See . . . I do work . . .

Here I am in my office in Magna. Great view. Can you see Antelope Island to the right of the center bar in the window? Dr. Keming Zhou, one of the managers for whom I am secretary, who took this photo, said that a messy desk is a sign of intelligence. I must be very intelligent. I'll be here until September 25. On September 29 I report to Daybreak at 114th South and 47th West. To a cubicle without dividing walls, facing the back of someone's head, or, if I turn to the right, the parking garage. They weren't going to give us waste baskets--they wanted us to take our trash to the recycling bins--but the hysterical laughter of employees forced them to rescind that edict. The new office is 10 miles further from home--one way.

Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged

I've rethought my August 31 judgment of this sunflower. I thought it was mostly show with little substance. But I erred. I was impatient. I assumed that, like the parent/grandparent sunflower, this sunflower would have only one flower. This sunflower has at least 11 flowers. Its beauty is equal to if not surpassing the one large sunflower. I compare the large sunflower to someone like Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine. What Dr. Salk did was wonderful, but we only need one Dr. Salk. Most of us are like this sunflower--just as one of our acts cannot compare to Dr. Salk's polio vaccine, our accumulated daily deeds of kindness and selflessness can equal the result of Dr. Salk's important work and are just as important to those with whom we associate.

The Lord loves variety--in the animal kingdom, in the plant kingdom, in geography, in weather, and in people. He has blessed each of us with gifts to bless the lives of others--gifts that no one else has and no one else can bestow.

Hugh Nibley, in is book "Temple and Cosmos" (page 292), wrote: "The individuality of each star contributes to the whole of the night sky. Each has its particular part to play, and because of its uniqueness, makes a contribution of maximum value--which it couldn't do if it were just like every other star. Be a star! Don't be like anybody else. Be different. Then you can make a contribution. Otherwise, you just echo something; you're just a reflection."

So don't be jealous of others. Don't undervalue yourself. Rejoice in who you are--whether you are the large one-flower sunflower or the sunflower with a dozen smaller flowers.

President David O. McKay's son dies

President David O. McKay's penultimate ("second to the last"--one of my favorite words) surviving child, Edward Riggs McKay, passed away on September 5 at the age of 93. President McKay was the prophet of my youth. He died in 1970 at the age of 96, after serving as president of the Church for 19 years. When he died, there were almost 3 million members of the Church, and half of them had never known any other prophet.

A vote for the hyphen (-)

I had a hard time reading a headline in the Tribune this morning: "New Utah Law Enforcement Memorial". I read "New Utah Law" and wondered what the new Utah law was, and then I read "Enforcement Memorial" and couldn't quite make sense of that. Then I realized it should have read "New Utah Law-Enforcement Memorial".

Rio Tinto (parent company of Kennecott) has recently issued new "writing-style" guidelines. Of several edicts with which I cannot comply (because I'm a punctuation purist) is one to limit use of the hyphen. As I explained to the instructor and participants of the workshop delineating the new guidelines, "If you ask for a 'red hot momma', you may get a sunburned woman with children who's having hot flashes and not the 'red-hot momma' you were expecting".

My favorite book on the subject of punctuation is "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss. From that book, I learned that I love the Oxford comma ("peaches, pears, and apples" instead of "peaches, pears and apples") and that Mr and Mrs don't require a period. (Abbreviations where the last letter of the word and the last letter of the abbreviation are the same do not require a period, regardless of what Microsoft's spell check might say.)

Another grammar-type book that I love is "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog", a hilarious history of diagramming.