Green Oasis

With all the discussion of masturbation and porn going on around Mormon related blogs, I thought I would share this gem from a comment on reddit:

I went to the doctor for a checkup the other day. He took one look at me and said “You have to quit masturbating”. I asked “why?”, he said “so I can do the checkup”.

Masturbation and pornography are almost guaranteed to generate lots of debate on the bloggernacle. It doesn’t help when yours truly blathers on.

• Fast Offerings: A Personal History of Masturbation
• Series: Pictures of Pornography and the LDS People
• Pictures of Pornography: JustAGuy
• Advice from the armchair marriage counselor
• The Other M-word

Mark Bittman on what’s wrong with what we (i.e. Americans) eat.

I avoid posting all the police abuse stuff that I hear about if for no other reason than that there’s so much of it. The quantity threatens to make me blasé about the subject. This story (and others) makes me shake my head in disbelief.

Police tasered a 17-year-old boy who was in paramedics’ care because he had a seizure. When he woke up, he became disoriented and frightened due to a condition known as postictal psychosis. He struck a paramedic and the police attempted to restrain him by tasering him twelve times!

The police and paramedics lied in their reports stating that he had only been tasered twice despite ample physical evidence to the contrary.

The idea that the taser is nonlethal makes us too willing to use it. Tasering someone twelve times is excessive. It’s fortunate that this didn’t end in tragedy.

Is voluntary eugenics based on sound science still evil?

I just received an email from a former missionary with whom I served in the New York Rochester Mission. They’re planning a mission reunion for the summer of 2009 in Huntsville, Utah. We haven’t had a reunion in years, but this presents me with a quandary: should I attend a mission reunion?

On the one hand, it would be interesting to catch up with old friends, and I could also use it as an excuse to visit family in the area. On the other hand, I can only imagine the potential for uncomfortable situations.

Elder Blake, would you offer a prayer on our refreshments?

me: Well, you see, it’s like this.…

Should I go and hope it never comes up? Would it even be worth the risk of spoiling the event for everyone? I guess I have a long time to think about it.