A Week in Review

Hello Everybody! It is Friday. I’ve never been one of those people who walks around the office saying things like “Only 3 more days till Friday” or some other hooray for Friday statement because I think it would be a sad life if you spent five days of every week wishing that it were the other two. Honestly, do we really hate what we do all week that much? But, today I have to admit that I am ready for the week to end. It's been long. Let’s do A Week in Review.

The Girls
I’m going to have some fun tomorrow going out with the girls. When they were little I did a lot of babysitting, and we’d go do things – have dinner, rent movies, go downtown to Temple Square or the parks, the swimming pool, lots of things. As they got older the babysitting wasn’t needed anymore, and then they got busy with other things, as teenagers do, so it’s been some time since we've all gone somewhere together. With Sierra leaving for school soon, I thought it would be fun to relive our wilder days (you know, when they were 5 and very into Winnie the Pooh), so I invited them out. Tomorrow we’re going to get together about 5:30, have dinner, and then go see the movie Post Grad. They’re Gilmore Girls fans, and the star of Gilmore is in this movie; therefore, it is a must see. I’m really excited about it. The girls are fun, and of course I love them like crazy, and I’ve missed our time together. It’ll be good.

Cash for Clunkers
This may bore you to tears, and for that I’m sorry, but I have another issue. Most of the people in the circles I move in are hard-core Republican, and very biased in their views. This is Utah after all. I try not to cling to either party, but I sometimes find myself silently rooting for the Democrats just for spite. Is spite a good reason to join up with a party? I think so. It's really all I've got. Anyway, here’s a case in point: when I’m watching the news, or listening to NPR radio, I often hear reports on the Cash for Clunker program that are very favorable. GM has rehired about 1300 of the people they previously laid off. Ford is seeing profits like they haven’t seen in years. The auto makers are happy. And then I come into the office and hear things that would make a person believe that EVERYONE is losing EVERYTHING they own because of the government, and oh that Cash for Clunkers program – it’s one of the signs of the Apocalypse. They heard it in a report.

Now of course, because of the incredible bias I don’t take much of what I hear every day very seriously, but I do wonder about news and more so the popular commentators. Can anyone really be trusted? Do you remember the story in the Book of Mormon about the lawyers in the city where Alma and Amulek were teaching who purposely tried to rile people up so that they’d take each other to court, and in the end the lawyers became very rich? People like to read that story today and think of ambulance chasing personal injury lawyers, but I’m starting to believe that our best modern day examples are the political commentators. Those guys with their books and tv and radio shows are multi-millionaires! And what do they really do? For every one on one side of the fence hollering about something, there’s another on the other side hollering that he’s wrong. They feed people’s addiction to fear and anger, and create an extreme dislike of certain groups. That does not help anyone.

I honestly believe that one of the biggest problems our nation faces is its extreme lack of unity. Sure everyone has an opinion on things, and the opinions are wide and varied. But does that have to mean that we get hateful with each other? Do we really have to hold with all of our might to the belief that Cash for Clunkers is going to bring financial ruin just because someone from the other party thought of it? And besides, we all know that most of our huge national debt came from the war in Iraq, not from a car buying program (I’m sorry, I just had to get that dig in there).

Well, I’ve said enough. My apologies for the rant, but I do honestly think about unity, and how much our nation needs it, and try to understand how we can achieve it, and then I wonder if we ever will.

Alice in Wonderland
A better topic all together. I’ve been watching the trailer for the Alice in Wonderland movie that's coming out next year - it looks so good. And Sierra told me that she’s reading the book, so I decided to brush the dust off of my copy and read it too. I had no idea how funny it is – so funny. I’ve laughed out loud many times. Here’s one piece that really cracked me up:

“They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.

The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better'; and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, `Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'LL soon make you dry enough!' They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.

`Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! "William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'

Get it? A recitation on William the Conqueror was the driest thing he knew – dry! That gets me every time.

I think that we’ll end on that note. Thanks, as always, for your constant brilliance.
You are loved.