Staying Spotless in a Sea of Slime – Part 4
by Clark L and Kathryn H. Kidd

Just as you do in other areas, it is important that you trust family members to follow your computer rules until they have proven they cannot. Let them know what the rules are, remind them of the rules when appropriate, and then expect them to follow the guidelines. As we mentioned in our last column, we strongly encourage you to draw up a contact of behavior that family members are expected to abide by – and then have each family member sign that contract as an agreement to live by the rules.

Once the contract is signed, give family members the benefit of the doubt, but keep your eyes open at the same time. Human beings – even your family members – are subject to temptation. Your family members may run into Internet

The Truman Show
by Karl Bowman and Jonathan Walker

Ever had the feeling that someone was watching you? Like 5 billion people?

At birth, an entertainment company adopts Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) to “star” in a television show documenting every moment of his life. The show’s producer, Christof (Ed Harris), fabricates a whole world in an effort to evoke honest human behavior from the unwitting Truman. A series of suspicious events cause Truman to suspect that life is not what it seems and he embarks on a quest for the truth.

Certainly one of the best films of the last few years, The Truman Show has the additional distinction of a powerful, affirming theme. In some ways, it even works as a spiritual allegory for our own lives.

Christof: “Cue the sun!“

As creator of Truman’s world, Christof controls the sun, the weather, the water, and even

Editor’s Note: Maurine Proctor had two grandmothers in her mother’s line who died and are buried in Winter Quarters. She will always remember the sacrifice of Eveline Golden Conover and Lydia Owen.

Trees, grass and grave markers of Pioneer Cemetery on the hill at Winter Quarters adjoining the new Temple. Though there are many old headstones here, there is poignancy in the fact that all of the graves of the more than 600 Saints who died here are unmarked.

Winter Quarters was a city put up by a people too ill, too spent, whose supplies were too limited with a season too short to make it to the Salt Lake Valley. Here is a glimpse of what happened there:

Like Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah before it, Winter Quarters was another instant city. Brigham noted with some satisfaction, “I went through the city-where nine weeks ago there was not a …

The Guys at Mad Mac’s Repair Bay May Be Reading Your Mail (Or Is That My Mail?)
by Marvin Payne

First I want to tell you that I am delighted nearly to distraction by your comments, suggestions, and encouragements. I will include a number of them here in this month’s column. The number is zero. This is because they’re all on my main computer which this afternoon was admitted to the hospital for computers, and right now your letters are being read by the guys in the repair bay at Mad Mac’s. Not by me. More’s the pity. Sorry.

So instead, I’m going to impose upon you a technique that is fresh on my mind because of what happened at a rehearsal tonight for the fast-approaching run of the one-man show “J. Golden.” I’m playing him at age eighty, and I’m having difficulty capturing the feeling of debility that was

Prophet Joseph Smith Subject of Next Richard Dutcher Film

Salt Lake City, UT-In a press conference earlier today, filmmaker Richard Dutcher announced that the subject of his next film will be the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.

With a working title of THE PROPHET: The Story of Joseph Smith, Jr., this will be Dutcher’s first big- budget film, with a projected budget of $10 million. Funding for the film is still being arranged.

Pre-production on the film begins immediately, and principle photography is expected to begin this fall at locations in Canada, New York and the Mid-West.

Dutcher has already begun assembling his production team for the film. Renowned author and professor of American history Richard Bushman will act as historical advisor for the film. Bushman has authored or co-authored 6 books on Mormonism and religion in nineteenth century America, including the recently acclaimed Mormons in America.

Dutcher,

SALT LAKE CITY, Tuesday, April 17 – A new searchable database of 22 million immigrants to America who came through Ellis Island is now available to visitors at the American Family Immigration History Center and on the Internet.

Today’s (Tuesday’s) grand opening of the Center at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum concludes a seven-year partnership between the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Foundation, the National Park Service and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some 12,000 volunteers from the Church spent years electronically transcribing data from ships’ manifests on passengers and crew members who entered the Port of New …

Radical Theorists and Policy Makers Promote Idea of “Five Genders”

Most people assume the word “gender” is directly interchangeable with the word “sex,” and that there are only two “genders”, male and female. Most people will be very surprised to hear that some say there are more than two “genders.” Five years ago at the UN Habitat Conference (Istanbul, 1996), radical non-governmental organizations aggressively promoted “five genders.” Though hotly debated at Istanbul, the “five genders” lost. Even so, the attempt to stretch the definition of “gender” continues unabated within the halls of the UN, on college campuses and even in city governments.

Radical theorists decided long ago that the word “sex” was too confining. “Sex” is based in nature, determined by the chromosomes and almost always confirmed by bodily characteristics. [In rare instances some children are born with indeterminate sexual characteristics. This condition is frequently called “hermaphrodism.”] Because “sex” is

Black and White; Male and Female:
The Teamwork for Standing On The Promises
by Margaret Blair Young

Editors’ Note: This is the personal story of how two people came to be co-authors on a book that mattered very much to both of them.

Why was I so presumptuous as to think I could write a book about Black Mormon pioneers? I am so white I can’t even tan. Yet it was more than the idea that “This book would sell” which led me to begin a historical novel on Black pioneers. There was a need in me to approach this subject and all the problems it raised for a Mormon author–which problems had beset me from my youth. I was aware that I had been raised in a racist world, by a very good family, but one which subtly included racism in its traditions. There were little things-the licorice figures

To Be Performed at Crystal Cathedral Easter Celebration to feature talents of concert violinist Jenny Oaks Baker, tenor George Dyer, and Southern California Mormon Choir

The West Coast premier of Lex de Azevedo’s new Easter oratorio “Hosanna,” will be performed on Friday, April 27, 2001 at 8 p.m. at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.

A chorus of 200 singers include the Southern California Mormon Choir, the Anaheim Mormon Choir, the San Diego Vocal Arts Chorale, and Lex de Azevedo’s Millennium Choir from Salt Lake City. The Easter oratorio is the third in a series of classical works de Azevedo is composing about the life of Jesus Christ.

Featured in the concert will be National Symphony violinist Jenny Oaks Baker, as well as tenor George Dyer singing the words of Jesus, baritone Greg Pearson as the apostle Peter, and Catherine Hyde Stambaugh as Mary Magdalene.

The oratorio requires a …

Let My People Go: The Healing Stories Behind the Freedman Bank Records
by Maurine Jensen Proctor

Editors’ Note: The outpouring of gratitude from the African-American community following the recent release by the Church of a CD containing the indexed names of 484,000 former slaves was something nobody could have anticipated. Operators at the Distribution Center say people call in tears, to receive a copy of the CD that could unlock their past.

Darius Gray, an African-American who has been a member of the Church since 1964, learned something last year that he still hasn’t been able to come to terms with: the name of the slave-holder who “owned” his family on his maternal grandmother’s side. Ask him the name, and he can’t say it. Can’t yet let the name of the man whom his ancestors called “master” roll off his tongue-as if it were caught in his throat somewhere.

Darius