There’s a similar amendment on the ballot in Kentucky in November; here’s hoping for similar results. link to ‘Voters in Kansas decide to keep abortion legal in the state, rejecting an amendment – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville’

This week and last, I’ve been reading up on Mormons’ commitment to both the language of the King James Version (Philip Barlow’s Mormons and the Bible is a fantastic read) and what is seen as the authoritative text of the Book of Mormon. In Paul Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography, he quotes the official Latter-day Saint Scripture Translation Manual as including the following guidelines for translators of the Book of Mormon:

Nearly a year ago, a friend gave me a copy of Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation as a gift for my confirmation into Community of Christ. It (obviously) took me a while to start it, and it’s taking me some time to read through it, but there’s a lot in there that I like. This afternoon, this passage stood out to me: Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God, for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice, your mediocrity and materialism, your sensuality and selfishness that have killed his faith.

We’ve had a rough year of natural disasters. link to ‘At least 25 people have died in Kentucky’s floods, governor says : NPR’

Compelling podcast episode from Mozilla highlighting morally dubious uses of AI. It’s really important that we be more reflective about this instead of trying things and seeing where they lead. link to ‘The Tech We Won’t Build — The Internet Health Report 2022’

So much of modern right-wing politics boils down to concerns about masculinity. link to ‘Gun-makers made millions marketing AR-15-style guns as a sign of manhood : NPR’

I knew that Gab was supporting Mastriano, but I didn’t realize ties ran this deep. Gab is a toxic hellhole, and if Mastriano is sending them money, that should rule him out as a candidate. link to ‘Doug Mastriano Faces Criticism Over His Backing From Antisemitic Ally - The New York Times’

Look, I’m a critic of Apple’s closed system, but it’s laughable for Meta to set itself up as an oprn alternative. link to ‘Zuckerberg: Apple, Meta are in “deep, philosophical competition” | Ars Technica’

This case seems so clear cut to me, and the American right’s willingness to harass this doctor suggests that things are going very wrong. link to ‘Indiana doctor says she has been harassed since providing 10-year-old’s abortion : NPR’

I didn’t know Fuentes was also using “Christ is King,” but it’s a favorite of Gab’s Andrew Torba, too. link to ‘‘Christ Is King’: Man Allegedly Vandalized Bakery Hosting Drag Show’

I haven’t watched Stranger Things 4, but it’s interesting how media depictions of Mormonism often get some of the details wrong, folding it in with broader conservative Christianity instead of focusing on its unique weirdness. This often confused me as a kid, especially when adults would wonder if I were allowed to play games with supernatural themes or… sing songs? link to ‘Stranger People | Times & Seasons’

Who is allowed to watch the watchmen? This is why I’m grumpy about Lexington being hush hush about its new automated license plate readers—it sets a precedent for secretive use of even more invasive surveillance. link to ‘Police Are Still Abusing Investigative Exemptions to Shield Surveillance Tech, While Others Move Towards Transparency | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

Worrying days ahead. There’s a lot being said on Gab that’s spilling out into “mainstream” GOP discourse. link to ‘Republicans Sharpen Post-Roe Attacks on L.G.B.T.Q. Rights - The New York Times’

Intellectual property is important, but copyright filters are an absolute mess. link to ‘Facebook Is So Sure Its Erroneous Blocking Of Music Is Right, There’s No Option To Say It’s Wrong | Techdirt’

What cynicism to support people you once literally ran away from because you think it’s politically advantageous. link to ‘Josh Hawley Just Gave Us the How It Started/How It’s Going for Jan. 6’

Some more coverage of the (possible) photo find. This is the only news I’ve ever read related to facial recognition software that I’ve been happy rather than grumpy about 😂 link to ‘At long last, a photo of Mormon founder Joseph Smith emerges’

Whoa. Big news here. My feelings about Joseph Jr. are complicated, but it’s very cool to see a possible photograph of him. link to ‘Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s photo discovered by descendant after nearly 180 years’

Libraries are a key part of a democratic society, and this is a very worrying development. link to ‘Oklahoma Threatens Librarians: ‘Don’t Use the Word Abortion’’

Look, there may be less of a coordinated defense, but ignoring the Jan. 6th hearings is almost as bad as defending Trump from them. link to ‘With midterms in sight, few Republicans are defending Trump as they did in 2019 : NPR’

Here’s the EFF pointing out that “free speech” on these platforms means something very particular rather than a broad, deep commitment to legally-protected expression. link to ‘Self-Proclaimed Free Speech Platforms Are Censoring Nude Content. Here’s Why You Should Care | Electronic Frontier Foundation’

Opting out of location sharing is a good and important step, but there are no tech solutions to this horror—only political ones. We need good legislation, and we need it now. link to ‘DHS bought “shocking amount” of warrantless phone-tracking data, ACLU says | Ars Technica’

It’s funny how conditional the GOP’s concerns about free speech are. That’s not to say that free speech isn’t a complicated topic to be weighed in conjunction with other concerns—it absolutely is. But if a party wants to use a simplistic view of free speech as a rallying cry, stunts like this show how just how simplistic that view is. link to ‘Arizona Makes It Illegal To Record Cops From Less Than Eight Feet Away | Techdirt’

So, here’s a case where TikTok’s Chinese ownership is actually a really big deal—though, of course, YouTube and other U.S. companies have also been quicker to moderate than to archive material that could be valuable in a similar way. link to ‘TikTok resists calls to preserve Ukraine content for war crime investigations | Ars Technica’

If I were allowed one religion-related time travel shenanigan, I would go to the late 1960s and arrange for very left-wing RLDS apostle Charles Neff and Bircher LDS apostle Ezra Taft Benson to be in the same room, just to see how things would turn out.

I’m glad the article identifies Art as an apostle for Community of Christ, to emphasize that it’s entirely possible to be affirming and Christian. Coming from Mormonism, I’m not used to the idea of apostles standing up for queer causes, so as gross as the book removal is, I’m grateful for Art’s example here. link to ‘Independence schools ban book for gender content – The Beacon’

Ugh. We “buy” too many things this way. link to ‘Ubisoft Teaches Customers They Don’t Own All That DLC They ‘Bought’ | Techdirt’

The amount of data collected by TikTok is more concerning for the possibility that it could be fed to Chinese state officials, but it would be just as concerning if it could be fed to American state officials, and still pretty concerning if only fed to corporate officials.

This strikes me as weaselly logic. It absolutely is an abortion, and it’s absolutely why it’s shamefully ridiculous to make simplistic claims about abortion as murder or to set up “zero abortions” as an ideal to be attained through legislation and jurisprudence. link to ‘Anti-Abortion Leader Tells Congress a 10-Year-Old’s Abortion Wouldn’t Count’

I didn’t realize there’d been so much right-wing pushback against this awful, awful story. There’s always room for good faith critical appraisals of the news, but what critics seem to me to miss here is that even if it weren’t true, the mere hypothetical possibility of something like this happening is shameful. That said, the emergence of more evidence supporting the claims is not a great look for those who called it into question.

This is such a dumb development. Why are we letting technology whittle away at ownership instead of increasing access to things? link to ‘BMW’s Push To Make Heated Seats A $18 Per Month Subscription Portends A Dumb And Costly Future | Techdirt’

It’s concerning to see private surveillance prop up public surveillance like this. link to ‘Amazon Admits Giving Police Ring Footage Without Consent’

Just the idea that NYC feels like it needs to keep people educated about what to do in case of a nuclear attack is enough to add some existential dread to my Tuesday. link to ‘Watch New York City’s new nuclear war PSA | Boing Boing’

Over the past several months, I’ve been slowly working my way through Mark Scherer’s three-volume The Journey of a People, the most recent quasi-official history of Community of Christ. The first volume was interesting, since it covered an era of Mormon history that I’m familiar with from a perspective that I’m not familiar with. I found the second volume a bit harder to get through—some individual sections were fascinating, but it seemed to lack an overall throughline or narrative.

I haven’t read Limón’s poetry (I don’t read much poetry at all), but I’ll have to change that. Happy for some Kentucky and Lexington representation in this way. link to ‘Lexington, KY writer Ada Limón is the next US poet laureate | Lexington Herald Leader’

A deep dive on a worrying military technology. The U.S. has already done a lot of damage with drones, and as more countries start to use them, more damage is going to be done. [link to ‘Bayraktar TB2 Drone Sales from Turkey Growing Despite Western Laws — ProPublica’](https://www.propublica.org/article/bayraktar-tb2-drone-turkey-exports

Look, I’m not opposed to expanding computer science education, but if the motivation is to fill jobs and keep tech giants thriving, that seems to me to be a red flag. Education ought to focus on democracy above the economy; we need to be producing citizens, not employees. There are ways to teach tech in a way that supports democracy and produces citizens, but if I get grumpy about computer science educstion, it’s because we rarely talk about it that way.