OK, so this video clip isn't new. The 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Utah happened, well, in 2002. We think the clip is still funny.

Separate church from state. And vice versa. Ultimately and inevitably, a church influencing the state and a state influencing a church become one and the same. Just as ultimately and just as inevitably, intermingling the two must abridge someone’s freedom to worship or not, and to financially support or not, as he or she pleases.

Cheryl writes ...

“LOVE your book. Made me laugh and cry. DH loved it, too. So glad you've found peace/happiness and your sense of humor's intact.”

And Debbie writes:

“One of the funniest most entertaining books my husband and I have ever read ... sometimes we had to stop reading we were laughing so hard. The author of this true story -- Joanne Hanks -- has a great way of bringing out the humor in even the most trying and difficult times of her life.”

Thank you, Cheryl and Debbie. We LOVE hearing from our readers!

Sooner or later someone says, “Just a darned minute. Are you calling my religion a cult?”

Maybe, maybe not. Not all religions are cults. (For that matter, not all cults are religions, either.)

To help people decide for themselves just how cult-like (or not) their belief system may be (or not), we’ve added a page to this site that describes common defining characteristics of cults. You’ll find a link on this blog page at right, after “Categories.” Or just click here.

A reader sent us this kind but also sad comment:

“Great book! I lost my husband to the TLC back 2008. It’s been very difficult to understand why he left. A friend of mine told me about your book and your past with the TLC. Do you plan on writing more?”

Thanks for the nice comment. We were sorry to learn about your husband. We certainly hope to be writing more. Stay tuned ...

Twin sisters and PhD candidates Lindsay and Lexie Kite co-founded an activist organization called Beauty Redefined, purportedly to fight negative female body images presented in the media.

Among other activities, they manufacture and sell post-it notes imprinted with phrases like "You are capable of much more than looking hot," and then encourage concerned citizens to purchase and stick them on public bathroom mirrors.

More recently, they have been encouraging supporters to use the notes to cover up the naughty parts of women in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

The Kites call it an empowerment campaign. In the Sports Illustrated pictorials, complains Lindsay Kite, women “... are posed in extremely provocative ways, the same type of positioning that’s in pornography.” Lexie agrees. “Maybe it’s time,” she says, “to gently remind them that there’s more to women than just being hot.”

Their rhetoric may have the sound of a laudable goal until you start thinking through this latest tactic. (Or when you visit their website and note the professionally shot, expertly retouched photo they have posted of themselves.)

Let’s be honest. This effort sends no message to Sports Illustrated. Nor will it, for there is nothing new about locals covering up pictures they deem racy. The accusation that photos use “the same positioning that’s in pornography”—a standard wide enough to drive a truck, many wedding portraits and not a few family pictures through—betrays the Kites as less interested in affirmation and more interested in telling women how to dress. Telling women to dress modestly is not the same message as “you are capable of much more than looking hot” (which we admit is a good reminder). Finally, to position sexiness and “capable of doing much more” as mutually exclusive promotes a sexist stereotype in its own right.

Just as creationists dress up their nonsense in vain hopes of making it pass for science, we cannot help but wonder if the Kites are trying to dress up Mormon prudery to look like women’s advocacy. If so, one must concede some irony. There is hardly a more sexist organization than the Mormon church. Read more about the Kites and the stickers in the Salt Lake Tribune by clicking here.

CartoonStock offers a handful of in-good-fun Mormon related cartoons. (Although we admit that what is and is not “in good fun” is in the eye of the beholder.) Our favorite? “Brigham Young’s worst nightmare,” which you'll find if you click here and scroll about halfway down the page.