Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

The Power of the Media in this country (The United States of America) is truly amazing. They reach into our lives everywhere, and while they have a great potential for good, it is the misuse of this power that bothers me. For whatever reason, it seems that many of those in the media feel it is their purpose in life to educate us as to what we should be doing.

Maybe it is because they feel that masses of the people are too stupid or uneducated to really understand what is best for us. Maybe it is because they feel they have a responsibility to help put in power those that align themselves with what the media feels is the real truth.

Perhaps it is just a matter of personal arrogance of those that have positions of power in the media. Regardless, those that feel they know better than us have their own agendas that they push, and with the media intruding ever further into our everyday lives, their opinions and agendas are more important to understand than ever. Why? It is because many times the things that they favor are just wrong. They can ruin this country, and I think they have way too much power and control over what we in this country think about the important issues of the day.

One of the talks given at the recent Semi-Annual General Conference of my church discussed the idea that “We Don’t Know Everything But We Know Enough”. The idea is, we can push forward even if we don’t have all of the answers. I find that idea mildly comforting when considering our current economic situation. We need to move forward and solve problems, rather than quivering in a mode of indecision because we don’t have all of the answers. Our current problems demand action, some kind of action in order for us to at least start to move forward in solving our problems. Not only can we move forward with regard to our faith in the Lord and his plan, but we also can move forward in solving the problems of our country.

When we visited the Mariposa Grove of big trees in Yosemite National Park, there was a lot of emphasis placed on the National Parks “Burn Policy”. We heard a Park Ranger go into great detail explain and defending this policy. The interesting thing about the burn policy is that at one point, the Park Service went a little too far.

It was the summer of 1989 and Yellowstone National Park was on fire. As a family, we had visited the park the previous summer and had enjoyed the beautiful greenery of the Park. When the fire first started, they treated the fire as a natural occurrence and decided that they should just let it burn so the ecosystem would eventually be balanced out.

Instead, the fire got out of control and the park was burning so badly that Old Faithful Inn, and other man made treasures were in danger of being burned and much of the park was burning out of control. Finally, man stepped in and intervened. I think that since then the Park Service has decided that sometime man must step in and make a difference. We went through the park two or three years later, and it was amazing on how quickly things were starting to recover. It appears that the limited burn policy in Yosemite National Park is starting to make a difference. They want to burn away the underbrush that protection has created, and which can lead to a catastrophic fire of Yellowstone proportions. This could particularly hurt the Giant Sequoias if they didn’t make the change.

Elder Joseph Wirthlin gave what I consider to be an excellent talk on Adversity. He told us that when we are faced with Adversity, we need to work hard at overcoming the adversity, have faith in the Lord and the Savior, and then leave the rest to the Lord.

Our nation faces much the same type of challenge. We need to do everything that we can to solve the problems, the trust in our Lord and Savior and have faith in him and leave the solutions to him. We have to do that now. We have to make sure that we do our best, and then trust the Lord that the solutions will come.

Our nation is faced with Adversity. It is now time to trust in the Savior.

God bless this wonderful country, the USA. I love this country. I love the National Parks. This summer I visited one of the most wonderful parks in the country, Yosemite National Park. It was beautiful. It was breathtaking. It was majestic. It was an experience that comes maybe once in a lifetime.

The vistas of this country are wonderful. I love the cities, the deserts, the mountains, the snow, the rivers, the highways, the fall colors, the smell of spring and the growth of summer. I love the blue skies, the fluffy clouds and the blazing sun. I am so in love with this country.

The people of this country are terrific. We have such wonderful people. I am so glad that I am American. We have wonderful people who serve this country and who love this country. I am so grateful for the people who make up this country.

Having said all of this, I am so grateful for this county. We are at a time of great crisis. We are facing challenges that this generation has never seen. This country needs leaders who will step and save this country and all the vistas and all of the wonderful things that make it so special. With the partisanship that exits in this country, we will pull apart unless we start to pull together. I love this country, I do hope that someone else loves this country as much. I love the following song about the USA.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life,
And I had to start again
with just my children and my wife,
I’d thank my lucky stars
to be living here today,
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can’t take that away.

And I’m proud to be an American
where at least I know I’m free,
And I won’t forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

From the lakes of Minnesota
to the hills of Tennessee,
Across the plains of Texas
from sea to shining sea.
From Detroit down to Houston
and New York to L.A.,
well There’s pride in every American heart
and it’s time we stand and say:

that I’m proud to be an American
where at least I know I’m free,
And I won’t forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

And I’m proud to be an American
where at least I know I’m free,
And I won’t forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A.

I don’t quite know what kind of a country we are going to be passing on to the next generation. We are seeing events of truly historic proportions right now, and they are not good things that are happening. As a nation we are mortgaging the future of our children through irresponsible financial management of the nations economy, and through our own personal mismanagement of our own financial futures.

We have been told time, and time again that debt is not good. We are seeing first hand the results of a nation that revels in debt. We must change our habits or risk destruction as a country, as a people, and as individuals. These are unprecedented times. They are going to require unprecedented leadership and solutions to the problems and challenges we face. The fact is, we must change if we are to survive.

From the evening news tonight you would have thought that the entire financial structure of the United States had just quit functioning. I have to admit, it was an interesting and also stressful day at the bank. It is not every day that the DJI loses 500 points. The DJI Average lost that much in October of 1987 when the market was a lot smaller. We recovered.

Things are changing fast, that is for sure. Lehman Brothers disappears over a weekend, with Merrill Lynch being purchased by Bank of America. What some people, the ignorant, and most of the populace of this country don’t understand is that the investment banks are not the same as the commercial banks that they equate banking with. The commercial banks and the majority of the banks in this country are much safer than the country realizes. It is going to be a wild ride for the next little while as the markets sort out all of the problems that have come because of the greed of a few who put together mortgages that were not good, and then the populace of this country who wanted a home without paying the dues required and who wanted to profit by using constantly rising home prices as a way to build their equity.

Yes, it will take a while. Those of us who have 401k’s and the such will need to hold out for a while, but I believe that this country will recover. In the meantime, we have a Presidential Election in process and the candidates will beat this to death. We also have basic problems that need to be resolved, the IRAQ war, Social Security, Medicare, and budget deficits. Whoever is elected President has a real challenge on their hands. We will recover from this supposed financial meltdown.

I have been noticing something that really is bothering me right now. This specifically I notice in family, but society has the same general problem. We just aren’t being tolerant of each other. We are too worried about whether we are right, rather than having compassion to each other. My recent foray into politics lead me into the same trap. I sometimes worry that I am getting to settled into one position or another and then believing that I am right and the other wrong, and never shall I compromise.

You see it in Washington. Our national government has come to a gridlock, with each side posturing and trying to convince the public they are right, all for the purpose of political expediency and not in behalf of the people. Both the President and Congress most recently have received all times lows in their approval ratings by the populace. The national media doesn’t help the matter either and we all take sides, shouting at each other, sure that we aren’t right, but not willing to compromise and get the people’s business done. This year, it will be probably the 5th or 6th year in a row that most of the national government funding will continue to be run on a continuing resolution rather than through the appropriate appropriation process. This has got to change.

Whether it is in a family where we might be intolerant of or make fun of another’s views, in a city where we stake out positions for ourselves and don’t back off, or whether we don’t get the people’s business done because we are ideologues more determined to be right and yell and scream, rather than work in behalf of the people we elect. I am just getting sick of this, and we are setting ourselves up as a family to fracture, or as a nation to elect someone (a devious man or a man like the German’s elected in the 1930’s to solve their problems, and see where that lead them) who will promise to solve our frustrations, just if we give him the power. Things have got to change, and we the people have got to demand the change, or as the Book of Mormon says, if the greater number of the people shall not choose the good, we will ripe for the fall of the government that we have cherished for all of these 230 years.

We drove down to Las Vegas in the middle of the summer. This is a crazy time to be visiting the city of Las Vegas, which is in the middle of the desert. It is going to be 110 in the shade today. I think we must have been crazy. Regardless, one thing that was evident was all of the construction going on. There is a striking number of towers that are partially finished. There is to be new casinos, new hotels, and more and more money to be spent here, or so they hope.

I must appropriately saw an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that indicated that many of these mega projects that are underway in Las Vegas are in trouble, just like the rest of the economy. Apparently, the practice of gambling, while endemic in this country, is fighting for the consumers dollar and not being as successful as in times past. I did notice that there seemed to be less people here. Of course, part of that is the fact that it is the dead of summer, and maybe some of that the fact that we are in a recession.

Well, the price of gasoline, fuel if you want to call it that, has increased substantially in this good ole United States. The price of commodities has gone such that a basic change is occurring in the economy of this country and I think we are going to see major changes coming in this country. I feel more than ever we now need to be prepared for major changes and dislocations in our economy. As a nation, we have really had it easy up till now. Now, all of the changes, all of the leveling of economic circumstances of people and nations is starting to become evident. I think we are going to have to get used to living with less and it costing more. Life is going to be a challenge for the next generation, and the one after that, and after that. What kind of a world have we left our grandchildren?