Awesome [Ellie]

As happens every year about this time in a ward as full of students as mine, several good friends of mine are moving out. I've been a little down about this for the last while; that must explain why Bryan, for Mother's Day, got me a little book called The Book of Awesome.

The Book of Awesome is not the kind of thing that I typically read. It's based on a blog where the author collected 1,000 submissions from people across the web of things they find "awesome." The word "awesome" alone pretty much takes it out of the "books I read" category. But, to humor Bryan, and because I needed to ponder me some awesomeness, I've been picking it up from time to time. Most of the things are small, everyday pleasures that we take for granted. I admit that I've enjoyed most of his ideas, although some things he rhapsodizes about I can't quite relate to.

So, with that long intro, I've come up with a few things he left out that I think are awesome.

*Green cement trucks with fancy stenciled designs on their barrels. I don't know if this is just a Columbus thing or what, but I've never seen such decorative construction vehicles. They make me smile every time I see them.

*When a song comes on the radio that fits your mood exactly, inviting you to sing soulfully at the top of your lungs.

*Spotting the first firefly of the season.

*Finding a great new outfit in your own closet.

*The first time you see your child choose to walk with tiny tottering steps instead of crawling. (Shout out to all you moms with late walkers out there!)

*Finding the right tool for the job. Also the right container.

*Ohio birds. Especially the brightly colored ones. From my house I can see cardinals, goldfinches, and blue jays, besides robins, doves, starlings, grackles, red-wing blackbirds, and sparrows. If I drive down the street a ways, I can see turkey vultures and great blue herons. In the metro parks I've seen bluebirds and even a woodpecker with a scarlet head pecking wood! Sorry for the list, but I really love birds.

*When somebody else has replaced the towels/toilet paper roll.

*When a stain on my baby's shirt comes out on the first try.

*Finding a great book, picked at random, from the library. This is awesome because it hardly ever happens.

*When my non-snuggler child comes to me and wants to snuggle.

*Getting the giggles as an adult.

*When we're driving and Bryan reaches over to hold my hand.

Speaking of Bryan, he's promised to blog his own awesome list. Stay tuned.

Got any awesomeness to add?

The Road [Bryan]

Just got done reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, a fascinating and emotionally wrenching book. The story is about a father and son traveling together through post-apocalyptic devastation. McCarthy tries to imagine a world where conditions render hope an absolute impossibility. Everything is dead, nothing grows, and starving humans feed on each other, even their own children. The dim climate, cold and getting colder, is punctuated only by lightening, freezing rain, and gray snow. All that exists is the shell of the former world, burned-out cities, looted stores, and useless technologies. Even memories of the old world are beginning to fade, “the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.” People live, shivering and wet, through either cannibalism or scavenging an ever-diminishing supply of canned food. There is no reason to believe in anything, especially that life will get any better or that a loving God exists. As one of the characters says, "People were always getting ready for tomorrow. Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them. It didnt even know they were there... There is no God and we are his prophets." There is no looking to the future or, as the book says, “There is no later. This is later.”

The central questions this raised for me are these: Would we still have reasons to live in such a world? If everything else were taken away, even the possibility of happiness, what would make life worthwhile? Is there anything to stop us from committing suicide in such a world?

This unsentimental book seems to find at least a fleeting meaning and beauty in the relationships we have with one another. The relationship between father and son, simple and unadorned, is one of the most touching descriptions of familial love I have read. The father desperately tries to encourage his son to live and go on, even while he himself is without hope, and dying. He tries to preserve the kindness and generosity he finds in his son, while enduring the compromises he himself must make with morality to help them survive. You desperately begin to want to take care of this little boy, the lone spark of goodness (the "fire") in a murderous world. The end of the book, where the son asks his Dad to let them die together, is very sad, but profound:

I want to be with you.
You cant.
Please.
You cant. You have to carry the fire.
I dont know how to.
Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.
Just take me with you. Please.
I cant.
Please, Papa.
I cant. I cant hold my son dead in my arms. I thought I could but I cant.
You said you wouldnt ever leave me.
I know. I'm sorry. You have my whole heart. You always did. You're the best guy. You always were. If I'm not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see.
Will I hear you?
Yes. You will. You have to make it like talk that you imagine. And you'll hear me. You have to practice. Just dont give up. Okay?
Okay.
Okay.
I'm really scared Papa.
I know. But you'll be okay. You're going to be lucky. I know you are. I've got to stop talking. I'm going to start coughing again.
It's okay, Papa. You don't have to talk. It's okay.

Freaking Big Deal, Part 2 [Bryan]

The Senate passed the banking reform bill! This way out of my area of knowledge or interest, but the consensus from people I've read (here and here, for example) seems to be that the bill is fairly tough (tougher than expected) on big banks and makes some really positive changes. It creates a new consumer protection agency, finally puts some regulation on derivatives making them more transparent, and fixes the investment ratings agencies, thus addressing many of the major causes of the recent financial crisis. Of course, it will probably not solve all of our problems. What is amazing, though, is that the Democrats were able to do something real in the face of millions of dollars of fierce lobbying from the fat-cat banking sector and staunch resistance from most Republicans.

I can post this if I want to, because I like it [Bryan]

Half, but it made me feel Whole [Ellie]

On May 1st I ran my first half-marathon. I say first because I plan to run more. Here's why:

5:55 a.m.
I wake to my alarm. Peeking outside I see rain pouring down in sheets. Thunder booms in the distance. I throw my bright red rain jacket over my race t-shirt.

7:40 a.m.
Anna, sister/running buddy/personal trainer extraodinaire, and I arrive in Downtown Columbus. The rain has stopped. We follow the hordes of people heading toward the starting line. More than 6,000 people ran the half marathon alone; add to that 5Kers and spectators, and you've got easily 10,000 shoehorned into a couple of blocks. Wall to wall people.

7:47 a.m.
We find what looks to be the starting line, except we can't see it. It's covered in people. The road is so full of racers that we have to squeeze onto it, stopping just shy of actually shoving people out of the way. The atmosphere, like other races I've been in, is carnival-like. Their are balloons and tents everywhere. People are excited, bouncing in place, stretching, taking little warm-up jogs, using the port-a-potties. The mayor and a local news personality are hamming it up trying to rally the crowd. They are largely ignored. We line up with others planning to run at a 9-minute mile pace.

8:00 a.m.
The race begins, or so it would seem. The wall of bodies in front of us begins to move forward sluggishly.

8:05 a.m.
We actually cross the starting line. We are unaware of this.

At this point time becomes irrelevant.

During the first few miles, my body feels tight. I think, This doesn't feel great. I'm doing this for 13 miles?

Miles 3 and 4 pass. Entirely warmed up and in a rhythm. The Central Ohio humidity which has, for the most part, been absent from our training runs, makes its presence known. Already I'm hot and sweaty. I take my jacket off and pray for rain.

We run through German Village. As we pass the park, Villagers are lined up and cheering. Some seem to specifically cheer Anna and I. It feels good to be doing something people cheer for.

Right before we hit mile 5 it starts to rain. I'd feared this before the race; now I am just grateful.

Mile 6, almost halfway though. There's a large crowd at this intersection. More cheering; it feels so good! We seem to be picking up time with each mile.

The drink stations keep offering Gatorade. All I want is water. I want to dump it all over me.

An older gentleman teases Anna and I that we are chatting just to show off that we can still talk.

We catch the woman assigned as the 2-hour pacer. She's holding a tall stick with balloons. As long as we stay ahead of her, we'll accomplish our goal.

Mile 9--Wow! Really? Mile marking for the race was haphazard. Nine snuck up on us. Only four more to go. That's a morning jog.

Mile 10. Anna and I "high ten." Exhaustion is setting in, but we're almost there.

Mile 11. Only two more? That's less than 20 minutes. We pick up a little speed. I know I'll regret it if I don't give it all I've got. Who knows if I'll ever do this again?

Mile 12. It happens. I think the thought I've never allowed myself to think: Well, maybe I could run a marathon. Pure insanity.

Anna feels energized and wants to pick up speed. I can't make my 32-year-old body go any faster, though I'd like to.

10:00 a.m.
We spot the finish line ahead. Suddenly, I can sprint.

10:02 a.m.
We cross the finish line smiling. We give each other a corny high 13.1. Our official time? 1 hour, 57 minutes, 55 seconds. We met our goal of breaking 2 hours! We came in 1,508 and 1,509th. That's good enough to put us in the top 25 percent of finishers. Not bad for a first half marathon, eh?

And the aftermath: So sore I can hardly walk the next day, and then gradually better the following days. Stairs=torture. A week and a half out, I can still feel strain in the tendons under my left ankle, but it's getting fainter every day. They're going to have to get used to it, 'cause I'm doing it again next year!

So much thanks to Spencer and Rachel for taking care of the kids while we ran. Thanks, also to my sweet visiting teacher Norma, who made an awesome "Distance Runner Care Package" and helped watch the kids. Thanks to Bryan for getting the kids up and ready every morning while I was gone running. Finally, armloads of thanks to Anna, without whom I would never have even dared attempt this. Talking with her made running 13 miles (and all those training miles, too) a pleasure.

Mashed potato madness [Bryan]

More progress on the mashed potato front! My major questions lately have involved, first, incorporating cheese into the recipe (since, hey, everything is better with cheese), and second, finding a fresh herb to spice things up a bit. Here are the recipes that have informed my recent work in this area:

First, a recipe for garlic Parmesan mashed potatoes, which seems to have found the perfect amount of Parmesan and balanced it nicely against the garlic. They still use the problematic "drain method" of boiling the potatoes, though, which is a big mistake (tsk, tsk).

Second, a recipe for baked mashed potatoes and yams, which is very different and interesting. Using half sweet potatoes is a fun change of pace, although I think I prefer the regular potatoes for most occasions. This recipe also had a nice balance of garlic and cheese, but the key contribution was definitely the fresh rosemary. I tried using fresh parsley before, and that was good, but I think the rosemary is by far the best way to spruce up a mashed potato dish.

So, I'm going to stick with the recipe I posted last time, involving the essential "no drain method," but with the following addendum: it needs to include 3/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese, along with 1 tsp fresh rosemary.

The purge [Bryan]

I rarely find myself agreeing with Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah). He and I have very different views of how the world works and what public policy should look like. Although he is very conservative, however, I always had the sense that he is a decent, sincere fellow, by disposition someone who is willing to work with those on the other side of the aisle.

In a Republican party growing more radical and extreme every day, though, a person like this couldn't last long. It is not like Bennett is a centrist -- he isn't. He has voted to filibuster everything the Democrats have proposed this past year. He is as as conservative as they come. But apparently that isn't enough is today's Republican party. Your political opponents are not people to "find common ground" with; they are people you call "Nazi communists who hate America." Since Bennett tried to find common ground, he was given a humiliating third place finish during the nominating process.

Utah Republicans need to take a serious look at the madness and extremism that is engulfing their party.

The Windy City [Bryan]

I just got back from Chicago. I love that town: the architecture, the museums, the good food, and, above all, the lake front. There is an energy that I felt as soon as I stepped off the plane in O'Hare. It is a crown jewel of American cities. I was there to meet with a group of people from a prestigious Chicago-based foundation. I must say, they treated me very well. They put me up in a luxury suite for the night overlooking Michigan Avenue, the "Magnificent Mile". It was the first time I have been in a hotel room with multiple rooms (a living room!). There was even a telephone in a bathroom, hanging there above the toilet paper roll (not sure I wanted to touch it). It was so nice that when I returned to my room in evening, I entered to soft light, soothing music, and turned down covers on my bed -- very different from the discount motels we usually haunt.

The meeting itself was intimidating. It quickly became apparent that I was very different from almost everyone else in attendance. Most of the other people were from the Harvards, Stanfords, and Princetons of the world. Not only were they mostly at elite institutions, but most were senior faculty, some of the most recognized academics in the world. And then there was me, unknown, unread, and unheralded (one prestigious professor kept calling my Byron). I kept having that Sesame Street song in my mind, "One of these things is not like the other." The differences were most apparent during our lunch conversation, which turned to the recent Supreme Court vacancy. People were chiming in on the Supreme Court candidates that they had met or were close personal friends with. Some talked of their "recent visit to the White House" (cue Bryan: "One of these things is not like the other"). It was an other-worldly experience to be included in such a group.

The next day, I had a few hours before my flight to Columbus, so I went down to Hyde Park. I saw the Frank Loyd Wright house and toured the famous Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. While I was there, I noticed a volunteer, an older man, who was trying to explain to a younger couple why what they were looking at was so great. They didn't seem that interested. After they left, I went up to this volunteer and asked him what his other favorite pieces in the museum were. Well, that started a 2 hour personal tour. He proceeded to take me all over his beloved museum, showing me his favorite pieces, telling me why they were so cool, explaining their history. Now that is how to experience a museum! I love people who are passionate about things like old pots.

Two articles, two insights [Bryan]

Two thoughtful articles came out last month, each dealing with the topic of adult care-giving. One article, "Letting Go of My Father," by Jonathan Rauch, appeared in last month's Atlantic. The other, "On spectrum: My daughter, her autism, our life," by Sallie Tisdale, appeared in last month's Harper's. The first article talks about caring for an aging parent, the second talks about caring for an adult daughter with autism. It was useful to compare and contrast what these articles had to say. Both, for example, talked about how difficult it is for adult caregivers when roles begin to blur, the role of adult and child, for example, or carer and cared-for.

In the end, two things really touched me. First, Tisdale writes about how parents with disabled children learn to give up on their dreams and expectations for their children.

Ambivalence is a normal state for me. It is hard to articulate what I seem to have lost, because it is something I never had. Annie was never going to go to law school—we knew that. Eventually we knew she was not even going to drive a car. What I miss is something vague and dreamy about a daughter growing up. I have fantasies of high school girls giggling in a bedroom behind a closed door, of long phone calls. I feel grief for the past, for all that there was none of, and grief for the future, for what there may be none of yet to come. Every parent loses a child, several children, as each successive child passes into the next—the chrysalis of the infant becomes the toddler, the toddler gives way to the child, the child to the youth and finally the adult. This is one element of being a parent, of being alive, though there is an enduring sorrow in realizing not that the child has died but that the adult anticipated will never be born.

In Rauch's piece, I was touched by how accepting assisted living, accepting dependency, can be seen as the last act of parental care and affection. Rauch talks of the difficulties involved with caring for his aging, dying father: cleaning up his father's poop, spending whole days at the doctor's offices, receiving panicked calls from his father's worried neighbors, and so forth. His father, afflicted with Parkinson's, insisted on his independence until it became too much:

As I reached my own breaking point...my father caught sight of my distress. He would not accept assisted living on his own account, but when I told him that he was already in assisted living but that I was the assistance; that I was overwhelmed, underqualified, and barely hanging on emotionally; that I wanted to be his son again, not a nurse and nag and adversary—when I told him all that, and when his sister and the social worker chimed in, he acceded. He was still, after all, my father, and it was still his job, he understood, to care for me....Another phase of the story then unfolded, ending with his death in December. His last gesture to me, so very characteristic, was to wave me away. He wanted me to go on with my life rather than hover by his bedside.

Accepting help was his father's final act of love, his final way of taking care of his son, his final act of fatherly sacrifice, stricken and dying as he was.

A tale of two martyrs [Bryan]

Yesterday, Nora had a double-header soccer game, two games in a row that took up the whole Saturday morning. I drew the assignment of taking Nora to the game, while Ellie would stay home with Andrew and Stephen. It was a miserable morning, with a chilly wind and blowing rain. Nora and her teammates did just fine since they were running and moving, but it was quite miserable to be a spectator. I sat there in my cold chair while it rained, being a martyr father. I thought of Ellie, home in our nice warm house. She could keep cozy and dry, have a nice breakfast, and do whatever she needed to do. I was a bit resentful.

Anyway, when I returned home, Ellie was somewhat glum. Come to find out, she was a bit annoyed that she had to stay home while I had gone to the soccer game. I told her how wet and miserable I was, and how surely she had drawn the better assignment. She told me how needy the boys were, whining and complaining, destroying everything in their paths, and how she had felt imprisoned in the house. Surely, she argued, I had drawn the better assignment. She made the case that is was she who was the martyr, not me.

We laughed about this later, two martyrs, each envying the supposedly better situation of the other. While I'm sure any objective observer would obviously agree that I was clearly the more put-upon one here, I thought it was interesting how perspectives differ.

...not having meant to keep us waiting long [Bryan]

Below is a section from Marilynne Robinson's book, Housekeeping (HT: Andrew Sullivan). I haven't read the book, and I don't know the context, but it contains some seriously beautiful prose. The speaker, although not a traditional "believer," contemplates loss, hope, and resurrection.

Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it. God Himself was pulled after us into the vortex we made when we fell, or so the story goes. And while He was on earth He mended families. He gave Lazarus back to his mother, and to the centurion he gave his daughter again. He even restored the severed ear of the soldier who came to arrest him -- a fact that allows us to hope the resurrection will reflect a considerable attention to detail....

And when He did die it was sad -- such a young man, so full of promise, and His mother wept and His friends could not believe the loss, and the story spread everywhere and the mourning would not be comforted, until He was so sharply lacked and so powerfully remembered that his friends felt Him beside them as they walked along the road, and saw someone cooking fish on the shore and knew it to be Him, and sat down to supper with Him, all wounded as He was.

There is so little to remember of anyone -- an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long.

Taxed Enough Already? [Bryan]

Being tax day yesterday, I suppose it was inevitable that we were to be subject to yet another round of the so-called "Tea Party Patriots." There are many odd things about this group, for example, for people who love to trumpet to their own "patriotism" they sometimes seem fairly glib in their talk about "secession" from the United States.

One of the signature issues of this movement is, I'm told, taxes. CBS news yesterday had an informative piece, "What's Obama Doing to Your Taxes". Nearly 64% of tea partiers, it says, believe that Obama has already raised their taxes, and they appear to be very, very angry at him for this. Well, what is the reality? According to the Associated Press:

Congress cut individuals' federal taxes for this year by about $173 billion shortly after President Barack Obama took office, dwarfing the $28.6 billion in increases by states. [...] The massive economic recovery package enacted last year included about $300 billion in tax cuts over 10 years. About $232 billion was in cuts for individuals, nearly all in the first two years. The most generous was Obama's Making Work Pay credit, which gives individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800 for 2009 and 2010. The $1,000 child tax credit was expanded to more families, and the working poor can qualify for as much as $5,657 from the Earned Income Tax Credit.

For these reasons, the Tax Policy Center notes that taxes are the lowest they've been in 60 years -- yes, lower than during the Reagan and Bush eras. So, right away, we notice that 64% of the Tea Partiers have no idea what they are talking about with respect to their signature issue. Obama and the Democrats have cut taxes drastically in the middle of a recession, which is exactly what needs to be done.

Perhaps the real worry is future taxes? Obama does propose letting the Bush tax cuts expire for higher income Americans. This will mean: (1) raising the top two income tax brackets from 33 percent to 36 percent, and from 35 percent 39.6 percent, (2) raising the capital gains tax rate from 15 percent to 20 percent for married filers with incomes above $250,00, (3) raising the tax on dividend income from 15 percent to 20 percent for married filers with incomes above $250,000. These are the same tax rates that were in effect under the Clinton administration, and are still quite low, historically speaking. These taxes will impact roughly 2-3% of the population. As long as the country is coming out of the recession at that point, this seems very reasonable and hardly grounds for wild charges of communism.

Another big worry of the tea partiers is government spending. They are worried that Obama is spending a lot of government money and are very, very angry at him for this. They are correct, of course, that there is cause for concern about long term deficits. What is interesting, though, about the tea partiers is that 57% of them approve of George W. Bush. This is the same Bush who waged two wars and passed a massive new government entitlement (Medicare Part D), all on the government credit card. There wasn't even the slightest effort to pay for these spending programs (Karl Rove famously claimed "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"), and yet, the Tea Party Patriots still largely approve of Bush. Obama is the great villain for them when it comes to spending, ignoring the fact that he just passed one of the largest long term deficit reduction measures ever enacted (health care reform, which they fought strongly against), the fact that his 2010 budget actually reduces the long-term deficit from earlier projections, and the fact that one should simply not cut short-term spending during periods of recession and high unemployment.

Makes me wonder if there is something else behind tea-party hatred than actual taxation and spending policies. Their rhetoric does not match anything close to reality. Confusion mixed with anger is a dangerous cocktail. A Molotov cocktail.

[My own view on taxes, if anyone cares, is that they will need to go up once we are back to around 6% unemployement, and they will probably need to go up for the middle class. Common sense reform of entitlements will be necessary (raising retirement age), along with cuts to the defense budget and things like agricultural subsidies.]

Mirror, Mirror [Ellie]

I'm hoping other women can relate to this post so it doesn't just come off as piteous and delusional. . .

Does it ever seem to you like there are three different yous, appearance-wise? There is the me I can see looking down--arms, tummy, legs--the me I see in the mirror, and the me in photographs.

Recently, I lost about 10 lbs. It was hard work, involving an increased exercise regimen and lots of diet changes. The me looking-down and the me-in-the-mirror have definitely noticed. The looking-down me saw that I had to buy new pants because my others hung off me awkwardly. The mirror me saw fewer rolls of back fat.

Evidently, the photo me has not noticed at all. Looking through recent pictures we've taken, I look just as blimpy as ever. No matter how hard I tried to look good--and the looking-down me and mirror-me assured me that I did look good--the photo-me is there as seemingly unimpeachable evidence that nothing has changed. Bryan, trying to comfort me, claims that I am just the most unphotogenic person he's ever met. This is thin comfort, even on the days that I believe it.

Bryan has gone so far as to insist that there's an impish not-Ellie that jumps in and takes my place whenever a flash goes off. He compares it to an episode of his favorite TV show How I Met Your Mother where the character Barney (Neil Patrick Harris, formerly Doogie Howser) is found to be photogenic no matter what. His friends try to take pictures of him at awful moments--bending down, with food on his face--and somehow the camera still captures him with a glinting smile and GQ pose, regardless of what he was doing when the picture was snapped. So Bryan's theory is that I'm the opposite of Barney.

Anyway, my point is, if I look awful in those recent pictures (and I do), the looking-down Ellie and mirror-Ellie's didn't look that way. Illusion or not, I'm clinging to their version of reality.

Anybody else out there have split-body-identities?

Recent pics [Bryan]

In February, Stephen celebrated his first birthday.

Nora pretending to be the dreaded "sock monster."

Obligatory cute bath-time picture.

For our 12th anniversary, Ellie and I ditched the kids (thanks Anna and Spencer) and spent a weekend in Cincinnati. Here are Remus and Romulus nursing at the she-wolf. Not sure what this statue has to do with Cincinnati, but there you are.

Here we are in the Cincinnati conservatory.

And here are Picasso and I in the art museum. (Bravo to Cincinnati for having so much cool free stuff to do.)

Lunch at Eden Park.

At the Newport Aquarium. Ellie was a bit wimpy at the shark petting exhibit.

Stephen doing is favorite thing -- ripping papers.

Nora celebrated her 7th birthday and is growing up way too fast.

The weather allowed us to return to Hocking Hills.

At Old Man's Cave.

I just got back from a trip to San Francisco for a conference. Here is an awkward self-portrait of me boating around San Francisco Bay.

I toured Alcatraz prison. Fascinating. Well worth the $26.

Here is the sign at the prison library. Apparently, the prisoners were way into German idealism. Schpoenhauer I can understand, but Kant and Hegel? Really? I'm a little embarrassed to think Al Capone might have got more out of Hegel than I did.

The Broadway. Between cell block B and C in Alcatraz. If those walls could talk, I bet they could tell some stories.

Prisoners spent 23 hours a day in small, 7 foot by 9 foot cells. The isolation cells were particularly haunting, as were the bullet holes in the walls and floors.

What makes a sport good? [Bryan]

I've been trying to figure out if there is an objective way to determine what makes one sport superior to another sport. Here are the criteria I've come up with. Call it my philosophy of sports.

1. The game should be played continually, with few stops in the action. Futbol (or "soccer" to you Norte Americanos) and hockey score well here, basketball moderately well, and football and baseball not well at well.

2. The game should focus on human skill and athleticism, not who can buy the best equipment. So, competitive swimming, which seems very dependent on suits and pools, scores low here. Golf too. NASCAR is beyond poor. Anything with steroid problems is bad.

3. You should be able to play pick-up versions of the sport the replicate the real thing. That is to say, the sport should be simple and uncluttered with equipment, refereeing, or other infrastructure. Futbol and basketball score well here, baseball moderately well, and football and hockey quite poorly.

4. Related to 3, officiating should be unintrusive and relatively objective. I'm not sure about the objectivity part since all sports have subjective refereeing. But in futbol and hockey you rarely see the officials. In football the officiating is moderately intrusive, while basketball (fouls) and baseball (balls v. strikes) score poorly, with referees being a huge part of the game.

5. You should not be able to gain advantage in the sport by getting caught officially breaking the rules. This really bugs me, and it is basketball's great bugaboo. Nothing bothers me more than when someone gets beat off the dribble and then intentionally fouls to stop the layup. Weak, weak, weak. Sports should never allow this. Basketball should make fouls much more costly. In no other sport is breaking the rules so rewarded.

6. Competitive elements of the sport need to be manifest within the official rules. This is hockey's big bugaboo. Half of the competitive spirit is manifest outside of the game itself -- in fighting. In a good sport, this doesn't happen and that spirit is expressed within the game itself.

7. The game should create moments of real beauty. This is a subjective call, but nothing is more beautiful than basketball, manifesting beauty in power, speed, and style. Hockey is too fast for the human eye, so it is the loser. Baseball and football have moments, but they are rare. Granted, your mileage may vary here.

8. Players should be asked to do everything the sport involves. The more player specialization, the worse the sport; if you play a sport, you should really play it all. Basketball scores very well here, futbol moderately well (goalies), while baseball (particularly with the DH) and football score miserably. I can't underscore how bad football fails this test, with offensive, defensive, and special team specialist, each further subdivided by positions that do vastly different things.

So, in the end, futbol is the great winner here, followed by basketball, hockey, and baseball. Football is the great loser. This is odd since I really like to watch football. What am I missing?

Ellie's Easter Talk

A few years ago I had a conversation with a sister that stuck with me. She talked about how difficult the winter was for her. Winter's dark dreariness sent her into a depression each year which it was hard to emerge from. I can sympathize with this. I don't know whether it's seeing the bright sun more often or not having to wear four layers of clothing when I go running in the mornings, but my body and my spirit both just feel lighter when spring comes, as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I'd like to talk today about the return of spring, particularly the event of Easter, and about the lifting of burdens.

The scriptures contain imagery of burdens borne and lifted. In Psalm 55:22 we are urged to "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee." In Matthew 11:30 we find the familiar invitation of the Savior: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Both these scriptures are to be understood metaphorically--no actual burdens are being carried. The weight we're contemplating is spiritual rather than physical. But both scriptures are very physical in their imagery. The phrase "cast your burden upon the Lord" brings to mind an image of "casting" or throwing a heavy sack that the Lord will catch and carry for us. The idea of being granted rest after strenuous labor might remind us of times when we were "heavy laden" with an exhausting physical task.

I think it's no mistake that the relief being offered here, though spiritual, is spoken of in physical terms. Burdens of body and burdens of spirit affect each other. Physical burdens can afflict our spirits and spiritual burdens can cripple our bodies, since our bodies and spirits together make up our souls.

If these two scriptures begin with the worry of burdens, they end with assurance of divine aid--having our burdens lifted. David promises in his Psalm that if we do throw our burdens to the Lord, that "he will sustain thee." In Matthew, Jesus promises us rest for our souls and a lighter burden.

There have been two moments in my life when I have felt a keen sense of relief as a burden was lifted from my shoulders.

The first occurred when I was about fifteen years old. My dad took my brother and sister and I on a backpacking trip to Zion National Park in Southern Utah. I'm no natural athlete and the physical demands of the hike were a shock to my system. The summer sun in Zion's beat down hard and by the late afternoon I was sweaty and dirty and my whole body ached from carrying the bulky backpack. When my dad finally declared that we had reached camp, my siblings and I were ecstatic. I had never felt such relief as when I sat down and removed the straps of my pack. My shoulders still ached for a few minutes, but my body was overjoyed to be carrying only my own weight again. With that burden lifted from my shoulders, I felt like skipping around our camp, and since I was fifteen, I probably did.

Christ understood how physical burdens can weaken our souls. He spent much of his ministry healing wounded bodies. One man whose physical burden was lifted by Jesus was Bartimaeus. His story is found in Mark 10: 46-52:

". . .And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar. . .was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!'

"And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more. . .

"And Jesus stopped and said, 'Call him.'

"And they called the blind man, saying. . ., 'Take heart; rise, he is calling you.'

"And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said unto him, 'What do you want me to do for you?'

"And the blind man said to Him, 'Master, let me receive my sight.'

"And Jesus said to him, 'Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.'

"And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the way."

Bartimaeus was both eager and full of faith. He would not be dissuaded from his goal of being healed, pursuing Jesus despite the discouraging remarks of those around him. We can only imagine the burden his blindness caused in his life. We know that he was begging along the roadside. Surely his blindness contributed to his inability to work for a living. Imagine what it meant to him to have Jesus give him his sight. It must have turned his life around. Jesus lovingly lifted the burden of Bartimaeus's blindness and opened the door to a new life for him.

During his ministry Jesus healed the blind, the deaf, the crippled, the leprous, and even brought people back from the dead. What pains he did not heal directly, he came to comprehend in the Garden of Gethsemane. As it says in Alma 7: 11-12, "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

The second time I felt relief from a great burden came shortly after my daughter Nora was born. For some reason, at that time I began remembering a wrong I had done my sister in the past. It happened when we were both children, and I didn't know if she even still remembered it, but I began dwelling on it and experiencing terrible feelings of guilt. I soon realized that even though it had happened long ago, if I wanted to move forward with my life, I needed to resolve my feelings of guilt. It was really the first time I ever thought of applying the Atonement to myself. I had never felt this kind of suffering for sin. I knew I had to repent; I had to talk to my sister and I had to plead that she and my Heavenly Father would forgive me.

After a week of misery and a pep talk from Bryan, I called my sister. Nervously, I told her what I remembered, gave her my heartfelt apology, and waited for her response. She remembered what had happened, but gave me gracious and immediate forgiveness. When I hung up with her and got down on my knees to ask the Lord's forgiveness, the relief I felt was one of the sweetest feelings I had felt in my life. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of the Atonement, for knowing that I did not have to dwell in misery and shame over things I had done in the past. I felt such hope and such love. My burden was lifted and I could move forward with my life.

Christ's Atonement lifts our spiritual burdens. In one of my favorite stories of Jesus, a woman is brought before Jesus by an angry mob, and accused of adultery. Continuing in John 8, it says,

"They said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very
act. . . .

"But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. . .

"And when they heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one. . .

"And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. He said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

"She said, No man, Lord.

"And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

Jesus's forgiveness here is so simple and so clear. As Bible scholar Frances Taylor Gench notes, not only has He both acknowledged and forgiven the woman's guilt, while possibly saving her life, he has brought the accusing crowd to recognize their own sinful state, and perhaps repent themselves. They arrived as a mob, but left, to their credit, one by one, each pondering his own sin. We can only imagine the woman's feeling of gratitude and relief. Surely, after having such a terrible burden of sin and fear lifted from her shoulders, she went forth and sinned no more.

In this Easter time, it seems fitting to remember that Christ spent his life and ultimately his death lifting the burdens, physical and spiritual, from other's shoulders. From the woman taken in adultery, he lifted the burdens of public humiliation and sin. From the blind man, he lifted the burden of a lifetime of struggling in darkness. I have felt his forgiveness change my life.

During this fateful week we now celebrate as Easter, He took on his fragile mortal frame every burden of grief or sickness or suffering man has ever had call to bear. In Gethsemane, during his arrest and scourging, and on the cross, He suffered mental and physical anguish, the weight of which broke his body and nearly broke his spirit, but He bore it all, and completed His task on the cross, out of love for His Father and love for us.

That He fulfilled his mission and rose, glorified, that Sunday morning from the tomb, is a joy we can all share in and call sweet. Through His suffering in the Garden, and then through His glorious resurrection, we too have the hope of a new day. Through His grace and our repentance, we can have our burdens lifted. Whether the darkness that surrounds us is the dreariness of February, the loneliness of loss, or the hopelessness of sin, if we will let him, our Savior can take our hand and leads us into the light.

What will happen this year? [Bryan]

Here are some of my favorite changes that will immediately be in place thanks to the new health care reform (Kevin Drum has a more comprehensive list). Starting this year:

• Small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive tax credits of up to 35% of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable.

• Children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance coverage.

• Insurance companies will be banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick, and they will be banned from implementing lifetime caps on coverage. Annual limits on coverage will be banned for certain plans.

• Adults who are uninsured because of pre-existing conditions will have access to affordable insurance through a temporarily subsidized high-risk pool (this is to help until the exchanges and subsidies get up and running, I think).

• The bill increases funding for community health centers, so they can treat nearly double the number of patients over the next five years.

• The bill creates a new, independent appeals process that ensures consumers in new private plans have access to an effective process to appeal decisions made by their insurer.

• New private plans will be required to provide free preventive care: no co-payments and no deductibles for preventive services. And beginning January 1, 2011, Medicare will do the same.

• The bill starts to close the Medicare Part D 'donut hole' by providing a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who hit the gap in prescription drug coverage. And beginning in 2011, the bill institutes a 50% discount on prescription drugs in the 'donut hole.'
  

Forgiving Love [Bryan]

"Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of a divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the difference between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight....When life is lived in this dimension the chasms which divide men are bridged not directly, not by resolving the conflicts on the historical levels, but by the sense of an ultimate unity in, and common dependence upon, the realm of transcendence."

Reinhold Niebuhr, "Love as Forgiveness"

Nine! [Ellie]

I just ran 9 miles! Nine miles! For my running friends this is no big deal, but for me it's very big. It's the farthest I've ever run in my life.

Until now my plans for running a half-marathon on May 1st have felt a little like a pipe dream. But now I've run nine miles and I feel great.* The endorphins are terrific. I have always had very strict mental limits on what I thought I could accomplish physically. I would never have believed I could do this in high school. Hooray for allowing yourself to grow and change, and hooray for 9 miles!

*Not to be taken entirely literally. I'm a little sore and I have blisters and Anna and I had to stop to walk for about 1 minute when we had twin stitches in our sides.

A certain blindness [Bryan]

Not far from Yellowstone National Park sits the small town of Chester, Idaho. On the outskirts of Chester once lived a relative of mine, now deceased, an elderly great uncle. When I was a teenager, we visited this uncle before our backpacking trips to the Grand Tetons or Wind Rivers. He was a widower, a kind and gentle man, retired from the Forest Service, living alone in a perpetually unfinished house. The house was surrounded by enormous uncultivated fields, full of weeds, dust, sagebrush, and swirling wind. Every morning, this uncle would go out with a weedwacker and wage a Sisyphean struggle against the quarter mile of weeds lining his driveway down to the main highway. It was hard, difficult labor, and I failed to see what the point was – the weeds, after all, weren’t causing any obvious harm, and they grew back as quickly as he could cut them down. A wasted effort, I thought. A sad way to end one's life.

I have since learned, however, that life is a continual struggle to overcome our blindness to the inner significance of other human lives. As William James writes, "Each is bound to feel intensely the importance of his own duties and the significance of the situations that call these forth. But this feeling is in each of us a vital secret, for sympathy with which we vainly look to others. The others are too much absorbed in their own vital secrets to take an interest in ours. Hence the stupidity and injustice of our opinions, so far as they deal with the significance of alien lives."

And so it was. As I became better acquainted with this uncle, I learned that his wife had designed the original plan of that house. I learned that he and his wife had been very close. I learned that he was intent on finishing the house to her every specification, even though she had died many years earlier. The daily struggle against the weeds, I came to suspect, was an act of affirming the relationship with his beloved. It was a heroic refusal to let her memory die.

Hence, the stupidity and injustice of my opinion. Every person has an inner secret, I think, a "vital" secret, a secret that gives each life its driving energy. It is a great adventure to uncover and understand, however dimly, the eagerness that drives the lives of those who surround us. Even prisons and sickrooms have their own revelations. Our job is to to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing.