The Mormon Ending to Dr. Strangelove

Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove is not one that most people would associate with the Mormons in anyway. In fact, it is more of a commentary of the United State cold war policies of the late 1950s, but there are Mormon ties in with the film, although you do have to stretch a little to get them.

The first and most obvious connection is the number of women that appear in the film. As anyone who has read the Book of Mormon all the way through knows, only three people of the fairer sex appear in the text, which is odd for a book that purports to be the one thousand year history of a people. While Dr. Strangelove covers only the few hours before a nuclear holocaust, but there is only one women in Dr. Strangelove and three women in the Book of Mormon. The difference is one woman appearing in only a few hours is far more likely than the names of three women being mentioned over a period of over one thousand years.

But the connection between the Mormon faith and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove goes a little better deeper. With the FLDS in the news again, the church is trying to distance itself desperately from the actions of the polygamists, but whether or not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints still practice polygamy is irrelevant for the purposes of this article. One caveat must be given, Dr. Strangelove is not intended to be a Mormon movie.

It is not until we get to the end of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy that we can find any real connection between the classic cold war inspired flick and the early Mormons. When it becomes apparent that the Doomsday device that the Russians possess will be set off, it is the former German rocket scientist who proposes a radical plan that will save all of humanity. He suggests saving a small segment of humanity. His ideal community would be 20,000 people with a ration of ten women to one men.

Naturally, to get the human race back on its feet again, the remaining men will be required to do a lot of breeding to help repopulate the human race. Furthering the cause of saving humanity will require prodigious breeding on the part of the males who surive. The males chosen will be the elect in strength and intelligence or their position in government.

Now this situation alone is not enough to connect Dr. Strangelove to the Mormon faith, but anyone who observes the smile on Peter Seller's face when he delivers this line can recognize the same tone and leer of men standing around the foyer of a Mormon congregation after church discussing polygamy. Often there is the tone in the voice that suggests a longing for the good old days which are now past us.

Now the look of the wife is often one of “I'll kill you if you ever try it,” but this never seems to deter these conversations. I'm sure Stanley Kubrick did not intend this film to mirror what one can easily imagine were the attitudes of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith when they started the principal of plural marriage, but it is hard not to think that there thought processes were similar to those going through the mind of the the German mad scientist when he proposed his plan to save humanity.

Some people may feel that the comparison between the mind of Brigham Young and Stanley Kubrick is at least a little irrelevant, but until there is historical proof that the practice of polygamy was not based on Joseph Smith's desire to have more sex, speculations like this will abound. A person saying that the lord told him to do so is not proof. A stronger case can be made the Brigham Young believed this, as he was told to practice the principal, but it seems that even if he did struggle with it, as a KUED documentary on the man suggests, that he had no problem practicing the doctrine of plural marriage later in his life.

Where The Sinister Porpoise Has Been

I have not posted on this blog for over a year now. It was not my intention to let this blog die, but the move to Wordpress, due to circumstances beyond my control was not entirely successful.

If you are wondering what The Sinister Porpoise has been doing for the last year or so, I have been writing and learning how to write better. At least I think this is the case. I am sure some easily avoided error will make the reader think otherwise somewhere in this post.

Like many bloggers, I've wondered if I have what it takes to be a professional writer. Like Eric, of A New Eric, I experimented with sites like Helium and Associated Content. I've made the mistake of trying GetaFreelancer and finding people from India who want a lot of work for little pay and have had to add at least one of these people to my Yahoo block list.

I've had success and failures and a lot of things I wish I could go back and edit now. I've also learn a great deal about how to write searchable web engine content. Of course, I worry that this might ruin me for print media.

By the way, if there are any artists out there who want to do a Mormon themed web-comic, I need an Artist for All is Well. The only requirement is that you must draw better than I do. This is not hard.

Word Press Link

I could not continue with the Moveable Type blog for technical reasons and had to move it over to a Wordpress format. You can find the new link at sinisterporpoise.evilporpoise.us.

To my friends in Outer Blogness who need to be linked to, please e-mail me so I can make sure you are listed.

New site is ready...

While the domain name will change as soon as I register it, for now you can continue to follow this blog at evilporpoise.us/sinisterporpoise.

I admit I've been reluctant to post here lately. It's not that I've lost my desire to write or blog, it's simply that each new entry that goes up here causes me extra work. The moving of the posts to the new site is halfway complete. I have not copied everything because some things are unimportant and others are specific to the fact that I'm on Blogger.

That does not mean I intend to go on hiatus anytime soon and I will try to be as active as I ever was. I just find myself busy with other things right now, including the book that you know I'm writing. (It is going well if you want to ask.) I hope to have the files moved by the end of the month and have everything set up sometime in early April. It will not be the First if that's what some of you are thinking.

So, bear with me during this process please. I'll be back with all your sinister porpoisey needs soon enough.

Ex-Mormon Glee over the Mitt Romeny Campaign

As much as I’d hate to address what is purely a political issue, the candidacy of Mitt Romney forces me to do so. I’ve seen too many people particularly Ex-Mormons think that somehow this will magically expose the church for what they think it is and its membership will dwindle simply because the religion is shown to be as weird and corrupt as they already think it is.

I have a warning to give to these people: Get Real. Information about Mormon theology, doctrine, and its interference in politics is already freely available. The membership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may be shrinking, but it’s by no means a mass exodus. What’s worse is that people continue to think that somehow rational thought will debunk Mormonism and all other religions eventually..

Such a belief shows a fundamental lack of understanding about human behavior. Religion is the one thing that all cultures have in common and it is not about common sense or being rational. It is about meaning. Ideally it should be about the improvement of the world and helping individuals to become better people. The problem comes when people try to control it for their own personal agendas or to further their own hatreds.

I’ll admit I have reservations about Romney’s candidacy. I favor Rudy Guliani to win the Republican nomination. I do not know if Mr. Romney will follow the brethren blindly but there have been no assurances from him that he’s not. That's all it took enough of the public to vote for John F. Kennedy.

I hate to sound like I’m prejudiced, but the reason I won’t vote for Mitt is because he is Mormon. Unlike many conservative Christians, it won’t be because I don’t think he believes in Christ, but because I have a deep mistrust when it comes to political matters and the Salt Lake organization.

To Mitt: Good Luck. You’ll need it. Why not start by assuring people that you’re not under the thumb of the prophet? I’d still prefer a candidate that’ll tell a Saudi Arabian prince to “take your check and stick it up you’re a--" to you, but I don't know how many other people have this silly preference.

I've had over 200 posts

I suppose we all occasionally use our blogs to express moments of self-doubt. I know this blog hasn't always been as good as I'd like it to have been and you can't always write every post with the same quality. Some will be better than others.

As I'm move the archives over to the blog's new home, I noticed that the tone of this blog changed over the two years its been up. I never intended it to focus on Mormonism as much as it did. Yes, it was a major part of my life and strangely I think of myself as Ex-Mormon. (Are Mormons the only group that feels the need to continue with the label?)

Now in some ways I'm cursing myself for writing so much early on. I've got a almost 200 posts to move, and this entry will be the 204th to appear on this blog. I don't know if there's an easier way to do this, and I'll probably have to go and convert some of the tags Blogger uses that do not have meaning to a Movable Type blog.

But it blogging has been good. It let me know where my strengths as a writer lie, in much the same way as my attempts at detective fiction are making me question whether or not I should be doing it. Perhaps instead of trying to write fiction, I should go into thoughtful essays on my personal philosophy. The only problem I have with that is that I'm not sure that there's a market for it.

Don't worry, I'll keep on blogging and sometime in the near future, the link will be sinisterporpoise.com, not sinisterporpoise.blogspot.com

Moving the Location sometime in the future

I have in the past considering moving this blog from Blogger to somewhere else. The nice thing about Blogger is that it automatically lists my Blog on Google. The downside is I don't have as much control over the content as I might elsewhere. While it is true that Blogger for the most part leaves my content alone, they have changed it in the past. (Look through the archives.) It was minor, but those who've switched to the new Blogger know about the added problems with their new system.

I am in the process of setting a new blog up, but it'll most likely take a while. In the meantime, if your link is wrong, please drop me a note and I'll fix it.

Sound and Fury

I'll admit that I have not done as much with Blogger Beta as can be done, particularly with the labels, but I really have no desire to use them anyway. Isn't it enough they've forced the software on everyone now without asking for anyone's input? Good grief, Google, can I at least have my original login name back?

Well, I've been toying around with a movable type blog and hosting elsewhere, but there's one thing you do get with Blogger that you wouldn't there. Blogger blogs are automatically listed on Google's search engine, while I'd have to wait with a blog elsewhere. Then again it depends on the nuisances I have to endure. One more edit like the one I complained about a few months ago and I'd seriously consider it.

As fun as blogging is, it's not what I wish to address today. I've been trying to get to this for a while but it is not a comfortable topic for me to begin with and I get funny if people I actually know face to face read my blog. I will tend to hold back a little. The thing is this is my space and I will do as I wish here so long as Google allows it.

Not only that there are certain subjects which make me uncomfortable to begin with, and the one I've been trying to address falls under that category. It has to do with sexual orientation and gender identity. In many people's mind they are the same thing, which of course they are not. I don't know exactly how to sort this out and the confusion in English is even more understandable since the word sex is both a noun and a verb. Still, it gets a little sticky for me for the rare times I do get asked about it. I have no interest in dating at the moment. In fact I probably couldn't tell you if someone was flirting with me since I'm pretty much oblivious to those signals.

My love life or lack thereof is not the point here, however. Someone who is trans is not necessarily gay or lesbian. They may be, but it varies in roughly inverse proportion to the gay/straight mix found among the general population.

Blogger's Block

I've been having a bit of Blogger's block lately. I started to write something today and found I couldn't. The mistake I often make while doing this is trying to force what I write which generally results in a lower quality entry than I might otherwise have written.

I could go into the writing process here, but I think others in the Outer Blogosphere are better qualified to do it and Sierra Sage runs a site dedicated to it. I plan on signing up for her workshops one day, but I'd host her exercises somewhere else. I have a slight confession to make. I don't read fiction posted on blogs as a general rule. It's not that the fiction is bad it's just that most of it doesn't interest me and I'm reading the blogs for a different reason. I like to know what their thoughts on the topics they blog about are.

It seems that I am a point in my life where I have a lot more confidence than I used to. Whether or not this is warranted is a different matter but it has caused a shift in my outlook at least. I tend to spend a little less time thinking about problems now and more time implement solutions. Unfortunately it's showing here and I seem to have less energy to put into my writing or it could be perhaps that I'm devoting more of it to the book I am writing and not really getting anywhere on it.

I hope this condition ends soon and I can get back to where I was before with at least some interesting ideas, but for now I seem to be stuck.