I'd like to give the world a Meg

Wednesday night we went to a Christmas event featuring Meg's children's choir. At least we thought the event was dedicated to the children's choir. It turned out to be a half hour variety show hosted by Laie's version of Marie Osmond. The highlight of the evening involved Santa jumping out of one of the presents on the stage. Kaddi and I estimated that he must have been in there for almost an hour. I hope someone poked St. Nick some airholes.

Here are a few highlights...

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

"Who am I? "

Last week the Bishop called me to be the Sunday School Pres. of the Laie sixth ward. For someone who tries to avoid most forms of participation, this is the best calling ever. You don't do anything and people still have to call you 'President.' Just fill in for someone when they don't show up for their class, and remember to push the warning bell on time. It's a far cry from planning an activity every Tuesday night, organizing the occassional scout camp, and dealing with irate parents when their son gets left at the church. So I wasn't too worried about living up to expectations this week when I was sustained in Sacrament meeting. How could I have know this calling would present me with a moral dilemma that would cut me to the quick.

I was sitting in Gospel Doctrine at the end of the second hour counting down the last few minutes like a kid on the last day of school, when the teacher snapped me back to attention by saying:

"Well, I'm not sure how much time we have left. The bell hasn't rang, and I see the Sunday school Pres. sitting here in class, so..."

And I was thinking, "Hey, Poindexter! Get up and push that bell, son. The sooner we finish up here the sooner I can get back...wait a minute..."

I jumped up and headed out the door, trying to ignore the judgemental glances you only receive when you're derelict in your calling. I didn't even know where the bell was located, and by the time I reached the clerk's office it was already five after.

And then I was confronted with the Gordian knot of Church calling decisions. I had been sustained this morning, but I wouldn't be set apart until after church. Technically, I was not yet the SS Pres. Did I actually have the authority to push that button? Or was I usurping someone else's power in some act of unrighteous dominion?

I hesitated and look around for confirmation, but the clerk's office was empty. I knew if I didn't push the button the second hour would go on and on. What would happen then? Sunday school teachers would run out of material, their voices would grow hoarse as they kept telling unrelated personal experiences, their arms would grow weak as they played game after game of hangman until the kids eventually revolted and they collapsed from exhaustion. Did I want that on my conscience?

The seconds ticked by. The red button stared back at me. I felt like I was on the bridge of a nuclear sub deciding whether to authorize a launch. Where was the handbook when you needed it? What mattered more : people or protocol? Should I be Gene Hackman or Denzel Washington? It was all so confusing.

Then I remembered great literary examples who faced similar dilemmas. Huckleberry Finn placed his soul in jeopardy by helping Jim to escape. Carton changed places with Darnay in the Bastille. And Jean Valjean revealed his true identity to the court, freeing an innocent man. I would follow their examples.

I pushed the button.

Did I make the right decision? I'll let history be the judge of that.

We made it chafe and sound

Last night a friend on the faculty called and invited us on his family hike to Laie Falls. A nice guesture. So, this morning Jake, Meg, and I started out on the trails through the mountains of the north shore. I was thinking this would be leisurely 1 km jaunt, something similar to Bear's hump in Waterton National park. It turned out to be 5-6 miles roundtrip. We were on the trail for four hours with sandals on our feet.

Considering the conditions (at one point it started to rain and we took shelter in a thicket of trees) the kids held up really well. It was a challenging hike with steep inclines and slipper rocks. But, we had beautiful views of the ocean and strawberry-guava berries to help pass the time. The waterfall itself was not spectacular if you're used to the Rocky Mountains, it reminded me a little more of the waterfalls we visited in Thailand - but still a pleasant place to sit and rest and enjoy the cool water.

It wasn't until we had started back that I started to feel the discomfort. It started as a mild irritant, but after a mile or so I was feeling the fire down below. Then I realized, I had forgotten to rust-proof my undercarriage that morning! I hadn't had any need for my prickly powder since we left Thailand, but here I was hiking under the mid-day sun, and I hadn't taken the proper precautions. It was an uncomfortable walk back to the car, and the chaffing thereof was great...

Jake and Meg had begun to break down well before we made it to the end, but when we got home they immediately rebounded and headed outside to play with their friends. I'm up and walking again...but slowly...gingerly.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The November Mailbag

Dear 301NIB,

Why don't we see more pictures of the beach? Are you getting the hang of the bodyboarding yet?

J. Nielsen
Bangkok Thailand

My first few attempts at bodyboarding didn't go so well. I kept my board headed straight toward the beach, got pounded by the waves and rolled up in the surf with my shorts around my ankles. I could taste salt for a week and had sand in every possible crevice.

But I'm still doing better than Kaddi. Last Monday the kids were out of school and so she took them to the beach. Even though its winter and the waves are getting bigger, she still decided to venture in to the ocean. Meg was begging her to go back to the shore, but Kaddi insisted she could handle it. Moments later a huge wave knocked her over. When she finally emerged from the water she found that her favorite sunglasses had gone to Davey Jones' locker.



301nights,

We are surprised and upset at the recent decline in Meg-related content over the past two months. Our statistics show that from Sept. 2006 - Sept 2007, stories, pictures, and videos of Meg made up almost 62% of all 301NIB posts. But since October 2007 that number has been cut in half. Is this part of some scheme to phase Meg out of the storyline? Why would you do that when she's by far the most entertaining aspect of this blog?

Meggie Scrumptious fan club
Mankado, MN

I've told you people before to leave my daughter alone. Why don't you get yourself a good medium and go bother Heather O'Rourke?

Speaking of disturbing, Meg had an usual experience at Halloween. She wanted to create her own candy bag, so she took a regular brown paperbag from the grocery store and decorated it with all sorts of Halloween imagery. Then Meg asked a girl in her class at school if she wanted to draw a decoration. When Meg got the bag back she was a little distressed at the addition. The little girl had drawn a graveyard with one tombstone bearing the inscription:

R.I.P.
Meg Strate
2000-2007



Dear 301nights,

Will the ongoing writer's strike affect your blog? How will you be able to maintain such a high level of quality without your writing staff?

Jeffrey Katzenberg
Bel Air, CA

301NIH writers are not part of the Writer's Guild of America. But inspired by the example of their Hollywood colleagues, our writers began examining their own contracts. When they discovered that they are scheduled to receive less than 2% of the Mack Strate t-shirt revenues through 2011, they decided to go on strike also.

I have no intention of giving in to their demands. Instead, I've replaced them with their Mexican, non-union equivalents. Sure, all the blogs will be written in Spanish, but we were going to start targeting the emerging Latin American markets anyway. It's just good business.

So, in the future be sure to check for insightful and amusing posts on the following topics:

- Hugo Chavez's mother-in-law visits the Presidential Palace

- Two-minute tomales

- Are you dating a Chupacabra?




Dear 301NIB,

It looks like the Cougars are once again headed to Las Vegas. Do you think there's any chance they could be added to the Pac Ten so they play in a real bowl?

Mark Lamb
Centerville, UT

The topic of BYU sports is too painful for me to talk about since my recent run-in with Lavell Edwards. The Coach is here in Hawaii for the week-long business conference at the university. We were sitting in church on Sunday and Kaddi noticed him sitting in the row behind us. When I saw we were both wearing tan pants and blue shirts I knew I had to go talk to the Coach. When I thought the time was appropriate I approached him and asked if I could take a picture. I'd always heard Lavell was a cool guy, but he completely blew me off. It was harsh blow for a life-long BYU fan like myself.

Maybe I should have waited until he was done taking the sacrament.

Citizen Jake

Last week Jake received the Super Citizen certificate at this school. It's an award they give out at Laie Elementary in recognition of turning your homework in on time, raising your hand, and not beating up other students. We celebrated this special occasion by getting a picture of Jake, his certificate, his lovely mother, and a local area man eating an ice cream cone.


















As part of the package, parents are expected to buy large amounts of candy from schoolyard vendors to present to their kids. We didn't want Jake to feel left out so we got him some candy as well. But in an unexpected twist, when he got home the candy was confiscated by the candy fairy, who then proceeded to eat most of it while lying on the couch watching the Cowboys-Giants game.

Girthy

Now that Kaddi is great with child, we get increasing amounts of mail asking for pictures showing her in her final trimester. We at 301NIB understand the value of giving the public what it wants, whether it be an analytical look at the protests in Burma, or a fetus floating inside a mystical orb. So, enjoy our pregnant pause as we celebrate these photos Kaddi and baby Snerdley. (Not pictured: Snerdley).




Why is this woman smiling? Because nothing makes pregnancy more enjoyable than carrying laundry out the door, down the stairs, and across the street to a communal landromat. I'll take my whites with extra rust stains, please...





Despite her condition, Kaddi is never too exhausted to make dinner for her family. I would help too, but there's not enough room for both of us in the kitchen.





Meg takes time for a morning photo before asking her routine question, "Will you make me waffles?"

Barbarian, Modern, Feminine

One of my favorite things about teaching history is trying to dispel the universal belief that our generation represents the apex of human development. In our World Civilization course we acknowledge how we have benefitted from discoveries made by our ancestors. We also try to uncover mentalities and problems that transcend time and culture, that are universal to the human condition.

This subject came up last week when we were discussing the Tang and Song dynasties in China. Increasing trade and wealth threatened traditional Confucian social structures, which provoked a reaction among the patriarchal order. This is the era when the practice of foot-binding became popular. Aristocratic mothers would bind the feet of their daughters, folding up the toes in the shape of a lotus. As the foot grew, the bones in the feet would actually break as they expanded. This permanently crippled the young woman.

The Chinese did this for two reasons. First, Chinese men found tiny feet very attractive. Second, if women were crippled they were not able to go out on their own. It was an sure way to make sure a woman stayed in her place - the home. Foot-binding was eradicated in China during the early twentieth century, largely due to the influence of western missionaries. Noting the reaction of shock among some of the students, I asked them if the Christians were right to eliminate foot-binding, or if this was simply another example of imperialist arrogance in altering indigenous culture to make the world more European.

At Wisconsin this would not be a provocative question. Those students are so laden with 'white guilt' that the minorities are the heroes of every narrative. Imperialist are always Caucasian males, always in a dominant position, and therefore always wrong. But at BYUH, where most of the student have yet to be indoctrinated by post-modernism and post-colonialism, there are still lots of students who still believe that western civilzation has some redeeming qualities.

Inevitably, a female student raised her hand to say that, of course the elimination of foot-binding was a positive thing. It was a male-inspired practice that crippled women solely for aesthetic purposes. Our culture may not be superior, but at least we treat women with a greater degree of equality and don't force them to suffer in order to conform to some male-inspired ideal of beauty.

This, of course, is exactly what I had hoped someone would say...

I then ask students if they are familiar with the term 'corset'. At the same time Chinese women were breaking their own feet, European and American women were cinching themselves into a painful contraption designed to narrow their waists and create the hour glass figure men found so attractive. Corsets caused physical discomfort by constricting a woman's diaphragm and making it much more difficult to inhale and exhale. There's a reason why Jane Austen characters are always fainting at an emotionally traumatic development - they can't breathe.

Even worse, scientists have determined that the tightness of a corset impeded the natural growth of a women's spinal cord. Many aristocratic women developed back problems and even scoliosis from wearing such tight-fitting apparatus. All in the pursuit of beauty.

Thankfully, corsets are no longer the style and the modern woman has been sufficiently liberated by the feminist movement that she no longer submits herself to such painful or dehabillitating procedures in order to appear attractive. Except perhaps to wear high heels, or inject collagen into her lips, or insert large sacs of saline into her body in order to...enhance...certain feminine features. I then show them slides of the evolution of the ideal female body type - from the cherub-like physique of Titian's Renaissance nudes, to the voluptuous femininity of Jane Russell during the Depression, to the stick figure Kate Moss ideal of the nineties, to the mandatory rock-hard physique of today.

The point of the discussion (I hope) is not to degrade women, but simply to point out that our culture is not so very different from the Medieval Chinese. Both societies conceive of ideal notions of beauty, and require women to engage in all sorts of bizarre rituals in order to achieve it. All of our advanced technology has not prevented us from acting out some of the same primitive behavior as our ancestors.

It is generally a very postive discussion, and a gratifying experience to watch students try to re-position themselves as their pre-conceived notions of superiority towards other cultures or eras gradually erode. For students it can be very disorienting to realize that our own ideals of beauty are not universal, and that instead of reflecting our own individual choices, these decisions are often made for us by the subtle marketing of clothing, makeup, and sporting goods manufacturers. They come away feeling a little perplexed and disoriented, and begin wondering what other assumptions they should begin questioning.

I know they feel this way because that's exactly how I felt many years ago, when my World Civ professor did this to me.

Under Pressure

Today at 9 PM Jake completed his science project. It was an enormous project that required contributions from all of us.

Kaddi conceived of the project. She bought all the materials. She typed out all the information. She formatted the storyboard and cut out the materials

I supervised the experiments and drove to my office in the middle of a thunderstorm so I could print out all the information for Jake's posterboard.

Jake's contribution consisted of watching the experiments and gluing all the information to a posterboard.

In the end, Kaddi and I learned that the match causes the air to expand and rush out of the bottle. When you seal off the bottle by placing an egg on the spout it creates a vacuum, because the pressure inside the bottle is less than the pressure outside. The force of the outside air rushing into the bottle (in order to equalize the pressure)is what forces the egg downward.

Jake learned that he doesn't need to worry about large projects because, in the end, his parents will do it for him.

All Hallow's Eve

Last night we experienced Halloween here in Laie, where we danced liked children of the night. The night before we had a ward party with games, costume contests, and more dancing. The kids had a costume parade at their school where Meg got to show off her HIgh School Musical cheerleader costume. The kids are off today and tomorrow. This begs the question, when do they do any learning?

There was a spooky laundry room here at Temple View Apartments, which had more than one kid in tears by the time they were through. Then it was off to plunder the faculty townhouses before hitting the climax of the night - Moana street. There were hundreds of people out trick-or-treating and admiring people's Halloween decorations. At one point Jake and I got caught in a rainstorm, and had to seek refuge at a nearby Luau. Somewhere in all that revelry Jake lost the muzzle of his Jengo Fet gun, and I lost our camera case. A small price to pay for the amount of candy collected (which Meg and Jake have promised to share with me.)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

He almost did a 'nollie'

When Jake was a toddler he had his own style. Every day he tied his Winnie-the-Pooh blanket around neck and spent hours running back and forth across our living room, all the while looking back to see if his blanket was flowing like Superman's cape.

Now that he's older, he has a new style. He insists on going to school with button-shirt worn open over his t-shirt. For months, Kaddi and I have been trying to figure out the appeal of this look. (After all, it's not as cool as pegged pants.)

A few days ago I took him to a 'skatepark' in Kahuku. As I watched him racing across the ramps, I finally understood his new look. He's still racing back and forth with his cape behind him.

Rocking Chairs, Tube Socks, Smurf Radios

(A few days ago Kaddi was tagged by her friend Kelly of 'Barby Lane' fame. Here is her response...)

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Living at Villa Rose Apartments, near the Provo Courthouse.
2. Sitting in a rocking chair, at Villa Rose Apts and wondering why my brand new baby boy was so colic-y.
3. Wondering if a Ph.d in History would really take that long.
4. Adjusting to being a stay-at-home mom, instead of working as a receptionist for a company in Draper. I still don’t really know what they do.

(Do I get an 'F' if I can’t list 5 things?)

5 Things on my To-Do list today

1. Remember to take my pre-natal vitamins
2. Sign Jake up for Basketball
3. Get a much needed pedicure
4. Meg’s parent teacher conference
5. Take Meg to swimming practice and ice cream afterwards. I have to put this in even though we are only allowed five: watch Survivor and The Office.

5 Things I would do if I had a Million Dollars

1. Pay off student loans
2. Take my parents on a European tour and Shane’s parents somewhere to their liking.
3. Put money aside for each of my kids and give a few thousand to each one of my siblings and Shane’s.
4. Go on a J.Crew and Banana Republic shopping spree.
5. Buy a house, Buy a house, Buy a house.

5 Things I will never wear again

1. Acid washed jeans with zippers on the ankles.
2. Red nail polish. My nails are always short and if I wear red I feel like a “lady of the night.”
3. A baseball hat with my name in felt across the top.
4. Tube socks with the stripes at the top. I use to wear them in first or second grade and keep my milk money at the bottom. I think every school teacher would think twice about handling milk money if they knew where it had been.
5. A hat to church

5 Favorite Toys

1. IPOD, can’t workout without it.
2. Cell phone. My loving father bought me a new one before this new journey to Hawaii. It’s black and orange and I can take oodles of pictures with it.
3. A borrowed Wilson Hammer tennis racket. My friend lent this to me in Thailand last year for my tennis league and I absolutely loved it. I almost beat Shane a couple of times with it, but he’ll say he doesn’t remember (selective memory).
4. Portable DVD player. One of the best ideas ever conceived. Makes 22 hour journeys to Thailand bearable, 3 day drives across the states manageable and 5 hour plane rides to Hawaii do able. Whom ever invented this definitely had children.
5. When I was a kid my favorite toys were: Barbies (the heart family), personal Pac Man arcade game, Smurf radio and remote control cars.

Scenes from a Midterm

In my first experience as a full-time faculty member, I am learning a lot about my chosen career. I am learning that professors do quite a bit more than I though they did. I am learning that I love my office more than I've every loved any material object before. (I love it so much, I want to take it behind the...) And I'm learning that the most important part of a successful class curriculum is to write instructions so precise, so meticulous, so Byzantine, that it will hold up under a Johnny Cochrane cross examination...if he weren't dead. This is because if there is ever any possiblity of interpreting instructions wrong, the students will choose that interpretation.

Case in point: Yesterday morning I picked up my History 201 midterms from the testing center. I left explicit instructions that students were to type their essays on the available computer. I thought this would make it easier for the international students who might not have the best English handwriting. Despite these instructions, some student wrote their answers on the test sheet itself. Others chose to write on the back of pamphlet from the Housing office. Why, in the name of sweet Lou Pinella, they had these pamphlets I have no idea. So now I get to spend my time cutting throught the jungle of paper-products searching for hidden treasures of student essays.

It gets better...

To give the students a fighting chance on the essay, I give them possible questions in advance. On Friday I handed the students a review sheet that contained three possible essay questions, and informed them that only one appears on the test. This forces them to study the themes for all three essays, which is supposed to be the idea behind testing anyway. There was a question on Socratic philosophy, centralization of government in empire, and land reform. Here is the exact question that appeared on the test:

During the course, we study the problems that occur when a wealthy minority monopolizes land in any society. A ruler’s attempt to enact land reform often leads to his overthrow. Write an essay comparing three civilizations that tried to enforce reform programs and their results. Explain which program was the most successful and why.


A good World Civ essay should challenge the students the student to contrast and compare different civilizations, and cultural responses to the problems that are universal within the human experience. We've spent lots of time talking about land reform with Solon in Athens, the Gracchi brothers in Rome, and Wang Man in China. I thought it was the most obvious question, and the easiest to answer given the class lectures.

The day after the midterm I received an email from a student. Here's what it said:

Bro. Strate,

In class on Friday you told us there would be three essays on the exam, and we could choose one to write about. But when I got to the testing center there was only one essay and it wasn't the one I studied for. I wrote an essay about Socrates because that's what I studied. If I could be graded on that essay that would be very good of you. Please let me know if you would like to talk to me about this.

And this is the way I read it:

Dear Bro. Strate,

I didn't pay attention to the review sheet. I didn't listen to what you said in class. I only wanted to spend time studying for one essay, and even though it wasn't on the exam I still wrote about it. Please look past my total disregard for instructions and protocol and give me a good grade anyway.

I now enjoy the dilemma of deciding how to respond. This attitude of indifference among students, that others should compensate for their own lack of preparation, is quite maddening. The best thing I could do in this situation is send a clear signal that this type of behavior is not acceptable at a university.

If I give this person the grade they deserve - zero - they have no chance of passing the class. This failure, in turn, may result in academic probation, which could jeopardize their visa and require they return to their native country.

What would you do?

But do they have Arby's?

To celebrate our purchase of a new camera we went to try it out at Foodfest yesterday. The international clubs all are required by the university to provide their native foods at World Foodfest, one of Laie's best community activities. We headed over their with our friends the Pecks and I saw two of my students in the Tonga and Brazil clubs. Here's some highlights.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Burman Furor

The article quoting my expertise on Burma was published this week in the student newspaper. The university paper is called Ke Alaka'i, which apparently is Hawaiian for 'run-on sentence.'

You can visit the newspaper website to read the story, and you can also order an autographed print copy from 301NIH for only $7.95 + s&h. Also look for me to appear on CNN's 360 with Anderson Cooper tomorrow at 6 PM.

Life on the K-Side

Many of you have sent in multiple requests for Kaddi to set up her own blog. Although I haven't succeeded in convincing her to do this, she has finally agreed to make what I hope will be the first of many contributions to 301NIH.

K-Side
(not eastside, not Westside, just one women’s experience and struggles of living in a Mormon Ghetto)

I have tried to deny the fact that we indeed live in a Mormon ghetto. Shane has tried to convince me of this since the day we moved in. It wasn’t until today after seeing a few grocery carts from our local store in yards of several tenants that I realized, we do indeed live in a Mormon ghetto. Now this is a ghetto like no other. I do not fear for my children. I am not afraid that they will be approached on the swings to experiment with drugs. I’m not afraid that they will be tempted by young hooligans to spread graffiti on the walls of our buildings and I am not afraid that they will be attacked when coming back from the candy vending machine. What I am afraid of is that they will not want to seek after college degrees like their father, for they will fear that all their hard work and sacrifice might have them end up in a Mormon Ghetto. Hopefully when Jake is married with children of his own and Shane and I have purchased our very first home in Nebraska, our kids will realize that all the sacrifice and student loans are so worth it.

All joking aside I must paint the Mormon ghetto in its true light. Our kids can play outside all day and I don’t have to fear for their safety. Most of the people here are very kind and I’m sure more than willing to lend us hand if we were in need. Our kids friends are a hop, skip and jump away and there is no need to set up play dates. The kids their age are not running around with cell phones, IPODs and designer clothes, shoes etc. but are having good ole fashion outdoor fun, football games, bikes, skateboards, playing in the dirt, activities that 10 yr. olds should be engaged in. Aside from the shared Laundromat that I have to lug load after load of laundry too, aside from the non-air- conditioned apt. no dishwasher, apt. furnished to look like the inside of our church building, one bathroom, crying babies 24/7, ants , you get the picture. Aside from all of this it’s an alright, o.k. , could only do it for one year place to live.

I believe the children are our future

I'm a little concerned about my afternoon World Civilization classes. The students are just not taking the class seriously. Many of them don't attend regularly. Yesterday when I started my discussion of Plato's Apology and Crito, only eight of of possible thirty students were in class. Many of them come late, they leave during class and come back, or they leave early. They don't turn their cel phones off and they carry on conversation in class all the time. I don't know if there's a cultural issue, or if it's just the afternoon time slot (the classes are MWF at 2 & 4 PM), or this is just how things work at BYUH.

I've tried threatening, I've tried attendance quizzes, I've tried making the class more interesting, and now I've resorted to my final strategy - failing people. I just got the first quizzes back form the testing center and they're just short of disastrous. Out of thirty possible points, several people scored less than ten. In our department meeting at the beginning of the semester the Chair asked us we needed to give out lower scores in order to combate grade inflation. The way things are going right now I should be able to help with that.

The attitude of my students was reflected in a recent exchange at the end of class on Monday. After my lecture I was cleaning off the whiteboard and turned around to see a student waiting to talk to me. Even though this was probably only the third time he'd attended class, I recognized him from his skater attire, his goofy oversized baseball hat that he wore sideways, and his overwhelming sense of entitlement. Here's what ensued:

Me: What can I do for you?

Slacker: I need to pick up a review sheet for the quiz tomorrow.

Me: There is no review sheet. There's only three questions on the quiz.

Slacker: Well...how am I supposed to know what to study?

Me: You study the things I lecture about in class, you can use the text to review.

Slacker: What?!

Me: We also did a review on Friday. If you came to class you'd know that.

Slacker: (rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and walks away mumbling)

After that performance I couldn't wait to get the quizzes back, I sorted through them all to look for slacker's quiz. He answered only one of the questions and scored six out of thirty. I have no doubt the next time I see him will be two weeks before finals when he shows up at my office and says "Yeah...I'd like to pass this class, so what do I need to do?"

Oh well, I've got bigger problems right now. I went to Giovanni's shrimp shack in Kahuku yesterday and had some scampi. Now Kaddi won't come near me because apparently I have butter and garlic oozing out of my pores. I may need to go soak myself in the ocean for few hours today, or else I'll be sleeping on the couch again.

The October Mailbag

301 nights

I can't believe how lucky you guys are to be living in Hawaii! There's so much to see and do. What have you done so far? Have you been to any of the other islands?

M. Gibbons
Bangkok Thailand

Since we didn't have a car our first month here, we have not been to see many of the sites. But I'm proud to announce that is about to change, as we have recently purchased our very own motor carriage. It's a 1997 Saturn something-or-other, with four doors....actually, three and a half since one of the door panels is falling off. It's dark green with an interior that appears as though it were once made of leather. I would have included a picture, but in order to pay for the vehicle we traded our digital camera straight across.

There's a good chance we got ripped off.



Dear 301NIH

The blog does not have enough information about Kaddi's pregnancy. How is she doing?

K-money
Hamden, CT

Kaddi is feeling better about life here in Hawaii now that its getting cooler. We all sleep better. She's also trying to get a note from her doctor so that our apartment manager will let us have air-conditioning. But pregnancy has also given a heightened sensitivity to odors, which is causing discomfort. The other day I was eating some Buffalo Wing and Blue Cheese Doritos (It was a Flavor COLLISION!) and the blue cheese smell was too much for her to take. She made me finish eating my chips outside.

At least she positioned the TV so I could watch it through the screen door.




Dear Hawaii man,

I can't believe you describe your neighbourhood as a ghetto when you live in Hawaii. Have you ever even been to a real ghetto?

LaQuanda Willis
Oak Park, IL

To be fair, I refer to our neighbourhood as the Mormon projects. And for the most part, I stand by this description. It's not a scary ghetto since it's full of good people who are completing their education and raising their families. But it's also low-income housing units with toys and furniture strewn all over the place. It's the kind of place where people roll up in their SUV's blasting polynesian music, and where you can hear your neighbour yelling at his kids or singing in the shower. It's also the kind of place where you can walk out to your car and find a half-naked (if you're lucky) kid sliding down your windshield.

Can somebody put some pants on this kid?














301NIB,

Are you exercising enough? When you come up to the reunion next summer we're going to be doing a lot of hiking and outdoor acitivities. You need to cut out the junk food and get on the tread mill.

Camp Impeesa Man
Magrath, AB

I confess that I have not been as active as I would like since arriving in Hawaii. Maybe I should start running - you know that Bill and Ryan just finished a marathon in St. George? I'm very proud of both of them, Bill particularly for finishing his first marathon in good time. But Ryan's marathon completion was even more emotional for me. During the 2006 marathon in Logan Utah, Ryan experienced severe chaffing from a cotton-poly blend t-shirt and lost both his nipples. The doctors said he would never run again. He was devastated.

I knew that I couldn't stand back and watch my dear cousin give up his passion for distance running. A preliminary test confirmed I would be a perfect match, and I donated one of my nipples so that he could return to the sport he loves. Yesterday, when I heard that Ryan had completed his first marathon since our surgery, I felt as though a small part of me had run right along with him.



Mr. Mack Strate,

We appreciate your concise yet evocative review of our recent publication The Rural Juror. In the absence of other media coverage, informative and entertaining blogs like yours are the engines driving the success of this novel.

After perusing your blog I think your family's year in Thailand would make the subject of a very insightful and amusing book. If you decide to pursue such a project, I hope you'll consider our firm for publication.

E. Benes
Pendant Publishing
New York City

I have thought of writing that experience as a book, but right now I'm involved in another project. I'm writing a fantasy novel about Sarah, a high school girl who moves to small town to live with her father. In her science class she meets Blair, a brooding young man who's as good-looking as he is mysterious. Despite Blair's efforts efforts to keep his distance, he and Sarah gradually grow to care for each other. Sarah suspects Blair is not like the others kids, that there's something unusual and powerful about him. It is only after she's fallen in love with Blair that Sarah learns his terrible secret...

He's a Scientologist.

Myanmar, I hardly know ye

Tsunami warning for Burma's generals

A few days ago I received a call from the student newspaper wanting to interview me about the current situation in Burma. While I agreed to meet with student, I thought "I don't know anything about Burma. Nobody knows anything about Burma!" Fortunately, I have lots of experience with pretending to be more capable and knowledgable than I really am. Just in case, I spent the next hour reading all the press articles I could find about Burma. I even re-watched the Seinfeld episode where J. Peterman abandons his catalog and heads off to Myanmar just to see if I could pick up anything special.

Thankfully, my anxiety was all for naught. When the studenr reporter arrived at my office her first question was "What is a junta?" After that, I realized I was probably in the clear. We talked for about twenty minutes and I provided come very general background concerning the 1988 student massacre, Ang-San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar-Burma controvery, and the military dictatorship that has ruled for forty years. The next edition of the student paper comes out next Wednesday, and I'm very interested to see how she quotes me. I hope I sound smart.

The protests in Burma started in early September after the military decided to raise fuel prices for consumers. A few days later it really gathered momentum when the Buddhist monks began rallying support and speaking out against the government. This made things much more complicated. You can't just shoot hundreds or thousands of monks the way you would shoot university students. People really get upset. Nevertheless, this hasn't stopped the army from killing a few monks here or there when they thought no one was looking. There's even been video footage of a Japanese journalist being shot. The speed of the protests caught the government off guard, and at the beginning there were photos and video footage broadcast on the internet. But now the government has tighter control over the media and is preventing the export of information. No one is really sure what is happening in Burma.

All my student are asking me what will happen. Right now it appears that the military has locked everything down, including the monsteries, and is prepared to ride this thing out. It's difficult for the internation community to put pressure on Burma, because the country is so isolated. Popular protests like this only succeed because the strain of shooting civilians causes the army command the splinter, refuse to follow orders, and eventually back down. Burma's army has never shown any such signs of conscience. It is likely this situation will end just like the protests of 1988.






"Cornered but unbeaten: the true leader"

Suspense: thy name is Grisham!

When Susan Landon, a corporate accountant from Memphis, is selected for jury duty she dreads following the monotonous proceedings of an armed robbery trial. That's before she meets fellow juror Jake West, a plaid-shirted mountain man from Snelford, Arkansas. Soon Susan is spending weekends at Jake's remote cabin, where he teaches her the symmetry between legal principles and outdoor survival techniques. But when the trial takes a dramatic turn Susan will be forced to decide between her career, her new love, and her job. Does she have the willpower to sacrifice everything for The Rural Juror?

This is the first novel from new author Kevin Grisham. Unlike his brother John, who writes mainly legal-thrillers, Kevin is building a following around an exciting new genre known as Romance-legal-adventure-thrillers. This book will make your pulse race right before it steals you heart. I started reading it on the plane to Hawaii and had a hard time putting it down. The main problem with this book is that it can be difficult to find. You may have to buy it online, or you can just wait for next year's release of the movie version, starring Tea Leone and Kevin Sorbo.

And if any of you are thinking about possible Christmas presents for me, I'm eagerly anticipating the relase of Kevin Grisham's second novel, Urban Fervor. It's the perfect stocking-stuffer.

Please pay your respects to His Majesty

The signs of Thailand's growing culture of conformity and fear are ever present. I just finished reading an article about a confrontation in a movie theater in Bangkok. Every theater in Thailand begins each movie by first showing a film honouring the king and accompanied by his anthem. All patrons are required to stand and pay their respects to His Majesty.

Recently an anti-coup activist attended a movie but refused to stand during the King's anthem. Other patrons shouted at him, threw popcorn and water bottles, and then physically confronted the man leading him to call the police. His assailant, in turn, promised to files charges against this man for Lese majeste. You can read the article here if you're interested.

Meanwhile we in the U.S. decry state censorship because FOX has the audacity to edit out Sally Field's rambling, incoherent dribble about the 'GD war.' This is supposed to be proof that the Right Wing controls the media? That Bush has created a police state where anyone who disagrees with his Iraq policy will be silenced?

When we go to the movies and have to a salute a portrait of W or risk getting ruffed up by some Eagle Scouts, then I'll be worried.