Amulek

In our building, there's one person from each ward who has been called to check the building at night to ensure it's locked up. They swing by around 10pm, make sure everything looks good, and then call it a night. If they see anything suspicious, they are not supposed to engage - just report the incident and leave it for the police to investigate. There are four units in the building, so it's only once every four months (not too bad).

My dad’s time in the bishopric was a little later than your dad’s experience (i.e., late ’80s and throughout the ’90s), so that may account for some of the difference. I don't really agree with the characterization that the Church has been “dishonest” about its history, but that may partly be a consequence of our different experiences as well. I grew up LDS in the Bible Belt, so I was exposed to anti-Mormon literature and arguments against the Church from a fairly young age. That caused me to seek out information about Church history and controversial issues more than the average member did at the time. As a result, a lot of the things that people today describe as shocking discoveries simply weren't discoveries for me. That's not to say I think the Church has always done a particularly good job of making all of that information accessible to the average member. It clearly hasn't. I think the Church has improved considerably in that regard over the years, particularly with things like the Joseph Smith Papers, the Gospel Topics Essays, Saints, and the amount of historical material now available through the Church's own websites. So I'm perfectly comfortable with the criticism that the Church used to present some parts of its history in a simplified, correlated, or less-than-comprehensive way, and that it could have done a better job making some of the messier parts more accessible. I just don't think that is synonymous with being “dishonest” about its history. Perhaps because I encountered many of these issues earlier than most, I don't experience the Church's increased transparency today as an admission that the previous story was a lie. I just see it more as the Church becoming much better at making the fuller and more complicated history readily available to ordinary members.

My father also served in the bishopric throughout my entire childhood. He never sat with us in the pews on Sundays, but he was at the building on Wednesday nights (along with my mother, who was the YW President); he was present at stake dances, took me to Priesthood sessions of conference (and ice cream afterwards), home teaching assignments, service projects, and more. Outside of church, he taught me how to fight, handle money, work hard, drive a car, etc., all while still managing to take me fishing and shooting with some degree of regularity (read: much more than most anyone else I have ever met). He would come to all of my band performances - even though he kind of hated football games and would sometimes leave after halftime - and, by and large, be a constant part of my life. When I was first called to serve in a bishopric myself, my Stake President made it clear to me - like, in no uncertain terms clear - that my family was my number one priority. Based on my experience growing up, I had never assumed otherwise. But I have heard from others who, like yourself, weren't as fortunate. I'm not sure how much of that was a Church / cultural thing and not the individual person, but to the extent that it may have been the former, my sense is that it's something the Church has moved away from over the years.

Are you rage-baiting me? I'm sorry, but Circles is what happens when you build a messaging app and treat reliable message delivery as an optional enhancement. Perhaps all the bugs are intentional, and it's really supposed to function less like a messaging app and more like an interactive lesson on faith, patience, and enduring to the end. Or maybe the Church designed it to work like the Liahona, where it's functionality is tied to the faith of the user - so maybe I'm the problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No idea. Our ward hasn't sent out emails in forever. Everything we do gets posted on our ward website, which has since been taken offline and now merely redirects to our "official" ward website (which every ward now has). Our Elder's quorum has switched all our announcements over to a WhatsApp channel; youth groups are all using GroupMe; and I can't remember what the RS does - maybe they're still on Facebook? Point being, were you in my ward, the only way you would be getting almost anything is if you were participating in Church and got plugged into one of those communication channels, or if you were to actively go seeking information out on the ward website. Times they are a changing...

I think there are some pragmatic reasons for keeping it separate. Temple recommends are good for two years and can be renewed at any point in the year, so they don't provide a consistent annual declaration. Tithing also differs from WoW or chastity in that there's an annual financial record associated with it. The Church has to prepare annual contribution statements anyway, so having an annual declaration gives everyone a regular opportunity to make sure those records are correct. I agree that online access makes the record-review part less important than it used to be, but I can still see why the Church would have one annual process for everyone rather than tying it to the recommend cycle.

You can change the visibility settings under your profile. ChatGPT can give you instructions. If you really want to ensure nobody emails you anymore, then just change your email to be invalid. I keep a separate account to use on anything that requires an email as part of a signup; helps manage where all of those spam messages end up going (thanks Hotmail). Or maybe he has an AI agent linked to his email that is also linked to a shared calendar. Seriously, there are a million ways to do this kind of stuff now that these kinds of integrations are more widely available. But yes, it's certainly possible that they sent you a personal email to attend Tithing Declaration...you know, because it's that time of year. Yes. It does figure. And it will figure next year...and the year after that...and the year after that. So long as you remain on the rolls of the Church, you should expect to be invited to attend Tithing Declaration. Some years you might get a personal invite; some years you might not. If you don't want to attend, simply reply back to the email you received and tell them you aren't interested in attending, and then just report your status in the same email. Or don't. You're free to do whatever you want. It's your life after all.

Or you (or your wife) unsubscribed, or changed the privacy settings in your LDS Account, or simply stopped falling within whatever recipient groups people were using to send those messages. LCR doesn't require every ward email to be sent to "all members." You can select various groups of recipients, including groups based on organizations and callings. So if the emails you used to receive were Relief Society emails, quorum emails, activity announcements sent to particular groups, etc., it's entirely possible for your pattern of receiving ward email to change without somebody making a "calculated decision" to stop communicating with you. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of what actually happened in your case, obviously. Maybe someone really did deliberately exclude you. But you're treating your inference as an established fact when there are much more mundane possibilities. And Tithing Declaration is different from ordinary communications because the Church says all members are invited to meet with the bishop to declare their status. As such, I don't find it particularly suspicious that someone who hasn't been receiving other generic emails would nevertheless receive an invitation to Tithing Declaration. You're conflating "people can make donations while they are there" with "that's what the meeting is for." Tithing Declaration goes from 9/1 - 12/15 now, so what ledger do you suppose people are supposed to be settling up in September, October, or November? The Handbook states that the purpose of the meeting is to (1) declare your own status, and (2) make sure your contribution records are accurate. You are free to declare yourself as a full, partial, or non-tithe payer. In all the times I've served as a Ward Clerk, I've never once had the Bishop walk out of a Tithing Declaration (previously, Tithing Settlement meeting) and ask me to prepare an invoice for the family. You can believe the meeting exerts social or religious pressure to pay tithing - I think there's an element of that involved as well - but that's quite different from claiming its purpose is to get people in the room so the Church can collect money from them. I already did: because it's Tithing Declaration, and Bishops are instructed to invite all members to attend. I'm not surprised that you received an invitation to attend an annual, Church-wide process that you are supposed to be invited to - even if you didn't personally receive an invitation last year. Maybe the Bishop / Executive Secretary has gotten better at sending out invites; maybe he felt inspired to reach out to everyone this year individually, rather than just announcing it over the pulpit during Sacrament Meetings; maybe he's following direction from the Stake President who emphasized it in their most recent leadership training meetings. It could literally be any number of things other than "they want money." Look, I'm sorry if you feel your Ward has ignored you for the last 2.5 years, and it's sad that the first personal contact you've received recently has been an administrative invitation to Tithing Declaration. If that were your only complaint, I would be fine with that. But you don't leave it there - instead, you keep changing it into 'after 2.5 years they finally contacted me because they want money,' and I just don't think that's what's going on.

I'm an executive secretary myself, and a software developer by trade. I wouldn't put much weight on personalization as evidence of that anymore. Producing individualized emails from a membership list is trivially easy, particularly with the AI tools (freely) available today. Maybe your bishop really did single the two of you out for a personal invitation - I have no idea. But I don't think the fact that the email looked individually composed establishes that.

Or maybe you just didn't receive / see the email last year. These emails are typically sent out through LCR which doesn't always play nice with all email providers. And, even when it does go through, it will sometimes get flagged as spam. Everything that gets sent out via LCR goes directly to my junk folder. I gave up on caring about fixing it some time ago. Then you ought to know better, which is why I think it's in bad form to characterize the invitation as them contacting you because they "want money." If you've been a member for nearly sixty years, then you know perfectly well that Tithing Declaration isn't the bishop calling people in to collect a payment. Fair enough. I'm not sure it changes the underlying point though. Your bishop has a reason, independent of your donation history, to invite the members of his ward to Tithing Declaration. The fact that he or his secretary personally contacted you about it doesn't establish that the purpose was to solicit money from you.

This is because the Church treats "paying tithing" as part of a member's covenant / religious obligations, rather than simply meaning "someone giving 10% of their income to the Church." So, while nonmembers are free to make contributions to the Church - even contributions that they feel religiously motivated to make, say, to the exact sum of 10% of their income - the Church, administratively, does not call that donation tithing. Advising you to categorize your contributions as Fast Offerings seems like good counsel, since it allows those funds to address the kinds of needs you likely intended them to serve - such as helping members of the local congregation who are in need.

I’m not sure I’d read that invitation as “the only time they want to talk is when they want money.” Tithing Declaration is opening in September this year, so wards are presumably starting to get appointments organized now. And the purpose of Tithing Declaration is pretty literal: members are invited to declare their tithing status. You don’t have to pay anything at the meeting, and being invited doesn’t mean anyone is specifically asking you for money. When you say this “broke the silence,” was this actually a personal visit from the bishop, or was it just an email/text from the executive secretary asking people to sign up? I mean, was it even specific to you, or was it basically a generic invitation being sent to everyone?

Same. I have always loved that scene where you see Clark thinking about revealing himself to Lois and how, in just a matter of moments, you see him visibly transform from character to character right before your eyes. No CGI. No cut shots. Just one camera, capturing a genuine actor practicing his craft. 😚👌

Spider-Man: Brand New Day I've got a teenage boy, so yeah, I've seen the latest spider-man flick. There were things I liked about it - things I didn't. Pros: While I personally prefer installments where we get more of Spidey's sarcastic humor, a core part of Spider-Man also tends to run more on the emo (borderline depressed) side of things, so I liked that they were willing to experiment with leaning into that a bit here in this film. It wasn't all just action sequence to action sequence. Also, we got more screen time for Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle / The Punisher; love that for him. Cons: Meaningful pacing / plot issues. Lots of clunky cameos - whether that be Florence Pugh's Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner / Hulk, or Sadie Sink's "mystery" character that the press were all sworn to secrecy over prior to release - they tended to add little to the story and served more as a reminder that, hey, remember that there are more movies coming up soon! Yes, the setup syndrome was strong with this film. And I really didn't like the fact that we basically got an entire movie without the core friend-group being around to do their thing. It just wasn't the vibe (as the kids are wont to say). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie; it's just not the best version in the series.

Thank you for conceding that. I think we're mostly in agreement here. I'm not arguing that I should be writing the NCAA rulebook for swimming, wrestling, etc. But "the governing body should make the rules" and "outsiders shouldn't have an opinion about those rules" are different claims. I can accept the former without accepting the latter. I disagree that "sports are inherently unfair." I think there is a meaningful difference between inequality and unfairness. Someone like Michael Phelps having unusually advantageous proportions for swimming may very well make competitors unequal, but that isn't normally considered unfair. Unfairness enters into the equation when the advantage violates the conditions of the competition. A heavyweight fighting a lightweight isn't unfair simply because he's bigger. It's because he's competing outside the category that was established to account for that difference. The same would be true of an adult entering a children's division, or an athlete using prohibited PEDs. Sports inevitably involve inequalities. But that doesn't mean every advantage is therefore fair within every competitive category. I think you're misunderstanding why I brought up Franklin's height and wingspan. I wasn't suggesting that her proportions gave her an unfair advantage or that swimmers should be separated by wingspan. The point was to show the level of difference which persists even when obvious physical variables are roughly held equal. Despite being almost identically sized, one of the greatest female backstrokers in history wouldn't be able to come remotely close to competing against a similarly situated male swimmer. Yes, sports tolerate tons of natural advantages, but that doesn't mean all physical advantages are therefore interchangeable. If it did, I'm not sure what rationale would remain for having a female category at all. We could simply tell women who can't qualify for the open team what you've suggested here: "do the best you can, or choose a different sport." We don't do that. We created a female category expressly because the performance effects associated with sex are sufficiently large and systematic that without the category, women would have dramatically fewer opportunities to compete at elite level. And that would be a net negative, IMO.

I don't disagree that sports organizations ordinarily ought to establish the rules for their sports, particularly where those rules require sport-specific expertise. But that seems like a different point from your original statement that if someone isn't a "stakeholder," the issue "really isn't something to worry about." I was asking what makes someone a stakeholder and why stakeholder status determines whether someone has a legitimate interest in the issue. When it comes to schools and the NCAA specifically, those are bound up with Title IX and public funding, so it seems as though the public ought to have a stake in how these categories get defined. Actually, I think this example helps me, not you. The 285-lb cutoff doesn't ask whether a specific over-limit wrestler is actually dangerous or dominant; it excludes the category, full stop. That's the exact point I made earlier: eligibility has to be set at the category level, not case-by-case based on whether one athlete happens to be "pretty average." Whether someone followed swimming closely before this became a live issue has zero bearing on whether their point is correct. And, as @webbles pointed out, this cuts both ways. Plenty of people are newly passionate about inclusion in sports they never watched before either. Since you bring up swimming though, let's look at swimming. Multiple gold medalist Missy Franklin is 6'2" with a 6'4" wingspan, which happens to be the same height and nearly the same wingspan as Ryan Lochte. Her world-record 200m backstroke, set in 2012, is a full nine seconds slower than his performance in Beijing four years previously. If she'd been in his race, performing at her lifetime best, she'd have finished half a lap behind him, even though they are the same height and have just about the same wingspan. In a world in which competitors were categorized by height and wingspan (or just height or just wingspan) instead of sex, Franklin would not have had a world record; she would not have been on the podium; in fact, she would not have made the team. In those circumstances, we might not even know her name, which is exactly why the female category exists and exactly why it's worth getting right.

I know we have a “no politics” policy here, so I won’t wander too far down that road. But speaking as a longtime Libertarian, you certainly don’t have to work very hard to persuade me that government interventions can have unintended consequences. 🙂

I don't think my position requires waiting for a documented harm before drawing a boundary. I probably wasn't clear enough about what I meant by "defeating the purpose." What I mean is that we should first ask why the sex-based category exists, and then ask whether inclusion is compatible with that purpose. In some contexts it won't be. In others, there may be fairly easy accommodations that allow inclusion without sacrificing what the category was intended to protect. Take a women's scholarship as a simple example. If there is one scholarship specifically set aside to increase educational opportunities for women in STEM, for example, giving that scholarship to a trans woman rather than a female applicant arguably defeats the point of the set-aside. But if the institution can simply fund an additional scholarship for the trans applicant, I'm not sure what is accomplished by insisting that she be excluded. The original opportunity for women has been preserved. Sports are different because you can't necessarily solve the problem by adding another spot. If the purpose of the female category is to provide fair athletic competition for people who haven't experienced the performance advantages of male development, allowing someone with those advantages into the category conflicts with its purpose regardless of whether that particular athlete wins. And prisons, shelters, locker rooms, etc. raise still different considerations - privacy and safety being obvious ones. I don't think women should have to wait until someone is assaulted before those interests count. Predictable risks and reasonable expectations of privacy can themselves justify boundaries. So I don't have a single rule saying "include everyone until somebody proves harm." I'm saying the appropriate boundary depends on why the boundary exists. Where accommodating a trans woman doesn't take away the protection, opportunity, privacy, safety, or competitive fairness the female category was created to provide, I'm generally fine with trying to accommodate her - even if it isn't cost free. Where those interests really are in conflict, I think the purpose of the female category has to carry considerable weight.

I’m not sure what you mean by “stakeholder” here, or why you think being one should determine whether someone has a legitimate interest in the issue. I do have a daughter, but she doesn’t compete in elite sports, nor do I own a WNBA franchise. Does that mean I'm not a stakeholder? At what point does someone acquire enough of a stake to have an opinion about how the female category should be defined? Also, I don’t think whether a particular trans athlete happens to be “pretty average” is especially relevant. Surely the rule can’t be that male puberty is an acceptable advantage provided the athlete isn’t good enough to win. Eligibility rules have to apply before we know who is going to break records or stand on the podium. The question is whether an athlete meets the criteria for the female category, not whether a particular trans athlete is sufficiently mediocre to be allowed on the team. My son has played soccer since he was five, and when the kids were little there were plenty of girls playing on boys’ teams. I didn’t see anything wrong with that. Before puberty, especially in recreational leagues, the physical differences are generally much less significant. If anything, development at that level tends to favor girls, as they mature faster than boys at that age. But that doesn’t tell us much about what the rules should be after puberty, particularly in competitive or contact sports. Once male puberty produces substantial differences in size, strength, speed, power, etc., the rationale for having a protected female category becomes much more important. If we were talking about an Olympic sport like shooting (e.g., stationary rifle) or certain equestrian events then obviously none of that matters. But in soccer, basketball, boxing, and other sports where physical characteristics directly affect performance or safety, it does. I’m not arguing that Congress needs to micromanage the roster of every ten-year-old flag-football team - they seem to be getting along just fine without any governmental interference. But that seems like a separate question from whether competitive female sports should have a (sensible) sex-based eligibility rule.

When it comes to determining who is a "woman" for purposes of women's only spaces and set asides (e.g., women's sport, women's health, women's education, and women's prisons), the answer for me, at least, is "it depends." If inclusion doesn't defeat the purpose of having the category in the first place, then I don't see the harm in allowing for it. In places like competitive sport, however, I believe excluding male-bodied athletes from female events is the (obvious) right answer. In elite sport, there's just too much of a competitive advantage to having access to male-levels of testosterone during development. That's born out by science, and it's not at all controversial. It's why the IOC recently updated their guidelines for trans athletes in women's sports to be determined by the presence of the SRY gene, as it is "fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence the athlete experiences male sex development" (link). I believe the NCAA has taken a different path to approach the issue, but they seem to be targeting the same kind of result.

@theplains, my question is easier: Why is it that all of your opening posts have these weird line breaks? Are you just copying / pasting from some other source?

You aren't missing out. Their large format displays - which go by the branding XD - are okay, but they aren't the best around. I think the best mainstream movie experience on the market right now would have to be the Dolby screens at AMC (hands down). They're basically using the best tech available for both projection and sound. The only time I deviate from an AMC Dolby theater is if there is a show coming out that was filmed on IMAX 70mm. In that case, I'll try to make the trek over to Webb Chapel (here in Dallas), as that's the only true 70mm IMAX theater in the entire Metroplex. All of the other so-called IMAX theaters are really just IMAX branded. They don't actually allow for the full picture to be displayed - which is why those of us in the AV world who tend toward snobbery derisively refer to them as LieMAX.

My wife and I each came from large families (6-7 kids). And we both had largely positive experiences, so we were certainly open to having a bigger family ourselves. Going into our marriage, we were in alignment on the 4-5 range as being our Platonic target, subject to the Lord's will. I was mentally prepared for anything between 3 and 8. But, as Forrest Gump's mamma used to say, "Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get." Well, what we got were two amazing children over the course of five years, and more time spent in hospitals than I would wish on my worst enemy. To this day, I can recall the smell of the soap used in the NICU with ease. I'm eternally grateful for the miracles we experienced during that process, and for the impact it has had on our lives, but my wife and I also knew with complete certainty that, after our second child, our family was now complete. I don't know how to describe it other than an utterly secure and abiding feeling of peace that everything was exactly as it ought to be. Now, to be perfectly clear, I completely agree with the prophets about how seriously God takes our choices when it comes to these matters. The pinnacle of God's creation was human life. Now that God has given that power to man - and we have greater control over it today than at any point in human history (and it will only grow) - the question then becomes, what will we do with it? And I absolutely believe God will hold us accountable for our choices. But, like I said earlier, if you are doing exactly what God wants you to do, then you have nothing to worry about.

Well, you don't get to say that it's between me and God, only to then turn around and say 'but only if it's a big number.' You can't be breaking God's commandments if you ask God directly and then do exactly what He says. Now, if God wants you to have a bunch of kids, then that's definitely what you should do. And I do believe you will be held accountable if you refuse to follow his commands. However, you don't get to pontificate on how many kids God wants me to have. You have no stewardship over my family. My wife and I already know the answer to that question - we're good, thanks.

The Odyssey Long? Yes. Good? Also yes. For those who were following some of the pre-release drama over casting, I would say that I wasn't really bothered by any of the choices. Yes, I would have picked someone other than Elliot Page, but he only appears in a couple of scenes: the first, he's just okay in; the second - much better. And while I love Jon Bernthal, I'm not sure I loved him as Menelaus - though I'm very happy he was able to get some good screen time and several lines; I do want to see more of him in the future (absolutely loved him in The Punisher). On the bright side, I thought Charlize Theron as Calypso was a great choice. In terms of objectionable content, the film does carry an R rating. There are 2-3 f-bombs (total), and no sexualized nudity at all - you do see a dead man's buttocks at one point, but there's nothing racy. It's easily Nolan's most visceral / violent film to date. If it were to try and pick an analogous film, it would say it's more Gladiator than 300. Lots of killing, but not lots of gore. The only thing that I really didn't like about it - and I don't like any film (or book) that does this - is, towards the end of the feature, we get a bit too much exposition on the moral of the story. That's just one of my biggest personal pet peeves. I hate it when the creator assumes the audience is too dumb to understand their work, so they have to explain it to the audience like they are children. Then just keep the idiots out of the theater for crying out loud! /rant off