also, it's full of mormons. i never really got the white people thing, but the mormon thing i think is part of the reason i used to be a hater. which is odd because i'm a mormon. but i thought of myself as a "cool" mormon. the kind who didn't judge you and didn't gossip if you wanted to live with your girlfriend or adopt little asian babies with your life partner or drink yourself into a puddle four nights a week. stories i heard detailed sordid encounters with jerk mormons who drove well-meaning (but sinful!) neighbors and co-workers right out into the cold night of ostracization (new word). mormons i knew myself were guilty of this as well. that always bothered me, and other things bothered me, like certain aspects of mormon culture i couldn't wrap my head around. so, you know, hating on other mormons and the state was logically sound. i was one of them, but not one of THEM. like, heaven forbid i marry a girl with a tattoo, you know?
after living in a 3rd world country and visiting other countries and hearing the experiences of others as they have traveled the world, the gears in my mind churned a bit and i have drawn some new conclusions about the rest of the world as it relates to Utah. and mostly, those conclusions are that it sucks. it began to seem absurd to have such meaningless complaints about somethings that barely mattered. i mean, yeah, judging people and making them feel bad for their choices is a pretty douchey thing to do but in time i've come to the conclusion that i prefer accept everyone rather than piss on the judges for pissing on the judgees. seek to understand and learn and help and all that.
which brings me to the present day, in which i still have brief moments of weakness when it comes to not judging. i was reading an article online a little while back and some people had made some comments about the article, and somehow or other someone brought up Utah and some guy says something to the effect of "Utah sounds like a great place, except.. it's Utah." and there were some other various comments to that end by others. now, i'm not a betting man (mormon, remember?), but i'd take 10 to 1 not a single one of them has ever been to Utah or knows anything about it that doesn't have to do with a preponderance of mormons, white people and/or swirling rumors of lingering polygamy. i became incensed. i'd read comments like this before elsewhere many times, but i felt like i'd had enough of the cheap shots from clueless internet tough guys. i wanted to find each one of them and subject them to a verbal and psychological beat down that would render them completely incapable of ever again spewing nonsense of things which they know nothing. and having children. a tirade so virile their genitals shrivel into useless raisins. unfortunately, i do not possess such awesome powers of elocution, so i must make my point the only way i know how--raging impotently on the same internet. so there. and now i'm over it.
and, you know, hey..
