Kurbis, it's good to know that you see things so clearly. Doesn't mean I'm voting like you, but if the race were one-sided, I'd be voting Nader just to get that third-party ticket out there in the mainstream some more. Death to the two-party system. I mean, I must be really confused voting for stuff around here, on the one hand voting for a state-constitutional amendment defining marriage (we're the first civilization to misunderstand what marriage is - please somebody explain to me when this has happened before - I'm not against gay couples seeing each other in the hospital, I'm just troubled by the definition of marriage that comes out of nowhere calling its necessary requirement love and nothing more, where will it end? What if a forty-year-old guy really loves a fourteen-year-old girl - or guy? Why can't three people love each other and be married? We have the right to love who we love, right? Open the doors now, close them when and how?) and then on the other hand, I am voting to legalize the use of medicinal marijuanna (Duerk, can we say, "Reefer Madness"?), so I guess I'm a bit all over the place. Maybe the entire venture of democracy is only meant to allow humanity to see itself for being truly awful. Maybe we should just finish off this entire venture and see how anarchy works. Ah - I hate politics. Plato is right. Oh, and Kurbis, Animal Farm is good, but Orwell does a better job in 1984, and if you want some reasons why he hates communism (marxism to be exact), his memoirs during the Spanish Civil War are great - Homage to Catalonia. It may bring present circumstances into focus.
Lynnea, I forgot to ask you about the company you work for, the tutoring people, if they need some more help, if they take people on full-time, ya know, a lot of things. Don't worry, I'm not ready to come back to Minnesota, yet. Just like to keep my options open.
Question for you ladies out there: If a guy (if you need one to picture for this instance, just picture me, only better looking and with a lot more social grace) took you out, just you and him, six different times, would the thought cross your mind that he might be interested in you? And when I say went out, I mean went to dinner, watched some movies, got ice-cream, ect. Just wondering what I missed here. I obviously need some help being obvious, so any tips?
Josh, no reason to swing blunt objects at a lifeless equine, but you more than most can say something clearly about how you think our school helped or hurt with their various recoursiary (I realize that's not a word... I'm a history grad student, not a good grad student) methods. I spent some time several nights ago writing back to you, but it was all deleted, so I will chalk it up to divine intervention, and leave all else alone, if I can. What meat is left on my bones must be there only for scavengers. I think if the half of us that question the school's authority and the other half of us that simply wish to submit and think of it no further - if we could both come together and find out whether there are reasons to both sides, maybe we all can be enlightened and find ourselves ready to be the authority some day with a grasp on the consequences metigating authority can have on people and situations. Or not.
Another question for all: If I began posting just short, one or two paragraph sections of my memoirs on here, would you all want to read them, or should I do such things elsewhere? I think what I would post would be humorous to all, but if most would rather not be put through that, my literary outlet will be found elsewhere. Just an idea.
Well, in closing, I'd like to recount to all, verbatim, what I recieved in the mail this week - being a Universtiy of Montana student:

ALMOST 21?

ALMOST DOESN'T COUNT

It is illegal for anyone

under the age of 21 to

attempt to purchase or

be in possession of

an alcoholic beverage.

(opposite side of the card)

UNDERAGE DRINKING LAWS

ARE ENFORCED IN MISSOULA

ALMOST 21? EXPECT TO SEE...

More cops

More carding

ALMOST 21? KNOW THE LAWS...

MIP (I didn't know what this meant at first, but it's minor in possession) 1st offense: $150

MIP 2nd offense: $200

MIP 3rd offense: Up to $500*

*plus counseling and treatment,

alcohol education (D.A.R.E.?), and/or jail time

ALMOST 21? FOLLOWING THE LAW MEANS...

A clean record

All job opportunities open

No explanations to parents

Saving your cash

No jail visits this semester (that's what they think!)

Why didn't Crown ever give us one of these? It's so catchy, and I am suddenly grossed out by alcohol... wait, no it's just that I still don't like beer. Just keep it in mind - even though "Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U. S. Department of Justice." Hmmm. Hope it made you laugh. Bye.

So, the voting question is out there....

Kyle, are you really going to vote for nader? That is such a waste of a vote. I mean, a democracy is only meant to support two parties that talk a lot of trash to each other and never get anything done. Then, year after year, the parties become more and more alike and just use different words to describe their policies. Shoot, i mean, nader has a better record on supporting the working class, supporting human rights globally, and caring for the environment...what a hippy! And third party politics are actually progressive and threaten to change the stranglehold the dormant stagnant sensationalist parties have on american homes!

Christians are supposed to vote solely on homosexuality and abortion! dont you remember learning that in college! War, poverty, human rights, equality, liberty, and all those other issues dont matter compared to the big two! Shoot, i mean, God is totally ok with war! Jesus never talked about peace, but about guns and our right to have them!

Furthermore, its not my fault if our big business ventures keep the poor poorer and the rest of the world more desolate! i am just in this for MY safety and MY money! Corporate welfare should be a christian virtue...i mean, after all, isnt the american dream the only truly christian way to live?

So my vote is for Bush.

oh wait. this has all been a big lie...i am actually wearing my Vote nader shirt right now. so my vote is actually for nader. im sure everyone thinks thats stupid, but i will defend it to the death...

as the back of my T-shirt says "Revolutionaries always spoil corrupt systems"

go ralph...

kurbis

Hey everyone, this is tough, and I hate to be the one to possibly break this to some of you. Most everyone on here knew Jon Johanson (music major, graduated with us, great, great guy....). Well, for those who haven't heard, tragically, Jon commited suicide earlier this week. I just got back from his wake and let me tell you, the pain is running very deep in at Crown and with all those who knew or were affected by Jon. I'm not sure of the circumstances that led up to this, and honestly it really doesn't matter, but please, right now, as you read this, take some time and pray for everyone at school, especially for his family (some of you may remember Jeff, his brother). Let's hold our community up during this painful moment. We just truly lost a gem of a guy.

Steve...i like ya...i agree with the little bit you shared, but your bleached-white bones still seem to have a little meat on them that wasn't shared...do give us that privilege. I like the line

"Is Crown really setting itself up to create the enviroment most condusive to what they want, or are major problems sliding under the radar while things that have no tangible effect on the student body are still given a taboo status because of out-dated rules?"

Good point bro...there are two issues here, there have always been. The philosophical undergirdings of the community covenant, and then our response to it after having voluntarily chosen to live in that environment. They get muddied, but they are seperate. Oh darn covenant...where would we be w/o you? Well, for some of us, accurately stated by Marty, far different places.

interesting...not a dad...not a dog-owner...not a voter... yeah...darn voter registration cutoff dates...why you gotta do that to me. I blame you...
adios mi agimos
josh

Ha! It worked! I can blog again. Well, I got some time, not too much though, so you can be somewhat relieved. The only funny story I have is from just a few minutes ago. I was in the athletic center (that's a joke in itself, I know), and there was this guy that must've been late-fifties, maybe a bit older than that. His hair was gray, not white, or maybe it was gray because it was soaking wet in thing strands that covered his balding head. This guy looked like he got in the shower for a minute with his clothes on, and then he started working out. It was just the dripping forward-comb-over that really got to me. Oh, and this guy next to me pulled a stud move, asking the girl beside him to borrow her magazine when she was leaving. He didn't even look at it, but I saw him head over later to return it to her. Man, if only I could fake liking magazines better.
So onto the real debate, the one which Kyle convinced me he is right: He should never dance. Just picture it - that's a bit of torture, eh? Okay, you all know I have some bleached-white bones to pick with the way Crown creates and enforces and clings to rules. There's no hiding that, and so I needn't try to defend my position before you (I'm biased - I really like to dance, and you can ask Ali Peterson, I'm not a terrible dancer). But I do want to further the dialogue to a place that I think more fully allows me to understand my complaint: I think Crown should be finding out what things really plague the student body - things that can be regulated with some sort of rule-base, but can also be reduced through student recourse involving fixing the problems, not being punished for failing to meet standards. Is Crown really setting itself up to create the enviroment most condusive to what they want, or are major problems sliding under the radar while things that have no tangible effect on the student body are still given a taboo status because of out-dated rules? Another thing to ask before I go (so soon before I wanted to really flesh [get it?] this all out): Josh is correct, we did say yes to whatever Crown wanted us to do. Will any one of us claim that we didn't consciously break rules at one time or the other? So we just see that we are rule-breakers, but I'd like to see the Crown body break rules that point to real problems on campus, and we can further discuss what those problems are later, if we all wish, but I don't think they have anything to do with dancing, alcoholic consumption, use of tobacco, or gambling (don't mean I condone all those things, or consider them amoral, I just think there are other things infecting our alma mater). Gotta go catch my bus. Don't listen to Kyle! Oh, and Brad, I am voting Bush, and maybe I'll explain why later, after somebody else blogs, or after he loses the election.

Alright Hubka you win. The blog isn't dead.

And Gabe you win. You have twins. You are more of a man than any of us.

And Kurbis you win. Because you are still hardcore.

But you aren't as hardcore as Marty who plays the keyboard. Now THAT is hardcore.

Sarcasm aside I decided to post up here on life down south in the suburbs of St. Louis. Things are going alright. About two weeks ago I got to baptize two of the guys that I have been in Bible study with all summer. It was quite an experience losing my baptism virginity. Those moments that day have been something that I have held onto when days aren't as good. The Bible study that I lead has grown to 8 or 9 people on any given Wednesday and only two of us aren't recovering alcoholics. It is pretty cool stuff. Our church is going well. There are encouraging days and days where boredom just makes things suck. What is a "pastor" supposed to do all day? Seriously it has been 7 months and I have no idea. Do I really get paid to hang out with Starbucks employees? I don't know. I try not to think about it and try not to be lazy. It is good to read about the rest of your lives, it sounds like the adjustments are made to the real world.
I miss ya'll and if you get a chance get your butts down here.

On the debate about Crown: I think it is wrong to dance so I don't do it. And I have no rhythm.

Have a good one and don't ever post again, any of you, so that the blog can really die and then I can call Hubka and laugh at him while he is crying himself to sleep at night.

I am still an idealist and not much of a Christian...go Nader!

Sorry to post twice in a row - I will wait for more people to blog before going again, but I got the go-ahead by Bob to write on here that he and Julianne are engaged as of two weeks ago, and he figured this would be a good way for everybody to hear about it. I've gotta go talk about Napoleon. Somebody post so I can really blog. Actually, I decided to consolidate my blogs to avoid the twice in a row thing, so again, congrats Gabe - hope everybody is well.

The girls are here!!!!!!!

On Oct. 25th at 3:28 and 3:29 a.m. I witnessed the C-section birth of Alyssa Marie and Elliana Grace Norton. I Am A DADDY! They are early, but they are doing great. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to see those little girls. They are so cute (I can say that word in reference to a daughter) I will right more about them later.

BUSH

Lynnea, Lynnea, Lynnea.....Welcome to Marty's world circa 2000-(spring) 2004. (Uh oh...I feel a rant coming on). I have spent many a night sitting up and wondering how much further ahead I had been had I decided as a senior in college to go in my sister's footsteps to Augsburg college and recieve my education from non biblically centered education. Or, had I not made mistakes (or at least covered them up better) that allowed me to in fact break the covanent four times and concequentially be suspended four times, be placed on academic probation and forced to drop my teacher's licensure due to my "rebellious ways". Honestly, I'd be a teacher right now. My lifelong dream. I resent Crown for that.

Looking back at my college expirience I can't say that I don't regret going to Crown. All colleges search to better the students and at each college and I'm confident I could have found a student group of strong Christians to build up my spiritual growth. Instead thousands of dollars in the whole and four years of my life later, I look back and I see an institution that in fact did not turn out to better me, but held me back from the dreams and aspirations of 18 year old kid. My ways, although apparently appearing damning to Crown, did not reflect my ability to be a moral person, an outstanding teacher and dedicated teacher who would show the love of Christ to his students. Seriously, they weren't that big of a deal as to completely derail my future and send me into a state of depression and a mindset that I was a terrible person. Yes, it did that, and honestly, the scar still runs very deep. In my own self discovery and typical young adult exploration of rules and boundries I am now someone who resents the confines of the contemperary Christian community. I don't even know when the next time I even want to set foot in a church again is. That's the truth. I'm just sick of being judged, and well, that's what Christians love to do. Everywhere I go.

I know, I can't blame Crown for all my spiritual shortcomings and negative attitudes, because there was a lot that I did to myself to bring me along the path that I have taken. I still believe that Christ has a divine plan for my life and somehow Crown allowed me to set on Christ's way for my life. Maybe, in fact, I was never intended to be a teacher. After all, I adore my job at Guitar Center and am content with everything life has brought me since Crown. I still wonder though. I'd love to see the end of this path though, to see what the heck God was doing in the first place.

I also am forever grateful for the relationships that Crown has brought me. The people whom I know will be lifelong friends and will always genuinely care about me forever. We sure are lucky to be part of a graduating class that still reads message boards to hear the hopes, joys, and disappointments of each other's lives. I love you guys and I would never trade these relationships for anything. I just really wanted to be a teacher.

Oh, and Brad- a week out and I think I'll be deciding in the voting booth.

So...y'all think its funny to make fun of the kid whose life doesnt afford him the luxury of using the internet. ha ha ha. i bet you are the same people that laugh at starving africans and mutated russian babies.

anyways..life has continued in colorado. i still hate my job, but the bright side is that i dont have a job in 2 months. hmmm...is that good though?

so its too bad that chris and kristin broke off the engagement. i thought it was the smart thing to do given the circumstances though.

anyways...hubka...i do try and scan your long posts...it just hurts my head too much! im glad that it sounds like things are better for ya though.

JOSH MANN...speaking of absolute standards, do you remember our manifesto on an absolute ethical standard? Remember talking about Abraham and God breaking His own absolutes? good times. Lynnea, i say you just bomb the school and never look back.

has anyone here seen donnie darko? i saw it a long time ago and just watched it again..i recommend it strongly!

i just read animal farm the other day. what a great book.

i saw farenheit 9/11. good movie. interesting points made. i just think that bush and kerry should both be kicked out and that i should be president. that would solve everything.

ah well...hey i hope you all rock the vote and just decide not to go out that day. ha. next time i blog our next president will be decided and we will either have a war monger or an irresponsible soldier as a president, unless of course blacks are marginalized again and then we wont know for another 2 months or so. by the way...this is all satire.

im out. cya soon. i want to leave you with a quote from our first president, roughly adjusted to today's language...

"Dont make political parties"
-George Washington

love always, your right-wing, compassionate conservative republican,
Kurbis

Its a boy!

Thats right... Kate and I have expanded our family. We adopted Dokota last week. Dakota is a Chocolate Lab that was trained as a search and rescue dog. He is Awsome!

Steve thanks for labeling me a prude you slut! I will do my best to be more of a slut and put out for all of you, but it is just hard for me. You should know that! You were my roomate for a couple years.

Thats about it for now. Talk to everyone later!

Oh yeah... Wakefield what are the chances of me getting that Youth Ministry CD from you? Let me know. chrisfolkestad@rocketmail.com

Later

Okay, before any of you quit reading this because I wrote it, I have to get in my individual addresses first so that you'll know I am talking to some of you individually. Kyle said that the Blog is about dead, and so I nearly cried, and if this is just a fancy ploy to get me to give up on the blog, you guys have a lot of waiting ahead of you because I'm a squatter who's found a home (and it's not in the depths of your hearts now that you're reading this, is it?), so anyway, last things first:
Kurbis, I know you don't usually get this far.... what am I saying. He's given up already.
Lynnea, I don't know if you find my blogs to be the Wal-mart of our small town blogger, but I wanted you to know I want to hear more about your grad experience, because my only seems to worsen as time goes on. I went two weeks sure that I would never successfully complete this semester and only got out of that funk because of a B on my past paper. Whether you want to be or not, you are our fearless leader, and if you must tell me to curb my ranting diatribes, say so and they will be shortened to an amiable length for all. I realize this is random, but I also wanted to say the sort of hi I missed saying to you everyday in class. Here I realize how much I took for granted having fabulous friends share my classes with me. Sorry to get sentimental. I'll address your blog later in this one.
Josh, I wish we could have spoken longer, but everything I left in that message stands. Just to let you know, I'm still a bit out of wack. I may respond to your response of Lynnea here further down, or not, I don't know. Hope all is.... good.
Chris, you were right, you are a blog prude, not freely giving yourself to all of us. Let loose. I'll try not to be such a blog slut anymore. I just want to give myself to everybody on here way too much, huh? You should name your new dog after me. Of course, that might be awkward with company over, calling to your chocolate lab, "Here Blogslut!" Yeah.... we'll Golden Tee sometime. Come to Montana, it's great (except for loners like me).
Shoot, I forgot to do the whole numbering thing again so that you guys aren't put through a bunch of writing you don't want to read just to find "hubka" at the end and a lacking sense of satisfaction concerning the time you spent trying to find something worthwhile in endless words. Hmmmm. Oh well. The following story is rated R because it involves a rated R movie, but will not reference anything of a rated R nature, unless that is to say blogslut again just to make you smile.
Kyle told me to go see the movie Garden State, mostly because my future wife had a starring role in the movie. For those of you who don't know (and yes, I'm going to tell you), Natalie Portman is my soulmate, born exactly 364 days before me (June 9th, 1981), and she loves smart men (I'll trick her), and the point is, I went to this movie the other night. The only place it was showing in town was at the Wilamet Theater in historic downtown Missoula, so I ventured downtown, this time not to end up at bars for no more than two minutes, but so I can go into this theater which I had never visited before. I bought my seven dollar ticket (I got a little used to $1.50 at the cheap theater, but they also were prone to having the film melt and tear, so when in Rome...), turned to my left, and headed toward the back of the theater doors. There were several sets of doors leading into a gigantic 40's style stage-bearing and balcony overlooking theater that I am sure could seat over four or five hundred in beautiful red faux-velvet seats with crimson curtains twisting down in front like evenly built intestines winding forever to the ceiling. Needless to say, this place was unbelievable, but it was not my movie theater. The sign over the door said some other movie, but not Garden State. So I took the stairs (in my hometown, the old downtown theater has a second movie screen built into the balcony, making for its own unique movie-going experience, so I thought this might have been normal). No other theater, but I did use the unlabled bathroom (I was pretty sure it was the men's side because it had urinals and I didn't run into any girls, and the opposite bathroom had an 8 1/2x11 sheet saying "women" stuck to the entrance also clued me in). So back down the stairs I went, and finally asked the man who sold me the ticket where this other theater was. He pointed straight in front of him. He smiled when he saw the puzzled look I gave him. There weren't four doors leading to this theater. There was one normal sized door, and I could see the fire exit on the other side, not twenty feet from the first door.
(Intermission..... you're getting up, stretching, looking around for somebody to talk to, then you noticed your old high school girlfriend and hope she didn't see you, and she screams and runs over to you and introduces her fiance` [one "e", right?] and you keep looking at your watch while she tells you about her last three jobs, man when is the second act going to start, yeah, you remembered that time your parents caught you making out on the church front lawn - oh, here, the lights are going down, yeah, good to see you, blah blah blah, we'll have to do something - it's starting, wounded, but still alive, you sit and away we go)
This "movie theater" was a room the size of a large living room with seventy-five seats arranged in nine rows, some of them old movie theater seats from the fifties and others looked like they were stackable church chairs somebody took from some unsuspecting congregation, either way, I counted ever single one. There were risers, or steps, or something towards the back, and if I stood up against the back wall, I could have blocked the entire movie with my body- my torso that is. I've had bedsheets bigger than this screen (though I don't right now - I'm running the single, and that's not changing until somebody... I said no rated R content, so I'll quit there). So I sat in the back row on the far side (I could have long-jumped to the other end of my aisle) and leaned my head against the wall to enjoy the movie. The theater is half-full it seems, and you can count everybody that came in on both your hands. I did. The movie, though, was wonderful (Natalie can do no wrong... let's forget about Mars Attacks!). Maybe it was wonderful because I felt so cozy, like I could touch the screen if I put my feet up on the seats. So if you're in town and you want to see the world's smallest rip-off of a theater, venture down Higgins Street and find the Wilamet Theater down by the Clark Fork River. Oh, and see Garden State, Natalieophile or not, unless you don't like good movies like Eternal Sunshine or Napoleon Dynamite.
I had written a blog twice this long, commenting on Josh and Lynnea's discussion, but I'll leave it be, now that I think about it, since I am passionate about the issue without holding my aims and bitterness in check, so maybe if the discussion continues, I'll say something more, but for now, I'm going to cut this thing short (you really should have seen it before I cut it to this length). I've got another 30-some essays to grade by tomorrow, so I'll bid you all farewell, and wait for more people to write so I can get my blogging fix. It's really just me seeking affection, I know.

Good day all...it has been freakin' forever and I've been horribly uncomfortable with that. Busy schmizzy, we all are...
Okay, good to be back though...
A lot has happened in the past while...let me give a way brief update. Oh...who cares... I'm a little wasted right now. It's been a long string of weeks with a kickoff sunday, a middle school and high school retreat and being the primary college pastor (we don't really have one, so I get to teach and dream : ) and the middle school intern. Well, my supervisor, the middle school guy announced a few weeks ago he will be heading to the district office. Apparantly (this one isn't public yet so i hope no one from my world reads this) our high school guy is either looking at a different job here or leaving...and so that would leave us w/o a middle school, high school, and college pastor. Hhmm...so...we'll see. The church has informed me they'd like to hire me full-time which was cool...at this point I feel it's an incredible place that I'd love to keep growing up at/with, so barring a "NO" in a dream I feel I'll be here for a while in some eclectic hodge podge role, especially during this interim time. Anyways...I have been dating and hanging out with a cool girl out here since about the middle of july. It's been off and on and right now it's a litlte more off than on...so...that's that. She's a 20 yr old pk from the church who is going to school in seattle...that's made things interesting. She might come to Batch's wedding, we were planning on it but now we'll see...anyways, then ya'll can weigh in.

I miss ya'll...feeling a little homesick...the few hour a night phone calls kept me from any hint of a life I might have had so that explains my absence...pathetic...so be it.

Alright Lynnea, I've missed ya and I wanna respond to your well-written blog...so for conversation's sake I'm going to take the other side of the table. There were two premises, premii, premi, whatever, that I think cannot be assumed. Those being,

"If an institution is going to establish a set of rules for its inhabitants/members to abide by, it is assumed that such rules are based upon some sort of absolute ethical standards that the institution has deemed worthy to live according to. "

I don't know if that assumption can be made. Maybe this institution has established a set of rules that are based on ethical standards, not absolute ethical standards. (If they were absolute, how can they change over the years, the dancing one as well as cards, movies?) Everyone has ethical standards, not having standards is still an ethical standard. You can have ethical standards for yourself but not say others ethical standards are wrong. I wonder if the institution has established 'ethical standards' to aide in creating the kind of community they feel is most conducive to what they are all about.

The second quote is this,

"the fact remains that Crown has deemed this action morally inappropriate according to their absolute ethical standards."

The school has not deemed dancing as morally inappropriate according to their "absolute" ethical standards. I'm sure they would classify dancing as amoral. What you do with dancing can be immoral, just like music... But it is not immoral in itself, and the school is not saying that. They have said however, that to dance, after agreeing not to, is immoral.
Because the action in itself is not immoral, special permission can be given allowing one to participate in an amoral activity that the school has said is not conducive to building the kind of community they want.

It's good to hear you again though Lynnea...i miss ya...blessings, you know i love you!
peace out ya'll
josh
brad, don't get upset with me and leave me angry messages when i'm playing tennis, uhhh.
Did ya'll see napoleon dynamite? You should, the lead actor, Jon Heder, went to South SALEM high school, eh?
Any other intern people still waiting for their diploma?

They’re everywhere!

So I spent the evening last night at the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul at a Swing Dance that Matt and I had been invited to by some friends from St. Thomas. Upon the invitation, I gave no thought to Matt’s still being a Crown student and technically under the infamous Crown Covenant UNTIL we turned the corner to discover Patty, yes the RLC at Crown, sitting at a table near the dance floor. We froze in place, all three of us staring motionless, as if continuing to stare would reveal to us that we had been mistaken and it had only been a Patty look-alike after all. But oh no, it was her, and we proceeded over to explain that, yes he was breaking the covenant and yes, he would now be turning himself in on Monday morning. She then explained to us that she had special permission to be there, and I responded with small talk about grad school, etc. After recovering from the shock, Matt decided that if he was going to be punished for this, he might as well have a good time! And we did, he even danced with Patty once.

So here’s my issue: (And please notice that my issue is not with Patty but with Crown in general) If an institution is going to establish a set of rules for its inhabitants/members to abide by, it is assumed that such rules are based upon some sort of absolute ethical standards that the institution has deemed worthy to live according to. Now, Crown has decided according to some ethical principle that dancing is in fact unacceptable to partake in (that is, of course, unless it is being done at a certain place and only for a certain occasion (weddings, etc.), that somehow makes it morally appropriate). Whether I agree or disagree with whether this rule is right or wrong (which is evident from my asking a Crown student to attend a Swing Dance with me), the fact remains that Crown has deemed this action morally inappropriate according to their absolute ethical standards. So, how can "special permission" be given to a person to ignore the rule for an evening? If it is morally inappropriate, does special permission somehow make it appropriate for an evening?? Does special permission overrule whatever ethical standard the rule was established by in the first place?? If it is wrong, how does someone giving the "ok" for an evening make it right? Does this strike anyone else as completely illogical?

(Now I am taking a deep breath and calming down…) After telling a friend of mine about this incident, he responded with, "Do they also give special permission to fornicate?" Probably, apparently anything can be made okay if you just ask permission first.

So, taking Duerkop's format, I will thus save the rest of you from everything you don't want to read by properly labeling each section and giving a synopsis of what may well be within, otherwise I might not be able to stay within my monthy blog limits and may find some of you preturbed in an attempt to find out something meaningful or interesting about my life. Here we go (Duerkop, you are a wise man, and a better soccer player than all but two players on the Weber State girls soccer team).
Read section...
#1) if you too find yourself increasingly annoyed with parents and want to lash out against poor child-rearing, or just want to hear me complain about other people's kids
#2) if you want to read my unedited (not like an R-rated movie unedited, but unpolished would be a better term, if it is a real word) contemplation on last night's sunset
#3) if you want to find out the name of my new girlfriend
#4) if you want to find out the name of my imaginary dog, too
#1) & #2) if you don't mind me blabbing for a while and actually think I have something important to say (sadly I think you're mistaken)
#2) & #3) if you feel you need to even out your life by some possible deep thoughts balanced by some down-home stupidity
#3) & #4) if you want to pee in your pants (I learned from Dr. Ratledge that it's pee in your pants, not pee your pants, if you want to be grammatically correct) from laughter
#1) & #4) if you want to be offended and annoyed
#1) #3) & #4) if you... nevermind, I'll just get started.... oh and
#5) if you're Brad and you want to hear me talk about books for a short while

1) One of the many reasons that this country, within our lifetimes, will be ruled by a foreign power (Cexica) or in the middle of a brutal civil war is due to poor parenting of the upcoming generation. Firstly, a collegiate girl's soccer game, though somewhat silly compared to other athletic events of similar nature, is not an elementary day-care facility, and also (apparently suprising a total of five separate teams) it is not the misappropriated grounds for a pee-wee soccer league! Secondly, letting young children play on the sidelines of a NCAA (actually, I don't know what Association we are a part of, but you get the point) event is a combination of bad parenting and dangerous behavior, not to mention unfair to the fans and the players. Thirdly, moving your infant child's travel-carrier closer to the sidelines of a soccer game just to be closer to your misbehaving children and their friends is not a solution to the aforementioned problem. Parents don't raise their kids to be well behaved without supervision, and the refuse to supervise them adequately. It's a reflection of the parenting attitude that thinks children are to be seen, heard, and pandered to so as not to bruise their developing (inflating is a better word for it) egos. One child actually ran at the ball prior to it leaving the field, obstructing the game and raising my blood pressure by ten points. The parents do not give their children the idea that there is a good way to behave at said event, and a poor way, and also refuse to be near enough to show the difference. The game was a zoo of children running and wrestling and cartwheeling, all great kid things, but they should not take place on the sidelines of a soccer game! I'm not against children, just their senseless and thoughtless parents who need to be next to their offspring until they know exactly what is acceptable in different public places, and why. We are a doomed nation, and this is one of the biggest reasons. Thank you, and vote to legalize medical marijuanna if you live in Missoula, because the consistent use of marijuanna leads to impotency, and I hope that will be a long-term solution to this problem which I now relate to you.

2) The sweet glow of the hills in the evening light
Like wheat in the summer sun
They do not know I watch in awe
They hold my gaze like a lover in a trance.
And like a lover, they curve and dip with sensious regularity
With the modesty of a virgin in covered forests and dark shadows that deepen as the night nears.
So the ticking clock and the fading light together remind me how I have lost the day. I wonder what day will be the first to end without me, and at the same time I know so many passed before I was here to watch the shadows fight gravity's fascism, pushing up the hills without remorse or apology, the two things that stir in my heart for the Lord who pressed these mounds with his breath and bids the sun to set on them, and remind me of his unfading glory, larger than the mountains, who can count the forests like my hairs, and died on a tree so that I could watch thousands without worry of tomorrow, and how I should not regret today. When my life fades into night, I will not be the mountains, silent and unfeeling, with no care for dying sun upon their hearty face. As the last whispers of light skip across the mountain tops, the entire land is equal once again, visible in the twilight, like all mankind in death, all laid low, without care of towering success or shameful depths.
I left for a moment to answer a call, and I return to a sole sun-kissed peak with the clouds behind mocking its color and shape. The cherry 7-up frost on the snowy blue-velvet etchings, like a battle with a scribbling paint scraper slicing across the sky in jagged, irregular swaths that too lose their glowing lustre, the illusory life leaving their quite figures like a campfire of embers and smoke.

3) Mildred, her name is Mildred, and she likes history and banjos and guys that are awkward in social situations, so there. I am wanted somewhere on this earth, even if it is only in my imagination!

4) Cexica- I named my imaginary dog after the soon to be formed union of Canada and Mexico which will one day rule us all with an iron fist, or at least rule us through cheap beer and spicy food, hockey in the winter and soccer all the time, and everyone will suddenly be crossing the border in Belize because it will be an unconscious social desire that we all will feel, and all heatlthcare will be cheap and free (if that makes sense), and nobody will drink the water but have great-tasting Coke (made from real sugar), and is there anything else I can say that's culturally insensitive? Oh yeah, Cinco de Moustache, and Viva la Cexica, eh.

5) Brad, I was glad to hear about your wild literary life, you player you, and I wish (though nobody else does) that I could do as you did and copy down what I've read since we parted ways. You have read a great deal that I have read, a greater deal that I have wanted to read, and a couple of books I've never heard of. And those were some great buys book-wise. Here's what I've enjoyed the most since school started:
Wordsworth and Coleridge Lyrical Ballads
Giacomo Leopardi Selected Poems
George Eliot Felix Holt
Goethe's Faust
Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution
Albert Camus Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
Heinz Abosch Simone Weil: An Introduction
Popular Science, September 2004 (it wasn't that great, but whatever)
Robbie's copy of People magazine that was in our bathroom for two weeks
and finally, the March of Dimes advertisment poster inside all the city-run transportation which features a stunning portrait of Daisy Fuentes followed by the caption (and I've read it enough to have it memorized): "Daisy Fuentes isn't pregnant, but she still takes folic acid." Another example of how our nation is on the verge of utter demise, but this side of things I have less against, solely for aesthetic reasons.

Thus concludes our first installment of the catagorized and partitioned Hubka blog. Depending on the response, this format may continue, or I may just find other ways to express myself. I'll leave with a great quote from Simone Weil: "Exactly as God is powerless to do good among human beings without their co-operation, the same goes for the Devil in the realization of evil."

So, many things on a large campus can strike one as odd, coming from our background. One example is closelines with personally painted t-shirts representing abused women. I'd explain it further, but I can't. Also I have watched dozens of people walking around campus today with wakeboards, snowboards, skiis, kayaks, ect. even though our campus has neither water nor snow. Apparently there is some sale of used equipment in the University Center. My attempts to buy a climbing harness were thwarted, and my quiant idea of buying climbing shoes was murdered by a hateful $80 price-tag. But that's not really the strangest part of my day. What strikes me so queerly today is my complete agreement with my professor. This is a female professor, mind you, in one of the most liberal universities that is nowhere near a coast, and she poured a diatribe against woman's studies on our seminar table today, being argued against by none other than the PSCO-look-alike grad student who ceaselessly talks. My professor claims that a department in the university system like women's studies or even African-american studies is a perversion of intellectual and scholarly effort, an ideologically-based homogenity that is not grounded in an actual discipline, such as history or math, ect. She claimed to be the only female professor in the Liberal Arts College to take a stand against the creation of a women's studies program. I was so proud of her. Thankfully she didn't jump into a grand rally against Afro-amer studies since one of our classmates is as dark and unintelligable (meaning somewhat and yet somewhat not) as Arma Ngufya, only his name is Mbye, and he is a Muslim (thus creating a problem of having a pizza party for our class since Ramadan starts this Friday, so we're waiting until the second half of November).
Question: Has anyone ever tried marinating a frozen chicken breast in a diluted beer/water mix? I'm just looking for other additions that can save me from utter culinary failure tonight when I try to cook this bird. I'm thinking of baking it after quickly pan frying both sides, and then leaving some of the beer solution in the pan, cutting up potatoes and steaming some corn to go with it. How do you beer-batter something? I've got two more Killian's in the frig, and I don't know if I'm going to drink both of them (although I might - they're better than any other beer I've tried), so I'm up for recipe ideas. Gotta go catch my bus. Chris, good to hear from you. When Katie does get some incredible job, you want to be the patron of my artistic abilities? Just a place to stay and some food would be good. Bye all.

I'm back......
I know that my last post was talking about this great job that Kate would be getting and it would be bringing in the BIG BUCKS for us. Well... That time has come and she now has her big bucks job. That's right I am no longer the bread winner in the family. Kate's education was the best use of our money we could have ever dreamed of. Why you might ask? Well Kate is now the study hall teacher and detention supervisor of the Menahga Jr. and Sr. High. You can imagine the price tag that comes with that! Needless to say I have been out wasting useless money the last couple weeks. Please forgive me for my delay in Blogging. Money has a tendancy to do that to people.

Just kidding about the money thing, but she did get that job. She likes it OK because it is a great way to meet students.

On a more sad note. Some PUNK hit our dog with a 4-wheeler and we had to put her to sleep last Thursday. To make things worse the person did it on purpose and did not stop at all. They even proceeded to the neighbors and ran over their pet rabbit in their yard. Needless to say, I was PISSED at this waste of air! That was my first dog I had ever had! And to make things worse we had just recieved our bark shock collar and I didn't even get to use it! Dangit! Oh well life goes on. You can send money in to the Torii Folkestad memorial fund at PO Box 246 Menahga, MN 56464. Torii thanks you for remembering her!

Not a whole lot else is new here. I am preaching this Sunday so I will see how I can make the old people mad. Seems to be my best quality as a youth pastor. This is for you steve! I am going to be drinking a Mountain Dew the whole time I give the sermon! NICE!

Thats all from Menahga. Come and see us if you are in Minnesota or want to come "up north"

Chris

I'll try to keep this short. Gabe, I'd really like to go to Fluffy's wedding, but there are a couple of problems looming on the horizon that may well prevent such a thing from happening. The first problem: Money. I'm trying to live on a little over $1100 this semester, since that is my total income, and so a plane ticket to get out there would be nearly a quarter of my living expenses for the next three months. To get there in a more cost-effective fashion, I can drive, except it is somewhere near 24-hours (longer than it may be normally because my car can only go 75 mph). That'd be one killer drive after just completing finals. Speaking of finals, that is the other problem in this whole fiasco. I know when two of my finals are, but one is still up in the air (or I don't know about it), and one of the two that I know about is my grader class, meaning I'll have seventy-some papers to grade after Wednesday of that week, but before Friday, I think, so even if things were great money/time-wise, my only real job for the semester has the ability to further impede my attendence. So, to answer the question one more time, I'd love to be there, but at this point I see it being a long shot of sorts, and so, if you're Kurbis, don't bet on it. Ha!
So the more I read about the great thinkers, writers, painters, ect. of 19th century Europe, the more I come to the conclusion that great minds really have trouble making a living with any form of consistency. Take the German Romantic painter Karl Kaspar David Freidrich - incredible painter, but spent most of his life in poverty, and even went sorta crazy towards the end of his life, thinking that his wife had betrayed him, leaving her and his children to fend for themselves while he locked himself away in a study and painted. There are plenty of other examples, but I'm just letting you know about this because it makes me feel better as a careerless loser that won't get a raise or a promotion anytime soon (lacking an actual job adds to this problem), not that I'm a genius painter or anything else. Would I trade material comfort and social acceptability for genius-caliber work? Maybe I would, and then again, maybe I already have, except the genius stuff is still on its way. So much for keeping this short.
Duerk, thanks for sending that CD. It'll really solve some problems.
Lynnea, where are you? Do you hate the upper levels of academia as I do, or are you blooming like a flower in spring? And if that tutoring service you work for has full time positions available, let me know, in case I need a plan B around here.
Gabe, keep at it.
To class, and the meandering rest of my life.

Brad,
I am very sorry for unfairly calling you out and letting Kurbis slide. Upon reviewal of the blogger history you did blog just two days before Kurbis. The honorable thing to do would be to apologize, but instead I will just call Kurbis a poser for not blogging enough and not actually reading the blogs. Ha, I evened things up! You no longer have to feel like you are being treated unfairly. Brad could you please relay this message to Brian since will not be reading this anytime soon. A quick question for you Brad and for everybody else. Are you all going to Bach's wedding? I am very excited to see you all. To answer this question you will need to post a blog so please proceed.