::A GOP STAR RISES IN 2010 MASSACHUSETTS RACE AGAINST OBAMA BUDDY GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK

HMO Chief Charlie Baker Comes To The Aid
Of The Foundering Republican Party

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
September 5, 2009

BY RB SCOTT

The Commonwealth that gave the nation the likes of the Kennedys(Jack, Bobby, Ted et al) Mike Dukakis, Paul Tsgonas, Bill Weld, Mitt Romney may be aborning its next star

With the approval ratings of the once promising Massachusetts Governor and Obama buddy Deval Patrick hitting all time lows -a mind-numbing 19 percent in one recent survey - a Republican will likely be sitting atop Beacon Hill come January 2011, an office the party has owned from 1991 until Romney bowed out of the 2006 race to run for President.

The most likely Republican to be king of the hill is Charles Baker, the amiable chief executive officer of Harvard-Pilgrim Healthcare, who, some say, is not only one of the more formidable healthcare experts in the nation but has the patience of Job and is a team-player nonpareil. He reigned in his own well-known political ambitious in 2002 so that Mitt Romney could rush home and run unopposed in the Republican primary. He checked his ego again in 2006 in favor of Romney's designated heir, Kerry Healy. She lost resoundingly to gaffe-prone Patrick, who foolishly celebrated his victory by ordering the government to buy him a new Cadillac. It has been down hill for him ever since, despite his close friendship with President Barack Obama and Massachusetts being the most liberal governments north of, say, Havana.

Baker's stay in the statehouse could be short-lived as his serious in the trenches expertise resuscitating and rebuilding one of the nation's most respected managed healthcare systems could make him irresistible to Washington.

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::OBAMA-HUNTSMAN Dreamteam of Rivals?

Does Huntsman’s Road Through Beijing
Lead To The Obama White House?

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
August 28, 2009

By RB Scott

When President Barack Obama rang up Utah’s moderate Republican Governor Jon Huntsman a while back to feel him out about joining a Democratic administration, insiders say the first question out of his mouth went something like this: “So, are you going to run against me in 2012?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” the popular, attractive and well-heeled governor demurred skillfully before accepting the call to serve as the President’s main man in Beijing (Huntsman speaks fluent Mandarin as a result of his two year Mormon missionary experience in Taiwan) and, in so doing, becoming the icon of The Team of Rivals President Obama is assembling in Washington

Clearly, the President was already mapping his plan for 2012 even if governor cum ambassador was not. Question is: will Huntsman’s adroit deflection go down as one of the more disingenuous in recent memory?

Ever since the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee chose Mitt Romney over Huntsman(despite intensive lobbying from his wealthy and powerful namesake father) to revive the then foundering 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Junior has been eyeing the big prize and, not so incidentally, Romney too: witness his the snub he directed Mitt’s way by endorsing John McCain in 2008.

With recent polls showing Romney now leading the pack of Republican prospects and, gasp, running neck-and-neck with Obama, Machiavellian speculators on both sides of see the possibilities for an even tighter Obama-Huntsman alliance come 2012, and, possibly, a more public revival of the Romney-Huntsman contretemps.

The assumptions for this marriage of potential rivals include:

1. Polls continue to show Romney even-up with Obama and the leading Republican contender, despite spiteful and short-sighted opposition from radical elements of the Christian Right

2. Vice President Biden continues to feast on his foot. Both of them. Simultaneously.

3. China’a rise as an important world power and trading partner remains steady as she goes

4. Obama’s economic and healthcare programs undercuts his appeal to middleclass swing voters.

One possible result: Round about late 2010, Vice President Biden abruptly decides he needs to spend more time with his family. Obama summons Huntsman to Washington. Question is: would Huntsman switch parties or serve out the term as a Republican, and, with Obama, form the nation’s first bipartisan “Team of Rivals” running mates in 2012?

The predictable bad-mouthing has already begun in out West. Grumbles one Utahan: “Good to see that Huntsman has finally come out of the closet. Everyone around here always knew he was just another buff RINO (Republican In Name Only) who looks cool in Harley leathers.”

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:: MORE MUDDLE FOR SAME SEX MARRIAGE MUDDLE

Boston, Massachusetts
July, 2009

BY RB SCOTT

A recent Gallup poll http://www.gallup.com/poll/118378/Majority-Americans-Continue-Oppose-Gay-Marriage.aspx suggests that support for host of same sex civil rights has grown at the same time that opposition to same sex marriage has remained strong, unchanged from previous years.

Oddly, Gallup apparently did not try to get at whether citizens think the governments - Federal, state and local -- have any constitutional role to play in marriage, now that various religious organizations have succeeded (for the time being) in redefining "civil marriage" as a de facto religious sanction.

Perhaps it is indicative only of the nation's need to catch its breath after witnessing the divisive Proposition 8 debacle in California, an extraordinarily costly referendum that turned friends into foes and cast guilt-by-association aspersions on practically everyone: Catholic, Mormon, Unitarian, Evangelical, Agnostic, or Atheist; Republican, Democrat or confused; liberal, conservative, or anarchist.

Partisans of one stripe or another need to finally acknowledge that governments have absolutely no role to play in countenancing any religious blessing, however explicit, implied or vague. None. Absolutely none! Governments should limit themselves to matters of the law: crafting and enforcing statutes that protect the rights of people who enter into and/or are products of institutions that qualify as legal domestic partnerships.

Otherwise, as the recent Gallup poll implies, the solution is likely to be one that annoys practically everyone.

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:::THE GOP: WILL LEADERS LEAD, PANDER
OR JUST GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY?

Boston, Massachusetts
June 28, 2009

BY RB SCOTT

While hyperactive and hyperbolic (not to mention foolish)partisans continue to demand that President Obama produce his birth certificate and wail about the primrose path to socialism his team is leading us down, conservatives/Republicans seem to be almost genetically incapable of forming a thoughtful, provocative, forward-looking loyal opposition.

Yet, that is precisely what the nation sorely needs, not to mention the President too, if he is to keep the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank in check.

Another recent poll suggests that Republicans have no clear idea of which way they want the party to go from here on in. They seem equally divided between Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin. Does this suggest that despite a perilous economy and quicksand of the Middle East (in particular), that "social issues" will continue to drive the party's politics through 2012?

Instead of offering steady hands for the tiller and thoughtful minds for the debate, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and other birds of a feather seem hell bent to stir more mean spiritedness, determined to dispense deliberately distorted claims.

This may explain why Utah's able Republican governor Jon Huntsman accepted President Obama's offer to hide out in Beijing for a few years (Already the demagogues of the right are screaming "RINO, RINO" even though Huntsman may be the just the moderate antidote the party needs). This leaves his erstwhile rival Mitt Romney on his own to pound sense into GOP hard heads. The question is, will Mitt attempt to drag the party toward the middle way this time around or pander to narrow-focused ideologues once again

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::AUF WIEDERSEHEN DETROIT
AXIS POWERS WIN CAR WARS

Boston, Massachusetts
June 8, 2009

BY RB SCOTT

The other day while General Motors was going bust, a virtual group of friends was spouting off about when and how it all went wrong for American car manufacturers. Three pivotal and interlocked breakdowns stood out:

1) Detroit's failure to evolve and continue to produce increasingly refined iterations of the cars it manufactured between 1939 and, oh, 1956

2) Detroit's failure to respond to Volkswagen's and Volvo's success in the 1950s. Chevy gave it a good go with the Corvair, until Ralph Nader got it deemed it unsafe at any speed, never mind the horde equally vulnerable Volkswagens and Karman Ghias and Porsches buzzing around.

3) Detroit's failure to anticipate the success of 1967-68 Japanese invasion.

From Paris, ex-pat concert violinist and car buff Michael Appleman pointed accusing words at the smog control devices and 55 miles per hour speed limits imposed by the government in the early 1970s.

"Detroit got even more complacent. Motors were producing less than half the horsepower they were in the 60's, but no one cared since Americans couldn't drive faster than 55 anyway. The upshot is Detroit started making crap like the Mustang II, the Pinto, the Vega which was ready to overheat and crack its block before it got off the dealers lot."

Scott Vanatter of Fairfax, Virginia provoked the discussion by inviting us to comment on Michael Moore's obituary of GM. The rant was soooo Michael Moore, that the conversation soon turned into our own little critical post mortem and memory fest.

The on-line conversation produced evidence aplenty that Americans are still madly in love with automobiles. This should hearten Detroit executives. However they should be summarily fired if they are just now figuring out that practically no one under the age of 65 owns an American car these days. The very few who do, do so grudgingly or hold titles to cars built more than fifty years ago.

With few exceptions the American cars Americans really adore are the ones they fell in love with as teenagers -- the Fords, Chevys, and Plymouths of the late 30s, 40s and early 50s, the classic coupes, roadsters and solid wagons Volvo, Volkswagen and Toyota et al knocked off to capture dominant shares of the U.S. Market.

No sooner had the conversation turned, than Vanatter sent off a vintage snapshot of himself, perched on the fender of his first true love, a 1955 2-Door (can you believe it?) Chevrolet station wagon. It bears an uncanny resemblance to boxy, indestructible station wagons Volvo introduced to the U.S. a decade later.

From Chanchung, China, English teacher Ward Lynds recalled the '49 Chevy with rusted- out floorboards that got him through some bitter New Brunswick winters. Park Lynds' ancient Chevy alongside a 1992 Infiniti J30 from Nissan you'll spot the kinship telltales immediately. Ditto American Motors little Nash Rambler of the 1950s and the 1967-68 Toyota Corona.

Volvo is quite unabashed about its copycat coupes: "...by the autumn of 1944 the company had unveiled one of its most significant cars - the PV444. Volvo's first "true" small car, its stylish design combined American flair with European size and it was an instant success. The PV444 and the PV544 would dominate Volvo production through to the mid 1960's and be the first models to gain Volvo a slice of the important US market during the 1950's.

Volkswagen, Volvo then Toyota picked off Baby Boomers by offering efficient, well-designed smaller, tighter update of the classic cars they had loved growing up, while Detroit tried to razzle-dazzle them with bigger, faster, newer, and, most of all, expendable.

Admitting he's partial to pickups and Volvos (depending on whether he needs to haul shrubs or kids), Jim Picht, an economics professor at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, says "Americans wanted well-built and stylish. Detroit gave us boring. You can feel it. Just sitting in a Volvo is more pleasant than sitting in a Taurus."

Appleman in Paris agrees, although his particular interest is on the va-voom and handling side of the equation. "The Germans were fairly high-tech making BMWs and Mercs for no-limit autobahns, but even Volvos and Renaults with rustic pushrod tractor engines were expected to cruise at 70-80 mph on the highway, and handle decently at 60mph on a narrow one-and-half car wide country lane that would get a 35mph limit, max, in the States."

For a couple of years after it acquired the Volvo's car division in 1999, Ford seemed to be determined to transform the V-70 into Taurus with a Volvo price tag. Then it wisely backed off. Unfortunately, Ford had its way Jaguar, producing a Taurusized Jag that undercut the allure of the brand.

A few years back, Gail Porritt, who cut his driving teeth wheeling his mother's '61 Chevrolet Impala through the streets of Boise, Idaho, found himself in a JagTaurus . "It looked good, people said they assumed I was rich, but it wasn't a very good car." Then he latched on to a sensible 2005 Volvo S-60: "Probably the best car I've ever owned...but no one thinks I am rich any more."

Douglas Palmer a Federal Courts official in New York City brought up the issues of creature comforts and safety. "Were I ever to move to Outer Subtopia I cannot imagine skimping on a vehicle that I would trust to hurl me down the road through rain, snow and ice. I cannot imagine settling on anything Detroit is making. Luckily for me and the environment, walking and public transport will do just fine for now."

Many spun yarns of true love for one car or another. One of the better tales came from Steve Seither of Placerville, California, who prefers to tool around on his '92 Harley Davidson FXR but still schleps the family in a 1955 Cadillac he inherited from his father. "Back in 1985, dad was neighbors with a sweet older couple," Seither recalls. "After her husband died, we looked after her. One day she came over for a cook-out, noticed the Caddy in the garage, jumped at dad's offer to take a spin around the block.

"Oh, wow," she exclaimed gleefully,' as she peered inside. 'I had forgotten just how roomy it was." She eased into the back, looked around in amazement, turned slightly, then flopped backward onto the seat. "Oh, now I remember," she sighed.

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::MUCH ADO ABOUT "BIG LOVE"

Boston, Masachusetts
March 13, 2009

BY RB SCOTT

A few days ago, a sister forwarded a plea that I join thousands of Mormons like us in protesting this Sunday’s segment of Big Love, which will include a portrayal of the temple rites practiced and held sacred by faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Instead of training my keyboard on Time-Warner, its HBO subsidiary and Tom Hanks, the director of the series, I aimed it at her and other Latter-day Saints huffing and puffing about Big Love lack of sensitivity, its chutzpah, its obvious bigotry. I wrote:

Dear Sister,

I have never watched a single episode of Big Love, although I am told it is well done (what Tom Hanks directed film isn’t?), reasonably accurate and produced by my former employer. As I understand it, this episode does not mock the temple ceremony. This is important. The ceremonies themselves are not shocking nor particularly secret. Mocking them would be a form of bigotry. But that’s not what’s going here, so far as I can tell. It’s the association with plural marriage that jams sharp sticks in our eyes. Polygamy is a part of our history we’d like to forget, but it’s our history and, like a bad dream, it keeps coming back to bite us on the tukhas.

Buck up!

Here are a few more things to think about:

* Would we object if Hollywood depicted the excommunication/defrocking of a Catholic priest or nun?
* Would we object if the private prayers in a Muslim mosque were broadcast to the world?
* Do we cry “foul” when when journalists mock Islam’s“backward” views of women?
* Do we protest when television airs secret rites inside Masonic temples?
* Do we get bent out of shape when film producers link the Mafia with Italians

I won’t be watching this episode Sunday or any other because there is nothing in them for me. I won’t be protesting either. Why? Long ago I learned a couple of important things about controversies.

1) The more you talk about them, the more people pay attention to them. In this case, the more you talk and complain and so on, the more MONEY you put in the pockets of the producers who offend you.

2) In a bizarre way, this is a good thing. In the future, whenever someone asks me what goes on inside a temple, I can say: “It’s no big deal. Catch it on reruns Big Love or spring for the DVD.”

A fellow I grew up with (a very, very fine man who stays with us whenever he’s on the East coast; a graduate of the same high school seminary you graduated from, high school and junior high too; no longer active in the church; a reasonably prominent actor) was asked to audition for a major role in this particular segment of Big Love. He asked my advice. He did not audition for the part—a part he likely would have won, hands down, once they figured out he’d been born and raised a Mormon.

Last October, he married his partner in Los Angeles. Write him a letter. Remind him how “unbelievable” and “harsh” and “unfair” and “bigoted” the world is against Mormons. Thank him for sticking-up for the church in his own sensitive way, even though he had no reason to do so and took money out of his pocket. Explain to him (and me too) how the church he defended, our church, is going to make things right for him and his partner. Please share this letter with whomever you choose.

I think she took the letter to heart. Still, she’s horrified that Time-Warner would allow what clearly was intended as a sensational stunt. I won’t take that thought any further. Why cavil about the facts of life? They are what they are. Stunts and sensationalism are part of the the real world!

If Mormons want to engage in the world game — and they apparently do: witness Mitt Romney’s run for the Presidency, Jon Huntsman’s jockeying for 2012, Harry Reid, Orrin Hatch, the Udalls and Bennetts, the many celebrated professional athletes and entertainers, the church’s under-the-radar opposition to ERA in the 1970s, its formal support for Proposition 8 and Definition of Marriage amendments and acts across the land.

Like golf, the primary rule of the game is this: play it as it lays. Tees may not be used in the fairway whenever it suits your purposes. No free drops from anywhere. No gimmee putts.

Perhaps the process as it is will refocus Mormons on the common ground they share with others, rather than erecting”spite fences” to separate them from their Christian, Jewish and Muslim neighbors. Come 2012 perhaps more Americans than in 2008 will say they could vote for a Mormon candidate.

Now that would be a sign of Big Love!

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::BLACK BLING-BLINGING OF BARACK BEGINS

July 19,2008
Boston, Massachusetts

BY RB Scott

In April Thomas Sowell, a respected conservative scholar, wrote an insidious column undercutting Barack Obama and attacking preemptively the presumptive stupidity and gullibility of an American electorate that would elect him President simply to make a little history. (http://www.townhall.com/col umnists/ThomasSowell/2008/0 4/29/an_old_newness )

This would not be particularly noteworthy were Sowell not an African American, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a "conservative think tank" located on the campus of Stanford University, one of the nation's leading research universities. Over the years, Hoover salved the wounds and offered succor to some deeply troubled (and in trouble too) conservatives, among them former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the architect of the U.S. disaster in Iraq, who Germany has indicted for war crimes, the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Like them, Sowell seems to be exceedingly bright: Howard-to-Harvard, A.B.; MA from Columbia, Ph.D. from Chicago, a full three degrees above the G.E.D. he earned in the Marine Corps after quitting high school and fleeing North Carolina at age 17. Although a self-described "libertarian," like the zealous conservatives who surround him Sowell unhesitatingly massages information to suit his purposes. His transparently partisan "think pieces" are routinely fraught with half-truths and re-heated reporting. Critics might say that some essays cast him as a bit of an "Uncle Tom," never mind the term itself is often recklessly misapplied and as last week as, Sowell would say, "affirmative action" is.

Now that Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for President, the odds-on favorite win election in November, Sowell is becoming the darling of the far right, the black man it will use to demonstrate that its attacks on Obama are not racially motivated, no matter how flimsy and loaded with misleadling glittering bling bling they are. Roughly half of the columns Sowell has written since June sought to undermine Obama's candidacy. Expect Sowell to continue to compose inelegant variations on a common theme, a veritable black-on-black attack on Barack through November and beyond.

Sowell flatly refused to clarify, or respond to questions on what he wrote about Obama in April (and regularly ever since). He even rebuffed offers to comment/react to specific sections in this piece. "I very seldom give interviews and see no reason to make an exception in this case, especially since my views on this and other issues are readily available in m writings," the academic and columnist wrote in a private e-mail to me.

So be it. Sowell's record does speak loudly and clearly enough on its own.

IS THIS ELECTION ABOUT "MAKING HISTORY?"

In the April column, Sowell outrageously and cynically asserted that achieving an historical first -- electing the first black president - was behind Obama's surging popularity. Making history will not propel Obama into office. Many experts worry that Obama's half "blackness" may yet deny him entry into the house known for its whiteness. To some, Obama is just not "white enough," never mind that he was raised amongst Caucasians, by Caucasians.

To others he is not "black enough." Just the other day, Jesse Jackson threatened to "cut his nuts off" because something he said had sounded just too white: Obama insisted that that black men start taking responsibility for their families and communities (Sowell should have been cheering him on instead of carping).

At this point in its history, the nation would sooner vote my shaggy dog into office than endure an extra day of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Therein lies a formidable challenge for the GOP. Americans seem to think that John McCain The Third reminds them way too much of George Bush The Second. They think he's kind of thick and bumbling and about to turn appendages-up in his tracks. They think him cruel and disloyal for abandoning his badly injured former wife after she faithfully put her own life on hold for six years while he was prisoner of war in the "Hanoi Hilton."

Sowell knows as well as anyone that McCain's choice of a running mate may likely determine whether he has a snowball's chance in Phoenix of getting elected. Picking Mitt Romney may be his only hope, but, then, I am slightly partisan: Mitt and I emerged from the same gene pool, more or less.

PERJORATIVES AND NAME CALLING

Like many conservative fear mongers Sowell likes to roll out the candidate's full name whenever possible: Barack Hussein Obama. He shamelessly uses the middle name as a pejorative. I may change my mind on this deduction when polemicists give equal attention to John Sidney McCain, III. (I'll bet you didn't even know that McCain's middle name was Sidney or even that he is knockoff of two previous generations: John McCain Knock-Knock- Knockoff.).

Sowell's column claimed that Obama is "arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous" - not well suited to handle terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. Of course he offers not a shred of evidence to support his accusations.

Would you take my word for it if I said Old Knock-Knock-Knockoff is thicker than the stack of plywood? Of course you wouldn't. You'd insist I tell you he graduated at or near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, an appointment he won in part because his daddy (the erstwhile Old Knockoff) and granddaddy (the original Old Knock) were admirals and Annapolis midshipmen themselves.

You would rightly demand additional examples of his junkyard dog meanness, which he put on public display as he reacted to his Republican neighbor's, New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, spending recommendations : "Only an Asshole would put together a budget like this." McCain snarled. Domenici noted that in all his years in the Senate, through many heated debates, no one had ever called him that. McCain's rejoinder: "I wouldn't call you an asshole unless you really were an asshole."

EMOTIONS, DEMOGRAPHICS FOG THINKING

Sowell worries that Americans may vote emotionally and make a foolish decision. He forgets that Americans went emo over Bill Clinton in 2000 and, abetted by an activist Supreme Court, made a very over wrought decision, as it turned out. Most of us have survived so far, if barely.

He frets that politicians are particularly obsessed with demographics. But of course they are. Demographics are what politicians, conservative or liberal, chew on for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Understandably Sowell worries that during times of chaos and extreme danger it is only human nature to focus on quick fixes and seemingly easy solutions. My generation remembers all too well the 1968 conventions and election. It was easy enough to dither over Hubert Humphrey because he seemed - despite his personal record - to represent the status quo in Vietnam. Believe it or not, some of the people who would have voted for Bobby Kennedy or Gene McCarthy, stumbled into the both and voted for the quick fix, the obvious if disingenuous agent of change, Richard Nixon who carried the popular vote just 7/10ths of a percent, his "mandate" (along with a substantial electoral college victory) to promptly turn Vietnam into an even messier quagmire and take the nation to the brink of a constitutional catastrophe.

ACTIVIST COURTS HAVE BEEN WITH US ALWAYS

Of course Sowell warns gratuitously that the judicial appointments from a President Obama would lead to more "activist" courts. News alert. Ours is a nation of checks and balances. The constitution commands the Supreme Court to interpret the law. In so doing, The Court regularly makes social policy. Remember, if the court were not an activist court, Al Gore would not have needed to become a Nobel Prize-winning (if tediously pious and somewhat hypocritical) environmentalist.

Sowell recklessly attempts to tie high personal income taxes, flawed economic policies, welfare, poverty, tolerance of crime and criminals, and race riots of the `60s to Obama's permissive liberal political forefathers. The fact is, most of Obama economic policies seem derived directly from the bipartisan, Concord Coalition, whose aim is to create socially conscious, fiscally responsible public policy. Mitt Romney was an early member, along with other pragmatic politicians from both parties. Incidentally, it is possible that former Senator Bill Bradley, another early member of the coalition, will become Obama's running mate.

Obama's tax policies actually reduce taxes for those earning less than $180,000 a year. If you make more than that, you will survive just fine, trust me, even if Obama's plan will give you ample reasons to gripe if you must. It would be more productive if you considered it a reasonable cost of doing business in a relatively stable environment. If you earn less, you have every reason to absolutely love Obama's tax plans.

RACE RIOTS OF THE '60s RELATED TO JIM CROW PRACTICES

How Sowell could, with a straight face and a clear conscience, link the race riots of the 1960s in Newark, Los Angeles, New Haven, and Detroit to Kennedy and Johnson administration policies is a mystery. If blame belongs to any set of governmental polices or practices, how about the Jim Crow laws and practices that had restricted the forward progress of black citizens since The Civil War. Sowell himself was so segregated from white society in North Carolina that he said he once believed it impossible that humans could have yellow hair.

Confoundingly - confounding because the Hoover Institution's claims its vast archive houses primary source documents on the "root causes" of World War I and World War II - Sowell argues that Obama's willingness to meet face-to-face with other heads of state is a relic from the 1930s, a naïve tactic that led to World War II. Wait just a minute. Roosevelt never negotiated directly with Hitler or Mussolini. Sowell's misleading insinuation (was he deliberately vague?) must be to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's misbegotten efforts to appease The Third Reich. If so, "appeasement"--not face-to-face meetings -- is the big no-no.

Getting heads of state together to talk about tough issues often produces breakthrough results. Remember Reagan with Gorbachev; or, Nixon and Mao Tse-tung in China. What scholar of international relations can forget how President Jimmy Carter smuggled Egypt's President and Israel's Prime Minister into Camp David for 12 days of secret talks that led to peace in the Middle East, however short-lived? And just this week Washington took the first steps toward resuming normal relations with Iran.

HAS PARTISANSHIP DIMINISHED THE ACADEMIC STANDING OF THE HOOVER INSTITUTION?

Profiles of the Hoover Institution - a conservative "think tank" -- note that while it is located on the campus of Stanford University that the two are not officially affiliated. I am beginning to understand why Stanford may appreciate the distance and may want to widen it before this election season is over.

Two years ago John Bunzell, another Hoover fellow and the former president of San Jose State University, wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe that carelessly whittled away at Mitt Romney and Mormonism. The premise for his "think piece" was a quote made by a Mormon, a California attorney, to a Los Angeles Times reporter. The op-ed did not note that the quote was nine years old nor that Bunzell had not attempted to verify its accuracy let alone its currency. In the meantime the Mormon attorney had moved to Utah and publicly acknowledged that the controversy he had once spoken about had been satisfactorily resolved.

Like Bunzell, it appears Sowell never interviewed any primary sources or bothered to have an assistant rigorously fact-check and update his research. Despite its arms-length affiliation with a prestigious research university, have the academic standards at the Hoover Institution have been so corrupted by partisanship that it now indulges well-credentialed scholars and Fellows, like Sowell and Bunzell, even when they make things up?

Apparently the current victim of fraudulent, made-up claims himself, Sowell recently wrote "Making something up is a confession of both intellectual and moral bankruptcy." Well said! Enough said!

TRIBUTE: GORDON BITNER HINCKLEY: 1910-2008
A COUNSELOR FOR THE AGES PASSES
GRUDGINGLY INTO THE LONG, GOOD NIGHT

January 29, 2008

By RB Scott
Boston, Massachusetts

NOTE: An early version of this tribute was delivered as a speech in January of 2007. An excerpt from the speech and written tribute were published by Salt Lake Tribune on Saturday, February 2, 2008, the morning of President Hinckley's funeral services.

The revered and celebrated President of the Mormon Church, Gordon Bitner Hinckley passed away this week at age 97, not at all the relatively obscure man he was back in 1967 when he and some discouraging grades in chemistry propelled me toward life as a writer -- one of those people, President Hinckley once said with scintallant irony, who ought be boxed-up and tossed into the sea.

A month before this abrupt turn of events, I completed that uniquely Mormon rite of passage - two years of missionary service, in my case in New England - and returned to my hometown, Salt Lake City, eager to finish college, which is where a simple essay assignment would forever change my life.

We were told to imagine that while hiking in the mountains we had somehow become stranded on a cliff, a couple of hundred feet below and above safe ground. Rescuers had located a rope barely long enough to reach you. There was no way to secure it, so you would not be able to rappel down. Up is the only way to go. It would be a tough climb -footholds and handholds were scarce. You would likely slip and fall, but the falls would be short, relatively harmless ones if someone reliable was manning the rope from above. In such a dire circumstance, we were asked to describe the person we would choose to hold the rope, our lifeline. "What relative or friend would you entrust with your very life? Explain your choice providing as much descriptive detail as possible."

Predictably, most of the students wrote tributes to a mother, a father, a brother, or a favorite uncle. A few pragmatists selected peers who were also skilled mountaineers and strong, fearless linebackers.
My essay was somewhat more metaphorical and ethereal than the others, which I suppose explains why the teacher had a teary moment or two as she read it aloud to the class a week later.

Hurricane Belle in 1976 washed away the specifics of my tribute to Gordon Bitner Hinckley, then a young and comparatively obscure apostle of the church who also happened to be my best friend's father. He was not fearsomely strong, but I knew he was strong enough because he liked to work in the garden or on the family ranch whenever he got the chance. But, in truth, his physical strength was quite irrelevant to my decision. As I would trust this man with my soul, who better to save my life? Who would be more likely to risk his own life to save mine?

Of course I don't recall the details of the supporting anecdotes so I must now resort to somewhat frayed mental snapshots of why I chose him. To them, I have added more current pictures that underscore why I would choose him still.

SNAPSHOT ONE: He was a few years older than my own father. In fact, he taught dad in seminary, then later hired him to help translate the scriptures into Portuguese. After a fruitless attempt to win raises for two chronically underpaid church employees, he returned to his office, annoyed that his pleas had been rebuffed again by a notoriously tight-fisted Presiding Bishop. "For the labourer is worthy of his hire…" Brother Hinckley fumed. He was nothing if not a scriptorian.

SNAPSHOT TWO: Although I had been aware of him for most of my life, I did not start paying attention to him until I was a pre-teenager. He was the soft-spoken first counselor, the number two man in the regional organization (stake) of the church for what seemed like an eternity. When I first heard him speak from the podium at stake conference - and every time thereafter -- I assumed he was the visiting general authority. He sounded like an apostle, a man of God. Self-assured, kind, instructive. He was a very, very good counselor, which meant he was always very, very good at listening. Later, he briefly, very briefly, served as stake president. Whenever he spoke, he still sounded like an apostle, which is what he finally became a year or two later. It was a calling I had been anticipating for years.

SNAPSHOT THREE: My first up-close-and-personal impression came during a routine family dinner in his home. I was a middle-teen then. His blessing on the food included a brief family prayer. It was like no other prayer I had heard before or since, for that matter, except from him. I had the distinct impression that he was having a one-on-one, frank and open exchange with the Lord. Of course I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but I was pretty certain Brother Hinckley could. It was a truly awesome thing to hear and feel.

SNAPSHOT FOUR: A year or so later I found myself wrestling with God, like lots of young people do, and even old people too. I had read just enough history to be troublesome; absorbed just enough philosophy to have doubts, enough math to realize that some things in life just don't add up. And, so there we sat on the lawn behind his modest white-clapboard cottage in East Millcreek talking about the meaning of life, God, and, especially, the church. Because I was close friends with one of his children we had a few impromptu chats over the years. Assuming, as I did, that Brother Hinckley was on a first name basis with God, I wanted him to tell me that God had told him the church was true. Believe me, I would have taken his word for it, no follow-up questions would have been necessary. I could not get up the courage to put it to him quite that bluntly, so we waltzed around "testimony" issues and my "doubts" and so on for quite a while until finally he said something like "Well, you've told me all about your questions and doubts, how about telling me about what you don't doubt. There must be a few things about the gospel you believe to be true." Sure enough there were. I ticked off a few fairly safe ones and a couple of provocative ones for good measure. He looked me square in the eyes and said: "Here's what you do. Hold on tight to what you know to be true and let it lead you to all the rest." I am still applying his advice.

SNAPSHOT FIVE: He had great respect and trust for his children and young people generally. At the time, he happened to be in charge of all the church missions in Asia. Occasionally his wife Marjorie would accompany him on long trips to meet with church leaders and missionaries. By the way, Sister Hinckley was the most responsible mother I ever met. Her tight leash, such as it was, seemed based on trust in herself - that she had taught sound principles - and trust that her children had learned well. So off they went leaving his high school age daughter in charge of the younger two children. I am certain neighbors and relatives looked in on the children from time to time, but there was no question that Brother and Sister Hinckley were confident that their middle daughter could handle things. And, she did!

SNAPSHOT SIX: A few years later, I was ready to accept a mission call. I assumed it would be to Japan or Hong Kong or Korea. I was the youngest of my circle of friends, seven or so ---and nearly every one of them wound up in Asia. Or, so it seemed. As President Hinckley supervised all the missions in that area of the world, I put two and two together and concluded I would soon be heading for Hong Kong, Tokyo or Seoul. I was floored when the written call to serve directed me to the mission offices overlooking Harvard Square. A week later, Brother Hinckley phoned to offer his congratulations and gauge my reaction. My memory of the conversation is still reasonably vivid, so this is a very accurate paraphrase. "I'm pleased but very surprised," I confessed. "I expected a call to a mission in Asia." There was thoughtful silence on the line. He broke it with a simple question: "What is the date on the letter from President McKay." I gave him the date. "Ah," he said, audibly relieved. "I was out of town then." I laughed loudly, then teased. "I thought missionary callings were supposed to be inspired." "Oh they are," he insisted, in that breathy, thoughtful voice he often engaged to presage a wry turn of phrase, a clever double entendre, or a gentle, instructive needle. "They're like an inspired game of darts: if you know the young man, it just helps you aim the dart a little better."

SNAPSHOT SEVEN: I served the mission to the Harvards, Yalies, Green Meanies and Brownies and returned home to The University of Utah, wrote my essay about Brother Hinckley, and went off to New York to write for Time Magazine. Good journalists keep track of people. They read newspapers and magazines, and write copious notes to file. I read all of Brother Hinckley's speeches; saved news clips about him, read official biographies, asked questions. I learned that he had once wanted to be a journalist -- that he too had dreamed of writing for Time Magazine before he was persuaded, right out of college, to take an important communications position with the church, one that put him in daily contact with the church's First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles. His decisions then helped shape many church policies, in fact some of the men he worked for, including presidents of the church Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith and David O. McKay, regularly joked that he was "an apostle without the calling."

SNAPSHOT EIGHT: I had not laid eyes on him in at least six years, perhaps more, when I ran into him at a press conference in 1971 at the Warwick Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He was now a more prominent apostle. I knew he had personally directed an effort aimed at drawing more African Americans into the church. I was very proud of him for that. His plan was working well. So we reporters wanted to know all about it: Was it a harbinger of change? Where it might lead the church, and when? Like the good counselor he had always been and would be for many more years to come, he redirected our enthusiastic, flattering questions to his new boss, President Harold B. Lee.


Although President Hinckley was a serious man, he did not want for a sense of humor. As I mentioned he knows something about prayers and praying. A friend, a particularly snappy, colorful dresser and now a stake president in New York was asked to give a closing prayer in a meeting that included the prophet. "That was a particularly fine prayer you offered," President Hinckley said, his eyes twinkling. "And the Lord may have taken your prayer a little more seriously if He wasn't distracted by your snazzy tie."

Over the years since, we caught up many times, directly, indirectly and almost. Invariably, there was no time to chat, or even shake hands. He was very busy. Very public. Aides surrounded him. Well- wishers too. They deserve time with him. I had my turn up close and personal sitting on the lawn in his backyard 40-plus years ago.

For Christmas in 1983 my new-wife-to-be and I had flown "home" to introduce her to family and the city of my birth. We found ourselves in Tabernacle one evening for a performance of Handel's "Messiah." No sooner had we taken our seats than two burly fellows with ear pieces sitting in the pew behind us stood up and made room for President and Sister Hinckley, then sat on either side of them throughout the performance. I made eye contact with both Hinckleys, smiled and nodded, but saw no need to remind them that I was once that awkward teenager who often hung out at their home after school.

A week or so after he became President of the church, we nearly collided in the service concourse under a sports arena in Worcester, Massachusetts, where members of three stakes had gathered to hear the Hinckleys and Elder Neal Maxwell and his wife speak. He shot me one of those sidelong "I know you from somewhere" looks as he continued on down the hallway and I gave him one my best "you know me but you have places to go, people to greet" smiles.

Approaching the end of his time on earth, his mind remained sharp and focused as he battled cancer and raced on like a man possessed, determined to stand for something right up to the very moment he keeled over in his tracks. He has always stood for something: for truth, decency and kindness; for people, the lucky and unlucky, the rich and poor. And, he insisted that they talk to each other as often as possible.
He was not much for dither and hand wringing, and he was extraordinarily skilled at dealing with and deflecting tricky, possibly compromising questions from the news media.

I am quite certain that he was especially proud, satisfied in very personal ways that W. Mitt Romney decided to become a candidate for President of The United States. This back story provides insights into both men. As Romney played-out and replayed various scenarios in his mind, he repeatedly impaled himself on the horns of this dilemma: ultimately his candidacy for office and the attendant scrutiny and publicity it would attract, may prove hurtful to the church. He sought President Hinckley's advice often.
From reliable friends in Boston and Salt Lake City, I got word of one almost edgy exchange wherein a slightly exasperated President Hinckley was reported to have counseled: "It really doesn't matter [to the church] what you do. It's best that you stick to managing [Massachusetts and] your campaign and I'll stick to worrying about what's best for the church." When I attempted to confirm the frequent meetings and the substance of the exchange, the written response came back: ""I don't recall having said anything of the kind and don't think I would have said it that way."

I could imagine the twinkle in President Hinckley's eyes as he, in his evasively scrutable way confirmed that the meetings had taken place and the subject had come up. He left it to others to confirm the content of the conversation, which I eventually reported as follows: "Right now he [Romney] faces the toughest decision of his life. It is not one he can put off for long. As if to underscore his personal angst, as he has done in the past he sought advice from the man he admires most in this world: Mormon President Gordon Bitner Hinckley. The conversation eventually turned to whether a run for the Presidency would be good for him and the church. The specifics of the conversation are, of course, known only to people who were there. However, Romney left with the clear impression that the upbeat Mormon prophet was not worried one whit about additional scrutiny a Presidential campaign might focus on the church and its teachings, but was emphatic about steering wide of any and all partisan political involvements. "The choice to run or not must be yours and yours alone," he reportedly advised, firmly but kindly."

Like a good boy scout, Gordon Bitner Hinckley endeavored to leave the "camp site" in better shape than he found it. He succeeded. Ever the good counselor, he continued to listen well and respond with breathtakingly simple advice. Such was the case last Spring (2006) when he stood the Church's General Conference to deliver a speech he had once gamely entitled "My Last Will And Testimony." His voice was ripe with righteous indignation as he opened with these words, which I have condensed a bit:


When a man grows old he develops a softer touch, a kindlier manner …I have wondered why there is so much hatred in the world. We are involved in terrible wars with lives lost and many crippling wounds. Coming closer to home, there is so much of jealousy, pride, arrogance, and carping criticism…Racial strife still lifts its ugly head. I am advised that even right here among us there is some of this. I cannot understand how it can be.

… I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ. Nor be … in harmony with the teachings of the Church of Christ. How can any man holding the …Priesthood arrogantly assume that he is eligible for the priesthood whereas another who lives a righteous life but whose skin is of a different color is ineligible? … Let us all recognize that each of us is a son or daughter of our Father in Heaven, who loves all of His children.

Gordon Bitner Hinckley was an honorable man. He was inspired. And, he was and forever will remain awesomely inspiring to me personally and millions of others.

It is no surprise that this man who loved life like few others went a little grudgingly into that long goodnight. As his wife neared death in the Spring of 2004, President Hinckley told her he needed two more years to do what needed to be done. It took him nearly four. And, we are all the better for it.

Now that his day is done, researchers will soon begin to take stock of his leadership of the church, the Hinckley era, which for all practical purposes reaches back more than 70 years. When the historical record is complete it will surely suggest that no mortal man - excepting Joseph Smith and Brigham Young -- had a greater influence on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than the man I described in a college essay 40 years ago when he was a young apostle, my life line then and now.

The fate he once thought fit for a writer is now his. He too has been boxed up, if not tossed in the sea. Like the very best of our profession, Gordon Bitner Hinckley remains tangible as his example and words live on.

© 2008 RB Scott All Rights Reserved
For permission to publish or reprint this column
contact rbscott@themuss.net or call 508.254-9900

OPEN LETTER TO A MORMON LEADER:
WE SEE THE ENEMY, AND IT IS US

By R.B. Scott

Boston, Massachusetts
October 24, 2006

Dear Brother Smith:

Last Thursday a few callers solicited my take on whether Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley endorsed plans to use various groups affiliated with the Church and Brigham Young University as vehicles to promote Mitt Romney’s possible campaign for the Presidency, as reported by the Boston Globe.

I insisted that President Hinckley would not likely endorse such schemes and would be quite put out if any church leader – especially an apostle -- supported dodgy if legal work-arounds that transgress the spirit of Federal tax laws.

Sunday’s Globe, goaded by the church’s public communications office, produced the “smoking” documents – both were e-mails from my friend Don Stirling, a key Romney fundraiser who over the summer left his job as President & CEO Massachusetts Sports & Entertainment Commission (he'd previously been marketing director for the 2000 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake) and returned to Utah, to Sherri Dew, the publisher of church-owned Deseret Book. The memos confirmed Stirling’s presumption that President Hinckley had been advised the scheme. Presumption is the operative word.

One prospective target group is the BYU Management Society -- a national business group organized in the mid-1970s for BYU alumni and other LDS business people. There are chapters in most major U.S. cities. Another target group is people who buy church books from Deseret Book, including Dew’s hefty biography of President Hinckley.

These things are clear: First: Someone really does not like Don Stirling and Sheri Dew. Second: Stirling’s call reports are way, way too detailed. This is big time, dirty pull politics for heavens sake and the first article of faith is “leave no paper trail.” Third: the media are finally beginning to acknowledge that the “networking” skills and resources of Mormons and their church are considerable. Fourth: Some Mormons have gotten really, really good at implying that their cause or their candidate or their flimsy business proposition has the support of the brethren. Cue the heraldic trumpets and heavenly voices.

When this latest bit of Mormon intrigue made headlines, I was just getting over last Sunday’s gay-bashing telecast from the Tremont Temple-on-the-Boston Common. There was Mitt, Olympic torch in hand, and the Joe Wirthlins of Lexington, the Mormon family suing the school district because it uses same-sex-marriage- friendly books, sharing the dais at an event promoted by Mormon vehicles like Legacy Law Foundation, Meridian Magazine and its Family Leader Network, of which Dick Wirthlin, the Republican pollster and Mormon leader emeritus and granduncle of the Wirthlins of Lexington, was an agent provocateur. Only a cynical reporter would make something of this remarkable coincidence.

Then in rushed Thursday’s coincidence that Romney operatives met with Elder Jeffery Holland who, allegedly, suggested they ought to use "vehicles" loosely affiliated with BYU, which was followed by Sunday’s report implying that Sheri Dew and Elder James Faust, a member of the First Presidency of the church, may be scheming too.

Listen up Meridian, Family Leader Network, Legacy Law and look-alikes. Once Romney announces his candidacy, every cynical "vehicle" that violates the spirit of the law will be scrutinized under high-powered microscopes. Count on it!

Here's some additional advice. It's time to get real. It is past time for name-calling. Journalists that write critically about Mitt Romney's Mormon connections are not necessarily anti-Mormon or anti-Mitt Romney. Nor are they "Hillary-loving, Ted Kennedy apologists… or liberals," as Romney's cleverly turned, if dismissive and over-worked, one-liner asserts.

The facts are: 1) Mitt Romney was once a very young stake president (bishop too) of a stake known for producing more than its fair share of general church leaders; 2) He has a very big church name and legacy; 3) He saved the “The Mormon Olympics.” We both know that Mitt may be just one election loss away from a call to serve as a general authority or even apostle of the church.

Journalists have become aware that Mormon networks helped scuttle the Equal Rights Amendment back in the 80s. They know it drove the effort in California to pass The Defense of Marriage Act just six years ago. The command and control structures built into the Mormon organization are unmatched by all other religions. They can seem quite intimidating.

Journalists from the Boston Globe, The New York Times, Time Magazine and, especially, The Deseret Morning News (especially because it is owned by the church) should ask tough questions about the origins and operations of these vehicles and networks. Just how close to the church are these Mormon-run organizations that sow divisiveness and hatred, anyway?

We both know that Mitt has been a regular visitor to Temple Square –more precisely to the granite-columned home of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve on East South Temple Street. No problem: if I were trying to make up my mind on an important matter, I too would seek advice from people I knew well and trusted. If he’d see me, Gordon Bitner Hinckley would be the first and last person I would consult.

It is, however, disingenuous to pretend that Mitt’s relationship with the Prophet and members of the Quorum of Twelve is as remote as John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s was with the Pope and College of Cardinals. For instance, had he lost the election, JFK would not have been in the running to become the next U.S. cardinal.

In 1960, I was a politically attuned high school sophomore in Utah. Concern ran high in LDS communities that should the nation elect John F. Kennedy, the Pope would soon be running America.

These times are no different except that the pinching shoes are on Mormon feet. Such anti-Catholic fears of 1960 were as ill founded as the current one that Romney would be but a puppet for the president of the church.

Nevertheless, as much as Latter-day Saints decry anti-Mormon prejudice, they and their scheming and vehicles are giving critics plenty of reasons to be wary.

What Mitt needs is a savvy, street-smart, cigar-chomping, kick-butt-and-take-names campaign bully and press agent who can convince him and his well-meaning if naively enthusiastic supporters that this is no time to get stupid and act silly. Sometimes Mormons are their own worst enemies.

I would volunteer for the job, but I don’t care for cigars.

THE OLD GLORIES OF THE FLAG
ARE THE FREEDOMS IT STANDS FOR

By RB Scott
Salt Lake Tribune: Sunday July 1, 2006
Boston, Massachusetts

I have a thing for flags.

Few experiences are more inspiring than standing amid the flags of the nations that line the promenade to U.N. General Assembly building in Manhattan. To me, the banners are emblematic of the people who make our world so interesting and diverse.

In the late sixties and seventies, the turmoil wrought by The Vietnam War rendered public displays of affection for Old Glory quite unfashionable and tres' gauche.

Was it the iconoclast in me that let her fly in the faces of the smart set? Did I unfurl her despite or because of my deep opposition to America's nasty "little" war that denuded the landscape of so many vibrant young men, and undercut our ethics and morals?

I raised it proudly then because of all she was supposed to represent, especially the freedom that under girds every other: the freedom to speak one's mind.

Native Germans like Hildegard Ames, my mother-in-law, who are old enough to remember the terror and insanity promoted by the Nazi swastika ensign, understandably insist that flags encourage hyper knee-jerk nationalism. They have seen it up close and personal. Flag worship is not pleasant. In fact, it can quickly become downright dangerous, divisive and irreligious.

Incidentally, Mrs. Ames is about the same age Senator Orrin Hatch. You'd think he too would remember his schoolboy history lessons about how flag worship and hyper-patriotism propelled the world to the brink of destruction.

Instead, he has proposed an amendment that would eliminate our freedom to desecrate the flag. Goodness knows how that vague word "descrate" will be defined and desecrated should the amendment ever become law, which, thankfully, it won't.

God bless America!

Cavalierly dismissing her deja vous, I rhapsodized: "The beauty of our flag is the precious freedoms it stands for, even the freedom to keep it stowed in a dusty attic on the Fourth of July; or hang it upside down; or burn it in effigy for wrongs one thinks the government has perpetrated at home and abroad.

Congress should be required to celebrate those important freedoms annually by singing all eight verses to "America The Beautiful." Senator Hatch should accompany the chorus on the organ.

Instead of promoting racial superiority, exclusivity and ethnic hatreds, our flag reminds that from the day our ancestors disembarked the Mayflower, America has been a land of foreigners. The fact that we are all Hyphen-Americans makes us quintessential Americans.

Over the years, the flags describing our particular "hyphens" became something of a tradition. That is why our family acquired the often opposing St. Andrew's Cross of Scotland and St. George's Cross of England; the colorful Red Dragon of Wales; the modern red, black and yellow flag of Germany; the white cross of Switzerland; and the horizontal red and white stripes of Austria.

As the World Cup heated-up in the Spring of 2002, I lined the drive to our home with our ancestral colors (the French Tricouleur was added to welcome old friends from Paris as well as to honor an ancestor we discovered who was borne of The Auld Alliance - an ancient political and, obviously, intimate physical coalition between Scotland and France).

Although I am a huge soccer fan, the timing of the display was coincidental. Its primary purpose was to counteract the anti-foreigner wave that washed over the land after September 11th, remind our children that all Americans are from somewhere else.

Curious townsfolk stopped by to ask prying questions. They seemed superficially supportive of the display. Perhaps they were simply relieved to learn that our home in a horsy exurb of Boston hadn't been transformed overnight into a toney international conference center -- Davos-on-the-Charles -- for the world's "best and brightest."
A few weeks later, I returned home in the middle of the afternoon. All the flags, excepting Old Glory, were missing-in-action. Shards of their wooden poles were scattered about the garden.

A policeman I knew well came to investigate: he pronounced it a theft, vandalism, and, after he did some rough calculating, grand larceny, a felony. "Broad daylight, probably teenagers. Wonder why they didn't swipe the American flag too?" he mused.

"Had the same question," I added.

"Maybe they thought you were being unpatriotic," he offered, his voiced edged with tones that belied his own suspicions that I too may be a subversive. You never know.
.
It is World Cup time again. Independence Day looms. Our friends from Paris are arriving any day now. Lest our children forget where we came from, six new flags will line our driveway this weekend. It's the patriotic thing to do.

And, if five of the six are stolen once again, perhaps this crime, and this crime alone, will constitute the only kind of flag desecration worth prosecuting.

AMERICAN SOCCER EARNS
CREDIBILITY IN EUROPE. FINALLY!

NOTE: Mr. Appleman is an American-born concert violinist who lives in Paris, France
with his wife and two soccer-obsessed sons.

By Michael Appleman
Paris, June 8, 2006

As the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament opens, I would like to apologize publicly to my dear friend and editor of The Muss, RB Scott. For the last twenty years, I have been trash talking U.S. soccer., pointing out everything that I felt was wrong about the way the game was coached, organized, promoted, and played in my native country. He patiently disagreed, soccer coach that he was and devotee that he is.

Looking at the way things have evolved, I'm ready to eat my shorts. American soccer has finally reached a level of credibility that it never had before. In Europe, American players, Major League Soccer (MLS), and the U.S. national team are treated with respect, and everyone involved with the sport from youth league coaches up to the pros deserve credit for doing things "the hard way."

I still see comments on American chat forums accusing soccer of being boring and slow. Let's face it, that argument is meaningless. If you've never played baseball, what drama is there in a batter fouling-off a half dozen pitches? We endure boring American football game, waiting patiently for that one explosive run or spectacular pass. No, it's not about action or scoring, the problem with soccer's credibility in the U.S. is that for decades this game has had the image of being a "sissy sport."

When I was in junior high, (in Lexington, Massachusetts in the mid 70's) I was one of the bigger (and fatter) kids in my grade. Every fall my name would appear on the gym teachers' list of "students we'd like to see go out for football." No way:I was a committed soccer player.

IWhy? Because my father, the son of European immigrants, played semi-pro soccer in the 1930's in New York's ethnic club leagues. I grew up playing "sand-lot" soccer with friends who came from South America and Europe. Soccer is in my blood. Of course, the fact that I played the violin and was a good student also meant that I was a nerd.

Until recently, there were only two kinds of soccer player in America: immigrants and nerds. It certainly seemed that the North American Soccer League (which ran from 1968 until 1984) catered to those groups. The teams recruited Superstars in their dotage like Pele, Johan Cruyff and Franz Beckenbauer . At the same time teams would recruit players based on local ethnic populations. The New England teams signed Eusebio and other Portuguese players, hoping to cash in on the large Portuguese immigant community throughout the region.

At that time, European leagues had limits on how many foreign players could be on the field. In most countries, the number was just three. I remember thinking that without more young American players given a chance to play in the pros, soccer would never take hold in the States. With the NASL folding in 1984, professional soccer basically disappeared in America for twelve years.

With the 1980's came the great American soccer boom, and proud suburban parents proclaimed from the tailgates of their Volvos that the most popular youth sport in America was soccer! I felt then that American soccer was doomed. With "nice" kids learning the game from parents whose only soccer knowledge came from cheesy coaching manuals, how was America ever going to produce decent players?

Two decades later, American players are on the rosters of more than a dozen European teams. Some of them, like Kasey Keller and Brian McBride are standouts on major teams. The United States has a stable professional soccer league (Major League Soccer) that develops and showcases American players and is attracting investment from major European teams. After its close quarter final loss to Germany in the last edition, the U.S. national team is returning to the World Cup with the status of a solid team that deserves to be there.

Yes, I was wrong to denigrate the efforts of suburban parent-coaches like Ron, who actually coached nearly 25 years ago in the New England soccer stronghold of Westpot, Connectituct. It has taken a full quarter century efforts of a lot of people --soccer moms and dads included -- to develop up the sport. Now there's a real pyramid, with a serious pro league on top, an audience base on the bottom, and high schools feeding universities feeding the pros. The U.S. national team has launched a slogan with their sponsor based on our revolutionary heritage, "Don't Tread on Me." Since the Europeans are taking us seriously, I figure the slogan is appropriate for those Americans who still think soccer is just for nerds.

By the way, here in France, soccer is played by the bruisers and the tough kids. Want to know what the nerds play? American football. I have a friend who is a cardiologist who finds soccer brutal and dumb. He thinks American football is an intelligent game because of all the plays and tactics. A chaqu'un son goût...

CRYING FOR THE BLUES:
GENESIS OF A PASSION FOR SOCCER

By RB Scott
November, 1978
Re-published: June 8, 2006

Editor's Note: The writer's love for Soccer began with the youth team memorialized in this column, first published by The Deseret News -- now The Deseret Morning News -- in Salt Lake City

WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT -- For the past three years many of the 10-year-old boys who made-up the team known as the Westport (Connecticut) Blues played together every Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer. In the process, they have become close friends, often veritible brothers.

On the pitch, they instinctively anticipate each other’s moves, displaying the confidence of a team that knows what its about. What this team has been about these past seasons is winning, despite playing against teams that were generally a year or two older. The record speaks loudly: 58 wins, three losses (two in overtime, one to nemisis Ridgefield, the other to the Reds, then the senior Westport team).

This autumn, with age and experience fully in its favor for the first time, the Blues seemed destined to win not only the Fairfield County championship but title for the entire State of Connecticut as well.

The only squad that had a chance was Ridgefield, which has established a soccer rivalry with Westport that is every bit as lively as Yale's with Harvard, Utah's with Brigham Young and Everyman with Nebraska.

Not only would the two teams go at it twice during regular league play, but they would likely come face-to-face in the semi-finals of the state tournament. The winner would be a shoo-in for the title. Parents groused that it was a shame the best two teams in the state were forced to face-off in a semi-final match, victims of dumping all teams from the same region in one bracket.

This season was of special significance to the four players who planned to move to move to new homes, far from Westport. One boy departed mid-season. At his last practice, he seemed cocky and cool. He talked of the swimming pool at his new home, its proximity to the sandy beaches of Malibu and the manicured soccer pitches at nearby Pepperdine University. Then, in the nick of time, he fled inside his mother’s car, obscuring the flood of tears that followed.

Friendships as strong as these are not easily abandoned. They have played together in pouring rain, on fields so muddy and badly rutted that the smaller boys often seemed to disappear in the trenches. They have endured haphazard officiating (often not without complaint), bruising collisions, battered shins, anxious parents, long weekend trips to important tournaments and twice-a-week practices.

Their coaches, who didn’t know a sweeper from a striker three years earlier, growled whenever they got out of position as if they knew what they were talking about. They were nagged to quit playing like a bunch of 10-year-olds, which despite the fact that they were, they very rarely did.

And, they eagerly came back for more.

They persuaded their parents to send them off to soccer camp in the summer. In winter they played six-man indoor soccer. On inclement days they could be found outside, inside kicking anything that was round and moveable.

So when this Fall– the Fall of ’78 – finally dawned, they were primed and eager. Age was finally in their favor and wouldn’t be again for two years. Like children possessed they charged through the regular season undefeated, allowing only one goal to be scored against them—by nemesis Ridgefield. The county title belonged to the Blues.

As expected, they breezed through the early rounds of the state tournament. So did nemesis Ridgefield, as expected. Last Sunday afternoon, there they stood on a sodden, lumpy field in neutral Wilton ready to go at it for a third time this season. This time: winner take all.

At the end of the half, the score was nil-nil. It mattered little that Westport kept Ridgefield on the defensive through most of the period. The Blues seemed sluggish and uninspired. By contrast Ridgefield, having been thrashed by the Blues two weeks earlier, were just the opposite. Thus it wasn’t particularly surprising that Ridgefield ran off two quick goals in the second half and hung on to win 3-2.

A long-faced group of Blues, most with tear-streaked cheeks gamely shook the hands of the victors, then sadly walked to their parents cars for the long ride home. Spying one particularly distraught youngster, the coach draped his arm around the boy's shoulders:”You played well,” he consoled. “We had a fine, fine season. Be proud of that,”

The child wiped away the tears, looked up at his mentor and fiercely uttered the age-old frustrated taunt popularized by Dodger and Red Sox fans alike: “Wait until next year.”

Next season and the next and next will come for most players on the Westport Blues. Each of the 19 boys can now play a sport they knew little of just three years ago. Soccer will be their game, an instinctive part of them all their lives. Throw a ball his way, a Blue will likely control it with his chest or thigh, or redirect it with a header or instep volley. And, should it fly into the back of the net, he will collapse to his kness in celebration, arms outstretched to the heavens.

Tthat evening on the jet carrying him to his new home in the Rocky Mountains, the coach who put this team together replayed such scenes in the stop-action, instant-replay corners of his mind. He lifted a glass in silent tribute to his lads, the Blues of Westport. And, then he wept too.

WHEN POLITICS AND RELIGION MIX :
OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB...

BY RB Scott

June 5, 2006
Boston, Massachusetts
Note: A version of this piece appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune today

The Religious Coalition For Marriage, which has united divergent religious groups - including The Mormon Church -- behind a constitutional amendment defining marriage is proof positive that "politics makes strange bedfellows."

It is especially curious that they are united behind a campaign that is a win-win proposition for the Republican Party. If there's a victory, it will be because of Republicans. If there's a loss, the flagging GOP gets the election-year wedge issue it has been praying for and video clip evidence that it stood for something when the chips were down..

No wonder Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid are fuming about today's last- ditch formal reception in The Rose Garden (weather permitting) or Eisenhower Building to which scores of pious leaders have been invited, including Mormon Apostle Russell Nelson. Tuesday the Senate votes. If Democrats had their way, Wednesday would be the day the Internal Revenue Service would begin reevaluating the 501c3 not-for-profit status of every church that participated in this "brazenly partisan stunt."

Just three weeks ago the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seemed content to state its principles on marriage and let it go at that. To press harder would only solidify "misperceptions that the church hates gays. Nothing could be further from the truth," a spokesman adamantly insisted.

But what emerged from a discussion in the temple just a week later was an "incremental shift toward the tactical," perhaps driven by perceptions the amendment had acquired fresh momentum (Bush's renewed interest? The Rose Garden reception?).

Still, the language in the letter the First Presidency had read to all Mormon congregations in the U.S. last Sunday encouraged members to "express" themselves individually to their Senators and stopped short of endorsing the amendment or telling members what to say. However, other documents referenced in the letter left little doubt about the church's stand on marriage and sexuality.

The well-turned phrase "We urge our members to express themselves" seemed to be President Gordon B. Hinckley's dexterous way of encouraging individual action and acknowledging there were more than one faithful path to follow. A spokesman said the letter spoke for itself, implying that it was not intended as a sign the church's organizational muscle, money and manpower were about to be unleashed or that advocacy organizations were free to use the letter as leverage.

This did not stop shrill advocates like the Family Leadership Network, an offshoot of Meridian Magazine that often presents itself as the voice of the church, from trumpeting: "Follow The Prophet" to its members. In turn, members across the country sent the FLN tract to neighbors and members of their LDS wards. One such appeal was e-mailed by the president of the Roswell Stake near Atlanta. It appeared the source for e-mail addresses were often ward (parish) directories and other restricted church records.

In Georgia, members reported that regional leaders from the Church Education System (CES) had sent e-mails to all stakes and wards headlined: "The definition of what a family is could change… On June 6th the U.S. Senate will vote … It is critical that you contact your senators and ask them to vote for the Marriage Protection Amendment." Adorning the flyer was the portrait of a handsome young LDS couple.

Another sent by the former stake president of the Millburn Stake in suburban Atlanta got re-distributed by the president of the Pompano Beach Stake in Florida. It provided a link to American Family Association website which reminded: "If a Senator votes against the MPA, he or she is in reality voting for homosexual marriage… Tell them you want them to vote for the MPA. Let them know that if they refuse to do so you will remember it when election time comes."

Such language only reinforced Democrats concerns that the amendment gambit is a shameless election year stunt aimed at reenergizing the foundering GOP. The Mormon Church insists that partisan party politics were not behind its letter, even if the letter and its work with the coalition has that affect.

The demurrer might sit more comfortably with Democrats if:

the editor of Meridian and Director of FLN had not written so eagerly about the prospect of personally delivering signed petitions to the office of fellow Mormon and Senate Minority Leader Reid, whom it had railed against a few weeks earlier.

Bryan Kennedy, a young Congressional candidate in Wisconsin, a Democrat, returned missionary and Brigham Young University graduate, had not been informed by a member of his stake presidency that that his position on "choice," and "civil unions" (identical to Mitt Romney's when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1994) as well as endorsements from NARAL and Planned Parenthood suggested he had been less than honest in answering temple-worthiness interview questions about personal integrity and associating with organizations that oppose church teachings.

Still smarting from wounds inflicted five years ago when the church led an aggressive effort to support a marriage definition proposition in their state, California Mormons were relieved this fight would be limited to two Sundays. When it's over, some hope to get back to the impossible task of convincing themselves and friends that their church really is not anti-gay, despite the company it is keeping.

-30-

LOU DOBBS BLUSTERS ABOUT MORMONS AND MEXICO
AND PLAYS IT FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE FACTS

BY RB Scott

May 25, 2006
Boston, Massachusetts

CNN's Lou Dobbs was once very effective as a business journalist, cracking through protective public relations facades with incisive, well researched questions. For a while it seemed he would make thoughtful, precise questioning work for him as the network's prime time news anchor.

But Dobbs tossed objectivity into the floodwaters that swamped New Orleans last summer. His tough, reflective questions turned partisan and self-righteous. He became reporter, commentator, advocate and judge.

These days, especially when commenting on immigration and border security, his punditry glitters with generalities, hyperbole and bombast one expects from radio talk show hosts, not from a serious reporters for major news gathering organizations.

Witness this exchange between Dobbs and CNN's Anderson Cooper on the recent visit of Mexican President Vicente Fox to Salt Lake City:.

"LOU DOBBS ": I think he's done pretty well. He appears right now, Anderson, to be in charge of U.S. immigration policy and border security, such as it is. I think he's doing very well.

COOPER: You say that why? Because the Bush administration hasn't come out critical of him?

DOBBS: Oh, hasn't come out critical of him, doing exactly what he says. He doesn't want security on the northern border of his nation, and this president isn't providing security on our southern border. Because this is, after all, a president of a government exporting about 15 percent of their population to the United States, sending about 3 million of their citizens into this country so that they can get back more than $20 billion a year in remittances.

This is the same country, good friend, neighbor and partner, as President Fox puts it, who's shipping us -- Mexico is now our leading source of meth, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. So, you know, it looks like the partnership is going just the way President Fox wants it.

COOPER: It's interesting. He's visiting Utah. And the Hispanic population has tripled in Utah since 1990. And I guess he's going there to show how important Hispanics are and I guess illegal immigrants are as well to the work force in there. It's sort of an odd message, though.

DOBBS: It's definitely an odd message. Until you consider that the Church of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormon church, has about 1 million Mexican converts, has built 12 churches in Mexico, and has a vigorous enthusiasm for as many of Mexico's citizens as they possibly could attract to the state of Utah, irrespective of the cost to taxpayers.

Once I picked myself up off the floor, I fired off a letter to Mr. Cooper that said:

"I have tracked the Mormon Church all of my 35-year career as a journalist -- at United Press, then Life/Time/People, and now as a columnist covering Gov. Mitt Romney's prospective bid for the Presidency. In all those years, I have never once come across information that the Mormon Church is attempting to attract Mexican citizens to Utah at the expense of Utah taxpayers.

"That claim is as outrageous and as wrong as Dobbs assertion that the Mormons have built "12 churches" in Mexico. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Mormon churches in Mexico [I later learned that at the end of 2003 Mexico had 199 Mormon stakes (dioceses) and roughly 1,800 wards and branches (parishes)] and that Mormons have been there since the late 1800s. In fact, Presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's father, former Michigan Governor George Romney, was born there.

"If Mr. Dobbs has evidence that the church is encouraging Mexicans to move to Utah, he should present it. Otherwise, he should correct the error and apologize for making such an outrageous claim. Sloppy reporting like this only underscores perceptions that journalists play it fast and loose with the facts."

Exhibit one for the prosecution: Lou Dobbs.

COINCIDENCE, RELIGION, SAME SEX MARRIAGE AND POLITICS
PROVOKE HEADACHES FOR MASSACHUSETTS MORMONS

By RB Scott

May 14, 2006
Revised Text in Bold Face: Added June 17, 2006

BOSTON, MASS.-- Circumstance and coincidence often combine to create conflicts that can be easily misconstrued, especially in election seasons super charged by passionate disagreements over how pious teachings should influence public policy.

Liberal Massachusetts is a harbinger for 2008 because it permits same sex marriage and its religious governor -- a Mormon and born-again conservative Republican -- wants to be President in 2008. Consequently, there seem to be more political, religious and moral activists, sleuths and operatives encamped here than you can shake a stick at.

A few weeks back some of them banged the drum loudly when the Mormon Church - the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - "announced" it supported the concept of a constitutional amendment defining marriage. Is there any reader on the planet unaware that the Mormon Church opposes same sex marriage? The "announcement," such as it was, only restated its position. Kill the drum roll.

Moreover, it was tied to a rather pedestrian event: a Mormon apostle and other religious leaders signing a document endorsing the need for a marriage amendment. Mute the trumpets.

My sources insisted that apostle's action was simply a careful restatement of principle, not a commitment to tactics. Neither was it an effort to tell members how to act nor should anyone assume the church will do anything more than express its position, as a matter or principle.

Although the church does not consider Same Sex Marriage a "wedge" issue, some members do. Last Fall as the church was advising its leaders in Massachusetts to avoid getting involved in marriage amendment activities, The Legacy Law Foundation - founded and run by Mormons - was recruiting the faithful to collect signatures in support of a ballot initiative. Foundation director Elizabeth Harmer-Dionne, a well-educated attorney, exploited her Mormon connections in an e-mail message:

"Later today, I will copy … you on an e-mail … giving final times and places for the two meetings … information as to wards [a "ward" is the Mormon equivalent of "parish"] where we have representatives and wards where we still need them…"

"A brief introduction … I hold degrees from Wellesley College, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford Law School. My husband … serves as bishop of the Cambridge 1st Ward. .."

Reacting to complaints from other Mormons, the organization dropped language implying a church connection. Dionne's Utah-based organization is only one of several advocacy groups - like Family Leader Network and its parent Meridian Magazine -- that play-up church connections.

But, back to Temple Square's "statement of principle:" it implies that the state-by-state campaigns were unnecessary because same sex marriage is not forbidden by the Constitution, which is what many serious constitutional scholars have argued for years.

Incidentally: if the Constitution permits same sex marriage, then all the hoo-haw about the twisted, agenda-laden activist judges of Massachusetts and California amounts to a rubbish heap of demagoguery and partisan politicking.

The "amendment solution" creates a few ironies, which may explain why the church regards it as statement of principle only. Long ago the church argued that plural marriage was protected. It relinquished to save itself from dissolution, free its men from prison and win statehood for Utah.

The church proudly proclaims the Constitution was divinely inspired. True, the diviners built-in the arduous amendment process for fixing what they overlooked. It is disingenuous to argue they overlooked marriage - after all, most were husbands.

Thirty years ago the church argued that passage of the Equal Rights Amendment could unintentionally curtail important protections for mothers and children. Likewise, DOMA may inadvertently eliminate crucial marriage benefits.

More on point: the church is quite good at counting noses. It must realize an amendment will not win Congressional support. It has to be developing compromises that will not provoke people of goodwill to behave badly.

David Parker spent a night in the Lexington, Massachusetts town jail last year ago after he staged a one-man sit-in demanding prior notification before his son's kindergarten class was taught about homosexuality. Since same sex marriage is legal in the state, the school said it would not comply.

A year later, the same school dismissed a similar request from Joseph Robert (Robb) and Robin Wirthlin, whose second grader was read a fairy tale - not part of the curriculum -- about a young prince in search of a princess who falls for her brother.

Although the Wirthlins joined the Parkers in what could be a precedent-setting Federal lawsuit, "all we wanted was to have the teacher notify us before she teaches this theme," said Wirthlin, a graduate student working on his Ph.D.

The story should end there. But, the 2008 Presidential campaign has already begun. Someone is bound to make something of the fact that the Wirthlins are devout Mormons, in fact Robb is the namesake grandson of Elder Joseph Wirthlin, an apostle of the church. He is also the grand-nephew of Richard (Dick) Wirthlin, the media-savvy Washington opinion pollster who served Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party, Massachusetts Governor and likely Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Mormon Church, and had a hand in founding organizations that oppose same sex marriage.

Coincidentally, Romney is on a mission to convince the Christian Right he's really one of them (mercifully he's not). A press agent could not have concocted a more compelling way to demonstrate Romney's change of heart on same sex unions than to stage a shootout on Mitt's home turf between arrogant radical-chic school officials and a principled, guileless grad student trying to be a good dad.

Even though the Wirthlins deny any connections to advocacy groups opposing same sex marriage. He says "it's been years" since he talked to his celebrated grand uncle and has never met Mitt Romney, he concedes the coincidences are enough to make a grad student's head hurt all the way to November, 2008.

Update: Despite their denials of a prior association, in a June 2006 newsletter to members of The Legacy Law Foundation, Mrs. Harmer-Dionne noted that she and the Wirthlins have been long-time good friends.

-30-

DEALING WITH THE MORMON FACTOR

By RB Scott
Date: March 18, 2006
Section: Opinion: Salt Lake Tribune

Recently when Fox TV anchor Chris Wallace attempted to plumb the depths of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs, the prospective candidate grew restless, as he often does when pressed about religion. Then he parried with a line worthy of Jack Kennedy:

"America has a political religion . . . people who are elected . . . [take] an oath to abide by a nation of laws and the Constitution, above all others." Amen.

Romney should sharpen that sound bite and stay on message. Like it or not, questions about Mormonisms will hound him wherever he goes, as they always have. And Mormons don't have an anti-defamation society to cry foul whenever someone hits below the belt or indulges a silly stereotype.

Besides, it's true that extra scrutiny may be warranted given Romney's history as a regional ecclesiastical leader for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is not your "ordinary" true believer like Presidents Kennedy and Carter or Sen. Joe Lieberman.

It is odd that reporters of Wallace's stature and background, Jewish by heritage, seem unashamed badgering Mitt about arcane Mormon beliefs. The chief beef is the "one true religion" claim. Tied for second are the church's non-traditional Trinitarian definition of God, its experiments with plural marriage and its policy that until 1978 excluded blacks from its priesthood.

A fortnight ago a Boston Globe op-ed piece by the estimable John H. Bunzel, past president of San Jose State University and senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, stated that racist explanations offered by previous church leaders for the exclusion of blacks from the priesthood remain alive and could hurt Romney if not clearly repudiated.

Trouble was, Bunzel's argument was based on issues raised in a 9-year-old Los Angeles Times story that have since been resolved, according to the man who raised them, Dennis Gladwell, then a senior partner in the respected law firm of Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, who said, "The matter ended when President [Gordon B.] Hinckley told [CBS's] Mike Wallace that the practice [forbidding ordination of blacks] and various speculative explanations resulted from misinterpretations of scripture by early church leaders."

Confirming that the matter is not being studied and dismissing the need for a fresh renouncement, Temple Square nonetheless cautioned that Hinckley is an "out-of-the-box thinker who has surprised us all before."

The church is aware that some members still believe theories taught by leaders like Brigham Young, who proclaimed that black skin and loss of priesthood were "marks" placed on all descendants of fratricidal Cain. Others said it was punishment for being less valiant in the war in heaven. Young's harsh sidebar comments - one sanctions death for partners in interracial marriages - are particularly vexing.

After the policy was renounced, it was hoped that apostle Bruce R. McConkie's sweeping disavowal to the church's Seminary and Institute of Religion teachers of all that had been previously taught would tie up loose ends: "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young . . . or whomsoever has said . . . that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world . . . "

But it didn't. A perusal of any Mormon-oriented e-mail discussion group today would confirm that the Internet gives currency to such recidivist views. That is why some members believe a more specific statement is needed. And Hinckley may be just the man to make it.

In 1971 Hinckley took the lead in founding Genesis, the organization for black Mormons that many regarded as the first public signal that the church planned to end the priesthood ban. Arguably, no one has done more to bring the church into the mainstream.

Given Hinckley's history, it seemed almost ironic that while he was recovering from recent surgery for cancer, Brigham Young University refused to renew the contract of a black professor who had campaigned vigorously - "too forcefully," some said - for a formal renunciation.

The nearly 96-year-old Hinckley's immediate priority was to mend well enough to travel to Chile to rededicate the temple there. His once-delayed trip was about to be postponed again when he, not surprisingly, insisted on going, despite advice to the contrary.

Perhaps Mitt Romney is one of many Mormons who pray that Gordon Bitner Hinckley surprises everyone again and firmly repudiates all the damaging explanations for the abandoned black policy. A fresh, sharp illumination can't come soon enough.

FAUX PAS AT FOX, THE BOSTON GLOBE
AND BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

By RB Scott

ADVISORY: Parts of this story were published Friday evening 3/3/2006 and updated on Saturday (3/4/2006) and Sunday (3/5/2006). A version was published by the Salt Lake Tribune. See above.)

Last Sunday, when Fox Television anchor Chris Wallace attempted to plumb the depths of Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs, the prospective Presidential candidate was plainly edgy, as he often is when pressed about his religion. This time he parried with a deflective line worthy of Jack Kennedy.

"America has a political religion and that people who are elected to office subscribe to this political religion, which is to place the oath of office, an oath to abide by a nation of laws and the Constitution, above all others."

Romney needs to "gird up" his loins, as the inspiring Mormon hymn "Come, Come Ye Saints" exhorts, and steel himself for intense hectoring down the road. Like it or not, questions about Mormon dogma will hound him wherever he goes, as they did in 1994 when he ran against Senator Ted Kennedy and preferred not to delve into religious matters.

His church, directly or indirectly, is not making his life any easier.

On Saturday, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, flagship of the six-college Mormon education system, had not reviewed the contract of Darron Smith, an African-American Smith diversity counselor and adjunct professor of sociology. Smith says he was told he had been terminated because of his outspoken view that "happy face" kind of racism still exists in the church, nearly 40 years after the policy prohibiting black members from being ordained to the priesthood was forsaken. For more than a decade, he and many others have been encouraging the church to formally renounce the "folk doctrines" that were once offered as justification for the abandoned policy.

More on that increasingly troublesome matter later.

The problem for Mitt Romney is that he and Mormonism are inextricably linked, for better and worse. Perhaps the intense scrutiny is warranted, given Romney's long service as a local and regional ecclesiastical leader of his church, where service is unpaid, even if time-consuming. In this regard, he is not your "ordinary" believer like Kennedy was.

It is nonetheless odd that reporters like Wallace, Jewish by heritage, seem unashamed to badger Mormon candidates about arcane religious doctrines over which they have no control. Such reporters seem fixated on teachings that nettle various mainline Christians and evangelicals. The chief beef is Mormonism's claim to being the "one true religion," and a close second and third are the church's non-traditional-Trinitarian definition of God and the abandoned practice of polygamy.

Now the once divisive issue of racism, which Mormons thought they'd put behind them in 1978, resurrects itself just in time to undercut the Presidential aspirations of favorite son Mitt Romney.

The Sunday before his testy interview with Wallace, Romney had no opportunity to comment on an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe that lifted information and verbatim quotes without attribution from a Los Angeles Times story written nine years earlier (the Times included statements from a book written nearly 50 years ago, since, disavowed and apologized for by it's author.) that raised the once exclusionary priesthood policy forsaken by the church nearly three decades ago.

The writer of the op-ed was the estimable John H. Bunzel, past president of San Jose State University and a senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Bunzel argued the policy the church abandoned in 1978, one that once prevented black members from being ordained to the priesthood, could come back to undermine Romney's Presidential aspirations.

The troublesome excerpt reads: "However, critics of the church maintain that although the ban has been removed, the doctrine has not changed. 'It's the linkage to Cain that so distresses Mormon African-Americans today,' says California attorney Dennis Gladwell, who has been working with church leaders calling for change. 'It places their spiritual lineage in shambles, since they are alleged descendants of a man who has come to symbolize evil on the same level as Lucifer himself." These are precisely the points made by BYU's Smith.

The only problem with the Gladwell quotes is that they are old. They reflected his opinion nine years ago. Since then, "California Attorney" Gladwell, once a senior partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Irvine, California, has retired and is now living in Utah. "I haven't visited this issue in nearly a decade," Gladwell said in a telephone interview from his home near Ogden, Utah where he too, like Romney once did, serves in the bishopric of his ward (parish).

"I have not talked with Mr. Bunzel or The Boston Globe," he said. "For me, the matter was fully resolved when President (Gordon B.) Hinckley told CBS' Mike Wallace on network television that the practice and various doctrinal explanations were misinterpretations of the scriptures by early leaders of the church."

"No, I have never talked to Gladwell," Bunzel acknowledged in a telephone interview. "When we were cutting the piece to 800 words, The Globe asked me about the Gladwell quote and I said: 'Well, I can't find the source offhand, but I know I didn't make it up."

For its part, The Globe said it does not have the resources to fact check op-ed pieces that are submitted. "They represent the opinions of the authors" said Nick King, the editor who handled the Bunzel piece. "We assume the authors - especially a former president of a major university - would understand the importance of fact checking. Sometimes we get burned."

Temple Square, while denying that the matter was being studied and dismissing even the need for a fresh renouncement , cautioned that President Gordon B. Hinckley was an "out-of-the-box thinker who has surprised us all before."

This may come as a surprise to Armand Mauss, professor emeritus of sociology at Washington State University and author of All Abraham's Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Lineage and Race," who told the Salt Lake Tribune: I know that some of the [LDS apostles] would like to see such a statement issued, but I don't know how many of them," he says. "President [Gordon B.] Hinckley clearly believes that it is not necessary, for the 1978 revelation and policy change 'speaks for itself,' as he has said." Mauss told The Tribune he doesn't expect such a statement as long as Hinckley lives, "even though his administration has been otherwise very sincere in its outreach to black people."

The leadership of the church is fully aware of the fact that while the policy that prevented African Americans from holding the priesthood was terminated years ago, some Latter-day Saints persist in believing the original policy was imposed by God and was not the result of a misinterpretation of scripture. Some of those prophets - most notably Brigham Young, the Mormon Moses - proclaimed that black skin and no access to the priesthood was the "mark" placed on all descendants of fratricidal Cain.

Others speculated the restriction was the penalty for being less valiant in the war in heaven. Worse, Young's harsh sidebar comments - one sanctions death as a punishment for both participants in an interracial sexual relationship - are quite troubling, never mind they were uttered in the 1860s.

A perusal of any Mormon-oriented Internet discussion group would reveal that the original theological premise for the ban lives on in the minds of some Mormons, despite the 1978 renouncement of the policy and its collateral teachings, as well as the on-the-fly renouncement in the Hinckley-Wallace interview of the late 90s. If not corrected explicitly, it's possible the forsaken policy and the supporting folk doctrines could come back to bite the church and severely wound Mitt Romney, perhaps mortally.

Just two years after the passing of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, wife of 67 years and constant companion to the energetic, "out-of-the-box"-thinking Mormon prophet, Gordon Bitner Hinckley is now bearing down on his 97th birthday. He has been in remarkably robust health; but, his recovery from recent laparoscopic surgery to excise a cancerous blockage from his colon is not going as well as expected.

Romney may be but one of many Mormons hoping for at least one more surprise from the change agent who has led the church for the past 11 years. To them, another Hinckley surprise is critical and can not come soon enough.

Shirtsleeves Spin A Message

By RB Scott

BOSTON, Mass. -- Marsha, a high school friend in Salt Lake City designs costumes for the big screen. Obviously, she knows a thing or two about how to dress stars to keep them in character and on message.

So I listen-up whenever she says something about why ordinary people pick the clothes they do, and the subtle messages they reveal about the wearer's true nature, inner self, not to mention net worth.

She has been weighing-in on such heady matters since 1960-something when she anointed a brass uncoiling Cobra arm bracelet her signature piece of jewelry (I have no idea what a snake wrapping around her left arm portends. Frankly, I'm afraid to ask.).

This is why I paid particular attention when she noted that President George W. Bush prefers rolled-up long sleeved shirts whenever he descends to mingle with the hoi polloi, as he did recently in Louisiana, Texas and Colorado.

"Think he was hoping to carry hod down there in the N'Arlins mud?" Marsha hissed sarcastically (being a Hollywood type, she lists toward John Kerry, well, Bill Clinton). "If he's really going to work up a big sweat, don'tcha think he ought to do it in short sleeves, like a real man?"

I couldn't IM a terse, smart answer - "How would I know? Do I look like his mother?"-- because she was ranting at me in the old fashioned way: by e-mail. She had the floor, as it were, and so she raved on: Frankly, I'm certain he's got a wardrobe spin stylist on payroll. It's a stupid waste of taxpayer dollars. What do you think?"

From New England, which became my home shortly after Marsha acquired that trademark Cobra, I responded circumspectly and respectfully because I didn’t want to rattle her, her snake, or, for that matter, any of my pals in Utah who proudly strut short sleeves year round. So here's what I wrote.

“Hey Marsha,

“Because I live in Massachusetts, you probably assume I'm no big fan of George Bush. Nevertheless, I am compelled to defend the way he wears his shirts. Trust me on this: shirtsleeves rolled-up is not just a Republican thing.

“If you can find a picture of John Kerry in short sleeves (golf, tennis and Hawaiian shirts don't count), e-mail it and maybe I'll back off. Until then, stop with the eye-rolling and pay attention.

“Remember, George's DNA is very bluish. If Bushes didn't get off The Boat - that would be The Mayflower -they may as well have.

Ditto the Forbes- Kerrys. As you live in a region of the country where everyone knows they are related to everyone else, it shouldn't surprise you one little bit that George and John are distant cousins literally, connected by regal blood and shirtsleeves.

"Texas may be George's legal home, but he spent his formative years in Washington, or hanging with uppity expatriate brats in China, or prepping at Andover just north of here, and studying (loose application of the word, I know) at Yale with those conspirators in the Skull and Bones tomb, and summering at the family's weather-beaten rambling shake shingle seaside shack in Kennebunkport.

“You get the picture.

“And, the backgrounder on John Kerry is quite similar, right down to the loose application of the word studying. Here's the point, Marsha: no Bush or Kerry or cousin worth his salt etched Topsiders and martini shaker would dream of wearing short sleeves in good company. It just wouldn't be proper.

“Check out Boca Grande - the shabby chic village on a barrier island off the WASP, er West Coast of Florida where the Bushes and, blush, blush, I vacation from time to time. Regardless of the heat and humidity, you'll see plenty of long-sleeved casual shirts, rolled to their owners bending-elbows down at the Dolphin Cove or Pink Elephant. George would join them were he not on the wagon.

“To give you credit where credit is due: As you suspected, the president was coached. No doubt about it. Any reasonably savvy media consultant, not to mention Dress For Success guru John Molloy, would counsel: don't dress down. It's patronizing and, in the end, you won't get it right. So he wore the kind of casual long-sleeved shirt he would normally wear, and rolled-up the sleeves to signal he was ready for action even if he wasn't.

“Consider the silliness of wannabe cowboys from Manhattan's upper east side arriving at a Montana ranch in freshly laundered and creased Calvin Klein blue jeans. Almost brand new blue jeans at that, not weather-beaten saddle-softened Levis. “Killer snickers would resound for weeks. Lifetimes, perhaps. Better to come as you are and let the locals teach you a thing or two. They may even forgive you your Calvins.

“Bill Clinton and Al Gore are roll-em-up kinda guys too. Bill may speak Arkansan and Gore may like hanging out at the Pickin' Parlor in Nashville, but film from any photo op will prove they know the tell-tales of shirtsleeves.

“Which gets me to the penultimate lab: The Yard off Harvard Square on any balmy September day. Guaranteed, the few short sleeved shirts will be on the backs of freshmen from Iowa, Nebraska or Utah.

“By Halloween those future masters of the universe will be eagerly rolling the cuffs of their 100 percent cotton oxford cloth button downs from LL Bean and J. Press.

“You see, I know it is quite possible to squeeze most of the Nebraska, Iowa and Utah out of the boy. I just checked out my own closet and discovered but one short sleeve collared shirt. And it was a Christmas gift from my sister in Salt Lake.

“Glory be, Marsha, I have become a snoot!”

"Snoot? Not quite," Marsha and her Cobra fired back, wrinkling her nose in an e-coded (;~|) sneer.

“Lose the extra "o."

© 2006 RB Scott All Rights Reserved
For permission to publish or reprint this column
contact rbscott@themuss.net or call 508.254-9900

MITT, MUSLIMS AND MORMONS:
A TIME FOR CALM, A PLEA TO LEAD

ADVISORY: A version of this piece was published by the Salt Lake Tribune

RB Scott

BOSTON, Mass. -- Inevitable presidential candidate and current Massachusetts Gov. W. Mitt Romney's threat to wiretap mosques and monitor Muslims won support from his party's right wing. But it left some fellow Latter-day Saints and others wondering if he had lost his grasp of constitutional law not to mention the history of his own church's frightful encounters with government informants and harassment.

Because Romney once led a Mormon ecclesiastical precinct, roughly equivalent to a Catholic diocese, some worried he spoke for the church, too. By all accounts, he did not. The relationship between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the 30,000-strong Muslim community in Utah is solid -- empathetic, cooperative and respectful.

On Sept. 14, he said, "How about people who are in settings -- mosques, for instance -- that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror? Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping?"

Not long before Romney's explosive comments to the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Mormon stake he once led hosted an interfaith dinner intended to strengthen ties between Muslims, Jews and Christians. Because of the goodwill generated that night, Dr. Sepi Gilani, a surgeon and former board member of The Islamic Center of Boston, was particularly dismayed when she read reports of Romney's alarming words a few weeks later.

"Either they show the depths of his ignorance about us, or his willingness to use fear to polarize people," she said.

Wary moderate supporters see Romney's "expedient" side re-emerging as he nears announcing what everyone knows: He wants to be president in 2008. Currying favor with powerful neo-conservatives led him to flip-flop on "choice," "same-sex civil unions" and stem-cell research, and to veto a bill approving the so-called "morning-after pill" (his veto was overridden by a unanimous vote of the legislature).

Romney's expedient side surfaced back in 1994 when he skirted the abortion issue as deftly as Bill Clinton: "Not my choice, but every woman has the right to choose."

Sympathetic Mormons supported his muse then that the "morning-after pill" might be balm for abortion war wounds. They even understood when he claimed "civil unions" would ensure rights for gay citizens while protecting traditional marriage. But, they muttered "oh, please" when he unnecessarily supported building Native American-owned casinos near Cape Cod.

While the polls made it plain -- no candidate who opposed abortion could win in Massachusetts -- some sympathizers thought Romney was just a little too eager to compromise. A Catholic father of eight groused: "I'll vote for Romney, no matter what. But, I wish he would drive a stake in the ground and be himself. I know what Mormons believe. But, I have no idea what Romney stands for."

Illusive, evasive and virtually unknown Mitt Romney gave Sen. Edward Kennedy the scare of his political life in 1994.

Eight years later, hailed nationwide as the savior of the 2002 Winter Olympics, he undermined incumbent Republican Gov. Jane Swift's candidacy so decisively that she scratched before the convention.

Now Romney crassly plays to fearful Americans who fret that home-grown terrorists are religious fanatics praying at the mosque rather than the dispirited, irreligious angry young men they often are, drinking whiskey in a strip club on the "cheatin' side of town."

That's why the governor's rhetoric confounds another Salt Lake native, Dr. Christopher Blakesley, who went to church with Romney when they were students in Boston. Now an expert in international criminal law and terrorism, he holds a professorship at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and is the J.Y. Sanders Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University Law Center.

Blakesley wonders "Is wiretapping mosques really what Mitt believes, or is he willing to prostitute his beliefs for the nomination?"

A professor at a prominent university near Boston, a former Utahn who has known Romney for years warns: "Mitt's recent flip-flops on key issues are foolish pandering. He seriously overestimates the support he or any Mormon would ultimately receive from ultra-right Christians."

Thomas Duncan of Provo, who served with Romney when the two were missionaries in France, worries, "If Mitt gets serious about wiretapping mosques, how long will it be before the press figures out that Mormons were once at odds with the government and swore oaths in church that outsiders thought promoted terrorism?"

Duncan refers, in part, to a series of distorted dispatches from adversaries and paid informants that persuaded President James Buchanan to send federal troops to Utah in 1857.

Before siccing snoops on Muslims, like they once were turned on Mormons, the governor should listen to Mahmud Jafri, a member of the Dover (a wealthy Boston suburb) Republican Committee, contributor to both Romney campaigns and founding member of the Islamic Masumeen Center of New England: "His comments saddened Muslim leaders. Why wiretap and spy while we pray? We've already pledged to submit transcripts of all our services and proceedings in our mosques and centers."

Like the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, America needs a uniter, not a divider. It would be refreshing if the governor divined what polls will eventually tell him and decided right now, on his own, to stand for something.

© 2006 RB Scott All Rights Reserved
For permission to publish or reprint this column
contact rbscott@themuss.net or call 508.254-9900

A Yarn About God, Golf, Sunday School and One Irons;

By RB Scott

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear cousin,

I am sure there is meaning and purpose to your Sunday routine -trundling off to your local meetinghouse to absorb quaint homilies from one parochial dignitary or another, the folks next door and their children.

However, I prefer golf.

Titillating photography -- enhanced by smoky filters, stop action and slow mo -- is supposed to race your engine and make you feel warm and fuzzy all over. Over the course of my life I've seen enough racy flicks and magazines to choke a ... well, forget that metaphor.

I prefer golf!

If you learn to play, you'll understand why. On a long par five take out a three wood for your second shot and launch one dead-on the flagstick, leaving you just a tap-in for eagle. Your engine will race and you'll feel warm and fuzzy for days. Weeks. Even years. And, you won't to have hide the font of this pleasure in your old socks drawer either.

Sermons at church are supposed to lift your spirit, teach you new moral truths, and persuade you to be more honest with yourself. So to be honest with myself (and you), the last regular Sunday sermon I enjoyed was back in 1960- something. By contrast, golf builds spirituality. For instance, over the course of a normal round I am called to prayer about ninety times over the course of five hours. Even a hepped-up missionary conference couldn't produce so many fervent entreaties.

Out on the golf course --especially when I am playing alone, which is my wont -- damn if I'm not encouraged to be more honest with myself. For instance, hackers like me are known for our Mulligans. Mulligan is a pleasant synonym for "do over" without taking a penalty. To true believers like me, Mulligans are, in a word, "cheating."

Of course, if you're playing alone (one of the true pleasures of golf) you can take as many Mulligans as you like. No one will notice or care. I used to think that fudging a little -taking a Mulligan here and there - made very little difference, even when playing in a group, for money or just for pride. "I shot an eightytwo," I boasted one Sunday, for this is truly was a nice score for a fourteen handicapper like me. My companion is dubious, he's remembering the Mulligans I took at critical points. "I'll bet you had the SATs memorized before you stopped retaking them," he chided.

No matter. I continued to take Mulligans all the time.
From everywhere on the golf course. Everyone knew it. And, then one Sunday on an uphill, one hundred and sixty-yard par three, I hit one of the worst six irons of my life. I was glad to be playing alone. The ball fairly screamed up the hill, about three feet off the ground. This kind of out-of-control shot is called a shank. It caught a ridge of long grass in front of the green, bent right as it scooted across the green. Miraculously, the ball banged dead center into the flagstick and dropped in the hole. An ace. The first, and only, one of my life. The foursome on the tee ahead cheered. A greenskeeper working nearby tipped his hat respectfully.

When I told my friends about the accomplishment, one snipped: "was it your first shot off the tee or your second…or third." My Mulligan days were over. Nowadays I play every shot as it lies. Which is sort of the way God has us approach life, don't you think?

Other eternal lessons can be learned from the game. For instance: make the best out of what you've got. Let's suppose that, like me, you aren't physically capable of playing scratch (even par) golf. The game accounts for such deficiencies. This is the fair thing to do, I think. You can't help it if God didn't give you the stuff to be a golf champion. Maybe He had different mission in mind for you -- like teaching a Sunday School class. That's where handicaps come in. They level the playing field, as they say. Here's how it works.

Let's suppose you're only capable of playing bogey golf (one over par per hole). After playing a few rounds, you establish a handicap, which is figured based on what your scores reveal to be your golf deficiencies. As a result, you establish bogey as your par, which means that you are expected to take about eighteen more strokes more per round than a scratch golfer, one whose handicap is zero. Assuming the scratch golfer plays to his potential, all you have to do to beat him and the course is to play one stroke better than your potential.

See how fair and just and God-like golf is? The game also teaches you not to mess around too much with the mysteries and riddles life presents. For instance, it is accepted Golf doctrine that only God can hit a one iron. To avoid temptation, many weekend golfers refuse to carry a one iron in their bag. Wiseguys and fools are the exceptions. Every once in a while you see one tempting fate. They rarely succeed.

As a caddie I was paid well and not infrequently to fetch an entire set of exquisite golf clubs out of the pond in front of the eighteenth hole at The Country Club (as in The One And Only) in Salt Lake City. On such occasions, my employer was always the mercurial Joe Bamberger, a scratch golfer whose pocketbook was as large as his temper. On this day he ignored my counsel (forgetting that he never used fairway woods, I recommended a three wood, then lamely a two-iron).

"Why not a one-iron?" he challenged boldly.

"You know what they say about one irons," I said meekly.

"It's Sunday and damned if God's not with me even if he's not with you," he teased, knowing that I had bolted Sunday School early to make his tee time. Joe was Jewish, so playing on Sunday was no special mishuggunah to him.

Unlike Jesus, also a Jew, Joe succumbed to temptation, which had its way with him as temptations almost always do with people who don't take them seriously. While Joe cursed the heavens and the gods of golf and other gods and demigods within earshot, there I was earning an extra twenty bucks, rescuing his bag and clubs from the water his ball had entered only moments before.

I was a very diligent caddy. I was also exceedingly kind. Not only did I find the ball he hit, but the bag and every single club...except the one iron. Truth be told, I stumbled across it too, but thinking his life and mine would be a lot saner if he never saw that blasted club again, I scrunched it deep into the mud with my bare feet.

Joe was a persistent man and, as I said, he was also quite generous. So, a few hours later he asked me to take another look, for another twenty bucks. Naturally, I obliged. Locating the iron with my feet, I pushed it deeper into the mucky bottom, where it probably lies mired to this day. Maybe it's a fossil by now. It was a long, long time ago.

"What am I going to do without my one iron," he wailed, as I waded out of the pond, empty-handed, smelling like a dead carp.

"Try church," I said.

There may have been something to my advice.

A few years later, I wrote several magazine pieces about young guy who could work miracles with a one iron. His name was Johnny Miller. He never ever missed his weekly church meetings. After Sunday School in June of 1973, for the final round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont, he played better than anyone thought God could.

END

© 2006 RB Scott All Rights Reserved
For permission to publish or reprint this column
contact rbscott@themuss.net or call 508.254-9900