text:
There are weeks with themes, and then there are weeks like this, where there’s no commonality between our articles. We start with the announcement of four more locations and dates for the MacTech Boot Camp conference for consultants. Then Jeff Carlson writes about gfxCardStatus, a must-have utility for MacBook Pro owners, and Glenn Fleishman looks at the QuickMark 2D code application for the Mac. Next, we recently released version 1.4 of the TidBITS News iOS app, and Matt Neuburg uses its primary new feature to explain why adding multitasking to an app is harder than it would seem. Then Adam shares an upcoming behind-the-scenes change (a new From address for TidBITS in email) and looks into the geeky technical details behind it. Finally, Jeff Porten anchors the issue with a report from the .nxt conference on new top-level domain names—the question is, does anyone still care? Notable software releases this week include Skitch 1.0.3, Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.6, Evernote 2.0.4, CopyPaste Pro 3.0, 1Password 3.5.7, iWeb 3.0.3, and Adobe Acrobat/Reader 10.0.1.

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MacTech Boot Camp Adds Four More Cities

  by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

Reports from the MacTech Boot Camp in San Francisco last month indicate that it was a success, with the one-day conference selling out and garnering positive comments from attendees and speakers alike (though, apparently, there were no drill sergeants or pushup requirements). Building on that success, MacTech has now announced additional Boot Camp conferences for consultants and support techs around the United States. The new events are:

The additional locations and dates should be welcome for those who couldn’t make the trip to San Francisco for the initial MacTech Boot Camp and the subsequent Macworld 2011 back in January.

MacTech has announced session chairs for each of the conferences, and although the sessions won’t be identical, the conferences will all cover roughly similar topics, including things like handling clients, support call techniques, remote support, backup systems, Windows on the Mac, networking basics and troubleshooting, marketing oneself, and resources for finding answers to tricky problems.

Registration for the one-day conference costs $495, and by registering early, you can drop that to $295.

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QuickMark Brings 2D Codes to the Mac

  by Glenn Fleishman <glenn@tidbits.com>

Two-dimensional tags that provide a URL, address card, location coordinates, or plain text can now be easily decoded under Mac OS X with the new QuickMark release. The $2.99 QuickMark reads standard 2D codes (QR Code and Data Matrix) as well as its own Quick Code format. These codes are increasingly found in newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and physical goods sold at retail. (We even provide QR codes at the bottom of each TidBITS article to let you transfer the URL between devices to continue reading; see “Tag, You’re in 2D!,” 1 October 2009.)

QuickMark’s eponymous Mac program, available through the Mac App Store, has three functions. It can use a camera (built-in iSight or FaceTime, or third-party) to recognize and carry out an action on a 2D tag. This includes opening a URL in a browser, switching to Skype for a phone call or to send an SMS, or using Google Maps via a browser to display a location. It can also take text you enter and produce a 2D code in any of the formats it reads. Finally, you can drag an image into the scanning window or select an image from a menu, and QuickMark will decode any 2D tag that the image contains. The Mac app cannot read 1D barcodes, such as the kind used for ISBNs on books.

I have been using QuickMark’s $0.99 iOS app for some time quite happily on my iPhone for 2D code scanning and creation. The codes were put into wide use in Japan nearly a decade ago in a partnership between mobile phone companies, handset makers, advertisers, and publishers. They have finally taken off in the United States: there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see several prominently displayed in store windows, see them in newspaper and magazine ads, or note them on Web sites I visit. I even received an ad flyer yesterday in the snail mail that had a code on it. (The iOS app can read 1D codes.)

The Mac version unfortunately shows the developers’ lack of familiarity with Mac OS X: you cannot paste into the text field for creating a 2D tag, and, for that matter, it lacks copy and paste commands entirely. You can type in text, or drag text from a browser address bar into the text field. But these limitations should be easy to fix, and I’m sure user feedback will help QuickMark improve.

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Check Your Filters: TidBITS Issue From Address Changing

  by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

For subscribers to our free weekly mailing lists compiled from articles that appear at the TidBITS Web site, I’m offering an administrative heads-up about a change in how we will be sending out email. Starting with TidBITS #1065 next week, our issue email headers will be slightly different, a move that we didn’t anticipate, but one that has turned out to be necessary for bounce processing in our new system to work.

I’m providing this advance warning because if you have whitelisted email from editors@tidbits.com in your spam filter, it’s possible that next week’s issue—which will come from a different address at our domain—will be marked as spam. If TidBITS doesn’t arrive next week, that’s probably why, and you should go spelunking in your spam folder. Also, if you move TidBITS issues to another mailbox via a rule that keys off editors@tidbits.com appearing in the From line, that will need changing too. Sorry for any inconvenience!

In an ideal world, we would make the change and everything would just work with no need for you to do anything. But assuming that Murphy’s Law remains intact, here’s what you might need to know.

The From address in all editions of next week’s TidBITS issue will change from editors@tidbits.com to tb-mailer@tidbits.com, as in:

From: TidBITS Editors

That tb-mailer@tidbits.com address is what you’ll want to add to any spam filters that allow you to whitelist (approve automatically) messages from specific senders. However, it’s not the best way to filter TidBITS issues to a different mailbox. For that, I recommend using a rule that relies on the List-Id header. Our list headers are specific to each version of TidBITS; you can see which one you receive by viewing the full headers for the message.

List-Id: TidBITS Text Issue List List-Id: TidBITS HTML Issue List List-Id: TidBITS Text Announcement List List-Id: TidBITS HTML Announcement List

Reply-To Changing Too -- Also changing next week will be the Reply-To address in the issue. The new address will not be read by a person, but will instead generate an auto-reply that explains the best ways to contact us for different purposes.

Why the auto-reply? The simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot of different ways to contact us, and which is most appropriate depends on the situation. For instance, if you’re writing to comment on an article, we’d much rather have you leave a comment on the article itself than send us email. And if you’re really shy, you can always email an author directly—using a link next to the byline on every article—or ping them via Twitter (check our Contact Info page for staff details).

If you have a problem with our Web site or with our email issues, it would be great if you could ask on our TidBITS Get Satisfaction site, where we can reply in public and others with similar questions can benefit from our answer to you. If the problem is something you think I should know about right away, ping me via Twitter.

On the other hand, for questions about your account, where we can’t really help you unless we know your email address, private email makes more sense than Get Satisfaction. (The same goes for Take Control—general questions and suggestions are best sent to the Take Control Get Satisfaction site, whereas account-specific questions should be sent via private email.)

And if you have a technical question that’s unrelated to a particular TidBITS article or even TidBITS itself, you’d be best off asking in our TidBITS Talk discussion list, though it now limits posts to subscribers to block the constant onslaught of spam.

The MTA Behind the Curtain -- I realize this next bit gets very specific, but since we were surprised by this situation, I wanted to share our findings in case anyone else were to run into a similar problem. (And if you don’t know or care what an MTA is, or how mail servers operate, there’s no need to keep reading.)

When we were using Web Crossing, it acted as both the mailing list software (generating the actual messages to send out) and as the mail transfer agent, or MTA. Because it wore both hats, Web Crossing was able to customize the headers of each individual message to identify and process bounces. In particular, Web Crossing added a customized Return-Path header, as in:

And notably, that header was different from the From line:

From: "TidBITS Editors"

That’s important because only the MTA can insert the Return-Path header. Since our homegrown TidBITS Publishing System is acting as the mailing list software, and handing messages off to sendmail (via a library) to deliver, sendmail inserts the Return-Path header automatically, basing it on the From header. Thus, both the Return-Path and From pointed at editors@tidbits.com. Although it’s conceivable that sendmail could be configured to insert a different Return-Path header, that’s apparently not possible with the library that we’re using to connect sendmail to the TidBITS Publishing System.

Since we had always had the From address be editors@tidbits.com and didn’t change it for our first use of the new system, we were a little shocked when bounces came back to that address rather than to the address listed in the Errors-To header. It turns out that Errors-To is not a standard, unlike Return-Path, so it worked in some cases, but by no means universally.

Anyway, we believe the solution is simple—to set the From line to contain an address that will be replicated into the Return-Path header and that can receive and process bounces appropriately. But we figured that many people would either be whitelisting editors@tidbits.com or filtering based on it; hence this message. Glad you asked?

We now return you to your regularly scheduled issue of TidBITS.

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Improve MacBook Pro Battery Life with gfxCardStatus

  by Jeff Carlson <jeffc@tidbits.com>

Roughly every three years, I replace my MacBook Pro with a new model. That cycle gives me plenty of use out of each machine, but also means I leapfrog into features that appeared in intervening models.

Buying a new MacBook Pro (with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor) last year was like a surprise birthday gift: It boasts significantly better battery life, the full range of multi-touch trackpad gestures, the aluminum unibody construction (which I’m surprised is one of my favorite features—it just feels so much more sturdy than previous models), and a high-resolution LED screen.

This laptop also includes two graphics cards (designated as GPUs, or graphics processing units): the integrated Intel HD Graphics, and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 330M. The former is designed for low power consumption, and therefore better battery life, while the latter kicks in to provide graphics horsepower when needed.

Earlier dual-GPU MacBook Pros required that you specify which graphics mode to use in the Energy Saver preference pane, and then log out and log back in to your user account. Starting with the mid-2010 models, the switching occurs automatically: when an application is launched that requires more graphics power, the discrete Nvidia GPU fires up. Otherwise, the integrated Intel GPU provides the graphics without burning through the battery’s charge. (You can turn off automatic switching in the preference pane, which leaves the Nvidia chip active all the time.)

When working away from my desk, I want to get the longest battery life I can. I would quit any obvious GPU hogs such as Photoshop, iPhoto, or iMovie, but I couldn’t easily tell whether my MacBook Pro had switched to the integrated GPU.

To determine which GPU is active, you have to open the System Profiler application (press Option and choose System Profiler from the Apple menu), click the Graphics/Displays item under Hardware in the sidebar, and select the Intel or Nvidia video card. The one being used includes a Main Display: Yes.

So, I would quit some obvious applications, go back to System Profiler, press Command-R to refresh the data, and see if “Main Display: Yes” appeared in the Intel GPU. I felt like I’d been transported back to the days of hunting disagreeable startup extensions in Mac OS 8.

However, it turns out the Nvidia GPU can be triggered by applications you wouldn’t think of as being traditionally graphics hungry, such as most Twitter clients and even stalwart Fetch (perhaps because of the running dog progress animation?). Sure, I still get better battery life on this machine when using the Nvidia GPU than I did on my old laptop, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to take advantage of low-power integrated graphics.

Initially, I installed Cody Krieger’s free gfxCardStatus 2.0 because it adds a menu bar icon that identifies which GPU is in use: a simple “i” for Intel (or “integrated”), or “n” for Nvidia. That alone saved a lot of time and frustration.

But then I noticed that when you click the icon, gfxCardStatus helpfully reveals which applications are forcing the discrete GPU, listed under Dependencies.

The utility goes beyond just reporting, though. You can force the MacBook Pro to use just integrated Intel graphics, discrete Nvidia graphics, or stick with dynamic switching, by choosing one of the options in the menu.

Some applications don’t respond well to a live switchover from the discrete to integrated GPU. BusyCal, for example, loses its capability to move between months when it’s forced into Intel-only mode. However, quitting and re-launching BusyCal fixes the problem (since the software must also work on computers like the MacBook or Mac mini that include only integrated graphics).

gfxCardStatus 2.0 was released in December 2010 and adds a helpful new feature: it can switch GPUs based on whether you’re working on battery or AC power. If you need the most battery life when working on the go, you can force the integrated graphics automatically. This feature is disabled by default, to avoid problems with apps that don’t switch cleanly.

I haven’t timed the difference between running integrated and discrete graphics other than to notice that the battery estimate provided by Mac OS X’s menu bar item does increase significantly (up to an hour more) when I’m on battery and have quit all dependent applications.

gfxCardStatus works with the following recent MacBook Pro models:

gfxCardStatus definitely fills a narrow niche, but it’s an elegant, helpful way to eke out the most time from your MacBook Pro’s battery charge.

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TidBITS News App 1.4 Allows Background Audio

  by Matt Neuburg <matt@tidbits.com>

We’ve just released a new version (1.4) of the TidBITS News iOS app, containing two bug fixes you probably won’t notice and one new capability which, while subtle, has been requested by users and should make a lot of people happy. We’ll start by describing the new capability, which has to do with audio and TidBITS News’s interaction with other apps.

As you may know, the TidBITS News app enables you to play the recorded audio versions of our articles. (These are the same audio versions to which you can subscribe in iTunes as a podcast.) Because it has the capability to play its own audio, the TidBITS News app has to declare an “audio session policy” so the system knows what to do in case there is any background audio. This was necessary even under iOS 3.x, before multitasking, because the iPod app (or, on some devices, the Music app) could play background music.

Since TidBITS News could play its own audio, and since it was originally written for iOS 3.x, it declared its audio session policy in a simple-minded way. When the app launched, it halted the playback of any background audio. Admittedly, that wasn’t ideal, since if you were happily listening to your favorite tunes via the iPod app, the music would stop when you launched our app, even if you weren’t planning on listening to any of our recorded articles. Clearly, it would have been better for our audio session policy to declare itself only if you actually did start listening to one of our recorded articles. We were aware of this (especially because several users of our app pointed it out to us), but it wasn’t a high enough priority to tackle immediately.

However, iOS 4 introduced both some new ways of specifying an audio session policy and a new capability for other apps (such as Pandora) to play background audio; so the time had clearly come to straighten out this situation. After some experimentation, it turned out that we could actually change our audio session policy as you start listening to an article recording, and change it back when you finish. There were, in fact, two different ways we could do this:

So our choice was between an option that worked perfectly but might strain the user’s ability to listen to two things at once, and an option that only half worked. We chose the latter. Ducking is not really suitable for a lengthy, important sound like the reading of an article, as opposed to, for instance, a brief audio notification of an upcoming turn from a navigation app. And the fact that background audio couldn’t reliably be resumed after pausing wasn’t terribly important, because in a multitasking world it isn’t hard for the user to fix this manually.

So that’s the one obvious new feature in TidBITS News 1.4. When you enter the app, any audio that’s playing continues to play. If you start to listen to the audio version of one of our articles, your previous background audio will pause, and, if you’re incredibly lucky, will resume again once you’re done listening to our article. But if it doesn’t resume, then just use iOS 4’s multitasking capabilities to resume it yourself. The simple way to do this is:

  1. Double-press the Home button to show the app switcher interface.

  2. Swipe the app switcher to the right. This will bring in the stuff from the left, which includes sound control buttons.

  3. Tap the play/pause button to resume background audio.

  4. Tap in the TidBITS News interface to dismiss the app switcher interface.

On the user side, that’s probably all you’ll notice about this new feature. On the developer side, however, this change was remarkably difficult to accomplish. It turns out that our previous audio session policy wasn’t just annoying; it was actually broken, thanks to the advent of multitasking. Not only were we turning off sound on launch, but also we were failing to turn off sound when the user switched away from our app and returned. So it was actually possible for the user to subvert our annoying audio session policy. This goes back to a point I made months ago, when iOS 4 and multitasking first appeared (see “What is Fast App Switching?,” 23 June 2010): merely making your app participate in multitasking is trivial—just recompile the app under a current version of Xcode—but making it behave properly under multitasking is hard.

The trouble is that as soon as your app starts to do multitasking, things that worked just fine before can come crashing down about your ears. The reason is that multitasking introduces lots of new ways in which the user can leave and return to your app. Before multitasking, there was only one way to arrive at the TidBITS News app, namely by launching it, and only one way to leave it, namely by quitting it. So, while it was annoying that our app turned off background sound on launch, at least in a non-multitasking world this was clear and definitive. But under multitasking, the user can do lots of strange things: switch to another app and return to our app, summon the app switching interface and return to our app, and so forth. And it turns out that your app must actively defend against all these possibilities by reasserting its audio session policy in every case. TidBITS News, however, was failing to do this.

And that, in fact, is why we changed our audio session policy. We didn’t really do it just to be nice to users who were listening to music in the background. (After all, when you’re reading one of our articles, you should be giving it your undivided attention!) We did it because we discovered that our audio session policy wasn’t working as it stood. Changing our audio session policy and its behavior was, in fact, just something we did in the course of the much more urgent change of unifying the app’s behavior against the multitasking hydra.

There isn’t an Apple document that says, “Hey, if your app switches to using multitasking, watch out! Here’s a list of things that can go wrong, and sound is one of them.” But there should be. In our case, multitasking broke our audio session policy and we didn’t even notice initially. Nor did Apple’s vaunted approval process alert us to this fact. This is probably true up and down the line of apps. Lots of apps think they have adopted multitasking just by linking against the iOS 4 SDK and recompiling, maybe with a few simple obvious additions like saving state on backgrounding instead of saving it on termination. But multitasking is much, much more complicated than that, and Apple has not made it easy either to become a safe multitasking citizen or to discover how to become one.

Oh, and what about the other two things we fixed in this release? One was just a good old-fashioned mistake. Images in our articles that had been acceptable on iPhone were appearing at the wrong size on the large iPad screen; this was merely an unnoticed consequence of converting the app so that it ran natively on iPad (see “TidBITS News App Updated for iPad”, 4 January 2011). We also tried to work around a mysterious cosmetic glitch that can appear in low-memory situations; with luck, you won’t encounter the situation that causes this glitch (none of us had, which is why we didn’t know about it), but the truth is that this problem is not really fixed, and likely won’t be until we tear the app’s code completely apart and rewrite the whole thing from scratch.

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Should We Care about New Top-Level Domains?

  by Jeff Porten <jporten@gmail.com>

The next Internet revolution is approaching. That’s right, in about two years, we will no longer be forced to remember horridly difficult URLs like britneyspears.com, and instead will be able to go to much easier Web sites like britneyspears.music.

Doesn’t sound like much of a revolution to you? Me neither. But others beg to differ, and differ at great length.

The Root of All Evil -- I caught the tail end of the .nxt conference, an event for businesses looking to join the “Internet land rush” of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). A TLD is the part of a domain name following the last dot in a URL—i.e., “com,” “net,” or “org,” to name the three that probably dominate your Web surfing experience. TLDs are divided into country codes, generic, and a few technical and experimental areas. The generic TLDs originated in the United States, and were restricted to U.S. use before the commercial Internet began in the mid-1990s. Those who wanted domains elsewhere had to rely on country code TLDs.

This resulted in a still-persistent historical imbalance: a major American chocolate outfit might be found at http://www.hersheys.com/, while a major British confectioner relies on http://www.cadbury.co.uk/. Discerning readers will note that there’s nothing inherently American about .com. We just take it for granted that the top-level in American URLs gets to be a category of American organizations, rather than the entire country. This eventually led to .com becoming the default domain for any business in the world, and later for pretty much anyone else who wanted their Web site to have a “normal” address.

Consider for a moment how silly it would be if everyone in the world suddenly clamored for a phone number starting with 6, and all other phone numbers were déclassé. That’s essentially what happened on the Internet. Plug in a single word on almost any browser in the last ten years (excepting those with integrated search bars), and if they can’t find a site there, they’ll add a .com to see if that’s what you wanted.

This has long struck many observers as ranging between a wee bit odd and yet another blow by American hegemony against the nations of the world. American organizations, it’s said, are the Animal Farm first-among-equals in this system, further proven by the domain system’s long-standing inability to have anything but non-accented Roman characters used in names. The issue of using characters other than those found in English has been partly solved (not yet for TLDs). But the larger problem—the concentration of the world’s mindshare into the .com space—remains on the docket.

That is, if it’s actually a problem at all.

Master of Your Domain -- Domains are created and administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, a nonprofit organization that attempts to be the United Nations for governments, technical organizations, and Internet citizens. It has a very simple and straightforward organizational structure, depicted below:

I kid about ICANN—and many times, it is eminently deserving of kidding—but if you think about it, the above diagram isn’t all that complicated considering what ICANN has to do. Someone has to be in charge of the system that turns www.apple.com into That someone has, by definition, a global constituency. And that global constituency, also nearly by definition, may not all be in agreement about things like free speech and who should be able to access and publish on the Internet.

ICANN has the job of resolving the .com problem, and they’ve done so by opening up the gTLDs. Any organization can apply for a gTLD, which is essentially a request for the equivalent of .com, from which they can assign as many domains as their servers (and bank accounts) can handle. Over 100 groups are known to have applied, and there will probably be many more when the entire list is published in October 2011.

If you want your own .com domain, all you have to do is head to your favorite registrar online, pony up around ten bucks, and pick a name that’s never been thought of before by anyone in history. If you want your own gTLD, it’s a little more involved, starting with the $185,000 application fee. That’s right, application fee. You can still be turned down. gTLDs must be approved by ICANN, and they’re looking for gTLDs which match their guidelines, such as being existing communities or global brands. For full details, refer to the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook Version 2, which is due to be replaced next month with the final edition.

The premise behind both the fee and the application process is to prevent Internet domain naming from becoming a free-for-all; if any word can become a gTLD, it’s the equivalent, some would say, to having U.S. phone numbers which could be any number of digits between 10 and 30.

Which brings us to the .nxt conference, where around 100 people gathered in a room to debate the Internet and party like it’s 1999. Own your own gTLD, with a domain that becomes a hot Internet address, and you can set pricing for organizations and people who wish to set up shop there. Alternately, if you’re of a more communitarian bent, you can use your gTLD to cultivate the community of people who host there.

Three of the domains in the latter category were regularly brought up in discussion, especially when the would-be proprietor of .music had his cell phone go off, playing a merry tune and interrupting the panel when someone called out, “Great branding!” But the other two domains give some idea of how complicated this issue can be: .gay and .green. Give out the .green gTLD, and now there’s an organization empowered to bestow the green name, literally, on its applicants.

Meanwhile, the .gay domain is expected to be vigorously opposed by quite a few nations on the stance that gay people shouldn’t be out in public, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed to talk to each other. And after the domain is established, it provides a handy method for these countries to shut down access to these sites all at once.

Gold Rush, or Fool’s Gold? -- The tone of the conference was aptly captured with the presentation by Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S. and proprietor of Colombia’s .co country TLD. In his opinion (and in his marketing materials), .com is a “typo,” and there’s a massive marketing opportunity for his company in recapturing the historical abbreviation of “Co.” for corporations around the world. Beyond the marketing, though, his most salient point was his defense of why he’s in favor of expanding the gTLD space: until the market is flooded with new domains, no one will ever know that there’s anything beyond the .com.

Nearly everyone in the room was in agreement that the new gTLDs would create a new boom in business, the land rush that’s heralded by the .nxt conference Web site. They were there to debate the details—and from the discussion, the details of running a gTLD registry can be extremely difficult, and there was little doubt that many players in the space would fail, but others would go on to be the next Internet billionaires.

This is where I apply my rather skeptical wet blanket perspective. There’s one major problem with all this, and it can be summarized in the one word that has become so ubiquitous that no one even bothers adding the .com appendix: Google.

The idea that .com is the Nob Hill of the Internet dates back to a time when a smaller and more tech-savvy Internet populace memorized URLs; today, it’s far more common that your average Internet user will toss the company they’re looking for into Google—and do so repeatedly rather than memorize a URL. I wish I could remember or reference where I heard this, but it’s not uncommon for people to get to Google’s own home page by Googling for Google in the Google search bar. For these people, it doesn’t matter if the site they’re landing on is google.com, goo.gl, or letmeGooglethatforyou.com. The search is what matters. [Editor’s note: My father, now an experienced Internaut, spent at least his first year online in the 1990s without a location bar to enter URLs nor the knowledge that URLs existed. He used Alta Vista as his home page. -Glenn]

Meanwhile, this is being presented in a roomful of people who applauded and laughed when Calle referred to his initial marketing as, and I quote, “We created a digital orgasm.” I remember when I was drinking that sort of Kool-Aid, and it was when I was an Internet entrepreneur in the 1990s. So my impression from the meeting is that I was at the start of something—and it’s a business niche where companies are going to create something new and then try to sell it to each other, because few outsiders will come along for the ride. Addresses and branding are important, but we’re past the point where “the right URL” will make a business.

However, there is one major proviso.

The Real Next Thing -- It’s easy to judge from the perspective of 2011, having weathered both the NASDAQ implosion and the Great Recession, and to think that we were all a little batty in the 1990s. But the fact remains that many of the technologies we use daily were built or invented during that time—even if the people who ended up selling them to us weren’t the people who lost their shirts bringing them to market.

I’m reminded of my thought process back when I purchased the jeffporten.com domain. I’m an old-school Internet user, so I remember the days when TLDs actually meant something. Once upon a time, you actually had to run a network to be a .net, or have an actual nonprofit to be a .org. Then open registration came along and all three of these TLDs became a free-for-all.

Even so, I spent some time debating whether I should use jeffporten.com for my personal domain. Sure, I run my own business, but “Jeff Porten” isn’t the business; I’m just the engine. The domain, I thought, should be something that reflected my personhood rather than my role in a free market. .org and .net were even less apropos—so should I go with jeffporten.info? Or even jeffporten.name, the “official” TLD for individuals?

Of course, I went with jeffporten.com. Why? Because who the heck uses .name? (And as I say in my Web site’s tag line: “Because jeffporten.info is even more conceited.”) But by doing that, I’m buying into the Nob Hill theory that I ridiculed earlier. There is cachet to having the .com with your name on it, as a buddy named Greenberg will tell you since his own named domain was snapped up by a real estate agent.

This brings me to another bit of technology history. Way back in the 20th century, when area codes were assigned across the country, the technology of choice was something called a “rotary phone.” When you “dialed” a number, you turned an actual dial. Dialing a 9 took roughly nine times longer than dialing a 1. What’s less well-known is that this meant that some area codes were “better” than others: 212 was assigned to Manhattan because it was the fastest to dial. You can roughly rank the perceived importance of American cities at the time from their area codes: 212, Manhattan; 213, Los Angeles; 312, Chicago. (908: northern New Jersey.)

Zoom forward to the end of the 20th century, and we start running into an addressing problem: phone numbers after the area code can’t start with 1 or 0, so there are roughly 8 million phone numbers in any one area code. Start handing out fax machines and cell phones like candy, and that’s not such a large number anymore. Wikipedia now lists five different area codes for New York City alone. When the time came to stop giving out new 212 numbers, or to take away the area codes of people who had them already, folks fought tooth and nail to keep the better virtual real estate.

Today in the 21st century, I just Skyped a friend at his 404 Atlanta number, he texted me back at my 202 Washington DC number, and both of us are currently in San Francisco. Neither one of us lives in our area code—and there are enough people like us that there’s no longer much geographical meaning assigned to an area code. (Nor are long-distance fees a concern in the way they were when I was growing up.)

I expect that the current sense of normality surrounding .com will eventually go the way of the 212 pride of place. And it may very well be that one of the entrepreneurs in the .nxt conference room that day will be the one who creates the new normal, the next virtual Nob Hill. But I don’t expect that will happen by picking out the perfect word for the gTLD, nor with brilliant marketing, nor anything else in the usual bag of business tricks. In fact, I have no idea how it will happen.

Nevertheless, it will happen, so perhaps not everyone is batty for believing that they’ll be the one to do it.

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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 21 February 2011

  by TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com>

Skitch 1.0.3 -- The screenshot-editing software Skitch has been updated to version 1.0.3. Various bugs are fixed: key combinations no longer trigger an upload when they shouldn’t, an issue where Skitch misbehaved when you dragged files into it has been corrected, and a crash affecting some newer Macs is resolved. Free users of the Skitch service now have access to three additional image manipulation options: Rotate, Flip, and Fonts. (Free, 6.3 MB)

Read/post comments about Skitch 1.0.3.

Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.6 -- Apple’s latest Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update extends Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’11 support to six more cameras and fixes processing issues for four others. Newly supported cameras include the Canon EOS Rebel T3/1100D/Kiss X50, Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D/Kiss X5, Olympus E-5, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ100, Pentax K-r, and Pentax K-5. The update also improves the processing of images from the Nikon D7000, Nikon Coolpix P7000, Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1, and Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2. The update is available via Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads page. Apple also publishes a full list of supported cameras. (Free, 6.45 MB)

Read/post comments about Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.6.

Evernote 2.0.4 -- Memory storage software Evernote has been updated to version 2.0.4. The new version improves PDF handling, both preventing issues with waiting for large PDFs to load and making it easier to drag PDFs out of the program. The update also includes what the developers call “lots of bug fixes.” (Free, 15.9 MB)

Read/post comments about Evernote 2.0.4.

CopyPaste Pro 3.0 -- Plum Amazing describes its multiple-clipboard utility CopyPaste Pro as “Time Machine for your Clipboard.” New in version 3.0 is the capability to search your clip archives, enabling you to find anything in any clip. The Clip Revolver feature—which existed in much older versions of the software—is restored. Extracting email addresses from clips is improved. And new preferences allow for enhanced control over CopyPaste’s general behavior. ($30 new, free update, 4.3 MB)

Read/post comments about CopyPaste Pro 3.0.

1Password 3.5.7 -- Agile Web Solutions has bumped 1Password to version 3.5.7. Most notably, the software now no longer quits when you close the main window. Also new is a success message after adding attachments, easier Dropbox sync setup, and better password strength reporting. Auto-correction and credit card filling are also improved. Rounding out the release are extensive enhancements to the software’s Google Chrome compatibility, and minor fixes for Firefox 4 and Safari. ($39.95 new, free update, 19.7 MB)

Read/post comments about 1Password 3.5.7.

iWeb 3.0.3 -- Apple has updated iWeb—the iLife ’11 hanger-on that isn’t iDVD—to version 3.0.3. The update addresses an issue with the iSight Movie widget on certain Macs, and corrects problems publishing iWeb sites via FTP. Apple also says that the update “improves compatibility with Mac OS X,” which is good news I suppose, since that’s the only operating system that iWeb supports. ($49 new as part of iLife ’11, free update, 177.12 MB)

Read/post comments about iWeb 3.0.3.

Adobe Acrobat/Reader 10.0.1 -- Adobe has released updates to its PDF authoring and reading tools, Acrobat and Reader. The new versions of each address critical security vulnerabilities and improve overall stability. The Reader update also improves Protected Mode, along with QTP, Flash, and SCCM support. (Free updates, various sizes)

Read/post comments about Adobe Acrobat/Reader 10.0.1.

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ExtraBITS for 21 February 2011

  by TidBITS Staff <editors@tidbits.com>

Just a couple of quick links to check out this week: an article over at The Economist by Glenn about Readability, and Lex Friedman’s Macworld article about his backup strategy.

Readability Service Aids Readers and Publishers -- Readability has added a subscription service akin to Instapaper, letting you convert Web pages to stripped-down versions and archive those for later reading from a Web account. Glenn Fleishman writes at The Economist about how this service for readers will also benefit publishers.

Read/post comments

Lex Friedman’s Backup Plan -- Over at Macworld, Lex Friedman details his backup strategy for keeping his Mac’s data secure, and the paranoia that motivates his approach. The short version: Time Machine, plus a bootable clone via SuperDuper, plus offsite backup with CrashPlan, plus Dropbox, plus Google Docs. And did we mention the heavy helping of data-loss paranoia?

Read/post comments

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This is TidBITS, a free weekly technology newsletter providing timely news, insightful analysis, and in-depth reviews to the Macintosh and Internet communities. Feel free to forward to friends; better still, please ask them to subscribe!
Non-profit, non-commercial publications and Web sites may reprint or link to articles if full credit is given. Others please contact us. We do not guarantee accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and company names may be registered trademarks of their companies. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
Copyright 2011 TidBITS; reuse governed by this Creative Commons License.


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TIME Veterans

Obama to Tap Soap Salesman to Clean Up VA

Former Procter & Gamble boss is a West Point grad

President Obama will announce he is replacing the retired Army general who was running the VA with a former Army captain—swapping four-star salutes for business smarts. The pick suggests just how tough the VA assignment is, and an acknowledges that the sprawling bureaucracy of 300,000 doesn’t always salute when it’s given orders.

Bob McDonald, a former chief executive of soap giant Procter & Gamble, is replacing Eric Shinseki, who stepped down May 30 after it became clear many officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs were hiding how long it took veterans to get their promised medical care.

Obama picked the right guy to clean an agency tarnished by accusations that its managers repeatedly gamed VA records—potentially leading to the deaths of some veterans—to help VA officials win annual cash bonuses. Early in his career at P&G, McDonald managed the company’s Tide detergent business, before heading to Canada and then Asia to run the company’s laundry and cleaning operations. The White House leaked news of McDonald’s nomination, expected Monday, and said his business skills and military background make him the right choice.

Paul Rieckhoff, chief of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, suggested McDonald’s corporate background could be an asset. “His branding background may prove helpful,” he said. “There are few organizations in America with a worse reputation with its customers than the VA right now.”

A native of Gary, Ind., McDonald spent five years in the Army, primarily with the 82nd Airborne Division, after his graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975. He joined P&G—and its lengthy roster of brands, which now includes Gillette, Crest and Febreze—in 1980. He ran the company for four years before retiring in 2013, after pressure from investors that he wasn’t cutting spending sufficiently.

Congressional reaction was muted. Senator Bernie Saunders, I-Vt., who chairs the veterans committee that will hold McDonald’s confirmation hearing, said simply that he looks forward to meeting McDonald “in order to ascertain his views” on the VA’s problems. His Republican House counterpart was even less welcoming. “The only way McDonald can set the department up for long term success is to take the opposite approach of some other VA senior leaders,” said Rep. Jeff Miller of Florida, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. “That means focusing on solving problems instead of downplaying or hiding them, holding employees accountable for mismanagement and negligence that harms veterans, and understanding that taxpayer funded organizations such as VA have a responsibility to provide information to Congress and the public rather than stonewalling them.”

McDonald spoke about such fudging as P&G’s chief operating officer. “We don’t lie, cheat, or steal,” he said in remarks he would make to new P&G employees in 2008 and 2009, “and we don’t tolerate people who do.”

McDonald has his work cut out for him, as detailed in a report by White House deputy chief of staff Rob Nabors, who Obama dispatched to the VA’s Veterans Health Administration to determine how bad things are. “The VHA leadership team is not prepared to deliver effective day-to-day management or crisis management,” Nabors report, released Friday, concluded. “Instead, VHA is marked by an inherent lack of responsiveness and a belief many issues raised by the public, the VA Leadership, or oversight entities are exaggerated, unimportant, or `will pass.'”

McDonald will be the first VA chief of the last four who didn’t retire from the service after an Army career. The prior four VA secretaries—since it became a Cabinet-level agency in 1989—served, like McDonald, in uniform early in their careers. He qualified for many badges during his five years in uniform: Airborne, Ranger, Jungle, Arctic and Desert Warfare, Jumpmaster, Expert Infantry, and Senior Parachutist.

He brought that same approach to P&G. When he took control of the Tide account in 1984, “Tide only came in one form, which was powder Tide regular scent,” he told a Yale audience last year. “Today…you can get liquid Tide, you can get Tide with bleach, and you can get Tide with Febreze. We just launched a Tide for fitness clothes.”

Knowing consumers—and what they want—is key, he explained: “You’re going to create better loyalty, more indispensability, and as a result of that you will have a higher market share.”

He’s going to need all the business savvy he can muster, assuming Senate approval, in his new job. When McDonald left P&G, it had annual sales of about $84 billion, half of the VA’s annual budget. The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this month that the reforms the Senate wants to make in providing veterans with better access to health care could double the VA’s annual $44 billion health-care budget.

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TIME press freedom

Another Brazen Attack on Hong Kong Media Sends a Chill Through the City

Vincent Yu—AP Journalists and their supporters stand in a five minutes silent around a huge banner reads " They can't kill us all " during a rally outside the government headquarter in Hong Kong, March 2, 2014

The assault raises fears for media freedom in China's most open metropolis

Just three weeks after noted Hong Kong editor Kevin Lau was stabbed in the street, masked men set upon two newspaper executives with iron bars — the latest attack in the only city in China accustomed to freedom of the press.

The assault took place on Thursday, outside the Hong Kong Science Museum in the tourist-friendly Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon. The victims were executives for the soon-to-be launched Hong Kong Morning News. The four assailants then sped away in a car.

The brazen nature of this attack has increased concerns for media freedom in the Chinese Special Administrative Region, or SAR.

“This latest incident only underscores the deepening shadows being cast over the media landscape in Hong Kong from violence, intimidation and interference by political and commercial interests,” read a statement from Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

The victims were Hong Kong Morning News Media Group Ltd vice-president and director Lei Lun-han, 46, and senior executive Lam Kin-ming, 54. Both were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Hong Kong Journalists Association chairperson Sham Yee-lan struck a defiant note. “Increased violence against the media is very intimidating for the industry as a whole,” she said, “but at the same time, as we saw with the recent rally, this type of violence gets the industry more united.”

Hundreds marched on Mar. 2 to protest the earlier attack on Lau, the former editor of the Chinese language daily Ming Pao, consistently one of Hong Kong’s most trusted newspapers.

On Feb. 26, Lau was slashed six times on the back and legs, inflicting horrific wounds including one gash 16cm (6in) long. His attacker then sped away on the back of a motorbike ridden by another person, in what was described by police as a “classic Triad hit.” (Triads are Hong Kong’s organized criminal gangs.)

Lau was replaced as chief editor by Malaysian journalist Chong Tien Siong in January, prompting a furious response from staff. He was moved to a new post within the group’s e-books and teaching materials division, in a shift many said was punishment for aggressively pursuing corruption and human-rights stories deemed embarrassing to Mainland China.

Ming Pao is owned by Malaysian tycoon Tiong Hiew King, who has business interests in China. After the attack on Lau, the company offered a $120,000 reward for information leading to arrests.

Eleven people have so far been arrested in connection with the attack on Lau, including two suspected “hitmen” with ties to the Triads. However, police commissioner Andy Tsang Wai-hung has come in for criticism, after he initially said that there was “nothing to tie the attack directly to Lau’s journalistic work.”

“Saying that the attack was not related to his job … somehow gives the public the impression that Kevin is hiding something, which is absolutely not true,” says Sham.

Ronny Tong, a Hong Kong legislator and barrister, tells TIME that his confidence in the police “is beginning to wane” and officers should concentrate on finding rather than interpreting evidence.

“For [Tsang] to suggest there is no evidence that the attack has anything to do with his work with the press seems to suggest that his mind is made up, which is regrettable,” says Tong.

Although Hong Kong, as a SAR, enjoys markedly less censorship than the mainland, it does boast an incongruous history of attacks on journalists and media personalities.

Nevertheless, Tong says things never have been “as serious” as the present climate. “We have almost reached a critical moment in the history of Hong Kong,” he says. “The media is under unprecedented attack.”

Hong Kong was ranked 61st in the world for press freedom in 2014, down from 18th place when Reporters Without Borders complied its first survey in 2002.

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12 Questions for Marvin Perkins, Part Four

May 27, 2009 | 20 comments

Here is the last installment of our 12 Questions with Marvin Perkins, comprised of Brother Perkins’ responses to our last two questions. We’d like to thank Brother Perkins for the time and effort he’s put in to giving us a set of very substantive and thought-provoking responses. You can visit Brother Perkins and Darius Gray’s “Blacks in the Scriptures” website and download their free podcast by the same name on iTunes to continue this discussion (to pose your own questions for the podcast, call (214) 615-6044 ext 9209).

See Parts One, Two, and Three for our introduction of Brother Perkins and his responses to our first 10 questions.

(11) Some people have complained that the Church is being broken down or fragmented by a growing set of grievances, one might even say “grievance groups,” all of which want the Church to yield to their demands. There are secularly oriented intellectuals who feel their voices have not been heard (or even punished); women who claim they have been unjustly relegated to an inferior status; gays who claim that the Church does not understand their issues and has vigorously worked against their efforts to achieve equal rights; African-Americans who do not feel an adequate account has been given for the initial denial of the priesthood to Blacks; and American Indians who feel misunderstood and mistreated. The list could be made much longer. How can we as a Church respond in full faith to these various grievances while remaining positive and committed to the promises and covenants that ties us together?

The fortunate thing about the gospel is that it is made up of imperfect people. The unfortunate thing about the gospel is that it is made up of imperfect people. One can act from his weakness, and because he’s in a leadership position, it is seen as the position of the Church. This has been the case with the persecution of some with grievances.

On the other hand, in my experiences, it appears the Church has adopted a pattern of ignoring some problems instead of dealing with them directly. Yes, they have the power to choose which concerns are heard and dealt with, but this doesn’t make the problems they ignore go away. This reminds me of a story President Hinckley gave in a General Conference session several years ago. He recalled his father noticing a tree was growing at an angle and asked him to go out and secure it so that it would grow straight. The then young Gordon did not follow his father’s counsel and over time the tree grew so large and slanted that it could not be corrected or saved. President Hinckley’s message was that problems left uncorrected only grow into much larger problems.

I have found in my life that groups generally only make demands when their concerns are ignored. In addition I’ve learned that demands most times will produce resistance, not results. Each of these groups you’ve mentioned are worthy of and deserving of having their concerns heard. We, the Church, administer humanitarian aid and compassionate service in impressive amounts all throughout the world, inside and outside of the Church. If we have the pattern of accomplishing this, why would we not extend it to all?

D&C 38: 26 For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?

The women have a valid claim and deserve to have the claims heard and discussed. The end result may not include any changes in the way we administer the ordinances of the gospel, but there are many changes in thought and behavior that can improve their quality of life within the Church.

We could learn a great deal about what gays suffer and how we can help them in their struggles. They deserve to have their concerns heard as we work together with them in search of solutions, without compromising on eternal principles.

In 1847 Brigham Young made the first statements that the Church would stop giving priesthood to Blacks, despite that fact that the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to give priesthood to all who would embrace the gospel. From that time, Blacks have been maligned, from our contribution in the pre-existence, our reasons for being on earth, our skin color, character, lineage, noses etc. Then in 1978, when the Latter-day Saints were sufficiently believing all that they’d been taught over the 131 year span, the restriction is removed, yet none of the of the false teachings have ever been addressed. It’s the equivalent of tearing down the Berlin Wall, but never cleaning up the debris, allowing it to become a stumbling block for millions trying to come into or remain in the Church.

There is such an obvious need for clarification on the Blacks issues that many may not be able to see that there has already been a statement issued. That statement is silence. Why would the Church not speak about this, the most significant development in the Church in the past 100 years? We don’t speak about things we’re not proud of, but this one has much more at stake. Most of the Saints are deeply grateful when they see Blacks in the Scriptures or one of the firesides. They join the Church or come back into the Church or just move forward with a great fire now armed with truth. However, there are others that are shaken by it. Even though our work is positive, scripturally based and delivered with a great spirit, some unfortunately see it, and all they hear is that which they and their parents were taught by leaders of the Church that is contrary to what the scriptures actually say. This is a direct attack on their testimonies and they feel if the leaders were wrong, then the Church can’t be true. Our critics shout the exact same thing saying “If Brigham Young was wrong, then he couldn’t have been a true prophet.” This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The scriptures show us in all of the standard works, the errors of prophets and the acknowledgment of God that they would and do err. Let’s go back to D&C 1:24-28 …

24 Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.
25 And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;
26 And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;
27 And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;
28 And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.

Out of this grows our most common question “what do the brethren say about the scriptures you’ve compiled?” So we have one group, the Saints, who are looking to the brethren to speak before they act to help their brother. Then you have another group, the Church, who has committed to remain silent on the issue. Until one of these two groups realizes the stalemate and is moved to action to help build God’s kingdom, millions outside of the Church will remain outside, and millions inside the Church will be as salt that has lost its savor.

(12) A number of studies and sources dealing with race issues (particularly vis-a-vis Blacks) and the Church have appeared in the past several years, including Armand Mauss’s sociological work; important historical research by a number of researchers including Jessie Embry, Newell Bringhurst and Darron Smith; historical fiction from Darius Gray and Margaret Young; the recent documentary Nobody Knows; and of course, your own work with Brother Gray on scriptural interpretation. What areas in the race-and-the-Church umbrella remain to be explored?

First I have to make a clarification, the Blacks in the Scriptures DVD series does not deal with scriptural interpretation. It’s critically important to make that distinction and understand the purpose for doing so. Scriptural interpretation implies that we are giving our opinions on what certain scriptures mean or could mean, which is not the case at all. What we’ve done is pointed out a wealth of scripture in all of the standard works as they relate to 5 key areas that make up the foundation of the misunderstandings. With over 2 ½ hours of scriptural evidence, there is very little, if any interpretation needed, just the ability to read, common sense and a very basic understanding of the nature of God.

There are a wealth of areas yet to be explored, though I think President Gray and I have unmasked the keystone. All concerned about this issue, in or out of the Church, want to know how Mormons believe God views His children of African descent, what role did Blacks play in Biblical history, is dark skin a curse and was the restriction on priesthood of God or man. These are the issues that keep Blacks out of the Church. We’ve seen that true doctrine understood brings them into the Church.

I recall the story of the building of the Salt Lake Temple when workers found that there were cracks in the foundation blocks. They were forced to take them out and start over, using new stones that were cut to fit together without mortar. So with obvious cracks in the foundation of the teachings regarding Blacks, it is also obvious that with over 162 years of these teachings, we now have a forest of incorrect doctrine being spread and taught. The entire forest needs to be removed with seeds of truths planted in their stead. Many Saints and leaders still incorrectly teach that interracial marriage is not of God, that the Lamanites had a darker skin than the Nephites, and that dark skin is a curse. Church manuals, children’s books, artist’s renderings are just some of the trees of this forest that need to be cut down and replaced with seeds of truth. One of our greatest areas of responsibility would be to the missionaries. They dedicate 18-24 months of their lives to go out and warn our neighbors, delivering the good news. For this labor of love, we have a responsibility to send them out prepared.

Church leaders and auxillaries are in desperate need of training. We still have parents taking their children out of nursery or primary because they don’t want them in with Black kids. We recently had a Bishop refuse baptism to several Blacks families saying that we don’t want to add so many Black families to the ward all at once. We recently had a Stake President say that he doesn’t call Black Bishops because he knows they’ll try to address the Blacks issues. We have an incredible amount of Black single sisters, but very few Black men for them to marry because the folklore and the lack of understanding of these issues has a greater effect of keeping Black men out of the Church. So these faithful sisters tarry alone waiting for their blessings. Black children struggle with self esteem because they don’t have anyone that looks like them in the circles where they spend most of their lives.

So once you get involved and actually go to the forest with your ax or chainsaw, ready to help fix the problem, then you’ll have a better view of the enormous amount of issues yet to be addressed, or trees that need to be hewn down. When a problem is ignored for as long as we have, the work of restitution could take decades. So we really should get to work on it.

D&C 123: 13 Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—

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20 Responses to 12 Questions for Marvin Perkins, Part Four

  1. Marc Bohn on May 27, 2009 at 7:42 am

    Thanks again Brother Perkins, for your extraordinary efforts in this important area. Hopefully we all can reach a little outside of our comfort zones to do our part to address any misconceptions that may stand in the way of conversion for those the Lord may draw across our paths.

  2. kevinf on May 27, 2009 at 11:55 am

    Outstanding series of questions, and equally outstanding answers. There is help here for me in my own stewardship in my ward right now. Thanks, Bro. Perkins and Marc, for this.

  3. Jared on May 27, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    What brother Perkins is advocating is revolutionary. For starters, he is calling for a revision of the Book of Mormon.

  4. jaymie on May 27, 2009 at 3:55 pm

    wonderful work! how can act as this voice of change and call for a foundational overhaul.

  5. Marvin on May 27, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    Thank you for the opportunity to share this information with so many who want to better understand these issues and how they can help.

    Kevin, thank you and all who have shared kind words and insights.

    Jared, I love that spirit and that fire, but know that the Book of Mormon needs no revisions. We simply need to revise our thoughts and understanding of what is written. If you view all 4 segments of Blacks in the Scriptures DVD series, you’ll have a clearer understanding of what I’m suggesting here.

    The purpose of this wonderful opportunity presented by Marc is to open our eyes to what is, and what needs to be done. If it is not followed by learning the scriptural truths relating to these issues, then millions will continue to be turned away from the church every year, which we will have to answer for.

  6. Ugly Mahana on May 28, 2009 at 7:17 am

    It is interesting to read this series in conjunction with the series on Margeret Young and Darius Gray’s visit to the MHA conference currently at the By Common Consent blog. One thing I note is that Brother Perkins objects to black saints being expected to address Priesthood ban issues, while Sister Young seems to be concerned that the presentations regarding the ban at the conference were made and attended by white persons. I wonder if there is a disconnect between two perspectives, or if I am missing something.

  7. Jared on May 28, 2009 at 7:56 am

    I’m all for additional revelation as the Lord reveals His will: For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith.

    The process for receiving additional light and knowledge is established. The Lord’s house, is a house of order. We need to look to those the Lord has designated to bring forth His mind and will. If what you’re bringing forth is from the Lord, then the Lord’s servants need to be on board.

    I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. What say ye?

  8. Amanda on May 28, 2009 at 11:02 am

    Interracial marriages are still frowned upon in the church. My own father taught to marry in your own race. Not because he’s a racist, but because it is thought by many that they are harder due to cultural differences. What’s interesting about the whole thing is that the ones that teach or beleive this are in same race marriages. So how do they know interracical marriages are harder? And if its the cultural differences, then different colors of skin shouldn’t matter because a white person from the south and a white person from the north have a significant amount of cultural differences. So if the argument is cultural differences then we should all strive to marry someone in within our own geograpgic region right? I supose germans should only marry germans and irish should only marry irish, and americans should only marry americans. I am a white american, and my husband is a black american. We are both american but it is assumed that our marriage is harder because I am white and he is black. This is not so…marriage is hard no matter who you marry. The conflicts we have had to deal with in our marriage have had nothing to do with what color our skin was. Our cultural differences have actually been the joy of our marriage. Learning about each others history has been fascinating. And my husband gets a kick out of how I act lilke such a “white girl” sometimes. We get our kicks out of making fun with our differences. I think its cute how improper his english is sometimes and his use of ebonics. Its quite humerous to listen to us crack on each other. Conflicts in a marriage has nothing to do with race. I truly beleive that conflicts arise simply from personality clashes not from cultural differences. Just because my husband is hard-headed and stubborn does that mean that all black american men are hard-headed and stubborn. Same-race couples have just as much problems as inter-racial marriages. There will always be conflict in a marriage regardless of what race you come from. I feel it is extremely important for to teach our children to marry who you love without reagards to what color their skin is. You’ll be amazed on what they may be missing out on if you restrict their views on marriage. Thank you Marvin for providing so much information on blacks and the church…it has helped us with the many misconceptions as well. We must all spread the word!!!

  9. Marvin on May 28, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    I think this is one of those situations where one may only be able to get a glimpse if they haven’t read or seen everthing as I explained in one of the questions.

    I have no objection at all to Blacks speaking to or being expected to speak to the issue. I just pointed out that non member Blacks make this comment when we teach it in Black churches and the Black community. They wonder why the Whites of the church are not leading this charge.

    I did not attend the MHA and so don’t know Margaret’s exact comments. I do know of her great heart, mind and efforts and stand with her as she being White, answers the concern that those in the Black community have. There is no disconnect.

  10. Marvin on May 28, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    I understand and appreciate your thought. Mine differs slightly. The Lord’s plan is not set up for us to gain a perfect knowledge of all things from His leaders, but through His spirit. We can only look to perfection to receive perfection.

    ALMA 4:10
    10 And thus ended the eighth year of the reign of the judges; and the wickedness of the church was a great astumbling-block to those who did not belong to the church; and thus the church began to fail in its progress.
    11 And it came to pass in the *commencement of the ninth year, Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the aexample of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people.

    Turning to the Lord for truth protects the righteous against times like this.

    Now with that said, let’s turn back to the Leaders of today. They put out the scriptures and made the changes that help us to have the understanding that we now have. Yes, if they verbally spoke to these issues it would be of greater help, or would it simply build greater dependence upon them, which is a current problem. The greater dependence should be on the Lord and His spirit.

  11. Marvin on May 28, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    You’re welcome and thank you for sharing. As the Saints study this issue, they will come to understand that the restriction was born out of inequality. All of the teachings that followed sprang out of trying to justify the unwarranted restriction, including the teachings on interracial marriage.

    Your thoughts are correct. A white person from UT and one from NYC or LA are of different cultures. However, when we all focus on our original culture, siblings of the Most High, instead of the cultures we were adopted into on earth, we minimize most differences and grow from the others.

  12. Ugly Mahana on May 28, 2009 at 3:07 pm

    Thanks for the response. I have read all of the questions, but somehow had not picked up that you were just presenting the opinions of others with respect to who serves as messenger. I find the information you present to be valuable, and your call to make it known inspiring.

  13. Kyle on May 28, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    I recall Marvin mentioning in an interview that he wrote to President Hinckley requesting the issues be addressed and the fallacies be clarified, and President Hinckley directed Marvin to begin with his circle of influence and let the truth grow from there; essentially a grass-roots movement. That direction coupled with Marvin’s statements surrounding the spiritual guidance he received throughout his journey are, in my mind, compelling pieces of evidence that this work is of the Lord and well within the established framework for receiving additional light and knowledge to bring forth truth.

    From my observation, truth can sometimes be spread and subsequent social changes can sometimes be acheived more effectively through grass-roots efforts than from statements and direction delivered by the top leadership ranks of an organization.

  14. Kyle on May 28, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    I like to think that when the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve were unanimous in their views on blacks and the priesthood, the timing was right for social and political reasons, and they took the issue to the Lord in 1978, that the Lord smiled and responded “Yes! And its about time!”

  15. Jared on May 28, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    Kyle–thanks for the info–very interesting.

  16. Jared on May 28, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    Thanks for your follow up to my question.

    I wish you the best in what you’re undertaking. And as Kyle says, if this is of the Lord it will come out on top.

    Just one point that I think we as LDS must always remember:

    We have living prophets to lead the church and I thank the Lord for that everyday. This is what sets us apart from all other churches. And as history shows, many churches have been introduced by well meaning people who love the Bible. I understand over a 1000 different Christian churches now, and growing.

    Without prophets we would be in the same situation. Over time, with the standard works as a foundation, and without prophets, many churches would grow and branch out from what now exist, just like with the Bible.

    At some point, LDS apostles and prophets will need to be on board for this grass roots effort to be the real thing.

    Something I experienced many years ago taught me something about the leadership of this church. I interviewed a missionary and a mission president who told me a story about something they personally heard President Lee relate. It was a very powerful story about President Lee’s witness of Jesus Christ. I prepared the history and was ready to submit it to BYU. I picked up the phone and called the First Presidency’s office to ask a question of a brother Watson (in those days you could do that) and ended up with President Hinckley on the phone (about 1980 or so). I told him what I was doing and asked him if he ever heard President Lee tell the same story. He said that he hadn’t. As he spoke to me the Spirit of the Lord told me to drop my project! I had put a lot of work into this and was disappointed, but the prompting was such that I thanked President Hinckley for his time, set back in my chair, astonished at what I had just experienced.

    I dropped the project as I was told by the Spirit. I believe this kind of inspiriation occurs on a regular basis with the brethren.

    I don’t have any idea why the Lord didn’t want my history project to be recorded. But I did gain a special insight into the way the Lord works with his church leaders. These guys are the real thing.

    Again, I wish you the best and will be keeping up with the progress of your work.

  17. msg on May 28, 2009 at 11:27 pm

    Jared–Perhaps it should have been dropped because it was President Lee’s personal and sacred experience that he had shared with a couple of people never intending it to go beyond them. Also, President Lee wasn’t here to verify this story and we’ve all heard lots of LDS folklore.
    But it seems to me that the issue of Blacks and the Priesthood is a public matter, not a personal one and I don’t know why the Church leaders haven’t really addressed it in detail.
    It may be that they simply don’t know anymore than we do about it. Things have a way of just being handed down generation to generation until someone finally asks about it.
    However it is correct to note that the Priesthood was held back from being held by everyone. There was a time when only a Levite, not even the whole tribe of Judah, could hold it.
    The Lord may want to control who has it and then take it to the next group, and so on. It is a sacred power and there are regulations to using it and if it were spread too widely too quickly perhaps that would mean trouble. Don’t know–just
    speculating here!

  18. Cheryl Welch on May 29, 2009 at 10:35 am

    I was recently reading in the Discourse of Brigham Young- a question was asked of him, and i am paraphrasing, how is it that he can claim to lead people by inspiration?
    Brigham’s reply was-(paraphrased):
    he does not lead them but inspire them to lead themselves by the spirit of God. That man individually is his own judge and to follow the will of God through the Holy Spirit which testifies of Him.

    How simple is this. He places your personal growth to you!

    This was enlightening and joyful to my soul. For i have always known that I am responsible for my actions not Brigham Young or Joseph Smith weakness’ nor Adam’s transgression. And that I have a duty–to listen to the Holy Spirit which is to teach me of truth through study, prayer and mainly-Faith.

    We as members of the only true church are to ponder first, study second, and to pray always. So if this message that is brought to us is difficult for us to understand or grasp, let the Holy Spirit help you. ” For their works you shall know them, If it be of God”.

  19. Marvin on May 30, 2009 at 12:03 am

    It’s actually a misconception that all of the Brethren were united in the decsion, otherwise the error would have been corrected in 1969 when 13 of the 15 voted to change the policy, or even in 1954 when President McKay stated that it was just policy and not doctrine. I’d really recommend reading chapter 4 of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism to get a better understanding of the reality of what was going on in church leadership over this issue.

    Jared, we need more Saints like you who are worthy to receive and then follow the promptings of the spirit. I am also with you in my love for the leaders. But I think Cheryl sums it up best with the quote from Brigham Young. One of my biggest struggles as a kid is when I learned that I should love God more than my parents. I could not get my young mind around how the Lord could ask me to love anyone more than my parents, but I knew that I had to do it … to find a way to do it. After quite some time I realized that I could love God more and still have no less love for my parents. I believe that this is what the Lord expects with Him and His prophets. We must keep it in balance with our greatest love for and dependence upon the Lord. This should not diminish our love for the prophets.

    Msg, the leaders know a great deal about this. Speculating can be damaging and misleading and there is no need for it especially when there are resources that shed light on the truths. We must simply make the efforts to exhaust those resources. Once you’ve read chapter 4 of David O McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism and seen the Blacks in the Scriptures DVD series, your paradigm will change. You’ll also realize that it was not only the Levites who held the priesthood, but had the rights to the temple. Case in point, Moses father in=law, Jethro, was not a Levite, yet he gave Moses the priesthood. This errored thought was one of the many created in attempts to explain the restriction to blacks that should have never been.

  20. Jared on May 30, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Thanks :-)


text:
AAA8 assists with home choice program

March 18, 2009
Times Leader
There’s no place like home. A new program available through Ohio’s Department of Job and Family Services supported by The Buckeye Hills Area Agency on Aging, District 8 (AAA8) provides eligible individuals the chance to transition from a long-term care facility to home and community settings.
“The purpose of Home Choice is to assist folks who want to locate a home and move from a long-term care facility back into the community,” said Jane Skeen, LSW, Home Care Director of AAA8. “Transition coordination is the unique aspect of this program. Through it, the Area Agency on Aging can help give people greater control and connect them to essential community services such as locating housing, setting up a household and more as they transition.”
Once individuals are in long-term care facilities, it is difficult for them to move back into the community because they usually do not have homes or access to other services and supports necessary for daily living. Transition coordination will help them plan and arrange for services and supports they will need while relocating from an institution to a community.
Home Choice assists 60+ and people of any age with disabilities who wish to move from long-term care facilities to home and community settings. It will support individuals with transition services up to $2,000, by locating housing, transitioning and connecting to community services such as health care, pharmacies, personal assistance and more. A community support coach, nursing, social work or counseling, and nutritional consultation are other services.
To learn more about Home Choice, call AAA8 at 1-800-331-2644. AAA8 serves caregivers in the region including Athens, Hocking, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Noble, Perry, and Washington Counties.

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text:
Perfect Season

Perfect Season

Troy’s dreams of the big time have backfired. Sure, he’s moved to New Jersey so he can take on his new job as “genius” for the New York Jets, but his dad has taken his entire salary, leaving Troy and his Mom strapped for funds. Now Troy has no hope of going to a swank private school and playing for a football powerhouse with his newfound cousin Ty. Instead he’s going to be part of a team with an unbroken losing streak. Knowing that the road to the NFL begins at an early age, Troy fights back.
When he gets Seth to come up from Atlanta to coach his public school team, Troy feels ready for a winning streak-a perfect season. He doesn’t guess that he’ll soon be struggling against powerful people who want him to lose. When Troy’s talent for calling the plays for his NFL team slips and his abilities as a quarterback are seriously threatened, he’s got to dig deep.
Tim Green delivers a gripping new book in his Football Genius series, with the tense action on and off the field that have made him a New York Times best-selling author.

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