A few days before the recent U.S. Presidential elections, my LDS cousin’s married, adult daughter posted the following on Facebook as a “call to arms”:

Tomorrow is a day of fasting and prayer for our faith. Whoever you are and whatever your beliefs, I invite you to join with our family in spending the day remembering God and this great nation and asking for His blessings on us this Tuesday.

After the election — when Mitt Romney, the LDS candidate she fasted and prayed for — did not win, I posted this:

Wow this stuff really works. My prayers WERE answered on Tuesday.

She retorted with a somewhat typical Mormon response that blamed my supposed iniquity as the root cause of why I would disagree with her political beliefs (not to mention the whole “fast and pray so Romney wins” mantra):

You can have your own need for all things immoral and inane validated by the Democratic Party and turn your back on what you once professed to be true but that doesn’t give you props for being a schmuck on my status.

Her father pulled something similar several years ago when he sent out a blast email exhorting people to give a good rating to his son’s newly-launched music album on Amazon and iTunes. My older brother questioned the propriety and honesty of this request in an email response back and this man proceeded to call my brother “an apostate and embittered ex-member” [of the LDS church] as a way of showing who was on the right side of god.

Interesting tactic.

We held our 20th annual family reunion this past weekend in Thermopolis, Wyoming. The weather was hot and the sky filled with smoke from distant fires. Much of the west, including Colorado, Utah, Montana and Wyoming are blanketed this year after an unseasonably dry winter and spring.

Today is the Fourth of July and fireworks are dotting the air around the Salt Lake valley — and in our cul-de-sac. I guess we don’t have as much fire danger in the city in spite of the extremely warm weather and 38 days since the last measurable precipitation.

Last Thursday the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of most of the so-called “Obamacare” [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] law, which means among other things, 30 million additional Americans will be able to obtain medical coverage. The Right decries this altruism in many different ways, but mostly as “Socialism” and “government meddling”.

The divide in our country on this and many other subjects on the 236th anniversary of its founding is stark and rather scary.

Not sure entirely how I feel about yesterday’s killing of Osama bin Laden by US troops and the CIA, but am somewhat gladdened that this facet of the attacks on September 11, 2001 is behind us.

I was happy to see President Obama stand up from the political mire and make a decision that for probably only a brief moment, reunited the American people.

Will it end “the war on terror”? Hardly.

I’m not sure ultimately what it solves or resolves and I suspect that from small things will come even greater tragedies.

A new year begins. What will this one hold that is any different from any other year? There may be some significant happenings, but in the overall scheme of things (if there actually is a scheme), perhaps not much. Human progress seems to march rather slowly.

Here are some questions I would like to see answered in 2011:

• Will the spate of teen suicides relent as the “it gets better” seed takes root?
• Will the LDS church continue to soften its rhetoric on homosexuality and its non-inspired speculation on its cause(s)?
• Will the LDS church stop using the term “same sex attraction” as if homosexuality is a clinical diagnosis, with a cure?
• Will the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” become an actuality in the US armed forces without a huge rightwing backlash?
• Will Sarah Palin’s prayers (and ours) to know if she should run for president be answered?
• Will California’s “Prop 8″ be reversed in federal court? Will it move to the US Supreme Court?
• Will the LDS church finally get its noses and finances out of politics and actually focus on helping heal the world?
• Will the US really, finally withdraw from Afghanistan?
• Will the world economy improve?
• Will world peace be within our grasp?

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for flying cars.

Roger Ebert has written in his Chicago Sun-Times blog a strong indictment against the purveyors of subtle (and not so subtle) lies in today’s political process.

This is the best line: “Our political immune system has only one antibody, and that is the truth.”

Put up or shut up

This many Americans did not arrive at such conclusions on their own. They were persuaded by a relentless process of insinuation, strategic silence and cynical misinformation. Most of the leaders in this process have been cautious to avoid actually saying Obama is a Muslim. They speak in coded words and allow the implications to sink in. I recently watched Glenn Beck speaking at great length about Obama’s Muslim father, but you would not have learned from Beck that the father, who Obama met only once, was not a practicing Muslim in any sense.

Rush Limbaugh has told his listeners he can find “no evidence” that Obama is a Christian. In Paul Krugman’s op-ed column in the New York Times on 8/29, Limbaugh is quoted: “Imam Hussein Obama, is probably the best anti-American president we’ve ever had.” Limbaugh obviously doesn’t believe Obama is an imam. How many of his listeners realize that? Is he concerned that his words will be taken seriously?
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The 4th of July continues to be the most confusing holiday in Utah — especially if it falls on a Sunday.

We’ve been barraged with firecrackers and other dog-affecting noise since Friday and it no doubt will continue well into the evening of the 5th, but there will be few official fireworks or other public celebrations of the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence held today — the actual date.

The reasons are twofold:

A non-LDS friend of mine put it best in a Facebook post:

I’m celebrating the 4th on the 4th. Please don’t tell my bishop.

Right-wing pundit Bill Kristol is refuted on his stance on the President’s proposal to finally repeal the ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in this article in The Economist.

It pains me deeply to see patriotic, self-sacrificing, loyal American citizens still dealing with this almost a year into the Obama Administration — and 10 years into the 21st century.

Isn’t it time?

‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’ — don’t call home?
By Ed Hornick, CNN

Washington (CNN) — There’s a constant fear that hangs over some service members deployed to a war zone — and it’s not necessarily the threat from insurgents or roadside bombs.

One Marine serving in Afghanistan said suppressing the truth about his sexual orientation is gut-wrenching.

“I do worry a lot about being outed and kicked out,” he said in an e-mail to CNN. “So far the military has been my livelihood and my source of work/income for the past six years. I don’t want that all taken away from me and me being discharged anything but honorably.”

The Marine requested anonymity because of the military’s 1993 congressionally mandated “don’t ask, don’t tell” law prohibiting gay, lesbian and bisexual service members from coming out.
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So I’m on Facebook this evening and come across a couple of posts from relatives who are using it as a pulpit to broadcast their political opinions, rather than as the social network that makes it enjoyable to catch up with long-lost friends and family.

It’s the equivalent of bringing in and banging one’s own drum at a concert in the midst of an audience who thought they were present to enjoy the music from the performers on stage.

It’s disruptive. It’s counter-productive. It’s rude.
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