MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2011
The Washington Post answers Dowd: In the wake of Maureen Dowd’s latest sad, unfortunate column, the Washington Post got it right.
On Sunday, the Post published this intelligent op-ed column by Heidi Naylor. Naylor teaches literature and writing at Boise State. And omigod! People! Listen up!
Heidi Naylor’s a Mormon!
In the hard-copy Post, Naylor’s column appeared beneath this headline: “The blessings of being a Mormon.” On-line, the headline says this: “What it means to be Mormon.” Whatever! We aren’t Mormons here ourselves. Truth to tell, we have no religious or cosmological beliefs. But we felt cleansed as we read Naylor’s piece after being slimed by the nonsense which continues to be Maureen Dowd.
(For our critique of Dowd's "Mormons aren't like the rest of us" column, just click here.)
We got even luckier this Sunday morning. As we rode in the car to the bagel joint, we heard part of Krista Tippett’s weekly NPR program, “On Being.”
We hear part of Tippett’s wide-ranging program pretty much every Sunday. This week, the title of her program was “Mormon demystified.” Here too, we found her program cleansing in the wake of Dowd’s near-bigotry dump.
Tippett did the full hour with Joanna Brooks, chair and associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State. Brooks teaches American literature, including African-American literature, Native American literature, and women’s studies.
And omigod! People! Listen up! Brooks is Mormon too! Just like what's-her-face!
We didn’t listen to the full hour, though you can do so at Tippett’s site. (You can even listen to the full, unedited 82-minute interview.) For ourselves, we don’t gigantically care what Mormons believe. But Joanna Brooks isn’t stupid, insane, extraterrestrial or crazy, and she gave a fascinating account of her Mormon upbringing in the segment we heard in the car.
On balance, Dowd is stupid and borderline crazy. She’s also a long-standing major influence in your society’s broken-souled post-journalistic “press corps.” We felt cleansed by what we heard on Tippett’s program, which ranges far and wide pretty much every week.
Final key point, as always: A "liberal world" which tolerates Dowd pretty much doesn't exist.
I found Naylor's column full of disingenuous statements and outright lies.
ReplyDeleteAs a Mormon, I must have heard, at least monthly from the pulpet, that we were the ONLY TRUE RELIGION. It's been a point of pride among Mormons for years.
I don't know why Naylor doesn't subscribe to that, but, she's certainly not in the mainstream.
And how she can just dismiss the history of the Mormons, factual, ambiguous, etc.? This is polygamy (which is still taught as a main tenent of the religon--something existing in the Celestial Kingdom where Mormons strive to be in the hearafter. How about their teachings about women and non-white people. There are still references in the Book of Mormon that say that when people convert to the truth, their skin will turn white and delightsome. And how about the teachings that told members that the Native Americans came from Jerusalem. Three different groups came here in boats and filled the land. Even as far as Hawaii and the other islands. This isn't taught much anymore because of DNA evidence to the contrary. But, most members over 30 were taught over and over about the "Lamanites." Or what about the "Book of Abraham" which has been proved to be nothing more than a common funeral paper, not a book from God. Those are problems in the church that people like Naylor just seems to be able to ignore.
But, what is most annoying is her use of the word, "GRACE," a word that is NEVER used in the Mormon church, except in derision when speaking of other churches that believe that "you are saved by grace." She apparently has chosen this word to seem more mainstream and non-cultish.
Very disingenuous!