Month: April 2007

Categories
life

The Pope Fixes A Broken Doctrine

All I could think was, “wow, he got that one right,” when I read that the Pope renounced the doctrine of limbo. The idea that infants who die without baptism cannot go to heaven is offensive to common sense if you believe in a loving God. Limbo seems like nothing more than hell without personal responsibility. This all came about because of “Vatican studies that said there were ‘serious’ grounds that such souls could go to heaven, rather than exist between heaven and hell.”

Little had I realized that Limbo was actually an improvement in status from what had been taught before then – that infants dying without baptism were consigned to hell.

Categories
life

Define “Neighbor”

Reading the parable of the Good Samaritan today I noticed something interesting. The Savior did not answer the same question that the lawyer first posed to Him. The lawyer sought to justify himself by asking who his neighbor was (Luke 10:29) hoping to define the scope of those whom he should love as himself. I had understood the lesson of the parable to indicate that the answer was that all are my neighbors. This is true, but it is not the whole substance of what Christ answered.

At the end of the story, Christ returns a question to the lawyer, “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” (Luke 10:36) The thing that caught my attention was that this question reframes the idea of neighbor. It is not for me to strive to determine who falls within the definition of who is my neighbor. It is for me to become neighbor unto all whom I might encounter. In other words, the question is not, “who is my neighbor?” but rather, “who am I neighbor to?”

Categories
politics

Barack Obama

It’s been a long time in coming, but I have finally managed to finish my homework on Barack Obama. This is a man who is full of ideas. One of his challenges is that many wonder what he can really do in Washington DC as a relative outsider. That is a question that can never be fully answered about any candidate until they have taken the office they are seeking. Barring that sure answer, I like the ideas presented by Senator Obama. He is secure in his ideals, but he is not locked into a partisan mindset.

Two things from his website really excited me this week. First, his site gave the most fitting response to the events at Viginia Tech – the whole page was black with a simple statement of condolences from the senator. All the mainstream media should have been so sensitive. Second, very prominent in the issues section of his website is an invitation for anyone to submit ideas for discussion and policy consideration. I encourage everyone who has ideas about how this country should be run, whether you like Senator Obama or not, to go submit your ideas and discuss the other ideas that have been presented. Use pseudonyms if you want, but I think that any leader (of any party) who would honestly accept and use ideas generated through such a participatory process would make an effective leader for our nation.
I definitely endorse Barack Obama for President. I believe that he has the right qualities that we should be looking for in a president.

Categories
culture politics

Massive Do-Over

I have been thinking and reading about political issues like congressional seats for Utah and Washington DC, where America currently stands on abortion, and the complexity and complaints about unfairness in our tax system. I’d love to write a post about almost all of these topics, but then I got to thinking – what if we just started over.

Pretend that we put a freeze on federal law and started a constitutional convention to rewrite our government from the ground up. We would rewrite the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. All federal agencies would be scrapped although the military and others employed by the current agencies could probably expect that many of them would have similar opportunities under the new system. We would appoint a fresh slate of leaders – no consideration of when their terms would have ended under the current system because we might not even have the same positions available in the new system.

Now I’m not saying that we should do this, I’m asking what might happen if we did.

My own suspicion is that we would keep the structure of a bicameral legislative branch as well as an executive branch and a judicial branch. Beyond that, what would be said of issues like abortion or who has what kind of representation? What new balance of power would emerge between federal and state governments? At least two Constitutional amendments would disappear (because they cancel each other out) but would more go? What social issues might show up as new amendments?

Help me out here – what do you think this would produce? Does it differ from what you think it should produce?

Categories
life technology

Technology and Gardening

So I could be posting about national news items, but instead I spent my spare time today working on a gardening wiki. Laura wanted to keep notes on the plants that we have planted with some of the more vital statistics such as when to prune them and how well they thrive for us. I decided that a TiddlyWiki was a very good format to keep such notes because these wikis are very portable, the entire site is in a single file, and they allow you to cross reference notes and link between notes so that it becomes a very versatile note-taking system. I have actually started using TiddlyWikis for a variety of note-taking projects at home and at work.

After I got started on the project I thought it would be fun to put it on my website so that I could access it and update it from anywhere. To do that I used MiniTiddlyServer (MTS) which allows makes a server environment for TiddlyWikis. Normally they are displayable on the web but not they can’t be updated online without some help. I think that MTS is the best tool to give that help that I have seen. Admittedly I work with Sean Hess, who created MTS, but even if I didn’t know him I would consider this to be a fine piece of work. The first version of MTS that I used was only 9 files zipped up to less than 100Kb. The version I am using now is much bigger (over 500Kb – still very small) and much more powerful.

This opens up a world of future possibilities. For the present, anyone can see what I am planting in my gardens (flower and vegetable). Later I may choose to allow others to contribute to the wiki by invitation. Eventually I could choose to open parts of it up for general comment and contribution. MTS can do that kind of thing, the question is, “will I want to try it?” The answer is, “time will tell.”

Categories
politics

The Electoral College

I have found Oval Office 2008 to be a great place to go for commentary on the 2008 Presidential elections. Normally they don’t get into politics outside of the presidential candidates, but today they made an exception. They reported that Maryland had enacted a law which would assign their electoral college votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of who wins in Maryland. The only catch is that the law will only go into effect if states representing at least 270 electoral votes enact similar laws. There are a number of states that have considered doing something like this. Who knows what will happen.

There is an interesting discussion in the comments of that post about the constitutionality of this move. My own feeling on the subject is that I would always oppose this type of move. I think that the founding fathers did not create the electoral college on a whim and I don’t buy the argument that it was because they could not count the popular vote without a computer. Then again, I think that each state should award their electoral votes proportional to the results of the popular vote in their state rather than block voting. That would make it so that candidates would find some value in appealing to states with small electoral vote constituencies. It would also mean that they could not afford to ignore a large state where they have no chance of winning outright.

I have argued before that under the current system it does not matter if you are from Utah or New York, your vote does not count in national elections because the electors in your state are predetermined. The current system has its flaws, but I’m not sure the system of just going with the winner of the popular vote is better. We are a republic after all and not a democracy. This was by design so lets be careful before we redesign the system.

Categories
meta

Site Feeds

I learned a new thing about the feeds on my site today. I thought it was worth sharing. If anyone is interested in only reading the posts from a specific category they can subscribe to that category. The URL for the feed would be http://www.davidjmiller.org/category/categoryname/feed/

This or something like it should get you category-specific feeds from any WordPress blog (depending on the settings of the blog).

Categories
Local politics

Regional Transportation Plans

Yesterday on Radio West the show was discussing the 2030 Transportation Plan. The 2030 transportation plan is focused on the Salt Lake Valley, but it includes the Mountain View Corridor and the Mountainland Association of Governments has a plan with a similar scope. I listened to the program with interest as many callers expressed concerns similar to mine that too much reliance on roads brings more congestion in the longterm.

One concern the planners had with putting in transit options is that they are inefficient where there is significant open space between residential areas. Considering that these plans are focused on transportation through areas that are sparsely populated right now, that sounds like a valid concern. In response to that, Marc Heileson from the Sierra Club made two compelling observations: that people cannot choose to use transit if it is not available; and that a good transit system is more than just a transit option.

A good transit system makes it easy to get between places that you need to go so that the advantages of a car are not significant when compared to the transit system. Mr. Heileson also noted that transit systems are less sensitive to changes in volume of use than roads are. Based on discussions with some of my family members who live north of Salt Lake and are affected by the changes in the transit system that are being implemented there I feel safe in concluding that it is easier to plan a good transit system in advance than it is to build or modify a transit system in established areas.

Another thought that was briefly covered in the program was the idea that transportation planning could help to shape growth and traffic patterns, and not just react to the existing and projected patterns.

Virtually absent from the discussion is the fact that transportation plans can react to poorly planned development, but they cannot truly overcome that development. Transit alone is not enough in order to have the high quality living conditions in a growing region like ours. Equally important, if not more so, is the planning for commercial and industrial development. This is important so that cities have a commercial tax base and also so that residents have employment options without being forced into long commutes. This is one area where Lehi, and the northern end of Utah County in general have not traditionally done very well. Based on the plans I have seen from the city of Lehi I am hopeful that this situation will be remedied in the coming years.

I was planning to give a detailed breakdown of the Mountainland Association of Governments’ regional transportation plan, but I think this post is too long already so I’ll save that for another day.

Categories
culture life

Curbing Bad Behavior

I was troubled as I read Scott’s post about some of the ridiculous side effects of Zero Tolerance Policies in schools. I thought that served as one more example of thing I would rather not have my kids learn by going to public schools. Luckily for me, my kids have not started school yet and we can be aware of this issue and make decisions accordingly. Little did I think that similar problems would hit closer to home when my workday ended.

After arriving home I learned that two of the boys I work with in scouts were spreading some very malicious and graphic rumors about my next door neighbor – who also happens to be our primary babysitter. If I did not know her I would wonder if the story was entirely accurate. What they said was so hurtful that she wishes she could avoid church, school, and anywhere else that she might run into them.

I have known that one of these two boys has a tendency to pick on people around him but this was worse than I would have expected. The other boy is a bit younger, and was probably following where his friend led. I now wonder what I can or should do about this – besides making sure that the parents of these boys are told. I ask this from the perspective of wanting my neighbor to feel safe in her own neighborhood (not that they were making threats, but emotionally safe) and also what I can do as a scout leader to make sure the boys understand that this behavior is totally inappropriate.

I recognize that there is a certain element of “boys will be boys” to this, but the thing I have come to understand about that phrase is that it is no excuse for bad behavior. What it should mean is that we recognize that young people will make mistakes – that’s part of growing up through our teenage years – and that we should not give up on them when they do stupid things like this. What kind of leadership do we demonstrate if we do not take an active part in condemning their actions and expecting them to do better in the future?

Categories
culture

Exerting Ourselves

I ran 14 miles this morning. I got past 13.1 (half a marathon) in less than half of my desired marathon time. Three things came out of this run. First, my watch rubbed the skin off a small area of my wrist. Second, my body ached within minutes after I finished running – normally I feel fine until the next day after a long run. Third, I began to think about what it means to physically push ourselves to our limits.

I don’t really think I pushed myself to the limit today, but I certainly came closer than I have for a long time if ever. As I considered this though, two ideas struck me: our limits are personal and subject to change over time and our ancestors pushed themselves much more than we usually do. That second idea seemed more profound to me than the first, perhaps because I think we should be a little more like them. I’m not sure that the security of basic necessities that we generally face in this country makes us better or stronger.

Our ancestors worked so hard because they knew that if they slackened their efforts they ran the very real risk of coming up short on their basic needs. If you plant too late in spring you might not have enough crops to last you through winter. If you stayed in your warm house all winter you would have no ice to use in the summer. Not only did they have to work hard, but they had to work smart and plan ahead.

I will not argue that their life was better than ours overall, but I am confident that there are things we could learn and apply in our lives that they just lived even if they did not consciously know those principles that we have now largely lost.