Lions, Tigers, and Muslims... oh my!

I'm writing this post as a response to this video my brother Jake sent to me. He is surprisingly a big fan of John Stewart's Daily Show. Despite some crass humor, I think you will get the message quite quickly.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-16-2010/rally-to-restore-sanity

After watching the clip, read on.

The so-called 9/11 mosque has, in my opinion, finally turned on a lightbulb inside the heads of many "seventy to eighty percenters," as Stewart puts it, as to the radical nature of political activism in the past 10 years. Sanity is being bullied over by angered mobs, due to real national calamities (like the BP oil spill) as well as really exaggerated national "issues" (such as the mosque). The interesting thing about radicalism throughout history is that it has ALWAYS been the voice to be heard most of the time, due to its nature. The very definition of radicalism requires activism, protest, and outcry. The question, then, that has plagued moderates through history is How Can We Be Heard Above All This Racket?

Taking another lesson from history (which I hope will catch on), I find some solace in the fact that moderates usually win out. After all, everyone eventually prefers a calming of the waters instead of a continuation of the storm. However, this may not always be the case. Radicalism in may forms has led to such devastation and horror as Bartholomew's Day, Robespierre's Guillotione, and the Battle of Stalingrad. It seems to me that a dangerous result of unchecked radicalism is atrocious human behavior.

Furthermore, as we realize that the catalysts of radicalism include calamities and natural tragedies, as well as religious issues, we realize from the scriptures that the amount of reactant in this chemical formula will only increase. Radicals will have more to be radical about. So I ask again: how can we stem the tide?

To me, the only answer is moderate activism. And no, those two words do not form an oxymoron. Personally, I have never felt it necessary to get involved in the political climate. I guess I never have seen the need to do so, nor have I felt like any of my actions would result in any visible consequence.

There must be a way, though.

Your thoughts.

BYU Football... Conspiracy?

Well, it all worked out. BYU's 2 QB situation finally came to a close, with both parties being satisfied. After sacrificing 2 games to the system, Bronco finally has 1 QB in Jake Heaps. He is the QB everyone wanted at the beginning. He is the QB of the future. He is the QB that has the BYU-patented passing arm.

Riley Nelson, on the other hand, also finished his career at BYU on a high note. He injured his throwing shoulder. Surgery required, he will not play for the rest of the season.

Convenient, isn't it? For Nelson to injure his throwing shoulder at this moment? Almost TOO convenient, I would say. Doesn't this scream conspiracy? This just seems too good to be true. I want proof that he actually has surgery. I want to see him in pain. I want to see the play he was injured on.

I argue that he indeed was NOT injured last week. Instead, Bronco approached him and said, "look, we are not going to start you anymore. So you can either way this shoulder sling, or go out as a failure at QB." What option do you think he would have taken?

The Truth About Bronco

It's about time we talk about or beloved coach. Bronco Mendenhall, who has been hailed as the savior of the program (after the dark days of the Crowton era), has risen as BYU's Lavell Edwards reincarnated, to return BYU football to the glory days of old.

Or has he?

In this blog, you will find evidence that or beloved Coach Mendenhall has only returned the Y to known days of mediocrity.

Evidence #1: Bronco's defensive minded sets. Bronco has been a defensive coordinator most of the time before heading over to BYU. So, I ask the question... what happened? Amnesia? Did he forget all his good defensive sets? Sure, you can argue or athletes are inferior due to the pressures of recruiting at an LDS school, but come on. When Utah puts 50 points on you, that's embarassing. When FSU blows you out at home by 30 points and your defensive players are blaming the newly installed turf for the blowout, you have problems. And the problems start at the top. Sure, or offense (usually) looks great. He's done a good job keeping the BYU offense alive (keeping Robert Anai too). But everyone who watched the Air Force game last Saturday knows Bronco is being outcoached by offensive schemes.

Evidence #2: The Vegas Bowl. Those are 3 words, as an avid fan, that I'm tired of hearing. And I'm even MORE tired of people being excited about going. College Football has evolved into the haves and the have-nots. The only way you become a Have is by going to the BCS. Anything less than this must be considered failure. Despite this, many cheer the Vegas bowl as some sort of excellent option, and yet, is this all we want? Are we satisfied with this mediocrity? No. The bottom line is that Bronco Mendenhall does not know how to win the big games. He does not know what it will take to take us the distance. Wittingham did it. Urban Meyer did it. Chris Peterson did it. Heck, TCU can even make the BCS. Until Bronco proves to me that he can crash the party, he can't sell me on the idea that we should keep him.

Evidence #3: The 2 QB dibacle. In the history of football, you can hold up on 1 hand the number of times a 2 QB system was effective and successful. On one hand! The way Bronco has handled the situation has also clearly displayed how much of the idea was his. Clearly, the 2 QB method is his baby. He will stand or fall with it. Against Washington, we got lucky. Both QB's played well in front of a home crowd. However, AFA revealed how disastrous the system could be. Nelson played almost the entire game (which left many fans, including myself, screaming at the TV for Bronco to put in the passing quarterback, which, for some INEXPLICABLE reason, he chose not to) without success. The BYU offense, which usually looks at AFA the way a boxer looks at a punching bag, mustered 14 points, while or defense got outclassed, outsmarted, and outmuscled. Overall, it was embarrassing.

It's time for this madness to end. It's time to bring in a fresh mind, a coach who isn't afraid to pull out the stops and not fear 1 or 2 losing seasons in order to achieve true greatness. A coach who actually understands defenses. A coach who hates going to the Vegas Bowl. A coach who will start Jake Heaps, for crying out loud, or at least play him when Riley Nelson is clearly doing nothing for us.

And don't you dare criticize my fanhood. I'm as big a fan as BYU football as you will ever meet. Which is why I must proclaim the truth about Bronco. And the truth shall set you free...

Football is King - Noah or Benjamin?

Ah yes. Yesterday was a glorious day. Football is back. Although the Utes won the game, the fact that college football (soon to be followed by the NFL) is back sent joy into my heart once again. I suffered through an agonizing summer (although richly helped by the World Cup) of 2000 baseball games and an occasional world championship basketball game and tennis match. Finally, football is back...

Now on to my topic. BYU recently decided to become an independent in their football program at the sacrifice of every single other sports program. Why? Why shortchange ALL your other sports for one sport? Because football is king. Because football = money.

Is this a good thing? BYU will undoubtedly make more money as an independent than as a conference member in the MWC (consider one example: their new TV contract with ESPN will allow most of their games be televised on ESPN instead of the mountain. The Mountain network gave the school around 1.5 million dollars per SEASON, while ESPN will be paying BYU around that much money to televise a single game.). It is clear, then, that football runs the show at BYU.

In America, BYU is a microcosm of what makes the sporting world go round. It comes to no surprise that the Super Bowl is the most important annual sporting event for the majority of American Sport Fanatics. So this begs the question... is this a good thing? Is the dominance of football healthy for our nation? Is football a king Noah or a king Benjamin?

Let's look at some of the pros. Football can act as a powerful catalyst for economic activity and consumer spending in many cities, especially cities that house an NFL team. The amount of revenue generated, to a large extent, is getting redistributed in the form of entertainment - people pay for football to happen, and in return, football happens, and people (for the most part) are satisfied. Sheer entertainment value is another possible benefit of football. It is (again, for the most part), a fun to watch, clean, enormously entertaining sport that puts talents on display.

But what of the cons? These seem to be easier and easier to list: unbelievable amounts of time and energy are wasted on this sport. The players themselves are payed ridiculous amounts of money. Football encourages rampant gambling, scandal, and the danger of presenting men like Ben Rothlisburger, Plaxico Burress, and Michael Vick as role models for kids to look at. Football cheerleaders wear less and less per year. Colleges spend more and more money on their fooball program instead of giving more money to their students and the academic facilities.

As a lifetime fan of football, I obviously don't want it to go away. But I do see a danger inherent in the presence of football at such a high level. And no, I have no solution for the problem.

As for now, though, I welcome the upcoming season (despite BYU's fatal decision to start 2 quarterbacks). With open arms.

Christopher Nolan.

In the past few weeks, I have watched 3 movies by Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Inception. Each one I watched trying to find common threads and reasons why I like his directing style so much. Here's what I have decided.

1 - each movie uses Michael Caine. Way cool. But on a more serious note, his choice of actors is superb. He does not shy away from really popular actors (Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Jackman), and yet he also chooses actors for characters that play decisive supporting roles in which you may have seen that actor in one or two movies beforehand, but not nearly enough to influence your opinion about him. Two examples of this are Arthur in Inception (played by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) and Harvey Dent in Dark Knight (played by Aaron Eckhart). These actors are known, but not famous; and they fit their roles perfectly. Christopher Nolan can be credited then with an uncanny ability to fill his characters with actors who fit. This task seems way too hard for most directors (I mean, come on - who saw Nick Cage as Ghost Rider?). He has also benefitted from unseen dynamic performances, performances that knock your socks off, like Heath Ledger as the Joker, and Cyto in Inception. Sometimes the actor fits the mold impossibly well.

2 - Nolan's movies all feature spectacular cinematography, each according to the type of movie it is. Inception was breathtaking on so many levels. Who could have seen a city on top of another city, or a train careening through a street? Not to mention the Halo-like 3rd level, which was unbelievably cool. The Dark Knight was, well, unreal. The hospital scene actually featured a real building being blown up - credit Nolan for taking George Lucas-like consideration for real special effects and not just going to the computers for CGI.

3 - Nolan's movies (almost all of them) feature soundtracks composed by Hans Zimmer. This is comparable to Spielberg's reliance on John Williams, the Beethoven of movie soundtracks. Zimmer is Williams reincarnated, and the music only serves to support the movie (see tracks such as "Dream is Collapsing," "Time," and "Like a Dog Chasing Cars").

4 - Nolan's movies always leave you guessing, even if you know the outcome. The inherent problem with superhero movies is that you know how it is going to end. The superhero will come out on top, yada yada yada. However, Nolan's careful intertwining of the Joker and his madness throughout the Dark Knight left the audience (including myself) literally on their edge of their seat in suspense during the boat scene. The guessing happens throughout the movie, but never leaves you guessless. I was never completely lost in Inception.

5 - Nolan does not use pointless scenes as "filler." I recently saw a movie with Will Ferrell that included some scenes that were attempts to be funny, but had no bearing on the plot of the movie whatsoever. Nolan's films do not have these scenes. In fact, I was so aware of this fact that in Inception i was paying close attention to every single scene. Good thing, too; otherwise, I would have missed something.

6 - Nolan's films always include a Twist that, despite your best efforts, you do not see coming. Who pictured the last scene in the Prestige? Inception? Who saw Batman make the decision he did at the end? Not me. Stop being prideful and admit that you didn't either.

Those are just a few things I have noticed. I could go on. I hope to see this go on, and to see him continue at this position of prominence akin to Spielberg.

The Top 10...

Now that I have graduated, I can look back on my life at BYU and characterize what I liked and what I didn't like. I will use Letterman's top 10 format.

Top 10 things I DISLIKED about BYU:

10. APX hustlers.
9. Getting mobbed with flyers every time I walked from the WILK to the Library.
8. Mass Holiday Text Messages.
7. Mass emails from classmates who wanted notes from the previous class that they had missed.
6. Students who answered their phone OR other student's answers directed to the professor in class.
5. Students who asked questions in class just to make themselves sound smart OR attempted to blatantly contradict the Professor.
4. OCHEM.
3. BYUSA and their 7 dollar hot dogs.
2. The phrase "when I was on my mission..."
1. Utah Haters/Tools.

Honorable Mention: People who bear their testimony every month because it's their "goal"; loud neighbors; long lines; no close parking spots; shortchanging the students in athletics (see older post).

Top 10 things I LIKED about BYU:

10. An easily accessible weight room and basketball court (although crowded at times)
9. Lunches at the Cougareat (TB, anyone?)
8. SMASH!
7. On-Campus Jobs that were easily adjustable to my shifting schedule.
6. Affordable housing accommodations.
5. Intramurals.
4. Genuinely good, hardworking, friendly People.
3. HAROLD and the solace found inside his walls.
2. The Learning Environment, including unbelievably good professors.
1. It truly is a land flowing with milk and HONEYS...

There you have it. Feel free to add a list of your own.

A Story Describing why Provo is Cool.

This is a quick story of something funny that happened to me last night that illustrates a much deeper point.

I spent the evening last night in Provo, but I couldn't move into my new apartment yet so I had to find a buddy's couch or extra mattress to sleep on for the night. I called my old roommate Mark to see if he had space for me, which he did. He told me the apartment number (102A) in the Elms and that he would leave the door locked. Well, a certain female named Lindsay kept me out pretty late, so I arrived at the apartment after (I thought, at least) every one had gone to bed. Unfortunately, I forgot one thing... the apartment number. Was it 101A? I guessed. I tried the doorknob - open. I immediately lay down on the couch and fell asleep.

That morning, I awoke to the sound of a laptop next to me. One of the guys living there was typing on the couch next to me. I realized this was probably not Mark's apartment. This is the dialogue that ensued.

Me: "Uh, is this Mark Laney's apartment."
Him: "No..."
Me: "Oh. Shoot. I thought it was... oops."
Him: "No problem. You are welcome to use our couch."

It was that simple. An absolute stranger was sleeping on his couch (only doing so by entering his apartment in the middle of the night - intruder alert, anyone?), and he responded with a "no worries" attitude I wasn't expecting. I thanked him for letting me crash there, then headed out to the fieldhouse, where I showered and got ready for work (I know - I'm a homeless bum!).

This brings me to my point. Only in Provo could this happen, with such nonchalance as he handled it. Say what you will about Provo, about Utah. This place, however, is ridiculously people-friendly. I would have a hard time imagining this being ok if I were to try and slide into an apartment in, say, LA or Chicago. Most likely, I would be arrested. Or maybe they would just yell and tell me to get the (expletive) out of there.

Provo, indeed, is a nice place. Provo haters take the city for granted. And if they don't like it, maybe they can go elsewhere. I know quite a few homeless people who would let them cuddle up with them on the street in the middle of the night.