Conquistador, Part II: Treasure

Welcome to the Second installment of four, Conquistador

Treasure

“Special! $.99 Green Giant Green Beans”

Swoosh. The mystical door slid open. I immediately sprang into action with the agility of a cat, penetrating the foreign realm. I slipped into the corner and concealed myself in the “shopping carts for your convenience” jungle of steel. It’s quiet. Why is it so quiet? I don’t like the feeling here. Something is wrong! Run! Run now!

“Thank you for Shopping Wilson’s. We are glad you have chosen us as your neighborhood grocer.”

The Gods! The Gods are speaking to m…Crash!

“Oh my dear! I am sorry! I didn’t even see you! Are you all right? You’re not a day over six, where is your mother? Come with me, we’ll go find he-he-HEY! Come back!”

With the instincts of a jaguar and the strength of a bear I tore free from the terrible grasp that held me hostage. None may conquer! Now on to the prize.

There. There it was. Not even guarded. A mountain of that which is most precious and pure above all other bounty! More desirable than any fair maiden. Not that they are fair in the first place. Eeeew. I don’t even like thinking about ‘em. Cooties.

I solemnly approached that which was mine to be had. Nothing stood in my way. I inched closer. I reached up to grasp the long shrink-wrapped tube. Reeeeeeach. Streeeeetch. Tippy tippidy tip toes….Blasted giants. I will construct a mighty tower! This pickle bucket will do. VICTORY!!!

I could feel my mouth salivate as I held in reverence the blazing red tube of fresh pepperoni. My hands trembled at the sacred possession. In my soul stirred the ardent passions felt—I imagine—only by those valiant knights of old who, in search of glory, sought the carpenter’s cup. I gazed, mesmerized with anticipation of breaking the seal and releasing the sharp aroma of divinely peppered pork and beef. I resisted.

Warily I traversed the aisles seeking my retreat. Perched upon a wall, the keeper of the gate towered over my own height, vigilant. I approached and in a knightly voice declared my intention of departure, with the pepperoni.

“Two dollars and seventy-eight cents, Son.” His voice warbled with age. He must be as ancient as the sages. I emptied my purse.

“That’s quite a bit of change you got there, boy.”

Question not the heart of he who is mighty to conquer lest your head you wish to lose!

Ne’er before had the moon so shone.
The stars but mild specks in the firmament
were. Valor had no name, nor chivalry a face,
before the day, the noble Knight, for his home did race.

To Be Continued...

Stay tuned for Conquistador, Part III: Re-entry

Conquistador, Part I: Departure

And now, in the first installment of four, Conquistador

Departure

Thump thump…. Thump thump. Tip… toe… peeer. Nothing. Creeeaaaak. Sliiide. Cloooose the door. A slight breeze. A dark night. Stop! Just for a moment. Someone is coming... wait, no. It’s nobody. Pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter... squiiiish... Stupid mud. Destination. My faithful steed, TAKE ME AWAY!

It was defiance. I had escaped. No one had seen. No one had heard. My Huffy and me, a lone knight rider and his stallion disappearing into the night with nothing but a thick trail of dust following the champion. I looked back just once, only to witness the vanishing castle of my sleeping kin beyond the horizon. They would not have understood. This quest must be done alone.

You see, nothing like this had been done before. No one would have dared to do it. It was too brazen, too daring, too dangerous. Peril lurked around every block, across every street. Bolting across the asphalt sea, home only to barren horseless chariots of steel, I pursued my course. The silence pierced the alley only to be disturbed by the quick click of a ten-speed shifting into high gear. Speeeed. No, no one had ever done this before. Defiance, Rebellion is my name. And in this world, I am King.

There! Off yonder horizon! There awaits my boon. There it lies, in a cold, deserted, artificially lighted keep.

To Be Continued...

Stay tuned for Conquistador, Part II: Treasure

Every lamb we lose

Today is the beginning of the Women's Services and Resources annual Body Acceptance Week on the Brigham Young University Provo Campus. To kick off the week, the center is hosting "Mirrorless Monday," whose stated purpose reads:

Women's Services and Resources will host Body Acceptance Week through Friday on campus. The week will begin with "Mirrorless Monday," where the mirrors in the WSC will be covered to encourage students to not rely on appearance for acceptance.

Sadly, however, my personal experience with the commencement events have been bittersweet. As I multi-taskingly considered the various forms of acceptance I have at my disposal upon which to rely for acceptance, I entered the WSC second floor men's room and stopped in my tracks. The initiative to cover all mirrors in the restrooms had, indeed, been thwarted. I slowly moved toward the sinks to confirm the scene. I was right. An entire third of the mirror's protective cover had been carefully untaped, and was now hanging loosly from the wall.

I staggered slightly as I realized the implication. Sure, it could have been a mistake on the Center's part. Maybe they did not use enough tape to carry the weight of the veil. But even as I considered this, my heart sank as a fellow student exited one stall and approached the sink and mirror. He was a peer. He was a student, and a brother. Yet I watched as he looked himself straight in the eye, and walked out.

I don't know if he was the one who was so reliant upon his own image that he removed the veil, but I do know the hurt of knowing that even one lamb out of one-hundred who strays is a tragic loss.

In this Iblog post, my heart goes out to that anonymous brother who could not look away from what everyone else saw. I miss him, and hope he finds his way home. Fortunatley, this forum's purpose is twofold. Not only to call, but to reach out. Therefore, in a spirit of remembrance for the one lost I call out, "Please, BYU Women's Service and Resource center, consider other alternatives that will help each of us look past how we look. The current programs are noble, they do unimaginable good, but they could be better, stronger."

Please consider, for next year the following alternatives to "Mirrorless Monday" which I believe to be fool safe. Lets not loose a single lamb next year.

1) Turn each of us to Vampires. As extensively documented by Joss Whedon, vampires do not have reflections. PROS: No reflection = no reliance on appearance for acceptance; less material cost as large sheets of paper are no longer needed to block reflection. CONS: Vampires have no souls.

2) Veils. Veils have been a successful cure to body image issues ever since the Jahalian era of pre-Islamic Arabia. PROS: Not only will we not judge ourselves, others will be forced to rely on our personality to decide if we are ugly. CONS: Terrorism.

3) Remove Restrooms from Wilk entirely. No Bathrooms = No Mirrors = No body image issues. PROS: Reduced labor costs for Wilkenson Janitorial staff. CONS: Various forms of excretory ailments for a large percentage of BYU students, staff, and administration.

Remembering the Lost... - شكري

For more information on Body Acceptance Week (which, all humor aside, I support) and the Initiatives of the Women's Services and Resource Center, please visit their site: BYU Women's Services and Resource Center.

from two books that changed my life

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like — "

"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."

"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."

She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though.

"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

Holden to Pheobe
' The Cather in the Rye' --By JD Salinger

That afternoon there was a party of tourists at the Terrace and looking down in the water among the empty beer cans and dead barracudas a woman saw a great long white spine with a huge tail at the end that lifted and swung with the tide while the east wind blew a heavy steady sea outside the entrance to the harbour"

"What's that?" she asked a waiter and pointed to the long backbone of the great fish that was now just garbage waiting to go out with the tide.

"Tiburon," the waiter said. "Eshark." He was meaning to explain what had happened.

"I didn't know sharks had such handsome, beautifully formed tails."

"I didn't either," her male companion said.

Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching. The old man was dreaming about the lions.

'The Old Man and the Sea' --Ernest Hemmingway

Terror on the Walk ways of Brigham Young University

Terrorism sometimes hits close to home....

Today as I was settling in for the evening, my roomate Alan Niel Rosenhan, esq. jumped up and shouted from the adjacent room, "Cory! want to help the police interpret some arabic?!?"

Naturally, indeed almost instinctively, I pulled on my pants and tripped out the door grabbing my Hanz Wehr Dictionary of Arabic on the way.

Alan (an Arabic 102 student) and myself (an Arabic 202 student) waited on the corner of University Avenue and 940 N. in Provo at about 22:45 hours (in the pm) until a sleek Provo City Police car pulled up to the curb. We looked around to make sure there were no terrorists watching, and quickly and quietly slipped into the vehicle.

The officer briefed us on the way, occasionally interrupted by the police radio.

"We recieved a call of suspicious Arabic writing on the sidewalk on the south side of the HCB. A concerned student called it in, so we are going to go check it out."

My heart was racing. I couldn't believe I was really a part of an actual investigation of a terror threat here in Utah. I waited patiently as the police officer wound his way through the roads on 800 North and eventually onto the campus sidewalks themselves.

We slowly stepped from the car and cautiously approached the sidewalk. The student was right. Cement block after cement block was covered, literally riddled with foreign text. On some it was blue sidewalk chalk. On others, yellow. I strained my eyes to make out the words illuminated by the headlights of the patrol car.

Alan and I, with the officer listening, read aloud...

I see I saw
he sees he saw
she sees she saw
you see you saw (m)
you see (f) you saw (f)
they see they saw
you all see you all saw
we see we saw

I love I brought
he loves he brought
she loves she brought

The terror went on for blocks, only interrupted by a sidewalk chalk sketch of a kitty cat and....a flower. Indeed, the only solace each of us could muster was the quite assurance that the obscenity and fear would be washed away. Soon. by the next snowfall.

While it smells of mystery and intrigue, this is truly a story of heroes. American Heroes. Four of them. Two were Arabic Students. One was a cop. And ... the other ... a student, with, thankfully, an acute knowledge of current events and who was brave enough to make a phone call.

John McCain on the Muslim Extremists

I read today John McCain's web page. A couple sections stand out.

It said:

"He recognizes the dangers posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, violent Islamist extremists and their terrorist tactics, and the ever present threat of regional conflict that can spill into broader wars that endanger allies and destabilize areas of the world vital to American security. He knows that to protect our homeland, our interests, and our values - and to keep the peace - America must have the best manned, best equipped, and best supported military in the world."
(http://www.johnmccain.com/Undecided/WhyMcCain.htm)

Why is the answer always the military? Why is it that whenever we see a threatening situation arise we all panic and decide to give the president unfettered power to flood our military with money. Are there alternatives to killing people we disagree with and/or don't understand?

Proposition: Fund (try) diplomacy. Perhaps if we spent 600 billion dollars on hiring international diplomats, linguists, and negotiators we could work something out without shouting (in words that rarely cross the language gap) and shooting and bombing. Do we even know, as a community, why they have attacked our embassies, our battleships, and our World Trade Centers? do we make the effort to listen to their justifications? Or are we content to believe that they are simple-minded, ignorant barbarians that hate us because we have white picket fences, apple pie, and American Idol?

Compare to The stated foreign policy goals of another presidential hopeful, Barack Obama:

"The United States is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don't like. Not talking doesn't make us look tough – it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership. On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support...
"Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like terrorism, and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs."
(http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/#diplomacy)