Dec 31, 2005

Good Night and Good Luck













I recently viewed the best picture of the year 2005, in my opinion. The George Clooney directed, co-written and co-starred "Good Night and Good Luck," regarding CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow's public takedown of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

I hope that most of us know at least a little bit about the so-called "McCarthy Era," when the Cold War was still in its adolescent stages. Communists were supposedly infiltrating the United States' security measures with spies, threatening our freedom and our way of life. Senator McCarthy was the chairman of a Congressional committee to investigate any potential threats and indict individuals who might secretly be Communists.

But McCarthy went to far and began scaring anybody and everybody, persecuting probably innocent people and spreading paranoia (from Communists AND his own RADAR) far and abroad. For a wonderfully black and satiric comical work documenting the lunacy of that time, I would recommend 1964s "Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," directed by Stanley Kubrick.


But this blog is about Clooney's masterpiece. I was inspired by this movie to the point that I initiated a dialogue between my brother-in-law and father, via e-mail. Here are our thoughts:



MIKE:
Joe:

Yesterday I accidentally came in to work 2 hours early, so I had to take a 3-hour lunch. I wandered over to the Broadway and viewed the Clooney/Strathairn movie and loved it.

I think you mentioned that it was one of your year's favorites.

Do you think it might be subtle commentary on the news media's coverage of current affairs? President Bush and the war on terror in particular?

Today I think I'll go lunch at Curry in a Hurry. Remembering the hate crime on them four years ago with the arson has brought them to mind, and now I want tandoori chicken.

For whatever reason Clooney decided to make the film, it was smart, poignant and pregnant with extremely persuasive rhetoric. It was the perfect movie in that is was concise; only 90 very efficient minutes. The acting was brilliant.

JOE'S REPLY:
I think Cloony purposefully avoided commentary on current events. In this way the principles speak for themselves. It also makes the movie more timeless because it's a more accurate portrayal of the situation of the time. Having said that, though, it's easy to see parallels with current events. But that, again, will be what makes it timeless. Hopefully if it had been made exactly the same 10 years ago or 10 years into the future, someone would still wonder if
there was subtle commentary on current political events.

I feel sorry for McCarthy on many levels. I sincerely believe the majority of policy makers have good intentions. What the documentary didn't show (and really couldn't because of the context) was McCarthy's alcohol and drug addictions, which more or less killed him a few years later. I think some of his overt paranoia stemmed from that. Boy, I have to say, though, that even better that watching the press take him out was watching the fellow-Senators putting him in his place.

-Joseph

MIKE AGAIN:
Agreed--I, as well, am glad that there were no specific references to our times. Walking back to work I thought about how we should be more responsible for how we use, well, any sort of medium to communicate our thoughts. Where entertainment and enjoyment are essential to balance in our lives, words like "insulated" and "complacent" really made me wonder how responsible we as a people are with our newscasts, editorials published and televised, and right on down even to entertainment. Then zooming in on the individual, how responsible are we for what we view, and furthermore how responsible are we for what we portray in our own communications? ...or are we merely Sunday Christians?

It used to amaze me and catch my attention when I would find a true principle being preached and practiced outside of an explicit gospel context, but anymore I am not surprised. Truth is truth. If we can portray wisdom and charity beyond some compartmentalized portion of our lives (church), then I think we are making progress. The gospel should be relevant and present in all that we are.

It is nice to finally watch a movie and leaving thinking more than "that was a visual feast."

FRED:
Arthur Miller's great play "The Crucible" was written about the McCarthy terror, but placed during the Salem witch trials for several reasons, one of which was to keep Miller off McCarthy's list. Another was to show the timelessness of the struggle of truth and justice against prejudice, ignorance and mob mentality. By moving his anti-Bush feelings back 50 years in time, Clooney has done the same thing. Anyone who criticizes Bush and his cronies overtly is subjected to vicious smear attacks. By portraying McCarthy as the ignorant boob he was, Clooney can slam Bush and come away clean--because Dubya and his mob will NEVER see the parallels between themselves and McCarthy. They're just too bleeping stupid. At the same time, Clooney can educate us about a scary and important time in our nation's history. History is repeating itself and lives are being destroyed again in the same way because, as Hegel said, the one thing we learn from history is that no one ever learns anything from history.

Also, a true hero like Ed Murrow deserves to be dusted off and shown to new generations. Unfortunately, CBS would never employ a man like him nowadays, and the Hannitys and Limbaughs would be dumping their verbal manure all over him. I've always liked George Clooney, and now I have immense respect for him. This was a great movie.


I would welcome you all to view this movie and participate in our discussion. Post a message, e-mail me, whatever.

Dec 22, 2005

William Wines Phelps

Hello again. Still feeling quite sick yet needing to be present at work tomorrow, I retired early this evening. I turned the television on, enabled the 'sleep' feature, and commenced flipping through the channels. I stopped when I heard the deep, staccato pipes of Gregory Peck. Yes, Atticus Finch was narrating the Marriott-produced "American Prophet: the Joseph Smith Story".

While watching, I was reminded of a passage in a Jeffrey R. Holland book I recently read called "However Long and Hard the Road." It is a collection of some of Elder Holland's sermons, and I would like to straight-up quote a massive block of it for you now. It is from his talk entitled "A Robe, a Ring and a Fatted Calf." The talk was given on forgiveness and when I first read it I was moved to weep knowing that regardless of the most vile of offenses I have committed toward God, full fellowship with him is still ultimately possible.

I have Jesus Christ as a divine exemplar for forgiveness, as he is the catalyst of even the slightest bit of hope to repent and be forgiven. He is the Reason. But a very earthly example would be the most very reverend Joseph Smith. Quoting Elder Holland:



In the early years of the Church the Prophet Joseph Smith had no more faithful aide than WIlliam Wines Phelps. Brother Phelps, a former newspaper editor, had joined the Church in Kirtland and was of such assistance to those early leaders that they sent him as one of the first Latter-day Saints to the new Jerusalem--Jackson County, Missouri. There he was called by the Lord to the stake presidency of that "center stake of Zion."

But then troubles developed. First they were largely eccliastical aberrations but later there were financial imiproprieties. Things became so serious that the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that if Brother Phelps did not repent, he would be "removed out of [his] place." (HC 2:511) He did not repent, and he was excommunicated on March 10, 1838.

The Prophet Joseph Smith and others immediately tried to love W. W. Phelps back into the fold, but he would have nothing of it. Then in the fall of that violent year Brother Phelps, along with others, signed a deadly, damaging affidavit against the Prophet and other leaders of the Church. The result was quite simply that Joseph Smith was sentenced to be publicly executed on the town square in Far West, Missouri, Friday morning, November 2, 1838. Through the monumental courage of General Alexander Doniphan, the Prophet was miraculously spared the execution W. W. Phelps and others had precipitated, but he was not spared spending five months--November through April--in several Missouri prisons, the most noted of which was the pit known ironically as Liberty Jail.

I do not need to recount for you the suffering of the Saints through that period. The anguish of those not captive was in many ways more severe than those imprisoned. The persecution intensified until the Saints sought yet again to find another refuge from the storm. With Joseph in chains, praying for their safety and giving some direction by letter, they made their way toward Commerce, Illinois, a malaria swamp on the Mississippi River where they would try once more to build the City of Zion. And much of this travail, this torment and heartache, was due to men of their own brotherhood like W. W. Phelps.

But we're speaking of happy endings. Two very difficult years later, with great anguish and remorse of conscience, William Phelps wrote to Joseph Smith in Nauvoo.

"Brother Joseph: ... I am as the prodigal son ...

"I have seen the folly of my way, and I tremble at the gulf I have passed ... [I] ask my old brethren to forgive me, and though they chasten me to death, yet I will die with them, for their God is my God. The least place with them is enough for me, yea, it is bigger and better than all Babylon ...

"I know my situation, you know it, and God knows it, and I want to be saved if my friends will help me ... I have done wrong and I am sorry ... I ask forgiveness ... I want your fellowhsip; if you cannot grant that, grant me your peace and friendship, for we are brethren, and our communion used to be sweet." (HC 4:141-42)

In an instant the Prophet wrote back. I know of no private document or personal response in the life of Joseph Smith--or anybody else, for that matter--that so powerfully demonstrates the magnificence of his soul. There is a lesson here for every one of us who claims to be a disciple of Christ. He wrote:

"Dear Brother Phelps: ... You may in some measure realize what my feelings ... were, when we read your letter ... We have suffered much in consequence of your behavior--the cup of gall, already full enough for mortals to drink, was indeed filled to overflowing when you turned against us...

"However, the cup has been drunk, the will of our Father has been done, and we are yet alive, for which we thank the Lord. And having been delivered from the hands of wicked men by the mercy of our God, we say it is your privilege to be delivered from the powers of the adversary, be brought into the liberty of God's dear children, and again take your stand among the Saints of the Most High, and by diligence, humility, and love unfeigned, commend yourself to our God, and your God, and to the Church of Jesus Christ.

"Believing your confession to be real, and your repentance genuine, I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship, and rejoice over the returning prodigal...

"'Come in, dear brother, since the war is past,
For friends at first, are friends again at Last.'

"Yours as ever, Joseph Smith, Jun." (HC 4:162-64)

It only adds to the poignance of this particular prodigal's return that exactly four years later--almost to the day--it would be W. W. Phelps selected to preach Joseph Smith's funeral sermon in that terribly tense and emotional circumstance. Furthermore it would be W. W. Phelps who would memorialize the martyred prophet with his hymn of adoration, "Praise to the Man." (Hymns, no. 147)

Having been the foolish swimmer pulled back to safety by the very man he had sought to destroy, Brother Phelps must have had unique appreciation for the stature of the Prophet when he penned:

Great is his glory and endless his priesthood.
Ever and ever the keys he will hold.
Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom,
Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old.



It was this hymn which tipped the scales while I was deciding to serve a mission.

I feel like Smith's Phelps when I think of a Christ, to whose suffering I have personally contributed, in addition to the sorrow our Father feels when I choose the wrong. But I am filled with gratitude when I know that I am loved enough to have been extended the chance of repentance, foregiveness and hope.

Dec 21, 2005

Festivus is fine for some, but I'll celebrate Hammocka.

So here I sit in my freezing house (thanks, Questar), home ill with some sort of mutated throat ailment. I just slicked up a plate of curry rice and am listening to Van Morrison. He's one of those guys who employs jazz in pop and it works.

I recently was directed to an Onion article by fellow JeTSaM (it's like Hebrew: insert the vowels of your choice) alum Logan "what's worse than a tornado?" Mickel. He, Sorro, my father and I were about to be served Japo-American fast food by non-Asians at the Gateway Mall in former Vagrantville, UT. The former two were headed to the SLC U2 concert, I was off to see King Kong with my pops (I sold my U2 ticks because I have a penchant for food). I vaguely reminisced the infographic on the Onion where it mentioned that the Edge betrayed Bono for 20 pieces of silver. Logan "I love throwing balls at your crotch" Mickel mentioned this little nugget.

What's the deal with people assimilating pop-culture into their own lives? Apparently, according to Logan "I would like to purchase that monkey" Mickel, there is some municipal building somewhere with a Festivus pole on the lawn. Funny? Oh, yes. But also unoriginal. Let me tell you about Hammocka.

There was once a brilliant, melancholy apostate named Jared "Shaddow" Robbins. He was my roommate, and we conceptualized Hammocka. His disdain for any holiday celebrated around the winter solstice sparked the invention of this demiholiday. Yes, unoriginal as well, but at least we invented our own traditions. For example, during the Hammocka season it is requisite for any person exiting the shower to play Nintendo while sitting in a hair-dryer chair. Anybody entering a home that celebrates Hammocka must provide sufficient proof that he/she is not a velociraptor. Instead of a jolly man dispensing gifts (e.g. Santa Claus or Hanukkah Harry), Hammocka comes with a villainous raptor named Adrian, Vallery or Ryan. 'Adrian' is more of a placeholder name; the raptor actually represents any unwanted person who persists in coming over and overstaying.

Also at Hammocka, golf tees and milk caps are attached to doorways with adhesive. This has to do with the raptor problem. Legend has it that the Hammocka raptor will smell the milk, trot over to the source and consequently become impaled on the tees.

Hammocka homes will always be decorated with, of course, a hammock. Feel free to adorn the hammock with more mainstream Christmas-style ornaments, or be creative: decorate it with pictures of Patrick Duffy or Ken. In addition to the hammock, every Hammocka home will have a Scantron machine for grading those pesky tests, a cash register, and will have their hallway papered with aluminum (tin will do) foil. Green lightbulbs to add an eerie space-station glow are commonly employed in the foil portal.

Hammockers traditionally have an unfounded hate for Canada, yet ironically, all hold official government office. For example, Shaddow was Secretary of State. I was Secretary of Defense. Our home was renamed "Space Station Canada." This is typical behavior during the season.

An optional celebratory measure of some would be to make impromptu road trips to Las Vegas to watch WCW, 311 or to get something pierced.

Hammockers will drink milk from the carton while sitting around a fake mantle, somehow procured from somebody's former stage crew operation. They will also go into chatrooms on the Internet, secretly attach themselves to the biggest asshole in said room, gang up on him and turn the everybody against this cyberbully. When he tries to go to another room, the attached will follow him, much to their own selfish delight.

Hammocka was first celebrated from the beginning of September 1997 through mid-June 1998, having only ever taken place once in all of human history. It's co-inventor brought to pass the demise of annual celebration of this holiday in April of 1999. Hammocka is now as perpetual as our celebration of Shaddow's life and friendship.

Rest in peace, Shaddow.