Mike Lee - Caught with His Ski-Pants Down

No, not a sex-scandal, just a regular, old-style politician out to make a buck and converse, confer, and otherwise hobnob with his fellow lizards who happen have a lot of money. It's a hypocrite-scandal because he was just on TV giving the tea-party Republican response to the SOTU condemning such practices.

The Blessings of Government Healthcare - and Workers' Comp

My wife called after school to arrange our schedules. Just a few minutes later, she called again apparently with some tears, very unusual for her. I knew that her foot damaged by a table moved by the custodian needed some medical attention.

I went to take her to an Urgent Care facility. The school counselor informed us of the facility that covered the school for worker's comp, so after getting her classroom ready for the next day (she insisted), we went there. It's not our favorite place; we've been before. But it was adequate and they took good care of her. Nothing is broken, but she needs her foot up and as much rest as possible for the next little while. I'm afraid the foot-protector shoe will do some good because she won't keep off it to teach. But thank heavens for worker's comp! (a government program).

The mechanical can-opener saw for stuck rings.

The second place with the finger wounded and ring half-sawed.

The enhanced wound and half-sawed ring.

My story comes illustrated. About a year ago, I fell down some stairs and ran into a door smashing the styrofoam cooler I was carrying into a bazillion pieces. And my finger hurt too. I put bandages on it and drove home from California. My finger began to swell and I took some ibuprofen. It hurt for quite a while and then I finally went to an orthopedic specialist. The verdict: I broke my finger. But it was too late do set it or do anything. She said the swelling should go down.

Well, the flesh swelling went down but not the knuckle deformation - too late for that! A brother-in-law had told me that any jeweler had the tools to remove a stuck ring. So I stopped by one the other night. He said they couldn't do that any more because of liability issues but any emergency room had the tools to just snap it off.

I dropped by Lakeview Hospital. They wanted to admit me. Not wanting to pay that co-pay, I declined and went home to try that elastic compression method I saw on a YouTube video. It didn't work.

As I was taking my wife to Urgent Care anyway, I thought I would try to get the ring removed. I had already called the insurance to make sure it would be covered. While not at my preferred InstaCare, I thought what further harm could they do? Well, they managed.

President Obama: the Fulfillment of "Prophecy"

First off, I don't believe in these prophecies. Anonymous D and I were discussing the state of the world again and he suggested the idea that people will find what they are looking for out of life. If you are expecting everything to be evil and depraved, sure enough, they surround you!

It led me to think about some of the political prophecies I heard as a kid about how we would all wake up as communists one day. I keep pinching myself, but I still haven't woken any uncontrollable urges to sing The Internationale or shoot capitalists.

So, I ask you to consider the following. Think about what unique historical occurrences have happened in recent years and see if they don't make Barry Goldwater a prophet, at least to some:

Everything Is AWESOME!!

There is a no-conspiracy-theory policy on this blog which I am now going to break. It has long been a crack-pot idea of mine that it wasn't the arrival of the Beatles in 1964 that forever changed America, it was later that year with the subversive, counter-culture individualism of Rudolph.

Yes, those misfits and outcasts ennobled rebellion, especially Hermey with his ideas about being a dentist. I've only known two people in my life who really wanted to be dentists for the sheer fascination of teeth instead of the money and regular hours. One of them was a friend attending dental school when I was down the street in law school, His wife taught high school with my wife. The other was Hermey.

We saw The Lego Movie with two of our grandsons today. The biggest spoiler you all know from its mere existence: It's a two-hour Lego commercial! And that's Awesome!

Preacher of the Gospel

The extraordinary thing is that this is not extraordinary. It is so simple and familiar that it could have happened yesterday.

LDS missionaries were taught by the time of my mission not to engage in "Bible-bashing" with ministers of other faiths but simply to bear testimony and depart if the minister was unwilling to participate in a calm discussion. I did that a few times.

A missionary in 1841 England, a new convert himself, and only 20-years of age, recorded this exchange in his missionary journal after meeting with some ministers, one of whom he knew from before his Mormon baptism:

Related by Marriage

On a wonderfully relaxed, federal holiday, I took a break from family history work to do a bit more reading in my Kirtland Mormonite book. Bothered by Newel K. Whitney's middle name of "Kimball" and knowing that the Kimball/Whitney Families later intermarried and share a family cemetery, I looked on the internet and could not find much information on Bishop Whitney's mother, Susannah Kimball. I spoke with my in-laws to see if there was an earlier Kimball-Whitney connection, but it has not yet been established.

At some point in my family history, my wife and I have to connect other than in our marriage. We are both human and have ancestors. As they say, we're all related somehow and it's usually only a few generations, no more than a few centuries, to have people with fairly common backgrounds to connect genealogically.

One Soul Saved from the Flood

We had our Gospel Doctrine lesson on Noah & the Flood yesterday. The teacher did quite well getting to the principles about what we can do to rely on the Lord to save us from evil around us today. "Stand in Holy Places," is a good one with those places being Home, Temple, Church. Listening to and following the Prophet is good too - service, home storage (I'm good with the chocolate chips), etc.

My wincing came when he threw out the question, "What are some of the examples of wickedness that we see in the world around us today?"

Speaker Boehner's Monkey

Tea Party Caucus Meeting

This is great! The House just passed a clean authorization to allow the US Treasury to keep paying its bills! Yes, it's an increase of the rather arbitrary debt limit. But as our money only has the value of our robust economy under the full faith and credit of the United States, it's generally best, IMO, to keep that faith even with credit.

Speaker of the House, John "Are-you-kidding-me?" Boehner, is fast becoming a hero of mine. No longer beholden to the tea-party minority of his majority (which in no way represents the will of the People), he passed the authorization with very few Republican votes relying on the Democrats instead. Some said he was whistling "Zip-ah-dee-do-dah" today. Roll Call reports that after a brief conference last night in front of befuddled Republicans, he walked back to the podium and said, "You're not even going to clap for me getting this monkey off of our backs?"

Black History Month

One example of 19th Century African-American Christianity

Before you start, I've heard the whine before, "When are we going to have White History Month?" It is true we don't have White History Month, the principal reason being that we already have twelve.

Case in point: I'm reading a great book, Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations, by Mark Lyman Staker. The author is not some radical, black-panther type, just a historian working for the LDS Church.

The Doctrine of the Temple

Vaughn Family about 1895. Thomas died in 1894 leaving a widow and 8 children.
My Great-Grandfather is at right front with half a smile.

In Stake Conference a few weeks ago, I was startled to attention when a speaker referenced "the Doctrine of the Temple." I have been looking for a straightforward way to explain it for some time. The speaker went on without such a definition, so maybe it isn't so simple.