Mormon Bloggers

I used to want to be an editor. I like marking up papers and being right, and it’s the only thing one can do with a Bachelor’s in English Linguistics without going to graduate school or learning how to program computers. It was pretty much my only chance to be employable, so I went with it. Then I took an editing class where we practiced editing real material, and I hated it more than I have ever hated anything in my life. I think it’s because people can be real idiots, and I have no patience for it. If you can’t write, why are you writing a book? No, your writing is terrible. YOU shut up. My career as an editor would have been short-lived. Or I would have become an agent within a matter of weeks. Seemingly unrelated tangent! Have you ever heard of the infant literacy program Your Baby Can Read? It’s like the poor man’s Baby Einstein. Although unlike Baby Einstein, YBCR hasn’t been sued for false advertising … yet. Basically... Read the rest of this entry »

I have twice dreamt about being mauled by a bear. In both of these dreams, the bear ripped my stomach open and I lay there, dying while holding my insides in with my hands. The first time I had this dream I believe I was alone, the second I was with some friends–the same friends with whom I had gone backpacking a few months prior. They expressed sadness that I had been mauled by a bear, and I took comfort in their friendship in my last moments. I mentioned these dreams offhand to my father a few days ago, and he expressed concern about my psychic balance. But he’s kind of a paranoid guy who believes in astrology, so let’s disregard his opinion for now and consult Dr. Google. According to the VERY legit-seeming website dreammoods.com, my dream signifies change and a need to be more open with others. “To see a bear in your dream, symbolizes independence, the cycle of life, death and renewal. It may signal of period of introspection and thinking. The dream... Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, it didn’t take that long for me to return to the medium with which I am the most comfortable. Which is writing, in case that wasn’t clear. However, sharing links of other people’s writing is another one of my talents, as you can see below. Here is what I have been thinking about lately. It has always cracked me up a little bit how alarmist humans can be about new technologies. Every time we come up with a new medium of self-expression, someone out there will insist that THIS will be the downfall of educated communication, that it will overload the human brain to the point of non-functioning. They said that Instant Messaging would ruin our ability to spell (LOL!), they said that the Internet would make us all hyper-reliant on Google, eventually making any and all information retention impossible. I scoff at this. We all scoff at this. Folks in the Middle Ages worried that the printing press would make us stupid, and I think we can all agree that its... Read the rest of this entry »

The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest electronic computers, operational in April 1949, when my mom was 3 years old. The researchers who built the machine pioneered the use of index registers, which were apparently crucial to the eventual development of the vastly comprehensive computer memory you and I all enjoy today. This is the information I determined to be the most important when I beefed up on computer history in thirty seconds before I started writing this. (The part about my mom being three years old when it became operational wasn’t part of my research. I used my powers of deduction.) Not because Valentine’s Day is imminent, but rather because love, and nerdiness, and ESPECIALLY nerdy love (or lovely nerdiness) ought to be celebrated every weekend of the year, I wish to inform you that in 1952 a brilliant man named Christopher Strackey developed a computer program called “Loveletters” that operates on the internet to this very day, in its original... Read the rest of this entry »

Off and on, there is the venture over to the Mormon Apologetic Discussion Board where the participation is robust, various topics explored, and questions postulated with diverse answers. One particular posting caught the interest of the more creative and authorian side. Claremont Graduate University is having a submission call for Academic papers that deal with [...]  Read More →

“Natural affection between generations began to be enriched. This restoration was accompanied by what is sometimes called the Spirit of Elijah–a manifestation of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the divine nature of the family. Hence, people throughout the world, regardless of religious affiliation, are gathering records of deceased relatives at an ever-increasing rate. “Elijah came not only to stimulate research for ancestors. He also enabled families to be eternally linked beyond the bounds of mortality. Indeed, the opportunity for families to be sealed forever is the real reason for our research.” Elder Russell M. Nelson, Ensign May 1998, 34  Read More →

“Natural affection between generations began to be enriched. This restoration was accompanied by what is sometimes called the Spirit of Elijah–a manifestation of the Holy Ghost bearing witness of the divine nature of the family. Hence, people throughout the world, regardless of religious affiliation, are gathering records of deceased relatives at an ever-increasing rate. “Elijah came not only to stimulate research for ancestors. He also enabled families to be eternally linked beyond the bounds of mortality. Indeed, the opportunity for families to be sealed forever is the real reason for our research.” Elder Russell M. Nelson, Ensign May 1998, 34  Read More →