BY ERIC SNIDER
(EDITORS NOTE: This column is a PARODY of letters to the editor. The ideas herein are expressed for satiric purposes, and NOT because the author necessarily feels that way.)
Dear Editor:
I was shocked and appalled to pick up The Daily Universe today and discover that all the R-rated movies were omitted from the movie listings. I dare you to show me any quote from any general authority in which we are specifically told not to see R-rated movies. Wasn’t it part of Satan’s plan to force us all to be a certain way and take away our free agency? And by not printing R-rated movie listings, and by telling us we’re not allowed to read any other newspapers, and by denying us access to the Internet to check for ourselves, isn’t The Daily Universe instituting Satan’s plan? It makes me feel mad, yet at the same time, very angry.
I am sick, not to mention tired, of people ripping on President Clinton. The man is our president! He deserves respect. The article printed in your paper last week in which it was implied that he may have had some kind of sexual relationship with a woman not his wife was totally uncalled for, and completely unfounded. Where on earth did you find apostate sources who would say such a false, not to mention untrue, kind of thing?! I expect more from the Lord’s university, as well as the Lord’s student-produced newspaper produced in the Lord’s Wilkinson Center. I do not have time to look up a scripture to quote here, but rest assured that I could.
And as long as I’ve got your attention, let me mention that as I walked across campus the other day, I noticed that the statue of the family outside the Smith Family Living Center (or “S-F-L-C,” as it is often disrespectfully called by some apostate people) is highly offensive (and, I might add, liable to offend people). While BYU has well over seven students who are from the remote island nation of Concuman, not a single one of the three people in this statue family is of that nationality. How can the sculptor ignore the diversity we have at BYU and insist on making all three members of the family of the same race? It’s the kind of ignorance you read about in certain passages of scripture, which I mention merely to remind you that I have read the scriptures. Such ignorance amazes me, but more importantly, it also surprises me. I expected more from the Lord’s sculptor. I won’t stand for it, nor will I take this lying down. I suppose I’ll have to sit.
Speaking of sitting, what’s up with the apostate people who insist on sitting down at sporting events, who then get mad at the rest of us for standing up in front of them and cheering? Last week, right after reading my scriptures, I attended the BYU Men’s Kickball game, and whenever the team captain would roll the ball, me and my friends would all stand up and jump around and scream like morons for a few minutes. Then we would sit down for approximately two seconds, at which point we would jump up again. And the elderly gentleman behind us, who I believe was apostate, who was confined to a wheelchair and had to use a respirator, had the nerve to ask us to sit down and be quiet, which he did via a hand-written note, because he was too weak to talk. What, does he think he owns the place? I couldn’t believe his rudeness, nor will I forgive him for it, nor should I even HAVE to forgive him. I dare you to show me even ONE place in the scriptures, which I read frequently, where we are told to forgive others. I was disappointed to see such rudeness coming from the Lord’s elderly person.
And while we’re discussing sports, let me mention another problem: apostate people who get mad at you for booing our football team when they do poorly. As a tithing-payer (tithing is mentioned several times in the scriptures; I should know, for I have read them), I feel I own most, if not all, of the stadium. So why shouldn’t I be allowed to turn on my own team if I want to? I suppose next you’ll say that when my wife accidentally burns dinner, I shouldn’t boo her, too? It makes me shake my head and sigh the way people can be so blind. Many of these blind people are also unseeing.
I recently saw President Bateman walking across campus wearing socks that were not blue. I was so surprised, I almost dropped my scriptures. I cannot believe this man can one minute encourage us to wear blue to the football games, and the next minute walk around wearing something that is not blue. I call for his immediate impeachment, unless this is not possible, in which case I call for a McDonald’s combo meal #4.
Another thing that shocked and appalled me was your apostate “humor” columnist’s so-called “humor column” from eight or nine “weeks” ago, in which he made fun of a thing I like. Now, I’ve always found “him” to be funny before, but this time he went too far, and now I’ve decided he’s not funny, and in fact he never was. How dare he make fun of a thing I like! To do such a thing is unconscionable (I looked that word up just now; it means “bad”), not to mention blasphemous, sacrilegious, unholy, profane, unconscionable, and bad. If you’re going to keep printing such trashy garbage, I am going to stop buying your free paper. I expect that sort of thing from Howard Stern or Satan, but not from the Lord’s humor columnist. My sense of humor was blown off in a boat explosion several years ago, and that’s why I don’t find anything funny, but so what? Show me one place where any general authority has ever said anything funny, or any place in the scriptures where we are told to be cheerful. There are lots of places, aren’t there? And that’s exactly my point.
I thought it was in extremely poor taste to run a “theater review” in which your “reviewer” said something negative. How can anything be bad? What kind of weird world do YOU live in?
I was further dismayed and horrified to read an “article” in last Tuesday’s Daily Universe with the “headline,” “Divorced Utah Democrat — in that order.” Why are you spotlighting “people” who have been divorced? Do you want the rest of the world to follow in their perverted “footsteps”? Is that the kind of agenda you’re pushing now “?” You sicken me to the point that my stomach has turned itself inside out and is working its way up my esophagus.
Another thing that sickened me, and also made me feel sick, was when I was “driving” the other day on campus, while I was reading my scriptures. This apostate girl next to me cut me off, so I honked my horn politely and politely screamed an obscenity at her, politely. Then this girl had the nerve to make an obscene gesture at me! How would her bishop — who I assume signed her ecclesiastical endorsement, although it would not surprise me if a low-class individual like this girl actually forged his signature, after killing him with her bare hands — feel about this? I weep for the future of this great nation if this is the sort of $*&@!% the young people are doing. I was shocked, appalled, saddened, disgusted, mortified, humiliated, outraged, indignant, pompous, self-righteous, Pharisaical, nit-picky, hypocritical, unconscionable, bad, and embarrassed to call myself a BYU student. I was a lot of things. I’m still some of them now.
