I have noticed that non-Muslim Americans, even those who love and support Muslims, often make the mistake of thinking that Islam is a race or nationality. Something "other", in other words. In truth, Muslims can be as white and/or American as anyone else. They're just normal people. And while they certainly deserve their reputation for being devout, far more so than Christians in many cases, they have other pursuits and interests just like everyone else. I thought about this recently when I watched "Rogue One" again and noted that, since it was partially filmed in Jordan, the credits listed several Jordanian people of whom the vast majority are undoubtedly Muslim. And Riz Ahmed, the rapper who was so eager to play defecting Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook that he sent in ten audition tapes, is a Muslim. I hope this doesn't sound patronizing. I only wish to tear away some of the "otherness" that many of us ascribe to Muslims without even realizing it.

So it got me thinking, what is it about Star Wars that transcends cultural and religious differences, that appeals to Muslims as well as Christians or atheists or whoever else? Of course, all of the above enjoy the action sequences and cool aliens and so forth as much as the next guy, but I think there's a deeper reason than that, especially for people as devout as most Muslims who weave worshiping God into every day of their lives. In my futile and long since aborted quest to collect all the Star Wars books that existed, I got "The Episode I Scrapbook". It was full of pictures and trivia and it had a behind the scenes section with a couple quotes from George Lucas that I think speak to why Star Wars is so universally appealing and enduring.

"The Force evolved out of various developments of character and plot. I wanted a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God and there is good and evil. I began to distill the essence of all religions into what I thought was a basic idea common to all religions and common to primitive thinking. I wanted to develop something that was nondenominational but still had a kind of religious reality. I believe in God and I believe in right and wrong. I also believe that there are basic tenets which through history have developed into certainties, such as 'thou shalt not kill.' I don't want to hurt other people. 'Do unto others...' is the philosophy that permeates my work."

"The first film simply sets up Anakin as a sweet kid, which is what we have to do - say, 'First of all, he's just like you and me. He's a nice little kid and he wasn't evil.' A lot of people got very upset and wanted him to be an evil little kid that went around pulling wings off flies, as if that would explain everything. But then where does the story go? The point is not that you are born evil - the thing that makes the film work ultimately is the fact that he is a good kid, trying to be a good kid, and he grows up to be a good kid. It's simply that his emotions take him places he can't control. He becomes evil out of his own ambition and greed, and revenge and hatred - all those things that kids face."

And virtually all of those books are now non-canon anyway. Goodbye, Dave Wolverton's masterpiece "The Courtship of Princess Leia". No more of Han gloating, "Kiss my Wookiee!" No more of Luke threatening, "Take your hands off her or I will take your hands off you." No more of C-3PO singing, "Han Solo, what a man, Solo, he's every Princess's dream!" I hope great lines like these will at least be reincorporated into future movies. The Nightsisters of Dathomir did get used in "The Clone Wars" series, at least, resulting in an utterly ridiculous but thoroughly awesome storyline.

Star Wars is a subgenre of science fiction called space opera, which is sort of grand and sweeping and larger than life. Viewing it as a work of art as much as a story has helped me tolerate some of the more ridiculous elements, like technobabble and single-biome planets and blockades of only three ships and old friends running into each other in a galaxy of over a quadrillion people, while still appreciating the internal logic and consistency and depth of everything else. So many planets and characters and species and ships and droids and stories... it's got to be the largest franchise in the history of ever. And I'm blessed to have been born into the small window of human history when it exists. But the absolute most ridiculous thing that I can't get over is in "The Force Awakens" when Han uses the hyperdrive to get past the third Death Star's, I mean Starkiller Base's shield and then slows down before hitting the planet. Light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second. The Millennium Falcon was going faster than that. Either from hitting the planet or decelerating so abruptly, it would have been pulverized to atoms.

Now that Star Wars movies are being released in December I have to write about them and Christmas at the same time, and there's only so many ways to tie them together. Is there Christmas in the Star Wars galaxy? Their equivalent is generally considered to be "Life Day", first revealed in 1978's really really really bad "Star Wars Holidy Special", a holiday that Wookiees celebrate by covering their nudity with red robes and evidently taking some kind of psychedelic drug so they can walk through space into a star and listen to Princess Leia sing while she's so coked up that her eyes are pointing in opposite directions like a chameleon and she has to hold onto Chewbacca to stay standing. But the special was actually aired (one and only time) around Thanksgiving, not Christmas.

​​The 1980 album "Christmas in the Stars", in addition to giving a young Jon Bon Jovi his debut on one track, revealed that the Star Wars galaxy has Christmas as well. Not that it's saying a lot, but this album is scads better than the Holiday Special and I actually like it and recommend it to everyone without apology. You don't want to miss Artoo beeping along to the tune of "Sleigh Ride" as Threepio teaches him to sing, or a bunch of droids pondering the age-old question of what to get a Wookiee for Christmas when he already owns a comb. (I shared that a couple years ago here.) In the end [SPOILER ALERT] it is revealed that Santa's brother helps him deliver toys because the galaxy is too big for him to do it on his own.

​Why do we spend so much effort making movies where the entire point is that Santa Claus is real and the skeptics need to have faith when Santa Claus is not, in fact, real? I think it's because Santa Claus should be real. In a just world, Santa Claus would be real. Because Santa Claus is second only to Jesus as an embodiment of all that is good and right and noble. But if we cultivate these attributes in ourselves, and keep them alive not just at Christmastime but all year round, then Santa Claus is real in a lame metaphorical not real sense.

One of my bishopric members really wanted to read my book, providing an opportunity to see how the more chronologically advanced Mormon demographic will receive it. So far he has been thrilled and not bothered by the thematic elements, cynical critiques of the human condition, or references to evolution. He says he learned some new words for the golf course; "Fardles" and "Space spit" (affectionate homages to Anne McCaffrey's "Dinosaur Planet" and R.L. Stine's "Space Cadets" series, respectively).

Originally I used real swear words, mainly because "The Outsiders" didn't and it totally ruined my suspension of disbelief. "We'll kill each other with broken beer bottles, but we won't swear or talk about sex, no matter how contrived this makes our dialogue at times. Also, we have names like Soda Pop and Pony Boy." So I was just being realistic. But then I read an interview with Dave Wolverton, who was asked how his Mormon faith influenced his writing and said in part: "When I first started writing, I was trained by my professors to try to create natural sounding voices (so if people swear, then you should swear), and I started realizing that I was really not being true to myself. Just because people swear doesn't mean I need to do it in my writing. I decided after my first novel to sort of back off on that, and I've noticed that a lot of other fine bestselling authors do the same - they don’t use any profanity at all." I figured that probably no one would read it because of the swearing, but people might not read it because of the swearing. So I fixed that. Though the concept of having words in our language that we're not supposed to say is still stupid to begin with.

I hope Star Wars doesn't steal all my ideas. "The Force Awakens" had me a little worried when the Millennium Falcon's escape from Tatooine, I mean Jakku, bore somewhat of a resemblance to a similar escape in my book.

The original Star Wars movie was supposed to be timeless, but the myriad third-party attempts to cash in on it, including at least a score of disco or pop covers of the main theme (with the one by Meco charting at number one), were forever rooted in 1977-8. This band went a little too far with this album. They thought that Lucasfilm wouldn't sue them if they wrote the final S in "Star Wars" backwards, but they were wrong. Forty years later and like most of the others it's long since become public domain. I like it not just for its "camp" charm but legitimately as good music. Sue me. With gems like "Don't Fall in Love With an Android" and "Chewie the Rookie Wookie [[sic]", how could I not?

​

Last week's post may have read like a drunken rant (insert your own quip about all my posts reading like that here) because I was, as I indicated, more sleep-deprived than usual when I wrote it. And I didn't feel the need to go into much actual detail about the contents of Drumpf's executive order because the news was two days old by that point and I figured no one wanted to read a repetition of what they already knew. Since that time, I have seen counterarguments from Drumpf's defenders and counterarguments against the counterarguments, and because I am a reasonably honest person I have considered the embarrassing possibility that after speaking out so emphatically I was, in fact, wrong. But in the end I concluded that I wasn't and that my outrage, whether or not I handled it as gracefully as I ought to have, was fully justified.

You know, last week someone at church suggested that becoming like God includes not getting angry, and I thought, No offense, but have you ever read the Bible, like even a little bit? God doesn't not get angry. Anger is not an inherently bad emotion. Anger stemming from compassion for people you've never met whose lives will never affect yours is, I would argue, a very good emotion, albeit a useless one if it isn't strong enough to drive you to action. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland agrees. A few months ago he told a gathering of global political leaders at Windsor Castle that "governments today are not responding to the refugee problem urgently enough, nor on a large enough scale... The world needs to be more outraged than it is, when we read of the persecution, the violence, the sexual violence, the murder, the rape, the destruction of families and any social structure that these people have had - almost entire cultures being destroyed."

Whelp, I've decided to analyze this thing more closely to prove that I'm not just riding the wave of public backlash. First I think it's worth pointing out an important distinction that most people, whether for or against the ban, seem to have failed to grasp. The ban prohibits all immigration of any kind from the seven targeted countries for 90 days, but it also prohibits all refugees from all countries, anywhere, for 120 days, and from Syria indefinitely, and lowers the quota who will be permitted in 2017 to less than half of the one set by Obama. Now I suppose the best jumping-off point for my analysis would be Drumpf's own damage control statement:

"America is a proud nation of immigrants and we will continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression, but we will do so while protecting our own citizens and border. America has always been the land of the free and home of the brave.

We will keep it free and keep it safe, as the media knows, but refuses to say. My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror. To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.

This is not about religion – this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order. We will again be issuing visas to all countries once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies over the next 90 days.

I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria. My first priority will always be to protect and serve our country, but as President I will find ways to help all those who are suffering."

First of all, Mr. Drumpf - I don't harbor any delusions that you'll ever actually read this, of course, but I want to pretend I'm addressing you because it's more fun to write that way - congratulations on making history with your phenomenal new record. Other presidents take hundreds of days to achieve a majority disapproval rating, but you managed it in eight. I'm not even being sarcastic when I say how very impressive that is. It will be very, very difficult for any future presidents to beat. Even if one of them reveals himself to be a Sith Lord immediately after taking the Oath of Office, people will just be like "Whoa, Star Wars in real life!" Secondly, nice opening statement about immigrant heritage and compassion and freedom and stuff. Did you write it yourself? It seems more articulate than your usual, but maybe you just express yourself better in writing. I'm like that too. Oh wait, your Twitter account destroys that hypothesis. Never mind. Anyway, I have my doubts as to whether you actually believe those finely crafted words, but who am I to say? Only God knows your heart. I'm more concerned about your actions.

"My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months." Someone else pointed this out to me as well, apparently unaware that in 2011 I despised Obama so much I would have been opposed to this too simply because he was the one doing it. So you're willing to agree with Obama on something despite being his ideological opponent? That's a sign of rare maturity and I'm proud of you. I suppose you could say with a straight face that his policy was "similar" to yours. Here's a fun fact for you, Mr. Drumpf - a domesticated chihuahua and a rabid wolf share about 98.8% of their DNA. In other words, they're very similar. Anyone who protests against their children petting the latter but not the former is obviously a hypocrite.

Now, let's look at the trivial differences: Obama was acting on the discovery that there was, in fact, something screwy going on with the refugee process. The fact that the FBI and State Department noticed this is an indication that said process works. You, on the other hand, are acting on nothing more than a fearmongering hypothetical of your creation. Also, unlike Obama and any other president ever for that matter, you're targeting green card holders, people of dual citizenship, and people who have already been through most of the process. You're making their lives significantly less pleasant for no justifiable reason. As for Jimmy Carter's ban on Iranian immigration that has also been cited, it was in retaliation for something that country actually did. That was before my time, but if we assume for the sake of argument that it was the same thing as yours, it was equally wrong and that doesn't make yours right. What if I told you this country has made progress (that you're now trying to reverse)? Imagine someone re-instituting segregation in the 1980s and pointing out that no one was outraged over the same thing in the 1940s.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham also pointed out in their joint statement, "It is clear from the confusion at our airports across the nation that President Trump's executive order was not properly vetted. We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security. Such a hasty process risks harmful results. We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. We should not stop those who have served as interpreters for our military and diplomats from seeking refuge in the country they risked their lives to help. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children.

"Ultimately, we fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. At this very moment, American troops are fighting side-by-side with our Iraqi partners to defeat ISIL. But this executive order bans Iraqi pilots from coming to military bases in Arizona to fight our common enemies. Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security."

"The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror." Really, it's a sign of rare maturity, and I don't mean just rare for you but for humans in general. Keep it up. And yet the Obama administration saw no need to ban immigration from any of these countries. Now if you say that's because he's just a stupid liberal/Democrat/socialist, I'll have to retract my maturity compliment and replace it with an ad hominem fallacy accusation. I think maybe it's actually because no one from any of those countries has killed an American on American soil in at least forty years. People from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have, though. I won't pretend to know why the Obama administration didn't put them on the list, but I suppose it is unfair to attribute their continued absence to your business dealings and holdings there as some people have. So I'll grant you that point.

"To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting. This is not about religion – this is about terror and keeping our country safe. There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order." Well, of course. I could have told you without reading the order that it didn't mention anything about religion. You aren't thoroughly stupid. Obviously you are in some ways if you're not just pandering and are in fact sincere in your assertions that vaccines cause autism and climate change doesn't exist, but humans are complex creatures and technically I suppose you still are one. You were intelligent enough to get yourself elected and you are surely intelligent enough to realize that not even you can target a religion in the first week of your presidency and get away with it.

Now wherever could people have gotten the ridiculous idea that it had anything to do with religion? It's not like you've ever spoken pejoratively about Muslims or called for a, quote, "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States", going so far as to approvingly cite FDR's infamous discrimination against Germans, Italians and Japanese who were already U.S. citizens. Republicans would surely have treated your campaign like a joke instead of making you their nominee if you went around saying things like that. Oh wait, actually you did, but it was over a year ago, when you were just a young and foolish 69-year-old. I'm sure you've changed since then and that has nothing at all to do with this. Besides, it was just locker room talk, amiright? Wait - wrong rationalization, but anyway, the point is I'm sure you respect Muslims every bit as much as you respect women, which coincidentally is also how much I respect you.

In any case, we both know that for many of your supporters smugly pointing out that this isn't about religion, it is and always has been about religion. Conservatives who think all of Islam is fundamentally evil and view all Muslims with contempt and suspicion are not at all rare, and usually not at all ashamed to express it. I documented several in this post some time ago and it was the single most consistent and biggest contributing factor to my alienation from dozens of conservative Facebook pages and personalities. But I get it, I really do. I used to be like that too. Few of Islam's defenders even acknowledge the elephants in the room - why are virtually all terrorists nominally Muslim, why are so many Muslim-majority countries crappy dictatorships, why does the Quran say such-and-such? It turns out there are reasonable answers to all of these if you go looking for them (try this article for a starting point), but the simple answer is easier. The simple answer gives us a scapegoat for our fears and a target for our anger. The only problem with it is that it's not true. But many of your supporters don't mind that, and you don't mind that they don't mind, do you?

There's just a couple more anomalies I'd like to clear up before we move on. Why did you tell The Brody File, on the very day your executive order went into effect, that Christian refugees would be given priority? I mean, you explained why - because Obama gave priority to Muslims and two wrongs make a right - but I'm just confused because that seems odd in light of your claim that this has nothing to do with religion. Do you realize that Christianity is a religion? And it also bothers me a little bit that your son Donald Jr., who has been very vocally supportive of your campaign, liked this tweet by John Cardillo a few days ago: "When it's revealed that the #QuebecShooting terrorists are Muslims, #Trump will have a tremendous spike in political capital. #MuslimBan". The lone shooter turned out to be not a Muslim at all (in fact he's strongly anti-Muslim and one of your supporters, though I wouldn't suggest for a moment that you are to blame for his actions), but your son assumed and/or hoped he was because that would help your agenda. Can you see why this bothers me a little bit? Walk in my shoes for a minute here.

"We will again be issuing visas to all countries..." Okay, visas, great. And the refugees, the ones that Americans are most concerned and outraged about in the wake of your ban? What about them? Are you going to remember to mention them at all?

"...once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies..." Okay, look, I just have to assume that none of your defenders on this point have any freaking clue what policies are already in place. They're summarized here by an organization that would know. Frankly, I think they're excessive, but they've worked. They keep the terrorists out, and probably a lot of good people too, so maybe they could stand to be overhauled but that obviously isn't what you're concerned about. Exactly which part do you think is inadequate, and why? What do you have that's better? Inquiring minds want to know. Of course it is conceivable that a very cunning, determined, and patient terrorist could somehow slip through undetected, but the same could be said of whatever you replace it with and any other security policies available to mankind. If you want a hundred percent guaranteed perfect safety then I'm sorry, but you were born on the wrong planet. But perhaps you're well aware that what you're claiming to fix isn't broken? And you're just exploiting the fact that most of your supporters aren't?

"...over the next 90 days." ​And the refugees from these and all other countries - except for Syria, you know, the one where the worst of the violence and the most desperate part of the humanitarian crisis is located, which is blocked indefinitely - will be able to resume coming here after 90 days as well, yes? What's that? Oh, normal immigration will resume after 90 days, but actual refugees, the ones that Americans are most concerned and outraged about in the wake of your ban, will have to wait 120 days, which is more than 90 days? Or God knows how long if they're from Syria? Interesting. I recommend making that more clear in the final draft of your statement. We wouldn't want the American public to get the crazy idea that you're deliberately misleading them by omitting these facts.

Even if this ban is temporary, except for Syria, you've set a dangerous precedent. You or someone else could lengthen it, do it again and/or expand it to more countries, and wouldn't need any more justification, aka zero, than you have right now. Why shouldn't I expect you to target all Muslims as you publicly stated your intention to do just over a year ago? I won't try to predict the future because the last time I did I predicted that Republicans would treat your campaign like a joke instead of making you their nominee. And that Democrats would pick Bernie Sanders. But regardless, this is alarming. But you know what isn't going to be put on hold for 90 or 120 or any days? The humanitarian crisis and the suffering that these refugees are trying to escape from. They will continue to freeze, starve, be raped, be murdered, and just generally have a miserable time during these 120 days. And maybe disregarding that for the duration of this period would be a necessary evil if you had a legitimate national security reason to do so, but you don't, so...

"I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria." Really? That's funny, because when I have tremendous feeling for someone I don't fabricate a reason to keep them out of my country indefinitely. But I guess we all process our emotions differently. And I'm sure that starving Syrian children are now in just a little bit less pain because you said you have tremendous feeling for them. Actions aside, though, it's hard to take your words of compassion seriously when they have been preceded by words like this from your son.

One problem with this analogy is that three terrorists hiding among the Syrian refugees would be three more than have actually occurred in reality, so "our Syrian refugee problem" described here is a figment of his and your imaginations. The other problem, and the reason I bring it up here, was pointed out by the Skittles company itself:

Well, I didn't need another reason to eat Skittles, which I believe are actually created by God Himself and rain down in a secret location, but there's one anyway and if three of them kill me then at least I'll die doing something I loved. Now I recognize that Donald Drumpf Jr. is not you, despite the similar name, but he's very close to you and he very publicly supported your campaign and he made this statement in defense of your proposed ban, which as far as I know was still geared toward all Muslims at that time. You didn't correct him, did you? Does this analogy reflect how you see the people that you now claim to have "tremendous feeling" for? Only God knows your heart, like I said, but I'm just saying this doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in you.

"My first priority will always be to protect and serve our country..." As it should be.

"...but as President I will find ways to help all those who are suffering." As the comic relief character in a recent sci-fi blockbuster once said, "I find that answer vague and unconvincing." (Oops, spoiler alert.) Why don't you already have some ways in mind? You've planned on becoming president for a long time, and you've planned on banning Muslims, I mean refugees from certain countries for a long time too. It seems to me that you could have pondered this once or twice during that time and gotten some concrete ideas in mind before you shut them out of the country that was founded as a refuge for those who are suffering. Of course, maybe you have and you just didn't like to discuss them because they wouldn't appeal to the xenophobia that was crucial to your getting elected. I don't expect anything to come of this, but please, prove me wrong. I would love to get on this blog and tell everyone that I was wrong and you actually meant what you said. I don't think you're purely evil and I actually like some of the things you've done and plan to do. I want to like you, I really do, but you make it impossible.

Now, my response to Mr. Drumpf's damage control statement took up a lot more space than I thought it was going to, so I guess I'd better wrap this up, but I want to mention one more thing. A lot of people have come out of the woodwork suddenly claiming to care about homeless veterans and other struggling people in the United States, insisting that we should focus on them and don't have the resources to deal with the refugees anyway. I'm fine with that rationale as long as we extend the ban to all countries and rewrite the plaque on the Statue of Liberty to say something along the lines of "We've got our own problems; go away." Though preferably in a more poetic way. Also, stop sharing this moronic meme:

Why is it moronic, you may ask? Because Starbucks started doing LITERALLY THAT EXACT THING a little over three years ago. I don't drink coffee, but maybe I'll buy some and dump it out.

Okay, one more thing. Weebly, the company that hosts my site, has this announcement to make: "If you’re feeling like we’re feeling, you might be ready to spread some positivity, good news and compassion back into the world. The Weebly entrepreneurs behind Zoë Bands felt compelled to do the same. They turn refugee life vests into bracelets and sell them online to raise money for critical resources like food, clothing and medical supplies for refugees around the world. For every Zoe Band bracelet purchased in the next week, Weebly will match with a donation to Refugee One, a non-profit supporting refugee relocation. Refugee One is a Chicago based non-profit and Weeblycustomer that helps refugee families find homes, jobs and create their slice of the American Dream. Let’s join together as a global community and do our part to #spreadcompassion. Sincerely, The Weebly Team"

In this country we are very blessed, privileged, lucky or whatever you want to call it. Most of us can be grateful that our ancestors, or we ourselves, fled their suffering to come here before someone suddenly decided that was no longer okay. That's how and why the United States came to exist and now Daesh has scared some of us into forgetting that and flipping the bird at other sufferers. As Band-Aid sang, "Tonight thank God it's them, instead of you!" We have enough to share and the freedom to stand up for them in their most desperate hour. If you care about your fellow humans, get angry and do something about it. I went to a huge protest today, but I'll talk about that next week.

But this isn't really about politics, you see. It's not about right vs. left, but right vs. wrong.

A couple months ago, John Oliver summed up my feelings about giving Drumpf's presidency a chance: "In the broadest sense, I get that impulse. Hope for the best in the face of very long odds. It's like we're on a plane and we just found out our pilot is a wombat. I don't like this, I don’t understand how it happened, and I'm pretty sure we're headed for disaster, but what the hell? Come on, Batty, prove me wrong! And the thing is optimism is nice if you can swing it, but you've got to be careful because it can feed into the normalization of Donald Trump - and he is not normal. He is abnormal. He's a human 'What is wrong with this picture?' He sticks out like a sore thumb, and frankly, he even looks like a sore thumb. So giving him a chance in the sense of not speaking out immediately against policies he’s proposed is dangerous. Because some of them are alarming... [I]t sounds like you're reading the to-do list on Satan’s refrigerator, which of course Satan no longer needs now that hell has frozen over."

Because Drumpf was allegedly the "lesser of two evils" (which might as well be the Republican Party's slogan), many Hillary supporters who are accustomed to me being on their side probably expect me to shut up and not criticize him anymore, kind of like how a bunch of them went to town chewing up Mitt Romney during the primaries but suddenly had only good things to say about him when he became the nominee. Sorry not sorry, but no can do. I not only have no respect for Drumpf, but no longer even have respect for the office of the presidency because if someone like him can come within eight hundred miles of it, then it's clearly a joke. Of course I wanted him to pleasantly surprise me. I didn't hate everything he did this week. A lot of people are angry about him following the lead of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and signing the Mexico City Policy back into law, but personally I'm not at all bothered that my tax dollars will no longer be used to fund abortions in foreign countries. There were other things he did that I decided weren't worth the effort of being upset about, or else it would be a long four years.

Other things are less forgivable. I'm done giving him a chance.

I was so angry last night that I had significantly more trouble sleeping than usual. I was so angry that in the attempt at an initial draft of this post, which was lost due to Weebly being stupid, I referred to Drumpf as a "living excrement stain". Although that assessment stands, I've decided not to use it anymore now that a cooler head has prevailed and I'm trying to be a good Christian and stuff. Anyway, I'm sure you've heard by now about him making good on his promise to stick it to Muslims, but not those from countries where he has business ties, and specifically those who have already been forced from their homes, jobs, and possessions. Not judging anyone, but can I just say as an aside how grateful I am now that I didn't throw away my principles and vote for him as "the lesser of two evils"? That would have haunted me for the rest of my life.

Anyway, Drumpf has confirmed that his idea of making America "great" again includes discarding the values that made it great already. He apparently intends on rewinding our social progress back seventy years. Hey, wouldn't it be ironic in a really sick way if Jewish refugees during World War II, such as Anne Frank and her family, had also been denied entry into the U.S.? But I mean, surely if that had happened we would have learned our lesson and never allowed such a thing to happen again... oh wait. Crap. This country has been far from perfect, and it's had its share of human rights abuses, but I thought it was a learning process. I thought we were getting better and coming closer to the ideal that it was founded on. And maybe we were until 2017. If this is allowed to stand, the terrorists have won. Daesh (the name I call ISIS because for some reason they've threatened to mutilate anyone who does) are probably laughing themselves sick at us right now. They will have scared us to the point of rejecting the values of our country that they hate so much. They will have tricked us into damaging our own country more than any suicide bomber could dream of.

Maybe there's nothing I can do about this, but I'm not going to let it go. I'm not going to shrug it off and be like "The sun will still rise tomorrow, herpa derp derp." That would be easy enough to do because, as another so-called Christian helpfully pointed out, it doesn't affect me at all. It probably never will. Maybe it will. Maybe this will be a slippery slope and someday the Republican government will be targeting Mormons (again). But whether that ever happens or ever has the potential of happening is completely irrelevant. If "First they came for the Muslims" remains "They only ever came for the Muslims", that's enough. It's not acceptable. And I'm going to fight it in whatever meager insignificant little ways I can. John Oliver also had this other brilliant thing to say: "If we don't get actively involved to at least mitigate Trump's damage, things will not be OK. And yes, the sun will rise each day, but the continuing rotation of the earth should not be your baseline expectation of American society."

I guess that's all I need to say about that for now.

One night I was intercepted outside the grocery store by a sort of scruffy-looking guy. "Hey, man," he said, gesturing across the street, "I wanna head over there for a bottle, but I'm fifty cents short. Can you help a guy out? I don't wanna lie and be like 'I'm hungry!' cause I already ate." I don't drink and I knew that enabling someone else to potentially be an alcoholic is not a good thing, but I was pleased with his honesty and took pity on his financial plight and figured if it was that bad then I couldn't blame him for wanting to evade his problems that way for a little while. I didn't have fifty cents, so I gave him a dollar. And then I debated whether I had done a good deed or a terrible one.

One night as I was about to go to bed Brooke posted an open request for someone to come to her house and catch and kill a mouse for her, offering cookies in return. I would do almost anything for her, but I'm not comfortable killing anything defenseless and harmless (here I use a broad definition of "harm" that includes being really annoying; there was a bird living outside my window that I would have loved to break in half, though I had to settle for throwing rocks) if it's more intelligent than an insect. Once I was helping remove flowers from the temple grounds and a mouse ran out and the gardener chased it down and crushed its throat with his rake and I became so uncomfortable that I had to leave shortly. If she could have demonstrated that it had rabies, I would have come and killed it. If someone else wanted to go and kill it, then so be it. But I couldn't. So I ignored her post. I felt bad as I imagined her and her sister and their other roommate cowering, trembling, too afraid to go to sleep. I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing.

One day at work scanning used books, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" came into my hands and got accepted. I had read it years ago and found it very convincing, but that was before I understood how people can manufacture convincing bullspit and still cite all their sources. I have of course accepted many books that promote opinions or agendas contrary to mine without a second thought, including a couple that attacked my own religion. To do otherwise would make a mockery of free speech even if it weren't violating the rules and depriving the company of money. But this one, written to spread fear and hate of the already most feared and hated religion in the United States, crosses a moral line. I hesitated and seriously considered tossing it to be recycled - but I didn't because that would be violating the rules depriving the company of money. I regretted that and stewed over it. My only consolation was that most people buy political books to reaffirm the opinions they already hold, rather than risk being exposed to new ones, so whoever purchases it would probably fear and hate Islam with or without the support of its "facts".

In this situation, at least, I now know what I should have done. I should have set the book aside and later gone to discuss it with the owner of the company, whom I know to be a very good and generous man. He surely would have understood.

​If you had told me three years ago that I would someday be in a meeting with a roomful of progressives that I was united with in a common cause, I would have scoffed. But there I was last week. Of course, if I had announced that I do not stand with Planned Parenthood, I probably wouldn't have made it out alive. But we were primarily there because of the GOP's astonishing contempt for the environment, and in full agreement about that. We dissent from the mindset that the health of our planet doesn't justify any infringement on "personal liberty" or that it's trumped (no pun intended) in importance by the economy - you know, that man-made illusion that the survival of life as we know it doesn't depend on. Now lawmakers are gearing up to destroy tens of thousands of acres of wetlands that millions of birds from over 230 species use as habitat while migrating, so that Utah can continue to waste more water than any other state in the nation. Because that's the Christian thing to do, I guess?

Anyway, that was the primary reason for the event, but the principles discussed had much broader applications. It was led by psychologist Dr. Dave Christian who talked about how to do more successful activism with "motivational interviewing" tactics. The gist of it was that humans are not rational creatures and will only cling to their opinions more forcefully when presented with evidence against them, and that persuading them to help you is much easier if you understand their values and can demonstrate how what you're advocating for will serve their values as well as yours. You need to understand their point of view and not see them as the enemy or they'll sense that and put their defenses up. Done properly, this is sincere and not manipulating people. So basically the gist of it is stuff that should be obvious but isn't. People would rather argue and insult each other because they didn't evolve by having nuanced and respectful discussions.

Caveman: All right, let's get to the root of this. What are you hoping to achieve?
Sabre-Toothed Tiger: I just want to survive and reproduce.
Caveman: Hey, me too! Who would have guessed we have so much in common? It's a wonder we don't get along better.
Sabre-Toothed Tiger: Indeed. Let's cut this meeting short and go out for lunch to celebrate.

To make the world a better place, we should all put our natural instincts aside and strive to understand each other and work together in an atmosphere of mutual respect to accomplish goals that serve all of us. And we all know that isn't going to happen ever.

Sometimes I use this song if I want to feel happy for no reason. I hope it works for someone else too. Just don't sing it out loud unless you want to tempt fate.

Last week I mentioned the Indian friend that I met at the institute Christmas concert a year ago. Of course I only mentioned his nationality because I love Indians, and I'm very excited that India is set to get its third LDS stake (Rajahmundry) this weekend and a fourth (New Delhi) sometime next year. Anyway, I hadn't talked him for a few months, but right after that post I contacted him again.

As you can see, he still has his priorities straight. He has taken a lot of interest in my love life. When I met him, I also met the LDS white girl who had brought him to the concert, but I never spent much more time with her or got to know her like I did him. I inquired about her one time and he inquired back, "Do you like her or...?" And the truth was that a lot of times I don't categorize women as "I'm interested" or "I'm not interested" but just have them on a spectrum where they can move one way or the other as I get to know them more. But his English wasn't perfect and I didn't know if he would understand something so unusual, so I was just like, "A little bit", which was accurate enough.

And then, before I ever told him about my depression he knew about it by deducing from my eyes that I had a lot in common with him. So somehow or other he got it into his head that I was obsessed with this girl and would slit my wrists or something if she broke my heart. He was really concerned and gave me a lot of pep talks about having self-esteem and not basing it on her. I never corrected him because I feel awkward about contradicting people because I associate disagreements with people hating each other, and also frankly it was good advice and I was super touched that he cared so much. After some time he had to bring me the news that she had gotten a boyfriend, and he was super worried and ready to be there for me. I really didn't care. I was just like, "Good for her."

"Oh, good," he said. "I hope you are better and out of her now." I think he meant "over her".

​As I've been going through old posts trying to search engine optimize them, I realized that I wrote about dating a lot more than I thought and evolution a lot less than I thought. I'm writing about both right now so that ratio will remain the same.

There are a couple of problems with this meme. First, "not meant to be"? Sure, maybe if you want to bring God into it and presume that God hates you, but if you're approaching it from a purely scientific angle, that's nonsense because evolution is guided by chance, not destiny. But the second problem is much bigger and basically ruins the whole thing. Many people mistakenly believe that evolution and/or Darwinism is synonomous with natural selection, but that's not the case. As early as his original book Darwin outlined another force known as sexual selection. Whereas the former is about survival, the latter is about reproduction and acts not just independently of, but sometimes in direct opposition to, natural selection. For example:

Boy Moose: Hey there, girl moose. I just wanted to let you know that I'm really strong and adaptable and my genes would make a great contribution to your offspring, which I realize is something you get to be picky about because you will invest a lot more energy and resources into them. What do you say?
Girl Moose: Hmph. Prove it. I'm really into big antlers - grow a pair, then we'll talk.
Boy Moose: What?? But growing big antlers would be a total waste of my crucial resources, and they could get tangled in trees and bushes, making me more vulnerable to predators!
Girl Moose: Hmph. If you're really as strong and adaptable as you say, those things shouldn't be an issue.
Boy Moose: But – oh, fine. Hrrrrrnk... [Pop! Pop!] There. Two of the biggest antlers any woman could ask for. Happy?
Girl Moose: Now use them to fight for me.

It might seem silly, but she was a very cute moose. Made all the boy moose go "Whaaaaa!" Of course, humans are special and superior to other animals so sexual selection doesn't apply to us and has nothing at all to do with the evolutionary basis for archaic dating gender roles that I mentioned last week. No, actually it does, but I'm not going to complain about that again (for now) because it's pretty benign compared to many of mankind's other primitive "quirks".

​There are a few demographics that it's still acceptable to be prejudiced against, such as mentally ill people (just don't be too blunt about it), anyone who doesn't share your political leanings (be as blunt as you want), and at least one of the Abrahamic religions depending on said leanings (Christians if you're liberal, Muslims if you're conservative, Jews if you're a conspiracy theorist). Oh yeah, and ugly people. Thousands of people consider it find and dandy to post Facebok memes of ugly people with captions like "Can you tag Dave? He left without paying last night" and then all laugh at the notion that Dave would have sex with someone so ugly. Because apparently once you cross a certain threshold of ugliness you no longer have feelings or dignity. All that stuff we say about "looks don't matter", "it's what's on the inside that counts", and "everyone is beautiful"? Yeah, we were just kidding. This form of prejudice is nothing more or less than another head of the same monster that spawned racism, sexism, nationalism, tribalism, homophobia, and all the other ways humans have been douchebags to other humans for as long as they've existed.

I don't know anything about the people I've seen in these memes - except one. Believe it or not, she's a person and she's alive somewhere and she even has a name: Lizzie Velásquez. She has a disease so rare that it doesn't have a name, and she can't create body fat and she has to eat every twenty minutes and she's gone blind in one eye.

Yes, she is aware that she has become the subject of one of these memes, and it isn't her first such discovery. One evening she was just browsing YouTube, minding her own business, when she stumbled upon a video called "The Ugliest Woman in the World". It wasn't really a video, just a picture, a picture of her. It had millions of views. People in the comments were saying things like "Kill it with fire!" (Hitler called. He wants you to please stop stealing his ideas.) I wouldn't trade all the suffering of my life for one experience like that. But Lizzie Velázquez is clearly stronger than a mere mortal, and instead of killing herself she went on to become an anti-bullying motivational speaker. I lump the people who bully her under the same term I use for tobacco company executives: "Satan's hemorrhoids."

Speaking of images on the internet that promote extreme shallowness and insentivity to the actual humans in them for entertainment purposes...

​Governor Gary Herbert of Utah, who declared pornography a public health crisis earlier in the year, is now putting our money where his mouth is with $50,000 out of a $16 billion budget devoted to anti-pornography education efforts. For perspective, that's 1/320,000 or 0.0003% of the budget. Naturally this has outraged some residents of Salt Lake who feel that Mormons and Republicans are legislating morality and infringing on their constitutional right to jack off to their hearts' content. This is a little odd, seeing as Governor Herbert has made no attempt to actually restrict distribution of or access to pornography, but it makes sense in their heads somehow. And of course it doesn't bother them in the slightest that pornography is being shoved in our faces to the point where children are first exposed to it at the average age of eleven. There is no conceivable way that this could affect their brain development, and if it does, who cares? That's their problem.

Pornography is natural, pornography is harmless, pornography is healthy, pornography is great. Know how they know? Because they enjoy it, and therefore by logical inference it can't possibly have any negative consequences or repercussions whatsoever. QED. And of course all opposition to pornography is motivated by religion. That's why the United Kingdom, which is widely known for being a devoutly religious nation, has been at the forefront of opposing it in recent years. You know what, I know things sometimes don't come across as intended through text, so let me be perfectly clear: I'm being sarcastic and I think those people are idiots. Did I mention that these education efforts constitute 1/320,000 or 0.0003% of the budget?

​As I've been going through old posts trying to search engine optimize them, I realized that I haven't written about abortion since February when NARAL had an aneurysm over the Doritos Super Bowl commercial. Good thing I was already planning on writing about it again - specifically, about Kermit Gosnell. Remember him? Or did you ever hear of him in the first place? If necessary, let Wikipedia refresh your memory:

​"Gosnell owned and operated the Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he was a prolific prescriber of OxyContin. In 2011, Gosnell and various co-defendant employees were charged with eight counts of murder, 24 felony counts of performing illegal abortions beyond the state of Pennsylvania’s 24-week time limit, and 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. The murder charges related to an adult patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure, and seven newborns said to have been killed by having their spinal cords severed with scissors after being born alive during attempted abortions. In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three of the infants and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar. Gosnell was also convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right to appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole."

How was this allowed to happen? Because the authorities in Philadelphia obviously cared so much about women's health that, despite multiple complaints, they couldn't be bothered to inspect his clinic or for how many years? Five? Ten? No, seventeen. Because holding the abortion industry to any sort of accountability or oversight, or enforcing any restrictions on it whatsoever, is seen by some as an all-out assault on women's health. Of course virtually everyone, regardless of their views on abortion, agrees that Gosnell is a monster. So why have so many people tried to keep us from knowing he exists?

When his story broke, mainstream media outlets refused to cover it until they were forced to by the outrage of people who knew how to use the internet. I watched CNN spin excuses for why they hadn't covered it in the first place, and they were so lame that I felt embarrassed on their behalf. When filmmakers Magdalena Segieda, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney decided to make a movie about Gosnell, Kickstarter refused to let them crowdfund on its website, claiming that the premise was too "graphic" while the pornography on the site apparently isn't. Because pornography is okay, remember? They crowdfunded on Indiegogo instead and set the record for the most successful film funded on that site. I contributed my widow's mite, which I mention only as a reminder that just liking Facebook pages and posts does virtually nothing to help any cause. Now all of Hollywood has refused to release the movie, claiming it's too "controversial", because apparently their pro-abortion films and all the other sewage they've put out in the last few years aren't controversial at all.

But this isn't even really about abortion, right? It's just about one guy who broke the law and a bunch of spineless authorities who let him do it for a long time, right? Right? Ask yourself: what do all those people have to fear from the truth?

So they're releasing the film independently sometime next year. In the meantime, they also have a book coming out in January. They want as many people as possible to pre-order it on Amazon so that it will show up on the New York Times bestseller list and be impossible to ignore. So if you're looking for some way to help, there's one. Now let's close on a more lighthearted note.

In honor of "Rogue One" being released and Christmas soon to follow, here's a mashup that I can't believe I've never shared before. Steven Cavanaugh is from Australia, so he wrote this in June. It's brilliant and like many parodies I alway sing it instead of the original lyrics.