Torches at High Noon: A Fog Machine, Power Lines, An Angry Extra and Brigham Young’s Electric Boogaloo

[Marcus]

I, and 1300 others, tuned in to the latest episode over the last 14 hours.

Nielsen ratings are based off a survey of 40,000 TV viewers across the country. A “ten-share” is business speak for ten percent of TV viewers in a given night tuning into a particular program.

“Becoming Brigham” then, has about a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a tenth share of all Mormon viewers last night.

Peterson is sounding a little desperate…

Amusingly, my Malevolent Stalker, who will soon enter into his second quarter of a century of anonymously denigrating and attacking me and all my works, occasionally likes to dismiss the Interpreter Foundation as nothing more than my personal vanity blog. And he’s completely justified in doing so, provided that one defines a blog as an organization that, among other things, publishes peer-reviewed articles every week, produces large and serious books, sponsors massive scholarly projects, convenes conferences, and creates films and provided that one defines personal as involving scores and scores and scores of people.

Okay Dan. You’re a titan of Mormon scholarship who will remembered for generations. Do you feel better now? Are you aware that your self indulgent rants about your own importance, victim hood, and popularity, are sounding very “Toddler In Chief” these days?

None of DCP's links in the above paragraph work. For example, his 'peer reviewed articles' link takes one to a page titled "not found," ironically enough.

[drumdude]

LOL

[I Have Questions]

LOL

I think people must be getting tired of Peterson constantly yapping away at them as if what he is doing should be the most important thing in everyone else's life. His leadership and promotion of Interpreter's efforts is actually a net negative. He is putting more people off being interested than he is attracting. Were he to step away from Interpreter to go abroad to serve a senior mission for a couple of years, it would be interesting to see if Interpreter faltered or flourished. Interpreter is suffering from Peterson's toxic apologetics and "Me, Me, Me, Me..." syndrome, just like was recognised at the Maxwell Institute back in 2011/12. Maxwell made the change and apologetics at BYU has flourished since. Interpreter could do worse than hire a Gerald Bradford type as President in order to change the current direction of travel.

[Kishkumen]

I plan to watch all of these. I have been particularly busy lately, but, honestly, I do not understand why more people don't watch them. I found the first couple of segments in the series to be interesting viewing. Do I agree with their take on Brigham Young? Not really, but I learned something nonetheless, and I am prompted to temper some of my negative views of Brigham. Here's the thing: Brigham did things that I just can't abide by. So, sure, someone can make him out to be less of the dour tyrant I imagined, but I doubt I will ever like the guy. I have too many objections to fundamental aspects of his history.

[huckelberry]

I think people must be getting tired of Peterson constantly yapping away at them as if what he is doing should be the most important thing in everyone else's life. His leadership and promotion of Interpreter's efforts is actually a net negative. He is putting more people off being interested than he is attracting. Were he to step away from Interpreter to go abroad to serve a senior mission for a couple of years, it would be interesting to see if Interpreter faltered or flourished. Interpreter is suffering from Peterson's toxic apologetics and "Me, Me, Me, Me..." syndrome, just like was recognised at the Maxwell Institute back in 2011/12. Maxwell made the change and apologetics at BYU has flourished since. Interpreter could do worse than hire a Gerald Bradford type as President in order to change the current direction of travel.

I was not aware of flourishing apologetics at BYU. There certainly could be. Perhaps it is too bad we pretty much hear here only Peterson , Peterson, Peterson and MGs personality.

[huckelberry]

I plan to watch all of these. I have been particularly busy lately, but, honestly, I do not understand why more people don't watch them. I found the first couple of segments in the series to be interesting viewing. Do I agree with their take on Brigham Young? Not really, but I learned something nonetheless, and I am prompted to temper some of my negative views of Brigham. Here's the thing: Brigham did things that I just can't abide by. So, sure, someone can make him out to be less of the dour tyrant I imagined, but I doubt I will ever like the guy. I have too many objections to fundamental aspects of his history.

Kishkumen, your recommendation is enough to make me consider watching. Brigham Young is such a formative figure for Mormonism that one can hardly be interested in the subject and not have some interest in the individual. What Mormonism is is significantly a product of him is it not?

[Kishkumen]

Kishkumen, your recommendation is enough to make me consider watching. Brigham Young is such a formative figure for Mormonism that one can hardly be interested in the subject and not have some interest in the individual. What Mormonism is is significantly a product of him is it not?

Joseph Smith was very much an ideas man, and he relied on others to implement what he created. Not entirely, of course, but substantially nonetheless. Brigham Young fought to implement Joseph Smith's ideas, and, being a tough customer with a lot of drive, he succeeded where Smith himself probably would not have. Still, I think there was a kind of hardening in Young's approach. I lay at his doorstep the demotion of Mormon women back to a second-class status where they remain today. Smith, I think, had loftier ideas regarding woman-power in Mormonism, which conflicted somewhat with the trajectory of polygamy. I think Brigham could see that the conflict would blow up, so he demoted the Relief Society.

[Doctor Scratch]

I plan to watch all of these. I have been particularly busy lately, but, honestly, I do not understand why more people don't watch them. I found the first couple of segments in the series to be interesting viewing. Do I agree with their take on Brigham Young? Not really, but I learned something nonetheless, and I am prompted to temper some of my negative views of Brigham. Here's the thing: Brigham did things that I just can't abide by. So, sure, someone can make him out to be less of the dour tyrant I imagined, but I doubt I will ever like the guy. I have too many objections to fundamental aspects of his history.

With all due respect, Reverend: my hope is that, with the time that you would spend watching Bowdlerizing Brigham, you would instead devote that time to treating us with some new episodes of Coffee with Kish, which, in my humble opinion, is a far better production. While I think all of us could benefit from your critique of BB, CWK is valuable, too, and I think the comparison with BB is useful. I mean, your top episodes have ~800 views compared to the roughly ~4,500 or so views of the typical BB episode, and yet you are operating on a shoestring budget, and are a one-man show, with no extra crew members helping you out. You certainly didn't drain donors' pockets to the tune of $10,000 so that you could fly around the country and eat pizza and drink Gatorade, though I certainly would be intrigued to see what would happen with CWK if you *did* have 10K to utilize....

[I Have Questions]

I think people must be getting tired of Peterson constantly yapping away at them as if what he is doing should be the most important thing in everyone else's life. His leadership and promotion of Interpreter's efforts is actually a net negative. He is putting more people off being interested than he is attracting. Were he to step away from Interpreter to go abroad to serve a senior mission for a couple of years, it would be interesting to see if Interpreter faltered or flourished. Interpreter is suffering from Peterson's toxic apologetics and "Me, Me, Me, Me..." syndrome, just like was recognised at the Maxwell Institute back in 2011/12. Maxwell made the change and apologetics at BYU has flourished since. Interpreter could do worse than hire a Gerald Bradford type as President in order to change the current direction of travel.

I was not aware of flourishing apologetics at BYU. There certainly could be.

They've moved away from attack dog apologetics, and now deliver what might be termed support materials for members. They’ve recognised that apologetics is a largely pointless exercise in terms of building or saving faith, so they’ve shifted to religious scholarship. It’s quality output.


https://mi.BYU.edu/

[Kishkumen]

With all due respect, Reverend: my hope is that, with the time that you would spend watching Bowdlerizing Brigham, you would instead devote that time to treating us with some new episodes of Coffee with Kish, which, in my humble opinion, is a far better production. While I think all of us could benefit from your critique of BB, CWK is valuable, too, and I think the comparison with BB is useful. I mean, your top episodes have ~800 views compared to the roughly ~4,500 or so views of the typical BB episode, and yet you are operating on a shoestring budget, and are a one-man show, with no extra crew members helping you out. You certainly didn't drain donors' pockets to the tune of $10,000 so that you could fly around the country and eat pizza and drink Gatorade, though I certainly would be intrigued to see what would happen with CWK if you *did* have 10K to utilize....

Sigh. Yeah. I really regret how that all turned out. Life got in the way, so to speak. My son moved into my tiny condo so that I could help him find his way in college, and my spare time to make CWK totally evaporated. Someday, I may come back to it. CWK was fun, but it could also be a pain in the ass at the same time. It takes a lot of practice, thought, effort, and time to make a good YouTube episode, and I suppose with time I could pull it off, but, at present, time is something I simply do not have. Still, I may pump out some special episodes now and then. I will advertise them here.