Culture
Uninspirational Missionary Farewells
I attended my nephew’s missionary farewell this weekend, and it got me thinking about missionary farewells in general. It used to be that a missionary family would invite his family to speak, there would be special musical numbers, often advice from an older brother, and bishop’s remarks about the missionary. While some meetings went long […]
The LDS Drug Problem
I watched Lisa Ling’s program on CNN Saturday night dealing with the LDS Drug problem. (A short preview is available here.) On the one hand, it was unremarkable. Drug users (in any community) say that they want to stop doing drugs, but are very flaky and keep doing them. LDS users are no different. On […]
Ordain Women Round 3: Success or Setback?
Last October, Ordain Women announced its intention to attend the males-only General Priesthood session, and repeated the intention this past April. In response, Church leaders excommunicated Kate Kelly in June of this year, announcing that Temple Square was off limits for this “protest.” Furthermore, the Church decided to ban media from both the Women’s meeting […]
Vote Me for a Wheaties Award!
Wheat and Tares is hosting their annual Bloggernacle awards for the best (Wheaties) and worst (Tarefic Award) of the Bloggernacle. I was nominated in 2 categories: Best Current Events Post: ”Mandela Praised; Brigham Thrown Under the Bus“ Best Book/Article Review: ”Why Snuffer Got Exe’d” (Book: Denver Snuffer’s “Passing the Heavenly Gift”) You don’t have to […]
God Wasn’t in Your Story
We had a missionary homecoming last week. I usually bring a book to sacrament meeting, because I often find the talks dreadful, but this particular missionary gave a rather entertaining talk. He told two experiences in which he bore testimony that God had helped him, but I greatly question whether God had anything to do […]
Are These Mascots Offensive?
Usually when I talk about racism, I talk about the past policy to deny black Mormons the priesthood and temple ordinances. However, there are other types of racism, and Native American racism is in the news. Many people consider that the name NFL’s Washington Redskins is a racial slur. President Obama weighed in on the […]
BYU Linebacker Suspended for Big Game
We are just hours away from the big BYU-Utah football game, and starting linebacker Spencer Hadley will not be playing today. Will it affect the outcome of the game? Who knows, but surely it isn’t a good sign for BYU. Hadley was allegedly photographed while clubbing in Las Vegas, which at a minimum is a […]
Mormon Doctrine: Face Cards
I’ve never been much of a gambler; my dad loves to play Solitaire (with real or computer cards), and it was a fun game. We were taught that gambling was bad, and growing up thought it was a sin. We played Uno, Crazy-Eights, and many card games with or without face cards. With the Wheatmeister […]
How Racism, Sexism, and other Stereotypes Hurt Our Performance
We all know that racism exists. Jeff (The Race is On) and I (The Black 14 of Wyoming) wrote about racism last week at Wheat and Tares. But one commenter in particular said that race is not a problem. (I don’t know what planet he lives on–apparently he lives in an area with few minorities, […]
MHA 2013: Ethnicity, Martin Harris, and Banyan Trees
I was pleased to attend the 2013 MHA Convention in Layton, Utah this week. It was good to catch up with friends. I was only able to attend on Friday, because I had to work on Saturday, but wanted to share my notes from the conference. By Common Consent has some additional reports from Ben […]
Mormon Heretic 