Information Bias

Information via the written word in Salt Lake City largely depends on how much you like religion. On one hand, if you enjoy your information brimming with ties to the LDS faith, then you'll probably like either KSL.com or The Deseret News (both owned by the LDS church). On the other hand, if you desire large doses of secular humanism (articles about beer) in your news, then you probably prefer The Salt Lake Tribune or The City Weekly. All of these options do their best to report the facts as they see them through the eyes of Moroni or the eyes of some entity that hates Moroni and everything he stands for.

Let me just say right now that the level of important news happening around Salt Lake City isn't on par (at all) with other major news organizations in cities like New York or Los Angeles. Given that, it's fair to say that quality isn't on par with those publications either. For example, I once found a story in the Salt Lake Tribune with the headline "Bill would expand aid to blind, dead students." Having lived in Utah long enough, I found it completely reasonable that our legislature would give free tuition to dead people before considering other needy groups such as house plants, space aliens, and blenders, so I didn't read the article. I later learned that the headline should have read "Bill would take away all aid from everyone because we only like socialism in our religion."

As I mentioned above, there's a very obvious religious-secular divide between these publications which causes each of them to report on different stories. For example, there's a story in today's Tribune entitled "Orthodox Christians mark 'blessing of the waters' at SLC park", which is about Orthodox Christians asking God to make that big pond at Liberty Park not stink as much. Even though the Tribune is the more secular paper, it reports on the activities of non-LDS religions just to let all of the Salt Lake atheists know that other religions are crazy too, which is its own brand of bias. If you're LDS, you read KSL.com or The Deseret News because they normally only run LDS-related stories or innocuous fluff like "18-year-old Boy Scout holds every current merit badge", which isn't news at all.

It looks like this religious-secular divide is polarizing the information I read. Warm and fuzzy church related stories permeate one side while non-church related stories for the sake of being non-church related stories permeate the other. You're not supposed to believe everything you read, as the old saying goes, but this is ridiculous.

Unbiased information is seriously no fun, you guys!



God Loves it When You Tebow

From what I understand, our nation has discovered a craze even crazier than the likes of Beatlemania, the Slinky, and those annoying Baby on Board signs people used to put in their car windows. What new fad could I be referring to? Obviously I'm talking about "Tebowing."

For those of you ignorant regarding this current ditty of Americana, Tebowing comes from Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, who strikes a pose somewhat similar to Rodin's The Thinker sculpture. If you don't know what the hell a "Rodin's The Thinker" is, I suggest doing something with your life other than downloading music from Napster and collecting pet rocks all day long. Anyway, from what I've read on the Internet, after Tebow kicks the winning basket or whatever, he drops to one knee, head on his hand, and thanks God for saving all of those starving African children and/or allowing him to score a touchdown.

Obviously, Tebowing of some sort is as old as sports and probably even as old as God. I can remember watching Drew Brees thank God after winning Super Bowl XXXCMMXVIIX, and can also remember countless other athletes raising a finger (not that finger) and looking skyward (where God lives) in brief supplication after their opponent failed to deliver the pelota between the four and seven lines. God sure is great when he's Christian (American) and you're winning. Imagine if Tebow was Muslim?

I'm not so convinced that God warrants any thanks for allowing you to successfully complete your run of fivesies, or keeping your roll closest to the lag line, or helping you draw Zombie Mammoth after your opponent plays Drillroid, but that's just me. I'd like to think that God is too busy doing important work like saving starving African children or ensuring that Billy Crystal's Oscar monologue is hilarious... Can I hope for one out of two?

Nihilists don't need God in sports. In fact, they don't need anything.

You Hate Words

Most of you have noticed that my posts have become smaller as of late. I've traded in the old essay-length model for a shorter -- yet more frequent -- three to four paragraph model. I believe that this new model has at least one distinct advantage over the previous one: it requires you to read less. It also requires me to write less, which gives me more time to think about all of the world's problems, but do nothing about them.

While I'm sure most people prefer less words in their blogs, I'm quite sure that the Utah Legislature prefers less words period. My proof can be found within Utah's education budget as designed by the legislators, which has Utah's students ranked last in America in per capita spending. In fact, our legislature would have to spend over 1,000 dollars more per student just to move into forty-ninth place (that's out of fifty, in case you're stupid). As many of our children are learning, it's hard to like words when you can't read them. At least they're learning something.

All the Utah Legislature wackiness aside, it may be the case that Americans in general don't like reading words. Take subtitled films as an example. When a foreign film finds modest success at the American box-office, Hollywood buys the rights to it, remakes it, and shoves the same thing down our throats minus those annoying words that appear at the bottom of the screen every time someone speaks. A good example of this just happened with the popular 2009 Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That original film, based on Stieg Larsson's Millenium Triology, takes place in Sweden, features Swedish actors, and was not American. The 2011 version has all the same stuff as the original film minus all of that un-American jibba-jabba all those foreigners speak.

Of course there are those that won't like or understand something regardless of the amount of words it has. Take the above-mentioned remake as an example. We recently watched this film at our local multimegagigaplex and found it mostly enjoyable. However, at one disturbing point during the film, the female lead gets tied up and sodomized in a very brutal and extended scene prompting this exchange from the middle-aged couple in front of us:

               Lady (whispers to her husband): What's happening right now?

               Man (not whispering as much as he should): She's getting anally raped.

I can understand her confusion considering there were no dueling banjos playing in the background. The Utah Legislature likes a bit of music before it gets down to business.

Ned Beatty as a metaphor of our children. Their future is squealing like a pig.