I've noticed in my life what seems to be a common axiom in the LDS faith--young, recently married couples are great speakers. Whereas they recently managed to successfully exit the dating pool and enter married life obviously means they have exceptionally valuable input into how to be happy and successful members of society, so we should all be eager to take part of their wisdom.
The first thing that comes to mind is an anecdote (perhaps fictional) of a young bride who "reportedly said to her mother on her wedding day, 'Oh, Mom, I’m so happy! I’m at the end of my troubles.'
"'Yes, dear,' replied the wise mother, 'but which end?1'"
That pretty well sums up how I feel about newlywed speakers. Far too often, it feels like their big insight is on how to snag that special someone and fall in love. Having done that, life is all roses now and we will live out the rest of our days in peace and happiness.
GAG!
With all due respect to those who haven't found the spouse they are seeking, getting married is a lot easier than being married2. It's easy to put on your best face and show off your strengths when you're dating. It's hard (and unrealistic) to keep up that image once the spouse is living with you.
So I guess it does rub me the wrong way when I feel like we're being told that if we just make ourselves the kind of person someone would want to marry, then we'll find happiness (through marriage). What about something more sound like, oh I don't know, being the kind of person you want to be because it makes you happy to be that person? Happiness isn't dependent on a spouse, after all; It's dependent on the individual. I suspect newlyweds are too caught up in the novelty of marriage to see the whole picture.
1 Bruce C and Marie Hafen, "Opposition, Joy, and the Nice Life," Ensign, December 1992.
2 Especially in a sub-culture where the average time from first meeting to marriage is seemingly less than 12 months.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Patrol Leader's Campaign Speech
I believe that I, CIG, deserve to have the leadership position patrol leader because I will tell you when the patrol name "the thunder flaming chicken turtle tomahawk pandas" is not a good name. I shall lead this patrol over every other patrol. I will get rid of that horrible dancing banana and save all of our lives. I will try to get cereals like frosted flakes and fruit loops into our breakfasts and tell you playing with the wild bear is not smart. now I hope you are thinking hard about this speech and make the right choice for you and for the riddance of the dancing banana.
This is why I love scouting.
Missing values and missing values and missing values
It used to be common practice to code missing values with a numeric substitute that you would know would be a missing value. I'm not sure what the origins of the practice are, but I'm fairly certain it had to do with limitations in how the computer stored data. Fortunately, our systems have evolved to a point that we don't have to use this practice any more. Instead, we can place a blank in the data and simply tell the computer to interpret that as missing.
Unless you're using SPSS. In which case, you still need to define a number to be the "missing value." In the data I'm currently working on, the options for missing data are 888, 999, 8888, 9999, 88888, and "n/a".
Is it any wonder that no one with any credibility uses SPSS anymore?
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Best Wisdom of our Time
The following comes from a scene of The West Wing (Season 1, Ep. 14, "Take This the Sabbath Day"). A high profile capital case has just been reviewed by the Supreme Court; the conviction and sentence were upheld. The staff of the West Wing now has just over 48 hours to decide if the President should commute the death sentence.
This scene is a particularly profound moment. Toby, the Communications Director, has gone to see his rabbi about the issue. The dialog follows:
I'm not going to talk about the death penalty and I don't want to debate that today. But I think it could be useful to apply a principle from that scene into an old topic that has publicly reared it's head again. The Washington post recently ran an article, "The Genesis of a church’s stand on race." In this article, a BYU professor makes an attempt to explain the banning of the LDS priesthood from blacks as a God-inspired directive for their own protection.
I won't bother to go into detail about how condescending the statements are1. What I want to know this: why is it so hard to say that racism might have played a part or been the cause of the ban? It was the 1840's! Are we really going to be surprised that racism existed in 1840? It seems painfully obvious to me that racism was probably a factor in the horrific decision to deny blacks the priesthood.
For years, scholars both inside and outside of the Church have searched for the origin of the ban. No one really has any idea when or how or why it started. Most of the evidence and commentary I've seen (admittedly, not a whole lot) paints a pretty good picture for racism.
"For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time."
Sure, it was crappy wisdom. Sure, there might be other factors (political issues around slavery, for instance). Sure, the wisdom of the time was no reason for the ban to endure so long (For all the talk of the fallibility of the prophets, Mormons, God bless them, sure have a hard time admitting that their prophets actually have faults). But in the context of the time, I can understand why the ban would be instituted, even if it was wrong (and make no mistake, I believe it was wrong).
So why would God allow his prophet to institute such an abominable policy?
Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, God grits his teeth and endures the worst possible characteristics in man-kind in hopes that maybe he can soften our hearts enough that over time, we might behave the way he actually wants us to behave? Remember, this is the same God that allowed entire populations to be slaughtered because the weren't descended from Jacob. This is the same God who allowed homosexuals to be put to death; the same God who allowed children to be stoned for being disobedient to their parents; the same God who allowed women to be decried unclean for having the audacity to menstruate.
It's taken us a few thousand years, but by golly we figured out all by ourselves that those things are wrong. Let us now develop the courage to look back and say, "For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time, but it’s just plain wrong by any modern standard."
I'll join with the Church's most recent statement and "unequivocally condemn racism, including any and all past racism by individuals both inside and outside the Church." If the priesthood ban was instituted or perpetuated because of racism, I have complete faith that the Lord will chasten the instigators and perpetuators in a manner suitable to his infinite wisdom.
Given a few thousand more years, maybe we might finally start to act the way God would like us to act. For now, I have to deal with the fact that someone is going to look at my day and say, "For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time, but it’s just plain wrong by any modern standard."
1 I will point out for defenders that Professor Bott's (now removed) blog contains many similar comments to what was reported in the article. This really damages the argument that he was misquoted, as he and his defenders claim.
This scene is a particularly profound moment. Toby, the Communications Director, has gone to see his rabbi about the issue. The dialog follows:
TOBY: The Torah doesn’t prohibit capital punishment.
RABBI GLASSMAN: No.
TOBY: It says, “An eye for an eye.”
RABBI GLASSMAN: You know what it also says? It says a rebellious child can be brought to the city gates and stoned to death. It says homosexuality is an abomination and punishable by death. It says men can be polygamous and slavery is acceptable. For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time, but it’s just plain wrong by any modern standard. Society has a right to protect itself, but it doesn’t have a right to be vengeful. It has a right to punish, but it doesn’t have a right to kill.
(watch the scene)
I'm not going to talk about the death penalty and I don't want to debate that today. But I think it could be useful to apply a principle from that scene into an old topic that has publicly reared it's head again. The Washington post recently ran an article, "The Genesis of a church’s stand on race." In this article, a BYU professor makes an attempt to explain the banning of the LDS priesthood from blacks as a God-inspired directive for their own protection.
I won't bother to go into detail about how condescending the statements are1. What I want to know this: why is it so hard to say that racism might have played a part or been the cause of the ban? It was the 1840's! Are we really going to be surprised that racism existed in 1840? It seems painfully obvious to me that racism was probably a factor in the horrific decision to deny blacks the priesthood.
For years, scholars both inside and outside of the Church have searched for the origin of the ban. No one really has any idea when or how or why it started. Most of the evidence and commentary I've seen (admittedly, not a whole lot) paints a pretty good picture for racism.
"For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time."
Sure, it was crappy wisdom. Sure, there might be other factors (political issues around slavery, for instance). Sure, the wisdom of the time was no reason for the ban to endure so long (For all the talk of the fallibility of the prophets, Mormons, God bless them, sure have a hard time admitting that their prophets actually have faults). But in the context of the time, I can understand why the ban would be instituted, even if it was wrong (and make no mistake, I believe it was wrong).
So why would God allow his prophet to institute such an abominable policy?
Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, God grits his teeth and endures the worst possible characteristics in man-kind in hopes that maybe he can soften our hearts enough that over time, we might behave the way he actually wants us to behave? Remember, this is the same God that allowed entire populations to be slaughtered because the weren't descended from Jacob. This is the same God who allowed homosexuals to be put to death; the same God who allowed children to be stoned for being disobedient to their parents; the same God who allowed women to be decried unclean for having the audacity to menstruate.
It's taken us a few thousand years, but by golly we figured out all by ourselves that those things are wrong. Let us now develop the courage to look back and say, "For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time, but it’s just plain wrong by any modern standard."
I'll join with the Church's most recent statement and "unequivocally condemn racism, including any and all past racism by individuals both inside and outside the Church." If the priesthood ban was instituted or perpetuated because of racism, I have complete faith that the Lord will chasten the instigators and perpetuators in a manner suitable to his infinite wisdom.
Given a few thousand more years, maybe we might finally start to act the way God would like us to act. For now, I have to deal with the fact that someone is going to look at my day and say, "For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of its time, but it’s just plain wrong by any modern standard."
1 I will point out for defenders that Professor Bott's (now removed) blog contains many similar comments to what was reported in the article. This really damages the argument that he was misquoted, as he and his defenders claim.
Monday, February 13, 2012
More Tales of a Terrible Dad
The phone rang at work. Janelle was on the other end, and asked, "Do you have your pocket knife on you?"
"Of course I do. It won't do you much good until I get home."
"I don't need it. I'm just wondering where the one on the kitchen floor came from?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"The pocket knife on the kitchen floor. You know, the one your three year old daughter used to cut open a box of granola bars and a bag of m&m's. Don't worry, after using it, she folded it up before leaving it on the floor."
"Does she have all her fingers still?"
"Yes. Stop leaving your pocket knives lying around."
"I didn't know I had any others besides mine. By the way, that is pure awesome!"
"Of course I do. It won't do you much good until I get home."
"I don't need it. I'm just wondering where the one on the kitchen floor came from?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"The pocket knife on the kitchen floor. You know, the one your three year old daughter used to cut open a box of granola bars and a bag of m&m's. Don't worry, after using it, she folded it up before leaving it on the floor."
"Does she have all her fingers still?"
"Yes. Stop leaving your pocket knives lying around."
"I didn't know I had any others besides mine. By the way, that is pure awesome!"
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