Inside Tad's Mind

Most of us have seen or read stories of adoptions of Haitian children following the earthquake last month. Some of the stories have had a positive slant (the charity has saved children...) other's have had a negative slant (the "missionaries" who kidnapped and tried to smuggle 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic). At a family gathering yesterday, my wife heard a story about a couple that was "finally" able to adopt a child they've been trying to adopt for about 4 years. As the story was related to me, this couple had originally been matched with this child about 4 years ago, but the adoption was cancelled when the parents of the child took her back and parented her themselves. After about three years of caring for the child, the natural parents returned her to the orphanage because both of them had been diagnosed with tuberculosis; a death sentence in Haiti. (Mortality for untreated TB is about 67%.) The adoption was finalized just befo...

It's official. I am no longer a member of the Mormon church. I received a letter from church headquarters about a week ago saying that my name has been removed from the records of the church. This was done at my request after the church's leadership refused to respond to my three letters on their policy of encouraging all unwed mothers to relinquish their babies for adoption. I had been playing the Mormon game for several years, but had not really believed the LDS dogma for a long time (if I ever really believed it). I had felt that LDS doctrine was pretty benign it did no harm and actually did some good. Until I was confronted with the church's policy. This policy is not benign. My research found significant evidence that infant relinquishment is traumatic for both the mother and the child, and the damage caused is lifelong for both. Causing unnecessary harm to these infants by imposing a generalized policy promulgated by a "prophet" is, in my opinion, an institu...

For any of you that may be interested in astrology or astronomy, this is quite the New Years... Today at 12:13 pm Mountain Standard Time, the moon was at it's fullest, and all the way around the world in the darkness of night, it was eclipsed over much of Europe, Africa and Asia. Of course, today is also New Year's Eve, and the occurrence of a full moon on New Year's Eve hasn't happened since 1990. According to Spaceweather.com , an eclipsed Blue Moon on New Year's happens only once every 91 years! So this is truly a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence! So to recap, we have Mercury (and Mars) in Retrograde right now, adding to the energies of the Full Moon, which is falling on the global holiday of New Year's Eve, which is wrapping up the '00 decade, and then all of those factors are being amplified by the power of an extremely rare eclipse. Wow! We know that Mercury is Retrograde in Capricorn, and this full moon is in its natural home of Cancer. The sign of Can...

The sun rose just a little bit further north than it has in the last three days. It has once again begun its northward journey. The cycle of life continues, unbroken. This morning, Peter and Ephraim were the first two of the children up. At 6:30. It was still dark out. Sunrise this morning was at 7:50, so we had time to get everyone up and open a few presents before it started to get light. Having studied the solar astrology/mythology that underlies the choice of December 25 as the birth of many mythical gods and heroes, all personifications of the sun, I had a different view of this Christmas sunrise. As wonderful as Christmas is as a Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus (which probably did not occur on December 25), there is so much more to the holiday when one considers all of the midwinter traditions. December 21 is the Winter Solstice. From the Summer Solstice until the Winter Solstice, the sun appears to move southward. In the Northern Hemisphere, the length of the dayligh...

A wee bit different Holiday music. If you're listening, the music you're hearing is from the album The Castle of the Holly King by Shira Kammen. (For those of you reading this on Facebook or else where, click on the "view original post" or whatver it is.)

Back in the early 1980's, Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, came up with a great idea. He reasoned that if the price of one commodity goes up, consumers will switch to another commodity in its place. On the basis of this reasoning, the method of calculating the Consumer Price Index was changed. The result is that the inflation rate reported by the US Government is reported to be lower than it would if it was still calculated the old way. John Williams, the economist who operates " Shadow Government Statistics " likes to publish economic statistics as they would be if the CPI methodology hadn't been changed. This chart is a comparison of growth in the "real" (adjusted for inflation) US Gross Domestic Product using both the current CPI and the old methodology. When the line is above zero the economy is growing, with higher levels being greater levels of growth. When the line is below zero, the economy is shrinking, and in a reces...

I was reading the introduction to David Klinghoffer's Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History this afternoon. He makes a very interesting point: We need to recall that in historical fact, at a critical juncture, and as a direct result of the Jewish rejection of the Christian message, the early church jettisoned the observance of Jewish law. The book of Acts recounts how the apostle Paul, in teaching about Jesus, was "contradicted" and "reviled" by fellow Jews, leading him to conclude that the future lay no longer with his own people. "Since you thrust [the message of Christ] from you," he said, "behold, we turn to the gentiles." In this way a split developed within the church. It could continue as it was, under the leadership of Jesus' brother James within the bounds of Torah law, requiring all converts to be observant Jews. Or it could take Paul's more radical view of Jesus' teaching. At a council meet...