Condoleezza Rice is speaking WHERE?

Brigham Young University sent the following mass email to all of its students and employees:

"A special university forum, featuring former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will be on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. This forum will be co-sponsored by the Wheatley Institution and the Kennedy Center.

"The university is switching all events that occur at the 11 a.m. hour on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011, with those that occur at the 11 a.m. hour on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Please adjust your schedules or syllabi accordingly.

"Additionally, the university is unable to broadcast (or rebroadcast) to any other locations (on or off campus), the internet or BYU-TV. Dr. Rice’s speech and Q & A only can be heard in the Marriott Center.As usual, the forum will begin at 11:05 a.m. Faculty members are encouraged to dismiss preceding classes promptly at 10:50 a.m.

A special university forum, featuring former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will be on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. This forum will be co-sponsored by the Wheatley Institution and the Kennedy Center."The university is switching all events that occur at the 11 a.m. hour on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011, with those that occur at the 11 a.m. hour on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Please adjust your schedules or syllabi accordingly."Additionally, the university is unable to broadcast (or rebroadcast) to any other locations (on or off campus), the internet or BYU-TV. Dr. Rice’s speech and Q & A only can be heard in the Marriott Center.As usual, the forum will begin at 11:05 a.m. Faculty members are encouraged to dismiss preceding classes promptly at 10:50 a.m."

RIGHT ASCENSION CAN STANDS ONLY SO MUCH AND I CAN STANDS NO MORE

BYU'S legendary bad taste in forum speaker selection strikes again. First Mr Cheney. Now Ms. Rice.

I do not wish to put too fine a point to it-- but we should send the starring cast members of the Second Bush Administration -- George, Dick, Don, and Condi -- somewhere in Europe to stand trial for crimes against humanity. We should not encourage them with book sales and with speaking engagements in front of impressionable young Cougars.

RIGHT ASCENSION'S CALL TO ACTION

The students should spent that hour on 11 January reading their scriptures. The second part of The Book of Alma would be a good place.

For starters, I encourage people to write pointed letters to the editors of the Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, Provo Herald, and BYU Universe decrying this. I'll get started today with my letters

THE 62 DAYS OF THE AMERICAN COMMERCIAL WINTERTIME FESTIVAL

Back in olden days when Christmas was a Christian holiday, the festival took 12 days starting with Christ’s Mass on 25 December and ending with the Day of the Magi / Kings. American commercial traditions and cultural pretentiousness transforms anything, even anything good, into A Major Big Deal. As a result we now have the 62 Days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, which starts on the first of November.


On the first day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love gave to me a fully animated plastic pink Chinese flamingo
Pricing authority: Walmart

On the second day my true love gave to me two cases of free range cornish hens on sale with a coupon
Pricing authority: Costo.

On the third day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: a three-piece suite, an exact replica of sofa, love seat, and armchair located in the Drawing Room of Sandringham House – bought three-months interest free credit
Pricing authority: R. C. Willey.

On the fourth day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me:4 years free unlimited calling and texting
Pricing authority: Verizon

4 Nov: Ohmyfrikingosh! Christmas decorations already hang over the concourses of University Mall, Orem Utah. Sears will open for half of Thanksgiving Day, which helps illustrate what Thanksgiving has become in the American Commercial Wintertime Festival. The mall decoration theme involves cartoon reindeer dressed in “Nutcracker” ballet costumes. Christmas used to have Christ; the Wintertime Festival has magical flying Laplandish undulates.

On the fifth day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: 5 percent royalties off the gross at 5 golden arches franchises along Interstate 5 in 5 San Joaquin Valley counties.
Pricing authority: McDonalds – Oak Brook, Illinois.

5 Nov: FM 100.3 and 106.3 Utah both regularly broadcast winter holiday music: Elvis crooning a carol on one, and ♬Rockin around the Christmas Tree at the Christmas party hop♬ on another.

I wonder how many FM stations regularly schedule military band music, patriotic hymns and anthems from 4 May to 4 July??

On the sixth day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love gave to me, 6 gift cards for any 6 steak dinners
Pricing authority: Texas Roadhouse. – Louisville


On the seventh day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love gave to me: a $7700 line of Christmas Club credit at a 7% fixed interest rate
Pricing authority: J P Morgan Chase – New York

On the eighth day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: a Wilton kit to bake and decorate 8 Gingerbread men,
Pricing authority: exclusively available at Jo-Ann’s Crafts – Hudson, Ohio

On the 9th day of the 62 days of the American Commericial Wintertime Festival my true love gave to me case 9 / 544 of Tom Eddy 2002 Napa Valley California Cabernet Sauvignon from a classic hillside vineyards in Oakville Bench. “Elegant, impeccably balanced, beautifully structured, a well-built, serious wine packed with layers of fruit and promising great aging potential."

“A dark purple wine opens with an inviting nose of blackberry bouquet with hints of licorice and blueberry. On the palate, this wine is ultra smooth, elegant, with delicious black cherry flavors and spicy notes. The finish remains elegant; fine tannins linger for a tremendously long time.”

Nov 9: Meanwhile at Provo Towne Centre, the night gnomes have set up the two-story decorated tree and have started clearing the food court for Santa’s Court. The shoppes start to deck their halls with merchandising, fa la la la etc.

On the tenth day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love gave to me: a coupon for 10 percent off a purchase of 10 pounds of any New Zealand lamb products.
Pricing authority: Fresh Market Place – Salt Lake City


On the 11th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: an 11 foot tall flocked artificial holiday tree with multi-colored prestrung lighting.
Pricing Authority: Tai Pan Trading, Salt Lake City.

On the 12th Day of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: a years supply of cosmetics and toiletries assorted, neatly boxed both by fragrance and month.
Pricing authority: Sephora, San Francisco.

ASIDE – why would anyone name a cosmetics store after the wife of Moses?? I could understand beauty spas named “Nefertari”

MEANWHILE -- 10 Nov: Fashion Place Mall, Murray Utah, has not started setting up any of their holiday decorations, yet – though a couple of their anchor department stores have.

MEANWHILE -- 10 Nov: Fashion Place Mall, Murray Utah, has not set up any holiday decorations, yet – though 2 anchor department stores have.

12 Nov: University Mall, Orem, is in full decoration mode for the wintertime festival, and what ug-g-g-ly decorations. Plastic Ornaments on fake trees the size of mortars. 15-foot-tall reindeer wearing the most fru fru Nutcracker Ballet outfits they can find.

On the 13th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True love gave to me: 13 ultra-thin Danish wrist-watches in gold, platinum, and titanium, in 13 different sizes and styles suitable for any social occasion formal or casual.
Pricing Authority: Skagen Denmark Design Limited, Reno.

On the 14th day of the 62 days of the American commercial wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: 14 pairs of Blomdahl shin high stiletto boots closed by zippers and buckles, in colors and styles assorted for various wintertime fashion activities.
Pricing Authority: Aldo Group, Montreal

On the 15th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival my True Love gave to me A coupon for 15 percent off the total bill for a longboard (sweet ride) and clothing accessories (rad).
Pricing authority: Industrial Rideshop , Tempe Arizona

Meanwhile --16 Nov: Provo Towne Centre's workers install its holiday decor in Nutcracker Ballet motif. Ghastly elven figures and 15-foot-tall Tchaikovskyesque characters with great hideous teeth line Kris Kringle's Throne Room. Take your pick: the Jesus holiday, the Santa holiday, and the Drosselmeyer holiday. ho ho ho

On the 16th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: a 16 inch x 16 mm Black Tahitian matched AAAA Pearl Necklace
Price authority: Pearl Source, Los Angeles

17 Nov: I have already visited some homes and driven past other homes that have holiday decorations up and running. My household apparently held rather old-fashioned time table -- we decorated after Thanksgiving.

On the 17th Day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee : 17 certified organic skin care products in assorted tropical fruit and spice aromas
Pricing authority: Body Shop, Littlehampton West Sussex

On the 18th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: 9 pairs of art deco cufflinks in 18 karot.
Pricing authority: Cufflinks.com , Dallas

18 Nov 8:00 p.m. Provo Towne Centre: Teenagers wearing long robes and striped scarves and carrying wands start hanging about for the midnight premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I" at Cinemark. For the record -- I NEVER donned Jedi priestly garb to view a "Star Wars" episode, though I might have bought ...a "Lost in Space"-suit in 1965 had I the cash.

On the 19th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival my True love gave to me:
19 tickets for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I,” IMAX Theater at Jordan Commons – plus catering services for a movie party afterwards.
Pricing authority: Larry H Miller Megaplex Theaters, Salt Lake City

Warners took SO long to produce the “Harry Potter” wandcycle that it will need to transform Hogwarts into a Graduate School to accommodate Daniel, Rupert, and Emma’s advanced ages. The last picture will feature them graduating with their MOAA degrees — Masters of Occult Arts Administration.

In Utah, certain people find the film’s nudity – supposedly brief – upsetting. More so than the excessive violence, positive portrayal of the occult, and popularizing quidditch?? Hooray for Hollywood.

On the 20th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: a coupon for 20 percent off the total price of any 20 inspirational books
Pricing authority: Deseret Book, Salt Lake City
.

On the 21th day of the 62 Days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: a guys weekend out for me and my buddies golfing and surfing complete with golf carts, clam bake, two bungalows (20 and 21) with ocean views.
Pricing authority: The Inn at Spanish Bay, The Links at Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hill Golf Course -- Pebble Beach California

On the 22nd day my true love gave to me 22 gallons of gasoline every week for the next 22 weeks.
Pricing authority: Royal Dutch Shell plc – London.

On the 23rd day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me, 23 assorted boxes of lozenges, sprays, pills, decongestants, herbal teas, rubs, and injections to get me through the winter cold and flu season.
Pricing authority: Walgreens, Deerfield, Illinois

On the 24th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: an Egyptian art deco necklace in 24 carot
Pricing authority: Kmart — Hoffman Estates Illinois

On the 25th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: 25 chefs and waiters to do your annual Thanksgiving day brunch, Thanksgiving Day feast, and the marathon football snacking for all your in-laws who have no where else to descend but on your house.
Pricing Authority: Marvellous catering — Provo

One the 26th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: a Dallas boutique hotel suite for her and her girlfriends for a shopping spree weekend complete with a personal buyer
Pricing authorities: Magnolia Hotel Downtown – Dallas
Neiman-Marcus – Dallas

on the 27th of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: a coupon for 27 percent off up to 27 different BYU football designer sweaters, sweats, jerseys, t-shirts, knickknacks, and souvenirs.
Pricing authority: BYU Bookstore – Provo

On the 28th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love I give to thee: a 28-karat diamond engagement ring in the biggest, most-vulgar, platinum Art Nuevo setting available
Pricing authority: Harry Winston on Rodeo Drive – Beverly Hills

On the 29th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my true love I give to thee as a token of . . . my esteem and affection: 29 assorted push ups, multi-ways, bikinis, hiphuggers, boyshorts, thongs, and garters in animal instinct patterns of various primary colors
Pricing authority: Victoria’s Secret – Columbus

On the 30th day of the 62 days of the American Commercial Wintertime Festival, my True Love gave to me: 30 percent off all the camping gear, clothing, boots, and climbing gear necessary for a mountaineering holiday at Crestone Peak (14,300 feet)
Pricing authority: Recreational Equipment Incorporated — Kent, Washington

I'VE GONE HOME BEAVER: IN MEMORY OF BARBARA BILLINGSLEY

It is quite true that one of her most famous lines as “June Bronson Cleaver” in Leave it to Beaver was indeed, “What is all the commotion out here? I’m breading cutlets.”

Actress Barbara Billingsley died on 16 October, 2010 at the age of 94.

At the time that Leave it to Beaver aired first on CBS then ABC TV, featuring Ms. Billingsley in top billing

Donna Reed played a mother in The Donna Reed Show
Harriet Hilliard portrayed a mother in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Jane Wyman portrayed a mother in Father Knows Best
Shirley Booth portrayed a mother-feature housekeeper and Whitney Blake portrayed a mother in Hazel
June Lockhart portrayed a mother in Lassie.
Mary Tyler Moore portrayed a mother in The Dick Van Dyke Show.

At the time, audiences gave Billingsley the least attention. Nowadays 50 years later, her “June Cleaver” and Mary Tyler Moore’s “Laurie Petrie” still get lucrative rerun rating attention. But who follows Father Knows Best anymore?

At this point, the writer should disclose his biases on the subject of 1950s comedy programs.

In my opinion, these are the best programs of the period:

The Jack Benny Program

Your Show of Shows / Sid Caesar’s Hour

I Love Lucy

The Jackie Gleason Show / The Honeymooners. In the 1960s, I would list the first four years of The Jackie Gleason American Scene Magazine

You”ll Never Get Rich / The Phil Silvers Show

Leave it to Beaver

The Red Skelton Show, while very good, I do not list here in the 1950s because I think it became even better in the 1960s as The Red Skelton Hour.

Billingsley had a minor acting career before series creator/producers Joe Connolly and Bob Mosher cast her as June Cleaver in 1956. They cast Billingsley and Mathers in the first pilot. The husband and older brother and older brother’s friend went through two sets of casting before the producers found the magic combination of the Reverend Hugh Beaumont, Wally Dow, and Ken Osmond in the second pilot.

Billingsley performed roles in TV and movies after the first series and after the second series as well, notably the jive talking passenger in Airplane! and as a member of the Welcome Wagon Committee of TV moms in that memorable 1995 episode of Roseanne that also featured Patricia Crowley, Isabel Sanford and June Lockhart. Billingsley played straight woman of the bunch. June Cleaver did not like the language in Roseanne.

Referring to her years in CBS’s Lassie, June Lockhart got a huge laugh when she observed without missing a beat, “Those bastards told me that “June” was too long a name for a TV show. The dog got all the good lines; I merely interpreted. And then I got shot into outer space with the annoying Dr. Smith and that damned robot.”

It was Billingsley’s performances as “June Cleaver” in the first Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963) and in the second series Still the Beaver / The New Leave it to Beaver (1983 - 1989) that made her immortal in TV reruns and DVDs.

June Cleaver was beautiful to start. She was usually brunette, though in 1961 she went through a blond period. In some episodes, she had attended college long enough for her purposes; in other episodes she had known Ward Cleaver for ages before their marriage. The series had occasional uncles and aunts but no grandparents, so the audience focused on the parents and the two boys.

Veteran writers Joe Connolly and Bob Mosher created LitB, the story of the Cleaver family, an upper-middle class mother-father-two sons family unit living in Mayfield, probably in Ohio. Tony Dow, one of the cutest and most natural boy actors of that generation, portrayed the oldest son “Wally.” Jerry Mathers portrayed the younger son “Theodore.” Mathers was at best a good actor, but he projected regular boy anxiety amid the horrors of 1950s-1960s conventionality skillfully.

Connolly and Mosher closely supervised every episodes with few assistants. Nowadays, shows change producers regularly and have long lists of executive producers, producers, producers in charge of production, line producers. Today, the work Connolly and Mosher did for the six seasons of LitB looks positively herculean. In the first three season, they also wrote a majority of episodes. Their credit memorably read

Created, produced and written
under the supervision of
JOE CONNOLLY
and BOB MOSHER

They were just about the only TV producers I can remember who received such a grandiose credit, but they deserved it. They carefully made sure that the kids sounded and acted like real kids. As a result the utterly cool, athletic, understated, and popular Wally and his popular but anxious little brother Theodore were perhaps the most realistic children of television in that period. They used the slang popular at the time. In 1962, the Cleavers had this linguistic discussion at the breakfast table over bacon and eggs:

Wally: [discussing a boys club Eddie wants the two of them to join to become popular guys] “Eddie says they are the craziest.”

June: “Craziest??”

Wally: “Oh, that doesn’t mean squirrel-ly. It means they are really cool guys.” [The Cleaver boys were among the first TV users of the durable slang expression]

Ward: “You know, when I was a youngster and we said crazy, we meant crazy.”

June “How backward.”

Theodore: “Boy, Mom – in the olden days I bet you said something like neat, huh didn’t you Mom?”

June: thinking it over between bites of breakfast. “Well, no. I think we said keen.”

Theodore incredulous: “Keen?? They don’t even say that on Dobie Gillis anymore.”

The pilot episode of LitB got involved in one of the most acrimonious censorship confrontations in the history of 1950s TV, though Billingsley herself did not appear in the controversial scene. The boys have secreted a pet alligator into the house and in a scene they hide it in their private bathroom toilet tank. The censors threw a collective cow. In the 1950s sitcom characters did not have bodily function let alone bathrooms with toilets. Connolly and Mosher went head to head with the censors, arguing that it was natural for boys to hide an alligator in a toilet tank and besides, it wasn’t like we were observing a kid on or in front of a toilet using it for obvious purposes. (That had to wait for The Waltons in 1972.) The censors relented; Leave it to Beaver had the first toilet tank on network sitcom TV.

Speaking of the bathroom, LitB was unusual in that the boy’s bathroom figured into plots quite often and appeared on screen regularly. In the second season, after Ward punishes Beaver for a major carnival fling with stolen money, he and Theodore have this unusually frank exchange for 1958, while June looks on with comments after:

Ward: “You had better go up to your bedroom and wait there until Larry comes.”

Theodore: “Yes Sir. But Dad, can I go to the bathroom first?” [a 1958 euphemism for a bodily function need]

Ward: “Yes, of course.”

Theodore: “Thanks. I feel sort of sick.”

It was in complete keeping with Connolly and Mosher’s insistence on reality since a little boy after a major binge at a carnival will have to unload his tummy or BM the first thing when he gets home.

Speaking of Beaver’s first best friend, Larry Mondello (who threw up at Beaver’s house in one episode) — the boys’ friends sometimes treated them shabbily and vise versa, though LitB was one of the first TV series to show boys dancing together multiple times, and its depiction of Beaver’s relationship with his best boy friend "Gilbert Bates" constitutes one of the first bromances in the history of TV boy bonding. Wally’s relationship with Eddie Haskell also constitutes one of the most complex male bonding relationship ever put on TV. “He’s a rat,” Wally observed about Eddie after one of his ghastly escapades, “but he’s my best friend.”

LitB got the psychology of boys nearly always right on the nose. It’s an achievement rarely equaled in American TV where most kids appear as wise guy props for comedy stars to sparkle against.

LitB’s parent characters supported the boys as characters, which is one of only a few instances in American television where the series came from the viewpoint of children, not adults. It also was a good bellweather of real slang in California at that time.

June firmly believed in the three square meal principle cooked mostly from scratch, and without a microwave, though once in the first series she did admit to buying and using TV dinners. The family ate two meals together a day on plates with silverware, which nowadays seems utterly quaint.

In the 234 episodes of the first LitB, the number of time Beaver exhibited interest in girls – “gurls” he pronounced them with the same sort inflection he might use to pronounce something found on the sole of his shoe – we can list on the fingers of both hands. Wally showed interest in girls friends from the first season, though in the first two season his relationship world centered on his boy friends Eddie, Chester, and Tooey – and sports and guy stuff. Hormones hit Beaver in the series’ second to last episode. A number of times in the series Beaver said that he would not marry a girl, and the writers probably meant it to be ironic funny. However, Theodore probably should have stuck with that observation considering that he got divorced at the beginning of the second LitB.

June Cleaver was a stay at home mom and quite domestic. Obsessive compulsive almost. In the last two seasons, she was practically a caricature of herself. It is quite true that a couple of times in the later season, she vacuumed in a good dress and high heals. She wore a string of pearls to hide a rather obvious pit in her throat. In the earlier seasons, she was somewhat sardonic along with the domestic angle. She did wear slacks a few times to do yard work or go camping.

When Beaver let a homeless man into the house, he took a bath in the master bathroom and stole one of Ward’s suits. June held up his old ratty suit by her fingertips and said matter-of- factly, “Apparently Beaver was not entertaining Noel Coward.”

She was terribly self aware and self conscious of what her neighbors would think of her family.

A study of all the episodes of the series, shows June was stay-at-home, unliberated, apolitical, but not a perfect domestic goddess. She sometimes got short tempered with her sons, she sometimes made mistakes. She struggled with Beaver when he became a teenager in 1963. She was the straight woman for the sons’ adorably funny comments and for her husband’s sardonic observations. Her husband Ward Cleaver, portrayed by the Reverend Hugh Beaumont dispensed sound advise, sardonic humor, and sometimes made big mistakes with his sons. He was man enough to admit it to his sons. Contrary to the October 2010 news reports, he did not smoke a pipe in the series.

In one memorable late episode:

Ward: “I came downstairs to look for my pipe.”

June: “You don’t have a pipe.”

Ward: “I guess that’s why I didn’t find it.”

She got to play straight woman to Ward’s intensely boring work colleague "Fred Rutherford" portrayed by Richard Deacon:

June: “Why, hello Fred. Come right on in here.”

Fred: “Thank you June, but my business is with the Lord of the manner.”

June played straight woman to her son’s boy friends, notably Wally’s unctuous playmate “Eddie Haskell” – always super polite in a passive aggressive sort of way to adults, always teasing and tormenting younger kids. Who can ever forget the inflections Ken Osmond gave such lines as “Good morning, Mrs. Cleaver. Your kitchen is so clean. My mother says it looks as if you never work in it.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Cleaver. [observing her cooking ] “the meal smells delicious, whatever it is.”

She got to play straight woman to some of Beaver’s guys as well. Stephen Talbot, before he became a distinguished PBS documentary producer, had humorous exchanges and did she and Richard Correll. In his days before he became a sitcom director, he portrayed Beaver’s eager friend “Richard Rickover.”

Beaver to his mother: “This is my friend Richard. He’s a kid.”

At one point after their sons had endured some ghastly misadventure with their boys, June said in complete seriousness:

June: “You know Ward, it would be wonderful if we could select some nice boys to be Wally and Beaver’s friends.”

Ward: without missing a beat: “Yes, and they probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them.”

The second LitB series (1983 - 1989) , sometimes called Still the Beaver and other times entitled the New Leave it to Beaver, featured mature Billingsley, and grown-up Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers again. A widowed grand-matriarch, she became a sort of grandmother nurturer matriarch of the extended family. Both sons and both sets of grandchildren lived within her home’s block. In that series the writers were less careful in the details and the episodes could center on adults as well as kids. June Cleaver wore slack suits sometimes, ate take out Chinese food at her dining room table, and ran for political office in Mayfield, Ohio, becoming a town council member. She nurtured her three grandsons and one granddaughter in a 1980s setting.

It is a testament to the durability of the concept that the Cleavers went through not one but two successful TV sitcoms one in the Eisenhower-Kennedy era and the other in the Reagan administration.

It says a lot about the decline of American family culture that a certain snarkiness always creepsinto media discussions of June Cleaver, the stay at home Mom who always found ways to support her boys, to keep a tidy comfortable home, a refuge from the storms of life, to keep them nurtured and healthy.

Barbara Billingsley, who with June Lockhart and Elizabeth Montgomery were my favorite TV actresses in my childhood, played the role brilliantly. Quality of writing and quality of Barbara Billingsley will always be Leave it to Beaver’s chief strengths.

PRESIDENT PACKER AND THE SAME GENDER CONTROVERSY: FACTS, SPECULATIONS, ELEPHANTS IN THE LIVING ROOM

In his general conference address given on 3 October 2010, President Boyd K Packer discussed other subjects than same-sex preferences or same-sex marriage. However, most of his address got completely lost in all the controversy over those brief paragraphs. I culled from two Utah newspaper articles the juiciest details of the story. My quotations do take up space, but they deserve attention to the details, for I elaborate on them in this editorial:

I will print the article quotations in Courier font.

From
Joe Pyrah - Daily Herald Daily Herald | Posted: Monday, October 4, 2010 12:00 am

Peggy Fletcher Stack The Salt Lake Tribune October 3, 2010 11:18PM

Same-sex attraction can be overcome and any type of union other than marriage between a man and a woman is morally wrong, an LDS apostle told millions of Mormons on Sunday.

“There are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature,” Boyd K. Packer, president of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, said in a strongly worded sermon about the dangers of pornography and same-sex marriage. “A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?”

Packer, speaking from his seat because of his frail health, addressed more than 20,000 members gathered in the LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City and millions more watching the faith’s 180th Semiannual General Conference via satellite.

The senior apostle drew on the church’s 1995 declaration, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” to support his view that the power to create offspring “is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness. It is the key — the very key.”

Some argue that “they were pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural,” he said. “Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father.”

Alluding to the Utah-based church’s support of laws such as California’s Proposition 8 that would define marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, Packer said, “Regardless of the opposition, we are determined to stay on course.”

“We cannot change; we will not change,” the senior apostle declared. “We quickly lose our way when we disobey the laws of God. If we do not protect and foster the family, civilization and our liberties must needs perish.”

An LDS Church leader said Sunday that homosexuality is not "inborn."

"Why would our heavenly father do that to anyone?" asked Elder Boyd K. Packer. "Remember, he is our father."

Packer, a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke forcefully during the church's general conference about having the ability to choose one's way.

"We can foolishly, blindly give it away, but it cannot be forcefully taken from us," he said of free choice.

He reiterated the church's 1995 The Family: A Proclamation to the World that outlined the belief that marriage is only between a man and woman and that anything else is contrary to the will of God.

Man-made laws, he said, cannot change that.

"A law against nature would be impossible to enforce," he said. "Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?"

The church strongly backed California's Proposition 8 in 2008 that defined marriage as between a man and woman, as well as Utah's own constitutional amendment in 2004 that says the same. California's Prop 8 has been in court almost since it passed.

Laura Compton, who directs Mormons4Marriage, a group of Latter-day Saints who opposed Proposition 8 and support marriage equality in California and elsewhere, was troubled by Packer’s sermon.

“So many Mormons have worked hard to increase understanding of what homosexuality is and what it means to be faithful,” Compton said in a phone interview from her California home. “Now we have this [anti-gay] message coming from the pulpit in General Conference by the president of the Quorum of the Twelve. It seems like hitting a brick wall. Hopefully, this won’t make people stop and say, ‘It wasn’t worth it.’“

Then, as members repeat and digest Packer’s comments in coming months, Compton worries about its impact on the faithful.

“When we are sitting next to the mom of a gay son or daughter whose best friend just came out, or by the bishop who knows 10 people in the ward affected by homosexuality, how will we reach out and help them?” she wonders. “How are we going to make them feel the love of Christ?”

To some, Packer’s comments seemed like a throwback to earlier LDS statements about same-sex attraction, similar to those made last summer by LDS general authority Bruce Hafen. Hafen, who became an emeritus member of the First Quorum of Seventy on Saturday, was speaking at a conference sponsored by Evergreen International, a nonprofit group that helps Mormons overcome gay behavior and diminish same-sex attraction, according to its website, evergreeninternational.org.

Hafen promised attendees at the Evergreen conference, “If you are faithful, on resurrection morning — and maybe even before then — you will rise with normal attractions for the opposite sex.”

Whenever the devil, whom Hafen referred to as “the adversary,” tries to “convince you that you are hopelessly ‘that way,’ so that acting out your feelings is inevitable, he is lying,” Hafen said. “He is the father of lies.”


RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY

Of course, Elder Hafen prefers heterosexuality and got his, so why should he really care, in the long view, what those who prefer homosexuality get?

If a future prophet announced that God declared The World had too many human idiots and changed the commandment to do not multiply, do not have heterosexual-style sex, how many straight men would take comfort from a statement like “If you are faithful, on resurrection morning — and maybe even before then — you will rise with normal attractions for the same sex” ?

Not many, I bet.

Elder Hafen’s comment assumes male-female-hormonal driven sexual activity continues in the afterlife. If gender does exist before earth life and after, I suspect it manifests itself in different ways than it does in Earth life. What exalted omniscient all-powerful beings would be foolish enough to base its reproduction on hormonal-based copulation? State bluntly, all of us, no matter what our sexual preference, may get completely rewired in the next plain of existence.

My question in the previous paragraph is probably no more dopey than President Packer’s question about what God would or would not do to his children. A more interesting question is – what will Satan do or not do for his ex-brothers and sisters?

The outcry against President Packer’s talk developed rather like some sort of ancient Japanese ritual. We knew practically from the start what people – both for and against – would have to say, how and what positions they would take, and at what points in the debate they would move into position. The Church’s position assumes from the start that people will persecute it no matter what it says on the subject, so it took positions of varying degrees of no win.

I sometimes contemplate what might have happened if the LDS Church had in 1939 opened the priesthood to all worthy males, decided to attempt among southern blacks a major missionary program starting in 1944, and decided to take the lead in the Civil Rights movement starting in 1947. Churches, after all, did take leading roles in that movement then. Southern Conservatives and Southern racial bigots would have condemned the LDS church as acting in a highly unChristian way encouraging the culuredz to get uppity. It might have become the darling of northern liberalism.

When the Church decries dishonesty and stealing, do organizations of thieves descend on church headquarters with petitions talking about the creation of a hurtful environment?


BLAME GOD AGAIN

Someone either in the First Presidency office or in public communications went about cleaning up President Packer’s text to make it less . . . certain? . . . . offensive? . . . less something.

Someone cut President Packer’s question “Why would heavenly father do that?” Apparently we should not contemplate what The All Mighty will or will not do for us and to us.

Why would Heavenly Father give people schizophrenia or defective hearts? The compare-contrast is not quite on the same level, but it is a good question anyway. It helps illustrate that we do not know if disease and mental illness come through genetic influence set by Heavenly Father, or if Satan can set genetic influences, or if someone else entirely set these genetic influences way back in time.

How many mental health activists would insist society should encourage people born with schizophrenia to stay schizophrenic and take it to the limit? How many would encourage children born with heart malformations or brain malformations or kidney malformations or bowel malformations to live with the conditions and encourage them? Some in Deaf Culture, interestingly enough, find cochlear implants offensive, demeaning and controversial to people who do not know any better than to prefer not hearing. This general conference address controversy illustrates the power of sex in human lives: people with same gender attraction cling to it strongly even when it means a living a life surrounded by bigotry, hatefulness, and childlessness.


ELEPHANTS IN THE LIVING ROOM

Elephants sit about in this particular rhetorical living room and most will not acknowledge them or deal with them. Let me scatter caution to the breeze and at least acknowledge them.

Nowadays, people, even Orthodox people, select only parts of the Old Testament to quote and believe.

The Old Testament punishes man-man sexual activity by death. However, the Old Testament also punishes by death unmarried sex between unmarried men and women as well. The Old Testament uses death to punish all sorts of non-sexual activity. The Old Testament did not punish sex between masters and slaves.

Heterosexuals ruined marriage, not homosexuals. Heterosexuals developed polygamy, mistresses, la casa grande and la casa bonita, treating women like possessions, institutionalizing violence in marriage.

Although it has not lead the way, the heterosexual LDS Church played its part in the decline of heterosexual marriage.

The LDS Church introduced polygamy to the United States. It still practices polygamy to the extent that Temple sealers will seal a mortal man to a mortal second wife after his first wife has died, thus creating a polygamist situation among them in the spirit world afterlife. It also played an historic role in the liberalization of divorce. Of the first six LDS Church presidents, all practiced polygamy, and no fewer than 4 obtained divorces from some of their plural wives. Today, if an adulterous man’s leaders think he is fully repentant, that man can now obtain a sealing to a woman with whom he committed an adulterous relationship.

Thinking of ourselves as heterosexual or homosexual is inaccurate and counterproductive for us to do. Sexual activity preferences do not somehow predict everything about one’s personality and activity. Sex is only one – sometimes boring – aspect of life in a life full of aspects. A person should state preference in a factual way: I prefer sexual activity with women or I prefer sexual activity with men or I like both in bed.

In the 21st century and beyond, people not only can change, people will change.

With advances in genetic repairs, genetic engineering, and hormonal therapy, medical science will be able to change homosexuals into heterosexuals.

That said, the reverse is also true. This is an important point to consider in a place like China where men out number women.

With advances in genetic repairs, genetic engineering, and hormonal therapy, medical science will be able to change heterosexuals into homosexuals.

From the 21st century onward, sexual preference will be just another piece of the human puzzle that medical science will tinker for political purposes.

It is true that the LDS Church in theory condemns and punishes unmarried male-female sexual transgression the same it punishes unmarried same-gender sex activity. However, when typical LDS leaders punish guys involved in unmarried sexual involvement with women, their attitudes typically tend toward “boys will be boys.” Furthermore, many fathers dismiss their sons’ sexual exploits because too many of them live vicariously through their sons to spice up their boring lives.

It is true that the LDS Church treats unmarried people who prefer opposite sex attraction and those unmarried who prefer same sex attraction the same. The Church insists they must be celibate.

This position is impossible: celibacy is not LDS doctrine or culture. It is not human cultural norms, either. If anything, Catholicism showws the world the limits and problems of celibacy in a hormonal based human population. Furthermore, heterosexual singles have the possibility of an acceptable sanctioned married sexual life. Others do not.

So in practical reality what does this mean?

I hate to end an essay with a question. At this stage in this discussion, I think it is best to do so and leave the discussion here for us to contemplate.

drs

REVIEWS OF "THE BOOK OF MAMMON: A BOOK ABOUT A BOOK ABOUT THE CORPORATION THAT OWNS THE MORMONS"

Here are two book reviews posted on the Internet by people other than me. They review a newish book that has gone on my wish list for Christmas:

The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About The Corporation That Owns The Mormons
by Daymon M Smith


1

So, the book is an accidental satire? Sort of. It poses practical and metaphysical conundrums, meditates on the moral dilemmas avoided, embraced, and stumbled upon, when God and Mammon are made to synergize. A compelling, light-hearted but serious memoir, fictional ethnography, and, yes, even apocalypse, this book crosses genres, fact, fancy, and everything between.

With this key it opens the doors to Mormon corporate offices, the most secret of spaces, and invites you inside. Come. See the author "work" as a media evaluator with the Mormon Church's corporate arm. At the Church Office Building (it's actual name) spiritual ambitions speak through quarterly evaluations, mission statements, digital personas, and website designs. Look! There is no conspiracy, although as at any office, there's lots of unintentionally humorous, fatuous banality. Here employees chant "cultural beliefs" composed by Human Resources and test whether a new DVD hits your "spiritual hot buttons." See us market food storage to religious consumers. Read a stack of documents never before published which declare and depict the "best practices" of the corporation, from smuggling underwear into banana republics to marketing strategies for the Book of Mormon. The author, a cultural anthropologist, provides insight into a place where men argue about DVD scripts and the color of book bindings, while children starve. Woven through his constant surprise at encountering religion fed through the pomposities of corporate-speak, you'll find revelations of the financial "waste" and this-world investment strategies of this wealthiest of religions. And understand the internal power struggles and culture of the same. See corporatized religion battle spirituality, art, welfare and people. Come with me and have a look around. (This text refers to the New Faith-Promoting Book of Mammon.)


2

I just added a new book to my wish list: The Book of Mammon by Daymon Smith, an LDS anthropologist. Smith recounts his experiences working at the Church Office Building where religious concerns are uncomfortably wedded to corporate ones. As a Mormon, he is concerned that his church is increasingly led more by profit (mammon) than a prophet.

The Book of Mammon reads like an entertaining and informative exposé of the LDS Church’s corporate practices, from the banal to the unusual. It has been receiving rave reviews. C. L. Hanson over at Letters from a broad wrote a review of the book that has further piqued my interest. Informed by the book, she points out an insightful irony:

According to Daymon’s tale, working at the COB has all of the crazy office politics you’d expect at an ordinary fortune-500 corporation. There’s a big difference, though, and it’s not just the church devotionals on company time or opening meetings with prayer. The problem is that they have absolutely no motivation to figure out whether their products are useful to their consumers. Mormons pay 10% of their income per year to the corporation (in order to be eligible for the saving ordinances in the temple), and the corporation gives back manuals, magazines, films, scriptures, garments, etc. — but the direct market feedback that comes from consumers selecting the goods they purchase is completely cut off.

As I’ve said before the private sector and the public sector each have their strengths and weaknesses. In economics, it’s not a question of choosing which one is “right” and which one is “wrong” — it’s a question of optimizing your strategy by using the best of both. The COB has the worst of both because it has the advantages of neither: there’s no market incentive to produce good products, and there’s no public oversight either.

(The biggest irony is how ferociously right-wing the Mormons are, yet they give so much money to a corporation that functions just like the very worst stereotypes of the Soviet government economic system.)

THE MODERN STONE AGE FAMILY AT 50

The products of 21st-century prime-time television animation tend to shock more than entertain. People who watch South Park and The Family Guy have to endure them more often than laugh at them. This situation is a far cry from the first prime time animated series, which premiered on ABC TV fifty years ago today, 30 September 1960. It was a high concept cultural satire of Jackie Gleason’s “The Honeymooners” set in Stone Age suburbia. Even in its last years when it jumped the shark and lived off its own fat, it could still be very funny.

In its trial pilot animations, producers-creators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera called the proposed series “The Flagstones.” By 1959, Hanna-Barbera had more than 25 years of animation experience, first in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation unit, where under the guidance of Fred Quimby they created “Tom and Jerry Cartoons” – winning Oscars for best short animated films in 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1948, 1951, and 1952.

Hanna-Barbera also had at least five years of experience in television animation, creating Saturday morning cartoon series for Yogi Bear, Bobo, Huckleberry Hound, and Deputy Dawg, among others characters. No animation producers until them in 1959 willingly took on the rigors of a night-time, weekly cartoon series, which meant in practice that the product would have to appeal both to youngsters and to adults.

That product evolved in a 6 season series entitled The Flintstones – a modern stone age family.

The Flintstones was an entirely brilliant concept. The drawings themselves were just adequate enough by the standards of TV cartooning, inked in color, but not broadcast in color until the middle years of the run. It featured a two blue collar working men – its “Kramden” character named "Fred" worked in a rock quarry; the “Norton” character named "Barney" worked at a job not quite definite in the series. They both had wives who, at least in the first season, were abusive. They later mellowed into basically jovial but short tempered wife-mother characters.

Hanna-Barbera hired maybe the most high-voltage voice cast in the history of prime time animation – each actor had years of experience in radio comedy, each enjoyed long runs in hit radio series:

Alan Reed, who co-starred in Life with Luigi, portrayed "Fred Flintstone. "

Jean Vanderpyl, who portrayed "Margaret Anderson" for years in Father Knows Best, portrayed "Wilma Flintstone," and later her mother.

Legendary "man of a thousand voices" Mel Blanc, a fixture of the Warner Brothers cartoon unit, The Jack Benny Program, and The Mel Blanc Show, portrayed "Barney Rubble" and also Fred's boss at the quarry.

Bea Benederet, who with June Foray worked as female voices in the Warner Brothers cartoon unit, in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Program, and The Jack Benny Program. portrayed "Betty Rubble" for four seasons.

On 24 January 1961, Mel Blanc nearly died in an auto accident. As related by Wikipedia

Hit head-on on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood , Blanc suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a coma for three weeks, along with fractures of both legs and the pelvis.

Blanc reported in TV interviews, and later in his autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to come out of his coma by talking to him as Bugs Bunny, after futile efforts to talk directly to Blanc. Although he had no actual recollection of this, Blanc's wife and son swore to him that when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you today, Bugs Bunny?", Blanc answered in Bugs' voice. Blanc thus credited Bugs with saving his life.

Blanc returned home from the UCLA Medical Center on March 17 to the cheers of more than 150 friends and neighbors.

The 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 9th episodes of the second season employed Hanna-Barbera regular Daws Butler to perform as Barney, while Blanc was incapacitated by his near-fatal car accident. Blanc was able to return to the series much sooner than expected, by virtue of a temporary recording studio for the entire cast set up at Blanc's bedside. It should be noted, however, that Blanc's portrayal of Barney Rubble had changed considerably after the accident. In the earliest episodes, Blanc had used a much higher pitch. After his recovery from the accident, Blanc used a deeper voice.

For a few early episodes, the Flintstone’s pet dinosaur named "Dino" {dee- no} spoke to the audience in a voice very close to that of Phil Silvers.

The Flintstones animation was adequate, but the writing was first rate. At least in its first two seasons, it was great social satire. It took shots at all sorts of sacred American cows – corporate culture, show business, fraternities, suburban family life, American product worship, television culture. It featured a list of funny prehistoric gadgetry – including small dinosaurs that functioned as garbage disposals.

In 1963, Wilma was involved in one of the three or four most famous pregnancies in all TV history – alongside Lucy Ricardo and Little Ricky ( I Love Lucy 1953), Samantha and Tabatha (Bewitched 1966) and Roseanne and Jerry (Roseanne 1995). It was the first time I had ever heard of pregnancy and maternity clothes. Wilma’s pregnancy lasted only a few weeks and required a complete redraw of her costume. (Aside from some dress up gags, all of the characters wore only one costume from first episode to last.)

As I recall, the producers sponsored a contest gimmick to name the new baby before it was born, sponsored by Welch’s Grape Juice. I remember distinctly the birth of daughter "Pebbles Flintstone" on 22 February 1963 produced a rare on screen appearance by the producers to announce contest winners.

Certain aspects of The Flintstones have become notorious.

Its sense of geologic history was completely preposterous. No dinosaurs lived in the Stone Age.

Home town Bedrock kept shifting around in size and features.

The first sponsor of the first season was none other than Winston Cigarettes: Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon advertisements with the characters smoking. Obviously they intended to brain wash the kiddies young about the pleasures of tobacco.

Another early sponsor was Bristol-Meyers pharmaceuticals. Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon advertisements featuring the characters taking drugs, so they intended to brainwash the kiddies young on the joys of solving problems with pill popping.

Eventually, Welch and Company sponsored the program. Hanna Barbera managed to work into the plots references to grape jelly and grape juice, which Pebbles referred to as "Woo Woo gape jew."


Unfortunately, The Flintstones as a series jumped the shark early. I still remember the advertising hoopla surrounding a guest star appearance of bombshell singer-actress Ann-Margret, who performed two musical numbers, including a knock-out lullaby written for the broadcast. Unfortunately the effect of the lullaby, in the Utah broadcast market at least, got undercut during that September 1963 premiere broadcast night by a audio accident that caused a second sound track from heaven only knows what to come on during the lullaby.

"Ann-Margrock Presents," broadcast on 19 September 1963, was the first episode of that new season.

In October 1963, the Rubbles adopted a baby son they named "Bamm-Bamm Rubble." He was not just a boy, he was the strongest boy in the world, which was pretty far fetched even for a cartoon gimmick. He spoke only two words, did nothing but strength gags, and became a very tiresome character very quickly.

The series tied into other ABC sitcoms with varying results of corny. Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York appeared in a 1966 episode as stone age cartoon versions of "Darrin and Samantha." A next door family by the name of Grusom appeared in the last season as stone age versions of the Addams Family. The premiere episode of 1965 -66 season was an episode entitled “No biz like show biz.” It did a musical satire of American rock and roll complete with Pebbles and Bamm Bamm singing “Let the Sunshine In.” Harvey Korman got a gig in 1965-66 as "Kazoo," a visitor from Outer Space. He might have been cute on Hanna-Barbera’s 21st Century cartoon satire, The Jetsons but seemed rather out of place in Bedrock.

The Flintstones was my favorite TV show as a little kid, eclipsed only by Bewitched and Lost in Space later in the decade.

The Flintstones evolved into a number of Saturday morning incarnations from 1971 to 1988, and in a few made for TV animated movies. These by and large were designed for children and had less depth of satire than the original. They were unusual to the extent that the children age. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm suddenly were 11 years of age, then became teenagers, then married, became twenty-somethings with twins.

The 1994 live action production of The Flintstones Movie can best be passed over in silence, except to say, you would think that a production with Elizabeth Taylor, Rosie O'Donnell, John Goodman, and Rick Moranis would have some life to it. It most certainly did not.


The best elements of the best seasons have come down through the years in some elements of The Simpsons. Happy 50th anniversary to Bedrock and its most famous families.

OBAMA AND THE HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL VACATIONS

My loyalist Republican conservative neighbors try to outdo each other with complaints of just how awful our President Obama performs as compared to recent "real" presidents. Last month, they complained about the President’s vacations, as if he were taking too many vacations at the public expense and as if a man in a presidential office always in session should always be home to take care of business.

I should have reminded them that his is, after all, the 21st century. Modern federal technology can keep a president in touch with the executive branch and all its resources no matter where he happens to stay at any particular day.

Here are facts of presidential vacation down time, as reported in three articles on the subject, for the readers to compare contrast.


Article One:

George W. Bush's vacation time (grand total)

http://jonox.livejournal.com/25625.html


487 days at Camp David
490 days at Crawford Ranch
43 days at Kennebunkport Compound

Total: 1020 days, more than 1/3rd of his presidency. Bush set the record for most vacation time taken by president.

Carter took 79 days in 4 years.
Clinton took 152 days in 8 years.

Reagan took 335 days in 8 years.
Bush Sr. took 543 days in 4 years!


So much for the mythological Republican hard worth ethic.


Article two:

487 Days At Camp David For Bush

CBS News
Political Hotsheet
January 16, 2009 4:11 PM


George W. Bush is today making his final visit to Camp David as president.

He will likely miss the place: According to CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, today's trip marks Mr. Bush's 149th visit to the presidential retreat. The planned three-day stay, during which the president is being joined by family and former and current aides, will bring his total time spent at Camp David to all or part of 487 days.

Yes, that's 487 days. And Camp David is not even where the president has spent the most time when not at the White House: Knoller reports that Mr. Bush has made 77 visits to his ranch in Crawford during his presidency, and spent all or part of 490 days there.


Article Three:

Like Every Administration,
White House Defends Obama "Vacation"

CBS News
August 19, 2010 2:35 PM
Posted by Mark Knoller

Every White House is a bit defensive about presidential vacations and President Obama's staff is no exception.

"Whenever you talk about a presidential vacation you ought to put the word "vacation" in quotes because you can bet that there will still be work that he's doing every day," deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters yesterday on Air Force One.

Mr. Obama and family are today beginning a 10 day "vacation" on Martha's Vineyard. (Okay, Bill, those quotation marks are for you.")

Burton is right in that a president is never really on vacation. The job follows him wherever he goes as does a sizeable contingent of aides, secret service and communications personnel as well as the military officers who carry the "football," the nickname for the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Some vacation...

Burton made a point of saying that Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan is among those accompanying Mr. Obama to Martha's Vineyard and will give him a national security and intelligence briefing every day.

Like its predecessors, the Obama White House is unapologetic about the president getting away for some rest and recreation. Last summer, Mr. Obama played golf on 4 of his eight days on Martha's Vineyard. It's also billed as time for him to spend with his family before his daughters go back to school in September.

"I don't think there's an American person who doesn't know that the president is working hard to do everything possible to get this economy back on the right track," said Burton to emphasize the point that the president deserves some time away from the White House grind, even if some of the grind goes with him.

This is Mr. Obama's 9th vacation since taking office. As of today, he has spent all or part of 38 days on "vacation" away from the White House. He has also made 14 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 32 days. It brings his total time away to all or part of 70 days.

It's less than the "vacation" time taken during the same period by his immediate predecessor. (Former President George W. Bush gets the quotation marks too.)

As of this point in his 1st term, Mr. Bush had made 14 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 102 days. He also made 40 visits to Camp David spanning all or part of 123 days. His "vacation" total at this point in his presidency was all or part of 225 days away.

To show that even as he heads on vacation he's on the job, the White House announced that Mr. Obama would make a statement on the economy before getting on Marine One to begin his trip to the Vineyard.

Burton also said yesterday that Mr. Obama would be getting "constant updates on what's happening in the economy and other issues" while on Martha's Vineyard, where he has rented a house for his time there.

"Like a lot of American people, the president is taking a little time with his family to recharge his batteries," Burton said. But when asked if Mr. Obama really needed a vacation, Burton stopped short of making that assertion.