Mormon Bloggers

Greeting, Gentle Readers, Thanksgiving Day is often referred to as “turkey day”, now. I had never heard it called that until somewhere in the 1980s. Now I hear it all the time. When my husband heard it called that, he told me how much it hurt him. He was one of those who spent World War II in Europe. He was only a small child when the war started, but he lived in Amsterdam, Holland, and the Germans roared into that city on May 5, 1940. He says he was awakened in the wee hours of that day by the roar of German tanks, as they took over Holland. That war was a horrifying experience for a young child. He was completely dependent on his mother, since the Dutch men began to be taken captive right away. Any man who fought back was shot, immediately. If anyone took part in any resistance, all the men left in that block of houses were brought downstairs at gun point, lined up against the wall of the building, and machine-gunned down. That tactic worked most successfully to keep the populace... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, Perhaps all Americans saw and heard the woman who ecstatically exulted that she would no longer have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage. Why? Because Obama had been elected President of this country. She said if they took care of him–meaning if they elected him–he would take care of them. Is it our President’s job to put gas in the cars and pay the mortgages of his constituents? I don’t remember being taught that in school. In fact, it says nothing about that in my copy of our Constitution. It talks about his providing for the common defense and general welfare of the citizenry, but I can’t find anything about gas in cars and paying mortgages. So, how did this weird reading of the President’s job come to pass? It may have been a result of his telling people who don’t pay any taxes that they were going to get a tax cut, which, subsequently, has been correctly defined as a welfare check. Then, again, it may have been something... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, As a man discussed the problem of teens being more inclined to take advice from their friends than from their parents, he said they must be taught to be “source critical.” As I thought of this, I realized that a member of our family had done precisely that. He had trusted his friends advice more than that of his parents, and the cost was incalculable. His friends had told him his parents didn’t know what they were talking about, when they warned him of the dangers of using drugs. But his parents had been right, and acting on his friends advice cost him decades of extreme drug addiction, a stretch of time in a penitentiary, his family and his health. To use the words of the speaker, he had definitely not been source critical, when he had chosen to accept advice from his friends, rather than his parents. The speaker also addressed the ripple effect of accepting advice, whether bad or good. As I think of our children who followed our advice, they have... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, When activists want to change laws, but haven’t a chance, they turn to activist judges, who do their dirty work for them. That is what has happened in three states, Massachusetts, California, and now, Connecticut. In each of these states, courts have struck down laws confining marriage to a man and a woman, and have made marriage legal between two women or two men. The citizens of California have overturned that court ruling and have, if we understand correctly, returned to the original law, permanently. They put it in their constitution, which should keep the courts from having the power to override. Too bad I don’t have much faith in their success. Somehow, I think the activists will find a way to get around the will of the people. So, what is our job? Let’s not wimp out! The citizens of California have shown us the way. They have paid the price, and they won. We must do the same from one day to the next, in one circumstance or the next. While it won’t... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, When Brigham Young used this saying, he was simply repeating it. He had most likely heard it from birth. It was a common attitude in the earlier years of our country’s existence. The difference between America and the countries of the old world was that, in America, if a person worked, he could earn enough to eat. That was not the case in the countries our ancestors left, when they came to this land. Only in America could you truly benefit from your own labor.While this was not universally true, particularly where slaves were concerned in the early years, it was a more correct principle in America than in any other country. When most men married, they made sure they had a way to feed, clothe and house a wife and the children they assumed, indeed hoped, would be born to them. And they knew that “them as works eats.” My ancestors, most of whom were weavers, farmers or ranchers, depending on the family background, usually grew their own food, which is... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, With the great uncertainty families face in today’s economy, it can be well understood why many have allowed themselves to be caught up in despair and sorrow. We have one of the most divisive presidential elections in our nation’s history, the economy is failing and people are losing their homes, businesses and jobs. This could easily be a time where Americans could be mired down in the negatives and forget what we really should be concentrating on. Our prophets have counseled us for ages to prepare for the future. They’ve urged us to prepare for all types of economic downturn, whether they be the byproduct of natural disasters or man-made? Many have listened and many have not. If you have been unable to get food storage and a preparedness plan in place, it is my recommendation you begin by purchasing Preparedness Principles by Barbara Salsbury, one of the foremost experts on preparedness, both disaster and provident, in the nation. With all that... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, What does America have that makes it different from other countries? We have good weather. So do most of the other countries around the world. We have beautiful views. So do other countries. We have some really good people and some really bad people. So do other countries. So what’s the big deal? More and more Americans are being taught to think that America is not an exceptional country. We even have large numbers of college students who are being taught that we are a bad country. They are being taught that Marxism and Communism, for instance, are superior system of government to the one we are guaranteed in our Constitution. They are being taught that America is a racist country, where minorities are oppressed and abused. They are being taught that their country is selfish, though no other country on earth gives to others, especially in catastrophes, as ours does. They are being taught that we abuse the people of other countries. They are, in fact, being taught... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, Our financial situation in this country has become downright dangerous for some of our people. Though we almost (but not quite) understand where we are now, how did we get there? It seems to have happened this way: Politicians in very high places got involved in some things they did not understand and started a destructive ball rolling down a pretty steep hill. As it rolled, it pick up a little bit of financial this and a little bit of financial that. By the time it hit the bottom, it had become wrapped up in a staggering percentage of most of the world’s economy. Let’s begin at the beginning, a very good place to start, to quote a delightful song: During the Clinton presidency, there arose a tremendous political outcry against mortgage lenders who seemingly discriminated against minorities. Minorities were denied loans more often that whites. Instead of analyzing the data to find the reason for the denials, newspapers trumpeted their own interpretations of... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, As I watched a man discussing this upcoming election, he bowed his head and asked Heavenly Father to give us wise leaders. So what responsibility do we have in this “wise leaders” business? Do we just ask for them and automatically get them? I don’t think so. Why? Because we have to do the actual voting that brings those wise leaders into office. Too bad there are so many “slips twixt cup and lip”. Let’s examine a few. Let’s say a very wise man runs for office. He should be an automatic winner, right? Not really. Why? Because he must run the gauntlet of political assassination, before he could get into office. Think I have overstated it? I haven’t. Let’s use the newest celebrity as an example. Let’s discuss “Joe the plumber.” Joe Wurzelbacher, an aspiring small business owner, asked Obama about getting his taxes increased if Obama was elected. Obama responded that such an increase would be necessary to “spread... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings, Gentle Reader, We have always referred to the election season as “The Silly Season.” We had good reason for this bit of levity. Seemingly sane people can be persuaded by the smoothest talker in town to vote for the worst, dumbest, most crooked guy in town. They will vote themselves a tax increase without a second thought. All it takes is smooooth packaging, by a smooooth talker. Somehow, this year the silly season has ceased to be silly. It has become fraught with a level of danger to which we are unaccustomed. Voting for someone who says he is going to cut our taxes, when his history says he will raise them, is silly, but not dangerous. Voting for the guy who says he will give us the moon all wrapped up in shiny paper is silly, but not dangerous. Now we are being persuaded to vote for a guy, some of whose cohorts think and say is Jesus Christ. That scares me. Neither of today’s candidates is Jesus Christ, but we are being encouraged to think one of them is precisely... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings Gentle Reader, As I was spending some time this morning in prayer and contemplation, it occurred to me that the candidate for whom we should vote in this election is dependent on whom Vladimir Putin, Ahmadinejad, China’s leader, Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Columbia, etc., want to see elected. For whom would they vote if they could vote in our election? Would it be the old war horse, who would bomb them into people-paste if they attacked us (and they know it), or would it be the dimpled darling of the anti-America university professor set, the hero of the pathological Bush-hating set, the world citizen? It will be one or the other, and we need to consider carefully the ramifications of getting the wrong one. We may get the wrong one anyway, no matter for whom we vote, but we must not help to elect him. We should remember that James Madison, president during the war of 1812, genius of the Virginia Plan that became our Constitution, was the worst one we... Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings Gentle Reader, Honesty has become an endangered species in our country, assuming one can label honesty a species. How did this happen? It’s not just the usual level of dishonesty; it has reached a level I haven’t seen before. Part of it is surely because of the election, but it seems to have become acceptable to make a statement that is diametrically opposed to a politician’s position taken a week ago. That’s bad enough, but I hear those in the news media doing the same thing. This has always been true in countries where the government is definitely not “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” That is to be expected, but in Americans, it is inexcusable.Now, if it only were true in our politicians and in Hollywood, we could live with it, because those two sets of people have always been that way. What is worrying me is the everyday people who seem to be learning from the denizens of Hollywood and the inhabitants of the seats of political power. More... Read the rest of this entry »