretty adamant in insisting that marking up a book is the only way to “own it,” or to internalize what is being said in it. A few of you took objection to that.

I’m here to say that for me, marking up what I read works – but I don’t mark up everything I read in the same way.

Why do I mark things?

Firstly, I tend to be a fast reader. Too fast, in that I miss a lot of things so I have to read a book several times for it to sink in. When I take notes, however, I slow down and retain more, and I don’t have to read and re-read the entire book to get the salient points I noted earlier.

Take, for example, this.

This is the triple combination I used through four years of seminary, while I was at college, and during my mission.

I’ve marked it to pieces, as you can see. Each color represents a different time I read the book over those long years.

I don’t necessarily remember everything I marked. However, when I do pull this book off the shelf and re-read it, the markings and notes – particularly the notes – help me remember times from my mission when I was struggling, and other times when I was riding high. Seeing the marks and notes triggers those memories. If I try to remember something specific – like right now – my memory fails me. But seeing those notes helps my brain make the connection from the words on the page to the memories stored in my head.

The marks, the memories, and the connections in my head remind me of this scene from “Groundhog Day,” where Bill Murray’s character tells Andie MacDowell maybe God knows what he does because he’s been around for a long time. One of these days, I hope to know more about the scriptures, just like God.



Here’s another book I’ve marked up – Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal.” Not the kind of book you think a person would normally mark up. But I have.

This one is different, though. In this one, I’ve used sticky tabs to mark passages I felt were particularly funny, or had meaning to me in another way. I rarely mark this kind of book with a pen, and if I do I write on the sticky note, so I don’t leave a mark in the book.

Just as in the scriptures, I can look at a mark, read the passage, and immediately remember why I marked this part of the book.

What I’m getting at here is this:

1. If I mark up a book – no matter how I do it – I’m leaving myself a physical reminder in the physical thing of what my brain was thinking when I read the book. Even if the “why” of the mark is stored only in my head, the physical act of marking the book helps trigger those memories.

2. Triggering memories is the prime reason to mark a book. We read a lot of different things in our lives – and when I say read, I also mean watch, because this works with what we take in visually through television shows and such. When we have something trigger our memory, our brain physically makes connections between neurons to help us strengthen those memories. And as we strengthen memories, neurons that hold different memories will suddenly make new connections between themselves as we suddenly realize there’s a connection between something we already know and something we’re currently reading or witnessing. The more physical connections we have in our brains, the more we are able to connect those dots. The more intelligence we grow.

So I’m going to offer a challenge. Think of a way you can mark your books that satisfies your need to remember with your reverence for books or your reluctance to mark in the first place. Start building those connections. As you so this, I guarantee you’ll see your ability to think critically grow by leaps and bounds.

I testify that God created our brains to help us learn and remember and grow. As we use our brains, we will see growth.

Listen to the Hippies

I’m a total square, you know.

And a prude, probably.

It’s just this week the older two kids got “their own” cell phones. They’re 16 and 18.

We’ve given them the talk – several times, most often when the Family Life merit badge came up in Boy Scouts.

We’re picky who they party with. We want to meet their parents first.

They don’t get free reins on any vehicle. Only one of them has a driver’s license.

We teach them. They read. They think. They ask questions. They rebel.

But they also don’t drink. Don’t have questionable friends. They’re having the typical struggles in school, but they’re not washouts.

So far, so good.

And if they were nominated to the Supreme Court – not that we’d ever wish that on them – they could go before the nation and not have questions of shenanigans or alleged shenanigans in their past to haunt them.

They could go before the board with a conscience free of offense towards mankind.

They’re in the world, but not of the world. Or we mightily strive to have them be that way.

And we’re the ones the world looks on with shaking heads.

We, who frown at the promiscuity and laissez-faire with which we’re supposed to bless our children, we’re frowned on. Let your kids do what they want. Kids will be kids. Let them explore. Don’t fill their heads with your ideas.

Let them have sex when they want. Just give them birth control. That’s all they need.

Let them experience the world. Free.

Free, I say, but with warnings.

You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And you of tender years can’t know the fears that your elders grew by.

Our code includes respect for the sexes.

Our code includes no meaning no – and not ever getting to that point.

Our code includes avoiding intoxicants, which can lead down paths best left untraveled.

Teach your children well.

Ad you – go ahead and mock. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Or so you think.

Superallegorical

If you want an allegorically fantastic film to watch, watch 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Though billed as a science fiction/horror film, I like to think of it as a film of paranoia.

And not just fear of McCarthyism (as was suggested by critics of the original 1956 film) but of any ugly little quirk or tweak anyone might have in his or her psyche. The underlying conspiracy feeds particularly well to the following ecumenical bugaboos:

1. Monsanto
2. Chemtrails
3. Climate change
4. Climate change denial
5. Bararck Obama and the missing birth certificate
6. Donald Trump BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!

Those who display the early paranoia are condescended to, even by the experts, who insist that the whatever that’s bothering them about their loved ones is, well, kinda their fault. Kibner tells whatserface that if her husband Geoffrey feels cold and distant, it might just be because she subconsciously wants to push away from him.

And if they’re not displayed as paranoiacs, they’re displayed as maniacs, as with the hapless Kevin McCarthy, whom I hope had a ball with his cameo.

Those who feel the paranoids are told it’s them, not us. Everyone tells the paranoiacs that getting a good night’s sleep will cure all their ills. Then they realize how much sleeping plays into the goal of the parasite behind it all.

The joy in this film’s paranoia is that we’re left basically clueless about motivation – or if not clueless, at least freaked out by the pods’ reproductions. Each character brings into the story their own version of what’s going on, from aliens to government experimentation to a vague, unexplainable feeling that something’s just wrong. With all these competing interpretations battling with ordinary peoples’ blasé reactions and the coolness of the pod people trying to keep things hidden enough they can carry out their reproductive needs keeps the motivations so open nobody really knows what to think. Just like in real life.

I particularly love the film’s treatment of San Francisco. Any other film set in this city would be dripping with fantastic views and wistful vistas, but in this film San Francisco really feels like any city, and gets more and more ugly and claustrophobic as the story goes on. Even the few wistful vistas shown in the film seem pale, washed out, and menacing – just as any familiar and beloved place would feel when you know at the foundation of all things that something is dreadfully wrong.

And to quote Scott Meyer, I love that this film came from the era of science fiction when “mankind battled his own self-destructive tendencies. And also apes.” There is no happy ending; this film has probably one of the best endings in science fiction, which feeds perfectly into the film’s theme of paranoia. Even those you trust the most can suddenly appear to have drunk the Kool-Aid.

I Need An Answer

I need an answer to this question: Can I still enjoy Bill Cosby’s comedy?

And I know I'm not the only one thinking this.

Cosby’s personal life notwithstanding, there are some comedy gems in Cosby’s long repertoire. I just want to know if there’s enough separation between Cosby the man and Cosby as an entertainer if I can enjoy listening to his old routines without the vast majority of folks out there having a conniption (which Cosby describes thus: )



Or, conversely, should I place my Cosby memories on the pile to be burned?

I’m not going to be dragged into any debates about permissive society, Puritanical society forcing others into more bohemian pursuits, or deciding what lines should not be crossed or who should be allowed to cross them while others are crucified for getting a little bit of that line chalk on their sneakers. That’s a dead end of Itoldyas and Weshouldas and other bullshittery that won’t answer the question.

To my Mormon compatriots, I ask: Can I still enjoy listening to old Bruce R. McConkie talks even though his admonition that the Catholic Church is the “great and abominable church” mentioned in The Book of Mormon has been dismissed? Or Joseph Smith getting sick of answering the “Wheredya get that thar Golden Bible” query by inventing a glowing salamander?

(Another aside: I won’t be drawn into any apples for oranges discussions either. They won’t answer the question.)

The question being: When someone commits the unpardonable – or at least the unfathomable – do we shove everything that person has done down one of the Ministry of Truth’s memory holes?

Hyperbolic?

I don’t think so.

When do we follow the admonition “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.1”

Which is preceded by this:

My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts, and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.

Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin.

I don’t see anything here that says these knuckleheads weren’t guilty of whatever it was that upset the others, nor that the knuckleheads were even penitent about it. All I see is the commandment to forgive.

Yes, easy to read in theory but difficult to perform in practice. Perhaps I will have a time when my ability to forgive is tested.

That time may come. Until then, maybe I’d better practice.

But in practice do I elevate those who no longer deserve adulation? Or, shall we say, appointment to high office? Maybe it’s easy to still enjoy Bill Cosby because the Cosby we know now isn’t actively on stage, still selling us his comedy. Maybe it’s harder, say, to forgive if the perceived or suspected sinner is still ascendant, say, towards a slot on the Supreme Court.

Because you know that fellow Hitler, he may have done some questionable things there in Munich, but that’s no guarantee he’ll continue that bad behavior once he becomes Chancellor2.

And Cosby ain’t innocent. “Cosby,” CNN says, “was accused by dozens of women of drugging and sexually assaulting them over his decades as a powerful media figure. Cosby was convicted in April of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and assaulting [Andrea] Costand at his home in 2004, in the first high-profile celebrity criminal trial of the #MeToo era.”

Aha! What say ye now, Smartypants McBloggerman?

How far up or down down the ascendancy do we go?

Do degrees of fame or potential power raise the bar for forgiveness?

I surely remember, “Wickedness never was happiness.3”

I need so much practice.

1 Doctrine and Covenants 64:10.
2 Yes, I just Godwinned my own post.
3 Alma 41:10

May as Well Have Been Talking Swedish

Today kina closes an era.

I’m retiring the old LG flip phone, which I’ve used for I don’t know how long. We’ve had it on a pay-as-you-go plan forever, and it’s served well. Usually, I either forgot to bring it with me, forgot to turn it on, or just never heard the ring or felt the buzz when someone was calling.

I enjoyed it, though. A few times one of my scouts – typically one of the new ones – asked to borrow my phone, likely because he wanted to look something up on the Internet. The looks on those faces when I handed over the phone were precious. And they weren’t shy about dissing its antiquity.

“Ew,” one scout said when he looked at the phone in a pizza parlor (I’m old enough I say pizza parlor). “It has buttons.”

Whenever I handed it over, I felt like the Swedish Chef handling his blunderbussen. And I was fine with that. I knew how the blunderbussen worked.

But no more.

Today I switch over to a smartphone.

That doesn’t necessarily bode well.

Though I have used my Kindle Fire extensively, I don’t have a good track record with smartphones. I had to borrow one a few years ago to make a call at work, and when the call was over I had no idea how to hang up. (I’m so old I talk about hanging up when I’m making a phone call. I also still dial a number.)

When my wife is driving and needs me to do something with her phone, it inevitably boils down to her pulling over somewhere so she can figure out what I did to it.

But my wife found a killer family cell phone plan and decided, with older phones languishing in drawers, it was time to get them in use. So we all have phones – with the exception of the youngest, who does not. He and his mother discussed the situation over the weekend behind closed doors. I don’t know what kind of deal she struck or what kind of logic she used, but he seems if not necessarily OK with the situation, at least resigned to it. Further bulletins as events warrant on that front to be sure.

We spent two hours at the Tmobile store over the weekend, getting the new plan set up. My wife was in charge of that. I mainly spent my time wandering the store and blowing my nose in a discreet manner. I was dispatched to look at phones on their Big Wall O’ Phones, and was tempted to point out the newish-looking flip phone there. Found out it won’t work with the plan we’re looking at. So I found a few possibilities and then went home to look at them elsewhere. Found the one my father-in-law recommended (more than the one I was looking at) for $40 less than the store had it, so that’s where we went.

Whazzat?

I’m trying to make sense of something.

This, in particular.

It’s clever, to be sure.

Maybe it casts a pall because it mentions Elon Musk, who is an intelligent and driven person to be sure, but, like the rest of us, seems incapable of seeing past the end of his own nose. Manufacture electric cars, yes. Send one into space, why? And jump onto the potential rescue of boys in Thailand from a flooded cave, but end up party to a defamation lawsuit because another expert dared challenge his Expertise in Such MattersTM and end up calling him, without basis in fact, a pedo. The Obi Wan Kenobi of our age, rightly sued for calling someone else a name in the playground because that person dared not bow to his clearly superior intellect.

Maybe it casts a pall because I’ve never read The Great Gatsby.

Or that I just don’t quite get the point of it all.

Don’t give in to the snots who ask, with wheedling voices, “Why do we have to know this?” Because knowing different things, cramming more stuff into your skull, helps you make neurological connections between the new stuff and old stuff you already know. Maybe not all of those connections will be useful. But some will. And don’t sneer at others who see utility in topics and connections and further enlightenment in what we deem as dross.

Cherish those moments when the lightning strikes. And seek to make more connections like them.

That may be at the fundament what this is all about, and if it is then it doesn’t need to be said again, not by me, nor by anyone else.

Instead, revel in the fact that gaining an education is not limited to the pubescent years when we whine about having to learn all this crap but instead spreads out over an entire lifetime when we eventually, begrudgingly, realize we want to learn all this crap. Because if we leave our educational zenith to the zitbrained versions of ourselves when we were being afflicted by a formal education, it’s probably best to snuff the lights now and put everyone to sleep.

Crazy Ivan

A scenario:

A teenager "borrows" a classmate's cell phone and sets the ringer to play the Russian national anthem and takes it off the school-prescribed silent ring mode. He enlists another teen to call the phone when the three of them have class together. The following happens:

1. More than half the anthem plays before the victim realizes it's her phone ringing.
2. Teacher requires the victim to answer the phone in speaker mode since the silent mode rule has been violated.
3. Doofus on the other end of the line does not have the sense to hang up, but instead answers it saying "Uh, how are things in class," in full hearing of the class, the victim, and the teacher.

The following results:

1. Victim is punished for violating the silent ring rule.
2. Doofus is punished for making a phone call in class.
3. Instigator laughs evilly in his head for the rest of the day and revels in telling his father about the exploit over the weekend.

The question: How can I punish this kid after laughing through the entire story, especially at Doofus who decides taking the call through to its natural conclusion is the best course of action?

Aside: Said evil genius may be annoying his older brother with the Russian national anthem in the next room.

Whence the Whatsis?

I don’t know what to call it, but I got it.

A deference to authority. An assumption that people in charge are older than me, or that I’m always going to feel myself mentally younger and less authoritative than those around me.

Help me out with a word for this, folks. I’ll bet it would be easier if we spoke German.

I don’t suppose this is a bad thing. It’s not obsequious deference, or a servile assumption. And it does tend to fade with familiarity. But not to the same extent; the magnitude of the fade depends person to person. And it’s not dismissive. I try to treat people with equal kindness.

And it rarely goes away completely.

It might come from my suspected position somewhere on the autism spectrum. It runs in the family – as Mortimer Brewster said of his family’s insanity, it practically gallops.

Good thing is, the longer I know people, the more of a spine I grow. Not that it’s completely floppy to begin with, as I’m known as kind of a stubborn cuss. But the stubbornness is balanced with that deference, which in all is probably a good thing.

There’s bred into me – some from the Dutch side of the family, the rest from the Mormon pioneer side of the family – a respect for other people that occasionally borders on aloofness around others. (That’s mostly where the autism spectrum thing comes in.)

Maybe this has something to do with it.

I don’t want to get rid of it, as it works well as I work with others. Just would like to know what to call it. [Begins studying German]

This is Why I Rarely Buy Digital Content

If you happen to visit my home, you’ll see in the basement a wall shelf stuffed with DVDs. There’s no more room on the shelves. There are DVDs stacked on top, precariously, ready to tumble.

Ditto the compact discs on another smaller shelf on a different wall.

While we do own some digital content, when it comes time to “buy” an album or a movie, sure as shootin’ you’ll see we buy a physical copy.

This is why.

We’re like Miz Booth in the Farley Family reunion, who took her x-rays home from the doctor because she paid for them.

I realize owning physical media carries risks with it. They’re not nearly as portable as digital copies. They can get ruined or lost. They need to be stored, as on our wonky shelves.

But once bought, once taken care of, they’re ours. Nobody can arbitrarily take them from us, unless we’re robbed.

Robbed. That’s probably a good word for what some purveyors of digital content are doing.

This isn’t to say we don’t use digital content. I watch a good number of movies and television shows for free thanks to Amazon Prime. With these Prime viewings, however, I know the contract is different. They’re offered to me for free to use. I don’t own them. If they go away, that’s my sign to find something else to watch. They’re part of the value of our Amazon Prime membership.

But if I paid top dollar for, say, a season of Psych, I’m going to be upset if some obscure clause in the terms of service indicate what I’ve bought really isn’t mine to keep.

Terms and Conditions:

Someone tries this on me, I won’t buy from them again. Ever. I may singlehandedly keep the physical media manufacturers in business.

This also brings up another point: If I were ever to get a book published, how would I want my digital customers to be treated?

Well, once they buy the book, digital or not, it’s theirs.

Lisinopril

When I went to the doctor Friday, it was on the assumption that since my blood pressure is high, he was going to put me on some kind of blood pressure medication.

I was hoping for Donald Duck's Atomic Pills. No such luck. Instead, lisinopril.

It's supposed to help reduce the blood pressure. And make me pee more frequently. Though I don't really need any help in that particular department.

My secret hope is that they are in fact Atomic Pills and will give me some kind of gnarly powers. We'll see.

To the Board of Review

Isaac is an interesting character.

He has an immense capacity to learn and memorize seemingly obscure bits of information, but if the information isn’t immediately pertinent to what he wants to do, he doesn’t bother.

As his father, I’ve seen him use that ability time and again on topics he’s passionate about – and I’ve seen him ignore that ability when the passion isn’t there.

That’s one of the reasons I’m thrilled to see him participate in Scouting.

When he began collecting Scout patches, for example, he could tell you at a glance what patches were valuable to a collector, and which could be passed on at patch swaps without a second glance. When we once worried about whether he’d surrender patches we thought were valuable on a whim, we now caution those who go to patch swaps with him to be aware he’s a bit of a patch shark.

When he saw his older brother and sister participate as counselors in training and then as full counselors at Scout camps in the Grand Teton Council, he pined to join them – and learned quite a bit about the areas he wished to work in, even before he was eligible. When he became eligible, he used his capacity for learning and his passion for Scouting to quickly become a CIT to be reckoned with.

Scouting gives him focus, gives him the passion he needs to use his God-given abilities, all the while giving back to those who need to earn that certain merit badge, or who need a camp counselor they can count on to work hard where others might slack off or give up.

I’m grateful that Scouting gives him this focus, because as he sees his focus grow in Scouting, he sees where he can use his focus in his studies at school, or his efforts to become closer to his family and his God at home and at church.

I’m grateful for Scouting’s leaders, from Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, to Jeff Fullmer, Isaac’s most recent Scoutmaster, for first forming a program meant to help boys channel and focus their abilities into developing newfound passions, and also for helping these boys help others around them with the passions and knowledge Scouting helps them develop.

Though Isaac tries to deny it, I know he enjoys the leadership opportunities Scouting has given him. I look forward to watching Isaac continue to mature as Scouting continues to be a positive shaping influence on his character. Scouting has done things for Isaac that I alone as a father could not have done. I heartily recommend Isaac as an Eagle Scout, as the passion that brought him to this point is his.

Sincerely,

Brian Davidson

Help Me Out Here A Second, Folks . . .

Because I always enjoyed hearing Burt Reynolds laugh – and he’s got a good one – I thought I’d watch Smokey and The Bandit, since Burt Reynolds recently passed and the movie was suddenly free on Amazon Prime.

First, the laugh:



Then, the only funny scene – and I mean the only funny scene – from the movie, featuring said laugh:



Then my wife, also caught up in Reynolds nostalgia, decided to watch the movie as well. We watched it independently, me on the way home from work, she at night after everyone else had gone to bed. I’d never seen the movie all the way through, while she remembered watching it several times.

After the rewatching, we compared notes. And neither one of us could figure out why the movie is all that good.

As I mentioned before, there’s only one really funny scene in the film, coming at the expense of Paul Williams, who always had a sense of humor about his lack of height.

The rest? Meh.

And my wife was taken aback at how the women in the film were pretty much objectified sexually, and that was about it.

And the more I watch these “trucker films,” the less I understand their appeal.

BIG NOTE: This does not mean I don’t like truckers, or appreciate what they do. I just think they’re poorly represented in the literature.

Truck drivers and CB radios and such had their brief, inexplicable moment in the sun in the late 1970s. That romantic appeal to the road, freedom, apple pie and burgers at the roadside greasy spoon. And all that defiance to authority. So American.

But why is this movie funny?

And why, when those mailboxes go flying, doesn’t the windshield of the Trans Am shatter when it gets hit by the debris?

Hollywood’s Trucker Era might have been the last victims of the Rural Purge. Though that doesn’t explain The Dukes of Hazzard.

ANOTHER BIG NOTE: Again, I’m not saying you’re wrong if you like this film. That’s your business. I’m just saying I’m having a little trouble understanding the appeal.

A REALLY BIG NOTE: And I understand the Coors thing. Now. Had nothing to do with bootlegging or alcohol content at all. It was just unpasteurized and had to be kept refrigerated. Or at least I think.

A PONDERABLE: This was the second-highest grossing film released in 1977, behind Star Wars. Figure that out.

Den Chiefs and Elephants

It wasn’t too long ago that scientists who study the way animals think thought African elephants were less intelligent than Asian elephants.

They devised an experiment to see if elephants were self-aware. They marked a spot on the elephants’ heads with paint. Some elephants they left alone. Others, they put in front of mirrors.
The Asian elephants who saw themselves in the mirrors almost always probed at the paint marks on their heads with their trunks and even after the mirrors were gone, they continued to poke at the part of their heads where the paint was, while those who did not see themselves in the mirror paid no attention to the paint.

Thus, they concluded, these Asian elephants knew it was their reflection in the mirrors and that the paint was on them, and that the elephants were self-aware.

Not so with the African elephants. Those who were shown the mirrors pretty much ignored the paint marks and smashed the mirrors with their tusks. Those without mirrors also did not pay attention to the paint.

Because the African elephants almost always smashed the mirrors, scientists concluded the African elephants saw their reflections as a threat, not as themselves. So they were deemed to be lower on the scale of intelligence than their Asian counterparts.

A few scientists thought there was something wrong with the experiment, and thought about it for a while. They spent time observing how both Asian and African elephants interacted with strange things – like mirrors – placed in their environment.

They noticed Asian elephants explored new things with their trunks, probing at them, feeling them, manipulating them, quite often with finesse and great care.

African elephants, on the other hand, used their tusks to probe at new objects. And when the objects were fragile, like mirrors, they got broken.

So these scientists did the test on self-awareness with mirrors the African elephants couldn’t break. And discovered that with the unbreakable mirrors, the African elephants became as curious about the paint marks on their foreheads as did their buddies in Asia.

Both types of elephants were equally self-aware, equally intelligent. It was the scientists who got it wrong.

There’s a German word I want us all to learn right now: Umwelt. In German, it means “an organism’s subjective perceptual world”. In other words, umwelt is how each living thing, whether an elephant, a mouse, or a human, sees the environment and its place in the environment.

By learning more about the African elephants’ umwelt, scientists discovered these elephants are just as intelligent as those in Asia.

How does this apply to Scouting?

Well, as adults, we have a pretty good handle – most of us – on how we fit into our environment. When we’re at a scout meeting, we know we’re pretty much the ones in charge. But sometimes doesn’t it feel like even though we’re in charge, the scouts have a different perception of the situation?

Their umwelt might be, “Here we go again. Another adult telling me what to do. But I’ve got enough buddies here, we outnumber this adult. Commence the shenanigans.”

How do we bridge that gap of perception?

One way is through having a den chief.

A den chief isn’t an adult. A den chief is a Boy Scout, preferably a good number of years older than the scouts in your den. Den chiefs, being younger than you, have a better perception of how people his age and near his age perceive the world, and how they fit into it.

A den chief has a better understanding of what it feels like to be young, because they’re young too. Adults, we kinda forget. And we get more goal-focused: “Get me through this den meeting and we’ll get everyone in the room passed off on this requirement but WHY ARE YOU HAVING A GRASS FIGHT WHEN WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING ABOUT TOOLS?”

Den chiefs can help us bridge that gap. They can help us by helping our scouts use up some of that energy they come with. They can help us by showing the younger boys that learning a new skill can be as fun as having a grass fight. They can show our young Cub Scouts that there’s a Boy Scout who wants to hang out with them and help them learn and have fun with them, and when they see a good den chief in action, their umwelt changes a bit to “Den Chief Chris makes Cub Scouts more fun! And he helped me to learn how to use a hammer!” It’s an older scout helping a younger scout.

Having someone in your den who understands a bit better the umwelt of your Cubs can help you see that Cubs can be as intelligent and teachable and wonderful as an older Boy Scout. We need all the help we can get to understand how others work. Den chiefs can help you do that. Please get one. Or two. You’ll still have elephants capable of smashing mirrors in your den, but you’ll have a better perception on how they interact with the world around them.

We Almost Have An Oldies Station Again!

I was a mite on the excited side yesterday when I heard a new radio station in the area touting its oldies format.

We haven’t had a good oldie station since 98.1 changed its format to what I don’t even know, listening to them.

So I gave 101.1 a whirl this morning.

So far, the jury is out.

The story I saw touted their mix of “oldies” from the ‘50s to the ‘80s. As I listened this morning on the way to work, they played four ‘80s song and one from the early ‘60s.

There is a crapton of bad music out there from any decade or generation. But the ‘80s. There’s a special crapton of music from the ‘80s.

Sunglasses at Night, 1984. I blame you, Canada. It’s got the synth. It’s got the stupid lyrics. It’s got the potential to be overplayed. Ick.

Any Way You Want It, 1980. For this, it sounds like we can almost blame the Irish. Oh, the movies. The movies used this song and loved it and loved it and loved it to death.



Where were all those drinks coming from?

Their one nod to the oldies I hoped they would play: 1961’s Run Around Sue, by Dion (after he split with the Belmonts, leaving him, apparently, looking for a new girl and a backup group to which to append his name).

So yeah, an oldie, but not necessarily a goodie.

I had to listen to all of these marvies in a five-song set this morning.

Maybe they’ll be better on the drive home . . .

NOTE: I don’t mind at all if you, dear reader, love these songs. That is your right. I’m merely saying here that I don’t like them. So take no offense, please.

In Other Words, Writer, You’re Doomed

Ironic I should stumble across this article at aeon.co shortly after I finished reading Frans de Waal’s “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are”.

Harks me back to some of the criticism I’ve received on Doleful Creatures, namely that most of the female characters in the book are dead, and the only major living one is bad.

This prompted two schools of thought:

1. I guess maybe I do need to add more female characters
2. Pound sand, smallheads.

This article prompts a third: Do I know enough of the female mind to even bother trying?

Read the article (warning, breasts are briefly discussed, but not in a dirty way). Then you tell me. I’m sure most people out there would consider me, a white male, infinitely unquali9fied to write a female character. Yet I’m being told to do just that.

What to do?

Concentrate on the story, for one.

Figure out why the obsession over gender, for another.

Maybe it’s my white male privilege showing, but when I read I rarely concentrate on the gender of the characters in the story. I want a fun story to read, that’s about it. If it makes sense that a certain character is a certain gender, that’s fine. But I never get out a blank Gender Scorecard and keep track of who has what parts, and get all snotty when, at the end of the story, there’s a gender disparity.

Easy for me to say since “most stories” out there are chock full of male characters written by men, so I don’t have to worry my pretty little head about it? Okay, I guess. From a certain point of view.

Getting away from description, first of all (as in the breasty example) seems to be the best bet in writing a better opposite-gendered character. Maybe make characters work with the story, no matter their gender, rather than checking off boxes.

Yet part of this article makes me want to give up a little. For sure I’ll fail at writing a decent female character, so why bother?

And here’s the corollary: I’d like example of female writers who produce good male characters that stray from the stereotypical man seen on the cover of most romance novels:

Distant, aloof, fabulously wealthy, muscular, moody, mysterious, oh so mysterious . . .

Instead, I’m reminded of something from “Keeping Up Appearances,” said by Daisy, reading such a book:

“They're always tall and handsome, romantic heroes. Never short and fat. I've never yet come across a heroine who's fallen for anybody short and fat. It's a bit unfair, really. Plus, it makes no account of the weird shapes we females actually fall for!”

Umwelt

I do not confess genius.

I do confess curiosity. And a wonder that maybe – just maybe, mind you – what applies in one field of study might just apply in another.

So as I continue to read Frans de Waal’s “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are,” I have to wonder if there are concepts within the study of the cognitive ethology of animals that could be applied to our interactions with members of our own species.

Particularly compelling is the concept of umwelt, or understanding how animals use their abilities and senses to interact with the world around them. (De Waal defines umwelt in his book as “an organism’s subjective perceptual world.”

For example, African elephants were for a long time considered unaware of their own self because, unlike their Asian counterparts, they appeared unable to recognize themselves in a mirror. Asian elephants could clearly see they’d been marked with paint, and rubbed and probed the marks only after they saw themselves marked in a mirror. The African elephants, by contrast, simply smashed up the mirrors with their tusks and seemed to pay no mind to their paint markings.

It wasn’t until scientists noted that the African elephants always explored new things by prodding them with their tusks that the scientists decided maybe it was their method of experimentation, not the elephants themselves, that was the problem. They fixed the problem by making mirrors the African elephants couldn’t destroy as they explored them with their tusks. Once the exploration was over, the elephants reacted to their paint markings in the same way as their Asian counterparts.

Once scientists understood the African elephants’ umwelt, the experiment netted the same result.

Might we, then, be better off exploring each others’ umwelts, not assuming, for example, that we all perceive the world in the same way, or in a way that hoes any particular political or societal expectation? Smart people are doing just that. (I’ll also make the distinction that understanding another’s umwelt doesn’t mean we have to agree with it, but understanding it sure helps.)

This is probably a blinding flash of the obvious, but hey – y’all should be happy another fella has seen this particular light, thanks to de Waal’s book. Terry Pratchett is right that while there are books of magic and magical books, probably the most magic that comes out of books are the explosions they cause inside the readers’ heads.

And I’ll probably take this all too far.

Or not.



Anyhoo, reading de Waal’s book is certainly eye-opening, and not just for the societal benefits. As an anthropomorphic writer, I’m learning things that I can integrate into the books I’m writing, particularly Doleful Creatures. Getting into the umwelt of each creature I write about as characters can certainly help me shape the worlds I’m creating.

One thing confused me about de Waal’s book – maybe it’s my inability on the first read to get into his umwelt. Who is this book written for? I’m half convinced it’s meant for the layman such as myself, but also for the smaller world of de Waal’s compatriots. If for the layman, I might wish de Waal had written in a less meandering style, though that may be part of his use of English as a second language (I have a Dutch father, and I see some Dutch-to-English coming out in de Waal’s writing, much like I heard from Dad).

Doleful Creatures: A Little Thinking Out Loud

The animals in Doleful Creatures phase in and out of awareness – awareness that they are creations of God and on a journey to become gods themselves. Those who’ve seen traumatic events are especially prone to phasing, and some – like Aloysius – have almost stopped phasing completely, becoming more animal-like; able to communicate with others but bereft of any knowledge of their origins or their potential.

When they remember their origin and potential, they’re relatively at peace, albeit a bit anxious about the ending of the Sixth Day, when they’ll all lose their awareness and become true animals for a time.

This is not about them in a stage where they await to become human – they’re simply growing in intelligence, alongside humans once the Sixth Day ends.

[Midlife Crisis Arriving on Schedule]

This might have been the start of a midlife crisis. And this, its corollary.

Because it’s a shock to suddenly have a kid who is 18 and technically no longer a kid. He can’t buy alcohol, but he can vote. And he’s graduated high school. Signed up to take online college courses starting in a few weeks. Finishing up mission papers. Looking for that first job.

Maybe we could be doing better by him. By all our kids.

There are times maybe I think I don’t know them all that well, that we need to talk more.

There are times maybe I think we’ve talked too much.

I remember this 18-year-old kid as a toddler, following me around our new home in Sugar City. He wasn’t quite two, but I set him to work watering the apple trees. He loved to play with the hose, to watch the water bubble out, and to pretend to put gasoline in his little car with it. When he wasn’t filling the gas tank with my screwdrivers.

I remember him following me around saying “shit shit shit” after he heard his dad say the word in the shed.

I miss that shed.

Oh do I miss that shed.

And that kid.

Never quite believed my mother when she said if she had to do it all over again with her little kids, she’d do it, no hesitation.Maybe this is an inkling of discovering that feeling in myself.

My brothers and sisters, too, are looking to the past. Seeing old photos of us all looking young and wondering when they look in the mirror who these old folks are.

Mom and Dad are gone.

We’re the responsible ones now.

And in a way, that’s a scary thought.

Responsible for our own versions of little us, who aren’t technically so little anymore.

Feeling a little like Buzz Lightyear. Worrying that the hat doesn’t look good.



Not quite at the Statler and Waldorf part of life, but getting closer.

Do I Suck or Does the Suit Suck?

Mrs. Lancaster, do you ever have deja-vu?

I don’t know. But I can check with the kitchen.

Doleful Creatures keeps percolating. But right now, I’m at the Bowling Alley of Despair stage, where I’m not sure anything will come of my efforts.

And then I have to ask myself, “What efforts?”

I’ve percolated. I’ve tinkered. But not really done much of anything with the book.

Part of me thinks, with the new ideas that’ve come, that I need to start over. Abandon the 100,000 words I have on the page and start fresh.

That could work.

But is it true that none of the effort in the past few years matters? I have to think it’s wrong to say that.

Then again, maybe it is wasted effort. I cannot dismiss the possibility that I suck rocks.