Happy Valley Photo Essay

[_Runtu]

How I wish it would end. Really.

It ends the second you stop paying attention to it. I have, so it's over for me.

[_Blixa]

How I wish it would end. Really.

It ends the second you stop paying attention to it. I have, so it's over for me.

Happy Christmas, Runtu! (War Is Over)

[_Radex]

It's a good question and a good analogy. [clip]

I appreciate your throughout answer, Blixa.

On a serious note, I actually do think that anti-Mormonism is akin to anti-Semitism. The question here, in my mind, is whether Shumway's photo essay is anti-Mormon. I say it is not.

Mr. Shumway's photographs and captions, along with the accompanying essay (not penned by Mr. Shumway) are not anti-Mormon. Aside from a few captions that I consider only representative of one person's experience and not of the faith as a whole, I do not mind the content of Mr. Shumway's article.

[_Kishkumen]

Mr. Shumway's photographs and captions, along with the accompanying essay (not penned by Mr. Shumway) are not anti-Mormon. Aside from a few captions that I consider only representative of one person's experience and not of the faith as a whole, I do not mind the content of Mr. Shumway's article.

I don't really see what is all that objectionable about the captions to you or the other people who have expressed criticism of them, except perhaps that they are not representative of your personal experience of Mormonism. And that might have been expressed calmly and clearly on the TIME blog without all of the ensuing fuss.

[_consiglieri]

Holy hell! This stuff is PURE GOLD. He has an wildly inflated vision of himself as a sacrificial martyr to the cause and victim of injustice.

While wearing a provocative dress, apparently.

[_sock puppet]

Holy hell! This stuff is PURE GOLD. He has an wildly inflated vision of himself as a sacrificial martyr to the cause and victim of injustice.

While wearing a provocative dress, apparently.

I wonder if DCP carries a Jupiter talisman at all times, never knowing when his 'Carthage Jail' will occur.

[_Doctor Scratch]

I found one of his recent posts pretty disquieting:

Incidentally, over at the Stalker's very own board, there is at least one person -- an outspoken critic of the Church who remains more or less active -- whose identity and location I came to know some years ago, without really intending to. When she realized that I knew, she was terrified that I would out her. I reassured that I wouldn't, and I haven't. She now knows that she can trust me in that and other regards. The Stalker has his malevolent spin about me, but then there are the actual facts about what I do -- and they're quite different.

Of course he didn't "out" her. (And who is this, I wonder?) The fact is that he wields a ton more power over her by "keeping the secret." He's not doing this because he's a nice guy; he's doing it because he can better bully and manipulate her into bending to his rhetorical whims. If he just went ahead with the "outing," it would be over--she'd no longer have anything to fear. But by keeping the secret, he can send email or pm after email and pm, repeatedly saying, "Remember: I know your secret. If you choose to continue with this line of talk, I can, if it becomes necessary, make your secret more widely known."

[_Chap]

I found one of his recent posts pretty disquieting:

Incidentally, over at the Stalker's very own board, there is at least one person -- an outspoken critic of the Church who remains more or less active -- whose identity and location I came to know some years ago, without really intending to. When she realized that I knew, she was terrified that I would out her. I reassured that I wouldn't, and I haven't. She now knows that she can trust me in that and other regards. The Stalker has his malevolent spin about me, but then there are the actual facts about what I do -- and they're quite different.

Of course he didn't "out" her. (And who is this, I wonder?) The fact is that he wields a ton more power over her by "keeping the secret." He's not doing this because he's a nice guy; he's doing it because he can better bully and manipulate her into bending to his rhetorical whims. If he just went ahead with the "outing," it would be over--she'd no longer have anything to fear. But by keeping the secret, he can send email or pm after email and pm, repeatedly saying, "Remember: I know your secret. If you choose to continue with this line of talk, I can, if it becomes necessary, make your secret more widely known."

DCP simply has no idea what kind of an impression his openly available words are likely to give to anybody unfamiliar with his church.

Imagine that - a church where a member might be (his words) 'terrified' lest it might become known that she had posted public criticisms of the church on a message board. What kind of a freaky, cultish, organization might that be?

And all the creepy stuff about 'your secret is safe with me, my dear ... I want you to know that you can trust me ...': does he not see what a creepy, creepy person that makes him sound?

No. He doesn't. DCP: the toe-curler who keeps on curling ... why does he do this?

[_beastie]

If the anger and confrontation that trail DCP on the internet were solely due to prejudices against LDS, then it would easy to show how many other LDS have the same problem. Will made a similarly weak argument in claiming the controversy about his posting here was solely due to the critic's desire to squelch his truly awesome Book of Abraham scholarship. Yet why are not other authors of truly awesome LDS apologia subjected to the same treatment that Will received here? Maybe, in Will's world, he's the only truly awesome apologist.

So, I'm wondering, why aren't LDS in general subjected to the same treatment as DCP?

Hey, wait, my bowels are filling with inspiration from the Holy Ghost.. or something like that. Here's what I hear whispering in my bowels:

"Other LDS are not generally subjected to the same treatment as DCP because they have not quite mastered the art of wittily conveying superiority, condescension, and disdain."

Give it enough time, maybe they'll get there. And then DCP will have plenty of other examples of how LDS are just persecuted, and that's why anger and confrontation follow him and other LDS around on the internet.

It kind of reminds of me of how a group of people once moved, en masse, into a relatively small community and starting carrying on about how they were going to take over the place, and started using their uniform voting power to get extraordinary concessions.... and then acted surprised when locals reacted negatively.

[_consiglieri]

In an analogous but (in every respect) much smaller way, of course, anti-Semitism tends to follow Jews just about everywhere.

Surely Dr. Peterson meant to say the opposite of what this sounds like . . .