As clumsy as it is stupid

Let's pretend that instead of being the thrilling space opera it is, Star Wars had been written by a woman with only the faintest grasp of what makes a good plot. Let's say that Han Solo spent all three original movies telling Princess Leia how much he wanted to kill and eat her. Let's speculate how things would be if the excitement built up to the point where Luke flew off to destroy the Death Star, only to have him pass out en route and wake up a few hours later with everyone celebrating, all the action having happened while he was frolicking in dreamland.

Pretty stupid, right?

I recently finished the bestselling book Twilight, and, honestly, I wasn't too impressed. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and my literary needs involve a few more explosions and fewer declarations of undying (no pun intended) love.

First, I could have gone without Bella's incessant reaffirmations of Edward's utter perfection. I understand that his skin is flawless, his eyes are rapturous, he has superhuman strength, his kisses have the power to instantly put a woman into a state of extra-bodily bliss and his pukes probably smell like Bath & Body Works lotion. I just don't need those facts repeated.

Next, what the heck is up with Bella's attraction to a vampire who wants to drink her blood? Next time I go out on a date, I will tell my date (repeatedly; perhaps every ten minutes) that I hunger for her in more ways than one. If I believed Twilight, nothing would turn her on more. Girls love Edward because he can control his urges; what about us normal human beings? I've been on dates with girls I've been strongly attracted to, and to my knowledge, I've been pretty good at controlling my hormones. Would it be better, if you're a hot girl, if I told you at regular intervals how much I lusted after you but was able to contain my infatuation? Seems to work pretty well for Edward.

Now comes the biggest quibble I have, the one that, if fixed, could have redeemed the book in my opinion. WHERE THE CRAP DID ALL THE ACTION GO? It's not that the author got too busy to put action in; there's plenty of it. It just happens behind the scenes: There's a part where you're in a hotel room with Bella as she frets like a six-year-old girl and you're wishing strongly to be out there with Edward, tracking the bad guy vampire, but do you ever get to see the exciting stuff? Nope. Wouldn't it be more effective, as far as the story goes, just to SHOW the danger Edward's in, instead consigning the reader to hear Miss Whiner's jumbled thoughts about her lover's peril?

Then comes the clincher. The plot builds, and so does the reader's anticipation, as Bella finds herself face-to-face with an evil vampire. Edward is on the way, tensions are rising, your heart is thumping — and then she blacks out, only to awake having missed the whole fight between the bad guy and Edward. What's the use of having the action take place offstage? It's like spending hours preparing food, only to fall asleep and hear others describe it later.

There you have it. Twilight: the perfect escape from reality for thirteen-year-old girls who have yet to realize that men are human, not undead incarnations of Jane Austen love interests (Yes, Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy is not human, but a robot from the future sent to destroy women's perceptions of men). Twilight: the perfect blubberfest for people whose literary tastes are flawed and whose emotions run unchecked.

Scum and villainy, part III

Last week, I brought you the highlights of the police report I get every week from the Rexburg Police Department. Now, in the next installment of the series, I’m going to further discuss some of the disturbances — criminal, civil, and just weird — that lend local color to Rexburg.

First up is an “ex-friend refusing to pay cell phone bill.” I’m wondering if the friend became an ”ex-friend” before or after he or she decided not to front the cash for the bill. Things like that can really drive a wedge into friendships.

“Female returned to apt. and found a pair of her underwear under the bed; item was moist.” Part of me really wants to know more — firstly, why did this girl call the cops to say that her skivvies were wet? — and part of me wants to make sure I never know any more than I do now about this particular case.

Here’s an interesting one: “Fraud complaint — fake U.S. Treasury check — $14,500. Money sent to Nigeria.” Yes, Nigeria. Not to make any false accusations here, but either someone from Nigeria is laundering money or Rexburg is a hotspot for the Nigerian mafia.

Then we have a window shot by a BB gun, a few domestic disturbances probably involving abuse (which, in all seriousness, should never happen, even in Rexburg), and a few animal complaints.

Next time someone says Rexburg is boring, I’m going to simply refuse to pay their cell phone bill. Or send their money to Nigeria.

Scum and villainy, part II

Some cities get triple homicides. We get escaped llamas.

I get the police reports from the Rexburg Police Department every week. I’ve been the news editor on Scroll for almost a semester now, and I get to read these chronicles of the basest crime before anyone else.

Among the myriad false alarms are true gems like “llama on the loose” and perhaps my personal favorite, “complaint from person who was hit in the head with an egg.”

Isn’t it great?

In the Scroll office today, I found a book of cartoons by celebrated BYU-Idaho alumnus Lance Fry. Before my time, he provided the populace of BYU-I with fresh and funny cartoons every week. One of the cartoons caught my eye.

In the cartoon, two men sit on a bench dejectedly, moaning about how much they hate Rexburg. Around them, smiling people hold newspapers with headlines like “General Authority to visit again” and “Temple to be built in Rexburg.” The last headline says, “Low crime.”

It’s true. While every now and again Rexburg has a burst of genuine violent or drug-laced crime, many of the things police have to deal with here in town are so innocent they can be funny in nearly any context.

Crime exists here — the latest police log documented the implication of a 13-year-old in a burglary ring — but most Rexburg residents only hear of it and go their merry ways with the justifiable assurance that Rexburg crime will most likely never hit them hard.

I’m glad we rarely have to deal with drug busts or shootings and we have enough crime-free streets to relax. We can be swathed in gratitude that Rexburg crime is, for the most part, relegated to things like this:

“Complaint from person who found a baby rattlesnake.”

A great many of the truths we cling to depend on a certain point of view.

Democrats are not of the dark side.

Some people think that because someone votes Democrat or has liberal ideas that such a person could not hold a temple recommend. Is this possibly a valid view?

The sixth question in the temple recommend interview asks, “Do you affiliate with any group or organization whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or do you sympathize with the precepts of any such group or individual?”

Naturally, anti-Mormon and devil worshipers fall into the category of people whose views temple recommend-seekers should avoid sharing. But what about Democrats?

This may come as a surprise to some, but not all Democrats support gay marriage, abortion, or other issues on which the Church has taken a direct stand.

Some simply find that their personal opinions on other decisive issues, like fiscal policy or education, are more in line with Democratic ideals than Republican ones.

Every candidate and every political party has some good. Some of their ideals really don’t matter from a spiritual standpoint. Should the government favor tax cuts for the wealthy? There’s nothing about that in the Book of Mormon, and someone who votes Democrat is as likely to be voting for an innocent economic policy as he or she is for abortion.

There is truth everywhere, the Brethren have said, and it can be found in many places.

Neither candidate in this presidential election is an earthly incarnation of all things holy. Both McCain and Obama have their views, habits, and policies that might not be in line with the Church.

Both of them, for example, have campaigned negatively against the other candidate. Is that in accordance with the gospel? Who can say? Should one vote for either of them, then, since such behavior might well be contrary to the teachings of Christ?

If the sixth temple recommend question truly did eliminate from temple worthiness anyone who harbored sympathies with a candidate who might happen to hold some view that might be un-Christlike, a lot of members would find themselves without a recommend.

It’s a good thing that’s not the case.

Every time an election comes around, the Brethren remind members everywhere — both faithful and unfaithful, both tolerant and otherwise — that the Church is not partisan and supports no political party, only taking a stand on moral issues.

There are many reasons to vote Republican, and there are many to vote Democrat. There is truth to be found in many places, and Church leaders exhort the members every year to do their civic duties and vote for the candidate they think is most suited to lead the country. There’s nothing in the scriptures preventing anyone from voting one way or another.

There is, however, something about judging, and those who condemn others for their spiritually irrelevant political ideas might find it helpful to sit down and wonder who it is whose beliefs are out of line with those of the Church.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons

Part of being a returned missionary is the need to relate any topic to some event that happened on the mission. Let’s face it: two years in a miniature lifespan yields a lot of experiences.

Today’s mission experience: It was vogue to watch the Church-produced movies with investigators. The Navajo people especially loved it, perhaps because inside each ten-by-ten hovel they would have at least four hundred DVDs and a widescreen TV. I think I must have watched Finding Faith In Christ at least three dozen times on my mission.

In that movie, a character named Jonah is questioning Thomas (of the “Doubting Thomas” fame) why he believes that Jesus is the Christ. Thomas’s family says that Jonah needs to have faith.

“Faith,” Jonah repeats with a scowl. “It seems that is always the answer.”

And it is, really. We each have our perceptions of reality that hang almost entirely on faith, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. Even the most staunch atheist has to admit that what he regards as truth in actually based on faith.

What do I mean by that? Well, to use an extreme example to illustrate a point, let me cite the fake world created by computers in The Matrix. (Nobody saw that, right? It’s R-rated.) For those who don’t know, in those movies, the world is false, simply an illusion created by computers keeping humanity in thrall.

I’m not suggesting that the world is a digital farce to keep us blinded to the truth. No, I’m simply pointing out that those who choose to deny the existence of God on the grounds that His existence can’t be proven ignore the fact that they themselves cannot prove their own paradigm of reality is absolute.

Have I lost you yet?

How can we know that anything is real? How can anyone prove that what they believe is true, religious or otherwise?

Everyone is going to be backed up against a wall of faith sooner or later, as President Packer once said.

Faith — it seems that is always the answer.

It’s all based on faith. The Church’s stand on Proposition 8 is based on faith — faith in what God intends marriage to be. That issue, of course, is complicated, and there are many points of view and many valid arguments for both sides. What do you think is right?

Nothing is absolutely certain without a grain of faith, without choosing something to believe in and planting that seed. I don’t care what you believe in — it’s a belief, nothing more.

There is only one source of absolute, unquestionable truth, and that is the Being whom we worship. For those who believe in Him, our faith is the path that will take us to him and confirm the beliefs we hold through faith.

It’s ironic, for those who would discredit the existence of God, that God is only way any belief, religious or otherwise, can finally be validated. It all comes down to …

Yeah. You guessed it.

Faith.

Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?

There are some who would say that the Mormons are sexist. They claim that since most of the hierarchy of the Church is male (let’s be honest, it is; have a look on the Conference Center stand), we’re an organization that doesn’t give the females the credit they deserve.

I’m here to say now that those people are wrong. Not only are females wonderful and an essential part of humankind, equal in every way to men, but one of them should also go with me to Guitars Unplugged next weekend.

Seriously, women are great. The best ones, you might say, are the mothers. Even beyond the fact that mothers keep the human race going, mothers are an indispensable part of the world. (But seriously, any takers for the Guitars Unplugged thing?)

Let’s dissect this for a second. The fundamental unit of society is the family, as The Family: A Proclamation to the World tells us so magnificently. A traditional family consists of a man, a woman, and children. Who keeps the father going? Whose primary job is it to take care of the kids? I think it’s the mother.

To sum it up — the mother is the foundation of the fundamental unit of society.

We as a church love mothers, and rightly so. Mothers carry a power we men will never have, and I’m not just talking about the ability to carry children. That ability alone is astounding — I cannot fathom carrying something like that for nine months without suffering some very ill effects. This only gives me an understanding and an appreciation for the burden that only women can bear.

The poet William R. Wallace wrote, “A mightier power and stronger / Man from his throne has hurled / For the hand that rocks the cradle / Is the hand that rules the world.”

Never underestimate the power of a good mother. They say that behind every good man is a good woman. I say that behind every good man are multiple good women — one of whom is his mother.

Few girls, and few mothers, are mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon. There’s Sariah, Abish, Mary, and of course Isabel the harlot. Nevertheless, our church holds in high esteem many great women. What of the two thousand nameless Ammonite mothers, for example, to be forever lauded in Mormonism as the perfect examples of motherhood?

Latter-day Saints revere God’s most marvelous creation. Why is pornography such a heinous plague? Because it defiles the image of the woman’s body.

We love women; we love mothers. No one could ever argue that Mormons belittle women when they read the following hallowed line from our hymn “O My Father”, which affirms with appropriate sanctity the glorious eternal potential of that great calling called mother:

“Truth is reason, truth eternal / Tells me I’ve a mother there.”

I have a bad feeling about this.

I wouldn't use that title lightly, but I just watched the worst movie ever made.

Since coming to college, I've been a bit of a connoisseur of bad movies. Sometimes I just sit in front of the TV and watch whatever's on, which is a terrible habit.

I've enjoyed the horribleness of some movies. The Sci-Fi Channel has produced some truly horrible movies. Last semester, my roommate and I watched a movie in which a bunch of college students and a greedy professor searched for giant, superintelligent apes. The apes killed everyone brutally, and then — with the two best-looking girls and the most studly guy still alive — the biggest ape finally ripped the last characters to shreds.

Next, I saw one where a robotic consciousness invaded a ship on the ocean, killing people and using their dessicated body parts to build more cyborgs. The captain is greedy, condemning all the youngish crewpeople. Everyone dies except for the two best-looking girls and a guy.

But this one took the cake. Jason X was on last night featuring the evil, hockey-masked psychopath title character. He gets cryogenically frozen at the beginning, and in 2450, a group of — surprise! — students and a greedy teacher find him and bring them aboard their ship. He kills the first girl — defying tradition, actually, since she's the best-looking one — by sticking her head in liquid nitrogen and smashing her face off. Then the movie disintegrates into Jason killing more and more people in more and more brutal ways.

Eventually, the android babe — or at least she's intended to be a babe, but they failed there — finds a bunch of leather and cool guns and blasts Jason into little teeny pieces in a ridiculous scene. As the surviving students attempt to get off the ship, some electronics randomly begin sparking, prompting the ship's surgical systems to rebuild Jason into a cyborg. He then kills more people.

I won't ruin the ending, in case you're ever in need of a good laugh.

Oh, it was terrible. My roommates and I finally went to bed at 2 in the morning, already missing those two hours of our lives that had been so callously wasted.

Rexburg, Idaho — You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Usually, the sight of those flashing red and blue lights is enough to halt my breath and trigger a whole host of involuntary responses ranging from slamming on the brake to locking my hands on the steering wheel.

Today, however, when those lights lit the night sky like an earthbound Bat Signal, I was all adrenaline and grins.

What made the difference? Simply the car in which I was sitting, and on which side of those lights I was.

Tonight I had the chance to ride in a police car as part of my Intro to Journalism class at BYU-Idaho. For an hour and a half, I rode shotgun with a policeman.

When I arrived at the police station, I was surprised to see that the officer with whom I was assigned was none other than Aaron Smith, whose father had been both my bishop of my home ward and the branch president of my singles' branch — and who had already pulled me over at least once back when he worked in my hometown, Rigby.

My expectations rode high when Officer Smith looked me square in the eye and said, "Here are the rules. Whatever I say, do it. If I say stay here, stay here. If I say get out and go over there, do it."

Yeah, I was hoping for a shootout or something.

I looked around the front seat, searching for some indication that tonight was gong to be full of action-packed car chases and fugitive gun battle. I glimpsed an old mp3 player, a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew in the cupholder, several tins of lip balm, and a pile of pennies scattered on the floor.

"Let's do this," I said, my notebook gripped firmly in my hand.

Twenty minutes later, our night was still depressingly devoid of any life-threatening situations, though I'd learned that Officer Smith, in his eleven-year career, had once — if you can believe such a tall tale — almost had to draw his gun once.

We pulled over three people — one for speeding, one for failure to turn the lights on, and one for a lack of a license plate.

"We run these plates through the database," Officer Smith explained, his radio in one hand, the dispatcher on the other end. "We can find out if they're carrying an expired license or if they're wanted for murder or anything."

I knew which one I was hoping for.

Sadly, as Officer Smith returned to the car and the speeder went on his merry way, my hopes were dashed.

I watched the mean streets of Rexburg fly by my window as Officer Smith received a call from his family and spent ten minutes planning a weekend getaway to Yellowstone.

"Never drive and talk on your cell phone," he told me with a grin. "It's a bad habit."

Finally, the night came to an end and Officer Smith apologized for the lack of action. "Usually, we're getting all kinds of calls — loud parties, domestic disturbances, alcohol — tonight was just a dead night."

I shrugged. Would I have traded this night for a high-speed ride-along in LA or south DC? Probably not, because that would mean I would have to go home afterward without the protection of a cop in the seat next to me.

Hmm ... maybe next time I'll witness a brutal gunfight. Until then, though, I'll sleep safely in my bed, knowing that my boredom on a Tuesday night school assignment is my safety on any night.

Cooo ... perrr ... coooo ... perrrr ...

When I was nine, we borrowed three VHS tapes from my aunt and uncle. These were movies I'd heard about but never actually seen. The first movie's cover depicted some dude in a black mask, some spaceships superimposed below the metallic grill of his mouth. It seemed intriguing enough.

I honestly don't remember my feelings when those blue words appeared on the black for the first time:

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far way ..."

However, when that movie was done, my brother and I lay in our room, some more potent and lasting than sugarplums dancing in our heads. We discussed the things we had seen. One of us — I like to take the credit — came up with the crazy notion that the bad guy might actually be the good guy's father. We were hooked. That's when it all began.

Today, I have a cabinet back home for all my miscellaneous Star Wars crap: I have a hundred-dollar lightsaber (found it in a pawn shop on my mission and dragged it through several transfers), a life-size cardboard standup of Darth Vader (it was quite a hit in my last apartment), and several shelves of stuff no human being should ever need (I'm serious — want to see my limited-edition Revenge of the Sith cereal box?). Fortunately, I lost some of the knowedge that lurks within the abyssal chasm in my mind that is my repository of Star Wars knowledge. Want to know the backstory on any character seen in the background of any of the movies? Once, I could probably tell you.

Who doesn't love those first three movies? Who hasn't harbored a plutonic love for Han Solo's roguish grin, or for Luke's boyish charm? What sounds have integrated themselves more in our culture than the manacing, regulated hiss of Darth Vader's breathing or Chewbacca's howl? And who can forget that thrill as those two proton torpedoes slid like twin comets into the thermal exhaust port of the Death Star, or the engaging hatred that came as the Emperor unleashed lightning from his fingertips?

When the new movies came out, I was thrilled. My nerdiness could be perpetuated! As some negative reviews mixed in with the good ones, I was puzzled. Did the average moviegoer have some missing brain cells? Had their cerebral functions been removed and deposited inside a B'omarr brain spider, never again to offer the voice of reason? Couldn't these people see how cool these movies were?

Let me get one thing straight, however. I loathe Jar Jar Binks. Loathing, unadulterated loathing, for his hair, his voice, his clothing. The addition of such a foul creature was a mistake. And I'm not too fond of the love story between Anakin and Padme in the second one.

But otherwise — How cool is a Shakespearean descent to the dark side, the creation of the iconic fallen hero? How exciting is the rumbling of drums, followed by two starfighters that crest the serene edge of a Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer with the gallant Force theme ringing, only to drop into the hellish fire of the battle over Coruscant a moment later? How rewarding is it for fans to finally explore the mysterious conflict known as the Clone Wars after the cryptic mention of it by Leia Organa all those years ago?

The new ones are different than the old ones, but all of them fit into the magnificent saga that is Star Wars: a tale of victory and defeat, of evil and redemption, of love and hatred, of heroes and villains.

Our world is a place where darkness often triumphs over light and the line between good and evil is a no-man's land where even the best intentions can destroy. While the matters of the world should not be ignored, the healthy mind needs a diversion. Such a rejuvenating escape is found in the numberless worlds to explore, in the seductive hum of a lightsaber, and in the human relationships that mirror those in our own galaxy: father and son, husband and wife, brother and sister.

And so it is with relish that I invite others to take a step out of reality that is smaller than one might think and join me . . . for together we can rule the galaxy.

Every saga has a beginning . . .

After years of thinking, "I refuse to jump upon the blogging bandwagon," I can no longer refuse the call of technology and the surging wave of the future. Also, it's required for a class I'm taking here at BYU-Idaho. I occasionally write articles for the opinion section of Scroll, but I've been feeling starved lately for good ideas. I figure I can grab my blog when I need a good article. Still, that doesn't quite solve the idea-starvation issue, but hey --- I totally lost my train of thought.

I feel all of my phantom readers out there deserve an explanation of my blog's name. I'm an avid Star Wars fan, and by "avid" I actually imply a condition bordering on obsession. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a total nerd, and I still have considerable sex appeal, thank you very much. Everyone has their vice. Mine could be a lot worse (like, say the Twilight books, or golf). But I wish I could find ways to incorporate random Star Wars quotes into my daily life. "Punch it, Chewie!" is always worth a few groans. "May the Force be with you" is instantly recognizable by most carbon-based lifeforms, though it's like anything that's been overused to the point of cliche. Then there's the classic "I used to bullseye womprats with my T-16 back home!" which thus far I have been unable to work into even the most descriminate of conversations. "Just like Beggar's Canyon back home . . ." is one of Luke's exclamations during the Death Star trench run.

My point is that I'm going to try and name as many blogs as I can after Star Wars quotes. Let's see how long this can last. Until next time . . .

May the . . .

Yeah, you know.