Notes From All Over

15 Responses to Notes From All Over

1. Adam Greenwood on February 6, 2009 at 11:16 am

   Marc Bohn’s Reuters link has some problems.

   They refer to the Mormon Bible and say that missionaries aren’t allowed to have a first name.

   Not completely wrong, but not right either.

2. Bridget Jack Meyers on February 6, 2009 at 11:30 am

   My own mother passed away from pancreatic cancer in September of last year at the age of 51. I feel awful for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My prayers and deepest sympathies go out to her.

3. Frank McIntyre on February 6, 2009 at 11:48 am

   Adam, as a missionary, I donated my first name to the poor, but the poor didn’t want it.

   In Portuguese, the missionaries go by Elder. Unfortunately, Helder (silent H) is a first name, in Portugal anyway. The U.S. equivalent would be that, to those that knew little about us, we came across like a weirdo cult church where everybody went by the first name “Greg”.

   “Hi, I’m Greg McIntyre and this is Greg Jones, and we have a message to share with you…”

4. Adam Greenwood on February 6, 2009 at 11:56 am

   Joseph Smith was the first Greg of the Church. After you are baptized, you too can recieve the priesthood and be ordained a Greg.

5. John Mansfield on February 6, 2009 at 12:05 pm

   The SI article abouting recruiting Mormon football players exposed an interesting hypocrisy. Every now and then the complaints come up that because of missions, the BYU football team has older players, and that’s not fair. Yet it seems to be only recently that other coaches are coming to feel that for the sake of snagging an exceptional recruit, they can deal with the interruption of a mission. Why haven’t they been jumping at the chance to sign-up future missionaries all along to get a piece of that older-player advantage?

6. Adam Greenwood on February 6, 2009 at 12:17 pm

   Tyler Cowen doesn’t believe that conservatives are happier:
   http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/01/department-of-guffaw.html

7. Ben Pratt on February 6, 2009 at 1:01 pm

   Yeah, I just read the Reuters India article.

   Besides “the Mormon Bible” and the bit about first names of missionaries, I liked the mention of temple “restricted entry permits,” and “fundamentalist Mormons” (don’t those rascally Reuters reporters read the AP Style Guide?).

   I also loved that the writers pointed out that Diego Lacho is, in fact, a casino worker. LOL!

8. clark on February 6, 2009 at 2:09 pm

   John, BYU’s lost several promising recruits the last week or two. I think a lot more schools are finally actively recruiting Mormons. That plus the U’s big success this year is going to make recruiting that much harder for BYU I think. The honor code issues always were a big problem and I think the Church (wisely) wasn’t going to keep looking the other way they did in the 80′s and early 90′s for the excesses of football players.

   However the result will be that Bronco is going to have a real uphill battle for him.

9. Adam Greenwood on February 6, 2009 at 2:13 pm

   Many are claiming that this is the best BYU recruiting class ever, for what it’s worth.

10. Jeremiah J. on February 6, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Tyler Cowen is misrepresenting the research findings and doesn’t know much about political ideology and attitude research. Several studies have found that happiness, contentment, and a positive outlook on life are correlated with conservatism in the U.S.. Take, for example, this 2005 Pew Study:
    http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/242.pdf

    The Pew results are somewhat complex–it reports that very upbeat, positive people, AND very cynical, disaffected people tend to be Republicans. But there are more upbeat people so there’s a net upbeat correllation with the GOP. There’s also a segment of the population that’s economically vulnerable and dissatisfied with their situtation, and very liberal-leaning for standard reasons.

    The distinction between liberals who are frustrated with the continuing injustice of the world and conservatives who have come to terms with fallenness seems to focus exclusively on people who are very socially aware, very politically connected and who base their contentment on stuff like who is in the White House and how the Arab-Israeli conflict is going. It should go without saying that this is a minority of the American population. Most people base their contentment on their own situation, including work, family, and friends.

    “Many are claiming that this is the best BYU recruiting class ever, for what it’s worth.”

    That’s right–BYU almost never gets guys who are top ten at their position, and I saw two or three.

    Manti Te’o just made my week. The number of LDS people at USC was slowly alienating me from my fellow saints.

11. Adam Greenwood on February 6, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Manti Te’o just made my week. The number of LDS people at USC was slowly alienating me from my fellow saints.

    Hear, hear.

12. Kaimi on February 6, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    I think everyone should click on the link that Marc put up for Rick’s birthday.

13. queuno on February 6, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    Many are claiming that this is the best BYU recruiting class ever, for what it’s worth.

    So they can still lose to superior opponents thanks to lack of speed and bad coaching and a lack of poise, but by not as much?

14. Alison Moore Smith on February 8, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Marc, I have no idea what Rick Astley has to do with T&S, but it was very nostalgic. Just loved him back in my college days. Still remember when I fist saw one of his videos on MTV. Couldn’t believe he was a short, red-headed white boy. I pictured him looking like Nat King Cole, since that’s what he sounded like to me with his deep, rich voice.

15. Douglas Hunter on February 9, 2009 at 1:04 am

    I made it into the T&S sidebar, who would have thunk it?