The Washington Post brings to our attention David T. Fagan, father of eight and author of Guerrilla Parenting. (link) There are people you disagree with, but respect or like. There are others who share many opinions with you, yet still irritate you. I see value in how Fagan describes the rearing of his children: instilling self-reliance and industry, willingness to chart an independent path, not idolizing formal education, but he annoys me, and the most compact explanation why is that he is a salesman.

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“God the Father and the Holy Ghost are not to be portrayed in meetings, dramas, or musicals.

“If the Savior is portrayed, it must be done with the utmost reverence and dignity. Only brethren of wholesome personal character should be considered for the part. The person who portrays the Savior should not sing or dance. When speaking, he should use only direct quotations of scriptures spoken by the Savior.”

Dance?

Am I the only one morbidly curious about what sort of Mormon Roadshow From Hell precipitated that rule?

The other day I cleaned a large surface with denatured alcohol and wore a blue nitrile glove on the hand holding the soaked rag. The next day I had a small spot to clean and didn’t bother with a glove since small amounts of skin contact with alcohol are not harmful; we often use isopropyl alcohol to clean skin. This led to musing on the concept of denatured alcohol. Denatured alcohol is 90% ethanol, an alcohol so mild to the body that people drink it. Drinking ethanol, while not acutely toxic, is still a problematic thing, so its distribution is controlled by law and heavily taxed. Ethanol is so useful for other things though, like fueling cars or cleaning, that it is worthwhile to have a way to distribute it in a form unsuitable for beverage consumption. So it is “denatured,” rendered unfit for drinking by mixing into it poisonous substances, traditionally methanol. Because ethanol is harmful to individuals and society, we make it safe to use freely by rendering it too toxic to ingest.

So, the LDS Church has released a four minute video explaining, and displaying, the garments and robes of the holy priesthood used by those endowed in LDS temples. (link) This probably reminded many of the publication in 1912 of James Talmage’s book The House of the Lord. David Rolph Seely explains:

On 16 September 1911, the Salt Lake Tribune published an account of certain individuals who had secretly taken pictures of the interior of the Salt Lake Temple and who had attempted to sell them to the church. The headlines read: “Photographs secretly taken of Mormon Temple’s interior; sent for sale to Church chief. President replies: Church will not negotiate with thieves and blackmailers.'” (more…)

“The first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet.”

The obvious point is that it wasn’t the Internet the ruined her reputation, but her actions. Gennifer Flowers became a household name before the internet age, and she slept with Bill back when he was a measly governor.

If there’s anything historically unique about the era of Ms. Lewinksy’s…uh…service in the White House that made the story much bigger than it otherwise would have been, it was the emergence of sexual harassment as one of the pressing issues of the age during the early 1990s. You remember, Bob Packwood, Tailhook, the Clarence Thomas hearings, the movie “Disclosure.” No sexual harassment awareness raising > no Paula Jones lawsuit > no depositions about who Bill was having “relations” with > no perjury > no Starr report > no impeachment. The push to get rid of lecherous bosses was clearly a good thing, to a certain extent. But considering the sanctimony of the Thomas hearings and the “Year of the Woman” baloney that the Dems ran on in 1992, it’s amusing how quickly it backfired on them, not that they would ever admit it.

It’s no mystery why a world that rejects the nameless virtue would reject heroes. At first glance, its no mystery why that same world would embrace celebrities. (more…)

One kind of creativity is making unexpected connections. Wodehouse excelled at this kind of creativity. I just read where Fink-Nottle, on a vegan diet, started weeping at a sunset, because the color reminded him of a nice, underdone slice of beef.

Most of my creativity comes to me second hand. Providence makes the connections for me. “Look on this picture, and on this,” Providence says, and all I have to do is look, and think. (more…)