Boing-Boingers who aren’t in the US may not realize that the vast majority of Utah citizens are Mormons (aka LDS aka the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). They are served Republicanism in the milk of their stay-at-home have-a-dozen-kids mothers.
In the mid-70s I was at college (in Arizona and Iowa) and I had a couple of Mormon friends. I was an amazement to them: a corn-fed 'Merican girl who was a 20-yr-old virgin-by-choice (rare in those days) and a born-and-raised atheist. I hope they went on to have their eyes opened further.
I was also genuinely worried when I learned my boss at my first job outa college (IBM, Minnesota, 1977) was a Mormon. I was one of about six women out of 300 programmers on a project. However, I quickly learned that his IBM brainwashing* superceded his Mormon brainwashing. He was a nice guy and an OK manager. (And I was outta there 3 years later.)
*note: At least back then, an IBM programmer who moved up to management did it only after going far away for many weeks of manager training.
He also introduced a bill recently that requires manufacturers to label things like toasters if they have a hidden camera watching you, and then, here’s the kicker, he didn’t vote for his own bill.
We should be allowed to make informed decisions about the electronic eavesdroppers we invite into our homes. But we can’t do it if big tech hides microphones and cameras that are always listening in refrigerators, toasters, and other household gadgets. Let’s pass this bill so consumers know when big tech is listening in.
And in many other areas, including several U.S. States (Wyoming since 1869). I was giving him the benefit of the doubt by citing 1919 because that was the year all American women won the legal right to participate in government as full citizens.
