Bryce Moore's Blog, page 305

A More Peaceful Bryce Tells You How to Make Your Facebooking Safer

[image error] Sorry about my rant from earlier today. I'm feeling much better now, thanks for asking. It helped to get that all off my chest. I love my blog sometimes. :-)



Anyway, I thought I'd give you all something non-ranting today, so here's a link to my library blog, which tells you all about how you can make Facebook more secure in about a minute, and why you'd want to do that.



See? I'm not always just whining and complaining. I'm helpful sometimes, too.

Mormonism and True Christianity

Okay folks. Bear with me for a moment, because I've had it, and since this is my blog, I get to complain and grouse as much as I'd like. What am I fed up with this morning?



People trying to define other people.



Specifically, I'm sick of people--the media, anonymous commenters, etc--trying to say I'm not a true Christian. They don't say it to my face, of course. And I've never had a single friend, acquaintance or even enemy tell me this personally. But time and time again, when Mormonism comes up online in a conversation or article, its "Christian Cred" is called into question. (Yes, I get alliterative when I get irritated. Sue me.) If someone writes about Mitt Romney, you can bet that the comment section will be full of people bashing Mormons for being idiots and un-Christian. If any other public figure is known for being Mormon, then the same thing happens any time they come up in the news. It's like anytime "Mormon" appears online somewhere, then people feel the urge to tell everyone how Mormons are deluded chuckleheads who aren't Christian anyway. (The exact flavor of criticism seems to vary based on the critic.)



I've attended my fair share of Mormon meetings when there are protesters gathered outside, signs in hand proclaiming I'm worshipping Satan, I'm not Christian, God hates me, or some other nonsense.



What's up with the exclusiveness? Is there some red velvet rope club people have to belong to in order to be "true Christians." Last time I checked, a Christian is a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. So shouldn't that be the test? I mean, if someone said he was a Christian, and then proceeded to sacrifice cats, kill puppies at random and worship a talking goat named Fred, then yes, I suppose you could openly wonder whether he's really a Christian or not.



But if a person consistently strives to obey the teachings of Christ and believes himself to be Christian, what do I care if I quibble with him over doctrinal issues? He's Christian. Yes, you can get into arguments over saved by works or saved by grace, or you can start going on about how Mormons worship a "different" Christ. But I'd like to challenge anyone who wants to say Mormons aren't Christian to actually go to a Mormon church service and find out for themselves just how un-Christian we are.



It seems to me the people making claims about Mormonism are people who know nothing about it. They know what they've been told by other non-Mormons, but heaven forbid they have a discussion with an actual living breathing Mormon. We might brainwash them into thinking we're right. Because that's what happened to all of us. We either grew up in the church (in which case our parents brainwashed us--like me) or were brainwashed later in life (like my wife). We're deluded idiots who go around trying to get other people to agree to brainwashing, too. So the haters content themselves reading articles on Wikipedia or anti-Mormon websites and go on their merry way, convinced of their own superiority.



In my oh so humble opinion, anyone afraid to ask questions of any religious person because they're afraid that religious person is going to shake their own faith . . . ought to question how strong their personal faith is to begin with. I've talked with atheists, Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, agnostics, Methodists, Muslims and more. Not just chit-chats about the weather, but long involved conversations about religion. Why people believe (or don't believe). What they believe. It's interesting to me. And as long as you avoid the question of who is "right," then it's possible to have some really great conversations. (And yes, as a former missionary, I've had plenty of those who is "right" conversations as well. My take on the matter? If you're living your religion or non-religion to the best of your abilities, following after the light and truth as you understand it, then keep on trucking. I think we'll both end up in the same place.)



Breathe, Bryce. Breathe.



I know Mormons aren't alone in this. I've heard people disparage other people for everything from not being a "real vegetarian" to not being a "real geek." There's a natural human tendency to want to separate yourself out from others. To want to prove that you're doing things "right" and that other people aren't. When you pair this up with the seemingly inborn inclination to disparage people who are different from you, then you have a powerful combination.



I'm Mormon. You all know this. I'm also a Christian. If you want to argue about it, go somewhere else. I'm done talking to you. The world has few enough religious, moral people. Do we really need to start fighting over definitions? Can't we all just get along? Be accepting of other people?



Yes, I realize that some of you might have had bad experiences with Mormons. There are those of my faith who can be belligerent and obnoxious. Some of those end up being missionaries, and then they really have a platform and ammunition to bring that Obnoxious to the next level. They're boneheads. But boneheads aren't unique to Mormonism. There are boneheads of every race, creed, nation and flavor out there. Judging an entire people by a single bonehead only means that you're vying to be a bonehead yourself.



You're completely entitled to think I'm wrong and deluded. You can disagree with me on points of doctrine. Yes, I'll be irritated if you start making a bore of yourself, continually wanting to harp on this or that point, but only because I don't do that sort of thing to other people, and I expect the same in return. Yes, I talk about Mormon doctrine from time to time on my blog, but hey--it's my blog. I don't spout off about how other religions are wrong. I talk about my personal beliefs, while hopefully not attacking anyone else's.



All I ask is for the same in return.



This being the internet, I doubt I'll ever get it.



Anyway . . . venting done. I can go back to being a mild mannered librarian for the day. Thanks for listening folks. I already feel much better.



(Until the inevitable anonymous comments pop up. Really, people. If you're going to disagree with me on this post, at least have the self-confidence to tell me who you are. It's hard to have a good discussion with a faceless automaton.)

Movie Review of the Day

Okay, faithful readers. I got a good one for you today. Going My Way. Not sure how many of you have already seen this one. I'd seen the title a lot, but never got around to actually watching it--until last night, that is. Why should you see it?



Bing Crosby.



Well, him and the ten Oscar nominations (7 wins) the film earned. Here's a tidbit for you--it's the only movie to ever earn an actor nominations in Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. (Bing won for best actor, his co-star Barry Fitzgerald was the one nominated for both. He won supporting.) It's directed by Leo McCarey, who helmed some other films you might have heard of: An Affair to Remember and Duck Soup.



The story's pretty basic: Bing plays a priest called in to help a church get out of a mess of debt. He's young and liberal-minded when it comes to religion. The priest he's sent in to help is old and traditional. Bing uses the power of his charm, wit and golden vocal cords to overcome all opposition and save the day. (Honestly, sometimes I wonder why we didn't just send Bing to Germany in World War II. The man would have turned the whole thing into a musical number, summoned some picturesque snow, and left whistling merrily on his way.)



It's got some nice songs (Swing on a Star won the Oscar), good acting, lighthearted humor and is overall worth an hour and a half of your time. Plus, it's on Netflix streaming, which is always a big plus. So give it a whirl--tell me what you think.



And have a nice Monday.

Bryce the Book Pusher (and a Publisher's Weekly announcement about a certain book deal . . . )

So TRC has been devouring the Animorphs series, which I picked up from a certain library that was getting rid of theirs. (Gotta love the donation shelf.) I've been really happy to see him with a nose in a book a lot of the time, but I couldn't help but wish he'd get into something a bit more . . . lofty, shall we say. (This isn't meant as a jab against Animorphs. I've never read the series, so I don't feel like I can disparage it.) In any case, I brought home Over Sea, Under Stone from my library and gave it to him about a month ago. It languished amidst his other books, passed over for things with flashier covers time and time again. I knew he could handle it, and that he'd like it--we'd listened to A Wrinkle in Time on the way down to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving, and he didn't want it to end. But the packaging of the book just wasn't up to today's standards. (It's not the cover I included to begin this post. It's the first edition. This one:







Anyway, he finally ran out of Animorphs, and it was a bit before we could make it to the library again so he could pick out some more, so I suggested he try Susan Cooper again. He agreed and took it with him to bed. The next morning, I asked how it went. He made it through two pages and gave up.



Not good.



Was I just out of touch? Was the book not as good as I remembered? I vowed not to give up so easily, so last night I offered to read it to him. We read the first chapter together, and then I said he could keep reading, but my voice was tired. I gave him the book. He read the next three chapters on his own, and he's off and running now.



Mwa ha ha ha!



(By the way--has anyone noticed the overabundance of adverbs in that book? I never saw it as a kid, but it really grated on me now. Still like the book, and it might have been different if I hadn't been reading it out loud, but still . . . )



Anyway, once he's got The Dark is Rising polished off, I'll start him on Prydain and Narnia, and then it's just a short jump over to The Hobbit, and we all know what comes after that. Lord of the Rings, baby. I read it when I was in second grade. I'm wondering if TRC can get to it by the end of first. Maybe, if Denisa would stop taking him skiing so often. :-)  Growing a superhuman isn't easy, but between the two of us, we're working at it.



And in other news, here's the announcement about Vodnik that appeared in Publisher's Weekly Children's Bookshelf Newsletter yesterday:

Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has bought Bryce Moore's debut novel Vondnik, for publication in spring 2012 by the Tu Books imprint. The YA fantasy tells the story of Tomas, a Roma boy who returns to Slovakia and discovers that the folk tale creatures he befriended as a boy are more dangerous than he knew, and he must strike a bargain with Death to save his cousin's life. Eddie Schneider at JABberwocky Literary Agency brokered the deal for North American rights.

So they got the name of the title wrong (Vodnik, not Vondnik) but I still thought that was pretty nifty. Nice to see things moving along. I'll be working on that rewrite very shortly. Can't wait!

When Libraries Flood: Acting in Times of Crisis

My library flooded yesterday. All us librarian folks were in a staff meeting when some students reported water in the basement. Students report things a lot of the time, though. Maybe someone had spilled their soda. Or maybe it was tracked in snow that had melted.



Or maybe a water main had burst in the locked janitor's closet, with water streaming out underneath the door faster than Niagara Falls.



Just as no one expects the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a burst water main. I haven't been in too many situations where immediate action is required. Sure, there are car accidents--or near accidents--but those are over and done so fast, you're not quite sure what happened. With this, who knew what was going to happen. How long would the water keep flowing? How high would it get? What was the best way to get the books to safety? You don't have time to sit around debating what to do and what the best approach is, and chances are, what you do won't be ideal. But you have to do something.



What did we do? Someone called facilities, someone called the fire department (they have a lot of experience with water and buildings, after all), someone managed to get the closet open and hold back some of the water, others started moving books onto library carts to get them higher. Others moved books onto higher shelves.



I'm happy to say that all that action resulted in a lot of good and no real bad. The water main was shut off, the books were moved out of the way of damage, and the fire department and facilities did a wonderful job getting the water down into the elevator shaft, where a sump pump whisked it off to who knows where. So all's well that ends well. For now at least, until we find out if there's a mildew problem, or if the carpets need to be replaced, or if the books absorbed any of the evaporating water.



In any case, it just got me thinking about emergency response. I hadn't taken a single moment to think about what I would do if there were ever a flood in the library, so when the time came, I wasn't sure what to do. Yes, I helped out, and yes, it all ended well, but the disaster could have been worse--and maybe if I'd thought about what to do ahead of time, the actions I chose to take would have been more appropriate in that situation. (Again, I'm not meaning to say that I screwed anything up--I think we did a great job of keeping damage to a minimum. What I'm saying is that forethought and planning can make a big difference in times of crises.)



This is why we as a family periodically go over what to do in the case of a fire. This is why school's have fire drills. Why firefighters in the area regularly burn down old buildings so that they can get practice fighting fires. Because if you wait until the emergency's right on top of you, then you have no idea if what you do is going to be a Good Plan or not. Of course, it might turn out that what you planned ahead for isn't relevant in the heat of the moment, but at least you'll have thought some things out, and you increase the odds that you're making an informed decision instead of just going on a hunch.



What are your thoughts? What emergencies have you had to deal with, and how happy have you been with how you dealt with them? Do you have a plan ahead of time, or did you wish you had? Do share.

Ski School for TRC

TRC started ski school yesterday. He gets something like 10 two hour classes for around 90 bucks, which I consider a steal. Of course, this is also our first experience with the infamous Cart Your Kid Places syndrome, which turns parents (typically mothers) into taxicabs for the next 12 years of their lives. Denisa had quite the time getting the skis into the car, getting the kids dressed for sub zero wind chills, picking TRC up from school and making it to the hill in time. But she managed to pull it all off, because she's good like that.



How did it go?



From what I heard, very well. TRC has been looking forward to this for months. He came home last night and I asked him how it was. "Good." Monosyllabic answers, for the win. He opened up a bit more about it later--he did have a good time. There are only five kids in his class, so I think he should get plenty of practice in. Meanwhile, Denisa is giving DC ski lessons, too. We borrowed some kids skis from some friends, and Denisa picked up boots back at the school used ski sale. Right now DC is learning how to keep her skis together while Denisa pulls her around, and she already wants to go up the tow rope or the T bar. (I think she thinks it'll be sort of like the rides at Disney World.) At her age (not even 3 yet), the main point is to make sure she has a good time. If things go well,  maybe next year all four of us can go out skiing regularly.



Anyone else out there teaching their kidlets to ski? For some reason I don't recall knowing that many people teaching their kids when I was in Utah, but that might well have to do with the fact that we weren't that far along in our child rearing years. It also helps that it's significantly cheaper here. From what Denisa said, there were quite a few kids out on the slopes for lessons yesterday. When you get as much snow as we (usually) do, you might as well learn how to play in it, or winter's going to be awfully long each year . . .

My Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations

First of all, how cool is that hat? I want one. Maybe I should buy one and use it as the yearly trophy for my Oscar competition. Tempting . . .



Anyway--the Oscars. That yearly self-congratulatory time for cinema. It's as if I said I'd start having a ceremony once a year where I gave awards to myself for the coolest things I did all year. Sure, the first few years would seem rather strange, but after I'd been at it for thirty or forty years, it would turn into a Venerable Institution. I might even be able to sell TV broadcasting rights. (Note to self: look into this.)



That said, I love me some Oscars. I don't really know why. I just enjoy watching them and grousing about how this year wasn't nearly as good as ten years ago, or how the hosts aren't as good as Billy Crystal. (Anne Hathaway has one thing guaranteed this year--she'll look better than Billy). In any case, the nominations went out this morning. What are my thoughts?



Well, I don't get to see as many of the Oscar nominations before Oscar night as I'd like to. I've seen the following nominees:



Inception
Toy Story 3
True Grit
How to Train Your Dragon
Day & Night
Tangled
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter 7.1
Iron Man 2
I'd imagine many of you have seen more of the films than I have. I'm also reasonably certain quite a few of the films I haven't seen will earn the majority of the awards. So I don't really feel like I can opine on who "should" win, since in order to do that, I feel like I should have seen all the nominees in each category. And that's what I want to talk about.

12 nominations for The King's Speech? 10 for True Grit? I suppose I'm just disappointed in the trend these days to have a few films end up gobbling up so many nominations. I'd like to see the love spread around a little. I'm sure Social Network, King's and Grit are all very deserving. I loved True Grit, myself. But can you honestly tell me that there aren't other movies out there just as deserving in some of these categories?

I hate how the Oscars seems to turn into a popularity contest. (But not TOO popular, mind you--otherwise they'll be accused of selling out). Ideally, I wish everyone involved in the nominations would watch all the films, then nominate the ones they personally liked the most. In actuality, movies have Oscar campaigns, with PR people trying to jostle for best exposure. Blech.

And yet I keep returning year after year. Maybe I'm just mentally deranged. (Don't comment on that, please.) In any case, bring on the Oscars. And somebody buy me that hat. I'll post pictures if you do. :-)

Frozen Pipes and the Stomach Flu: A Match Made in Heaven

It's cold up here in Maine. How cold? 15 below this morning, with a wind chill of You Gotta Be Kidding Me. I woke up ready to go out to brave the cold, only to find out my stomach had other ideas. Maybe there's some big red button in my body somewhere, and when it thinks I'm going to do something it doesn't want to do, it slams the PANIC button. Or maybe my stomach's just good friends with the flu bug and decided to have a sleepover last night. I have no idea. All I know is I'm not going out today.



Of course, the cold decided to fight back at my decision to stay in by coming in, as well. Denisa tried to get the dishwasher going, only to have a whole lot of nothing happen. (No, the rest of our pipes aren't frozen--no worries. And even if they were, we get most of our heat from our wood stove, so we'd be just fine. Thanks for wondering, though.)



So this was mainly just a hassle. That said, if left unchecked, it could be a fairly expensive hassle. So I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed the trusty hairdryer, and went to work. The dishwasher complained some, but it's now functioning again, and no burst pipes anywhere, so it all has a happy ending.



Except for me. No happy ending here. I'm going back to bed. Carry on without me for the day, world.

Marriott Ditches Adult Pay-Per-View: Observations on a Mormon Mentality

I just read over on USAToday that new Marriott hotels are no longer offering adult pay-per-view films. If I read it correctly, they're not offering pay-per-view, period--switching over to some sort of internet-based option, instead. Why is this noteworthy? Well, for one thing, it's noteworthy because up to this point, no other large hotel chain has done this. (Omni, which owns about 50 hotels, did it back in 1999.) For another thing, Marriott was started and is owned by a Mormon, and I've always found it curious that they would tacitly endorse pornography--even profit off it. My brother used to work for Marriott, and I asked him about it back in the day. He said it was simple economics: if Marriott didn't offer pay-per-view porn, then they'd lose business travelers. It was that vital to success in the hotel industry.



Wow.



I thought that was wrong on so many different levels. First of all, why is it that business travelers need their porn fix that badly? Second, what happened to sticking up for what you believe in? Marriott hotel rooms all come loaded with a Book of Mormon, after all. Why not stand up against porn in a public way?



So now Marriott's ditching it at last. Yay? Well, maybe not. See, when Omni ditched its ties to porn in 1999, it did so because it said it didn't want to make a profit off that industry. Marriott's reasons today? It's no longer as profitable. (Why not? Well let's think . . . There's this little thing called the internet that seems to have taken off recently. Heard of it?) I want to believe that what this really means is that it's no longer so all important to business travelers, and so they can ditch the porn and keep the business. Maybe that's the case. Or maybe it's just economics again. Porn isn't profitable for Marriott, so they're eliminating it, just like they'd phase out breakfast buffets if those started costing the company too much.



I realize that life is not simple. As  much as people would like to boil everything down into a black and white decision, that's not how it works. Marriott's a publicly traded company. It has obligations to meet to its shareholders. (BTW, shares today are down 1.15% today so far.) It also isn't a "Mormon" company. And in the end, why do I care what the religion of the founder and owner is? I have no clue what religious persuasion Howard Johnson adhered to. I've never even stopped to consider it until just now.



There's a tendency of Mormons to identify with other Mormons--to root for the Eagles because Andy Reid is a member, or vote for David Archuleta on American Idol because he is. I've even seen this affection extended to people who used to be Mormon, but aren't any more (or aren't active, at any rate). Amy Adams, Eliza Dushku--there were even extensive rumors that Steve Martin had converted about 10 years ago. The same holds true with fantasy/sci-fi authors. Off the top of my head, I can list Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, David Farland, Stephanie Meyer, Tracy Hickman, Shannon Hale, James Dashner and Brandon Mull. Mormons generally know who else out there is Mormon.



I'm not sure why this is--I have to guess it has something to do with a perceived persecuted status--an "us against them" sort of mentality. Maybe Mormons feel like it validates their beliefs when someone famous is also a Mormon. "See? Steve Young's a member. Gladys Knight converted. The church must be true." If you want to join a church based solely on its star power, there are certainly other well-documented options out there.



Besides, you just have to visit any Mormon congregation to see there's a wide variety of ways of living the religion. Yes, things are generally the same, but if you start asking specific questions, you'll find a fair bit of disagreement on specific points. That's how you end up with Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid both being Mormon. So just because Steve Young is Mormon, how does that impact you? In the end, your faith shouldn't rely on what other people believe. It should rest on what you believe. If Marriott wants to open up a topless bar in Vegas, so be it. If they change their name to The Mormon Marriott Hotel Chain, and then open up that topless bar, you might hear me start to object a bit more.



Any one from other religions out there want to chime in on this? Do Catholics all know who else is Catholic? Do Episcopalians care if someone else is Episcopalian? Do share.

Why I Love Maine Reason #532

I really enjoy this new state I find myself living in. There are many reasons--some of which I've gone into detail at length on my blog (my continued Eternal House Project, for example). But one thing I haven't said is how great it is to drive in western Maine,. The roads are empty, there are lots of trees and turns and plenty of gorgeous views to keep you occupied, and you never know when you're going to see another cool old house around the next bend. I trekked to Augusta and back this morning, and on the return trip, I didn't get stuck behind any slow drivers--hardly saw any other drivers at all. The sun was out, music was blasting, and it was smooth sailing the whole way.



Perfect.



Of course, it helps to have a GPS, since the roads can get fairly bewildering quite quickly. Also, I need to drive to Bangor tomorrow for a library meeting, and there's 3-6 inches of snow forecast, so we'll see how much I like driving tomorrow.



Still, for a guy like me who likes his roads fast and empty, western Maine can be a pretty great place. Every time I leave the state and go elsewhere, I'm reminded how miserable traffic really is. To me, traffic is getting home in 6 minutes instead of 5.



:-)