Judd

In the story of the widow’s might, we learn that it is the faith of the individual and not the size of the donation that is the most powerful. While MS dollar-value donations are decreasing, certainly faith in the MS community has never been stronger, as John reportedly demonstrates. This should be cause to celebrate, as the mission of MS continues to go forth boldly. The joy that will be with John when the faith of the entire MS community is so strong that it can sustain itself on $10 of annual donation figures.

Is her husband a pediatrician?

I’ve always wondered what pushes something over the edge for an announcement, as the announcement doesn’t seem to correlate at all with stage of development. There are obviously numerous sites that are in different phases prior to any announcement, but what are the things that push something to give it an announcement, as the announcement doesn’t seem to signify anything other than being official. I know President Eyring mentioned something about this when he worked for that department when the Bountiful temple was announced and he was unaware of it, and perhaps it wasn’t even on his radar. Can’t remember the specifics.

He lives on the ocean.

I’m suggesting we don’t walk into the next restaurant assuming that by default they don’t have the same flaws. People can complain about any standards they want, but when the criticisms on something such as psychics come up, and we point to civil authority as the baseline or backdrop, it’s helpful to know that, as ridiculous and salacious as we find something like that to be, law enforcement is also using psychics. It may actually be that OUR utilized psychics precisely because of their attempts at approximation of, and prior experience or training in, law enforcement. That’s absolutely up for criticism, but don’t assume it’s just because you’ve got some rogue, cooky organization that you’re seeing something like that.

I’m not commenting on the appropriateness or inappropriateness any alleged use of psychics and psychics wasn’t specifically my point. Another way of putting this is what it’s like to have a restaurant you enjoy but then end up getting to go back into the kitchen and see how the sausage is made. You may walk away with that experience being nothing like you expected or end up grossed out, so you eschew that establishment and go elsewhere, blissfully unaware what goes on in that kitchen because you haven’t been there, all the whole distracted with the thought of, “thank goodness it isn’t _______!” None of that is to say that what you saw in the first kitchen wasn’t problematic.

There are principles of algebra that are applicable to our evaluation of the world, meaning controlling for what you’re doing on both sides of the equation. I’m neither a defender nor detractor of OUR or Ballard, though do have certain opinions (that cross the line many times as to which “side” that may align with), but it’s really easy to throw up problematic issues without knowing what the standard or the comparison is. In this specific case, often many shortcomings of the organization is thrown up with an implication of “trust governmental authorities” without actually knowing what that comparison is. Specific to the use of psychics, well, okay… From the Department of Justice: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/psychics-and-police-work From the CIA: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788R000100280009-3.pdf There may be valid criticisms of Ballard and/or OUR. A bigger problem may be not being able to adequately contextualize that. Does it differ from its backdrop? How many other organizations and causes are problematic or don’t really achieve their intended ends or are perhaps causing more harm? I believe the answer to that would not only be surprising but also very disheartening. It’s actually more likely to be the rule than the exception, in my bias, but can become useful in shining a light on it selectively to create selection and availability biases.

Some with the communication department responded to an email. This person, up until the past couple days, was unknown, as the media had to google search his LinkedIn to identify his role. That’s what we know.

I believe there’s another thread where the consensus was regarding a member, with a relatively well-known TikTok account, that it was highly inappropriate to speculate on their faith and motivations. I’m curious where the line is on when it’s okay to speculate about members and when it’s not.

I can only speak for myself, but I certainly didn’t read it that way. When I read this response, I went back to read it and still didn’t read it that way. I’m not a lawyer, but to me seemed fairly clear that referencing hearsay about what an unknown person professor said to Bokovoy implies that we know very little of the context. There’s a lot of ground of possible explanation that can change said meaning that has little, if anything, to do with an implication on Bokovoy’s character.

As superficial exposure to media, and other similar sources, largely make up some of our most global assumptions about the world, this would be a good time to review over what Michael Crichton termed “Gell-Mann Amnesia”:

I don’t believe that anywhere said this isn’t still the case. Sometimes in conference they will sustain general authorities who were previously called, and other times some temple announcements are made outside of conference (Paris, Bountiful, others). There’s also a function that has to happen where they may have been a vacancy that had to be filled now and not in two months.

A terrible tragedy, to be sure. Oh that all mankind may have 21st century western wisdom to stand as a city on a hill that cannot be hid.

Is that why it’s been used, quoted, referenced, displayed and distributed so extensively since then?