President Gordon B. Hinckley Has Passed Away

I was called by Thomas Odenwalder who had been text messaged by his sister in Utah that President Gordon B. Hinckley, head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints passed away. Details can be found here.

I know I will see President Hinckley again, but in the mean time I will miss him greatly. There is no question that he will go down in history as one of the greatest Prophets of the Church. His legacy of temple building, his soft words, his great and loving heart marked his stewardship of the LDS faith. A gentle man and a gentleman who presided over the greatest growth of the Church, he was 97 years old.

I'm glad he is back with his wife, whom he missed greatly.


Updated: Identified the friend who called (Sorry Thomas) and bring the post in line with the English language (as it now stands)

Running on Empty

The title covers two subjects today, the first being how alternately I've been busy or sick, hence the lack of posting. I've managed to miss three holidays in the interim, but plan to do more writing. The second thing that running on empty applies to is the Fred Thompson campaign. Much to my disappointment, it is clear that he will be unable to get the endorsement.

I find it fascinating that when given a candidate who does everything people say they want candidates to do, they end up rejecting them. Constantly heard is the desire for a candidate who isn't after the job for power, but out of a sense of duty. Yet Fred was blasted for not acting like he wanted the job more than anything else in the world. We hear how a straight shooter who will tell us things we don't want to hear is needed, yet Fred has been ignored on the issues of social security and medicare benefits. Candidates should run a clean campaign, that's what we want say the voters, yet Fred took heat for not being aggressive enough. In fact, the only uptick he saw was when he pointed out how Huckabee is essentially a Democrat in the South Carolina debate. The issues, only if the candidates would stick to the issues is a cry heard often, but nobody paid attention to the white papers or long, thoughtul videos Thompson put out. Finally, it has been said we are waiting for another Reagan, a true conservative who believes in smaller government, protecting the Constitution, and who is also a social conservative. Well, the voters have been clear, they want the GOP to go to the political left, with the primary winning candidates all being center or center-left.

Simply put, what the voters in the Republican Party say they want and what they really want are two completely different things. I suspect the general electorate are no different.