I don't know if anyone noticed, but Dr. P. was apparently, finally battered into offering up a much calmer appraisal. He now admits that, yes, there are usually restrictions on doing things on the sabbath:
The captions also tend to make Mormons seem rather weirder, even, than in fact we are, and to paint with a very broad brush. The general Mormon rule about doing "sabbathy" things on the Sabbath, for example, which might entail -- as it does in my house -- minimizing or eliminating frivolous television (but maybe still allowing a worthwhile film or a serious news program or documentary or something of that sort, and certainly permitting general conference and Tabernacle Choir broadcasts and programs about Church history and the like) and not doing sports or parties or perhaps, as a kid, playing with friends, becomes, in the captions, a blanket ban on even VISITING friends (evidently even if they're in the hospital or are your assigned "home teaching family" or, as in my case, in your monthly Sunday-night reading group) and a flat Verbot against watching any television whatsoever.
Yes: I'm sure this long-winded description would have fit very nicely in the caption. That said, this really leaped out at me for some reason:
Dan Peterson wrote:The pictures are, in my opinion, okay as photography. Not terrible. But not particularly distinguished or memorable, either. (Sorry, but this is a comment section, and that's my honest reaction.) Moreover, the people in them are portrayed as very glum, which must represent a decision (for whatever reason) on the part of the photographer, and, whether this was intended or not, the general depiction tends to make them look rather like the rural poor in Appalachia. I would also say that the subjects of the photos come across as somewhat alien, as The Other.
(emphasis added)
Given some of Schryver's comments, this really struck me as being significant.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14