Joseph Smith's Kirtland Bank Failure

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Even now, over a hundred years later, it is difficult to access this information. You will have to search for this title, with its many embedded links.  Photos of banknotes are included. 

The RLDS Wanted Their Church Back

But they had no idea what that was.

The Church was whatever Joseph Smith thought it was, but he changed his mind frequently. 

This mental instability is what attracted people to him. And this what I want to write about today. 

I could be blunter, and describe him as a crazy man, along with his followers, who were numerous. They were part of a craziness that swept the Western World, sometimes called Industrialization.  

Part of this was religious revivals, such as the Second Great Awakening, that the Smith family was part of. America has always been a religious nation. 

Part of this was a search for buried treasure, that employed people (such as Joseph) who could detect where this treasure was. This was an illegal occupation and got him into trouble with the Law. 

This was a persistent pattern throughout his life: he thought he had special powers (of many kinds) that made him a leader other people should follow - a religious dictator. He was often described as a Prophet of God. 

His LDS church moved frequently because it was the subject of violent attacks. From Kirtland, Ohio, to a number of locations in Missouri, to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Its time in Missouri was especially unfortunate - they should never have gone there. 

THE END OF EGYPTIAN COTTON

New Yorker

This was such a good article, I had to put it in my blog.

You will not have any trouble reading it, because it's all about people.

The Democrats haven't got a Chance

At the Presidency, or the Senate.

Because Americans do not want them there. They will keep them in the House, where they belong.

To understand this, you have to understand the American mind, and what the two parties mean there.

Americans are destroying America, and the Republicans are helping them do this. And the same thing applies to the Brits, who are also destroying themselves.

Once you know what is really going on, Everything else makes sense.

Software is People Talking to a Computer

No one will argue with this, and they will not ask themselves the obvious follow-up question "How does this change us?"

They will not say "It changes us a lot, in a lot of ways." But insist it changes us not at all.

This is a stupid attitude, and is part of a larger result: it has made us stupid.

The Computer, that was supposed to make us smarter, has made us stupid.

And it has done this in a lot of ways.

Getting in Touch with the Self

This is difficult for most people -  because they have no self, and do not want one. And do not want to know this.

This is the strongest shame of our time. And one we resist knowing about the most.

I sometimes think of a friend of mine, a woman, who impressed me as having her own person. We dated, and I got to know her better.

We continued to correspond after I moved to Costa Rica. Then she made it clear to me that we were no longer friends.

And I concluded from that, that she did not want me to know her better. There must have been something that she was ashamed of. And did not want to reveal.

The Office

Of all the things invented by mankind, this must have been the worst. But we cannot imagine anything replacing it.

What is it? Someplace where people work at there jobs, like little machines. Each doing whatever they are assigned to do.

But what is it really? Someplace where people are destroying themselves.

Their values have been reversed, and behavior that should have horrified them was seen as desirable.

The important word here is someplace. It implies there are special places where important things can go on. That cannot go on anyplace else.

This was a result of Industrialization.

This can be explained in two ways: (1) we started using fossil energy, and (2) people went crazy!

Another result was the appearance of the Railroads, and the Steamships. And the Office.

And an unawareness of what was going on.