I've been thinking about Eric's post since last night. Eric talks persuasively about not letting the furor over the Confederate flag distract us from gun rights. At the same time, the sea change in popular opinion and establishment acceptance of the CSA's battle flag is crucial and a major victory for the United States.

In the Proclamation On The Family, the First Presidency declared:

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

Many members of the LDS Church interpret this to refer only to the protection of traditional family units by preventing homosexual marriage. I believe this can and should be interpreted as a much broader statement. There are numerous other areas where family-strengthening policies can be implemented. These might include:

I am currently sitting at my desk listening to the most recent installment of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast interview with President Obama.

On Wednesday night, people of faith were at Emanuel AME Church, a house of faith, at the weekly Bible Study. As with other churches, anyone (whether he or she is a member or believer or not) is welcome to join in and participate. So, it is likely that no one noticed the shooter when he walked in or if they did, they were simply happy that he had decided to come.

The coverage of Hillary's kick-off speech earlier today on Roosevelt Island has portrayed her as a center-left fighter. The pundits are missing, however, what I consider to be the most monumental lines of her speech: 

Some early members of the church practiced the gift of tongues in an unusual way. The ritual began when one person fell into a trance-like state and spoke in an unintelligible “language,” generated by mysterious impulses within the speaker. Another participant would claim to have felt the spirit give them translation of what was said. Both participants would then confirm the message.

A few months ago, social media was abuzz with Angelina Jolie-Pitt’s op-ed piece in The New York Times about her decision to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed in a second round of preventative surgery.

I often have discussions with people in my personal and my professional life regarding the role of the arts in LDS culture today. For the most part it centers around lamentation and criticism of germanic Jesus surrounded by multi racial children. Needless to say, I don't have a very high opinion of art is the Church. Similarly it has long been a staple of the Democratic party to push for arts funding in schools. I worry about the future of the arts in the LDS church. Luckily, just this week I came across a blog called Thoughts on Mormon Art which discussed many of those same concerns. An artist friend referred me to this blog and the unique perspective on patronage of religious art in the Church today.  President Kimball said, "We are proud of the artistic heritage that the Church has brought to us from its earliest beginnings, but the full story of Mormonism has never yet been written nor painted nor sculpted nor spoken. It remains for inspired hearts and talented fingers yet to reveal themselves." Lets begin to cultivate that story. 

Common Sense:  It’s needed more today than ever!

This year I didn’t complain when I had to pay income tax.  For the first time in my life I understood the importance of paying taxes and I wish that more people had the opportunity to do so.  There are a lot of reasons why our tax system is as warped as it is.  I would like to think that the money I contributed to our tax system went to SNAP.  I would like to explain why.