PolarVortex

Why do you wish to learn a foreign language? If it's to expand your circles in the U.S., then Spanish would be a good choice. If it's based on admiration of some other culture (French, Italian, German) then I think it's perfectly fine to study those languages even though you might not have much opportunity to practice it in the U.S., especially if you can travel to a country that speaks that language. If your goal is to sharpen your mind, may I suggest Chinese? You can't argue that nobody speaks it. I was a Chinese minor in college and fell in love with the language. The writing system is about 100 times harder than the writing system in a European language, but you don't need to learn to write Chinese. In fact, you can get very deep into the language using romanized spellings, which are very easy. The tones are tough at first, but after a few months you can tell them apart as easily as you can distinguish vowels in English now. Best part is that Chinese grammar is pretty much a stream of fixed particles that do not change. No tenses, no declensions, no endings, nothing. (When I started learning Chinese after many years of Russian I thought I had died and gone to heaven.) I have also heard unflattering things about Rosetta Stone. At the end of five months and $500, you'll be able to say really simple things (e.g., "where-is-my-$500-now?") but that's about it. If you can take a class or get a private tutor to launch your study, that would be really good. Another idea is to find an online radio station in the language you're learning and just listen to it as background music. At first you won't understand anything, but every day you'll pick up a word or a phrase. I've found that Christian stations are the best, because they are filled with long sermons that the preacher delivers in a strong, clear voice. I fell in love with one German preacher who spoke really clearly, but a while back he fell out of his hang glider in the Alps and was killed.

I don't mean to elbow my way into a great question for CL, and I'm interested in CL's answer as well. I just wanted to add a quick data point from my own experience. When I attended my cousin's bar mitzvah (my Catholic aunt converted to Judaism when she married her husband), the cantor sang a long time in Hebrew, which I did not understand. To pass the time, I picked up some hymnal-like book in the pews and started reading. The first section was an explanation of Christianity from a Jewish perspective. The book didn't even use the words "Jesus" or "Christ" and instead referred to Jesus as the "Founder." Clearly some Jews view the movement from Judaism to Christianity as a discontinuous function, and I think many Christians would agree. In fact, I've heard people claim that Mormonism is to Christianity what Christianity is to Judaism.

Well, then the Bushes and Reagan weren't practicing Christians either, at least in my book. You are correct about Carter. I remember stories about him teaching Sunday School as President. But then he left the Southern Baptist Convention after some disagreement with SBC policies. Someone described our current President as a "liberal fundamentalist," which I think is pretty accurate. His strange beliefs about economics seem almost religious to me.

It's unfair to claim that Obama is not a real Christian, since at most one person (Obama himself) knows this. But it is fair to claim that Obama is not a practicing Christian. I did a quick search and learned that Obama went to church a total of 18 times in the first five years of his presidency. I mean, come on, the guy could snap his fingers and have a 30-minute Sunday church service in the White House with any minister in the country. Deeds are words. Could LDS members get a temple recommend if they were in good health and good standing but attended sacrament meetings only once every 14 weeks? I'm asking out of curiosity, I really don't know the answer to this.

Tyrannosaurus Rex

I visited your site and read parts of it. Can't say I really connected to it (I am unmarried), but the writing was excellent. Also enjoyed the story of the husband who documented his wife's refusals in a spreadsheet that got posted on the Internet. I thought a wife's default refusal was "I have a headache." Interesting how this has turned into "I'm watching my show" and "I feel gross and sweaty [after working out]." Blogs are good. Nice work.

So I Googled "adam and eve pee standing up"... and now I sort of wish I hadn't... but you're right, Vort, that is a great joke. Jokes with totally unexpected punch lines are the best.

When my mom is stressed out, she just bakes a frozen apple pie and eats the whole thing for dinner. For many years I thought she was kidding, but I actually witnessed it on a recent visit to her home. I asked her to save me a piece and I got a slice that was so pathetically skinny that I could see through it. When she's really stressed out, she'll eat it even if it's not thoroughly cooked in the center. Some of the recipes above sound good, though. The probability of my making any of them is zero, but they sound good.

I'm just repeating what I read at FairMormon: "Nothing in plural marriage mystifies—or troubles—members of the Church more than Joseph's polyandrous sealings. Marriage to multiple wives may seem strange, but at least it intrudes on our historical awareness, while many remain unaware of polyandry's existence in LDS history." http://en.fairmormon.org/Polygamy_book/Polyandry Whatever... in my solar system of things to worry about, this topic is way past Pluto.

I've already mentioned one of Phyllis Diller's housekeeping hints (see "DIY cheap radiant heater" of November 2014), and it's time to share another. Ms. Diller understood the enduring value of religion and politics. She knew her cooking was atrocious, so whenever she had guests over for dinner she would move the conversation to religion and politics. People would start fighting and wouldn't notice the low quality of the food. They'd also blame their indigestion on the long, stormy quarrels with all the other people. But I don't follow your comment about no deep-rooted emotional bond to our political views. Most people I know here on the Pacific Coast have very deeply rooted emotional bonds to their political views. I know some Democrats for whom a sex-change operation would be less disruptive than becoming a Republican.

As a closing comment to this subthread about cows... The argument I heard was that the ratio of men to women in the early church was 1:2 or 1:3. To prevent the creation of large numbers of fertile but childless single women, men were allowed to practice polygyny for a while. The fertility rates of women in polygamous versus monogamous unions was never an issue that I heard about. However, this theory does not explain why polyandry also emerged. Honestly, when I read the comments above I thought I had accidentally stumbled onto the website of The Onion. CatholicLady, see what we started?

I often make a vegetarian one-dish meal that I invented myself and call "slop." You might want to pick another name if you serve this to a skeptical spouse and children. Prepare brown rice as usual, with the correct amounts of rice and water. Add the following as you bring the water to a boil. Exact quantities aren't important, just whatever looks right to you. Grape tomatoes Chopped mushrooms Chopped garlic Chopped onions Any other frozen vegetables you like (corn and broccoli are really good, so is spinach) Don't stir, let the rice sit in the liquid in the bottom of the pan and cook normally. Do the usual thing for rice: bring to boil, then cover and turn down the heat and let simmer for 25 mins or so. When the rice is done, microwave a can of black beans until the beans are hot. Combine everything in a big bowl. Drizzle olive oil, sprinkle with sunflower seeds, and (optionally) sriracha sauce. If you don't like rice, this recipe also works with lentils and quinoa. (It's delicious with quinoa.) The combination of rice and beans is really good for protein, and quinoa is a protein superstar. I invented this after hearing a podcast from a doctor who said that our meals should contain GOMBS: greens, onions, mushrooms, broccoli, and seeds. I eat it all the time now. Takes about a half hour and requires almost no attention while cooking. You probably could kick it up a notch with some interesting spices. Do not use a crockpot, for some reason the rice turns to total mush. Happy cooking from Polar's kitchen to yours... Edit: Sorry, they're called "grape" tomatoes, not cherry tomatoes.

This is a huge topic. I'm sure your question will attract a swarm of comments. In fact, I see them arriving now as I compose this reply. It helped me to realize that many things in the LDS church seem unusual to outsiders, but that these things have clear roots in the Old and New Testaments: polygamy, baptism for the dead, washing and anointing, garments, etc. But I don't think I'll ever understand the polygamy thing. I have read LDS defenders state that polygamy was required to "build up Zion" because of imbalance in the ratio of men to women, but I've read other writings that deny this. One of the most prominent LDS historians (Richard Bushman) said on a podcast that we'd probably "never crack" the puzzle of why polygamy appeared in the early Church. (He is not a General Authority of the Church and this is his academic opinion.) If you're curious, there is a web site called FairMormon that is a sort of Wikipedia for Mormon issues. The section on polygamy is quite thorough and you might find it interesting. I see now that 6 more responses have appeared in this thread, so perhaps someone has already mentioned it. http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Polygamy

I certainly agree, and I'd add that in face-to-face conversations you can stop speaking if the other person starts to bare his or her teeth. With a long email or a post, your first sentence can accidentally detonate the entire conversation and then you have this nonstop streaming text that will continue to gush and churn and inflame. People tell me I have a dry British humor. I recently found some old emails of mine from the mid-1990s, which at the time I had written with streaks of what I considered harmless dry humor. I was shocked at how nasty they sounded today. I'm really surprised that my boss at the time didn't slap me more often. If I had been her, I would have fired me long before I quit.

I took the very same path as you! Very scenic.

Vulgar words are the language of shallow minds. I once worked with a man told me his hobby was writing Christian science-fiction novels. I had never heard of such a genre and thought at first he was pulling my leg. His stories would mix laser rifles and time warps with prayer, repentance, and the Eucharist. He never found a publisher for his works, sadly. Perhaps he'd have better luck if he added in some filthy language, which seems to be de rigueur in the book business these days.

Silent Cal was an awesome president. The two funniest comebacks from politicians IMHO were Coolidge's "you lose" reply and Churchill's "Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it!" I'm laughing out loud now just thinking about them.

All my dreams fit the same dismal template. I enter a classroom and suddenly realize that a critically important exam that I thought had been scheduled for next week was actually being given right now and that I had not prepared at all for it. I do the best I can and turn the test in, and then I realize that my flight to Europe is leaving in 90 minutes and I haven't gone home to pack yet. I rush home and discover that the pipes have burst, my cat has escaped, one wall of my living room has been blown out, and my suitcase is in tatters. Somehow I solve these crises and rush to the airport using a garbage bag for a suitcase. I'm running down the concourse to catch my flight, and I realize that a murderer with a hatchet is chasing me. As I get to the jetway, my feet suddenly slow down as if 100-pound weights had been attached to them. Just as the hatchet swings for my neck, the alarm clock goes off. Dreams actually bother me a lot. I don't like the idea that our consciousness can be propelled by external forces and all we can do is observe and mourn.

I may have already mentioned this on lds.net, but it's an interesting story. When Proposition 8 (the state proposition against same-sex marriage) appeared, I was doing the web site for a tiny ultraliberal church in San Francisco. Every week the pastor would post a message on the home page, usually some bland or shapeless critique of the war in Iraq or a pep talk for higher taxes on the rich. I didn't pay much attention to the content of these messages because they didn't really say very much and nobody read them anyway (and I have the logs to prove it). However, when Proposition 8 passed, the pastor sent me an urgent message to be posted on the church's web site immediately. It was a rather frantic appeal to everyone not to judge Hispanics and African Americans, who reportedly supported Proposition 8 in significant numbers. "We must forgive these people and try to educate them," the pastor said. I emailed the pastor back and said something along the lines of, "Gee, the LDS Church also supported Proposition 8, so are you going to include them in your appeal to forgive and be tolerant?" The pastor replied, "Well, no, the Mormons are our enemies." And when I describe this experience to liberal friends, they seem shocked that I would call this a double standard. And I'm pretty libertarian about same-sex marriage. I stopped doing their stupid web site, and the church later closed. Liberals here treat Christian churches the way Superman treats kryptonite. But the general feeling I get is that a lot of Mormons in the Bay Area were really turned off by the Church's boot-camp support for Proposition 8. I heard of Mormons who were badgered and hounded to contribute money or staff phone banks to call voters, and they didn't care much for that. The Wikipedia article "8: The Mormon Proposition" is also quite interesting and describes the unseen political forces that swirl around so many of these social issues like great magnetic fields. This movie was far from fair, and even the San Francisco Chronicle compared it to propaganda.

Well, this explains where all that dust came from, then. Continuing... letter I. What starts with I that I wouldn't want under my bed? Well, with two gas giants and all that dust, I'd hope that I am not there, too.

My stepfather was cremated and my mom changed her mind a few years after that. She bought a gravesite from her gambling winnings and buried his cremains with an attractive headstone. Less work for the gravediggers. But if you go the cremation route, be careful. A military buddy of mine died in 2003, and I helped his mother clean out his apartment. His mother had his remains cremated and then flew home to Boston. The cremation company mailed the ashes back to her, but they were sloppy with the address and the package got lost in the mail. The mother was inconsolable. And then, two months later, she came home and found the ashes under her door mat. My friend always did like dramatic arrivals. Now I'm crying as I remember him.

California is sort of a cross between a Kafka novel and a bad Woody Allen movie. A few years ago the solons in Sacramento passed a law that required school textbooks to include favorable comments about gays and lesbians. From the Huffington Post we read: "State Sen. Mark Leno, a Democrat from San Francisco and the bill's author, hailed the bill signing as a step toward teaching tolerance. Supporters say the bill will teach students to be more accepting of gays and lesbians in light of the bullying that happens to gay students." One wonders what the reaction would have been if the law had required school textbooks to include favorable comments about Mormons, who made numerous contributions throughout California's history and who are widely marginalized here by liberals.

Gas giant planet (e.g., Jupiter or Saturn). The gravity would make it really hard to shift my sleeping positions.

I'm with you. By the way, I recently heard an episode of NPR's Fresh Air that mentioned a new book about cremations. It has a campy title (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory), but it was quite interesting and explained the inner workings of the cremation industry. You could probably Google it to find the podcast of the episode (author is Caitlin Doughty). The author said there is something called a "witness cremation" where the deceased person's next of kin can attend the cremation and actually push the button to send the remains into the flames. Not sure I would have the strength to do this. classylady, your post really moved me. I'm so sorry about the loss of your daughter. I've heard that the hardest thing in life is being a parent and dealing with the death of a grown child. But, as you say, death brings much sorrow. I once knew a man and a women who were both terminally ill. They met at a clinic or hospital or something, and they married. The man passed away first, and on his casket the wife had placed seven perfect red roses, one for each month of their very happy marriage. She passed not long after that. Carpe diem.

They sometimes tell the truth. A few years ago Obama said that the Affordable Care Act would "not add one dime" to the deficit. He spoke truth. Latest estimates show that the Act will add 13,000,000,000,000 dimes to the deficit. (That's 1.3E+12 dimes for the geeks out there.)