NeuroTypical

Whelp, better go dust off the NT family ebola response procedures we put into place in 2014. Fortunately, Facebook has a long memory and I was able to find them pretty easily. Full transparency, we did have real response procedures for our family. They looked like this: - If we hear about it hitting Denver, we'll cut back unnecessary travel and add hand sanitizer to our cars. - If it hits Colorado Springs, we'll cut back even more. - If an Ebola death hits Colorado, I'll start working from home, we'll crank up our self-quarantine procedures even more (masks and gloves when shopping/getting gas, etc.) I don't think it ever made it to Colorado.

Love it or hate it, it's news. I figure it's worth people at least knowing about, if not talking about. As usual, the Deseret News and Tribune have different takes on the same story. DesNews article Tribune article I do know that BYU is quite well known across the nation for their Ballroom Dancing competitions - it's absolutely not an LDS-only sort of event.

I was waiting for a Blades of Glory reference. Funny movie, if you like a certain kind of eclectic movie. The other relevant line to same-sex ballroom dancing, was the guy who said "does this look natural to you"?

I've done audiobooks on long drives. Back when I had a 90 minute commute (each way), audiobooks kept me happy on the road. Good stuff, although I have to concentrate, otherwise my my mind wanders, and I don't get anything out of it.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/symptoms.html Maybe I'm missing something, but why all the fuss?

They had to categorize it somewhere. It's sure not news.

Yep, truly a stellar example of good journalism. Not even a hint of an agenda or pre-formed conclusion here.

In other Hilary items, a random scrape from Google news. I wonder if the Google AI has developed a sense of irony...

The more cool science fiction I read, the more appealing I find the whole notion of "You get to be a voting citizen by doing a stint in the military". Bifurcated classes of citizenship with different levels of rights and responsibilities sound horrible at first blush, but seeing how it works in Israel and other places make me think twice.

I'm hearing conservative voices more and more, hoping Bernie becomes the democrat nominee. Because then America will have a genuine clear choice between capitalism and socialism. These voices are assuming the voting populace will have a certain level of education and familiarity with socialism. Not sure if I'm as optimistic, given the number of people with which I argue online.

Hi Dahlia, good to see you! First and foremost, hooray for better controlled diabetes! Regarding your question, I'd think you can attain every single spiritual goal of fasting without risking any negative health impacts. It's ok to do less than a full day if that's what you can reasonably do and take care of your medical needs. You'll probably be hard-pressed to find someone to tell you "you must ignore the realities of diabetes in order to fast right" - that's just not how it works. The chapter in the Gospel Principles manual on fasting holds a lot of comforting things about its spiritual nature - it has helped more than one person struggling with health problems. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-25-fasting?lang=eng

I'm not exactly sure why April stuff is available on the church's website, but here's a spoiler: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2020/04/improving-our-temple-experience?lang=eng

Regarding the last round of Democratic presidential debates: The winners: Americans. Most of 'em didn't even realize there was one. The losers: Biden, Warren, the 90 yr old communist guy, basically Democrat hopes of taking the presidency in 2020.

Sadness. https://www.unilad.co.uk/news/christopher-tolkien-son-of-j-r-r-tolkien-passes-away-at-95

I guess I'm not privy into the secret workings enough, but I don't get what multiple pens has to do with Korihor. Does each pen, like, have like part of the design of the luciferian sigil which will awaken the kraken when combined, or something? Lots of ceremony and keepsaking and photo-opping going on here, it's a very partisan political event, and our politicians are making as much political hay as possible.

I've had some incredibly strong spiritual impressions. Sometimes I have to think hard about what they mean, sometimes I don't. Had one the other day as I was having barbeque with an LDS buddy of mine. Doesn't mean he's the one for me.

Three stories: One year, all the Young Women went off to Young Women's camp. One of the highlights of that camp, is parents write the young women personal letters, and the folks running the camp send them off individually into the woods, to read the letter and then kneel and pray in the beautiful privacy of nature. It rained a lot. The spiritual experience was in danger of being cancelled it was raining so hard. So the Stake President gathered everyone together, and led them in prayer. He commanded the rain to stop falling, so the YW could have the opportunity of the solo spiritual experience. The rain stopped falling, and the YW all wandered off into the forest where they had their spiritual experiences in that crisp clean sunny calm you find right after a big storm. Afterwards, the rain started again. I heard about this the next testimony meeting, where 3-4 teary YW got up and bore their testimony about the experience. Back in the mid '80's, Salt Lake was getting hammered by snow in one blizzard after blizzard. Road crews couldn't keep the roads open, power outages were a thing, people were stuck in their homes. It was getting dangerous, there had been a couple of deaths. The brethren asked all the saints in the area to join in prayer at a specific time to beseech God to stop the snow so the people might have relief. I remember the next day it snowed - it made the news as folks guffawed and snorted, and you could tell which local weathermen were LDS and which weren't, by the look of embarrassment or snugness on their faces. It snowed an inch, maybe two. Everyone went back to life as usual. But a few days later, the news was giving a weather report on the next massive blizzard hitting the area. The weathermen were pointing at the map, describing how this one was missing Salt Lake county. The radar image showed the whole state mostly covered in white, with this little arc of break in the front, where SLC/Orem/Provo was. Nobody else seemed to link the praying with the break, but I made the link. Last story, a few years back, forest fires caused our entire ward to be evacuated. One of our zealous-to-the-point-of-foolishness High Priests lived in the trees, and decided not to evacuate. The way he told the story, he had the priesthood and a tractor, so he didn't need to heed any civil authority's call to flee. He would just command the elements in faith. He told us he sat there on his tractor watching the fire approach. When it got close, he bowed his head in mighty prayer and beseeched God to divert the flames from around his property. Then the flaming ash started falling from the sky. As he told the story, he was a little embarrassed to say he had to drive his tractor around and put out the dozen or so little fires that started. He lost a few trees. I remember wanting to ask him why he asked God instead of commanding the elements. Did he not have sufficient faith, as he had boasted about going into the event? But he was telling us the story at a ward social, and I didn't want to get him mad or riled up enough to start a preachy monologue. Dude is lucky he didn't die. That fire was the most expensive in Colorado history, and killed two people.

What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming wearing dark sunglasses? Nothing. He didn't recognize them.

Fortunately, in the age of email, I'm finding my kids' teachers are able to use it. We've done a pretty good job of teacher/parent ganging up on the poor squidlets. Back in the day before I cared, I was honored to be the reason schools had to hang up signs against my behavior. You might think you have an idiotproof system of dropping off kids, but let me just beta test that for you.

I like it. I mean, I liked this bit of Trumping. Especially breaking the news with a victory tweet.

Sorry to hear this is happening kiwigirl. A few thoughts: No matter what kind of a guy he is, or wants to be, he has destroyed your trust. It's ok to not trust him. Since he has a track record doing this crap and lying to you about it, it is healthy for you to not trust him. You can say it out loud - "I don't trust him, because he has shown himself to be untrustworthy." I mean, maybe you could have been more this or less that, maybe you've got your own crap to own here, but whether you do or not, his actions have destroyed trust, and that's an important thing to internalize. If there's going to be healing and, well, a marriage, then someone needs to step up to the plate. I'm not thinking about you - I'm thinking about him. He has destroyed the trust, he needs to be the one making it up. In a normal marriage, we all carry around a reservoir of trust, like a water bottle. Your water bottle is now empty (or should be), and it's up to him to fill it back up through constant deposits. Thing is, every time he shows you he is trustworthy, that's a few drops back in the bottle. And every time he gets caught (or comes clean), it's like dumping out all the trust and you're back to square one. Good time for some marital counseling for the two of you. Any good counselor can teach the mechanics of this.

Remember, if it gets too bad, the Dune fandom will welcome you with open arms. Well, except for this guy.

Anatess2 just made the best case for President Hilary I've seen yet.

I feel for you. And am you in many ways. Somehow I became the bad guy of the family. Not much use for dad any more. From what the smart people tell me, it's not about to getting back to the way things were, it's about accepting and working with the way things are. This is the new normal, and your best hope is to work with it. Sarcasm is an indication of deep intelligent and serious thought. Fools and ignorant people cannot be sarcastic, they can only engage in biting humor, which is different. So kudos to you dad, for raising two boys bright enough to not just accept things at face value. Your challenge here is to not win, not shut down, but to respond with truth and love. Example: Yeah, put 1000 women claiming to be virgins having God's child in a room, and all 1000 of them are lying about fooling around with the pool guy. But our story, incredulous as it sounds, is that across all of history, all of these lying women, exactly one of them was telling the truth. And it's worth our time to figure out whether we buy her story or not. Hang in there dad. I'm pullin' for ya.