But apparently they DO make people think of wizards:
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I bought How to Get Lots of Money for Anything — Fast! in August 2005 and use the knowledge in it every day. Its techniques for setting and achieving even seemingly-impossible objectives are based on brain function research AND THEY WORK! You will learn how to get your conscious and unconscious minds to work together to produce success while feeling joy, enthusiasm and certainty of achievement. I highly recommend this book. Cynthia Yockey |
On Tuesday the Utah Supreme Court reversed the convictions of polygamist Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of felony rape as an accomplice based on a technicality having to do with how the jury was instructed at his trial in 2007. Following the ruling a hearing to decide whether to extradite Jeffs to Texas to face charges there was canceled.
I am not expecting to read denunciations of polygamy in general and Jeffs in particular by Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage any time soon, or, well … ever. I also am not expecting the Mormon Church to mobilize its members against polygamy the way it has against same-sex marriage equality, no matter how often it claims that marriage is between one man and one woman.
While NOM and the Mormon Church have been very effective at claiming that the word “marriage” should belong to and be defined by religions that reject the validity of same-sex marriage — and only those religions — I seem to be the first person to notice the definition of marriage varies significantly according to the religion that is defining it — and that no religion has more definitions of marriage than the Mormon church.
According to the Mormon church, the only real marriage is a celestial marriage, which is a union between a male and female who are both Mormon, who both have been sufficiently obedient to the church elders and hierarchy and current with their tithes to have a “temple recommend,” and which is performed in a Mormon temple. According to the Mormon church, absolutely no other form of marriage is truly spiritual or sacred. Mormons also practiced polygamy, which they prefer to call “plural marriage,” until 1904. Currently mainstream Mormons can be excommunicated for practicing plural marriage, but the church’s official Web site leaves open — to people who understand the structure of the Mormon church — that its prophet may have a revelation any minute that re-institutes plural marriage. The third form of marriage is any marriage performed outside of a Mormon temple — it is spiritually inferior. By definition. By people who are not you. And who practice a different religion. Which they are grooming you to accept by convincing you that only an anti-gay religion can define marriage. Which will pretty soon morph into bullying you into agreeing that only the Mormon religion can define marriage. Then you are REALLY going to have to jump through some hoops.
To get a peek into the brave new world of polygamy — oops! plural marriage! — check out a recent story on Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the National Geographic. My father subscribes so in a subsequent issue in the “Letters to the Editor” section, I saw that one reader explained how the polygamists can afford to have so many wives and children: since their marriages are religious, but not legal, only one spouse is lawful and therefore related but all the other spouses are not so they — and their children — are eligible for welfare. In other words, polygamists game the system and live off their Uncle Sam — who takes the money from you, Joe and Jane Taxpayer — until that happy, happy day when they have enough votes to take over.
Call me crazy, but the gay agenda of simple and total equality still leaves our Constitution and democratic republic in place and I’ve got to say that it looks a lot better than having our Constitution overthrown and replaced by any religion.
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I bought How to Get Lots of Money for Anything — Fast! in August 2005 and use the knowledge in it every day. Its techniques for setting and achieving even seemingly-impossible objectives are based on brain function research AND THEY WORK! You will learn how to get your conscious and unconscious minds to work together to produce success while feeling joy, enthusiasm and certainty of achievement. I highly recommend this book. Cynthia Yockey |
I see from a post by dear Fausta that quadriplegic cartoonist John Callahan died on Saturday of complications of quadriplegia and respiratory problems. FYI, most quads can move their arms but lack dexterity in their hands. If you are wondering what kinds of complications quadriplegia has, he could have gotten sepsis from a pressure sore or a urinary tract infection (from his bladder stoma, catheter, tubing or catheter bag). Quadriplegia can make it hard to cough, which you need to do to clear your lungs, so that could have caused respiratory problems. Or the person reporting his death thought he had respiratory problems when really he had the death rattle common at the end of life.
Years ago I read Callahan’s first autobiography, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. He was unsparing of himself in writing about his life. The passages that come to my mind the most often were about the difficulty of getting a quadriplegic person dressed in pants and getting the creases and seams where they belong — I thought of that every time I dressed my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, who was quadriplegic the last 10 years of her life due to MS — and the foods he could afford with his food stamps — beans were a staple.
If you understand the battle of the severely depressed to live just one more day — day after day — then you will get John’s song about how even the smallest waves of joy, and ordinary beauties, nourish the soul enough to regenerate the resolve to live. It is piercingly beautiful. (If you currently have depression, do NOT listen to this song, instead immediately click the “Humor” category in this blog and get the hell out of this post. Or scroll down to “I don’t know why he swallowed the fly” — FAST! NOW! GO!)
Update, 7/28/2010: I guess it makes sense that dear, irreverent Kathy Shaidle also was a fan of John Callahan’s. Do go to her place and read what she’s got, but also check out a story she links with the great headline, “Tales from the Crip,” especially if you were wondering about who dyed his hair. It’s not the kind of thing you notice unless you’ve lived with quadriplegia, but Callahan did NOT have the most appropriate wheelchair for his mobility, so it’s no wonder the one he had hurt his back and required him to be bedridden most of the time — he should have been in a tilt-in-space/recliner chair with electric leg lifts. Then he could have changed positions for pressure relief.
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I bought How to Get Lots of Money for Anything — Fast! in August 2005 and use the knowledge in it every day. Its techniques for setting and achieving even seemingly-impossible objectives are based on brain function research AND THEY WORK! You will learn how to get your conscious and unconscious minds to work together to produce success while feeling joy, enthusiasm and certainty of achievement. I highly recommend this book. Cynthia Yockey |
