Events

D&C 42:45. "Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection."
 
There was a double homicide at my apartment complex this morning. A man killed his estranged wife and then himself (she was staying with a friend who lived here). That explains all the sirens and stuff that I heard this morning when I woke up. I was pondering my natural, callous reaction to this--I can take death moderately casually because of what I know about the gospel, even if it were someone I care about like T. or B. or K. It's not qualitatively different from having them move to another country for 80 years and not be able to write back, which stinks if it's someone you rely on in your daily life but is otherwise no sadder than moving in 2nd grade[1]--when this scripture came to mind. It reminds me of Jesus weeping at Lazarus' tomb.
 
"Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!"
 
I'm probably alone in this, but I get the idea from the way John phrases this that the Jews who said this were missing the point. ("The Jews" in the NT usually means "the leaders of the Jews," i.e. Pharisees and Sadducees, not known for their spiritual insight.) Jesus was not weeping because he was sad that Lazarus was dead. What is death to Jesus but a place? He can reach into the world of the dead and pull them back to the living, or walk into the land of the dead and return as he wills. Jesus was sad that Martha and Mary and other people whom he cared about were experiencing grief, even though the grief was over something which really wasn't important or lasting. "Mourn with those that mourn," says the scripture, "and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." It doesn't say you have to be sad for the same reasons they are.
 
Anyway, I think it's kind of interesting that we have to be commanded to be sad for the dead (because it sure wouldn't come naturally), and especially for the poor fellow who was responsible. There's a lesson in compassion there although I'm still puzzling out exactly how to surface it. Interesting, no? Especially for a black-hearted, superficial cad like myself.
 
-Max
 
 
[1] I need to think more about this analogy because, to a 2nd grader, moving away from your best friends and all your classmates is in fact horrifying. As you age, gain experiences, and know more people it becomes less scary. That *sounds* a lot like death, doesn't it?
 
--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)
 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Abortion

J.,

 

This evening I've been pondering my position on abortion, impelled by a quote from Germaine Greer: "The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement." In particular, my attention is drawn to the compulsion. I've long held that not everything which is egregious or even despicable ought to be illegal--some bans are unenforceable. My position on abortion has been shaped largely by the assumption that we can and do prevent murder, particularly the killing of innocents. But tonight I've been pondering the logistics of banning infanticide. I've read about primitive historical societies in which a woman who became pregnant again before she had finished weaning the child would simply kill the second child at birth, in order to conserve resources for the first (and increase its chances of survival). It strikes me that from a certain perspective, outlawing abortion is like trying to outlaw that. The reason we don't have more infanticide is probably not because it's illegal; I do not think many American women would kill their newborns even under severe resource constraints, even if it were completely legal. I also don't think, if there were 1.37 million infanticides every year, that you could enforce any kind of law against it. It simply isn't feasible to take in those kids and raise them. Ultimately, a society has the ethics it can afford, and we don't have the excess capacity for to handle 1.37 million kids a year with no families, even if it were appropriate for the state to step in as a parent.

 

Thus, I have to think seriously about the possibility that outlawing infanticide may be infeasible under circumstances not much different from the present ones. And if infanticide, then abortion. Some crimes we cannot prevent.

 

-Max

 

P.S. That wouldn't make me any happier with the way it got legalized, but judicial activism is a lesser, more flexible concern than protecting the innocent. More procedural, less visceral, less primary. In any case, I haven't come to any conclusions, I'm still just pondering and collecting data.

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Powerpoint on Iraq trends

Hold this for me, please. I may want it some day. It's a bunch of charts on violence trends in Iraq, from Michael Lyon, a journalist in Iraq who has a fair bit of credibility with me. Sources given at the bottom of each slide.

 

http://michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=7&Itemid=

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Disagreements

B. & J.,

 

I spent some time trying to remember this quote earlier today, and I think you may appreciate it. It's from Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and one of the great minds of the 20th century:

 

One of the first interesting experiences I had in this project at Princeton was meeting great men. I had never met very many great men before. But there was an evaluation committee that had to try to help us along, and help us ultimately decide which way we were going to separate the uranium. This committee had men like Compton and Tolman and Smyth and Urey and Rabi and Oppenheimer on it. I would sit in because I understood the theory of how our process of separating isotopes worked, so they'd ask me questions and talk about it. In these discussions, one man would make a point. Then Compton, for example, would explain a different point of view. He would say it should be this way, and he was perfectly right. Another guy would say, well, maybe, but there is this other possibility that we have to consider against it.

 

So everybody is disagreeing, all around the table. I am surprised and disturbed that Compton doesn't repeat and emphasize his point. Finally, at the end, Tolman, who's the chairman, would say, "Well, having heard all these arguments, I guess it's true that Compton's argument is the best of all, and now we have to go ahead."

 

It was such a shock to me to see that a committee of men could present a whole lot of ideas, each one thinking of a new facet, while remembering what the other fella said, so that, at the end, the decision is made as to which idea was the best---summing it all up---without having to say it three times. These were very great men indeed.

 

http://www.brics.dk/~danvy/lafb.html

 

-Max

 

--

"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

 

Be pretty if you are,

Be witty if you can,

But be cheerful if it kills you.

Why?

Dear J.,

A thought has been in the back of my mind for a couple of days and I'd like to share it with you. It's a question and an answer.

Q: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explicitly belongs to Jesus. Why not the Father? Jesus defers to the Father in almost everything, why not this?

A: The Church is the flock and Jesus is the shepherd. The Father is the destination toward which we are being led.

(This is also why the Doctrine and Covenants is mostly, or perhaps entirely, authored by Jesus.)

~M.

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

[Article] The Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Happy Independence Day weekend! Take a moment to think about the sacrifices of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and why they valued American independence so highly. Take a moment to think about the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the right to self-government. And vote Bobby Jindal for President in 2012. :)

You may enjoy this speech:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070308/content/the_americans_who_risked_everything___rush_h__limbaugh__jr_.guest.html

-Max

--
"The presentation or 'gift' of the Holy Ghost simply confers upon a man the right to receive at any time, when he is worthy of it and desires it, the power and light of truth of the Holy Ghost, although he may often be left to his own spirit and judgment." --Joseph F. Smith (manual, p. 69)

Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.