Posts Tagged ‘ politics ’

I attended the Ogden Film Festival last week (officially known as the Foursite Film Festival) and saw 2 films: The Religious Test and Cleanflix: the Documentary.  I thought I would give my impressions. The producer and director for The Religious Test noted that in 1967, 17% of Americans refused to vote for a Mormon (at [...]

The Community of Christ has begun “crossing the Rubicon” on LGBT issues, and there can be no reversing the action taken. CofChrist is committed to the theological precedent that priesthood can be compatible with participation in a legally recognized same-sex sexual relationship. On June 2nd, the Australian National Conference approved the following recommendation to the [...]

A couple of months ago, while gathering up all of the data required to “render unto the IRS” and trying to feel better about all of the work involved in doing so, I ran across an interesting piece of Biblical literary criticism. It became even more interesting to me when I started thinking about the [...]

Liberty University, founded by Moral Majority leader and evangelical Jerry Falwell, recently invited Mitt Romney to speak at commencement exercises.  Several students boycotted the commencement address by Romney, choosing not to attend.  Christianity Today had an interesting article titled Why Jerry Falwell Sr. Isn’t Rolling In His Grave over Romney’s Liberty Invitation. The subtitle was “And what [...]

Just what is Mormon culture?  Recently, as I read Joanna Brooks’ memoir, I noted that there were several elements of culture that I shared with her (dance festivals – on a much less grand scale, open-minded BYU professors).  But there were many that differed from my own experiences (apocalyptic food storage, pioneer heritage, and Marie Osmond [...]

“Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness. It’s not fairness as equality of outcome. It’s fairness as karma — the idea that good deeds lead to good outcomes, and bad [...]

I still contend I was not being insensitive — just naive. I arrived on the East Coast in 1973 — freshly out of grad school — having been selected for the one job at John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab I’d wanted more than any other I’d even considered applying for. After my church had canonized [...]

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the TV show “Alaska State Troopers” on the National Geographic Channel. The pleasure part comes from seeing spectacular scenery and wildlife like moose and bears I’ll never be able to visit in real life. However, the guilty part comes because most episodes also pose the question as to [...]

How does knowing you’re supposed to grow up being part of the “aristocracy” affect a political candidate’s ability to connect with everyday people? In elementary school in the 1950′s, we used to be given as “enrichment” a little news magazine called the Weekly Reader tailored toward stories on current events that would appeal to children. [...]

The laws that govern normal behavior on earth (e.g., “Thou shalt not kill”) do not apply in heaven, because there they are unnecessary. The laws that govern normal behavior on earth also do not apply in hell, because there no one can hope to keep them. I am not the first to notice that “war [...]

After welcoming everyone with a “Happy New Year”, the Salt Lake Tribune posted a headline “LDS view on role of governing is distinct.”  What caught my attention was the subheadline: “Church doctrine says it is unjust to mix religion and civil government.”  As I mentioned in a previous post, even Richard Bushman has called Brigham [...]

Plan A was to have the economy humming by now and see Obama cruise to re-election on the success of Keynesian counter-cyclical stimulus. Hope and change would have proven itself superior to the failed policies of the Republican past and the country would eagerly follow Obama into yet more “transformational” policies in his second term. [...]

In case you missed it, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOzHIbraJ0E&feature=related

“Only two of the 18 launched lifeboats rescued people after the ship sank. Lifeboat 4 was close by and picked up five people, two of whom later died. Close to an hour later, lifeboat 14 went back and rescued four people, one of whom died afterward. Other people managed to climb onto the lifeboats that floated off [...]

The United States has been preoccupied with economic issues and domestic politics. So it was shocking to have the Attorney General of the United States call a news conference to announce that Iran’s government was implicated in a plot to murder the Saudi Ambassador to Washington while in the city and (from other sources) conduct [...]

I can remember making 3 bets in my life — all the result of foolish pride leading me astray. Barely above the age of accountability at the time of the first bet, I was sitting in my kitchen while my mother gave me a haircut when she made some terribly offensive remark about how cute [...]

A friend of mine introduced me to the Freakonomics podcast that you can download from iTunes.  Two Steve’s (Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt) put together a book called Freakonomics.  They seek to uncover “the hidden side of everything.”  Netflix has the Freakonomics movie, and you can watch it here (if you have a streaming Netflix [...]

As an insulin-dependent diabetic for more than 47 years, I’ve had to become far more familiar with numbers measuring my medical condition than I’d ever wanted. By my teenage years, I knew what glucose readings meant in regard to how soon and what I had to eat, or how much insulin I needed to inject, [...]

If Facebook is any indication, Americans are becoming even more politically polarized over the current budget deficit debate.  Each side seems to feel strongly that the other major political party is to blame.  Republicans blame the Democrats for social entitlement programs.  Democrats blame Republicans for “trickle down economics.”    Both parties blame the other for being [...]

To paraphrase Jon Huntsman Jr., diplomacy is the art of saying something when there is nothing to say, and saying nothing when there is something to say.  Blogging (and 24 hour news) is pretty good at the first half of that, but fairly lousy at the second half.  That’s because blogging relies on rehashing old arguments, hyperbole, [...]