1,000 Years of Abuse; Millions (Billions?) Victimized

I was very disturbed reading this one:

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

A substantive article in the City Journal (ht:T&S), “Child-Man in the Promised Land”, documents what we have all observed:

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance.

It is hard not to agree with the sentiment of the article: that we should be very afraid of what the new child-man will make of our society. Perhaps LDS men who were married with kids by 26 can chime in here. And wasn’t Brigham Young saying something about this 150 years ago? I doubt that Kay S. Hymowitz reads the Journal of Discourses though.

In the article, Hymowitz notes that

Not only is no one asking that today’s twenty- or thirtysomething become a responsible husband and father—that is, grow up—but a freewheeling marketplace gives him everything that he needs to settle down in pig’s heaven indefinitely.

To this I would only say “Have you heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”

Would I be correct in assuming that the Mormon Church isn’t exactly the solution that Hymowitz is pining for in this article?

Bemused Observations

The shoe shiner at my firm today explained to me that Americans really like getting their shoes shined whereas the British don’t have it done. The reason for this, she explained, can be found in British public (i.e. private) schools where only “fags”, as she put it, shine their shoes and then all the other rich boys beat them up.

Americans, by contrast, she explained, love getting their shoes shined because they are “fond of animals” what with all that killing and beef and skins. Also all the horse riding out and about in the free. “We don’t do all that in England.”

A Tale of Labor Terrorism in Salt Lake City

I just noticed a Salt Lake Tribune article about a fascinating episode of labor terrorism in Utah history by Utah historian and Times and Seasons blogger Ardis Parshall. (ht: T&S sidebar)

Some Still Talk of the Old Gifts, Part II

Brother I.C. was baptized last Saturday. Yesterday during Fast and Testimony meeting, he stood to share his most recent miracle — that of finding the Gospel.

The Fuzzy Line Between Corporate Teambuilding and Waterboarding

I found Wednesday’s Salt Lake Tribune article about a Provo motivational coaching business’s technique at corporate teambuilding to be a bit shocking but still had to laugh out of a sense of schadenfreude.

Sign of the Times

“. . . . and when the night came they slept upon their [blackberries].” (compare Ether 15:20)

In my line of work, I periodically — and these days more often than previously — find myself sleeping with my blackberry under my pillow. Is this a harbinger of the imminent collapse of our civilization?

Family Search — On the Road, a Public Genealogy Outreach Effort

Has anyone else had exposure to or experience with the Church’s new mobile Family Search unit that travels around providing people in the communities where our chapels are found with the opportunity to do basic family history research?

Some Still Talk of the Old Gifts

In Brother C.K.’s country of origin, Zimbabwe, genealogical work is very difficult — in many cases impossible. It was this fact that made the experience that he shared in his testimony yesterday in Sacrament Meeting that much more miraculous.

Farewell President Hinckley

It was with a heavy heart this morning that we learned the news of President Hinckley’s death last night.

When President Hinckley became President of the Church on March 12, 1995, I didn’t know much about him. His face was, of course, already a fixture in Church leadership, as familiar as any other that I could remember at that time because of his central function in Church leadership during the presidencies of Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson, and Howard W. Hunter. He became President of the Church only a few months before I entered the MTC for my mission to Berlin. I didn’t think too much about it, although by then his voice at General Conference was already as a balm in Gilead to me in the way that it conveyed the message of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the marvelous work and wonder of the Restored Gospel. But it was while seated at a General Conference in the Tiergarten stake center in West Berlin when President Hinckley gave his electrifying and forceful rebuke of spouse or child abusers in the Church that I realized my gratitude for him and how lucky I would be to receive his counsel as the Lord’s mouthpiece for however long the Lord would prolong his days in his office of the Presidency. I’ll never forget that meeting, nor many others in which he taught the truths of the Restored Gospel in magnification of his weighty calling.