Adventures in Mormondom

Osama bin Laden is dead

2011-05-02T08:30:00.003-07:00

Well, by now I'm sure you all know that Osama bin Laden is dead.

As details emerge regarding the manner in which he was found and the type of place he was in, I am once again struck by just how many parallels there are between the plot of a Tom Clancy novel and the actual events of a few years later.

Lessons learned doing taxes

2011-03-01T21:33:00.004-07:00

I just finished filing my taxes this year, and I figured I'd share a couple of things I figured out. Actually, I usually figure these things out every year, and then forget them by the time next tax season rolls around.

Lesson 1: Online services are great for Federal Taxes

In past years I've used TaxAct. I decided to give TurboTax a try this year. It felt a little smoother, but almost everything on the Internet gets better after a year, so maybe TaxAct is just as good by now. The point is, they're both pretty good options.

TurboTax offers free Federal e-Filing if you're just using the standard deduction and can therefore use the 1040-EZ form. Then they charge $20 if you're itemizing. TaxAct lets you file your federal return for free even if you itemize, but you have to pay if you want them to e-File it for you.

These online services are nice because you can work on your taxes for a while, save your progress, and come back when you have more time. The information is saved online, where you won't lose it if your computer crashes. You don't have to buy or install any software for your computer. It's really a nice experience overall. As nice as filing taxes can be, anyway.

Lesson 2: Don't fall for the bait-and-switch

The reason these tax preparation services offer to do your federal taxes for free is because they want to suck you into their bait-and-switch trap. After entering all my information for Federal taxes, TurboTax said, "Next we'll copy information from your Federal return to your State return..."

Next thing I knew, I'd entered all the remaining information they needed for my State taxes, and I was all ready to e-File. This is where they pull out the switch: if you want to keep the paperwork they just put together for your State return, that'll cost you another $40 dollars. Ouch! If you don't want to pay the extra money, you'll have to delete your State return before you continue.

When you've done all this work to get your taxes to this point, and you're staring at this big tax return that could be yours right now if you just go along with them, it sure is tempting to just throw your arms up in the air and say, "Fine! Take my stupid forty bucks!" And thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them carefully down to ... well, to being $40 poorer.

Here's the thing: Utah has a great online tax filing service you can use for free. Once your federal taxes are done, the hard part's over! Just fill in a few key numbers off of the 1040 form you just filed, and don't forget to fill in the Withholding worksheet to tell them how much money your employer already withheld for your state taxes. It takes maybe 20 minutes, and you're done. You get to have the money deposited directly into your bank account for free. It's great! I ended up with the same refund that TurboTax would have given me.

The other bait-and-switch TurboTax pulls is to offer to simply deduct the price of their service from your tax refund... for an extra $25 or something like that. Again, you are exhausted from putting together your tax return, and you're thinking, "What's an extra $25 just to get this over with?" Don't fall for it. It takes all of 2 minutes to whip out your credit card and finish the process.

Lesson 3: There are only two things certain in life

The old maxim still holds true. You probably though that you got out of paying sales tax when you bought all those Christmas gifts on Amazon. Think again.

Federal law makes it so that the states can't require retailers like Amazon to collect sales tax when people outside their home state buy things from them. However, most states (including Utah) have a "Use Tax" that applies to anything you buy to use in the state. If you didn't pay sales tax when you bought it, you have to pay when you file.

This is where you get mad at me and say that you would have been better off not knowing this. Ignorance is bliss and all that. But you cannot be saved in ignorance. Do the right thing.

All major online retailers have a way to look up your past invoices. Take the time to go through them and figure out how much you owe. It probably won't be all that much unless you bought something incredibly expensive last year. You'll feel better knowing that you're not cheating society, and blessings will follow.

By the way, if the items you bought were for use outside the state, they don't qualify for the Use Tax. For example, if you bought a watch for your cousin who lives on the East Coast, you don't have to pay Use Tax. I interpreted this to mean that Amazon gift cards and such don't apply either, because they will be used for purchases on Amazon, which legally take place in the state in which Amazon does business. If they are used to buy something for use in Utah, then the purchaser would be responsible for paying the use tax on that item.

The Holocaust was not a religious conflict

2011-02-03T08:05:00.004-07:00

It has become increasingly clear to me lately that far too many Americans are under the impression that Nazis were largely motivated by religion to exterminate the "Christ-killing" Jews. I urge anyone listening to learn the truth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany is a good place to start) and educate their friends.

The reason I believe this is important is that people make important, life-changing decisions based on their understanding of the past. The Holocaust is generally used as an example of humanity's worst. It's not that the Holocaust is somehow unequaled in terms of atrocity, but in our Western European-centered culture we rarely look far enough back in history, or far enough around the curve of the world, to get the "big picture." So we focus on the Holocaust. If we are under the erroneous assumption that religion caused the Holocaust, we are more likely to become irreligious, or even anti-religious, both personally and as a nation. In my opinion, this would be counterproductive and dangerous. And if you think that a democratic nation for whom religion has played such an enormous role couldn't possibly become anti-religious, the rise of Nazism (anti-religious) in Germany (formerly a democracy, and seat of the Reformation) should be sufficient to show otherwise.

However, if we follow the research that's been done on such atrocities, we can focus on things that really will help us to prevent another Holocaust: limiting governmental power, promoting democracy, and resisting war.

MobiPocket to Kindle format converter

2010-05-21T21:07:00.009-07:00

Update (1/3/2012): Overdrive now supports lending directly in Kindle format, so this program is no longer necessary. I'll probably leave it up for a year or two in case anybody finds a use for it, but I am officially declaring it deprecated. If you find that it's still useful for you, please leave a comment to that effect and I'll consider leaving it up longer. I'd like to thank everyone who provided feedback in the form of bug reports and suggestions, and especially those who purchased items through the Amazon links in the program. It was an honor for me to be involved in producing a piece of free software that helped people enjoy free, legal, quality entertainment. Cheers!

Liz and I recently found out that our local library system allows us to check out electronic books. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to use the Kindle I won in a contest at work, until we realized that the Kindle doesn't natively support any of the formats that we could get the books in. Some quick Googling revealed that Amazon actually owns MobiPocket, and the Kindle uses the MobiPocket format, with two tiny differences:

The file name extension is changed to .azw
A flag in the file's metadata is changed to indicate that the file is for the Kindle

I found a post by Igor Skochinsky, who provided python scripts that could figure out your Kindle's MobiPocket PID and convert a MobiPocket file registered to a Kindle's PID to work on the Kindle. But most people don't know how to run python scripts. So I set to work to create a user-friendly front-end for it.

You can download it here.

(You will need to install the .NET 4 Framework from Microsoft if you don't have it already)

Here's how to use this program:

The following steps will only need to be performed once for each Kindle:

Open the program.
Click the "Add Device" button to bring up the Add Device window.
Enter your Kindle's serial number. When you finish "Kindle" option should automatically be selected, and a PID should be generated. If it isn't, you've probably entered too many or too few characters: double-check the serial number.
Click the Add Device button to add the PID to your list of devices.
Log in to your library's eBook site and register this PID as a new device on your library account. That way, when you download MobiPocket eBooks they will have a flag on the file indicating that your Kindle is allowed to read the file for the next few weeks.

These steps are necessary for each ebook you check out from the library:

Use the "Browse" button to find and select your downloaded file.
Click the "Convert" button, and choose where you want to save the Kindle-compatible file. If the file you convert does not have your Kindle's PID associated with it, the program will abort with an error message indicating as much. Otherwise you should get a success message.
Connect the Kindle to your computer, and copy the saved (.azw) file to its "documents" folder.

Once the file is copied to your Kindle, you will be allowed to read it until the library's due-date. After that, the Kindle will cease to read the file.

The MobiKindle program will automatically check for updates each time you run it, and will give you the choice to install the update automatically. I've made a few enhancements since the original version.

Current features include:

Easy to use
Generates Kindle PID from Kindle serial number
Saves your Kindle PID(s) for future use. **NEW**
Prevents certain data-entry errors by only allowing capital letters
Automatically detects Kindle type when you enter your Kindle's serial number
Converts MobiPocket (.prc) file to Kindle (.azw) format
Unobtrusive advertisements for Kindle books on Amazon. If you use the link to get to Amazon and buy a book while you're there, I'll get a piece of the profits.

A bug in the original version caused some people to get a "The selected item could not be opened..." message if they copied the file to their Kindle before exiting the MobiKindle program. This bug has now been fixed!

Now, just to clarify:

The Kindle will natively read MobiPocket files that don't have DRM. For example, if you get a MobiPocket file from the Gutenberg Project, you don't need to use this program. Just copy the file onto your Kindle.
From what I understand, you won't be able to register your Kindle with MobiPocket.com. The Kindle PID always has an asterisk (*) in it, and it won't be accepted there. However, many libraries have an eBook lending system set up with Overdrive.com, which does accept Kindle PIDs.
This program does not (and never will) modify the DRM on a MobiPocket file. It doesn't "unlock" the file to be used in any way that it was not intended to be used.
I won't build any spyware or anything into the program, and I will always be careful to make sure it doesn't do anything you wouldn't expect. However, sometimes accidents happen. In using this software, you're agreeing not to hold me responsible for any harm that comes of it.
The program saves your Kindle PID in a config file, but you can remove the devices and they will be removed from the config file. No information about your device or your books gets sent to me.
You should make sure you're okay with Amazon's privacy policy, since I include their advertisements.
When sharing this program, please send people to this web page. Don't use a direct link to the installer. (But please, share this program with anyone you know who has a Kindle!)

For the geeks out there: this runs on the .NET framework. I began using .NET 3.5, but soon found that things were much, much easier using .NET 4.0 thanks to the new "dynamic" keyword in C#. The program literally includes Igor's python script and runs it in an embedded instance of IronPython.

I'd like to thank:

My wife for her patience with me as I continue to spend many late nights on this and other pet projects.
Igor Skochinsky for providing the real brains in this program.
The users that have reported bugs and helped me to improve the quality of this program.
Dropbox.com for providing a free, extremely easy way to host the installer. (Click here to sign up and they'll give you extra space)
Amazon for making the Kindle
My work for giving me a Kindle, programming experience, and access to development tools
Microsoft, for the "dynamic" keyword
The IronPython team

Please post your thoughts, and additional ideas for features on this blog posting. When reporting bugs, if you will leave an email address with your comment, and then respond to my emails, it will help me to figure out what's wrong.

I should also have mentioned that I'm using the ClickOnce (or some such) deployer that comes with Visual Studio to create the installer for this program, which requires you to have a working Internet connection when you install it. There are a number of reasons I felt this was reasonable:

It was free.
It was easy.
It makes it really easy for people to install and run the program.
It makes it really easy for people to keep the program updated.
You can't be reading this web page without Internet access.
You can't rent MobiPocket books from the library without Internet access.
You won't see the Amazon advertisements without Internet access.

If you're too paranoid to run programs off the Internet, I would recommend figuring out how to run Igor Schochinsky's python script: that way you can see exactly what the code is doing to your computer.

If you are still getting the message, "The selected item could not be opened. If you purchased this item from Amazon, delete the item and redownload it from Archived Items available in Home": The problem is probably that your Kindle doesn't know the current date, so it thinks that your book hasn't been checked out yet. Please connect your Kindle to the Internet for a few seconds so that it can update its current date and time, and that should fix this problem.

Costco sued over fuel temperatures: Lawyers get paid, customers don't

2009-09-22T16:36:00.004-07:00

I just got a notice from Costco regarding this class action lawsuit. Ridiculous! For those who don't want to read the whole thing, here's the main idea:

You buy gas by the gallon. Try filling up a gallon jug with hot water, and putting it in the fridge for a while. When you take it out, open it up, and you'll find there's room to put just a bit more water in. Why is this? Because cold water takes up less space than hot water. So if you go to the gas station and fill your gallon gasoline jug in the middle of winter, and then take the jug home and heat it up, you'll end up having more than a gallon inside! Likewise, if you go there in the middle of the summer and then take it home and cool it down, you'll have less than a gallon in there.

So these lawyers decided they should sue Costco, on behalf of anyone who bought fuel there on a warm day, because if you buy a gallon of gas at 80 degrees, you won't get as much gas as if you'd bought a gallon of gas at 60 degrees. Obviously, this is a frivolous lawsuit, but Costco has decided that they would spend more money fighting it than settling.

Here are the terms of the settlement:

Costco will pay the lawyers up to ten million dollars for suing them.
Costco will pay to tell all their gas customers that the lawyers are suing Costco on the behalf of their customers.
Costco will pay to update their pumps with fancy detectors so that if you buy a gallon on a hot day, then you'll actually buy a little more than a gallon.
(Costco customers don't get any money out of the settlement)

People shop at Costco because Costco has lower prices than just about anywhere else. What do you think Costco will do to make up for the cost of this lawsuit? Cut corporate bonuses? I don't think so. They'll charge more at the pump. So we customers are hiring lawyers to sue Costco to raise prices so they can pay the lawyers. Does this sound right to you?

Fortunately, there is something we can do about it. Look at the very bottom of section 5:

If more than 2,500 people opt out of this settlement, Costco has the right to cancel the settlement.

If you're not in the mood to reward these self-serving lawyers for their troubles, take a moment to exclude yourself:

To exclude yourself from the Settlement Class, you must send a letter by mail saying that you wish to do so. The request must state: “I request that I be excluded from the Settlement in In re Motor Fuel Temperature Sales Practices Litigation, MDL Docket No. 1840.” You must also include: (1) your full name and current address; (2) your signature and (3) proof of gasoline purchase from Costco after January 1, 2001. You must postmark your exclusion request to the address below no later than February 23, 2010:

Settlement Administrator
P.O. Box 12985
Birmingham, AL 35202-2985

I imagine that a printed bank statement with your Costco fuel purchase circled will suffice for a proof of purchase. Godspeed.

Mike Leavitt on "Co-ops"

2009-08-21T09:50:00.003-07:00

I just read this informative article by Utah's former Governor Leavitt. I agree with a lot of what he says. Liberals seem to act like a vote against Obama's plan is a vote against healthcare reform. I can see why they say this, since Obama's plan is the only plan that has any chance of getting passed anytime in the next several years. However, it's not like conservatives are just plugging their ears and saying, "No, things are just fine as they are." Everybody who knows anything about the debate seems to agree that healthcare reform is necessary, but conservatives and liberals have a different idea about how it should be done. I have yet to be convinced by either side, but I'm leaning to the right at the moment. Does anybody have convincing evidence (not "arguments," but actual "evidence") that one side or the other is right? Please post a response if you do.

Pornography and Freedom of Speech

2009-06-25T09:23:00.003-07:00

This is a followup to my earlier posting about Internet Filtering. Promoters (i.e. sellers) of pornographic material have long argued that banning or restricting pornography is in violation of their freedom of speech/freedom of press. However, it has been my experience that the pornography industry has gone out of their way to push pornographic content into the faces of people who would very much rather not see it. If cigarette companies put nicotine in our drinking water, we'd be furious. People have a right to choose whether they want to smoke cigarettes, and we wouldn't put up with such underhanded tactics to addict the masses.

The fact is, pornography is an addictive substance, which addicts people by sight, rather than having to be taken into their bodies. By making it appear on non-pornographic websites, the pornography industry is seeking to addict people who did not want to get involved with pornography in the first place. Rather than promoting our choice to seek their wares, they are trying to take away our choice not to. They are not respecting our rights, and cannot rightly pretend that they care about us. I see no reason to respect their "freedom of expression" if they cannot respect others' freedom from repression.

Now that I've said that, I feel it is important to point out how China is seeking to use the battle against pornography as a front for really restricting freedom of the press. Seemingly out of nowhere, they've suddenly ramped up a supposed anti-pornography campaign recently.

According to an article in the New York Times:

The same public security agencies charged with fighting pornography are responsible for suppressing illegal political activity, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. The government’s statistics for seizures of illegal publications tend to include both pornographic and political documents, he noted.

Stealing code from U.S. companies, they threw together a slipshod piece of internet filtering software, announcing that the software would have to be added to all computers sold in China starting July 1.

Then they started a smear campaign to make it look like Google is spreading smut across their glorious nation. Someone in Beijing arranged to enter the search term "abnormal relationship between son and mother" a whole lot starting just a few days ago, in order to make it a popular term. That way, when they typed "son" into the search engine during a television broadcast, guess what appeared in the suggested search terms? (In China, the government owns all of the television stations).

By painting Google as a public menace, China is preparing to block Google, in order to limit their citizens' access to information about whatever they're planning to do next. What are they planning to do next? I don't know. But good money says that it won't be the "popular" or the "right" thing by our standards. Again according to the New York Times:

Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s best-known dissidents, was formally arrested Tuesday on suspicion of subversion, six months after he was detained for joining other intellectuals in signing a document calling for democracy. Earlier this month, the authorities refused to renew the licenses of more than a dozen lawyers after they agreed to represent clients in human rights cases.

I don't know what we as American citizens can do about this, but the first step is to recognize that there is a problem. Spread the word. Make sure people aren't fooled by this sudden anti-pornography mask that China's government has donned. I still maintain that this campaign will hurt China in the long run, and hurting China will hurt the United States as well. The last thing the world needs is a nation the size of China with the leadership style of North Korea.

Public Healthcare

2009-06-23T15:21:00.002-07:00

According to the Associated Press, President Obama is arguing the merits of a government-run health plan by pointing out that if it hurts the private insurance industry, "It's their own fault."

His argument goes like this: You set up a government-run plan to take care of the people that would like to sign up for it. The worst thing that could happen is that nobody signs up, and then we're in the same place we were before. On the other hand, if people sign up with the government healthcare plan, that shows that the private industry isn't capable of competing with the clumsy government bureaucracies that they love to hate, and they deserve to fail.

The important point that President Obama failed to address is the fact that the government-run health plan will be funded by taxpayers who don't sign up for it, whereas the private plans are funded entirely by the people who are signed up for them. If the government plan were to rely entirely on proceeds from its premiums, then his point would be well taken. That would be the ultimate contest between government bureaucracy and private business. But since this isn't what he's proposing, his argument is paper-thin.

Think about it. Let's say you have two insurance providers to choose from. For an average customer, Provider A will collect $100/month in premiums, pay out an average of $60/month to cover their patients' healthcare costs, spend $20/month for administrative costs, and pocket $20/month as revenue. Provider B is less efficient, but isn't looking to turn a profit, so they pay out $60/month and spend $40/month for administrative costs. Everybody has to pay Provider B $20/month regardless of whether they use their service, so the premiums they charge will depend on how many people sign up with them:

If one person in five signs up, they break even (five people pay them $20 for every one that signs up), so they don't charge any premiums. If fewer people sign up, they can start paying out more and still don't have to charge premiums. How can Provider A expect to get any business?
If four people in five sign up, Provider B has to charge $75 in premiums. Provider A could forego their profits completely and still end up losing $5/month.

This scenario assumes that Provider A is more efficient, but is just out to turn a profit instead of providing better care. Obama's theory seems to be that Provider A is less efficient, and is also greedy. If he's right, then why can't Provider B compete without taxpayer money?

Some people might argue that Provider A currently makes so much money that simply having Provider B as an option would force them to reduce their prices so that they make just a little bit of money while still providing good service. If that were the case, why wouldn't Provider C have already tried it? If they can get more customers than Provider A, they wouldn't need to make as much money per customer in order to make a good profit. Simple supply and demand principles dictate that in a free market, companies can't really be making that much money per customer, or else some other company would come along that was willing to make slightly less and undercut them. The same principles say that in a free market, companies can't really be that inefficient, or some other company would have come along that could charge less and still turn a bigger profit. The only time these principles fail is when companies collaborate in price-fixing schemes or other similar practices.

I'll be the first to admit that something ought to be done about the healthcare situation in the United States. We're spending more than just about anybody in the world, and we're no healthier for it. I'll also admit that insurance companies are a part of the problem. But I can't imagine how replacing them with a government organization could help solve the problem. Our government is so heavily influenced by industry lobbyists, is it hard to imagine the government healthcare plan only covering drugs or services that are heavily supported by lobbying, while ignoring more effective, less expensive alternatives?

Internet filtering

2009-06-13T09:59:00.004-07:00

I'm all for Internet filtering software. I personally use Blue Coat's K9 software, which is free and quite powerful. Apart from helping me to avoid seeing as many racy images on the Internet, it has probably saved me from a few attacks on my computer. I search the Internet a lot in my work, and every now and then my search results brought up a shady website--the kind that tries to install malware on your computer--which K9 was able to warn me about.

But I think China has gone too far with their Green Dam-Youth Escort program. They are requiring that every computer in China be shipped with this software installed. The reason is probably two-fold. First, it helps to protect their youth (and probably a lot of adults) from a degrading and addictive substance that would undoubtedly cost their GDP millions (at least!) through lost productivity. Secondly, it gives the Chinese government an easy way to control the information that is available to their users. In the past, they've resorted to blocking Google itself, just to prevent their citizens from finding information about opposition parties during an election. If they control filtering software that's been installed on the majority of the computers in their country, that gives them much more power over what information their citizens are accessing.

But even if China didn't have a history of blocking information from their citizens, and even if we had no reason to believe that's how this software would be used, this is still a bad move, and it will come back to bite them if they go through with it. Why? Whenever you have a piece of software that you install on a significant number of machines, you are opening yourself up to hacking attacks. Microsoft has had to invest fortunes in order to try to patch the security holes in Windows, because their operating system is so ubiquitous that it's an obvious target for hackers. Think about it: if you want to infect the largest number of computers possible, are you going to spend time finding a security hole in some program that only one computer in a hundred has installed, or a program that 88% of the world's computers use? Even if the other program is much easier to hack, it won't give you nearly as much bang for your buck. So if you're going to require that all computers in China ship with certain software installed, you'd better be putting a lot of money toward making sure it's secure.

And China obviously hasn't made any serious effort to do so.

In fact, rather than having their own security experts design this software from the ground up, they apparently stole big chunks of a California-based company's filtering program to make it. With such obvious corner-cutting, you can expect that the software would be extremely fragile. And indeed it is. A University of Michigan professor and his students were able to successfully infiltrate a computer with this software installed within just a few hours. So what China is effectively doing is filling their country with computers that any decent hacker could bend to his will.

That's not the kind of move you'd expect from a nation that has gone to the effort of hacking key systems in the United States, just in case they ever need to hurt us. Obviously somebody in the Chinese government understands the threat that hackers can pose to a nation. Anti-Chinese elements could deal enormous damage to China's economy simply by hacking their computers and making them crash continuously. Professional spammers could attack the vulnerable computers in a way that forces them to load up the very sites the Chinese government is trying to protect their youth from seeing. The entire nation's computers could become a vast digital robot army that can be used to attack other computers around the world.

Of course, it probably won't get that far. Once all the new computers start crashing, either the Chinese government will realize the error of their ways and backtrack, or the Chinese people will get smart and uninstall the program first thing. The question is, how much damage will the government allow before they are willing to admit their mistakes?

As Confucius said, "An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger."

Google Wave

2009-05-29T12:09:00.002-07:00

Holy cow!

Email is about to be sooo '00s.

Obama plans Las Vegas getaway to help Harry Reid get big money

2009-05-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/05/barack-obama-harry-reid.html

What more can I say than that which has been said?

The No-Choice Movement

2009-05-08T11:40:00.004-07:00

By now, we've become familiar with the "pro-choice" versus "pro-life" movements. Most people use the name preferred by each of these movements, because it's absurd to think that anyone might be "anti-life" or "anti-choice." It's more a question of whose choice (and whose life) you value more. That's why I thought it was so hilarious when I read the following excerpt from Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next: First Among Sequels:

With a nation driven by the concept of choice, a growing faction of citizens who thought life was simpler when options were limited had banded themselves together into what they called the "no-choicers" and demanded the choice to have no choice... The no-choicers suggested that there should be a referendum to settle the matter once and for all, something that the opposition "choice" faction had no option but to agree with. More sinisterly, the militant wing known only as NOPTION was keen to go further and demanded that there should be only one option on the ballot paper--the no-choice one.

The wit and absurdity of it all really struck my funny bone at the time. But today I stumbled across this article where prominent blogger Joel Spolsky argues that choice is a bad thing. He basically rails on the Microsoft Vista team for not unifying all of Windows' shut-down options into a single "b'bye" button. "The more choices you give people," he argues, "the harder it is for them to choose, and the unhappier they'll feel." So rather than giving you the choice between, say, switching user accounts and physically turning off your computer, the computer should pretty much decide what to do for you. "If you're concerned about power usage," he says, "let the power management software worry about that. It's smarter than you are." Nevermind the fact that the changes he suggests would require changing the actual hardware on users' machines; the blame for this interface falls fully on the "whole team of UI designers, programmers, and testers who worked very hard on the OFF button in Windows Vista."

Having seen someone so blatantly arguing for a no-choice approach to things, I got to thinking about the way we as Americans have been systematically voting for the government to take away our choices. For example, if someone wants to have a home birth like we did, it's illegal in several states for a midwife to come and help them.

I look at France, where the educational system is designed to educate children to the highest level that they can attain to, and therefore you will go to the school that you test into. If you're bad at taking aptitude tests, you'll be sorting mail for the rest of your life, no matter how motivated you may be. And, frankly, I see the United States going in that general direction, as we pump more money into the public school system, without allowing parents to choose other alternatives. In California, it's technically been illegal for parents to home-school their children for a long time, but nobody seemed to notice until a judge recently ruled that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children."

Keep an eye out, as you go through your day-to-day life, for other areas where you've either given up your freedom of choice in exchange for security, or had it taken from you legally. You'll find that the problem is more pervasive than you realized. The people behind it would never call themselves "no-choicers," but a rose is a rose.

Mormons and Soup Kitchens

2009-04-18T13:02:00.003-07:00

I volunteered at the local St Vincent de Paul soup kitchen this morning. I normally wouldn't go squawking about that sort of thing, but I read a forum posting recently where someone was criticizing the LDS faith and its adherents on the grounds that he had never seen a soup kitchen founded by a Mormon, and I wanted to clear up the facts regarding Mormons and soup kitchens.

The biggest reason that you don't hear about Mormon Soup Kitchens is that the LDS Church has a different way of providing support for the needy. Every month, faithful LDS members fast and pray for a period of about 24 hours. They then donate at least as much money as they saved by not eating during that period in the form of fast offerings. Members who don't have money, such as farmers in third-world countries, can donate the food itself. This money and food is then used to provide welfare assistance, beginning within the boundaries of the ward or branch, with the surplus spilling over into more general funds until it can be used the world over.

Welfare from the LDS Church is distributed under the direction of local bishops or branch presidents, who can call on the resources of the so-called Bishop's Storehouse to provide food, money, and other necessities to those in need. Such welfare is extended to members and non-members alike, but is not given as a dole. Except in very particular cases (e.g. a widow who has no family to support her), church welfare is viewed as temporary assistance, not a permanent commitment. It is only to be used long enough for the person or family to become self-supporting and sustainable. People who accept welfare from the church are also generally required to do something to in some sense earn the goods they are receiving. For example, an able-bodied man may be asked to do yard work for a local widow each week. He may be receiving far more assistance than a few hours of yard work would fetch in an open market, but it gives him the dignity of feeling that he is doing what he can to give back. It helps to avoid giving the recipient a sense of entitlement.

The last time I went to the soup kitchen, one of the volunteers there mentioned that they used to require the homeless people to help out with either the serving or the cleanup in order to qualify for the free food they were getting. But the ACLU caught wind of it and sued them for slave labor, and so they had to rely on volunteers for these duties instead.

The local LDS leadership helps to furnish these volunteers by assigning each ward to provide a certain number of volunteers in a rotating fashion. The man running the soup kitchen told us that if it weren't for the support of LDS members who volunteer from wards around the valley, they would have had to close shop a long time ago. In addition to providing manpower, the LDS church also donates food to the soup kitchen.

So if someone tries to tell you that Mormons aren't charitable because they don't start soup kitchens, just remember what Atticus Finch says: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." It is easy to overlook the many, many good deeds done by the LDS church and its members, largely because many of these deeds are done quietly, without the left hand knowing what the right hand doeth. I have learned more and more that what someone says about other people tells me far more about the person speaking than the people he's talking about.

Or I suppose you could follow Jack Handy's rule: "Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes." ;-)

Rights, Privileges, and State Bill 81

2009-04-10T12:03:00.005-07:00

The local news has been making a big deal about Utah's State Bill 81, a new immigration bill. Frankly, I hadn't heard anything about it until I started hearing stories like this, stating that the Salt Lake City police chief has warned legislators that his department will refuse to enforce it. It seemed odd to me that none of these news reports mentioned what the bill actually did. They only quoted the police chief refusing to make his officers into immigration agents. So I looked up the full text of the bill to see what the big deal was. It seems to do a lot of things that seem like common sense to me. For example:

If someone is booked into jail for "driving under the influence," the county sheriff is expected to make a reasonable effort to check on their citizenship status before letting them go free.
Liquor licenses won't be issued to illegal aliens.

... and so on. It looks like the part that the police department is up at arms about is this:

64 . prohibits a unit of local government from enacting an ordinance or policy that limits
65 or prohibits a law enforcement officer or government employee from
66 communicating or cooperating with federal officials regarding the immigration
67 status of a person within the state;

You can find more details on lines 577 through 592 of the same document. If I'm reading it right, it means that local police departments (or any government office) can't tell their officers that they're not allowed to report illegal immigrants. It doesn't necessarily mean that their officers have to report illegal immigrants--they just can't get in trouble if they do.

The only part I'm unclear on is this:

593 (d) This Subsection (3) allows for a private right of action by a natural or legal person
594 lawfully domiciled in this state to file for a writ of mandamus to compel a noncompliant local
595 or state governmental agency to comply with the reporting laws of this Subsection (3).

So my question for all you lawyer types out there is this: Does this mean that if I notice my local police department has a policy of refusing to cooperate with immigration officials, I can file to have them get rid of that policy? Or does it mean that if I notice an illegal immigrant in my neighborhood, I can file to make the local police investigate them? (I suspect the former.)

I have two more observations to make on the matter. First, the article I linked to earlier mentioned that people are afraid that it opens up a door to racial profiling. I just don't see how this law could possibly be construed to do that. It doesn't say that police officers can book people into jail on suspicion of being illegal immigrants, for example.

Secondly, I think people are getting confused about the difference between rights and privileges. People have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People have a right to choose what actions they will take each day, as long as their actions do not infringe upon the rights of others. People have a right to not be discriminated against based on their race, religion, and sex. People do not have a right to a job--that's a privilege. It's something that can be given or retracted at will. It is normally not wise for employers to fire somebody without reason, but they have every right to fire somebody who is not doing their job.

How does this apply? Every police officer has a right to decide whether he or she will report an illegal alien to the proper authorities. If their boss (the chief) feels that by deciding to report or not to report illegal aliens, they are not doing their job properly, he can choose to fire them. He has been duly appointed to his position, and is therefore given this privilege. If, however, his employer (the government) decides that by firing those workers, or by establishing any policy contrary to the law, he is not doing his job properly, they can fire him as well. Since they have been duly appointed by the people, this is their privilege. And if their boss (the citizenship) feels that they are not performing their duty correctly, they can fire congress as well. This is a simple principle of self-governance, which falls under the Liberty category, and is therefore not a privilege, but a right of any people.

So the officers individually have the right to resign, or to stop performing their duty to the point that they get fired, if that's what they want. The chief has the right to do the same. But the Police Department as a government entity has neither the right nor the privilege to refuse to enforce a law which has been passed by duly-elected officials. Congress, likewise, has neither the right nor the privilege to refuse to represent their constituency. When the police begins to govern the people, rather than the other way around, it's called a police state, and we don't want that, now do we?

Why we chose to have our baby at home

2009-04-02T00:10:00.003-07:00

An astute observer might have noticed in the pictures that we posted recently that Liz gave birth to Chris at home. Before the birth, when we told acquaintances that we were planning a home birth, their responses often made it clear that there are a lot of misconceptions (no pun intended) about home birth, natural childbirth, and even childbirth in general. I'd like to take a moment to explain why we decided to have a natural childbirth, why we decided to have a home birth, and why we're glad we did.

First of all, unmedicated childbirth presents a host of benefits--too numerous to mention here--to both the mother and fetus. Among them are:

The fetus is more alert, and is able to help move itself out during labor.
Undrugged newborns breastfeed much easier. Breastfeeding just after birth stimulates the production of breast milk, making it easier to continue breastfeeding afterward. Breastfeeding likewise has numerous benefits for the fetus.
The newborn is more alert and is better able to spend quality time bonding with both mother and father.
The people we spoke to who had tried it both ways reported a much faster recovery time for the mother when giving birth naturally.
Reduced risk of needing vacuum extractor or forceps (which reduces the risk and severity of tearing)
Mobility during labor. Adjusting and changing positions during labor can make things much more comfortable for the mother, but is out of the question when you have a hypodermic needle in your spine.
Shorter labor.
Avoid the side affects and complications from the epidural.
Reduced chance and severity of post-partum depression.

And, perhaps most convincingly of all, the people we spoke with generally fell into one of three categories:

Women who had only tried childbirth with an epidural generally expressed the feeling that they weren't brave enough to face the pain of a natural childbirth.
Women who had only tried natural childbirth were generally content to continue doing so.
Women who had tried both methods invariably said the natural childbirth was far better.

Having decided that we wanted to have an unmedicated childbirth, the decision to give birth at home was a relatively simple one. Hospitals tend to foster a culture of intervention. After all, people only go to the hospital if they are injured or sick, right? Apart from the rare case where a woman is at particular risk of complications, childbirth is a healthy and natural occurrence. Luckily for us humans, women have been giving birth successfully for millennia without medical assistance. Don't get me wrong--hospitals are very important institutions, and medical science has brought us a long way from the devastatingly high infant mortality rates of days gone by. I would certainly prefer to be at a hospital in the case of a high-risk childbirth. However, for the vast majority of pregnancies a birth at home is every bit as safe as a birth in the hospital.

As I said earlier, the hospital environment is geared toward taking someone who has something wrong with them and fixing it. In the case of childbirth, the goal is to take a woman who has a baby in her tummy and remove the baby in such a way that both mother and baby survive. If they can increase their personal revenue or the hospital's revenue at the same time, so much the better. Very little attention is given to the comfort or wishes of mother or child unless they can charge you for it, and since doctors are busy (and human) they tend to want to do things in a way that is most convenient for the doctors. With this in mind, drugs and surgery are the best ways to accomplish their goals. They can easily take a perfectly healthy woman with a perfectly healthy baby and increase the hospital's profits while still ensuring, more or less, the survival of both mother and child. Here's how:

There is a moment during transition (between first-stage and second-stage labor) when the natural hormonal changes taking place inside a woman's body will cause her to feel despair. During this stage, she will say things like "I don't think I can do this anymore." At this same moment, the same hormonal changes make her extremely open to suggestion. If you tell her she needs a drink of water, or to go to the bathroom, she'll probably agree with you. If the doctor says, "How about we give you a little something for the pain," she will probably consent unquestioningly. Now the doctor has permission to give her an epidural (this was in the fine print of the forms you signed when checking in to the hospital). Had they waited another half-hour, the woman's mental state would have naturally changed to one of quiet determination, and she would soon be in the pushing phase. The epidural takes about half an hour to kick in anyway.
Once the epidural is administered, the anesthesia has a tendency to prolong labor, giving the doctor an opportunity to suggest "something to speed things up." After hours of labor, and after being told that their labor is slowing down, most women will want very much to do something to get it over with. At this point, assuming the epidural was administered properly, the woman will not notice the increased severity of the contractions as a result of the pitocin. Indeed, the doctors and nurses will probably have to tell her when she's supposed to push because she won't feel the natural urge that normally accompanies contractions.
The baby, however, is now the victim of three separate effects of events so far. First, the anesthesia is making the baby feel groggy and slowing his vital signs. Second, the pitocin is working to increase his heart rate. Thirdly, the mother's contractions are now much more severe than they should naturally be, so the baby is being squeezed by the uterus more than he should be. This trifecta of stimuli will often throw his heart rate (as measured by the external fetal monitor) into disarray, leading the medical staff to conclude that the fetus is distressed and must be extracted via C-section.

And so you see how easily the medical team can upsell their services. A mother who would have only been charged for the hospital bed, room, and standard staff for a day or two can now be billed for the epidural kit, the anesthesiologist, the pitosin, and a full-on invasive surgery, plus the extra time she'll spend recovering. And the doctor used every available medical technique to ensure that mother and baby survived, rendering him practically immune to litigation. This probably explains why c-section rates in hospitals are over 30% (and rising) while out-of-hospital births have c-section rates around 4%.

Also, at home the mother has much more freedom to move around into different positions, even taking a bath or a nap if she feels like it. We can eat or drink whatever we like whenever we like, we never have to worry about when to go to the hospital or about having the baby in the car on the way there. Liz, like most women, feels much more relaxed at home than at the hospital, and relaxation is one of the most important ways to reduce pain during contractions.

We were able to find a really excellent (and extremely qualified) midwife named Rebecca, who came highly recommended by friends. With our insurance, the entire birth process cost just as much as it would have at the hospital. (If we didn't have insurance, it would have cost much less than the hospital). She has a birth center that would have cost about $750 to use (includes meals, etc.), and we asked her what the biggest advantage would be to using the birth center instead of our home.

"Family," she replied.

"What do you mean?"

"A lot of times if you tell your family that you're planning to give birth at home they're horrified, but if you tell them you're having it in a 'birth center' it lends a certain amount of credibility to it. I will have all the same equipment with me when I come to your house, so there's no difference in risk to you or the baby if you have it at home."

In our first appointment, Rebecca spent a couple of hours asking and answering questions, and subsequent appointments tended to last an hour or more. We were able to develop a rapport with her that would have been impossible with most obstetricians. (Liz still hadn't seen her OB in person after four appointments there). Rebecca also had a knack for calming Liz down and assuaging her fears.

We also took a Bradley Methods class to educate ourselves about the childbirth process. In addition to teaching us what to expect from labor itself, our Bradley instructor coached us on nutrition and exercise that was particularly important in ensuring that Liz would be ready for the process. We learned pain management techniques and different birthing positions that often work best during labor. The course lasted two hours, one day a week, for twelve weeks. By the end of it we felt really empowered and at peace about the whole thing. Labor was no longer something we feared. We knew what to expect, and we knew what we would need to do to make it a successful experience.

So what was it like to have a baby at home? In another posting I will write about the experience. Stay tuned.

How much does your interest rate matter?

2009-03-31T08:57:00.004-07:00

Liz and I have been looking at buying a home recently (as if having a baby weren't enough stress) so I've had mortgage rates on the brain. We recently got pre-approved for a 4.75% loan, which appears to be just about the lowest rate in recent history. It was up around 6% last November, 9.25% in the summer of 2006, 15% in 1986, and a whopping 18% in late 1981. So how much of a difference does it make to be buying a home now instead of at one of these higher interest rates? Let's take a look.

If we don't count mortgage insurance or any other added fees, we can calculate that a $100,000 loan will look like this at the interest rates mentioned above:

As you can see, borrowing the same amount of money in the early 1980s, you'd have had to pay almost three times as much as you do now. The interest alone would have been over four times the price of the home itself! Now, the interest won't even sum up to the original home price. Of course, homes were cheaper back then, too. So maybe the home that cost $100,000 back then is worth $500,000 now.

The $8000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers (anybody who hasn't owned their primary residence in the past 3 years) is a nice extra incentive, but it's a pittance compared to the lower interest rates.

One more quick comparison before I finish: let's say that you bought a home for $100,000 five years ago and then refinanced it last year for 6%. Let's say you're now wondering whether you should refinance the home, which you've determined would cost you about $5000. You probably haven't paid off much of the principle on the home because the banks purposely weight the payments so you're paying mostly interest for the first several years. Assume that you've still got about $90,000 left on your mortgage and you decide to refinance for $95,000 so that you can get up-front money to pay for the cost of refinancing. Even though it's a 30-year loan, you plan to make extra payments to pay it off in 25 years since that's what you would have done anyway. Here's the difference between just paying off the rest of your $90,000 and refinancing:

So despite adding $5,000 to your loan today, you'd still come out over $13,000 ahead at the end of 25 years!

Another baby Chris photo

2009-03-27T20:53:00.002-07:00

Isn't he just the cutest baby ever?

2009-03-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Here I am holding our beautiful baby boy, less than 15 minutes after he was born! Christopher James Jensen. Born 8 pounds 10 ounces!

My Very Pregnant Wife

2009-03-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo taken March 17. Chris was born nine days later.

Baby Chris

2009-03-26T05:22:00.003-07:00

We had our son this morning at 4:44 AM. 8 pounds 10 ounces. Twenty and a half inches long. Pictures will come later. First, a nap.

Freedom of speech

2009-03-25T10:21:00.004-07:00

Apparently there was a cable company that couldn't permit an Anti-Hillary movie to air on their pay-per-view channels because it fell under the time period that makes it subject to campaign finance laws. The Supreme court is now thinking of striking down the law competely, based on it First-Amendment implications.

It is odd how we can say that a film that gets released six months before an election would be okay, while a film that gets released a little closer to the elections should be subject to campaign regulations.

I understand the desire to prevent the nation from becoming a plutocracy, where he who has the most money controls the government. But the justices are right to be concerned about the implications of limiting the publication of free speech. What's the difference between the U.S.'s blocking the publication of campaign ads and China's blocking YouTube? Ultimately, if we can't trust American citizens to make an informed decision while they're being inundated with campaign ads, why do we think we can trust them any more when they're not?

Heist

2009-03-24T14:03:00.003-07:00

Here's an interesting article that exposes some of the reasons that the credit crisis really happened, and why what Washington is doing now isn't likely to fix anything.

Youtube diplomacy

2009-03-20T13:05:00.002-07:00

There are a lot of areas where I disagree with President Barack Obama, but you've got to admit the man is smart. He's begun using YouTube to express America's goodwill toward Iran. If this can help to improve relations between the U.S. and Iran, bringing the citizens together, that will be one undeniably good thing that he has done as President.

When I was in France, I was surprised at how many people there said, "What do the Americans think of us? We hear that they don't like us." Then I came back to the U.S. and people kept asking me, "What did the French people treat you? We hear they don't like Americans."

The fact is, if people can realize that we all care about one another, and that despite our political differences we are all a part of humanity, we will be one step closer to world peace. No amount of speaking softly, and no amount of carrying large sticks, can ever be a substitute for feelings of charity and goodwill among the populace of two nations.

Complaint to HBO

2009-03-13T12:41:00.003-07:00

Submitted here

To whom it may concern,

I would like to add my voice to the thousands that I'm sure you have already heard regarding the scheduled airing of an episode of Big Love which contains scenes from a temple ceremony practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I realize that many people find it difficult to understand why Latter-day Saints would feel offended at having this ceremony publicized, that does not excuse ignoring the fact that they will. I am one of them.

We consider the temple ceremonies to be extremely sacred (and beautiful) events, which require a certain amount of spiritual preparation to be understood and appreciated. It is our hope that everyone in the world will experience these ceremonies first-hand, after having prepared themselves for it. However, to broadcast it without discretion for all the world to see is to show a fundamental lack of appreciation (and respect) for the sanctity of these ordinances.

In your official response to criticism regarding the airing of this episode, you apologized to "those who may be offended," but announced that you planned to air the show regardless. I hope that you will understand how shallow this apology sounds to those who you are offending. Likewise, the assurances that you have taken steps "to assure the accuracy of the ceremony" are unconvincing in light of the fact that the character who is supposedly attending the temple session "as she faces losing the church she loved so much" is living a lifestyle that would preclude her from temple attendance in the first place.

While you have made some overtures at explaining that the LDS church does not permit polygamy among its ranks, you still portray the polygamists in this series as being members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is patently false. Ever since the LDS church officially banned polygamy well over a century ago, those who continued to engage in polygamous marriages have removed themselves from fellowship with the church. They do not attend church in LDS wards, as they have their own religious leaders. If they go to a temple, it is one that they build (such as the one found on the FLDS compound in Texas recently), which is not associated in any way with the LDS church.

To Latter-day Saints, the Temple is such a sacred place that you must hold a current temple recommend from a bishop to enter therein. In order for a bishop to sign such a recommend, you would have to (among other things) attend church regularly and pay a full tithe. You would almost certainly be asked to participate in a church calling. A standard temple recommend is valid for two years, and a computerized barcode system keeps records synchronized between the temples and local wards. In and of itself, this does not make it impossible for an unworthy person to enter the temple, but it does seem extremely unlikely.

I do recognize your right as a production company, and as American citizens, to use your resources to portray anything you want--any way you want--on your network. Because Latter-day Saints are a peace- and freedom-loving people, I hope you feel free to air the show without the fear of retribution that you might face if you were offending members of certain other religions.

That said, I hope you will understand that Church members will not see this as a harmless and moving portrayal in a TV drama, but as an improbable excuse to show something that's "never been shown on television before." Don't be surprised, either, if we don't trust the intentions of the show's producers, including Tom Hanks, who has been quite open about his feelings toward LDS members who supported Proposition 8 in California. And although, up to this point, I have not had a subscription to HBO, please be assured that my decision to do so in the future will hinge largely on the respect you show (or don't show) toward that which I hold dear.

Sincerely,

James Jensen

Unemployment: An interesting trend

2009-03-12T16:27:00.004-07:00

I noticed an interesting trend the other day, as I was researching unemployment rates in the U.S.
See if you can notice a trend in these two images: Here and Here.
Obviously, this isn't an in-depth scientific study, and the statistical analysis is rendered imperfect by the flaws in the electoral vote system. But it sure seems like the most left-leaning states are the ones with the worst unemployment rates. I can think of a few possible explanations for this:

People tend to vote for change when the economy is weak, regardless of who is in power. Maybe since these states were hit the hardest by the economic downturn, their citizens were more prone to vote for the "other party."
Liberal legislation puts more government spending toward taking care of the jobless. Perhaps people in states with higher unemployment rates feel safer with liberals in power, because they'll be better cared-for if they lose their job.
Liberal legislation favors public welfare over businesses. Perhaps the political environment of these states makes jobs harder to create, or makes it so that people aren't as motivated to get a job.

So it basically boils down to:

People in struggling economies tend to vote for the "other guy," OR
People in struggling economies tend to vote for liberals, OR
Liberal policies are worse for the economy.

I'm sure there are lots of folks who would love to debate endlessly about which of these possibilities is true. But just as an exercise in theory, let's explore the consequences of the first two (the consequences of number 3 are obvious).

If you assume that the number 1 priority of elected officials is to get re-elected (a bit simplistic, but bear with me), would it make more sense for liberals in office to strengthen the economy, or to further expand welfare for the unemployed?

On the one hand, if the economy improves, people wouldn't be as interested in voting for the "other guy." On the other hand, if unemployment goes back down, people would feel more comfortable voting for conservatives. Catch 22.

Estimating Postage

2009-01-24T17:50:00.004-07:00

So we're sending a letter to Liz's brother in New Jersey, and I want to know whether I'll need extra postage. While Liz's part of the letter is written on a small, light sheet of stationery paper, my part is a four-page printed dissertation on Light and Knowledge and its role in our eternal progression. I know that the printing paper we're using right now is heavier than normal (we were lazy and bought it while we were shopping at Costco, and we had a choice between 800 sheets of heavy paper and a whole box of normal), so I set out on a quest to figure out about how much this letter will weigh.

First I looked at the packaging on our printing paper and found the "24 lb" marking. From my time spent working at Office Depot, I knew that this was a way of describing the paper's density, however, and not the weight of the ream. Some Internet research revealed that this weight refers to a ream (defined as 500 sheets) of "standard size" paper, which is not the 8 1/2"x11" that you might think, but rather 17"x22", which gets cut down to make four sheets of normal printer paper. So to calculate the weight of one sheet, we need to know:

There are 24 lbs of standard-sized paper in a ream.
There are 500 sheets of paper in a ream.
There are 4 sheets of letter-sized paper for each 1 sheet of standard-sized paper
There are 16 ounces per pound.

So (24 lbs/500 standard)*(1 standard/4 letter)*(16 oz/lb) = 0.192 ounces.

I figure Liz's letter and the envelope weigh less combined than one more sheet of printing paper, so just to be safe, I estimated about 5 sheets' worth, or 0.96 ounces at the most. Being under one ounce, it qualifies for a standard 42-cent stamp. Tah-dah!

Update

We ended up buying this kitchen scale, which has been extremely useful for measuring out ingredients in recipes and such. We also use it as a postage scale, which is much easier than doing the math each time.

Update on Life

2009-01-21T10:58:00.002-07:00

I realized that I have been woefully remiss in updating this blog. I'm really going to try to be better about it.

The most important thing that's happened since I last posted is that Liz is pregnant, and expecting on March 19! It's a boy, and so far we've started calling him Christopher James Jensen. What do you think?

New Companion Blog

2009-01-21T10:55:00.002-07:00

Since most of the people who read this blog probably aren't interested in the various bugs I run into at work, I've started a new blog (Adventures in .NET-dom) to chronicle such things. If you're the geeky type, or just have too much time on your hands, feel free to check it out!

Pride

2008-05-19T19:47:00.003-07:00

I feel the need to rescind much of what I said in my last posting. As I've been pondering it, I've come to realize that I was unnecessarily harsh on the Catholic church and the Pope in particular. I had no more right to assign ulterior motives to him for cutting off church access to Catholic records than anybody else would have of claiming that I had ulterior motives for being a missionary. I was a victim of the same sort of pride that I so easily saw in others. I have sacrificed a great deal of time, money and effort to help strengthen the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because I really believe that it teaches the True Gospel of Jesus Christ. When the Catholic church announced that they were restricting record access in order to "ensure that such a detrimental practice is not permitted," I naturally felt that someone had attacked something very dear to me, something close to my heart, and something so unquestionably pure and good that they could not possibly have any righteous motive for doing so.

While I believe that many people in the world have used supposed religious beliefs as an excuse to commit the evil in their hearts, I also recognize that many truly altruistic people are simply at odds regarding what things are helpful and what things are hurtful in this world. And while from a purely secular viewpoint it seems inconceivable that performing ordinances by proxy could be detrimental, it is very reasonable for somebody to call it that if they believe it to be against God's will. Anything out of line with God's will is, by nature, detrimental, and a secular perspective cannot hope to see things as clearly as God does.

As for the obstacle that this decision serves for those doing genealogical research, one can hardly expect the Pope to attach any importance to what genealogists think of him or his policies, or the effect his decisions may have on a field that probably seems from his point of view to have absolutely no merit. As far as he sees it, they could burn all the records and there wouldn't be one soul more or fewer that would make it into heaven. In fact, doctrinally speaking, I believe the same thing, but in a different way. Just as Pharoah's might was useless to stop the Israelite exodus, all the powers of this earth won't prevent the Lord from bringing eternal life to even one person who would go there. That doesn't mean it was right for the Pharoah to send his armies, but knowing that he had it was more important for Israel to have faith in God's power than to worry about the armies that had been sent against them.

So anyway, I still feel that the Pope and his church are incorrect doctrinally, as they think I am wrong doctrinally. But I need to apologize for having been so prideful as to think that I could know the intentions of their hearts. I'm sorry.

Motives

2008-05-08T12:09:00.005-07:00

I learned today that the Catholic Church has ordered their parish registers closed to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of course, I am not so naive as to expect members of all faiths to agree with the LDS viewpoint on baptisms by proxy. The Bible only makes one mention of the practice, and it's brief enough to make people extremely unclear on its true meaning. Many explanations have been offered, mostly in an attempt to disprove the LDS viewpoint, and none of them are very convincing to me. A quick search makes it evident that most commentary that has evolved around this scripture exists solely to prove that the Mormon standpoint is incorrect. They don't have to agree about what it means; they just have to agree that it doesn't mean what Mormons think it means. As one such website points out:

Note that, in order to disprove Mormonism, we need not know for certain which view of the passage is correct, so long as we know a possibility that fits the passage and other passages.

Thus, it is less important to actually understand the meaning of the passage than it is to prove that there might be some other explanations. I understand the desire to see things this way.

When a person joins the LDS church, a person must be baptized, whether or not they were baptized into some other church before, because in a sense, the basis of the LDS church is that the world suffered a great enough loss of gospel knowledge and authority through the absence of prophets and apostles during the past two millennia that God saw fit to call a prophet and restore it all. To become a member of the LDSLDS doctrine holds that God will only uphold baptisms performed under His authority (i.e. through the LDS church). If you assume that God really did call Joseph Smith as a prophet, this point of view actually makes sense. But if you begin with the assumption that God can't or won't call prophets anymore (a theory for which I have yet to find any solid basis, but one which nevertheless has been a basic tenet of most Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sects for well over a thousand years), then it's really easy to see this as an affront. It basically says to the Christian world, "You're wrong." Or at least, "You're wrong about some of these things." And while the Christian world can't seem to agree on any single set of doctrines, most individual Christians believe that such differences of opinion are acceptable in order to maintain unity in what they see as "The Church," or the collective body of all people who believe in Christ, regardless of differences in doctrine and opinion. But to have one church arise, claiming not to have branched off from any of the other churches, but to have been founded by Jesus Christ himself, and saying that no baptism performed outside its purview will be recognized by God at the last day.... well, it's not easy to take that sort of thing lightly. I mean, when you've accepted Jesus into your life and seen the great change that the Holy Spirit has wrought upon you, and then somebody says there's more to it than that, it's easy to perceive it as an attack on some very important parts of your life--an attack on your faith itself. And for leaders of those churches, who have consecrated so much of their time, faith, and energy--to say that their church is somehow lesser than some other church is a hard thing indeed. It is only natural for them, quid-pro-quo, to refuse to recognize LDS baptisms, as the LDS church does not recognize theirs.

And so it it not surprising to me when leaders of other churches don't wish to cooperate with the LDS church. It is a hard thing to overcome the perceived slap-in-the-face and seek to do what is beneficial to everyone. Certainly, members of the LDS church have often had difficulty turning the other cheek in all circumstances. Many of the early members fought back against the mobs that sought to turn them out of their homes, against the direction of the church's leaders. But that's not what Christianity is about, is it? Christianity is about putting every ounce of pride, envy, hate, and malice that we have "upon the altar," and allowing it to be consumed. I do not claim to be perfect in this sense; only one man ever was. But it's the thing we strive for. In becoming Christian, we say to God, "I will seek above all else to follow the example and commandments given by Him whose name I bear." And so it pains me to see Christians, and especially leaders of Christian churches, acting out of any less-than-righteous motives. And that, unfortunately, is what I see in this decision on the part of the Catholic Church.

If the Pope felt that it harmed the souls of those for whom baptisms were performed, then I would not feel this way. In that case, he would be acting to serve the best interests of those peoples' souls, most of whom undoubtedly lived good lives according to the Christian principles taught by the Catholic church in their day. If there were any chance that this were the reason for his decision, I would assume that he was acting out of pure altruism. I tend to assume that people are acting out of the best intentions that I can possibly imagine them having. And I know, ultimately, it is not my place to judge the man. This isn't between him and me--it's between him and God. Nevertheless, I am taking advantage of the right I have to voice my opinion. And my opinion is that this new policy of the Catholic church is motivated by pride, and is enacted without due regard to the good of everyone involved. "Mormons" seek to perform genealogical research out of a sincere desire to bless those who do not have the power to help themselves. The Pope can believe that they're wasting their time. But there is no grounds for him to believe that it could in any way harm the people for whom the ordinance is being performed. Either you believe that the LDS Church has authority from God or you don't. If you don't recognize baptisms performed by the LDS Church, then you don't believe that they have any effect, right? So in what way does it harm anybody when they perform them?

I know I've met Catholics who thought that by performing baptisms for the dead, we were somehow forcing them into church membership without their say-so. Those who felt this way were never willing to take the time to understand any differently. Had they been willing, I would have explained that by our own doctrine, we are simply giving these people the opportunity to accept a baptism which was performed on their part. Did the Savior die only for those who wanted to be Christian? No. He gave himself as a sacrifice for all mankind. But will all mankind have a heavenly existence forced upon them? No. Clearly those who reject holiness and choose a life of sin will not have their place in the Kingdom of Heaven. If you believe that Christ's atonement was necessary for our salvation, then you believe that He opened the door to those who would be saved. Jesus taught that baptism is a requirement for entry into His Father's Kingdom, but does anybody believe that if a person is baptized against their will, they will somehow be forced into heaven against their will? A baptism-for-the-dead, even if you believe in such things, can only have force if the baptised recognize it. If you don't believe in such things, then it surely can do no harm. So why are people so opposed to it?

But perhaps I'm being too hard on them. Perhaps they see themselves as taking the opportunity to prevent us from damning our own souls. Would a good Christian farmer sell his pagan neighbor a chicken, if he knew it could very well be used in some kind of forbidden ritual? Would a patriotic American ever sell a flag to someone who might be planning to burn it? As any decent person would refuse to allow a suicidal friend to borrow a weapon, perhaps the Pope sees it as his moral duty to prevent his church from permitting this wicked practice, as long as they have any way to prevent it. Maybe he believes that, by removing our capacity to sin, he is somehow bettering our eternal situation. Such a belief could easily become the subject of an enormous theological debate: if you deny someone the agency to choose what they believe to be right, but which is actually wrong in the eyes of God, and the decision has no bearing or effect on anybody else, living or dead, will God be more tolerant, in the end, of their desire to have done it? Maybe that's his reasoning.

I doubt it though. I'm pretty sure it was intended (and will be interpreted) to be a measure taken by the Catholic church to place a stumbling block in the way of Latter-day Saints. The two churches have shown remarkable cooperation in recent humanitarian aid efforts, and here we have the Pope saying, "It's fine for us to cooperate when we're being charitable towards others, but I won't allow my church to share information with you that will help in your genealogical efforts." Nevermind that the information that the Church gleans from such efforts is made available to members of all faiths, including the Catholic who wrote the first article I linked to in this posting. Mormons are not the only ones who have had their hearts turned to their fathers, and I think the consequences of this policy may be much more far-reaching than the Pope thought or intended.

That said, it is his decision to make. I recognize his authority to withhold such information, regardless of whether I like it. And may God always grant him the inspiration he needs as a man charged with the spiritual leadership of so many people around the world.

Web sites

2008-04-25T20:05:00.002-07:00

A while back, I promised that I'd share a bit of information about the things I'd been doing since I got home from my mission, so I guess I'll start with my job.

I'm working as a software engineer doing web development for a company called TrueNorthLogic. We provide web services for educators, like reporting tools and such to improve communication between administration and teachers.

Liz and I have a new website at http://j2jensen.googlepages.com/

In other news, my pet project is a site to help families keep their contact information up to date. It's slow going, though, as I'm struggling to make Seam and other technologies work the way I want them to.

Blessings: my two cents

2008-02-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

I met a French-speaking immigrant at a Stake Conference in my mom's ward shortly after I got home from my mission. I let him know that he could call me if he needed help with translations and such. His ward presidency contacted me the other day, and I was able to translate as some members of his ward, including the bishop and the Relief Society President, worked to determine his level of need for welfare. It was really something to participate as he explained his situation. The food stamps he gets each month for him and his wife and their grandson tend to last them two or three weeks. The money they get pays the rent on a humble apartment and the utility bills, but after that, "On manque même du savon." They can't even afford soap. Apparently they were doing all right back when he had a job, but he had some back problems that prevent him from doing heavy lifting and such now. He and his wife attend English classes daily to improve their communication skills, and the ward will undoubtedly see what they can do to find a job that will suit his condition, but in the meantime he told us how it breaks his heart to not be self-supporting. My mind kept returning to a few thoughts:

How fortunate I am to have so many things that he does not have: skills with computers, a command of the English language, a nice job, a nice apartment, a strong and healthy body, and so on.
How fortunate he is to have the few things he does have. Imagine how many nations in the world could not even attempt to support someone in his situation. Without food stamps and a means of paying the most basic bills, I cannot imagine that he and his wife could survive in most places.
How much good the church must do in the world. While I was there, they drew up a "shopping list" of everything that they might need in terms of food. They would go to the bishop's storehouse the next day and pick up all the stuff for free. They would meet again soon with a French-speaking leader from his former ward and discuss how to help him monetarily. How many similar cases must the church treat each year? It really is wonderful.

On a related vein, our ward has been given the responsibility of having Elders on call for priesthood blessings at the local hospital for the next few weeks. There is actually an entire branch that has been formed in order to provide spiritually for the patients there, complete with weekly sacrament meetings and volunteers that visit every single bed in the hospital every single day. Many of the patients there have worthy priesthood holders in their own family that they can ask for a blessing. But often enough there are people who ask the front desk to arrange to have somebody from the church come and give them a blessing. So the nearby wards have been called upon to provide emergency blessings as necessary. So far, I've been on call a few nights, but there were no requests those nights. At least one of the elders in our ward, however, had a couple of opportunities to give such blessings, along with one neat opportunity to speak to somebody who was interested to learn about the church. He referred her to the local full-time missionaries.

Our ward is also back to being in charge of keeping the snow cleared in front of the church: a less glorious, but probably equally necessary task, since the law requires that the walks be cleared. I'm back in charge of organizing the snow removal when necessary. I'm sure glad there are so many members around here--a lot of us are across the street or just down the block from the church building. I imagine they must do things a little differently in places where most members have to drive an hour or more to get to the nearest meetinghouse.

On a completely different topic, Liz and I had a great laugh over two bills her mom got the other day. Apparently the company printing the graduation announcements for Liz's twin brothers, Rick and Rob, realized that they had undercharged her. So, although she had paid the amount she was billed, she received two additional bills, in separately stamped envelopes, explaining that she needed to pay the remaining balance: two cents.

I'm not even joking. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Talks, calling and releasing

2008-01-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Liz and I were asked to give talks in church yesterday, and since we were already part of two special musical numbers, we basically dominated the meeting. That was kind of weird.

There was a reorganization in our ward's Elders Quorum yesterday. As usual, I had met with the Stake Presidency previously. They had told me that the new future Elders Quorum President had asked to have me be his first counselor, and asked if I would accept this calling. I said yes, so yesterday I was called, sustained, and later set apart in my new calling. I still don't have any idea what to expect from it, but I guess it will give me a lot more opportunities for Adventures in Mormondom. Due to the personal nature of some of the things I'll be doing, though, I'm not sure if I'll feel free to share much publicly on the blog. We'll see.

Later last night, we began getting text messages informing us that President Gordon B. Hinckley had passed away. I was present at the General Conference section immediately after the death of the Pope John Paul II back in 2005, where President Hinckley gave some very tender praise to the then-recently-passed Catholic leader. I hope that at least those parts of the world who notice the passing of this church leader will likewise have kind words to say, although the church has a mere 13 million members.

Are Mormons in general, and Mitt Romney in particular, going to use his death to gain publicity for our religion? No. Let us mourn.

Back in the Saddle

2008-01-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

I've decided it's time to start writing again, now that I'm starting to get the hang of life. Much has happened since last I wrote. Here are the main points (in roughly the order in which they occurred):

I got engaged
I got a job
I got an apartment
I got married
I got a car

I'll likely mention the specifics of these events in more detail in future postings, but I decided to use this one just to get the ball rolling.

Now, what current event should I talk about? Hmmm.... Here's one. Has anybody heard of hard disk space just kind of disappearing on Windows Vista? Here's the thing: Vista says my C: drive has 65.4 GB used, but if I check either using the folder properties window or other software that analyzes disk usage, I'm only using about 49 GB. So somehow my computer is using 15 GB of disk space that's not in files. Puzzling. That's a whopping 33% of the amount I'm really using.

That'll do for this posting. I'm sure to have more in the near future. Check back often.

Talk in church

2007-09-11T08:46:00.000-07:00

As many friends have been asking, here are the details of the no-longer-called-homecoming talk that I've been asked to give in the sacrament meeting at church:

Sunday, September 23, 2007
Winder Third Ward
4551 S 1200 E
SALT LAKE CITY , UT 84117
Sacrament meeting begins at 10:50 AM

Everyone is welcome.

Feels like home

2007-09-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally landed last night in Salt Lake City after midnight after various complications due to Air France's overbooking our flight. I got released as a missionary this morning. I'll be spending the day with my family and girlfriend. My blog postings should be more frequent now, but shorter for a little while as I become accustomed to the American keyboards.

How is everybody?

Les Derniers Jours (The Latter Days)

2007-08-21T02:16:00.000-07:00

So, I realize that I haven't written in quite a while. To summarize the last several months:

I was the mission financial secretary for 7 months. I did office work during the day and missionary work in the evening, in the Versailles area.

Then I got transferred to Caen to be Zone Leader in the Normandy Zone. I've been here for the past three months, and tomorrow I'll be finishing up the "normal" part of my mission.

My mom and cousin will be picking me up and we'll tour Europe a little together. I'll still be a missionary, though, until September 3, when I get home and get released. Expect my next update after that.

Just Kidding

2006-11-11T04:22:00.000-07:00

I got surprise transferred into the Mission Office to work as the Accountant. Keep sending all packages and letters to the Bureau address:

Elder James Kenneth Jensen
France Paris Mission
23, rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
France

No change

2006-11-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

I'll be spending another transfer in Nogent with Elder Jeter. Same district. Nothing special to report. Happy All Saints Day.

Baptism, Transfers, Training, and District Leader

2006-09-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

We just successfully had the first baptism that I've ever organized. It went great. The two converts are very happy.

My companion got transferred, as expected, and I am training a bleu (greenie) from Texas named Elder Jeter. I'm also district leader this transfer. This'll be a lot of new responsibilities for me all at once, so I'll need your prayers of support.

Thanks, everybody!

Love,

Elder Jensen

In Nogent

2006-07-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

Those who've managed to keep in touch through my family know by now that I've been in Nogent for about three weeks. It's closer in to Paris, and we actually have to go through Paris in order to get to certain parts of our zone. It's a much busier area than any of the other two I've been in, and Elder Huntsman and I are working really hard to keep up with everything.

Email address change

2006-05-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

Hey, all,

Okay, so I'm on a mission and technically I shouldn't send or receive emails to anybody but family members, but I found out recently that Utah.edu is going to stop forwarding messages sent there, and so in order to avoid problems I'm just sending a quick email to everybody to let you know to email me at StriplingWarrior@gmail.com from now on. Please update your address book.

(Family members, keep sending email to the myldsmail account, as that's the one I check regularly during the mission.)

Love,

Elder Jensen

Email update

2006-05-10T02:03:00.000-07:00

Most of you won't be emailing me during my mission anyway, so this shouldn't matter, but I just found out that the U is changing their policies regarding my utah.edu email address that everyone normally sends to. So please send email instead to my gmail account. If you don't know my address, make a comment to this post and when I find time I'll give it to you.

Elder Jensen

In Mantes la Jolie

2006-02-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody,

Last transfer I was transferred to Mantes-la-Jolie with Elder Harris. This transfer I'm staying here. Life is good. I haven't much time for details, but I just wanted to let the world know I'm still doing great, and I'm very thankful for the Restoration of the Gospel.

Elder James Jensen

Regarding my safety

2005-11-09T02:56:00.000-07:00

Dear World,

I won't be giving a whole lot of updates on my blog; probably just a bit now and then to let everybody know I'm still alive and doing well. But today I thought it might be important to say something regarding the rioting in Paris and how it's affecting me. Frankly, I haven't seen any effects from Limoges (where I'm serving right now); we're really far away from Paris. The only effect it's had on us so far is that it's become a common topic of discussion with people we talk to. We are always careful about avoiding situations that could be dangerous, and since we're always indoors at night, there's really not much danger to the missionaries.

Following is an excerpt from a letter from our mission president to parents:

We are aware of the extensive coverage being given by the news media to the events in our mission over the past week and a half. We are certain that these reports have caused you an extra degree of concern for your son or daughter. Therefore we want to provide this report of what is currently occurring and what steps we have instituted for our missionaries’ safety.

As we understand is heavily reported worldwide, demonstrations in the form of burnings of cars and some buildings began in the northeast suburbs of Paris to protest the accidental deaths of two youths by electrocution on Oct. 27 as they ran from the police.

These acts are directed against the police and the French government in general, primarily by immigrants and their descendants who feel they are being denied the rights of French residency and citizenship. They are occurring during the nighttime. At first they occurred only in the northeast suburbs of Paris but have now spread to other suburbs and, to a lesser extent, to Paris itself and other outlying cities. For the most part, they are occurring in neighborhoods of low-cost apartments occupied primarily by the immigrant population.

Accordingly we have taken the following safety measures:

1. All our missionaries are instructed to stay out of the neighborhoods where demonstrations/burnings are most likely to occur and to avoid all gatherings that could turn into demonstrations.
2. Paris-area missionaries are to be home in their apartments by 7:00 PM on weeknights when the heaviest commuter traffic on public transportation subsides unless they have a teaching appointment with members who will return them by private automobile to their apartment after the appointment. On weekends our Paris-area missionaries are to be in their apartments by dark.
3. We are working closely with local priesthood leaders who are assigning suitable members to take our missionaries into their homes if conditions escalate and require it.
4. Each apartment has a week’s supply of food should it become prudent to keep our missionaries in for several days. Missionaries are also to have cash on hand and a reserve of funds on their electronic cards.

-------------------

So, like he said, we're taking appropriate precautions, but it honestly isn't affecting the work where I am. Things are going great. I hope you're all doing well, and I look forward to receiving and responding to your letters.

Love,

Elder Jensen

France

2005-10-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Everybody,

I'm in France, but can't use email except to family. I'll have my family members update my blog starting next week. Anybody can email me at:

Anybody else can send snail mail to:

Elder James Kenneth Jensen
France Paris Mission
23, rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
France

... and it will be forwarded to me wherever I happen to be.

Love,

Elder Jensen

Letter received October 17, 2005

2005-10-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Dear World,
I'd like to thank everyone for your concern and advice for the trouble I was having a couple of weeks ago. I've heard half a dozen different explanations for the behavior of my companion. Let me first make sure there is no misunderstanding or mistaking the situation, as may have happened due to my limitations as a writer; my few letters over the past two months must naturally give the reader a distorted and sensational glimpse of my time here at the MTC, just as relying on front-page headlines would give us a distorted perception of the "real" world. The truth is, Elder Evans is a great missionary. He has been since the beginning of our time here, and I know that he will become better and better throughout his mission. We have come to respect and love one another and, for the most part, to understand each other. By following mission rules we've been able to work through the issues that naturally occur when two young men from opposite sides of the earth, with completely different personalities, choose to undertake a work in which they must spend almost every waking moment in one another's presence. We've learned a great deal from one another, and if I had the choice, I wouldn't have wanted to spend that time any other way. So I hope you will not misunderstand when I express frustration with any person or situation here. I am happy to be serving my Heavenly Father, and would have it no other way.

On to lighter subjects, I got my travel plans this week. I leave for Paris on Monday, 17 Oct. and arrive the next morning, Paris time. [James's new address] Somebody tell Jameson Veit (Heather's brother) that his friend, Elder Babcock, moved in next door to our room, and is in our branch, learning French like a champion.

I just had an interesting experience that illustrates the point I was mentioning earlier. I got called to the front office, which is a pretty rare occurrence around here. So I was wondering, did somebody in my family die? Did I dod something to get in trouble? Did my VISA get rejected? But no. Apparently I mentioned getting sick (runny nose) some time ago and then last week I mentioned being a little sick (cough) in my letters home, so my Mom called the MTC to find out if I'm okay! I guess she figured I'd been confined to bed for several weeks or something. See how easy it is to misconstrue the situtation based on so little information? How embarrassing. Ah, well, it's a mother's job to worry.

When I get to France, I'll see if I can post to my blog directly or use email. If not, it may be a couple of weeks before you get your next update.

         Au revoir,
                Elder Jensen

[James, I hope you were able to get the info you needed from your Mom! I didn't get your letter until the afternoon of Oct. 17th so I didn't have a chance to warn her to be prepared.]

Letter from October 4, 2005

2005-10-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

Dear World,
First of all, I'd like to thank Laurie and John Padget (I think that's spelled right) for their postcard from Australia. Did I mention that my companion, Elder Evans, is from Melbourne?

Secondly, Elder Evans and I resolved our concerns in our companionship inventory this week and we're getting along much better now.

Thirdly, did you get a chance to watch General Conference this weekend? If not, you ought to look it up on the Internet.

That is all. God Bless! Que Bieu Vous Benisse!

Elder Jensen

Letter from September 29 continued

2005-09-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

(I accidentally sent that before I was ready, so let me finish now).

Before I came here, everybody told me that I'd be really annoyed with the other elders because they're all 19-20 years old and immature. Thus far I've found that to be untrue. As stated in my setting-apart blessing, I've been blessed with "the maturity and understanding to be able to understand the other missionaries who come from a variety of backgrounds and levels of maturity . . . the perception to see the good in them . . ." At this point, I'm more concerned that the other missionaries will have the perception to see the good in me . . . and maybe the courage to help me improve.

Ah, well' until next week: A la prochain!

Elder Jensen

Letter dated September 26, 2005

2005-09-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dear World,

The districts just ahead of us are going to leave tomorrow, which means we'll be the "oldest" French-speaking missionaries at the MTC (I think; at least in our branch). That means there are just a few more weeks before I leave for France! Crazy.

When I'm learning French, I feel like I'm not learning much, but when I take a step back and realize that I understood an entire Sacrament meeting talk, or that I just explained God's Plan of Salvation, entirely in French, I can't help but be amazed at how quickly I've learned as much as I have.

I've finished reading the Pearl of Great Price, and I'll probably start reading the Doctrine & Covenants soon. I'm also trying to memorize a bunch of scripture locations; that's proving to be more difficult than anything else I do here.

I'm also having some difficulty getting along with my mission companion. We never exactly "clicked," but up until now, we've gotten along alright. We're opposites in just about every way. We're from opposite sides of the globe; I'm a computer geek, while he's always been very sporty; I've got a build that you might call "wiry," whereas he's got the pecs of Arnold Schwarzenegger; I'm cheery and full of smiles, while he's more . . . I think "surly" is the word, but I don't have a dictionary . . .; I constantly feel the need to be doing something constructive, and he sometimes just wants to chill; our communication styles are totally different. In short, the only thing we both have in common is our mission call. Considering all that, it's really nothing shor of miracuous that we've been able to get along with each other as constant compaions for over a month! But last night he told me that I'm really starting to bug hi. That's not so bad, in an of itself, but he then refused to say anymore. FYI Girls: guys hate it when you pull this, "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you" stunt. It's ridiculous. So I was really surprised when my tough guy companion suddenly clammed up and wouldn't talk bluntly about what I was doing to get on his nerves. I asked him about it again today, and he still wouldn't talk about it. (He said, "You're clueless!" I said, "Yeah, I am. You've probably noticed by now that I'm clueless about a lot of things. I'd appreciate it if you'd be patient enough to help me know wha tI'm doing wrong.") "Don't worry; we're only here for three more weeks," he said. I replied, "Three weeks is a long time at the MTC: besides, if something bugs you, it''ll probably bug my next companion too." He agreed that it probably will. "So you're not doing anybody any favors," I said, "by not telling me."

"I don't have to do anyone any favors," he said. I told him yes, he does--he's a missionary; if he didn't come here to serve others then why is he here? He still hasn't answered.

Letter dated September 19, 2005

2005-09-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Dear World,
It's hard for me to remember what I've written in letters previously, so please forgive me if I repeat myself or forget to mention something. (Mary, thanks for the letter. Keep in touch!)

I got sick for a few days about a week ago, but I'm healthy again now. I'm starting to get tired of the food here at the MTC, but I still have a ways to go before I'm ready for France. The schedule here is pretty unrelenting. Other than about an hour of gym, a few days a week (I'm learning to love volleyball!), we're always either in class, eating, sleeping, studying,, or going to Church meetings, firesides, or devotionals.

Most of my district joined the choir, and it's been nice to be able to sing now and then. It also ensures that we'll have choice seats reserved for Tuesday devotionals. Last week Elder Dallin H. Oaks, of the Quorum of the Twelve, spoke. Nobody is allowed to tell us who's coming to talk each week until they start seating people, but we've heard rumors that the Prophet is in town; how cool would it be if he came to speak at the MTC devotional?! Pretty cool.

In closing, let me just say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true, re-established church of Jesus Christ. The powers of Prophecy and the Priesthood of God have been restored, and the Saints have fulfilled (and continue to fulfill) ancient prophecies from the New and Old Testaments. Our Heavenly Father wants very much to bless the lives of all of His children here on Earth, including you. Please make sure that you do everything that is required of you, so that He can give you all the blessings of Happiness and Peace that come from obeying the commandments of God and being attentive to His spirit.

I say these things, with love, in the holy name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Signed,
Elder Jensen

Letter from September 12, 2005

2005-09-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Dear World,
I think once you've lived a few weeks at the MTC, there's really not much more to talk about. Everything just repeats itself, mostly, except the content of the lessons. The spirit is really strong here. I just got back from the temple. We weren't able to go there last week because of the construction.

I also just met a friend (Amelia Hardin) from Swing Club. When I saw her and called her by her first name she didn't respond for a few seconds because everyone here calls her "Sister Hardin." It's weird how nobody around here knows anybody else by first name.

Well, there's much to do today, so I'll close now. Please keep sending letters regularly (or if you aren't, start). Letters are Chicken Soup for the Missionary's soul. I don't think it's possible to understand how important they are unless you've been a missionary. I think I've mentioned how each day here feels like at least two days; a week between letters feels like an eternity.

God bless you all. You are in my prayers.

Love,
Elder Jensen

Letter dated August 29, 2005

2005-09-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Everyone,
This is just a general letter to let you all know how things are going at the MTC. From what I understand, there have been a lot of changes here recently. The infamous "Trees of Life" showers now have dividers in place so that we can shower in relative privacy. "Le bete orange" [the French grammar book used in the MTC, fondly known as "The Orange Beast"] is still exactly the same, except that it is no longer orange.

As pretty much everybody LDS knows by now, they've replaced an enourmous amount of reading material that missionaries used to use, with a single book called Preach my Gospel, which covers just about everything a missionary could ever need to know. They've also arranged our schedule so that we have a few hours of "MDT" or "Missionary Directed Time" almost every day. This is basically study time when we're allowed to choose to study in whatever manner is best for us. For instance, sometimes we go to the referral center (basically a call center) and use "Study Hall" mode, where we mostly just study, but if all of the other operators are busy, additional calls can come in to us so that we can help people get free Books of Mormon, DVDs, and have missionaries come to their houses to share our message with them.
The teachers here are great! Up to this point, I've had Brother Blackman and Brother Richardson, but starting this week Brother Blackmen will teach a different class and be replaced by Sister Moore (I think). I'm sure she'll be good, but it's hard to imagine anyone being as good as Frere Blackmen. He is so inspired, and he has some great stories, plus he's just a great teacher. He's also handsome and single and in serach of an eternal companion, so if any of you ladies are in search of a French-speaking, temple-worthy, returned missionary, bome to BYU and look him up!

It's been kind of remarkable to see what a small world it is here, Elder Crnich (pronounced "Sir niche) is practically best friends with Jared Hewlett, the crazy-haired kid that was on Brighton's cheer squad with me. After I graduated, the Hewletts moved to Kamas, where Elder Crnich lived. I also met the daughter of one of my co-workers from GE/OEC. Her name is Sister Barker, and she was a year or two behind me at Brighton. Her dad also was one of my dad's good friends in high school, went to the same mission as Liz's mom (actually remembered her [mom] from his mission), and coincidentally, he also showed up at the temple when I went there for the first time.

I have now been more than two weeks without dancing, and it's taking a serous effort to ignore the withdrawal symptoms ;)

The international students get to use email while they're here, but the rest of us have to use snail mail. It's okay; I'm getting better at finding time to write letters, and I'm rediscovering cursive . . . dunno if it's any faster though.

Also, because my companion has never been to Temple Square [he's from Australia], he and some others from our district will get to take a field trip down there this Friday, but I'll be staying here with the locals.

Well, I'd best start writing to my families now. (It's hard, because I'm already a slow writer, and I've got two families to write to each week.)

God Bless!

[For those of you who speak French and are concerned that James does not realize the importance of accents in the French language, let me assure you that his original letter did contain accents. However, this was typed by Liz, who was unable to figure out how to put in French accent marks. Also note that bracketed words/sentences are Liz's insterted commentary and were not in the original letter.] :)

Letter #1 - MTC Arrival

2005-08-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Family,
I love you very much. I am writing this as I sit in our first
meeting. It's about 3:45 on my first day at the MTC. I'll be writing
this one letter to everybody, because I'm not sure I'll have time to
write anymore today.

After getting here, we went to get our new immunizations. The world
believes that 10 years is enough time between TD shots, but the Church
thinks missionaries need them every 5 years. Plus, of course, they
decided that we need to get innoculated against bacterial meningitis.
I'm not complaining, after I was what happened to my friend Nate
Landon. I'd like to dance with my God-given feet again some day. No
amputations for me, thanks.

After the medical stuff was done, I went to my room and met my
Australian companion, Elder Evans. He seems nice, but we haven't
spoken much yet and I think it'll take a few days to get used to his
accent.

Accomodations are good. We each get a closet, a few clothes drawers,
a desk with a couple of drawers (one of which has a padlock) and a
bunk. We're sharing a room with another pair of elders, whose names I
can't remember right now, but one of them went with me to San
Francisco for his VISA.

As soon as I got here I started remembering things I'd forgotten.
After I check out which things I can get from the book store, I'll
write you a list and see if you can send them to me.
Please thank Steve and Mila for the money, and Mom please thank
everyone else that gave me money earlier.

Dad, expect a few debits from my checking account here, the first of
which will be about $107, I think, for those vaccinations.
Love,
James K. Jensen

Yet another "Shame on Walmart"

2005-08-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

No wonder the southern baptists hate us so much. I took this picture at Walmart last month, but lost it for a time. You'd think they could have at least taken down the "LDS Inspirational Center" signs, if they're going to use the stand to sell Harry Potter and "hip swag."

Farewell talk

2005-08-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

We have all been invited to come home to our Father in Heaven. Scripture likens the event to a wedding feast. Our Brother is getting married, and we’ve all received invitations to the reception. It will be held at the classiest reception hall in all the world, and (knowing that we could not possibly afford to pay our own way) He has paid the price required for each of us to come. But there are still things that we have to do in order to come.

First, we need a wedding gift. What has Jesus asked us to bring him? Only a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This is not just the best thing we can offer; it is the only gift that is acceptable to Him. It is not expensive, and it is something that everybody in the world can give, if they are willing to. If you don’t show up with this gift all wrapped up and ready to give, you won’t be allowed in.

Next, we need something to wear. The dress code is something like “all white,” so you’d better not show up in street clothes. For that matter, you’d better make sure that you’re bathed and that your clothes are clean. These are things that he told us to do. Too many people figure, “Hey, this is my brother. He loves me. He’ll let me in no matter how I come.” The fact is, if you love Him, you will surely want to do these things that He has asked of you. You can do all that you want that you think will make Him happy, but why not just do what He has asked you to do? Parents, what if you told your kids that they can go to the movies if they clean their room, and when you ask them later whether they’re finished they say, “Look, I drew a picture for you!”? You would certainly appreciate the gesture, but the child still wouldn’t be able to go to the movies. Or if you tell your babysitter that you’ll pay her extra if she can have the dishes done and the kids in bed by the time you get home, and when you come home to a full sink and kids running around, she says, “I did some laundry.” Believe me, God appreciates everything you do for Him, but if you can’t obey the most basic, simple things that He has asked of you, you cannot expect him to give you the rewards that he promised conditionally.

You can call Jesus Brother, and you can call Him Lord, but He has said:

21 ¶ Not every one that ^asaith^• unto me, ^bLord^•, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that ^cdoeth^• the ^dwill of my Father which is in ^eheaven^•.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not ^aprophesied^• in thy name? and in thy ^bname^• have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never ^aknew^• you: ^bdepart^• from me, ye that work ^ciniquity^•.

24 ¶ Therefore whosoever ^aheareth^• these sayings of mine, and ^bdoeth them, ^cI^• will liken him unto a ^dwise man, which ^ebuilt^• his house upon ^fa^• rock:

25 And the ^arain^• descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and ^bbeat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a ^crock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a ^afoolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that ^ahouse^•; and it ^bfell: and great was the fall of it.

Finally, we need to get there. We’ve been given the address, and we’ve been given the map, but for some reason, this may be the most difficult task for us.

For one thing, men are notorious for refusing to ask directions. If we think we’re going the right direction, we’ll often refuse to even look at the map. The problem with this is that we’ve been told there is only one route to the reception hall. Even if it feels like you’re going the right way, if you’re on the wrong road you will eventually have to backtrack to the point where you left the given route. The farther you go on the wrong road, the longer it will take you to get back. Sorry, but that’s just the way things work.

Beware the temptation to follow the crowd. I read a book recently where the main character’s primary navigational method is to find somebody who looks like they know where they’re going and follow them. He rarely gets to where he was trying to go this way, but he often ends up being exactly where he needs to be. There’s only one problem: the book is a satirical work of fiction. Real life doesn’t work that way, as much as we want it to. It’s so tempting to say, “Look, everybody else in the world is invited to the same party I’m invited to. If I just find someone who looks like they know where they’re going, I’ll get there just fine. But we’ve been warned that many, many people will not get there, and this is far too important to risk following somebody who is just following somebody, who is following somebody who felt really lucky to have found a nice wide road that’s less crowded than the one they were on.

The trip is much easier if you can pair up with a companion. This way, one person can navigate while the other is driving. The passenger can also help to make sure the driver isn’t falling asleep.

It is okay to show up early and over-prepared, but whatever you do, don’t show up late. Consider Luke 13, verses 24-27:

13:24 “Exert every effort⁸² to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 13:25 Once⁸³ the head of the house⁸⁴ gets up⁸⁵ and shuts the door, then you will stand outside and start to knock on the door and beg him, 'Lord,⁸⁶ let us in!'⁸⁷ But he will answer you,⁸⁸ 'I don't know where you come from.'⁸⁹ 13:26 Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.'⁹⁰ 13:27 But⁹¹ he will reply,⁹² 'I don't know where you come from!⁹³ Go away from me, all you evildoers!'⁹⁴

Now I’m going to go out there and deliver some invitations. I hope you’ll consult your maps, the scriptures, carefully, and that you’ll exert every effort to enter through that narrow door on time and well-prepared. I’ll see you there.

God be with you till we meet again.

Mission mailing address

2005-08-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

Starting Wednesday (August 17) I will be in the Provo Missionary Training Center. While I'm there, you can send me letters at:

Elder James Kenneth Jensen
France Paris Mission
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604

After about 6-8 weeks of training, I will go to France. As soon as I get a chance, I'll let you know my specific address, but until then, send letters and/or packages to:

Elder James Kenneth Jensen
France Paris Mission
23, rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
France

Telephone: 011-33-1-34-800-483

During the entire mission, there will only be one day per week that I can read and write letters, send email, and do pretty much everything else not directly mission-related (e.g. laundry). Your letters will be a source of strength and enjoyment for me while I am out there, and I hope you will keepsending them, even if I cannot respond or if my responses are short.

I will not have email access while I'm at the MTC. Once in France, I will at least be able to email my immediate family, but beyond that the rules are set by the mission president and I won't find them out until I arrive. If possible, I will try to keep posting to my blog at http://j2jensen.blogspot.com. That way, you can check up on how I'm doing without me emailing everybody all the time. Even if I am allowed to receive and respond to emails from people other than my family, I may decide not to. If this happens, it's nothing personal; I will just have a lot of veryimportant work to do while I'm out there, that's all.

God bless you all!

Love,

Elder Jensen

PS: Since I don't have email addresses for all of my friends and relatives, please forward this information to other people you know that will beinterested. Thank you.

Update: My darling Liz pointed out a typo. I will be at the MTC for 6-8 weeks, not months as originally stated.

Getting ready

2005-08-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

I'm getting all of my final preparations together for my mission.

I gave a talk in my home ward on Sunday. I kept trying to come up with ideas for what I should talk about, and even though I liked some of them, none of them seemed like "the talk." Then, as I was outlining the talk Sunday morning, one thought really caught on, and I could tell that that was the one I was supposed to give. So I scrapped everything I’d written up to that point, and just wrote what the Spirit prompted. I finished shortly before it was time to go to church. I really enjoyed the sacrament meeting. My cousin, Chris, had arranged a piece based on “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” and "The Spirit of God" and it brought tears to my eyes as he played it. Everybody seemed to really enjoy the talk and I had several people ask me for copies of it, which felt good because it helped me to know that I’d allowed myself to be guided by the Spirit.

One thing that surprised me was when people started to hand me checks. Apparently it’s a tradition to give missionaries money. It’s nice, because it’s expensive both to serve and to prepare for a mission, but God has provided so many opportunities to earn money and my dad made a significant financial contribution and my girlfriend is buying my car from me and between all of that I expect to have more than enough to last me through the mission. So it was nice to get this money, in a sense, but it felt kind of weird accepting it. Maybe I’ll use it to buy people chocolates while I’m in France.

Blogger has a feature that lets me update my blog via email, and this is the first posting that uses that feature. We’ll have to see how it works out. I’ll ask my mission president if I can continue updating my blog. That way people can keep tabs on me without me having to email people outside my immediate family.

2005-08-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

Last glance

2005-08-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Where have all the flowers gone?

Non-farewell

2005-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Since I'll be reporting to the MTC on August 17, I will be speaking in the sacrament meeting at church on Sunday, August 14. It will be in the Winder 3rd Ward, which meets in the Salt Lake Winder West Stake house at:

4551 S 1200 E
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84117

Sacrament meeting starts at 12:45 PM.

Judge Roberts, 5-4, 98-0, and What It All Means to Scouting

2005-08-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'm on a mailing list where I receive updates about the Boy Scouts of America, and their continuing battle to receive funding despite homosexual and antitheist activism. This is worth sharing:

Dear Defender of Scouting,

The pending confirmation battle over President Bush’s nomination of Judge John Roberts underscores the increasingly influential role the federal courts are playing in determining social policy in this country.

The reason, of course, is activist judges who are going far beyond the proper role of the judiciary to merely interpreting the law and the clear language of the Constitution. Instead, we see too many judges becoming judicial activists, imposing their own personal agendas and ideologies on society through their rulings.

Probably no group in this country in recent years has been more affected by this development than the Scouts. After all, in the Dale decision just five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Scouts’ right to exclude openly homosexual men from serving as scoutmasters by just one vote, 5-4. This is why the confirmation of justices like Judge Roberts, who clearly is an individual who will strictly interpret the Constitution and refrain from “legislating from the bench,” is so critically important not just to the future of Scouting, but to our country.

As we report below, a runaway federal judiciary can cause great damage to an organization like the Scouts even in the face of overwhelming opposition to such decision. The most recent example of this is the injunction issued in June by Chicago Federal District Court Judge Blanche Manning. If allowed to stand, this injunction would prohibit the Defense Department from supporting future National Jamborees specifically and, by implication, Scouting generally. The Bush Administration is planning to appeal and the Scouting Legal Defense Fund will be filing an amicus brief in support.

It was a preliminary ruling last fall in this same case, originally filed in 1999 by the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), that led Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to introduce the Support Our Scouts Act. Among other provisions, this bill will make it clear that the Defense Department can continue to Support the Scouts. On July 26th the Senate adopted the bill on a 98-0 vote as an amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill.

While this unanimous vote accurately demonstrates once again the overwhelming public support of Scouting, it cannot completely nullify a ruling made by an activist judge on constitutional grounds that the Defense Department cannot fund Scout activities such as the Jamboree. The only sure ways to do that is for Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the courts on Scouting issues or to amend the Constitution. Both are extremely difficult and unlikely remedies.

This means that appointing responsible judges is the only practical way to truly protect Scouting and the critical role it has played for nearly a century in building our national character. And, clearly, the most critical court to focus on is the Supreme Court.

If you have not already contacted your senators with regard to Judge Roberts’ nomination, I hope you will do so. You can find complete contact information for them at the Senate Web site. Communicating our views on this nomination to our senators is one of the most important things any of us can do to defend scouting.

Thanks for all of you efforts in this critical effort!

Sincerely,

Robert B. Carleson
Editor

P.S. You can help defend Scouting even more by making a tax deductible contribution to the Scouting Legal Defense Fund, Click here to make a secure contribution on line or to print out a form to mail in a contribution.

The Temple

2005-07-31T16:27:00.000-07:00

I went to the temple to receive my endowments on Saturday, as planned. It was a very cool and peaceful experience. Lots of symbolism.

Afterwards, Liz and Chris and I hung out downtown at the library, and then rode Trax back home. Chris taught me to count to 100 in French (a lot more difficult than you might think!) and Liz took a nap. Then we went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the dollar theater (actually, more like $1.50). It was pretty funny, and even though it didn't really stick close to the book's plot, it was very true to the spirit of the book.

Today at sacrament meeting, some friends and I sang an a capella rendition of All Creatures of Our God and King, which I'm told sounded really good. Also, the bishop took some time during sacrament meeting to give a word of encouragement that was really what I needed to hear. He told a story about two pails that were used by a woman to carry water home from the well each day. One of the pails had a leak, so that by the time she got back home it was only half full. The pail apologized to the woman one day for not doing his part.
The woman replied, "Everyone has something different to share with the world."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, have you noticed all the beautiful flowers that have grown along your side of the road, because of the water that you share with them as we walk?"

Sometimes I tend to be too hard on myself for not doing everything as well as it seems they ought to be done. I'd like to start noticing the good that I am able to do, and the things that I am able to contribute simply because I don't do all the same things that other people do.

It's been a while

2005-07-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I've been pretty busy doing mundane stuff that wasn't really worth reporting, and my interesting, deep thoughts have been mostly of the sort that I'd rather not share with the world. But mostly my life just hasn't been that interesting.

I've been working for a couple more weeks with GE, and I'll be working until August 9th, if memory serves, which will give me a week without work before my mission. Liz and I have gone shopping for mission prep stuff a couple of times now, and I'm to the point where I pretty much only need a few short-sleeved white shirts and I'll be ready to go!

Tomorrow morning, I'll be going to the Salt Lake Temple. I'm getting pretty excited. From what I hear, it's a very peaceful and beautiful experience. It's sacred enough that Latter-Day Saints don't actually give details on what happens there, so don't expect a very detailed report, but if I get a chance, I'll make a post to say as much as I feel good about saying.

I finished reading the latest Harry Potter book (The Half-Blood Prince) last night. Harry's a lot less whiny in this one than he was in the last book, which is refreshing. It revealed a lot more details about Voldemort and exactly what Harry was going to have to do in order to defeat him. It also did something that I don't think any of the other books in the series have done, in that it didn't quite wrap up everything at the end. I'll just say this: people who just let themselves be spoon-fed will feel one way about a particular character at the end of the book, while those who have been reading carefully and picking up on the hints will come away with a very different impression.

Well, I can't think of much else that's on my mind, so I hope you'll excuse me. Ta.

Internship position

2005-07-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

The folks at work have asked me to recommend someone to hire as a regulatory intern this coming year. I don't know who all's looking for jobs, so if you're interested let me know. Of course, I have to actually know you well enough that I feel good about recommending you.

KSL News: 6-Alarm Fire at Wasatch Jr. High

2005-07-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

KSL News: 6-Alarm Fire at Wasatch Jr. High
I attended this school in seventh grade. Weird.

Holidays

2005-07-11T18:53:00.000-07:00

I overheard some co-workers having a discussion at work today that sounded interesting, so I joined in and asked what the deal was. Apparently, when one of my co-workers was working with another company, she had a manager that was LDS and he decided that instead of taking a holiday on Good Friday like the rest of their corporation, he traded that holiday for Pioneer Day, forcing everybody else there to do likewise. Because of this, she is now adamantly opposed to the celebration of Pioneer Day as a state holiday. "Why does this state shut down," she kept asking, "to celebrate a religious holiday." She was really upset. And I don't just mean bothered--her eye was actually twitching as we talked about it!

I really have a hard time understanding how somebody could get so angry about something like that. I mean, for one thing, I don't even think of Pioneer Day as a religious holiday. In fact, I don't think that the LDS church really has any unique religious holidays. We celebrate Christmas and Easter, just like anybody else. But if we wanted a religious holiday, I would think that they'd have chosen April 6, which has a lot more significance to Latter-day Saints than July 24. Now, it's true that some Mormons celebrate Pioneer Day outside of Utah, but it's also true that some Americans celebrate Independence Day outside of the United States. It's a cultural thing. July 24 marks the passage of the LDS pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley, which I think is appropriate to recognize as a state holiday, considering the impact that it had on shaping Utah's history. Massachussetts observes a few holidays relating to the Revolutionary War, for instance, because of the significant role that those events played in their history. That's the spirit in which we celebrate Pioneer Day. I really don't think anybody ever intended it to be a religious holiday.

Of course, according to a recent Supreme Court decision, it apparently doesn't matter what the intent was. They decided that if an imaginary observer might conceivably feel that something endorses religion, that's enough to prevent the government from sponsoring it on any level. So who knows? Maybe one of these days somebody will get angry and sue the State, and they'll have to stop letting State workers off for Pioneer Day. And then maybe somebody will use that as a precedent to force the entire nation (or at least the nation's government workers) to stop observing Christmas and Easter. Or maybe God will see fit to humble us to the point where we're willing to recognize that we depend on Him, and that our nation would never be what it is today without Him, and maybe we'll decide that atheists can either shut up or move to Canada. Who knows?

What if the armies of the Lord
Picked up and dusted off their swords
Vowed to set the captives free
And not let satan have one more

What if the church, for heaven's sake
Finally stepped up to the plate
Took a stand upon God's promise
And stormed hell's rusty gates

Chorus:
What if His people prayed
And all who bare His name
Would humbly seek His face
And Turn from their own way

And what would happen if we prayed
For those raised up to lead the way
Then maybe kids in school could pray
And unborn children see light of day

What if the life that we pursue
Came from a hunger for the truth
What if the family turned to Jesus
Stopped asking Oprah what to do

-- Casting Crowns

Work and Mission Letter

2005-07-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

I went back to OEC today to do some more work for them. I was planning to be done at the end of this week, but they decided they want to keep me on for a few more weeks afterward. Basically, I'll only have one full week without work before I leave. We used to joke that I would have to move to France to get away from that place. Lately it's seeming like less and less of a joke. Of course, they've got a facility in Buc, France, too (which is inside my mission). Ah, well.

When I got home, I found that my mission president had (finally) sent me a letter with details about my mission. Or at least, that was the general idea. It mostly restated what my initial information packet said about things like music and electronic organizers and such. It said almost nothing about what clothes I'll need, so I guess I'll just rely on the other packet for that information. I think it's about time to plan some shopping trips to get everything I need.

Darrell Scott's testimony

2005-07-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, addressed the subcommittee on crime of the House Judiciary Committee on May 27, 1999 at the Rayburn House office building in Washington, D.C. This is what he said:

Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

In the day s that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy-it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. " I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and reek havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes-He did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999 , at Columbine High Sc hool prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Hi m. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA - I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone! My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!

Hat tips: Grandpa Armstrong and TruthOrFiction.com

Newsday.com: U.S. Muslims denounce London bombings, brace for backlash

2005-07-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

Newsday.com: U.S. Muslims denounce London bombings, brace for backlash

It's sad that these innocent people have to take steps to protect themselves, but I'm glad that they are doing what needs to be done.

"The main targets of these vile and cowardly acts are innocent civilians," said Aref Assaf, president of the Paterson-based Arab American Forum. "Our condemnations are universal and unequivocal.

"We call on members of the Arab and Muslim community to be especially careful about their surroundings, places of worship and employment, as they may be subject to hate crimes consistent with experiences after such horrific attacks," he said.

Assaf also urged people to refrain from blaming the entire Arab and Muslim community for the attacks.

I, too, would urge anybody who might be reading this to refrain from blaming the entire Muslim community for this. I also want to urge people to refrain from blaming the entire American community for backlashes. There are rotten people on all sides. Let's learn to pull together the good and righteous.

Independence Day Weekend

2005-07-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

I went down to Blanding with Liz to spend time with her extended family over Independence Day weekend. It was nice to be in such a quiet, slow-moving town for a while. We went to church and attended a dedication for a monument that the Lymans had put up in the cemetery there, and watched a parade that some of Liz's family participated in. But mostly we just kind of took it easy.

Tractors on Parade

On Independence Day, we drove back in time to enjoy fireworks with my dad's family, and I had some fun playing with the "night mode" on my digital camera.

The next day was my birthday, so I got some nice gifts and an excellent chocolate cake (with binary candles!)

The Cost of War

2005-07-05T23:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article about the real costs of war:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/terrorism/a/iraqdeath1000.htm

San Francisco

2005-07-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Church Travel Office arranged for me to fly to San Francisco yesterday so that I could apply for a VISA at the French consulate there. Apparently they're going to be putting something into the VISAs with fingerprint information in it. That means they need to have you show up in person to give them your fingerprints. I didn't get to sight-see, but from what I saw I think I like Salt Lake City better.

On the way back to the airport in San Francisco, we stopped at an In-N-Out Burger. I didn't object when I heard we were going to stop there because (never having been there) I assumed that they had to have something that would accomodate a vegetarian. When we got there, I found out that they only had four items on the menu: Burger, Cheeseburger, "Double-double" Cheeseburger, and fries. I had only had a bagel and a banana for breakfast, and I knew I wasn't going to have a chance to eat another meal until I got back to Salt Lake City, and so I did the sensible thing and ordered a double cheeseburger with fries. Yuck.

Anyway, I made it back safely. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures to share; there were only a couple of things I thought picture-worthy, and I saw them while I was in high-security areas where I figured people might get upset about me starting to take pictures. For instance, I thought it was hilarious to watch one guy in his big, baggy gansta clothing, going through the security point at the airport. See, you have to take off your belt, among other things, when passing through that metal detector, and I thought it was just a hoot to watch this guy trying to be discreet and "cool" about trying to keep his pants up when they kept falling down around his knees. Fortunately, his shirt hung most of the way down his thigh, so we were spared any indecent exposures.

This Land Was Your Land

2005-06-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

The CEO of Freestar Media is looking to take advantage of the recent Supreme Court Ruling on eminent domain, to purchase the land owned by Justice David H. Souter, in order to build a hotel there. The ruling allows the city to sieze personal property and sell it for a company to build on, if it will benefit the community as a whole through increased tax revenue and the like.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

If they can pull it off, I'd plan a special trip just to stay there. That ought to increase their tax revenue.

Hat tips: My good friend Dan, and the World Net Daily

Mary's ideas

2005-06-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

Again, Mary has provided some thought-provoking ideas that I think are worth addressing as a new blog posting. And again, I disagree on certain points. Regarding Pakistan, Mary's suggestion for what Bush should be doing to affect changes:

First, Pressure the president to let the woman travel. Tell him He is the one giving Pakistan a bad image, not her.

A recent San Francisco Chronicle article says:

"I am very happy. I feel that justice will be mine," she told The Chronicle later as she relaxed at a women's refuge in Islamabad. "I feel like going outside and running in circles."

The ruling was a crucial victory in a three-year legal saga that highlighted abuses against women in rural Pakistani society, stirred outrage around the world and, more recently, led the Bush administration to chastise President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the war on terror, for trying to muzzle Mukhtaran and prevent her from traveling to the United States.

...

The outrage finally reached the White House. Bush administration officials often turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in Pakistan, a key ally in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, but this time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri to complain about a situation her spokesman described as outrageous. The travel ban was lifted, though Mukhtaran's movements are still restricted by the heavy security that surrounds her everywhere she goes.

Again, this is the SFC--hardly a bastion of conservatism. While the Bush administration doesn't consider it their duty to babysit Pakistan, it's not like they're being completely oblivious. In this particular case, the Bush administration has already done what you suggested and it appears (again, in this case) to be making some significant ground. I do think that we ought to be encouraging Pakistan to make more sweeping changes; they certainly have problems that need to be addressed. Overall, though, I see hope for this democracy that has made, and continues to make significant steps toward becoming a responsible and contributing member of the world community. If I were the president of the U.S., I think I'd rather focus on working with them rather than telling them how to run things. This argument applies to starting schools over there, too. Working to stabilize the region politically and building the Trans-Afghan pipeline will help Pakistan to focus on improving their own position. This doesn't really compare to Iraq, where no amount of help that we could give would have benefited the people there without removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.

Another comment from Mary:

And Honestly, Bush himself wouldn't even need to do this, but rather encourage the public to do so.

I think you're right, that this is the way to go about things. Allow and encourage American individuals and companies to make voluntary contributions, rather than spending tax money, which is forced out of people, to help other nations. Our nation's government gets criticized now and then for not contributing to relief organizations and such in an amount proportionate to the nation's wealth. What people don't realize, though, is that part of the reason for our nation's wealth is that we don't tax our citizens and businesses to death, which allows them to make contributions out of their own pocket, which they do in sizeable amounts. Somehow I doubt that Bush's simple encouragement would get the amount of media attention that you suggest, unless more liberal elements sieze it as a reason to criticize Bush for not being willing to put his (i.e. the nation's) money where his mouth is.

Another "brilliant Idea":

During the 3 months of school that teachers have off, have the US govt. pay their plane ticket to some country, where they then teach during their off time.

Smart, but there's only so much a person can do in 3 months; you'd barely get started on something before you have to leave. This is probably why LDS missionaries are called to serve for 1.5-2 years. So instead, why not have a program where well-educated, civic-minded people can go for a couple of years and teach people and help them to build bridges and other things that will help to better their community for the long term? Oh, yeah, it's called the Peace Corps. But then, what will those poor, civic-minded schoolteachers do all summer? How about serving the community at home, like the USA Freedom Corps suggests. You may remember, Bush announced the creation of the Freedom Corps in his State-of-the-Union address in 2002. Funny thing is, I never heard about it in the media after that speech. Perhaps if we paid really close attention to everything Bush said and did, we'd get a different picture than when we just listen to headline news.

Conclusion:

I don't see bush as promoting almost any programs that are this self-less.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there.

2005-06-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

The Ordeal

2005-06-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Flower

Pictures!

2005-06-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Fathers Day on Thursday because Dad was out of town on Sunday.

Megan's really a nut.

Katie's a sweetie.

More comments on news

2005-06-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

Bush recently spoke up in support of nuclear power plants. I think this is a good thing. Americans in general are far too afraid of nuclear technology, and by preventing the development of nuclear power plants we force ourselves to rely on greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, including oil from the Middle East. I wish that we could support the production of nuclear power plants without having to offer investors government-sponsored "risk insurance" as Bush has suggested, but considering the way certain people have used lawsuits and other forms of interference to block the production of nuclear power plants, I don't see any better way. If lawmakers can think of something else that is equally likely to work and less burdensome on taxpayers, more power to 'em! But something has to be done. I may tease France about some of their political views, but they've been productive enough to build 56 nuclear power plants in the time that the United States has been too afraid to build even a single one.

Mary's rebuttal

2005-06-24T21:42:00.000-07:00

My great friend, Mary, responded to my last blog posting with some excellent points that I wanted to share.

Firstly, let it be noted that the article I linked to regarding the Kyoto agreement was not an article written by reporters for the Washington Post, but rather a letter to the editor from the Senior VP and Chief Economist of the American Council for Capital Formation, a conservative organization that tends to favor big business, and whose board of directors includes people from several big businesses who would probably stand to lose big if the U.S. signed on to the Kyoto agreement. It was written in response to an editorial written by the Washington Post which said (among other things) that "the White House may soon be the last institution in Washington that doesn't believe that the threat of climate change requires something more than new adjectives." They pointed to the discovery that a White House official had doctored environmental reports in order to downplay the role of pollution in global warming. This official then retired and (suspiciously) got hired by Exxon. The editorial was mostly focused on supporting legislation to allow Congress to continually re-evaluate the caps on greenhouse gases. I haven't done much research on the topic, but it seems pretty reasonable to me. While I think that the Washington Post often goes out of their way, both in editorials and news articles, to cast Bush in a bad light, I also think it's commendable that they are willing to print a critical letter to the editor, even when it's from such an obviously biased source.

Let it also be noted that my blog posting was written late at night after a week of not much sleep. Most of my other comments were (relatively) well-thought-out, but the Kyoto agreement comments were pretty much off-the-cuff, and I definitely should have dug in a little deeper before making any comments. So thanks, Mary for keeping me in check. You've certainly done more research regarding the Kyoto Protocol and environmentalism in general than I probably ever will, and I welcome your insights.

I do take exception, however, to the implication that I think we should "be allowed to have our own dirty secrets." The point of my posting, as a whole, was to say that I think the world's priorities are pretty messed up. I absolutely do not think we should turn a blind eye to the dealings of our own government. As Jesus said, we oughtn't to be so intent on telling our neighbors about the specks of dust in their eyes that we ignore the beams in our own eyes. But neither do I think it is right that the people all over the world are so very focused on the motes in America's eye that they ignore everything good that America has done. Don't get me wrong--we had ought to strive for perfection. As Jesus pointed out, a shepherd will leave all of his sheep to go and find the one which is lost. We do need to focus on our blemishes, so that we can work on scrubbing them out, but we oughtn't to magnify them to the point of distortion.

Once while I was in the bathroom of a hotel, I noticed they had this nifty little mirror on a swivel arm so that women could see their faces better as they primped themselves. Looking in that mirror, I felt like a blossoming teenager again, self-conscious about every pimple on my face. Then I looked in the regular mirror and realized that I hadn't become ugly overnight; this mirror was just shaped in such a way that I could clearly see every pore on my face. I felt sorry for girls that used that sort of mirror on a regular basis, because it magnified every imperfection to the point that it gave the user a grossly distorted view of themselves.

Looking around in today's world, that is what I see happening to America. We are not perfect, by any means. There are a lot of people who do a lot of selfish, greedy, perverted, and intolerant things. But we've been put under this magnifying glass, and we've made ourselves pretty darn transparent when compared to just about any nation at any other time in history. As a result, we see in ourselves (and the world sees in us) so very many imperfections that it seems at times impossible to feel good about ourselves. But when I study history and gain a more realistic perspective of the world we live in, I can't help but marvel at all that we've got going for us as Americans. I realize that even if a lot of people allow greed and sloth and hatred and perversity to govern their lives, that number dwarfs in comparison to the number of good, upstanding, hard-working, and generous citizens in the United States. And I strongly object to anyone that claims that Americans work to increase the level of liberty in "just the [situations] that make our lives easier."

And you're right, Mary, that the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction were never found by coalition forces. Despite the fact that the world was convinced at the time that Saddam was hiding--if not actively producing--chemical and/or biological weapons, it has now become evident that by the time we invaded, he'd gotten rid of them in one way or another. But there was never any question whether he had them in the first place, or whether he'd be willing to use them. He had them, and he used them on his own citizens, which is what prompted the U.N. to require a full disclosure of the locations of his remaining weapons. It was his lack of full disclosure that prompted the U.N. to warn him of dire consequences if he did not comply. If nobody did anything when he continued to ignore these warnings, then how could anybody in the world respect the warnings of the United Nations? This is where I see irony in the comments made by these U.N. experts, after the United States has proven the hard way that it's not always right to "take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by government." And now they are worried about acting immediately or else "we won't have any credibility left."

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Mary. I hope you'll continue to do so in the future. It's definitely a blessing to have friends who "approach things from a different perspective and belief system." It makes me examine my own beliefs more closely, which is always a good thing.

Today's News

2005-06-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

A 1991 United Nations Security Council Resolution decided that Iraq must "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision" all of its chemical weapons and such. In 2002, they unanimously passed another resolution offering Iraq a "final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations." That's 11 years of pussyfooting around, and when the U.N. Security Council was going to suggest setting a deadline for Saddam to comply, France declared they'd veto any resolution giving Iraq a deadline. We know now that France was benefiting from the Oil for Food Scandal. Bear in mind that Saddam had killed thousands of his own citizens with chemical weapons. In 2003, the United States decided not to wait for the other U.N. countries; they accepted what allies they could gather, and then set out to oust Saddam.

Now the United States has been holding about 520 terrorism suspects at a place called Guantanamo Bay. The Red Cross has been allowed to interview the detainees and inspect the facilities. Their reports included allegations of torture and mistreatment of the Koran. The U.S. Government is going out of their way to provide suspected Muslim extremist terrorists with copies of the Koran, not to mention spending millions of dollars to provide them with "proper" Muslim meals, and they took this report from the Red Cross seriously and actually took corrective action to prevent these things from happening in the future. After Newsweek printed an article alleging serious desecrations of the Koran (which they later retracted), the military launched another investigation that revealed 5 cases of Korans being mishandled (2 intentional) and 15 cases of the detainees desecrating their own Korans, including trying to flush them down the toilet. The government has also conducted investigations into allegations of torture (obviously mostly allegations made by detainees and ex-detainees), and have found Guantanamo to be "being operated at very high standards." But people continue to compare the place to Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags, so some experts at the U.N. have blasted the U.S. Government for not responding to their request to be allowed to conduct an investigation of the facility.

Some quotes:

But one investigator, Algerian magistrate Leila Zerrougui, said: "The time is up. We have to act now. If not, we won't have any credibility left."

"At a certain point, you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government," Nowak said.

It's kind of funny, in light what the U.N. allowed Saddam to do for over a decade.

Remember how the U.S. (specifically the Bush Administration) took so much heat for refusing to sign onto the Kyoto agreement? Well apparently the EU is having a hard time keeping their commitments, while "the United States has done a better job of reducing the amount of energy used to produce a dollar of output than the European Union has."

Now, while Democrats are busy fighting the Patriot Act and Republicans are busy trying to amend the constitution so that Congress can make it illegal to "desecrate" (i.e. burn) the flag, the Supreme Court decided that local governments can kick citizens out of their homes to make room for shopping malls. So while the Democrats are worried that the law enforcement agencies are going to start spying on people for fun, and the Republicans are trying to outlaw a very legitimate (albeit wrong) activity, the judicial branch of our government opened the door for cities to remove "problem areas" by inviting Wal-Mart to come in and kick the residents out. Has the world gone mad?

Hi ho, hi ho...

2005-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

... it's back to work I go.

Well, I've been re-hired at GE Healthcare for a week. I was surprised to find how hard the folks here had to push in order to get permission to bring me back for a week. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, though. GE is such a gigantic company that it's next to impossible to break the corporate mold and actually get something done. I was actually really surprised when they told me they'd been able to get permission to bring me back. I guess I didn't realize how hard they were willing to pull for me.

Monday after work, Liz and I went to Nate Landon's birthday party. Nate is a neat guy who organized the Lindy Exchange a few years ago (and actually took some heat because of a little-known law about dancing after 2 AM). Recently he had a nasty bout of meningitis and they had to amputate some fingers, half of one of his feet, and a fair portion of one of his legs. I had no idea that meningitis could do that. Anyway, he's home from the hospital now, though he'll be going back to get some prosthetics and such. So a bunch of us Swing Kids went over to his house to wish him a happy birthday and hang out at his house. After that, Liz and I went to see Robots at the dollar theater with Mary and Dave Jones. It wasn't spectacular, but it was a lot better than I'd expected.

Tuesday after work, Kristen (another swing kid) brought her dying laptop computer over for me to fix up. After trying some basic stuff with it at Nate's house the day before, I was convinced it would take a clean reinstall of Windows to get it really working right, which meant I first had to back up all of her files to my external hard disk, and then reformat her hard disk, reinstall Windows with its Dell drivers, upgrade it to Windows XP Pro (which for some bizarre reason takes about as long as installing Windows XP Home in the first place), and then install any programs that she'd need and finally copy all of her files back to her computer. It took most of the night, mostly due to transferring her large music collection back and forth, but we finally got it running really smoothly, complete with Antivirus software and a couple of anti-spyware programs to keep her computer protected in the future. I always get such a rush out of making computers run smoothly. I think if I'd been born 50 years ago, I would've been really into cars.

Anyway, now I'm just sitting here waiting for some guy in Milwaukee to return my voicemails, emails, and/or chat messages from the past two days, so that I can get on with the project I'm working on.

Pack Meeting

2005-06-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Casey and Cy got some awards and rank advancements at their pack meeting last night.

Now that is one happy kid!

Salt Lake City Library Pictures

2005-06-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

After stopping by Liz's work to give her flowers on our 16 month dating anniversary, I walked around the Salt Lake Library for a while, enjoying the sites. This is what I saw...

Sacrament talk

2005-06-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

Following is the talk I prepared for Sacrament meeting yesterday. I paraphrased a bit as I spoke, but stayed pretty close to this:

Brothers and sisters,

I’ve been asked to speak to you today regarding missions. As I prepared this lesson, I pondered on why it is that missions are so important.

Matthew 12:36-37 says:

36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I pray that the Lord will give me the words that you need to hear today. Please forgive me if I misspeak.

In the Old Testament, a “wise woman” who understood the nature of God’s mercy said the following:

14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. (2 Sam 14:14)

It is for this purpose that God called Jonah to preach to Nineveh, a city full of people ripe for destruction, but people whom nevertheless God had prepared to hear His word.

I’d like for you all to pull out your scriptures and turn to Jonah. It’s a very short book, so you should be able to follow along pretty easily. Everybody knows the story—especially if you watch Veggie Tales—but the scripture itself provides important insights that I wouldn’t want you to miss.

While you’re pulling out your scriptures, here's a brief history lesson:

In Jonah’s time, Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and was described as “an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.” If we take this to mean the time it would take to walk around the city, then it has a circumference of about 60 miles. Nineveh rested on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, across from the modern city of Mosul, Iraq. Modern translations of Genesis state that it was founded by Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah. Nimrod (according to the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus) was a tyrannical dictator, who convinced his people that their happiness came from their own courage and that submission to God was a sign of weakness, and oversaw the building of the Tower of Babel so that if God decided to send another flood it wouldn’t be able to reach to the top of the tower. This all happened long before the time of Jonah, but I thought a little background would be nice.

Located midway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Nineveh benefited greatly from trade in the area and grew into a great city. We see a classic example of the pride cycle here, where the people of Nineveh became so great that they turned to evil ways.

So God asked Jonah to leave Israel, where he was loved and respected, and go to preach to a very wicked people in a distant land. We can only guess at what Jonah was feeling when he received his call. Why did he flee? Nobody likes to be told that they’re being evil; perhaps he was afraid that he would be killed, or imprisoned in Nineveh long enough to witness God’s wrath firsthand. I know I’d be a little apprehensive about walking into a city that I knew was going to be destroyed in 40 days. Or maybe Jonah didn’t want to give the people of Nineveh a chance to repent. It wasn’t a matter of laziness; in order to escape his mission call, he tried to sail away as far as he could in the other direction. The way he acted, we almost have to wonder if he wanted Nineveh destroyed and figured that preaching would only give them a chance to escape the wrath he felt they deserved.

Whatever his reasons, Jonah did what he could to get away and learned that, in the end, you really can’t run away from God. He was swallowed by a “great fish,” which we generally understand to be a whale, and he lay in the belly of the whale for three days.

Now, take a moment to imagine what that must have been like, laying for three days, breathing the rank gases inside this whale, probably lying in a solution of sea water and digestive juices of some sort, tosses about by every movement of the whale in the sea. Even had he dared open his eyes, there would have been no light to see by, neither from sun, nor moon, nor stars. It must have been hell! It’s no wonder in chapter 2, he says, “out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice.” The word he used there for “hell” is the Hebrew word for the spirit world. Jesus later compared this three-day period to the time that He would be in the spirit world after His temporal death. Jonah understood that he had sinned, and that if he had died at that point he would have been experiencing the anguish of the spirit prison. But when he was vomited out onto dry land, he realized that it was by the grace of God that he was saved from death.

In this experience of an unwilling prophet, we can catch a glimpse of God’s plan for all people. The fact is, we all are sinners. We do things we know we are not supposed to do, and we think thoughts that we know are not of God. And yet, for those willing to submit themselves to God’s will, He has extended a hand of mercy. Will our sins be without consequence? No. There are always consequences for sin, and we find that—in this world or the next—our sin will cause us to experience the anguish of having turned from our God: the anguish of being separated from His light. And yet, by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have been saved from death. We will be saved from temporal death—where our spirits were separated from their bodies—because Christ exercised power over his own death to become resurrected. And because Christ atoned for our sins, we can also be saved from a spiritual death—where our spirits are separated from our Heavenly Father.

After this experience, Jonah traveled into the heart of Nineveh and told the people there that God was going to destroy them in 40 days. They believed, fasted, and repented. So why wasn’t Jonah happy? It sounds to me like he was bitter about the fact that God was willing to relent. Maybe he was upset because God had led him to issue a prophecy that hadn’t come true. Or maybe he hated the people of Nineveh so much (whether because of their past deeds, or simply because they weren’t Hebrew) that he didn’t want them to receive God’s mercy. As we have seen at several points in scripture, God used the example of a plant to represent human beings. He showed Jonah that these plants bring Him joy when they grow strong, but that there is a worm that causes them to sicken and die, which brings Him great anguish. Jonah felt more remorse for the loss of a little plant than he did for a city of over a hundred and twenty thousand people!

Brothers and sisters, we have all been called to preach to the world: “Every member a missionary.” But in order to really live this commandment, our actions must stem from a desire to rescue our fellow man. When we truly come to believe in the worth of souls, how can we desire anything but to stamp out the worm that is plaguing them? Brothers and sisters, ask God to help you to develop a greater love and compassion for your neighbors.

I will be leaving in mid-August, and after a short time in the MTC I will go to share the good word of our Lord’s mercy with the people of Paris, France. In the past, I’ve had many occasions to laugh at the many ways in which the French are different from us, but when it all comes down to it, they are just as much the sons and daughters of God as you and I. Please pray for me as I prepare myself to serve this mission, that the Lord might move the hearts of those I teach, and that I will have enough of a Godly perspective to appreciate the results. Also, please make a serious and concerted effort to share the gospel with those around you, and to act as a sign of God’s compassion for them. Even if it’s just a matter of bearing your testimony to someone that needs to hear it. As you do this, know that you and the world will be greatly blessed because of your obedience. Just as we need to show our faith in God by acting on His word, we also need to show our love for one another by sharing with them those things which bring us joy.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Lessons of Time

2005-06-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

These are some lessons I've learned:

It doesn't take very much time at all to have doubt cast on your beliefs, if you heed sources who are intent on casting that doubt.
It takes a lot of time to research relevant topics to the point where you can cast enough truth on those doubts to strengthen your testimony.
In my experience, every time somebody causes me to doubt the truthfulness of the doctrines and revelations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon, and other such things, deep research always results in a deeper understanding and a stronger testimony of my religion.

Based on these discoveries, my conclusions are thus:

It is wise to study deeply any question that has been raised, if it has shaken your faith.
In such cases, it is unwise to rely on the people who raised those questions as a primary source of information for your research.
It is unwise in the first place to heed the words of people who would raise those questions, unless you have enough free time to devote to deep research.

These truths have become increasingly clear to me over the past year or so. Time after time, I have found these things to be evidenced by various experience--even beyond the scope of religion. I am not one to turn a blind eye toward people's misdeeds, but neither am I one to point out the speck of dust in my neighbor's eye, whether my "neighbor" is a friend, relative, stranger, the President of the United States, or a prophet. All these people make mistakes; I'll never pretend otherwise. But I'm not about to listen and accept the words of people whose sole goal in life seems to be finding fault in authority.

Don't watch Fahrenheit 9/11 unless you're ready to watch Fahrenhype 9/11. Don't read The Da Vinci Code unless you're ready to read The Da Vinci Hoax or something like it. Pay no attention to anti-Mormon shock talk unless you're prepared to read through a lot of information. And when you've seen enough and heard enough that you learn to recognize propaganda on sight, be willing to set aside curiosity now and then, and spend time doing something that really matters, like raising a family.

Student Loans

2005-06-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

I was just looking over my expenses and realized that my student loan payments went through at the end of last month. That means I now have zero personal debt. I haven't used my credit cards for a good month or so, since I'm trying to simplify my accounting in preparation for my mission. My car was paid off years ago--just a few months after I bought it, in fact. And now I just payed off over $10,000 in student loans. I took the loans in case I needed to use the money, but I kept as much of the money as I could saved up in a special account where I didn't touch it. Due to the nature of the loans, the government was willing to pay interest on them up until 6 months after I graduated. I figured I'd get it taken care of early, though. Boy, does it feel good!

Now I just need to keep saving for my mission. I just called the registrar's office at school to find out whether they'd got me officially graduated yet. It takes a couple of months for them to sort through all the paperwork and such, but I need to get evidence that I graduated in order to qualify for my Extended Good Student Discount on car insurance, which is due this month. I also need to take care of my car's annual registration, but I'm going to wait until later on in the month to do that. Liz is buying my car when I go on my mission, and apparently she can just transfer my registration if she buys it within two months of my registering it. It may be a bit of a hassle, but it saves money, and right now that's important.

Speaking of money, the folks at GE OEC Medical Systems, where I worked last summer and last school year, are trying to get special permission for me to come back temporarily and work on a couple of projects for them. While I was working for them I automated some processes for them using some VBA programming. Now they're making some procedural changes and want to update the programs I made, but since I'm the only person they know of that knows how to do it, they're pretty eager to get me back for a little while. Job security is a funny thing.

Sitting

2005-06-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

Mom's out of town at an E. Excel convention and I've been watching the kids since Thursday. It's been tiring, but fun. I guess there's not really a lot more to say about it, but I thought I'd mention that that's where I've been the last couple of days. Mom gets home Sunday.

Sanity, Insanity, and Tragic Irony

2005-05-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

Sanity: The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Government accommodations of religious worship are not an unconstitutional form of favoritism.

Insanity: A mob angered by an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a KFC restaurant on fire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and bringing the day's overall death toll to 12, police said Tuesday. What does KFC or its employees have to do with the mosque bombing?

Tragic Irony: A teenager's killing rampage in Ohio perplexed school officials, who said he seemed to have been in good spirits. His name? Scott Moody.

If you can't say something true...

2005-05-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

One thing I've noticed is that people can be pretty cavalier in spouting information that they really know nothing about. It's a general principle that seems to be multiplied when applied to the LDS faith. For instance, consider this gem from "Father Jack":

Gnosticism implies that Christian history is an imprisoning antiqueish (sic), structure, unnecessary, and that Jesus is not God, nor, certainly, a Savior. Gnostics were an elitist sect who believed in arcane knowledge to save souls their own, human way. They wanted some apocryphal ("hidden") gospels to be part of the Bible, which is Brown's agenda, saying these unreliable, sometimes unrational (sic) accounts are necessary for holiness....Mormons in the last century similarly said there was an alternative revelation--to Joseph Smith in New York, which alleged that so-called "lost Israelite tribes" continued via native American Indians to present-day Mormon lineages. And, Jesus wasn't divine or eternal. Thus, Mormons are not Christians. [emphasis added]

From what I understand about gnosticism, the first part of what he said was true. But it's like he couldn't resist the temptation to use it as a jab at "Mormons." To be nitpicky:

"similarly" implies that the message of the Mormons was somehow akin to the gnostic gospels, or to the message of The Da Vinci Code, depending on what you attach it to. Not true.
"alternative revelation" again implies that Joseph Smith's revelations were an alternative to Christianity or the belief that Christ is our God and Savior. Contrariwise, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon totally testify of Jesus Christ's divinity and eternal nature.
"continued via native American Indians to present-day Mormon lineages" -- Is he saying that Mormons are claiming to be descendants of Nephites? He's totally off the mark.
"And, Jesus wasn't divine or eternal" -- See point 2. The entire LDS faith is centered around Jesus Christ, and the belief that He is our God. In fact, the official name of the LDS Church is: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." Unlike Father Jack's "Catholic Church," we actually take on the name of Jesus Christ, like He told us to! Yet, I've noticed that many non-LDS people prefer to call us "Mormons" so they don't have to deal with this truth.

Anybody who knows what the LDS faith is all about couldn't possibly have made this sort of mistaken claims. Yet this religious leader has no qualms about making unsupported statements like this. It certainly doesn't give the man much credibility. Whether it's because he's making it up (which I doubt) or because he's getting his information from an unreliable source (more likely), it still makes me hesitate to believe whatever else he has to say. It's just so easy for people to just say something bad about the LDS faith and assume that nobody will know any better, since their audience isn't LDS.

Real scholars aren't immune to this syndrome, either. Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel wrote The Da Vinci Hoax in order to use a scholarly and fact-filled approach to debunking the claims of The Da Vinci Code. Yes, the mistaken claims of The Da Vinci Code are so numerous that people have written fairly sizeable books about them. I finished reading The Da Vinci Hoax this morning, and I found it for the most part very informative. It was nice that on most of their points they provided sources that you could follow to verify what they were saying. They also told you (when possible) where Dan Brown (the DVC's author) got his ideas, revealing that most of the information came from a selective interpretation of already-flawed information from two different books. But I digress.

Despite the generally truthful and factual nature of the book, the authors couldn't help using it to make a jab at the LDS faith. After describing the general gist of Gnosticism, page 70 states:

The appeal of secret knowledge and the promise of elite techniques for harnessing the spiritual realm make gnosticism appealing to a diverse range of cultures and peoples, from second-century Valentinians to the medieval Cathars of France to the nineteenth-century followers of Joseph Smith and modern-day New Agers.

So they're saying that the reason people join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to gain some kind of "secret knowledge" and "elite techniques," and they imply (but stop just short of actually stating) that we have some kind of mystical, non-Christian view of the world, and that we use the gnostic gospels or something. Of course, they offer no reference source for this allegation. Then, in the very next sentence, they launch into a paragraph about the Heavens Gate cult. Frankly, I find the association insulting.

I guess I just wish that people would get their facts straight before acting like what they say is "Gospel Truth."

Silly people

2005-05-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

This interesting CNN article talks about the reasons that the French people are probably going to vote against the EU Constitution. It's probably a good thing that I'm not going to be allowed to talk politics while I'm in France. They sure do have a different way of thinking.

M4A to M4B file converter

2005-05-27T15:18:00.002-07:00

A friend asked me if there was an easier way to convert ripped iTunes files into audiobook-style iTunes files than to do it by hand. She's got a bunch of audio books that she'd like to listen to on her iPod, but there's not really a graceful way to rip them as audio books automatically. But the only difference between the music files and the audiobook files is the extension gets changed from .m4a to .m4b. Apparently, there's a script that does this for Macs, but the Windows users are forced to manually rename the M4A files to M4B and then point iTunes to the renamed file.

So I buckled down and wrote this little application to do it automatically. It's pretty self-explanatory. Just download both files into the same folder (any folder will do) and run M4AtoM4B.exe.

By downloading and/or running this application, you agree not to use it for evil purposes, and you won't allow anybody else to get their grubby paws on it except by having them go through this website first. While I see no reason why it should hurt your computer in any way, I can make no guarantees as to the safety of your files, folders, programs, hardware, life, liberty, or property if you use this program. Good luck.

So, without further ado, the files:

Interop.iTunesLib.dll (necessary library for interfacing with iTunes)
M4AtoM4B.exe (the file to run)

Another handy feature, by the way, is that the "Clean" button will search and remove dead tracks from your iTunes Library. So if you've moved stuff around manually and now you have a bunch of dead links, you can use this tool to automatically clean house.

If you have suggestions for improvement, stick a comment to this blog entry. I'll get to it when I can.

The program was written in C# using Visual Studio .NET 2003. If you're on an older computer, you might need to head over to the Windows Update site and get the .NET runtime.

Update: Many people have asked about the possibility of merging their audio book files into one file. Dagon Design has an article about Turning MP3 Audiobooks into iPod Audiobooks which gives a good overview of the whole process, including a link to an MP3 Merger tool that can be used to merge your MP3 files into a single file. Thanks to an anonymous commenter for this tip-off.

Support Scouting

2005-05-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

As an Eagle Scout myself, I think this is very important:

I have just signed the National Petition to Congress urging them to enact the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005. This legislation has been drafted by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and has been endorsed by the Boy Scouts of America.

There has never been a time when Scouting has been more important to our young men and to our nation than it is now. Yet, there has never been a time when Scouting has been under greater attack than now.

This bill will ensure that the federal government will continue to support Scouting and that the Scouts will be treated fairly and equally with all other youth groups. More background information is posted, along with the National Petition, is posted on the Scouting Legal Defense Fund's Web site. (http://ctserver.ath.cx/sldf/petition.html)

The homosexual activists and others who are attacking Scouting are organizing to defeat this bill, so it is essential that all of us willing to defend Scouting let Congress know that we support it.

I hope you will visit this site and sign this National Petition. It takes just a moment.

Newsweek, cont'd.

2005-05-23T16:18:00.000-07:00

Somebody here made this interesting comment, regarding the Japanese Newsweek "America is Dead" cover:

Just to put a bit more context to this cover - if it's dated Feb 2 as Riding Sun states, then it was on the newstands as the Iraqis risked their lives to vote.

And apparently the cover wasn't the only difference. The story titled "Dream on, America" in the International Edition ("America, the dream country, is rotting away" in the Japanese edition) was never printed in the U.S. edition. Now, I can understand choosing not to print a story with only localized interest. For instance, I doubt the Europeans care that much about Terri Schiavo, or in this case, the Oscars. But I would think that if America is rotting away, that might be an important story for Americans to hear about. Another commentor on the same blog compared it to "when Arafat used to say one thing in English--a kinder, gentler Arafat--and another in Arabic."

On the brighter side, here's an article about how America's presence in the Middle East has been a catalyst for changes for the better. This is the first time I've heard this particular viewpoint, so I'm not going to take it at face value. But I'd like to consider it, just because it seems like an informed opinion.

Newsweek

2005-05-19T14:02:00.000-07:00

It looks like I've got a bit of news to catch up on. First of all, it appears increasingly unlikely to me that the Newsweek article I mentioned a few posts ago hit the mark squarely. You've probably heard this by now, but after all those folks were killed in riots, Newsweek retracted their story... sort of. They said it could have happened, but they couldn't verify that it had, so sorry for printing it. According to Reuters, the International Red Cross received reports in 2002 and early 2003 that the Koran was being treated without due respect (they declined to confirm or deny the toilet-flushing scenario), but that after reporting this to the U.S. government, corrective measures were taken and there hasn't been a report since then. Let me say again: the International Red Cross says "those allegations have not resurfaced" since early 2003. Even at that time, it sounds like it mostly was a matter of non-Muslims touching the Koran, or of a Koran accidentally falling to the floor. In January 2003, they issued guidelines detailing how to handle the Koran with proper respect. Do we have to ask whether these people would have shown equivalent respect to captured Americans? Not a chance.

Oh, and then we managed to enrage the Muslim world by not preventing a British newspaper from obtaining and printing photos of Saddam Hussein standing in his underpants, folding his pants. Gee, poor ousted dictator. Be sure you don't mention that he ordered his own citizens raped, tortured and killed. Hush: That might cause some people not to show him the kind of respect that he deserves.

A funny side note: as Riding Sun points out, there was a very interesting difference between Newsweek's covers in early February of this year. The American one was all about the Oscars, whereas the Japanese one features an American flag in the trashcan. Pretty ironic, considering they are now criticizing the U.S. for the alleged disrespect of an important symbol. The Force of Human Freedom printed a translation of the table of contents.

Mission Call

2005-05-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just opened my mission call. I'm going to Paris, France (French-speaking). I'll be going to the MTC on August 17. Sweet!

Why strict churches are strong

2005-05-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

The Power of the Mustard Seed - Why strict churches are strong. By Judith Shulevitz

Slate has an interesting piece describing an economist's essay that explains in quantifiable terms why people choose to follow faiths that have strict rules of obedience and such. A couple of excerpts:

Iannaccone starts by asking why people join strict churches, given that doing so exacts such a high price. Eccentric customs invite ridicule and persecution; membership in a marginal church may limit chances for social and economic advancement; rules of observance bar access to apparently innocent pleasures; the entire undertaking squanders time that could have been spent amusing or improving oneself.
...
What does the pious person get in return for all of his or her time and effort? A church full of passionate members; a community of people deeply involved in one another's lives and more willing than most to come to one another's aid; a peer group of knowledgeable souls who speak the same language (or languages), are moved by the same texts, and cherish the same dreams.

Blood

2005-05-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

When I was in my interview with the Stake President a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned that my doctor's recommendation listed me as having O+ blood. I was sort of afraid of that. What it means is that now I'm going to feel bad if I don't give blood. I really hate needles. It's just not natural to stick something into your body like that. I hated getting my hepatitis shots. But I realize that it's really important that they always have enough blood, and that my blood type is really important for them to have. So I went today when my stake was doing a blood drive, and gave blood. My wonderful girlfriend, Liz, came to lend me courage and read me funny headlines out of a book she has. It all went really well. I feel fine. And I got a cool T-shirt.

Now I'm back home, and I'm going to continue cleaning up my room while Liz fills out job applications. Fun stuff.

Saith the Post-Donation and Call-Back Instructions:

A rainbow of color may occur for about 10 days

Sweet!

Link: Democracy and Tolerance

2005-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

The Title of Liberty posted this little gem which really hits the nail on the head as far as the dangers of favoring tolerance over liberty. It's amazing to me to see the insight that people had tens, hundreds, and even thousands of years ago, that applies specifically to the state of our nation today.

What's allowed?

2005-05-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Is a federal judge allowed to reject a state's democratically-established constitutional amendment?

Is a school principal allowed to tell students they can't have Bible study during recess?

Or how about this one:

Wesley's teacher had invited Busch to her classroom at Culbertson Elementary School on Oct. 18 as part of "Me Week," in which the class would learn more about a featured student...

One of the activities involves the student's parent reading aloud from a favorite book in class. Busch said her son's favorite book is the Bible.

But before the teacher would let Busch continue, she said she would have to get permission from Principal Thomas Cook. After a meeting in the hall, Cook informed Busch she couldn't read the Bible in class...

And here's a sad story:

Newsweek magazine said in its May 9 edition that investigators probing abuses at the U.S. military prison in Cuba found that interrogators "had placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet."

That is despicable behavior. Utterly inexcusable. That needs to be investigated. If it's really happening, it needs to be stopped, and somebody in charge needs to be removed from their position for allowing (or encouraging, as the case may be) that sort of behavior. But killing people is really the wrong way to go about it. If God (Allah, whatever) had the option of seeing one human being kill another and seeing one human being flush a holy book down the toilet, where do you think His priorities would be? I don't know what the Koran teaches, but the Bible says our bodies are temples. Do you destroy one of God's temples in retribution for the destruction of scriptures?