Ironhold

Yeah... Frankly, what I care about is whether or not a person can do the job. Everything else is secondary.

Wow but the author's a whiner. "We don't have anybody who could satisfy the politically correct crowd, so something must be wrong with the senior leadership!" seems to be the author's basic thesis. We don't know why God called these three people, but the author is more than willing to declare a reason: That's right: the author thinks that the apostles were called in large part because of a desire to keep the church leadership white and male. They haven't even been in office a week. Let's give them a chance to show off what they can do for the church. And as far as diversity goes - I can rattle off story after story where "diversity for the sake of diversity" backfired spectacularly. I'm a business type, and so I've studied the issue a lot as part of workplace controversies.

There are any number of reasons why a person may not want to let on what kind of shape they're in. This can be anything from simple pride to a fear that others may be demoralized if they knew the full details. For example, FDR went to length to hide his paralysis from the general public; not only did he not want people to think of the President as being infirm, he feared that foreign spies and would-be assassins might identify the kind of special equipment he needed (such as an elevator to board planes) and so recognize where he was.

Anime News Network (no direct link because some of the site's content is risque) is reporting about a major social media uproar going on in Japan right now. Back on September 10th, an already controversial artist published a drawing claiming that the refugees aren't seeking freedom but the right to live in freedom on other peoples' money. This isn't the first time the artist in question has provoked others through her artwork, but because it's so topical and involves platforms like Facebook & Twitter it's gotten attention on both sides of the Pacific.

Anyone here decide not to go on a mission? Did you suffer any negative consequences because of it? During my senior year of high school, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Both of my older brothers had long since moved away and my dad was working long hours at his new job. If I was to go anywhere, I realized, mom would largely have no help in taking care of her and tending to her affairs. As such, I decided that I'd go to a local community college, make myself available to help my mom out as much as I could, and let the chips fall where they may. I've spent much of my life since regretting that decision. Back then, there was a massive push among the local leadership for people to go on missions. I spent the better part of the next decade coming to dread both stake priesthood meetings and any Sunday in which stake representatives were present. Not only would these events inevitably degenerate into "Mission! Mission! Mission!", those of us who never went found ourselves in the crosshairs. One stake rep actually went so far as to essentially declare that we were "worthless" and had nothing to contribute to the church. Even to this day, I still don't like stake priesthood meetings. As an extension of the whole "mission" focus, the young women of the stake had it drilled into them that anyone who wasn't a returned missionary wasn't worth their time as a possible spouse. Friendship and non-exclusive dating could take place before people left, but once you hit adulthood it was "returned missionary" or nothing; once again, no one ever said anything about asking why people never went. This is a large part of why I've given up on ever finding a spouse.

Thanks to Robert & Rosemary Brown (et al), the 1980s and early 1990s were analogous to the Marianas Turkey Shoot. As anti-Mormon after anti-Mormon went down in flames, the tide of the battle began to turn. Their generation ultimately formed a shield wall that provided breathing room for the next generation. This next generation used the early and mid-1990s to organize various defenses of the church and ready them for presentation. Many of these people decided that traditional outlets of presentation were insufficient, and so we began seeing a lot of apologetics websites begin to emerge. SHIELDS, for example, lists its founding as February 1997. Their work paved the way for the next generation, the generation of Mormons that appeared on the scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Thanks to this new treasure trove of online resources, we were able to quickly educate ourselves on the various controversies and the actual facts surrounding them. We also made use of new resources like Wikipedia and others to gather information beyond this. ...Information that we immediately put to work. To compare the internet of the era to the Wild West would be to insult the Wild West. The anti-Mormons of the period were playing defense, and they didn't like it. What should have been polite discussions quickly degenerated into trench warfare as critic after critic used a combination of outdated arguments, lies, slander, ridicule, personal insults, and even threats of physical violence in an effort to silence whatever Mormons they came across and denigrate everything the church stood for. SLC, by all appearances, barely even knew what was going on. And my local & stake church leaders were so convinced that the internet was little more than a delivery service for porn that I was hesitant to go into details concerning just what was really going on. No, we were essentially on our own. All we had was what we could piece together from various print sources and the handful of early websites. I saw one minister sanction male-on-female spousal abuse as a means of preventing women from joining the church; said minister's favorite hobby was writing dirty limericks making fun of various church leaders. I saw another minister ruin his health by putting his efforts to destroy the church ahead of everything else, even his own well-being and sanity. I've been threatened, as have others, and was even personally insulted by what was once a big-name anti-Mormon writer & minister. Et cetra. This actually played a large part in the destruction of my love life; the one romantic relationship I actually ever had was being conducted long-distance, and a particularly excessive round of back-and-forth one week set off a chain of events that led to us drifting apart.* Finally, someone at SLC finally realized that maybe, just maybe, this internets thing could be used as a missionary tool. This decision was met with a general chorus of "It's about time!" coming from those of us who had been on the front lines. By the time Mormon.org, the whole "I'm a Mormon!" campaign, and even the Bloggernacle as we know it came into being, we'd done a surprising amount of the heavy lifting in ensuring that the internet was a place where this could happen. This is why whenever someone goes off about how glorious the internet is and how easy it is to speak with people, all we can say is "You're welcome." *I've tried to re-enter the dating scene multiple times since, but it's all fallen apart. Most Mormon women I've tried to date are so caught up in the whole "I'll only date a returned missionary!" nonsense that they walk right past me without a second thought... never mind the fact that I never went because I was helping care for a mentally ill relative. Most non-Mormon women walk right past me because the recession has resulted in my paycheck being smaller than it should be for my education and work experience. I can't make it rain, and so they aren't interested. I've pretty much given up on ever getting married, and a decade later still blame myself for how the relationship ended (along with wondering what ever happened to her).

Back in 2000 when I first started on the internet, LDS.org was still in what could be described as an "open beta" stage. The search engine didn't work very well (which led to more than a few shouting matches as my mom blamed me for not miraculously producing what she was looking for, no matter how vague). The archives were spotty at best, with Sunday school manuals only going back a few years and the church magazines only being archived to the mid / late 1980s, and only then with pronounced gaps as issues hadn't been converted over. And anyone who tried to copy and paste the scriptures into something else (like a Word document or a message board post) had to go clean up a bunch of stray code that came along with everything. Mormon.org, meanwhile, was nothing more than a pipe dream. It's undergone quite a few revisions in the 15 years since I first found it, ultimately becoming the site it is now. The search function is comprehensive, allowing people to rapidly access a wide amount of material. The magazine archives now go back to circa 1971 with minimal gaps in issues. And the scriptures were code-free before the last update accidentally knocked out the footnotes. So just think about it next time you access the church website: 15 years ago, most of what you take for granted didn't exist.

I started on the internet in 2000, and almost immediately found myself dealing with anti-Mormons. From day 1, it was pretty much drummed into myself and the others who I worked with that we were flapping in the breeze. SLC was only just barely even paying attention to what was going on (the church website was barely operational, even when it did decide it wanted to work), and my local leaders at least made a mantra of "The internet is nothing but e-mail, the church website, and porn; nothing more exists and so anyone who spends time online is wicked." Yeah.

Not likely. For all intents and purposes, the church's policy concerning places like this is "Who?". The church neither sanctions nor supports any online sites like this one, and so we're pretty well on our own. And there's a host of good reasons why this is a good policy. It's hypothetically possible that online sentiment in general is considered from time to time, but SLC likely has better things to do than directly get involved with places like this.

I've seen it in a few different places.

It takes a week to legally get a gun... if you pass a background check and have your other paperwork in order. You can legally get a bomb just by going to the local grocery store. Seriously. As Mythbusters demonstrated in an episode, even something as innocent as non-dairy creamer powder can be turned into a devastating display under the appropriate circumstances.

The best way to stop idiots is proper training and monitoring. For example, here in Texas you have to attend state-sanctioned classes if you wish to legally concealed-carry a weapon; IIRC, the training includes a mandatory marksmanship demonstration.

In my part of Texas, it's a non-issue if somebody has a utility knife or even a small tactical knife (4 inches is the maximum blade length under state law) that is used for utilitarian purposes. We've got so many hunters, farmers, skilled trades workers, and the like that knives are just like watches or belt buckles. Unless there's a prohibition against weapons of any stripe or someone is being an idiot with what they've got, nobody really cares. What's more, I live in Copperas Cove. Ft. Hood is right next to us, and Gatesville (the county seat) is home to numerous prisons. This means that we have a lot of off-duty military service members and prison guards out and about. We've also got more than a few street gangs, and I have reason to believe that there may or may not be a few violently psychotic knife nuts afoot who are just looking for an excuse. Suffice to say that anyone who seriously thinks about trying anything is going to die in the process if they aren't intercepted first.

It's my understanding that the church goes out of its way to scout whatever former / retired protective service members (police, military, FBI, et cetra) it can locate. This way, SLC knows that whoever they have has already been trained by the best and are ready for anything.

The President is already on TV calling for more gun control, and making up excuses for why he's trying to politicize so soon after people have died. *headdesk* Have some respect, people!

Guys, the bodies likely aren't even cold yet. Let's give the families a little while to collect their dead and mourn for them. Then we can talk politics. And before anyone says anything, just remember: the town I live in is right next door to Ft. Hood. I know all too well what happens when a shooting goes down. I also know what it's like to hear people talk about politics when you still don't know if your friends are alive.* So let's just leave some respectful room, okay? *Specifically, a rather uninformed individual tried to use the incident as an excuse for expanding gun control... never mind the fact that the shooting started in a medical clinic populated primarily by medical staff, clerical staff and patients, with many of all three categories being civilians employed by the Department of Defense instead of actual military service members.

Plus we've got the question of just what people are adding it to. It's one thing if they're using it in products that don't have any to begin with. But I don't doubt the prospect that some of these folks are using it in items that already have caffeine simply because what's present is "not enough".

Read the link. There have been multiple fatalities stemming from people using powdered caffeine. The situation's getting so bad that the FDA is now getting involved. edit - The FDA's been investigating the safety of added caffeine since 2013. The Military TImes has been asking about the safety of energy drinks since at least 2012, and in 2013 they were asking about the safety of added caffeine in food items.

So far as I know, there never was a 10th (it would have been in 2012). If there was, then I never got invited.

About tea - Back when I had my wisdom teeth removed, the oral surgeon offered me a bit of advice. In the event that the gauze I was given wasn't enough to stop my sockets from weeping blood, then the best course of action would be to take a wet tea bag (black tea, like what people normally drink) and hold it in my mouth over each individual socket that was still giving me problems. Why? The tannin in the tea, he noted, would cauterize the socket. After 36 hours straight of having my sockets weeping, I finally broke down and tried it. It worked. So think about that next time you go to have a glass of black tea. ** As far as caffeine itself goes, Energy Fiend.com is your friend. The website, now known as "Caffeine Informer.com", lists food and beverages by their average serving size and the amount of caffeine in said serving size. For example, an 8 fluid ounce serving of chocolate milk or hot cocoa contains 5 milligrams of caffeine, or .6 mg / floz. By comparison, an 8 fluid ounce serving of instant coffee contains 57 milligrams of caffeine, or 7.1 mg / floz. Brewed coffee? That 8 fluid ounce serving comes in at 163 milligrams of caffeine, 20.4 mg / floz. NutriSystem's Energi-ZING shake? That same 8 ounces runs 200 and 25, respectively. An 8 ounce of Redline energy drink and Redline Princess runs 250 and 31.2, respectively. Redline Xtreme? 316 and 39.5, respectively, for 8 fluid ounces. So let's do the math: *Instant coffee has 10X the caffeine content of chocolate milk or hot cocoa *Brewed coffee is about 3X as potent as instant coffee *NutriSystem's offering is 40X as potent as chocolate milk *Redline is a heart attack waiting to happen. edit - The 8 Most Dangerous Caffeinated Products #1 - Powdered Caffeine. If a person is at this point, then IMHO they may as well pre-plan their funeral.

Yeah - a *lot* of critics of the church claim that Mormons don't make friends, only potential converts. I actually had to correct someone about this back on Sunday when they tried to turn the comments section of a comic strip into a round of Mormon-bashing. In reality, I'm guessing that their arguments are based on a mix of paranoia and jealousy.

Hotel Transylvania 2. There's a lot of crude humor (which should be no surprise when you realize that it's got the triple play of Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Genndy Tartakovsky), but it's also got a lot of legitimately funny moments and raises some good questions.

Example from an actual column I did - J. Golden Kimball successfully bluffing a bunch of stupid KKK members = a message about people not believing everything they hear

It can't be something that could be mistaken for ad copy for the church. Whatever I do, I have to wrap it in a moral message so that it's more palatable for the general public. Hence why I'm looking for stories about individuals or incidents in history.

So - Suppose that you've been given the opportunity to do a newspaper column about anything church-related, past or present. Your limitations are that you've got 600 words and that anything you write must be something that non-members would comprehend. What would you do? In addition to my job as a movie reviewer, I also write a weekly "edutainment" column for a local newspaper. I was given permission by the publishing editor to do one church-related piece a quarter. I figured on doing a bit about Porter Rockwell for this Friday in time for Conference. I had a feeling that I needed to get the column out this week. As it is, we've got a "this week in Texas history" column that often talks about gunslingers and the like anyway, so I figured it wouldn't be too out of place. I wrote it up two weeks ago and e-mailed it to the stake presidency. They only just now got back to me to say that they had some concerns and would rather I not publish it at this time if it's possible. I told them that I'd try to come up with something new, but it's such short notice (I need to have any replacement done and submitted by Wednesday night due to the required lead times on publication) that I can't guarantee anything. So - any ideas I can use? Thanks.