From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #723 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Friday, May 24 2002 Volume 01 : Number 723 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 21:29:27 -0700 From: Jeff Needle Subject: Re: [AML] Difficult Reviews lajackson@juno.com wrote: > > Is this a normal experience? Or does it take a special > kind of book to trigger these frustrations? > > Larry Jackson > > LOL!!! Yes, some books are really awful. I've thought that, if I'm going to review a book, and present it as a reviewed book, I should at least tromp my way through the book in its entirety. Some books are just plain hard work. - --------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com or jeffneedle@nethere.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:22:41 -0700 From: "jana" Subject: [AML] Books Up for Review Hi folks! Here is another long list of titles for review. Please look over this = list and consider reviewing a book for AML-List. Keep in mind that all = reviews are due one month from receipt of the book.=20 If you are new to AML-List, see = http://www.aml-online.org/reviews/index.html for more info. Regards, Jana Remy AML-List Review Editor USU Press: One Side by Himself: The Life and Times of Lewis Barney By Ronald O. Barney http://www.usu.edu/usupress/individl/One%20Side%20by%20Himself.htm Pantheon: Red Water By Judith Freeman http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=3D03754209= 24 Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert By Terry Tempest Williams http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=3D03754207= 70 CFI/Bonneville: Nauvoo's Magic By Lisa J. Peck http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175368.html Scones for the Heart By George Durrant http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175937.html Doug's Dilemma, vol 2 of the Emma Trilogy By Chad Daybell http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555174574.html Escape to Zion, Vol 3 of the Emma Trilogy By Chad Daybell http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175015.html Something to Give, a story for families By Naomi S. Smith http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175961.html Dare to Prepare: Missionary Workbook By Lyman Rose http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175767.html The Ten Lost Tribes: A People of Destiny By Clay McConkie http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175872.html Against All Odds: Amazing Pioneer Stories of Courage and Renewal By Shirley Bahlmann http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175902.html Happiness Pursued: Time-tested tools to turn anxiety into happiness By S. Hudson Owen http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555175988.html Molly Mormon? By Tamra Norton http://www.cedarfort.com/catalog/1555176062.html Deseret Book/Shadow Mountain/Eagle Gate/Bookcraft: Waltzing to a Different Strummer By Tom Plummer http://deseretbook.com/store/product?product_id=3D100045698 The Nauvoo Temple Stone By Timothy Robinson http://deseretbook.com/store/product?product_id=3D100040887 Nauvoo: the City Beautiful By John Telford http://deseretbook.com/store/product?product_id=3D100040890 Covenant: Saints at War By Robert Freemen and Dennnis Wright http://www.covenant-lds.com/osb2/itemdetails.cfm?ID=3D49 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:55:31 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: [AML] Young Heroes (was: _Attack of the Clones_) [MOD: If anyone's interested, I can see the potential for this as a jumping-off point for a literary thread on young heroes...hence my renaming of this subject line.] ___ | I wonder if Padme Amidala's presence in office is part of | the problem. Really, what kinds of idiots must the Naboo | be to elect teenage girls to be their leaders? | ___ Ivan ___ | What kind of idiots must we Mormons be to have a boy | prophet who started the whole thing off? ___ Although Joseph was older by the time he starts the church - albeit still relatively young. On the other hand we have Alexander the Great who was a general at 16 and functioning as a leader before that. He was King at 20 and conquering the world. Moroni has his vision of God at 15 and at 16, like Alexander, is a leader in the Nephite armies. This really isn't that uncommon. You used to be pretty much an adult at a much younger age in the past. Consider for instance Nero who was 16 when he took control of Rome. Uzziah was only 16 when he became King in Israel. I'm sure there are plenty others. - -- Clark Goble --- clark@lextek.com ----------------------------- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 00:23:47 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Conservatism in Fantasy (was: _Attack of the Clones_) I haven't seen the movie yet, and so I can't comment on the specific points Eric makes nor those made by others in response to him. What Eric has been saying reminds me, though, of the apparently inherent social conservatism in much fantasy literature. (I see the Star Wars movies as generically more similar to written fantasy than to written science fiction, in large part because of the huge archetypal emphasis and the utter absence of any development of scientific or technological ideas and their implications in the movies. Which doesn't make them bad--I'm just explaining why I think that written fantasy may be a more analogous case than written science fiction for discussing these particular movies.) So what do I mean by inherent social conservatism? Here are some of the points that I see frequently recurring in much fantasy literature that I think help to create a sense of underlying social conservatism: * Emphasis on blood inheritance * Character as a function of group: family, race, nation of origin, etc. * Story focus on those of "noble blood" * Character as something that is revealed over the course of the story, rather than as something that changes. (This is tricky, because you can get a lot of development that *looks* like change but is actually simply an unfolding of inherent, preexisting character traits.) * Interpretation of a society, people, or nation largely in terms of its past * Glorification of the trappings of quasi-medieval society, without attention to the "violence inherent in the system" (as the Pythons would put it) * Use of largely antedated belief systems as sources of magical power. (E.g., magic comes from knowing something's "true name"--harking back to a view of language as containing meaning, rather than as strictly arbitrary.) * Notions of destiny * Totalizing descriptions of good versus evil (we know who the good guys and bad guys are) * Attachment to archetypes, hierarchies of knowledge and experience, etc. * Willingness to associate a right to rule or govern with possession of unique personal qualifications Not all these factors are necessarily innately conservative, but taken together I think they contribute to a genre that probably comes closer than almost any other to deserving a marxist critique. I say this as both (in many ways) a social conservative and a lover (and would-be author) of much socially conservative fantasy. But just because we love something, it doesn't mean that we should be blind to the implications of what we're buying into. The work of J.R.R. Tolkien, for example, is in many ways deeply conservative in its view of the world and how people can and should interact within it. It is, in my view, a profound, well-thought-out kind of conservatism--but it is deeply conservative nonetheless, depicting a kind of social order most of us would probably find stifling. And I think you find something similar in the first three (at least) _Star Wars_ movies. Which does not, in my mind, disqualify them as enjoyable, or even worthwhile. One of the innate characteristics of any work of art, as I see it, is that it is incomplete: simpler than life. That being the case, any extrapolation of the moral or physical or whatever universe based on a particular work of art will contain points that can be seen as inaccurate or even monstrous. It's important that we remember and point out those flaws. At the same time, because such flaws (based on incompleteness of vision) are inevitable, their presence in another way signifies relatively little about the quality of the work in question. This is a big topic, even if I've done little but approach it (rather ineptly) from one, rather oblique point of departure. It suggests, I think, how much of our critique of a given artistic work on moral grounds will be informed not only by what we read in the work itself, but also in the larger context (especially the social context) in which we read it. (By the way, has anyone else noticed that Eric's critique of _Attach of the Clones_ is on almost entirely moral/ethical grounds? Interesting, considering some of our previous exchanges on this very issue...) Also, I think that there are broad social and ethical implications built into probably every literary genre. Arguments over particular works tend very often to turn on some of these deeper generic questions. But I've gone on too long already... Jonathan Langford Speaking (babbling, really) for myself, not AML-List... jlangfor@pressenter.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:51:19 -0600 From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: [AML] re: MCLEAN & KELLY, "The Ark" (Daily Herald) >Eric Snider said in a review of "The Ark" > >>And then there's Ham (David Tinney, also the director), the bad son >>who doesn't believe in his father's prophetic calling. He has >>married >outside the faith, to a black woman named Egyptus (Lisa >>Estridge-Gray), leading Eliza to utter what is still the show's >>funniest line: "Noah, guess who's coming to dinner?" > Andrew Hall: >So Eric (and anyone else who has seen it), can you tell us more >about how this plays out, in light of our recent discussion on race? >Margaret Young and others have made pretty strong claims that the >evidence that Egyptus was black is not strong. But here >McLean/Kelly seem to stick with the traditional idea that she was. >This is one of the few Mormon literature pieces about that these >people that I know of, so I'm interested in how they are portrayed. > It's pretty much a non-issue in this incarnation of the play. I seem to recall that in earlier versions, it was a bigger deal, but that could be my memory playing tricks on me. At any rate, now, aside from the one sly reference to her being black (and the characters' being obviously startled upon first seeing her), there is no mention of it. The closest they come is Noah referring to Ham having married someone "not of our faith" -- but that could just be a religious thing, not a race thing (though at that point in history, they were no doubt synonymous). Which, now that I think of it, makes me wonder why McLean and Kelly bothered to keep that element. There's the initial shock at Ham having married a black woman, but then everyone immediately gets over it. So why make her black at all? (To keep the show's funniest line intact?) Is it because Mormons tend to assume Egyptus was black and the writers fear we'd be upset if she wasn't, the way Jesus always has to be white and have a beard and long hair? On a side note, I think this was the first musical where I noticed that if there's a black character in a musical he or she HAS to sing a gospel song. When I write my great parody of musicals called "Musical! The Musical," it will have a black character who only sings polkas. Eric D. Snider - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 09:29:34 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Changes in Usage On Wed, 22 May 2002 01:02:15 -0600 "D. Michael Martindale" writes: > And what's wrong with changing "all right" to "alright"? It's > inevitably going to become acceptable. Anti-alright people > should just give it up now. There's a difference between saying, "The answers were all right" and, "the answers were alright." The first means all the answers were correct. The second, depending on tone, can mean that the answers were satisfactory, or that they were just so-so. Harlow Clark ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 08:53:59 -0700 From: "jana" Subject: Re: [AML] Difficult Reviews > I still could not have written a short review. I wound up > struggling through the whole book hoping, I suppose, to > find something of interest. > > Is this a normal experience? Or does it take a special > kind of book to trigger these frustrations? Speaking as the review editor, I'd like to add my $.02 to this discussion: I try to match books with reviewers in such a way that no one is stuck with a book that is so hard for them to like. It does no service to the author and/or publisher if a reviewer who hates romances reviews a romance and gives it a horrible review. However, there are those books that are so awful that just about everyone will have difficulty finding something positive to say. In that case, I recommend an objective discussion of why the book was so bad, with a passage pulled from the book to illustrate your points. It is also helpful to compare quality and style of the book to other similar books on the LDS market. Because we have an obligation to the publishers to provide reviews of each book that is sent to AML-List members under the auspices of the review program, I wouldn't suggest that you skip reviews just because you can't enthusiastically recommend a particular book. Or, if it is really _so_ bad that you cannot review the book, please contact me and I will offer it to another AML-List member. As always, I am very grateful to those AML-Listers who participate in the review program. I believe that our book reviews are a great asset to List discussion and are a wonderful resource for Mormon Literature. Regards, Jana Remy AML-List Review Editor - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 10:20:08 -0600 From: "Jana Pawlowski" Subject: [AML] American Immigration Patterns Topic: Was "Environmentalism," then "How We Make Decisions", now "American Immigration Patterns" (not really I just don't know what to call it.) Eric Writes: "If one believes, however, that the history of America is a history of people seeking religious freedom, driven here by God, then it follows that George Washington must be portrayed as righteous man actively seeking God's blessings. " And Harlow's reaction to Eric follows my post. I'd love to recommend a book and see if any histoy buffs on the list are familiar enough to comment further on the book. (as its potential application to Mormon Letters is limitless in Eric's or any of our work.) It is "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America". By David Hackett Fischer. My southern, democrat, scholarly friend recommended it and likes it for the most part, except she thought Fishcer was too hard on the Southerners. (My 5-year old son, Michael, is for some reason kissing me all over the face right now, I'll try to concentrate). I've only read a few chapters, but he does address the religious motivation of migration to the New World in those first chapters. I think it would add to Eric and Harlow's conversation, contributing a little different aspect or an augmentation to their discussion of America's religous beginnings through its founding immigrants, not "Fathers" (no feminist pun implied.) I'm quoting from page 17 "The Exodus of the English Puritans". "The emigrants who came to Massachusetts in the great migration became the breeding stock for America's Yankee population. They multiplied at a rapid rate, doubling every generation for two centuries. Their numbers increased by 100,000 by 1700, to at least one million by 1988--all descended from 21,000 English emigrants who came to Massachusetts in the period from 1629 to 1640. "The children of the great migration moved rapidly beyond the borders of Massachusetts. They occupied much of Southern New England, eastern New Jersey and northern New York. In the nineteenth century, their descendants migrated east to Maine and Nova Scotia, north to Canada, and west to the Pacific. Along the way, the founded the future cities of Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Paul, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Today, throughout this vast area, most families of Yankee descent trace their American beginnings to an English ancestor who came ashore in Massachusetts Bay within five years of the year 1635. "For these English Puritians, the new colony of Massachusetts had a meaning that is not easily translated into the secular terms of our materialist world. "A letter from New England," wrote Joshua Scottow, ".....was venerated as a Sacred Script, or as the writing of some Holy Prophet. 'Twas carried many miles, where divers came to hear it." "The great migration developed in this spirit--above all as a relgious movement of English Christians who meant to build a new Zion in America. When most of these emigrants explained their motives for coming to the New World, religion was mentioned not merely as their leading purpose. It was their only purpose." The book also illustrates the difference between the two methods known as "the old history" and "the new history" so it is chock-full of useful information on how to interpret history, although, his approach is a "cultural history" which blends all three. It's probably not a revolutionary idea, but notice he does mention Salt Lake City in the over-all migrations. My ggg+grandfather was William Hunter, brother to Bishop Edward Hunter, and they were gentlemen farmers from Pennsylvania, large landholders who donated almost everything to Joseph Smith, helping him purchase lands in Nauvoo, etc. It's interesting to see this as a larger patterns in the creation of a New Zion in America, not just by Mormons, but by our ancestors who migrated as Puritans, Quakers, etc. Jana Pawlowski http://www.geocities.com/janrand janrand@networld.com Harlow's Comments: If one believes, however, that the history of America is a history of people seeking religious freedom, driven here by God, then it follows that George Washington must be portrayed as righteous man actively seeking God's blessings. > Not necessarily. You can portray God's inspiration as working through > people despite themselves. There's a lot of scriptural precedent for > that. ........ In my class paper I worked with the idea that when the D&C > talks about the Constitution as inspired it's referring to the way the > document fractures government, dividing power between an executive, a > legislative and a judicial branch, giving all three powers that check the > powers of the other two branches, then pitting them against each other so > they couldn't band together to form alliances, and designing the judicial > and legislative branches to be internally fractured: the legislature > divided into two chambers, one designed to favor smaller states by giving > them the same vote as larger states, the other designed to favor larger > states; the judiciary divided both by lifetime appointments that would > likely outlast the appointing president and his successor, and by being > an odd number so they couldn't be evenly divided. (I'm not sure if I > specifically mentioned the D&C or the BofM, but I was clearly working > with the idea that the government outlined in the Constitution embodies > the kinds of oppositional checks and balances without which, Lehi says, > the universe could not continue to exist. (I should note that > oppositional checks and balances are not necessarily adversarial--when > Donna and I kneel across the altar in the temple as (someone's) husband > and wife, we are opposites, but I hope not adversaries.)) > > > As it happens, that's not how I > > see him, nor how I see our history. I don't see him as a righteous > > man, or a spiritual man, I see him as a competant man; someone who > > was pretty capable at a number of tasks. I see the history of > > America as primarily a history of genocide and slavery, with a > > search for religious freedom pretty secondary. > > The Founding Fathers were not necessarily paragons of virtue, whether the > virtue being discussed is chastity (Ben Franklin's syphillis) or the > belief in human freedom and equality. But I'm not sure it's necessary to > see them as such to believe that God raised them up with particular > talents to accomplish a particular work. Despite the fact that many of > them violated human rights by owning and treating as animals other human > beings, they still managed to turn out a document that eventually > abolished slavery and became a beacon of hope for people seeking human > rights the world over. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 10:39:14 -0600 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: [AML] Irreantum Proofers Needed The AML is looking for some proofing volunteers to comb through the 70,000-word spring issue for errors, typos, etc. If you can help, please contact Chris Bigelow directly at chris.bigelow@unicitynetwork.com. The proof will probably be ready within 1-2 weeks, with a 7-day turnaround. We would send you a PDF file, and you would send back your corrections via e-mail. Although we don't offer payment, we will support any reasonable resume claims you may care to make about this volunteer editing service. Chris Bigelow - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:10:58 -0600 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: Re: [AML] Money and Art > Pretty much the rule of thumb in a ward situation is if you're good at > something you'll be asked to do it for free. Personally, I've done so much > theatre work for free in the name of "career building" that I would feel > like a hypocrit if I refused to use my God-given talents in a > not-for-my-profit church venture simply because of the issue of payment. > After all, "spiritual career building" is even more important to me. > Let us not forget the injunction to do many thing of our own free will and choice. We don't have to necessarily do things when the Church calls us to in order to build our spiritual career. I think even doing things for money can have spiritual benefits. In my patchwork career of producing plays for money, I've had people become reactivated through seeing a play of mine that they paid for. Whatever blessings come from helping bring relief and happiness to another seem to ignore whether the service was done altruistically or not. Thom - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 07:47:39 -0600 From: "J. Scott Bronson" Subject: Re: [AML] _Attack of the Clones_ (Review) On Wed, 22 May 2002 11:13:47 -0600 "Eric R. Samuelsen" writes: > What I wanted from Attack of the Clones was a rolicking good > adventure flick This is another very important element to factor in to the "artistic experience" equation: what we wanted. Our expectations, I figure, do more to shape the experience than anything. For instance, what I was hoping for was a return to the human element. Regardless of how big the spectacle is, if there aren't any interesting relationships in a story, the storyteller loses my devotion. Attack of the Clones split up the most engaging pair of the film in order to move the plot along. Plot schmlot, what about the people? There were, however, a couple of key bits of information revealed that I found fascinating. One, Annakin's reason for going to the Dark Side: All the Good Guys call him by that girlie nick-name--Annie--I feel his pain. Two, we finally know what kind of creature Yoda is: He is a genetically enhanced frog. scott - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:20:41 -0600 From: margaret young Subject: Re: [AML] MCLEAN & KELLY, "The Ark" (Daily Herald) Actually, I've never made the claim that the evidence that Egyptus was black is not strong. I think she was black. I think most Egyptians were black. Likely what Andrew is thinking of is my assumption that Joseph's Egyptian wife (Asenath, the mother of Ephraim and Manessah) was black. I also think Rahab (mentioned in the genealogy of the Savior) was black It's a long discussion, and I'm just taking a brief break from very concentrated writing to correct this little tidbit. Happy to pursue it AFTER this third installment of the trilogy is done. [Margaret Young] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 10:45:04 -0700 From: JLTyner Subject: RE: [AML] Attack of the Clones_ (Review) I've enjoyed the many different takes on "Attack of the Clones" I've seen on the list, even if I didn't agree with everything said, it's made me sit back and think about the the movie and what I took from it. I will endeavor to make some kind of connection to Mormon Letters per Jonathan's request, however slight. :-) First of all, to address Eric's proposition that Lucas has some kind of racist element going, especially in the casting of a polynesian/maori actor to play Jango Fett. I receive emails from SAG, The Screen Actor's Guild at least twice a week. They are probably the world's largest acting union. And one of the current hot topics they are addressing is how to get more actors of color on the screen, there is even a committee specially formed to tackle the issue. They LIKE it a lot when persons of color are cast in roles that they might not ordinarily be thought of in and there has been no complaint concerning the casting of this role that I've seen. To me, when a group is comfortable with one of their own being cast as a villian instead of insisting they must always be portrayed in a positive light is a show of progress. When we LDS are not so touchy about being shown as less than than perfect and holy, and more comfortable being human, when we can say someone is our bishop, or stake president, or apostle or prophet who just happens to be black, latino, or fill-in-the-blank and it is not a topic of great note, we will have made progress. Like Hollywood, we have a long way to go, but I hope we're a little farther along in equality. I do however agree with Eric that the whole premise of the Star Wars epic which Lucas has said himself was and is the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has always bothered me with the apparent "just accept the good side of the force Darth/Anakin and all is forgiven, you will be saved!" Never mind that you are usually smoldering and angry, grudge holding, blaming and slaughtered a whole village as you slid toward the dark side, (you mean he wasn't already there?), before embarking on your career of darkness, you will be made whole with little effort or payment for what you have done, all will be well. This part of the Star Wars epic is incompatible with Mormon thinking and theology. I suppose we all want and need redemption, but we have been warned if we do not take hold here and now, and do our best to be decent people, the suffering will be intense and beyond our comprehesion. The two scriptural parallels I can come up with might be the account in Genesis of Simeon and Levi slaughtering the men of the Hivites over their sister Dinah-Gen: 34. and the plain and harrowing warning given in D&C 19:15-20. The other thing I saw pointed out was as much as I love Natalie Portman and I like her character of Padma she could be the poster girl for the modern woman both Mormon and non. You have an intelligent, well educated young woman who should, after the ten year gap between episodes have honed her knowledge and political instincts of the way the political system she's in works. She is supposed to be about 29, 30 years old? Old enough to have some grasp of human nature, and yet, seems to miss lots of clues to what's happening both politically and personally. She falls for a young man about 19 or 20 who, although he has always cared for her and she for him, has huge anger management problems, likes the idea of control and order over agency, and is impulsive and unstable among other things. Good partner material for sure! Oh they try and fight their feelings, but when you're with each other every day isn't it just inevitable? And hey, at least they got married! So many bright-in-other-ways women I know make these kinds of mistakes on a constant basis with men, and besides, he's such a hunk! And he has sooo much potential! And he's younger too! I can work with him! We've come a long way baby. As for other elements of the movie that has parallels with the rise of nazism and facism and end-of-days types of prophecies/predictions, I saw several. Palpatine works behind the scenes and is able to work his machinations through others under the guise of what's best for all. He manipulates weaker individuals. Do people think the great movements of evil we saw in the twentieth century and read about in the Bible and especially in the Book of Mormon happened overnight? They often come about when an evil person or persons sense a complacency or need they can fill and then exploit for their own gain. Whenever we are shown the great city that is the cradle of the Republic we see a constant movement of air cars that never ceases. People are busy with their own lives. They don't want to be bothered to be involved with the running of their society or the upkeep of the republic, that's what they elect the senate for, isn't it? They don't want to deal with bothersome and partisan politics and just want to live their lives, work and have fun. Sound familiar? Nazism and facism rose from punishment, poverty and societal disorder. Hitler and Mussolini were able to initally lend some hope and order and take advantage of regaining a sense of national identity. I had a german neighbor as a kid who defended Hitler to me by saying that he did feed the people at first! In AOTC the threat seems to be a test of affluence, apathy, and a lack of noble purpose or direction for the Republic and a general confusion. I think confusion is one of evil's greatest weapons. Count Dooku even tells Obi-Wan a part of what's going on, a partial truth. Evil often works that way-tell part of the truth, not a complete lie, people will often see a complete lie, but miss a partial one. I think Yoda does sense what's going on, he hasn't put all the pieces together, (or maybe he has), but I think he knows he can't stop it by himself, he can only do what good he's capbable of, even using the clones at first. The LDS parallel might be that "even the very elect will be deceived", even the Jedi. I think of that when Yoda is sitting in the chamber talking to Mace Windu before he meditates. He knows good people are going to make mistakes not realizing how much corruption has already found it's way into the system. Nevertheless, despite all the probing, I don't think Star Wars exactly set out to be a movement. George Lucas makes a good space cowboy opera with great special effects, fight scenes, imaginative worlds and gorgeous, scantilly-clad heroines. Yoda kicks butt in one of my favorite scenes and stands up for all us vertically challenged types. And whatever the criticism, this movie is doing well because it's fun and so will the third one. George Lucas is kind of the nerd's eight hundred pound gorilla proving the meek will inherit the movie world, if not the earth. Kathy Tyner Orange County, CA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #723 ******************************