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stoney321Thanks so much for all the funny and sweet comments on both my last post and the Valentine's Love Meme. I have some good friends out there. (I loved reading that post and seeing all the nice things people have to say about each other. It reminds me that not everyone's a nut job. Well, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dovil is, but she can't help where she's from, bless her heart. Hee.)
1. I won't post any real spoilers for this past week's Big Love, but I will say that my jaw DROPPED when the C-story line with the "papers" that the Good Mormon Brother In Law wanted to collect from the Juniper Creek folks started. Guys, that stuff really happened. It was a HUGE black eye for the LDS church. Now, they just threw that info in the background to get the B-plot moving, but if they keep it up, that's the Mark Hoffman Salamander Papers story.
In a nutshell, Mark Hoffman was a con artist and a master forger, even though he was raised devoutly Mormon by an old-school pilgrim family. Through a series of letters, shady contacts, etc., he let the church leaders at the time know that he was in possession of Actual Historical Documents - and that Joseph Smith didn't have an angel come before him in his bedroom, but a glowing white salamander. And the church panicked and tried to buy them, because it was JUST CRAZY ENOUGH TO BE TRUE.
There was a "reformed Egyptian document" (the secret language the Golden Plates were written in, the same ones that a noted historian told Joseph Smith was bullshit and made up when Joe was first trying to peddle his Divine Document) that was dated prior to Smith. This would prove to the masses that Joe Smith copied this and tried to pass it off as his own. (Keep in mind that THIS is fake, too. Hey, Mark was raised in the religion of a master forger and con-man too, amirite?) The church bought anything this guy sold them, trying to bury everything. Aww, how thoughtful to the sheep, er, flock. Hiding documents that well, they were fake, but the church thought they were real.
Now, the thing that drives me nuts about all of this is how the Church claimed that this was FURTHER PROOF of their truthfulness, etc., in an effort to save face. Hugh Nibley was the Church's water-carrier at the time and a well educated man. Note that having a lot of time in chairs and degrees after your name doesn't make you smart. He went public and said that the "reformed Egyptian" doc was further proof, sent by god to them, reinforcing the One True Church and blah blah blah. And it was written by a 20 something so he could get some bucks. So divine, suuuuure. (And before you jump in with "but the ____ church-!" I'm talking about the LDS church. Obviously EVERY major religion has their forgeries, lies, etc.)
Remember that South Park episode where Martin Harris' wife Lucy (smart smart smart!) took the first 116 pages of the "translated Golden Plates" and hid them to try and get Joseph Smith to prove he was making it up as he went? That was ultimately Mark Hoffman's goal - to recreate that. So Mark Hoffman was well schooled in the myths of his church, had lost his faith, and wanted to rub the leaders' noses in it. (And people say I'M mean!)
He tricked the leaders into claiming that all that made up crap was real, and they spent weeks trying to reword things to make it fit into their established dogma. (For those that have been following along, remember how I keep telling you that the Church constantly tweaks their dogma? This is one of those times. "Yes, the white salamander was the Angel Moroni, but you see, Joseph wasn't tested yet, so God sent him in a more pleasing form to not frighten him. Er... Or a "salamander" at that time in history was the best approximation for a mythical being that, um, you see, in pre-Victorian times, people didn't... Damn." And that person was Dallin H. Oaks, the biggest jackass in the church. [glee] BTW, he's the one that says the biggest threat to the church is "intellectuals, feminists, and homosexuals." UH, BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOU'RE A LIAR?
DAMN! one thing I forgot to talk about, and I have GOT to add this to my book, is the Three Witnesses. [cracks knuckles] In the Book of Mormon, Jesus comes to the Americas. This is about 3/4 of the way through the book, by the way. At any rate, three men (the Jewish Indians) are so overcome with Christ's message that they ask for immortality so they can walk among men until the Second Coming and stand as witnesses for Jesus and testify. Long-term missionaries, in other words, with a Highlander twist. (Except no head loping - There can only be one! Except for how there are three.) Hoffman claimed to have written documents from two of these immortal beings. Uh, okay. He got money for all of these in the tens of THOUSANDS of dollars each, then leaked to the press that they were being bought by the church instead of letting the church just buy them and shove them in a lock box, never to see the light of day. That way, the church would have to scramble to talk about what they had, what it meant, etc. He started up bidding wars between splinter groups of the church (the RLDS, tiny little group that claimed Joe Smith's son should have been prophet, and the main church in particular.)
Ultimately the jig was up, and he sent letter bombs to try and cover his ass, killing two people, and almost blowing himself up, too. He's serving life in prison.
So yeah. If they go through with some of these story lines onBig Love, and they've been really good about all this obscure insider stuff, now you're in the know, too. :) Oh! So my dad was on the "intellectual Mormon lecture circuit" during all of this, and they were having the time of their lives with all of this "fact" coming to light, further explaining things they had long believed, and so on. There was major egg on every Mormon's face during the 80s, let me tell you.
Stephen Colbert played a Hoffman-type on Law and Order, by the way. For those of you who want to whomp on Trivial Pursuit.
2. I'm not some 50s haus frau that longs to have the Pod Kitchen of Tomorrow (except for how freaking cool would that be? hahaha, that was one of my all-time fave Tex Avery shorts.) where you just add water or shove your dishes into a glass box in the counter and out comes a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, but I have been the happiest of haus fraus since Sunday. My in laws loaned me their industrial steam cleaner, and I have been going crazy with the cleaning. Oh my god, my floors are so clean you could have a baby on them. But don't, because that's a big mess. Today I'm going to use the grout attachment and go crazy nuts. Sterile environment! Pristine showers! No filth from my children present anywhere! Well, until they all track it in again, but still! THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE IS STEAM. Ahahaha. It's going to be so sparkling you'll think Billy Mays has been shouting the filth away.
3. I've scheduled my nasal surgery for next Monday and I'm stoked! They're going to inflate my coffee-straw sized sinuses with balloons, they're going to cut my septum up and fix that, and they're going to kit me up with loads of drugs. Life is going to be SWEET. And painful. But hey, I've passed two kidney stones, broken my knee cap, and had natural child birth. Bring it on, yo.
4. I have my SXSW film badge, I have my hotel booked, and I have a four day vacation complete with movie premiere coming up in mid-March. \o/ Let's hope the swelling has gone down by a month from now. :D
5. I've started watching Oz from the beginning, and holy crap, I never ever ever want to go to prison. That should be required viewing for every teenage boy on earth. "Want to be someone's bitch and wear mesh? DO YOU?" No one should be forced to wear a mesh top. That's inhumane. And I just finished S1 and ALBY is a prison guard? The wheel keeps on turning and turning and turning and... nothing's disturbing the way it goes around... (see what I did there? *G*)
For fun check the similarities. (And who caught McPoyle as the priest on House? I love Jimmi Simpson, the poor man's Spader.)
dovil is, but she can't help where she's from, bless her heart. Hee.)1. I won't post any real spoilers for this past week's Big Love, but I will say that my jaw DROPPED when the C-story line with the "papers" that the Good Mormon Brother In Law wanted to collect from the Juniper Creek folks started. Guys, that stuff really happened. It was a HUGE black eye for the LDS church. Now, they just threw that info in the background to get the B-plot moving, but if they keep it up, that's the Mark Hoffman Salamander Papers story.
In a nutshell, Mark Hoffman was a con artist and a master forger, even though he was raised devoutly Mormon by an old-school pilgrim family. Through a series of letters, shady contacts, etc., he let the church leaders at the time know that he was in possession of Actual Historical Documents - and that Joseph Smith didn't have an angel come before him in his bedroom, but a glowing white salamander. And the church panicked and tried to buy them, because it was JUST CRAZY ENOUGH TO BE TRUE.
There was a "reformed Egyptian document" (the secret language the Golden Plates were written in, the same ones that a noted historian told Joseph Smith was bullshit and made up when Joe was first trying to peddle his Divine Document) that was dated prior to Smith. This would prove to the masses that Joe Smith copied this and tried to pass it off as his own. (Keep in mind that THIS is fake, too. Hey, Mark was raised in the religion of a master forger and con-man too, amirite?) The church bought anything this guy sold them, trying to bury everything. Aww, how thoughtful to the sheep, er, flock. Hiding documents that well, they were fake, but the church thought they were real.
Now, the thing that drives me nuts about all of this is how the Church claimed that this was FURTHER PROOF of their truthfulness, etc., in an effort to save face. Hugh Nibley was the Church's water-carrier at the time and a well educated man. Note that having a lot of time in chairs and degrees after your name doesn't make you smart. He went public and said that the "reformed Egyptian" doc was further proof, sent by god to them, reinforcing the One True Church and blah blah blah. And it was written by a 20 something so he could get some bucks. So divine, suuuuure. (And before you jump in with "but the ____ church-!" I'm talking about the LDS church. Obviously EVERY major religion has their forgeries, lies, etc.)
Remember that South Park episode where Martin Harris' wife Lucy (smart smart smart!) took the first 116 pages of the "translated Golden Plates" and hid them to try and get Joseph Smith to prove he was making it up as he went? That was ultimately Mark Hoffman's goal - to recreate that. So Mark Hoffman was well schooled in the myths of his church, had lost his faith, and wanted to rub the leaders' noses in it. (And people say I'M mean!)
He tricked the leaders into claiming that all that made up crap was real, and they spent weeks trying to reword things to make it fit into their established dogma. (For those that have been following along, remember how I keep telling you that the Church constantly tweaks their dogma? This is one of those times. "Yes, the white salamander was the Angel Moroni, but you see, Joseph wasn't tested yet, so God sent him in a more pleasing form to not frighten him. Er... Or a "salamander" at that time in history was the best approximation for a mythical being that, um, you see, in pre-Victorian times, people didn't... Damn." And that person was Dallin H. Oaks, the biggest jackass in the church. [glee] BTW, he's the one that says the biggest threat to the church is "intellectuals, feminists, and homosexuals." UH, BECAUSE THEY KNOW YOU'RE A LIAR?
DAMN! one thing I forgot to talk about, and I have GOT to add this to my book, is the Three Witnesses. [cracks knuckles] In the Book of Mormon, Jesus comes to the Americas. This is about 3/4 of the way through the book, by the way. At any rate, three men (the Jewish Indians) are so overcome with Christ's message that they ask for immortality so they can walk among men until the Second Coming and stand as witnesses for Jesus and testify. Long-term missionaries, in other words, with a Highlander twist. (Except no head loping - There can only be one! Except for how there are three.) Hoffman claimed to have written documents from two of these immortal beings. Uh, okay. He got money for all of these in the tens of THOUSANDS of dollars each, then leaked to the press that they were being bought by the church instead of letting the church just buy them and shove them in a lock box, never to see the light of day. That way, the church would have to scramble to talk about what they had, what it meant, etc. He started up bidding wars between splinter groups of the church (the RLDS, tiny little group that claimed Joe Smith's son should have been prophet, and the main church in particular.)
Ultimately the jig was up, and he sent letter bombs to try and cover his ass, killing two people, and almost blowing himself up, too. He's serving life in prison.
So yeah. If they go through with some of these story lines onBig Love, and they've been really good about all this obscure insider stuff, now you're in the know, too. :) Oh! So my dad was on the "intellectual Mormon lecture circuit" during all of this, and they were having the time of their lives with all of this "fact" coming to light, further explaining things they had long believed, and so on. There was major egg on every Mormon's face during the 80s, let me tell you.
Stephen Colbert played a Hoffman-type on Law and Order, by the way. For those of you who want to whomp on Trivial Pursuit.
2. I'm not some 50s haus frau that longs to have the Pod Kitchen of Tomorrow (except for how freaking cool would that be? hahaha, that was one of my all-time fave Tex Avery shorts.) where you just add water or shove your dishes into a glass box in the counter and out comes a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, but I have been the happiest of haus fraus since Sunday. My in laws loaned me their industrial steam cleaner, and I have been going crazy with the cleaning. Oh my god, my floors are so clean you could have a baby on them. But don't, because that's a big mess. Today I'm going to use the grout attachment and go crazy nuts. Sterile environment! Pristine showers! No filth from my children present anywhere! Well, until they all track it in again, but still! THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE IS STEAM. Ahahaha. It's going to be so sparkling you'll think Billy Mays has been shouting the filth away.
3. I've scheduled my nasal surgery for next Monday and I'm stoked! They're going to inflate my coffee-straw sized sinuses with balloons, they're going to cut my septum up and fix that, and they're going to kit me up with loads of drugs. Life is going to be SWEET. And painful. But hey, I've passed two kidney stones, broken my knee cap, and had natural child birth. Bring it on, yo.
4. I have my SXSW film badge, I have my hotel booked, and I have a four day vacation complete with movie premiere coming up in mid-March. \o/ Let's hope the swelling has gone down by a month from now. :D
5. I've started watching Oz from the beginning, and holy crap, I never ever ever want to go to prison. That should be required viewing for every teenage boy on earth. "Want to be someone's bitch and wear mesh? DO YOU?" No one should be forced to wear a mesh top. That's inhumane. And I just finished S1 and ALBY is a prison guard? The wheel keeps on turning and turning and turning and... nothing's disturbing the way it goes around... (see what I did there? *G*)
For fun check the similarities. (And who caught McPoyle as the priest on House? I love Jimmi Simpson, the poor man's Spader.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:32 pm (UTC)Re: big love
Date: 2009-02-17 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:31 pm (UTC)I saw that Law & Order as well, and immediately knew which headline the story was ripped from.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:34 pm (UTC)Things were very tense in my [former] church during the early 80s, that's for sure. People believed the End Was Near. Blacks had been given the priesthood, false prophets were being shown, and then there were the murders in SLC of that woman and her baby - detailed in "Under The Banner" and two missionaries were hacked to bits in Austin, TX...
Bad times.
(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 03:50 pm (UTC)also, the only thing i've ever seen Jimmi Simpson in is D.E.B.S. (a wonderful campy spoofy spy flick), and he is kind of creepy/gross sexy. And he is hilarious.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:12 pm (UTC)Oh, I forgot he was in DEBS! I just love his character in It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - he improved the whole milk thing, which never fails to crack me up.
(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:24 pm (UTC)Good luck with your surgery.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:49 pm (UTC)Thank you very much!!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 04:53 pm (UTC)1. I love forgery stories! Forgeres to me are the Einstein's of crime: insane primadonnas who do amazing things. I recommend the "I was Vermeer" book for some techniques on painting forgery, BTW.
2. I am dreading the time when I come back to Krakow, because it will be my cleaning and Ukrainians have allegedly raided our house again.
3. Ouch, ouch, ouch!
4. With a couple of my friends, we compiled a small list of things to do when we strike it rich - among them are go to an American movie or fantasy convention. Preferably while on an American tour in some sort of muscle car.
5. Ah, yes... if you want that on a more lighthearted note, watch the Boondocks episode "A Date with the Health Inspector". Me, I'll just dread the inevitable moment I am locked away when communist come to power in Poland again.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 05:52 pm (UTC)2. And you know what they say about Ukrainians and the cleaning... (Hahaha, I don't even know what I'm saying.)
3. [beats chest] STRONG LIKE BULL!
4. I highly recommend you do that! SXSW is totally awesome, btw. Music, film, books, all in the really cool city of Austin.
5. If that happens, I'll send you a book with a hollowed out saw to bust you out of prison, comrade!
(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 05:05 pm (UTC)I just started reading Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders, and so far it is very interesting. Amazing that he was able to get by with so much!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 05:53 pm (UTC)Oh, wow, really? Talk about a coincidence! It's really astounding, Mark Hoffman. He's considered the best there's been.
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Date: 2009-02-17 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 06:27 pm (UTC)Also, I knew McPoyle was going to be the priest on House and I still haven't seen the episode but I have no idea how I'm going to handle it.
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Date: 2009-02-17 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:30 pm (UTC)*cries*
*cuts*
*finally, FINALLY feels*
*for now*
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Date: 2009-02-17 07:23 pm (UTC)haha go get 'em! you'll survive and come out strong!
oh my gosh Jimmi Simpson was on House? playing a priest? haha excellent
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 07:32 pm (UTC)He was! Last night's ep, very good ep, too.
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Date: 2009-02-17 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 08:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2009-02-17 08:27 pm (UTC)Oh my god, I remember that episode!! Mainly I was wigging out at the time because...it was Stephen Colbert. On L&O:CI.
(God, I love playing "spot the nowadays more well-known actor in their obligatory crime procederal program victim/killer/suspect of the week role". I actually ran downstairs to show my mom, that time. "Mom, MOM!! LOOK AT THE TV!!" "What is it...is THAT WHO I THINK IT IS??" "YEAH!! I KNOW, RIGHT?!" Good times.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 09:13 pm (UTC)Also good luck with your renal surgery!
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Date: 2009-02-17 09:28 pm (UTC)Somehow, I suspect that response is not what Mr. Oaks was going for.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:24 am (UTC)[local connection: the town library over in Amherst, about ten miles from here, bought a forged Emily Dickinson poem that turned out to be a Hofmann. Really!]
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:51 am (UTC)They've just started the story line, that someone has some very important documents about the history of the church that they'd like to see buried. I hope they keep on with it!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 02:35 am (UTC)Why have we never talked about Big Love? That's just crazy.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 02:54 pm (UTC)HI BB. I didn't know you were watching Big Love?!? Girlfriend, I've been watching that one like a HAWK. They have done their research from the beginning to the point where I have to look away because I think I might know some of the people they're referring to. YEESH.
ILUMAREN. <3 <3 <3