All right. So. “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

On Facebook, I posted the following mini-review: “Star Trek. Kids loved it. It made me mad.”

I received several replies, including one very common-sense question: “Did you go actually believing you would like it?”

That’s a hard question to answer. Yes, I’m something of a Trek purist, but I thoroughly enjoyed the 2009 reboot, although My Esteemed Colleague, the purest of purists, did not. (More on him later.) I even wrote a column for the Deseret News scolding purists for their unwillingness to embrace the new Trek incarnation, thereby preemptively defending a movie I hadn’t seen. I had also wrote multiple posts outlining the reasons that Cumberbatch was going to be Gary Mitchell, not Kahn. Allow me to quote me:

Again, Khan makes no sense. Not an inside Starfleet guy; no reason for vengeance on Kirk in this continuity, and repeated, emphatic denials from everyone involved with the movie that Cumberbatch isn’t Khan.
- Stallion Cornell, “It’s Gary Mitchell,” December 6, 2012

Those emphatic denials left no wriggle room or gray areas. “It’s not Khan,” insisted Simon “Scotty” Pegg. “That’s a myth. Everyone’s saying it is, but it’s not.”

Oh, wait. Yes, it is. We lied.

See? Spoiler pic there.

I don’t like being lied to, but all’s fair in love and movie promotion, I guess. And the fact that they chose Khan as the baddie isn’t, on its face, a crime against nature. To borrow from Nicholas Meyer, who directed Khan’s last big screen outing, it’s not whether or not you use him; it’s whether you use him well.

Khan is utterly wasted in this movie.

That’s true whatever else you may think about the film. Khan isn’t really the bad guy; Admiral Marcus is – although we’ve seen his type before, too. He’s a Federation version of Christopher Plummer’s Klingon warmonger in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.” Khan’s beef with Marcus is justified, and he ends up joining forces with Kirk, which, given the plot, makes all the sense in the world.

Then something stupid happens. It’s not the first time something stupid happens in this movie, and it’s certainly not the last.

When NuSpock phones up Leonard Nimoy for no particular reason, that sent up a red flag that the movie was about to go off the rails. He skypes old Spock in the middle of the confrontation with Marcus to ask about… Khan. Khan, who is currently on their side; Khan, who is ancillary to the dilemma they now face; Khan, who wants to bump off Admiral Marcus even more than they do. How about “Did you know an Admiral Marcus? Was he a power-mad loon?” No, the script has to feature Khan, because, well, he’s Khan, and we’ve wasted him up until now.

And what does Nimoy say? “Oh, Khan! He’s bad! Very, very bad! The baddest guy we ever faced.” (Which is not true, by the way, but I’ll let it slide. I can only get overheated over one thing at a time.)

So then the movie proceeds to fulfill its own lame prophecy, and Khan, who gets possession of the most powerful starship ever built, proceeds to blow the Enterprise out of the water because… well, he’s Khan! KHAAAAN! EEEEEEEEvil Khan! Remember what Grandpa Spock just said? Khan’s just so enormously bad, with a deep streak of incurable badness! He doesn’t want to escape in his trans-warp supership and go wreak havoc somewhere, no! He just wants to beat up on Kirk, because, well, that’s what Khans do.

And therein is the problem. This Khan should have absolutely no beef with Kirk. Which is why this movie falls woefully short of the film it’s so desperately trying to emulate. “The Wrath of Khan” was a masterpiece largely because it drew on fifteen years of history, on relationships between characters and fans that spanned two decades, and a long-simmering grudge ripe for an epic revenge.

This movie has none of those things. So what does it do? It tries to borrow “Wrath of Khan’s” gravitas and pass it off as its own.

Which brings us to… the scene. You know the one I’m talking about.

Up until Kirk’s “death,” I was having a rather pleasant night at the movies. There’s no denying that this was a well-constructed piece of entertainment, and I confess that I very much enjoy the cast, who have made these roles their own. Chris Pine is a bonafide movie star, and he carries the film effortlessly. Scotty had more to do, which was a welcome addition. I was disappointed that Bones was sidelined for much of the action, as he was the best thing about the first movie. But now, I even like Zachary Quinto, who bothered me in the first film, primarily because he was a tenor and Nimoy is a baritone, and I didn’t buy that he could be a younger version of the old Spock. But there was less older Spock to compare him to, which allowed me to accept him on his own terms. I thought he acquitted himself well, even as he was repeatedly forced to erode the integrity of the character of Spock. (More on that later, too.)

But once they got to Kirk taking the Spock side of the glass door in an overdramatic death scene, I got bugged. Then I got angry. And the movie lost me completely, never to get me back again.

Here’s the problem. Thematically, “The Wrath of Khan” is, above all else, a thoughtful meditation on aging and death. Kirk has made it to middle age without ever face his own mortality, and he’s prided himself on his ability to cheat the Grim Reaper at every turn. When Spock dies, Kirk is forced to confront death in the most unsettling and disturbing way possible, watching his longtime friend expire right in front of him. The scene works on its own merits, but it has tremendous power born from the characters’ relationships with both the audience and each other.

By way of contrast, “ST Into Darkness” is thematically barren. It’s not a meditation on anything; it’s a loud, brash popcorn flick. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with loud, brash popcorn flicks. “Iron Man 3″ was awesome. (More on that in another post.) In addition, the characters don’t have Shatner and Nimoy’s decades of association to draw upon, and the audience isn’t nearly as invested in them as they were in the old guys. So when they decide to drop a lead weight of bathos into what has, up until then, been a fluffy piece of cinema cotton candy, it’s clumsy and labored.

And then the stupidest thing possible happens: Spock, who has just bawled his eyes out and demonstrated no ability to contain his emotions, yells “KHAAAAAAAAAN!”

It made me laugh. Even worse, it was designed to make me laugh. How could it not be? Shatner’s “KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN” shout is now an iconic element of almost every Kirk parody ever performed. This was a callback to something that’s become a joke. Who undercuts the dramatic tension of its most “poignant” moment with a punchline? Someone who sorely misjudged the nature of these characters, that’s who.

It reminded me of the terrible moment (amid a sea of terrible moments) in Shatner’s execrable “Star Trek V” where they come face to face with God Himself, who then asks to borrow the Enterprise, to which Kirk then asks, “What need does God have of a starship?” And the audience laughs, because they recognize the fundamental absurdity of everything they’ve watched until now. Seeing Spock’s Khan shoutout was the last straw. After that, the movie had abandoned all pretense to integrity. There was no longer anything worth caring about.

Once the roof caved in, I found myself questioning all the moments I had previously enjoyed. Yes, it’s exciting and fun, but think about how absurd the opening of the movie is. They don’t want to lift the Enterprise out of the water because the locals will see it, right? Well, wouldn’t they have seen it when it went under the water in the first place? Kind of a big ship, isn’t it? And why did it have to go under water? We can beam things to any spot on the surface from orbit, can’t we? They may have made up some hooey about the volcano offering interference or something, but they undermined that when they beamed Spock out of harm’s way. And, really, why did Spock have to be down there at all? Why not just drop the cold fusion bomb and let it blow up on its own?

Hey, if you really do need a guy there for some reason, why not use Harrison Khan’s ridiculously powerful portable “trans-warp” device which can zip you from downtown London to downtown Kronos in the blink of an eye? And when they discover that device, why not trans-warp beam a handful of Starfleet SEALS to Khan’s location, slit his throat, and then beam them back?

Why is Khan on Kronos, anyway? Sure, it’s convenient for Marcus, who wants to start a war, but isn’t Marcus Khan’s sworn enemy? Why would he accommodate him with a hideout that plays directly into his agenda, other than, you know, lazy writing?

And then there’s Kirk’s resurrection via Khan blood. McCoy even removes one of Khan’s crew to put Kirk in a cryotube. Doesn’t that guy from the tube have genetically enhanced superblood, too? Yes. Don’t they know that? Yes. Do they ignore it for no logical reason and go after Khan in an overwrought chase sequence instead? Why, yes, they do, in fact!

To be fair, these plot holes are much smaller than the first film’s were. But I don’t mind plot holes as long as the thing can still hang together as a cohesive whole. This movie couldn’t accomplish that. It tries to be all things to all people, and it hurled me out of the moment with its clumsy callback to a film it admires but doesn’t understand. It’s sad, really – we only get new Star Trek every few years, and it seems such a waste to use one of those outings to retread what has gone before.

My Esteemed Colleague refuses to see it, and he insists that it will ruin Trek for generations. He may be right; my kids loved the thing, and they think I’m just a geek with no life for feeling differently. But I don’t think this is the Trek death blow. As I said, the cast works, and, given a decent story, they can get this franchise back on track. The movie ends precisely where the series begins, with the onset of their five year exploration mission. Maybe next time they’ll get it right.

Because they didn’t get it right this time.

A few bits of trivia – the silverware story comes from a talk by F. Burton Howard, which can be seen and read here. I’ve edited it and paraphrased somewhat liberally, as I didn’t intend to publish it. I don’t think I’ve altered the narrative much, but I’ve probably broken some journalistic rules by altering the text slightly, as I intended this only to be spoken, not published.

The young physical therapist referenced in the story is none other than my own lovely wife, the bright and beautiful Mrs. Cornell.

And the church leader mentioned later is David O. McKay, my great-grandfather and the ninth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So here it is. Imagine a pastor/rabbi/priest/bishop saying this to you as you tie the knot.
______________

There’s an old saying that a man’s life isn’t complete until he gets married, but once he’s married, he’s finished. That’s good for a laugh, but it’s just not true.

In the first place, married life is far more fulfilling than single life could ever be. But more importantly, marriage doesn’t finish anything. It’s the beginning of a journey together that will require all that you have and give back more joy than you can now imagine. But don’t kid yourself – marriage takes work.

One man compared his marriage to the precious silverware his wife had been collecting since their wedding. I want to share part of his story in his own words.

Here’s what he said:

“As is common today, when we married my wife registered with a local department store. Instead of listing all the pots and pans and appliances we needed and hoped to receive, she asked only for silverware. But when we opened the presents, there wasn’t a knife or fork in the lot.

“Two children came along while we were in law school. We had no money to spare. But when my wife worked as a part-time election judge or when someone gave her a few dollars for her birthday, she would quietly set it aside, and when she had enough she would go to town to buy a fork or a spoon. It took us several years to accumulate enough pieces to use them.

“This lead to many discussions at dinner as to which utensils to use. In those early days I would often vote for the stainless. It was easier. You could just throw it in the dishwasher after the meal, and it took care of itself. The silver, on the other hand, was a lot of work. It had to be hand washed and dried so that it would not spot, and put back in cloth pockets so it would not tarnish. If any tarnish was discovered, I was sent to buy silver polish, and together we carefully rubbed the stains away.

“Over the years we added to the set, and I watched with amazement how she cared for the silver. My wife was never one to get angry easily. However, I remember the day when one of our children somehow got hold of one of the silver forks and wanted to use it to dig up the backyard. That attempt was met with a fiery glare and a warning not to even think about it. Ever!

“For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by. Marriage is just like that.”

A family member had a conversation with a 95-year-old man that put all this in perspective. Very early in her career and in her marriage, she was working as a physical therapist, and her elderly patient asked her if she had a husband. She told him she did. “Well, don’t you ever get divorced,” he said to her. “Remember, someone else will bug you just as much.”

That’s not a romantic thought, but it’s a practical one. It’s like what the wise man said: “Before marriage keep your eyes wide open. After marriage, keep them half closed.” Sharing a life with somebody creates opportunities for emotional intimacy that can’t be found in any other way. At the same time, it requires patience and a good deal of compromise. It can become far too easy to criticize or find fault with your spouse. Once you start down that road, it becomes very difficult to find your way back.

Even small things in marriages can become big problems if couples get complacent. It’s not hard to let practical, day-to-day concerns smother the romantic spark that was there in the early days. When things get hard, some couples start to mutter things like, “Well, the honeymoon is over.” The honeymoon doesn’t have to be over. It should never be over. But if you lose your way, and the honeymoon really is over, it can be rebooted. Just know that all of this requires commitment and effort.

A church leader at his own wedding anniversary referred to his marriage as 65 years of “wedded courtship.”

“Let us ever remember that love is the divinest attribute of the human soul,” he said. “Love must be fed. Love must be nourished; love can be starved to death just as literally as the body can be starved without daily sustenance. Enticing voices will speak to us of worldly achievements and acquisitions that may lead us on dangerous detours from which we can return only with great effort. Small, seemingly insignificant choices along the way will have large consequences that will determine our eventual destiny. Giving ourselves to one another in an eternal marriage is an unconditional giving of the whole person for the whole journey.”

That’s the key. You’re in this together, and nothing should tear you apart. Nothing else matters more. As distractions come your way, and they will come in forms large and small, you might be tempted to forget that. The same church leader once famously said that “no success can compensate for failure in the home.” Nothing you have done, and nothing you will ever do, will be as important as strengthening that unconditional, unwavering love that binds you together.

What you do today has profound consequences that you can only begin to understand. It has been said that marriage is ordained of God. I believe that is true. I also believe that through marriage, you begin to understand God’s purposes for you in ways that you never thought possible. God loves each of us with a purity and power beyond our comprehension. We get a taste of that love when, through marriage, we devote ourselves completely to someone else, when their life is more important to us than our own, and when the sole object of our lives is to make another person happy, no matter what price we must pay ourselves to make that happen. That’s the kind of love God has for you, and the kind of love you need to have for each other.

So don’t ever be satisfied with a mediocre marriage. Don’t ever let it settle into a domestic routine where you take each other for granted. Marriage isn’t a business partnership; it is a union of souls. On this beautiful day, as you two beautiful people see with clarity the power and purity of your love for one another, remember that this is only a glimpse of the deep joy that awaits you as you build your lives together.

This frightened me.

My custom was to eat all day long – when I was hungry, when I was bored, when I was watching TV, when I was reading a book, when I was inhaling or exhaling. I wasn’t necessarily big on meals, but a steady stream of chips and salsa makes the day go faster.

I also didn’t realize how many personal rituals I had built around food. Wednesday, you may or may not realize, is the day new comic books are released. I read far fewer than I used to back in the day, but there’s something extraordinarily satisfying about getting the latest issue of Action Comics and perusing Superman’s latest exploits while chowing down on a combo meal at the fast food franchise of your choice.

That’s not to mention the things normal people do, like, you know, go out to dinner with family and friends. “Waiter, I’d like precisely four ounces of unsalted, grilled meat and 1.5 cups of unseasoned steamed broccoli, please.” I mean, what’s the point?

So I started phase one with trepidation, but I dutifully complied. And the first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t hungry. The piece of toast, apple, and two hard-boiled eggs I ate for breakfast constituted a larger morning meal than I usually ate, and it was more than enough to get me to my 10:00 AM morning snack, which was a handful of nuts and another serving of fruit. That got me to noon’s lunch of fish and tomatoes, and I found I was satiated all day long.

Keep in mind, this happened on the first day.

I was somewhat tempted by the sights and smells of more decadent foods, especially the open bag of tortilla chips that my daughter regularly leaves on the kitchen table. But the temptation was about a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, which is considerably lower than how tempted I am to yell at the television any time some cable news talking head says something stupid. I can handle a 4.

As the days wore on, even those temptations faded. I was able to cook for my kids and handle tasty foods without partaking, and I could synchronize my meals with the fam and sit down to dinner with them. When my lovely bride told me my grilled salmon and steamed brussel sprouts looked better than what the rest of the family was eating, I knew I was on to something.

This program includes the support of a live mentor, who steered me in the right direction when I went astray. (I ate pork once. Not kosher.) I journal what I eat on the Somae website, and she can review what I’m eating and provide encouragement, support, and suggestions for different food choices. She introduced me to the wonders of Stevia, an all-natural zero calorie sweetener that makes my daily herbal tea break the highlight of my evening. I have an official check-in with her every Monday at 1:30, which provides support and keeps me accountable.

I also get daily phone calls from an automated phone coach that gives me an extra nudge in the right direction.

Bottom line: it’s been less than two weeks, and I’ve already lost 15 pounds.

Phase 2 starts on Monday…

All the family had gathered at the downtown Marriott Hotel in Salt Lake City to honor our folks, and some of that time was spent in the pool and the hot tub. It was my appearance in a swimsuit that prompted her to tell me I could stand to lose a few pounds.

“Come on, Mom,” I shot back. “It’s not like I’m morbidly obese.”

She frowned. “Yes, you are.”

Well, no, I’m not. Not in technical terms, anyway. Morbid obesity is defined as being 50% – 100% above your ideal body weight, being 100 pounds overweight, or having a Body/Mass Index (BMI) of 39 or higher. For my part, I’m nowhere near that 50-100% threshold, I’m only 30 pounds above my ideal healthy weight, and, being 6′ 4″ and weighing 230 pounds, I have a BMI of 28, which qualifies me as being officially “overweight,” not obese.

So there. Not that it matters. I’d rather be at my target weight, thanks. But in wanting to prove my mother wrong, I’ve added a “revenge” component to my weight loss quest.

So how am I going to do it?

Well, Somae Health claims that their clients lose, on average, 5-7 pounds per week for the first three weeks or so, slowing down to drop 30-40 pounds over a twelve-week period. That works for me, assuming I can keep the weight off at the end of that. They way to achieve this is through eating “whole” foods, which is a concept I didn’t initially understand. After all, I’ve eaten whole cheeseburgers by the dozens, so why shouldn’t those count? But, no, a “whole” food is a food that is a food unto itself without extra ingredients. An Oreo, for instance, consists of SUGAR, ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), HIGH OLEIC CANOLA OIL AND/OR PALM OIL AND/OR CANOLA OIL, AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL, COCOA (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORNSTARCH, LEAVENING (BAKING SODA AND/OR CALCIUM PHOSPHATE), SALT, SOY LECITHIN (EMULSIFIER), VANILLIN – AN ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, CHOCOLATE. CONTAINS: WHEAT, SOY.

Compare that with, say, a banana, which consists of – well, a banana. It’s a whole food. Whole foods are easier to digest and are generally better for you. So I’m supposed to stick to those.

Of course, some whole foods are better than others. A steady diet of potatoes, for instance, isn’t considered the right way to go. And, in this first phase, I’m steering clear of dairy. I get to eat three servings of protein – in 4 oz. lean meats – along with three servings of fruits, three servings of vegetables, one serving of grain that takes the form of a single piece of whole grain toast, and a handful of nuts. I get to drink water, and lots of it, along with a shot of apple cider vinegar every morning. (Yuck.) And I also take a Somae multivitamin and digestive enzymes with every meal, along with probiotics before I go to bed.

Oooh boy.

So the night before I begin, I chow down on two hot dogs (with mustard-slathered buns), a couple diet Cokes – ’cause, you know, I want to watch my calories – and several handfuls of potato chips, topped up with a big slice of cake. Not to be blasphemous, but it was my own personal Last Supper, if you know what I mean.

The next morning, I pay for it with my first official weigh in – 231.5 pounds, 1.5 pounds more than I had weighed the day before.

Yikes.

Can I do this? Will it work? These are the questions I ask myself as I swig back a nice helping of apple cider vinegar and choke it down.

I’ll let both you and Mom know.

I was part of a church performance called “A Night of Broadway,” where I was asked to sing “Mama Says,” a song from the stage musical “Footloose.” I had never heard it prior to being assigned to it, but it seemed goofy enough for my personal oeuvre. I asked if I could accompany myself on the guitar rather than perform with a prerecorded track. What I didn’t do is ask whether I could tell a joke at the beginning of my number – this was a one-night-only gig, and I figured there wasn’t much they could do to stop me.

So here’s the joke:

A cowboy walks into a saloon and says, “I’m lookin’ for an outlaw.”
The saloon keeper says, “Well, what does he look like?”
Cowboy says, “He was a guy wearing a paper hat, paper shirt, paper spurs, and rode in on a paper horse.”
The saloon keeper says, “Man, I’d have remembered a guy like that. What’s he wanted for?”
(Pause for effect)
“Rustlin’.”

I told that every night in Jackson Hole to warm up audiences at the Grand Teton Mainstage Theatre. It’s stupid, but you can’t help but laugh. I figured the other performers in this show were taking themselves way too seriously, and I wanted to break the ice.

From what I could tell, it worked. I got a great response to my number, and I was quite proud of it. It had been quite some time since I stood in front of an audience and sang by myself. I thought I acquitted myself well.

The director of the show set up a Facebook page to post pictures of the performance. She didn’t post everything it once, but the first phot of my performance showed up rather quickly.

Here it is:

I was quite pleased with this photo. I thought I looked good, despite the double chin. I liked the goofy face I was making, and I quickly made this my Facebook profile picture.

The director soon started to post video of the performances, too. Being the Facebook addict I am, I couldn’t wait to post the video of the whole performance to show off my chops. I considered this evidence that, after all these years, I’ve still “got it.” I’m not sure what it is that I’ve got, or if it’s worth getting, but whatever I had gotten before, I still got.

About two weeks ago, the video was posted. I’ve never shared it with anyone – until now.

Here it is. I’m betting you’ll see why I wasn’t eager to have this on display for public consumption.

I look at myself every morning in the mirror, and I never see a fat person. Oh, sure, there’s a little bit of gut there, but that can be sucked in. And if I just stick my neck out a little, the double chin sort of goes away. And I walk around with the illusion that I’m really not that very removed from the geeky beanpole I was before sometime around my thirtieth birthday, which was when the pooch started to grow. (Cleta, my oldest daughter, affectionately refers to my gut as my “food baby.” You’d think I would have taken the hint by now.)

Watching this video, then, woke me out of my stupor. From the moment I waddle out on to the stage, you can see something’s up. Unlike the photo, this was filmed from the side, so you can see the guitar resting on my generous belly at a 45-degree angle. And the double chin is omnipresent. I couldn’t look at anything else. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, who reassured me that “the camera adds ten pounds.” If that’s the case, there must have been four or five cameras on me that night.

This was particularly problematic for me, as, for the past two years, I’ve been working with a company called the Belief Workout, which uses cognitive tools to teach people to change how they think in order to change their weight. I’ve personally been teaching the classes – looking like the guy in that video. Nobody ever complained, and the results of our teaching have been great – but I never really bothered to change my own thinking or change my own weight. Oh, I made some half-hearted gestures in that direction, but I didn’t really see it as an urgent issue. That was someone else’s problem, not mine.

Until, of course, I saw this video.

So I’m now applying the ideas we teach, as well as using the automated phone coach that’s part of our program. We’ve also partnered with a company called Somae Health, which uses live mentors to help you follow their whole foods regimen. I’m diving in to the Somae program, which means adios to cheeseburgers and diet Cokes. My kids don’t think I can do it, and my wife, while supportive, is also skeptical. But I don’t ever want to watch a video of me singing like fat Elvis. My goal is a lifetime of skinny Elvis. I’ll keep you apprised of my progress.

Those not of my faith would assume that meant I was training clergymen, but Mormon seminaries are inflicted upon all kids of high school age. I think one of the reasons I felt compelled to be a seminary teacher was that, in high school, I was such a lousy seminary student. Class is held at 6:30 in the morning, an hour when I’m generally more interested in having dreams and visions than studying them. On the rare occasions I did show up, the teacher would always make me say the closing prayer, because there was no guarantee I would come that way again. In fact, when my old seminary teacher found out that I had followed in his footsteps, word is that he laughed for a good five minutes solid.

But I loved it. I taught in the building right behind the Los Angeles Temple, which got difficult to travel to from South Central LA after the ’94 Northridge Quake destroyed parts of the 10 freeway. But somehow I made it work, and it provided a measure of discipline to my life that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

But it was not without its controversies.

The year I was teaching the Old Testament, some parents had gotten wind of my heretical position on the story of Adam and Eve. Keep in mind that Mormons, to begin with, are already heretics on this story when compared to the rest of the Judeo-Christian world. Unlike many believers, we maintain that the Fall was a good thing and part of God’s grand design, not a tragedy to be mourned. I believed that, too. Still do, in fact.

Where I had trouble was with the idea of conflicting commandments.

According to LDS theology, Adam and Eve were given two charges from the Lord that couldn’t both be fulfilled. The first was that they ought to “multiply and replenish the earth,” i.e. churn out some little Adam-and-Evelets. The second was to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge. Conventional Mormon wisdom is that without eating some of the fruit of the knowledge tree, they wouldn’t have been able to breed appropriately, so, faced with a choice between two of God’s commands, they chose to fall in order to fulfill the higher law.

In my mind, this is problematic on two levels.

The first is my discomfort with the idea of God commanding someone to do something that couldn’t be done. Young children grow up in our church singing about the verse from the Book of Mormon, specifically 1 Nephi 3:7, where the prophet states that he will “go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”

Except with Adam and Eve, though, right? If the Lord commanded them to do two things, and it turns out they could only do one, that makes Nephi less than reliable.

The second problem is the issue of divine enforcement. If Adam and Eve had avoided the forbidden fruit, as they had been commanded to do, at what point would the Lord have shown up and complain about the lack of young’uns?

“I said multiply and replenish the earth! Why haven’t you done what I said?”

“We’re trying, Lord! Nothing seems to work!”

You can see where this might get a little messy.

All that is preface, however, to my current position, which is that this conflicting commandment conundrum no longer troubles me in the slightest. How can that be, you may ask.

The answer is found in the temple.

Members of my church, including me, are quite circumspect about how we discuss our temple ordinances, but I don’t think I’m violating any confidences when I say that the ceremony focuses largely on the creation story, and participants are asked to liken themselves to Adam and Eve. It took me years to understand this, but the fact is that the similarity between their circumstances and ours is greater than I initially realized.

Each of us who enters mortality is faced with the same kind of choice Adam and Eve faced.

We teach that everyone on earth lived with our Father in Heaven, and we were there when he “laid the foundations of the earth” and “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” (Job 38: 4, 7) We were the ones doing the shouting, because we would have an opportunity to move forward in our quest to become more like our Father and His Only Begotten Son.

To make that happen, however, we choose to come to a world where we leave the presence of God to become subject to pain, sickness, sin, and death. That choice is identical to the choice of our collective first parents.

God, then, forbids us to sin because that’s what He has to do. If he looked upon sin with the least degree of allowance, He would cease to be God. Therefore he cannot compel us to choose to wade through evil and learn the lessons that only come from exposure to a fallible world. But we chose to come and sin anyway, because only through sorrow can we know joy.

The Book of Mormon makes this point with transcendent clarity.

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so… righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

- 2 Nephi 2:27-28

Our Father knew this, prepared for it, and provided a Savior for us in order for us to make our way back.

Like Adam and Eve before us, we chose this, with full knowledge that it would require us to suffer. We even shouted for joy when we were presented with the opportunity. We need that perspective when life gets difficult, which it invariably does.

Elder Neil A. Maxwell put it best:

While most of our suffering is self-inflicted, some is caused by or permitted by God. This sobering reality calls for deep submissiveness, especially when God does not remove the cup from us. In such circumstances, when reminded about the premortal shouting for joy as this life’s plan was unfolded, we can perhaps be pardoned if, in some moments, we wonder what all the shouting was about.

I have nothing to add to that, except that I really miss teaching seminary. And Neil A. Maxwell. But not the 10 freeway.

The day after the attacks, former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank took to the airwaves to ludicrously claim that “no tax cut would have helped us deal with this.” How on earth is this hideous event in any way correlated with tax cuts, or tax increases, or taxes at all? Such blatant partisanship immediately after a tragedy is extremely unsettling, yet that didn’t stop former presidential advisor David Axelrod from appearing on MSNBC and insinuating that conservatives opposed to high taxes chose “tax day” to carry out this deadly terrorist attack. Because, you know, conservatives like blowing people up on Tax Day.

That’s worse than foolish. It’s vicious nonsense, and it has no proper place in our public discourse.

Any political manipulation of this tragedy is disrespectful to the victims of the attack, and it diminishes the integrity of our national discourse. But it doesn’t seem to be going away. “Normally domestic terrorists, people, tend to be on the far right,” said MSNBC host Chris Matthews, ignoring groups like the Weather Underground or individuals like Ted Kaczynski, AKA the “Unabomber,” and other domestic terrorists who used bombs to further their far left agendas. Indeed, bombs were the weapon of choice for 60s-era radicals. Normally domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers and such tend to be on the far left. But such examples are conveniently flushed down the Matthews memory hole.

Others have been unabashed in their attempts to leverage this calamity to further their own policy positions. Many have suggested that this increases the likelihood of passing stricter gun control legislation. On Twitter, actor and comedian Jay Mohr tweeted that this is the moment that proves that the “2nd amendment must go.” That’s an absurd premise. This attack has absolutely nothing to do with the Second Amendment or guns. It was carried out with makeshift explosives fashioned by ordinary pressure cookers, which, barring the banning of common household appliances, would not have been thwarted in any way by legislation, least of all new gun laws.

In times of crisis, it is natural for people to turn to their leaders for guidance. It is therefore the responsibility of our leaders to provide the kind of prudent governance that sets politics aside in order to meet the needs of the public. Tragedy is a terrible platform for demagoguery

And, no, I didn’t forget about Retro Friday!
That graphic is going to get old pretty quickly, isn’t it?

Anyway, here we go…

HAPPY LABOR DAY – posted September 3, 2007

My shortest post to date. It says “Unions suck. That is all.” This link blurb is about three times longer than the original post.

SWEET BABY JAMES - posted September 4, 2007

Remembering the infancy/toddlership of my youngest child, code name Stalliondo. James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” was his lullaby of choice. Actually, he had no choice in the matter, but he didn’t seem to mind me crooning that particular tune.

THE MORMON DIALOGUE CONTINUES… – September 5, 2007

More Q&A about LDS, following up on my Mormon weirdness post.

FRED, RUDY, AND A BLOCK OF CHEESE – posted September 6, 2007

A rather dated and quaint assessment of the 2008 presidential race, where I fretted about Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican nomination. He got a single delegate that year. Simpler times, simpler worries.

HOOEY – posted September 7, 2007

Exactly as advertised. A series of random thoughts on disparate subjects from global warming to Martin Short to cascading style sheets.

ON REQUEST: WEIRD MORMON STUFF – posted August 29, 2007

Just what it says. A reader asked about the more Galactica-esque points of Mormon doctrine, notably Kolob and human deification, and I do my best to answer him without sounding like a lunatic.

MISSING LANGY – posted September 8, 2007

I posted a video about the history of my battle with Languatron to the tune of Diana Ross’ “Missing You.”Herein I explain all the inside joke references. Kind of stupid, really, but still mildly amusing. YouTube blocked the video on copyright grounds, so I had to reembed it. Unfortunately, I can only find the earliest version that doesn’t include half the video, so this edit feels incomplete.

GLOBAL INTEGRATED JOINT OPERATING ENTITY - posted September 9, 2007

I complain about a proposed anti-American GI Joe movie that never ended up happening, and then I worry about the lunatics who commented about this over at Ain’t It Cool News.

HOLIDAY EUPHEMISMS - posted September 10, 2007

One of my anti- “Happy Holidays” rants. This has actually gotten better over the years as “Merry Christmas” has come back in style.

THE HEALING FIELD: CONNECTING THE DOTS - posted September 11, 2007

An unapologetically pro-American 9/11 post.

Tune in next week for:

MY BRUSHES WITH GREATNESS

SPAMALOT

WILSON ON POLITICAL WOMEN

And much more!

I want to talk, instead, about weddings for just a moment.

Why weddings? Well, they’re big business. Americans fork out somewhere around $40 billion per year to get hitched. That figure is significant because it’s also the entire Gross Domestic Product of the misnamed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In other words, North Korea’s entire economy is only the size of what Americans spend on bridal gowns and wedding cakes.

To put that it in hard dollar terms, every year the United States produces nearly 50 grand in wealth for every man, woman, and child in this country. In North Korea, that figure is only $1,200. Granted, our wealth isn’t anywhere close to being evenly distributed, but we have forty-plus times more of it to distribute, and $1,200, no matter how you slice it, doesn’t go very far.

What does that mean? It means that, in a rational universe, North Korea wouldn’t even be thinking about going to war. For the most part, they’re starving to death. It also means that, even with their million-man-plus army, they’d last about fifteen minutes against us. They know that – or, at least, Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il knew that. Every time they rattled their sabers in the old days, they just wanted the West to come and feed them, and, after much rhetorical banter, we’ve always dutifully obliged.

When this latest fracas started, that’s what I thought was happening here, too, but this whole exchange is far freakier, because Kim Jong-Un is too young, too brash, too scared, or too stupid to act rationally. I don’t think this is leading to war, but I’m only 87% sure of that, as opposed to 100% sure when such silliness happened in the past. That means I’m 13% frightened out of my wits. Because if Korea blows up, we win, but a lot of people on both sides will end up in body bags.
_____________

Grotesquely speaking of body bags, I’d like to recall this story from a couple of years back that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. She read the headline and assumed that an abortion doctor had been killed by a rabid pro-life advocate, and her stated position was something along the lines of “These people are terrorists and should be dealt with in the harshest possible terms!” I pointed out that she had misread the story, and that the victim was an abortion protestor, not an abortion provider. Quietly and with no further comment, she pulled the story from her page.

I thought about that as I read the gruesome tale of Dr. Kermit Gosnall, the abortionist who routinely murdered infants born alive during botched abortion by what he called “snipping” them and storing them in Tupperware. (“Snipping” is here used as a euphemism for “beheading.”) These aren’t just late-term abortions – these are infanticides of babies no longer connected to their mother’s wombs. He’s justifiably on trial for mass murder – and next to nobody in the media is willing to talk about it.

During the presidential campaign, the Democrats repeatedly insisted that the country is just a hairsbreadth away from a theocracy where abortion will be a capital offense. Even the slightest inconvenience to terminating a pregnancy is viewed as a Talibanic oppression of the “right to choose,” because little things like mandatory ultrasounds are the first step on the slippery slope to burqas and female circumcision. But the Gosnall trial proves that we’ve already slid down the slippery slope – and in the other direction. The fact that we’re not even willing to talk about it shows just how far we’ve fallen.

Those are the depressing things I’m thinking about today. But tomorrow night, I’m going to the Bon Jovi concert in Salt Lake CIty! (Yes, in some ways, that’s even more depressing.)

It’s interesting to watch them after having seen the cinematic adaptation of “The Hobbit,” because, even in the extended versions, they lack the bloat and padding that marred the retelling of Bilbo’s adventure. They’re tightly constructed, well performed, and, for the most part, true to Tolkien’s vision.

Unless, of course, you ask a Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien, that is, the curator of his father’s legacy who, at the age of 87, recently granted his first lengthy interview ever in which he complained that Jackson’s films “eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25.”

Ouch.

At the age of 44, I’m sad to learn that I don’t fall into the film’s demographic. And I first saw the trilogy when I was apparently too old to appreciate them, too, so accept these musings from someone who is obviously too immature to have anything substantive to say.

But still, ol’ Chris Tolkien needs to pull his head out.

I have some problems with the movies, yes, particularly in the areas where Jackson went too far afield in altering the original story to make it more cinematic. I find the character arc of Faramir to be particularly grating, although I understand why Jackson did it that way, as, literarily, Faramir had no character arc – he was a saint from the get go, and saints aren’t as much fun to watch on screen.

That doesn’t excuse the moment in “The Return of the King” when Frodo sends Sam home, though, particularly since Sam actually leaves. The same Sam who risked his life to jump on board Frodo’s boat at the end of “Fellowship of the Ring” and swears never to abandon Frodo voluntarily starts back home from the border of Mordor? Ridiculous. And I would have liked to have seen Sam struggle with the ring, as well as a few other additions and subtractions.

But other changes made an awful lot of sense. No Tom Bombadil? That’s Tom Bomba-tastic! And the absence of the Scouring of the Shire is absolutely fine with me – it’s a long, tedious, undramatic section that undermines just about everything that went before. Those who complain that the movie version of “The Return of the King” has too many endings don’t remember that there are over a hundred pages left in the book after Frodo destroys the ring. Tolkien’s story is a wonder, but it’s also overlong, plodding, filled with tangential weirdness, and largely uncinematic.

That’s not a criticism so much as a straightforward assessment. Tolkien was not writing with movies in mind, and any adaptation has to prune and focus all of his narrative cul-de-sacs and poetic indulgences into something watchable. The fact that Jackson was able to do this and still maintain both thematic and narrative consistency with Tolkien’s work is nothing short of miraculous. It is, in its own way, an act of creativity on par with Tolkien’s book. So to hear Christopher Tolkien grouse that it’s some sort of evisceration strikes me as petty and vindictive.

Honestly, what did Christopher Tolkien expect? Would he have preferred a sequel to Ralph Bakshi’s lamentable LOTR cartoon? Maybe a few more Rankin-Bass kiddie versions with very unTolkieny songs thrown in? (“Where there’s a whip, there’s a way…”) Actually, he’s stated he’d prefer none of the above, as he doesn’t consider his father’s work filmable. And he’s right. It’s not filmable in its original state – it needs to be adapted to suit a new medium, which is what Peter Jackson did so well.

He also complains that he has not been adequately compensated for the movies, since the film rights were sold for a relative pittance way back in the day. Well, boo hoo. The movies increased sales of the books by 1000% in the three years they were in theatres, with a whopping 25 million copies of the books flying off the shelves between 2001 and 2003. These “eviscerations” sparked a renaissance of interest in the source material from whence they sprang. Surely that’s a good thing, Chris? And surely your father’s estate profited handsomely thereby?

I love the books. I love the films. And I have little patience for multimillionaire whiners.

And now, of course, it’s time for round two of…

RETRO FRIDAY!

As I mentioned previously, I’m editing, categorizing, and tagging all my blog posts, ten per week beginning at the beginning, in order to better manage the info. I’m also posting links to the spruced-up posts to those who are deranged enough to want to read or reread them.

And here they are! Although I’m scrapping the whole thumnbnail picture thing I started last week- they’re too much work, and they’re really not necessary for what I’m trying to accomplish.

LEGISLATING MORALITY WITH VAMPIRE LADIES - posted August 24, 2007

Really enjoyed rereading this little gem about vampire novelist Ann Rice’s warped perspective on abortion and the redistribution of wealth. This piece has proven to be prescient, methinks.

SOMETIMES LANGY’S RIGHT - posted August 25, 2007

Covers quite a bit of ground that I’ve since tapped for several newspaper columns and editorials – i.e. Hollywood ignores religion, makes dirtier movies than audiences want to see, and Academy Award shows are boring, political hack jobs. Surprisingly little to do with Langy’s inadvertent rightness. 

MORMONS AREN’T VICTIMS - posted August 26, 2007

Discussion of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its context in Mormon history, as well as a warning against the MMM-themed movie “September Dawn,” which nobody ended up seeing anyway.

ANDREW FOGELSON’S MAGIC KISS - posted August 27, 2007

Still one of my most frequently-viewed posts, wherein I tell the story of my obnoxious behavior in my role as the lead of 1985′s Calabasas High School production of “The Music Man.” Andrew Fogelson’s son is now the Chairman of Universal Pictures, so this was kind of a stupid bridge for me to burn.

THE LOST ART OF THE CRANK CALL - posted August 28, 2007

The first mention of My Esteemed Colleague and the story of how we hounded an innocent man into madness because he used to answer the phone by saying “HOWWWWWDY!” Also uses the phrase “Frog Hopkins Joe Joe Joe Joe.”

ON REQUEST: WEIRD MORMON STUFF – posted August 29, 2007

Just what it says. A reader asked about the more Galactica-esque points of Mormon doctrine, notably Kolob and human deification, and I do my best to answer him without sounding like a lunatic.

ON HATING – posted August 30, 2007

The first in a series of discussions about the multitudes of people who hate my guts. The focus here is Bill and Jacqui Landrum, who originated the phrase “These are my jewels. You don’t like them? I take them back.” Devolves into a discussion of My Esteemed Colleague’s little raccoon.

LEARNING FROM LARRY - posted August 31, 2007

Poor Former Senator Larry Craig. This post recounts the downfall of the Idaho legislator who solicited gay sex in a restroom, plead guilty to doing so, and then tried to take it back. It also laments the fact that I don’t know how to solicit sex or buy illegal drugs.

ON BEING HATED - posted September 1, 2007

The story of a Kids of the Century girl who nursed a grudge for over a decade because I used to make fun of her making out in public. I think the main reason this bothered me is that when I was mocking her, I wasn’t making out with anybody.

THE TRUE STORY OF RICHARD THE BRICKLAYER - posted September 2, 2007

The Stallion Cornell family tree is explored in depth here as I recount the story of Richard, the reluctant pioneer who came to Utah only because all his money burned up and he couldn’t afford to go back to Birmingham, England.

Tune in next week for:

SWEET BABY JAMES

FRED, RUDY, AND A BLOCK OF CHEESE

HOLIDAY EUPHEMISMS

And much more!

Perhaps I should hold out hope – it’s still there, after all, despite being surreptitiously yanked off the web for a brief period. The webmaster made a grand announcement on New Year’s Day that he was going to get up and running again, and now four months have passed, and… nothing.

I’ve considered devoting this blog to continuing that noble legacy. I can think of no higher calling than investigating and chronicling the endless nuances of William Shatner’s artificial hair. Then I realized that I’d like to stay both married and sane, which would be very difficult to do if I were to fully indulge my unnatural obsession with Captain Kirk’s wigs.

But I can dabble, can’t IOn a parallel track, I’ve set a goal of recording a new song every week. I’m not necessarily going to post all of them here for free, as I still have a burgeoning professional music career on iTunes that has yielded several dollars in dividends – and by “several,” I mean $5.63. My original album “Stalker Tunes” has been for sale online for a couple of years now, and nobody’s bought it in its entirety. (Just think! You could be the first!)

Below is the graphic that made this one of the coldest selling items of last year’s yuletide rush.

Its follow-up single, “Edge of a Crow,” has been sold and/or streamed precisely 0 times, so you could say I’ve hit a sophomore slump.

Still, hope spring eternal, and I’ve got about five recordings in the can, and a couple of them are actually pretty good. I think I’ve stepped up the production values considerably from my earlier efforts. I intend to release a second album sometime this year to give everyone another opportunity not to buy anything, so I don’t want to cannibalize my non-sales by releasing the songs on this blog for free.

But I don’t think I can sell my latest opus, as it contains previously copyrighted material – specifically, it includes a whole lot of unauthorized William Shatner participation. I think most of it is protected by Fair Use provisions and would be considered legally acceptable parody, but why take a chance? This blog can’t afford to be embroiled in legal trouble, because I’ve only earned $5.63.

So rather than risk Shatnerian wrath, I’ve chosen instead to throw caution to the wind and offer it to you as a token of my esteem, a tribute to the glory days of the toupological blog that was, and a pathetic cry for psychiatric help.

I give you – Follicly Active, a duet between Stallion Cornell and an unwilling William Shatner.

Enjoy.