A Curious Instrument

As I prepare for Sunday School lessons at the local congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints , I read this from Dallin Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from the October 2007 General Conference : But here is a caution for families. Suppose Church leaders reduce the time required by Church meetings and activities in order to increase the time available for families to be together. This will not achieve its intended purpose unless individual family members—especially parents—vigorously act to increase family togetherness and one-on-one time. Team sports and technology toys like video games and the Internet are already winning away the time of our children and youth. Surfing the Internet is not better than serving the Lord or strengthening the family. Some young men and women are skipping Church youth activities or cutting family time in order to participate in soccer leagues or to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are amusing themselves...

I have often been hard to pin down politically over the years.  My family is stuffed full of conservative-leaning folk and, on a personal level, I also hold many fiscally and socially conservative views. If you have read any of my writings at all, that should be clear enough to see. I often have a unique take on things, but I end up coming to a pretty conservative stance , usually because our founding fathers chose to enshrine some very important ideals long ago that I find wise. I am a priest of God  twice over and I work to espouse his aims as I see them. I also don't want some theocracy where people are forced to do God's will. God wants you to be free to act in your own way and, as one of his servants, I want the same thing for each of us.  When I tell you what I think a good person should do , I want your behavior to be exercised in an environment where you don't have to do what God and his servants say. I am an enemy of big government. The deep state is e...

There have been a lot of changes to the online world and the security and privacy requirements for public vendors of content are getting more and more difficult to meet. Some services have chosen to be shuttered rather than take the risk of losing money in the new environment. I have run my own web server for many years and put essay collections there among other things, but usually put newer essays meant for general consumption on Blogger and lately advertised each through Facebook.  It has worked well, but I have been feeling the need (call it inspiration) to publish upcoming essays alongside the collections on a server that I control and maintain. If a vendor like Blogger or Facebook chose to walk away from the services that I use right now, I may lose the ability to get essays to you fine readers. I suppose I could move to other vendors when my present circumstances fall apart, but I would rather take control of the situation now before I get pushed against some wall....

Parents let their kids run the family. Education panders to the desires of students and their despised and dismissed parent-lackeys. Governments coddle childishness for their own political ends. The immature majority lust for the irresponsibility of socialism and the lure of "free stuff" stolen from others through police-state democracy. Disclosure:  I work for a college and make a living from tuition and state education funding. Let's see an example that I know something about:  college education. College tends to care too much about the student and too little about their actual training. How a person feels about their educational experience isn't germane to what college should be doing, which is  inculcating a body of knowledge and practice that produces success along a specific professional path . Your professors should know more than you do about the proper way to shape you for a chosen path and a student should submit to their training. That is the relation...

The posts have been a little heavy-handed of late, probably because I am actually a very heavy-handed guy!  To lighten up things a bit, how about my perennial favorite, The Perpetual Computer Buyer's Guide ?  I haven't changed a word in it in over ten years and it is still really good advice for getting your next computer, if I say so myself (which I do).  Enjoy!

I have great respect for Harry Browne , who many you probably have never heard of. Here is a wonderful article about him and some of his ideas from the Misses Institute. It has gotten fashionable for young people to try and change the world (again) for the better.  Of course, every generation has attempted this and a few (like the youth of the late 60s) were so narcissistic about it that we still see the mess they created. Our present crop looks poised to make the latest effort even more flamboyant and destructive. Harry revoiced the answer to this in the 1970s.  This is a concept that actually features in the Bible, so it has the cache of being tried a few times before.  If you want to make the world a better place, be a better person! Isn't it simple?  If the world is crashing down (it always is) and everything good is coming to an end (yet again), the best thing you can do to make a positive change is make yourself into the change you want to see.  Th...

I am a descendant of the Biblical Aaron which makes me a kohen or priest by tradition, and I work to honor this with service in God's temples and other situations that are available to me. Although I am not a Jew in the rabbinical sense and I am not a particular aficionado of rabbis and their lawyerly aspect, I access and serve God in my own way, as he guides me, similar to my fore-bearers. Before I was born, my parents embraced the spiritual thought and practice taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). I have been tasked with responsibilities and labors as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood that Abraham and Moses also held and as interpreted by the LDS faith . My obligation is to God before it is to any family or religious tradition . Mormonism, like some other faiths such as Judaism, do not make a particular profession of priests. There is no paid clergy in the LDS tradition and most men are holders of the priesthood and do priestly service re...