Laird Hamblin

Family Strength

Family is someone who cares about someone else and cares for them. Family may be a birth parent or child, a non birth parent or child, a mentor, a neighbor, a companion or a friend. I have not born children. I have held infants next to my heart, as I sang my songs to them, comforting them in the NICU of a children’s hospital. I have not raised children. I have listened to the fears and joys of kindergartners, as a mentor, teacher and friend, guiding them, guided by them. Men and women, boys and girls, each have unique and overlapping strengths and abilities to apply for each other. Lifting, comforting, guiding, enjoying each other in families and in neighborhoods, across continents and over oceans in this increasingly interconnected human family.

Families and Government

• Government should not determine families.

• Families should determine the government.

• Marriage is a personal, religious practice.

• Government should not affect, effect or direct marriage. It should only protect marriage.

Kindness Quotient

Kindness is our physical, spiritual, inherent nature. We are all born kind. As I hold infants in the Neo Intensive Care Unit at Primary Children’s Hospital, comforting them, singing my songs to them, I notice how they respond to me and to each other. When a child vocalizes in fear, pain, or delight, other children respond in kind, with crying in fear or laughing in delight. As I assist kindergartners at Mary Jackson Elementary, I observe their kindness and care for each other. When a child needs something, other children immediately respond to meet their need.

Our kindness can be stifled by experience or training.

Tragically, we often stifle children’s kindness, as we prohibit them from helping each other and when we make everything a competition. We, the people of this nation of united states, can increase our kindness quotient by not inhibiting, but encouraging our inherent kindness.

• We can replace competition with cooperation.

• If we choose a winner, we have chosen losers.

• We can promote cooperation in families, in communities, in education, occupations.

We can continue, or return to, our inherent kindness!

SUICIDE? WHY?

We are all born excited about life, most of us are able to breathe and move, able to see touch, smell and hear. We arrive ready to learn and appreciative of our body. If our environment is safe and our needs are met, we can innocently continue developing our life skills, with appreciation for each new experience and new understanding. We appreciate ourselves, and seek interactions with everyone and everything we encounter, evaluating what and who is dangerous and may cause us harm, and what and who is safe and will meet our needs. When does all that change? When do we start too compare our self to others? When do we stop loving and appreciating our body, our self, our life?

Physiological anomalies can cause our experience here too be strange or painful. I think, though, it is our interactions with others which influence our perception of our self. Our culture is very competitive and comparative. From infancy we are evaluated by family, friends and strangers, who are taught in our culture to place everyone on a comparative scale of beauty, strength, intelligence and accomplishment. No matter where we are placed on that scale, we feel we are not where, what or who we should be. We emphasize with children that they are getting: big, so tall,so smart…, as though there is some ideal age, shape, knowledge or such that we must obtain to be what we are supposed to be, know or become. I met an elderly woman, who was revered by her neighbors for her incredible health and ability while over 90 years old. One day I heard her complain to a neighbor that she felt old and wrinkled, as though she had no beauty and very little worth. I was saddened by her statement and I tried to encourage her that she was still beautiful and of great value. I’ve come to realize that we spend the first half of our lives desperately trying to arrive at being the ideal person, we are supposed to become. Then, at some point we decide we must have missed becoming that person and we spend the rest of our life looking back, wondering when we missed it. So, I emphasize with children, elderly persons, and everyone in between, that, whatever age we are now, is the right age to be while we are there! That, every age has difficulties, and every age has wonderful things to learn, experience and be! I always emphasize to children, and to everyone, their kindness. From infancy onward our culture emphasizes boys strength and girls physical characteristics, and how closely those features align with whatever the current fallacy is about what an ideal body should be. I tell them that kindness is the most important thing to be, and that kindness is a great gift to have, and to give. I then emphasize to everyone, that they are intelligent. And I tell them that being intelligent is an important thing to be as well. And that being kind and smart is a great combination that allows them to accomplish great things, if they choose to do so. I sometimes also then emphasize that wisdom is a choice, not just a consequence of experience or age. Some people arrive wise at birth, some people live a long life, and somehow avoid becoming wise.

I recently heard how frequent the tragic occurrence is of children in Utah killing their selves. Hopefully, if any children in our lives are prone to do so, they know we care, that at least one person in their life cares about them, and values their uniqueness!

It is my observation, especially last year, as I assisted kindergarten students, that everyone arrives kind at birth. It is our inherent physical and spiritual nature. I concluded similarly as I observed infant children, while I comforted them in the Neo Intensive Care Unit at Primary Children’s Hospital, singing my song-rhymes to them as I held and gently rocked them. When one infant child cries, others cry in empathy and fear. When one infant smiles or laughs, other infant children smile and laugh. When a child in kindergarten needs anything, other children in the kindergarten immediately respond to assist or provide what is needed. If a child needs a pencil, crayon or eraser, children immediately offer theirs. If a child doesn’t know an answer, others immediately provide them the answer. I also sadly observed that this kindness is stifled in our schools. When a child needs a pencil or such, teachers sometimes stop other children from helping, because they blame the child for the loss or destruction thereof. When a child doesn’t know an answer, and they are suffering tremendous, destructive anxiety, the children who try to assist are reprimanded for doing so. Yet, their compassion is so great, that I have happily seen them still persist in quietly trying to rescue the desperate child with the needed answer. This year, as I got one very brief moment to assist kindergartners, I showed them the word kindergarten and explained that it was originally a German word meaning child’s garden. I then noticed, as I showed the two parts to this compound word, that the first word contains within it the English word kind, so I showed them this, and I told them each that they are kind. Years ago, as I was given the opportunity to teach young children in a church, I was delighted and excited to teach them all I have learned in life. As I did, I soon realized that they were teaching me all I had forgotten in life! They still knew how to cry and laugh, to sing and dance, and so much more! All these joyful, inherent aspects of our natures have been ruled out of us by a culture that shames and blames, competes and compares, controls and contorts us away from freely expressing ourselves!

We are all suffering post-traumatic-stress-injury from a culture which relentlessly pushes us away from ourselves.

Surely, one of the most important things we can do to find hope for those in despair, is to help them return to the hope they once had! To remind us each, as the children did for me, to cry and laugh, to sing and to dance, to love life and learning again, to love others again and express it, and to again love our unique self.

I’m your neighbor, I’m your brother, I care about you! Thank you for your kindness! I hope happiness for you today and each day! What can we do? What can a Senator do? We can ask questions and find answers! That’s what scientists, scholars, saints and searchers do! That’s what effective senators do!

Health Care or Don’t Care?

Do we want our current Don’t Care! system? Or do we want Health Care! Midwinter in 1935, a physician traveled in a horse drawn buggy to my grandparent’s dairy farm in Mountwell, Utah, to assist in the birth of my father. The physician charged them $17. At an average wage of 48 cents per hour in the mountain western US in 1935, a laborer would work 35.42 hours to pay the physician. A birth without complications at the nearest hospital currently begins at approximately $3400. At $18 per hour, a parent would have to work 188.8 hours to pay the physician and hospital. When my father was born there where very few prescriptions available. A Ute woman gave grandmother a tea which helped ease the pain of one of her births. Today, my inflammatory immune system is controlled by a prescription biologic which costs approximately $23,000 for a tiny 90 mg/ml shot, self injected monthly. A custodian at an elementary School in Utah became concerned one evening when his daughter complained that her head hurt. He enquired further and learned that his young daughter had fallen at school. It was then late in the evening and he determined he needed to take his precious daughter to a hospital emergency ward for evaluation. A physician asked her questions, gave her a simple pain pill, told her father what signs of brain trauma to watch for, and sent them home. This father has insurance but was still billed approximately $1900 for his daughters brief visit to the emergency ward. Why must a father, already paying monthly premiums for work provided insurance, have to choose between meeting the family’s basic financial needs and taking his daughter, with a possible brain injury, to an emergency ward? A child in a Utah elementary school recently told me that she is afraid of needles, especially the large needle of an epinephrine injection device, which will save her life if she experiences an anaphylactic shock from her allergy to peanuts. She is currently more afraid, though, of dying from anaphylaxis, because her family can’t afford to purchase an EpiPen®, the brand name auto-injection device which could deliver epinephrine (adrenaline) into her bloodstream, countering her body’s over-reactive immune response. She said the device would cost her family $500! An EpiPen® cost the company about $8 to produce in 2016 according to an independent study,(a). Who pays the exorbitant costs of healthcare? Most medicines now, especially such expensive medicines, are only available by insurance or pharmaceutical corporation charity programs. Most medical care now is only available by insurance or hospital charity programs. Many citizens of our nation go without critical medicines and health care or are entirely impoverished by these contemptible expenses. Many people in our nation and our government are being impoverished by this greed!

Access to health care is a fundamental human need, which should not be limited by income or social status.

Aristocracy or Democracy?

Government of the people, by the people has often been intercepted by wealthy persons with personal agendas.

We, The People of This Nation

Citizens of the United States have always contested whether precedence should be given to nation, state, city, group, family or person. Or if any of these can succeed without the other.

We, The People will never be united in perspective, but we can be united in purpose! It is our varied perspectives which, together, create a tremendous cumulative wisdom. It is our united purpose which allows us to apply that cumulative wisdom to great benefit of us all. I am happy that I can travel throughout this nation at will. There are no borders to cross, requiring a pass, pay-off, or delay. I have recourse and redress if something goes amiss. We have agreed upon rules and laws, set by We, The People. There are always rules! Sometimes, the rules are written by the person with the most money; sometimes, they are set by the person with the most effective weapons, or the most powerful army. Always, the rules are set by the most powerful person or group. We, The People, when we are united, are the most powerful group. In a democracy by the people, we set agreed upon rules, laws, by which we govern ourselves. If We, The People relinquish our opportunity to set the rules, then some powerful person will set the rules to advantage theirself. Occasionally, laws in our nation, states, and other governments have been set by persons, having egregious selfish influence upon the lawmaking process.Any selfish influence upon our laws by a person can only succeed by the compliance of persons in office.It is paramount that our elections place people who will truly represent The People of our nation.I promise that any Senate seat I sit in is not for sale!

Our nation’s succinct starting statement still sufficiently stands in simple eloquence:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Surely, it is the strength of our nation which allows each individual person to thrive, along with their family, amidst their groups, abiding in safe cities, in any state of our nation of the United States of America.

Taxes

Render Unto Caesar!

As a child, I was always delighted to see the lights of Salt Lake City, as we drove out of Parley’s Canyon and suddenly the entire Salt Lake Valley was before us. Each time I arrived, I thought about the incredible cooperation necessary for so many people to live near each other and create the immense infrastructure necessary in a large city. Now, living in Salt Lake City, I am still impressed at the cooperation of people utilizing the same spaces, sharing the sidewalks, roadways, parks and other public infrastructure. As I ponder the creation and maintenance of public spaces, I realize the importance of each person doing their part. If we each do our part, to put a small portion of our income towards the creation and maintenance of walkways, roadways, and parkways; water lines sewer lines and power lines; then there are sufficient resources to create and maintain them. Each of us utilize these things. It is critical that we each assist therewith. The street musician who earns $10, standing on a sidewalk uplifting passers by with their songs, can pay a percentage of their earnings to assist in the maintenance of that sidewalk. The farmer who earns $100 selling fruit at a market in the park, can pay the same percentage of their earnings to assist in the maintenance of that public park. The book seller, who earns $1000 selling books to take us around the world in words, can pay the same percentage of their earnings to pay for the power poles and wires which bring the light for readers to see each word on those precious pages. The superintendent over shops sewing sleeves on shirts and soles on shoes and the workers who work there as well each day, earning $10,000 in pay, can put the same percentage of their earnings in play, to maintain the buses and trains, which transport the workers each way. The corporation which gets $100,000 selling phones and computers in stores everywhere, so families stay connected, can pay their same percentage to maintain the highways to carry the phones and computers from here to there. The entrepreneur, who’s idea succeeds, who sells that idea for $1,000,000, or receives that amount from shipping goods to places near and places far away, can pay that same percentage therefrom, to pay for the interstates and airports to transport the items to glistening cities somewhere nearby and somewhere over the sea. It has been said that if we give a little more to the billionaires they will then have enough to be benevolent. The excuse is that, because they are rich, they must know how to work with money! NO!

They know how to collect money.

They don’t work with money.

They don’t use money.

They only collect money!

Those who know how to work with money don’t collect it. They use it.

When the teacher in a public school receives monetary compensation for their efforts to teach children numbers and letters and how to use them in mathematical equations and to write words and sentences; the teacher uses some of their wage to purchase organic fruit from their neighbor who is a farmer; the farmer then pays the neighbor who is a mechanic to fix his tractor; the mechanic pays the neighbor to is a carpenter to build a table for his family, to eat upon it their dinner of vegetables from the neighbor farmer, and beds for the children to sleep in, so that they will be nourished and rested sufficiently to learn letters and remember numbers in school. That is how money is utilized! And if these neighbors are wise, they will each have a small savings in preparation for a moment of need. It is common for religions to request an amount from each parishioner or disciple to cover costs of infrastructure or assist those in need. For thousands of years a tenth of all increase has been required of each practitioner in some religions. Equally required of the widow with only a mite and the wealthy merchant who clangs his glistening coins into the coffer for one last listen to his lucre. Why do we not allow the widow to do her part? Why do we not require the wealthy to do their part? We have allowed a system to be pushed into place in which the middle wage earner is assisting those physically unable to assist themselves, the poor who will always be among us; and propping up the aristocrats and oligarchs who have lobbied themselves away from paying any taxes at all into the national structure which allowed them the pathway, safety and security to accumulate that wealth. If God asks equal recompense from all who utilize the world He created for us to thrive in; we would be fools to let the wealthy keep their entire collection of coins, gathered through the infrastructure of our nation, established for We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranqulity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….

MONEY, Source, Course

The Source of money always impacts the Course of action by the recipient of that money!

Over 90% of campaign donations for some Utah races are received from special interest PACs outside of Utah! As a biologist I sometimes study plants. Some plants extend their roots great distances to reach sources of water. Tracers placed in a water source can identify which plants are accessing that water source. Politicians often extend their reach to distant places in search of money. The bills passed by Senators and Representatives similarly show the source of their funding.

A candidate receiving campaign donations from throughout Utah will listen to and respond to constituents throughout Utah!

Limit Terms

With 329.5 million people in the United States, no one person is more capable than the other 329.5 million to be President more than once, a Judge more than 14 years (3.5 Presidential terms), a Senator or Representative more than 12 years!

We have nearly 3.3 million residents in Utah. Choosing a frustrating candidate several times is like having 3.3 million shoes but wearing the same poorly fitting shoes, which hurt your feet! Many Senators and Representatives are fond of saying that elections can limit terms. Senators and Representatives, funding their campaigns with millions of dollars from special interest groups, can stay in office for many years, in spite of low approval ratings by their constituents. Sometimes, when a politician who has served for a long time eventually dies, their body is put on display in the Capital Rotunda. So many have served for so long now that it is difficult to tell who the dead politician is.

Electrify All

We can send a vehicle thousands of miles through space to land on a distant planet and rove around upon it for years doing scientific research, all powered by the distant sun. Our sun shines constantly upon Earth with sufficient energy to power all systems hereon, yet we are burning energy which landed upon Earth thousands of years ago, accumulated in living organisms and buried during past mass extinction events caused by past climactic changes. Ironically, our burning of these buried carbons is causing another climactic change and the resultant mass extinction event. Each home should have solar panels providing their basic electrical needs, with battery storage sufficient to power the home when the panels are not collecting electricity. Every vehicle of transportation should be powered by electricity.

About Guns!

Whether the weapon is a weathered stone, walking stick, firearm, or tool of warfare, the underlying animosity is what needs to be addressed. I grew up on our family’s small farm in the Uinta Basin. My brothers and I hunted pheasants, rabbits, deer and other animals in the remote Uinta Basin desert and rugged Uinta Mountains, and fished the wild streams there. So, I guess I do believe in gun control, I brace my arms, take a deep breath, carefully squeeze the trigger, and skillfully hit the intended mark. As a child, I only shot at something I intended to consume. I love being in the midst of nature. Harming any living thing without need to do so, goes against our inherent human spirit. Whenever I heard children or adults brag about brutality towards any life, it always seemed they were trying to meet some deviant standard of behavior. Any other reason for such talk and action would indicate that someone was frighteningly damaged and dangerous. I always sorrowed for the pain caused in taking a life. Now that I have endured some painful illnesses, I have stopped inflicting that pain on any other living thing. I still have my hunting firearms and I admire the craftsmanship and mechanical ingenuity to create a device that can contain an explosion, directing it to propel an object in an intended trajectory. I am also intrigued with the mechanics of a tool which can utilize the force of an exploding cartridge to also eject the spent shell and place a loaded cartridge in position to be fired. So, I can understand the intrigue of firing a device that can shoot multiple rounds in an instant. But I can never understand someone doing so with the intent to harm anyone. Such weapons are not designed to defend, but to assault. Since I never intend to assault anyone, I see no need for me to own a weapon intended and designed for that purpose. There are many myths in all directions about firearms. Many of these myths were products of film makers. An old article I found in a Southern Utah newspaper tells of the death of a young man, who had a habit of practicing quick-draw with a hand gun, replicating what he was seeing in the movies of the early twentieth century. No one was present at his tragic death, but all indications were that it was from an accidentally self inflicted wound from his mimicry of movie maneuvers. A story recorded in old news papers of the Uinta Basin tells of a man who noticed an acquaintance of his robbing someone at gun point. Since neither the man being robbed or the man who happened by had any weapons on them, the passer-by went into a store and borrowed a rifle. He then went out to confront the man who was robbing, (who had actually boarded temporarily at his farm home in Deep Creek). When he asked the man he knew, to put down the weapon and stop the robbery, the robber said maybe I should shoot you instead, and proceeded to do so, then ran, with the wounded man shooting at him. The man who came to help, died of his wounds, and the man who’d attempted robbery, recovered from his wounds, and spent his next years in the Utah State Prison. Such was the real west. Most people were going about daily life, farming, ranching or working in town. No one carried weapons, but an occasional person with ill intent. Armed conflicts were very rare, as a reading of old news stories succinctly verifies. Life in the old west required tremendous cooperation. Farmers and ranchers worked together to build and maintain canals and reservoirs, then plant and harvest yearly crops. People in towns and cities worked together to maintain infrastructures and each ply their trade on behalf of the community. Belongings were sparse in the past. Probate records, such as are found in the vast collection in the Latter-day Saint Family History Library, list all the items passed from one generation to the next upon the death of a family member. I am always amazed at the minimal list of belongings, all of which were basic to the daily needs, such as a table, chairs, some bowls and spoons, a saddle, a few tools. I never saw any weapons listed.Any attempt to mass produce firearms was headed for quick oblivion, until the United States Government purchased weapons for soldiers. The mechanics of repeating rifles were developed for warfare. Machine guns, such as those produced by the Browning family who resided in Utah, were invented for war. Assault weapons, invented and designed for war are now at times implemented by disturbed, deluded individuals in crimes against children and families, who are merely going about in their innocent daily pursuits of life. Yet these weapons of warfare, used by individuals to assault people in their places of work, school, and worship, were designed long ago.With the invention of using explosive powder to propel an object through a pipe in a particular direction, it soon became a weapon.In the 1700’s attempts were made to create a device which could propel projectiles from multiple muzzle-loaded barrels at once or in succession. For purposes of defense or assault it is common for people to design tools which can propel objects simultaneously or in quick succession; a handful of rocks, a bag of rocks for a sling, a quiver of arrows, a platform with several arrows in place, a platform with muzzle-loading barrels, a bag of lead projectiles and horn full of powder, a paper cartridge with powder and projectile together, a breech-loading barrel, a metal cartridge case, a leaver to eject spent shells, a chamber to contain cartridges, a leaver to eject spent shells and insert a new cartridge sequentially, a mechanism to utilize the combustion energy to sequentially eject spent shells and insert new cartridges…and so forth, each new advance in technology making more effective weaponry to assault or defend. Such ravages are not new to this continent or to humanity. Conquistadors, Pilgrims, and other Europeans, used weapons of warfare to murder and assault American Tribes in their family shelters, places of worship and community villages. Tribes did so to other tribes. Africans were brutally taken from their families, homes, places of worship and villages, placed in chains, ferried on ships, enslaved to ensure leisure and wealth of others. Once freed from slavery, people of African heritage were murdered and assaulted in their homes, places of worship, and towns. What to us seems so new and appalling, isn’t new at all. But it is appalling, and needs to be stopped wherever, whenever and for whomever to it is occurring! I intend to keep my firearms, in case I wish, or need, to use them to obtain food, or protect myself, my family, or others. Yet, statistically, the likelihood of my killing a dangerous home-intruder or a violent assailant is very small. Statistically, the most likely person to die from my firearms or other weapons, is me, by accidental or intentional infliction of a wound! Next most likely is a child or other family member, then a neighbor child or adult, next an innocent stranger, each by accidental or intentional infliction of a wound by self, family, friend, neighbor or stranger. From the Biblical story of Cain slaying Able, to our recent attacks in schools and churches, it is hatred that needs to be halted, banned, and banished, by understanding, appreciation and love of each other, as brothers and sisters of one humanity, one family.

What about David?

It is common in politics to refer to the metaphor of David and Goliath. Whether you consider this a parable or probable, the lesson therein is not that a little person hurt a big person; the lesson is that a someone, in this case a young shepherd boy, realized that skills applied in other aspects of life are applicable in this new situation. What is the sling that I carry?My sling is Faith; faith in a God who orchestrates all things and has guided and directed my life; faith in humanity – the players in God’s orchestra, who have choice in what they do and who usually chose kindness; faith in the skills I have been given to play my part in life’s orchestra. What are the stones I will fling with this sling?Patience, perseverance, and persistence; Integrity, honesty and humility; Hopefulness, happiness and kindness. Families, Friends, Neighbors and Strangers. These are the stones that I have applied in life to accomplish all good things. These have allowed me to overcome illness; To displace doubt and kindle kindness; To learn and to teach; To grasp and hold fast when I reach; To know what is wrong and what is right; To dispel all darkness with light; To make a difference and change what I could; To overcome all that is bad by doing and being good;

Senators – like Kites!

Senators – like kites – can only soar when they are sufficiently tethered to home and when there is a steady wind from thence, directing them forward and upward. Insufficient attachment to the place whence they came and they will waft away, never looking back. In erratic winds with unsteady direction a kite will be torn into incoherent pieces or plunge downward. How does a kite stay tethered to the place it came from? How do winds prevail from the source to the destination? Today, it is easy – yet it is difficult too – to keep that connective tether taut, and active. With one glance at social media on a watch or phone, the distant kite and everyone at the place of tethering can see each other, and with one quick click they can comment, complain, or compliment. But it is not sporadic, erratic, emotional tweets and posts which keep a kite in place and soaring. It is steady, thoughtful, meaningful communications back and forth through those tethers, which allow the persons at home to direct the kite, keeping it in place, dancing it slightly back and forth in response to pulls from the tether, never swerving so far left or right that it can’t return to center, always attached to the place of origin, ignoring the steady taunts and selfish wants, always responding to the tugging needs and heartful pleads. I offer to be Your Senator in a kite-like flight of hope in the distant sky, ready to accomplish great things, never absconding, always responding, to your rightful, desiring tugs and purposeful, pulling persuasion. I’m ready to fly, just awaiting your signal to soar!

WAR!!

WE MUST NEVER WAGE WAR!!

WE MUST ALWAYS BE PREPARED AGAINST THOSE WHO DO WAGE WAR!!^[3]