I was disappointed this morning to see this article in the Salt Lake Tribune. The article reports that BYU professor Sarah Coyne “became the target of online bullying and hostile emails” after discussing “her child’s years of wrestling with gender dysphoria, including suicidal thoughts and agonizing mental health issues” in a class she was teaching. According to the article, this is something that she has done for several semesters, but this time, her action “made it into a critical article in a conservative off-campus newspaper… which was retweeted by Utah Sen[ator] Mike Lee on his personal Twitter account.”

I’m a couple of days late on writing this post: I started listening to the audiobook within hours of Doctorow sending out Kickstarter rewards on Monday and had it finished within a day. I often introduce Doctorow to others by saying that his books sometimes read like op-eds—but that that’s a good thing. I found that to be true in this book. I don’t know that I liked it as much as Walkaway (though I never expected to like that one!), and I’m honestly not sure I followed all of the plot details (my fault, not the author’s). Despite all of this, I couldn’t help but give this full marks. The point of the story is clear, inviting righteous indignation about poverty and wealth; the characters and world are lovingly detailed in a way that made it come alive; finally, Wil Wheaton’s performance is excellent and only made the whole thing stronger (also, the end credits cracked me up). It’s only been two days since I finished it, but my next audiobook is still on hold on Libby, and I’ve been seriously considering giving this one another listen while I wait.

There’s no such thing as dressing according to one’s biological sex. Gender-based dress expectations are perhaps the best possible example of the social construction of gender. What inanity.

I have enjoyed going through this book. It’s the kind of book that invites personal action instead of just letting you read it, and that’s felt overwhelming at times (particularly as my life has gotten busier in recent weeks), but it’s a good invitation, and I know I’ll need to revisit this slowly and deliberately to get the most out of it.

I’m tired of reading Twitter news, but I’m professionally obligated to do so, no matter how dumb it gets.

Over the past five years, my belief in a literal resurrection has gone down, but (perhaps unexpectedly) my love for Easter has gone up. For my congregation’s 2022 Easter service, I was invited to say contribute during a certain part of the service. I shared with the congregation that the resurrection is something that’s hard for me to wrap my head around, but I figure that if I can try to muster the belief in the impossibility of the resurrection, I can have the belief that we can overcome racism, fix poverty, and solve other seemingly impossible tasks facing us. I think of Easter as a hopeful holiday, inviting us to have hope in even that which seems impossible to us. Even if the purported historical event Christians celebrate on Easter strains credulity, I think that kind of hope is worth celebrating.

This is one of the most amazing things I’ve read on generative AI.

Local shame in response to local tragedy.

A week from tomorrow, I’m heading to Independence, Missouri to attend a few days of the 2023 World Conference of Community of Christ—and to act as a voting delegate in any of the legislative sessions that take place during my short time there. This is the first time since my confirmation into Community of Christ that a World Conference has taken place (the last one was in 2019), so I’ve been thinking about this for several months as “my first World Conference experience.”

To paraphrase Mike Masnick, the defining motto of the Musk era seems to be ‘it can always get more stupid.’

Made sure to take some CBD oil before leaving for Easter services, just as the good Lord intended.

How does this acquisition continue to get dumber and dumber?

The pettiness continues.

I had never thought of a car as a creepy surveillance device, but this is horrifying.

A dumb future that no one is asking for.

This is another dumb move by Musk. Masnick is excellent at calling him out on hypocrisy.

In my journey with Community of Christ, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what it means to pursue peace. I appreciate Pyle’s thoughts (and Star Trek references) here as he warns against allowing “peace and understanding” to neuter our opposition to evil. To be clear, that’s not what Community of Christ—or even maybe Nelson—is calling for, and I know my own opposition efforts risk denying the humanity and dignity of those I oppose. It’s a tricky balance, and I think Pyle’s argument is one of many to consider.

I want to start this post by saying that it’s more about me working out some thoughts than telling anyone else how to think—or even saying what I think about the subject. I’ve written a number of times already that I’m reading through Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s The Book of Forgiving as part of a non-credit bearing class on peace and justice that I’m taking through Community of Christ Seminary. In the reading I completed for last night’s class session, I was impressed by the following passage from the elder Tutu:

I’ve only read two Mormon missionary memoirs (plus one compilation of Mormon missionary comics), but both have been helpful for me in thinking about my own missionary experience. Brittany Long Olsen’s Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo is a remarkable graphic novel memoir of her missionary service in Japan. The art is great, the ambition is fantastic, and it absolutely deserves the 2015 award it won from the Association of Mormon Letters. Although it’s a fantastic book, it was also a difficult read for me; I received it as a gift shortly before entering a period of faith crisis and as I later wrote in my journal:

Rand Paul is very often wrong, but I always appreciate when he comes through.

I am not an AI expert, and my concerns aren’t on the existential scale. However, I do think it’s important to avoid moving fast and breaking things with these powerful technologies. That isn’t necessarily to say that more powerful AI shouldn’t be released (though I’m already disinterested by the current stuff), just that racing to improve them for commercial benefit and as technological flourish doesn’t strike me as socially responsible.

Even if the Kentucky GOP is right and this is what loses Beshear the election, it it was clearly the right thing to do. I want Beshear to stay in office, but I don’t know if I could vote for him if he didn’t resist the queerphobia coming out of the General Assembly. Shame on our legislature for passing this bill—and for so clearly acknowledging here that it’s to score political points at the expense of Kentucky children.

I’ve felt a lot of appreciation for Wil Wheaton recently, but for him to come to Kentucky to praise our libraries and speak against dumb laws passed by our legislature makes me just love the guy.

I write a lot about Mormonism on this blog, and even though I’m not shy about being critical, I think I’ve also made clear that in relative terms, I’m on pretty good terms with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not on such good terms that I’m still an active member of that church, of course, but I still feel a lot of fondness for it, and I don’t think I’ll ever consider myself an “ex-Mormon”—the great thing about the word “Mormon” no longer being officially approved is that it makes it all the more appropriate for describing my own religious identity.

One of the lectionary readings for tomorrow’s service is Ezekiel 37:1-14, which I read in Robert Alter’s beautiful translation. In this passage, Ezekiel famously prophesies:

“O dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD, Thus said the Master, the LORD, to the dry bones: I am about to bring breath into you and you shall live. And I will lay sinews over you and bring up flesh over you and stretch over you skin. And I will put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.”