The word Deseret in the the Book of Mormon and it means "honeybee". When Brigham Young and everyone moved to Utah they actually wanted to claim a way bigger part of the west and make it a country called Deseret. I think it had to do with the idea that everyone should be industrious and work hard on their specific part in the community...you know, like a bee! References to it are everywhere....Deseret book is a major Mormon publishing company, Deseret Industries is the name of the Mormon version of Goodwill, there's a beehive on the Utah state flag, and in the youth program the youngest group of girls are called Beehives. For additional fun, check out the Deseret Alphabet and the hymn "In Our Lovely Deseret" which sounds like a hobbit/pirate song.

Totally agree. A few years ago I made a policy of not saying anything negative about women I do not know, including celebrities. There's this whole industry around commenting on famous women's clothes and bodies and lives and people like to have opinions about whether or not they're good people. And people enjoy participating in that and I get it, but I think the habit of commenting on women who you know cannot hear you spreads to commenting on real women around you. But when you change your mind set and you go out and look for women who look great or who are rocking bold looks or whatever, it's really really fun. Complimenting people on their shoes or lipstick or whatever else is fun and makes them feel happy, usually.

Full disclosure lest you think I am being holier than thou, I do still make snarky comments about men and enjoy doing it, partially because I enjoy the feeling of nitpicking men for their appearance instead of women. So I am not really a great person, just a vengeful feminist.

They just launched HBO Now and you can get a free 30 day trial!

Yes, that's exactly what I was just thinking about! Except it was a little different for me, I was raised to think that having a husband and children would be the height of fulfillment and I think in my discomfort with that I put my hopes for Meaningfulness into planning my illustrious academic career but now that that isn't looking great either I'm just sort of confused.

Mostly I just worry about getting older and having no job skills and no money and hence no options. Or I worry that I am not doing something that my older self will regret and be mad about.

I mean it is awesome, for sure. I think I am just struggling to rid myself of the idea that your successes and advancement in life will happen within a career.

Oh man, I feel this. In undergrad my plan was always to go on and get a PhD so all my plans were based around that... And then right at the end I decided academia didn't actually sound that good so I decided just to work, but of course my degree wasn't super useful in the field of Business. So long story short now I'm a flight attendant while all my friends are like applying to or graduating from grad school and PhD programs, or having real jobs like Teacher or Marketing Consultant Thing. But the thing is...I'm so happy! I'm having an absolute ball! But I feel guilty because it's not that I think I'm above service work, but it's a very simple job and I could do so many other things and I'm basically doing this because......I get a lot of time off and I can fly wherever I want to and that's the only thing I want to do. And when I think about the long term I worry because it will never pay well and it will never be challenging or fulfilling (well......unless we crash and I manage to rescue everyone. That would be fulfilling.) But.....I could also just be free to roam the world forever.

That's just so silly because it's not like it HURTS to stick another person up there or like its difficult or anything.....sigh. It's just like such a SIMPLE thing that could have most likely prevented all of this, and it's extra galling because as the US already had the regulation it's not like one of those things that just hadn't occurred to anyone yet. :(

Nah, I get what you're saying. I read a book called The Skies Belong to Us about plane hijackings in America in the 60's/70's (there were A LOT) and most of them did not involve killing people or even taking control of the plane, they would hold the passengers hostage for ransom money or demand to be taken to Cuba or whatever, but there was this clear thread that a lot the (overwhelmingly male) hijackers felt frustrated and ignored by society so they did these things because like everyone had to pay attention to them and take them seriously, the FBI had to negotiate with them, the news would cover them etc and.....it's difficult not to conclude that Men Must Be Stopped

ooooh that makes sense. I'm a North American flight attendant and I was wondering above why they didn't have someone else in there. That's ludicrous that they don't have that rule though, it takes like 0% more effort and clearly would have been a complete game changer in this situation.

Re: Germanwings

I've just woken up and read about the co-pilot apparently intentionally taking the plane down and I'm feeling very shaken up by it. I'm a flight attendant, so flight anxiety is not a problem for me, but like...the idea of your co-worker like completely betraying you and everyone is pretty unsettling and disturbing. You are always working with different crews so you don't always know the people you fly with very well, but like.... I don't know, this sounds cheesy to say, but you really trust each other and you really rely on each other for help and there's just a lot of...unspoken understanding about supporting each other. Just imagining what the captain and flight attendants were feeling is so sad to me, because they almost certainly knew that something bad was happening before the passengers did.

Also, I'm confused about quite a few things...on my airline two people always have to be in the cockpit, so if the captain or first officer gets out to go to the bathroom, then I get in and take their seat for a few minutes and let them back in when they come back (I spend most of my life hoping they'll need to go to the bathroom, because sitting in the cockpit is dope). Anyway, I thought that was pretty standard so either I'm wrong and they just don't do that or they weren't following that procedure for some reason.

Secondly, I mean...you don't always know when or if the captain is going to take a bathroom break meaning like....the first officer made some kind of spontaneous decision to do this? Sort of at least. Idk, it's weird as hell.

And finally, if they won't call it suicide or terrorism WHAT THEN WOULD THEY CALL IT?