Fiannan

Actually William the Conqueror led armies made up of Normans -- a people mostly the descendants of Danish Vikings who colonized northern France. How else could an army of French people actually win a war? Immigration should be controlled -- with heavy penalties on businesses that hire illegals. Also, the USA should only take in the best and brightest from other nations -- that was the cornerstone of US immigration policies in the past and that was the purpose of setting up checkpoints like Ellis Island (to find and send back anyone with criminal histories, genetic defects and dangerous diseases). You know, the American Indians had lousy immigration control and look what happened to them.

I see. I hope, though, that you're not saying all of us liberals are products of the same mold! And I believe the core principles of "political correctness" are basic courtesy and tact, such as not using the "n word" in reference to black people, etc. Of course, being the liberal I am, I firmly believe in freedom of speech, and would defend people's right to say offensive things (though I would advise against it)! PC? Maybe not, but freedom of speech is, in my book, a higher value. Is the culture in the eastern part of the state different? I have an LDS friend from eastern Oregon who is VERY conservative.I think this hysteria about sex offenses has gotten a bit out of hand. I've heard of six-year-old children getting in legal trouble for kissing other children!! When I was a kid that was considered cute. 'Course, I remember the days before trick-or-treating was considered life-threatening. *sigh* Dror Hey. ovrall Oregon is a very special place. The only down side is that too many environmentalists who have never even seen a spotted owl or been to Oregon have caused many small towns to collapse by shutting off timber sales, there is a really arrogant education bureaucracy in the state, and taxes are too high. As for rank and file people you have an ecclectic mix of spoiled yuppies in the Portland area (many California transplants who didn't get the hint in 1970 when the governor then asked them to visit but not to stay), red necks and librtarian hippies in the southern section, hard-core conservatives west of the Cascade Mountains, aging hippies in Eugene who vote more liberal than any place except San Francisco or Berkely, and mixes in between. Nice thing is people generally are very tolerant and laid back. So yeah, Mormons there are very conservative but not at all judgemental for the most part (if born ansd raised there), hippies go to home school meetings with Christian fundamentalists and you feel totally at ease dressing up in a cowgirl outfit and going to a rodeo (if you are female, or male in many parts of Portland) and then the next day running around at a hippie festival in a tie.dyed bra the next day. And hippies there belong to the NRA. It's really a fun place. But as I said I would definently home school if I lived there now.

Since caramel used to color the drinks seems to be a problem then what about drinks like diet Mountain Dew`?

The ideological foundation of an area will determine not only laws but attitudes. The Willamette Valley area of Oregon is very politically liberal -- many hippies stuck around after the 60s and make up a large percentage of the professionals in education and as for yuppies who get really bothered by anything that goes out of the area of political correctness... And I am actually not all that adverse to Oregon. Then again, most of my friends are either agnostics or atheists so I tend to get along with a broad range of fold (I've been told more than once by Muslims I have known that I would make a terrific Muslim yet at the same time I can greatly enjoy being at the Oregon Country Fair (google that one, filter off if you dare). The only people I have encountered that I really can't stand are people in administrative posts in Oregon schools. If I lived there again I think home-schooling would be a must. Don't get me started on how schools in Oregon shortchanged my kids.

LOL!!!! Very astute observation! I thought I was the only person here who felt like this man has a fetish about all things sexual. In psychology one might ask why would you take notice of that? Maybe because it is quite obvious. Yeah, and perhaps many find it more comfortable to employ denial to those things that have anything to do sex and reproduction?

First, I guess it is true that teachers who can't teach get go into administration. Also, they were not with parents when they were being interrogated by the police? Isn't that illegal? I can only hope it is and that there has to be some lawyers out there who will take their case and hopefully get the school district to pay for these boy's college educations and maybe some neat things for the lawyers as well.

Oregon, the bastion of hippies and politically correct yuppies. Guess I thought it had to be Oregon when I read the headline on another site: http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/v...sf?LC_11SPAN122 http://dennisprager.townhall.com/blog.aspx...24-a80ef23eafa3 http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/i....xml&coll=7 Any comments? Is the school and the DA doing what is right? From the Oregonian newspaper article:

Hey, one other funny thing I forgot. Ever notice how in movies and TV programs when a villian repents and goes right he or she dies in the end (and like on all those old Bonanza shows dies in the arms of the good guy explaining how good is best? Wait, that was also in Star Wars). LOL!!!! Very astute observation! I thought I was the only person here who felt like this man has a fetish about all things sexual. In psychology one might ask why would you take notice of that?

And to add a few others: Nobody in the future needs to go to the bathroom -- ever seen a bathroom on a sci-fi spacecraft? Two blonds in the woods after their boyfriends mysteriously disappear will always strip off and go skinnydipping even when they know a psychotic murderere has escaped from prison. Gay men never play gay men in TV shows. Nobody ever gets shot in the private regions in war movies. All '80s movies have a burning trash can in a night scene in a movie. You never have a psychotic, satan worshipping, demon possessed, etc. rabbi in an American produced TV program. Plenty of priests and ministers though.

The_Big_Pictue I am curious. The Islamic view of the final battle with the anti-Christ, does Jesus just destroy the Jewish armies who are serving the anti-Christ or does he destroy all Jews? That could indicate some of the origins of Muslim and Jewish tension.

Maybe the antichrist is Conan O Brian? Are you saying that redheads are Gods choosen people? Remember the devil is always red. Well yeah redheads are hot and freckles are cute Not sure but this is what Islam says about the return of Jesus -- seems he'll have quit a temper (a trait red-heads seem to be associated with): http://afghanland.com/islam/jesus.html

Would you give your permission for your 14 yr old daughter to be married to a 30 or 40 yr old if he had no children already? What does his having children have to do with it? I think I said 18 was the age I think a woman is capable of determining who she wants to be married to. The reason I put that stipulation into the question is bc you sd something about older men marrying younger women and not allowing the new wife to have babies bc they were finished with child-rearing. I was wondering if that part was not an issue, if you would allow your daughter marry at 14. And you never answered my question. I got the feeling from a previous post that people having a problem with 14 yr olds marrying was bc of the media... hence I thought you may agree with 14 yr olds marrying. If not, why? I am not morally opposed to allowing younger teenagers to marry -- and most states allow them to do so with parental permission (although it is usually 16 for females). That being said I would not see it as the ideal. I don't like the idea of inter-racial marriage but that doesn't mean I would look down on someone who did marry outside their race (I have several friends who live in such marriages) but I would discourage my children from dating outside their race or religion (even though I have to say I did both when I was younger and single).

Would you give your permission for your 14 yr old daughter to be married to a 30 or 40 yr old if he had no children already? What does his having children have to do with it? I think I said 18 was the age I think a woman is capable of determining who she wants to be married to.

Oh cool then, you've changed my mind about letting my 14 year old daughter marry this 40 year old she has a crush on. How ridiculous! (I don't really have a daughter... just making a point.) Don't you have a daughter about that age, Fiannan? Would you let her get married to some older man? It would be OK, because I'm sure he'd love her for her intellect, not her youthful innocence. You want my answer? I would not be thrilled with it at all (despite the fact that Joseph was probably in his 40s and Mary was 14). However, what if she were 18? This issue has come up before and I have siad my only problem with major differences in ages is that many men already have kids (often older than their young wives) and refuse to let their younger wives have kids. So what would I do if my daughter in 11 years reaches 18 and then fell for a guy in his 30s or even 40s who was a great member of the church, wanted to raise kids and shared the same interests as she did? Ask what day I should plan for the temple ceremony! No, I personally don't think people should get married until 18 and above but then again I have a neice who married at 14 (pregnant) and they have been together for about 30 years so far -- and have three very well-adjusted kids. Strange irony about these debates on teenagers though. In my state a 16 year old can get an abortion without parental permission or even notification but she cannot get her ears pierced and cannot see an R-rated movie in school without a signed paper from her parent. That is the case in many states. Heck, Missoiri just passed a law that a minor cannot even get a wax below the belt without parental permission but I'll bet she can get an abortion. Ironic, huh? I saw a video the other day on the net showing US servicemen executing a 16 year old German male for "spying" in 1945. Strange the US seemed okay with this sort of thing then -- maybe there wasn't much of a distinction for teens in those days.

Maybe that's why red-heads seem a bit "off" at times. If they are always picked on and maybe that makes them more retrospective. I have read also that Buddha was a red head (he was an upper class person and Aryan and all the old statues of him I have seen in China depict him as blue-eyed), Some speculate that Jesus was red-headed and Mohammed said that when he comes back to decimate the Jewish armies and the anti-Christ he will be white and red, and even Mohammed is thought of as being red-headed. Since the tribe of Joseph was often red-headed and pale maybe Lehi was too. P.S. Many of the pharoahs of Egypt in the early dynasties were red-headed.

I don't know, I think most "original" or ethnic Swedes tend to look like this: Daughter of the Swedish king. The current prime minister of Sweden, from one news article I read, has a great great grandmother (something like that) who was an American black woman so maybe he doesn't look as "Swedish". My wife is a Swede but has dark brown hair and blue/hazel eyes but everyone else in her family is really blond. I think blond hair is dying out in Sweden since most immigrants are from lands that are darker and when they intermarry dark genes are dominant over light ones. I find studies on race interesting since, when I was looking into the Church, I thought it odd that Nephites were described as really light. I thought Jews were dark until I looked into it more carefully. Also, the tribe of Joseph was characterized as being pale and with light brown or red hair. So soemthing that might have made me wonder about the church initially was cleared up through research.

Yes that is very possible, but it could also be a disease like ginger vitus, its like albino but common, you have red hair and frickles, you are a little more sensitive to the sun but its no big defects. Yes he had wifes of all kinds, 6 years, 60 years blonds... There are africans where evereyone have blue eyes, The biggest afghan ethnicity are pashtuns it means (the green eyed people) all of them have green eyes, The prime minister of Sweden I realy think that Idea of blond and blue eyed westerner is getting a bit old fashioned, even do Hollywood keeps the tradition on with "Alexander" and "300". I have a friend who is from Afghanistan -- she looks like the cartoon character Dora (though 20-something) but she says she has blond and red headed family members -- her grandmother was pale with blue eyes and red hair. She is Pushtun. Traditionally the Pushtuns are supposed to be part of the "lost" Ten Tribes so they are probably what the Hebrews/Jews looked like in the days of Jesus. Of course the Afghans have mixed with various tribes that have left the people a bit darker than they were originally (same with the Iranians from what I understand).

I read that Mohammed was red-headed and one of his wives was a blond -- is that true? Esau is recored in the Bible as being red-headed and he was one of the contributers to the Arabic gene pool.

Maybe there's a list somewhere in the church media guide. My wife was watching a re-run of MASH the other day and one of the main doctors in the series also stared in a home-teaching training video from the 70s. Kinda curious what that one was called as well.

Lol by the way I have a theory about blonds, whenever I am in the middle east I see more blond boys and men than I see in the west. especially kurdish and afghan immigrants. Then you go back to the west, and you see almost no blond male, but everey other woman is blond, wich is strange. Are the Kurd and Afghani guys dying their hair? I know there are a few people born in those regions displaying the characteristics of the people back in the days of the Bible but they aren't all that common, or are they? As for guys in the west it may be the 1980s "gay man cut" (hair avove the ears) that has been popular for a few years now that makes one's hair look darker.

Wasn't she an actress? I really don't think Jane Mansfield was LDS in the least.

Yeah, Michael Moore capitalizes on that. American TV is also the reason, I believe, that whenever a blond girl visits places in the Middle East a lot of guys call her a whore (or worse) unless she is with a man (then she gets respect). Hollywood poisons th view that the world has of America. Yeah, plenty of people in the USA can't make ends meet and live in modest homes. But Hollywood presents reality to the world of either ghettos or Beverly Hills. If middle Americans are presented they are generally victims needing the government to save them or just plain old stupid "red necks". Middle eastern people are presented as backward and as terrorists, Russians are prostitutes or mafia...the list can go on and on. Just don't forget -- the typical Hollywood person is also a liberal Democrat.

Please check out Robert Epstein's work on the myth of teenagers. His points out that in countries where teen culture has not been created to sell products (via media) there is no real teen angst. It's like when the topic of the age of Joseph Smith's wives occasionally surfaces here people fail to realize that the whole looking at teens as big children did not come about until recently in the 20th. Century in the USA. After all, Mary was 14 when God chose her for impregnation with Jesus, David was 14 when he killed Goliath and Joseph Smith was 14 when he had his first vision.

Don't tke this the wrong way but isn't most of Hollywood's elite Jewish? I would wonder if that might influence the way Iran might get portrayed in any films or in the USA press considering that Iran is not terribly fond of Israel.

How is this messing with God's planning? How do you know that God does not want her to date and/or marry him? We are all equally children of the same Father. He is no less entitled to marry her than is someone of her own race. If he treats her right, if he's a good person, and if they both feel they are supposed to be together then that's all that matters. You may not consider yourself a "racist", but you are showing a form of racism here. Humble yourself. I totally disagree. Racism means placing yourself more important than other peoples due to your race or ethnicity. The_Bib_Picture never said that blacks were inferior to whites -- it just sems he is not into racial mixing. One could say that if everyone just started having offspring with different racial groups that in a few generations we would lose the diversity that seems so reveared in liberal "multi-cultural" settings. The Bible certainly implies a racist overtone (as does the Book of Mormon) if we get so picky about what racism is. The_Big_Picture, you did not mention your religion -- is it Muslim or Christian (I know there are tons of Iranians who practice Christianity secretly yet go to mosque in order to hide it from their relatives). I know there have been cases of honor killings in Sweden (one a few years ago involved a father killing his Kurdish daughter because she was dating a Swede). How does religion play into this? Also, just to mix the pot really good, since this does involve Sweden (I assume his sister also lives there) how would people feel if she were dating a girl -- you know, starting soon you can get a Lutheran wedding (official and everything) in Sweden if you are two women or two men getting married to each other. This might actually relate since if this topic was being discussed 30 years ago the reaction would be far more heated. Wonder if in 30 years society might feel the same way about same-sex marriage?