The right to bears, arms (AKA "Guns & Ammon")

This Sunday's lesson is on Ammon's mission to the Lamanites, one of the best-known stories from the Book of Mormon. It's so prevalent that it's already come up on my blog a few times.

Last September I had a post featuring many of my favorite cheesy church videos. This one was the crown jewel:



(I think that awful movie Ted (in theaters this weekend!) is adapted from that clip. Mark Wahlberg is a convincing Ammon.)

Want to see some of the aftermath of that story? Go here, then click on "Ammon & King Lamoni" and watch the first clip. You'll thank me later.

Later in September, Ammon popped up on my blog again, as I chronicled my emergence from the Winder 2nd Ward Primary Time Machine and freaked some kids out with the help of my friend Julia's mannequin arms.

I'm sure these posts and videos will really help the scriptures come to life as you study this week. But if not, I'm sure it won't be long before I link to the Ammon-Bear video again. Social media is the modern-day version of Abish going house to house, and just like the conversion of Lamoni and his household, this HAS to be made known unto all the people.

Ancient Chinese Secret

I spent last weekend in New York City--my first visit there in over two years--and it was pretty great. Hopefully next week I'll get a post up complete with pictures of all the awesome food I ate. For now, though, all you get is a description of a too-brief portion of my trip.

On Monday morning I ventured to Chinatown, ostensibly to look for a cheap/fake Rolex for my brother. They no longer keep the knockoff watches, sunglasses, and handbags out in the open; rather, as you walk by, old ladies will whisper "Watches? You want watches?" If you say yes, they lead you around the corner or into the back of a shop and have you pick what you want from a page of pictures. Then someone pulls the bootleg item out of a backpack, and you're on your way. Unfortunately, I couldn't get them to drop the price far enough, and I bought nothing. Sorry, Derek.

In previous visits to Chinatown, I don't think I had ever done more than walk up and down the few blocks between Centre and Broadway on Canal St., where all the tourists congregate. But after striking out on the Rolexes, I decided to do some wandering--and it was pretty great.

Strolling the side streets of Chinatown was at least as enjoyable for me as walking through Central Park ever has been. There's so much visual stimulation--colorful storefronts with signs in English and Chinese (Mandarin? Cantonese? I don't know), shops selling an incredibly random array of items (any readers who grew up in Murray, think of the old Jobber's Odd Lot), huge sidewalk displays of fruits and vegetables (including enormous bins of dragon fruits and other produce that I rarely if ever see at my grocery store), and an almost equal number of outdoor seafood displays (though I never heard people whispering "Crab? You want imitation crab?" as I walked by). I don't care how much ice the fish, shrimp or lobster is sitting in--I wouldn't feel good about buying fresh seafood from these shops.

I eventually made my way to Columbus Park, which was pretty cool. Check out the thoughtful reviews here--they're all pretty accurate. Just a bunch of Chinese people playing Mah Jong, performing native music, and just, well, living. I paused right before entering the park for a passing funeral procession, and that, combined with the scenes I observed in the park, helped me see the residents of Chinatown not just automatons desperate to sell trinkets but as real people. It's a stupid thing to have to "realize," but it's really not that hard to overlook the humanity of these people if you only spend a few minutes on Canal St.

The picture above is of a statue of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic, that stands in Columbus Park. If you enlarge it you'll see the inscription at the bottom is his quote "All under heaven are equal." As I thought about that quote, juxtaposed with all I had seen that morning--the residences above and between all the stores and restaurants, incredibly cramped even by New York standards; the elderly men and women working at shops and carts who will likely never be able to retire; an entire neighborhood whose language and cultural barriers largely isolated it from everyone around them--it was quite sobering.

It certainly doesn't seem that all under heaven are equal, at least not in this life. And this lack of fairness is not new--this week's Sunday School reading continues the story of the preaching of Alma and Amulek. Their converts were cast out of their city, and the converts' families were burned to death. Later on, the Lamanites destroy the city of Ammonihah, killing literally every resident.

Why does God allow some to be killed because of their beliefs, while others are spared? Why do some people have the advantage of being born a white American male, to a comparatively affluent family, like me, while others are born into poverty in a community where they are likely to experience hardship and discrimination? I don't have good answers for these questions. But I do have faith "that the judgments which [God] shall exercise...may be just" (Alma 14:11). All under heaven don't seem to be equal right now, but eventually they will be. For real. And not Chinatown Rolex real--real real.

Money talks

This is going to be a quickie today. I've been going back and forth between work and Scout Camp since early Monday morning with very little time for anything else in between, including sleep. And tonight I leave for New York and won't be back until next Tuesday.

So enjoy the above video. Some sacrament meeting talk cliches I enjoy, some I don't. One of my least favorites to hear is "For those of you who don't know me..." This week's Sunday School scripture block includes Amulek's version of that line: "I am also a man of no small reputation among all those who know me" (Alma 10:4). I recommend checking out his entire sermon and the relevant study guide material before class this Sunday.

These chapters also include a lengthy interlude explaining Nephite coinage (in order to indicate the magnitude of Zeezrom's attempted bribe--he offered Amulek the equivalent of 42 days' wages if he would deny the existence of God). Reading about the senines and onties and whatnot always makes me think of David Puddy's fascination with Scandinavian currency. Hopefully I don't end up in the "Vegetable Lasagna" role on my flight tonight. See you next week!

Down for the count

Earlier this week, one of my Facebook friends linked to this Economist article on the important role that social and behavioral "misfits" play in many businesses. It mentions the founder of the company I work for and is quite an interesting read overall.

(It's a little early in the post to go off on a tangent, but here it is anyway: Any time I read an article from the Economist I usually find it fascinating. I also find myself assuming, from the topics I'm reading about and the writing style used, that it's an American publication. But in each piece there's always a hint or two to remind me, "Oh yeah, this is British." The clues actually came early this time, with "Organisation (rather than Organization) Man" and "hoover up" (instead of vacuum) popping up in the opening paragraph.)

The second paragraph jumped out at me. My mom likes to diagnose family, friends and strangers with all sorts of diseases and syndromes. Asperger's is one of her favorite labels to apply, especially to my dad. But she's also given me that diagnosis a few times. I laugh it off, knowing (or at least hoping) that I do not display "a lack of sensitivity to social cues," as the article describes.

But the rest of the signs given in that paragraph hit pretty close to home, especially when I look back on my adolescence: "an obsessive interest in narrow subjects; a passion for numbers, patterns and machines; an addiction to repetitive tasks." Here's the most prominent example from my youth that indicates my mother may be on to something.

It's probably not a secret to many who read my blog that I've been an avid pro wrestling fan for decades. But something you probably didn't know is that I subscribed to WWF Magazine (almost as rigorous a read as The Economist, let me assure you) for about 15 years, starting in 1990. It was a nice supplement to the programming I watched each week in the early '90s, and in the mid-'90s became the primary source of wrestling information in my cable-less household when the syndicated WWF Superstars of Wrestling went away.

As my magazine collection grew, and as I had few other options to get my wrestling fix, I began (I can't believe I'm admitting this) counting pictures of people in each issue and tracking them in a database. This process raised some tough questions: does a picture of Hulk Hogan on a t-shirt or ice cream bar count as a picture of Hulk Hogan? (Yes.) Do pictures of non-wrestling figures in advertisements count, requiring me to at least attempt to figure out the names of the members of Motorhead or the cast of the Mortal Kombat movie, in the days before Google? (Yes.) Does this qualify me for the Nerd Hall of Fame? (Absolutely.)

I planned ahead before my LDS mission, renewing my subscription for two years. Amazingly, my mom didn't throw them away, keeping them in a big box for me as they arrived each month. When I returned from Scotland, I had about six weeks before I went back to college. I had read all 24 issues and catalogued the pictures well before moving back to Provo. So yeah, pretty Aspergian.

If someone were ever to say to me, "Have ye received his image in your countenance?" they might be asking if I had noticed Stone Cold Steve Austin's leg in the corner of a photo on page 45 of the March 2002 issue and added it to my spreadsheet. That would be a super-weird way to ask about that, though. More likely, if someone asked me that question, they'd be referring to the soul-searching self-evaluation conducted by Alma in the 5th chapter of his eponymous book, which we'll be covering in Sunday School this week. Some great stuff there, check it out!

Bet you didn't guess I was leading up to this week's BASOTRUSSL, did you? Unless you saw the tag. (BASOTRUSSL stands for my weekly Blog About Something Only Tangentially Related to the Upcoming Sunday School Lesson.) Well, I like to keep you guessing. And if that messes with your mind, I don't really care. You know, because of my Asperger's.

P.S. Two points I forgot to bring up in last week's BASOTRUSSL on Book of Mormon government:

--At one point Alma (the one who organized the church among the Nephites and the father of this week's Alma) says basically that a monarchy is the best form of government, as long as the rulers act justly (see Mosiah 23:8). I wonder if that's a belief he held regardless of the circumstances, or if he would've adjusted his opinion depending on the size of the population. At the time he made that statement he was the spiritual leader of a community of about 500 people.

--I can't believe I made all those references to judges last week and didn't make any Cat Deeley jokes. She pronounces the word as "jidges," and it's adorable. Cat is my celebrity crush (along with Ivanka Trump), and I just may have a chance with her--she just revealed that she would date Taylor Hicks, and I look just like him! (All right, I'm taking her comments slightly out of context, but it's worth a try.) How 'bout it, Cat? Can I take you out for some As-burgers and fries?

Hoffmann of the Month: June

We're kicking off the second year of the "Hoffmann of the Month" award with the first-ever animal recipient! Congratulations to the Hoffmann's two-toed sloth, June's Hoffmann of the Month!

Sloths were super-hot earlier this year, starting with Kristen Bell's adorable breakdown (documented on Ellen's show), and continuing through last month when, on the American Idol finale, Steven Tyler revealed (perhaps facetiously) that he has a pet sloth. Sloths had officially jumped the shark.

So I'm a little late getting on the sloth bandwagon, but not that late, when you consider how slowly sloths typically move. Their top speed is under a quarter-mile per hour, according to this video (I know the cuteness is mesmerizing, but trust me, the guy in that clip said so).

A few of my favorite items from the Hoffmann sloth's Wikipedia page:

--"This species often exhibits exaggerated wobbling of the head. Another trait of this sloth is that it often spits when the mouth opens. The saliva often accumulates on the lower lip, giving the creature a comical appearance."

--"In the wild, there are about 11 times more female two-toed sloths than male two-toed sloths." (Sounds like the Young Single Adult scene in New York.)

--"The only time that sloths are normally found right side up is when they descend to the ground to defecate, which they only do about once every three to eight days." (That seems counterintuitive...it seems like you'd want to be upside down for a mess-free bathroom break. Still, though, only having to go once a week would be pretty sweet.)

--"Courtship consists of the female licking the male's face..." (Hey Petey, you should tell Mindy she exhibited some very sloth-like behavior at your party!)

All that sloths do is sleep, eat, mate, and make a weekly trip to the jungle lavatory. That's a lifestyle worth emulating, and one certainly worthy of this month's top Hoffmann honor. Way to go, Hoffmann's two-toed sloth!

The voice of the people

On Tuesday The Daily Show and The Colbert Report returned after a break of nearly three weeks. So I finally have an inkling of what's going on in the world again.

I get probably at least 90% of my world and national news from those two shows. I'm so apathetic about politics that I can't stomach it without a heaping spoonful of comedy. I find the majority of American pundits and politicians distasteful, whether ultraconservative or ultraliberal (the moderates don't make for good TV so they seem to largely be ignored). I much prefer the theatricality of British government, whether it's this weekend's diamond jubilee (congrats to Elizabeth on 60 years of--not ruling, certainly, but reigning, I guess), last year's royal wedding (I can't believe it's already been 13 months since we were introduced to Pippa Middleton's butt), or the Prime minister's questions from any era.

I usually avoid talking about politics, and I write about it even less frequently. But I do have opinions on these issues, and if you've been reading the assigned chapters for the last few Sunday School lessons, it's been impossible not to think at least a little about politics and government (here's the study guide link for this week's lesson). There are a number of things about the Nephite government in this section that I find fascinating, especially when contrasted with how things are today (I deliberately used "government" rather than "politics," because the examples in the Book of Mormon are almost exclusively voting and governing rather than campaigning and politicking).

For starters, the church/state dynamic is intriguing. They're kind of separated and kind of not. There wasn't a formal church organization for the first few hundred years of their civilization, but the Nephite kings often doubled as the recognized prophet in the land, including the final two monarchs. Last week's lesson covered the founding of the church under Alma, and this week's covers King Mosiah changing their government from kingly rule to a system of judges. The people rejoiced in their newfound freedom, but the chief judges who presided for the next 200+ years served indefinitely, either for life or until they resigned. And one of their sons usually took their place. In addition, many of the chief judges were also the head of the church.

Abolishing the kingdom actually had the opposite effect on taxes that you would expect. Under Mosiah's father, King Benjamin, it appears that the people paid no taxes (see Mosiah 2:14). Once the switch was made to judges, there must have been some taxes, since the judges were paid for their time (see Alma 30:33), though it's likely the taxes were low. Whatever the rates, though, I'm sure the people of Limhi were pleased. Their community was absorbed into Mosiah's two lessons ago, after enduring 20% taxes under wicked King Noah (see Mosiah 11:3) and a whopping 50% while in bondage to the Lamanites (see Mosiah 19:15).

So, the Nephites were subject to taxes, and went from a monarchy to a system that was practically a monarchy, and a theocracy at that. All that considered, though...they really had a remarkable level of freedom. A few examples:

--In last week's lesson we see an account of church members being caught committing sins and taken before Mosiah for judgment. Since they had only violated church policy and not the law of the land, the king did nothing and referred them back to their ecclesiastical leaders to be disciplined (see Mosiah 26:6-12). I wonder how Mosiah would've addressed modern controversies like the debates on marriage, birth control, etc.?

--This week's chapters include the story of Nehor, a false prophet whose philosophies wreaked havoc with the church. Alma was the chief judge over the government and the high priest over the church, but no action was taken against Nehor until he killed a man (a violation of the civil law) after a heated religious debate (see Alma 1:1-14). Even though the church was the dominant influence in their society, they actually did have a clear separation of church and state.

--The Nephites were so committed to freedom, and to enacting laws in accordance with "the voice of the people," that it was legally possible to vote out their government and reestablish a monarchy, even though they knew that the would-be king was intent on destroying the church. Fortunately he lost at the polls (see Alma 2:1-7).

The most interesting part of this section of the Book of Mormon to me: under their new system of government many members of the church "began to be exceedingly rich," yet they "did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all...whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need" (Alma 1:29-30). The term "liberal" is practically a profanity to many Mormons, but here it is in its true usage in our most important book of scripture. I will likely never register with a specific political party (largely because of the apathy referenced at the beginning of this post), but I subscribe generally to liberal ideals in economic matters. I recognize that there is a big difference between the generosity of individual citizens described in these verses and government-mandated liberality and "entitlements," but staunch conservative candidates and their supporters too often give the impression that they do not possess this mindset. I will almost always end up voting for the candidate who I feel is more concerned with helping the less fortunate.

If any of my readers have any thoughts on what I've said here, or on the Nephite government and how it compares (for better or worse) to our present system, please share them in the comments.