Archive for August, 2009
Catching Up With Lavell Edwards
Friday, August 7th, 2009Healthcare and faith: Can we afford to be our brothers keeper?
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009From Examiner.com
Unless you have the good fortune to be on another planet you have no doubt heard nothing but news of the health care debate for the past several weeks. One side says that the Obama plan will bankrupt this country and send us all to the poor house, the other side says we must insure the millions of people who have no health care coverage and we can do this by increasing the tax burden on the wealthiest of our citizens and as of this date, Tim (Turbo Tax ) Geithner, the Treasury Secretary , has come out and said that we may have raise taxes to pay for this behemoth of a program. So much for the “95 percent of you will get a tax cut” pledge.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has a rudimentary grasp of mathematics. This plan by the government’s own estimates will cost TRILLIONS of dollars. Had you ever heard of a “trillion” previous to the last four or five years? What comes after that, a gazillion? Any time you hear someone from the government start throwing out numbers, run them on your own. Two things will usually be obvious. First, the numbers are usually wrong. Second, if you analyze any government program that has been in place for a few years, look at what the initial estimated cost was going to be, and look at the actual cost. Most of the time it is grossly underestimated. Then we have politicians who stand up and say to us that we must spend or go bankrupt. Just how does that work? Not well for the average citizen who doesn’t have a few trillion laying around in a savings account.
In an article done for the Memphis Medical News, Holli W. Haynie states that according to 2005 data approximately 10% of the population of Shelby county is uninsured. This equates to about 90,000 people without health care coverage. These people often wind up going to emergency rooms to be treated for what is in essence a chronic condition. This ties up emergency centers and hinders them from treating real life threatening events
Putting aside the debate from a political perspective, how are people of faith expected to deal with this issue? Most faith traditions have admonitions about caring for the sick and elderly. Proverbs 29:7 (New International Version)7 The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. Leviticus 23:22 (New International Version)
22 ” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.’ ” The Holy Quran says: # 2:184 (Asad) [fasting] during a certain number of days. [155] But whoever of you is ill, or on a journey, [shall fast instead for the same] number of other days; and [in such cases] it is incumbent upon those who can afford it to make sacrifice by feeding a needy person. The Book of Mormon: Alma 34
1. [28] And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need — I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.
As can be seen we as people of faith are expected to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Most of us don’t have a problem with this and would gladly help those who are genuinely in need, but how many of the millions that the government claims are uninsured are actually in that category? Once you extrapolate those who are uninsured for other reasons such as young people who feel like they are not in need of insurance right now, wealthy people who can afford to pay their medical bills themselves, people who have savings accounts set up for medical emergencies, and so forth, just how many people are not covered because they cannot afford to pay for it?
Cont.
Volunteering is on the rise–Utah Tops the List
Monday, August 3rd, 2009From Omaha.com
Any volunteers?
Yes, even in a sour economy, says a federal agency that studies volunteerism.
The number of Americans giving away their time and talent rose last year — defying the typical pattern of a recession — and Nebraska again ranked No. 2 among states, the Corporation for National and Community Service reported this week.
Kelsi Cummings, a 16-year-old junior at Westside High School, didn’t take time to digest that news. She was too busy helping 11 pre-kindergarteners at a summer camp in downtown Omaha’s Children’s Museum.
“We learned the letters L through P and the numbers 5 and 6,” she said.
Cummings is one of about 40 volunteers, from teens to retirees, who work at the museum, doing everything from guiding visitors to setting up the hands-on exhibits, said Jan McKenzie, the staff member who organizes them. With kids out of school and tourists passing through town, “summer is our busiest season,” she said.
The museum is but one in a nationwide web of enterprises — food banks, churches, baseball leagues, art galleries, fire brigades, book clubs — that wouldn’t function without volunteers, that wouldn’t provide what French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville proclaimed the energetic drive of a young America.
Almost a million more people donated their time in 2008 than in 2007, said the Corporation for National and Community Service, which measures volunteerism annually using census data and its own polling. It said:
— In all, 61.8 million people — 27 percent of the U.S. population — volunteered last year, the largest number since 2005.
— In Nebraska, the volunteer rate — the portion of residents who donated time — was just under 39 percent, which ranked the state behind only Utah’s 43.5 percent.
— Iowa’s rate was 37 percent, which moved it to No. 5 among states, up from No. 6 last year.
— Within Nebraska, surburbanites had the highest rate of volunteering, 43 percent, closely followed by rural residents’ 42 percent. Urbanites had a 30 percent rate.
“It is wonderful that Nebraska continues to have one the nation’s highest volunteerism rates. This is one of the many areas where our state stands out,” Gov. Dave Heineman said of the findings.
The stability of Nebraska’s ranking — in second spot four years running — is striking, said Greg Donovan, program officer for ServeNebraska, a state agency that promotes and coordinates volunteer efforts.
“One of the things that has struck me,” Donovan said, is that “in rural areas and small towns, if something is not done by volunteers, it’s not done at all.” Moreover, he said, residents there view this as a fact of life, “not anything special.”
This phenomenon may have helped cement Nebraska’s ranking, he said, because the corporation recently has adjusted its polling to question people more closely about informal help they might not even think of as volunteer work.
“Neighborliness comes through better now,” he said.
As for Utah’s top ranking, Donovan said, “the Mormon Church does a great job” of mobilizing volunteers. It’s dominant influence makes the state “a bit of an outlier” in the statistics.
The corporation’s researchers also broke down the volunteerism figures for 50 large cities and 75 midsize ones, which are detailed on its Web site, www.volunteeringinamerica.gov.
In the latter group, Omaha tied with Toledo, Ohio, at No. 20, with a volunteer rate of 34.8 percent. That was down slightly from Omaha’s No. 18 ranking at 35.8 percent the previous year.
“I think it certainly reflects the spirit of the city,” said Ron Gerard, a spokesman for Mayor Jim Suttle. “… I think we need to get the word out to the rest of the country.”
A volunteer clearinghouse that United Way of the Midlands operates in Omaha, matching would-be helpers with whoever needs them, “has been as busy or busier than ever” recently, said spokeswoman Kathy O’Hara.
“It just seems like people pull together,” she said, suggesting that economic strain has encouraged rather than depressed volunteerism.
Another factor, perhaps, she said: “Some people say that if you’ve got less money to give, you give time.”
In fact, last month first lady Michelle Obama launched an initiative called United We Serve, urgingAmericans to help the nation’s economic recovery by volunteering at schools, hospitals and other community organizations.
The absolute worst lie
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Don’t let them get away with saying people of faith abandon kids
One of abortion advocates’ most offensive arguments is that pro-life supporters “don’t care about children after they’re born.”
Indeed, pro-choice propaganda on choicematters.org essentially says that the term “pro life” is a ruse — that those who are pro-life aren’t really; they’re really just anti-abortion.
“The ‘pro-life’ concerns of abortion foes are only for fetal lives, not the lives of women or unwanted babies,” the propaganda says.
It’s one of the most foul, vile and disingenuous lies you’ll ever run into.
Religious people have, forever, built and supported orphanages, adopted other people’s children, started and supported charities that care for children — and have even traveled to other countries on a regular basis to help the poorest of the poor care for their children.
As The Chronicle’s Kelly Jasper reported on Sunday, the Mormon church runs one of the world’s largest private adoption agencies and in 1899, the Catholic Home Bureau became the first agency in the country to place children in homes rather than orphanages.
That’s just a couple of examples of how people of faith put their beliefs into action.
Often, adoptive parents aren’t doing it because they can’t have children of their own, for they do. They just want to spread the love around.
They do often at great cost. An adoption can cost up to $30,000. Former Augustan Dee Thompson took out a loan to adopt one child, then cashed out her 401(k) to adopt a second.
Don’t let anyone ever suggest to you that people of faith don’t care about children.
Joseph Smith’s letter of appeal to the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009From Examiner.com
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Old letters and articles from historic newspapers can help build depth when writing a family history. By including timely, historical events in your records the reader can wonder how those events impacted the lives of their ancestral families.
After the Mormons [members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] left New York State in the mid 1800s, they continued west into Ohio and Missouri. !– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:none; mso-layout-grid-align:none; text-autospace:none; font-size:12.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –>
Here, they were heavily persecuted. Missourians were especially brutal to the members—beating, terrorizing and driving the Saints from their homes. In 1838 an extermination order was issued by Missouri Governor, Lilburn Boggs. Part of the order read, „the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description.” The small, fledgling church continued westward into Illinois. It was in Nauvoo, a city built by the Saints along the Mississippi River that Joseph Smith sent a letter to the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont asking them to come to the Church’s aid. He hoped the results of the letter would be to help bring justice against the State of Missouri for the wrongs Missourians had committed against the Saints.
The letter was printed in the Warsaw Message, an Illinois newspaper:
Volume I- Number 44 January 17, 1844.
General Joseph Smith’s Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys.
I was born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805, — where the first quarter of my life grew with the growth & strengthened with the strength of that “first-born” State of the “United Thirteen.” From the old “French War” to the final consummation of American Independence, my fathers, heart to heart, and shoulder to shoulder, with the noble fathers of our liberty, fought and bled; and with the most of that venerable band of patriots, they have gone to rest, — bequeathing a glorious country, with all her inherent rights, to millions of posterity. Like other honest citizens, I not only (when manhood came,) sought my own peace, prosperity, and happiness, but also the peace, prosperity, and happiness of my friends; and, with all the rights and realm before me, and the revelations of Jesus Christ to guide me into all truth, I had good reasons to enter into the blessings and privileges of an American citizen; — the rights of a Green Mountain Boy, unmolested, and enjoy life and religion according to the most virtuous and enlightened customs, rules, and etiquette of the nineteenth century. But, to the disgrace of the United States, it is not so. These rights and privileges, together with a large amount of property, have been wrested from me, and thousands of my friends, by lawless mobs in Missouri, supported by Executive authority; and the crime of plundering our property; and the unconstitutional and barbarous act of our expulsion; and even the inhumanity of murdering men, women, and children, have received the pass word of “justifiable” by legislative enactments, and the horrid deeds, doleful and disgraceful as they are, have been paid for by government.
In vain have we sought for redress of grievances and a restoration to our rights in the Courts and Legislature of Missouri. In vain have we sought for our rights and the remuneration for our property in the Halls of Congress, and at the hands of the President. The only consolation yet experienced from these highest tribunals and mercy seats of our bleeding country is, that our cause is just, but the government has no power to redress us.
Our arms were forcibly taken from us by those Missouri marauders; and, in spite of every effort to have them returned, the State of Missouri still retains them; and the United States militia law, with this fact before the government, still compels us to military duty; and, for a lack of said arms, the law forces us to pay fines. As Shakespeare would say; “thereby hangs a tale.”
Several hundred thousand dollars worth of land in Missouri was purchased at the U.S. Land Offices in that district of country: and the money without doubt, has been appropriated to strengthen the army and navy, or increase the power and glory of the nation in some other way; and notwithstanding Missouri has robbed and mobbed me and twelve or fifteen thousand innocent inhabitants murdered, and hundreds expelled, the residue, at the point of the bayonet, without law, contrary to the express language of the Constitution of the United States, and every State in the Union; and contrary to the custom and usage of civilized nations; and especially one holding up the motto: “The asylum of the oppressed;” yet the comfort we receive to raise our wounded bodies, and invigorate our troubled spirits, on account of such immense sacrifices of life, property, patience, and right; and as an equivalent for the enormous taxes we are compelled to pay to support the functionaries in a dignified manner, after we have petitioned and pleaded with tears and been showed like a caravan of foreign animals for the peculiar gratification of connoisseurs in humanity, that flare along in public life, like lamps upon lamp-posts, because they are better calculated for the schemes of the night than for the scenes of the day, is as President Van Buren said, your cause is just, but the government has no power to redress you!
No wonder, after the Pharisee’s prayer, the Publican smote his breast and said, Lord be merciful to me a sinner! What must the manacled nations think of freemen’s rights in the land of liberty?
Were I a Chaldean I would exclaim: Keed’ nauh to-maroon lehoam elauhayaugh deyshemayaugh veh aur kau lau gnaubadoo, yabadoo ma-ar’guauoomen tehoat shemayaugh alah. (Thus shall we say unto them: The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.)
An Egyptian: Sa e eh-ni: (What other persons are these?) A Grecian: Diabolas basseleuei: (The Devil reigns.) A Frenchman: Messieurs sans Dieu, (Gentkemen without Go.) A Turk: Ain shems: (The fountain of light.) A german: sie sind unferstandig. (What consumate ignorance!) A Syrian: Zaubok. (Sacrifice!) A Spaniard: Il sabio muda conscio, il nescio ne. (A wise man reflects, a fool does not.) A Samaritian: Saunau! (O Stranger!) An Italian: O tempa! oh diffidanza! (O the times! O the diffidence!) A Hebrew: Ajtaij aol raicu (Thou God seest me.) A Dane: Hvnd tidende! (What tidings!) A Saxon: Hwaet riht! (What right!) A Swede: Hvad skilla: (What skill!) A Polander: Nav-yen-wheo bah poa na Jesus Christus: (Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ.) A Western Indian: She-mo-kah She-mo keh ough-nepgab. (The white man, O the white man, he very uncertain.) A Roman: Procul, o procul este profani! (Be off, be off ye profane!) But as I am I will only add: when the wicked rule the people mourn.
Now, therefore, having failed in every attempt to obtain satisfaction at the tribunals where all men seek for it, according to the rules of right: — I am compelled to appeal to the honor and patriotism of my native State: to the clemency and valor of “Green Mountain Boys;” for, throughout the various periods of the world, whenever a nation, kingdom, state, family, or individual has received an insult or an injury from a superior force, (unless satisfaction was made,) it has been the custom to call in the aid of friends to assist in obtaining redress. For proof we have only to refer to the recovery of Lot and his effects by Abraham, in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah; or to turn to the relief afforded by France and Holland for the achievement of the independence of these United States. Without bringing up the great bulk of historical facts, rules, laws, decrees, and treaties, and bible records, by which nations have been governed, to show that mutual alliance for the general benefit of mankind, to retaliate and repel foreign aggressions; to punish and prevent home wrongs, when the conservators of justice and the laws have failed to afford a remedy, are not only common and in the highest sense justifiable and wise, but they are also poorer expedients to promote the enjoyment of equal rights, the pursuit of happiness, the preservation of life, and the benefit of posterity.
With all these facts before me, and a pure desire to ameliorate the condition of the poor and unfortunate among men, and, if possible, to entice all men from evil to good, and with firm reliance that God will reward the just, I have been stimulated to call upon my native State, for a “union of all honest men;” and to appeal to the valor of the “Green Mountain Boys” by all honorable methods & means to assist me in obtaining justice from Missouri: not only for the property she has stolen and confiscated, the murders she has committed among my friends, and for our expulsion from the State, but also to humble and chastise, or abase her for the disgrace she has brought upon constitutional liberty, until she atones for her sins.
I appeal also to the fraternity of brethren, who are bound by kindred ties, to assist a brother in distress, in all cases where it can be done according to the rules of order, to extend the boon of benevolence and protection, in avenging the Lord of his enemies, as if a Solomon, a Hiram, a St. John, or a Washington raised his hands before a wondering world, and exclaimed: — “My life for his!” Light, liberty, and virtue forever!
I bring this appeal before my native State, for the solemn reason that an injury has been done, and crimes have been committed, which a sovereign State, of the Federal compact, one of the great family of “E pluribus unum,” refuses to compensate, by consent of parties, rules of law, customs of nations, or in any other way. I bring it also, because the national Government has fallen short of affording the necessary relief as before stated, for want of power, leaving a large body of her own free citizens, whose wealth went freely into her treasury for lands, and whose gold and silver for taxes, still fills the pockets of her dignitaries “in ermine and lace,” defrauded, robbed, moved, plundered, ravished, driven, exiled, and banished from the “Independent Republic of Missouri!”
And in the appeal let me say; raise your towers, pile your monuments to the skies; build your steam frigates; spread yourselves far and wide, and open the iron eyes of your bulwarks by sea and land; and let the towering church steeples marshal the country like the “dreadful splendor” of an army with bayonets: but remember the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts; remember the handwriting upon the wall, mene, mene, teke, upharsin; remember the angels visit to Sennacherib and the 185,000 Assyrians; remember the end of the Jews and Jerusalem, and remember the Lord Almighty will avenge the blood of his Saints that now crimsons the skirts of Missouri! Shall wisdom cry aloud, and her speech not be heard?
Has the majesty of American liberty sunk into such vile servitude and oppression, that justice has fled? Have the glory and influence of a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson, a Lafayette, and a host of others, forever departed, — and the wrath of a Cain, a Judas, and a Nero whirled forth in the heraldry of hell, to sprinkle our garments with blood; and lighten the darkness of midnight with the blaze of our dwellings? Where is the patriotism of ‘76? Where is the virtue of our forefathers? and where is the sacred honor of freemen?
Must we, because we believe in the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the administration of angels, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, like the prophets and apostles of old, — must we be mobbed with impunity — be exiled from our habitations and property without remedy; murdered without mercy, — and government find the weapons, and pay the vagabonds for doing the jobs, and give them the plunder into the bargain? Must we, because we believe in enjoying the constitutional privilege and right of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own consciences; and because we believe in repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins; the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands; the resurrection of the dead; the millennium; the day of judgment; and the Book of Mormon as the history of the aborigines of this continent, — must we be expelled from the institutions of our country, the rights of citizenship, and the graves of our friends and brethren, and the government lock the gate of humanity, and shut the door of redress against us? — If so, farewell freedom; adieu to personal safety, and let the red hot wrath of an offended God purify the nation of such sinks of corruption! For that realm is hurrying to ruin where vice has the power to expel virtue.
My Father, who stood several times in the battles of the American Revolution, till his companions in arms, had been shot dead, at his feet, was forced from his home in Far West, Missouri, by those civilized, or satanized savages, in the dreary season of winter, to seek a shelter in another State; and the vicissitudes and sufferings consequent to his flight brought his honored grey head to the grave, a few months after. And my youngest brother also, in the vigor and bloom of youth, from his great exposure and fatigue in endeavoring to assist his parents on their journey, (I and my brother Hyrum being in chains, in dungeons — where they tried to feed us on human flesh — in Missouri,) was likewise so debilitated that he found a premature grave shortly after my father. And my mother, too, though she yet lingers among us, from her extreme exposure in that dreadful tragedy, was filled with rheumatic affections and other diseases, which leave her no enjoyment of health. She is sinking in grief and pain, broken-hearted, from Missouri persecution.
O death! wilt thou not give to every honest man, a heated dart to sting those wretches while they pollute the land? and O grave! wilt thou not open the trap door to the pit of ungodly men, that they may stumble in?
I appeal to the Green Mountain Boys of my native State, to rise in the majesty of virtuous freemen, and by all honorable means help bring Missouri to the bar of justice. If there is one whisper from the spirit of an Ethen Allen, or a gleam from the shade of a Gen. Stark, let it mingle with our sense of honor and fire our bosoms for the cause of suffering innocence, — for the reputation of our disgraced country, and for the glory of God; and may all the earth bear me witness, if Missouri, blood-stained Missouri, — escapes the due merit of her crimes, the vengeance she so justly deserves — that Vermont is a hypocrite — a coward — and this nation the hot bed of political demagogues!
I make this appeal to the sons of liberty of my native State for help to frustrate the wicked design of sinful men; I make it to hush the violence of mobs; I make it to cope with the unhallowed influence of wicked men in high places; I make it to resent the insult and injury made to an innocent, unoffending people, by a lawless ruffian State; I make it to show our nation’s escutcheon; I make it to show presidents, governors, and rulers, prudence; I make it to fill honorable men with discretion; I make it to teach senators wisdom; I make it to learn judges justice; I make it to point clergymen to the path of virtue; and I make it to turn the hearts of this nation to the truth and realities of pure and undefiled religion, that they may escape the perdition of ungodly men; and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is my Great Counsellor.
Wherefore let the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble, the poor and the needy; the bond and the free, both black and white, take heed to their ways, and cleave to the knowledge of God; and execute justice and judgment upon the earth in righteousness; and prepare to meet the judge of the quick and the dead, for the hour of his coming is nigh.
And I must go on as the herald of grace,
Till the wide-spreading conflict is over.
And burst thro’ the curtains of tyrannic night.
Yes, I must go on to gather our race,
Till the high blazing flames of Jehovah
Illumines the globe as a triumph of right.
As a friend of equal rights to all men, and a messenger of the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ,
I have the honor to be,
Your devoted servant,
JOSEPH SMITH.
Nauvoo, Ill., Dec., 1843.
The letter was not received well and the Extermination Order stood until it was officially rescinded in 1976.
Poll: Mormons most likely to be offended by Hollywood
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
The survey showed more than two-thirds of Mormons (68%) rebuffed the entertainment industry, followed by 54% of Jehovah’s Witnesses and 53% of evangelicals. Less than half (42%) of the general population said Hollywood threatens their values.
In contrast, majorities of all other major religions disagreed that stars and the silver screen are a moral threat.
The study did not delve into causes for the negative perception, but solid majorities of Mormons surveyed are conservative (60%) and 88% believe in absolute standards of right and wrong.
Adherents to the Mormon faith also showed “exceptionally high levels of religious commitment,” according to the Pew study.
On the small and big screens, a few notable actors have appeared in recent years with Mormon roots; among them, Katherine Heigl, Aaron Eckhart, Rick Schroder, Jon Heder and Amy Adams.
Incidentally, California is not just home to Tinseltown; it also boasts America’s second-largest Mormon population (13%), second only to Utah (35%). Mormons account for 1.7% of American adults, comparable to the nation’s Jewish population.
The current survey was released Friday to coincide with Pioneer Day, a state holiday in Utah, which commemorates the arrival in 1847 of the first Mormon settlers in Salt Lake Valley.
