I was extremely happy to walk into the Fort Collins temple endowment room for the first time in 18 months today. A friend’s son was getting his endowments as he prepares for his mission, and the friends invited me and my wife to attend. It was glorious.

If you have not been in a while, there are some significant changes in the endowment. Again. Over the last five or so years it seems like the endowment ceremony changes every year or so. I will not get into specifics about this sacred ceremony, but suffice to say that the endowment is shorter but still very powerful.

Most people were not wearing masks, but we were asked to social distance, and there were hand sanitizers everywhere. At most temples, if you want to participate you must make a reservation, which can be done on-line. I really hope the latest overreaction to the inevitable mutation of the virus will not close the temples again. I don’t want to wait another 18 months for the next temple trip.

I am very happy to report that in the last six months I have lost 22 pounds. How did I do it? I completely changed to a sustainable low carb diet. I have avoided cookies, donuts, soft drinks, break fast cereals, bread, rice, pasta, white flour and potatoes. I keep track of everything I eat and try to ingest one-third carbs, one-third fat and one-third protein. Before I started this diet, I was eating 60 percent carbs, 20 percent fat and 20 percent protein. This is a pretty big change. But I am now at my goal weight.

This is not a fad diet. This is a change I plan on keeping the rest of my life. Bottom line: a lot less sugar and simple carbohydrates and a lot more meat, cheese, eggs, vegetables and fruit.

Why did I do it? Because I saw a picture of myself over the holidays and I did not like how I looked. Yes, my primary motivation was vanity. But guess what: my knee pain that caused me to limp for months has disappeared. I am in my late-50s and in great shape now. And of course there is an ancillary benefit: I am much less likely to have a severe reaction to COVID.

For some reason, we as a society have completely forgotten the basics of health. Let’s face it: most of us are overweight and too sedentary. And then the evil lockdowns came, and billions of people worldwide convinced themselves the healthiest thing they could do was to cower inside their homes and watch screens. The police in super health-conscious Boulder County near where I live staged armed police at trailheads during the pandemic so people would NOT GO HIKING OUTSIDE. Talk about fear porn.

But even if the rest of the world is living in a crazy upside-down universe, where good is evil and evil is good, you do not have to. You can take the advice of this peer-reviewed article from June 2021 and lose some weight. I quote:

Unhealthy lifestyle characteristics (i.e., sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition) often lead to excess body mass and adiposity, commonly defined as a body mass index (BMI) at the overweight (i.e., 25.0–29.9 kg/m²) or obese (i.e., ≥30.0 kg/m²) level. Previous research has demonstrated that obesity is a clear risk factor for poor outcomes in those with COVID-19.³

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BYU-Hawaii has decided not to allow LDS student Olivia Sandor to attend because she cannot get vaccinated for COVID-19. Sandor’s case has gone viral — especially in the conservative on-line world — because she was diagnosed with Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS), an auto-immune disease that temporarily paralyzed her from the waist down. She has been warned by all of her medical providers to refrain from getting the COVID vaccine as it could cause permanent paralysis or even death. Olivia says BYU-H was her dream school. 

Olivia’s story spread on TikTok and Instagram and was picked up by several conservative web sites, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Kirk called BYU-H’s policy “anti-science and anti-student.”

It is difficult not to feel sympathy for Olivia’s situation. I encourage all people who read this post to at least watch her three-minute take on TikTok (here is the link again). She is stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. She wants to go to BYU-H, but she cannot go unless she is vaccinated, and if she is vaccinated she might suffer severe health consequences. She did everything possible to get a health exemption, but her health exemption was denied. She (rightly in my opinion) points out that if everybody else at BYU-H is vaccinated, why should they fear one person not vaccinated?

There is another side to the story, so please keep on reading to see more.

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If you are a US citizen, and you have children, and you file your taxes electronically, you may find some free money in your bank account today. If you don’t file electronically, and you have children, you may get a check mailed to you in the coming days from the IRS.

Yay??

Well, free money is always good, but as usual, and to with all due respect to Hugh Nibley, there really is no free lunch.

But first, the details:

This is a result of some of the federal stimulus plans that were approved earlier this year. There will be monthly checks disbursed on the 15th every month in 2021. Ninety percent of kids and their families will benefit from the newly expanded CTC credit. Middle-class families and families working to join the middle class are all eligible to receive the full credit of $3,600 per child under age 6, and up to $3,000 per child ages 6 through 17. Families will receive up to $250 a month for each child, and $300 a month for every child under 6.

To be clear, I am against all taxes in principle. Poverty should be handled by churches and other charitable institutions, and taxes should be eliminated until we get as close to zero taxes as possible. But of course this is a chimera in our days of ever-expanding government, where citizens increasingly look to bureaucrats and politicians for “free” checks.

If we are going to be forced to pay taxes, I am in favor of child tax credits. A permanent expansion of tax credits aimed at children encourages more children, which is overwhelmingly a good thing.

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I think it’s safe to say that most people in the United States, especially Latter-day Saints, understand and can explain the ideology and politics of the modern-day left and traditional establishment Republicans. Our culture has done a very good job of promoting these ideologies and making them mainstream.

But I am constantly amazed at how many people have no clue of the ideology and ideas of Trump supporters, who are usually portrayed as racists, ignorant hicks, etc. Now to be clear, I am not a typical Trump supporter — I am a liberty Republican and I disagree with about half of the positions of Trump supporters. To see what I mean, please read this post.

But I can explain the positions of the typical Trump supporter, unlike most intellectual latter-day Saints who it seems really do not have a clue.

In the spirit of trying to explain Trump supporters’ response to the 2020 election from a charitable position, I link this series of Twitter posts, which does the best job I have ever seen of providing important details. Note to readers: this post is intended to provide another point of view to most readers here. This post is not yet another chance for you to virtue signal about how much you hate Trump, how much he has ruined the Republican party, etc, etc. I am encouraging people to read this so they can understand what other people believe. Once you have an understanding, perhaps you will have more charity. If you are not interested in understanding what Trump voters believe, I would encourage you to go read something else and ignore this post.

The Twitter feed starts here:

I think I’ve had discussions w/enough Boomer-tier Trump supporters who believe the 2020 election was fraudulent to extract a general theory about their perspective. It is also the perspective of most of the people at the Capitol on 1/6, and probably even Trump himself. 1/x

Most believe some or all of the theories involving midnight ballots, voting machines, etc, but what you find when you talk to them is that, while they’ll defend those positions w/info they got from Hannity or Breitbart or whatever, they’re not particularly attached to them. 2/x

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