Chuck & Witty changed my life…or at least warped my mind. I loved his humor, his teaching, and his love of thought. In 2000, every day he walked into epistemology class, stood before us in silence, sipped his coffee, and once all eyes were on him, he would say something magical…unfortunately I only remember the coffee and the silence. Years later, in a church, during a class on the Nicene Creed, he sat in the back row and heckled Kleiner on the nature of the trinity, three deities who are one, with traits of omnipresence, yet have assigned seating at the throne(s) in heaven. Priceless. His life was examined; of this I am certain. Rest in peace, good Sir.

See more about him and his friends:

http://usuphilosophy.com/2009/06/11/chuck-johnson-1945-2009/

Saturday afternoon I went to meet my lovely sisters, Jee-eun and Mini. After misunderstandings of relationships, I figured it was going to be a lonely ride for my part. So, I prepared myself by being tired enough to sleep and not ready to flirt. (I was up partying and drinking the previous 3 nights, and had not been sleeping much). However, they brought another wonderful friend to meet me. Her name is Boomi. Boomi was in a great mood and very sweet, and I regret that I may have let her down.

When we arrived at the ski lodge resort, we changed clothes. This should have been easy enough to do, but they wanted to cut my athletic pants that are dragging on the ground, and getting wet in the rainy weather. I agreed it was a good idea (I’ve been losing some weight, so my pants are hanging longer than before). I knew something like what happened next was going to happen. So, I wanted to do it myself. But Mini was adamant about chopping up my clothes. I gave in. Then Bumi and Mini tried to make a game of fitting into my pants each of them with both legs in one leg of my pants. They fell over, laughed, and had a good time…to my point of view, a bit at my expense, but I took it in stride, that they are two of the smaller people I know. Mickey photographed the event.

Next, we headed down to get a nice beef meal (excellent beef is hard to come by in Korea, and it always has a high price). This was amazing meat!! Also, it was barbecued Korean style by three wonderful cooks (Korean style, is you barbecue it and cut it at your own table to your own liking). The girls tried to get me to eat it bloody, and kept tossing it at me, so I decided “to hell with mad cow disease” today is a good day to die. I indulged. They bought a lot more meat than they could handle, so they kept on dishing me…my stomach size is a lot smaller these days (even if my belly isn’t), so I had a tough go of it. However, it was delicious. I ate like a king.

The next stop we hit was the No-ray-bong (easy explanation = Korean Karaoke). It was difficult to perform as we were all incredibly full, but we had a good time. I need to learn some Korean songs better, by the way. My own highlights were Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful", Green Day’s “She", The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black". Unfortunately they made me sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” as well.

We then found that the pool tables were free of people, and played 3 friendly games of 2 on 2. Bumi was a beginner so started poor, and I started strong, but ended poor. However the girls were teaching her the whole way, and by the end, she was my pinch hitter. Mini and Mickey (Jee-eun) won 2 games to 1. All three games were lost do to scratching on the 8-ball, or hitting it in early. They were good sports about playing by American rules this time. Although I think Mini secretly wanted to beat me senseless with the pool cue.

Around 12:30 in the morning we went to the “Family Mart” convenient store to buy brewskies and anjou (beer friend or appetizers / snacks). Then we headed up to the room and sat around eating snacks and sipping beer (they were sipping, I was drinking). Anyway, they wanted to watch TV…I hate television, especially when I can’t understand a word of it. So, I expressed my disinterest in the affair. There was mis-communication or disagreement or both. I went to my room and sang to my beer. When I came back for another the TV was off and two of the girls had gone to bed (perhaps figuring I had done so as well). So, I went into their room and pillow fought them for a while. Jee-eun stayed up cleaning, so she and I had a good heart to heart talk until 4:30 in the morning.

I tried my CPAP before going to bed. It tripped the breaker from every outlet in the room. I tried a different style and blew up my American power strip. This wasn’t the first time, we had been through this problem, and the last time, the girls got up for an hour in the middle of the night, then got us a place at a new motel. I was a pain in the ass to them…but their style is happy to help. I didn’t want to be a problem again this time, so I told the older sister to go to bed, and I would be fine. 10 minutes later the lights were on outside my room and they were on the phones. I was pissed off, that they had to make my problem theirs. I’m utilitarian in my thinking that it’s better one person be tired and three happy and rested, than all four people tired, especially if one of them has to drive the rest of us. Anyway, by 6:00am they got a transformer brought to our room. It worked well. They solved my problem, and were really invasive into my privacy. However, it is the way they show love, and I know this, so I appreciate it a lot. My mom knows how stubborn I am about her treating me like a child, especially about something that is a problem I am not proud of, a weakness. Because these women are neither my girlfriends nor my mothers, I acted pretty difficult. But, I feel like a jerk now. They have aptly identified me as a “stiff-necked old man", or a “stubborn mule". I totally agree.

The next day I was still pretty tired from the previous 4 nights and from a lot of exercise during the weak. I was a zombie. It was raining hard. We got some food on the go, and went to a “Herbanara” herb garden. It was pretty cool, but was raining a lot, and the girls wanted to take pictures. I had a decent time, but was too sore for the movement, getting wet, and it just wasn’t my style. I was tired as hell. The tea was awesome, some of the art was cool, but I felt lonely during the experience, the music in the lil houses was really gay, and I wasn’t feeling sexy enough for photos (even though I checked my reflection enough to see that I was indeed a handsome bastard). The girls were really cute, especially amongst the flowers, so I was happy to be the camera man. Next to the Herbanara, we stopped and had some odeng and pajun. Delicious!

My memory is getting fuzzy about the rest (since I waited so long to write), but I know we drove for a while to a shooting range in the mountains. It was a blast. They had skeet and trap. We shot trap with double barrelled shotguns. I missed my first 4 shots, then removed the bulky protective ear muffs. I hit 19 of the next 20 shots. After we all shot, we had a gun photo shoot. Then we went pistol shooting. I shot a 9mm Beretta. And we all shot a .22 long barrelled pistol. Mickey is a former olympic team shooter. She shot with amazing grouping and accuracy. Boomi was not a fan of the big blast of the guns, so she stopped early and let me shoot the rest of her shells. I don’t remember how Mini did, but I think all of her shots were on paper if not on target, which is pretty good. I didn’t aim between shots, because I didn’t know how many bullets we had, and how much they cost (2 to 6 times as much as in the U.S. but you’re also paying for use of the gun in that price). So, I shot pretty fast, and really enjoyed it. There were a couple difficulties, they have an attachment on the gun, that leaks to rope/rubber band, to hold the gun in place. This restricts movement and the natural feel or weight of the gun. Also, I’m a big guy, and need space to the left of the gun to stand, when shooting right handed. The gun agoshi (man, or father) was standing to the left, which left me pretty cramped…which would have been fine if I could move the gun. Also, the distance we shot from is further than I am used to. But my general aim was pretty good. Then we had another photo shoot with weapons.

The drive home was long and torturous (due to want of wajanshili = toilet), in traffic. But the company was great. I didn’t know when or if we were going to eat. So we ate all of Boomi’s oljingo (squid jerky). Finally we arrived at the house of foods, where we ordered a slough of sea snake (chung-oh / eel). It was amazing considering eel is one of my most favorite foods, and I was starving, and Mini did I fine job in saucing and cooking it.

Mickey, Mini, and I headed off on our first adventure. For me it was very new. I didn’t know what to do, or what was expected of me. I was happy to be on vacation with good Korean people, who (for all they know) picked up a stray foreigner, and decided to treat him like a king for a weekend. Standing alone, looking out of a giant window, from the second floor of an estate out onto a gray sky, and large river, I thought, “I never could have forseen this sight, this vacation, or these friends back when I was at Brighton…a year ago, sitting in a cop class in Utah, on a dark night with 6 other psychopaths.” I was finally having an adventure, not just a character-carving moment. I was lucky, but ofcourse, I attract good friends and people because I am a good friend and person (when I am).

Seafood Market

Agoshi, Kyung-oh and girlfriend, moving squid legs.

Day 2, Mickey breakfast, waterfall, buddha temple, frisbee, Baum the wolf hound, 10 hour eating and drinking party with all the fixins including sangria and watermelon, 3 stops. Agoshi spicy river fish ji-gye, Mini bbq shrimp, Chris Captain Q whiskey.

Day 3, Gong building,

The next day, my now-Hollywood friend, Jeremy came back to SLC. He had just rode 175 miles in a biking event that offered proceeds toward fighting MS. Amazing! Elder Gutman, and The Hortons also participated. My Vegas friend, Ben arrived in town that weekend, and all three families went to P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for a celebratory get-together. The food was awesome, and the young Horton girl was our helpful waitress.

Over the past couple of days, Ben and I went to see Incredible Hulk and Hancock, went hot tubbing, and stayed up late discussing life and politics. Good Times.

Danny Miki (signature, top left) was incredibly talkative and friendly. He was quick with jokes, and expressed desire for further communication and following of his work through his myspace page. He is inking everywhere in the most popular marvel titles for the last three years. He even had a special thanks to him back in Cable #1. Rob Liefeld is an artist known for creation of Cable, one of the most popular marvel characters to come out of the nineties. Miki told of his story of Liefeld helping him get oriented into the comics scene at the time, later to return to Marvel as one of the most prolific inkers. I’m hoping next time he comes to commission him to ink a drawing of my own (unless he’d like to do so for free). He is very talented, but I would like to learn more about the extent of his work in how and where it is used in the process.

By the time I had arrived for Matt Fraction’s signing, everyone had already cleared out. I was a bit shocked, since the comic books of mine which he wrote are incredibly popular and very well written. The night before arriving at Black Cat, I read my first issue of Iron Fist; one he wrote. It contained a dialogue between the previous Fist, and the up-and-coming one. Between the writing and the artist’s depiction of the dialogue, as well as the seriousness discussion and content, the issue was phenomenal. I was then reminded that he did one of my favorite dialogues ever, read only months ago in the first three issues of Punisher War Journal. This was the confrontation and history between Steve Rogers and Frank Castle (Capt. America and The Punisher). Both are soldiers bred for war, but both have become entirely different sides of the same coin. They are finally put on the same side, in Marvel’s Civil War, in the same room where Captain America has been offered the chance to accept the aid of known criminal super-villains (killers) in order to win the war. Punisher makes an entrance into the room filled with “New Avengers” and takes the temptation from “Cap” riddling the villains with flurry of lead, covering the heroes in brains and blood. The writing that follows is to die for…written by the highly prolific Matt Fraction. Since the signing I have picked up every punisher issue he has done, as well as the “Thor: Ages of Thunder” one-shot, which was also amazing.

Thanks again to Matt, Miki, and Greg.

Sadly, during this past year and half or so, my uncle, Bill Blight, and his wife Peggy both passed away while fighting cancer. I will miss Bill frequently, wishing we could have had more time to debate our own philosophies about life. I had at one point hoped to ride shotgun with him in the big rig for a summer. I miss the heads up about him driving through town in the next hour or so, with just enough time to go out for a nice meal with the family. or when he and Peg would meet up with us for a Golf outing. Peggy was a sweetheart, with charming love for life and all it had to offer. Our Crusty Curmudgeon golf enthusiast and our Quilting Queen were taken far too soon from us, but they live on in our memories and the effects they had on our lives and personalities. Bill’s Obituary:
 

The wedding ceremony was very nice. Hard to experience and enjoy when you are part of the ceremony (My brother and I were ushers in Tuxedos and Top Hat’s, if you couldn’t make it). The ceremony was delightful and incredibly short. (It took just a little bit longer than getting the tux on correctly took.) Steve and Stacey Horton sang a beatiful duet. Mr. Gutman read a passage from The Bible about love, and I believe Cousin Garrettson, filling in for his father, Uncle Gerry, read a nice poem or something. They all did excellent jobs, and we regret that Uncle Gerr couldn’t make it due to an accidental injury inflicted through improperly attended bathtub floors at the local Marriott. Cousin Lydia was the beautiful Maid of Honor, and Andrew’s excellent friend Danny was the Best Man. I always wonder if the Best Man thing holds true about the Groom not showing up (that they stand in and marry the girl instead), especially when the Best Man is a married man, more so in Utah.

3,000 Movies Watched.
This weekend I passed the 3,000 mark on the number of movies I’ve seen. This is a ton, especially considering I’ve kept track of each and rated each of them. I’m behind on my own website by about 400-800, but am still keeping track on Netflix (who has a great selection, and has kept me very happy with their service by the way).

• Computer Science classes, and possibly workshops learning Flash, Python, and JavaScript.
• Auto Mechanic trade school and/or body restoration training, hopefully on the job, so I can make some money while I learn.
• Kubert’s art school in New Jersey, tattoo artist apprenticeship, automotive airbrush design
• Master’s in Psychology through the University of Utah, emphasis in Criminal Psychology, for use in the justice system, but with the ability to fall back on other directions of Psychology.
• If I get into shape enough, perhaps some sort of Military service, for use as prerequisite for FBI
• Study, work, or live abroad to increase a foreign language skill, also as a prerequisite for FBI

School ended, and there was much rejoicing (for the semester only)

My friend, Chad and I went to the Friday Night Drags: Street Legal Series…we have footage of one his tuner, turbo Sentra forum buddies, and of the amazing classic Chevy Vega…which always wins “best in show” in my book. Loud, fast, and beautiful.

Chad and I went to St. George, spent the night gambling and drinking in Mesquite, then came back to St. George for another night. We didn’t get any golfing in this time as hoped, but did plenty of moving of furniture between St. George and Coral Canyon Condos. It was blast all the same.

The next weekend Uncle Bill, Mom, Dad, and I headed off to Cheyenne, Wyoming to see Aunt Kathy and Family, and to walk around a track for hours and hours in support for those who’ve battled and those who are battling cancer. (Did I mention Cancer is my sign…and for some reason its a crab…) Well, I didn’t do my share of walking, but I ate enough for 3 people. I got to spend some time bonding with Kris and Jim, and go golfing with John, Bill, Jim, Luigie, and Stella. I came within an inch or two of my first birdie by the way, no luck. Oh and there was a competitive game of trivial something or other… close game. Nothing more need be said about said subject.

A weekend or two upon returning, my Mom and I went to Kingman, Arizona to visit the Stutzman family (Beverly, my mom’s younger sister). We watched some movies on their big screen, Atlea bought some new video games, and Weston, Lance and I battled endlessly with swords, most likely built from a former space technology of foam. I won. We watched the movie “Cars” in town, played tennis, Bev, John, Mom, and I went golfing. On the Fourth of July, John, Bev, Mom, and I went off roading on the quads through some great “wash” trails…then the storms hit while we were gassing up. eventually we grabbed some garbage bags and put them over our heads like rain coats, and we braved the storm. When we got back to the wash we were reminded why it was called a “wash” so we caulked our wagons and forded the stream that washed out a nearby road. The rain let up and we cruised back home…Oh yeah, Bev has a horse!

When we left the Stutzman’s we took Atlea and Ryan back with us to SLC, seeing Hoover damn on the way. We listened to a lot of StarWars music of Atleas. In SLC, we played tennis probably 3 or 4 times, Ryan got his first bee sting on one of the courts, Carlitos ran away, only to be recaptured 10 minutes later. The Stutsman boys went to Vacation Bible School in Grantsville, and got to follow me to my various comic book stores, where nerdy Atlea more or less called me and the “comicbook store guy” nerds. I didn’t mind, but the clerk looked a little hurt.

Soon after we got back to SLC, our cousin Eddie Valerio, his wife, and three boys came through town and stopped at Aunt Bella’s house in GVille. We had a big dinner there, and met all the babies. Eddie says they’ll be coming back through town, so we look forward to that again.

I came home that night and wished Nick a happy Birthday.

Wednesday of last week, the boys, Little Mike (not so little these days), and I went out to Elliott’s house in Grantsville to game it up on the XBox. There was much rejoicing, and I did not show how masterful my skills were…although I came in second quite a bit.

Thursday evening my cousin Elliott and I went to the new Miller Grand Prix LeManz race dinger which was recently built between Tooele and GVille. It was good to see all the fast and loud cars, Salt Lake Corvette Club was there, and on the track were Porsche, Cadillac, Dodge, Corvettes, and a viper here and there. We spent about half our time there in the pitts checking out the vehicles and cover girls up close. My favorite was the Bugati. After plenty of sun and walking we headed on home, and I headed back t0 SLC for more tennis, this time with Little Mike as well as the Stutzman boys.

Then we ate the minstrel, and there was much rejoicing.

Comment by Renata Macmj 01/29/2006:
Hey Chris. As I once told you, you are a life saver. I’m not kidding! Actually I am, but that doesnt matter! You have a hard choice to make here. Personally, I would like to visit New Zealand or Australia, but Costa Rica and the Domincan Republic sound so different, so exotic! Go figure. Good luck! Its like Sophia’s choice! LOL… I wish you well! Anyway. It’s always good to help, and you are pretty good at this! Bless ya!

This was the topic of discussion in the USU Philosophy Club yesterday evening. It actually went really well. We managed to turn a 1 hour discussion into a 2 hour one. The panel was lead by Dr. Sherlock, and was argued by 4 undergrad students with 2 on each side. Those who believed in Closed Theism were on one side and those who believed in Open Theism were on the other. One of the members of the Open Theist duo was an old aquaintance of mine from my year in Mountain View Tower.

From what I gathered, it seems that the Closed Theists argued that God cannot have omniscience (because he can’t know the future which would negate free will. The Open Theists on the other hand said that God can know all…that is logical to know, (like he can’t know even things that are not knowable, that’s illogical) and can know anything that went into our creation, as well as everything we have done, but though he knows the future (or possible future webs), he cannot know for sure what humans will do tomorrow. He does, however, know what our choices are and has a pretty good idea of which we may choose based on what he knows about us. But, they are not clear on whether all that previous knowledge sets Causality into motion…which Harrison Kleiner later pointed out was what the classical Open Theist would beleive, which would prove in their view, lack of free will.

I’m not too sure either side unerstood the theories they were representing…so now I am unable to understand how what they said reflects those theories…however they did have interesting theories. The question itself has many facets to ponder, so our argument wandered about those.

Areas to reflect on are
Does vs. Can
Nature of God…who is this guy? what is he? How does he do?
Knowledge…what constitutes knowledge? ==> Raises Causality and metaphysical questions of the epistemic realm
Temporal…God? in, out, about Time? Is time perception? a dimension? Or a realm made to poorly describe our experience?
What is Free Will?

So we got off on a lot of those tangents.

In the crowd were Kent Robson, Philosophy of Religion Prof. and Harrison Kleiner, Aesthetics and Metaphysics/Hegel Prof. An old friend of mine, Suzy, was there. I was there, and an interesting guy from my “Kant and his Successors” class was there. The panel consisted of 4 Mormon raised students and a Pseudo Mormon Prof. At the end of the argument Kleiner pointed out how all 4 of the students were actually Open Theists, no Closed theists, since he is a closed theist, and what that means is that He believes God must know all including the future, and that they are not even real Open Theists in that respect since their classical claim is that God must not know all including the future. This made it hard for me to throw my argument against the closed theists since none of them back that theory.

My comment was that if we had free will, did we lack free will at the point at which God became an active God, intervening in the lives of peoples Free Will. My example, and old acquaintance, Doug, said I took his, was the situation where God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart and the Pharaoh changed his course of action. At which point is he causally responsible for his actions when directly acted upon by God intervening with previously set dominoes of causality.

Though I made that comment, it wasn’t at the heart of the discussion, but they had already blithely accepted my view as false when the interesting guy, Benny, from my Kant class mentioned that Knowledge of the Future in no way affects the causation of that Future. This has been my view since the reading Aquinas years ago. I understand that lack of choice entails lack of freedom to choose….but that is not fully true. One is still free to choose one choice, it isn’t much of a choice, but if unaware of the removal of other choices, and believing he was making the choice, he could choose Gods said “path” infinite times until he dies, and as far as he ever knew, he had free will. Here we get into a bit of a semantic game. Free will is defined as The capacity to exercise choice. But, is Free Will the ability to do whatever one wants (the common view) or is it the existence of multiple options to choose from, and the option to choose from any of them (which maybe a more complete, possibly more accurate definition of the term).

The distinction that I believe was most ignored, but most pertinent, was that knowledge may not necessarily entail causation. Kleiner tried to explain this through the idea that while I am sitting in a room, another person enters the room. I know he is there (or have Wittgensteinian certainty of such), and I am perceiving him only because of his presence. This is quite contrary to the idea that I know he is there, therefore I caused him to be there (some might say the opposite is true, he is there, which caused me to know it - do we cause God to know what we will do because we will do it? Kleiner didn’t, and may have no intention of taking the idea this far). My explanation is that a card counter, (someone so able to count cards and has watched the cards long enough to know which every card is, and which order they are in, say “Rain Man” for instance) could be watching a card game from a casino security camera, and would know every card that was going to come up, or be “chosen"/ randomly picked by a player, in a card game where a a player may draw a card at random from the deck for the dealer to guess what he has chosen. The player doesn’t know that there is a Rain Man who knows what he will next choose out of all his options, though he may suspect this could happen. In fact, the Rain Man’s knowledge of what card the player will pick, whatever card he chooses, does in no way cause the card he picks to be such.

Now that story may be misleading because it suggests a parallel with A hidden God knowing what choices we may choose from, but still unaware of which we will choose. This is not the suggestion, the suggestion is merely that knowledge does not entail causation. In this way, I believe that Aquinas is merely (and yet so much more) working with a semantic game of what Free Will consists, and that even were there a God who knew all, even the future choices of man, this would not negate his freedom to choose.

As Donnie Darko said, “If God controls time, then all time is predecided…every living thing follows along set path, and if you could see your path or channel, then you could see into the future…[you’re not contradicting yourself] if you travel within God’s channel.”

Monotov and Darko discuss whether or not all time is predecided, or as I think is better put “accurately forseen” not by guess, but knowledge of all temporal realities of human existence. The idea here is simply responded with the fact that we don’t have this knowledge that is being attributed to God. Otherwise we could indeed stray from our destiny (God’s set path) as Monotov puts it, or we could not do other than God’s set path despite fore knowledge (thus Cassandra Complex), hence the restriction of free will. Because we don’t know what our path is, we can’t have the freedom of choice restricted from us. We still choose, we couldn’t choose otherwise than God’s set path, but since we can’t look at it, for all we know we could guess that God is choosing while we go, what our set path is, is based on what we choose…this is a limitation of man, not of man’s God, he can’t have that limitation if he is defined by the absence of such limit.

I’ve been thinking right now, that my life has a few different possibilities. One is to become a Mercenary, or contract killer. As the years go by, I seem to have moved myself away from that possibility, but I’m keeping an open mind. Second (not in order of importance), I plan to apply to The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art Inc. in Dover, New Jersey when I finish up my BA in Philosophy here at Utah State University. Once I find out whether or not they’ll accept me, or if I can even afford it if they will decide my next step. My other option is to apply for the University of Utah for graduate school. I would like to get a Master’s or Doctrate in Psychology. In this my hopes would be to become a Criminal Psychologist and work for the FBI.

Out of the last 4 years of College, I have taken only a handful of classes that really interested me, History of Christianity with Norman Jones at USU and Ron Huggins at Salt Lake Theological Seminary, and Sacred Art with Thomas Toone at USU (the history of Religious Art, and Art in Religion) have had the largest impact on my life (soul?). The two that have had the largest impact on my mind and thought are Epistemology with Chuck Johnson at USU, and Psychological Profiling with Greg Cooper at SLCC. This page tells about Greg’s work history, and
qualifications. I liked him as a teacher at SLCC. His classes were all online, and required a lot of writing. If he responded to papers at all, you were lucky to get 1 word to a full sentence…out of 9 papers, I got one “good job", one “great job", one “Great job, Chris", and one full sentence. But it was the first academic college course inwhich I earned a 4.0 grade (%100 on everything).

Last semester I had read some textbooks early then exchanged them for books I needed this semester. This semester I returned those books for about $110 cash. With $90 of that I went over to my uncle Albert’s house (yesterday) and we went shopping for my texts online. He used his credit card to buy my $350-$400 (bookstore price) text books. And I paid him the $90 we actually spent. With the remaining $20 I bought some Suby-fuel (fuel for my Suburu).

There were about 25 people trying to add my Phil 3810: Aesthetics course (including me) which was already full with 40 out of 40 people. The Professor ended up having us make a line from Seniors to Freshman, and stopped letting people in with the person in front of me…then, right in front of that guy who he didn’t let in, he let me in. (I had talked to him after class the first day, and I think he took to me…especially because it is a high level Philosophy course and I am one of 3 or so Philosophy majors out of those 65 people, there was one Music Composition major, and the rest were all Interior Design majors. This frustrated my teacher
because it was to be the first Philosophy course most of these women had ever taken, so in order for the majority of the class not to fail, he has to begin teaching the class like an intro to Philosophy, re-explaining all the dead white guys and how they are
important to the field.

So, Nick shipped of to Mexico. I got to hang out with Ben & Jerry (mmmm), Gutman & Jer, Mike & Sarah, Chad & John, Foster & Skyler, Nick & Danny, and Luke & Kris (sp?), Kelli & Andrew, Howsdens & Rupps & Grandma, Nick & Tyler & friends (Travis’ Wedding), took Ariel to the airport, and shipped him in another crate off to the Domincan Republic, where he could be raped by hordes of money grubbing whores.

Good fun. I hadn’t seen Jeremy in a millenia, so that was good to see him.

The saturday before Halloween I was down in Salt Lake City trying to get some homework done. I had to slide on down to my sister’s apartment to search her comp for some old files of mine. No Luck. So she tells me all about how her boyfriend is a pushover for the drama kings, willing to do anything if they ask him right. And she says to me, “Why don’t you come with us?” since they were going party hopping. Being poor’n all, I wasn’t able to go buy my costume (a white sheet) so I could be a Huge scary ghost. So I went as a fat old bearded guy who drinks bear and ogles the teenage halloween sluts. (I preferred to be called “the designated driver"). We had a blast.

Kelli and I picked andrew up from his Wiseguys comedy show, then hightailed it to a party near the Ackers old house above 13th east. (SLC). This party was pretty much the bomb. Sluts EVERYWHERE, but sadly they were too young for me (to date or talk with). That party was a lot like a club scene. Disco ball, strobes, party music blasting, beer and jungle juice splashing everywhere, men undressed as chipendales and natives (Injuns), women dressed as objects, adorned with clevage, and either horns or a tail. Kelli ( my lil sis) went as a cow girl, not the feminine version of a cowboy, but as a girl dressed like a hick, who has some sort of obsession with cows. She brought a cowgirl hat, wore a plaid dress shirt, wore cow slippers, and carried around her large cow stuffed animal. Andrew (kelli’s bf) went as superman. He wore a half unbuttoned white shirt, and a tie blowing back in the wind, had his hair colored black, with the curlie up front, and wore a superman shirt to show the emblem throught the opening of the dress shirt. Kelli’s roommate met up with us at the party and brought two guy friends of hers. Kelli’s roommate was dressed as a white fairie with white wings. Her friends were brothers. One came as a cop (designated driver, more designated than I was), and the other came as a free breathalizer test with a working meter. The cardboard box hung by suspenders around his waist. The pvc pipe to blow on protruded from his pelvic region…great party fun, for drunk whores at a costume party. So his bro, the cop shined the flashlight and took pics of gals finding out how drunk they were.

Party 2 was at Stacey Horton’s bf’s place, somewhere in or near the avenues I guess. Someone hooked up the guys that lived there with 10x8 ft posters from victoria’s secret. Pretty sweet. Anywho, that party was less about dancing and definitely more about getting drunk off your donkey. We couldn’t stay long at that party, but it was fun while it lasted. Stacey’s bf gave me a tasty beer, and all the girls fought to go “peepee-in-da-potty.” Some girl offered me some suggestive acts in order that I let her infront of me (in the bathroom line), I told her she could keep her STD’s but that she was welcome to go in front of me. Who says chivalry is dead? While drinking and making the rounds in the crowded kitchen, one drunk kid kept trying to “give me some skin.” And, kept telling me how awesome and badass I was. That happens to me a lot at parties, some drunk kid on x or weed giving me unsolicited praise and worship. Now, this is great for poor self asteem, but really, like I’m going to value the opinion of some drunken 17 year old stranger I’ve never met…he’d have to be one beautiful girl for that to work. Maybe I really am Jack Black from the Orange County movie. Also, that party had a lot of mexicans, and I think a couple asians. That felt kinda outtaplace. Not that I’m racist or anything. So, on the way out we said our goodbyes and ran into Chester the Molester, Nick’s old junkie roommate. That’s not meant to be an insult, but lets face it, he seemed to be on some recreational drug everytime I met him.

Oh did I mention, last week I retired my beloved “OgreBattle: The March of the Black Queen” game, after having finished it with the best possible of like 250 endings…sweet.

August 3, 2008. The game is so excellent, I’ve brought it back out of retirement twice in the past 3 years. My SNES cartridge is still retired, but my ZSNES Emulator lives on.

I’d like to point out that Queen did a song called Ogre Battle, and another called March of the Black Queen. I have read on another site that one of the creators of the game was a fan of Queen. Videos Below:

When first asked to remove our image (one associated with Satanism), we asked for clarification as to whether we were being asked or told. Our RA explained that while many were upset with our symbol, the only way to force us to remove it is if a rule was established which prohibited all window decor in campus dorm windows. This would make even more people unhappy. We asked our RA to respond to all requests by saying, “They have said they will remove their offensive sign if everyone on campus stops wearing their offensive CTR rings.” (CTR, “Choose the Right,” rings are associated with Mormonism.) We knew this was an unreasonable request which would never even be considered by the campus community. In fact, we didn’t care about CTR rings or even believe there was a Satan. But once the wheels of censorship were set in motion we thought we’d play around with it. We merely hoped to spark the thought in people’s minds that they display offensive symbols all the time. In our situation, Mormons have been forced to see one symbol they have labeled offensive once or twice a night for just over one school semester. Non-Mormons, on the other hand, have been forced to see many more symbols (which may be considered offensive to them) far more often, over any amount of time they spend on the USU campus (be it one semester, the duration of attaining a four-year degree, or longer).

The housing department at USU seems to have taken Bok’s point of view of persuasion where he says, “…talk with those responsible, seeking to educate and persuade rather than to ridicule or intimidate.” The department was only interested in educating us of their view, attempting to persuade us into believing it was wrong to display our symbol because it offended people. The department spent no time trying to see our view or understand our position. Bok’s suggestion that “only persuasion is likely to produce a lasting, beneficial effect,” is limited to the idea that the offended person’s view is correct, and the solution is to convince everyone else that they are wrong. His solution is to proselytize his viewpoint rather than to seek understanding of a differing viewpoint. Subliminally, and probably unconsciously, Bok offers a suggestion aimed at the destruction of diversity of thought and perception, uniting a one world view. Didn’t Hitler try to do that?

When I first read Bok’s prompt, it rang pretty true. If someone tries to bother you, ignore it. If that person can’t get a rise out of you, he will stop. But with a deeper read I have found much distortion in the path of his problem solving. The initial problem is that you can’t ignore things that offend you. If I say don’t think of an elephant, your cognitive response to translating the language will form a framework within your mind associated with the sound of the word (Lakoff). If you are truly offended as a naturally response to the sight of a symbol, you will be able to do no other than respond naturally to the sight. What makes an object offensive is not the object itself, but the perception of that object through the sociological (or psychological) lens of the perceiver. If someone is offended (hurt) by the existence of something, the reason (or problem, if one allows it to be so) lies within the perception of the offended, not by the nature of the object. In the case that someone is trying to bother you, they are actively attempting to achieve a response you don’t have to provide. If you are bothered by the nature of something, it is passively bothering you. Depending on the offense, that something may be unable to change. In either case, a true (natural) response will always be shown. If something offends you, you will be offended when confronted with that thing. If you can ignore it, it means you have come to terms with it, or can be not offended by it. Therefore it is up to you to keep from being bothered. You have to change some part of your thinking (viewpoint) in order to come to terms with that which you have no power to control.

The next part I quickly agreed with, but had difficulty with at a closer look, was Bok’s urging for us to bridge the gap of diversity, to talk things out. That sounds reasonable enough, but what he actually aims at is to talk with them in order to persuade them to believe what he does. He wants to educate them, as if they could be sensitive, caring, loving, truth-filled and righteous, if only they could learn what he knows. This is conceited ethnocentrism on a personal level, unless of course, if Bok is perfect and right about everything. He mentions nothing toward acceptance that people are different, or toward embracing diversity in thought or culture. He mentions nothing about talking with people bearing socially controversial symbols in hopes to understand their viewpoint, or come to some mutual understanding.

In the end, when you start outlawing symbols, you start a process of censorship, the destruction of freedom. Even if you succeed, you’ve outlawed images that do no harm, their power is given by people weak enough in mind and will to give them meaning and power. Still, with knowledge comes sensitivity (if for no other reason than the extreme that some nut might kill you for a brandishing a symbol on your person or belongings). The most important aspect here is quality of life. Only you have the power to not be offended. You can learn to accept, come to terms with, destroy or understand that which offends you. Anger and offense are products of fear. They lead to the dark side. Being scared, offended, hateful, or angry is self destructive. These emotions do no good to anyone, no harm to anyone else, and harm only the person harnessing them. Aren’t there better things to do with life?

Work Cited:
Bok, Derek, Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus, March 25, 1991, The Boston Globe

PHIL 4910 Philosphy Readings and Research
ENGL 1030 Understanding Literature
ART 2140 Drawing 2
PSY 1220 Career Exploration
HIST 4230 History of Christianity
USU 1330 Creative Arts