Black and White

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In more ways than one. It is stinkin' freezing here in UT. The last 7 days we have had temperatures between the teens and low thirties. I just sit on my heat pad and don't worry about it, but Jarom has to get on his motorcycle and ride to school and work. His throttle has frozen itself solid a couple of times, so he has started going out earlier to start the bike and let it warm up for a few minutes. He wonders how on earth he managed to ride back and forth between American Fork and Provo every day last December in similar conditions.

In addition to the cold, there are some presents sitting around. All the shopping is done, which is nice. Neither Jarom nor Lixi is very patient or concerned with opening their presents on Christmas day, so they have opened their gifts from each other already. They both did a good job choosing gifts, and are excited to see their families and open some more. They leave on Friday for Cleveland, where it is at least as cold and snowy as Utah, and probably worse.

Jarom did have one interesting thought that he wanted me to share. In his priesthood lesson today there was a discussion about the revelation that was given allowing blacks to hold the priesthood. Throughout the entire lesson, both the teacher and those in the class were noticeably uncomfortable using the term "blacks", and most of the time exchanged it for "African Americans." This is obviously not right, since the revelation had nothing to do with one's nationality and everything to do with their skin color. In fact, the vast majority of those affected are just Africans, with no Americans attached. But in the strange politically correct world which we live, saying that someone is black has taken on a slightly racist feel. On the one hand, I guess that it is good because it means that people are thinking about the feelings of other groups of people. The flip side of that coin is that I think everyone is just getting too sensitive. Few things annoy me as much as easily offended folk. I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry is dating a Native American and has to avoid saying things like scalper, reservation, and indian giver. All very amusing, but irritatingly true. It is a problem that has seeped into groups all over the world. Muslims flip out because someone drew a cartoon of Muhammad or named a teddy bear after him. Indian tribes get offended (or other groups get offended for them) because a school is using them as a mascot. Crazy christians go off the deep end and try to boycott The Golden Compass because they think it has a subliminal anti-God message and will encourage children to read books. I know that we often times say and do things that are offensive and should be stopped, but pretty much everyone takes it too far. I have a dream that someday all the crazy people in the world will calm down and realize that it is just not that big a deal.

In other news, Canada has the most coastline of any nation in the world, Jarom made it to the finals of two of his three fantasy football leagues, and Alixa wore her shirt backwards to church today. How embarrassing!