Eight thoughts about the election

I'm writing this from my phone so grammar and punctuation need not apply for this post.
1. Now when the market fails the free market cannot be blamed which it would have been regardless of mitt's policies (as with Bush).
2. There were minor differences between the two candidates fiscally speaking but mitt never gave me anything to make me think he would cut the budget as much and as fast as I would want. Cutting big bird will do nothing to solve the budget crisis. Military spending, medicare, and social security must all be cut if any progress is to be made. Mitt never gave me any hope that he would cut those.
3. People in the middle east are still going to die because we will bomb them no matter who is president. The last debate made us painfully aware of that.
4. We might have a few supreme court justices retire this term. I'm not sure either would have picked great ones but I know Obama won't. This is the important thing that no one mentioned on the campaign.
5. Most of my hope lies with the republicans in the house being as obstructionist as possible. I hope I'm not screwed.
6. For some reason elections make me think that the great majority of Americans are really dumb and bring out all of the elitism and snobbery that I try and hide, especially when it comes to the props in California (also president Obama. He is a completely different politician than the man who ran 4 years ago. People who voted for him four years ago shouldn't have voted for him this year if their values were really that important to them). I feel like I shouldn't think this way but seriously who votes to increase their own taxes. You're stupid California.
I think they fail to understand that a state can never redistribute wealth or hope to effectively effectuate any change in business practices because businesses and wealthy people can always move to a new, more friendly place where they do not have to worry about those problems
7. Hearkening back to a point from my last point. I'm disappointed in all my leftist friend who voted for Obama. He is more George W. Bush on steroids than 2008 candidate Obama. Undeclared wars. Horrible on civil liberties. Horrible on fiscal matters. A complete liar. It disappoints me.
8. Republicans need to be more serious about fiscal policies (ie cutting the budget) and change some policies. War mongering is not cool and Mexicans are pretty awesome so we should make it easier for them to open taco shops near my house and not kick them out of the country.
Well I think I'm done. I might have more when I look at the props more. I'm not excited for a fourth term for Bush/Cheney but I have survived the last 12 years and will survive the next four.

My second annual Easter blog post

I was sitting in an Easter devotional presented by our stake last night and I remembered one of my favorite poems so I thought that I would share it with my loyal readers. It is by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado and shares my feelings about the Christ that we adore perfectly. If you don’t already know Spanish, learn it because you do live in the United States and it is worth learning if only to read the poetry by Machado and others.

Dijo una voz popular:
Quién me presta una escalera
para subir al madero
para quitarle los clavos
a Jesús el Nazareno?

Oh, la saeta, el cantar
al Cristo de los gitanos
siempre con sangre en las manos
siempre por desenclavar.

Cantar del pueblo andaluz
que todas las primaveras
anda pidiendo escaleras
para subir a la cruz.

Cantar de la tierra mía
que echa flores
al Jesús de la agonía
y es la fe de mis mayores

!Oh, no eres tú mi cantar
no puedo cantar, ni quiero
a este Jesús del madero
sino al que anduvo en la mar!.

This poem is a reminder (as is Easter) that we do not worship a crucified Christ but our Lord lives! His Atonement was completed as he rose the third day bringing us all life.
Today I teach the lesson to the Young Men at church and my goal is to provide some way to personalize the Atonement and show them that while at times it may seem something incomprehensible and distant, it is meant for each of us personally and can provide great relief in times of distress. I will point out three times in which the Atonement is particularly useful: sins, sickness, and stuff.
I will not delve too far into my lesson but I will briefly explain what I mean. First, the Atonement saves us from our sins. We have all sinned. We all need repentance. Isaiah said that “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” D. Todd Christofferson explained that “whatever the cost of repentance, it is swallowed up in the joy of forgiveness.”
Second, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can overcome whatever our sickness may be in two ways. We can, like the many people during Christ’s ministry, be healed or he will give us the strength to overcome that which troubles us.
Lastly, the Lord helps overcome stuff. By stuff I of course mean the vicissitudes of life. We can overcome like the righteous people of Alma who were forced to do many onerous things at the hands of the lamanites in the Book of Mormon. Even through our deepest and darkest affliction, through the Atonement we too will be able to “submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord”

Oh, Andalusia.

I was reading an article by Arturo Perez-Reverte this week that I thought was very fascinating (it is in Spanish so if you speak Spanish, you can read it too. If not, learn Spanish). In recent years Spanish has been discussing whether or not it is a chauvinist language for various reasons but mostly because of the emphasis on the masculine when you pluralize a noun. I am not going to enter this debate although I have very passionate opinion that I am right about and you, if you disagree, are wrong.
According to my understanding of the situation Andalusia and others have been trying to create so-called equality in speech (I favor economy in speech)) by changing the rules for pluralizing or generalizing speech. Some of those would be very tedious and I dislike them.
However, my purpose for blogging today is to share a far more fascinating development in the world of Andalusia. This comes from Article 50.2 of the law for Gender Equality. I will provide the text in the original Spanish and then a translation by your truly:

«Los poderes públicos de Andalucía, en coordinación y colaboración con las entidades locales en el territorio andaluz, tendrán en cuenta la perspectiva de género en el diseño de las ciudades, en las políticas urbanas y en la definición y ejecución de los planteamientos urbanísticos»

The public powers in Andalusia, in coordination and collaboration with local entities in the Andalusian territory, will take into consideration gender perspective with regards to city planning, urban policies, and in the definition and execution of the urban-planning approach (if you disagree with my translation, please tell me. It was tougher than I thought it would be).

The question that Perez-Reverte poses and I attempt to answer is how do you take into account different genders in designing and planning a city. I thought about this long and hard and could not think of an answer. Yesterday I went to school and while I was driving around looking for a parking spot I realized what they intend to do to make an area more gender friendly. Wider parking spots. Seriously.

Old people need to learn about the internet

So this Weiner scandal has been all over the news today and it is really annoying. I am not so much bothered by the amount of tv coverage although I would prefer to watch Bones or sports but what really annoys me is how dumb (or narcissistic) these people are thinking that they won't get caught tweeting a picture of your junk. Then there is this story about a man who gets caught bugging his wife's car and plotting his murder because she set up a facebook account for a 17 year old girl who started flirting with him. Just keep it in your pants man. I was beginning to get depressed about how dumb men are when I was saved by learning about this story where a teacher (she is only 29 but that is still older than me so my title still stands as is) sexts her students not expecting children to have parents checking cellphones of their children. I now realize that instead of men being stupid and not aware of how technology works and that you will get caught sending people pictures of your penis it is just old people. Hopefully, people will read my post and realize that it is always a dumb idea to flirt with people on the internet that you do not know, send random people pictures of your genitalia, and basically do anything over the internet that you don't want the whole world knowing because when the internet knows, everyone knows.

What do you put in a feminine hygiene kit?

BYU recently had their annual Women's Conference. For two days there were thousands of women on campus and what upset me most was that the stole my bathroom on the second floor of the JKB. On Monday when I return to school, my bathroom will be returned and all will be well. Except for one thing. I walked in on Friday and saw that they were making feminine hygiene kits. I have always understood feminine hygiene to mean hygiene that women need that I don't e.g. tampons and maxipads. Here is a picture:

Thinking this would be a weird kit to assemble and very curious as to what they would be cutting I asked the next known female what she thought that they would be doing. Katie Day confirmed what I had previously suspected but was also confused as to why you would need to be cutting anything. Her guess which I think I have since confirmed is that they are making homemade maxipads. I have pictures to show it. Judge for yourselves and leave me any guesses in your comments. I would appreciate your help.

This is a lady cutting fabric from a pattern. I don't know if you can tell but the pattern on the floor that she has already cut out kind of looks like this:

which kind of looks like this:

Based upon this evidence I concluded that Katie Day was correct; they are making making kits filled with homemade maxipads which is kind of gross.

Easter Sunday

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Isaiah 64:4

About a few weeks ago I was cornered by a member of our bishopric and asked to give a talk today on Easter Sunday. The task seemed daunting; I love speaking in church but finding a way to honor our Savior on the day in which he was resurrected. I was sitting in church last Sunday in Newport Beach and decided that the perfect way to celebrate Easter is to renew our dedication to be a disciple of Christ. Therefore, I will be talking about the blessings that come from following our Lord. I have learned a lot through reading the scriptures this week. There are many blessings that we receive such that we cannot fully comprehend them all and it will be impossible for me to properly discuss them all in the 10 minutes that I have been assigned. Here is a short list; you are more than welcome to add more as the following list is not even near completion.
Life
Financial Stability
Physical Health
Spiritual and Temporal Knowledge
Trials (this is a tough one to acknowledge as a blessing but many times it is)
The Gift of the Holy Ghost (and with this come thousands more)
Repentance
Freedom
Motivation
Comfort
Priesthood Power
Forever Families
Greater faith, hope and charity
Exaltation
And many more personalized blessings
As you can see there are more blessings than what I would know what to do with for a 10 minute talk and this is not even a complete list. The blessings that we receive are not just spiritual but many are also temporal. Writing this talk has given me a renewed desire to follow Jesus Christ more fully. Hopefully, we all can remember this Easter Sunday the blessings that the Lord has given us and express our gratitude through our words and our actions.

Probably Against the Honor Code

I was walking to school the other day and I saw this truck entering BYU campus. If you look closely, it says Cuban Cigar, Inc. on the front door. I don't know what they were delivering but I can't imagine that it would fit with the Honor Code.