Plumbing the Depths of Ignorance on Social Media

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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.

Reflections on going blind

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.

Red-Light Runners and the Rule of Law

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.

What does all this mean when you mix a younger population with that many cars? Chaos as illustrated by the fact that Utah ranks fourth in the nation in the number of per capita red light deaths. See "Data Shows Alarming Increase In Red Light Crashes." Unfortunately, it is the person who is going through the intersection on a green light who is the most likely to be killed. See "Fatal car accidents by running red lights at highest level in a decade: AAA."

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.

Court Shorts: Rule of Law

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.

Does Due Process apply to Constitutional Impeachment Actions? Part One

The hand-written copy of the proposed Bill of Rights, 1789, cropped to just show the text that would later be ratified as the Fifth Amendment, See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

In the recent (2019) news reports there have been complaints made, primarily by people in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, that the Impeachment process at the time of the writing of this post is violative of the right to due process of the President of the United States. These claims raise some interesting legal issues including, but not limited to, the extent to which the Constitutional mandate regarding due process is applicable to an impeachment process.

The power to bring and prosecute an impeachment is contained in the United States Constitution:

There are several provisions in the United States Constitution relating to impeachment: 

Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 provides:
The House of Representatives ... shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. 

Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provides:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present. 

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. 

Article II, Section 2 provides:
[The President] ... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 

Article II, Section 4 provides:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. 

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

Quoting the Bill of Rights Institute website article on impeachment:

The process of impeachment was outlined in the Constitution when it was drafted in 1787. To date, 19 officials, including judges, cabinet members, senators, and presidents, have been impeached and stood trial. The crimes these individuals have been charged with range from perjury to conspiracy to intoxication on the bench. It is important to note that impeachment is not the actual removal from office, but merely the process to remove an official. Currently, members of the House of Representatives are investigating President Trump to determine if he should be impeached.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution also granted due process rights along with citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. Here is Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Clearly, this provision of the 14th Amendment pertains to actions taken by the several states and not the Federal Government.

The sections of the Constitution that mention impeachment do not contain any reference to due process. It would appear to me that the mention of due process in the Fifth Amendment is strictly limited to the causes of action and proceedings thereon that are enumerated and an impeachment proceeding does not fall within the definition of any of the items mentioned. For this reason alone, I would have to take the position that those accused of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" have no claim to due process. However, it would be helpful to see whether or not a claim of due process was made in any of the other 19 impeachment cases.

Fortunately, I can search all of the Federal Court cases online as well as the Supreme Court cases. There turn out to be hundreds of thousands of references to due process in all in the District Courts around the country. However, given that there are only a handful of Federal impeachment actions involving officials,  it is possible to determine if the Supreme Court (or any other Federal Court) has weighed in on the issue of application of due process.

A recent Los Angeles Times article entitled, "Opinion: Sorry, Mr. President, the House is giving you far more due process than the Constitution requires." contained the following statement:

In many ways, the House of Representatives functions likes a grand jury in a criminal case, and an impeachment often has been likened to an indictment. As with the grand jury, the House decides whether there should be a trial. But the usual requirements of due process never have been found to apply at the grand jury stage precisely because there is no deprivation at that point. In fact, grand jury proceedings in many ways are the antithesis of due process: only the prosecution is present; the defendant is not allowed to call witnesses or present evidence; everything is done in secret.

 If this analysis is correct and I do agree with the analogy and the conclusion, then talking about "due process" in the context of an impeachment action by the U.S. House of Representatives is what is commonly called in the law, a "red herring" or issue that has nothing at all to do with the action.

Over the next few days, I will spend some time looking at Supreme Court cases. Unfortunately, there is a much more common legal issue that is called "impeachment of evidence." This is an action by one party to a lawsuit to discredit the reliability of the evidence presented in a trial and has nothing at all to do with the removal of a government official. Sorting the evidence cases out from among rulings in actual impeachment cases is a challenge.

Stay tuned.

My Life and the U.S. Post Office: A Saga of Extraordinary Proportions

In December of 2017, my wife and I began serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Washington, D.C. North Mission. We served as Record Preservation Specialists in the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis, Maryland. In preparation for our year in Annapolis, using an address that we had been given for our apartment, we submitted "change of address" forms with the United States Post Office. This seemingly simple event was to wreak havoc with many aspects of our lives over the next year and for nearly a year after we returned to our permanent residence in Provo, Utah.

After driving across the United States from Utah to Maryland, we followed the directions given us, checked into the residence office of the apartment building, and began unloading our car to move into an apartment that was up two flights of stairs. We were unable to get the key we had been given to work and finally called the apartment maintenance for assistance. With the maintenance person's help, we quickly learned that the apartment was still occupied. After a few telephone calls, we learned that our apartment was in another building in the same complex with the same apartment number but a different building number. We then carried all of our baggage back down the stairs and began the process all over again with the other apartment.

We began our service at the Maryland State Archives, and immediately went to the main post office in Annapolis, explained the mixup with our apartment and filed the documents changing our address yet again, this time to the right apartment. Mail was coming almost immediately to the wrong apartment but since we lived in an adjoining building, we could frequently check for mail. We have several important business connections and we were concerned that the mail would get lost.

As the weeks passed, we were still getting most of our mail to the wrong apartment. In fact, mail sent to our permanent residence in Utah was being marked and forwarded to the wrong Annapolis address. People who requested a notice of change of address were being notified of the wrong Annapolis address. Some mail started to come to the right apartment, but there was always some mail going to the wrong address.

Over the next few months, we made regular trips to the post office to try and get the forwarding order removed from our residence. We talked to supervisors, we filled out additional forms online and on paper and nothing seemed to work to get the wrong address dropped from the Post Office system.

This continued for the entire year we were in Annapolis. At the end of the year, we filled out more change of address forms and left to go back to Provo, Utah. When we got to Provo, we had a huge pile of mail and to our consternation found that some of our Provo mail was still being forwarded to the old wrong apartment, not the second apartment, but the one we never lived in. We then started our trips down to the Provo Post Office to start filling out the forms and talking to the managers. As the weeks and months passed again we found that no matter what we did, the mail kept being forwarded to Annapolis.

Finally, after going back through the process yet again, we thought we had the matter resolved after nearly a year and half of telling everyone we could talk to at the Post Office that we never lived in the old apartment and did not want our mail sent there. Fortunately, we had some of the missionaries who served with us at the Archives who could tell us about any mail that showed up and either send us digital copies or forward other important letters.

As a result, we have subscribed to the Post Office Online Notification system where they send us digital copies of each day's mail. Recently, we got notification of a check that was to be delivered on the day of the notice. When the check did not appear in our mailbox, we began the process of trying to find out if it had been stolen or misdelivered. After a week of calling and going to the Post Office, no one seemed to know what happened to the missing check. After more than a week, we finally got an email from the check's sender who notified us that the check had been returned marked that the address was wrong. But the address on the envelope was not wrong, it was our residence address exactly correct. Since our friends have now also left Annapolis, I am quite certain that some mail is still going to the wrong apartment. I am also concerned that the Post Office can no longer find my home in Provo.

I am sure there is some lesson to be learned from this experience but I do not know what it is. I would simply start using UPS or FedEx but then I had a whole shipment lost by FedEx and they refused to deliver it to the right address because the wrong address was on the package.

I think our society has passed the critical mass of complexity. We are now living on borrowed time. Organizations such as the Post Office that still handle so much of their business on paper are doomed to become critically ineffective and outmoded. Even those companies that have "computered up" are challenged to keep up with the volume of communication that is increasing every day. How many important items of business are being lost because the Post Office (or FedEx or whomever, cannot possibly work without making errors? Meanwhile, we are trying to move even more of our correspondence to electronic means where we can question the recipient about the receipt and resend the information immediately.

An LDS response to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has published "A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S." After studying some of the responses, I thought a response from a Mormon perspective would be appropriate. The current study is based on interviews with more than 35,000 American adults. As the introduction states the Survey "details the religious makeup, religious beliefs and practices as well as social and political attitudes of the American public." I had previously presented some of the findings of the Survey in another blog.

Statement:
"Today, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Mormon groups make up 58% of Utah's population and 1.7% of the total U.S. adult population..."

Response:
From the perspective of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) I feel it is confusing to refer to "other Mormon groups." The detail of the Survey shows less that .1% members of the Community of Christ (the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and "Mormon" not further specified. There is no church called the "Mormon Church." The name comes from The Book of Mormon. One of Church's official Websites explains that the Mormon Church is "A commonly used term to describe Christ's restored church, however the official name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Statement:
"This report analyzes Mormons as a whole."

Response:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in no way affiliated with or part of any other church organization. The Community of Christ is not part of or affiliated with the LDS Church at all. There are other organizations that use names similar to or derived from the LDS Church but they are not part of the LDS Church.

Statement:
"Mormons make up 1.7% of the American adult population, a proportion that is comparable in size to the U.S. Jewish population. By contrast, members of evangelical Protestant churches and Catholics each make up roughly a quarter of the adult population (26.3% and 23.9%, respectively), and 16.1% of Americans say they are unaffiliated with any particular religion."

Response:
This is an unfair and misleading comparison. The Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches lists 224 national church bodies. Members of the LDS Church belong to that specific Church. They are not members of a vague group called "evangelical Protestant churches." Many studies show the LDS Church as the fourth largest denomination in the U.S. See also Christian Church Membership. In the top 25 largest churches in the U.S. only the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church are larger than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

To be continued.

Listening to the wind

Growing up in Arizona, especially in northeastern Arizona on the Colorado Plateau, you get a lot of opportunity to listen to the wind. The wind tells you a lot about what is happening around you and what might be coming. A wind from the south and east brings clouds and rain. A wind from the north and west comes only in the winter and brings cold and sometimes rain. Because of a huge stationary high pressure area over the Four Corners, winds blowing from the south and west seldom bring anything except hot, dry weather.

Since I was a lot younger and spending time outdoors on the Plateau, I have noticed that the wind patterns have changed. Not enough to notice from day to day, but over a year's time the clouds no longer move in the same directions and the weather is not so predictable. I used to watch the sky and could tell within a few minutes when the rain would begin, now it is not so easy. I used to watch the lightning over the White Mountains and now this is a rare event and not just because I no longer live up on the mountain.

Watching the country and our society, I see a shift in the way our country is drifting. It is just like the wind, the changes are mostly subtle and only noticeable over a long period of time, but just like the changes in the storm patterns on the Colorado Plateau, our country is fundamentally different than it used to be.

One marked change is that I notice that people have generally become entirely materialistic. They want the latest large screen TV, the latest, newest and most expensive gadget, car or phone. No one seems satisfied with what they have, they always want more, more food, more entertainment, more free time, more vacations. Almost no one lives a conservative life style, even young, newly married couples I know, want and take international cruises and trips to exotic locations. All people talk about at work, besides the latest illness or accident, is what they are going to purchase or where they are going for their next vacation. These are not wealthy people, but young married and unmarried people who are making an average or below salary.

Recently, I saw an announcement for a business expansion. The Chief Executive Officer extolled the virtues of their newly enlarged business with a "host of guest amenities, including flat-screen televisions" and "free valet drivers to park your car." The public was invited with their families for a free tour and light refreshments "so they can get acquainted with the new space first hand." You might imagine that this was a hotel or restaurant, no, this new expansion was a hospital emergency room! Just think about it, you are in the middle of having a heart attack and you think, I have to go to the new hospital because they have flat-screen televisions.

The fact that a hospital would even think it was necessary to have such advertisements is a clear indication of the change in our society. Who would have thought that I would choose my emergency room based on valet parking and light refreshments.

This attitude towards life is so materialistic as to be offensive. Nothing in the article says anything about the degree of care you might receive or the competency of the doctors, all that seems important to the hospital and probably to the general public, are the amenities. With all the current controversy over the rising cost of health care, maybe we need to see if emergency room patients really need flat-screen televisions.

We often look to a change in the wind as being beneficial. In this case the changes that are coming into our society are destructive and like the wind when it gets too strong, may end up destroying our society entirely.