December 2003

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Ripe Bananas - Musings of a budding fly biologist stuck in the shadowy world of science geeks

Good blog from an interesting perspective. I especially enjoyed one of her recent posts, “On Being a Female LDS Scientist.” And she has a very nice photo of Temple Square during the Olympics.

Human Events has a sequel to their photo gallery of religious expression on public property.

One of my favorites, since the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the Ten Commandments appeal from Alabama, is the “Carving of Ten Commandments on doors of the U.S. Supreme Court”

all-encompassingly - if, while a missionary to the nations of the earth, you should be shipwrecked on a desolate island and starve to death, die like a man. –brigham young

from travis:

my roommate and i are at BYU and have been blogging for about 9 months now.  we consider ourselves part of the mormon blogosphere.  we don’t discuss the Church on our site generally, but our values come out as we blog on politics and whatnot. 

And I like the firm lower-case stance:

i take my anti-capitalization stance out of simplicity, and an interest in aesthetics. periods seem to do the job for dividing sentences, proper nouns are pretty easy to spot, and i think the consistency of the lower-case is much more attractive than the mix’n'match of normal punctuation.

now that i blog, i can write the way i want. no grades to worry about, no job on the line…only linkage–blessed linkage–to be won

Bob and Logan - Two college students’ musings on life, politics, religion, philosophy and . . . video games.


Not purely LDS-related but they cover all kinds of good stuff.

Walking This Earth has moved while Thom has put Zionblogs on hold.

Thanks to dp for pointing out that many BYU speeches are available as mp3s. Who wants to suggest that the iPod was invented to be able to jog to Neal A. Maxwell?

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (the “Rebbe With a Cause”) has a very nice rejoinder to complaints that the Church has been delinquent in enforcing an agreement to not allow the vicarious baptism of those of Jewish heritage.

I could not care less if the Mormons baptize me after I’m dead. It won’t affect me. I’ll always be a Jew, in this life and the next. If this is part of Mormon practice and belief, they do it in the privacy of their own church, and it doesn’t affect me in the slightest, why should I care? People’s beliefs are their own business. It’s how they treat others that is everyone’s business. What I care about is how much the Mormons support Israel today, not what they do with Jewish souls in what they regard as the afterlife. Far from being my sentiment alone, this is a pivotal Jewish teaching: “It is the action [and not dogma] which is most important.”

In my first few years as Rabbi at Oxford University, I befriended a doctoral student by the name of Michael Taft Benson, whose grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, was at the time president and prophet of the Mormon Church. Not only did Mike become and remain one of my dearest friends, he served as vice president of my L’Chaim Society and regularly brought hundreds of Mormon students to our Sabbath dinners to learn more about Judaism. A great lover of Israel who has visited there more than ten times, Mike chose to write his doctoral thesis on Harry Truman’s support for the creation of the Jewish state.

Through Mike, I was granted a meeting with the current president and prophet of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, who is Mike’s grandfather-in-law. We spoke about Israel, his admiration for the Jewish people, and the Mormon dedication to Israel’s prosperity and survival. I am regularly invited to address Mormon audiences in Utah who thirst for knowledge of all things Jewish and who treat me like a wise elder brother. Mike even arranged for me to launch my book “Judaism for Everyone” at the University of Utah, and he and I are currently planning a Jewish Studies center for Snow College, where Mike serves as president.

The Mormons are our brothers, the Christians are our kin. So long as they support and defend the Jewish people through their current persecution, that will always be so, whatever their beliefs, and we owe them our gratitude. . .

If Jews are troubled by Mormon and evangelical Christian theology and propose to focus more on these groups’ beliefs than on their actions, the logical outcome would be for the Jews to be far closer to Muslims than to Christians. After all, theologically speaking, Islam and Judaism are closer than any two other religions. Both are pure forms of monotheism which utterly reject the deification of a man as G-d; both accept no division in the G-dhead, such as a trinity; and both are based on a written law (the Torah and Qur’an) and on an oral legal tradition (the halakha and the hadith). So why aren’t we as close to the Muslims as we are to the Christians? Simple. The Christians, whatever their belief, treat as beloved brothers, while extremist Muslims, however monotheistic, murder our children.

I already quoted too much but it’s worth reading the whole thing.

What will happen when Jesus comes back? Hey, we’ll talk about it then.

The NY Times’ David Brooks discusses the circuitous paths President Bush, Governor Dean, and General Clark have had with religion and how it does not matter much in America.

As the historian Henry Steele Commager once wrote, “During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, religion prospered while theology slowly went bankrupt.”

This tendency to emphasize personal growth over any fixed creed has shaped our cultural and political life. First, it’s meant that Americans are reasonably tolerant, generally believing that all people of good will are basically on the same side. In London recently, President Bush said that Christians and Muslims both pray to the same God. That was theologically controversial, but it was faithful to the national creed.

Second, it has meant that we relax severity. American faiths, as many scholars note, have tended to be optimistic and easygoing, experiential rather than intellectual. . .

The third effect of our dominant religious style is that we have trouble sustaining culture wars. . . In fact, real-life belief, especially these days, is mobile, elusive and flexible. Falwell doesn’t represent evangelicals today. The old culture war organizations like the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition are either dead or husks of their former selves.

So we have this paradox. These days political parties grow more orthodox, while religions grow more fluid. In the political sphere, there is conflict and rigid partisanship. In the religious sphere, there is mobility, ecumenical understanding and blurry boundaries.

Also, General Clark discusses his faith here.

Howard Dean is attracting attention for saying that he will be using his faith as a part of his campaign. What strikes me as funny (and as others have long noted - two good examples at We Win, They Lose here and here) is that Democrats are increasingly losing the traditional, conservative religious vote and they have no clue how to change that. Now this is a touchy subject (nothing beats combining religion with politics) and it is unfair to over-generalize but regular church attendance is the biggest predictor of whether one will vote Republican or Democrat. Pretty astonishing I think.

Governor Dean realizes that he cannot just appeal to secular liberals if he wants to have any hope of winning November 2004 (assuming he gets his party’s nomination). But he seems to continue the Dems’ clumsy efforts to woo those who take religion seriously. Dean has become known as the angry candidate and appears to be unable to play any other note - even when it comes to religion.

Examples:

“Let’s get into a little religion here,” Dean said at a morning meeting with voters in response to a question about his beliefs. “Don’t you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus? And don’t you think this campaign ought to be about evicting the money changers from the temple?”

Dean Finds Jesus (second item)

“Christ was someone who sought out people who were disenfranchised, people who were left behind,” Dean said. “He fought against self-righteousness of people who had everything. . . . He was a person who set an extraordinary example that has lasted 2000 years, which is pretty inspiring when you think about it.”

Do you notice something missing from Dean’s description of Jesus? Well, does he use the phrase “Son of God”? Nope. “Messiah”? Ixnay. “The Way, the Truth and the Light”? None of the above. To hear Howard Dean tell it, Jesus Christ was just a socially conscious celebrity, like Princess Diana only less glamorous.

“Dean’s Conversion Experience”

Dean left the Episcopalian Church because it refused to give up land to help create a bike path.

In Dean’s own words:

I was fighting to have public access to the waterfront, and we were fighting very hard in the citizens group to allow the public to use it. And this particular diocese decided to join a property rights suit to close it down. I didn’t think that was very public spirited.

One thing I feel about religion, you have to be very careful not to be a hypocrite if you’re a religious person. It is really tough to preach one thing and do something else. And I don’t think you can do that.

Many Democrats seem to have a tin ear with religion. Sure everybody is entitled to their own beliefs and let it affect their policies as they please, but Dems seems unable to understand that no matter how wacky some of our beliefs may be to them we take them seriously. Even literally. I am no fan of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson but Dean is repeating McCain’s 2000 mistake of alienating the “religious right.” To many, religion is more than just a social policy. To not respect religious and moral standards except to call others hypocrites is not going to win many followers.

Also how sincere will Dean appear when he does not attend Church and announces his plans to discuss it only when he starts to move his campaign to southern states? I think President Bush is successful in this regard as he talks about his faith in an understated and personal manner and does not use his beliefs to attack others. Can Dean do the same? I guess we’ll see in the next few months.

KeLee, Knitting Princess Warrior

Great title and who knew that you could blog about knitting? Just another testament to the power of blogging. Actually the blog is more than that with personal stuff and good quotes for the day.

The Deseret Morning News notes that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is accepting applications for new members. What I thought was interesting is that the Choir has its official web site.

Very interesting and fair review of Mitt Romney’s first year as governor of Massachusetts in the Boston Globe. It’s longish but very interesting to see how he has stuck to his promises of reform and managed to avoid playing typical politics, even with his party cronies. He’s more than the big smile and perfect hair that saved the Olympics in Salt Lake. He’ll even take on Massachusetts’ political dynasty.

Meanwhile, in a move that was as dopey as it was pointless, Romney’s aides justified his initial plan to campaign for California gubernatorial hopeful Arnold Schwarzenegger despite allegations of sexual harassment by saying that Romney had “heard rumors similar to these about his opponent during his first campaign and he never once thought to make an issue out of them.”

US Senator Edward M. Kennedy was Romney’s opponent in that 1994 campaign, and he and his wife, Victoria, were said to be irate.

Romney concedes that the administration’s statement on the tunnel was dumb, though he insists that he didn’t mean the comment the way it came across. On Kennedy, Romney notes that he has apologized to the senator, explained to him that the statement hadn’t been checked with him, and made it clear to the two advisers responsible for crafting it “that they had made a major, major error in judgment.”

Still, the incident and its aftermath also illuminate his view of politics. Kennedy, according to one person who knows him well, “just thinks Mitt’s a jerk now.”

“That’s fine,” Romney says, chuckling ruefully. “I’m a big boy.”

But if those are truly Kennedy’s sentiments, then Romney just as obviously thinks the old liberal lion should grow a little thicker skin.

“Don’t forget that there was a time when I ran in 1994 when he and his family were talking about my Mormon Church, and I needed to explain Mormonism and so forth,” he says. “I can deal with those sorts of things. People are going to make mistakes, and our team made a mistake in that regard.”

Particularly galling, since he gave Kennedy his greatest Senatorial challenge which provoked the use of the religion card, resulting in Romney losing momentum and losing the race. Isn’t JFK lionized in part for overcoming religious bigotry in politics?

Another interesting Romney article details his widespread out of state appeal, thanks in part to being Mormon, his time with the Olympics and his father who served as governor in Michigan.

Michigan residents also gave Romney generous support, records show. It’s no surprise, given that Romney’s father, George W. Romney, was an extremely popular governor of that state, in addition to being a well-regarded automobile industry executive and presidential contender in the 1968 election. The former Michigan governor, who died in 1995, served, like his son, as a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another generous state was New Hampshire, where Romney owns a vacation home on Lake Winnipesaukee. That was the setting for perhaps the most unusual moment thus far in the Romney administration, when the vacationing governor and his sons raced out on jet skis to save a family whose boat had capsized. The incident drew media attention nationwide.

and

Asked why he sent Romney, a multimillionaire, donations of $38 and $25 this year, Jack Cordery, a Utah retiree, said: “It stems with the Utah culture, which is largely Mormon. His father was what we call a patriarch in the church, and he once gave me a patriarchal blessing.” . . .

Cordery, who spent his career working for the US Department of Labor, said he wouldn’t have minded if Romney had run for governor of Utah instead of Massachusetts, but thought Massachusetts could make a better launching pad for a successful run for the presidency.

“I think he could be president, if he does a good job in cleaning up Massachusetts,” Cordery said. “I believe he would be a good candidate, because he’s a forceful, dynamic candidate.”

Also, isn’t he related somehow to the late General Authority Marion G. Romney? I always assumed so but don’t know how.

project mayhem - my life, my religion, my thoughts -the continuing adventure of an unconventional mormon in happy valley

Not just LDS stuff but other interesting posts. While most philosophy and anything “metaphysical” escapes me, I hope to learn something from it.

A Canadian in King Parakramabahu’s Court

Laurie Ashton is a Canadian ex-pat living in Sri Lanks with her husband, Fahim. Her blog is mostly about her adventures of living in Sri Lanka including some of the interesting folks she meets at church.

She has also has a panoply of web sites which an be accessed here. She even has a section on Sri Lankan recipes which will warrant further perusing.

© National Geographic Society

I’m sorry I didn’t notice this earlier but on Christmas Eve National Geographic posted this excellent picture as its Picture of the Day. Especially suitable as we got walloped by nearly two feet of snow in the Boxer Day blizzard of 2003. (I’m back in Utah for Christmas).

Its offered as a desktop wallpaper if you’re interested. NG’s Picture of the Day is always checking out.

A hilarious proposal to ensure a germ and flu-free eucharist. Maybe we could do the same to the deacons and teachers before they prepare the sacrament.

© Nick Anderson - The Courier Journal

(President Bush went to Walter Reed Hospital this week to visit the recovering soldiers and to have his sore knees checked out for what he claimed was a running injury)

There are various reasons why I find it challenging to argue against gay mariage. Especially when “straights” have done more than enough damage to the institution of marriage. First, heterosexual marriage has become little more than a tax advantage thanks to no-fault divorce and other legal innovations. And second, sex and its role in society have been dramatically altered.

An excellent article using a relatively value-neutral explanation on why sex and its connection to marriage matters to society.

Jennifer Roback Morse on Marriage on National Review Online

Many people celebrate the uncoupling of sexual activity from both of its natural functions, procreation and spousal unity. But by doing so, we have capsized the whole natural order of sexuality. Instead of being an engine of sociability and community building, sex has become a consumer good. Instead of being something that draws us out of ourselves and into relationship with others, our sexual activity focuses us inward, on ourselves and our own desires. A sexual partner is not a person to whom I am irrevocably connected by bonds of love. Rather, the sexual partner has become an object that satisfies me more or less well.

Steve Beard on The Lord of the Rings on National Review Online
Several other blogs have noted the interview but this National Review article was too good to let go unnoticed, especially for those who may be tired of outspoken celebrities of only one political persuasion.

John Rhys Davies (LOTR’s Gimli and vocie of Treebeard) spouts off to reporter’s while admitting he may be committing career suicide.

Rhys-Davies, however, runs contrary to the prevailing political sentiment of the industry that feeds him. “You do realize that in this town [Hollywood], what I’ve been saying is rather like, sort of ? oh well, I can’t find a comparable blasphemy … but we’ve got to get a bit serious.” Surveying the room, he said: “What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you around this table….” He continued by saying, “The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian-Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.” He pointed out that while projected population statistics in Western Europeans will be falling sharply over the next 20 years, Islam will become more prominent in those countries.

“There is a change happening in the very complexion of Western Civilization in Europe that we should think about, at least, and argue about,” he said. “If it just means the replacement of one genetic stock with another genetic stock, that doesn’t matter too much. But if it involves the replacement of Western Civilization with a different civilization with different cultural values, then it is something we really ought to discuss.”

Recognizing the sheer politically incorrect nature of his commentary, he summed it up by saying, “I am for dead white male culture” ? utilizing a derogatory catchphrase used on college campuses to describe Western Culture.

I hope my wife appreciates I have already passed up two chances to see Return of the King already until I get back to Utah to see it with her. Last year, I was struck by the “suicide bomber” at Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers and its relevance to the war on terrorism. Some of its stars seem to feel otherwise but I’m glad to Mr. Rhys-Davies to see things like I do.

Brayden King

Despite my conservative take on things I do like to read other points of view. So I’m glad Brayden let me know about his blog. His tagline says, “This is Brayden King’s blog. I talk about sociology, politics, sports, or whatever else is on my mind.” He appears to be a sociologist with - if I may be so bold - a liberal persuasion, so it will be interesting to read his commentary in politics from an LDS perspective.

Finally made it to the D.C. area. Fittingly, my iBook died the night of my last post, so I have been relatively internet-free until now. Start at the Senate on Monday and I hope to reenter the blogging fray on a more regular basis.



Is there a way to prevent Movable Type from making the page go blank and all lost the margin formatting as time gos by (which happened)?