Fields Gathering Blackbirds for Their Caraven Away . . .

AWAY!

I have heard wind whistling through the birches
white bark contrast to brilliant strokes
of gold and red and brown that deepen with passing nights.

I have seen long trailing Vee’s of geese
beat their way south to winter's home,
and fields gathering blackbirds for their caravan away.

Something within me strikes sweet chord with them,
and cries "Away!"

I do not know whence comes the call
but it seems stronger every Fall –
"Away! Away!"

The law of family dinner time.

My mother insisted on a family dinnertime. She required us to be there, be courteous, on-time and properly dressed – no elbows on the table, and we began with kneeling family prayer. I’m amazed at families whose dinner times consist of a note about what’s in the fridge to microwave.

In our home of eight children dinner time was a time for sharing, complimenting, recognizing, reviewing, advising, discussing. Family sharing in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, on a regular, daily basis. In “Cheaper by the Dozen” father directed the conversation – requiring table wide conversation (TWC), not tete-a-tetes between seat mates, and quenching conversation not of general interest (NGI).

“The statistics are clear”, writes Michael Elias in Time, “Kids who dine with the folks are healthier, happier and better students, which is why a dying tradition is coming back. . . Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use:.

"If it were just about food, we would squirt it into their mouths with a tube," says Robin Fox, an anthropologist at Rutgers, about the mysterious way that family dinner engraves our souls. "A meal is about civilizing children. It's about teaching them to be a member of their culture." Elias, supra. My mother would have agreed in spades.

Uncompromising politics?

Someone defined politics as “the art of compromise”. Compare a recent news report of one ultra-conservative candidate saying he would never compromise or reach across the aisle in Congress. If that attitude had prevailed among the colonists assembled to declare independence there would not be a United States of America. The northerners who despised slavery had to compromise in order to gain a majority for independence from England. Similarly Lincoln, though he wanted to abolish slavery, had to put the preservation of the union first and delay and give piecemeal effect to the Emancipation Proclamation, in order to preserve the union – his first priority.

In Utah many have pilloried Senator Hatch for joining Ted Kenned in sponsoring legislation, because he was Ted Kennedy – not because the legislation was necessarily bad. Lincoln’s response to partisans who wanted him to destroy his enemies: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

What’s to be done about the Mexican border?

Arizona is being flooded with violence from drug cartels and unscrupulous coyotes smuggling people across the porous U.S. Mexico borders. The Bush administration had a bill with a worker pass system and re-enforced borders. Judging from the equally loud screams of protesting “conservatives” and “liberals”the bill was a workable compromise, but the Republican senators (including both Utah senators to their shame) defeated it.

Now Arizona authorizes its police making stops to also inquire into legal resident status when there is reasonable suspicion of illegality, and Obama’s laggard administration has the gall to sue to declare the Arizona law unconstitutional!

Some claim we cannot secure the border, but Israel has done so for the Gaza strip. Yes our border is much longer but a fraction of our humongous budget for making war in the middle east would suffice. As to worker passes, we cannot pretend that our economy does not need the migrant workers, who surround us in jobs that others won’t take.

In gross negligence the Congress has substituted employer fines for border enforcement. Our employers should never have been thrust into this role of law enforcement. They do not want it, they are not good at it, and it creates constant conflicts between them and the ICE agents. If the border were properly enforced, there would be no need for fining employers, for the Arizona law, or for suspecting everyone with a Latino look.

What is Conservatism?

“What is Conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?” – Abraham Lincoln. Balanced budgets instead of profligate spending. Man and woman marriage, not gay marriage. Fidelity, not promiscuity. Gentle reason rather than name calling. [Too many of today’s self-proclaimed conservative commentators have abandoned this one.] Sobriety, modesty and temperance and happy marriages represented in music and arts, rather than drunkenness, obscenity, lewdness, lust, and decadence.

Critics of the old ways often cite the following quote attributed to Socrates by Plato, as example of how people are always complaining of loss of old ways and gentility among the young. "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

However, these critics fail to note that it was indeed that generation of youth who led the decline of Athens. Some sentiments of the current tea party folks appeal to the true conservative, but it appears the Republican establishment has so far left its conservatives roots – as exemplified in Lincoln – that they no longer value or recognize the conservative values.

In morals and manners old ways are the best, and our serious digressions from them cannot bring happiness. An ancient prophet’s words regarding th restoration of the resurrection apply here: “Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness. Alma 41:10, Book of Mormon.

How Do We Preserve Our Constitution?

There is a healthy aspect to the current political buzz about the Constitution, its drafters’ intent, its elasticity, and whether it should or should not be read to allow the constant erosion of state’s powers by the Federal Government. The document is not written only for lawyers and judges to understand. It is not filled with the arcane, fractured, language all too common to the law in our days, but is for the most part easily understood.

However, the tortured meanings read into it by our judges often boggle the mind. Flag burning becomes speech; providing for the general welfare now includes “rights” to abortion (formerly a felony); “gay marriage” becomes a Constitutional right – protecting a relationship the founders considered a crime. The formerly sacred freedom of contract gives way to the government forcing individuals to buy health insurance.

There is an old adage in law that close cases make bad law. Why? Because the the stretch to do justice in one case, implies rules that don’t work at all in similar cases. Prime example: The high court made a huge stretch of the commerce clause to let Congress order whom a restauranteur must serve – so stop racial discrimination (a seemingly good end). Since then, the plain meaning of “interstate commerce” is so distorted in the case law, that Noah Webster himself would barely recognize the words, and there seems to be nothing that Congress cannot govern through that clause.

So what’s a country that value freedom and the Constitution not bent all out of shape to do? We must curt-tail our reliance on the rulings of the one court of nine judges on some of these earth-shaking issues – especially where they rule against the majority views in society. Remember that the Constitution its self does not give to the Supreme Court unbridled power to overturn statutes or acts of the President. Those power was developed by the Court itself by John Marshal in Marbury v. Madison and related rulings.

Trouble is, the rule is so deeply revered it would take a Constitutional amendment to alter it. Despite all the hundreds of pages of citings and distinguishings of precedents, the judges really do just what they think is right in the end. It’s a poor lawyer indeed who cannot wind his way to the desired result in these seemingly close cases. These decisions tempt one to side with the old Welsh definition of a lwayer: “He wiggles in and wiggles out and leaves the people all in doubt of whether the worm that made the track was going to hell or coming back.” We cannot rely on the rule of law alone when bad judges sit.

So what is a solution? That we labor with all our might to put into public office capable people with faith in god and high moral standards, with the emphasis on the latter. We get plenty of talented people – but too few upright, strictly honest, people of integrity. If we get more of these kinds of people in public office, we will get more appointed to judgeships, and they will be more receptive to the kind of inspiration of the almighty that made our founders great.

Without a good dose of these, which seem sadly lacking today, we will continue to get wayward, unguided leadership into forbidden paths such a gay marriage, trampling of personal freedoms, abortions on demand, and denigration of personal responsibility.

Christian values a political liability?

I do not know much about Christine O’Donnell the tea party favorite who won the Republican primary for the New Hampshire senate seat, but recent cable news had on a female commentator making fun of her for advocating Christian values.

An extraordinary man who wrote some two thousand eight hundred years ago saw our day and warned: “Woe unto them that call evilbgood, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! --- Isaiah 5:20
I’m not beating the drum for Miss O’Donnell. I do not know whether she practices the high Christian standards she advocates. But I do stand with Isaiah when widely viewed or read commentators mock Christlike virtues. When these nihilist doctrines govern us we invite the destructions foretold by Isaiah. As one man recently said: “If we do not come unto Christ, it will matter little in the end what else we do turn to.

How powerful is humility?

“Be thou humble and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand and give thee answer to they prayers,” says the Lord. D&C* 112:10. “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls.” Matt. 11:29. How does meekness and lowliness of heart bring rest? It brings rest from the posturing, the maintaining of a public face, the worry about what others think. When one senses his great worth to God and seeks not status among men, referring upward for his approval instead, he saves himself great supplies of mental and emotional energy – energy and power to do and to be good, in freedom from fear of man.

Moses was one of the most powerful men to walk the earth and the scripture says of him: “Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” Numbers 12:3. One of the great secrets of the laws of heaven is that Christ has limitless power to do good, largely because he is humble, meek and lowly of heart, i.e. he seeks not the honors of men.
* Doctrine and Covenants, Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints

Our desperate struggle for an immortality already assured

From the Egyptians who buried treasures and servants with their pharaohs, to Ponce de Leon’s quest for a fountain of youth, to those who freeze bodies and tout organ donations – man is obsessed with the prolonging of life, the restoring of youth, the desperate grasping so somehow hold onto mortality. How pitiful this ignoring of the great gift given to all by the Christ: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”1 Cor 15:22. How many trillions could be saved for use to benefit the living, and how much anguish and fear and grief are washed away by simple faith in the promise of the resurrection. Yes, you will live again, your body in its prime will be restored never to age, wear out or die again. “The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.” –Alms 40:23, Book of Mormon.

The Terrible Threat of Chinese Engineers

Regarding U. S. Education, it is popular to complain that China is graduating thousands more engineers than we are. But how many of these touted foreign degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re written on? U.S. teachers serving in China find the schools riddled with favoritism for kids of party bosses.

Is it a matter for alarm that China graduates more engineers than we do? China’s population is numbered at 1,324,665,000 while ours is 307,006,550, so they probably have need of over four times as many engineers. Of what quality are these China degrees? As I’ve posted before, my brother computer science professor found that the Asian students, though good at memorized processes and formulas, were at a loss compared to the U.S. students when given open-end problems requiring original thinking. My engineer son works for a microchip maker that finds most of its Japan-educated engineers cannot match the U. S. hires.

It’s time for the public education critics to lay off this “Chinese engineers” malarkey.

What is a Christian?

We all do well to allow people to determine their own labels if we’re going to use religion labels. If a man says he’s a Christian, then we ought not to try to go behind his statement because we have particular beliefs about Christ with which he may not agree. “Judgment is mine sayeth the Lord.” He warned that many shall cry “Lord! Lord!” and many use his name to do miracles, cast out devils, but He shall say to them at the last days “Depart from me ye workers of iniquity, I never knew you.” Did He warn so we could judge and condemn others, or rather so that we could examine ourselves and be careful whom we follow?

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

The laws of heaven do not offer much reward for mere belief in Christ. As James wrote: “Thou believest that there is one God? Thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know O vain man, that faith without works is dead.” Job’s devotion to God survives even through loss of his family, all his worldly wealth, his health, his wife’s support. Through all this, he does not simply believe in God, but still trusts Him enough to say after all the losses: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”

Get past myths about public education

Published “My View”, Deseret News, Aug 16, 2010

MY VIEW
Recently, again we read (DesNews 4/11/10) John Florez’ laments that Utah public education does not get the “global economy”. He bemoans that the U.S. has only 14% of the world’s college graduates, that all the Utah legislature can do is “[defy] the Federal government” in education matters. Its time that we put to rest some of the popular phrases for pillorying our public schools.
A Global Economy as it relates to education, merely means a larger group of potential competitors for jobs or business. Mr. Florez thinks that “global economy” suddenly demands ingenuity, resourcefulness and initiative. Wrong! Those have always been in demand, and our supply of them developed through the public schools system, has helped make America Great.
It is popular to complain that: 1) china is graduating thousands more engineers than we are; 2) students in Europe and elsewhere surpass our kids in math proficiency, 3) We must have charter schools to re-invent public education, 4) we must have Federal intervention and funding for our public schools, 4) our students were/are a “Generation at Risk” - the gloomy U.S. Office of Education report.
Take these one at a time. Thousands of Chinese engineers: How many of these touted foreign degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re written on? U.S. teachers serving in China find the schools riddled with favoritism for kids of party bosses. My engineer son works for a microchip maker that finds its Japan-educated engineers cannot match the U. S. hires.
Our kids surpassed in math: Typically these tests measure all our high school kids against the selected-out college-bound kids in other countries. In Germany at abt age 13 kids test into a college-bound track or not. My math professor friend says the Asian kids memorize well, but can’t compare to the U.S. educated when original thinking is required. Charter Schools Some of these may do well, but they are simply re-inventing the wheel. Public schools began as neighborhood-organized, local schools and grew into school districts. If these charters are required to teach all comers, teach English as a second language and have loaded on them all the bells & whistles we demand of public schools they’ll become . . . public schools.
Federal Tests & Funding No Child Left Behind created monster problems. Congress’ meddling generates thousands of wasted hours of duplicate testing time, teaching-to-the-tests and paperwork. One size does not fit all, the genius of federalism gives us local ingenuity and design for problem solving. “
A Generation at Risk” That same publically educated generation addressed in the infamous report of the US Office of Education, is now (still) producing far more patents than ten times its numbers of foreign inventors. U.S. worker productivity ranks us far above nearly every other economy or nation. It is too bad that President Reagan failed in his plan to dismantle the U.S. Office of Education. As for Mr. Florez, it would indeed be refreshing if he could once go behind his favorite cover phrase (global economy) and articulate some form of logical reasoning about it. He and others think entrepreneurial types like Bill Gates should design our schools. Did Bill Gates even go to college? His version of a well-rounded college grad is probably a Microsoft employee. And he’s supposed to be expert in public education? We’re far better off to stick to the business of investing in, supporting, and improving our existing public school system, continuing the local control and funding that has succeeded so well, and leaving the nay sayers to their own doom and gloom.
NOTE: Mr.Beus is the father of twelve children educated in Utah public schools

When fall is come as now . . .

JEWELER'S FROST

When fall is come as now I long for eagle wing
to soar aloft and search the woods below
for that first tree from whence the myriad colors spring
from tree to tree the harbingers of snow.

Perhaps with leaf from first- turned tree and jeweler's glass,
I might discover answers there to why
the cold-struck trees don brilliant hues the self-same night
the frost has brought the news the leaves must die.

Contentious world could use James’ age-old advice

“Be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath”

How many troubles we could avoid by heeding this counsel from the Apostle James. Husbands with wives, parents and children, neighbor and neighbor. In disagreements, planning our next remarks leaves no ear for words of the opponent. Helping a friend: Our advice so quick we can’t hear the nature of the problem – unaware that a good listener is half the solution.

The panelists on cable news may be entertaining – interrupting, contradicting, never listening. They bring two “experts” on opposite sides, they’re like two ships that pass in the night – barely enough running lights to notice there’s someone else there, let alone actually hear his views. Let us not imitate them, for their manners corrupt all communication.

Try a day’s resolution that you will not interrupt anyone all day, amazing how much discord is avoided. “Be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath”.

Amend the Constitution against babies?

So now Governor Herbert, the So Carolina Senator and others have joined the cry to amend the Constitution to bar US born children from citizenship – I guess unless their parents are citizens.? What a tiny portion of the flood of Latinos they so much fear this would affect. Couple that with the tremendously difficult task of amending: they would strain at gnat to swallow a camel.

Supposedly, crowds of pregnant women are swimming the Rio Grande to have their babies here. Poppycock! Blow away the smoke and there might be as many as a few hundred a year. This campaign against newborns sounds a lot like the haves against the have nots. No more “Give me your tired, your poor . . . .”