Two Mormon missionaries FINALLY delivered a copy of the Book of Mormon tonight.  I had ordered the books months ago. They stopped by earlier in the week and were surprised when I asked them about the book.  They had no idea.  Their visit, according to them, was coincidental.

We had an interesting discussion about prayer and miracles and the Great Flood and prophecy and geology and cosmology. After about an hour they left frustrated. I had an enjoyable discussion and now I have my book.

Elder Yates and Saunders are good people and are passionate about the work they are doing.  It is easy to understand why people would continue to invite them into their homes.

Oil Isn’t Cheap Anymore
By Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, July 10, 2008

It’s about time!  Last week I heard an interesting advertisement for a local automobile dealership.  The sales promotion gimmick is that when you purchase a new car you’ll also be given a brand new scooter that gets 100 miles per gallon fuel efficiency.  Wow!

What we need is to continue on this path.  The federal government, as I’ve said before, needs to implement policies that will insure gas prices will continue to increase.  It’s like getting a shot; it stings for a little bit but then you start feeling so much better.

Poking new holes in the ground, as many would like for us to do, will only prolonge the inevitable.  The time to sacrifice and invest is now.

Saco (sock-o) was recently chosen as “the greenest city in Maine” by Going Green Magazine. Yippee. As such, it will host the Maine Going Green Energy, Building & Living Expo in September.

One of the factors in the decision was our two wind turbines.  The new train depot and city offices will be powered from electricity generated from a new wind turbine on Saco Island.  Anybody can visit the Saco website to see electricity production performance. Pretty cool, eh?

When I was a Mormon missionary serving in Massachusetts in the early 1990s our message was quite positive.  What we were selling was purpose, lasting peace, true happiness and strong families.  Occasionally we found a credulous undereducated person who desired these things and we were able to seal the deal and persuade them to join our cult.

Yesterday I was handed two tracts at a church where I was working.  Unlike the positive products I offered as a missionary, these tracts were dripping with fear and guilt.  “Can this be effective marketing?”, I wondered.

Ever told a lie? Ever stolen anything? Ever used God’s name in vain? Ever looked with lust? … If you are guilty of these then God sees you as a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. That means eternity in hell.

If that’s true then your god isn’t worthy of worship. He’s a megalomaniacal asshole. What’s more interesting is that this shtick might actually work! “Worship my god. If you fuck up just a little, even in your thoughts, he’ll consign you to an eternity in hell. Unless, of course, you do decide to worship him and tell all your friends about him.” Wow, sign me up! I love how god sets the rules so they are impossible to achieve then requires you to give up your life to gain his favor so you’ll be spared torture, torment and misery.

Thank you, Mark, for giving me your pride and joy and a million dollar tip.  And…no thanks.

In lieu of an interview for Playboy’s September 1973 issue, they assembled a panel for a symposium to discuss emerging sexual behavior patterns, from open marriage to group sex.  The discussion transcription is titled New Sexual Life Styles (.pdf). Click the link to download the complete text.

I think we are more accepting of gays and lesbians than we were back then, which is good, but I don’t think open marriage, group sex or other alternative sexual life styles are as prevalent today. They certainly aren’t socially acceptable now. That’s regression. I’m sure they weren’t then, either, but at least there were people actively pushing these lifestyles as options. Who is the Alfred Kinsey of my generation?

Those of you who know me or who read my blog already know that I am deeply opposed to traditional misogynistic marriage. It was refreshing this afternoon to read some of the panelists’ criticisms.

POMEROY (pg. 76) - After all, living together has some advantages over getting married. If one partner doesn’t demonstrate concern, the other can get up and leave at any time, so they have to remain in more of a state of courtship.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Most people look at me like I’m nuts. Thank you, Wardell, for agreeing.

DODSON (76) - Unfortunately, marriage is the only formal protection a woman has if she has children and is financially dependent, and I don’t think that’s much protection; she often ends up with all the responsibility–including financial.

I don’t think this is as great an issue today, since so many American families have multiple incomes and women are less financially dependent.  However, there continues to be financial and social reasons for marrying, and divorce is still far too difficult and expensive. Progress is slow, but hopefully it will continue until the genders are equal and people realize that marriage is an unnecessary antiquated institution.

DAVIS (76) - I don’t think the fact that two people love each other needs to be formalized. Being married means being blessed by the power structure, by the establishment, and I don’t want that. I don’t want this fucked-up society to say my relationship is OK. I’d feel really weird, probably, if they said to me, “OK, within the frameework of our beliefs, we will allow you to love each other.” I don’t need that.

Hear, hear. Exactly.

RIMMER (78) - A license to have outside sex almost goes along with the license in many marriages today.

That certainly isn’t my experience or the experience of anybody I know. Extramarital affairs go on, no doubt, but I’m sure the participants don’t feel they have a license to engage in sexual activity outside their marriage.  This is almost certainly the result of religious conditioning.

MONEY (78) - Consensual adultery is a marvelous invention for some people. But others are absolutely unequipped emotionally to cope with it; they’ll be lucky if they can cope with even the suggestion of it in their children or grandchildren. Still, many have discovered that consensual adultery doesn’t have to jeopardize the family unit at all.

Based on a discussion I’ve recently had on the subject, I’d conclude that most people are NOT emotionally equipped to handle consensual adultery. People are too jealous and insecure. At least some experts agree with me that having multiple sex partners can be beneficial in a committed relationship.

E. KRONHAUSEN (78) - We believe outside relationships frequently help sexually troubled marriages simply because of what is called the transfer effect. Once you’re excited from the group situation or from an individual affair, that new sexual attraction very often transfers into the marriage relationship. But even if it doesn’t, let’s accept it as OK. It doesn’t mean you love the person you live with–your primary partner–any less.

DODSON (78) - The marriages I see that are expanding–or at least breathing–are the ones in which both the woman and the man are trying to get some sexual variety outside the marriage while maintaining the pair-bond unit. Together but seperate. The open-ended marriage.

I think the notion of “together but separate” is the only way for a relationship to be truly healthy and satisfying for both individuals. That is not to say I agree with Betty that we need to have an open-ended marriage to be happy, but that people should not sacrifice who they are for the sake of their relationship. That’s a recipe for unhappiness and failure.

PERRY (80) - In an open marriage, you know that some sex act with some other person at some other time or place isn’t going to destroy your relationship. And you don’t have to lie about it or feel guilty about it.

That’s the way it should be. When I hear people (almost always women) say they would leave their spouse if they ever caught them being “unfaithful”, I see a big red warning flag spring high into the air.  Is sexual fidelity ALL that matters to some?  I think it is, unfortunately.

I’ll end with four more excerpts that echo my sentiments exactly. But be sure to read the entire exchange. Marriage is just a small part of the lengthy discussion. The more these issues are discussed the more people will have viable alternatives and not feel trapped by traditional social pressures. The recipe for happiness isn’t the same for each individual, as religionists would have us believe.

LOVELACE (80) - Part of being with somebody is trusting him. If you’re subject to fits of jealousy, you’re just insecure.

P. KRONHAUSEN (82) - If you really love somebody, anything that makes him or her happy ought to make you happy, too, shouldn’t it?

P. KRONHAUSEN (84) - Sex should be for recreation, not procreation.

GOLDSTEIN (85) - Items like these [vibrators] are helping us to stop deifying sex, which should be considered just another part of life, another joy.

Assisted Suicide of Healthy 79-Year-Old Renews German Debate on Right to Die
By MARK LANDLER
NY Times, July 3, 2008
A woman’s desire to avoid life in a nursing home forces a country to confront the thorny ethical issue and casts an assisted-suicide advocate as Germany’s Jack Kevorkian.

But many here do not want Germany to follow the example of Switzerland, where liberal laws on euthanasia have led to a bustling trade in assisted suicide. In the last decade, nearly 500 Germans have crossed the border to end their lives with the help of a Swiss group that facilitates suicides.

“My offer, since last Saturday, is to allow people to die in their own beds,” he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “That is the wish of most people, and now it is possible in Germany.”

Not only should assisted-suicide be legal, it should be a free government service available to any adult for any reason. Why, oh why, is life so important? You might think to yourself, “that’s obvious!”, but is it? If you think life is precious and should be preserved, even against one’s will, please tell me why?

Also, I STRONGLY recommend Peter Singer’s book, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics.

A few days ago I received several old Playboys I had purchased from an Ebay dealer. I got all three issues that feature Liv Lindeland (January 1971, June 1972 and December 1979), September 1973 (my birth month), January 1974 (20th Anniversary Issue) and several others for the authors and articles. They smell old are are very fragile but the staples, covers, and centerfolds are all intact. The subscription cards (blown and stapled), surprisingly, are in place as if the magazines have never been opened.

Sears Give-n-Take Stretchslaks
Playboy, June 1972

Isn’t this advertisement just hilarious? I love it. No Playboy today would wear anything called “Stretchslaks”. Times sure have changed. There are also a LOT of cigarette and pipe advertisements. And liquor ads. I’ve only opened two of the magazines from their protective plastic sleeves and have spent a couple hours just looking at the many interesting and humorous advertisements. The magazines from that era contain nearly two and a half times as many pages as they do today and I’d say half of the space is advertising. Playboy Magazine today has very few advertisements.

The subscription price hasn’t changed much in the past 40 years. I recently added a year onto my current subscription for $12. In 1971 a one-year subscription was $10. What has changed is the cover price. In 1971 the cover price was one dollar; today it is $5.99.

Columbia Tape Club
Playboy, January 1971

One thing that hasn’t changed is the amount of expensive gadgets reviewed in Playboy. Today it’s robot vacuums, pricey watches, expensive cars, digital cameras and high-end audio/video equipment. In the early ’70s it was microwave ovens, movie projectors, telephone answering machines, crude electric shavers and 8-track cassette player/recorders. It’s fun to flip through the old issues to see what was the bleeding edge of technology was around the time I was conceived.  Do you belong to a CD or DVD club?  Probably not.  iTunes and Napster were probably the kiss of death to Columbia House’s music clubs.  I remember belonging to a CD club and before that a tape club where you pay, like, one dollar for eleven CD/tapes if you promise to buy four more at regular club prices in the next year.  Except shipping and handling was like $5.99 for each of the free ones.  Then they kept sending you the special club selections every month whether you wanted them or not.  Then they bothered you incessantly about paying for the unwanted music.  I was born too late to join an 8-track tape club.  Do you know who helped invent the 8-track cassette?  Hint: He also invented the first business jet and based in on a Swiss fighter aircraft.

Silverstein Around the World
Playboy, January 1971

Shell Silverstein is the man. Few people familiar with his children’s poetry books know that he was a longtime cartoonist for Playboy and that he lived at the Playboy Mansion for a time.

Also in the works: two poetry books for kids, one to be called Sara Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out and Other Poems, and a comic-strip anthology, Say It Once.

We all know the first book would eventually be published under the title Where the Sidewalk Ends.

As with every issue of Playboy, I love the articles best.  In the two old issues I’ve thumbed through so far there are many articles and letters about the Vietnam War, abortion (pre-Roe v. Wade), women’s liberation, marijuana legalization, the environment, government corruption and domestic and international politics.  In fact, if you change the dates and names, many of the articles and letters would read as if they are contemporary works.  You’d think we’d have moved past those issues in forty years.

So, if you ever find yourself scratching your head for gift ideas for me and don’t want to spend more than five or ten dollars, just order an old issue of Playboy Magazine.  You can’t go wrong.  December 1953 would be nice (It’ll set you back more than five or ten dollars.  Try >$6,000). :)