Minch Family Christmas letter 2012

Dear family and friends,
We have so enjoyed receiving your cards, letters, and photos. One of the joys at Christmas is hearing from all of you.

We are grateful to the Lord for the many blessing we've received this year. The two biggest were the new members we added to the family. Erik Russell Anderson was born to Lisa and Daniel on June 24th. What a beautiful, sweet little guy he is. Then Sarah married Bob Urbon on June 29th, in the Mesa Arizona temple. Yes, 5 days later—What a great week that was :).

We enjoyed a Dave Minch family reunion in Yellowstone this summer, then a Doug Carpenter family reunion at Downata Hot Springs. We were especially grateful to have had that time together, since Patrice's brother, Chuck, passed away suddenly in September. We miss him greatly, but appreciate the good example he set for all of us. He was so good at loving others, helping where ever he saw a need, and finding the fun in life.

Dave works for IBM on Tivoli Storage Manager, mainly handling customer problems with database growth. He received an Outstanding Technical Achievement award this year. At church, he's serving as a counselor, responsible for the missionary work and singles.

Patrice does her best to keep up with the family, and loves working in the Primary, She's spent some extra time in Utah with her parents as her Dad is going through cancer treatments. It's so hard to see Dad suffer, but we've enjoyed spending time talking, laughing, and playing games.

Jared works for IBM and has a nice home in Tucson. He enjoys hiking, caving, and cheering on the U of A teams.

Steven continues at Digi International. He, Stacy, and Clara live in Orem. Clara is such a happy, busy, adorable one-year-old. Stacy is great with photography, so we love getting lots of pictures of their cute family.

Lisa and Daniel and their four children live in Tucson. She is a trainer for APAC Customer Service. The kids spend “Grandma Day” here on Wednesdays, the highlight of our week.

Jay graduated from BYU with a master's degree in Accounting and has a job with BFBA in Sacramento starting in January. Julie worked at Noah Webster Academy until the end of the school year, then as a nanny for her sister-in-law, Natalie, who was expecting her third child.

William completed his schooling at Pima College and starts at the U of A next semester in Engineering. He is a server at Casa Del Rio, and finds time for body building and target shooting as
often as possible.

Sarah has one more semester at ASU, then they plan to move to Flagstaff where Bob will finish his schooling at NAU.

Davy is a senior at University High School. Homework occupies almost all of his waking time, though he does find time for some fun dates. He even took one friend to feed ostriches. After high school, he's planning on getting a job to earn money for a mission.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We are so grateful to have dear friends and family in our lives.

Love,
The Minch Family

Undecided on the presidential vote

Why am I undecided about my presidential vote?  Many people I know consider that last four years an absolute disaster, but I feel that the president has done remarkably well considering what he walked into.  Bush's reckless entry into 1 3/4 unneeded and exorbitantly expensive wars(I assert that 1/4 of the war in Afghanistan was needed) and his lack of oversight to the economic state of our country brought us to the brink of disaster.  And McCain was determined to continue that course of action.  If McCain were president, my speculation is that the national debt would have turned out about the same as it is today.  Remember that much of that debt came by extending unemployment benefits, seeing that debt guaranteed by the government for the housing industry were paid, cutting taxes, providing food stamps, and trying to get health insurance for everyone.  I'm sure McCain would have done some of that, but I can't help feeling (based on his present comments about Libya and Syria) that he would have also spent more money waging war. 

The key concern for me is that neither Obama nor Romney exhibits the level of conviction that inspires my confidence.  To see my point, look at the debates (available on youtube) and watch their eyes as they speak.  The voice can be faked, but the eyes tell what's really going on internally.  The fact is that neither of them are confident that they have the right approach, the right answers, or even that the other is as flawed as they assert--this all shows in their eyes as they speak.

The prevention of terror and halting of nations obtaining nuclear weapons is a responsibility of the entire world, and every freedom-enjoying nation needs to step up and help.  We certainly should give leadership, but when we act unilaterally (like Bush did, and Romney hints that he will do), rather than working through the United Nations and other such entities, we lose the respect of all, and we end up paying almost all the bill.  Thus, Obama's approach of working through councils of countries seems the most responsible approach.

Containing and preventing terror is one thing, but destabilizing countries because we disagree with their politics, or their human rights record, etc. will not produce the desired effect.  But then why are we so interested in Libya and Syria, but have little interest in Saudi Arabia?  Saudi Arabia has a horrible human rights record and half of the terrorists in 9/11 came from there, so why aren't they "on the list"?  The answer is, of course, "They have lots of oil, so they're excused."

We have to respect countries' sovereignty.  If they want Sharia law, it's really their choice, albeit an unfortunate choice.  We have no business meddling with those countries, except to show them a better way by negotiations and incentives.  But we can certainly draw the line when we see a country working to export terror or to produce a nuclear weapon.  One example--what happens if we start arming the rebels in Syria?  Could Russia start providing arms to the Syrian government?  Certainly, and where would that lead us?   Rather, I approve of the approach of using the international community to provide humanitarian support and to bring international pressure on that country. 

Many challenges during the debates took the form of "You're not doing enough."  There are other flavors of these challenges:  "You're doing too much here and wasting money."  Or, "That should be left to the states" or the "national government" depending on the challenge.  These challenges are just plain subjective.

Before Obamacare, I had adult children serving humanitarian missions and in college, who married, who lost their health insurance at those points in time.  With Obamacare, they now have insurance, and I'm paying that insurance, not the tax payer.  I know people who are self-employed, who have pre-existing conditions, who can't get any health insurance.  It seems wrong that the only answer we had for those people was, "Well, that's too bad."  I cannot accept that this has to be the case for the greatest country on the earth.  Is Obamacare the right approach?  Probably not for many reasons, but  I'd sure like to see a realistic proposal rather than what we've seen.  A key talking point is that it'll destroy small business, but we also have to recognize that if there's a small business who can't get affordable health insurance for its employees, that business loses much of its attractiveness.

What about oil, gas, coal, nuclear, solar, and wind?  Yes, indeed, but doing so responsibly is the proper way to proceed, not where the only consideration is cost.  I can't help but believe that not controlling the amount of CO2 going into the air isn't increasing the frequency of weather-related disasters, which have been horrendously expensive. 

It's difficult to have confidence in someone who says, "I'm going to repeal Obamacare, then asserts that he's going to reach out across the political boundaries to implement solutions."  That's plays right into the "You're all over the map" assertion that keeps coming up.  But, on the other hand, we know exactly where he stands on this issue.

Now what are the items that greatly concern me about Obama?  1)  He vacated enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act; 2) the continued eroding of the rights of people to practice their religion without government interference; 3) invoking executive privilege in the handling of the ATF gun sting; 4) that the next president will nominate some number of Supreme Court justices, who will probably continue to be disinterested in items 1 and 2.

What does Romney offer?  He certainly has a track record for being effective: 1) in Massachusetts; 2) the Olympics.  Foreign policy?  I think once he's being briefed by the State Department, Pentagon, etc. he'll get the information he needs to lead responsibly internationally.

So, it's really going to come down who do I think will do the most good for our people during the next four years. They both have strengths; they both have weaknesses. That's why I'm undecided.  I'll be choosing in the next couple days.

Camellia

Australia Pictures

Botanic Gardens

Saint Paul's Cathedral

Melbourne Market

Goats here. Sheep over there.

Be fun!

Attitude

Fish ready for your dinner

Porterhouse stakes. Who wants to serve a mission in Australia?

$4 Turkish Delights? Where's that witch when I need her?

Around Melbourne

Train Station

Mexican Restaurant

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and the Police

Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat Bar

Devon Ducks

Melbourne Museum

These are canoes used on the Pacific Ocean

If anyone knows our friend L from Church, this is his first dog.

These are birdsongs set to music

Lots of beatles

Melbourne Aquarium

Fish

>

More Fish

A Morey Eel

Penguins swimming

Penguins

Crab

Summer News

In June, P and I went up on Friday for the campfire at scout camp, stayed overnight, then drove the young men down. Our air mattress was missing the plug, so it was a long night using backpacking pads under our sleeping bags. We went for a hike up the Butterfly Trail early Saturday morning.

A few days later, we went to the temple with D and P and sealed his parents, and he to them. I was proxy for C M and felt the spirit strongly as we did the sealing. It sure appears that they have stronger missionary work on the other side of the veil.

On July 1 we drove to Panguitch. We found that the 65-watt inverter that used to work with the laptop computer would only work for recharging the laptop when it wasn't in use. The following day we traveled to Provo, then went to Lagoon with the family. It was a rainy day, which discouraged many of the people from coming, and many left; consequently the lines were short and the day was quite pleasant.

The following day I went with D C to pick up H from the airport. Later we went to the temple and did baptisms for some of our McCay relatives. We had to wait for quite a while, but it was good to be there in the temple.

On Saturday the 4th, 3 of the family ran the 5K run. P and I went down and cheered them on; then we met the Cs for breakfast; then we looked around the booths. There were mainly activities for young children and booths where people could buy junk they don't need. From there we went the M B F's for a picnic lunch. We visited for a while, then went to L B's having a good visit with them. We went and visited with their son L and his family and saw his newly remodeled home. L's wife R is really a lot of fun, much like L. L was reading something, and I commented to her, “You still don't wear glasses?” and she replied, “Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

On Tuesday we went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. It was very nice. We went to the adjacent stake center, and saw the labeling of the rooms for training various volunteers—it appears that training goes on each morning, so everyone knows what to do. There was also a control center, and there was in large bold letters on the wall the phone number of the local police department. As expected, the Church prepares for all contingencies, so that the rejoicings of His children are not interrupted by those who don't understand.

We prepared a care package for W, and the Cs and S and D dropped that off at the mission office, and W was there, and they got to greet him. M C said that he looks very good and seemed to be very happy.

After leaving the open house, we met P's Uncle S and had dinner with him at the Lion House. The food was excellent. It seems to me that I had been there many years ago, possibly with the Ts. Afterward we went to the Church Art and History Museum. I very much enjoyed our time there. One interesting painting was a portrayal of Jacob and Leah in a modern setting, Jacob being a disgruntled man sitting is a chair, and tentative Leah standing behind a nearby chair. Leah was wearing glasses, harking back to L's comment a few days before.

On Wednesday, I went to the Ogden temple and did the initiatory work for some of the McCay men. I had given the rest of the names to S and S as she hasn't done any Initiatory work since she went through originally. W had said that he wanted to do some endowments, so I went over to the mission office to drop off some names, and I was informed that he was in a training meeting at that time. I also spoke with his last companion who said that W was a good missionary and he enjoyed working with him.

We tried to install some running boards on the new Toyota Tundra the Cs had purchased, but there were for a longer cab, and we needed to package them up and sent them back.

On Thursday we packed up and went to Provo. We went to the Paleontology Museum, then had a birthday dinner for J M with S and S. Afterwards we went swimming. On Friday we drove clear to Tucson from Provo—a long, long day.

On July 23, 2009, I flew from Tucson to Los Angeles. My flight to Auckland was to have left at 10:30 pm, but it was canceled because of a fuel pump problem. The board showed that it was postponed, but both the front desk and the desk by the gate were swamped with people on the 9:30 flight. The board said the 9:30 flight was on-time, but they didn’t start loading the plane until 10:15 pm. After that flight was off, I could talk to someone. They put us up at the Hilton, which was very nice. I had arisen that morning about 3:30 am, and by the time I got to bed I couldn't sleep. I think I got to sleep about 2:30 and slept until 6. They asked us to come to the airport at 10 am to leave at noon, but arriving at the airport, our flight was delayed two more hours. We finally left about 2:30 pm. We arrived at Auckland about 10:30 pm, were bussed to hotels, and I got to sleep about 12:30 pm. I caught the 5:30 shuttle, and was flying to Melbourne at about 8 am. The sun was just coming up as we left, so I really didn’t see anything of New Zealand.

Arriving at Melbourne, I took the bus to the city. Coming out of the bus terminal, I looked at my map and determined the route to take to a shuttle, but after walking a ½ mile I determined that I was walking north instead of south. When I looked at the sun I knew it was winter, so I assumed that the sun would be in the south sky. That assumption is not true south of the equator. I started back, but having my heavy suitcase, and probably about twelve hours of sleep the previous three days, including a couple on the plane, I took a taxi to my hotel. I changed clothes and took the shuttle to the Church. I asked the driver if it was safe to be out at night where my hotel was, and he said that it was for me—but there are violent incidents occurring in the city where minority people are targeted.

The Internet had indicated that I could buy a trolley ticket on the trolley itself—I could, but I didn’t have coins to buy the pass with. By then the trolley was moving. I rode illegally, and got to the Church as the meetings were just ended. I spoke to a man who had a nametag “R...”. He was the son of a missionary couple who had served in our ward in 1989 or so. I told him that they were extremely effective activating members of our ward. He was pleased to hear that. He mentioned that his father had been talking about his mission just that previous week.

The ward mission leader, R C, visited with me, and invited me to attend their missionary correlation meeting. He also asked me to give a spiritual thought. I told them about Brother Rs’ parents serving in my ward and how effective they were, what we’re doing with the President Monson approach, and I read from the Doctrine and Covenant a President Monson favorite scripture, “I will be on your right had and your left…”. I very much enjoyed the spirit of the meeting. They had two full-time missionaries serving the Chinese people, two Chinese ward missionaries who assist them, and four other full-time missionaries. They all had a good spirit about them. R pointed me to the train station where I could purchase a trolley ticket, but then I found that it wouldn’t give changes for more than $10. I thought I had just $20 and $50 notes, but I had a $10, which worked.

Returning to the hotel, I changed clothes and went to the Botanic Gardens. They were very nice, but the sun was too far down to get any pictures. Walking from there, I went by the Memorial to the Men who died during the first World War. Walking towards the city, there was a statue of a man on a horse. I looked at the inscription, but it wasn’t for the “Grand ol’ Duke of York.”

I then bought a meat and mushroom pie dinner and returned to my hotel. The hotel was older, but the bed was comfortable and the linen and bathroom was clean. The heat was provided by a register, but even though I had it on high, I don’t think the room got above 66 degrees. The two managing the hotel were a brother and sister from China.

A difficulty with the trolleys there is that the stops aren’t marked very well, and it’s hard to know were to get off. Coming home from Church, I asked a young lady to tell me when my stop was, and she did. She got off too, and we spoke while walking down the street. She was very friendly. She works in the Victoria Market selling vegetables, and she and her husband are from India. I told her I’d just been to Church and told her the name of the Church, and asked if she knew about it. She hadn’t, but she’d seen our missionaries, and I told her that they have a good message.

I awoke at 3:30 this morning, and worked on editing my journals from 2000-2008. I also worked some on improving my Sudoku program. I think I have found why it continues iterating when it has found a solution.

I checked out of the hotel, dropped my suitcase at the hotel where the conference is to be, and went to the aquarium. It was very interesting. Australia has the most unique wildlife. Afterwards, I went to the Melbourne Museum. It had dinosaurs, bug collections, an aborigine section, a human brain section, a section which covered historical Melbourne, Pacific canoes and weapons, the first Australian computer, their world champion race horse, and other things.

Leaving the aquarium, I asked a clerk if there was a water fountain where I could fill up my water bottle. She replied, “No, but you can do what I do and just fill it up from the toilet.” Over there, “toilet” means the entire room. For dinner I went to a Thai place having salad and noodles and prawns.

On July 28, I ate granola for breakfast again—this is granola that I brought from the United States. Passing through customs in both New Zealand and Australia, I had to declare it, but they didn’t confiscate it. After breakfast, I really wanted a roll, so I went out and got a doughnut; then headed over to the marketplace. It was a amazing. I was puzzled because last night I asked a doorman where I could get a fish dinner, and he really didn’t have any good suggestions. Neither did I see any fish restaurants, but there were booth after booth in the market selling fresh fish. I bought some gifts, some dates for me, had a baked fish and chips lunch, wrote up some postcards and mailed them, saw Saint Paul’s cathedral where the organist was practicing, and started my work assignment.

I spoke with a young woman who was employed by the United Nations to raise funds for the refugees of Sudan. She was surprised that I knew so much about what was going on in Sudan. I spoke to her about our humanitarian outreach of our Church, and shared some of the projects that I knew of.

I attended a presentation by an IBM vice president, then attended the reception. There was sushi and other hors d’vors and soda and other drinks.

One man stated that he had gotten married on Sunday, and I asked him what he was doing here. He said that he wanted to come to the show, and besides many of their relatives came from the United Kingdom, so they’ve stayed and are visiting with his wife.

On July 29, I attended the storage presentations, and I gave a presentation What’s New in TSM 6.1 in one of the sessions. That evening I ate dinner at an Italian place having lasagna.

At the conference, they had these hand-held devices on which participants could answer questions. At the end they asked us to put a text good-bye message into the device, and the good-bye messages were displayed to everyone in the hall. One person wrote, “I have the swine flu.” Currently there is pandemic concerning the swine flu. It hasn’t proven as deadly as they were worried, but it does most quite easily.

On July 30, I attended the last day of the conference, giving another presentation on performance tuning for TSM. After it was over I went to the Regent Theater and put my name on the lottery list. Then at 6 pm they chose 25 tickets, and those people who were chosen could pay $30 to get into see Wicked. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones, so I bought a ticket for $119. I then went and got dinner at a Korean place. It was excellent.

The show was tremendous from the scenery, to the special effects, to the acting, to the plot. It was well worth the money I paid, multiplying $119 by 0.9 gives the equivalent price in our dollars. The show talked about why people are the way that they are and how people are often misunderstood, how difficulties affect our personalities, and that sometimes people we think are good are not.

On Friday I met with our business partners at the IBM site which was about a ten-minute walk from my hotel. The meetings were productive. That night I was planning on going out for fish near the docks, but then I found a fish restaurant right by the Regent Theater as I was walking by. It was about 5:30 and I thought about signing up for the lottery again, but I didn’t.

They had steamers, and they were wonderful. My only regret is that I didn’t find that restaurant the first day was there.

I kept waking up about 3 in the morning. I logged on at work and worked on defects that came out of a static analysis program that we use. On Thursday, morning I awoke at 3 or so, but I managed to get back to sleep again. Then at 4:30 the doorbell rang—room service bringing breakfast. Unfortunately, it was for the room next door. Oh, well.

I had been eating granola (in fact, I found a store which had soy milk) and trail mix for breakfast because breakfast in the hotel was $30 just for bacon and eggs. I found a restaurant which had bacon and eggs for $15, and it opened at 7 am, so I went over there Saturday morning. It was all dark, so I went over to Subway and had a breakfast burrito.

The trip home was long. I think I may have dozed a couple of hours, but they had a chess program on the TV. It allowed setting the difficulty, so I picked 1300, which is my Chess Federation rating, and I easily beat it. I kept increasing it up to 1850, and that gave me a decent game. In the airport and on one leg of my journey, I worked on editing my journals from 2000 through 2009.

Pretty much, I would talk to the people next to me, and often there was an opportunity to talk about the Cs serving their mission in Australia, but the people like the ones in the United States just treated it like something interesting.

A women who sat next to me from Australia to New Zealand was Hungarian. Her mother left Hungary during the revolution during the coldest, most miserable night of the year, since she knew the Russian soldiers would be hiding in their hut next to the stove rather than watching the border. My co-worker V R did the same thing. I told her about T W who served his mission there.

From New Zealand to Los Angeles, I sat next to a woman in her twenties who was going to Corsica to work on a project for her doctorate in Biology. She had just been married a month, and had been married in New Hampshire, United States. Her father owns resorts. Between her marriage and this trip, she’d made another trip to the states—I forget what for.

Australia was very water-conscious. Their toilets had two flush buttons, and many of the places I visited had posters on how they were saving water. The botanic gardens were installing rain capturing devices. There is a river right by it, but the salt content is too high to use that water.

In August, P and I flew to Salt Lake City. D and MA Carpenter picked us up at the airport, and we drove to Provo. S and S moved into a new apartment in Pleasant Grove a couple of weeks ago, and they put us up at their new place. They had returned from Billings and were tired of the small basement apartment with the spiders, and looked for a new place.

We then went to the Mariott Center for the Commencement Exercises. S has earned her Master's degree in Speech Pathology. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve was the keynote speaker. He did not give the usual “graduation speech.” It seems to me that the usual “graduation speeches” aren't really relevant, and he wanted to give us something of value that we could leave feeling that our being there wasn't just “to support so-and-so” in his graduation. He spoke about how we can be more effective with our non-member associates.

J and her apartment roommates were cleaning their apartment last night, and we took them some dinner.

After, we went to Applebees and had a nice dinner together.

The following day we arose and went to the Joseph Smith Field Building for the Convocation, and S was called by name and presented with her degree. After the Convocation, we returned to J's apartment where we did a few final things, and then we went to S's where we had a baked potato bar and played Taboo. There was an ice cream place next door, and we got an ice cream before we left. The customer orders the type of base, the flavors and add-ons, and then they quickly freeze it with liquid nitrogen. I had a rice milk base with cherry and coconut, sweetened with agave. It was very good.

The Cs then drove us to the airport, and dropped P, J, and me. While returning from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, a passenger became ill, and we were diverted to Las Vegas. The paramedics came on-board and she walked off the plane with them. They also told us that we'd make our final destination, and called all passengers to Tucson and several other places to get off the plane, and were were put on flights leaving Las Vegas, and we got home about ninety minutes before we were projected to arrive.

The following day we went to Casa Grand and visited with B's family, and R and C (P's cousin from Canada). We had a good visit with them.

Latest Readings

Miguel de Unamuno

When I was studying Spanish at Weber, several of the professors commented on Miguel de Unamuno. He is, indeed, an interesting author, and his stories are thought-provoking and entertaining.

Unamuno fought for intellectual freedom during his life—after he had returned from a five-year exile, he began his lecture by saying "As we were saying yesterday, ...", as Fray Luis de Leon had done in the same place four centuries before, as though he had not been absent at all. He ended his public career opposing a violent and strong political movement in a speech. A couple of excerpts: 1) from the beginning: “Sometimes, to remain silent is to lie, since silence can be interpreted as assent”; 2) at the end: “This [the university] is the temple of intelligence, and I am its high priest. You are profaning its sacred domain. You will win, because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. In order to convince it is necessary to persuade, and to persuade you will need something that you lack: reason and right in the struggle.”

La Tia Tula (Aunt Tula)

This story challenges traditional men and women roles; shows how pursuing what looks like a worthy goal, often negatively affects others; that forceful people push others into poor decisions; that people often make poor decisions even though they know better. It was a very thought-provoking book.

San Manuel Bueno, martir (martyr)

San Manuel is a well-beloved Catholic priest who lost his faith, but continued to minister to his flock and to encourage them to be faithful to the Church. The narrator of the story and her brother learn of his unbelief, and the story relates the many conversations they had with him over the years until he passed away. As of the inmates of which Solzhenitsyn wrote, the priest used relentless work to bring meaning to his life until he could sleep without dreaming.

La Novela (novel) de Don Sandalio

This story tells of a man who writes regularly to a friend Felipe. This man has become tired of the foolishness of mankind, and looks for solace in nature, but shortly thereafter he begins to frequent a casino where he watches Don Sandalio play chess. When Sandalio's opponent doesn't appear one day, this man plays chess with him. This continues day after day for some period of time. No conversation passes between the two men as they play. But at times, the author wonders if, after the chess games were over, whether Sandalio ever thought of him. When Sandalio is absent from the casino one day, some of the other patrons try to tell the author what has happened to him, but he doesn't want to know. He has, in his own mind, determined what it is he knows about Sandalio. This disinterest continues when Sandalio mysteriously dies in jail. Then Sandalio's son-in-law comes to the author to speak with him, and relates that when Sandalio was at home, he spoke very animatedly and intimately about the author. The author is puzzled in that they had never spoken of anything, and he posits that Sandalio had done the same thing that he had, in creating a person in his own mind.

Un Pobre Hombre Rico ( A poor rich man)

The poor, rich man speaks of a man who works and saves all he can, and moves away from his boarding house allowing the women he loves and who loves him to believe that he wasn't interested, Subsequently, she marries someone else. Years pass, and she becomes a widow, and he then has another chance to be part of her life, and he marries her. At the end, Unamuno comments, “Now you see that I can write a story that doesn't end in tragedy.”

Heart of Darkness

This novel characterizes most of the human race as a group who is only motivated by grabbing as much as they can, with no understanding that there are other people on the planet.

But occasionally there comes a man like Kurtz who wields tremendous influence over his followers. He has great charisma and attracts a great following, even after his death. He also provokes many to great self-introspection. But when we ask them who Kurtz is, what he stands for, where he's from, what his background is, etc., no one knows. He listens to no one, dominates all conversations, is often openly hostile and violent to his followers, but he has their loyalty.

The book tells about what power does to people. Kurtz knows that he has been overcome with darkness, and loathes himself and everyone else. But before we too quickly condemn Kurtz, Marley, the narrator, asks us what we would become if there were no civilized people around us and no police to restrain us, and the opportunity presented itself.

Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Keneally

This is a biography about Lincoln. In 1831 when he saw the blacks mistreated, he became opposed to slavery. He was very honest, insisting on paying his debts, even when his partners walked away. He had bouts of melancholy, and it appears that his time as president with the nation at war was extremely physically and mentally draining on him. At times he doubted the divinity of Christ, but after a great loss during the Civil War called for a day of fasting and prayer. He also acknowledged the existence of a divine being who watched over the human race.

His marriage to Mary Todd was very trying. She went through moods—at times was a loyal supporter willing to do anything for her husband and children and exerted a great influence with people. At other times she made everyone around her miserable. When she was in a bad mood, he often would would stay in his office or go on the road. Often he brought the children to his office for their protection.

The South decried the mistreatment of workers in the North factories as inhumane. They asserted that the North could treat their workers anyway they pleased because there were always new, healthy people arriving from Europe needing work. In the South, however, they had to buy their work force, so it was to their advantage to treat them such that they could work for them for years.

The assertion that freeing the slaves would mean that they would take all the white jobs in the North was countered by Lincoln's belief that the freed slaves should be deported to other nations.

The concept of “popular sovereignty” was proposed, in that each admitted state would choose to be free or a slave state. Lincoln saw that this would lead to all states eventually becoming slave states as the North labor market could be flooded with slaves from the South. He also astutely asked, “Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution?”

He argued that the Declaration of Independence said that all men were created equal, but others stated that it didn't include blacks. Referring to the “Know-Nothings”, he stated that if they get control, “I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

The opponents of freedom stated that this would lead to marriage between the races. Lincoln emphatically stated that just because he didn't want a woman to be his slave, didn't imply that he wanted her to be his wife.

There was one thing that Lincoln didn't understand. He felt that if a man were free he could work hard for someone else, and eventually be his own boss. He didn't understand that in many situations even a free man didn't earn enough to ever escape his situation.

Lincoln was opposed to President Buchanan's attempt to admit Kansas as a slave state and other decisions, like considering surrendering Fort Sumpter to the Confederates. As we've seen elsewhere, Buchanan often took the easiest choice, rather than the correct choice.

Lincoln exercised as much restraint as possible with the seceding states. When Fort Sumpter had no provisions, he sent ships in to resupply the fort. He told the Confederates that the ship was only delivering supplies, but they were fired upon, thus starting the war.

He had a terrible time getting generals who would fight. He went through general after general who just made lame excuses. His patience with them was extraordinary, much to the frustration of his cabinet.

When Lincoln freed all slaves in the rebel states when they refused to return to the union, the ward took on a moral dimension. Other countries could not support the South and claim to believe in freedom.

When it was heard that the South was executing black Union solders instead of keeping them as prisoners of war, it was suggested that the North execute Southern solders in like manner. Lincoln refused to lower himself to such barbarity.

Angel of Repose by Wallace Stegner

The title refers to the angle of a hill at which when dirt is dumped where it obtains stability. It follows a couple in the late 1800s who have very different goals in life, but marry anyway. They work very hard at being united, but never overcome their separateness.

Oliver Ward is a somewhat quixotic person—hardworking with personal integrity; a man living his dream and vision; honest and trusting and generally forgiving of others; always within reach of being a great builder of the West, but never able to attain it—generally because of others who lose vision, or because he refuses to compromise his personal integrity, and, hence, is unable to support his wife and family as she desires.

Susan Ward, his wife, is a brilliant and beautiful writer and artist, loving culture and those who are well-known in society. She wants Oliver to be great, well-known, witty, intelligent and sensitive as her friends back east are. No matter how hard he works, he never measures up to her expectations. As he experiences failure after failure, she loses faith in him, and often emotionally and physically separates herself from him.

Even when a period of physical separation is over, rather than having a happy reunion, she seems more concerned with whether Oliver has changed during the separation, and her reservations are so overpowering that they continue to poison the relationship. In these circumstances he seeks solace in drink, and she gives her heart to someone else.

But when a tragedy strikes the family because of her affair, even Oliver, who can forgive those outside his family circle any manner of outrages, cannot find it in himself to forgive Susan. In his despair he destroys the rose garden that he made for her.

Their lives end on that note, at that angle of repose.

The narrator of the story is Lyman Ward, their grandson who is writing a book on his grandparents. He is suffering a progressively fatal disease, and was betrayed by his wife who left him when he was diagnosed with the disease. Helping him organize the grandparents' papers is Shelly, a young-adult woman who is caught up in the 60s-hippie culture. Lyman and Shelly spar over whether things are better now than when Oliver and Susan lived their Victorian lives.

Then Lyman learns that his ex-wife now wishes reconciliation, and he is faced with the same challenge as his grandfather.

The book, over 500 pages, progresses ploddingly, up to the last chapter, which then progresses rapidly. Lyman has a dream which is nothing like the rest of the book. In fact the dream is very much like the scenes as described by Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesee. Interestingly, Kesee was a student of Stegner. Since Cuckoo was written just four years later, I wondered this scene influenced Kesee.

19 June 2009

The garden is progressing. I'm needing to water it three times a day, but we've got a few tomatoes and a couple of peppers so far. It looks like we'll have a bumper crop of peppers about the second week in July.

It has been a year since Grandma M[...] M[...] passed away, and I prepared her temple work submission. She was always disinterested about the Church during her life, but as I was preparing it, I felt that she had indeed accepted the gospel. I remember years ago that I was strongly prompted to do her mother's temple work, that she had accepted the gospel; and I wondered if when Grandma M[...] passed away, that her mother had met her and taught her the gospel.

Yesterday, P did her endowment and felt that she was there and accepted the work. The last two times that we went, the temple was really crowded, and we decided to go while D was up at scout camp. We did two endowment sessions and a sealing session. It was a good day.

We got a year subscription to ancestry.com, and interestingly enough I have found some undone temple work in the McCay side of the family. I've been researching in Ancestry, then checking in the Church's FamilySearch website to see if the temple work has been done. My plan is to take the names with us to Utah in early July and to do the baptisms with the family there.

The California Supreme Court overwhelming agreed to follow the will of the people concerning Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to define marriage as be one man and one woman. I was very pleased with the decision.

The missionary work is progressing in the ward. We are doing a program called “President Monson's” questions, and working with the home teachers to present this to each family in the ward. It's been a bit slow getting things rolling, but I believe that good will come of our efforts. I've been out a couple of times this last month with our missionaries, and our time together has been pleasant.

On Tuesday I went up to Camp Lawton and spent the day and night with our scout troop. The young men seem to be having a good time there. Four of them including D were building a lean-to of native materials in which to sleep which is a requirement for the Wilderness Survival merit badge. Tonight P and I are going up to the adult program, and we'll bring the young men back tomorrow morning.