The Brigham Young University Marriott School of Management graduated its class of 2009 Friday, 24 April 2009, 5:00 p.m. BYU graduated 6000 students this spring, and the business school graduated a major village of that community. It took 20 minutes for the young people in the cap and gowns to march into the Marriott Center. It took almost another hour for each graduate to march in a line past an announcer who read her and his name to the congregation and then walk past the deans and high mucky mucks of the business department.
It seems like only yesterday that Billy Dalebout, my friend of long standing, was age 6 and laughing uproariously at his line in my ward’s primary program. Today, he became a man, or at least he graduated from the Marriott School of Business with a Masters Degree in Public Administration. I attended the Friday afternoon convocation at which the school leadership handed him his degree. His father Richard Dalebout, the Marriott School’s distinguished professor of Business Law, gave him a hug in public on the rostrum. I have known Richard and his wife Evelyn and their children for more than 35 years. Richard retires from teaching Friday and will soon be serving an LDS mission in Kinshasa with Evelyn. When the master of ceremonies mentioned this upcoming mission in his remarks from the pulpit, I turned to Evelyn and noted that the People’s Democratic Republic of Congo needs all the accountants it can get. [8^>) Protracted civil wars are expensive and require expensive bookkeeping.
It is an Alice in Wonderland sort of experience attending a Business School Convocation in the midst of the Great Depression of 2008 – 2009. The rhetoric inside the Marriott Center was all uplifting and positive, despite the rain of shoes during the past year.
I predict that the average business career of these graduates with their mint MBA degrees will last probably to 2054, maybe 2060 – depending on how long we live in the 21st Century and if the workers still have to service Social Security for the hoards of retired people and beneficiaries.
I also predict that business will be an entirely different sort of creation then. If anything the depression of 2008 onward will teach us that many of our assumptions about life in Technological civilization and business in particular have turned out to be quite bogus.
From about 1981 to 2007, the leaders and teachers of business schools, including those in the Marriott School, told us that modern business required advanced degrees because of the complexities of modern business. They also told us we had to pay these business leaders salaries and bonuses that were several hundred times what their workers got in pay, because we had to attract the best and the brightest and keep the best and the brightest with money. This means that modern business has the most expensive educated and the most heavily compensated CEOs and presidents and vice presidents EVER. Many of these expensive business leaders set the standard and the record for bad, incompetent and illegal behavior.
The professors and the business experts also taught us of the free market almost in mystical terms. They claimed it can solve all business problems, and that it should not be cluttered with laws and regulation. 2009 has taught us those were lies designed to distract the public and the government while the CEOs and the business experts pillaged with impunity.
My friend Billy now earnestly searches for a career in government. His career will probably be rather different from what he might have expected just a few short months ago. Too many in the private financial sector have so thoroughly and completely made a pig’s breakfast of the economy. As a result the private industry as a whole does not have the credibility necessary to take the lead. Now is the next great age of big government. The shape of these governments remains to be seen.
The events of the past two years illustrate that most business majors have forgotten the first and most important rule of business: if you are incompetent, you must be honest. If you are crooked, you must be clever. Many financial agents and gurus apparently were neither.
The featured speaker should have reminded the graduates of that rule. The star Professor of the Marriott School, Professor Albrecht will soon retire to serve a 3-year term as president of the Japan Tokyo Mission. The master of ceremonies predicted that he would not only be great as a mission president but transformational.
ASIDE – I always wonder how much more successful the LDS Missionary Program would have been if it had not been taken over by bureaucrats and general authorities who saw a mission as a rite of passage instead of an opportunity to teach and baptize people. I also wonder how much more successful the whole program would have been if they had found a way to get more Mormons on shorter, less-expensive missions. The Mormon mission experience started as a two to three year experience out of necessity because of the small numbers of available missionaries and the length of time it took to travel to far flung places. In the 21st century, the mission and its leaders have not kept up with modern times.
Professor Albrecht’s address contained the usual types of cliches that we get in talks of this type:
The importance of being a friend who inspires other to greatness, who helps others in times of need.
The importance of both serving an LDS mission and getting a BYU business degree in developing a strong testimony of the Church. From his definition, there must be few really strong testimonies in the Church.
ASIDE -- I have racked my brains to remember if anyone at my College of Humanities Convocation told us that a strong testimony of the Church depended on serving a mission and getting a Humanities degree, but who knows? My memory on that subject is getting a little grey and misty. I know plenty of people in other departments and colleges and in the administration so downright suspicious of the Humanities Department that they would reject that idea on principle. On the other hand, how many BYU Humanities majors helped swindle the aged out of the pensions in the past ten years, versus the number of BYU law and business major.
It fascinates me the extent to which BYU’s culture and the orthodox LDS priesthood subculture are both intensely and openly workaholic. To illustrate here are a couple of bits from Albrecht talk on the subject of “the triangle of personal character,” the three sides of this triangle being education, personal qualities and ( of course, this being BYU) gospel principles.
Albrecht believes in triangles. He developed the idea of the triangle of business fraud which is something like perceived gains, perceived peer pressure in the corporation, and money available to swindle. The master of ceremonies touted him as an expert on the subject, and Albrecht told us a story of the time an organization he worked for went corrupt and he got listed as a defendant in the 17 various lawsuits. He urged the corp to just come clean and take its punishments. Easy for him to say.
He urges the graduates to be unashamedly ambitious. – that we should always do your utmost best, work as long as is necessary, work long hours, do not obsess over credit. Do not use family or church as an excuse to not to get in and work hard and long on career assignments and getting ahead.
Albrecht also told us we should always hold home evenings and should always serve in the church, which he apparently sees in terms of positions first service second since he tells us about the times that he drove three hours both ways from his cabin to do his Sunday leadership work in Provo then back to the cabin.
He also said that we should not use business as an excuse not to serve in the Church. This means he used the same rationale in advocating workaholicness at work and workaholicness at Church.
COMMENTARY If more men in this Church would take their priesthood seriously, we would not have to burn out the same men in different positions repeatedly. I will not even mention the improvement it would be to ordain the women as well.
Professor Albrecht encouraged the graduates to Leverage our business trips to turn them into family time. Considering how expensive air travel currently has become, and considering how expensive air travel will soon become in the carbon-footprint obsessed future, it is probably not a good idea to tell students to double and triple the costs of business travel for the sake of quality time with kids and spouse.
Integrity he emphasized, which business professors always say to give things the gloss of moral philosophy. He gave us no definitions.
COMMENTARY Integrity is one of the most overrated of the supposed values. Integrity is always a matter of other people’s definitions, and in America at least, the definitions of business integrity are either shallow or vague. The whole financial disasters of 2007 and 2008 and the current gathering depression of 2009 happened in the context of supposed business integrity. Both fraud and integrity in business are a matter of definitions. He should have told us that we should be careful to understand our potential employers’ definitions of integrity and fraud before we get involved with them.
Meanwhile across campus, Mat Stokes, the 25 year old son of my next door neighbors Randy and Robin Stokes, a man I have known for nearly 40 years and a woman I have known for an even longer period of time, graduated today in human physiology / pre-medicine. His wife graduated in computer science.
In August they move to Dallas. He will start his studies at a Dallas medical school. She will work in one of Dallas's Technology industries. Mat had the foresight to take with him to Dallas a wife and a best boy friend. He also graduated in BYU's pre-medicine program; they will study together at the same Dallas Medical School.
I do hope that Matt Jenny and Billy did not let school get in the way of their educations and will not confuse paid employment with a useful career.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
WAR CRIMES: Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own.
Preserved from today's headlines:
On opposite poles: two Mormons on torture
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12239925?source=most_viewed
Updated:04/27/2009 06:08:52 PM MDT
Just weeks into the war in Iraq, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said the conflict could be justified as an effort to defend liberty and depose a dictator.
God would not hold soldiers responsible "as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do."
But, like church leaders before him, he said nothing about torture.
Into that gap, two faithful Mormons -- an interrogator and a government attorney -- reached very different conclusions of conscience:
Long before Hinckley spoke, Justice Department attorney Jay Bybee signed the infamous memo outlining a 10-step checklist of horrors that ended with making al Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed think they were drowning -- a total of 266 times.
Just five months after that conference talk, Army interrogator Alyssa Peterson killed herself after refusing to use the degrading techniques Bybee endorsed on prisoners at her air base in Tal Afar.
Since President Barack Obama released four Justice Department memos detailing this country's post-9/11 descent into the heart of darkness, Peterson and Bybee's stories have been spliced and splashed about the blogosphere, in newspapers and on cable. Along with the two CIA psychologists known around the office as the "Mormon Mafia," they're a curiosity: Members of the same faith who arrived at opposing extremes of the torture debate with very different results.
For his good soldiering, Bybee got a tenured post on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
For her conscientious objecting, Peterson was reprimanded and relegated to grunt work.
Six years on, it's easy to second-guess. The day after the twin towers fell, we all wanted revenge. America was consumed by the kind of xenophobic blood lust that led our grandparents to round up Japanese-Americans and deposit them in detention camps. But 60 years later, we were supposed to have learned from our mistakes.
RIGHT ASCENSION TAKES A STAND
I have heard for years Mormon leaders say "God would not hold soldiers responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do." God, however, does not rationalize as mankind when it comes to the distinctions of legal and ethical.
When a soldier gets an order from an officer, whether that officer's order is legal, illegal, good, bad, self-defense, or offensive, the order is an abstraction, an idea. When the soldier does the order, it becomes factual history.
Shakespeare's historical chronicle Henry V features in Act IV an interesting discussion on this subject. The King in disguise wanders through his the night before the Battle of Agincourt and gets into this philosophical discussion
WILLIAMS
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
KING HENRY V
So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's
damnation:
but this is not so: the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery.
Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance; so that here men are punished for before-breach of the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish: then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited.
Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained: and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS
'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the king is not to answer it.
One wishes George W. Bush had such a roundness of style. Oh well. As Sam Dodworth once observed, when he confronted his wife's lover: "This is not Shakespeare. We don't speak in blank verse any more." Even so, there is a certain amount of rationalization in both sides here. However, one should never confuse the appearance of things with the essence of things.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress and the Obama Adminstration need to get out of denial. The justice department and the Courts at the Hague should punish everyone that committed crimes against humanity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
On opposite poles: two Mormons on torture
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12239925?source=most_viewed
Updated:04/27/2009 06:08:52 PM MDT
Just weeks into the war in Iraq, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said the conflict could be justified as an effort to defend liberty and depose a dictator.
God would not hold soldiers responsible "as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do."
But, like church leaders before him, he said nothing about torture.
Into that gap, two faithful Mormons -- an interrogator and a government attorney -- reached very different conclusions of conscience:
Long before Hinckley spoke, Justice Department attorney Jay Bybee signed the infamous memo outlining a 10-step checklist of horrors that ended with making al Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed think they were drowning -- a total of 266 times.
Just five months after that conference talk, Army interrogator Alyssa Peterson killed herself after refusing to use the degrading techniques Bybee endorsed on prisoners at her air base in Tal Afar.
Since President Barack Obama released four Justice Department memos detailing this country's post-9/11 descent into the heart of darkness, Peterson and Bybee's stories have been spliced and splashed about the blogosphere, in newspapers and on cable. Along with the two CIA psychologists known around the office as the "Mormon Mafia," they're a curiosity: Members of the same faith who arrived at opposing extremes of the torture debate with very different results.
For his good soldiering, Bybee got a tenured post on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
For her conscientious objecting, Peterson was reprimanded and relegated to grunt work.
Six years on, it's easy to second-guess. The day after the twin towers fell, we all wanted revenge. America was consumed by the kind of xenophobic blood lust that led our grandparents to round up Japanese-Americans and deposit them in detention camps. But 60 years later, we were supposed to have learned from our mistakes.
RIGHT ASCENSION TAKES A STAND
I have heard for years Mormon leaders say "God would not hold soldiers responsible as agents of their government in carrying forward that which they are legally obligated to do." God, however, does not rationalize as mankind when it comes to the distinctions of legal and ethical.
When a soldier gets an order from an officer, whether that officer's order is legal, illegal, good, bad, self-defense, or offensive, the order is an abstraction, an idea. When the soldier does the order, it becomes factual history.
Shakespeare's historical chronicle Henry V features in Act IV an interesting discussion on this subject. The King in disguise wanders through his the night before the Battle of Agincourt and gets into this philosophical discussion
WILLIAMS
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.
KING HENRY V
So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's
damnation:
but this is not so: the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery.
Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance; so that here men are punished for before-breach of the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish: then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited.
Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained: and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS
'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the king is not to answer it.
One wishes George W. Bush had such a roundness of style. Oh well. As Sam Dodworth once observed, when he confronted his wife's lover: "This is not Shakespeare. We don't speak in blank verse any more." Even so, there is a certain amount of rationalization in both sides here. However, one should never confuse the appearance of things with the essence of things.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress and the Obama Adminstration need to get out of denial. The justice department and the Courts at the Hague should punish everyone that committed crimes against humanity in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
IN MEMORIAM: BEATRICE ARTHUR 1922 - 2009
reports
Golden Girls star Bea Arthur dies at 86
Preserved from Yahoo! News
Reuters
electronic scrapbook entry for 26 April 2009
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy Award-winning actress Bea Arthur, best known as star of the hit TV comedies Maude and Golden Girls, has died at age 86, entertainment news websites reported on Saturday.
Arthur, a longtime stage actress whose comic timing and deadpan delivery were a perfect fit for her sharp-tongued roles on the two series, died of cancer at her Los Angeles home, celebrity website TMZ reported.
Representatives for the actress, who won best-actress Emmys – America's top television award -- for "Maude" and "Golden Girls," could not immediately be reached for comment.
"Thirty-seven years ago she showed me how to be very brave in playing comedy," one of Arthur's co-stars, Rue McClanahan, told TMZ in a statement. "I'll miss that courage and I'll miss that voice."
Born Beatrice Frankel in New York on May 13, 1922, Arthur began performing in college and appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway roles, winning a Tony Award opposite Angela Lansbury in Mame.
In the early 1970s, Arthur appeared on the groundbreaking television comedy All in the Family as Edith Bunker's fiercely liberal cousin Maude. Producers who saw gold in the role quickly devised a spinoff for the character.
"Maude" debuted on CBS in 1972 and became one of the top-rated sitcoms on U.S. television during its six-year run.
In a two-part episode that aired in November 1972, the show stirred protest and controversy when Maude decided to have an abortion because of her age. The procedure was legal in New York state, where the show was set, but not nationwide.
Two months later, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Arthur followed with "Golden Girls," an unlikely hit from 1985 to 1992 that featured four female retirees living together.
Central to the popularity of "Golden Girls" was the comic interplay between Arthur's character and her mother, played by Estelle Getty -- who in real life was a year younger and who also won an Emmy for the show.
Getty died last July at the age of 84.
According to CNN, no funeral services had been planned for Arthur. She is survived by two sons and two grandchildren, and family members have asked that in lieu of flowers donations be sent to two of her favorite causes, the ArtAttack foundation and the animal rights group PETA.
"People have lost one of the greatest comic actresses of all time and animals have lost one of their all-time greatest defenders," Dan Matthews, PETA senior vice president, said in a statement.
(Editing by Xavier Briand)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
FOR THE RECORD
Here are Beatrice Arthur’s credits on Broadway plays:
Lysistrata (1947)
The Dog Beneath the Skin (1947)
Yerma (1947)
No Exit (1948)
The Taming of the Shrew (1948)
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1948)
The Owl and the Pussycat (1948)
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1949)
Yes is for a Very Young Man (1949)
The Creditors (1949)
Heartbreak House (1949)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1951) Carol Channing’s big hit.
Personal Appearance (1951)
Candle Light (1951)
Love or Money (1951)
The Voice of the Turtle (1951) Vivian Vance was also in it.
The New Moon (1953)
The Threepenny Opera (1954) Kurt Weill’s great hit.
What's the Rush? (1955)
Shoestring Revue (1955)
Plain and Fancy (1955)
Seventh Heaven (1955)
Mistress of the Inn (1956)
The Ziegfeld Follies (1956) The last one.
Nature's Way (1957)
Ulysses in Nighttown (1958)
The Gay Divorcee at the Cherry Lane (1960)
A Matter of Position (1962)
Fiddler on the Roof (1964) as the first Yenta “The way he sees and the way she looks, it is a perfect match.”
Mame (1966) “That was Helen Hayes.”
The Floating Lightbulb (1981)
La Fille du Regiment (1994)
Bermuda Avenue Triangle (1995-1996)
Angela Lansbury - A Celebration (November 17, 1996) (benefit concert)
After Play (1997-1998)
Strike Up The Band (2000)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Westport, CN (July 28–30, 2000)
And Then There's Bea United States Tour (Apr 24, 2001 – Jan 13, 2002)
Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends Manhattan (Jan 29 – Apr 14, 2002)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Santa Fe, NM (September 24, 2002)
And Then There's Bea Melbourne, Australia (Oct 15–27, 2002)
And Then There's Bea Sydney (Oct 29 – Nov 10, 2002)
Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends Toronto OT (Nov 20 – Dec 2002)
And Then There's Bea Johannesburg, South Africa (Aug 12–24, 2003)
And Then There's Bea Cape Town (Aug 26 – Sept 7, 2003)
Bea Arthur at The Savoy London (Sept 15 – Oct 18, 2003)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Los Angeles (Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Saugatuck, MI (May 22–23, 2004)
A Celebration of Life Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2004)
Bea Arthur at the El Portal North Hollywood, CA (Aug 5–8, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Provincetown, MA (Aug 21, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Columbus, GA (Oct 30, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Nyack, NY (Mar 4 – 6, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Fort Wayne, IN (Apr 17, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Mount Pleasant, MI (Apr 19, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Atlantic City, NJ (Jun 3–4, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Holmdel, NJ (Jun 7, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Las Vegas (Aug 27, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Hampton, VA (Sep 16–17, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Alexandria, VA (Sep 22, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Geneva, NY (Sept 24, 2005)
Bea Arthur Back on Broadway Manhattan (Nov 21, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur San Francisco (Jan 7, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Salem, OR (Jan 21, 2006)
Bea Arthur Back at the El Portal North Hollywood, CA (Feb 16–19, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Scottsdale, AZ (Feb 24–25, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur University Park, IL (Mar 19, 2006)
She was among the brightest comedy stars of television, but she bored easily. As a result, she never realized her most interesting television project.
AND THEN CAME MAUDE
I remember distinctly the episode "Cousin Maude's Visit" broadcast on 11 December 1971, Beatrice Arthur's first time appearance as “Maude Findley” in All in the Family. In those days, Norman Lear videotaped All in the Family in Television City in Hollywood, so she had traveled west from her New York City home base where she was a first magnitude star on Broadway and live east coast TV projects.
Even when she was young, she could nail her comic lines right to the mast.
“In a movie world full of Leslie Howards, Gregory Pecks and Clark Gables, he took Edith to see Buster Crabbe.”
“And for you Archie, cream and wheat with cheese. It’s light, but it binds.”
Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Beatrice Arthur by 1971 all had decades of experience in showbiznia, and their lines bounced delightfully from one to the other.
“I will take one ‘My fellow Americans’ to a thousand ‘let me make this perfectly clear’s.”
The Hollywood TV executives apparently did not know her that well, but they knew talent when they saw it and offered her a sitcom called Maude. All in the Family was Lear’s satire of New York conservatives. Maude was to be the satire of New York liberals.
I remember quite well the infamous 1972 broadcast of “Maude’s Dilemma” as described in admirably clarity by Wikipedia:
Maude had an abortion in November 1972, two months before the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal nationwide, and the episodes which dealt with the situation are probably the series' most famous and most controversial. Maude, at age 47, was crushed when she found herself pregnant, and everyone agreed with her that having a baby at her age was very risky and not a wise thing to happen. Her daughter, Carol, brought to her attention that abortion was now legal in New York state. After some soul-searching (and discussions with Walter, who agreed that raising a baby at their ages was not very wise), Maude tearfully decided at the end of the two-parter that abortion was probably the best choice. Noticing the wide controversy around the episode, CBS decided to rerun the episodes in August 1973, and members of the country's clergy reacted strongly to the decision. At least 30 stations dropped the show.[citation needed] Future Golden Girls creator Susan Harris was a writer on the episode.
I have incidentally seen some reports of this episode indicating that the whole thing turned out to be a laboratory paper work reading error, but I do not remember it that way.
This episode also dealt with vasectomies as well. In part two, husband Walter announces, “I’m going to have a vasectomy after golf.”
Maude replies without missing a beat: “It sounds like the name of a play by Noel Coward.”
When it wasn’t obsessing over what Preston Struges euphemistically referred to as "Subject A," Maude could be very funny. It also dealt with the topics of politics, mental health, and alcoholism. Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskoph, Lucy’s great writers, worked as senior writers / producers of Maude.
Today, conventional TV historians remember the abortion episode "Maude’s Dilemma," but forget a 1974 episode in which as the final line of the episode, to bring the house down with a big laugh, Maude calls her husband a son of a bitch. It was the first time I remember that vulgarity used in a TV sitcom for laughs. At CBS, Carroll O’Connor then Beatrice Arthur and Mary Tyler Moore broke down the barriers as to what adult language sitcoms could use for comic effect.
CBS’s great black situation comedy The Jeffersons spun off of All in the Family in 1975. CBS’s other great black situation comedy Good Times spun off from Maude and her first black housekeeper "Florida Evans", portrayed by Esther Rolle. Good Times somehow wound up in Chicago with John Amos, Ralph Carter, and Jimmie Walker. Good Times was actually too realistic to be funny. The Jeffersons I liked better because it was upper class Negro life, a lesson not lost on Bill Cosby when he created The Cosby Show for NBC in 1983.
MS ARTHUR DOES NOT GO TO WASHINGTON
In 1978, Lear had the brilliant idea to make "Maude Findlay" a liberal Democrat United States Representative from Westchester County and move Maude from suburban New York to the District of Columbia and the Maryland suburbs. Arthur, unfortunately, had bored of the role by then, and the series ended with Maude moving to D.C. Supposedly she filmed two episodes of the new series and then left it high and dry. I have, however, never seen a clip of either supposed episode.
Lear tried to resurrect the idea with a young liberal black representative portrayed by John Amos. Amos, famously, did not agree with Norman Lear on various artistic issues. He left Good Times over creative differences with Lear, and he left Onward and Upward over creative differences.
Wikipedia breathlessly describes what happened next
In early 1978, producer Norman Lear felt his long-running comedy Maude was getting stale, so he decided to enliven things by moving the show to Washington, D.C. and making the title character a congresswoman. After two episodes in this new setting, star Beatrice Arthur decided not to continue, and the show abruptly left the air. Lear, however, still believed in the concept, and filmed a new pilot tilted Onward and Upward, with essentially the same script and cast -- except with John Amos (as a black former pro football star running for the United States Congress) replacing Arthur. Creative differences between Amos (who had co-starred in Lear's Good Times) and the producers led to Amos bowing out; the show was renamed Mr. Dooley and finally Mr. Dugan. Cleavon Little (best known as the sheriff in the classic movie comedy Blazing Saddles) was hired as the title character, a fledgling black congressman. The supporting cast, however, remained the same.
Mr. Dugan had been scheduled for a March 11, 1979, premiere, and was heavily promoted by its network, CBS. A special screening for real black congressmen, however, proved to be an unmitigated disaster; many found the show "demeaning" and threatened a boycott of CBS if the program aired. Lear subsequently pulled the plug on Mr. Dugan, saying "we have not yet totally fulfilled our intention for the series."
The series was eventually reworked into the short lived series, Hanging In that aired on CBS in 1979.
Hanging In starred Bill Daly and took place in a University administration building. The whole darn thing would have been landmark funny with Beatrice Arthur in Washington.
I thought Golden Girls was one of the most funny of the NBC sitcoms of the Golden Age of NBC Sitcoms in 1983 - 1994. I did not like Cheers, though I liked Frasier. Cosby I loved. Night Court I loved. Golden Girls could be funny when it did not obsess over Subject A or Blanche Devereaux’s lack of sexual morals. The writers of Lucille Ball sitcom disaster Life with Lucy should have studied the Golden Girls carefully. The main reason to watch Golden Girls was Beatrice Arthur and the way she nailed her comic bon mots.
Eventually she got bored of that sitcom as well and left it.
FOR THE RECORD
I thought the Lucille Ball movie version of Mame (May 1974) was a good movie, not a great one. Beatrice Arthur reprised her role of "Vera Charles" again for the movie version and just about stole the show. At a celebration in honor of Jerry Herman, she joked that Mame was originally supposed to be titled "Vera." “Jerry said nothing could rhyme with Vera. [three beats of a pause ] Sondheim could have rhymed it.”
Beatrice Arthur was one of my favorites, a talent the likes of which we won’t see the likes of which again.
Golden Girls star Bea Arthur dies at 86
Preserved from Yahoo! News
Reuters
electronic scrapbook entry for 26 April 2009
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy Award-winning actress Bea Arthur, best known as star of the hit TV comedies Maude and Golden Girls, has died at age 86, entertainment news websites reported on Saturday.
Arthur, a longtime stage actress whose comic timing and deadpan delivery were a perfect fit for her sharp-tongued roles on the two series, died of cancer at her Los Angeles home, celebrity website TMZ reported.
Representatives for the actress, who won best-actress Emmys – America's top television award -- for "Maude" and "Golden Girls," could not immediately be reached for comment.
"Thirty-seven years ago she showed me how to be very brave in playing comedy," one of Arthur's co-stars, Rue McClanahan, told TMZ in a statement. "I'll miss that courage and I'll miss that voice."
Born Beatrice Frankel in New York on May 13, 1922, Arthur began performing in college and appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway roles, winning a Tony Award opposite Angela Lansbury in Mame.
In the early 1970s, Arthur appeared on the groundbreaking television comedy All in the Family as Edith Bunker's fiercely liberal cousin Maude. Producers who saw gold in the role quickly devised a spinoff for the character.
"Maude" debuted on CBS in 1972 and became one of the top-rated sitcoms on U.S. television during its six-year run.
In a two-part episode that aired in November 1972, the show stirred protest and controversy when Maude decided to have an abortion because of her age. The procedure was legal in New York state, where the show was set, but not nationwide.
Two months later, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Arthur followed with "Golden Girls," an unlikely hit from 1985 to 1992 that featured four female retirees living together.
Central to the popularity of "Golden Girls" was the comic interplay between Arthur's character and her mother, played by Estelle Getty -- who in real life was a year younger and who also won an Emmy for the show.
Getty died last July at the age of 84.
According to CNN, no funeral services had been planned for Arthur. She is survived by two sons and two grandchildren, and family members have asked that in lieu of flowers donations be sent to two of her favorite causes, the ArtAttack foundation and the animal rights group PETA.
"People have lost one of the greatest comic actresses of all time and animals have lost one of their all-time greatest defenders," Dan Matthews, PETA senior vice president, said in a statement.
(Editing by Xavier Briand)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
FOR THE RECORD
Here are Beatrice Arthur’s credits on Broadway plays:
Lysistrata (1947)
The Dog Beneath the Skin (1947)
Yerma (1947)
No Exit (1948)
The Taming of the Shrew (1948)
Six Characters in Search of an Author (1948)
The Owl and the Pussycat (1948)
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1949)
Yes is for a Very Young Man (1949)
The Creditors (1949)
Heartbreak House (1949)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1951) Carol Channing’s big hit.
Personal Appearance (1951)
Candle Light (1951)
Love or Money (1951)
The Voice of the Turtle (1951) Vivian Vance was also in it.
The New Moon (1953)
The Threepenny Opera (1954) Kurt Weill’s great hit.
What's the Rush? (1955)
Shoestring Revue (1955)
Plain and Fancy (1955)
Seventh Heaven (1955)
Mistress of the Inn (1956)
The Ziegfeld Follies (1956) The last one.
Nature's Way (1957)
Ulysses in Nighttown (1958)
The Gay Divorcee at the Cherry Lane (1960)
A Matter of Position (1962)
Fiddler on the Roof (1964) as the first Yenta “The way he sees and the way she looks, it is a perfect match.”
Mame (1966) “That was Helen Hayes.”
The Floating Lightbulb (1981)
La Fille du Regiment (1994)
Bermuda Avenue Triangle (1995-1996)
Angela Lansbury - A Celebration (November 17, 1996) (benefit concert)
After Play (1997-1998)
Strike Up The Band (2000)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Westport, CN (July 28–30, 2000)
And Then There's Bea United States Tour (Apr 24, 2001 – Jan 13, 2002)
Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends Manhattan (Jan 29 – Apr 14, 2002)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Santa Fe, NM (September 24, 2002)
And Then There's Bea Melbourne, Australia (Oct 15–27, 2002)
And Then There's Bea Sydney (Oct 29 – Nov 10, 2002)
Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends Toronto OT (Nov 20 – Dec 2002)
And Then There's Bea Johannesburg, South Africa (Aug 12–24, 2003)
And Then There's Bea Cape Town (Aug 26 – Sept 7, 2003)
Bea Arthur at The Savoy London (Sept 15 – Oct 18, 2003)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Los Angeles (Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Saugatuck, MI (May 22–23, 2004)
A Celebration of Life Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2004)
Bea Arthur at the El Portal North Hollywood, CA (Aug 5–8, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Provincetown, MA (Aug 21, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Columbus, GA (Oct 30, 2004)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Nyack, NY (Mar 4 – 6, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Fort Wayne, IN (Apr 17, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Mount Pleasant, MI (Apr 19, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Atlantic City, NJ (Jun 3–4, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Holmdel, NJ (Jun 7, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Las Vegas (Aug 27, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Hampton, VA (Sep 16–17, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Alexandria, VA (Sep 22, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Geneva, NY (Sept 24, 2005)
Bea Arthur Back on Broadway Manhattan (Nov 21, 2005)
An Evening with Bea Arthur San Francisco (Jan 7, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Salem, OR (Jan 21, 2006)
Bea Arthur Back at the El Portal North Hollywood, CA (Feb 16–19, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur Scottsdale, AZ (Feb 24–25, 2006)
An Evening with Bea Arthur University Park, IL (Mar 19, 2006)
She was among the brightest comedy stars of television, but she bored easily. As a result, she never realized her most interesting television project.
AND THEN CAME MAUDE
I remember distinctly the episode "Cousin Maude's Visit" broadcast on 11 December 1971, Beatrice Arthur's first time appearance as “Maude Findley” in All in the Family. In those days, Norman Lear videotaped All in the Family in Television City in Hollywood, so she had traveled west from her New York City home base where she was a first magnitude star on Broadway and live east coast TV projects.
Even when she was young, she could nail her comic lines right to the mast.
“In a movie world full of Leslie Howards, Gregory Pecks and Clark Gables, he took Edith to see Buster Crabbe.”
“And for you Archie, cream and wheat with cheese. It’s light, but it binds.”
Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, and Beatrice Arthur by 1971 all had decades of experience in showbiznia, and their lines bounced delightfully from one to the other.
“I will take one ‘My fellow Americans’ to a thousand ‘let me make this perfectly clear’s.”
The Hollywood TV executives apparently did not know her that well, but they knew talent when they saw it and offered her a sitcom called Maude. All in the Family was Lear’s satire of New York conservatives. Maude was to be the satire of New York liberals.
I remember quite well the infamous 1972 broadcast of “Maude’s Dilemma” as described in admirably clarity by Wikipedia:
Maude had an abortion in November 1972, two months before the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal nationwide, and the episodes which dealt with the situation are probably the series' most famous and most controversial. Maude, at age 47, was crushed when she found herself pregnant, and everyone agreed with her that having a baby at her age was very risky and not a wise thing to happen. Her daughter, Carol, brought to her attention that abortion was now legal in New York state. After some soul-searching (and discussions with Walter, who agreed that raising a baby at their ages was not very wise), Maude tearfully decided at the end of the two-parter that abortion was probably the best choice. Noticing the wide controversy around the episode, CBS decided to rerun the episodes in August 1973, and members of the country's clergy reacted strongly to the decision. At least 30 stations dropped the show.[citation needed] Future Golden Girls creator Susan Harris was a writer on the episode.
I have incidentally seen some reports of this episode indicating that the whole thing turned out to be a laboratory paper work reading error, but I do not remember it that way.
This episode also dealt with vasectomies as well. In part two, husband Walter announces, “I’m going to have a vasectomy after golf.”
Maude replies without missing a beat: “It sounds like the name of a play by Noel Coward.”
When it wasn’t obsessing over what Preston Struges euphemistically referred to as "Subject A," Maude could be very funny. It also dealt with the topics of politics, mental health, and alcoholism. Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskoph, Lucy’s great writers, worked as senior writers / producers of Maude.
Today, conventional TV historians remember the abortion episode "Maude’s Dilemma," but forget a 1974 episode in which as the final line of the episode, to bring the house down with a big laugh, Maude calls her husband a son of a bitch. It was the first time I remember that vulgarity used in a TV sitcom for laughs. At CBS, Carroll O’Connor then Beatrice Arthur and Mary Tyler Moore broke down the barriers as to what adult language sitcoms could use for comic effect.
CBS’s great black situation comedy The Jeffersons spun off of All in the Family in 1975. CBS’s other great black situation comedy Good Times spun off from Maude and her first black housekeeper "Florida Evans", portrayed by Esther Rolle. Good Times somehow wound up in Chicago with John Amos, Ralph Carter, and Jimmie Walker. Good Times was actually too realistic to be funny. The Jeffersons I liked better because it was upper class Negro life, a lesson not lost on Bill Cosby when he created The Cosby Show for NBC in 1983.
MS ARTHUR DOES NOT GO TO WASHINGTON
In 1978, Lear had the brilliant idea to make "Maude Findlay" a liberal Democrat United States Representative from Westchester County and move Maude from suburban New York to the District of Columbia and the Maryland suburbs. Arthur, unfortunately, had bored of the role by then, and the series ended with Maude moving to D.C. Supposedly she filmed two episodes of the new series and then left it high and dry. I have, however, never seen a clip of either supposed episode.
Lear tried to resurrect the idea with a young liberal black representative portrayed by John Amos. Amos, famously, did not agree with Norman Lear on various artistic issues. He left Good Times over creative differences with Lear, and he left Onward and Upward over creative differences.
Wikipedia breathlessly describes what happened next
In early 1978, producer Norman Lear felt his long-running comedy Maude was getting stale, so he decided to enliven things by moving the show to Washington, D.C. and making the title character a congresswoman. After two episodes in this new setting, star Beatrice Arthur decided not to continue, and the show abruptly left the air. Lear, however, still believed in the concept, and filmed a new pilot tilted Onward and Upward, with essentially the same script and cast -- except with John Amos (as a black former pro football star running for the United States Congress) replacing Arthur. Creative differences between Amos (who had co-starred in Lear's Good Times) and the producers led to Amos bowing out; the show was renamed Mr. Dooley and finally Mr. Dugan. Cleavon Little (best known as the sheriff in the classic movie comedy Blazing Saddles) was hired as the title character, a fledgling black congressman. The supporting cast, however, remained the same.
Mr. Dugan had been scheduled for a March 11, 1979, premiere, and was heavily promoted by its network, CBS. A special screening for real black congressmen, however, proved to be an unmitigated disaster; many found the show "demeaning" and threatened a boycott of CBS if the program aired. Lear subsequently pulled the plug on Mr. Dugan, saying "we have not yet totally fulfilled our intention for the series."
The series was eventually reworked into the short lived series, Hanging In that aired on CBS in 1979.
Hanging In starred Bill Daly and took place in a University administration building. The whole darn thing would have been landmark funny with Beatrice Arthur in Washington.
I thought Golden Girls was one of the most funny of the NBC sitcoms of the Golden Age of NBC Sitcoms in 1983 - 1994. I did not like Cheers, though I liked Frasier. Cosby I loved. Night Court I loved. Golden Girls could be funny when it did not obsess over Subject A or Blanche Devereaux’s lack of sexual morals. The writers of Lucille Ball sitcom disaster Life with Lucy should have studied the Golden Girls carefully. The main reason to watch Golden Girls was Beatrice Arthur and the way she nailed her comic bon mots.
Eventually she got bored of that sitcom as well and left it.
FOR THE RECORD
I thought the Lucille Ball movie version of Mame (May 1974) was a good movie, not a great one. Beatrice Arthur reprised her role of "Vera Charles" again for the movie version and just about stole the show. At a celebration in honor of Jerry Herman, she joked that Mame was originally supposed to be titled "Vera." “Jerry said nothing could rhyme with Vera. [three beats of a pause ] Sondheim could have rhymed it.”
Beatrice Arthur was one of my favorites, a talent the likes of which we won’t see the likes of which again.
Friday, April 24, 2009
THE MISSION OF THE FUTURE: PRELUDE
Ripped from the headlines:
Hatch says LDS mission part of bill inspiration
Preserved from The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 04/22/2009 10:57:02 AM MDT
Tribune and wire
President Barack Obama, who got his political start as a community organizer, signed legislation Tuesday to more than triple the number of government-backed volunteers across the country at a cost of billions of dollars.
At a bill-signing ceremony at a public boarding school for disadvantaged youth before he headed off to a tree-planting project, Obama asked people to "stand up and play your part."
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who drafted the bill and served as the primary Republican sponsor, said: "Our country has a longstanding tradition of helping our neighbors, and I am honored to have been a part of such a monumental piece of legislation that will continue this valued tradition."
During the congressional debate, Hatch said he drew inspiration for the legislation from his two year mission for the LDS Church, which he served in the Great Lakes states. He said he wouldn't trade his two-year mission for all of the years he has served in the Senate.
Obama called Hatch "a class act" for leading the charge to rename the legislation the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
Heaven forbid I should write that Our Senior Senator from Utah has gone nuts, but at the very least his memory must be suffering from haziness. There is no kind way to put it. He says he would not trade his mission (2 years) for all his years (32 and counting) in the Senate. Really? Why?
He claims preference for two years of chastity, poverty, long tedious hard work without a guarantee of success, residing with guys he probably did not like, and enduring all sorts of people who considered LDs missionaries a pest on principle and did not want him in their town let alone their living rooms. . .
in favor of the United States Senate, where every last one of his whims is indulged, no questions asked, and lobbyests and staff treat him like a god, for years and years on end.
Yeah boy, he hopes they'll call him on a mission.
SPEAKING OF MISSIONS
I have speculated of late what exactly the Kennedy Serve America Act will do to the traditional concept of the Mormon Mission. Out of necessity, the LDS Missionary program has for long years relied on 19-year-old American guys because
(first) the restrictions associated with the late Selective Service.
(second) the unmovable timing traditions of university education.
If these two inconveniences of American lifetiming had not existed, the Church could have focused on more mature missionaries.
If the Service Act evolves into some sort of compulsory public service with educational benefits in the so-called Land of the Brave and Home of the Free closed quotes, it will become yet another competition for young men that the LDS Missionary System will have to compete for.
Hatch says LDS mission part of bill inspiration
Preserved from The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 04/22/2009 10:57:02 AM MDT
Tribune and wire
President Barack Obama, who got his political start as a community organizer, signed legislation Tuesday to more than triple the number of government-backed volunteers across the country at a cost of billions of dollars.
At a bill-signing ceremony at a public boarding school for disadvantaged youth before he headed off to a tree-planting project, Obama asked people to "stand up and play your part."
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who drafted the bill and served as the primary Republican sponsor, said: "Our country has a longstanding tradition of helping our neighbors, and I am honored to have been a part of such a monumental piece of legislation that will continue this valued tradition."
During the congressional debate, Hatch said he drew inspiration for the legislation from his two year mission for the LDS Church, which he served in the Great Lakes states. He said he wouldn't trade his two-year mission for all of the years he has served in the Senate.
Obama called Hatch "a class act" for leading the charge to rename the legislation the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
Heaven forbid I should write that Our Senior Senator from Utah has gone nuts, but at the very least his memory must be suffering from haziness. There is no kind way to put it. He says he would not trade his mission (2 years) for all his years (32 and counting) in the Senate. Really? Why?
He claims preference for two years of chastity, poverty, long tedious hard work without a guarantee of success, residing with guys he probably did not like, and enduring all sorts of people who considered LDs missionaries a pest on principle and did not want him in their town let alone their living rooms. . .
in favor of the United States Senate, where every last one of his whims is indulged, no questions asked, and lobbyests and staff treat him like a god, for years and years on end.
Yeah boy, he hopes they'll call him on a mission.
SPEAKING OF MISSIONS
I have speculated of late what exactly the Kennedy Serve America Act will do to the traditional concept of the Mormon Mission. Out of necessity, the LDS Missionary program has for long years relied on 19-year-old American guys because
(first) the restrictions associated with the late Selective Service.
(second) the unmovable timing traditions of university education.
If these two inconveniences of American lifetiming had not existed, the Church could have focused on more mature missionaries.
If the Service Act evolves into some sort of compulsory public service with educational benefits in the so-called Land of the Brave and Home of the Free closed quotes, it will become yet another competition for young men that the LDS Missionary System will have to compete for.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
FOUR CORNERS IN THE WRONG PLACE: AN EDITORIAL ABOUT UTAH BOUNDARIES
National Public Radio reported on 23 April that the Four Corners’s Monument is not located in the right place. This is how the AP reporter explains this odd situation.
Marker was off, but Four Corners monument legit
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12208248?IA...www.sltrib.com
Yahoo! News
AP
Wed Apr 22, 7:58 pm ET
By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY – Many a family touring the Southwest has made a stop in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado — all at the same time.
Or have they?
News reports this week that the site of the Four Corners monument was off by a whopping 2 1/2 miles drummed up some concern that anyone who ever got down on their hands and knees to touch four states at once had lived a bit of a lie.
Not to worry, government officials say. The marker is indeed the only place where four U.S. states meet, even though surveyors were a little off when they set the marker in 1875.
The marker is 1,807.14 feet east of where it should have been placed, said Dave Doyle, chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey, which defines and manages a national coordinate system. That's about the length of six football fields, but Doyle calls the measurement a "home run" given the limited tools surveyors had to work with back then.
"Their ability to replicate that exact point — what they did was phenomenal, what they did was spot on," Doyle said. "(They) nailed it."
There would be about a 2.5-mile discrepancy had the monument been measured to the 109th meridian west of the Prime Meridian passing through Greenwich, England, but Doyle said that isn't what happened. The statute creating Colorado's western boundary mandated measurement from the Washington Meridian, which passes through the old Naval Observatory in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
In any case, the measurement differences don't matter anymore, Doyle said, because "the monument controls."
"Where the marker is now is accepted," Doyle said. "Even if it's 10 miles off, once it's adopted by the states, which it has been, the numerical errors are irrelevant. It becomes the legal definition" of the Four Corners.
___
On the Net: National Geodetic Survey: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
BACKGROUND
Mr. Doyle's observation is not quite accurate. We accepted the monument because we thought the location was correct by the survey numbers. It turns out that the old measurements are not correct, and that is the issue.
Mr. Doyle’s attitude about this situation seems rather too cavalier. The Colorado / Utah boundary is 280 miles long. I will bet that the Colorado government does not feel indifferent about all the land in a rectangle 1807 feet times 280 miles.
A jog in the line description further complicates the Utah / Colorado Boundary. That jog occurs just south of highway 46 as it enters Paradox Valley Colorado. Another jog in the boundary of Utah and Arizona further complicates the location of the four corners. That jog is west of Oljeto and east of Nokal Mesa.
If there is an 1807 foot discrepancy in the east boundary of Utah and that discrepancy moves the real boundary west, then that situation generates an interesting question that must be answered about the real Utah / Nevada boundary line. Is it 1800 feet or more off plumb from the markers as well? The problem that shifted the boundaries at Four Corners probably also happened in putting up the markers that delineate the west boundary of Utah.
Depending on how much the accepted Utah / Nevada boundary line is off from the real measurements –
then just how much of Wendover sits in Nevada and in Utah?
How much of that disputed aquifer might really fall into the jurisdiction of Utah, not in Nevada?
Furthermore
The true low elevation of Utah in Beaver Dam Wash may in fact be lower than is currently accepted. In 2006, exhaustive scientific inquiry with satellite and global positioning technologies discover that the lowest point in Utah was in fact lower than the official low elevation number (2, 178 feet in reality) and in a different position than traditionally accepted. If the boundaries are really off, that means a stretch of land lower than 2000 feet may actually exist in Utah, not in Nevada or Arizona.
ASIDE – one wonders if the same problems involved in placing the Colorado / Utah boundary line markers in the wrong places also misplaced the markers of the Colorado / Kansas boundary as well. If the accepted line is wrong from the real survey numbers, then the low point of Colorado and the high point of Kansas may be entirely different places than the current accepted places, both of which crowd the boundary.
THE POINT
This news story reminds us how out-of-date are many boundaries in the United States. Certainly the county boundaries in Utah make no logical sense.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
What logical reason can we give for the existence of Utah’s three most arbitrary counties – Daggett, Piute, and Wasatch Counties?
Consider Bald Mountain Pass. As we drive eastward on Highway 150 approaching the pass, we drive first in Summit County, then in Wasatch County. Reid’s Peak, Bald Mountain, and Murdock Mountain come clearly into view. They line up like three big sentries on the north horizon.
Reid’s Peak stand in reality in Summit County.
The west face of Bald Mountain, visible at Trial Lake, stands in Summit County. The east face of Bald Mountain, visible at Mirror Lake, stands in Duchesne County. The summit of Bald Mountain straddles the Duchesne and Summit County line.
Murdock Mountain sits almost entirely in Duchesne County. I say almost because the highest point of Wasatch County is really a shoulder of Murdock Mountain, which is to say, the highest point of Wasatch County is a shoulder of a Mountain associated in the popular mind with Duchesne County.
Before we drive onto Bald Mountain Pass, Highway 150 makes two rather gentle loops. Both those loops sit not in Wasatch County but in Summit County. As we drive eastward, from the pass, the road starts to drop. Within 200 feet, the road enters the northwestern corner of Duchesne County. The road passes Moosehorn Lake, Mirror Lake, Pass Lake, and Butterfly Lake, all within Duchesne County. A few feet north of the Butterfly Lake at Hayden Pass, the road enters Summit County.
No direct Duchesne County road links the county seat of Duschesne County and Mirror Lake. No direct Summit County road links the county seat and Bald Mountain Pass. Nor should there be for that matter.
Consider the drive to Soldier Summit. As we drive eastward on Highway 6, we drive in Utah County. Then – as Wikipedia states it in admirably clarity:
Located where the road makes a brief bend through the extreme southwest corner of Wasatch County, Soldier Summit historically had more to do with nearby Utah County.
[Soldier Summit entry of Wikipedia 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_Summit]
How do we explain logically that south east dog leg of Utah County that takes in the north end of Scofield Reservoir? How do we explain logically the summit of Mount Nebo, a Mountain always associated in the popular mind with Juab County. The summit is in Utah County.
Why is the highest point of Juab County not Mount Nebo but Ipabah Peak at the boundary of Nevada? In other words why does Juab County include a long narrow strip of desert from Nephi Mona westward to the Nevada border?
Why did the needs and interests of the towns and ranches of west desert Utah get divided up into six different counties instead of consolidated into one county?
THE POINT
Salt Lake County has more than a million residents. Utah County has almost 400,000 residents. Daggett County has 920 residents. Give or take. The residents of Daggett County should find this unfair.
10 — count them – 10 of Utah’s Counties have populations of 10,000 people or less. The residents of those counties should find this unfair as well.
Utah has 29 counties, not thirty mind you, but 29. If the boundaries for these 29 counties were drawn up for equal population, they would all have 94,360 residents. If every county in Utah had 200,000 plus or minus a thousand residents, Utah would have 13 counties.
RIGHT ASCENSION URGES THE LEGISLATURE TO GET OFF ITS DUFF.
It is the 21st Century. Utah should insist on its real state boundaries using the latest technology. Utah should have counties that have equal power to raise revenues for public services. For starters, Salt Lake City should be An independent city county. The legislature should abolish the current county system and create thirteen new counties that each have 200,000 residents.
Marker was off, but Four Corners monument legit
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12208248?IA...www.sltrib.com
Yahoo! News
AP
Wed Apr 22, 7:58 pm ET
By ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY – Many a family touring the Southwest has made a stop in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado — all at the same time.
Or have they?
News reports this week that the site of the Four Corners monument was off by a whopping 2 1/2 miles drummed up some concern that anyone who ever got down on their hands and knees to touch four states at once had lived a bit of a lie.
Not to worry, government officials say. The marker is indeed the only place where four U.S. states meet, even though surveyors were a little off when they set the marker in 1875.
The marker is 1,807.14 feet east of where it should have been placed, said Dave Doyle, chief geodetic surveyor for the National Geodetic Survey, which defines and manages a national coordinate system. That's about the length of six football fields, but Doyle calls the measurement a "home run" given the limited tools surveyors had to work with back then.
"Their ability to replicate that exact point — what they did was phenomenal, what they did was spot on," Doyle said. "(They) nailed it."
There would be about a 2.5-mile discrepancy had the monument been measured to the 109th meridian west of the Prime Meridian passing through Greenwich, England, but Doyle said that isn't what happened. The statute creating Colorado's western boundary mandated measurement from the Washington Meridian, which passes through the old Naval Observatory in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
In any case, the measurement differences don't matter anymore, Doyle said, because "the monument controls."
"Where the marker is now is accepted," Doyle said. "Even if it's 10 miles off, once it's adopted by the states, which it has been, the numerical errors are irrelevant. It becomes the legal definition" of the Four Corners.
___
On the Net: National Geodetic Survey: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
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RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY
BACKGROUND
Mr. Doyle's observation is not quite accurate. We accepted the monument because we thought the location was correct by the survey numbers. It turns out that the old measurements are not correct, and that is the issue.
Mr. Doyle’s attitude about this situation seems rather too cavalier. The Colorado / Utah boundary is 280 miles long. I will bet that the Colorado government does not feel indifferent about all the land in a rectangle 1807 feet times 280 miles.
A jog in the line description further complicates the Utah / Colorado Boundary. That jog occurs just south of highway 46 as it enters Paradox Valley Colorado. Another jog in the boundary of Utah and Arizona further complicates the location of the four corners. That jog is west of Oljeto and east of Nokal Mesa.
If there is an 1807 foot discrepancy in the east boundary of Utah and that discrepancy moves the real boundary west, then that situation generates an interesting question that must be answered about the real Utah / Nevada boundary line. Is it 1800 feet or more off plumb from the markers as well? The problem that shifted the boundaries at Four Corners probably also happened in putting up the markers that delineate the west boundary of Utah.
Depending on how much the accepted Utah / Nevada boundary line is off from the real measurements –
then just how much of Wendover sits in Nevada and in Utah?
How much of that disputed aquifer might really fall into the jurisdiction of Utah, not in Nevada?
Furthermore
The true low elevation of Utah in Beaver Dam Wash may in fact be lower than is currently accepted. In 2006, exhaustive scientific inquiry with satellite and global positioning technologies discover that the lowest point in Utah was in fact lower than the official low elevation number (2, 178 feet in reality) and in a different position than traditionally accepted. If the boundaries are really off, that means a stretch of land lower than 2000 feet may actually exist in Utah, not in Nevada or Arizona.
ASIDE – one wonders if the same problems involved in placing the Colorado / Utah boundary line markers in the wrong places also misplaced the markers of the Colorado / Kansas boundary as well. If the accepted line is wrong from the real survey numbers, then the low point of Colorado and the high point of Kansas may be entirely different places than the current accepted places, both of which crowd the boundary.
THE POINT
This news story reminds us how out-of-date are many boundaries in the United States. Certainly the county boundaries in Utah make no logical sense.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
What logical reason can we give for the existence of Utah’s three most arbitrary counties – Daggett, Piute, and Wasatch Counties?
Consider Bald Mountain Pass. As we drive eastward on Highway 150 approaching the pass, we drive first in Summit County, then in Wasatch County. Reid’s Peak, Bald Mountain, and Murdock Mountain come clearly into view. They line up like three big sentries on the north horizon.
Reid’s Peak stand in reality in Summit County.
The west face of Bald Mountain, visible at Trial Lake, stands in Summit County. The east face of Bald Mountain, visible at Mirror Lake, stands in Duchesne County. The summit of Bald Mountain straddles the Duchesne and Summit County line.
Murdock Mountain sits almost entirely in Duchesne County. I say almost because the highest point of Wasatch County is really a shoulder of Murdock Mountain, which is to say, the highest point of Wasatch County is a shoulder of a Mountain associated in the popular mind with Duchesne County.
Before we drive onto Bald Mountain Pass, Highway 150 makes two rather gentle loops. Both those loops sit not in Wasatch County but in Summit County. As we drive eastward, from the pass, the road starts to drop. Within 200 feet, the road enters the northwestern corner of Duchesne County. The road passes Moosehorn Lake, Mirror Lake, Pass Lake, and Butterfly Lake, all within Duchesne County. A few feet north of the Butterfly Lake at Hayden Pass, the road enters Summit County.
No direct Duchesne County road links the county seat of Duschesne County and Mirror Lake. No direct Summit County road links the county seat and Bald Mountain Pass. Nor should there be for that matter.
Consider the drive to Soldier Summit. As we drive eastward on Highway 6, we drive in Utah County. Then – as Wikipedia states it in admirably clarity:
Located where the road makes a brief bend through the extreme southwest corner of Wasatch County, Soldier Summit historically had more to do with nearby Utah County.
[Soldier Summit entry of Wikipedia 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_Summit]
How do we explain logically that south east dog leg of Utah County that takes in the north end of Scofield Reservoir? How do we explain logically the summit of Mount Nebo, a Mountain always associated in the popular mind with Juab County. The summit is in Utah County.
Why is the highest point of Juab County not Mount Nebo but Ipabah Peak at the boundary of Nevada? In other words why does Juab County include a long narrow strip of desert from Nephi Mona westward to the Nevada border?
Why did the needs and interests of the towns and ranches of west desert Utah get divided up into six different counties instead of consolidated into one county?
THE POINT
Salt Lake County has more than a million residents. Utah County has almost 400,000 residents. Daggett County has 920 residents. Give or take. The residents of Daggett County should find this unfair.
10 — count them – 10 of Utah’s Counties have populations of 10,000 people or less. The residents of those counties should find this unfair as well.
Utah has 29 counties, not thirty mind you, but 29. If the boundaries for these 29 counties were drawn up for equal population, they would all have 94,360 residents. If every county in Utah had 200,000 plus or minus a thousand residents, Utah would have 13 counties.
RIGHT ASCENSION URGES THE LEGISLATURE TO GET OFF ITS DUFF.
It is the 21st Century. Utah should insist on its real state boundaries using the latest technology. Utah should have counties that have equal power to raise revenues for public services. For starters, Salt Lake City should be An independent city county. The legislature should abolish the current county system and create thirteen new counties that each have 200,000 residents.
Monday, April 20, 2009
COLUMBINE AT TEN: CONTEMPLATING THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
It was in the worst possible taste for violence cultists and fadists to host a gun show in Sandy, Utah during the same weekend as the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech slaughter and the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.
I still find it hard, after all these years, to analyze the magnitude of the sin Klebold and Harris committed that afternoon in the Centennial Colorado high school. Certain historians and mental health archeologists tried to analyze their murderous act. Who knows, really, what evil lurks in the hearts of teenage boys? Ten years later, these boys are still wedded in most people's minds like a couple. Never mind that they lived most of their lives without each others' bad influence. Together they came, though. They got their guns; they made their choices; they are together forever.
I find It easier to analyze the magnitude of the sin committed by the people who armed Klebold and Harris. They had no moral pangs about helping to arm unstable boys. They share in the credit / responsibility of the Columbine High School Massacre.
If America were a sane, civilized nation, people would not sell guns and ammo to violent people with mental illnesses. The gun sellers and manufacturers tell us that these sorts of massacres and other recent outrages in rural Alabama and Binghamton, New York are regrettable but necessary side effects of the Second Amendment.
NOTHING OF THE SORT
The Second Amendment is not about defense. It is not about hunting. It is about dominion and power and who will exercise it over others.
Gun shows are not about the Second Amendment. Gun shows are about profit; they are about exploiting fear and paranoia for money and sales.
Contemplate your neighbors and think about the ones you do not want armed in times of crisis. They will be.
I contemplate my unhappy, paranoid neighbors as they lie awake at night in their armed forts of houses . . . waiting for . . . for what? I wonder who they will eventually shoot and why.
RIGHT ASCENSION'S CALL TO ACTION.
Remember, defense does not necessarily require deadly weapons. Reform will take a while -- because many of our members of Congress believe implicitly in the virtues of violence and the profits of arms. They depend on them for campaign contributions, Still -- we must abolish the Second Amendment, which is simply a license to kill, and replace it with an amendment that recognizes the human right of self defense.
I still find it hard, after all these years, to analyze the magnitude of the sin Klebold and Harris committed that afternoon in the Centennial Colorado high school. Certain historians and mental health archeologists tried to analyze their murderous act. Who knows, really, what evil lurks in the hearts of teenage boys? Ten years later, these boys are still wedded in most people's minds like a couple. Never mind that they lived most of their lives without each others' bad influence. Together they came, though. They got their guns; they made their choices; they are together forever.
I find It easier to analyze the magnitude of the sin committed by the people who armed Klebold and Harris. They had no moral pangs about helping to arm unstable boys. They share in the credit / responsibility of the Columbine High School Massacre.
If America were a sane, civilized nation, people would not sell guns and ammo to violent people with mental illnesses. The gun sellers and manufacturers tell us that these sorts of massacres and other recent outrages in rural Alabama and Binghamton, New York are regrettable but necessary side effects of the Second Amendment.
NOTHING OF THE SORT
The Second Amendment is not about defense. It is not about hunting. It is about dominion and power and who will exercise it over others.
Gun shows are not about the Second Amendment. Gun shows are about profit; they are about exploiting fear and paranoia for money and sales.
Contemplate your neighbors and think about the ones you do not want armed in times of crisis. They will be.
I contemplate my unhappy, paranoid neighbors as they lie awake at night in their armed forts of houses . . . waiting for . . . for what? I wonder who they will eventually shoot and why.
RIGHT ASCENSION'S CALL TO ACTION.
Remember, defense does not necessarily require deadly weapons. Reform will take a while -- because many of our members of Congress believe implicitly in the virtues of violence and the profits of arms. They depend on them for campaign contributions, Still -- we must abolish the Second Amendment, which is simply a license to kill, and replace it with an amendment that recognizes the human right of self defense.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
TEMPLE VIEW CONDOMINIUM REVISITED: AN EDITORIAL ABOUT CITY CREEK CONDOMINIUM DEVELOPMENTS AND WHAT THEY REVEAL
A FLIGHT OF FANTASY
In 1982, I finished writing the first Science Fiction Futuristic Mormon Novel in the history of LDS fiction. I titled my novel A City on a Hill. The plot took place in the Salt Lake City of the near future. I did not identify specifically what year the story occurred, but I consulted a perpetual calendar and selected the year 2003 or 2031.
I created for my novel a setting called Temple View Condominium, a gigantic housing complex at the west edge of downtown Salt Lake City located roughly where the Miller’s Arena now sits. I bring Temple View Condominium into the conversation after all these years because it makes a fascinating comparison to the condominiums discussed on 16 April in the Salt Lake Tribune’s article
$2 Million too much for a City Creek condo? Not with those 'suite' views
Real estate » Realtors say LDS temple sightlines will bring plenty of Mormon buyers.
For starters, the developers of the condominium complexes under construction at City Creek Development have made them really rather too small. I do not suggest that the developers should have built some 2000-foot-tall complexes the size of Burj Dubai or Dubai Pentenium. I can tell you this: my condominium complex constitutes a better use of the space than the Miller Arena or the housing developments planned for City Creek Complex.
Temple View consisted of a ten-story base complex full of multi-story atriums, reading rooms, libraries, shops, restaurants, meeting rooms and, yes, chapels. Tower Three of condos stood over 30 stories tall. Tower two stood over 40 stories tall. Tower One – the tallest tower of condos – topped out at just over 50 stories tall. My characters lived in that tower on – if memory serves me – floor 49. The top floor featured a revolving restaurant.
The featured family of my novel’s plot lived in a condo with balconies, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, parlor, dining room, offices, media room, and galley. The galleys actually connected to a gigantic community galley down below. The residents could order groceries sent up by way of pneumatic dumbwaiters, or they could order full meals from the community galley.
CITY CREEK CONDOMINIUMS AS THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN
When the LDS Church leadership commissioned the City Creek Development, it had a golden opportunity to bring middle-class working-class families with children into downtown Salt Lake City.
Just imagine: One or two or three thirty-stories complexes featuring 3000 square foot condominiums complete with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, parlor, offices, media room, and balcony. The goal should have been price ranges in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Their furnishings to start could have been comfortable but basic; the owners could upgrade and gild their lilies . . . . condos as financing and interest allowed.
Of course, these complexes could have featured smaller condominiums and larger ones, and maybe even some ubberschmarm penthouses.
COLD SLAP OF REALITY
The condos as planned illustrates how wide spread in Mormondom is the attitude of wealth equaling virtue. The developers have designed Small complexes, Small condos, BIG prices. Apparently they – it is hard to tell just how high up this attitude goes – do not want working-class riffraff living near Temple Square.
Downtown Salt Lake City will have the best Mormons money can buy. I ask you – what kind of people buy a place that has a temple as a sightline stage backdrop?
In 1982, I finished writing the first Science Fiction Futuristic Mormon Novel in the history of LDS fiction. I titled my novel A City on a Hill. The plot took place in the Salt Lake City of the near future. I did not identify specifically what year the story occurred, but I consulted a perpetual calendar and selected the year 2003 or 2031.
I created for my novel a setting called Temple View Condominium, a gigantic housing complex at the west edge of downtown Salt Lake City located roughly where the Miller’s Arena now sits. I bring Temple View Condominium into the conversation after all these years because it makes a fascinating comparison to the condominiums discussed on 16 April in the Salt Lake Tribune’s article
$2 Million too much for a City Creek condo? Not with those 'suite' views
Real estate » Realtors say LDS temple sightlines will bring plenty of Mormon buyers.
For starters, the developers of the condominium complexes under construction at City Creek Development have made them really rather too small. I do not suggest that the developers should have built some 2000-foot-tall complexes the size of Burj Dubai or Dubai Pentenium. I can tell you this: my condominium complex constitutes a better use of the space than the Miller Arena or the housing developments planned for City Creek Complex.
Temple View consisted of a ten-story base complex full of multi-story atriums, reading rooms, libraries, shops, restaurants, meeting rooms and, yes, chapels. Tower Three of condos stood over 30 stories tall. Tower two stood over 40 stories tall. Tower One – the tallest tower of condos – topped out at just over 50 stories tall. My characters lived in that tower on – if memory serves me – floor 49. The top floor featured a revolving restaurant.
The featured family of my novel’s plot lived in a condo with balconies, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, parlor, dining room, offices, media room, and galley. The galleys actually connected to a gigantic community galley down below. The residents could order groceries sent up by way of pneumatic dumbwaiters, or they could order full meals from the community galley.
CITY CREEK CONDOMINIUMS AS THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN
When the LDS Church leadership commissioned the City Creek Development, it had a golden opportunity to bring middle-class working-class families with children into downtown Salt Lake City.
Just imagine: One or two or three thirty-stories complexes featuring 3000 square foot condominiums complete with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, dining room, parlor, offices, media room, and balcony. The goal should have been price ranges in the $200,000 to $300,000 range. Their furnishings to start could have been comfortable but basic; the owners could upgrade and gild their lilies . . . . condos as financing and interest allowed.
Of course, these complexes could have featured smaller condominiums and larger ones, and maybe even some ubberschmarm penthouses.
COLD SLAP OF REALITY
The condos as planned illustrates how wide spread in Mormondom is the attitude of wealth equaling virtue. The developers have designed Small complexes, Small condos, BIG prices. Apparently they – it is hard to tell just how high up this attitude goes – do not want working-class riffraff living near Temple Square.
Downtown Salt Lake City will have the best Mormons money can buy. I ask you – what kind of people buy a place that has a temple as a sightline stage backdrop?
TEA PARTY BELLYACHING
Here are pieces of a local article from the Salt Lake Tribune complete with my comments.
2,000 protest taxes, spending in Salt Lake City
Rally » Speakers say government spending threatens freedom.
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12149069
electronic scrapbook entry for Updated: 15 April 2009
By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune
ARTICLE An estimated 2,000 people weathered a cold, wet snow Wednesday in downtown Salt Lake City in a vocal protest of wasteful government spending and taxes, joining a handful of similar rallies around the state and dozens of others across the country.
Protesters perched on planters or huddled under umbrellas as speakers decried federal bailouts of failing banks and companies, mounting federal debt and elected officials who are out of touch, chanting over and over, "Send them home."
Utah Democrats said that the tax protests were orchestrated by right-wing radio but ignore that the Bush administration added trillions to the national debt.
The crowd repeatedly booed Utah's senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, for being part of the problem.
MY COMMENT Senator Hatch should have retired three terms ago back in 1994. Senator Bennett should retire this year. Three terms of him is quite enough to last us a lifetime, especially in a state like Utah with so much political talent ready to serve.
ARTICLE . . . . and chastised Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for not sending back $1.6 billion of stimulus money the state is expected to receive.
MY COMMENT ANY POLITICIAN WHO SENDS MONEY BACK IN TIMES OF CRISIS IS QUITE OUT O F HIS SKULL.
ARTICLE Hatch said in a statement that he shares the protesters' outrage.
MY RESPONSE: Where would the Senator be without funds raised by taxation?
ARTICLE Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is considering challenging Bennett for his Senate seat, said Utahns don't need government "wiping our noses and putting Band-Aids on our boo-boos."
"The time for talk is over. Now is the time for action," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "Don't give us your entitlement. Don't take care of us. Get out of our lives and let us take care of ourselves."
MY RESPONSE Another example of the myth of self reliance. How do we do national defense ourselves. How do we do health care ourselves without Medicaid and Medicare? How do we sustain ourselves when corruption in private enterprise wiped out our retirements and Social Security does not exist.
ARTICLE The federal budget deficit is projected to reach $1.75 trillion this year, driven to record levels by repeated stimulus and bailouts.
"I've got to tell you, I'm fired up. No more bailouts, no more stimulus!" said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. "We cannot be all things to all people in this country. We can't keep running this country on a credit card."
MY RESPONSE: The Republicans have no credibility on this subject at all. They supported Ronald Reagan who cut taxes and then increased various types of spending including wasteful military spending and who thus increased the national debt and deficit spending. They supported George Bush who cut taxes and the Bill of Rights and increased wasteful military spending and then bailed out various Wall Street companies in crisis at the end of his term.
ARTICLE Author Candace Salima warned that what she sees as a trend toward socialism would destroy the country.
"Have we had enough of high taxes? Have we had enough of big government? Have we had enough of socialism?" she called to the crowd, answered each time with cheers and shouts. "We do not apologize for being Americans. We are done having Europe telling us what to do."
MY RESPONSE: Just who in the private sector has any credibility to help out in this crisis? Just who in the private sector is in fact doing anything to stimulate the economy?
ARTICLE Utah Democrats say state residents' share of the tax cut is about $500 million.
A report issued Monday by the liberal-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said that the median tax burden for a family of four in 2006 -- the most recent data available -- had crept up slightly since 2003, when it was at the lowest level since 1955.
A Gallup poll released this week found that 48 percent of respondents thought their tax burden was about right; 46 percent said it was too high. It was the highest favorable rating since Gallup began conducting the poll in 1956.
More than half of those making less than $75,000 a year thought their burden was about right. Sixty-one percent said the tax system is fair.
But those people were not in attendance Wednesday.
"I'm just fed up with paying more taxes than I need to," said Stacey Guerra, of Salt Lake City, who attended the event with her husband and daughter.
MY RESPONSE: We all hear this sort of middle class bellyache all the time from our friends and relatives and coworkers. I find it hard to take any of this green-eyed hypocrisy seriously. Everyone has at least three favorite government programs that everyone believes must be funded to the max, except that people do not want to pay taxes themselves. So as a result, people gripe about bureaucracy – other people’s bureaucracies.
Those who preach self reliance should realize that self reliance is a myth. We cannot do national defense by ourselves. Our poor and aged cannot do health care without Medicare and Medicaid. Where would our seniors be without social security? The wicked of the financial private sector pillaged the various retirement accounts. The financial private sector certainly failed us in stock markets and retirement accounts.
Everyone has two or three pet federal programs that they insist be funded to the maximum. In practice, this means that means that government will always grow bigger.
2,000 protest taxes, spending in Salt Lake City
Rally » Speakers say government spending threatens freedom.
Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12149069
electronic scrapbook entry for Updated: 15 April 2009
By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune
ARTICLE An estimated 2,000 people weathered a cold, wet snow Wednesday in downtown Salt Lake City in a vocal protest of wasteful government spending and taxes, joining a handful of similar rallies around the state and dozens of others across the country.
Protesters perched on planters or huddled under umbrellas as speakers decried federal bailouts of failing banks and companies, mounting federal debt and elected officials who are out of touch, chanting over and over, "Send them home."
Utah Democrats said that the tax protests were orchestrated by right-wing radio but ignore that the Bush administration added trillions to the national debt.
The crowd repeatedly booed Utah's senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, for being part of the problem.
MY COMMENT Senator Hatch should have retired three terms ago back in 1994. Senator Bennett should retire this year. Three terms of him is quite enough to last us a lifetime, especially in a state like Utah with so much political talent ready to serve.
ARTICLE . . . . and chastised Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for not sending back $1.6 billion of stimulus money the state is expected to receive.
MY COMMENT ANY POLITICIAN WHO SENDS MONEY BACK IN TIMES OF CRISIS IS QUITE OUT O F HIS SKULL.
ARTICLE Hatch said in a statement that he shares the protesters' outrage.
MY RESPONSE: Where would the Senator be without funds raised by taxation?
ARTICLE Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is considering challenging Bennett for his Senate seat, said Utahns don't need government "wiping our noses and putting Band-Aids on our boo-boos."
"The time for talk is over. Now is the time for action," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "Don't give us your entitlement. Don't take care of us. Get out of our lives and let us take care of ourselves."
MY RESPONSE Another example of the myth of self reliance. How do we do national defense ourselves. How do we do health care ourselves without Medicaid and Medicare? How do we sustain ourselves when corruption in private enterprise wiped out our retirements and Social Security does not exist.
ARTICLE The federal budget deficit is projected to reach $1.75 trillion this year, driven to record levels by repeated stimulus and bailouts.
"I've got to tell you, I'm fired up. No more bailouts, no more stimulus!" said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. "We cannot be all things to all people in this country. We can't keep running this country on a credit card."
MY RESPONSE: The Republicans have no credibility on this subject at all. They supported Ronald Reagan who cut taxes and then increased various types of spending including wasteful military spending and who thus increased the national debt and deficit spending. They supported George Bush who cut taxes and the Bill of Rights and increased wasteful military spending and then bailed out various Wall Street companies in crisis at the end of his term.
ARTICLE Author Candace Salima warned that what she sees as a trend toward socialism would destroy the country.
"Have we had enough of high taxes? Have we had enough of big government? Have we had enough of socialism?" she called to the crowd, answered each time with cheers and shouts. "We do not apologize for being Americans. We are done having Europe telling us what to do."
MY RESPONSE: Just who in the private sector has any credibility to help out in this crisis? Just who in the private sector is in fact doing anything to stimulate the economy?
ARTICLE Utah Democrats say state residents' share of the tax cut is about $500 million.
A report issued Monday by the liberal-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said that the median tax burden for a family of four in 2006 -- the most recent data available -- had crept up slightly since 2003, when it was at the lowest level since 1955.
A Gallup poll released this week found that 48 percent of respondents thought their tax burden was about right; 46 percent said it was too high. It was the highest favorable rating since Gallup began conducting the poll in 1956.
More than half of those making less than $75,000 a year thought their burden was about right. Sixty-one percent said the tax system is fair.
But those people were not in attendance Wednesday.
"I'm just fed up with paying more taxes than I need to," said Stacey Guerra, of Salt Lake City, who attended the event with her husband and daughter.
MY RESPONSE: We all hear this sort of middle class bellyache all the time from our friends and relatives and coworkers. I find it hard to take any of this green-eyed hypocrisy seriously. Everyone has at least three favorite government programs that everyone believes must be funded to the max, except that people do not want to pay taxes themselves. So as a result, people gripe about bureaucracy – other people’s bureaucracies.
Those who preach self reliance should realize that self reliance is a myth. We cannot do national defense by ourselves. Our poor and aged cannot do health care without Medicare and Medicaid. Where would our seniors be without social security? The wicked of the financial private sector pillaged the various retirement accounts. The financial private sector certainly failed us in stock markets and retirement accounts.
Everyone has two or three pet federal programs that they insist be funded to the maximum. In practice, this means that means that government will always grow bigger.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
THORNTON HAS LEFT ORBIT
TWO NEWS ARTICLES PRESERVED WITH MY COMMENTS
Billy Bob Thornton's radio rage
Preserved from Yahoo News
Printed from http://uk.news.yahoo.com/35/20090409/ten-billy-bob-thornton-s-radio-rage-764dee7.html
Thursday, April 9 04:00 pm
Bangshowbiz bangshowbiz.com
Billy Bob Thornton pretended to have amnesia and forget his own band during an interview. Skip related content
The actor-turned-musician became difficult after a Canadian radio host mentioned his Hollywood career yesterday (08.04.09).
Billy Bob was due to be interviewed and perform with his band The Boxmasters, but became upset when he was introduced as an "Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor and director".
When CBC radio DJ Jian Ghomeshi asked him how he formed the band, Billy Bob replied: "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not sure what that means."
He then proceeded to give monosyllabic or short answers to questions, or spoke about something totally unrelated.
The 53-year-old star pretended not to have met his touring partner Willie Nelson and also compared Canadian audiences to "mashed potatoes with no gravy".
Billy Bob - who was previously married to Angelina Jolie - announced he wouldn't sing with the group and would only play drums - despite the fact there were no drums in the studio.
Billy Bob said: "We don't cart those around at six o'clock in the morning."
The band then had to perform without a vocalist.
Ghomeshi said after the show: "To not answer questions because I made the apparently egregious mistake of calling him an actor as well as a musician, it just seemed a little absurd."
(C) BANG Media International
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! All rights reserved.
THEN WHEN THE SITUATION COULD NOT GET ANY MORE WEIRD, THEY DID.
Billy Bob Thornton's band cancels Canadian tour
Yahoo! News
AP
11 April 2008 7:30 p.m. MDT
TORONTO – Billy Bob Thornton's band has canceled the rest of its Canadian tour after the actor compared the country's fans to mashed potatoes with no gravy in a testy interview that caused a sensation online.
The Boxmasters opened for Willie Nelson on Thursday in Toronto, where they reportedly were booed and met with catcalls of "Here comes the gravy."
A note posted on Nelson's Web site Friday said the Boxmasters were canceling the rest of their Canadian dates "due to one band member and several of the crew having the flu."
The cancellation came two days after Thornton made world headlines with a belligerent appearance on CBC radio's "Q."
The actor apparently didn't like that host Jian Ghomeshi started the interview with references to Thornton's Hollywood career.
Thornton refused to answer many of Ghomeshi's questions directly, mumbling: "I don't know what you're talking about." He later said Ghomeshi's producers had been told ahead of time not to talk about his film career.
Thornton also had some unkind words for Canadian crowds.
"Canadian audiences seem to be very reserved," he told Ghomeshi. "We tend to play places where people throw things at each other. Here, they just sort of sit there. And it doesn't matter what you say to 'em. ... It's mashed potatoes but no gravy."
RIGHT ASCENSION NOTES THAT THE TIME HAS COME TO HAND MR. THORNTON A VOLLEYBALL WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE THERAPISTS TO TAKE HIM IN TOW.
Billy Bob Thornton really needs to take a couple of hours out of his busy schedule next week and have his head thoroughly examined.
If mental health is the ability to correlate physical observations with the workings of the intellect, then Thornton has gone stone mad. How do any of his actions in the past week reflect sanity.
Billy Bob Thornton's radio rage
Preserved from Yahoo News
Printed from http://uk.news.yahoo.com/35/20090409/ten-billy-bob-thornton-s-radio-rage-764dee7.html
Thursday, April 9 04:00 pm
Bangshowbiz bangshowbiz.com
Billy Bob Thornton pretended to have amnesia and forget his own band during an interview. Skip related content
The actor-turned-musician became difficult after a Canadian radio host mentioned his Hollywood career yesterday (08.04.09).
Billy Bob was due to be interviewed and perform with his band The Boxmasters, but became upset when he was introduced as an "Oscar-winning screenwriter, actor and director".
When CBC radio DJ Jian Ghomeshi asked him how he formed the band, Billy Bob replied: "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not sure what that means."
He then proceeded to give monosyllabic or short answers to questions, or spoke about something totally unrelated.
The 53-year-old star pretended not to have met his touring partner Willie Nelson and also compared Canadian audiences to "mashed potatoes with no gravy".
Billy Bob - who was previously married to Angelina Jolie - announced he wouldn't sing with the group and would only play drums - despite the fact there were no drums in the studio.
Billy Bob said: "We don't cart those around at six o'clock in the morning."
The band then had to perform without a vocalist.
Ghomeshi said after the show: "To not answer questions because I made the apparently egregious mistake of calling him an actor as well as a musician, it just seemed a little absurd."
(C) BANG Media International
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! All rights reserved.
THEN WHEN THE SITUATION COULD NOT GET ANY MORE WEIRD, THEY DID.
Billy Bob Thornton's band cancels Canadian tour
Yahoo! News
AP
11 April 2008 7:30 p.m. MDT
TORONTO – Billy Bob Thornton's band has canceled the rest of its Canadian tour after the actor compared the country's fans to mashed potatoes with no gravy in a testy interview that caused a sensation online.
The Boxmasters opened for Willie Nelson on Thursday in Toronto, where they reportedly were booed and met with catcalls of "Here comes the gravy."
A note posted on Nelson's Web site Friday said the Boxmasters were canceling the rest of their Canadian dates "due to one band member and several of the crew having the flu."
The cancellation came two days after Thornton made world headlines with a belligerent appearance on CBC radio's "Q."
The actor apparently didn't like that host Jian Ghomeshi started the interview with references to Thornton's Hollywood career.
Thornton refused to answer many of Ghomeshi's questions directly, mumbling: "I don't know what you're talking about." He later said Ghomeshi's producers had been told ahead of time not to talk about his film career.
Thornton also had some unkind words for Canadian crowds.
"Canadian audiences seem to be very reserved," he told Ghomeshi. "We tend to play places where people throw things at each other. Here, they just sort of sit there. And it doesn't matter what you say to 'em. ... It's mashed potatoes but no gravy."
RIGHT ASCENSION NOTES THAT THE TIME HAS COME TO HAND MR. THORNTON A VOLLEYBALL WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE THERAPISTS TO TAKE HIM IN TOW.
Billy Bob Thornton really needs to take a couple of hours out of his busy schedule next week and have his head thoroughly examined.
If mental health is the ability to correlate physical observations with the workings of the intellect, then Thornton has gone stone mad. How do any of his actions in the past week reflect sanity.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
GENERAL CONFERENCE NOTES.
At first session of the recently concluded April 2009 general conference, The First presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the call of a new apostle.
The statistical report claims well over 13,500,000 members of the church. Therefore, one would think the First Presidency would have a wide variety of possible men from which to make their long and short lists.
However, the modern quorum of apostles contains rather too few men for the work load it has to do. The work that needs to be done in a 13-million-member church and the missionary work that needs to be done in a world with a population over 7 billion people probably requires an apostolic quorum with 24 or even 30 members. I suspect the First Presidency has to deal with the reality of just how few men in the Church would really willingly take an apostolic position in an undermanned quorum with way too little pay, way too big a work load – and commit to the job for life. Day in day out, year after year to the bitter end. Not many I suspect will willingly sign up for that without flinching.
This year the Second Quorum of the Seventy marks its 20th anniversary. Next year the reconstituted First Quorum of the Seventy observed its 35th anniversary. Some scripture scholars claim the number “70" really represent some sort of ancient Hebrew power symbol. Nevertheless, neither quorum have come close to a membership of 70 apiece.
In some basic way, the Second Quorum of the Seventy was the late President Hinckley’s biggest failure. Put another way, the Second Quorum of the Seventy was the preisthood’s greatest failure to fill adequately. He should have called 10-12 men to the Second Quorum every year for terms of 5 to 7 years. Only once in his ministry did he even come close to that ideal.
30 years after the 1978 priesthood and race revelation, the First Quorum of Seventy
now has a real black African member. This development definitely points the Church in general and the First Quorum of Seventy in particular in the right direction. Someday, we hope, we will all be sophisticated enough that the race of quorum members will no longer be an issue anywhere. Right now, though, it stands as a landmark in a church and in a time and place when the First Presidency managed in 2001 to call a white man (!) as the first African member of the First Quorum of Seventy.
The First Presidency called Neil L Andersen as the newest apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This means the quorum of the Twelve now has three members born in Logan, Utah and has two members with connections to Pocatello, Idaho (!) of all places.
Of the 21st century’s apostles, only one has ancestors who served as past general authorities. Two have connections to California and three to places in the South of the United States. Only one has a direct connection to Provo, Utah . Well, two if you count Jeffrey Holland’s time at BYU. Provo for him was a stepping stone.
MORAL TO THE STORY
The Men of Provo have little chance of becoming general authorities.
The statistical report claims well over 13,500,000 members of the church. Therefore, one would think the First Presidency would have a wide variety of possible men from which to make their long and short lists.
However, the modern quorum of apostles contains rather too few men for the work load it has to do. The work that needs to be done in a 13-million-member church and the missionary work that needs to be done in a world with a population over 7 billion people probably requires an apostolic quorum with 24 or even 30 members. I suspect the First Presidency has to deal with the reality of just how few men in the Church would really willingly take an apostolic position in an undermanned quorum with way too little pay, way too big a work load – and commit to the job for life. Day in day out, year after year to the bitter end. Not many I suspect will willingly sign up for that without flinching.
This year the Second Quorum of the Seventy marks its 20th anniversary. Next year the reconstituted First Quorum of the Seventy observed its 35th anniversary. Some scripture scholars claim the number “70" really represent some sort of ancient Hebrew power symbol. Nevertheless, neither quorum have come close to a membership of 70 apiece.
In some basic way, the Second Quorum of the Seventy was the late President Hinckley’s biggest failure. Put another way, the Second Quorum of the Seventy was the preisthood’s greatest failure to fill adequately. He should have called 10-12 men to the Second Quorum every year for terms of 5 to 7 years. Only once in his ministry did he even come close to that ideal.
30 years after the 1978 priesthood and race revelation, the First Quorum of Seventy
now has a real black African member. This development definitely points the Church in general and the First Quorum of Seventy in particular in the right direction. Someday, we hope, we will all be sophisticated enough that the race of quorum members will no longer be an issue anywhere. Right now, though, it stands as a landmark in a church and in a time and place when the First Presidency managed in 2001 to call a white man (!) as the first African member of the First Quorum of Seventy.
The First Presidency called Neil L Andersen as the newest apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This means the quorum of the Twelve now has three members born in Logan, Utah and has two members with connections to Pocatello, Idaho (!) of all places.
Of the 21st century’s apostles, only one has ancestors who served as past general authorities. Two have connections to California and three to places in the South of the United States. Only one has a direct connection to Provo, Utah . Well, two if you count Jeffrey Holland’s time at BYU. Provo for him was a stepping stone.
MORAL TO THE STORY
The Men of Provo have little chance of becoming general authorities.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
OAKS, CHILDREN , AND PETS: A MUSING ON SUCCESS IN LIFE
LDS church elder's dog comments spark response
Preserved from the Provo Utah Daily Herald
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/305160/17/
Tuesday, 07 April 2009
Joe Pyrah - Daily Herald
It was a brief moment in the 10 hours of general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But a few words about kids and dogs drew all eyes in the room from the TV to Alison Faulkner.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was giving an example of a young couple who chose a dog over having kids.
"Dogs are less trouble, they declared. Dogs don't talk back and we never have to ground them," Oaks said of the couple's reasoning. He went on to say that many LDS couples are among that "unselfish group who are willing to surrender their personal priorities and serve the Lord by bearing and rearing the children our Heavenly Father sends to their care."
But there are also plenty choosing the dog. The American Pet Products Association estimates that Americans in 2009 will spend $45 billion on their pets -- including health care, food and doggie clothes -- up from $17 billion 15 years ago.
Faulkner, who's been married a year with no kids, takes possession of "Pony" on Friday. To be fair, the miniature Australian shepherd is more a baby warm-up than a baby replacement, she says.
Pets or family?
The humanification of pets has been a long time coming, says Michael Schaffer, author of "One Nation Under Dog." In the Victorian era, pets were known as "loyal companion." By the 1950s, they had become "man's best friend." Today they're "mommy's little girl."
Names have also gone from Spot and Spike to Jack and Chloe, "which are actually the same names in my daughter's pre-school," Schaffer said.
The movement likely comes from modern society's increased divorce rates and families moving apart for work, he said. An APPA survey shows that the percentage of households with a pet has increased from 56 in 1988 to 63 in 2007. As people move away from traditional social support systems, Schaffer said, they seek different sources of comfort, including, as he calls them, "fur babies."
That mindset was evident in Faulkner's blog. After she announced she was getting a dog, comments ranged from "Yay! Congratulations. You will be a great puppy mom." to "Oh Pony is adorable!!! You are going to be the best little mom in town, how lucky could a dog be."
First step or only step?
Facebook and several blogging sites were abuzz Monday with discussion on Oaks's comments. Faulkner, a Brigham Young University grad who lives in Salt Lake City, said she didn't rush into marriage and doesn't want to rush a child into the world. She views Pony as a sort of practice run rather than a baby replacement.
RIGHT ASCENSION GETS DEFENSIVE
I am unmarried male. I have always been an unmarried male.
I have no children . . . Or grandchildren either. I do not have any particular biases or bigotries against children. In fact, some of my best friends have children.
I dislike most dogs with a white hot intensity. On their best days, they are four-legged incubators of parasites, viruses, and bacterias that can all make us sick. I keep no pets of any kind.
It occurs to me, after reading this news report of this particular general conference controversy, that I have managed to achieved complete failure both by the definition of Orthodox Mormonism, which defines a successful person in terms of reproduction, and by the definitions of the Humane Society as well, which defines a successful person in terms of animal devotion.
I will not debate the merits of Elder Oaks’ rhetorical style or how convincing prospective parents will find him when he emphasizes the long-term unmitigated sacrifices of parenthood.
I find it sobering that –
despite all the pro- family rhetoric we get in American culture in general and in the LDS Church in particular
despite the fact that we now live in the highly-advanced super-technological twenty-first century
child bearing and child rearing are still burdens and sacrifices.
Our culture basically poses a danger both physically and spiritually to children. It is not a support.
The cultural of corporate America regards children as a nuisance to the making of profits.
RIGHT ASCENSION CONGRATULATES
those who have decided to create children and make families in a time and place when the culture discourages both.
those who treat their animals like animals instead of four- legged humans
Preserved from the Provo Utah Daily Herald
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/305160/17/
Tuesday, 07 April 2009
Joe Pyrah - Daily Herald
It was a brief moment in the 10 hours of general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But a few words about kids and dogs drew all eyes in the room from the TV to Alison Faulkner.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was giving an example of a young couple who chose a dog over having kids.
"Dogs are less trouble, they declared. Dogs don't talk back and we never have to ground them," Oaks said of the couple's reasoning. He went on to say that many LDS couples are among that "unselfish group who are willing to surrender their personal priorities and serve the Lord by bearing and rearing the children our Heavenly Father sends to their care."
But there are also plenty choosing the dog. The American Pet Products Association estimates that Americans in 2009 will spend $45 billion on their pets -- including health care, food and doggie clothes -- up from $17 billion 15 years ago.
Faulkner, who's been married a year with no kids, takes possession of "Pony" on Friday. To be fair, the miniature Australian shepherd is more a baby warm-up than a baby replacement, she says.
Pets or family?
The humanification of pets has been a long time coming, says Michael Schaffer, author of "One Nation Under Dog." In the Victorian era, pets were known as "loyal companion." By the 1950s, they had become "man's best friend." Today they're "mommy's little girl."
Names have also gone from Spot and Spike to Jack and Chloe, "which are actually the same names in my daughter's pre-school," Schaffer said.
The movement likely comes from modern society's increased divorce rates and families moving apart for work, he said. An APPA survey shows that the percentage of households with a pet has increased from 56 in 1988 to 63 in 2007. As people move away from traditional social support systems, Schaffer said, they seek different sources of comfort, including, as he calls them, "fur babies."
That mindset was evident in Faulkner's blog. After she announced she was getting a dog, comments ranged from "Yay! Congratulations. You will be a great puppy mom." to "Oh Pony is adorable!!! You are going to be the best little mom in town, how lucky could a dog be."
First step or only step?
Facebook and several blogging sites were abuzz Monday with discussion on Oaks's comments. Faulkner, a Brigham Young University grad who lives in Salt Lake City, said she didn't rush into marriage and doesn't want to rush a child into the world. She views Pony as a sort of practice run rather than a baby replacement.
RIGHT ASCENSION GETS DEFENSIVE
I am unmarried male. I have always been an unmarried male.
I have no children . . . Or grandchildren either. I do not have any particular biases or bigotries against children. In fact, some of my best friends have children.
I dislike most dogs with a white hot intensity. On their best days, they are four-legged incubators of parasites, viruses, and bacterias that can all make us sick. I keep no pets of any kind.
It occurs to me, after reading this news report of this particular general conference controversy, that I have managed to achieved complete failure both by the definition of Orthodox Mormonism, which defines a successful person in terms of reproduction, and by the definitions of the Humane Society as well, which defines a successful person in terms of animal devotion.
I will not debate the merits of Elder Oaks’ rhetorical style or how convincing prospective parents will find him when he emphasizes the long-term unmitigated sacrifices of parenthood.
I find it sobering that –
despite all the pro- family rhetoric we get in American culture in general and in the LDS Church in particular
despite the fact that we now live in the highly-advanced super-technological twenty-first century
child bearing and child rearing are still burdens and sacrifices.
Our culture basically poses a danger both physically and spiritually to children. It is not a support.
The cultural of corporate America regards children as a nuisance to the making of profits.
RIGHT ASCENSION CONGRATULATES
those who have decided to create children and make families in a time and place when the culture discourages both.
those who treat their animals like animals instead of four- legged humans
Holy Frickin Freudian Slip!: The BYU DAILY UNIVERSE AND THE 12 APOSTATES
As Robin might say to Batman, “Holy Frikin Freudian Slip!"
I have just viewed a scan of the 6 April 2009 front page of Brigham Young University's Daily Universe. It captioned a photograph of some of the members of LDS Church Quorum of the Twelve Apostles "The 12 Apostates."
!!
{ Stage direction: Blink twice -- followed by a deep breath of utter disbelief. }
When the Universe editors learned of this error, they pulled as many printed copies they could and fixed the web edition, but not before industrious students, teachers, and staff at The Lord’s University scanned / preserved this soon to be legendary front page.
{ It rates right up there with such legendary newspaper boo-boos as “Dewey defeats Truman” and “Governor Thompson’s pen is a sword.” }
I have also read the official apology the Universe posted calling “The Twelve Apostates” a "typographical error."
I also read Carri Jenkin's damage control statement to the effect that "the typo, which replaced the intended word with a virtual antonym, was an honest mistake and that no university or church administrator has sought to punish those responsible for the blunder. She said the problem is being handled internally by newspaper and Department of Communications staff."
Typographical error my foot.
The Universe cannot get away with this outrage by trying to define it a "typographical error."
The Universe has editors. Where were they? A personal insult / Freudian slip of this magnitude takes planning, especially when a paper should have multiple errors . .. . uh, editors to catch such Freudian slip / "Typographical errors."
RIGHT ASCENSION EXTENDS THE HAND OF ENCOURAGEMENT
As a journalist, I have my own horror stories to tell about personal embarrassing typographical errors / Freudian slips. So I can speak from painful experience.
Thank heaven for the atonement. The Universe editors will need it.
I have just viewed a scan of the 6 April 2009 front page of Brigham Young University's Daily Universe. It captioned a photograph of some of the members of LDS Church Quorum of the Twelve Apostles "The 12 Apostates."
!!
{ Stage direction: Blink twice -- followed by a deep breath of utter disbelief. }
When the Universe editors learned of this error, they pulled as many printed copies they could and fixed the web edition, but not before industrious students, teachers, and staff at The Lord’s University scanned / preserved this soon to be legendary front page.
{ It rates right up there with such legendary newspaper boo-boos as “Dewey defeats Truman” and “Governor Thompson’s pen is a sword.” }
I have also read the official apology the Universe posted calling “The Twelve Apostates” a "typographical error."
I also read Carri Jenkin's damage control statement to the effect that "the typo, which replaced the intended word with a virtual antonym, was an honest mistake and that no university or church administrator has sought to punish those responsible for the blunder. She said the problem is being handled internally by newspaper and Department of Communications staff."
Typographical error my foot.
The Universe cannot get away with this outrage by trying to define it a "typographical error."
The Universe has editors. Where were they? A personal insult / Freudian slip of this magnitude takes planning, especially when a paper should have multiple errors . .. . uh, editors to catch such Freudian slip / "Typographical errors."
RIGHT ASCENSION EXTENDS THE HAND OF ENCOURAGEMENT
As a journalist, I have my own horror stories to tell about personal embarrassing typographical errors / Freudian slips. So I can speak from painful experience.
Thank heaven for the atonement. The Universe editors will need it.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Ted Stevens' Trial May Have Been Flawed, but Senator's Unusual Connections to Convicted Contributor Aren't in Doubt
Stevens Trial May Have Been Flawed, but Senator's Unusual Connections to Convicted Contributor Aren't in Doubt
Former Senator Ted Stevens might be getting the "get out of jail free" card, although it was money that nearly put him there in the first place. The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the judge in Stevens's corruption case to throw out the Alaska Republican's conviction because prosecutors withheld evidence from the senator's defense team.
Stevens had been found guilty on seven counts of lying on his Senate financial disclosure forms about thousands of dollars in improper gifts from Bill Allen, the former chief executive of multinational oil services company VECO. Among those gifts was $250,000 in home renovations that Allen said the company paid for, according to prosecutors.
While the attorney general might question the fairness of the Stevens's trial, Alaska’s senator from 1969 to 2008 had clear financial connections with Allen and VECO. Stevens, who lost his re-election race in November shortly after the conviction, collected at least $156,000 in campaign contributions from VECO through his campaign and committees he used to support fellow Republican candidates. CRP calculated the total to Stevens and other federal lawmakers in 2007 after two VECO executives, including Allen, pleaded guilty to bribery in a separate case involving Alaska state legislators. At that time Allen acknowledged rewarding VECO executives with bonuses as repayment for campaign contributions, which is illegal, and paying employees to work on renovations of Stevens's property. The company has since been sold.
OpenSecrets.org's Personal Financial Disclosures database contains the six years of reports that the federal indictment said Stevens falsified, plus his other financial disclosures back to 1995
.
Preserved on 5 April 2009
Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on April 1, 2009 1:16 PM
Former Senator Ted Stevens might be getting the "get out of jail free" card, although it was money that nearly put him there in the first place. The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the judge in Stevens's corruption case to throw out the Alaska Republican's conviction because prosecutors withheld evidence from the senator's defense team.
Stevens had been found guilty on seven counts of lying on his Senate financial disclosure forms about thousands of dollars in improper gifts from Bill Allen, the former chief executive of multinational oil services company VECO. Among those gifts was $250,000 in home renovations that Allen said the company paid for, according to prosecutors.
While the attorney general might question the fairness of the Stevens's trial, Alaska’s senator from 1969 to 2008 had clear financial connections with Allen and VECO. Stevens, who lost his re-election race in November shortly after the conviction, collected at least $156,000 in campaign contributions from VECO through his campaign and committees he used to support fellow Republican candidates. CRP calculated the total to Stevens and other federal lawmakers in 2007 after two VECO executives, including Allen, pleaded guilty to bribery in a separate case involving Alaska state legislators. At that time Allen acknowledged rewarding VECO executives with bonuses as repayment for campaign contributions, which is illegal, and paying employees to work on renovations of Stevens's property. The company has since been sold.
OpenSecrets.org's Personal Financial Disclosures database contains the six years of reports that the federal indictment said Stevens falsified, plus his other financial disclosures back to 1995
.
Preserved on 5 April 2009
Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on April 1, 2009 1:16 PM
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
SAVE THE AMERICAN BIG THREE! BUY A CAR TODAY
Right Ascension applauds the Obama Administration's dismissal of the president of General Motors and hopes that it will start encouraging a bunch of CEOs associated with the wreckage of the American Financial SuperStructure to find their swords and fall on them.
Right Ascension gives a challenge to those who decry the Obama Administration's dismissal of the President of General Motors and those who think that the Obama Administration should not either regulate the American car industry or micromanage it by fiat. No pun intended of course, though the odds are high that Fiat will pick up the pieces of what will be left of Chrysler Corporation.
RIGHT ASCENSION EXTENDS A CHALLENGE
for those who say that the free market will solve the problem: get rid of your old cars. Go out today and buy two or three GM or Chrysler automobiles.
Right Ascension gives a challenge to those who decry the Obama Administration's dismissal of the President of General Motors and those who think that the Obama Administration should not either regulate the American car industry or micromanage it by fiat. No pun intended of course, though the odds are high that Fiat will pick up the pieces of what will be left of Chrysler Corporation.
RIGHT ASCENSION EXTENDS A CHALLENGE
for those who say that the free market will solve the problem: get rid of your old cars. Go out today and buy two or three GM or Chrysler automobiles.
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