KZIONradio

I came across this while catching up on David’s blog, A Soft Answer. The Illinois legislature passed a resolution last week apologizing to the Mormon church for

...the misguided efforts of our citizens…the biases and prejudices of a less enlightened age in the history of the State of Illinois caused untolled hardship and trauma for the community of Latter-day Saints by the distrust, violence, and inhospitable actions of a dark time in our past.

The resolution reads like a Mormon history book. It’s thrilling to see the state of Illinois recognize that

The goodness, patriotism, high moral conduct, and generosity of the community of Latter-day Saints has enriched the landscape of the United States and the world.

The Salt Lake Tribune—LDS WWII movie sheds R rating



Thankfully the directors of Saints and Soldiers edited part of the violence in their long anticipated film to get a PG-13 rating.

The difference between a PG-13 and an R is crucial for the movie’s predominantly Mormon target audience because LDS Church members are counseled to avoid R-rated films.

This film has won numerous awards at independent film festivals and looks like it will be one of the more successful LDS genre films as it appeals to members and non-members alike.

“Saints and Soldiers” has enjoyed success with largely non-Mormon audiences on the film-festival circuit, winning a grand prize at the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis last year…Saints and Soldiers,” set during the Battle of the Bulge, tells of five Allied soldiers caught behind enemy lines without weapons.

This film is set to be released in late spring or summer.

KUTV: Federal Judge Questions Conference Speech Restrictions



Looks like a Federal Judge will rule tomorrow on whether the new protest restrictions put in place by the city will remain or not. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me if there are barricades and a little more distance between the protesters and conference goers. I would rather see church members set an example to the world that they can show restraint and not be affected by the protesters. All this extra attention has just doubled the number of expected street preachers this year. If conference goers just wave at the preachers and have a nice smile on their faces these guys will settle down and in a few years it will be back to just a few.



If the two hot heads would of listened to the council of President Hinckley last conference and ignored the protesters, conference wouldn’t of become a national spectacle.

This is interesting. I was discussing with my good friend Kim Siever last week about the church’s position on evolution and how evolution and the scriptures can be reconciled and along came this article.

Trent Stephens, professor of anatomy at Idaho State University, spoke to more than 75 students in the Sunburst Lounge about evolution and Mormonism. Stephens, a bishop in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lectured about reconciling the two issues of religion and evolution.

The official position of the church is

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, declares man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. . . . Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes .”

There were a couple of interesting quotes from this article

“We have yet to identify a human gene that is unique to us,” Stephens said.

and

The fossil record and DNA evidence provides evidence for human evolution, Stephen said; however, this does not mean that individuals should reject the religious story of creation.

and

“They do suggest that we need to reconsider the interpretation of that story,” Stephen said. “There is a huge difference in what the story says and what we think it says.”

I think this is a fascinating subject for discussion.

Looks like creating buffer zones between April’s conference goers and protesters only irritated the haranguing street preachers.

“We’re prepared to go to jail if we have to,” street preacher Lonnie Pursifull said. “We’re not going to be put into a box.”

The city plans to create free-speech zones across the street from the LDS Conference Center where preachers must stand when holding signs. The preachers would be allowed to cross the street but would have to stay moving and not block pedestrian traffic.

Daily Herald

Shelly and I left for Provo about 6 PM Friday evening. James had his track meet that evening and we felt really bad about missing it but we wanted to get to the hotel at a decent time since I needed to get up pretty early Saturday to get over to BYU for the presentation. We started calling James about 7:30 and he wasn’t answering. We tried again around 8:00 and still no answer. We started getting a little worried. About the time we passed Nephi heading into Provo we got a call from our oldest daughter, she said that James was in the hospital. He collapsed after a race with a major migraine and was unresponsive to his coaches. So they took him to the emergency room.



You can imagine how we felt. Here we missed his track meet and he passes out after an event and we’re 200 miles away. The doctor was just inserting an IV at the time our daughter called, to get James hydrated. They said he got a migraine from exertion which of course is all related to the problems he has had with headaches. After talking with the doctors, James, and our family we decided to continue with the trip. The doctor gave James some medication through the IV that would knock him out for the night and they said he should wake up fine and without the migraine headache. We talked with James and he told us not to come home and that he was feeling much better after they pumped him with liquids. The doctor said that he probably had not had enough liquids prior to running which brought on the headache.



There were several times I about turned around as we were going back and forth with doctors, James and family members but in the end we felt there wasn’t anything we could do. It would take us 3 hours to get home and by then he would be in bed and asleep till morning. But we still felt really helpless not being home and I kept thinking what if something serious happens and we are not there…but after a few prayers we felt confident that continuing with the trip would be fine.



We checked into the hotel and then went to the Provo mall to have dinner at Red Robin and of course were on the cell phone most of the time finding out how James was and making sure he got home and in bed OK.



We got back to the hotel about 10:30 PM and tried to get some sleep but neither of us were very successful. I got up about 5:30 AM and started working on the final touches of my presentation. We got ready and checked out of the hotel about 9:15 AM and figured we had plenty of time to get over to BYU in time for my presentation at 10:00. Well, we got to BYU but it was impossible to find any parking near the Maeser building which is where I needed to be. I finally found the visitor parking which of course was on the other side of the campus from where we needed to be. So we started hoofing it and guess what happened? Yep, it started to snow on us. Just a light snow but enough to add to the excitement of this whole trip. Finally, we found the building and got checked in. There was about 10 minutes till my presentation started so Shelly and I went into the classroom and one of the seminar organizers had hooked up KZION to a laptop and had the music playing. It was like hearing from an old friend. I immediately settled down and all was well.



My wife said I did a good job. I always second guess myself and I’m usually pretty critical but after all that had happened I felt pretty good. I love talking about KZION, Internet radio and LDS music and had a wonderful experience. I’m really grateful that I was asked to participate in this years FCMA workshops.



We then treated ourselves to lunch at the Olive Garden and I took Shelly to her favorite store, The Quilted Bear. We rolled into the driveway about 6:00 PM last night to find all was well. The Lord took care of things while we were away. I’m so grateful for the gospel, the power of prayer and a Savior who is always there when we need Him.

Singing with spirit: A famous Brazilian pop singer and LDS convert brings her music to the Tabernacle



Liriel Domiciano, one of Brazil’s most popular pop artists and an LDS convert, will perform with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.



And…



“She will sing at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ annual General Conference during the first week of April, at a full-length concert at Kingsbury Hall and at Brazilian missionary reunions. She also will perform in Las Vegas—where she hopes to hook up with that other famous Mormon convert, Gladys Knight—Los Angeles and Miami. “



And…She’s coming to St. George April 20th. Sweet!

I was asked to give a presentation at the FCMA Workshop Seminar this Saturday on LDS Radio, The Future is Now. These workshops are held each year at the BYU campus and give attendees the opportunity to network with industry professionals as well as peers.



This years workshop features K. Newell Dayley as the keynote speaker. I’m pretty excited to be able to participate this year. Anytime I get to talk about my favorite subject I get fired up.



The workshop is this Saturday, March 27, 2004 at the Maeser Building, BYU campus. Registration is from 8-9 AM and is free and open to anyone with an interest in faith centered music. Workshop topics are Marketing Our Talent, LDS Radio, The Future is Now, Finding Creative Time in an Already Full Life, The Music=The Mission=The Business, The Songwriters Perspective, The Refiner’s Fire, and a mini concert by the BYU group Vocal Point. Admission is free.

Box office draw appears to be slow for the latest LDS cinema movies. Although it takes 6-9 months for some of these LDS cinema movies to mature since they don’t have the ability to open in 500 theatres all in one weekend. It’s a few theatres here and a few there until eventually 9 months later they finish up their run.



The Best Two Years is now in 22 theatres and has grossed $319,935 in 17 days

Pride & Prejudice is now in 10 theatres and has grossed $296,004 in 94 days

The Home Teachers is now in only 3 theatres and has grossed just $179,063 in 59 days

The Work and the Story is now in 2 theatres and has grossed $12,492 in 157 days



Source: The Numbers

The new servers have proven to be a wise investment. The website has not been down once since moving to my own dedicated server. The stream server has been almost perfect since its move. The popularity of the station has begun to grow again. I filled the server earlier in the week with 206 simultaneous listeners which was an all-time record.



I have heard from some listeners that they would like the shows to come back. Such as the Instrumental Hour, Friday Night Edge, and the concerts where I play an entire album. I took them off the air initially because of the holidays. I didn’t put them back on the air because of the survey results that came back saying that most people do not make a point of listening to the shows. I do need to at least bring back the album concerts and the new release concerts.

The Salt Lake Tribune—SLC’s proposed rules on free speech remain vague



The Salt Lake City Council is looking at possibly changing the free speech ordinance before conference time in April. If you recall, there were some street preachers performing some obscene gestures with garments they had in their possession last October. You can almost be certain that they will be back this conference. Unfortunately some members of the church got a little upset and tried to take the garments from the street preachers and were ultimately arrested.



Changes to the ordinance is not going to happen. It would be protested by the ACLU and wind up in court and lose.

Councilman Dave Buhler instead wondered if there is any time that burning a flag is unconstitutional (no, say city attorneys) or if burning a cross in front of church where most members are African-Americans is illegal (no, again).

I’ve never been to conference when there were street preachers trying to antagonize me but I really think the best solution is to just ignore them and not give them the satisfaction of seeing conference goers getting upset. Christ was humiliated, spit upon, insulted, and brutally beaten and didn’t lift a finger. He could of sent legions of angels to take care of business but of course that was not part of the plan.



Did you know that all of the temple ceremonies including the Endowment are online, word-for-word? Did you know that there are pictures of people wearing temple clothing online? And making fun of it? A garment is only sacred and precious if worn by a faithful Latter-day Saint. When it gets into the hands of street preachers or others it’s just another piece of clothing.

The LDS Church wants more significant changes. In a December letter, a church attorney suggested the city create buffer zones to separate the conference goers and the preachers. The church fears violence will break out.

That’s not a bad idea. I don’t know how close the protesters can get to the conference goers but the farther away the better.



Let’s just act how Christ would want us to act and let the protesters do what they gotta do.

The Salt Lake Tribune—Billboard: Meat and potatoes of doctrine questioned

A billboard at 279 W. 3900 South gives a scriptural twist to vegetarianism, courtesy of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, (Danny Chan La/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Meridian Magazine has a couple good articles focusing on the movie The Passion Of The Christ. This first article was written by Keith Merrill and is titled Passionate Choice.

As a motion picture, The Passion of The Christ is a brilliantly-crafted piece of art. Gibson’s enormous talent as director was evident in Braveheart. In this film he is even better. This film is distinguished by a personal passion that transcends his earlier work in significant ways. Gibson’s deep belief in the Catholic tradition and the passion of Jesus is evident in every frame.

Let me address this R-rated issue first. I think it would be sad if you relinquished your agency to the MPAA and miss the film only on the basis of the collision between “rated-R” and Mormon doctrine.

Orson Scott Card on The Passion of the Christ

And for those who piously refuse to see R-rated films, I can only say: There are movies that children should not see, and this is one of them. But for a Christian adult to refuse to see it as a matter of moral principle, as if this movie will somehow dirty you, moves you over into the category of those who let the letter of the law keep them from its spirit.

There is also a poll on the site.

Are you going to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”?



Yes, this one is worth seeing. (27.3 %) 1360 votes

I’m still thinking about it. (24.2 %) 1209 votes

I want to see what others feel about it first. (1.5 %) 77 votes

No, I will not go to an R-rated film. (24.4 %) 1215 votes

I wouldn’t see it if it were rated PG. (8.8 %) 440 votes

Not interested at all. (9.6 %) 478 votes

I’ll wait for it to be edited for television. (4.2 %) 207 votes

Ok…Ok, I’m going to get back on track with blogging. I really miss it but I just have been so busy that I never seem to find the time. But I’m rededicating myself as of right NOW!



James is my son that I have been writing about with the headaches. He still has not found any relief and has just learned to live with the headache. He seems to of adapted pretty well. He is even running track for the freshmen team. Last Thursday was the first practice meet with three other schools attending. James is a sprinter so he ran the 100 and 200 meter races first. He came in second in the 200 meter and 5th in the 100 meter but had a little slip at the beginning of the race.



When it was time for the 400 meter, James’s coach told him to run the race at the last minute. James told the coach that he isn’t a long distance runner and the coach told him to get in there. As he was walking over to the starting line he was asking his teammates if he was supposed to sprint the whole way or what? I really don’t think he knew how long 400 meters was. His teammates told him to sprint the whole way. So he did. He came in first place and beat the teams best long distance runner. Needless to say he has now added the 400 meter race to his lineup.