Harold Ramis, the director and actor, has died. He will be remembered a lot for “Ghostbusters,” which was an OK movie, but not nearly as good as the brilliant “Groundhog Day,” which is still one of my favorite movies ever.
Enjoy this review of “Groundhog Day” from 2005. “Groundhog Day” is still the best “Non-Mormon Mormon Movie.”
(Harold Ramis has a cameo as a doctor in “Groundhog Day” by the way).
[This post is part of a series on Joseph Smith’s Polygamy. To read from the beginning and see the list of published and planned posts, go to A Faithful Joseph.]
Zina Huntington circa 1855
September 1840 marks the beginning of a new period of plural marriage, a time where we see Joseph Smith begin to urgently discuss plural marriage with individuals who will document their first-hand interactions on the subject. Joseph’s attempts to get folks to embrace plural marriage during this winter are unsuccessful, it must be noted. Joseph Smith would not be able to convince anyone to participate in plural marriage until April 1841.
September 1840 also marks the arrival of Dr. John Cook Bennett in the Mormon community. During this same winter, while Joseph searched in vain to find anyone willing to say “yes,” the allegedly single Bennett rose to the pinnacle of Nauvoo’s power structure. However Joseph would lose confidence in Bennett around the end of March 1841.
Is it coincidence that Joseph would only contract a plural marriage after confirming that Bennett was unfit to be entrusted with the secret of the New and Everlasting Covenant? Continue reading
Here is the next Gospel Doctrine lesson. It includes a link to my in depth study of Abraham and Melchizedek (including Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc), and a discussion on Sodom and Gomorrah.
http://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2014/02/ot-8-living-righteously-in-wicked-world.html
The message? Flee away from Sodom and go to the New Jerusalem.
Read there/comment here.
Stop Hunger Now has recently opened a Utah location.
On a recent flight out of Salt Lake City, I had the chance to chat with the President of Stop Hunger Now, who had just been in Utah and visited the Church Welfare facilities. We chatted about Church history, hunger, and aquaponics.[ref]I am Chairman of the Aquaponics Association. And you thought the only thing I cared about was Joseph Smith’s polygamy…[/ref] Various governments, think tanks, and the United Nations are becoming concerned about the likelihood of absolute global food shortages in 2030.
And we thought 2008 was bad.
We have a reason to care particularly about these issues. After all, we believe that mankind is charged with a stewardship of this wonderful world, a fact of which we are reminded (if subtly) each time we attend the temple. Continue reading
President Obama famously said “the government is us.”
I don’t think anybody believes this.
Some people might say they believe this when one policy they favor is approved by voters. If you are a tea party supporter, you might have been temporarily cheered during the 2010 elections, or if you wanted Obama to win in 2012, you might say to yourself, “the people have spoken.”
But nobody really believes the government is “us.” The government is almost always “them.”
Skeptical? Think back to World War II. The government (“them”) rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in concentration camps. Was that a government of “us?” How about the many governments of the South that enforced segregation or turned a blind eye to lynchings or fought civil rights in general? Many individual white people in the South, especially business owners who wanted new business, favored integration, but the governments (“them”) prevented it.
Ancient history, you say? What about the NSA spying on all Americans’ phone calls, texts and internet communications? I literally do not know anybody in real life who defends this policy. Everybody I know, from conservative to liberal and all shades of politics in between, finds this extremely alarming. Yet nobody feels like we can do anything about it. “They” are in control. “We” are helpless. This is not a government of “us.”
Here is an easy test to see if you feel like you are in control of your government: how would you feel if you got a call from the IRS? Would you feel uneasy? Would you imagine a painful audit or a pleasant experience? How about being molested by the TSA as you do nothing but take the voluntary action of boarding an airplane? Is that a government of “them” or of “us?”
On a local level, do you really think your local police are concerned about “you” when they set up speed traps? Or are they concerned about raising revenue for “them” and “their” concerns? Speed traps have nothing to do with “protect and serve;” speed traps about about “them” getting away with fleecing you out of $150 (or more) of your hard-earned money.
Now, compare this to your experience at Church.