On Women

#MoreThanMean @justnotsports

I jumped on an early Metro North train yesterday afternoon in order to get back to the 'Stan (yes, the shadow government run by the frosty iron fist of Martha Stewart does still allow for free elections here) in order to vote. As is my norm, I perused the Twittersphere for news. I stumbled upon a Tweet with a fast trending hashtag:

#MoreThanMean

Intrigued, I clicked through to the link and watched this. The four minute video is nothing short of horrifying. With my jaw hanging agape in shock, I sat stunned watching it. Once I was able to collect my thoughts, my first cogent reaction was to damn the Interwebs for the perverse sense of boldness its anonymity gives people. Only the sickest (and small handed too - trust me, I'm getting to THAT connection) psychopathic misogynist would have the temerity to say these things to a woman's face. My second reaction was a galling, sickening sense of shame that I, as a man, share the same genetic makeup of the human detritus that, cowering behind the anonymity of the internet, wrote these things about women. My third reaction was to think of the amazing women in my life, starting with my wife and daughters, and how I wanted nothing more to insure no one ever treats them like this. 

With those jumble of emotions still roiling through me, I made my way to our nearly (thanks, voter apathy!) empty polling place to cast my vote in the presidential primary. At first, I thought I was being punked because there was a candidate on the ballot named 'Rocky de la Fuente' (turns out he's real - disillusioned - but real). I flipped my ballot over several times to see if it was printed by a Trump company, just to be sure. Assured that my ballot was the real deal, I cast my vote. Without telling you for whom I cast my vote, I can tell you this - my mother is hugely disappointed in me. The funny thing is that as I cast my vote, my mother, along with so many women in my life were on my mind because of the #MoreThanMean campaign video I'd just seen. 

I have been fortunate to have known amazing women throughout my life. My mother, who scooped me into her arms when I was two days old, declared me her own and has never looked back or given up on me. My sister, who is smart, loving, and tough as nails. My wife - there are not enough words to describe her impact on my life. I try to be a better man because of her. My daughters - the joy of my life and my hope. I see so much good in them and see the potential that they have to do so much good in the worlds they inhabit. I've been taught by amazing women - a high school teacher, a former nun, who brought the study of Humanities alive; a Sunday School teacher in California whose skill I try to live up to each Sunday that I teach. I've been fortunate to work with strong, funny, smart, resilient women too. I'm lucky to call a diverse, fascinating group of women friends. I've been blessed by each of these associations. Quite simply, I am a better man because of the women in my life.

I'm far from the perfect son, father or husband and I know I've been a tool on more than one occasion.  But I cannot understand the mentality of a man that can totally get behind the behavior highlighted in the #MoreThanMean campaign. It's not just women sportswriters/journalists that endure this kind of vitriol. It's rampant. It's disgusting. Yet, the presumptive (and small handed misogynist) Republican presidential nominee leads the pack in this behavior. His marital history is proof of his respect for women (umm...tick tock, Melania, you're probably about to hit your expiry date). His infamous Twitter feed is littered with hate-filled rants against women. He's now hitting out against Hillary Clinton in his typical cowardly, bloviating way, calling her names and accusing her of shouting at him. Apparently, in his sick world, when a woman has the unmitigated gall to respond to one his hysteric rants, that's 'shouting.' The cowardice on display is beyond the pale. He embodies #MoreThanMean. This anonymous quote nailed it:

Strong women scare weak men.

And yet, there are women who support him. I cannot understand how any woman can support his candidacy. It defies all logic. But I think we can all agree that the logic ship sank a long time ago when it comes to this campaign. 

There's no logic either in the behavior of men who go after women in such hateful ways, as was illustrated in the #MoreThanMean video. Aren't we better than that? We should be. We should be better to the women in our lives. They are amazing. They make us better.

Stop the mean. Love the women in your lives. We'd all be better for it.

Thank you to @justnotsports for starting this discussion. May it be the beginning of the end of hate towards the women in our lives.

Healthy Service

Farmer TMFKATB

The good people at British Airways have a motto to which they strive to adhere: To fly, to serve

I think missionaries like TMFKATB might play on that motto slightly: To work, to teach, to serve

In this week's letter, he talked a little about the opportunities for service that arose during the week. He seemed pretty excited about the chance to do "lots of service!" This led him to lament that he was pretty sore as a result. He and his companion tackled some junk-filled yards that, in by his observation, were allowed to junk up specifically for this missionaries to clean up. I'm not buying that but he talked about the fun they had helping the people with whom they are working. The best part of it was when he said, "I am feeling healthy and strong again."

That, my friends, was music to our ears. Healthy and strong and finding joy in service, even if it was clearing the detritus someone had let build up in their yard. There really is joy in getting outside and doing something for someone else. There's no thanks required or needed. The thanks comes in the feeling you get when doing right by or for someone else. It's a really good feeling. The more you serve, the better you feel. That's the beauty of it.

Summer of '84

If we've learned nothing more this week, we've been reminded just how powerful music and the memories it evokes is.

Upon hearing of the sudden death of one of music's (add your own superlative here) most talented artists, Prince, earlier this week, I took to the Facebooks and posted this:

Summer of 1984. The 'Purple Rain' soundtrack. The best summer of my teenage years.

Through the lens of hindsight, I can see that the summer of 1984 was everything to me. It began with my liberation (graduation) from a lengthy four year sentence of awkwardness and ennui that was the hellscape that is high school. I got my first taste of world travel when I made my first trek to Europe, which confirmed what I had always suspected, that there was so much more to the world than what I'd known growing up in the artifice that was Scottsdale. As soon as I returned from that trip, I settled into another bubble behind the Zion Curtain and, with summer term, began my college career at BYU.

That summer was, quite simply, was the best summer of my mostly painfully awkward teenage years. Every day seemed to be better than the next. It was the glory days of the Reagan years, wherein our collective belief in America's exceptionalism was highlighted by the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles and our absolute trouncing of well, everyone there. Of course, the Russians had boycotted those games (thanks, tit for tat) so things were a little lopsided. Seriously those Games looked more like a very special episode of Battle of the Network Stars than it did the Olympic Games. We'd crowd around someone's little black and white TV in one of the late, great Deseret Towers dorm rooms at night, catching the highlights of the day's events as we were getting ready to hit the Palace. The Star Palace.

This was the summer of 1984. This was the summer of the Star Palace. This was the summer of mousse. This was the summer where the "Purple Rain" soundtrack blared at 11 as we got ready to dance (badly) the night away at the aforementioned and long gone Palace. Prince's music was heavy on the playlist at the Palace as well. From his 1982 album, 1999, "Delirious" and the eponymous title song sent the denizens of the dance floor at the Palace into a frenzy. In the heady, silly summer of 1984, celebrating the end of the millennium in 1999 wasn't just 15 years away, it was a million years away. Once "Purple Rain" was released at the end of June of that year, it was all you heard. It was transformational. One of the tracks from that album broke me out of my timid bad dancer shell too.  In my white pants (let's not speak of it again) and my striped rugby shirt and well-moussed hair, I jumped up on one of the platforms at the Star Palace as I heard the first notes of that song. It was "I Would Die 4 U." On that platform, I danced wildly and badly, to that song, including the corny hand actions. Those of you of a certain age know exactly the actions to which I'm referring (think someone fluent in ASL having a full blown seizure while trying to explain that they are, in fact, dying). It was so liberating and so much fun. I did not care how silly I looked. The music was awesome. None of us cared how silly it all was. We were surrounded by friends. For most of us, it was our first summer away from home. We were getting as wild as observant Mormon kids got in the summer of 1984. It was, in a well-worn word from the era, awesome.

It's been thirty two years since the summer of 1984. As I've revisited the music of the late Prince this week, I've been transported back to that most memorable summer. What a summer it was! So much of what that summer was is long gone. Deseret Towers, demolished. The Star Palace? The last I checked it was the home to yet another Provo marketing scam, scheme, I mean business. Mousse? Passe. Besides my hair is too short to even hold a dollop of that stuff. At least the music of Prince lives on. And so will the memories of the summer of 1984.

A crazy week

The latest in mission casual wear?

Over the course of the eighteen plus months, rare has been the Monday that I've not been able to carve up my schedule so that I could dedicate time to the letter from TMFKATB. There have only been a couple of occasions where I've not been able get his letters or give him a decent response. This past Monday was crazy for me. Ironically, he entitled this week's letter 'A crazy week.' I got his email about 15 minutes before my craziness was hitting 11 as I was about to go on stage with Doug Parker, CEO and Chairman of American Airlines, to chat him up in front of 700 or so industry colleagues. Suffice to say, I wasn't able to interact much with TMFKATB this past Monday.

So that's the excuse for posting this week's update a little late. As for the update, he did have some craziness. He and his companion had been told as of last Monday they'd be training a new missionary. Within a matter of days, the threesome became a foursome and by the end of week, the two new missionaries were on their own, opening a new area. Things change quickly when visas come through for missionaries and that was exactly the case with the fourth missionary (a Mexican national serving in his home country until his US visa cleared, allowing him to head behind the Zion Curtain to serve the balance of his mission assignment). Suffice to say, it made for a bit of craziness for them all, but they seemed to get through it with flying colors. That's always good.

This week's pearl of wisdom came from TMFKATB in the form of this endorsement:

Draper is so sick!

For those of you who either do not live behind the Zion Curtain or are not familiar with the cities and towns that make the Zion Curtain what it is, Draper is a town south of Salt Lake City. Its greatest claim to fame, and it's dubious, is that it houses the charm-free Utah State Prison and was the site of the execution of Gary Gilmore. It is also the place where the first IKEA in the whole of Utah was built. A prison and an IKEA, going all 'Ebony and Ivory' is rich, given that they are both meant to hold people against their will.