Capitol Reef Trip

I may have had the best birthday present ever when I did the Cassidy Arch canyoneering adventure on my birthday this year. I went with Brian Hill’s BYU canyoneering class. The canyon is in Capitol Reef National Park. The first rappel at the top is 150 feet straight down over a cliff edge right beneath Cassidy Arch. It was astonishing. The gut-check at the top was pretty intense. You sort of had to ease yourself over the top by laying on your side and kind of rolling off, dropping your right foot to a tiny ledge where you could sort of get both feet out and then start rappelling. The next drop was another 150-footer with a much easier start but still more or less under Cassidy Arch. Then there were 5 more rappels. One was about a 100-footer where you passed by another arch and dropped into a bit of a cathedral—a big open quarter-sphere of rock. People who have done many canyons said that these drops are as beautiful as they come. It was amazing. The day before we hiked Sulpher Creek, which was a fun little adventure with pretty waterfalls and lots of tromping through a nice creek and a couple of downclimbs.

This past Thursday and Friday I went with Wade and Stirling down to a cabin between Torrey and Boulder outside Capitol Reef. We hired a guide and went fly fishing Thursday. He essentially has a private stream in a beautiful canyon on Boulder Creek. It’s forest service land, but you have to cross private property to get there, and only he has permission. It’s a gorgeous piece of stream, but it was cold, running high and had a lot of “color” (dirt, etc.), so the fish weren’t biting much. The guide taught me a lot, but I didn’t catch a fish and neither did he. This embarrassed him somewhat. The next day we hiked Upper Muley Twist, a five-star hike I’ve been eyeing for a while in my hike book. It was spectacular. We saw a total of about 8 arches. We followed the canyon floor on the way up and it got pretty narrow, and then we climbed to the top of the Waterpocket Fold, about 200 feet up, and the view from the top was non-stop. We could practically see all the way to Lake Powell. Also astonishing.

And the weekend before I took a canyoneering class designed to train scout leaders. I learned a ton about how to rig anchors and rappelling devices and tie knots and rescue people in the middle of a rappel and so forth. It was very cool. I really want to go out and practice a lot! But I’m also still learning and so cautious. . . . I need to go out and do a canyon in a small, competent group so I can practice and they can observe me. I also should really take a climbing class so I can get better at climbing. Lots of places require some downclimbing or upclimbing. So much to learn! So fun!

In between, I’ve enjoyed Nathan’s soccer games and loved playing Dominion, the awesome new card game I got for my birthday and everyone is totally addicted to.

Films on British Royalty and Politics

My question for the week is: Why do we have great films about British royalty and politicians, but no great films about their equivalent, American presidents?

Ellen and I saw the edited version of the King's Speech Friday night. It was a wonderful movie and deserved its awards. It's nice to see a great movie about a simple topic with a morally beautiful and sincere heart involving friendship, dedication, and fundamental human decency. What I mean by this last phrase is that the characters involved are certainly not perfect, but they try very hard to be good to others and to overcome their weaknesses and problems. They become entangled in difficult situations and work to resolve them humanely and with good will.

I have noted this quality in other films about the royal family and, more broadly, politics in Britain. Three in particular worth mentioning are The Queen, Mrs. Brown, and one of my all-time favorites, Amazing Grace. I should also mention Henry V with Kenneth Branagh, my favorite Shakespeare play set to film; I've never seen a live theatre version of it. All of them portray royalty and politicians in complex, sophisticated ways that impart a certain sympathy for their difficult positions. They are not power-hungry, manipulative, or exceedingly vain and ambitious, which is the streotype for politicians or royalty. They are human beings with interesting strengths and weaknesses placed in difficult public situations with no clear way forward.

There are others out there that I've heard of but not seen. This website has a nice list: http://enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com/2008/02/movies-of-british-royalty.html. Some are undesirable because they're too much about sex, but many seem quite good. I would like to see a few more.

So, why don't we have equivalent films about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, etc.? I suppose I have not seen many films about politics in America. Perhaps I'm afraid they will be so badly done that I don't want to. There was a period when I enjoyed The West Wing TV show, at least the first season or so. But then I saw a couple of episodes where it was just pure nasty politics and hatred, which seemed pretty superficial and shallow. Yes, people engage in political strategy designed to hurt opponents, but that is not all they do and it is not the most important thing they do, and it is far from the most interesting thing they do.

Despite all the negativity and hostility that one observes in the media about American politics, almost anyone who works on Capitol Hill or in the White House will tell you that relationships among people in Washington are not nearly as bad as they seem. Lots of important work gets done, compromises are struck, friendships among rivals exist and even flourish, decorum generally prevails, humor exists and even thrives, and flawed people do the best they can under difficult circumstances, with imperfect results. Why can't we show that? Perhaps there are some movies that do so. I would love to be enlightened.

And, if you haven't seen Amazing Grace, go see it. It's the best film about politics I've ever seen, and the best film about a moral cause I've ever seen. The producer of that film, Michael Flaherty, has also produced a number of other excellent films (Narnia films, Nim's Island, Holes). He set out explicitly to do so: to bring good, moral, high-quality family films to Hollywood. He has, astonishingly, succeeded. He doesn't just make Christian films; he makes good Christian films well, in the heart of an industry and culture that, well, struggles morally. He recently gave the forum address at BYU. It is one of the best speeches I've ever heard. You can check out the MP3 version here: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1944. It is completely worthy of your time and would make a nice FHE for older kids.