Educated: Book Review

I finished reading the powerful memoir "Educated" by Tara Westover, a gifted young person (someone in their late 20s is young to me) and her life, the major parts and intuition of it, covering her younger years until she achieved a doctorate in history, perhaps at age 27. Or twenty five? Early for a memoir, yes, but very enthralling and telling of a compelling tale to tell.

Full disclosure: I am jealous in a few ways. Jealous, but also happy or proud for her, in that she published a very insightful and interesting book despite rough circumstances of growing up. One thing that I would like to do but I have not done is write a powerful book. I am also jealous that she now has a doctorate, something I considered in my late twenties, and on into my thirties and forties, and now at the cusp of my fifties I seriously question if that type of accomplishment is in the cards for me. Maybe, maybe not. With more leanings to the "not". Maybe stories like hers will inspire me further to do so? It does not hurt to read this for motivation, that is certain.

Perhaps more importantly than anything else related to me or any of my impressions of the author and her life so far, of which I wish to share, as portrayed in the memoir, is the incredibly impressive way that Tara arrived at her status of historian, doctoral student, and successful human being.

Her stories definitely inspire me. However, there are obvious caveats to be considered in her narrative, which is no slight against her, but rather a statement for context which I wish to make. If one is unfamiliar with people who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, in the Mountain West or otherwise, then the case of her family is very extreme as a sample of the population of these people. Again, nothing against Ms. Westover, or rather more power to her from arising from such a background, but the story to me is more about the power of her individual will, the goodness of her family members despite their blatant faults, and her greater faith and academic community in support of her rather than a story of a regular Mormon. 

Because of her father and his irrational extremes in belief and practice, and then related cruel or violent family like her brother, who takes on unhealthy attributes in his own sphere, Tara is an extreme example of what happens in an extreme environment of paranoia and bi-polarity, not necessarily a by-product of the religion of which they, the Westover family of Buck's Peak, Idaho, emanate. However, there is a lot to learn about the Latter-day Saint people in her narrative. 

And again, it is not a normal upbringing or family in any context; I believe such examples of mental duress and experience could be found in any religious or non-religious environment, and for this reason the book is so amazingly powerful and resonates with those who read it on any level. But, I warn that those who are not familiar with LDS/Mormons should not to use it as a rubric for the norm.

Then again, across the width and breadth of the world, people who are very devout to their respective beliefs and faiths are considered extreme, which can be applied to the Latter-day Saints within the United States and abroad. I feel that this is unfair and largely inaccurate, but I know my share of people who think of Mormons as extreme or odd. And, the very faith itself, those within our Church, can paint ourselves and its faith as such from the scriptures of Isaiah when it prophesies of God's "peculiar people". Us LDS can own these types of identities and descriptions as much as anyone without the membership.

And my truth be told, in contrast to the sometimes brutal, somewhat harsh, and almost always austere upbringing of Tara Westover, my family experience and my personal experience with interpersonal and active fellowships within my family and other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were by and large positive and reassuring. And, the doctrine and practices of the faith made sense to me. I am a guy, and the thought or principle of polygamy never scared me the way that it apparently gave her dread and pause.

Overcoming and Learning, Becoming Educated

All along in her story, or at least by the end, Tara chooses not to be a Horatio Alger, a cause celebre of the ignorant cum academic, or the cliched "rags to riches" tale of transformation. However, we cannot help but compare the extreme nature of her education (or lack thereof) as a child to her development as an adult. The fact that she transforms from member of the Church to implied less active or non-member is not surprising either, as many other gifted and academically minded and artistic people have done in the 200 year history of the faith. 

Tara is inspirational in so many aspects of her life. She is strong, and naturally becomes confused when she tries to be loyal and true to her father and family when she constantly becomes aware of the greater incongruous world around her. By the end she liberates herself from his world, the overbearing father, and perhaps (as insinuated) the strictures and paradigms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is possible that she maintains her faith and membership in the faith, I do not know, and do not wish to presume. There is ample evidence that she doubts the origins and claims of it, along with certain doctrines and practices of the religion.

I should read her dissertation to get a better picture of her stances and views, or rational conclusions and findings about the faith of which we both share an upbringing. Notably, her parents are multi-generational Saints, while my parents joined as grown adults. We were raised in different generations and different regions of the country, which also affect our outlooks and worldviews.

And also unlike Tara, with fewer siblings and many more connections to the outer world, I felt like I was exposed to much information and introduced to so much of it early and often.

She raced to an education in world history and the greater world closer to her adult life, and now it is her world. I knew about many world events and traumatic happenings long before age 17, when she first alighted on the university campus, the same religious one, where I would attend from ages 22 to 24.

I suppose in some ways her memoir compels me to compare and contrast my own personal story, and upbringing, which is part of the powerfully good effect and sympathy-drawing nature of her work. It is an incredibly well told and analytical piece, for which I am grateful and moved.

But again with the caveats as explained above.

Mental Illness; Survival

Part of the bigger story or theme within Tara's life and memoir is the dealings and realizations of who her father is (a bipolar father, apparently, who is volatile and mentally unhinged), and that some of the violence or malice of his mind has passed on to her brother, Sean, one of four that she feels close to, and that she must battle to become separate from the mania and chaos that they bring to bear in her life.  She follows them and loves them a lot, but must come to the severe truth that she must physically and emotionally get distanced from them. Her mother, and possibly her sister Audrey are like the classic co-enablers, who fall sway to the domineering men and this is its own type of mental illness.

Tara, I believe, in writing this book and even her doctoral dissertation, which appears to be a sociologically framed feminist historical take on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 19th century, the the resultant culture in its wake, is dealing with her identity and that of her family, and greater church and human family.

Us. All of us.

Thanks, Tara.

You have been bold, brave, honest, clear, descriptive, elucidating, and showing that all of us have strengths and talents that we must at times fight our utmost to discover, uncover, and develop. Many of the  attributes or characteristics that you and many or most of the people in your book have described you as, which for me is a person with a persona like many of my heroes in my life and those that I have studied and try to emulate: Jesus Christ, His mother Mary, Peter, the Apostles, ancient prophets, modern prophets, local leaders of my and other faiths, rabbis, clerics, priests, pastors, chaplains, reverends, politicians, professors, teachers, parents, friends, colleagues, soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen, children, peacemakers, homemakers, servants and laborers, my own mother and father, authors and artists, and many others who toil at humility and power through justice and faith.

I expect to see and hear more of you; we know that your life and memoir are not done. You have re-began, and are being re-born, as you have eloquently put it. 

You in your words and deeds have given all of us better and keener eyes as to how the world works, how we work, how life can and should function. We all enjoy the freedom that you have found to discover it. 

 The Extra 15 Pounds

We all have an extra fifteen pounds that we carry, or that we can lose. If we are right in the middle, or "perfect", then the next 15 pounds to lose would make us skinny. The extra 15, which I think of as normal, keeps us a bit round, or more shapely than many of us would prefer.

According to the U.S. Army standards of the 21st century (not sure about the last one, they didn't apply to me then), a person of my height and age (since maybe age 40 or so) should weigh between 144 and 208 pounds. When I hit my thirties, which was at the turn of the century,  I ranged around 205 to 220 pounds. I went through Basic Training in Fort Leonard Wood and came out at about 178 pounds, a few more with clothing on. And boots. I was skinny. I was below a normal weight for me. Even as a young missionary and college student I was around 185-190 pounds.

Once I made it back to the normal world of eating meals beyond a mere three minute span, I put on the weight that was normal to me, and I would hover from 200 to 210 pounds. But then a few short years later I hit my forties, and it was normal to be between 210 to 220, even 223 or more... and those last 15 pounds of Army weight have lead to a few stories.

I could recount a few, like how I bet a Sergeant in 2014 that I would make weight and lose 14 or so pounds by next drill, and if I won he would give up smoking and qualify to attend the temple with his family, and every time I came close to the snack drawers my children would scold me and shame me, and say,"Dad! The Sergeant!" I did make it that time.

Other times it has hindered me, like when I was failed from a Sergeant course and sent home early for not making weight in 2018 in South Carolina, near Fort Jackson. I originally weighed in at 221, thinking that I could tape and be measured at 213 or so a week later and pass, after eating right and losing 8 pounds in 8 days. Nope. I needed to be 208 or less, because I learned the hard way that I cannot pass tape, even, probably, under 208. Based on my proportions.

 

I had passed tape multiple times at that weight in Virginia.

Last year I ran outside for a while, sweating, at the armory, to lose my last pound to make it on the scales, with multiple witnesses and everything. Standing in just Army shorts and no underwear. 208. Qualified.

So, where are we in relation to the 15? Above, as some suggest the Thanksgiving holiday will do? At weight, perfect, or slightly below? I am above, even days and weeks before Thanksgiving.

 

Pictures tell the tale. The face is fuller, the stomach protrudes, there is just more of me in the photos, and the images are not flattering. 

 

210 looks pretty good, normally. Not so much at 220.

 

The extra 10 or 15 or 20 pounds has influence on quite a few things. My dad, who is a healthy 83 years old, says it will affect the long term life span if I carry too much extra weight. Perhaps in can increase diabetes levels, as he has type 2, even though he has been a slender non-obese guy all his life.

 

The extra 15 affects running, jumping (basketball), squeezing into pants, even fitting into some shirts. And, all of it works on the self esteem, self image, and that poundage over 208 certainly affects Army standards.

It has been a factor in my life for over a decade, even going back 16 years when discussing military standards years before I wound up joining.

So: can I drop the snacks and go to bed a little bit hungrier to achieve the magic 208?

That is what it boils down to. Weekly aerobic exercises, eating healthy, drinking liquids, and falling asleep with a little appetite?

Sounds easy.

Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the food and beverages.

Your Compartmentalization of "Mormonism" Has Sucked the Christ Out of It, As Accused

We all do it. We lose focus. We lose clarity.

 

We lose the sense of the purpose and reality of things.

 

No one is to blame, in particular. It is human nature to fall in these paths. 

We all share the blame: I am pointing fingers at me and you and every other person who walks down the street, even the ones buried long ago.

We all compartmentalize, but we all generalize, and we mess up one hundred and a thousand ways in between.

We like to --often have to-- compartmentalize things into easier heuristics in order make life easier, saving time and breathe, space and effort. This happens in names and nomenclature.

Mormon and Mormonism works faster, cuter, more convenient, and academically more "in the know" than Latter-Day Saint or the clunkier and more faith derived full title: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the official name and the one that the currently appointed mouthpiece, President  Russell M. Nelson, has requested all of us to use and refer to.

The nickname and identity Mormon is not going away, despite many efforts by earnest members and others, especially from those who wish not to invoke the name of the person or personage in whom the members themselves believe is at the root and foundation of the faith. Calling it the Church of Jesus Christ is too religious or effacing for some to consider. There are secular pedants as well as Christian dogmatists who fall sway to this pattern. Ironically, some use the name of Jesus when many consider it profane or vain, as an epithet or invective, disrespectfully, while omit it when called for by those that claim God's authority, such as leadership from this particular denomination, as a sign of respect and honor for a holy person, or The Person of persons.

What's more, within the very faith there are plenty of us who do not follow the Prophet's counsel to use His name more appropriately. In short, we overuse and abuse the nickname Mormon.

There has been a large concerted effort to change it, even with the world famous former Mormon Tabernacle Choir changing its name. Now it is the Choir at the Tabernacle, or something harder for me to learn.

Anyway, anyhow, some say names and nicknames do not matter that much in the scheme of  things, yet self-definitions and identities do end up meaning things in the way that they are described and uttered, and have their impacts internally and externally. Branding and marketing, some might call it. It matters a great deal to some, especially when those assigned such appellations or nicknames and those self-identified are trying to define or redefine the narrative.

For some of it, it is taking the Christ out of the equation. Jesus Christ, the ultimate purveyor in the ultimate question of power and authority, the actual reason of whether it all matters in the end, according to Christian theology, eschatology, and teleology.

Which for many, is the whole point.

Is this faith that was restored, or founded, or assembled by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the 1820s and 1830s, simply another religious movement that has high demands and bold claims that will amount to another movement of zealotry and amounts to nothing of which it predicts and prophesies?

 

Perhaps.

 

Time will tell if it was worth all the hyperbole or not. Because no one knows at present knows if this is all true or fiction. However, those who reverence the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the point is real whether He is who He is or not. Tread with caution no matter the outcome.

 

For now, we are careful to try not to be bigoted or insensitive to those who consider their faith and the identity or name of their form or worship sacred. 

Religious people are people too, and have feelings that can be hurt. Which, the non-religious understand what it is like to be condemned or accused of being wrong or immoral, without proper values.

I guess we need to call each other as we like, in the end.

Which is hard to do a lot of the time. For many reasons. It is hard to know how to refer to people and communicate names. Even within ourselves, one to another.

Also, on a moderate note, labeling oneself or other "Mormon" does not always take away from the majesty and respect of the Savior, the Son of God, the Promised Messiah. Sometimes it may even draw fire and angst from His name. 

There are many angles to this issue; we all take part in our and others' identity.

Actions will be a large part (or largest part) of our ultimate legacy, not the words and names. But words and labels start and end much of the discussion.

Alpha and Omega.

Writer's Dilemma 

There are multiple dilemmas in writing, really. One of them is lacking confidence in one's own voice, another is simple indecisiveness, another is being too enamored or distracted by other writers and subjects... Reading others and continuing to let their voices lead and guide, inspire and somewhat overwhelm your own.

Laziness, apathy, lack of talent, or perceived lack, lack of encouragement, which most true writers seem to blaze through.

Eventually.

Lack of vision? Sure. Many other faults exist...

But we keep trying.

 

I read the credits of many authors and writers that I appreciate and I am inspired by, entertained, educated by. They thank close loved ones, professional editors, other close friends, and sometimes a host of the sources and subject matter experts that they resorted to to create their fictions and non-fictions.

Those people and resources do not happen by accident. There is a lot of hard work, determination, and synergy to make those writings happen. The author has his or her own will for creating, composing, crafting, and then collaborating to make their works come to light.

Rare is the author like Franz Kafka who wrote brilliantly, yet somewhat tortured in his own loneliness and mental and physical conditions, and eventually produced great tracts and books, but by the end of his shortened life wanted it all to end with him. One friend relented, did not destroy his writings as requested, and we know his works today. 

 

Ernest Hemingway had many who supported his talents over the years, but one wife was blamed for losing some valuable transcripts on a central European train, and despite those who supported him he had his own detractors, as well as a few rivalries that spurred or perhaps discouraged him.

I feel like Hemingway was a force of nature that would rise in the world of literature no matter what, supported or not by those around him.

Maybe the same was as such for an oddball as the infamous J.D. Salinger. He was a loner, and he had his editors, but it seemed it was he himself who was his own best and worst critic. Maybe he lost his mind, or maybe he just disengaged with outer humanity, which always becomes a subject of interest and scrutiny for the literary world, as it were. Some think it is all overblown. Maybe so, like so much bubble gum T.V. and social media and it pabulum for the dopey masses. (Me included, of course.)

And there you have it on a sunny, cool, crisp, late November day in the year of the Wuhan flu pandemic, and thinking about writing the next big thing. Important, pertinent, significant.

Worth writing.

A dilemma worth thinking about and working on through.

Thanks Isabel Allende and all the others. Thanks for putting pen to paper (finger tips to key boards), and sharing your visions, your dreams, your thoughts and inner-most feelings, your grandiose designs and your formations of the inner and outer universe. You make us more whole, fuller, richer. And so much thanks to those that have supported you, helped you in your prolific craft. Unnamed friend of Kafka? Good looking out.

You reacted well to that Czech's dilemma.

His dilemma, some one hundred or so years ago, his problems, issues (mental, psychological, existential), are mine, are yours, are the world's.

Thanks for putting them to paper and thanks for friends who recognized their value and import.

Every writer needs at least one reader. And maybe that is the author themself (himself, herself), in their own world. Maybe the author and finisher of the script is the sole lector.

Dilemma solved, in one way.

You just had to write it down. It all starts somewhere.

 The Balkans Bespeak Us

Some of us don't know much about the former Yugoslavia, but then again many of us do not know much about ourselves, each other, or our own individual nature.

So it is worth investigating and analyzing a little, yes?

Human nature, Balkan nature.

 

The Balkans by definition in English and the greater world in the 20th and 21st centuries means "divided", "broken apart", "not getting along", and "fractured". A sad state of former unified states. In my youth of the 1970s and 1980s, Yugoslavia was a strong European nation of 7 (some would argue 6) former nations, and then with the fall of the Communist Iron Curtain lands in the 1990s came the eventual break up as we know them today: Slovenia (small country of the second lady, Melania, the third wife of Donald Trump), Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia. Each one independent and sovereign, each one with its own culture and flavor.

Thus are we, the human peoples of the earth.

Sometimes we are formed up in strong kinships or clans, families or tribes, while other times we drift apart or separate to our respective autonomous fiefdoms.

Serbia with its old city Belgrade was the capital for generations after World War II, and then the circumspect nations along the coast learned and dared to break off. Some of it included violence and tragedy, some of the newly found older/new nations came about peacefully.

Thus are we, human beings of the terrestrial planes.

Within the seven states, that go back ethnically for  there are Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Muslims, and plenty of agnostics and atheists. 

Thus we the family is: divided in our passions and beliefs and practices.

Dad is big and loud and hairy, mom is demure and stalwart, self-effacing, the oldest daughter is a rebel and a sneak, breaking away whenever she can, the next daughter is more loyal and steady, doing all things to please her parents. The third born, a son, is an amiable fellow who is nice but too gullible, the second son is aggressive and mean at times, a firebrand, and seems to want to conquer the world. The children and personalities vary greatly

All the types and attributes that you wish to see, we them in the former Yugoslavia, in their governments and peoples, now in 2020, or back then in 1984 when the Soviets ruled by tank and missile, symbolized in the hammer and cycle, two tools of oppression more than any type of liberating labor. Marx and Trotsky and dozens of other so-called human rights activists and revolutionaries from the early 20th , led to the current miasma of Maduro and the Xi, Hu, Jiang and Deng, and a guy who succeeded the very Mao, who I do not recall from my early years, Hua (Guofeng) in the late 1970s.

Such buffoons. They made nice with the smaller neighbor of the greater unified Balkans in Europe, Albania, trying to make some opening into the West where some type of solidarity could be established with the social and economic plans of the so-called heroes of the people (Communist thinkers and revolutionaries), the ones that starved millions of their fellow citizens to death, while then later accusing each other of sedition and deadly tom-foolery that cost millions of more would-be free people to die ignominiously and awfully, tell me where communism or its incestuous cousin uber government socialism has helped the people arise from the depths of poverty... This was China specifically, but plays out in each Communist attempted country, like Cuba or Vietnam, Cambodia or North Korea...

I understand governments do protect and help the people, in general, yes, but not through the heavy handed, oppressive, godless machinations and demonically self-proscribing, top down dictatorial screeds and illogical 5 year and other inane plans of alleged masters of all things socially right and economical, based on the principles and deadly dogma of Karl Marx and his acolytes.

What a sad, long, hard, tragic, joke. Jokes and satire to the tune of millions of lost lives. Enough of the Far East Communist ideologues in this, my foray; let us alight back to the closer Eurasian continent, where the Muslim east interfaces with the Western and Christianized edges of Eastern Europe.

Europe, the modern cradle of civilizations.

The Yugoslavs stayed independent of the Soviets and the Chinese, and now they have gotten past their genocides and wars and seem to be on the up and up, the mend from decades of totalitarianism.

Albania and nearby Greece have their own economic woes, which influence the modern Balkans.

Religion has its part if the strife, between the Orthodox of Serbia, more tilted toward Putin's Russia than any of the others leaning toward the West, and NATO... with traditional Catholic loyalties. And the third wheel, that of Islam, extant here in the corner of Europe of many centuries.

NATO rhymes with Montenegro, which broke off from Greater Serbia to establish their own identity and take solace in the allies of neighbor Italy, and greater powers France, Germany, and Britain, still somewhat the "Great". Backed of course by the United States and Canada. No small potatoes in the world of geo-politics.

Ask anyone: Israel, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, or a dozen other countries seeking their own place on the earth. To be a player and an interlocutor, like Saudi Arabia hosting the G-20 summit this late weekend in November, at the end of the Trump years.

What does former Yugoslavia teach us? Many things.

1. No nation is an island to itself; within the island of a nation are many more granular nuances. Conflicts, opportunities, trials, inter-marriages, movements, money markets, labor, investments, political parties, causes, family intrigues. Power is played out, always.

2. The bigger powers of the world have their profound influences, upon each society down to the street level.

3. There is much rich and also dark history among these peoples.

I watched Force 10 from Navarone excitedly as a child. It had the Partisans and chetniks of the old wiles of Bosnia, in the mountains close to Sarajevo where the '84 Winter Olympics were held, where a few short years later they butchered each other.

In Fitzroy MacLean's epic novel or biographical story Eastern Approaches this English diplomat and dilettante works with Comrade Tito himself, to carve out the Balkans from the German Nationalists of Hitler and eventually the tyrant of the North, none other than Joseph Stalin.

Yugoslavia came together when it needed to historically, it seems, and in the absence of tyranny (thank you Gorbachev and glasnost and perestroika, and Thatcher and Reagan, and million foot soldiers and sailors), and in freer times split into its present iterations of separate entities.

Long live Kosovo, as it were, the Green Line of greater Albania.

The Chinese bucks may or may not have stopped here.

The political and economic tides of the earth's powers will continue to wage on and through your soils, and you are with us all along.

Humanity and history progress on through the coasts and mountains of these hinterlands, the corner stuck between Asia Minor and the rest of the fulcrum of humanity.

The central European theory, from the UCLA professor, Mr. Miller from England? Yes, there will be other days to discuss that phenomena...

 

 

 

What Did Brigham Young Do Right?

What Did Brigham Young Do Right?

Recently I got into a discussion with close family members about the virtues, if you will, of the Prophet Brigham Young. His actions added with his beliefs define who he was.

Was he a polygamist? Yes? He fathered children with sixteen different mothers. He was legally or spiritually sealed to a total of 55 women, some of whom were older.

Was he racist? Yes, he was a segregationist and a non-black supremacist, or favoritist, yes. Meaning, he accepted into the priesthood of the Church people of all colors, including native Americans, Latinos, and Asians, except and excluding those of African descent. He also interpreted the descendants of Africa to have the mark of Cain, which is now recognized as a racist interpretation of Biblical beliefs of that time and era. These beliefs were somewhat popular in the 19th century among whites, at least in the United States. The Church eventually cast those beliefs away from its doctrines and practices.

Was he a slave owner or proponent of slavery? No. Did he allow the subjugation of people of any kind? No. Was he an abolitionist pre-Civil War, or ante-bellum? Yes.

Did his church members and former friends and associates suffer privations, loss of property, loss of life, and become targeted by local and federal government directed sanctions and terror based in part to their anti-slavery views and status? Yes. Being anti-slavery cost the early church and its members quite dearly, and was one of the reasons that Young led the early Saints across the Great Plains to Utah, which was at the time Mexican territory.

Was he an American patriot? Yes, he sent men and women to join and support the U.S. Army in the Mexican-American war. That battalion removed from his wagon trains crossing the plains, in extreme hardship, without the aid of those able bodied conscripted soldiers, who forged the longest military march in United States history. Known as the Mormon Battalion, there is a museum and visitor center dedicated to it in San Diego, California.

Did the U.S. Federal government disagree with President Young's colonies and control of the Inter-mountain-West, and also try to attack and punish the Mormon (Latter-Day Saint) leadership and settlements for their practice of polygamy? Yes.

Did the U.S. Federal Government consider Brigham Young a threat to the Federal Republic and its democracy? Yes.

Was President Young responsible for the tragic Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857? No. Sources attest that he did not order that terrible act against the migrants of Arkansas.

Was President Young responsible in oppressing and subjugating his people, as a modern day Moses?

I say no.

You can have your own opinions, but I think he was a virtuous person, and more importantly, vigorously and faithfully lead a new faith movement that became better and better as the years wore on, the successors followed, and the numbers and influence grew.

My high school daughter said yesterday (Nov. 12, 2020) that she thinks that she would not enjoy meeting Brigham Young. Fair enough: an open, honest opinion. I think that she would be surprised how much she would enjoy a conversation with him, but I could be wrong. He was known to be fiery and headstrong, sure. Was he a narcissist or sociopath? I think not. I asked her if she would like to meet Moses, how would his personality be? She said there was not enough written or known about him to opine on that.

One could argue that if the major revelator of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith Jr., had not been cut down in his prime at 38, and three years later in 1847 President Young had not taken the helm of the movement, perhaps there would not have been the racial divide imposed as it was, largely due to him. That's possible. Maybe Young was too extreme and limited in his vision of the Lord's people. He was sending large groups of settlers across the Inter-Mountain West to Idaho, Arizona, California, besides the expansion within Utah, which was no small accomplishment. Life was hard, the U.S. government was antagonistic towards these religious zealots, gathering from all over the earth, and the Mormon people were considered part of the problems of the United States by many, including those opposed to slavery.

 

Each successor to Brother Brigham became more and more moderate and accepted by the society and rest of the world. John Taylor was not thought of as a firebrand like his predecessor; perhaps the position did not require it in his time as much. Taylor was a British born man; the United Kingdom had banned human bondage long before anyone else. Perhaps he had less draconian views of societies? Maybe less pent up angst about Washington bureaucrats? Perhaps the decades of relative peace had softened hearts on all sides. Post-bellum America was growing, expanding, prospering more and more, especially with the overcoming of racial and human rights differences that we all know about from our shared American history.

By the fourth president of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, one who had his fair share of knowing younger President Smith and older Presidents Young and Taylor, he was the one who proclaimed the rescinding of plural marriage. While thought of as a necessary and righteous endeavor by the Church members, to gather Israel and grow Zion (not as awful and brutal as the Israelites that conquered Canaan under Joshua, which was a genocide), polygamy served its purposes and was done away with. Understandably to the non-believers and the detractors of this faith, a religion only half a century old, but claiming thousands of years of authority, a restoration of the actual Church of Christ as originally formed, things seemed extreme. But as we know, the Latter-day Saints became more mainstream and acceptable to the rest of the country and the world, year after year, prophet after prophet.

 

In naming and maintaining the name of Brigham Young on its flagship universities into the 21st century, of which I am a graduate, we acknowledge that the man had some rough edges, like he was a segregationist (racist) and polygamist (sexist) in today's terms. Did he advocate slavery? No, he was more in the abolitionist camp. Did he force women to marry him against their will? No. Did he believe that he was directed by God to do lead in these ways? Yes, as most divinely "called" people do.

Did he do things, any things, right?

 

Heavily Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Wyoming and Utah allowed women the right to vote (suffrage), long before Susan B. Anthony won those rights with the suffragettes of the following century.

 

Did this fact, among other things, make Brother Brigham a good person? Was this simple fact an indicator of his virtues?

We believe so, I believe so. He helped organize, move, and establish a church government and its people that will (in its mission statements) help humanity find itself and redeem itself. Each successor since has grown in light and knowledge since Young, and this trajectory has been a good thing. It is going on 200 years since he joined the fledgling movement in the 1830s.

I believe Brigham Young was like Peter of old: rough and passionate, but faithful and loyal to a cause he believed to be directed from heaven. God came first, according to his conscience.

That, is what I believe, is the most right thing about the namesake of BYU.

To meet him someday? Maybe he is more like Barach Obama than Donald Trump. One seems more agreeable than the other, in comparison. We shall see. Either way, President Young bears a name of reckoning, and of diligent faith to a Church that claims very bold objectives and goals: the Kingdom of God through His Son Jesus Christ, lead by modern day revelation and authority. I think he was a bit like Peter or Moses, which is not a bad thing at all.

Which brings the point back to this: if Moses is who we and he think that he is, and Jesus is the Son of God, and Peter is His successor, and Joseph Smith is not a complete liar, but rather the modern prophet that he claimed to be, then Brigham Young, in that light, is a pretty big deal.

But you don't have to believe me or take my word for it.

If you investigate it for yourself and come to the conclusions that I have, or similar enough to accept it, that Brigham Young was who he said he was, I tell you that you will be benefited and blessed for it.

In that sense, Brigham Young gave you another chance to find out if any of this Gospel Good News and Restoration according to this organization has merit enough to be of use or not.

Best of wishes and God bless. I like the guy and what he did. Despite his obvious faults. Only one was perfect, the rest of us follow that example, with help from our communities.

 Sometimes It's Easier to Cope and Get By in Abdicating the Call for Greater Confidence in Self or Others

That's a mouthful.

Part of this might be tacked up to streamlining, simplifying, "purifying".  Going minimalist, as many great spiritual people have done.

 

Emotionally we do this coping mechanism or natural trick to lessen the stresses and pressures that we place on ourselves. Lower or lessen the expectations, then we can claim this as modesty or humility, or some type of noble aestheticism, like an ancient monk of old, East or West. Nothing but little or no luxuries or comforts, or perhaps lesser job or career expectations, or marriage desires or hopes, or some other tangible or emotional goal that we defer to something else or nothing...

Began a week or more ago. (Seems like longer, maybe it was..)

Now it is Veterans Day, the former Armistice Day from 11:11 am on 11/11 1918.

I wrote a piece about the margins today, and that is probably related. 

Mediocrity, maybe.

Just getting by. Making due. Not excelling, but only doing the minimal, or the most that one can which may not be enough for others.

But we know there is better.

We must do better...

Work "beyond" the margins. 

If possible.

Abdicating the call for greater confidence. If that makes sense.

As a dozen English teachers would ask,

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ?"

Precisely.

I published this and then I realized that I did not address the confidence in self or others, part.

Self-confidence, that is a real thing. Hard to maintain, or perhaps develop in the first place.

It would seem that that happens to many of us in the margins...

Working the Margins

All of us work on the margins, pretty much all the time.

On the margins of life there are risks, threats, chances, opportunities, accidents, mistakes, miscues, plans, goals, benchmarks, for the good and bad. We all live and die in these webs and externalities, all the time. Some of the outcomes are more central, others more peripheral or tangential. They can all affect us temporarily or for the long term.

Some of us take part in the planning and scheming in how those outcomes turn out more than others. Those that take active choices with more power and control have more centralized parts and positions within the flows and processes of how things develop. But there are always the sides, the edges, of all angles, no matter how core the principle or act. There are margins.

 

Within those margins are the players, who are us. Some of us are found more along the sidelines; we who are marginal.

And, along those margins of life and death are some of us, the marginal players who affect how things play out.

Are you of the central kind or are you marginal? I feel like all of us slip in between the center and the margins, depending on the subject and the issue.

Also, marginal is in the eye of the beholder, it is subjective to who is acting and who is being acted upon.

Law enforcement, some state, work primarily with the bottom 10 percent of society. These are the margins within which they work.

In each community, in each neighborhood, town and county, culture and nation, there are the marginal.

We are they much of the time. 

And many of us are marginal in our pursuits, too.

Stories of our life.

 Saeb Erekat dead at age 65 - He mattered, as do his people

     If you never heard of him, if you did not know that there was a such a person, or even such a name, then I am here to tell you that he and his name mattered, that he counted profoundly as a person and a man, a person and representative of his people. This is in the season of the global pandemic (2020), and the post months of the George Floyd-provoked Black Lives Matter.

This man was Palestinian. In Arabic, Filisteen. A woman or girl is a filisteeniya. Plural of them is filisteeneeyun. There are millions of them, and many are poor. But this story is worse than only poverty of these millions and those that Erekat lived for.

What, pray tell, is a Palestinian? Isn't Philistine an ancient enemy of Israel in the Old Testament, or in the more modern Webster's dictionary a person of rude and backward notions? Yes, the Palestinians derive from these characterizations. Look up the word in a book or some Google search.

The definition of such people, to many around the world, is either controversial or ignored. Both of these connotations is too bad for them, and us, (shame upon us) because we as human beings of consciences in the 21st century-- like recognizing that some American law enforcement officers can learn how not to shoot a suspect too fast or lean on his neck while he is in cardiac distress-- we as citizens of a world that does not really feel or pay enough attention to the human needs and rights of those around the planet should know about the peoples of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They are Arabs, which makes it difficult. They have been there a long time, and many were kicked out.

 

The Palestinians, becoming more of their own sanctioned sovereign state decade by decade, since the UN mandate of 1946, but painfully slow, and torturously torpid in modern circles of power, and infringed upon by extremist eretz Israelis, are the last denizens of the Holy Land to enjoy the freedoms of living as they should. Although, granted, the majority of the people of Syria and even Lebanon seem to be suffering more at present than the average Palestinian, per se.

But, most of them, the Arabs to the direct north, have political rights, at least in Lebanon, while Syria is retching in its own turmoil and violence. Autocracy was supposed to be thwarted by the Arab Spring, but other powers prevailed.

Arabs are passing a dark winter of progress or digression, as perhaps is their cross and crescent to bear, from the religious to the socio-political. The Russians have inserted themselves to pick up some of the slack of the Levantine oppressor and bully, Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. No pity lost on the people of that divided and forlorn land. Or Iraq to its east on the horizon of the rising sun.

Then there are the Palestinians, keepers of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, co-owners of the land of milk and honey, places of holy import like Hebron (Khaleel, burial place of Abraham), Al-Aksa Mosque and Haram as-Sharif in el-Qodz, the third holiest site of Islam.

My college roommate grew up there, his father was the main key administrator of the Holy Mosque and the the disputed holy grounds of the great religions that claim it. His son, with PHD in tow, now resides comfortably in the wealthy and peaceful Emirates. Farther from the call to prayer that can be threatened by crowds of stone throwers or machine gun toters, or worse.

But, according to the interpretation of the Gazan friend who acquired his doctorate in history at UCLA, Shawqi, my former roomie's heart is not with "the people", as I said in my stunted Arabic to him in the halls of graduates at the Westwood campus, before alighting an elevator at Bunche Hall, a building full of brains and book makers and analysts, but as Shawqi said, the engineer's heart is with "the poor".

 

Shawqi is from Gaza. Ghaleb, the son of the Mosque caretaker, is from wealthy central Palestine, the West Bank.

 

Back to Saeb Erekat. Whether left or right, intransigent as a hawk or docile as a dove, Saeb had some points to make.

 

And so do I.

 

His life meant a lot, and so do his people. They are part of the justice and claims of an unfair world.

 

I look forward to the day that I can visit his grave in solemn peace, and smile with my Israeli and Palestinian brothers and sisters in this incredible land and the riches that they share, and share with us, the rest of the world that hardly ever knew them, but should.

 

Mr. Erekat, I salute you. COVID-19 has struck down a hero and a champion.

 

His memory will not be forgotten, nor his cause for freedom and honor for his people.

College Football ---Distraction, Entertainment, Motivator

Both my alma mater football teams, IU and BYU, that I follow closely, are pretty much in the top ten two weekends into November. I do not think that this has ever happened before! Who knows if it will happen again? I need to make note of it. BYU is 8-0 and IU is 3-0. But alas, we recognize that in a pandemic-affected and shortened season, things are topsy turvy and not normal. All is not well in Whoville.

But things are pretty swimming with me and my football team hopes.

 

So, I see the best of it in the worst of it. 2020. Life has its ups and downs, advantages and disadvantages, those who prosper versus those who are left behind, or lose.

Some young men from disadvantaged backgrounds (and some are privileged, or at least middle class economically) get a chance to use their athleticism, skills, determination, and hard work to get an education while also pursuing a professional career in a sport that pays extremely well at the highest echelons. In most cases, not all, it is a brutal sport and can take its physical and mental toll on those who compete in it. It can be risky and pose life injuries, hard to overcome. Thus is our lives. A lot of people get involved and excited: coaches, managers, cheer leaders, bands, commentators, writers, fans, some serious and committed, others laizzes faire, just bobbing along for the fun of the spectating.

Some people pay it no mind.

But, for those who love it, who plan it and scheme it, fantasize and day dream of the glory and the wins, the touchdowns and the sacks, it seems to help move the world along.

Love and passion of the pig skin in the time of pandemic.

Less to do with politics, but save that for another post.

Bryce Harper Moving Up the Charts during the Pandemic --Comments on those he Passed

Bryce Harper Moving Up the Home Run Charts during the Pandemic

Some commentary (below)

280.    Bryce Harper (9, 27)             232    L    HR Log

281.    Jimmy Rollins (17)               231    B    HR Log

282.    Rob Deer (11)                       230    R    HR Log

283.    Nomar Garciaparra (14)       229    R    HR Log
           Anthony Rizzo (10, 30)       229    L    HR Log
           Jayson Werth (15)                229    R    HR Log

286.    Howard Johnson (14)           228    B    HR Log
           Dick Stuart (10)                    228    R    HR Log
           Hal Trosky (11)                    228    R HR Log

    Bryce barely passed up Jimmy Rollins this fall of 2020, with whom he overlapped playing in the majors 5 seasons in the NL East before this athletic short stop retired at age 37 in 2017. Rollins had a pretty good career, with many stolen bases; apparently the most hits for a Philly ever, which is special. He did not have a crazy good lifetime batting average or on-base percentage (.264 and .324, respectively) , but Rollins did win an MVP at his career height, which is no small feat, and helped Philadelphia win a lot, including the 2008 World Series. He was only 5'7", 175 pounds. He was a fast and durable short stop, so hitting 231 homers was pretty good for what he was: defensively important, dependable, and very fast over a longer than normal 17 year tenure as a major leaguer.

I remember Rob Deer when he was in the American League with the Milwaukee Brewers, the last years of the 1980s. He did not have an outstanding career; he had a pretty low batting average, .220, but for only 11 seasons he had pretty good power to arrive at 230 career long balls. He was done by age 32, which is still better than most of us mere fans and mortals.

Nomar Garciaparra was a great hitter and one of the elite of his generation, standing as the hope for the woebegone Boston Red Sox of the late 1990s, then briefly with the also cursed Chicago Cubs, and finally sadly petering out with the wistful Los Angeles Dodgers in 2009. A very notable career and a great hitter at his prime, Nomar was a cultural phenomenon for a while; he ended up not living up to the hyperbole of his promise, individually or for his teams. Unremarkably, he finished his vaunted career in Oakland, like my favorite former Hall of Famer guys Tim Raines and Frank Thomas. He was still hitting decently at age 35 when he called it quits. The guy could hit, always, in his 14 year career. Seems as though his health severely curtailed his numbers and games played. He definitely could have made it to 300 homers, which as of 2020 is a club of only 151 players all time. That is a select club, that Bryce should get in maybe a couple years....

Anthony Rizzo is 30 years old now in 2020, still going, and is a very good player who helped the Cubbies get off the schnide in 2016. Immortalized. He is older than Harper and may not have quite the career, but he may have an outside shot at the 400 club, which is only: oh, 57 sluggers all time. Good luck, Anthony. You seem like a good guy.

Jayson Werth, tied at 229 forever with Nomah (mocked New England accentuated as shared by Saturday Night Live), is a huge persona for both the Phillies and the Nationals. He was a winner for the powerful Phillies, then signed a contract with the up and coming Nats, helping the newcomers Bryce and Steven Strasburg find their chops. I am sure both of these future Hall of Famers have a lot to be grateful for the presence of this professional journeyman. He wasn't a superstar, but he was clearly a winner.

Last three at 228: HoJo, Stuart, and Trosky.

Howard Johnson, whose named coincided with a popular restaurant that catered to travelers, was a mainstay with some really good Mets teams of the 1980s. He helped the Metropolitans win the crazy '86 series, forever recalled with reverence for that. HoJo! cried the New Yorkers. They were a thing, and made it hard on my Expos of Montreal to succeed. They acquired the Hall of Famer Gary Carter and always seemed to be one step ahead of my beloved Expos, the perennial underdog with a lot of talent. Johnson was done at age 33 with the newly founded Rockies of Colorado.

Dick Stuart only played 10 years starting in 1958, breaking in with the Pirates, then moving in bit parts to the Red Sox, Phils, Mets, Dodgers, and lastly the Angels, who used to be the California kind . Done at age 33 after a two year hiatus of 1967 and 1968. Curious. There must be a story there... the yips? A health crisis?

 Hal Trosky, finally to round out the list of recently surpassed by Bryce, played in the Golden years of baseball, some consider halcyon, when there were the original 16 teams, none south of the Mason-Dixon Line and no one West of St. Louis. He played mostly with the Cleveland Indians from 1933 to 1941, taking a break during World War II and came back with the Chicago White Sox in 1944, skipping the next year (service to military?), and retiring after 88 games played in 1946. He had a career high 162 RBIs in 1936, hitting .343, and hit for a career .302 in a total of 11 years, age 33. Not bad. Pretty good hitter and would have had more dingers had it not been for the War.

There is a bit of Americana and context for us all.

Thanks for your sacrifices and service and your generation, Mr. Trosky. Back then homers were less prevalent, so you were certainly one of the best.

Next to pass up in 2021 for Harper?

R	HR Log
	Gus Zernial (11)	237	R	HR Log
269.	Gabby Hartnett+ (20)	236	R	HR Log
270.	Nolan Arenado (8, 29)	235	R	HR Log
	Johnny Damon (18)	235	L	HR Log
	Bill Nicholson (16)	235	L	HR Log
	Ben Oglivie (16)	235	L	HR Log
	Dan Uggla (10)	235	R	HR Log
275.	Carlos Gonzalez (12, 34)	234	L	HR Log
	Gary Matthews (16)	234	R	HR Log
	Kevin Mitchell (13)	234	R	HR Log
	Paul Molitor+ (21)	234	R	HR Log
279.	Cliff Floyd (17)	233	L	HR Log

 Bryce at 280 All time following the COVID-19 Shortened Season

280.

Bryce Harper (9, 27)

232

L

HR Log

281.

Jimmy Rollins (17)

231

B

HR Log

282.

Rob Deer (11)

230

R

HR Log

283.

Nomar Garciaparra (14)

229

R

HR Log

Anthony Rizzo (10, 30)

229

L

HR Log

Jayson Werth (15)

229

R

HR Log

286.

Howard Johnson (14)

228

B

HR Log

Dick Stuart (10)

228

R

HR Log

Hal Trosky (11)

228

 November 2020 -- things

It's sad when politics can divide homes, generations. I have seen some of that lately.

It's sad when things go on, like: war in northern Ethiopia, beheadings in France (most attribute them to religious extremism), police brutality deaths and accusations in our back yard.

 

Hunger.

 

Of course hunger.

 

Want, poverty, waste, greed. 

We all take part in certain aspects. Or the apathy to enable them.

We all have to take part in the solutions. Some think governments, others think religion.

There are clubs that accomplish much good.

Choose ye this day, said Joshua a few thousands years ago, after his people had been enslaved for centuries.

Bondage and servitude, we must choose.

Choose freedom and control.

Freedom from fear.

 You Are Not Forgotten

 

There have been times, many times

 

When you felt small, very slight

When you woke up and thought maybe your efforts were not of consequence

Maybe no one would miss you. Or remember you.

I have felt good on those days, when it was me, because the world was my oyster.

But you, you felt worse, that things didn't matter, life didn't matter.

For me, I was going to do something, write something, think something, learn something.

The world was vast, from the scraps of newspapers under my bed, to the books on the shelf and on the ottoman, to the radio in my car to the phone call across the way...

 

 

Melancholies be damned.  Pardon. Forget the sadnesses, because it all comes and goes...

 

Television has its angles and voices, too. Plus the ever tempting computer and other media devices.

Every year more.

For you, who only knew the world of social media and it ambivalence, its grotesqueness,

It may seem pointless.

We of the generation of the mighty Neil Young and the 13 channels of nothing on,

the post Ernest Hemingway and his modernist nada a nada.

Nihilism and Camus' existentialism and questioning the meaning of it all,

Rock and roll artists drinking and drugging themselves into oblivion, sharing some of the tremendous angst and passion of it all.

Jim Morrison, the psycho and creep, gifted poet and reckless or feckless prophet of doom...

No, they are not forgotten. He is not, I am not. And neither are you, trust me.

I remember you, when you were a suckling baby.

I remember you, when you cried big crocodile tears.

I remember you, when you got back from your classes.

I remember praying over you, with you, singing, playing.

I remember, I remember.

You are not forgotten.

I remember those days and nights when you thought you were alone, or off with others far from me.

You thought that my mind and heart, that my soul was not with you.

But it was. I was with you, or at least my mind was.

I remember.

I remember when we first met,

How you looked, looked at me; I looked back at you.

You smiled, I remember.

I will not forget how I felt, how I told my mother that I met someone.

I remember meeting up, going out, sharing my world, my life.

 

 

I remember waiting for a disagreement, because otherwise I was not sure if it was all real enough. 

That took weeks, months.

I remember thinking that that was a good indication of things.

A hub bub about when to get engaged.

I remember.

I remember trips to the beach, to the boats, of all kinds,

The times at church, driving, babysitting, shopping, studying, grading...

I remember talks and walks and family visits and conversations.

I remember, and sometimes I forget. And then I remember again.

I remember the meals, the deals, the late night steals.

I remember sharing time and games, sometimes they were not yours, but you shared.

So, yeah.

You are not forgotten.

I wanted to remember to say that.

We are blessed to have memories, and to remember.

We are not forgotten.