August 31, 2009

It has regrettably come to my attention in recent weeks that one need not do anything to break a law in Provo. I mean this in the most literal sense possible, and if you doubt the possibility of this seemingly bold claim, I direct you to the following hypothetical reconstruction of an actual situation:

He who has ears to hear, let him hear: Being gay is neither a choice nor a hereditary trait. It is a disease.

The primary reason for Utah being last in terms of per pupil spending is the high ratio of children to adults. Utah is among the top states in terms of…

Warning: this article contains fairly widely-known spoilers about the ending of Inglourious Basterds.

As a society, we have decided that it is important to ban smoking indoors because of the serious health effects of secondhand smoke. This ban, of course, is protested by Big Tobacco junk scientists who claim no relation between cancer, lung disease, and smoking. But we know better.

Last year among myriad other edicts and appropriations, our indomitable student council voted to fund the preliminary stages of building a new student center. Preliminary in the sense that no such student center will as yet be built. Rather, the idea is that $1 per student per semester will be taken from student fees and put into a fund which will be used at a future date to construct a new building where students can chill, hang, relax, chillax, etc. Things like, for instance, bowl, swim, climb fiberglass imitations of cliff faces and eat. Our administration has for some time been wildly in support of this idea, from the Dean of Students Bob Rasmussen (who was kind enough to explain all this to me), to our former presidents and (hopefully) our new president.

After a corrective surgery, six-year-old Adam’s cochlear implant had broken. As an intern for the Utah Schools for the Deaf, I joined Adam on the rug for story time. When the teacher asked Adam in spoken English what color the turkey was, he looked around confused before looking to me. I signed COLOR, WHICH? Adam sat up and excitedly signed YELLOW. I responded RIGHT! … but when I looked up, I saw that I was in trouble. Apparently, I was forbidden to sign with Adam. His Individual Education Plan stated he must communicate using spoken English. His teacher kept him from recess to teach him how to say yellow. She made Adam touch her throat as she said a slow yeellloooww while his peers played outside for an hour.