Once There Was a Snowman . . . in the White House

August 14, 2017 By Gary A.

Among many Trump supporters, it’s become a common to accuse those who disagree with them of being “snowflakes,” that is, people whose egos are so fragile that they’re offended by anything. Granted, I think that many in the campus left are misguided in their drive to avoid speech that may disconcert them, and I believe that a healthy democracy demands robust, vigorous discussions among those who passionately disagree. But before Trumpists level the charge of “snowflake” against their foes on... Read more

People of the South, Tear Down Those Statues!

August 13, 2017 By Gary A.

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, boldly issuing a challenge to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” These were the most memorable lines from Reagan’s speech – an impassioned plea for the leader of a totalitarian... Read more

The First Mormon(ish) Prime Minister?

August 9, 2017 By Gary A.

In 2012, Mitt Romney made history by being the first Mormon to secure a major party nomination for the U.S. presidential election. Although he failed to secure the White House, his candidacy symbolized that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, once a sect persecuted and derided by the federal government, had journeyed far from their days of past oppression. While Romney failed to break the “glass ceiling” of a Mormon capturing the presidency, Latter-day Saints in... Read more

Hands Off That Red Button: Mormon Views of Nuclear Weapons

August 9, 2017 By Gary A.

The Donald was in a “bellicose mood.” That might explain what he did next. During a news conference in Bedminster, NJ, he pledged that if North Korea threatened the U.S. again, they would “be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Some thought this meant Trump was advocating for the use of nuclear weapons against the Hermit Kingdom. North Korea, for its part, seemed to take Trump’s rhetoric seriously, subsequently stating that it was considering a... Read more

The Mormons Who Tortured and the Perils of “Patriotism”

August 7, 2017 By Gary A.

A Mormon congregation got a new leader. A week later he was gone. Next month, lawyers from the ACLU will try to prove that he perpetrated a systematic campaign of torture. On October 14, 2012, Spokane-area Mormon leaders selected Bruce Jessen, a former Air Force officer and a principal in the company Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, to serve as a bishop (the equivalent of a Protestant pastor or a Catholic priest) for the Spokane 6th Ward (a ward is a... Read more

The One-Marshmallow Presidency

July 7, 2017 By Gary A.

Image obtained through Creative Commons The woes of the Trump presidency can be understood by looking to a 1960s experiment about children and marshmallows. In the 1960s, Walter Mischel began an experiment. At the Bing Nursery School at Stanford, he and his aides told a number of boys and girls that he would give them a treat – often a single marshmallow. But there was a catch – if the children waited a specified period of time without eating the... Read more