Round And Round We Go

For those of you who know me, I'm all about pushing buttons.  I like to make my Facebook status updates very "edgy," pushing the boundaries of people's emotions...and I think I've always been that way.  But one thing I try so very hard to do is not go too far.  And when my "fun" becomes to much, I typically do what I can to apologize to those I may have offended or angered.  it's never my intention to make someone mad, I simply like to have meaningful conversations with others about our differences in opinion.

Recently I posted a video of a banned Mormon cartoon on my Facebook wall.  It's attempt is to educate those outside the Mormon faith of the "evils" or "misguided" mindset of the Mormon belief.  But in doing so, I offended two people, one a fellow Barbershopper, and the other a coworker who were appalled at the fact that I posted such a poor education video, both of whom are Mormon.  If you care to watch it, click below.  Keep in mind, the animation is very bad and the narration is SUPER boring...

For everyone reading this, please be clear...This cartoon is almost completely false and doesn't represent the Mormon faith in the least.  But I'm sure an educated individual will be able to see this right away.  But due to my two friend's very adamant and vocal disapproval, I took the video down.  It was upsetting them enough that I didn't want to further their frustration for the sake of making fun of the video.

But how many times do you see people on Facebook getting into argument threads?  It's a fairly consistent characteristic of Facebook dialog of which I'm a culprit of as well.  But I've always considered myself someone who doesn't throw others argument out the window simply because I disagree with them.  I try to remain as civil as I can when in a disagreement with someone over Facebook or in person.  But most of the Facebook population who thrives on drama through Facebook threads tend to revert to name calling or unintelligible remarks that lend nothing to the conversation...except to make them feel like they've accomplished something.

Recently, the chorus I sing with had a major splitting of membership, mainly with the younger crowd of 20 - 28 year olds.  Some changes have been made in Sound of the Rockies and a lot of these young men left for those reasons, forming a new chorus.  They will all tell you that's not the case, but from the conversations I've had with the head honcho's in charge of the new chorus I feel there's a lot of negativity that went into forming this chorus.  The first few meetings this "new chorus" had involved mostly dialog and conversation...and after all that was done, bad mouthing began.  Many of the guys decided that it would be beneficial to constantly say what they don't like about SOR and talk shit about certain individuals as well.

In response to the question "what would you like to see happen in this new chorus?" I stated that I would like to start seeing everyone stop bad mouthing everyone in SOR and become a mature chorus.  This, of course didn't stick for very long and I still hear the same things from the same people when conversations star Darin Drown, Mike Davidson, Chris Vaughn, etc. Everyone in this new chorus just don't have it in them to move on with their lives.  I'm not trying to say you can't be bitter for things that may or may not have gone wrong from  your perspective, but bad mouthing others really isn't beneficial for anyone.

We are a society of people that are willing to talk about people behind their backs, or talk immaturely to them as long as we don't have to be in the presence.  This is one of the downfalls of social networking; people feel like they are justified in calling people names, belittling their past and life choices as long as it's done through Facebook.  Let's call people an Idiot, a feeble minded human being, stupid, sheepish, etc etc...as long as we don't do it right to their face.  It's even worse because it's happening between two people who've never met before more and more often.

Maybe I should just leave it alone when these kinds of things happen.  It's really hard to do that however, especially when I some how get caught in the middle of it all. What do you guys think about this?  Does it bother you?  Does it make you angry or do you enjoy this type of mentality?  I would very much like to hear opinions.

Look at me! Look at me! I SHOT something! Take a picture of me with the dead animal!!!

I used to think nothing of it, most of my friends in my younger days loved to go deer hunting and I just passed it off as "the thing to do."  Never giving it a second thought, I typically thought it was rather neat to see picture of people I knew while propping up the head of a deer.  It was never my thing however.  If my Uncle wanted to go hunting, I typically stayed behind simply because I had no interest in taking the time to hunt.  And to be honest, I'm not against hunting.  We need food and that's one of the ways we get it.  However, a few years ago I discovered something about myself...I absolutely cannot stand photos of people smiling in the camera while holding up a dead deer.

It verges on the side of demented and vile for me.  Here we have a living creature who, I'm sure, unexpectedly took a bullet or an arrow to the side and suffered for a few minutes before dying.  Now, if you will, imagine the hunter coming up to the dead deer laying all cross eyed on the ground, calling his friend to come over with the camera, taking the deer by the antlers, and smiles while the companion snaps a shot.  Does no one else see how twisted this is?  Why do hunters feel taking a photo of themselves with a dead animal to be visually appealing?  It's sick and gross and I DO NOT support this sentiment that deer hunters seem to revel in.

But it doesn't stop there does it?  Not only do pictures of happiness in shooting an animal permeate all through out the web, but trophies are made of the beast's heads!  The head is chopped off, the innards are taking out and replaced with stuffing, the head is mounted on a glistening piece of wood and then is mounted on the wall of someone's home or a restaurant.  It's bad enough that people find the head of a dead animal hanging on the wall of your home nice to look at, but restaurants tend to think that eating food while an animal's head hovers over you won't spoil your appetite.  Which it doesn't in most cases.

We, as a society, have become so desensitized to the act of killing animals that we no longer see the demented nature of making trophies out of our kills.  Do we think that just because we have this presumed dominion over the animals in the world that we can also make a mockery of them as well?  Why do we become so horrified by the whole notion of people killing people, but when it comes to killing animals, we think nothing of it and make it a point to show the world that we LOVE killing animals?

Maybe I'm just ignorant due to the fact that I didn't grow up with this need to kill things for the sport of it, but I still have absolute confidence that taking a photograph of yourself with your triumphant kill borderlines on the sick a twisted.  Sorry for all of you hunters who enjoy this type of thing but it just isn't my thing, I find it appalling.

If you're still having trouble with understanding this, here's some photos that might help you to understand my point of view.  You don;t have to agree with me, but I at least hope you get what I'm trying to say.

So do the big antlers compensate for something else?

Definitely something I want hanging around in my backyard

I'm so happy, I think I'll show this to my kids!

Not as good as yesterday, but still a good day

Look what I did today mommy!