Attack

These past few posts have been responding to recent things. I worry about being reactive rather than proactive; will I really make any progress?

But how do I ignore a man with LDS roots shooting up a gay bar on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance?

I can't even promise that this will be a coherent post, but there are some things that I want to say, and then I guess I hope that a week can go by without some new terrible thing happening.

First of all, though I am almost positive that the shooter's claim to be non-binary is a cynical ploy suggested by the lawyers, I am glad to read articles respecting that and using "they/them" for the shooter. Respecting pronouns is so easy that it is the least we can do. Let's make sure that we also do that for people who are not mass murderers.

It is possible that someone who was not cisgender or heterosexual would target people in what should be their community? Absolutely. It still seems suspect in this case.

I also understand that there were some people wanting to prepare some kind of petition or something directed at Elder Holland for his "muskets" speech, perhaps assigning some responsibility.

I can see that, but it is ignoring other issues that are important.

First of all, it is questionable how involved in the church the shooter was anyway. Without having looked into it that much, that is a troubled family (they seem to be pretty consistently politically conservative) and who had the most influence on the shooter is questionable.

In addition, while Elder Holland's talk was over a year ago, there has been increasing commentary from all over the right targeting transgender and homosexual people, equating them with groomers and sexual predators targeting children. These are blatant lies, but that doesn't stop the repetition. 

The church is not good enough on this issue, but we are not the ones driving it.

It does drive home the point that being accused of bigotry is such a minor complaint when you see the things that happen to marginalized people. That is a reason to be ashamed of that talk. It's embarrassing.

The other thing is that we really need to look at patriarchy.

It wasn't the only shooting recently. It never is anymore.

We should think about how a culture where being weak or having lower status is shameful, and yet if you don't have a way of earning more money or gaining more prestige, the go to solution seems to be violence. That violence is more likely to be targeted against those who are deemed of lower value by patriarchy: women, people of color, queer people... society lends a certain permission there.

It is worth noting that right-wing politicians are not even murmuring their "thoughts and prayers" platitudes so much this time, but leaning in to the abuse lies that justify it. The right's reaction to the Pulse shooting was bad, but this is worse.

Yes, groomers are real, but they are mostly white men. They are the teachers who run off with students, or the fathers and grandfathers who molest their children and grandchildren. We all know of these cases, but that doesn't fit the image of how things are supposed to be. 

Yes, the world is not what it should be. Targeting the people that you feel like you have permission to target is not the answer. 

Let's be honest about that.

Where your treasure is...

There have been some rather spectacular value reductions lately.

First, FTX -- an exchange for various cryptocurrencies -- has gone into bankruptcy proceedings, leaving many people unable to access their funds. Part of the problem may have been a secret backdoor that allowed money to be transferred without updates to the financial records.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/12/1-billion-to-2-billion-of-ftx-customer-funds-missing-report.html

It is unclear whether this has changed the mind of anyone who thought the lack of regulation on crypto was a feature and not  a bug.

In addition, Tesla stock has been trending downward. 

One interesting aspect of that is that with Twitter stock having been delisted, I can't help but wonder if there would have been the same effect on Tesla if Twitter were still publicly traded. There would still be reason for the Tesla drop, as the company shares are now tied to the Twitter purchase, and the purchaser is displaying horrible management skills, acting exactly as if his wealth and ego made him believe he was the genius his fans claim he is, despite a disturbing lack of evidence.

Plus Teslas keep bursting into flames and getting involved in fatal collisions. 

That's the kind of thing that hurts investors' confidence, and the stock market is based largely on confidence. If people believe the stock will increase in value, the demand to purchase it goes up, and that in itself increases the value.

If you can hold on, meaning if you have enough real assets that you don't need to sell your depreciated stocks, the stocks will often recover. Sometimes they don't, but more to the point, poorer people may not be able to wait. I believe that the 2008 crash was a big factor in the spread of income inequality, but probably also where the church's hedge fund really started getting big.

This post is not about that, but I want to make three points about "investment" based on things that we know and believe.

My family has been enjoying reruns of Barney Miller. There was one recurring character, Mr. Brauer, who was always getting into some new craze. His frustrated wife Harriet (played by Doris Roberts) would seek help from the police. 

The first time it was because he was converting all their assets into gold, including emptying their savings and selling their furniture. He was doing this in anticipation of an economic collapse, where their current cash would be worthless.

"Do you want to have to roll a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread?"

Other episodes featured other people trying to prepare for economic collapse, becoming survivalists or finding other ways to buck the system. 

It's not that there haven't been economic problems, but there was never really that collapse where you needed gold, though you will still periodically see commercials urging you to do it. However, it assumes that someone who has something of value will want gold. 

If you want bread, maybe you should purchase flour and yeast.

The idea of food storage and other forms of provident living are old concepts to us. How well we follow them is another question, but they do make sense.

Food storage may not as easily fit into the scripture referenced in the title, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21) 

It does fit in with knowing what matters. As useful as various items can be as a means of economic exchange, in the absence of the need for exchange those items revert back to their intrinsic worth.  Gold is pretty and malleable, so has some usefulness in that way. Green paper -- or digital or paper records of things that were bought and can be sold as long as someone else is willing to buy -- is less obviously valuable. 

In the absence of that kind of value, the desire to accumulate more can function as a kind of addiction, where it can never be enough, no matter how many zeros you add to the total.* 

Therefore, it seems worthwhile to consider how much of environmental destruction, attacks on personal worth via advertising, and exploitation of labor happens because of capitalism's need for "more".

Consumer confidence is often boosted, leading to a rise in stock prices, because of harmful practices like layoffs at companies that are making a profit, but just not getting that stock boost. 

When you look at the companies that really do collapse (oh hey, there was just a sentence for the Theranos fraud), there is often some kind of malfeasance or at least wild arrogance involved, that integrity could have prevented.

There is a negative relationship between how we value people and how we value money. 

People need to be our treasure.

That leads to the third point: how you invest your treasure.

A stock portfolio can shrink away before you have a chance to spend it. Many women have saved up for retirement travel with their first husbands, then been widowed and gone with their second husbands, or perhaps not gone at all as health issues came with aging. That saving and putting off sounds prudent, but simply may not work out.

Temporal life is built on being temporary. If you feed someone, they will get hungry again. If you fund someone's medical care, they will still eventually die.

Regardless of that, when we give from love and do things to make people's lives better, there is a very real way in which is cannot be taken away. Not only will our hearts stay there, but that giving will stay with our hearts.

As we start a season of giving in perilous times, let us consider what things have eternal worth. 

This doesn't rule out fleeting joys and pleasures, those moments of rest and shared enjoyment can have great worth, increasing our bonds and refreshing our souls.

I can't tell you how or if to plan for retirement, but you can make those decisions with eternal perspective.

*Wealth acquisition as an addiction comes partly from Charles Eisenstein and his book Sacred Economics, but I can't refer to it enthusiastically as there were so many bad ideas around that pretty good one.

Examining education

The member I mentioned last week was not the only local member running for office. 

Just as he lost his race for the Oregon senate, there was another member running for the Oregon house, as a sort of a sequel to his failed run for the Hillsboro school board. 

I am thinking about that more because of seeing the complaints of yet another church member regarding the schools, and how bad they are and how we needed his leadership.

There were some missing points that I feel need to be addressed.

The member had a long litany of grievances when pressed. They included the lack of deadlines on assignments or penalties for turning work in late, the ability to retake tests, the use of sentence frames, and a lack of constructive feedback. In addition, she was upset about the lack of gifted programs in middle school, complained that answers were given during the lessons, and while it was not brought up in her original complaint, when someone else mentioned the lack of family values, she heartily agreed.

Let me just start by saying that some of the complaints don't make a lot of sense. For example, on the one about the teacher giving the answers during class, meaning instruction? The complaints relating to tests and homework would indicate that something has to be done with the instruction later. Is the concern that there should be more mystery? More things that need to be solved via lengthy homework? Because they are finding that is not beneficial for students.

https://news.stanford.edu/2014/03/10/too-much-homework-031014/

Clearly there is a concern that the work is too easy, with the sentence frames being a part of that, but sentence frames are prompts, often used to guide longer writing. If there are truly students that are weak on grammar and sentence structure, those prompts might help them without damaging the students who are stronger. I am not sure that is a real problem. 

There was definitely a concern that the work is too easy, and this will result in students who don't know how to work, but I can guarantee this is not true for at least two of the complaints. If you get all of the assignments turned in by the end of the year, having procrastinated or been distracted by personal issues or only recently becoming engaged by the teacher, I assure you that getting that all caught up will not be easy. It will take a lot of effort and it shows motivation. 

In addition, if after having done badly on a test you understand where you went wrong and want to try again, that is not a bad thing. It is more work, not less work.

It is not even unprofessional. I had just read a post from a college instructor on making all deadlines flexible. It worked great, and commenters likened it to their office experiences:

https://twitter.com/margosteines/status/1590074378443948033?

All in all, these things seem downright humane, giving students who struggle a change to overcome those struggles.

Of course, this parent has a child who is brilliant, and being held back by not getting specific feedback on her good work and not being able to participate in gifted programs.

As a participant in gifted programs, I don't remember them doing much. I do know that they are really effective at hoarding resources to the students who are already better off. 

https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-what-research-tells-us-about-gifted-education/ 

https://nypost.com/2021/10/28/schools-debate-gifted-and-talented-programs-racist/ 

The racism correlations are interesting, in that they are more popular in the South, and that is not where the highest overall test scores are.

So, let's talk about those family values. 

I posted a LOT about those school board elections (11 posts, first one at https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/05/2021-school-board-elections-quick.html). I remember their values clearly:

Schools must be opened to in person learning right away (this was before any vaccines)
No teaching of critical race theory (which really means any acknowledgment of the presence of racism or judgment against it)
No affirmation of differences in gender and sexuality (which would also tend to support that historic prompt to academic greatness: bullying!)

Sure, they might have said that those other values were taking away from real teaching time, but the only strategy for greater academic rigor was leaving poor kids behind. To be fair, that could have easily incorporated gifted programs.

I think about ways to facilitate learning all the time, just as a matter of personal passion; I really care about this.

But if you mainly want school to be about affirming that your child is special, you should be supporting a tax level that allows for a lower student-to-teacher ratio. If you think your child is that much more special than all of the others, that may be appropriate in a parent but cannot be for the teachers.

One other things... I have not given any names here. I assume the failed (thankfully) political candidates are easy to identify and am fine with that, and have some concerns that the complaining private citizen might be identifiable. And yet, they end up being so much on script, I can't help but suspect there are other church members and parents saying the exact same things. 

It's like the 40% of Beaverton school district students identifying as non-binary when the national average is only 10%. Neither of those numbers are right, and I don't think the person repeating them is deliberately lying, but someone was, and their communication methods appear to be effective.

Are sentence frames the new pronouns? Not yet, but that is even better! Because some of those twisted liberals who won't give in to the outright bigotry might still fall for academic concerns that just happen to be misguided.

It shouldn't even be surprising, then, that the misguided complaints happen to correspond with racism and capitalism. That was practically inevitable.

Why third parties don't work

This is not going to be about the numbers.

I am writing this because a local church member (and locally fairly prominent) is running as an unaffiliated, non-partisan candidate, despite being a lifelong Republican.

In the past, it has not been unusual for a certain percentage of Mormons to not want to be Republican like everyone else. Usually the answer to that was to say they considered themselves more Libertarian.

I had seen the signs around town, and then I saw that he was one of the sponsors for the non-partisan gubernatorial candidate; none of that was surprising. 

I was a little surprised to see a postcard addressed to a household member from someone we know, encouraging her to vote for him, as he is what the community needs.

That is why I have been thinking about it more.

Usually when I write about the problems with third parties, it is pointing out that people on the left cannot downplay their interest in racial equality as a way to appeal to conservatives because we will never sound as reliably racist as the Republicans. If that is the voters' issue (disappointingly, it plays a prominent role), our efforts there won't work.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some Republicans now find themselves in a similar boat. If they are not wholly in the cult -- where the open racism, projected fraud claims, and insurrections seem a bit far -- they are still surrounded by cult members in their party.

The apparent solution then is to try and lure people who aren't steeped in QAnon over to their side.

In much the same way, it is not going to work. We know that your hearts are still conservative; we can tell by how much of your focus is on crime, which is not nearly as rampant as you keep saying it is. We know because when you refer to the Republican candidate being too extreme, you don't specify what level of extreme would be okay for you. 

We know.

This is not to put Democrats or liberals or especially Progressives on a pedestal; we have the same problems with racism. That is a feature, not a bug.

Today isn't about Democrats, though; it is about people who have been very comfortable being Republicans until the dog whistles turned to fog horns. This is about people who were okay with rumors of police brutality because that is just criminals, and then you keep seeing different videos and you can't deny that it looks wrong.

As people of faith, believing in the priceless value of truth and the worth of souls, going back to the dog whistles should not be sufficient. If it was comfortable then because of what you did not know, this is time to move past ignorance. There's a saying that when you know better, you do better. Well, not everyone, but we should.

For this election, I hope that Oregon is still liberal enough that the Democrats will win. Not because they are perfect, but because they will still be better. 

I honestly don't know. Last time around things worked out for the Hillsboro and Beaverton school districts, but they sure didn't for Newberg. Those repercussions are still happening.

The past few years have given ample evidence that the two parties are not the same. If you find that you are unable to stand up to your party and exert an influence when they veer badly off the rails, spend some time pondering that.

Dear conservatives, please consider what it is that you are trying to conserve.

I try and hope for the future, but I would sure love to stop seeing people I know from church being in the vanguard of the problem.

It was right there all along

There is one thought that keeps coming back to me.

My concern generally boils down to the ways we try and control each other instead of loving each other and letting each other be. That is dominator culture, and that is something I will write about more.

I have mentioned before that I am going through old conference talks (currently in October 1988). Earlier this year as we started studying the Old Testament, I also kept remembering all of these great articles from 1990, so I started reading the old Ensigns from that year. I didn't find all of them, and then some were in 1994, but there was a time period where the church magazines seemed to offer a lot more depth. I have added going over the Ensigns for 1990, 1994, and 1998 for each month this year, and will then do subsequent cycles until we get around to the Old Testament again.

New Testament: 1991, 1995, 1999
Book of Mormon: 1992, 1996, 2000
Doctrine & Covenants: 1993, 1997, 2001

I am not reading every page, but most of the 1990 ones and then looking at headlines in the other two for which ones are more scripture specific or sound more interesting. Rarely the News of the Church, because that is old, but always the Mormon Journal.

I am finding a lot of what I remembered, which is good. What I may not have remembered but always comes through is the importance of home and visiting teaching, now ministering.

That is in the articles and personal stories and the conference talks, and I know that it was often not done. 

That was what we needed all along. To take a role in caring for someone that you may not have a lot in common with, but that you get to know them, and that you think about their needs, and that you actively care about them.

I think so many of the changes that we make in programs are to try and get people to individualize more, and think about what is needed.

For example, there was a time when Homemaking was generally a different craft project every month. Then there was Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment so that you think more about what is needed in different areas, where maybe it is about dealing with stress or finding fun activities in the area. I once taught one on cooking with vegetables that was needed and great.

But we are not always great at listening to the Spirit, and we are not always great at love. That makes sense because they work together.

There was a time when I visit taught some sisters who were okay with the monthly lesson, and there was one who really needed it, but also my companion at that time always had a way of not being available because she kind of hated that sister (jealousy). I walked to her apartment and taught her alone, and we made that work.

I have had more sisters that had no interest in lessons, but sometimes we could do cards or phone calls or go out to lunch. I called one sister who was trying to make herself get to bed earlier every night for a few weeks to remind her to start ending her activities and get to bed. There were so many differences between them all, but I remember feeling love a lot, and feeling the Spirit. The Spirit made my love grow and helped me know how to help them, and the love made it easier to invite the Spirit.

It's much easier for hate to sink in when you haven't been touching base like that all along.

Peer Pressure

I was at a meeting recently for youth leaders (yes, it was a church meeting) where the question came up of how to love and support the youth as they navigate gender identity questions among their peers.

Yes, it was a church meeting asking about loving and supporting. I am glad that is something they are thinking about. 

In general I thought it was handled pretty well. If anyone is wondering, policy is that we address people by their preferred name, though there was one set of parents that requested the leaders continue using the birth name (dead-naming), and I did hear one person bristling as they said the words "gender-neutral name".

There was also a tactfully stated concern about reaching out for someone who is not coming to participate in Young Women's when they do not feel like a young woman... like ignoring them seems wrong, but reaching out seems disrespectful... I get the concern. As it is, in terms of changing organizations or something, that goes to the bishop, and I think that's is reasonable, though I don't know that it would work out well.

The topic of this post is more from one question where someone started talking about being aware of the bubble the youth are in. Her claim was that the national average is only 10% transgender, whereas in Beaverton School District it is 40%, and kids are always being asked "what" they are.

This is where all of my hackles went up, along with my hand.

I bet I can predict her school board votes.

Regarding the data, I don't believe she intentionally lied but I think there is bad misunderstanding  there. That could relate to our frequent difficulty in sorting out gender and sexuality, which are different, even if they can all be celebrated at Pride (though some of the gatekeeping that happens there... that's another story.)

I did recently see that 43% of transgender Americans are young adults or teenagers. That is not regional, but may indicate that older people who remained closeted for years may find it easier to remain there. 

Otherwise, the numbers remain pretty consistent.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/

This includes percentages by state and region. Neither Oregon (1.8% 13-17, 1.57% 18-24) nor the West (1.62% 13-17, 1.14% 18-24) are particularly high. 

The page states that this includes gender-nonconforming, so that should also take in non-binary youth.

Now, let's look at the United States over all, by age:

13 - 17: 1.43%
18 - 24: 1.31%
25 - 64: .45%
over 65: .32% 

Yes, more youth (and young adults) are gender-nonconforming than adults, but I don't think the rate has changed.

I think what has changed is that not only is there more ability to know that these are things, and that if you somehow feel different from how you "should" be that you are not the only one, but also there is more likelihood of being able to find support for that.

Which is wonderful unless you consider it to be an abomination, or if you think it is all fake pressure brought on by Babylon.

The main thing I said - and I didn't turn over tables, and I think I helped one other person say something, and I know I helped another person not have to say something - was that viewing it in this way is not going to be loving or respectful, because you are coming with the attitude that these things that they feel and are trying to figure out are not real. 

I know so many youth not in the church who are straight and gender-conforming, but what they are is supportive of other people. That is wonderful. That is what the "Don't Say Gay" people are fighting against, and we should not be on their side.

Even the church officially says that the feelings aren't a sin. If we ever really disentangle chastity from patriarchy we could really have something there. 

I promise you that keeping the ignorance there doesn't help anyone deal with it better. Yes, letting them voice their thoughts and feelings and identities, and find support for them, may result in choices that you don't like, but more choices are available with more knowledge, including more good choices.

The other thing I said referred to an earlier part of the meeting where we were looking at numbers, and they had gone down.

I know lots of heterosexual cisgender young people through my friends outside of the church, but I also know quite a few youth and young adults who are bisexual or nonbinary or transgender or homosexual. I know them because I know their parents from church, and none of them are currently coming to church. In some cases their siblings and parents aren't either.

If there is peer pressure, maybe the pressure is to accept and care for others rather than trying to force people to deny things that are core to their being. 

We have lost some youth for not being supportive of their siblings or parents. We might lose some for not being supportive of their friends or classmates or teachers.

And we might have a hard time bringing in any new members who aren't bigots.

About this conference

I have caught up with reading all of the talks, as well as the new For Strength of Youth booklet. Here are a few notes:

My favorite talk was probably Sister Kristin Yee's.

She and the new booklet both acknowledged that forgiveness may not eliminate the need to protect yourself. That feels like a good step forward, as I don't recall seeing that stated so clearly before. I related to it.

I was also pleased to see Bishop Caussé mention stewardship for the earth, and caring for each other.

While it was nice that President Oaks repeated that there is no place for abuse in the Church, it would have meant more if there was some commitment to change. I would be thrilled to hear that the law firm running the help line was fired, and an acknowledgment that we have gone too much with the status quo, instead of living our value of protecting children.

Okay, it doesn't make us any worse than Catholics, but shouldn't we be better?

The most recent statement I see is this, and it is not encouraging:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-provides-further-details-about-arizona-abuse-case

It related, but what I was actually looking for was another item, from a while back. I believe it was about an incident of racism, but it specifically said that we offer no apology.

If we know something is wrong, but won't say it, that seriously decreases the odds of us doing better.

That was disappointing.

But the most affirming thing came (perhaps in spite of conference) from a talk on temples, where I deeply felt how much I value them. I believe in the need for the ordinances and the importance of the work for the dead.

As many frustrations as I have with the members and leaders, I am still committed. My testimony is still strong.

I may be a bit thorny, but I am firmly planted.