So now that it is almost Thanksgiving, there has been a lot of articles posted and talked about on the social media platform I use most often: Facebook. I just read an article written by someone who has worked in retail for years. The author writes about how he hated the holiday shopping season because of how much he worked, and how people treated him.
Having gone Black Friday shopping in years past, I have seen people behave differently as part of the shopping mob than they would if they weren't so worried about pleasing their kids with the best things for Christmas. Honestly, why do parents worry about getting a game system 2 years after they bought one? Kids do NOT need everything electronic gadget there is. I have seen a 10 year old with cell phone and tablet. I am 23 and don't have a tablet, and I am perfectly happy! Besides, growing up, there were few Christmas presents that I have kept from longer than a few months. The only one I can think of is my stuffed animal, Stuart. He was my favorite stuffed animal until I was about 15.
Sometimes when I am shopping, I can be in a hurry to get somewhere. And on Black Friday, I think a lot of people are hurrying from one store to the next. I know that stores try to stagger their opening times to get the most shoppers in the store as possible. So people rush from place to place. People just need to start treating others like people, not objects. It is easy to say mean things, or have an attitude with someone else, until you realize they are just like you.
Having worked with customers, I understand how if something does not go as planned can affect people. At the hotel, if a guest's rate is not what they think it should be, or their credit card declines, they can get very upset. If the rate is too high, they think I should have the ability to change it. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. It is not up to the customer to decide what I can do. Honestly, there are rules I need to follow, and those rules are in place for a reason. I may not like them as much as you don't, but your complaining won't change anything. So this Black Friday, please say something nice to the workers of any stores that you enter. They are working hard so that you can shop.
This year, my wife and I started thinking of Christmas presents in October. We have already bought most of the things we will be giving, and Cathy has been working on 3 of them recently. Instead of spending a lot of money on something, why not think a little, and give something that is meaningful and will be something the person can use?
I know there are horror stories of Black Friday's where people literally trample someone who falls down. I know there is a mad rush to get the door busters, or the best deals on the latest and greatest X-Box or Playstation. I know that there are TV's that are really cheap that morning, but it is not worth putting someone's life or risk injury to get a TV. Period, end of discussion.
I will be participating in some of the Black Friday Rush, and I will make sure I thank the cashiers, the security people at each store I enter. If you join me in shopping, please do the same.
I am a student at USU, love to read, cook and be with my beautiful wife and daughters, and I love to write.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
America’s Challenge by Ezra Taft Benson
Near Boston, Massachusetts, rests a large boulder on Lexington Green. Inscribed on this rock are the words that Captain John Parker gave to his Minute Men on April 19, 1775:
Stand your ground.
Don’t fire unless fired upon;
but if they mean to have a war,
let it begin here!
Said Webster, “They poured out their generous blood like water before they knew whether it would fertilize the land of freedom or of bondage.”
But they aroused their fellow Americans. Within one year John Adams faced the body of men who were deliberating on whether to adopt the Declaration of Independence. With the inspiration of heaven resting upon him, Adams was said to have declared.
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there’s a Divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours.
Why, then, should we defer the Declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England? . . .
You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We may die; die Colonists; die slaves, die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.
Be it so. Be it so.
If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready. . . . But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured . . . that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both.
Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude and of joy.
Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, Independence now, and Independence forever. (Daniel Webster Discourse on “Adams and Jefferson,” August 2, 1826.)
I recently read the great volume Quest of a Hemisphere by Donzella Cross Boyle, published by Western Islands, Boston. I am grateful we have a textbook for our children, grandchildren, and their parents that restores that which has in many cases been removed by wolves in sheep’s clothing—one-worlders who would surrender all we hold dear as true Americans. Chapter 8 is worth the price of the book.
Here we read again, as some of us are old enough to remember, the courageous and stirring words against the Navigation Acts, the Stamp Act of 1765, and taxation without representation. In this real American history we have the record of Washington, Jefferson, and the record of Samuel Adams of Boston, who organized Committees of Correspondence and groups of young men banded together as Sons of Liberty. We read again the words of James Otis that a law was void if it violated the human rights of men and “a man who is quiet, is as secure in his house as a prince in his castle. . . .”
Here we read:
The colonists fought the threat of aggression as much as agression itself. . . .
With grim determination, they opposed every attempt to rob them of any liberty they had gained.
[To the colonists—our benefactors—] it was not so much the amount as the principle of taxation (without representation) that the colonists opposed. (Pp. 105-106.)
Here again in this new history are also the fiery words “Give me liberty” of Patrick Henry of Virginia, as well as his words: “If this be treason, make the most of it.” We find John Hancock, George Mason, Paul Revere, John Dickinson and his Letters from a Farmer: “We cannot be happy without being free. . . .”
Here are the words of the closing paragraph of chapter 8:
The British colonies were largely settled by people who had revolted against their living conditions in other lands. They were rebels, in a sense, who had the courage to flee from want and persecution, and face the perils of a wilderness to seek a better form of life. When they found a better way, they fought to keep it. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren did not want any monarch to change their way of life. They had plowed their own lands, built their own homes, and made their own clothes. They had hunted in the forests, fished in the streams, and slept under the stars. Who was their master? (Quest of a Hemisphere, p. 113.)
Chapter 7 closes with a discussion of freedom of the press and these stirring words inspired by Peter Zenger: “The right to print the truth is a necessary part of political liberty,” and these by the famous lawyer Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia: “The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death. . . . The man who loves his country, prefers its liberty to all other considerations, well knowing that without liberty, life is a misery.” (Ibid., p. 84.)
And this is the closing paragraph:
Thus, in colonial days, did the people of the colonies stand firmly against any form of dictatorship. Thousands of immigrants came to the settlements along the Atlantic seaboard, with only a vague idea of the freedoms they were seeking, because they had not known many of them. They were pursuing a vision. Freedoms sprouted in a wilderness like flowers on a vacant lot, because each person who came had broken the pattern of life in his old country and he was starting all over again. “Something new” began to grow in the New World—a mere idea. People began to question the right of government to interfere with their freedom to come and go, to buy and sell, to own or lease, to talk or listen, to vote and elect. In other words, people began to think they had the right to govern themselves. Yet, a new nation had to rise in the Western Hemisphere before this idea gained a force of law. (Ibid., p. 84.)
Reading and promoting the book Quest of a Hemisphere will give you, as it has me, a warm, satisfying feeling. This excellent book of American history should be in every school and in every home to be read by young and old. We need more works of life quality in the days ahead.
And so today on Lexington Green, you will see a sacred old monument nearing two hundred years of age that covers the remains of those patriotic Minute Men and on this monument are inscribed these words:
Sacred to liberty and the rights of mankind!
The freedom and independence of America
Sealed and defended with the blood of her sons.
This monument is erected
By the inhabitants of Lexington,
Under the patronage, and at the expense, of
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
To the memory of their fellow citizens,
Ensign Robert Monroe, Messrs. Jonas Parker,
Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr.,
Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington and John Brown
Of Lexington, and Ashael Porter of Woburn,
Who fell on this field, the first victims to the
Sword of British tyranny and oppression,
On the morning of the ever memorable
19th of April, An. Dom. 1775.
The die was cast!
The blood of these martyrs
In the cause of God and their country,
Was the cement of the Union of these states, then
Colonies; and gave the spring to the spirit, firmness
And resolution of their fellow citizens.
They rose as one man, to revenge their brethren’s
Blood and at the point of the sword, to assert and
Defend their native rights.
They nobly dared to be free!
The contest was long, bloody and affecting.
Righteous heaven approved the solemn appeal;
Victory crowned their arms; and
The peace, liberty and independence of the United
States of America was their glorious reward.
Built in the year 1799.
With independence won, another body of men assembled; and under the inspiration of heaven, they too drafted a document, probably the greatest instrument ever struck off at a given time by the mind of man: the Constitution of the United States.
Said President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a great constitutional lawyer:
The framers [of the Constitution] were not political tyros flying a political kite to keep in order the henyard, that is, the colonists. They were men widely experienced in affairs of government. . . .
The Constitution was not the work of cloistered, fanatical theorists, but of sober, seasoned, distinguished men of affairs, drawn from various walks of life. They included students of wide reading and great learning in all matters of government. . . .
The Constitution was born, not only of the wisdom and experience of the generations that had gone before and which had been transmitted to them through tradition and the pages of history. . .
These were the horse and buggy days as they have been called in derision; these were the men who traveled in the horsedrawn buggies and on horseback; but these were the men who carried under their hats, as they rode in the buggies and on their horses, a political wisdom garnered from the ages. As giants to pygmies are they when placed alongside our political emigres and their fellow travelers of today, who now traduce them with slighting and contemptuous phrase. (Stand Fast by Our Constitution, pp. 134-37.)
Those two documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—resting on the bedrock of the love of the Lord and of liberty, became the foundation of our republic. And from this foundation has come the greatest civilization on the face of the earth.
But for every righteous principle the devil seems to design a counterfeit. And so while our Constitution was being established in the land of America—a land choice above all others—the forces of evil across the world were laying the foundation of modern-day godless communism. Marx wanted to dethrone God and to destroy capitalism. In the Communist Manifesto, he called for “the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Lenin demanded “a small tight kernel consisting of reliable, experienced, and steeled workers with responsible agents in the chief districts, and connected by all the rules of strict conspiracy.” (Lenin on Organization, New York: International Publishers, 1:74.)
And from this foundation of communism has come the greatest tyranny ever imposed on mankind in recorded history. Today communism represents the greatest threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God’s work on the earth.
Recently there was published a series of articles based on the observations of a number of historians: Spengler, de Reincourt, Ferraro, Gibbons, and others. The author told how Rome had known a pioneer beginning not unlike our own pioneer heritage, and then entered into two centuries of greatness, reaching its pinnacle in the second of those centuries, going into the decline and collapse in the third. Yet the sins of decay were becoming apparent in the latter years of that second century. We are now approaching the end of our second century.
Some time ago I spent two weeks in war-torn Asia. While there I held six meetings with Mormon servicemen in Vietnam. In combat dress—sometimes with guns stacked in the corner of the chapel—these faithful Latter-day Saints, bearers of the priesthood, strained to hear the gospel messages above the roar of helicopters and jet fighters leaving or returning from bombing missions, with the background of gunfire heard in the distance.
After shaking hands with more than eight hundred of these battle-hardened, brave, and patriotic men, men hard as nails physically and filled with faith and testimony, my right hand ached and my heart was filled with mingled feelings of gratitude and sadness.
I thought of the thousands of sons, brothers, and husbands who gave their lives in this, the strangest war in our nation’s history. I made side trips by helicopter to visit others critically wounded in hospitals. I thought of those who were reported missing or captured, and those who had died from noncombat causes, whose loved ones also mourned the loss caused by this strange war.
A few days later at an Asia-wide Mormon Servicemen’s Conference at Mt. Fuji, Japan, I listened to testimonies of faith and love of country that brought lumps to throats and tears to many eyes. These men, all American citizens, came to the conference from Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Guam, and other points. Some had traveled 3,000 miles to get there.
These were men who were ready to give their all in defense of freedom. These American servicemen worried about reports from home of rioters, draft-card burners, and other citizens—many times more numerous—who seemed oblivious to the threats to our freedom as they continued to enjoy their comfortable complacency. They worried about those many complacent citizens at home, some in high places, who talk—some gullibly, others they fear deceptively—of peaceful coexistence with the greatest, most destructive and insidious evil in the world. They knew that as college campus riots spread, so does the communist’s role in the disturbances.
And yet we have men, including some in high places, who declare that communism is not the principal threat to the United States of America. People who make such statements are either uninformed, sadly naive, or else they are deliberately helping the communist conspiracy, the greatest evil in this world and the greatest threat to all we hold dear.
No, most of these servicemen—especially the officers—were not deceived. They would hope that their fellow citizens at home would get one thing straight at the very beginning: international communism is the self-avowed enemy of every loyal American. It has declared war against us and fully intends to win. The war in which we are engaged is total. Although its main battlefields are psychological, political, and economic, it also encompasses revolution, violence, terror, and limited military skirmishes.
One of the greatest tragedies of all time—and a fact that an increasing number of us are gradually coming to realize—is this: The growth and increasing success of communism around the world has been primarily the result of the support—yes, increasing support—that it has received from right within the United States, and particularly from our own government.
May I commend to you the book by Werner Keller entitled East Minus West Equals Zero, in order that you might see the documentation as to how we deliberately established Russia’s industrial and war-making power. May I also commend to you the filmstrip The Great Pretense—How to Finance Communism While Ostensibly Opposing It, a documentary on how the free world finances communism.
Now, some people may feel that this has just been stupidity on our part and the mistakes of mortal men who really meant well but did not realize what they were doing. I agree that there has been some stupidity on the part of some people, but consistence has never been a hallmark of stupidity. I believe it was Forrestal who said that if it were just stupidity, then we would have made a few more mistakes on our side now and then, because stupidity is not consistent.
Sometimes we have appeared to take a step forward toward freedom, but it has inevitably been followed by two steps backward toward communism. Not only has this been true in our foisting communism onto other countries, but it also holds true regarding the increasing socialistic-communistic trends in America.
President Clark said:
And do not think that all these usurpations, intimidations, and impositions are being done to us through inadvertence or mistakes; the whole course is deliberately planned and carried out; its purpose is to destroy the Constitution and our constitutional government; then to bring chaos, out of which the new Statism, with its slavery, is to arise, with a cruel, relentless, selfish, ambitious crew in the saddle, riding hard with whip and spur, a red-shrouded band of night riders for despotism. . . .
If we do not vigorously fight for our liberties, we shall go clear through to the end of the road and become another Russia, or worse. . . . (Church News, September 25, 1949.)
Thomas Jefferson said:
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. (A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774.)
Do you think we could have defeated Hitler in World War II if we had trained his pilots for him, built his steel mills, sent him billions in aid, traded with him, and let his men run for office in our country, work in our defense plants, teach our children? Yet this is exactly what we did for the communists, and our trade with them was in practically all the essentials that they needed to kill our men in Vietnam.
Quoting again from President Clark:
I have wished to bring together and call to your attention a number of matters, the close relationship of which it is easy to miss, and to indicate to you that, so assembled, they make a pattern which cannot be accounted for except on the theory that some group of minds is working out a diabolical plan for the destruction of our liberties and freedom, our divinely inspired Constitution and the Government our fathers set up thereunder, and the wiping out of our constitutional guarantees and the free lives, the security, the happiness, and the blessings we have enjoyed thereunder. (Address given to the Utah Wool Growers Association, January 24, 1945.)
Of the objectives for which the communists are presently pressing, how many can you name where they are not presently succeeding in this country? The communist party line is for increased East-West trade, peaceful coexistence, disarmament talks, reduction in military spending, etc. Are they succeeding?
Even back in the FBI Annual Report for 1964, J. Edgar Hoover reported: “The signing of the partial nuclear testban treaty was interpreted by the Communist Party, USA, as resulting from a shift in the world balance of forces in favor of communism and as a turning away from capitalism toward `socialism.'”
Now what are we going to do about it? Said John Greenleaf Whittier:
. . . Where’s the manly spirit
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit their names alone?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quench’d within us?
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low
That Mammon’s lure or Party’s wile can win us to silence now?
Now, when our land to ruin’s brink is verging,
In God’s name let us speak while there is time;
Now, when the padlock for our lips is forging,
Silence is a Crime.
—”A Summons”
So let’s speak up. James Russell Lowell was right when he said, “Our American Republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.”
What were those ideas? Well, they were in part incorporated in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. And George Washington covered them well when he said:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. . . . (Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.)
Only a moral and religious people deserve or will defend their freedom. Edmund Burke stated it well when he said:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. (Works, 1888 ed., vol. 4, pp. 51-52.)
Elder Albert E. Bowen said, “Self-government involves self-control, self-discipline, an acceptance of and the most unremitting obedience to correct principles. . . . No other form of government requires so high a degree of individual morality.” (Improvement Era, vol. 41 [1938], p. 266.)
And how are we to accomplish this?
We cannot accomplish this and be like the young man who lived with his parents in a public housing development, rode the free school bus, and participated in the free school lunch program. He obtained his degree at the state university, working part-time in the state capitol to supplement his GI education check.
Upon graduation, he married a public health nurse and obtained an RFC loan to go into business. He then bought a ranch with an FHA loan and obtained emergency feed from the government. He later put part of his land into the soil bank, and the payments soon took care of the loan on his ranch.
The government helped to clear his land, and the county agent showed him how to terrace it. Then the government built him a fish pond and stocked it with many fish. The government guaranteed him a sale for his farm products at highest prices.
His children grew up, entered public schools, ate free lunches, rode free school buses, and swam in public pools.
He signed a petition seeking federal assistance in developing a doubtful industrial project to help the economy of his area. He was the leader in obtaining the new post office and federal building and went to Washington with a group to ask the government to build a great dam costing millions so that his community could get the benefit of a temporary payroll.
He petitioned the government to give the local airbase to the county. He was also a leader in the movement to get special tax write-offs and exemptions for his specific type farming.
Then, one day, after calculating his taxes, he wrote his congressman, “I wish to protest the excessive government expenditures and attendant high taxes. I believe in rugged individualism. I think people should stand on their own two feet without expecting handouts. I am opposed to all socialistic trends, and I demand a return to the principles of our Constitution and the policies of states’ rights.”
Too many of us are like this young man.
We must be devoted to sound principles in word and deed: principle above party, principle above pocketbook, principle above popularity.
After we are soundly grounded in principle, the next two steps should follow automatically:
We must be well informed from sources that are consistently accurate on the things of greatest consequence.
We must take action after we have done our homework.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge,” said the prophet Hosea. Let’s not let it happen to us. First, let’s do our homework, because action without the proper education can lead to fanaticism. But after we have done our homework, then let’s take action, because education without action can only lead to frustration and failure.
Said Lenin:
The Party is the conscious, advanced section of a class, its advance guard. The power of this advance guard is ten, a hundred times greater than its number. Is that possible? Can the power of a hundred exceed the power of thousands? It can exceed it when the hundreds are organized. Organization increases power by tenfold. (Quoted in Political Education: The Communist Party, Part III, New York: International Publishers, 1935, p. 6.)
He was right, and an organized Gideon’s army in the fight for freedom can defeat this godless communist conspiracy. And so, I commend and salute all those patriots who have banded together to work in an effective and honorable manner to accomplish the objective of less government, more individual responsibility, and, with God’s help, a better world.
May God bless America and preserve our divine Constitution and the republic that he established thereunder.
Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr.,
Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington and John Brown
Of Lexington, and Ashael Porter of Woburn,
Who fell on this field, the first victims to the
Sword of British tyranny and oppression,
On the morning of the ever memorable
19th of April, An. Dom. 1775.
The die was cast!
The blood of these martyrs
In the cause of God and their country,
Was the cement of the Union of these states, then
Colonies; and gave the spring to the spirit, firmness
And resolution of their fellow citizens.
They rose as one man, to revenge their brethren’s
Blood and at the point of the sword, to assert and
Defend their native rights.
They nobly dared to be free!
The contest was long, bloody and affecting.
Righteous heaven approved the solemn appeal;
Victory crowned their arms; and
The peace, liberty and independence of the United
States of America was their glorious reward.
Built in the year 1799.
With independence won, another body of men assembled; and under the inspiration of heaven, they too drafted a document, probably the greatest instrument ever struck off at a given time by the mind of man: the Constitution of the United States.
Said President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a great constitutional lawyer:
The framers [of the Constitution] were not political tyros flying a political kite to keep in order the henyard, that is, the colonists. They were men widely experienced in affairs of government. . . .
The Constitution was not the work of cloistered, fanatical theorists, but of sober, seasoned, distinguished men of affairs, drawn from various walks of life. They included students of wide reading and great learning in all matters of government. . . .
The Constitution was born, not only of the wisdom and experience of the generations that had gone before and which had been transmitted to them through tradition and the pages of history. . .
These were the horse and buggy days as they have been called in derision; these were the men who traveled in the horsedrawn buggies and on horseback; but these were the men who carried under their hats, as they rode in the buggies and on their horses, a political wisdom garnered from the ages. As giants to pygmies are they when placed alongside our political emigres and their fellow travelers of today, who now traduce them with slighting and contemptuous phrase. (Stand Fast by Our Constitution, pp. 134-37.)
Those two documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—resting on the bedrock of the love of the Lord and of liberty, became the foundation of our republic. And from this foundation has come the greatest civilization on the face of the earth.
But for every righteous principle the devil seems to design a counterfeit. And so while our Constitution was being established in the land of America—a land choice above all others—the forces of evil across the world were laying the foundation of modern-day godless communism. Marx wanted to dethrone God and to destroy capitalism. In the Communist Manifesto, he called for “the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Lenin demanded “a small tight kernel consisting of reliable, experienced, and steeled workers with responsible agents in the chief districts, and connected by all the rules of strict conspiracy.” (Lenin on Organization, New York: International Publishers, 1:74.)
And from this foundation of communism has come the greatest tyranny ever imposed on mankind in recorded history. Today communism represents the greatest threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God’s work on the earth.
Recently there was published a series of articles based on the observations of a number of historians: Spengler, de Reincourt, Ferraro, Gibbons, and others. The author told how Rome had known a pioneer beginning not unlike our own pioneer heritage, and then entered into two centuries of greatness, reaching its pinnacle in the second of those centuries, going into the decline and collapse in the third. Yet the sins of decay were becoming apparent in the latter years of that second century. We are now approaching the end of our second century.
Some time ago I spent two weeks in war-torn Asia. While there I held six meetings with Mormon servicemen in Vietnam. In combat dress—sometimes with guns stacked in the corner of the chapel—these faithful Latter-day Saints, bearers of the priesthood, strained to hear the gospel messages above the roar of helicopters and jet fighters leaving or returning from bombing missions, with the background of gunfire heard in the distance.
After shaking hands with more than eight hundred of these battle-hardened, brave, and patriotic men, men hard as nails physically and filled with faith and testimony, my right hand ached and my heart was filled with mingled feelings of gratitude and sadness.
I thought of the thousands of sons, brothers, and husbands who gave their lives in this, the strangest war in our nation’s history. I made side trips by helicopter to visit others critically wounded in hospitals. I thought of those who were reported missing or captured, and those who had died from noncombat causes, whose loved ones also mourned the loss caused by this strange war.
A few days later at an Asia-wide Mormon Servicemen’s Conference at Mt. Fuji, Japan, I listened to testimonies of faith and love of country that brought lumps to throats and tears to many eyes. These men, all American citizens, came to the conference from Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Guam, and other points. Some had traveled 3,000 miles to get there.
These were men who were ready to give their all in defense of freedom. These American servicemen worried about reports from home of rioters, draft-card burners, and other citizens—many times more numerous—who seemed oblivious to the threats to our freedom as they continued to enjoy their comfortable complacency. They worried about those many complacent citizens at home, some in high places, who talk—some gullibly, others they fear deceptively—of peaceful coexistence with the greatest, most destructive and insidious evil in the world. They knew that as college campus riots spread, so does the communist’s role in the disturbances.
And yet we have men, including some in high places, who declare that communism is not the principal threat to the United States of America. People who make such statements are either uninformed, sadly naive, or else they are deliberately helping the communist conspiracy, the greatest evil in this world and the greatest threat to all we hold dear.
No, most of these servicemen—especially the officers—were not deceived. They would hope that their fellow citizens at home would get one thing straight at the very beginning: international communism is the self-avowed enemy of every loyal American. It has declared war against us and fully intends to win. The war in which we are engaged is total. Although its main battlefields are psychological, political, and economic, it also encompasses revolution, violence, terror, and limited military skirmishes.
One of the greatest tragedies of all time—and a fact that an increasing number of us are gradually coming to realize—is this: The growth and increasing success of communism around the world has been primarily the result of the support—yes, increasing support—that it has received from right within the United States, and particularly from our own government.
May I commend to you the book by Werner Keller entitled East Minus West Equals Zero, in order that you might see the documentation as to how we deliberately established Russia’s industrial and war-making power. May I also commend to you the filmstrip The Great Pretense—How to Finance Communism While Ostensibly Opposing It, a documentary on how the free world finances communism.
Now, some people may feel that this has just been stupidity on our part and the mistakes of mortal men who really meant well but did not realize what they were doing. I agree that there has been some stupidity on the part of some people, but consistence has never been a hallmark of stupidity. I believe it was Forrestal who said that if it were just stupidity, then we would have made a few more mistakes on our side now and then, because stupidity is not consistent.
Sometimes we have appeared to take a step forward toward freedom, but it has inevitably been followed by two steps backward toward communism. Not only has this been true in our foisting communism onto other countries, but it also holds true regarding the increasing socialistic-communistic trends in America.
President Clark said:
And do not think that all these usurpations, intimidations, and impositions are being done to us through inadvertence or mistakes; the whole course is deliberately planned and carried out; its purpose is to destroy the Constitution and our constitutional government; then to bring chaos, out of which the new Statism, with its slavery, is to arise, with a cruel, relentless, selfish, ambitious crew in the saddle, riding hard with whip and spur, a red-shrouded band of night riders for despotism. . . .
If we do not vigorously fight for our liberties, we shall go clear through to the end of the road and become another Russia, or worse. . . . (Church News, September 25, 1949.)
Thomas Jefferson said:
Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery. (A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774.)
Do you think we could have defeated Hitler in World War II if we had trained his pilots for him, built his steel mills, sent him billions in aid, traded with him, and let his men run for office in our country, work in our defense plants, teach our children? Yet this is exactly what we did for the communists, and our trade with them was in practically all the essentials that they needed to kill our men in Vietnam.
Quoting again from President Clark:
I have wished to bring together and call to your attention a number of matters, the close relationship of which it is easy to miss, and to indicate to you that, so assembled, they make a pattern which cannot be accounted for except on the theory that some group of minds is working out a diabolical plan for the destruction of our liberties and freedom, our divinely inspired Constitution and the Government our fathers set up thereunder, and the wiping out of our constitutional guarantees and the free lives, the security, the happiness, and the blessings we have enjoyed thereunder. (Address given to the Utah Wool Growers Association, January 24, 1945.)
Of the objectives for which the communists are presently pressing, how many can you name where they are not presently succeeding in this country? The communist party line is for increased East-West trade, peaceful coexistence, disarmament talks, reduction in military spending, etc. Are they succeeding?
Even back in the FBI Annual Report for 1964, J. Edgar Hoover reported: “The signing of the partial nuclear testban treaty was interpreted by the Communist Party, USA, as resulting from a shift in the world balance of forces in favor of communism and as a turning away from capitalism toward `socialism.'”
Now what are we going to do about it? Said John Greenleaf Whittier:
. . . Where’s the manly spirit
Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone?
Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit their names alone?
Is the old Pilgrim spirit quench’d within us?
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low
That Mammon’s lure or Party’s wile can win us to silence now?
Now, when our land to ruin’s brink is verging,
In God’s name let us speak while there is time;
Now, when the padlock for our lips is forging,
Silence is a Crime.
—”A Summons”
So let’s speak up. James Russell Lowell was right when he said, “Our American Republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.”
What were those ideas? Well, they were in part incorporated in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. And George Washington covered them well when he said:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. . . . (Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.)
Only a moral and religious people deserve or will defend their freedom. Edmund Burke stated it well when he said:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. (Works, 1888 ed., vol. 4, pp. 51-52.)
Elder Albert E. Bowen said, “Self-government involves self-control, self-discipline, an acceptance of and the most unremitting obedience to correct principles. . . . No other form of government requires so high a degree of individual morality.” (Improvement Era, vol. 41 [1938], p. 266.)
And how are we to accomplish this?
We cannot accomplish this and be like the young man who lived with his parents in a public housing development, rode the free school bus, and participated in the free school lunch program. He obtained his degree at the state university, working part-time in the state capitol to supplement his GI education check.
Upon graduation, he married a public health nurse and obtained an RFC loan to go into business. He then bought a ranch with an FHA loan and obtained emergency feed from the government. He later put part of his land into the soil bank, and the payments soon took care of the loan on his ranch.
The government helped to clear his land, and the county agent showed him how to terrace it. Then the government built him a fish pond and stocked it with many fish. The government guaranteed him a sale for his farm products at highest prices.
His children grew up, entered public schools, ate free lunches, rode free school buses, and swam in public pools.
He signed a petition seeking federal assistance in developing a doubtful industrial project to help the economy of his area. He was the leader in obtaining the new post office and federal building and went to Washington with a group to ask the government to build a great dam costing millions so that his community could get the benefit of a temporary payroll.
He petitioned the government to give the local airbase to the county. He was also a leader in the movement to get special tax write-offs and exemptions for his specific type farming.
Then, one day, after calculating his taxes, he wrote his congressman, “I wish to protest the excessive government expenditures and attendant high taxes. I believe in rugged individualism. I think people should stand on their own two feet without expecting handouts. I am opposed to all socialistic trends, and I demand a return to the principles of our Constitution and the policies of states’ rights.”
Too many of us are like this young man.
We must be devoted to sound principles in word and deed: principle above party, principle above pocketbook, principle above popularity.
After we are soundly grounded in principle, the next two steps should follow automatically:
We must be well informed from sources that are consistently accurate on the things of greatest consequence.
We must take action after we have done our homework.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge,” said the prophet Hosea. Let’s not let it happen to us. First, let’s do our homework, because action without the proper education can lead to fanaticism. But after we have done our homework, then let’s take action, because education without action can only lead to frustration and failure.
Said Lenin:
The Party is the conscious, advanced section of a class, its advance guard. The power of this advance guard is ten, a hundred times greater than its number. Is that possible? Can the power of a hundred exceed the power of thousands? It can exceed it when the hundreds are organized. Organization increases power by tenfold. (Quoted in Political Education: The Communist Party, Part III, New York: International Publishers, 1935, p. 6.)
He was right, and an organized Gideon’s army in the fight for freedom can defeat this godless communist conspiracy. And so, I commend and salute all those patriots who have banded together to work in an effective and honorable manner to accomplish the objective of less government, more individual responsibility, and, with God’s help, a better world.
May God bless America and preserve our divine Constitution and the republic that he established thereunder.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Recent events in science
Today I was browsing the web, and I thought I'd google "what is new in science?" I clicked on a site called 'sciencedaily.com'. The site is devoted to recent research in science, and I found that most of the articles are easy to understand. Often, while reading scientific articles I don't understand most of them because they use terms and phrases that make no sense to the average person. So, whenever I go looking for science news, I'll go here.
Some of the newer developments include researchers believing they understand how mitochondria are formed. Mitochondria are what give cells energy, thus powering everything that moves. There is a comet that will pass within 88,000 miles of Mars on October 19th. 88,000 miles seems like a loooong distance away to me, but in space I guess that is pretty close. Astronomers believe they have found galaxies that are 13 billion light years away, and that these galaxies may help us understand the formation of our Milky Way galaxy.
I guess I have been interested in science lately because I believe that Heavenly Father works within the laws of science, and I want to understand how He works. I have seen what scientific discoveries can do, and I want to know what people are discovering. Modern medicine is one discovery I am thankful for. My wife recently had our first baby, and I am grateful for pain medicine for her. I cannot imagine having a baby without it.
Some of the newer developments include researchers believing they understand how mitochondria are formed. Mitochondria are what give cells energy, thus powering everything that moves. There is a comet that will pass within 88,000 miles of Mars on October 19th. 88,000 miles seems like a loooong distance away to me, but in space I guess that is pretty close. Astronomers believe they have found galaxies that are 13 billion light years away, and that these galaxies may help us understand the formation of our Milky Way galaxy.
I guess I have been interested in science lately because I believe that Heavenly Father works within the laws of science, and I want to understand how He works. I have seen what scientific discoveries can do, and I want to know what people are discovering. Modern medicine is one discovery I am thankful for. My wife recently had our first baby, and I am grateful for pain medicine for her. I cannot imagine having a baby without it.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
The Matt Walsh Blog
Have you ever heard about or read the Matt Walsh blog? If not, I would recommend you check it out. I have been checking it about once a week and reading what his latest posts have been. Many people hate the blog, believing that Matt Walsh is a hater, and other names I won't repeat here. Needless to say, this guy can be quite controversial.
Some recent posts have been about the Ray Rice saga, (see ESPN or any other sports network for details) spanking as a discipline for children, and gay rights are a few of his more popular posts. I think that Matt is a voice of reason in a world that often does not have any. I do have a few suggestions on how he could do better.
I agree with a lot of what he has written, and have found only minor things I do not agree with. While I agree with his ideas, I disagree with the style in which it is written. The first thing that bothers me about his writing is that he often will speak harshly of those who disagree with him. He portrays his ideological opposites as intolerant fools who have no understanding of truth. I think this way of writing is not very effective. All he does is create opportunities for those who have differing opinions to do the same to him. I think he needs to tone his writing style down a bit.
Another part of his posts that I do not like is that he will often post emails that people have sent him, and attack them. Granted, from the emails he responds to on his blog, most of them seem to be attacking him and his opinions. But I do not think it is a kind thing to descend to their level. Instead of attacking those who attack him, just lay out your opinion in a manner that uses common sense and your beliefs. Again, I believe Matt needs to tone his writing style down in order to make more of a difference in the world. It is hard not to hate or attack those who attack you, but sometimes you need to be the better man.
He has been going on a few speaking trips, and I think that this is a fantastic way to bring positive change to the world. I think if he were to record these speeches so that those who do not live near where he speaks can still see them. I know I would watch his videos.
All in all, I believe Matt Walsh is a good guy who is trying to influence the world for good while it still can. There is a lot of bad and evil media, but the Matt Walsh Blog is one source I would trust.
Some recent posts have been about the Ray Rice saga, (see ESPN or any other sports network for details) spanking as a discipline for children, and gay rights are a few of his more popular posts. I think that Matt is a voice of reason in a world that often does not have any. I do have a few suggestions on how he could do better.
I agree with a lot of what he has written, and have found only minor things I do not agree with. While I agree with his ideas, I disagree with the style in which it is written. The first thing that bothers me about his writing is that he often will speak harshly of those who disagree with him. He portrays his ideological opposites as intolerant fools who have no understanding of truth. I think this way of writing is not very effective. All he does is create opportunities for those who have differing opinions to do the same to him. I think he needs to tone his writing style down a bit.
Another part of his posts that I do not like is that he will often post emails that people have sent him, and attack them. Granted, from the emails he responds to on his blog, most of them seem to be attacking him and his opinions. But I do not think it is a kind thing to descend to their level. Instead of attacking those who attack him, just lay out your opinion in a manner that uses common sense and your beliefs. Again, I believe Matt needs to tone his writing style down in order to make more of a difference in the world. It is hard not to hate or attack those who attack you, but sometimes you need to be the better man.
He has been going on a few speaking trips, and I think that this is a fantastic way to bring positive change to the world. I think if he were to record these speeches so that those who do not live near where he speaks can still see them. I know I would watch his videos.
All in all, I believe Matt Walsh is a good guy who is trying to influence the world for good while it still can. There is a lot of bad and evil media, but the Matt Walsh Blog is one source I would trust.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Learning on the job
Recently, I posted on Facebook that I am now the Assistant GM at the Comfort Inn of Logan, Utah. I wanted to write a post related to this promotion, because having worked here at this hotel for 2 1/2 years, I have learned quite a few lessons.
1. I have learned that everyone deserves respect.
This has been an eye opener to me, as I grew up in a home where respect was expected at all times. As kids, we were not to disrespect others. This was strictly enforced by my parents. My first few months were fine, as I was doing the breakfast here. As I became a night auditor, I was expected to sit here and check in/check out guests. As sometimes happens, not all customers are happy, and when this happens some guests let the front desk know they are NOT pleased with the hotel.
I understand that things happen, and not all of our rooms will be absolutely perfect. And I know people are human. Humans want to be respected. One time, a guest stood in front of me and called me a hypocrite for not doing as Jesus would do and give him a free room, because his credit card declined. It is not my fault his card declined, and I told him so. He shouted that I am a liar, and that I am going to Hell because I am not helping someone in need. I understand that he was upset, and it was 2 am, but that is not excuse for calling me names and making me feel like I am a horrible person. Everyone deserves to treated with respect, even those who you believe do not deserve it.
2. I have learned that hard work and commitment pay off in the long run.
As I wrote above, I have been here at the Comfort Inn of Logan for 2 1/2 years. My pay is livable, but does not leave much for extras. Some months Cathy and I barely get by. Sometimes it gets hard to decide how to spend the little money we have. The major reason I have stuck with the hotel for so long was that it enabled me to get paid and do homework for college. I got my associates degree from Salt Lake Community College by doing only online classes, and I did the majority of the homework while at work. This has saved me a ton of time studying and doing homework at home and during my leisure time.
I started as a breakfast person, then a night auditor, moved to day time at the front desk. During the day, the front desk is busier, but I have learned so much more during the day. Umesh, the GM, is here most of the time during the day, and he has shown me a lot of reports, how to do accounting for the hotel, and shown me how to do housekeeping. I now do housekeeping, where I supervise the housekeepers and help them do their job right, and the front desk. I want to eventually work in the hotel industry, so learning accounting and doing housekeeping has helped me understand what it takes to run a hotel.
I have seen so many people work here then fizzle out. Not many have stuck around for as long as I have. Because I know the industry I want to work in, nothing can replace actual real life experience working in a hotel. A college degree is a good thing to have, but if I have done housekeeping and accounting, I have a step up on someone with no experience.
3. I have met people from all over the world.
Today the world seems to be shrinking. I have met people here in Logan on business trip from China, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Canada. I have enjoyed talking with these guests, as many are willing to answer questions and talk of their country. I wish to travel extensively one day, and hearing about these places only makes me want to travel more. One couple spent an hour talking to me about Wales and England and how beautiful the country side is.
I have the opportunity to work with housekeepers who were born and raised in Mexico. They speak Spanish, but know enough English to communicate. I enjoy trying to learn the Spanish words of things like soap, towel, bed, and other things. One day I hope to be able to talk Spanish fluently. Being able to do so will take a lot of practice on my part.
1. I have learned that everyone deserves respect.
This has been an eye opener to me, as I grew up in a home where respect was expected at all times. As kids, we were not to disrespect others. This was strictly enforced by my parents. My first few months were fine, as I was doing the breakfast here. As I became a night auditor, I was expected to sit here and check in/check out guests. As sometimes happens, not all customers are happy, and when this happens some guests let the front desk know they are NOT pleased with the hotel.
I understand that things happen, and not all of our rooms will be absolutely perfect. And I know people are human. Humans want to be respected. One time, a guest stood in front of me and called me a hypocrite for not doing as Jesus would do and give him a free room, because his credit card declined. It is not my fault his card declined, and I told him so. He shouted that I am a liar, and that I am going to Hell because I am not helping someone in need. I understand that he was upset, and it was 2 am, but that is not excuse for calling me names and making me feel like I am a horrible person. Everyone deserves to treated with respect, even those who you believe do not deserve it.
2. I have learned that hard work and commitment pay off in the long run.
As I wrote above, I have been here at the Comfort Inn of Logan for 2 1/2 years. My pay is livable, but does not leave much for extras. Some months Cathy and I barely get by. Sometimes it gets hard to decide how to spend the little money we have. The major reason I have stuck with the hotel for so long was that it enabled me to get paid and do homework for college. I got my associates degree from Salt Lake Community College by doing only online classes, and I did the majority of the homework while at work. This has saved me a ton of time studying and doing homework at home and during my leisure time.
I started as a breakfast person, then a night auditor, moved to day time at the front desk. During the day, the front desk is busier, but I have learned so much more during the day. Umesh, the GM, is here most of the time during the day, and he has shown me a lot of reports, how to do accounting for the hotel, and shown me how to do housekeeping. I now do housekeeping, where I supervise the housekeepers and help them do their job right, and the front desk. I want to eventually work in the hotel industry, so learning accounting and doing housekeeping has helped me understand what it takes to run a hotel.
I have seen so many people work here then fizzle out. Not many have stuck around for as long as I have. Because I know the industry I want to work in, nothing can replace actual real life experience working in a hotel. A college degree is a good thing to have, but if I have done housekeeping and accounting, I have a step up on someone with no experience.
3. I have met people from all over the world.
Today the world seems to be shrinking. I have met people here in Logan on business trip from China, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Canada. I have enjoyed talking with these guests, as many are willing to answer questions and talk of their country. I wish to travel extensively one day, and hearing about these places only makes me want to travel more. One couple spent an hour talking to me about Wales and England and how beautiful the country side is.
I have the opportunity to work with housekeepers who were born and raised in Mexico. They speak Spanish, but know enough English to communicate. I enjoy trying to learn the Spanish words of things like soap, towel, bed, and other things. One day I hope to be able to talk Spanish fluently. Being able to do so will take a lot of practice on my part.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
The Creativity Crisis
Recently, I have been thinking of creativity and innovation as relating to education. I found this article while reading a fantastic book called Creating Innovators: the making of young people who will change the world by Tony Wagner. It is a great read if you want your kids to succeed economically in the future.This article was written in Newsweek Magazine back in 2010. It excellent. I am reposting the article here and the link to the article is below. Enjoy!
The Creativity Crisis
by By Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He recalls the psychologist being excited by his answers. In fact, the psychologist’s session notes indicate Schwarzrock rattled off 25 improvements, such as adding a removable ladder and springs to the wheels. That wasn’t the only time he impressed the scholars, who judged Schwarzrock to have “unusual visual perspective” and “an ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products.”
The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful, and that’s what’s reflected in the tests. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).
In the 50 years since Schwarzrock and the others took their tests, scholars—first led by Torrance, now his colleague, Garnet Millar—have been tracking the children, recording every patent earned, every business founded, every research paper published, and every grant awarded. They tallied the books, dances, radio shows, art exhibitions, software programs, advertising campaigns, hardware innovations, music compositions, public policies (written or implemented), leadership positions, invited lectures, and buildings designed.
Nobody would argue that Torrance’s tasks, which have become the gold standard in creativity assessment, measure creativity perfectly. What’s shocking is how incredibly well Torrance’s creativity index predicted those kids’ creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance’s data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”
The potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.
It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children.
Around the world, though, other countries are making creativity development a national priority. In 2008 British secondary-school curricula—from science to foreign language—was revamped to emphasize idea generation, and pilot programs have begun using Torrance’s test to assess their progress. The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults. In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
Plucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”
Overwhelmed by curriculum standards, American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class. Kids are fortunate if they get an art class once or twice a week. But to scientists, this is a non sequitur, borne out of what University of Georgia’s Mark Runco calls “art bias.” The age-old belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded. When scholars gave creativity tasks to both engineering majors and music majors, their scores laid down on an identical spectrum, with the same high averages and standard deviations. Inside their brains, the same thing was happening—ideas were being generated and evaluated on the fly.
Researchers say creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.
To understand exactly what should be done requires first understanding the new story emerging from neuroscience. The lore of pop psychology is that creativity occurs on the right side of the brain. But we now know that if you tried to be creative using only the right side of your brain, it’d be like living with ideas perpetually at the tip of your tongue, just beyond reach.
When you try to solve a problem, you begin by concentrating on obvious facts and familiar solutions, to see if the answer lies there. This is a mostly left-brain stage of attack. If the answer doesn’t come, the right and left hemispheres of the brain activate together. Neural networks on the right side scan remote memories that could be vaguely relevant. A wide range of distant information that is normally tuned out becomes available to the left hemisphere, which searches for unseen patterns, alternative meanings, and high-level abstractions.
Having glimpsed such a connection, the left brain must quickly lock in on it before it escapes. The attention system must radically reverse gears, going from defocused attention to extremely focused attention. In a flash, the brain pulls together these disparate shreds of thought and binds them into a new single idea that enters consciousness. This is the “aha!” moment of insight, often followed by a spark of pleasure as the brain recognizes the novelty of what it’s come up with.
Now the brain must evaluate the idea it just generated. Is it worth pursuing? Creativity requires constant shifting, blender pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas. Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains into bilateral mode, and the more creative they are, the more they dual-activate.
Is this learnable? Well, think of it like basketball. Being tall does help to be a pro basketball player, but the rest of us can still get quite good at the sport through practice. In the same way, there are certain innate features of the brain that make some people naturally prone to divergent thinking. But convergent thinking and focused attention are necessary, too, and those require different neural gifts. Crucially, rapidly shifting between these modes is a top-down function under your mental control. University of New Mexico neuroscientist Rex Jung has concluded that those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better. A lifetime of consistent habits gradually changes the neurological pattern.
A fine example of this emerged in January of this year, with release of a study by University of Western Ontario neuroscientist Daniel Ansari and Harvard’s Aaron Berkowitz, who studies music cognition. They put Dartmouth music majors and nonmusicians in an fMRI scanner, giving participants a one-handed fiber-optic keyboard to play melodies on. Sometimes melodies were rehearsed; other times they were creatively improvised. During improvisation, the highly trained music majors used their brains in a way the nonmusicians could not: they deactivated their right-temporoparietal junction. Normally, the r-TPJ reads incoming stimuli, sorting the stream for relevance. By turning that off, the musicians blocked out all distraction. They hit an extra gear of concentration, allowing them to work with the notes and create music spontaneously.
Charles Limb of Johns Hopkins has found a similar pattern with jazz musicians, and Austrian researchers observed it with professional dancers visualizing an improvised dance. Ansari and Berkowitz now believe the same is true for orators, comedians, and athletes improvising in games.
The good news is that creativity training that aligns with the new science works surprisingly well. The University of Oklahoma, the University of Georgia, and Taiwan’s National Chengchi University each independently conducted a large-scale analysis of such programs. All three teams of scholars concluded that creativity training can have a strong effect. “Creativity can be taught,” says James C. Kaufman, professor at California State University, San Bernardino.
What’s common about successful programs is they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages. Real improvement doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop. But when applied to the everyday process of work or school, brain function improves.
So what does this mean for America’s standards-obsessed schools? The key is in how kids work through the vast catalog of information. Consider the National Inventors Hall of Fame School, a new public middle school in Akron, Ohio. Mindful of Ohio’s curriculum requirements, the school’s teachers came up with a project for the fifth graders: figure out how to reduce the noise in the library. Its windows faced a public space and, even when closed, let through too much noise. The students had four weeks to design proposals.
Working in small teams, the fifth graders first engaged in what creativity theorist Donald Treffinger describes as fact-finding. How does sound travel through materials? What materials reduce noise the most? Then, problem-finding—anticipating all potential pitfalls so their designs are more likely to work. Next, idea-finding: generate as many ideas as possible. Drapes, plants, or large kites hung from the ceiling would all baffle sound. Or, instead of reducing the sound, maybe mask it by playing the sound of a gentle waterfall? A proposal for double-paned glass evolved into an idea to fill the space between panes with water. Next, solution-finding: which ideas were the most effective, cheapest, and aesthetically pleasing? Fiberglass absorbed sound the best but wouldn’t be safe. Would an aquarium with fish be easier than water-filled panes?
Then teams developed a plan of action. They built scale models and chose fabric samples. They realized they’d need to persuade a janitor to care for the plants and fish during vacation. Teams persuaded others to support them—sometimes so well, teams decided to combine projects. Finally, they presented designs to teachers, parents, and Jim West, inventor of the electric microphone.
Along the way, kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they’d unwittingly mastered Ohio’s required fifth-grade curriculum—from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. “You never see our kids saying, ‘I’ll never use this so I don’t need to learn it,’ ” says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. “Instead, kids ask, ‘Do we have to leave school now?’ ” Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state’s achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.
With as much as three fourths of each day spent in project-based learning, principal Buckner and her team actually work through required curricula, carefully figuring out how kids can learn it through the steps of Treffinger’s Creative Problem-Solving method and other creativity pedagogies. “The creative problem-solving program has the highest success in increasing children’s creativity,” observed William & Mary’s Kim.
The home-game version of this means no longer encouraging kids to spring straight ahead to the right answer. When UGA’s Runco was driving through California one day with his family, his son asked why Sacramento was the state’s capital—why not San Francisco or Los Angeles? Runco turned the question back on him, encouraging him to come up with as many explanations as he could think of.
Preschool children, on average, ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why—sometimes parents just wish it’d stop. Tragically, it does stop. By middle school they’ve pretty much stopped asking. It’s no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet. They didn’t stop asking questions because they lost interest: it’s the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions.
Having studied the childhoods of highly creative people for decades, Claremont Graduate University’s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and University of Northern Iowa’s Gary G. Gute found highly creative adults tended to grow up in families embodying opposites. Parents encouraged uniqueness, yet provided stability. They were highly responsive to kids’ needs, yet challenged kids to develop skills. This resulted in a sort of adaptability: in times of anxiousness, clear rules could reduce chaos—yet when kids were bored, they could seek change, too. In the space between anxiety and boredom was where creativity flourished.
It’s also true that highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible—and flexibility helps with creativity.
In early childhood, distinct types of free play are associated with high creativity. Preschoolers who spend more time in role-play (acting out characters) have higher measures of creativity: voicing someone else’s point of view helps develop their ability to analyze situations from different perspectives. When playing alone, highly creative first graders may act out strong negative emotions: they’ll be angry, hostile, anguished. The hypothesis is that play is a safe harbor to work through forbidden thoughts and emotions.
In middle childhood, kids sometimes create paracosms—fantasies of entire alternative worlds. Kids revisit their paracosms repeatedly, sometimes for months, and even create languages spoken there. This type of play peaks at age 9 or 10, and it’s a very strong sign of future creativity. A Michigan State University study of MacArthur “genius award” winners found a remarkably high rate of paracosm creation in their childhoods.
From fourth grade on, creativity no longer occurs in a vacuum; researching and studying become an integral part of coming up with useful solutions. But this transition isn’t easy. As school stuffs more complex information into their heads, kids get overloaded, and creativity suffers. When creative children have a supportive teacher—someone tolerant of unconventional answers, occasional disruptions, or detours of curiosity—they tend to excel. When they don’t, they tend to underperform and drop out of high school or don’t finish college at high rates.
They’re quitting because they’re discouraged and bored, not because they’re dark, depressed, anxious, or neurotic. It’s a myth that creative people have these traits. (Those traits actually shut down creativity; they make people less open to experience and less interested in novelty.) Rather, creative people, for the most part, exhibit active moods and positive affect. They’re not particularly happy—contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
The new view is that creativity is part of normal brain function. Some scholars go further, arguing that lack of creativity—not having loads of it—is the real risk factor. In his research, Runco asks college students, “Think of all the things that could interfere with graduating from college.” Then he instructs them to pick one of those items and to come up with as many solutions for that problem as possible. This is a classic divergent-convergent creativity challenge. A subset of respondents, like the proverbial Murphy, quickly list every imaginable way things can go wrong. But they demonstrate a complete lack of flexibility in finding creative solutions. It’s this inability to conceive of alternative approaches that leads to despair. Runco’s two questions predict suicide ideation—even when controlling for preexisting levels of depression and anxiety.
In Runco’s subsequent research, those who do better in both problem-finding and problem-solving have better relationships. They are more able to handle stress and overcome the bumps life throws in their way. A similar study of 1,500 middle schoolers found that those high in creative self-efficacy had more confidence about their future and ability to succeed. They were sure that their ability to come up with alternatives would aid them, no matter what problems would arise.
When he was 30 years old, Ted Schwarzrock was looking for an alternative. He was hardly on track to becoming the prototype of Torrance’s longitudinal study. He wasn’t artistic when young, and his family didn’t recognize his creativity or nurture it. The son of a dentist and a speech pathologist, he had been pushed into medical school, where he felt stifled and commonly had run-ins with professors and bosses. But eventually, he found a way to combine his creativity and medical expertise: inventing new medical technologies.
Today, Schwarzrock is independently wealthy—he founded and sold three medical-products companies and was a partner in three more. His innovations in health care have been wide ranging, from a portable respiratory oxygen device to skin-absorbing anti-inflammatories to insights into how bacteria become antibiotic-resistant. His latest project could bring down the cost of spine-surgery implants 50 percent. “As a child, I never had an identity as a ‘creative person,’ ” Schwarzrock recalls. “But now that I know, it helps explain a lot of what I felt and went through.”
Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.
They’re quitting because they’re discouraged and bored, not because they’re dark, depressed, anxious, or neurotic. It’s a myth that creative people have these traits. (Those traits actually shut down creativity; they make people less open to experience and less interested in novelty.) Rather, creative people, for the most part, exhibit active moods and positive affect. They’re not particularly happy—contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
The new view is that creativity is part of normal brain function. Some scholars go further, arguing that lack of creativity—not having loads of it—is the real risk factor. In his research, Runco asks college students, “Think of all the things that could interfere with graduating from college.” Then he instructs them to pick one of those items and to come up with as many solutions for that problem as possible. This is a classic divergent-convergent creativity challenge. A subset of respondents, like the proverbial Murphy, quickly list every imaginable way things can go wrong. But they demonstrate a complete lack of flexibility in finding creative solutions. It’s this inability to conceive of alternative approaches that leads to despair. Runco’s two questions predict suicide ideation—even when controlling for preexisting levels of depression and anxiety.
In Runco’s subsequent research, those who do better in both problem-finding and problem-solving have better relationships. They are more able to handle stress and overcome the bumps life throws in their way. A similar study of 1,500 middle schoolers found that those high in creative self-efficacy had more confidence about their future and ability to succeed. They were sure that their ability to come up with alternatives would aid them, no matter what problems would arise.
When he was 30 years old, Ted Schwarzrock was looking for an alternative. He was hardly on track to becoming the prototype of Torrance’s longitudinal study. He wasn’t artistic when young, and his family didn’t recognize his creativity or nurture it. The son of a dentist and a speech pathologist, he had been pushed into medical school, where he felt stifled and commonly had run-ins with professors and bosses. But eventually, he found a way to combine his creativity and medical expertise: inventing new medical technologies.
Today, Schwarzrock is independently wealthy—he founded and sold three medical-products companies and was a partner in three more. His innovations in health care have been wide ranging, from a portable respiratory oxygen device to skin-absorbing anti-inflammatories to insights into how bacteria become antibiotic-resistant. His latest project could bring down the cost of spine-surgery implants 50 percent. “As a child, I never had an identity as a ‘creative person,’ ” Schwarzrock recalls. “But now that I know, it helps explain a lot of what I felt and went through.”
Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Schooling
The other night my wife, Cathy and I had a discussion about how we were raised. My parents decided to home school most of their kids. I grew up doing school work and thinking the home is the center of learning. Cathy's parents are both school teachers, and while Cathy did learn in the home she learned at a school.
She grew up in an environment where if you didn't attend a public school, you didn't learn much. I grew up the opposite. I grew up thinking that to truly become educated you have to learn by yourself for the most part. Schools are good, but that they are not the best way to learn. Her parent's didn't have a very good view of home schoolers. So needless to say, the education of our children was something that Cathy and I discussed a little before we married. We didn't want to discuss it a lot for fear of having a different view on education than the other, which would lead to arguments.
Well, those fears were not cause for worry. The other night her parents were discussion home school and how it is not as good as public school, Cathy was there and didn't know what to say to them, because while she grew up not liking home school, knowing me had made her rethink what she had thought about those who chose not to attend school.
She called me at work, and we began to discuss how we want to educate our children. Education is something all parents want for their children, where the level of education can make all the difference in the world. All parents want their kids to be able to add and subtract, read and do other things that happen during life. They want their children to succeed.
Well, our discussion focused on the differences of public versus home school. This lead us to basically saying the same things; we want our kids to be well rounded adults who can do whatever their jobs later in life require of them, and to be comfortable socially. I don't really want to raise socially awkward children. This is something her parents do not like about home school. They do not see how the home school kids can get the same level of socialization as those in public school.
The thought hit me that I needed to quit comparing the modes of education, and focus on what I want for my kids. I was raised one way, Cathy another. There is nothing wrong with that. Not all families are the same, and they shouldn't want to be. Having different ideas is what makes communities great. If everyone has the same ideas nothing changes. I want my kids to succeed in their learning, and I want to be involved.
My mom was heavily involved in my education, and I thank her for that. I feel like parents need to be involved, taking their kids to music lessons, museums, theaters, and doing activities with them. I guess I hadn't thought of the many parents who do take their kids to lessons after school, who stay up late helping with homework. I hardly ever did homework after school, because I did my work during the day while everyone else was in school.
I want to be involved in my kids lives, which I think every parents wants. With a baby only a few weeks from being born, I need to start preparing. After our discussion, Cathy and I decided that we would do what is best for each individual child rather than just automatically sending them to public school or refusing to consider the idea of home school. Each child is different and their education needs to be as well.
She grew up in an environment where if you didn't attend a public school, you didn't learn much. I grew up the opposite. I grew up thinking that to truly become educated you have to learn by yourself for the most part. Schools are good, but that they are not the best way to learn. Her parent's didn't have a very good view of home schoolers. So needless to say, the education of our children was something that Cathy and I discussed a little before we married. We didn't want to discuss it a lot for fear of having a different view on education than the other, which would lead to arguments.
Well, those fears were not cause for worry. The other night her parents were discussion home school and how it is not as good as public school, Cathy was there and didn't know what to say to them, because while she grew up not liking home school, knowing me had made her rethink what she had thought about those who chose not to attend school.
She called me at work, and we began to discuss how we want to educate our children. Education is something all parents want for their children, where the level of education can make all the difference in the world. All parents want their kids to be able to add and subtract, read and do other things that happen during life. They want their children to succeed.
Well, our discussion focused on the differences of public versus home school. This lead us to basically saying the same things; we want our kids to be well rounded adults who can do whatever their jobs later in life require of them, and to be comfortable socially. I don't really want to raise socially awkward children. This is something her parents do not like about home school. They do not see how the home school kids can get the same level of socialization as those in public school.
The thought hit me that I needed to quit comparing the modes of education, and focus on what I want for my kids. I was raised one way, Cathy another. There is nothing wrong with that. Not all families are the same, and they shouldn't want to be. Having different ideas is what makes communities great. If everyone has the same ideas nothing changes. I want my kids to succeed in their learning, and I want to be involved.
My mom was heavily involved in my education, and I thank her for that. I feel like parents need to be involved, taking their kids to music lessons, museums, theaters, and doing activities with them. I guess I hadn't thought of the many parents who do take their kids to lessons after school, who stay up late helping with homework. I hardly ever did homework after school, because I did my work during the day while everyone else was in school.
I want to be involved in my kids lives, which I think every parents wants. With a baby only a few weeks from being born, I need to start preparing. After our discussion, Cathy and I decided that we would do what is best for each individual child rather than just automatically sending them to public school or refusing to consider the idea of home school. Each child is different and their education needs to be as well.
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