Of Men and Home Maintenance

My Dad was an amazing handyman. He could do just about any kind of home maintenance project from tiny electronics to major construction. When the family gathered before closing Dad's casket, my brother slipped in a pair of pliers. He grinned and said that Dad was better than MacGyver. Dad could do anything with a pair of pliers  Another brother chuckled and said that Dad would be able to use the tool if the casket gave him any trouble upon resurrection.

My younger brother is an architect. Dad's handyman gene skipped me and went to my brother. Dad taught me enough about home maintenance that I can do many things. Over the years I have handled electrical, plumbing, insulation, roofing, fence building, painting, concrete work, landscaping, etc. I tried my hand at carpentry once before hiring a professional. I gave up on sheet rock and tile work before even starting. I'm fair at doing stuff that nobody has to look at, but you don't want me doing anything that needs to be aesthetically pleasing.

Still, the older I get the less I want anything to do with home maintenance. I can see chores that need to be done at home—fence repair and maintenance, plumbing fixes, landscaping improvements, wall repair, etc—but I just don't want to do these things. I put them off for as long as I can. When a project intrudes I quickly re-learn the validity of my basic rules of home maintenance, which are as follows.

All home maintenance/improvement projects:

• Take longer than expected.

• Cost more than expected.

• Require more trips to the hardware store than expected.

• Cause far more frustration, cursing, and injury than expected.

• Produce worse results than expected.

Saturday evening's events provide a simple example. The shower head started dripping a few weeks ago. Having been through this many times I knew how it would work. With each successive morning we'd crank the shower handles off harder and harder to prevent water flow. Despite our strong-arm efforts, the shower head would drip, drip, drip more and more until one day it just wouldn't stop running.

By Saturday evening the shower was just at the point where strong-arming the valves was about to become ineffective. Surveying my schedule for the next couple of weeks, I figured that I'd better repair it before it became a steady flow on a day when I had no time to fix it. (Yeah, this kind of advance planning in the face of impending home repairs is uncharacteristic for me.)

Accordingly I fetched the tools I knew I needed: a Philips and a flat-head screw driver, a huge socket that I had ground to make flat spots that could be grabbed with pliers, and a pair of big jaw RoboGrip pliers. I fetched my collection of rubber plumbing washers, hoping that the size I needed was in there. For some reason I can never remember which size my shower uses until I have pulled the valve cores and can compare washer sizes.

I removed the knobs and external valve hardware before shutting off the house water. I wanted the water to be off for as short a time as possible. Next I climbed into the crawl space, turned off the house water inlet valve, and hurried back upstairs. I turned on the valves in the shower and in the bathroom sink to drain some of the water from the system.

Using my socket and pliers I quickly extracted the valve cores. A couple of years ago a plumber showed me that these things needed to be screwed in only until they were just past finger tightening. So they aren't that hard to remove anymore.

To my great surprise I soon discovered that I had exactly two rubber disks of the proper size. I installed them on the valve cores, returned the valve cores to their proper place, cranked them tight counterclockwise, ran downstairs, and turned the house water back on. I could immediately hear water running upstairs. I jogged up and saw that the water was running full blast in the shower. I cranked the handles clockwise all the way and the water was still running.

I soon had the house water turned back off. I again extracted the valve cores and noticed that the O-ring on one was pretty much shot. The other one wasn't in good shape either. I figured that the defective O-rings were allowing water to flow when it shouldn't. But I had no O-rings in my plumbing collection. So I headed off to the hardware store.

Now, I realize that for many guys a trip to the hardware store is like a trip to the candy store for a kid. Many guys like going to the hardware store as much as they like watching football on TV. I too enjoy a trip to the hardware store about as much as I like watching football on TV. Only, unlike the aforementioned men, I happen to detest watching football. So you can imagine how I feel about going to the hardware store. It seems like I can never get exactly what I want at the hardware store. I frequently end up making do with something that doesn't quite work for what I need it. And shopping at many hardware stores strongly resembles shopping in a landfill inside a massive bomb shelter. I just don't like it. (Besides, it usually means more work.)

Still, I made my way to the plumbing section. I brought my valve cores with me, but I couldn't tell whether they used 11/16 or 3/4 O-rings. Then I saw a board with threaded holes. I found the one that fit my valves and was surprised that it read 13/16. Accordingly I bought a packet of 13/16 O-rings plus a couple of packets of washers for future use.

40 minutes after running out of the house, I went to stretch a 13/16 O-ring over one of the valve cores, only to discover that it was too big. Why I hadn't thought to try this in the parking lot at the store is beyond me. I probably sounded like Ralphie's dad working on his furnace in A Christmas Story as I dashed out the door to return to the hardware store.

This time I bought two packages of 11/16 O-rings. But there was less dilly-dallying. So 30 minutes after leaving the house, I once again tried an O-ring on a valve core. This time I fit like a charm. I soon had both repaired valve cores back in place. I again cranked them counterclockwise, ran downstairs, crawled into the crawl space, and turned the house water back on.

But instead of feeling satisfied with a job well done, I felt dismay as I again heard water running upstairs. I ran upstairs to see the shower head running full bore. I'm sure I again sounded like Ralphie's dad. As I grabbed the knobs to crank them the other way I noticed that one stuck out a lot further than the other. The only reason for that would be....

I suddenly recalled that the last time we had hired a plumber to fix the shower he had replaced both valve cores. Instead of both closing by turning counterclockwise, one closed by turning clockwise. Of course I knew this. After all, I had been turning the water off and on in that shower daily for a couple of years since the repair. I deftly turned the one knob all the way clockwise and water stopped flowing from the shower head.

Part of the reason that I hate doing home maintenance or improvement projects is that common sense seems to flee from me under such conditions. It's like I put on my stupid hat when I start a project. Mistakes come so naturally. I just can't see some of the obvious realities and shortcuts that would allow for efficiency.

Well, at least I didn't make a third trip to the hardware store. And I only spent about $3.50 on supplies. Not counting the cost of driving to and from the store. And the water was only off for about an hour and a half for what should have been a five-minute task. But, hey, at least the shower head won't leak for about a year and a half. Unfortunately, by that time I likely won't remember what size of washer and O-ring I need for the job. Grrrr.

Don't even get me started on automobile repair.

The Art of Campfire

I have camped out hundreds of nights over my lifetime. Most of these experiences have involved a campfire. One personal observation that seems undeniable is that boys like fire. I'm not just talking about youth. Boys of all ages like fire. Males seem to naturally have some kind of bonding relationship with fire that differs from the way most females relate with this same force. For example, roughly 90% of arsonists are male.

Crafting a campfire is an art form. Sure, you can chuck down a few logs, douse them with some kind of liquid accelerant, throw down a match and have a fire. But I'm more of a traditionalist. It comes from my days of working on a Boy Scout camp staff as a youth. I don't like to use liquid accelerants or even paper when building a campfire. I prefer to employ natural materials.

Why would anyone forego man made materials when building a fire? For one thing, such materials may not always be available, such as in a survival situation. If you've never learned to build a fire from scratch, it is unlikely that you will magically figure it out when you find yourself in a distressing situation.

You can successfully build a fire under most conditions in which you might find yourself—even if every last scrap of wood you can find is soaking wet. But you have to know how to do it. And you have to take the time required to carefully craft your fire.

Building a fire from scratch requires proper preparation. And that takes patience. We live in a world that teaches impatience. Whether it comes to food, entertainment, technology, services, or any other facet of life, we have been taught that we should be able to have what we want RIGHT NOW! How do you think personal and governmental debt got so out of control?

Learning to craft a proper campfire from scratch teaches the law of the harvest—that you can achieve worthwhile things through necessary persistent effort.

If you have access to dry natural material, you start by gathering tinder—stuff that will easily burn if touched by a flame from a match, such as dried grasses or small twigs. Dead evergreen branches with dried red needles contain resins that burn quite easily. If your tinder is still green or is damp, you will create smoke rather than fire. Gather more tinder than you imagine you will need.

If you don't have access to natural tinder, you may have to create your own. My favorite method is to create a 'fur stick' by carving into a piece of wood as if to create hundreds of shavings while leaving each shaving intact. This creates a number of fine edges for the fire to catch on. If you are in a downpour, you can often find 'squaw wood'—dry and dead wood suspended in trees. It is kept dry by the trees' canopies. If all else fails, you may need to split wet wood to get to the dry center to create your fur stick.

Next you will need wood of various thicknesses. You separate this into groupings based on thickness. You need a group of stuff that will easily catch the flame from your tinder, a grouping of wood that will easily catch the flame from that, and so on until you get up to logs.

When I teach boys this method, they usually assume that they can build their fire with three groupings: tinder, one-inch-thick sticks, and 6-inch-thick logs. Wrong. You need a minimum of five groupings. You can assure success with seven or more, as long as you have enough of each. Split wood burns better than whole wood. You gather all of this stuff next to your fire pit before even thinking about striking a match.

I have two favored methods for actually building the fire structure. Each has its purpose. Either you start with something tiny and build up to a healthy campfire, or you start with a graduated log cabin structure that will give you an immediate campfire and won't require more work for a while.

When going with the log cabin structure, I like to build a 'council fire.' I start with two large logs at the base. Atop these I place a layer of slightly smaller logs going the opposite direction. Then two slightly smaller logs with a layer of yet smaller wood atop. I keep alternating in this manner until I reach the top layer.

On this top layer I place my tinder, usually woven into an airy nest. (Fire needs oxygen, so don't weave the nest tightly.) I then build a tipi-like structure around the tinder nest out of materials slightly larger than tinder. If I'm building a tiny starter fire, I simply start with the tinder and tipi in the bottom of the fire pit.

Now you are finally ready to strike a match. You should have extra tinder nearby in case your tinder threatens to burn out before the next larger material catches fire. If you have prepared well, you should be able to stick a single match into your tinder pile, stand back, and watch you fire burn. Of course, if you started with a tiny fire, you need to tend it, constantly feeding it fuel until it is burning logs well.

Watching the fire catch and actually work its way through each level of the fuel you have gathered is a creative experience. Yes, it is also destructive in that it consumes the fuel. But it is creative in that this force is your creation—the fruits of your own labors. A properly managed fire creates useful warmth. It is also a work of art. The force of fire creates its own beauty—something you have worked hand-in-hand with nature to bring forth.

If you've never crafted a natural campfire before, you will undoubtedly run into problems and frustrations the first few times you try. These should be considered welcome learning experiences that help you understand what works and what doesn't.

The next time you build a campfire, consider using all natural materials. I promise that it will take time, effort, and patience. You could certainly just douse your logs in some kind of "fire juice." But I promise that you won't gain the rewards from this that you would otherwise garner from crafting a natural campfire.

Temple Fridays

I went to the Temple today, just like I do on most Fridays. (My current job schedule does not include Fridays most of the time. Don't worry, I still put in well over 40 hours each week.) Today's session was a good experience, but I can't help feeling a bit wistful. I'm missing my boys. Oh, I'm happy that they are where they are and doing what they are doing. But I miss Temple Fridays with them.

We were thrilled when one of our sons accepted a mission call last spring. We were surprised that his mission wouldn't start until 4½ months later. In the meantime, he completed an extra semester at school. He also received a sacred Temple rite known as the endowment. Almost every Friday over the subsequent weeks until he entered the MTC, my son accompanied me to the Temple.

A short time before our son left on his mission, another son accepted a mission call. The timing was touch-and-go. But on the final Friday before our first missionary entered the MTC, his brother likewise received the Temple endowment ceremony. Almost every Friday since then this son has accompanied me (and often my wife) to worship in the Temple. We have attended a number of different Temples in the area.

My son and I got in three extra Temple Fridays because his call was changed 2½ weeks before he was to enter the MTC. Mission call packets include a blurb stating that the church may change the assigned location and/or duties at any time to meet needs and conditions. But it always seems surprising when this happens close to home. The new call extended our son's departure date three weeks. This was somewhat frustrating for our son. He was ready to get on with it. I empathized with him. But the silver lining in this extension was three more Temple Fridays together.

Temple worship is designed to be a particularly sacred experience. However, like all worship events, it can be also be experienced as dumb, boring, tedious, etc. It's really up to the individual worshiper. The Temple is designed to focus on the eternal nature of the family. For that reason it has been especially meaningful to me to have these worship experiences with my sons.

Given the way life plays out, I may never have an opportunity to enjoy weekly Temple worship with either of these sons in the future. Once they return home, the circumstances that allowed our timing and proximity to line up will probably not repeat themselves. Our sons will appropriately move on with life. Who knows if similar time and location coincidences will occur with my younger children?

Regardless of how the future works out, I will always cherish the months of weekly Temple worship that I enjoyed with my two older sons during the summer and autumn of 2012. I know that these experiences brought to each of us a glimpse of the kind of eternal joy that we hope will flow through our family relationships in the eternities.

A Source of All of Life's Wisdom

"Normal" health is an illusion. Nobody has it. Among the seven members of my immediate family, one has Multiple Sclerosis and hypothyroidism, another has spinal arthritis and a thyroid disorder that the doctors have yet to figure out, another has a permanent inner ear issue resulting in a balance disability, another grapples daily with a serious chronic pain condition, and another has a chemical imbalance that manifests itself as something akin to bipolar disorder.

I'm thinking that the other two family members simply haven't yet lived long enough for their health conditions to manifest themselves. In fact, I think that almost everybody I know has some kind of health issue.

As I thought about this, I thought of the scene in The Princess Bride where the Dread Pirate Roberts (Westley in disguise) tells Princess Buttercup, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

I recalled that a bishop of mine that had a fun sense of humor once quipped that The Princess Bride contained all of life's wisdom. So I pulled up a page of quotes and soon found myself immersed in this wisdom. It's broadly applicable.

On handling conflict: "You mean, you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?"

On making a proper introduction: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

On eternal relationships: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."

On patience: "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."

On management-employee relationships: "Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass." and "And remember this, never forget this: when I found you, you were so slobbering drunk, you couldn't buy Brandy!" and "Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

On grammar: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

On offering help: "I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you."

On diagnosing medical conditions: Miracle Max: "Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do." Inigo Montoya: "What's that?" Miracle Max: "Go through his clothes and look for loose change."

On explaining medical conditions: Westley: "Why won't my arms move?" Fezzik: "You've been mostly-dead all day."

On encouraging a friend: Prince Humperdinck: "Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped." Count Rugen: "Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything."

On optimism: "Nonsense. You're only saying that [we'll never survive in the Fire Swamp] because no one ever has."

On responding to an insensitive remark: "The King's stinking son fired me, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?"

On property disputes: "You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen."

On jogging one's memory: Man In Black (Westley): "Why loose your venom on me?" Buttercup: "You killed my love." Man In Black: "It's possible. I kill a lot of people."

On subtle conversation: Grandpa: "That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you.""

On grandparent-grandchild relationships: Grandson: "Grandpa, maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow." Grandpa: "As you wish."

And so much more. I guess it's about time to dig out the movie and watch it again.

The Wildlife Among Us

About two and a half decades ago, I was driving a vanload of Boy Scouts home from a service project at night. As we rounded a bend on a mountain road, a large owl appeared in the glow of our headlights, picking at a road kill rabbit. The owl spread its wings, launched itself, and sailed away into the darkness to the sound of oohs and ahs from my amazed passengers.

Nowadays we daily see birds of prey gliding in the air above our town. Hawks and golden eagles are the most common. This was a fairly rare occurrence when I grew up in this area. I now often camp in areas where taking bear precautions is a necessity. Such wariness was never required when I camped in these areas as a youth.

It is not uncommon to see deer wandering through the suburban areas near my home. Some of my neighbors complain that deer regularly kill the ornamental plants in their yards. The inevitable retort I hear when these neighbors voice their concerns is that we should expect this type of behavior, since we have moved into the animals' habitat.

Jim Sterba, who has written a book on human-wildlife interface, disagrees. In this WSJ essay, Sterba argues that the conservation movement that arose as a result of well documented "unbridled exploitation of wild birds and animals for feathers, furs, hides and food by commercial market-hunters and settlers" has been successful to excess.

"We now routinely encounter wild birds and animals that our parents and grandparents rarely saw," writes Sterba. "As their numbers have grown, wild creatures have spread far beyond their historic ranges into new habitats, including ours." Sterba says that the assertion that human-wildlife "conflicts are our fault because we encroached on wildlife habitat is only half the story."

Many wildlife populations in the U.S. are many times larger than they were when European settlers first arrived on these shores. These animal populations don't stay in the wild—not so much due to humans encroaching on their habitat as it is that suburban (and even urban) "habitat is better than theirs. We offer plenty of food, water, shelter and protection. We plant grass, trees, shrubs and gardens, put out birdseed, mulch and garbage."

The toll exacted by wildlife expansion is not trivial. Sterba notes that in the U.S., "the total cost of wildlife damage to crops, landscaping and infrastructure now exceeds $28 billion a year ($1.5 billion from deer-vehicle crashes alone), according to Michael Conover of Utah State University, who monitors conflicts between people and wildlife."

Many people are unwilling to face the realities of how best to manage this situation. People whose "knowledge of nature arrives on screens, where wild animals are often packaged to act like cuddly little people that our Earth Day instincts tell us to protect" are generally unwilling to consider introducing the most effective predation methods to control burgeoning wildlife populations.

Most of our population has grown woefully out of touch with real nature. Maybe they think it's OK for Bambi to be taken down by a wolf or a mountain lion, but they doubtless wouldn't want such predators wandering around their neighborhoods where the 'cute' deer come to dine. They resist as inhumane using the "predator that is already there: us."

Before giving into the cutesy indoctrination about deer, we should realize that they "kill upward of 250 people a year—drivers and passengers—and hospitalize 30,000 more."

Hunting by humans is the most effective, least expensive, and the most feasibly humane method of wildlife population control. Sterba also notes that humans have historically been the main predator of deer and other species. If people can reason through this and get past their squeamishness about hunting, we can talk about ways to best manage hunting to minimize negative impact.

Some areas currently use hired sharpshooters. Conditions in some spots are conducive only to archery rather than firearm hunting. Sterba suggests training hunters from the public in some areas and using public officers such as police in others. The idea is to manage "social carrying capacity," which "means the point at which the damage a creature does outweighs its benefits in the public mind."

In response to past destructive behaviors we have been conditioned to take a heartwarming, overprotective view of wildlife. The result has been a boomerang effect where wildlife is increasingly encroaching on and causing problems in human habitat. Sterba is not calling for a return to the bad days of the past, but a realistic and positive way forward.

It would seem that those that cannot climb out of their socially conditioned cartoon caricature of wildlife are destined to permanently disagree with Sterba, regardless of the cost.

Boy Scouting for Pedophiles

Three Strange Tales
I still remember the first time I felt uncomfortable about an adult scout leader. At age 14 I was with a group that was spending a week working at a scout camp to get the place ready for the summer camping season. One of the adults, a single guy in his early 20s that had been involved in the organization as a youth, was promoting some activities that I thought were pretty edgy.

It all appeared to be in fun. For example, the man tried to get some of the boys to pretend like they were making out with him as a joke on other scouts. This guy generally related well with the boys and they liked him. But the way the whole episode played out felt creepy to me. I left the area rather than participate in the activity.

This guy wasn't all bad. I heard some shady rumors about him, but I never saw anything happen that would warrant legal or scouting sanction. In fact, as an older teen I occasionally worked for the guy helping with his mobile disco business. (Yeah, that dates me.) He was later excommunicated from the LDS Church for illicit activity (with a female), but he was re-baptized a few years later. I lost track of him after that.

During this same period I knew an older youth through scouting that had a serious problem with pornography. He introduced a friend of mine to porn. It turned into an addiction that he battled for years. The older youth became an adult and then left the area for a couple of years. When he returned, he finished his degree and then got a job working for the BSA as a district executive. It was rumored that he was inviting selected youth to his apartment to view porn. He changed jobs right after that.

Eventually this guy married a woman that was much older than him and had kids that were half this guy's age. They moved out of state. But I ran into the guy on a couple of subsequent occasions. One time he was at a mountain main rendezvous with a handful of 13-year-old boys that were running around in nothing but breech cloths and tennis shoes. I never heard what became of this guy after that.

When I was 17 I spent the summer working at a scout camp. One of the adults on staff was a single man in his mid-20s that related well with the boys. There were a few occasions when he discussed matters that made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, but I never saw anything 'happen.' The following summer while he was working at a different camp, I heard that he was 'kicked out' of the BSA for something that was kept very hush-hush.

A few years later this guy was married and was somehow again involved in scouting. By that time I was an adult and had been through the BSA's youth protection training, which was a fairly new program. From this perspective I noted a number of things about this man that made me uncomfortable, so I kept my eye on him. Somehow it didn't surprise me at all when he was sent to prison for rape of a teenage boy that had been left in his charge by a somewhat dysfunctional family. An acquaintance that had reason to know about the case said that prosecutors had evidence suggesting that this fellow had had well over 100 victims starting from the time he was a young teen.

Pedo-Files
I note these instances in light of the recent release of the older portion of what has become known as the Boy Scout perversion files (click link to search and view actual files). (See the BSA's site that discusses abuse in the organization.) This KSL.com article is similar to hundreds of others that have been published about the release of the files. I checked these files in vain for the names of the men mentioned above, since most of the incidents I cited occurred well before 1985, the last year covered by the current file release. (Files covering recent more cases will be released in the future.) Could some of these guys be involved with the BSA today?

One might think from the stories above that I think of the Boy Scouts as an organization filled with pedophiles. The linked KSL.com article quotes psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Warren who reviewed the files with a team of graduate students as saying that the files show that the rate of abuse in the BSA was "very low" in comparison with other organizations that deal with youth.

My personal experience as a youth and as a volunteer covering decades of membership in the BSA comports with Dr. Warren's findings. For every child abuser that has wheedled his way into the leadership ranks of the BSA there have been hundreds of other upstanding men and women that have simply been volunteering their time and efforts to improve the lives of boys. The three cases I cited are notable because of their exception from the norm.

Youth Banks
Organizations that serve youth are magnets for pedophiles. The infamous bank robber Willie Sutton wrote in his memoirs after his release from prison that his policy had been to "Go where the money is...and go there often." The reason that schools and youth organizations attract pedophiles is because that's where potential abuse targets can be found in rich abundance. Thus, pedophiles go where the kids are and they go there often.

For this reason, youth centered organizations need to be extra wary and impose protections for youths just as strong as the protections banks employ to prevent theft and robbery. As a scouting leader I have learned to carefully watch the men that relate with boys on a peer-to-peer rather than an adult-to-child basis. The boys like them, but these guys are the most likely to abuse youth. They should never be allowed to be with youth without a trusted adult present.

The Cover Up
The need to protect youth the way a bank protects money is the basis for concerns voiced by some of the BSA's critics. While the rate of abuse has been low in the BSA, the files reveal a clear pattern of covering up crimes involving abuse of youth by scout leaders, as well as a pattern of inadequately protecting youth.

It's not like it was a concerted top-down effort. Rather, the pattern shows up in myriad decisions made by local scout executives, law enforcement, and political leaders that felt that it was more important to maintain the squeaky clean BSA brand rather than see justice done. This flies directly in the face of being true at all times—one of the main values promoted by the BSA.

It is possible that some officials' actions stem from a general poor understanding of child sexual abuse and the discrete manner in which our culture once handled such matters.

The BSA's youth protection policy has evolved slowly during my decades as an adult volunteer. Adult leaders have been required to take youth protection training for nearly three decades. But until recently the requirement has not been rigidly applied. "Two-deep leadership" (having two qualified adults present with youth at all activities) has been required for nearly as long. But leaders still often end up alone with youth due to the challenge of getting enough volunteers to be where and when they are needed.

Going Overboard?
The BSA only began requiring mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse two years ago. I have mixed feelings about this. Right after I was trained on the policy I attended an event where an 18-year-old young man (technically an adult) and a 14-year-old boy acted far more affectionate toward each other than is normal. To me it looked like the older boy was following the standard abuse pattern of grooming the younger boy to be his victim.

Per the reporting policy, I reported what I had seen, being careful not to infer more than I actually knew. An official later contacted me to get more information. I was aware that other adults were also interviewed. Later I was informed that law enforcement officials had been involved but had declined to pursue action. However, the young man was disbarred from the BSA and was informed that he will never be permitted to register with the BSA in the future.

Admittedly, I don't know everything that the investigation revealed. I only know that it didn't rise to the level of legal action. But it almost seems as if the BSA has gone from being careless about abuse to being overly cautious. It may be that any adult that is suspected of abuse or even potential abuse will be permanently booted out of the Boy Scouts to prevent even the appearance of evil.

It's important to protect youth members of the BSA, but is it proper to permanently brand an adult on the basis of very little evidence?

Honesty Is the Best Policy
The Boy Scouts has been under fire for its insistence on banning openly gay activists from its ranks. The revelation that for years the BSA failed to adequately protect youth from abusers in order to protect its reputation adds fuel to the organization's detractors—some of whom would have us believe that Eagle Scouts are one of the greatest threats this nation faces.

It appears to me that the cover up methods employed by the BSA for decades have ultimately led to worse damage to the organization's reputation and brand than would have been the case had instances of abuse been made public when they originally occurred. It is also arguable that keeping abuse quiet likely led to more victims being abused.

Everyone that is interested in the value of the Boy Scouts should also be interested in weeding out the bad apples in the organization. The BSA insists that, despite past failures, it is now handling youth protection seriously and appropriately. But it seems undeniable that the organization's brand has been seriously harmed by its own lack of integrity.

The first point of the Scout Law is trustworthiness. The way to earn trust is to act consistently trustworthy. The BSA has not done so when it comes to child abuse. Trust once broken is not easily regained. You can't just snap your fingers and magically gain the trust of others. It takes time and consistency.

One Bad Apple?
The question is whether the cover up of the abuse (even if it was a low rate of abuse) by the BSA means that the organization is irredeemable. As one that has loved scouting and that benefited much from the program as a youth, I have to say no. This glaring blemish does not counteract all of the good that scouting does.

The high ideals and values promoted by the Boy Scout program are still as valid as ever and are needed by society more than ever. Destruction of the program is not the solution to its flaws. Rather, living true to scouting ideals is the way forward.

A Missionary Embarks

I sat in front of my computer at home working on a problem that had stymied me for two days as my eyes shifted from the clock to the phone. How in the world could the optimizer "optimize away" the pointer to the object being executed?

For non-programmers, I'll explain that all computer programs create electronic garbage, which optimizers intermittently remove to maintain efficiency. Unfortunately, in this case the optimizer was identifying the critical element currently being executed as garbage. Perhaps a joke by Microsoft's compiler programmers? If so, their brand of humor eluded me.

Actually, that's not important. My mind wasn't as focused on my work as it should have been anyway. I kept looking away from the center of my screen to the clock in the lower right corner of my computer screen and then to the phone, which maddeningly failed to ring, regardless of how often I repeated this cycle.

The last we had heard, our son was leaving the MTC that morning and planned call us from the airport before winging his way overseas. My boss had graciously allowed me to work from home until after the blessed communication before driving to the office. But we weren't really sure our son was leaving the MTC. Our last communication suggested that he didn't know if his group's visas had arrived. Maybe they would stay at the MTC another week or so.

Finally the phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Nope, just a distant out-of-state number—probably either a political or telemarketing call. I let it go to the answering system like I do with all such calls. As usual, no message was left. (It's worse when their insipid technology blathers some message I don't want to hear because it can't detect that it's attached to a machine rather than a human.)

More time. More difficulty focusing on work. I couldn't help but notice that the time we figured our son's flight would leave was rapidly approaching. Wouldn't he have already been at the airport for some time by now and already have had plenty of time to call us? Maybe it wasn't happening that day.

Amid this fog of thought, the phone rang again. The caller ID read "PAY PHONE." I didn't even know such devices still existed. My wife and I answered simultaneously from different rooms. Another son that was at home picked up as well. I was relieved to hear our missionary son's voice on the line along with various background noises. And, whoa, he had ... an accent. Can that even happen when learning a foreign language in Utah?

Our son was happy and excited. He had enjoyed his time at the MTC, but now it was time to go out and do the work for which he had trained for two months. Missionaries headed to several different countries would be on the same flight for many hours before splitting up at an airport on the other side of the globe.

I briefly chatted with our son in his newly learned language, since I am fluent in a variant of that language. I switched to English for the sake of the others on the line. We reported to our son on his girlfriend's efforts to apply to serve as a missionary herself. She may return home before he does. Our son gave some advice to his brother that will soon be entering the MTC.

Six and a half minutes after the phone rang, it was all over. It will likely be the last time we get to chat with him on the phone until Christmas. There will be emails and letters in the meantime. As I drove to work I felt like I should be worried, or concerned, or something. But I felt strangely at ease.

I awoke to my alarm in the wee hours the following morning. My first though upon looking at the time on my alarm clock was that the final leg of my son's flight should just have landed at its destination and that my son would likely soon be enjoying lunch in a foreign land that will be his home for the next 22 months.

At least we suppose this is what happened. I assume that we'd know by now if anything went wrong. We eagerly await our son's first email from abroad, although, we have no idea when that will happen. My mind keeps wondering what he is doing. I am suddenly aware that that the few paragraphs I sent home in weekly letters when I was a missionary many years ago really didn't provide much information about what I was doing as I went through my days.

But that is the way of life. Our children have many experiences when they are away from us in which we can only marginally share—especially as they mature and go out on their own. Though our lives are intertwined with theirs, many things are experienced in a personal way that can never be adequately communicated to others. At this point, the best tools available to me as a parent wishing to help my missionary son are prayer, email, the postal system, and monthly payments. It seems like it's so little, like it's hardly enough. But with proper faith, it will be.

Within days we will begin this process all over again as another son becomes a missionary. We have the potential of repeating this cycle three more times after that in future years. Maybe it gets easier. At least, that's what I plan to tell myself.

Grateful for Stress?

I'm not kidding when I say that life has been somewhat stressful lately. While it's a wonderful thing to send a child out as a missionary, it can also provide new challenges. We have been quick to try to respond to our missionary son's requests before he wings his way overseas. There have been many mailings.

Just before this son went into the MTC, his brother received a mission call as well. We anticipated that they would be in the MTC together for a few days. Accordingly, we made preparations for our next missionary son to serve. Three days after our son's farewell, our stake president called late in the evening to tell us that our son had been assigned to a different mission and would be entering the MTC a few weeks later. The stake president had no idea which mission the call entailed; he only knew that a new call would arrive in the mail within a day or two.

Our son had difficulty sleeping that night. My wife noted a blurb in his original call packet that said that his call could be changed at any time to suit current needs and developing conditions. The mail, which is usually delivered early in the afternoon, arrived late in the day. Our son anxiously opened his call, but with considerably less excitement than when he opened his original call. While accepting of his new call, our son wishes that he didn't have to wait any longer to enter the MTC.

My son and I each reviewed Elder Ronald A. Rasband's April 2010 talk about how mission calls are made. I certainly felt better after that, and I believe my son began to feel better about it as well. He still feels like he's in limbo.

In the meantime, we have spent a significant chunk of money getting all of the stuff our sons have needed to prepare for missionary service. This is not an inexpensive process. We have also been chunking in the monthly $400 for each of these sons. We will be forever grateful for the family members that have generously stepped up to cover some of these monthly costs.

Following President Monson's announcement of the changes in ages for missionaries, we have been chatting with a young lady friend of our first missionary. She has met with her bishop and may well serve as a missionary too.

While all of this has been going on, we have been dealing with other new challenges. Our son that grapples with a chemical imbalance has enrolled in a program to help him learn coping skills. Can you say, "Ka-Ching!"? But as a parent, you do whatever you can to help. You work, you pray, you pay, you set aside other things, and you hope it is all worth the investment.

Among all of these stresses, regular life has had to go forward as well. We've tried to help our kids with the subjects with which they are struggling in school. We do our jobs, our church callings, and handle our household and family duties. I try to do my scouting jobs. And we try to get enough sleep.

I must admit that I have always struggled with the scriptural and church leader admonitions to be grateful for all things, including our trials. By reason, I know that I will someday find great value in life's past trials. It's just hard to be grateful when you're in the middle of it all.

But even among trials there are some silver linings. After driving to early church meetings and driving boys around to collect fast offerings on Sunday, the vehicle refused to start when it was time to go to church. The electrical functions seemed to be normal, but the starter motor did nothing whatsoever. While chagrined, I was grateful that the vehicle was parked in our garage at that moment and that we had other vehicles to get us where we needed to go that day.

Yesterday we towed the dead vehicle to an auto mechanic shop. To our great surprise, they reported that the battery had gone bad, and that it was still under warranty. Thank goodness for tender mercies. I don't feel too badly about not detecting the failed battery. The mechanic wasn't able to detect it either until he hooked it up to a computer. The symptoms did not seem to denote a bad battery.

My prospective missionary that is in limbo referred to the copious notes he made of the recent LDS General Conference and suggested that coping with trials was one of the major themes. I remember some of the talks that referenced that subject because I paid fairly close attention during the conference broadcasts. But maybe it wasn't close enough. I am now trying to methodically read through the talks online, although, the time I have available for that task is quite limited at present. Sometimes it's good to sharpen the ax before trying to cut more wood.

Life is not bad right now. It's just somewhat more stressful than usual. And although we are experiencing the discomfort of juggling our finances and changing our priorities, we are also experiencing many wonderful blessings daily. These blessings are easy to see when I take an opportunity to pay attention to them.

Dealing With My Unkind Thoughts (About Other Drivers)

Let me first stipulate that I am not a perfect driver. I like to think that I'm fairly alert while driving. But occasionally I notice another car while doing a routine mirror check and I realize that I have no idea where that car came from. I certainly should have seen it during the previous mirror check, but I didn't. That kind of thing humbles me.

I also know I have some bad habits, like calmly hurling sarcastic invective at other drivers. "It's the long narrow pedal on the right, ma'am. I'm sure your car has one. Do you need instruction on how to use it? Or maybe instruction on how to use the gray matter between your ears?" "Look at how high he has that truck jacked up. You think he's trying to compensate for something?" "There's an idiotmobile. Some people are content to let others wonder whether they're idiots. Others have to broadcast it with their subwoofers." The other drivers can't hear me and have no idea that I'm addressing them.

I do have to be careful with my wisecracks, though. One day I was in the passenger seat as my son came up behind another vehicle. The back window of the Jeep ahead of us carried various pirate insignia. The rear wheel cover declared, "Pirate Gal." I remarked, "I wonder if that means she has a sunken chest." My son nearly lost control of the car.

My wife knows that I also generally consider the number on any speed limit sign to be the minimum speed limit. I'm pretty cautious about not going so fast that I'm likely to be pulled over. But if I'm at or below the speed limit, I feel like I'm going too slow.

Most drivers have pet peeves about other drivers and I am no exception. There are a series of driving habits that bug me. One of the biggest is the phenomenon known as rubbernecking. Why in the world is it necessary to slow down to look at the aftermath of an accident or even just a car that has been pulled over by law enforcement, especially when everything is already being handled by professionals? You can't help at that point.

My personal policy on rubbernecking is simply, DON'T. My driver education teacher (a retired cop) many years ago taught that the safest thing to do is to let the passengers ogle the scene while the driver studiously pays attention to the task of driving. That's what I try to do. It's not going to kill me if I keep my eyes on the road ahead of me instead of looking at the tragedy. But some (many) people seem to never have learned this simple lesson.

Last Friday afternoon we left the house in plenty of time to arrive at an engagement. But the freeway traffic seemed much heavier than is normal for a Friday afternoon. Not being a sports fan, I hadn't realized that many college football fans would be headed to the USU-BYU game. (Note to self: check with sports fans before planning to drive on the freeway in the evening.)

Before long we came to a stop in a long line of traffic. Then the traffic started moving bit by bit. Eventually I could see flashing lights on the other side of the road, across two dividers. Traffic on our side of the road flowed freely after that point. When we got up there I kept my attention on traffic. The riders in my car informed me that there was a minor rear end accident on the other side of the freeway. In other words, hundreds of cars had to slow down for nearly ten minutes simply so that some drivers could look at the minor accident on the other side of the freeway. Totally idiotic.

People tell me that Utah drivers are the worst. Oddly enough, I've heard that local drivers are the worst from people just about everywhere I have driven. I've seen those studies that purport to rank the relative badness of drivers in various areas. I think they're pretty much bunk because there are too many factors involved to arrive at an objective conclusion. And besides, the margin between the best and the worst is probably so small as to make the measurement meaningless anyway. The fact is that drivers everywhere have a pretty low opinion of other drivers around them.

As I teach my children to drive I tell them that they will not find in any manual the #1 rule of the road that they must absolutely obey in order to be safe. That #1 rule is that the idiot ALWAYS has right of way. I teach my children to ALWAYS yield to the driver doing something stupid. Upon learning this, one son opined, "That means that if I drive like an idiot ...." To which I replied, "Then you lose your driving privileges."

It's a fact that if there are vehicles driving on the road, there will be drivers doing idiotic things, like driving with a live animal on their lap. (See John Branyan's take on this in the following video clip.) Why not learn to deal with this inevitability?

Yielding to the idiot does not mean confronting the idiot. I explain to my kids that while it might be necessary to report a dangerous driver, it is not their job to enforce the traffic laws or road etiquette rules. There are crazy people out there that have no problem pulling out a firearm if they feel that you have insulted them on the roadway. It isn't worth taking that risk to satisfy your ego or sense of justice.

After all, since none of us is a perfect driver, we sometimes play the part of the idiot driver too. Hopefully this leads to humility and self correction rather than more stupidity.

Now, I don't think of myself as unkind when I insist that people sometimes drive like idiots. That's simply reality. It's good to learn to deal with reality in a healthy manner. Where I could use improvement is in the cutting remarks I privately make about other drivers. It's OK to note driving mistakes. But I doubt Jesus would take guilty pleasure in employing sarcastic wit or character assassination while doing so.

Dealing With My Child's Suicidal Thoughts

I saw one of my former Boy Scouts a few months ago at an event that involved our kids. He is an engineer and a fine family man. It's difficult to describe how good it made me feel to see him doing well.

Back when this man was one of my scouts, I knew that he took medication for bipolar disorder, a problem that was common to several members of his family. His case was somewhat mild, but he admitted that his medication helped him cope. He could get by OK if he missed his meds for a day or two. Another member of his family, however, became utterly dysfunctional if she missed a single dose.

A couple of my children have been notoriously moody. They probably come by it honestly, because I was a moody child. Just ask my Mom. (For that matter, my wife might tell you that I've been a moody adult.) The older of my moody children eventually seemed to even out, gaining some mastery of his emotions. (Or at least their public display.)

I have been long aware that the other child of which I speak has had mood swings. But I really didn't think the problem was too far out of the ordinary until the day told me that he wasn't sure that he could bear to continue living.

My son had been having a pretty good day, I thought. He had been playing with friends and seemed happy. After a lot of jumping and running around, he came in the house and lay on the couch to relax. After a while he made some kind of expression that made me think he was tired. He explained that it was more than that. He just didn't feel like living any longer. No, it had nothing to do with his friends. He said that he just sometimes felt that way.

I sat down and tried to do the calm dad thing on the outside while freaking out on the inside. I gently tried to get my son to tell me when he first noticed such a feeling and how often he felt that way. His answers gave me to understand that it was a relatively recent development.

Before long my son met with a psychologist and then a psychiatrist. (No, they're not the same thing. The former focuses on counseling, while the latter diagnoses and treats mental conditions.) The consensus was that my son had bipolar disorder that required both counseling and drug therapy.

Bipolar disorder seems to have genetic, physiological, and environmental roots, impacts, and/or effects. The drugs that help are aimed at controlling the physiological aspects of the condition, which can help mitigate the impact of social and emotional triggers. Counseling is designed to help patients develop coping mechanisms for dealing with a permanent condition.

I was initially quite opposed to drug therapy. We have too many kids doped up on drugs in an effort to force them to fit well within our increasingly sit-down-shut-up-memorize-and-regurgitate school system. (Don't be too surprised when this methodology fails to turn out the next generation of highly skilled engineers and innovators—or even capable clerks, for that matter.)

Despite my reluctance, my son began taking the prescribed medication. It took several weeks, but it clearly helped. After a while, however, he experienced stomach problems, which are a common side effect of the drug he was taking. He had to be weaned from the drug and then remain unmedicated for several weeks. Those were tough weeks. He eventually started on another drug. It has some side effects too, but it seems to work to a degree.

It's difficult to effectively regulate drug dosages for growing youngsters. They can have growth spurts seemingly overnight that can leave them undermedicated. Vigilance is required.

Even with drug treatment, my son's case presents challenges. Since a significant portion of the underlying cause appears to be structural, the condition can only be managed, not cured. Thus, my son will face challenges throughout life.

My son can actually be quite entertaining during manic episodes. During recovery following a recent surgery he had my wife and the recovery nurse in stitches. The nurse, who sees many recovering patients daily, said she'd never seen anyone talk that humorously in recovery. Unfortunately, my son can also be obnoxious during manic episodes. Sometimes he becomes chatty and just won't shut up. This causes problems at home and at school.

My wonderful wife has done the lion's share of dealing with my son's condition. It's not uncommon for our son to slide back and forth between mania and depression several times each day. To me, the depressive episodes seem worse than the manic episodes. "Feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt, anger, isolation, or hopelessness" as well as "problems concentrating; loneliness, self-loathing, apathy or indifference; depersonalization" are common during these times.

Dealing with my son's bipolar condition is challenging for us as parents. When he is belligerent about doing his homework, for example, where does the malady end and his controllable will kick in? To complicate matters, this line of demarcation differs from episode to episode.

I recently accompanied my son on a two-mile hike with his scout troop. I went along because my son was being belligerent about hiking. He dislikes hiking, probably even more than I did when I was a kid. But I felt it was important for him to support the troop. Besides, I know from my current perspective that hiking builds character and helps youth develop resilience.

During the hike my son's bellicosity crossed the boundaries of the tolerable. I let him know in very clear terms that he had crossed that line. He took off and soon surpassed the foremost hikers. But after we rounded a bend in the trail, he was nowhere to be seen. I discovered him behind a stand of scrub oak after a few minutes of panic and searching by the four adults on the hike. By then he realized that he had done a very dangerous and foolish thing. He was surprisingly cooperative the rest of the evening.

I wondered before and during the hike whether making my so go on the hike was the right thing to do. Was I helping him develop useful skills or was I being a tyrannical parent? In hindsight, I still think my wife and I were right when we insisted that my son go on the hike. But exactly what the correct approach is in any given situation with my son is far from clear. Do we have to continually walk on eggshells? With how much do we let him get away?

Going back to the initial symptom that started us on the path to diagnosis, it is chilling to note that one-third of those diagnosed with bipolar disorder attempt (or complete) suicide. I occasionally had suicidal thoughts in my youth. But I never got to the point that I could have actually done something about it. Some people that deal with depressive disorders clearly can get to that point. Family members are left wondering what they could have done differently that might have prevented such an outcome.

Seeing my former scout as an adult that has thus far successfully dealt with his bipolar condition gives me hope for my son's future. At present it's just really hard for us as parents, as I'm sure it is for my son. It's very challenging to help him progress in positive ways while swimming in a sea of negative emotions and behaviors that impact the whole family. It will take a lot of years before we know how well we have done.

There Goes the Neighborhood

"Lots of people are moving in and out of our neighborhood," my daughter observed last night. I'm not sure that the present turnover rate is much different than the average rate over the 2+ decades we have lived in our home. Maybe it's just that some of the recent moves have directly impacted our daughter. Or maybe she's just now at an age where she is recognizing this kind of thing.

Then my daughter said something that surprised me. "It was kind of sad when the Browns* moved away." (*Names changed to protect the innocent.) I immediately understood that she was talking about our former neighbors of more than six years. But that was not their surname. It was the surname of our neighbors' step-grandchild who lived with them only temporarily. I realized that this connection was the context through which my daughter interpreted the entire family.

My mind jumped back to my childhood neighborhood and I understood that kids see neighbors and neighborhoods differently than do adults. Although I had interacted with many of my neighbors for most of my life, I didn't even know the surnames of many families in the neighborhood until I became a newspaper carrier and had to collect subscription fees from these people each month.

Nor did I have any clue what most of these people did for a living. I knew that one friend's dad worked for the U.S. Forest Service because he drove an agency truck. I knew that one lady down the street worked at a local pharmacy because we'd see her working when we went there. I knew that one guy worked for the local Wonder Bread bakery franchise because his mailbox was painted like a loaf of Wonder Bread and his family gave out miniature Wonder Bread loaves for Halloween treats. My scoutmaster worked as an engineer at a firm that did some kind of high tech stuff. But I had no idea what that meant.

Most of the adults in the neighborhood were only relevant if I had a connection with one of their children. Or if they were known to be prone to getting after kids that happened to wander across their yards. Or if they taught us at church. Even then I usually didn't know what they did outside of that context. People went to work. People came home from work. As a kid, it made little difference to me whether they were accountants, clerks, maintenance workers, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, or just about anything else.

School teachers were a rare departure from this paradigm. I was shocked the first time I understood that one lady in our neighborhood was a school teacher. The idea that the teachers and administrators at our school existed as normal human beings with families and normal life concerns boggled my mind. We considered them akin to some kind of alien breed that existed only within the context of school. When I understood that some of them had kids my age that had ordinary struggles with schoolwork, I thought, "Whoa! Is that even possible?"

Adults and children tend to view the neighborhood culture somewhat differently as well. By my count, about 42% of the homes in our current neighborhood are inhabited by their original owners (or at least the owner that lived there when we first moved in). Some homes have turned over only once over the space of many years. Others have turned over frequently.

These transitions, as well as normal aging, can gradually change a neighborhood's personality as residents come and go. Our neighborhood now has mature trees. It is still filled with children, but there are far fewer of them than there were during the first decade we lived there.

People that don't feel like they 'fit' a neighborhood's personality tend to move out before long. That was the case with the neighborhood where we lived when we first got married. It wasn't a bad place. We just felt like we belonged somewhere else.

Kids that have lived in one neighborhood during most of their formative years tend to see the place with a certain sense of permanency. Our kids are sometimes shocked when we tell them that we plan to move when we are empty nesters. (That's still a long way away.)

The thought that we would sell our children's childhood home, which seems at their current stages of life to be the main repository of everything they hold dear, comes across as jarring to them. But we won't need all of the bedrooms and stairs when we reach that phase of our lives. And I suppose our kids will eventually come to realize that the structure is not as important as the unseen ties that bind us together.

My travels regularly take me past the home in which I grew up. I have mixed emotions each time I drive past the place. The adult in me says, "Good riddance." I took on significant property care responsibilities during the last five years my parents lived there. I'm glad that Mom lives in a more manageable home now.

But the child in me feels certain pangs every time I see the old family homestead. Illogical as I know it is, it's as if the physical place somehow actually contains countless priceless memories. I'm not sure this will ever be fully resolved in this lifetime.

How Would You Like a Driverless Car?

Senior Wall Street Journal Editor Dan Neil predicts in this op-ed that the robo car (i.e. no human driver) is on the cusp of going mainstream. He predicts nearly 100% adoption within 25 years. While the praises Mr. Neil sings of this coming paradigm shift are alluring, I'm somewhat skeptical. After all, I've been hearing about the near future self driving car and flying car my whole life.

Mr. Neil begins his article by describing the flawless execution of an automated BMW on a challenging California race track. This seems odd because it is obviously a highly controlled environment and the car is merely 'replaying' the driving previously done by a professional human driver. This seems a long way from being ready for operating in real time traffic. Why not showcase the Google driverless car that has already completed nearly half a million accident free miles in real traffic and is already legal to operate in Nevada?

Neil spends much of the article working to disabuse readers of the "myth" of "the American Romance with the Automobile," which he chalks up to little more than an effective marketing campaign that is actually "a massive, crushing lie." Neil is wrong.

Marketing campaigns are only successful when the broad customer experience somewhat resembles the campaign's claims. Everyone understands that marketing emphasizes the positive while de-emphasizing the negative. But campaigns that go too far afield from reality fail. By Neil's own admission, this campaign has succeeded for more than a century, so it can't really be as big of a lie as he claims. Still, even the automobile romance could be overcome by vehicles that offer greater freedom than the current system.

The big advantage of driverless cars, claims Neil, is the immense productivity jump people will experience by being freed from operating a vehicle while commuting. Maybe some people will just waste time, but Neil says that work addicted Americans will use their commuting time to unleash one of the greatest waves of productivity the world has ever known. Frankly, this sounds more like evangelizing than reporting.

Many readers have responded to Neil's article with observations of their own. Most seem to accept the proposition that the driverless car is on its way. Some relish the thought. Some think adoption will take far longer than suggested. Some doubt the proposed 100% adoption rate.

Some readers think the driverless car will be slowly adopted like most other mass market products. It will initially be expensive and will be used only by high end buyers. Many bugs will be worked out of the system as competitors find better and cheaper ways to build driverless cars that work. It will take a long time before people at the lower end get such cars.

Several readers suggest that the trucking industry will likely be an early adopter, with private vehicles coming on board later. One reader imagines huge savings and safety improvements from getting sleepy (druggy), error prone human truck drivers off the road and off tucking company payrolls. Others suggest that it will be a long time before a truck can drive itself very far without having a qualified human ready to take over operation in the event of a situation the automated system can't handle.

A commercial airline pilot friend recently regaled me with descriptions of the marvels of automated flight. He said that pilots joke that cockpits will eventually have only instruments, a pilot, and a dog. The pilot will be there to take the instruments in case of autopilot failure. The dog will be there to bite the pilot if he tries to otherwise touch the instruments.

In a more serious tone my friend wonders whether the pilot will still have the necessary skills if he has to take the controls. The same could be true of autopilot cars. At first they would only operate with a qualified driver at the wheel—someone that would have to be sufficiently alert and trained to handle system failures. Perhaps over time, as systems improve, the human copilot will become superfluous and people will lose the skills necessary to respond to a driving emergency.

Then some of the scenarios imagined by various readers might become reality: cars that ferry elderly and handicapped people wherever they need to go, RVs that drive you to your destination while you sleep or watch TV, and the like. Maybe even teens that make out without ever 'parking.' But we're likely a very long way from that point.

Many readers point out technical and non-technical problems with Neil's driverless utopia. Who, for example, is liable in the event of an accident; the non-driving car 'operator' or the car company? I personally wonder about being able to go off the beaten track; something I do on a fairly regular basis. I suppose that most of these issues would be worked out bit by bit in an evolutionary process throughout the extensive adoption period.

Maybe Neil is right when he suggests that a quarter century from now self driven motor vehicles will be a distant memory and we will engage in all kinds of tasks while buzzing about in our autopilot cars. Or maybe, as has been the case with some hybrid and electric vehicles, people will still be wondering years from now why autopilot cars are so slow to catch on.

When Cartoons Were Good

I grew up watching cartoons on TV—a black and white TV until I was a teenager. While I would watch any cartoon, it didn't take me long to decide that Looney Tunes cartoons were on average a cut above the rest, at least when it came to cartoons developed after the early 1940s. The quality of the story lines, dialogue, humor, hand drawn art, vocal talents, and music put these cartoons in a class of their own.

I very much liked other cartoons as well, especially the original Jonny Quest series. I was a fan of the original Scooby Doo series too; although, both of these were in different genres than Looney Tunes. But most of the cartoons in the broad Hanna-Barbera universe were, at least to me, of decidedly inferior quality to Looney Tunes. I frankly never cared for Tom & Jerry. And the 1973 Yogi's Gang series was among the most awful things ever done. Ditto with the addition of the Scrappy Doo character to Scooby Doo.

We own a lot of Scooby Doo DVDs, mainly because my younger kids quite like them. I think you could go on buying these things forever, since the franchise has spawned 11 series and some live action movies. We own a lot of other DVDs as well. Most of them are aimed at kids—Disney, DreamWorks, and the like. (Yeah, I know that actual ownership of video disks is destined to go the way of VHS tapes.)

I have a handful of DVDs in my personal collection—mostly history documentaries and a few 'classics' that were popular in my teen and young adult years. But I own some cartoon DVDs as well: all six of the Looney Tunes Golden Edition collections (yes, that's 24 full length DVDs), another Looney Tunes disk, and the entire original Jonny Quest series.

I know that the shorts made during the Looney Tunes golden era are full of material that is horridly politically incorrect nowadays. As noted by Wikipedia, these shorts are filled with violent gags, "racial and ethnic caricatures," and "questionable vices." It isn't possible to remove insensitive factors without destroying the original art. It should be understood when watching these cartoons that some elements are clearly offensive by modern standards. Other material that today's professional victimology industry considers taboo is still funny and still offers valuable cultural and social commentary.

You can see a lot of different cartoons on TV and on the Internet nowadays. Some of the offerings are pretty good. But others are pure garbage. Some of the so-called art (computer enhanced, no less) looks like it was drawn by Kindergartners on drugs. And I have yet to understand how infusing cartoons with endless streams of body function gags, potty humor, and all things icky offers a moral improvement over Elmer Fudd shooting Daffy Duck in the head in a slapstick scene.

The 1990s the Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures series tried to recapture some of the magic of the classic Looney Tunes while modernizing and taking it to a new level. Although not devoid of decent humor, the delivery was choppy and often annoying. The shows' frenetic paces frequently suppressed the magic rather than enhancing it. More recent offerings featuring the classic Looney Tunes stars don't quite capture the magic of the originals either.

I don't often sit down to watch the cartoon DVDs I own. My kids watched them a lot when we first got them. But not so much any more. Still, the classic Looney Tunes shorts comprise a unique artistic and entertainment achievement that will probably never be repeated.

Hummingbirds, Gratitude, and Service

A recent weekend found me doing work projects at a Boy Scout camp, something I have done regularly since age 13. The camp was relatively quiet compared to my visits during the summer when it was filled with several hundred excited campers. Our small crew worked outside between rainstorms. Unlike my father, I'm not particularly handy. I'm usually relegated to doing grunt work under the direction of people that actually know what they're doing. Yet I persist.

In the evening we gathered around the hearth in the lodge. The camp director, who was an important mentor to me in my youth, told of filling the hummingbird feeder on the deck of the lodge a few weeks earlier and then watching the beautiful tiny birds take their fill of the abundant nectar he had provided.

In his mind's eye my friend could imagine the hummingbirds thinking that they had found the most beautiful and wonderful flower ever formed as they gloriously drank from its abundant supply. He didn't mind that they seemed oblivious to the fact that he had worked to provide that resource. Just the joy of watching the minuscule fowl enjoying the nectar was thanks enough for him.

The camp director then turned his gaze toward an open area of the camp that he could see from the lodge. At that moment boys were streaming to and from activities; some of them flitting about almost like little birds. It dawned on my friend that most of these boys were blissfully unaware of the vast effort that went into providing the experience they were enjoying. But the joy of just watching them enjoy the camp was thanks enough.

My first family vacation I can remember happened when I was about four years old. We went to Yellowstone. I remember seeing bears at the roadside and being upset that I didn't get a pocketknife as did my older brothers. I got a stuffed toy bear instead, that I played with for years until much of the sawdust stuffing leaked out. (And anyway, both of my brothers cut their thumbs within minutes of getting their knives.)

When I was about nine we went to Disneyland. We went there again when I was about 13. My parents mostly spent their time shepherding and keeping track of us kids. They rarely rode rides unless we made them. There were other family vacations over the years. Most of them seemed designed to cater to us kids.

When I was a sophomore in college my parents shocked us kids by installing a real in-ground swimming pool in their back yard, complete with diving board. Dad had loved swimming in his youth and my parents figured that a pool would be a good attraction for bringing kids and grandkids to their home as they aged.

They were right about that. But I rarely saw my parents swim during the decades that they owned their pool. They worked tirelessly on cleaning and maintaining the pool, and doing all of the work of hosting frequent formal and informal family swimming parties. They put a lot of money into that pool over the years. But they almost never swam in it themselves.

This puzzled me for a long time. But I now realize that those family vacations and that swimming pool were, for my parents, much like the hummingbird feeder was for my camp director friend. They were willing to put in the effort and expense for the sheer enjoyment of watching us enjoy these offerings, even if we seemed as heedless as the hummingbirds.

I think that's what our Heavenly Father is like too. He knows that we can't adequately thank him for everything he does for and offers to us. Even the most aware among us is likely ignorant of many of the blessings God grants us daily out of his tremendous love for us. But God continues to bless us abundantly for the joy of watching us enjoy his blessings.

I guess that's why I do a lot of the service that I do in my family and community. Despite my inadequacies in serving, I still relish seeing my children and others garner some benefit and even some enjoyment as a result of what I do, even if they don't comprehend the effort involved. Just watching them is thanks enough.

High IQ <> Success; Overcoming Adversity = Success

There is a scene in the Disney animated feature Meet the Robinsons where the main character makes a spectacular mistake. Actually it's a repeat of a previous faux pas, but it impacts more people. As he begins to grovel and apologize, the boy's hosts begin cheering his failure. One character informs the confused boy that much is learned from failure, but "from success, not so much."

The aptly named Paul Tough discusses precisely this point this Wall Street Journal article. American culture, says Tough, has for the past few decades been fixated on the idea that a higher IQ naturally leads to success. Vast resources are committed to enhancing intelligence in children in the hope of ensuring greater success, despite the fact that such approaches rarely produce lasting gains.

Tough writes that "in the past few years, a disparate group of economists, educators, psychologists and neuroscientists has begun to produce evidence that calls into question many of the assumptions behind the cognitive hypothesis." These people assert that the most important childhood learning is not cognitive, but rather the development of "noncongnitive skills" such as "persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence."

A common term for these conglomerated noncognitive skills is character. "And character, even more than IQ," asserts Tough, "is what leads to real and lasting success." Of particular significance to the development of character is learning to overcome adversity. This means that success actually does begin with failure. Success is achieved in the overcoming of those failures.

This calls to mind a joke about a young man that is struggling to get his start in life trying to find out how to succeed by interviewing a seasoned successful man. When asked how he became successful, the older man answers, "Good judgement." When asked how he developed good judgment he responds, "Experience." When asked how he developed experience, he replies, "Poor judgment."

The development of character is an individual process that cannot be charitably distributed. Success can be had by anybody, but each must fashion his own by treading a road that includes many hardships.

Unfortunately, American culture has worked to streamline the childhood development experience to the point that "American children, especially those who grow up in relative comfort, are, more than ever, shielded from failure as they grow up. They certainly work hard; they often experience a great deal of pressure and stress; but in reality, their path through the education system is easier and smoother than it was for any previous generation. Many of them are able to graduate from college without facing any significant challenges."

Thus, a college degree does not guarantee success, even if it's earned from a top flight university.

So how do we instill character in our kids? Tough says that "the most valuable thing that parents can do to help their children develop noncognitive skills—which is to say, to develop their character—may be to do nothing. To back off a bit. To let our children face some adversity on their own, to fall down and not be helped back up." Let kids struggle through failure instead of rushing to rescue them from it.

In recent years LDS Church leaders for youth have undertaken the mantra, "You can do hard things." Programs have evolved to reflect this concept. While Tough's tough love approach is undoubtedly necessary, the church clearly takes the view that it's not enough to just let character development happen. A purposeful approach is required.

This past summer, my middle child went on a seriously challenging pioneer trek. A hardy group of souls donned mid-19th Century trail attire and pushed fully laden hand carts up and down hills across many miles of the old Pioneer Trail on the barren Wyoming prairie, camping along the way. They endured harsh weather conditions, blisters, and sore muscles. One leader said, "Trek wasn't fun. But it was worth it. It doesn't have to be fun to be worthwhile."

A few weeks later, this same child went backpacking with his scouting group in the High Uintas. Heavy rain toward the end of the week prevented them from achieving their goal of hiking a full 50 miles. But they put in a lot of miles with full packs on their backs. Having done a fair amount of backpacking in my time, I sought my son's opinion of the activity. I chuckled when he said that backpacking "is probably an activity for other people and not so much for me."

Having been involved with youth groups for most of my life, I can say from a leader perspective that it's a lot easier to do fun and easy activities. It's hard to get youth to come to service projects where real work is involved. But that's often where a sense of fulfillment is found.

Even with opportunities for youth to engage in challenging activities, I suspect that much of the real growth that leads to success comes from battling one's private failures. It is through these struggles that we discover our potential for excellence.

As a kid I keenly felt the humiliation that resulted from always being the last one selected for any kind of athletic contest. I frankly would have preferred to avoid such activities, but sometimes it was either required at school or it was the only way to hang out with friends. I'm still lousy at team sports and I avoid them if possible. But failure at sports helped me discover potential for excellence in other arenas, many of which I still enjoy.

I am reminded of the essay by author Lee Pitts titled, These Things I Wish for You that Paul Harvey popularized on his radio show. Pitts starts off by saying, "We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse." He wishes for his grandchildren something better: "tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness." It may well be that the only way to get the happiness result is to have the inputs of tough times, disappointment, and hard work.

But how many of us are really willing to let our kids grapple with their own challenges? The natural parental instinct seems to be to swoop down and save them from what they most need, especially when we can afford to do so. Unless we resist this urge, we may end up with kids that have their heads jammed full of information but that are denied what we really wish we could give them: happiness and success.

Eleven Years

As we prepared to fetch flags for my Boy Scout son to put up throughout the neighborhood this morning in commemoration of Patriot Day, he asked why we were celebrating terrorist attacks that killed thousands of people.

Having been a baby on 9/11/01, my son has no memory of life before the attacks. He doesn't remember a time when we were not at war in Afghanistan. He knows nothing of air travel without the indignity of being treated as a suspected terrorist.

My wife explained that we were not 'celebrating' the terrorist attacks but commemorating our response to the attacks. We are remembering the victims and the horror, not to think of ourselves as victims, but to bolster our resolve to maintain the cause of liberty. We are reminding ourselves that liberty doesn't just happen; it is a task that requires a purposeful approach. Because there are people out there that hate liberty.

I thought about my son's question as I drove to work. A program on the radio was replaying snippets from that day of infamy 11 years ago. Suddenly I was caught up in the odd mix of emotions I felt on that day, experiencing them anew for a brief time.

9/11/01 was a nationally defining moment. The now well-known photo of firefighters raising the American Flag amid the debris of the fallen towers became a defining symbol of the day.

Many artists created works in the wake of 9/11. As I again felt the pervasive somberness of that day, I thought of Exhibit 13, one of the more poignant of these works. Oddly enough, it is by the Blue Man Group, which is more known for its clownishness than for its serious acts. Free of political commentary, Exhibit 13 evokes the memory of those ordinary people that died in the 9/11 attacks.

Using Mined Data for Security Questions

You're familiar with the drill. When you create an online account for just about any service you end up creating several security questions to which hopefully only you know the answer. This adds a layer of security to the standard user name and password employed for logging on. Then hopefully you remember the answers you selected the next time you have to answer one or more of those questions.

This is just one of the methods used for enhancing online security. Some sites use an image and/or an unusual phrase to verify that you are on the service's authentic website and not some phishing scam site. Many sites require you to enter obfuscated phrases that are difficult for computers to read to verify that you are a human and not some robo-entry program.

No security paradigm is foolproof. Every layer of security adds a layer of inconvenience. Service providers constantly walk a narrow line between making you secure and making you frustrated. Security experts know that users frequently choose convenience over security. The higher the level of potential frustration, the higher the chance that the user will compromise his own security.

Take the ubiquitous password, for example. The most common passwords in the world include 1234, 12345, and password, all of which are easily guessed by humans and computers alike. Frankly, people are frustrated by the number of varied passwords they must remember. Different sites have different password requirements and even experts disagree on what makes for a secure password. Password vaults are often cumbersome enough to render them as inconvenient as remembering multiple passwords.

Some service providers are now using data mining to provide more security. When my wife recently accessed an online account she was presented with a series of questions she didn't choose. For example, she was asked to select from from a list a street name with which she had been associated. None seemed familiar until she dug through old files and discovered an address at which we had briefly lived years ago when we first married. A couple of other questions were obscure enough to require research as well.

The other day I was helping my mother-in-law with her bank account. We reached a point where she had to call customer service. The service rep asked her a fairly long series of questions. I heard my mom-in-law answer, "None of the above" to several. After completing the list, the service rep informed Mom that she had answered too many questions incorrectly and that they could only help her if she appeared at a branch in person to verify her identity.

On the one hand, I was pleased that the bank was serious about verifying Mom's identity before discussing account details. When the attempt failed, they implemented procedures designed to protect Mom's account.

On the other hand, I was immediately unimpressed with the data mining security question process. If this method produces questions of such a recondite nature that the answers are not immediately discerned by the people that experienced the activities that gave rise to the data, how effective is it really?

And how secure is it really? The data used for the questions that both my wife and my mom-in-law faced came from publicly available records. How long will it take before the bad guys figure out which questions are likely to be asked? How hard will it be for them to derive the answers from a few Google searches? They might actually be better at answering these questions than the real account holders.

We all want our personal data to be secure online. But I think this new data mining security question method can safely be scored as a customer relationship and security failure. It is cumbersome enough to drive customers away, especially when it prevents them from legitimately using the services it is designed to protect. And, as mentioned above, it is likely only a matter of time until the bad guys overcome the protective wall that frustrates regular customers anyway.

The Taker Mentality Bankrupts Character

As a teen I heard a Soviet defector talk about life in the USSR. I was somewhat mystified when he explained that many people in his home country were afraid of liberty. Why would anybody not want liberty? Although liberty offered more affluence, these people feared the unknown and personal accountability. Despite their dismal circumstances, they were addicted to benefits offered by the state. Their dependency culture had bankrupted their moral character, robbed them of initiative, and turned them into willing serfs.

Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt in this WSJ op-ed provides some rather stunning evidence to bolster his claim that Americans are well on their way to the kind of character debauchery that was endemic to Soviet life a few decades ago. "The growth of entitlement payments over the past half-century" he writes, "has been breathtaking. ... Even after adjusting for inflation and population growth, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown 727% over the past half-century...."

Even after all of the New Deal programs, federal spending was mainly concentrated on "limited public services and infrastructure investments and ... defending the republic against enemies foreign and domestic" as late as 1960. Now transfer payments to individuals comprise two-thirds of all federal spending.

The terms "entitlements" and "transfer payments" are far too antiseptic. What these terms mean is taking property from someone and giving it to someone else using the coercive power of government—activities that bear more than a passing resemblance to behavior proscribed by the 8th and 10th Commandments.

We should be careful about being hoodwinked by cleverly sanitized terms used by the political class. When they say "invest" they mean increased government spending. When they say "ask" they mean increased taxation and/or regulation under threat of force—asking in the same way that a mugger asks for you wallet.

Despite current partisan rhetoric, Eberstadt notes that "the explosion of entitlement spending" has been a bi-partisan affair. "Between 1960 and 2010, the growth of entitlement spending was exponential, but in any given year, it was on the whole roughly 8% higher if the president happened to be a Republican rather than a Democrat." A politician is a politician regardless of party.

There is no shortage of those that suggest that our bloated entitlement spending is exactly the right thing for America—the perfect prescription for assuaging the evils of the days when people actually had to worry about how they would get their next meal. They bandy about terms like "community" and "social justice" to justify programs that turn sovereign citizens into government subjects that can more easily be controlled by their government masters.

The reordering of federal priorities has completely altered the face of our political system, as well as the way that Americans think about and approach life. Eberstadt writes:

"From the founding of our nation until quite recently, the U.S. and its citizens were regarded, at home and abroad, as exceptional in a number of deep and important respects. One of these was their fierce and principled independence, which informed not only the design of the political experiment that is the U.S. Constitution but also their approach to everyday affairs."

"The corollaries of this American ethos were, on the one hand, an affinity for personal enterprise and industry and, on the other, a horror of dependency and contempt for anything that smacked of a mendicant mentality. Although many Americans in earlier times were poor, even people in fairly desperate circumstances were known to refuse help or handouts as an affront to their dignity and independence. People who subsisted on public resources were known as "paupers," and provision for them was a local undertaking. Neither beneficiaries nor recipients held the condition of pauperism in high regard."

Entitlement spending is swamping this old system of ethics. In fact, Eberstadt notes, "The U.S. is now on the verge of a symbolic threshold: the point at which more than half of all American households receive and accept transfer benefits from the government. From cradle to grave, a treasure chest of government-supplied benefits is there for the taking for every American citizen—and exercising one's legal rights to these many blandishments is now part of the American way of life."

It would be easy to blame all of this on the political class. But that would be like blaming the whole problem of drug addiction on the pushers without respect to their addicted clients that demand the drugs. Pushers would not exist without junkies.

Ah, but amid the sounds of Americans gorging themselves at the government trough one occasionally hears someone impertinently asking how we're going to pay for this feast. Some pause momentarily to consider this before shrugging it off and figuring that the same political class that brought the swill will somehow figure out how to keep the supply coming.

Our national addiction to government supplied benefits has dulled our moral and ethical sensibilities. Not only is there decreasing aversion to dependency; benefits are actively sought regardless of  impending fiscal and moral bankruptcy. Eberstadt writes:

"As Americans opt to reward themselves ever more lavishly with entitlement benefits, the question of how to pay for these government transfers inescapably comes to the fore. Citizens have become ever more broad-minded about the propriety of tapping new sources of finance for supporting their appetite for more entitlements. The taker mentality has thus ineluctably gravitated toward taking from a pool of citizens who can offer no resistance to such schemes: the unborn descendants of today's entitlement-seeking population."

It's worse than taking candy from babies. We are taking from pre-babies and even the babies of those pre-babies—the unborn that have no vote, no lobbyists, and no voice in government. And we somehow find this morally acceptable.

Unfortunately, many of those unborn on whose labor we are banking may never be born. It has been shown over and over again that populations that devolve into dependency on social programs lose their desire to bear and raise children. Combining decreasing population with the time value of money means that every dollar we steal from children of the future will amount to many dollars in their lifetimes, dooming them to a lifetime of servitude to pay for our excesses.

While some citizens and even some politicians are working to draw attention to America's impending fiscal disaster, a greater concern, suggests Eberstadt, is a "possibility [that] is even more frightening—namely, that the present course may in fact be sustainable for far longer than most people today might imagine." The nation still "has vast resources to squander."

Eberstadt chillingly opines, "Such devices might well postpone the day of fiscal judgment: not so the day of reckoning for American character, which may be sacrificed long before the credibility of the U.S. economy."

Is it already too late?