Surprised by Peace

The Library of America and I have a long-term relationship. In its early days, I had a subscription and was collecting and reading great American authors. The editions are beautiful and well edited by experts in literature or history. Thin pages carry a lot in one volume.

In later years, I've purchased an book or two now and then. Recently I ordered what looked like an interesting anthology:

I haven't gotten to it yet. It was still in its plastic wrap when I picked it up to move it somewhere and noticed an interesting name on the back list of authors, Joseph Smith, Jr.!!!

Childhood Terror

It's no wonder my parents had to turn off the TV when I screamed.

And at 62 years of age, the space guy is still a bit disturbing. At age five, he was horrifying!

Check out the Early Missionary Database!

This is a great resource I have previously consulted and offered up a couple of corrections or sources. At present, I may or may not be more involved (I'm still not sure what I am allowed to talk about in sharing my wonderful mission experiences on social media as Elder Uchtdorf has encouraged). See link HERE!

This is just a screen-shot of the publicly available site. Check out the link above! (or here)

So, let me say this. The project is now up to 1939, those missionaries having been born from 1914-1919 are up to their hundred-year mark so privacy concerns have diminished and the pictures we use to link up to the other missionaries in photos are already at least in the Church public domain as we get them from FamilySearch Memories pages.

Remember

Last March, I was privileged to visit Hereford Cathedral when the weeping window of poppies was on display in commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of World War I. It was raining.

Lord Nelson's Biscuit

Daniel Maclise: The Death of Nelson
Mural in Parliament, Westminster, London

There are times when I wished I had £3,000.00 to buy a biscuit.

Recently, an interesting lot came up for sale at Sotheby's and was then auctioned off again. It included what is believed to be the world's oldest hardtack biscuit. And not just any biscuit, but one belonging to an Able Seaman who fought with Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar.

And it gets better. The Able Seaman was my ancestor, the father of Mormon Pioneers!

The biscuit gets the news, but it is the other items that are of more importance.

That's one, huge biscuit, by the way!

Cymru, March 2018 XV, Hereford Weeps

Even if I was in Herefordshire for the day, I was still staying in Wales so it counts. And I found wonderful things in Hereford Archives and Records Centre (HARC)!

After exhausting my known sources, I sat on the banks of the Wye and had a late picnic lunch. This was the view:

Then I walked past and back over the old bridge

I wanted to see the Mappa Mundi and chained library. But they were closed as there was to be a funeral service.

Cymru, March 2018 XIV, Brecon Midst the Beacons

It rained hard that morning. As I still had a spot reserved at Powys Archives. After taking some pictures of where I thought my ancestor's flax fields might have been, I went back to check the indices and browse through the books on the shelves. Not having had enough time to digest what I had already found, I headed off to Brecon.

Pen y Fan, I believe, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons.

Brecon is the old county town and I hadn't yet been and I needed to go. Unfortunately, the Brecon Museum is undergoing extensive renovations and is not open at present. I was still able to get a feel for the medieval city.

Aberhonddu

Cymru, March 2018 XII, Aberystwyth and Men of Harlech

"Aberystwyth" rolls off the tongue with just a bit of Cymraeg training. And it has been a running gag like "Basingstoke" since Shakespeare, but with fewer roundabouts.

And no joke, it is one of the most gorgeous settings for a national library!

Yeah, Aberystwyth! Who's laughing now?

There was a great tour of the facility. Cymraeg was on every tongue. And they helped me find the one document my Mentor had tasked me with. So, it was a great success and done by lunchtime. This August I'll be back for more time in the town, the sea, and hopefully, the library.

Now to Harlech.

Renounce Guns, Proclaim PEACE

It's time to call an end to Mormons arming themselves to protect against an imaginary tyrannical government or even for "self-defense." 

Don't get me wrong. I get the anti-government sentiment. I've worked for the feds for 34 years and don't like them much. But heaven help us if we continue on the path we are on!

There is a sickness in American culture (and I mean the US, not our Canadian or Latin American friends). Actually, there is more than one sickness. One is racism and the original sin of slavery which we have not shed, not nearly as well as other American neighbors who were also under this curse. The other, related sickness is the obsessive love of gun culture.

The LDS Church is more and more a world church. Sure, still with dominant American culture, but that is fading more and more and will only accelerate. We are the only nation where the LDS Church is established, Zion in the Latter-days, where we violate the laws of Zion on a regular basis by arming ourselves.

Getting Ready for the Big Parade!

With  little more spirit of levity than I felt on the eve of the last shutdown, I have some proposals for the uniform the gentleman in the White House may want to consider for his big military parade:

These above would be excellent choices for the whole crowd! Melania, Jared, Ivanka, and the other gentleman could all choose their own shade. We know Melania would look good in blue. Peach seams right for Jared. Ivanka and her dad would have to fight over pink and green.

Check on My Predictions for 2017

OK, let's do this.

It's time to review the political predictions I made for 2017 now that the miserable year has ended and we're coming up on a year of trump in the White House. (By the way, my life is pretty good in other regards).

I am most happy to say that my prediction that a nuclear bomb would go off somewhere in the world did come true, but it was only a "test" by North Korea and not an attack on us or our allies. But it's not like we're still worried about that or anything.

Kim Jon Un posing as if he were watching a missile launch--or worse.

I failed in my prediction that even trump would realize that Putin is not his friend. If anyone has heard any criticism of Putin by trump, please let me know because I think he is one of the very few world figures that trump has not criticized.

Hiraeth 2016: Dydd 26, Welsh National Museum and Cardiff Bay!

It was sad to break the fellowship of British Expeditions 2016. As our time wound down, Professor Tom headed off for an adventure hiking the Pembrokeshire coastline trail. The rest of the group had a drawn-out farewell in Cardiff.

First we went off to the National Museum Cardiff. What a place! Dinosaur bones to masterpieces of art! And am ddim! (free entry).

My fave, the Blue Lady or La Parisienne, 1874, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

No, I think this was my favorite:

Hiraeth 2016: Dydd 21, Edinburgh, Sore Feet, Hadrian's Wall, and Hamilton

After getting home I was officially diagnosed with bone spurs. While they may help to keep me out of Vietnam and make me President some day, they are an extreme pain. The hike up Yr Wyddfa (Mt. Snowdon) did me in. After wandering around Edinburgh for a day, my feet would go no further. I went and sat in the Museum of Scotland (free internet). My wife went with the group to climb Arthur's Seat (still on my bucket list with better shoes and ibuprofen).

Our group with healthy feet on Arthur's Seat

I did see a few more sites in Edinburgh.

To prove I was in Scotland

Civil Service Heritage

Odd Coincidence that. I was entering wonderful details of my Grandpa's education and work history onto Ancestry.com from a civil service application dated 1943 when he applied for a management job at the Ogden Arsenal. It was the 33rd anniversary of my civil service computation date.

Yes, my Grandpa helped win the war building the bombs that blasted the Third Reich and Imperialist Japan to bits. A necessary job even with the tragedy of human suffering. Sometimes one must do the unpleasant things that are necessary. That seems the very nature of often disrespected government service.

My Predictions for 2017

1. Obamacare will not be repealed. If the Republicans have half a brain among them, they will do some necessary technical edits and call it something without the "Obama" name in it. And everybody will be relatively happier.

2. Many Trump supporters will regret their vote so much that they will come to say, "If only Obama were back. Things weren't so bad then!" (Which I already believe).

       [Trump support significantly down Politico Aug. 10, 2017]

https://twitter.com/cspanwj/status/952198650330996737

3. I'm going conservative on this predicting only six (6) major scandals in the first year of the Trump White House. (Remember President Obama's record, a big fat 0 in eight years*. Even if you insist on Benghazi and "Fast and Furious" which even the promoters don't directly link to the President, that's two in eight years.)

[1. February 13, 2017, General Michael Flynn forced to resign as National Security Adviser for failing to tell the truth about discussing sanctions with Russia before the inauguration.]

[2. May 9, 2017, trump fires James Comey, FBI Director, in the same week Comey is testifying before the Senate Subcommittee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the same day a federal grand jury subpoenas records. The reason given is untruthful statements regarding Hillary Clinton's emails. This ain't over yet.] 

[3. May 15, 2017, the Washington Post reports citing senior intelligence sources that trump revealed confidential national security information compromising a foreign-partner source to the Russian Foreign Minister and Ambassador in a meeting in the oval office last Wednesday, May 10.]

[4. July 11, 2017. Donald J. Trump, Jr. releases emails evidencing that he sought out allegedly harmful information on Hillary Clinton offered by Russian sources when he previously denied he had any Russian contacts during the campaign.]

[5. July 21-31, 2017, Scaramucci. #!*@&#^*@^#**#!!!!!!! 'nuff said.] 

4. I do think our institutions are strong enough to withstand even Trump in the White House and we will not sink into Fascism. Even if he manages to burn down the Capitol and blame it on the terrorists or the Democrats, the military won't allow him to establish martial law. And many of us will not just be standing in front of the tanks if they do,but  they will have to go over the top of us. We are too many (a solid majority of voters, for one thing). Our service men and women are true patriots, not Trump stooges.

Trump Wrong on Foreign Policy and Immigration

1) Trump willing to use nuclear weapons in Europe and Middle East:

See the Independent article here. Our European and other allies are very concerned - as are most thinking people in the U.S. My main opposition to Hillary Clinton is her hawkish attitude and her vote for the Iraq War. Trump is far worse. Hillary should revive the devastating daisy-petal-nuke ad from Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to use against Trump.

"Fragments of Men, Rags of Anatomy" -Poetry of Henry Vaughan

Helmet from English Civil War

Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday has been a day of creeping dread, impatient expectation, and grasping at Hope. As Christ's body lie in the tomb and we believers, the Church, the Body of Christ, lie with Him. His Spirit yet lived and he journeyed in Spirit to proclaim liberty to the captive and set the prisoners free.

Death, war, pain, suffering; these are all things of this world. We share in them.

For this Saturday between Death and Life, I chose a poem of Cousin Henry Vaughan who as a doctor in the loyal Royalist forces of the English Civil War knew death, dismemberment, and suffering. It is a 17th Century Anti-War Poem.

Guest Post: The Atonement Overcomes the Adversary

Yesterday we went with our son, A-5, now a Sophomore at BYU to his church service down in Provo. There were few there during the holiday break. Most, of course, had gone home. Some stayed in Provo because of jobs or the distance or lack of family to go home to. Our son had volunteered to speak in church (it's a layman's church anyway) as he lived close enough to return during the break.

A piano in every lecture hall - for Sunday conversion from Biology to Church meetings.

It is always interesting to see the church school turn over to church services on a Sunday. His meetings were held in the brand-spanking new Life Sciences building. So there we sat in a lecture hall that during weekdays is used for lectures on biology, including every latest discovery of molecular or evolutionary biology, and on Sundays becomes a church house for talks and lessons on the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Somehow it all works.

Now the talk:

Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

My name is [A-5], I live in the 8th ward and am currently attending BYU studying physics and acoustics and enjoy playing my trumpet at the basketball and football games.

I’m grateful for this opportunity to speak today. I pray that the spirit will guide my words and your thoughts so that we all may be edified and guided with the direction we need in life.

"Blessed Are the Peacemakers"

There is an LDS conference talk that never got the attention it deserved. It was delivered by now President of the Quorum of the Twelve, Russel M. Nelson in October, 2002. I had finished my first ever marathon that morning in St. George and my grandmother and I were watching conference. She was then 92 years old. I remember her saying, "My! I've never heard them speak so directly about current issues!"

For a reminder, October 2002 was the big lead-up to the mid-term elections and Congressional authorization to go to war in Iraq. It was wrong then and few people saw it. My Grandma did and so did I, not just because of this talk, but the talk sure helped.

Elder Nelson's talk was soon overtaken by events and President Hinkley's address of April, 2003 after the war had exploded on the world and some obligation to our troops engaged in battle and civic duty were required. That talk still broke my heart. I think that it is time to share Elder Nelson's talk. We didn't have the same ready access to share thoughts with the world so easily in that day which seems to be freshly relevant.

"Blessed are the Peacemakers"

Dick Cheney's Illegitimate Child - DAESH

It probably isn't helpful to cast blame, but I had to get your attention.

The Second Iraq War (as opposed to the justified and true-coalition sanctioned, First Gulf War) will go down in history as one of the worst blunders of US History. The buck stops at George W. Bush, but his dad, George H.W. Bush, now blames "Iron-butt" Cheney and former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfield. Although there is blame also to the Congress, including later Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry who voted to authorize the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, yes, the American public share blame who were whipped into a frenzy by false intelligence of the Bush Administration and the media, led by the New York Times (Judith Miller). So there's plenty of blame to go around (oh, yeah, Tony Blair). And, of course, the buck is now with President Obama and his opponents can blame him all they want. And he hasn't done everything right, but he's trying.

So, why DAESH instead of ISIS or ISIL or Al Queda in Iraq? For a very good explanation of that and the history of the latest terrorist group now claiming to be the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate, see this great article at Vox, Why John Kerry and the French President Are Calling ISIS "Daesh."

ISIS, or Daesh controlled areas as of October 22, 2015, from the New York Times.