Non-theist Christian and elder in Community of Christ. I have Mormon roots and aspirations to do better with justice and peacemaking—especially in the digital sphere but also in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S., and the world more broadly.
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🔗 linkblog: This Is the Data Facebook Gave Police to Prosecute a Teenager for Abortion'
Compelling example of the need for digital privacy in a post-Row world.
🔗 linkblog: Republicans Are Suddenly Very Eager to Defund the Police'
I’ve been thinking this since yesterday. It’s telling how so many “law and order” conservatives who make a big deal about being pro-police reverse on those positions as soon as law enforcement is inconvenient for them.
🔗 linkblog: Even Before the FBI Search, MAGA World Was Saying It's at War'
A worrying look at CPAC. What is happening to the Republican Party?
🔗 linkblog: Trump Supporters Are Calling for Civil War After FBI Search of Mar-a-Lago'
McCarthy isn’t saying the same thing as these Telegram channels, but he’s making it easier for them to say what they’re saying.
🔗 linkblog: Kentucky candidates struggle when describing 2020 election | Lexington Herald Leader'
Disappointing but unsurprising.
🔗 linkblog: A Few Minor, and Hopefully Helpful Editing Suggestions on the LDS Church’s Recent Statement about Abuse | By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog'
I’ve long lacked confidence in my own opinions (as a general rule—I can also be an opinionated jerk), so even the simplest disagreement with a position I’ve taken can take some wind out of my sails. When I read the official Latter-day Saint response to the recent AP story, I didn’t agree with it, but it still slowed me down some. “Maybe I should consider things from another point of view,” I thought. I do think it’s important to consider things from all angles, and I don’t think I have the full story, but Michael Austin’s response is the right one gere. When we’re talking about an instance where church inaction allowed for horrific child abuse to continue unchecked for SEVEN YEARS, complaining about unfair treatment in the press is not the right way to respond. Furthermore, if the church is upset by implications that it cares more about its public reputation than about victims of child abuse, responding the way it did only adds fuel to that fire. Again, Austin’s response here is spot on.
🔗 linkblog: Pluralistic: 07 Aug 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
Why do we let inkjet printers get away with this nonsense?
🔗 linkblog: The Teen Who Helped Expose the Boy Scouts’ Pedophilia Epidemic, and the Mormon Church’s Cover-Up'
This reporting is from a couple of years ago, but I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time, and recent events make me regret that.
🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk challenges Twitter CEO to a ‘public debate’ about bots - The Verge'
Musk continues his trolling. This is a dumb proposal, and Twitter shouldn’t accept it.
🔗 linkblog: Amazon Buys Roomba Company, Will Now Map Inside of Your House'
Some good points about how Amazon owning Roomba is scarier than just Roomba existing on its own—even if I didn’t realize that Roomba was creepily mapping houses.
should I stay or should I go?
I haven’t attended the Latter-day Saint congregation I officially belong to since March of 2020, and I’m coming up on one year of being an official member of Community of Christ. It’s pretty clear to me—and, likely, to others—where my religious future is headed.
Yet, I’ve always expected that I would remain a de jure—if not de facto—member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even if it’s not the right spiritual home for me or my family any more, and even if I have major disagreements with it, this church has been an important part of my life, and I’ve always wanted to preserve that by retaining my official membership. I’ve never thought of myself as an “ex-Mormon,” I don’t like to talk about my faith transition as “leaving the Church,” and when I was recently described as a “Latter-day Saint professor” in a Salt Lake Tribune article, I was briefly perturbed but ultimately decided that I thought the description worked, even if it was a bit misleading. (To be clear, though, this isn’t a dig at Peggy, who knows that I’m a BYU grad and returned missionary but doesn’t/didn’t know that I’m practicing in Community of Christ.)
🔗 linkblog: Amazon Buying Roomba Maker iRobot for $1.7 Billion - WSJ'
Amazon keeps getting bigger, and I don’t think that’s for the better.
🔗 linkblog: Mormon church sex abuse: AP investigation | AP News'
This is a horrifying, sickening story. When it’s marriage equality, the Church is eager to say that being legal doesn’t make something right (a bad take, for the record), so to hear “it was fine because it was legal” as a defense for bishops’ failure to report child sexual abuse (at Salt Lake’s encouragement) is sickening.
🔗 linkblog: Study Says Trump’s Truth Social Is Much More Aggressive, And Much More Arbitrary, In Moderating Content | Techdirt'
Unsurprising, but still a valuable read.
🔗 linkblog: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Are Not Just History: The Horrors of Nuclear Weapons Live On | Friends Committee On National Legislation'
I don’t believe nuclear disarmament will be easy, but I’m increasingly convinced that it must be done. Just a single mistake or miscommunication could doom our entire planet.
🔗 linkblog: Voters in Kansas decide to keep abortion legal in the state, rejecting an amendment – 89.3 WFPL News Louisville'
There’s a similar amendment on the ballot in Kentucky in November; here’s hoping for similar results.
📚 bookblog: New Seeds of Contemplation (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
A friend gave me this book as a gift for my confirmation nearly a year ago. I wasn’t sure what I would think about it, but I was excited about Merton’s connection with Kentucky, and I figured that if my friend liked it, it ought to be pretty good.
I finally decided to dive in and while I have a good opinion of it overall, I think my response is better described as mixed. Not all of the book resonated with me—I felt that Merton talked a lot about contemplation (sometimes in very interesting ways) without ever really giving any practical information on what contemplation is and how to practice it.
'Belgian French' and the intentional awkwardness of LDS Book of Mormon translation
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:
believers who rob others of belief
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.
🔗 linkblog: At least 25 people have died in Kentucky's floods, governor says : NPR'
We’ve had a rough year of natural disasters.
🔗 linkblog: The Tech We Won’t Build — The Internet Health Report 2022'
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.
🔗 linkblog: Gun-makers made millions marketing AR-15-style guns as a sign of manhood : NPR'
So much of modern right-wing politics boils down to concerns about masculinity.
🔗 linkblog: Doug Mastriano Faces Criticism Over His Backing From Antisemitic Ally - The New York Times'
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.
🔗 linkblog: Zuckerberg: Apple, Meta are in “deep, philosophical competition” | Ars Technica'
Look, I’m a critic of Apple’s closed system, but it’s laughable for Meta to set itself up as an oprn alternative.
🔗 linkblog: Indiana doctor says she has been harassed since providing 10-year-old's abortion : NPR'
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.