Ironhold

The problem with trigger warnings and safe spaces, however, is that they're all too often being invoked by individuals who are only triggered because it hurts their feelings or it's not something they want to deal with, not because they have a legit anxiety issue over the matter. For example, a number of law schools are having to deal with the fact that students are demanding trigger warnings (et al) before their professors start into discussions of rape law and related topics. Even though these students are going to need to know this material in order to actually practice law, they're wanting to sit it out because of their feelings. And yes, I have my own issues as well. Among other things, I was witness to someone's horrific death a few years ago; we're coming up on the fourth anniversary.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/hero-lifesaver-kone-saves-goalkeeper-from-choking-to-death/ar-AAnsc7Y?li=BBnbfcL A soccer player is credited with saving the life of another player. The other player was left choking his tongue after a collision with a third player, and the first guy was able to administer emergency treatment.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/rachel-dolezal-not-going-stoop-apologise-grovel Rachal Dolezal, the woman who lied about her race to obtain several positions and financial assistance, has been unable to find a job since the revelation was made and is facing the constant threat of eviction, yet isn't sorry in the least for what she did. Does she not realize how much she undermined the causes she was supporting by all of this?

The original idea I had was for a science fiction comedy series. There's an organization that sends people into the past to obtain records of historical events, particularly in areas where the historical record is sparse. Some people are merely sent back to record individual incidents, while others may be given long-running missions where they're sent back in time to record everything broadcast by a particular television station or all episodes of a "historically and culturally significant" television show*. The former are brought back to the present day once their job is done, while the latter are essentially deep-cover operatives who live as a regular member of society by day. Well, a guy who has the ability to clone himself at his leisure is tapped for the program, as his clones present a ready source of archivists who can be sent back in time. Since they're clones, the powers-that-be believe them to be more expendable than regular individuals. Thing is, the guy's a member of the church, and so his clones gravitate towards membership in the church if that's an option where the are. ...Which is making a hash out of the membership records, as for every clone that joins the church *after* being sent back, that bumps the membership numbers up by one, subtly changing history. *In reality, much of the footage from the early days of television is permanently gone. Many events were broadcast live and so were simply never recorded, while many taped shows were destroyed in an effort to either recycle the metal content of the tape or obtain insurance money from their destruction; other taped shows, meanwhile, were simply taped over to save on costs. There are entire early television series where all that's left are individual episodes.

The way I see it, God has what is essentially the biggest probability matrix in existence. God can see what people *might* do in a given situation, size up the consequences, and make plans accordingly.

Just some random hypotheticals to get a discussion going. 1. You have a member of the church. They've been baptized and had their ordinances. They get cloned. Would the clone get covered under their ordinances, or would they need to be baptized and receive their ordinances themselves? 2. Someone falls in love with their opposite-gendered clone. Are they essentially in love with themselves? 3. Would someone be assigned to HT / VT their own clones if they live within the same ward? (Yes, I have *plenty* of time for my mind to wander when I'm at work...)

"Get Out" Not sure who the target audience for this one was, but I'm pretty sure I'm not a part of it.

The second statement is one of the things he clarified. When he was 17, he was in a relationship with a man who was 27. By the standards of the homosexual community, he was still a "boy" even though he was over the legal age of consent where he lived. Hence his specific wording in that remark.

I don't have time to post it all here, but in a nutshell his full history of comments provides far more context and nuance.

"The Great Wall" A surprisingly serviceable movie for being released this early in the year.

1. Wearing a clothespin, puzzle piece, or anything else that signals your virtue won't actually change the world. Volunteering at a homeless shelter, hospital, food bank, or other such organization that helps the public will. 2. If you think that using force to silence "Nazis" and other such groups is perfectly fine, you've sunk down to their level. And if you actually throw the first punch, you've just made them seem rational by comparison. 3. If you're going to lecture someone on "privilege", stop to make sure that you're not actually in a more privileged state than your audience. Otherwise, you're being hypocritical. 3A. If you're living in a mansion and comfortably paying the bills that go *with* a mansion, please don't bother broaching the topic at all. You'll just be laughed at on YouTube the next day. 3B. If you're lecturing a person who has a physical or mental disability about how they are "privileged" because of their race or gender and you're in perfect health, karma will not be your friend. 4. If you do not vote in an election, then you essentially voted for whoever and whatever won.

As someone who's single at 33? Few Mormon women in the area will give me a second glance because I never went on a mission. They don't care why (I stayed back to help with a terminally ill relative). They just presume that something was wrong with me that I never went. Few non-Mormon women in the area will give me a second glance because I can't make it rain. I'm in a feast-or-famine profession where my pay is a mix of hourly and piece-rate, so there are months where I just barely cover my bills. Since I can barely afford the local dating scene, let alone be the sugar daddy so many are after, I'm not worth a second glance. Yeah.

Or for me, "I only have to endure this Singles' Awareness Day nonsense for another 48 hours, plus or minus the random person asking why I'm not married yet."

Wow most of those pictures are in poor taste and hurtful towards people who are legitimately having problems...

The Lego Batman Movie. Just... so much disappointment and failure... ...Like Valentine's Day...

Robot Carnival It's a Japanese anthology film from 1986 / 1987. A then-small animation house known as APPP got a bunch of up-and-coming directors together, told them that they (APPP) wanted to do an anthology film based on robots, and gave everyone free reign to do as they pleased. Save for a questionably-legal Southeast Asian release that made its way to Canada circa 2004, Discotek's release of the film last year was the first time since original import house Streamline Pictures went bust 20+ years ago that the film's been legally available in the United States. The film has a major place in history on both sides of the Pacific due to the fact that the film ended up serving as an inadvertent showcase. In Japan, the film pretty much made the careers of most of the directors who were involved with it, as they were able to get themselves project after project. In North America, the film quickly became a staple of cable television and so did wonders for the movie import industry as it made people eager to see what else was out there. The film itself is pretty well a masterpiece, especially when you consider how much they accomplished with how little. Granted, the film is very obviously a product of the 1980s given the art and music styles at work, but the basics of the work haven't aged a bit. A few of the sequences might be a bit hard to sit through, as they either rely on dark comedy or touch on difficult subjects. And I'd also recommend taking advantage of the fact that the Discotek release has both the original Japanese *and* Streamline Pictures English dub, meaning that for those sequences with dialogue you can compare the two.

OK - that's likely part of your problem: you decided to quit without having another job lined up. A lot of employers are just going to be looking at the fact that you quit, and not asking why. You're going to have to work to overcome this, perhaps through networking or meeting with people in person.

To me, it depends upon how it's done. The basics in a textbook? Go for it. Having kids learn how to pray Islamic prayers, like what's been happening at some schools? That runs right smack dab into the wall that is "church and state".

In that sense, I wouldn't have been able to serve anyway; I was born with a heart condition, and at that point in my life I wasn't able to do any of that. ...Too bad I got bupkis all support for the first several years, and was only later made a ward missionary as something of an afterthought once people finally started to wonder how I knew what I was talking about...

Thanks. There's a reason why "Mary Jane's Last Dance" was basically my personal theme song for a few years. "Tired of screwing up / tired of going down / tired of my self / tired of this town"...

QFT. It seemed like entirely too many leaders had to learn the hard way that there's a large number of members who would do better *not* going on missions, either because their skills lend themselves to other tasks or because they're in no shape to be going.

My personal story? When I was a teen, the stake authorities - and many ward & branch authorities - were hard-core about pushing missions. It was the obligation of all young men to go on a mission, and the obligation of young women to only date returned missionaries so as to add additional incentive for the young men to go. Well, during my senior year of high school, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. My dad was transitioning from military life to a civilian job, and my older brothers were off doing their own thing. If I went anywhere, mom would have to handle things on her own. I just accepted that I'd be going to the local community college instead of acting on the recruitment mailings I'd been getting (including one to Rutgers. Rutgers). Instead, I ended up doing all sorts of missionary work by way of the internet. Most people who get online nowadays are lucky, they've got all sorts of outlets, and all sorts of reasonably friendly places to chat. I first got online in 2000, and I had none of that. LDS.org was barely functional, Mormon.org was a pipe dream, and the Bloggernacle wasn't even at the back of anyone's mind. Instead, the reality of the situation was that the minute you self-identified on a message board, you got dog-piled by people who had website upon website of canned arguments at their disposal, and at least some of these people also had personal grudges or even pure rage. Yes folks, back then, your "making it" was based on how many death threats you got, not page views or likes. So there I was, in the thick of it, learning the hard way how best to spread the gospel online while also helping to make what we know today possible. In fact, the entire reason why I got a Deviant Art account in the first place was because it was free hosting for the essays and responses I was writing at the time; stuff kept showing up so often, it was easier to just copy & past or provide a link instead of hammering it out again and again. If you like posting on Mormon Hub and routinely expect a fair amount of respect when discussing the church online, you're welcome. Unfortunately, this all meant bupkis back in the real world. It was made entirely too clear on entirely too many occasions that since I never wore a name tag, nothing I did mattered. Somehow, "becoming the personal bogeyman of an entire online anti-Mormon ministry because I kept shooting down their leader's conspiracy theories and rantings" was less impressive than wearing a suit and riding a bike. Entirely too many people at stake let me know again and again that I was somehow a failure, and the reminders came so often that to this day I hate having to go to stake priesthood events. And my love life? I messed up a long-distance relationship I was in back in 2006, and take the blame for that. Why was I dating long-distance? Permanent friend zone... if I was lucky. Best-case scenario was that I was a friend, and never up for consideration for anything more. Worst-case scenario? I was now officially a nobody. And of course, the older I got and the longer I went without even so much as a girlfriend, the more people started talking... even within my own family. The final twist of the knife came when I went in for a temple recommend interview. The then-stake president told me that according to the advice he had received, recommends were only to be given to people who were going on missions or who were in a stable position in life. Well, I didn't go on that mission, and I was - like so many young men of that period - having career trouble because I was trying to balance work and college, so no temple recommend for me. Yeah. And people wonder why for the longest time all I wanted to do was leave town.

Waiting for "The House Of Hair With Dee Snider" to come on the radio stations I listen to.

"Rings" First you see it. Then you die. ...of boredom.

The film was, in large part, a backhanded insult aimed squarely at one of the major media bosses of the day and a few other influential power players. Everyone involved in the film was risking their careers, and perhaps even their necks, to make it.