Sunday in Outer Blogness: Appreciation Edition!

Outer Blogness is popping up all over!! By that I mean that people are actually starting to put the lovely list script in their sidebars! The first one (from way back) was the popular atheist group blog Unscrewing the Incrutable, but more recently others have done the same: Jesus’ General, Soul Threads, My Secret Garden, and (well, I can’t tell if this one is using the script or not, but close enough) What I Want to Say. Unlike Mojoey’s Famous Atheist Blogroll, I don’t require people to post this list in order to be on it, but I do appreciate it quite a lot. If you’re linking here to Main Street Plaza and/or to the Outer Blogness list page and/or to your favorite subset of the cultural Mormon blogs, that’s already helpful for this fun little community! But please let me give a little pitch for adding this script to your sidebar: it constantly displays the twenty-six most recently updated blogs, so you can click through your own sidebar to see the latest interesting exmo/post-mo/DAMU thought, I’m very careful about keeping the list updated — so you don’t have to worry about deleting the dead links and finding the new ones, and — most importantly — I paid a whole twenty bucks for this service, so I hope people appreciate it! 😉

But seriously, let’s move on to this week’s highlights:

First, a heart-rending story about “the proclimation on the family” and its effects on real-life families. Simeon is doing his best to keep the peace with his TBM wife, and has an interesting dream which was subtle way for his subconscious to make it very clear to him that there is no way in hell to make nice with a cult. Another husband, in a similar situation, writes a letter to help his Mormon wife in her calling-requires-husband’s-permission situation. We have another new-yet-familiar exit story as a search for forgiveness (on the Internet…) led to finding some rather surprising information. Jesus’ General has another most helpful review (that you can help by voting for) about the book that terrifies the ACLU. And, in the department of “why are the Jews so much like Mormons???” we have how smart intellectuals believe.

There were quite a number of interesting political topics this week. First, check out this jaw-dropping video about fetuses having more “personhood” then women. Then a sarcastic video in which a lesbian apologizes to all the people she hurt by marrying her soul-mate. On a related note, we have a fabulous marketing campaign in the pope said ‘no’ condoms! In the department of “faithful Mormons are cool”, the Salt Lake Temple went dark for Earth Hour!!! See the video! And, while you’re at it, check out Green Mormon Architect’s new blog about sustainability-focused architecture in SLC! On a related (?) note, my European SiL reports on astonishingly large vehicles at her local auto-show (well, local now that she’s moved to the U.S.). And, in the Texas bored-of-education department, we learn about how teaching science is all about sowing atheism. Does science really have the best explanation for everything? I don’t know, but ask Evolutionary Middleman.

Well, that’s it for this week! Tune in next week, as Nurse Piggy asks “Dr. Bob, does ‘Veterinarian’s Hospital’ really have anything to do with Mormonism?”