For Your Enjoyment #37

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Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, is the birthplace of Groundhog Day and the home of Punxsutawney Phil, the Peyton Manning of prescient rodents. During a ceremony at sunrise, the waddling prophet is retrieved from his heated home inside a mock tree stump and hoisted heavenward by top-hatted helpers who interpret his gestures to make a prediction while thousands watch. Phil's stardom is coupled with infamy and not just due to the fact that his forecasts have been off 55% of the time over the past three decades, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

- The groundhog: Friend, foe and/or meteorologist? (image above)

“He looks amazing in the pictures,” the photographer told the China Daily in an earlier interview. “Not everybody looks good in suits. But he’s got class … he is happy that people are being nice to him and to be welcomed by so many people. Having people pay attention to him and having a sense of existing are important to him,” he added. “I want my grandpa to feel that he is useful.” Speaking on Monday with the help of his grandson, Ding said he had enjoyed his unforeseen transformation from farmer to fashionista. “They are beautiful,” the softly spoken grandfather said of his grandson’s viral photographs. The retired farmer said he was unable to pick his favourite look from his menswear collection. “I like all of them,” he told the Guardian.

- The story behind China's coolest, most dapper grandpa

Like most gay and equality campaigners, I initially condemned the Christian-run Ashers Bakery in Belfast over its refusal to produce a cake with a pro-gay marriage slogan for a gay customer, Gareth Lee. I supported his legal claim against Ashers and the subsequent verdict – the bakery was found guilty of discrimination last year. Now, two days before the case goes to appeal, I have changed my mind. Much as I wish to defend the gay community, I also want to defend freedom of conscience, expression and religion... The judge concluded that service providers are required to facilitate any “lawful” message, even if they have a conscientious objection. This raises the question: should Muslim printers be obliged to publish cartoons of Mohammed? Or Jewish ones publish the words of a Holocaust denier? Or gay bakers accept orders for cakes with homophobic slurs? In my view, it is an infringement of freedom to require businesses to aid the promotion of ideas to which they conscientiously object. Discrimination against people should be unlawful, but not against ideas.

- Revisiting Ashers Bakery's 2014 refusal to accept an order for a gay marriage cake – upholding personal beliefs or active discrimination?

The search is on in Australia for a motorist who is believed to have deliberately run over 17 kangaroos. Black tire marks along a road in Wacol, Brisbane, suggest the car swerved to hit the animals as they fed by the side of the road, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

- This person: Christ, what an asshole.

Of the 22 states that will be casting their ballots for a Republican nominee between Feb. 1 and March 5, 11 of them feature a Republican electorate that is more than 50 percent evangelical. Even more significant, the first state to vote is Iowa, roughly 60 percent of whose Republican caucus-goers describe themselves as evangelical Christians. As had been the case in recent election cycles, if Cruz could persuade this voting bloc to coalesce around him, then in this crowded field of Republican candidates he would almost certainly emerge the winner in Iowa.

- Welp, it looks like Ted Cruz's evangelical strategy apparently worked …

A gracious Trump gave brief concession remarks on Monday night, congratulating Ted Cruz and expressing gratitude to his team and the people of Iowa. “I’m just honored,” he said. “I’m really honored and I want to congratulate Ted and I want to congratulate all of the incredible candidates, including Mike Huckabee who’s become a really good friend of mine...I think I might come here [to Iowa] and buy a farm, I love it,” he said.

- Trump displays some class after conceding Iowa

The only thing wrong with politics, he said, is “not enough good people bother to try.”

- Farewell but not goodbye, Martin O'Malley 

Dropping out of the presidential race can be more important — and can have a more lasting impact — than entering it. Departing the right way can help a candidate built a lasting “brand” and set him or her up for speaking fees, TV contracts, a book deal and, who knows, maybe another run for the top prize one day....So how will 2016’s favorite soon-to-be-also-rans finally quit? 

- Some possible exit strategies to consider, including "The Mike Huckabee" approach

Who will address the criminalization of our people? Who understands that we’re experiencing an economic crisis made worse by structural barriers to jobs and education? Who will bring us closer to real safety, freedom and power? Who has clearly shown us where they stand? The answer is someone who started this work well before campaign season, who understands our deaths as tragedies — not political talking points — and someone who will speak out against the wars being waged against our communities. Not someone who only pays attention to our concerns when it’s time to collect our votes. Not someone who gives us bread crumbs and expects us to be full. Black Americans — all Americans — need a leader with a record that speaks for itself. And to me, it’s clear. Of all the presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders is our strongest ally.

- Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, is Feeling the Bern

I like Bernie, but …

- The name of this website says it all. Bernie skeptics, check it out

"For Cam to make such a bold statement with his pants – we'll have to see in the game – but he might walk in there with supreme confidence that this show might not really be getting to him. You don't really wear pants like that if you're having a bashful moment."

- Come Sunday, will Cam Newton and his Panthers live up to Cam's pants' hype? 

"The kitten players are so much easier to deal with than human players." 

- Mark your calendars: Kitten Bowl 2016, airing Sunday 7 February 2016

For Your Enjoyment #36

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A handful of studies, however, suggest that Barbie does have at least some influence on what girls see as the ideal body … Therein lies Barbie’s problem. As much as Mattel has tried to market her as a feminist, Barbie’s famous figure has always overshadowed her business outfits. At her core, she’s just a body, not a character, a canvas upon which society can project its anxieties about body image. “Barbie has all this baggage,” says Jess Weiner, a branding expert and consultant. “Her status as an empowered woman has been lost.”

- Barbie gets a much-needed body makeover...but is it too little, too late?

The Bundy militiamen are an extreme example of a type that's become common in America. Like the Tea Partiers, they seem to not only believe that they're the only people in history who've ever paid taxes, but that they're the only people who were ever sad about it. What they call tyranny on the part of the federal government just means putting up with the same irritating bills and regulations and other crap that we all put up with, only the rest of us don't whine about it in the front seats of our cars while posing in front of tripods.

- Matt Taibbi takes aim at the Bundy Bunch

The idea that satire from the left can serve as a bulwark against far-right ideas is provably false. #YallQaeda tweets might be some harmless fun, but liberal laughing along deserves no great celebration on its own merits. [This] reaction is an index of profound structural racism, for which comedy is an insufficient critique. If leader Ammon Bundy and company are a joke, then the joke’s also on us: We’re in such a pitiable state of affairs that laughable loons can express themselves politically with guns waving while unarmed people of color are deemed threats and are summarily executed. What’s even more troubling from a progressive perspective is that many of the tweets concerning the holdup in Oregon include low blows at white trash stereotypes – crackers, jerky, inbreeding, beer. In his critique of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s reductive Muhammad caricatures, Tim Parks wrote in The New York Review of Books that “the worst case is when satire reinforces the state of mind it purports to undercut, polarizes prejudices and provokes the very behavior it condemns.” Satire that deploys classism to skewer racists and conservatives is certainly such a worst case. Why not focus on their very real, very frightening beliefs? 

- Al Jazeera counters Taibbi (above) with a the sobering reality behind the Bundy standoff 

Those looking to the Militia Movement as some kind of bulwark against government tyranny ought to look somewhere else, because if you really want to understand what it’s like to have your land rights violated by a tyrannical government, go talk to a member of a Native American tribe — and count your own privileges

- ... Does the Bundy Bunch even know what their beloved Constitution says? (h/t DM)

If you're looking for evidence of anti-Carolina bias in the Super Bowl, you can't do much better than this: grounds crews mistakenly painted BRONCOS in both end zones of Levi's Stadium. Making things easier on Peyton Manning? Giving Cam Newton an even higher hurdle to clear? Or just a case of bizarre miscommunication?

- Woops.

Don't ever be afraid to speak out, the kicker told them. "You hear horror stories on the news of young kids killing themselves after getting bullied at school," McManus said. "To be able to give someone guidance, someone to talk to, is much bigger to me than kicking a winning field goal. There's always going to be another game, so impacting a kid or a family always gives me my most rewarding smile." 

- Brandon McManus, ladies and gentleman. See also: Anti Bully Squad / Text to Report

 

That old New Jersey / it fills my memory of all those places that are gone

- My dad posted this video a bit ago on his blog; it's pretty neat for me to see some of the things that my parents saw growing up! (video above)

Willie was famous in North West N.J. For me he always represented this Norman Rockwell small town Americana ideal. Sitting there with his American flag being the friendly old guy, waving to everyone who drove past. Sometimes he would walk to the local A&P or to the Cranberry Lake Market and Deli (Krausers at that time) and would greet everyone coming in or out, telling them to have a great day. He spent most of everyday, sitting in front of his house on Rt 206 in Byram/Andover waving to every car that passed. Nothing, not rain nor snow nor heat nor wind, kept him in. Every single there he was there to wave, and everyone honked their horns and waved back as they passed. He is a legend in Sussex County, and a symbolic piece of our childhoods. He passed in 2000 from a heart attack, while waving. To this day his chair is still there on the side of 206, and people still leave flowers.

- After sharing the "Old New Jersey" video (above) with DM, he dug up this wonderful little tribute to Willy Sparinger

Is there any home purchase more confusing and fraught with anxiety than buying a mattress? Study after study points to sleep being vitally important to our health and happiness, and it stands to reason that a mattress is a foundational component of a good night’s rest. And yet to choose the right one, shoppers must navigate a Kafkaesque maze... It would help if mattresses were like couches or dining tables and came in easily distinguishable styles, shapes and colors. But as Brett Swygman, a vice president for sales and development at Simmons, admitted, the products his company and its competitors sell have a baffling visual uniformity. People walk into a store, Mr. Swygman said, “and see a sea of white rectangles.”

- This article pretty much sums up my recent hell of trying to buy a new mattress. 

"If it gets a little boring, if I see people starting to sort of, maybe thinking about leaving, I can sort of tell the audience, I just say, ‘We will build the wall!’ and they go nuts."

- Donald Trump knows he's talking out of his ass

“My question is, what are you going to replace it with?” Valde asked. “Sir, I promise you, I will answer your question. I’m laying out first of all the problems,” Cruz said. He went on to say that the “most pragmatic, the most prudent” thing to do is repeal the law and start over. When that is done, he said that competition in the marketplace should be expanded, people should be able to buy health insurance across state lines and that everyone wants people to have insurance coverage. “Your brother-in-law couldn’t afford it,” Cruz said. “Right. But he could afford it, he finally got it under Obama,” Valde told Cruz. Cruz repeated Valde’s story, that by the time Valde’s brother-in-law went to a doctor, he was already dying. “He would have gotten it earlier, if he could have afforded it earlier, but because of government regulations, he couldn’t,” Cruz said. Valde, a Democrat who said he will caucus for Hillary Clinton, said after the exchange that Cruz hadn’t answered his question. 

- What exactly IS Ted Cruz's plan for health care "reform", anyways? 

The rover typically collects sand and examines particles on Mars - and once a year it stops to sing 'Happy Birthday' to itself - but the car-sized rover has also dedicated time to snapping pictures. And many of them have been of itself.

- I've said it before, but Curiosity's selfies are the best - and how great is it that it sings "Happy Birthday" to itself ever year?!

Upon waking up, [kayaker Ben Orkin] casually checked his email one last time and received the last note he ever expected to receive. Another team had, quite literally, just broken the record. “The email said, ‘Hey, good luck out there. Our time is around 35 hours. Just thought you should know,’” Orkin said. “I was on my way to the put-in. I was like, ‘Oh, man, I can’t believe I wasn’t the first person to break the Emerald Mile record!’”

- The Emerald Mile's 33-year-old speed record for the Grand Canyon has been broken twice in the last few days

How is it possible that National [airport], which sits on the banks of the Potomac practically in the shadow of the Washington Monument, had about half the amount of snow as the other two [airports, Dulles and BWI]? We all know Washington is famous for fudging numbers and subjective math, but even in a town where climate change is a flash point, both sides of the aisle could agree: This sounds fishy. So what went awry? Turns out, the culprit was reportedly the measuring device. As in, it got lost in the snow.

- Just how much snow was dumped on the DC area during last week's Snowzilla? Maybe we'll never know.

The former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, John C. Inglis, even described the squirrel threat as one of the greatest dangers facing mankind, according to the squirrel-tracking website Cyber Squirrel 1. “I don’t think paralysis [of the electrical grid] is more likely by cyberattack than by natural disaster. And frankly the number-one threat experienced to date by the U.S. electrical grid is squirrels.”

- Cyber Squirrel 1 tells me that the squirrel threat is real

Now that dogs are getting acupuncture, there's a space open for chickens to move up from incubators to actual trainable pets. Thanks to Chicken Camp PDX, a four day class in April, your chicken will cross the road because you told it to. 

- Hurry and sign up for Chicken Camp PDX to reserve your (and your chicken's) spot ASAP!

The Doctrine of Christ

On November 5, 2015 the policy change to LDS Handbook 1 regarding homosexual members became known to the public. Since then, in the US, 34 LDS LGBT young people between the ages of 14 and 20 have committed suicide. The numbers are being tallied by Wendy and Thomas Montgomery, leaders in the Mama Dragons and Dragon Dads support groups for LDS LGBT families. That’s 1 suicide every 60 hours, or every 2 ½ days. That number does not include a count of suicide attempts, nor of suicides by any closeted LGBT young people. Twenty-eight of these suicides occurred in Utah, a state that averages 37 youth suicides in a 12 month period. Thirty-four in 84 days is a stunning statistic. It’s horrifying. And gut-wrenching. It is also telling. It tells us we adults are not successfully supporting our LGBT youth. 

Here’s the newsflash: every one of us has culpability for these deaths if we are not actively, openly doing all we can to reduce them. Step one in that quest is to make sure your adult voice is heard by all our youth so that every one of them knows exactly who among us will listen, love, and let them lean on our shoulders. The more voices they hear in their congregations – voices that rise not to preach, but to love and support – the lower the odds become that they will choose death. These kids are a gift from God. Let them hear you say that, clearly and often, without qualification. Save a life, starting today.

We, the members of Christ’s church, are the hands our Heavenly Father reaches with, the voices He uses to calm and reassure, the hearts that beats in time with the suffering child. None of us in the proverbial trenches of Mormonism have the right, power, or influence to change a policy, establish doctrine, or institute any kind of official church-wide outreach of healing toward our LGBT brothers and sisters. But we have the right, power, and influence to cause change within our sphere, to show our desire to include, to love, and to understand. We must be the embodiment of God’s love for these young people.

Some of you probably are shouting in your heads, “But the Bible says acting on homosexuality is a sin!” or “Homosexuality is contrary to the plan of salvation!”

Let me clue you in. The kid that is dead? His parents? Her parents? Each of these kids is the one Christ told us to leave the 99 to find and save. THAT is the doctrine of Christ. To expend your efforts denouncing homosexuality when that one kid is staring in the mirror, thinking he’d be better off dead, places you squarely in the temple with the Pharisees. Stop arguing doctrine and go live the gospel. Stop trumpeting “righteousness” and start ministering to the wounded.

Trust me. These LGBT kids are in your ward and your stake, many gasping for air in the shadows. Love them into your arms in precisely the way you know Christ would. No people are better prepared to do exactly that than are the Mormon people. Pray for guidance. And then go do it. Go love the children. Love them with your full heart and full voice.

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt 25:40

- Read this in its entirety (See also: LDS Handbook 1 policy changes, 2015)