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.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
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.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
HAVE DONE WITH LESSER THINGS: Arise ye men and women of Zion and watch general priesthood meeting together
The women who requested tickets to LDS general priesthood meeting and / or intended to stand in line that evening to get stand by ticket seating have caused a real change.
General Priesthood broadcast was the major guys night out event of the spring and autumn social seasons – sometimes with dinners out afterward. With this announcement the LDS priesthood holding father can watch the broadcast at home with his wife and kids. This is change amid change.
LDS general priesthood meeting to be broadcast live and online for the first time
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586991/LDS-general-priesthood-meeting-to-be-broadcast-live-for-the-first-time.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 10:35 a.m. MDT
Updated: 4:00 p.m. 24 September 2013
SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will offer the male-only priesthood session of the upcoming general conference over live broadcast television and in real time over the Internet.
In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday morning, church officials indicated the priesthood session of its 183rd Semiannual General Conference on Oct. 5 will be broadcast live on BYUtv and two online resources, LDS.org and the Mormon Channel. According to the press release, the church has chosen to do so "as part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
Until now, the priesthood session has only been broadcast live to LDS meetinghouses via the church's extensive satellite system. To see it live, men and boys have had to travel to meetinghouses equipped with satellite dishes or attend the session in the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
The new procedure mirrors the pattern used for the live broadcast of LDS general Relief Society and Young Women meetings, which are held one week before general conference in the fall and spring, respectively.
On the surface this decision seems a shrewd move to disarm the women who want to attend the meeting in person and who ultimately want ordination to the priesthood. The Deseret News posted this article the same afternoon. It generated quite a lot of comment on-line, including a comment from a reader in Omaha who noted “God has order in his priesthood and his church.” It would probably be more accurate to put it this way
God has his Order in the Church.
LDS Church responds to priesthood meeting request by activists
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586996/LDS-Church-responds-to-priesthood-meeting-request-by-activists.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 11:55 a.m. MDT
SALT LAKE CITY — This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women around the world will participate, either in person or via broadcast, in the annual general Relief Society meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An estimated 20,000 will congregate in the Conference Center for the meeting.
Seven days later, a much smaller group of women — probably somewhere between 150 and 200 — plan to approach LDS Conference Center ushers and ask to be admitted without tickets to the priesthood session of the church’s 183rd Semiannual General Conference. For the more than 70 years that the priesthood session has been conducted in the format that it follows today, men and boys 12 years of age and older have been exclusively invited to attend the session, often coming together as fathers and sons.
The women, who last week formally requested tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session, will not be admitted.
“It is the hope of the church that the priesthood session will strengthen the men and young men including fathers and sons, and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instruction related to priesthood duties and responsibilities,” church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said Tuesday in a letter to the group, "much the same way parallel meetings are held for sisters, such as the general Relief Society meeting.
"It’s for these reasons that tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission."
Todd also invited the women to “view the live priesthood session broadcast, as well as the other general conference sessions, on lds.org, The Mormon Channel or BYUtv.”
This will be the first time the general priesthood session of LDS conference is broadcast live to a general television or Internet audience. In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday, church officials indicated the live TV and Internet broadcast of the session is "part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
"We are pleased that the church has demonstrated its ability to change to be more inclusive by making the session available through live broadcast," said Kate Kelly, one of the organizers of the action to request priesthood meeting tickets for women. "This is an important step toward a future where Mormon women will participate side by side with our brothers in all areas of church leadership and life."
However, the church's two decisions — to deny entrance to women and to broadcast the priesthood session live — will not curtail the planned action, Kelly said.
"We will be in the line for standby tickets to the priesthood session on Oct. 5 to demonstrate our continued willingness and desire to attend," said Kelly, who indicated the group will meet at City Creek Park at 4 p.m. to pray and sing and then walk together to the Conference Center to ask for admittance. "We are demonstrating our faith by standing at the door and knocking."
Besides, she noted during a telephone interview last week, "this isn't really just about going to priesthood meeting."
"This is about the ordination of women to the priesthood," said Kelly, an international human rights attorney in Washington, D.C., who is one of the founders of Ordain Women, an Internet-driven campaign that professes to be for “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood.”
"We consider ourselves to be prospective priesthood holders," she continued, "and we want to go to priesthood meeting so we can show our leaders that we are ready for both the benefits and responsibilities of the priesthood. That is our focus."
Kelly was born in Oregon and reared by parents who converted to the LDS Church. A lifelong Mormon, she is a BYU graduate who served in the Spain Barcelona Mission. Today she is the chorister in her LDS ward's Relief Society. She referred to those experiences as she explained why she believes LDS women should receive the priesthood.
“To me, agitating on the issue is a question of self-respect,” she said. “I respect and value the church and myself too much to be silent on this question. I truly believe that God wants us all to equally share the burdens and blessings of the priesthood. The ordination of women would put us all on equal spiritual footing with our brethren, and nothing less will suffice.”
“Equality is an interesting term,” said Sister Linda K. Burton, general Relief Society president, in a video posted last April featuring the leaders of three LDS Church auxiliaries talking about the role of women in church leadership. “It doesn’t always mean sameness. We are of equal value no matter where we are — in the church or in the home. In the home we are co-equal spiritual leaders. I think that’s an important thing that sometimes is misunderstood. We can have equality while having different roles.”
For the most part, Sister Burton said, “I don’t think (LDS) women are after the authority (of the priesthood) — I think they are after the blessings. And they are happy that they can access the blessings and power of the priesthood.”
The empirical research seems to support Sister Burton. For their landmark book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” David Campbell and Robert Putnam conducted two extensive surveys on religion and public life in America. They found that an overwhelming majority of LDS women — 90 percent — are opposed to priesthood ordination for women. By comparison, 52 percent of LDS men oppose priesthood ordination for women.
More recently, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted a national survey of Mormons in America. It found that overall 87 percent of Latter-day Saints — 90 percent of LDS women and 84 percent of LDS men — are opposed to women being ordained to the priesthood. The number climbs as high as 95 percent among those who claim a high degree of religious commitment. Even among those who claim a lower degree of religious commitment, 69 percent are opposed.
Kathryn Skaggs, who writes her widely read blog, A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman, from her home in Murrieta, Calif., said she believes she speaks for that vast majority of Mormon women when she expresses frustration "that this small element within the church who are pressing for the priesthood use the media to draw attention to themselves, as if they speak for all Mormon women."
"They don't represent us," Skaggs said in a telephone interview. "That's not to minimize those who have these passionate feelings about women being ordained to the priesthood. But my personal church experience suggests that most of us are at peace with how the Lord has chosen to establish his kingdom upon the earth. And there's a bit of resentment that the beautiful messages of conference might be overshadowed by this small group that doesn't even represent the feelings of mainstream Mormon women.
"I just really have a hard time feeling good about it," Skaggs continued. "They are taking the attention away from the reason we have general conference in the first place: to listen to what living prophets have to say to us. Instead, they are trying to get the living prophets to listen to them. That just seems wrong to me."
Writing on Patheos.com, BYU professor Margaret Blair Young, well-known for her detailed work on the history of black Mormons, said she would not be surprised to see more privileges extended to women in the near future. But, she observed, "this will not happen through press conferences.”
“For all who seek change of any kind in the church, I urge patience and faith,” Young wrote. “Cling to the things you value and don’t forget them as you seek positive change. We are not the Church of the Infallible Prophet, nor the Church of Your Particular Issue, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are a community, still learning lessons in loving one another and providing support for each other in our various journeys.”
For the Ordain Women movement, Kelly says, that journey won't end with the church's decision not to admit them to this October's general priesthood meeting.
"We operate on the Lord's time," she said. "We are not demanding anything. We are respectfully requesting that the brethren petition the Lord and ask if it is time that women are given the priesthood.
"Of course we believe it is God's priesthood," she said, responding to a question that is often asked of her by Latter-day Saints who do not approve of the Ordain Women movement. "If we didn't believe that, then why bother? But we all know the priesthood has been expanded over time. Christ expanded it to the Gentiles. In 1978 it was expanded to all worthy males. We see this as just another expansion whose time has come."
And so, she says, "Ordain Women will remain intact."
"We will continue to seek ordination through action and discussion," she said. "We plan to move forward in creative, faithful, courageous ways."
Which Skaggs says she understands and respects, in a way.
"I think it's very natural for LDS women to ask why the order of the church is the way it is," she said. "I think we've all asked it in one way or another, at one time or another in our lives. But most of us have received the witness that this is God's living church on the face of the earth, and we are willing to accept that this is the way the Lord would have it be. Just knowing that that's his will, it makes it easier to say, 'Thy will be done.'
"So I'm not going to be upset or frustrated or angry, because I know and trust that this is the Lord's decision," she continued. "I don't have to know why. I just have to know that this is the way the Lord has laid it out, and continue to believe and exercise my faith in him and his living church."
Meanwhile at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack saw the announcements pretty clearer. Her report had a certain butter won’t melt in her mouth tone.
Women can see, but not attend, the Mormon priesthood session
Religion • LDS Church to broadcast meeting live for the first time, but won’t let women into the Conference Center.
Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56914470-78/priesthood-session-women-tickets.html.csp
Published: September 24, 2013 03:23PM
Updated: September 24, 2013 05:29PM
Ordain Women sees the LDS Church’s historic announcement that next week’s general priesthood session will be telecast live for the first time as a step forward. But, in the end, the group is still being shut out.
For the past few months, Ordain Women, which is pushing to open the faith’s all-male priesthood to females, has been asking for tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session of the 183rd Semiannual General Conference.
The meeting has been off-limits to women, even wives of LDS presidents and apostles. Traditionally, it has been the only one of the five sessions broadcast only to Mormon chapels and not publicly available.
On Tuesday, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that “the priesthood session will be shown live for the first time through expanded channels, including LDS.org, the Mormon Channel and BYUtv.”
When asked whether Ordain Women’s plan had prompted the decision to telecast the session, church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said in a statement that “broadcasting the priesthood session ... is simply another step in reaching a worldwide audience in a way that makes sense in a global church.”
In a letter directly to Ordain Women, Todd wrote: “Tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission.”
Even so, more than 200 women in the group still plan to wait in the standby line at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City for tickets to the session.
“We will stand with men and boys who did not reserve tickets in advance of the priesthood session,” said Kate Kelly, one of Ordain Women’s organizers. “There may be more tickets available now that people can choose to watch the session at home.”
The group sees this effort for tickets “as a continuation of us asking, seeking and knocking,” Kelly, an international-rights lawyer, said from Washington, D.C. “It demonstrates our willingness to receive the priesthood and to accept the responsibilities that come with it.”
Female participation falls outside the purpose of the priesthood session, Todd wrote to Ordain Women.
It is meant to “strengthen the men and young men, including fathers and sons,” she wrote, “and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instructions related to priesthood duties and responsibilities.”
Todd explained that the priesthood session is for men what the general Relief Society and Young Women sessions — held in October and April the week before the two-day conference — are for women.
“We welcome you to view the live priesthood session broadcast,” Todd wrote.
But the two women’s meetings — unlike the priesthood session — are not considered part of general conference, Kelly noted in a statement, “and male priesthood holders always preside over and speak at this meeting, whereas women have never been permitted to preside over, speak at (with one exception in 1946), or even attend the priesthood session in the Conference Center.”
In the past, she said, major announcements were delivered at the priesthood session, including “the Perpetual Education Fund [which provides loans to Mormon students abroad to further their schooling], changes in temple recommend policies and availability, and announcement of new temple construction.”
Kelly pointed out the letter came from the church’s Public Affairs Department and not from its male authorities.
“We don’t see our actions as contradicting anything that was said to us directly by leaders,” Kelly said. “Our intention is to communicate a message to our leaders and to the Lord.”
If they are denied in-person access to the priesthood meeting, these activists plan to return to City Creek Park a block away to “continue our call for the ordination of women.”
After all, Kelly said, that is the group’s ultimate goal.
© Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THE CONCLUSION:
Hard to tell if the general authorities realize that certain decisions of late have started aligning Church leadership to a decision to ordain women to the priesthood
Elder Russell M Nelson, chairman of the Missionary Department and father of about nine daughters, gets to oversee The Lord Hastening His Work. His roll in all this is open to some interpretation, including that of Trojan Horse. The decision to drop minimum female missionary age from 21 to 19 could conceivably bring in a high percentage of young women missionaries. Percentages in the 40s, maybe even in the low 50s. Over the years, priesthood leaders and boy missionaries have treated sister missionaries rather like Cinderellas before the Ball in the Missionary Department. The Missionary Department treated a mission as a rite of passage for boys and as a result the whole enterprise did have a certain boys PE quality to it. Some -- if not most -- men tolerated the young women but did not exactly encourage them -- when they came in small numbers. If they come in large numbers, then the issue becomes this – why shouldn’t women get actual leadership opportunities in the Missionary Program if they represent a large percentage of the missionaries?
In early October, women can watch the priesthood broadcasts for themselves instead of just reading the text, can gather in the great body of the priesthood receiving instructions from its prophets/leaders. Preparation time.
As for me: Only the latest development that makes "guys nights out" increasingly harder and harder to get.
General Priesthood broadcast was the major guys night out event of the spring and autumn social seasons – sometimes with dinners out afterward. With this announcement the LDS priesthood holding father can watch the broadcast at home with his wife and kids. This is change amid change.
LDS general priesthood meeting to be broadcast live and online for the first time
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586991/LDS-general-priesthood-meeting-to-be-broadcast-live-for-the-first-time.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 10:35 a.m. MDT
Updated: 4:00 p.m. 24 September 2013
SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will offer the male-only priesthood session of the upcoming general conference over live broadcast television and in real time over the Internet.
In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday morning, church officials indicated the priesthood session of its 183rd Semiannual General Conference on Oct. 5 will be broadcast live on BYUtv and two online resources, LDS.org and the Mormon Channel. According to the press release, the church has chosen to do so "as part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
Until now, the priesthood session has only been broadcast live to LDS meetinghouses via the church's extensive satellite system. To see it live, men and boys have had to travel to meetinghouses equipped with satellite dishes or attend the session in the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
The new procedure mirrors the pattern used for the live broadcast of LDS general Relief Society and Young Women meetings, which are held one week before general conference in the fall and spring, respectively.
On the surface this decision seems a shrewd move to disarm the women who want to attend the meeting in person and who ultimately want ordination to the priesthood. The Deseret News posted this article the same afternoon. It generated quite a lot of comment on-line, including a comment from a reader in Omaha who noted “God has order in his priesthood and his church.” It would probably be more accurate to put it this way
God has his Order in the Church.
LDS Church responds to priesthood meeting request by activists
Joseph Walker
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865586996/LDS-Church-responds-to-priesthood-meeting-request-by-activists.html
Published: Tuesday, Sept. 24 2013 11:55 a.m. MDT
SALT LAKE CITY — This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women around the world will participate, either in person or via broadcast, in the annual general Relief Society meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
An estimated 20,000 will congregate in the Conference Center for the meeting.
Seven days later, a much smaller group of women — probably somewhere between 150 and 200 — plan to approach LDS Conference Center ushers and ask to be admitted without tickets to the priesthood session of the church’s 183rd Semiannual General Conference. For the more than 70 years that the priesthood session has been conducted in the format that it follows today, men and boys 12 years of age and older have been exclusively invited to attend the session, often coming together as fathers and sons.
The women, who last week formally requested tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session, will not be admitted.
“It is the hope of the church that the priesthood session will strengthen the men and young men including fathers and sons, and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instruction related to priesthood duties and responsibilities,” church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said Tuesday in a letter to the group, "much the same way parallel meetings are held for sisters, such as the general Relief Society meeting.
"It’s for these reasons that tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission."
Todd also invited the women to “view the live priesthood session broadcast, as well as the other general conference sessions, on lds.org, The Mormon Channel or BYUtv.”
This will be the first time the general priesthood session of LDS conference is broadcast live to a general television or Internet audience. In a pre-conference press release issued Tuesday, church officials indicated the live TV and Internet broadcast of the session is "part of a continued effort to make general conference proceedings more accessible to members around the globe."
"We are pleased that the church has demonstrated its ability to change to be more inclusive by making the session available through live broadcast," said Kate Kelly, one of the organizers of the action to request priesthood meeting tickets for women. "This is an important step toward a future where Mormon women will participate side by side with our brothers in all areas of church leadership and life."
However, the church's two decisions — to deny entrance to women and to broadcast the priesthood session live — will not curtail the planned action, Kelly said.
"We will be in the line for standby tickets to the priesthood session on Oct. 5 to demonstrate our continued willingness and desire to attend," said Kelly, who indicated the group will meet at City Creek Park at 4 p.m. to pray and sing and then walk together to the Conference Center to ask for admittance. "We are demonstrating our faith by standing at the door and knocking."
Besides, she noted during a telephone interview last week, "this isn't really just about going to priesthood meeting."
"This is about the ordination of women to the priesthood," said Kelly, an international human rights attorney in Washington, D.C., who is one of the founders of Ordain Women, an Internet-driven campaign that professes to be for “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood.”
"We consider ourselves to be prospective priesthood holders," she continued, "and we want to go to priesthood meeting so we can show our leaders that we are ready for both the benefits and responsibilities of the priesthood. That is our focus."
Kelly was born in Oregon and reared by parents who converted to the LDS Church. A lifelong Mormon, she is a BYU graduate who served in the Spain Barcelona Mission. Today she is the chorister in her LDS ward's Relief Society. She referred to those experiences as she explained why she believes LDS women should receive the priesthood.
“To me, agitating on the issue is a question of self-respect,” she said. “I respect and value the church and myself too much to be silent on this question. I truly believe that God wants us all to equally share the burdens and blessings of the priesthood. The ordination of women would put us all on equal spiritual footing with our brethren, and nothing less will suffice.”
“Equality is an interesting term,” said Sister Linda K. Burton, general Relief Society president, in a video posted last April featuring the leaders of three LDS Church auxiliaries talking about the role of women in church leadership. “It doesn’t always mean sameness. We are of equal value no matter where we are — in the church or in the home. In the home we are co-equal spiritual leaders. I think that’s an important thing that sometimes is misunderstood. We can have equality while having different roles.”
For the most part, Sister Burton said, “I don’t think (LDS) women are after the authority (of the priesthood) — I think they are after the blessings. And they are happy that they can access the blessings and power of the priesthood.”
The empirical research seems to support Sister Burton. For their landmark book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” David Campbell and Robert Putnam conducted two extensive surveys on religion and public life in America. They found that an overwhelming majority of LDS women — 90 percent — are opposed to priesthood ordination for women. By comparison, 52 percent of LDS men oppose priesthood ordination for women.
More recently, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducted a national survey of Mormons in America. It found that overall 87 percent of Latter-day Saints — 90 percent of LDS women and 84 percent of LDS men — are opposed to women being ordained to the priesthood. The number climbs as high as 95 percent among those who claim a high degree of religious commitment. Even among those who claim a lower degree of religious commitment, 69 percent are opposed.
Kathryn Skaggs, who writes her widely read blog, A Well-Behaved Mormon Woman, from her home in Murrieta, Calif., said she believes she speaks for that vast majority of Mormon women when she expresses frustration "that this small element within the church who are pressing for the priesthood use the media to draw attention to themselves, as if they speak for all Mormon women."
"They don't represent us," Skaggs said in a telephone interview. "That's not to minimize those who have these passionate feelings about women being ordained to the priesthood. But my personal church experience suggests that most of us are at peace with how the Lord has chosen to establish his kingdom upon the earth. And there's a bit of resentment that the beautiful messages of conference might be overshadowed by this small group that doesn't even represent the feelings of mainstream Mormon women.
"I just really have a hard time feeling good about it," Skaggs continued. "They are taking the attention away from the reason we have general conference in the first place: to listen to what living prophets have to say to us. Instead, they are trying to get the living prophets to listen to them. That just seems wrong to me."
Writing on Patheos.com, BYU professor Margaret Blair Young, well-known for her detailed work on the history of black Mormons, said she would not be surprised to see more privileges extended to women in the near future. But, she observed, "this will not happen through press conferences.”
“For all who seek change of any kind in the church, I urge patience and faith,” Young wrote. “Cling to the things you value and don’t forget them as you seek positive change. We are not the Church of the Infallible Prophet, nor the Church of Your Particular Issue, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are a community, still learning lessons in loving one another and providing support for each other in our various journeys.”
For the Ordain Women movement, Kelly says, that journey won't end with the church's decision not to admit them to this October's general priesthood meeting.
"We operate on the Lord's time," she said. "We are not demanding anything. We are respectfully requesting that the brethren petition the Lord and ask if it is time that women are given the priesthood.
"Of course we believe it is God's priesthood," she said, responding to a question that is often asked of her by Latter-day Saints who do not approve of the Ordain Women movement. "If we didn't believe that, then why bother? But we all know the priesthood has been expanded over time. Christ expanded it to the Gentiles. In 1978 it was expanded to all worthy males. We see this as just another expansion whose time has come."
And so, she says, "Ordain Women will remain intact."
"We will continue to seek ordination through action and discussion," she said. "We plan to move forward in creative, faithful, courageous ways."
Which Skaggs says she understands and respects, in a way.
"I think it's very natural for LDS women to ask why the order of the church is the way it is," she said. "I think we've all asked it in one way or another, at one time or another in our lives. But most of us have received the witness that this is God's living church on the face of the earth, and we are willing to accept that this is the way the Lord would have it be. Just knowing that that's his will, it makes it easier to say, 'Thy will be done.'
"So I'm not going to be upset or frustrated or angry, because I know and trust that this is the Lord's decision," she continued. "I don't have to know why. I just have to know that this is the way the Lord has laid it out, and continue to believe and exercise my faith in him and his living church."
Meanwhile at the Salt Lake Tribune, Peggy Fletcher Stack saw the announcements pretty clearer. Her report had a certain butter won’t melt in her mouth tone.
Women can see, but not attend, the Mormon priesthood session
Religion • LDS Church to broadcast meeting live for the first time, but won’t let women into the Conference Center.
Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56914470-78/priesthood-session-women-tickets.html.csp
Published: September 24, 2013 03:23PM
Updated: September 24, 2013 05:29PM
Ordain Women sees the LDS Church’s historic announcement that next week’s general priesthood session will be telecast live for the first time as a step forward. But, in the end, the group is still being shut out.
For the past few months, Ordain Women, which is pushing to open the faith’s all-male priesthood to females, has been asking for tickets to the Oct. 5 priesthood session of the 183rd Semiannual General Conference.
The meeting has been off-limits to women, even wives of LDS presidents and apostles. Traditionally, it has been the only one of the five sessions broadcast only to Mormon chapels and not publicly available.
On Tuesday, the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that “the priesthood session will be shown live for the first time through expanded channels, including LDS.org, the Mormon Channel and BYUtv.”
When asked whether Ordain Women’s plan had prompted the decision to telecast the session, church spokeswoman Ruth Todd said in a statement that “broadcasting the priesthood session ... is simply another step in reaching a worldwide audience in a way that makes sense in a global church.”
In a letter directly to Ordain Women, Todd wrote: “Tickets for the priesthood session are reserved for men and young men and we are unable to honor your request for tickets or admission.”
Even so, more than 200 women in the group still plan to wait in the standby line at the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City for tickets to the session.
“We will stand with men and boys who did not reserve tickets in advance of the priesthood session,” said Kate Kelly, one of Ordain Women’s organizers. “There may be more tickets available now that people can choose to watch the session at home.”
The group sees this effort for tickets “as a continuation of us asking, seeking and knocking,” Kelly, an international-rights lawyer, said from Washington, D.C. “It demonstrates our willingness to receive the priesthood and to accept the responsibilities that come with it.”
Female participation falls outside the purpose of the priesthood session, Todd wrote to Ordain Women.
It is meant to “strengthen the men and young men, including fathers and sons,” she wrote, “and give them the opportunity to gather and receive instructions related to priesthood duties and responsibilities.”
Todd explained that the priesthood session is for men what the general Relief Society and Young Women sessions — held in October and April the week before the two-day conference — are for women.
“We welcome you to view the live priesthood session broadcast,” Todd wrote.
But the two women’s meetings — unlike the priesthood session — are not considered part of general conference, Kelly noted in a statement, “and male priesthood holders always preside over and speak at this meeting, whereas women have never been permitted to preside over, speak at (with one exception in 1946), or even attend the priesthood session in the Conference Center.”
In the past, she said, major announcements were delivered at the priesthood session, including “the Perpetual Education Fund [which provides loans to Mormon students abroad to further their schooling], changes in temple recommend policies and availability, and announcement of new temple construction.”
Kelly pointed out the letter came from the church’s Public Affairs Department and not from its male authorities.
“We don’t see our actions as contradicting anything that was said to us directly by leaders,” Kelly said. “Our intention is to communicate a message to our leaders and to the Lord.”
If they are denied in-person access to the priesthood meeting, these activists plan to return to City Creek Park a block away to “continue our call for the ordination of women.”
After all, Kelly said, that is the group’s ultimate goal.
© Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THE CONCLUSION:
Hard to tell if the general authorities realize that certain decisions of late have started aligning Church leadership to a decision to ordain women to the priesthood
Elder Russell M Nelson, chairman of the Missionary Department and father of about nine daughters, gets to oversee The Lord Hastening His Work. His roll in all this is open to some interpretation, including that of Trojan Horse. The decision to drop minimum female missionary age from 21 to 19 could conceivably bring in a high percentage of young women missionaries. Percentages in the 40s, maybe even in the low 50s. Over the years, priesthood leaders and boy missionaries have treated sister missionaries rather like Cinderellas before the Ball in the Missionary Department. The Missionary Department treated a mission as a rite of passage for boys and as a result the whole enterprise did have a certain boys PE quality to it. Some -- if not most -- men tolerated the young women but did not exactly encourage them -- when they came in small numbers. If they come in large numbers, then the issue becomes this – why shouldn’t women get actual leadership opportunities in the Missionary Program if they represent a large percentage of the missionaries?
In early October, women can watch the priesthood broadcasts for themselves instead of just reading the text, can gather in the great body of the priesthood receiving instructions from its prophets/leaders. Preparation time.
As for me: Only the latest development that makes "guys nights out" increasingly harder and harder to get.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
UTAH DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO SPELL CONSERVATION: Western water and modern political realities
When the Colorado River Compact went into effect in the early 1920s, its creators divided the river arbitrarily into an upper river and a lower river – rather like the way uninformed people and their mapmakers had for years arbitrarily named the Colorado River System as three rivers – Grand, Green, Colorado – when it was and is really one river system. The whole thing is out-of-date and based on untrue assumptions.
In the 1920s, no one in power thought future people would be idiotic enough to put four million people into the Valley of the Sun, 2 million people into Clark County, and 10 million people into the Los Angeles Basin. Idiocy aside, we must accept political reality: no one in Congress or the federal executive will divert or shut down water to those places so that a few Utahns can grow alfalfa or water lawns.
We Utahns can do more – much much more – in the way of water conservation. State government should make its influence felt in the matter. As a home designer when I visit the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley Parade of Homes ever year, I always find it startled how much good space we have covered up in lawn grass. We pour an awful lot of water on a plant that never matures and that we do not eat. The time has come to ask how much water should we waste on vegetational aesthetics.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I urge Utah's governor and legislature to take action in the 2014 legislative session. Utah should start encouraging the following by either law or tax rebates:
1. Encourage xeriscaping.
2. Encourage people to plant less lawns, not more of them. Encourage the planting of lawns hybridized for less water consumption.
3 encourage home production of vegetables.
4 encourage agricultural production of crops that do not require flood irrigation.
5 encourage the growth of crops used by humans instead of animals.
In the 1920s, no one in power thought future people would be idiotic enough to put four million people into the Valley of the Sun, 2 million people into Clark County, and 10 million people into the Los Angeles Basin. Idiocy aside, we must accept political reality: no one in Congress or the federal executive will divert or shut down water to those places so that a few Utahns can grow alfalfa or water lawns.
We Utahns can do more – much much more – in the way of water conservation. State government should make its influence felt in the matter. As a home designer when I visit the Salt Lake Valley and Utah Valley Parade of Homes ever year, I always find it startled how much good space we have covered up in lawn grass. We pour an awful lot of water on a plant that never matures and that we do not eat. The time has come to ask how much water should we waste on vegetational aesthetics.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I urge Utah's governor and legislature to take action in the 2014 legislative session. Utah should start encouraging the following by either law or tax rebates:
1. Encourage xeriscaping.
2. Encourage people to plant less lawns, not more of them. Encourage the planting of lawns hybridized for less water consumption.
3 encourage home production of vegetables.
4 encourage agricultural production of crops that do not require flood irrigation.
5 encourage the growth of crops used by humans instead of animals.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
DOMESTIC SECURITY AND THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR CRISIS: An essay about American national credibility
The Obama Administration wants to convince us citizens and members of Congress that the United States will have no credibility if it does not take military action in Syria. This attitude begs the question, “Does the United States have credibility these days?”
Consider. The Obama Administration
1 still supports a secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
2 still bans Habeas Corpus for terrorist cases in Cuba.
3 on the record supports killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
4 uses drone sometimes on civilians in Afghanistan.
5 uses the National Security Agency to peeks into emails
6 uses the NSA to catalogs all telephone calls
7 uses NSA and Central Intelligence Agency for domestic intelligence on American citizens.
8 still supports secret courts.
The last 4 items make it appear as if the Obama Administration has the worst case of governmental paranoia since the days of Stalin . . . .
NATIONAL CREDIBILITY
How does any of this make our government credible? I believe they do not. Most of the American public looks the other way mostly without comment.
We should have learned from The Great War of 1914-1918 was that chemical warfare did not work well as a military strategy against armies. However, it kills off civilians all to well. Obviously, international law should ban these weapons. Obviously the Syrian regime should not have used them on people. The big question now is – how will expanding this war stop the weapons?
How will expanding the Syrian War into a bigger and longer conflict involving the Russians and the Americans and the Iranians improve the lives of the average Syrians either in the short run or the long run? I believe it will not.
The Bush and Obama administrations have both utterly abused the US Army and Marines. They have both overworked and underplayed them. The administrations ignored the sex abuse scandals until it became too big to ignore. They assigned huge campaigns to groups too small. Not enough funding. Not enough funding for veterans physical and mental health care issues. Not enough oversight on private contractors that made fortunes off of political misery.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations and their military-industrial complexes took advantage of the political gridlock between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Those administrations reduced and undercut Bill of Rights as a result. Now the administration wants to use the political gridlock of Republicans and Democrats to guilt them into authorizing a Middle Eastern War Whether Congress can bestir itself and do the right things remains for us citizens to observe.
Most of the public have colluded with the administrations to abuse the military. At public functions, we cheer for the troops and then think “we support our troops.” Then we look away. Only a small percentage of American families provide the soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen for the American military. The rest just clap hands for soldiers before the game.
Credibility this is not.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress should stop letting administrations take advantage of it, its gridlock and the U S Constitution.
1 Vote against military adventures in Syria, no matter how noble it may look on the surface.
2 Close the secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
3 Restore Habeas Corpus for prisoner cases in Cuba.
4 Stop the killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
5 Stop the uses of military drones.
6 Curtail NSA’s peeking into emails and cataloging all telephone calls.
7 Curtail NSA and CIA domestic spying.
Consider. The Obama Administration
1 still supports a secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
2 still bans Habeas Corpus for terrorist cases in Cuba.
3 on the record supports killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
4 uses drone sometimes on civilians in Afghanistan.
5 uses the National Security Agency to peeks into emails
6 uses the NSA to catalogs all telephone calls
7 uses NSA and Central Intelligence Agency for domestic intelligence on American citizens.
8 still supports secret courts.
The last 4 items make it appear as if the Obama Administration has the worst case of governmental paranoia since the days of Stalin . . . .
NATIONAL CREDIBILITY
How does any of this make our government credible? I believe they do not. Most of the American public looks the other way mostly without comment.
We should have learned from The Great War of 1914-1918 was that chemical warfare did not work well as a military strategy against armies. However, it kills off civilians all to well. Obviously, international law should ban these weapons. Obviously the Syrian regime should not have used them on people. The big question now is – how will expanding this war stop the weapons?
How will expanding the Syrian War into a bigger and longer conflict involving the Russians and the Americans and the Iranians improve the lives of the average Syrians either in the short run or the long run? I believe it will not.
The Bush and Obama administrations have both utterly abused the US Army and Marines. They have both overworked and underplayed them. The administrations ignored the sex abuse scandals until it became too big to ignore. They assigned huge campaigns to groups too small. Not enough funding. Not enough funding for veterans physical and mental health care issues. Not enough oversight on private contractors that made fortunes off of political misery.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations and their military-industrial complexes took advantage of the political gridlock between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Those administrations reduced and undercut Bill of Rights as a result. Now the administration wants to use the political gridlock of Republicans and Democrats to guilt them into authorizing a Middle Eastern War Whether Congress can bestir itself and do the right things remains for us citizens to observe.
Most of the public have colluded with the administrations to abuse the military. At public functions, we cheer for the troops and then think “we support our troops.” Then we look away. Only a small percentage of American families provide the soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen for the American military. The rest just clap hands for soldiers before the game.
Credibility this is not.
THE CALL TO ACTION
Congress should stop letting administrations take advantage of it, its gridlock and the U S Constitution.
1 Vote against military adventures in Syria, no matter how noble it may look on the surface.
2 Close the secret gulag on the edge of Cuba.
3 Restore Habeas Corpus for prisoner cases in Cuba.
4 Stop the killing of Americans on foreign soil with no due process of law.
5 Stop the uses of military drones.
6 Curtail NSA’s peeking into emails and cataloging all telephone calls.
7 Curtail NSA and CIA domestic spying.
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