Current events

I don't always talk about things that are going on in the world. But when I do, I'm glad that my blog is so unknown so that I don't get a lot of backlash.

Another day, another shooting. I share Obama's frustration about America's attitude about guns. Wake up, America! Is this the kind of country you want, where school shootings are commonplace events? Congress refused to pass very neutral policies last year. Opponents of such measures say, "To take our guns away will make only the bad guys have them and is unconstitutional." Well, guess what? No one was trying to take your guns away! The opponents say, "We should try to focus on mental health issues to prevent shootings." Well, guess what? You blew your chance there, because the plan was going to address mental health! You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that existing gun laws work. Because they don't. We need to try something else. Even if it's wrong, it can't be worse than what we have now.

Ordain women. The Mormon community has been abuzz that the founder of Ordain Women was summoned to a Church disciplinary council. Now, first of all, she hasn't been excommunicated, at least not yet. There are four possible outcomes of disciplinary councils: excommunication, disfellowship, Church probation, and no action. The council hasn't happened yet.

Now, I don't think that she is facing excommunication because she wants and is advocating for the priesthood. I don't think that's what it's about. It's about the way the Ordain Women movement is handling their desires. They asked for tickets to a priesthood session and were denied. They're not satisfied until they get what they want. They were respectfully and politely asked not to protest at general conference, and asked that if they did, that they not enter Temple Square. They refused to follow both of those requests. It's the antagonism of their behavior, not their desire for the priesthood, that is leading to Church discipline, in my opinion.

Also, I feel that the implication from them is that women who don't want the priesthood are ignorant, brainwashed housewives who are too dumb to think for themselves. (For examples of this attitude, see this Facebook page, which may soon be taken down.) If that's not demeaning to women, I don't know what is. I know plenty of women who do not want the priesthood--I have personally heard them say it--and here Ordain Women is trying to tell them what they want.

There has been a lot of discussion that we shouldn't judge the women who are seeking the priesthood. That's true. But there hasn't been as much talk for not judging the bishop who called for the disciplinary council. He deserves not to be judged just as much as everyone else.

Elbow room. Recently I heard an opposing opinion to that of the world becoming overpopulated. I don't know whether that is true. But one day I was curious about something I had read for work, and I stumbled across census data for the U.S. population from 1900 to 1999. It does look like the population isn't increasing as fast as it was (at least, that was the case fifteen years ago...). The biggest increases in population were in 1947, with the start of the Baby Boom, and 1950, when Alaska and Hawaii were counted in the population. The population actually decreased in 1918, with WWI.

I kind of hope the population quits growing so fast. Yesterday I was going on a walk to find some goatheads to pull up, and I thought I would go on the trail at the dead end on Constitution Way in North Salt Lake. I remember going on that trail as a kid, and I remember going there in Cub Scouts and finding cactuses, a sego lily, and a snake skin. Imagine my surprise when I got up to the dead end and discovered it's not a dead end anymore--there's an entire neighborhood where that trail used to be! No more cactuses and sego lilies.

All these things that I've done. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Brandon Flowers is the lead singer of the Killers and a football star?

Me-yow! Remember the story of the cat who attacked a family's baby and held the family hostage in their bedroom? In a rare instance of watching TV last night, I just happened to catch an episode of My Cat from Hell on Animal Planet, and I found out that that cat was generally a good cat, but it has a disorder that occasionally puts it in some kind of spinal pain and makes it want to attack people. The cat trainer on the show didn't think it would be safe in a house with a baby (it wouldn't be safe for the baby), so a cat foster family adopted it. It's on medications now to try to stop it from attacking.

Second chances. I found it kind of heartwarming to read an article about inmates graduating from high school. I think education is one of the best things for the criminally inclined. A lot of criminals--maybe even most of them--deserve second chances.

But not all of them. I read a story of a man who followed two eight-year-old girls and told them he was a police officer, out of uniform to make it easier to catch bad guys. Then he told one girl to go home, and he threw the other over a fence and sexually assaulted her. This "man" is just too depraved to deserve a second chance. When they catch him, he should be castrated, first of all, then he should be tied to the back of a truck and dragged down a gravel road, then dropped in some boiling saltwater, then thrown in a patch of poison ivy.

Next week, tune in for your regularly scheduled program.