Ormond

Yes, Sweden's restrictions do seem to be a bit more stringent than those in the USA now. In the USA the gender of one's sexual partners is no longer an issue. From the Red Cross site here are the sex behavior restrictions: Under the FDA’s individual donor assessment guidance, there are no eligibility criteria related to men who have sex with men. Any individual, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, who has had new or multiple sexual partners in the last three months, and also had anal sex in that timeframe, will be asked to wait three months to donate blood from last anal sex contact. Individuals who have had anal sex in the last three months may be eligible to donate as long as they did not have sex with someone new or with multiple partners during that timeframe. Also, I have never been told that if I develop cold systems the day after donating I should call them about it. We do now get emails telling us where in the USA our donation has been used, which does turn out to really help motivate people to donate again.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are going through some major upheavals right now, and the national board that controls them has even decided to make some changes recently. I have run across several YouTube videos about the fact that the rule against beards which the Witnesses had has recently been scrapped. That might seem like a minor issue, but it seems to be a big deal for a lot of former JW's out there that even that rule has been changed. Any change where individual Witnesses are trusted with making a personal choice where they weren't before seems to be a big victory for some people who have been part of that group.

I am very sorry you have had that experience. In my personal case both LDS and JW missionaries have quickly accepted "no" for an answer. I think I have read that Mormon missionaries are directed now to especially concentrate on younger people, which is a demographic I do not fit.

I have linked below to a video about the nationwide blood shortage in the USA that the Red Cross has declared. 40% fewer people are giving blood than did a few years ago. Some of this is because blood drives have usually been held in the USA in workplaces and churches, and since the pandemic with many people working from home and church attendance down, there just aren't as many people who are regularly in spaces where they can personally be asked to give blood. I have been giving regularly since they got rid of their complete restrictions on gay men giving a few years ago. If you are over 17, there is no age restriction -- I know a woman who gave blood a couple of years ago at age 100. It is even more important, though, to consider giving if you are still in your 20s or 30s to get yourself into the habit of doing it. Now it is true that once you get into the Red Cross data system you will get lots of calls and/or emails about donating, precisely because they are desperate these days. But there are very few other things people who don't work directly in health care can do where you know you are helping to save someone's life and/or health by doing it. So -- have you ever given blood? If you are not in the United States, how does blood donation work in your own country, and is there a present shortage in your nation? Here is the video news clip:

If you are still going to have separate primaries, I certainly do NOT think people should be able to vote in more than one. It sort of defeats the purpose of having parties at all. Rather than allowing people to vote in more than one primary, it would be better to have so-called "jungle primaries" as they now do in California, Alaska, and (I think) Louisiana, where in the "primary" all candidates from any party are on the ballot and the general election is a run-off between the top two in the "primary" no matter what their party affiliations are. However, I'm not sure this really has made candidates in those states more "moderate" than they otherwise would be, though the change to this system in California and Alaska is so recent there wouldn't be good data on that yet.

I would assume that the persecution of Baha'i in Iran is because it grew out of Islam in Iran and so is considered a "heresy" there. Humans unfortunately are always more disturbed by someone who used to be part of their group who abandons it than they are by those who were never part of their group to begin with. Being a "traitor" is more condemned than just being an "enemy." One sees this in politics as well as in religion. I think in the United States that Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were especially persecuted back in the 19th century because of that phenomenon.

Here's today's column, my annual report on The American Name Society's Name of the Year vote: https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/barbie-gaza-chosen-as-joint-names-of-the-year-in-2023/article_408f8ea2-b00e-11ee-bdee-87e76b6a4167.html

We are having our second big snow storm in a week here in Omaha and almost everything is closed. Plus it is supposed to be getting super-frigid starting tomorrow, with a high temperature on Sunday of -9 degrees F (and that is the basic temperature, NOT the wind chill), so my church's services and lots of other things have also already been cancelled for Sunday. I do think people have gotten more scared of bad winter weather now than they were years ago. I don't remember things being cancelled just because of below zero temperatures (without major snowfall) until recently.

I think monotheism vs. polytheism is too simplistic a contrast. There are many varieties of each, plus intermediate possibilities, two of which are called henotheism (where someone believes in the existence of multiple gods but only worships one of them, while believing it is valid for other people to worship different gods) and monolatry, where one both only worships one god and believes that their god is the only one that any person should worship. I think there are many passages in the Hebrew scriptures themselves which imply that originally the Hebrew conception was more monolatry than pure monotheism, where one thinks only one God has any real existence. I think in terms of the effects of deistic beliefs on society that the important question isn't whether one is montheistic, polytheistic, or something in between, but what is one's conception of the moral or ethical implications of the god(s) one worships. As a modern liberal Protestant I think any theism whose god(s) promote love, justice, and equality for all persons is mentally and spiritually healthy. I think often the most problematic beliefs are the dualistic theistic beliefs, as in some forms of Zoroastrianism, where there are basically just two gods, one good and one evil, who are in constant conflict with each other. I think many right-wing Christians at different points in history have elevated the idea of Satan to a point where he is almost such a co-equal "god of evil". I think that belief system much more easily leads to a demonization of those who are different from oneself by assigning everything in the world, including other humans, to be either on the side of the "good God" of the side of the "devil", and that to me seems to lead to more hatred and persecution of those different from oneself than either pure monotheism or polytheism.

Here is Locus's obituary for Terry Bisson: https://locusmag.com/2024/01/terry-bisson-1942-2024/

MAGA persons who are influenced by Q-Anon think she and her fans are being "weaponized" by the Biden administration and Deep State. https://www.wired.com/story/taylor-swift-psyop-conspiracy-theory-person-of-the-year/

British actress Glynis Johns has died at age 100. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/04/entertainment/glynis-johns-dead/index.html All the news reports are first emphasizing her role as Mrs. Banks in Disney's Mary Poppins, and her helping to popularize the song "Send in the Clowns." However, the film that originally made her a star in the UK, 1948's fantasy film Miranda, where she played a mermaid, brought Miranda back as a baby name in the USA when it was shown on American TV in the 1950s. So her original image was as a beautiful sex symbol, not the middle-aged suffragist of Poppins: https://omaha.com/lifestyles/admired-miranda-popularity-flows-with-the-tides/article_aa30a606-f7d3-11ec-8114-3bcdbe971155.html

Here is the link to today's column: https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-medieval-name-soars-from-modern-media-exposure/article_61e30aee-a3fb-11ee-970d-8f483eec512c.html Hope everyone has a great new year!

Comedian Tom Smothers, who was one of the most controversial entertainers on TV back in my day, has died of cancer at age 86. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/comedian-tom-smothers-dies-86/story?id=105945690 https://www.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2023/12/27/tom-smothers-brothers-comedian-dead-obit-vpx.cnn https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tom-smothers-half-famed-comedy-music-duo-smothers-brothers-dead-86-rcna131330

Richard Bowes, who won two World Fantasy awards for short stories and a Lambda Literary award for his 1999 novel Minions of the Moon, died December 24: https://locusmag.com/2023/12/richard-bowes-1944-2023/

Science fiction and fantasy author David Drake has died at age 78: https://locusmag.com/2023/12/david-drake-1945-2023/ I read Lord of the Isles, first book in Drake's six-volume fantasy series, many years ago. I remember it as being "only OK", but he obviously had his fans, and from the obituary it seems he was really better known for his science fiction. Has anyone here read other titles by David Drake?

Here is the link toi today's column: https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-irish-love-songs-popularized-eileen/article_38f92f9e-983b-11ee-ac19-bb769e3f95d0.html That Eileen has started to come back may mean other names ending in -een or -ene such as Doreen and Darlene may be ripe for revival soon.

Wayne turns up as a middle name for boys named John in the USA more often than would be expected precisely because people are consciously or unconsciously imitating the name of the actor. Anyone remember John Wayne Bobbitt? And to add an eccentric political example, a man named John Wayne Howe has been a candidate in Alaska for the Alaska Independence Party in various elections the last four years. https://www.adn.com/politics/2022/08/06/candidate-qa-governor-john-wayne-howe/ Keith is also probably the most common middle name for men named Brian in the USA because of people consciously or unconsciously being affected by the name of the actor Brian Keith.

Yes, you should forget about Tulsi Gabbard because she is NOT Indian-American. Her ancestry is European and Samoan. Her mother raised her in the Hindu religion, but I don't think that should get her called "Indian-American" any more than being a Zen Buddhist should make you a Japanese-American (I have a good friend who's a Zen monk with no East Asian ancestry) or being raised a Roman Catholic should make you an Italian-American.

Oh come on. There is always a very small chance of such violence, but to say it's "likely" is just unsupportable. In fact, do you have ANY example of a woman who has been killed by an "extremist" for having an abortion? I can only remember physicians who perform abortions being the targets of that. And I doubt if she will be "hounded for the rest of her life", because there will be many other women who will be in the news for the same thing over the next few years, which will make her particular story forgotten even by most extremists.

O'Neal's fame was a big influence on the use of Ryan as a boy's name. Though Ryan had been rising in use in the USA before he was famous, it boomed in the USA after he first became known on television's Peyton Place and then skyrocketed after Love Story. Love Story also introduced Ryan as a boy's name in the UK, where before then it had been very rare. Many of the other famous Ryans today, such as Seacrest, Reynolds, and Gosling, were born after Love Story and so may partially owe their names to O'Neal.

For the most part in Christianity it's the right wing that causes "schisms" by leaving as an organized group. When liberal Christians are disaffected with their denomination, they tend to either stay and fight, believing the future is on their side, or leave as individuals, not taking whole congregations or regions with them. So if a right wing Pope is elected after Francis, I expect the liberal Catholics who leave will simply stop going to church or become Episcopalians, not form a new denomination.

Here is the link to today's column: https://omaha.com/life-entertainment/local/cleveland-evans-mary-was-no-1-for-nearly-seven-decades/article_5455312a-8f08-11ee-817d-330f018d03a6.html The headline is a bit odd because Mary was #1 in the English speaking world for about 290 years, not just "nearly seven decades." Whoever wrote it must have just paid attention to the paragraph about the Social Security data, which begins in 1880, so 1880 to 1947 is "nearly seven decades."

Melania Trump was there, and George W. Bush and Barack Obama were not unless they were hiding somewhere. Of course Donald wasn't there, either. Also, that's Rosalynn Carter, and she pronounced her first name with a "long O", like it was "Rosa Lynn", though a whole lot of TV reporters never seem to have learned that properly.

This may be a minor point, but the article you linked to clearly states the car was driving AWAY from the casino, not "on the way to" it. I suppose one of the things investigators will be looking in to is how much alcohol the driver drank while he was at the casino.