From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #803 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Thursday, August 15 2002 Volume 01 : Number 803 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 08:08:18 -0700 From: The Laird Jim Subject: Re: [AML] High School Literature Curriculum on 8/12/02 5:03 PM, Cathy Wilson at cgileadi@emerytelcom.net wrote: > So . . .what would you have them read? > > Thank you so much. > > Cathy Wilson > I believe that they would be best served not by a life-changing book that has answers they need to hear but rather by reading anything at all. It would be best to choose books that are easy, fun, and captivating. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Louis Lamour wrote very short books that are often a lot of fun, and the language is not the sort of thing that's usually forced on kids like that miserable _To Kill a Mockingbird_. Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_ is another good one, or anything by Robert Louis Stevenson but particularly _Treasure Island_. This is a boy's list, of course. Though I love them myself you might have a hard time convincing boys to read Jane Austen or LM Montgomery, but it wouldn't be so hard to get girls to read them. I think they would do your boys every bit as much good, but Jane Austen has no action and Montgomery's books are all pastels and pretty paintings and so probably would be judged by the cover. I never stopped reading when I was a kid but I never liked any book that was assigned me in school. Besides the above mentioned "classic," I also had to read Woolf's idiotic _Three Guineas_, several of bad jokes by Hemingway, Steinbeck and Faulkner, _Billy Bud_, _The Scarlet Letter_, _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_, etc. I'd give anything to have that time back now. I've read most of them again since my school days, on the off chance that I was just too immature to understand them. With the exception of _Billy Bud_ I dislike most of them more now than I did then. Getting a kid to start wanting to explore is worth all the enforced learning in the world. One of my brothers never read much of anything in school, and "hated" reading because of what they forced him to read. When he got older he discovered that he loved reading, and his favorite book now is _The Brothers Karamazov_. If somebody had encouraged him to read anything he might've learned that much sooner. I tried, but I never had much patience and failed. Don't torture the poor kiddies, show them that the world is a much brighter and bigger place they'd ever imagine alone. Jim Wilson aka The Laird Jim - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 11:14:48 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Brigham's Theater A few resources: =20 My student, Nola Smith, wrote her doctoral dissertation on Nauvoo Theatre, = which is quite outstanding. Brigham Young even acted in one play in = Nauvoo, playing, as I recall, an Aztek priest in a popular melodrama of = the day, Pizarro. (When I get that time machine built, my first trip is = to Nauvoo to see that production.) There are a couple of books on the = Salt Lake Theatre, both flawed, but the BYU library Special Collections = has several better sources, including a listing of all plays done at the = SLT. =20 The Salt Lake Theatre repertoire was very conventional, including most of = the popular hits of the day. Brigham Young even called folks on missions = to go to New York and London, see everything, and buy plays for the Salt = Lake company. (If the Church were to revive that missionary calling, I'd = be reluctantly willing to serve in that capacity.) So what you saw were a = lot of melodramas, a few sentimental comedies, and probably a smattering = of variety acts. Brigham Young actively discouraged playwriting by the = Saints, and the Salt Lake Theatre did very few new plays by LDS playwrights= ; less than five, as I recall, none of them very successful or popular. = However, it's worth noting that Juanita Brooks includes in her book on the = Mountain Meadows Massacre a most intriguing footnote, suggesting that a = play was performed in St. George just before the attack. The title of = that play is suggestive: Haun's Mill. I haven't been able to find = anything more about it, nor has a copy of the playscript surfaced, and = I've been looking for ten years. If anyone has info, I'd be grateful. The mid to late nineteenth century was, of course, a great era for = melodrama. Brigham Young disliked what he called 'tragedy,' but certainly = saw most of the popular plays of Shakespeare in good productions. The Salt = Lake Company included a few professional actors who had joined the Church, = and the acting standard at the company is said to have been very high. So = what did Brigham mean by 'tragedy?' Did he mean Richard III, or Hamlet = (both of which were performed at the SLT)? His comments about 'tragedy' = are a bit puzzling, because very few popular plays of his day were what we = would call 'tragedies.' In context, his comments may have been a reaction = against the Gothic melodramatic tradition which saw a strong revival in = the 1860's and '70's. Or it could be he was referring to those few = melodramas in which the heroine (never the hero), dies. Bless the = decadent French, for La Dame aux Camellias and Le Demi-Monde, two Dumas = fils plays of the period, in which this happens. =20 After the joining of the railroads, Salt Lake was a popular whistlestop = for touring companies headed to California. The SLT became largely a road = house, which meant in practical terms that most of the greatest performers = of the nineteenth century, including Edwin Booth, Lily Langtry, Enrico = Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt and Joseph Jefferson, all performed for the = Saints. I haven't been able to discover if Eleanora Duse performed in = SLC, but it's not unlikely. Still, for all its reputation as a backwater, = by the last two decades of the nineteeth century, a resident of Salt Lake = would have had the opportunity to see professional theatre at a standard = New York or London would hardly have exceeded. And by then we also had = begun to develop our own local performers, people like Phillip Margetts = (who we at BYU named our most important theater after and whose name we = consistently mispronounce--it should rhyme with 'targets'), who alternated = between performing as second lead to superstars in Salt Lake and touring = up and down the Wabash front with his own company.=20 A definitive book on this subject is badly needed, and I expect will be = forthcoming from Nola Smith, who is currently the top scholar in this = area. Nola's dissertation is available, and is outstanding. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 15:20:58 -0400 From: Tony Markham Subject: Re: [AML] Revelation and Style What we seem to have are two accounts of the 1978 Revelation that differ in fairly important ways. McConkie certainly implies that words were spoken and a voice was heard. Hinckley certainly implies that no words were spoken and a voice was not heard. I am struck by the irony of the exact same thing happening @ 2,000 years earlier when Saul was on the road to Damascus and got his revelation. Acts 9:7: "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." But then later on in a different version of the same revelation we read in Acts 22: 9: "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid: but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me." So which is it? Did they hear the voice or didn't they? Luckily the discrepancy in Acts was reconciled by the JST when JS emended Acts 9:7 and finally set the record straight. But today, there remains some confusion about what happened in 1978, did they hear a voice or didn't they? Oh, if only we had a text, and then the prophet could set the record straight with the stroke of a pen. I don't know why I'm bothered by this, but it bugs me on an irrational level. Usually when that happens it's on the order of a prompting. I'd like to let something go, but on a level that passeth understanding, I'm not supposed to. So I keep chewing on whatever it is until I learn what I'm supposed to learn. I think it has something to do with "My house is a house of order," and this whole affair of the '78 OD has been handled sloppily from the get go. The original ban was sloppy, persisting in the practice was sloppy, and letting go of the practice was sloppy. And it remains a messy, confused corner in a house of order. Tony Markham - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 16:42:58 -0400 From: cathrynlane@cs.com Subject: Re: [AML] High School Literature Curriculum "The Outsiders" was a book that just blew me away as a teen but when I recomended it to my own teen children they didn't have any sort of connection with it. Has anyone else experienced recomending it to teens (plain as well as deliquent) and what were their reactions? It was really the "in" book among my very undeliquent teen group a million years ago. I wonder if it doesn't wear well. Cathryn Lane - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 08:59:08 -0600 From: Lynette Jones Subject: [AML] Invoking Emotions (was: "Choose the Rock") I would love to be involved in a verbal discussion on this matter. Being involved in music all my life, I am much better at the topics discussed on this list by verbal means than this effort to be coherent in my writing. But the discussions are what I am hungry for. Being at home and not having access to any of this stuff from my family makes me really hungry, enough to try to use written words which are a great stumbling stone for me. (I really should be doing family book work instead). I have often been lectured by BYU professors at the BYU music conference that the very key that music is written in sets the emotional tone of the piece. The Greeks apparently had this down to a science, but I have not yet found where to get that information. I have also noticed that a person can get very different emotions from a piece of music than others around them. So, the profusion of music and musical styles. Music has been used to move masses. But to avoid anarchy and chaos, it has required a clear message with the use of words understood by the audience or mass. This is where the published word and spoken word have tremendous effect. I listened to some music as a teen at church dances that I really indulged in. Now, my teenage children tell me how mortifying it is to hear that music, especially when they understand the words. They tell me the words and I really do a 180. Little do these precious children know how I use to dance to such music. But then, they don't dance. They have had nothing but KBYU and a little bit of jazz and a few tastes of country and gospel since birth at home. My oldest, who heard a lot of the rock and roll, before I went into severe depression upon moving to Utah, loves to dance. Now back to depression and anger. I wonder if depression, like anger, is not really an emotion, but like Pres. Young said of anger, a form of insanity. In fact, some psychologists will say that anger is a state we achieve when we do not deal with frustration or fear properly. I have found that I can alter the physical well being of my body and control whether I am able to deal with frustration, fear, stress (worry) and sadness without anger or depression. I wonder if the term insanity should let us know that there is something wrong with the health of our bodies. In fact, is that not why we can control those two states, anger and depression with chemicals, physical exercise, or as I have found, with what I consume. I found that when I was severely depressed, that I had very powerful spiritual experiences. These were what led me to answers on healing my depression without chemical dependance. I found the best way to receive answers (spiritual experiences) at that point in my life was by the still small voice held up to a standard of daily reading from the Book of Mormon. I was desperate for those spiritual experiences. I was very aware at that time, as I try to be always, that Satan can imitate all spiritual experiences. Moses gives us a good standard and there are many others to measure our own spiritual experiences by. I have been experimenting with emotions since I noticed the statements on this list about strong emotions not necessarily being spiritual experiences. I am finding that I am trying to define what a spiritual experience really is. Anyone have a quote or a definition that really works for them? I know that I have emotions which are deeply tied to these spiritual experiences. I know that the Sorenson brothers list about 16 ways the spirit testifies to us in "Spiritual Survival for the Last Days". (That was really the only useful thing I got out of that book). I think I need to go back and read that list again and study out the scriptures that list hunger, joy, peace and stupor of thought as spiritual answers. Are those not emotions? Well, I guess, I might need to go back to the basics. We are taught in psychology that there are only two emotions, love and fear. So even hate is an expression of fear? Can hate be an expression of love? Hm-m-m that would be a stretch. Now then, can we have horror stories written by Latter-day Saints? I have a daughter who is a good writer and loves reading horror. She is truly desensitized to things that I am horrified by. So we talk about it, but have not found a common ground yet. I have wondered at the murder mysteries by Anne Perry which I have read. I finally had to just walk away from them. There is however, an audience for such things. It seems to me that most popular literature that is successful takes us through a whole series of emotions. They play on our emotions and common experiences. Even what is now classical literature indulges in such, once it gets past the layers of description which sets the stage for the emotions the author wants us to feel. Is not the way to sway folks? Do not most authors, by presenting truths and arousing emotions, good or evil about those truths? Is that not what "War and Peace" does? What about "The Christmas Carol", or "Treasure Island"? What about Plato and Buddha? They too, present truths and play on our emotions to explore the conclusions that these men want us to come to. Our emotions are tied to our most basic needs. Is it in fact, the lack of emotional exploration that makes scriptures "dry" and hard to stay awake through? By being "neutral," of emotion in most ways, the scriptures are able to reach more people. I find that I must take the things I read from most any author and lift it up to the teachings of the gospel to cut through the conclusions of the authors and the emotions they create in their story telling to discover how close they are to the gospel. It seems to me the gospel is not just a collection of truths, but a clear guide on how to use those truths. Perhaps the battle between good and evil is not always a battle to prove something true as much as the proof that a certain application of a truth is the true one, meaning the one that will bring the individual true joy. I digress . . . . The book work is done and this looks like it should be several different topics Lynette Jones - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 15:13:56 -0700 From: "Jeff Needle" Subject: RE: [AML] Sunstone Panel on Missionaries Returning Early Some years ago I did a session on "How Wide the Divide?" with Dave Combe. That session was also covered by Deseret News, and they did a pretty fair job of it. I wish I'd kept a copy of the article. Perhaps it's on line. - ----------------------- Jeff Needle jeff.needle@general.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 16:57:13 -0700 From: "Richard R. Hopkins" Subject: Re: [AML] Revelation and Style Tony Markham wrote: > I am struck by the irony of the exact same thing happening @ 2,000 years earlier > when Saul was on the road to Damascus and got his revelation. > > Acts 9:7: "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a > voice, but seeing no man." > > But then later on in a different version of the same revelation we read in Acts > 22: 9: "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid: but > they heard not the voice of him that spake to me." > > So which is it? Did they hear the voice or didn't they? There are no contradictions in the original Greek. Acts 22:9 that says those with him saw the light, but we learn from Acts 9:7 that they didn't see a man. In similar fashion, we learn from Acts 9:7 that those who were with Paul heard a voice, but what Acts 22:9 says in the Greek is that they did not *understand* the voice they heard. Richard Hopkins - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 16:06:13 -0700 From: "Susan Malmrose" Subject: Re: [AML] High School Literature Curriculum I loved the Outsiders as a young teen, too. I must've read it a hundred times. Of course, one of the reasons I loved it so was that the author was only 16 when it was written--and her name is Susie. :) I don't know any teens today who've read it, so can't directly answer your question, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the other SE Hinton books might be more popular with today's teens. Rumblefish might be better. Just to throw out some other books I enjoyed as a teenager: And I Don't Want to Live This Life by Deborah Spungen (The story of Nancy Spungen, who was murdered by her boyfriend, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. Written by Nancy's mother.) Ordinary People by Judith Guest 45 Mercy Street by Anne Sexton (poetry) I really loved depressing stuff. If you're looking for something fun, then I'd suggest the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :) Susan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 18:03:21 -0600 From: "Paris Anderson" Subject: Re: [AML] Revelation and Style "Tony Markham" wrote: > McConkie certainly implies that words were spoken and a voice was heard. > Hinckley certainly implies that no words were spoken and a voice was not heard. > So which is it? Did they hear the voice or didn't they? This really doesn't matter, but there is a metaphysical counterpart to each of the senses, such as second sight, second touch, second hearing . . .. Each of these is considered a gift. Perhaps the difference can be explained this way. There were two different observers reporting on what they each observed. Each had different gifts through which they detect the spirit world, as different people often do. Each reported honestly. To me differing accounts is a stronger testimony. Paris Anderson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:55:07 -0600 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: Re: [AML] Institutional Repentance >Perhaps that > revelation had to wait for a time when people's hearts were in place, both > within and without the church, that it could be implemented without > endangering the greater mission of getting the church established. > I have a tough time understanding this explanation. All other churches had addressed the race issue for at least a decade before we did. We were in fact the last church to fully integrate. The rest of the religious world's hearts seemed to have been "in place" well before ours was. > I tend to lean this direction, myself. I can believe that rather than the rank and file needing to have their hearts in the right place, that it was the leaders whose ideas about social change needed to get up to speed. Not because they were necessarily racist but because it takes time for a church as heirarchal as ours to ramp up to societal change. In most societal changes that most of us now accept, the Church was at least a decade (and in some cases, two decades) behind society at large. For example, when the rest of the world was accepting the working woman, the Church was still preaching stay at home mothers. Working mothers as being acceptable has only recently become acceptable in this decade under President Hinkeley. > Whenever I hear someone saying that > the Church bowed to political pressure with the civil rights movement on the > priesthood issue, I can't help but think, "and who do you think got the > civil rights movement going in the first place?" You would never have known it at the time. Some high-level Church leaders were teaching that the Civil Rights movement was a Communist plot. >I'm sure the Lord had his > hand in it, and I think it was a way of preparing the world and members of > the Church to accept the future change in policy. I know of at least one man > who was great in many ways but raised very racist. He couldn't have handled > the change--and I imagine many otherwise great church leaders and members > would have fallen away had the ban been lifted decades earlier simply > because of attitudes at the time. It is my opinion that the rank and file of the church was ready for the priesthood change at least fifteen years before it was introduced. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 22:06:36 -0500 (CDT) From: Rich Hammett Subject: Re: [AML] High School Literature Curriculum From: harlowclark@juno.com >The first thing that comes to mind is _I Am the Cheese_ by Robert >Cormier, interesting thriller, and they might respond well to the sense >of paranoia. As a side note, there is a recent "anniversary" edition of _I Am the Cheese_ in our local library, and it contains a brief forward in which Cormier describes how he wrote the book. I won't even try to paraphrase what I read a week ago, before my 3000 mile driving weekend, but the book makes more sense to me when I see how he constructed it. rich - -- \ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett / rhammett@HiWAAY.net "Better the pride that resides / in a citizen of the world; \ than the pride that divides / when a colorful rag is unfurled." - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 21:29:39 -0600 From: Cathy Wilson Subject: Re: [AML] High School Literature Curriculum These were all such good responses and so varied that they gave me much to think about. I get to do some choosing (with a partner teacher) in the next few weeks, and will get back to you on how we did. Cathy Wilson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 05:22:35 +0000 From: "Carrie Pruett" Subject: [AML] Re: High School Literature Curriculum This may sound like a joke, but my sister-in law taught "troubled" teens, I think at about an eighth or ninth grade level, and had them absolutely captivated by the Harry Potter books. She read out loud to them during an afternoon break period, and one of her most effective disciplinary methods earlier in the day was to threaten NOT to read Harry that afternoon. . . There have been several mentions of "Ender's Game," but personally I found the book very distasteful; I enjoy a lot of dark and violent works but I felt like I needed a shower after this one. I know it does appeal to a lot of teens and adults but I'd at least recommend prescreening it and not assuming it's okay because it's by an LDS author. I'm just thinking out loud; I've never taught teens and I wasn't very tuned in to what my peers were reading at that age; I went in big for Jane Austen and Scott Fitzgerald in the 9th grade but I doubt that's typical. Frankly, I don't remember particularly liking anything I was assigned to read in high school, and I was an "accelerated" student; I think the nature of being assigned makes it tough. . . It does seem that teens take more readily to genre fiction than "classics" but I wonder if that has something to do with not having it forced down their throat. I'm thinking about the mystery genre - would teens read Raymond Chandler or does he feel too dated? I've got no idea but this was certainly popular fiction in its day and there are worse places to learn clear prose than "The Big Sleep." That said, I don't think you can go wrong with To Kill a Mockingbird. I think Orwell's "Animal Farm" and/or "1984" might go over well, sort of straddling the scifi/lit margin; also Asimov or Bradbury. Consider including authors of various minority backgrounds - I don't want to be either overly PC or to assume that troubled kids are more likely to be minorities, I just think it's something that's particularly important for young people of any background. Tony Cade Bambara, Sandra Cisneros, and Junot Diaz are a few relatively contemporary ones that I've read recently, though I'm not sure I can speak to their appropriateness for teens. I never had much luck with LDS oriented youth fiction (I know the question wasn't specifically about church oriented material but this brings the subject to mind). I do remember reading a couple of marvelous stories in the New Era by a writer named Donald Smurthwaite (??) or something like that. In the late 80s/early 90s I guess since that's when I would have been reading the New Era I never found anything else by him; the church was mentioned in the stories but was fairly peripheral to basic issues about family and general "good values," so I'm not sure if the author was LDS or not. Though I was a little old for them when I discovered them (don't know when they were first published), I was also very impressed with the "Tennis Shoes among the Nephites" series -Book of Mormon fantasy/time travel theme. I liked the fact that the protagonist actually drank a beer (or smoked or something, I can't remember) in the beginning of the first book and the family's reaction was portrayed realistically, somewhat comically. It was the first time I'd read of such an event in an LDS story where the kid didn't end up getting in a drunk driving accident or suffering other dire consequences in the next 2 pages. carrie __ Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked - Jane Austen _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 01:11:03 -0700 From: harlowclark@juno.com Subject: Re: [AML] Programs for Poverty On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 17:59:40 -0600 Jacob Proffitt writes, replying to my comment: [Me] > > I can think of two very good examples, micro-credit lending and > > the Perpetual Education Fund. A year ago this spring I went > > to the dentist before my newly laid off dental benefits > > expired. I wondered whether to take Martin Cruz Smith's > > Stallion Gate or Muhammad Yunus's Banker to the Poor in with me. [Jacob] > Two wonderful programs. Again, though, my point is that the key to > aping poverty isn't the program, but the change of heart. And I'm > rethinking that point, really. I mean that might be well and good > in the United States, but I think both the Perpetual Education Fund > and micro-loans are good examples of programs that depend first > on people changing themselves, then leverages their determination to > lift themselves out of poverty. I'm fairly sure Muhammad Yunus would disagree with you. He does spend a lot of time talking about changing hearts and minds, the hearts and minds of the wealthy bankers and international aid organizations. That's the point of his statement that It's not people who are uncreditworthy it's banks who are unpeopleworthy. The poor already have the desire to get out of poverty, and the mindset, and the skills, what they need is the money to finance their businesses. And it's a very small amount they need, so small that bankers won't lend it to them, because the loan is not large enough to generate enough interest to interest the bankers. I don't know what Pres. Hinckley would think about the idea that the PEF "depends first on people changing themselves," because when he announced the program he said nothing about that. He talked instead about a problem confronting the Church, that a significant number of missionaries were getting significant training as leaders and teachers but were unable to use it because when they got home they went back into deep poverty and spent their engeries trying to fight against their poverty, with no means to get out of it. That is, he presented the program as an answer to the problem, 'How can the Church best help these people put to use the skills and inclinations and experience they already have?' > In other words, it seems to me that the people couldn't escape > poverty without the programs and can with them. That indicates > an inability to leave poverty without that aid. Pretty convincing. > I think it's less applicable for those of us who live in the > United States, but it certainly undermines my fundamental > argument that programs *can't* be key in the process. This is one of the things I love about AML-List, seeing people with opposite positions moving closer together. > The right attitude has to exist--that's crucial and without it > no program is going to be successful. I agree, but my point, and Yunus's, is that poverty is not a result of having the wrong attitude. Yunus has a wonderful comment about how the poor are more fiscally responsible than the rich. Grameen Bank has a 98% repayment rate, something banks for the rich can't even approach, because the poor realize that repaying the loan is their hope of getting more loans and working themselves out of poverty. The rich don't have that deep a stake in repaying their loans. If disaster strikes they can decleare bankruptcy. Grameen almost never forgives loans, even if natural disaster strikes. Instead, the bank organizes lending groups in villages, and doesn't loan to anyone in the group until there are five members who will all take out loans and give the moral support and peer pressure that helps the loan get repaid. Each lending group sets up a fund and when there's a disaster they draw on that fund to help the disaster-stricken member continue payments. He has a passage about a woman who suffered a whole string of floods and other disasters and is currently on her 12th Grameen loan. > But I'm thinking that there are instances where the right > attitude is not enough and some outside assistance is needed. I'm > relatively confident that such assistance is not needed in the U.S. > with our higher wages and existing infrastructure, but since my > fundamental argument needs amendment, I'm not opposed to > amending further. The problem with the higher wages and infrastructure is a much higher cost of living. Grameen Bank recently added a program to finance home building. The loan is $300, which won't even rent a studio apartment in Pleasant Grove for a month. Right now we have two homeless people living in our basement, just as my parents had three homeless people living in their basement 10 years ago, until my mother said one day, "It's time for you to buy a house. You've got a job and Matthew is almost two years old and doesn't need four adults telling him what to do." Sarah and David are staying with us because our bp, who has helped so much with David Jr.'s tragedy, thinks they ought to be back in the ward, and there are no apartments available yet, but when one opens up it will rent for about $650/month--twice what Donna and I were paying in expensive Seattle 12 years ago--and more than 50% again the house payment we were able to set up with my parents' help. And these aren't really spectacularly nice apartments--it's hard to find something for much less in PG. > One fundamental I *will* hold on to is that any program that > desires to help the poor escape poverty needs to be down in the > trenches with them, understand the situation thoroughly, Yunus would agree completely. He talks a lot about how he recruits borrowers by going into their homes, and how borrowers become part of Grameen staff since there are cultural strictures in Bangladesh against men visiting women who are married to other men. Grameen also works with borrowers to help them understand that giving economic power to women does not violate Islam. Yunus has some pungent comments about how international aid agencies like work, and how and why he resists The World Bank. >and bring motivation and attitude into the decision-making process Again, Yunus would disagree with this, except to the extent that Grameen targets women, on the premise that the fastest way to raise the standard of living in a family is to give economic power to the people who give primary care to the children. He sometimes has to convince women that it's ok for them to have economic power, but they already have the motivation and skills (Yunus is adamant on these two points) to pull themselves out of poverty. In the second half of the post Jacob replied to some comments I made about a posting he made June 6 in the Money Matters thread. > Well, not an entirely inappropriate message. Whether you're a > doctor, lawyer, brick layer, convenience store clerk, computer > programmer, whatever, it's by far best to have no debt at all > and invest as much as you can. > > I replied: > Anyway, after thinking about all these big corporations > cooking or half-cooking their books, words about the virtues > of investing all you can seem a little naive, and I keep > remembering the adage, 'Don't invest more than you can afford > to lose.' and Jacob clarified: > "Real" investing means allocating your money wisely. After debts > debts are paid and needed living expenses, some money should go > to savings for liquidity in emergencies. Some should go to planned > future expenses. All of it should be engaged with a goal in mind and > placed accordingly. Money is a big part of our lives and I've come > to assume that God means us to learn essential lessons from things > that large. Personally, I think the lessons involved (in learning how > money works) concern overcoming ignorance, fear, and/or greed. > Overcoming ignorance, fear, and greed is hard, but required by > wise stewardship. As such, our financial decisions should be > based on our understanding, our future needs, and our current > assets. Thanks for the clarification. > Not being able to make a living, or having to undergo the costs > of training for another career might very well be bad enough to > offset the bad of having some additional debt. Maybe. My main > point is that we acknowledge that debt is bad and that we not > make financial decisions in ignorance or based on fear or greed. I agree with the second point, but why is debt bad? There's a very strong literary connection here and it would do us some good to ponder it. In his final address to his people King Benjamin spends considerable time teaching them that they are not even as much as the dust of the earth (because they were created out of dust and aren't greater than the material they came from)--not because he wants them to think of themselves as lowly worms, but because he wants them to stop looking down upon beggars. The motif of the beggar is prominent throughout the discourse, with Benjamin pointing out at the end that they have all been begging God for a remission of their sins, and God has granted their petition. There's also a motif of debt in the sermon. In Mosiah 2:22-24 Benjamin tells them that they are indebted to God for their very lives and bodies, and can never repay the debt because every time they do something good God immediately blesses them, keeping them, and all of us perpetually indebted to God. If debt is bad is bad then this subordinate, indebted relationship to God is a bad relationship. I've often thought a capitalist might read Benjamin's address and say, "Ah, that's God's way of keeping us in subjection." Indeed, I've long thought of creating a character who rejects the missionary lessons when he reads this because he doesn't want to be in debt to God. I think he's someone like Jim and Tammy Fae Bakker who believes that wealth is a gift from God to lift us closer to Him and His Absolutely Spectacular Lifestyle (lifestyles of the really rich and famous--more famous than John, Paul, George, and Ringo combined), and he just can't accept the idea that God would keep him an eternal debtor. Or maybe Satan would say that. I caught snatches of the Satan Figures thread, and it occurred to me that Satan, being very subtile would not want to make a stark comparison between his way and Jesus's and would probably present his as a way that preserves more freedom than Jesus's. Under Jesus's plan we have to choose to be saved, but that means we don't have the freedom to choose not to be saved. Satan would say that his plan preserves freedom because we don't have to give up our freedom to choose B when we choose A instead. I'm working (sort of) on an epic fantasy about the voyage of Adam, Eve and Methuselah around the world to invite all A&E's children to a huge family reunion. Adam and Eve use the travel time to teach Methusaleh, who grew up in an apostate family, his true family history, often in the form of short epic poems. The retelling of Job is in the AML-List archives. If you want to read it, drop me a note. A second literary connection here, but first let me say that I areee with Jacob "that too many people aren't sufficiently aware of the price of debt. The payments *seem* to be small and the benefits seem large." I agree that we spend many dollars we don't have on things we don't need. I also think one of the virtues of micro-credit is the micro part, loans large enough to do what people need but small enough they can be paid off in small regular payments in a year or less. On Talk of the Nation yesterday (Aug 8) Neil Conan (the non-barbarian) asked "How will you commemmorate Sept. 11?" And one of the things I'm going to do is think about this question: If your neighbor had just been murdered would you go to your neighbor's family and say, "The best thing you can do in response is spend a grundle of money, because if you don't the murderers have won." So if I agree that debt is too much a part of our national life why do I resist so strongly the idea that debt is bad? And I think the answer to that question is literary. "A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit," Jesus said, and I interpret that to mean that something whose essence is bad can't produce good results, but I believe that the results of both micro-credit lending and the Perpetual Education Fund are good, indeed very good, and if they are good, how can the tool that produces them, well-managed debt, be bad? Indeed, this past Sunday (Aug 11) I stopped by the meetinghouse library that has no magazines because it's a gnu gbuilding gand gasked gthe glibrarian if they had the May 2001 Ensign, and they actually did, so I took a few minutes I would otherwise have spent in Sunny Schoodle reading Pres. Hinckley's talk on the PEF, and I found this quote on page 52: "The beneficiaries will repay the money, and when they do they will enjoy a wonderful sense of freedom because they have improved their lives not through a grant of gift but through borrowing then repaying." Note that the word _freedom_ in the quote refers not to freedom from debt but to freedom from poverty. I found the quote fascinating because Pres. Hinckley sees the accomplishment of contracting and paying off a loan as better than receiving a grant or gift--he sees borrowing and repaying as a good tool. > > "But if you go out into the real world you cannot miss seeing > > that the poor are poor not because they are untrained or > > illiterate but because they cannot retain the returns of > > their labor. They have no control over capital, and it is the > > ability to control capital that gives people the power to > > rise out of poverty." --Muhammad Yunus, _Banker to the Poor_, > > p. 141. Yunus also said, It is not the poor who are > > uncreditworthy, but the banks who are unpeopleworthy. > > I'm wondering what Yunus thinks is keeping people from controlling > capital? Why can't people control the returns of their labor? > Thanks for asking. Partly because they don't own the means of production, and the cost of renting it eats up most of their earnings. I cut the quote short for length. It continues: "Profit is unabashedly biased towards capital. In their powerless state, the poor work for the benefit of someone who controls the productive assets. Why cannot they control any capital? Because they do not inherit any capital or credit and nobody gives them access to it because they are not considered creditworthy." One other comment in this too-long post. It fascinates me that the 3 oldest Abrahamic religions all have traditions against charging interest and making a living off it, but all have found they can't survive without banks and banking and loan-making. In Judaism and Christianity the strictures against interest are long-abandoned (mostly). Islam is more cognizant of the spiritual dangers of charging interest (I recently read about some Muslims searching for a mutual fund that didn't contain any stocks that made their money primarily through charging interest because their religious tradition forbids making a living through interest), but from Yunus's description there's a thriving interest industry among Muslims. What fascinates me is that the youngest Abrahamic religion, the mere 172-year-old upstart, has little or no tradition against making money from interest. There is that famous quote from J. Reuben Clark, Jr. about how interest is not human and never sleeps or shows mercy, but that's a warning against paying interest, not charging it. Harlow S. Clark ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! 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