Incurable Stupidity

So I saw this article at the Deseret News, about a guy who went to a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight" this last weekend up in Salt Lake. The problem is, he took is 2-year-old son with him in the car. I imagine his dilemma when he parked the car went something like this: "If I take him into the movie, he'll be tired, cranky, fidgety, loud, I won't enjoy the movie, everybody will be mad at me, and plus, yeah, the violence might scar him for life. So I guess maybe it would be better if I left him out in the car sleeping, while I go watch the movie alone."

Yeah, obviously the guy wasn't really thinking things through there. I'm certainly not defending his decision. But allow me to remove my Politically Correct hat for a moment and share a probably-unpopular opinion.

The outcome of the event is what surprised me a bit. It was not hot outside, nor was it dangerously hot in the car when the child was "rescued" by authorities--although he was admittedly "thirsty." But the father is now in jail, under investigation for second-degree felony child abuse. And after reading the comments left on the story, I guess I must be in the minority for thinking that the charges seem somewhat excessive.

I couldn't resist leaving a comment/troll under the pseudonym of "Tree hugger":

I too remember being left in the car sometimes for long stretches by my mom. It was boring as all get-out when she would spend an hour in the grocery store or the mall while I roasted out in the car, but I considered it better than being dragged along with her. She would leave the windows cracked, lock the car doors, and instruct me not to talk to strangers--so it was all good. But of course that was the mid-70s in the peaceful suburbs of Detroit, not the modern-day jungle of urban Utah. And I was probably a couple years older than the kid in this story, at least 4.

Now there's a little sarcasm in that paragraph, but I'm half serious too.

What this father did was selfish & stupid. But the comment "there's no cure for stupid" is true: stupid people will always do stupid things, and 99 times out of 100 their kids will survive despite them. News should focus more on societal injustices, and our courtrooms more on prosecuting violent crime & fraud, rather than this type of useless (but titillating) finger-wagging at incurably stupid/negligent people.

"But... THINK OF THE CHILDREN," you cry? Oh please.

Am I foolish for drawing a distinction here between violent/sexual abuse and... stupidity? I know there's a whole spectrum of abuse, but being stupid is not against the law. And it's not against the law for stupid people to procreate. Sure people need to be educated about what parenting decisions are okay and what are unacceptable. Maybe this prosecution "sends a message" to people. (Never mind that stupid people don't typically "get" this type of message.) But if we locked up (or sterilized!) all the stupid people in the country, we'd be living in a Dystopian nightmare, not watching one at the midnight movie.

What do you think? Was this guy's stupidity really criminal? Should they lock him up to "keep him off the streets?" Should they have locked up my Mom for leaving me in the car?

LDS Movie Reviews

I read with some interest a little blurb in Sunday's Deseret News... apparently they're starting a new website ("MormonTimes.com") especially for LDS folks. (Wait, isn't the Deseret News pretty much already...?) Anyway, one feature of the site will be movie reviews:

Rather than have one designated film critic, we're going to ask all of you to share your thoughts and insights on the films you've seen here, so others can benefit from your experience. Of course, we won't be reviewing any "R" or "NC-17"-rated films, and we will limit the films that are reviewed to those that fit within the standards outlined in the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet and in the 13th Article of Faith ("virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy").

If you're very familiar with my taste in films, you might guess that "Of course" there really bugged me. Not that I seek out racy movies or anything, but about 1 in 3 of my very favorite movies of all time just happens to carry an R rating. My tastes in movies definitely fall a little on the "arthouse/foreign film" side of things (though I still enjoy a good action flick as much as the next guy). But what good is a movie review site that, right up-front, leaves out 1 in 3 movies I absolutely wouldn't have wanted to miss? So I took what seemed to be the rational course of action at the time... I wrote the editors of MormonTimes.com.

I just read about your forthcoming website, MormonTimes.com. I think it's a fine idea, and I like the idea of "community reviews" for movies instead of from a designated film critic.

However, I feel compelled to write about your stated policy that no "R" rated movies will be reviewed. I fully agree with and endorse the views expressed in "For the Strength of Youth," which you referred to in your story. From that pamphlet, I quote: "Choose only entertainment and media that uplift you. ... While much entertainment is good, ... offensive material is often found. ... Such entertainment (can make) what is wrong and evil look normal and exciting." It goes on to list the criterion we should use in deciding what worthy entertainment is: "Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way. Do not participate in entertainment that in any way presents immorality or violent behavior as acceptable."

I feel these are clear and inspired guidelines on what entertainment a person should choose for themselves. However, a key point of emphasis in this pamphlet (and indeed in the entire gospel) is that we must learn to make such life choices ourselves. This underlies my objection to basing the movie reviews in any way upon MPAA rating. The MPAA movie ratings are not created by people who share our values, and they can hardly be relied upon to judge between those films which will encourage moral understanding and responsibility. I do not believe we should push our responsibility to choose uplifting entertainment in any measure onto the MPAA. Indeed, this is one of the very biggest reasons that an LDS-focused community film review site is such a great idea!!

The MPAA rating of a movie is often--though not always--roughly proportional to the amount of explicit material in that film that a typical American parent might find "objectionable". However, my spiritual sensibilities are still deeply offended at some of the material covertly directed at children in PG and even some G movies, and certainly a great many PG and PG-13 movies violate the mandate to not "present immorality or violent behavior as acceptable." On the other hand, some movies with R ratings, though they may be difficult to watch, present information and ideas for mature audiences that serve to educate us, caution us of real dangers of the world we live in, and force us to consider and work through difficult or ambiguous moral dilemmas. These types of films, which I consider more educational or cautionary in nature than strict entertainment, can be a valuable resource, and I view the MPAA's rating them R as something of a disservice to society. Certainly they are not appropriate for young children, but they can be valuable part of young adult and adult intellectual, political, and emotional discourse and growth.

Rating systems do not differentiate between depictions of violence intended to educate about the real horrors of war, and depictions intended to thrill or breed hate. They do not differentiate between depictions of drug use intended to show the real and horrible consequences of such choices, and depictions that glorify drug use and deny consequences. They do not differentiate between depictions of sex that show it as a real, natural, loving union between two committed individuals, or that depict sexual abuse as an awful but very real problem faced by many families in society, and those depictions which are salacious or pornographic in nature and are intended to tease, tempt and titillate. In short, rating systems give us very little information about whether a movie will be uplifting or debasing, educational or deceptive, worthwhile or a complete waste of time.

The real challenge, then, is helping people to make informed decisions about the films they choose to watch, and consequently the ideas they choose to take into their minds. It is my sincere hope that your website will be helpful in this regard. To that end, may I make some suggestions? ...

Please don't automatically eliminate films from your site simply because of their rating; please take into account your users' reviews in deciding what gets endorsed on the site. I believe this could be done by not showing any films (of any rating) on the main portion of the site until they reach some threshold of positive reviews from site users. Of course you're free to exercise editorial control as well, suppressing mention of individual films that you feel (perhaps despite user reviews) may be misleading or otherwise inappropriate. But to effectively give to the anonymous MPAA ratings board control over which movies your users can review would, I feel, be a mistake and would severely limit the utility I and others might find in the site. ...

I wasn't too optimistic on getting a response, but one of their editors responded this afternoon (Monday). His response was far more reasonable than I'd feared.

... As far as the “no R-rated movies” policy is concerned, that has actually moderated a bit during the last couple of weeks – for many of the reasons you note. While we are comfortable with drawing a line at MOST r-rated movies (again, understanding that the MPAA ratings system is not the ultimate source of truth and light in this matter), we will remain open to the possibility of an occasional r-rated movie that we think will be worthy of consideration and discussion. “The Passion of the Christ” comes to mind. It was certainly widely discussed, both among people in general and among LDS audiences specifically. We would want to be able to weigh in on that one. Similarly, “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List” are probably films we’d want to put out there for thoughts, reviews and comments. So while I’m completely comfortable in slamming the door shut for most R-rated films, we are leaving the door open a crack for the occasional r-rated film that we feel merits consideration.

I fired back some follow-up questions about just what might cause them to feel such a film "merits consideration":

I guess my biggest question after reading your response, though is this: Will you at least place user submitted reviews in the balance when weighing whether a film that happens to bear an R rating merits consideration? As an example, let's suppose I hear some very positive things about an R-rated film. Let's suppose it's the relatively recent (and IMO critically underrated) "Children of Men." Suppose I see it and am deeply impressed with the quality of the film, the positive and life-affirming message it delivers, its central themes of having courage to do the right thing against very daunting odds, and the remarkably prescient things it has to say about the society we live in and the dangers of letting our political decisions be motivated by fear instead of love. Suppose I write a thoughtful review on this, which includes very clear and careful warnings about the R-ratedness of the film and the violence and language that, while not gratuitous or wanton, are nonetheless disturbing (and are intended to be so). I may even make reference to ideas about how, within the context of the film, these courser elements provide a foil that makes the sweet and touching moments of joy we discover as the story unfolds all the more powerful. The review might caution that the film is definitely not intended for children and is very intense, but could be very rewarding for adults, who might also like to use it as a jumping-off point for many types of discussions, etc.

His reply (in part):

“Children of Men” is not a film that I would naturally put [in the same category as the others mentioned earlier], so I probably wouldn’t consider reviewing it unless someone provided a review like the one that you described... The critical element to me would be the context of your review. If you reviewed it... from a gospel perspective rather than simply an artistic perspective, [and] stressed the positive values of the film, or the way it reflected gospel teachings – give me an LDS reason to run the review – I could be persuaded.

So there you have it. Me? I'm undecided, both on the count of whether I'll eventually write that review of Children of Men, and whether I'll find MormonTimes.com a useful resource in discovering good and perhaps under-publicized films to watch out for.

Snow, dishes, laundry... and hospitalization

Wow, sometimes life just overwhelms you a little bit. Our little daughter Hazel woke up last Thursday morning (1/30) at 2:30am with a high fever (103.something). She had been fighting with a low-grade fever for a few days already, and we had already been to the doctor once, but it didn't take much thought to know we should take her into the emergency room. So Jen packed her up and went into the local hospital while I stayed home with the older kids. They ended up admitting Hazel on Wednesday, and Jen has been amazingly strong in staying with her most of the time since then. (I spent one night in the hospital with her, but have been trying to work at least half-days.) Life as a spectator at the hospital, as anyone who's spent much time there as a non-patient can attest, ranges anywhere from dull to mind-numbingly boring, with brief little spells of alarm thrown in here and there. So your heart's gotta go out to Jen, who has been there five days so far.

Of course that's not to take the focus away from Hazel, who surely can't be enjoying her hospitalization much either. Between getting poked & prodded & tested in every way imaginable, it's really a miracle she stays as cheerful as she does. Friday they transferred her up to Primary Children's, where she and Jen remain today. Hopefully they'll be home soon, but we'll know more tomorrow after more tests & results.

Meanwhile, life on the home front continues. I've gained a new appreciation for all the domestic tasks Jen does every day, mostly because I've spent so much of my time trying to do them and so few of them actually get done. Dishes pile up, laundry piles up, and snow keeps piling up outside as well (ugh!). But we've had tremendous help already from friends and family, what with watching the kids during the day, bringing meals over, etc. etc. We are truly blessed with great family and friends!

Besides that... well, it seems like every day on the way to work, listening to NPR, I think of some great thing I'd just love to blog about. But by the end of the work day, I've completely forgotten whatever it was, so nothing gets blogged. Obviously I've got to try some new tactics!

Our Rights as Americans

So I was reading a blog entry over at Christianity Today about Mike Huckabee, where they were commenting on his recent campaign quote:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

My first reaction was complete disagreement with everything Huckabee said. That reaction was confirmed by most of the comments on the blog, but one reader ("Joe Chip") stated his opinion in a way that both reflected my own libertarian leanings, and got me thinking as well:

The Federal government has no business telling us who can and cannot marry, what drugs we are 'allowed' to take, how to raise our children or whom we can have sexual relations with. Their job is to protect us from foreign attacks and promote a sound monetary system, and little else.

Any right the government can grant it can take away. We may want folks like Huckabee in office because they're more in line with our morals, but please understand that in a generation, views on matters like this may change. For example: If the government can ban abortion, they can also demand it for 'defective' children. Please America, wake up. Love God and love your neighbor and stop ignorantly giving up your rights to people who don't have your best interest at heart.

This line of thinking really resonates with me. If we demand that the federal government make and enforce a law about some moral issue, don't we effectively surrender to the government our individual agency on that issue? We say, "We don't trust people to make good choices; we don't want to be allowed to choose." (To you LDS readers out there... whose plan does that sound like?!) Can we trust the federal government to always use that power we've given them responsibly? I certainly don't.

People will always make bad choices, and the solution is to love each other and support each other as we learn from our mistakes. That must happen on a personal/family/local level. It cannot be brought about by a federal law, or a beaurocratic program, or a police state. How many federal tax dollars get wasted trying to legislate and enforce morality? I believe there should be laws to protect our rights, but not to curtail our rights or liberties -- unless expression of our liberty violates or impinges someone else's.

Bad choices in life usually and naturally lead to undesirable consequences, both here and (I believe) hereafter. Drug possession/abuse is an easy example here: people addicted to drugs are already having a h*ll of a life. Why do we waste federal tax money, then, on a massively expensive "war on drugs", arrest people, and lock them up for making this choice? Aren't they already suffering for it? The solution is not more laws, or more draconian enforcement; it's finding a way to help your brother/sister/neighbor in dire need.

Igloo Builders

Piper is working on a project for school where she chooses a Native American tribe, learns about their traditions, and then does a bunch of research, a project, a report, and a class presentation about them. She chose the Inuits, so we've been immersed in Inuit/Eskimo culture around here for a couple weeks.

She had a great idea for a project, though... she wanted to build an igloo. I had recently borrowed a great igloo-building tool from our local scout troop, so yesterday Piper, Julia and I set out up the South Fork of Provo Canyon looking for a good spot to build. We found it way up near a spot where we'd been sledding in years past.

The bottom line: it's a lot harder to build an igloo than you might think from watching Nanook knock his out in about an hour. Ours took closer to 8! But it was a good experience for the girls, who learned a lot about the trials of hiking in deep snow (3 feet!) and hard work with a shovel. Here are some photos from the adventure:

Just for the record, the 8 hour construction time was primarily due to two factors: it was the first igloo any of us had ever built or seen first-hand; plus, the instructions on the igloo tool recommended 2-3 adults when building the igloo, but we gave it a shot with 1 adult, a 7 year old and an 8 year old. I can attest things would have gone more smoothly if we had followed the instructions more closely! :-)

The Politics of Preemption

So I happened upon a great political website this week... the "Vote by Issue Quiz". It presents you with on-the-record opinions by candidates on several key political issues, but it does so anonymously and allows you, based purely on the issue at hand, to express agreement, disagreement, or ambivalence. When you've read all the issues and marked your feelings on them, then it "reveals" which candidates you agreed (or disagreed) with. It takes some time to get through, but I found it worthwhile.

If I could add one issue to the quiz, though, it would be to add a question like: "If you were president, and you obtained credible intelligence that Iran was very close to a breakthrough in developing nuclear (or other) weapons of mass destruction, and that they planned to deploy those weapons against U.S. interests, would you preemptively attack that country to prevent those plans?" The quiz already contains a question about whether the candidates agree with President Bush's so-called "Doctrine of Preemption," but this issue is, to me, important enough that I want to know more about where a candidate might draw that line where they believe preemption is justified.

I think the danger with pre-emption is that it could easily become (if it hasn't already) a thinly-veiled excuse for unbridled imperialism: If some nation does not kowtow to U.S. interests, we simply discover some "credible threat" coming from that country, and bomb them into submission. The interesting thing about this is, attacking another country often has the uncanny effect of (1) making people in that country not like you, and (2) stirring up retaliatory aggression. So in some twisted way, in the end, the means seem justified.

None of the leading candidates seemed to have opinions on pre-emption that seemed very "safe." This is the most important issue to me in the upcoming election: we need someone in office who will not lead us into another unfounded war of aggression. If we're really sincere about helping the downtrodden peoples of the world that can't help themselves, there are enough examples of unjust oppression in areas already being ravaged by wars. In my opinion, we don't need to go creating new ones.