Lazy Days, Dangerous Reading…and Women
The last few days have been remarkably slow paced, almost back to my usual. On Tuesday I had lunch with Andrea, who owns the house next door and who has rented it out for the past 10 years or more. We had lost touch in the recent past, so it was good to see her. She was in town to check on the house, since after five years, our neighbors from the Czech Republic have moved back, and it is due for upkeep and some renovation.
I finished reading “Murder at Union Station” by Margaret Truman, which was okay, but not good enough to warrant checking out another one by her. However, since I had already gotten “Murder at the National Gallery” and since my friend Kay, who’s read them all, had told me some were better than others, I started it just to see if it would be better. It is. Actually a page-turner.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading, spending more time on the Post in the a.m., although that can be bad for my mental health, since the “news” is always only what’s bad. For instance, in addition to all the other gory events of the day, “Afghan Women Put Lives on Line to Run for Office” was in yesterday’s Post and in today’s was “U.N. Report Details Rampant Sexual Violence in Darfur.”
Jim brought home, as usual, the City Paper the other night and for the first time I can remember it actually had an article in there that I thought was worth reading. It was about the church I love to hate (no offense to Auntie Peggy), LDS: “The Church of Latter-Day Singles” (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/). It reminded me of the time two boys in suits and ties knocked on my front door and introduced themselves as “Elder (this)” and “Elder (that)” and about fried my brain. “Elders?” I asked. “How old are you?” One was 18 and one was 19 or thereabouts. I asked them whom they were “elder than” and they tried to explain, but of course, like so much else about that religion, it made no sense whatsoever. So much of it is ridiculous on the face of it that if it weren’t causing so much damage it would be laughable.
Which reminds me there was an article in the Post this morning about Massachusetts Governor Romney cutting a vacation short to get back to the state to veto a bill allowing certain pharmacists to give women morning after pills without a prescription (….“saying that in some cases, the pill causes an abortion”). Guess what? He’s a Mormon. (Stephanie and Chuck, get on that, will you?) So’s Karl Rove. Big surprise, right? Jon Krakauer (in his book “Under the Banner of Heaven”) predicts that the Mormons will be in charge of politics in the U.S. by 2050, but I’m not so sure it will take that long. I’m not so sure they’re not in charge now. At least the Catholic Church is obvious. The Mormon Church seems like the stealth bomber of religions, coming in under the radar. It's scary to me.
Some potentially good news, though, I guess, is that apparently the percentage of Mormons as the population of Utah has decreased in the past 10 years from 70% to “only” 62%. Of course, they are proliferating in self-contained and misogynist polygamous communities elsewhere in the Southwest that still seem to be staying out of the grip of state and national legal authorities. We are just allowing old men to “marry” multiple little girls and young women, sometimes the daughters and sisters of present wives, while at the same time they drive the young boys and men from what can only be considered colonies to wander around the West alone…they are called, if I recall correctly, “the lost boys.” Why do we not get this situation under control, I wonder? Well, only one of a million things I can’t fathom.
But/and it reminds me that I talked to my mom the other day. She asked if I had watched “Whale Rider” when it was on television Saturday night. I had. She reminded me that it was during that movie and in response to the behavior of the grandfather towards the little girl that Sarah, knowing she was not allowed to say “bad” words, had announced that “He’s an ‘a’ ‘s’ ‘s’….. plus a hole.” The grandfather eventually sees the error of his ways. I wish it were all nearly as simple as in that movie.
I finished reading “Murder at Union Station” by Margaret Truman, which was okay, but not good enough to warrant checking out another one by her. However, since I had already gotten “Murder at the National Gallery” and since my friend Kay, who’s read them all, had told me some were better than others, I started it just to see if it would be better. It is. Actually a page-turner.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading, spending more time on the Post in the a.m., although that can be bad for my mental health, since the “news” is always only what’s bad. For instance, in addition to all the other gory events of the day, “Afghan Women Put Lives on Line to Run for Office” was in yesterday’s Post and in today’s was “U.N. Report Details Rampant Sexual Violence in Darfur.”
Jim brought home, as usual, the City Paper the other night and for the first time I can remember it actually had an article in there that I thought was worth reading. It was about the church I love to hate (no offense to Auntie Peggy), LDS: “The Church of Latter-Day Singles” (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/). It reminded me of the time two boys in suits and ties knocked on my front door and introduced themselves as “Elder (this)” and “Elder (that)” and about fried my brain. “Elders?” I asked. “How old are you?” One was 18 and one was 19 or thereabouts. I asked them whom they were “elder than” and they tried to explain, but of course, like so much else about that religion, it made no sense whatsoever. So much of it is ridiculous on the face of it that if it weren’t causing so much damage it would be laughable.
Which reminds me there was an article in the Post this morning about Massachusetts Governor Romney cutting a vacation short to get back to the state to veto a bill allowing certain pharmacists to give women morning after pills without a prescription (….“saying that in some cases, the pill causes an abortion”). Guess what? He’s a Mormon. (Stephanie and Chuck, get on that, will you?) So’s Karl Rove. Big surprise, right? Jon Krakauer (in his book “Under the Banner of Heaven”) predicts that the Mormons will be in charge of politics in the U.S. by 2050, but I’m not so sure it will take that long. I’m not so sure they’re not in charge now. At least the Catholic Church is obvious. The Mormon Church seems like the stealth bomber of religions, coming in under the radar. It's scary to me.
Some potentially good news, though, I guess, is that apparently the percentage of Mormons as the population of Utah has decreased in the past 10 years from 70% to “only” 62%. Of course, they are proliferating in self-contained and misogynist polygamous communities elsewhere in the Southwest that still seem to be staying out of the grip of state and national legal authorities. We are just allowing old men to “marry” multiple little girls and young women, sometimes the daughters and sisters of present wives, while at the same time they drive the young boys and men from what can only be considered colonies to wander around the West alone…they are called, if I recall correctly, “the lost boys.” Why do we not get this situation under control, I wonder? Well, only one of a million things I can’t fathom.
But/and it reminds me that I talked to my mom the other day. She asked if I had watched “Whale Rider” when it was on television Saturday night. I had. She reminded me that it was during that movie and in response to the behavior of the grandfather towards the little girl that Sarah, knowing she was not allowed to say “bad” words, had announced that “He’s an ‘a’ ‘s’ ‘s’….. plus a hole.” The grandfather eventually sees the error of his ways. I wish it were all nearly as simple as in that movie.
posted by pat at 8:19 AM
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