And now I desire that this inequality
should be no more in this land,
especially among this my people;
but I desire that this land be a land
of liberty, and every man may enjoy
his rights and privileges alike,
so long as the Lord sees fit
that we may live and inherit the land,
yea, even as long as any of our
posterity remains upon the face
of the land.
Mosiah 29:32
Lately, I have been involved with an ongoing issue with one of the major social networking websites. One of my blogs, Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, has been entirely banned. In fact, this post would not be able to be posted if I included a link to the title of my banned blog. In addition, to add insult to injury, someone has hijacked by personal social network account and is out there promoting a scam by sending out invitations to add my existing "friends" to a "new" account using my name. Of course, the "new" account does not show up when I search on the website. You may notice that I am not using the name of the social networking website but you can likely guess which one I am referring to. Rather than abandon the social networking website, I decided to implement two-stage login so if someone has gotten my password they will not be able to log on to my account.
I have supplied the social networking website with several reasons why they should tell me how and why I was banned but nothing I send is either acknowledged or responded to.
Now, that brings me to the subject of this post. Because I have been fussing with this social networking website, I have been looking at the posts more than usual. Frankly, I am more than appalled at the lack of common sense and logic displayed by those who most commonly post online. I cannot imagine what I wrote on my blog that could have come close to the depths of ignorance and bad taste displayed daily. I thought about giving a few examples but that would require me to re-post some of the blatantly inaccurate memes and comments. By the way, I am not referring to political opinions but merely those comments that assert facts that are entirely indefensible and untrue.
There has been a lot of discussions online about the subject of "fake news." From what I see online, there are few people who could tell a fake news story from anything more factual. With some of the more obvious fake assertions, I can verify the actual information in a matter of seconds. In those rare occasions that I respond, the reactions of the posting party or parties are usually disbelief of my "facts" and a continued defense of the fake news.
Now I could just abandon social networking altogether and also quit writing blog posts. That would certainly free up a lot of my time for other pursuits but would not really solve anything. You could stop reading the social networking posts and then it wouldn't matter if I was writing or not. We could also start thinking about the reality of what we read and see on social networking websites and not re-post blatantly false and misleading information but perhaps that is expecting too much. Maybe I could just confine my writing to something totally uncontroversial such as genealogy. Oh! Wait a minute. That was the blog that got banned.
In a recent visit to my ophthalmologist for an annual checkup, he confirmed that I am going blind. Throughout our lives, we are constantly confronted with "what if" situations. What if I die? What if I don't get a job? What ifs in endless profusion. One of those I have often contemplated is what if I go blind. What would I do? How would I keep writing? What about driving a car? Watching a movie? Endless consequences from what-if situations.
The reality of the diagnosis is cataracts. What if I had cataracts and I was living back in the mid-1800s? Without surgery, I would and will now, most assuredly go blind at some point assuming I lived long enough for that to happen. Because of the internet, when I was first told that I had cataracts in both eyes, I could quickly find out almost everything about the subject. Over the past year or so, I could also document the symptoms. Only recently, before the current examination, did I make a decision about traveling at night based partially on the fact that my vision was impaired.
Fortunately, the rest of my vision is just fine and more importantly, the success rate for cataract surgery is now in the 90% to 95% range. Our ancestors did not have such positive results. See "The Evolution of Cataract Surgery" in the journal Missouri Medicine, The Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association. Here is the citation.
Davis, Geetha. “The Evolution of Cataract Surgery.” Missouri Medicine 113, no. 1 (2016): 58–62.
Facing cataract surgery is only one of several physical conditions I am facing as a result of moving into "old age." If you want to know what most of the world thinks about old age, here is a quote from Wikipedia: Old age.
The United Nations has agreed that 65+ years may be usually denoted as old age and this is the first attempt at an international definition of old age. However, for its study of old age in Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) set 55 as the beginning of old age.
So actually, I have been progressing into old age for quite a while although I must say that I did not consider myself to be old when I was 55. At that age, I was still climbing high mountains (over 12,000 feet) and that continued until I was 70. So when did old age begin for me? It hasn't yet really but the accumulation of physical challenges is starting to take effect. Here is another quote about old age from the AARP.
A new study by U.S. Trust has found that perceptions of the onset of old age vary widely among different generations. Millennials, for example, say that you are old once you turn 59. Gen Xers, on the other hand, hold a slightly more generous view, saying that old age begins at 65. When it comes to boomers and the silent generation, both agree that you’re not really old until you hit age 73.
I happen to live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of older people. Many of my friends here are in their 90s. It is clear that people age at different rates. Some of those in their 90s are still out shoveling snow and frequently hiking up the nearby canyon. Some are bedridden and feeble in their 80s. From time to time someone in the neighborhood dies and the age range of the dead is considerable. By the way, I am right on the border between being a "boomer" and being a member of the silent generation although I have never considered myself as silent.
The doctor left the decision about when to have cataract surgery entirely up to me. He said whenever I wanted it but let me know that I was definitely in that category.
So what do you do or think when you are faced with such a decision? In my case, life goes on. It is just another thing to think about and considering my age and the number of times I have been involved in life-threatening situations, another one is not much of a challenge. No tears. No depression. I am too busy thinking about other things right now and I have too much to do to even slow down long enough for it to be a problem. But I do have to live, for the time being, with the reality that driving at night is not such a good idea.
One of the challenges of living in Utah Valley is the nearly constant disregard for traffic control devices including red lights. For those of you out there who may not be familiar with Utah Valley, it is located in the north part of the State of Utah, just south of the Salt Lake Valley and along a mountain range called the Wasatch Front. It contains the following communities: Provo, Orem, and their suburbs, including Alpine, American Fork, Cedar Hills, Elberta, Elk Ridge, Genola, Goshen, Highland, Lehi, Lindon, Mapleton, Payson, Pleasant Grove, Salem, Santaquin, Saratoga Springs, Spanish Fork, Springville, Vineyard, and Woodland Hills. The main north/south access in the Valley is confined to the Interstate 15 Freeway. The rest of the Valley is a hodgepodge of all of the small communities with their own street systems. North/south traffic is also impeded by a great portion of the Valley being filled with Utah Lake. Other than the Freeway, there are no direct routes. The only other route that could be considered to be available for north/south traffic is State Highway 68 on the west side of Utah Lake.
Utah Valley is also one of the fastest-growing areas in the entire United States. The present population of Utah Valley is estimated to be over 575,000. From 2010 to 2019, Utah Valley grew by 26.1% and added 134,845 people. See "Utah saw huge population growth this decade, led by Utah County." Also, Utah as a whole is estimated to have 870 vehicles per 1,000 people. But you also have to know that in Utah Valley 33.4% of the population is under the age of 18 years and nearly 10% are under the age of 5 years. See "United States Census Bureau, Quick Facts, Utah County, Utah." This means that the actual number of motor vehicles per driver in Utah Valley is much higher than the average for Utah.
Of course, my personal experience is anecdotal but while driving in Utah Valley, especially in Provo, I see dozens of red light violations a month and I have seen as many as five cars going through one red light at the same time. Starting up quickly from a stop at a red light when your light turns green is extremely dangerous. Most drivers in Utah Valley expect red-light runners and wait for a second or two to make sure the cross-traffic is stopped before attempting to enter the intersection. Most of the problem is due to drivers who simply view a yellow light as a notice to speed up to avoid stopping. If you stop for yellow lights, you are liable to be rear-ended by the car behind you speeding up to "make the light."
It is an "infraction" in the state of Utah to run a red light and there is a fine for a conviction of about $120 and demerit points on your driving record. Multiple infractions also generally affect your insurance rates. It is not unusual to have run a few red lights in a lifetime of driving but there is something more going on in Utah and particularly Utah Valley.
For over 200 years, Americans have supported and observed the Rule of Law defined as the restriction of the arbitrary exercise of power by subordinating it to well-defined and established laws. Running red lights is an obvious symptom of ignoring the Rule of Law. The rule about running red lights is well-defined and established. Every citizen of the state of Utah who obtains a drivers' license has to learn about the motor vehicle law in Utah and pass a test on those laws. Here is a comment about the Rule of Law from Wikipedia: Rule of Law:
The rule of law implies that every person is subject to the law, including people who are lawmakers, law enforcement officials, and judges. In this sense, it stands in contrast to a monarchy or oligarchy where the rulers are held above the law. Lack of the rule of law can be found in both democracies and monarchies, for example, because of neglect or ignorance of the law, and the rule of law is more apt to decay if a government has insufficient corrective mechanisms for restoring it.
People who intentionally run red lights are not just acting from expediency, they are consciously ignoring the Rule of Law in the United States. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is quoted as saying, "I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights." See "Full Text: Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Speech."
Here is a short video that talks directly about the relationship between the rule of law and the disregard of red lights in Utah Valley.
Here in Utah Valley, you can not drive the streets without fearing for your life at each intersection of the streets and roads. Despite their patina of law-abiding citizens, there is a huge number of people in Utah Valley that believe that traffic control devices do not apply to them personally. Here is where the problems we see on a national level begin.
