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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/14/22 in all areas

  1. I once read a rather good article on how the skills to survive as homeless are often opposite those to live sheltered. Planning for the long-term is, sadly, often a bad idea and destruction to fulfill immediate needs is too often what happens
    2 points
  2. I can see that. I wonder, though, if the cause and effect are actually backwards. I really don't know. I've mentioned that I was once homeless. But for me, I always knew it was temporary. It was not a lifestyle. It was several months, not even close to a year. I had long term plans and long term goals. For me, it was a choice. A temporary choice, but a choice. I had options of staying with family and so forth. But I had a mentality of independence. I did not want to leech off of other people. So, I chose it as a temporary measure. I made sure that I could have the bare minimum to be able to maintain a job. I knew that was part of how I'd get out of it. I knew what it took to keep a job and how to obtain what I needed to get those things. I wonder if most others choose a different path because they have different priorities. They don't choose to keep a job. They choose something else. And we see the result. I'm reminded of "Pursuit of Happyness". In real life the internship gave him a modest stipend to live off of (the movie said he had no salary). It wasn't enough to house him and his son. But it was enough to keep him going during the internship. The homeless shelter helped connect him with someone to take care of his son while he was at work. The movie said that he kept going to the child care center. It wasn't really clear what the details of the real life arrangement was. He always kept his belongings with him as much as he could because he knew about the theft at shelters. And he knew that his suit was an integral part of keeping his job. He never told anyone about his hardship. He knew that would cast a bad light on him. And he didn't want sympathy points. Those were the priorities he had during that time. What are the priorities of most homeless people? Are they valuing the right things? Do they have worthy goals? Are they working towards those goals? I really don't know. So, I'm asking. But life lessons tell me that values and priorities shape a person's life as much as or more than the trials we have to face. Often the values and priorities shape how we respond to our trials.
    1 point
  3. !!! I was just reading in Amos 9: 3 And though they ahide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:
    1 point
  4. LDSGator

    Prognostication

    I've wondered the same thing.
    1 point
  5. LDSGator

    Prognostication

    This election cycle was more about Trump, election deniers, and abortion. The voters basically told us what anti-Trumpers have been saying for years. Trump is way more of a detriment in the long term. It’s validating for the anti-trump Republicans like me. The republicans who distanced themselves from Trump (Kemp, Sununu in NH, Desantis) won. It also could be cataclysmic for your party unless the economy improves. Gender issues mean nothing if you can’t feed your family. Hillary Clinton in 2016 can tell you about that. Finally, it wasn’t all great for your side. Florida went solidly red, Texas stayed red. Wisconsin kept Johnson, Beto the rockstar got slapped in the face again. You also barely beat someone in Arizona for governor that you should have absolutely crushed. You guys also struggled in New York because of COVID restrictions and party arrogance.
    1 point
  6. Actually it is quite the opposite. MOST of them would do the above. I deal with the homeless population on an almost daily basis and this is how they act as a majority.
    1 point
  7. Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 15, p. 109-110, August 4, 1872. “God is a consistent being, and he reveals himself according to his own mind and will, and in the last dispensation he will continue to reveal line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, bringing forth a record here, unfolding the history of another people there, bringing to light the bible of the ten tribes who have been absent from the land of Canaan for almost three thousand years. Their bible has got to be brought to light, and when they return they will bring their written revelations, prophecies, visions and dreams with them, and we shall have the bible of the ten tribes, as well as the bible of the ancient Israelites who lived on this continent, and the bible of the Jews on the eastern continent, and these bibles will be united in one, and even then the people will not have enough revelation.”
    1 point
  8. scottyg

    Activism vs the Gospel

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders/2022/11/1/23424931/brother-ahmad-s-corbit-activism-discipleship This was a good read. There are many persons that I associate with in my ward and workplace that are struggling with this very thing, and their kids are suffering as a result. One brother has had all 3 of his children leave the church in the past 2-3 years, and he cannot understand how it happened. For decades this brother has been actively involved in parties or groups that oppose not just the church, but all moral issues including the family. What did he expect would happen to his kids...you cannot teach them principles that are in direct opposition to the Lord, and then be surprised when they decide to choose what you taught over Him. Do we trust in the political parties of the day more than the words of the Lord? Do we try to fit the gospel into our political narrative rather than accepting it as a whole? This brother is now distancing himself from the church, believing it not to be the only way to salvation. He is angry that "it has not brought him the promised blessings" - not being humble enough to see that he has been pushing them away himself. I fear that this upcoming election cycle will turn many in my ward away much more so than covid did. They are wedded to the ideals their preferred political party and/or other organizations, and will not accept the fact that the Lord would not be on their side of the argument. Some of them just want to win because they hate their opponent more than they love their side, and no matter how much destruction they will cause, they just want to be "right" and claim the moral highground...even though in reality they couldn't be lower than the gutter. No matter how much debauchery these groups promote, or how much filth they spew, these church members continue to vote for, and be associated with those that push such ideals. Be humble, and seek the Lord's opinion on who you should be. "Not my will but thine be done"
    1 point
  9. 5. Public exclusion does BYU no good. The media do not portray BYU as the victim of overt and hateful discrimination; rather, BYU is portrayed as a purveyor of hateful discrimination, and thus anathema to any right-thinking (meaning left-thinking) conference. So BYU's exclusion from e.g. the PAC-12 simply makes BYU a laughingstock. This is true no matter how well BYU plays. Sports columnists now openly speculate that BYU's "homophobic" policies and the offensive, benighted beliefs of its sponsoring institution are the clear reason that no major conference will take BYU. But who cares how the sports world portrays BYU? Well...exactly. We should not care. BYU as an institution should care only in doing the Lord's will. But college football is an immense, extended beauty pageant. If we truly do not care how we are perceived by the ignorant and the willfully wicked, then why are we playing FBS football? Why play intermural sports at all? Is there some hidden benefit inherent in playing sports? Heaven knows we find out year by year how dangerous and destructive football is to the human brain and body. BYU sports is certainly not immune from such ills, as Jim McMahon and other BYU luminaries of past years illustrate. As with ancient Rome and modern Europe, sports have become a pagan idol to us. Stadiums and arenas stand as monuments to our appetite for watching the games, immense temples for our Sunday worship. BYU itself—the Lord's university, both literally and ostensibly in spirit—has two such major temples on its campus, huge meetinghouses dedicated to our veneration, and with the players themselves too often serving as the unholy sacrifice. We dedicate our consecrated time, money, and means to our devotions, congratulating ourselves that we keep ourselves holy and unspotted by insuring that our Saturday games conclude before midnight. Look, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool BYU sports fan, still avid if no longer rabid. I have followed BYU's football program for decades, and have paid no small amount of attention to BYU's other sports programs, and not just basketball. I cursed BYU's long-ago decision to disband its wrestling program (one of the best in the western US) to mollify the gods of Title IX. I mourned BYU's decision to quit sponsoring their top-notch, championship rugby squad. I thought it too bad when Ricks College, upon becoming BYU-Idaho, disbanded its sports programs. But today, I wonder if perhaps BYU-I didn't get it right. I really don't know. At this point I'm just ranting. But in this last year or so, I've really begun questioning the value of BYU's sports programs to its raison d'être. In many ways, it seems that my beloved alma mater has lost her way. I see the sports programs as offering no assistance to the very real and all-too-public evils taking place regularly on BYU's campus, as thoughtless and entitled students demand, in effect, that God change his mind and do things their way. Honestly, if BYU cannot be reformed, it should be repealed, and the spirit and promise of BYU should be restored. I suspect more strongly every year that sports programs don't have much to do with BYU's mission, assuming BYU holds to its stated purposes. This is just about the time I would normally voice my confidence in BYU's leadership and encourage us to get behind them, even when they make the occasional inevitable misstep. But some of the social and political faux pas that BYU has blundered into in the past several years have me questioning my confidence in BYU's leadership. I wonder if the Board of Trustees should not put Jeff Holland back in charge and do a very, very, VERY thorough housecleaning from top to bottom—starting with the faculty (and especially the faculty in the colleges of Humanities, Religion, Education, and Family-Home-Social Sciences) and staff, and continuing on through the entire student body. Having students at BYU who live their covenants imperfectly and even violate important and sacred covenants is pretty much inevitable. Keeping students who openly defy the principles of BYU and the beliefs of its sponsoring institution is incomprehensible to me. Such students can have place at so many other institutions in the US that their presence at BYU is mystifying. They do not need BYU, and BYU most certainly does not need them. BYU's problems run much deeper than their sports programs. But that is one highly visible element that may, at best, be serving as a distraction from the central business that must be conducted. So there's my BYU rant. My four oldest children have all matriculated at a BYU school for some time period, and three of those have graduated or will graduate from BYU in Provo. I'm heavily invested in BYU, both emotionally and in spirit. It is of importance to me and to my family that BYU succeed in its God-given mission. If sports does not further that end, and especially if it proves a drag, I'm all for jettisoning the sports programs. I'll rise and shout and keep singing the fight song as long as BYU has such sports teams,. But if and when the time comes that they go away, I will probably say that it's for the best.
    1 point
  10. Anddenex

    President Biden

    This about sums it up nicely:
    0 points
  11. When I went and had a look, there was a sign at the entrance saying "If you're looking for the 12 tribes we're no longer here."
    0 points
  12. I’ve been thinking of doing the same thing with my own kids. They still live at home, don’t have jobs, and always expect us to cook dinner. As such, I’ve been tempted to start charging them rent. But because they’re only 9 and 7, I can’t get my wife onboard with the idea.
    0 points
  13. Vort

    Reinventing the Wheel

    Here's a link to a self-referential post.
    0 points
  14. The “B.” in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for “Benoit B. Mandelbrot”.
    0 points
  15. mirkwood

    Reinventing the Wheel

    Thanks for the migraine.
    0 points
  16. Give me a few days. Text me, ask for Matt. 😉
    0 points