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This is a british ad, but the message is still the same – don’t drive drunk.

Have a safe holiday, my friends.

WARNING: pretty graphic images in parts of this

I absolutely, vehemently, unequivocally detest when my rights and freedoms are infringed upon for any reason, but most especially because of an (usually unfounded) assumption someone makes about me.

I’ve ranted previously about pre-paying at the gas pump because it’s assumed that I’m a thief. I’m moving up the scale of judgment and stupidity a bit here. The other night I went shopping at the local Wal-Frickin’ with the missus. We got some groceries for The Boy’s birthday celebration, a few party supplies (paper plates, napkins, gift bags for the schwag, etc.) and a set of 4 wooden TV trays. After we’d checked out, as we were heading towards the exit, the greeter (who looked for all the world like a bored high school kid, resting her lethargic and terminally bored face onto the palm of her hand as she leaned on the desk in front of her and presumably tried not to drool or fall asleep or both) asked to see my receipt.

Now I’m no dummy. I know my rights and I’m pretty aware of privacy laws in the state of Utah.

“What do you need that for?” I responded.

You see, I know that I’m perfectly within my legal rights to dismiss her with a “no thanks” and continue walking to my car. I also know that it’s Wally-World’s policy to check receipts on electronics and large items, even though they have no legal standing to do so. I’ve read plenty of horror stories of people being detained and even having the police called because they refused to allow a Wal-Mart employee to check their receipt.

“Because you’ve got a large item – that table-thing there” she said, pointing to the cart. “We check all the receipts on stuff like that” she continued, as if that made everything ok.

It was late, and I was tired and ready to be home, so I opted to just let her check the receipt rather than risking the inevitable ruckus that would have followed my refusal. She checked the receipt and I was on my way.

Is having a Wal-Mart greeter, being of either the iconic octogenarian or self-important adolescent variety, check my receipt really that big of a deal? I guess it depends on how strongly you feel about your individual privacy and rights.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a privacy zealot or anything, I just feel that one of the basic tenets of our great nation and one of our most valuable freedoms is our individual rights.

Let me switch gears for a minute here, and I invite you to ask yourself if you feel the same way in just a moment, and perhaps more importantly, why or why not.

On December 25, 2009, 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate and explosive device on a Delta/Northwest flight from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan. He failed, and is currently in custody, but his actions prompted a massive jump in airline security measures and an outcry from the media and political institutions for greater measures in screening airline passengers. One of the proposed measures is the x-ray-like “full-body scan” (image below). Now, it’s not that I take issue with somebody checking out my junk. You wanna see it? I got no problem with that. What I take issue with is the fact that because one man did something stupid, everyone immediately feels like stricter measures are needed, and by and large, people are willing to simply hand over the freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women have fought and died for.

click for larger image

Let me just put this in perspective. It’s estimated that approximately 730 million people travelled on commercial airlines in 2008. Assuming that statistic holds (more or less) true for 2009, we can safely say that there’s a 1 in 730,000,000 chance that a terrorist will end up on a plane and try to do something bad.

By comparison, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 13, 846 alcohol-related deaths in 2008. The estimated US population that year was 304,059,724. Now, not taking into account that only a certain percentage of that number is licensed drivers of legal age, and using the whole raw number, that’s 1 in 21,960.

Funny, but I don’t hear anyone screaming as loudly or ardently about drunk drivers as I do about some guy that burned his johnson off trying to blow up a plane.

If you want to really put this in perspective, a law requiring a full-body scan prior to boarding a plane (presumably in the interest of making the flight safer), is pretty much the same thing as requiring every vehicle in America to be equipped with a BAC device that would prevent the vehicle from starting pending a ‘pass’ result with an acceptable blood-alcohol rating.

Never had a drink in your life? Doesn’t matter. Everyone gets screened equally when it comes to airlines, and if this is such an acceptable exchange of risk versus rights, why would the same not hold true with vehicles? After all, the numbers just don’t lie. Approximately 3,500 people died on 9/11 – the worst aviation disaster of all time by a long shot – which is only about 25% of the number of drunk driving deaths annually.

And yet, because of media fear-mongering and our innate need to feel “safe” (whether it’s an illusion or not doesn’t matter), we’re willing to simply hand over our freedoms, no questions asked.

I imagine the men and women who have died protecting those freedoms would take issue with that.

I’ve just recently discovered a new show that I love. It premiered on November 29th on The Travel Channel, and I haven’t missed an episode. It’s called Meet The Natives, and it’s probably NOT what you think.

The basic premise is that five members of a tribe indigenous to the tiny South Pacific island of Tanna journey to the USA to meet the natives of America and share their wisdom and kindness.

There’s not much more to it than that. As they journey across the US, staying in the homes of host families in six cities. Their experiences are drastically different in each of the cities they visit and the homes in which they stay, but their simple wisdom is the same. They are open to any experience the host family shares with them, from a say at the spa in Orange County, California (where they learned about grooming, shaving, and waxing as well as mud baths) to the towering sky-scrapers of New York City, where they had difficulty locating the sun over the tops of the buildings (very disconcerting for them).

What compels me to watch week after week is that these five men have no judgement about how these different families live. In fact, as their host family in Peoria, Illinois put it, after seeing the simple joy that their visitors took in just being together, the family was somewhat embarrassed about parts of their lifestyle and the things they do to fill their lives rather than just take joy in each other.

One of the other things I really love about these men is that in addition to their chief, translator, and medicine man, they brought their head dancer who is always ready to sing or dance (and get everyone involved with him) and their “Happy Man” whose only job on the island is to generate love and happiness. In fact, he said before leaving for America, “I will make them happy! It’s great!” And the truth is, he does just that with every family he meets. What a concept! How many of us would be better off having a Happy Man or Woman in our life?

In fact, I was surprised at how just about every one of the host families had bonded with these men so deeply over just a few short days. Most of the host families were in tears as the men left, having been touched so deeply by these wonderful teachers from a tiny island thousands of miles away and completely foreign to them that their emotions simply overflowed.

And I’ve been touched by justy watching them. These men are truly teachers of joy, happiness, and simplicity. Their only purpose is to share a message of peace and harmony with the Americans, and the do so in a gentle and unassuming fashion, never even thinking that their way may be “better” or that our own ways are “wrong”.

It’s a wonderful show, and it’s not real often I find a show that reminds me of the difference I make and inspires me to be the open compassionate man that I am.

Check it out, let me know what your thoughts are.

Avatar is, quite simply, one of the most stunningly immersive and beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Does it have it’s faults? Sure, almost all movies do, but they easily fade away into a fantastic and brilliantly stunning cinematic experience. Is writer/director James Cameron a genius? Well, “genius” may be going a little too far, but he certainly did an amazing job on this film.

The story is simple enough, and yes, it is fairly reminiscent of Dance with Wolves.  An indiginous culture is on the verge of being driven from their home. An emmissary of sorts is sent to the natives to learn their ways and work diplomatically, but becomes so entrenched in their culture that he switches sides and helps the natives prevail. The end.

But it’s so much more than just the story, and really, there IS more to the story than just that.

A profit-driven corporate interest has discovered rich deposits of unobtainium (first drawback of the film, stupid name for the mineral) on the planet Pandora, which is a visciously hostile environment. Humans can’t breathe the air for more than 30 seconds, and just about every animal on Pandora is bigger, faster and stronger than humans – including the 9-foot tall natives, the Na’vi. Add to this that the stupidly-named mineral they’re after is directly underneath where the Na’vi live, and the humans don’e stand much of a chance at getting the stuff without the use of massive firepower and carnage.

A group of scientists (obviously opposed to the kill-the-natives-and-take-what-we-want idea) has developed a more diplomatic solution. Led by Sigourney Weaver, they’ve managed to grow cloned alien bodies by mixing human DNA with that of the Na’vi. They call these alien clones “Avatars”, and through the wonders of future technology can transfer the consciousness from the human DNA donor into the Avatar body. This way, they’re able to interact with the Na’vi in a supposedly less-threatening way and work towards persuading them to move their village so the mining operation can continue.

Problem is, one of the Avatar drivers died, so they’ve got an unusable (very expensive) Na’vi body with no one to drive it. Fortunately, the original driver had an identical twin named Jake, played by Sam Worthington, who (of course) is an exact DNA match for the Avatar. Only he’s a marine and not a scientist like his brother. Oh, and he’s in a wheelchair, too, as a result of an injury sustained in battle.

Anyway, Jake falls in love with one of the Na’vi, is accepted into their tribe, proves himself to them, and ultimately leads them to victory. The end.

It’s a good story. Nothing spectacular or ground-breaking on that front, but Cameron does a reasonable job of telling a fairly compelling story.

But the real brilliance of this movie isn’t about the story in particular, but the telling of it, and this is where Cameron achieves near-genius. I said at the beginning that Avatar is an immersive experience. I saw it in 3D, and although I was a little distracted by the lens-glare from my 3D glasses (couldn’t they have put an anti-reflective coating on these?), I was enveloped in the experience immediately. Truth is, I can’t do the experience justice with my words alone, you’ve got to see it to understand. The melding of live action and CGI (40% live/60% CGI according to the studio) is so seamless that no matter how profoundly improbably any of the scenery, plants, or creatures are it comes off as not only believable, but perfectly natural.

Again, really all I can say is that it’s a visual masterpiece and a profound achievement in cinema.

4.5/5

My morning routine starts with the alarm on my iPhone going off at 7:00 am, me hitting snooze button a time or two, and then finally putting on my glasses and browsing Facebook and the news while I gradually build up the will power to drag my ass out of bed. This morning went much the same as it usually does, but the very first Facebook post I saw was this:

“I don’t understand why so many parents continue to lie to their

children, having them believe in Santa Clause.. My boys (5yr, 3yr & 9

months) have a lot of fun around Christmas time without believing that

an imaginary person leaves presents for them on Christmas. They know

it’s mom & dad and others that give them presents… and we make

sure to teach them that Christ is the reason for this holiday. So much

fun.”

When I first read it, I was bugged. I read it again and glanced at who had posted it, mostly to try and determine if it had been posted in a farcical way or if it was serious. Knowing this friend and the nature of many of his posts, it was evident that this was no joke. Now I was bugged even more. Even now as I write this, I’m fighting the temptation to start a flame war over this.

The thought that someone believing in Santa Claus could be viewed in such an ugly way as a parent lying to their children was borderline offensive to me, and I don’t offend all that easily. I continued to mull this over until I got to work, where I shifted gears into work mode and (mostly) forgot about it. My curiosity got the better of me at break, and I saw that 18 people had responded, mostly in agreement.

Now I get that it’s the parent’s prerogative to teach the child as they believe. I think that the whole point of the Christmas season has been missed, though, if the reason you don’t talk about Santa at Christmas is that you don’t want to be guilty of “lying” to your children. I feel like I can understand the many different reasons behind the choice to not include Santa in the holiday celebrations – keeping the holiday relevant religious premise, avoiding consumerism, etc. But there’s so much more to it than that.

You see, I believe in Santa Claus. Not just the man, but the spirit that he embodies. Is he so different from this Jesus that you hold as your example? Is he any more or less imaginary than the Christ whose birth you celebrate? Is there any more evidence of this teacher you say walked the earth 2000 years ago than there is of a fat man in a red suit with a sleigh? Do they not both teach of giving?

Just for the sake of argument let’s consider from a purely objective position free from belief or judgment that each is a figure of myth and legend. I’m not interested in a theological discussion, and I’m not belittling, demeaning or even questioning the Christian paradigm. I support you in believing both spiritually and temporally whatever you may choose.

That said, at their core, both legends or parables are a lesson in giving. The story of Jesus relates of his ministry of giving – as a teacher, as a healer, and as a savior. The story of Santa Claus is the tale of a man so full of love that he gives to all the children of the world. The two seem to be teaching the same lesson, just with different words.

We call this the “Season of Giving”. Regardless of who you worship, celebrate, believe in or follow, make this your purpose this season: to give.