Firefighting 2007

Several major fires in this region so far this summer.

I missed working on the Milford Flats fire that charred a huge patch of central Utah in June. We were keeping busy at the time, trying to eradicate noxious weeds in the Manti La Sal National Forest.

In July we had a very close call with the Salt Creek fire that burned within a mile of homes in my neighborhood. I spent a big chunk of time working on that incident. Most of my work involved manning and operating the water tender. It is basically a big water tank on wheels. Water tenders are vital to fire operations in this area because there are so few places with available water resources. The tenders shuttle water from local sources out to the fire to replenish the small water supply carried by tactical firefighting engines.

Indianola Valley Fire Department Tender 18

The water tender can also bring water in to provide local resources for helicopters. There were several helicopters and small planes dropping water and chemical fire retardant on hot spots during the Salt Creek fire.

One of the most impressive aircraft at the fire...

Sikorsky SkyCrane helitanker

Also in use were fixed-wing retardant bombers like this one...

And smaller aircraft...

As well as bucket-carrying smaller helicopters...

Sometimes there is no nearby source for the helicopters to draw water.


So we deploy these big plastic pools that hold 6000 gallons. The water tenders bring water from available sources and replenish the supply in the pool, while the helicopter dips the bucket into the pool and carries another drop to the fire.

For the last week we have been working on the Lowry Canyon fire.

Location of Lowry Canyon fire.

It is a curiosity that the valley east of the fire is named "Japanese Valley". Several stories circulated about an internment camp that was located here during WWII, but I have never heard of it before, and was skeptical. I know about the big camp that was at Topaz, but didn't know of any such in Sanpete County.

The fire started from a lightning strike last week, and was burning in Juniper and Oak chaparral in the wild mountain area between Gunnison and Scipio. No homes or properties were threatened, so the strategy for firefighting was mostly just to keep it confined to the top of the mountain, and prevent it from spreading down through any of the nearby valleys.

Here's a news story from the Salt Lake
Tribune

Another news article, from the Sanpete County Messenger

Indianola fire dept. back to normal after baptism by fire
By Suzanne Dean
9-29-07

INDIANOLA—The Indianola Valley Fire Department (IVFD) is back to its routine of training meetings and fighting routine fires after a baptism by fire, at least figuratively, this past summer.
Established two years ago, IVFD volunteers, who specialize in wild land fires and fire in urban interface zones, tested their mettle in three state-level fires—Milford Flats, Salt Creek and Lowry fires.
In the Milford Flats fire, said to be the biggest forest and wild land fire in Utah history, and in the Salt Creek fire, which threatened populated areas in Sanpete County, the IVFD firefighters got to rub shoulders with Type 1 teams, the crackerjack national teams that are sent in to fight the most serious fires.
“They were very willing to teach and share, and very appreciative of what we did and how we did it,” said Graciela Torino Myers, IVFD public information officer and volunteer. “We had the satisfaction of being appreciated.”
Three IVFD volunteers spent five days fighting the Milford Flats fire, which led to two deaths and scorched 160,000 acres in Sevier, Millard and Beaver counties.
“Bless their hearts,” Meyers said of the three volunteers. “They came home, took a shower, had one night at home and then were called out on the Salt Creek fire.”
On July 19, several IVFD volunteers, with support from a Utah County fire team, were fighting a routine fire near Eagle’s Landing near the Sanpete-Utah County border.
That’s when they were alerted to a forest fire moving from Salt Creek Canyons up mountain draws into the hills above the Indianola Valley.
“They went from one fire to the other without touching home,” Meyers said.
All 13 certified IVFD firefighters worked on the front line of the fire. Some of them even came off their assignments “with retardant on their uniforms,” she said.
One of their main duties was constructing hand lines, or trenches, to stop the fire’s advance.
They also stood by the county’s tanker truck at the Hilltop command post and supplied water to fire engines from a host of fire departments. Those trucks then drove into the fire area and used the water to put out flames or to wet down vegetation to reduce its vulnerability to fire.
IVFD also played a big role in “mop up,” which primarily involves “cold trailing,” several firefighters walking in formation across burned area feeling the ground to make sure it’s cold.
When firefighters saw a wisp of smoke, they dug at it with picks to cover it with dirt and sprayed the site with water.
“More than one fatal fire has been assumed to be contained, only to blow up later and unexpectedly trap people,” Meyers said.
That’s why there’s an adage in firefighting that says, “A fire department is only as good as its mop-up capability.”
The Salt Creek fire exacted a big commitment from the IVFD volunteers. They left home at 6:30 a.m. to attend a briefing at Juab High School in Nephi, where they got their assignment for the day.
They fought the fire until after dark and then returned to Nephi to do paperwork. They got home about 11:30 p.m.
Since its founding, the IVFD has always brought one of its engines to the Fairview Parade on July 24.
This year, Meyers rode in the parade in a Volkswagen Jetta decked with signs that read, “Indianola Valley Fire Department—Sorry we missed seeing you. Our four trucks and crews are fighting THE FIRE.”
Meyers said she got a tremendous response from the crowd.
The Salt Creek fire not only taught IVFD firefighters new skills but also helped them identify equipment that would support their mission of preventing and fighting wild land and urban interface fires.
The Salina Fire Department brought two “pumpkins” to the fire. The big orange devices look like giant versions of a child’s inflatable wading pool.
The pumpkins hold 5,000 and 6,000 gallons of water. They provided a water reservoir where helicopters swooped down and refilled their buckets.
The IVFD looked into acquiring one, managed to get it, and about a month later took it to the Lowry fire, which burned about 1,000 acres west of S.R. 28 near the Juab-Sanpete border.
The department’s next goal is to get its own fire station in the Indianola Valley, although so far, the Sanpete County Commission hasn’t come up with a way to finance the project.

Lessons from the Trees

A couple of prosaic pieces I wrote some time ago, reflecting upon my relationship with wilderness.

Legacies of Endurance

I made a pilgrimage this weekend to the slopes of Mount Evans, to pay my respects to a grove of peculiar trees that inhabit that locale.

These the pines of a particular breed that choose to live their lives out, at forbidding lofty heights, where other species abjure. Fire and rain, wind and snow, all the elements combine to blast these enduring creatures without pity or respite.

Not the towering graceful beauties of the forest, these. The aged pines are twisted and gnarled into bizarre stunted gnomes. Battle scars from aeons of withstanding the destructive forces of nature cover their flanks.

And yet they endure.

Some of the oldest patriarchs, clinging to life by the thinnest of threads, have witnessed the awesome pagent of an unimaginable span of ages, as time passed before them, hundreds upon hundreds of seasons spinning by, a thousand generations in the lifetime of men.

I consider these trees, with their stunning longevity. They do not complain about the travail or suffering, though many of them have obviously suffered greatly. They do not question their purpose, or falter in the mission -- to live, and keep on living. The trees endure, and do not ask why.

There is an incredible, priceless beauty in endurance. Perhaps it is beyond our understanding today. I feel certain that the trees possess this secret knowledge.

How long will it take us to learn?

Great and Small

Towering firs raise into the blazing blue,
their boughs reaching up in mighty supplication.
Framing the world across mountain tops and airy ridges,
seemingly, holding up the sky.

On forest floor below, humbly graced,
with lacy bracken ferns, lush green, so pleasing to the eye.
Bowed with fronds sweeping low to the earth,
catching the sun's few spare rays.

Climbing Paradise Ridge

I owned the tops of the mountains today. No others tracked the smooth white surface of the cold, clean snow. The mountain heights and I held our secret soul tryst, a chaste and joyous virtue only open to the lone and lonely.

I traverse the high passes, seeming so near to the pale blue sky, bracing against the fierce onslaught of the merciless freezing north wind. Howling gusts sweep up gritty blasts of icy snow grains in a ground blizzard, below a dark horizon troubled by passing storm clouds. As I struggle upward, the icy wind steals my breath away with each passing burst.

In the shelter of the deep shady canyon, I pause before tall green firs swaying and sighing as the force of the gale funnels up the slope, the wind whistling and moaning through the tossing boughs like the keening of mourners. The feet of the great trees stand deeply buried beneath the drifts.

Laboring to slowly climb the steep slope, bundled heavily against the freezing cold, my body is soon dripping with sweat. As the moisture accumulates under my hat and across the back of my neck, a rime of ice quickly forms around my head, into the simulation of a frosted white helmet.

I stop at the summit for a brief respite, in the lee of a swarm of boulders. I comb the ice out of my hair. Over the top of the broad peak, bare crusted snow is sculptured by the wind. The blowing snow appears to form sinuous snakes that writhe and coil and dance like living creatures. A sort of white noise, the continuous susurration of millions of snow grains skittering and slithering along, masks the roaring of the wind and creates a deep dynamic silence. Pressure against my back builds and ebbs from the force of the wild wind.

I have overstayed my welcome. The wind intensifies and the snow turns into heavier pellets that plaster across the front of my jacket and trousers, until I start to resemble an animate snowman. I hasten down the front side of the mountain, and as I pass, drifting snow quickly obliterates the traces of my passage.

Children of Divorce

I've put up a number of links on my personal web pages about divorce. But this article looks interesting by itself.

In online discussion I sometimes find this topic examined, and many of the participants express the sentiment that in cases of Temple marriages that are terminated by divorce, the children "follow the mother".

I've never heard any satisfactory explanation for that reasoning, nor do any who echo the idea know of any provenance. They just heard it somewhere.

Here's an authoritative quote that seems to address the subject:

As to the next question, “What happens to the children in the next life when there has been a cancellation of sealing of the parents?” it is understood that in the case of a cancellation of the sealing of the woman to the man, this does not cancel the sealing of the children to the parents, since they were born in the covenant, which is a birthright blessing. They remain in the status of the sealing to their parents and can never be sealed to anyone else. The decision as to with whom they will go will be determined by the Lord in the hereafter. Regarding being born in the covenant the General Handbook of Instructions states, “Children born in the covenant cannot be sealed to anyone, but belong to their natural parents. This rule is not altered by adoption, consent of the natural parents, request of the child after becoming of age or death of the natural parents.”

It should be kept in mind that to be born in the covenant is a birthright blessing, and that if a child remains worthy in this life of celestial blessings, regardless of the actions of his parents, he is assured of that birthright and is guaranteed eternal parentage. One’s worthiness in this life through living the gospel and keeping the commandments, in this as in all things, is the key to eternal life. (Elder James A. Cullimore,  Q&A: Questions and Answers,” New Era)

Futility and the purpose of life

Are we just a waste of oxygen? What am I doing that is worth doing?

A few days ago someone at an LDS blog became perturbed at my participation in the discussion, and activated whatever mechanism they use to try to block me from participating. Why did I care? I wasn't aware that I did until I found that the blog did not even prompt me for a comment any more.

Well, it turns out that this blog and most others use a software black box called Akismet that supposedly filters out unwanted stuff. It is supposed to keep spammers from cluttering up the place.

I decided that anyone rude enough to presume to cut me off deserved punishment. So I started researching the Akismet machine to figure out how to break through.

According to the authors of the software, it is supposed to be very smart. As far as I can tell, it isn't. Akismet just tries to associate comments with a list of IP addresses and other possible junk associated with spammers.

I have known for some time of software servers that anonymize the IP address of a web browser session. So, being the persistent bother that I am, I experimented until I could post again.

Now that I accomplished that feat, I was nonplussed to realize that I had absolutely nothing to say. So I decided to study more about Akismet.

This defense mechanism reminds me of the Star Trek phaser dilemma when attacking the Borg defenses.



Phasers could only penetrate their shields on the first few tries. After that, the Borg shifted the frequency of their shields to restore attenuation.

Blog operators only have a few parameters they can use to check incoming traffic against known spam offenders. This approach doesn't work at all against those who know how to shift the values of those parameters. It is effective against spam only because the spammers are mostly mindless automatons exploiting easy undefended targets.

I suppose most network users do not know what an IP address is, let alone how to manipulate it. To put it simply, IP addresses are assigned by software, and can be changed or manipulated by software. Internet users with a bit of savvy and ambition can easily switch IP numbers and other software parameters. And for every more sophisticated technique of tracking addresses, there are even more elaborate schemes to conceal them.

My web browser voluntarily offers personal information to web pages I interact with. I have no obligation to do this, nor do I see anything unethical about refusing to freely hand over everything demanded. When blog operators use my voluntary compliance as a weapon against me, they forfeit my willing cooperation. The blog security structure is based entirely on voluntary compliance. Unless they resort to a closed system that only allows comments from established, trusted sources, blog operators cannot do much to block anonymous comments.

Not only that, but I strongly suspect that this blog absolutely depends on anonymity to even operate at all. Many LDS Internet users who operate on the fringe have grown paranoid about someone taking note of what they say in open forums. And rightly so. Ironically, I suspect many of those with such concerns do not exactly subscribe to the principle of common consent. They want license to criticize the Church and speak evil of the brethren without suffering any consequence. This blog is not about to jeopardize the mechanism that affords naysayers a forum in which to offer critical remarks without disclosing their identity.

Creationism and Evolution

In my experience, the vast wastelands of the Internet are not a very helpful source of information on the Church, creation, and evolution.

Those of us just wanting to know what the issues are and what to think, tend to end up shell shocked by the intensity of participants in most of the discussion of relevant issues. While this is hardly an unusual environment for such a topic of controversy and debate, it does present a challenge for someone who prefers to be reasonably informed, reserve judgment, but just wants a bit more information.

Among of the best references I have found to actual Church doctrine and policy on this matter is at the biology department of BYU. Undergrad students at BYU use this information packet for reference. It contains a copy of several authoritative statements on the evolution and origins of man. You can read it without getting battered by proponents from any of the various warlike camps staked out all around this controversy.

One assertion I love to read very succinctly spells out what I want to know -- the real meaning of "evolution"...

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.

From the information packet at BYU.


Highly recommended.

Healing through Jesus Christ

Interesting discussion in the Bloggernacle pondering whether we might opt to prevent homosexuality by pre-natal treatment.

I have no answer to offer. But the discussion suggested some instructive parallels with the New Testament incident recorded in John chapter 9. Jesus anointed the eyes of the man who had been blind since birth, and told the man to go and wash in a pool of water. The man followed his instructions, and his eyes were opened.

I cannot say from reading the scriptures that the many acts of "healing" performed by Jesus, during his ministry, imply any particular value judgment by the Savior regarding physiological or mental dysfunction. What we can learn from the scriptural accounts is that Jesus had compassion on the people for whom he provided healing ministrations. He granted the healing that they sought from him, in the form of relief from the problems they felt were afflicting their lives.

From my reading in the ninth chapter, there are many details that seem to open more questions than they answer.

For example, I cannot imagine what to make of the disciples query that apparently prompted the healing.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

When Jesus administered to the man, the story says he made clay with spittle and applied it to the man's eyes, before instructing him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. I am not sure this procedure was common to his healing ministrations, and wonder why he did it this way. Why not just pronounce the man healed, and make it so?

I have afflictions of my own that I suffer with. Jesus has not deigned to relieve me of these burdens. While I would hypothetically like to participate in the process designed to educate me in true appreciation of God's eternal purposes, I suppose the dim hope always lives, somewhere in the back of my mind, that it might not be quite so agonizingly painful.

Impatient soul that I am, yet I wait on Jesus Christ for healing. I know it will come, in the Lord's own time.

Honesty

How does honesty become anti-social and pathological?

Reiterating this question for my not-so-friendly friend, Steve Evans, Bloggernacle blogger.

It cannot be that people like Steve simply cannot be bothered to address such questions. But due to an unfortunate miscommunication, he shut me out of his forum before we finished the dialog.

So, in my forum, it remains an open question. Perhaps for Steve, or maybe for some other soul that values truth and honesty.

"I drew a circle that took him in".

Surviving the Internet

One of the great disappointments I have come to realize over time is that faithful church members have, for the most part, lost a presence on the Internet, betrayed by disaffected and abandoned to the control of the devil's minions.

Long ago this point was driven home when the original "Mormon-L" experiment veered off the tracks and established a permanent camp in the parking lot of the "great and spacious building". In spite of every erstwhile effort to drive a silver stake through the heart of the evil beast, it refuses to die, and even flourishes in its own unique niche of darkness and corruption.

More recently, I came to see this particularly in light of a whole infrastructure of LDS-related blogs that sprang up literally overnight, and with breathtaking evolution, were subsumed into an impressive collective referred to informally as the "Bloggernacle", or perhaps more pretentiously, the "Mormon Archipelago".

Sadly, the Bloggernacle has just as soon evolved into a haven for the same folks that gutted and spitted the original Mormon-L forum. I fear most of the participants there are beyond saving. The downward slide has been all the more ironic, because so many of the prominent players seem to think they are in charge of "saving" the church from its mistakes -- unfortunately, most of this is just ark-steadying or some other flavor of outright apostasy.

However...

More recently, as the morning breaks and the shadows flee, I see some hope on the horizon. The appearance of a new web site encouraging development of consecrated Internet resources -- More Good Foundation.org.

Dramatic growth and development of resources at FamilySearch.org.

Continued expansion of the Church's online web presence at LDS.org and related sites.

The collection of valuable resources at BYU also continues to grow and impress. Particularly the transcripts of speeches and devotionals, and the growing library of streaming media resources.

If you haven't been watching, take a look at these sites and see how they've continued to evolve.

The Prodigal Son

Who is the prodigal son, in the parable Jesus taught in Luke 15?

...wasted his substance with riotous living...

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,

And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

The mercy and compassion of this forgiving father is overwhelming. And the despondent hopelessness of the lost son is all too familiar.

It is always difficult for me to read the passage where the lost son rehearses his self-denigration and begging for help -- I can never get past it without bitter tears. How many times have I gone to Father in Heaven with the same thoughts.

The lost son plans to beg the father to make him as a servant. Yet the father is so overjoyed to have regained his lost one that he doesn't even seem to hear, and apparently no thoughts of restitution or justice even entered into his mind.

I wonder, on reflection, how can a father ever forgive such wilful wasting of his hard-earned wealth? And then the thought follows -- how could he not?

Heavenly Father has no desire to punish his children. He is not vindictive or capricious. His greatest joy is in bestowing gifts on his children. His work and glory is in bringing them to everlasting rewards.

Yet the Father's mercy is not unconditional. He does not owe us these favors. We are in the position of the lost son, hopeless to return to Father's house without his undeserved mercy.

How many of us yet vainly continue in hunger, when limitless bounty is within reach? Why fill our bellies with the husks of swine? Perhaps for some, the day of reckoning has not yet arrived, and we are still in the process of wasting our substance. How ironic, for those of us who, through our own willful choice, enter the mire to wallow with the swine.

I have been there myself, many times. As it seems, at the time it was the only alternative. Yet when I come to myself, as the son in the master's parable, I realize once again that the promise of forgiveness and being cleansed is open to all of us.

The fatted calf awaits. There is still time for us. Let us repent and return to the Father's house. He ever receives the prodigal son with open arms.

Reason and accountability

This is a better theme for serious "Father's Day" discussion than the perpetual silliness that goes on here, for example. So many participants in the "Bloggernacle" just seem to love to muse and moon over meaningless questions.

I've wondered for a long time how men could surrender themselves to the bland impotence that so characterizes such discussions, amongst the obsessively politically correct, and elsewhere. To me, it seems to represent a concerted effort to betray most of the meaningful things that distinguish us as men.

We can focus in on the one of the particular points of doctrine that so offends, especially at this weekend event that at least theoretically used to be about celebrating "fatherhood", but is now more commonly used as an opportunity to denigrate.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World proclaims, among others:

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.

The Proclamation is dynamic and bold -- and that offends quite a few people. Though it is not politically correct, it should go without saying that men have a unique role that differentiates them from women. This axiomatic premise parallels Melvin Udall's stereotyped thinking, in the film "As Good as it Gets".

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

There are fundamental differences between men and women, males and females. Some institutional implementations are founded upon those ideas, and they function successfully to the degree that those sex differences are recognized and properly accommodated. While Udall's encapsulation may not perfectly characterize the kernel of the fundamental difference, he does far better than most, in this age of unreasoning antipathy toward the male of the species.

Check some earlier comments that relate to this issue, in fascinating and intriguing ways.

(Interspersing some replies from that other blog discussion...)

Melvin Udall was held up in the film as a generally reprehensible (and somewhat insane) human being — that was the point.

Yes, I think I understand why you felt we were intended to regard the character of Udall as “reprehensible” and insane. But in fact, his most offensive trait in the film seemed to be a rather painful and brutal degree of honesty.

How does honesty become anti-social and pathological?

(Other blog reply...)

Jim, let me ask you a yes or no question: do you believe that in order to describe women, you “think of a man… and take away reason and accountability”?

I could discuss this question at some length, but first, you must answer a yes or no question: Do you believe in the “divine design” reflected in the Proclamation?

Your antipathy for this line of thinking makes me uncomfortable to pursue it further. Sorry for disturbing the peace. Please feel free to ignore my comments, if it will make you feel happier.

(Other blog reply...)

Cobabe, don’t confuse antipathy for you with antipathy for the Proclamation. Consider yourself persona non grata until you answer my question, you coward.

And to show you that I’m not a coward, I’ll answer your question, you loathsome wuss: Yes, I believe the “divine design” part. Now what?

(Further quote from "As Good as it Gets"...)

Carol Connelly: Do you have any control over how creepy you allow yourself to get?
Melvin Udall: Yes I do, as a matter of fact. And to prove it, I have not gotten personal, and you have.

Yes, I obviously thought I saw something instructive in Udall’s unusually hyperbolic thinking. Of course it is not correct to so simply characterize differences between men and women — doesn’t do it justice at all. That would be an interesting and complex subject in itself.

Then too, I see this with the understanding that Udall is a fictional character, a sort of composite caricature of someone manifesting psychiatric dysfunction. Udall is not a real person, neither is the thinking reflected in his fictional character an accurate portrayal of o-c disorder. His character is as exaggerated as his statement about how he writes women.

The sad fact is that Udall is able, in his twisted sense, to readily identify an important truth that our politically correct society cannot countenance. Udall is honest about his perceptions. Many of the rest of us have to pretend to deny what is fundamentally true. Those laboring under this bizarre obsession/compulsion are perhaps more seriously mentally afflicted than Udall himself.

Perhaps, when we look at the Family Proclamation, the reductionist approach is somewhat problematic. The initial selection of one phrase in isolation from the rest of the Proclamation may detract from the obviously holistic intent of that instrument. As I read it, the Proclamation intends to advocate for a particular balance. All members of a family are included and to be considered as a unit, notwithstanding the different contributions each member brings to the group. Regarding the individual pieces, particularly from a defensive or antagonistic perspective, probably distracts us enough from the original intent that the real message of the Proclamation is compromised.

Men and women do not exist independent of each other. Rather, their different roles complement each other to create a relationship that works to satisfy the specific and individual needs of all its members.

"Unrighteous dominion" is almost an automatic reaction for many liberal-minded LDS Church members in this context. One of the considerations that generally seems to be neglected when we invoke “unrighteous dominion” is that it would seem to imply that “righteous dominion” is also a possibility.

In fact, I would suggest that “righteous dominion” predominates in almost all cases, and “unrighteous dominion” is, for practical purposes, a temporary and transitory state. I suspect most of us wander into that territory from time to time. Thank God we have the opportunity to repent and correct our mistakes.

One more thought — unrighteous dominion. It is not just a man’s territory. Anyone can tread there.

In the church there is a peculiar tendency to become blind to this, perhaps because the scriptures make such a dramatic point in condemning the problem as manifested in the ranks of priesthood. For priesthood-holding men, unrighteous dominion has certain unpleasant implications that do not affect non-priesthood-holders. But abuse of authority is an egregious sin, in any case — whether the offender be a man or a woman.

I further extend my previous comments about “dominion” in general. Under the guiding principles of the gospel, it is our prerogative to have dominion over our individual stewardships. This applies to men and women, fathers and mothers — and children, in a more limited sense. One of the challenges of mortality is to learn to administer our dominion according to righteous principles.

Each of us has a unique assignment that constitutes our stewardship. This principle is taught in the parable of the talents. Dominion over our own stewardship is righteousness inasmuch as it is guided by gospel principles. It is a reflection of the eternal stewardship we look forward to, modelled after Heavenly Father’s eternal kingdoms.

I think it is instructive to compare phrases like

…reinforcing the norm of gender-disparate economic power

against

Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If I were to make it the subject of intensive study, which one of the philosophical approaches these statements epitomize would seem likely to yield the most productive result — e.g. happiness, fairness, prosperity.

I don’t share any grave concerns about catering to the lunatic fringe on either side of the “iron rod”.

Innovative contemporary sociological theories modelling marriage relationships are all just nicey-nice. Gay and lesbian stuff is, well, enticing, I suppose, for a select minority. But the majority — more than 95% of us, I would guess — will be best served by striving for obedience to the correct principles outlined in the Proclamation. Notwithstanding the popular clamor for "diversity", there is no reason for most of us to experiment with any of these distasteful distractions or perversions from the “divine design”.

And, I presume for those who, like me, occasionally come to themselves, and find themselves straying outside of the ideal — if you’re like a happy pig, pleased to be wallowing in mire, well and good for you.

But if you're unhappy, and cannot understand why, perhaps you would be interested to see my further elaboration on this idea. If and when you come to realize how you have been mislead and cheated, and can see how far off the path you have strayed, please make an effort to repent and seek forgiveness, and set your steps to return to the true church.

Prodigal sons, as ever, will be welcomed back to the fold.