Some Utahns criticize and condemn the federal judge’s laying aside Utah’s definition of marriage approved by 65% of 59% of Utah voters.
I, however, decry that Utahns would just ignore the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, "Full Faith and Credit Clause", which addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state."
I chastise, in the strongest terms, those in Utah who will just ignore the needs of 5 to 10 percent of Utah’s population because there are few of them and because they do not fit into their exalted definitions of acknowledged humans with rights.
SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE
Utah governor Gary Herbert is on the record as saying that marriage is between a man and a woman. In a sense the governor is like a father figure to Utah culture. Therefore, what father among us having two sons will say to his heterosexual son, “be thou clothed in robes with your beloved and sit over here”
and then say to his homosexual son, “Be thou clothed in rags all alone and sit over there”
and then say to himself, “I am just.”
How can that father say to one son, “You get what you want by way a domestic arrangement because it is with a woman” and then to the other son say, “You cannot get what you want by a domestic arrangement because it is a with a man” Can that man actually delude himself into thinking that he is objective or fair-minded? Many fathers find themselves dealing with this situation in reality --- not in the symbolic abstract.
God created man to evolve. Man’s institutions have evolved --- particularly marriage. This essay looks at that evolution and what government must do to promote that evolution.
DEFINITIONS
Someone wrote recently this in the Deseret News to illustrate the evolution of marriage:
“The purpose of marriage isn’t to unite children with the man and woman who made them for several reasons. First, marriage should and most frequently does occur before children become involved, if at all. Second, the purpose of marriage isn’t procreation nor is the sexual act debased to the bearing of children. It serves a much higher and noble purpose. The expression of love and an intimate bond between two people who have joined together. An expression that is only a small part of that bond. It isn’t the substance nor end of that relationship. It’s the human need to have someone. One doesn’t sit at home singly thinking "I want children to spend my life with" instead they long for that someone to spend life with. Third, legal marriage recognizes the legal commitment of two people by a contract. Children/dogs/houses are a result of that intimate relationship and not party to it.”
I have heard this sentiments and variations on it for years as a standard assumption in definitions of marriage for as long as I can remember.
Personally, I reject that view of marriage pretty much out of hand. Companionship is not marriage.
For years, I put myself on the written official record as defining marriage as a covenant between four entities –
1 a man
2 a woman
3a God
3b the society in which they live
4 and children, who have a right to parents of both gender in a legal protective framework.
This is what marriage should be. However, modern marriage is yet another example of something in culture we practice that does not deliver the promise.
Recently, those against same gender marriage have tried to claim that procreation is the point of marriage. That strategy is too little too late. Lawyers for the State of Utah can argue that Utah believes same-sex couples — married or not — should not be allowed to raise children. The problem here is too many quotable studies — for and against same gender marriage and / or opposite gender marriage — do not stand up as scholarly factual evidence.
However, human rights and civil rights suggest that a person should be able to marry the one person that person loves. How does Utah balance this right with a child’s right to parents of both genders?
AN ASIDE -- Personally, I believe that people in general do not have an inherent right to reproduce. Only people with monetary means to raise children have that right. Only people with healthy genetics should reproduce. People with healthy genetics and monetary means, whether homosexual or heterosexual, have the right to reproduce.
CIVIL RIGHTS -- HUMAN RIGHTS
The proponents of various styles of marriage can take their stands as they want. That is their right. However, individuals do not have a government’s obligation to balance the competing interests in a society.
A famous observation from an early interracial marriage couple comes to mind:
“I have lived long enough to see big changes now. But some people. . . . Well. Alabama did not get around to repealing its “Racial Integrity Act” until 2000. 2000. All we ever wanted was to get married because we loved each other. And if we hurt some people’s feelings, well — that was just too bad. It is their problem, not mine. I married the only man I ever love and am glad I married the man I loved. It meant a lot to me to marry the person I found most precious, despite the fact that some thought he was the wrong kind of person for me to marry. I am proud of our name on a court case about love and commitment and family in the face of such prejudice. Government has no business forcing some people’s religious beliefs over others. I support the right to marry for all – white or black, gay or straight. That is what loving is all about."
Mildred and Richard Loving
Interracial couple of white man and black woman
Supreme Court decision Loving vs Virginia 1967 decriminalized interracial marriage
EVOLUTION OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE
Recently I read a local editorial that noted that No one, whether gay or heterosexual, has a "fundamental right" to a legal status that is entirely discretionary with the state Legislature. (Quoted by Elise Amendola, Associated Press)
Marriage is a human institution and thus it has its advantages, disadvantages, and flaws. For ages the heterosexuals tacked all sorts of baggage and corruption onto the marriage institution:
History also indicates that marriage laws clearly follow what the public wants in marriage. Look at all the features of marriage that started as ideas among the general public and became law:
● Treating married women as husband's property
then granting married women rights in the marriage
● Institutionalizing violence in marriage
● then some places rescinding the husband's right to violence
● Accepting or disallowing young marriage ages.
● Polyandry
● Polygamy
● Rich powerful men collecting trophy wives by the dozen leaving other men with none
● Older men marrying young teenagers.
● Regarding a relationship that really is a civil union as a legitimate marriage
● Married men routinely having mistresses in certain cultures, including the American one, with mistresses receiving certain rights and benefits.
● La casa grande – la casa bonita as they say down south.
● Using marriage to validate one’s worth and position as first consideration
● Using marriage to gain wealth as first consideration
● Using marriage to make political alliances as first consideration
● Legalizing quick divorce
● Legalizing no-fault divorce
In light of all this — The particular issue of gender in marriage hardly seems much of a change one way or another in the inevitable evolution of marriage. Utah cannot just wink at and accept the heterosexual changes / corruptions to marriage and ignore changes that would benefit the homosexual population.
THE CALL TO ACTION
When governmental law picked up one end of the stick – legalizing young marriage ages, marriage as human validation, marriage as companionship first, recognizing civil unions as real marriages, giving benefits to mistresses, granting no fault divorce, quickie divorce — then it has to pick up the other end of the stick. Same gender marriage.
This development is not an opening for bestiality marriage. All these development have precedent among humans only.
Utah should not stand in the way of the inevitable evolution of marriage.
Same gender marriage will be of interest to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the population. This means that in the United States, we are talking of marriage for 16 to 32 million Americans. In contrast, Utah has 2.9 million residents. It is incredibly unlikely that it will be of interest to heterosexually oriented men.
Marriage, like everything else in The World, is a definition that government has the right to define for the sake of good order. Utah should not charge for licenses a fee above bare minimum and with that in mind, Utah should study the license fee to determine how much it should cut.
I for one do not want Utah remembered as the Mississippi of Marriage Equality, alluding to Mississippi’s history in the civil rights movement back in the 1950s and 1960s. Nor do I want the Utah governor, my friend, remembered as the Ross Barnett of the Marriage Equality movement.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
IN MEMORIAM: ELDER RICHARD R LYMAN . Last early ph.D apostle, last polygamist apostle? last excommunicated apostle
Richard R. Lyman, Joseph F Merrill, James E Talmadge, and John A Widstoe served as 20th century apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were not officially titled “Elders” as other apostles were but were officially titled as “Doctors” because they all held ph.Ds in various sciences. They illustrated for the church’s public image that its leaders were respectable educated intellectuals -- not Rocky Mountain Yahoos. They stood out in contrast to certain apostles, notably Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, who was the most fundamental creationist apostle of that period.
Fifty years ago last week, the last of these ph.D “Doctor apostles” died. Richard R Lyman died on 31 December 1963. LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith had ordained him an apostle in 1918, a year after his apostle father — President of the Quorum of the Twelve Francis Lyman – died. His grandfather, Elder Amasa Lyman, had also served as an apostle in the 19th century.
BACKGROUND.
Both of these apostle ancestors practiced plural marriage – multiple wives at one time. Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, received revelations about polygamy in the 1830s and probably married his first plural wife in that decade. He certainly taught the principle in the 1840s and married multiple women in the period of 1841 - 1844 before his assassination. The First Presidency continued to preach The Principle and allowed many men to marry multiple wives from 1844 to 1890. In 1890, as a result of intense cultural problems and federal government threats, President Wilford Woodruff advised Church members to avoid marriages unlawful in the United States. The First Presidency stopped authorizing plural marriages in April 1904.
NOW THE STORY.
With this background in mind, we noted that when Richard R. Lyman died, he was the last apostle of two other situations. One – he was the last LDS apostle who cohabited with two women in different households. Two – he is currently the last LDS apostle excommunicated from the Church.
Lyman’s legal wife was Amy Brown Lyman, a professional social worker who served in the Church’s women’s organization, the Relief Society. She served in various leadership positions and callings from 1909 to 1945. In 1940, President Heber J Grant called her to serve as the society’s president. She probably would have served longer if it had not been for the conjunction of the next woman.
Anna S. Jacobsen Hegsted was Lyman’s second woman companion – a woman who had been involved in post-manifesto plural marriage, divorced, excommunicasted from the LDS Church, then restored to membership. Lyman received the assignment to oversee her restoration.
Four issues came into conjunction in Lyman’s life. Researchers Gary Bergera and Dennis Michael Quinn studied these in detail in various books and articles. It is hard to tell if any of these claims really are true, but here they are for this article and discussion.
CLAIM 1. Amy Brown Lyman stopped having sexual relations with Richard R Lyman after the birth of their last child and concentrated on her career. Witnesses of the Lyman household report separate bedrooms, not just separate beds.
CLAIM 2. Lyman sealed Anna to himself in 1925, an unusual sort of plural marriage act that had precedent in 19th century LDS Church history.
or CLAIM 3. Lyman and Anna vowed that when one of them died, the other would perform a proxy sealing for themselves for eternity in a temple.
CLAIM 4. Lyman admitted to becoming intimate with Anna as early as 1938. Whether he really involved himself with her earlier is, of course, subject of some speculation and discussion.
FURTHER BACKGROUND.
In 1933, some of the LDS Church’s members with authorized plural wives and members who had unauthorized plural wives started organizing a polygamist Mormon-type Church in opposition to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church. First Presidency Counselor J. Reuben Clark founded a surveillance spy network to gather information on them and to excommunicate them from the main church.
BACK TO THE STORY.
In early November 1943, one of Clark’s spies discovered a veritable bombshell of a secret information – apostle Lyman was keeping company with a woman not his wife. Clark, by then defacto acting Church president for Heber J Grant in fragile declining health, took two apostles – Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B Lee – into his confidence about this situation and assigned them to track Lyman at night. Shortly thereafter, Clark advised Quorum of the Twelve President George Albert Smith of the alleged details; Smith prepared for a disciplinary council. Joseph Fielding Smith and Lee discovered conclusive facts about Lyman and Jacobsen Hegsted: Clark convinced the Salt Lake police to raid the two of them in Jacobsen Hegsted’s house at night. The police caught them inflagrato delecti. President Smith convened a disciplinary council of apostles who excommunicated both Lyman and (eventually) Jacobsen from the LDS Church. They were both in their 70s in age. This ended Richard Lyman’s ministry as an apostle, where apostles ended their ministries at death.
When President George Albert Smith wrote an excommunication announcement, printed in the Salt Lake City Deseret News newspaper, he described the reason for Lyman’s excommunication this way: for a violation of the Christian Law of Chastity. This was technically true. The Church never regarded officially Lyman’s act as technically plural marriage cohabitation after 1904.
SPECULATING
What about Amy Lyman?
Then as now, those in the know about the situation must have viewed her in one of two ways –
Either
She knew about the relationship from 1925 to 1943 and therefore enabled her husband’s sin
or
She did not know about the relationship from 1925 to 1943 and thus was so utterly unobservant that it put her intellectual capacity and leadership ability into question. Even if Lyman started the illicit part of the relationship in 1938, the questions about Amy remain the same.
Church leadership did not excommunicate Amy Lyman. Apparently it preferred to regard her as clueless, not an enabler. However, within a year and a half, the First Presidency released her as Relief Society general president. The previous president had served for years; the next president served nearly 30 years. Her husband’s situation, though, ruined Amy’s reputation sufficiently that it made it impossible for her to go on as Relief Society general president.
What about Richard Lyman?
Eventually the Church authorized his rebaptism and his return to church membership in 1954. But one aspect about his marriage adventure remains mystifying.
Salt Lake City, then as now, is a small city. Church headquarters culture is a village almost as tight and gossipy as The Vatican. How did Lyman do this relationship from 1925 to 1943 without someone noticing before November 1943?
These are interesting questions, but useless to ask. Many questions of history simply go unanswered, sometimes unacknowledged.
Two things to consider from all this –
LDS Culture might have been influenced positively if Richard Lyman had insisted on a right as an apostle to divorce a wife that no longer fit his life needs. LDS leadership culture might have been influenced positively if The First Presidency had implemented another of his ideas. Two years before his excommunication when the Church leadership contemplated added extra apostles or assistants to the apostles to the official leadership, he advocated retirement for older apostles.
The Lord may have tolerated polygamy; the Old Testament certainly leaves that impression. The Lord may have tolerated modern Mormon polygamy for a while, and then he ordered it stopped when it could not work anymore. LDS polygamy may have been a mistake all the way around. If the 2013 scripture edition’s ambiguous preface to “Official Document 1" indicates anything, it indicates the current First Presidency wants to ignore or deny that history and get on with life. "History," Henry Makow once wrote," is propaganda IE a cover up." The human mind may abhor ambiguity, but ambiguity there is in all history in general and LDS history in particular. The ambiguity of Plural marriage left a long shadow over LDS Culture, over the LDS Church, and the official LDS leadership
Fifty years ago last week, the last of these ph.D “Doctor apostles” died. Richard R Lyman died on 31 December 1963. LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith had ordained him an apostle in 1918, a year after his apostle father — President of the Quorum of the Twelve Francis Lyman – died. His grandfather, Elder Amasa Lyman, had also served as an apostle in the 19th century.
BACKGROUND.
Both of these apostle ancestors practiced plural marriage – multiple wives at one time. Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, received revelations about polygamy in the 1830s and probably married his first plural wife in that decade. He certainly taught the principle in the 1840s and married multiple women in the period of 1841 - 1844 before his assassination. The First Presidency continued to preach The Principle and allowed many men to marry multiple wives from 1844 to 1890. In 1890, as a result of intense cultural problems and federal government threats, President Wilford Woodruff advised Church members to avoid marriages unlawful in the United States. The First Presidency stopped authorizing plural marriages in April 1904.
NOW THE STORY.
With this background in mind, we noted that when Richard R. Lyman died, he was the last apostle of two other situations. One – he was the last LDS apostle who cohabited with two women in different households. Two – he is currently the last LDS apostle excommunicated from the Church.
Lyman’s legal wife was Amy Brown Lyman, a professional social worker who served in the Church’s women’s organization, the Relief Society. She served in various leadership positions and callings from 1909 to 1945. In 1940, President Heber J Grant called her to serve as the society’s president. She probably would have served longer if it had not been for the conjunction of the next woman.
Anna S. Jacobsen Hegsted was Lyman’s second woman companion – a woman who had been involved in post-manifesto plural marriage, divorced, excommunicasted from the LDS Church, then restored to membership. Lyman received the assignment to oversee her restoration.
Four issues came into conjunction in Lyman’s life. Researchers Gary Bergera and Dennis Michael Quinn studied these in detail in various books and articles. It is hard to tell if any of these claims really are true, but here they are for this article and discussion.
CLAIM 1. Amy Brown Lyman stopped having sexual relations with Richard R Lyman after the birth of their last child and concentrated on her career. Witnesses of the Lyman household report separate bedrooms, not just separate beds.
CLAIM 2. Lyman sealed Anna to himself in 1925, an unusual sort of plural marriage act that had precedent in 19th century LDS Church history.
or CLAIM 3. Lyman and Anna vowed that when one of them died, the other would perform a proxy sealing for themselves for eternity in a temple.
CLAIM 4. Lyman admitted to becoming intimate with Anna as early as 1938. Whether he really involved himself with her earlier is, of course, subject of some speculation and discussion.
FURTHER BACKGROUND.
In 1933, some of the LDS Church’s members with authorized plural wives and members who had unauthorized plural wives started organizing a polygamist Mormon-type Church in opposition to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Church. First Presidency Counselor J. Reuben Clark founded a surveillance spy network to gather information on them and to excommunicate them from the main church.
BACK TO THE STORY.
In early November 1943, one of Clark’s spies discovered a veritable bombshell of a secret information – apostle Lyman was keeping company with a woman not his wife. Clark, by then defacto acting Church president for Heber J Grant in fragile declining health, took two apostles – Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B Lee – into his confidence about this situation and assigned them to track Lyman at night. Shortly thereafter, Clark advised Quorum of the Twelve President George Albert Smith of the alleged details; Smith prepared for a disciplinary council. Joseph Fielding Smith and Lee discovered conclusive facts about Lyman and Jacobsen Hegsted: Clark convinced the Salt Lake police to raid the two of them in Jacobsen Hegsted’s house at night. The police caught them inflagrato delecti. President Smith convened a disciplinary council of apostles who excommunicated both Lyman and (eventually) Jacobsen from the LDS Church. They were both in their 70s in age. This ended Richard Lyman’s ministry as an apostle, where apostles ended their ministries at death.
When President George Albert Smith wrote an excommunication announcement, printed in the Salt Lake City Deseret News newspaper, he described the reason for Lyman’s excommunication this way: for a violation of the Christian Law of Chastity. This was technically true. The Church never regarded officially Lyman’s act as technically plural marriage cohabitation after 1904.
SPECULATING
What about Amy Lyman?
Then as now, those in the know about the situation must have viewed her in one of two ways –
Either
She knew about the relationship from 1925 to 1943 and therefore enabled her husband’s sin
or
She did not know about the relationship from 1925 to 1943 and thus was so utterly unobservant that it put her intellectual capacity and leadership ability into question. Even if Lyman started the illicit part of the relationship in 1938, the questions about Amy remain the same.
Church leadership did not excommunicate Amy Lyman. Apparently it preferred to regard her as clueless, not an enabler. However, within a year and a half, the First Presidency released her as Relief Society general president. The previous president had served for years; the next president served nearly 30 years. Her husband’s situation, though, ruined Amy’s reputation sufficiently that it made it impossible for her to go on as Relief Society general president.
What about Richard Lyman?
Eventually the Church authorized his rebaptism and his return to church membership in 1954. But one aspect about his marriage adventure remains mystifying.
Salt Lake City, then as now, is a small city. Church headquarters culture is a village almost as tight and gossipy as The Vatican. How did Lyman do this relationship from 1925 to 1943 without someone noticing before November 1943?
These are interesting questions, but useless to ask. Many questions of history simply go unanswered, sometimes unacknowledged.
Two things to consider from all this –
LDS Culture might have been influenced positively if Richard Lyman had insisted on a right as an apostle to divorce a wife that no longer fit his life needs. LDS leadership culture might have been influenced positively if The First Presidency had implemented another of his ideas. Two years before his excommunication when the Church leadership contemplated added extra apostles or assistants to the apostles to the official leadership, he advocated retirement for older apostles.
The Lord may have tolerated polygamy; the Old Testament certainly leaves that impression. The Lord may have tolerated modern Mormon polygamy for a while, and then he ordered it stopped when it could not work anymore. LDS polygamy may have been a mistake all the way around. If the 2013 scripture edition’s ambiguous preface to “Official Document 1" indicates anything, it indicates the current First Presidency wants to ignore or deny that history and get on with life. "History," Henry Makow once wrote," is propaganda IE a cover up." The human mind may abhor ambiguity, but ambiguity there is in all history in general and LDS history in particular. The ambiguity of Plural marriage left a long shadow over LDS Culture, over the LDS Church, and the official LDS leadership
Thursday, December 26, 2013
HALLOWEEN, THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS AND THE WORK WEEK -- Reforming and Reprogramming the holiday calendar for The New Order
Business scheduling does not just happen. It takes planning. Its cost money.
This year 2013, Christmas occurred on a Wednesday, smack in the middle of a work week. It meant many if most people did not want to concentrate on working. There is shopping and preparation before the holiday. There are returns to make and more shopping to do after the holiday. In The World of Doing Things other than Commerce, it is a complete waste of a week’s work. It is also hard to have a spiritual holiday three days either way from a Sunday.
Halloween can come on any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling in its own way.
Thanksgiving is a little better always coming on the last Thursday of November – but why on Thursday in November?
Christmas can come any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling on a big scale. At Christmas time 2013, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was rather shorter than usual and caused a number of problems, notably a foul up in UPS and FedEx that caused them to deliver numerous packages scheduled for before Christmas delivery after Christmas.
The time has come to legislate the new Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Halloween should always come on the last Friday. The last Friday should be the Halloween party night and the Saturday next should be the Trick or Treating Night. This holiday should always occur on a weekend.
Rescheduling Thanksgiving for business purposes has a long, distinguished history. According to an entry in Wikipedia:
“On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost.”
In the 21st Century, Thanksgiving should be the third Friday. Thus – we will have three days of work, maybe four depending on travel plans. The holiday comes at the end of the week. Then, the Christmas shopping season can start on Black Saturday. The holiday is also two days from a Sunday for the celebration of the spiritual aspects of Thanksgiving.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be a movable feast like Easter. We know that the Christmas celebration on 25 December does not reflect reality on the date of Jesus’s birth. The scripture evidence would suggest a spring birth date. Christ’s mass got moved to 25 December for symbolic purposes. 25 December came after the Winter Solstice, so it had natural light and darkness symbolism. Ancients co-opted old pagan Roman midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.’ They took place in December around this date — so it was a time when people already celebrated things.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of December. This would then emphasize the spiritual nature of the holiday. The official federal secular American Commercial Wintertime Festival holiday should be celebrated the next Monday. Therefore, the last shopping day would always fall on a Saturday; the day off would always occur at the first of a week. The big after Christmas shopping day would always be on a Tuesday and business would have four work days.
Only one exception in this plan: These particular dates should never fall on a January 1.
Calendaring business is neither easy nor cheap, but this plan would somewhat uncomplicate three holidays almost in a row in as many months. The next step would be to figure out how to de-emphasize commerce profit margins from the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival and spread them out thorough the buying year.
This year 2013, Christmas occurred on a Wednesday, smack in the middle of a work week. It meant many if most people did not want to concentrate on working. There is shopping and preparation before the holiday. There are returns to make and more shopping to do after the holiday. In The World of Doing Things other than Commerce, it is a complete waste of a week’s work. It is also hard to have a spiritual holiday three days either way from a Sunday.
Halloween can come on any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling in its own way.
Thanksgiving is a little better always coming on the last Thursday of November – but why on Thursday in November?
Christmas can come any day of the week and thus disrupts business scheduling on a big scale. At Christmas time 2013, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was rather shorter than usual and caused a number of problems, notably a foul up in UPS and FedEx that caused them to deliver numerous packages scheduled for before Christmas delivery after Christmas.
The time has come to legislate the new Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Halloween should always come on the last Friday. The last Friday should be the Halloween party night and the Saturday next should be the Trick or Treating Night. This holiday should always occur on a weekend.
Rescheduling Thanksgiving for business purposes has a long, distinguished history. According to an entry in Wikipedia:
“On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost.”
In the 21st Century, Thanksgiving should be the third Friday. Thus – we will have three days of work, maybe four depending on travel plans. The holiday comes at the end of the week. Then, the Christmas shopping season can start on Black Saturday. The holiday is also two days from a Sunday for the celebration of the spiritual aspects of Thanksgiving.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be a movable feast like Easter. We know that the Christmas celebration on 25 December does not reflect reality on the date of Jesus’s birth. The scripture evidence would suggest a spring birth date. Christ’s mass got moved to 25 December for symbolic purposes. 25 December came after the Winter Solstice, so it had natural light and darkness symbolism. Ancients co-opted old pagan Roman midwinter festivals called 'Saturnalia' and 'Dies Natalis Solis Invicti.’ They took place in December around this date — so it was a time when people already celebrated things.
In the 21st Century, Christmas should be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of December. This would then emphasize the spiritual nature of the holiday. The official federal secular American Commercial Wintertime Festival holiday should be celebrated the next Monday. Therefore, the last shopping day would always fall on a Saturday; the day off would always occur at the first of a week. The big after Christmas shopping day would always be on a Tuesday and business would have four work days.
Only one exception in this plan: These particular dates should never fall on a January 1.
Calendaring business is neither easy nor cheap, but this plan would somewhat uncomplicate three holidays almost in a row in as many months. The next step would be to figure out how to de-emphasize commerce profit margins from the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival and spread them out thorough the buying year.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? -- ABOUT SAME SEX MARRIAGE
On his birthday, it would be interesting to ask What Would Jesus Do? What would Jesus do about same-gender marriage?
It is, of course, risky to put words in the mouth of deity --- though humans have been doing that since the beginning.
The New Testament gospels suggests that Jesus was an orthodox conservative on sexual behavior. He was also orthodox conservative on the issue of divorce. He did not do complex rationalizations on either point.
On the subject of homosexuality, the New Testament records no comments from Jesus. The Bible has seven references to homosexuality, but they are found in the Old Testament and in Paul’s writings. To put this in perspective, the Bible has hundreds of references to economic justice and the laws governing the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The Old Testament required a death penalty on dozens of activities — not just murder and homosexuality.
The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are both silent on homosexuality.
Acts 17 may hint at how Jesus and his associates in the Godhead might view this development in human marriage. The King James version renders it this way –
29 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
This is how the New Standard Revised version renders the point –
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
“God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands all everywhere to repent . . . .”
Dr Andrew Weil, from the scientific medical perspective, put ignorance of human sexuality this way:
“We think about sex a great deal, yet live in appalling ignorance of its nature and best uses. Even on the most practical level, there is little information to assist us. Most if us struggle to come to terns with this drive without help. Trustworthy guides are seldom found.” – Habits chapter of Natural Health Natural Medicine, p. 161
We wonder and speculate. If and when alien beings arrive on Earth, will they understand the concept of male and female and marriage? Would aliens understand a distinction between opposite gender and same gender sexual activity?
We wonder and speculate. At what point does God considers a couple married ? Why does God see a distinction between married and unmarried sexuality — and why? Does God see a distinction in heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity? Is some of sex or all of it “Ick Factor” to them?
The answer to "What would Jesus Do" in this situation is the same answer to the question in all other situations. The answer is not found in old books, but in the process of continuing revelation. The
God’s love for us is unqualified. However, unqualified love does not mean God is under any particular obligation to like everything we do on any particular subject. This is why “judgement” gets mentioned in scriptures often. This helps explain why the afterlife reward system comes with varying grades and types. That we will get what we want in this life and beyond is a good blessing for this Christmas day.
It is, of course, risky to put words in the mouth of deity --- though humans have been doing that since the beginning.
The New Testament gospels suggests that Jesus was an orthodox conservative on sexual behavior. He was also orthodox conservative on the issue of divorce. He did not do complex rationalizations on either point.
On the subject of homosexuality, the New Testament records no comments from Jesus. The Bible has seven references to homosexuality, but they are found in the Old Testament and in Paul’s writings. To put this in perspective, the Bible has hundreds of references to economic justice and the laws governing the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The Old Testament required a death penalty on dozens of activities — not just murder and homosexuality.
The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants are both silent on homosexuality.
Acts 17 may hint at how Jesus and his associates in the Godhead might view this development in human marriage. The King James version renders it this way –
29 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.”
This is how the New Standard Revised version renders the point –
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.
30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
“God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands all everywhere to repent . . . .”
Dr Andrew Weil, from the scientific medical perspective, put ignorance of human sexuality this way:
“We think about sex a great deal, yet live in appalling ignorance of its nature and best uses. Even on the most practical level, there is little information to assist us. Most if us struggle to come to terns with this drive without help. Trustworthy guides are seldom found.” – Habits chapter of Natural Health Natural Medicine, p. 161
We wonder and speculate. If and when alien beings arrive on Earth, will they understand the concept of male and female and marriage? Would aliens understand a distinction between opposite gender and same gender sexual activity?
We wonder and speculate. At what point does God considers a couple married ? Why does God see a distinction between married and unmarried sexuality — and why? Does God see a distinction in heterosexual and homosexual sexual activity? Is some of sex or all of it “Ick Factor” to them?
The answer to "What would Jesus Do" in this situation is the same answer to the question in all other situations. The answer is not found in old books, but in the process of continuing revelation. The
God’s love for us is unqualified. However, unqualified love does not mean God is under any particular obligation to like everything we do on any particular subject. This is why “judgement” gets mentioned in scriptures often. This helps explain why the afterlife reward system comes with varying grades and types. That we will get what we want in this life and beyond is a good blessing for this Christmas day.
Saturday, December 7, 2013
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE: Review of The Sound of Music Live
NBC’s advertising of The Sound of Music Live claims that no network has attempted a live broadcast of a musical in fifty years.
No wonder. If one has videotape to edit, use it.
The live broadcast of 5 December 2013, coming a few hours after the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela, originated from a large converted warehouse space in Bethpage, New York. It puts me in mind of another memorable live TV musical production – the CBS live broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson. On 31 March 1957, CBS broadcast this nationwide from a converted old Broadway theater, a very tight space in which all the cast had to work around stagehands and big color cameras in choreographed rotations. It was also an early color TV broadcast, available only in those markets that had a CBS station with color transmitters. Unfortunately, CBS made no arrangements for a color kinescope; color videotape was not available in 1957. Fortunately, a black and white kinescope preserved the event; even today, the broadcast looks like a nerve-wracking experience for everyone in front of cameras and behind.
I will say this for The Sound of Music Live. It had remarkably few bloopers or problems. I only noticed
1 someone’s off stage image appearing where it should not
and 2 a camera focusing on live TV. None one froze or passed out or projectile vomited on live TV. I bet it was tempting, though. The production’s most noticeable problem was star Carrie Underwood, who portrayed a very pretty, talented but dull “Maria Rainer.”
“Problem” is probably the wrong word. Carrie looked a treat, and she was closer to the right age for the role than was the original Maria Mary Martin, who was in her 40s in the first 1959 Broadway production. She sings beautifully, but she could not connect to the rest of the cast. However, her lack of acting ability certainly gave the right impression about the character Maria — an inexperience young woman from a convent school.
The rest of the Broadway-trained cast did much better with their roles. They are also used to any problems that will happen in a live performance, so if anything went wrong with them, I certainly did not notice it. The kids who portrayed the former Navy captain’s family did well all the way around.
One aspect impressed me strongly in this production: it got back to the thematic roots of the 1959 production. The 1965 movie, which aimed for the biggest audience possible, removed or de-emphasized some of the themes that Oscar Hammerstein, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse explored in the play.
The Sound of Music originally examined two themes –
1 the survival of the artistic ego against the controlling vindictive, dictatorial ego
and 2 the competition between the spiritual aspect of music and the commercial exploitation of music. It is true that the commercialization of music got the Von Trapp family out of the coliseum and out of Salzburg; it is the spiritual aspect of music that gave them the courage to flee into the mountains and out of the long night of Nazism.
The theme of ego response to the dictatorial controlling ego has in the play version a rather interesting illustration in a support character named “Rolf.”
Rolf is a clean-cut superrace boy who delivers ominous telegrams to the Von Trapp estate. He is, as the song puts it, “17 going on 18" years of age, and in this TV version gets performed by someone really close to that age. In the beginning of the play, he likes girls to the extent that he likes the oldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl. They get what is called on Broadway the secondary ingenue love song set against the forest set. They even get to role down a grassy flowery incline together. Romantic by NBC standards.
The next time he appears to deliver a telegram, he has brought two other male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend playmates with him. They all wear lederhosen. Rolf obviously is more interested in them than in any girl. The third time he shows up, he portrays a downright surly attitude to Liesl; the Nazi cause is his only interest. In the last scene, he lets the family escape, so by the standards of Broadway 1959, he is still interested in Liesl, but not enough to escape with them. He and his boyfriends must have made beautiful cannon fodder.
How different conditions are on Broadway 2013 vs. 1959. It occurred to me that the modern stage director could use the forest setting nowadays to symbolize Maria’s spirituality [singing “The Sound of Music” at the beginning] and to symbolize Liesl’s young love [singing "16 going on 17"], and to symbolize the Von Trapp’s escape to freedom at the finale, and to illustrate the predatory egos of the male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend. They could have been discovered running through the forest, kicking up the edelweiss and marking their territories urinating on Maria’s tree.
It seems inconceivable, considering that the actress who played Elsa has such talent to play the witty, ironic worldly girlfriend, that the Captain preferred Maria to her. In what world?? However, the play makes clear, as the film did not, that she and Georg and Max all had political differences that effected their relationships. Elsa and Max willingly let controlling egos dictated to them. Georg would not.
I heard years ago the first Broadway cast audio recording album of The Sound of Music songs, so I knew what the original finale sounded like. The memory of that recording did nothing to prepare me for the power of that ending, what with the symbolism of both the Triumph of the Artistic Ego and the glorification of the spiritual aspect of music. I was reduced to tears.
The Sound of Music Live was not as horrible as it could have been. Still, it made me long for the good old days of videotape editing.
No wonder. If one has videotape to edit, use it.
The live broadcast of 5 December 2013, coming a few hours after the announcement of the death of Nelson Mandela, originated from a large converted warehouse space in Bethpage, New York. It puts me in mind of another memorable live TV musical production – the CBS live broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson. On 31 March 1957, CBS broadcast this nationwide from a converted old Broadway theater, a very tight space in which all the cast had to work around stagehands and big color cameras in choreographed rotations. It was also an early color TV broadcast, available only in those markets that had a CBS station with color transmitters. Unfortunately, CBS made no arrangements for a color kinescope; color videotape was not available in 1957. Fortunately, a black and white kinescope preserved the event; even today, the broadcast looks like a nerve-wracking experience for everyone in front of cameras and behind.
I will say this for The Sound of Music Live. It had remarkably few bloopers or problems. I only noticed
1 someone’s off stage image appearing where it should not
and 2 a camera focusing on live TV. None one froze or passed out or projectile vomited on live TV. I bet it was tempting, though. The production’s most noticeable problem was star Carrie Underwood, who portrayed a very pretty, talented but dull “Maria Rainer.”
“Problem” is probably the wrong word. Carrie looked a treat, and she was closer to the right age for the role than was the original Maria Mary Martin, who was in her 40s in the first 1959 Broadway production. She sings beautifully, but she could not connect to the rest of the cast. However, her lack of acting ability certainly gave the right impression about the character Maria — an inexperience young woman from a convent school.
The rest of the Broadway-trained cast did much better with their roles. They are also used to any problems that will happen in a live performance, so if anything went wrong with them, I certainly did not notice it. The kids who portrayed the former Navy captain’s family did well all the way around.
One aspect impressed me strongly in this production: it got back to the thematic roots of the 1959 production. The 1965 movie, which aimed for the biggest audience possible, removed or de-emphasized some of the themes that Oscar Hammerstein, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse explored in the play.
The Sound of Music originally examined two themes –
1 the survival of the artistic ego against the controlling vindictive, dictatorial ego
and 2 the competition between the spiritual aspect of music and the commercial exploitation of music. It is true that the commercialization of music got the Von Trapp family out of the coliseum and out of Salzburg; it is the spiritual aspect of music that gave them the courage to flee into the mountains and out of the long night of Nazism.
The theme of ego response to the dictatorial controlling ego has in the play version a rather interesting illustration in a support character named “Rolf.”
Rolf is a clean-cut superrace boy who delivers ominous telegrams to the Von Trapp estate. He is, as the song puts it, “17 going on 18" years of age, and in this TV version gets performed by someone really close to that age. In the beginning of the play, he likes girls to the extent that he likes the oldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl. They get what is called on Broadway the secondary ingenue love song set against the forest set. They even get to role down a grassy flowery incline together. Romantic by NBC standards.
The next time he appears to deliver a telegram, he has brought two other male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend playmates with him. They all wear lederhosen. Rolf obviously is more interested in them than in any girl. The third time he shows up, he portrays a downright surly attitude to Liesl; the Nazi cause is his only interest. In the last scene, he lets the family escape, so by the standards of Broadway 1959, he is still interested in Liesl, but not enough to escape with them. He and his boyfriends must have made beautiful cannon fodder.
How different conditions are on Broadway 2013 vs. 1959. It occurred to me that the modern stage director could use the forest setting nowadays to symbolize Maria’s spirituality [singing “The Sound of Music” at the beginning] and to symbolize Liesl’s young love [singing "16 going on 17"], and to symbolize the Von Trapp’s escape to freedom at the finale, and to illustrate the predatory egos of the male Oesterreich Hitlerjugend. They could have been discovered running through the forest, kicking up the edelweiss and marking their territories urinating on Maria’s tree.
It seems inconceivable, considering that the actress who played Elsa has such talent to play the witty, ironic worldly girlfriend, that the Captain preferred Maria to her. In what world?? However, the play makes clear, as the film did not, that she and Georg and Max all had political differences that effected their relationships. Elsa and Max willingly let controlling egos dictated to them. Georg would not.
I heard years ago the first Broadway cast audio recording album of The Sound of Music songs, so I knew what the original finale sounded like. The memory of that recording did nothing to prepare me for the power of that ending, what with the symbolism of both the Triumph of the Artistic Ego and the glorification of the spiritual aspect of music. I was reduced to tears.
The Sound of Music Live was not as horrible as it could have been. Still, it made me long for the good old days of videotape editing.
Friday, November 22, 2013
THE SENATE "NUCLEAR OPTION" : symptom not of Congressional problem but of nation-wide problems
The Senate leadership detonated the nuclear option on 21 November 2013. It is yet another example that when humans built a weapon, they will always find an excuse to use it whether it is a good idea or not.
The United States has 317,000,000 residents. It is a nation of 11 rather different nations. Given that reality, a Senate majority of half plus one is more realistic and more attainable than 60 percent.
The use of the filibuster, per se, did not constitute the real problem in the Senate. Its problem results from side effects and symptoms of a bigger nation-wide problem. Population size. Out-dated internal boundaries. Small totals of senators and representatives working for a huge population.
For The United States’s Congress to function with real representation and fairly, the United States needs -- for a basic foundation -- 75 - 100 states of populations between 3,175,000 to 9,000,000. Not too big. Not too small. Just right for the purposes of governance and raising local revenues.
That number of states would generate a Senate of 150 - 200 senators. Given the population of this nation and a Senate of that size, a 60% majority might under those conditions be workable. However, a majority of half plus one remains more ideally politically realistic.
The House of Representatives should have much more than 435 representatives, a number that dates back to 1912 when the country had less than 100,000,000 people. Consider –
The House would feature 500 representatives if one representative represents 634,000 citizens.
The House would feature 635 representative if 1 representative represents 500,000 citizens.
It is realistic to expect a country with 317,000,000 citizens should have a House of Representatives with 1000 representatives. 1 representative for 300,000 citizens, give or take. It means that the House leadership would be rather like the mayor and town council of a village.
The Nuclear Option is really not about a 60 person majority or a 51 person majority. The problem remains: the problem of the size of states and the number of Senators and Representatives. Those who want smaller government simply do not understand the representative needs of 317,000,000 citizens.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
OBAMACARE, FEDERAL SHUT DOWN, ASSESSING BLAME: Congress is an easy target, but not the only responsible party.
The Democrats in Congress and the Republicans in Congress and the Democrats in the Administration all, metaphorically speaking, stood eyeball to eyeball for the last week and refused to blink. Certain parts of the federal government, as a result, closed down for a lack of a budget because a certain minority of Congress members refuse to accept one particular statute now derisively referred to as “ObamaCare.”
A STIPULATION
We hear these days a lot of leaders and citizens talking about the hatred of ObamaCare in terms of preserving or expanding “liberty.” This tactic is, at best, disingenuous. The real issues, it seems to this correspondent, are about funding and structure and health. These are more tangible than an obscurely defined word.
THE MAIN CULPRIT IN THE BLAME GAME
There is certainly enough childish blame to go around Congress and the executive. However, the heaping helping of childish behavior this time goes to Republican Congress members who seem convinced health is not part of the "general welfare" or "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and is now just another commodity only people with money deserve.
Today, though, I want to discuss some people who also share blame in this mess. Those people are us citizens.
1 Many if not most of us have our pet federal projects want funded to the limit so long as someone else’s tax money funds them.
2. Many if not most of us do our best to minimize federal tax payments but maximize our use of federal programs.
3 Many people have the moral rectitude and emotional stamina to serve as excellent elected Representatives and Senators. Many of us refuse to serve. How many talented, first-class citizens among us make jokes and criticize the people who have been elected to office while refusing to serve? Someone, however crazy or obstinate, will always appear on a ballet to fill in the power vacuum.
4. If our leadership seems to develop mental health issues in office, if crazy people seem attracted to American public office, remember this: the climate of government these days, the climate of angry public discourse from hypocritical constituents.
5. Many citizens, too many of them in fact, appear to have forgotten that health is a part of “general welfare” spoken of in The Constitution of the United States and is part of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. There are public obligations to health; it is not merely a private responsibility. It may be true that our representatives seem to have obsessed over health costs and payments and insurance at the expense of promoting health itself. However, many citizens seem motivated by resentment that the poor and the colored and the immigrants will get away with something, will get something for nothing.
6. Too many of us will not even educate ourselves about federal issues or even vote for quality candidates.
We should not be surprised if members of Congress do not particularly pay attention to the citizens any more.
THE CALL FOR ACTION
The citizens cannot just expect to wait around and get what they want in the way of federal health programs. We must lobby for
1 Separating the issues of insurance from employment.
2 Creating a one payer system. It might involve some sort of variety in programs for individual needs, but a healthy system for healthy people should have some major streamlining.
3 Tightening federal regulation of hospital billing so that from one place to another the itemizing of hospital bill items will become more uniform.
4 Creating a health program. It might be federal or state sponsored, but new structure we need. This is not quite to say create a federal medical bureaucracy.
A STIPULATION
We hear these days a lot of leaders and citizens talking about the hatred of ObamaCare in terms of preserving or expanding “liberty.” This tactic is, at best, disingenuous. The real issues, it seems to this correspondent, are about funding and structure and health. These are more tangible than an obscurely defined word.
THE MAIN CULPRIT IN THE BLAME GAME
There is certainly enough childish blame to go around Congress and the executive. However, the heaping helping of childish behavior this time goes to Republican Congress members who seem convinced health is not part of the "general welfare" or "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and is now just another commodity only people with money deserve.
Today, though, I want to discuss some people who also share blame in this mess. Those people are us citizens.
1 Many if not most of us have our pet federal projects want funded to the limit so long as someone else’s tax money funds them.
2. Many if not most of us do our best to minimize federal tax payments but maximize our use of federal programs.
3 Many people have the moral rectitude and emotional stamina to serve as excellent elected Representatives and Senators. Many of us refuse to serve. How many talented, first-class citizens among us make jokes and criticize the people who have been elected to office while refusing to serve? Someone, however crazy or obstinate, will always appear on a ballet to fill in the power vacuum.
4. If our leadership seems to develop mental health issues in office, if crazy people seem attracted to American public office, remember this: the climate of government these days, the climate of angry public discourse from hypocritical constituents.
5. Many citizens, too many of them in fact, appear to have forgotten that health is a part of “general welfare” spoken of in The Constitution of the United States and is part of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. There are public obligations to health; it is not merely a private responsibility. It may be true that our representatives seem to have obsessed over health costs and payments and insurance at the expense of promoting health itself. However, many citizens seem motivated by resentment that the poor and the colored and the immigrants will get away with something, will get something for nothing.
6. Too many of us will not even educate ourselves about federal issues or even vote for quality candidates.
We should not be surprised if members of Congress do not particularly pay attention to the citizens any more.
THE CALL FOR ACTION
The citizens cannot just expect to wait around and get what they want in the way of federal health programs. We must lobby for
1 Separating the issues of insurance from employment.
2 Creating a one payer system. It might involve some sort of variety in programs for individual needs, but a healthy system for healthy people should have some major streamlining.
3 Tightening federal regulation of hospital billing so that from one place to another the itemizing of hospital bill items will become more uniform.
4 Creating a health program. It might be federal or state sponsored, but new structure we need. This is not quite to say create a federal medical bureaucracy.
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