3 Cheers For “Draconian Justice”

So, this article woke me from my cyber nap:  Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling. WARNING: Reading about this guy’s crimes is enough to wake anybody from any kind of sleep.

Honestly, as a father of 4, I can’t help but think hip hip hooray for this instance of Saudi justice.  That’s a brutal confession, I know.  But if someone did that to my 3yo, a post de-cap crucifixion would be a merciful out, as far as I’m concerned.

So, what can you tell us about your days with the Unabomber?

Love him or hate him, Dave Letterman has done some good interviews over the years . . . such as this 1987 gem where Crispin Glover (aka George McFly in Back to the Future) nearly karate kicks him in the head.

Well, last night’s sit down with Joaquin Phoenix was one for the books too.  You won’t recognize him from the clip, but he is the Oscar-nominated actor from a couple of my favorite movies: Gladiator and Signs.

Dave doesn’t have a lot of patience for guests who come on the show blitzed, so it doesn’t take him long before he lets out the zingers, such as my personal favorite:

“So, what can you tell us about your days with the Unabomber?”  HA!

The full interview seems to have been taken down from youtube, but here’s a highlights version:

And here’s a write up too.   

To wrap it all up, Dave sent Joaquin packing by saying: “Joaquin, I’m sorry you couldn’t be here tonight.”

Classic.

Life in the Kid Lane

Christmas Morning 2008

Best Present Ever

Sofie in the Snow

Fun Sledding in UT

Get Ready, Get Set . . . Go!

Olivia at the Zoo

Olivia’s Happy B-day Breakfast

Olivia Gets the Wise Owl Award

Elmo Rides a Fish

Strawberry Blonde

Daddy-Daughters-Date: WICKED!

Three of the Four

Singing in the AZ Rain

Sisters at D-Land

Tae Kwan Do JJ

Targeting the Prize

A recent episode of The Office reminded me of a corporate leadership conference I had to attend several years ago – you know, the kind where various gurus take the stage and give the be-all-you-can-be spiels meant to motivate and “maximize potential” and such. 

In starting things off, the keynote guru defined the most important step to achieving career goals: “Targeting the PRIZE”.  Or in other words, to “succeed”, we need to openly declare where we want to end up.  Sorta like Covey’s ‘begin with the end in mind’, except this particular guru was quite sure he invented the idea from scratch.  Nice.

And so, with his whiter-than-white Fortune-100 smile, he cajoled each member of the audience into stating his or her most sought-after title, position, or role.  Then one-by-one, the obvious answers came out with way too much enthusiasm: “CEO!”, “Company President!”, “Chairman of the Board!”, “Chief Counsel!”, Woohoo!”, etc, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

Though stated with much less fanfare, I felt my answer was also obvious: “Dad”. 

Top Ten Signs You May Be A False Prophet???

First, read this: Utah ‘prophet’ predicts disaster will prevent Obama from taking office…

As one who enjoys (purely for entertainment purposes) accounts of various ‘prophets-with-a-small-p’, I seized upon the above headline on Drudge the other day.  All things considered, I thought the LA Times article was actually quite kind to Leeland F. Freeborn of Parowan, UT – it even conjured a few feelings of compassion in me (more on that later, after I’m done with the mockery part).  

But as I said, I find self-proclaimed prophets fascinating.  And so, in “honor” of Mr. Freeborn, a.k.a. the Parowan prophet, I thought I would post my top-ten signs you may be a false prophet:

NY Times Ad Defends Mormons

Based on my reading of the New York Times over the years, I firmly believe that finding a pro-Mormon message in their Op-Ed section would be like finding Frosty the Snowman in Yuma, AZ in August.  But as profit is still the motive (if not the reality) over there at Times Square, they’ll print anything if the right amount of cashola is on the table.  

And thank goodness – at least in this case.  Regardless of their motives, I really appreciated this message on full display last week - particularly as the ad was paid for entirely by non-LDS donors.  You can read more at http://nomobveto.org/.

I don’t know much about the Becket Fund, and I’m not a big fan of some of the signers of the ad, but the message is spot on, and I’m very glad they ran it.  The last line is a bit over the top, but tame compared to much of the anti-8 mud-fest.

The Worth of Souls is Great, Except in Long Island, NY

In Long Island, NY, apparently the worth of souls is approximately 20 bucks.  At least that’s my impression after reading this news story of a Wal-Mart worker getting trampled to death on Black-Friday morning by a crazed mob of “bargain” hunters.

Oh, and FYI, some of the headline bargains attracting these mobsters included “a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28 and Men’s Wrangler Tough Jeans for $8.”

Wow.  I can think of no more tragic sign of the consumer times than people trampling each other to death for an $8 pair of Wrangler Tough Jeans.  

Even more maddening, some of the mobsters were actually upset because they were asked to leave the store for a couple of minutes while they tidied up the dead and the injured: ”When [the shoppers] were [told] they had to leave [because] an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘No way, I’ve been on line since Friday morning!’ [and] they kept on shopping.”

Words fail when it comes to describing this low point in humanity.   But, one employee/witness summed it up pretty well: “I looked at [their] faces and I kept thinking one of them could have [been the one who] stepped on him . . . How could you take a man’s life to save $20 on a TV?”

Indeed.

Oh, and PS: I thought one of the comments added at the bottom of the news story was pretty funny.  Funksoul6 noted astutely, ”This whole mess would never had started if it wernt for BUSH.” 

So there ya have it folks, it’s official: there isn’t one single thing on Earth that isn’t GWB’s fault.  LOL.

Catholic Bishop Decries Religious Bigotry Against Mormons

The following statement was released by Bishop William Weigand, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento and former Bishop of Salt Lake City, in response to attacks on the Mormon Church for supporting California’s Proposition 8, defending the traditional definition of marriage: 

“Catholics stand in solidarity with our Mormon brothers and sisters in support of traditional marriage — the union of one man and one woman — that has been the major building block of Western Civilization for millennia. 

The ProtectMarriage coalition, which led the successful campaign to pass Proposition 8, was an historic alliance of people from every faith and ethnicity. LDS were included — but so were Catholics and Jews, Evangelicals and Orthodox, African-Americans and Latinos, Asians and Anglos.

Bigoted attacks on Mormons for the part they played in our coalition are shameful and ignore the reality that Mormon voters were only a small part of the groundswell that supported Proposition 8.

As the former bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, I can attest to the fact that followers of the Mormon faith are a good and generous people with a long history of commitment to family and giving to community causes.

I personally decry the bigotry recently exhibited towards the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — coming from the opponents of Proposition 8, who ironically, have called those of us supporting traditional marriage intolerant.

I call upon the supporters of same-sex marriage to live by their own words — and to refrain from discrimination against religion and to exercise tolerance for those who differ from them. I call upon them to accept the will of the people of California in the passage of Proposition 8.”

SOURCE: Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento

Oh Ya, It’s Dub-ya Time . . . Part Duh

Since I work really hard to put food on my family, sometimes I need a little levity at the end of a long day.  As you can imagine, this clip is unimaginably funny . . .

Thank goodness I don’t have a camera on me 24/7, cuz my literacy level are appalling too!  

LOL!

Question: Is Indecision a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? I Can’t Decide . . .

I remember thinking earlier this year how excited I was to get into this presidential election.  You know, “take hold of the issues” and really “make my vote count” yada yada.  But, after all the rhetoric, spin, and misdirection, multiplied by the blame and flame associated with every angle of every debate, to be honest, I’m just really, really . . . tired.  Tired might be the wrong word, I’m not really sure. 

So, with 5 days left until the Republicrats decide our next leader, I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with my vote.  Seriously: I am completely and totally undecided.  And FYI: YIKES.

This is new territory for me.  Looking back, I’ve always known who to pick, and I haven’t really doubted much before or after election night.  And I’ve always seen the last-minute polls with the ‘Undecided’ percentages and thought, kinda like this guy, “sheesh, who are these undecided losers and why can’t they make up their puny little minds?!?!”  Well, I guess I’m the loser now. 

I suppose I feel a little stifled, like these people – all comedy aside. 

But then again, so what?  So I’m ‘undecided’?  Big deal.  Maybe that just means I’m re-prioritizing?  Maybe that means this political season is just plain lousy?  Maybe both?  Maybe neither?  Maybe it’s ok to be undecided this late such an important game.  Again, I don’t know.  I can’t make up my mind on that either.

So, I suppose the point of this post is to solicit ideas via comments, email, phone, telepathy, smoke signal, carrier pigeon, etc.  Whatever, just please help somehow, because this is a big deal to me.

I won’t bore you with all the gory details of WHY I am undecided – i.e. all the pros and cons of each party’s candidates – because that is the line of thinking that has failed me thus far.  I just think I need an approach or decision-making model that is outside of that standard pro/con box.  I need to reframe the decision entirely, or something, maybe.  So, I’d appreciate any advice, particularly as it relates to a time when you have been undecided about something important, and how you worked through it – political or otherwise.

The only option that is off the table for me at this point is simply not voting.  I’m going to vote, I just want to feel good about it.  Is that too much to ask?!?!

Cheers.

Take Courage

Sigh.

I Have Absolutely No Fashion Sense, Thank GOODNESS!

From today’s news: “AP: Models wear creations by French fashion designer Pierre Cardin during the presentation of his entire Spring-Summer 2009 and Autumn-Winter 2009 collections at his villa in Theoule sur Mer, southern France, Monday, Oct. 6, 2008.”

Ok, I know I am no GQ, but SERIOUSLY, are you kidding me with this stuff??  They look like life-size Christmas tree ornaments!  All due respect to Mr. Cardin and the rest of fashion’s elite, but I’ll be sticking to my Costco khakis and Mickey Mouse tees, thank you very much.

George W. Gets a New Look

In case you missed it, the Treasury Dept. issued a new version of the dollar bill this morning:

Sweet.