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Thread: Do Mormons really affect you?
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03-20-2017, 06:27 AM #801
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03-20-2017, 03:35 PM #802
I lived in UT most my life... as a Catholic in the most mo-mo part of Scoopland. (Scoop is a derogatory term for Mormon... as in "when they're born, god opens up their skull and scoops out their brains"). I've also lived mountain towns in CA, ID, OR, and now WY. And mormons aren't nearly as irritating as born-agains or militant atheists I've worked with in those towns.
The only mormons that affected me were the ones I worked with.. and thats just because they're annoying and I can't stand the Utah accent when praising Brother-so-and-so or Bishop Fucktard and "choosing the right".
But get hurt that requires hospitalization... and even non-members get non-stop deliveries of casseroles, fruit leather, and funeral potatoes... they'll even do your chores while you're recovering. And they don't even leave any literature at your house when they're done.
If I ever move back to UT, the scoops there are negligible in my decision-making.
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03-20-2017, 04:10 PM #803
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03-20-2017, 04:18 PM #804
Uh, no. Scroll down a ways to Yearly Average AQI: http://slcair.communication.utah.edu/
Cleaner cars, less/cleaner industry, and reduced/restricted wood burning have led to demonstrably improved air quality. In the early 20th century a common job for teenage boys was sweeping the coal soot off the sidewalks downtown...multiple times per day. Of course, those improvements have largely come about because of Federal regulations and enforcement and State lawmakers are actively fighting further tightening of standards, but I digress.
That's not to say that when a winter inversion sets in hard it doesn't suck ass, but most of the time the air is just fine. Certainly no worse than any other major metro area of ~1M people on any given day.
It depends.
It is shameful, and odd considering the religion's focus on families and children, but it certainly doesn't translate to the worst schools in the country. Even within the state funding and performance don't go hand-in-hand. The lowest-spending district (Alpine) has some of the highest test scores. The highest-spending district (Daggett) spends almost triple what Alpine does per pupil and has some of the worst test scores. Now, average teacher salaries, those are abysmal across the board and there's no excuse for it.
Yeah, this. Mormonism has its own particularly hilarious quirks, and the historical tenets are more easily disproven since they didn't happen thousands of years ago. But, my list of grievances with it doesn't even come close to, say, Catholicism or Islam. Mormonism doesn't require the clergy to be celibate, doesn't oppose contraception, and to anyone's public knowledge so far has not perpetrated a global conspiracy to aid and abet multitudes of sexual predators.
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03-20-2017, 05:24 PM #805
Yeah, somebody above mentioned how the state is nearly last in education spending, battling the likes of Mississippi for the prize, and yet, the state sends a high proportion of kids to college, and many are multi linguistic, which, of course, is a result of missionary work, but, still. Community outreach can result in a lot.
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03-20-2017, 05:34 PM #806
Their strong family values might having something to do with the success of the Mormon kids and schooling. It's amazing the difference it makes when parents actually get involved with their kids studies and homework and kids have a comfortable and stable home life.
dirtbag, not a dentist
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03-20-2017, 05:35 PM #807
Yup.
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03-20-2017, 07:00 PM #808AF
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Actually Utah does just fine when it comes to school performance. Yes Utah spends the least per student of any state, in fact often by a large amount. But it would appear that per student spending has little correlation with how much kids learn. 17 states including Utah mandate taking the ACT test as a requirement for graduation. The other 33 states do not require the test. Obviously when you require the test you have many students that have no interest in attending college taking the test. Can't prove this but anecdotally I would guess this would raise the scores in the 33 other states These are the ACT composite test scores for 2014 and the $ spent per student
Illinois 20.8 $13,075
Colorado20.6 $9,000
Wisconsin 20.5 $11,185
Michigan 20.3 $11,100
North Dakota 20.3 $12,350
Montana 20.3 $11,000
Wyoming 20.2 $15,800
Utah 20.2 $6,500
Missouri 20.2 $9,275
Kentucky 20.0 $9,310
Tennessee 19.9 $8630
Louisiana 19.5 $10,750
Alabama 19.4 $9,100
North Carolina 19.1 $8300
Nevada 17.7 $8,414
South Carolina 18.5 $9,730
Mississippi 18.4 $8265
In looking at this data it would seem that Utah is getting the best bang for their buck. Wyoming decided to use mineral rights revenue to increase education spending significantly. They are now questioning the value as they have seen little if any improvement in student achievement. I have no explanation for why Utah does fairly well, is it possible the LDS culture, no alcohol, "strong families" etc play a role?
Is Illinois getting value for spending more than twice as much as Utah and seeing test scores only 3% higher?
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03-23-2017, 11:30 AM #809
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03-23-2017, 11:48 AM #810Registered User
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Well it's not like the states below Utah are known for good education.
But the standardized test(SAT) is almost as good of a college success marker as high school GPA, so it does speak about how well the students are prepared for college coursework. Can't speak about ACT, I have never taken it or can recall any studies about it. So it's definitely a lot more than that.
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03-23-2017, 06:45 PM #811
Performing comparably to the Kentucky on a standardized test isn't doing well. Utah does quite poorly on broad measures of student achievement: usually bottom 10. What's worse is that the state has relatively few students living below the poverty line or learning English as a second language. Ranking near Kentucky, Mississippi, etc., instead of Colorado is shameful.
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03-24-2017, 06:11 AM #812AF
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Ok, so a standardized college entrance exam in 17 states is not reliable. Lets look at math and reading scores as reported by the Feds.
4th grade reading scores in Utah are above the national average, Utah ranks 16th. In math Utah 8th graders score 244, the national average is 240 which puts Utah at 20th. In reading Utah 8th graders rank 16th.
I will reiterate that Utah does ok, not a star performer but pretty good.
https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
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03-24-2017, 07:21 AM #813
Is the right lane, the passing lane? Do they teach that in Utah? Opiate overdoses in small children has declined nationwide, except in _ _ _ _.
Did the last unsatisfied fat soccer mom you took to your mom's basement call you a fascist? -irul&ublo
Don't Taze me bro.
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03-24-2017, 07:40 AM #814Banned
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03-29-2017, 02:14 AM #815
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03-29-2017, 02:22 AM #816
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03-29-2017, 06:18 AM #817
That's still dog shit, especially when you consider the poverty rates and % of students learning English as a second language.
The one thing Utah has had going for it is that it had a historically had low rates of poverty and also low levels of geographic segregation by poverty. I suspect that this is ending / Utah is becoming more like the rest of the country in this regard, though time will tell.
Kids who grow up in Maryland will need people to work as their underpaid employees when they grow up, so I suppose it's fine.
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03-30-2017, 08:50 AM #818Registered User
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This is probably a good place for this article. I have to admit that I wouldn't want a homeless shelter in my neighborhood either, but the thought of an auditorium full of Mormons booing a homeless man is somehow appropriate.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/5116759-1...after-hundreds
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03-30-2017, 01:07 PM #819
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03-30-2017, 02:25 PM #820
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03-30-2017, 03:02 PM #821The JONGiest
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I volunteer here in salt lake with both the VOA's youth homeless center, and a program that provides a meal for the homeless daily.
The misunderstanding of the homeless problem most of these people have is ridiculous.
The level of vagrancy you see around the road home is due to the centralization of the problem, essentially you have a permanent homeless camp that also serves as a semi large drug market... and I'm inclined to believe some people fence bikes down there too but I don't really care too much to figure that out.
Many of the shelters that have been proposed in other areas, Sugarhood, Draper, etc. have been ones that cater to specific demographics excluding the most hard to treat homeless population.
Mormons by and large are not out to help, they are out to get the issue out of their life.
The people I have meet that are doing the most good for the community are not mormons, and they are people who are truly compassionate.
I see primarily mormons arguing how these people are a waste, how they are able bodied so they should just get jobs. Well they're fucking wrong, the problem homeless aren't able bodied, they aren't mentally well, they are afflicted with drug addiction. These are the visible homeless, unfortunately if we keep on treating them like nothing more than a waste of space they will never have the help they need to get out of their horrible position. And frankly, Mormons don't care they assume these people can all pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
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03-31-2017, 08:30 AM #822
Utah is the state that has a program to provide permanent housing for homeless people. It seems to be cheaper to pay to house a homeless person than to pay for their care in emergency rooms and for the other costs of dealing with them on the street. Whether the program is actually reducing homelessness seems to be controversial.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-...b_9380860.html
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03-31-2017, 10:23 AM #823
Its surprising to me that with the LDS Church's influence, wealth and land holdings around the valley that they haven't stepped up with help or solutions for the homeless crisis.
Not 'surprising' so much as disappointing.
I'm sure the effect on The Gateway vs City Creek has something to do with it. As well as the fact that proselytizing to folks who can't tithe shit doesn't fit the model.
That permanent housing solution thing was a nice PR move for previous Mayor Becker, but I haven't heard a whiff of anything to do with that for over a year(or two). Maybe if he got reelected we'd be hearing more about it, but I have not heard nor read anything about it in the current homeless discussions. My wife and I were just talking about that last night.
WTF is Dat, if your will to ski hasn't been totally crushed by I70 and legions of Epic beaters by the time you crest 30 and settle down with a nice lady, you may realize the appeal of SLC to those of use who don't give a fuck about what time bars close, know enough people to find good weed whenever we want (Thanks Colorado and the Cali farmer pipeline!) and see Cherry Creek as the shiny steel and glass soul-less shithole that it is.
Utah is far from perfect; but the recreating is fucking awesome and the livin' is easy.
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03-31-2017, 05:09 PM #824AF
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[QUOTE=old goat;4983596]Utah is the state that has a program to provide permanent housing for homeless people. It seems to be cheaper to pay to house a homeless person than to pay for their care in emergency rooms and for the other costs of dealing with them on the street. Whether the program is actually reducing homelessness seems to be controversial.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-...b_9380860.html[/QUOTE
Huffington Post, no agenda from those folks.
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03-31-2017, 05:19 PM #825
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