Listen, Mr. Bilbo

I learn something new every day. I just learned from the comments to this thoughtful, well-written, and itself informative editorial that illegal immigration is a civil offense, not a criminal one. Therefore, the statement that illegal immigrants are criminals is false. They can be fined or imprisoned for evading immigration, but it's a civil statute, not a criminal one.

The responses to the editorial are about as virulent and bigoted as you'd expect--people in Utah are no better at treating undocumented immigrants with respect than people in the rest of the country, the pleas of our leaders notwithstanding. What's sad is that people seem to have no idea that they are acting in just as bigoted a manner as their predecessors 150 years ago.

Porcelain

I've decided that my motivation must be something like El Nino--periodically I get motivated, work hard, get things done, and feel much satisfaction with my job, leading to even more motivation and hard work. (During an El Nino year the East Pacific warms, shutting down upwelling and causing stronger easterlies, which push more warm water into the East Pacific.) Nice example of positive feedback. Unfortunately, there's also positive feedback for the opposite motivation state, in which I lack motivation, don't work hard, don't accomplish much, and find my scarce motivation slipping further and further. Wish I knew how to get into the other motivation state more easily.

Pure Morning

My grandma Mimi sent me the coolest thing last week--a bag with "Well-behaved women seldom make history" emblazoned across it. I took it with me to church and only a couple of people noticed it, but both thought it was great. The phrase is the title of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's newest book, which I lent to Mimi after reading it myself. I bought the book after listening to her on the Diane Rehm show, which I was directed to by a blog post on this post at times and seasons. Listening to her speak was fascinating--her voice has the cadence of a General Relief Society President speaking in General Conference, but her words were definitely not those of your typical RS president. I loved the book, especially the last chapter, where Ulrich talks about her involvement in the Exponent II and the women's movement in the 70's. It's a pretty easy read and full of women who are definitely worthy of remembrance, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich especially!

I know that my Redeemer lives

I don't usually cry over people I've never met, but today, right now, I can't stop the tears streaming down my cheeks, nor do I want to. I am glad I'm watching President Hinkley's funeral alone.

President Hinkley was a great man. Still is, though in spirit form, of course. He, over his lifetime, has done so much to shape the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints into what it is today. I have been touched by the many tributes to his accomplishments, from his first assignment after his mission, rewriting missionary materials, and later work updating teaching and publicity materials; establishment of the Perpetual Education Fund to interrupt the cycle of poverty for those members living in third-world nations; the establishment of 124 functioning temples across the world (the 125 to be dedicated this month), and the acquisition and restoration of many sites important in church history; to his many writings and his eternal optimism. He has done so much, so tirelessly, and with such humility that I know I didn't comprehend how much of an impact he's had.

Just a few reactions while watching the coverage of the funeral and graveside service--I love the story Elder Tingey just told about Pres. Hinkley taking the stairs--that's classic! Walking down the hall, cane clicking along, and right past the open elevator to climb the stairs to his office. I'm glad he's shared the sentiment Pres. Hinkley shared with him, asking, Have you remembered the person who is struggling?

It's an amazingly beautiful day in Salt Lake, with a clear blue sky and clean white snow dusting the ground. Very appropriate.

I will just quote this one statement among many that I think encapsulates the message of Pres. Hinkley's Earthly life.

“The time has come for us to stand a little taller, to lift our eyes and stretch our minds to a greater comprehension and understanding of the grand millennial mission of this, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
( Conference Report, Apr. 1995, 95.)

Go with peace, President Hinkley. We love you and will miss you.

Jumper

When I was a little girl I remember loving to watch the Miss America pageant. In fact, the opening scene in Little Miss Sunshine, where Olive is watching the pageant and rehearsing the signature wave is a disturbingly nostalgic moment for me to watch. I, too, wanted to win a pageant and be a Beauty Queen when I was a little girl. But much like Olive, I didn't have what it took, even if I'd had the support of a druggie grandfather and absent-minded parents. By the time I was a pre-teen I'd figured out that I would never be tall enough or beautiful enough to be a beauty queen and turned my efforts to other pursuits.

That said, I still like to watch sometimes. It's fun to see beautiful women competing to see who is the most beautiful (whatever that really means). I really wish I had TV this season, though, to watch the TLC's Miss America: Reality check. I'm glad the pageant organizers aren't taking it too seriously. Of course, there are some who aren't happy about the satire, like Lois Elaine Smith-Zoll.

"I want them to be professional ladies," said Lois Elaine Smith-Zoll, a 70-year-old pageant volunteer from Vancouver, Washington, with 41 years of judging behind her. "They are mocking the old system. This young woman is going to represent our country, we want to be proud of her."

I can understand the desire to want the contestants to be ladies, and I am definitely glad that they take the position of role-model seriously. Really, though, if you want these young women to remain relevant to the tweens and teens of today, you're going to have to make them hip and cool, and a little more edgy. Decorum is great, but the young women of today need someone they'd like to hang out with, not just admire from a distance.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I'm just going to come out and say this: as depressing as global warming is, I'm not that worried about it. Sure, corals are screwed, though some hardier species will probably survive and replace those we loose; significant, heavily populated portions of the world will probably be made unliveable through flooding or intensification of droughts, including low-lying areas of Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian countries through flooding and the Southwestern US through drought; and it's likely that some amount of upheaval will accompany the changes in climate that are coming. We're going to see a couple of degrees of warming even if we stop emitting CO2 right now--completely--which may be enough to trigger some of the smaller, less-severe problems global warming poses (particularly the spread of disease). If we choose to try and mitigate global warming by throwing tons of sulfur dioxide aerosols into the stratosphere (where acid rain fallout is less of a concern) we'll have to shoot the equivalent of hundreds of buses worth of sulfur dioxide at least 10 km into the atmosphere and all along the equator, or we'll risk all the warming we would have seen happening even faster than it's happening now. CO2 capture is thermodynamically possible, but will require huge amounts of energy to implement, decreasing the efficiency of all power plants that employ it.

And yet, I'm not worried. The cynical side of me says that's because if I really cared, it would be debilitating.

This article by Jared Diamond points out that the level of consumption of resources is a huge problem, and one that we could at least mitigate if we were to cooperate more effectively in using resources in a sustainable manner and in conservation efforts. This sort of thinking gives me hope that we can find solutions to looming environmental problems, if we can be reasonable and think critically and hard about what we really value as a society. I suspect the same thing is true when it comes go CO2 emissions and global warming. We really are at some point going to have to confront the environmental problems our American lifestyle generates; the question is whether we will do it willingly and clean up our act before we are forced to, or whether we will wait until we have no choice and suffer the hardships that will certainly result. I hope as a society we're smart enough to choose the former option rather than the latter.

Global Cooling

'Cause I'm sick of typing this every time someone brings up global cooling, here's the standard response:

Global cooling–Byproduct of sulfur emissions and incomplete understanding of Milankovitch cycles. Sulfur dioxide creates aerosols that reflect solar radiation back out to space, thus cooling the atmosphere. Starting in the 40’s, global temperatures dropped because of the presence of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere, mostly from burning high-sulfur coal in power plants without scrubbers. Scientists were also coming to accept and find evidence of Milankovitch cycles in climate about the same time, and it was noted that the Holocene (which we are in now) is a few thousand years longer than previous interglacial periods. Understanding the the climate is largely controlled by solar insolation, thinking that at least based on the previous length of interglacials we must be heading into a glacial period soon, and noticing the downtick in global temperatures, some people came to the conclusion we would soon find ourselves in a glacial period. Better simulations of orbital dynamics have subsequently shown the Holocene has lasted longer because of a fortunate confluence of orbital parameters, and has shown that the Holocene, even without Anthropogenic greenhouse gases, would last a few thousand years more. Concerns over acid rain led to controls on sulfur emissions, which then decreased the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, which is why we now see the impact of CO2 in the instrumental record.

Incidentally, if you don’t think we puny humans can really influence the atmosphere, here’s a good exampe of us actually doing so.