We The Campbells

I’m not sure what it is about the Sun, but he just gets on my nerves. I don’t particularly dislike the light it gives, or the heat it gives, but just think this through with me.

In the summer when you have nothing to do, because everyone is “off school” (whatever that means) and you think to yourself, Hey, why don’t I go outside?, and who’s there to ruin the fun?

Glaring down at you like a big angry father, the Sun looks at you like Sauron, burning into your brain, through your eyes, the single question, What do you think your doing!?! (Must read with really “scary” whispery voice.)

You step out, despite his obvious order to stay in doors, and he starts beating you. The steady ninety-five degree wether is cooking you, sweat soaks your shirt, you can hear your pale skin sizzling in the sun. (Unless you don’t burn, in that case you can see yourself darkening into a nice tan, very disconcerting, eh?) You forge onward in this, a battle of obedience to the parental figure of the Sun.

The Sun is now furious and slowly (and I mean slooooooooooooooooooowly) hides behind a cloud, and then quickly positions himself in a position to cause the most heat. In a punishment for being outside against orders, you are now roasting. You pick up a basketball, and try to dribble on your blacktop driveway, and suddenly your feet are burning off.  Again the lovely, painful, un-comforting, irritating Sun.

Now he forcefully orders you to stand in the shade, and you obey, totally exhausted by the heat. The Sun tyrannically dictates your day.

You then go inside, defeated, and depressed. You sit on your couch, and wait for fall, football, and hockey.

It’s now fall, you’re standing at your front door, hot apple cider in hand. The Moon is out in the clear, dark blue sky, and she’s shining softly down through the leafless branches. You find yourself out of the micromanaging rays of the Sun,  you slip into a warm, woolly sweatshirt, and embark on a night’s walk.

The sidewalks are swept clean by the wind, but the yards are full of brown and orange leaves that are ensnared in the grass. Nary a street light to be seen, as you walk the back roads. You talk to the Moon, confessing doubts and concerns, all the while  enjoying the cool night  breeze whisking around your Levi-clad legs, and briskly brushing your face. You sip your warm, cinnamony apple cider, and exhale a cloud of steam

The scene is so much colder due to the soft blue glow of the Moon. Without her, the steam of your drink would go unnoticed, the nice white sidewalk unseen, and the beautiful bald trees wouldn’t be able to cast their night shadows. She listens to your confessions and her silence reveals the answers to your problems, qualms, downfalls. You swear she could solve world peace with her calm reflective answers.

Rejuvenated you pitch the Moon some of your solutions. Ideas you’d never share with anyone, but on the cold windy night, you share with a soulmate like no other.

Again silence is the answer, but as you stare at her white face, you realize that she’s watching you all the time. It’s just that sometimes she disappears. How cool is that? you think. I have a friend that disappears!

But more than anything, you realize that you have a friend.

A friend to share a nice, cool, crisp, hot apple cidery night with.

Okay, so lately I’ve been selling lemonade. It just so happens that I only sell the lemonade during the Hill Cumorah Pageant that is a reenactment of the Book of Mormon. (That is to say, that’s what it is to my knowledge.)

During this pageant a great many visitors come through our small village (The Village of Palmyra) These visitors are mainly Mormon, and as I can’t say 100%, I’ll say 99.999999999% 🙂 I will also say that these people draw out a certain conflict.

This post is titled I Don’t Know! because of the immense confusion that I’m suffering per the insanely large argument caused by the faith of Mormons.

Because of the large concentration of Mormons, many of the more die-hard Anti-Mormons come out with slogans, tracts, and large signs. One sect congregates in the public park on main street, roughly half of a small town block from several key Mormon-tourism sites. They drive a large “sign truck” which bears the slogan “WhatMormonsDon’tTell”. They hand out tracts and “share the gospel”.

Unfortunately, they are the more passive group.

One man stands around with a large sign. The sign itself is relatively (relatively) inoffensive, but the man holding this sign was getting on my nerves. The only reason that I’m near this man is that I am advertising on that corner. A representitive of my lemonade stand will stand on the corner for fifteen minutes at a time, and entice customers to pull over and stop for “Great Lemonade, and cookies!”.

During these fifteen minute chunks this man managed to offend me on several occasions, and this is only my second day! Not only that, but I’m not even a Mormon and he’s offensive to me.

So today I decided to check this Sign Guy out. I walked over and asked him to pretend that I was a Mormon, and prove to me why I shouldn’t be one.

For the next twenty minutes the Sign Guy tells me theory after Mormon theory, which he soon disproved. He would set it up, and telling me their belief, and then he would tell me the practical disproving factor. He had a briefcase full of facts and quotes of Mormon leaders, etc.

I believe Sign Guy is factually correct. He has spent years of his life researching his faith and the faiths of others. He has the necessary facts to disprove the Mormons.

Yes, Sign Guy is correct.

But he’s wrong!

He’s doing it all wrong! First example that he needs to take a chill pill is that he refers to the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as Mormons. He doesn’t say this as a title, but spews it as if it is a filthy word. He doesn’t say it as though they are human, even. Rather he addresses them as stupid, childish fools who aren’t smart enough to realize that his faith is the right one.

Near the end of our thirty minute talk, a man in his early twenties stops near us and asks if Sign Guy is a Christian. Sign Guy says he is.

“Wow,” says the young man. “That’s sad. It’s sad that you hold this sign. Do you think Jesus would do this? Jesus would be–”

“Do you hate the bible?” Sign Guy says.

“Jesus would be out here just loving these people.”

The man walks away as Sign Guy yells shouts something, probably sensible, but the tone is derogatory. As he walks away the man holds up his hand in the universal sign for peace, and just ignores Sign Guy.

When I turn back to Sign Guy, he’s chuckling derogatorily, and the first thing he says is.

“People always try to claim a Jesus. They mold him to their purposes, and don’t depict him as he is.”

The reason I titled this post I Don’t Know! is coming back to me. I don’t know where to go with this argument. Do I agree with Sign Guy’s conclusions? Yes. I think he’s right on there. Now, do I agree with his methods?

Do you think that it is right to yell, “Repent! Repent! Confess your sins and believe in Jesus of the Bible and you can be saved!” at a family with three small children. Is it important to yell that to a young couple holding the hands of their toddler? Is it necessary to yell in these people’s faces, “Your wrong! Your so wrong!”?

The only conclusion I draw from this is that there is a line between helpful and just plain mean. It is not right to be offensive, and self-righteous, even if you are right. You must respect other people’s intelligence, as well as their right to freedom of religion.

God created all beings with the natural freedom of choice, and America is one of the only countries that will allow us to exercise these rights. I believe this man has no right to harass these tourists, an personally believe he is wrong in the method he uses to get his point across.

I keep thinking of a kid that is whining and his mother says, “Use your words, Little Billy.” This man just needs to have an adult conversation with the people he disagrees with. As long as the other party has a fair chance to argue their point, and it is an open-minded conversation, I believe Sign Guy could win the argument.

His current method is only pushing people away. He needs to consider what Jesus would do. If Jesus were at that corner today, I think he’d be talking with the Mormon believers, and just looking at the crazy Sign Guy with pity. He’d shake his head, and just look sadly at him.

What would Jesus do?

What would you do?

Please discuss using the extremely obvious comment thing at the bottom of this post. This discussion will be as open minded as possible.

I’ll probably get the pants sued off of me for using this picture, but I thought was a good picture.

Anyway, I just read a little biography on the man named Steven Paul Jobs. His biological parents were Joanne Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali. His dad was from Syria (now we know where he gets the cool nose!). They weren’t married, and they decided they weren’t ready for a baby. So they put Steve up for adoption.

He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. They lived in what became Silicon Valley. (Yes, that’s just a nickname. It was Mountain View, California before businesses in the electronic field began experimenting and using silicon. Thus, Silicon Valley.)

Paul Jobs was a repairman by trade, and he passed on his love for machines to his son. Steve loved watching his father, and he began helping him at a very young age.

Steve met Steve Wozniak through a geek, excuse me, computer club. Woz, as he was called, had made a hobby of designing computers. They became good friends. Steve and Woz started their business on April Fool’s Day 1976. There business would sell circuit boards to people who wanted to build their own computers.

They asked several of the local stores if they would like to stock their circuit boards. Everyone turned them down. One man was mildly interested though. He said he didn’t think the circuit boards weren’t marketable as there was a distinct rarity of computer building people. Thus, he asked Steve, and Woz, to make him fifty of the actual computers. He would pay them twenty-five thousand for all of them.

“Ok,” said the Steves.

The birth of the Apple. Why Apple? Because steve ate lots of fruit, and apples, he said, were the perfect fruit. Perfect, just like his computers would be.

The Apple II was the next step. Woz wanted it to have color (What? Unheard of!), sound (again, unheard of), and sharp crisp graphics. Steve wanted to have the computer be able to accept floppy disks. He wanted it to molded in plastic as well. At the time plastic was more expensive, but both Steves thought it looked cool, and that was important.

Yes, Steve Jobs was the designer of the modern computer. That’s pretty cool. Trendsetting means that you’re successful.

Soon after the Apple company grew (right around 1978) Woz was on a plane that crashed. Woz took months to recuperate, and he never returned to work full time at Apple. Steve had to work with other engineers now, and it wasn’t nearly as satisfying. The next Apple computer was a flop. No one wanted to pay $10,000 dollars for a computer.

Steve then started working on the Macintosh, a computer that would change the world. Steve picked the engineers by hand, and he put them in a separate building. He flew a pirate flag over the building.

“It’s a better to be a pirate than to join the navy,” Steve said. He meant it’s good to break rules, and think different.

Steve was weird. He only ate fruit. He didn’t wear shoes. He thought that his diet made it so he wouldn’t have to take showers often. People didn’t enjoy working with him because he smelled awful. Despite all these things, Steve was somehow one of the most charming people anyone knew. Everyone called it the “Reality Distortion Field,” or RDF. When Steve said something, he always made it seem as though it would work, no matter what.

In 1984 (real life) the Macintosh was released. The mac sold amazingly well–for a short time. Steve had misjudged people’s interest in home computers. This caused some strife at Apple. John Sculley, the man who Steve had hired to run the business end of Apple, wanted to get Steve out of the company. The company board voted. Steve lost all of the power he had at Apple, in May, 1985. He was moved to another office which he called Siberia.

Steve then went on to pour millions of dollars into the company he called NeXT. That was a failure as well. Steve spent a little time in limbo, during which he dated several women (including Bob Dylan’s former girlfriend), and located his sister Mona Simpson, a novelist. After a little while he got married.

In 1986 Steve got to work with a man he admired very much. Steve became an owner of George Lucas’s computer graphics company. They called it Pixar. The problem was that many artists didn’t think they needed to spend the money on something they didn’t think was necessary. Steve put more than fifty million dollars into the company himself. He paid himself a salary of fifty dollars a year.

In 1991, Steve had to lay off most of Pixar’s staff. One person he didn’t lay off was John Lasseter. Lasseter made short films for the company, and Steve thought that he was the best form of advertising the company had. His short film, Tin Toy, won an Oscar. Despite the Oscar, Pixar was a failure, and Steve was losing his reputation. People thought Steve was nothing but a slick salesman.

Steve eventually RDFed Disney into giving him the money for three full length animated movies. The first one was Toy Story. After that, Pixar went on to make a dozen hit movies. After struggling for ten years, Steve became successful again. He wasn’t a millionaire anymore, but he was a billionaire now. In 1993 John Sculley had been forced out of Apple, and Steve was asked to come back. Steve gave himself a salary of a dollar a year, and only agreed to run Apple for a short time, until they found a replacement.

Steve made some big changes, like agreeing to work with Bill Gates in 1997. Steve also cleared out the clutter that Apple had started to make. He removed products that weren’t selling, and he laid off so many workers that employees were afraid to ride on the elevator with him. They were scared they’d lose their jobs on their way to their floor.

Steve created the Internet Macintosh. The iMac was the next biggest thing. Apple convinced Steve that he should stay with them. From there, the rest is history.

The First Apple stores were created in May, 2001. Steve designed them himself. Then, in October, 2001, Steve pulled the cat out of the bag, actually the iPod out of his pocket. He created iTunes, and convinced the Beatles to sell their music on it. Steve then created the iPhone, in 2007, that was a huge success. On top of that, the rest of his products evolved into what they are today: the sleek, powerful super-models of the computer world.

In 2010, Steve introduced another groundbreaking device, the iPad. Apple sold three-hundred-thousand in the first day. In 1997, Apple nearly went bankrupt. In August 2011, Apple was the most successful company in the world.

Steve finally retired from his company, and spent lots of time with his friends, including Bill Gates. On his death bed, Steve looked at his sister Patti, then his children, and then his wife.

He said, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

A salute to the man who thought differently. Who asked “What if?”. A man who cut against the grain. A man who took chances.

A man who changed the world.

I say, “Oh wow.”

America, land of the Free, and home of the Brave. The only place on earth, maybe in the entire universe, that freedom rings. True freedom, not even understood by many Americans, is what we have. And it’s what our soldiers fight for.

They fight for liberty, and justice, for all. They fight for our nation, whole, and united under God. They fight for our rights, our beliefs, and our well-being. They risk their lives for our freedom.

They risk their lives so that we may choose how much food we want. They fight so we can praise whichever God we see fit to praise, and praise him in the ways that we see fit.

They sacrifice daily so that we can marry whomever we may, so that we can spend our weekends however we might, so that we can choose how we earn our money, so that we can live our lives in relative peace and harmony.

Sacrifice is an everyday occurrence in our lives. You may not even notice its slight presence. It whispers in the air as you help someone, thus sacrificing your time. It bares its bittersweet face as you give up your slice of the pie.

Sacrifice is an everyday occurrence in the lives of our American soldiers. They sacrifice years of their lives. The prime years of their lives, when they should be finding the man, or woman, they will spend the rest of their lives with. The time they should be spending raising kids, playing with them, and enjoying life. Instead they keep a grueling physical regime, and they live simplistic lives. They spend all of their time away from family, and hometown friends.

They sacrifice their time, but also their bodies. They sacrifice digits, limbs, and other various parts of their bodies out of pure love of country. They loose the ability to walk properly when they are shot. They loose legs, and arms in IED explosions. (Improvised Explosive Devices)

They loose their ability to see, their ability to hear, their ability to taste, their ability to feel, and their ability to smell. They lose their ability to sense the world around them. They lose it all for their country, and fellow countrymen. They sacrifice it for freedom. Our freedom.

They sacrifice their minds, too. The act of killing a fellow human being churns many stomachs. Taking any life is difficult. Some of these men and women who fight for us kill nearly daily, each time it takes a bite out of their confidence. “Why do I do this? Am I doing the right thing?” they ask. For many, there is no answer.

The traumatic experience of loosing a comrade is incredibly stressful on a person’s sanity. It quickly douses the person with reality, and mortality. It brings out a certain amount of faith. As the saying goes, There are no atheists in foxholes.

As stated before, the bodily sacrifice is gross, and horrific. Taking this into account, seeing a gory wound may be even worse than receiving one. Many soldiers are haunted by these images for the remainder of their lives.

Then of course, many of these men and women never return home. They sacrifice their very lives for someone else’s freedom. They sacrifice all that they love, their family, their friends, their relationships, for your freedom. For my freedom.

I say thank you to those men and women, and to their families, because of their incredible service to this country. Thank you today, tomorrow, and everyday, for your incredible sacrifice.

God bless you.

Why do directors only use scissors?

The English translation (with a little context mixed in): Ian wants to know why directors like Peter Jackson (above) don’t cut and paste more than they just plain cut out parts.

As an author, I know I’d only sell my novel’s movie rights to someone who would let me be a big part of the process. I would want to make the scene cuts, and tell them “No way, absolutely not! She wouldn’t fall for him, and she can’t fall in love with him because it’s part of her character not to!” Etcetera, etcetera.

I would want to make sure the director didn’t screw everything up. Problem is, the director wants to add a little spice. That’s how directors “sign” their “masterpieces”. I think anyone, and everyone, would have done a great job with the Hobbit, and the Lord of The Rings movies, because the fan base was already established. Everyone and their brother, sister, uncle, aunt, cousin, mother, father, and their friend’s family(ies) would be watching the movies no matter what, because the author of the book did all of the fan base work.

Don’t take me the wrong way. You could think I’m bashing Peter Jackson, but this isn’t really about him, his movie Fellowship of the Ring (based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring) just got me thinking about this hot button issue.

I am not usually on the “I didn’t like the movie ’cause it wasn’t the book” side. I’m typically the the first person to say “Of course it wasn’t the book! You came to watch a movie, you doofus!” For whatever reason though, I can’t get over what Peter Jackson did in the FOTR! (Fellowship Of The Ring.:-) )

Again, this isn’t about him, but directors all of the world. Take the guy who messed up Prince Caspian for example. I don’t know his name, but he messed up the whole movie by putting everything out of order! I’ll take a little stylistic whatnot, but complete redo says, “I don’t think the author had a clue what he was doing when he wrote the book!”

That is unacceptable!

My father, my brother, and I, have just recently finished reading the Lord of the Rings series. We still have the images depicted by Tolkien emblazoned in our minds. Wether it be the beautiful landscapes, the faces, the objects, or just the air, Tolkien described it masterfully.

We have the story fresh in our minds, and we can easily observe the powerful structure of the LOTR series, which is really just one long book.

If there was one thing I had to compliment him on, it would most definitely be his characters.

Gandalf: Kind and loving; a fearful wizard of power. Friend to all; mentor to all. Sam: Loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, witty, funny, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, loyal, and loyal. Frodo: Bold, and afraid. Self-controlled, Ring-controlled. Wise, humble. Incredibly strong, pitifully weak.

The pure genius in each character is perfected with a certain time aspect. It takes time to like someone. Time develops trust, love, and all other ingredients necessary in a relationship.

Peter Jackson through time out the window in the Fellowship of the Ring. Why? He needed more time? Yes, he did. He had to show the subplot of Saruman building up the Uruk-Hai. He had to show the orcs tearing down the trees.

But, why not show them in their own time? Why not copy the book that you’re modeling the movie after?

Why not tell it as the flashback it is?

I don’t rightly know, and I may not ever know. I certainly hope that’s not the case though, but as of now, directors around the world leave me wondering: “Why scissors?”

Mom, why do I love you? You yell at me. You beat me. You, at one point or another, refuse to fold my inside-out shirt right side out. Thus leaving me to do it, and waste an extra two seconds when I get dressed.

Is that all? Far from it! You make me eat carrots, broccoli, spinach, green beans, lima beans, beans in general, vegetables in general. You don’t let me play outside until my chores are done, or my math is finished, or my teeth are brushed. (And by brushed you mean every part of every tooth? Impossible!) You refuse to let me play video games until I clean up a mess (regardless of who made it.)

You say to me, “Do the dishes.” I say to you, quite eloquently, “Why?” You reply, venom shooting out of your eyes, “Did you eat on these plates?” I nod, gulping. “Then you had as sure as… well, anyway, you’d better clean ‘em, ‘cause if you don’t, you aren’t gonna eat off of them any more.”

“Yes, Mom,” I say, not really meaning it, but my stomach advises me to do the dishes.

You don’t let me watch the movies I want to watch. “There’s only one, okay maybe two, bad scenes, Mom!” I whine. “No,” is the reply.

“There’s only a little passionate kissing! Only a little blood! Only a little swearing. Only a few decapitations! Only a few suggestive scenes! Only a few provocatively dressed women per square foot! Come on!”

“No,” you say. “I don’t like it. I don’t want you to watch it.” (I storm out of the room.)

“Hey, Mom! Can I read this book?” I say. One glance at the science-fictiony cover, and the book is judged. Guilty on all charges.

The charges being: Too scary, too gory, too graphic, too adult (what in the world is that supposed to mean? Since when is adult an adjective?), too scary, and above all, too SCARY!

“No,” say you, handing the book back, with out cracking its pages. “No, I don’t want you to read it.”

“But it isn’t even bad! I already read the first one!”

“You did!”

“The cover wasn’t as bad, you said I could read it.”

“Well, un-read it, and don’t read this one. I don’t like it.”

“Mom!” I scream in anguish. “OF COURSE you don’t like it!!!! You’re a mom! Moms like the bible, romances, biographies (on rare occasions), and self-help books! You aren’t supposed to like it! Just let me like it! Augh!!!!!!!!!!”

“No, I just don’t think you should read it. By the way, did you finish your mandatory* reading this week?” *Emphasis mine.

“No, not yet,” I sigh.

“What’s the title again? Something like Sarah’s Brown Horse, right?”

“Yup,” I reply, grabbing Sarah’s Fanciful Brown Horse, heading for the nearest place to read. I shake my head. Why do I even let you be my Mom? I think darkly.

But, you don’t do this without reason.

I break windows, curtains, tables, cups, plates, and bones (mine or otherwise). That equals yelling (and money out of your pocket). I eat brownies when you tell me to save them for after dinner. I ride my bike in the front yard when you tell me to not. I play football in the house, with express orders against such actions. That results in beatings. I take off my shirt at night, and quite irreverently toss it into the hamper, with its inside out. That results in, well, uh, an inside out shirt, of course.

You know that carrots, broccoli, spinach, green beans, lima beans, beans in general, vegetables in general, help me grow strong, smart, and tall. (Tall and strong being important to me, and smart being important to you.)

You try to teach me that the work must be done before I play. A concept I refuse to, or have a hard time, or just plain can’t, understand. You try, and fail, because I refuse to, or have a hard time, or just plain can’t, understand why I would work when I could play.

You make me do my math so I can survive in the world of numbers. You do it so I can make a living, and keep it. So I won’t be cheated out of my money. You do it for me.

You make me do the dishes so I’ll be responsible. That way I’ll be a real man in the world. You try to ready me for having a job, a family, any responsibility I might obtain. You try to take away some of the growing pains. You do it for me.

You keep me away from the things that will hurt me. You keep me away from immoral women, so I don’t fall into that trap. You keep me away from bad language, as you see it doesn’t behoove me, beautiful as I am in your eyes (well, and mine too). You keep me away from images of death as you see no goodness, no pureness, no everlasting life in death.

You keep me away from what will hurt me, like you would if I was playing with fire, you try to help me, even though I kick and scream. You try to protect me from what I don’t want, even though I clearly think I want it. You try to help me, even though I make it infinitely more difficult.

Is that all? Far from it! You save your last bit of Ice Cream Sundae, or your french fries, or your hamburger, or your sleeve of crackers. You buy be stuff you know I’ll love. You help me when I struggle with a math problem. (I reply to her help with something like, “But that’s so stupid! It makes no sense!) You give me hugs, you laugh at my jokes (usually :-)). You think I’m awesome, (I have no problem agreeing) and you love all of my creations.

You love me.

That’s why I love you, Mom.

I love you.